Just under a week before Hearth's Warming, a young mother finds a lone changeling child at the mercy of the elements. Will this nymph become her family's salvation? Or its damnation?
A spirital successsor to Raugos' Integration. (Familiarity not required)
All artwork done by Jowyb
Proofreading by The Fan Without a Face
I like this story! You described everything really clearly. Now I want to know what happens next!
That was a great first chapter, I can’t say to see what happens next.
Excellent first chapter, I can't wait to see what happens next.
Very good first chapter. Now I’m wondering just how bad things will go when the father finds out.
Great story! Can’t wait to see more
Whoa,I love it!can't wait to see more chapters!
A good start. Shellac may have found a home... if circumstances let him.
I think the word you want is piqued.
You're
11788960
Thanks! I'd prefer if any corrections were sent to me via DMs just to keep it clean here, but thanks!
Interesting chapter, seems like copper might warm up to shell, Lance will make and appearance soon im guessing as well. Not sure why but the chapter didn’t appear on bookshelf
Hope we get a copper pov, would be interesting to get his thoughts.
static.wikia.nocookie.net/candh/images/2/20/CFSB.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20120306033841
This is a wonderful story so far. Love Rainings infectious positivity.
This game sounds awesome!
Raining is a madcolt out there! It seems like Lance has some score to settle,but why? Great work!
That's almost as bad as Moxxie's drink order
Just read all the chapters up to this point, and I've gotta say, I really like this! I'm not usually one to read stuff that's mainly original characters, but pre reform changelings are my weakness. You've managed to actually get a very good balance of making Shell/Thunder mature and sensible while keeping him feeling like a child. That's not easy.
What the heck happened to screw Lance up this bad, or was he just always a monster? Because all this is just so, so far beyond even the most stretched notions of barely okay that it'd be a miracle if he doesn't have a criminal record by the end of this story.
11829267
Oh, you'll find out, there was a brief mention near the start of chapter 4 after the prologue chapter but more in-depth reasons will come up.
Something I wanna point out is that I don't like shoving information into my reader's face. I like seeing the cogs turn in people's heads.
Oh boy,Lance is out for murder now...
Could you please put the image somewhere else in the public? Discord CDNs now only return files with an expiration date set, so if not archived, all images will shortly be inaccessible.
Very curious now... What happened to Raining's father? Dead? Disappeared? I hope there would be a definitive answer...
... Literally butchered?
11833951
Crud, okay so the best I can do for now is provide links to each public version of the images. I've tried using the website URLs but they register as invalid for some reason when using the image tool, If you know a better way then please, I'm all ears.
For clarification, the only two places I know where the images are public is Derpi and Deviantart
Shellac.
Wish he could be properly adopted.
11834434
Maybe try using this markup:
[img]Paste image URL here[/img]
Like this:
[img]https://derpicdn.net/img/download/2024/1/3/3274132.png[/img]
derpicdn.net/img/download/2024/1/3/3274132.png
11834773
Okay that works! But only for the first three pics, I'll contact the artist and see if we can sort this out but thanks a ton for the workaround! +Rep
Really enjoying this story so far!
11834824
Okay, every chapter that has an illustration is now present within the chapters. Enjoy everyone!
Things are really starting to come to a head here, hopefully Lance's bs willl be dealt with soon.
Lance has a truly horrible mindset, it seems. Worst part is he'll probably blame Shellock being a changeling for it when he was just as bad beforehand. Very much hoping to see him get brought down a peg.
11834773
Damn that's some impressive artwork. Who did that?
Happy belated birthday! The chapter was nice. It's good to see where Raining gets some of his personality from. And now we know what drives Lance,but he's taking it too far.
Oh boy...I hope Shellac will be ok.
Hope Gleaming will be alright...
Why am I getting "Lance acts like a giant douche because he's actually a closeted homosexual" vibes?
11846268
It's more a combination of stuff, having to learn around a pack of griffon exchange students probably didn't help.
(I'll admit you have to look between the lines to find it but Griffons have a "If you're a pushover, you're gonna get pushed over" mentality.)
I hope Gleaming will be ok . And Shellac and Raining can find somewhere safe to hide
Seriously wondering what Lance's problem is. It can't be Shellock in particular because he was like this well before he came into picture. Either way, I do hope he is made to stop this behavior one way or another.
Its obvious that Shellock's a kid and they still want to lock him in a dungeon? Do they just have the exact same procedure for every changeling? What even is the plan here? Just lock them all up forever for existing? Do they get fed or are they made to starve essentially?
11847328
I believe those questions were answered by Copper back in chapter 2, imagine you're the person in charge of handling the situation. You have this race of creatures with no centralised government, that made their first opening act to attack the capital and so until further developments are made and public trust increases you can't let them roam around for public safety reasons.
As bonkers as it is, keeping them where you know they won't cause any harm until an alternative can be found is probably the best decision. But of course "until further development" could mean any length of time, so for all Shellac knows, he could be an old man by the time that happens.
11847375
As for Lance, you'll see...
Bullies are dumb.
Oh my god this little hellspawn Lance, you wrote them to be so hateable, I can't wait to see what happens next!
'Might've' just lost
Why the uncertainty?..
Is he not dead, just in a coma with very little hope of waking up?
I want to have words with whoever taught lance to be this way. Well done on writing this character to be so unlikeable.
Oof, that confrontation between Copper and Lance was hard to stomach. As satisfying as it would've been to see Copper put Lance in his place there and then, it was probably for the best that he lost. A royal guard assaulting a child would've been a bad look for his whole family, regardless of the initial provocation.
Glad that Shellac and Raining finally got to dish out a bit of comeuppance, though I'm not sure if that's enough to settle things. Lance is a whole twisted bundle of issues that's gonna take a whole village to unravel and set straight, and that's if he even lets them.
I'm also worried about Mirror taking on the responsibility of bringing Lance to jail. Don't know how she's going to convince the guards that Lance is the one who needs to be locked up, and I wouldn't put it past him to wake up on the way and reassert his dominance over her...
Seems that Lance is finally beaten, both physically and especially verbally. I'm surprised by how strong he is though. He's got some good genes. Either way, if Shellock is going to the dungeons, then there's no way Lance isn't getting to some juvenile center since Copper is bound to wake up at any time to snitch on him. Either way, that kid needs to be kept away from those two and some therapy.
I wonder how Shellock and co. plan on getting out of this though. I can see either some trick coming up or a private audience with a high ranking individual.
Makes sense. Changelings need ponies for their love. Going all murder hobo is counter-intuitive to their goals.
dadfather?
Maybe its a distraction mechanism? Either that or she's missing out on those benefits.
Owned. So hard. He really did become what he hated. I love that line.
11852959
Thanks a bunch! Real stoked my story has managed to captivate you so much, just one thing.
Where did you see "dadfather" ? That's an error I need to find and 10k is a lot of words.
11852975
Love the story man!
It was in this paragraph.
It has been quite a journey reading this story. I’m glad I started reading it. Good work.
This is the second time I've seen The Phantom Menace quoted in a story on this site (this specific line to be more specific)
11859042
Still one more chapter to go, but thanks a ton!
What a ride! It's been a while since I've read a fic as good as this one.
So sad it's ending soon, wish for a sequel