My Little Pony: Friendship is Universal
On the Road to Canterlot
“You seriously know Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? Personally?”
The mint-green unicorn nodded, a proud smirk across her face. “Yep. We shared a class or two in Magical Music Theory at the Canterlot Academy of Magic. Cadence was always a blast when she started playing the banjo.”
Her companion, a golden unicorn mare, paused mid-step. “Banjo?” She shook her head.“So why are you walking to Canterlot instead of taking the train, Lyra?”
“Eh, can't sit on the train the way I like; the conductor always complains,” the unicorn said dismissively. “What about yourself? I mean, a train would be more comfortable than pulling a wagon to Canterlot.”
“Going to pick up some new props and things for the theatre,” Lyra's travelling companion replied. “Besides, with all the fun going on in Canterlot it seemed to be perfect timing to have a nice working vacation.”
“Ha! Living up to your name then, as usual,” Lyra laughed.
“Well, if I didn't, what would they call me?” The unicorn called Perfect Timing tossed her head, the red streak in her brown mane flashing in the sunlight. “I'd hate for ponies to start calling me 'Off Key' or something along that line.”
Both unicorns laughed as they continued their journey along the dusty yellow road, their destination looming far in the distance. The massive city of Canterlot stood out proudly against the mountain it was built both upon and out of.
“So you get to see the whole wedding. I'm kind of jealous.” Perfect Timing sighed, struggling to keep pace with Lyra's brisk trot. “I mean, stars above , the Captain of Celestia's Royal Guard marrying a princess. It's just like all those fairy tales you read when you're just a foal.”
“Heh, I'm sure it's not going to be as gushy and romanticized as you're thinking. Cadence is pretty... different for a princess,” Lyra replied, deciding that ‘low-key’ was the wrong term to use for someone who wanted Pinkie Pie to plan the reception. “Really I'm just hoping to get my part in the wedding done quickly and get back home. I really don't like travelling without Bon Bon.”
“I'm sure Bon Bon feels the same way,” Perfect Timing said, holding back the urge to chuckle. “Don't worry, I'm sure you'll have a great story to tell when you get back.”
“I suppose–” Lyra cut herself off as she stopped dead in her tracks.
“Lyra?” Perfect Timing stopped. “What's–”
Lyra hushed her quickly. “I hear something,” she said, an unusually serious expression crossing the musician’s face as she strained to catch more of the sound the other unicorn had missed.
Perfect Timing cocked an ear out to try and catch the sound Lyra's sensitive ears had picked up. “I don't hear anything out of the ordinary,” she admitted. “Come on, Lyra, we better keep going.”
“No, wait!” Lyra insisted. “I swear I hear something. A swishy sort of wet and splashy noise.” Suddenly the unicorn turned her head away from the distant goal of Canterlot, and towards something off to the side of the road.
“There's probably a river or something nearby,” Perfect Timing concluded just as Lyra leaped off the road and bounded across the open fields of Equestria towards a goal only she was aware of, leaving a surprised and distressed unicorn to struggle with unhooking herself from the cart she was pulling.
Under a bridge along a narrow footpath not too far away from that same road to Canterlot, a green frog surfaced in the river. It sat half-submerged in the shallows while beady eyes scanned the immediate area for danger. At last it hopped onto the bank, an expression of relief plastered all over its slimy features. One more quick side-to-side glance to make sure the coast was clear, then a ring of green fire sprung to life around it. The frog vanished in the flames, reshaping in an instant to its true self: a charcoal-grey pony-like creature with long fangs, twisted legs full of holes, ragged gauzy wings and a purple-hued carapace.
“That was close!” The changeling's frightening face softened as he sat down in the long grass. “I was sure it was all over back there,” he sighed as his gaze turned to the gleaming world beyond his refuge.
“It's so... different.” He smiled, stepping out just far enough from under the bridge for the sun to hit his hooves. Multifaceted eyes squinted against more light than he was used to. “So... just... wow.”
The changeling homelands were desolate and barren, all sickly greens and drab greys. Nothing at all like the world laid out before him now in a riot of colour and noise and life. Oh sure, he’d seen it and been in it before, but always on a mission, putting all his focus into staying undetected while he harvested emotions for the good of the Hive. Always busy. Never able to explore. He breathed in deep, savouring the rich aroma of the mud, the heady tang of the grass, the delicate whiff of late spring flowers carried to him by the breeze that ruffled his head-fin, and the faint smell of the water.
Out of the corner of his eye the monster caught a glimpse of his blurred reflection in the river. “Oh, right. I forgot.” The warm expression dropped as he retreated back into the shadows.
“Run away from the big bad changeling,” he recited faintly, his voice lilting in a sing-song manner. “He's only there to ruin your day. Stay away from the big bad changeling...” With an angry hiss the twisted creature sent a hoof through his watery countenance.
“Even though he just wants to play...” he sighed as the water ran through the holes in his legs.
“Hurry up, Timing! I know I heard something!”
The changeling jerked away from his reflection at the sound of hooves clattering against the heavy wood above his head. He held his breath as he listened to the pony trot back and forth. The scent of curiosity floated down from above, tickling the changeling's senses, threatening to make him sneeze. He clapped his hooves over his nose and desperately wished for the pony on the bridge to move on.
“Just you wait! I'm going to find whatever made that splashy noise and then there's going to be trouble!” A joyous giggle announced that the threat shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
It did nothing to assuage the nervous changeling; his imagination began to overrun his common sense. What do Equestrian ponies do to their enemies anyway?! He only knew what his own people did, and it wasn’t pleasant to think about. He pressed himself even more into the shadows, backing closer against the underbelly of the bridge where it sloped to meet the riverbank.
It occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t thought this whole ‘escape’ thing through very well.
The cold, smooth surface of a large flat stone brushed up against his flank, and a hare-brained scheme began to form as the changeling picked it up and flipped it side to side, testing the weight.
This is completely insane, he thought as he waited to hear if the pony on the top of the bridge had heard his rustling. Absolutely, completely, utterly insane. He didn't see that he had much of a choice, however. If he was caught now... well, he didn't want to think about the consequences.
With a well-aimed toss, the rock flew through the air and skipped over the water several times before finally splashing to a halt somewhere beyond a small hillock at a bend in the river.
“Oh! There! Over there; it must have moved!” the voice called out giddily over the sound of galloping as the pony ran off.
It worked! The changeling took a deep breath in preparation, hoping the pony was far enough away not to notice the telltale sound and light show of his transformation. A halo of green fire leaped to life around him, and in a rush of wind the twisted body of the changeling was enveloped by the inferno. The flames extinguished a scant few seconds later, leaving behind a unicorn stallion with grey fur so pale it was almost silver, long blond hair and a purple forelock.
I got everything right this time, didn't I? He peered at his reflection in the river once again. Hairy mane and tail, check. Straight horn, check. Blue iris only, check. He held out his forelegs for inspection. Solid, hole-less legs, check! He paused, remembering perhaps the most important thing.
“Cutie mark!” he exclaimed to himself in a hushed whisper. “Did I get it?” Mimicking somepony else’s existing cutie mark was easy; creating one from scratch, not so much. Stretching to inspect his backside, he caught a glimpse of a cracked, white, frown-faced mask, its sad eyes a vivid red against his silvery coat.
Creepy, but workable, he concluded, turning his gaze once again to the brilliant green world beyond his shelter. Time to get going, he decided, this time not hesitating as he stepped into the sunlight.
And right into the path of a golden unicorn mare.
“Yaaaaah!” the two unicorns screamed simultaneously, both backing away slightly until they sat on the grass across from each other, the golden unicorn sitting on the hill beside the bridge, and the silver one landing at the edge of the river.
