The rain soaked me as I charged recklessly through the woods after the changelings. My hood had been pulled off by a twig almost as soon as I'd entered the forest, but I couldn't be bothered to pull it back up. It was only restricting my vision anyway.
The lightning and thunder continued to flash and boom with increasing intensity as the storm grew worse. In the back of my mind, I hoped they were alright, or had landed to get away from the lightning. In the front of my mind though, I was still busy screaming my questions so load that I could barely register the pain of running headlong through thickets while dodging trees. Forefront among these questions being simply, what did they do?
They didn't come from the direction of Canterlot, but the whole Equestrian military was hard on their asses! Did they attack a different city? Suddenly the forest came alive around me, breaking me from my mental gridlock as dozens of birds, squirrels, and other small animals ran and flew past me in the opposite direction. They must have landed, I thought, continuing my charge as the animals flowed around me. I couldn't think of any other reason why animals would abandon their hiding places during a storm, other than some very large disturbance... Like a thousand changelings bursting in through the canopy.
Soon after, my run was brought to a startled halt when I heard the howl of several timber wolves. Skidding to a stop and pressing myself against a tree in some instinctive effort to hide, I peered around it, trying to see them. Spotting a group of four a ways off, I was relieved that none of them were even looking in my direction. They were all focused on something on the ground in between them. Looks like they got some prey, I thought, seeing them bring their heads down to begin tearing at the black form.
That observation took a second to properly register.
No... On second glance, the form in the middle of them was a little too black to just be from the low light. Without thinking, I jumped out from behind the tree and charged the pack. "Get off him!" I shouted, blasting one of the wolves with my horn and scattering it's bits across the forest floor.
The remaining three wolves immediately whipped around to face me, growling and lowering themselves into a ready stance as the one I blasted started to reform behind them.
Shit, I forgot about that. Thankfully, my surprise attack seemed to have made them more cautious, and they looked to be waiting for their friend to finish reforming before attacking. This gave me some thinking time. ...I could use an illusion, but... I don't know if they would follow it or just go back to their easy meal.
Speaking of the changeling, I spared it a quick glance. I didn't know how to tell genders in their natural form, but it appeared to be playing dead to keep attention off of it. Looking back to the wolves, I remembered an idea I'd had about their magic, but that I never got around to testing.
No time like the present, I thought, seeing the sulfurous glow of the fourth wolf's eyes coming back to life. As soon as it gave a growl, they spread out to attack from multiple angles at once, just as I started to charge up my horn for my ever trusty transfiguration spell. All four of them become enveloped in the red glow of my magic, and with four simultaneous flashes, the glow disappeared.
When seemingly nothing happened, the wolves looked at each other in an oddly intelligent display of confusion before refocusing on me. The first one to move was the one I'd attacked earlier, pumping all four of its legs for a mighty pounce... or at least... it tried to.
With a high pitched howl of either surprise, or pain, all four of it's legs practically disintegrated from the sudden force of the attempted jump, springing its body forward by only a few short feet before crashing to the ground with a wet crunch, snapping off the front half of it's muzzle when it smacked into the ground. Enraged by their comrades injury, the other three charged all at once. I wasn't worried though. I was already grinning.
All of their legs broke apart from underneath them, sending them all tumbling to the ground, unable to move.
Wood's strength comes from it's cellulose, which is just a polymer of glucose. By breaking down all of the cellulose in their bodies, they're essentially nothing but rotten logs now. I waited and watched for several seconds as they writhed helplessly on the ground, but there was no sign that they were trying to reform. Theory tested, I thought, running past their downed forms. All living creatures, with few exceptions, have a lifespan. When wood dies, bacteria begins to break down the cellulose. By breaking down their cellulose artificially, I tricked their magic into thinking they were all dead, instead of just broken apart. "Hey, you alright?" I asked, stopping at the changelings side.
No answer.
"Hello?"
Still no answer, so I started inspecting it's injuries, thinking it was just unconscious. There were several tears and brakes in the chitin from where the wolves were biting it, but nothing too-
"Oh," I said, too shocked to think of anything else. After flipping it onto it's back, I saw a large blackened hole in it's chest that, on further inspection, went all the way through to it's back. "That explains why I didn't hear any yelling..." It must have gotten hit by lighting while they were still flying above the trees. Proof that, even in Equestria, real lighting is far more powerful than anything the pagasi can make.
