//------------------------------// // FOTC: Chapter 5 - Halls of the Past // Story: Fall of the Changelings // by Dream Whisper //------------------------------// “Are you sure we should do this? He is heavy.” “Are you going to tell her that we have ignored a stray one just because he was too heavy to lift?” “We should at least get some shoooo…” The voices slowly faded into the howling of the wind. The cold air surrounded me, leaving my body no choice but to shudder uncontrollably. I opened my eyes once again. It almost seemed as if the cold air had purged all tiredness out of my miserable body. Everything was white and cold. A snow storm as it seemed. The cold tingling on my hooves told the same story. There was nothing but a white wall of everchanging masses of snowy flakes crushing down onto the earth, leaving me blind to see the world behind them. It was impossible to see further than I could stretch out my own hooves. Still, I began moving. I moved to maybe find a reason to move. There was no reason to stay anyway. It was hard to move forwards. Not only because of the wind trying to push me aside but also because of the deep snow, clinging to my hooves, almost as if it couldn’t let me go. Suddenly, the snow that had repelled my every moment seemed to suck me in and I fell into an icy world. Then I was standing right before my old house, hearing the laughter from inside. The birthday decoration looked just wonderful. The statue was right by my side. I wonder how my son would react this time. Would he be able to contain his joy or would he burst out in laughter? Would tears of joy get him in the end or would he have that certain spark in his eyes? I knocked on the door, listening to the distant echo of the wood. Somepony was coming down the stairs. It was her. She always took her time coming down the stairs. And each time she arrived at a stair with a painting on the side, she waited for just a moment. Too short for anypony to notice - anypony but me. My heart began pumping again as it had in the very first days. She would be so proud of me. She would see that ”I CARE ABOUT US!” “I think he woke up.” “Lucky fool! You were the one dropping him. She would have ripped you apart if he had not woken up again.” The whole world was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving me alone in darkness. The searing pain rushed through my entire body. Was this real? Was there even the possibility for something still being real after what I had experienced? “Get up!” “How is he supposed to get up when he is as heavily wounded as that?” I pulled my hooves down under my body and pushed as well as I could. The ground below me was cold and wet… and sharp. My whole body felt like it had been pierced by thick daggers. When I looked around I noticed that that wasn’t so far from the truth. Maybe not thick daggers, but instead giant spikes. Luckily I had not fallen directly onto one but instead in between them. Down here however, were thousands of smaller spikes, almost as if they were waiting for the pray their big brothers left them. “How are we supposed to get him to the hive now? He is practically dead.” There was so much anger and accusement in that voice. It reminded me of that one last conversation with his wife. “Why? See, he stood up again.” “Argh! You idiot! Why do I have to work with the newlings? You see those spikes down there? Each and everyone of those is alive. Upon impact they release a toxic venom in the wounds of their prey. The bigger animals are a feast for those giant spikes, while small animals fall down further, being pierced by smaller representatives of their species. When the prey finally dies, the spikes slowly suck in the blood and intestines. You don’t want to fall down there.” Suddenly my whole body tensed up. No! They wouldn’t get my intestines! Not as long as I had a bit of power left in my body. “You also dropped him!” “What am I supposed to do? Carry him all alone? You should have never let go of him.” “Hey! I couldn’t see that breeze coming. Let’s just get him to the hive. Maybe the hive will.” “The hive will.” The hive will?! “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” My voice sounded so strangely unforgiving. Maybe it was just the pain of my wounds or maybe it was something much deeper. The two schemes seemed to quietly converse for a second, then one rushed down here like a bolt of lightning. “Scrift, to your rescue!” The shadow pulled me up, but with every meter he gained, he lost more and more of his velocity. After a short amount of helpless pulling and desperately flapping his wings, he slowly descended again. “Flap your wings for the hive’s sake!