“Why, thank you very much!” I told my chickens and petted Elizabeak on the head. “You’re being especially helpful today, I will have to find some extra special grain for you.”
It was early morning, and my mornings always start with feeding all the animals. An important step in that is collecting the eggs the chickens laid for me, so I can feed the weasels, the snakes, and usually, there are a few left over for cooking. But today, the chickens laid a whole dozen more eggs than usual, and I immediately remembered my new human neighbors. Rika told me they had the problem of omnivorous diet solved, but I was sure they would be happy to have some fresh scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Their house-spider actually came to see me, and was now sitting on top of one of the birdhouses, watching the rest of my animal friends while keeping the dark blue panels of its carapace flared out towards the morning sun. These house-spiders aren’t very talkative creatures, it seems. And the only thing they will eat by themselves is sunlight. “Do you think your humans like fresh eggs, mister House?” I asked, after I finished collecting the eggs into a basket.
“e/IQAAKrAcY,” it squeaked back at me, blinking the orange light twice and waving with the two front legs.
“I should bring them some, then, if you think that’s alright,” I said. “Would you like to come with me?”
Instead of answering, the spider wiggled the panels of its carapace.
“Oh, you haven’t finished your meal! I’m very sorry,” I said. Of course, the forest is quite dark even during the day. That contributes a lot to its shady reputation, and makes it a bad environment for lone house-spiders. When they are still near their egg, it’s not a problem, but when they set out on their own, they become very vulnerable, I should have considered that. “I’ll leave you to enjoy it in peace then. It’s been very nice talking to you.”
So I grabbed the loop of the basket in my teeth and went off in the direction of the human house. I couldn’t deny I really wanted to see what the house-spider had built, so it spurred me on. I figured it’s probably nothing like a spiderweb. Is it like an anthill? But humans wouldn’t be very comfortable in anthills. Maybe it’s like a wasp nest? But I can’t imagine humans would want to live in a wasp nest either. House-spiders were life created by humans for their own purposes, like numerous other animal species they bred for a specific need, but unlike those animals, spiders were created from scratch. They would build a house humans like to live in. But the wildlife encyclopedia I’ve spent most of yesterday’s evening on didn’t even have pictures of a human house, and I didn’t have the time to look at any of the other books, so it remained a mystery to me.
We really didn’t get all that deep in by the time we found the poison joke yesterday, so it did not take me longer than five minutes to see the house in the distance – a bright, almost luminescent orange spot between the trees, a neat clearing, where previously, there was a thicket overrun by poison joke. They even flattened the ground and planted fresh grass around it.
The human house certainly didn’t look like anything an animal might build. Perfectly straight, vertical walls at right angles, without any of the usual curves and slants ponies like so much in a village house. It looked like something that would feel normal on the outskirts of a big city like Manehattan. A simple, symmetrical gambrel roof just like on most of Applejack’s barns, painted exactly the same orange as the walls. From the look of the door frame, the walls were thick, stony material, strong enough to survive a hydra stepping on the house with nothing worse than paint scratches, and the door itself had a glossy sheen, suggesting plastic, with thick reinforcing ridges on it. Where did the spiders even get any plastic in the forest, I had no idea. Actually, I had no idea where did the rest of the spiders go, either… and when I realized that, I froze.
They disassembled themselves to build that house. Like some of the regular spiders eat each other after mating to lay eggs, so house-spiders disassemble each other to build their house. For humans. I’m used to nature not always being kind or gentle. But what exactly does it say about a species which creates life – life that is neither kind nor gentle to itself? Are they just imitating what they see, not knowing any better? How exactly do they treat each other, then?
But on the other hoof, the spider that came to me was probably the last one remaining. It sacrificed the rare materials the house needed just to see me, compromised its purpose in life just to be a friend to a pony it only met yesterday…
I’m really, really not sure what to think or how to feel about that.
I was thinking about it and gathering the courage to knock on the door, when suddenly, Rika’s voice came out of nowhere. It startled me so much, that I nearly dropped the basket. “So when are you going to warn them about the changeling invasion?” she said.
