Night
Twilight had been an attentive teacher for Ocellus and Snails, if a bit of a verbose one. Ocellus didn’t know what a thauma or alveo or cornumuscula were and didn’t think she needed to know, since those organs which apparently helped control unicorn spell casting had nothing to do with her own ability and only existed in her own body if she let them. But on the other hoof, when Twilight had produced a small book of spells for foals, Ocellus had found it quite intriguing. Following the steps in the book describing how to cast the warming enchantment had allowed Ocellus to quickly grasp what was supposed to be happening, and after about an hour of effort and guidance she’d managed to heat up a procured paperweight to a little above pony body temperature. A larger stone conjured by Twilight, and massing about half as much as Ocellus’ fillyform, took another hour after that, but she managed it.
“That’s incredible, Sprite!” Twilight exclaimed. “I never would have thought a little filly could have learned this spell!”
Ocellus smiled, trotting up to the rock and putting her hooves on it, feeling it’s warmth...and taking advantage of the fact that she was facing away from Twilight to grab a bite of happiness and satisfaction with just a hint of love for a job well done. She needed it - for her, love was magic and magic was love, and to cast this spell had tapped deeply into her love reserves. She was now back to where she had been before leaving Rarity’s boutique. “How long will it stay warm?” She asked.
Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin as she came over, Ocellus quickly hiding her changeling tongue. The real unicorn’s horn lit up as she examined it. “It’s already cooling down,” she said. “I’d say...an hour? More if it’s properly insulated under a blanket with you. It won’t last all night, but I’m sure it’ll make up for a room that’s just a little chilly.”
Ocellus chewed on her pony lip, good feeling from having cast the spell gone. That was...not good. She didn’t have a room that was a little chilly, she had a burrow that was going to literally freeze if it got too much colder. Her sleeping pod was a good insulator, but not against the slow encroachment of winter. And casting it cost so much love/magic...she’d had a hefty surplus today from her gluttonous feeding on Rarity. She wouldn’t have that most days.
Sure, the spell would become a little easier over time as she familiarized herself with it...but she wasn’t a unicorn, she could just look like one. She would never develop the reflexive ease with any magic spell that a pony could. The spell would become easier, but never easy.
But Twilight wouldn’t expect that. So Ocellus smiled and nodded and tried to look happy, while she looked over to Snails, who was still struggling with a paperweight held in his own telekinetic aura. “Any luck?” She asked.
Snails let out a long sigh as he dropped the paperweight. “No,” he answered, poking the paperweight with his hoof. He was smiling, though. “I didn’t really think I could. My special talent doesn’t have anything to do with heat. But I wanted to try!”
Twilight offered a sage nod. “Sometimes foals who haven’t discovered their special talents yet can display a surprising ability to cast a wide variety of spells...but usually not. And you have found your special talent, Snails. Maybe if you had been able to really stretch what a ‘firefly’ is...”
Snails looked up. “Fireflies don’t really create fire. There is a hive of cinderflies in the Everfree Forest, but there’s a colony of giant water beetles that make sure they don’t burn down the forest.”
Twilight and Ocellus stared a moment, each having their own set of concerns for their homes at the knowledge of magical fire bugs living relatively nearby, before Twilight broke the silence. “How could a bunch of tiny bugs hold off elemental pests?” She asked.
“Oh, not normal giant water beetles,” Snails clarified. “I meant giant beetles, made of water. Though I did learn about them from a giant water beetle. A normal giant water beetle. She said they were nice.”
That was about as much explanation as they were likely to be comfortable with. On confirming that there was no immediate threat of her burrow melting - though honestly it would have been a much better problem to deal with than it freezing - Ocellus looked back to Twilight. “Thank you very much for helping us,” she said, as was expected. “I’ll make sure to practice this spell as often as I can.” Left unsaid was that the practice could only come on days when she’d gorged herself on love.
Twilight beamed, then looked at the clock. “You’ve got about an hour before the library closes,” she said. “Just make sure to have your final selections ready before then.” She used magic to get rid of the stone she’d summoned, plus the paperweight when Snails offered it to her. She looked to Ocellus. “On Tuesdays I have an open tutoring session with some of the unicorn foals in town on how to use their magic - Snails shows up sometimes - and I’ve been talking with Hoofington’s librarian and he’s been interested in doing the same. You could join Emeral when he starts it up this Spring.”
Ocellus kept enough of her wits about her to react with a smile and a nod...but inwardly she felt panic. The librarian in Hoofington spoke to Twilight? Or sent her letters, at least? But what if Twilight mentioned Sprite? What if Emeral asked Cream Soda and Shaken Cola about the daughter they didn’t have? What if...
Twilight was already trotting back to her desk, while Snails made his way over to Ocellus. “So what do you want to do now?” He asked. “I guess you probably need to learn more Equestrian history. But there’s also this really cool book series by A.K. Yearling that you might like - “
”She’s gonna ask somepony in Hoofington about me!” Ocellus hissed. A real hiss, too - in her panic, she couldn’t stop herself from shifting her vocal chords back to their changeling form so that she could inflect properly. Her tongue, too. She could taste her own dread. It tasted like soggy peas.
Snails’ head tilted to the side a little as he took that in. “She is?” He asked.
