Change My Life

by JasontheDemon

Through a Changelings Eyes Pt. 2

A few hours after I began I was finally bored of toying with this Shining dork's feelings. I had done everything from make fun of his face to make fun of his wife who could not join him. He was absolutely livid, but was unable to touch me due to the direct order of Celestia. I turned my back to the door so he could not see how happy I was at his anger. I even gave fake yawns to secretly eat his fury laced love since it was my personal favorite (mostly because it was better than being bland and usually easy to get ponies riled up). The only type of love I hadn’t had before to my knowledge was pure, caring, compassionate, direct love. This was because it was only gained through disguising as a pony who was truly loved by another and taking their place. That was the riskiest but supposedly most rewarding way of feeding, but I was never going to get the chance now. I was found out… nopony could be fooled by me now.

I heard hoofsteps approaching again, but this time I could actually smell the love of a pony. Whoever it was had a lot of muddled and hazy emotions that were so unclear I couldn’t tell how he or she felt, then it suddenly stopped. As impossible as it sounded it was like the pony had just turned off all feeling. I never heard of such a thing. Feelings weren’t supposed to be like a candle flame that you could just blow out and get rid of, but I didn’t have any other way to explain the sudden halt in the potent muddled love that I picked up on.

“Has there been anything we missed while we were gone?” I heard Celestia ask from behind me.

“No, your highness… it has hardly moved since you left. Perhaps it has died.” I heard as I could feel the white stallions anger flare up.

‘Yeah, in your dreams you pony jerk.’ I thought to myself while remaining still.

“I don't think it would have remained sitting up like that if it had. No… it is still alive.” Celestia replied, releasing a wave of what smelled like relief.

A few moments later Luna decided to speak up, “It is still reluctant to show us its true form. We can’t determine its age or gender for certain, but we believe it is quite young. It may even be a child… although that is only an assumption.”

‘She knows? Why has she spoken to me like an adult if she knows I’m not?’ I wondered.

“How do you figure?” I heard a new voice ask. This one was male like the last pony they brought in, but more… weak sounding. I felt nothing coming from his direction and his voice was almost monotone. This was the pony that must have hid his emotions from me.

“Well on top of what the guards said of it being small when they found it, it has an odd habit of… for a lack of better phrasing, acting a bit immature.” Luna answered.

“It's a brat, that's what it is…” I heard as I felt another surge of anger. It was at this point that I wanted to see how far I could push him. He called me ‘a brat’ and that made my ears tingle in delight. It wasn’t nearly as bad as what I had been called in the past, however it was still bad enough to know how close I was to sending him over the edge. I turned around unable to keep myself from smiling. I ignored the new light brown unicorn and walked toward the one I had chosen to target. For the first time since being locked up, I pressed my face on the bars holding me inside. I was so eager to feel his rage!

“Did I make the cry baby mad? What’s the matter? I thought a previous captain of the guard was able to control his emotions perfectly… or were you wrong? Not as tough as you thought you were, are you? Nope, you’re just a bunch of talk… talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!”

I had pushed his buttons in all the right places and was rewarded with the biggest flood of raw anger yet, but I when I saw his hoof raise up to hit me I started to regret it. Thankfully the princess stopped him with her magic. “You have done enough… we can take over from here. You are free to return to the Crystal Empire.”

‘That could have been bad. Maybe I should stop trying to get a rise out of ponies for the sake of better quality love… NOT!’

Before leaving, ‘Shining Armor’ looked at the new pony a lot like how he looked at me. That told me one of two things… either he was a maniac who would take his anger out on any random pony, or this new guy made him just as mad as I had at some point. I bet it was probably the second one since I saw a little blip of regret come from his really faint aura. I swear, if he didn’t have that tiny line of love aura around him, I would have thought he was another changeling in disguise.

Being so difficult to read made me instantly dislike him. Ponies you couldn’t read were unpredictable and that meant dangerous. Sure here I was safe, but as soon as this pony had me alone without the princesses to stop him from doing whatever he wanted, I was at his mercy. His eyes were cold and empty as he stared at me. I forced myself to not show any signs of fear.

He then turned to the princess. “Celestia, I wish to talk to it… face to face. Could you unlock the door?”

Celestia let him in, smiling like she always did. Well at least she wasn’t laughing. When the stallion got close enough I changed into him, hoping to get the same reactions as the last one… but nooooo! I couldn’t get that! Instead HE was the one who laughed. I was going to fix that by unleashing my most devastating technique. By the time this was done I would have him crying like a filly!

