Even with the aid of the sleep spell, Pincer's night seemed to last an eternity. He tossed and turned fitfully within the confines of his restraints, and his dreams were turbulent variations of the day's events. In one he broke down and told them everything, in another his legs had healed so he could escape, and in yet another the ponies locked and abandoned him in a darkened room to die. He awoke from the latter sometime in the middle of the night, and for several fear-soaked moments his tiredness and shock at waking up in such a place had led him to think his dream was real. It wasn't until he found and touched the buzzer that his fears eased. Even then, he lay awake in the darkness and silence for a while.
Finally the time came when he was roused from his sleep by Nurse Clean Bill switching on the lamps and greeting him with a clipped "good morning, sir." She served him breakfast, another meal of trout as satisfying as the first. Under the supervision of two unicorn guards, the restraints on his front legs were temporarily removed and he was given a few minutes to stretch them. He was glad for the opportunity; they'd gotten rather stiff and sore from being held in place overnight.
"Doctor Hooves should be here with your reading material momentarily," Bill told him after he had finished stretching and the guards had left. Pincer suppressed the urge to glance towards the door, secretly anticipating what she would be providing.
"All right. What else have you got in store for me today?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary. We can't start the next step of treatment until we know if you would have a harmful reaction to the bone restoration potion. The tests for that should be done within a few days. In the meantime, all we can do is rest your legs."
"No questioning?"
"Not until you can walk again."
Pincer eased his head onto his pillow. No questioning until he'd healed. That was what the guard had told him when he was first being captured. He hadn't believed him at the time, but now it looked like he really would have a reprieve before he ever had to stare down the Royal Guards. Even so, he had to be careful; doctors and nurses had ears, after all.
The door creaked open, and Pincer heard the now-familiar clumping, squeaking and rattling of a cart towed by a pony. He turned his head, and as he'd expected, Hooves had arrived. Behind her were the books, piles of them packed onto the cart, small and large, thick and thin, new-looking and yellowed with age. He nearly smiled; he'd never been much of a reader, but surely there was something there that could take his mind off of his situation.
"There you go," Hooves said, wriggling free of her harness. "You have non-fiction, fantasy, adventure, science fiction, everything is there. Did you need anything else?"
"No, this is plenty for now."
Hooves nodded. "Now, as long as I'm here, I'd like to talk to you about your x-ray results," she said. She trotted over to the far end of the room and grabbed a backlit display board, rolling it over to the side of Pincer's bed. She unrolled a pair of images and pinned them to it.
"We've got one image for each fracture. This one up here is what we got of your left back leg, the one down here is for your right back leg. We were worried that your carapace might prevent us from getting readings, but that turned out not to be a problem. The image isn't as clear as it would be on a pony, but you can still make out your endoskeletal bone."
It was strange, knowing that he was seeing in those pictures a mirror of his own body. He could see his legs, highlighted in a ghostly blue, black gaps where their hollow areas were. Inside, brighter and paler than the rest, were his bones. Even though they were part of the skeleton he'd had all his life, it was still rather fascinating to see the way they bent and curved around the hollow portions of his legs. It didn't take long to find the fractures; they were the unnatural-looking cracks where the pieces of bones didn't line up. He wasn't an expert, but the damage didn't seem to be terrible.
"You were lucky." Dr. Hooves jabbed the images with a hoof, where the fractures were. "There weren't any fragments to remove, the edges where they broke didn't puncture your chitin, and the pieces were easy to set. All you'll need to do is to rest until your legs can heal. If we can safely use the healing potion on you, then with daily injections you should completely recover within two weeks. Did you have any questions?"
"You said I might be getting injections. There's a problem with that. The needle might crack my chitin. Those can take a while to heal." He'd once again done the hated task of giving them information, but better now than when they tried to stick him.
"No need to worry, it'll fit between your plates. We'll deliver it where your kneecap meets your upper leg."
Pincer shifted. "That's all I needed to know."
"All right," said Dr. Hooves as she began unpinning the images from the board. "I'll follow up on you in twenty days, then. In the meantime, Nurse Bill will be responsible for seeing that your needs are met. If you need anything, ask her."