“She said she talks to the librarian there.” Several plans pushed their way through her mind. Actually masquerade as the Hoofington ponies’ daughter for a little bit? Not likely. She could get the two ponies to go along with it if she drained all their love to enthrall them, but other ponies would notice their catatonia, and also there was the small problem of them having to somehow explain a hitherto unseen fourteen-year-old filly. Replace Emeral? More doable, especially if she arranged for an “accident” after a few days. One missing and/or found dead pony would not immediately lead to searches for a mysterious changeling, and certainly not as far as Ponyville...but then again, so soon after she spoke to Twilight? Would she suspect anything? Also she had no idea what Emeral looked like nor if he had any defenses or guardians, like the larval foal Rarity had (which actually a “kitty” probably was not a pony larva given that she’d seen no others in town but whatever that wasn’t important right now). So that was probably out...
Snails was looking pointedly at Ocellus. “You can’t eat ponies, Ocellus,” he said firmly.
Ocellus really needed to look into the telepathy that ponies seemed to possess just by looking at each others’ faces. She hadn’t been able to access it herself yet. “I could...” she pointed out.
“Well, then, you shouldn’t,” Snails corrected himself. “It’s wrong. And besides, I don’t think Emeral knows every foal in Hoofington. It’s bigger than Ponyville, and I know Twilight doesn’t know every foal here. And Twilight might not even mention you. So just don’t worry about it.”
“But what if somepony finds out?” Sprite asked. “That Sprite isn’t a real pony?”
Snails grinned. “Then you won’t get to be Sprite anymore, but you’re still Ocellus. So you could just be somepony else if you really have to be.”
Ocellus let out a long sigh. That was true, but...she liked Sprite. Or at least the effort she was putting in to creating her, and she didn’t want to see it go to waste. However, Snails was probably right. He had a tendency to be right about these sorts of things. He wasn’t very quick or clever - though on Nightmare Night he had managed to think up a way to trick Ocellus into revealing herself - but he was insightful in his own way, and his simple solutions were often the best. If he had been a changeling he would been considered a very good drone.
Well, except for the fact that he’d probably try and make friends with a hexarachnid and subsequently get eaten, anyway. Ocellus shook that thought from her head, and looked to Snails. “Promise?” She asked.
Snails thought. “Well, I mean, I can’t promise that Twilight won’t mention you or Emeral won’t look into you,” he said, “but I do promise I’ll keep helping you, no matter what!”
Ocellus nodded. It would have to do. After a moment, she leaned in and hugged Snails. Hugs were weird and intimate and constricting, but ponies liked them as signs of affection, and repeated signs of affection made ponies like you more. And...and also, she wanted to make sure that Snails knew she liked him helping her, since that way he’d keep helping her.
Also it was an easy way to a snack. Snails returned the hug and Ocellus grabbed a bite of the affection, but only a little. She didn’t even have to hide it from him, Snails had said he didn’t mind if she fed on him occasionally...though she didn’t do it too much. She didn’t want to hurt him.
“It’ll be okay,” Snails said as he withdrew, chuckling a little at the sight of Sprite with Ocellus’ tongue sticking out. She grabbed a last sip of mirth, then turned it back. “Though I do think we need to let other ponies know about you sooner or later anyway. If we just explain what’s going on...”
“That I’m a predator who’s been feeding on ponies for months?” Ocellus asked.
“Maybe we don’t say it like that...”
Ocellus grimaced. A changeling did not reveal its true form to non-changelings unless she was getting ready to feed. That was some kind of basic, fundamental, driving instinct in her, one that no changeling had been able to feel on Protea for millennia and yet nevertheless something she knew to be fundamentally true. It would be bad, bad, bad. Snails kept trying to convince her...they’d even had a fight over it, and Ocellus had avoided Snails that weekend, until the possibility that he might reveal her out of spite occurred to her and she’d come back and apologized.
Snails still brought it up occasionally, and as always, Ocellus deflected. “Not yet,” she lied. “Maybe over the summer...when I’m more used to living in Equestria.”
“Okay...” Snails intoned. She didn’t need her changeling tongue to taste his doubt. But he pushed forward. “So what do you want to read?”
Ocellus chewed her pony lip, looking at Snails pointedly. “You pick,” she said, wanting to give him a victory. She...didn’t like seeing him disappointed. Because disappointment tasted bad, of course. That was the reason.
---
Ocellus and Snails had parted ways after the library had closed, Ocellus going back to her burrow, and discovering that she had been wrong earlier, when she’d worried that the colder weather of Ponyville might spread to the Everfree Forest. It turned out that hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have.
Because even Ponyville wasn’t this cold.
The Sun had long since gone down, and a cloudless sky allowed a bright and full silver moon and countless stars to illuminate the forest. To a pony, the night was just bright enough to see by, maybe even read by. But just in case, Ocellus shifted her eyes to her natural changeling ones, and just like that the Everfree Forest seemed to light up as though a noonday sun shown brightly in the sky.
It did not, however, do anything for the temperature. She had shifted into a pegasus form, but just like with a unicorn, she could only emulate their magic - she was not a real pegasus. As such, though the freeze abated a little, it did not go away. She still shivered, even with weather-magic warming her, even under her new cape.
She hurried through the forest, as quick as her hooves could carry her to her burrow, and climbed inside. The tunnel was freezing, too, and the little trap door partially frozen in place. She had to tug it open and crawl inside carefully, then gave herself her natural horn and lit up her burrow with green light.
