Hope and Changeling

by FrontSevens

Chapter 19 - Fun Little Ride

Cartoon hangovers were not any more pleasant than real life hangovers. In fact, they were worse, if anything.

Not that being in a cartoon had any added effect, though. I just don’t usually drink that much. Maybe three beers at most, but I’m normally good at setting a limit. Normally. Last night was not a normal night. By any means, really, considering the cartoon and horses and changelings and whatnot.

My brain throbbed painfully inside my skull, and that intensified when I opened my eyes. Sunlight was never my enemy, unless I woke up hungover midmorning. I shielded my eyes from his rays of death as best as I could.

I dragged myself to the lake and had some water. A lot of water, actually; I was parched. I stretched and pulled myself up to stand, and started down the path from the lake, trying to stay upright as I walked.

I moseyed my way over to the village. Squinting, I stayed in the shade of the trees as much as I could, but even looking at the sun’s shine on the path hurt my eyes.

The village was very awake at this point, which surprised me. It could’ve been a time zone thing, or they were used to drinking and they could hold their liquor better. Or, I drank more than anyone else did last night. I couldn’t rule out that possibility, however embarrassing it was.

“Mornin’,” Zephyr said with a smile. He was eating some bread, probably leftover from the feast the other day. He looked me up and down. “Had your fill of the bubbly last night, did ya?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down. “Yeah, maybe more than my fill.”

“Eh, nothing to lose your mane over.” He tore off a piece of his bread and held it out to me. “I’d send you Arabica’s way for wake-up juice, but most new folks can’t stand the taste.”

“Thanks, but no,” I mumbled, accepting the bread. I’d seen how cartoon characters generally reacted to “wake-up juice”, and I preferred the more gradual way to recover.

Making some small talk about the weather, Zephyr and I sauntered towards the village square. The wheat sisters were there, already up and about, and picking something off of the ground. Bits, I realized. Whole Grain glanced at me and bent back down to continue collecting. “There you are.”

“Hey.” I rubbed my eyes, avoiding eye contact with Wheat Flour. I was too ashamed to talk to her at the moment. Instead, I turned to Whole Grain. “What are you doing?”

“Check your arms,” she said without looking up.

I did, holding them out in front of me. Black and holey as always, except… Oh. Um. The bits in my arms were gone. That was all of our money. Trying to hide my shameful look but doing a terrible job, I quickly finished my bread and helped them scan the ground for bits.

The shiny confetti strewn about didn’t help, either for the search for bits or for my headache. With some effort, I collected three before Whole Grain told me to stop.

“That’s it, I checked the rest of that area. We have enough,” she said, starting to jam bits into my arms. “A day’s worth of food and a train ride to Vanhoover is all we need. You seen Lucid? We have to—speak of the draconequus…”

I turned around to look. Lucid walked out of a hut, squinting when he came into the daylight. We exchanged morning greetings. He seemed almost as hungover as me. Almost. He had a better grasp on his balance, and he adjusted to the sunlight faster.

“Great, you’re up. Let’s go,” Whole Grain said. She started to trot across the village square. “Long day ahead of us. We’ll be at Canterlot by nightfall.”

I stood and caught up with Whole Grain as she started to lead us out of the village. Zephyr trailed me and piped up, “You folks don’t want to take the train?”

Here? Out in the middle of the woods? There was a train station?

~ ~ ~

There was a train station.

A small train station. Just a simple platform and a ticket stand. It’s a way station, Zephyr explained. The railway went through Hollow Shades from Canterlot to Baltimare, so they figured, let’s put a station here, why not.

When I understood why Hollow Shades had a train station, I needed to know if we could use it. “Is it running to Canterlot, though?” I asked Zephyr.

He nodded. “Should be now. Canterlot was under lock and key not too long ago, you know.”

I observed Whole Grain as she bickered with the conductor. Wheat Flour was standing by her side, watching the conductor, with a disinterested look on her face. I figured I should apologize to her at some point. Not at the moment, though.

“It was?” Lucid asked. Fairweather hovered next to him.

Zephyr chuckled. “Yeah. Put a shield up ‘round the whole city and choked up the train line to thru traffic only, ‘cept for approved trains. The royals take threats real serious.”