The window closest to the door was partially open, and the voice was clearly coming from inside. Whew. I suppose she’s not talking to me.
Stop. Invasion?! Changeling invasion?!
“Never,” Mary’s voice replied, followed by a yawn.
“Oh?”
“I am not going to do it, period,” Mary answered sharply, like hammering a nail.
My first impulse was to drop everything and immediately run away. I’m not sure why I actually didn’t. Probably, because my hooves felt glued to the ground with terror. Legends about the changeling attacks on old pony kingdoms are the stuff of nightmares. Not even Nightmare Night nightmares, and these are plenty scary enough. Real nightmares. Where the ponies you know and love are replaced by monsters, and you can’t trust anypony…
Could they mean something else?… Please?… Some other kind of creature called a “changeling?” Maybe, something from a human world? I’m sure those wouldn’t be so horrifying.
“Why?” Rika asked. Her tone was inquisitive to the point of teasing. “Don’t tell me ‘it’s a fixed point in time.’ I know you don’t believe in those.”
“There are no fixed points in time,” Mary snapped back. “Just local minima and points where history crosses potential energy barriers. I have very specific reasons not to.”
She tends to start a lecture when she says the words “specific reasons…” It’s very, very bad to eavesdrop, but I have to know more, I simply can’t pretend I didn’t hear anything now. I won’t be able to look them in the eyes if I don’t know exactly what this is about.
I’m not sure I will be able to even if I do, but I have to risk it.
“For example?”
“Reason one,” Mary began. “It might not happen at all. Precisely because no fixed points and all that. This iteration of Equestria might not even have any changelings. Being part of the mainline guarantees nothing, you said that yourself.”
I wish, I wish they were just a legend. When I was a filly, everypony thought Nightmare Moon was a legend. She wasn’t. She still feels like a bad dream to me, but she wasn’t. When Princess Luna came to visit on Nightmare Night, I was so horrible to her… because she reminded me, that Nightmare Moon was real.
“Please be serious,” Rika whined back.
“I don’t have sufficient situation awareness, so I think I’m justified, shut up,” Mary retorted. “Reason two. This is an epiphany for Cadance. There’s no telling what happens to the Crystal Empire, especially to the events which are not part of the mainline, if that epiphany does not happen.”
Cadance? That sounds like it’s a name. Not a common name. What Crystal Empire?… Could she mean Princess Cadance? She is the Princess of Love, after all. For the legendary changelings, she would be the ultimate prize… But “Crystal Empire” sounds like a name of an old pony kingdom. I’m pretty sure there was no place like that. At least, I’ve never heard of it…
“M-m-m… I think this one is shaky, but …okay,” Rika agreed. “Any more?”
Mary resumed her lecture. “Reason three. I have no idea how many changelings does Chrysalis have inside Canterlot by the time the shield goes up. I don’t know how many ponies she replaced and what sort of terrorism she might resort to, if their cover is blown and their primary mission is compromised.”
Changelings! In Canterlot! So close! Maybe… maybe even right now. I felt like I was about to faint. I don’t even know how I managed to stay up, and I didn’t even notice I bit the loop of the basket halfway through until the unpleasant taste of dry reed filling my mouth brought me back to my senses.
“She doesn’t exactly strike me as that smart,” Rika commented idly. “Her plan only works as far as it does through sheer luck.”
I had to remind myself that they aren’t talking about right now. They are talking about the future. They are talking about stories. In their worlds, there are stories about us, of course some of them are about our future. Stories that might not be true. Stories that might or might not happen to us. Some stories are just stories! What do I do, what do I do…
“Oh really?” Mary screeched back like a door hinge. “Well, assume that she is aware of the Elements of Harmony. Because it’s kinda hard to miss Discord being out and then defeated while you’re planning an invasion, and it’s been what, two months ago? Three?”
