Despite his smile, Evening Breeze could feel a steady tingle in his gut, where that anger had burned just a few moments before. Their surroundings were almost perfect; isolated, far enough from the campsite that Trade wouldn't hear anything, with nopony else around to bother them. Not only that, but Mel was already transfixed by the stars, her mouth moving without sound as she tracked them across the sky. His job was half done for him. It was the perfect place to feed; all he had to do was get her to give her love to him.
But that was the problem. To the best of his - admittedly limited - knowledge, there was only one pony to whom Melody's heart truly belonged, and that pony certainly wasn't Breeze, nor the disguise that he wore. In the interests of collecting love, it was more or less useless. Not, however, that he could steal Fair Trade's form, nor any other for that matter, not without either knocking Mel out, or dulling her mind to the point that she didn't question the change. It was doable, certainly, but this form came without a horn. No horn meant he had no access to unicorn magic, that could have backed up his effort, and he simply didn't feel confident trying something like that with changeling magic alone.
But now that he'd had the idea, it was sticking. The smartest thing to do might have been to simply accept that it was an impossible task, and slink back to the campsite. But hunger that had previously gone unnoticed was starting to gnaw at him, and if he turned down a meal now, he knew that it would only get worse. So he leant towards her, taking long, deep, but ultimately quiet, breaths, hoping that there might have been enough stirring emotion within her to at least give him a taste, even as he used the steady inhalations to try and clear his mind and muddle through to a solution. Because there was a way through this. He knew it. Whether that certainty came from a simple gut feeling, or some half-remembered lesson from his younger days, he couldn't say. But the answer was there. Just out of reach, outwith the usual mode of thought, and a changeling's usual modus operandi.
Love was the key, of course. Clear, crisp, sweet and filling... And the irony was that he didn't even know what exactly it was. Oh, an emotion, certainly. He knew that much. Felt between two creatures, perhaps more, who shared a special closeness. But surely there was more to it that that. After all, a changeling could no more feed on fear, joy, or anger than any pony could. So what was it that made these emotions less than love? What was it that made love itself so tangible?
They were important questions, but as they ran through his mind he dismissed them. He didn't have any answers, and even if he had known how important they were, without answers they were useless anyway. Instead, he sat back, rethinking his options, when a thought came to him.
Though ideally he needed her to give her love to him, he was in fact perfectly capable of taking love that wasn't directed at him specifically. It was like stealing the scraps dropped from a feast; hardly capable of actually sating his hunger, but it could take the edge from it. And perhaps even lend him a little strength. Perhaps it wasn't the best plan in the world, and on its own it really wasn't even worth the otherwise perfect position, but it was better than nothing. And Breeze was more than happy to chance it taking a smaller meal, if it meant that there was the possibility of it leading to something bigger.
With an easy, casual twist of his neck and shoulders he shifted a little, moving closer to her. The proximity wasn't required, but it was desirable.
"You and Trade," he said carefully. "You've known each other for a while, I take it?"
As he spoke, he stretched out his senses. If he'd had a horn, it would have glowed dull green as he probed the air with...something. It was a sense that was hard to describe to a being without the same capability. A unicorn might have understood, to an extent, but it wasn't something that could be put into words. Still, he felt a little rush of affection from her at the mention of Trade, and managed to pull a little shred of that little rush to himself. It was so small that he barely even noticed it, but it was success.
"Aye, since we were weans," Mel said, her eyes and mind still largely focused on the stars.
"Did you know you'd end up together? When you were young, I mean."
She shrugged. "No' really. Too young tae ken what love was, back then. Took us a while tae realise what it was we were feelin' for each other."
"He seems...friendly," Breeze hazarded. "And funny, too. Was he always like that?"
Mel snorted, tearing her eyes away from the stars for a moment to look at Breeze with a funny little half frown, half smile.
"His mooth was aye gettin' him intae trouble, if that's what you mean. He's an awfy one for that. Drives me half mad sometimes. But..." The frown bowed out under the weight of the growing smile, and she looked back to the stars. "You get used tae it..."
Another little surge, larger than the last. Breeze took what he could, a rush of confidence carrying him along, and he knew how he was going to make this night end.
"You must love him very much," he murmured. And as he fed on that third and greatest spike, his mounting confidence took him over, and the rush of confusion that followed her affection went unnoticed as he prepared a spark of confusion behind his eyes.
