• Published 5th Nov 2012
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Hope and Changeling - FrontSevens



A novice changeling undertakes a journey back to his own world.

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Chapter 14 - Fairflanks

“Good morning, you two. I made eggs!”

The aroma of eggs and the cheery, sing-song voice of Fairweather greeted us as we came into the main room. Six plates were waiting for us on the same table we had used the other night.

And, true to her claim, Fairweather had indeed made eggs. And only eggs. Each plate accommodated two eggs, sunny side up. There were even more eggs in the middle if those weren’t enough. Not that I complained—I wasn’t picky when it came to food—but it was very simple.

Lucid and I sat down and began to eat. The wheat sisters were already up and eating, and once Fairweather had finished cooking another batch, she joined us at the table.

Wheat Flour rubbed her eyes. “Where’s 4 N 7?”

“The monkey?” Fairweather asked. She did what she did best and pointed at me. “He’s right there.”

“No, the other monkey,” Lucid said, then shook the confusion out of his head. “Changeling. The other changeling.”

“Oh, the other one? Well, in the middle of the night, he woke me up and said he needed to use the colt’s room, so I led him here and waited for him, but when I did, I saw the glasses on this table and realized that I forgot to clean them, so I did that, and then, looking at the glasses, I realized that I hadn’t reorganized the glassware in forever, so I did that. I thought I’d mix it up this time with cider glasses lined up in the back, and the glass glasses in front of those, followed by—”

“—and the changeling?” Lucid asked.

“Oh, well, he, uh… I forgot about him,” she said, trying to make up for it with a grin. Suddenly, she perked up. “Do you think he’s done by now?”

“Don’t… ugh.” Lucid leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You shared a room with him. Did you see him return or get up this morning?”

Fairweather contemplated for a moment, then said, “Nope.”

“So… he left,” Wheat Flour said.

Whole Grain swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “Good riddance.”

I looked down at my eggs and took a nibble. They hadn’t been seasoned, but they were cooked well. As I chewed, I thought of the train conductor. Changelings could change into anypony they wanted to, after all. “Or he’s still here, and he’s disguised himself as one of us,” I said.

Everyone looked at everyone else now that the thought had been entertained. I regretted mentioning it, afraid we would start accusing and fighting each other. Too tired for that, I rubbed my temples with the sides of my hooves and looked at Lucid. “Please tell me there’s a magic trick that can show if a pony is a changeling.”

“No, there isn’t,” he said, frowning.

Whole Grain whispered something in Wheat Flour’s ear, and her sister whispered something back. Whole Grain looked at everyone else. “It’s not either of us,” she said.

Fairweather looked around and whispered something to the air beside her. Then, her eyebrows furrowed and she rubbed her hoof under her chin. “It could be me…”

Lucid didn’t say anything and continued to eat his eggs. I think he knew that he could try all he wanted and Whole Grain still wouldn’t believe him. One attempt at making his case took overnight, after all, and even then I wasn’t fully convinced.

The table fell silent again. “Look,” Whole Grain said. “I don’t care who here is a changeling, and frankly, I don’t care whom you change into, but if you ever disguise yourself as me or my sister… you better watch out.”

And that shut the rest of the table up. Even just “you better watch out” was threatening enough after the previous day. I ate my eggs slowly and quietly. And as I wiped some sleep out of my eye, the thought crossed my mind: coffee. And as quickly as it surfaced, it retreated back into its corner of my brain. Out of all ponies, Fairweather was the wrong one to ask of anything, especially something that no normal pony knew about anyway.

Wheat Flour finished the first egg on her plate and stared down at the second, thinking. She turned to her sister. “Whole Grain,” she said.

Whole Grain picked up two eggs from the center of the table and dropped them on her plate. “Yes?”

“Is there something you would like to say?” Wheat Flour asked.

“Say…”

“To Copper Flash.”

“Oh.” Whole Grain rubbed the back of her neck and looked over the eggs in front of her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

I couldn’t quite believe what I had heard. “Pardon?”

“You heard what I said.” She raised her voice, but lowered it once she noticed her sister. She looked down at her plate. “I said I’m sorry,” she said, folding her arms. “That I hit you and that you’re maybe not a changeling.”

I bobbed my head, and poked at the little yellow yolk on my plate. I didn’t say “I forgive you” because that statement made me sound more important than I was. Instead, I wanted to say that what had happened was behind me, so I replied with, “It’s okay.” I took a small bite of my egg and chewed quietly.

Once breakfast was over, we gathered ourselves and left out the front door. Fairweather followed, humming a little tune to herself. I thought at first that she had just happened to be walking the same way, but it became obvious that she wanted to come with us, and I didn’t think I could put up with her.

“Fairweather,” I began.