Turning back to the timber wolves, still laying immobile on the ground, I could hear them whining now that I cared enough to listen. Deciding to put them out of their misery, I shot a blast at each, turning them into four piles of mulch before continuing after the rest of the changelings.
It was three hours later when the rain and lightning stopped and the clouds began to fade, bringing some light back into the forest. I had only come across a few search parties in that time though, which I thought was odd. It was possible that they pulled back to wait out the storm, so that they could search from the sky. Although, at this point, I wasn't even sure that the changelings were still in the forest at all.
It hadn't taken me long to find the point where they had entered the forest. The area was littered with debris and broken branches, but beyond that, I could find no indication of where they went. I spent so long scouring the area for tracks that the search teams found me while I was distracted. The first thing they did after yelling halt was shoot me with some spell. It didn't seem to do anything, but after some prodding they told me it was a disillusionment spell. I wanted to ask why they thought a spell designed to cancel illusions would remove a changelings transformation, as that was something totally different, but that would have raised the question of why I know so much about changelings... so I just accepted the answer and let them go about their search while I left.
That was more than an hour ago, and I hadn't encountered any more search teams since then. I myself had already been on the verge of giving up for a while now. It was well past lunch time, and the scent coming off of the paraspider webs in this part of the forest wasn't doing anything to strengthen my resolve as I continued to plod along in vain.
"Help!"
I went stiff and perked my ears up... I know I heard something, I thought after several silent seconds.
"-elp! Please!"
It was much clearer now that I was actively listening for it. Turning towards the voice I started running, as it sounded far away.
"-n anypony hear me!" the voice cried out, weakly. It sounded like they were just barely conscious. "No!" The voice, once weak, was now filled with panic. "Get away! No-"
"Dammit!" I yelled to myself, running faster as the voice was abruptly cut off. I was in spider country now, webs hanging from almost every tree. I could hear the paraspiders, hidden among the branches, chittering in anticipation at my passing. I looked at every web I passed as I headed in what I hoped was still the right direction.
Thankfully it was, and I soon found what I was looking for. Suspended in a tree, half wrapped in silk, was a light green pagasus stallion, his legs and wings bound, and a spider about one-third his size that had just started crawling back up into the branches.
"No you don't!" I yelled, shooting the wretched little thing with a stun spell, causing it to fall to the ground, legs curled up in the curious way that spider legs do. grabbing it's immobile form with my telekinesis, I hurled it off into the unknown before focusing on the pony. Using my magic I pulled him down and set him on the ground, then broke down the silk with transfiguration, whereupon it to fall apart into dust. As soon as his limbs were freed he started jerking around, weakly but spasmodically. "Easy there, I got you," I started, trying to calm him down.
"Wha- I... can't- where..? I-" He tried to speak, eyes obviously struggling to stay open.
"You've been bitten. I'm gunna have to take you back to my place, I've got anti-venom there," I said, looking at the still bleeding holes in his neck.
"No! ...Can't, I... need to... I... Awake! ...Sta... stay..." He struggled before trailing off as the venom overcame him and his eyes closed.
"Crap, I've gotta hURRY!" I startled as his form was engulfed in green flames. "Christ, that startled me," I said aloud. I was expecting it and it still caught me off guard. "Anyway..." Levitating him onto my back, I quickly made my way back home. The venom of a paraspider wasn't quite strong enough to deal with things as large as a pony or changeling, but from the holes I'd seen, it looked like he was bitten multiple times. Now that it had reached the point of making him fall unconscious, he probably only had an hour or two before his lungs and heart stopped working.
I administered the anti-venom immediately after flopping him onto my bed, as well as dabbing some directly into the holes left by the bites.
Hopefully he won't have any kind of adverse reaction to it, I thought pessimistically. I'm not exactly an expert on changeling biology... but he's my only link to finding out what's going on, and he will die without treatment...
I kept a close eye on the changeling for a little while after putting the anti-venom away. I didn't know how to check his pulse through the chitin, so his breathing was the only indicator I had of his vitals. He was still breathing after several minutes, so I decided to leave him alone to recover. If the anti-venom was going to kill him, something would have happened by now.
