Lies12,716 words
23rd: Slow Show8,616 words
24th: Antagonist8,618 words
25th: Epilogue1,025 words

16th: Cootie Catching

The Rule of King Cocoon of the Changelings

Ew… ew… ew ew ew ew ew ew ewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW-

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I mean, there are pony lips touching my lips! I’m being kissed by a horse! I’m… I’m gonna blow chunks. At least she’s not using her-

Oh sweet or salty Nonspecific Deity there it is.

Before she can push the kiss any further, I place my front hooves on her chest and push for everything I’m worth. She tumbles right over, freeing me from her soul crushing lip lock. I dunno what the proper protocol for washing my body and soul clean of this vile event are, so I try raspberrying between speaking the names in vain of every deity I know and several movie stars. Nothing will change what has come to pass. I’m scarred for life. I’m damaged goods. I’m gonna hurl.

“I-I’m sorry… I don’t know what came over me,” Lou says in almost a whimper from where she’s laying on the ground. “It’s just… you saved me from the dragon, but when you fell like that… I… I…” Lou must have realized I wasn’t listening as I continued dry heaving near the long grass where the real Summitplunge was hidden. “… That bad… huh?”

“You have no idea!” I shout at her. I think I might have a hair from her stuck in my throat. I make every coughing and hacking sound I know of, but nothing is relieving me of this tiny, itchy feeling at the back of my throat.

“Yeah… I get it.” She keeps saying stuff, but I’m a little busy with my own, personal crisis over here. I want to take so many showers, a couple hundred baths, and just curl up inside a fireplace for a while. You know, just until I’m clean again. “Would you knock that off?”

“This is your fault!” I shout at her once more. She does not look pleased, but she doesn’t exactly look angry. She’s somewhere between faking total, stern composure and breaking into lamentations over her shredded heart. I don’t know why. She’s not the one who had a being of a different species press their lips to hers!

“Well you could at least be a little more mature about it!” she cries. I can’t believe it. Lou is actually friggen’ crying now. Sure it’s just out of her one good eye, but she’s doing it. She’s got the tears and all that going on. “I mean… I… I loved you…”

…

Oh, now I get it. I mean, ew yeah I kissed a pony, but I think I-

*HERK*

I feel the cold steel of the magic suppressing collar around my neck. A rigid shock courses through my body, canceling the disguise that I’m currently wearing. Whatever put the collar on me jumps onto my back, forcing me to the ground. After a painful meeting with the dirt and grass on my face, I manage to look up at Lou. She’s not crying anymore, but she’s got this hilarious look of surprise on her face. Her jaw is just kind of hanging open like a nutcracker.

“Ew… ew… ew ew ew ew ew ew ewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewewEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW-”

You know what, yeah… that is kind of offensive when you’re on the other side of it.

“Hey, calm down! What’s the matter?” Judging by the voice, I guess it’s Summitplunge standing on my back. This does not worry me as much as the fact that Lou has dislodged a nearby boulder with her magic and is now levitating it uncomfortably close to where I am. “L-Louise? Put down the rock!”

“I’m going to kill him!”

“We’re taking him ali- Louise, Louise you really need to put down the rock!” Summitplunge warns her as the rock loomed directly over the both of us.

“Move so I can crush him!”

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I shout at her. “You don’t have to do that!”

“What did you do?” Summitplunge asks, pushing my head into the ground with one of his hooves.

“If you say one word I will drop this rock on both of you!”

“Nevermind.” Summitplunge takes his hoof off my head, but remains on my back. Despite being captured, I’m awfully glad he’s holding fast to his position. He is the only thing keeping me from becoming a green splatter on the bottom of a rock. “Look, Louise, you need to calm down. We’re still on a mission here, and we’re not in good shape. Just calm down so we can assess the situation, please.”

Lou’s expression stays hardened, but she doesn’t shout out any death threats. Slowly, she removes the boulder from overhead and drops it where it won’t be crushing anything. After the threat of the boulder crushing me is gone, though, Summitplunge suddenly collapses on top of me.

“S-summit!” Lou drops all signs of anger as she runs over to me, or rather Summitplunge. I can’t exactly see what’s going on, but if I had to guess I’d say the adrenaline he was feeling wore off. Death may have passed me by graciously once more, but I’m a prisoner once again. “Are you okay?”

“Not really. The dragon got my wing and I think I fell on it. It hurts… a lot,” he admits. I feel him shifting around on top of me while Lou uses my body as an examining table. I can stay shut up for a while, I owe her that much I suppose.

“Oh dear…”

“That bad?” Summitplunge asks, no doubt about Lou’s evaluation of his wing.

