Harlequin must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because she found herself back in that sightless void, where there had once been the Swarm to protect her and make her feel welcome. She could still remember it, the thousands of others that would surround her in her sleep. The memories she could see from other bugs filled her with strength and pride. Her ancestors had been mighty creatures once, and one day they would rule again.
But now she was alone, both in waking life and in dreams. She couldn’t even save a single bug.
“You know why that is, child,” said a distant voice, so faint she almost thought another bug was approaching. “It isn’t your fault she had no place in the story. There’s none for you either—not because of anything you did. Is that the future you want?”
“No,” she thought into the darkness, searching for the one who spoke. She could barely move; her whole body was in slow motion. Her hooves struck out under her, and she tried to run. But it was like she was moving through half-hardened slime, sinking down around her, and slowing her to a crawl. “I want to change it! This is all wrong! Our queen left us!”
For a moment, she could almost see something in the darkness around her. A figure moved—not a pony exactly, but like one. An outline swimming towards her, one of greater darkness. “I will find a use for you.”
Then she woke. She hadn’t gone far from where S had fallen, just a few steps into a dark corner where she’d crawled in a near-daze. She could still smell the death nearby. Harlequin shuddered, shook the sand from her fins, then rose. The crystals around her reflected sound strangely, making it hard to find her way, hard to keep track of where she’d gone. Obviously, the path she’d been taking with S would be out. She turned around, keeping to the largest tunnels.
She had an advantage none of these bugs had—she’d been here when the prison was built. She knew that bigger tunnels would always lead towards the entrance, at least if she stayed close. What might be true if she wandered further wouldn’t matter so long as she always stayed close to where the food came in.
The food that no bug could eat. And why should they bother? Harlequin had suffered as they did, she knew the pain they felt. When she saw the drones, all lined up in the street, the Swarm taken from them, she could imagine their despair. Now she felt it herself. She’d been finding a place in the Guard for herself—but now that was taken away. She’d tried to help another bug, like she would’ve done with the Swarm intact—that had failed too.
So she wandered. Not towards the front, exactly, but from one room to another. She kept her horn dark this time, not wanting to attract attention to herself. There would be other opportunists in the tunnels. She didn’t want to fight again.
Her reserves of love were no longer full, though she was still some distance from starvation. Defending S had taken less than she had spent healing her leg. But she no longer felt curious about why. She just wandered.
Time passed, she couldn’t have said how much. Eventually she ended up in a pristine, empty space full of cots. She walked up, and a pony light crystal came on, illuminating a bunk area for fifty bugs, little blankets folded on the pillows and small bags of pony grooming supplies in front of each one. What were bugs supposed to do with soap and deodorant?
Harlequin no longer cared. She shut the door behind her, pushed a cot up in front so it wouldn’t swing open easily, then crawled all the way to the back. She got far enough away that the light crystals all went out again, and she was left in the gloom. Left to the sound of her breathing, and a distant drip of water.
She spent a long time in that room. She didn’t need to go eat—pony food wouldn’t have done anything for her anyway. When she got thirsty, she didn’t go further than the sound of dripping on the far end of the room, holding her tongue out under the moisture until it didn’t hurt anymore.
She spent a long time with her thoughts, imagining how differently that fight could’ve gone if only she had Nightender. Or any weapon, really. She did have the power to change the world—but why should she bother?
Getting a name was the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. At least if I was like them, I wouldn’t understand all of this. I’d think that my Queen was perfect and coming to save me, right up until I died. Like S, dying to save her “queen.”
Some way to thank you for your help this is.
Changelings weren’t supposed to sleep like ponies did, but they could hibernate. Harlequin didn’t spin herself a cocoon, even though she had the magic for it. Instead she piled up a mass of pony cots, covered them with blankets, and tried to imagine she was back in the pony barracks. Back with the ones who had cared about her name, who talked about her like a hero. Who thought she could be better than she was.
She probably wouldn’t have responded at all, except for the voice that she heard. It wasn’t the bugs who had attacked her and S, though revenge might’ve motivated her. It wasn’t even her queen.
