Edited by DJ_Neon_Lights, Kudzuhaiku, and TuxOKC.
Catherine was dressed and ready to go before her parents could blink. She wore jeans, a short sleeved shirt bearing the smiling image of Princess Celestia, and a pair of tennis shoes. Being a mindful girl, she remembered to grab her pink light jacket. Her eyes were aglow with excitement as she battled with the impatience of having Mommy and Daddy move so slow!
Frank and Beatrice had clearly remembered telling their daughter ‘no’, but somehow, some way, they had changed their minds. Still, they had their own curiosities to sake. There was nothing dreadful about a changeling hive, was there? Oh, sure, the little horseflies were prone to unintended destruction, sang a bit too loudly, and made Riverdance seem like a quiet prance through the meadow, but that didn’t mean they were dangerous, did it?
Was horsefly a derogatory term? Would changelings find offense in the word? The couple shared nervous glances as the changelings sat on the living room couch.
“Is Old Lady Crawford still in her backyard?” Frank asked his wife. He was sitting at the kitchen table and putting his work boots on. He imagined the ravine would be muddy. Friday had been the first rainless day all week.
Beatrice sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll check.” As she went by her husband, she swatted him in the back of the head.
He grinned at her. “Love you.”
“I know, husband of mine.” Beatrice stood at the sliding glass door and opened it. Peering outside, she then stepped out.
“I’m getting full,” Speaker quipped from where he sat on the couch.
“We’re changelings,” Angela replied as she slid down from sitting next to him. “We’re never full. Kind of like insatiable shrews.”
“Or movie stars.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a good one!”
“Is Cabbage coming?” Speaker prodded his brother’s lumpy form. Cabbage was still under the blanket. As he poked and prodded, a hoof shot from the mass of comfortable snuggliness, smacking Speaker right on the honker.
Angela flicked her tail. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
Rubbing his sore snoot, Speaker grunted, “Point taken.” He flit his wings and lifted himself up and off the couch before dropping to the ground. A glare of supreme irritation was thrown at Cabbage.
Catherine commanded, “Become doggies!”
Frank frowned at his daughter, then found her order to be reasonable. “Manners, Cathy. How do we ask for something?”
Shamefaced, she replied in a tiny voice, “Please and thank you?”
Beatrice, meanwhile, had been doing a masterful job of appearing nonchalant. “She’s not in her yard,” she informed as she came halfway through the door. Her attention fell upon her daughter. “What’s going on?”
“I forgot to ask nicely for something,” her daughter said.
Speaker, meanwhile, had to add his own two cents. “I live to serve my Queen!” Silly Speaker.
Beatrice rounded on him, her lips turned down in disapproval. “My daughter will have manners. My daughter will be respectful. My daughter will ask politely and be thankful. You encouraging her to be abusive of servitude given to her is not helpful.” She wanted to say more, but bit her tongue and narrowed her eyes at the changeling.
Silly Speaker. “I meant no offense,” he squeaked.
“So glad. So, so, so glad,” Angela grinned at him with sisterly malice.
“Angela?” Catherine asked in a squeaky voice.
“Yes, my Queen?” Angela sat and became attentive before her chosen monarch.
“Can you turn into a doggie?”
“Would something like what Cabbage became be good?” Angela asked with a soft smile. She understood as she glanced at Beatrice. The matriarch had to be appeased at all costs. The changeling understood this and hoped her brother would, too.
“Please and thank you.” Catherine punctuated the words as if they had been drilled into her. She had been getting a glare from her mother. The girl had shrunk from her mother’s withering glare.
“I hear and obey, my Queen,” Angela said with a bow. Speaker’s jaw had dropped as he had looked with disbelief and envy.
“I’m worried about the cops,” Frank announced as he pushed his chair back and stood up. “We’re going to get arrested. We’re going to jail. You little idiots are going to get discovered and my family is going to get ripped apart because of this. Idiots. All of you! But I’m going to help you guys. Not because I like you, oh no. I don’t even want you things around my daughter. You kidnapped a human being! Once we get this taken care of, I want all of you changelings out of my family’s life forever!” His hands were balled into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
“Frank,” Beatrice chided softly. “There was a mistake. It can be fixed. They don’t know any better.” She pulled the door shut behind her as she came in. As a wife who knew her husband, she was well aware of her husband’s moods. Frank was frustrated and standing on frayed nerves.
Frank seethed. He was torn. He could see what changelings were capable of. They could be very useful. The repairs to his kitchen and living room were good testaments. But these creatures were self destructive. They did dumb things. They behaved like unruly children raised by an indifferent mother. They needed help. By the same token, they could very well drag everything and everyone around them down in flames.
To this point, it was a fair assumption the fires would be spectacular.
“Daddy, no!” a certain daughter cried out.
Frank hesitated. He looked at his daughter and how crushed she was. The changelings appeared devastated, with their ears splayed back as they looked up upon him as though he were some sort of wrathful god.
“We can set things right,” Speaker started. His voice fell away as words failed him.
Frank then grunted. He was waffling. Indecision was making him blurt whatever was coming to mind. The man was frustrated. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes. The changelings were staring at him, sharing quick looks with each other, then focusing back upon the big man. He was indeed larger than the average human, from what had been gathered to this point. This was a man who delved into physical labor almost every day.
“We can’t,” Angela sighed. “This is what got us into trouble with the Equestrians, brother. This is why we can’t go home anymore.”
