Mild Violence tag
'We're not all bad, just desperate.
Signed, A changeling.'
'It sounds terrible, doesn't roll off the tongue at all. What kind of hail mary to the ponies is this suppose to be, a desperate cry for grammar lessons?' Being critical of myself, I looked over those words I wrote on the front of Pink Lady's missing pony poster. I wanted the skepticism generated around her reappearance to create waves. Let it be a talking point on every pony's mind, maybe it'll keep them from lashing out on instinct next time they see one of us in our true form.
Here's to hoping.
They can't seem to wrap their tiny brains around the thought of emotion being in one of four states that we can consume and use as energy. Why do you suppose the ponies have a so called 'genius' unicorn class with mages and alchemists and scholars both living today and dating back longer than anyone alive, excluding the ruling classes. Yet the general population can't figure out a simple magical concept? What is being lost in translation? What is not being disseminated by that sun-wielding immortal?
Their inability to effectively and locate changelings, obviously. I spent the rest of the time waiting for the train thinking about all the different ways I could've knocked out the Apples in succession without the other pony noticing them. My mind lingered on how to take down the older brother; rapid blows to pressure points and choking him out. Leave it to my thoughts to come up with a ninja fight scene where I play the 'good' guy. If I was bouncing these ideas off another changeling, we'd be laughing by now. Booing at the thought of ponies having it better than us, being able to enjoy themselves. The thought of mentioning anything like that to a pony made my skin crawl, like a dozen worms finding their way underneath my chitin and wriggling in every direction. I clasped both hooves together in front of me, trying to focus. Flipping the wanted poster over in my hooves, reality seemed to speed up all around me as the train pulled into the station. For a mild second I panicked, looking around for my misplaced ticket.
Not many trains have them, but then again, I haven't been on all that many trains. A small metal clasp on the edge of the bench or seat closest to the aisle was meant to hold your tickets out for sleeping passengers who didn't want to be disturbed as the conductor made his rounds. I helped Pink Lady onto the train and laid her down on the bench. After setting her ticket in its holder, I popped into the bathroom for a moment, changed, then took up a bench two rows down.
Two short blasts from the engine's horn was followed with the whole train lurching into motion. I did it, I realized. This is how changelings moved ponies to and from hives. Right under every pony's nose. Gah! The answer was so obvious the whole time. I could keep going, take her back to the hive at this point. Then, when the time was right, take Almond. In thirty five minutes, I would be in Canterlot. In an hour, I could be anywhere.
The conductor came through, punching all of four tickets in the same car before moving on. His voice had a low grumble but relatively upbeat for how late at night it was. "Ticket." he said, his brown eyes, grey coat, and lantern cutie mark. I smiled wearily and took in all his features - predominately right hoofed, small enameled gold pocket watch in left coat pocket, and filed the details away for later. Would I ever use his form? Maybe, but having another form to imponynate meant I could use one more face use to walk away from a bad situation.
The rattling of the train wheels beneath me were rocking the entire car as it was jostled and pulled along the track. Every lurch I could feel emminating from the single hitch connecting this train car to the one in front of us. The groaning and creaking of the metal box was incessant, always bouncing along the track. The entire train seemed to be alive as it came around any bend, tilting and leaning. Despite the noise, the rocking of the train made me want to lay my head down to sleep.
I forced myself to stay awake, settling for awareness and focusing on the rising and falling of my chest until we came to Canterlot. The squeal of metal on metal brakes ground out all other noise as we slowed down. Bright lights illuminated the track, and for a brief ten seconds, the train passed a station under construction. Ten ponies were laying concrete, cutting beams to size, carrying buckets of gravel and planks. All too quickly it passed in the blink of an eye. Another five minutes after passing the construction crew and we were at Canterlot Station.
Some part of me wanted to hiss, as if to fend off any curious looking types before they even got near me. Pulling Pink Lady down onto the platform, she looked right into my eyes. Her own eyes were beautiful, I never took the time to appreciate them aside from a few moments at the bar. It took me until now to realize that. The depth of her gaze was short, she was trying to fight through the haze, remember my face, who I was, remember herself, remember what happened to her.
I didn't give her the chance to vocalize anything. "Come on. You're going home." She clicked her teeth together and followed along. Sputtering mono-syllables, "Muh..Wha.. hssh..."
In a single instant, my Id blurted out an idea on keeping her silent before the rest of my brain could shove it far back down into changeling thought processes. Skies! The anxiety in my stomach alone made me want to slap myself for thinking like that.
It was the energy in the air. I was ignoring it with all my attention on Pink Lady, but after taking a moment to take stock of myself, there was a foul, corrupting, tainting presence in Canterlot Station. My defenses flew up, my heart thundered like a drum in my chest.
