Claws Scratching on A House of Glass

by Wise Cracker

In Good Company

Geirolf waved a claw to the cottage, to the menagerie in front of it, and to the mare in charge of both. Ever the sociable one, he let out his traditional Southern Plains griffon rooster call.

“Howdiedoodledoo!”

Fluttershy jumped at the sound. She hadn’t seen him approach, and her mind briefly went to memories of when she’d needed to help to rehabilitate all the birds of the Canterlot Ornithology Lab, after an unfortunate accident involving phoenix mating season, a giant pet roc practising package drops, and a surprisingly generous and completely unrelated donation from Princess Celestia.

Geirolf was of average size for a griffon, both in the bird and feline department. However, his golden cat coat was longer than most, and his tailbush more fluffed and voluminous, giving his swaying length an aspect of a peacock. Other than that, he looked perfectly normal: eagle head, lion body, nothing out of the ordinary with either, aside from the fact that one did not belong on the other.

“Umm, hi,” Fluttershy said. “You must be here for the inspection.”

“That I am, Ma’am, that I am. I’m sorry if I startled your animals there, wasn’t thinkin’ they’d be skittish-like around my kind!”

“Well, some of my animals do get a little nervous around lions.”

“Is it okay if I come over there, or are there any scaredy cats I need to be mindful of?!”

Fluttershy gulped. Every word out of this griffon’s beak sounded like a foghorn going off, he was so loud. And he was here to take one of the local children away. He sounded vaguely like Applejack, though, perhaps a little farther from the South. What to think of such a creature?

An odd thing happened as she tried to make heads or tails of the situation: Mister Hatrack and Missus Carrotstick came running towards him.

He hummed and lowered his voice to a softer tone. “Well, howdie.” He gave their heads a gentle scratch, making them thump the ground with joy. “Ain’t you the cutest little critters. Careful where you point that rack, though, no, I ain’t got any greens for ya, sorry.” He held up his claws when Mister Hatrack tried to extort some food with a nibble to a claw.

Fluttershy exchanged a glance with Angel Bunny. Her jackalopes were never that friendly with her. They liked the griffon, though, possibly because of some kinship between composite creatures, and none of her other animals reacted to him beyond the initial scare. Clearly, she didn’t need to worry too much. “It’s fine, I was just about to finish feeding everyone, Mister...”

“Geirolf’s the name,” he replied. “And you are Fluttershy, are ya not? Element o’ Kindness?”

“That’s me. You can come up, they won’t bite you.”

Mister Grizzles, her bear, growled.

“I said no.”

Angel Bunny chittered when Geirolf was at the door.

“What wa-I say what was that now, little bunny?”

She smiled. “Oh, he’s just cranky because he had to eat cucumber again.”

“Really, now? Because it sounded like he wanted to kick me in the neck.”

The mare froze. “You speak bunny?”

“I speak a little bit of Rabbit, yes. White Rabbit, that is.”

“Oh. Oh, dear. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

The griffon chuckled. “Little thing like him, I’m sure he didn’t. But in my line o’work, it pays to stay on your tips. Toes, that is. It’s the little things I’m here for, one little thing in particular. So, if’n it don’t inconvenience ya too much of a much?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” She gestured to the chair at her table. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank ya kindly.” Geirolf sat down and took out a notepad and a pen.

Something nagged at Fluttershy right then and there, a tug at the edges of her mind that something was out of place. She looked back at her table and wondered. Geirolf had his back to her book cabinet, none of her birdboxes were out of place. She pushed the thought aside. “Would you like some tea?”

He waved away the request. “Oh, you don’t have to go out of your way to try accomodatin’ a loudmouth like me.”

“I’m making camomile anyway, it’s no bother.”

“Camomile sounds delightful, then.” Geirolf scribbled something on his paper.

Fluttershy rummaged through her cupboard, and realised he was probably writing down how nervous she was. She idly wondered if he’d be keeping track of the concentration of her calming tea to boot.

