• Published 30th Nov 2012
  • 22,414 Views, 1,783 Comments

The Winds of Change - AgentSnail



A man named Jason wakes up in Equestria as a changeling, and must quickly adapt to blend in and survive. Making use of unlikely allies, can he forge a usable existence into this strange and surprisingly hostile new world?

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The Hangover

The Hangover

Jason awoke with a pounding pain in his head as he slowly rose out of his slumber.

"Ohh, my head." He groggily put a hoof to his forehead, slowly opening his eyes. He quickly closed them again, repositioning so that he wasn't facing the light. He re-opened his eyes, glancing around. For a while, he wasn't sure how to react. He was in Dash's house, but how was that possible? She must've somehow pulled him up here with her, even though she had downed at least a few ciders. He looked out the window, squinting his eyes. It was at least nine, possibly later. He rolled out of bed, noticing a note on the bedside table as he started to leave. He walked back over and picked it up, looking it over.

Jason,

I took Scoots to school for you, and am probably working by the time you wake up. I should be in town for lunch, and be done with work at that point. Because I know you'll ask, yes, I brought you to the house. You owe me one. In any case, you better sort that hangover out before we meet up. Feel free to do whatever in the mean time, just try not to get stabbed. In case you forgot, you won the drinking contest last night.

Jason put down the note, sighing as he walked back downstairs. This definitely wasn't the worst hangover he'd ever had, evidently the water Dash had brought him had worked like it was supposed to. He trotted into the kitchen, hissing at the sudden increase in brightness. He downed a couple more glasses of water. He didn't know why people always complained so much about hangovers. He'd just get hydrated again and they'd go away in a few hours. When it really got bad was when he woke up nauseous, and couldn't keep the water down. That day was a living hell. Luckily this wasn't one of these days.

He sighed, moving back into the living room. He levitated the guitar and amp into the air, grimacing slightly at the increased pressure on his head. He brought them upstairs, setting them next to Dash's drum kit. If they were going to practice later, they'd have to bring this all back down, but at least it was all in one place now. That was something, maybe. He could swear he still felt at least a fair amount of alcohol in his system. Apparently pony livers weren't any faster at alcohol processing than human ones. At least it wasn't anything seriously judgement impeding, he felt like he was thinking clearly.

Jason shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. At least he was starting to feel the effects of the water, much more quickly than he'd expected. He trudged back down the stairs and grabbed a pair of sunglasses off the table, figuring that Dash wouldn't mind too much. He put them on and slowly edged his eyes further open, enjoying the effects the tint had on the pain in his head. Jason drank another glass of water before deciding to go into town. Maybe he'd find something to do.

He put the water glass back on the counter and checked his form, making sure that he hadn't somehow ended up turning back into a changeling when he had passed out. He hadn't, luckily. Jason walked out the door as he slung his saddlebag over his back and took off, wobbling slightly before he managed to stabilize himself. Figuring that diving straight down wasn't the best of options, he carefully glided down, landing in the town square. Some pony was yelling and holding up a clipboard, pointing to it as he yelled at the passing ponies.

Jason walked over to the pony, watching as he turned and started yelling. "You look like you would make a good soldier, pony!!!! Care to sign up for enlistments?!?!" There was no way his eardrums hadn't been damaged by any of that.

"I'm already part of the army."

"What part of the army would take a sorry excuse for a recruit like you?!?!" One of Jason's ears started to ring. He would've laughed, considering the pony had just contradicted himself in consecutive sentences, but was too preoccupied with the salvation of his ear drums.

"Team Green Bean." The pony opened his mouth before losing his smug expression and looking him over. A few moments later, he face-hoofed and sighed.

"Boss?"

"That's what they call me apparently."

"Sorry about that, you don't really look like you used to..."

