//------------------------------//
// Cabbage on the Road 
// Story: A Pony's Heart 
// by CTVulpin 
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	When asked to explain himself, Harlequin had just instructed the troupe to wait by the stage-wagon and then ran off to buy something.  Turnip smirked at everypony’s annoyed reaction, and Cabbage worried that the Changeling was plotting something.  When they left the suite, however, Turnip followed and, without anypony needing to suggest it, crafted a light purple, green-maned unicorn disguise for the walk to the semi-private carriage house where the stage-wagon was parked.  It took Cabbage most of the walk to realize that the disguise was intended to reflect the name the Changeling had selected to go by.
Cabbage doubted that his name actually was Turnip.  He had probably decided to follow Cabbage’s lead in taking the name of a vegetable.  Cabbage’s own name was the one good relic of her first contact with ponies, and it was the only one she knew of.  Only very important Changelings like the Queen had persistent names within the Hive.  Everyling else was just identified by their presence in the voice of the Hive, or rather the effort they put in to stand out from the mental background noise of the voice of the Hive.  With the Changelings so depleted in numbers, that buzzing faded quickly outside the castle infirmary, so Cabbage could only sense Turnip’s mind, and only if he directed a thought at her.  A wave of embarrassed anxiety swept through Cabbage as she considered how open and undisciplined her own thoughts must seem in comparison.  She cast a glance at Turnip as the thought filled her mind, but he was keeping his eyes forward, giving no indication he sensed what she was thinking.
Turnip wasn’t much for vocal conversation either, ignoring any attempt by the troupe to wring personal details out of him.  So, while they waited by the stage-wagon for Harlequin to return, the conversation turned to routes and stops.  Maggie found their travel itinerary and read off it.  “Tremolo has already thrown us off track,” she said.  “We were supposed to hit a couple small towns before coming here to Canterlot to check in.  If we pick up from this point, the plan was to head south to the frontier towns and then loop back up toward Manehatten.”
“I don’t like the idea of taking our new friend down to the frontier yet,” Trixie said.  “The earth ponies that settle out there are a tricky breed to read.”
“Not to mention the buffalo,” Barnacle Salt said.  “They be gentle folk most of the time, but one wrong word and they’ll threaten to stampede ye right out of town.”
“Ok,” Maggie said, “if that’s out, should we just go straight to Manehatten?”
“We can go south a little ways first,” Trixie said.
“I think we shouldn’t get too far from Canterlot,” Cabbage cut in.  Everyone looked at her in surprise and her voice faltered for a second.  “Uh, I… Just in case something goes wrong, you know?”
Turnip snorted and gave Cabbage a condescending look.  “I thought you trusted me,” he said in mock pain.
“I want to trust you,” Cabbage said, “but so far you only have the benefit of the doubt.”
Maggie went into the stage-wagon and came out with a map that she spread out on the step.  “There are plenty of towns and some performer-friendly travel stops in view of the Canterlot mountains,” she said, tracing a rough circle with her hoof, “so we could do a complete show circuit in a couple of months.”
“I still think we should hit Manehatten or another large city at some point,” Trixie said, “just to expose Turnip to a broader scope of culture.”
The troupe continued to discuss their travel plans for the next half hour until Harlequin finally arrived.  He was pulling a rented cart containing a metal cage big enough to hold a large pony.  He pulled right up in front of the bemused troupe, unhitched himself, and hopped up on the edge of the cart to present the cage with a dramatic pose and a “Ta-da!”
Trixie was the first to react.  “Quin, what is that?”
“This,” Harlequin said, “is a Presti EZ-setup, lightweight Performance Cage.  Now that we’ve got a Changeling in the troupe that doesn’t suffer from stage fright, I think it’s time to put on that captive Changeling idea of mine.”
“I am not going to let myself be caged,” Turnip said.
“I agree,” Cabbage said.  “We are not treating Turnip like a dangerous monster, remember?”
“Calm down you two,” Harlequin said, rolling his eyes.  “This cage couldn’t actually hold anyone.  Observe.”  He produced a padlock and put it through the latch, snapping it closed.  He then lifted the latch handle, which turned out to be attached to both of the holes the padlock went through, and opened the cage door easily.  Harlequin then stepped into the cage, closed the door behind him, and after a momentary pause to make sure everypony was still paying attention, he slipped a hoof between the bars of the cage with ease and opened the latch again.  “As you can see,” he said as he stepped out and hopped off the cart, “it’s all just for show.  The cage breaks down real easy too; just pop out a few pins and it comes apart into five flat pieces for storage.”
