Folk Tale

by Balkanboy


Entrance

Chapter 3: Entrance

A lone changeling hovered in place, searching for any sign of a living thing. As far north as it could see, the ruins of what was probably once a great city lay scattered about, covered in snow. The wind howled, and more than once it was sure it had seen horse-shaped clouds moving faster than they should’ve been.

Spotting what it had been looking for, it swooped down, landing on the roof of a great cathedral. Parts of the ceiling had caved in, but it was stable enough to hold its weight. The sound of raised voices echoed from the inside.

Just in time,’ it thought.

---

The changelings had woken them up early in the morning. His watch said it was 7PM so now he knew it was off. After he and the child had gotten ready, they left the village, heading south to the Redband Mines. She hadn’t taken much convincing to go with him, the prospect of being completely alone in a village was a little too much for her. Hopefully there would be somepony in town who would take her in, there had to be. Until then though, he’d be taking care of her.

She skipped alongside him as the 15-strong group trekked through the wilderness, the changelings arranged in a circle around the Queen, William, and the filly. He had, with permission, cut holes in the sheets and made ponchos for both himself and the small filly.

The sky had cleared up and a warm sun shone down on them, though not quite warm enough to melt the snow. He held a jar of sauerkraut he’d found in the village storehouse. It wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t want to eat meat in front of the filly and it was the only thing that didn’t require special storage to keep it edible.

On a lighter note, he had found his phone in his blazer pocket: an old nokia. His grandad had given it to him long ago. Now it was his back-up phone. He figured that most people wouldn't want to steal a nokia a decade old so he would always have a phone he would be able to use. That and it held a charge for a very long time.

He’d turned it off before the wedding so as not to be interrupted which meant that now it was still more or less fully charged. He had turned it on in secret to check if there was a signal despite the chance of it being virtually zero then turned it off again. There was no need to waste the battery until he needed it.

With nothing to do except put one foot in front of the other his mind drifted to the future. Chrysalis had told him that he was going to have to enter the town under the cover of darkness since the ponies probably wouldn’t be too welcoming of him. Humans were something of a legend here, one that many locals didn’t take lightly.

“Cover!” called a changeling, resulting in everyone but William and the filly to jump into any available piece of foliage. Once his brain registered what had happened he followed suite, ushering the foal along.

After a minute of silence William saw him. A lone pegasus soldier wearing a dull iron helmet and a red cloak emerged from behind a tree quite a distance away, hefting a spear in one hoof. How did they do that?

He spotted their tracks and approached cautiously, trotting right towards William’s location. As he closed in on them he dropped the spear. Looking down, he tried to pick it up but failed to repeatedly. Unsure of what to do next, the guard decided to continue. When he came within 20 metres or so he was suddenly engulfed in green flames. When they cleared, the man realised it was a changeling.

“Scout, report.” said Chrysalis who had appeared to William’s left. How did she move so quietly?

The changeling bowed.

“Queen Chrysalis, your majesty. All the local pony lords and barons gathered at the citadel last night. They have assembled a force to attack King Goldenback.”

“How many ponies?”

“30,000 your majesty. According to their leader, Lord Pick, the target is New Gryphonia. They plan to kick the griffons out of the city before they can receive any aid from the south.”

She nodded and turned to William.

“This is the perfect time to free the others, the guards on wall will be under strength so sneaking you in should be easy.”

William just nodded, there wasn’t anything to be said on his part.

They trudged on through the forest.

---

The sun sat low, slowly creeping out of view. William had gotten a fire started again and the filly sat close to it, resting her head on her poncho which she had bundled up into a ball. The one changeling Chrysalis had left behind was perched above him in a tree, watching in the direction of the Redband Mines.

One interesting thing he had found out was that while it was called Redband Mines, it was more or less a town with the actual mines sitting somewhere in the centre. From what he had seen, he could guess that the large magic orange dome was probably where they were.

Currently they were sitting behind a hill waiting for the Queen and the rest of the changelings to come back from the scouting mission, which should have been half an hour ago, but they still hadn’t come and the sentry’s silence told him that there wasn’t anyone approaching them yet.

“Where do you come from?” asked the filly, sitting up.