“Be strong, Fluttershy,” she whispered to herself.

“Yes, please do,” Geirolf replied. “And don’t be too scared, neither. It’s a mite difficult to make sense of folks when their teeth keep chattering.” He tapped his beak with a chuckle. “Though I guess that’s my griffon privilege talkin’, bein’ somewhat exempt from the trials and tribulations of an odontological nature.”

She shivered, again. “You have, umm, remarkably good hearing, Mister Geirolf.”

“Comes with the territory.” He gestured to the side of his head. “I grew up on the Southern Plains, ya see, lotsa caves and crevices to play hide and seek in. Lotsa places for a youngin to get lost, too. Thank ya kindly.” He took the cup of tea and gave it a sip. “I can hear crickets from miles away, if I have to.”

She sat down and nodded. “And do you? Need to, I mean.”

He nodded pensively. “My particular set of skills has been put to trial once or twice, yes. Under circumstances I’d rather not see replicated elsewhere, on occasion. So, now that we’re both comfy-like and introduced, what can ya tell me about the changeling in your town?”

She looked past Geirolf and noticed an odd thing behind him: a chicken. Not one of her regular chickens, but a very large porcelain chicken, a decoration on her bookcase. It was placed just right so it couldn’t be seen from the front door. Geirolf had certainly paid it no heed.

She couldn’t remember buying one of those things, though, nor could she remember receiving one as a gift. A soft cough behind her drew her attention for a moment, and looking back she noticed there was a second porcelain chicken in her kitchen, likewise hidden well enough to not be seen from the entrance.

Where did those come from? Fluttershy’s wings bunched up against her sides. “Umm, what do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the generalities.” Geirolf looked down at some other notes. “What’s your impression of little Bastion? Is he a nice boy, is he polite? Is he physically active, that you know of, or does he prefer to stay inactive and indoors? Do you know if he plays well with others or if he’s solitary?”

Fluttershy bit her lip and pondered. “Oh. I… I guess...”

The chicken behind Geirolf started glowing green, ever so gently, ever so slowly. It turned into a transparent material, glass-like in its texture, and then it revealed a warped image of a little changeling boy with a mohawk and a lot more skill in magic than Fluttershy had ever given him credit for. He smiled brightly and raised a hoof in an affirmative gesture, then took out a little blackboard to scribble on.

The blackboard read “Don’t worry, I can fix this.”

Oh, no. He’s listening in. He thinks he can help. If the griffon finds out he planted spying chickens in my home-

“Let me rephrase the question,” Geirolf interrupted. “Simplify it, that is. In your opinion, your personal opinion and experience, whatever that may be worth – and rest assured, we can talk about how much it’s worth later – what is the changeling boy like, compared to pony children you know?”

“Oh.” She leaned back. “I guess that would be easier to answer. Bastion is… careful.” That much she felt comfortable blurting out, and Bastion nodded from behind the griffon. “At least he was, at first, when he was new in town. I didn’t talk much with him then. But compared to other pony children, I’d say he was more withdrawn at first, and now he’s as comfortable and confident as most foals would be, at least compared to most blank flanks.”

Geirolf jotted down more notes quickly. “Blank flanks being ponies without that stamp thingie on your thighs.”

“Exactly. Some ponies use that term as an insult, but it’s really not, it’s just an easy way to describe them.”

“Alright. What else?” He looked up from his notes with a smile. “You’re an animal expert, has he ever come to you for anything in particular?”

She winced. “I did kind of, sort of, needed to explain to him what a pet is, exactly. A lot of things that are normal to us, he never heard of.”

“And you don’t think that’s odd, for a high-ranking changeling?”

The boy flinched, and he quickly started making throat-cutting motions to get her to change the subject.

“Oh, I didn’t know he was high-ranking until afterwards. And no, the way I understand it, he was kept isolated at his Hive for some reason. It wasn’t a problem, though: he got the idea pretty quickly. He already had his beehive by then, he takes good care of it. He has very happy bees,” she said with a nod and a smile.

