Change the Heart

by FatesWinds

Chapter 11: Ignis Fatuus

“Try it again.”
“Heart Shield, I’ve already done this thirty times, and-.”
“Try it again Twilight. Keep trying until it works!”
Heart Shield paced around his friend’s room frantically. Twilight sat in the middle of the room looking exhausted; her hair was matted to her forehead and her breath was slightly ragged. She shot her friend a look to shut him up before closing her eyes and concentrating. For the past two days Heart Shield had been trying to talk to Lady Celestia, but for some reason whenever Twilight tried to use her magic to reach their home, the spell failed. They’d tried everything they could think of, but no matter what they did, Twilight’s magic wouldn’t work; they were stuck, unable to contact anyone off the ship. Heart Shield didn’t want to think about what this might mean.
“Nothing,” Twilight said, gasping for air as the spell failed once more.
“Try-.”
“It’s not going to matter how many times I try!” she snapped.
Heart Shield winced and took a step back.
Twilight sighed and put her hoof to her forehead. “I’m sorry for snapping, but pushing me to exhaustion isn’t going to help anypony right now. Something’s obviously gone wrong.” She looked at her friend, who avoided her gaze. “Or we may just be out of range for the spell to work, the weather has been on our side more than it was before the past four days, and we’re farther from Equestria than we’ve ever been.”
“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Heart Shield said.
The pegasus sighed and apologized to his friend for being so demanding and left her room. This loss of connection with their home was putting a lot of strain on everypony and tensions were running high. Add onto that the fact that they hadn’t seen a single island since they’d left the dragons…
Why isn’t any of this working? Heart Shield thought to himself as he made his way to the cabin to check their course; the last thing they needed right now was to go off course.
Before he could make his way up to the top of the stairs though, the entire ship began to tip dangerously back, sending him back into the wall before it crashed back down onto the waves. Heart Shield’s head was spinning from the impact, but had no time to collect his bearings before the ship rocked hard to the side, knocking him head over heels down the stairs; another lurch had him sliding over the floor to collide with the other side of the hall before the ship reared back again. He was vaguely aware of a bell ringing throughout the ship. As the ship slammed down into the surf again, he kicked off of the floor, hovering a foot from the ground and caught Twilight as she slid out of her room.
“What’s going on?” she said to him, having to shout as the bell grew louder.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Take us to the deck, teleporting should be safer than trying to get up the stairs.”
Twilight didn’t need to be told twice, and in an instant both ponies found themselves being beaten back against the ship’s side by the force of the winds and waves crashing onto the deck. Heart Shield raised a hoof to cover his eyes as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, almost deafened by the crack of thunder that soon followed. Fate’s Winds tipped backwards as it climbed up a rather large wave before slamming back down, sending salt water smashing the two ponies against the door to the cabin; their fur clung to their bodies and both felt as though they had been dropped right into the world’s largest snow bank. A second later they were yanked inside just before another powerful wave crashed onto the deck. Rainbow Dash slammed the door shut behind them as Fate’s Winds rocked violently once more.
“That was a close one,” Applejack said, letting go of her friends, “y’all are nuttier than a sack full of acorns for goin’ out into a storm like that.”
“Look at you two, you’re absolutely soaked,” said Rarity, wrapping a towel around them and dried them off.
“Well we weren’t exactly sure what was going on,” replied Heart Shield once she had finished. “Thanks though.”
“T’weren’t nothin’,” said Applejack.
“Everypony brace yourselves!” Rainbow Dash cried, looking out at the deck. “Monster of a wave headed our way!”
Heart Shield flew over and stared at the wave headed towards them. The wall of ocean towered over the ship, nearly half as tall as Æundrïl.
“That thing’ll smash us to pieces!” he exclaimed, standing motionless as the wave rushed closer to the ship.
He racked his brains as the wave grew ever closer, trying to find a way for them to get out of this alive. It was too large for them to simply sail over unscathed and much too wide for them to try to find a way around it, not in the amount of time they had left anyways.
“Is there any chance you can teleport us to the other side?” he asked Twilight.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s on the other side of it, for all we know there could be another right behind it; it’s too dangerous.”
