When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.
I.
The ragged column of evacuees had a destination.
Of course, you’ll say. It’s obvious. But it is amazing what obvious things one can forget in panic. We say—don’t go that way, it will just corner you!—but fail to remember that a mind pushed far enough thinks nothing but denials. It sees but doesn’t see. It only wants to run.
Celestia’s Pathfinders are the sort of ponies who never panic. They are implacable and unmovable as boulders. These are the ponies that mapped half the world and braved a thousand dark corners of creation. They are the pioneers. The first wave. And so, as always, they lead the way.
But they aren’t soldiers. They don’t know how to defend or take a position. In fact, beyond the ability to hold their own in a fight, they know nothing of war and never have.
So why are they here? For the same reason as the Rangers of Station Nineteen.
When the Crystal Empire reappeared, there were a lot of questions. Beyond the obvious (how? Why?) were the more practical—what happens when you cut a whole swath of land from the fabric of creation, cities and roads and ponies, and then deposit it all at once a thousand years later? Is it the same? Does the old overwrite the new or does the ancient find itself yielding to the modern? And more importantly, questions of maps.
And so, when the furor around Sombra and the Empire had died down, Celestia and Luna made a formal visit of State to their niece and her husband. They discussed the usual things—trade, agreements, stances, family—and then came at last to the troubling matter of the uselessness of maps. The diarchs of Equestria, wanting to communicate to the gun-shy crystal ponies that they wanted only the best for their new neighbors, offered their individual frontier agencies to aid the legions in the arduous but vital task of reconnoitering.
And thus it was that when the Mitou came down from the mountains, with horribly mutated and changed Changelings on all sides, they found a few hardy explorers and cartographers thoroughly unprepared for the onslaught of hell.
But Pathfinders, like Rangers, do what they can where and when they can. Soldiers they might not be, but it could not be said that they were cowards. And a pony in need was a call no true servant of Celestia could ignore.
II.
I tried not to make a big deal out of it. I told them about the lone changeling and swore up and down that it was alone. If there had been another, it would have been on me when I was puking in the snow. But nothing got me, so there was nothing there. I didn’t know why it was alone. I don’t know why the wing yesterday was alone. I didn’t have answers. The one thing about being an initiate that is good is that eventually people stop asking you questions after the third “I don’t know”.
Last Call seemed irritable, but not at me. I just nodded, thanked me gruffly, and then called Gale down and told him that we’d spotted changelings up ahead. He whispered it, but my ears caught it. They catch a lot.
They catch the things that the refugees say sometimes, but I try not to listen because sometimes it hurts. I don’t want to hear about how cold they are, or how hungry they are, or how the little ones wish they could go home. I don’t want to hear the sad little changelings chittering to each other. Even if it sounds pretty. Like birds.
When the patrol gets back a few minutes after noon, the column has stopped for its midday break and I’m poking the fire with a long stick. You’d be amazed what you find in the snow, sometimes. I guess before the big fax, when there wasn’t an empire here, there used to be some trees. I would have liked there to be more trees. There were trees a few days ago, and Swift said there might be some nearer to Amethyst City. I hope he’s right. The maps say there’s a forest, but who knows anymore?
I think that Lily knows something is wrong with me. She looked at me when she gave me my bread and I mumbled to myself. “Luna…” it sounds like Protects. But it isn’t. It’s just a mumble. She nods at me as if I had said grace sufficiently and normally. Yet I feel her eyes on my back.
Ruby grins at me tiredly. “Nothing to see,” she says. I sit by her. We are battle sisters. You eat with your battle sisters if you can. It helps. Grizlebrand told me that.
We lean against each other, back to back. I keep her from falling and she keeps me from the same. We keep our heads off the endless snow together. There’s not much conversation. Just eating. Cornbread again. Cold cornbread, western style, a little spicy. I wonder if the batponies in the West, the ones who didn’t follow Luna, eat this stuff as much as we do. Maybe they don’t, and it was just like, one thing that anypony could make, and when we came here we were so homesick that we picked the easiest thing on the menu and ate it forever.
Maybe.
I sure am homesick enough to think it’s probably true. I wonder, if I told Ruby, would she think it was true? Does she miss home? I am about to ask, but then I remember…
Her eyes are red. They say that batponies in the west all have red eyes just like that. I find it hard to believe—everypony having the same eye color? That’s weird. But it is true that it is super rare with us, on this side of the ocean. The ones that followed Luna changed. She told me in Ranger School that when she was a filly, they teased her about her mother having gone back and… yeah, you can figure it out. So I don’t ask about the lost tribes. (Or are we the Lost Tribes?) Because it might be a sore subject. But her eyes are pretty. I never understood why it was a sore subject for anyone. Red like—
I try not to think about what they remind me of suddenly because I would rather not be ill.
III.
Ruby stays with me and Lily when the second patrol moves out. Gale goes with them. He volunteered, which explains why Knight-Commander was so okay with letting Ruby and I have days off the patrol route.