It's time to feed the parasprites anyway, I thought, walking out of my simple, barren bedroom. There was no door to close for him... There were actually no doors anywhere in my home, other than at the entrance. I had never bothered, or really felt the need, to make any. I made a mental note to grab some wood after feeding the parasprites. With the raw materials at hoof, it wouldn't take much magical effort to construct a door... and a cowbell to hang over it, so I know when he's woken up. This whole place looks rather dingy, now that I think about it... I thought, walking down the hall from my room. The prospect of having an aware visitor making me a little self-conscious about what he would think of my home.
When I first made my original bolt hole, it was the same as the one I'd made in Canterlot. Just a rubber-lined hole in the ground... and that was fine as a temporary place. But as my stay became more and more extended, the constant smell of rubber was starting to get to me. I spent a considerable amount of time reconstructing it all out of cement in order to remove the smell, and allow for deeper rooms as I expanded. I wasn't an architect though, and I didn't know much about construction beyond 'triangles are strong', and that arched ceilings would displace the stress onto the walls. As a result, I made sure to keep it small, having only three rooms as of now. A main area of about five by three meters with two solid concrete support beams along the middle, serving as entryway and kitchen. Then my room and my 'lab', as it were, each connected to the main area on opposite sides by a short tunnel/hallway. The bedroom was only big enough for the bed inside it with a little bit of standing space between it and the door, and the lab was probably only three by two meters large. It didn't need to be all that big, considering there was no equipment.
But the dingiest thing about it was that it was very poorly lit with the exception of the lab. I mainly used my horn to see by through the darkness, and only installed a few dim, battery powered light bulbs to alleviate the creepy feeling of walking through darkened rooms at night. The lab was the brightest room, at least when I was running experiments, due to each parasprite case having a light inside it in order to facilitate more accurate observations during testing. Unfortunately, I still hadn't learned any crystal enchanting spells, or else the lights would have been magically powered... Instead I had to make quite a few batteries for myself, and regenerate them on a regular basis by magically reverting the reaction inside them.
I went over to the icebox and pulled out a bag filled with some wild berries I'd found. They tasted absolutely awful to me, but the parasprites don't seem to mind them. Taking the bag into the lab area, I flicked the switch to turn on all the lights, and began the process of dropping half a dozen berries each through the mail-slot style openings at the top of each case. Nearly the instant that the first of the berries were revealed, the sluggish, near dead bugs visibly regained a bit of life to their movements, almost like the mere smell of food was giving them sustenance.
It was always like this when I fed them. Even when they weren't half dead from starvation, food was the only thing that parasprites really cared about. Even in the wild, they're only at their happiest when they're eating.
They quickly scarfed down the berries in one or two mouthfuls a piece, immediately regaining their full liveliness as they started buzzing excitedly around inside their cases. This would normally be the time at which I would perform my illusion experiments, as they were at their peak condition and, theoretically, in full possession of their mental faculties... However, I had more pressing matters to worry about today, what with the whole changeling situation and all.
With the berries gone, I grabbed the bucket I always used to water them with. Using a little eye-dropper, I squirted a small amount of water into each cell through the breathing holes on the front, making little puddles for them to drink out of.
Now that they were fed and watered, I continued to watch them for a few minutes, examining their behavior. It was an ongoing observation to see if being repeatedly brought to the brink of starvation and back was having any adverse effects on their overall health. Grabbing my clipboard with the tracking list on it, I wrote in the date and started my comment. There still doesn't seem to be anything different about their-
My thought was halted as I heard something... it was feint, but sounded almost like...
Clip-clop...
Hooves..? He can't be awake already! Quickly dropping the clipboard and moving back to the doorway, I peered down the hall, and could just barely make out a black form moving towards me. For fuck sake, it's only been a few minutes! Do all changelings recover this quickly? "Hey!" I called, "you're awake. Glad to see you're alright."
Clip-clop...
He was moving very slowly, and he didn't respond. It looked like his head was down, looking at the floor maybe?
"Um... Are you alright? You're movin' kinda slow, are you sure you should be walking right now?" Still nothing, though as he moved closer I could see that he wasn't just looking down, but his head was practically hanging from his shoulders. "Well... you're probably wondering why a pony would save you, but it's alright. My name's Cotton. We probably never met, but I'm a friend. You can trust me." He still didn't respond as he kept up his slow approach. Soon he was right in front of me... but he still kept walking. I moved to the side as he plodded slowly by me. "Uh... Hello?" I lowered my head to get a better look at his face now that he was in the brighter light, and found his eyes closed. Is he... sleep walking?
