The Hunt for Books

by Convair

Chapter 3

Scribe was worried, very worried. He was stuck in a house with a half dozen ponies he had cocooned, and he was sure that it wouldn’t be long before the guards came back to find him. Going over his rather limited options, he eventually worked out the best courses of action for his current situation.

Ok so I can either stay here and hope the guards didn’t suspect anything, or I could skip town and find somewhere else to live. A quick look through the window at the uncountable amount of guards watching the crowd and stopping ponies at random was enough to drive the first option from his mind.

The second choice being made, he tried to remember any of the other pony settlements nearby. There’s Manehattan and uh… Damn! What are the other ones? The only place he could remember was that massive, industrious city, his only knowledge of it being from the lone Daring Do book he had read.

Knowing he could probably find a new city to travel to in one of the bookstore’s wares. He looked around the store for about 15 minutes before giving up, as it seemed the one type of book the store didn’t have was one with a map inside it. Though he could probably find the names of more cities in one of the novels surrounding him, they would certainly have no directions for getting there from Canterlot.

How am I supposed to get somewhere else if I can’t find out where that somewhere is? He looked around the room, his gaze eventually settling on the loose pile of cocoons, though more specifically Derpy’s and Dinky’s. Maybe they can tell me where to go. His mind made up, he walked over to the cocooned ponies and pulled Derpy and her daughter off of the pile, dragging their cocoons over to one of the many reading couches.

After inspecting the cocoons for any sign of damage or decay that could have harmed the ponies within, he licked the concrete, which began dissolving immediately after contact with his saliva. Waiting a few minutes for the hard shell of the cocoon to grow soft, he then started taking small bites of the gooey substance to speed up the process.

It was after about five minutes that the cocoons had dissolved enough for Scribe to simply pull the ponies from their prisons, plopping them down on the couches for them to wake on. It took a few minutes, but the pair of ponies were roused from their slumber by Scribe’s insistent poking and prodding. As Derpy opened her eyes, a pair of pupil-less eyes greeted her; scaring her enough that she jerked her head back into the couch cushions.

“W-w-what’s going on? Who are y-you?”

“It’s me Derpy! I’m Scribe remember?”

Derpy moved back a little to get a better view, and got a look at Scribe’s new form. “AHHHH! W-WHAT ARE YOU?”

“Calm down Derpy! It’s me, Scribe! I know I look different now, but you’ve got to trust me!”

“I-if it’s really you, then where is Dinky?”

“Right behind you, actually.”

Derpy looked behind her and sure enough, Dinky was sitting upright on the couch, watching her mother and Scribe. “Dinky!” Derpy shouted before rushing over to her filly, using her wings for extra speed to give her daughter the biggest, bone-crushing hug she had ever received.

“Mom, you’re crushing me!”

“Sorry sweetie” giggled the relieved Pegasus. Turning back to Scribe, they both took in his much different appearance.

“So, do you mind telling us what happened after you put us in those cocoon things?”

“Sure. After I hid you two, I came to this store to claim some of the books. Unfortunately, the owners kind of locked me in the basement, which left me exposed to the love bubble that formed when Princess Cadence and Prince Armor expelled every other changeling from Canterlot.”

Derpy looked at him incredulously before asking: “So there are no more changelings in Canterlot?”

“No. The princess’ love and the prince’s shield combined and it expelled the Swarm. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one left, unless some have returned.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re so much bigger now. You look like you could be as tall as Princess Celestia!”

“I might be. I’m not really sure how tall she is compared to me, but I did manage to find out what did this to me.”

“Really? What?”

“Well apparently an old hive rumor about massive amounts of love changing drones into Royals was true. Since I was below the shield when it threw everyling else out, I started absorbing all of the excess love around me when it stopped. I woke up in the basement with the owner of the store and his family upstairs. They helped me find out what happened in this really helpful book, but then decided I was too dangerous and tried to get the guards. That’s why they're in cocoons right now.”

Derpy and Dinky looked over to the four other cocoons on the other side of the room and gulped, fearing what the somewhat trustworthy changeling was going to do with the family. “I-if you don’t mind me asking, what are you going to do with them, a-and us for that matter?”

Truth be told, Scribe had very little idea of what he was going to do with them. He would probably let them go, but wanted Derpy and her daughter’s opinion first. “I’m not really sure. I was hoping you could give me some ideas?”