The changeling in the chicken wiped his brow and let out a muted sigh of relief.

Still, Geirolf was none the wiser. “Fine sense of animal care is always a good thing to see in a child. What about with other children? Do you see him around much?”

“Yes, most of the foals in Ponyville know me for, umm, you know, obvious reasons. But nopony really bothers me that often, most of the time. They know I take care of animals, so they only come to me when they need to. But, umm, yes, I do see him in town quite often, hanging out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. That’s Rarity’s sister, Applejack’s sister, and some of their friends.”

“An all girl group,” Geirolf noted.

“Oh, no, no!” Fluttershy quickly protested before the chicken could. “It’s not all girls, not since Bastion came around, nonono. The girls expanded their little club, they let Rumble in as well. That’s Thunderlane’s little brother, he’s a Weather Patrol pony, he works with Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty.”

Geirolf quirked an eyebrow. “But even with a single boy, or several, a male changeling hanging out with a bunch of small fillies, that doesn’t raise any red flags for you?”

A light frightful squeal escaped her lips. “Well, when you put it like that...”

“Ma’am, I know this is probably beyond the purview of your otherwise undoubtedly astute observational skills, but I have to ask, regardless: do you think Bastion consorts with these girls for the purpose of feeding off their affections?”

Fluttershy opened her mouth, then furrowed her brow. “Umm… actually, now that you mention it...”

Bastion’s ears fell back. Fluttershy only noticed from the corners of her eyes, not daring to let the griffon know what was going on.

“Yes or no?” Geirolf insisted.

I have to be honest. Even if Bastion might hear some things he shouldn’t. If I don’t, he might get taken away.

“I can’t say for sure, because I don’t know what it would look like. But if he did, he really picked the wrong girls to do it with.”

---

The Royal Guards flanked the Unicorn as they walked through the halls of the palace. Looking left and right, she tried to figure out some escape, some plan to get herself out of whatever mess she was in. They’d plucked her right off the streets of her village, in broad daylight. No reason why, no warning other than “It’s urgent,” just a very brief and sudden trip from the desert to the capital.

A portal trip, no less, one powered by a gem they carried.

They were using portal magic to get her, and that could only mean one thing: she was in trouble. Deep trouble.

Why did they pick me up? Do they know about my plans? Did Princess Luna read my dreams? I never noticed her, I know I set up my blocking spells properly.

On and on they marched with her caught in between.

I could still teleport. But they probably have counter-measures in place for that. And they know where I live.

Her heart sank. Her stomach churned with nerves.

Then Princess Celestia herself came to greet them, with a scroll held in her magic. “Is this the one?”

The Unicorn tried not to cringe. Oh, no, she knows. I’m done for.

“This is the only pony we found at the location,” the guard on the left answered. “No traces of any enemies we could find. No traces of anyone, for that matter, except her.”

Celestia took a long, hard look at the Unicorn mare, and nodded. “No witnesses, then. So much the better. Guards, you are excused.”

As one, the two stallions nodded and turned, leaving the two.

“I’m sorry for the sudden interruption of your affairs, but we can’t be too careful in this situation.” Celestia turned her attention to the scroll. “Now, before we begin, I need to check a few things. You are a former magic student of the healing branch, yes? Took a few additional courses in lethemancy?”

The Unicorn winced. Yup. She knows. “That’s me. Two years of study under Master Mirror.”

“And how is the old fellow? Still dragging his beard around?” Celestia whispered, a devious smile on her face.

Wait. No, she doesn’t know. Oh, thank goodness, she’s got me mixed up with someone else. “No, I studied under Onyx Mirror, Your Majesty. She’s a mare, and still relatively young. Her husband has a beard, though, a pretty hideous goatee, if you ask me.”