“ Anger rose inside of me to a point, where I couldn’t keep it contained anymore: “I can’t!” My cold, dark voice still surprised me. It seemed as if my anger had found its way into each word that left my mouth. It felt good to finally let it out. “What? You can’t?! What is that supposed to mean?!” There was a certain disbelief in that voice that let me only grow angrier. It felt good to let anger rush through me, it distracted me from the vast hole inside of my heart. “Scrift, you FOOL!” With that scream the second shadow finally came rushing down to us. The combined force of the two ponies managed to pull me above the spiky hell. I wanted to thank them, but my tongue was suddenly so very tired. As was the rest of my body. It became harder and harder to breath. “Quick! We are losing him!” Muttered fragments of words found their way into my thoughts. Not that I understood the meaning behind any of those, but they were still there, bothering me by their sheer existence. I wanted to be left alone in my darkness, but the words seemed to drag me back into that horrible dream of mine. A flickering light lingered somewhere behind the thick layer of darkness before my eyes. I couldn’t feel my body, couldn’t move any part of it. Only the shattered fragments of voices kept me from drifting away. After an eternity of not doing anything I decided it would be time to get up. School would be soon anyway. School? For just a second I was completely confused by my own thoughts. Then I smiled. It had been some many years since I had left school. Since I had left my friends to find a new life out there. I had found a life… and lost it again. I forced my heavy eyelids open. I had lost the life I had found myself but that didn’t mean it had to be over! Of course the pain would remain, but I am stronger than this. With much caution I slowly pushed myself onto my hooves again. “Woah there. Careful!” The voice seemed strangely distorted and yet I instantly knew it was the voice of Scrift. “You have just been dropped into… Errm… I mean you have just been rescued from a pit of toxic spikes.” Toxic spikes? What was he… As if my thoughts had been made of honey, they moved so slowly through my mind. The memories of what had happened took their sweet time to finally come back to me. I let my gaze wander through the room, scanning every inch of it. The whole room seemed to be a construct of green goo or something similar. Otherwise there was not much to lay my eyes upon. There were a couple of gooey shelves and… Within a fraction of a second I found myself crashing against the ceiling. After crushing painfully onto the hard ground, I found myself with two questions: How in Equestria had I collided with the ceiling? And the second question, being a bit more severe: Where the hay was I? There was a bucking … thing right in front of me. No. Not just a thing. An insect being much similar to… “What are you?!” “What do you mean? I am a changeling, just like you? I think that crushing-into-the-ceiling part was a bit too much for you… That brings me to an interesting question: Why haven’t you just flown before?!” Silently, the other pony… thing added a sentence whose true meaning was hard to grasp. “You could have died.” Was he… caring about me? It felt weird - No, that is an understatement. - The weirdness was above describable levels. A monster caring for me? What was that supposed to tell me? That only insect-thingies can love me? “Err… well… Mister insect-pony… Where am I?” For a second, the other pony… thing just glared at me. “It’s ‘Changeling.’ ” Changeling? Where in all of Equestria had I landed? “The question remains, mister Changeling. Where am I?” “Why do I always have to end up with the strangelings?” Strangeling? Had he not just said that they were called Changelings? “Oh well. Call me Scrift. And you, mister stray one, are inside of the hive.” Aha. That one point has come. That one point where you know that you have entered a place beyond reason. This was all a little too much to take in. ‘The hive’, ‘Chaneglings’, ‘Stray one’? Where did that … Changeling get his words from? “Since you are the first stray one for about 15 years or so, you’re going to be taken to her. Ostia stand by your side.” Okay? This was truly getting weirder with every second passing by. For the first time I asked myself where this was going. I had just lost it all, and now I was supposed to attend a meeting of some sort? A meeting with a mysterious ‘her’? For the first time in my life, I felt helpless. This was all so very wrong, so very unknown. I should still be crying and not thinking about a meeting. Don’t let your past pull you down in your future. Although your past may seem like a shadow, your future can be a bright light, piercing through that shadow. Don’t let the past be the chain keeping you grounded. The voice! I had almost forgotten about it. “Hey, come