The voice she heard came from the bug who was most responsible for her being trapped here in the first place. The single reason she hadn’t been able to get the others free.
“I don’t belong down here!” he called, his voice distant and distorted. But the ramp down must’ve been close to the sleeping areas. It would make sense. The ponies had imagined their prisoners would organize themselves and act just like ponies might in the same situation.
He’s the reason you’re here. He betrayed you. You could have set him free if only he’d let you. The quiet voice was right, of course. Everything was completely his fault. Even S’s death, in a roundabout way. At least she could’ve lived a few more days carrying water for… someone.
Harlequin rose to her hooves, scattering the blankets and cots. She probably smelled awful, like a bug that hadn’t molted right in weeks. But there was no way around that now. Maybe the best thing to do would be to let him wander into the caverns and let them steal his magic. Corkscrew could kill him too.
But while that thought should’ve filled her with satisfaction, it only made her go faster. Some part of her might want to see him punished, but another part couldn’t forget that she had already fed on him once. Codex was the reason she had a name now. Codex and Hydrus together. She couldn’t abandon him now.
So she ran, shoving the door open and following the sound of Codex’s panic. “Don’t leave me down here!” the bug was shouting. He might as well be chumming the water for sharks.
The ponies at the top of the slope didn’t answer. Some part of Harlequin was surprised that Codex had even run to the bottom. If he just stopped at the top to yell, soon enough the pony magic would burn him away like all those others.
She wasn’t the only one to emerge in the huge entry cavern, with its yellow and pink crystals and cloud of flies. The mountain of food had gotten considerably larger since last Harlequin looked, with a few signs of looting. How long had she been drifting, anyway? Her magical reserves had drained to about half of what she could hold now, most of that gone trying to save S.
The figures she saw lurking in the gloom around the light-crystals at the base of the railway were barely even bugs anymore. Withered, shrunken, their shells white and malformed. The darkness was no harm to a bug, but starvation appeared to be doing terrible things to them. They were small, creatures that had never had names. But they had teeth now, and predatory looks in their eyes.
Have they lost so much? “Codex!” she called from across the room, standing as straight as she could and lighting up her horn bright green. It was a gamble—such a show of strength would either frighten away the scavengers or goad larger predators into appearing. “Codex, get over here right now.”
He stopped yelling up at the railway, slowly turning on his hooves. His eyes filled with anger as he saw her, and he didn’t take so much as a single step towards her. “You are the reason for this, Harlequin. You deserve this. But I don’t. I never did anything wrong.”
“Codex,” she said, taking another step closer to him. She wasn’t going to keep wasting her magic on light for much longer, but for now she could see the figures scattering in front of her. “You are in danger. If you don’t come with me, you’re going to die. I already saved you once.”
Against my better judgement. If you had just kept your stupid mouth shut, I would still be in the Guard. I might be halfway to freeing the other bugs by now. But she couldn’t really hold that against him, could she? He didn’t have the Swarm to guide him anymore. He’d never really had it. Why should he care what happened to other bugs?
I must help him. I changed him in the first place.
At least this time he seemed to be responding. Codex backed towards her, his fins flicking from one side to the other in agitation. “In prison? Why would prison be dangerous?”
“You’re still half covered in bandages, Codex. Why do you think?”
His eyes widened—that was apparently enough to finally reach him. He started running towards her. Exactly the wrong move. Running wasn’t just showing his back, it was also showing fear and weakness. Both things that a bug never ought to do to a predator. Harlequin turned to run with him, letting her horn settle into a gentle green glow as she pointed. “This way! This is part of where ponies built… it has doors!”
They ran. Drones gone mad screeched behind them, a dangerous flock that grew denser as they moved. Harlequin could barely even recognize most of the sounds they made. They didn’t seem like anything she’d heard in the hive before. This is what happens without the Swarm. When bugs starved back home, they just died. Everyone knew it could happen.
Maybe the Queen had been protecting them after all—protecting them from themselves.