“We need a first aid kit. There might be one in the wreckage. I’ll go find it!”

“Wait,” Summitplunge rasps. “What about him?” I can see his hoof pointing down at me from above.

“Right… I’ll restrain him first…”

And that, children, is how I ended up lashed upside down to a tree. Lou did find a first aid kid in the wreckage which she used to fix up Summitplunge’s wing… somewhat. It still looks like one of his wings got run over by a truck, but at least it is covered in bandages. There is absolutely no way he’s flying out of here in the near future.

Lucky for the two ponies, Lou managed to find food and flammable material in the wreckage too. She constructed a modest campsite right outside the wreckage, complete with two makeshift tents and a glowing fire. They ate a meal, checked Summitplunge’s bandages again, and now they’re just staring at the fire. Meanwhile, I’m just third-wheeling over by this tree.

“You should get some sleep. You did a lot of work,” Summitplunge says to Lou, and he’s right. Seeing as Summitplunge is injured and therefore completely useless, Lou had to do all the setting up for wilderness survival. She probably won’t admit it, but she looks dog tired.

“No, you need to rest. I’ll stay up and watch Cocoon.” I think she’s so delirious from fatigue she forgot that I’m tied to a friggen’ tree and unable to move a muscle beyond wiggling my toes.

“You can rest first,” Summitplunge says, continuing to insist on taking the watch first. Lou looks too tired to continue arguing. This time, she just nods and plods over to her tent.

“Get some shut-eye when he falls asleep,” she orders before slipping inside.

Oh, this should be interesting.

Summitplunge obeys, taking up the spear and sitting down in front of me. With all the dirt and scuffs on his armor and the bandages over his wing, he doesn’t look too intimidating. He watches me with that trademarked thousand-mile-stare all guards have and doesn’t say a word, but I know the gears and spinning up in his head.

“I guess I should be thankful you saved me,” I tell him. I do mean it, just a little.

“Shut up.”

“Whoa, I get it, I get it. You’re a scary guard and I’m your helpless prisoner.” I realize what I’ve said is completely true, but I continue nonetheless. “But it’s gonna be a loooong night if we don’t conjure up some idle chit-chat.”

“I’m a soldier,” Summitplunge tells me as if I’d forgotten. “I can stay up until the sun comes out if I need to.”

“Oh please, I bet you’ll nod off before I even start feeling tired.” Knowing what I know, it’s cute to see him scrunch up his nose and roll his eyes. “That’s just more reason to trim the fat a little.”

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” he tells me.

“We’ve got plenty to discuss, trust me.” Once again, Summitplunge rolls his eyes at me.

“The rescue party will take us back to Canterlot tomorrow and I’ll gladly be rid of you.”

“What makes you so sure you’ll be rescued tomorrow?” I ask him.

“We’re camped out next to the remains of a crashed Equestrian Military airship. If not tomorrow, one will come the day after. There’s no way they won’t come look for us.” Summitplunge looks certain, and he’s got a good point. We really are in the optimal spot to get rescued right now.

“Can I ask you something?”

“No.”

“What exactly do you need me alive for?” I ask. It brings me joy to see Summitplunge’s conflicted expression, stuck between giving me the answer he is under order to uphold or honoring his intention not to answer my question.

“Princess Celestia wants you to remove your curse from Prince Blueblood.”

“Curse?” I don’t remember putting a curse on him or anypony for that matter. Besides, curses aren’t real.

“He’s been catatonic since the battle over the desert,” Summitplunge explains. “All we know is you were controlling him prior to this predicament. Are you telling me you had nothing to do with it?”

“No, that was definitely me,” I say, even if I’m only hoping it. “Must have given him a little too much juice…”

“Well, once you’re done with that Princess Celestia will be deciding your fate.”

I assume he means Princess Celestia will be condemning me to death or exile or petrification. I can deal with that later, but I can only deal with the present right now.

“Now, was sharing all that information such a burden to share with me?” I ask him.

“Shut up.”

“Oh, we’re back to the silent treatment, are we?” I wait for Summitplunge to respond, but just as I suspected he doesn’t even twitch and eyebrow. “Aww, c’mon. Don’t be like that. You should listen up because ~I know a secret~!”

“I don’t care,” Summitplunge says, but his eyes dart to the side for just a moment. He’s got something on his mind, and I think I just might be able to sate that curiousity.

“But it’s about our favorite unicorn, Lou!” The moment I say “Lou”, Summitplunge points his spear right at my face.

“Don’t call her that,” he warns me, bringing the spearhead right up to my nose for emphasis. “You don’t know a thing about her.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Summitplunge.” I drop any trace of sarcasm or comedy from my tone. “Did she ever tell you how we met?”