on. I don’t want to pull you out here myself.” I had not even noticed Scrift going ahead into the corridor. Hesitantly, I stepped forward. Not really a conscious decision, but the inability to stay calm. No! NO! I had come to a decision. My past wasn’t something I would simply leave behind. My friends, my family, my entire life. I couldn’t just leave it all behind. “No… I am not going to come.” “Err… What did you just say? I don’t think you know…” “I said no!” There was just too much I could never forget, should never forget. “Listen up!” The harsh voice did not take away my disagreement, yet it made me shut my mouth. “Finally! If you don’t come, they are simply going to kill you. Come on. I don’t want to be the assling. Just follow along.” It had not only been the threat of death that had caused me to move with him, but instead also his compromising voice. He would probably get in trouble if this was his assignment. I sighed. “Fine! Just make it short.” “Sorry, but I can promise nothing. Stray ones always get judged by her. The hive will.” My agreement caused his face to light up and he brought out a smile. I could never have thought to see a smiling monster at some day. There was just one thing still bugging me… “Why do you keep saying that?” “What?” “The hive will… What does it mean?” He just laughed, obviously amused by my lack of seemingly common knowledge. “Oh, I like you stray ones. You will find out soon enough…” Although that practically cleared nothing, I decided to stop the attempt of getting an explanation for what was going on. Instead, the giant halls caught my eyes. We were walking through black corridors and giant black halls, yet everything was covered with spots and smears of a green, gluey substance. It did not directly disgust me, although it made the whole atmosphere of this ‘hive’ much darker and gloomier. As soon as we reached the next corner, a bunch of heavily armored monstrosities joined our little walk. It was an awkward feeling to be followed by some hunky … things with their insect wings and fangs. Then again, I looked just like them… and I hate it. Upon noticing my disgusted stare, one of the guards snarled and came a bit closer. “If you stare at me a little longer, stray one, I will be the first one to rip your head apart and feast upon the remains.” I cringed upon imagining the horrific scene and quickly walked ahead. Suddenly, I wished I had stayed in the room,where I had at least been alone and not surrounded by … those. When we finally had moved through the long, empty corridors, we arrived in front of a heavy metal door, impregnated with figurines that looked just like the hideous guards. In the middle of the door was one giant carved image of a bigger monster. I didn’t have much time though, as it was already being pushed open. The hall lying behind it was truly massive. To each side were hundreds of marble pillars, holding up an elliptical roof on which artistic mastery was displayed. The images were telling stories of victory and defeat, of battles and coronations. Proud pony knights swinging heavy swords against giant dragons, breathing their fiery breath down onto them. There were scenes of coronations, heroes being praised, ponies receiving knighthood. The whole ceiling was filled with the faded echoes of the past. It made my heart cringe to be reminded of what I had lost. I have lost so much… I hate the inevitable pain of remembering the past… Looking beyond the pillars, I found myself staring at a huge landscape, burnt and dead. The ground itself seemed blackened, covered with vegetation that had died a long time ago, turned into dark brown specks of color in this blackness. It was a crass difference to the white marble pillars and ground. When my eyes slowly moved along the ground, I noticed strange pattern to be engraved into the marble. Lines flowing artistically from each pillar to another, in hyperboles or swirls, branching off into little spirals from time to time. Although it should have seen chaotic with this many lines, it still had a calming effect. When my gaze slowly wandered upwards again, I noticed the giant throne in the back of the room. Sparkling lines were flowing towards it and on top of it sat a… a… well, an insect queen I guess. She was just so big, almost about 3 times as big as every other… insect guard I had seen. Of course you could say it was the throne, but even when subtracting the throne’s size in my head, she still had to be at least 2 times bigger. Nothing but the title of a queen would have fitted her. She glowed in a mystical aura, catching my attention. Her eyes were going from a yellowish green into a dark green, her hair looked much similar to my own, as did her horn, her whole figure however, was much more graceful