I still think we could do it. I know I can. Flying that far for that long… I have the endurance. If I hadn’t had the endurance, they would have punted me like a hoofball right out of Ranger School. But its not the flying that’s the problem, and I get that. It’s a mental thing. It’s a fighting thing.
It’s pretty damn painful, knowing you’re a liability. I don’t want to be useful, in one way. But I don’t want to be deadweight. Because these are my friends and comrades. My battle-siblings, if you want to call them that. I shouldn’t put them in danger. It’s just… it’s wrong. So I don’t complain. Anything to keep them flying strong.
Ruby takes the front half and I take the rear watch. I haven’t seen her in hours. I saw Lily a few times. I still felt like she was watching me. I hate it. Not her. Just the watching. I don’t know what it means and I’m afraid she sees right through me.
I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t want to do any of this. This isn’t… it’s not what we do! Even I know that. We’re not supposed to be the front lines. Where are all the guardponies? Where the Lunars with their scary armor or the Solars with their shiny gold? Where are the fucking Crystal legions?
More and more, I think that we’re all alone out here. It’s hard to hold out hope that anypony is coming to help us. What if we’re the only ones?
It’s… not that hard to imagine. Those things out there, the big ones. They could have swooped down and crushed anything in their path. Or, just the changelings. Twice as strong as they used to be, and in the thousands. We can easily take a squad apart (they can, anyway) but against three or four, there would be no chance. We’d die like… like, I don’t know. We would just die, what’s the point of comparison? Dead is dead is dead. And there are thousands of them, I think. A whole army. A cloud of them, like locusts in the old stories.
It reminds me of the storyteller. Only this time he’s talking about when Luna came and freed us from the Father. The great plagues he sent upon us. I think it’s all bullshit. Or I did. Except for that one part, with the locusts and the running away. Because I saw the swarm for a few seconds two weeks ago, when we all burrowed in the snow and even Swift was whimpering about Luna. I heard him. We all did.
The fact that he didn’t care. I remember that. I remember it making me more scared than before, as if that was worse somehow. Because Swift always cares what you think about him. Always.
I look down at the little bodies below. Ants on snow. I imagine that this is what they would look like to that huge swarm of changelings. I can almost hear the buzzing wings now, all around me in the sky. This must be what it would look like to be a part of that swarm before it swoops down and eats a whole Imperial legion alive.
IV.
Soup. Broth, really. But it’s warm, and I don’t care. We eat quietly again.
The night patrol found nothing. I was the only one who killed anything today. Anypony. Knight-Commander got me to tell him everything I saw, but I lied to him and I didn’t say anything about how I was sick, or about how suddenly it was just me and I couldn’t pretend that he had done it. I didn’t tell him what it smelled like or what chitin sounds like when you crack it open.
I think he already knows.
Lily didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. When she gave me dinner, I thanked her and she smiled at me. When she left, I looked down at it and mumbled, “Luna provides,” and then that was it for me the rest of the night.
We never say grace at home. I mean, we do when it’s a holiday or something. But in the Rangers, you always do. Even if you never did at home, and I guess it’s because you really do feel like she’s watching you. Maybe because you really hope she does protect, provide, whatever. Or maybe it’s just something you do. Like tradition.
Ruby Eyes tries to talk, but I just don’t feel like it. I try not to be rude, but she looks so lonely. I don’t know what to say. How do you say—I’m lonely too, but there’s nothing we can do—or—I killed a pony today even if it was one of those messed up changelings and I can’t stop thinking about how it smelled and felt and—
I’ll go away again, next time. There will be a next time. I know there will be. I won’t always have the wing with me. I won’t always be able to shrug off what I’m doing onto them. Next time I’ll just go away and maybe I’ll stay away for awhile and just wait it all out.
It’s hard to go to sleep. I can see the refugees and their little fires and their ragged little circles everywhere. I can hear them talk sometimes, and I can smell their bread and… and…
V.
Screaming.
It takes me five seconds too long to untangle myself from the bedroll. By then, they’re among us, and the screaming gets louder. I roll into the snow, looking for my duster with padded armor, and—
He hits me from the side, and I feel something sharp poking between my ribs and I scream. We go end over end into the snow. I can smell him—it—on me, trying to get better leverage to stab me again with his hoofblades. I throw the changeling off but he just comes back again. I kick at him with my hindlegs, trying to push myself back with my forelegs. Kick. Kick. Kick. He avoids the first two. He keeps hissing and hissing and then the last kick catches him square on the nose and I know my horseshoes hit because I can’t take them off. The sound it makes is unreal. Everything is unreal. The sky is dark but its red like Ruby’s eyes all around me and I think I can smell blood—I do smell it, everywhere, all over me and the snow and—the changeling gets back up. It’s face is ruined. One eye stares at me like blindness and its mouth opens and it doesn’t just have fangs, it has row upon row of teeth and I try to say something but I can’t. It just keeps coming and then it’s everywhere and it’s so big—
My eyes open.
