Revulsion
“What do you mean, Ocellus?” Smolder asked, stepping between Ocellus and the fire.
Ocellus felt calmer now, though her stomach felt like it was tying itself into knots. She looked at Smolder, but didn’t smile. “I’ll explain. Just sit down, please. I’m alright now.”
Smolder looked from Ocellus to Sandbar and the others. After a moment of silence, she took her seat, and everyone else followed her lead. Yona sat down on Ocellus’ left, a hoof resting on her shoulder, and Sandbar moved to sit on her right.
Ocellus took a few short breaths and looked around at her friends as she spoke. “Changelings are special, in a lot of ways, but the important thing right now is that we’re empathic. We used to feed on love, but we could sense it too; we could smell, see, and sometimes even feel it. That’s not the only emotion we could sense like that though. Sadness, regret, envy, joy, pride; they each had a taste or a scent or even a tint to them.
“It helped a lot with getting trust, working our way into cultures and adapting to be a part of them. The thing about lots of different cultures and races, is that they all seemed to have some emotions that really shined. Love in ponies, pride with griffons, desire in dragons… A long time ago, when changelings observed races, that was how they named them, for the emotions that they saw the most.”
Ocellus paused, looking down at her front hooves and running them together. The memories, locked by generations and hives and colonies far past were still fresh in her mind. She wondered if they would fade at all.
“What does that have to do with our stories?” Silverstream asked, her voice cracking as she tried to sound cheerful despite the worried expression she wore.
Ocellus looked into the fire, watching a log collapse and send a shower of embers into the air. “There was one creature we never learned the true name of. We only had the emotion that we saw from it. It wasn’t like other creatures though. Even if a pony feels love a lot of time, for their friends or special somepony, they still have sadness, joy, disappointment, shame or any number of other emotions beneath the surface. They’ll bubble up and show themselves, or leave a scent on the wind.
"This creature only showed one emotion. It was always pointed at changelings, as it watched us from afar. It only felt Revulsion...”
Long ago, a scout for a hive was patrolling their borders. Near the exit of a tunnel that led underground, the scout saw a figure standing in the tree lines. It was tall, but shrouded in the shadows of the canopy. The scout tried to move closer, to see it better, but then felt the creature’s gaze turned on it. There was a sudden burst of Revulsion in the air, the scout’s stomach twisted, its wings fluttering in response to the rush of the powerful emotion.
The scout managed to run away, to alert the Queen. She insisted that soldiers assemble to assault the creature, and remove it from the forest. A horde was assembled, and the soldiers found the figure still standing just past the tree line. They changed into powerful forms, and attempted to assault Revulsion.
Bears, tigers, bugbears, manticores, chimeras, hounds, hydras and wyrms were not strong enough to kill Revulsion. As a group, they attacked it as wolves, lions, falcons, phoenixes and even in their natural forms, but they could not overwhelm Revulsion. Retreating, they attempted to ambush it if it left, as panthers and jaguars and cobras, but Revulsion never moved. Nothing they did to Revulsion made it leave. Nothing they did could kill it. Still, it let them live, and its feeling for them grew stronger.
The soldiers returned and told the Queen of their defeat. The Queen was angered, but as Revulsion had not killed the worthless drones, she did the task herself. She then ordered scouts to search the lands, far and wide, for other creatures like Revulsion. The years of their search went by, and the emotion of Revulsion weighed on the hive. Like a great miasma, it choked the attempts to gather and feed on any other emotion. It made even the Queen sick and weak. The air was tinted by a deep, rancid crimson.
Finally, the scouts returned, and they told tale of other Revulsions. All of them acted the same. All of them felt the same. Revulsions’ emotions for changelings never wavered, and they could always sense them despite their forms. Some scouts, however, had managed—by luck or circumstance—to observe Revulsion from a distance. They noticed how it changed its shape in subtle, small ways. They saw it mold the earth and weather and nature about it. They observed its feeding grounds, near the other creatures.
They saw it appear in great woods near Love and Pride. They saw it scour the seas near Astonishment. They saw it burrowed beneath the barren wastes near Desire. They saw it hide in the great snowfalls near Jubilation. They saw it in the plains of Shame. They saw it in the mountains of Inferior. They saw it in the deserts of Passion. They saw it in the jungles of Longing. They saw it in the forests of Envy.
Everywhere it tread, it inspired Fear. Still it only felt Revulsion.
The Queen asked if they had found a place it would not tread, and one scout said they had. A great mountain in a barren land where no other creature lived. The Queen gathered those drones fit to travel and left the others to rot in the miasma of Revulsion. Revulsion followed them. With no other option, the Queen continued onward.
