Of Memories Gone By
It hurt. Everything about this whole training hurt. Melody’s muscles were sore, her footwork was sloppy, and she was utterly exhausted. It was a wonder that she could still keep her disguise up at this point. Shining Armor was decidedly ruthless.
“No, no, no! Your footwork is all wrong!” Shining Armor shot a glare at Melody and shot a bolt of magic straight at the filly. She stood there, terrified by the might of the stallion before her. The magic hit the base of the shield she had been trying to conjure and threw her back with a shriek. “If your position remains this weak, you’ll easily get taken advantage of if you ever find yourself in a dire situation.”
“I’m trying my best,” Melody said, slowly getting back up on her hooves. Despite what Cadance had said, Shining Armor was not the best fit for her as a teacher. She wanted to glare back at him, but the mere sight of his glare made any attempts meaningless.
“Sir. You will refer to me as sir at all times, understood?”
This time, she did glare back. No matter what, she was not going to let such a brute dominate her. She knew, even without investigating at the mixture of emotions that emanated from him, that he hated her. Not just her, but changelings in general, and he wasn’t trying to hide it in the slightest.
“Don’t give me that look. Back in position and conjure that shield up again,” Shining barked harshly, stomping his hoof. “No, no. Straighten up that leg too!”
When Melody failed to summon the strength or the endurance to move her leg and apply the desired weight and pressure, Shining was quick to bolt from his position and head straight for Melody. He placed himself by her left side and looked at her lame leg.
With a scowl, he lit up his horn and moved Melody’s leg just about enough for him to plant it firmly on the floor with a slam. Her eyes instantly brimmed with tears, and she bit back a scream. She held her head down while the white stallion moved the rest of her body according to his standards.
She wanted to cry, to run away in tears, but this tyrant had given her a challenge. Despite the obvious pain that coursed through her, she focused whatever energy she could still muster and suppressed the pain. She scrunched up her nose and took a deep breath, standing upright.
When Shining Armor returned to his previous location with a scowl adorning his expression, Melody hissed, though with a lot of subtlety, and glared again. Even in her unicorn form, her magic as a changeling did not take away the fact her lame was still lame and that she was still a cripple.
She summoned the shield around her while Shining Armor prepared his offensive spell. When both collided, her shield crumbled under the force of his magic and she staggered, stumbling back slightly. Her leg screamed agony and all she wanted was for this to be over with.
“Pathetic. You can’t even conjure up the simplest of spells! I don’t know what my wife saw in you, but all I see is wasted potential,” Shining shouted, the rage in his eyes speaking in his stead.
Melody did not know what she had done to earn his ire in such a way, and although she did want to fight back, there was naught she could do against an opponent of his size. Maybe, just maybe, she could outwit him.
She stood firmly in position, despite the agonizing pain her leg brought her, and she stared back into his glare, her gaze hardening ever so slowly. With a scowl, she replied, “Well, if you weren’t so intent on draining me of almost all of my magic in one fell swoop, I could do more than this, sir!
“Plus, all you do is tell me I can’t do this or can’t do that properly. Have you forgotten I am a cripple, sir? I am a child, not one of your soldiers.”
He was extremely quick to cross the distance between them in a few hoofsteps, practically bounding across the floor with unbound anger swirling around him. He had not liked how she had replied, nor the hint of venom in her tone.
He was towering in front of her. Melody felt as if she shrunk each second he glowered at her, and she tried to return a glare of her own this time. His hoof was quick to interrupt that when he scooped her chin and lifted her head up enough for him to press his nose to hers, focusing his eyes deep within Melody’s.
“You will not talk back to me, understood?” His voice was sharp and loud. Melody’s ears flicked back on her skull, and she dared to glance away before he gave her head a firm shake and aimed her eyes at him. “Eyes on me. You won’t talk back. You will take whatever I tell you, and you will not cry. If I even hear one breath too much, I’ll have you work your flank around this room. Understood?”
Melody barely collected the strength to offer one measly nod in return and batted her eyes in an attempt to clear her vision. “Yes… sir.”
Melody’s ears swiveled upward when the sound of hoofsteps filled the silence that had invaded the training hall. She didn’t recognize whom they belonged to, but the clang of metal against the granite tiles made it obvious it wasn’t just anypony.