I don’t jump and scream. I just lay there in the darkness. My first thought is that the cloud cover thinned enough to see stars. My second is that I’m still alive. My third thought is that I feel sick.
I roll over on my side, but thankfully hold on to dinner.
It’s hard to get back to sleep. It is so quiet now.
VI.
The forest is still there, at least. But more and more I think that might not be a good thing. That’s kind of been the theme of this whole mess, really. The more I think, the worse it seems. The logical thing to do would be to stop thinking. But I can’t. Sometimes, I try to stop thinking and I can handle it for a little while. Thirty minutes to an hour at the absolute most. And then I start feeling like somepony is watching me. Or I feel just how alone you are high up in the air. Or I close my eyes and I see… how awful the snow was. Changelings bleed green, they’re supposed to bleed green but these monsters bleed black. It’s not like normal blood. When you scrape your leg and you bleed a bit, it kind of oozes, right? But it’s not like it’s thick. That stuff is so thick, like syrup. Or honey. And then I just can’t help but think about it, more and more, until I feel sick or afraid or just restless or nervous.
We stopped the column long enough for Knight-Commander Yuletide and Star Brand to have a short conference of whispers with the Pathfinders about the woods. We’re all nervous about it, and for good reason.
Rangers aren’t soldiers, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know a few things about war. After all, most Rangers were guards once. The ones like me who never went past basic training (and then, I only did that so I could qualify for Ranger School) are rare. Knight-Commander and Star Brand and Soft Fang all fought Zebraharan pirates when Equestria and the Khalifa of Tabir teamed up to one-two knockout buck those bastards. Lily and Swift were actually in Canterlot when Chrysalis attacked. The Ranger who retired a month after Ruby and I arrived at Station Nineteen was named Meadow. He told us about how he and a bunch of starved, water-crazy Zebra soldiers got stranded after a battle with bandits in the desert and had to fight and sneak their way hundreds of miles to the Zebraharan capitol. At first, I thought he was just bullshitting us because we were rookies, but the others seemed to treat his stories like they were true, every bit.
So, we aren’t soldiers but in some ways we are. And even I know that forests can be great… or they can be death traps. If you’re fast-moving, light, flexible, and—above all—smart, then you can use heavy wooded areas as the perfect cover. Every tree and bush becomes a hiding place and potential avenue of attack. Everything can work in your favor.
But if you aren’t those things, and if you’re a flier, forests can be a nightmare. They say that Celestia was almost captured by Nightmare Moon early on in the Schism when she risked a short route, going by forest roads with a large army. Nightmare Moon’s batpony raiders began their attacks as soon as the sun started going down and they didn’t let up for hours. Every few minutes, there would be another scream, another dead guardspony. The stories also say that Nightmare Moon’s loyal batponies shrieked and made all sorts of outlandish noises and probably drank blood and worshipped dark gods, but whatever. The noises part is true, but ponies never seem to understand that its all about echolocation. Maybe if they lived in caves they would get it. Probably not. Dayponies are kind of slow, honestly.
So, forests are dangerous. If it was just the Rangers and maybe the Pathfinders, we would probably be fine. We can see in the dark and hear danger coming, and they can keep us from getting lost without having to risk breaking the canopy cover. We would make a great team. The problem is the refugees. These ponies and changelings aren’t Rangers, Pathfinders, or Soldiers. They’re just civilians. Just townsfolk who watched their homes burning not that long ago. They are slow, afraid, tired, cold, and hungry. We’ll have a hard time hearing threats with them around, muddying up the sound, and we won’t be able to move through the rougher terrain fast enough. Refugees means we have to stick to the road, and that means ambushes.
But there’s nothing for it, and that’s why they don’t talk very long. We can’t go around. Once again, Rangers could outrun the twelve wings—and that’s counting pairs as one wing—behind us, but we can’t get these poor ponies to outrun anything if we aren’t making good time in a single direction. Trying to go around the forest and approach Amethyst City from the north will add a whole extra day. Except it won’t because we’ll all be dead. We’ve taken down two and a half wings of changeling mutants in the last two weeks. Every single one we isolated into halfwings and then demolished by surprise. In a drawn out fight, we’ll lose at least one pony if there’s more than a wing, and that's if we bail when it gets too rough. And we can’t afford to lose any. They can throw away a hundred ponies and still destroy us. The Pathfinders can’t help us in the air aside from their one pegasus, and even he’s not much of a brawler. Too light.
So we’re basically sort of fucked.
But at least there’s a change in scenery.
VII.
Lily and I walk together on the snowy road. It’s dark now—only about four in the evening, maybe five, but even with no leaves the trees above are thick. They soak up light, it seems like. I swear some of them actually look like they’re made of crystals. It makes me nostalgic for when this was just a surveying trip.
