Unexpected Changeling: What It Means To Be Loved

by The ancient one

Who You Really Are- Part 3

"Faster!" I shouted, sitting atop the bag of crystal gold, pulled by Bright Side. "We gotta get to the market before dark, because that means I'd have spent the entire day with you. And how would I be able to sleep with that fact in my head?"

"You!" she grunted, dragging the bag through the dirt, "Are adding!" she pulled again, "Unneeded weight!"

"You remember you're a unicorn, right?" I asked, smugly.

"I tried lifting you and the bag before, but for some reason it wouldn't budge!" she said, pulling again. I hopped off the bag and landed next to her, and helped pull it through the soft soil it was sinking into. "Thanks." she said, "Jerk." she whispered.

"No problem," I replied. As we reached the market I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of ponies in the area. It was like an ocean, the vendors were lined up side by side, selling various items and wears, with querying ponies crossing from one end to the other. Some negotiating their prices and others just buying things outright. They seemed to sell everything we could ever want, except pre-built flamethrowers from what I could see, but I was sure we could still make do. I picked my jaw off the floor and tried to ignore all the colorful items I could easily waste this money on. "Where's the..." I looked at the list of items we were supposed to get, "Vegetable stands?"

"The one we go to is over there," Bright Side said, as she fell to the ground, pointing and panting heavily. It reminded me a dog I was saw sitting outside the castle. It bit me and I hated dogs ever since. "Go on without me!" she wheezed. I shrugged, grabbed the bag and continued down the market. I was reading the list of things we would need as I pulled, and then I came to a sudden stop. She'd ran in front of me and held out her hoof to my chest. "Why are you so strong?" she asked.

"What?" I replied.

"That bag is at least a ton, but you're pulling it like it's air!"

I rolled my eyes and laughed it off, "You're exaggerating." she grabbed my head and turned it towards the deep trench the bag made.

"I'm exaggerating, huh?"

I pulled her hooves off my head and said, "I don't remember buying a parrot."

"You didn't. It's just your bottomless stupidity echoing back at you." she replied.

"Bottomless stupidity, huh?" I looked down at the list and tossed it over my shoulder, said, "Welp, I guess ya don't need someone like me to help you then." And turned around.

Before I could take a step, she grabbed the list and ran in front of me going, "No, no, no! I'm sorry. Please, come on, you can't leave me like this." she held the list out for me.

I snatched it back and said, "I wasn't planning on it. I just wanted to see that little display of desperation." I grabbed the bag and continued to drag it along. Some of the crystal ponies gave us questioning looks, others went about their business and paid little attention when they saw me next to Bright Side. Bright Side kept staring at me the whole way to the vegetable stand, her eyes squinted, both brows raised and lips pursed. It was not a face I enjoyed hovering next to me. "What?" I asked.

"Seriously though, why are you so strong?" She asked.

"I eat right and work out."

"You lie too much"

"You have no idea..." I mumbled to myself.

"What?"

"Nothing. Look, I'll explain it when we fix up the place," I said, not actually expecting us to finish up the place and completely expecting us to get away with wasting taxpayer gold. "I promise!" I crossed my heart.

"Fine..." She said. We walked up to the vendor, a pink crystal stallion with neon green mane and tail, his eyes were a light blue while he sat under a dark umbrella to protect himself from the suns heat. The placement of his stand was weird though, he was in an area of toys and books, and statues. I wondered why would you sell vegetables here? I didn't know, but Bright Side gleamed when she came across him, a smile that genuinely made me jealous of how happy she was, "Hey Mr. Price. We need some fresh stuffs, whatcha got?"

The stallion smiled as he pulled a bag from behind his stand. He said, "What happened to the vegetables I already sold you? Did you guys actually get some business?"

"No," she sighed, "My brother did some experimenting and then ate all the good stuff."

"Ah, sorry to hear that, but don't worry. I got you covered, the freshest, and best tasting vegies I could grow." he looked at me with a smile, "Whose the kid?"

"My coltfriend." she said, completely nonchalant. In fact, she seemed pretty confident in the statement.

"LIKE BUCK I AM!" I replied, as calmly as possible. Though her confidence didn't diminish.

"Ohh, quite the mouth on this one. You two make a good couple." Price said as he took the produce Bright Side asked for and placed it in the bag. Cucumbers, potatoes, lettuce and other assorted vegetables were thrown in, and I didn't know what it was, but something about this pony was bothering me. Something was just off, and it felt like it had to do with the food. But what was it? I watched him carefully as he placed vegetable after vegetable in the bag. And then Bright Side asked for one of the tomatoes he carried, and when he pulled one from the batch, I realized what had been bugging me so much.

