Ocellus and her friends only planned to sail to Manehattan for their final project. They never imagined a storm could take them... a little further than that.
Every student of the School of Friendship had to complete a capstone project before graduating. While the other students wrote songs, baked cakes, and other ordinary things, Ocellus and her friends decided to make their last project together count--they built a ship, and planned to sail it north all the way up the coast to Manehattan. But none of them were terribly good sailors, and they never could've imagined what found them on the water...
Now they've been washed ashore in a strange land, surrounded by creatures they never imagined in their wildest dreams. To survive long enough to make their way home, they might just have to make some new friends.
Writen as a Patreon reward for Vilken666. Editing by the usual starpub crew, Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha.
So far as bad ideas went, Ocellus had seen worse. She’d been barely a grub during the first invasion of Equestria, but she could still remember their queen’s rage when her own terrible plan failed.
But however nervous she might be about this, the entire support-network of ponies around them hadn’t raised any red flags. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.
The SS Solidarity wasn’t a mighty ship, or even a professional-looking ship. But she stopped to admire it as it floated beside the Seaward Shoals docks, remembering the long hours they had labored constructing it. An entire summer had gone into the Solidarity. While most of the other students at Twilight’s school went back to their families and wasted their summers, she and her friends had been preparing. Preparing for this moment.
“It is pretty awesome,” Gallus said, walking past her with both claws full of supplies. She felt a little guilty for not helping load—but she wasn’t as strong as some of the others. They could do in minutes what took her hours. “Don’t worry, the ponies will take pictures. We’ll be able to remember this moment.”
“I don’t need a picture to remember it,” Ocellus muttered. She’d certainly take one back with her. The other changelings would never believe this. I built a ship and sailed from the south to the north of Equestria with only my friends for company.
The Solidarity itself wasn’t a mighty warship, and it wouldn’t be winning any races. But they’d designed her themselves using the help of a few pony shipwrights, earned the bits for the materials, and then spent months of free time to put her together.
Of course she still had to do that last part.
It wasn’t just the six of them who had turned out for the launch. There were just over a hundred creatures here—many of them ponies, but not all. Many families were here, though not Ocellus’s own. It didn’t matter—King Thorax would be attending their triumphant arrival in two weeks’ time.
“Is everything alright?” Twilight asked from behind her on the dock. Few of the other creatures had dared to cross onto their section, where the last few sacks of supplies were being loaded. But this was Twilight’s school. “Not having second thoughts about your route, are you? I’ve already talked to the weather team, they’ll keep the whole corridor clear for you.”
Ocellus nodded. “We’re… we’re not worried about anything.” Except falling off the side of the ship, getting lost, unexpected weather, going crazy with just each other for company, or getting eaten by sharks. “Just… nervous, you know? Something this big…”
“Oh, yeah.” The Alicorn headmare leaned close to her, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “When I was working on my final project for Celestia’s academy, I worked on it for almost as long as you all have. It wasn’t quite this dangerous, but… you’ll do fine! That’s the whole point of the assignment, after all. I can’t think of a better test of your friendship than this. If it survives this trip, then it can survive anything.”
If. Ocellus couldn’t help but share that sentiment. Creating this thing had been hard enough that she wasn’t sure they’d still be speaking to each other by the end. Even now she could hear Smolder and Yona arguing about how to pack supplies into the hold.
“We cannot just shove in supplies, Smolder. Yona has seen this. We will be moving, great distance. Will not find what we are looking for when we need it!”
“We don’t have time!”
But she tuned that out, shaking her head once to dismiss the sound of arguing. “We’ll be fine,” she said, grinning at Twilight with what she hoped was confidence. “I’m glad you came to see us off.”
“Her and the rest of Equestria,” Sandbar said, emerging from the ramp and offering her a life-jacket.
Ocellus pulled it on easily, jerking the zipper as tight as it would go. It still felt loose—it had obviously been made for a pony. “Thanks,” she said, grinning back. “And yeah, it’s… a little overwhelming. But at least now I’ll have the food for the trip.”
“You… don’t eat love anymore,” Twilight said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was a joke. N-not a very good one, I guess.”
Twilight chuckled awkwardly, then rose. “Well, good luck to you all. Nopony’s expecting you to make a speech or anything, and honestly you shouldn’t waste time with it. You’re running low on daylight as it is! Weather teams all up Equestria know you’re coming, but that doesn’t mean Celestia can just stop time for you to make the trip.”
“We’re almost ready,” Sandbar said, grinning proudly. “Once the hold is packed… we should be on our way.”
“You should know that I’m proud of everything you all have accomplished over the last few years. You’re going down in the record books at the School of Friendship, no matter what happens. But I just know you can rise to the occasion. Next year’s creatures are going to have a hard time living up to this.”
She turned, vanishing with a flash from her horn. Ocellus didn’t watch to see where she’d reappeared in the crowd, or try and listen to what they were saying. The ponies had brought signs, and she could hear their chants echoing over the water. “Did you have anything to do with them?” she asked Sandbar. “The… cheerleaders?”
“No! I mean… yeah, pretty sure I don’t. I told mom not to bring anyone else. I… don’t think she listened, though.”
“Well, they won’t be able to follow us the whole way.” Ocellus turned towards the Solidarity, stepping gingerly onto the ramp. If Yona can do this, I can too, she thought.
“Welcome aboard!” Smolder called, wearing a wide-brimmed pirate’s hat and a heavy cloak instead of any useful safety gear. “I could use a few more good claws on my ship! Prepare to shove off!”
“Spike should not have got you into comics,” Sandbar muttered, glancing back at Ocellus long enough for her to see his grin.
“Is that insubordination I hear?” Smolder called, her grin widening. “First mate, I think you should teach them a lesson. Throw these scoundrels overboard!”
Yona emerged from below-decks, wearing her own little hat, much smaller than Smolder’s. Her huge braids made it look like it almost fit. “I think Yona let them off with a warning, captain. This time.”
It didn’t take them much longer to get underway. A few more minutes of messing around, a few to pack away everything below deck, and they were ready to raise the sail and set off. It was mostly Gallus and Silverstream up there, since they were the best fliers. Ocellus watched from beside Smolder near the helm, as Yona shoved off from the shore and leapt the distance to catch up. For a creature with such a bad history with water, Yona sure kept her fears in check.
From the shore, a cheer went up from the crowd that was so loud she could practically see it catch the sails. “Safe trip!” she heard, or thought she heard. But for all their enthusiasm the ponies weren’t very coordinated.
“Equestria has given us a powerful northern wind to speed us on,” Gallus said from his perch on the mast, his voice carrying well over the distant shouts. “But we’ll have to tack to get away from shore. Watch the boom.”
“I’m sure you’re up to the challenge!” Smolder called. “Ocellus, keep your eye on that map! I intend to make it to Manehattan a day ahead of schedule.”
The next few days passed as Ocellus had expected them. There were highs and lows, dangerous swells and close calls. But her friends were resourceful, and they really had learned a lot at the School of Friendship. They were even on track for Smolder’s absurd day-early arrival.
At least until the storm found them.
It came on slowly, slowly enough that even Ocellus didn’t notice it at first. The sky went a little grayer, the wind got a little less friendly. Instead of gliding along an even sea, they began bobbing up and down.
At first she didn’t think anything of it—just glanced at her compass a little more often, checked her pocket-watch, and kept counting the miles. But then they smacked straight into a particularly violent swell, pouring water over the deck and nearly sending her sprawling.
She changed instead—into a sturdy earth pony, and suddenly the force of water didn’t bother her.
“What’s going on?” Smolder emerged from below the deck, replacing her silly hat along the way. But she hadn’t put on the rest of the costume. “Sandbar, I trusted you to navigate us while I slept.” Then she made it up onto the deck beside them, and her eyes widened. “Oh.”
Gallus landed soaking wet a second later, dropping a bit of torn cloth to the deck. “That was the jib sail! I think we need to lower the mainsail, or else… we might capsize!” He dropped to the ground, and Ocellus did too. Smolder didn’t, and the boom smacked her in the chest, throwing her off the upper-deck and down to the lower, where she nearly hit Yona.
Ocellus winced at the sound of the impact, but knew the crack she heard was probably the Solidarity, not Smolder. Dragons were tough.
“I thought Equestria was going to keep it clear all the way up!” Silverstream called from high above them, pointing out along the horizon.
Ocellus followed her gesture, crossing to the railing and wrapping a hoof around it as she did so.
Ocellus had grown up in the Badlands, where months of drought could be broken with torrential thunderstorms that flooded everything and killed anypony foolish enough not to find shelter. But never in her life had she seen a storm like that. The sight stole her transformation from her in a second, and her old self probably would’ve fled into a corner to curl up and hide.
Instead of a cloud, what she saw on the horizon was a wall. Blackness stretched all the way up from the ocean to the sun, blackness occasionally broken with a roll of thunder that shook the whole ocean beneath them.
“Celestia save us,” Sandbar said from beside her, staring off as she did. “No, really. Celestia, if you’re listening? I think we need saving.”
“We can’t count on some Alicorn saving us!” Smolder shoved past them both, taking hold of the helm and spinning violently. The whole ship spun with it, and the boom swung back around. This time Smolder was out of range—but Ocellus and Sandbar still needed to duck. “You can’t lower the mainsail, Gallus! Look at that! We need all the speed we can get! I should have you and Silverstream fly out there and pull us!”
Wind blasted over the deck, filling the air with water and blinding Ocellus for a moment. She was very nearly ripped right off her hooves, at least until she crouched low and it stopped picking her up.
“We can’t!” Gallus advanced on them, pointing urgently up. “It’s tearing, can’t you see? If we lose that sail, we’re dead in the water!”
“If we don’t make it back to shore, we’re regular dead!” Smolder shouted back. “Unless you know any forms that can get us out of this, Ocellus! We could really use some changeling magic about now!”
A dozen different transformations flashed through her mind—gigantic dragons to try and pull their ship away faster, or mythical storm spirits that might be able to quell whatever was bearing down on them. But when her magic finally came, she could feel her legs fading away—she was changing into a seapony.
Or she almost did. Ocellus stopped the spell, forcing herself back onto four legs, and shook a little more saltwater from her body. “I… don’t know anything that can get us out,” she said.
“Then hold on!” Smolder called, her voice rising. “Look to our left!”
She did, and suddenly wished she hadn’t. The storm wall was fast approaching—it seemed to fill half the world now, a single dark mass of violent rain and churning ocean.
A single wave had emerged from within, a wave that would’ve made Canterlot Mountain seem small. It would be on them in seconds.
“If we don’t make it,” Gallus shouted, his voice quavering. “This whole thing has been great. Being your friends… everything.”
“Yona thinks so too,” said the yak, clambering up the stairs from the lower deck. “Yona thinks we will be fine. All we have done together—we built Solidarity good. You’ll see.”
The world returned to Ocellus with a crash. Water smacked up against the side of the Solidarity, and yet it wasn’t moved at all. There was no more bobbing, no floating. She jerked suddenly awake, horn coming alight with green magic to light her way.
She was below deck, in the single large space that was their sleeping area. Blankets, hammocks, and clothing had gone everywhere, covering the ground with a thick layer of cloth. Instead of being behind her, the stairs were on the wall, and gray light came spilling down.
How did we get down here? Ocellus wasn’t alone—all five of her friends had come below, and were scattered across the floor. None looked to have woken yet, though Sandbar and Gallus were stirring.
Ocellus wasn’t much for magic beyond her transformation. She knew there was much more that could be done—Equestrian unicorns had a great deal to teach her. They had medical spells, transportation spells, communication spells—but learning them felt like climbing uphill during a rainstorm, the mud always dragging her back down again.
Even so, she could unfocus her mind a little, sensing for the most basic units of life from her friends. Make sure none of them had died. It was the same sense she would’ve used to sniff out love back when she still needed it.
They were all still there—even Smolder, whose breathing was so subtle she was almost completely still. Good.
They’d made all kinds of backup plans for this trip, mapping out every port and dock they could use along the way. They were never supposed to be more than a half hour from the shore.
From the sound of waves crashed up against them, and the Solidarity having fallen sideways, Ocellus wagered that monster wave had shipwrecked them on an Equestrian beach. At least we didn’t try anything riskier, like going all the way to Griffinstone.
Ocellus took one last glance at her unconscious friends, before buzzing her way up the sloping ramp and out of the ship. I hope Yona can get out of there okay.
Outside, many of her predictions were confirmed. The Solidarity showed other serious signs of damage, most notably a mast that had been split down the middle. The mainsail was in tatters, and bits of rope hung all around them. The sun just barely poked through a haze of gray clouds, revealing a beach like many others. Probably would’ve seemed a relaxing place, if it had been swarming with ponies instead of being completely deserted.
“Hey,” said Sandbar from behind her. He emerged from the forecastle a second later, looking out with her. “Guess we made it. Did you teleport us down there?”
“I don’t think so,” Ocellus admitted. “I’ve heard some unicorns can cast spells reflexively. But most changelings only transform when they get nervous or scared.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining. We made it, that’s what matters. It’s all seagulls and sandbars from here.”
“Not exactly made it.” Ocellus followed his eyes, off the edge of the ship and back to the ocean. “The Solidarity is wrecked. She isn’t going to sail again, and we won’t make it to Manehattan.”
“Whatever,” Sandbar shrugged. “Who cares about our score? That storm almost killed us.”
“Fair. But where did it send us…” She turned around, but she couldn’t really get up to look over the deck and the landward side. “Come with me. Maybe you’ll recognize it.”
“Yeah.”
They clambered together onto the sand, Ocellus buzzing her way and Sandbar just jumping with raw toughness down to beach level. They got another good look at the Solidarity, battered and broken, and got plenty wet from the waves lapping at their hooves. Then they were out of its shadow, and they could look landward.
Ocellus froze in her tracks. Maybe we found Manehattan after all. There was a line of shops and restaurants right on the edge of the sand, almost all of them shuttered and barred with warning placards pinned outside. Ramps and stairways led over them, up into a city of massive buildings stretching up the coast. They kept going in both directions as far as she could see, and that wasn’t even the strangest thing.
“They’re… a little small,” Sandbar muttered. “What kind of creature lives here?”
If it had, it had done a whole lot of other things too. Ocellus hadn’t noticed the sounds over the ocean behind her, but now that she listened they came through clearly. Machines zooming around, an occasional warning horn so loud her ears flattened—and towering above it all, a round white wheel with lots of little boxes attached around its outside rim. From where she stood, it was taller than Canterlot Castle.
Distant shapes moved on the upper level, above the shops and stores down on the beach. Ocellus couldn’t see them well, but she could see enough to tell they weren’t ponies. “What… part of Equestria is this?” she asked, her voice very small. “Manehattan, right? Bigger than I imagined.” But also wrong. There was supposed to be a huge port full of ships, not a beach. And there were no other ships to be seen.
“Sandbar! Ocellus?” a voice shouted from behind them. Ocellus winced at the volume, now that she knew where they were. The beach was an uncomfortably small barrier between them and this alien place. “Oh, there you are!” Silverstream emerged from the Solidarity, hovering in the air slightly over their heads.
Too high. Something will see her. All of Ocellus’s old instincts were waking up, though a single glance down told her that her body hadn’t reverted. She had more love than ever now—but she still felt just as unsafe. I think we’ve gone further than any creature before. But gone where?
“What are you looking at?” Silverstream asked, landing on the sand beside them. “Stairs?”
Sandbar pointed with one hoof. “Yes, Silverstream. Looks like you could skip most them if you wanted to climb up, though.”
“Oh.” Her eyes went so wide Ocellus couldn’t see the color anymore. “That’s… weird.”
“We need to wake the others,” Ocellus said. “Unless Sandbar knows where this is, and we’re not in as much danger as I think we are.”
“Nope.” Sandbar turned away. “I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Ocellus took a step back towards their ship, pulling Silverstream along with her. “Let’s get out of sight. We don’t want to be noticed before we’re ready.”
“Okay…” Silverstream followed along obediently.
Ocellus kept glancing back up the shore, watching for any sign of trouble. And it didn’t take her long to spot it. Something large had appeared on the city level above, something metal and reflective with bright yellow and blue squares. She crouched low in the shadow of the Solidarity, watching as the object opened.
It’s like a covered carriage. Except that she couldn’t see anypony pulling it. The whole thing was sealed, like it had somehow been made of a single piece of metal and glass all fused together.
A figure had emerged from either side of the carriage. They were wearing an awful lot of clothes—so much that she couldn’t see any fur at all. If that yellow wasn’t on a jacket, I’d think they were changelings. But with stripes like that, stripes that seemed to flash when they stepped under the streetlights, these two wouldn’t be hiding.
They stopped on the side of the railing, staring directly at the Solidarity. She couldn’t hear them, but it was obvious what they must be doing. Their arrival had been noticed.
“Everypony’s okay!” Sandbar called from inside the ship, loud enough that Ocellus winced again. “What are we doing?”
“Emergency kits,” Smolder’s voice said, not shouting. “Everything we need. The tide might be up any second.”
Ocellus gulped. She hadn’t even thought of that. But now that she looked down, the water was creeping up her hooves. Will it take the Solidarity back out to sea?
She briefly considered if that might be the better option. This strange land and its creatures were an unknown—the geography of how they’d got here made even less sense. Had they somehow washed all the way south to the Badlands? Was this Minotaur country?
Ocellus had read more about geography than any of her friends. If she couldn’t figure out where they’d ended up, then none of the others would. They all depended on her.
“Yona does not want to be in here anymore. She is leaving,” the Yak shouted, at what amounted for her normal speaking voice.
Loud enough that the figures standing high above them pointed again. One of them was holding a tool in its hand, something flat that made different flashes of light. Then they started jogging down the ramp together, eyes fixed on the ship.
“Hey, everyone…” Ocellus’s voice faltered, but she hoped they could all hear. “I think we’re in trouble.” She pointed back, and Silverstream followed her around the ship.
Yona blocked the way inside, splashing around in the rising tide and rinsing all the sand and seaweed from her coat. “Trouble? No. Yona not think so. We are safe! This trip went better than Yona was expecting.”
“You expected us to shipwreck?” Sandbar called from inside, his face poking out from the doorway.
“No.” Yona stopped, turning back inside. “Yona expected us to sink. This is better.”
“We should go back inside,” Ocellus said, her voice a little braver than before. “Yona, please… some creatures are coming. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
“Creatures?” Smolder’s voice called from in the ship. “Can you ask them to send a scroll back for rescue? Ember will get us out of this. I’ll never hear the end of it, but I don’t want to walk back. It’s worth a little shame.”
“Yona will ask.” The yak turned, running straight past Ocellus and sending up a spray of salty water.
“Wait!” Ocellus tried to stop her, but at her size she couldn’t even slow the yak down. “Buck.” She glanced back at the others. “I’ll keep an eye on her. The rest of you stay hidden.”
She’d already seen seagulls circling overhead. Ocellus couldn’t match these weird creatures yet, but she could do a seagull. She changed, then took off with an instinctive squawk, rising above the ship and circling overhead.
Seagull eyes were better than her own, tuned to spotting even the tiniest glimpse of food emerging from tidepools and sandbars. She had no trouble watching Yona.
The instant she emerged from behind the Solidarity, both creatures stopped dead in their tracks, and one even stumbled back in surprise.
Now they were close enough to hear. They had a thick accent—thicker than most griffons, even. But Ocellus could still understand them.
“It’s coming for us, Davies!” shouted one, lifting something from his belt with practiced ease—like something he’d done a hundred times. Ocellus had never seen anything like it—but from the aggression in his posture, she could guess it was a weapon.
“Hello!” Yona called, her voice so loud it probably just sounded like a bellow to them. But even with Yona’s great size compared to Ocellus and her friends, she would be a living monster to these little creatures. “Yona and her friends are stranded! They need your help!”
Ocellus swept down in a dive just over the Yak. The creatures weren’t even looking at her—her disguise was apparently good enough. “Yona, stop running!” Ocellus shouted as she passed overhead.
She did, looking up at the bird with confusion. “Why? Long trip up beach.”
The creatures shared a look. “Wilson, are you hearing voices?” This voice sounded higher than the first, and quicker. A female of the same species? Ocellus wasn’t watching as closely as she lifted back up above, hoping they hadn’t seen her. And apparently not.
“I can’t be.” He shook his head once, as though something had gotten stuck in it. “We should… animal control.” He turned, and his companion joined him. They ran back up the stairs from where they’d come, ignoring Yona’s shouts.
Ocellus kept in the air another moment longer, hoping that her friends would understand. This disguise had passed an initial test—this was the phase of any operation where she could make observations of the culture she was about to infiltrate, learning everything she needed about their customs.
Well that was what her mother probably would’ve suggested. She didn’t think they’d be here long enough for that—and she wasn’t leading a changeling expedition.
But she circled up and over the boardwalk, taking in as much of its details as she could from the sky. Not all of the aliens dressed like the ones who had visited the beach—actually, most didn’t. The cold looked to bother them more than it did ponies, because they all wore lots of clothes. Pants and jackets mostly.
In a few seconds, she didn’t think they were that odd. Smaller than ponies for certain, but not that much shorter. But where ponies achieved their size with four legs, these creatures were always walking around on two, with their strange soft-claws always moving.
Further from the boardwalk, and things got harder to understand. The aliens were obviously accomplished builders, but they didn’t seem to have much sense of style. Many of these structures were bigger than anything she’d ever seen in Equestria, despite the size of their residents. But they were built to a similar, dreary style. Why not make something look nicer? The boardwalk was nice enough.
But that wasn’t the strangest thing she saw. There were roads, like any large city, and more of the ponyless carts that moved themselves. They were loud, and she suspected they were producing the remarkably unpleasant odor assaulting her nostrils. There were so many of them.
Far more than she’d seen in photos of Manehattan—there were thousands of metal carts, in hundreds of different styles and colors.
There is no way this is anywhere near Equestria. No way. They had a seemingly limitless supply of flat rock to build with, of perfect glass for their buildings, and carts that needed no hard work to get around. If creatures like this existed, they’d be the richest beings in the whole world.
So where are we?
She couldn’t be left to her own thoughts for much longer. Her friends—particularly Yona and Smolder—would get into trouble if not supervised. She suspected they’d been frightened by their first encounter with the aliens, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Can they make weapons as good as their carts? We don’t want that answered.
She turned back around, angling herself for the wrecked ship on the harbor. More carriages like the one already there were on their way, bright red and blue lights flashing and an awful screech heralding their approach.
We need to get away from here. Ocellus spent another precious minute in the air, scouting out possible routes of escape. There was one—straight north, where developed beach turned into unpleasant rocky land. The boardwalk ended, and there was even countryside visible. Smaller homes. We can go that way.
Ocellus landed behind the ship, and wasn’t too surprised to see that her friends had all emerged from within. Anyone who had been weary from their crash seemed to have returned to wakefulness.
Ocellus changed back in front of them, and they didn’t even stare. They were used to her by now, and she them.
“Have a nice flight?” Silverstream asked, grinning at her.
“Yeah, I hope you did.” Smolder sounded bitter as she said it, rather than friendly. “Because we really could’ve used you here. We’re trying to figure out what in Tartarus to do.”
Ocellus blushed, looking away from them all, kicking a bit of sand with her hooves. “I’ve been… scouting things out. Learning.”
She could feel annoyance coming from Smolder, and a little from Gallus as well. At least he tried to hide it. It’s okay, we’re all on edge, we’re afraid. We’re somewhere we shouldn’t be. This is natural.
“Learning what?” Smolder asked.
“Yona is curious also. Yona wonders why you did not want her to greet the strangers. She could understand their Ponish. They could understand her. What is problem?”
“They were going to hurt you,” Ocellus began, but she didn’t continue. Trying to get across complex social cues to a yak was an uphill battle she didn’t have time to fight right now. “Look, there are going to be more of them, a lot more. I think they’re frightened of us.”
“Eh, not the worst thing.” Smolder rose onto her hind legs, flexing her claws one at a time. “I don’t mind a little fight.”
“We should,” Sandbar said. “Because these creatures are brand new, and fighting them isn’t a good way to make friends.”
“Eh, I’m not in a friendly mood. The shipwreck ruined it. Maybe breaking things will make me feel better.”
Gallus shrugged. “No difference to me. I saw them, they didn’t look so tough. Short and frail, like minotaurs who haven’t eaten in months.”
“What do you think we should do, Ocellus?” Silverstream asked, bouncing up and down nervously. She kept glancing back at the ocean—maybe she wanted to go swimming. But she’d stayed with them through everything. Through the storm, presumably, or else she could’ve swam back to Equestria. “We need to call for help somehow.”
“Yeah,” Ocellus said. “But I don’t know how yet. For now, we… need to get out of here.” She pointed up the coast. “It looks pretty wild in that direction. If we can go fast enough, we might be able to get lost in the forest. Maybe… with you flying to make a distraction while the rest of us escape.” She nodded towards Smolder. “A distraction that doesn’t involve burning any creatures, even creatures we haven’t met yet.”
“Especially creatures we haven’t met yet,” Sandbar corrected. “We’re still on our friendship final. Our ship is wrecked, but… maybe this is all part of it! Maybe Twilight knew what was going to happen, and she trusted us to… to visit an island ponies had never been to before! We can’t waste that chance!”
Her friends started to argue for a bit… and while they did, Ocellus was painfully aware of their time running out. The creatures were building up in greater numbers along the pier. The more of them there were, the harder it would be to create a distraction large enough to escape.
Will they be friendly? What is an animal control, anyway? It was a name that confused her. Animals were something else, right? Things ponies kept as pets, or lived in the woods. With emotions too diffuse for a changeling to feed on.
“I think we should put it to a vote,” Silverstream said cutting through the argument enough that even Ocellus looked up. “Arguing isn’t going to fix anything. We need a decision before things change too much and we can’t decide anymore.”
“Stay put,” Yona said, plopping her considerable rear in the sand and water as she said it. Even she had been up just below her knees in seawater—but she didn’t seem to care now that she was half soaked. “Rescue come for us. All we have do is wait long enough.”
“I’m with Ocellus,” Silverstream said. “Some creatures are dangerous. The Storm King’s island was… we would’ve been better off if they never found us. We don’t want to introduce ourselves to these creatures if they are the same way.”
Gallus shrugged. “Whatever. Sandbar?”
Sandbar finally nodded. “I would rather just go talk to them—but running off to hide for a bit is the same thing. It’s better than fighting them. I know that’s what Smolder wants.”
The dragon shrugged. “Apparently I’ve been out-voted. Distraction, you said?”
Ocellus nodded. “If we’ve grabbed everything we could, then… yeah. You distract them, and we’ll all run. Everyone follow me. I’m going to be a seagull again, so… look for the one with the white splotches on her wings.”
She changed again in front of them, jumping at the same time so she wouldn’t end up with her head underwater. She spread her wings, then pointed. “Go on, Smolder. You can find us from the sky once you’ve confused them a bit.”
She nodded. “Just make sure Yona is out in the open, and I could find you on the dark side of the moon. But I know what way you’re going, so it should be faster than that.” She stuck her tongue out to Gallus. “Guess you get to help with the next plan.”
He shrugged one wing ambivalently. “This is fine. Be careful.”
Smolder scoffed, then took to the air with a wave of sand and water. The shock and surprise that Ocellus sensed from the boardwalk was so strong that she nearly fell over—she hadn’t even been trying to monitor their emotions, yet they were suddenly impossible to ignore. There had to be at least a dozen creatures up on that pier.
“We go now?” Yona asked, annoyance in her voice. At least she seemed to be willing to respect their vote too. “Yona want to stay, but Smolder is having so much fun. We can’t let her go to waste.”
“Very soon,” Ocellus said, landing on a length of broken wood over their head. “We have to let them be distracted. It sounds like she’s doing a good job…”
She heard terrified shouts, screams of what was unmistakably “Dragon!” They know what we are. But why don’t we know them?
There was no time to wonder about that now. “Time to go!” Ocellus took off again with a squawk and a spray of white feathers, flying slow this time, straight away from the Solidarity. The shore became rocky not too far away, but the boardwalk continued for a little distance more. They would have to go even further—until the real wilderness started—if they hoped to escape.
At least her friends were good runners. Equestria was a dangerous place at times, and there had been plenty of opportunity to run for their lives. Even Yona could keep pace without much difficulty, though she couldn’t fly along like Silverstream or Gallus. Sandbar was an earth pony, and no amount of rocks were going to bother his hooves.
She spared a glance for Smolder, who was putting on quite a show with her fire-breath. Not actually aiming at any of the creatures or buildings, but straight into the air in front of them. Was she trying to write words with the smoke?
She could hear other sounds then—like little cracks, tiny fireworks going off. Ocellus didn’t know what they were, but she didn’t like the sudden aggression she felt from behind them.
“Faster!” she screeched, her voice distorting a little with the strange body she’d taken. But not so much that her friends wouldn’t be able to understand her. “We’ve got to get further away! To those trees!”
She pointed, and her friends changed direction. Off the beach now, and up into the tree-line. She watched the Solidarity retreat away behind them, until its outline was lost. All those hundreds of hours of work together, the research and the practice jaunts into the harbor… all gone.
It’s okay, we survived. This is enough.
Yona was slowing down, though, and she wasn’t the only one. Gallus dropped down from the air to limp after her, and Silverstream followed.
“I wasn’t done,” she muttered, her voice crestfallen. “Do we have to stop?”
“We can’t stop.” Ocellus landed on the ground ahead of them all, changing smoothly back into herself. She was getting winded from so much magic, even if the flight hadn’t bothered a seagull. It will probably be a few hours before I change again. I wish I’d practiced more.
“We ran here through sand. That means we left a trail.” She pointed towards the rocks, back on shore. “But if we use that for a bit… a few miles… they won’t be able to find us.”
“You think they’ll want to?” Sandbar asked. “We didn’t really… do anything. Maybe they’ll just be happy we’re gone.”
Ocellus shook her head, glancing back towards the beach. She couldn’t see Smolder anymore over the tops of the massive trees. “Maybe before Smolder showed off so much. But they’ll want to find her now… and us too. I’m sure of it.”
They wanted to hurt her. But she didn’t tell her friends that—they didn’t need to be any more afraid than they already were.
“Come on then,” Gallus said, pointing with a claw. “She said she could find us. We need to keep moving.”
Marie’s eyes were glued to the television as they never had been before in her entire life.
What she was seeing was impossible. But as she watched, there was no announcement that this was really just the trailer from some upcoming movie. There was no “April fools.” If the BBC was playing a prank on people, this was far more incredible than any spaghetti trees.
“Authorities say the creature was spotted near Brighton pier at about six in the morning today,” said the bland presenter, looking as interested in the story as if she’d been telling them about London congestion. “No organization has yet taken responsibility.”
There was only a minute or so of footage, and it looped again behind the presenter as she introduced a policeman. “Officer Davies was on the scene. Tell us what you saw, Officer.”
A woman’s voice came in, a little fuzzy from whatever phone she was using. Marie rose from the old worn couch, ignoring her mother’s glare.
“You really shouldn’t watch from that close, dear. You’ll ruin your eyes.” Her mom sounded exactly like the presenter—like she was barely paying attention. She barely even looked, just kept pulling out clean laundry from the basket and folding it onto the sofa beside her.
“Are you seeing this?” Marie asked, stupefied. “Mum, that’s a dragon! It just…” There was a boat in the distance in one of the shots. She started listening to the tele again.
“The beach was still closed from last night’s storm, and we got reports from a few concerned residents about a shipwreck. My partner and I headed over to see if everything was alright, or if the boat was abandoned… and an animal attacked us.”
“It’s not what it seems,” Mum said, exasperated. “Look at the size of that boat. Whoever was running that puppet must’ve been in there. It’s a trick, dear. There’s no such thing as dragons.”
Marie pointed at the TV, stepping to the side. The camera footage wasn’t good—it had come from police dashcams, judging by the glass look and the car all around it. But it was clear enough, not like some blurry bigfoot footage. “Look at that, Mum! It’s breathing real fire!”
Her mom shook her head. “You mean the BBC is advertising their next original program? They really shouldn’t be allowed to lead people on like this.” She clucked her tongue, then lifted another white shirt to fold.
“It was in Brighton,” Marie said, folding her arms. “Just a few kilometers south of us. Aren’t you worried about…”
“About a dragon loose in the hill?” Mum rolled her eyes. “If you think that’s going to get you out of class tomorrow, you can put that thought to bed. You’re still going.”
But for once, Marie wasn’t trying to get out of school. She didn’t care anymore. How are they all taking this so calmly? Everything we know is different…
Marie turned, stomping one annoyed foot. “Whatever.” She pulled out her phone, wiping off a bit of grease with a finger, and wasn’t surprised there were dozens of messages waiting for her.
Helen’s dominated her feed, so many notifications that they took up most of the space.
are you seeing this no way turn on bbc3 you have to see this its right there come on Marie this is important Marie stop it you have to hear what they’re saying
David, her only other friend her age in the entire village, had left only one message, though it had arrived at about the same time. In David’s usual way, it wasn’t a message at all, but a link to a page somewhere. She didn’t recognize the website, but she could read “Dragon Sightingin Brighton” along with the other internet gibberish.
Her mother didn’t pay any attention to her as she slipped into the back of the flat, dodging through the kitchen into her bedroom. She could distantly hear the television as it changed from the news to a rerun of Doctor Who. You watch that Mum, and you don’t care when an actual dragon shows up in Britain.
Marie’s room was the only place she could feel comfortable in her flat—the only place that didn’t feel surgical clean all the time. Her mom only worked a few shifts a week at the hospital anymore, but she sure spent plenty of her time scrubbing down the flat as though there were sick people everywhere.
Marie kept her own dirty clothes in a pile near the closet, a fairly small one now that the laundry had just been done. Her bed was old and worn just like everything in the flat, but it was comfortable enough for her to plop down, brushing some unruly blonde hair out of her eyes as she opened David’s link.
It was on a website apparently devoted to “cryptid hunting,” something she’d never heard of before, but now she could guess. Instead of stupid wastes of time like Nessie and elves, this page was filled with actual photographs, most of which looked like they’d come from CCTV cameras on the pier. There were a few other angles from police cameras too, those not chosen by the broadcast. And a lot of people theorizing.
They were talking too much to keep Marie’s interest, but she did investigate some of the pictures.
The dragon was about as big as she was, maybe a little taller. But that wasn’t the only photo.