He continued forward towards the cases lined up in the wall, and filled with the freshly fed parasprites. His steady pace was unwavering right up to the point where his head smacked into the glass with a hard clonk. He fell over onto his side, startling himself awake, and seemingly unaware that his horn had just put a large scratch across the front of one of my observation cells.
"Gah! What, huh..?" He exclaimed, then mumbled as he truly rejoined the waking world and took in his new environment. "Where..." I heard him whisper as he stared at the wall of observation cells, having not yet noticed me.
"*Ahem*" I cleared my throat to get his attention. Immediately whipping around while jumping to his hooves, he tried to make some more distance between us, only to bump into the wall.
"Who are you! Where did you take me!" He shouted, leaning into an offensive stance with his horn leveled at me.
"You can calm down, your safe here. I'm a friend, and this is my home. We're still in the forest," I told him in a calm and, hopefully, soothing voice.
"Friend," he scoffed. "We don't have friends. Why did you bring me here?" he asked, narrowing his featureless blue eyes, horn still leveled.
"Because, like I said, I am a friend to the changelings. We probably never met, but my name's Cotton Hill," I introduced, placing a hoof non-threateningly on my chest. "I traveled with your caravan for a little while in Minotauria."
"That was you?" He asked. "So you're the one..."
That didn't seem to win him over like I thought it would, I thought as his eyes narrowed further.
"...This is all your fault!" He shouted as he charged, intent on impaling me with his horn while I turned and hightailed it down the hallway.
"What the hell Asshole!" I shouted, running around in circles in the main area in order to keep at least one of the two support columns between me and him. "I just saved you life!"
"You destroyed our lives! We lost everything because of you!" He yelled, taking to the air in the limited head-space and nearly tackling me with his increased speed. I only managed to dodge him because I was already in mid turn around a column.
"Fuck off! I didn't do anything to you!"
"Stop moving!" He shouted, obviously frustrated by our little game of tag.
"Stop chasing me!" I replied, only to jerk to a halt the very next moment, as my whole body was enveloped in a green aura. "Crap." I started putting my own horn to use fighting his grip on me, but it was clear the he was putting everything he had into holding me still.
"No more... running," he said, a great deal of strain clearly in his voice. I turned my eyes towards him, and the effort was visible all over his body. He looked almost like a mime fighting an invisible wind, as he seemingly fought for every step.
He must still be recovering internally from the spider venom. He won't last much longer, I thought, putting even more effort into breaking his hold... And sure enough, I could feel him getting weaker with every step. "Why are you doing this?"
"I... won't... let you... err! Escape!" He replied, unhelpfully.
"Sure you won't... But," I started, letting him weaken himself for a few more seconds. "...I still want my answers," I stated, finally breaking his hold, the magical feedback knocking the wind out of him as he collapsed to the ground. I quickly melded the concrete floor around him into several rings, locking him onto the ground through the holes in his legs, and another one over his neck. "Alrighty now," I taunted in a cheerful voice. "There are a few things I'd like to have cleared up here," I began, slowly circling his panting form.
He wasn't struggling to get up, just laying there, breathing heavily.
"...Now, what... in the absolute FUCK! Just happened out there, and how did you get it into your head that it was my fault?" I shouted, standing out of his field of view, in case he tried attacking me with some magic beam or other.
"..." He didn't answer, although his breathing had calmed down.
"...Hmph... You said that 'this' was all my fault... What did you mean by that? How much has happened in the last weeks for the Guard to be after you in force? ...I'm getting real sick of your shit," I said after a few seconds of silence. Deciding to take the chance, I walked around to look him in the eyes... only to find him sleeping again. "...Are you serious right now? ...Christ's sake..." Going back into the lab, I grabbed the parasprites water bucket... "Wake up!" I yelled, dumping the water onto his head.
"Gahh! Ahh-!" His screaming and thrashing were cut off by a coughing fit as he inhaled some water. Eventually the coughing ended, leaving him breathing roughly into the concrete, occasionally groaning, likely from discomfort.
"...Now that you're awake again..." I started, "What is going on, and why did you attack me for it?" I asked, standing just inside his field of vision, where I could easily dodge if necessary.
Instead of answering, he continued to groan, interrupted by the occasional dry heave, like he was going to throw up.
"Grr... the hell's wrong with you? You were just fine a minute ago when you wanted to kill me!"
