//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Endings…. // Story: CiderCon Chronicles // by SSCiderConOfficial //------------------------------// CiderCon Chronicles Chapter 1: Endings "A happy ending is all about where you stop your story." - Clever Quill, Author Super Speedy Cider Con was over. Warm Welcome sat in her favorite chair in her cozy living room. A cheery fire blazed away in the fireplace, and cast it's comforting light into the otherwise dark house. Her son, Bramley, was asleep upstairs. He had succumbed hours ago to the contented weariness that comes after a hard job done well. So, Warm Welcome sat nursing a steaming mug of mulled cider and thinking. It seemed like only yesterday that she'd been given the opportunity to act as hostess of CiderCon. The Hinnyssee folks, and attendees alike were so overwhelmed by her capacity for Hospitality, her ability to Entertain guests, and her amazing cooking that they had agreed to make the position official and permanent. They even, jovially, referred to her as "Best Princess" and a local tailor made her wings and a horn. Which, by the way, Bramley likes to wear and pretend. As she thought, her eyes travelled to the picture of her beloved husband on the end table. Her husband was a soldier, and was currently away on active duty, but Warm Welcome would often talk to the picture as though it was his face. "Oh I wish you could've seen Bramley today. He seemed to be everywhere, helping everybody, and he's so strong for his age! You'd have been proud of him." She was roused from her reverie by the sounds of ponies moving things outside. "Sugar and Saltlicks! here I am being leisurely when everyone else is still a'workin'!" Warm Welcome took another sip, set down her mug, and kissed her husband's picture. Then she went back outside to finish clearing away and storing everything until next year. ***** A trio of changelings marched single file through the corridors of their hive, one at the front and rear leading a third in the middle. As they walked, they did not communicate with one another. The armor clad changelings at the front and rear kept their eyes fixed firmly ahead. They were calm, unhurried, businesslike. The changeling in the middle was a different story. He was distracted, worried, afraid. The changelings that accompanied him had shown up a short time ago and wordlessly ordered him to accompany them. Their armor and their bearing brooked no discussion. So, here he was in an unfamiliar part of the hive for an unknown purpose. A soft noise ahead drew his attention away from his thoughts. The changeling at the front nodded to two others on either side of the door that they were approaching. The two door guards snapped to attention, and opened the door. He could see from the corridor that the room onto which it opened was unlike any other in the hive. Where other chambers within the hive were small and utilitarian, this room was expansive and luxurious by changeling standards. "...what is this place...?" he thought to himself. As he passed beneath the ornate doorframe and saw the shrouded dais at the end of the chamber he knew where he was. And he felt the sick stab of dread in his gut. "...The Mother...? ...No! …Not now!" The armored ones brought him before the dais. The changeling in front spoke in their chittering, clacking language to the obscured occupant of the dais. "We have brought it, Mother." the word "it" clearly meant as an insult. After he spoke, he bowed, Then the two armored changelings took up positions to either side and slightly behind the third. There was a flash of magic from the dais, and the diaphanous green material occluding it parted. The two armored changelings bowed and made deferential noises. The Third stood transfixed and unable to move or speak. He was in awe of the being before him. Although this changeling still had the same coloration and gauzy wings, the similarities ended there. She hardly needed the crown upon her head to command respect. She was larger than the rest of the changelings. Tall and, sinuous, and graceful. She exuded authority. She exuded malice. She was their Mother. She was their queen. She addressed him from the dias in their native tongue. "You. Come forward." Through the fear, he managed chitter "Yes, Mother. " in reply and do as she instructed. He looked up at her with wide, terrified eyes. It seemed an eternity before she chittered on. "I have given you more than enough time. Are you ready?" "...almost..." he chittered. The Queen looked down on him with unabashed disgust. "I didn't want to believe that this was true. I didn't want to believe that one of my subjects was so flawed, so… " she struggled for the right word "so defective." She raised her head imperiously, and locked eyes with him. "You are worthless to us." Her eyes narrowed in rage. "Leave. Now. Never return." "You are no longer part of my this hive! You are no longer part of my kingdom! You" she growled "...are banished!" The little changeling reeled from her words. Each one struck him like a hammer blow. Ending with the word he feared most - p'tach - banished. He fell, sobbing, and chittered desperately "...please Mother, don't do this! Please! Look how far I've come!..." A "THWOOSH" sound accompanied a flash of colored fire that appeared around him. When the flash subsided, in the changeling's place stood a strange amalgam of creatures. He was an odd mix of pegasus and changeling parts : yellow hide and orange mane, but where one wing was feathered and yellow, the other was his own buglike wing. Where there should have been bright blue eyes and a pink tail were a changeling's bulbous iris-less eyes and a short, black tail. Panic mingled with rage as he chittered "Look! It's just the eyes and tail now! I usually get the wings right! I'm just nervous! Please! I'm trying! I just need more time! I…" "Enough!" the Queen roared, and her horn glowed with magic. He felt the flare of magic like a blow to the head, then numbness. He felt his legs go weak. He felt himself revert to his original form. He felt himself slipping into her magical sleep. He heard the Mother, with ice in her tone chitter : "Get that worthless trash out of my sight." Then there was darkness.