She was skipping at that point. “Yes?”

Lucid said, “Don’t you have anything else to do? Wash the dishes, fix a table or two, re-rearrange the glasses…” His eyes hopped up and down as they followed Fairweather.

“Not when I have friends to hang out with!” She grinned. “I wanna come with you guys. You know what they say: two’s company, but six is a party!”

I remembered that phrase a bit differently, but I didn’t bother questioning it. Whole Grain muttered, “Wonderful…”

“I know!” Fairweather jumped into the air and performed a barrel roll. She began to hum that tune again.

After about two minutes of what I believe was the same melody over and over again, Whole Grain put a stop to it. “No humming.”

Fairweather’s smile faded, but she complied. Silently, she swayed to and fro in the air as she continued the melody in her head. I figured she would flip if she ever discovered iPods.

The sky was crystal clear that day, with not a cloud in the sky for miles. The land was similarly bare; fields of grass stretched in every direction. It was dull, but we were dry, I wasn’t hungry, and the temperature was comfortable. I refrained from complaining.

I had no idea where we were going, but I assume it was in the general direction of Canterlot. Whole Grain had taken the lead that day, so I was confident that we were on the right track.

And as we traveled, I noticed that Wheat Flour was up to something. Through the first half-hour of walking, she had drifted from Whole Grain’s side to mine. I tried to ignore her, but every once in a while, she would glance at me without turning her head. Eventually, she spoke.

“You were a human, correct?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Describe the human world for me.” She stared at me.

I pursed my lips. I had a hunch as to where this was going to lead. I couldn’t lead her on that I loved her back. On the other hand (or, hoof, I suppose), if I kept back any information about my world, then everypony might come to think that I was lying. Unsure about which was more important, I decided to answer anyway, but not talk too much about it. “It’s kinda similar to this one.”

She looked away for a moment, up at a small flock of birds flying overhead. “What is similar? What is different?”

“Um, a lot of things,” I said. “Lots of things are different, and… almost as many similar.”

She paused, carefully stepping into her new role as driver of the conversation. “Like…”

“Like, well…” I looked around at our group. “We all wear clothes. You know, you take cloth and stitch it together and drape it around—”

“Yes, we know what clothes are,” Lucid said.

I nodded. “Good. Well, everybody wears them. And it’s illegal not to, I think.”

Fairweather laughed at some unintended joke. Whole Grain slowed her pace to walk next to me. “What else?”

I shrank back a little, nervous now that I had Whole Grain’s attention. “Um… oh. We also all walk on two feet.”

“On two feet, like dragons?” Wheat Flour asked.

“Sure, like… what? Dragons? You guys have dragons here?” I felt my stomach run cold as I remembered that we were in a cartoon. It was entirely possible, and if there were dragons here…

Wheat Flour nodded in reply just before Fairweather jumped in between us. She did a handstand on her front hooves and used her wings to balance as she walked. “You guys walk like this?”

“No,” I said. “Other feet.”

She did a front flip and landed on her back feet. Letting her hooves dangle in the air, she sauntered forward. “Like this.”

I tried, but I couldn’t hold back a broad smile and a laugh. I envisioned a person walking down the street, chest puffed out, holding out their arms like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and swaying a little as they took long steps.

As Fairweather touched back down and folded her wings, another difference came to mind. “Oh, that reminds me. No human—or pony, either—can fly on their own.” I gestured towards Lucid. “Or use magic. No unicorn horns or anything.”

He scratched his head. “Then how do humans use magic?”

“There’s no magic in my world.”

“There isn’t?” Lucid said. “I was so certain you had told me there was.”

I thought back to when I had explained my world to Lucid in Manehattan, but I didn’t recall saying that. “I never said there was.”

“Then what of the carriages that could move all on their own?”

Oh, right. Cars. “I said it would take too long to explain how they worked, but it isn’t magical.”

“Oh. My mistake, then. I assumed by that you meant they functioned through magic.” His tail flicked. “So you’re saying that magic doesn’t exist at all?”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s no such thing where I come from. It’s the kind of thing only kids believe in.”

“Huh.” He shook his head in disbelief. “A world without magic. It’s unfathomable.”

I shrugged. “A week ago, that was normal. And then I came here, and there was magic.” I waved a hoof up in his direction. “Heck, that’s how I got here. Magic.”

“If there’s no magic in your world, then who moves the sun?” Whole Grain said, grinning as if she had seen right through my lies. “Somepony’d burn their hooves trying to move it. Oh, but nopony can fly on their own! So is it daytime all the time there, or what?”

“No,” I said. “The sun doesn’t move at all; the Earth moves instead. It turns, so that half the day we face the sun, and the other half we don’t.”

She snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

Whole Grain made me realize that I was a little disappointed in this world. I figured that cartoons were ideal, in that good guys were always nice or understanding and the bad guys weren’t, and received their comeuppance accordingly. However, in this cartoon, I found that for every character that was too good to be true and yet was true, there was another “good” character that was selfish and ignorant and frustrating. And those characters were as much of a waste of time as any other human.

So I told her the truth as I knew it. “You wanna know what’s the same in my world as it is here? No matter how much you try to tell the truth, people will always doubt you.” I looked ahead at the long path before us. “The only one they’ll bother believing is themselves.”

Whole Grain’s expression hardened and she, too, looked forward to the path. I didn’t care what she thought of me or if she was about to wallop me in the face. I was simply glad that my thoughts were off my chest.

The flat farmland became hillier, and we saw some cows grazing along the side of the road. I thought nothing of them, until one of them took a break from chewing and said, “Mornin’.” I didn’t respond at first, surprised that a cow had just spoken to me, but I did eventually manage a reply, albeit thirty more feet down the road.

And then I thought about what other animals could talk besides ponies. Could all animals talk, or were cows and ponies the only exceptions? Maybe just the ones that had hooves? Donkeys? Zebras? I resolved to test any other animals we came across, hooved or otherwise.

And then I noticed Wheat Flour beside me again. I turned to look at her, our eyes met, and then I quickly turned away. Not her again.

“So, Copper—”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Her pupils grew into stupidly cute puppy dog eyes. “I only have two more questions. That’s all. Please?”

Two questions… If that was enough to stop her from pestering me, then fine. It depended on what those questions were, like if I was single or whatever. Eh… “Okay, fine, but I can choose not to answer them.”

“Agreed.” She cleared her throat. “What was your name?”

Well, just a name shouldn’t hurt. She had given me her real name, after all. “Sawyer.”

“Sawyer…” She said the words as if she was tasting them. I took back my notion that it wouldn’t hurt.

She at least didn’t question what the name meant, since it was a name and not a number or a food. She skipped that and asked her second question. “What was your special talent?”

“My what?” Special… talent?

“You know, your special talent. What you are destined to do for the rest of your life.”

By that, I assumed she meant my job. That was a harmless question, too: standard and innocent enough. Now, explaining computers to someone who had never seen or heard of computers before was going to be tricky. “I… write. In a certain language.”

“…What kind of language?”

“One that you can’t really speak. It’s hard to explain,” I said, hoping she’d drop the subject before I had to start at the very beginning and explain binary or something.

Her gaze fell to the ground. “Oh, okay. As long as it makes you happy, I suppose.”

That made me pause. I had never really associated what I was destined to do with the rest of my life and happiness. Work was work. Work wasn’t particularly “happy” – coming home from it was happier, if anything. Writing code wasn’t something I did in my free time anymore. It was something I did for pay.

As the sun reached the highest point in the sky, I think that for all of us, the need for shade became apparent. I could see sweat beading on everyone’s backs and could feel mine, especially in my armpits. We needed a tree, or something. And water, if possible. And while I was thinking about it, I figured a sergeant-free train ride and a piña colada wouldn’t hurt, either.

“What is that town in the distance, over there?” Wheat Flour asked, pointing to the speckle of buildings on the horizon.

“Fairflanks,” Fairweather stated proudly. “One of the biggest cities this side of Canterlot, aside from Manehattan. If you’re looking for somepony, especially a special somepony, they’re probably there. They gotta big reputation for lovey-dovey stuff. There’s a reason they call it ‘Fairbanks.’”

“Fairflanks,” Whole Grain said.

“That’s what I said! Fairflanks.” She rolled her eyes and giggled. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“We can stop there for a meal,” Lucid said. “I’ve got nine bits left.”

Whole Grain gaped. “Nine? We’re not even halfway to Canterlot, not to mention Vanhoover.” She looked up to Fairweather. “You got anything to contribute, here?”

She rubbed her chin. “I’ve been told before by ponies that I’m ‘spunky’, ‘amiable’, and ‘oblivious’.” She beamed proudly.

Whole Grain groaned. “No, money.”

“No money?” Fairweather cocked her head. “How are we going to pay for food?”

“Never mind. Point is, we need to save our bits. Maybe we can get a loaf of bread on the cheap, and take that with us. That might last us overnight…”

Whole Grain continued to plot money allotment, when I realized I had money of my own. The six bits from her, which I was sure she’d welcome at that point.

Before I changed into my changeling form, I held my right leg in the air to prepare for the injury. I shut my eyes and transformed, and then looked in my right arm. However, the little sack of bits was gone. I turned my arm over and shook it, hoping it would fall out. Oddly enough, there was a clinking of coins, but… no sack.