Everything was fine, nothing had moved. But a thin layer of rime coated her sleeping pod, and the whole chamber, while warmer than outside in the Everfree itself, was still literally below freezing. She could see her breath when she exhaled.
Ocellus shook her head. There was a large, relatively flat rock that she sometimes used as a table in her burrow; she lifted it with telekinesis and put it into her sleeping pod, then climbed in as well. She shifted her horn to that of a unicorn, and began casting the warming spell on the rock. It was all she had, and it had to be enough, she thought, even as she wrapped her cape tightly around herself and fought back more shivers. She could get a big meal tomorrow, go into Ponyville early as Sprite and meet up with Snails and his friends and spend all day eating the love of different ponies. But right now, she needed to make it through the night.
So she cast the warming spell she’d learned from Twilight, and pressed herself against the rock. It was at first very cold, but gradually the rock warmed. Slowly it’s temperature rose, and soon Ocellus had cast her cape over it so that she could press her own body against it. It was a rock, so it was hard and unyielding, but it was warm. Not as warm as it could be, not as warm as she wanted...but warm. So she sloughed off her disguise, and bit back a hiss at the cold that was no longer kept at bay. She all but hugged the warm rock to her carapace, and closed her eyes, and tried to sleep...
---
Sprite rushed down the stairs from her warm, warm room, and joined her family at the table. It was dinner time, and dinner was the best meal of the day. The young unicorn found herself looking at a vast spread of food. There were bowls of happiness and plates of interest, cups of desire and spreads of kindness, a basket full of serenity and plates heaping with surprise. A nearby tray held freshly carved admiration and a saucer was used to hold a thin helping of trust. All of it was organized around a centerpiece of the most delicious portion of love Sprite had ever seen.
Sprite dug in. “This is great!” She exclaimed, looking to her paternal antecedent, Shaken Cola, as she shoved a huge helping of ecstasy into her mouth. “Where did you find so much food?”
“Equestria, of course,” Shaken Cola responded. He wasn’t eating. “Where else?”
“Eat it all up, Sprite,” her maternal figure, Cream Soda, said, in a voice that was familiar to Sprite. “Eat it all.”
Sprite did, drinking dry the cups of amazement and licking clean the plate of confidence. She ate all the awe there was at the table and then moved on to the anticipation. She crunched down on acceptance and chewed thoughtfully on joy.
“And the distraction,” Cream Soda said, holding the plate forward. “Try the distraction, Sprite.”
She didn’t even hesitate. She dove in, ripping, tearing, licking, biting, chewing, swallowing, and repeating. She gorged herself. Her tongue sought out every last morsel. She ate and ate and ate and...
...and...
Sprite looked, and saw her parents staring at her. Her brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, too. Hundreds of thousands of them. Staring at her. Hungrily.
They wanted her food.
Sprite stood upon the table and and glared at her family. “This is my food!” She roared. “You can’t have it! It’s mine!” She punctuated her point by biting down on optimism and swallowing it whole. She leapt backwards and landed on the love and bit into that. “Mine!”
Her family stared. “Eat,” Cream Soda said, in the voice that wasn’t her own but was familiar to Sprite. “Eat it all. Grow fat. There’s plenty for us,” Cream Soda moved out of the way, and Sprite saw a new table, already surrounded by her family, her family already eating there too. They bit and ripped and tore and licked and savored drank and swallowed and repeated. Their meal looked and smelled delicious to Sprite, and she badly wanted to join them at their table. There was so much there, they might even share their meal with her.
Their meal was ponies.
And her family...weren’t. They were hideous monsters of black chitin and giant blue eyes and great fangs and covered with holes.
And her mother wasn’t Cream Soda, she was taller and stronger and more hideous and beautiful at the same time, and she sat at the head of the other table and looked at Ocellus with green, slit eyes, and she licked her teeth. And she started eating too, eyes never leaving Sprite’s as she tore into flesh and lapped at blood...
And her mother wasn’t eating some random pony. She was eating something real with orange fur and teal hair and a cutie mark of a snail -
“No!” Sprite exclaimed as she tried to leap from her table, tried to run for her mother...her Queen. But her hooves were stiff, locked in place, and she saw ice and rime around them, holding her back, crawling up her as her Queen kept eating...
---
”Zzznailzzz!” Ocellus cried out as she shot awake, eyes wide, horn glowing bright green. In her panic she instinctively leapt up, and then cried out at the pain that caused, and not just from hitting her head. Every joint was stiff, her fetlocks, her knees and hocks, her neck and jaw. And she was shivering, fiercely shivering. She realized she was cold, chilled straight through...not just her carapace, but beneath. Cold was everything now...
Letting out a cry of frustration, Ocellus wrapped magic around herself and shifted into her pegasus-Sprite body. Relief was...moderate. It was better than before... but it wasn’t good enough. She put a hoof to her rock, but found it to be cold as ice - the warming enchantment had faded completely. Worse, changelings had pretty good internal clocks, and could tell that she’d only gotten a couple hours of sleep at most. And the drain on her love/magic to even get this much...
Ocellus was going to freeze. She felt tears in her eyes as she realized this. She was going to freeze...or starve as she used too much magic to heat this stupid rock to barely pony body temperature. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow night, but...
Ocellus hissed to herself. “No,” she insisted, then started talking to herself in the simplistic language of Protean, the natural language of changelings. She needed to focus. “Untrue. Unable unlive plus-unwarm. Protea unwarm, allhive warm. Solution extant. Find.”