"It... Hurts- Urk! ...So... hungry- Urk!" He tried to say, inter cut with more retching.
"How can you start dying of starvation from one minute to the next?" I asked skeptically.
"Magic... Used... too much..."
Their magic is tied in that closely with their feeding? I internally questioned. I knew from the show and comics that the more they fed the more powerful their magic would get, but I never considered it working in the opposite direction. "Hmm... I could try to help you with that... but you need to answer my questions first."
"Please, I- Urk! ...Don't want... to die..."
"Than you better cooperate. First question, why were you being chased by the royal guard- actually, why did you even reveal yourselves?"
"The Queen... ordered... attac- Urk! Canterlot... failed..." He responded, his voice becoming increasingly weak in between the retching fits.
"Why did she order an attack?"
"...Don't know... never... told..."
"What do you mean 'you were never told'! You were told to attack Canterlot, you had to have had more specific orders!"
"...Capture... the cit- Urk!" He was interrupted by a particularly long retching fit, his limbs straining against the rings as he tried to curl up on himself. "Please!" he choked out after a few minutes, eyes watering.
"Alright, one more question before I can help you. Do changelings only feed on love, or will any emotion do? Because there's no love to be found out here."
"Pos- Urk! -Positive!" he pleaded.
"Okay," I said, melding the concrete rings back into the floor. "I don't know how you feed, exactly," I said, opening the front doors before walking back towards the lab, "...but get ready to eat some happiness." Here goes weeks of research... but I can catch more later I guess... I thought before opening all of the cells, the parasprites immediately racing out towards freedom, and, more importantly, flying right over the changelings head on the way out.
When I went back into the main room, he was still on the floor. He was no longer spasming, and he was facing the door, the light from the outside now pouring in.
"Feel any better?" I asked.
"...I'll live," he replied after a long pause, his tone depressed.
"...That's the second time I've saved your life today. Even after you tried to kill me... Aren't I generous?" I said, walking up behind him. "...I'd say you own me the rest of my answers now."
"...What's one life over all the others you've condemned?" He said, shakily rising to his hooves.
"This is the last time I'm going to ask this question, understand? Why are you blaming me for your actions?"
"Because you're the reason all of this happened..." He answered, finally turning to face me. "So many of us believed in her promise... The promise that you were different... you lifted all of our hopes... and then you betrayed us!" He shouted, fresh tears welling in his eyes as he took a hostile step forwards. "Just like the Queen knew you would! Just like they always-!"
"SHUT UP!" I yelled, shoving him back onto the ground, his body too weak to put up much resistance. "I betrayed no one!" I shouted at his downed form. "I waited for you! For weeks I waited, and no one ever came!"
"Liar!" He yelled back, trying to get up again. "Scouts were sent to survey the town, and they couldn't find any evidence that you had ever lived there! Just because I can't feel them, doesn't make your lies any less obvious!"
"Argh!" I growled, angrily spinning around towards the back of the room. "If I'm lying," I said, using magic to grab the laminated page hanging on the back wall. "...Than what the fuck do you call this!" I said, throwing the document at him, slapping his face before floating to the ground.
"What is this supposed to be?" he asked, as if some random piece of paper could possibly mean anything.
"That," I started, pointing at it with an emphasizing hoof, "is the title to three-hundred acres of undeveloped land in western Equestria! That! Is the home I promised Emulate! That! Is the home your paranoia just threw away!"
"What..?" He questioned, bending down to read the paper. "...But then... why?"
"That was my mistake," I said, assuming he was asking about the lack of evidence of me living in Ponyville. "I never told Emulate that I lived in Ponyville, when I asked her to meet me there. I've actually never lived in the town itself, just in a tent on the outskirts... If your scouts had just asked for me by name, to anypony, they would've been pointed straight to me... That's what I was hoping she'd do when she got here, but... I should have guessed that Emulate wouldn't have been allowed to come on her own."
He had picked up the paper while I was talking, and he didn't say anything in reply as he sat there. Holding the page between his forehooves, he just stared at it... probably still absorbing the facts around what he had just learned.
I let him take his time for this.
After what must have been a few minutes, he started to wobble, his eyes fluttering.
"...Your not going to feint, are you?" I asked sarcastically. It certainly looked like that's what he was about to do.
"I'm feeling," he started, carefully returning the page to the floor while bringing one hoof to his head, "...light headed. Those bugs didn't give me very much. I need to eat something with substance."
