Chrysalis Visits The Hague

by Dan The Man

V. The Victims

V.

The Victims

Colton's End, Equestria
17. November, 2015
14:26 am ICT

The snow fell thick and richly onto the land. A cold but dry wind carried fat and fluffy flakes from up north, laying down layer after layer of white goodness on the fields and trees, on the thatched roofs of the few houses, and even on the ice of the frozen lakes and ponds intertwined between the rolling hills.
A few lone dots whizzed about on the glistening surface. Ice skaters, masterfully sweeping all four legs back and forth, giggling as they reenacted two hummingbirds in their mating dance. Somewhere in the distance, a preteen pegasus in a thick scarf winged about the hamlet’s chimneys and gleefully bombarded her earthbound friends with copious amounts of snowballs.

Nobody minded what approached the settlement from the side of the plains. Void of almost any loud sound, an automobile - by no means a common sighting in the land - bearing black markings on its white surface, ploughed and choked its way through the monotone winter landscape, drawing a trail of grey pavement and brown autumn mud and a faint cloud of diesel smoke behind it, with the headlights blazing, shining ahead in a grimy orange hue.

The Land Rover came to a stop just a few metres short of the first house at the village entrance. As the engine died down, a bulky pegasus stallion in a black dress uniform and a female human exited and looked around expectantly. The stallion sported a white buzz-cut mane, hidden under a black ceremonial beaver hat with a lily emblem, complementing his uniform jacket. The woman wore a light grey winter coat with an abbreviation spelled on her back, thick blue ski trousers, and her dark-haired head was covered by a modest wool tuque.

Stomping through the snowy field, and breathing white clouds of frost, the two creatures closed in on a house in the heart of the village, a small post-and-beam cottage right at the empty market square.

"Is she even home?" the woman inquired.

Peeping through the darkened store front at the entrance door, the stallion looked up at the woman.
“She hardly ever leaves the house.“ he began to explain. “I’m sure she’s here. It’s just that gingerbread businesses haven't been doing too well recently.“

The woman could not decipher the writing on the shop window, but the sign dangling just centimetres above her head revealed the business to be indeed a sweets shop.
“You sure have many candy stores around here. This must be the third one I have stopped at since I arrived.“ she established, her voice dry and monotone, and her English coloured by her Slavic intonation.

“Well, that's Equestria for you.“ the pegasus said with a mild smile on his face. “Call us a species of sweet teeth. Especially those earth ponies. They love their sweets.“
He knocked on the window pane, and waited for something to move in the darkness.

Getting back to the matter, the human asked, "Is she affected a lot by all this?“

“Yeah, of course. Her daughter was all the world to her."

"But she is still... addressable, right?"

"Sure. Though... of course... we’ll have to choose our words wisely.“

“Of course.“ She nodded. "Does she speak English?"

"Definitely not. After all, she never received a tongue spell, like me." he explained patiently, in his own regular, featureless English.

The donned magical enhancement, supplied to every officer of the Royal Guard by Canterlot's royal archmages, was the only thing enabling him to understand and speak the humans' language fluently.
The woman had been quite skeptical of the entire magical treatment, and had gone out of her way to dodge the magical incantation that would have inoculated her with vast knowledge of the ponies' tongues.
But because of that, her work now hinged the on mystically enhanced interpreters like the pegasus stallion, to guide her through his nation's cryptic wintry landscapes. She didn't mind dragging him along, and neither seemed he to, but only under one particular condition...

The door opened, as if on cue. A curly wheat-yellow mane lurked outside, followed by a pale blue neck.
The mare looked around for a moment, but then proceeded to hail the Guard pegasus with a happy, laugh-like whinny and gleaming brown eyes.

"Oh. Hello." the human greeted the mare awkwardly.

The pony immediately looked up, straining her neck when trying to look the tall human creature in the eyes. But even this curious sight did anything but defer her jolliness.

After a deep neigh directed at the equine shop owner, the pegasus stallion took off his hat and looked back up to the woman.
"Okay, M'am, may I introduce Sun Streak to you, the resident candymare."