“Sweet Celestia, you scared me!” the mare gasped, holding one hoof to her chest.
“I scared you?!” the colt replied indignantly. “I think you took a year off my life! Why are you creeping around here like that?!” Her brief shock was a whiff of citrus to his changeling senses, and it was difficult to restrain himself from slurping up even that tiny bit. How long had he gone without a proper meal?
The golden pony scowled. “Wow, rude much? For your information, I was tracking down my friend. I thought you were her under the bridge.”
“Well, I'm not.” he replied, standing. “So if you don't mind, I'll be on my–” At that moment one hind leg slipped on the wet grass, sending him stumbling backwards into the river with a splash. He vanished under the surface in a mess of bubbles.
The sight of hooves flailing blindly out of the water was alarming. Pegasi tended to dislike any large bodies of water that weren’t in the form of rain or clouds – wings were not the most hydrodynamic of appendages, and waterlogged feathers were one mother of a drowning hazard – but almost all earth ponies and most unicorns could swim with some degree of competency. This fellow, it seemed, could not.
“Oh cud! Hang on, dude, I'll save you!” Timing cried. She was about a heart's beat away from jumping into the river after the stallion when he burst out of the water, gasping amongst the reeds.
For a moment neither pony said anything. The silver unicorn just sat in the shallows looking very wet, with his formerly shaggy mane obscuring half his face and clinging to his neck, and the purple of his forelock little more than strings that dangled in front of his eyes.
“Ppht,” the golden unicorn clapped her hooves over her mouth. “I-I'm sorry,” she managed to get out. “I really shouldn't be laughing, but–” Any form of a coherent sentence dissolved under a flood of giggles, which quickly became contagious.
Her amusement was warm and savoury.
Her silvery counterpart chuckled quietly. “I guess I must look pretty silly, huh?” He peeled his sodden mane away from his face and regarded her with bright blue eyes.
“Yeah, just a little,” she replied, her horn becoming engulfed by a gentle glow. “That's easy enough to fix.” The glow enveloped the stallion and levitated him, dripping wet, out of the river and onto the grass.
“How about we start over?” the golden unicorn suggested. “My name is Perfect Timing, or just plain ‘Timing’. Or ‘Time’, if you wanna be really brief. Sorry about scaring you back there.”
“Uh... no problem, really,” the silver unicorn said, suddenly nervous. “I'm s-sorry for being so abrupt. I-I'm called–”
“THERE YOU ARE!”
The stallion was so startled by the irate shout he almost fell into the river again.
A mint-green unicorn glowered from the other side of the riverbank. “Dang, Timing, where did you go? I thought you were right behind me!”
“Lyra, you're a few pickles short of a full jar if you think I'm dragging a cart off road!” Perfect Timing shouted back as the other mare raced over the bridge. “Why the hay did you run off anyway?”
“Thought I could catch a sea serpent,” Lyra replied gaily, ignoring the jibe about her sanity as she slid down the hill to stand beside them. “I heard they grant wishes if you can grab one.”
“But doesn't... isn't...?” the silver colt stammered. Perfect Timing nudged him and shook her head.
“It's probably better you don't ask,” she whispered, leaning close so the other mare wouldn't hear them. “Lyra is a bit, ah, quirky sometimes.”
“So, Timing, who's your new friend?” Lyra asked, completely oblivious to the whispered conversation. “Are you going to introduce me or am I going to have to guess his name?”
“Th– Tempo!” the stallion blurted out. “Ah, I mean... I'm Low Tempo.” He still wasn’t all that used to thinking of himself by the new sobriquet, and as a result had almost called himself by his former name. A shade of red began to creep through his fur.
“Aww, he's so cute,” Lyra cooed, circling him to get a good look at the newcomer. “Hey, Timing! His cutie mark matches yours!”
Low Tempo tensed up at her words. No! I made my own from scratch! I’m sure I did!
“Lyra, mine’s a comic mask,” Timing said, twisting around and flicking her tail against the mark. A white mask next to a crystalline sphere smiled at the world from her hindquarters. “His is a tragic mask. Related, but completely different things.”
“His hair matches too.” Lyra gestured from the red highlight in Timing’s mane to the almost mirrored counterpoint that was Tempo’s purple forelock. “Ooh, maybe he’s, like, your long-lost brother. Oh oh oh! Or maybe you and he are ancient star-crossed lovers reincarnated into new bodies, and fate has chosen this moment to reunite the two of you at last!” She clapped her hooves together, wide-eyed and beaming like a maniac.
Perfect Timing slow-blinked a few times while she processed it all. “Okay, when we’re back home I’ll be having words with Bon Bon about leaving you unsupervised around soap operas and trashy romance novels.” The side-eye she sent Lyra’s way told Tempo that this sort of outburst was considered normal behaviour for the minty mare.
Minty in more ways than one. Her curiosity was the crispest, strongest feeling he’d tasted in ages, and it was knocking him for a loop. He hid his face behind his forelegs, fighting the sudden urge to feed.
“You don't have to be so shy around us!” Lyra completely misinterpreted his actions, but he was hardly about to correct her. “Are you heading to Canterlot like Timing and I–” She was cut off as Perfect Timing elbowed her in the ribs.
“Small talk can wait until we get Tempo dried off.”
“Yeah, you're right, I guess.”
“Ladies, please,” Low Tempo replied as the two mares pushed him along. “You really don't have to worry. I'm fine! Really!”
How do I get myself into these situations? the disguised changeling calling himself Low Tempo thought despairingly from the back of Perfect Timing's wagon. The golden mare had insisted he ride while he finished drying off, as it was partly her fault he was soaking wet in the first place, and giving him a lift was her way of making it up to him. He’d objected to being carted around, but relented in the end, finding it hard to say no to those earnest green eyes.
His mane was even more of a mess than before, if such a thing was possible, sticking up and out all over the place as a result of the brutal towelling he'd experienced at the hooves of Perfect Timing. Lyra had pelted him mercilessly with questions the whole time. Such a thing probably wouldn't have bothered a normal sociable Equestrian pony, but just made Low Tempo uncomfortable and desperately wishing he could escape.
But he had no means to run now, not after saying he was going to Canterlot. In truth, Canterlot was the only city in Equestria whose name he knew, though he definitely hadn't intended to claim it as his destination. He blamed Lyra's constant barrage of non sequitur queries for his slip-up. His exhaustion coupled with her Pony Inquisition had made his brain unaware of what his mouth was saying until it was too late. After they invited him to join their journey he had no way of refusing without looking suspicious or insane.
He found a momentary distraction in watching the changing patterns formed by the mottled shadows beginning to fall upon the trio as the road to the capital city left the rolling fields behind and neared the forest edges.
Stupid. Low Tempo mentally kicked himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Canterlot was the absolute last place he wanted to be going right now. After all, she was there, and if word got to her, he didn't have a prayer. His only hope was to keep out of sight and get back out of the city as quickly as possible. Or better yet, bail before they ever made it to the city, if an opportunity to do so presented itself.
If I can manage to stay undetected, maybe I can ask their leaders for sanctuary. He shook his head. No, that wouldn't work at all. Not if her plan was going according to, well, plan. Hopefully nobody will look too closely at a bunch of random ponies, he thought miserably, trying to console himself. Maybe I could stow away on one of the trains heading for their colonies...
And do what? He certainly couldn't hide out in a swamp as a frog for the rest of his life; he needed to eat, and the emotions of wildlife weren't strong enough to sustain him for long. If Her grand scheme came to fruition, then attempting to fake his way as a proper pony in one of the settlements would likewise be doomed to failure. She would find him and reveal him for what he truly was, and after that it was just a matter of which side destroyed him first.
