As Suncloak walked on the path through Sweet Apple Acres’ orchard, he could hear a soft sound, not entirely unlike a pony cutting a tree in half with a saw.
He looked around to check where the sound was coming from. It seemed to come from up in one of the trees. “Hello?” he tentatively asked the tree.
The sound stopped for a second, then continued.
The changeling climbed into the tree, his curiosity piqued. Maybe some sort of beast had made a home in the tree, stealing apples. The ponies would certainly warm up to him if he scared it away.
As he stuck his head through the branches, he could see something blue. The sky? No, the sky was cloudy today. Something else?
Something fluffy brushed his cheek. “What in Eq-” he started to say, before the same fluffy thing streaked across his whole face. “What was...” he paused for a moment. His nose felt ticklish. “Whaaaaa...” he tried to say again as he took a deep breath. “WhACHOO!” he sneezed, and fell backwards out of the tree. He hit the ground with a hard thud, landing on his head. The other thing fell out of the tree as well.
“Hey, what gives?” somepony out of his field of vision said. A cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane entered his field of vision, hovering slightly above him. She had apparently stopped herself from falling, unlike him. This was... Rainbow Dash. “You okay?” she asked.
Not particularly, but if he kept hitting his head on things, he might one day grow a unicorn horn. That’d be nifty. “Ow,” he said before standing up.
“Huh,” Rainbow Dash said, looking at him. “Are you new in Ponyville?”
The changeling nodded. “I’m Suncloak. I got here yesterday,” he told her.
“Nice pair of sunglasses,” she complimented him. “I got the same pair, but I lost it yesterday.” No kidding, guess where it was. “Why are you wearing the cloak, though?”
Oh, right. Ponies don’t usually wear cloaks. A clever excuse was in order. “Oh, I, uh...” Suncloak started, “I have a skin condition!” Before Rainbow Dash could say anything else, he continued, “really bad! All blackened skin, and nasty holes everywhere! You wouldn’t want to see it.”
Now that was a gigantic lie. Sure, he was black, and he had holes in his hooves, but black was a beautiful color, and he prided himself on his excellent hole-to-hoof ratio. If there was a ‘Best Looking Changeling’ competition, he’d have a decent shot. Or so he always told himself.
Rainbow Dash eyed him suspiciously. “Okay...” she slowly said, “but if you ask me...” she hovered closer to him. “I think you’re a changeling!” she suddenly said.
Oh no oh no oh no oh no this is bad he was going to get caught quickly think of-
“Just kidding!” she said. Phew. “No changelings would ever come to Ponyville with me around! I’m Rainbow Dash. Nice to meetcha!”
“Nice to meet you too,” he said with an awkward smile. No, it wasn’t nice to meet her. She’d scared the living daylights out of him! “So, what were you doing in that tree?” he asked her.
“Oh, I was napping,” she told him nonchalantly. “Well, until you came along.”
“You were foalnapping some filly?” The changeling gave her an odd look. That’s what napping was, right?
“You don’t know what napping is?” Rainbow gave him the same odd look back. “It’s not foalnapping, it’s... Uh, when you nap, you just lay down somewhere in the middle of the day and go to sleep. When you’re tired.”
What a... strange concept. At least for changelings, it was weird. Changelings were busy all day, whether they were doing their job in the hive, or harvesting love. There was always enough to do in the hive, and harvesting love meant getting as much as possible in a short amount of time. The shorter you were imponysonating a pony, the less likely you were to be found out, so it was usually a race to eat your fill as fast as possible, then return to the hive for other work.
Sleeping, during the day? Unheard of. But apparently, these ponies did it.
“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of napping,” Rainbow Dash said, stupefied, “I thought everypony knew what a nap was!” Then again, Suncloak wasn’t a pony, but she didn’t know that.
How have I not heard of this before, the changeling pondered. Didn’t I learn anything from all the time I spent transformed into a pony? This ‘napping’ thing was very interesting, especially now that his headache was starting to come back. “A nap... doesn’t sound bad at the moment,” he slowly told the blue pegasus.
“A nap never sounds bad!” she told him. “Just... you know. Lie down or something. And sleep. That’s how you nap. It’s easy!” She flew back up to the tree she had fallen out of. “I gotta continue my nap. I’m on a schedule here!”
Suncloak looked at her as she disappeared into the tree again, then looked at the ground around the tree. “A nap, eh?” he told himself. The sound from the tree, apparently Rainbow Dash’s snoring, had started up again.
A nap sounded good. His head hurt. Maybe a little sleep would fix that.
On the other hoof, he still had to return Applejack’s saddlebag back to her, and ask if he could help out with anything else. To earn her trust a little bit more.