Shining Armor let go of Melody’s chin and spun his head to the side to glance at the distance. Melody sighed in relief, glad that this episode was over. She slowly turned her head as Shining had done and saw Princess Cadance looking back at her husband with a frown.
“I think that’s about enough for today, honey. I’ll escort Melody out of the palace,” the princess said with a beckon of her head. She spun around and slowly began trotting out of the hall.
Melody was hesitant at first and refused to budge from her spot. Shining Armor’s shouting had terrified her. Afraid that anything she might do could anger the stallion, she stood perfectly still. Her legs trembled beneath her, and she barely managed to summon a fraction of the courage to turn her head and look at the white stallion.
He shrugged when he noticed her as tense as she was and he just gave a flick of his hoof. Melody caught the gesture and wasted no moments in sprinting out of the hall as fast as her left hind leg allowed her. She hesitantly looked back at Shining Armor, tears already forming in her eyes.
She threw her back forward and ran past the doorway, disappearing from the stallion’s sight while she tried to catch up with Cadance. Even with her vision blurred by tears as it was, Melody quickly found Cadance waiting for her passed the doorway in the large corridor. She wiped her tears a bit and looked at the princess with big and wide eyes, tears still clinging to her fur.
“Why does he have to hate me so much? What did I ever do to him,” Melody complained through a few series of sobs and sniffles.
She was surprised, shocked even, to see that what flowed out of Cadance was compassion and care. To Melody, it seemed like the princess was sympathetic to her. But why would she do that? It made no sense to the changeling. For all she cared, Cadance had every right to hate her for what Chrysalis did to her.
“The invasion was a very traumatic experience for Shining and me, Melody. I can’t fault my husband if he chooses to hold a grudge for what that queen did.” Cadance’s voice was sweet and soft, and even the smile that split her lips caused warmth to fill Melody, for an odd reason she couldn’t understand. “But I can tell you right now that he doesn’t hate you.”
Melody cocked her head to the side. That didn’t make any sense. She looked back at the princess with her ears slowly flicking back and flattening atop her head. Cadance just offered a small and swift tilt of her head, keeping her smile wide. Temptation lurked in the back of Melody’s mind. She wanted to consume all of those emotions and replenish her reserves, but she did not dare do something to incur the royal couple’s rage.
“But why did he say all those awful things?”
Cadance stroke her chin for a moment, giggling an instant later. “You’ll figure it out when you get older.”
What did she mean by that? And why was she so quick to side with her husband when she had probably heard all of the abuse he had put her through? She seemed so sure of herself, and Melody couldn’t understand why? How could she defend somepony as hateful as Shining Armor? How could somepony like him be a good pony in any way?
Before she could notice it from the corner of her eye, Melody suddenly bumped into something solid, yet oddly soft, and stumbled backward. She shook her head a few times and looked up with a frown. She was ready to jump at whoever had placed themselves in her path so willingly until her eyes landed on the dark gray stallion in front of her.
The stallion in question looked at Melody with concern filling his eyes and instantly moved to the filly’s side to help her up. She was about to swat her hoof at him, but she soon stopped the motion, instead focusing on getting up with his help. The benefits of that far outweighed the downsides.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” the stallion asked, distancing himself and bowing briefly to the princess.
That stallion looked familiar to Melody. Had she seen him before? She would clearly remember him if that was the case, though. It was only once she got a good look at his wings and ears that things were pieced back in order.
“I'm fine,” she grumbled, dusting her coat off with an idle hoof. She cut any eye contact with the stallion and just took a step back.
Cadance rather swiftly stopped her. Melody pivoted her head in an instant and stared intently at Cadance, but the princess did not seem to pay the filly any mind. Melody struggled against the magic that bound her and rapidly found it rather useless to resist. She was placed back in front of the dark gray stallion, forced to look deep into his azure eyes.
Once Cadance's magical grasp vanished in thin air, Melody snapped her head to face the princess, who only lifted a hoof to cover her mouth. Once he made sure Melody was fine and had no injuries, the stallion briefly bowed to Cadance. “Greetings, Princess. It’s rare to see you roaming the halls at this hour, and with such an unexpected guest too.”
Cadance nodded, and she just whisked her hoof at the pony. “Please, Astral. We’ve known each other long enough to skip the formalities. It’s just Cadance, all right?” She flared her wings, only to readjust them in the next moment, and glanced back at Melody with that same smile. She wasted no time in gesturing a hoof to the stallion and saying, “I gather you’ve been acquainted with Astral Rain already. Am I correct in that assumption, Melody?”
