Being tied up after getting knocked out was not fun. What else isn’t fun? Losing your disguise and being an 8ft changeling king where a 6ft human was already cramped for space. It was kinda funny seeing zecora staring up at me in the face while i was lying down, but the pain i felt from ropes being inside the holes in my legs was immense.
“Ow ow ow ow ow pain pain pain.” i started muttering under my breath. Zecora glared at me.
“Where is DJ?” it took me a second to realise she wasn’t rhyming. I then took another second to realise that she considered this an emergency, giving both of us the ability to speak freely.
“It’s me, i know i look different but uh, i’m kinda a changeling king now.”
She hit me across the, muzzle i guess, with her hoof. It hurt a surprising amount taking both my chitin and armor into account but it got the point across.
“You may be a king, but you are not DJ. If you are, tell me about the time you accidentally drank pure poison joke cure.”
I gave her a strange look. “Zecora, i never did that. You know it’s deadly to drink pure poison joke cure. If i did, i wouldn’t be here. Now the time i got poison joke on me wasn’t fun.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “And what happened then?”
I grimaced. I should have expected this was coming. “It turned me into a filly. And you wouldn’t let me use the cure for a week because i would have drowned before the cure worked and you refused to hold me. At least it helped me learn how to stand on four legs.”
She stared at me for a second before walking over with a knife. I was scared for half a second before she cut one of the ropes and started pulling on it. I grit my teeth in pain as the rope pulled through the holes in my legs but said nothing. When she was done i transformed back into a human and stood up.
“Sorry for the scare zecora, we-” she hit me across the back of the head, not hard enough to do damage, but enough to hurt.
“If you ever scare me like that, you won’t have a home, nat.” i nodded my head before she sat down and filled up two cups for us. “Now please sit, explain how you became a changeling, in plain.” the next two hours were spent telling her about how i was abducted, talked into it, earned a new home, and changelings in general. Zecora had given me permission to talk normally for ease of understanding. “.. and then i came home, got sloshed with the knock out potion, and woke up all tied up without my disguise.”
I had just finished explaining to zecora when a ping came over the hive mind from an unknown source. <hello sir, i know we have not met yet but i’m erica, the master doctor in the hive. I just wanted to let you know that some of the ‘lings around the hive decided to celebrate and get into some uh… dirty things. There’s a few new hatchlings around the hive and we were hoping you could categorize them.>
<How many, and how long should it take?> i asked back.
<Maybe an hour… and about 30?>
I glanced at zecora. She would be suspicious if i left so early after finding out i had transformed into a changeling. I sent another question to erica. <is it ok if i bring a close friend? She’s already found out that i’m a king.>
The reply came a minute later. <i-i guess. Swear them to secrecy though.> i turned to zecora.
“Zecora i have a question, would you like to give my hive an inspection?” she stared at me with narrowed eyes.
“If it is not a trick, then may we please make it quick.”
I nodded and we set out. I led her out and towards the hive. As we walked i sent a ping out to the higher ups in my hive. <just to let you guys know, i’m bringing a zebra with me. And she rhymes. Every sentence. Just don’t make her say orange, she locks up. She might want to get some brewing supplies so let her if they aren’t too hard to make.>
i got a mental nod as we arrived at the entrance. I let out a pulse of magic and the wall of the cave fell away, leading us into the hive. Zecora walked in and i made the wall again before letting my disguise fall away. A few changelings walked up and started to say something. Zecora turned to me.
“DJ something’s off. I can understand them no more than a cough.” ii frowned and then realised the changelings were buzzing. I face hoofed and sent out a question to the hive. A second later i cast a spell that allowed zecora to understand them. She blinked and almost said something before a changeling cut her off.
“Zecora come this way, we have a few thing you might find hard to get around ponyville. Changelings aren’t very good at brewing…” they started to walk away as zecora inspected the walls and overall just looked impressed with the hive. I turned to the four changelings that were still there: Emily, Lisa, James and Erica.
Erica motioned and i followed her to where the hatchlings were. When we got there i was startled to see that they were walking around. some of them were actually having full conversations, if with simpler words.
“Jeez, how fast do changelings age?” i asked.
“Well as you can see, hatchlings mentally age fast because of the hive mind, but they age physically like normal foals. Their vis lines should have come in by now.” she handed me a sheet and pointed towards a room. “I figured you may need this, it’s a list of the markings to the best of my ability. Now into the room, we need to screen them individually.”