“If you are thinking of escaping, don’t.” He said. The confident smile he had was perfect. It was time to crush him.

“If you are thinking of escaping, don’t.” I repeated.

He raised his eyebrow in confusion. He was taking the bait just like I wanted. “Huh… cute.”

“Huh… cute.” I repeated a little faster. ‘This guy is going to be so easy!’ I thought, nearly unable to contain my excitement.

Lifting his eyebrow again, he stared at me. “Okay I’m going to-”

“Okay I’m going to…” I cut him off now. I could interpret a pony's movements and react so fast that I could mimic them with such little time between us that it sounded like we were saying the same thing at the same moment. I actually called it my ‘mirror move’ because it looked like one pony talking to a mirror. The reactions I got were always so funny! I believed I had figured out this pony's way of moving and talking enough to sync up with him completely.

“Please don't do…” We said at the same time. I had it down... now he was mine! “You had better knock that off right now.”

‘Never!’

“I mean it, this isn’t funny.”

‘Yes it is!’

He was getting irritated and stopped talking for a while. It was obvious he was thinking of something to say to make it end, and the only way ponies have been able to do that is by saying exactly what I want. They insult themselves to make it cease every time. I trap them in my web of anger and they get so irritated that they do my work for me! How fun is that?! Now I just had to wait for him to say whatever he managed to think of. What he said next was priceless! It was so perfect...

“I’m an idiot.”

‘Mmh! Like music to my ears! Simply beautiful!’

I couldn’t help but smile back at him. “I can agree with that…”

I was expecting the stallion to react like the murderer known as Shining Armor, but instead I was surprised to see absolutely nothing. There was nothing to feed on. No anger, no joy, no sadness... it was just him. He just stared at me like he was reading a book… and that was my thing! I didn’t even know his name yet and already he was getting on my nerves.

“Okay, so I have a few questions for you. I would be grateful if you would answer them.”

I rolled my eyes when he said that. That just screamed ‘dork’, and what he asked next screamed ‘stupid’.

“You are a changeling, correct?” He asked that with such sincerity it made me question if I was having a nightmare. No pony could be that dumb right?

Anyways I answered his question even though it was the dumbest thing I ever heard. “No… I’m your long lost twin brother. Really, you already should know that I’m a changeling.”

What? I never said I was going to be nice about it. Besides he was almost begging for sarcasm. The rule is if you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer. Not that my answer was stupid or anything but… you get the point. I guess you could say that I wasn’t expecting anything smart after that.

“Alright, so if you are a changeling and it's so obvious to everyone that you are… why stay disguised? I’m sure it's not hurting you to do so, but it must be more comfortable to be in your true form. Why keep up the charade if there is no benefit?”

And right there was when I felt the first bit of fear. He wasn’t dumb at all, he was playing with me! It was like I shrunk to the size of an ant when he asked that. He struck me so speechless that I couldn’t think of any good excuse. My mind went blank for the first time since before my mother left. I always had something to say… until just this moment.

I couldn’t bother to look at him as I said the worst possible thing I could, “Because…”

“Because why?”

“JUST BECAUSE, ALRIGHT?!” I shouted feeling like something in me suddenly broke. I didn’t know what it was, but it was horrible and caused my heart to beat funny. The only thing I could think of doing to make it go away was to get him away from me.

“Because you are a child and want to be treated like an adult, right?” The pony asked with a smug smile. That was the last straw. He had to go!

“Get out…” I ordered, feeling my face getting really hot, especially my eyes.

“Sorry but I’m not done with my-”

“GET OUT!” I yelled, feeling my eyes burn and fill with tears until everything was too blurry to see.

He finally left and I blocked everything out as I turned my back once again, but this time it was to keep them from seeing me like this. Changelings don’t cry. That's what made me Baclox... ‘a mistake’. Knowing that only made me cry more. I was weak and pathetic for it, yet there was no way to make it stop. It was part of me and I hated it… I hated me. I had flashbacks of growing up in the Hive. How they all looked at me like a freak. I just thought that if I could make it on my own, even for a little while, maybe I would change and be tougher like the others. That was the biggest mistake of all...

Now I was a prisoner and I couldn’t drive away the one unicorn that I really didn’t like who was going to be taking over the job of watching me. Was this my punishment? Being stuck with a pony that I couldn’t feed on? No, Luna wouldn’t do that to me… wait, what am I saying?! She’s the enemy here! They all are! It’s them or us! That’s how it’s always been. We were too different to care for one another.

