• Published 13th Nov 2018
  • 2,492 Views, 892 Comments

Halls of the Changeling King - Nameless Narrator



A little changeling drone couldn't make it for the big invasion. With the help of other desperate changelings, he avoided pony retribution as long as he could, but in the end, ponies found him. Now alone, he's just trying to survive.

  • ...
10
 892
 2,492

PreviousChapters Next
11: Underground species together.

The massive vault door slams shut as a pair of Granite’s guards obey a single nod from the dwarf. No matter how furious I am at the dark priest, I can’t stress how much this is NOT a “I’m not locked here with you, you’re locked in here with me” situation. The amount of flamethrowers aimed my way is a good clue, though.

“Good job informing me, Topaz, Siegbrau,” Granite smiles, “Now, how about we-”

“BURN THE CREATURES!” the dark priest’s voice booms through the vault.

“If it proves necessary,” nods Granite, looking directly at me, “First, however, I would like to know how a changeling got here into Brauheim, and ultimately to this… unfortunate position as our new queen. To ascertain our security regarding their hive.”

“This is heresy!” the priest’s voice wavers.

“Oh shut up, you hateful little monster!” I bark out, “You’re just like the paladins!” I return Granite’s strangely calm stare, “And you want to know about my hive? You’re looking at them. The one with the helmet is Three, you know him, or about him. The small one who is unconscious with Crumble in that cell after saving your guards and my other drone is Two. Speak of the horrified little devil hiding behind me, that’s Six. And the final one, the currently dying warrior who broke into this prison, left Topaz and Siegbrau bruised on the floor, and tried to kill Six is Five. Don’t worry about her, she’s armless. Well, legless. Where she came from, I have no idea. And that’s all of us that I know of. Why is there only so few of us? Because we’re changelings, because everyone wants us dead for what we are, not who we are. I don’t know how I got here, but I DO remember paladins finding us where we built a home without attacking anyone, and killing everyone they could find.”

“You are parasites who devour the essence of what ponies are!” argues the dark priest, “You are a threat to all life with no right to exist.”

I ignore him this time, no matter how much I want to squeeze that bald, bearded head until his eyes shoot out.

“I woke up here in a cocoon in one of your vaults several days ago. The first thing I got through was your guards trying to fry me. When I got away, I found Steelback and Crumble put into artificial sleep and freed them. Some changeling HAD been using them at one point as food,” I carefully leave out mass breeding in case of Crumble, “but I don’t know when and for how long.”

“Over a year!” comes out of Crumble’s cell. When I look at Steelback and everyone follows my gaze, he simply nods with a grim expression, “I’ve been missing for over a year, but with all due respect, if anypony touches Two, I’ll kick them in the nuts.”

“So there you go. Two disguised as Brick drank your king to death fair and square, having heard about your dueling tradition, and I took her place. You know the rest,” I look at the group of dwarves I invited to the table in order to help them facilitate the change they wanted, “I don’t want to keep hiding. I want a place where we can live as changelings without immediately being hated. That’s why I wanted to make my mark on Brauheim before I would have to reveal who I was. You were the attempt, the change for the better which Five’s attack marred,” I frown, “So, what now? I doubt I’ll be able to stop all of you if you try something, but I will sure as hole take as many of you down with me as I can.”

”Three, Six, if they move, get Two and run. I’ll buy you some time.”

”Where, boss?” asks Three, ”There is no other exit from here.”

”I know, I just wanted to say something heroic.”

”If it helps, I really felt sad and inspired at the same time.”

Granite rubs his beard before asking:

“Are you stallion or a mare?”

“What?” I blink and lean backwards, completely taken aback by the question.

“What do you think you are doing, loremaster?!” the dark priest scowls at Granite.

“I believe my question was simple,” repeats the military dwarf, “Are you a stallion or a mare?”

“With us, it doesn’t really matter, but I’m a stallion by your standards.”

The flamethrower nozzles go down a little, and the corner of Granite’s mouth hidden behind his bushy beard curls up.

“The way I see it, our tradition is clear. The winner of the royal duel is… well, not this changeling, but I believe they sorted things out with each other. Plus, he’s a stallion,” other dwarves nod, only Geode and Iron Rose frown, “No matter what, ‘Brick’ here is our ‘queen’. Isn’t that so, dark priest?”

“IT is a changeling!” objects the bald dwarf, “IT doesn’t belong into Brauheim.”

“On the contrary,” Granite’s grin grows into a winning smile, “I distinctly remember the legend of crown prince Rocksworth, don’t you? You’re big on precedent, aren’t you?”

The dark priest growls, and after a heavy moment he turns around.

