Crystals & Chitin

by Nytus

04. | Now It's Running My Way

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

I was sure that I heard him clearly enough, but I never expected him to actually say such a thing. Perhaps I misjudged the old stallion, or maybe he considered the threat significant enough now to admit that he couldn’t win on his own. In either event, did he really mean to infer that he was going to leave the mare with me?

Talk about entrusting the cat with your canary, I thought. It actually took some effort to suppress my grin.

Warden sighed before elaborating. “I said, I will be leaving in the morning. Something has changed, and the usurper is no longer ignoring my presence. There was a possibility of acting against him when he simply found me amusing, but what we dealt with today changes the game.

“We’re going to need help. There’s nopony left in the empire to recruit, so we have to look further afield. That means asking ponies from the southern tribes.”

Double Time sank to her haunches with an audible thud against the crystalline floor. “You’re leaving? But… the other ponies won’t care. They haven’t come to help us yet, and they’re all fighting each other already. Why would they stop arguing with one another just because you asked them to? Why would they walk through the blizzard to save us now, when we weren’t worth their time before? Warden, you can’t go!”

Though young, she was hardly a filly and seemed to have a surprisingly sound grasp of the situation. I could respect that, even if she was arguing against the former soldier’s decision to leave me alone with her.

“Now, now, Miss Time,” he consoled her as he crossed the room and wrapped a hoof around her shoulders. “It will be okay. Finding the tribes will be the hardest part. Once I manage that, I am confident that they will send help after I explain how things stand here. Commander Hurricane and I were friends once, and I have heard Princess Platinum is more than reasonable so long as compensation is offered. I am sure there is something in the palace that could convince her to send a few of her unicorns north.”

“You know,” I spoke up, “I came up from down that way when I returned to the city. The wendigos and their storms are stronger than I’ve ever heard of before. You’re talking about a few months worth of travel in the best of cases. Since I can’t imagine you intend to bring Miss Time along, I am guessing that means you plan for me to watch over her?”

Obviously, but it never hurts to get specific details out in the open. Hearing it from her guardian will allow the mare to accept it more readily than if I suggested it.

He nodded. “If it’s not too much to ask. It’s no safer out in that cold than it is here. At least if you remain here and the worst should happen... if the two of you should be discovered—”

That’s not actually the worst that could happen, especially for her.

“—you’ll still be breathing and can be rescued.”

Well, okay, yes. Everypony would still be breathing… and technically could be rescued, though that would be unlikely in the particular ‘worst-case’ scenario that I am thinking of.

“Outside of the Empire, there are no such guarantees. But yes, Headway is correct, Miss Time,” he confirmed. “The trip will take quite a while. I know that I promised to protect you until your parents woke up—”

There’s an interesting way to phrase it.

“—but somepony has to go, and I know the ponies who can help us. I’ve seen how resourceful the lad can be, you’ll be safe with him.”

Flattering. It’s almost a shame that there is no ‘him.’

I half expected her to argue with him, or launch herself at him in the hopes of changing his mind. Instead, Double Time choked back a sob and slowly approached Warden. She sat down next to him and rested her head against his shoulder.

“Come home soon, Warden. I’ll miss you.”

Huh. That was more mature of her than I thought possible. That’s the wonder of adolescence, I suppose. A filly one minute and a mare the next.

---

I gave them both three days before I set my plans into motion.

It was always possible that Warden would be forced back into town after underestimating the blizzard, and as for Double Time—she may have worn a determined face to see her guardian off, but I could feel her emotional turmoil. She needed to mourn her imaginary loss before I could work my magic.

The day he left, I didn’t go out. With the recent activity in the next neighborhood over, it was easy to convince Double Time that we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves or to Warden as he made his way slowly out of the city.

I went out on the second day. I assured Double Time that I would be careful and limit my search to just a couple houses in the opposite direction from the previous neighborhood.

As soon as I was out of sight from the schoolhouse, however, I let the soothing flames consume me and took the form of some local species of bird that I didn’t even know the name of.

The flighty little avian was in no way attractive, consisting of a solid grey coloration with splotches of black on its wings in a seemingly random pattern. The only color on them was a single tuft of dull orange on its neck. Its voice was not particularly pleasant either, but it had one useful advantage: they were everywhere. I could literally fly right up to the palace balcony without a second thought or glance.