She crawled out from her sleeping pod, dragging the useless rock with her, and thought. “Why allhive warm? Deep heat. Planet core warm. Unanswer here. Unable dig deep. Maybe...build fire vent? Take time, risk melting burrow. Unanswer now. Other cause allhive warmth...”
Ocellus trailed off. She knew the answer. “Allhive. Allhive keep allhive warm, warmth from occupants.” She took in a deep breath and let it out. “Body heat,” she said in Equestrian, a much more expressive language. The Hive was kept warm through a combination of geothermal energy and body heat.
Something she had been trying to emulate with the dumb rock! Ocellus glared a the rock, and stamped a hoof against it. “Come on!” She exclaimed. She grew a unicorn horn and cast the warming spell again, pouring more magic into it this time. She wanted to heat up more, she willed it to start glowing red!
But she wasn’t a unicorn any more than she was a pegasus. By the time she was done, she’d depleted enough magic/love to not only undo her gains from Rarity, but to undo what she’d taken from the previous day as well. It was by no means starvation...but she was hungry for love again. Very hungry.
And the rock, meanwhile, was still only pony-body temperature to the touch.
Ocellus let out a furious hiss, or started to. Instead, she sneezed, a pony process by which she suddenly and involuntarily and violently expelled a great amount of air from her body through her mouth...and her nose. Her snot-filled, gross nose, which had snot follow the air out so that it ran down her muzzle.
“Eugh...” Ocellus groaned, disgusted. Pony bodies were gross sometimes. She briefly became a changeling again, since the ejecta was easier to get off of her carapace, then turned back into a pegasus and thought...
She was cold, and tired, and hungry. She needed a solution to the problem...and after a few shivering minutes, she came up with one. It was dangerous. It was probably stupid. But it would keep her warm, and feed her, and give her a place to sleep...
She set out for Ponyville again.
---
Ponies locked their doors and closed their windows at night. But they didn’t do anything for their chimneys. The one leading into Snails’ house was too small for Ocellus or Sprite, but with a fair bit of extra magic she simply transformed into Opalescence and dropped down, doing her best to ignore the soot and ash. The logs in the fireplace were still smoldering, but Ocellus avoided them easily enough and landed in the darkness of Snails’ living room, looking around while taking a few moments to soak in the blessed warmth of the house.
Nopony was nearby; the house had been dark from the outside, which Ocellus had learned meant that either nopony was home or else everypony was asleep. Either would suit her purposes for tonight, though the latter was her hope. The changeling resumed her natural form, and tried to ignore the pang of hunger that hit her as she did. Shifting into a form much larger or smaller than her true one was taxing on her love/magic reserves. But she had been Opalescence for only a few moments. She’d be fine.
Ocellus took a cautious step forward, then another. She moved with all the patience she could muster, slowly, carefully, lest she make too much noise. As soon as she was near a wall, she climbed up onto it instead, her changeling hooves easily grabbing on and letting her crawl as though it were horizontal ground - and the wall made less noise, too.
From the living room to the stairs; then up those stairs and to the master bedroom. She’d been in Snails’ house before, as Sprite. She knew where his parents slept. They didn’t lock their door.
Ocellus crept in, crawling along the ceiling now. Shutterbug and Dewdrops slept together in a single bed, curled around each other beneath thick covers. Moonlight shined in through the window and illuminated the two, fast asleep directly beneath her as she lurked in the shadows of the ceiling.
Asleep. Good. Yes. They wouldn’t resist her that way. Wouldn’t notice or think to notice as Ocellus extended her tongue, tasting the air...tasting their emotion. Sifting. Feeling. This wasn’t Nightmare Night, when she had been so starved that she couldn’t control what emotions she ate. This wasn’t her grabbing a nibble of what was freely available. The changeling drone’s tongue sought out, tasted, and found their love...and took it.
A little at first. She didn’t want the two pegasi to notice, to feel it and to wake up. But as she took more love, their sleep grew deeper, and her gulps became larger, and oh it was so good, the love the two felt for each other, for their children.
But she stopped herself, stopped gorging on love after a few minutes. She’d replenished herself a fair bit, put herself back to where she’d been when she left Rarity’s. She was still hungry...but she had other meals.
Ocellus moved from the room, less cautious leaving than entering - the two pegasi would sleep deeply tonight. She next made her way over to Raindrops’ room. Opened the door. Slinked inside. Raindrops was unconscious as well, sprawled on her back beneath her bedsheets, an open book that she must have been reading lying across her chest. She snored softly.
Ocellus drank down love from Raindrops, just as she had her parents. The pegasus never noticed, never reacted save towards the end when she let out a particularly strained snore and rolled over onto her side. Like her parents, her sleep would be long and deep tonight. And she had been a particularly lucious meal, making up for all the bites and nibbles of love through Ponyville she’d drank down, the love she’d lost into the heating spells and more.
Ocellus slipped from Raindrops’ room. She had made good her losses. She had ensured that three of the four who lived here would sleep in. She should have retreated to some corner, maybe their basement or attic, and slept. But...
...but she was still hungry. Changelings were always hungry, and Snails was just down the hall...
....just through his door...
...just beneath where she perched on the ceiling...just laying there, curled onto his side beneath extra layers of covers that his sister and parents didn’t have, didn’t need because they were true pegasi. Lying there beneath her, so unaware, so peaceful, so full of love...