“You tried to take over Manehattan, but she stopped you,” he says.

“Do you really believe that?” I watch his grip on the spear falter a little. “She says she stopped me from harming that city, but she’s the one with the burns. You saw it for yourself. I left that city with my little swarm without a scratch on me. If I wanted Manehattan, I would have taken it.”

“But the Sphinx-”

“The Sphinx that I killed,” I remind him.

“Because you-”

“Do you really believe I’d do that?” I ask him, interrupting the claim I know he’s going to make. “Why would I put a Sphinx in the sewers to cause so much trouble just so I could destroy it and play the hero? If I wanted to take Manehattan, I’d skip the theatrics and just bring the whole swarm in for an attack. You’re a sharp pony, Summitplunge. You know that story doesn’t add up.”

I’ve got him now. The spear is pointed below my head and Summitplunge is wearing a look of uncertainty. He probably already had his own suspicions, and now he’s running out of reasons not to listen to them.

“I don’t claim to understand how you operate.” Summitplunge lowers his spear all the way, stepping back and sitting back down. “But I won’t fall for your tricks.”

“Oh, no tricks here,” I tell him. Even if he says he won’t fall for my tricks, he’s already got three hooves in my trap. “All that business in Manehattan is boring anyway. No, I know something far more interesting about our friend.”

“It doesn’t concern me,” Summit says.

“On the contrary, it has everything to do with you.” I stare at Summitplunge inverted before me. His expression doesn’t change and he doesn’t say a word. I do the same. A minute goes by without either of us saying anything… then five minutes… then half an hour. Actually, I have no idea how much time went by because I have absolutely no way to keep track of it, but it felt like it was an hour later when Summitplunge finally spoke up.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I ask him.

“I thought you were going to tell me your big secret or whatever,” he said in an audible grumble.

“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret anymore,” I said, casting my gaze aside to the upside-down forest around me. “All you need to know is that it involves you and has everything to do with why Louise tried to drop that rock on me.”

If I didn’t have Summitplunge’s attention before, I have it now for sure. He cocks his head at me and raises an eyebrow, silently imploring me to go on. I don’t make a single noise. He waits and waits, but I just keep on staring at him.

“Seriously?” he asks after a few minutes. “All that build-up and then nothing? You’re bluffing.”

I act like he didn’t even say anything and he goes on squirming with the desire to know what I know. I string him along without a single word.

He keeps quiet too, which surprises me. I can tell the identity of my secret is bugging him, but he holds out and just watches me. For what feels like several more hours, we just watch each other. Between the exciting day we’ve had and his injury, Summitplunge starts to fade fast.

“Getting sleepy?” I ask him. He perks up again, but only for a moment. I’ve nodded off in enough classes to know that he doesn’t have long left. “Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?”

“Don’t screw with me…”

“How scary, coming from the soldier who can’t even fight off sleep.” I will admit he’s put up a valiant fight, but he’s bound to lose. Each blink lingers a little longer. Each loll of his head dips a little lower. Little by little, his head gets closer to the ground until he is sawing logs like a baby lumberjack.

Now I am alone. I don’t know how much time I have until Lou wakes up, but all I can do until then is enjoy the feeling of blood pooling in my head. It’s a long night, but that’s typical of most of my nights in Equestria. At least having Lou and Summitplunge around keeps my mind from wandering through its static. Aside from thinking up new ways to torture Lou and Summitplunge, I try and think of some viable escape options. If I make a break for it, they won’t be able to pursue me in their respective states of health. As long as my legs are untied, escape is possible.

I break from my own thoughts when I hear stirring from Lou’s tent. I shut my eyes and play possum, which isn’t hard because I’m already upside-down on a tree. I wait and listen while Lou approaches Summitplunge and me. I’m not a great judge of distance based on sound, but I hear her come to a halt right next to Summitplunge. My suspicions are confirmed when I hear her let out an angsty sigh.

“Boo!”

“Eek!”

“Hu-wha?!”

Ah, priceless. Lou jumps back about two yards while Summitplunge jolts awake and prepares to be attacked. It doesn’t take them long to realize it was just me playing a prank on them. My uncontrollable laughter probably tipped them off.

Before I calm down, Lou and Summitplunge wordlessly trade posts. I’m not under the watchful eye of Lookity Louise. She might have been asleep up until now, but she still looks like a mess. Perhaps she didn’t get any sleep while thinking about a certain stallion.

“So, I understand Summitplunge saved you from the dragon?” I ask her. She wrinkles up her nose and glares at me with her one eye.

“I hate you.”