Pincer nodded, but there was no conviction to it. He wished he'd been given a different nurse. He didn't believe for a second that any of the medical staff cared about him as a person, but Nurse Bill wasn't even trying to maintain the illusion that she did.
"Okay," Hooves said. "We'll be leaving now, but the buzzer is still there to call Mrs. Bill if you need help. In the meantime, you're free to read any of the books we've provided."
Dr. Hooves and Nurse Bill turned away and began trotting out, Hooves in the lead. "If you don't call me before then, I'll see you again when I bring your lunch," said Bill curtly as she stepped through the doorway, only slightly slowing her stride.
With something to occupy his mind, one of his restraints removed, and the promise of being undisturbed for several hours, Pincer was at the most spirited he'd been since he'd fallen in the ravine. That he was relatively happy with his current situation was a mark of how far his standards had fallen; even now, the fact that he was trapped and forced to neglect his duty at The Hive gnawed at the back of his mind. His thoughts turned to escape. Even unsupervised and with his front legs unbound, though, his back legs were still broken, and he couldn't so much as get out of bed by himself until that changed.
After trying and failing to find a clock somewhere in the room, he yanked a book off of the stack at random, a thin paperback with a bold, flashy cover illustration titled Daring Do And the City Of the Sea Ponies. Daring Do. He recalled overhearing the name during one of his infiltration missions. As he flipped through it, he quickly realized that he had little interest in a story of a pegasus thwarting villains and finding treasure. He thought to toss it away carelessly, but they might not trust him with any more books if he mishandled them. He set it down gently on the floor and picked out a small but thick blue hardcover.
Traditions And Codes Of the Canterlot Royal Court. He smiled and set it on the floor; Scarab had made his pod practically memorize that one before the mission. He picked out another hardcover.
From Beyond the Firmament. This, too, was discarded after a brief scan; there was generally little useful to gain from science fiction, especially an impossible story of primates smart enough to develop spacecraft. It was clearly meant to appeal to a pony's sense of wonder, and Pincer had long ago smothered his.
The Lady of Las Pegasus. He set aside this one without opening it. Judging by the pose of the unicorn mare on the cover, it would just make him hungry.
He'd slid another dozen or so books to the pile on the floor by the time he finally pulled one he could seriously consider reading: A History Of Modern Equestrian Theatre, 701 Y.S. to 1 Y.R. Judging by the second date, it had been published last year. While he doubted it would give him anything useful about Equestria to report to The Hive, he had to admit to some curiosity about how ponies took different roles without the ability to alter their appearance like a changeling could. How convincing could costumes and makeup be? If nothing else, three hundred years of history would pass plenty of time if it could keep his attention.
He skimmed over the pages, reading paragraphs and sections as they caught his interest. His gaze slid away from the script excerpts, playwright biographies, and thematic analyses in favor of the costumes, the props, the appearance-altering spells, the actors, and everything and everyone else that made the plays come to life. He learned of a spell that changed the color of a pony's coat. He learned of another that could give a pony wings, for plays with alicorn characters, though this was rarely used; more often artificial wings were used because the spell was impossible for all but the most talented magicians. He felt a grudging admiration for an earth pony actor who delivered his character's dying soliloquy flawlessly even though he had actually been wounded after being stabbed by an overly-sharp prop lance.
Every new item he read about was tinged with brief concern, however, because he couldn't help but consider whether or not the transformative and deceptive abilities of changelings were truly beyond those of ponies. They could certainly alter their appearances and act out roles better than he'd given them credit for. Was the gulf as wide as he'd believed? Suddenly, this innocent read meant to pass the time seemed to have become a matter of military intelligence.
He shook his head, scolding himself for being so quick to doubt The Hive. Changelings might not have a monopoly on such skills, but they still surpassed ponies. Ponies couldn't show and hide horns and wings at will, couldn't all change the colors and styles of their manes and coats in a flash, and certainly couldn't take up assumed identities for weeks or months at a stretch among different species. Even if they could have, not reading any further wouldn't change things; learning more could only help The Hive. His concerns eased, he continued reading.
So absorbed was he in his reading that he jumped — or at least the closest he could manage within his restraints — when the infirmary door creaked open. He heard the familiar squeaking and clopping of a pony pulling a cart. Was it that time already?
"Your lunch, sir."
