• Published 3rd Jul 2015
  • 1,923 Views, 126 Comments

Do Changelings Dream of Twinkling Stars? - Sharp Spark



It's no easy job, tracking down changelings on the cold city streets, but I'm good at what I do. These days though, things are different. Something's rotten in the city of Canterlot and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Even if it kills me.

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9: The Worst Breaks

The goon came steaming at me like the 9:45 to Dodge Junction and I figured discretion was the better part of not getting my head caved in. I threw myself out of the way, my hooves scrabbling across the floor as I only barely made it in time. The big guy came within inches of flattening me, but crashed into the wall himself.

Scratch that. Through the wall. Whether my early impact had weakened it or not, he smashed right through in a cloud of plaster.

I tried to make scarce, stumbling as I ran for the next room, frantically looking for the stairs down. But at that moment, I’d take any distance I could get. I snuck a look over my shoulder, and caught a glimpse of a hoof reach back through the new hole, followed by a pair of burning eyes.

I winced at another roar of anger from the goon. I had nowhere near enough of a lead. Given the past few days, I wasn’t exactly feeling spry, and he had the size and temper to easily take me down.

So I stopped in the middle of the doorway instead, standing on my hindlegs as I faced him. I had to press both forehooves against the sides of the door to maintain the awkward position.

“Well?” I said.

He charged again, same freight train, this time on a downward slope. I waited until the last moment, until he was practically screaming in my face. And then I moved. Backwards, fast, a fall rather than a dodge.

He had jumped high at the last moment, trying to tackle me at the center of my mass. When my back hit the floor, he went too high. I kicked up with my hind legs hard, and felt them make contact with his ribs, heard his breath cut off with a whoosh.

I had to clench my jaw as my spine screamed protest, but he tumbled across the floor, rolling in a heap and he clutching his hooves to his chest.

I got up, barely bothering to aim as I shot a few beams of magic at him. I was still off balance from putting so much in to overloading the tracker and the remaining changeling fuzz in my head meant I had no idea how much zip I was putting on the zaps, but it still should have been enough to lock up his nervous system. To keep him down, hard.

Instead, the magic washed over him uselessly. He was either packing some kind of shielding charm or just too damn mad for be stopped. By the time I wrote the magic off as no good, he was already pulling himself back to his hooves.

It was well past time to blow. I ducked back out of sight on the other side of the doorway and kept on for the stairwell. It was only when I drew close that I heard the clatter of hoofsteps on their way up.

The guards? They had gotten here fast. I gritted my teeth and paused there, mentally cursing rocks and hard places both. Out of a lack of a better idea, I pressed myself against the wall to the side of the door, trying to rack my mind for another way out.

The big guy limped into view, one foreleg still pressed against his barrel. When he saw me, it fell to the floor, stamping once, twice, as he prepared to charge again.

I swallowed. He wasn’t going to miss a third time.

“Freeze!” a voice yelled from the door to my side. “Hooves on the floor, don’t move!”

The big guy didn’t listen. His lips curled back against his teeth as he rushed forward, and I forced my eyes shut as I froze in place.

I could see the searing light, even with eyes closed and head turned away, and whatever spell the royals were packing apparently was enough to overload the trick that kept the big guy going. His whole body locked up in twitching fits, momentum causing him to continue forward even as his legs gave out and he slid across the floor.

I kept pressed against the wall as the royals rumbled in, still-smoking horns trained on the downed goon. They didn’t see anything as I slipped down the staircase, treading as soft as I could.

The market at the bottom floor was deserted, a sickly smell in the air from all the fruit rotting in the bins. Apparently it had either been a total PHAIR front or the owner had decided to split town after the raid. I stepped over a few browning apples that had spilled across the floor and skulked to the door.

A white unicorn in light armor stood there, stoic attention focused outwards. I padded up behind him and had my foreleg snaked around his neck before he even noticed me. With a jerk, I hauled him backwards into the shop, taking care to position myself where he couldn’t get a solid swing or kick on me.