“Oh, dear.” Celestia read the scroll again and shook her head. “Not old master Smoky? That’s quite the discrepancy in your file, then. But you did study both healing magic and lethemancy? That’s still an odd combination, isn’t it? Any particular reason why?”

She gulped. “I, umm, I thought it would be interesting to learn about emotional scars, and maybe help heal those, especially in Unicorns. There’s a lot of talk about rational types and emotional types, but if you’ll pardon me saying so, no one really pays much attention to the second one. And magic, you know, it doesn’t react very well to trauma, but no one really knows how or why or what to do about it. I thought, maybe, possibly, I could grease that squeaky wheel a little more. Learning the magic of forgetting seemed to make sense at the time.”

“You sound like my sister.” Celestia kept her eyes on that scroll. “It’s not a field I’m well-versed in, and not a lot of mortals I know are, but it’s a reasonable explanation, I suppose. So that was your choice out of grade school, yet once you finished that you took, what, four apprenticeships in a row? You’re not very well-documented for someone so well-educated. Why did you fall off the grid for so long?”

Oh, boy. Here we go.

The mare took a deep breath and resigned herself to her fate. “Oh, I was, umm, finding my way around, I guess? I graduated, with fairly good grades, then I went to Southern Equestria for one year and a half to learn papyromancy. After that it was the plains to learn restoration magic, and basic construction. Very basic, I’m not that good at it. I might have gotten a little better during my stay in Alherda Foal Hospital, bringing toys to life for the little ones while I, umm, tried to help in the other ways I could.”

“Mhmm...” Celestia nodded. “And that is all you know?”

She knows. She’s toying with me, or testing me.

“No. I also read up on the basics of chaos magic, the limits of it as we know them, and in particular how to grab emotions and make them materialise, use them as fuel. I’ve always been an emotional caster, but I took my time studying the theory behind it, too, so I guess I’m a little better at it than most. I wouldn’t know, I never measured myself against anyone. And I’m assuming the reason you called for me is because of the branch of chaos magic I specialised in: logomancy, or symbol magic. I can go into a deep enough magical state to manipulate symbols, basically. Removing the magic on holy sites to preserve the purity of the place while they’re rebuilt, purifying ancient sites from contaminated magic like, say, Windigo frost-”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, looking at her like a parent would at a child caught doing something naughty. “And moving and removing cutie marks?”

Busted. “Yes. They taught me in Alherda, they kind of had to. I can toy around with magic symbols, too, blend spells off a scroll together like writing a sentence. It’s not quite the same as formulating brand new magic, but the ones with a verbal base, I can stitch together quite easily. It helps the emotional casting, the metamagic, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

Celestia smiled and rolled up the scroll in her magic. “Seems I did have the correct file, then. Walk with me.”

With nowhere to run but down the corridor, facing either the Royal Guard or Celestia, the mare followed. “With all due respect, Princess Celestia, you never even asked for my name.”

“No, I did not, and I’m glad to see you’re clever enough not to have announced it yourself, either. We are in a bit of a bind, you see, and dealing with an enemy who can infiltrate even our inner ranks.”

“Changelings?” the mare whispered.

“One changeling in particular: the Queen.” Princess Celestia opened the door at the end of the hallway and motioned her to enter. “We have need of a Unicorn with your particular set of skills, and your very specific overlap in knowledge. I do apologise for the intrusion, really I do, but I don’t have a lot of chaos mages I can trust, and the few I do trust are… insufficient in tackling this particular problem. You, however, are not.”

The pink Unicorn entered the chamber, and was greeted by a blue-maned, blue-eyed changeling. “Hi,” the changeling greeted. “I’m Sapphire Gaze, Chrysalis’s former Archmage. You must be the blending specialist I’ve heard about.”

“This is my counsel room. We can speak freely in here,” Celestia said, closing the door. “The walls are lined with whisperwood, and there are several alarm systems in place, so no chance of eavesdroppers.”