It was salmon this time, a welcome source of variety after two meals of trout. He ate this meal quickly too, though this time his haste stemmed as much from his desire to return to his reading as from his enjoyment of the food. Within minutes, he had finished eating and once again had the book spread open in front of him.
With no timepiece, he had no sure way to tell how long passed when he finally reached the end and closed the book. Given its size, he was surprised to have completed it so quickly, but when he thought about it he realized that he'd skipped two-thirds or more of it. He set it on the floor, apart from the small pile he'd made earlier. He picked through the stacks on the cart again, and soon settled on a book of Equestrian military history. He realized unhappily that The Hive's defeat at Canterlot would probably be the basis for a lesson in the next edition.
While the book offered little useful information, it was entertaining enough to pass the time until dinner.
The days trickled by, with nothing more important happening than him receiving the news that his test results had come in and they would be able to treat him with the healing potion. To prevent his time in the hospital from being wasted in aimless lethargy, he began methodically picking through the books he'd been provided in search of useful intelligence. No changeling had ever managed to infiltrate a high enough station to get access to anything in the Royal Library short of Chrysalis herself, and their unexpected defeat hadn't left her any opportunity to recover books.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the ponies had anticipated this. He had yet to find anything more useful than the military history book, which despite his initial high hopes contained nothing about pony tactics and capabilities that wasn't already common knowledge in The Hive. As much as he would have liked to request more, he knew there was no way to do so without arousing suspicion, and that would only make things more difficult when he made his escape attempt.
As he'd expected, being under Nurse Clean Bill's care was not particularly pleasant. She wasn't abusing him in any obvious ways, but every day there were hiccups and stutters more characteristic of The Hive's medical chambers than a facility headed by Celestia herself. His meals were often inexplicably soggy. The needle would slip during his daily injections. Soapy water would splash into his eyes while he was being bathed.
Even if his pride hadn't prevented him from doing so, he wouldn't have entertained the thought of trying to bring the matter to the attention of another pony. At best he would be ignored by unsympathetic hospital staff who detested being charged with a changeling, and at worst it would get back to Nurse Bill, and she would make things even worse for him.
It was about a week after his admittance that the first hunger pangs set in. Being deprived of love was a very different feeling from having an empty stomach, one that a changeling felt throughout his or her body. He first noticed the shaking one evening when he nearly dropped a book he was pulling from the cart. The headaches started a few days later, and the occasional sensation of being electrically shocked followed close behind. The symptoms were easy enough to ignore for the time being. More difficult for Pincer to push out of his mind was the knowledge that they would only get worse over time, until...
...until he starved to death.
Like any decent drone, he'd long ago accepted the possibility that he might die carrying out his duty, but it had been very different then. Death had been something that might or might not happen to him in a battle sometime in the future, or if he were careless enough to get exposed during an infiltration. It had been something he could plan for and avert. Slowly wasting away here in the bowels of Celestia's castle meant facing an absolutely certain death that he was entirely powerless to prevent, leaving him with nothing to do but wait for the end.
This was why Pincer was unable to take any joy in the news that, twenty days after being admitted to the Canterlot Castle Secure Hospital, he was being discharged. At the end of his second week in the infirmary, he had received another x-ray. He did not need sedation for this one, and a brief, painless sweep of the scanner left him feeling embarrassed that he had ever dreaded it. As Dr. Hooves had predicted, the results showed that the fractures in his legs had completely healed.
The following day, two unicorn guards and two pegasus guards arrived to take him away; clearly they were taking no chances now that he could walk. One of the unicorns was Mystic Saber, though he gave no indication that he recognized Pincer. The unicorns moved in ahead of the pegasi, unceremoniously removing his straps with their magic. One of them slid a of silver-colored ring onto his horn, and he felt an uncomfortable tingle from it. He realized that his magic, and thus his ability to transform, had been suppressed.
"Off of the bed. No sudden movements."
Pincer stayed on the bed at first, taking the opportunity to stretch his stiff, sore limbs. Had he not had four guards silently urging him on, he might have been more able to appreciate the feeling of being able to move his rear legs without being paralyzed by pain. He eased himself off of the bed, his right legs first. When he first attempted to stand on his own he stumbled and nearly fell once on the floor, but a guard steadied him. They gave him a few moments to properly find his balance before addressing him again.