“Open the door, guards,” he orders. The nearest dwarves shoot a glance Granite’s way, who nods.

“Wait,” I take a step forward. What emboldens me is that no dwarves even move their weapons anymore, “Why are you so set on keeping things the same? Even something as arbitrary as mare and stallion apparel. It really can’t change that much, and it’s clear ponies would appreciate it.”

The dark priest turns his head.

“In times when a corruption of morals and body rises, the depths will open their door, releasing a flood beyond stopping, and both underworld and overworld will fall,” his voice loses a little bit of the ominous booming, “We shall not let it happen. The fate of dwarfdom and indeed the whole world rests on our shoulders. Your concerns about menial things are irrelevant in face of the ultimate threat, bug,” with that, he leaves, and the dwarves close the door behind him again.

Silence grows longer until Granite, his seemingly good mood completely gone after the priest’s words, speaks up:

“While I don’t mean to disrespect a prophecy of our forefathers, I doubt its connection to current events. I, for one, say that based on the precedent of crown prince Rocksworth, we can allow queen Brick’s rule to continue.”

Uhhh, what? Really, just like that? After a doomsday prophecy or whatever that was?

Iron Rose flicks a strand of mane from her face.

“It does look like there is change we can enact… and carefully monitor to avoid any widespread… corruption of dwarven morals. What do you say? We can oversee the good social proposals, and curb the bad ones without relying strictly on tradition,” she looks at the other dwarves, ”And that way, we’ll be able to keep an eye on queen Brick.”

Granite, you sly bastard. You know how much they all want the change, and with me being hidden and still in charge, you and they can have the power, and if things go south, you can still sell me out to the dark priests, saying I mind-controlled you or something. Iron Rose either ate it hook, line, and sinker, or knows exactly what’s going on like you do.

On the other hole, no one’s going to be roasting Two, Six, or Three today.

I call this a victory.

In a burst of green fire, I shapeshift into Brick.

“How about you who are here form a council to help rule Brauheim, let’s say to balance out the queen or king in case they do something too crazy,” I offer, “That way, dwarves will have someone whose job it would be to discuss helpful proposals with others, and present them for acceptance. Plus, the dark priests would know that a truly accepted solution is the will of the dwarves, and not some crazy solitary lunatic’s idea.”

They’re thinking about it. Are we in the clear?

Now they’re nodding to each other. Yeah, we’re in the clear.

“Long live queen Brick, I’d say,” Granite gives me a smug smile, “Oh, and guards? Nothing that happened here leaves this vault, understood?”

The guards salute.

“Granite?” I ask, “If changelings aren’t too big of a problem, can we find a better place for Two to recover than here in prison?”

“Of course,” he nods, “What about the other one… Five, was it?”

“Hole no! Leave her here, and I’ll instruct Topaz and Siegbrau here on how to detain a changeling properly. Later, we’ll have a little chat about the prince Rocksworth thing, Granite.”

That’s what you get for snitching on me, dirtbags.

***

With the meeting over, I’m back in my suite, relaxing. In some ways, I miss being hidden away while only affecting the world through my changelings. The thing is, that if my group ever grows into a real hive, I won’t be able to simply walk out and do stuff. Well, I will, because I’ll be the king, but it won’t be a smart idea.

That’s once again a problem for future me. Right now, I’m drained from the rollercoaster of action and emotions, and I need to shut down. The weird part is that I’m not exactly hungry. This new body seems really efficient as far as love consumption goes. My head just hurts, that’s all.

”Heya, boss!” Three’s cheerful voice rings through the hive mind, ”We helped the dwarves carry Two into a place called the hospital. There’s a lot of hurt dwarves there, and all the armors are painted white so you can be double sure they know what to do with ponies in Two’s shape.”

How does white dye help heali-? Nevermind.

”Well done, Three. Any problems with the dwarves? I’m about to take a nap, but there’s an issue, I’ll talk to Crumble.”

”Nope. Two’s sleeping,” an image of Three looking at Two lying on her side in a white bed with a string of green drool coming from her mouth cracked open flickers through my mind. To my surprise, there’s a clump of flowers on her bedside table already. Crumble, maybe? ”but someone else would like to talk to you. Come on, don’t be scared. I told you boss is great.”

The moment of curiosity is solved when in the internal darkness of the hive mind I sense a familiar link, and see Six sitting next to Three.

”Umm, your Majesty,” the new drone hesitates as he realizes how painfully small he is compared to me, ”I’d like to join you if you don’t mind. I… I still can’t talk about where I’m from, and I won’t be able to as long as the mental block lasts. I know it’s temporary, and I don’t know its limits, sorry. But I know my way around Brauheim, even the real queen’s part, and I have a disguise in which I can freely travel there.”

