Pearl's Travels 1: Hollow Shades

by Makitk

27

Blaze, Breeze, Burst (Oval), and myself (Pearl), left the common room through a new exit, or at least it was new to me. Even so, the tunnel we entered was as windy and confusing to me as the others had been.

The one constant this tunnel had was that it kept leading down, putting some strain on my forelegs. I definitely felt the weaker muscles in my right foreleg as we continued down through the inside of the mountain, and I soon started to limp a bit in an attempt to keep the weight of my body on my left leg instead.

Blaze and Oval took no notice; walking up ahead of me, but Breeze nudged me on the right flank from where she was walking behind me. "Keep walking normally or it will take longer for you to get your strength back in that leg."

I glanced back along my right side, noting Breeze was still levitating the pearl which had given me my name in front of her and had used it to tap at my flank with.

"Yeah, I know," I offered back. "It's happening unconsciously."

"Then keep your focus on not allowing it to happen," Breeze decided as I turned my head to face front again so I could keep pace with our frontrunners.

"You're going to have to keep focus on your guise when we go out, on top of this," Breeze reminded me, "or we're going to get in far more trouble than it's worth."

I gave a nod to indicate I heard Breeze, and focused on just walking straight, even if it made my weaker muscles feel a bit cramped.

Blaze stopped at a crossing between tunnels, with Oval moving up to her right side before stopping as well. I zigzagged a bit trying to decide who to step behind, until Breeze pushed up on my own right and forced me to take position behind Blaze.

Oval looked back at me with a grin and motioned to the empty space up ahead, which was a nearly perfectly aligned straight crossroads.

"Watch this," she spoke merrily, and I peered past Blaze's body with some confusion.

There was a slight increase in pressure, and I moved my jaw a little to it, but nothing much else happened.

Breeze brought her head down to look at my foreleg, and I felt her breath on it as she did.

Nothing continued to happen while I tilted my head at Oval, who was still looking back at me eagerly.

I opened my mouth to ask what it was we were waiting on, but Oval shook her head and just motioned to the crossroads again.

I frowned at her as there was nothing special about the crossroads; it was just one tunnel intersecting with ours. The two tunnels made nearly perfect 90-degree corners between one another, but to say that was something to stand around staring at for a while... not really.

Breeze straightened herself again and leaned into my side, and I smiled at the show of affection, but I dared not look down at her in case Oval would claim I missed whatever it was we were watching.

Instead I just kept staring at the empty void before us, through the gap between Blaze and Oval, and started feeling increasingly more bored.

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, there was a low sound starting to grow louder - fast. Oval's grin split her face in half and she eagerly pointed in front of her at the empty crossroads.

I was still watching, but now my interest in it was rising as fast as the sound getting louder.

A moment later, a rush of bodies passed us by, coming from the tunnel on the left and running at great speed through to the tunnel on the right!

They were Changelings, like us, but none of them had wings on them. They also looked bigger than Blaze or Oval, who were not the smallest among our siblings themselves.

The group of ten, twenty, thirty, or even more rushed by without paying attention to us, the thunderous sound of their hooves following them into the right tunnel as the last of them finally passed us by.

It was only then that Blaze finally looked back and motioned after them. "Soldiers."

"Our brothers and sisters who protect our Hives," Oval added.

"Blaze has a sixth sense for this sort of thing," Breeze offered up. "I've been overrun by them at least a dozen times myself."

"That's because you get caught up in your own thoughts and don't hear them approach," Blaze explained, turning her head to face front again. "It's safe to pass now. We're nearly to the storage room."

As Blaze set in motion to continue our journey, Oval kept waiting and motioned for me to continue past her instead. I glanced at Breeze who gave her younger sister a deathglare before pushing past me and going ahead herself.

I fell in line behind the smaller Changeling sister, and Oval waited for me to get to her so she could walk beside me for the last leg of the trip.

"Did you see the differences between them and us?" she asked me eagerly.

"They were going by really fast, Burst," I commented. "I didn't get a lot of time to look them over."

"Well, they're bigger than us," Oval pointed out. "Some of them are as tall as Alicorn Ponies, but they have more muscle mass than us as well. That's why these tunnels are big enough for us to walk side-by-side; they wouldn't fit in them otherwise."

I laughed softly as the mental image of a bulky Changeling getting themselves stuck inside one of these tunnels came to mind, and shook my head at myself.

"That's not funny, Pearl," Oval commented. "They need to be able to protect us, no matter how deep we are in the outpost. If they can't get to us, we're potentially in danger."

I shook my head at her.

"Nono, I was picturing a soldier stuck in one of these tunnels, flailing their limbs about comically," I explained. "I guess it's because of this world's cartoonish looks; I must have thought back to some old cartoons I've watched when I was young."

Oval stared at me without comprehension.

"I'll... explain some day," I sighed.

"I'm going to look forward to that," Oval chuckled weakly. "Anyway; they don't have wings either."

"But what if there's an aerial attack on us?" I wondered.

"They're stronger than us and are used to taking a punch more than us; they serve as living shields where they can't deflect attacks otherwise. Wings would only be a weakness in that respect," Oval explained. "While they protect the Hive, we can fly out to face the attackers; and we have numbers on our side in most cases."

"Given that I've seen the common room, I will believe that," I agreed.

"They're mostly here to protect the Hive's structure and those of us inside who are asleep or otherwise incapable of fighting, like the Matrons," Oval specified. "Once we're out there in the open, we are far more maneuverable than they are."

"I've seen footage of the attack on Canterlot," I revealed to Oval.

"Failed invasion," Blaze called back from the front.

"It's a sore point with her," Oval suggested.

"I had noticed, yeah," I agreed. "Anyway, I have a pretty good idea of the trouble we can bring in a large group."

"If the rumours of the last days are any indication, you'll experience it first-hoof," Blaze sighed out, stopping at the tunnel's dead end and moving to push the boulder aside.

I swallowed at the thought of having to fight as a part of a Changeling army... it was definitely not something I had ever thought to experience, and I hoped there was a way to avoid it if it ever came to that.

Comments

[dyedquartz]

A tack on Canterlot

[hmaf43]

Changlings should just sell badland petrol to america and asked them to help bring freedom and democracy to the ponies! Socialist dictator like celestia is enermy of the free world!