By the time they reached the wastes, her hive was abysmal, decimated a dozen times over, but she would see them survive. With her last bit of strength, she gave her essence to a clutch that had been brought with them. Her husk left behind, the drones carried her progeny to the mountain. Revulsion followed. The sickly crimson filled the air. The miasma worsened. From inside out, some wasted away.
Suddenly, within sight of the mountain, Revulsion stopped. Its emotion remained intense, but it would not follow. In the mountain, hollowed out, the Hive made its new home. The clutch was born. A Queen survived as others perished. Revulsion watched.
Years passed. Revulsion’s gaze lessened, enough for drones of the Hive to sneak by it, to gather food. One day, it was gone. No trace was left behind, except for the aftertaste of the miasma. It hung for decades, burned into the land Revulsion had tread.
Ocellus took a deep breath as she finished, and then exhaled it slowly. Looking around at her friends, she saw a mixture of confusion and uncertainty in their expressions. Smolder had crossed her arms, looking down at her feet. Yona was fiddling with her hooves as she looked into the fire. Gallus and Sandbar were both rubbing the back of their necks, oddly in time with one another. Silverstream tapped her claws against her chin and beak, and was the first one to speak up.
“You remembered all of this?” she asked, and Ocellus nodded in reply. “From our stories?” Ocellus nodded again, the knot in her stomach starting to undo itself a little. “And the weird changeling instinct memory thingie is triggered when you remember threats?”
Ocellus nodded once more, and looked into the fire. Through Ocellus’ and Silverstream’s stories, they hadn’t fed it more firewood, and the flame was dwindling down to embers. Amidst the darkness, it seemed brighter than anything else.
“It fed on fear. It would find what creatures feared, spread stories into their cultures, and then feed on those lingering horrors. I don’t know why it hated changelings though. Maybe because if we alerted creatures to shapeshifters existing, its ability to get food would cease? Or maybe it was because the Queen wouldn't let us fear it.”
As Ocellus let the silence take hold again, there was still a nagging thought at the back of her mind. It was something familiar, but hazy. She looked to her books, curious if there would be any information, in any tome, of a time so far back in history that it took this long to come to the surface.
“Is it still around?” Sandbar asked, and Ocellus looked around, sniffing at the air.
The memory of that awful emotion was still fresh in her mind, but there was no sign of it around, and no changeling had ever mentioned the creature to her. Finally, she shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I think, as time marched on, there was less for creatures to fear. The stories remained, and changed, but it wasn’t enough for them to feed on. Maybe the wilds also vanished, conquered year by year.”
Gallus let out a nervous laugh, his body relaxing. “I could have sworn you were gonna say ‘yes’ and that there’s one sitting in the Everfree.”
It took a moment, but Smolder let out a snort of smoke and started laughing as well. Sandbar and Yona chuckled after a few more moments. Seconds later, Silverstream was fighting back a giggle and that set Ocellus off. For about a minute, they all collapsed into laughter as their nerves gave way. The fire seemed brighter still.
“Maybe we should get back to the dorms,” Sandbar suggested as the laughter began to thin. Ocellus looked to Ponyville. The lights were starting to go out in houses, and even from so far away, it was clear to see the streets were empty.
Everyone began to get ready to go, and while the others went about putting out the fire and gathering up the leftover snacks, Ocellus put her books back into her saddlebags. Part of her had worried the same as Gallus when those memories came to her, but it was for the best. Whatever Revulsion was, it was so far back in changeling “history” that those reactions were buried incredibly deep. It was by chance that she'd even recalled them.
She shook her head, trying to force her thoughts back to more current affairs. She wondered if there was still time to get a good costume ready for Nightmare Night as she put the book about pony traditions away. Then again, she could just change her appearance. That would probably get her disqualified from any contest though.
As they left and walked back to school, she was at Sandbar’s side, asking about other pony traditions, and if he knew any stories that weren't in her books.
Arriving back at the School of Friendship, everyone said their goodbyes and good nights, and Ocellus walked into her room. Her body felt exhausted, still drained from the rapid number of changes she had undergone. Leaving her books inside of her bag for the night, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers over herself.
Closing her eyes, sleep began to come quickly. Memories of the night and stories fell away, but in their place, something else bubbled up in her mind.
Images flashed in her mind: forests, caves and islands. Terrified creatures. Their bodies exuded fear, delicious and rich. Their villages grew fat with it.
She closed her eyes tighter, and curled up under the covers. Her stomach twisted.
She told herself it was just her imagination going wild, even as the image of a changeling flashed before her.
She hated it, with every fiber of her being, for betraying what it was.
By morning, when Ocellus awoke, the nightmare had faded. In the early morning light, she felt sick, and the room was tinted a faint crimson.
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So... are we supposed to already know what the crimson room means at the end, or will that just remain unexplained for horror purposes?