"Will solid food work? Your caravan had an awful lot of real food to be carrying around just for looks."
"No," He replied with a shake of his head. "The food was for the children. We need it to grow, but it doesn't sustain us."
"I could take you into town?" I uncertainly asked, moving next to the stairs under the door. "Even after the recent scare, I'm sure there's plenty of good feelings to feed on... but... we need to find where the others went before we lose them completely."
"They're still in the forest," He stated, "but... There will be too many soldiers in the town. They might detect me..." he said, downcast with his head hung low. He obviously wanted to go, but felt he couldn't risk it.
"Hmm... Actually, they might not."
"What do you mean?" He asked, looking at me.
"I don't think they know how changeling magic works yet. Earlier today in the forest, a group of guards found me, and they hit me with a disillusionment spell to see if I was a changeling. That wouldn't work on your transformations though, would it? Since it's not just an illusion?"
"No... It wouldn't," He said, getting up and walking outside. I followed him, closing the doors behind us. He wasn't walking, like I thought he would be, when I turned around to follow him.
"...Having second thoughts?" I asked, seeing him simply staring off into the trees around us.
"...I don't know how to get there..." He answered, turning to me.
"Oh. Just follow me then, I guess."
"...So, how do you know the others are still in the forest?" I asked after a few minutes of silently walking next to each other.
"I can feel them. Distantly," he answered, simply. He had transformed back into the pegasus form he was using when I found him in the webs. He remained somewhat distant, even after proving that I had kept my word to them. I could understand though... we didn't really have a good first meeting, all told.
"Feel them? like telepathy?" Despite his distance, he did remain obliging enough to answer all of my questions as I asked them.
"Not really. To us changelings, sensing emotions is just like seeing, or hearing. We can feel each other much more strongly than any other species, although that sense still has a range. But, because they're all gathered together, I can feel them from an even greater distance. I know they can't be more than a few kilometers away, although I may lose sight of them before we make it to Ponyville."
"I see..." I hesitated for a minute or two before fielding my next question. "...I'd like to know, as much as possible... what happened since I left? Why did you end up revealing yourselves?"
"*Sigh*" He let out a long sigh, not wanting to talk about it.
"Well?" I reiterated, not letting it go. "I feel I should know, if I'm going to be helping you any more."
"..." He remained silent for a long time while we kept walking. "...When she came back from the train station... and told the Queen what happened... she was nearly executed."
"What!" I exclaimed, shocked at the information.
"Yes. Secrecy is what keeps our species alive," he started. "Letting you go free, knowing what you did... that was high treason. Not just against the Queen, but against our entire race." The emotion in his voice indicated that he truly believed that way as well. "Her belief in you was the only thing that saved her. It rang so deep and strong within her, it managed to sway even the Queens feelings. The scouts were sent ahead then..." He seemed hesitant to continue after that.
"...What happened... when you didn't find me?"
"...Emulate's rations were cut severely, and she was placed under escort, never to leave the boundaries of the caravan again... Never to feed again."
"What?!" I yelled, stopping in my tracks, "but you said her rations were just cut! That sounds like she's being starved to death!"
"Hmm? Oh, you misunderstand," he replied, shaking his head. "To never feed, is not the same as starving. We share our energy between each other, and sometimes store it inside specially tuned crystals. Feeding, as we call it, is the act of draining love from another species... gathering that energy inside of yourself to be brought back to the swarm. Feeding, and bringing energy back to be redistributed, is one of the highest callings in our society. You would not understand, but being forbidden to do so ever again is... terrible," he finished, giving a visible shudder. "It makes you... worthless... expendable..."
"I... see," I said, resuming the walk. "It sounds... like not all changelings go out and feed than? Why is that? Wouldn't that be more efficient?"
"Yes, but we cannot leave our camp, or our young, undefended. We have never had the luxury of letting our guard down."
"Oh..." I uttered, not wanting to bring up the story about the zebra tribe. "Wait, then why don't you just go to the other changelings? You can get more energy from them, and it'll save us all of this walking."
"Because, after everything we've been through, we need as much energy as we can get. If I can just bring something back with me... *sigh*. It'll be better than just taking more of our limited resources for nothing... It's the least I can do in this situation."
"That's very... noble of you," I said, truly meaning it. A pretty selfless action. "...Anyway, back to the matter at hoof, what led to the attack on Canterlot?"