There had apparently been other things there, because some of the images contained more than just the dragon. Most depicted something Maria might’ve expected to find on a Mongolian Steppe, though it was a little smaller than the ones she’d seen on Earth documentaries.
But there were a few smaller images, caught from the pier shops but aimed far beyond their usual range. She couldn’t make out whatever they were aiming at very clearly, but there were multiple shapes for sure.
That one looks like a horse, but who would paint it like that? And those other ones are flying. That probably shouldn’t surprise her—the dragon was flying, so why not the rest?
Her phone started vibrating, and the thread was replaced with Helen’s picture taken during last year’s class trip, when she had stood in front of one of the Queen’s Guard making silly faces. Neither of them had been able to make them laugh.
“Hey,” she said, putting the phone on speaker so she could keep reading what people were saying. Helen’s thick Scottish accent made her a little harder to understand, but she was used to it by now. “You do what I asked or what? You see the tele?”
“Yeah,” she flopped onto her back. “I saw. My mum doesn’t think it’s real.”
“Well a ‘course it ain’t real,” Helen said, though her tone was at least less scornful. “But it’s wicked cool, ain’t it? Wonder what movie it’s for.”
“You think a movie would try to trick people like this? The presenter sounded like she was just reporting.”
“The presenter sounded…” Helen repeated. “Who cares? Maybe they paid her to play along? Or maybe she’s as stupid as you?”
Marie couldn’t hear talk like that from anyone else and not feel hurt by it. But Helen was her friend, and the meaner she was, the more friendly that meant she was becoming.
“Well maybe you’re the stupid one for not believing it,” she countered. “They’ve got so many angles. It’s a real dragon, I’m telling you.”
“Kinda small thing, ain’t he? Not half as big as the ones in Harry Potter.”
“Maybe it’s a baby dragon.”
“A wee little baby,” Helen repeated. Now her voice had taken on a singsong quality, one that grated on Marie’s ears.
“Whatever. Maybe I’m going to go out and find it. Tele said they went north… that’s right towards us. I think you’re just too scared we might find ‘em.”
“I see where this is goin’.” Helen still sounded mocking. “We’re goin’ on a right little snipe hunt, eh? Like last summer? Think you’re gonna lead me on? That’s ripe smell I tell you what.”
How are we even speaking the same language? But Marie didn’t say that—she couldn’t bring herself to be mean in jest like Helen could. It got too hard to tell the difference.
“I’m going to call David right now,” she said. “And he’ll want to come too. Bet you wouldn’t want to miss the trip then.”
Silence, for nearly eight whole seconds. A practical eternity from Helen. “I’m going then.”
Marie couldn’t suppress a giggle. “I’ll meet you at your place. I’m sure big animals like that would want to stay away from the village.”
“You be the one to call him, right?”
“Right.” She hung up. She didn’t actually call David, though. While their friend would’ve happily answered a message from Helen, he got incredibly shy and evasive if Marie contacted him alone.
Hey, Helen and I are going hunting for those things. You could bring that fancy new camera you just got from your birthday. Maybe we’ll find them.
As she’d expected, David responded almost immediately.
Meeting at Helen’s place?
Yeah.
Half an hour.
Marie flopped down from her bed, catching herself in front of the wall-length mirror. She straightened, brushed her hair into something that vaguely approximated orderly, then took a scrunchy off her desk and stuck it into a rough ponytail.
That done, she yanked her scuffed-up pink bicycle helmet off the wall, and made her way back through the kitchen.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“Dragon hunting.” She didn’t even stop walking, just headed straight for the flat door.
Her mom didn’t look up. “Got your helmet?”
She answered by banging it against the wall.
“Be back before dark, sweetie. And don’t be too disappointed if you don’t find anything.”
As if. There’s more than just dragons, and they’re all headed this way. We’d have to be stupid not to find them.
Marie’s old bike was leaning up against the side of the house inside the front garden. Her mom didn’t care that she parked it on the grass—there was nothing else alive in here. She turned it around, ran a hand on the worn vinyl seat to get it dry, then hopped up to start riding.
It was a fairly long trip through the village, but Marie enjoyed the ride. She kept to the sidewalks when they existed, but more often than not she was riding along dirt roads frequented by tractors and not cars.
At least the gray sky was clearing a little from last night’s storm. She could see the sun again, and the birds were coming back out. Tomorrow would be another nice day wasted in school.
Helen’s family owned the largest farm in town—what had once been several different properties all bought out over the years. That hadn’t exactly made them popular—but Marie didn’t care. Helen was one of the only girls her age, and the only one who didn’t care how old her clothes were or that she never had pocket money.
But she met David first—the kid had been shorter than her since a few months ago, something she never ceased to remind him about. He wore his usual heavy backpack of stuff they probably wouldn’t need, sitting astride a gas-assisted bike he probably shouldn’t be allowed to use. But out here the rules were more guidelines than anything.
“Ready to hunt some dragons?” she asked, pulling up alongside him. “You look like we could go camping for a week.”
“Your mum’d never let you,” he said, looking away.
She giggled. “I wasn’t suggesting we do it.” She stopped, then lifted her crappy phone out of her pocket. “Helen, get out here. David’s waiting for you.”
Her friend didn’t respond, but a few seconds later and she emerged from inside the huge house, jogging up the path in a skirt way shorter than Marie would’ve been allowed to wear. She’d chosen white like an idiot, probably just wanting that stupid hair to stand out, and not caring that they’d be climbing through a dirty forest the day after a storm. Have fun losing those expensive sandals in the mud.
“Hey David,” she called from the other side of the mechanical fence, pressing a few buttons on the keypad. It lifted lazily out of her way, and she jogged underneath before it could start moving back down again.
“Oh, hey Helen. So… do you have any idea where we should be looking?”
“Nope!” Marie exclaimed, grinning wider. “Let’s go!”
Ocellus didn’t want to think about her friends’ odds if they’d been in this same situation without her. Most other creatures, and certainly ponies, just weren’t exposed to enough danger in their lives to appreciate the need to hide sometimes.
The creatures that they were running from were determined hunters, more so than most Ocellus had ever heard of. They weren’t distracted by Smolder’s little demonstration for long.
But they had a head start, and a thick enough forest to hide in that they could stay hidden even from the air. Ocellus hadn’t been willing to take any chances—even if she hadn’t seen any of the creatures flying so far. That didn’t mean they didn’t have some kind of tribes like ponies did, and that they wouldn’t send their winged cousins hunting the intruders.
So when she heard a persistent buzzing overhead, and an occasional mechanical roar, she found herself grateful that she’d picked the densest forest for their route.
“Wait here,” she said, changing into a large crow to scout the land ahead.
And sure enough, the tiny bipedal creatures did have flying cousins—or maybe another kind of creature they’d befriended. Huge metal shapes that roared through the air, with rapidly-spinning blades over them that kept them flying and probably protected them from attack.
They were huge and sent air blasting around her, but they were also the wrong creatures to be searching for fugitives in dense forest. They were just too big to go low enough to find anything. So all her and her friends had to do was hide in place until they passed, then continue on.
But they couldn’t keep at it forever. Silverstream was polite about it—she started slowing down, her voice becoming distant and tired. “Can we… find a stream to sleep in for the night?” she asked, though the sun was still high in the sky. “Please?”
“Shelter would be good,” Gallus said. “Not because I’m tired. I could keep going… as long as Sandbar, for sure. But it would be nice to have our backs to something solid if we need to fight.”
“It would be nice if you all made yourselves easier to find,” said a voice from behind them.
Ocellus spun around, but her panic turned quickly to joy as she saw the one standing there. “Smolder, you’re okay!”
The dragon landed on the worn path beside her, grinning proudly at them. “Okay… yeah,” she said. “But not happy about it.” She pointed at her shoulder, to one of the largest scales there.
Yona was already in front of Ocellus, and she was the one whose voice carried the loudest. “You broke a scale! Yona didn’t know dragon scales could break.”
“It’s only a crack,” Smolder said, though her voice lost some of its confidence. “But… it did catch me off-guard. I guess the little squishy guys didn’t like the show I put on. They…” She reached up, running a claw near the broken scale. “At first I thought they were throwing rocks or something, and their aim wasn’t very good. But then one of them…” She winced.
Ocellus could see it now, a tiny drop of green blood emerging from the gap between two scales. It had already dried, and would probably harden soon. Dragons required far worse to bring them down. “I told you not to try to fight,” Ocellus said. “It’s a good thing all you did was show off. If they can do that to a dragon, what would they do to the rest of us?”
“We need to send a message back,” Sandbar said. “Equestria will come for us. They’ll… help us out of this. But they can’t do that if we don’t tell them where we are. They won’t be able to follow the ship anymore if we aren’t on it.”
I could’ve put a message telling them the direction we went on the ship, Ocellus thought. But the creatures spoke our language. They’d find us first.
“So we send a letter back.” Smolder’s eyes settled on Ocellus. “Go on, be a unicorn. Cast a… teleport or whatever. We really should’ve done that when we were still on the Solidarity. Saved a lot of running.”
Ocellus whimpered, ears flattening. She could feel their eyes all on her—even Sandbar, who should’ve known pony magic better than that.
She changed easily—it had been long enough between her last session of spying, and unicorns were simple. “Being a unicorn I can do no problem,” she said, lifting a rock off the ground in her new greenish magic. “Levitating things around is something I do every day. Or glowing so we can see our way around. But… I don’t know how to send messages, or teleport, or…” She whined, changing back into herself. “Or anything else useful.”
She expected Smolder to yell, or maybe Gallus. But that expectation came from months ago. They were better friends now. Better at coping with the stress of surviving in this strange place, apparently.
“We need to do something,” Sandbar said, nodding back at the saddlebags he was wearing. They’d been getting lighter today, as they ate through what remained of their emergency rations. They would last for another day, but after that… “I’m sure Twilight would’ve given us an emergency scroll. And we’ve got a dragon who can send it.”
Silverstream flopped forward into the mud, spraying them all and starting to snore.
“Ugh!” Yona jumped back, stomping and yowling in surprise. “Yona does not like that.”
“We need to rest,” Ocellus said, a little louder. “I think I saw a cave up ahead the last time I scouted. We should shelter somewhere out of sight, in case more of those creatures come looking for us.”
“Sure.” Smolder bent down, scooping Silverstream up out of the mud. “Hey, fish, you can’t sleep in the mud. We’re going somewhere safer.”
Silverstream blinked, yawned, then started snoring again.
“Gallus, can you carry her?”
The griffin looked away, and Ocellus could sense what he wasn’t sharing with them. But it wasn’t her place to say. “Sure,” he said. “I’m strong enough. Sandbar has our supplies, so it’s only fair.”
It wasn’t that much further to the cave. Ocellus stopped them as they got closer, leading them in, erasing their own tracks as they went. Not easy when they had a massive yak to hide, but changelings sometimes had to stay concealed while impersonating large creatures. She had hidden worse.
The cave was hardly what they’d been hoping for—the entrance was small enough that they had to get low and crawl to fit, and the inside had filled with an inch or so of moisture. Ocellus led the way, her horn glowing pink ahead of her. Not all of their group were comfortable with dark, damp spaces.
“Looks like it opens up in here!” she called back. “There’s plenty of room! Just walk through the water until it dries off!”
“You heard her!” came the dragon’s voice a moment later. “Get in. I think I can hear the metal birds coming back.”
Ocellus traced the edge of the cave, where stalagmites and organ pipes gradually closed off passage to all but the smallest creatures. They wouldn’t be going any further.
She stopped as she reached the far wall, where a little sliver of light emerged from the sky above. It looked like previous explorers had taken advantage of the spot for a campfire, because the ground was ashy white and the ceiling had been stained with soot. Is that opening enough ventilation for a fire in here?
Not that it mattered for them. A group of hiding creatures surrounded by unknown strangers didn’t make campfires, they made do with magic.
“Don’t you sleep yet, Sandbar,” Smolder said. “Give us that scroll. Ocellus, you’re going to write it, then I send it.”
Her friends emerged dripping wet with cave water, spreading out along the ground. Gallus and Silverstream fell asleep almost immediately, with Yona soon joining them. For all her complaints about the mud, she hadn’t even taken the time to clean it off.
Sandbar dropped the massive emergency saddlebag onto the ground in front of her.
Ocellus giggled as she saw the huge raft emerging from one half of it, and she yanked it to the side. “Won’t be needing this,” she said, tossing it to a corner of the cave. Just below it was a wax tube, with Twilight’s cutie mark stamped on the end.
“You take care of it,” Sandbar said. “I’m… up all night…” He wandered off to join the others.
Only Smolder joined her as she opened the scroll, unrolling the enchanted paper. Ocellus could feel the buzz of magic from around it, and if she’d run her hooves along its surface she could’ve felt the tiny indentations of the runes stamped inside. They would only be activated by dragonfire.
“To be sent in case of an emergency,” Twilight had scrolled across the page, in her perfect elegant penmanship. “This doesn’t mean an argument or a minor technical problem. My friends and I need your help because…”
A stick of charcoal rolled out from the inside, cracking into two pieces as it hit the ground. Ocellus lifted one in her magic, glancing to the side. “What should I say?”
The dragon yawned. Ocellus had been a dragon enough times to recognize what she was probably feeling—this cave was damp, sunless, and cool. A welcome relief from the summer heat for her, but for a dragon… where Smolder had been fine before, she’d feel the need to rest now. “Whatever. I trust you. How about you ask the ponies to deal with making friends with these weird creatures, so that they don’t try and break any more of my scales.”
Hardly the most important information. Ocellus took nearly five minutes to think of how to start, then started scribbling. There was limited space, and the charcoal would smear if she wasn’t careful.
“The six of us were shipwrecked by a huge storm that came from out of nowhere. I think we were just east of Baltimare at the time, don’t know for sure. Woke up on a beach with a pier and lots of white and gray buildings in the distance. Not an uninhabited island, but with many, many creatures living here we’ve never seen before, with two legs, little fur, and lots of machines. They saw us, but we haven’t tried to make friends with any of them yet. Smolder may’ve scared them with fire.
Head north for about three hours from the shipwreck, and we’re hiding in a cave. If we leave, we’ll leave a message behind saying where we went.”
It was less than she would’ve liked to say, but she was out of space, and the reverse side was so covered with runes that she didn’t dare trying to write there.
Twilight is smart, and her friends are the Elements of Harmony. They’ll figure out how to make friends with these new creatures and get us home.
Unless this really was part of their exam, like Sandbar had thought. But that didn’t seem likely—not when the storm easily could’ve killed them. Twilight’s tests were better planned than that.
“Here,” she said, offering the rolled-up scroll to Smolder. “You can read it first if you—”
But the dragon didn’t even glance at the text, just leaned back and blasted it with flames. They tinged green the instant they touched the paper, which was consumed in a bright flash of magic and disappeared.
“There,” Smolder said, turning away and curling up on the rock. “This is the ponies’ dumb friendship test, so they can be the ones to give us a dumb rescue. Wake me when they get here.”
We were the ones who decided to go on a sea voyage. We could’ve just renovated a park or invented a new cake like the other groups.
But instead of saying that, Ocellus wandered to the front area of the cave, the furthest towards the entrance she could be and stay dry. She yawned, stretched, and closed her eyes. She was the lightest sleeper—if anyone found them, at least she’d be the first one to wake up. Maybe she could scare them off or something.
“We’re on the right track,” Marie announced, for perhaps the third time in an hour. Of course there was no evidence that they were going the right direction. Nothing suggested they were going wrong either.
“Sure we are,” Helen said. “An’ maybe we’re not just wastin’ our time here tryin’ to find something that doesn’t exist. It’s just marketing, Marie. I don’t know how to tell you. But if there was really somethin’ goin’ on, the whole bloody army would be here. There ain’t no dragons.”
She was briefly drowned out by the sound of a helicopter from overhead—the third one that had flown over them in the last hour. More than their village usually had in a year.
It wasn’t an army helicopter, at least not as far as Marie could see. Just plain white, with letters on the side she couldn’t read. No guns, no soldiers flying it, nothing.
“Explain that,” she said, pointing up at it anyway. “Obviously someone wants to look.”
“It’s too soon to say,” David interjected. Once she’d said anything, it wasn’t all that unusual for him to take her side. But at least he was polite about it. “We’re looking for something really big, so at least it should be easy to find. If it went this way, it would’ve left tracks somewhere.”
Helen didn’t argue with him, even if she might’ve kept it going with Marie.
Thanks. “The river is that way… it’s real muddy since last night. Maybe the dragon got thirsty.” She pointed, and the three of them set off again. David kept the camera in hand all the time, the little square of a GoPro atop a hand-sized tripod. He seemed to be recording far more than he needed to, since they hadn’t found anything interesting yet. He’s probably just humoring me.
“It’s gonna be late in another few hours,” Helen said. “Sooner or later, we’ve got to go back to my place for supplies. I promise not to mention this at school tomorrow when we don’t find bloody anythin’.”
Marie grinned snidely back. “And I promise not to make fun of you when we take awesome video of this dragon eating a deer or something, and we’re all over the news. I’ll say all three of us were brave explorers and we can be on the talk shows together. Even though you were complaining the whole time.”
Helen rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything else. Just trudged along in her sandals. That pretty white dress and her bare legs were getting progressively covered in mud the further they got. Marie’s boots might be old and too big, but at least they kept her feet nice and dry.
David stuck out an arm, so suddenly she almost smacked right into him.
There was no way for her to miss this. The muddy riverbed now bore the impression of something gigantic, like a horse had fallen over in the mud. The sun was out now, and had done a fairly good job drying the print.
David pointed his camera directly at it, circling slowly around.
“There’s a claw there…” Marie said. “Not a hoof. Look up front. Those are lines for the fingers.”
“Or maybe it’s just some weird lines from a stick or something,” Helen said, though her voice had lost most of its amusement. Replaced with the first trace of genuine curiosity from her.
“I don’t think that’s what they’re called,” David said, though not very loudly. “Is that a wing, you think?”
Marie followed his gesture, then bent down to scoop up a bright pink feather that had been stuck in the mud. She cleaned it between two of her fingers, holding it out.
It was longer than any songbird’s feather she’d ever seen—more like an eagle or a bird of prey. Except that it was bright pink.
“Oh, I see what this is.” Helen’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “This is a prank. Like crop circles, yeah? Someone up and thought that they could pull one over on dumb kids like us. Pink feathers, honestly… it’s just painted. That’s not even a very clever prank. That dragon was orange, and it didn’t have feathers. It ain’t no bloody dinosaur.”
“Or it’s real.” David extended a hand, and took the offered feather. “We could use paint thinner on it, see if the color comes off.” He handed the feather back, twisting around so his huge backpack faced Marie. “I’ve got plastic bags in the outside pocket. We can keep the sample in there.”
As silly as he sounded, Helen didn’t mock him. It looked like the effort cost her a little, but in the end she just turned away. “I hope this was good enough. This is what you came for, yeah? Somethin’ real silly you can point to and claim it was proof the dragon came this way. Now we can go home, and you can tell me you were right and I was wrong.”
“No,” David and Marie said together.
“There was more than just a dragon. Maybe… maybe someone’s magical farm animals…” But she trailed off. It sounded so stupid when she put it like that. “There was more than just a lizard on the boat,” she finally said. “And this means they came this way. Look.” She pointed into the mud. There was a set of clawed footprints leading away from the hole, and patches of clean grass around it. “Anything interesting out here, David? Check your map.”
David immediately rushed to obey, flipping his backpack onto the ground at his feet and digging around in it.
But Helen cut him off. “Don’t bother. I downloaded an app for this. The only things out this way are…” She scrolled around on her expensive phone for a few seconds. “There’s the river, obviously. We’re looking at it… the barrow… and a cave. Barrow has a nice fat lock on it. Maybe we could check the cave? Popular spot for vagrants and gypsies, but maybe it’s got dragons in it this time.”
“Sure,” David said. “Yeah, we could do that.” He hoisted his backpack, which rattled and clanked as he did so.
“But after, we’re done,” Helen said. “That’s it.” She stuck her hand out towards Marie. “Promise?”
She never would’ve agreed ten minutes ago. But now… now that seemed like any easy promise to keep. There were tracks in the mud, and they seemed to be leading straight for the cave. This should be simple.
“Deal.”
But things weren’t as simple as she initially thought. The tracks away from the river went less than fifty feet before they stopped abruptly, melting into the grass and the rock and the ground too torn-up to show tracks effectively.
“Getting nervous yet?” Helen asked, tapping her fingers happily against the screen of her phone.
“I am,” David said, apparently not bothered by the lack of a trail. “Are we… are we sure going to the cave is such a good idea? I mean… they might not want visitors. That dragon wasn’t that big, but it might still eat meat. We’re made of meat.”
“Special effects artists eat sweets,” Helen said. “They’re just computer nerds. And they won’t be out here. The more of this I see, the more I think it’s all faked. Like those videos that can fake who’s talking so you can put whatever words you want in someone else’s mouth? That’s this. None of it is real.”
The cave itself seemed ominous enough to Marie on its own—a stone fissure in the rock that rose just a little taller than she was. An adult would probably have to squat to get inside, and the space beyond was even darker than the entrance.
She put out a hand to stop them, raising it to her lips. Helen didn’t argue, though from her expression it looked like she wanted to. Or maybe she just wanted to say something snide.
“Can you hear that?”
Helen listened intently. There was no way she would miss the sound coming from the cave. Like a snore, but… deeper, more resonant. Like it came from several different mouths.
David nodded. “Sounds big.”
“Psh.” Helen waved a hand. “Sounds like wind to me. There’s not gonna be anything here.” She turned away, lifting her phone into both hands. “You satisfy your curiosity. I’ll be here not getting even dirtier than I already am.”
“Do you have a flashlight, David?”
He stopped, rattling around in his backpack for a few seconds before producing a pair of elastic headlamps. Once he pushed the button on each one, it shone bright enough to be hard to look at even in direct sunlight.
“Keep an eye on my pack,” he said, setting it down against a tree beside where Helen was standing. “Okay? It would slow me down if something happened in here.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” she said, but she didn’t put up much of a fight. Not with him.
“Got your camera?”
He held it up in response, grinning. “Let’s find us a dragon.”
Ocellus was at that moment suffering a bit of a minor meltdown.
She had woken after only a few hours of uncomfortable sleep on the cave floor, after being spoiled for so long by comfortable beds at the School of Friendship. Pharynx had said that living with ponies would make her soft, and he’d been right about that.
But it was voices that had woken her, voices speaking in that same strange local accent and sounding like they were very nearby. She almost changed into something small, crawled away into the dark recesses of the cave and let one of her friends deal with it.
But she’d become more responsible since her exposure to Equestria. Instead of hiding, she would step up to protect her friends.
Just about every creature needed more sleep than a changeling, so it didn’t surprise her that none of her companions hadn’t been woken up. They couldn’t help with this even if they had. There were tools at her disposal that none of the others had.
A pair of footsteps started splashing their way through the cave entrance. They didn’t sound very large, and that might’ve reassured her if they were still in familiar territory. Whatever creature was coming was something she could get away from, or at least fight.
But that was no benefit here. The locals had managed to break a dragon scale without enchanted weapons—or maybe they enchanted so well that Ocellus hadn’t even been able to sense their spells. Either way, she had no desire to anger them.
She toyed with the idea of changing into something dangerous—but she didn’t actually know what sort of predators lived out here. Maybe the locals had already exterminated all their timberwolves. Maybe they wouldn’t be afraid of a cockatrice. Or maybe they would be so frightened by whatever monstrous form she took that they used a weapon that could break dragon scales on her. She didn’t think anyone but Sandbar in their group could survive such an attack.
There’s one kind of creature I know they don’t have. No changeling in the world had ever mentioned creatures like this, or a strange land with endless machines and tiny furless things. And so far as she’d seen, there was no sign of pony habitation here.
They’d shipwrecked on a strange island. But even so, the new would seem less dangerous than a monster. When we shipwrecked, the aliens didn’t attack Yona. Only Smolder’s fire-breath scared them.
There was no danger of Ocellus accidentally breathing fire.
She stopped short of actually keeping her natural shape, though. Some deep, fundamental instinct in the back of her mind refused to allow her to show herself to a stranger who was also some other creature.
While she deliberated, the voices were getting closer. She had to leave now if she didn’t want them to stumble into the others.
Ocellus changed into her usual unicorn shape—looking almost the same as she was, save that it was a little less sunken, a little more natural. She glanced once at her sleeping friends, then turned to surge forward into the water. She lit up her horn, and wasn’t too surprised to see what seemed to be lit horns coming from down the cave.
Except that these horns of light were on the heads of the flat-faced aliens, not ponies.
“Hello!” she called, quiet enough that she hoped none of her friends would wake up. “I guess you found our hiding spot.”
Marie stopped dead in the flooded cave, staring stupidly into the darkness. She no longer cared that water was pouring into her boots, or that she’d scraped one of her arms bloody on the cave walls. None of that mattered, because she could hear a voice in the darkness. An impossible, out-of-location voice.
She had expected many possibilities down here in the dark. Most likely, some frightening reptile noises in the gloom. They would take a few snapshots, then run like hell. David was a fast runner, and she was quick too. No problem. Maybe there would be a giant, lumbering yak in here, with those adorable braids in her hair. Yaks were big animals, but caves were small and kids were smaller. They’d beat it out, then climb a tree or something.
Some part of her mind had even thought that maybe Helen was right—maybe they’d find some special effects artists in here, doing the finishing touches on their next intended performance.
But then she heard a voice, coming from somewhere in the distance. A voice speaking English, though she couldn’t place the accent. “Hello!”
“That can’t be right,” David muttered, apparently to himself. “Look.” He pointed into the gloom, and when he turned his head the headlamp lit the way.
There was a shape there, an animal shape, though she could only see the head at first. Because it was glowing.
A yellow horse… no, a unicorn. It stood a little taller than they were, which meant it had to stoop not to scrape its head on the low ceiling.
A puppet? she thought, some desperate little scrap of her mind clinging onto the world she knew. You were right, Helen, it can’t be real. None of it can be.
The horse had stopped so close to them, there was no mistaking its features. The eyes had real moisture on them, there was real dirt smudged into its mane. And when it spoke, its lips moved. “I guess you found our hiding spot.”
Still with the accent, though she could understand it just fine.
“We…” David was pointing the camera directly at the unicorn, and his head didn’t twist to either side. He’s lighting the shot. You sure know what you’re doing. “We found your… you…”
“Where’s the operator?” Marie found herself asking. “This… publicity thing. That’s what it is, right? We’re looking at… the best robot ever. The most impressive…” but she trailed off.
The creature was looking directly at her, its eyes regarding her quizzically. If this was really an animatronic, it was better than anything she’d ever heard of, or seen. It was better animated than anything she’d seen in movies, for that matter.
And the water it was standing in moved realistically too.
It can’t be fake. It has to be…
“That is a strange thing to say,” said the horse. “But… this is a bad place to talk. My friends are resting, and they need more sleep than I do. Could we go outside instead, so we don’t wake them? I would like to learn more about you, and this place…”
David recovered first. He didn’t lower the camera, but he wasn’t holding it in front of his face. He could talk, and the creature didn’t even seem to realize what he was doing. “We shouldn’t go out of the cave completely. There are helicopters up there, and they’re… probably looking for you. They’ve been passing this way for hours now.”
“Just the entrance then,” said the unicorn. “Sure.” She—Marie was sure it was a she—nodded politely to them. “Lead the way. There’s no need to worry about me doing anything. The only creature you’ll ever meet more harmless than I am is Silverstream, and she still might take you underwater by accident. Unless you don’t mind being underwater, then it would be on purpose…” She trailed off, and Marie took that opportunity to half-run, half fall her way out of the cave.
It was a long and twisting path through the dark, with the constant splashes of that creature behind them. Yet, her glances back showed only friendly smiles from it. If this was one of those horror movies where a monster ate the helpless kids, shouldn’t it be trying to lure them deeper, not volunteering to go outside into the sun?
“Do you have names?” the unicorn said, as they stepped into the dry cave entrance a moment later. They were still securely inside, but real sunlight overpowered the spotlights here, and if Helen was standing nearby, she would certainly hear them.
Another helicopter whirred overhead, but the horse didn’t seem to notice.
“Most creatures have names. I’ve found that learning them helps us get to know each other better. Quicker too.”
“I’m David,” he said, leaning against a back-wall for support. He still kept the camera trained on the unicorn, though.
“And I’m Marie. You aren’t… I mean… you’re talking. Animals aren’t supposed to do that… but you don’t look like many horses. Helen has some, and they’re nothing like you. Your coat is so… bright.”
“Thank you, I practiced for hours to get it to look this way,” the unicorn said. Then her expression soured. “Animal… we heard that when we got here. From the yellow jackets. Is that your word for pony? It doesn’t line up quite right, and you sound so normal…”
“You sound American,” David said. “Are you… and the others, you said there were friends back there—are you Americans? Maybe…” His voice started to race, getting faster and more energetic. “Escaped genetic experiments? Is that why the police are after you? Because you escaped from some secret lab, and now they want you back?”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” the unicorn said. “I’m not American, I’m Ocellus. You aren’t as good at guessing names as you think you are.” She glanced to their heads, looking between them with confusion. “Why is your magic so subtle? I can’t sense it, but I can see the glow so clearly. Are you using truth spells on me? I’m not lying… that’s a rude way to make new friends.”
A voice echoed from down the trail—Helen’s voice. “Who are you talking to?” she yelled. “Did you find the pranksters in there? If you’re trying to talk them into lyin’ for you, it won’t work, not for a minute! I’m coming up, see if I don’t!”
The unicorn—Ocellus, apparently—followed their eyes with her own. “She doesn’t sound very nice.”
“She’s not,” David said.
“She’s got a funny way of showing it,” Marie corrected. “But she’s nice. What do… what do you care? No, forget all of this. What do I care?” She paced back and forth in front of the creature, her voice getting louder. “Helen, you should come over here! You don’t have to believe anything. Just look for yourself!”
“Here we go,” David muttered. He reached up, flicking off his flashlight. Ocellus watched it with wonder.
“What…” Ocellus’s ears flattened, and she pawed at the floor with one awkward hoof. It was adorable, if a little intimidating. She was so much bigger than either of them—like a horse. A yellow, shy-looking horse. “What kind of creatures are you?” She nodded out towards the open cave. “I haven’t seen very many creatures here, and most of them were like you.”
“We’re… human,” David said, his voice disbelieving. “How can you not know what that is?”
Then Helen’s face appeared around the corner from just outside the cave. At first she looked mocking, but then her eyes found the unicorn, and she froze completely still. She hadn’t even managed to say anything mean.
“Another one,” Ocellus said, glancing out at Helen. “She is… a friend of yours? Not one of the ones hunting for my friends.”
“We were trying to find you,” Marie said. “But not because we wanted to…” She trailed off. What had they planned on doing once they got here? Turning them in to some kind of authority? No. Taking video, obviously.
But she could see now in the face of this alien a fear and desperation that was entirely familiar. Not just a cornered animal, but a person who wasn’t sure of what would happen to her next. Those eyes were huge for her size, but the expression she saw there seemed entirely familiar. She’d seen it on her own mother’s face many times, whenever their kitchen ran out of cans.
“You found…” Helen finally said, pointing with one hand. “Some kind of… that’s not a dragon! It’s a…” She squeaked, then lowered her hand again. “What are you?”
“A unicorn, currently,” Ocellus said politely. “And you’re a human. You all are, is that right?”
David nodded, and Marie with him.
“Helen, come in here. We don’t want to be seen from the air.”
Helen obeyed, though she stepped behind David, rather than standing beside him the way Marie did. “Why don’t we want that? Maybe unicorns are dangerous.”
“Some of them are,” Ocellus said. “But not this one. I’m harmless. I’d hurt myself more than you if I tried anything, I promise. I’m quite bad at it.”
Helen didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t understand why my friends are still talking to you. It seems like they should’ve run away screaming.”
But Ocellus ignored that. “Please… you have to tell me the way to Equestria from here.” She advanced on David, who’d answered more of her questions than anyone else. Helen withdrew as the creature walked forward, but David and Marie remained where they were. There was only desperation in her eyes, not anger or even frustration. “I looked at the maps we brought back with us, and I can’t find this island on it anywhere. This place shouldn’t exist… but it obviously does. Thousands of you… humans. With your chariots that pull themselves, and buildings as big as castles.”
“I have never heard of Equestria before,” David said, glancing to Marie and Helen. “Either of you?”
Marie shook her head. “Nothing like that. Is that a country? Are you sure you aren’t… implanted with false memories from an American science lab?”
Helen giggled. “You read too many books, Marie. It can’t be anything like that.”
“Really?” Marie was running out of patience. “I thought the dragon was a puppet, or maybe just photoshop?”
“We don’t know that it wasn’t. This thing isn’t a dragon.”
“I could be,” Ocellus said, though her voice remained feeble. “You three… need some friendship help. Maybe you could go to the school! After… well, we’d need to find Equestria first.” She slumped onto her haunches, which had the strange effect of making her seem even taller than they were. Nearly a foot taller than David, though only half that for her. “Please, will you help us? I don’t know who you are… don’t even know what you are. But my friends and I… we’re hopelessly lost. We’ve come from so far away, and we don’t know how to get home. We’ve called for rescue, but we don’t know when it will get here.”
Another helicopter made its slow way overhead, its blades chopping rhythmically at the air. Ocellus lowered her head a little, ears flattening again. The others only glanced briefly out. Was it her imagination, or was the helicopter hesitating a little as it passed? Marie had heard them so rarely, she couldn’t be sure if this was normal for it or not.
“Help you,” Helen said. “They want… our help.”
“Yes,” Marie said, without thinking another second. “Of course we will! If we can. I mean… you can see us. We’re just kids. We have school tomorrow, parents who will be wondering where we are. But if we can…”
“Are you sure?” Helen’s eyebrows went up. “They could be… evil or something.”
“Evil,” David repeated, obviously disbelieving. “Doesn’t sound evil to me.”
“And we aren’t,” Ocellus insisted. “We’ve fought evil before, or helped anyway. I know my friends are still asleep, but I know them. They’re good, even better now than before. We saved a whole country once, we’re not about to hurt creatures we just met. They’ll only want to make friends.”
