//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Holes 
// by Nestromo 
//------------------------------//

    "Mister Editor," Quillyn began as he entered the office after knocking twice, "I'm thinking that I ne-" 
"Oh, yes, yes, of course, Misses Rich, we will have it on the first four pages of ads," The editor replied boisterously over the phone, drowning out Quillyn's words. Grimacing ever so slightly, Quillyn reached and pushed his glasses further up onto his nose with a hoof before rubbing his cheek, waiting while the editor, an older grey stallion that was more than a little barrel-chested, finished with his business. The editor, for his part, had not even noticed the column writer enter, or made a show of it.
"Oh yes, indeed. Mm, that's terrible. Mmhmm," the editor, Mister Moving Print, murmured and blustered over the phone, his eyes finally flicking to Quillyn as he stood there. With a flash of a brief frown, he continued his conversation with Misses Rich on the end of the line. A fitting name, Quillyn mused as he stood there waiting, for the wife of Filthy Rich. They were meant for each other. Jarring from his reverie by the slap of the phone on the receiver, the writer looks up to his editor in chief.
"What is it, Quillyn? You look as if you have something to ask me," the gruff editor broaches, quirking a brow. It always struck Quillyn at how dark those eyes were, stern and cool. That isn't to say that he's had a particularly bad experience with the Express or his editor, but he was simply a small column writer, and very little was expected from him, with the same in return from the management. 
"Sir," he replied respectfully, "I feel that I am... unfocused, as of late. My writing has been suffering, and I feel that perhaps I need a sabbatical." Moving Print studied Quillyn for a few long, uncomfortable moments, before his horn glowed and a cup of coffee previously unseen upon the desk floated up to his mouth. A loud sip and the clink of the cup upon the desk later had the editor eying him over once more.
"Fine. Just leave a couple of weeks of columns on my desk before you leave," Moving Print acquiesced, already seeming to concentrate on whatever else may be on the schedule, "Though don't think that you'll be paid if you don't deliver in three weeks. We can't afford to have dead weight around here, even if it is a back-page column." A curious bittersweet feeling welled up within Quillyn, elating in the fact that he now had some time to himself, though his pride was hurt by the statement of the biting truth. He bowed his head, murmured a speedy thanks, and turned back out of the office, walking through the small slalom of editing desks towards the nigh-claustrophobic hallway that led to his tiny office.
The buzz of the ego wound soon left, waning in the prospect of free time and rest. He couldn't quite remember the last time he truly took any time to himself, having been consumed by both work and writing in his free time. Quillyn hoped that while he took a bit of time off from both, the savor of it all would return. The office, painted dark grey after his preference and crammed with a desk, a computer, a small radio, and not much else, seemed smaller and smaller every moment he tarried. Stripping off the shirt he wore to keep his hooves and neck clean while he wrote, Quillyn tossed it over the back of his chair, grabbed up his brown ratty backpack, pulling it open, and putting what he figured he might need should the urge to write strike him.
A notepad, a few pens, a bottle of water, a towel for sitting on the dirt, and he had packed up nicely in his opinion. Taking one strap into his mouth and holding it open so he can step into it, he slings the backpack onto his back and awkwardly puts his other leg through the free strap, securing it snugly against him. Afterwards, he took up the columns which he'd already forced out and moves back towards the editor in chief's office, leaving them in his in box, not particularly wanting to face him again quite so soon, or seem so eager to leave despite how obvious that it was the case. The rest of the trip out of the building seemed a blur, the weight of work-a-day peeling away from his being.
It was a predictably nice day outside. The weather pegasi hadn't called for rain for a few days yet, and Quillyn's stomach was setting to rumbling in the afternoon haze. The grass seemed to radiate a rather bright sort of green, and the wind felt nice, warm but not humid. The unpaved causeway that served as Ponyville's main thoroughfare was humming with activity, the market area always attracting a large crowd throughout the day. The smells of pastries and fresh-baked rhubarb pie were starting to drive him over the edge into slavering, driving the lanky stallion on towards the market.