"Oh, it's a pleasure to meeting you. My name is Edith, Edith Šarić. I've come to help."

Her pegasus interpreter immediately repeated what she said in an apparently disjointed series of neighs, wheezes and puffs, before concluding the statement with a polite bow of the head.
The mare stared for a moment, and looked up to the human one more time.

Then her smile returned, and her head retracted back behind the door, motioning the two visitors to step inside.

---

Sun Streak hummed a modest little tune as she lead the human and the guard inside her homely, darkened living room. The stove was on, the room was illuminated in warming candlelight, and a cat dozed peacefully on the inside windowsill. A certain aroma of cinnamon, firewood, baked goods and honey hung in the air, in addition to the scent of countless other, foreign spices. On the other hand, Edith could not help by sense the slight smell of homebody, of cat, perspiration and musk. She even felt slightly light-headed in the stale, spent air of the room.

The guard slumped down on a couch near the stove, and nodded at the human to follow suit.

Sun Streak adjusted the gaslight in a lantern on a nearby shelf before turning back to the visitors with a welcoming smile.
"Lieutenant Fighting Fit. How long has it been? Two years, at least!"

"Nice to see you smiling, Streak." the lieutenant replied. "How's, uh... the bakery doing?"

"I am working on new creation." she said giddily.

"Great to hear..."

"In fact, I have a load in the oven just now! I'll be back in just a tick."
And with these words, she swiftly disappeared into the kitchen.

Edith leaned over to Fighting, her stoic face nonplussed by just how jolly she seemed.
"Is she really the one? I know I didn't understand a single thing of what you two said..." She spied through the passage into the kitchen where the candymare stood and unloaded something from an oven. "But... I thought she would be... you know... in mourning."

"She is." Fighting said scarcely through his teeth.

In an instant, Sun Streak had returned, holding a platter loaded with little scone-like goods, all topped with split hazelnut in thick honey and an overwhelming scent of vanilla.
"I call 'em lo'e in a nut-thell. I knew you 'oulth come 'ack thor 'ore, Thighthing." she mumbled as she looked for a spot to put down the dish and free her mouth.

"Streak, please..."

"I inthitht, Lieuthenanth."

Then the soldier harrumphed and stayed silent for a second to ensure her attention.
"Sun Streak. Please put the cookies down. I'm really sorry. We didn't come here for candy."

The mare stopped and looked at him, her expression hovering between confusion and disappointed, the dish still clamped between her jaws.

He somberly cleared his throat and pointed at his companion.
"This human has come here with me here on a quest. She is very good at finding missing ponies. And she wants to help us."

"Come again?" the blue mare mumbled.

He looked her in the eyes.
"She came for Junebug, Streak."

Then the mare froze. Her features froze. Even her bouncing mane seemed to freeze in space.
Her eyes kept staring at the soldier, not blinking, becoming increasingly dryer. The smile behind her platter-holding mouth faded away. Behind her forelegs, the two visitors witnessed her stomach sinking in, as if she had taken a deep breath, but disregarded breathing out ever again.
Her jaw made a jittery movement, as if she wanted to say something, but kept in mind the platter clamped between her teeth. But ultimately, the jaw lost the fight. Limply, it flapped open, releasing the metal platter, which came down crashing down on the carpet by her hooves with a deafening clang, scattering bits of smashed cookies all over the living room carpet. She stared forward, not even taking notice of the mess.
"June..." she stammered.

The lieutenant nodded at the woman, who got a calling card from her pocket.
"I am... well, the ICMP sent me. That's the International Commission on Missing Persons, and we're here by appointment of the International Criminal Tribunal For Equestria. It is our task to locate and identify people considered... dead or missing in theatres of war, natural disasters and suchlike..."

The pegasus quickly translated for her.

"She is from a human group dedicated to finding others. She and a couple of her friends are conducting a search operation just north of Canterlot. She is very good at what she does, and has lots of experience. I ran into her when I was summoned to Canterlot the other week. She told me a little about herself, and about her task here. And I immediately thought of Junebug. I asked her whether she could find her as well, and I told her about you, Streak. She agreed to come here immediately."