Ocellus’ tongue was out, she was tasting his love but not eating it, when Snails shivered a little. She froze, staring. He was...he was still cold, even with those extra layers. Not freezing, not remotely what Ocellus had felt, but still...like what she’d felt. They were both cold...
And Ocellus remembered her dream. Her family - other changelings - eating ponies. Her Queen, never breaking eye contact with Ocellus, as she bit into Snails’ flesh...
Ocellus’ tongue snapped back into her mouth, and she was still for several long moments. Finally, she crawled down from the ceiling, and shut Snails’ door, then went over to his bedside. Shifting into her Sprite form (since even if he knew what she really looked like, she presumed the natural pony instinct to seeing a predator on waking up was to scream), she leaned in close and poked him with one hoof. “Snails,” she whispered. “Snails, wake up.”
Snails stirred a little. “Huh...?” He asked, eyes slowly fluttering open. They widened when he spotted Ocellus in the moonlight his window let in. “What’s going on? Why are you here?” He whispered, sitting up.
Ocellus paused, trying to come up with an answer, even as she changed back to her true form. “I...I’m cold,” she settled on at last. “I’m cold and that heating spell is no good, I think you’re right, I need to build a chimney, but I can’t do that tonight, so I need to sleep somewhere until I can...” she took in a deep breath and shook her head. “And I ate some love from your parents and sister, more than just a nibble, but they’ll be fine, they’ll just probably sleep ‘til noon tomorrow unless somepony goes and wakes them up if it’s really important. And I’m sorry.” She looked back to Snails. “Can I...can I sleep here tonight?”
Snails stared at Ocellus, blinking a few times, then yawning. “Okay,” he said easily. He looked pointedly at Ocellus. “But don’t eat that much love from ponies again! Tomorrow’s Sunday so it’s okay to sleep in. But what if my sister or mom or dad had needed to get to work early?”
Ocellus nodded. “I promise,” she said. She meant it, to...probably. Unless she got really hungry again...but only if it was really hungry. She wouldn’t be as gluttonous again, not like she was today. Not like she had been in the dream...her, or the rest of her kind. She didn’t need to be in Equestria, not while she was the only changeling here.
Snails nodded at that, then looked around. “Okay, I can lock my room’s door just in case...and I think I have some clean spare sheets...hey!” Snails barely kept his voice down at the last, as Ocellus hopped up onto his bed and slid under the covers, pressing right up against the colt. “What are you doing?” He asked
Ocellus turned around, looking as Snails mere inches from her face. “Body heat,” she said. “You’re cold too. I could tell. This way neither of us will be.”
Snails shifted a little under the covers. “Um...but...I mean, I guess me and Snips share the bed when he stays over or when I go to his house...”
Ocellus tasted a multitude of emotions, chief among them embarrassment. She considered sampling them more deeply to figure out what Snails was so nervous about...but then the image of the Queen eating Snails came into her mind again. “Do you...want me to sleep somewhere else?”
“No, just, um...” Snails shifted a little, maneuvering oddly beneath the covers, until he’d apparently moved a sheet between him and Ocellus so that they weren’t directly touching. “There. That’s better.”
Ocellus didn’t get why, but the sheet was thin and she could already feel herself warming up. “Okay,” she said, deciding to ask about it tomorrow. Snails’ horn glowed and the lock to his bedroom clicked. “Thank you very much, Snails,” she said, as was expected. And she even meant those words, too.
“You’re welcome. G’night.” He rolled over so he was facing away from her.
Ocellus found herself...oddly disappointed in that. She didn’t know why. But she rolled over herself - though she kept her back against Snails’ own - and closed her eyes.
Her dream that night featured no changelings besides her. Snails was with her too. They were sitting on top of a giant Opalescence, the sun shown brightly in the sky, and it was warm. A spread of food lay before the two of them, pony food, but baked so that it somehow tasted of emotions. And Ocellus dreamed that she and Snails sampled them all, Ocellus learning pony tastes like it was the first time, and Snails getting to taste emotions. They ate all day long, and the food never ran out.
All in all, it was a pretty good dream to end her day with.
It was...kind of darkly amusing to have Ocellus imagine eating Hoofington’s librarian, given that Hoofington is populated with Lunaverse author OCs for the most part.
By the way, when in the last chapter I had Rarity say that “at least the ending is happy” in reference to “The Little Match Girl”, I did not mean the actual story. No story ending with a child freezing to death alone in an alley without even shoes, who did not go home because she feared her father beating her, is happy. I don’t care if she’s in Heaven celebrating the New Year with her grandmother. The only reason I’m not mad with Hans Christian Andersen over it is because I’m given to understand that he spent his life struggling with depression, and I can see how this story might both have been a product of that depression while also being an outlet for it.
But it is not a happy story and it does not have a happy ending. Maybe it can be said to teach an important lesson about not ignoring people in need or valuing what you have because so many others have so much less, but it doesn't do so in a happy way.
So for the record, it can be presumed that the Equestrian version of “The Little Match Filly” progresses rather more like it does on the Disc:
“You’re not allowed to do that…”
THE HOGFATHER CAN. THE HOGFATHER GIVES PRESENTS. THERE’S NO BETTER PRESENT THAN A FUTURE.
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Alternate title for this chapter: Ocellus: eine Symphonie des Grauens.