I groaned before walking into the room and sitting down. The first nymph walked in. i saw no vis lines, but they had a regular mane growing in. I told them scholar and sent them out. The next one walked in. This process repeated about 15 times before a slightly taller changeling walked in. My eyes grew wide as i saw not only vis lines running down the forelegs and the hindlegs, but fangs and a normal mane. My first thought was a royal, but that was immediately removed when i saw her vis lines were green. I glanced back over the the sheet and saw one that matched her description. I double checked before pinging Erica. <Erica, quick question for you.>
<shoot.> she replied.
<Where do I tell a royal guard to go?>
<WHAT?!> my mind reeled and the door flung open. Erica flew into the room and stared at the changeling. She had a strange pair of glasses with runes around the lenses on her face. When she concluded to herself i was right she started muttering under her breath. I only caught a few words but some of them were: “stores… shortage… rations… love… trouble…magic...” i decided to get her mind off of the problem.
“Her, what are those goggles?” i asked.
“Oh, their experimental prototypes that allow changelings to see vis lines.”
“Shouldn’t that be really hard?”
“Not really, for a normal pony maybe. Changelings are naturally inclined to enchant items, it’s a lot harder to pick up a changeling that items rather than our magic.” she then left the room with the hatchling and shoved another into it. “Back to work, you can learn more later.”
As I continued to identify the hatchlings i made a plan in my head. With a few questions and requests into the hive mind, i finished up both actions rather quickly. When i left the room, luckily with no more unexpected high ranking hive members. I looked around and saw the two small glass balls with metal caps lying on a table. I grinned and got to work.
A few hours later, i wiped the sweat off of my brow as i finished putting the last enchantments on the two small orbs now covered in runes. Inside was royal salve, a special substance that came from royal changelings like the name implies. Normal salve was mainly used in battles to cover wounds as it hardened quickly, and if needed, it could be used as a food source to prevent starving for a short amount of time. Royal salve on the other hand takes much, much longer to produce, and has almost godly healing powers. If you have a giant gash in your side, royal salve heal it. accidentally cut your leg off, royal salve can fix it. As long as you have the two parts to put back together, you can fix it. Royal salve could also probably survive a uranium round at point blank range, only to dissolve at a touch from me. Also while normal salve is green, mine was blue.
I put the first one around my neck and it flashed blue with the salve. It linked to the changeling language and i grinned before taking it off. I then put the other one, less ornate, and walked out. A few questions and i got to zecora rather quickly. I walked up to her and looked down.
“So zecora do you like what you see, or is it not up to your degree.”
“It’s fine with me, though i may need to re-see.”
“I’m happy you now know, just keep it secret, no?”
She nodded and i held out the first amulet, “Take this it should allow you to hear, what the changelings speak clear.”
She took at an placed it around her neck. I was about to become human again when Erica ran up to me. “Is it possible that we could talk for a little while? It’s about jessica, the royal guard you identified earlier.” i glanced over at zecora.
“Can you make it home by yourself? I know you don’t know the path too well.”
She gave a nod and the changeling by the door dropped it to let her out. When she left Erica turned back to me. “Let’s go somewhere else, the main entrance isn’t the best place to talk.” she turned around and led me to what i assumed was my room. The biggest key to this assumption was the fact that there was a giant bed in the middle of it. I knew most changelings slept in some sort of cocoon thing, so it was a huge indicator.
“So what did you want to talk about? Is there something wrong with him?” i asked.
“Well, it’s not really wrong… but he’s a royal guard.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And that means…?”
“He’s going to consume much more love than a normal changeling. About twice as much.”
I stared at her for a second before groaning. “Let me guess, we don’t have the ability to feed this many changelings do we.”
“Not really… we’ve been living on half rations for awhile now, and with effectively 31 more changelings we’re going to have to cut that down even more.”
“Ok, how do we get love now?”
She perked up a bit. “We have collectors, they store extra love in essence gems that get transported back to the hive where the energy can be sent out to other changelings.”
I nodded. “How much love is lost between transfers?”
“Not that much, but the biggest problem is getting them back to the hive.”
“Really? I wonder…” trailing off i took a step away. “Give me a week, i’ll have an answer to this problem, ok?”
She nodded and i smiled back. Walking to the entrance, the guards gave a nod and dropped the door. I quickly left and went back to zecora’s cottage.