Melody weakly nodded and aimed her eyes on the floor. While she did notice the stallion’s smile here and there when distant sounds grasped her attention, she paid no mind to it and just tried to shrug it off. She just wanted to go home already. Astral knelt down for an instant, and he switched his gaze from Melody to Cadance a few times.
Melody refused to look at Astral and gave a whip of her mane. She huffed, and directed her gaze at a nearby wall, much to Cadance and Astral’s chagrin. The stallion took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh while Cadence arched an eyebrow and gave Melody a stern stare that she chose to ignore. “I guess. We met because of some misunderstanding, but I think that’s all.”
She heard Astral chuckle lightly at the mention of their meeting, and she rolled her eyes with the way he went about doing that chuckle. It just sounded so casual and laid back. She could have gotten in a heap of trouble because of that, and he was just laughing it up. “That we did, aye.”
Oh, he was just asking to get it. Melody was quick to puff her cheeks angrily. She almost jumped back with a hiss when she felt his hoof on her head. Who did he think he was? She ducked from under the hoof and took a few steps back, her golden eyes pointing daggers at Astral.
Another chuckle. Was he really not taking her seriously? But this did get her brain running. Why was he so comfortable when a week before, he had called the guards for reasons she barely understood? She wasn’t Chrysalis. She had never done anything bad in her life.
So why was he so at ease with her now? Why? Melody’s mind barely kept up with her rampant thoughts, and it was only the slight echo of his voice that pulled her out of her apparent trance.
“This does make this a bit easier, though. Princess, do you think I could borrow Melody for a short while?”
It took only a small glance to her side for Melody to see that Cadance was visibly surprised by the request. Of course, the princess cast her gaze on Melody, smiled, returned her attention to Astral, and nodded. Great, now even Cadance was ratting her out.
“I don’t see why not,” Cadance replied cheerily. She cocked her head slightly to the side and raised a hoof to gesture to Melody. “Just be sure to get her back home once you’re done, alright?
Melody couldn’t believe what had just transpired. Not only had she been sold by the princess, but she was just thrown in the hooves of a total stranger, and not to mention changeling bigot. She hung her head low and accepted her fate, but she had to admit that there was a different aura about Astral. Compared to how he behaved around her the week before, his aura exhumed a vibrant energy, and it seemed directed at her specifically.
What caused that change, she did not know, but it felt nice to have a different kind of reaction to her. Was it her unicorn disguise that allowed for him to be this comfortable. No, it wasn’t. He knew who she was. That alone was reason enough for him to distrust her, and yet he wasn’t even doing that.
Melody never even noticed Cadance bidding the two of them goodbye, nor had she heard the stallion tell her to follow him.
“Melody?"
That pulled her out of her thoughts. She snapped her head upward and locked eyes with Astral to see him readjusting his wings and gesturing for her to follow him.
----
Melody gasped when she stepped in the suite that Astral occupied with his family. She looked around and could only find her amazement increasing by the moment. They lived in a suite that befitted nobles, not the simple ponies that they appeared to be. Heck, their living room was bigger than her entire first floor, granted Melody’s house was pretty small to begin with.
While any filly her age would have expressed their appraisal for the extremely well-fitting arrangement of furniture along with the colors of the walls and ceiling that complimented each other, Melody was quick to overlook those, and she dared not even comment on the lighting of the room. The refraction of the sun against the crystal walls annoyed her more than anything. She squinted her eyes and sidestepped to move out of the blinding beam of light.
“You live in here?” Melody spun around, and her jaw just fell when she received confirmation from the pair of thestrals in the form of nods. “How can somepony even afford a place like this?”
Wishing Star was the first one to break her surprise by bursting into a fit of laughter that even managed to bring Raine’s attention from her bedroom. When she did get to the living room, she froze when she saw Melody with her parents and carefully hid behind the corner.
“Oh, sweetheart, if only you could see your face right now.” Wishing wiped a few tears with her hoof and then put that very same hoof on her chest, deeply inhaling. “This is courtesy of Princess Luna and Princess Cadance. Good heavens, we can’t afford this. At least not on our salary.”
Princess Luna and Princess Cadance? Just who were those two thestrals? Instead of receiving the answers she wanted, Melody only ended up with more questions requiring answers. She just stared incredulously at the two ponies.