Then again, his head hurt a lot, and he had been rudely awakened that morning. Applejack probably wouldn’t criticize him for getting a little sleep.
He positioned himself on the ground and laid down his head. Aside from Rainbow Dash’s snoring, it was very calm in the orchard. Much quieter than... well, anytime, anywhere in the hive. It wouldn’t be too bad to be stuck here for a little bit, the changeling noted. He just had a few problems: staying disguised and finding some love to feed on.
Speaking of love, he could once more feel and smell some in the air around him. It felt the same way as it did the night before, loose and without a clear direction to go into. It couldn’t be coming from Rainbow Dash, since she was asleep, and there weren’t any other ponies around. Very, very odd indeed.
His horn glowed as he closed his eyes, feeding on the love. It was a bit more than the last time he fed, but it still wasn’t much. He’d still need to go out and find some unsuspecting couple somewhere.
Really, he’d do it this afternoon. For now, he’d just close his eyes. Just for a second, then he’d be good as new, ready to go. Juuuust a second...
“There ya are!” somepony suddenly yelled.
Suncloak shot up. “What? I’m awake! I just closed my eyes for a second!”
Rainbow Dash’s head emerged from the tree. “Whuzzat?” she sleepily asked.
Applejack came walking up to them. “I thought ya got lost or something,” she told Suncloak.
“I didn’t take that long to get here, right?” The changeling had to suppress a yawn.
“Well,” Applejack said, as she scratched the back of her head, “ya’ve been away for a few hours now. It’s almost evening!”
Suncloak gave Rainbow Dash a brief look, who simply shrugged. Had he really been asleep for hours? It felt like he’d closed his eyes for just a second. He was feeling much better, though. “I guess I... fell asleep?”
“At least ya delivered the book,” Applejack said as she saw the empty saddlebag on Suncloak’s back.
“Yeah, meeting Twilight Sparkle and Spike was... nice,” he said. If by ‘nice’ you meant ‘the most terrifying thing to ever happen’. At least his headache was mostly gone. Whoever invented the nap must have been some sort of genius.
“So, what were ya doing here, then?” Applejack asked him.
Rainbow Dash suddenly shot out of the tree. “I was showing Suncloak here how to nap!” She puffed up her chest in pride. “Since I’m the master of napping, of course.”
Applejack gave her an odd look.
“What?” Rainbow Dash indignantly asked. “It’s harder than it looks.”
“Right,” Applejack said, turning to Suncloak. “We were gonna have dinner. Are ya comin’?”
“You’re staying at Applejack’s place?” Rainbow Dash asked him.
He nodded. “She’s been kind enough to give me a place to stay,” he told her.
“Aw shucks, everypony’d done it for ya.” Applejack blushed. “An’ we couldn’t have let ya stay in the Everfree Forest.”
“You stayed in the Everfree Forest?” Rainbow asked Suncloak incredulously. He nodded in return. “That takes some serious guts! Nothing beats a good home, though.”
That made the banished changeling stop for a moment. “Uh, yeah.” He grimaced.
“Right, well, I gotta get to my house,” Rainbow Dash said as she flew away. The blue pegasus turned around and flew away, shouting a quick “See ya later!” over her shoulder.
Applejack waved at her as she gave a short farewell to the pegasus.
Suncloak, on the other hoof, waved absent-mindedly. A home. He had a home, right?
“Let’s go get dinner,” Applejack said, as she headed toward the house. The changeling wordlessly followed.
Not much later, Suncloak headed into the barn. He took off his cloak and sunglasses, and threw them on the makeshift bed. He sighed.
He’d excused himself from dinner as soon as possible. The food didn’t taste as good as it did the night before. He didn’t even remember what he had eaten. His thoughts had been occupied by only one thing.
A home. What was his home? The changeling hive sure wasn’t. He’d been banished and thrown far away. Really, really far away. He couldn’t even remember in what direction the hive was. Even if he knew, he’d have to find a really good reason for Queen Chrysalis to accept him back. Banishment didn’t just happen every day.
Was this barn his home? Or Sweet Apple Acres? He lifted a hoof to look at, or rather, through it. He felt along his teeth. Fangs.
If it hadn’t been for his disguise, there’d be no way the ponies would have accepted him. The ponies had been really kind for him, and he’d found it endearing in some way. They weren’t as bad as he had thought they were. But he was still a changeling and they were still ponies. If they found him out, he’d be locked up.
He had two choices: find something really useful for the hive so he could come back, or keep up his disguise until the end of time. On top of that, he had to find a suitable source of love.
Both seemed equally impossible to him as he slid underneath his cloak, which was now functioning as a blanket.
“What have I gotten myself into?” he asked himself, before falling into an uneasy slumber.