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// Chapter 5: Of Forests and Changelings 
// Story: Converted 
// by Shaded Changeling 
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	Those green eyes glared back at him. Fiery hell burning through him. ‘You disappoint me’
The Queen was not pleased with what he did, nearly killing one of her best warriors, saving a filly, getting blasted to who knows where.
but that wasn’t what got him, he was just fine with the Almighty Changeling Queen being perturbed…but the next image was…bad.
It wasn’t a fiery all powerful image, nothing like that…It just showed Meadow’s mother…crying…
“I’m sorry…” was all Shade could say. “I’m sorry.”
A light was shone off to the side, and all he could see was a shadow. Wings, horn, glowing white eyes…yup…That’s one angered god thing.
Shade could just feel himself shrinking in her presence. And for good reason. He was a small insignificant gnat and, by comparison, she was a rather large bug zapper. And he had just been a part of an attack on her people, those she swore to protect.
A bright light was radiating from her horn and a blast of light shot out at him.

He blinked slowly as he found himself hanging from a tree. Looking up into a bright shaft of light coming through a hole in the trees. He blinked for a few moments, before he heard Meadow’s voice.
“Mr. Nymph? Hello? Mr. Nymph?” She was saying it so casually, as if looking for a small pet. “Mr. Bug Pony? Are you here?”
“Over here Meadow.” Shade just barely managed to make it audible. His head was pounding, his leg was fractured, and he was fairly certain that he had puked at some point. So needless to say, he felt pretty drained.
Some of the bushes nearby rustled as Meadow stepped out of them, looking along the ground for Shade.
“Mr. Nymph?” She said unsure of where he was.
“Up here, Meadow.” Shade said. Looking down at the light drown filly.
As Meadow looked up at him she let out a small giggle. “What are you doing up there?” She asked as one might say it to a cat that had just climbed up the counter.
“Currently I’m thinking about how many times my life has changed in the past few days…oh and probably having a concussion.” For some reason the little filly just giggled even more at this.
“Silly bug pony.” Meadow replied looking up at Shade and placing a hoof over her mouth. Shade had to look up to his legs to see how he was hanging there, only to see a branch perfectly fitted into one of the larger holes on his back right leg, perfectly holding him in place.
“Umm…Meadow?” He said halfway between being tired and helpless. “Help?”

It took about twenty minutes of fidgeting with the branch, trying to magic it, and even Shade gnawing a little at the branch before it finally gave out. Sending Shade face first into the earth. Even after that he still had a piece of wood jammed into his leg…so that wasn’t pleasant. Luckily Shade managed to pull it out with his teeth. So at least that wasn’t impeding his movement, he had his left leg for that.
“So where are we?” Shade asked, looking around as Meadow climbed onto his back. The forest looked gnarled, the entire place looking uninhabited. Vines crept everywhere, and even the bushes were crawling with vines. Given what Shade had heard about these ponies, they apparently controlled nature. So why had this one forest been completely left to grow on its own?
“Umm…” Meadow said slightly shaking on Shade’s back. “I-I Think this is the-the-the…”
“Spit it out…” Shade said for two reasons, one her shaking was vibrating his carapace, which was not comfortable, and second he wanted to know without the stuttering.
“Everfree Forest.” After she said this, she wrapped her hooves tighter around Shade’s neck, which would be bad, if he didn’t have a hard carapace blocking her from squeezing too tight.
“The Everfree Forest?” Shade repeated. “What’s so bad about it? Aside from general creepiness.”
“The plants grow…the clouds move…and the animals live…all by themselves.” She started shaking again, so much so that Shade’s vision was starting to blur slightly.
“P-ple-e-a-a-s-s-e Sto-o-o-o-o-p” Shade said not noticing that the vibration in his voice was back, and being shaken didn’t help much.
“Oh…sorry, Mr. Nymph.” Meadow Song said as she stopped shaking. Shade’s eyes still had a few seconds of shaking before they stopped.
Once his eyes finally stopped jiggling. He looked up, found the sun climbing down from its pinnacle. Assuming that they had been out for…about 2 hours… that should be the west. And if he remembered correctly from his mountainside view, there should be a small town near the edge of the forest… The only issue is that he had no idea where any of this stuff was. And while he would easily be able to fly above the tree line, he didn’t want to risk getting caught by any of the spear wielding guards no doubt looking for any sign of horse shaped bugs. And probably just to make him seem like an even worse pile of chitin covered crap, more than likely it would be shown that he had kidnapped the little filly, so that complicated things.
Meadow had taken notice of Shade’s slight changing of expression. “What’s wrong, Mr. Nymph?”
“Nothing, Meadow… don’t worry about it. And by the way, my name isn’t Nymph. It’s Shade.” He had begun half-hovering half-walking so that he could keep pressure off his right leg. Causing a very slight buzzing sound as he walked.
“Then why was that nasty Bug Pony calling you Nymph?”