A weight fell off the mare’s shoulders. I’m not in trouble? She just needs somepony who knows the magic I do. I’m not being busted; I’m being drafted. Oh, thank Cele-well, thank somepony a little farther away, at least. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sapphire. My name is-”

“Starlight?”

The Unicorn stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t recognise the voice, but her heart skipped a beat when she recognised its owner. Brownish orange mane, that cute white spot on his nose, the sock patterns on his limbs, it had to be him.

Years of anxiety came welling up again. A broken heart, teary eyes, right down to the salty disgusting snot running over her lips every time she cried, it all rushed back in the blink of an eye. She’d been a little girl then. Now, all of a sudden, it was only yesterday, the wounds of decades opened again, and the cause of it all was right in front of her.

“That is you, isn’t it? Starlight Glimmer?” He adjusted his glasses and squinted. “Don’t you remember me? It’s Sunburst.”

“You two know each other?” Celestia checked her scroll again. “Oh, yes, you’re both from Sire’s Hollow, and the same age. I suppose you would.”

Starlight’s world fell out from under her hooves. She could have sworn she’d fainted, but thankfully she was still standing. The corners of her mouth went up in a dopey smile as emotions washed over her like a tidal wave, her horn abuzz with energy. She felt her eyes water up, her mouth hung open.

“Seems you two have a history together,” Sapphire joked.

That snapped Starlight out of her daze. “Sunburst.” She blinked quickly, trying to regain her composure in front of the emotion-eating bug within feeding range. She realised with a start that she didn’t even know what Sapphire’s range was, and hoped two paces would suffice. “Um, hello.”

---

“Beg yer pardon?”

Fluttershy shrugged. “Oh, I mean, the girls like him, of course. They appreciate him being around. Honestly, he’s quite the peacemaker. Why, after a few weeks with him around, the girls made peace with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, they’re-”

“Rich fillies,” Geirolf interrupted. “Of a moral fibre that is, shall we say, of a less than optimal consistency.”

That got the changeling mad, and Fluttershy was pretty sure the jig would have been up if he hadn’t muted his communication magic. Instead, all that happened was frantic flapping of his limbs and a decidedly angry pout, before calming down into a mere glare.

“Oh, right. You know about them.”

“They’ve made the papers with their chicanery, Miss. I’m told they’re bullies.”

“No. They were, before. But children can be mean sometimes, it doesn’t mean they don’t grow out of it.”

“Sounds like an odd remark, comin’ from a pony like you.” He took another look at his notes. “Were you not, yourself, a bully victim when you were little?”

She gulped. “Exactly how much do you know, Mister Geirolf, sir?”

“Enough to warrant investigating, but not enough to make judgement. So, I reiterate my question, repeat it, that is: were you or were you not a bully victim when you were that age?”

Fluttershy’s ears fell back. “That’s personal, sir. A private matter.”

He gestured to the rest of her cottage. “There’s no one here but us and your animals. I do need to put your views into perspective somehow, you understand.”

Bastion looked away. He put his hooves to his ears and nodded.

He’s not listening. Even with so much at stake, he doesn’t want to eavesdrop on that.

“Yes. I understand, and I was bullied, that is correct.”

“And are those two girls, yes or no, of the same sort that bullied you?”

“Not anymore. I don’t think so. Besides, it was mostly boys who picked on me. I avoided girls, usually, and they avoided me. Boys didn’t.”

He nodded. “As male bullies would, asserting dominance. Still, in your opinion?”

“I don’t think Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are bullies at heart, not really. They seem nice enough. But I don’t see them that often, or speak to them, so I wouldn’t know for sure.”

“Yet you say Bastion made peace between the girls? Why?”

She smiled and wiped her hair back, making a point to scratch her ears. Confused, Bastion let his hooves drop.

“Umm, they work together now, sometimes. Or they compete, in a friendly way. Friendlier than before, I mean,” she clarified. “They don’t like each other, I can see that much, but they’ve stopped trying to sabotage each other.”

“And you think Bastion is the cause of that.”