So I did.

From my perch on the balcony’s railing, I could see into the throne room. I had to keep moving my head around like a moonstruck moron—I really hate these birds—to maintain the deception, but I was able to make out quite a bit of the room nonetheless.

The self-styled king was quite the fan of those black crystal formations, as almost the entire room was covered in them. They rose around the former royal family’s throne like a crystalline claw reaching up from the floor, ready to pull the uncomfortable old chair into the pits of Tartarus.

Lounging on that throne was what appeared to be a dark gray unicorn. However, I knew enough about both unicorns and impersonation to know that appearances could be deceiving.

His horn was curved and unusually smooth for an equine. It almost looked like my own aside from the red tint rising from the base and the disgusting purple bubbling effect that his otherwise familiar green magical corona included.

King Sombra interested me because, according to Warden’s account, the stallion had grown up living in the Crystal Empire as one of them. Presumably, that meant some crystal couple raised him as their own, therefore, either his appearance changed the day he seized the city or nopony in the empire could recognize an Umbral when they saw one.

The most obvious giveaway was his eyes. Crimson iris, with solid green where it should be white on a pony. I felt it safe to assume that those were a recent change since I very much doubted that anypony would willingly adopt a colt with such eyes. Most ponies would run from him looking like that, foal or not.

At least I can definitively confirm that what I saw the other day was indeed Sombra looking at me through the mad pony’s eyes. Not that it matters now, but I imagine all that mindless rage didn’t even come from the stallion. It was probably Sombra’s.

I watched him for several minutes before I had to abandon my surveillance for fear of giving myself away.

During that time, he never moved or spoke a word. His eyes were open and giving off rippling purple tendrils of his two-toned magic, but they were unfocused. I assumed that meant he was actively puppeting one of his conquered pony pets somewhere in the city.

I flew over the central commons where tents and slightly more permanent fair stands still stood abandoned—mute evidence that Sombra’s rise to power was sudden. The ponies of the empire were celebrating something and hadn’t even been given enough warning to close the food stalls and crafts tents set up in the street. Their various contents scattered across the roadway as tables were overturned in their haste to flee.

From high above, specific details were a bit out of focus, but empty tarps drawn over poles weren’t what I was looking for anyway. The prize I sought would excuse my absence.

I had been out longer than Warden usually was on his runs, and I was sure Double Time would have noticed by now and begun worrying. The last thing I needed was for her to try and be a hero, leaving the schoolhouse in an attempt to rescue me from whatever dangers lived in her imagination.

The sunlight made it difficult to spot what I wanted, even with the bird’s unusually sharp eyesight, but eventually, I found it once I started landing on window sills in the more affluent part of town.

There it was: a unicorn lamp, active and shedding its magical light in some noble’s counting room.

My disguise was suddenly inadequate. The bird was not large enough to carry the lamp, nor was it strong enough to open or even break a window to gain access to it.

Sombra already knows there is a changeling in town. He may not comprehend what changelings are or what we are capable of, but our appearance, at the very least, is no longer a secret. The only pony in the empire that I have to hide from now is Double Time… I doubt the affected are going to tip her off.

Resolving to retrieve my prize au naturel, I allowed my disguise to dissolve around me in emerald flames. I was confident that my position on the third-floor balcony of this empty noble’s mansion was secluded enough that I let the change happen slowly. I have never known a greater joy than the feeling of transformation magic washing over me, and it was rare that I had the opportunity to truly enjoy it.

Even taking it slowly, the euphoria ended, as it always does, much too quickly. After a few moments, I stood on that balcony with my chitin gleaming in the sunlight, greedily absorbing the light to make itself the envy of all who saw it. Polished to a beautiful sheen. It was almost a shame that nopony could see it, but that was kinda the point I suppose or else I’d have never reverted to ‘Carina’ in the first place.

I tested the balcony’s door and found it to be locked, as were the two windows flanking it.

Of all the doors to actually be locked, why bother with one on the third floor? There are no pegasi this far north.

Rather than taking another new disguise—as much as the thought of doing so made me smile a bit—I opted for a quicker solution, one which I rarely had reason to employ but I felt like it was a trick I may want to brush the dust off of if the situation turned sour on me.