“Well…the only thing I can come up with is that he’s a bit grumpy.”
“Like mom when she comes home late from work.” The little filly giggled slightly and with that Shade got a slight smell of cotton candy, which seemed to be coming from… Meadow?
Shade turned to look at the little light brown unicorn on his back specifically with his left eye, and…she had a small pink aura around her, with another small mixture of black and light blue. Were these…her emotions towards him?
“Yes Mr. Shade?” he noticed him looking at her, which wasn’t difficult as he stopped moving to look at her.
“What are you feeling right now?” Shade asked.
“Well…I’m a little scared” That explained the black wisps. “But I know that you’ll protect me. You’re a good Bug Pony.” Shade cracked a little smile as she said that. While he was never a big fan of kids, he couldn’t deny that they could be some of the best motivation he could find. In fact one of his more recent dreams involved him going and saving the eggs before the Changelings attacked and placing them in a nearby lava flow…luckily dragon eggs are pretty heat resistant.
“I’m also kind of worried…” Meadow said, cutting into Shade’s concentration.
“Why’s that?” Shade asked genuinely wanting to know.
“Mom…she must be so scared for me…” The fire turned a slightly darker blue; she seemed to be getting sad. “But I’m also worried about you.”
Me? “Why are you worried about me Meadow?” Well he had a good idea about why, fractured legs aren’t exactly painless.
“Because you’re hurt…but if we take you somewhere to get it healed, they might just lock you away.” This hit Shade…this little filly, which knew almost nothing about him, was worried about his well-being. 
“Why?” Shade mumbled.
“What?”
“Why are you worried about me?” Shade asked, curiosity and a bit of emotion getting to him.
“Because you helped me.” Meadow replied as though it were obvious. “You kept those nasty Bug Ponies away from me, and you even hurt your leg in order to protect me.” If Shade’s carapace could blush, it probably would be.
“Come on,” Shade replied. “Anybody would have done the same. If anything you were the brave one. You didn’t run when you had the chance to, and you held on with all your might.” Even though Shade couldn’t see the filly’s face, he could tell she was blushing.
“I was just listening to your-“
BOOM
The sound startled both of them; Shade’s wings snapped shut and his back leg landed on the hard earth with a forceful thud. Cursing under his breath in an ancient language, he turned towards the sound, and he saw something he never expected.
The sound came from the direction of Canterlot, and it sounded exactly like a sonic boom, which Shade doubted was a normal thing, especially with the giant rainbow blast.
“Whoa.” Came from both of them as the giant Rainbow waves expanded out from the city. If Shade hadn’t been thrown, slammed, head-butted, crippled, and been knocked unconscious three times, he would have thought it was a dream.
“What is that?” Meadow said, looking bright eyed at it, so clearly this wasn’t a normal thing.
“I have no idea…” Shade replied, finding himself looking at it for much longer than he should have. Mostly because as he was looking at the city, he noticed the sun was beginning to set…rather quick transference from day to night… then again…the cycle is controlled by two flying unicorns so…whatever.
Shade had to shake his head to get back to focusing on the task at hand…they needed shelter and they needed it quick, mostly because he wasn’t too eager to see this place at night.
There was only one option to try and find a cave quickly, it wasn’t Shade’s best idea ever. He opened up his wings and flapped them quickly. Only stopping once he was above the tree layer.
Please let there be no patrols…
He managed to spot something that was…much different than he expected. Up on the top of a nearby hill, there was what looked like a ruined castle… So they had attempted to build here… Shade started to wonder what could have caused them to give up on building… Then he remembered where he was. He quickly got the direction of the castle in his mind and ducked back down under the trees.
“What did you see?” Meadow asked as Shade landed, being very careful not to land on his back leg.
“I think I saw the ruins of a castle up ahead, hopefully it is safe in there so I can go and scout ahead.” Maybe I’ll find that village I saw earlier…
“A castle?” Meadow asked making sure she heard right. “You sure it was a castle?”
“I think so…” Shade replied as he rubbed the back of his head with his hoof, which made a strange scraping sound. “Hopefully my eye didn’t lie to me.”



When the two of them managed to get to the ruin’s clearing, Shade took a look at it. The building itself looked sort of like those he had seen in Canterlot, but very aged. The windows were mostly gone, the skeleton of the structure was mostly gone, the towers all eroded, and Shade didn’t really trust standing on any of the towers for longer than a few seconds. If you fixed it up, it might look almost exactly like the main one in Canterlot. But that was for someone else to figure out.
There was a small canyon in between them and the castle…luckily Shade could fly. So it was no big issue, even though there was a bridge up, he didn’t trust it given how it looked almost as old as the castle. So he flew over it.
Looking up to the sky, it had begun to shift from orange to a dark blue. So they had got here with a little bit of time to spare. Meadow was dozing off on his back; he could hear the little filly breathing. When he was at an arch which could have been an entrance at one point, He moved his hoof behind and nudged her slightly. “Hey Meadow?” he said quietly.