"Fall in line. Two of us ahead, two of us behind."
He stepped into place on shaking legs, and the two in front of him started marching him out. They moved silently through the cramped corridors of the dungeon, which seemed to grow darker and colder at every turn. He suppressed his growing dread by doing his best to focus on the layout and make a mental map of the area. However, his mind got so entangled in the snaking corridors and aimless turns he saw that by the time the guards were motioning him into his cell, he had only a vague idea of which direction he would need to go if — when — he managed to escape.
The cell had no furnishings aside from a flat, thin mattress chained to the wall and a cramped desk. On the desk sat a small stack of familiar books under which it seemed ready to collapse like a pony schoolfilly's crafts project. He'd barely passed through the iron-barred gate when it banged shut behind him, causing him to about-face in alarm.
"Now, we have some questions to ask you, and you won't be leaving this dungeon until you answer them," said Mystic Saber. Pincer turned around to face the guards and saw that the pegasi were gone; all that remained were Saber and the other unicorn, both fixing him with stern gazes. Pincer narrowed his eyes at them.
"Where is The Hive?" Saber asked in his powerful, firm voice.
Pincer's reply, carefully rehearsed, came low and cold.
"I'm not telling you."
The guard didn't bat an eye. He began asking a series of questions. No matter how innocuous, each was met by the same rehearsed, stony response.
"Are there any changelings currently operating as sleeper agents in Equestria?
"What are the limits of your ability to transform?
"Why did you join the army?
"Aside from your queen, do any of you have names?"
Many minutes passed as the guard continued to rain questions down on Pincer, quite a few of them repeated multiple times. On it went, hour after hour, neither Pincer nor Saber showing the slightest weariness or hesitation. Finally, slowly, Saber stepped back.
"Very well, then. We'll come back to this tomorrow. Unless you want to stay down here for a very long time, I suggest you be more cooperative in the future."
Without another word the two unicorn guards turned and walked away in synchrony. Their hoofsteps faded, and with them went Pincer's lone remaining lifeline to the outside. When they died away completely, he blinked, shook his head, and looked around.
This was his cell. Within these walls, behind these bars, was everything he could ever hope to experience for the indefinite future. This claustrophobic cage was his world now, but it was okay. In his mind he knew that, somewhere far away, his podmates in The Hive were safe. They would survive another day because he'd been strong.
Comforted by this thought, he turned to the books; he'd gained a new appreciation for the things.
"Your Majesty, we may be running out of time."
It was a small, plain conference room, its polished oak table seating only eight ponies and its marble walls having no decoration save for a coat of arms. At the far end was a vertical slit that served as a window, through which an orange stripe of sunset fell onto the table. Princess Cadance sat at the head of the table; Lieutenant Saber was to her left, Dr. Hooves and Twilight Sparkle to her right.
"Are you sure of this, Doctor? Even though we've treated his legs, there's still so much we don't know about changelings," said Cadance.
Dr. Hooves shifted slightly in her seat. "We can't say for certain, but it's the only clue we have. We know changelings need to feed on love to survive. We know this one hasn't gotten any since he arrived. We know he's been showing symptoms that seem to indicate some sort of hunger or withdrawal. Since we have a known likely cause, it only makes sense to try to address the problem by feeding him."
"We've been trying, Doctor," said Twilight wearily, leaning forward. "Cadance asked me to come here to help her last week, and I've been pulling all-nighters since then! I've been looking all over the Royal Library for something, anything, that can feed him! I'm checking every scroll on every shelf that so much as mentions love! We don't even know if there's a way to generate love out of thin air! There might have to be a connection between two ponies... or, well, a pony and a bug, I guess. The point is, we're already doing everything we can short of dragging some pony down and having Cadance force her to love him. Not... not that we'd ever do that, of course!"
"I'm just telling you what he needs," Dr. Hooves said evenly.
Cadance nodded. "And you, Lieutenant. You started questioning him today, right? Did he tell you anything that might help?"
Saber shook his head. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, but we've only had an afternoon to work on him. It could take days or weeks to talk him into telling us anything valuable, and that's assuming he hasn't been trained for this kind of situation. Given his occupation, he probably has."