The question was starting to form on her quivering lips. What power did they possess? Could they put her existence at risk if they so wanted to? Questions upon questions swirled in her mind while disastrous events played in repeat in her mind. The last thing she needed was to find herself crawling back to Occento’s hive, and have the queen send her back to the Crystal Empire.
Her breathing quickened, and she put a hoof on her chest in an attempt to calm herself. The thestrals looked at each other, and then back at Melody with concern in their eyes. Maybe they noticed the change in her behavior. She eyed them carefully, and she looked around the living room for a way to escape.
“Putting that tidbit of information aside, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask since we met, Melody,” Wishing began, her tone and posture seemingly changing to reflect her now serious demeanor. Melody’s ear flattened on her mane, and she cocked her head backward with apprehension. “Are you perchance related to a certain Star Blaze?”
If her ears could have dropped any further over her head, they would have by now. Despite her hating what her brother had done to her, the name alone brought back the years of memories under his care. The waterworks broke in a matter of seconds as the memories flooded her mind. She thought that after all these months, she would have been over it, but she hadn’t moved on yet. There was still something on her heart where her brother used to be.
She weakly nodded and let out a few sobs. Her cloudy vision failed to notice that Wishing had made her way to Melody’s side to comfort her. Nothing too intimate, but she pulled the unicorn filly in a hug. Her touch had an odd familiarity to it that Melody couldn’t put her hoof on. A tender touch of sorts, but it made no sense to her. They weren’t the same species, let alone related by blood.
She didn’t know what Wishing had done to her, but she slowly calmed down. She felt at ease with Wishing Star for whatever reason that her mind failed to understand. Her sobs began to die down a bit, but as much as she tried to wipe away her tears, they just came back as fast as they vanished on the fur of her leg.
“So you are.” Wishing’s voice was soft and caring. Why were they acting friendly with her, though? First it was Astral, and now Wishing was doing that. Why? Why were they contradicting their feelings from a week ago? “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I truly am!”
What was Wishing sorry about? Why was she apologizing to her like that?
“What are you… talking about?” Melody asked weakly, hooves shuffling against the mare's bosom. She didn’t even want to leave the embrace of the mare at this point. It felt somehow right, and she felt safe within the mare’s hooves.
“We knew your parents and your brother, Melody. I’m sorry you had to live through all of that on your own. The truth is, while we’re here to work on a project Princess Luna assigned Astral and me, we also came here to find you.”
Find her? What mess had she gotten herself into this time? Everything about this made no sense to Melody, and she just stared at Wishing with her mouth wide open. Why her? What had she done to warrant their attention so much? As much as she wanted to leave and hope never to see those ponies again, something urged her to stay and listen.
When Melody failed to provide a proper response, Wishing glanced at her husband and both of them nodded. “Your parents were our favorite colleagues and our best friends. I can still remember it as if it were yesterday when your father barged in Wishing and I's office to show pictures of a foal with pride and joy. I’d never seen him happier.”
Melody’s brought her hooves to her mouth and gasped. This changed everything. From all the things Star had told her as she grew up to all the things Occento and Princess Cadance had told her, this changed absolutely everything.
“Bu-But Star said that they were always too busy to stop and come home,” Melody whined, wiping her eyes once more before her hoof trailed down to wipe the mucus leaking from her nostrils.
Wishing tore her gaze once more to look at her husband as anger possessed her. She ground her teeth, eyes wide with shock. Even though Melody had fallen prey to confusion and her overwhelming emotions, she could still feel and taste the bitter tang of Wishing’s anger.
“Your parents being too busy for you? Perish the thought!” Wishing’s behavior turned sour, and she hissed at the slight implications that Melody’s parents had been absent for her. “Your mother spent all of her time with you after your birth, as any mother should!”
But then why couldn’t she remember her parents? The question had already formed on her lips, but Wishing just put a hoof on Melody’s mouth. It took one glance to see that Wishing was shedding tears as well. It seemed like Melody wasn’t the only one that lost somepony important.
Astral reminded the two of them that he was still present. Stretching his front legs a bit and sitting down, he looked at the two ponies and then tore his gaze from there to spot Raine spying on them. With a wave and beckon of his hoof, the filly sheepishly made her way to her father and nestled in the crook of his legs, staring intently at her mother and the white unicorn she almost clung onto.