"Yeah, no problem. Do you have lists of ponies that are currently in the army? I want to know if "

"We have fairly recent conscription charts from some of the nearby cities. I don't know exactly how recent they actually are, but I know we got one updated from Canterlot today." He led Jason back into the small tent they had put up, and picked up a couple clipboards. He turned around and handed them back to Jason.

"Thanks. You should probably stop yelling so much. See if you can find a position as a drill sergeant or something, you've definitely got my recommendation." He looked down at the lists. The ones from Ponyville and Cloudsdale were pretty thin, just a couple pieces of paper to both of them. The Canterlot list was several times longer, and contained at least three hundred names. That was an astronomical number of civilian recruits around here, especially for a city that was nearly destroyed a week ago.

He flipped through the list, looking for any names that he recognized. He thought he saw Dash's name, but it turned out to be some pony named Light Dasher, followed by some random pony Star Grazer, then Blueblood of all ponies. Blueblood? Wasn't he that guy that Rarity briefly pined after? Yeah, that sounded about right. He had thought that Blueblood was fairly cowardly, but maybe he was wrong. He did a double take, but the name continued to stare back at him. Typo? Nah, that seemed unlikely.

He didn't find Sky or Star, that was no big surprise, they had foals to take care of. He'd have to visit them next time he was in Canterlot. Hopefully that wasn't anytime soon, Dash was just about done finishing all of her work, and he wanted to have some time to relax and kick back, for once.

He looked up. Apparently the pony had gone back to his attempts to find more recruits. He kinda doubted that he would really succeed at getting that many ponies to join. He walked back out of the tent, walking across the square and into the blacksmith shop, where he hadn't been since before he left town the first time. He wasn't exactly sure why he hadn't spent time here earlier, it was definitely interesting to look at all the weapons.

In the time he'd been gone, the pony had put several more weapons on the wall, including a few swords and spears. Jason continued to peruse the wares, eventually coming across a pair of long knives in the corner of the room. He turned around, immediately meeting the stare of the blacksmith, who had apparently come out of the smithing room.

"Are these for sale?"

"Yeah, why do ya need em?"

"In case I get called back to the war."

"Ah, you're that guy, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Well, hey, no hard feelings. I'll cut you a deal on this, I'll make you two pairs, new knives, and I'll special make them for you and your mare friend." Jason stared at him in shock.

"How did you...?"

"I've been around a long time, boy. You want those knives or not?"

"Sure, how much?"

"Listen, I know you're going to be reaching my market with these things, so I'll cut you a deal. You tell them that you got these from ol' Ferris in Ponyville, and I'll give you all four knives for thirty five bits."

"Yeah, sure! Thanks!"

"No problem." Jason paused.

"You sure you're only doing this for the business?" The stallion was silent for a few moments.

"My daughter lives in Canterlot, she sent me a letter a couple days ago telling me about how you saved her in the forest and then warned her about the impending attack, so I'm grateful. It's too bad she sent the foals to her husband's parents, but I guess sending them here wouldn't put them very far out of danger.

"Wait, Star is your daughter?"

"Yes, I thought you'd know who I was talking about."

"Yup, I didn't see her in the army roster so you can rest assured that she isn't going to be in any trouble."

"That's good to hear. Come by in a few days and pick these babies up. I just need your mare-friend to come in here and get her hoof measured so I can fit the handle around it."

"Oh, no problem, hold on." He shifted into Dash, watching as the blacksmith proceeded to not be surprised in any way. That was new. He put his hoof onto the counter and watched the pony put a strip of measuring tape around it.

"If you will, I need the diameter of the holes in your hooves also. That's how you hold the knives, right?" Jason nodded and dropped the disguise, waiting for the stallion to finish his measurements. After a few moments the blacksmith stepped back and scribbled on a piece of paper. "That's all I need, so like I said, come back in a couple days."

"Alright, thanks again."

"I should be the one thanking you."

"There's really no need..."

"This is my way of thanking you, then we're even."