"Excuse me, sir." I said, "Can I see the bag for a moment?"

"Hmm? I haven't finished filling it yet, you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm sure." he gave the bag to me and I opened it, taking out the tomato I just saw. Bright Side trotted over and asked if something was wrong, I replied, "Yeah, there is...how long have you been buying from this guy?"

"A few years?" she said.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Price asked.

I turned to him with an irritated glare and took a bite out of the tomato. I spat it out as soon as it touched my pallet. "Blech! UGH! Yeah, why are you trying to con us into buying bad fruit? Also, why are you selling tomatoes, a fruit, in a vegetable stand?!"

"What?" His head pulled back and jetted forward when he shouted, "My fruit is the freshest there's ever been! I just picked it off the vine not more than twenty minutes ago! How dare you!"

"Did you now?" I questioned.

"Yes, I did!"

"Then it's clear to me that we should buy from someone else." I put the tomato back in the bag and began to walk away.

Bright side grabbed me by the leg and said, "What are you doing? Mr. Price has always sold us our stuff, he's always been good to us. Don't ruin the few relationships my family has. He-"

"He's selling you bad food." I grabbed the bag and picked up the tomato and showed it to her. "You see this?"

"Yeah, it's just a normal-"

"This tomato isn't ripe. This isn't an Heirloom Tomato, it's perfectly rounded, it lacks unusual blemishes and it's size is far too similar to all the others in the batch. So we can assume it to be a hybrid tomato, which means it's supposed to be a dark red, but it's actually a light red, much closer to pink. Not to mention you can still see a hint of green near the spot where the Kaelik used to be. See?" I showed her the top of the tomato.

She leaned in and squinted her eyes and said, "Huh...you're right..."

"Oh come on!" Price said, "So I picked it a little early, it's still good!"

I glared at him and said "Touch it." to Bright Side. She put her hoof on the tomato and I continued, "How does it feel?"

"A little cold but...wait, it's cold!"

"Strange isn't it? On such a day where the vendor needs an umbrella to keep himself cool, the tomato he picked less than thirty minutes ago feels frigid? I wonder why that is..."

"Why-you-I have never been so insulted in my life!" Price said, turning his head.

"A tomato's flavor is very sensitive to temperature, you know. Once a fresh one is taken off the vine they're supposed to be placed in room temperature to keep it from being tainted. This is why tomatoes are often held in storage rooms with other various fruits and vegetables without being refrigerated or even washed. This one is cold, really cold. I'd say about seven degrees, Celsius. When you pick an unripe tomato, you can store it in the cold to keep it from ripening as quickly as it should, but the lowest it should go is around thirteen degrees Celsius. Meaning you're trying pretty hard to keep this from getting ripe. So the question becomes, 'why stop the fruit from becoming ripe'? I mean, you're selling vegetables, and fruit, apparently, so it would make sense for you to want them ripe, right? And the answer is simple. You're lazy and greedy."

"What!?" Price shouted.

I turned my head to Bright Side and said, "Not every tomato matures at the same rate, some mature faster, and others are slower. By throwing the ones he could easily pass off as mature into a cold room, he keeps the differences minimal. It'd be easy to tell a dark red tomato from a pink one if they were side by side, but if they were all the same color, without any reference of what an actually ripe tomato would look like, you'd assume they were all ripe and perfected based on the word of the vendor alone. This way he keeps the right to say it's all 'fresh' and he gets more profit from it. In fact, he could also use this method to keep the fruit for days on end. Whatever doesn't sell today just gets tossed back into the cold room and used the next day and so on and so forth, the only negative to the tomato is that it's flavor suffers drastically. But you wouldn't normally taste it before you bought it, and you might chalk it up to it simply being a your bad luck getting bad tomato. This trick would be hard to pull with Heirloom tomatoes, which take consistent effort and far more time grow. Hybrid tomatoes are pretty resilient and can even grow under utterly terrible conditions, and they're produced in far greater quantities, so they're the easier option if you wanted to try something like this."

Price slammed his hooves down on the counter, "You little trite, I'll have you know that I've always sold my stuff like this! Not a single pony has ever complained! In fact, I sell to a ton of chefs, and they all love what I sell! Do you know why? BECAUSE IT'S FRESH!"

"Name five, and please be sure that I will check them." I challenged.

