Thirty-ish Minute Pony Stories

by Abecedarian

Discredited Method (Prompt #387)

TMP Prompt #387 - “Smile All the Time.”

Prompt: How to fight loneliness.

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Discredited Method

Long, long ago, long before the magical land of Equestria, long before the separation and reformation of the Three Tribes, long before the great battle that forced the Lady of Dark into the moon and the Lady of Light into self-imposed exile, long before the Princesses were even born, when ponies were still too busy trying to tame this savage and mysterious world to write down their history…

…This story was old enough to be considered a myth.

***

In those days, they say, you would not recognize a changeling, if you saw one unmasked.

In those days they were truly insects, queen-less Fae beasts, who lived solitary disorganized lives, occasionally coming forth from the wilderness that was not yet ever-free to grab snatches of the emotions they devoured and then to escape.

Medieval bestiaries (centuries after the fact and based upon hearsay), show them more closely resembling hornets or wasps than anything equine, with mandibles, bulging compound eyes, and so forth. Parthenogenesis is occasionally mentioned.

Insects, as I said, who could briefly take on the form of ponies, whose intellect, quite impressive for bugs, allowed them some skill at mimicry, who with mild powers of mind-reading and suggestion could fool their victims for just long enough and no longer.

From the corner of your eyes you could see the truth, and from their shadows, and from the way they moved almost perfectly.

They were a threat, yes, but unless you stumbled upon one while you were a-wandering, or one got you alone in your house or a dark alley or such, they were no more dangerous than many wild beasts.

Or so they said, in those days.

***

It is known for a certainty that the healing spells we use today derive from ancient sources. Similarities between them lead many to ascribe them to small group, or more traditionally to a single pony (most likely a unicorn) by the name of Anemone, who like this story, has lapsed into the realm of the mythical.

Flesh-crafter and life-molder, the old stories call him, and wound-healer.

Plagues swept the earth back then, and they say he invented spell after spell in order to try and fight them off, perhaps to try and preserve the life of his love (Gentle and radiant, is all we know, when the stories even mention him having one), and his foal(s) (when the stories even mention them or him or her, they are freckle-faced and joyful and innocent).

He failed, or he never had either to begin with.

In any case, all the stories mention him isolating himself within his forest home, obsessively working on his magic…

…Until the day when his melancholy reached its peak.

…

Later stories in more sensitive times would put forth the notion that the changeling was special in some way, that she was that good a shape-shifter, that skilled a mimic and that in his despair Anemone just didn’t notice or care.

Perhaps, perhaps.

Ah, but flesh-crafter and life-molder, and grief and isolation or possibly simply pride or loneliness, and a few days or months or years…

***

Changelings are intelligent and devious predators, easily as intelligent as any pony. Their queens are powerful magic-users, the equivalent or superior of a unicorn. They could be anyone, anywhere, anytime, their disguises impenetrable.

Is that why are so feared?

Their sharp teeth, their shimmering eyes, the clacking of their wings…

Do these things frighten us when we see a changeling face-to-face?

Or…?

Author's Note:

1. Mutate a giant bug into a pony-ish thing.
2. ???
3. Changeling race!

I've been looking at a lot of fragmentary stories lately, and the origin of myths and how they can change over time, etc.

I kind of cannibalized from story I'm working on. Oh, well.
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2022 Me: Yes, one of the big reveals I had planned for my fics was that changelings and ponies are more related than either would be comfortable with. It would be explained that they had a eusocial structure with queens taking genetic material from (male or female) ponies to reproduce and no drones.

And before you ask, blood would work, too, but that usually means a struggle.