I had really been looking forward to it. Mapping new territory! Discovering new things and meeting new ponies. Helping Luna and also helping the Empire. If none of this had happened, I would have come to this forest and found these trees. I would have been excited, if they are actually made of some sort of magic crystal. And, yes, I think they are. But I don’t feel excited. I’m just… sad, I guess. We would have had a great day or two here, seeing how wide this patch of forest land stretched. Maybe Last Call and Ocean Gale could have worked with us. Together, we would have found the paths and the road and added them to the new maps.
A little behind us, I hear a chittering. It sends a shiver down my spine, but I don’t turn. I try not to feel so freaked out, also. It’s just the changelings—the normal ones, the ones who got their homes destroyed.
Some of them were in the Empire, just trying to live normal lives. Some are from smaller hives that Chrysalis wiped out on her way down from the mountains out of nothing but spite. Knight-Commander Yuletide called them together and asked if any were willing to help us in the woods. Changelings can see in the dark, though not as great as we can, and they have hearing that rivals our own. He promised we wouldn’t force them to fight, and that they were free to run if we were attacked. Made all of us promise we would protect them. I think we all meant it. Maybe even Swift, even if he looked a little frustrated. Swift hates Changelings, but even he wouldn’t leave these poor little lost souls for the likes of the monsters that are chasing us. Swift is a jerk and an ass, but he’s not cruel. He and Lily just handled Canterlot differently.
Lily apparently handled it by just being unshakeable. She never seems to bend. She’s always calm, always ready. She can go from mothering you to calmly talking about how many mutants we’ve killed and then remind you to say grace in about five seconds. It used to unnerve me a little, how collected and smiley she could be, but now it’s a comfort. Lily never falters.
The changelings fall silent. We keep walking.
Lily hasn’t said anything to me yet. About what I know she knows. Can she see my dreams in my face? Do they peek out of my eyes, perhaps? Hell if I know. I just know that I can’t fool her.
Five of us here. Lily is the sharpest pair of eyes in our wing, and I’m a good woodspony, so we’re here where we can see what’s ahead. We have three changelings with us. I don’t like calling them drones, so I don’t. I’m not sure what else to call them. I don’t know how they, you know. If they’re he or she. I guess it doesn’t matter. They seem nervous. It’s probably a good idea to be nervous. I’m nervous, and I’m the big tough Ranger pony.
Swift and ‘Fang are in the back, with two changelings. Knight-Commander and Star Brand are with the actual column. It’s even more spread out now. It’s really insane that we expect to be able to protect this many ponies with such a small wing.
The best part is that we’re under strength. That’s what really gets me, as we breach the forest’s heart. Even if you count Ruby Eyes and myself as full-fledged Rangers (which we aren’t) Station Nineteen’s wing is still down at least one pony. They hadn’t gotten around to replacing old Meadow yet. At the time, I figured that one of us would stay on and the other would go to a station that needed another Ranger. If you want a wing really at full strength, still counting us as something other than miserable rookies, then you would need two more ponies in the air. So, counting us, we’re two down. Not counting us, we’re four down. And we have to defend two hundred ponies and changelings. One other flier. Two earth ponies. That’s it. That’s all we have.
“Bit for your thoughts,” Lily says quietly, just loud enough for my ears to hear. They twitch on their own. Damn, but she’s perceptive, isn’t she?
“Numbers,” I say before I think better of it.
“Oh? Sounds like a grim subject.”
She has a beautiful voice. It’s prettier than Ruby’s. It reminds me of my mom. “It is, I guess.”
“What sort of numbers, hm?”
“You. Me. Ruby. Star Brand. Kn… Yuletide. Soft. Swift. Shadow Flier.” I say each name carefully, deliberately. “Eight. Full strength is ten. It’s only eight if you count Ruby and me.”
She hums. “I would.”
I smile, but I don’t really feel like smiling. “If you add in Gale, it’s nine… if you add the two rank amateurs.”
I glance over and see her nod. “Yes. And you’re thinking about the odds.”
“No, I already know the odds. I’m just thinking about… numbers. This is really messed up.”
“A bit,” she allowed. “Do you know what I’m thinking about?”
“Sure,” I say, hoping it’s something good. Or at least something not about how we are all almost certainly going to die.
“Snow.”
“Snow,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says calmly, as if that is normal. “Snow. You know, when I was a filly, I loved snow. I still love it. I even like this snow,” she says, sweeping her wing. “Snow is nice. Cold, yes, but in a… pleasant way. It has potential. You can walk in and see where you’ve been. Or, if you’re a bit younger and have a fire in your belly—which you certainly do—you can make snowponies out of it.”
“Used to try and use branches for wings,” I mumble, half to myself.
But she hears me, of course. “I did too, when I was a foal.”
“That’s a weird thing to think about.”
