//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Shock // Story: CiderCon Chronicles // by SSCiderConOfficial //------------------------------// CiderCon Chronicles Chapter 5: Shock "...no matter how prepared you are, things you're not prepared for still happen..." - Tool Bag, Chief Engineer at the Ritz Stallion Hotel, Manehattan Warm Welcome was angry. This was noteworthy because it was so rare. She was gifted from birth with a joyful attitude and an calm nature that made most irritations just slide off of her. Today, though, she was angry. She stood in the kitchen tapping her hoof impatiently on the counter. She was angry because her son, Bramley, was late coming home for lunch. She was angry because he had said that he would be home for lunch. She was angry because she had made his favorite pie as a special treat. She was angry because it wasn't like him to be late. She was angry because she was worried. She couldn't bear the thought of something happening to Bramley, so it was easier to think that he was misbehaving rather than the alternatives. But he was thirty minutes late, and that was just something Bramley didn't do. Something was wrong, it had to be. Her anger dropped away, and she was afraid. She decided to go out and look for him. Thinking back to their conversation that morning, Warm Welcome mentally noted the places Bramley said he was going, and headed off for the pond. ******************** He wasn't at the pond, or the creek, and he wasn't at his fort. She hadn't, unfortunately, run into any of the ponies that Bramley had assisted and who might have helped put some of her fears to rest. So, now she was really scared. Not panicky, not frantic, Warm Welcome didn't react to fear that way. She stayed calm despite her fear. It was one of the many things her husband loved about her. In a situation that would send most people into a tizzy, Warm Welcome retained her poise, and her senses. She decided to return home and check for him there before she went into town to get the Constable and some others to help look. ******************** When she came in through the front door, she noticed that a quilt was missing from the quilt ladder in the living room. Someone had been here. "Bramley?" she called hopefully. When there was no reply, she proceeded through the den towards the kitchen. As she passed the bathroom, she noticed that the cabinet doors were open. She continued on to the kitchen, and surveyed it as Bramley had left it. Drawers open, muddy hoofprints on the floor, half of a pie laying in its plate on the counter. Then she saw the note. She hurried over and read it. Her heart leapt! Bramley was safe. "Bless his heart." she said to herself. "Carin' for some sick critter out in the woods." She chuckled to herself " Nearly killed me doin' it, though." She recalled the Doc wasn't in his office today, so he couldn't help. She'd seen him earlier in the week and knew he was going to Appleloosa to get supplies. "I guess it's just Bramley an' me." she said to herself, and trotted out the back door to head for the gully. ******************** "It's... no... wonder... no... pony... lives... out... here...", Warm Welcome said, punctuating every word by beating aside greenery as she thrashed her way through the dense woods. She realized how difficult it must've been even for a colt Bramley's size to make it through here. For Warm Welcome, it was nearly impassable. After what seemed like hours, the undergrowth began to thin, and she figured she was nearing the gully. A few more steps, and sure enough the forest cleared away to make room for the wide, deep, lightly wooded expanse of the gully. Warm Welcome walked to the edge, and looked left and right. She didn't see Bramley anywhere close. She decided to try to her right first, roughly away from town, and to keep to the top edge of the gully. She resisted the urge to call for Bramley. He hadn't said what sort of creature he was caring for, and she didn't want to risk accidentally spooking a critter that could hurt Bramley. After picking her way along the gully's edge for several minutes, she caught sight of movement at the bottom of the gully just ahead. She was passing by a copse of skinny trees that stubbornly clung to life at the gully's edge despite the fact that half of their roots extended into thin air. They frustratingly obscured her vision as she approached. As she edged closer, looking for an easy descent into the gully, an opening in the trees presented itself and the gully floor was visible. On her way here, Warm Welcome had tried to prepare herself for the possibilities of what sort of creature Bramley had found. Seeing how inhospitable this area was she was increasingly sure that it wouldn't be a dog or a cat. Maybe a squirrel, she thought, or a rabbit. She had pondered the possibility of an abandoned bear or bobcat cub. She had even, despite their rarity in the area, considered the possibility of a Timberwolf. What she had not prepared for was what she actually found. The thing she saw at the bottom of the gully was undoubtedly a changeling! She had heard about them disrupting the royal wedding a few years back. She knew both from the papers, and from first hand accounts from ponies who had been present during the invasion about how dangerous they could be. Ponies had told stories at CiderCon over the years about them. Creatures, the stories said, that ate other ponies' souls leaving a shriveled up husk behind. Creatures that would then take that pony's place, and feed on others. She stared, eyes wide in horror, as, in a "FWOOSH" of colored fire, the creature changed forms. Terror shut her ears, rooted her feet, locked her jaws, and narrowed her vision to a tunnel. She realized, dimly, that she was starting to pass out. The creature seemed to be practicing becoming Bramley. She assumed that the more of the pony they consumed, the better they'd get. She saw Bramley's mouth open in a silent scream. Then, she saw him begin to talk a mile a minute. He's scared, and pleading for his life, she thought. She tried desperately to move, to speak, but she found herself unable. She watched as the changeling opened his mouth and spoke, Bramley seemed to laugh. The strangeness of Bramley's reaction somehow shook her free of her stupefaction. She was in control of her faculties again. She took a faltering step forward and heard herself yell. "Bramley! Git away! That thing's dangerous!"