In a Name

by Detectivefish

Where We Lay Our Scene

The years passed. Fluttershy raised the Changeling as her own, and by some utterly bizarre quirk of probability, he grew up to be completely and utterly normal. In Ponyville. He never displayed any unusual tendencies, never came up with ludicrously complicated means of solving simple problems, and never had any desire to go on adventures (Especially not after a bad camping trip gone hideously wrong).

In fact, he seemed perfectly content to grow up (and he did certainly grow, and became very tall, and by more than one account, particularly easy on the eyes) to be nothing more than a quiet, unassuming pony, which caused poor Fluttershy no small amount of concern.
The only possible dampener on his childhood were the frequent nightmares he had about leading hordes of changelings across Equestria, feeding on its subjects, and crushing all who dared stand against him underneath an iron hoof.
(But he never spoke about those.)

And in all likelihood, had he been anypony else, that would have been that. He would have simply grown up, gone to university, graduated, married, moved to a big city and gotten a desk job for a prestigious accounting firm, or something similar. Though not necessarily in that order.

But he was a changeling, and not just any changeling, but changeling royalty. So naturally, because there were rules for this sort of thing, he had to meet her. Shining Sapphire. lesser Princess of the Crystal Empire, daughter of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, noted bookworm, caffeine addict, and minor shut-in.

In total defiance of narrative convention, they did not fall in love at first sight, as one would've expected, though perhaps that was because they were both young at the time. Indeed, it was years before anything actually occurred between the two, in the form of a very long period of correspondence. And even then, it took their attending a suspiciously convenient dance before either pony actually realised they had Those Kinds of feelings for one another.

Of course, even once they realised this, there were a few problems remaining. The first was that Shining Sapphire's cousin (who was, incidentally, the pony who'd introduced them to each other) had begun to harbour a not-exactly-unnoticeable crush upon Whisper Wind, or as she tended to call him, 'Wisp'. The second was the phenomenal distance between Ponyville and the Crystal Empire, which made casual weekend visits incredibly difficult, especially with the high prices of train tickets. The third was the more serious one: Wisp's fear that the changelings would soon come for him, and force him into a life he wanted no part of.

Discussion was had, and while the first problem had no easy solution, the solution for the other two came quickly: Shining Sapphire suggested Wisp move to the Crystal Empire, which could defend against the changelings. Wisp briefly raised concerns about being near Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, both of whom would have had valid reasons not to trust a changeling.
And then it turned out Cadance had absolutely no problem with her daughter being in a relationship with a changeling whatsoever. Indeed, if anything, she was perhaps a bit too encouraging.

At which point the changelings abducted Whisper Wind in order to force him into a life he wanted no part of.
From there, the situation deteriorated rapidly, especially once Shining Sapphire's cousin became involved, resulting in both ponies being terribly injured, and an attempted invasion of the Crystal Empire.

But it all worked out in the end. Except, of course, for the changelings, who saw fit to abandon their queen when the invasion failed, and Shining Sapphire's cousin.

Once everything settled, Wisp realised it was probably an idea to contact Fluttershy and let her know that he was in fact still alive, given that the last she'd seen of him was when several changelings had burst into her house looking for him, and dragged him off into the night. At the mention of going to Ponyville, Shining Sapphire instantly 'volunteered' to go with him.
After more discussion, both young ponies decided to wait a few days first to recover.

So, a few days after the impromptu family reunion, the two young lovers set off to Ponyville. However, the trip southward proved amazingly unromantic because of the continued presence of Shining Sapphire's cousin, who seemed to have shaken her interest in Wisp by that point, and that of five changelings, who had rescued Wisp from nearly almost certain death, and deemed themselves his bodyguards, regardless of what Wisp's opinion on this was.

Shining Sapphire, meanwhile, had started becoming slowly concerned about the potential reaction of Fluttershy to the events her son had been through.
Upon arriving in Ponyville the two ponies quickly made their way to Fluttershy and broke the news to her. Fluttershy's reaction was to be incapable of speech for several minutes, before subjecting both ponies to an incredibly strong hug.

For the next few days, Shining Sapphire began looking about Ponyville, not having much experience with the town and wanting to explore it, despite her coltfriend pointing out (repeatedly) that despite the best efforts of some of the more enthusiastic locals, Ponyville was not renowned for being very large or very scenic, unless of course one liked apple orchards and slightly ominous forests, before eventually packing up what little things Wisp actually had.