“Is it? I thought it was a rather natural thing to think about just south of the artic. Surrounded as we are by snow. In fact, the most natural thing to think about.” She smiled as if this were funny, which it wasn’t. Not really. “But, in general, I don’t think much of numbers or most of the things you are thinking about. It’s not going to help. I think you’re a smart enough mare to know that.”
“I guess.”
“Grizlebrand still teaching the School?”
“Aye,” I say, mimicking that over the top accent he has. “Yar, he be there.”
She chuckles. “He would kick you into next week if he was here. You remember what he says, right?”
I sigh. “Do the job in front of you.”
“Yes,” she says, as if it was some sort of benediction. It’s more like a sigh. “Do the job in front of you. And don’t overeact when I say this, because I would like to not worry our already nervous tagalongs: there is something up ahead.”
She says it without ever changing her tone. I just sort of blink at her, slow on the uptake. When I figure it out, I put my head on swivel. It doesn’t take more than a second. There is something up ahead. Way, way up ahead. I squint.
“Ugh. It’s either small or its far away.”
“Far,” she said, simply.
“Alive? Moving?” I ask, feeling an itch in my hooves. It was the itch I had the first time I crashed while flying. Like, really crashed, blood and sniffling and mom worried to death.
“No,” she said. “No to both. If it’s alive, it isn’t terribly so. But I don’t think whatever it is lives. It’s awfully still. Good job, by the way. You’re staying calm. It’s the most important thing—it’s vital to being a Ranger. Never panic. Always remain in control. It’s impossible, but do try regardless.”
It takes us another ten minutes before we can really make it out.
Up ahead, the road sort of bends around a little frozen creek. The changelings chitter, and Lily tells them that nothing is moving, but that they should still be careful. “Stay back,” she says softly. “It’ll be alright. If something is up there and still breathing, it’ll be us they’re after.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
And I could use something to make me feel better because it becomes readily apparent that we’ve wandered into what’s left of a skirmish. The smell of death lingers slightly even in the cold. It’s… it’s hard to describe. Not that I want to describe it.
Most of the dead are in full metal armor: Legions, then. Most are Crystal ponies. A few earth ponies, one unicorn, no pegasi. Half of them are more or less still pony-shaped, which I find myself faintly surprised over. When we get to the bodies, Lily sends one of the changelings back with a message for Last Call. The other two stay with us, but don’t hang back like Lily told them to. They’re practically clinging to us.
It’s sick and it’s wrong but as I walk through the avenue of the dead, that simple fearful trust makes it worth seeing and smelling and imagining how they died. I’m so tired of ponies not wanting to be near me or look at me.
“You can go back,” I say to the one on my left. She (he? It?) is just a step behind me. “It’s okay, really. This isn’t pretty.”
It chitters at me. I look back at it for a moment to see the little changeling grimace for a moment, and then sigh. It looks at me as if it’s asking a question, and I shrug helplessly.
That seems to be enough of an answer. It vanishes in a blur of green fire which startles me but doesn’t melt the snow, and then it isn’t a changeling at all but a batpony stallion. Handsome, by all accounts, but not in a dramatic way. He sighs.
“Changeling throats don’t work well with pony words,” he explains, looking pained. “I’m sorry. May I remain like this until we are clear of this place?”
I just sort of blink at him for a second. “Uh. Yeah, yeah sure. If it helps.”
“It helps.” He pauses. I realize now that Lily and the other changeling have moved on ahead aways. She’s inspecting one of the bodies, Luna only knows why. The stallion speaks again. “When ponies see us, it makes us…”
“Nervous,” I finish, my voice sounding strange in my own ears. “It makes you nervous. You don’t like how they look at you.”
“Yes.” He (she?) looks at me strangely.
We keep walking. More dead. I catch up to Lily, who seems more solemn than calm now. She’s been waiting.
In the snow is… I recognize it. It’s a coat. I swallow.
“What… what wing?” I ask.
“Station Seven,” she says.
“Did you know anypony in that station?” I ask, feeling helpless.
“Yes,” she answers. “We can’t afford to take him,” she continues, more for herself than me, I think. “We can’t. The body will slow us down, what if it has…” She swallows. “I can’t identify him. He’s been out here for too long. Frozen solid. We’re going to stop for a moment, alright? We need to know if other Rangers died here.”
She reaches down and plucks something from the corpse. Most of the poor Ranger is obscured in snow, which I’m grateful for. She shows me what she’s collected: a tiny lunar emblem on a chain. I’ll have my own when I finish my training. If I finish my training.
“If you find another… take this. It has a name carved on the back,” she says. “Just in case. It’s all we can do, but we need to do it.”
I understand. I nod at her, because there’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t be monumentally stupid or really, really pointless.
The changeling-batpony and I began digging in the snow. Never very deep. Just a few centimeters at a time and then you move on. We find another body, and I almost lose it, but…
He comes up alongside me and gently pushes me away. I feel better. Calmer. He just looks kind of sick.