“Well then what are we going to do?!” said Rainbow Dash.
The wave was almost upon them.
“We ram through it,” Heart Shield said, thinking fast. “Twilight, quickly, surround the ship in your strongest shield.”
“But-!” his friend began.
“Twilight do it now or we’re all dead!” he shouted.
The unicorn heard the distress in his tone and closed her eyes, focusing all her might on forming the shield he demanded. Fate’s Winds was engulfed by a giant bubble of magic just as the monstrous wave crashed down around them. The ship shuddered violently as the wall of water smashed them against the ocean beneath it. Were it not for Twilight’s magic the ship would have been torn asunder along with the ponies it held; as it were, however, Fate’s Winds was flung underwater and slammed around in the undertow, knocking the seven ponies around the cabin. Twilight nearly lost her link to the spell as she was sent crashing into the controls at the front of the room with Pinkie Pie and Rarity smashing into her side before the three mares flew to the side and collided with their friends, but, through sheer force of will, managed to hold on to the magic. The ship eventually breached the stormy surface, buffeted from all sides by choppy, powerful waves, which sent the ponies inside bouncing around like rubber balls on marble until, with a single, thundering crash into an incoming salty stockade of sea, all seven were hammered into the ceiling and blacked out, their shelter and lives now at nature’s mercy.

Fate’s Winds sailed through the storm unattended for hours, buffeted by wave after wave –though, fortunately for the unconscious ponies aboard, none as terrible as the giant they had been forced to face– until it finally reached a lighter patch of sea, and rocked to and fro, slowly rousing the seven ponies back to consciousness.
“Ungh… ma head feels like somepony’s been usin’ it as a hammer,” Applejack groaned, rubbing her forehead as she stood up. “Everypony okay?”
“A little banged up,” Rainbow Dash replied, “but I’m all right.”
“What happened?” asked Rarity. “The last thing I remember, we were being tossed around like ragdolls in an awful storm.”
“We must have been knocked out while we were thrown around,” Heart Shield grumbled, wincing as a small stab of pain shot through his head.
“Oh no!” cried Twilight, rushing towards the controls all of a sudden.
“What? What is it?” Heart Shield demanded, startled by the distress in her voice.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she said, pressing buttons on the control panel frantically. “This is bad, this is very, very bad.”
“Twilight, what is it?” her friend repeated.
Twilight turned around slowly, a fearful look on her face. “The storm damaged the controls; I can’t find a reading of our location. It’s clear that we’ve gone off course, but how far and how badly, I couldn’t tell you. And that’s not all…” She pointed at the magic compass; it pointed out towards the rear of the ship, the sphere nearly flattened out from how far the tip stuck out. As they all watched, the tip swerved around, pointing to the left behind them, then to their right, up, down, as if its link to the changeling’s magic was extremely weak; though it always indicated the area behind them.
Heart Shield felt a chill run down his spine. “W-well we know that we got turned around, we just need to make a U-turn and-.”
“Heart Shield, I don’t think you understand… we’re so far off course that our only guide to where those changelings are can’t even decide our right destination. I don’t even know where we are, or if it’s even still day outside. It’d be easy if I could see the sky, but it’s completely covered with those storm clouds. We’re lost.”
“We can’t be that far,” he insisted, “it’s not like we’ve been out for days, right?”
“He’s right,” agreed Applejack. “C’mon Twi, can’t you just push some buttons on that doohickey?”
A sudden crack of thunder cut off the unicorn before she could speak.
“I’d need some time to look it over, see what can be done,” she finally said, looking at the controls with concern. “In any case, I won’t be able to so long as we’re out on the water; we need to find someplace to come ashore for a while.”
Heart Shield huffed irritably, but relented. Twilight had a point; there was no way they’d be able to so much as tighten a screw properly with that storm still around and no place to work without being afraid of having another giant wave come crashing into them. There was only one problem.
“How are we going to find out where to land if we don’t know where we are?” he asked.
“We choose a direction and hope for the best,” Twilight replied. “That’s all we can do right now.”