than mine. A sharp pain in my back startled me, and when I looked to see where it had come from, I noticed the guards staring angrily at me. To my great pleasure however, Scrift quickly pushed through and started to explain: “This is her. Stay calm, don’t look her into the eyes, don’t make her angry, better not speak at all except she asks you to. Bow before her or those guards here will … “ The guards intensified the pressure and I had no other option but to move along. What did she want from me? Why was I even here? Shouldn’t they have at least explained SOMETHING, before sending me to … her? Whatever that ‘her’ meant… “Ahh. A stray one. Who has found this beautiful example?” “I did, my queen.” Scrift answered. The queen raised her eyebrow, but quickly turned her attention back towards me. I remembered what Scrift had just told me and bowed. This much closer to the ground I actually made out why the lines to her had been sparkling. The light seemed to reflect upon some substance that was flowing along it. The light-green tone made obvious, that it wasn’t water. “Stand up, Stray One. Tell me, how are you called among others?” I hesitated for a moment, unwilling to follow her every command like her personal pet. As the guards started to move somewhere behind me however, I quickly stood up and replied. “Ethereal Tear.” The queen blinked a couple of times, almost as if she was surprised by what I had said. “Not only a stray one, but a firstling. This is going to be rather interesting. Tell me your story, firstling.” The commanding tone in her voice and the threat of the guards behind me made it quite hard to deny my reply. I decided to tell her what happened, but while leaving out details she didn’t have to know. Careful not to look her in the eye, I began to explain my story: “It began when I had lost myself in the deep forest…” When I had finally finished my story, she looked a lot more interested. She stared at me for a long time in awkward silence, until she finally opened her mouth again. Her voice was arrogant and yet soothing. “Tell me, when exactly have you encountered the jewel of Ostia?” Jewel of Ostia? I have not encountered any jewel… The amulet?! “I don’t know. A long time ago.” I couldn’t help but to let the bitterness sink into my voice. It had only been two days to me. It has been 936 years. What? What do you mean ‘936 years’ ? That’s how long you were gone. Are you bucking kidding me? Are you “bucking kidding me? What is that even supposed to mean? 936 years?!” I can “bucking” lie to myself, no “bucking voice” needed. The queen looked at me as if I had just… Had I really just? No! This is far more than embarrassing. I mean, I shouldn’t care about what strange insects like this thought of me. Far more disturbing was the apparent lack of self control that I had just shown. Usually I have enough control over myself to not burst out like this, but then again I usually haven’t got a voice in my head either. This all was just too much to take in… The queen just started to smile now. It was even more awkward than a harsh reaction of her would have been. It was impossible to say if she was just generally amused or if she was laughing about me. “This is going to be interesting. 936 years you say? My, my that is quite a long time. You truly are a firstling. You will serve the hive well.” Serve the hive? They had never said anything about serving. I am not here to serve anypony. “What do you mean, serving?” The expression on the queen’s face abruptly changed from slight amusement to a harsh tone. Her eyes still told of interest, but her face showed that she had taken her commanding stance once again. “You will serve the hive or die. Ostia may judge upon your mortal body. The meeting is dismissed.” The sudden sting in my side startled me. Two guards had already advanced and were ‘leading’ me back. Well, they were poking me often enough with their sharp lances to force me out of the room. When we left the giant hall, one of the guards started speaking. Guessing by his heavy armor and his grand appearance he should be a captain or leader of some sort. His voice was incredibly deep, unexpected for such a … small insect. It was strange to actually notice it right now, but I was about a head or so taller than anypony… anything else. “You, firstling! Come with me. The hive has decided that I should be your mentor.” He didn’t seem to be too proud of that last statement. Being the mentor to some strange pony must definitely be something very undesired in their ranks. Then again, being mentored by a small insect wasn’t what I had imagined either. Still, I decided that mutual distrust would only worsen my future time… I was still feeling very uncomfortable, not knowing what would happen to me. I could have run