“Well, jee. You say that as if it should be news to me.” She hated me pre-kiss, so I’m not surprised she still hates me. If she didn’t, that would be incredibly weird and I would feel even more compromised in my current, restrained position. “C’mon, give me the details. Did Summitplunge saving you from that dragon make you realize how much you yearn for him or was it something else that made the schoolfilly in your swoon?” Lou is turning red as a beet and I am enjoying every second of it.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you!” She’s persistent, but I think if I apply the right pressure I can get her to crack.

“I don’t think you need to explain,” I tell her. “I mean, two ponies united by their common hatred of… well, me… spending long nights plotting to take me down… alone.”

“That never happened!”

“The plotting or the alone time?” I ask her. I like this flustered version of Lou; she’s fun.

“H-he doesn’t see me that way! We just work together,” she says, but I know the truth. She’s doing a horrible job of hiding what she thinks of her “coworker.”

“So you’re telling me you just want to make a sandwich with Summitplunge?” I ask her. She doesn’t respond at first, looking uncertain as to what I’m getting at. “As opposed to being a sandwich with him.” Lou’s face gets redder than I thought was even possible. I mean, her face is covered in hair (at least the part not covered in bandages), so how does that even work? “Look, you can’t fool me. That kiss was fattening for me… if not the single most horrific thing to ever happen to me…”

“I didn’t enjoy it anymore than you did!”

“On the contrary!” I’m not about to let her get away with that claim. “You were enjoying yourself plenty! You thought you were getting all lovey-dovey with Summitplunge; meanwhile, I get forced into a lip-lock with my mortal enemy. I feel bad for Summitplunge, seeing as I totally killed his game.”

Lou’s expression gets distant. I think she just realized that if it really had been Summitplunge back then things would be very different for the two of them. This would be… well, do I really have to spell it out for you? They’d be all alone in this forest and totally aware that they’re into each other. I think that’s enough said.

“So, is it really going to take a near death experience for you to summon up the courage to tell him what you think of him? If so, I’d be more than happy to help!”

“I don’t need your help!” That’s okay. Having her permission to beat the tar out of her would take a lot of the fun out of it. “I just need to wait for the right moment.”

“Guuuurl, you can wait all you want, but if you don’t just suck it up and do it you never will do it… tell him, I mean.” It’s good to know ponies are as wishy-washy when it comes to romance as humans. I mean, they’re just as wishy-washy about everything else so I dunno why that would be the super-special exception!

“I can’t very well tell him something like that during a mission,” she says. “I mean… what if he doesn’t think of me the same way? That would be distracting and could compromise our ability to work together and distract us…”

Uh-oh, I think she’s on to me.

“You have to be willing to take that risk. If you bottle it up, it will end up distracting you and you’ll get sloppy,” I tell her. Her eyes flicker down, which tells me I may have hit the mark.

“… I already got sloppy. If I wasn’t so eager to get you back to Canterlot so this could be over, I wouldn’t have made the ship fly over the Everfree Forest. If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have been attacked by the dragon.” Lou is slowly curling into a ball. Her hooves are shaking a little, but her voice is shaking more. As she shrinks, she is replaced by a frightened mare I’ve never met before. “If I wasn’t so busy daydreaming about what might happen when we return to Canterlot, I would have been at my station when the dragon attacked. If I had been there… Summitplunge wouldn’t have come looking for me. If he was there from the start, that dragon wouldn’t have cornered me. He wouldn’t have had to save me, and he wouldn’t have fell. I wouldn’t have stayed on the ship, and we wouldn’t be in this situation…

“This is all my fault. My goal was finally in sight, but I couldn’t do it. I thought I lost everything, so when I saw him, or rather you disguised as him, I just wanted to have that one thing! I just wanted him, even if I couldn’t have anything else! When you rejected my advance… when I thought he rejected me, I was crushed. I didn’t believe it, though. I thought it might be some trick or a lie, and thank Celestia it turned out that way. Now I’ve got both of you back where I want you… well, mostly where I want you.”

…

I wasn’t counting on this. I know her goal is to see me destroyed, but here I am empathizing with her. She really does try, maybe a little too hard. She just wants a shot at a better life, at a happier life. She’s a lot like… she’s… a lot like… like… who?

No… it’s on the tip of my tongue, the edge of my thoughts, the very threshold of the things I just can’t remember! A name, a face, a life of someone I once knew just erased and filled with static! There is a gaping hole in my mind, bigger than anything I’ve encountered yet. It’s not a when, or a what, or a how, but a who. Whoever wiped my memory doesn’t want me to remember who this person is.