"Howdy, Q!" Applejack, one of those younger mares called to him as he approached. She'd earned the right to having the first stall on the west side of the market, which was usually the way ponies entered, and thusly the first customers. She was perhaps five or six years younger than he was, but after school had ended, he found that such things rarely mattered beyond a certain age. 
"Howdy yourself," he replied with a gentle smile, moving over to her cart. He really enjoyed rhubarb quite a bit more than apple pie, but he couldn't bring himself to say such to her. 
"How's them columns comin' along?" she asks with her typical charm.
"Pretty good as usual, though I'm taking a couple weeks off," Quillyn answers earnestly before taking up a fresh red apple from one of the bins with his teeth, moving over alongside her so that she can withdraw a few bits from the pocket of his backpack. After so long, she knew exactly where he kept the cash, and he trusted her not to overcharge him, so it worked out well. 
"Oh yeah? Well, shucks... I hope y'all have a good rest, then. Got any plans?" AJ asks after secreting away the bits. A juicy crunch and a careful balancing of the apple on his hoof later, Quillyn responds around the chunk of apple, "Not particularly. I figure I'll do some walking. That usually clears my head." The mare chuckles honestly and nods, "Yup, nothin' like havin' some friends'n such over for a dinner, too. Or workin'. But you're tryin' to not work, so I reckon that ain't what ya want, heh."
Soon, the stall had other customers, and Quillyn moved off to the side. AJ still tried to carry on a conversation, but between not wanting to distract her too much from her business and the disjointed speech, Quillyn thanked her and bid farewell, carrying on with the apple in his mouth. A few others greeted him, earning raised eyebrows and a jerk of the head, acknowledging them while he crunched away, trying to swallow the fruit down as quickly as possible. It was delicious as always, but the rhubarb pie was practically calling his name by this point. He'd helped write an advertisement for the pastry chef that made them, and so had been hooked on them in the weeks since.
A newspaper colt's calls came to his ears as he rounded the corner. "Breaking news, read all about it! Canterlot invaded, Changelings implicated!" he cried his buzzwords, hovering a copy above his head with his unicorn magic, "Princess Cadenza rescued after kidnapping and impersonation!" Quillyn remembered hearing something like that coming in that morning. Changelings? He had thought them myth, something to taunt misbehaving foals with. He'd even been told that once himself, that his mother and father would just get a changeling to take his place if he did not shape up, in one of his few rebellious phases. A terrifying notion at the time, he found it preposterous now. Base creatures could not accomplish such a feat, much less ponies with much more complicated physiologies. Could they?
The fact that it was his newspaper, despite the fact that he was employed as a science fiction column writer, spoke volumes. They did not generally fabricate stories outright, and this information had apparently been given by a guard that had been injured in the action that day. Moving over to the colt, he brought out a few bits and tossed them towards his saddlebags, where they were caught up in the magic and plunked cleanly inside. The copy of the paper floated towards him with an accompanied 'thank you' from the boy, and Quillyn took it between his teeth to go read at the table of the bakery he was on his way to. Changelings. Hah. He'd soon get to the source of it.
A rhubarb pie, an apple cider, and an hour later, he still could not quite believe the story. It all seemed factual. Solid. A grim account of the attack, and how it unfolded. The leader of the changelings, Queen Chrysalis, whom he'd never heard of, had masterminded the entire thing. She led her minions, hundreds of them, on an assault after taking the form of Princess Cadenza and imprisoning her in some sort of alternate reality. She held Princess Celestia herself hostage, and used the captain of the guard's powers against all forces arrayed against her, which seemed to include, again, those six mares. The fact that Applejack was back on the day this news broke was indicative of one of two things: Either the news was delayed while they sorted it out, or Applejack has an extreme devotion to her work.
While Quillyn did not doubt AJ's resolve, he found it highly improbable that she would be able to make it back so soon, and in such an unruffled condition. The one thing that was not particularly clear in the story was what exactly happened to Queen Chrysalis and the rest of her forces after the invasion stalled. Being ex-militia, he found this to be an extremely important thing to know, especially should they be able to re-mount an attack. Standing with a full belly and slightly buzzed from the cider, the stallion plunked the tab down on the table and trotted off back towards Applejack's stand.