Cadance slowly drew in a breath. There was no way around it; she would have to make a breakthrough, and soon. "I understand. Lieutenant, Doctor, Twilight, thank you all for your assistance. This meeting is adjourned." She struck her hoof against the table.
Twilight was off of her chair as soon as Cadance had finished her sentence, trotting towards the door as Saber and Hooves were bowing customarily to Cadance. Almost as an afterthought, Twilight turned to give Cadance an apologetic look.
"Sorry, Princess. I just remembered a book in the Starswirl wing that might help! I'll let you know right away if it turns up anything useful! I'll see you later!" She barely gave Cadance time to nod before she was out the door.
Princess Cadance smiled; Twilight's etiquette might be cause for disdain among the nobility, but Celestia couldn't have asked for a better student.
News that what? What news did he get? I can't help but think that missing word/s is something relevant.
The news that... what?
2278308 The news that he WON'T have a harmful reaction to the bone restoration potion.
2278297 2278308 Gah! how did I miss that!
Thanks for pointing that out. It's been fixed.
I do not envy any sapient creature starving to death, surely that must be one of the worst ways to die...
2278542 Even worse if you have a plentiful supply of water to draw out the process, getting something you need but never all of it. I imagine something similar is happening to Pincer right now. Poor guy...
Anyway, another nice chapter even if not much happened. Good to have a slice of the other side of the story. Good luck with it!
Sparkle for the win!!!!
This is quite a good story, really loving Pincers development.
I'll keep an eye out for grammatical mistakes
Also, Rainbow says it still needs to be %20 cooler~
Is there a way to change her to Applejack?
Dis is good. I hope that Pincer doesn't go over to the ponies' side in someway. Whenever its 'ponies vs X' I normally root for X if its an entire race or something. If its one gigantic douche, I root for ponies. I don't know, I guess the amount of times the ponies actually get the upper hand and win in the fan fics is staggering and I prefer when the other side wins
I find myself a bit surprised that nobody noticed Bill's treatment of him honestly. I know it's a small staff but he's a very important prisoner and the idea that she can just subtly and quietly inconvenience and passive aggressively harm him felt really out of place. Otherwise enjoying the fic. The guards dialogue about working on him felt a bit harsher than expected but that's a minor nitpick.
Starved to death? He's dead?
2279574 Uh, what? No. He's not dead. What made you think he was dead?
Changelings living on love is as humans living on well written prose. It sure works that way for me.
2279590 "Until he starved to death."
Well, he's healed, now comes the hard part and the part for Pincer not answering the questions and Cadance and Twilight figuring out how to generate love out of thin air.
"Where is the Hive?"
Did they really just expect him to answer that?
2279649 Pincer is currently starving; I.e. he will suffer until he starves to death.
2279804 Ohhhhh...
2279765
You tell me
And the interrogation starts. And the love bit. Yeah... methinks mackerel ain't gonna cut it. Although maybe fish and chips? I love fish and chips.
Hmm, I suppose, hypothetically, it would be ethical if somepony volunteered to be made to love the changeling. For Science!
But looking at this from another angle, what is the lower limit on the positive emotion? Twilight is obviously pretty dedicated to finding a solution, here. Wouldn't the desire to keep Pincer from starving to death keep him at at least a minimum level of health as she got more worried about him the worse he got?
Nice too see an update :)
2278727 Twilight best pone
2279123 Thanks, glad you're liking it. I don't see why anyone would notice it if he didn't complain about it, though. It doesn't leave any visible marks or anything.
2279596 Oh u
2280793 At present, he couldn't really feed off of any of Twilight's feelings, no. Twilight doesn't care for him personally because she's never really seen him or talked to him. Right now, she just has a job she's determined to get done.
Good stuff. I'm not quite sure where this is going, but I sincerely hope that Pincer doesn't give in.
Ah books, a wonderful escape from reality in any reality.
2290720
I've seen this sentiment before. Can you tell me why you don't want him to?
2141039 Sorry, missed this comment entirely! You've pretty much got it right about Pincer's old life. The Hive isn't a pleasant place to grow up, and that's largely due to how cruel and unforgiving those in charge are.
And yeah, I'm the guy who did Not Alone. Glad to know you like my writing
2291203
I guess it involves how you've painted the ponies vs. changelings so far. Even though we see that the ponies are taking care of him and know that ponies are generally good, we see it through the lens of of Pincer's perspective. He is distrustful of them, but much more importantly, he demonstrates loyalty to his hive.
