//------------------------------// // Prologue: The Day Before // Story: Where You Belong // by twidashloverxox //------------------------------// the morning schedule of every teenage Changeling goes something like this. Step 1) claw from the depths of sleep, into the realm of the living Step 2) find food Step 3)... play WOW and bask in the adoration of the noobs Mystery is no different. As the alarm clock blared out from her bedside table, the chitinous hand of the aforementioned filly flailed desperately around, searching in vain for the snooze button before simply knocking the alarm clock onto the floor whereupon it was smothered under a mountain of clean and mucky clothes that her mother had told her to sort and put away, before curling back up in a ball in the warm mass of duck feather duvet. naturally at this point in a story, it is customary to give a descriptive explanation of the main character. Mystery Cloud, or "Mystery, Nightwing's Bane" as she likes to to remind anypony who has even heard of world of warcraft, is the daughter of a Pegasi and a Changeling. Her navy blue mane is almost always tied up in a pony tail, reaching down to the small of her back and her eyes are striking. the left iris is a cold ice blue, but the right is a fiery ruby red. She has the traditional chitin of changelings, which shimmered a vibrant and deep purple, almost black with a faint iridescent glow when she feeds. Her wings are feathered, like a pegasi but rather stunted by their lack of use over the last 2 years. She is average height, average weight, all in all... average. However, the thing that draws most ponies attention from a distance is her wheelchair. Enough of that for now though, back to the story. "Mysteryyyyy", a sing song voice called from the hallway outside her door, causing the adolescent to peer bleary eyed out into the world. "what is it mum? it's a saturday, I don't need to start packing till tomorrow morning if we are leaving in the afternoon and besides, why did you wake me up so early?" The door swung open to reveal the smiling motherly face of Rain Cloud, ex wonderbolt and egg sandwich extraordinaire and causing Mystery to hiss and throw the duvet back over her head as what appeared to be all the sunlight in cloudsdale crashed into her previously pitch black room with all the subtlety of a freight train. Rain Cloud was a pale blue pegasi, brimming with energy, which childbirth didn't seem to have affected in the slightest. She was average height for a pegasi, but where her daughters wings had not grown much since her early adolescence, her own wings had a much broader span for her size, meaning a lot of uplift on the thermals that dotted the sky around cloudsdale and a quicker recovery if she ever made a mistake. Which she never did. Rain Cloud giggled, "sweetheart it's 10 am, a more than sensible time for a mother to be waking up her child" she strolled briskly into the room, opening the curtains before taking a double handful of the duvet and yanking hard, tipping the struggling, hissing changeling out of her warm cocoon and into the light of day. "oof, mum, you almost broke my glasses" mystery glowered up at the smiling face of her mother and straightened her glasses on the end of her nose, before checking her wings for any loose feathers. "also, I am almost 15, you can't just throw me around like that, it's against my rights." Rain leaned down and kissed her daughter between the ears and whispered "Mystery, I know you don't like to joke about it, but if they survived your accident, they can survive being tipped. Now, if you hurry to the kitchen, I made some egg and cress sandwiches for breakfast, and your father is still in the shower so you can eat his if he doesn't hurry". The frown that had started to crease Mystery's forehead as her mother pointed out her accident, instantly vanished the moment she heard the words 'you can eat his' and she started shuffling towards the edge of the bed. Rain shifted her chair closer to the edge for her before leaving her to it and heading towards the bathroom to warn her husband that his sandwiches were about to vanish. ~~~ Five minutes later, Mystery was finishing up her sandwiches and was eyeing her father’s as the stallion in question walked into the kitchen. Darjeeling Cloud was a tall man, with a proud and upright posture. His dark green chitin glinted in the mid-morning sun as he strode over to the table and sat down. Mystery looked up from her father’s plate and into his eyes with the kind of soul devouring look a puppy gives its owner in the expectation of treats, to which he merely chuckled and pushed one of his sandwiches across onto her plate. “Yay, thanks Dad, You’re the best” She cheered before leaning over to nuzzle his cheek, a loving gesture he easily reciprocated before she devastated the sandwich in front of her. “My darling Mystery, between you and your mother, I have all the love I need to keep me going forever. Your mother’s sandwiches are just the icing on the cake” He laughed, ducking a swipe from behind by Rain. “Careful Darjeeling Cloud, don't taunt the hand that feeds you, or you get a slap” Rain Cloud’s voice had a playful edge, and the mischievous glint in her eyes made him gulp. “Yes Dear” he coughed and looked back to Mystery. “So Hun, You done your packing yet? The movers are gonna be here at about 3pm, so you have five hours to check it all and label your boxes. They won't know to be careful with your PC if they don’t know it’s there”. This revelation brought a gasp from the filly who looked apologetically across the table to her mother. “Sorry mum, I didn't think about it that way, I will start packing right now, and sort out the clothes on my floor too...” She said with a sheepish grin before rolling round the table to give her mother and father a hug before zipping down the hall with a wurr of motors. The two adults looked after her fondly before Darjeeling finished his cup of tea in 2 quick gulps and stood up hurriedly. “I better go help her with shifting her pc, unless you want to while I do the washing up so we can pack that all away tonight?” “You go, I’ll deal with this mess. Go help her before she drops it on herself” Rain shooed him from the kitchen before sitting back down to eat her sandwich. As the sounds of a school filly instructing her father on the correct way to store a PC were immediately cut off by the sounds of a grown stallion crying and the same filly rebuking him for dropping it on his toes filtered through the house, Rain Cloud smiled softly and finished off the sandwich, her mind filled with thoughts of what tomorrow might bring.