All week, I scoured for ways in and out of Ponyville. Aside from main roads, the train station, and by air of course, hiking trails were the ace in the hole that I could follow away from Ponyville to neighboring towns If a time ever came for me to run, I'll have backups memorized and a escape plan.
While atop a ridge overlooking the village, I saw the curving steel rails reflecting sunlight leading sixteen miles all the way down the line to Canterlot. I saw small white plumes of steam chugging and blowing out of the colorful metal engine, heading towards us, then to the Great Falls region.
Rainbow Falls, Emerald Falls, and the Ruby River, they were stops only an hour away by train, and there was an uncanny relaxing feeling of watching the landscape move by.
I realized how I could leave her to be found. The plan unfolded in my mind, with the search relaxing after the initial panic, it wouldn't make sense to leave her somewhere unconscious within the town, nor on a train leaving Ponyville. Obviously, the ponies would figure out the kidnapper was in town, but if she were on a train coming back?
It seemed like a perfect plan, maybe disguise her, or...
A dim flickering bulb blinked out in my brain, 'How do they get the ponies back to the hive without nopony noticing?' It seemed like an obvious answer, having come from a changeling hive, but in all the times I've ever been around any other changeling, not once do I remember them ever hinting at how they smuggled an adult pony dozens of miles to the hive.
How could I not know?! I tried pulling up every mental image I could of scavengers and infiltrators bringing back cartloads of ponies, bound up and knocked unconscious, or already podded.
It's not like there's books written on this available. Time to do exactly what the great philosophers have done when trying to figure something out, think hard about it, and then wing it.
There are two trains leaving ponyville, each come every 45 minutes, one heading east, the other west. That's all I really needed to know about the where and the when. Who I needed to worry about was Big Macintosh. Whatever mind game he was playing last night, he was definitely winning. I can't tell if he was getting madder over some back of the mind item, and was looking in my general direction when he did it. Or, I'm lying to myself and the big lug knows I'm a changeling. How he knew, I couldn't even begin to guess. I certainly could've been trying harder not to sound like a pony conjured up out of the blue.
I took a kitchen knife and carved straight down through the precipice of Pink Lady's pod, letting the resin spill out onto the floor. I caught her in my front hooves as she started to cough. Pod resin held a much denser content of oxygen than normal air, unlike water which is only thirty percent oxygen, seventy percent hydrogen, ponies don't necessarily drown because of the water, they just can't pull enough oxygen from water to stay alive.
Shaking another distraction out of my head, Pink Lady finished coughing out the resin, slumped over and barely conscious. Drool dripped from her lips, followed by a few involuntary shudders as the cold air clung to her wet fur.
Carefully, I laid her on the floor, and toweled her dry. Combing out her mane, I nudged her until she finally reacted, slowly climbing up onto her hooves.
Looking at her, she was well and truly drained. I peeked at her eyes and they were completely lifeless. A faint recognition sparked deep within her eyes, but Pinky Lady leaned on her right hooves and slowly started slumping down onto the ground. She let out a gutteral sigh that came with a stench of old sugar.
With a horrified look, I remembered the last thing that went into Pink Lady was alcohol, and even though her body used it all, the slowed digestion and filtering could've turned her stomach into a walking rot-gut distillery. She couldn't even know where she was or did, and was suffering from one of the worst hangovers of her entire life from now until she dies. Pink Lady burped, an unpleasant smell, and then all the muscles along her neck and chest contracted and convulsed. Vomit and bile mixed in with pod residue stained the ground an unhappy rainbow of colors.
Whoops, maybe should've left her in for another two weeks? I noticed that Pink Lady was looking more fit and thin than she was earlier this month.
"No, no, stay awake, come on." I pulled her up, shouldering one hoof over my neck as her head dropped.
I left the other pods untouched, glancing over my wither to Almond and the pegasus. Thinking of who I could replace to keep myself energized, then about getting love back to the hive. By all accounts, liquid love, or goopy-love, would be the best way to return to the hive with something to show for. Love is thick, it's compact, the best buck for your bit, it can be stored in a barrel, and tastes great. The cons made themselves even more so apparent: I've been gone for months, and to return with a small haul wont earn me any awards or favors-it's suppose to be my job, and I hadn't done it very quickly.
If that were my job. I reminded myself that way back when, all I was supposed to do was stock the house and wait for my replacement, then to report back to the nest.
As for now, on an impulse, I'm walking a delirious and suggestible Pink Lady to the train station in the late evening. The train ran right through Ponyville, and with the one station only a hoof full of blocks away, I could see the three blinding lights shining directly down onto the steps leading into the terminal. Not that the Ponyville station was all that large, but I knew it opened up to a small ticket booth right by the tracks with a restroom and benches nearby.