If I was forced to guess, I'd say that Revulsion is a mutated changeling, one that could feed on fear instead of love, Or at least something akin to a changeling.
Anyway. While this story sort of "happened" still, it also still exposes primal changeling fears: Hunger and weakness. Not being able to defeat an enemy, and the starvation that this loss causes.
9893444
Unexplained for horror purposes sounds about right.
I have a sense something terribly wrong occurred during the time period of 12:00 am - 9:00 am in Ocellus Bedroom.
And we know that unlike the other stories we have evidence that Revulsion did exist and was very real...
Woooow
that ending.... It made this story REALLY scary and so beautiful!
Now I want to see continuation of this story!
hmm, what's thing with this "Revulsion"?
My first theory sounds crazy. After first reading, for me, it sounds like originally Changelings were helpers/creations of Revulsions, or rather were ones who were "Revulsions", who used to feed with fear. Changelings were ones who changed their forms and surroundings to some myphical creatures and showed themselves to other living creatures, spreading the most powerful type of fear that would stay over generatons. But one day changelings "betrayed" their nature and changed, and so they started to feed with love, and they locked all encoded memories about their past lives. Remainings of Revulsions kept live in lands of other races, being attached to places where they were feared, not able to move to lands where noone lives, and they all felt only hatred towards new changelings. Then some single Revulsion decided to get rid of changelings with infecting them with decease of unabling to feed on other emotions, because of strong aura of hatred. But changelings managed to survive by moving to barelands. And all remaining revulsions did extinct with time.
But now Ocellus somehow managed to remember what Revulsions felt in distant past when they fed with fear, she remembered how SHE was in that caves and forests, observing scared living creatures, and also she feel what Revulsions actually felt - they hated changelings for betraying their original form and purpose, and who knows, maybe the fact that changelings managed to betray themselves AGAIN, turning to creatures we know them now, it somehow brought us to ending scene with Ocellus... :O
But I'm thinking too much again.
Well, I hope somepony or somecreature will help Ocellus to get rid of this decease.
I thought the Revulsion were ponies.
9893444
9893516
The crimson color is mentioned related to the emotion of revulsion. The implication is just that Ocellus felt that while sleeping.
This was...nice. Not jaw-dropping or anything. What you see is what you get-the Student Six telling scary stories.
The stories were nicely paced, sufficiently creepy, and unique to each culture. Well done there!
Ocellus' story raises some interesting implications and, if i'm honest, I'd like to see a sequel to his story exploring the effects of Revulsion on Ocellus. Of course, as the author, that choice is yours.
On an unrelated note, why are the griffins presented as Germanic? I've read at least ten stories on FimFiction by unrelated authors where the griffins have German names or their language is pretty much just German. I've never seen anything to inspire that in canon, so is it a fanon thing? If it is a fanon thing, where did it start?
9896376
Honestly, I'm not sure where the idea to connect griffons to German came from. I recall discussing it at a party with a friend, when I had the idea to take a bit of real world inspiration for some stories. I'm not sure why I landed on it (besides them both starting with a G).
Fascinating works of world building through suspense. Brilliant work from start to finish. Thank you for it.
10082611
No worries about "nitpicking". Better they get pointed out and fixed, which they have been.
10161232
Still this is an excellent story, thank you.
9897051
its to do with in show geolocation and arcutecture desings and attitudes though i would have pegged them more canadians
can others try to enter this spooky story verse with new beings would be fun to see if the creatures could be around nowday abd studied by the young6
I feel as if Revulsion was describing humanity somehow.
Your Review
9893796
that actually makes sense, I am subscribing to that cannon
9897051
well the german coat of arms IS an eagle..
10225688
if there was it would be a nuclear submarine lurking outside seaquestira
Feels like ants biting at the inside of my throat. I couldn't help but read out almost the entire story with my best horror voice, even though I was all alone. I'm pretty sure my voice is going to be awful tomorrow, but it was worth the fun. Lovely story (/stories?) <3
The first time I read this, I missed the absurdly obvious thing that was right in front of me.
Revulsion was a shapeshifter that felt revulsion for a shapeshifter that fed on a different emotion, and it doing so caused changelings to get sick and things to turn crimson.
When Ocellus, a shapeshifter, felt revulsion for a shapeshifter that fed on a different emotion, a changeling got sick and things turned crimson.
Thus, when changelings feel revulsion at other changelings for (betraying what they are by) feeding on different emotions, it makes changelings sick and things turn crimson.
I feel downright stupid for missing that originally.
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I think the evolution of the changeling form in this cannon is how power structures evolve over time. From ruling by enforced fear, to ruling by deceit-forged love, to cooperation and mutual sharing. Any of those from other types typically despise the others for not conforming to their version of perfection.
Well done.