“That doesn’t change the fact of making Turnip into just something to gawk at,” Cabbage protested.
“And how is that different from ‘Mar the Seapony’?” Harlequin countered.  Cabbage struggled to come up with an argument, and Harlequin continued making his case.  “Here’s the thing: Changelings are a thing of campfire tales and horror stories, bogeypones.  You tell the average pony you’re going to show them a Changeling and they’ll expect to see a monster.  If that monster’s loose, ponies will panic and run, but if it’s in a cage they’ll stick around and take a closer look at it.  Given enough time, exposure, and entertaining interaction with the crowd, maybe ponies will stop being quite so scared of this Changeling, so it can appear without a cage and do some real acting.”
Trixie and Barnacle were nodding along by the end of Harlequin’s explanation, and Cabbage sensed their budding approval of the idea.  Maggie was still doubtful.  “It’s a nice idea,” she said, “but I feel I should point out that until we reach the point where the audience feels safe with a Changeling walking around free Turnip would be stuck hiding backstage between acts.”
Turnip and Cabbage shared a sideways glance, silently daring each other to point out the obvious.  Turnip looked at Maggie and switched his current disguise for an exact copy of Maggie, while Cabbage pointed at him and gave the earth pony a flat look.
“Right,” Maggie said sheepishly.
“For the record,” Turnip said, reverting to the pale purple stallion disguise, “I’m opposed to the idea of being put on display on principle.”
“Tough luck,” Trixie said.  “There are no freeloaders in the Great and Powerful Trixie’s troupe.  Unless you’ve got a different act to propose or you have some backstage skill that Maggie or Cabbage can’t fill, you’re going in the cage.  And speaking of which, the act’s going to need a barker to engage the audience.  Barnacle, are you willing to do that, or should I?”
Harlequin coughed.  “Actually, I was thinking I should take that role.”
Trixie gave him a quizzical look.  “Why?” she asked.  “You’re neither a storyteller nor a professional braggadocio.  In fact, I recall you being rather bad at telling tales of any size.”
“It’s my idea, for one,” Harlequin said.  “Besides, the cap’n already has his seapony and you’ve got your light-show Ursa and dragons.  I deserve an eye-catcher of my own.  I’ve even got a couple routines worked out already.”  He grinned hopefully at Trixie, and after a long moment she sighed.
“Fine,” she said, “once we’re outside the city and in a secluded place we’ll give your spiels a test run.”  Waving a hoof with authority, she headed to the wagon door and said, “Pack it up ponies.  Let’s get on the road.”
Turnip tired to protest as the troupe prepared to leave, but everyone either ignored him or reminded him of Trixie’s ultimatum.  After Trixie and Maggie were inside the wagon and the stallions were busy breaking down Harlequin’s cage, the Changeling started to consider his chances of slipping away.  When he turned around, however, he found himself staring down at Cabbage Patch, who was simply staring at him with a raised eyebrow.  The look stirred something inside the Changeling and with grumpy muttering he jumped up into the stage-wagon and tucked himself into a corner behind a box of fireworks.  Cabbage smiled as she watched Turnip go, but in her gut she felt anxious.  Happiness that things were going her way was warring with her usual fear and some confusion as to why keeping another Changeling in its place wasn’t as difficult as it should be.





“Fillies and Gentlecolts, those of you with delicate constitutions may wish to look away.  On our last visit to Canterlot, this very troupe was beset by the invading Changelings.  We fought the beasts, thinking only of our survival at first, but after the Elements of Harmony defeated the Changeling Queen and the foul swarm was destroyed we discovered this.  May I present to you, the last living Changeling!”  A chorus of gasps and one high-pitched whinny accompanied the sound of Harlequin pulling the drape off Turnip’s cage.
Harlequin’s monologues had gone over well enough in Canterlot to convince Trixie to give the act an extended test on the road, and now they were trying to determine the best time to bring Turnip out during shows.  The current rendition was about halfway through the show, after Trixie’s introduction and Harlequin’s tumbling act had warmed the crowd up, and it appeared to be garnering only slightly more of a reaction than it had when placed last in the line-up.