Also, I’m not sure if I’m going to write an entire story on my phone anymore. Autocorrect leaves something to be desired sometimes. A lot of the time. Still, it was a nice diversion.
9346430
Overall, you did a good job. But...
here's the things I noticed.
Was warm
off
disguise
bit
but
“Eugh...” Ocellus groaned, disguised. Pony bodies were gross sometimes. She briefly became a changeling again, since the ejecta was easier to get off of her carapace, the turned back into a pegasus and thought...
disgusted
then
moved
knew
rolled
Hope that's all right. Anyway, great story. Ocellus, you've still got a lot to learn. But you're getting there.
9346495
Yeah, I’ll get to these when I get home and am on a proper computer.
iPhones were not intended for writing stories.
9346498
Aww, poor puppy though. He didn’t deserve that...
9346499
Perhaps if you were dictating?
Presumably the Match Filly, while rescued, wasn't rescued by the local psychopomp.
Also, interesting to see that Ocellus's native tongue is effectively Newspeak. Though goodness knows that Protea's dystopian elements extend far beyond the cultural.
In any case, a lovely tale of a stranger in a strange land trying to get by the only way she knows how... and slowly learning a new one. It's Ponyville, Ocellus. You won't even be the strangest resident in town when they find out the truth.
Ocellus really needed to look into the telepathy that ponies seemed to possess just by looking at each others’ faces.
Yeah, little secret here. You're a changeling, and Snails has a special talent of dealing with insects. Deal with it.
9346554
Ironically, Newspeak is what changelings on Protea call Equestrian. And it was adopted precisely because Protean is a stunted, atrophied language - which is exactly what the Party wanted to turn English in to in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Though how did they learn it...?
9346556
Actually the idea is more that changelings rely a lot on tasting emotions to determine how others are feeling, so Ocellus doesn’t really get how ponies can often tell how others are feeling simply by looking at their faces.
9346430
Very cute story with the odd flash of rather disturbing insight into the changeling mindset.
You don't say...
Although maybe the second one is right
Particularly as he does indeed have a pony lava to protect him.
Lets hope that his parents or sister doesn't come into Snail's room before he and Sprite get up, there could be some questions and possibly Pony biology lessons.
I wonder if the Cinderflies might be part of the solution to Ocelleus's freezing problem, Snails might be able to persuade them to spend some time in and around her next to keep it fairly cozy or if she does build a chimney they might be able to rest in it.
good story^^
I kinda like that you have you still can see ocellus personlity even if under the influences living on/in Protea had on them.
Makes me woder how certain other lings turned out after grewing up on Protea.
9346554
Dunno, Equestria seems like it would have the wackiness quotient for the local psychopomp to fill in for whatever the Santa equivalent is.
Even the Black Rabbit of Inlè was a pretty chill guy.
Another strategy she might employ is moving the burrow out of the Everfree to make use of the blanket weather manipulation. Gotta be some abandoned or less-frequented places around the farms.
Shame Ocellus and Snails never thought this all the way through. If nothing else, claiming to be a visiting niece or other relation might have been a better cover.
Glances over shoulder at Zolotoy, he's a big one too.
Just like me, he's probably pretty bad with names and faces, with the same bad habit of not even bothering to differentiate most people he casually meet until after he's gotten to know them on some personal level. Seriously, one of my best local friends was someone I first met playing the old Pokemon TCG back in the day, and they apparently had considered me something of a rival/role-model for a good few weeks before I even realized it was the same person who kept asking for rematches all the time, let alone learned their name.
That's actually surprisingly astute for Snails, then again sometimes it takes a simple mind to see the simple answers. Admittedly, if Ocellus blows her cover too many times, somepony is likely to start connecting the dots and maybe remember the shapeshifting monster that scared a bunch of foals on Nightmare Night.
Aww... how adorably pragmatic.
Maybe I'm just weirdly messed up, but I really do find something almost endearingly cute about her trains of thought.
Sure, of course that's all it is, just gotta keep reminding herself.
Wait... come to think of it, should changelings maybe be better adapted to the cold then Ocellus seems to be? In the show at least, Thorax seemed to be surviving just fine in the frozen wastes outside the Crystal Empire, well aside from starving for love at least. Granted maybe that can just be handwaved for narrative effect as one more divergence between MLP canon and the Lunaverse... or I suppose maybe it could be some fundamental difference between male and female changelings that goes beyond mere shapeshifting... or then again, when we first met her in the show and even though it was very visibly not winter Ocellus still seemed to have a notable fondness for curling up in a pile of blankets, so maybe this is all just a personal comfort quirk for her.
Addendum: or maybe she's just lonely and the warmth issue is just a very convenient psychological excuse to go find a certain "friend" and curl up together.
Wow... just wow. How very, very telling that even in a dream of endless plenty she just cant get past that indoctrinated changeling need to guard every last morsel and scrap. I'm loving every second of insight, even as I feel all the more sorry for her.
Hehhe... I suppose you were right about that trope being rather frequent in the Lunaverse.
Yeup... nothing to se here folks, just being pragmatic totally here... and hey, if anything did happen to go any further then Ocellus can maybe get a nice tasty meal out of it, killing two birds with one stone.
You know, considering the way Equestrian magic and cute marks often seem to work, I'd almost be surprised if ponies didn't some how imprint at least an echo of their own emotions on the subjects of their craft, be it food or anything else.