Codex screamed as one of them tried to latch onto his leg. His shell was too strong for a single bite, but the bandages on his thigh caught the teeth, slowing him and making him trip end-over-end.
Not again! Harlequin caught him in her magic, settling him down and scanning the area around them. Last time they’d been beaten, it was because she hadn’t had any way of defending herself. Even two days in the Guard were enough for her to know that keeping a weapon close was the most important thing. And unlike medical magic, she had learned to fight from the Swarm. There, an unassembled pony cot in a pile of many others. She reached out, pulling out the long wooden rod and spinning it in the air in front of her. I could make a spear out of this.
But for now, it was just a staff. She faced out at the crowd, roaring. “Get away from him!” she called, smashing it into the drone’s side before it could bite at Codex again. “Find something else to eat!” The bug rolled away, squealing with pain.
It worked. The crowd of angry eyes stopped just out of sight, their eyes animal hunger as they stared out from the darkness at them. They hissed, backed away. They would find something else to eat.
Harlequin started backing up. “Get up, stupid. Open door just behind us. Go.”
He went, without arguing this time. Harlequin kept the rod in front of her until she could pull the door shut behind them.
Good, well done.
Well, that's ominous. Especially given the voice whispering in her mind after that.
As for Codex... He'll probably prove useful later on, but I can't help but think that it'd be better for literally everyone else if Harlequin just abandoned him. I suppose we'll see in time.
9558023
He has knowledge of what it is to be a pony, while Harlequin is by and large still ignorant of ponies. If Harlequin is to escape and stay escaped, she's going to have to learn how ponies think.
I like this, before she had to survive the ponies, now she has to survive her own kind.
9558023
9558104
He may be useful, but I still have the urge to smack his head with a rock
Once again, is not the first time Starscribe writes a character who is meant to be sympathetic, yet for the readers is little more than an annoying load.
9558183
To be fair, though, his behaviour is pretty natural, if a bit short-sighted.
His life was stolen from him. His family thinks he's dead. Changelings tried to kill him. Ponies want him dead. He cooperated with ponies to prove his identity, only to suffer the crushing realisation that they don't believe him anyway.
His life totally sucks right now, and he's going to need more time to work his way through the various stages of grief.
9558023
Nightmare or something similar perhaps.
9558183
He's not wrong, though. Harlequin is an invader who attacked Canterlot, murdered ponies and turned Codex into a changeling. That last being something which, I might add, she doesn't feel sorry for one bit.
Codex is a pony who got turned into a changeling against his will, and the got lumped in with all other changelings because ponies don't know enough about changelings to believe him. All he did was try to convince ponies of that fact. He has done nothing wrong, and Harlequin is the reason for everything that happened to him.
Codex's problem here is that he's still thinking like a pony when he keeps getting put into situations where at least trying to think like a changeling, or at least thinking from their point of view of the matter, would probably be of better use to him. If it wasn't for the goodness of Harlequin's heart constantly going back to saving him even when he doesn't necessarily deserve it, he'd be dead at least two times over by now.
I can still sympathize with him to a degree, as the situation he's been thrust into really is unfair for him too, but his constant denial of his situation is only going to get him killed unless he finally wises up. One of these times Harlequin's not going to be there to bail out his buggy butt, so hopefully Harlequin can finally slap some sense into him. Besides, Harlequin may be the one responsible for putting him in this situation, but in her defense, it was partly out of duress and partly out of a fight for her own survival, and she's already saved him enough times that I think he really ought to owe her at least one by now.
I am both dismayed and horrified at the state of the other changelings, and how rapidly they seem to be degrading. They may have been invaders and guilty of the death of many innocent ponies, but not even they deserve this fate, one so worse than death. It probably would've been more merciful if all of the ponies had just executed them all from the start than let this happen. But the ponies were ponies--even they have limits on how monstrous they can be, and tried to be at least somewhat civil, even though they clearly didn't understand the first thing about the changeling needs for survival. I'd like to think that if the ponies at large were aware of what was going on in this prison, even some of them would be horrified about letting it continue.
