//------------------------------// // Fourth Movement // Story: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes // by Shinzakura //------------------------------// Caramel and Judy rushed out of the house, just seconds before it was torn to shreds by a dozen angry bugbears. Not bothering to look behind them, the two galloped as fast as they could, headed down the beach and away from their attackers. Unfortunately, their attackers were winged and fast and were slowly gaining on them. “Judy! You can fly! Get out of here!” Caramel pled, gasping between breaths. While he was definitely in shape for a draftspony, sprinting was not his forte – he wasn’t an Equestria Games racehorse, after all. “No!” she shouted back. “You have to! If they get their claws on you….” “No! I’m not leaving you!” she cried, and that was that. But it was clear that, even though she was a pony, she was a pegasus and meant for the skies, not the roads. So far she was keeping pace with him, but with his stronger build, sooner or later she would fall behind, lose strength and be within the reach of the bugbears. There was no way that he was going to allow it at all, so he dropped behind her and kept pushing. The two ran for miles, pursued by the bugbears. It made no sense that the creatures continued to follow them, at least until they passed a sign that apparently should’ve been leagues up the beach: WARNING KILLER BUGBEARS IN AREA DO NOT APPROACH HIVES BUGBEARS WILL ATTACK ON SIGHT Judy and Caramel briefly looked at each other before racing on. “Now they say something!” Caramel cried as they pushed on, as the number of bugbears behind them continued to grow in number. “Mel!” Judy gasped. “I can’t run much more!” She turned to see the increasing amount of bugbears starting to blot out the sky. “Go! Fly! Leave me!” Caramel shouted as his hooves continued to thunder, spraying up gouts of sand, tacking to and fro like a great ship upon the waves, hoping the blasts of debris would slow down the bugbears behind them. It was their only chance to survive. “I said I’m not leaving you!” Judy screamed back, even though the look on her face was one of terror. Their strength would give out. Soon, they couldn’t last much longer, and they would be at the mercy of countless angry monsters. But Caramel wasn’t about to give up. Hoping to be able to use one last burst of speed to get away from their pursuers, he took a step… ... and the ground exploded underneath him. Caramel woke up and blinked away the pain from his eyes; it was blinding him. Blinking away the sensoria, his eyes naturally followed the light to the sky above, easily several dozen feet up. Shrugging off the pain of his fall, he looked around to see nothing but darkness around him ... and then his world broke. Lying on the other end of the circle of light, was his Judy, unconscious and crumpled to the ground. Blood stained her right flank, nearly obscuring her cutie mark, and from the position of her left wing, it was clear that it was broken. Even though she was knocked out, the look of clear agony that she’d be in once she came to cut Caramel sharper than any knife. “JUDY!” he roared, leaping to his hooves ... and crashing back down as a searing pain tore through his lower left foreleg; he’d likely twisted his pastern during the fall. Grunting through the pain, he got back up to his feet and moved by her. “Judy, please, wake up!” Slowly, she opened her eyes up, and they were dizzy from pain. “Mel? Where ... are ... we?” she asked in a woozy voice. “I don’t know,” he told her. “I think we—” He stopped the moment he began to hear the angry buzzing. “Oh, no….” Golden light began to radiate in the darkness, and titanic lantern-like shapes – a series of concentric rings set one upon another, similar to the foal’s toy where concentric rings were stacked on top of each other. But these were no toys, and from the angry, ursine-like creatures that boiled out from the hives like so many angry creatures of hate, they were nothing remotely related to that of a foal’s plaything, either. As the bugbears began to circle the spotlight, Caramel managed to stand over Judy. Maybe it was hopeless, but he was going to give everything to protect the mare he loved, even if it meant his life. “Sweetie, don’t look,” he told her. Beneath her, he heard her gasp. The buzzing of the bugs was ringing in his ears, threatening to become a cacophony that would end in their ends. “Mel?” he barely heard her ask. “Do you love me?” “You know I do,” he told her. He wanted to hug and nuzzle her, the last thing he knew that he could ever do with her, but if he gave up, then they wouldn’t even be able to last that long; the bugbears would tear them to shreds in a heartbeat. “Do you trust me?” “With my heart and soul,” he told her, knowing it would be