9346607
Funny you should mention that... but we can discuss the details once I actually get the next chapter of a certain overdue fic published, hopefully in the next day or two.
I adored this part here. And Ocellus' dream was also really well done. I really enjoyed this story, with the exception of the song. For what it was, it was done well, just kind of pulled me out of the story. But that pretty much means nothing next to how much I adored the rest of the story. I'd love to see something like Ocellus being revealed as a changeling and it not going nearly as poorly as she fears. I'm a total sucker for that kind of thing. But whatever happens, even if it ends here, I have really enjoyed this and its prequel.
One study session and Twilight already knows too much.
On the other hand, this is a decent point. Not a good point, because if the authorities get to the point where they discover the fake Hoofington foal who has been appearing in Ponyville to study with Snails, they're gonna notice if he starts hanging out with a different mystery foal instead.
What Ocellus really needs is an item with that 'preserve body heat' spell that I think Twilight mentioned.
Does Lunaverse Luna do nightmare watch like in canon? Could be a problem if she does and she somehow noticed this one.
Dumb rock!
Stay good, Ocellus!
Snails was really not prepared for this.
Good story, I'm curious to see what where Ocellus' story goes from here.
9363188
Huh.
Well, gotta be prepared for stuff like this.
So cute. We haven't read any Lunaverse, but this is written so well we really didn't need to.
Very nice
Knowing Snails, that is plausible. It's also plausible that he'd successfully befriend that hexarachnid and convince it that it's wrong to eat changelings. He did after all convince a changeling that it's wrong to eat ponies.
I can break this down into 3 levels of interpretation. the 1st level would be the surface level, thinking it's cute that even though she still thinks they're weird, she's growing accustomed to hugging. So the surface level interpretation is shipping fuel. The 2nd level doesn't require that much digging and is rather obvious, but still requires more digging than the 1st level. The 2nd level interpretation is that she's hugging Snails for her own benefit, that being that it will encourage him to continue to help her. So it's a selfish desire. The 3rd level doesn't change the fact that it is a selfish desire (at least on a conscious level). But the 3rd level suggests that she wants Snails specifically to help her. Granted, he's the only one who knows about her true nature (not counting the Sirens). But it still means that she has grown a connection to Snails.
In short, level 1 is shipping fuel, level 2 is selfishness, and level 3 reverts back to shipping fuel.
I think I need to go to the dentist now.
Can someone call the bomb squad? Because I think my heart just exploded.
9346607
Snails locked the door. And he'd most likely end up waking up earlier anyway, considering Ocellus feeding on them, but not Snails.
9347189
First of all, the Crystal Empire is protected from the cold thanks to the Crystal Heart.
Secondly, I don't know if this applies to all animals. But for humans, there is a fundamental difference between how males and females are when it comes to how body heat is spread throughout the body. For females, their bodies are more suited to internalizing body heat rather than spreading it evenly throughout the body in males. This is so that a pregnant female will be more suited to protect the child from the cold.
Third, RainbowDoubleDash has told me that The Lunaverse has ceased to be a parallel to the Maneverse and has become its own thing entirely. After all, This story has changelings coming from a completely different world.
Finally...maybe her cold sensation is exaggerated by her desire to be with her "friend". But there's no doubt in my mind that the cold was real and to the point where Ocellus could've frozen to death.
9746800
While true, Spike first encountered Thorax in an ice cave, but Thorax didn't seem to mind the cold. To be completely honest...I just plain forgot that fact while writing this, and have been kicking myself since then since it's the sort of thing that I should have remembered. Fortunately that's why this story isn't part of the Lunaverse's canon list: everything in this is very "loose", and it was deliberately written as a way for me to real-time workshop some changeling ideas. That being said, I personally like it.
So it's a mistake, but a happy one and one I plan on running with.
However, that isn't to say that there isn't a bit of a psychological aspect to it, Ocellus feeling lonely and so mentally exaggerating the cold and its effect on her.
9746800
Thorax was hiding outside the protective bubble of the Crystal Heart in the frozen part of the empire.
Also I'm well aware the Lunaverse is no longer strictly parallel to the show, being one of the group admins and all, but that doesn't mean we outright ignore it either. Yes, our changeling's come from an alternate dimension, but even in the show changeling's have been shown living in the outskirt badlands, haven't ever had their origins fully elaborated on, and are still pretty much just as "alien" as ous. In the context of the Lunaverse it's possible the changelings if the show simply migrated at earlier date.
9746883
I had to recheck that scene in the show to be sure that I couldn't use the argument of it being a crystal cave. But considering the difference between Maneverse changelings and Lunaverse changelings, I don't think that should be the reason why this story is non-canon. That's not to say I'm arguing that is should be canon. Just that there are several factors into why Ocellus would succumb to the cold when Thorax didn't. Potential differences in male and female biology, potential differences in Maneverse and Lunaverse biology, age being a potential factor in cold resistance, and of course the potential psychological factor. It could be a combination of any or all of those factors. Because what good would a chimney do her if the sensation of extreme cold is due to loneliness?
9746889
Though I wouldn't make the argument that comics are canon to the show, the comics do in fact show an origin for the changelings, and that origin NOT being alien. And though a fair amount of detail of the changelings origin comic I choose not to consider as canon, I personally think that it's enough to assume that their canon origin isn't alien.