The mare blinked confusedly and looked at the scattered cookies on the carpet.
"But..."

“She has asked me to tell her everything you know about Junebug’s last whereab-“

“No, no wait...” Sun Streak interrupted him in a faint voice and held up a hoof. “Fit, what are you talking about, I…”

“We’re trying to help you. But you need to help us to help you. You must tell us all you remember about her disappearance.”

“I know that it might be difficult for you…” Edith told her through the pegasus.

“We know it might hurt, Streak. But this could be a last chance - our only chance left - to find your daughter.”

“But Fighting…” she interrupted again, just as confused and uncertain as before, her pupils shrinking and her voice wavering. “I know where Junebug is… I know where she is…”

For a moment, complete silence dominated the room, as the earth pony and the pegasus stared at each other, unsure of what to think of their respective counterpart.

“Is something wrong?” Edith asked the soldier.

“She… she says she knows where her daughter is.”

“What? Really?”

Hesitantly and almost invisibly, he shook his head.

Both looked at the mare with the upturned platter still at her hooves.
She stuttered, with something of a nervous smile distorting her countenance.
“And you know too, Fighting. You took her. You came here and you took June away. Two years ago.” she uttered, in a completely unaccusing tone, as if oblivious to her own words.

“Oh Streak…” the lieutenant sighed painfully and rubbed his face with a hoof, much to the puzzlement of his human companion.

“You took her.” Sun Streak repeated slowly, as if in a trance. “She's with you.”

“That was not Junebug, Streak. That was a changeling!” the pegasus reminded her.

“N-no… no, she…” Streak immediately began stammering, the skin under her fur turning pale as the snow outside.

“Don’t you remember?”

“You…” her face scrounged up suddenly. “You took her with you.. She’s with you… I know so…”

“Could you please explain what’s going on, Lieutenant?” The human nervously ordered Fighting as soon as she saw the pained expression on the earth pony's countenance.

“She… she still thinks the changeling was Junebug all along.”

“Oh dear...”

The pale blue mare squeezed her features in a painful fit of sorrow.
“June… my baby…” she sobbed, and her head slumped weakly.

“That changeling lived under her roof for months!" he continued to explain. "It took the guise of her own child, if you can believe such a thing.”

“June… June…” Sun Streaks legs began to cave in under the burden of realisation and denial. "You silly filly, where are you..."
Her eyes climbed up, staring straight ahead, past and above the two sitting investigators.

As her guide continued to describe the situation, Edith also peeked behind her, following the mare's pleading gaze, only for her eyes to stumble upon a rustic picture mounted on the wall.
It was a framed stitching of a very heraldic Princess Celestia, the country's regent, plastered on the material like on a medieval tapestry, her knowing smile kind, insightful, and gentle.
The expressions nearly seemed a bit disturbing, seeing how blissfully, self-righteously even, the image met the sobbing mare's pleading eyes.
To the born-and-bred Serb, it reminded more of a religious icon than a picture of a nation's leader.

“Only the sun knows what that thing did to her back then.” the pegasus hissed before getting up from his chair to assist the sobbing pony.
He kneed down and lifted her head by the chin. She was starting to tear up, but was shaking from fear just as much. "Sun Streak, please. If you want to see your June again, you need to help us!"

"W-what... what happened?" the mare asked forlornly, her voice dampened by swelling nostrils. "What happened to Junebug? Tell me..."

"We don't know." the pegasus answered. "You remember that one time she got lost in the Everfree, and didn't come back for at least a week?"

She remained silent, but squeezed her shimmering eyes shut and averted her face from him, until tears rolled down her snout.

"You don't..." The soldier himself sniffed, once because of sorrow, and once because of impatience. "Well, Streak, I think that was the last time you saw your Junebug. Because... what came out of the forest a week later... I'm sure as shower that was not your daughter."