"Fine." Jason chuckled and shifted back into his normal pony form, taking a moment to enjoy the fact that he had been able to stick with the same disguise he had created for Alternis all those weeks ago. It really was a nice disguise. He turned to walk out the door, pushing it open with his magic instead of a hoof, for a change. He looked at the clock tower, which read ten fifteen. Ugh, so much time to waste, and his head still hurt. It wasn't anything terrible, but annoying nonetheless. He sighed.

"Oh, hey Jason!" He looked up, locking his eyes on Twilight as she walked by. He had frankly been expecting Lyra, considering that she had seemed to form a pattern with talking to him when he had nothing to do. Oh well, Twilight still fit that bill.

"Hey Twilight."

"I like the glasses, a little hungover are we?"

"A little, all that water I drank last night got rid of the worst of it though."

"Yeah, congratulations on beating Applejack. I haven't seen her yet today, but I'm sure she's pretty miffed you won."

"She'll probably find another reason not to trust me after that."

"She isn't too keen on you, I take it?"

"Where have you been?" He chuckled. "She's been trying to find me doing something incriminating this whole time." He looked around. "So what're you doing out here?"

"I was picking up a few things at the market, just some apples and greens. Speaking of food, what did you eat before you came here?"

"Oh, uh..." He probably shouldn't mention the meat. "Pretty much the same stuff you guys do, less focus on the flowers. A little more shellfish."

"Oh, that's weird, flowers are the best part!"

"Yeah, I don't really think so. How goes the steel stuff?"

"Pretty good as far as I know, I got a letter from Celestia saying that the test run was successful, but any other number of problems could've come up between then and now. I'm going to assume that everything's going alright though."

"How about research on the stuff from my world?"

"Well I couldn't really figure out anything about their origins, but I did find some other stuff, if you want to see."

"Well I have nothing else to do, so sure." She nodded and they trotted out of the town square, heading for the tree library. Jason looked around, trying to find Octavia's house. If they were practicing there later today, he might as well know where he was going.

"Is that Octavia's house over there, Twilight?"

"Yeah, I think so. She's that mare that wanted to join your band, right?"

"Yup. We're practicing over there, but I don't really know how much we can possibly get done in the first day. I said I'd maybe do a show tonight and all, so..." He turned back to see that Twilight had already walked inside, and was looking back, waiting for Jason to follow her in. He took a final glance at Octavia's house before walking in and closing the door behind himself. "So what'd you find out?"

"Well I did some forensics on the stuff you brought me, and I found all these oval shapes with little squiggles all over them. Do you know what they are?" Jason trotted over, realizing that she had found fingerprints on the album case and candy bag.

"The companies put those on there for differentiation." He liked making shit up when there was no way he could be proven wrong. "Like a serial number. You can rub them off and stuff, so they're also there to detect tampering."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. It seems overly complicated though."

"Well this is the society that created the computer."

"Oh yeah, that thing. Maybe one of those'll show up?"

"I guess it could, although it needs electricity to run. Before you ask, electricity is, to simplify it, the movement of energy along conductive wires. You're familiar with the atom, right?"

"Yeah, electrons, neutrons, protons. What does this have to do with it?"

"Electricity is moved along by the movement of electrons down the wire. I have no idea how it works beyond that."

"Is it kind of like the speakers and stuff that's powered by magic?"

"Probably, but I'm not really sure. I don't really know that much about magic." He paused. "So what exactly goes on during Nightmare Night?"

"Well last year it was kinda weird, because Luna had just come back, but basically the kids go around and get candy in costumes. And Rainbow Dash pranks ponies."

"Cool, so it's the same as back home. Well, without the Dash part."

"You had Nightmare Night too?"

"No, we had a similar holiday called Halloween."

"Weird. Besides the big technology difference, our worlds have a lot of similarities."

"Yeah, it's strange. So do you have anything else to show me?"

"No that was all I've found. I'll probably look into these prints and see if there's anything else I can find."