"Well...there's...uhh..." beads of sweat dripped from his head and he started breaking eye contact. "I don't have to answer to you, you're just a kid!"

"There's another tell of a ripe tomato that I missed. A ripe tomato is soft, but an unripe one is hard. Rock hard, actually. It takes considerably more force to crush an unripe tomato than a ripe one." I tossed it to him and said, "Crush it." he swallowed his spit and tried to crush it, I could see him strain for a brief moment before the tomato was turned into mush, something that wouldn't have happened if it were actually ripe. "I rest my case."

"Wait, he always told us that it was hard because it was just juicy!" Bright Side said, outraged. She snarled at him, and for just a moment, I thought I heard a dog growl through her voice.

"Really now?" I turned my head back to him. "I would assume you'd know this stuff if you're selling it, but maybe that's not the case. So either you don't know anything about what you're selling and all of this is just extremely coincidental, which means buying from you is a gamble in it's own right, or you're purposely trying to sell bad fruits and vegetables because you can get them out quicker, and earn faster, than if you waited. After all an unripe tomato can take up to five weeks to ripen properly, which means a slower cash stream, and you don't want that, do you? I can only imagine how well you treat the rest of your produce." I emptied the bag and looked to Bright side, "Let's go find somewhere else to buy our stuff. This time, let me pick."

"Right." She stuck her tongue out at Price and joined me in walking away with the bag of crystal gold.

"You little brats!" Price shouted, "YOU'RE BANNED FROM MY STAND FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY! YOU HEAR ME!? I WON'T LET MY NAME BE BESMIRCHED BY A COUPLE OF-" we didn't have to say anything, because another pony told him to shut up for us. It was a double win because not only did I get to humiliate him, he didn't make us pay for the fruit we ruined.

---

We made our way to the center of produce part of the market, where we inspected every fruit and vegetable vendor we came across. "What about that one?" Bright Side asked, pointing to a vegetable cart with bruised vegetables.

"No." I replied, continuing on.

"What about that one?" She pointed to another one, that had moldy fruits 'hidden' behind the 'fresher' fruits.

"No."

"How about tha-"

I stopped and said, "We agreed that I would be the one to pick the stand, didn't we?"

"Yes..." She dropped her head. After we went back to looking she took the time to bother me again. "So, how did you know all that stuff about tomatoes and what he was doing with them?"

"Hmm? I spent some time around our chefs, at home. So I managed to picked up a few things here and there. With that in mind, it was just a simple matter of thinking about it."

"Your chefs? Hold on a moment!" she grabbed my tail.

"Hey! No grabbing, remember?" I pulled it back.

"I just realized I don't know thing one about you. Who are you?"

I was partially ignoring her as my eyes scanned the area for vendors, "You don't know thing one about me because you borderline kidnapped me."

"Name."

"Hmm...that one might work." I said, focusing on a vendor far down to the right and was now intentionally ignoring her. The fruits and vegetables he was selling looked good, much better than the other vendors, at least from afar.

"NAME!" she shouted into my ear, sending shockwaves of utter surprise through my spine.

"AHH! SHIFTING SANDS!" I held my ears. "Geez, you didn't have to try to make me deaf!"

"Shifting Sands? That name is pretty unusual for a pegasus...where are you from?"

"Uhh..." I looked for an excuse not to answer. I refocused on the vendor from before, the one far away and to the right, and said, "Let's try that one!" I grabbed the bag and ran over to the vendor as fast as I could. Although, that may have been too fast, I was basically running on air, I was losing control of the magic running through my body due to my worry, and Bright Side was keeping a close eye on me. I tried to keep it in check while I fluttered my wings to make it look less suspicious, but I wasn't sure if it worked. She followed me with her lips pursed again and I wanted to make sure we stayed off the topic of my true identity, so I eagerly hopped onto the stand and said, "Hi, Mr. and or Mrs. vendor pony, we would like to see your produce!"

Bright Slowly rose up next to me, her eyes completely locked on and said, "Yeah...what he said."

"Hold on a moment," the vendor said, their voice echoing from a hole in the ground, "I'll be right with you!"

I cleared my throat and kept a smile on my face to avoid any more suspicion from Bright Side, but I don't think I was doing very well. She only drew closer as time went on and my smile only got bigger and more suspicious. "Please hurry, sir! Not to rush you or anything." I said.

"Right, right." The vendor came out of the hole, covered in dirt. The smile quickly ran from my face as I saw that it wasn't a pony doing the selling, it was a gryphon. As he shook the dirt from his feathers, the dark gold color of his wings became more pronounced over his light brown body. The white feathers on his head were streaked back, and he kept a sense of confidence in his posture. "So whats the...the..." he started sniffing.