"Yes, she was!" the mare said and shook her head violently in denial.

"She didn't eat, Streak, she didn't even speak. She even tried to bite you once. With fangs! I should know, I was there. Why on Celestia's green earth are you so sure that this thing was your daughter?"

At first, she seemed to ignore his question. But ultimately, she began to stammer, trying to form words, trying to come up with an explanation. But all she could bring forth was,
"Her eyes... her eyes..."

The pegasus looked back, his face rigid and barely stoic. He turned to the human, who was still slouched in her chair, averting her eyes from the dilemma playing in front of her.
"Her eyes. Do you know what that means?"

Edith kept looking away uncomfortably, kneading her knees with her hands. She had heard of that 'phenomenon' before already. 'Violation of the Sanctity of the Mind', to put it in legal terms.

"You see what has happened to us ponies... That's why I brought you here, M'am. We need all the help we can get." he added and eyed her warily, still holding the shivering mare upright with his hooves "Now, Sun Streak. I know this may hurt you a lot. But please, please try to remember, what was the last thing your Junebug did, the day she disappeared. You said she went into the Everfree Forest. You came to me, begging me to look for her, back then. Tell me what you told me back then. Point us the way she went."

The mare was crying freely now. Whatever had made click in her mind, it broke something in her in a matter of moments. The pegasus could barely hinder her from sinking and wallowing in the grime of her own crumbled sweets.

"Ma'am please! Could you lend me a hoof over here?"

Edith quickly shot up from her seat, and automatically went to brighten the light of the lamp in the corner and fetch a blanket for the blue pony.

However, on the way, she could not help herself but take a moment to notice the other things piled on the cupboard next to the light. Reminders of a previous life. Artifacts.
There stood richly decorated gingerbread house - a replica of the store they were standing in - occupied by two miniature marzipan figurines; one of a blue pony with a curly orange mane, obviously Sun Streak herself, and one of a yellow one, with hair of eerily similar colour as the other's. Junebug.

"Ma'am! Just hoof me the darn blanket already, would you?"

---

"Lieutenant?" Edith asked as she stomped through the snow back to the vehicle.

"Yes, M'am? What is it?" Fighting asked as he trod beside her.

"I've just been thinking. About that changeling... Sun Streak said you 'took' her, right?"

"I... yes." the pegasus answered jerkily and placed the beaver hat back on his head. "You see, I was the Sheriff around here two years ago, before I was ordered back to Canterlot after the siege - for obvious reasons. I knew Streak pretty well back then. Her little Junebug too.
Well, she wasn't 'little' back then anymore. She was an up-and-coming young lady, always eager to explore the world, but too timid to make it very far. Oftentimes, she would hang around in Ponyville - that's just down the road - but was usually back in her mum's shop soon by the end of the day."

"Or not, apparently." she murmured.

He sighed. "Yeah. That one time on Nightmare Night, she was gone. For more than a week, and that was strange even for her. Sun Streak was frantic. She galloped into my guardroom the same night, begging me to round up a posse and look for her. She said Junebug hiked into the Everfree forest, on to gather mushrooms or something. She never made it back."
They stopped in front of the vehicle. "But then... June suddenly turned up again. Just like that, like nothing had happened. But I immediately noticed something was off. I came to see her and her mother the next morning, to make sure that everything had ended well."
They climbed into the car. The pegasus fluttered up to the height of the doorlatch and pushed it open with a hoof. He plumped onto the broad backseat bench, and exasperaly continued. "But nothing was well. Junebug was not Junebug anymore. She had become the exact opposite. She didn't say a word. She didn't do anything. She just stayed at home all the time. Instead, Junebug became aggressive and territorial, having everypony keep their distance. More... feral, in a way."

"I still don't understand why her own mother would fall for the masquerade."

He looked out the windshield, at the abandoned market square with the sweets shop. "Because not even Sun Streak was herself anymore. You saw her just now. Timid, less outspoken, and suddenly extremely reserved and... latent. She kept forgetting stuff. Basic things. She didn't question anything anymore. Instead, she asked me to leave, because my snooping around was making her 'daughter' nervous!"