It sounds like you're arguing that it's okay to assume it's canon until the show proves it false. That's okay when working with fanfics, especially in AU fanfics. But that argument doesn't apply when applying it to the show directly. With fanfics, making those presumptions is okay for the sake of creating lore. But when dealing with show canon, it works the other way around. It's not canon until the show proves it true.
As for Thorax, that was an oversight on my part. Though it's never specified where in relation to the Crystal Heart he was hiding, you could argue that it's less effective or completely uneffective underground.
9747044
I was only ever arguing in reference to finfics and Lunaverse lore. When I said the changeling on the show could have a similar origin and just have migrated at an earlier date, I more so mean the Maneverse, as we call it around these parts, or that is to say the specific version of the "show" that the Lunaverse crossed over with in RDD's crisis fic. Which is like wise why I will also always stand by the notion that even if we have decided not to rigidly adhere to the show's canon we try not to out right ignore it either since at least some version of the show is still supposed to be part of our own multiverse.
Also because this is still supposed to be fanfiction, and as such should always at least take the source material into consideration, otherwise we might as well be writing original fiction instead. Breaks in canon can and will happen, but those breaks should be conscious decisions made with purpose and not accidental oversights.
9747228
It's my mistake for assuming you meant the actual show. Maybe there was some miscommunication on both ends. But I can tend to miss some details or take things too literally. And I think subconsciously, I may have interpreted what you said as trying to prove me wrong or unaccepting of my idea. And I think that may have gotten me a bit argumentative (which is strange, since I'm usually not argumentative).
And I'm not suggesting that you don't take show canon into consideration. It's not exactly specified what universe the Lunaverse changelings are from. So if they are from the "Maneverse: Lunaverse Edition", then the biology would keep as close to the source material as possible.
I will argue that the difference between an alternate universe and an original story is the source material. An original story creates its own source material, whereas an alternate universe modifies the source material (most commonly as an alternate timeline), but is still recognizable as the source material it's from. There's a story that makes changelings a form of, for lack of a better term, a "willing magical mutation". They are completely unrecognizable as canon changelings. There's another story where changelings are a fey creature. There's a story where changelings are mutated flutter ponies corrupted by the smooze. And that's not counting all the stories that have different species/varients of changelings. But I digress. Granted, like you pointed out, a divergence from canon should be intentional and not by accident. But without the accident that happened, we wouldn't have gotten the story we did.
RDD's description of Ocellus' Ordinary Day suggests that it's not non-canon, but just vaguely resembles canon (I'm paraphrasing to the best of my ability). So hypothetically, would RDD's description of it's canon allow it to be vaguely reference in future stories? Or is it too far disconnected to even be reference?
9747343
It's alright, I get how that kind of defensive reflex can happen, no offence taken or meant.
Anyway, ultimately it's up to RDD to make the final call on what is and isn't canon in the Lunaverse, the rest of us are just advisors. The gist I'm getting from him though is that this particular fic would fall roughly into a "semi-canonical" status, meaning all the basic broad strokes of these events happened and can be referenced by other stories, but the exact details might not be entirely the same. So what that more or less means is Ocellus feeling as if she was freezing to death and seeking out comfort with Snail's probably happened, although to what extent changelings are actually vulnerable/resistant to cold is for future stories to determine.
Plus as discussed here, there are plenty of compromises that could potentially split the difference...
Are you going to write a sequel?
9869641
Eventually. Have to finish up Lunaverse Season 2 first.
9892175
in what story does say that
I have not read all the lunaverse
The song parody might be against Fimfiction’s rules.
10180320
That’s a rule that doesn’t actually seem to get enforced, given that I’ve been posting stories with modified non-MLP song lyrics going all the way back to 2012, as have dozens of other authors that I’ve read.
That being said you’ve now got me in a paranoid panic over whether or not I should go through all my stories and write the songs out of them right now, which is a daunting task to make them still coherent when I do so.
Damn, Ocellus is insatiable in this 'verse. Hard to believe she can really sustain herself even outside of winter. Hard to believe the hive can sustain any kind of significant population with the food economy on display here.
But Ocellus and Snails are really cute here together.
11530566
They make it work…barely. But a major idea of the Changeling homeworld of Protea is that it isn’t a dying world, it’s a dead one. The changelings are just eking out a miserable existence on its corpse, but things have been getting steadily worse and time is not on their side.
11530613
Just like in dune, changelings even have these alien-like creatures worth of a world on the brink of collapse
So...I don't know why 4 years after having read this story, a kind of "sequel" to this story was revealed in my dreams, though being honest the story was a complete nonsense. But I've been thinking over the course of the day about many things that could be taken up in some later story. It could even be a log written by Ocellus herself.
Things that could happen are: A sleepover where Ocellus is being gluttonous and begins feeding on the love of the foals while they sleep, causing nightmares to Dinky about when she tried to lock her in a stasis pod; how she could solve the cooling problem in her burrow simply by making a smaller igloo-style chamber; a Nightmare Night where Ocellus participates as a pony and manages to reunite with Thorax who fell into a weird portal as well while trying to prevent Ocellus herself from falling into the portal that took them from Protea to Equestria. Who knows? Perhaps the real force behind those breaches could be the Day Breaker we saw in the Nightmare Knights comic series and now she's traveling through dimensions causing chaos."
11871669
I don't think an igloo-like cave would solve the problem, but the cinderflies snails talks about... That's another story.