Ocellus couldn’t help but feel cornered by the strange alien creatures. She’d been with many creatures before, and for a changeling such trips were often something to be enjoyed. A new creature was a new possibility, something with abilities she could learn.
But where she might learn to copy most animals in a few minutes and complex creatures like ponies in a few hours, these humans were proving difficult so far. She watched the way they moved, tried to judge how their limbs connected, but wasn’t quite brave enough to ask one of them to remove their clothes for a few minutes so she could learn to copy them better.
If she’d been worried her and her friends might be way over their heads, the little argument between the humans helped calm her nerves. They might have a strange way of speaking, and they might be adorably small, but other than that they acted exactly like a group of young students might’ve at Twilight’s friendship school. If she closed her eyes, forgot the shipwreck and the cave, she could almost imagine their voices were coming from down the hall.
“Excuse me, uh… Ocellus. I’ve got a thing for you to look at.” It was the only male, the one whose name was David. He didn’t even stand taller than both of the females, the way a buck might over doe, or as many earth pony stallions did over mares. There was still a clear distinction in his voice, however.
“Yes, yes. Of course.” She turned to him. “You remembered where Equestria was, I hope?”
“Not… quite,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “But something that might be able to help both of us!” He held something in his hands, a flat piece of metal and glass. It was a little like the slates young ponies sometimes used in school, except that it was much too small to write anything worth writing. But it was producing light, and as she looked at it for a few seconds, she could see it wasn’t the even illumination of a torch. There was a picture there, like the semi-mythical cutie map.
This was a map too, but much smaller, and flatter too. She could see a large island, with another one fairly close by and lots of ocean all around.
“This is where we are. Brighton is just down there, that’s where your ship landed. And we can zoom out like this.” His thin hands moved around the surface of the slate, and the image changed. It zoomed further and further, until it started to curve around the edges, like she was seeing the whole planet from above.
“Oh, I get it… bloody clever, that is.” Helen said. “Just have ‘er point to how she got ‘ere.”
“Right,” David said. “So, Ocellus… does any of this look familiar to you. I figure we can find ‘Equestria’ that way.”
“Can I try it?” she asked, reaching for the little slate. But it was almost smaller than her hoof, and the male pulled it back quickly.
“I wouldn’t mind letting you, but… it’s quite delicate. It’s made of very thin glass, and I don’t think your, uh… hooves… will work with it too well.”
“Oh, right.” She grinned sheepishly. “Well, maybe not this time. But that’s a good idea! Just… get that map moving, until I can look at your whole globe. Then I should be able to find it.”
The process didn’t take too long before Ocellus pointed. “There! That’s… almost right.” There was quite a large land formation there, one that vaguely matched what she expected from Equestria. Except… the scales must be wrong. Its bottom portion was much too thin, trailing and bending in ways she didn’t expect. And that land on the north seemed like it would go on forever.
“Can you show me where we are compared to ‘Brighton’ again?”
He did, and her frown only deepened. Doubly so as there were sounds from within the cave. Splashing, coming up towards the entrance. Somepony had woken up, and they’d be here in moments. Please don’t buck this up.
“Yeah, this is… I don’t understand. That place there, that looks like Equestria. But it shouldn’t be… it shouldn’t be so big.” She nodded confidently. “I think your map must be off. That country should be maybe one tenth the size. Also, the little names are misspelled. That’s supposed to say Manehattan.”
“Of course it is,” Helen said. “Bloody course it is.”
“She is from an American lab,” said the other female, the one who’d found her in the cave. Marie, she thought. “Maybe she saw a real map through the glass or something, got confused.”
“No,” Ocellus said. “I’m confused about where I am now, not where I was. Equestria is on your map, it just isn’t very accurate. That’s not a problem, I’m sure we can figure out how much its distorted. Then we…”
Then they what? Charter a ship home? They’d scavenged bits from the wreck, though they certainly hadn’t brought enough to buy a second boat. But maybe if the humans were so easy to befriend, it wouldn’t be so hard. They could just meet with these foals’ parents, and talk up the chain until they got to a princess who could send a message back.
“Actually, I had a better idea. How would my friends and I go about getting a meeting with the closest princess? Or… if you have a king like we do, that works too.”
“A meeting with the… k-king?” Marie said. “You mean… the queen? That’s, uh… easier said than done. I don’t know anyone who’s met her.”
Ocellus’s heart sank, as she remembered her own experience with a queen. She had never needed to ask the Equestrians why they had princesses, because she already knew. These foals don’t look like they’re hurting, or enslaved. Maybe their queen is more like Silverstream’s than ours.
But her thoughts were interrupted, because at that moment Smolder emerged from the cave behind them. Despite the cold and her reptilian blood, she was probably also the strongest member of their group, and the most able to resist things like tiredness.
She stopped at the edge of the cave, glancing between Ocellus and the humans. She stood taller than any of them, tall enough that they looked even more like foals than they already had. Compared to her, they seemed so scrawny and thin. Instead of sturdy scales and sharp claws, they had soft skin and spidery hands. Maybe that’s why they’ve been hiding all this time. They’re so vulnerable they think they’ll get invaded.
“I see you found some of the locals,” Smolder said, ignoring the slack jawed stares from the humans and walking over to Ocellus. “That’s great. I assume they’re helping? Since… you didn’t go into a panic or call for help. You’re not here to fight, right?”
“No, no!” Marie was the first to recover her wits. “We just wanted to meet you. You specifically d-dragon. We… saw you on the tele.”
“It was amazing!” the male added, his voice drifting a little. “You were actually flying! And that fire… it’s like it came from nowhere.”
“We don’t know that,” argued the other female. “We don’t know that it’s real.”
“I’m real,” Smolder said, with a little annoyance. She’d looked amused at first, maybe even impressed, but that emotion was quickly fading. “You were at the beach, huh? Well, I could do way bigger flames than that. But I was a little afraid I might cook those guys by mistake. Little creatures like you… didn’t want to take any chances.” She glanced over at Ocellus again. “Help is on the way?”
“No… quiet,” Ocellus said. “I think we’re really far from Equestria. The ocean on the map is… David, can you show her the map? This is David, by the way. Humans, this is Smolder the dragon. She’s kinda sorta our leader, since she’s the bravest? But don’t let Gallus hear I said that.”
As if she needed any more reminding that she was dealing with children. Even Helen beamed as she introduced a dragon.
“Sure, sure.” David stepped forward cautiously, as though he was afraid Smolder might accidentally light him on fire. As usual, her dragon friend was unflappable, and if anything only seemed slightly annoyed David was taking so long. “Here, this is… I think where you guys came from?”
Ocellus couldn’t watch the screen, but she had already seen most of what was on it. She didn’t need to guess.
“Yeah, I think,” Smolder said. “But I’m not good at reading maps. It doesn’t look right to me.”
“Me either,” Ocellus said. “You’re not alone. We can talk about it.” Hopefully that would be signal enough for a dragon. They weren’t really as good at picking up on subtle cues. These humans might be helpful so far, might even be friendly, but it would be rude to talk about their obvious mistakes with them around.
Smolder nodded, though Ocellus couldn’t tell if she had understood or if she was just bored with the map. “What does this change, Ocellus?”
But she didn’t get the chance. “Uh… can we take a picture with you?” Marie asked. “Both of you, even? I’ve never seen… a unicorn or a dragon before. I want to remember it…”
“I guess we have the time. Everyone else is still asleep. If we have to pose for a few minutes…”
But it wasn’t a few minutes. They got together by the cave, and the girl held out that thin little arm. Her little piece of glass flashed at them, then the humans all started moving again.
Smolder frowned. “Am I that ugly? I thought I was already hiding the scale…” She twisted self-consciously, so that side of her front would be towards Ocellus. The bandage on the scale there was unmistakable, even as it had soaked through with dragon blood.
“What? No!” Marie turned her thing around, holding it up. Ocellus could see its surface had changed—just like the map David had, but instead this one showed a perfect picture, far better than anything she’d seen in Equestria. It’s not just smaller, it’s faster too!
“I was wondering…” Ocellus began. She spoke slowly, tentatively—but the humans were so much smaller and shyer than she was that she got a little braver. They’re not so scary when they aren’t hiding in metal shells. “Our friends would probably all like to meet you. Together we might be able to come up with a way to get back to Equestria—or maybe we’ll just have to wait a little while for rescue. But it looks like they’re still trying to find us out there.”
“Get to the point,” Smolder said, making a little twirling motion with her claws. “The short one stopped listening.”
“I did not,” Helen said. “I just… thought I heard someone.”
Ocellus ignored that. “We can’t really go out looking for food,” she continued. “I wonder if… maybe… you might be able to bring some? We’ve got money to pay.”
She felt the humans’ reactions more than watching with her eyes. Marie immediately felt ashamed and guilty, while David started feeling helpful and Helen barely seemed to hear her.
“What do you eat?” David asked. “I mean… we could just bring out boxes of waffles or something, but…” He lowered his head to the dragon. “We can’t bring you any virgins, but I guess you probably like… steak?”
“We’re virgins, David,” Marie whispered.
Her short friend kicked her lightly on the back of the leg. “Shh. She might be hungry already.”
From her expression, Smolder was hungry. It had probably been quite a long time since she’d heard the word “steak.” “My nose wasn’t lying to me! Little weakling creatures like you, I thought for sure I was wrong… I did smell meat. Pig, I think.”
“Two of us eat meat,” Ocellus said, before their new friends walked away to slaughter a pig or something. Though how they’d win a fight with a pig at their size… “The other four of us prefer not to. More like… hay, oats, vegetables… normal food.” And if you go to all the trouble to get us food, I should be set for days.
Ocellus didn’t need love, not anymore. But ponies didn’t need sugar.
Marie could hardly walk straight. As they made their way out of the forest, she found herself almost tripping over little rocks and roots.
It didn’t matter that the sky was getting grayer, and that angry clouds were rolling in. It was like the whole world was colored rose—the trees themselves seemed to glow, and the little forest creatures had a whole new life. Marie’s entire world was shattered.
Mum’s always telling me to get my head out of the clouds, but she was the one who was wrong. Magic is real, and so are the ones using it. She still wasn’t sure how she would tell her about it—whether it would be more satisfying to scream “TOLD YOU” before trouncing into her room without explanation, or maybe to casually bring a dragon home for an afternoon. There were so many possibilities.
She was practically skipping with every step, smiling at everything, even Helen’s dumb attitude couldn’t bring her down now. A lifetime of watching the news behind her mother as things got bleaker and grayer and more hopeless, and finally something had changed.
“The queen’s got a message for you, Marie. Earth to Marie,” Helen said, her voice finally bringing her back to reality.
Well, sorta. The world around her was still transformed. This was no forest anymore, and it never could be again. This was the domain of dragons. “What?”
“See, told you. She didn’t hear a word we said,” Helen said.
David nodded, though there was nothing of frustration or anger on his face. If anything, she could see a little of the satisfaction she was feeling. “I think she’s just enjoying being right.”
“Enjoying everything,” Marie said. “Being right is part of it.” They lowered their voices as they climbed under a fence, retrieving their bikes from where they’d left them. Marie’s own rusted chains and slightly squeaky wheel couldn’t bring her down now.
“But think about it… think how much this changes. Next time someone tells me there’s no such thing as magic, I get to laugh. Just think about it, David… how many of the stories might be true? Maybe there’s really a Hogwarts out there too! Maybe there are wardrobes that go straight through to Narnia!” She lowered her voice, making a sound that certainly wasn’t words but didn’t need to be. “Oooh, do you think that unicorn will teach us magic when we come back? I’m ready to learn spells! I could still get an owl this summer!”
“No, you can’t,” Helen said. She couldn’t do more than glower from her bike, but glower she did. “Listen… I admit there was more to it than I thought. It doesn’t seem to be a hoax. Might still be a prank… not sure about that. But it’s not photoshop.”
“WHAT?” Marie slammed her breaks so hard she skipped and smoked forward along the ground for a few seconds. But there were no cars behind them. “David, are you hearing her? Might be a prank…”
But David didn’t share her indignance. “Marie… Marie, I want you to take a deep breath. I saw it, and it was amazing… but just because we saw one thing that doesn’t make sense, doesn’t mean every story you’ve ever heard is true.”
“Yeah,” Helen said, nodding. “Finally, you agree with me.”
“We can’t throw out everything just because we find one thing that doesn’t agree,” David went on. “We only throw out the things that are obviously wrong. Dragons are real… and unicorns too. They can talk… and make things float.”
“Or we all just got dosed with some kind of experimental gas,” Helen suggested. “Could’ve been a… a… hypnotism! Like when those blokes at the fair convince people to get up and muck about like a pig.”
Marie had to fight the temptation to say something very unkind in her frustration. But if you can’t say something nice… Her hands tightened on her handlebars, and the weak plastic handles dented inward with the pressure. “So we’re not gonna help them?” She glared at Helen. “You really think your mum cares about a few oats?”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “She cares about makin’ a fool a’ me, yeah? And if anyone in town ‘eard about me bringing food to an imaginary dragon, Miss Lancaster would be quite cross…”
“Who cares what you maid thinks?” Marie snapped. “David, you had a camera! All we have to do is wait a bit for this imaginary… hypnotism to wear off… then we can watch it. The ride back to your place should be enough, Helen. And you’ve got a laptop.”
“I have,” she repeated. “I guess that’s enough. I want it to be real too, Marie. But I don’t want to look silly when we find out what kinda trick it was.”
“It could be real,” David echoed. “I swear I saw it. I can still see that unicorn if I close my eyes… hear her accent…”
“Strange, that,” Helen said. “Bet there’s a piece to this puzzle there, stuff me if there isn’t. But won’t yer mum kill you if you wait till past dark, Marie?”
Yes. Far off in the distance, probably as far off as the ocean, thunder rolled. They all slowed down for a few seconds, as the whole sky lit up in a flash. But it was still day, and still dry. But for how much longer? If I’m out during a storm, I’ll be grounded for weeks.
“No!” she insisted. “She’s… much more relaxed now. Anyway, this is more important. I’m not gonna let those creatures go hungry just ‘cuz we had to ride around a bit more. I got photos… I’d like to see my mum tell me I’d done wrong after that.”
“Fine!” Helen exclaimed. “We’ll watch the video, after we get to my place. If there’s anything even a little fake, we go home and pretend this never happened. And I mean you, Marie. I don’t want rumors starting on the playground tomorrow.”
“Only if we find out it was fake,” she argued. “Yeah, I agree. If you’re right, lips are sealed.”
But she wasn’t worried about that, not even for a second. The unicorn certainly didn’t match her idea for what a mythical creature ought to be like, let alone sound like, but why would it? She wasn’t stupid—if real magic was like the stories, people would know how to see it. Obviously it would be a little different. I just need to ask the unicorn to teach me.
“You sure that was a good idea?” Smolder asked, as the little group of humans vanished into the forest. “I mean… maybe we should’ve…” She gestured vaguely with one claw. “Magicked them? Yeah, we should’ve magicked them.”
“Magicked them,” Ocellus repeated, staring down the deserted hill. She could hear the distant patter of rain, and felt herself growing even more glad that they had found a cave. Her nose told her the weather would be getting much worse before it got any better.
She’d changed back to herself, abandoning the unicorn disguise. She still couldn’t tell if it would matter—the humans seemed so ignorant of most creatures that they probably would’ve called her an alicorn if she asked. They didn’t know a cockatrice from a griffon. “Magicked them with what spell?”
“I dunno… fear, maybe. Maybe not even them. Just changed into a big monster, made sure they couldn’t get close to the cave.”
“I was sleeping when they came in,” Ocellus pointed out. “We all were. And scaring away the ones bringing food is never a good plan.”
“We still have our… emergency kits.”
There was more noise from behind them, water sloshing around in the cave. Ocellus turned, and saw Gallus emerge into the entrance. He looked a little bedraggled, but better for a little rest. “What’s going on?”
“Those creatures found us,” Smolder said. “Nothing to worry about, they seemed friendly. They’re going to bring dinner.”
“Oh… really? And we were worried enough to be running this whole time…”
“Well… they didn’t know what we were. They didn’t know what to call Equestria, either. I bet they don’t know where Griffinstone or the Dragonlands are.”
“That seems… bad.”
“You could say that,” Smolder said. “But we shouldn’t panic. We’ve sent out our message… I’m sure we’ll be hearing back soon. It was delivered, right? When it vanished like that…”
“Yes,” Ocellus said. “It would’ve turned to ash and burned the regular way if the spell didn’t take. It worked.”
“So all we really have to do is hide,” Smolder said. “Boring as a century-dead Dragonlord, but…” She reached up, rubbing the broken scale with a bandage. “Might be the best for everyone else. You don’t want those creatures mad at you.”
“Humans,” Ocellus supplied. “They’re humans, and they seemed nice. The ones who came here acted like little fillies and colts, younger than us. But that might be normal behavior. We don’t have anyone to compare against.”
“And I’m not sure they’re really on our side,” Smolder said. “Creatures can lie. They can trick each other… say things that will get them what they want. If they’re going to bring back more creatures in yellow and black…”
“They won’t,” Ocellus said. But for as confident as she sounded, she was watching the cave entrance closely. She still counted the number of metal birds that flew overhead, attentive for any change in their behavior. If Marie, David, and Helen had lied to them, then they could expect the change soon.
But it was getting hard to hear them over the sound of the weather. A bad storm was coming. “I think we should get some firewood,” Smolder said. “Before the whole forest is soaking wet and nothing will burn. I for one don’t want to be cold all night. Wanna come, birdbrain?”
“Sure thing, scale head.” Gallus looked to Ocellus. “You wanna help? You could be something strong.”
“I’m trying to figure out how to be one of them,” she said. “I’d rather keep thinking about it. You go ahead. But don’t fly, and stay under the trees. If you hear any metal birds, find somewhere really thick and hold still. We still don’t know if any other humans are nice, or if we got the only good ones.”
Her friends didn’t argue with her, and soon enough they were gone.
Ocellus settled onto her haunches in the cave, watching as the light stretched longer outside. There was the sound of life from the cave behind her—a promise that her other friends would be awake soon. Gallus and Smolder returned a few times, building a pile of increasingly-damp wood. They came back dripping, or steaming in Smolder’s case, but they kept going back out.
“That’s… probably good…” Gallus said, when all his fluff had squashed flat and he looked like a bird who needed a few more hours in the nest. “Not that I’m… eager… to go back in there. Maybe we could make the fire right here. Those trees should hide the light.”
Ocellus could sense his fear, and she nodded quickly. “Yeah, we could make it out here. As long as we don’t make it too large. Sorry, Smolder.”
“Wasn’t planning on it anyway,” the dragon said. She picked a dry patch of cave, and circled around it with stones. There was more of a respect for fire there than most dragons—but living with ponies was wearing off on her.
“Yona is wet,” the yak announced from behind them. “And very hungry. She hopes we will not eat more dried pony-food tonight.”
“We… might not,” Ocellus said. She still sat against the back wall, where she could watch the trail outside with ease. It was nearly night now, with what little light remaining turned to feeble gray by the thick black clouds. “I think we made some new friends. They should be back any minute.”
She could only hope. Even Ocellus was getting hungry, and she had all her friends to keep her company.
Marie felt herself growing increasingly smug as the seconds passed. She had known—and maybe David had too, it was hard not to give him credit—that they would see nothing to suggest that their vision had been tampered with, or that they’d been drugged, or hypnotized, or any of Helen’s other silly ideas.
They watched the whole conversation once through, starting from the moment they’d found the unicorn hiding in the cave and she’d emerged to speak with them. Never once had there been any sign of a visual effect—no hidden space age hologram projectors, nothing. It was all real.
Helen insisted they come back to the video after they snuck into the barn and got together the food they would bring, and so they watched it a second time, with heavy bags sitting beside them and the night sky outside getting increasingly dark.
“We… we should get moving,” Marie said, after the conversation had played all the way through. “It’s real, Helen. They’re real.”
“I… I guess they are,” she said, sitting back in her fancy leather chair, pushing it and letting her spin. “Blimey, that’s mental. Real unicorn, real dragon. Right here in Brighton.”
“Where else would they be?” David asked. “We’ve got myths going back… since the middle ages, maybe earlier. Maybe those old monks were onto something.”
“Forget the monks!” Marie rose from her stool, hefting the duffel over her shoulder. It made dry crunching sounds as it shifted, filled as it was with the blend of wheat, barley, and oats that Helen’s horses ate. “We’ve got a real unicorn and real dragon here. They’re hungry.”
“I know.” Helen had a fancy insulated bag, the sort rich holidaymakers brought to the beach to keep their lemonade cool on a hot summer day. It held food stolen from her own fridge—which the three of them would eat too, when they got there. “We can go, alright? I was wrong. Sorry.”
“They said they had friends. I’m wondering just how much else might be there. And there’s no reason we have to just assume everything that we don’t understand might be real, Marie. We can ask them. Hopefully they can prove some of it, like Ocellus did with her levitation.”
David’s bag of food was the largest, and it also contained a leather-bound illustrated atlas from Helen’s father’s library, easily as heavy as all the grain inside. But if it was hard for him to carry, he made an admirable showing of strength. “If people see us wandering around after dark… they’re gonna be asking questions.”
Thunder rumbled from outside, water smacking up against the glass of Helen’s window. There was another storm tonight. I hope I can even get home after we make this delivery. But what was Marie supposed to do, let her friends go to see the dragon while she went home?
Her pocket vibrated almost at that moment. As they headed downstairs, Marie pulled it out, and knew what message she’d see there. It was her mum, demanding where she’d gotten to. “Storm is too bad,” she said. “Staying at Helen’s.” There were rare times when having so little money could work to her advantage—her mum didn’t have a car, so wouldn’t be able to make the trip over to pick her up.
“She can’t give you a ride home?”
“No.”
“We’re having words about this when you get home, young lady. I better not hear you missed school tomorrow.”
“Your mum?” Helen asked, watching Marie hesitate just inside the doorway.
“I’m staying the night,” she announced, slipping the phone as deep into her borrowed jacket-pocket as she could. Hopefully it could stay dry there. “Storm trapped me here, and your housekeeper didn’t want to drive me home.”
“Sure,” Helen said. “Fine. Let’s go. I’m still afraid we’re gonna get to this place and find nobody there.”
The sky roared overhead, and water poured down around them. Marie even took the time to zip up the jacket and do all the buttons, just to be safe. Water smacked up against her, and it only got much worse once she got onto the bike and started pedaling. Her back wheel basically sprayed her with water constantly, but that was lost in the storm itself.
Her legs were the first to get soaking wet, then start going numb. But she kept pedaling anyway. This was an opportunity that only came once, she was sure about that. It was like all the stories—helping a creature in need would be what convinced it to help her in return, or maybe to take her away to somewhere better. If she failed it tonight… she’d never see them again.
“Keep going!” she urged, as the sky flashed white with lightning. Somewhere far away, she could almost see an answering flash—somewhere far out at sea. How bright would it have to be to see it this far inland?
But there was no time for questions like that. It was all she could do to keep going.
They made it to the forest, somehow. It wouldn’t be hard to hide their bikes tonight, when leaves were flying off the trees and mud coated all three of them a centimeter deep.
“Almost… there…” David shouted, as the wind picked up around them. Marie could feel herself lifting, but the weight of her satchel helped hold her down. She wouldn’t be floating away yet.
“Can you still get us there?” Helen asked, wrapping one of her arms around David’s and holding on tight. Marie did the same to Helen, and felt a little better about blowing away in the wind. “It’s so… different at night…”
“Yeah,” he said. “The cave is halfway up that hill!” He pointed, and they started dragging themselves towards it. Marie could feel her whole body shivering—though the longer she walked, the less that was happening.
She slipped in a wide patch of mud as they started climbing the hill, and went down with a thick squelching sound, ripping free of Helen’s grip.
“Marie!” her friend screamed, reaching for her, but the wind was suddenly too strong. She curled up instinctively as she started to roll, bouncing and smacking up against rocks and branches as she went.
“He-help,” she squeaked, but her voice was lost in gale. Could she even see her friends anymore?
She felt herself bounced up into the air, then a sharp smack, then…
Black.
The cave’s large first chamber was a little crowded with all her friends and all their gear, but Ocellus didn’t mind. Smolder’s foresight meant they had a nice fire going now, bright enough that it resisted the occasional gust of wind that blew past them into the cave. But there wasn’t much—she knew that probably meant this was the only entrance. There was no cross breeze. More warmth for them.
“They should be here by now,” Gallus said. His voice was halfway between concern and suspicion. “Maybe we should start making trail food again.”
“We’ve only got one meal left,” Ocellus said. “If they don’t come, we should probably skip tonight anyway. Save our last meal to get a good breakfast in the morning.”
“Yona is not excited to miss dinner,” said the yak.
“Uh… guys?” Silverstream pointed out the cave entrance. “There’s light out there. You think it might be them?”
It was light, all right, light and distant voices.
“Could be more black and yellows looking for us,” Smolder said.
Ocellus rose from near the fire, making her way to the exit and straining her senses. Her ears weren’t half as good as Silverstream or Gallus’s, but she had a sense they lacked. She tasted for emotions.
The black and yellows would be dangerous, they’d be trained and maybe even used to fighting if they could hurt a dragon. She would feel resolve from them, maybe anger, or maybe nothing.
Instead, she felt pain, terror, desperation. Listen to that wind, Ocellus. It’s a nightmare out there, and the humans are half your size.
“I know why they’re late,” Ocellus said suddenly, turning back around to her friends with sudden urgency. “They were only colts and fillies to begin with—you remember how small they were. I think the weather is too much for them.”
“Why would they make weather that was too much?” Sandbar asked.
“They probably don’t,” Gallus supplied, rising to his claws. “That’s mostly an Equestrian thing, remember? The rest of us just have to deal with what comes.”
And what was coming outside was a storm of nightmares. A storm Ocellus had seen once before, on what should’ve been a perfectly smooth and routine voyage up Equestria’s eastern coast.
A scream cut through the night, a scream so high-pitched and terrified that all in the cave heard it instantly. These were no selfish dragons down in the badlands—Ocellus and her friends were soon-to-be graduates of Twilight’s friendship school. They had to help.
And so they ran. Out the open cave door and into the storm. Ocellus was battered by rain and wind, felt her wings lifted and bits of twig and leaves slam into her. But she ignored all that, pointing into the darkness at the few spots of light. They were the humans’ glowing horns, or… whatever those things were. The lights on their heads.
All three of them were at the base of the hill, carrying large bags. They did bring our food. Ocellus’s heart sank with guilt that she’d ever doubted them. Here they’d been wondering if they were about to get attacked, and their new friends were struggling to do what they’d promised. She was a bad friend.
Two of the humans—it was hard to figure out which was which with so much mud and water everywhere—were gathered around a third, which had fallen onto the ground at the base of a tree. Ocellus wouldn’t be the first one to reach them, not with an earth pony like Sandbar in their group. He was almost there, and one of the humans turned to meet his eyes. The male, David, pointing and waving frantically at their injured friend. She wasn’t moving.
Ocellus reached out for her emotions, and felt only two sets. If there was life there at all, it was faint. Oh no.
She slid down to the bottom of the hill, close enough to hear the human shouting. “She hit her head! Looks like there’s blood… what do we do? God… that wasn’t supposed to happen…” Their friend’s injury had completely supplanted any of their previous shock and amazement at seeing other creatures. They’d never seen a griffon or yak or anything else and still neither of them ran.
Ocellus changed into a unicorn again as she got close, though this time it wasn’t to hide. She had a feeling she would need to do some levitation soon.
“We might be able to help,” Smolder said, glancing back towards Ocellus. “Did you ever learn any healing magic?”
Ocellus felt a chill in her chest completely unconnected from the cold. She didn’t know any healing magic. “Yes,” she lied. “Everyone else, help the other two! I’ll…” She bent down, staring at the human. It was Marie, the first and bravest of the human fillies. She was bleeding all right, enough that the mud around her head had turned red. She didn’t have much time.
The storm seemed to fight to keep them out of the cave. Somewhere close by, a tree ripped right out of the ground, crashing down over the trail and blocking it with branches as thick as they were. Ocellus kept a tight grip on the little human, and fought her way back to the cave. She could see her friends helping the other two, and she didn’t stop to look. Her heart pounded in her chest as she sensed for life, keeping the filly’s neck and back from moving.
It was still there, though for how much longer that might be, she couldn’t say. Unless you do something. Something you shouldn’t. If this was Equestria, a skilled unicorn like Twilight Sparkle might be able to heal an injury like this. But their rescue hadn’t come, and waiting would be too long for this child.
“You don’t understand!” the male shouted from behind her, and somehow he was standing on his own. Despite his small size he fought against the wind, walking with a distinctive lean. “We need to get her to a hospital, not the damn cave! I already tried calling—my phone fucking shorted. Helen’s too…” Ocellus could feel his despair now, as black as any she’d sensed from a pony.
All her fear that this wouldn’t work faded from her mind. As strange as these creatures looked, there was enough magic for this.
Ocellus deposited the injured Marie along the only flat part of cave she could find, laying her down as close to all at once as she could manage. She might not be a doctor, and she didn’t know any healing spells, but she could still remember the basics she’d learned in Twilight’s school. But as engaging as it had been to hear Meadowbrook lecture on the subject, she couldn’t absorb enough to save lives in a few hours.
The others weren’t far behind her—Sandbar carrying the filly named Helen, and David walking on his own two feet in defiance of the wind. Had the circumstances been different, she might’ve remarked on just how easily Helen rode a pony, which wasn’t a skill that most bipeds bothered to learn. But either she was an expert, or Sandbar was. Something’s going on here.
Something that would have to wait.
“Your cave won’t be able to help her,” David said again, dropping to his knees beside the injured Marie. He didn’t actually touch her though, and kept looking down at the split running along her head. A few drops of blood turned the water dribbling down her hair bright red.
The other human remained on Sandbar’s back. Her skin had gone white, and she watched her friend, frozen. You’re not used to seeing blood like this. You humans are as sheltered as the ponies of Equestria.
“Ocellus is multi-talented,” Silverstream said, resting one of her claws on David’s shoulder. “She can be anything, including magic. She’ll use some magic to heal your friend. Right?”
Ocellus could feel the eyes of all the others on her. Smolder started tossing logs onto the dying fire, filling the air with warmth. From the desperately-cold look to the humans, they needed it. “I know… something I can do,” she said. “But it’s…” She glanced to Sandbar. He was the only one who might know about it. But considering some of his greatest memories of suffering involved almost losing a stuffed toy, he probably hadn’t followed the stories from the invasion very closely.
“What?” David asked. While the other human remained frozen, he still spoke with clarity. “I’ll accept you have magic—I know Marie believes it. So use it—she’s only here in this storm because of you.” He leaned to one side, dropping the huge bag he was carrying with a thump. “She didn’t want you going hungry out here alone. Help her.” His voice cracked more than once as he said it, and the area under his eyes hadn’t dried like the rest.
“No reason to wait,” Smolder said. “Do you need some space? Maybe you need help remembering?”
You’re talking to the wrong changeling if you think I memorized a bunch of unicorn healing spells. “Space, yeah,” she said. “Everyone back up. Humans, you too. You shouldn’t watch this.”
“Yona not understand. Is healing magic more delicate than Yona remembers?”
David slid back, so that he wasn’t within reach of Marie anymore. But he still remained close, close enough that he could’ve lunged forward to protect her if he needed to. He didn’t look away, didn’t do anything to cover his eyes. “I want to see,” he said. “I’m not afraid.”
Helen did look away, along with Sandbar and Silverstream. The others, if anything, were more fascinated.
“It’s not just a healing spell,” she began. “It’s… another thing. But I know it heals when it happens. It’s been used for that before. Or for… worse things. Queen Chrysalis showed me.”
The cave fell silent. Ocellus heard another crash of lightning outside, and the resulting rumble almost made her afraid the cave might collapse on them. It didn’t, though somewhere further in she could hear stone caving in.
“I’ve seen this before,” Gallus said. “Not… not what you’re saying, Ocellus. I’ve seen what happens after a nasty fall. She’s… not gonna make it much longer. Whatever you’re thinking of, you should do it soon.”
“Yes,” Smolder said. “The small one is right, she was here to help. We have to help her.”
Ocellus changed in a flash into a form she hadn’t used in a long, long time. It took enormous effort, and concentration to maintain even for a few moments. But she’d been mentally preparing for this the second she’d seen blood. She changed back into her old self—black, transparent wings, holes up and down her legs. She felt the cold now, fierce and biting. This body was terribly vulnerable to it, just as it was dependent on the love of others. But it also had what she needed.
David gasped, falling backward himself. Silverstream caught him, but she couldn’t stop him from shaking. Ocellus braced herself for his revulsion, fear, disgust—but she felt only confusion. Her friends, though—the ones watching, she could taste a few traces of their discomfort. There was an instinct about changelings that only their new bodies had cured.
Before she could lose concentration—or lose her spine—Ocellus leaned forward and bit Marie on the neck, bit her with all the venom she could muster. She tasted the human’s warm blood, a disgusting metallic burn like badly cooked meat. She held her fangs in until she felt wrung dry, then lifted up, cleared her throat, and spat.
She felt hot moisture rising up her throat, and saw the slime emerge from below. It shone green and translucent, exactly like she remembered.
She was dimly aware of David finally looking away, clutching his stomach with the disgust he hadn’t felt at first. Ocellus kept going—she couldn’t stop now, or Marie would die.
She covered every part of her head that looked even remotely hurt with transparent green. Only when she could see no more red did she finally stumble back, let her concentration break, and change back into herself.
Her real shape this time, soft blue with transparent pink frills. She probably wouldn’t be able to change again for hours, maybe not until tomorrow. But it didn’t matter.
On the ground in front of them, Marie started breathing again. Her eyes—now covered—wouldn’t be opening yet. But she coughed, spluttered, then rolled slightly to one side, apparently into sleep. Ocellus could feel her mind returning, sense it as she could feel no others. It was another mind, reaching blindly out into the world of smells and colors and tastes of emotion that it did not yet understand.
Where am I? It wasn’t words—but Ocellus had tended to grubs before, and so she knew what the confusion meant, knew what to expect from its subtle variations of fear and trust.
Safe, Ocellus responded, just as wordlessly. It could only sense feelings. She sent comfort, confidence, even love. Rest.
And Marie did.