Elements of Harmony. That’s us. That’s me. I… at least, I’m justified a little in my eavesdropping if they’re talking about me? Right? It’s impolite to talk about other ponies like that behind their backs, right? Right?
“Five weeks or so,” Rika replied. I could almost hear a shrug.
Six. It was a very eventful Tuesday.
“Whatever,” Mary replied dismissively. “So riddle me this: Do her actions make more sense if she actually planned to separate the Elements?”
“…Well, some of them might…” Rika agreed. “But what about taunting Twilight?”
“This almost gets Twilight to murder Cadance,” Mary explained.
WHAT?!
“Why not just kill them both and be done with it, then?” Rika inquired.
Calm down. Calm down! She said almost! Twilight can’t actually murder anypony! She’s one of the best ponies I even know! The calmest one!… well, not really, not the calmest. But even at her worst, she couldn’t even think of harming a pony!
“Hostages as a backup plan,” Mary continued the back-and-forth. “If Twilight kills Cadance, she’s a hostage and too shaken to use her Element, so she can be safely released for a concession. If Twilight doesn’t, they still have two hostages.”
All of these horrible things Mary imagines so casually weren’t enough for Rika. “Monologuing like a dorky supervillain?” she inquired.
“While she’s speaking, everypony listens and does nothing, while her troops are banging on the shield,” Mary pointed out. “I’d say it worked for her.”
“Well… Changelings are so decoherent, they might as well be materialized rumor, so your interpretation is at least possible,” Rika finally resigned. “But almost invariably, any foreign actor in that scene uses that moment to take Chrysalis out.”
“Oh, I should be so lucky. That sort of thing never works for me! Chrysalis is a clever, observant, adaptable, very evil creature, who is normally beaten with a strategically applied miracle,” Mary declared. “When you see a fulcrum point like that, you don’t touch it, you will only make it worse. If I had my car here, I would just skip over the whole wedding. If they invite us, I’ll try to decline.”
“Aw come o-on.”
“Well, maybe not. That would be pretty much equal to a warning. I’ll just pretend I’m invisible and…”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran, not caring where to, or how fast, or whether they heard me, or even that I still had the basket with eggs in my teeth.
A miracle. Normally beaten with a miracle. Who, who is this …Chrysalis? Who is that monster that wants to hurt my friends?! Who is it that takes a miracle to defeat? Weren’t changelings horrifying enough, just on their own, without this Chrysalis leading them?
I never even remembered how I got home, or where I dropped the basket when the loop finally snapped, until I found myself hiding under my bed. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do…
I can’t do anything. Anything at all. I can’t even tell anypony what I heard. If the invasion will happen, if Mary is even a little right, telling anypony can make it much, much worse. I don’t know how miracles happen. Nopony knows how they happen, that’s why they are miracles. Even Princess Celestia says she can’t do miracles. Any little thing can make a miracle impossible, and that sort of future… I don’t want to think about it. I can’t think about it.
And if Mary is wrong, I might still be able to do something, but how do I know what? Or when? I’m not smart like Twilight. I’m not even strong like Rainbow Dash or Applejack… or Rarity. I’m not clever and resourceful like Pinkie. Can I really take that chance? Not to mention I would have to admit I was spying on guests, who made every effort to be nice… Because there’s no way around it, I really was. And there’s still a chance that Rika is wrong, and there really is no invasion. Which of the two humans I trust more? Can I trust them at all? And …can they trust me, now?
Can I trust myself?
And how am I different from a changeling now, if nopony can trust me?…
I remembered how Twilight was visited by her future self a few weeks ago and wore herself absolutely ragged, trying to prevent what turned out to be nothing. The irony is crushing. At least, I’m home, under my bed, and nopony will be bothered if I just cry. Because that’s all I can really do right now.
A hoof knocked on my door, but I just kept crying and didn’t move. Even when Rainbow Dash yelled, “Fluttershy…?” I still did not move. When Angel crawled in under the bed and poked me with his paw, I shook my head and told him, between sobs, “I’m not home…”
I’m such a horrible pony!