I imagined giant violin strings being strung across the sky, and this...this...'bleakness, was grinding against them. I was grinding my teeth together before long, trying to figure out what the Tartarus was putting me on edge. Over the next minute I was more aware to my surroundings, every time I licked my lips, another detail came into focus.
The train station at this time of night was a purgatory of emotion, ponies mindlessly milling around, hardly a original thought in their head. Filtering out everything else, the noise of a conversation growing louder and louder, and more out of control was the source of the bleakness.
Two platforms away, and three benches down, was natural observation at its finest. An anxious stallion, and a black hole of emotion embodied mare were talking face to face. The noise wasn't even relevant until the tone of the male's voice shouted a single word with both apathy and finality.
"NO!" Our heads turned towards the noise. "I don't know!" I froze, no matter where I went, those posters followed. In the mare's hoof was a folded piece of paper. Even from where I was sitting, the 'MISSING' was plenty visible. My eyes were pulled away from the couple to look around the station. I wished for a quick and painless death as I saw two more posters tacked up.
'Who would be the first to spot us?' I wondered. In plain sight right above benches, I wondered if I could immolate things from a distance.
"Then ask one of them!" The mare's voice rang out. It sent a ripple through the station, the state of aloofness shifted to curiosity and concern.
"I can't! You need to stop-!" The stallion yelled, but he cut himself off, restarting at a quieter inside voice. "You need to stop." Were the last words I could easily make out. The mare pointed at the poster, the stallion shook his head.
My tongue slipped out again and I passed it off as a yawn while tasting the air.
"What?" I asked myself, "Was the stallion a big of idiot as me?" The stallion reeked of changeling, one hundred percent. The conversation became vastly more interesting and apparent on the two ways I imagined it playing out. The first, I'm eavesdropping on a conversation that I've taken completely out of context and took the wrong way by inserting myself into everything. The second scenario was more unsettling for me. If one of them takes stock of their surroundings...
I need to stop thinking like this.
With a sweep of his right hoof, then firmly planting it on the ground, I could see his mouth make the words. "Stay here, wait for the train."
He jumped down onto the tracks, hooves crunching on the gravel. In three strides he jumped back up onto the adjacent platform, the one closer to Pink Lady and myself. "You're lying." The mare declared, taking a step down onto the tracks, I see her stoop down out of sight for a moment. My throat felt rough and scratchy as I swallowed. The changeling sighed and turned around to his left. All that negative energy, coming from her, being deflected by me. I see him lick his lips, and the expression he gives would be the same as a colt drinking a spoiled milkshake. I was wriggling in my seat, trying not to break a sweat and merge into the surroundings when he jerks his head in my direction, taking his eyes off the mare. He stares right at me.
The only pony to ever see through my disguise and see the pit of anxiety and bunched up nerves I really am is another changeling. I silently screamed, his chest rose, his mouth formed a word. Whatever word he was going to say, I wanted to snatch away, but a rock colliding with the side of his skull silenced him before he could speak.
His disguise burned away in a flash, the orange brown coat, the blonde hair cut, the green eyes. As he was falling, I imagined the noise of screeching metal. His head hit the ground first, followed by a loud thump as the rest of his body flopped onto the platform.
His eyes are clenched in pain and a wave of concern crashes through the station. The mare is panting, swaying on her hooves as she climbs up onto the platform and stands over the changeling. Blood is rushing to her head, conflicting emotions are bouncing back and forth, trying to figure out what type of approach to take. She spread her hooves defensively, then raised her head triumphantly.
"Changeling!" She yelled, "Changeling!"
If I didn't flee, I was going to die. I was certain of it. I shakily stood on my hooves, voices were parroting the word over and over again. It was grinding away at my resolve. Grinding, screeching, it took a train pulling right in front of me, effectively cutting off my view of the changeling and the mare for me to realize I wasn't imagining the metallic noise for the past few minutes, it was the squealing brakes. A crowd of ponies descended from the train, moving past Pink Lady and me towards the exit. I pulled her onto her hooves and pushed our way against the tide onto the closest carriage.
Her eyes were wide, like a child discovering the world for the first time. It only took a moment of convincing and guidance for me to sit her down, and then turn her forelegs onto the seat so she could lay down. Pressing my hoof on the back of her head, I gently instructed her to go to sleep. Her eyes shut instantly, leaving me to look out the opposite side of the train at the crowd of ponies that gathered around the changeling. They were cautiously keeping distance.
All I could do is sit there and keep my head down. At best, I could pretend to be asleep and not even know that a changeling was exposed less than five meters away while another watched.
Five minutes passed. Five agonizing minutes. Where were the Royal Guards? A lone security guard arrives and quickly hoists him up. The changeling stumbles, and I get a look at the bloodshot eye and bruised chitin as he looks back towards the train, but doesn't get a chance to see me. The mare follows the security guard, and I can only imagine he dragged him off to some booth.