But then I think back to chapter 14, and at the prison cells described there that ponies could clearly see into, and wonder how could the ponies not know that something has to be wrong by now? I mean, yeah, the cells described in that chapter seemed to be separate from these Harlequin and Codex were thrown into (I'm still not clear on why they were put here, too, for that matter), but surely what's happening down here is starting to happen up there too. And as the prison is clearly still guarded...surely somepony knows something horrific is happening down here, somepony that couldn't possibly just stand by and let it continue. I can't picture all of the ponies becoming that embittered from the invasion...but then the story hasn't been giving much indication to the contrary either.
Now that Codex is here, though, maybe he can give a bit more context for what has been happening upstairs with the ponies since Harlequin got discovered...and maybe some sort of ray of hope.
9558303
If she really didn't feel sorry for it, then why does she keep going and saving him? The story hasn't really outright said it yet, but I think it is her way to try and make it up to him, deep down.
It's true that Codex isn't wrong to blame Harlequin or to try and prove his innocence as a victim, but he's still doing so in a way that's not really helping himself or anyone else in the long run. Really, at this point, cooperating with Harlequin would probably be his better bet.
9558519
Because he's a changeling, and she wants to protect her fellow changelings. That's the thing in this debacle: She doesn't view Codex as "a pony she wronged by turning him into a changeling", she views him as "a changeling who doesn't know what he's doing, and needs looking after."
And for Codex, helping Harlequin isn't going to help him in any way that matters to him. The only thing he 'gets' out of helping Harlequin is escaping and being taught how to be a proper changeling, at best. But that still means he loses everything. His home, his family, his friends, his career, essentially his entire life. Helping Harlequin isn't going to help Codex, it'll just help Harlequin.
9558539
I don't know...I wouldn't rule out Harlequin being more of a help to Codex than you're giving her credit for, and I think she understands better than you give her credit for, too. At any rate, the thing about cooperation is that it's two-way--not only could Codex learn more about the changeling perspective, Harlequin could learn more about the pony perspective as well, and help both come to the middle ground both sides so desperately need at this point.
Actually, these two unfortunate souls could very well be the best hope for any sort of a happy ending right now, like it or not. But they aren't going to get it if they're constantly at each others throats.
The situation is bigger than the both of them now, anyway. They both need to realize that, really, if nothing else. It's not just about them anymore.
Why would the ponies save Codex if only to throw him back into the fray to die? They helped patch him up. And he truly does think he is a pony, that is at least worth studying. Magic has done stranger thing than turn ponies into 'monsters', or at the very least make it think its pony, so why wouldn't they at the very least keep him to study?
9558539
If dying didn't matter to Codex, he could have saved himself some effort just now.
9558023
Depends on if he still claims himself a pony. Obviously, we know where that's got him.
9558104
Codex could also "learn how ponies think" because they're apparently not giving him any benefit of the doubt now despite his continual protests.
9558134
It's a new experience. Imagine if people gained a hive mind. It'd be chaos.
9558183
People come in all flavors. It is mark of a good writer to make a truly memorable character.
9558303
The changelings were tools. And of course, Harlequin isn't going to feel too much yet for what she's done, she hasn't empathized with the pony experience. Ponies are still considered food. The one kill she was responsible for was the result of an attack, not a random summary execution. I don't even think she has time considering she has to survive and her experience with ponies so far is not so great to say the least.
As much as Codex's situation is sympathetic, he's practically a drowning swimmer that's starting to drag Harlequin with him. If he keeps this up and realizes his pleas aren't working (because they clearly aren't) he's going to get everyone killed. He becoming a liability.
9558539
Might be a little self-defense, but she did raise her blade against her kin when they were threatening those ponies during the initial chaos.
The "only thing" is increasingly looking like the only way. At the very least escaping might let him rejoin his family as himself for the last time before he has to move on with his life. His current path is self-destructive at the moment.