“You did something to me,” I say. My voice sounds flat.
“I am sorry. You were in distress and it was like someone shouting in my ears.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and it is okay. Everything sort of is. “I think you might have overdone it.”
“Perhaps.”
We keep looking. We find a ranger and I blink at her body. What’s left of it. Head’s gone. I don’t feel anything but… No, I really don’t feel anything.
“Could you stop doing it?” I ask him. “Just for a little while. Not all the way. I just… I shouldn’t stare at dead bodies and be okay with it.”
“I understand,” he said.
It comes back, but not all at once. I feel disgust again first. Then an ache, between my stomach and my heart. I wonder what her name was. I bend down and with a grimace search for her emblem.
It’s not hard to find. She had it safe in her duster’s inner pocket and I withdraw with it cradled between my hooves.
“What is it?” the changeling asks.
“Luna gives us these,” I say, looking down at it. The name is on the other side. I don’t look. “The Princess, I mean,” I continue, feeling strange. “When you become a real Ranger, you go to Canterlot and she gives you your emblem and talks to you personally. For like, a long time. She interviews every single Ranger. It’s the last point you can bail. If you decide that you aren’t up for it, she still gives you the medal and you can go home or back to the guard or wherever with no hard feelings. She even still talks to you.”
He hums. It’s not like a normal hum. It’s the song the changelings sing to each other sometimes at night.
“What’s your name?” I ask without looking up. I look at the little moon. It’s silver on a black circle. Onyx, I think. Heavy. Ornate. Beautiful.
“Hard to say. As in, hard to pronounce,” he adds when I don’t respond. “The closest I can come is Mozxil.”
“That’s not so hard.” I turn the emblem over. Her name was Primrose.
“I certainly do not think so, but when I am a changeling, I can add the undertones that make my full name.”
We keep looking. I don’t find another Ranger. Thank Luna.
Instead I end up finding a hat and a very, very dead giant.
The hat is a ushanka. It’s wooly and warm, perfect for cold weather. It has ear flaps that remind me of a donkey. I pick it up and look at it numbly.
The mitou is dead. Very dead. Something gouged out its eyes, probably. I look at the hat, and then I look at the giant. Huge. Covered in coarse white fur. It’s hands are big enough to fit around my body and crush me like a grape. I look at the hat. I look at its hands. I think about how black they are—you couldn’t even tell how much blood was on something like that, could you? Maybe it belonged to a Ranger. Or a legionnaire. Or just a traveler in the woods. Anypony. I know it got them. Sometimes they pick a pony up and just bite it in two. Because they can. They don’t even need to eat, I don’t think. They don’t seem to need much food. They travel light. A club or an old field gun that they carry like a rifle.
“I wanted to buy one of these when I was on leave,” I say to nopony. But Mozxil listens. “But I didn’t because I only had so many bits, and I was hungry. So I got food instead. When I heard we were shipping out for the Empire to make maps and explore, I thought to myself, ‘Midnight, you really should have bought that hat,’ and you know what? I really should have. It was a great hat. This is just like it. You can eat anywhere but you won’t find a nice wooly hat with floppy ears anywhere but north of Vanhoover. I thought, since we were coming back and I had a stipend, I could spend the day off I was bound to get in Imperial Center buying a nice warm hat. Maybe a scarf. One with nice blues. Something pretty. It really looks just like that hat. Except that one had a little Sun on it and this one has a Crystal Heart, see?” And I know that I’m crying because I feel the cold wetness on my cheeks. “Mozxil, can you do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Can you please, please, please for the love of Luna make me feel better again?”
“Of course.”
VIII.
It’s night now, and I’m thinking about the snow.
My ears are warm. I took the hat. I didn’t want to let go of it, and I was too humiliated to explain. I just wanted Lily to stop looking at me. She’s always looking at me. She sees right through me.
Mozxil was nice. I found out that changelings prefer “she” and they can be whichever. I wasn’t really paying that much attention. I just asked her to tell me things and then asked appropriate questions to keep her talking. I asked her if she would show me how she shapeshifted on the road. Didn’t seem to mind. Even did a pretty good version of Star Brand and Knight-Commander Yuletide. She doesn’t have his voice down, though. Doesn’t talk enough, I guess.
I asked her if she got tired of dayponies being afraid of her all the time. She didn’t know what a daypony was, but I think she understood. She said that you get used to it. It’s okay. Figure out a way around it. I can’t shapeshift though. I’ll always just be me. She said that the changelings weren’t afraid of us, really. They just were afraid, period. It made me feel better. I still was afraid of how I would be when she wasn’t actively sapping all my bullshit away.