Even if it's demonstrated that the hive is evil, I have to at least respect that.
Disconnected from your story specifically, it would be cool to find a changeling story in which the changelings are the good guys, or at least win. Most of the time they betray their hive instincts and become good, the magic of friendship transforms them, or something similar. None of that is bad per se, but as a premise it's not new and interesting.
You could make a good story going either way. Thinking about it from an author's perspective, I see that a changeling who stays loyal doesn't present nearly as many opportunities for character development. For now, however, I'm on team Pincer.
Lol, Cadance is Alicorn of Love and she know so little about it that she had to ask Twilight to check tons of books for her, I think Cadance need to step it up, after all Cadance special talent is love the same way as Twilight special talent is magic, and having Cadance asking Twilight to help with love magic is a bit embarrassing.
Interesting problem. Can they feed by basking n the radiance of a pony or two in love? I heartily volenteer to kiss Twilight Sparkle in front of the prisoner! :D ;)
< Oh great, a fanboy!)
2357046 Oops! Thanks for catching that, it's been fixed. This is right after the wedding so Cadance wouldn't have been involved with the Crystal Empire yet.
Should have Favorited this story when I first read because I almost missed this new chapter. Liking how things are turning out, but there is an idea I would like you to consider.
The changelings are a hive species, and typically that would mean some kind of hive mind. If you are including a hive mind in this story, can't recall if you did, then Pincer would be going mad from a lack of contact with it.
Anyway, just a thought. Great story, please keep at it.
2363937 No hive mind in this one. I thought it was cliche to take that route with sentient bugs, and it would kind of undermine some of the story's themes anyway.
2364110
Point, just wanted to mention the possibility. Anyway, hope to more as soon as possible.
First of all, you have my apologies for the delay on this review. Hopefully, it'll be worth the wait
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IT'S REVIEWIN' TIME
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Technical stuff and things
In general, most of the exposition in the prologue is pretty good, setting the stage rather nicely for Pincer. It's not perfect, however, and some tends to be rather tell-y, suffering from Maid and Butler dialogue. In particular, lines like "especially not when we deploy to Canterlot in three days to learn as much as we can about the royal wedding" seem out-of-place, or robotic. I've a feeling this would work fine if Scarab wasn't being so oddly specific at the same time. I mean, I doubt Pincer forgot what they're going to do, where they're going and when they're going to go there, so why mention all three?
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The chapter one intro needed more show too. The story keeps telling us that he's hurt, that Cadence and Shining were responsible, etc, but it really needs to show this. "Pincer's carapace was still smoking from where the love-bomb struck", or "He winced as he tried to unfold his mangled wings" or similar accomplish the same infodump, while making it more vivid for the readers.
In terms of syntax, however, this story's very good indeed. There are a few awkward sentences, as mentioned above, but in general, your spelling appears to be spot-on, with your punctuation, paragraphing and capitalisation all matching in quality.
...what's this?
Someone who knows how to use em-dashes correctly?
HALLE—FRICKIN—LUJAH
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Sweet baby Jesus, there are far too many authors who just slap hyphens in there and think it'll do. You have my thanks for this.
The bit with the story and stuff
Highly enjoyable, from what I've seen so far. The idea of Chrysalis' propaganda slowly being broken down by kindness and trust, emotions not usually associated with the deceitful changelings, is one I enjoy quite a bit.
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I'll admit, the premise of this story is... less than unique. I'm fairly sure "Changeling gets captured" as a story idea has been done almost as much as "Discord gets loose again", but most of those stories suffer from a combination of slapdash pacing, bland characters and mediocre technical skills. Thankfully, this story appears to be an exception.
Pincer's certainly an interesting protagonist. I like the interacting with the other changelings at the start in particular. It serves to show he's more than a two-dimensional cut-out, and give him some good depth.
Hooves and Bill were both good characters, even if it took a while to get used to a female whose name would suggest otherwise. Both their characterisation and interaction with each other seemed to fit nicely. Hooves being the more professional doctor, who always puts patient first, and Bill, the slightly gossipy nurse.
...