They teach you a lot in the guard about fighting. Unfortunately for him, they’re less concerned about critical thinking. Had he decided to light up his horn with an alarm, he would have had his friends upstairs breathing down my neck. Instead, he struggled in vain to try and take me out until I choked him out into unconsciousness.

I laid his body down on the floor, calmly stepping up to poke my head outside. Nopony had noticed our little interaction. Dark clouds were gathering in the sky, presumably for a scheduled rainstorm, and the crowd of shoppers had fittingly thinned out.

Made it a little harder to stay incognito, but I was just happy to be sprung from that particular trap. I nonchalantly trotted out, moving quick but not too quick. Purposeful-like.

On Market Street I went just far enough to get past the obvious routes, and then ducked into an alley, back into obscurity. I reached a hoof to pat at my jacket, taking comfort in the shape of the folder within. I still had the evidence. I was good.

I just had to decide where to go from here. Coming here, I thought I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be a train headed my way. But I could deal. I could work something out. After all, I had just managed to get out of one sticky situation already.

When I rounded the corner, Red Harvest was waiting for me. He didn’t look happy.

I stopped in place, a grimace flashing across my muzzle. “I knew I had forgotten something.”

His wings flickered and he hit me with two crystals in quick succession, every nerve in my body flaring to life and jolting with electricity at once. I hit the dirt, writhing in agony as I watched his hooves approach. One raised, and crashed down and I saw stars and then nothing but blackness.


I was really getting sick of waking up in unfamiliar places.

I kept my eyes shut, trying to clear the fog in my head and ignore the lancing pain in my back. I was tied to some kind of pillar, forced upright with both forelegs crammed behind my back in a position that wasn’t doing my spine any favors. And given that Red didn’t have any reason to be my pal, it added up to me knee deep in fruit salad, all of it pear-shaped.

The rumbling in my ears resolved to a voice. Red was talking with someone, keeping his voice low, and I slanted my ears to catch the drift.

“—not safe. Yes, I’m sure.”

He was answered by a stream of garbled chirping, like a breezie moonlighting as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. I knew the sound. He had to be talking to somepony over an encrypted runecrystal. Only somepony touching the receiver gem would be able hear the words straight.

I risked cracking my eyes and confirmed it. He stood with his back to me, right front hoof planted on a glowing gem. Next to the crystal laid my folder, all the evidence I had to tie any of this together. I stifled a grimace, and figured it was worth risking hornglow while I didn’t have his attention.

“Leave it to me. I’ll get the information, one way or another.”

Whether tentatively or forcefully, I couldn’t light my horn at all. My magic was gone. I could feel a buzzing fuzz, a last remnant of the changeling juice rattling around in my head, but trying to reach anything further led to a wall. The bastard had put a nullring on my horn.

That would be a real problem. From the position he had trussed me up in, I couldn’t get any leverage to break or wiggle out of the ropes. Even in my attempts to feel out the bonds, I could barely keep from grunting at the pain any movement caused.

“No promises. Look, we can still contain this, but we have to act fast and be willing to make necessary sacrifices.”

I glanced around, trying to figure a way out. From the looks of things, I was in an empty warehouse, all the windows boarded over. I would be away from the main streets, then. I could have yelled, but in neighborhoods like this, when ponies heard shouts they knew from experience to turn and head the opposite way.

I noticed one more pair of objects on the table, and the sight sent a chill down my spine. Sitting on top of a hoofkerchief lay a set of small wingblades, black steel. Not the kind you fought with, at least not against someone who was expecting a rumble. The kind that used more dexterity and skill, for... finer work. I knew an old featherduster who had a pair like that for whittling. Could work over ice, wood, even bone, if he could get his hands on it. I figured carving a nice little chunk out of a pony would be easy in comparison.

“Best for you to lay low. You brought me in to be your eyes and hooves, didn’t you? I’ll contact you when it’s done.”

There was one last hiccup of presumable acknowledgment and I hastily slid my eyes shut again as he turned. It was torture of a different sort trying to remain still and keep my breathing regular. I heard his hoofsteps approach slowly.

His hoof slammed into my muzzle, hard, and I hissed a breath at the slap.