Nope, he definitely hadn't thought this whole thing through very well at all. He fought the urge to slam his head repeatedly into the side of the cart.
“Hey, Tempo!” Perfect Timing's voice snapped the disguised changeling out of his introspection. “You feeling better back there?”
“Oh... yes. Thank you again for your help,” he called to the unicorn pulling the cart. “You two really helped me out of a jam.”
By getting me into a bigger one, but that is neither here nor there, he added mentally as the trees slowly began to surround them.
“Hey, we met a new friend, I got an interesting story to tell Bon Bon when I get home...” Lyra chuckled from beside the cart. “I’d say everything came out pretty evenly.”
Low Tempo didn't respond, only sunk lower into the cart as the sunny fields behind them were devoured by the forest.
“Tempo?” Perfect Timing spoke up, a note of concern in her voice. “Are you alright?”
“I wish you would stop asking me that,” he snapped, lowering his head onto his forelegs. “Why do you keep calling me 'Tempo' anyway? I thought I told you my name is Low Tempo.”
“...I'm sorry,” Perfect Timing replied quietly. “I don't mean to prod or offend you or anything. You just seem to be... unhappy.” Low Tempo perked his ears up at the sound of 'unhappy', “I've seen your smile, but it looks so fake. Like you're wearing a mask to deflect us.”
“Why do you care so much?” Low Tempo replied defensively as he stood up in the cart.
“Because you seem nice,” Perfect Timing replied. “I wanna be your friend.”
Low Tempo paused, his breath hitching in his throat. The monstrous reflection he had looked upon in the river – his true face – flashed through his mind, accompanied by the sing-song refrain of the rhyme he had told himself earlier.
She would never say that if she knew.
“Sorry,” Low Tempo replied, leaping from the cart onto the road beside it. “I can't say the feeling is mutual.” He trotted up to the golden mare. “Thank you once again for your help at the river. I think our paths should separate here.” At that he bolted, galloping headlong down the road away from Canterlot as fast as he could, ignoring the two unicorns shouting at him to wait.
But he didn't wait. He ran, with fear and shame chasing alongside him, whispering encouragements into his ears as he fled. The road was too clear and the fields too open to hide him from view, so he vaulted into the forest underbrush, hoping the two mares would tire of looking for him and just leave.
Moving through the thick vegetation would have been much easier in the form of a snake or a chipmunk, but he didn't dare shift. Changeling transformations were flashy and tended to attract entirely the wrong sort of attention. Short-lived discomfort and picking twigs out of his mane later were worth it to remain hidden.
He wriggled past one final shrub – of course it had to be one with huge thorns all over it, because nothing could ever be easy – and stepped into the forest proper, head-first into a squadron of five changeling soldiers.
He was noticing a bit of a theme with his encounters today.
“Well, well.” The biggest of them, a hulking monstrosity the deep red-brown colour of day-old pony blood with eyes and carapace the colour of blood freshly spilled, smiled between his fangs as his green and blueish-green cohorts quickly surrounded the terrified faux-unicorn, their curved horns pointed at his sides. “It seems our wayward brother has decided to surrender. How lucky for us.”
The muffled thud of hooves on dirt sounded from beyond the tree-line, and another voice rang out. “Low Tempo! Come back, please!” Perfect Timing called, much to the silvery stallion's increasing despair.
“I'm telling you, Timing, he's gone. We should probably just let him go,” came Lyra's faint reply.
The big changeling's smile grew wider. “You brought lunch too? How nice.”
“Please,” Low Tempo whispered, shaking so hard his legs were in danger of buckling under him. “Please, Typhus, don't take them; they don't know we're here. They can’t give anything away.”
“Hey, the roads are dangerous, right? Diamond dogs, hydras, manticores... who knows what could befall a couple of mares on the road?” The burly changeling chuckled before he grabbed Low Tempo around the neck, holding him in a tight headlock. He brought his mouth close to the smaller changeling's ear and hissed, “Follow my lead and I may just avoid breaking your horn this time, Thorax.”
“Low Teeeeemmmpooo!” Perfect Timing called out once more before stopping to pant for breath.
“Dang, he's fast,” Lyra wheezed as she trotted up beside her companion. “He's long gone, Timing. We'll never find him in all these trees.”
“Gah, I know,” Perfect Timing replied, recovering her breath. “I wish he could have just explained what was making him so sad.”
“What makes you think he was sad?” Lyra asked. “He could have just been really shy.”
“It... well, it was a feeling.” Perfect Timing sighed, continuing to scan for any sign of their erstwhile companion.
"Some ponies are simply very introverted. Could be he's like Fluttershy, and pressing him for information just made it worse and he needed to get away from that," Lyra theorized.
"Says the one playing 'Twenty Thousand Questions' with him earlier," Perfect Timing muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Haha, yeah.... Whoops." Lyra rubbed at the base of her mane and chuckled nervously.
Muffled scuffling noises sounded from somewhere in the trees, and then a large, dark brown unicorn with a bright orange forelock burst onto the road. The huge stallion was followed by Low Tempo and four other unicorns. Each of the newcomers had a similar dull/dark-coat-and-bright-forelock colour scheme; likely they were all related.
“Ah! There you are!” the large chestnut said cheerfully. “Shame on you, little brother, for leaving such pretty mares all by themselves.” He bowed gracefully before the two surprised ponies. “My dear ladies, I'm Tall Tales, and I'm informed that it's thanks to you my dear little brother, Low Tempo, has been returned to the fold.”
“Uh, yeah,” Perfect Timing replied, a bit overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of such a big pony and his silent entourage. “We were a little worried about him when we found him without any saddlebags in the middle of nowhere.”
“You're too kind, Miss...?” the large stallion let the question hang as he righted himself.
“Perfect Timing, and she's Lyra Heartstrings,” she replied, motioning to the unicorn in question. “You're all heading to Canterlot?”
“Yes indeed. We'd just stopped for a snack when Tempo wandered off. We've been searching for him ever since,” Tall Tales said. “As a token of our thanks for bringing him back, how about you join us for a bite to eat?” Tall Tales' expansive smile revealed an almost unsettling number of bright white teeth.
“Sounds good to me. I could use a break after all this running,” Lyra spoke up.
“Wonderful! Our camp is just this way.” The chestnut unicorn motioned to where a narrow deer trail emerged from the forest. “Though I'm sorry to say I don't think your wagon will manage, Miss Timing; the path is quite narrow.”
“That's alright. I'm sure we won't be too long,” Perfect Timing replied, already using her telekinesis to unhitch herself from the wagon a second time and secure it to a tree with a length of rope.
Soon the group of eight was on its way through the bush, with the massive Tall Tales leading the way, and Low Tempo, Perfect Timing and Lyra sandwiched between the others.
“Hey, Low Tempo,” Perfect Timing beckoned to the pony trotting between her and Lyra. “I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings back there.”
The silver stallion gave no indication he had heard, simply marching along with an almost robotic stride, eyes focused straight ahead.
“I don't mean to pry or get in the way or anything. I just wanna get to know you better,” Perfect Timing tried again, and again didn't receive any indication that Low Tempo had heard what she had said.
Being honest with himself, Low Tempo wanted to get to know Perfect Timing better too, but it wouldn’t do to engage in conversation now, not with Typhus right there. Along with his “Make Thorax’s Life Miserable” campaign, Typhus had some very clear thoughts on the subject of getting chummy with your food.
Low Tempo felt a certain amount of responsibility toward the two mares, since it was entirely his fault Typhus had cornered them in the first place. He stared resolutely forward and picked up the pace a bit, moving up next to Typhus. Not so close that he was within easy kicking range, but close enough that maybe, just maybe he could find or do something to distract his ‘brother’ when the time came.