It was several hours before they spotted the island. A unanimous vote by the group had them sailing north, at least according to their damaged navigation system, away from rougher seas that surrounded them. Heart Shield and Twilight stayed in the cabin and tried to do the best they could to repair the console with the ship swaying in the waves. With the ship damaged they had to hope that the winds would carry them fast enough to escape the storm, but no matter how much wind hit their sails, the storm remained constantly on their tales. Everyone was exhausted; whether it was day or night didn’t matter after staying awake for nearly ten hours –none of them wanted to sleep in case the storm suddenly grew worse. As such, there was a collective sigh of relief when Applejack spotted an island just ahead of them; and if that wasn’t enough, she could just make out houses from where they were.
Finally, Heart Shield thought to himself, a little piece of good luck.
In a matter of mere minutes, all of them could see the island with their naked eyes, and after another five minutes Twilight was directing the ship into the shallow waters near the shore, following directions from Heart Shield and Rainbow Dash as the pegasi flew around the outside to make sure they weren’t about to run aground. When they had neared the shore as far as they felt was comfortable without damaging the ship, Twilight lowered the anchor and teleported herself and her friends onto the soft, sandy beach.
“That should do for now,” she said. “At least we won’t have to worry about the ship sailing away when the rest of the storm gets here.”
“Applejack,” Heart Shield said, turning to the earth pony, “you said you saw houses on the island, right? Could you tell how far they were from the shore?”
“I reckon they weren’t no more than half a mile,” Applejack replied. “If we head straight, I’ll bet ma hat that we’ll find ’em ’fore the worst of the storm gets us.”
“Okay, lead the way.”
“Do you think that there are any ponies on this island?” asked Rainbow Dash as they followed Applejack away from the beach.
“Could be,” Applejack called over her shoulder.
“I just hope that whoever lives here is hospitable and offers us a soft bed to sleep on,” said Rarity.
I just hope that whoever lives here doesn’t want to attack us, Heart Shield thought. He kept that worry to himself, no need to frighten the others.
They reached the first house just as the storm reached them. Rain quickly began to mat down their fur. Pinkie knocked on the door while Twilight cast a spell she’d been working on with Spike before they left, creating a magical umbrella that they could take shelter under if they squeezed together.
“They must be asleep,” Pinkie said, hopping over to her friends. She was the only one of them who didn’t seem to mind the rain coming down. “That, or they’re not home.”
“Has anypony else noticed how quiet it is here?” asked Fluttershy, looking around.
Heart Shield had noticed that too. If it was day, then wouldn’t whoever lived in these houses be wandering around? Or at the very least inside with a light on to take shelter from the storm? And if it were night, then why didn’t they hear Pinkie knocking? Sure they could have just been sleeping, but surely the sound of knocking on the front door would have woken somepony up. The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt about being here.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s try a different home. Hopefully one of these has somepony who’ll help us.”
However, they soon found that not one of the houses on the island seemed to be occupied. In fact, the further they went into the town, the more the houses appeared to be in bad shape.
“It’s like a ghost town in here,” Rainbow Dash said. “There isn’t anypony in any of these houses. It’s almost like the whole town was abandoned.”
Heart Shield felt a shiver run through him that had nothing to do with the cold from the rain.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “Let’s just head back to the ship and wait for the storm to pass.”
“I am not going to sleep in a ship that’s being tossed around when there are perfectly good homes safe on the ground, ghost town or not” Rarity protested. “I say we just try the doors until we find a house that’s open and rest there.”
“Ah agree with Rarity,” said Applejack. “As spooky as it is here, I’d feel safer sleeping on a bed an’ not worryin’ about waking up in an overturned boat.”
“And I don’t want to spend a second longer out in the cold,” agreed Twilight. “I’d rather we take shelter in the first unlocked house we find.”
Heart Shield sighed and relented. Even after they found a few houses that weren’t locked, he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that was creeping over him. Several times, he could have sworn he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, but each time he turned to look, there was nothing.
This place doesn’t feel right, he thought after he and his friends had said goodnight. The sooner this storm is over and we get the controls repaired and away from this island, the better.

Heart Shield couldn’t sleep. He tried, of course, but whether it was the cold or the ominous atmosphere, it was no use. Eventually he gave up. The rain had ceased falling, but lightning continued to light up the sky now and then, illuminating the thick, black clouds overhead.