“Me? From far away,” he said holding his hands out to the fire.

“Your home is called ‘far away’?” she said smiling mischievously.

“Ha ha very funny.” He couldn’t help but smile as well. “I come from a city called London. I don’t really know where it is in relation to here, but it’s definitely too far to walk to.”

“Why did you come here?”

Why indeed.

“Queen Chrysalis wanted help so she summoned a human which just happened to be me.” That reminded him. He glanced up to make sure the changeling was still paying attention elsewhere, then leaned towards her, speaking in a hushed tone. “Do you know anything about changelings?”

She scrunched her face up in thought.

“Nopony ever told me about them. I just remember this one time when a our next door neighbour turned out to be a changeling and all the ponies were angry at her for some reason. She left after that.”

She. Did the changelings have genders? He had only heard a few of them speak, and they had all sounded male, more or less.

“You never heard any rumours or stories? Nothing?”

She shook her head. Maybe someone else could tell him.

“What do you do back in London?”

“Do? You mean, my job?” She nodded. “I, uh, help people when they need... help.”

“Like a hero?”

“Yeah... we’ll go with that.”

He didn’t like to admit that he was unemployed. After having studied business and languages at university, he’d left to start a business with what he could’ve sworn was a great idea but it had fallen flat on its face. There were large debts hanging over his head back home and for a few seconds he thought it might be better to just stay wherever here was. Heck, with some luck maybe he’d be declared legally dead and some of those debts would disappear. It wasn't all bad though, he still had his family, his health and friends to help him out through the rough times.

Now he was, or had been a handyman, taking work wherever he could find it, from fixing doors to cleaning toilets. The suit he was wearing was rented because he couldn’t afford anything nice enough to wear. Recently he had received an invitation to a job interview. It was going to be his big break, finally he was going to go somewhere in life. Then this happened. Thinking about it made him feel sick so he decided to change topics.

“Where is Equestria? Why would your sister want to move there?” he said.

“It’s over the east ocean. Most ponies who go don’t come back here.” That sounded really ominous. “She sends me letters sometimes. She likes living there and says that some day maybe I can go join her. I don’t know though... if I go, who will look after my dad?”

“That’s very considerate of you.”

“Consi- con-si-duh-rate?” she said, sounding out the syllables.

“Considerate. It means that you’re thinking about other people, I mean, ponies.” He’d forgotten how old she was. Come to think of it, he didn’t know how old she was and he’d never thought to ask. Even now he wasn’t about to ask her that despite having good reason to. It just felt a bit odd to ask a little girl he still didn’t know that well about her age. He was sure he’d find it out in due time.

He opened up the jar and used a fork that he had brought along from the cabin to scoop up some of the sour cabbage and stuff it into his mouth, then handed it to her. Once again she tried to pick up the fork but to no avail. Thinking back to the changeling and the spear, he realised he’d have to leave to let her eat without problems.

Getting up, he left the warmth of the fire and climbed the hill staying low to make sure no ponies spotted him. When he got to the top the town lay before him sitting at the foot of a small mountain. The townsfolk had started to light torches, thousands of small glowing dots littered throughout the cityscape.

Basically nothing he hadn’t seen before.

There were still a few merchants and travellers trickling into the town not wanting to be left outside in the dark with whatever it was that awaited them. He watched them walk by, some in groups, some loners, but all of them pulling carts of some kind.

He was concentrating so hard on them that he almost missed the silhouette in the sky heading straight towards him. He was about to dive into a nearby bush when he heard it call his name.

“William! Wait!”

That sounded like one of the changelings. He turned, watching it closely in case it was some kind of trick. It landed in a tree, fell out, then stumbled towards him. Soon the changeling that had been on guard arrived to see what was going on. The changeling that had arrived looked wounded, a green liquid seeping out of a wound on its upper forehoof.

“Where’s Queen Chrysalis?” asked William, now very concerned.

“The captain of the night watch, she found us. We hid but it didn’t work, she knew where we were. Even when we had changed shape she spotted us with no problem and no hesitation. We were too weak to fight, so they captured everypony else.”

This was bad. This was very bad. He could feel his mind closing in on itself as he started going through all the implications of the Queen not coming back, his single greatest concern coming to the forefront of his mind; going home.