And I only just realised you put a Doctor Whooves reference in there. Good job, me.
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Cadance (Cadence?) appears to be spot-on, from what I could see. Celestia, though, was... blunt. I've no doubt she'd try to convince Cada/ence to save the changeling, but her speech was a little cold, really. She's been shown to be generally benevolent to all, and Cad-thingy is family, so should be even closer to her heart. I was expecting Tia's behaviour to be more warm and gentle as a result, especially considering how little time had passed since the invasion. Meh, just a thought.
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Oh, and I'm sooo glad that you didn't have the doctors react with fear to the carnivorous nature of the changelings. Sure, ponies are vegetarians, but plenty of creatures in their world aren't, and members of their profession must be fairly used to blood 'n' guts anyway.
Which is why it perplexes how many authors have ponies react with bowel-loosening terror when confronted by someone with a different diet. Weird.
One thing you didn't talk about much was the state of his wings. I remember you mentioning they were damaged in the love-bomb (God, that sounds like a PG version of Tom Jones), but surely they'd recover quicker than his broken bones? Thus, flying his way out might have made sense, busted legs or no.
General Doohickeys
In general, your world-building in this story is really rather excellent. From the way they keep/treat pony prisoners, to feeding, to Chrysalis herself, even the prologue is pretty impressive. Nicely done.
Hmm... carnivorous Changelings? I guess it makes sense, what with them having fangs in the S2 finale, but that brings up disturbing possibilities as to why they evolved the shape-changing ability in the first place. This also raises interesting questions about how they feed when disguised. Can they subsist off of love alone?
Huh, changelings have an exoskeleton and an endoskeleton? That's... uh, that's some interesting biology you've got there.
You and me both, mate
Giggity.
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Huh, it never occurred to me how a changeling would react to plays, or movies. Interesting.
(I now have an image of some kind of changeling super-actor. Why has this not been covered before?)
I'm interested in seeing what your explanations for the cheeselegs and such are. I've yet to see an answer that completely satisfied me.
Overall hoojamaflips
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Honestly? This ranks among the best damn changeling fics I've read. I'm usually dubious of them at best, but the detail in the backstory, as well as the really quite impressive world-building and good job with characterisation means this one proved my doubts wrong.
Honestly, I can't think of any major criticisms for this story, beyond touching up the prologue to make it flow better. Damn good job. Have a favourite.
~ScreenedPlum, WRITE’s Drunk Demoman
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2422909 Thank you! This was worth the wait!
There was very good advice in your review. I'll probably go back and revise some earlier chapters based on your input, and I'll definitely be taking a closer look at the rough draft of my current one for the kinds of mistakes you mentioned!
"You have non-fiction, fantasy, adventure, science fiction, everything is there. Did you need anything else?"
...in other words, culture, in all its facets. The whole scope of the way ponies act, think and feel. Oh, that's going to be so interesting
Aww. He skips over most of them. Get rid of that damn military mindset, Pincer!
I hope he eventually gets bored enough to read them all anyway
"The Lady of Las Pegasus. He set aside this one without opening it. Judging by the pose of the unicorn mare on the cover, it would just make him hungry."
Hah, lol
"Y.S.".. that has me wondering. Year of the Sun? Celestia's reign? Would be kinda rude to keep using that now Luna's back, though...
"He realized unhappily that The Hive's defeat at Canterlot would probably be the basis for a lesson in the next edition."
Given the fact it was done with a unique spell that was in no way stemming from the military... I doubt it
Wow, this is another utterly hopeless chapter for Pincer. I'm not sure what the interrogators are really hoping to do... he wouldn't say a word to them from the very start. Mystic Saber should know that.
One correction:
> Those can take awhile to heal.
"a while" is two words. The only reason spell checkers don't complain about "awhile" is that it is an obscure synonym of "for a while". Which isn't applicable here.
Have to ask. what doY.S. and Y.R. stand for?
God dammit Twi.
Twi: Heh heh... Uh...
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Translation:
Says the bug-horse in the magical land of Equestria.
Oh my.
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My best guess is "Year of Separation" and "Year of Reunion", or something to that effect.
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UwU
..... They've had nearly a month to experiment and try things to feed him, and yet NOPONY thought doing so (more than once) would be a valuable thing to try? Seriously?