*This is more of a filler chapter, slow, relaxed, not a lot of excitement yet…
Bee grabbed the changeling with her magic and threw him into the jar. She quickly slammed the lid on and sealed him in. They did it! They had the changeling and it hadn’t even given them a scratch. Bee couldn’t help but smile. Butter wanted to protest the second the small creature smacked into the jar’s wall. Bee had thrown him too hard and it was clear his head hurt. Even from her angle, Butter could tell his head was swimming from the impact.
Butter let Bee down and quickly became quiet. She felt awkward knowing she was the only one who cared about the little changeling they had caught. She couldn’t understand it, but she had a strong feeling he was harmless. She could only watch as Bee squealed with excitement and Crash pumped at the air with his hoof in triumph.
“Now let’s have a look at you,” Bee said to herself as she raised the jar to her eye level rather quickly. The changeling was thrown off balance and rolled about, his head having just cleared.
*****
Nash felt the grip on his body tighten and compress him so he couldn’t move. Suddenly, he was thrown out of his hole and flew into the jar. Nash was going way too fast and slammed his face on the bottom of the jar. As the pegasus and the unicorn landed bellow, Nash could only rub his head as all the colors in the world warped and blended together. Nash thought he was going to lose consciousness. His head throbbed horribly as the creatures began making weird noises above.
Nash’s head finally cleared and he could see straight again! Right as Nash tried to assess his position, the jar went flying upwards at a ridiculous angle and sent him off his hooves. He slid along the glass to the opposite side of the jar where he landed. The jar was still being held at an angle as Nash tried to stand. He shakily put a hoof against what was supposed to be the wall of the jar for support. He shook his head to clear it again. When he looked up, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
The massive face of the red unicorn was practically pressed against the jar as her huge eyes examined him. Nash was terrified of them and tried to scoot along the slick glass surface to get away. But at this angle, and the fact that he couldn’t get any traction with his hooves, he was trapped in that spot so disturbingly close to the pony’s face.
He tried to remain calm, but the situation was just too much. His head darted from corner to corner desperately trying to find a way he could escape. The jar was only slightly bigger around then one of their hooves, at about 12 Nash feet. It might have been a wide jelly jar at some point, but now it was his cage. Nash was forced to wait inside and listened to his pony captors’ talk while tilting the jar around.
“Stop moving the jar!” He screamed as he fell over from the movement.
*****
Bee examined the changeling as it finally came to its senses and its eyes came back into focus. When it blinked and clearly got a good look at her face, it freaked! It desperately tried to squirm up the glass surface to get away, but it was just too slippery. He kept sliding right back towards her. Bee had no more doubts that about the small creature, it was definitely a changeling. But its size still didn’t make sense. Based on body proportions, it had to be full grown, but smaller than even a changeling egg. How was that possible?
“So what do you think?” Crash asked Bee excitedly.
“There is no doubt, it’s changeling,” she nodded with high eyebrows. She tilted the jar slightly to allow the creature a flat surface.
“Where do we take him now?” Crash began to lean forward so he could see it.
“To the guard or to the Princess herself.” Bee tilted the jar again idly trying to think what they should do with it.
“Will they hurt him?” Butter piped up, concerned for the small creature just after it made a small squeak from inside the jar.
Bee turned around and tilted the jar at a 45 degree angle without noticing as she addressed the question. “He’s a changeling, probably a spy! He deserves whatever they decide to do.”
“You’re hurting it!” Butter exclaimed and jumped towards Bee and pushed the jar to a more flat position.
Bee watched her push the jar with curiosity, “this thing could be conspiring to have us all mounted on Chrysalis’s walls and you’re worried about its wellbeing? It wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. It’s in his specie’s nature!”
“But not his nature,” Butter sighed as though she had already lost the argument. The changeling was looking up at her. She couldn’t tell if it was sad. His prison was still tilted slightly.
*****
Just after yelling at them to stop tilting the jar, the floor suddenly jumped to a 45 degree angle! Nash was ripped down by gravity and slammed into the jar’s wall as the unicorn spoke to the pegasus. “So much for the ‘End Animal Cruelty’ movement,” Nash tried to joke to himself. He was still panicked when the pegasus pushed the jar so it was more like a hill then a mountain trail. Nash was grateful to her as he looked up. She seemed to be concerned about him.
His second of peace was literally ripped through the air as the pony forcibly grabbed the jar!
****
“Let me see it!” Crash yelled as he grabbed the jar. The creature was thrown against a wall and slid down to the floor.
“Be careful Crash!” Butter jumped after the jar as he took it from Bee.
“Relax, will you? Not like anything we do to him is going to be any worse than what the Princess will do. Bee, in my bag there’s a tape measure, I want to know how big this thing is exactly.”
“Good idea.” Bee began going through his bag while Butter tried to reason with him.