The conductor makes two passes through our car as ten more levee-breaking minutes tick by. Here's where the indecision grips at me, Pink Lady is already on the train to Ponyville, like I planned. Now I just needed to remove myself from the sitution so I could go back to being a social butterfly in my basement.
The stillness was stifling. I was content on flying the sixteen miles to Ponyville, I decided. I rose up from my seat, clamped down the missing ponies poster right next to Pink Lady, and side stepped the conductor who was making a beeline for the front of the train again. The first pony I immediately see is a different security guard is trotting down the platform. She offers a polite "Excuse me," and chances seeing the conductor stepping down onto the platform a few carriages down.
My chest craves air after holding it for so long. With a moment of hesitation, I turn around and watch another interaction take place.
The security guard and conductor meet, they nod their heads, and the conductor shows a sign of relief. Rolling his head upwards as the guard turns around, "ALL ABOARD!" The conductor shouted.
As I sat there shaking in my seat, a countdown started in my head, only it wasn't numbers, it was an equation. A train traveling sixteen miles at a rate of thirty five miles an hour plus six three-minute stops. Sighing, all the math fell into place and I was calmer. Fifty minutes, I reasoned, from Canterlot to Ponyville. Swallowing, the conductor didn't make a pass until the second stop after leaving the station. Her steps were silent as she moved through the train car, "I need to see your ticket." The conductor said to any conscious pony, including myself. She briefly stopped at Pink Lady's ticket clamped in its holder, one sharp eye prowled it for authenticity, and then she put the ticket back.
The wanted poster and a pen were back into my hoof, nowhere in the message 'We're not all bad, just desperate.' was the looming realism of negativity directed towards changelings. Downplaying a kidnapping was a foolish thing, but thinking I could get away with taking a family member of the Elements of Harmony with a happy-go-lucky note? Something about watching one of my own kind getting stoned in the head by a mare confirmed a lot of unaddressed fears I had about ponies.
'I apologize, if I knew who she were, I would not have taken her.
If I go back without her, I'll die.
If I turn myself in with her, I'll die slowly.
If I remain hidden, I'll die alone.
If I take her to my hive, We all die slowly.
If I act the coward, I'll die free..'
I distanced myself from my thoughts, trying to remain 'out of my head', sticking to what was based off my experiences. I wrote down what could happen, thinking this flies in the face of their harmony. A well of despair was pouring out of me, the kind that you normally try to keep a cap on in public situations. Here I was, practically asking for somepony to tear me a new one so I didn't have to keep beating on my own emotions.
I still wasn't being honest.
Am I suppose to find solace knowing I'm incapable of finding happiness? It's like a soda, drink it down, happiness tastes amazing. Then the bubbles are gone, and the fun is over. The changeling from the station must be getting propped up in an hospital bed, or in the interrogation cell with a bandage on his forehead. The poor sap, he must be drowning in distrust, and the dent right in side of his head too. I give him my hope that he can still change.
Then there was the mare, they were both equally dense for crossing the train tracks, and I lost sight of her as she stooped down to grab the rock. It was only for a second when the brother under a different banner spotted me.
In one final attempt at writing a meaningful message, I wrote on the back, "Every day, I live by a few words that helps me remember that I'm living in a world surrounded by ponies. I'll say it to myself, whisper it quietly, repeat it over and over again in my head. No matter the end result of any conversation, no matter the pony, I'll always keep the phrase close in mind. It's something to remind me while I walk, eat, breathe, sleep, fly, play, and work side by side with you... Somepony hearing of us might cast doubt on a pony they already trust very little, but as for myself... "
"I can't trust anyone. I can't trust anyone."
Throwing the tall order of high expectations out into the world, I fully well knowing social change wouldn't happen overnight. Pausing only for a moment by Pink Lady Apple, I clamped the poster in the holder next to Pink Lady Apple's train ticket and disembarked. I was the only pony stepping down onto the platform, and the train's coupling links all clinked as the train pulled out of the station again.
A twenty minute train ride was about an hour of walking, I guessed. After taking two steps, I snickered to myself and transformed into a pegasus.
At last, Pink Lady Apple was free from my embrace. Back to society she went, while I flew away from the station. Watching the train progress towards Ponyville from where I was flying was as close as I wanted to be to the scene of the crime. The conductor would be doing another pass within two stops and notice Pink Lady's missing poster. From then on, social dominoes get knocked over.
It started with a whoosh of air and a loud pop as steam discharged from the forward engine. Two ponies ran up the steps into the train before coming to a complete stop. Pink Lady Apple's eyes opened up to the sunlight coming in through the train's window. A conductor and a guard were both staring at her face, standing closer than she would've preferred, while at the same time telling herself the last few days were nothing but a bad dream.
"You're back."
While everyone was loving life down in Ponyville, I laid out on the bed and slept the afternoon away. Not even aware of what happened until Applejack came looking for Peer.