“So you, a changeling that is now probably as big and powerful as our princess, is asking ME what to do?”

It was with a slight blush that Scribe said, “Y-yeah. I don’t really know what to do now. If I stay here the guards will catch me, but I don’t know enough about this country to find a new place to hide out. That’s kind of why I woke you two up, actually.”

“Oh” was all that Derpy could say before her filly spoke up; “He can stay with us in Ponyville, right mom? He did save us from the nasty changelings, and he even kept his promise to let us out of the cocoon things!” Derpy looked from her daughter’s smiling face to the hopeful look on Scribe’s face, trying to find even a hint of bad intent in his face. After finding none, she turned back to her daughter’s happy face, the cuteness almost overwhelming.

“I don’t know Dinky, he might not want to stay with us.” She then turned back to Scribe and said “If you need a place to stay for a little while, we would be happy to oblige, so long as you don’t try anything fishy.” Scribe lit up like a light bulb, his overjoyed expression betraying his calmer voice.

“I would love to, if you aren’t still mad at me for the whole cocooning thing…”

“That’s what you’re worried about, us not liking you because you kept us safe from your own species? We should be thankful that you had the heart to protect us when you could have just attacked us instead.”

“Oh well when you put it like that…” he said with a very pronounced blush seeping through the black color of his chitin. “

Don’t worry about it. You can stay in our guest bedroom, or even the basement if you like.”

“I’d prefer the basement to be honest. Less light and a lot easier to make it like home when there aren’t any big beds to get in the way.”

“Then it’s settled. Only problem I can think of is how you’re going to get out of here, with all the guards out there.”

“I could just disguise myself as a Pegasus and follow you to wherever you two live.”

“Ok, it’s a plan. We live in Ponyville and it’s only about a 20 minute flight from Canterlot, so we’ll be there pretty quick. It’s not too big, but it’s small enough that new ponies are usually pretty noticeable, so we’ll have to be really careful when we sneak you in or else Pinkie Pie might try to throw you a party, and then everypony will see you.”

“Gotcha. Should we leave now, or is there anything we should get before leaving?”

Dinky took this as her chance and said, “Ooh mom, can we get some—“ She was suddenly interrupted by a loud knocking on the door and a stallion’s voice shouting “Open up, Royal Guard.”

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As soon as he heard the knock, Scribe sprung into action. He quickly transformed into a tan Pegasus with large, powerful wings before beckoning over the frightened ponies. “We have to leave, now.”

“B-but what about the guards? Wont they follow us?”

“Not if they don’t see us.” He opened one of the windows facing away from the street and motioned Derpy and Dinky to go first. After Dinky got settled on her mother’s back, Derpy took off out the window, Scribe getting a face full of dust as a reward for his chivalry. He too then took off, rocketing out of the window and into the air beside Derpy.

“Are you ready?”

“Yep!”

“Ok, when I say so, fly as fast as you can out of the city. The guards will probably all follow you; so don’t stop until they catch you. When the guards catch you, say you escaped from me and were trying to get home. Wait for me outside the city, and I will get out through the alleys and meet you there.”

“Ok, lets do it!” she said excitedly, her eyes at last coming into focus because of her rare moment of total concentration and determination.

“Go!” Scribe shouted, and Derpy immediately took to the skies, her daughter’s weight not hindering her flight in the slightest. As soon as the guards saw her taking off behind the house, they too rose into the air, giving chase to the surprisingly fast Pegasus. After he was sure all of the guards had gone after Derpy, Scribe leapt into the air but quickly sank back down into one of the many alleys that branched off of the main streets.

It took him a little bit of searching, but he eventually found the right streets to follow through the backstreets that would bring him out of the city. After about 15 minutes of sneaking through alley after alley, avoiding several patrols as he went, he was able to spot the massive main gates to the walled city.

He quickly changed his disguise to that of a dark blue unicorn with a teal mane. Walking by dozens of guards to get towards the gate, he was immensely grateful that they were more concentrated on those who were entering the city, rather than those leaving it. It took him another five minutes to make his way through the bustling crowd to the heavily guarded gates.

As he approached the line for the exit, he became aware of the several dozen guards pulling ponies over to the side to question them. Please don’t stop me! He repeated over and over in his mind, praying the guards would let him pass with the majority of the crowd rather than bring him aside and find out what he is.