“There’s no need to explore events that we can’t change,” Astral said, resting his muzzle besides her daughter’s and staring at the other pair of ponies with a serious look on his face. It seemed painful for him as well to revisit those memories. “Melody, you parents were wonderful ponies, loving and caring parents and the best friends we could ever ask for.”
Wishing chuckled at the thought, the anger burning within her subsiding, if only a little. “They’re even the ones that suggested adoption to us. That was the best decision of our lives.”
That answered some of Melody’s questions, but the most important one that still burned bright in her head was regarding their search for her. Sure, they knew her biological parents, but why had they been so intent on finding her specifically, especially since they now had a daughter to take care of.
Melody pushed herself from the embrace. Much to Wishing’s discontent, the mare did not protest. She let the filly go and wiped the tears from her eyes, offering a simple, yet loving smile.
“But why me?” she asked away, looking at Wishing, and then at Astral, keeping herself from looking at Raine.
Astral shrugged. “Because we wanted to be there for you.” He readjusted his legs, placing his left hoof over his right one, giving Raine a playful nudge that she eagerly returned. “When your parents died, we were ready to adopt you. That’s how much we had come to love you over the months that followed your birth. Your brother had other plans for you, unfortunately.”
Wishing nodded and stretched her limbs, flicking her tail. She unfurled her wings, flapped them a little, and pressed them on her sides once again.
Melody shook her head and let the tears trickle down her fur once more. Her breathing became raspy. Each breath she drew burned her throat. Tears had long since stopped cascading from her eyes, but she still whined and sobbed. She pressed her hoof on her chest and helplessly wheezed. She shook her head and took a few steps back, gasping in between sobs.
The sea of emotions finally gnawed at her magic and in an instant, she reverted to her changeling form. She couldn’t hear any more. She had to get away and give all of this some thought.
She pivoted on her leg and broke into a sprint, never mind the pain of her leg, and opened to door, bursting out of the suite before any of the three ponies could do anything to stop her. Melody ran and ran. Mental maps of the palace halls came to life in her head, and she just followed the path she had taken earlier that day.
All of this—ranging from what Wishing had said about her parents to what Astral said about their love for her—made no sense. Nothing did, but she felt somehow happy about all of this. Her parents never meant to abandon her. Death forced them to leave her to her fate. Knowing this much already appeased her.
It wasn’t enough to push aside this overwhelming sense of grief that ate away at her, but it was just about enough to make her feel even more enraged about her brother. If he had managed to slip lies like those so easily, what other lies had he fed her?
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That feeling when a story from your favourite genere gets updated
img.memecdn.com/insanity-wolf-changeling_o_1501267.jpg
Time to organize my thoughts for buggy bussiness!
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Shining Sadist, propably the most reasonable scenario. After his training he will put Melody through she'll propably shave her mane, dive into the bush and become a commando. Like Rambo. That's actually intresting as you would think that if Melody has some changeling in herself, maybe some instincts would aid her. Besides - Changeling Commanders are propably harsher ['you will even kill yourselfes if that's gonna help keeping your race a secret' doctrine] and the bugs life through it, so there's that.
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...aaaand when the good part ended we got into the crazy whirlwind of coencidences. Like Disney. Or chessy fantazy outside of LoTR.
6915622 I'm sorry you feel that way about the story. Hopefully, future chapters might change your opinion, but if it doesn't, thank you so much for reading thus far.
6915628 Mind you, I have zero, absolutely zero, knowledge about military things outside of what I've read so far. But my intent was to make Shining look like a brute by being overly harsh with Melody as if he were a Drill Instructor (even though I cannot gauge their intensity due to my lack of knowledge on that matter). As far as Melody's response to Shining's verbal abuse goes, we'll see in future chapters where that leads.
And as for the second part, I wouldn't call it as much a coincidence, as I'll get to working on Astral Rain and Wishing Star's stories in the upcoming chapters. If they legitimately knew Melody, there are a few ways they could have found out that she was in the Empire all along.
6916873 Cady will regret for leaving Melody with her husband. Wonder what will Swiftsong break this time.
Okay. That's more than I hoped for! Huzzah!
*clap clap clap* like it!
No new chapters?
These two are mutually exclusive, and furthermore just suggests Cadance is a twit for telling a changeling how a pony feels.
(The former quote is worded such that while she's aware of his emotional hatred for her, she doesn't need to rely on that sense to tell he hates her).
I think you're missing something there xP