By the time he arrives, she is already packed up and is starting to pick up the traces for the cart. "Wait!" he calls after her, moving around the cart and stopping in front of her, winded, "I need to speak with you." 
Applejack cast a glance off to the side before looking back, "It's about that story, ain't it? About Canterlot?" 
Still breathing heavily through his nose, Quillyn quirked a brow, "... Well, yes. How long ago did this happen? Why are we just now hearing about it?" 
Another glance is cast off in the opposite direction, "Uh, well, we ain't supposed to talk about it... but... since I reckon I can trust ya... it happened about three days ago now. They had to make sure everypony up there was who they said they was, 'n not one of them changelin' types."
That made sense. A security breach in a high position is one thing, but another immediately afterwards would be disastrous. "Alright," he replies, nodding, getting his wind back, "What happened to... Queen Chrysalis, is it? Her and the rest of them." 
The mare gave a ponderous shrug, the cart mirroring her movement, "Ain't sure. Once Shinin' Armor threw up that shield again, it just rocketed every one of 'em out every which way. They've had some patrols out 'n lookin' for 'em, but they up 'n skeedaddled." 
Quillyn's brows knit together in consternation at that, "No trace at all?" When AJ shook her head in the negative, he nodded, apologized for holding her up, and moved out of the way, the mare moving on back towards Sweet Apple Acres. The sun was beginning to set, casting a beautiful pink and orange glow across the buildings, but Quillyn's mind was elsewhere. He wasn't sure what drove him to the decision. He could not quite believe everything he read to be pure, hard fact, though. They had gone somewhere, and Quillyn was going to find out where.
The exercise would do him good. He'd fallen back out of shape since his discharge from the militia, having sat around writing for the last decade. He'd honestly not even thought about just how far gone he was. Despite being as skinny and lanky as ever, what muscle he had developed had turned soft and ineffectual. Quillyn felt useless, tiring even on the light jog back to his house, the wind harsh in his lungs, his mouth dry and burning. After fumbling for the keys in his backpack, he lipped them numbly into the lock and turned, the keys slipping from his loose grasp a couple of times before the lock clicks affirmatively.
Tossing the keys onto the table, he shrugged out of the backpack and grabbed it up, tossing it onto the table as well, resulting in the keys jangling to the floor. "Horseapples," he grunted hoarsely, kicking the door closed and flicking on the lights with a thrash of his tail. Twilight had drenched everything outside with darkness, though the streetlamps soon illuminated small yellow circles of cobbled street below. A few pictures gazed at him from the walls, mostly of his parents and grandparents, extended family, that sort of thing. Past loves and flames had adorned the walls as well, during their times, but there were no such things evident now.
The urgency of his movements had taken their toll upon him, and soon he realized how futile it was to hurry at the moment in any case. He would not be able to set out until the morning, and he had plenty of night to plan his excursion. He would be sore in the morning, he was sure, but that mattered little in the long run. After three days, their trail might be cold from the air, but Quillyn had an advantage that the pegasi Royal Guard did not consider; he was entirely ground-based. He knew what to look for, and had been trained to do so. In spite of having a desk job for most of his career with the militia, he had still participated in as many field exercises as his commander had allowed, trying to prove to himself more than anyone else that he could withstand their rigors.
It hadn't paid off well in the past, but every now and then it cropped up, little hints becoming evident and making plain to him what seemed to elude others. It was just one of those things, he supposed, but now he was going to put it to work. It would also keep him occupied for a couple of days, perhaps, utilizing his mind for something other than what he has been doing. It was good to feel that peculiar sort of exhilaration, the adrenaline starting to pump, making his limbs shake, his heart fluttering in his chest. He felt as if he were doing something important, rather than just frittering away his life. He realized now that was what he was doing before, just cruising along and doing what came easily. He then realized that he had just ran all the way to his house for no reason again.
Rolling his eyes at his foal-like tendencies at times, Quillyn let out a breath through his nose and moved into the kitchen, looking through the fridge for a few moments and taking stock before the morning came. He had most everything that he needed, he imagined, and he still had his old uniforms, which would do well enough for ranging where he was planning to go. In the morning, he would pack up and lock everything tight. He'd be heading for the Everfree Forest.