I looked off in the distance at the mountain, which was where Canterlot was, so Zephyr had said. I remembered seeing the pink bubble over the city from the train, and the explosion we heard the next day in Fillydelphia. They had good reason to be cautious.

Fairweather landed on the ground. “The changey things, right?”

“Er, the changelings, yes,” Zephyr said. “But that’s over, so it shouldn’t be a problem now.” He chuckled. “Shouldn’t, but your friend wants to be extra sure, looks like.”

I nodded. Whole Grain was probably the angriest among us when we couldn’t get there the first time. “Angry” may not be the right word… Annoyed. Very annoyed. I was glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of her annoyance anymore. Or her aggression, for that matter.

I turned to Zephyr and thanked him for letting us stay in Hollow Shades. He said we were welcome back anytime, and we left to meet up with the wheat sisters on the train platform.

“All set?” Lucid asked Whole Grain, doing up the clasp on his satchel.

Whole Grain smiled. “Yes. We’re going. And we are definitely stopping in Canterlot this time.” She turned to the conductor and glared at him. “Isn’t that right, bud?” The conductor’s head lowered to his feet and he tightly folded his wings as he stared up into Whole Grain’s angry eyes. He cowered under her like she was the Eye of Sauron. She spoke like it, too. “The train will stop in Canterlot.”

“Y-yes.” The conductor gulped. “I’m v-v-very sure it w-w-will.” He crawled backwards and took off, flying back to the engine. I felt bad for the guy.

We boarded the train and took our seats in an open car, instead of a compartment, at my request. It was also closer to the engine instead of the caboose. I wanted no opportunity for a repeat of the last time I was on a train.

We picked seats such that we were facing each other—I opposite Lucid and Fairweather opposite the wheat sisters. Each of us had our own window except for Whole Grain. With a lurch and loud whistle, the train pulled away from the station, and we were on our way to Canterlot, hopefully.

Nobody started a conversation for the first hour or so. I watched the landscape pass by my window. I had nothing to talk to the others about: My apology with Wheat Flour would have to wait until we had some privacy. Lucid had told me enough about how I got here. And I didn’t want to talk about last night to anyone. I didn’t feel good about it.

Fairweather, however, had no such inhibitions about conversing. She turned to us and smiled. “Quite a party last night, huh?”

No one responded for several seconds. I avoided looking at the wheat sisters and glanced at Lucid before looking out the window again.

Whole Grain said, “Well I, for one, had a good time.”

I did a double take at her. I thought she was referring to her time with me, and I became scared that she, too, had fallen in love with me. However, she was staring at her sister, smirking.

Fairweather, blissfully unaware, continued. “Did you see the desert buffet? There was chocolate fondue, and s’mores, of course, and this really good rhubarb pie, a la mode. I ate way more than I should’ve.” She rubbed her stomach and giggled. “I couldn’t help myself!”

“You weren’t the only one,” Wheat Flour mumbled.

I kept staring out the window. Whether she was referring to me or her sister, it made me uncomfortable.

Fairweather continued. “Huh. Well, I didn’t see any of you guys at the buffet table. You and Coop—Copper were jigging’ it up, Lucy just went all-out loony, and—well, I barely saw you at all.”

“Somepony had to play grown-up,” Wheat Flour said.

“More like grown-uptight,” her sister said.

Wheat Flour sighed. “Hilarious.”

Whole Grain leaned forward. “You wanna know what’s funny?” she asked. “You were the one who put us in danger last night.”

“I should go get some refreshments,” Lucid declared, suddenly standing up. “Let’s go, Fairweather.”

Fairweather chuckled. “Huh? Why me?”

“I might need help carrying them,” he said. “We should go.”

“I dunno, you’re the one with the fancy-schmancy unicorn magic. Surely you can handle it.”

However, Lucid didn’t wait for her consent. He tugged her arm and left with her. I didn’t join them. Even though I didn’t want to be involved in this discussion, I felt I already was. As of last night, when Whole Grain pulled her sister and I aside to express her doubts about Hollow Shades, she had trusted me almost as much as her sister. It’s like I was part of the family. No, that’s too cheesy… They trusted me now. That’s more accurate.

Once the door shut behind Lucid and Fairweather, the wheat sisters continued their argument. I sat by and waited for them to either accuse me, insult me, or tell me to leave. Whichever it was, I’d have something to say back.