Calling up my magic, I formed a circle of green fire around me and sank into the floor.

Like all changeling magic, the flames were heatless, but that didn’t stop them from rising up consuming me, flashing like a stage magician’s powder before winking out just as quickly, taking me with them. The world slides away from you when fire-portalling. For a single heartbeat, you stop existing. You float in a void that you can’t even see before being pulled back into the real world somewhere else with the ghost of green flames flickering out around your hooves.

I stepped out of the ring of fire as it burned itself out, looking around the moderately large office for anything else I might as well take while I was here. I settled for a pot of ink, several stacks of blank paper, and a book titled ‘Origins of the Faire’ which was sitting open on the desk.

Initially, the book was of personal interest to me as it depicted the Crystal Heart on the page it had been open to. Unfortunately, after a quick skimming of its contents, I realized it was merely an account of the ritual used to recharge the Heart. I had my own means to charge it, once it was in my possession, making the text less valuable to me.

Speaking of which…

I grabbed the lamp, turned it off, and added it to the rest of the things I was procuring from the counting room.

I then swept the mansion for affected ponies very quickly, keeping my horn lit and ready to defend myself properly. I made my way to the kitchen, promptly cleaned out the pantry, and tossed my loot into a very ornate bathroom towel with an embroidered monogram of the letter ‘T’ in the corner.

The fact that the mansion was clean and didn’t seem to have the usual filth I’d come to associate with life as an affected contaminating the building wasn’t lost on me, but it was a curiosity that could wait for another time. I was simply thankful for the small things.

Once again, I called up the ring of fire and sank into it, disappearing from the marble home to step out of a similar ring as it faded around my hooves behind one of the houses surrounding the school building.

The distance was more significant than I anticipated, as was the draw on my reserves. While much faster than walking, or even flying, the fire portal was too taxing to use regularly. Its energy requirement wasn’t quite exponential, but it certainly ramped up quickly the further you needed to go.

A smile crossed my lips as I called ‘Headway’ to mind and allowed the soothing flame to melt me down. The magic reforged my body into that of the squishy silver pony I’d been posing as, providing an opportunity to once again tweak my temporary muscle tone just a bit more.

With Warden away, I felt safe in giving myself just a little more than would be realistic. He may have noticed the incredible progress, but I was reasonably sure Double Time’s untrained eye wouldn’t.

My smile faded with the magic’s embrace. It was always fleeting.

I picked up the towel-wrapped treasures and shifted the weight on my shoulders before stepping out into the cul-de-sac. A few dozen steps later, I opened the schoolhouse door and stepped inside, only to have a green blur assault me and a pony’s weight hanging from my neck.

“Headway! Are you okay? What happened? You were gone a lot longer than usual,” Double Time said between sobs. I could feel her concern, but it was fading quickly, to be replaced with relief and joy.

Before I answered her, I took a moment to replenish some of the magic I used up with the fire portals, taking in a bit of her offered emotional energy. It wasn’t equivalent—not by a long shot—but if I sipped on her strength a bit all night, I was sure I could replace what I lost by morning.

“I’m fine, Miss Time. Better than fine, in fact. I found a few things that you might like,” I said as I shrugged the towel full of acquisitions off my back.

“I know it gets a little boring here, so I thought you might like a new book.” Seeing only a slight interest in her face after seeing the title, I quickly moved on. “Or, if you are a bit more creative than inquisitive, I also brought back some paper and ink. You could draw or keep a journal or fold paper animals. I don’t know… I am not very good at crafts myself.”

She laughed softly at my admittedly false admission. Simple crafts were a requirement of infiltration. You never knew what skills your disguise was expected to have.

And now it’s time for dinner.

“Oh, and I almost forgot… I also stumbled across a unicorn lamp, no big deal.”

Skepticism. Curiosity. Wonder. Joy.

Her gasp was delivered as I felt the wonder burst out of her.

“Oh! Where did you find one of these? I haven’t seen one of these since leaving my house, and I didn’t think anypony around here would have one,” she exclaimed before the smile on her face gradually faded. “But… they’re awfully bright, and they don’t flicker at all. Won’t that give us away?”

I rubbed my hoof over her mane with a chuckle.