9558656
Racism? They might still think it's a trick? To them he's an anomaly for sure but is still a dangerous one. His intel might be proven right but they're not just gonna trust him. At worst, they don't care. A changeling is a changeling.
Was the Princess Luna?
You just can't get rid of some people....
9559199
If it is, she'll certainly be a voice of reason in the coming days. Harlequin is dreaming so it makes sense as well.
That doesn't sound like a normal Equestrian princess though, unless they're also tied to and have extensive knowledge of metaphysical concepts like fate. It feels like Discord or a being like him. In which case, either Harlequin suddenly has a powerful ally and her chances shot way up or she's dealing with the devil and may bring doom to them all.
9559454
My bet is either NM or the Tantabus.
This is starting to feel hopeless. Codex's actions may have been right from his perspective as a former pony, but they really screwed everything up in terms of Harlequin having any chance to save anyone by working in the guard.
9559718
It is possible. Whatever darkness that corrupted Luna could still be out there. It would be very, VERY angry. If it was the Tantabus, that would probably mean that Luna lost control of it since it isn't exactly sentient if I remember correctly.
9559827
Looking at current situation in the prison, it's not exactly helping him either.
9558303
9558519
Keroko is right, and I think readers are letting their affection for Changelings blind them to the truth. Harlequin destroyed his life. He's under no obligation to ever forgive her for it. For that matter, if he'd shut up and let Harlequin free the other bugs, there's a pretty high chance they would do to more ponies what was done to him, and I totally understand him not wanting that on his conscience.
9560599
Fair points. I guess it's just Harlequin's the hero of the story, not Codex, so naturally you wanna root more for her.
I'm quite convinced that neither of them are getting out of this alive without the help of the other, though. The story seems to be clearly heading in that direction now. So whatever their thoughts are of the other, they're going to have to work it out and cooperate with each other here, and it's my hope it's through doing so that they can also help everybody else in some way too.
Maybe I'm just being the optimist here.
9559199
I want it to be. But that whole scene was too vague to be certain yet.
9560599
Eh... its just protagonist bias. Just like pony bias.
Though seriously, I wouldn't really blame Harlequin much either. Being raised with changeling morals and such, she was mostly a tool who truly believed the hive mind was bliss and Codex's transformation is a beneficial thing. Most of the blame lays with upper management. But it looks like she has the capacity to reform her morality. To learn.
As for Codex's actions, I think people are more miffed about the ineffective way he's trying to get pony help. No one should expect him to help out the changelings. I certainly don't. But time and time again has it gotten himself into trouble. The beatings. The new prison. And he's not realizing it. PTSD or not, you can only garner so much sympathy with the pony-changeling hybrid if he decides to keeps banging his head against the wall like that. I don't know what I'd do in his shoes but it's certainly not that.
9558253
it's been established in this story that changelings don't have dreams of any kind
9559141
people DO have a hive mind, it's called the internet
9561917
That could mark the start of individuality with the changelings or that thing Harlequin saw is truly dangerous.
9561930
My sentence still stands.
9561989
didn't say it doesn't
9561917
woosh
I've no guesses as to how any of this prison predicament will unfold. Don't know, but Codex needs to have Harlequin get some sense into the current idiot's head.
Thank you, finally some one said it. Progress is progress.
9558656
They could have kept him for a time aready. Harlequin was wondering for an unknown amount of time, so they could have determined that Codex was a changeling. Which if they did keep him, it could be an issue because they're excellent at mimicking ponies enough to fool them -- destroying Harlequin's cover most likely destroyed any chance at really giving him the benefit of the doubt. It's also likely that they do not know of the infighting and mass starvation. Some most likely suspect from the piles of 'food' that has been essentially untouched, but most likely do not care because of the understandable prejudice.
Will there be more tags added as the story progresses?
9570447
Possibly, yes. If a new tag is warranted to keep the description accurate.
I hope the ponies pay for thier abuse and neglect to take care of thier prisoners. Hope they feel terrible.
Luna? Nah, probably Chrysalis
Geneva convention? More like Geneva suggestion!