• Published 24th Sep 2016
  • 9,724 Views, 136 Comments

Idol Hooves at A Canterlot Wedding - Airy Words



What will happen to everyone's favorite changeling Royal Guard when Chrysalis comes to town?

  • ...
23
 136
 9,724

The Smell of Battle

“Do you smell that, rookie?”

Again, the green-behind-the-eyes newbie stared at me blankly. He looked around the debris-strewn city block to try to puzzle it out. Near us, about a dozen emotionally drained ponies were being herded to the center of the street. The shouts of fighting, much less now, and the screams of ponies filled the air. I could tell from his expression that, predictably, he was clueless. Again.

“Smell what, Sergeant Valiant Fangs?”

I breathed in deeply, savoring the aroma. “The smell of burning hay in the morning. I’ve been on dozens of raids and operations during my time in the Queen’s Army and it never gets any less sweet. It smells like…”

“Victuals?” he interrupted.

I scowled. “No. Victory. It smells like victory. In Chrysalis’ Name, Private, do you only think about your stomach?”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant. I used up so much energy battering the force-field, I just can’t think of anything else.”

I sighed. The recruits from the 49th generation were somewhere between hopeless and useless. How could I shape them into a fighting force when they only thought about themselves all the time? But the Queen’s orders were clear. Every changeling soldier alive was involved in the attack, and capital punishment for insubordination, incompetence, or plain stupidity was banned. Time to get the recruit back on track. “You just fed off the emotions of the last pony we pulled out of its house.”

The smaller, weaker, and overall inferior soldier in front of me shook his head sadly. “I don’t think she had any positive emotions. Just when I started to drain her chi, I got a mouthful of fear and vileness. By the time I spit it out, I was even more hungry!”

A likely story. More like unfamiliar with forcibly draining positive emotions, or just missed them entirely. “What are your orders, recruit?”

I could see him zone out again. Fine, another smack to the head would get him motivated. Before I could connect, he scrambled backward and blurted, “My orders are to do whatever you tell me to do, Sergeant!”

I turned my hoof thrust into a firm pat on his head and rewarded him with a grin. “That’s a good lad! We’ll make a fearsome bug out of you yet!” He flinched a bit under my hoof but returned a wary smile.

“Tell you what, you’ll get the second pony we drag out of this next house, fair enough?”

He brightened, “Yes, sir!”

Fine and dandy. Motivate him with food. Belatedly, I decided against correcting his presuming me to be an officer. I wasn’t. Yet, anyway.

Across the street, one of the pony buildings chose that moment to collapse. Probably from the fire that gutted it, but I’m not a builder so I wouldn’t know. I focused on the next building in our search area. “I can’t feel any pony emotions on the ground floor. Sweep the upper floor and return there. I will locate the basement, if there is one, and flush them upstairs so we won't have as far to drag them to the street. Go!”

I flew towards the door and shouldered it open, surprised that it was unlocked. Disappointing. Nothing better than to blast through the weak building materials the foodstuffs used.

The ground floor was indeed unoccupied. Behind me, I heard the recruit fly up the stairs on my right. Scanning quickly, I located an open trapdoor. I smiled, feeling the heady rush that precedes battle. I charged down the steps into the dark, anticipating the look of surprise soon to be replaced with terror.

When I reached the bottom, my mouth hung open in shock. I thought I was in Tartarus.

There were insects here. Hundreds of them displayed everywhere like macabre trophies of death. They had been impaled in neat rows on boards all around me.

What could do such a thing? What monster would collect insects, stab them, then watch them slowly starve to death? Such barbarity was beyond anything I could imagine! When the Queen was displeased with a soldier, she killed him swiftly. This kind of torturous murder was beyond the nightmare tales told to nymphs!

I gasped involuntarily then immediately regretted it. I smelled extensive caverns and changelings. There were years of changeling smell everywhere, I was sure of it! Could there be a changeling hive already in Canterlot? No, that was impossible. My Queen would have known. Then what could have happened to all of them?

Realization struck me like a bolt of lightning, and my innermost organs felt like they had been dumped in ice. Suddenly, a wave of happiness spread across me from somewhere off to my right.

"There's my favorite bug!"

I snapped my head around. A pony mare stood boldly a mere body-length away from me, not a trace of fear in her body. She wore a leering grin on her face...and on her hoof stretched to towards me, Chrysalis help me, she held a pin.

I heard screaming coming from all around me. It followed as I flew up the stairs. There was a changeling with a shocked look on his face in front of me. I barreled through him, sending us tumbling out the nearest window. Still, the screams followed as everything I saw turned purple. I was being carried along faster than I could run or fly. I bounced off the side of a building, off the ground once, twice, then a stone wall rushed towards me.

And the screaming stopped.


Topaz Showers stood, mouthing words that would not come out. She closed her eyes and shook her head as a purple glow quickly arrived and faded. She sighed.

“Just when I thought I was beginning to understand him.”