Their departure from Ponyville went surprisingly smoothly, with only two derailments: first was Fluttershy suddenly breaking out in tears, and after that, having to avoid member of the infamous Pie clan, who had somehow learnt that Wisp was about leave, and were determined to throw him what they had dubbed a 'see-you-later' party.
It was several minutes before Fluttershy finally managed to convince her son to stop hugging her and saying 'goodbye' and get onto the train.

After their entirely uneventful return to the Crystal Empire, the two ponies found the days, and then the weeks just seeming to fly by, completely free of any unusual events, or distractions or disasters. Not even an interfering parent. But then, very quickly, a tiny flaw presented itself.

For whatever reason, Whisper Wind declined to share a bedroom with Shining Sapphire. He did not explain why, he just didn't. At first, Shining Sapphire was willing to accept this, but then, after a few days began to feel increasingly worried about this decision. She made it her mission to coax an explanation out of him. After a few days, he finally admitted why he'd been acting that way, that he'd felt uncertain about sharing a room with her. She had quickly and calmly pointed out there wasn't any reason to be concerned. Her parents had no opposition to their being together, and he knew that. After several moments, he finally agreed to share a room with her, to which she had teasingly replied he had to at least see where he was sleeping first.

His reaction to the room, which was several times larger than the small room he'd had in Fluttershy's cottage, was simply thus:
"It's not as pink as I thought it would be. Not as frilly either."

And so that night, almost exactly one month after the failed Changeling invasion, the two ponies found themselves finally sharing the same room. Their romance had overcome all other obstacles, and now they were free to do whatever they wished.
At which point they fell asleep almost instantly.
(It is entirely possible one of them had their hooves around the other.)

*****

There was a harsh buzzing noise, which seemed to fill the air and scrape at the nerves. Reluctantly, Shining Sapphire found herself being woken from the pleasant dream she'd been having. Her irritation was forgotten when she saw the sight directly in front of her, that of a golden-brown pony lying next to her, quietly breathing in and out. She did feel a momentary glimmer of annoyance, since his eyes were closed, and those were truly among his best features (not that she kept a list of her boyfriend's best features of course), but this was quickly replaced by joy and satisfaction that the events of last night hadn't actually been a cruel dream. Then she remembered the buzzing noise, which was in fact her alarm clock.

With great effort, the young princess slowly turned over, ignoring the odd wince or aching muscle, so that she was now facing in the general direction of her bed-side table. She raised a hoof, then brought it down upon the table. She missed the alarm-clock by some distance. She tried again, and after a few more tries eventually managed to get the alarm clock, as the buzzing stopped with a resounding click.

Her valiant quest fulfilled, the triumphant princess turned back over again to admire her strangely still slumbering beau, which was proving slightly difficult due to the low lighting in the room. She briefly considered just opening the curtains, but then decided not to. Her eyes would likely adjust in a moment.

Then, a though slithered into her mind, one managing to do the work of several cups of coffee. She remembered why the alarm clock had been going. For whatever reason, the staff who worked at the Crystal Palace operated on a strictly maintained schedule, and foremost on this schedule was making sure that she was up in the morning, and prepared to face the day. And while she was usually an early riser (especially compared to a certain other pony she knew), being dragged out of one's bed to have their mane practically assaulted took a lot of the fun out of getting up, especially when one had a mane like hers, which happened to have inherited much of its qualities from her father's, in that it was mostly bright blue (sapphire blue, in fact, hence how she had her name) and that it was amazingly difficult to brush. And the staff refused to let her wander the castle looking, in their words, 'like she'd been dragged through a bush'. Not that Shining Sapphire had a tendency to rush through bushes anyway, she spent most of her time in any one of the castle libraries. She had even tried, when she was younger, complaining about this barbaric assault on her mane to her mother, which in hindsight was a mistake, for her mother had just smiled, and talked politely, and made rational arguments explaining why she needed to nearly have her scalp torn clean off in the morning. Shining Sapphire had long held that her using her best 'mom voice' had been cheating of the worst kind.
And that was why she had carefully arranged things so that her alarm clock went off before they reached her room, giving her a chance to escape to the safety of one of the libraries.

It was also beginning to occur to her that she should perhaps have warned Wisp about this, since she doubted those Changeling bodyguards of his had let anypony into the guest room he'd been staying in, and she'd been so driven to get him simply to agree to stay in her room, she hadn't had time to discuss anything else. Slowly, she tried to nudge him gently with a hoof to wake him up. For some reason her leg felt oddly stiff. Then there was a sudden knocking at the door.
"Your highness" a voice called out, "Are you decent?"