the last thing he would ever tell her. “Good,” Judy said, and then pushed back to her hooves, knocking Mel off his. Staring at the bugbears with a baleful glare, she snarled, “And now to deal with you pests!” And then she changed. Her change didn’t seem to be just a change in demeanor, but a transformation. Her body lengthened and lowered, changing from a pure white to two shades of electric blue, not unlike that extremely loud DJ in the lone danceclub back in Ponyville. Her legs became shorter and ending in short, stubby paws. Her tail lengthened and became flatter, darting to and fro unlike that of a pony’s. But the biggest change was her head, as her head changed from its normal bulbous, pony form to that of something triangular, as whiskers grew to the sides. Finally, her beautiful eyes became beady founts of blinding blue as the thing she became began to glow, arcs of lightning rushing across her body. Caramel blinked, astonished. Here stood before him a thunderstoat. He’d read dully somewhere that they tended to be the natural enemies of some various monsters in the Everfree, but he’d never seen one before – and he was pretty sure they weren’t the size of ponies, as the stoats around Fluttershy’s place tended to be pretty small. And he could barely keep his eye as the stoat blasted forward with a thunderclap, the creature becoming a literal jag of lightning as it careened into the bugbears, shocking them as it moved amongst their wake. Whole throngs of the ursinsectoids glowed like fireflies, save that wasn’t one of their natural abilities. And yet the stoat moved on, rushing through them, occasionally passing through a bugbear hive and turning its natural magic light from a warm golden hue to a burning blue as the electricity ripped through the whole cavern. Bugbears collapsed as the lightning overwhelmed them, falling to the ground, smoking and twitching from residual arcing, but otherwise unhurt. Finally, the stoat screamed, “ENOUGH!” and, briefly rearing, slammed its forepaws onto the ground. Gouts of electromagnetic force poured into the area, turning the entire cave structure into a massive tokamak of lightning. Great booms filled the air, shocking all the creatures within, and it was all Caramel could do to remain conscious as he watched the utter insanity unravel before him. But as he blacked out, a horrifying thought came to his mind: his marefriend was a changeling. Worse, given her power levels, she was likely Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, herself. He came to, finding himself in a hospital bed, and with a doctor pleading for him to stay in bed. “Please, Mr. Caramel, lie down. You’ve had a stressful couple of days and I don’t want you injuring yourself further.” Caramel wordlessly complied, and as he returned to a reclining position, the unicorn looked at his chart. “Your pastern’s twisted, but you should recover in a day or two more – earth pony physiology, you know. You’re a bit exhausted, but given what your marefriend told us, that’s to be expected.” “My…?” he asked, unable to finish the sentence. The doctor pointed to a bed across the room, where a pegasus mare slept. Her wing was in a cast, and she looked to be wrapped in a few bandages, but looked otherwise okay. Caramel sat in stunned silence for a few while the doctor checked him over before he then answered questions asked of him. No, he didn’t feel dizzy or anything. Yes, he was a bit hungry, so he could use something to eat. He also asked that his sister be contacted as soon as possible. Finally, the doctor smiled and said, “You and your marefriend should make a complete recovery. Now, if you’re up to it, the sergeant of the local EUP garrison is outside and would like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you.” Caramel wordlessly nodded, and the doctor went to the door, opening it. A pegasus in burnished armor approached him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Caramel. I’m Sgt. Dust Devil, and I’m the Commander for the EUP Acapulcolt Garrison. Now, I’d like to ask you a few questions, but I’ve already got most of what I need from your marefriend there,” the pegasus told him. “And frankly, I’m very impressed with your actions. Heck, if Miss Blue Eyes didn’t tell me what you did for a living, I’d have a recruiter in here to talk to you about signing up for the EUP.” The next few minutes was one where the stallion could barely keep his mouth shut; otherwise, he’d gasp at what Dust Devil had been told. That killer bugbears had escaped from the cave system where they’d built most of their nests, and that while exploring, Judy had been captured by the creatures. That Caramel, enraged by their actions and desperate to save his marefriend, fought off hundreds of bugbears, heedless of the danger and knowing they were in the center of the biggest swarm of killer bugbears outside of their natural territory. That he’d faced off against the queen bugbear herself and defeated her solidly, then carried Judy to safety before using his prodigious earth pony strength to collapse the cavern’s mouth before succumbing to exhaustion. “Speaking as a guardspony, that’s remarkably impressive,” Dust concluded with some admiration. “But speaking as a mare? I’m kinda jealous. My stallion just sits around the house and is lazy as Tartarus. He’s kinda a jerk, too, but I love the big lug. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here. So, Mr. Caramel, can you confirm Miss Blue Eyes’ report?” Caramel just sat there, slackjawed. Dust pulled out a pencil and scribbled something on her report. “Too humble to answer,” were the words that managed to get out of her mouth. Finally done, she slipped the report and pencil back into her saddlebags and grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure that we sweep the area for further bugbears, but given what you did, I’d be surprised if they haven’t already made a beeline – pun intended! - back to bugbear country. Thanks for your cooperation, citizen.” Satisfied that all was right, she waved goodbye, then departed the room. Caramel was still trying to process just what was going on a few minutes later when a nurse arrived with some food for Caramel and Judy. After the nurse departed, Caramel scarfed down the food as fast as he could, then settled into an uneasy rest as he watched the disguised changeling across from him. He had to escape her clutches soon. “Mel? Are you awake?” Caramel opened his eyes and saw the light from Luna’s moon streaming light in through the window. It was a beautiful night, and under any other circumstances, he would have enjoyed it, because it meant spending it with the mare he loved more than anything else in this world. Too bad it had turned out to be nothing but a lie. He turned and looked at her. The ... thing ... that called itself Judy Blue Eyes looked back at him. She was still in her bandages and splints, but otherwise looked absolutely beautiful to him. His heart skipped a beat, but it slowed back down as he realized that the beauty he gazed upon was artificial, the result of changeling magic. “I’m awake, changeling,” he spat. “I ... guess I should have told you sooner,” she said in a soft voice. “What, that you’re a changeling? That you’re probably Chrysalis for all I know at this point?” he snarled. “No, I’m not Chrysalis. But I am a queen ... well, I was a queen. Sorta. Now? I’m just your Judy.” She saw the anger in his eyes and winced. “I hope.” “The mare I loved was my Judy! You? I don’t know who – or what – you are!” he accused. Her eyes began to water. “You know, Mel, I never lied about how I feel about you. I do love you. And I should have told you the truth earlier. But I was afraid of how you’d react, and after that whole issue with Riesling? Definitely afraid.” “Well, that explains how you got away from that; Bedazzle said that the spell doesn’t work on queens.” “Oh, it does, I can assure you,” she told him. “Before I was in Berryville, I was in a town called Windy Hill, and they caught a queen there, hiding out. But the reason the spell doesn’t work on me is because I’m one-hundred percent pony.” That completely threw Caramel off. “But I thought you just said you were a changeling?” he asked. “I was,” she answered, and that response confused him even more. “Will you listen to me?” she then asked. “I promise – no more secrets, love.” She looked at him for countless seconds before Caramel finally nodded, and with his agreement, she began to tell him her true origins. Caramel could hardly believe what he heard. The story was completely unbelievable, and yet, there was no other way to explain it. “So ... wait, wait….” he said, interrupting her. “So let me get this straight: you were an immature queen working for Chrysalis—” “More like daughter,” Judy groaned. “And now you know why I hate my mother. You’d hate her too, if your mother was Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings.” That made absolute sense to him, and he nodded for her to go ahead. “I swore that I was going to leave and start my own hive, but then came the attack on Canterlot, and I had to make sure that the drones bonded to me were safe.” She looked down at the bedsheets as she told him, “I don’t know what happened to the others, but as for me, when Princess Cadance’s counterattack hit, I was thrown hundreds of miles away from Canterlot and came to a painful, near-fatal crash in the Everfree ... right into a grove of poison joke.” “Near-fatal?” he asked, confused. He’d had to clean off plenty of the changeling bodies that had been splattered around Ponyville the day after the