A Different Breed of Changeling

by Zoljen


War Time Troubles

Ember trotted alongside Talon as they made their way to the hive’s entrance. She chuckled softly as she looked over the soldier.

“At least your little bickering got us to the sidelines.” She grinned as Talon looked at her.

“Yea, we aren’t going to be on the front lines, but our medical magic will be helpful.” He chuckled softly. “But it should be ending soon this time, from what I hear Princess Celestia is trying to put a stop to it this time.”

Ember raised an eyebrow. “The mighty pony princess? Didn’t her own force, the Wondercolts or something, join in and make this a really bad three way?”

“Wonderbolts,” Talon corrected, “and yes, but something seemed to call them away only a month or so after trying to keep the drakes and griffins out of their land.” Talon shrugged as he stopped and looked down the tunnel. “Guess this is my stop, huh?”

Ember stopped as well, looking down the tunnel and nodding. “Yup, think you can behave yourself while I’m gone?”

Talon nodded, chuckled and started back down the tunnel towards the hive. “Yes, I shouldn’t have any problems while you and the others are off saving dragons and drakes and the occasional griffin.”

Ember nodded, and engulfed herself in fire to change to a more emerald coloration of dragon. She had a small pair of wings on her otherwise feminine frame, with a pair of horns angling back and a simple nose horn that glowed for a few seconds.

“That’s what I like to hear.” She grinned as she watched him nod and trot off. The other changelings in the area taking on similar dragon appearances as they left the cave and flew directly north.

Ember flew near the middle of the pack, letting her mind wander a little bit as she kind of directed the others on where to go. After a while of flight, she let her mind wander to Talon, wondering what he’d be doing at this moment. She shook her head slightly.

“Probably reading,” she muttered to herself, one of the other changelings glancing at her, then chuckled.

“Thinking about Talon?” the changeling asked, just loud enough to disrupt Embers flight a little as her wings locked up.

“Uh... Nnnope!” She grinned sheepishly, thankful that dragons didn’t blush, at least not as much as ponies or changelings could anyway.

“Uh huh, sure. The way you two hang around each other says otherwise.” The changeling grinned at Ember, swooping a little to the side to avoid a swipe. “You know we don’t mind.”

Ember sighed, letting her wings glide along the air. “Ok, I do like him, but not like that. We’re friends, nothing more. Even if something could spawn from that, what would it do for the hive?” She shook her head. “Besides, he’s been keeping something from me lately. I can tell.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to worry you? I mean, you are in charge of us harvesters, and you have the best healing magic of us. He doesn’t want to add more to your plate, as the saying goes.”

Ember shrugged, flapping her wings to pick up a little speed. “Maybe your right, or maybe I’m just over-thinking things. I tend to do that way too much.”

The other changeling chuckled again. “That you do. For now you should just relax, focus on the task ahead of us. We will be reporting to you after all.”

“Yes. First time I am in charge of something like this.”

“Leviathan trusts you enough to do this.” The changeling beside her nodded knowingly. “You’ll do very well.”

Ember nodded slightly. “We’ll fly for a bit more before landing and resting. It is a long way to our destination, but we should arrive by nightfall.” She alerted the others as she flew above them a little. “We should only be there for a short time, maybe a day or two, but we could be there longer.”

The others turned their heads to nod back at her, as she grinned widely, letting herself glide along the air currents.


It was night when Ember landed with a soft sigh. She looked about the encampment, seeing a bunch of tents set up. She glanced around as one of the local dragons came up to her and the group of changeling dragons.

“It’s about time you showed up. Most of your crew is needed in the main tents. While we could use you and one or two others in this side tent.” The dragon gestured to a smaller tent. “We have some… pets there you should look over before we return them to their proper owners.”

Ember tilted her head. “Pets?” The dragon gave her a blank look, as Ember sighed. “Alright, you heard her. Most of you head into the main tent and see what you can do. I’ll go see these ‘pets’ and do be careful, Dragons are known to bite.” She chuckled as all but one nodded and headed off towards the main tent.

Ember looked the dragon over. “So, how bad is this batch?” She asked as she followed the dragon to the tent.

“All are pretty serious to be this far from the front lines, but they should live and be back on their feet with your magic within a few days. I mean, that is why we keep you changelings around, isn’t it?” The dragon growled softly. “Since you aren’t fighting this time.”

Ember just rolled her eyes as she entered the tent, then stopped in place once she saw the occupants. Lying on most of the beds were griffins. There were at least six, maybe seven, at a quick glance. She looked across at all the griffins. “Griffins? Here?”

“Yes. We found them and someone decided to bring them back, they are in pretty bad shape and may not survive. Which is good in my book, but apparently some Princess Celestia is trying to bring peace. So we have to try to save those we don’t kill outright.” The dragon said with a low growl. “So, your little clutch can do that.” She turned and left, leaving Ember and the other to just stare at the griffins for a few moments.

Ember sighed. “Shall we? We may need a few others. Go get them and I’ll look them over.” The changeling nodded and left, leaving Ember to look over the griffins again. She trotted over to the closest griffon and looked him over. It looked like the dragons had already tried to do some work on them, wrapping up the various claw wounds and applying disinfectant.

The griffon let out a soft groan as Ember looked it over. She sat and rested a paw on its shoulder, away from the worse wounds along its chest and arms. Her paw and nose horn glowed faintly, the griffon instantly relaxing and letting out a soft sigh.