Ocellus herself drifted in and out of consciousness for a bit. She felt the storm raging beyond the cave walls, but her friends and their human guests became only outlines vaguely vibrating to their emotions. Somepony moved her over to the fire, wrapped her in something warm, offered her a bowl of fresh-tasting grains. She ate them eagerly, relieved they hadn’t tried to give her any meat. She couldn’t imagine she would want any soon, not with the taste of human blood still on her tongue.
Then the world came back into focus. The two healthy human foals had removed all but their lowest layer of clothes, sitting close to the fire and huddling together. The fire was much larger now. Marie had been moved safely away from it—Ocellus looked about, and found her tucked into the back corner of the cave, where she lay on a pile of human clothes. Their jackets, maybe?
“I think she’s up,” Helen said, watching her. This close to the fire, her hair seemed as orange as any pony’s mane. “Eh, weird unicorn thing. You ‘ear me or not?”
She wasn’t making herself easy to understand. Through her throbbing headache, Ocellus nodded. “Y-yeah. I hear you… fine.”
“Good.” Helen stared past her, at the sleeping form of her friend. Green was increasingly covering Marie’s body, spreading and thickening from her head. Her clothes were peeling out around the edges, as the cocoon formed. It was a good thing Ocellus didn’t need to do anything else to make that work, because she didn’t even have enough spare love to light up her horn. “Mind explaining what the bloody hell you did?”
Gallus was sitting beside her—and from the look of it, he’d been the one to help feed her. He whispered into her ear. “It’s okay if you don’t want to say, Ocellus. We can see how worn-out that made you.
“It’s fine.” She stared across the fire at the humans. “I’m not really a unicorn, I’m a changeling.”
“I bloody knew it,” Helen exclaimed, rising to her feet in a start that nearly made her friend fall over. But with all her clothes drying by the fire except the thin white bits she was still wearing, she looked even more pathetic than before. Like a brightly-colored kitten was about to threaten her. “You ‘ent gonna fool us. Send us back with some imposter to put in her cradle, that it? Not on us. You can take your fairy magic right back Underhill where it came from and tell the Seelies or the Unseelies or whoever the hell sent you to feck right off.”
Ocellus blinked, watching her with growing confusion.
“I didn’t understand a word of what you just said,” Smolder muttered, tossing another log onto the fire.
“You heard me,” Helen said. “We’re not letting you run away with our friend. We ‘ent gonna help you send back some bloomin’ imposter made ‘a twigs and stardust.”
Now the other human was watching her with equal confusion. “Helen, look at her face.”
Ocellus wasn’t sure what he was noticing, other than her shock. But maybe that was enough.
“So what? Maybe she’s a good actor.”
“Maybe you should let her answer the question.” He turned back, and Ocellus tasted the sharp pang of his anger. Only some of it was for his friend—plenty of it was resting on her. “It looked to me like you were changing her into a vampire or something. Is that it?”
This time she didn’t need to understand all the words to make sense of what the human was implying. “Not quite, but… almost.” She glanced over her shoulder at the resting human. “I honestly… don’t know what will happen to her. I’ve seen it done to… ponies. I was really small when I saw, but… I remember. But Marie isn’t a pony, so I don’t know for sure.” She forced herself to look at Helen. “I don’t think I’m what you think. We aren’t going to ‘kidnap’ anyone. Whatever this does… we’ll know by morning. You can stay right there and watch. Probably you should… she’s gonna be terrified when she wakes up.”
Helen made a few more sounds Ocellus didn’t understand, then slumped back down beside her friend. “Whatever.”
But Ocellus was barely even watching her anymore. She could feel her friends’ attention on her, in a swirl of emotions she couldn’t clearly separate. Some seemed resolved, others horrified. Only Gallus beside her briefly leaned up close to her. “It’s okay, Ocellus. We know there wasn’t another way. All we had in our first aid kit were some bandages and fever pills, those weren’t going to help with a head wound that bad.”
“This whole thing sucks,” Smolder said, plopping down beside Ocellus on the other side and resting her feet up in the fire. She exhaled with apparent satisfaction, sighing deeply. “If the storm was that bad, little creatures like you three should’ve waited it out. We weren’t starving or anything.”
“Should’ve doesn’t help Marie,” David whispered. “She didn’t want to give up. And… I didn’t either. Finding you here, meeting you… she better get a chance to do it. She’s the only reason we’re here.”
“She will,” Ocellus said. “By sunrise, if I remember.”
“We’ll all be happy to meet her,” Sandbar said. But even Ocellus could detect the hesitation in his voice—like a doctor speaking to the family of a pony doomed to die.
She better not die, Ocellus thought. But could such a small creature even survive that much venom?
Marie did not have good dreams. Her entire world was a raining, stormy mess, flashing white as she bumped and rolled down an endless hill. The impact at the end was always the same, violent enough that she could hear it through her bones instead of her ears.
But then there were others. She was still asleep, that was undeniable—but somehow she wasn’t alone anymore? Like a crowd of ghostly spectators were crowding around her. Not to mock—this wasn’t school—they were here to help her.
Maybe the unicorn would help her. She knew one now, and a dragon too. Maybe they were already helping her.
Then she heard a voice, and color returned to life. There was something bright and warm out there in the waking world, where she wanted to be.
“It’s time to wake up now,” said the voice, and at once Marie recognized it. It was the unicorn, she knew it even though she’d never heard another being’s thoughts before in her life.
“Where am I?”
“Asleep,” answered the voice. “Your friends are very worried about you, and the sun is rising. You need to wake up. Come towards me.”
She tried. It was like so many of her running dreams, where something terrible would be chasing her and yet the world underneath somehow held her fast. She pushed, and was pushed back in return.
“Good. Keep going. I can’t do it for you.”
“It hurts!” she protested. “Something is holding me! How do I get out?”
She kicked out again, and this time felt her legs clearly for a second. That gave her a point of focus, a reminder that she was alive.
Marie pushed again, and something tore. She felt moisture against her legs, and the chill burned her skin. She winced, curled back up.
“You can’t stay,” said the voice, firm. “If you stay, you’ll die. You have to come out now.”
Die. Marie was not ready for that, not after discovering that everything she’d been told was wrong, that magic was real and the world was beautiful. She couldn’t leave it now.
She kicked again, and this time she actually heard something tear. There was a splash, and the comfortably warm bubble of moisture around her suddenly felt more like a tent with all the supports pulled out.
Marie struggled out of the opening and onto a stone floor. Her eyes wouldn’t open, yet somehow she could feel the others all around her. Eight of them in all, though some were further away and asleep. They lit up the space around them like the glow of little candles, somehow illuminating the stone floor and ceiling above her.
I’m in the cave with the magical creatures. My friends are with me.
“That was… disgusting,” David muttered, his voice barely a whisper.
“Like to see you do better,” Helen spat. “Now get out while we clean her up. I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”
“What happened?” Marie asked, using the simplest method she had. It took her a few seconds to realize her voice hadn’t actually made any noise, even though it had felt the same.
“They can’t hear you like that,” the unicorn said. “Can you open your eyes? Try opening your eyes first.”
Marie stirred, trying and failing to push herself into a sitting position. Her head ached, like it sometimes did on the days when there weren’t enough cans at home and they didn’t eat much. It felt strange, but it wasn’t the only part of her that did. Her skin still burned where it touched the air, though that sensation was dying down everywhere but her back.
Then she opened her eyes, and was washed in a world of grays. The cave floor below her, her own hand, the distant fire…
But then she looked up, and saw the towel in Helen’s offered hand. Slate gray, except where her hand touched it. Helen herself looked unchanged, bright orange hair and green eyes and brownish freckles on her face. “Here.” She put the towel in Marie’s hand, and the bright from where she’d touched turned gray like everything else. “If you can move, you can get that slime off. We got your clothes dry by the fire, they’re right there.” She pointed “Boys are gone, you can get dressed.”
“Not that it makes any sense,” said the dragon, emerging from the cave. Bright orange, her scales almost as bright as Helen’s hair. When she stepped near the fire, it got its color back too. “There were more important things to save from the Solidarity than our clothes, we didn’t even bring any. Dunno why you wanted Gallus and Sandbar to leave.”
“Same reason David had to leave,” Helen answered, defiant. “Look at what’cha bloody did to ‘er, Ocellus! Have ‘ya ever met her mum? She’s gonna burn down half of Brighton when she sees, see if she doesn’t.” The colors around Helen changed as she spoke, from warm and inviting reds to sickly, disgusted greens. And was that a smell too? Like week old fish or the garage whenever the council let her mum get out of hand.
What she did to me, Marie thought, holding out the towel in one hand. It looked the same. She sat up, and had to resist the lightheadedness as blood rushed momentarily down. And into… what? Why did her back feel so cold?
“I’m sorry,” said Ocellus’s voice from beside her. But when she turned, there wasn’t a unicorn sitting there. Ocellus’s voice came from the body of a creature that had shrunk considerably, with a pastel blue shell and red frills down its back. Its eyes were blue and lacked a pupil, as insect-like as the rest of her. “I didn’t know what else to do. You would’ve died.”
“That’s what’ya keep sayin’,” Helen snapped. “But we didn’t try to get ‘er to a hospital, did we? Might be we could’a… got there in time.”
“Maybe,” Ocellus agreed, and this time Marie could watch her speak. She was the same being, though she looked nothing alike. “Now we don’t get to find out.”
Marie started getting dressed, her body moving sluggish and strange. Mostly she was going through the motions, getting the slime off as best she could. “What happened to the color?” Marie asked, and this time she said the words out loud. Moving was helping her, reminding her of the way her body ought to work. “Almost everything is…”
“It’s yer eyes,” Helen answered, stopping Ocellus with a glare. “They’re, uh… they ain’t good. And there’s…” She reached up, touching her own forehead with her hand. “Yeah. Not lyin’ to ya,’ Marie. Might not need a Halloween costume next year.”
Marie finished with her clothes, and as the top went on she could feel the fabric against her back in a way that didn’t seem natural. Something moved back there, lifting the cloth up and away from her skin for a moment.
“Could you…” She nodded back towards Helen. “I can’t see behind me. Unless you have a mirror.”
Helen nodded, expression softening. “Course, Marie.” She circled around, then lifted the cloth away with one hand. Marie could feel it shake, and in it somehow taste Helen’s disgust. It mixed with the sympathy and kindness, turning what should’ve been delicious into a disgusting mess.
“Christ almighty, those ‘er wings. Why in god’s name does she have wings now?”
“I told you!” Ocellus was on her hooves again, and when she did she was taller than either of them. “She was going to be different! If I knew another way to help her I would have!”
“Where’s my phone?” Marie asked, searching around in vain. “I, uh… I need to see.”
“You can come back in, David! She’s decent. Might need some scissors to fix that top, though. Don’t look comfortable like that.”
“Isn’t,” she responded. David emerged through the opening in the cave a moment later, along with… two creatures she hadn’t seen before. Well, not in person anyway. She’d seen these blurry outlines from pier security cameras. One of them looked like a horse, except that his colors and proportions were wrong. The other… she’d seen an animal like that on the crests of some mainland countries. But they’d always seemed more regal than that, not chicks that had flown from the nest a little too early.
David stopped dead in the cave entrance, staring openly.
“I don’t understand…” Marie squeaked, finding that at least her voice still seemed the same. She had so many questions, but this one came first. “We were… here to bring food to the magical creatures. Going to meet them all… how did I…” She reached up, to run her hand through her hair as she always did when she was nervous.
Except it bumped into something in the way, something sharp and…
She froze, eyes widening. There was a horn poking free of her forehead, crooked and misshapen but still unmistakable.
“What happened to me?”
“Let her tell,” Helen said, sitting down on one of the large stones beside the fire and pulling out her phone. “She did it.”
“She helped,” the dragon said. “I don’t appreciate you talking to my friend like that.”
“I don’t understand what everyone is so upset about,” said another of the strangers—like the horse one and the bird one had a baby together, and the result was something somewhere in-between. At least she didn’t seem angry, or disgusted. “She’s fine. Ocellus’s magic worked, look! She’s up and walking and even has a nice new set of wings. Ponies go crazy to get a set of wings, you should see. Unless you prefer swimming… changeling wings don’t do well when they’re wet.”
“Not now, Silverstream,” the dragon said. “Changelings and hippogriffs are the exception—most creatures don’t even transform. I’d be confused too.”
Despite how excited Marie had been to meet all of these strange and interesting animals, she found their words seemed hollow now. She couldn’t bring herself to want to learn about them when she didn’t even know what had happened to herself. Mum is going to strangle me.
“You were hurt,” Ocellus said. Her voice cut through all the others, seeming somehow more… real. She wasn’t just speaking out loud, but her voice came with thoughts at the same time. “You fell trying to make it to us. Hit your head.”
“Hey, uh… horse things… there’s a… some stuff outside…” David’s voice seemed so distant to Marie, like an out of tune radio station. What was he talking about again?
She remembered—or remembered something about hitting her head. There had been lots of falling in her dream.
“I fell.” Marie sat down on the cave floor, glancing briefly out the entrance. “Where’s my phone, Helen?” I want to see.”
“Your phone… didn’t make it,” she said, tossing something onto the cave in front of her. It had snapped almost cleanly in two, with only a little bending in the middle and a web of cracks along either side of the screen. “It fell too. You can use mine. Maybe use your reflection or something.”
Marie took it, though she was still listening to the one called Ocellus. “And you—why are you different? You were a unicorn, I remember.”
“I looked like one, because… changelings scare some creatures. They remember the way we used to be, not the way we are. You’re… more the former, but I can help you get through that.”
She had no idea what that meant, and just now Marie didn’t really care. She needed to see. So she turned, until the sunlight just peeking through the cave entrance was behind her, and she could use an off screen as a mirror.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected from their reactions. Her eyes were the worst, a solid gray lacking a pupil or iris. Her teeth looked a little different, canines maybe a little longer than they’d been the night before. And she had a horn, about as long as her thumb. She could probably hide it in her hair if she really tried, but… the eyes would be tougher.
And the wings, can’t forget about the wings.
Some quiet part of her mind far in the background almost laughed. You asked to go to Hogwarts, didn’t you? You wanted to be magic. You get your wish.
Except now she wanted nothing more than to go home and forget this had ever happened.
Marie passed the phone back, nearly dropping it. “H-how long…” She found the buglike Ocellus, the “changeling.” “How long does this last?”
“Forever.”
“Guys, you really need to see this!” He held out his phone, then pulled out the earplugs he was wearing. Its speakers filled the cave, a bit washed out but still impossible to miss.
The voice sounded as gray as most things looked—like an object. “Tsunami warnings include mandatory evacuations for the following North Sea villages. Scarborough, Bridlington, Hornsea, Filey…” The list went on, but that was when Marie finally noticed what was on the screen.
It was a satellite image of the Earth, aimed straight down at the North Sea. Except that a good third of the “sea” was no longer there.
She wasn’t the only one to notice, either. “I dunno how we got so lost. Equestria was right there the whole time.”
Ocellus couldn’t have said if she did the right thing. It didn’t help being able to sense the creatures that had thought of her with kindness turn to anger and disgust. They probably wouldn’t be able to look at her again without thinking of what they’d seen her do to Marie.
Maybe her own friends wouldn’t forget either. Maybe they shouldn’t.
Maybe she hadn’t saved all of Equestria this time, but that didn’t matter. She had saved a single life, and that was almost as important. What would happen to that life…
Then she saw the image on David’s magic scroll, and the floor of the cave seemed to fall out from under her.
That storm last night. It was almost exactly like the one that brought us here. The human voices faded into the background, their demands lost as she backed away, eyes focused on nothing.
This wasn’t a mistake in navigation—Equestria never could’ve missed a nation bigger than it was, only a short sea voyage away.
It was wrong, all wrong. How much magic would it take to move a whole country? Then again, how much magic did it take to move the sun? Would Equestria have followed them all the way here?
There was something else. Equestria had connections—to the Crystal Empire in the north, and the badlands to the south. They weren’t there. No changeling territories, no Dragonlands, no Mount Aris. Only Equestria.
The scroll was still talking, its voice a paradox of fearful emotion that she couldn’t so much as smell. “…And that was the prime minister, urging all current and former emergency responders, police, members of the territorial army, and any others who have useful skills to report to your local division station.” The image changed from a map to an incredibly fancy-looking building, like something Ocellus might’ve expected from an Equestrian palace. “We take you live to Westminster where her majesty is beginning her national address…”
With the terrible storm over, Ocellus could hear the metal birds outside again. Only this time it didn’t sound like the casual searches there had been before. Now she could hear an entire flock, and they sounded angry. So loud that the old-looking human’s voice on the tiny magic scroll was washed away to nothing.
“Holy Mary mother of god.” Helen’s head dropped into her hands, staring down at the ashes of the fire. “We were part of it. The whole bloody world is ending and it’s all our fault.”
“I’m going to go take a look outside,” Ocellus called, loud enough that she could be heard over the birds. “No, you stay here. They might notice you.”
She would have to explain to the humans that none of this was their fault, or even had anything to do with them—but that could wait.
Ocellus changed into a raven, dramatically enough that the humans all gasped and stared.
“How did you do that?” Marie asked, probably without meaning to.
“Magic,” she responded, without thinking. Then she took off, flying low out of the cave and into the chill forest air.
Her ears hadn’t deceived her—there were over a dozen metal birds overhead, some of which could’ve eaten the ones she saw yesterday for breakfast.
She landed atop a sturdy oak, watching with fascination as the back of the birds opened, and shapes started falling from inside. Human shapes, falling in two orderly rows. As they fell, their wings opened up like a gigantic oversized mushroom behind each one.
They were too far away to sense clearly, other than feeling that each one was alive. Despite all the metal and cloth they were wearing, covering up every inch of exposed skin.
They’re coming for us.
Did the humans think they had been invaded? Wouldn’t be the first time changelings invaded a peaceful country.
But if these human-creatures had been peaceful before, it didn’t look like they intended to be anymore.
Ocellus’s sensitive ears caught more voices, coming from another of the perfectly flat human roads. There was a large metal vehicle there, and several humans moving into the forest.
“We’re looking for three of them,” one of the humans said. “One of the mothers said they went into the woods last night looking for a dragon, and didn’t come home.”
“You think they found anything?”
The other human laughed in response. “We better hope not. The intelligence service won’t look good if it’s being outdone by children.”
Ocellus turned and flew back the way she’d come without so much as a caw, returning to the cave in a panicked trot. “There are humans coming this way,” she said, ignoring all the confused looks. “Looking for you three. They seemed like they might be… the authorities? Do you have a royal guard?”
“Were they wearing funny hats?”
She shook her head. “Why would that matter?”
“Then they weren’t the royal guard,” David said, recovering his fallen pack from the ground. “Guess that’s the end of this adventure.”
Helen made an uncomfortable sound. “We just gonna… walk away, huh?” She reached to one side, tapping Marie on the shoulder. “And… what the blazes do we do about her? Either we leave Marie with these, uh… creatures, or we let them drag her off to some science lab somewhere.”
The freshly-hatched new changeling—or something like a changeling, anyway—was in no place to respond to that. She made an uncomfortable noise, her clothes twitching in a way that suggested her wings were moving.
“If nothing was weird, do you think they’d take you away? Or just… maybe talk to you or something?”
“I don’t see why it would matter,” Smolder said. “It’s sounding more and more like we’ll have to fight soon. How good do humans fight?”
“Most not very well,” David said. “Fighting isn’t a useful skill anymore.”
Ocellus cut in. “Well, I got plenty of time to study how to be human.” She took one last glance at Marie, remembering exactly what she’d been like before she’d been changed. Fix the eyes, remove the wings and horn, and…”
She changed. It was easily the most difficult transformation she’d ever attempted—it wasn’t even close to the smallest form, yet the complexity of it took her nearly twenty seconds of concentration.
And when it was done, she dropped onto all fours, surprised by just how hard it was to keep balance. Not that she couldn’t adapt—but like every form she mastered, it would take time.
“You even copied my outfit,” Marie whispered, her voice meek. “That’s incredible.”
I’m glad you think so, because you’re going to have to learn it too if you want to go back to your life.
“So here’s the plan,” Ocellus declared, conscious every moment of how little time they had. They would need to go out to meet the humans before they reached the cave, or else they might want to search it. They would still need to find a new hiding place, once whatever was going on outside had died down.
“I’m you.” She straightened onto her two limbs, as the other humans did, adjusting her skirt, straightening the shorts underneath. “And I’m going to be asking you questions. Can you still hear me?”
“Yeah.” Marie met her eyes, still watching with fascination. “How far away can we do this?”
“Same… city? Just pay attention. Normally a changeling would study the one they wanted to replace for weeks.”
Not that Ocellus had ever been trained in that discipline. She was too young, and their ways of war had all fallen to ruin by then.
“I bloody knew it,” Helen exclaimed. “You’re a changeling who just wants to replace our friend. This whole time… that’s what you were after.”
Ocellus smacked one foot into the ground, hard enough that she nearly lost her balance all over again. She didn’t, though she did sway back and forth a little with the motion. “I am a changeling, I’m not trying… look, human, do you want her to get caught or not? You could just walk right out there and see what happens. But if I know anything about the way other creatures treat us, it won’t be good.”
“Ocellus is telling the truth,” Gallus said. “I don’t know what kind of changelings you have here, but she’s never been anything but honest and kind. If she says this will help your friend, then it will. Less… sure it’s a good idea to split up, though.”
“Just for a little while,” Ocellus said. “You all know about changelings thanks to me, so… you can help Marie! And I can make sure wherever the humans go looking for us is far from here.”
“Unless we want to just walk out there too and talk to their queen,” Smolder said. “Just an idea. Hiding and tricking worked great for changelings, I get it. But that isn’t the way dragons do things. We’re more about moving first and doubting second.”
“We’ll do it,” David said. “Marie, don’t let them do anything to you. We’ll be back… soon.” Ocellus could taste the pain in his tone, but most of what she found there was self-loathing. Like—he felt the same disgust for Marie that most creatures did for changelings, but he didn’t want to. That was fast. Sure you’re not a pony in there?
The other one just radiated anger. “Alright, alright! Fake Marie, you coming or what? Didn’t you say they were close?”
Ocellus nodded, then pointed towards Marie. “You all should find a new hiding spot as soon as it’s safe. She can…” She reached out with the fleshy, spidery claw, pointing it at the side of her head. “We can talk.”
The waiting humans didn’t seem to have a clue what she meant, looking more upset.
But Ocellus would have plenty of time to explain to them. She stumbled out the cave, and very nearly took her own tumble down the hill.
Ocellus squeaked in protest, but something firm caught her by one spindly foreleg. How did he hold her weight as well as his own without falling over? “You sure you can handle this?” he asked.
“Y-yeah.” She straightened. “We can… tell them about the fall. Hitting your head is… supposed to make you disoriented, is that true for humans too? They’ll ask less questions that way.”
“Your funeral,” Helen said, leading the way back towards the road. Exactly in the direction that the distant humans were walking, though probably not so distant anymore.
Behind them, Ocellus’s friends were taking everything into the cave. She felt a brief surge of pride—they might not be changelings, but they were her friends. She wouldn’t trade them for anything.
She waved with her free claw, leaning on the male human for a few more steps until she dared trust her own legs.
“So… if we get separated, how should I communicate with you two?” She reached into a pocket of the clothes she’d created, pulling out her copy of Marie’s magical tablet. It had an image of Equestria on the flat glass, unchanging. Changeling magic was good, but not good enough to copy a spell she didn’t even understand.
“Blimey, you can…” Helen began. But then she stopped, a grin spreading across her lips. “Ah, I see. That’s not as clever as it looks.”
“Nope,” Ocellus agreed. “It’s not.”
“Here, take this.” Helen tossed the real version of the phone to her, little bits of broken plastic and all. It looked like it was oozing strange fluids from within, and she couldn’t sense even a trace of magic. “Guess you’re doing Marie a favor, in a way. ‘Er mum can murder you instead. Seems fair.”
“Is that common for humans?” she asked, her steps slowing a little. The change in pace nearly knocked her over again—buck these tiny feet and the steepness of the hill. “K-killing—”
“No,” David interrupted, voice flat. “Helen is being metaphorical. She means that Marie’s mother is extremely strict and Marie broke a lot of rules to be here. Last time she tried something like this, we didn’t see her outside of school for two weeks.”
“The thing that’s cancelled on account of a national emergency,” Helen added. “Apparently the north coast is about to flood. Christ. You better not have anything to do with that.”
“We don’t!” she squeaked, so loudly that a distant mumbling soon followed. The same humans she’d heard before, now running through the woods. While she could barely manage a walk, they emerged from the trees a moment later taking loping strides that made their adorable tiny bodies seem positively deerlike. Well, not so tiny from her current perspective.
“You three!” One of the humans stopped closer than the other. While his friend lifted up a magical tablet and started whispering, he moved in close. “Are you Helen Montgomery, Marie Evans, and David Walker?”
Helen nodded. “We are. Who are you?”
He removed something from a pocket—not a weapon, just a little piece of leather and paper, which he held up in front of them. “My name is Mr. Smith, Security Service. My partner and I are here to take you into protective custody. Please come with us. Your parents are waiting.”
Marie’s world got colder the instant her friends left her behind. It was more than just losing the colorful spots they made in the room, though that was part of it. Marie felt as though the whole world got blurry and out of focus, and staying awake was so hard.
So she didn’t try. She felt movement in her sleep, and a few dim impressions of distant voices trying to wake her. She could smell their worry and concern even while asleep, and that made her feel a little warmer. But not warm enough that she wanted to wake up.
It didn’t matter if she had asked them to, it didn’t matter that it was probably the most sensible thing she could’ve done. She wasn’t ready to be left behind. Maybe if she just stayed asleep eventually she would wake up and realize the whole thing had been a bad dream. She could get her Hogwarts letter, and everything would be perfect.
But she couldn’t keep sleeping forever. Eventually hunger stirred in her chest, forcing her to move. She shifted, opening her eyes slowly. She was resting in a pile of coats and jackets, not just her own. Apparently her friends had left those behind too.
But she wasn’t looking at the darkness of a cave anymore, which explained what had happened to the gloom.
She was in a house this time, there was one of those old-fashioned textured ceilings above her, and some old lights. Is it over? Am I home? But no, it didn’t smell like home. And what was worse, it was all gray. The walls, the coats. She could tell her own coat by the patch her mum had sewn in, and the secondhand smell. But it wasn’t pink anymore. What happened?
She was still dressed, which was good. Her bare feet were now covered in dry dirt instead of mud, and smears of it had gone all over the white carpets. There were hoofprints too, which made her wince even more. If I did this, mum would kill me.
But where was she? The room looked mild and inoffensive, with the sorts of generic pictures she might’ve expected from a model home. Plants, countrysides, one of the Union Jack with the British Isles superimposed.
They could’ve at least put me on the bed.
At least the bedroom had a mirror, though it wasn’t quite at her eye level. Still, it showed what she needed to see clearer than any phone reflection could. Her eyes looked like something out of a horror movie, and there really was a little nub of a horn poking through her hair. She reached up with one hand, spitting into it and trying to fluff up her bangs. A little… there, just like that. Now it was gone.
Couldn’t do that for her eyes, though. Or the discomfort she felt on her back. Don’t be mad. She did it to save your life. Would you rather be dead?
She tried to answer, but Marie didn’t know how.
Her stomach rumbled, and she hurried for the door. She could smell food coming from somewhere nearby, and that was the smell that had roused her.
Outside was a wood floor stained with more hoofprints and muddy smears.
Down the hall she could see two creatures, neither of which she’d seen in much detail yet. It was an absurd sight—farm animals let into someone’s flat. But there they were—a lemon and coral horse, and… no, the pink one had a beak, and claws. She was still frighteningly large either way.
She was also more observant. Her eyes widened and she pointed with a claw. “Look, Sandbar! The human is awake! Hey, human! Come in here, we want to talk!” She turned slightly to the side. “We do want to talk to her, don’t we?”
Sandbar nodded. “I mean, yeah. Of course we do.”
Marie hurried in, though she slowed as she passed into the entryway. She suddenly didn’t feel quite so hungry anymore. Had she been… no, she must be imagining it.
A little sign beside the front door caught her eye, since she recognized the logo. “Your Airbnb Hosts Lucy and Ashton wish you a pleasant stay!” There was a list underneath that failed to hold her interest, naming things like cleaning policy and where to put the towels. Guess there isn’t a lot of demand.
There were no other creatures in the kitchen, just the horse and the not horse, sitting around the table with all the chairs pushed aside and the couch cushions on the floor as seats. There were a series of books on the table—coffee table books, mostly pictures, as exciting as the dentist’s office. And from their expressions, the magical creatures were as eager to put them aside as Marie would’ve been.
“Hi,” she said, adjusting her skirt subconsciously. Her back—no, her wings—twitched, tugging on the back of her top. It hurt a little—they weren’t meant to bend like that. I need to find some scissors.
“I’m, uh… I’m Marie. I’d rather you call me that, instead of…”
“Marine,” said the bird. “I’m Silverstream, Marine, and this is Sandbar.”
“Marine,” Sandbar said. “I guess that makes sense. We are close to the beach. Lots of Ponyville ponies have plain names.”
“Marie,” she corrected, without meaning to. She could feel their confusion grow as she did, and with it some of their interest in her faded. Was she imagining things, or did the two of them seem grayer? “I mean, you can call me what you want—” she added. “If Marine is easier to say, that’s fine. I can answer to that too.”
“Merry,” Silverstream said, shutting the book in front of her with an oversized claw. It looked like she was holding a child’s picture book. And from the bits of torn paper on the table, it looked like they’d done the same thing to a few of them.
“How did we get here?” she asked, wishing she still had shoes. “When we talked to her, Ocellus didn’t recognize a smartphone. You guys rented an Airbnb?”
“Rented,” Sandbar repeated, wincing slightly. “That’s what the sign said outside! We, uh… picked this place mostly because it didn’t have any other houses around to see us.”
Wasn’t there something on TV about a tsunami, or evacuations or something? Marie’s hands tightened on her skirt, and she shivered. I want to go home. She no longer cared if she would get in trouble, no longer cared that she wouldn’t be able to get to know some magical creatures.
She walked over to the sink, turning on the cold-water tap and filing her hands with enough to splash her face. Maybe she was still dreaming, and she just needed a little help waking up.
But no, when she opened her eyes, she could still see their completely gray reflection in the glass. And outside, dense trees, rolling hills, and a tiny little carpark with nothing in it.
“There’s a shower here!” Silverstream offered, her voice suddenly close. Marie turned, and found the gigantic horse was right in front of her, that sharp beak only inches away from her face. How are you all so big? “Sandbar found it. He said this place looked like a little pony cabin, not like a griffon nest or a yak yurt. And he was right! It’s like being back at school again, with warm and cold water.”
She did feel disgusting—the dried crust of slime covered her in a thin film that a towel hadn’t been able to dislodge. But Silverstream’s concern for her, Sandbar’s obvious worry—that was better. The hunger she’d been feeling was fading fast.
“Maybe in a minute,” Marie said, pulling over a chair and turning it over the wrong way. She climbed up on her knees, leaning over the front and watching the two of them. Maybe I’ll feel it again if I stay with them. “There are more of you, aren’t there? A dragon, a unicorn…”
“A dragon, a yak, a griffon, and a changeling,” the horse corrected. “Smolder and Gallus are out hunting.” He shivered once, then went on. “Yona has gone almost three whole days without smashing anything, so she was getting restless. She went to find some dead trees or something nopony was using.”
“There’s a lake not far from here,” Silverstream went on. “I was thinking of going fishing there later. Do humans like fish?” The bird made her way back to the table, sitting beside the horse. The two of them could barely fit there, even though the kitchen had obviously been designed to fit a family.
“Some do,” she answered. “I’m a bit of a picky eater, so I’m not so much a fan. Less you got chips and vinegar…” She trailed off suddenly. “Is it okay if I ask you questions too? I’ve never met a… horse who could talk before. Or a… are you a griffon too?”
“Hippogriff,” Silverstream answered. “And Sandbar is a pony.”
“Horses look different,” Sandbar said. “They’re taller, different colors, don’t have cutie marks…” He shook his head. “Sure, Marine. If I learned anything in school, it’s that friends are easier to learn from than books.”
“Oh, but it’s only fair if we get to ask you questions too!” Silverstream cut in. “We weren’t there when you met Ocellus the first time, and she didn’t talk to you for very long.” She held up one of the books, which was long and unusually shaped. Canal Boats of Europe. “The books in here aren’t very helpful to visiting creatures.”
“That’s because we don’t get visiting… creatures,” Marie said. “I saw your dragon friend on TV, and it was so crazy I had to see for myself.” She reached up, adjusting her hair so that it covered the horn. “Guess I’m the biggest idiot in England.”
“Biggest hero maybe,” Sandbar corrected. “You brought us food when we were hungry, helped us stay hidden. Assuming that’s… what we should be doing. Still not so sure hiding is such a good idea. Ocellus said you have a princess, is that true? I think we should walk straight up to her and ask for her help. I just know Celestia would be more than helpful if a human got lost in Equestria. That’s how princesses are!”
Silverstream nodded. “I’m not happy we’re hiding either. But Ocellus convinced Smolder, and she’s usually the one who decides what we do in situations like this. But I bet she’d listen to you!”
“Which princess?” Marie asked. “Anne? Beatrice?” Her eyes fixed on Sandbar. “With your accent you probably mean Catherine, even though she’s a Duchess.”
“I, uh…” For an animal so big, Sandbar acted like a kid not much older than she was. She could easily imagine that expression on one of the upper-years before asking out a girl. But it was making him uncomfortable, which made the whole room feel colder.
“Do you mean the queen? I think Ocellus got confused the same way. We have a queen. There’s also the prime minister, she’s…” She wasn’t a person her mother had much nice to say about. But magical creatures probably didn’t care about politics, so she left that out.
“Hah!” Silverstream grinned. “They’re not all evil but ours, Sandbar. I told you Ocellus was wrong.”
“She… could be evil.”
Marie laughed. She couldn’t help it. “That depends, is it evil to keep about a dozen corgis? If dogs are evil, then we’ve got the evilest queen there is.”
They didn’t seem to understand the joke—if anything, they only looked more confused. That feeling didn’t taste very good at all. “I’ve heard the queen is really nice. I think we may’ve had an evil queen or two a long time ago, but they’re all dead.”
“So, should we see her?” Sandbar asked. “You know her better than we can—will she help send us home?”
Marie had barely been awake when she first woke in this strange body, but she remembered that video on David’s phone, with a huge chunk of land smack in the middle of the North Sea.
“I mean, maybe…” She looked away awkwardly. “It’s really hard to see her. You’d have to get into Buckingham Palace. Guess you could go on a tour or something and—” What was she thinking? She was talking to a magical talking horse and a flying horse-bird.
And what are you now, Marie?
Disgusting.
“I… dunno,” she eventually said. “The queen always seems nice on TV, I’m sure she’d help you if she could. But there’s some kind of national emergency right now. Some kind of… new land, or…” She looked around. Was there a TV in this place?”
Yes, obviously. The other room had a flat screen mounted to the wall, and Marie hurried over. She could hear the huge animals following her—they couldn’t help but make noise with those hooves on wood, even if they didn’t mean to.
She turned it on, and there was no need to change channels. “PUBLIC EMERGENCY BROADCAST” was printed at the top of the screen, as it probably was on every channel right now.
“You’re a wizard!” Sandbar exclaimed, stopping dead in the doorway. “That’s a really good scrying spell.”
“I wish I was a wizard,” Marie said, but then she felt her wings against the couch behind her and regretted saying anything.
“Then what is it?” Silverstream asked, climbing over the couch from behind. Wood creaked and strained at her weight, but didn’t give out.
“It’s the BBC,” she began. But all she felt was more confusion, so she just went on. “It’s how old people get information. They sit in front of a big noisy box and listen to it all day.” She held up her hand, as though it held a phone. “Young people use their phones, but mine broke when my head broke so…” She quieted down to listen.
Both alien creatures settled down beside her, staring in open fascination at the television.
A reporter stood in front of a row of suburban flats, except that the water had risen above the first floor window, and dozens of people had climbed up onto their roofs. “The devastation here in Edinburgh represents only some of what we’ve seen since…”
“…the horrific displays of this afternoon. Casualty reports are still coming in from the affected villages, but initial estimates by the security service put the casualties at over five hundred, mostly pensioners located at one of several retirement communities who could not be evacuated in time. We go now to—”
Ocellus watched in fascination and horror as the enchanted tablet attached to the ceiling continued its report, with a constantly cycling series of humans.
She had been taken with David and Helen along the road to an open field that was rapidly transforming into a city. The mystery of what the flying-tribe humans had been here to do now made sense—they were apparently expert builders.
Already there were a dozen tent buildings going up, with fences and sandbags and stranger things she had no names for. Of course they hadn’t been brought in for a tour, but into the single complete building to wait in some uncomfortable chairs.
“You’ll need to talk to my… boss—” Mr. Smith had explained, when they arrived. “I’m afraid she’ll need to hear everything you saw and heard. If you’d like to wait a little longer, I can have a member of the NSPCC present during your conversation. Your parents won’t be able to see you until that’s complete.”
Helen laughed. “Parents, see me. That’s funny.” She looked over at David. “You wanna wait longer so some stuffy lawyer can be there?”
He didn’t hesitate. “No. I just want to get home.”
“Right.” She looked back. “We can just see her.”
“What about you,” Smith focused on Ocellus, expression surprisingly kind. He’d radiated suspicion when he first discovered them, but that emotion had mellowed since they arrived here. The human’s partner was gone now, apparently to “fill out the paperwork.” So it was just them.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Without the, uh… NSP… what is that?”
“Legal representative,” Smith said. “For your information, none of you are being accused of a crime, and you aren’t in danger of any kind of prosecution. But we think you might be witnesses in something… critically important.” He gestured at the television. “That, right there. It’s connected with the business of the, uh… sightings.”
“We don’t know anything,” Helen said, for the third time now. Every time he asked a different way, but so far the humans had held to their story. But will they? Do humans have ways to interrogate like changelings did?
These humans were too young to be vulnerable to the most effective changeling methods—those sorts of pheromones would only have confused them, instead of turning their minds to a nice warm mush.
Not that Ocellus had ever used those methods—that was the old, dead swarm. But she’d heard about it.
“Maybe you think you didn’t,” Smith said. “Not for me to say. Ms. Clarke may be able to help you remember something you’ve misplaced. Some little detail that can point our search in the right direction.”
David shrugged. “We’ll try. We want to help. Well… I want lunch, but I want to help too.”
“I’ll have someone run to Nando’s for you while you’re in with her,” the human promised. Then the cloth door at the end of the hall opened, and Smith turned. An older human stood in the doorway, her emotions an inscrutable mask to Ocellus. She had the first gray hair she’d seen so far, adding another color to the limited human spectrum.
“These are the children?” she asked.
“Aye, ma’am.”
“Very good. Are we waiting for council?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Bring them in.” She turned and strode back into the office.
It wasn’t terribly large, most of the space occupied with complicated-looking machinery with various lights and flashing screens. Lots of it looked like the enchanted tablet outside, except that there were many images all running at once. Her desk itself was plain and a little underwhelming for the almost princess-like attitude of this human, who barely seemed to even look at them.
She gestured, and Smith shut the door quietly behind them. Ocellus could see the back of his head motionless by the window. Waiting for them to finish. “Well I’m pleased to meet you all,” the woman said, without a trace of pleasure in her voice. If anything, she was feeling boredom, though she was exceptionally good at hiding it. “You can call me Ms. Clarke. I understand the three of you were in an area of interest last night. Looking for dragons, is that right?”
“Yeah,” Helen muttered.
“This dragon.” She pushed a photograph across the table with one hand. Ocellus leaned forward to look at it with the others, and was unsurprised to see an image of Smolder.
It was as though there’d been a photographer on the pier, and Smolder had posed for several minutes to get a clear image. She’d been captured in perfect clarity, at the exact moment she was breathing fire.
“That’s what we were looking for,” David agreed. “Your picture is bigger than the one online, but…”
“I have it here that you vanished in… early afternoon. Children like you, out on your own… could’ve gotten yourselves hurt. Did your parents know you were going to spend the night?”
“No!” Helen said. “We were supposed to be home by dark. But then the storm hit, and—” She glanced sideways at Ocellus. “We got stuck.”
This older human’s emotions hadn’t been clear at first, but maybe that was just because she hadn’t been feeling them in the same way. Ocellus could feel her doubt now, a pungent spice that was as much a warning sign to a hiding changeling as a spark in a fireworks shop.
Do they have experts at finding changelings? No, that was paranoia. But maybe they were experts at finding something. Smith had said they were from “security services.”
“It’s my fault,” she said, before their interrogator could ask something else. “It got dark so fast, and I couldn’t see anything. I slipped, and…” She turned her head to one side, revealing the lump there. Imitating an injury was incredibly difficult magic, well beyond what Ocellus would’ve been able to do normally.
But she had seen exactly what Marie looked like when she was hurt, seen the blood emerging from the opening in her skull. She felt her stomach rebel at the thought, and clutched it with both hands, nearly falling out of her chair.
That did it. The woman’s doubt was instantly replaced with worry—though not the kind of worry she could feed on. She reached across the desk. “Do you have her, children? Don’t let her fall.”
David’s hand held her by the shoulder, pushing her back gently into the seat. There was a caution in his touch that hadn’t changed since they rode here. “It’s a terrible oversight that we’re even having this conversation. Head injuries can sometimes be hard to spot, but…” She touched something on her desk. “Smith, get me the EMTs immediately. This child is your new first priority.”
“Right away, Ma’am,” came his voice through the table, and the figure on the other side of the door ran off.
“And the two of you—I can see a few minor scrapes and bruises from here. Was that all? Do you need medical care as well?”
“No,” Helen said. “Maybe a biscuit and a bloody shower, but that’s it.”
“Right. Well, the two of you can continue this explanation as soon as your friend is off to get the care she needs. We can catch up in private… some other time.”
“Her mum is probably furious,” Helen muttered. “She’s a real nutter, that one. Doesn’t let her go out with us most nights. Getting permission for this hike was like pullin’ teeth.”
And now she was feeling boredom again. That’s good, you two. Make her bored. Waste her time. But she couldn’t talk to them now—there was no time for a changeling lesson in deception. And come to think of it, Twilight Sparkle probably wouldn’t have approved of her teaching the children of strange, delicate creatures from far away how to lie.
The door banged open a moment later, loud enough that Ocellus actually gasped and fell forward again. David caught her for a second time, though now that it wasn’t an act it took both of his hands to hold her.
There were half a dozen humans standing in the doorway, around a metal bed on wheels. Each of them wore white clothing that hid almost their whole bodies. Except for Smith, they were all just eyes.
“We have a trauma center on base. Well… ‘base’ might be a tad generous, but see if it isn’t by tomorrow.” She nodded towards Ocellus. “It’s this one, if you couldn’t already tell. Head trauma.”
“Hmm.” One of the white figures strode in, right over to Ocellus. She half-expected her to pull out some kind of magical restraints, but… no. Instead she pulled the mask away from her face, revealing a friendly, concerned smile. Another female human, almost as old as Clarke but with nothing but sensitivity radiating from her. “Can you walk, miss…”
“Walk?” She immediately tried to stand up, and this time she did a little better with the difficulty of balancing on two human legs. Well she thought she did, anyway. But the woman still watched her with concern. “Hmm. Why don’t you climb onto this nice stretcher. Here, I’ll help you up.”
She glanced back at Marie’s friends, as though they might be able to save her. But neither moved. She could sense no fear for her. So either they don’t think these humans are a threat, or they don’t care if I’m in danger. That second one didn’t make sense, though. It wasn’t just her that was in danger, it was Marie’s chance of pretending none of this had happened.
“Hey, Marie. I don’t like the way these humans look, are they safe?” She sent the thought knowing full well the human on the other end would have difficulty making sense of it—it would be the first time she’d sent an image, and over quite a distance.
She got no reply, only a general sense of a distant, hungry drone. Probably asleep.
“Okay,” she finally said, taking the offered hand and hopping up onto the stretcher. “I’ll get to see my friends again, right?”
“Your parents first,” the doctor said, settling her so that she was on her back on the metal bed. And just like that the team of humans had them off, down the hallway and out into the field.
There was already another tent-building not far away, and they rolled along a path of gravel that bumped and shook her a little. Ocellus reached out, and felt at the emotions of the ones escorting her. She could feel no anger, no triumph at having captured her. Just concern, and a detached professionalism she had long since associated with the Equestrian Royal Guard.
Like… medical soldiers. It was an interesting thought—if humans could ride around in carriages without a pony to pull them, what were their doctors like?
Similar, as it turned out. The medical tent was packed to the walls with incredible machines. She was forced to learn how several of them worked—forced to change into a dress made out of paper and to sit still while they poked and prodded and led her from one machine to the next.
In the end, the human she’d learned was named Dr. Camillo stood in front of her bed with a magical tablet in hand, frowning down at it like it were a troublesome student who needed to stay after in class.
“Well, Marie, it looks like you don’t have a concussion. As for what you do have…” She frowned down at her device again. “Well, I’ll be having a word with your mother. She’s just arrived, but I’m afraid I’ll have to see her before you can. But you just… wait here a moment, and she’ll be able to see you shortly.”
“That’s great,” Ocellus said, hoping she sounded convincing. “I’ll be right here!” She fidgeted, wanting very much to run away. “Marie, can you hear me?” Still nothing.
Marie wasn’t sure showing the magical creatures how a television worked was a good idea, for entirely selfish reasons. Once there was a steady stream of images playing across its surface, they no longer needed to get their information from her. That meant less attention, and it meant she could already feel her hunger returning.
Besides, the BBC’s current report on what was amounting to the largest natural disaster in the history of the United Kingdom wasn’t exactly an enjoyable watch. The broadcast had a running count of “dead” and “missing” and both numbers were always going up.
She checked the fridge, but wasn’t surprised to find it empty. It wasn’t even a real hotel, so it wouldn’t have a bar of overpriced crackers and drinks she wasn’t allowed to try.
“How rare are artifacts like this?” Sandbar asked, when she returned from the kitchen with a pout and plopped down on an armchair with folded arms. “I’ve heard of seeing stones, but…”
“It’s not a seeing stone,” she snapped. “It’s a TV… television. Crappy TV like this would cost less secondhand than the license.”
As usual, the magical creatures didn’t know what she meant. But maybe she didn’t care. She was running out of patience—Marie was hungry, confused, and scared. She wanted to go home.
“I don’t want to be here anymore.”
To her surprise, that thought seemed heavier than the others. Her desire to express her discomfort, but lacking the confidence to tell the magical creatures she was unhappy… had apparently attracted the attention of someone else.
Ocellus’s voice echoed in her head, though she seemed further away than before. Like she was somehow overhearing a whisper through a shut door.
“Thank the queens you’re awake over there. I was worried you would sleep forever. I need help.”
“You need help?” Marie turned to one side, pulling her legs close to her chest and wrapping her arms around tightly. “I’m the one who got turned into a monster. What are you doing that’s so hard?”
“Pretending to be you. Your mother is here, and… she’s very difficult.”
“That’s one word for it.” Marie had done plenty of things to run away from home for a while—but just now, she didn’t care about the punishment. If being back there would make her normal again, she’d take it in a heartbeat. Probably.
Ocellus had questions for her—a stream of images so rapid she almost couldn’t keep up. She wanted to know what photographs of her represented, what phrases her mother had said meant, and many other things. Enough questions to fill a few hours of conversation passed between them in what felt like minutes. She could still hear the ponies discussing things they were seeing on the telly—right now they were commenting on the boats rescuing people from flooded homes.
But Marie didn’t care about all that just now. She waited until Ocellus had finished asking her questions, then stopped the changeling before she could sever whatever connection they were using.
“What am I, exactly?”
It took longer for the other voice to answer—longer than any of her previous questions had taken. She could feel her discomfort and guilt as clearly as though she were in the room with her.
“I don’t know for sure, I’m not an expert at swarm lore. And I’m not sure any bug would be able to tell me about humans, I’ve never heard of you before.”
“That isn’t an answer, Ocellus. I liked you, I wanted to help you. Can’t you at least tell me the truth?”
Another long silence. Finally Ocellus answered. “Changeling venom only works properly on ponies. If you were one, you’d just be a changeling now, like me. But you weren’t a pony, so… you’re like… maybe half a changeling, or maybe less? Hard to be sure. Try eating your favorite food and I’ll know if it’s more or less than half.”
What did that mean? Unfortunately for Marie there wasn’t any food here, which was exactly the problem.
“Can you make me back to normal?”
“No, but you can. That’s where we get our name, changelings are… well, no reason to be modest. We’re the best shapeshifters in the world. I’m only okay at it… but if you come back with us to Equestria, there are some changelings who can even do inanimates. My uncle… nevermind.”
“You’re with my mum right now and you think she’d let me go with you to…” She trailed off. Ocellus didn’t reply vocally, but she could sense the grim agreement.
“I need to be me to go back to my life. There has to be a faster way than going to another… country.”
“I could try. You could also try spending time with Silverstream, she has a little transformation magic. Have her take you underwater, see how it feels. Maybe you learn from copying? Changelings are great at copying.”
Marie of three days ago probably would’ve screamed at her for what she’d just done—deny an invitation to what had to be some kind of magical world? Wasn’t this the other half of her Hogwarts invitation? First she got her magic, and now she was being invited to the place to use it.
“I wouldn’t want to go alone. Maybe if David and Helen could come…”
She realized too late that she hadn’t just been thinking that. “I’m sure there’s room for all three of you at the school. Twilight is always trying to invite new creatures, share the magic of friendship as far as she can. I’ll talk to her.”
School. There really was a magic school, even if what they called it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
“Have you seen the pictures on TV? Looks like your country just… popped out of the ocean or something.”
“I saw. I don’t believe it. It doesn’t look like something they would do, just ripping Equestria away from the world like that. It’s only one country, what about the others? It must be a mistake. Or… maybe it’s not related.”
Maire didn’t believe that for a second, though. As much as she daydreamed about other fictions, it made sense that the one kind of magic she’d discovered was the one doing all the weird stuff. David was right, she couldn’t throw it all away.
“Buck, they’re watching me. Can’t talk anymore. Just… let me know if anything bad happens.” And her voice was gone, as abruptly as someone hanging up the phone.
Or maybe that was the front door banging open. Marie turned with the others to see the group come in—Smolder the dragon was in front, clutching something in one of her claws. There were two others behind her, another bird-thing and a huge farm animal behind her. A… yak? But most farm animals probably didn’t wear braids or look so aware.
“Look at this,” Smolder announced, smacking a huge roll of paper on the table in front of her like a treasured icon.
“Got food,” said the bird behind her—bright blue, but with a voice that was far less intimidating than his sharp beak and claws suggested. At least until he dropped a bloody bundle of cloth onto the kitchen counter. It smelled fresh, as any butcher’s shop.
“Yona also do some foraging,” the yak declared, dropping her own bundle. This one seemed to be overflowing with berries and plants. “For those who not want eat gross things.”
“Hey, desperate times,” the bird countered. “Even a pony will eat meat if they’re hungry enough. Isn’t that right, Sandbar?”
The horse rose abruptly from the couch, apparently tearing his attention from the telly only with difficulty. “Meat? Uh… maybe, but I’m not that hungry. I’d rather eat grass or uncooked hay than… than that.”
Marie got up, turning off the television with a quick press. No sense distracting them all with more of the same. Nothing they saw on that was going to be cheering them up.
“You’re all missing the point,” Smolder yelled, loud enough that everyone stopped and stared. Marie whimpered and stepped back, trying to seem small. Not terribly difficult, considering how big they were. “We have a reply from Equestria. I didn’t want to smear it in the rain, so… here it is.”
Everyone crowded around the paper as she unrolled it on top of the books, getting several of them a little damp in the process. But the dragon didn’t seem to care.
Even Marie leaned close to listen.
“My faithful students,
We have been trying to reach you for days now. Your ship passed into a shoal of unknown magic and did not emerge from the other side. But the strange magic we’ve been observing around Equestria’s shores expanded, and now…
Now it seems the whole country has experienced the same thing you have. I got your letter minutes ago, and am including another emergency scroll with my reply.
A rescue is already being planned, but the disaster of our arrival has damaged cities along the coast, and my magic is badly needed. Please remain hidden as best you can for the next few days. Diplomatic contact with these ‘human’ creatures will happen soon, and once it does we may not need any kind of rescue at all. Just don’t hurt any of them, don’t make them upset, and we’ll get you out of this as soon as we can.
I could not think of a group of friends better suited to represent Equestria in a new land.
All my trust,
Twilight Sparkle
PS: If there is some kind of emergency, you have another scroll. But know that saving you will probably cost the lives of other ponies I can’t save. Use it only if you have no other choice.”
“Seems like the volcano’s really erupting back there, huh?” Smolder asked, finally letting go of the paper. While several of her friends seemed to lean closer, studying it, the dragon had finally noticed Marie. “You’re awake. The human.”
Marie nodded, retreating. Until her back smacked into the wall, and she could back up no further. “I’m human. Or I… maybe I was. Ocellus says I’m half-changeling.”
“Aren’t many cooler things you could halfway be.” The dragon kept advancing on her—she was the only one of their group that walked on two legs, but she was still bigger than Marie. As tall as an adult, though her proportions didn’t seem quite right. Also she wasn’t wearing any clothes, which seemed weirder for someone on two legs. But the bloodstains were the worst. She’d been hunting. “I guess maybe a dragon, but I’ve never heard of a half dragon.”
“Kirin.” Silverstream was the first to appear on her other side, grinning cheerfully. “They’re half dragon. And there’s hippogriffs, we’re half griffon, half pony.” She smiled, and Marie felt nothing but warmth from her. “You’re in good company, Merry. Halfsies stick together, you’ll see.”
“I wanted to ask her something,” Smolder interrupted, silencing her companion with a wave of her claw. “Something only the human would know.”
Marie gulped, feeling her wings strain against her clothes again. But there was nowhere for her to go. What was she going to do, run off alone into the rainy night? She couldn’t go home, not until she could be herself again.
Ocellus said Silverstream could teach me. I need to get her to take me fishing.
“What? I, uh… I might know. I don’t know as much as David, but I know some things.”
“Well, it’s raining out there,” Smolder said. “And I’ve already figured out most human things burn as easy as pony things. But I don’t do raw meat. Since I can’t cook it myself… maybe you know how? Some… human magic? This is a human house we found.”
Marie sighed, her fear deflating. “You… want to know how to turn on the oven?” She walked past Smolder suddenly, having to squeeze around the yak to get into the kitchen. The floor looked even more destroyed than it had earlier, with some of the tile actually damaged by their weight.
We’re in big trouble when they find us hiding here. “It’s right here. My mum doesn’t let me use the range by myself, but… I guess you’re all here.” She pointed, twisted a few dials, and the little electric element inside started to glow.
“While I’m at it…” There was an electric kettle on the counter, maybe… yes, there was a box of tea in the cupboard above it. A cup, a shower, and I’ll feel human again. She had to. It was all she could do.
As it turned out, human mothers were not easier to fool than Changeling Queens. Despite lacking magical senses, despite lacking every kind of magic so far as Ocellus could tell, the woman she knew only as “Mom” had barely even listened to her convincing list of excuses.
“You could’ve been killed,” she kept saying, as they rode together in one of the largest mechanical carriages Ocellus had seen yet. But there was no way to enjoy the experience with the hand wrapped tightly around her wrist and the constant anger and frustration the woman radiated like a cloud.
Maybe Chrysalis hadn’t been such a bad parent after all.
“I always told you they were trouble,” she said, when they exited the metal box and were walking down the street. Ocellus had a few new bandages on her body from where the medical people had stuck her with needles and taken blood, but otherwise they hadn’t tried to keep her. Maybe because they hadn’t found anything meaningfully wrong with her, despite her claims to a fall. “It was a mistake to let them visit outside the house. That Helen girl should’ve stayed where she belongs.”
She didn’t actually try to reply, every time she’d done that before the woman just got angrier. So she kept her eyes on the ground, looked appropriately submissive, and walked in silence.
It’s a good thing they didn’t have you, real Marie. They were way cleverer than pony doctors—you never could’ve hidden from them. Ocellus herself couldn’t be sure if her own powers had been enough to hide completely, but they had sent her home with Marie’s mother, so that probably meant they’d been fooled.
Probably.
To Ocellus’s surprise, she felt a response this time. The presence of another mind at such a great distance was tenuous at best, with none of the lighter emotional information present. Only something as distinct and intentional as actual words could reach through from so far away, and even then her voice sounded feeble and weak.
“Ocellus, am I hearing you?”
“Yes!” She perked up, breaking her little illusion and nearly tearing free of the woman’s hand.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“N-nowhere.” She forced her face back into the mask, eyes down.
“Not to school,” she said. “Closed on account of the national emergency. So you get off on that one, if only by a hair.”
She was barely even listening. “Are you safe? Did you escape the forest?”
Pause. “Yeah, we’re safe. I don’t know where we are. I think your friends broke into someone’s flat? Seems safe enough, so long as no holidaymakers show up to use it. Probably won’t at this time of year, but… Christ this is weird. Feels like I’m just thinking to myself.”
“You aren’t.” They stopped in front of an ugly brown building with several front doors in a row. Eyes watched from the nearby windows as they approached, and the woman finally let her go as she unlocked three separate bolts, fingers shaking every minute.
Then they were inside, and she yanked at Ocellus’s sleeve, pointing. “You know where you’re going.” It wasn’t a question, but Ocellus didn’t know where she was going.
From the commanding tone, she guessed this was the discipline that Marie had feared her mother would bring down on her. She’d been right. “Uh… yeah. I know.”
“Then go. I’ll think about giving you supper, if you can come up with a convincing apology.”
Ocellus wandered up the steps, frowning as she took in her first visit to a human dwelling. It was considerably less impressive than their medical facilities, with a strange half-rotten smell about everything and lots of empty-looking containers everywhere. The stairs themselves had been so stacked with square containers that she could only pass through a single aisle to the top floor.
The woman at the bottom was still watching her, hands on her hips. “Don’t get smart with me, young lady. Go.”
She opened her mouth, then felt the surge of anger from below and just shut it again. Where would an angry human want her disobedient spawn to go?
The nearest door was propped open with so many blankets and oversized bags that she wasn’t sure she even could’ve shut it. But on the other side of the hall was a sudden transition, where the layer of filth on the floor ended and she could see soft carpet. There was pink furniture inside, and a few dresses hanging in the closet.
Marie’s room. She hurried inside, and was relieved to feel the anger from downstairs ebb slightly. “You stay in there until supper, and we can talk about how long you’re grounded. But you come out for anything that isn’t the toilet and I’ll lock it next time.”
Ocellus shuddered, feeling her sympathy for the young human grow just a bit. She knew she was going to suffer this when she got home, but she went anyway to help us. No wonder their love had felt so strong when they arrived in the middle of the storm.
Good thing, too. I’m going to need every drop of magic I can get.
Ocellus took in the room in a single quick glance. However strange humans might look, the way they lived didn’t appear that different. A bed against one corner, clothes in the closet, and a desk packed with books and papers. This was what she used for whatever school had apparently been canceled.
“Oh, that reminds me! A message came back from… the place you’re from, I think? The others seemed excited about it. You know a ‘Twilight’?”
“Yeah. What did she say?”
Marie told her, apparently reading directly from the scroll. Her accent was easier to understand now that they were communicating directly, though there was still an obvious taste of something alien.
Alien, yet also a changeling now too, at least a little.
“You said they put you back with my mum?” Marie asked, as soon as she’d finished reading everything.
“Yeah.” She went through the whole story as quickly as she could, about being driven into the makeshift cloth buildings and the interviews that followed. But there hadn’t been any violence, and she wasn’t hurt, so the story didn’t last that long.
“You think they don’t know you were a fake?”
“Probably not,” Ocellus answered, settling down on the edge of the mattress. It was much softer than she’d expected, and she quickly spread out, letting the soft cloth wrap around her. So far from her friends, it was nice to have something comfortable. “I don’t think they were looking for changelings. They were mostly worried that I was—that you were hurt. But when they couldn’t find anything, then sent me away. I didn’t see your other friends again.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine. Helen's family has so much money they can make any problems go away. You should be more worried about yourself. Your transformation-thing was really convincing to me, but… it seems too good to believe that they wouldn’t notice anything. Did mom say anything about what they told her?”
“No.”
“Weird. Well, uh… watch your back, I guess. Hopefully your magic is just too perfect.” But she didn’t sound like she believed it.
Ocellus had no idea what that meant, and she didn’t ask. “Twilight Sparkle wants us to stay hidden and let Equestria worry about the diplomacy.” That was probably for the best, given the trouble they’d caused in just a few days.
I did plenty of that myself with you, Marie. But she didn’t send that message—how was she supposed to tell the girl that she should’ve let her die? Sometimes the smartest choice wasn’t always the best, and this felt like one of those times.
“The leader, I think… Smolder? Yeah, her. She says we’ll just hide here for now until you can get back to us. But I told them that might not be right away. I don’t know where this is, and I’m guessing you’re grounded.”
“If grounded is being told not to leave this room, then yes.” Ocellus sat up from the strange human bed, picking up one of Marie’s books at random and letting it fall open on the desk. It was all almost entirely numbers inside, arranged into regular patterns and groups. Math problems.
She’s just a filly, give her a break. She doesn’t have to learn all this at her age.
But Ocellus was letting her instincts think for her, and that was a mistake no changeling should make. Just because Marie and the other humans looked adorable and helpless didn’t mean they really were.
“Yeah, so it might be a while. And I don’t know how far away we are. They said it took them hours to get here, and you guys seem pretty fast.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Ocellus pulled over the human chair and sat down, beginning to finger through some of the other books. There was bound to be something on culture here with so many of the thick squares to look through. Something that would help her imitate Marie more convincingly. “I could open the window and fly to you when it gets dark.”
“No you bloody can’t,” Marie snapped, her fear and anger suddenly so strong that it managed to cross the connection between them. “She’s got an alarm on my window, and all the doors. You can’t just open it, or she’ll know! If I come back after that, she’ll bloody kill me.”
She sighed, pushing aside another uninteresting book. “I can wait a little bit. Have you tried going fishing with Silverstream yet? Letting her use her pearl on you is the quickest way to learn what it feels like. If you figure it out without me, then we can switch back real quick.”
“I think we’re going as soon as it gets dark,” Marie answered. There was a long silence from her side, then. “I heard that the floods might kill hundreds of people. The telly said they weren’t as bad as anybody thought, but… it’s still going to destroy homes all over the country. Did you do this?”
“You read me the letter. Twilight doesn’t even know, and she’s one of the smartest magical experts in Equestria. But I know ponies—they don’t like killing. I’m sure if they knew humans had died, they’d be heartbroken.”
But if they didn’t know already, they would probably learn soon. Twilight’s letter had suggested they were beginning diplomatic contact right away. What that would look like, and how it would work, Ocellus could only be glad was being left to others. Let smarter ponies than her solve those problems.
“Don’t make her upset,” Marie begged. “I know she’s harsh, but she’s my mum. She’s the only family I have left. Please don’t make her hate me.”
Why do you care so much, if this is how she treats you? But Ocellus didn’t send that. Unlike the new changeling, she knew exactly how to send a thought, and how to keep one to herself. She was no young drone anymore. “I’ll do what she says. Locking me up in here might be an… advantage, in a way. Less chances to be discovered as a fake if I’m stuck in here all the time.”Assuming I don’t completely lose my mind before we can switch back.
“I’ll tell Smolder and the others you’re okay, and try to learn when we go fishing. You… probably shouldn’t tell my mum that my phone broke. We’ll just have to hope she doesn’t call you while you’re grounded.”
Ocellus wasn’t sure about what that meant exactly, but then, she didn’t really understand very much at all of how these humans did things. Hopefully I get a chance to spend more time with her human friends. Equestria could probably use the diplomatic help.
Gritting her teeth, Ocellus gathered up a handful of the books she hadn’t looked at yet, and carried them over to Marie’s bed to start searching. If she was going to be locked in prison, she’d make her time count for something.
There, that book looked promising. “Photographic World History, WW2 to Present.” Here we go. Let’s see what you humans on your little island are like…
“You sure you want to come?” Silverstream asked, her voice a little tentative. “I mean, it is gonna be late, and those legs are so short! If you want to stay here and sleep with the others…”
“No, I wanna come.” She could tell her answer was a disappointment to the only other one of the mythical creatures who intended on making the trip—the griffon named Gallus. But he did his best to hide it, looking away and pawing at the ground so that whenever Silverstream glanced in his direction, he was distracted with something else.
She knew that look from a hundred kilometers, since she saw it so often from David. The bird’s beak didn’t really make him any harder to read. But she pretended she didn’t notice. “Ocellus told me that you were the only other one with transformation magic. That you might be able to… use it on me? And then I’d know how to use it myself?” She frowned, folding her arms. “Honestly I don’t really get what she means by that. But she’s the one who made me like this, so…”
“Yeah…” Silverstream paced around her, having to shove past the edge of the counter to fit. This space had not been built for such massive creatures. Cooking dinner had made an absolute wreck of the kitchen, with dirty dishes in places and bits of broken furniture everywhere. “I don’t know that I’ve done it very often. I… haven’t done it with you, have I Gallus?”
“No.” He blushed, shaking his head vigorously. “Not that I’m asking or anything! I just… yeah, you haven’t. We didn’t spend much time by the ocean. Until that final.”
“I guess there shouldn’t be a problem.” She glanced down at the necklace she was wearing, adjusting it around her neck with one claw. “But this is only a fragment of the Pearl of Transformation, so I can’t control it. It only does two things—into the sea, and back. Is that okay?”
Marie shivered, adjusting her jacket over her wings. She’d found an oversized toque tucked away in a drawer, and was wearing that over her head and horn. She was pretty sure that someone in the dark wouldn’t be able to see how strange she was. Except that she’d be wandering through some village with two giant mythical creatures with her, all sharp claws and glittering beaks. And if anyone got close enough to see her eyes…
But they shouldn’t, not now. It was so late that Marie should’ve felt exhausted, late enough that her mother would’ve had her in bed for hours already. But maybe it was just how disrupted her schedule had been, because she didn’t feel very tired.
At least when they stepped outside, the storms had finally ended. Only a light smattering of rain fell from overhead. Enough that she would still be soaked by the time they got to the lake. Who cares. I’m going underwater, aren’t I? She just had to look on the bright side of all this. She was about to experience magic, with a pair of talking magical creatures in an adorable crush.
Marie had stolen one of the bath towels from the house—probably the least that had been done in terms of the damage to it, and tossed it into the empty backpack she’d worn full of food.
“This is too slow,” Gallus said, after ten minutes or so of walking through the dark. “One of us could probably carry you. How heavy are you, Marie?”
“Uh…” She blushed. “A little over six stone?”
“That means nothing to me.” He stopped beside her. “Climb up. If I can carry Smolder, I can carry you.”
She had to resist the urge to jump up and squeal with delight. Helen’s gonna be so jealous! It had been only a matter of time—sooner or later she was going to get the chance to ride one of them. Marie hopped up, like Gallus was the pony ride at the fair.
But he wasn’t. His coat of rich blue feathers was slippery in the night air, and there was nothing like a saddle. She couldn’t let her legs lean over his sides too far back, or else get in the way of his wings. Which were always moving.
“You said you were as heavy as six rocks? Must not have been very big rocks.” He bounded forward, spreading his wings. “Come on, Silverstream! Last one to the pond carries her back!”
Marie squeaked in surprise, feeling her own wings twitch and struggle madly under her shirt as Gallus shot upward into the air. All thoughts of what might be easier for him to deal with were abandoned, and instead she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung there for dear life. If the griffon even noticed what she was doing, he didn’t show it, just kept on rising into the air. Rose so high that she couldn’t even make out the dirt lane anymore, and the light of their stolen house was a faint speck on the right. But there was the reflection of moonlight on water from down below, surrounded by more trees for a bit before transitioning back to streets and lit buildings. But the lake itself was dark, only a few faint amber lights from some kind of structure, with no people in sight.
“Slow down!” she whimpered, but it didn’t seem like Gallus had heard. He tucked in his wings a bit, and shot almost straight down. Christ how can you move so fast? You’re gigantic!
She screamed in fear, but the chill air sucked that away too. It nearly ripped the backpack right off her back, and she certainly wasn’t going to do anything to try and hold onto it.
Only when she felt like she was about to make a colorful stain on the ground did Gallus finally level out, and somehow she was still clinging to him. A layer of water blurred by underneath, and he reached his claws in.
“I probably should’ve asked if humans are afraid of heights. Oops.”
“I’m not… I didn’t think I was,” she panted, trying to sit up. “That was… blimey. I thought I was dead.”
“Don’t be a fledgling, we barely even went that fast! Actually, I’m a little worried that…”
Silverstream had landed on a patch of sand near the shore, and was waving enthusiastically at them as they approached.
“Dangit. Not fast enough to win.”
Marie wanted to scream at him—but her throat felt like it had already been torn up by the trip, and so she only managed a glare at the back of his head.
A few seconds later they’d landed, and she rolled off his back and onto the ground. She practically smashed her face into the dirt, embracing it like it was her best friend. The creatures were still talking, but she ignored them for a bit, just lying there and appreciating that she was still alive.
This is what you wanted, isn’t it Marie? You wanted to be part of their world, now here you are. Flying with them. Learning their magic.
Seen through that lens, the flight wasn’t so bad. She was soaking wet and there were some dead bugs squished against her skin, but she had made it. I wonder if I can fly like that. Would she look like a monster long enough that she’d be able to learn to use them? Or were her wings even big enough?
“Uh… Merry?” Silverstream asked, and a claw nudged her in the shoulder. “Are you alright? Gallus didn’t make you sick, did he?”
“No.” She rolled over, looking up at the pink-feathered creature. She stumbled to her feet, brushing off the sand. “I’ve never been flying. It was just… a little new for me.”
“Just wait until you swim like a seapony,” Silverstream urged, rubbing past her as she approached the water. “It’s amazing! I almost like it more than flying, but… something tells me it won’t be quite so nice here. Water looks cold and muddy. We’ll probably just stay down long enough to get a few fish for tomorrow.”
Marie followed the creature to the edge of the water, at least until she got close. Then she jerked, squeaking quietly as she realized she hadn’t so much as turned on a torch in the entire flight over. The only light even remotely nearby was a tiny amber floodlight on the docks across the pond.
Is that why I don’t feel tired? Because it’s so bright outside? But why would it be any brighter?
“You probably shouldn’t wear so much when we go in,” Silverstream called, splashing at the edge of the water. “Gallus will stay up here to watch it, won’t you Gallus?”
“I, uh… yeah, of course! That’s… why I came. Watch the… human’s clothes. Exciting.”
Sorry. Marie winced, but she didn’t suggest they should do it any other way. She removed her boots one at a time, then her jacket, but the rest was harder. Even if she couldn’t see anyone but these creatures, what if somebody showed up? And Gallus was a boy!
“Tell him to look the other way,” she said. “I don’t want a boy to see me.”
“Why?” Silverstream tilted her head to one side, bounding up to Marie and making her feel even more embarrassed. “I’ve never tried the magic on a… human… before… but it won’t be different if he’s close. It’s safe! It’ll either be really easy or not work at all!”
Why don’t they— Then she realized, and felt even stupider for it. The aliens weren’t wearing anything. Not even Smolder, who walked around on two legs all the time. Their group had boys and girls, and none of them even noticed. I guess everybody in animal-land is a nudist. Maybe they just couldn’t get the clasps on underwear to tighten without any fingers?
“Please?” she asked, turning to the griffon. “It’s too complicated to explain. Just… please don’t watch.”
“Whatever.” He turned away with a sigh, stretching out on his belly and resting his head on his claws. “I’ll guard the pond while you’re in there.”
That was enough, and a few minutes later she was standing up to her knees in the freezing water.
The instant Marie had touched it, she wanted to turn and run back to shore—but she didn’t. “Now you need to stand close for this…” Silverstream said, holding out one claw. “Hold on and don’t let go until the magic stops, okay?”
“How will I know when it—” Then she felt the magic, and she didn’t wonder about anything anymore. It reminded her of her recent dream, when she’d been floating near the edge of death in a dark and lonely corner. But where that had taken hours, this was only a few seconds. A flash of light, a burning from her toes to her fingertips, and suddenly she couldn’t stand up.
Marie flopped to one side as her legs stopped being there anymore, vanishing into the murky water.
As her neck hit the water, Marie’s head stopped throbbing. It was so muddy, she could barely see anything—but there was another shape, moving up close and practically singing to her in Silverstream’s voice.
“It worked!” said the creature, her bright scales briefly visible through the muddy gloom. “I wasn’t even sure if it would—you humans are so strange. But look, you’ve got a tail and everything! Guess I shouldn’t have underestimated the Pearl.”
Marie looked down through the water, and found that Silverstream was right. Her legs were gone, but in their place was a single, powerful organ that seemed to know how to move without much effort on her part.
Oh my god. I’m a mermaid. How many old stories and myths could be explained with magic like this? And how many of the old stories must be true?
Now they just needed a real beach, a swimsuit, and Helen with the camera. “This is freshwater,” she said. Her voice still worked, though it didn’t sound quite the same. Like a whole new set of organs was producing it. “Would it work in the ocean too? If we went down to Brighton and into the water, we could…”
“Yep!” Silverstream circled around her, stirring up the mud and sleeping fish at the same time. That seemed to be her intention, because whenever they got too close she’d spear them or slice them with her beak, and add them to a growing collection.
“That’s where all the hippogriffs used to live, in a city under the ocean. There was this evil king, and a war, and…” She sighed, settling onto the mud beside Marie. “You probably don’t want to hear about that. Delicate little creatures like you. I don’t want to ruin your night.”
Marie wondered if her future self might’ve wished for better chosen first encounters with magic. Nearly dying in a dirty cave hadn’t been great, and now there was a freezing cold muddy pond. At least whatever strange property kept the night from getting dark worked underwater too, though it didn’t let her see through mud and slime as well as simple darkness.
Once Silverstream was satisfied with their catch, she returned them to the surface, with another surge of magic much like the first. Marie’s clothes hadn’t been moved, and a few minutes later she was damp and muddy, but dressed.
She’d left the jacket off, relying on the slits she’d cut in her blouse to give her wings a little more time to breathe. It was colder, but the light smattering of rain was nothing like the night before. She hardly even felt a little rain when she’d spent so much time submerged.
As before, Gallus had taken a few steps closer to the water, where he gutted and washed each of the fish using a camp hose. Those claws didn’t just look sharp, and he processed each catch with the precision of someone who’d been doing it their whole life.
But Silverstream remained beside Marie, grinning proudly at their job well done. “Did that help?” she asked, curious. “Do you think you know how changeling magic works now?”
“I…” She hesitated. She had experienced two separate instances of magic, and she knew from watching Ocellus that a change was possible. Maybe if she just… “I could try,” she muttered, looking down. “But… I’m feeling pretty worn out now. Maybe I’ll practice tomorrow.”
“Might be a good idea,” Silverstream said. “It is late for a pony. You humans seem more like ponies to me than like predators, so probably you’re pretty tired.”
She would’ve been right, before. Marie didn’t even know what time it was right now. But she wasn’t about to refuse an obvious excuse to get what she wanted. “Yeah,” she said, voice weak. “Tired. I’m pretty tired.”
Then she spun on her heels, suddenly facing away from the water. A single figure emerged from the connected string of camping trails. She could sense the curiosity and suspicion from them even before her eyes settled on him. But just as with the magical creatures, a person seemed to light up the world they were standing in. Bright yellow reflective vest, green grass at his feet, and an oversized flashlight in one hand.
“Oi! You there!” He flashed it through the gloom, towards where they were standing.
Marie felt the air behind her ripple, and heard the splash right as brilliant white light blinded her, and she shielded her eyes with the back of one arm.
“I see ya there young miss!” he said, hurrying to close the distance between them. He leaned forward, muttering something briefly into the top of his vest as he went. “Got an unattended child here. Best be sending another officer.”
He lowered the flashlight a little, no longer pointing it at her face. Marie kept backing away, glancing once to the side, where Gallus had been. There was still a pile of freshly-gutted fish, half filling the decorative basket they’d stolen from the house to carry them in. But the huge bird himself was nowhere to be seen.
Did they abandon me?
She tried to feel around for them without looking, and this time she had a little more luck. There was at least one set of emotions in the water, nervous fear and a little guilt. She was bloody fast, jumping like that.
“You come from one of the campsites, miss?” The officer kept trying to get closer, and she kept her arm up over her eyes. But if he walked even a little bit to the side, he’d see the wings behind her.
“Y-yeah!” She wasn’t a very good liar, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. “Just from over there! I’ll… I should probably get back. My mum don’t know I’m gone, she’ll probably be missing me.”
The officer nodded. “Come on then, why don’t we walk back together. I’d like to have a word with her.”
Bloody hell. The trail through the various rental cabins and campsites, all of which would take her more than a few steps from the water and her new friends. If she walked away, this policeman would quickly realize that she wasn’t really camping here. If he got within reach, he’d notice her wings. Maybe he would think she was wearing a costume or something, but the eyes… those would be harder to dismiss. Maybe I can make a run for the water.
“Y-yeah…” She started walking backwards towards the trail, though mostly it was sideways along the water. So long as she stayed close, she could get away. She just needed him to look away from her…
“Real bad time to be off on yer own,” he was saying. The officer wasn’t shining the light in her face anymore, and hadn’t gone for his baton. He didn’t think she was a threat. “Have you heard what’s been goin’ on in the rest of the country? Floods up an’ down the coast, thousands stranded without power. Like those hurricanes yer always hearin’ about in the tropics, ‘cept we ain’t in the tropics. Time like this, safest place for a girl like you is with her family. They’ll be closing this campsite tomorrow morning. Good warning to get that packing up done, I say.”
At least he liked the sound of his own voice. He liked it so much that while he was watching her, he didn’t notice Gallus sneaking up behind him. The bird crept through the sand, reached up right behind the officer, and yanked on his boots with a single, decisive tug.
The poor man went down with a yelp and a gasp, his flashlight tumbling out of his hand and splashing into the water.
“Get on, Merry!” Silverstream yelled from beside her, emerging from the water dripping wet but on four legs again. Marie didn’t even think about her fears this time, just leapt to the side and flung her arms around the hippogriff. Whatever fear she might’ve felt about heights or slipping off mid-flight was forgotten as they shot up into the air, trailed by confused shouts and the flash of the torch all the way.
“That was exciting!” Silverstream said, not actually turning her head back to talk. She wasn’t flying as fast as Gallus had earlier, just coasting along above the rooftops. “I’m glad that one didn’t have the thing they used on Smolder. Anything that could break a dragon’s scale would’ve been really bad if it hit you.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “You mean a gun? I’m eleven, Silverstream. He wouldn’t have used it on me even if he had it.” They’d already left the lake behind, but she hadn’t heard the sound of anything following them but shouts. “I’m more worried that he might’ve got a picture or something. Ocellus still looks like me, and Security Services already interviewed her once.” She trailed off, adjusting her grip on Silverstream’s back. The hippogriff was a little smaller and more graceful than the male, which meant her size worked out better for riding. She didn’t seem to be struggling with her weight either.
Yet for once, Marie’s own wings didn’t feel trapped. The air flowing around them made her want to spread them out, try a little of this for herself…
Until she looked down. They were perhaps two hundred meters up, high enough that the rooftops and trees down below seemed like sharpened spikes. Why don’t I learn that on the ground, before I find out if I can do it?
“Couldn’t get the fish,” Gallus said, skimming along beside them. His voice seemed pained, frustrated. “It was either dinner, or her.”
“I’ll make do with leftovers,” Silverstream answered, without bitterness. “We almost never got very interesting food living at the school anyway. I’ll just have to eat things with… legs.” She swallowed, and Marie could sense a wave of disgust from her. The thought made her queasy.
Why should you care? Eagles eat rodents and fish just as easily.
“Thanks for taking me,” Marie said, not needing to yell quite so much thanks to their slower speed. “I’m sorry I ruined your fishing trip.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” Gallus said wistfully. “And there’s that settlement of humans nearby. You’re human, maybe you could get some food from them like you did before.”
“I, uh…” She blushed, gripping onto Silverstream’s back a little tighter. “After tonight, they’ll probably be on the lookout for someone who looks like me, dressed like me. I probably shouldn’t make their job easier by going into town.”
“Right.”
They didn’t have much further to fly—what would’ve taken two hours to walk was only a few more moments in the air. Marie couldn’t tell their stolen cabin apart from many identical others, but that didn’t matter. The creatures she was traveling with had distinct emotions that weren’t quite duplicated by any humans. She would’ve known that Smolder the Dragon was in that house even with her eyes closed.
“Bloody hell, I left my jacket back there,” Marie realized, her voice bitter. “I should’ve put it on right away.” Now that the shock and adrenaline was wearing off, she was starting to feel the cold again.
There are blankets back there, anyway. I can be warm.
It was what she had asked for, being part of their world. Now if she could only be brave enough to see if she’d actually learned anything…
Marie’s human mother didn’t harass her again for the rest of the day. In some ways, the human reminded her of what Twilight Sparkle might’ve been like, if she took away all the friendship, all the kindness, and all the organizational skill, and left only the desire to teach and lecture.
But poor Ocellus wasn’t bored with the experience, because her mind was elsewhere. She had finally found a useful book, and she had been reading. If she had a way to contact her friends without going through Marie, she would’ve already done so. We’re in danger. I had no idea we were in so much danger.
She hadn’t actually gotten much past the end of what the textbook called “WW2.” If these were the ancient days, when changelings simply wanted to harvest from the lands they lived in, and Ocellus had been sent in to see how valuable they might be, Ocellus would’ve been the loudest voice begging to turn around and leave. This is too dangerous.
This was the secret to why she had never heard of humans before. It wasn’t that their lands weren’t interesting, or that there might not be valuable resources here. It wasn’t that their brilliantly clever inventions wouldn’t have interested the ponies back home.
It was a warning, a warning put in place for their protection.
And now Equestria is here with us. It attacked the coast of their country with huge waves of water, flooded humans out of their homes, killed them.
If nothing else, getting Equestria invaded because of their term project would probably set a record for the worst things could possibly go. Ocellus and the others could go into the history-books, right before humans burned the whole library.
Looking across the table at Marie’s mother, she no longer saw her as delicate and cute, even with the edge pudge on this particular human. She could still see the text of the history book flashing in front of her, along with the pictures of the front. This is what they show their foals. Why?
If that was the war of seventy years ago, she could only imagine what might have happened after that. Most of the book was still left to go!
But then the meal was over, and the woman had sent her to bed. Ocellus lay awake on the soft bed, with the textbook still open in front of her. She was so distracted that she almost failed to hear the little rapping sounds on the window.
But she did hear. Ocellus frowned, crawling over to peek outside. Right on the other side of the glass was David and Helen, Marie’s human friends. They were crouched in the plants, looking in at her.
David held up his magical pad—the thing Ocellus now knew was called a “phone.” There were words written on it. “There’s no alarm on the bathroom window. You can get out that way.”
Some part of her wanted to ignore them—to curl up and sleep away the things she’d just read. But she would still be here in the morning—unless she intended to leave Marie to her fate.
It doesn’t matter what people in a book did, or even what she’s like. Changelings used to be bad too, didn’t they? Maybe… they just need some friendship lessons. It seemed like something Twilight would’ve said. It would have to do.
“I’m coming,” she mouthed, before opening the door a crack and creeping away down the hall.
Ocellus heard no sound from the house, and sensed nothing from the human’s mother that suggested she might be about to wake. Marie had begged her not to get her into more trouble, but Ocellus no longer cared. Is this how other creatures felt about old changelings? We seemed smaller, harmless. But we were one of the most dangerous things Equestria ever faced.
They’d only been the warm-up.
Ocellus locked the bathroom door behind her, then crossed to the window. She could see why there was no security spell on it—it was only two hooves tall, the entire thing opaque so she wouldn’t be able to see messages through it. But Ocellus wasn’t restricted to what humans could do. She pulled the window open all the way, and felt the cool night air begin to rush in.
“Have you been—” But she wasn’t even listening. Ocellus changed swiftly, back into a raven. The opening near the window was large enough for that.
It was a good thing she could copy their clothes too. Nothing in her books had said it explicitly, but it had been almost a full day now and she had never seen a human without their clothing. She reformed into Marie, complete with boots, dress, and jacket. “Easier than whispering through a window.”
Both humans jumped in surprise, though the girl was clearly more confused. “Blimey, about gave me a heart attack. You just… right through the window. Christ.”
David rested one hand on her shoulder, trying to be comforting. “Ocellus… sorry, it’s just a little weird to be looking at Marie when I know she isn’t. You just flew through a window.”
“Through an open window,” she corrected. She took in their emotional states in an instant—mostly fear and concern for Marie. A little of that bled off on her, but only a little since they knew she wasn’t the real thing. “A unicorn could teleport through it. But teleportation is hard, and I’d have to look like a unicorn to try a spell like that.”
“Of course she’s talking about magic.” Helen had apparently recovered enough to be angry again.
David glared back at her. “We’re here because we weren’t sure you knew,” David said. “And to give you this.” He held something up in one hand—a magical tablet, like the ones they used. It was a little thicker around the edges, and looked heavier, but it was still strange and interesting enough for Ocellus’s fascination with the new and different to rise up through her anger. She took it, and it seemed to know it was being held, because it lit up. There were lots of little squares, each one with tiny writing underneath. No pony hoof could’ve manipulated it, and the delicate screen felt like a claw would’ve torn right through. But her soft pink hands were perfect, and it obeyed her.
“This is how we stay in touch,” Helen said, begrudgingly. “If you go to the messenger, you’ll see group text. You, me, David are all there. Marie too, once we get her a replacement. That’s one of my old phones, so it doesn’t matter if you break it. But not until we get our friend back, please.”
“Stop it,” David hissed. “This isn’t how you get somebody to help us. Be nice.” Then he turned back to Ocellus. “Have you been following the news? About your country?”
Ocellus shook her head. “I was locked in a room as soon as Marie’s mother took me in there.” It was the worst thing in the world. Changelings aren’t supposed to be alone. But unlike Helen, Ocellus could keep her mouth closed when she had something mean to say. “My country… you mean Equestria? I saw that it appeared in the ocean, that’s all I know.” She also wasn’t going to point out that it wasn’t her country. Given what she’d just read, the less these humans learned about them, the better.
David folded his arms, radiating smugness. His companion turned away, muttering something she didn’t quite catch. Sounded like an excuse, whatever it was. “We just… wanted to be sure you knew.” He took the phone from her gently, showing her how to get to “news.” It opened, and suddenly there were moving pictures in front of her. Vast metal ships, as big as an entire town, and metal birds as big as the one she’d seen over the cave. “NATO MOBILIZES FOR DEFENSE OF NORTH SEA” read the text.
Here we go. It was exactly what she had feared from her reading, confirmed by the human foals without even an invitation. “They’re going to attack us,” she said, voice weak. “They’re going to invade Equestria just like they invaded Poland.”
Ocellus expected a harsh reaction from these humans—she was finally confronting them, after all. Even young ones could be dangerous, and they were certainly telling her about dangerous things. But to her astonishment, they both started laughing. David more than Helen, who seemed to be more laughing along because he thought it was funny.
“You mean the Nazis?” David asked, still on the edge of breaking down into hysterical laughter again. “Ocellus, we, uh… we beat them. They’re gone.”
What? Ocellus thought she understood, but much about that war hadn’t made sense to her. “They looked like you, didn’t they? Same tribe of humans? Don’t try to tell me you aren’t—” But the more she thought about it, the more of what she’d read no longer made sense in her mind. It had been a terrible war all right, but there had been no mention of any other tribes. “You mean you didn’t build… camps?”
“No.” Helen rested one hand on her shoulder, forcing her to meet her eyes. “Fairy, listen to me. I think you’ve gone and gotten yerself right confused. Whatever you read—it was real. All those bad things happened. But not here. Ones who did it ‘re dead. Why don’t you… take a few deep breaths. David loves old stuff, I’m sure he can help you understand.”
They couldn’t go far—not when Ocellus might need to slip back inside at any moment. They couldn’t be too loud, lest they be overheard through the wall. But she could still ask her questions. After talking for so long that Helen got bored and slumped against David to doze, she was satisfied that she understood.
Of course, they might still be lying to her. But David never felt once like he was manipulating information. His feelings for her were entirely confusion, concern, and that recurring amusement.
But when she understood, it wasn’t like she thought all the danger was gone. It had just been focused. “That thing you showed me, on the… ph-one.” She held it out, so David could demonstrate again. She wasn’t a quick learner with magical objects. He had to move his finger along the surface a little more this time, showing off how to move further back past newer stories about “coastal evacuation centers.”
“So this headline…” That much was easy to understand. It was like a newspaper in Equestria, but instant and delivered to everyone. “What does it mean?”
“That people are scared of you. Equestria—it just sorta showed up. It appeared in water everyone thought was safe. People died. I know there are people who will see it like an attack.”
“Our leaders are trying to talk to yours,” Ocellus said, before she realized what she was doing. No use trying to hide it. Marie knows everything the message said. I wonder if the others would hide things from her if I asked them to.
But now she had slightly less reason to be worried. Humans weren’t any less dangerous, but their violence wasn’t going to be targeted at random. They could be made to stop, maybe. If they understood. We were the ones who scared them when we got here. They didn’t use weapons until Smolder shot fire at them.
“I think we need to get back,” Ocellus muttered. “Or… at least to call Equestria. That emergency scroll… I need to tell Twilight what I’ve learned with it. Her note said that ponies would die if we asked for her, but even more are going to die if we don’t stop this. Maybe we could… give them a way to talk to you. Does the phone say they’re fighting?”
David shook his head. “Nothing about an invasion. They just want to be in the water nearby in case anything bad happens. At least—that’s what they’re telling us. No way to know if it’s the truth.”
“My friends can’t do this,” she said. “But I can. I’m going to have to go to them.” Ocellus felt a wave of guilt at what she knew this meant. She was going to make things worse between Marie and her mother. I already saved your life. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your relationship too.
“I’m going to them,” Ocellus declared, loud enough that Helen jerked suddenly into a sitting position from where she’d been resting against David.
“You, uh…” Helen trailed off. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Marie’s cover—”
“I’m sorry about Marie,” she answered, rising from where she’d been sitting in the bushes, plucking a few twigs from her hair. “But ponies could die. We need to call Twilight Sparkle here, and I need to help her understand humans. Maybe give her some of your magic, so she can talk to the… NATO… in the water.”
If she expected more of an argument, she was disappointed. “That makes sense.” David sounded wistful. “Hopefully you’ve got a couch or something Marie can use in Equestria, because her mother is going to want to murder her after this.”
“I guess I should call the car.” Helen yawned, stretched, then started fiddling with her phone. “Come on, end of the street. That mad bitch inside knows what the engine sounds like, and I swear she’d come runnin’.”
They didn’t try to send her back inside, where the real pajamas she’d been wearing were still lying on the locked bathroom floor. Ocellus didn’t even want to imagine what Marie’s mother would think of that.
At the end of the lane was another one of the magical human carriages, though this one seemed to be one of only a few on the road so late at night. It pulled to the side of the huge stone road, and a taller human woman got out. “Where are we going now, miss?”
Helen barely even seemed to see her. “I dunno. Ask Marie. Err… ask not-Marie.”
Confusion from the woman, who clearly hadn’t expected that response. She glanced between them, eyes eventually settling on Ocellus. “Where are we going?”
“Uh… that way.” She pointed in the direction she could feel Marie, even if the human was asleep. The only other changeling in this part of the world was impossible to miss. “I don’t know how far. But that way.”
The woman looked desperate, and her confusion was thick enough on the air to taste. “Y-young miss, are you quite certain…”
“Yes.” She didn’t even hesitate. “Just do your best I guess. But, uh… maybe some ice cream first. If it’s on the way.”
Ocellus climbed in along with the others, and the woman returned to her seat at the controls. There was another separator like in the car the “MI5” agents had used, so once again the mysteries of how to operate one of the mechanical carriages were not shown to her very clearly. But at least these seats were comfortable, instead of the hard plastic from before.
Despite her confusion, the woman operating this vehicle proved to know exactly what she was doing. Their great speed didn’t send them tumbling off the edge of the road into the void.
Ocellus needed little sleep, but her human companions swiftly began to doze. She let them rest, answering the occasional questions from up front, and watching the human country she now knew was called Great Britain blur by outside.
Now we only need to get back in time to make a difference.
They drove. Ocellus had lost track of just how long they’d been driving—long enough that some part of her just wanted to get out and fly. But however much she wanted to leave the humans behind, these were also the only intact humans she’d met so far that were friendly. There’s no telling what happened to Marie’s mind after what I did to her.
It was selfish reasoning—probably they would’ve been safer to leave behind. But somehow she didn’t think they would’ve agreed. They wanted their friend back. I was wrong about how much you humans need friendship school. They’d come for her in the middle of the night, despite the dangers hunting them. They were coming now, across the whole country. That kind of loyalty would’ve made even Professor Dash proud.
Ocellus winced, looking up with a squeak. She felt some of that emotion on her now, the same way a changeling always did when another creature felt emotions for the one they were pretending to be. It was badly-needed food after a bitter evening with Marie’s mom, and it was coming from David just beside her.
“That isn’t your snoring?” Ocellus asked in a whisper, glancing to one side. She could feel the human’s weight against her side, and now he shifted, embarrassment flooding him.
“N-no.” His voice was just as quiet, and the snoring didn’t stop. It was coming from the bench seat across from them, where Helen was sprawled with a jacket rolled up under her head. “Sorry. Was just… adjusting my music.”
An obvious lie, she could tell that without her magic. But now he was shuffling with the phone. Ocellus hadn’t noticed, but… there was a little string running out of it, straight into both of his ears. More human magic?
“Music? You want to sing together? I thought only ponies did that.”
“U-uh…” He blushed, then pulled out the string furthest from her. There was a little piece of plastic on the end of the string, a little thicker than the rest of it. “Can I?” He didn’t wait for her permission, just reached up and settled the thing into her ear.
Ocellus’s ears went as wide as saucers as the sound washed over her. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before—instruments that Equestria had no names for, perfectly structured sound mixed with a single human singing as in-tune as a pony could. Ocellus tensed, expecting the flood of emotion she felt to bring magic with it—but none came, other than the magic radiating from David beside her.
“What is this?” Was her mouth watering? She closed it, swallowing. Stupid old habits.
“Do you… not have music?” David’s eyebrows went up, his embarrassment vanishing. Good. Tastes better this way.
“Of course we do!” Ocellus stuck her tongue out at him for a few seconds. “Just… not like this. Is there more?”
He played more, a seemingly endless array of sounds echoing out from between the little white string attached to the phone. They have as many sounds as they have machines!
Occasionally they were interrupted—usually when the driver asked for clarification on directions. But Helen kept snoring, and Ocellus kept listening. She hardly even noticed as she curled up with David on the other seat, resting against his chest as she selected the next piece of music from his phone.
“I don’t understand…” Ocellus muttered, as the first light of dawn began to shine in through the windows. They were made of a strange glass, one that didn’t let in much of the light. It didn’t hurt the way she expected it to. “How can… how can you be the same creatures?”
“Same creatures as…”
She shook her head, navigating it to the same magical newspaper he’d used, until she found a picture with the metal ships. “One minute you’re making such beautiful music… then you go and make these! Why can’t you make up your mind?”
David met her eyes with innocent confusion. There was no manipulation there now. He actually didn’t understand why she was so upset. “If you think that’s cool, wait until you watch a movie. Uh… do you think we have time for…” He caught the phone in his hand, and hers too.
David froze, eyes widening. Ocellus still felt like she knew almost nothing about humans, but this… she didn’t need to have read in any book to know this wasn’t something that was supposed to happen by accident.
She let go, blushing involuntarily. “I, uh…” She looked away. “I’m sorry. I’m… still getting used to looking like this. It’s… confusing.”
“Yeah.” He sat back against the seat, pulling out the string that sounded like a whole band in Ocellus’s ear, and wrapping it up around the phone as though it were nothing more important than a minor accessory. “Confusing for us too. My dad says it will be easier when I get older, but I don’t believe him. He seems just as confused as I am, just about different things.”
Across the car, Helen wasn’t snoring anymore. Without knowing why she knew it, Ocellus pulled suddenly to one side, so that she wasn’t so much as touching David’s knee anymore. As the human girl yawned and sat up, the two of them were looking away from each other, without any sign of what had just happened.
“How close are we?” Helen asked, glancing out the window once and rubbing at her eyes.
“Uh…” Ocellus concentrated, then pointed. “Very! Next time we get a chance to turn that way, then… just a little distance away.
The dense human city had given way to rolling, comfortable countryside, with only an occasional human house with little lights on in the windows. The roads were smaller here, and the other cars riding down them rarer. More often than not they were big and blocky, with stern-looking humans sometimes visible inside.
But none of them seemed to be headed the same way they were, because the little dirt road they turned onto had no sign other cars had used it recently. There were none parked along it, and no army of angry humans ready to do… who knew what?
Her friends had found a much better place to hide than some damp cave—this house looked quite comfortable. A little like Fluttershy’s cabin, except that there were no stables for visiting animals.
About time I see them again. I only wish it was under better circumstances.
Something hit her as they neared the house—a wave of intense suspicion so powerful she covered her face with one arm and whimpered. Where was it coming from? She looked around… and just as quickly, it was gone.
“You all right, mate?” Helen asked. “Look a bit queasy there. Did ya’ not get enough sleep?”
Ocellus shook her head, and as she did so the foreign pressure on her mind cleared. She leaned out the window, searching for what could’ve produced it—but there was nothing there.
Are you trying to reach me from home, Uncle? You could’ve chosen a more positive emotion to send. “It was nothing,” she said. “Just… let’s go check on your friend.”
“You mean teach her to be normal again, right?” Helen asked. “You promised you would.”
“Right,” she lied. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Marie didn’t hear the car approach from down the path, not with the telly playing so loudly in the living room. But then her friends got close, and she found she knew instantly that someone was about to open the door.
“Something’s coming,” Smolder said, peeking through the blinds. “Can’t tell if I’ve seen those humans before or not.”
“You have,” Marie said, taking the pan she was working on off the heat. She’d woken up this morning to a kitchen with a few food items waiting for her—eggs, milk, cheese, and potatoes, and a smug dragon with her claws propped up on the table. She hadn’t said where she got them, only that “no one saw.” “It’s Ocellus and my friends.”
“Oh, good. ‘Bout time she get here.”
But now breakfast would have to wait, because they were getting visitors. Her friends were there, but they weren’t alone… “Ocellus? My mum let you go cross country in the middle of the night?”
It was too good to be true, impossible to believe. It was possible she’d be allowed out of the house like this on a school trip, but that was it. Helen brought you here.
“Not exactly,” came the voice in her mind, all the confirmation she needed. “I’m sorry, Marie. But this is bigger than you and me. Our countries could go to war if we don’t stop it. Do you want that?”
“No!” she answered instantly, but almost as soon as she’d said it she felt resentment settle on her. Obviously she didn’t want war, she didn’t want anyone to be hurt. But why should stopping it be her job?
The door opened, and their three visitors hurried inside. Ocellus seemed to be rushing them, and she shut the door with a decisive click.
Marie just stood in place, watching dumbfounded as her identical copy walked in wearing one of her dresses. Well, not quite identical anymore. “Marie” still had blue eyes, and there were no transparent wings on her back. There was nothing unusual about her, nothing magical or supernatural. I guess I can see why you fooled my mum.
“Marie!” Helen was the first through the doorway, hurrying over to her and wrapping her arms around her shoulder. Her friend didn’t react to the wings, or her eyes, or anything else. Her floral outfit was a bright patch of blue and pink in an otherwise monochrome world.
“Helen.” She returned the hug, squeezing tightly. She no longer felt any desire to finish cooking her omelette. “What are you doing here?”
“No idea.” The girl held on for a few more moments, a hug suggesting months and months apart instead of not quite a day. “Ask the changeling. Probably somethin’ about stealing babies or going Underhill.”
“No.” Ocellus stopped on the other side of the door, a little closer to David than either of them. “To send a message back to Equestria. Those ponies have no idea what you humans are like… and now we do.” She closed her eyes, and in a second the pastel blue and pink quadruped had returned, without any trace of the clothes she’d been wearing.
Smolder hopped off the counter. “Enjoy your vacation Ocellus?”
“Very funny.” She walked past her. “Whoever has the emergency scroll, get it right now! We’re writing back to Twilight.”
Marie looked up, expecting Smolder to object. The dragon had always seemed like their leader. But she didn’t argue, didn’t so much as feel resentment. Only concern, and maybe a greenish twinge of fear underneath, well buried.
“What’s so important?” Silverstream asked, climbing up over the edge of the couch. “Are we in danger, Ocellus?”
“Not us,” the changeling answered, clearing the half-finished puzzle away onto the floor without so much as a second’s hesitation. “Bring me the scroll, you can read what I write. We can’t risk anything stopping us.”
Sandbar produced it from somewhere, and breakfast was suddenly forgotten. Every strange creature gathered around to see what Ocellus was writing.
Not Marie, though. She backed away, over to where her friends were standing in the doorway. She could feel their eyes on her—David most of all.
Marie had expected this, though. Knowing about David’s crush was one thing, but sensing it…
“Does it… hurt?” he asked, reaching up with one hand and touching his forehead.
“O-oh, that?” She imitated him, touching the black chitin with two fingers. “No, doesn’t hurt. Wings don’t much like being under a top, but they don’t hurt when they’re out like this.”
“Can ‘ya fly?” Helen asked. “I mean… obviously we have so many more important things to be worryin’ about right now. But if ya’ happened to try it.”
She shook her head. “Gallus and Silverstream can fly, and I rode on their backs last night. But… I haven’t tried it on my own. Don’t much see how I could, with little wings like mine.”
“Oh, like that matters a lick.” Helen made a dismissive gesture. “Yer a fae lady now, Marie. Fae ladies don’t much care fer what no scientist says can fly. Just watch the movie about the bees, see if they care.”
“I haven’t tried,” she said, before her friend could start quoting it. “I’ve been trying to learn the transformation thing more. So I can…” She didn’t need to finish her sentence. The others nodded sympathetically.
Helen wrapped one arm around her shoulder, squeezing. “We tried to tell ‘er not to go, Marie. But she seemed so caught up on… endin’ the world er somesuch.”
“She thinks her country won’t understand us without her help,” David supplied. “Maybe she’s right, what do we know? Sucks that you have to be the one to suffer because of it, though.”
“It’s… no big deal,” she lied. “I’m just happy to see you two again.” And that part wasn’t a lie.
“Done,” Ocellus declared, rising from the table and passing the scroll in her magic towards Smolder. “Here.”
There was limited space on the scroll, and Ocellus concentrated with all her magic, writing as tiny and neatly as she could.
“Dear Princess Twilight,
We’re writing to you not because we’re in immediate danger, but because we believe Equestria is. It’s possible you have already made contact with the humans and we’re wasting the scroll. If so, we’re sorry.
Earth is not like Equestria. You can already see how small Equestria is compared to Earth continents. That space isn’t empty—there are billions of humans living here. They may look small, but they’re smart and extremely dangerous. Don’t take their lack of physical strength or magic to mean Equestria should use its magic against them.
I’ve read about their wars. We’re already beginning at a disadvantage with the damage our arrival here caused. If you’re not careful, you could give them an excuse to invade Equestria.
We will not win. Do everything you can to prevent a war from starting. They have thousands of years of practice killing each other, and they’ll use it on you if you’re not careful.
We found a group of friendly humans who have been helping. I think we’re hidden for now, don’t worry about us.
-Your students”
There was more she wanted to say, but if she wrote any tighter, her words would’ve started blurring together, confusing the meaning.
“You’re… completely sure about this?” Smolder asked, taking the scroll and holding it in one of her claws. Her eyes were on Marie on the other side of the room, talking to her friends. “Your letter sounds like it’s about… the most dangerous creatures ever. I’ve heard ponies talk like that… about dragons.”
“Positive,” Ocellus said. “I’ve been around them. I spent most of yesterday reading their books. Not all of it made sense to me, but enough did. They had…” She shivered, lowering her voice. “Pictures. There was proof right in the book. They weren’t even trying to hide it.”
“So freaking out like this… was all because you read one book?”
“No…” Ocellus whined, walking over to the other side of the room where she’d changed. She lifted up the phone from where it had fallen, unaffected by her transformation. She walked it back, holding it between her friends.
“Look at this. This is what the humans are doing.”
“First sign of life emerges from new continent as ships may be approaching the blockade.”
“Alright Ocellus,” Sandbar said. “I can see how sure you are. But if anything goes wrong… this isn’t what we’ve seen from our human. Marie isn’t dangerous. Was she dangerous, Gallus?”
“No,” he said, after a second’s consideration. “She’s a bit awkward. Delicate, even. You should’ve heard how afraid she was in the air.”
“See?” Smolder held up the scroll, then exhaled.
The scroll vanished in a flash of dragonfire, and with it Ocellus felt a wave of relief. The danger to Equestria was certainly not gone just because she’d written a little on a scroll and given Twilight some suggestions. But at least this way, if anything bad happened, she wouldn’t have to live the rest of her life destroyed with guilt over failing to act.
“Fine,” Ocellus muttered. “If I’m wrong, it’s me who’s wrong. But I won’t be, trust me. This is like Cozy Glow, but a hundred times worse. They’re not hiding what they are, they’re just… they’ve made this world dangerous. Equestria needs to understand those dangers.”
Almost the moment she said it, there was knocking on the door. Four bangs sounded in swift succession, so hard that the whole house seemed to shake. The humans in front of it backed up, Marie lifting her wings and squeaking in fear.
“Back of the house.” Ocellus pointed to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Be ready to…” to what? She didn’t even know how to finish the sentence.
That wasn’t Helen’s driver at the door, she was sure of that.
Her mind raced. What kind of spell can we use? Should we fight? What can we do?
“Security service!” came a loud voice from the other side of the door. “Open this, or we’ll open it ourselves. Right now!”
There was no basement, no secret tunnel, no nothing. Ocellus’s instincts demanded that she flee—maybe hide under something as a mouse until the danger was past. But she wouldn’t abandon her friends, she couldn’t.
“Okay, Ocellus,” Smolder said, hurrying back with the others. “But if you fight, we’ll fight too. You know we will.”
Ocellus reached the door, then pointed backward. “Marie, you too. Run.” It might not do any good. But maybe… maybe the three of them… Ocellus herself changed back into the copy of Marie as rapidly as she could, so quickly that she didn’t even have to concentrate much.
She waited until Marie was out of sight, before stepping forward and opening the door.
She instantly recognized the men standing there—Agents Smith and Hayes, the ones who had taken them away from the forest. There was a flicker of motion from the trees around them, and Ocellus’s eyes widened. There were only two humans visible here, but she could sense many more. The house was surrounded on all sides. The humans were keeping their distance for now, but for how long?
“Hello there, Marie,” said Mr. Smith, smiling as though this meeting had been scheduled all along. “Bit of a long way from home, ‘ent ya? Bet your mother is worried sick.”
Without any signal to them, the humans moved in, blocking the entrance. It was three of them against two taller, stronger, presumably armed humans. Just as before, neither of them had visible weapons she could see.
“I’m afraid we have to come inside,” Smith said, taking one step towards her. Maybe he expected Ocellus to be intimidated and retreat—but she didn’t move. He’d have to knock her right over to get in.
“I don’t know how much the three of you know, or how much you think you know… but right now the safety of the global community might depend on what’s inside this house.” Hayes stepped up beside his partner, resting one hand on the inside of the doorframe. There would be no shutting them out anymore.
And it won’t make a difference. How did they find us here? Ocellus remembered the brief flash of emotion she’d felt as she neared the building. What she’d assumed to be a message from home clearly wasn’t, though it wasn’t as though they could’ve done anything then.
Except warn Twilight that we’re in danger. We could’ve got a rescue. A rescue they now desperately needed. How long does it take to get a scroll, anyway? But she couldn’t even hope for that, because she had just said that they thought they were hidden and wouldn’t need help.
“Don’t try to escape,” Ocellus sent into the backroom, counting on Marie to repeat it for her. “The forest around this house is full of them. I don’t know what they’ll do if you run, but I can feel their fear.”
“I feel them too,” Marie responded, without further argument.
“What happened to me bloody housekeeper?” Helen asked, gesturing at the car. “Nobody’s in there no more. Did ‘ya hurt her?”
“Of course not,” Smith answered, folding his arms. “But this house is dangerous, and we’ve helped her get away. We will help you too, once we have an honest conversation. Not like the stories you spun earlier. Can you do honest?”
“What makes you think we—” But Ocellus cut David off with her arm.
They only had two choices left. Either fight their way out, or tell the truth. Even if we win this fight with our magic, we won’t win the next one. Time to follow my own advice.
“Can you promise me you won’t hurt anyone in the house?” Ocellus asked. She stuck out her hand—the symbol she now knew meant something to the humans. Of course she was no unicorn to cast a Geis on them—but she knew a lie when she heard one.
“During our conversation,” Hayes said. “I can see you’re all quite grown up. So we’ll have a grown-up talk. What happens after that depends on what you tell us.” He went for her hand, but Ocellus pulled back.
“First I want you to tell the soldiers sneaking all around us not to barge in while we’re talking.”
A flash of panic and confusion passed between the two agents, but it didn’t last long. Discipline quickly reasserted itself, and Mr. Smith lifted his hand to one side, as if scratching at an ear. “There.”
He wasn’t lying to her, though an undercurrent of scheming and calculation was now passing between them.
Nothing we can do about it. Just have to try to make our case before this turns into a fight. “Then… come inside,” Ocellus said, moving out of the way.
The agents stepped in, eyes taking in the details of the kitchen in quick, discerning sweeps. They saw the breakfast cooking, the damaged floor and tables, and probably the smell as well from their expressions.
It’s not my friends’ faults human showers are too small!
One thing they didn’t do was shut the door, leaving the chill outside to follow them in.
“You sure about this?” David asked her, reaching over and taking her hand. “They came in without a police backup. I don’t think this is how it’s supposed to be.”
“Nothin’ fer it, mate,” Helen whispered back. “Fairy girl wants to spill. Probably we should. Cooperate… maybe we don’t go to prison, ya’ know?”
“Like you’d go,” David shot back. “Rich girl wouldn’t even get a slap on the wrist.”
Ocellus ignored them both, following the agents inside. They didn’t seem as interested in talking so much as investigating the place, eyes scanning the destroyed living room, torn up couch, and the discarded remnants of Smolder’s hunting from the night before out the back garden window.
But the bedroom hallway had a door, and it was clearly locked from the annoyed expression on Smith’s face as he stepped away from it.
“Ask your questions,” Ocellus said, hopping up on the kitchen cupboard and folding her arms. David walked past her, gently pulling blinds closed. “It’s me you want, not these two. Helen and David just found us. I’m one of the creatures you’re hunting.”
They don’t like it when he does that. Probably a good reason for him to keep going.
Agent Hayes pulled over a chair, but he didn’t sit on it. Just put it between himself and Ocellus. A makeshift weapon. “Your accent… you’re American? Marie isn’t American—her records are legitimate. She was born in Brighton. Have you done something with her?”
“I haven’t hurt her,” Ocellus lied. “She is in the bedroom, there. Along with my friends.”
“I would really like to see her,” Hayes said. “And to know what you’ve done to look so much like her.”
“After,” Ocellus said. “There are other things you need to know, things that are more important.”
Helen pulled over one of the other kitchen chairs. She set out her phone on the table, its screen on. Ocellus didn’t see what she was doing, but she didn’t really look.
“You’ve misunderstood who we are if you think there’s anything more important to us than the lives of the people of this country,” Mr. Smith said. His voice was flat, yet behind a neutral tone was anger so intense Ocellus almost hid her face with her hand. “We want to see the girl.”
Ocellus nodded. The longer she sat here, the more she wished her friends were here to help. She belonged at the back of the crowd, not facing down the angry humans who might start a war at any second. “I will call her out,” Ocellus said. “But if you’re going to see her, you should meet my friends too. You have to promise not to shoot them. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to keep talking, okay? That’s all.”
Ocellus winced, taking in the skepticism and quiet plotting from the agents. They plan on fighting. If we don’t convince them not to soon. They don’t like having this conversation on someone else’s terms.
“I think you might have to come in. Make sure you tell the others not to get provoked into fighting. I don’t know what these humans want, but I think they’re just as confused as we are.”
Marie didn’t reply, but she could hear voices on the other side of the door. Good for her, figuring out how not to send every thought that pops into her head. “There, I told her. They’re coming.”
“If you say so,” Hayes said. “That didn’t look like much of anything from where we’re standing.”
“How about we talk to you two.” Mr. Smith focused on Helen as he said it, eyes flicking down to her phone and back up again. “What are you doing?”
Helen spoke slowly and clearly, mostly to the phone. “I’m in a cabin with two men, Agent Smith and Agent Hayes of the Security Service. They have the property surrounded with soldiers. We’re having a conversation.” Then she looked up. “You keep goin’. I’m just on the phone wit’ me family’s lawyer, see. Case I don’t come back. I’ve seen movies.”
“We’re here to help you, kid,” Hayes muttered, annoyed. “You’re both in terrible danger. I don’t know what this—this one told you, but she isn’t what she looks like. It’s convincing on the outside, but she didn’t fool the CAT scan. She’s not human.”
“We know that,” David said. “We would’ve told you all about it earlier, but the police were shooting at them on TV. If we’d told you what we knew, you might’ve hurt them.”
The door clicked, then squeaked open. Both agents turned to stare as Ocellus’s friends came in, walking beside each other and filling the living room with nervous, uncomfortable bodies.
“God, look at the girl,” Smith whispered. But not quiet enough that Ocellus couldn’t hear. Or Marie, poor thing. While the others looked afraid, she was on the edge of tears.
“You’re some kind of… animal trainer,” Hayes supplied, glancing back at Ocellus. “These are your… creations?”
The others laughed, a familiar enough sound that both men turned to stare. Hands moved to their belts, but neither drew a weapon.
Smolder spoke first. “Ocellus, train us? Obviously not. You found our boat. I hope you didn’t wreck it. I liked that boat…”
“It talked.”
“She talked,” Gallus corrected, glaring at them. “You two aren’t very nice, are you?”
“Yona thinks they need friendship lessons too.”
“Stay where you are!” Smith called, raising his voice a little. “Maybe you know, maybe you don’t—but this building is surrounded by her majesty’s finest. If anything happens to us, they’ll certainly take the building and all of you with it.”
“Sit down,” Marie said, glancing back at them. “They’re terrified of you, just like I was. You guys are really big, and you’ve got those claws, and…” She put out her hands. “Hi Agent Smith and Agent Hayes. I’m the girl you’re looking for.” She reached up, touching the side of her face with two fingers. “Y-yeah, I know what you’re thinking. It looks bad. It doesn’t hurt, though.”
“Alright.” Mr. Smith took a deep breath. “It is about time someone in this room start answering my questions. I want a clear explanation for exactly what happened to the child named Marie Evans. I want proof, and I don’t plan on hearing any more evasiveness or excuses.”
“You should see what I look like,” Ocellus said, hopping down from the counter. “Right now you probably think she’s the one who’s not from your planet.” She closed her eyes, concentrating… and in a few seconds, she was returned to normal. It took quite a bit longer than it had to copy Marie with a pair of hostile eyes on her.
But what had been difficult for her was obviously a terrifying shock for them. They gaped at her, fighting back their emotions only with great discipline. They have powerful minds. Why bother? Is there another tribe of humans who can read them like we read emotions?
“I’m Ocellus,” she said. “These are my friends—Smolder, Silverstream, Gallus, Sandbar, and Yona.” She paused after each name, letting the creature in question say hello.
“They can all talk,” Smith said. “You’re seeing what I’m seeing, aren’t you Hayes?”
“A girl turned into a horse-shaped bug? Yes, I’m seeing her too.”
Finally they’re confused. This entire time the two agents had overflown with confidence, making it difficult to take the situation away from them. But now…
Now she could tell them the story. To her surprise, the soldiers outside didn’t make a move on the building, knocking over walls to “rescue” these two humans inside. She could feel how intimidated they were to be in a room full of proper-sized creatures, but if they didn’t want to run…
They told their whole story. The terrible storm that brought them here entirely without meaning to—the shipwreck, and flight from the pier. The fear they had that they’d made the new creatures upset and humans might react negatively towards Equestria.
The humans in the room with them offered their own contributions where necessary, mostly through David. Marie seemed to sense their disgust with her just as Ocellus did, and she didn’t say more than a yes or no to confirm the details of her accident. What she remembered, anyway.
“And that’s how we end up here,” Ocellus finished, nearly twenty minutes later. Twenty minutes they spent without anypony getting hurt or threatening an imminent attack. “Planning to hide until Equestria could make contact with… Great Britain.” Thank you book for that name. “We didn’t plan on getting into any more trouble here. Really we… just wanted to hide until they could pick us up.”
“I hope you were taking notes,” Smith muttered to his partner—who had been taking notes, on the surface of his own little phone-thing. Every human in the world must have one of those. Maybe they’re like a unicorn’s horn. “Because that was an awful lot to take in.”
“It’s the truth!” Sandbar exclaimed—the simplest, friendliest pronouncement any of them could make. And coming from a pony, it was hard for it not to sound sincere. “All of it is. We don’t know why Equestria showed up in the ocean. But from what we’ve heard, it’s as bad there as it is here. Storms, floods…” He lowered his voice. “Drownings… Nopony wanted it to happen.”
“Quite the story,” Mr. Smith repeated, straightening. “But I hope you understand we can’t just leave you here, in this stolen house.” He glanced briefly at the sign on the wall, with the letters and the strange symbol. “Small miracle no one rented it to get away from the coast.”
“So what happens?” Smolder asked, from where she’d sprawled out on the couch. While many of the others had been afraid, she had relaxed. “You fight us now, even after we told you everything?”
“I hope not,” Hayes said. “Violence would be… a poor decision for everyone. We really do like to think of it as the last possible outcome, when all others have failed.”
“There are soldiers outside,” Gallus muttered, voice flat. “Ocellus said so.”
“Because the people of this United Kingdom might be in danger. Even now, after that… story… even if we assume for a moment that everything you’ve just told us is exactly true and our two worlds have… bumped shoulders by accident along the road. Even if that’s true, your island is rather nearer to ours than comfort would permit. We must learn about you, and prevent…” He nodded slightly towards Marie, who only slumped down into her chair, covering her head. “She’s the rub. Whatever you did… even you couldn’t say what it might do in humans. Whether it’s contagious, whether all of us aren’t already contaminated. That’s part of why we let this conversation run so long—the biohazard team had to make their way here from London.”
Ocellus tensed, turning suddenly for the front door. She reached out with her mind, and… were there more humans out there? She couldn’t tell specific people or emotions, not with an alien species whose individuals she couldn’t see. It felt like they were stronger for sure. But that might also be because they were preparing to move, not necessarily because there were more of them.
Neither option is good.
“It isn’t contagious,” Ocellus said. “It’s… a difficult process for me. If you asked me to do it to one of you right now, I wouldn’t be able. It took all the magic I had, and I don’t have enough right now. I’ve been pretending to be human so long that my supply is drying up.”
“That’s… something else that needs sorting,” Hayes added, slipping his phone away into a pocket. “Our language shouldn’t be so similar. Aliens shouldn’t talk like they’re visiting colonials. And they shouldn’t say things like ‘magic’ when they mean… whatever science is involved in all this. A problem bigger than either of us.”
“We don’t speak for the UK,” Smith said. “We can’t negotiate with you on her behalf, or with the country you purport to come from. But what we can do is this. Surrender into our custody willingly, and you will not be harmed. Some of you bear a… more than passing similarity to local animals. That will require special instruction for the lab-techs. But if your nation is peaceful, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t be returned to them once it’s ironed out.”
“We could help you,” Silverstream said, bounding a few steps closer to the humans. Close enough that both of them recoiled, eyes darting to her beak and sharp talons. “Talk to Equestria, I mean!” She pointed at Ocellus. “Our changeling friend spent time living with humans and ponies, she knows you both! If you don’t want to fight by accident, she’s the one you want.”
“I’m sure you will help,” Smith said. “By doing exactly what we say. But believe me when I say that the people of this country are our first priority. If we believe any action you take might put them in danger, we will react accordingly.”
“But we’d really rather not, for all involved,” Hayes said. “I’ve never talked to a horse before. It would be a shame if this ended badly.”
“How about you two leave a minute,” Smolder said. “And you let us talk. You can go talk to the other humans for a bit.”
“How about we watch you from the other side of the room,” Smith offered, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t going to be a discussion. “We can’t let you out of our sight, not until hazmat gets here. For us as well—if there’s anything dangerous in this house, the two of us are certainly contaminated. So you can rest easy knowing we’ll be in your company all the way to… where we’re going.”
They backed up, retreating towards the door where Helen and David were sitting. Without a word, the two humans rose to join them. Smolder eyed them suspiciously, but Ocellus glared at her until she finally gave up and shrugged.
“What do we do?” Silverstream whispered, her voice desperate and afraid. “Should we go with them?”
“Better question,” Smolder muttered. “What happens if we don’t.”
“You lose,” David said, voice flat. “There’s six of you. They know about you—know about where we are, and what your powers can do. Were you really on the phone, Helen?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “Until about… ten minutes back. Something cut me off. But my family will be looking for me.”
“There we go,” David continued. “Helen’s family is important, they won’t let her just disappear. Besides—they’re not stupid. There’s a brand new island right out there in the ocean. For all we know, it’s going to be there for the rest of forever. Best thing to do right now is be polite and learn everything they can. Haven’t hurt us yet, have they?”
“They will,” Marie whispered. “They’re terrified of me. They’re worried about themselves too. Think I might have… doomed them. To be monsters like me.”
Helen reacted instantly, leaning against her and wrapping one arm around your shoulder. “Hush with talk like that, love. You’re adorable, you ‘ent a monster. I’ll make sure you don’t disappear either.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Gallus said. “Think about what Twilight said. We’re supposed to not make any trouble for Equestria. Even if we could win, or maybe fly away. If we hurt them right now, it isn’t an accident.”
Smolder growled, rubbing at her cracked scale through the bandages. “Dragons aren’t much for surrendering.”
“Equestria will get us out,” Sandbar said. “Just trust the princesses, they’ll take care of it. They always do.”
Smolder rolled her eyes. But Ocellus could feel their sentiment. She didn’t need to ask her friends how they felt. Instead she turned back. “We’ll do as you say,” she said. “We surrender.”
Doing as they said involved an awful lot of waiting around. It took almost another hour, with only minor interruption. Marie kept herself tucked away in a corner, where she wouldn’t have to be in front of her friends all the time. Sure, none of them had reacted with disgust and anger towards her yet, but it was really only a matter of time.
I was supposed to be back to normal before we got back. No one was supposed to see this. If Mum sees, she’ll never be able to forget it. Even if I learn what Ocellus can do.
Learning was precisely what she wanted to be doing right now. But when she asked, Ocellus only said, “These humans are already terrified of us. Using any magic around them might make them react violently. I can teach you later.”
And she was probably right, no matter how much she hated to admit it. The MI5 agents had been remarkably calm for humans who had just discovered their universe was missing a huge chunk of important information—but maybe they weren’t missing as much as she thought. Magic must have always existed, right? Like the mermaid thing.
At least while they were waiting she got a little time alone with Helen, to tell her about the night before. The aliens were all huddled together in one corner, discussing how and when a “Twilight” might be sending a message for them and expressing general frustration towards Ocellus. Marie didn’t know why they were upset with her, but she didn’t interfere.
David, meanwhile, was talking with the agents—either distracting them or trying to make a legal case for their innocence. Marie couldn’t tell which, but he sure seemed passionate about it.
That left her and Helen tucked away on a bench beside a shut window, which David had insisted they leave that way. “You have to try it, Hel. Just this flash, and… suddenly I could swim perfectly, and breathe underwater, and smell the fish all around me. All that in some stupid pond… we have to try in the ocean!”
Helen put up her hands defensively. “Nuh-uh. My father made me try that whole scuba thing once, when we did the Bahamas last year? Bloody nightmare, that. All that water stacked up on top of you like a sack ‘a bricks, knowin’ that if you lost the regulator or a shark got the wrong glint in your eye, you were finished.”
“Sharks don’t attack people,” Marie muttered. “And you wouldn’t need a regulator. That’s the whole point!”
She rolled her eyes. “That don’t make me even a wee bit more convinced, Marie. Maybe that ‘magic’ thing works well enough on you, with ‘yer…” She gestured up to her eyes, then looked away. “Well, yer’ thing. But I don’t got that. I don’t got no plans to roll my way down any hills.”
“I’d try to convince you, but…” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can even do any magic. I don’t know if I can fly. Might be the only thing this is good for is…”
“Not dying,” Helen interrupted, squeezing her arm. “You ‘ent dead, Marie. That’s enough for me even if you never fly on no brooms or sing no fairy songs.”
It was like the whole kitchen lit up with color. The floral bench they were sitting on, the uncooked eggs still resting in the pan. It wasn’t like Marie had felt hungry before, but she certainly didn’t now. They came all the way up here for me. Put themselves in danger for me.
Not like I ever doubted they were my friends.
The front door opened again, and Marie caught a glimpse of a tall figure in white plastic. Hazardous Materials, apparently, carrying a large plastic case. A second figure followed, a little shorter and slimmer, but in the same inflated plastic suit.
They looked so silly that Silverstream actually laughed, loud enough that everyone in the room turned to stare. “You didn’t say you’d be inviting pillows!”
The humans reacted as though they hadn’t even heard her, hurrying past her to the kitchen table and opening their case. A number of instruments were inside, none of which looked like weapons but none that looked pleasant. Like they’d brought an entire doctor’s office in a few boxes.
Agent Smith followed them into the kitchen, raising his voice a little. “This is Dr. Kepler and Nurse Patel,” he said. “They’ll be making sure we’re safe to move. That might involve considerable waiting on our part, so try to get comfortable.”
“I can have someone run for tea,” Hayes suggested. But at his partner’s stern look, he lowered his voice. “We, uh… can have someone run for tea, can’t we?”
“I suppose so,” Agent Smith muttered. “I’ll send for tea. And… probably lunch while we’re at it. You, uh… people eat, don’t you?”
Of course, the visiting doctors had come to study the humans more than the Equestrians. And at the top of their interest list was Marie herself. Having a female doctor appeared to come with a double use, because seconds later she was asked to step into a bedroom with the woman and begin the most through, embarrassing examination of her life.
For once, she didn’t want Helen to be there with her, or even her mother.
What was worse, the doctor had to do everything from inside an inflated plastic suit, making her slow and somewhat uncoordinated. She stuck Marie’s arm three times before she finally got blood—healthy red as it went into the vial, not some sickly green like she’d imagined. So at least she had that going for her.
“We’re done,” the doctor said, snapping a single file folder closed and tucking it away into her case. “Sorry about all that, sweetheart. Hopefully it didn’t hurt too badly. You can get dressed again.
Marie nodded, closed her eyes—and suddenly she was dressed.
Dr. Kepler staggered back in surprise, dropping her case with a plastic thunk. “My god! You just… apparated it.”
“Uh…” Marie looked down, and found that Kepler was right. Her dress and underclothes were still crumpled on the bed, but she… was wearing them anyway. Even better, her wings weren’t rubbing up against the improper cuts down the back. She turned, and found perfect openings formed in the blouse, in exactly the right places. “Oh. Oops. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” The woman opened the case, removing a pair of scissors from inside. She hurried over, snipping away a piece from Marie’s shoulder without invitation.
Marie felt a prick of pain, like pushing too hard on something sharp—and the blouse fuzzed away in a puff of green smoke. Bloody hell.
“That… what did you just do, Marie? Can you do it again?”
She turned away, covering her chest self-consciously—but nothing happened this time. She gritted her teeth, trying to recreate the way she’d felt. After a few seconds she shook her head, picking up the fabric from the bed and pulling it on. “Sorry. I don’t know what happened. Ocellus says I shouldn’t be worried if it takes me a little while to learn my powers.”
“Right.” Dr. Kepler scribbled down a few more things, then finally left her alone.
Marie took a few moments in the loneliness of the bedroom to collect herself, recovering from the embarrassment. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had a doctor’s appointment before, but… not in some stranger’s bedroom, without her mother there, and with a doctor in a plastic suit.
It’s not their fault. They’re just trying to keep the country safe. What if I really could make people sick? I’d want them to find out, wouldn’t I? She did, but maybe with a little more dignity.
Their captors had multiplied from a few into several dozen, figures in thick suits with bits of plastic and strange machines. David seemed to be watching them through the cracks in the windows, but Agent Smith and Agent Hayes offered no explanation about what they were doing.
Even without being told, they could see some of it. The house was being covered with plastic, as thick and sturdy as the suits their new doctors were wearing.
Their imprisonment in the house lasted until nightfall. Marie watched from a distant chair as David and Helen ate with the Equestrians—and she didn’t feel even a little bit hungry.
But then night came, and Marie realized what the figures outside had been building so diligently. A tube, wide enough that even Yona could pass through it without difficulty, leading to… somewhere.
“Ready for transport, Agent Smith,” said Doctor Kepler, gesturing back towards the front door. “You’ll be happy to hear that every person exposed thus far is testing negative across our suite of common toxins and diseases. Extensive laboratory testing will be required to make certain conclusions, however.”
“What about the girl?”
Marie tensed, knowing without any changeling magic who they must be talking about. But why are you asking her that here? The other thing was obviously meant to reassure David and Helen, but this—
The doctor’s eyes narrowed just a touch inside her suit. “Healthy, far as I can tell. Weren’t for the wings and her, uh… eyes… I’d give her approval for any summer camp she wanted. We need better equipment for her, and… the others.”
“Are we done with this yet?” Smolder asked, folding her arms. “We’ve done everything you said. Time to let us go, right?”
“Time to…” Smith repeated, shifting quickly from confusion to amusement. “No, we aren’t. But we’re ready to move to better accommodations. Don’t worry, my partner and I will be just as bored as you are.”
“Great,” she said, glancing briefly at the door to the back garden. But like the rest of the house, it had been completely covered with plastic. She could probably melt through it in moments, if she was willing.
Marie could feel the doubt move through her, a complex series of feelings that eventually settled on simultaneous trust and annoyance for Ocellus. “Is everyone ready?” the dragon asked, with an undertone so thick she doubted even the humans would miss it.
“Yona is not happy about this,” the yak said, shuffling uneasily on her hooves. All four humans watched her fearfully, maybe even more frightened of her than they were of the dragon. Of course they are. She’s huge! That plastic wouldn’t slow her down for a second if she wanted to go through it. “But tiny humans obviously worked hard to make all this—would be inconsiderate to smash. Very impolite.”
“R-right,” Smith said. “Inconsiderate. Now let’s not keep the drivers waiting. Consider yourselves… guests of Her Majesty, if… a tad unconventional.”
“Can’t wait to hear what the queen has to say about this,” Patel muttered, loud enough that Marie could hear. Or maybe that was just the little speaker in his suit.
They left. Marie and Ocellus ended up at the front of the line, though whether that was because they were similar or just by some coincidence, she couldn’t have said. They didn’t have to walk next to each other to talk.
“You think they’ll treat us fairly?” she asked. “Probably should’ve… checked on that before we were almost locked up already.”
“I hope so,” Marie said, unhelpfully. “Police make mistakes, but I think they do want what’s best for us.”
“For you. Mr. Smith wouldn’t even negotiate until he saw you were alive.” They passed through a black plastic tube, which Marie realized was taking them all the way down the drive. Cold air blasted past her, lifting her hair and making her shiver once. Little lights set into the ceiling illuminated the way into two separate vehicles.
“We’ll have to do this by size,” Smith called from up ahead of them. “If you could try to get an equal number of heavy and light, er… people… into each of our trucks, that would be helpful. Single file then, don’t stop. We’ll be on our way to somewhere more comfortable before you know it.”
“I know this… might not be a great time…” Marie’s voice sounded stupid and fearful, even to her. But once she’d started the question, she couldn’t stop herself.
Whatever vehicle MI5 had found to lock them away in, it was far more comfortable than she’d been expecting. It rode smoothly over the roads, with an interior that was comfortably air-conditioned. The lack of any sort of seats or safety equipment inside might’ve filled her with a rebellious excitement in simpler times. But now she could feel only the fear that this trip meant.
There would be no escape from the consequences of today. Maybe they’ll lock us away underground for the rest of our lives. We’re a danger to Britain… to the whole world. For all she knew, she might never see any of her friends again. Maybe Marie would be living in a black and white world for the rest of her life, in an empty cell with flavorless food.
But if Marie was going to spend the rest of her life locked up in a little concrete room, she was at least going to do it knowing how to look like herself while she was in it. She stood up a little straighter, then put one hand on Ocellus’s shoulder. Looking right into the eyes of a gigantic insect was terrifying, or it would’ve been if she didn’t know the bug felt no hostility towards her. “You might not get another chance. Maybe you and your friends get sent back to Equestria, and you never get to teach me. I need to learn how to be human again.”
Ocellus looked her up and down, insect eyes contemplative. She couldn’t hide the pity she felt, so thick that Marie could taste it. But if that’s what it took to bring a little color back to the windowless van they were riding in, she could live with that.
“Okay, Marie. But… this isn’t the kind of thing you learn in a day. I’ve known bugs who don’t master it in their whole lives. Some forms will probably be out of reach for a long time. The smaller you’re trying to be, or the less alive, the harder it will be. And on the other side, the more in common the transformation is, the easier it will be.” She closed her eyes, and Marie watched. There was a little flash of magic, enough that everyone else in the van stared.
There was Agent Smith with his sidearm prominently on display, the gigantic yak, and the dragon. Everyone else was on the other van, including her human friends. At least the scientist didn’t tell Ocellus to stop—she only held up a camera and started filming.
“I don’t need to master it in a day,” Marie said. “Changing into…” She trailed off. She had been about to say that there was only one thing she ever wanted to be again, but she couldn’t quite get the words out. Being able to swim without needing air had been exciting! What if there was another way for her to fly, or… she couldn’t say she never wanted to do any of those things again, not while staying honest with herself.
“Okay, there’s one thing that’s important for me. Doing… what you just did.” She held out one hand, feeling Ocellus’s cheeks, her forehead. There was no misshapen horn protruding through her head, just skin and hair that hadn’t seen a proper shampoo in far too long. “How do I copy you?”
“Well… it’s not like unicorn magic,” Ocellus began. “It’s not something you learn from a book. You don’t memorize and test and recite. It’s a state of mind. You have to feel what it’s like to…”
And so the lesson went on. Marie lost track of how long she sat in the corner of the van, lost track of how long the drive was taking them. Maybe if she’d been smarter she would’ve tried to remember the route, so she could guess at where they’d end up and be able to escape. But Marie had never been that clever. She only wanted to go home.
It only took a few minutes for Marie to realize that what she’d done while alone with the doctor was exactly what Ocellus was trying to teach her. What the changeling described in vague magical terms she could visualize as movements and stretches of her limbs. It was like becoming more flexible—but instead of trying to do a split, she was trying to remember the way she’d looked before.
Ocellus stopped her after a few minutes, settling one hoof on her shoulder. “That’s it! Marie, you’re there! Or… I think you’re there. I’m not as good with humans as other things, so I probably wouldn’t notice subtle mistakes, but… you don’t look as much like a changeling anymore.”
She gestured over. “Hey, Sandbar! Come over here a minute.”
The most normal of all the creatures—basically just a horse with a slightly different shape, squeezed past the yak to look over at her. “Hey, you did it Marie! No more wings!”
She reclined, resting her back against the metal wall of the truck. Nothing but skin and cloth and metal—she’d actually done it.
She reached up with one hand, touching her forehead cautiously. As though too much pressure too fast might make her success disappear.
But no, there was just skin there too. “What about my eyes?” she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice now. “Are those fixed too?”
“Fixed…” Sandbar repeated. “They look like… I think your friends’ did? Honestly I didn’t get a good look.”
“They’re fixed.” Ocellus confirmed. “Now, you just need to practice that same change like fifty different times. Back in the old days, when Queen Chrysalis was still in charge, that’s what she had her infiltrators do. They had to practice a transformation so much that they could do it without even thinking. That’s how they know they’re ready to deploy.”