I jumped down and said, "I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem like you have anything we need." I picked up bright side and started walking away on my hind legs, "Sorry to have taken your time!"

"Hold it right there!" The gryphon shouted. He picked up our bag of crystal gold and said, "You forgot this."

"Right...we did, didn't we?" I dropped Bright Side and said, "You should go get that."

"Me? Why don't you go and get it? You're the one who can move it like it's nothing." She replied.

"Yeah...Yeah that is true." I cleared my throat again and carefully trotted back to him. I reached out for the bag and, as I feared, he grabbed my arm. "Uhhh, is something the matter?" I smiled.

He leaned in and whispered, "That depends on you. Why is there a changeling in the Empire?"

It felt like my heart stopped, but I had to keep my cool. Maybe if he was stupid, I could trick him into thinking he was wrong. "What? Changeling? Pshhh! I'm not a changeling, I'm a pegasus."

"I'm not an idiot, you know. I can smell you, and the scent of a changeling is unmistakable."

"Please don't eat me!" I whimpered.

"Hold on...that necklace." he grabbed it, "Where did you get this?"

"It was sent to me. Why?" I pulled back a bit.

"Who sent it to you?"

"I-I don't know!"

"Who sent this necklace to you." he gripped tighter on my arm.

"A mare! A mare named Twilight, she sent it to me!"

he let my arm go and said, "If my suspicions are right..." he pulled on the necklace and tried to take it off, but just as I had failed before, now he was too. "Just as I thought..."

"What?"

"Get in the hole."

"Uhh...I think I'll need an adult before we go any further."

"Get in the hole or I expose you." He said in a stoic voice.

"Ok, I'm going." I turned around to Bright Side, who was looking off in the opposite direction at other vendors and shouted to her, "Hey, Bright Side, don't go anywhere. I'll be right back, ok?"

She waved her hoof going, "Yeah, yeah."

I sighed and climbed over to the other side of the counter and jumped down the hole, and fell. Apparently he'd been digging straight down after a small strip of diagonal land. When I crashed into the ground, I landed in front of a large, diamond wall. It radiated a white light that kept the room lit. The gryphon came diving out of the hole before spreading his wings, creating a massive gust of wind to stop his decent. After pulling myself from the crater I said, "Ok, I'm down here. Now what?"

"Just stand next to the wall and look at it."

"Uhh, ok..." I timidly walked in front of the wall and stared into it. And stared. And Stared. And stared. And- "There is nothing happening!" I turned around, only to be proven wrong. Instead of the gryphon behind me, I turned around to see a changeling queen. She was tall, and had a long mane of brilliant gold, but it was losing all it's color and life. Becoming nothing more than a pale silk color. Her horn was broken in half and her eyes were closed tight, I had to assume something had blinded her, as blood had clearly streamed from them. She was facing something, something just beyond me. I turned back around to see an orange crystal holding something...big. About the same size as the crystal dragon. Whatever it was, I couldn't see it. The crystal was thick, very thick. It must have gone on for miles, yet whatever was in there didn't care. It's voice tore through the land and caused the cave it was in to quake and collapse.

"RELEASE ME!" It shouted, "I GAVE YOU LIFE!" The changeling shook her head, an adamant look on her face as she laid down, waiting for the falling rocks to crush her. "My spirit will return! I will be reborn! And when I am--"

"Sure you will." she said.

"When I return, I will rule your kind. I'll bring them to an age of suffering beyond anything they've ever known. I will starve their children, incur insufferable persecution, I will drag your world into chaos!"

"You babble, Sko'lZhen Gaaell. Adjust to your surroundings, we'll be here for a long time."

"I will not let you win. I WILL NEVER LET YOU WIN!" The crystal began to shine as the monster screamed out, "STORM THE BARRIER HELD IN VAIN AND BREAK THE LOCKS ON GRIEVOUS CHAINS!"

The changeling queen raised her head, "No...No you wouldn't dare!"

"PROTECT MY SOUL FROM PURE DIVINE AND CAST INTO THE SEA OF TIME!"

"You're really going to do it, aren't you? Do you have no shame? No pride?!"

"DESTROY THE CYCLE AS IT MAY FOR MIND DESTROYED AND BODY DECAYED!"

The queen scrambled to her hooves and charged towards the crystal, and stabbed what little was left of her horn into it. "If this is what it takes to stop you, then I'll do it!" the crystal cracked. In those cracks ran an ocean blue stream of magic. It traveled on an intent path to surround the crystal. "Go on, finish the spell! I dare you!"