or tried anything but to be honest… There is nowhere I could go, no home to retreat to, no loving wife waiting for me. My mind started drifting back into the old times while I was still following the captain. The sun shone brightly on this beautiful day. It was the day when we first met. I remember it like it had been yesterday. The old lady Cremore had been talking crazily about the seven seals of sins. I had listened to her frantic stories for a bit, just for my own enjoyment. I couldn’t help myself but to chuckle over these stories, even if she really meant what she said. After a while I decided to treat on anyway, since there was a beautiful day to explore. The summer this year was one of the warmest summers we have ever had. Not the kind of sweaty-hot-and-humid summer though. More like warm and cozy and cuddly. I actually had some free time for once. Usually I would have been working all day in the factory. Not the rainbow one of course, but our own small factory close to town. We produced parts of small machinery, usually cogs and mainsprings, escape wheels, pinions, sometimes winding keys or pallets. The reason why normal smithies do not create such delicate creations is that the harshness of a hammer compares badly against the fine grab of magic. Cooling down the liquid while holding it with your magic though is the difficult part. Mostly we use water for the smaller parts. The bigger parts tend to deform on microscopic level when simply dipped into water, which is why we have to use advanced cooling spells, cooling them from the inside to avoid the tension created by the hot metal pressuring from inside. I could have gone on that topic for hours, if there had not been a certain mare catching my attention. I remember it to this point. I remember her beauty in the sunlight, her mane shimmering in the soft rays of light. Well, I don’t remember how her mane looked like… I can’t even remember her appearance. It is all just a blur of emotion and memory. However, I still remember the pain in my heart of each and every time she had screamed at me, causing my mind to retreat to happier moments… like this one. I can’t help myself but to drift back to our arguments, our unhappy times, even if I want to ignore it all. The thing I probably best remember of her was the angry shouts, her voice almost breaking under the pressure of her hatred she tried to load onto it. It makes me sick to remember it all... The harsh sound of an old metal door squeaking while being opened pulled me out of my thoughts. The guard had just lead me to some forsaken corner of their ‘hive’, whatever that was supposed to mean. It seems as if they adopted more from insects than just their appearance alone… “Here we go, firstling.” The way he said firstling really bugged me. At first I had thought it was just hatred, but there was something more into it. Maybe ignorance,maybe arrogance or maybe even jealousy. Although I could have let my mind further go on about it, there was a giant room in front of me which caught my attention. The entire room was filled with hundreds of statues of highly ranked ponies. Every single one of these marble statues was meticulously worked, details showing as clearly as they would in reality. It made me wonder when or where such a castle had existed. I don’t recall anypony having lost even a word about a wonderful castle like that in my time. So either it had to be long forgotten then already, or just newly built after my … unfortunate timeout. “I am ordered to teach you about our proud history so you can soon become a valiant servant to the hive. The hive will. After me, Captain Lorewing will take over with your first flight lesson. As you seem to be a firstling, it is quite possible for you to have no knowledge of using your wings correctly.” Tell me: What did you happen to be before Ostia has touched your petty soul?” This Ostia once again… We just treaded through the third row of statues. The reflections were amazing, but so were the expressions on the statue’s faces. They were so incredibly detailed, all looking into some unknown world before us. There was one question slowly arising in my mind though: Why were all the pieces of art and majesty in this castle made from ponykind and not from … insectkind? “Well?!” “Ermm… I … I was just an ordinary factory worker.” “Are you kidding me? I asked what you WERE, not what your pitiful society assigned as task to you.” The sudden outburst caught me offguard. I had not expected this much anger to come so overwhelmingly abrupt. From harsh but calm to angrily shouting in less than one second, that had to be some sort of record. And what did he even mean? Who I was? Well, who WAS I? I was a factory worker, a loving husband, a friendly neighbor and a chaotic