The little brown filly’s eyes opened, her light green eyes slightly bloodshot, and Shade didn’t blame her. She had seen a lot today. She deserved to rest…just not right now.
“Yeah?” Meadow replied rubbing her eye with a hoof before giving a big yawn.
“We’re here.” He said quietly. “We should be safe here. Just a few more minutes.”
“Alright Mr. Nymph…” She said as she closed her eyes again.
As Shade walked inside the building, he saw that the entire roof had basically crumbled onto the ground. Luckily there was a pretty good pile of rubble at the far end of the hall. Right below a large hole between two ripped tapestries.
As Shade flew over, he lightly dropped Meadow under the large hole, grabbing one of the smaller tapestries from the wall and draped it over her like a blanket. And just as a safety precaution, he drew a large circle around Meadow with his horn, making walls of fire spew up from where his horn touched. He made sure that he didn’t put too much energy into the spell so that it wouldn’t wake her up, just enough to deter any possible predators.
“Sleep tight Meadow.” Shade whispered as he flew through the hole in the wall and headed towards where the bridge was attached. He grabbed the rope that was holding the right side of the bridge closest to the castle and loosened it just to be safe.
He flew over the crevasse and found a dirt road leading further into the woods. Looking up at the sky, Shade saw that the red was overtaken by the cool dark blue of night. Something he was familiar with, everything else was still a bit strange to him.
After what felt like a half an hour, he managed to reach where the path opened up to a valley. And Shade couldn’t have been happier. He looked out of the opening and saw a small village. A few houses were lit by candles or some form of magic.
Looking around the valley, the closest building was a small cottage made from what looked like a cross between a hill and an acorn… While he couldn’t see any real details about the cottage, as there were no lights on.
As Shade turned his head to the rest of the valley, he saw what could have been an orchard, or just a lot of trees, but they didn’t look ravenous like the ones in the forest, they seemed tamed. While he couldn’t make out any details on the trees, he did see a building through the trees. It looked like a barn. Could have just been a house…Shade had no idea.
Shade was too busy looking around to notice anything else, but luckily his ears still worked. Because a few seconds later, he heard two ponies talking to each other, and they seemed to be getting closer.
Shade jumped up to the nearest tree, hiding himself in the rugged branches and leaves. He couldn’t make out what race they were, but he did pick up what they were saying.
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope, according to Shimmering Star, the entire city was under attack.”
“No way…There must have been thousands of them.”
“Must have been. The Guards were overrun in minutes.”
“Do you think Lyra’s going to be alright?”
“I hope so… I wouldn’t forgive myself for letting her go otherwise.”
“How did they get in?”
“Their Queen was apparently disguised as one of the Princesses and got by undetected…”
As the two of them got closer, Shade was beginning to hope that he was hidden, up until a rather large growl came from underneath him. The two ponies stopped in their place, backing up slowly, before turning and running back to the town. Shade let out a relieved sigh. Which was immediately replaced by a light clicking of his carapace as he looked down.
Below him was a rather large wolf, made almost completely out of sticks and branches, its eyes were glowing with an eerie greenish yellow glow. And as it opened its mouth, Shade nearly puked from the smell. The closest thing he had ever smelt to it was a place called the Dump Pool. It was essentially a large lava pool that had been infused with all the smells poured into it. Even the dragons didn’t like to go near it without a filtering spell to purify the air.
But whatever this wolf thing was it seemed to really want to eat Shade, as it was scratching at the tree. Almost like it wanted to shake Shade off the branch. Which may have worked if Shade hadn’t quickly stabbed a tree branch through his front hoof to keep himself steady.
“Shoo. Shoo.” Shade was flicking his free hoof in a manner to get the wolf to leave. But it wasn’t really working, as now the wolf was trying to jump up and grab him with its jaw. Shade had to look over towards the village to make sure he wouldn’t be seen if he did something stupid, luckily the only ponies he could see were running back to the town.
Shade lifted his head as his horn began to glow with a green light, right at the tip, a ball of green fire was forming when it was about as large as the wolf’s jaw, he whipped his head down, throwing the fire ball down the wolf’s throat, causing it to burst into flames. It began to turn over, the fire moving through its body quickly, and soon it had stopped moving and was lying motionless. The fire dying down, Shade had pulled his hoof free from the branch and landed softly in the charred chest of the wolf.
Alright, Shade thought to himself, I found the village that was good enough. I’ll deal with everything else tomorrow… Shade was taking off from the ground when he saw the wolf reforming itself from the spare scraps around him.
“Are you kidding me?” Shade said out loud, quickly clasping one of his hooves over his mouth, and turning back towards the path he had followed before and flying away from the wolf. He didn’t want to use anymore of his energy on fighting a fruitless battle. “Well at least I have something good to tell Meadow when she wakes up.” Shade said to himself as he flew above the tree lines, trying to get back as quickly as he could.