It’s not as bad as it was earlier… Maybe the storm’s finally clearing up, he thought, getting to his hooves. Since I can’t sleep, there’s no harm in checking on the ship. I might be able to even work on it a little bit before the others wake up.
He exited the house and slowly made his way through the abandoned town towards the shore where Fate’s Winds had been left, shielding his head with one of his wings as the wind began to pick up. As he passed the house across the street from where Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were staying he heard what sounded like a giggle coming from the side of the house. He whirled around at the noise and scanned the area; a slight chill ran down his back that had nothing to do with how cold it was outside. Nothing there. So why did he feel like he was being watched all of a sudden?
“Probably the wind,” he muttered, trying to shake the feeling, and continued towards the shore.
He didn’t get much farther than a few feet before he heard the noise again. The giggle echoed eerily and he caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye, but it was gone as soon as he turned around. The giggling came again, clearer this time. It was the unmistakable sound of a filly laughing, the voice was young, and far too high to belong to a foal.
“Who’s there?” Heart Shield called out, hesitantly taking a step into the alley between houses.
There was another giggle and this time, he saw her; or at least, part of whoever the voice belonged to. A white tuft of a tail disappeared around the back of the building. Heart Shield ran forward, determined to find out who it was. Was it one of the occupants of the town? He turned the corner to find… an empty alleyway. He stared at the long stretch of stone. Whoever he had seen had vanished. Looking around wildly, Heart Shield nearly missed the white tuft of hair that slid between two more houses, flicking a little as if to beckon him forward, followed by the faint echo of more giggling.
“Stop! Wait!” he shouted, running to the space between the houses where the hair had slipped past. “Hold on a second!”
He raced after the figure, but no matter how fast he ran, the filly always remained just ahead of him. She rounded corner after corner, leading him through a maze of stone and glass. Despite how dark it was, with the sky illuminated only by the occasional flash of lightning, the filly was never hard to find, with her coat of white almost shimmering in the darkness like the will-o’-the-wisps he’d heard Twilight mention could sometimes be seen in the Everfree Forest. He remembered reading about how legends said they could lead foolish travelers to their doom for entertainment and couldn’t help thinking how this felt like he was falling into the same pattern of mistakes as the ponies in the stories. Just as he was determined to stop the chase and turn back, he saw the filly duck into what appeared to be a run-down town hall. Deciding to get to the bottom of this, he followed her without a second thought, but all that he could find inside was a bunch of dusty furniture and an equally dusty floor. Worse, there were no windows to light the building, meaning he had to wait for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness –surprisingly darker than it was outside– before moving on. He studied the floor, trying to find hoof prints that would tell him where the filly had gone, but without a proper light it was nearly impossible for him to even see his own in the dust.
Twilight or Rarity would certainly be a help here, he thought, wishing one of the mares was here to light the place with their magic.
There came a giggle to his right and he made out the shape of a staircase and a pair of faint, almost white eyes staring at him from the top of the next floor. As soon as they met his gaze, another giggle rang out and they quickly pulled away, retreating further into the building. Heart Shield narrowed his eyes and rushed up the stairs after them, determined to put an end to this. There was another giggle from the end of the hallway he now found himself at and he spotted the filly entering the room at the far end.
I got you now!
He ran forward and dashed into the room, only to find it completely empty. Heart Shield stared at the empty room, unable to figure out where the filly had gone. There were no windows in this room, just like the rest of the building, and the only entrance was through the door he’d just gone through.
“What the-…?”
“Hee, hee, hee. You’re a funny one.”
The voice came from behind him and caused him to jump into the air in surprise. Heart Shield whirled around. The filly stood in the doorway, a faint light emanating from the tiny horn that barely poked out of her long, white mane, which hung over her eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked her. “Do you live in this town? Where is every-?”
“My name’s Clover Patch. Let’s play a game!” the filly said cheerfully.
“Play a-? No! I already chased you all over town!” he replied indignantly, stamping a hoof on the ground.
As soon as the words left his mouth the temperature in the room fell so much he could see his breath in the light cast from the filly’s horn. The filly was deathly silent for several seconds. When she finally spoke, it was in a cold, threatening tone.