"Okay, cool. I guess I'll see you later then."

"See ya." Jason waved and walked back out the door, trying to figure out another thing he could find to do. The clock read ten forty five, so he still had time. Not that he wanted it. Usually things for him to do just popped up, but it didn't look like today was going to be one of those days. If only he could--

Some pony had bumped into him, and judging by the yelp they let out, they were as surprised as he was. He turned his head and extended a hoof to help them up, realizing a little belatedly that his hoof was extended to Octavia, who must've been equally lost in her thoughts. She gladly accepted his help, and got back to her hooves.

"A little lost in your thoughts?"

"More than a little."

"Yeah, I was too." He paused. "Hey, I should probably give you some music to practice before we come over, you have a while?"

"Yeah, I can't seem to find much to do around this dreary town."

"Same here, most of the time stuff just pops up and I do that."

"Funny how I was thinking about that just before I bumped into you." She said. "I'm so terribly sorry for that, by the way."

"No big deal, it was as much my fault as it was yours. In any case, if you could grab some paper we could go into town and I could write stuff over some tea or something." He felt his masculinity had taken a hit for that.

"Or we could just go to my house, it's only a few feet away."

"Okay, I mean I don't want to intrude."

"Oh, it's no big deal, I wouldn't have been doing anything if you hadn't shown up. What do you find to do, anyway?" They started walking back towards her house.

"Well yesterday I woke up, took Scootaloo to school, she's my daughter now if you didn't know. Then I had to fight off some pony that wanted to stab me, that reminds me, I need to see if they got any information out of that guy. I had to briefly testify in the police station, then I figured out that my saddlebag was slashed by the criminal's knife, so I went to get that fixed. While I was walking, Lyra showed up and we walked for a while. Then I saw something in the mud that looked like something from where I come from, which should be impossible since no one here or there knows about each other." He took a deep breath as they entered Octavia's house. "So I went and got my saddlebag fixed, then I delivered the thing to Twilight, then I had lunch with Dash, and finally I worked on my job assignment for five hours. There was some more stuff in there but it doesn't really matter that much."

"That was one day?"

"Most of it, yeah. Today's not quite as bad, but I've already done a fair amount. It would be nice if I wasn't still slightly hungover."

"Oh, the drinking contest, huh?"

"Yeah, nice house you got here, by the way. It's kinda strange how it's not made out of cloud. I'm kinda used to that now."

"I got this baby for a bargain, too! Three bedroom two and a half bath, it's really nice. You want to see the room I set up for practice?"

"Sure, I guess." She led him through a few more rooms and into a larger one with a peaked ceiling. Jason looked around in awe. How ponies could build houses this well, he'd never know.

"Pretty nice, huh?"

"I'll say." He walked across the room. "This is your bass?" He pointed to the bass guitar leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, it's pretty new. The old one broke." Jason shot her a questioning gaze. "It wasn't me, my friend broke it. She bought me a new one though. I'd never tell her, but I like this new one better."

"So I guess I need to give you some music. What kind of stuff do you like, besides classical?"

"I don't really know, I mean I really don't like the computerized stuff, but I have heard some of the 'rock and roll' that bands are starting to come up with." She trotted over to an old fashioned record player and threw a disk on, starting the music. Jason listened through the song, slightly surprised at the lack of drums. The song faded out eventually, and the record player filled the air with a slight scratching noise.

"So what do you think?" She asked.

"It was alright. That there is what you call, 'light rock'. Rock and roll is generally louder and more complicated. And it always has drums. We're probably going to be sticking to the heavier side of rock, which is apparently something new to everyone around here. Do you have music paper? I can write out a few songs."

"Oh, sure." She trotted out of the room, returning a few moments later with some papers and a pencil in her mouth. Jason floated over her bass, and started strumming the strings, stopping to tune one. Octavia looked at him quizzically.