On instinct, I hide my next words from Six, and shield Three’s answer too. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t really know.

”Three, do you think he’s trustworthy? I mean, one of his hive or group tried to kill Two and you when you got in the way.”

”Well, Five DID try to kill Six first.”

”That could have been a ruse, although I doubt it, really. Don’t forget that Six was sent to king’s part of Brauheim to spy on us.”

”Spy on the king, you mean.”

Am I getting paranoid? Noooo...

”Yes, that’s what I mean.”

”Look, boss, I can see that Six is scared out of his mind. And he’s a drone like us with nowhere to go. Can we keep him?”

Don’t give me the puppy eyes! Wait no, the puppies are giving Three eyes at this point.

”Hey, you already have a pet, even though Eight isn’t here. And you didn’t clean her litter box once.”

We stare at each other, then start snickering. In the end I sigh, and add:

”Alright, but keep an eye on Six, and be on your guard. First, there’s no telling that Five was the only one who would go after him. Second, it could still be a trap. And third, we’ll need to start gathering love at this point, I think.”

”I’ll go get my hugging mitts!”

Dropping the protection around our channel of communication, I look straight at Six.

”Welcome to our little group, Six. I’ve got a little assignment for you. Three will keep you company for now, just so that dwarves get used to you. They don’t seem to mind him at all. And call me boss or king, none of the your Whateverness business. Waste of time, really.”

”Of course, king. What’s the assignment?”

”Stay undisguised.”

”Wh-what do you m-mean?”

”As I said, my goal is to make sure changelings can walk outside undisguised without being hated on sight. Two harmless drones could help the dwarves get used to us. Other than that, see what’s here to do, really. Find something you like. I’ll call you when I need something.”

“Yes, king,” Six salutes.

”Come, on,” Three pokes Six, ”I’ve got just the thing to help you relax after a morning like this.”

With that, I finally unplug. Three’s right - relaxing after a morning like this is the way to go.

***

Three leads Six back to the outer borders of Brauheim, and while the city streets are mostly empty, the mining shafts and tunnels are loud with clanking of equipment, chatting of working dwarves, and heavy breathing of the resting ones.

“Good morning, Three,” a dwarf foreman waves at the duo climbing through a less populated jagged shaft filled with emerald deposits, then he tilts his head, “Hey, there’s more of you now?”

“That’s Six, mister Coal Pressure. He’s good at digging and wants to help too.”

The dwarf examines obviously worried Six from all sides, then shrugs.

“Well, who am I to argue?”

”Why isn’t he complaining?” asks Six.

”I’ve been here before,” Three reassures him, ”Dwarves don’t use emeralds for much, they just trade them away to ponies, so this mine is understaffed. Plus, it’s dark and green here, like back home!”

”I was born here, Three.”

”Don’t worry, you’ll like it. Harden your hooves, and let’s get digging.”

Three’s right, and after minutes of otherwise quiet breaking of rocks and examining the shaft’s surroundings, Six calms down. Digging is a drone instinct, being underground in the dark is a drone instinct, occasional green gems are like the glowing cocoons and love gems back in the hive. No matter that Six was born here, he’s a changeling. Eventually, Three starts humming a tune.

“All drones of the hive rejoice. Sing, sing, sing with me-”
“-raise your hooves, and raise your voice. Dig, dig, dig with me-”
“-down and down here in the dark, on long journey we do embark-”
“-pallies, dwarves, and assassins. Have no fear, boss always wins-”
“-dum dee dum dee dum dee dum dee dum!”

Three’s glowing hoof vigorously chews away a chunk of stone as he raises his voice.

“Born in the hive, starving from the lack of love-”
“-tiny and soft, squishy like a puff of fluff-”
“-now shiny and black, got holes in my leg-”
“-bad mom is gone, so we are free-”
“-dwarves and drones can sing with me!”

The words flow through the hive mind to Six who can’t help but join the chorus in disbelief, albeit with much less enthusiasm than Three, equalizing it with his own amount of shock.

“I am a drone, and I’m digging a hole!”
“Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole!”
“You are a dwarf, and you’re digging a hole!”
“Diggy diggy hole, digging a hole!”

Complete silence spreads through the shaft as the two drones stop singing. No dwarves are digging anymore, and everyone is looking at them.

“What?” Three asks everyone, “That’s all I’ve got, but I’m working on the second part. Did you like it?”

“Aaaand we’re dead,” mumbles Six quietly to himself.

Then a random dwarf starts whistling the tune, and Six can only facehoof.

“How? Just how?”