Changeling magic was something special. It was almost like unicorn magic in its effects, but it required neither a horn nor wings to channel. A horn helped matters, certainly; it acted as a focusing point, and channelling unicorn magic into a changeling spell could strengthen it. But at its most basic, it required only the body, to change forms, and the eyes. It was through the eyes that a changeling could dominate properly prepared prey, just as Rising Sun had bent Lacy's will to match his own.
Breeze had a simple plan. All he had to do was send his spark into her mind while it wandered between the stars. A focused mind could repel the attack, and shake off the confusion, but just as Sun had lowered Lacy's defences with a kiss, Mel's mind was open to him while she was dreaming. And once his spark had done its work, he'd take Trade's form, and all of her love would flow straight into him. She wouldn't notice the change, or the fact that the mind beneath the skin wasn't Trade's. All she'd see would be her love, and that would be all she'd need. The spark would blind her to all else.
All in all, it was a good plan. At least, until the moment Melody turned to him with a strange expression.
"Where exactly are you going with this, Breeze?"
He panicked. His spark burst forth, half-formed and poorly aimed. It wasn't a spark in truth, of course; he just visualised it as one. The only real evidence of it was the momentary flash of green that lit up his eyes, echoed by Mel's own eyes a half second later as it burrowed into her mind. The job was done, but it wasn't the same spark that Breeze had visualised. Mel's eyes went blank, then she blinked, focusing them on the changeling, and there was no doubting the lack of confusion behind them. Instead, there was something more animal, and far less controllable.
"I, uh... What?" he stammered.
The subtle frown melted away, replaced by a gentle, almost knowing smile that spread beneath half-lidded eyes. Her tongue poked out, wetting her lips as she slowly ground her hoof against the undergrowth.
"I asked where you were going with this, Breeze..." she purred, leaning into him. "It sounded interesting."
He gulped, leaning away on reflex. His mind tried to process the sudden change in circumstance, but he could find no good answer, and that worried him.
But wait, said another part is his mind, a deeper and darker part. Is this really such a bad thing? You wanted her love, and now she's giving it to you, without even being tricked.
"Mel," he said, his voice soft. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
She giggled, her smile only widening. "It shouldnae be that hard tae figure out."
The sudden urge to ask about Trade ran through him, but he forced it away. Trade didn't matter right now; he was just another of a million ponies in this land, and as good as he might have been to Breeze, the changeling wasn't about to give up on a free meal. Besides, how was this any worse than taking the pony's form? So he nodded, licking his own lips and turning to face her.
"You're right. It isn't."
She grinned, and moved for a kiss.
As she leant in, so close now that her scent filled his nose, Breeze began to feed proper, taking a draught of her love. Only it wasn't love. Similar, certainly, but different.
It was an inherently broken comparison to try and assign qualities like taste or smell to emotions. There were certain synesthetic responses that a changeling might undergo, but in the end the experience of consuming love was one that was so bizarre and so far removed from any of the more mundane senses that it lacked any real way to convey the feeling. In that regard, it was just like using magic to detect the emotion, but stronger and perhaps more abstract. Not even a unicorn could have understood just what it was like.
That being said, assigning mundane approximations to incredible things made it easier to understand how they might work, even if it was a poor representation of the thing in question. So, if one likened love to a full and healthy meal, with all the right food groups in all the right proportions, then that analogy could be stretched to include this new emotion. And that analogy would place it firmly into the role of junk food.
It was a pleasant experience, of course. And a quick one; already his body was converting it into energy he could use, and it came to him easily, all but broadcasted from her. But the buzz was short-lived; even as she lingered, her muzzle a hair's breadth from his, he could feel the initial surge of energy dying away, and there was something about it, some satisfaction, that was missing.
To stretch the metaphor to its furthest, this was the hay-burger to love's hay and oat salad, and though he took strength from it Breeze doubted it would keep him sustained - truly sustained, at least - for very long at all.
But those thoughts passed by in an instant, the space of a heartbeat, and they were wiped away as the mare's lips met his, and she leaned heavily against him, her coat rough against his own. And he pushed back, moulding his body around hers, his hooves clutching her tightly against him. He forced his mind to think up another spell, the proper one this time, ready to turn her head and remove any risk of doubt coming to her mind.
Then he squeaked as she pushed back at him, even harder, forcing him onto his back as her movements became almost aggressive. Again, his spell went awry, simply dissipating behind his eyes this time. The sound of Mel's desperate, panting breaths all but drowned out the rustling of leaves, and she finally pulled back, smiling at Breeze through half-lidded eyes.