“Frank,” Beatrice called to her husband in a gentle whisper. “Frank, we need to give them a chance. They did fix my kitchen. They did apologize. But they need us. I don’t know why, but I feel they need us. We can’t just abandon them. If we let them be, if we don’t help them, then things are going to go badly for them.” She came up to him, encircling her arms around his waist. Frank resisted at first, but relaxed. He could not look his wife in the eye. He could not look anyone—or anyling—in the eye.
“We can feel your emotions,” Speaker said. “We know how you feel. If you really wanted us gone, we’d know. You like us, but you are also afraid of us. We are afraid of you, but we don’t know where else to go. Please, help us. Please keep us from making terrible mistakes.”
“How is the hive coming along, anyways?” Angela asked, trying to change the subject.
Glad for the distraction, Beatrice cut in, “I would love to see your hive. I think this would be a wonderful chance to get to know more about you changelings. I know I want to get over my fear of you all. I want to set a good example for my daughter.”
Frank rubbed his chin, unsure. “Why me?” he bemoaned. “Come on, let’s get this over with.” Storming for the door, he slid it open with a yank and stalked outside, muttering under his breath. He was so wound up, he neglected to grab his jacket. Despite it being mid spring, it was still cool outside even past noon.
Two pairs of forms were engulfed in green fire as a pair of gray, wolfish-looking canines replaced Angela and Speaker’s natural forms. Padding out the door, they whined as they followed the human. Beatrice scooted her daughter through the door and followed after the group, closing the door behind her. The group trekked the hundred yards across the backyard towards the creek.
Meanwhile, back in the house, Cabbage finally awoke from his nap. The hornless changeling smacked his lips and ran his tongue repeatedly over his fangs. Hopping down from his blankets, he hit the floor and immediately began to stretch himself out like an oversized cat. His spine popped as he worked the kinks out of his joints. Shaking his head, he looked around with owlish eyes, his ears swiveling slowly. It was quiet. Too quiet.
Where was everybody? Where was his Queen?
His attention fell upon the idiot box. It was dark and quiet. The monster which mesmerized his brothers and sisters slumbered, no doubt still digesting the IQ of its latest victims. Oh, it was a nasty ambush predator. It stalked the unwary and unleashed its fury upon the witless. Yet it was also capable of teaching, to fill minds with new ideas and offer up the opinions of others. This was a strange god, Cabbage decided. It was fickle and indiscriminate to those upon which it preyed.
This made it a false god which led under false pretenses. Cabbage wanted to slay the god, be known as the Godslayer, but he did not do so. He felt such action would arouse the ire of his Queen. He could sense her presence in this room. Her scent, along with the scent of her parents, was in everything. He knew where each human preferred to sit. He had sniffed a lot of seats since coming into the house. Mother had once dubbed him her Royal Sniffer. That had been long ago, back when she used to sing and smile.
Catherine made Cabbage smile now. Catherine liked to hear the changelings sing. She wanted them to be happy and she gave them her love. If his brothers and sisters could keep focusing on the Queen’s parents, then it would make the rest so much easier. Cabbage wanted a home for his family. A mewling whimper escaped from his lips.
Cabbage wished Mother could have been so free with her love.
With a sigh, he followed the most recent scents and came to the back door. He could see figures fading into the trees and knew who they were. Blinking, he turned his head to one side as he caught movement.
It was that old lady again. He flicked an ear and hissed at her. She was looking and she thought she was hidden. Crouching behind some bushes in her backyard, she was well hidden from those she was watching, but Cabbage could see her. The human was doubled over, wearing her bathrobes. They were pink and blue in the most hideous sort of way. Cabbage felt there was something threatening about her. Was it the yellow curlers in her old lady hair? Something was odd about this human. Did it have something to do with the support hoses beneath the hem of her robes? It was beyond the understanding of one such as Cabbage. There was something familiar about the old woman, something from the lessons taught to him before the accident.
Evil undulated like an oppressive cloud, unseen by the others, but clinging to the frail form of the leathery-faced old woman. The others could not see it. Cabbage could not see it before, but he was staring at her hard and with undivided attention. The more he tried to focus, the more he was compelled to believe there was nothing there. It hurt his head and his eyes blurred, but Cabbage would not be deterred.
The woman had emotional focus. It attracted the changeling. Such venom! Such envy! Such… hunger. Cabbage understood power. He had basked in his mother’s power. He knew what evil felt like. Mother was a powermonger. She was a builder of empires. She hated the other races. They were inferior. Cabbage could never understand why. But she had also encountered something like what Cabbage was feeling right now. Then, she had avoided it. It was too risky to her children. She let them all know, his brothers and sisters. This evil was not to be trifled with.
That evil was here, right next door to the chosen Queen. The hatred that pooled around the human’s shadow made Cabbage recoil. He could sense the seething mass of unrelenting resentment around the human known as Linda Crawford.
Compared to anything else Cabbage had ever known before in his life, that old spiteful woman was the most terrifying thing he had ever met.
There was a meow. Cabbage turned and saw Mr. Mephistopheles. Yellow eyes met solid blue. There was an understanding.
His ears were pierced by an unholy howl. In the blink of an eye, there was a ferocious ball of fur latched on Cabbage’s face. The changeling realized something profound at that very moment. It was a lesson he would forever take to heart.
Claws hurt like heck, man!