"Yet you still intervened?" the human asked as she operated the ignition, which took off with a large growl from the rustic motor.

"I knew I had to. Though I don't know why it took me so long. I drummed up a few of my comrades, and I came back to look into this matter further." He harrumphed. "Sadly, my fears... they were true. That was not Junebug sitting in the candy store. It was... as I found out later... a changeling drone who had assumed her form. It put up quite a fight, but... we put that savage monster in its place."

Edith massaged the steering wheel as she pondered his story.
"Then you took it away... " she mumbled and turned around. "Where? I was told that all the changelings simply... disappeared after their Queen got captured. No exceptions."

"Yeah, and so did this one." the lieutenant commented off-handedly. "A long time ago."

"What? How?"

"Never mind. It... got lost... on our way to Canterlot..." the pegasus uttered, slowly and uncertainly. "Two years ago."

"Got lost?"
Edith's tone laden with skepticism. "What, did it escape?"

"You could say that..." he explained snappily. "But I don't understand how that concerns us right now. I couldn't care less about any changelings. I just want to find Junebug."

The human wasn't satisfied with that, however.
"Where exactly did you last see your changeling? In which direction did he run?"

"I don't know. That was two years ago. That monster's long scurried away... probably." he breathed. "You don't really think a changeling would point us Junebug's way anyway, do you?"

The human silently shrugged.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I would really like to know where all the changelings have suddenly gone to, if no one can suddenly find them..."

The pegasus stared at her for some strained seconds.
"Now wait just a tick. Is this even still about Junebug?" he asked her accusingly, "Have you come here to find our missing ponies, or to scrape up some changelings?"

"I''m here to find those who are missing. That's my job..." she smirked humourlessly.

"Do you even care about the countless ponyfolk those monsters have victimised all those years?"

"Of course." she argued. "But the Changeling queen and her state are put on trial in The Hague as we speak. And the court demands Changelings to fill the witness stand. Whenever changelings are spotted, they ought to be brought in immediately. Those were explicit directives."

"Is some stinking court appointment half a globe away really somehow more important than helping us here?" the pegasus asked roughly. "The brochure said that you've come to help us..."

"But we are helping you, aren't we?" the human clarified, wide-eyed at his accusation. "We're putting the Changelings on trial. We make them accountable for their crimes. Isn't that enough?"

"Making them 'accountable' won't bring our missing friends back. Every big-town pony in Canterlot and Manehattan seems so gosh-darn elfstruck by the idea of 'condemning' them these days that they don't notice it won't help frontier-dwellers like us in the slightest. We're the ones who'll have to carry the full brunt of the Everfree Forest's untamed magical powers! In my opinion, those changelings can all just darn-well stay disappeared, charge or no charge! I've never felt so safe from them as I do now."
He looked her in the eyes. "What would really help us is to undo all the sorrow and the suffering they've brought over us."

"Look. The ICTE sent me here with a very specific task. Let's not forget that. If someone's is being missed without a trace in a conflict zone, I try to go and look for them. If they have fallen victim to the circumstances, I'd do what I can to identify them. And I am not discriminating or priotising my work based on the side they were on. I'm just here to estimate concrete numbers for the court. To work out the dimensions of the crimes that were committed."

He just seemed irritated by her prescribed neutrality. "You wanna to know how many times those filthy dung beetles have done things like this? Like they did to poor Sun Streak back there? You know, she went completely off her rocker after we hauled the changeling away ! You've seen how she's acting; she can't think back two weeks without that... that brain-washing kicking in and sending her sprawling all the way back to scratch! And she's hardly the only one to suffer from this. Do you have any idea how often changelings have tried to play this sort of thing on other ponies' minds?"