Wheat Flour stood up from her seat and sat across from her sister, so they could talk face-to-face. “I put us in danger,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Because I was the only sober one last night.”

“No, because you insisted on splitting up,” Whole Grain replied. “I said right from the start we should stick together.”

“Okay. But, we didn’t, and we are all fine.” Wheat Flour smiled. “It appears I was right. The only danger we faced last night was you two drinking yourselves senseless.”

Yep, I knew I’d have to defend myself at some point. “I’m sorry about that, all right? I got carried away, just wanted to have a little fun.”

“Don’t apologize,” Whole Grain told me. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Don’t do that,” I said, standing up. “Don’t tell me what to do. I want to apologize. I’m apologizing.” I turned to Wheat Flour, softening my tone. “I’m sorry.” She looked down.

I looked down, too. We were silent for a moment. I wanted to say something else, but I couldn’t. I was mad at myself for what I did, I was mad at Whole Grain, I was mad that I was in this world, not at home, safe, with my safe job and my safe life.

“Least I didn’t lose all our money,” Whole Grain mumbled.

I hesitated, stomping my hoof on the floor. “That was not my fault, okay?”

She scoffed. “What, somepony forced you to turn into a changeling?”

Okay, that’s it. I’d had enough of Whole Grain’s nonsense. I advanced, anger running through my legs. “You think I asked for this? You think I wanted any of this?”

Whole Grain blinked. Taking a small step back, she raised her eyebrows and squinted at me. “Hold up, Copper. I don’t—”

“No, you don’t! You think I came here on purpose?” I felt my jaw shake, and Whole Grain started to look scared, but I pressed on. “I didn’t choose this, Whole Grain. I’m here because of some stupid magic experiment. I didn’t want any of this.”

They didn’t deserve for me to treat them like this, but I wasn’t ready to stop. I was angry. “I’d rather be home. I don’t want to live in Ponyland; I want Humanland, with my own human body and human feet and hands.” I thrust my hoof to my chest. “I want my life back. I want to go home. To sit down in my own recliner. To watch all the damn T.V. I want!”

And then… I was there. All the little details of home suddenly came back to me. My used brown recliner with the balding arms sitting in the middle of the living room. The microwave in the kitchen with the tray that squeaked like the dickens when heating up anything heavier than a frozen muffin. The cans of paint by the door—a self-imposed reminder that I needed to paint over the peeling grey coat on my house’s siding.

A pile of old T.V. schedules (the most recent one on top) was on a coffee table next to my recliner. It was the only reason I subscribed to the weekend paper. “Breaking Bad’s on Sunday,” I said, almost automatically. I didn’t even know what day of the week it was. I went stiff as a statue. I couldn’t breathe.

Home never felt so far away. Physically, yeah, it was far across time and space and whatever. However, the only piece of home that I had taken with me was my memory of it. Sure, I could live without television or microwaves or even having fingers at the end of my hands. But if there was one thing I was scared to lose, it was the knowledge of what it was like to be human.

I backed up, slowly, to my own seat. I felt cold, all of a sudden. Fur felt weird. I wanted clothes, clothing of any kind, like a shirt or pants or even socks. In all the time I spent in that place, I never felt so naked. I shivered as I sat down, pulling my arms in close to me.

Then I felt someone embrace me. Wheat Flour, I realized. Didn’t matter. I was grateful for any kind of support. She was warm, too. I pried away one of my arms from beneath the embrace and wrapped it around her. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

You’re almost there. I laughed softly at the thought. You’re almost there. Once the train stops, you’ll pretty much be home. With a normal life, in your normal world, and your normal, non-horse body.

I took my arm away, and wiped my face. “Thanks,” I said again. “I’m fine now.”

Wheat Flour stared at me for a second, looking between each of my eyes, to make sure I was being honest, I suppose. “If you say so,” she said. “We are here for you. Remember that.” I nodded. She smiled, rubbed my arm, and went back to her seat.

Whole Grain shifted and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. After a quick glance at her sister, she decided to talk. “I meant last night,” she said.

“Hm?” I said.