Perfect Timing let out a dejected sigh and glanced at Lyra, who offered her a what-can-you-do shrug in return. Friendship wasn’t something that could be forced, after all.
Well, fine. Two could play the “I’m Ignoring You” game. She put Low Tempo’s brusque attitude from her mind and cast her green gaze around at his siblings, starting with the imposing Tall Tales, who strode – swaggered, really – at the head of the small herd.
Indeed, it was almost impossible not to focus on him first. He was one of the biggest ponies she'd ever seen, standing at least half a head taller than Big McIntosh and with almost as much muscle as Bulk Biceps, though he carried the mass much better than the beefy pegasus did. Bright against the dark grey-brown of his rippling haunch was his cutie mark: an erupting volcano belching forth rivers of molten rock and a huge cloud of ash. The orange of the lava matched the parted forelock strands framing his face, while his tail and the rest of his mane, much longer than those of the average male, were the rich, deep brown of dark chocolate.
All in all, he was handsome to an absolutely ridiculous degree. A drop-dead gorgeous hunk, in the vernacular. Not her type, but Perfect Timing was sure that were Tall Tales to saunter down one of Canterlot's main thoroughfares, he would leave a good deal of the ladies present – and more than a few of the stallions – swooning in his wake.
She moved on before anyone could notice her staring at Tall Tales' perfectly-formed hindquarters.
“Uhh...” Perfect Timing’s voice got stuck somewhere in her throat at the sight of Lyra unashamedly ogling the enormous pony ahead of them. “Aren’t... I thought that–“
“Oh hush, you.” Lyra tried for indignant but fell a bit short. “I can still look, can’t I?”
Perfect Timing wasn’t sure whether or not the question was rhetorical. She was saved from having to answer by an amused snicker from the unicorn to her right: forest-green fur, mud-brown mane and tail streaked with sunflower yellow, a horn that curved smoothly upward instead of jutting straight out, and a pitchfork superimposed on a bonfire for a cutie mark, whatever sort of talent that indicated. There was something of the willow tree in the way she moved, all long-limbed and elegant, the tip of her tightly-braided tail almost brushing the ground.
She could break bones with that tail if she was of a mind to.
“He has that effect sometimes. Your mint-coloured friend there isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last to fall under his spell,” she said with a half-smirk on her lips and a knowing glimmer in her violet eyes. “I’m Emberglow, by the way.”
Unseen by all but Tall Tales, Low Tempo rolled his eyes. ‘Emberglow’, his horn. Her real name was Teufel and she was fanatically loyal to Typhus, even above her fealty to Queen and Hive. Just as wicked as Typhus too, in her own inimitable way, and he cringed at the double meaning of her words. It wasn’t lost on him that the woods were thickening and they were getting ever farther away from the roads and any potential witnesses.
Perfect Timing reached out to accept Emberglow’s proffered hoofbump. “Hi– whoa!” She misstepped and fumbled to regain her footing before she could knock the other pony off the path into the underbrush. “Lyra!” she exclaimed, for it was she who’d bumped Timing in the first place. “Lyra, what the hay? ...Lyra?”
Lyra didn’t answer. A glance over revealed why, and exactly what the hay.
“Is... is she okay?” a concerned Lyra asked about the greyish violet pony to her left. The smaller mare – almost still a filly – was walking with uneven, erratic steps, jerking her head side to side, and making occasional strange chittering noises. Her short mane and tail were a dusky magenta with electric blue tips, sticking out in uneven clumps as if she’d tried to cut them herself without the aid of a mirror, using scissors that weren’t quite sharp enough.
The spastic unicorn’s cutie mark appeared to be a mouldy bread slice, which Perfect Timing immediately moved to the top of her list of Weirdest Cutie Marks Ever.
“Oh, that’s–“
“–Spore. She’s a–“
“–little bit off in–“
“–the head, in case–“
“–you haven’t–“
“–already noticed.”
Both Lyra and Timing turned to regard the speakers, not having had much chance to get a good look before now, walking ahead of them and all. The stallion was blue-green with a burgundy mane and tail, while the mare was burgundy with a blue-green mane and tail. Neither of their cutie marks were clearly visible from their current positions, though Perfect Timing caught hints of green and brown. Both had yellowy-green eyes and white forelocks. He parted his to the right of his horn, while hers was to the left.
Aside from the reversed colours and unknown cutie marks, they were identical, from body build all the way to cavalier smile and mischievous eyes. Even their steps were in sync.
They were quite obviously twins.
“His name’s–“
“–Bracken, and she’s–“
“–Blight.”
Creepy twins who finished each other’s sentences.
Fidgety little Spore glowered at Lyra out of a twitching yellow eye, and hissed. Lyra flinched back with a “Gyah!” and almost collided with Perfect Timing again.
“Don’t mind her,” Tall Tales chuckled. “The poor dear had a run-in with a cockatrice some time back. Hasn’t been the same since. She’s a bit unbalanced, but harmless.”
Inside, he was grumbling. Why did Chrysalis always assign him the defective soldiers?
Teufel was the only one in this rotten lot he could trust to do her job. She was cunning and ruthless and followed his orders without question. Easy on the eyes too. He rather liked her chosen pony shape and alias of ‘Emberglow’. He wondered if she’d created them from scratch or simply appropriated them from a previous victim. Whatever the case, he commended her excellent taste, for the graceful body and name suited her very well. He would have to find a reason to demand she assume this form again, beyond the bounds of their assignments.
But then, if he knew her as well as he thought he did, she would be only too willing to comply with the request. Passionately so, even.
Really, she was everything he could want in an underling. Pity the rest of this troop of nimrods was borderline useless.
The whackadoo twins were great for chaos and unsettling the general populace, but not much else, and sometimes got so wrapped up in each other’s antics that it took a bit of cajoling – or a firm kick in the ribs, which Typhus was only too happy to mete out – to get them to pay attention to their commanding officers. By the first Queen, they couldn’t even be bothered to create proper aliases!
Spore was just... Spore.
Shouldn’t even be permitted to leave the Hive, that one, though Typhus did allow her a grudging concession on the alias thing. It was difficult enough getting her to answer to just one name; being required to remember and respond to more than that without getting mixed up would likely send the poor thing into conniptions.
And then... oh, and then there was Thorax. Sweet, docile, easily cowed Thorax. Being one of the most gifted changeling shape-shifters in generations meant he was a phenomenal infiltration asset.
Or he would have been, were it not for that frustrating rebellious streak he’d developed as of late. Personally, Typhus blamed that bubblegum-coloured bimbo for putting traitorous ideas in his subordinate's head. Were it up to him, he would have just killed her, as was his wont with anyone he impersonated. But no, his Queen apparently had some notions about finding a way to harness this particular wretch’s love-spreading talent for the good of the Hive. A royal edict had gone out declaring swift and brutal retribution upon any who permanently damaged their captive.
Assigning Thorax to deliver the prisoner’s meals had, it seemed, been a tiny bit of a mistake. Ah well. Fugitive flunky found, little bit of lunch located, and he was spoiling for the violence – and the ensuing emotional rush from which to feed – that was just around the bend. Typhus grinned, letting the pointed tips of his true teeth flash unseen for a brief moment before disguising them once more.
Nope, not a bad day at all. Maybe later he’d even get to see Thorax figuratively eviscerated by their Queen. If Chrysalis was in a foul enough mood over being dragged away from her masquerade, it might even become a literal evisceration. Typhus licked his lips. Sweet Tartarus but she was gorgeous when she was pissed.
“Hey. C’mere, you.”