The group noticed I had stopped and all of their attention shifted to me. “Something wrong?” Wheat Flour asked.

Yes. My arm healed over our reserve funds. “No, just… checking my leg.” I carefully set my hoof down to prove it. And then got brave and put weight on it. Nothing… It was healthy again. “I’m cured! Let’s go.”

I changed back into Copper Flash before we got too close to the city. It had seemed so small from so far away, but once we had closed in on the outskirts, it seemed much bigger than I had anticipated. All the buildings were low-lying. The streets were skinny, and they were clogged with ponies. As we drew closer, I grew nervous. “Is there a way around the city?”

Lucid stopped and looked. A wide river ran from either side of the city and extended out to each horizon. He shook his head. “I don’t remember there being a bridge outside of the city. Just stay close.” Whole Grain nodded in agreement.

Staying somewhat tightly together, we walked into the city. There was music playing faintly from further downtown, but most of the noise came from talking. Lots of ponies were traveling in groups and talking excitedly to each other. They were saying something about how fun it was or how great of a day it was or something. I was focused on keeping up with our pack.

I barely squeezed between two yellow ponies as they laughed across me. “Why is it so busy today?” I asked Fairweather.

She gave it some thought, her eyes wandering to a nearby banner that read “Summer Sun Celebration”. She suddenly remembered. “Oh! It’s the summer sun celebration today!” She did a backflip in glee and landed. “How could I forget? It’s my favourite day of the year!”

Whole Grain stumbled over somepony’s tail. “Mine, too,” she said with a glower.

It became so crowded that we were forced to walk in single file. I ended up last in the group, with Fairweather directly in front of me. She was taking in all that the celebration had to offer – her ears followed the lively music, her nose followed the roasted vegetables, her eyes followed the carnival games. Her green tail was swishing to and fro almost as much as her head was. I kept my mouth closed to avoid tasting her tail.

We passed the town square and filed into a narrow road, bordered by several shops. The ponies were thick here, many just standing outside and talking amongst themselves. I noticed definitive evidence of a party: balloons, streamers, banners, and all sorts of party decorations. These ponies must’ve liked the sun a lot.

Fairweather turned her head to gawk at the web of streamers over our heads and drifted sideways. When I looked past her, I saw that the pony in front of her didn’t look like anypony I recognized.

“Fairweather, hey,” I said, trying to get her attention. “Do you see Lucid anywhere? Or the wheat sisters?”

She stopped and turned to me. “Hmm? Um…” She glanced around, then looked at me and smiled weakly. “No.”

Panic wiggled into my stomach and I started searching the crowd. “Well, fly up and look for them,” I ordered her.

“Okey doke.” She spread her wings and jumped. She shielded her hoof from the sun and ducked under the streamers as she scanned the crowd.

On the ground, I craned my neck as far up as I could to look over everypony’s heads, but it was nigh impossible. I tried to balance on my rear legs, but the anatomy of a pony was not conducive to standing upright. I gave up on that and kpet all four legs on the ground. However, I figured out how to hop. Even though it was tiring, it was as good a method as any.

“See anything yet?” I asked Fairweather, panting.

She looked around, resting her hooves on her hips and wrinkling her nose. “Nothing yet.”

I bit my lip as uncertainty sunk in. If they had lost us, would they have stopped and gathered somewhere, or split off and looked for us? I wondered if we, too, were to either go out and look for them or stay where we were. As long as I stayed with Fairweather and she stayed in the air, we wouldn’t be hard to find, I supposed…

“Copper!”

At the mention of that name, I stopped hopping, perked my ears, and looked around to see if it was any other member of our party.

“Copper,” a mare repeated, smiling as she looked intently into my eyes. “It’s been a while. How are you?”

I did not know this mare, nor the colt standing beside her. What were the chances that they’d know who Copper was this far out from Vanhoover? Nonetheless, I didn’t have time for that. They had me cornered, so I looked around for a chance to flee as I replied, “Good.”

The colt tilted his head down, and his eyes locked on mine. “Everything all right? We haven’t heard from you since last summer.”

I nodded and looked beside him at a shop. There was a possibility that the others had regrouped in a store. “Yeah. Busy,” I said, still catching my breath from hopping.

“Really, son. Are you okay?” The colt grasped my chin and turned my head to face him. I avoided his eyes and tried to turn my head away. The mare frowned.

Son? If these were Copper’s parents, then there was no way I could talk with them. They’d figure me out in ten seconds flat. I finally found an opening, but before I could take it, Fairweather landed beside me and blocked my escape.

She gasped. “Oh my gosh! Cooper, I didn’t know your parents lived here!”

Thanks, Fairweather. I didn’t either.

Author's Note:

Preread by NotSoSubtle