“It’s a good song,” the dwarf just shrugs, raising his pickaxe, “Let’s go, lads! We’ve got a shaft to work.”

**

Darkness clears. There’s no confusion and no nightmares. Two opens her eyes, focused and with clear knowledge that she failed completely, and that the King’s intervention is the only reason she’s still here and alive, instead of smeared all over the unremarkable plaza where she “fought” Five. A quick flick through the hive mind reveals what happened after she got crushed by Five. It’s uplifting, incredibly lucky, and Two knows none of the good parts are her doing, only the screw-up.

She’s a little hungry, stiff all over, and pain shoots through her previously severed foreleg from hoof to neck as she sits up.

“It was my job to bring him love, to get him in control, and to protect him. Instead, I’m here. Three didn’t screw up his disguise nor his position, I did. Three wasn’t a drain on his remaining love, my ass ripped to shreds was,” Two’s frown turns straight up grim, “I did worse than a brain-damaged drone. Well, what can you expect from a rejected egg that someone forgot inside a mare supposed to starve in a hole deep underground, right?”

”Ahhh, good morning, sunshine!” Scream sitting on the edge of Two’s bed doesn’t improve her mood in the slightest.

”Great… you. I guess I deserve being laughed at. Go ahead,” Two doesn’t bother switching to mental speech not to alert whomever was outside her white room that she’s awake but she still shapeshifts her hooves to something soft and quiet before slipping down from the bed.

”Nah,” Scream waves her hoof, ”I’m more of the ‘told you so’ kind of pony. Speaking of which, I told you you were cocky, or something along those lines. If you want to be smart bug again, you’ll have to earn it.”

For some reason this feels like a kick in the already unsteady stomach. Not that Scream is saying it, but that she’s obviously right.

“Yeah, you can call me useless bug,” suddenly, something more pressing kicks down Two’s wall of depression. She glares at the bedside table with some withered flowers stuck in a jar, and a stack of iron ingots underneath it, “What the hole is this?”

For some reason, all the items feel infused with faint love which Two promptly absorbs. It doesn’t help matters other than her feeling fuller. No accelerated regeneration or anything.

”Those are ‘get well’ ingots,” Scream whistles, ”Plus a bouquet of flowers. I wonder who would go outside- ah, the minotaur, probably.”

“Get well? Are they for healing or…?”

”Nah, just dwarves wishing you’d get better soon. Ponies use paper for these, but I gotta hand it to the dwarves, metal lasts longer, although these are a bitch to carry home afterwards, I bet.”

Two grabs one, and with a grunt puts it on the table, completely dissatisfied with how weak she feels.

“I hope you get better soon, miss living armor...” Two reads an inscription carved into the metal, “What. The. Actual. Hole.”

The five others are similar.

“When you’re back on your hooves, let’s get drunk under the table again,” Two furrows her brows, “Again?”

”Wellll, boss bug thought that when the dwarf general what’shisname told his guards to shut up about what happened with assassin bug… hmmm, that doesn’t sound right. Failed assassin bug?”

“Scream, back to the point, please?” Two with her head turned completely upwards finds it hard to face down the alicorn many times her size, but she tries.

”Right, nicknames later. And stop looking at me like that, it’s so adorable I might just throw up and it would end all over you. Anyway, the dwarves obviously blabbed, and rumors about boss bug being the queen and you being the one who alcoholically destroyed the entire royal tavern including the old king spread. Funny part is that in general those small coal buckets are about as okay living under a male changeling than under an unmarried dwarven queen.”

“So everyone now knows who the boss is and who I am.”

”I wouldn’t say knows, but definitely gossips about.”

Two flips one small ingot around, revealing more writing.

“Your skin is shinier than steel under torchlight, tougher than chainmail, and as flexible. You hold liquor better than oak barrel, and I can’t stop thinking about your short mane, like a carpet red with blood of our weeping enemies. I hang out every evening in 62C bar, and I’d be honored to get to know you better.”

”And they say romance is dead.”

“How, the actual fuck, long was I fucking out?!” Two’s depression burns away when faced with this… this… nonsense, replaced with confusion, some curiosity, and for no apparent reason - anger.

”Four days, give or take? I’m not too big on timekeeping. Prophetic sight does that to an alicorn. And watch that mouth, young lady, or I’ll fill it with something. Speaking of which, how’s your love level or whatever hunger meter you’ve got built in?”

“You know, for a patron of changelings, you don’t know much about us.”

”I care only about the important stuff - survival of your species as a whole, and your amusement value. You know how hard is to balance those two when they so often go against one another?”