*****
The pegasus was definitely worried about him the way she followed his prison and instructed the others on how they should handle it. Nash rubbed his sore head, but his whole body ached from the impact. He was just glad the jar was level and not moving as the pony argued with the pegasus. The unicorn was going through a bag in the distance. Nash’s mind told him it was going to be something he didn’t want to get to know very well.
The unicorn then began to approach with a thing of tape. “Tape?” he mumbled to himself. Were they also going to tie him up? “Just how cruel are these ponies?” His concerns were washed away when the pony held the jar up and the unicorn unrolled a measuring tape. “They’re measuring me? Maybe their scientist or something.” Nash went to stand by the side of the jar so they could take the measurement more easily. He was curious how tall he was too. He also hoped that his cooperation would make them go easier on him. He was somehow able to stand still while she measured him.
*****
Bee was pleased that the changeling came over to her so she could measure him without opening the jar. He even went to stand sideways pressed right against the jar wall. She quickly held up the measuring device and got an idea just how little he was.
“2 inches tall, 3 inches long,” she told the others.
Crash seemed a little upset by that, “darn. I thought for sure he was only an inch tall.”
“It must be hard to be so small,” Butter commented sadly.
“We messed up!” Both Bee and Butter looked at Crash, concerned by his sudden outburst. “We should have placed bets first!”
Bee face-hooved, “you yelled because you didn’t get to gamble?! I thought we were under attack or something!”
Before they could argue Butter decided to play it safe, “can I hold the jar?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Crash quickly pressed the jar into Butter’s hooves so he could focus on arguing with Bee.
Butter looked down at the changeling concerned. She saw that Crash shoving the jar into her hooves had caused it to fall over again. “Poor thing,” she whispered to herself. Then she had a sudden revelation. “Bee, can you put some air holes in the lid?!”
The argument paused, “of course. We can’t have him die before the Princess gets to question him!”
*****
His three captors seemed to breakup into squabbling after figuring out how small he was. The red unicorn and the pony got into a shouting match after he was shoved into the pegasus’s possession. Nash was horrified and relieved at the same time when the unicorn suddenly began poking holes in the lid. “Air holes, duh.” Nash was glad they had considered that before he died. But he still didn’t know what they were going to do with him. He hadn’t gotten to see the tape measurer either, which sucked.
Nash would have to worry for a while as the two bickerers only seemed to get angrier with each other. The pegasus was clearly on his side when she took him away from the group while they argued. When the pegasus clearly tried to comfort him, Nash was appreciative. She had put the jar down and was lying in front of it. Nash saw no reason to stand around while the others argued about who knew what. So he copied her until the fight was over.
******
Butter had taken the opportunity to lay down with the jar and spoke soothingly to the obviously frightened changeling. He seemed to relax and copy her position lying down. She felt so bad for what she had to do to him. She didn’t want to turn him over to the Princess, but she didn’t want to let her friends down or let a potential threat to Equestria escape. After a short while, Bee and Crash were satisfied with where the argument had ended.
When the fighting was over, Crash quickly ordered Butter to put the jar in his bag so they could carry him through Canterlot without making a huge fuss. Then the three were off, with the changeling in a jar, in Crash’s ugly saddlebag. Butter wanted to give him an easy trip, so she carried the saddlebags. She was willing to put up with the weight of the ridiculous number of things Crash had brought if it meant the helpless creature had a pleasant ride…to his death most likely.
Crash baffled her with how many things he had considered. Maps, nets, bait, bug zapper, spray, repellant, the jar, and even night vision goggles! She wasn’t sure where he even got the goggles or what situation he thought they were walking into that would need them. She couldn’t help but notice every little noise that came from the bags as she walked. She was so worried about how rough the trip was for her small passenger with so many things bouncing around his prison in the dark space. She felt so cruel.
*****
Nash was thrust into darkness as the saddlebag was closed above him. There were numerous large odds and ends around him that bounced around as he was taken away. Nash discovered that if he was laying down, the bounces weren’t nearly as bad. The darkness and sounds of constant clicking and clacking from the hoof falls of his ride and the objects around him was mind numbing. His ears began to ring from the sheer volume and the fact that they wouldn’t let up.
“Would you…SHUT UP!!!” Nash screamed at the objects around the jar that he could barely see. They didn’t listen. Nash sighed as he looked up. A thin crack of light was streaming in from a slit in the bag’s opening. “Where are you taking me?” Nash wondered aloud. He was no stranger to fear and helplessness, but this was a whole new kind of weird for him. He just wanted to know what was going on outside and where they were taking him. Nash didn't want to be alone either.
*****
The three friends were approaching Canterlot Castle. If Butter was going to do something to help the tiny changeling, now was her last chance…
Author Question:
Is the perspective switching distracting from the story at all? I have another way I can work the perspective switching, but there’s no point if it’s not a problem. Personally, I prefer the current system because it’s both easy to write and I like reading stories in this format. I just have to switch after the appropraite amount of time and that can get tricky...
*If you spot an error/typo, don't be afraid to let me know! Also feel free to express whatever you're feeling right now, allow me to demonstrate..."I LOVE TACOS!!!"