She cleared her throat, and her eyes darted back to her sister once more before looking at me. “When I asked if somepony made you turn into a changeling, I meant last night. Not…” She waved her hoof around in an all-encompassing circle. “…the way you thought. But, uh, forget it.”

Oh, so that’s what she meant. Of course I’d mistake her comment for something so existential. Okay, great. I had gone on an angry rant over a stupid misunderstanding. What a genius I was for lashing out for no reason at my only two friends in this universe. Frustrated, I bored my wrist into my forehead.

Woah, starting to get angry again. No need to repeat the same mistake. Breaths. Slow, deep breaths. Straightening up, I rolled my shoulders and leaned my head from side to side, stretching my stiff neck.

None of this would matter, anyway; I’d be home soon. We were close, weren’t we? This train would stop in Canterlot. Then, I’d be one castle visit away from home. Nothing to it. I settled into my chair and had the courage to smile. Not of overconfidence, but simply from hope.

The door to the train car opened with a soft click, and a tray with a green aura floated in. It carried five cups, a teapot, and two dishes of sugar and cream. Lucid trotted in after it, closing the door behind him. “Who likes tea?” he said.

I stared at the tray, which was encased in a green glow. Green. I had seen that shade of green before. A shade of green unlike the white shade I had seen from Lucid’s horn before. No, I had seen that shade of green come from the Sergeant’s horn. And 4 N 7’s. And 6 F 26’s.

It was a changeling shade of green.

No way. No freaking way. I froze, and after peeling my eyes off of Lucid, I suddenly stared hard at Whole Grain. All I could do was stare at her. No signal or secret arm motion came to mind, something that wouldn’t get Lucid’s immediate attention… Yes, there was something.

As Whole Grain stared back, I almost whispered, “Fishy.”

Her eyes grew wide in realization.

She sprung into the air, her arms out in front of her and aimed at Lucid. The aura around the tray faded, the teacups falling, the cubes of sugar rising up from their container as they were released. The tray clattered to the ground, launching amber liquid into the air. The glow around Lucid’s horn didn’t fade, instead shooting a beam of green light in front of it. The light materialized into goo at Whole Grain’s back hooves, pinning her to the ground. She slammed into the floorboards, tea splashing onto her face.

I stared, my mouth hanging open. I turned to see Lucid’s angry green eyes, Wheat Flour’s fearful pink eyes… and the door. I ran, focusing on that door. I zeroed in on the knob and reached for it. Almost there…

But I didn’t get that chance. I felt a pull as my back legs were weighted down with ooze. He had me. I heaved with my arms, trying to free myself from the slime on my legs, to reach that door.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his blue hooves approaching, then his head. His green eyes were wild, and his mouth was wide in a sinister grin. He let out an exasperated laugh as he held the tray in his green magic. The tray suddenly grew in size, and my vision went dark. So much for Breaking Bad.

I felt very slow and sleepy, like I had just woken up. I couldn’t see, and I tried to move all of my legs. Only the lower legs were responding, so I kicked and flailed them as much as I could, trying to hit or latch on to something. I heard screeching and felt a rumble, and it felt like my back was being run over by a sanding belt.

My vision started to come back, but it was very blurry. I could only make out colours. I lashed my head from side to side, trying to bring my sight back faster. I could make out patches of light—windows, I realized.

Pain swelled in my forehead and behind my eyes. I squeezed them shut to supress it. That tray was not made of pillows and marshmallows, that’s for sure.

A door slammed. I heard someone yelling. My hands pressed into a wall above me, and something sticky covered them. More yelling, and some scuffling. I could’ve sworn I heard the stammering voice of the conductor. My vision started to sharpen. I looked up, and I saw green stuff around my wrists. I pulled my arms up, down, out, I jerked around, but I couldn’t free them. I was stuck.

I was in the engine cabin of the train. It was a small space, with only a door to a furnace, a shovel atop a pile of coal, and some controls for the train. Lucid, his glasses crooked, was standing in front of me, panting, smiling. We both stared at each other for a moment, and I found the courage to speak. “Who are you?”

A green wave of magic enveloped him, and he stood there in his changeling form. He licked his lips. “Take a guess, chump.”

What? All this time, him? He was Lucid? “No. I…”

“Yes! Yes, it’s me. And boy, am I glad to see you.” 6 F 26 laughed. He walked to the furnace grate and unfastened the latch. “We’re going to have a fun little ride, yes we are.”