He let out a sigh of relief when the guards ignored him, deciding instead that a vibrant yellow earth pony was more suspicious than himself. After finding a conveniently placed group of bushes, he transformed back into the Pegasus form he had taken earlier. He then took off into the azure sky to search for his grey coated salvation.

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Adrenaline pumped through Derpy’s veins as she and her daughter rocketed off into the sky, the squad of guards crying out in alarm before following her. Thankfully, their armor weighted them down more than Dinky weighed down her mother; giving the mailmare a slight advantage in the beginning of what she knew would be a long chase.

Unfortunately for her, the guards, while weighed down by their armor, were used to the extra weight and caught up to her far quicker than she would have liked.

“Land Now!” one of the guards shouted at her. Rather than do as he said, she sped up, rocketing into the clouds she hoped would distract them. The guards too sped up and by the time she reached the clouds, several of them were flying side by side with her. When she saw how close they were to her, Derpy panicked and changed the level of her wings, bringing her into a steep dive with her filly hanging on for dear life.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” was all that came from Dinky’s mouth as they plummeted, her tight grip on her mother with her hind legs being the only thing that kept her from freefalling several hundred feet to her death. At the last moment, when they were a mere hundred feet from the rooftops below, Derpy pulled out of the dive, her speed bringing them close enough to skim the rooftops.

The guards followed them relentlessly, their formation dive-bombing the pair as they came into range.

“Stop immediately or we will use force!” Shouted another one of the guards. Knowing the chase was coming to a close, Derpy gave one last noble effort of evading the guards. She quickly rolled to the left before pulling up into a loop around the guards to bring her in behind them. What she hadn’t considered, however, was that the guards would simply flare their wings to bring themselves back to her side.

The guards now at her sides moved in and grabbed a wing each, stopping the mare in her tracks with a firm tug. The pain of having been pulled to a stop by her wings not lost, she looked around herself to see the entire squad pressing in on her, keeping her from going anywhere.

They pulled her down to a rooftop by her wings, ignoring her cries of protest and Dinky’s squeaks of fear to bring her to a stop. One of the guards pulled a pair of hoofcuffs and wing restrainers from his armor and put them on the grey Pegasus before removing the filly from her back.

“Ma’am, you are under arrest for fleeing a suspected crime scene and resisting capture.”

“B-but you’re changelings!” Derpy said, hoping to bluff her way out of being arrest.

“Excuse me?” Asked one of the thoroughly confused guards.

“I j-just escaped from one of you in that bookstore, and now you’re going to take me back!”

“Um, no we’re not. We aren’t changelings ma’am, they were all thrown out yesterday at the wedding. Are you saying you were imprisoned by one of those bugs?”

“Y-yes. I thought you were more of them, pretending to be guards to trick anypony who came to Canterlot. I’m sorry I panicked; I just wanted to get my precious little Dinky somewhere safe.”

The guards looked between each other for a few moments before the highest-ranking one called the others into a huddle, where Derpy could only hear hushed whispers of what they were saying. After about a minute, they turned back to her, their leader coming up to her directly and saying;

“If you are telling the truth, then we are sorry for further traumatizing you miss. If there is anything you can tell us about the changeling that was holding you captive, it would help us greatly in our search.”

“I was unconscious in one of their cocoon things for most of the invasion, so I cant really say for sure what happened to it. I’m sorry if I’m not much help, but I really want to take my daughter home now, if you would be alright with that of course.”

“I believe that would be alright, however, before you leave we are required to check weather or not you are a changeling. It will only take a moment, so please stay still.”

Doing as she was told, Derpy stood completely rigid while the stallion brought out a glowing green stone and pressed it to her forehead before repeating this process with Dinky. After the stone’s magic had run it’s course and the guards thanked her for her time, she took off in the opposite direction, towards the rendezvous outside the city.

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After waiting on a cloud outside the city for about ten minutes, Derpy started to get anxious, debating weather she should leave with her filly while she could or wait for Scribe. Dinky, being the child she was, was getting incredibly antsy, wiggling around on her mother’s back and often poking at the fluffy cloud they were perched on.

They soon heard the distinctive flapping of powerful wings and looked over in time to see Scribe in his Pegasus form before he barreled past them and into another cloud. Concerned for his safety, Derpy flew over to the mist that had previously been a large cloud and started to look for Scribe.

“Scribe, are you in there?”

“Down here” came a voice from below the flying duo. They looked down and saw that their changeling friend had landed on another cloud about thirty feet below the one he had hit.