"It's probably tuned to your types of music, so I had to retune the lowest string. I hope that's okay."

"Oh, yeah, of course." Jason nodded and went back to his writing, trying to pull a song out of his head as he hummed along to the bass strums. Every couple strums he'd wright down a note or two. Octavia left the room, entering the kitchen to brew some tea. She returned a few minutes later with a fresh brew and a few cups, and placed one in front of Jason.

"This'll help your hangover." She said. He nodded to her before taking a sip, erasing a note and replacing it with another one simultaneously. After a few more scribbles he sighed and set the bass down.

"There's two songs, those should be fairly simple to learn." She picked up the pages, looking them over.

"What are these? I've never seen a bass line like this before."

"Yeah, the titles are at the top of the pages. Think you can learn that? We have a tentative show scheduled tonight at The Gilded Griffin, and we only need a couple songs."

"You could probably leave me a third one."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, these don't look too bad."

"Okay, hold on." He grabbed the bass, tapping his chin in thought for a few moments before starting to scribble at another piece of paper. After a while longer, he handed her the next few sheets of paper. "If you can get at least one of those down pretty well by the time we come by you're in the band, as far as I'm concerned."

"What's the tempo?" He shrugged, then proceeded to rap his hoof on the floor a few times.

"It's pretty much that for all the songs. If you can play them at a faster speed you should be fine if we slow it down."

"I'll look at these, then. Sometime in the afternoon you said?"

"Yeah, sorry I can't be more specific. It'd be after two thirty at the earliest."

"I'll be completely ready by then, just you watch."

"Ah, a little confident there, are we?"

"A little."

"Well I'll see you later, hopefully I didn't screw anything up there."

"Don't worry about it. See ya." Jason waved and closed the door behind him, attempting to get a quick look at the clock tower. He moved around a tree and jumped a little, it was nearly twelve, and he needed to meet Dash! He started sprinting towards town, and quickly arrived in the square. He sat down on a bench to catch his breath as he waited. Fifteen minutes later, Dash finally landed and walked over. Looks like he didn't need to hurry.

"Sorry I'm late, I just had to make sure I was finished with everything."

"No problem, where are we going for lunch?"

"That's the other reason I was late. I already ate." She cracked a grin.

"So what you're saying is, there's nothing stopping us from going back to your house right now?" He quickly matched her grin.

"Only if you want to." She giggled.

"Let's just stop beating around the bush. Come on." He took off into the sky towards Dash's hose, watching as she pulled up beside him a few moments later. They quickly ascended to her house and made their way inside with a guise of calmness. Jason turned to Dash as she tackled him to the floor. She leaned into his face and kissed him, stroking her other hoof down his chest. Jason broke off the kiss, laughing.

"We haven't been here for five seconds, Dash, and you're already on top of me." She blushed as he shut the door with his magic. "Plus, there's a cloud bed up there with our names on it."

"Fine, change."

"What?"

"Changeling form, let's go. I don't want to have sex with one of your disguises, I want to have sex with you."

"Oh, how romantic." He pushed her off, dropped the disguise and threw a hoof around her neck, bringing her in for another kiss.

"After all this, you better not disappoint me."

"Oh, believe me, I won't."

____________________________________________________________________

Optional clopfic.

Author's Note:

Well this was strange to write. The end part, I mean. If you don't write stories, you won't know what I'm talking about.

A couple people asked me when Team Green Bean gets involved again. The answer is: soon. The only reason they aren't involved now is because once I do get them involved, it'll be a bunch of Team Green Bean for a while. So be patient. My eventual degradation of slice of life type writing has forced me to quickly advance parts of the story from here on out. There are at least a few days left in Ponyville, but they should be fairly interesting. Expect the first cliffhanger in a while. HAHAGHAHA

You people really like those blog posts. I guess that's a good thing. I got another good one about two guys named Carl and Brian. I'm putting this here more so that I remember it, because you can't save blogs partway before posting.