tinkerer. Still, I felt that this was not what he was asking about. “Your race? Your gender? Anything? Were you outfitted for war? Do you know anything about flying?” If he had asked this all along, he could have saved us both from much trouble. I sighed as I gave my response: “I was an unicorn … once.” It still felt strange to speak of ‘once’, when it really had been just a couple of days. 936 years, not a couple of days. Admit it. This voice again! Are you switching on and off or something like that? For hours you are completely silent and then you suddenly come back?! Time always fools those who fail to look behind it. And what is that supposed to mean again? This voice is nothing but a bothersome parasite. Be careful who you call parasite, my little pendant. The assimilation will be soon and then you will be able to see. The hive will. The voice started to bucking laugh! Inside of my head! You can’t imagine how creepy THAT is. Imagine standing alone in a giant dark hall and somepony is laughing. You don’t know where it comes from, but the laughter goes through your entire body. “An unicorn you say? This is indeed going to be annoying. At least the unicorns are said to be the most studious ones.” Studious? If he expected me to be studious, this really could require a loong time. Studying has always been one of the hardest things to me. “Although I can’t see why our queen would demand singled training for you. Learning with others will only help you, especially in what Captain Lorewing and Captain Incrim are going to teach you.” Names… I am really bad with names. Sometimes I keep them for a week or so, but I always remember them. Heck, in his first years I even had some moments where I had forgotten how my own son is called. You can’t imagine anything more awkward than calling your son “son”, followed by a glooming stare of your wife. “If the queen is right with these 942 years, you are going to need a lot of recapturing. The ancient lore is dry history, hard to learn, but worth knowing about.” Dry history? Really? The first thing he had to endure in this ‘hive’ was the dry history of a thousand years? For my entire life I had shown a certain ‘resistance’ to education, especially for dry lessons. “Let me begin.” “Right now?!” “Of course. There is no time to waste. The queen has her plans. And the hive will.” The tone with which he spoke this recurring phrase made it obvious that he had far more belief in it. He spoke it like something to be proud of, not just like a repetitive mantra one was supposed to repeat after each sentence. “The history of the changelings begins with the touched one. The first changeling. We will find him right over there.” “What?!” The first ‘changeling’ to be found somewhere in this room? How could that be possible? Then again, how should it be possible for 936 years to have passed by? “Yes. The first changeling. The most majestic statue of all… Our own creation.” The statue he presented was… ugly.There is to my knowledge no word to better describe how the statue looked like, especially when comparing it to the others. Simplistically said: It was ugly. If you want to let me explain that further: It was ugly because of two reasons: The first reason being just the crass contrast between the way it looked standing alone, the other being how it looked compared to everything else in this room. The statue was made of the same gluey substance that the walls were also made off. For the statue however, it was less transparent and much less... fluent, I guess. The walls all seemed as if they were made of a fluid that had cooled while running down. You could clearly see the streams of substance inside of them. Looking at this statute however, it was completely solid. That didn’t improve its look however, it just made it more comparable to bogeys or snot. So, let me add ‘disgusting’ to the plain ugliness. The details were tediously engraved, but what they formed didn’t look like a pony, not even like a ‘Changeling’. It looked more like a grotesque painting that a dying cat had drawn while someone had puked over it after eating too many cupcakes, then tried to erase that mistake with even more puke and just given up on it and put it in the dump, then it had somehow landed here in the end. Comparing it to the other statues of pure majesty only made the appearance even more repelling. Instead of light reflexes playing around on its body, there was just this semi-transparent substance. A clump of snot, really. I guess Changelings aren’t into art. “A majestic statue, isn’t it? Back in the time, we had another one, which was a bit… less pure.” How was it even possible to have an uglier statue than this? “The first changeling, the touched one...” I realized that this would be a long, tiring day…