“Rise and shine, Slate,” he drawled out.

I clenched my teeth, staring both Red Harvests down until the images resolved into one. “I don’t remember requesting a wake-up call.”

He ignored the banter. Not a good sign. “Where’s the evidence?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The evidence. Of Luna’s involvement. Where is it?”

I blinked, showing some confusion that didn’t even need to be staged. He turned to the folder, flicking one wing out to throw it across the room, papers flying everywhere.

As they rained down around me like particularly accusatory snow, I realized. They were all blank. My evidence was gone – had been gone, the whole time – at least since some point since I had last glanced through. Somepony had—

Ruby. I cursed myself for not questioning further why she had let me waltz off with the only papers that mattered.

“Must have misplaced it,” I said.

He slugged me in the barrel and I choked back a curse. “I suggest you think very hard about where,” he growled.

“Why?” I spat on the floor. “So you can destroy it? I’m not going along with this, Red. I’m no traitor.”

“No,” he said. “You’re a murderer.”

“I didn’t—” He hit me again, and while I was still gasping for breath, jammed a wadded-up rag in my mouth. “Mmmph!”

“You know, I’m glad,” he said. “I was worried you’d give in, make this easy. But you never disappoint, Slate.” He walked in a slow circle, my eyes following him warily as he came in and out of sight. “See, Raven? She was in over her head, made some bad decisions, owed the wrong people some favors. But she was a friend of ours.”

I shook my head violently. He ignored it.

“So we’re going to have a little private party, you and I, in remembrance of a dead friend. We’ll chat about your precious evidence and I’ll persuade you to remember just where you stashed it. I’ll even give you a little memento to remember Raven by.” My eyes slid to the wingblades, and he noticed, his smile widening.

I thrashed against the ropes, but they held. Adrenaline had dulled the pain, but I wasn’t going to be able to break out with strength alone. A dark cloud roiled in my head, but nopony, no unicorn alive, can overload a nullring in direct horn contact.

“Nothing too big,” he said. “I’ve got instructions to not leave any permanent damage. But maybe I slip, maybe a wing moves a little too far and leaves you something. A reminder on days like this, when the weather’s being changed. An scar that’ll never quite heal on top of an ache that carries down to the bone. Accidents happen, after all.”

Red turned back to the table, whistling as he took his time strolling over. His wings dipped down, feathers brushing over the wingblades, and I racked my mind for some solution – any solution. If it wasn’t for the nullring, the damn nullring, I could figure something out. Burn through the bindings, hit him with a spell, something. Instead, I might as well have had no horn at all.

No horn at all.

I blinked, an idea coming. If I was still feeling the aftereffects of the changeling juice, it meant I was potentially still working through the regular effects. It was crazy, but plans A through W had all failed, and you can’t be picky when it comes to X.

I screwed my eyes shut, concentrating, trying to reach out to that strange set of mental muscles that I hoped fervently were still there, trying to gather up all that fuzzy cloud and cram it into one diamond of focus.

I could still hear Red’s whistling, a cheerful chirping that made my blood run cold. I didn’t have much time. I wouldn’t have a chance to try anything else. I had to—

Green flames licked across my forehead, once, twice in quick succession as my horn vanished for a fraction of a second before popping back into existence once again. The nullring fell to the ground, bouncing off the floor with a ping that echoed through the warehouse.

Red turned to me, his eyes widening. “Aw, shi—

I caught him right between the eyes, serving up the full breakfast. A beam of hot light juiced up to toast through his shields, knocking him flat off his hooves while the neural overload made scrambled eggs out of his motor control system. He landed in a crumpled pile, twitching and jerking erratically.

I gasped for breath, taking a moment to collect myself before levitating one of the wingblades over to slice through my bindings. My hooves hit the ground and I let out a groan at the normal posture, taking the time to try and stretch the ache out of my back.

Yeah. It was nice to have magic back.

The runecrystal was out of juice when I took a look. It wasn’t too different than the kind Paisley and I used to use for private business, meant to naturally build up a charge from the surrounding environment and then burn it all off in a short communication. Unfortunately it also came enchanted trickily enough that I couldn’t trace the signal back only by looking at the residuals. It’d be another couple of hours before it’d be ready again, but I slipped it into a pocket for then.