attack, and it wasn’t a pretty business by any stretch of the imagination. She nodded. “There were two other changelings that didn’t make it whose bodies were in the grove. One of them looked like she turned as red as an apple before she died. The other looked like she’d been turned into living stone before she perished. As for me, it took me days to build enough strength to even get back on my hooves, and at the time I didn’t know what poison joke was. I only knew that I couldn’t hear the hivemind any longer, and that my transformation was ... limited.” “Limited?” “I can transform into unicorn and earth pony versions of myself, but I can’t imitate another pony, male or female. And I can’t change back to my original changeling form.” He looked at her strangely, and she chuckled. “I ... I don’t miss it. Back in the hive, I was supposedly a beautiful queen, but I suspect that’s because I was prime mating material and the daughter of the reigning queen. But looking at some pictures of changelings now? I was pretty hideous, at least by pony standards. But I’m digressing. “It took me a while to get around, and I spent a lot of time learning about the Everfree and my new condition. Much of that help came from a zebra shaman named Zecora, who knows my secret. It was she that found out that I’d spent so long with the juice of the poison joke seeping into my wounds that it got into my bloodstream and mixed with my changeling magic, so ... my ‘affliction’ was permanent. I was no longer – could no longer be – a changeling queen. I was now just a typical pegasus mare, since I always loved flying, and that I was forever cut off from the hivemind.” “I’m sorry,” he said. “You must miss them.” Unexpectedly, Judy laughed. “No, are you kidding? I’m free. I don’t have to listen to Mother’s insults or belittling statements. I don’t have to put up with friends who are just friends because they think that they will be my personal guard and thus improve their standing in the hive. I don’t have to worry about drones fawning over me, so much so that they change from female to male just so they could try to mount me.” He stared at her in surprise, and she blushed. “Yeah, it’s a changeling thing. I know mammals like ponies can’t get it, but it’s just how changelings are. “So anyway, I wanted to find out who I was in this new body, and decided to leave the Everfree and find my way in the world. I spent some time in Windy Hill, then in Apple Grove, then back in Windy Hill before I opted to do some traveling. From there I went to Berryville, and was actually on the way to Ponyville when I came across you.” “Are you who you say you are,” Caramel asked, “or should I worry some day about another Judy Blue Eyes?” “If there is, I don’t know about her,” Judy admitted. “I woke up looking like this. The last pony I imitated was in Canterlot: a unicorn, thin and statuesque, pink hair and white coat. I think she was a model, certainly a bit taller than the average mare at least. Anyway, it was Zecora who helped me pick out a name, because I can’t even pronounce my old name anymore. Hurts the throat too much, you know?” Caramel nodded in understanding – or at least mostly; he had no experience in trying to pronounce changeling names, let alone any of them having names. Maybe “Chrysalis” was a name the main changeling queen took for convenience’s sake when talking to non-changelings, he figured. Still, there was one more thing he needed to know: the most important answer of them all. “One last question, and I want the honest truth,” he told her. “Did you ever really love me?” She opened her mouth in shock, and then tears started to well up in her eyes. “How can you even ask that?” she sobbed. “I have loved you for the longest time, Caramel, you know that! My feelings have always been true! I am just as much a pony as you, and I am a mare who loves – I am not the queen I was years ago! I am a mare, and a mare who is absolutely mad for the stallion who’s sitting across from me and accusing me of faking my feelings!” She cried for a bit, then wiped her eyes. “I am just a mare whose special talent is transforming, Caramel. That’s all I am now. But I hoped I would be more.” “More?” “Yes. Your special somepony,” she told him. “But how can I believe you?” he asked. “I want to, honest to Celestia, I do, but….” He turned away. She closed her eyes and sang, from the deepest depths of her heart: “I am yours, You are mine," “You are what you are,” he said, turning away. A few seconds more passed before he admitted, “You make it hard.” In the end, the two could only look across the empty gulf of the room, and the emotional chasm between them. “That’s amazing, Caramel!” Princess Twilight Sparkle said to him as he sat at a table in Friendship Castle, months later. “To think, you’ve been through