Cabbage sat behind the stage curtains, eyes closed as she concentrated on the emotions the crowd was giving off as the act continued.  While Trixie, Barnacle, and Maggie would all be judging the act’s success based on physical reactions like applause and hecklers, only Cabbage could comment on the most important thing: how much usable emotional energy Harlequin and Turnip could draw out of the audience. Judging the nutritive value of a large group of ponies was not easy, since group emotions were a mélange of individual reactions to a given stimuli, but Cabbage had a lot of practice.  The Traveling Thespians routinely created highly positive reactions, but there was almost always a hint of hostility from ponies who came to the show to have a rematch with Trixie’s clever magic.  The reactions to the “captured changeling” act were proving to be more mixed, and not just because of the expected apprehensions about Changelings.  Harlequin’s tall tales of how the dangerous Changeling came into the troupe’s possession were being received positively by the audience, but he wasn’t as experienced as Barnacle Salt and couldn’t keep the audience hooked on a story for very long.
Counting the Canterlot audition, this was the fourth performance of the “captured Changeling” act, and as with the previous runs Cabbage sensed the audience’s interest in Turnip fade rapidly after the initial shock wore off.  Opening her eyes, Cabbage went to the end of the curtain and twitched it aside just enough to peer out with one eye at Turnip.  The Changeling ate as much food as anypony else in the troupe, but Cabbage thought she could see signs of early starvation – wing tips growing dry and brittle, dullness in his blue eyes, and weight loss – indicating that he wasn’t taking in enough emotional energy.  I hope he isn’t starving himself on purpose, Cabbage thought.  Even after a week on the road, Turnip refused to open up to anypony enough for Cabbage to guess his real motives.  She sighed and wrote the performance off as another failure, but just before she moved away from the curtain Turnip’s head perked up in reaction to Harlequin’s monologue.
“Don’t be fooled by its docile appearance,” Harlequin was saying, for the third time in as many minutes, when Turnip made a loud gagging sound.
“Enough!” the Changeling snapped.  “That wasn’t funny the first time.”
“Ah-ha,” Harlequin said, not missing a beat, “looks like I finally roused the beast.”  He stepped closer to the cage, and Cabbage felt the audience’s interest rise.  “What’s the matter, Changeling?” Harlequin asked mockingly, “Not enjoying my story?”
Turnip’s reply was flat and dry.  “A funeral would be more filling than one of your jokes.”  A few ponies in the audience chuckled, and Cabbage was surprised to sense hints of camaraderie and approval start to flow toward Turnip.  Somepony out there liked the heckling Changeling.
“Oh, sorry to bug you,” Harlequin said.  Turnip hissed at him, opening his mouth to put his fangs on full display.  The acrobat pony side-stepped away from the cage, his own mouth set in a cheesy grin, and the chuckling increased.  “But seriously,” Harlequin said, “wouldn’t you rather be here, living another day, than dead on the streets like the rest of your kind?”
“Maybe if I was deaf,” Turnip retorted.  “Have you ever heard yourself?  It’s like this.”  Green flames washed over Turnip as he exchanged his chitin for a copy of Harlequin’s appearance, except for the addition of buck teeth and a dopey expression.  “I couldn’t bee¬-lieve it when a Changeling dropped out of the sky in front of me,” he said, his voice perfectly matched to Harlequin’s, and then broke out in obnoxious mule laughter for a few seconds before stopping abruptly and glaring out at the audience.  To his surprise, this got a portion of the audience to laugh outright.  The mirth spread as ponies noticed Harlequin being visibly torn between anger and amusement.
Backstage, Cabbage turned away from the curtain to see Trixie standing behind her.  “Sounds like our new recruit is finally getting into the spirit of things,” the showmare said.
“He’s getting the positive returns I was hoping for,” Cabbage said, “but I doubt he meant for the audience to like him insulting Quin.”
Trixie smirked.  “Intentional or not, if he keeps that up he’ll fit right in.  I might even consider sneaking him into the audience to help goad some fresh faces into challenging the Great and Powerful Trixie.”





As The Great Trixie’s Royal Thespians moved from stop to stop in the general direction of Manehatten, news of “The last living Changeling” began to precede them.  In less than a week after Turnip started trying to out-snark Harlequin, just the sight of the stage-wagon rolling down the street attracted crowds of ponies clamoring to see the Changeling.  Some ponies were skeptical, others wanted a chance to mock or abuse Turnip for his race’s failures, and yet others were simply attracted to the novelty.  On Cabbage’s advice, Harlequin tailored his remarks to cast Turnip in a more sympathetic light as the weary victim of relentless teasing and bad jokes, which so far had successfully produced a bouquet of positive emotions for the Changeling to feed on.  Turnip’s health visibly improved after every show, but the better he ate the more sullen and irritable he became.
At a rest stop linking road, rail, and river traffic, Turnip suddenly decided to stop playing along.  When Harlequin pulled the drape off his cage, the Changeling just turned his back on the audience, lied down, and did a passible imitation of a shiny black rock, ignoring everything.  Caught off guard by his uncooperative partner, Harlequin stumbled over his monologues until the audience booed him off the stage.  Trixie rushed out to try and salvage the show with her magic act, while Barnacle Salt and Maggie hauled the cage backstage.  As soon as the cage was behind the curtains, Turnip burst out, assumed a random pegasus pony disguise, and stormed away.
“What’s tangled his sails up?” Barnacle wondered.
“I don’t know,” Maggie said.  “Maybe’s he’s feeling ill from too much adoration after starving for so long?”
Cabbage rolled her eyes.  “Feeding on emotion doesn’t work like normal food,” she said.  “I know what the problem is: his attitude.  I need to have a talk with him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Harlequin said, but Cabbage shook her head.
“I… I can do this alone,” she said.
Harlequin watched Cabbage run off after Turnip, a mixture of surprise and pride on his face.  “Wow,” he said to Maggie, “she’s like a whole ‘nother pony when that Changeling’s involved.”
“I agree,” Maggie said.  “Somehow, he’s bringing out something Cabbage has kept buried deep inside her whole life.”

Fearing that Turnip was attempting to vanish into the crowd, Cabbage opened herself wide to the emotions flowing around the rest stop so she could sense the other Changeling’s mind no matter what form he took.  When she found him, however, he was just sulking in a tree wearing the same pegasus disguise he’d run off in.  He grimaced when he spotted her, but didn’t move.  “What do you want?” he asked.
“Come down.  We need to talk,” she said, adding Changeling to Changeling across the mental link.  She was barely surprised to feel her anxiety fading as she spoke; by now it felt like a natural effect of choosing to interact with Turnip.
“Why don’t you come up here?” Turnip challenged.
“I’m not very good at climbing trees,” Cabbage responded with a pointed glance at her wingless earth pony sides.  “And I’m scared of making a fool of myself in front of other ponies.”
Turnip grumbled and fluttered out of the tree.  He walked right up to Cabbage, looked down at her and asked in low tones, “Alright, what do you have to say?”
Cabbage met his stare.  “I have a question, actually: why do you want to fail?”
“What?”
Cabbage poked Turnip’s chest.  “Admit it, you already know that I’m right.  We Changelings can foster the best emotions in ponies without impersonating their loved ones, and more than enough to live on.  I’ve sampled the emotions given off by ponies who watch your and Harlequin’s act, so I know what’s available for you to take in.  Are you really so devoted to the old, broken system that you’d starve yourself to death rather than accept an alternative?”
“Your ‘system’ barely works,” Turnip said.  “I can’t deny I could feed well during a show, but in between all I have to live on is what I’ve stored up in those shows.  Our traveling companions have no good feelings to give me.”
Cabbage fought down an urge to scream in exasperation.  “Seriously?” she hissed.  “I was cast out of the hive with barely any training and even I know you have to work to get love!”
Turnip stepped back to a respectful distance, but his expression remained hard.  “Well, when you’ve already got a lock on the affections of all four of the ponies-”
“It doesn’t work like that!” Cabbage exclaimed.  “I don’t ‘own’ anypony, and I don’t draw any love out of them by force.  I don’t need to when they send so much at me of their own will.  Ponies can have affection for more than one other at a time, Turnip.  That’s why I know what I have can work for the entire hive.  Just… Start with Harlequin.  Talk to him between shows.”
“But,” Turnip said, confused, “I insult him all the time.  Why would he want to get close to me?”
Cabbage rolled her eyes.  “Have you seriously not paid any attention to anything but your pride?  Quin likes you, a lot.  Ask him, and I’ll bet he’ll say you’re the best thing to happen to him since he joined Trixie’s Thespians.  You’re helping him live a dream he’s had for years, and if you work with him to make that dream bigger, he’ll become your best, most reliable source of friendship and affection.”
Turnip turned away, deep in thought.  “Fine,” he said at last, “I’ll play your game, runt, but you have to do something first.”  He whirled on Cabbage and declared, “You have to stop being a living prop for these ponies all the time.  Put on an act where you’re the center of attention, then I’ll try making friends with Harlequin.”
Cabbage stammered, her confidence cracking and letting some of her usual anxiety creep in.  “B-but… I… I already help Trixie with part of her magic act.”
“You’re just a prop,” Turnip retorted.  “Trixie just uses you and your stunted shapeshifting to make ponies think she’s better at magic than she is.  No, Cabbage, I want to see you on that stage as the star of an act, or else I stop cooperating with ponies.”