"RETURN MY LIFE UPON THESE LANDS TO CROSS THE WORLD-"

The queen sighed, "This is gonna be a long eternity..."

"AS SHIFTING SANDS!"

"What...WHAT WAS THAT!?"

The crystal shattered, a force of magic erupted from the ground blasting a hole straight through to the sky. All that was left from the moment was a single crystal necklace, formed from the destroyed stone, magic, and the crystal the beast was trapped in. After that the diamond wall returned to normal, and I was just sitting in front of it, mouth agape. The gryphon walked up to me and said, "This wall, if my theory is correct, came from a dragon that was thought to be only myth, with size inconceivable and scales the of silver. It's said that his knowledge is so vast that it couldn't even be contained in a single body, parts of what he knows are scattered throughout the world. Some say they're placed by him for specific reasons, others aren't so sure. Anyway, I brought you down here for two reasons," He pointed to my necklace, "That, and who you are, changeling."

"No! WAIT!" I held up my hooves. "Look, dude. I don't know what you're about to tell me, but I got a pretty good hint from what I saw. Just let me go peacefully and we can sum this up never, eh? I have a restaurant to help fix up, I can't-"

"Let you go? Do you even realize who that was? Who you are-? WHAT you are?"

I plugged my ears, "LALALALALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"Sko'lZhen Gaaell was-"

"LALALALA!"

"He was--"

"LAAAAAA!"

"FINE! Go! I don't have time for someone who doesn't care about their own life!"

I pulled my hooves from my ears and said, "That's good to hear. Now, do you sell any fresh fruits or vegetables?"

He sighed and smacked his claw into his face. "Yeah, they're up top, behind the counter. You got to me before I managed to get set up." He flew back up through the hole. I simply walked up the wall until I got outside the hole. It took a bit longer but the time it took allowed me to try and forget everything I'd just saw. When I got back out he was throwing vegetables and fruits in a bag, I didn't want to spend the time checking to confirm they were good. If something was wrong I could simply ask Celestia to send some over. It'd take longer than normal, meaning I'd have more time to deal with Bright Side, and that was not an option I would ever take by choice.

I took the bag, got onto the counter, gave him the money he asked for and hopped off with them both. Looking back at the stand, it seemed a bit barren there wasn't a single fruit of vegetable around it. Like you'd never expect it to sell anything. "Hey, why'd you put all your fruit back? It all looked pretty good before, isn't that bad for business?

"Didn't you hear me? I wasn't open yet, so I didn't have them out. What you saw was likely because-"

I turned my head and said, "No wait, nevermind! Shut up, we're done here. Come on Bright Side." She trotted up to me from behind, shaking. "Is something wrong?" I asked as we walked away.

"No, nothing!" She said, but without moving her mouth, she somehow managed to say, "You're a changeling! What am I supposed to do?! This is terrible!"

"Come again?"

"Hmm? I didn't say anything, let's just get whatever is next on the list!"

"You went down in that hole, didn't you?"

"What?" She stepped back, "I-I don't know what you're talking about!" again, without her mouth moving, she said, "No! No! No! If he figures out I know he's a changeling, he's gonna hurt me!"

"What? But you-"

"Next we have to get....cleaners. I know which side of the market that's on, let's go!" she galloped away. I looked back at the gryphon and he gave me a sleezy smile, like he knew this wasn't over. And, unfortunately, he was right.

Comments

[Dravkwn]

This story has been quite silly in a semi serious manner. I shall continue tracking it.

[The ancient one]

6125198 Thank you!

[TBear]

Good job!

[Unending Suffering]

I WANT MOAR

[The ancient one]

6127654 My body can only give so much so soon!

[Unending Suffering]

6128599 then I will have to devour your memories

[The Psychopath]

Stupid Sko'lZhen Gaaell. He should've spoken with the Reaper first. A body remade never has the same soul. If no memories of its past are retained, it is only linked to the soul of the past life. It is not the past life.

[Warrior Kitten]

6200281
READING IT AGAIN DIDN'T HELP! D:

[Warrior Kitten]

img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131025181614/mlp/images/7/75/FANMADE_Rainbow_seems_legit.png

[The ancient one]

6270380 Don't worry, it'll all make sense soon.

[Cold Spike]

Very odd way to tell a story. I also think you're missing some descriptions on things; I got lost when trying to follow the semi serious scene with the mirror.