The Greatest Show of Kindness
Chapter Fifteen: Questions
“Hey!” a slightly gruff, low voice said. “Wake up!”
The voice belonged to a dark blue Pegasus stallion, whose mane and tail were blood-red, with a cutie mark that depicted the talking mouth of a pony, of which was speaking at a jailed criminal.
“Nggg…” Bumble mumbled, trying to roll over to his side.
He found that he couldn’t, and became alert immediately. His ears heightened while he tried to hear where he was.
“M-Mommy?” he asked, shivering. The room around him had a stony fragrance, which is to say none at all, and a cold mist surrounded his body. “It’s really cold right now…”
“You awake?” the voice said. It was slightly less forceful than it was at first.
“…Mommy?” Bumble responded.
“…No, I’m-“ the pony started.
“Mommy!” Bumble shouted, trembling with sobs. The guard looked confusedly.
“I’m not your mother!”
“Where’s my mommy!?”
“I don’t know! Be quiet!”
As the guard yelled at him, Bumble’s tears dripped from his face, down onto a freezing, uninviting table that laid below him. The pool spread underneath his chin, wetting his chitin. He clenched his fangs as tightly as he could.
The guard looked down at the crying changeling in pity. His face changed from anger to sadness as he slightly slumped in the chair.
“Hey… stop crying…”
“H-Huh?”
“Stop crying, please. Just… stop.”
“Wh-What do you c-care? I-I’m a changeling, and y-you hate m-me…”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You d-don’t?”
“No. I may not like you, but I’m not cruel. Besides, hatred is for the weak, and I’m not weak. You’re young, too, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…”
“I couldn’t hate a child. It goes against everything Equestria was made for, which is love and tolerance. But anyway, I’m going to ask you some questions. If you answer them and give me the information I want, you can go home to your ‘mommy.’ Okay?”
“O-Okay.”
“Are you cold? You’re shivering.”
“A little bit…”
“Do you want a blanket?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay.”
The guard stood up from a chair he was sitting in and went out of the room. The granite door opened with a deceptively loud creak as he disappeared. A minute later, he came back with a wool blanket. He unfolded it, laying it over Bumble’s form. Bumble relaxed in his spot and rested his head on the table.
“Better?”
“Yeah. Thank you very much, sir.
“All right. The weather’s nice today, isn’t it?”
“I can’t see, sir.”
“What do you mean you can’t see?”
“I’m blind, sir. I can’t see anything, even if my eyes are open.”
“That’s not good at all. Why are you blind?”
“Well, the last thing I remember before I was blind was my mama picking me up and us flying away from Canterlot. I had my head tucked into her belly, so I wasn’t seeing anything. I think it was a few minutes later that I felt my back slamming against something hard. I saw red and green and yellow, and I woke up blind.”
“Oh. Did you hit your head?”
“No, I don’t think so. I could have.”
“Okay. What did you do after that?”
“My mama picked me up and she brought us both back to the hive-”
“Before you go any further, what is the hive? Where is it? What does it look like?”
“The hive is the place where all changelings live. It’s all black, like… that one rock that the fire mountains make.”
“Fire mountains?”
“Yeah, you know. The mountains that shoot out ash and fire.”
“You mean a ‘volcano?’”
“Uh, I guess? I’ve never heard that word before.”
“No? We’ve sidetracked too much. Where was I?”
“Uh…”
“Oh, yes. Where is the ‘hive?’”
“I don’t know what the area is called. I know that it’s orange, but that’s all that I could see from inside the hive. We were never allowed to leave.”
“Didn’t you see it when you were flying out?”
“No. There were too many changelings to see through.”
“Oh. Do you know if it was sandy? Rocky?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Hmm…”
“What else is the ‘hive’ like?”
“Well, it has three different areas. The smallest is the markets area, which is at the west. The castle district is the next biggest, and the biggest is the housing area. How else can I say what it looks like?”
“Well, what does the castle look like?”
“It looks a lot like what the castle in Canterlot looks like, on the outside. I don’t know what it looks like on the inside.”
“Hmm… I assume that your queen lives inside.”
“Her, and the princess.”
“You have a princess?”
“Yeah. Her name’s ‘Chryssy.’”
“How’s she like?”
“She’s really nice, but she can be stubborn, too.”
“Did you know her personally?”
“Yeah. She would sneak out of her castle to come to my home. I mean, all we’d ever really do was talk, but it was company. I had no real friends except for her.”
“That’s nice of her. What kind of things would you talk about?”
“Whatever was on her mind, really. If she was happy, she’d just go on and on about whatever she was happy about, or if she was sad or angry, she’d tell me why she was angry.”
“Hm… would you ever talk about her home life?”
“She didn’t like to talk about her life in the castle. When I ask her about it, she would always say that her mother was always doing stuff that she didn’t agree with.”
“Like what?”
“She said that Queen Chrysalis was always saying things about how to ‘conquer and cease.’ Whatever that means.”
“Did she ever say any of the plans?”
“No. Not with me. That’s treason in the hive.”
“Hm… Okay.”
The guard took a checklist and wrote the information that he had heard until this point down, which wasn’t much. All that he had down for location was that the area surrounding the hive was “orange,” and that the hive was large and dark, made out of an obsidian-looking rock. He wrote down that he knew nothing of the plans that Chrysalis had in store, and that there was a princess.
"So, you don't know anything about where the hive is or your queen's plans?"
"No."
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
He stood up and walked out of the room. He turned left and went down a long hallway, with rooms lining both sides. He walked all the way down through a door on the very end, which through led to a staircase that he trotted up. At the top, he entered a room where a white stallion with a light-blue mane and tail was. He was overlooking the town, scouting for the changelings he felt such a strong loathing towards.
“Captain Shining Armor, sir!” he addressed, putting a hoof to his head.
“Yes, Private Word Twister?” he answered, turning around.
“This is the report of the changeling I just interrogated,” he informed, offering the clipboard over. Shining Armor grabbed it in his magical grasp,
“Looks like little to me. We’ve already confirmed that it’s in the badlands, and that none of the changelings are going to tell us about Chrysalis’ plans. It is new information to me that the hive is made out of some black material, though. I also didn't know that they had a princess. Still, there isn’t enough information here to be able to let it go yet, so send it on the next chariot to Canterlot,” he ordered. Word Twister looked hesitantly for a moment.
“…It’s a child, sir,” he informed.
“The changeling? That doesn’t matter. It could still have valuable information that it’s hiding from us. Send it off, Private.”
“But-“
“Private, Do not argue with me about this. Send it off.”
Word Twister looked down in guilt for a moment before glumly turning around and walking back to the interrogation room.
"Well, since you didn't supply enough information, we're having to ship you off to Canterlot," he informed, gaining a face of shock from Bumble. "Now, I've seen what they do to changelings in Canterlot, so I have some advice: Listen to what they say. Do not argue with them and you'll have an easier time," he whispered.
"...Okay. Thanks, I guess."
Within the hour, Bumble had been loaded onto an armored chariot, off to Canterlot.