I swallowed. As he swung open the furnace door, the heat of the fire surged into the cabin. I felt it almost immediately, my eyes hurting and my skin becoming uncomfortably warm. Instinctively, I tried to scoot away.

6 F 26 picked up the shovel on the coal pile and dug it into the coal. He heaved a scoop into the furnace, the fire roaring as he fed it. I winced as the flames brightened.

“Ah, fire. Fire is fun to watch,” he said. The flames reflected on his pale, pupil-less eyes. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this for daaays. And now you’re here! This is perfect.” He walked up to me and looked at my restraint, smiling. “I’ve got you right where I want you.”

I shrunk back from him, scared of what that meant. He worked frantically with the shovel. He was excited, almost. There was a sort of spring in his step as he shoveled scoop after scoop of coal into the furnace. I didn’t like it at all. People scare me when they’re two eggs short of a complete breakfast, so to speak.

This had to be a misunderstanding. What had I done to him? I mean, yes, I had left him with the Sergeant outside of the Manehattan police station to be taken in. Was that really bad enough to justify him capturing or injuring or killing me or even… torturing me? I shuddered. Maybe we could talk this out.

He glanced at me as he worked, sporting a wide grin. I tilted my head down away from him, but I still watched him carefully. “Why are you doing this?”

“You want to know why? You want to know why?” He stomped toward me and threw down the shovel, letting it clatter on the stone floor. His right hoof wound up and socked me right up my jaw. That hurt.

“I can’t believe you’re that stupid!” He panted, keeping his eyes trained on me, and picked the shovel back up. “You beat me near to death and left me to rot in a dumpster. A dumpster.”

He was wrong about the dumpster part. I opened my mouth a little to stretch out my stinging jaw. “We didn’t put you in a dumpster.”

“Don’t lie to me!” He returned to his work, angrily heaping more coal into the furnace. “You left me to die there. Far away from the hive, my home…” He sunk the shovel into the coal pile and paused. Then, with renewed vigor, he heaved a scoop into the furnace.

“I was out for a whole day. After that, I knew had to find you. Find you, then kill you.” He laughed a little, but then sputtered into coughing from the furnace’s fumes. He cleared his throat. “I knew you were going to Canterlot, so I started to fly there. And, lucky for me, I stumbled upon your friends in Fairflanks. Couldn’t kill you there, out in public. Had to wait.”

Whole Grain was right. Lucid had apologized too quickly. “You became Lucid,” I said.

“I did. Watched your little sissy fight with him, and once he left, I jumped him. His body’s probably been found by now.”

His body? Good grief! “You killed him?”

“What? No. He was no use to me dead. I was starving.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Knocked him out, put him in a pod, sucked the love out of him. Ran before anyone could find me.”

So Lucid was still alive. I was relieved, but only for a second. 6 F 26 was still threatening to kill me. I swallowed, paralyzed, as I looked at the bright yellow flames roaring in the furnace. I’d never been burned alive before, and I haven’t met anyone who had. I didn’t imagine it to be very pleasant at all.

I forced myself to speak. “You’re gonna throw me in there?”

“No,” he huffed. “What I’m going to do, is I’m going to kill you and your dumb friends…” He smiled wickedly. “…all at once. That’s what makes this so perfect.”

I felt cold shivers run up my back. He slammed the grate on the furnace, which only slightly dulled the roar of the engine. He laughed, looking out of the train’s window. “Looks like a straight stretch for now. Turn’s gotta come soon, though. I’d hate to take it at this speed.”

I tried to calm my breathing. There had to be a way out of this. I looked up at my bond. I had to break free of it somehow. And then, refocusing on my horn, I realized: I had magic. There had to be something in that horn of mine that could cut through it.

6 F 26 was still looking out of the window. I had to act fast. I focused, imagining power rushing to my forehead. Then, I visualized a razor-thin blade surgically separating the goo from the wall—not fully breaking it, but just detaching me from the wall. As long as he didn’t look too closely, 6 F 26 wouldn’t notice.