For a few moments he lost control of his body. He didn’t faint or fall over, he just stood frozen, unable to make any decisions. The two changelings stared at him, waiting for him to do something. Obviously since he was the big bad monster he would have to be the one to break them out, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to do it. He wasn’t a soldier or a policeman or anything even remotely to do with sneaking past armed guards. He was a failed businessman, there was no way he could do anything.

As his homesickness increased, however, his fear began to subside and a new emotion welled up inside him; longing. Oh how he would love to see his home again, even if it was a dump. No, this wasn’t how it was going to go. Not left on this alien world with no friends or family to keep him company, no, he was going to do something about it.

“Okay, uh... you two, what are your names?” he asked dazedly.

“I am Bugruff.” He found the name... odd but he didn’t comment. The changeling that had been left hadn’t said anything.

“Well? Don’t you have one?”

“No,” it said. He waited for it to elaborate but it didn’t say anything else.

“You’re a talkative bunch, you know that?”

“I was not aware of that,” said Bugruff.

Moving on.

“Well, changeling, stay here and guard the girl,” he said to the nameless one. It complied, turning back to the campsite and walking away. He’d expected it to be less subservient but Queen Chrysalis may have had something to do with that. He shifted his attention to the other one. “Bugruff you stay as well. With that leg you’re in no condition to come with me.” It nodded and followed the other.

He wasn’t actually serious. He was expecting it to protest and try to come along, least of all because only Bugruff knew where he had to go. Hadn’t it heard of an empty gesture?

“Wait, Bugruff! How am I supposed to get into the town?”

It stopped again and looked at him.

“We shape-shifted and flew over the wall. While these ponies are used to strange animals, they will kill you on sight. There is an open waste sewage pipe on the western wall.”

Wading through pony waste, excellent.

---

He felt giddy as he approached the pipe. It jutted out from the wall, a stream of murky water flowing out of it and into a small pool of the stuff. It smelt horrible but he’d expected that anyway. On the wall above him a few sentries sat watching the horizon rather than looking down at the pipe, talking about some event that had happened. He didn't think it was important enough to listen to.

The pipe itself wasn’t actually big enough for him to walk through so he would have to crawl. The very thought made him gag.

He walked up to the edge of the pool. He tried his best not to think about the details of the water. Any more discouragement and he would turn around and leave. As he raised his foot to step into the water, he took a moment to admire his shoes. Black leather shoes, not particularly expensive but they looked damn fine. Shame he’d never wear them again after this.

His right foot went into the brown sludge, soon followed by his left with an audible splash. The water seeped into his shoes and soaked his legs up to his knees. Oh god, it was still warm. He waded towards the pipe, then, after a minute of careful consideration, crawled into the tube.

He thought happy thoughts as he made his way through the sewer pipe, anything to get his mind off of this. His limbs were covered in the stuff but his torso and head had yet to be drenched so at least that was going well.

His phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up with one hand. He couldn't let it get wet, that would be a disaster. Other than his lighter, it was the only thing that he could use as a light source.

Eventually the pipe came to an end. It was almost pitch black so he didn’t see the end and slipped into a sewage tunnel, his head and torso swallowed up by the waste. He instinctively thrust his hand up so as to make sure the phone didn't get wet. A few second later he burst out of the ‘water’, gasping for breath, eyes shut. He wiped his face as clean as he could and fumbled around in his pockets for his lighter.

He attempted to light it, but it wouldn't start.

"Work dammit!" he thought to himself. "How the hell am I supposed to get through this without some light?

He froze when he remembered that one of the waste products of animals was methane. A lighter would be a bad idea.

He put the lighter back in his pocket and switched his phone on. It was a little wet, but it still started up. Nokias really were durable. It didn't give off a lot of light and he'd have to keep pressing the buttons to keep the screen on, but it was a lot better than nothing.

He felt his stomach rumble a little, then he bent over and vomited. When the gagging stopped, he stood straight again and assessed his situation.

He was covered in what would probably be better not to think about and was standing, now waist deep, in sewage water. There was only one way to go now, forward. Humming now to keep his nerves steady, he continued onward in the hopes of finding a manhole.