//------------------------------// // Tired of This Already // Story: Change My Life // by JasontheDemon //------------------------------// Alright, I’m just going to say this now so it’s out of the way… I hate that little monster. It wasn’t enough that she took my side of the bed and forced me to sleep at the very end, but she was a kicker on top of it. Do you have any idea what it's like to have two little hooves slam into the back of your head every few minutes when you are trying to sleep? What’s that you say? Sleep the other way? Okay, and now instead of getting bucked in the head I’m getting my butt kicked! She was just lucky the back of my head was surprisingly dense and had a resemblance to sensory nerve damage, meaning it was practically numb. It didn’t really hurt when I was kicked, but it was jolting enough to keep me up. Twilight didn’t even do anything when I told her. She thought it was one of the funniest things she had ever heard. ‘The almighty Jason, defeater of Discord (among a plethora of other villainous baddies), was defeated by a sleeping child’... it’s times like this where I wish I still had a middle finger. I yawned as we approached Celestia and Luna. I was so out of it that I didn’t hear a single word they said. Sleep was one of my few great pleasures. Gilda once even went as far as to say I would win in a napping contest with Dash… IF she didn’t hate me with every fiber of her being. The sad thing was to anyone who didn’t know us, it would be impossible to tell we were actually friends at one point. I bet it would actually look like she wanted to kill me. Yeah… we were closer to enemies than friends now, but as long as she was satisfied with using me as a training dummy, I wasn’t going to stop her. I believe it made her happy to hurt me so I was happy in return since I had already made her so upset before. The same thing went for all of them. I would put up with anything to make them feel better because that was the debt I owed. At some point while Celestia was talking I shut my eyes and well… I fell asleep. I know I fell asleep because I hit the floor like a sack of potatoes and was greeted by three concerned princesses and a snickering black bug. ‘Yeah, go ahead and laugh it up… I will get you back soon enough’ I thought as I picked myself up. “Are you alright?” Celestia asked as I rubbed my head. “Oh yeah, I’m just great… everything is a barrel full of sunshine and gumdrops.” I replied sarcastically. “Now what were we talking about again?” Twilight groaned. “We were going over how we’re going to provide our new addition to our family with shelter and how we’ll get her to adapt to normal life in Ponyville.” “Oh right… how are we doing that again?” I asked looking at her through my tired slitted eyes. “Twilight shall be taking you and the changeling into her home as she has the most room to provide you both with decent living conditions," Celestia began to explain. “You may choose to put her through public schooling or home school her, but she must be provided with some form of education either way. She will also be expected to choose one form to blend in with the other ponies so as to not create a panic. Further more she must only pick one disguise and it must be of a filly or colt of about the same age to ensure she doesn’t break any laws or give others a reason to question if she really is who she says she is. I have already heard she lacks a name so I am giving you the forms you must sign when you do decide on one.” I just yawned and nodded in response since I had no energy to argue. Celestia obviously was summarizing for my sake but I got the basic idea of what she was trying to get across. We were adopting a changeling and we were supposed to do all that would be expected to make sure things went smoothly. Twilight was just overreacting over it all, which was nothing out of the ordinary since she did have anxiety issues. That was probably the biggest difference between us. I was never nervous or worried about future events while she freaked out over the smallest negative thought that ran through her mind. Luckily my calm and carefree outlook was usually there to catch her if she started to really panic. “We should probably come up with the disguise now before you leave. We don't want to risk her being seen by ponies here in Canterlot.” Luna said looking down towards the changeling who was content with sticking by Twilight, though not TOO close. “How about it? Can you change into a filly for us? Or even a colt?” “Why would I want to change into a colt? They are usually immature dirty vermin who are looked down upon because they are so empty headed.” The changeling snapped back as if insulted. “It was only a suggestion… besides, I do believe a filly is better suited to your personality. You can take any form you wish as long as you are sure you will be happy to stay in it for a long time. You can be an earth pony or a unicorn or a…” Luna trailed off as the transformation began. It was quickly completed in a matter of moments and surprisingly enough, I thought she made a good choice in design. She chose to don a set of wings and forgo the horn, making her a pegasus. Her mane was nearly the same but was free of any holes or anything to make one assume it wasn’t ordinary teal hair. The tail she chose was neat, plain, and cut short at an angle that was somewhat similar to her mane cut. She had a coat that was some strange pale mix of lavender and blue, but it fit to look nice and normal. I made a quick note of how she had a pair of odd looking theater masks for a cutie mark. I say ‘odd’ because instead of having the eyes slanted the way they were supposed to in order to make them look like laughing and crying, they were flipped to look like they were yelling in anger and smiling evilly. The toxic green color of her eyes was still there but they were no longer slitted and menacing like Chrysalis’. All in all, she looked like a normal everyday filly… that is until she opened her mouth. “There, are you happy? Little changeling slave do good and obey big pony?” She snarled. ‘Why couldn’t I have gotten a nice assignment? Like swallowing needles? Or pouring acid in my ears?’ I thought as I looked down at the spiteful filly. Somehow Celestia and Luna were able to smile as if what she said was cute to them. Personally I thought she was seriously overstepping her boundaries, however nobody did anything to correct her. It didn’t look like any of them noticed the cutie mark either, and that's when it hit me. I knew the perfect way to get back at her. “Hey don’t you guys think it would help her if she started out as a blank flank? Applebloom and the others seemed to have a better childhood searching for theirs and it gave them a pretty strong friendship. Wouldn’t it help if she had to do the same?” I suggested, making sure to look like I was only thinking of how she could benefit from not having a cutie mark rather than solely taking away some of her bragging rights and dignity. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight all leaned in to look at the mark they missed before, but Twilight was the first to speak. “That’s a great idea! See? I knew you would enjoy this when you got into the right attitude!” ‘Yep… I’m really loving this.’ I thought as I noticed the changeling looking up at me bitterly as I wrestled down my smile to keep a straight face. Twilight proceeded to kneel down next to the scowling squirt to get her attention, “Hey sweetie do you think you can get rid of your cutie mark? We want you to have the best possible time while you’re staying with us and it would really mean a lot to us.” She responded by looking down at the tiled floor in front of her, grumbling as a wave of green flames washed over her flank, erasing her cutie mark. Somehow it didn’t feel as good as I thought it would to see her lose it, but I chalked it up to how she didn’t get the repercussions of being a blank flank yet. Yes I was technically a blank flank too, but I didn’t get harassed by it too much. Children on the other hand… they are merciless and will ridicule anything they think is the slightest bit funny or different. I once had a friend named Luke in elementary school and it seemed everyone but me thought it was hilarious to call him ‘Skywalker’. He wasn’t into Star Wars and he didn’t look anything like Luke Skywalker, but they still made fun of the faint similarity in names. Anyways back to the matter at hand, the whole ‘no-cutie-mark’ thing only stood to worsen her mood, but she remained silent as we finished up. Celestia insisted that we keep her in a harness/leash thing that was eerily similar to what I saw some parents use on their kids back on Earth. Normally I would have been against such treatment and said that it would be up to us to keep her in line without treating her like a dog, however changelings can be clever and very unpredictable when they want to be so I went along with it. The whole time we were heading to the train the tethered changeling was remarkably obedient considering what I observed of her earlier behavior. Eyes pointed toward the ground five feet away, a steady pace without straying from well-behaved Twilight's side, no complaining or disrespectful comments… the change in attitude was so great that I wondered if we were somehow tricked into taking a normal well-behaved filly instead of the little brat from before. I would have been grateful if it didn’t seem so suspicious. I asked Twilight if she thought it was cause for concern but she told me that even if we didn’t receive trouble now wasn’t proof that we wouldn’t run into problems in the future and I should be content to have a break now while it lasted. The sad thing about it was… she was right. As we entered the train everything was running smoothly but the moment we got to our seats in one of the empty train cars, the little terror went berserk… she kept demanding to get the harness off while also demanding that we stay back and leave her alone. It was a lose-lose situation. If we stayed back we were told to unstrap her and if we went to unstrap her we were told to stay back. We couldn’t get her out with magic because it was enchanted to resist magic so it was only able to be taken off manually. I never really wanted to kill a kid before, but this nonsense was getting me dangerously close to reconsidering. I was tired, it was a decent three hour trip to get to Ponyville, and there was a kid yelling at me no matter what I did to try to help. I was at my breaking point… “SHUT UP! OKAY?! JUST SHUT UP! My god I could literally not care any less if you are happy or not!” I shouted silencing her instantly. “JASON! She’s only a fill-” Twilight began before I cut her off. “Don’t give me that ‘she’s only a little girl’ crap! I am seriously not in the mood! I will not tolerate this sort of behavior around me! It’s better if she hears this now before I completely lose my mind and do something I might regret. You might be willing to take the kind and nurturing approach but that is not me and I can not deal with this.” I said pointing at the now stunned face of the nameless changeling before me. I turned around and headed to the next car over, “If you need me I’ll be taking a much needed nap away from miss ‘temper tantrum’.” Shutting the door behind me, I looked for a nice soft seat to lay on. I knew some were more worn in and plush than others from my other trips on the very same train. Finding one I was satisfied with, I fell back on it and prepared to be whisked off to dreamland. For some reason though, I couldn’t get to sleep. I flipped onto my stomach and everything but slumber still didn’t come to me. Something wasn’t right. Flipping onto my back and letting out an agitated sigh I opened my eyes… and saw two green eyes glaring back at me with burning