She shrugged. “He’s a common friend. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders are open to boys now. For membership, I mean, obviously.”

“Uhuh. So there’s no chance he’s using them as a feeding opportunity?”

The changeling mouthed a very clear “No, no,” through the chicken and waved his arms around to deny it all.

As if he needed to. “Not a chance. He’s a smart boy, you can see it in his eyes. From what I hear, he was groomed to be a strategist when he grew up, and, well, if he wanted to feed, he’d act differently. He knows what his friends like and what they love. He’d be more efficient about it. And besides, even if he was feeding, if he did try to do something bad, someone would notice. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle have very close families. Nothing could happen to them without anypony noticing, not something like this.”

Geirolf made more notes. “What about the other boys?” he asked before she could elaborate.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve compared him to fillies so far. What about colts?”

Fluttershy tried to think and, to her horror, realised she couldn’t answer that. “I don’t know. I don’t really know the colts as personally as I do the girls. They’re my friends’ little sisters. I guess the only boy I’ve seen Bastion talk to a lot is Rumble.”

“And compared to him, is Bastion normal?”

“Oh, I don’t think you can call Rumble normal in the first place, actually.” She chuckled nervously. “He’s a very strong flyer, very dedicated to practice. He used to be a bit of a ghost in Ponyville, he could walk right by and you’d never notice.”

“How strong would you say he is?”

Fluttershy hesitated. This was a trap, it had to be: if she praised Rumble too much, then Geirolf would assume Bastion was posing as Rumble sometimes, to feed off the praises the little colt was getting. She couldn’t lie, though; he’d see through that right away.

“He’s about as strong as the little jocks racing in Cloudsdale,” Fluttershy replied. “But he doesn’t compete yet.”

“It says here he was involved in Ponyville’s tornado duty. Must be a pretty impressive kid, then, a good influence.”

A drop of cold sweat ran down her spine. Oh, he was getting close to some questions she did not want to answer, or even think about. “I wouldn’t know. I never even noticed him during practice.”

Geirolf jotted down another note, and Fluttershy’s heart skipped a beat.

She’d failed. Everything she’d said was now moot, easily dismissed because clearly she was not an attentive mare who could be trusted. I’m sorry, Bastion. I tried.

“What about animals, then? Have you seen him react to dogs, cats, or other animals?”

No. She could still salvage this if she proved she paid attention. “Well, there was one time he chased-” she gasped.

Geirolf tilted his head, like an owl trying to stare down a silly mouse who thought it’d be escaping a very important dinner appointment. “He chased… whom?”

She gulped. “It was nothing. It wasn’t a big deal. It still isn’t a big deal.”

Again, Bastion was trying his best to make some gesture to divert the conversation. He reached for his blackboard, grabbed the chalk, then froze.

She saw him freeze. He was panicking, wherever he was. He probably hadn’t planned on this particular incident coming up, and he had no response to it.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Ma’am. You say he chased someone through town.”

“It wasn’t a violent chase, honestly. It was a playful little chase. Children, umm, do it all the time.”

“Ma’am, regardless of what my comportment may imply, I am, in fact, not as dumb as an owlette in a hall o’ mirrors. So, if ya don’t mind, provide me with some details, please? I’d hate to have to report a worrying event to my superiors.”

The com chicken revealed Bastion holding his head, thinking hard.

“It wasn’t anything to worry about, I swear,” she said calmly, and loud enough for the chicken to pass on the message. “Nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not something he should get in trouble for.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind telling me what it was, now, will you?”

---

“Kill it! Kill it!”

Fluttershy’s ears perked when she heard the battle cry. The voice calling it out was distinct, and like most ponies she’d gotten used to hearing it around town, as occasional background noise. Sure, the double echo aspect that somehow resided in changeling vocal chords was off-putting at first, but ponies had gotten quite used to it after a month or so.

Still, to hear Bastion calling for murder, especially of a some-thing rather than a some-one, that rang a few alarm bells.