There was a yelp, some scuffling noises and a bit of irritated muttering as Low Tempo vanished from his place beside Tall Tales, who craned his head around to see what had happened to the silver-furred maggot, and snorted in amusement.
Lyra had dragged Low Tempo back by his tail and insisted he walk between Spore and herself. The path was getting too narrow to comfortably travel three abreast, let alone five, and both Timing and Emberglow had some choice words for the pale green unicorn.
Emberglow sidled up next to Tall Tales to escape the jam.
Spore’s cognitive abilities were a toss-up on the best of days, but she at least had the sense to drop to the back with the twins, rather than run face-first into another tree.
Lyra looked utterly nonplussed to now have the flaky pony behind her, and the lemony tang of her unease wafted through changeling nostrils. Somebody’s stomach gurgled, audible even over the river rushing along somewhere nearby.
“How much farther is it?” Perfect Timing wanted to know. When Tall Tales and his crew picked a secluded spot for lunch, wow, they really went all out.
“Almost–“
“– there, don't–“
“–fret. Then it's–“
“–lunchtime.”
That back-and-forth singsong just wasn't right.
“Hold up, everypony!” Tall Tales called out, stopping so suddenly that Low Tempo nearly ran into him from behind.
The footpath continued on the opposite bank of the river that lay ahead of them. At its narrowest point the river was a good five times wider than Tempo’s earlier watery experience, and though it was difficult to say for certain, it was probably at least five times deeper too. While not quite at expert rafting levels, it definitely put the ‘white’ in ‘whitewater’, and looked none too pleasant to fall into, with the churning froth obscuring anything and everything that might be lurking beneath.
There was only one way across it. Felled in a storm long forgotten, an ancient tree spanned the river, its roots and branches clinging to the soft soil of the riverbanks like gnarled talons. The upper side of the thick trunk was worn slightly concave from years of ponies and assorted wildlife traipsing across it, and the underside was festooned with mosses, lichens and several shelf mushrooms. The whole thing was slick with moisture from the mist kicked up by the water.
“That doesn’t look too safe,” Lyra opined.
Tall Tales thunked a hoof against it. “A few more years of spring runoff and I wouldn’t trust it,” he half-agreed, eyeing where decades of vernal melt-water had undercut the embankment and steadily loosened the tree’s grasp. “It’s sturdy enough for now, though.” He stepped out onto it and jumped up and down a few times as proof.
“Why not just levitate across? Or even teleport?” Perfect Timing stated the obvious. Their group was comprised entirely of unicorns, after all.
“With all due respect, Miss Timing, not everypony has the, ah, aptitude for self-levitation or teleportation.” Tall Tales’ gaze flicked to Spore, whom Emberglow was attempting to discourage from putting some strange-looking toadstool in her mouth.
“I could carry everypony,” Timing offered, hefting several pebbles in a yellow glow of magic as a demonstration. Seven bodies plus herself was getting a bit toward the more challenging end of her abilities, but she was confident she could handle it.
Tall Tales scanned them from his perch on the log. “All of us? At once?” He regarded Timing’s nod with doubt. “Pardon my saying so, but that seems a bit much for one pony.”
“Oh, she can do it,” Lyra declared. “Can’t teleport worth squat, but Telekinesis above and beyond the norm is Timing’s special talent, along with–“
Perfect Timing bumped her hard in the flank. “They don’t need to know that part, Lyra,” she muttered, jaw clenched. “I can take just one at a time, if that sounds safer,” she offered.
“Yes, well.” Tall Tales stepped off the tree. “Meaning no disrespect, but I prefer not to chance it – not even carrying one or two at a time – with somepony whose acquaintance I’ve only just made. I prefer we travel by a means I know will hold all of us. However, if you would be prepared to catch anypony in front of you should they slip and fall, that would be lovely.” He flashed her a disarming movie-star smile.
Perfect Timing nodded. “I can do that.”
“In fact, we should all keep an eye on each other and make sure none of us falls in.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lyra said, casting nervous glances at the river. “I don't think I'm part sea pony.”
So it began with Tall Tales nudging Spore ahead of him onto the tree. Perfect Timing tensed up, fully expecting to need to catch the small mare, but Spore turned out to be surprisingly nimble of foot for one so twitchy. She near pranced across. Tall Tales settled for an unhurried, careful yet casual stride, as if he was a fashion model and the tree a catwalk.
For a brief, wild moment Tempo debated springing forward and knocking Typhus into the river. Then self-preservation and common sense reasserted themselves, and he shook his head to dislodge that moronic idea. Teufel would kill him where he stood, and that ultimately helped nothing and no one, least of all him.
“Come on, then,” Tall Tales shouted from across the river. “Low Tempo, how about you and one of the twins next, please!”
He phrased it like a question, but Low Tempo knew it for the order it was. He gulped. The tunnel to the caverns was not far beyond the other side of the river. They were nearing the point of no return.
Blight leered at him. “Move it–“
“–grub,” Bracken finished, hissing the word in Low Tempo's ear. “Give the game away–“
“–and we’ll eat–“
“–you–“
“–for lunch–“
“–instead.”
It wasn’t a bluff. Low Tempo knew the old stories, the tales of a long-ago Hive so far gone with hunger that its inhabitants descended into a cannibalistic fury, desperate for something, anything to eat. Changelings just couldn’t draw sustenance from each other’s emotions, nor detect them in the first place. Corporeal comestibles could tide them over when food-feelings were sparse, and a talented Queen could bolster it via draining and redistributing magical energy, but even in combination such things could not last. It was empty calories, dulling the hunger pangs but providing nothing, and repeated siphoning took a dangerous toll on even the strongest of Queens. Malnutrition would set in, and then it was only a matter of time before their grip on reality broke and things took a turn for the horrific.
Matters of simple biology meant his people were inextricably entwined with the other species of the land. They the predators, the rest of the world their pantry.
There has to be a better way, Low Tempo wanted so desperately to believe. Something besides living in hiding... the constant disguises and trickery... the terror when we’re seen for what we really are.... He did have some thoughts that were still too vague to be properly called ‘ideas’ on the matter, but was clutching them very tightly to himself, lest a certain someone find out. Unlike Tempo, Typhus and his ilk took great pleasure in the subterfuge and emotional vampirism of their daily existence.
Emotions... those were the real food, with the tongue-tickling gingersnap zest of love the most wholesome and filling of them all.
Hence this scouting party. Or perhaps ‘raiding party’ was a better term. Queen Chrysalis was no foal. She knew her subjects were getting restless and ravenous, but letting a whole swarm loose to feed while they were still in hiding would spell the end for her plans. Instead she had small squads helmed by dependable lieutenants go out searching for lone quarry that could be surreptitiously brought back to their hideout to feed the masses. None of them ever got completely full from the piecemeal prey, but neither were they in danger of starving to death.
But Bracken and Blight? Even if they weren’t starving, should Typhus give the order – or if they just felt like it – they really would devour him. Wouldn’t necessarily do him the courtesy of making him properly dead before stripping the flesh from his bones either. The threat was enough for Low Tempo to mechanically force himself onto the log and keep an even pace with his jailer. Blight stuck close, crowding him to keep him moving forward.
Blight’s cutie mark, Timing saw at last as the other pony trotted past her after Tempo, was a wilted flower, a blot of pale brownish white and putrid green against the dark red of her haunch. Bracken’s was a scruffy fern frond.
Low Tempo was careful about where he placed his hooves. The river looked so much more dangerous when standing above instead of beside. It made him nervous, and feeling the warmth of Blight’s breath on his rump was not helping. The fallen tree, too narrow for two to walk properly side-by-side, was plenty wide enough for one to move safely, but the surface was chipped and spongy with age and rot, and dampened with spray. Clearly not ideal for secure footing, and Tempo dawdled as much as he dared while continuing to wrack his brain for any way out of the mess.