“Nah. If anything, it is a lot safer than using oil lamps. A flickering flame means somepony had to light it. That I would think is the more dangerous scenario. If nopony has noticed the lights we’ve used in the past, I doubt anypony is going to notice the unicorn lamp. They don’t wear out, so it’s not unthinkable that it’s been on for months or even years with nopony around to turn it off,” I replied.

Her happiness returned in a flash, and mine did as well once I was able to start siphoning it off again. She sat down with the lamp, paper, and ink then began to write something down. She spent the evening at the teacher’s desk, sitting in the chair rather than on the surface. I am not entirely sure what she wrote that first night since she hid it from me whenever I walked past.

“Thank you, Headway,” was all she said when she decided it was time to sleep. It’s all she needed to say. Everything else that I needed from her was already being put to use.

---

“Headway, wait a moment,” she called out to me as I was walking out the front door the next morning.

I slowly closed the door again and turned toward her.

“What’s wrong, Miss Time,” I asked her. “Is there something specific you’d like me to bring back this time?”

“Yeah. Me.”

I took a moment and paused as I tried to figure out what she meant. Her emotions didn’t provide many clues either, they were a jumbled mess.

Excitement. Embarrassment. Anxiety. Fear. Hope.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I eventually prompted her for an explanation.

She fidgeted a moment before responding, taking an unusual interest in her front hooves before nodding to herself, looking up into my face and forcing herself to maintain eye contact.

“I want to come with you.”

Interesting.

She continued, “Warden treats me like a foal because he feels responsible for my well being. I know how things are out there, and I want to help. I need to do something, anything, besides huddle in the corner with a coloring book. It’s more frightening sitting alone in the silence, not knowing if the two of you will make it back with another day’s worth of food that I didn’t contribute to than it would be if I was out there with you. I don’t deserve that. My parents are royal guards, I can handle myself, and I can watch your back. I promise!”

Very interesting. Warden wouldn’t like it, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, I mused. On the one hoof, having her with me would provide more opportunities to strengthen her dependence on me, granting me quicker and deeper access to her love… on the other hoof, having her tag along will definitely slow down my search for the Heart.

“Headway?”

I shook my head and focused on her face, which was anxiously cocked to the side with big puppy-dog eyes engaged.

“Sorry. I was just considering your proposal,” I said. I took a breath for dramatic effect before answering her with a perfectly modest smile on my face.

“I don’t know if I’d be comfortable taking you with me on the more dangerous trips deeper into the city, but I don’t see why you couldn’t come along most days on simple grocery runs until you get a little bit of experience. So, why not? Come on.”

We walked out the door together, pausing only briefly as Double Time blinked several times to adjust to the direct daylight. Grinning to myself, I draped one hoof lazily over her shoulders and squeezed her to me in a brief hug before descending the five short steps of the main entrance and leading her through the empty cul-de-sac.

I could feel her embarrassment and confusion trailing behind me.

'Remember to perform minor, seemingly random, physical displays of affection every so often. It’ll establish a correlation between proximity to yourself and your prey’s personal safety.'

I couldn't help quoting that bit of infiltrator training in my head. It was a lesson few of my peers bothered to remember, which is why I was so much better at this sort of thing than they were.

I had intended to return to the palace. However, I had to come up with a new plan, now that Double Time would be coming along.

Despite her assurance that she could take care of herself, I was unenthusiastic about taking her more than block or two from the schoolhouse. Opting to avoid the neighborhood that held Sombra’s attention, I led the way through the local backyards and into the gardens of the adjacent community.

“All right, when we are in the yards or buildings, move slowly and quietly. Any time we have to be in sight of the streets, especially the main roads, you’ll have to walk rather briskly. It’s not gonna be comfortable, so we’ll try to avoid it for today.

“All we need for now is a bit of food. I am sure Warden has already searched these homes, but I am also sure he limited his search to the kitchens. What we are going to do is raid the basements. Many ponies have pantries, and some have full-on preserving cellars for jams and other do-it-yourself canning projects. Pickles, sugar-water preserved fruits, and so on. Maybe even cider, if we’re lucky,” I said, winking once with a grin on my face.

She blushed briefly before nodding her head in the affirmative.