“Sorry about that, I haven’t really figured out every part of flying as a Pegasus yet.”

“Oh that’s ok, it’s just a cloud. Did you have any trouble getting out of the city?”

“Nah, they weren’t really focusing on ponies going out of the city, just the ones trying to get in.”

“I guess that’s a good thing, for us anyway. Lets get going, follow me!” Derpy then sped away from him in the direction of Ponyville, her daughter once again having to hold on for dear life to avoid slipping off her mother’s back and to the hard ground far, far below.

“Hey, wait up!” Scribe quickly flew after her, and for a long time, the only thing any of them saw during their flight was the perfect landscape rolling by below, and each other.

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After the roughly 20 minute flight to Derpy’s hometown, the three friends were now perched atop a large cloud, floating across the town. Now, the reason behind this was simple: they were trying their hardest to avoid the unpredictable and inconceivable entity that was Pinkie Pie.

According to Derpy, the Pink Menace had a much harder time finding the new ponies in town when they were airborne, as she was an earth pony. They hoped that by floating towards Derpy and Dinky’s house rather than walking or flying directly to it, they could avoid Pinkie for a little while.

Of course, this led to a stealthy flyby of the town on their wing-propelled cloud before bringing it in lower and to their target house. As they finally stopped above Derpy’s home, they had decided that Pinkie must have been off doing something else, or perhaps still in Canterlot, and as such it was safe to land at last.

They silently glided to a stop at the front door, Derpy producing a bronze key from underneath one of the potted plants in the nearby garden.

“Welcome to our home, Scribe.” Scribe looked around in wonder at the many knick-knacks that lined the walls of the home, which seemed even bigger on the inside due to the vaulted ceiling being designed for Pegasi. There were all of the things that you would expect from a pony dwelling; a Living room, kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms. There were even a couple of balconies along the roof that looked to only be accessible to a Pegasus.

“Wow. This is all yours?” Scribe asked in disbelief. He knew ponies had large homes, as the bookstore he had stayed in was proof of that, but this was an even larger living space for only the two of them.

“Yep. You’d be surprised how much you get paid for delivering mail all across Equestria. It’s a pretty fun job too, since you get to see all your friends and all sorts of other ponies when you give them their mail.”

“That is so cool! So where is the basement?”

“Over here.” She led him over to a wooden door while Dinky got off her back and went up to one of the other rooms, presumably her own. When Derpy opened the basement door, Scribe had been expecting a small place with some random storage space inside it. Instead, the basement spanned about half of the house’s length and width, making it a very large and spacious room that was for the most part, completely void.

With the exception of a couple of cardboard boxes filled with spare items, the room was completely bare, leading Derpy to address Scribe’s excited look with: “You can do whatever you want down here, as long as you don’t make the house collapse. Go nuts.”

With her permission granted, Scribe galloped around the room, inspecting it for any cracks and crevices that would be the perfect place to start his remodeling. While Derpy watched in fascination, Scribe spit out a large, 2 inch strand of concrete, letting the sticky substance splatter across the back corner before moving his head around to start building with the malleable material.

He quickly covered the entire back wall with a thin layer of it, before he started to build a compartment of sorts in the back right corner. The structure eventually finished up as a sort of rectangular box that was missing the side closest to the door. With the first part of his renovations complete, Scribe then began the arduous task of making some simple furniture next to his recently completed bedroom.

After he finished his work, Derpy looked around at the transformed basement, taking in all of the new additions. There was the sleeping pod, which Scribe, like every other changeling, slept in. It was because of their somewhat insect-like instincts that every single changeling felt safer and much more comfortable in a smaller sleeping space, rather than the large bedrooms that ponies often had.

Outside of his ‘bedroom’ there was a table that was built into the floor, a set of shelves beside his pod and a large beanbag-like chair filled up with liquid concrete (which made a surprisingly comfortable seat). Derpy was amazed that he could create his own living space inside of ten minutes with nothing but the goo he produced himself.

“Wow, the furniture ponies would be out of business if we could make stuff like that.”

“It’s not really the nicest stuff in the world, but it’ll work.” Before she left, Derpy felt she had to ask about the rectangular slot against the wall he had made.

“So what’s with the rectangle thing against the wall?”

“That’s where I sleep, silly.”

“You want to sleep there? You're crazy, that’s way too small!”