She grinned slightly. “Easy there.” She continued to look him over. “Dragons could use a little work on their bandages.”

“Aren’t you a dragon?” the griffin groaned out softly, opening an eye to look at her. “Or is my vision that horrible?”

“Err, no. You're right, I am,” Ember chuckled weakly.

“Since when can a dragon do healing magic?” The griffin glanced towards the lightly glowing paw.

“Uh. Exotic breed, don’t get let out of the inner kingdom much except in times of war.” Ember shook her head and put a claw on the griffins’ beak. “No more questions, you should rest.”

The griffin nodded slightly and laid his head back on the bed. “One more, if you don’t mind. Why are you healing us?”

Ember shrugged, “Orders are orders. Simple as that. Though, to be honest, I’d rather not see any of you die here today. So I am going to do what I can to keep you and your friends alive.” Ember moved onto the other griffins, looking over the various injuries of each one as some of the other changelings finally came in.

The one that was first with Ember trotted up to her as two others went around to check on griffins. “Only two more were able to come over. The dragons are actually pretty bad this time around.”

Ember nodded. “Alright, then four of us should be good over here. The griffins don’t seem that bad.”

“Right…” He trailed off, looking towards the griffin that Ember was just at. “Still though, griffin prisoners?”

“Right now, they are patients. Not prisoners.” Ember growled lightly at the changeling, making him cower a little. “So, we will treat them as such.”


A day and a half had passed as the changelings worked on both dragon and griffon, getting them back into fighting order. There were a few arguments from the griffins about being healed and tended to by dragons, but their wounds being poked at with claws made them shut their beaks and deal with it.

Ember sighed as she sat outside the griffins’ tent, a cup of water in her paw as she slowly took a drink. She and the others had been working nonstop for the past day and were tired. The rest were still working, mostly still attending to the dragons.

Ember managed to deduce that the dragons who tended to the griffins, failed as a doctor. Their injuries weren’t actually as bad as they were made out to be. Missing feathers, deep cuts along arms and the chest, a few burns, one would be going home with half a tail, and a few chipped beaks certainly weren’t life threatening.

The dragons were just as well off. Sure, some wouldn’t be walking for a week or so and a good number were missing scales, but the wounds from spears wouldn’t be fatal, just annoying.

Ember took a long gulp of her drink as one of the changelings came up to her and gave a salute. Ember looked at him and raised an eye ridge.

“I think someone has been around the soldiers too long,” Ember chuckled softly as the changeling lowered his arm.

“Erm, sorry.” He laughed weakly. “Yes I have. Anyway, all checks out and we are free to leave till next week.” The changeling grinned. “We can head back any time.”

“Do we have the energy to?” Ember asked, taking another gulp of her water. “I know I’m kind of drained. I mean, I can do the flight, but we should rest at least.”

“Well, maybe a night of rest would be wise. Give us a chance to check on our patients before we leave.” The changeling turned towards the tent that held the injured dragons. “I’ll let the others know.” Ember gave a nod as the changeling vanished into the tent.

Ember grinned slightly and glanced up into the night sky, staring at the moon that had a silhouette of the alicorn that once moved it. She shook her head, knowing full well the story of how Celestia had to stop Nightmare Moon, and lost a sister in the process. If anyone could stop a war, it was her, and hopefully this would be the last.

She gave one last glance to the two tents, spotting her fellow changelings already heading towards where they were allowed to rest and clean up. She chuckled as she noticed more than half of them yawn widely and lean on each other.

She stood up and trotted over to them and joined them in the make shift tent. She watched them all flop tiredly on various cots as she basically did the same. “We’ll head back in the early morning, so we should get there by mid-afternoon, I hope.”

The changelings just nodded back to her as they curled up and laid down to sleep.


The next day the changeling pack left pretty much right after breakfast and kept in flight the whole way. They had arrived around mid-afternoon and landed near one of the few entrances to the hive. Ember landed first and looked at it curiously, the cave entrance was collapsed in. The other changelings soon landed and looked confused as well.

“What happened?” a changeling asked, stepping forward.

“I don’t know,” Ember began, looking around, “but something isn’t right, keep your guard up.” Ember took a step forward when a yelp behind her made her spin around. She saw a drake had pounced upon one of the changelings in the back of the group, and more drakes had leapt of the foliage and tackled them to the ground.

Ember gasped and took a few steps back, then glanced to her side right as a drake leaped at her. It missed as she ducked. She looked towards her fellow changelings as the drake quickly stood up to her side.

“Restrain them all, by order of the prince!” the drake yelled as he tried to tackle Ember to the ground again and failed as she side stepped. She took to the air and flew upward, as the drake tried to do the same, but failed as a red coil of magic encircled his leg and kept him grounded.

“Run Ember!” is all she heard as she took to the air, though she didn’t get far as she felt an odd tingle in the air around her from the mountain. She looked towards it, as the drake did the same, an odd very thin rainbow colored shock wave exploded out from it, not sending any rocks in their direction, but passing by them.

Ember shivered slightly as she suddenly started to hear screams in the back of her mind. She hovered for a moment before she heard another voice in her mind. “Flee if you can!” She looked down to see the drakes start to tie up the changelings, the drake just glaring up at Ember as she started to fly away, in the direction she came from before.