“Oh, one more thing,” I said as I shrugged out of my saddlebags and started flipping through the contents. A moment later, I brought out one of the towels I had collected recently and proceeded to tear it half lengthwise and passed one of the halves to Double Time.

“Here, tie this around your muzzle. Trust me.”

A few minutes later, we were standing behind the nearest of the houses. There was no sign of anypony living here, but that wasn’t unusual to me. It did creep out the young mare beside me, however, as I could feel her reluctance and fear. To her credit, she never voiced her concerns or hesitated when I directed her on how to do something.

We were in and out of the house in just a few minutes, having not found a basement in the home.

After several hours had passed, we had searched every home in the neighborhood. Only two of which actually had basements, but thankfully my prediction was correct about one of them, and the two of use hauled dozens of canned good out of there, barely leaving a dent in the disaster survivalist’s dream that the homeowners had accumulated. There would be no need to find a new source of food for at least a few weeks.

We spent another hour or so making multiple trips back and forth between the schoolhouse and our treasure trove of sealed glass jars with various edibles floating within.

By midday, we had brought back more food than the schoolhouse had cumulatively stored the entire time I was with them.

“Not bad,” I teased while cracking open a jar of peaches, “for a beginner.”

A rude sound came back to me in reply, followed by mirth, pride, and contentment.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “All I am saying is that I brought back more food today than Warden has all summer… it is still summer, right?”

She let her legs collapse beneath her as she wrestled with her own jar of preserved fruit. Her insistence on slamming the lid of the container against the floor to loosen it made my squishy flesh crawl due to the crystal sounding like cracking ice once again.

I’ll never get used to that sound.

“Autumn, actually. At least it would be down south. I am not sure what it should be up here, I’ve been away too long to keep track.”

The cracking sound ended abruptly as she gave up on doing it herself and instead tossed it to me.

“Here, you do it. You’re the strong one here.”

I almost dropped the jar when I instinctively reached for it with my magic, only to realize a split second before it was too late that I didn’t currently have a horn to work magic with. I scrambled to catch it with my hooves, diving to the floor and arresting its descent, mere inches before it would have done what the ground sounded like it was doing every time the young mare jumped on it.

I spun the lid off for her and passed it back, only then noticing that my dash to save her lunch cost me my own. I watched as the open container rolled across the floor behind me, shedding halved peaches along its path.

I picked it up and dumped what remained directly into my mouth—two split peach pieces and a quarter of the jar’s volume in sugary juice.

Double Time giggled and tapped the floor beside her.

“My hero. I suppose I could reward you by sharing some of mine,” she quipped.

I grumbled a bit for appearance’s sake, then slid over next to her, accepting a whole strawberry she pulled out of her jar and offered me.

It was good. I might even say it was delicious if I wasn’t comparing it to what else I was surprised to find myself consuming at that moment.

Love.

She was wearing her heart out on her sleeve, and forgetting the outside world existed at that moment. It was pure and enjoyable, and the strongest I had siphoned from her yet.

The only unusual thing about it, though, was the fact that I hadn’t actively manipulated that scenario. I didn’t pull it out of her. I didn’t trick her into thinking about it. It was naturally occurring and entirely her idea.

It was still the fleeting love of an adolescent—hardly even comparable to the powerhouse of true love—but it was filling, all the same.

The next few months look to be promising. Don’t hurry home, Warden.

Author's Note:

update:
Originally posted on the 8th of July, 2019.
An editing pass was made on the 4th of March, 2020.

Comments

[Assy Assman]

Noice. Keep it up.

[Nytus]

9722115
I appreciate it. I will.

[StarlightisVERYcute]

I'm thoroughly enjoying this so far. But I must ask--is Carina male or female?

EDIT: Just got to a line where she refers to herself as female. I was confused because Warden called her "son".

[Nytus]

9733765
Warden called Carina ‘son’ while she was transformed.
In her natural changeling body, Carina is indeed female.
In her disguise as ‘Headway’ among Warden and Double Time, she is physically male. The others don’t know Headway is only a disguise, and therefore don’t know she is actually female.

Changeling pronouns can get complicated. I will try to make it a little clearer what gender she is physically when she takes a new form.

[StarlightisVERYcute]

9734250
Thank you for explaining! I am loving your story and eagerly await more.