My horn and its beam of magic obeyed, and I cut the goo from the wall. Just in time, too. 6 F 26 smiled, still looking out the window. “Aha! There it is, a turn.” He clapped, almost like a child, at the sight. He turned and bounded over to me. “Well, I guess we part ways now.”

I shifted a little, making sure that I was still disconnected from the wall. I swallowed as his face came close to mine. He grinned. “You know, it’s funny. You left me to die, chump. And now, I get to return the—oof!”

I threw my arms over his head and thrust my knee into his stomach. I had to move fast, couldn’t give him time to react. I pulled his neck sideways and rolled over on top of him. As he groaned, I pressed my elbows onto his shoulders and shifted my weight there to pin him to the ground.

His horn glowed and he shot a magic beam at my face. Instinctively, I recoiled and closed my eyes, but when I tried to open them again, I realized they were stuck shut. My hooves were still stuck together, so I couldn’t let up. I wanted to panic and almost did, but although I was blind, I could still hold him down. I pressed his shoulders harder to the ground.

I strained to open my eyes, but I still couldn’t. The wheels were screeching, the furnace was roaring, my heart was racing, and I prayed that someone, anyone, would come to the engine and help me.

Thankfully, someone did. The door to the cabin banged open. Never before had the sound of Whole Grain yelling been sweeter than music.

“Don’t move! Either of you!” she said, and I obliged, still holding 6 F 26 down. I felt him resist, but I pushed as hard as I could.

A few seconds later, I was pulled off of 6 F 26. After being gently laid against a wall, I felt something scrape away the goo from my eyes. Through my blurred vision, I saw Wheat Flour.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Ah,” I exhaled, then looked down at my body. All my limbs were still attached and nothing was bleeding, but my head was sore. Oh, and I was also alive. I’d call that fine. “I’m fine,” I said.

Whole Grain whaled away on 6 F 26, beating him to a pulp. Watching him take blow after blow to the face, I wondered how she knew that wasn’t me this time. I looked at Wheat Flour. “How did you…”

“I told Whole Grain. Your chipped tooth,” she said, tapping a hoof on one of my fangs. Right, that happened the last time I took a train.

Whole Grain continued to scuffle. She kicked 6 F 26 in the head, launching him backwards. He sprawled on the ground like a rag doll and lay there, motionless. He was unconscious or dead. Either way, phew.

I did a quick head count. The wheat sisters and Fairweather were there, and each had remnants of green goo on them. 6 F 26 had been busy. Regardless, time was running out. I was out of the fire, yes, but back in the frying pan. I cut the goo between my hooves with my magic. “We need to stop the train,” I told everyone. “There a brake somewhere?”

We all looked around. There was a lever next to the window of the cabin. That had to be it. Whole Grain was the first to jump for it, and she pulled back as hard as she could.

The squeal of metal shrieked and the train gave a small lurch, but the lever barely moved an inch. Instead of standing around doing nothing, I made myself useful and helped Whole Grain by pushing the lever with both of my arms. Wheat Flour joined me, and Fairweather pulled Whole Grain.

The lever went further and the train squealed louder, until we heard a snap and tumbled into a pile. The lever broke. But the wheels kept rumbling, the wind still whirring by—the train was still going. My skin went cold. No, we couldn’t die. There had to be another way. “Another brake,” I said, panting. “We have to find another.”

But there was no other brake. There was a pile of coal, a shovel, a furnace, a whistle, some gauges… no brake. I looked around the room again, in case I had missed something. Then a third time. “No,” I said. “No…”

I stomped my hoof on the ground. This had to be a dream. This is what happens in dreams. I’m skydiving or riding a crashing plane or whatever and just before I die, I wake up. I closed my eyes and wished for that. Wake up now. Wake up.

…But I knew that I wouldn’t. I opened my eyes and looked at Fairweather and Whole Grain and Wheat Flour. This was real. And I felt terrible. I was responsible for all of this. There were so many things I could’ve done better, like not losing our money or not crashing the ship in Fillydelphia or making sure 6 F 26 actually made it to jail in Manehattan or not dragging these good people with me in the first place. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. I had to look away.

The train barreled down the tracks, the furnace roared angrily, and the wind whisted through the cabin windows. I felt the rumble of the floor, the only thing I might feel for a long while. This was it.

Then, above all the noise, I heard Wheat Flour whisper into her sister’s ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green flash. I looked.