Flying was right out. He didn’t want Timing or Lyra to see his natural form. Besides, while he was certainly no slouch in the air when it came to agility, Typhus had him beat by a hundred wing-strokes when it came to speed.
Instead of throwing Typhus over the edge into the maelstrom, maybe he could throw himself? He’d successfully (albeit temporarily) gotten away by jumping into a river before, so why not try again? His escape would be a great deal swifter this time, given the speed of the water; he could put much more distance between himself and Typhus’ band of crazies.
...No. No, Blight was right behind him, watching. Waiting. Even Perfect Timing was unknowingly ready to foil his escape, per Typhus’ request to catch anyone who fell.
And that was another problem, wasn’t it? Or two problems, rather: Perfect Timing and Lyra Heartstrings. Like it or not, they’re your responsibility now.
“What’s the hold-up up there?” Teufel’s voice lacked the booming timbre of Typhus’, but its demanding tones cut through the roar of the river just fine.
Somehow Low Tempo managed to become even more tense, though it didn’t seem like it should be possible, given he was already wound tight as a spring about to snap. It felt like all the bones in his neck were grinding together when he turned his head to see if he was the target of Teufel’s ire. Yes, he was deliberately dragging his feet, but he wasn’t moving that slowly, was he? See? He was almost at the halfway point and everything.
“What is it now, Lyra?” Perfect Timing stretched forward, trying to see around Bracken.
Lyra was down on her belly, peering most intently at the rushing water. “I saw something,” she announced.
Perfect Timing scanned the river. “That’s just a dead branch stuck between some rocks.”
“No, there was something else. Something colourful and shiny under the water,” she insisted, now leaning her body almost half off of the tree, appearing ready to fall at any moment.
“Don’t know how you think you can see anything through this stuff. Let’s keep moving. I’m hungry, and I’m sure everypony else is too,” Timing grumbled. There came muttered agreement from the rest of the herd.
Heavy thuds transmitted through the trunk as Tall Tales tromped back out to check on just what in the hay was transpiring, with Spore trotting close at his hocks. He locked eyes with Emberglow above everybody else’s heads, and raised a questioning eyebrow. Low Tempo shuffled as far away as he could get without either bumping up against Blight or leaping into the river.
“That one thought she saw something,” Emberglow explained, nodding at the crouching Lyra.
Tall Tales shifted his attention to Perfect Timing, who he thought looked equal parts miffed and resigned. “Your friend does this sort of thing often, I take it?”
“Yep.”
“Over there!” Lyra exclaimed. “Right there! By that big rock!”
Seven pairs of eyes turned to follow her outstretched hoof.
“I don’t see–“
“–anything except–“
“–lots of–“
“–bubbles.”
“I think you’re the only one seeing whatever it is, Lyra,” Perfect Timing said with a long-suffering sigh. “Let it go and let’s go.” She stamped a hoof impatiently.
Tall Tales stared out over the surface a moment longer, then shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Heartstrings, but I don’t see any–“
Something flashed beneath the river’s surface.
“There! Did you see it? Did you see it?” Lyra’s voice reached a truly uncomfortable pitch and volume. “I told you there was something down there!”
A curve of deep pink broke through the waves, followed by a glimmer of pale blue-violet. It was visible for only a moment, but it was long enough.
“I saw that,” Emberglow said.
“Me–“
“–too,” from the creepy twins.
One by one they each confirmed the sighting. Low Tempo’s “So did I,” was an unexpected addition to the chorus, since up until now he’d been broodingly silent. Whether Spore’s mute nodding was because she’d seen the thing too or just because everyone else around her was also nodding, none of them could say.
The changelings all thought Lyra smelled unbelievably smug.
They stared out over the water a bit more, but nothing else appeared, save for a smattering of leaves knocked into the water by an angry squirrel. They could hear it shrieking as it raced about in the canopy above them.
Bracken threw a small mushroom at it. It threw a rotten cherry at him in return.
Bracken missed. The squirrel didn’t.
Blight snickered. Bracken glowered at his sister out of his un-cherry-splattered eye. He flicked the goo away with a disgusted snort, then wiped his hoof clean on a patch of moss.
“Well, that was interesting.” Tall Tales somehow managed to sound both bored and amused at the antics going on around him. “Shall we move on?”
Lyra surveyed the stream one last time before rising to her feet with a dejected sigh. Whatever that object had been, it seemed to have vanished. “Sure. I’m done here, I guess.”
“Excellent.” The smile Tall Tales sent Low Tempo’s way made no pretence of even trying to reach his red eyes. You’ve had your brief reprieve, it said. No more dawdling, little maggot. He executed a smart about-face and began shooing Spore onward, confident that the rest would follow, secure in the knowledge that Teufel would encourage any who balked. Once again, everything was right in his world.
The river exploded.
It was a testament to her telekinetic skills, as well as the aptness of her name, that Perfect Timing had them all firmly anchored to the tree with ropes of magic before anyone could be swept away by the sudden deluge. She wasn’t able to cast a proper shield in time to keep them dry, however.
Once it was clear that no one was in danger of being washed away, she let go her hold, but stayed vigilant in case she had to catch anybody again.
For the second time in as many hours, Low Tempo found himself soaked to the bone with his hair in his face. He shook his mane out of his eyes, then blinked and shook his head a few more times, not quite believing what he was seeing. From the shock and incredulity he was sensing from Timing and Lyra, he didn’t think they believed their eyes either. His fellow changelings were, as ever, blank spots in his empathic senses.
Low Tempo looked up. And up. And up some more.
The creatures were large. So very, very large. Low Tempo had shifted into some hefty things in his time, but never anything like what now rose up before him. The river must be far deeper than he’d thought, if these two serpentine monstrosities could move about unseen beneath the waves.
One of them sported a pelt of white-spotted, dark brown fur that ran up its back and ended in a black, bristly crest on the top of its head. Shiny blue-violet scales covered its belly and the lower halves of its multiple web-footed legs (Arms? Legs? ...Ah buck it), and spiky fins of a similar blue traced down its spine. Two curling, ram-like horns framed its wedge-shaped head, and a pair of upward-curving tusks sprouted from the upper jaw of a mouth lined with teeth that looked more than capable of making short work of anything pony-sized.
Tempo thought it might be a sea serpent. He couldn’t be sure, having never before encountered one in the flesh. Even so, this one struck him as being just the tiniest bit off. Or a lot off. Did sea serpents usually have horns? Or fur? Or more than one set of limbs? Was it some manner of dragon instead? It didn’t jive with the few pictures of either species he’d seen. Perhaps it hailed from the Everfree Forest, a place known to disgorge occasional morsels of the truly bizarre, for this... thing, which Tempo would call a sea serpent for now for lack of any better name for it, was a patchwork quilt assembled from scraps of other animals, with none of the pieces quite meant to go together yet managing to work anyway, like some kind of mad Discordian creation.
It was far too symmetrical to actually be a draconequus, but wouldn’t that be just his luck, having the Lord of Chaos drop by to add a dash of insanity as the mouldy cherry on top of his Worst Day Ever sundae.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite the absolute most horrible day of his life. That title still went to the time Typhus broke off half his horn. It had grown back, of course, as bone was wont to do, but sometimes he still heard that sickening, splintering crack in his nightmares.
Today was definitely in the top (bottom?) five, though.