“No it isn’t. Changelings prefer small, enclosed places to sleep. Sleeping in the roomy bedrooms ponies use is kind of scary for us.”

“Oh, um Ok…” Derpy said, getting rather weirded out by the changelings desire to sleep in a claustrophobic space like that. “Well I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

“Thanks for letting me stay here Ms. Hooves. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t helped me back in Canterlot.” Derpy was caught off guard by the sudden thanks, and as such it took her a few moments to formulate a response.

“You’re welcome. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself knowing I ignored somepony in their time of need in front of Dinky.” She then giggled and said: “I’m especially glad you weren’t caught before you got us out of those cocoons, or else we would have been in them for Celestia knows how long.”

“Me too” he said with a smile. Just then, as the overwhelming silence took over, he remembered something he had forgotten to ask about earlier: “Where did Dinky go? She disappeared as soon as we got inside…”

“I’m not sure. She might be in her room, no-doubt up to no good.”

“Should we check on her?” As soon as he said it, there was a loud crash that came from upstairs, the noise gradually making it’s way towards the basement before the source toppled over the top step and rolled down the stairs before coming to a stop before the surprised adults.

Sitting within a mess of blankets, sheets and pillowcases was Dinky, most of her body ensnared within the linens. “Um… little help here?”

“Dinky, what could have possibly caused this?” Her mother asked incredulously.

“I was just trying to get some blankets n’ stuff for Mr. Scribe so he doesn’t get cold down here at night!” she said defensively.

“Well, you could have asked for help instead of getting yourself all tangled up in these.”

“I know mom, can you just get me out of these? It’s kind of hard to do anything like this.”

“*Sigh* Sure honey, hold still.” Scribe watched as Derpy playfully removed Dinky from her fabric prison, the filly being unrolled from the blankets like a rug, with the blankets having to be unrolled very carefully, lest she get tanged even worse. Dinky ended up out of her cotton jailor's clutches a few moments later, albeit with a pillowcase over her head.

Scribe’s last thought before succumbing to the cuteness of the situation was: How is it possible for something to be that adorable? If I could weaponize this moment, I could retake Canterlot, nay, all of Equestria by myself!

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Throne Room, Canterlot Castle

“Your majesty, we completed the search you requested of us, and we are happy to report that there were no changelings inside or otherwise around that bookstore that we could find.”

“Are you sure you checked everywhere?”

“Yes your majesty. We checked the entire building twice, and while we did not find any changelings within the building, we did find a family that had been cocooned by one. It is unknown weather or not they were cocooned before or after yesterdays search and if the ponies yesterday’s patrol saw were really changelings, but we will know more once they have been safely removed from their cocoons.”

“Make sure that they are revived as soon as possible lieutenant. I have a feeling that this may be a far different situation than we previously thought, and they may be the only ones that know the truth about what happened. Is there anything else to report?”

“The only other thing of interest was a Pegasus mare and her daughter who supposedly escaped from their cocoons just before we arrived. We chased her down and questioned her, but her story seems to check out, though I still find it unlikely that she could get out of her cocoon as easily as she claimed to.”

“Who is this mare?”

“Her name on file is Ditzy Doo and her daughter’s name is Dinky. They both live in Ponyville, and we checked them with the stone you gave us, so they definitely aren’t changelings themselves.”

"That is good news, though I doubt that she could have escaped her chrysalis without the help of a changeling, as it has taken us a day to break through one ourselves.”

“We thought the same thing your majesty. Should we send for her so that you may question her yourself?”

“No, no nothing like that. I believe it will be enough to have my student, Twilight, check up on her when she returns tomorrow. I’m sure she is fully capable of finding anything suspicious and bringing it to light. Thank you, Flash, that will be all.”

With her side project having expanded to Ponyville in just a day, she made a mental note to investigate this matter herself, before stepping out of the throne room and turning down one of the many hallways to contemplate the many other things she had to deal with today.

Author's Note:

Please tell me about any mistakes in spelling or grammar.

Give ideas and suggestions for where the story could go in the comments.

Next chapter will be Friday.

Thanks to all those who liked or favorited this story.

Comments

[BurningLance]

oh my this gonna get interesting whenv Twilight stumbles on Scribe while checking up on Derpy/Ditzy.

one i sorta hopes catches him reading books and gets a bit curious to find a changeling who likes to read and maybe if Scribe manage to beg her to keep him a secret because he only wanted books to read they may become friends because of same interests. (not right away tho)