She was… she was a changeling.

But this one was different from 6 F 26 or the Sergeant or any other changeling I had seen before. It was the same height and had the same black, hole-filled body, but it had hair. Long, blue hair, both on its head and its tail. The eyes also had whites and pupils, with irises that shone a deep navy blue. They were careful, innocent, like that of a child.

I didn’t know what to do, what to think. Who was that? Was it a changeling from the same hive as 6 F 26? Was it here to capture me, or to spy on me or Whole Grain? How long had it been posing as Wheat Flour? Since Fairflanks, like 6 F 26? Fillydelphia? Manehattan? Oh, no… Did 6 F 26 bring the Sergeant along with him?

Did Whole Grain know about this? Was she a changeling, too? I looked at her. Her eyes were wide open, focused right on the new changeling. The muscles in her neck tightened, and she said nothing. She was speechless, and I’d go as far to say she was surprised.

The changeling didn’t wait too long for us to react. It—she (by the long hair and shape of the face, I assumed it was female)—leaned her head out of the cabin window, and her horn lit up as it aimed a beam down to the ground. The train reacted with a hard jerk, throwing us all off balance.

I scrambled to my feet and looked outside to see what she was doing. Her beam was aimed right at the train track. Green goo stuck to the rail below, and passed the engine to the rest of the cars. She was trying to stop the train. Better yet, it was working. The screeching of the wheels got less ear-splitting, and we were slowly losing speed. However, we were still going quite fast.

I ran to the other side of the cabin and poked my head out the window. Concentrating, I imagined the same green goo coming out of my horn and toward the train tracks, just like what Wheat Flour was doing. I felt my horn tingle as a green laser shot out of it. Goo materialized at the rail below, and I held the beam there.

Sweat trickled down my face. The longer I held the beam, the more my head hurt. I felt my horn burning, pain developing in my sinuses, my eyes throbbing. I couldn’t hold it for too much longer. I stopped, panting and holding my aching head.

I looked over at Wheat Flour, and she was still going. She was intensely focused on the rails, her forehead crinkled and her teeth gritted. Her legs were spread far apart to support her, but they seemed to be shaking a little. I admired her for how much longer she could hold the spell than me, though it’s likely because she’d had more than four days’ worth of experience as a changeling.

The train gave one last lurch as it came to a complete stop. I exhaled, wiping my tears away as my heartbeat slowed down. Everyone in the cabin stayed silent under the dull roar of the furnace. I felt lightheaded. I couldn’t believe we were alive.

The changeling (formerly Wheat Flour) hung her head, swayed, and collapsed. Everyone ran to her. She wasn’t moving. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, are you all right?” She didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to check if she was still alive. She needed medical attention, regardless, and fast.“Fairweather, you need to fly her to the nearest hospital. Do you know where that is?”

“Closest hospital would be Canterlot,” she said, staring at the changeling.

“Okay, fly her there. Now, please.”

Fairweather wasted no time. She hooked her arms under the changeling’s armpits and took off, flying out of the cabin and up the side of a mountain. I hoped she was all right, whoever she was. But hope was all I could do. That, and get to that hospital as soon as I could.

“Whole Grain, let’s go,” I said.

She didn’t respond, looking down at the ground with a stone-faced expression. Without saying a word, she pointed to the corner of the cabin. 6 F 26 lay there in a heap, and he was starting to come to.

“Right,” I said. “He’s coming, too.”

Author's Note:

Preread by NotSoSubtle

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

Okay... that happened... (Is that why his holes healed over the money?)

Also; dammit 26! Get over it!

[ssokolow]

“Eh, nothing to lose your mane over.” He tore off a piece of his bread and held it out to me. “I’d send you Arabica’s way for wake-up juice, but most new folks can’t stand the taste.”

“Thanks, but no,” I mumbled, accepting the bread. I’d seen how cartoon characters generally reacted to “wake-up juice”, and I preferred the more gradual way to recover.

Damn you and your self-defeating ignorance!

[tsaukpaetra]

He almost had some coffee finally!

[tsaukpaetra]

5470482

Is that why his holes healed over the money?

Yeah, apparently she loved him enough that his body started to heal.

[KvAT]

7509711
So close, yet so far