contempt. “What are you doing?” I asked apathetically as the small head peaked over from the opposite side of the seat (just like a curious child would do). She narrowed her eyes and growled, “Watching you…” Resisting the urge to facehoof, I responded, “I can see that, but WHY are you watching me?” “You’re different… I’m trying to find out how.” “You aren’t going to leave me alone, are you?” A small shake of the head was all I got while she continued to stare at me. It was then I realized how much she reminded me of my niece. They both had a crazy attitude to the point of being hellspawn, they both were stubborn beyond belief, and they both had silver tongues. The two biggest differences between them was that my niece was only five years younger than me and she eventually settled down to the point where we were like siblings. We weren’t nice to each other all the time, but we did love each other and felt protective over the other. With how things looked right now though, I didn’t think either of those things would be possible for this changeling… especially the second one. * * * * * * You wanna know something startling? Changelings apparently don’t have to blink even when disguised. The whole trip to Ponyville I was stared at by unblinking eyes. Twilight eventually came around and talked to me about everything and apologized. She apologized to me! I told her that she had nothing to be sorry about and I was just cranky from being so tired. We hugged it out and all was forgiven… if people on earth could have been like that a little bit more often it would have been great. It always felt good to settle things by simply saying what you felt, giving a heartfelt apology, and then forgiving one another. There were cases where you wouldn’t be forgiven, but it was better than yelling to get your way. The way I saw it two wrongs didn’t make a right, however two rights didn’t made a wrong either. It’s better to right your wrongs before you bury yourself in hate in my opinion. Anyways we were finally off the train and back in good old Ponyville. Someone was confused though. “This is where you live?! This little pathetic excuse for a town?! I thought you were a princess! Where is your castle?!”, the small voice next to me squeaked. Twilight chuckled. “Just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean I have to live in a castle. As ‘little’ and ‘pathetic’ as it is, I couldn’t be happier here.” The stunned filly looked up at her in exaggerated shock and confusion as she gestured to the scene before us. “How could you possibly be happy here?!” “Well, it’s where all my friends are. They are the whole reason why I’m here AND why I’m a princess to begin with. I would be nothing without them.” “You have to be joking… you would give up the life of a true princess to be with a bunch of underlings?” “They aren’t underlings, they are equals. Every one of them is just as important as I am. When you have friends of your own you’ll understand… isn’t that right Jason?” Twilight asked, turning towards me. “Yep. Life is pretty empty without anyone to share it with. I should know since there was a time where I didn’t have any.” “Do you seriously expect me to believe any of that sugarcoated drivel? There is only one thing that really matters and it isn’t FRIENDS… it’s power! Power and the greed needed to get it! Friends are only stepping stones to get to the top of the food chain!” I looked over at Twilight with a slightly worried expression and she sent me one back. We didn’t even need to say it to know we were both thinking the same thing. The filly changeling was like a little tyrant in the making, and that was the complete opposite of what we needed her to be. What we needed was a normal filly who didn’t rant about stuff like an anime villain. I suppose we could say she’s joking around at first but that would only last so long before ponies caught on. From this instance alone I could tell I had my work cut out for me. * * * * * * After we began walking into town, Twilight suggested that I gather some of my things to bring over to the library, since I would be staying there for at least a few days. I gladly obliged, knowing that there was a strong possibility that what I had left over at her place would last me. It’s crazy how many snacks supplies you can go through in about a month. I also had to grab my MP3 player. Even though I had it magically duplicated about five times incase it broke, I never liked bringing it with me on long trips. The darn thing would break so easily that the life expectancy was next to nothing when taking on a mission. In the end I decided it would be best to leave it with Gilda. I also came across a little bonus perk of leaving it with her after the first time I came back home. Opening the front door as carefully as I could, I slipped inside to catch the griffon I split rent with rocking out to my music. She was standing upright, swinging her hips, whipping her tail back and forth, and dancing around as she swept. Her eyes were closed and she was totally oblivious to anything that was going on around her. Watching her gave me an idea of how I could mess with her. I slipped past her and made my way to the kitchen. Thankfully she had went shopping recently and the fridge had a decent stock of soda. I took one and brought it back into the living room. I stood by a wall and watched Gilda go from dancing to a beat that only she could hear, to using the broom as a fake guitar and mimic a solo. Once the song was done she paused the MP3 player and began to walk towards the kitchen with sweat rolling down her face. “Thirsty?” I suggested, holding the soda out for her as she neared me. She grabbed it and popped it open. “Yeah, thanks dude.” After pouring a bit in her mouth, her eyes snapped open and she did one of the best spit-takes I had ever seen. I smirked and offered her the second thing I brought from the kitchen... “Towel?”