Pink Lady Apple mumbled, surly, I was supporting her, but confident she wouldn't remember much about this walk. I took the liberty of changing into a pony that I hadn't used before without much given thought aside from, name, hair, mane style, color, cutie mark, and backstory as to why I was dragging a quote-unquote, drunk mare through Ponyville. The backstory only lasted as long as nopony recognized her. If anypony did...well I guess I'd know who to replace Pink Lady with.
I was confident during our walk, passing three ponies with a small smile and a word to calm their nerves. "Evening," my heart did pound against my chest when Pink Lady threw up again on one of her hooves while slurring "Heeeeeyyyyllo-op." It sounded like a greeting ended with a hiccup to a passing stallion, I jumped in and said, "Sorry, she's drank to drink," I snorted and restarted, "Heh-We're drinking. No weee...were drinking... and now we're almost home." He nodded knowingly and kept walking, for the life of my I couldn't understand my profound luck, or natural skill.
"Be safe." I heard him say, as Pink Lady's stumbling only cemented the fact that she was acting inebriated.
With the train station only across the street, I set Pink Lady Apple down on a bench and hurried across the dirt road and clambered up onto the steps. With so little development, the gangway wasn't nearly long enough for any longer train to come in, and at the end I saw steps leading down to the ground and a rough-worn patch of dirt trailing next to the train tracks.
I approached the booth and smiled - it was important to smile - it made some ponies think that there was an actual reason for you to belong in places that you didn't.
"Two tickets for the 8:45 to Canterlot,"
It would only take half an hour to reach Canterlot, then, as I'd discussed with myself already, the last trains out of Canterlot were 9:30, the one I was going to put Pink Lady on, and 10:15 to Ponyville, 9:35 direct line to Fillydelphia, and 10:00 to with layover to Manehatten, and a-I kid you not- 3:15 A.M. train to Trottingham.
All I needed to do was to make sure that she was on the return trip home.
"Train arrives in..." He looked up at a clock to his left and then leaned forward, trying to look out the window and down the tracks, "bout twelve minutes." I glanced down the tracks as well while pulling out bits to pay for the first set of tickets. I didn't see any train, and I thought the walk from my house to the train station would've taken a lot longer than expected. Swallowing, I thanked him for the tickets and retrieved Pink Lady, depositing her at the last bench next to the tracks in plain view of the ticket booth. She didn't offer any resistance I stepped back from Pink Lady and exhaled a deep breath.
I was visibly shaking, blood seemed to be coursing past my nerves as if they'd just come into contact with cold steel. "Stay here, I'll try to find some water for you." I absently said, any stand or concession selling water was closed, I only said it for the benefit of three ponies who arrived from the time it took for me to grab Pink Lady from the bench across the street and bring her here.
Nervously I thought about actually getting water for her, and on another note, I only assumed I would have to bite Pink Lady and knock her out again before too long or risk her becoming aware of her surroundings.
I walked to the bathroom, if only for a moment so I could be someplace private. My desire for no pony contact was interrupted by the same fliers and posters I'd seen around town- Applejack being much more involved with her family definitely put up more missing posters than Almond's, as out of all the things hundreds of ponies walked past every day, the only thing that stood out was the one I was guilty for. My chest felt tight. The only thing holding the Pink Lady's missing poster to the wall was two small pieces of tape.
I pulled the poster of and pushed my way through the door into the bathroom. It was decent for a small town train-station bathroom, it's not like there were guards hanging around, bullshitting stories to each other. The tiled floor was a stark contrast to the wood paneled flooring outside. The yellow glow made the room feel like it was perpetually late afternoon, flanked with a buzz of electricity surging through the lights. Locking the stall door, I was alone with my thoughts and the poster. Contemplating flushing the poster down the toilet didn't bring me any immediate joy, I was only going to remind myself what she looks like when I took two steps out the restroom door.
The rogue in me gave an answer to what I should do with the poster, which is odd considering changeling's don't have a rogue side, just the part that's drilled into them since birth and always reminds them to never screw up in any social or private situation in any context with anyling, anypony, or anything ever or risk exposing yourself to the world to see and scrutinize.
High expectations. The humor was so palpable and ironic I silently chuckled in the bathroom stall for a moment, knowing full well that a shot in the dark like this would be wild and blind on my part; impulsive, but everypony would hear it, and come running. I wonder what it would hit?
I slid back the lock to the stall and set out to find a pen within the next five minutes before the train arrived.