"While the scouts were searching for you, they determined that there were no traps or potential ambushes set up in waiting for us, so the Queen assumed that you had simply lied, and had run away to parts unknown. With that, we resumed our normal travels, entering the country through the mountain pass along the train tracks. However, the Queen was still cautious. Ponyville may not have been trapped, but that didn't mean you couldn't have gone to the capitol and warned the princesses about our coming. Another team of scouts was sent to the capitol to find out for certain... That's when the report came back..." He said, pausing, like he was reliving the memory of the event.
"What was this report about?"
"It was something... inconceivable... miraculous..." he whispered, eyes half lidded, like he was still in the past. "...They spoke of a pony, an alicorn, but not one of the two we knew about. They said they witnessed her, on multiple occasions, using a spell that could convert anger and hatred... into love!"
"Yeah, that would be princess Cadence. She can do that, apparently."
"It was unheard of! Don't you see the implications!" He shouted, rounding on me, bringing us face to face as the walk was halted again. "If only we could harness that power, learn how to use it for ourselves! We would never again have to worry about food! Hate and fear of our kind is everywhere! If we could turn even a portion of that poison into food... we would never be able to drain it all!"
"Okay, I think I get it now," I said, walking again to get him out of my face. "So what did you do about it? I don't imagine you asked her to teach you?"
"No. The Queen ordered her immediate capture."
"You did what..?"
"However, we had to replace her, or else her absence would be noted... but... a normal changeling would not poses the kind of magical power required to impersonate an alicorn convincingly."
"No wonder they were chasing you, even after you lost..."
"The Queen and her personal guards went to Canterlot, replacing the princess, and a small contingent of royal guards. We then brought the ponies back to the camp where they were restrained."
"I assume then, that their cover was blown at some point? Is that why she called in the attack?"
"N-no..." he stammered. "...We... do not know why she gave the order."
"What? You mean you honestly don't know?"
"Everything was going according to plan," he said, head and ears down. "...The Queen and her guards remained unnoticed for more than a week while we tried to replicate the princesses power... But then," raising his head back up, "one of the guards returned with orders to move the camp. We were to pack up the caravan, and relocate into a forest called the 'White Tail Woods', where it would be hidden from potential attacks. Once finished, every able bodied changeling was to assemble in hiding at the base of Canterlot Mountain, minus those necessary to watch after the children and keep the princess contained. At the Queen's signal, we struck, disabling every pony we could find while fighting the royal guards in the streets."
"So how did you lose?" I asked, stopping at the edge of the tree line. "You said before that this attack failed."
"Yes," he said, staring at the town ahead. "...I didn't know the full picture from where I was in the streets, but it seemed to be going well. We had both surprise and numbers on our side... Then, seemingly out of nowhere, we were ordered to retreat by the Queens personal guards. It wasn't until we arrived back at the camp that we learned the Queen had been engaged in one on one battle with Celestia... and lost."
"...And then the army came looking for Cadence?"
"We stayed in the forest for another day, trying to wake her up... Hoping that she would wake up... That she would tell us why. Even her guards said that they were left in the dark to the Queens thoughts. The only clue they had was that, as the days of their cover went on, the Queen exhibited an ever increasing feeling of confidence and... power."
"Power?" She must have been feeding off of Shining.
"That's all they knew... The soldiers found our camp while she was still unconscious. We tried to fight, but we were weak from the previous fighting, and hadn't gotten the chance to regain our energy... We were losing, so we ran. We were forced to leave everything behind in order to escape."
"And that's when I saw you flying over Ponyville..." I stated, taking a moment to fully absorb the information. "...Well, you better go now," I said, seeing his front legs start to shake. "...Get something to eat before you pass out on me."
"Gladly," he said, walking forward several step before stopping. "You're not coming?"
"No. You'll be fine if somepony checks you for an illusion, but my real face isn't really... welcome... in this town anymore. If I went with you, it would only draw unwanted attention to us both. I'll wait for you here. Don't be long."
With a nod, he continued on, soon leaving my sight.
None of that sounded like it was my fault to me. I'll need to address this directly if too many changelings share that viewpoint, I thought, sitting against a tree and waiting for him to return. Oh, I never asked what his name was... oh well. I can ask later, but... this has thrown a real monkey wrench into things... I guess I bought that land for nothing, now.