I checked on Red. He had gone down harder than an earth pony in Cloudsdale, but was still breathing shallowly. I gave him a once-over, carefully picking out the crystals he had stashed in his wings. I kept a few of the choice ones, and threw the rest to spark and spatter uselessly against a wall.

He didn’t have anything else, no clues tying him back to Luna or whoever he was talking to on the crystal. And my own evidence was gone, in the hands of a changeling. All I could do was hope that my lead on her location was solid.

But first, it was time to run one more errand.


“Next week is too late,” I growled. “I need this message delivered, now, get me?”

The colt behind the counter just stared at me blankly. His face had fought a long war against puberty, and from the looks of the scars, lost badly.

“Dragon express,” I said.

That gave him a start. “I— I can’t. You’d have to go to the main postal center, downtown.”

A frown cut across my face. I had a reason to pick this postal office, besides its proximity. This was one of the smaller outlying stops, not much more than a collection of postboxes and a clerk to handle deliveries. Somewhere I could get a message through the system with a minimum of questions.

“You’ve got a bottle of crystallized dragonfire behind the counter, don’t you?”

“Yes, but… but that’s for emergencies.”

Got him. I slammed my badge against the counter. “This is an emergency, kid. Recognize this? This is DEqSec—” His blank look didn’t budge “—Royal Guard business. Get it?”

“Like… with the Princesses?”

I gritted my teeth. “Yeah. Hence who I’m trying to contact.”

Not Celestia, of course. I didn’t have the proof in hoof anymore, and everyone knew you couldn’t get a message through to Celestia without having it navigate a maze of advisors and secretaries, any one of which could be a Lunar plant. And I sure as tartarus didn’t intend to send a thank-you note to Luna. No, I figured I was running out of second chances, and it was time to play one last wild card, in case the situation turned dark.

Well... darker.

“But Ponyville doesn’t even have a registered Dragon Express destination,” the colt whined.

If I had him down to arguing the specifics, he would crumble soon enough. “Direct line: Ponyville Castle – Twilight Sparkle comma Princess Care of Spike comma The Dragon.”

As with all of my knowledge of the upper sorts, Paisley had been the key. We had met this Twilight Sparkle at a Gala years ago, back before the mare had earned her wings. I thought her mousy and uncertain, but even then you could tell she was going places, though she didn’t seem to recognize it herself. Paisley had kept in touch – a cordial thing over letters, never so crass as to press for favors for PHAIR as far as I knew. But having a Princess as an acquaintance opened a lot of doors.

Not for me – I hadn’t spoken a word more than our introduction. But I had remembered the details, and it was time to pull out the stops and let this wagon run downhill, even if I didn’t know where it’d crash or who’d be left in the wreckage.

“This is important,” I said. “Screw this up and you could singlehoofedly cause the downfall of Equestria.” It was easier than expected to make the claim sound believable, because I half believed it myself. The only question is if it’d just be too little, too late.

The kid’s eyes were the size of moons. “Sure, okay. Yes sir! I— I’ll…” He trailed off and I followed his gaze over my shoulder and behind me.

Through the plate glass window of the postal office, I saw a carriage pull up. Normally, a ride that sophisticated would be emblazoned with the owner’s cutie mark, but this one was all in black, from the wheels, to the doors, to the barding on the freakishly large ponies pulling it. Its door swung open, and I couldn’t see anything within. The pullers just stared straight ahead, waiting.

“Are you going to handle the message?” I said.

He nodded rapidly, eyes flickering from the carriage to me and back.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, shaking my head lightly to clear it. “Then I expect that’s for me.” My magic felt sharp, clearer than it had been in a good while.

I trotted out into the street, as a few drops of early rain started to spit against the sidewalk. I considered for a moment running, dodging down a side alley where the carriage would be too big to follow. But I had a feeling I knew who was waiting inside.

My hooves clicked against the wood as I climbed the short pair of steps and moved into the carriage.

It was high time for another conversation.