so much in such a short span of a year.” He took a drink from his tea and nodded. “Yeah, Twilight. It’s been a very interesting year.” He stared at the apple blossoms of the tree planted just outside the window, one of the many changes that had been made in his absence. The tree was an ornamental apple tree and thus non-fruiting, but magic kept the fragrant blossoms up for most of the year. “So, Caramel, dear, I presume you’re not writing it down?” Rarity asked. “No. That part of my life is private,” he told them, “warts and all. I have so many other things to write about in Wandering Hooves without getting into my emotional pain.” “That’s so sad,” Fluttershy said, empathizing with the stallion’s sorrow. She’d heard the whole tale from start to finish, and was completely astonished that he was able to bear it as well as he had. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Caramel was about to reply when he’d been repeated by the fugue that was the laughter of dozens of foals. “Do it again! Do it again!” one particular filly squealed. “Your aunt is soooooo cool!” a colt told Little Caramel. Little Caramel nodded, then looked towards the mare in question. “One more time?” The mare nodded and said, “Okay, one more time and that’s it, okay? Even I need to catch my breath.” The mare concentrated and with a warping and weaving that looked like the flow of water, a second later a griffin stood where the mare was. “Okay,” the griffin hen told the foals. “Adults have to talk now, so go out and play, okay?” The foals all happily departed the palace, with the exception of Little Caramel, who paused long enough to hug the griffin’s left claw before following his friends outside. The griffin took a look at the crowd gathered around the table. Approaching them, she sat down in the chair next to Caramel. “Geez, these chairs aren’t really comfy for griffin butts,” she said to no one in particular, before looking at Twilight. “Maybe order some chairs for non-ponies?” From her seat, Rainbow Dash cackled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her! I know griffin butts and I know that Gilda would complain up a storm if she had to sit in these!” “Fine, fine, fine,” Twilight demurred. “I’ll have Spike order some custom seats from Griffonstone. So, anyway, Judy, how do you feel?” “Exhausted,” the pegasus said as she returned to her normal form. “Definitely pushed myself to the limit, today. Guess we should study that?” The alicorn grinned. “Definitely.” During the time they’d spent in the hospital, Caramel and Judy had come clean with one another and their relationship had become much stronger for it. Deciding to return to Ponyville so he could tell them about his relationship, they opted to take the long way, as Caramel had planned – Judy confessed that she’d actually never been to Highhaven before, and so now no longer had any reservations about visiting. During that time, they had no secrets between each other. Caramel had said what he could to her about fitting in with ponykind, and Judy had shared what knowledge she had of changelings, including the all-important tricks to notice one in disguise. Once they arrived in Ponyville, however, the very first thing they did was to meet with Princess Twilight and the Bearers, as well as Caramel’s sister and brother in law. Judy told them everything about herself and what had happened, and while they reacted with shock at first, once they got to know her, and seeing how wildly in love she and Caramel were, they eased up. Zecora was contacted and confirmed Judy’s story, adding that so long as she had known the changling-come-pegasus, she was a sweet mare with a gentle disposition. After promising that she wanted to live her life only as a pony, Princess Twilight agreed, and the “most magical pegasus” was introduced to the public with her unique skills and all. Needless to say, she was a hit, and as Trixie Lulamoon was in town the same week, the two learned to perform together and Judy had learned a lot of stagecraft from the unicorn stage mage in that time. “So, what’s yer plans fer th’ future?” Applejack asked both of them. “Yer not gonna come back t’ work on the farm, Ah reckon.” “Nope!” Judy said as she nuzzled her beau. “First thing’s planning the wedding – that in itself is going to be a blast!” Caramel nodded. “Then after that, we’ll head back to Acapulcolt and rebuild our house there. But we won’t be there long; we have a lot of traveling to do and a lot of places to see. After all, we have our whole lives ahead of us, don’t we?” She nodded and then nuzzled him again before they kissed. And like so many other stallions before him, he felt truly blessed, because he had somepony to love and somepony who loved him back: a wonderful mare he could call his own. His own sweet Judy Blue Eyes.