Shining Sapphire sighed. Too late to escape, she thought. Her horn glowed, and with a slight click the lights turned on. She nudged Wisp, eliciting a small mumble from him as he stirred. Then she turned toward the door.
"Just a moment" she called out, as her eyes turned toward the bedside table again, looking for her tiara. Which she noticed wasn't there. She frowned. It had been there last night, she knew, because she remembered taking it off before going to bed, though her recollection got distinctly fuzzy afterward. She rubbed some sleep out of her eyes, and checked again. Her alarm-clock was still there, with all the dents that somehow did not stop it from fulfilling its infernal duty, her old glasses (which she hadn't needed in years), and the book she'd been trying to read yesterday, to no success, but no tiara was there to be seen. It wasn't as if she had any real opinion on it, or even needed it, but if she'd lost it again, she'd be in trouble with her parents. She slid off the bed, wondering if perhaps it had somehow wound up underneath the bed. There was a sharp stab of pain from her back right leg as she set it down on the ground. She winced as the pain began to die down, a friendly reminder that even after the excitement of the last month her still hadn't healed completely from the incident with the Nightmare. She tried to put her thoughts about that day out of her mind, even as she found her mind treacherously going over those events in her mind. Her train of thought was mercifully interrupted when the door opened, two ponies marching in with grim expressions on their faces, heading straight towards the still not-entirely awake Wisp. Shining Sapphire blinked in confusion, wondering if perhaps they were availing themselves of a chance to practice their craft on him, without the threat of Changelings appearing out of nowhere, though from the looks of it, they were going to be disappointed, since Wisp's mane actually looked pretty good already. And now that she'd thought about it, she was beginning to wonder where those Changelings had gotten to, since from what she'd seen of them, they weren't about to let their prince's mane be groomed by anypony. Suddenly, she heard one of the mares say something.

"What happened to your crown?" Shining Sapphire shuffled nervously, trying to think of the best way to say she didn't know, before the mare continued, only she was facing Wisp as she did, "You haven't 'misplaced' it again, have you?"
Shining Sapphire paused, wondering why the mare had said that to Wisp, especially as if she was familiar with his habits. Then she saw one of them looking down at the floor, before frowning.

"Oh. There it is" she announced, lifting the familiar looking object up and placing it on Wisp's head. Shining Sapphire frowned, wondering what it had been doing on Wisp's side of the bed at all. She was also feeling more than a little bit alarmed as to a number of things, not least the reason as to why her mouth felt so strange all of a sudden, and why she felt so sore all over. Then something occurred to her. She slowly looked down at her hooves. Her jaw suddenly felt incredibly slack. Slowly, she lifted a trembling hoof up to stare at it. She waved it back and forth, and nothing changed. She blinked, and by that point it had become alarmingly clear that she wasn't hallucinating, or dreaming.

Instead of bright pink fur, instead there was what looked amazingly like charcoal-grey chitin, with several holes scattered about the cannon. As she stared, she became alarming aware of a buzzing noise that sounded amazingly like it was coming from the middle of her back.
After a few minutes she placed the hoof back onto the ground, and moved over toward the nearest mirror in the room. She was fairly certain her jaw dropped even further at the sight.

Staring back at her was a full-grown changeling, but with her eyes, and her mane (which looked like it had been a long time since it had been washed). In her still-open mouth she could see four prominent fangs. With some effort, she wrenched her eyes away from the sight, and toward her forehead, and the large, jagged horn jutting out from it. She gingerly placed a hoof against it, only to instantly flinch back when she touched it.
"What?" she squeaked. As she did, the two servants had finished their attempts upon Wisp's mane, and departed, leaving the two ponies standing there. A horrible, horrible silence descended upon the room, as they stared at one another. Then Shining Sapphire took a deep breath.

There were perhaps some ponies somewhere, who upon finding out on waking up that they had inexplicably changed species, would marvel at the sheer capacity of reality for surprise, grin and dive right into the madness.
For all her curiosity and inquisitiveness, Shining Sapphire was not one of those ponies. Which is why she chose to scream instead.
"WHAT THE-?"

Author's Note:

I apologise for that recap and exposition at the beginning. I really do.
The problem was, even though you could go through the previous story for most of it, making someone go through all of that when you'd only need to read a few chapters to know about these characters.
But I don't think I'd have been happy with any attempt at the recap, all things considered. Not that I'm wild about the second half either.
And yeah, jumping into the plot without any 'normality' to disrupt it, but I don't know a way to write about a character spending all day reading books and making it remotely interesting.

Comments

[Dream Seeker]

I don't particularly like recap, but is was necessary. The end is great, and I can't wait to see what happens!