The mare was all the more confused when she saw the boy rushing past Ponyville Market, where she was discussing Mister Grizzle’s diet with Mister Bumbles.

“Well now, I don’t mind having a bear around, Miss Fluttershy, but a stallion’s gotta keep his livelihood safe.”

Fluttershy nodded in agreement. Her bear was a lovely creature, very gentle, but terribly clumsy, and prone to gluttony, as all bears were. She always had mixed feelings about buying honey for him. On the one hoof, it was a safe way for him to indulge his instincts without hurting anypony. On the other, the taste of honey might be a trigger for him to go and seek it out.

Of course, she trusted her bear, but she was careful, regardless, as all ponies were around potentially dangerous creatures.

---

“Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to stick to the point, please?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Then you makin’ impli-I say makin’ implications about dangerous creatures whilst we’re discussin’ a young changeling callin’ for outright murder of an innocent individual, in public, no less, that’s meant to be a coincidence, is it?”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

“Whom did he chase?”

“Not whom,” Fluttershy replied, looking down at her tea. “What. And I didn’t realise it at first, but Mister Bumbles knew.”

“The honey seller. He had a different vantage point or what?”

She tapped her ears. “He caught the sound. He gave me a jar, and I gave chase.”

---

Fluttershy quickly dashed off with the jar in hoof. Bastion ran by the edge of the marketplace, firing off little shots of magic that dissipated into harmless globs of adhesive, careful never to fire at a pony.

“Kill it! Kill it!”

Fluttershy saw his target, bobbing and weaving past the shots. She opened the jar and slammed it shut, trapping it inside.

Bastion finally caught his breath. “You caught it. Thank you. That thing was in my hive. It was reporting back to get reinforcements.”

---

“You mean to tell me there was an enemy incursion by Chrysalis and it was never reported?”

“No. It wasn’t from his home hive. It had been in his pet hive, his beehive. He’d been chasing a Neighsian hornet.”

---

“Oh, my gosh.” Fluttershy turned the jar around to inspect the thing up close. “What is it doing all the way out here?”

“You have to kill it, Miss Fluttershy. It’s going to kill my beehive and it’s going to kill every hive it can find-” He stopped himself halfway. “Oh, wait. You don’t kill these things here, huh?”

“Not usually, no.” She took a good look at the thing. Sure enough, it had the golden markings of a Neighsian hornet, rather than the red of the Equestrian one. “But we do try to keep track of them.”

He cringed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. Did you get these back home?”

He nodded. “They’re terrible. Every time we found a beehive, we had to make sure none of those things found it. And, umm, some of our enemies spread them around, just to spite us.”

She put the jar away in her saddlebags. “I understand. And Chrysalis didn’t believe in having your own beehives, either, so losing them in the wild must be pretty bad.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said with a pout.

“It’s okay. You’re just trying to protect what you hold dear. Any pony would do the same.”

---

“Embellishing the facts again, Miss Fluttershy?”

“No, sir. To be honest, I don’t remember what he said, exactly, but I know what I said. Lyra and Bon Bon told me, and so did Twilight: you have to be careful what you say to Bastion, because he doesn’t always process things the same way we do. No, umm, I thought about it before I said it, and I remember it. Those were my exact words. And...” She drank down her tea, as if she were gulping down liquid courage. “I’d say it again if it happened again. He was only trying to protect his little beehive, the same way I would try to protect my chickens from foxes, the same way Applejack would. He doesn’t always know what ponies think is right and wrong, but he guesses. I made sure he knew that his guess was right, mostly. And I would have done the same if he’d been a pony from far away, too, or a griffon.”

Relief washed over the boy in the chicken. He slumped back in his seat, and stared at the ceiling.

Geirolf nodded. “Does he have his own set of morals, do you think?”

And there came the tension again. “YES,” said the blackboard, in large letters.

“I think he does know right from wrong, yes, even if he doesn’t quite know how it applies to ponies, not all of it. But I would trust him, as much as I’d trust any foal who doesn’t know that much about the world yet.”