"M-Mel..." he stammered, reaching up to try and hold her off for a moment. "Are you sure this is such a good... Mmph!"
He was cut off by her lips, pressing up against his once again. She made a low, hungry noise, and the pit of his stomach dropped away at the thought that he might not be in control-
"MELODY!"
The kiss broke as Breeze and Mel both snapped their heads to one side, looking in wide-eyed horror at the source of the shout.
Fair Trade stood at the edge of the clearing, his face dark with rage under the silver moonlight, Rising Sun standing at his side with a look of abject disappointment.
Congrats on the feature!
New you've done it, Breeze!
On the bright side, of he'd done things proper with a shapeshift, when Trade found them it would have meant discovery. Worse for the points this way, but much better for Breeze and Sun.
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...Buh? Feature?
When did this happen? I missed it!
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I swear! it was on the front page when I got on earlier today!
That's actually how I knew there was an update, I just clicked from the front page.
I would have taken a screenshot, but my phone memory was too full.
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Alas, my moment of glory... Well, perhaps next chapter? If it goes up on the feature board again, I'll catch it!
Oh buck!
Oh my....
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Oh yours?
5488426 Either way, this is going to be a meeting to remember.
moar pls
My favorite Fimfictions are always the ones with the best world building. In exceptionally rare cases, you get an author capable of Race Building. Building an entire society out of only the smallest pieces. You sir, are one of those authors.
I absolutely fell in love with this story in chapter one. The swarm knows, but they can't step out of line. They wisper, but never loudly. All is calm and well. And yet it isn't.
The fact that Evening Breeze and Rising Sun started with no name makes it so much cooler than if they had started with names. Only the vaguest descriptions gave us their outline, from which our mind filled in the blanks. Sun's fight with the guard was amazing. I was sure he was going to lose until Breeze saved him. Killing the guard... I admit I didn't expect that. We're so used to the merciful ponies that real, brutal, coldish blood killing carries weight again.
I though you had no justification for the border at first, but I quickly remembered when the defenders remembered. It felt real and proper and AWESOME!
I won't wax too much on all the chapters though, not enough time on break for that. I've really connected with the runaway Changelings and you've done your job well. Thanks for the time clarification by the way. Knowing that this story won't end with the standard "we're accepted into pony society" makes it much more mysterious. I honestly have no idea what will happen to them, though I think the hive is not yet done with them.
Got a little turned off by Rising Sun becoming a vampire in the last three chapters. While you've done an excellent job writing them and their victims, I've sat through too much Vampire Academy and Twilight to like it that much. Kinda hoping that'll change, but I'm only one reader.
So, the rookie has almost blown their cover and turned the only nearby ponies into enemies, as well as tearing apart a true love. Quite the cliffhanger we've been given. I cannot wait for more!
(My own headcanon gives Changeling Queens a link to all their drones, as by insect biology she is literally every single one's mother. Which makes me wonder, who fertilizes the queen? Are changelings born or created from the husks of corrupted ponies? Questions that I'm hoping to see answered, but no pressure)
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Wow. That's a hell of a comment for a writer like me to get, so let me first say thanks for that
I'm glad you like it that much, and I'm very glad you like what I've done with the changelings. Part of the idea behind this was because you see a few stories of a changeling getting to know the mane six, or one of them, or other well known ponies, but not many that I know of involving more than one changeling interacting with Equestria as a whole.
I get where you're coming from on the vampire thing, but I think the suggestion is a little hard to avoid in that sort of situation. Besides, I grew up on what some might say 'better' vampire media, so it does still appeal to me somewhat.
I can answer your questions somewhat, since they don't figure into the story, and the interlude 'Final Report' goes into it a little. Changelings are either carried and hatched by the Queen herself, or they're artificially grown in pods. Certain castes will be 'born' in different ways, depending on their favour. And I toyed with the idea of a hive mind, but it didn't really gel with what we see in the show. Though I did give it a little nod in the absent whisper they feel as they pass the border.
Should be "alone".
Is 'ken' supposed to translate to 'know'? 'cause I ain't seeing it.
MMM SAUCE OH DEAR
At least it's not much
Oooooooooooooooohhh!!! We got some DRA-MA!!!
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It's a word that I've mainly seen in fantasy that's trying to sound poetically archaic (eg. "Beyond the ken of mortal men"), but it is a perfectly valid one: