Exploration
The young pony wanders into the woods alone, her brown fur and honey-brown mane make her seem almost a part of the woods she is so often found in. Nopony knows why she goes in there alone, and so often, but everypony has dismissed it as an odd habit of hers. Even though she has strong weather magic, she isn't even part of a part-time weather team. She simply doesn't feel the drive to manipulate the clouds and the weather like all of the other pegasi her age. Even her cutie mark represents her reluctance; hoofprints leading into a stand of trees, dark browns and darker greens sharp against her faded brown flank.
One day, though, she finally approaches a portion of the woods she has yet to explore, and finds something she has never expected to encounter.
As I step hoof into the clearing cautiously, I hear a soft groan from somewhere above me. Startled, I step back into the concealing vegetation of the familiar woods. More sounds come from above me, in a tree, and I chance a glance upwards. Something dark and vaguely pony-shaped is stuck in a tree far above me, and it looks like a branch is stuck in it somewhere in its body. A dark substance drips from above, and I flinch away from it. As I do, I step in a puddle of the stuff.
Blood. I'd recognize the feel and smell of it anywhere. Why didn't I notice it earlier, when I'd come up to the clearing just mere feet away? I should have been paying more attention. Something could have killed me, or mauled me, or even injured me severely enough that I couldn't go for help for quite a while.
"Agh!"
I look up again. The being has come to, and is twisting around and around, struggling around the branch it's impaled on. It looks painful, and I have no desire to watch something like the struggle above me at close quarters. I simply step behind the tree, where I can't see it anymore, but my hearing isn't impaired.
For a minute, it's silent as the being stops struggling, probably to assess the situation. Then I hear a small whimper. Why would it make a sound so helpless? I hear another whimper, and I steel myself for the sight of whatever might be stuck and helpless in the tree I'm leaning on. Spreading my wings, I fly up to see what I can do to help.
I come to in a tree, and almost immediately, I feel a sharp pain through most of my body. "Agh!"
There's a branch stuck through not one, but three of my legs. It passes clean through one leg, nicely fitting through the hole, but it's torn my forelegs' chitin badly, leaving them effectively useless for a long time, forever, if I can't get someling to fix them up correctly. I struggle to get off the branch, to no avail.
I stop. Struggling isn't going to get me anywhere if I injure myself any further and make myself incapable of even the most rudimentary defenses. Even if something finds me up here, wherever here is, it'll hopefully make a quick meal out of me. I don't even have the energy to perform a quick change. As young as I am, my chitin is still softer than it should be.
Maybe I shouldn't have left the hive when I did. That young dragon had been very irritated to find me in the air looking lost. I suppose it's good that I can't remember how I ended up in a tree, a branch that is very alive and green, but, thankfully, bare, impaling me. The claw marks along my back and narrowly missing my wings, and the scorched mane in my face add to the haze of pain. Singed mane doesn't smell any better than a rotting carcass.
Closing my eyes, I let out a whimper. There most likely isn't even anyone out to hear me. I'm going to die alone, lost, and terrified. Terrified of the place I die in. The trees, the wildlife, maybe the locals. I haven't seen a pony in the whole of my adventure away from my starving hive, much less anything other than the angry adolescent dragon that swatted me down in my emotion-depraved state. Another whimper escapes my throat as I realize that noling will even be out looking for me; it's better for me to be gone and out of the hive, leaving more for those who are still there, and those to come. The hatchings are going to happen, soon. More brothers and sisters, but ones that will not know who I even am.
The sound of flapping wings makes me open my eyes and look over at the pegasus pony flying up to stare at me in awe. I stare back. Sure, I've heard stories of the ponies that find out their special someling-- no, special somepony-- is a changeling, but still care. Maybe this pony will be kind and help me find medical help, or put me out of my misery quickly. I should have never left the safety of my hive.
"Can you fly?"
No. No way. I am not going to fly, not anymore. The creatures of the ground are much easier to evade than those of the air. Shaking my head, I wince as my body shifts, causing the branch to crack more chitin around the new holes in my legs. The holes are still so raw from forming, this branch is worse than having one of the small ones poke them. Many times worse.
"Well, I'll see what I can do to help you off that branch. You're a changeling, right?"
"Yes."
She doesn't seem surprised that I know the common tongue in Equestria. Well, at least, I'm pretty sure that's where I ended up. The dragons don't nest too far from the edge of pony lands. Easier to raid precious cargos that way. "Alright, just try not to lash out at me and try really hard not to move. I'm going to take you around the middle and pull really quick, okay? You aren't really heavy, are you?"
"No. I'm light, even for a changeling, which are lighter than ponies in the first place can you please hurry this really hurts and two of these holes aren't even supposed to be here--"
"You're rambling. Just shut up and I'll pull you off."
I close my eyes and hold my breath as I feel hooves wrap around my middle.
The sound that the changeling makes as I pull him off the impaling branch isn't worldly. I almost drop him to cover my ears, but I just pin them back and lower him to the ground. He stumbles on his front legs, then collapses onto his front. I gasp at the amount of blood coming from both of his forelegs and his left hind leg. Less from his hind leg, but, still, it's too much to lose without becoming too weak to do much.
I quickly gather several large leaves, wad them up to about the size of the natural holes in his legs, and stuff them into his wounds. The leaves soak up the blood, but also make the bleeding slow. Once the blood flow has slowed considerably, I take larger leaves of a nearby plant and wrap them around his legs, covering all of the holes, then taking more and wrapping them around the cracked chitin on his back. Hopefully that'll keep anything from getting inside.
"There's a cabin not far from the edge of the woods. Can you walk there?"
He shakes his head. It seems he's too weak, or the chitin of his legs has cracked too much to support his weight. Changelings are just squishy stuff on the inside of that chitin of theirs, anyways. I've seen enough get pieces of their armor chipped out that I know for certain all that's keeping them from being a pile of goo is the bones, which are fragile and much different from a pony's, and their chitin.
"Then I guess I'm carrying you," I say, sighing as I duck under him, hoisting him onto my back, his wounded forelegs instinctively hugging me as I stand up. He really is lighter than even I would have thought. Also, I think he was startled when I picked him off the ground so easily. "Don't do anything or I'll buck you off."
I'm fairly certain he has no idea what I meant, so I just walk, hoping that I can get to the cabin before he passes out again so I know what to do next. Thankfully, I know the fastest way to get nearly anywhere in the woods closest to town much quicker than even the tour guides that occasionally take tourists out. We reach the cabin with plenty of daylight to spare, and I set him down inside. He pushes himself forward with his one good leg until he's in a dark corner, where he curls up and looks miserable and in a lot of pain.
"Do you know of a changeling who heals?" he asks, just as I open my mouth to ask him what he needed me to do.
"Well, I'm fairly certain that the town's favorite doctor is a changeling. He even helps out changelings, once in a while. I'm his daughter, actually."
"Get him. Wait. What? You're his what?"
"I'll just go get him. You stay here. Not that you could go anywhere if you really wanted to. Those wrappings aren't going to hold for forever."
I go and fly off to find my father, who should be at the clinic right about now. As I suspected, he gets angry at me right away for interrupting work, but then he dismisses his client and turns to me as soon as my mouth starts to form the word "changeling." His blue magic closes and locks the door of his office, then turns a stern look to me.
"You know I don't fix up changelings just because they think it's okay to show me what they are. Hay, I don't even let them in unless they've got somepony to vouch for them!"
"But Daddy! He got hurt really bad, and I need you to help him! He's really young, too, younger than most of your changeling patients, and he's lost a lot of blood. I left him at the old cabin to rest, but I don't know how long he'll last without changeling healing."
He just shakes his head. "I don't think I can help him, sweetheart, I don't have enough training in that sort of thing for a changeling."
"Just stop with the act. I know you're a changeling, and I know that you can heal him," I bluff. Dad was never very good at holding his own against a harsh bluff like mine. I always used them. Why hasn't he noticed yet? Is it because I usually firmly believe in them?
"How long?"
"Um... I started suspecting a few years ago, when all of a sudden, you had changeling patients. I just guessed it was because you were imitating my dad. But you are my dad, Mom says so, so I'm figuring you can at least help him back on his hooves. He's scared, alone, and hurt. And I can't help him any more than I have."
My father looks at me in a new way that I haven't seen before, then he smiles at me with his fatherly smile. "Your mother always warned me to look out for signs you were like me. Well, it seems you have a hive's sense of responsibility to care for an injured changeling, even if it's from another hive. Very well, lead me to this poor 'ling, and I'll see what I can do about fixing him up. Is he capable of holding a disguise?"
I'm still a little shocked that he admitted to being a changeling without actually saying it. "U-uh, I don't think so. He didn't really try to disguise himself when he saw me...."
Dad just sighs and shakes his head. "Fine. Let me grab my kit and then you can take me to this changeling."
The smile grows on my face of its own accord. I can't actually believe that it was so easy to get my dad to get down to help the changeling.
"But then you're grounded for a week for not listening to your mother."
Horseapples.