“But is that him, then, or is that Ponyville’s influence on him?”

Fluttershy looked away and sighed. “I’m not sure. I see him around sometimes, and his eyes… I don’t think he’s back to his normal self yet. Whatever his normal self is.”

“And you base this on… what observations, exactly?”

Fluttershy bit her lip. Don’t look at the chicken, just be honest. “It’s in his eyes, and his body language. Not all the time, but sometimes, more often than he should. He acts and moves like a puppy that was taken away from its mother too soon. He’s confident when he needs to act it, but uncertain when he thinks no one’s watching, if that makes any sense. He’s very calculating, very… thinking, but not feeling yet. It’s hard to explain, he’s been changing recently, it’s only been like that for a few weeks.”

Geirolf raised an eyebrow. “For the better or for the worse?”

“If I say for the worse, will he be in trouble?”

“That all depends what kind of worse it is, Ma’am, so I’d suggest you think carefully and be as accurate as possible.”

“Okay. When he first came here, he seemed to act normal, literally. If you met him in Ponyville, if you talked to Miss Cheerilee or any pony around him, they’d tell you how his eyes lit up when he learned something new. He liked learning how to behave, and everypony encouraged him.”

“Wrongly,” Geirolf said. “In your opinion.”

She forced herself to keep her eyes down, looking at the table, anything to avoid seeing Bastion’s response.

“I didn’t want to bring it up at the time, but yes. I haven’t needed to take care of many abused animals, but I’ve heard stories. To me, it looked like Bastion was overwhelmed, and just putting up a brave face, or playing a part. Maybe that’s just his nature. But now a little bit of time’s passed, and his eyes don’t light up like they used to. He looks like a worrier, and he can’t act normal anymore, it’s harder for some reason. When he’s somewhere in public he can sort of still put up an act, but when he’s alone or with friends, his ears flick too much, his eyes dart around, his voice shakes and changes in the middle of a sentence. I’m not sure if it’s a phase or if it’s a good thing.”

“Alright, much obliged.” Geirolf stowed away his notes and stood up. Immediately, the chicken returned to normal, not a trace of any trickery to be found.

“That’s it?”

“I have more calls to make, Ma’am. That will suffice for now.”

“You’re not taking him away, are you?”

“Not based on what you said, Ma’am. We’ve spoken to some of the other changelings of Alveola, they voiced some concerns, and you’re voicing nothin’ that don’t align with those concerns. But such concerns are, you’ll understand, a private matter and will remain such until the boy or his family consent to makin’ it public. We don’t want him getting into another press scandal too soon, do we?”

Fluttershy, reluctantly, nodded. “No, sir.”

“Don’t worry, Ma’am. We’re professionals. The boy will be fine, eventually. No matter what happens.”

---

Fluttershy waited until Geirolf had flown off before grabbing both chickens.

“Bastion, are you there?”

The one that had been on her bookcase lit up again and showed the boy’s face. “I’m here. Did you really mean all that?”

“Yes. And I am very disappointed in you, Bastion, you know better. Spying on ponies is not okay.”

He whimpered. “I know that, but they’re trying to take me away! I have to do everything I can to stop that. I can’t lose another...”

Fluttershy sighed. “You can’t lose two more moms. I know. But Bastion, this isn’t the right way to do it.”

“Yes, it is. I’ve planned for this, I know what to do this time. I’m not gonna lose. I can fix this, Miss Fluttershy. I can fix everything.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I guess I can’t really stop you from here. But remember to come pick these things up, okay? I don’t want any more spying in my house.”

“Don’t worry, it’s just for today, I promise. You have my word.”

The chickens went dark. Fluttershy sighed.

Angel Bunny tugged at her tail.

“I know, Angel,” Fluttershy said. “He’s probably eavesdropping all over Ponyville, too. I guess Apple Bloom really has been rubbing off on him.”