If the first creature could bite a pony clean in half, the second one could simply swallow it whole. Larger than the first by at least a third, and with an underbite from the depths of Tartarus, it was clad in vibrant crimson scales from nose to tail. Presumably, anyway, since a great deal of it must have remained submerged in order to support the mass rising above the octet of unicorns. A line of pale pink dots ran down each side of its muscular body, like a row of unblinking eyes, and where the half-fuzzy one had a black mohawk and blue dorsal fins, the scaly one had a purple crest on its head and sporadic tufts of purple hair running the length of its spine.
Both beasts were doing their damnedest to kill each other.
Lashing out again and again and again, the quarray eel tried to seize its opponent in those deadly jaws, letting loose an infuriated snarl each time it missed. The sea serpent, though smaller, was much more agile, and it made full use of that – along with the fact that it had arms and hands, and the eel did not – to evade every strike, plus landing a few blows of its own. One of its tusks gored the eel in the side, and a trickle of blood worked its way down the flailing body to stain the water.
Two ponies and six disguised changelings watched, transfixed, as the combatants writhed and grappled, coiling around each other like stripes on a mutated candy cane. Perfect Timing and Lyra were staring at the fight with wide eyes, aghast at the violence, yet awed by the display of power. The changelings had all their senses tuned in to the brawl. Only one of the creatures was a true sentient and the pair was too far away to feed upon, but they still caught the occasional sniff of heated emotion that a fight to the death naturally brought about. Low Tempo blanched at the sight of Typhus: the changeling’s hungry expression was almost orgasmic in its intensity as he delighted in the carnage before them.
Well, Tempo thought dryly, his stressed mind reaching that stage where it simply didn’t have any more bucks to give, you were looking for a distraction. Here it is.
The eel bellowed its rage at being unable to bite the serpent without also risking chomping its own body, while the sea serpent did its best to claw the eel’s face off. It grabbed the two sensitive protuberances growing on the eel’s nose in one fist, and yanked. Hard.
Glass would have shattered under the aural assault of the resulting screech, were there any around. As it was, it merely set all the watchers’ teeth on edge with the type of pain felt in the bones instead of the nerves. Even Spore flinched more than usual at the noise.
The quarray eel reared back in agony, seeking to break the serpent’s grip. Unfortunately for it, that seemed to have been the sea serpent’s goal all along, for it wasted no time going for the exposed throat, burying its teeth deep into the fleshy pouch just behind the eel’s jawbone. The screech turned into a sickening gurgle. Yellow-orange eyes bugged out of the eel’s head and its mouth gaped open, questing frantically for air.
Low Tempo had seen enough fights in his time to know that this one was almost over. There was one last desperate lunge skyward by the eel in a bid to dislodge its assailant, but the sea serpent was having none of that. Arms/legs/whatever released their hold and teeth clenched even tighter around the eel’s neck, and then the serpent threw its entire body backward and downward, using its weight to unbalance and topple its larger prey. Shadows danced upon the log and its occupants as the fight loomed overhead, silhouetted against the noonday sun.
Suddenly a dead tree over a raging river beneath two brawling behemoths seemed a very stupid place to be standing.
And then the interlocked giants began their plunge toward the river, and a dead tree spanning said river most definitely became a phenomenally stupid place to be standing. The glare of the sunlight in their eyes made it difficult to gauge distances, but nevertheless it soon became evident that the log lay directly in the path of the fall. The tree might well survive the impact – it had endured everything nature threw at it for who-knew-how-many years already – but they most certainly would not.
“Oh. Buck.”
None of them would remember who said it, but they were all thinking it.
Time stretched out like pulled taffy and everything took on a hyper-real quality. Odours were stronger, colours more saturated, noises more sonorous, tiny details more sharply defined. Low Tempo felt like he could have counted every last one of the eel’s scales and all the individual hairs in the serpent’s mohawk, had he been so inclined.
“Everypony move!” Perfect Timing’s shout came to their ears as if echoing from the bottom of a mineshaft, slowed down and several pitches too deep, like a record playing at the wrong speed. “Get off the log!”
It became a frenzied, if awkwardly sluggish-looking, single-file stampede to whichever shore seemed most convenient. Those lithesome legs of hers carried Emberglow swiftly back the way they’d come, with Perfect Timing following close behind. Spore and Tall Tales ended up on the far side, the herd’s original destination.
The moment all four of Timing’s hooves were back on solid dirt, she whirled around to check on the rest, feeling as though she was slogging through molasses to do it.
Her breath caught in her throat at what she saw.
None of the other four had gone anywhere. Bracken and Blight were trying to meet up with Tall Tales and Spore on the opposite bank, while Lyra and Low Tempo were trying to go back the other way, toward herself and Emberglow. There was enough room that two ponies could pass each other if they were very careful, but in their panic to get away, they kept running into each other instead. Lyra would duck left to get around Bracken, only to find him already there. Bracken swung to the other side, but by then Lyra had done the same. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Blight and Tempo were figuratively as well as almost literally butting heads in their efforts to make headway in conflicting directions.
“Turn around!” Blight growled in his face. Blast their orders to stay incognito when any non-changelings were near; a heartbeat longer and she was going to take flight. If Thorax wanted to die getting crushed and drowned by a quarray eel, that was his business.
Tempo’s hooves thumped out an irregular rhythm as he fretted this way and that, and his eyes rolled crazily in their sockets as he sought an escape. He didn’t want to run toward Typhus, Blight was blocking his path the other way, and shape-shifting slipped his muddled mind entirely. Besides, even if he jumped now, he wouldn’t get clear in time to avoid a messy and painful demise, or at least a good maiming. He stared up at the shadow of oncoming doom, feeling very small indeed.
Would it really be so bad? Being dead would mean never again having to deal with Typhus’ psychopathic tendencies, which was a definite plus in Tempo’s book.
“Come on! Run!” Perfect Timing roared encouragement at Lyra and Bracken, who had finally sorted themselves out once it dawned on Bracken that he wasn’t going to be making any progress toward his leader with Blight and Tempo also blocking his path. The two green unicorns thundered onto the safety of solid ground, panting heavily despite the short distance.
The slow-motion tumble of the two intertwined beasts toward the pair of ponies still on the tree would remain forevermore etched into Perfect Timing’s mind. Slowly, oh so slowly, she watched Blight finally turn around and sprint for safety.
“TEMPO!” A startled twitch flickered through the group as they all shied away from the sheer volume of Timing’s horrified yelling. She didn’t notice. Her vision tunnelled until all she saw was that ball of silvery grey hunkered down in the middle of the tree, wide-eyed and frozen.
With her horn surrounded by a tiny nimbus of lambent yellow, Perfect Timing reached, and grabbed, and then, horn tip flaring in the briefest shine of white-hot overglow, she pulled.
On the fringes of his vision, Low Tempo watched as first Bracken and Lyra, and then a pissed-off and snarling Blight spun around and booked it toward shore. The ongoing stretched-out nature of his perception of time left trails of ghostly echoes behind them, which he contemplated with a detached sort of indifference. On the other shore, a livid Typhus stomped a hoof into the hard-packed soil and roared something Tempo couldn’t quite make out, but figured was probably a demand that he get his chitinous butt over there on the double.
He ignored whatever angry curses the changeling squad commander was spewing and turned back to the more pressing concern of impending-doom-via-aquatic-leviathans.
A distraught shout struggled its way to his ears, barely registering through the mush of noise around him.
The surge of emotion that followed was another thing altogether.
Fear. Dread. Panic. All-encompassing, pervading, ravaging, choking terror. It had to be from either Lyra or Timing, since his fellow changelings were dead to his emotional perception. All beings coloured their emotions in slightly different ways, and further process of elimination told him it was Timing whose feelings he was sensing. But the fear wasn’t for herself, or for Lyra.
It was... for him?
And then Tempo found himself suddenly enclosed in a glimmering globe of golden light, practically ripped clear of the tree trunk and deposited carefully back on terra firma next to an anxious Perfect Timing.