Even so… Lou, she fits the hole somehow. The way she’d do anything to get what she wants. The way she gets nervous talking about the guy she likes. The way I know she’s kind of mean and bad, but I also know she is one heck of a good guy. Not a perfect fit by any means, but enough of a fit that my mind would find her familiar.

“What am I doing talking to you about this?” Lou says, chuckling at herself. I watch a few tears fall up onto the ground. “What do you care? All my love is to you is food.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. Here I am, face to face with my weeping adversary, but I’m frantically trying to come up with some way to comfort her and help her. I can’t even pretend that we’re friends somehow, but the better part of me doesn’t want to let things be how they are. Although the bridge between us might be burnt, the worst that could happen if I brave the waters is I end up dead.

“You shouldn’t cry,” I tell her, but the words feel like they’re coming from someone else or from a different time. “He wouldn’t like that.”

“I’m not crying!” Lou shouts, but quickly puts her hooves over her mouth. She lets a shaky breath out through her nose and puts her hooves back down, but not before ever-so discreetly wiping away a tear. “Besides, he’ll be asleep for a while. I don’t have to worry.”

“If you don’t mind me asking… what does bringing me in do for you?” I’m curious to know the price on my head. What’s the value placed on my life? What am I worth to Lou in trade?

I wait for her to respond, but she takes a while to decide. If she was going to flat out reject my query, she wouldn’t be thinking so hard about it. Perhaps I’m worth more than I thought.

“Turning you in… might bring me absolution.”

“Absolution? From what?” I ask her, but I realize what she’s talking about instantly. I realize what a huge risk she’s taking.

“That whole mess with the Sphinx. My hope is that if I snuff you out, they’ll forgive me for what I did in Manehattan,” she says, confirming my suspicion. I don’t know enough about the Equestrian government to say whether or not her logic is sound, but there is something else I am curious about.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you want forgiveness?” I ask more clearly. She hesitates again, but I think this time she has to search for the answer. “Is it because you’re sorry?” She stays silent still.

“It’s complicated.”

I was a little too hopeful for this new side of Lou. I don’t think chasing a King around is an appropriate way to display remorse anyway. I should be glad she’s at least willing to fess up for what she did. That takes guts. I suppose I should take a page out of her book.

“I abandoned the swarm.” I can barely tell if she heard me; her expression doesn’t change one bit. Lou might not even believe me. I can understand where she’s coming from. “After you attacked the Hive, we attacked Quarterholm. It was quite a scene, but too much for me. I fulfilled my duty as King and assured their survival, so I left.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?” Lou says. The answer is “yes, because it’s true”, but there is no reason for her to believe me. Just like anything I say to her, there is no reason for her to believe me.

“Just thought it was relevant.” She wants King Cocoon, but I might just be Cocoon now. Chrysalis is the only royal changeling left. Mangle too, but who knows what happened to him. “Hey… how did Sweet Tea escape?”

“A changeling helped her escape.” That doesn’t make any sense, even if it kind of does. Only a changeling would have been able to go to her cell, open it up, and lead her out, but there is no reason a changeling would do that. If one did, he would be going against my orders. “It was the same changeling we found in Ponyville.”

“What did you do with him?” I ask. Lou furrows her brow and looks down at the dirt.

“Nothing; we let him be.”

Now nothing makes sense. I get why Lou seems upset, seeing as she hates changelings, but she’s not exactly the odd pony out for that. All ponies detest changelings. This rogue changeling shows up in Ponyville, but they’re okay with it? Maybe Ponyville is as benign as I’m lead to believe by the… by those… by…

…

Wait… how do I know about Ponyville? How do I know anything about Equestria? I knew… there was a reason I knew. I know because I… I… I what? It’s gone. It’s just gone. The entire reason is completely gone. Before I had some excuse for knowing about it before I came here. I scramble through my memories to decipher how I knew, but there isn’t anything. There isn’t even static.

It was all a fabrication. When I was on earth, I didn’t know a thing about Equestria. It wasn’t even a thought that crossed my mind. How could I have conceived of it? How could anyone? I believed that lie, for whatever reason my mind formed.

This isn’t good. Even if the static and lies are cleared, this isn’t good. I’m missing a big piece to the puzzle now. I clearly see my life on Earth as a human, knowing only Earthly things and going about my life like Equestria didn’t exist in any reality. I clearly remember waking up as a changeling, already aware of concepts, beings, events, and ponies here in Equestria.

I haven’t got a clue what I’m not seeing, but it frightens me more than anything else I cannot remember. It may very well be the truth that could fully reopen the static clogged doors of my mind. In the process, though, the stress of remembering something this huge might destroy my mind.

If this is the sort of slow remembrance Discord wished on me, I ought to cut off his head the next time I see him.

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