Edith gave him a stoic glance,
"Look, I know what you're going through, but there are bigger-"

"All the time! That's the answer to your questions. As far as I can think back, there have always been Changeling attacks on us! I tell you, those parasites, they don't deserve your attention - It's as easy as that! I wish I'd never see any of them again! You should be minding those weeping, broken ponies who must spend the rest of their lives with their loved ones and their sanity viciously torn from them. Don't you have kids? If you had kids, you'd understand what I mean!"

Bitterly waiting until her companion had calmed enough to keep talking, she asked, more forcefully,
"Are you finished, Lieutenant?"

There was a menacing silence.

Edith's perpetually sober and practical mind was quick to remind her that out here, she had nowhere to go than with the Pegasus officer, being essentially blind and deaf to her surroundings.
And she also knew that he was not going to do her the favour and accompany her all the way back to Canterlot before the 'job' wasn't done here.
Rather than risk to have him fly off and leave her behind then and there, she closed her eyes and silently resigned.

"I have one day to spare for you. No more than that. If I don't find any leads until tomorrow, I will go back to Canterlot and mind my assignment. And you'll have to find yourself someone else to order around. Do you understand, Lieutenant?"

Doggedly, the pegasus officer nodded.

"Okay. Now tell me, what have you found out so far?" she inquired matter-of-factly.

Harrumphing, the officer answered, "As I was saying; Sun Streak told me that, on the day of Junebug going missing, she went north, up the Broken Crop Road, about a thousand leaps in that direction."

"You know where it is, or do we need a map?" Edith made sure.

"I know, alright."
The lieutenant pointed a hoof out the back hatch of the Land Rover. "In there."

Following his leg, Edith espied the tall, pitch-black contours of a forest edge in the distance, looming on the white, bleak horizon like an inpenetrable wall.

"That's the Everfree Forest, M'am."

She nodded.
"Well. Then that's where we have to go, don't we?"

"Fine." the stallion gulped. Even he could not hide the nervousness in his voice, in the face of that looming, dark place. "But first... we'll have to prepare. I know somebody living just outside of Ponyville. She'd make a great guide through this part of the woods."

"Alright." Edith said and tapped on the steering wheel. "You're the local. Let us find this guide of yours. Lead the way"

"Wait... we will also need protection. Lots of protection. One can never be safe enough in a place like the Everfree."

The human thought for another second as she scrutinised the stallion on the bench behind her.
"You mentioned some friends earlier on, didn't you? The ones who helped you get the changeling."

"My comrades from Her Majesties' Territorials in Hoofington, yes. Your point?"

"Drum them up again. Arm them, give each one of them a map and tracking material, and have them escort us."

"Good idea. At least it won't be anything they haven't seen before..."
The pegasus thought long and hard.
On one side, was spirited by the responsibility he owed of finding young Junebug, and to bring her back to her mother...

"What's wrong now, Lieutenant?" the human inquired impatiently.

...On the other, the soldier knew he could not possibly get around his own deeply-rooted fear of the Everfree Forest. He shared that fear with most of the of the townsfolk here, they all had a lot of experience with horrible and gruesome occurences in this area because of those damned woods. Timberwolf packs ravaging the farms and livestock, Poison Joke infecting unsuspecting little foals with the most macabre of nature's offerings, and especially the talks of cockatrices hiding in the bushes of the forest edge to prey upon unsuspecting hikers.
When he first heard of Junebug disappearing inside the woods, he was close to telling Streak that she might as well abandon all hope.

"Wrong? No. Nothing is wrong".

But right now, he simply knew he had to be above that. It was the last chance to make things right.

"Let's do this, Ma'am."

Comments

[SPart]

Wait what? No modern firearms and HFY moment to be have?..

[Marker]

It looks like the illustration for this chapter is identical to the next one, and the intended image was posted on chapter IV instead.

[Dan The Man]

9034297
Right, sorry about that.
I'm afraid I have trouble connecting that image to the chapter at the moment.

Ah, Point Nemo, also known as the furthest spot you can get away from any landmass on Earth.

Also... uh... good catch.
I'm afraid I may have calculated my distances wrong, because Point Nemo was not the place I was aiming at.
Let me correct the numbers quickly...