“I SAID let’s. Play. A GAME.”
Heart Shield shivered, and it had nothing to do with the now freezing room. He was getting the feeling that this was no normal filly, and that it would be in his best interest to do as she wished. For now at least.
“O-okay,” he said. “A g-game. That sounds like… fun… What game should we play?”
Clover Patch brightened and peered at him from under her mane. Her eyes were as white as her coat, and appeared to be glowing as well, though it could have just been the light from her horn reflecting in them.
“It’s been so long since I had somepony to play with,” she said. “We can play my favorite game!”
“And what would that be?”
She smiled, but it seemed more like a smirk than a smile.
“Hide and Seek.”
Well, that doesn’t seem too bad, Heart Shield thought to himself.
As if she could read his mind, Clover Patch smiled wider, and he was certain that it was almost smug.
“We can play with my special rules,” she said as she backed out into the hall, her voice was as cold as it was cheerful.
Before he could ask what she meant by that, the door slammed shut. Heart Shield ran to it and tried to turn the handle but it wouldn’t move; she’d locked him inside!
“Hey!” he shouted, banging on the door. “Let me out!”
There was a giggle from behind him. His blood ran cold as he turned around. Clover Patch stood in the center of the room, grinning wide at him.
“I’ll let you go,” she said, “but only after I explain the rules.”
Why don’t I like the sound of this? Heart Shield thought.
“First, it’s a team game. We’ll play with your friends and mine.”
There was eerie laughter and giggles, both male and female, from the other side of the door.
“My team will start off being It and you and your friends can hide. When we find all of you, then your team is It and you have to find all of us, and then we’re It again,” she continued. “We can play until the storm passes, and whoever’s team is It when it ends loses.”
Heart Shield felt like he wouldn’t like the answer, but he had to ask.
“And what happens to the losing team?”
Clover Patch smiled even wider. “If we lose, then I’ll let you and your friends leave.”
“And if my team loses…?”
There was more giggling from the other side of the door, and it was louder now.
“Then you have to stay here and play with us, forever.”
Heart Shield felt like the wind has left his lungs for a few seconds at this. Clover Patch giggled and there was a click from the door, which swung open.
“The game starts now,” she said. “You and your team have ten minutes to find a hiding spot before we start looking for you. Better hope that they’re good ones too!”
And with that, she vanished. It wasn’t in a flash of light like when Twilight teleported. The filly was simply there one second, and then her whole body flickered like a dying light bulb and was gone, leaving Heart Shield blind in the dark until his eyes readjusted to the lack of light. As soon as they did, he raced out of the building, soaring through the air as fast as he could towards the houses where his friends slept unaware of the game that had just begun. He shouted for them to wake up, slamming his hooves on the doors of each house until they had all roused.
“What’s the meanin’ of wakin’ us up like that?” Applejack asked him groggily once the seven ponies had gathered in the house Twilight and Rarity had taken.
“Yeah,” yawned Rainbow Dash. “Can’t this wait until morning?”
“No, it can’t!” Heart Shield said urgently. “It’s an emergency! Island! Ghosts! Hide and Seek! Have to leave, now!”
“Heart Shield, what in Celestia’s name are you talking about?” Rarity said as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What emergency?”
Hurriedly and pressed for time, Heart Shield explained everything that had just happened. By the time he finished, none of his friends appeared to be remotely tired anymore.
“Do y’all mean to say that yer playin’ a game with a ghost?” asked Applejack. She sounded a little skeptical. “Are ya certain it weren’t just a dream?”
“Yes! I mean, no. Er, maybe? Gah, that’s not the point!” Heart Shield cried exasperatedly. “Look, I know how crazy it sounds, but I’m telling you the truth! Please, you have to believe me!”
His friends still looked like they didn’t believe him, and Twilight opened her mouth to try to calm him down when there came a giggle from the top of the stairs in the house.
“You’re not very good at this game, are you?”
Clover Patch poked her head down the stairs and giggled again at the shocked look on the mares’ faces, and the horrified look on Heart Shield’s.
“Ready or not,” she said from the top of the stairs in a sing-song voice, “here I come!”