When Lily wasn’t looking I hugged her and it was incredibly stupid. But I was never in the Guard, and I felt like a child, and she was okay with it. I said I was sorry, and that I probably tasted gross, and she laughed and said that it was okay, and then we parted ways and then I got first watch and then I sat here in the snow. I found a nice sturdy tree and leaned on it. I’m still leaning against it. It really is a nice tree. I mean, it’s dead and ugly, but it’s big enough for my back and it’s comfortable, and really that’s all I care about.
Snow, I’ve decided, is potential. Lily was right about that. She’s usually right. But I’m not thinking about snowponies and snowballs and tracks.
Mostly, I’m thinking about how things freeze.
Water freezes. Trees freeze, I guess. Bodies freeze, when they stop moving. Snow and ice really could be the opposite of potential that way because nothing happens anymore after they come. But then there’s ponies like me, digging away. You could find anything under there. Looking at all of this snow, I can’t help but think that all sorts of things might be under it. And eventually, the ice melts and the snow melts and it all ends up naked in the sun.
I shiver. It’s cold. Even a pegasus would be cold in this weather. I pull the hat’s ears around my cheeks tightly, like that helps at all. My duster’s buttoned up and I probably look like a little hill of wool with a head on top. It’s a really stupid image. I would laugh. In fact, I do laugh and it doesn’t sound crazy at all. Probably.
In the distance, I hear something like a song. I flinch, but I don’t get up because I recognize it. It’s an old, old tune, one my grandmother said came from over the sea when we followed Luna. It’s called “Do Not Destroy” which is a really morbid name for a song, but old stuff is morbid sometimes. It’s a kind of signal in the Rangers, and they taught it to us in Ranger School. A catchy little melody, and you tell ponies who are in the know that everything is A-Okay. Shadow Flier told me and Ruby one night, after we’d cleaned the mess, about how he’d been captured by two thugs looking to get ransom after he got wasted on leave. When he knew there were Rangers looking, he started singing it just softly enough. Those bastards never stood a chance, and they were probably still in jail.
Lily trots through the snow. I know its her because she sings some of the words—
Do not destroy
The towers that I’ve built
The lovely spires of sweet Ulthar
My dear city
Where the cat is royal blood
Where the moon sings to me, sweet Ulthar.
I don’t call out to her. No real reason to, and it would be stupid.
But she does call out to me when she’s closer. “Midnight, and all is well,” she says in a sing-song voice, trying to fit it to the tune. When she fails, I smile and continue shivering.
“Har-dee-har,” I say, or try to say, but it comes out all chattery. “It’s cold as balls, as my older brother used to say so cheerfully.”
“That does sound like something a stallion would say,” she replies like a diplomat being told that they used Celestia’s portrait for toilet paper.
I giggled. Mostly because I was nervous and miserable and when you are nervous and miserable and want to go to bed, everything is a little funny. “Is it time to go home yet?”
“Of course,” she says, so smoothly.
“Great. I was thinking I would tell Luna that being a Ranger isn’t for me and then ask for a goodbye kiss and haul my floofy ass out to somewhere with sandy beaches and a bright sun. I’ll become a slow, dumb daypony and learn how to surf.”
“Sounds wonderful. Though I would adivse caution regarding Our Lady.”
“It was just a joke,” I said.
“Oh, I know.” I look at her and see the dour expression I expected. And then it splits into a grin. “Rumor has it, and I do advise you to take this with a grain of salt, that she is a rather passionate lover. You might never escape the palace.”
She surprises me into open laughter which I stifle only with difficulty, and then sits beside me.
“Welcome to my tree. It’s sturdy, solid, cold, and also conveniently if you need to hide and wait to die, it’s just big enough to ward off death for about three seconds,” I say conversationally.
“Hm. Good to know. You seem to have taken to mimicking Shadow Flier.”
“The little nest I built? No, I was doing that in Shady Vale. I went out and sat at the edge of the neighborhood once, at the mouth of the cavern. It was snowing, and I got a little cold, so I came back with a blanket and watched the snow fall.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“It was,” I say.
“You aren’t sleeping,” she says. Finally.
“No.”
“Nightmares.” Not a question.
“Yes.”
“I have them too, sometimes.”
I look over at her, but she isn’t looking at me.
“About what?”
“Canterlot,” she says. “And about the Zebrahara. And about pirates. A bad scrape with a manticore near Ponyville. That time I almost hurled on Grizlebrand’s hooves.”
I smile. “Nice.”
“I try,” she says. “Do you need something to sleep? It won’t make you insensate, if you’re worried.”
“What?”
“If you need to wake up, you will,” she explains. “It’s not anything magical. It’s just an old recipe.”
“Everything we do is some sort of old recipe,” I say. “Does it taste bad?”
“Traditionally? It tastes like rancid butter, or at least I thought so. I experimented a bit after Canterlot. It tastes sort of like tea, if you forgot to take the tea bag out and it went cold.”
“Delightful. I’d like some.” But then I hesitate. “May I sit with you?”
“For a little while. You should go to bed.”
“I’m not a child.”
“You are not,” she affirms. She looks me over. “How old are you? Nineteen?”
