Chapter 3
Variation
Dodge Junction, pretty much the smallest town in Equestria. To maintain the appearance of travel worn ponies, we had to scrape ourselves up a bit. I found a small cactus and broke a piece off; I then went around to the goons and scratched them with the needles. A few hissed at me and they all gave me dirty looks but none of them retaliated, as expected.
Metamorpha pawed the ground, loosening some of the hard packed soil. In a minor break of her disguise, she levitated it above our group then released it on top of us.
“A little warning next time?” I coughed.
“Sorry about that”, Metamorpha chuckled
After we were thoroughly dirtied and scuffed, we walked the rest of the trot.
~
Metamorpha
A few ponies eyed us suspiciously, but when we asked where we could get some food, they smiled welcomingly and pointed us in the correct direction, as if we could get lost in such a dinky town. Little did they know that the pity emanating from them was the only food we required. Unfortunately, now that we had asked where the store was, we actually had to acquire some food there. Apparently, their specialty was cherries, meaning most of all of the food was in some was related to cherries. Cherry pie, cherry candy, etcetera. And it all looked disgusting. Eating pony food was a chore, which sadly had to be accomplished to maintain our guises. I pulled 3 bits out of my saddle bag and bought a bag of red cherries. I pulled one out of the bag and I chewed. Ugh. I loathe pony food. I still tried to feign enjoyment though by smiling and momentarily closing my eyes, but in reality, it tasted like filth.
The hotel was only a few buildings away from the store, but we tried to make a show of how tired we were to harvest as much pity as we could.
On the way there a unicorn mare with far too many things in her saddlebags and levitating around her, had a pouch of coins fall from her spell. Seeing my chance to get even more nourishment, grabbed the bag and ran after her. When she saw me racing after her, the gratitude started pouring from her in waves. It was instinctive. I pulled the energy flowing from her. I got greedy, I was hungry, and pity was like thin wafers, unable to give me the power my biology craved. As she thanked me for returning her bits, I sucked gallons of pure energy from her. The spell holding all of her items faltered, and they came crashing to the ground.
“Oh, silly me”, she looked dazed, like she was not fully here.
“Let me help you”, I offered
“Oh, no, it’s fine, thank you for returning my money, but I’m fine now” she absent mindedly shoved objects into her already full bags while I trotted off, felling euphoric and satisfied.
“You should not have done that”, Variation glared at me, slightly rupturing my bubble of bliss.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself”, I faked an apologetic pout, but in reality, I knew Variation was just jealous of my now full energy reserves.
The hotel was now in sight. We walked through the front door and toward a desk with a very uptight looking pony behind it.
“Do you have any open rooms?” I inquired.
“Let me see.” The pony, whose name was apparently Gleaming Carpet according to the nameplate on the desk (I couldn’t help but giggle under my breath at that, who names a foal, “Gleaming Carpet”?). I knew looking through that register on the desk was purely for show, as there were many, many keys on the hooks behind him.
“We have a few rooms but, um, will you be requiring two? We have a connected suite.” He asked looking over the brim of his spectacles.
Looking behind me at our large entourage I replied, “Yes, a connected suite would be nice.”
He turned to the wall of keys behind him and collected two sets in his mouth.
“I need a 20 bit deposit and the room is 10 bits a night, how long will you be staying?” he said, pushing the keys across the counter while looking expectant, probably for his deposit.
“Just the night” I replied fishing the bits out of my saddle bag. Ugh. No horn. The metallic tang of the metal spread around my mouth, threating to gag me.
“Very well,” He pushed the coins I placed on the counter into a box, “you will get your deposit upon the return of your room key.”
When we got to our rooms, I shoved the goons into the room adjacent to the suite, and then walked to the one Variation and I would share.
Even though I had harvested my fill of power, I had been awake and flying for hours, and the one of the two giant beds called to me.
“Variation, I need sleep, will you goon proof the other room?”
Variation grumbled but trotted to and open the door that led to our other room anyway.
I was dead to the world before my head even hit the hotel’s feather pillow.
I dreamed of flying around Equestria in my true form. Free from the use of other ponies skins.
I guess I got careless, I have been doing that a lot lately. I subconsciously (honestly, it may have been just a bit consciously), allowed my form to slip-away. As I said, I hate any form that is not my own. In my haste to get to bed, I had not shut the curtains in our first floor room, my mistake.
Ponies don’t react well to seeing changelings in their own form. And in a settler town, they have weapons.
I awoke to Variation’s shouts.
“Metamorpha you fool! Wake up!” he bellowed.
“Huh?”, I inquired before rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Shit. Black hooves, riddled with holes. Great, I was never going to hear the end of this. I sprang into action, and flew across the small room and through the flimsy door keeping me from my goons. While I do use the Equestrian language allot, “get up, loose your disguises, and run” is MUCH shorter in the changeling native tongue. . One of our goons didn't get the message. Dead asleep through it all, the ponies caught him. I wish I had time to save him, but we cannot risk losing any more soldiers.
So much for that deposit, we barely had time to grab our saddlebags. We fled as fast as our wings could carry us, now minus yet another of our own. We flew slowly, partly because of our early start and partly because we needed to conserve energy, I was the only one who had managed to refill my reserves completely. We would reach Canterlot soon, and we needed to be ready.