“Are you okay?” asked his golden-furred rescuer as she checked him over for any damage.
The stretched rubber band of time snapped back to its real speed. Barely ten seconds had elapsed between the first frightened scream and now, but to Tempo it seemed more like ten minutes. Ten harrowing, ghastly, glorious minutes. Even the disgusting, meaty crunch of the quarray eel’s neck breaking against the tree trunk before the sea serpent dragged it under to finish the job couldn’t dampen the spark of hope growing at Tempo’s core.
This could work. This... this... oh, this can change everything. What had earlier been nothing but dim, ill-defined notions were now rapidly coalescing into concrete ideas.
“I... yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” he replied at last, meaning every word, unable to fully suppress the smile that threatened to split his face. The near-unbridled joy made him look like an entirely different pony in Timing’s eyes.
“That. Was. So. Awesome.” Lyra gushed, trotting up to the river’s edge, then glancing at Timing over her shoulder with a self-satisfied grin. “Told you I saw a sea serpent earlier.”
Timing picked up the other unicorn in a ribbon of telekinetic energy and dragged her back. “Lyra, we almost all died. ‘Awesome’ is hardly the right word. Besides, I highly doubt whatever you saw in that tiny stream before was the same creature.” If, in fact, it had been anything at all. As a theatre manager/operator, she could appreciate crazy imaginations, but her current companion could take things a bit too far sometimes.
“Now–“
“–what?”
Now what indeed? The fallen tree had weathered the impact just fine, notwithstanding the large, splintered crescent missing from one side. It still looked sturdy enough, but Tempo certainly wasn’t in any hurry to step out onto it again. Nobody else seemed raring to go either, even though the danger had now passed.
Nobody, that was, except Tall Tales. He stormed across with huge, aggressive strides, looking for all the world like his false skin’s volcanic cutie mark personified.
The hopeful flame in Low Tempo’s heart guttered and quailed in the face of such fury. To anyone who didn’t know him, Typhus just looked generally angry at nothing and everything, but to Tempo, who had borne the brunt of the bigger changeling’s wrath more times than he cared to count, the target of Typhus’ rage was clear.
Low Tempo gulped and took a step back.
He was fortunate he did. Not a half second later the place he’d been standing vanished under an enormous heap of half-shredded, bloodstained fuchsia. The ground shook with the impact, and a few drops of viscous fluid that Tempo didn’t care to examine too closely spattered his face.
After tossing its murdered meal ashore where the current wouldn’t sweep it away, the sea-serpent-dragon-thing rose up out of the river. It muttered something unintelligible and set about rearranging its prey to its liking, before embedding its teeth up to the gum-line in the remains.
Lyra and Timing went slightly green in the face at the sight and sound of rending flesh. Neither was any stranger to meat-eating; they had several friends with assorted obligate carnivores as animal companions, and all the big cities had at least one or two restaurants that catered to species of a more carnivorous bent. But knowing a neighbour’s pet owl might barf up a mouse carcass now and then, or seeing a visiting griffin dignitary chowing down on something already dead was a far cry from watching one animal actively reduce another to its constituent internal organs, and then eat those too.
Low Tempo also found it unnerving, but not even the sight of pooling blood blunted his mind’s whirring as he continued to plot an escape. Beside him, Teufel’s hold on Bracken’s tail and a warning growl at Blight was the only thing keeping the twins from making a bee-line to the pile of fresh meat.
Typhus was almost across the river, now needing only to get around the scaly mess blocking his path. Let it never be said he had no grasp of the concept of vanity. Tempo could hear his irritated cursing drifting up from behind the body as he determined which approach would keep his hooves and hair the cleanest.
Spore, ever the pragmatic sort, overtook him by simply slogging straight through the gore. She would lick her hooves clean later, Tempo knew.
Evidently the serpent felt that it was being observed, for it froze in place, focusing on the gobstruck and slightly queasy equines standing before it. Bright persimmon-orange eyes roved over the group, making contact with each of them in turn.
If Lyra’s inquisitiveness was a pleasant tickle, this was like having an entire spearmint plant shoved up his nose. The tidal wave of curiosity nearly knocked Low Tempo clean off his feet. He saw the rest of his brethren stagger under the onslaught as well.
“Oh, hello!” the serpent said, voice distinctly masculine and weirdly reverberant. No doubt it – he – meant that smile to be friendly, but the intent was rather ruined by the stringy bits of dead eel festooning his teeth and tusks, not to mention the fact that two of his hands were still buried up to the wrists in the splayed ribcage of his prey. He leaned forward, bringing those toothy, bloody jaws disconcertingly near. “I am–“
“A monster!” Low Tempo shouted, seeing the opening and seizing it for all it was worth. “It’s gonna eat us! Run for your lives!”
That manic screaming was all the impetus the already high-strung and nervous group needed. Confronted by a mouth that could bite them in half, and the suddenly very real threat of being the eaten rather than the eaters, Bracken and Blight proved they had as much a sense of self-preservation as anyone as they spooked and bolted. Even fleeing for their lives in two totally different directions, they kept in perfect step with each other.
It surprised absolutely no one when Spore hared off on yet a third heading.
A monumentally furious Typhus, still navigating the eel blockade, was forced to watch his soldiers scatter, shrieking like madponies. “Get them!” he snapped at Teufel, waving at the fleeing twins. In the end, Spore was the most expendable of the lot. She could wait.
Teufel shot Low Tempo the harshest glower she could muster as she sprinted past. She knew what he was up to, but retrieval of her errant subordinates took priority. It sounded like Thorax was going to get what was coming to him anyway, if Typhus’ stream of creative profanity was anything by which to judge. She hoped he held off on the coup de grâce long enough for her to return and watch.
The sea serpent seemed more than a little put out by their behaviour. He crossed two pairs of blue-scaled arms over his torso. “I will have you know there are numerous points of distinction between sea serpents and sea monsters,” he huffed in that deep, resonant voice. The rightmost member of a third set of limbs gestured at them with... was that a spleen?... as he began enumerating each one of those points, counting them off on his many clawed fingers.
Timing and Lyra stood rooted to the spot as the world once more devolved into chaos, staring around in confusion at the entire affair.
Finally deigning to follow Spore’s lead, Typhus squelched his way through the gutted corpse toward Low Tempo and the two pony mares, with murder burning in his eyes.
“Come on! Run for it!” Low Tempo bellowed at the girls, breaking them out of their shocked reverie. He goaded them on with a whack of his tail, sending them running into the woods. “Go go go go go!”
“But what about your siblings?” Perfect Timing gasped out between breaths.
“I'll look for them,” Low Tempo lied as they left the surprised sea serpent behind. They slalomed through the underbrush in the general direction of the main road. “You just keep going!” he wheezed, beginning to fall behind. “I'll meet you in Canterlot!” Another lie. It felt somehow wrong to lie to her, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Be careful, Low Tempo!” Perfect Timing implored him before she and Lyra hurried onward.
The false unicorn stumbled to a stop, leaning heavily against a sturdy maple while he caught his breath and watched the two mares escape through the trees. How had he ever managed to outrun them before? A changeling who relied on flight half the time was simply no match for earthbound ponies in a protracted foot-race.
Good luck, you two. It might have only been for a short while, but it was nice travelling together.
Low Tempo was just able to complete that one last thought before being tackled face-first into the mossy ground. Typhus kicked him over onto his back and planted a hoof still smeared with eel guts squarely in the middle of the smaller changeling’s chest, pressing him into the dirt.
“Cute,” he growled as his mask burned away to reveal the true monster underneath. “Let's see how Queen Chrysalis likes your little prank.”