The door to my confinement then suddenly opened and closed again. I was just about to ask what he wanted to do to me this time but stopped when I felt a light airy love aura fill the room. It was different from Luna and Celestia. There was no way it was from the other stallion because he would feel a lot madder and I don't think anypony would come back after being that angry without running in to kill me… especially him. That narrowed it down to being a new pony… a sympathetic one at that.

A dull thud followed by muffled mumbling resonated behind me. A quick burst of some odd emotion I had never felt before flared up then went away just as fast and was replaced by the same sympathy as before .

“Who are you?” I asked, doing a poor job at controlling my trembling voice. “And what reason do you have to feel sorry for me?”

“Hm? Oh, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I feel sorry for you because you don’t deserve this.” This new mare said as she got right up beside me, talking to me directly.

“If you’re his mate and as kind as you seem, I would get rid of him…” I told her, looking at her out of the corner of my eyes without moving my head. She was pretty for a pony and had a very sincere smile. Where the stallion was unreadable, this ‘Twilight’ mare was showing me nothing but sincere concern. It radiated off her like the warmth of the sun.

“Well, I would, but he comes in handy and has his moments.” Twilight answered. “So you know my name, would you care to tell me yours?”

Upon being asked that, I almost told her my real name. Before I said anything though, I laughed as a thought crossed my mind. This could be my chance to start things over. To become something besides just Baclox… I could become worth something. I needed a new name, but I couldn’t think of any that fit me so I did what anyone would do in my place… lie. “I, uh… don’t have a name. Most changelings aren’t named.”

“Oh that’s okay, we can come up with one for you.” She said, still smiling. “In the meantime how about we get you out of here?”

“And be around ponies that want to do nothing but treat me like dirt? No thank you.” I replied.

“I promise I won’t let you get treated badly. You are a child, right? Well, no child should be treated like a monster, no matter what they may look like.” Twilight said before suddenly looking like she just forgot something vital… but in my point of view it wasn’t. “Oh! That reminds me, I don’t know what you look like! That’s no way to start any sort of friendship!”

Although I didn’t think it was possible, I liked the idea of having a friend. It's a good thing my mother isn’t alive to read this or I would be locked in the hive dungeons until I was her age. The word ‘friend’ should have meant nothing to me… but the more I thought of it the more I felt myself wanting it. I didn’t believe she could have actually been a friend to me, being a pony and all, however I didn’t care. I wanted to take a shot at it, even if it meant falling into an obvious trap.

I took a deep breath and peeled off my disguise. The change went from top to bottom like always, slowly revealing my true self. At the point of emerging from it, I felt amazing. Shapeshifting was like wearing another skin and it was always uncomfortable. Reverting back left you feeling like you could finally breath and be free. It wasn’t the worst feeling to be disguised as a pony, but it sure wasn’t the best.

When I felt it stop, I opened my eyes to get a good look at my surroundings in my true form. The first thing I layed my eyes on was… ‘him’. That stallion was by far the worst pony I ever met and I wasn’t going to let him get the best of me. I put on a stern cold expression like him just to show he didn’t scare me.

I hadn’t even noticed that Twilight started to leave until she said, “Come on. It's alright, we’re all friends here.”

Before I could follow her out however, I was pushed back by something I couldn’t see and the door slammed closed. The next thing I knew Twilight slapped the stallion and his head hit the wall so hard I could almost hear a ‘crack’! If that stallion was only awake to see me grin it would have been the best moment of my life. Actually… no, it was the best moment of my life! I had never been so happy. He got what was coming to him and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. You know, I think I’m going to enjoy being with them after all… especially once I throw in a few nudges in the right direction. This is going to be fun.

Comments

[JasontheDemon]

5080518 Its supposed to give you insight to her feeling like she can trust nobody and her ingrained hatred of all ponies. I admit it isn't the most stimulating chapter but would you rather have me just delete it? I can do that you know.

[Final_Draft]

I don't think you should delete it.

Personally I like seeing the point-of-view from another, even if it's the same exact scene. Seeing Boclax's opinion and feelings from his side is a nice treat, especially how he reads Jason when he comes in, then Twilight. The repeat snarking and internal monologue, in my opinion, adds support to his personality and how Boclax feels about ponies -- and of course the change he experiences when Twilight is honest and sincere with him. That, to me, screams about the beginnings of character development; pitting his old ways against new experiences from the other side of the fence.