With a growing headache having nothing to do with her physical health, Two puts the ingot down, and examines the room filled with small, beeping machinery. Unfortunately, advanced technology is a closed recording device to her.

For now.

“I’m fine as far as love goes.”

”Then why do you look like a window that met a hoofball up close?”

Two frowns, looking at her barrel still covered in cracks, and her stiff foreleg holding together half due to chitin and half due to an amount of bandages which would make a mummy give up and find another job.

“Because I don’t know how to heal myself quickly. As with most things, there’s no information on it inside the hive mind - boss doesn’t know, Three doesn’t know, Six doesn’t know, no one here fu- knows anything!” Two scowls.

”Now now, one of my surprisingly wise friends said that being angry just means admitting you’re powerless to do something, otherwise you’d just change what’s pissing you off. Too bad he’s about to get exploded in a month or two. Aaanyway, isn’t it your job to fix that? You infiltrators are the one supposed to gather intelligence, and you’re the only one boss bug has got.”

Two apprehensively looks at the door leading out of the room, and freezes.

“I- I don’t know. It’s my fault dwarves now know who we are. I can’t do anything an infiltrator is supposed to do. I can’t even fight in case something goes wrong. I thought that when I fooled the dwarves and got boss to power, the hard part was over, and then I couldn’t deal with a drone and a warrior without being discovered and becoming a love draining cripple.”

”From a cocky little idiot riiiight to the other end of the spectrum. One of the reasons why I never really wanted to care about foals of my own, really. Now, mini bug, getting boss bug his cushy job on your first day was pretty awesome, even I admit that, but you can’t just coast on that one thing. Do you know why it worked so well while everything else failed?”

Two shakes her head, still hesitant to leave the room.

”Well, you won’t earn the smart bug nickname back like this. Let me give you a clue - I don’t call you punch bug.”

Two facehoofs.

“I didn’t plan my approach out, I just rushed into things and tried to fight like a hot-blooded minotaur.”

”To be frank, you didn’t plan the first part out either… much, but it was still more than trying to ram your face into a changeling specifically born to ram hooves through faces. So, mini bug, how about we start over on the smart part?”

“The problem is that I don’t know any techniques or methods that would have made me win against Five and prevented all this. That’s why I did what I did.”

”Well, did it cross your mind that you weren’t supposed to win?”

“What? No! If I was good enough, I would have come up with something. I-”

”You faced someone older and obviously far more experienced and DISCIPLINED than you, and you barely got out of it alive. You gotta learn, you gotta practice, you gotta WORK HARD to get to the point where Five will be cowering under you. You don’t simply become better by deciding that you now are better, it’s going to take pain and effort,” Scream chuckles, ”Heh, you got the pain part down to the p, now get to the effort.”

“I can’t just… make up a way to… I don’t even know what I’m trying to think about.”

”Alright, that made even my head hurt. You’ve got the combat experience - how not to do it, you know what you did wrong - everything, and now combine those into something. Learning what’s dumb and useless is learning too.”

“I am dumb and useless!” Two’s voice cracks as she glares at Scream with fresh tears in her eyes.

”Not really. I’ve known some really dumb ponies over the eons, and you’re not even in the top billion. So, what did we learn just now?” Scream raises her eyebrow, ”That self-pity doesn’t help anything, and that auntie Scream might get bored and stop helping you if you keep it up. See, another lesson at what NOT to do. You’re doing great! Eventually, you’ll get to the what to DO part, given a century here and there.”

Two withers under the only partially heartless lecture, but it does get the message across. Two isn’t in this alone, as long as she… can… do it… alone…

...or something like that.

“Okay, first things first,” she takes a deep breath, “I need love, the boss needs love, Three… probably needs love, and Six needs love.”

”Wohoo, finally. Let’s go bang some dwarves!” the alicorn disappears.

Closing and opening her eyes again, accompanied with one more long breath, Two opens the door.

After being immediately stopped by a nurse and checked by the doctors apparently instructed to let her do whatever she wanted, Two spends her trip through Brauheim by gradually recalling all the little tips Scream gave her before - mane, overall shape, expression, and applies them to her changeling body including her own red mane. The bar at 62C goes silent as she enters, more than one jaw dropping at the sight of her.

An extremely happy albeit apprehensive dwarf slowly approaches her as she raises her visibly and deeply scarred foreleg to shake his.

“My name is Living Armor. Pleased to meet you,” Two smiles.

“I believe we’ve met already, but I love the new name, mane, and, umm, everything,” the dwarf bows, laughing nervously, “I’m Topaz.”

Author's Note:

If you don't know the diggy diggy song, here you go.
Which is also the song that inspired this entire sequel along with one comment.

PreviousChapters Next