“Yes.”
“How fitting.” She smiles at me and it is a warm smile. “You think this is a test. Even if you haven’t thought about it just that way, it’s in the back of your mind.”
“I know I’m not cut out for this.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to say. You killed one of them all on your lonesome. It was well done, for a pony who was never in the guard.”
“I keep seeing it come back. I puked.”
“Not surprising. On either count.” She was fishing in her duster for a moment, and when she found a little vial and held it out to me, I took it. “Here you are. Aunt Lily’s Special Nightcap. Minus the alcohol. I would love some, personally. It feels nice and warm in the belly.”
“Should I take it now or wait?”
“Take it now.”
I did. It tasted bitter, but not unbearably so. “Thank you,” I said quietly, and gave the bottle back. “I was thinking about Luna’s interview and what I would say if I were ever going to have one.”
“So quick to see the future. What would you say?”
“I don’t know. I think I might say that I’m sorry I wasted her time.”
“Anything that isn’t self-effacing?”
“I think she’s beautiful and I would ask if she was happy we were here for her return.”
She looks at me and doesn’t say anything for a moment. I feel like I’m being sized up and look away.
“That’s interesting of you. I’m sure she was happy,” Lily says after a moment.
“What did you say to her?”
I know she won’t tell me before she answers. “I’m afraid that tends to be a private affair. Though some will say. I won’t,” she adds. “But not because it’s you, pup. One day, you’ll understand. When, and not if, you go to her yourself. I think that she will like you.” And with that, she prodded me and I knew my time was up. I was glad. “Off you go.”
IX.
I wake again. It’s early, but not as early as the night before. I had nightmares. I remember them, but not very well. Mostly I remember the feeling of being afraid, but its not intense. I’m sure it was at the time. But now its only hazy and indistinct. I didn’t wake up in the night.
But my head feels sort of fuzzy. I blink up at the pale sky between the thick branches.
I wonder what time it is. Five? Maybe. I’ve been waking up early ever since the second day of basic when they levitated me out the window with magic and dumped me in ice cold water while I slept.
No reason to get up quite yet. I know that I’ll hear the others move when its time to get going for the day, and in my hazy state, I think that it’s nice to just enjoy my warm bedroll. Lazy mornings are so rare. And if I lay here long enough… I lose track of that thought.
I’m so busy enjoying the warmth and my own hazy drugged state that I almost miss it.
But I don’t miss it. A sound to my right, out of the woods. Awareness cuts through the drugged draught as best it can. Originates from left of where I was on watch. Moving towards me, definitely moving fast. What is it? Continuous noise, like—
Wings. I’m already trying to escape my bedroll when I hear Shadow on last watch raising the alarm through the woods. My hooves are shaking—the medicine has me so off balance I can’t open—there! I stumble onto the snow, thankful I slept with my duster wrapped around me, armor and all.
And as I put a hoof up to hold my hat to my head and look around for the foe, they are among us.
Before I can say anything or do anything, a changeling hits me in the side. I feel it biting down through my duster, just like the last one did. Panicking, I kick at its underbelly, my horsehoes cracking the chitin there. We fall apart, and before he can press the attack I rush him, hooves high—
I can’t look, there’s not enough time. You move on. You find the next one. You deal with it.
And I feel myself going away again, but that’s okay. I already feel like shit. Just go away, Midnight. Go away. It’ll be alright.
This is not stealth. It’s raw speed. None of the Rangers have seen changelings move this fast, but none of them have seen changelings quite like this. These are new, freshly converted in Winter’s Grip. Chrysalis the Forge-Queen has bestowed a new gift upon her fastest children.
Their eyes glow green and red in turn, and their doubled wings hum constantly. They have fangs, but in the back of their throat is a stinger that almost none of them know how to use yet. But they will. Oh, they will.
Midnight takes to the air, yelling warnings in a voice not quite her own. She draws their attention, and another comes. When it rises to meet her, she beats it back down to earth in seconds. There is no technique here, no cleverness. It is just raw strength and adrenaline. It tries to use its stinger on her and grazes her leg, but the Initiate gets lucky. She screams so loud and so high that briefly she dips into the ultrasonic that both of them hear. She catches its exposed stinger by the fleshy connection to his mouth. It pulls, and she pulls back. It is almost comic. Until she bites it off and screams again like a blind mare in a cave finding her way home with echoes.
Midnight is attacked again. She tries to overpower this one and it sees her coming a mile off. It does not use its stinger. It hits her on the back and she fumbles through the air before crashing in the snow, and then it is on her—biting at her duster. She tries to shake the changeling off, but it clings, hissing. She hisses and screams back. It abandons the duster and does what its bretheren could not: it finds a spot on the back of her neck and its sharp fangs pierce her skin and inject its toxin into her blood.
Midnight falls like a dead mare and lies uncomprehending, staring at the dark wood ahead.