Changing back felt like letting out her breath after holding it for a minute or so—her wings returned, her horn came back, and her eyes briefly burned. Then it was back to the routine, until the van had slowed to a crawl and Smith rapped his fingers on the side to get their attention. “We’ve arrived. It’s going to take a few minutes to get all the biohazard equipment into place, so I’d ask each of you to remain calm and in place until that time. Preparing… accommodations for creatures like yourselves is a challenge for all involved, but there’s no reason anyone need get violent. I’m told you’ll all be treated well.”
“Where are we?” Smolder asked, from just beside the agent. “No windows on the trip over.”
Agent Smith looked a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t avoid the dragon’s eyes. “It’s called the Armitage Facility. I can’t tell you much beyond that, except that it’s the place we’ve always used to study… unconventional things. It’s remote enough that the people of this country will not be endangered by the things we discover.”
“Right.” Smolder lifted into the air, flying over Yona and Sandbar and landing beside the currently-human Ocellus. “You still think coming with them was a good idea?”
Ocellus glanced briefly up at Marie, then shrugged. “I think… it’s better than the alternative.”
Smolder shook her head, rolling her eyes. “I sure hope this pony way of doing everything pays off. All smiles and talk and cooperation. My way is better.”
“Your way got you hurt,” Marie said. She might be smaller than the dragon, but after living with her for a little bit, she knew she wasn’t going to just get attacked. Even if the dragon’s claws were every bit as sharp as she’d imagined. “Nobody’s hurt now. Except maybe a little carsick from riding in a truck through the night. Talking is good… talking to you shows them they can talk to Equestria too. That’s where the real danger is. Who cares about what happens to us if the whole world goes to war. Because of us.”
“At least war makes sense,” Smolder muttered, smacking one of her claws into the side of the truck. But she didn’t cut through, and after a few seconds they’d gone back to silence. Marie took nearly the entire time to change back into herself, banishing her wings and horn and eyes again. Ocellus’s advice was good—the more she practiced this exact change, the easier it was.
While she worked, the truck rocked gently back and forth, and there were various mechanical sounds from outside. Occasional voices, muffled by suits. Shouted orders. “Do you think I’ll really be able to do… other things?” Marie asked, once she’d finally got the wings to stick. “What can you do?”
“Most creatures,” Ocellus admitted. “Ponies, dragons, griffons, minotaurs, hippogriffs, uh… simpler stuff like birds and foxes and… basically anything alive. There are some changelings who get deep into the advanced side of magic. I saw my uncle turn into a rock once. But… that’s really hard, and I don’t recommend it. The less like you something is, the more magic it takes. Given you’re a… delicate little creature with two legs and soft skin, that’s probably the easiest thing for you to copy. Be careful with your reserves. The best way to practice is with friends, so you always have someone to lend you a little love if something goes wrong.”
The door behind them creaked, then swung open. There were more people in biohazard suits outside, all armed. But at least none were actively pointing weapons at them.
“Welcome to Armitage,” said a man in a thick suit, his voice muffled by the inflated plastic over his face. “My name is Commander Blackburn. I’ll be serving as the official liaison with the facility and government representative during your stay here.”
“Well great,” Smolder said, moving past Marie and the others to stand right in front of him. She was smaller than Commander Blackburn, though in every other way she looked fiercer. Those scales were certainly stronger than an inflated plastic suit. And while he carried no weapons, her claws were certainly dangerous. “What we need is to go home. How do we do that?”
To his credit, the man didn’t look intimidated. “Ah, well. I can’t promise you anything at this stage, I’m afraid. But what I can tell you is that contact has been made with your, uh… government. If you’re as peaceful as we’ve been led to believe, then this should be squared away within the week. In the meantime, we’ll be using this time productively. Our chief concern is for any diseases you may be carrying. There will be medical tests in store for all of you, not too uncomfortable I’m sure. By the time those are done, we should have quarters ready for you. If you don’t mind.”
Smolder growled for a second, baring her teeth. But the commander was unimpressed—he didn’t reach for a gun, didn’t even blink. After a few seconds, the dragon moved off. “Whatever. You deal with this, Ocellus.”
Marie reached over, squeezing her hand. “It’s the right thing. Fighting is a bad idea. We can get through this.”
The changeling didn’t seem like she was in a hurry to return to her old shape. She moved past Yona, and Marie followed her. Within reach, though not actually holding onto her hand anymore. It had to look strange, the set of identical twins riding around in a car full of mythical creatures. But the commander didn’t react. “We’re ready to cooperate with your demands,” she said, loud enough for her friends to hear. “I’m sure our friends in the other truck will too. Will we be… will these medical tests be together?”
“No,” he answered. “You’re all too big for any of our hospital rooms. Or… most of you are. We’ve had to convert some of our facilities to accommodate you. But I’m told the examinations should be complete within the hour. If you’ll all follow me…”
It was a good thing for everyone that Ocellus had seen the capabilities of humans and warned her friends—otherwise, she was sure that at least one of them would’ve reacted violently to the “tests” the humans had in mind. What she’d imagined as some questions and maybe an essay actually involved more of what she’d done when she impersonated Marie—lots of moving from machine to machine, along with a few long metal needles to take some of her blood and more of her dignity.
All the while there were humans in those stupid suits, their voices sounding ridiculous and their expressions constantly afraid of everything she did. She probably would’ve thought it was hilarious, if she was together with her friends to laugh about it.
But they weren’t together. Even the humans were taken away to their own rooms. What things were like for them, she didn’t know, but she imagined there might be a shout from down the hall at any moment, as Smolder or maybe Gallus could take no more and broke out. It was a true testament to how much they’d grown since arriving in Equestria that nothing violent happened.
Ocellus could obey easier than maybe any other creature in the group, thanks to living so long under Chrysalis. She went where they told her, changed when they told her, and didn’t argue.
Eventually, they finished. She could sense it before they actually finished, from the satisfaction and pride she felt from the doctors. “That’s everything, miss Ocellus. Thank you for being such a good patient.”
“You’re welcome,” she responded, rising from the scanner and shaking herself out. They had wanted her to be her natural self for most of the test, and that hadn’t been too hard. At least they didn’t want her to show off too much of her magic. “Can I see my friends now?”
“Yes,” the doctor responded. “The others should all be together already. You were the subject we needed to learn the most about, since you were the one who changed that girl.”
She followed the doctor to the door, biting back her giggles at the way he waddled in his inflatable suit. “Do you really think you’ll have to keep dressing like that? The other humans were around us, and they’re fine.”
“Probably not for much longer,” his assistant said from behind them. “Some of the tests take 72 hours to get results back. We’ll probably stay in biohazard until then.”
Glad they didn’t make us dress like that. Her friends had become far more patient since attending the friendship school, but they had their limits. If Smolder had to wear a suit like that, she would melt it off in hours.
The doctors were right about one thing, though—her friends were already together waiting for her.
Like all the rooms Ocellus had been in, this large space had the look of somewhere that had been used to store vehicles. The ground was made of the featureless flat rock that humans used in so much of their construction. The ceiling was high enough that even the tallest pony would’ve stood nowhere near it, yet there wasn’t a single window to be seen.
There were a few human tables and chairs off in one corner, along with three little folding bunks. Probably meant for the humans to sleep on. For her friends, there was mostly just empty space, though at least their hosts had provided them with huge piles of bedding.
They had separated into two groups—Marie and her friends sitting at one of the tables, playing with some unidentifiable human device between them. They looked unhurt from their half of the tests, which was more than she could say for her friends.
The other five looked like they were a few steps away from rioting, with each one looking a different kind of frustrated or annoyed. They haven’t slept, we barely ate, and that was hours getting marched around like we’re exhibits on display.
The instant they saw her, she could feel her friends attention on her. Their usual acceptance and trust in her had worn down to a razor thin line. What happens if I lose control of them in here?
Ocellus hurried over to her friends, fast enough that she got nervous looks from the doctor escorting her. But she didn’t much care what that human thought anymore. She needed to stop this from getting bloody.
“I don’t know how much longer you expect us to sit here,” Gallus said, almost the instant she was in the circle. “That was worse than when Grampa Gruff made me preen every bird in the clutch by myself. Ugh…” He winced, glancing to his wings. Ocellus didn’t need magical senses to see that some feathers were missing.
The signs of their harsh examination were everywhere. The human doctors had been methodical with their exam, even shaving away coat to get at the skin of her friends who had it. Only Smolder lacked any new injuries from her encounter. Guess they couldn’t get through dragon scales.
“First…” Ocellus kept her voice as low as she could, not that she expected it to matter. “Just cuz their ears are small doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. Don’t say anything you don’t want them to overhear.”
Whatever Gallus had been about to say choked off in his throat, and instead he only scraped at the stone floor with a claw, looking frustrated.
“I don’t care what they overhear,” Smolder said. “This is like a prison, Ocellus. How far are you willing to go not to fight with them?”
If we were going to fight our way out, we probably should’ve done it before now. Everything they’d done to cooperate with humans had probably put them further into their power. Ocellus’s memory was much better than a pony’s, but even still she wasn’t sure she could remember the maze of corridors and locked doors they had navigated to get here. It was like the changeling hive, though it managed to be just as confusing without any magic paths.
Unlike Smolder, Ocellus did care what the humans overheard. The more of their group they thought were united against them, the less likely they were to cooperate nonviolently.
“I think…” She hesitated. “We give them tonight. Tomorrow, we should ask… to be able to talk to Equestria. As a show of good faith.” It was a weak argument, Ocellus knew. But maybe--
“I don’t think they’ll let us out of this place,” Gallus muttered. “Seems like they worked pretty hard to get us locked in here. If they took us out to see Princess Twilight, they might not get us back.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” Ocellus answered, without needing to think about it. “Humans have machines that let them talk really quickly. They’re called ‘phones’ and I think they might be like their cutie marks? Except they break, and they need to get new ones… Okay, maybe I don’t understand it all the way. But they worked for me too, so there’s no magic involved. They could give one to somepony, and… they could talk.”
“I guess so.” Smolder sounded unhappy. “I wish we’d asked for rescue when we had the chance. We could’ve brought them too.” She nodded towards the three children on the other side of the room. “They’re getting it as bad as we are. We wouldn’t lock them up in a dungeon if they came to the Dragonlands.”
“I don’t know what it says about them…” Silverstream added. “That they’ll even lock up their own kind in a dungeon. Not just the creatures from far away.”
It’s a good thing you didn’t read the books I did, Silverstream, Ocellus thought.
But whatever they might’ve planned next was silenced as Smolder began to cough and splutter. It wasn’t just Ocellus’s attention that had been captured—the human “guards” in their inflatable suits were watching in concern. One of them had lifted their hand to the strange weapon on the strap at their side.
“Stop it!” one of them called, utterly unhelpfully.
Smolder couldn’t stop it—she coughed and spat and the stream of Dragonfire filled the air in front of her. It was a good thing none of those thin suits were nearby, or she surely would’ve melted through them. But with nothing nearby, there was nothing for her to hurt. They all knew how to get out of the way.
A scroll dropped down into her claw, sealed with Twilight’s cutie mark.
“Oi, don’t touch that!” called one of the guards. “You back away!”
That, it seemed, was one straw too far. While Smolder completely ignored them, Gallus stood up straight, blocking the path towards Smolder.
“That’s not your mail, it’s ours,” he called. “What’s it say?”
Both guards took their weapons firmly in hand. One of them turned slightly to one side. They were saying something into their suit, though it wasn’t repeating their words towards them.
He’s probably calling for help. There’s a phone in there.
Smolder unrolled the scroll, then started to read. It was a brief note, so it didn’t take long. There was no return scroll this time, just the enchanted paper it had come in, the spell already worn out.
“‘My faithful students,
I’m relieved to hear you’re well. I’ve passed your advice to Celestia and Luna, who have already met with the creatures called Humans. A peaceful future seems possible, though I’m told the first meeting was tense.
We’ve made sure not to mention you, in the hopes that you can remain hidden until we can retrieve you.
My contributions to disaster relief are nearly complete. My friends and I…’” She stopped reading. “I don’t think I should read this. Everyone, look.”
They all crowded around, except Gallus. Ocellus moved in to see, even though she could sense more humans rushing towards them from all sides. It hadn’t taken them very much to get afraid.
Twilight’s writing continued. “...are preparing for a mission to retrieve you tomorrow at dawn, as soon as I can recover enough for a long-range teleport spell. Be prepared to leave with sunrise.”
Ocellus’s breath caught in her chest, as she imagined what it would be like tomorrow morning, when Twilight Sparkle appeared down here in this tight dungeon, oblivious to the dangers and the fear it would cause.
They’re already terrified of us. What will it do if they figure out that we have ponies like Twilight who can appear anywhere in the world at any time?
She didn’t know for sure if the Alicorn would be able to teleport to them down here, but she doubted the humans had any way of preventing it. She had sensed no magical defenses.
Doors on three sides of the room banged open at the same time, and a dozen puffy inflatable humans rushed in, each of them holding weapons. They screamed and yelled in unison, voices echoing through the facility. “Everyone on the ground, right now!”
Smolder hesitated, just for a second. Long enough to blow out a thick gout of flame onto the scroll. It crumbled to ash, raining down in a little gray cloud in front of her. Then, grinning smugly every second, Smolder said, “Do it. We don’t need to be afraid anymore.”
They dropped. The poor humans in their corner looked as though they might’ve peed themselves, fallen flat on the ground and covering their heads in desperation.
Only when they were all down did another figure stride in—Commander Blackburn, wearing the same suit as everyone else and also not holding a gun. He walked in briskly, though the face inside his suit had more fuzz on one side than the other. His eyes were a little bloodshot, and his annoyance was thick in the air.
“I rather thought we were getting along better than this,” he said, stopping well out of reach but closer than any of the others. “This is precisely the sort of situation I was hoping most to avoid.”
Marie’s changeling senses were no mercy to her as the mythical creatures got their second magical-scroll delivery she had seen.
She couldn’t read thoughts. Yet with her eyes closed, she could see thick patches of anger and fear, spreading out through the building and approaching rapidly. She clutched at her stomach, groaning with the nauseating feeling of so much anger in such a small place. If being near her friends brought color back to the world, this took it away again.
“We should back up,” Marie muttered, touching David and then Helen on the shoulder. “This is…”
“Could’a seen that from about a bloomin’ mile away,” Helen answered, rising from her chair. “Back towards the beds then. Their funeral if they wanna fight, know what I mean?”
“They won’t fight,” David said, though there was no confidence in his voice as he said it. Marie would’ve been fooled before, but now… You’re just trying to make me feel better.
Then came the soldiers, and the shouting. The one who seemed to be in charge of everything down here arrived before anyone could start shooting. “There’s no reason this has to turn into anything,” Blackburn went on. “We can be… civil. Peaceful.”
“You’re the one with weapons pointed at us,” Gallus said, rolling his eyes. “I think they’re weapons, anyway.” He glanced to the side. “Ocellus?”
“Yeah.” She nodded her confirmation. “They’re weapons.”
“Well, that’s rather unfair.” Blackburn took a few steps closer, earning himself cautious looks from the soldiers around him. But no one dared try and stop him as he selected a chair from among the fallen furniture, standing it up and putting it between himself and the creatures. “You just did… honestly we have no idea. Everything about you all is new to us. You must try and understand… imagine this was your homeland. Imagine if there were sixty-six million people right outside that door. Unknown creatures arrive one day, creatures you’ve never seen before, never dreamed about, and the first thing they do is turn a little girl into a monster. Don’t you think we’re within our—”
But Marie barely even heard him after that. She whimpered, covering her face with one arm and fighting back her tears. Commander Blackburn wasn’t wrong about that. She really was a monster. She was the reason Ocellus and her friends were in so much danger in the first place. If she hadn’t been involved, if she hadn’t been changed, then there wouldn’t be any reason for the country to fear them. Or… maybe not as much.
I should just disappear. Maybe these powers let me do that.
Her friends didn’t notice her sudden shift in emotions. They couldn’t sense them the way she could, and wouldn’t be able to hear her silent tears. Not over the tense negotiations going on right in front of them.
But someone could. “You can’t,” Ocellus thought at her. “Don’t listen to him. Ponies used to think we were monsters too, a long time ago. But then they got to know us, and they changed their minds. I’m sure your kind can too.”
Marie winced, wishing she’d been more disciplined. She didn’t want to make Ocellus deal with her when she was probably the only one keeping the peace between her friends and the dozen armed soldiers.
“Sorry,” was all she thought back. She got no response.
And it was easy to see why. The dragon now stood out in front of the others. Maybe Smolder wasn’t as afraid of their weapons. No, that’s wrong. She’s terrified. She’s been hit by them before, and she knows how much they hurt. She’s protecting them.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Smolder was saying. “Look at how small you are. If we were bad creatures, you’d know already. We did everything you asked. We let you poke us and march us around and lock us in this stupid dungeon. Doesn’t mean we’re going to keep listening to you.”
“What did that letter say?”
Marie opened one eye. She barely dared to breathe, expecting a surge of gunfire any second. But none came, at least not yet.
“Equestria is going to rescue us. They’re coming in the morning. It’s been so long since I saw the sun, I don’t know how much longer that is.”
Marie glanced to one side, whispering. “David, is your phone working?”
He nodded. “It turns on. No service in this place, and the networks are all protected. Probably they’re using it to watch me, somehow.” He held it up, and that was enough for her to get a good look.
“It’s three AM. That means sunrise is in… maybe two hours? Or three. Dunno.”
“Too long to hold out. Probably don’t want them to show up in the middle of this. One side would get hurt.” It wasn’t clear from her voice which side she thought that would be. But Marie knew better. They both would.
“You’ve just introduced a rather confounding variable,” Blackburn said. “You say that was a message? A message you received underground, past every possible security measure.”
“Yeah.” It was mostly Smolder arguing. The others just hid behind her, either terrified of the men like Silverstream and Sandbar, or ready to tear into them like Gallus. If they started fighting… Marie could imagine how terrible it would be. She could feel the anger on both sides—intense discomfort, exhaustion, and fear from the magical creatures. Pure terror from the humans. They were so close to making it all go away. “It should tell you that magic is strong stuff. Keeping us locked up isn’t gonna work. What you really need to do is give us back to Equestria.”
“It’s in progress,” Blackburn answered, noncomittally. “Listen, I’m afraid we’ll have to separate you. Keeping you together was conditional on good behavior, and this demonstrates we just can’t count on it. Each of you needs to stand where you are, as my men remove you one at a time.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Gallus muttered. “We came together, we’re leaving together.”
“Yeah!” the others agreed.
This is it, Marie thought. This is where they die.
For a second, she imagined her way into the future. Ocellus and her friends dead, along with tons of royal marines. Negotiations on the border break down, and then there’d be war. Magic, guns, and tons of dead people who didn’t need to be fighting.
“This isn’t a negotiation anymore,” Blackburn said, backing up a step towards his soldiers, and further out of reach of the Equestrians. “I’m giving you an instruction. We’ll execute it by force if necessary.”
Is that the future you want, Marie? Do you want to watch your new friends die? Maybe they’ll burn Hogwarts down too.
Marie rose suddenly into a standing position, taking a step forward.
“What the blazes are you doing?” Helen yanked at her ankle, far too weak to make a difference. “Bloody hell, Marie! Get away from them! Ain’t it obvious where this is going?”
That’s the problem.
Marie pulled away from her, just out of reach. “Hey!” she shouted, loud enough that several of the soldiers turned their weapons in her direction. Then they saw what they were aiming at, and they dropped suddenly out of the way. They don’t want to shoot anyone.
“You’re not involved in this, child,” Blackburn called, his voice stern. “Stay back with the others.”
She ignored him, marching straight through an opening in the line of soldiers. One of them tracked her with their rifle—but didn’t shoot. She was only ten.
“I’m involved,” she said, raising her voice almost as loud. It broke and cracked with her fear—she couldn’t stay perfectly calm like some career soldier. “You can’t talk about me like I’m not even here! I’m the reason you’re so afraid of them! If that’s what it takes for you to leave them alone, you can…” She hesitated. “You can just shoot me instead!” She stepped right in front of Smolder, shoving her back and spreading her arms wide.
Warmth exploded out from behind her, warmth that no one besides Ocellus would see. But Marie felt it, and for a second she worried she might explode. It came from each of the Equestrians, some a little more than others. Appreciation, gratitude… and awe at her bravery. It filled Marie with confidence, filled her until she wasn’t afraid of the guns anymore.
“Kid, get behind me,” the dragon whispered. “You’re as soft as a pony.”
But she ignored her too—ignored everyone, just glared out at the soldiers and Blackburn at the front.
“You haven’t offered us compromise,” Ocellus said from beside her. She wasn’t human sized or shaped anymore, yet Marie hardly even noticed. She was the easiest person to sense in the whole room, and one of the calmest. “Maybe you’re not as good at negotiating as we changelings are. But where I come from, you have to offer something when you want something. Changelings wanted love from ponies, but we weren’t going to get any until we gave some in return. All you’ve done is take since we got here.”
Commander Blackburn hesitated for another moment, looking between the two of them. He might not really understand the creatures, but at least he shared their exhaustion. “Compromise,” he repeated. “I can see how this might look bad to you. Not your country, not your people. Hard to see the risk we’re taking. It would be better for all of us here if there is no bad news to give the negotiators.”
“Yeah,” Smolder said. “You wouldn’t want to give them bad news.”
Blackburn made a gesture with one hand. It was like he’d used his own magic—every soldier in the room lowered their weapons at that moment. “Compromise. Alright. You say that was a message. I saw the recording on the way here, that was what it looked like. So tell us what it said.”
Gallus was still glaring at him, though at least he wasn’t baring his claws and beak at the soldiers anymore. “Let us decide if we want to.”
Blackburn frowned deeply at them all. There was only one section without any soldiers in it, the corner with the cots where David and Helen were still hiding. “Go on then. I’ll wait.”
Marie followed them across the room. While the Equestrians ignored her human friends, she was surprised to see they made room for her. She didn’t need to be told the little spot in the circle was for her, she could feel it with her magical senses. A little bit of gravity, pulling her into place.
“Should we?” Ocellus asked, her voice the quietest whisper Marie had ever heard. She wasn’t sure she would’ve understood it at all, except that Ocellus’s thoughts were equally open to her. “Remember, they’re listening to everything we say.”
“Not feeling much like it,” Smolder said. “Threatening us doesn’t make me feel like talking.”
“What happens if we don’t?” Silverstream asked. “When it…”
“Don’t look at me,” Gallus muttered. “I didn’t even read it.”
Their eyes settled on Marie. “These are your people,” Ocellus said. “You’re… maybe the only one here who can understand both of us.”
“How does she know?” Gallus asked, a little annoyance creeping into his voice. “Marie was on the other side of the room.”
Ocellus just tapped her head with one hoof. “She’s part changeling. I told her.”
“Oh.”
That had bought her maybe twenty seconds to think about her answer. Not much—and the longer they gathered here, the more nervous the soldiers became. Whatever goodwill she earned with her daring would not last much longer.
Do I trust people to do the right thing?
It wasn’t even a question. What would she have done? “Tell them,” she said. “You already answered their questions, you already took their tests. They can use the message as a way to prove their peaceful intentions. Good people don’t need to keep hostages. We’re good.”
She watched the moment of decision pass through the Equestrians, their feelings far easier to understand than even her friends’ were.
“I don’t see how,” Gallus said.
“If Marie thinks so,” Silverstream countered. “We should listen to her. It won’t matter soon anyway.”
“Fine.” He lowered his head. “I… agree with Silverstream.”
“Alright,” Smolder said. “One last chance.”
They didn’t have far to go—Marie followed Smolder and Ocellus, staying near the front in case she had to put herself in front of the soldiers again.
“You’ll probably need a little background,” Ocellus said. “About the letter. See, we were all… students. And the headmare of the school was the one who sent us that letter. When we arrived here in England, we were doing our capstone project.”
“That’s too much,” Smolder said dismissively. “The point is, Twilight is one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria. She’s a princess—tons of magic, probably neurotic, you know the type.”
“Uh…” Blackburn muttered. Marie didn’t have to guess at how confused he’d become. At first the humans had felt suspicious, but Ocellus’s reveal had been so confusing to them that now they were completely confounded. “Let’s say I do. Continue.”
“The letter used something called Dragonfire,” Smolder went on. “It’s pretty much the best way to get letters anywhere, because dragons are awesome. And it said…”
“She’s coming to get us,” Ocellus finished. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Is that…” The commander glanced to one side, to one of the soldiers nearby. They exchanged words Marie couldn’t hear, then, “I don’t see how that’s possible. None of your people have tried to run the NATO blockade. The Americans have made it clear they aren’t going to let that happen. If I know the Yanks for anything, it’s that they’re eager to shoot.”
“I don’t think she’ll have to ‘run’ anything,” Ocellus said. “Twilight Sparkle is a princess. I’m sure she has a way of finding us here. I know she can do long-range teleports. It might be hard to find us normally, but we’re probably the strongest source of magic in your whole country. She couldn’t miss us.”
“We’re not telling you this to ask permission,” Gallus said, raising his voice over the Commander. “We’re telling you because we’re leaving. When she gets here. So either you hold us hostage and attack one of the four ruling princesses of Equestria, or… you let her take us when she gets here.”
Ocellus watched Commander Blackburn, her whole body tense with energy. If ever the humans were going to spring and attack, this was probably their best chance. Their soldiers were fast, skilled, and well-armed. Was this dungeon about to turn into another WW2? She followed his emotions as best she could, though he kept them so disciplined she saw only flashes. Anger, calculation, fear, skepticism.
He sighed deeply, his shoulders slouching. “When is this going to happen?”
“Dawn,” Smolder said, grinning. “If I know Twilight, she’ll be on time.”
“Right.” Blackburn shifted uneasily. “Do I have your word that you will all remain here until that time? That there will be no more violence against any of my people, or this facility?”
“There wasn’t any to begin with,” Gallus said. “We just got mail.”
“Yes, quite.” The commander cleared his throat. “Your word, even so.” He strode forward, past the protection of his soldiers, and extended a hand towards Ocellus. She could see the courage it took, and the sincerity in his face. “You wanted compromise, so be it. Accept my terms.”
She knew the gesture—ponies had something similar, even if they didn’t have the delicate gripping fingers on the end of their hooves. Ocellus held out a hoof to him. “We agree. We’ll stay here until dawn. We won’t hurt anyone.”
“Good enough.” He touched her hoof through the thick plastic of his suit, though only for a moment. “I daresay I have some phone calls to make. I’ll see you all before dawn.”
And he left. The other soldiers filed out the way they’d come, shutting the door securely behind them.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Silverstream exclaimed. “We actually did it! We’re going home!” Then she seemed to remember something, and she turned sharply to one side. “What about Marie?”
Marie blushed, stepping slightly to the side so that Ocellus was between them. “What about me?”
The silence that followed was almost as tense as when Blackburn’s soldiers first arrived. The human filly didn’t understand, but even Sandbar seemed to see what she was thinking. But Ocellus was the one who had changed her, and so answering seemed like her responsibility.
“You’ve got magic now,” she began, her voice low. “If your own people are going to be terrified of you… keep you in some box like this… maybe you’d be happier going to Equestria with us for a bit. There are students at the friendship school as young as you. Students who aren’t going to call you a monster for looking weird.”
“And you could learn to fly!” Silverstream said. “I’ve only ever met one creature who had wings and couldn’t fly. Who would teach you if you stayed?”
Marie’s expression became a mask of tears and confusion. She glanced back to her friends, who were watching cautiously on one side of the room.
Not just hiding. Apparently they’d been listening. Helen hadn’t dared defy the humans with their guns, but now she marched out just as angrily, walking right up to Marie and wrapping one arm through hers. “Wherever she goes, I go. I don’t care who’s upset about it. Me mum’ll be bloody furious, mark if she don’t. But ein’t ‘ers already just as livid? See if she ein’t when she wakes up.”
Ocellus had to bite back a laugh at the confusion on her friends’ faces. The humans here all had accents, but Helen’s was thick enough that Gallus looked like he’d just had water dumped on his face for all the understanding he had.
Fortunately the other human was a little easier to understand. He took Marie’s other hand. Strangely, it was Ocellus he was watching most. Ocellus felt herself blushing, her ears flattening to her head. She stopped trying to read his thoughts. “I think we should go, Marie. Not just because you’re… terrifying to everyone. But because they are too. You know how we make everyone in the world not afraid? We go to their world with my camera, we go to their school, and we put it all on YouTube. Look how cute they are. People would be furious if they learned that soldiers had locked them down here and aimed guns at them.”
“Yona thinks tiny, two-legged creature should be careful with word ‘cute.’ Not wise to throw rock when own yurt have one pole.”
Helen grinned at her. “I like you. Why don’t you say more, eh?”
Yona shrugged. “Yona believes each thing said should be well chosen. Not like ponies who talk and talk and talk until everyone turns blue.”
“I, ummm…” Marie whimpered, eyes down on the floor. “I would like to see what Equestria is like. Not to stay—my mum is here, my other friends. I wanna come back. But maybe a… little trip? Long enough for the science people to stop being afraid of me?”
They didn’t have long to wait. Ocellus dozed with her friends, knowing that an hour or so would be more than enough for her to be alert. By the time human soldiers started coming back, she and Marie were the only ones who didn’t look grumpy at being woken.
To her surprise, Commander Blackburn and the others weren’t wearing their suits anymore. That made the soldiers look even more adorable and less threatening, since at least those puffy suits made them closer to a dangerous size. Without them, their thin limbs had only uniforms with strange overlapping splotches of different colors. Except for Blackburn himself, who looked like he was dressed up for a parade. There were little patches and medals on his uniform, and a funny little cap.
They all had funny little caps, but his was the cutest of the bunch.
“It’s just before dawn,” he said, as the lights came back from the dull red up to stark, eye searing white. “If you told us the truth, this is the moment.”
Ocellus sat up. Marie was already up, playing with the human machine she had been taking turns with earlier. “You’re not wearing those… suits,” she said, curious.
“Oh, yes.” Blackburn’s expression brightened a little. “That’s a bit of good news. As it happens, Biology has determined there’s no evidence of any airborne contagions that could spread between us. The doctors have… well, they have their own words to say on the subject. Apparently diseases have a hard time crossing species. Even if one of you were very sick, it’s unlikely we would be vulnerable. The same is true in the other direction. Now, as to fluid transfer…” He trailed off. “Well, we can be civilized here. No one’s going to get bitten, are they?”
“No,” Ocellus said, glancing at Marie. It was obvious what they were talking about. She shook herself out, rose to her hooves. “What happened was… the only way to save her life. I didn’t plan on biting her. But the conversion process has a way of regenerating the body, even when someone is badly hurt. I had to do something.”
“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve brought a negotiator with more authority than myself. I hope you don’t think it would be a terribly severe compromise to have a word with this princess before you go with her.”
Ocellus shrugged. “Fine with me. I don’t think she’s expecting for there to be any—”
She felt it then, the sudden buildup of magical energy only a few feet away. Someone was looking for them, somepony with enough magic to make the distance irrelevant. “You should back up. She’s about to get here. And… well, you’re small. Ponies aren’t.”
Commander Blackburn didn’t argue. He didn’t have nearly as many soldiers as before, six in all. Good thing too, since the sudden flash of light left behind enough ponies to nearly fill the small space.
It was exactly what Ocellus had expected—the Elements of Harmony appeared, facing out in a circle.
“Fuckin’ hell,” one of the soldiers muttered, shielding his eyes. “They really can teleport.”
Ocellus’s friends were waking now. Whatever exhaustion they might feel was unimportant.
“Oh.” Twilight was the first to land on her hooves, eyes taking in the room at a glance. “So much for covert.”
Ocellus chuckled awkwardly, pawing at the floor. “It was true when we wrote it. We, uh… got caught since then.”
“Caught is more confrontational than we would hope to be,” Blackburn said, striding forward towards the group of ponies. He stopped some distance away, as intimidated by their size as humans were of Ocellus and her group.
Yet they seemed less frightening to him than most of her group. There’s some distance between ponies and other creatures for humans. I wonder why that is.
“We discovered something that we feared might be a threat to our home,” Blackburn said. “And we took appropriate precautions. No doubt you would do the same if the situation were reversed, considering… what happened on the coast.”
Twilight’s expression was difficult to read. The others were less so, hurrying over to check on them and watching the three humans locked in here with curiosity. They started asking questions in quiet whispers, suggesting for everyone to gather in the center of the room.
“That’s one interpretation,” Twilight said. She sat on her haunches, squarely between Commander Blackburn and the rest of the group. “We’ve come to take our ponies home. We won’t do anything else.”
“That might’ve been simpler, if there weren’t certain, err… complications. There’s a member of parliament waiting to come and speak with you. She’s on the committee for… well, it scarcely matters to you. Would you wait and have a word with her?”
“That’s all you want to do?” Rainbow asked, eyebrow raised. “Just talk?”
“Just talk,” Blackburn repeated. “What happens after that rather depends on what is said.”
Twilight hesitated just a second longer. Then she grinned, extending a hoof with a smile. “I do love making new friends!”
Marie watched from the back corner of the room as the important people talked. Maybe she should’ve listened in—this was probably the closest she would ever be to a decision this big. Yet even using her newly-understood powers to seem like she was human, she couldn’t shake the impression that if she so much as looked at them, they’d call her a monster again.
She wasn’t the only one sitting on the sidelines—Ocellus and the others went from terrifying everyone in the room to sitting quietly as the pony named Twilight Sparkle talked to a military commander and a single MP. Her mother probably could’ve said exactly who it was and whose administration she belonged to—but to Marie, she was just “important.”
Ocellus settled down beside her a few seconds later, pulling over a chair. She didn’t have to look to the side to see that it had to be her—she wouldn’t have fit on the couch if she wasn’t human. There was no way for Ocellus to go anywhere near her without her noticing. And that’s probably true in reverse, too? She knows everything I’m doing. Everything I’m thinking… for the rest of my life.
“Probably not,” Ocellus answered in her mind. “There’s a range. The further you get from another changeling, the more diffuse it gets. First words are too complicated, and you can only send memories. Then those are too much, and you can only send emotions. Then you’re out of reach completely.”
Marie looked up. Ocellus had chosen to imitate her not as a human, but in the halfway-state. Her eyes were solid green, and a crooked horn emerged from her forehead. She’d even made holes for the wings in her copied clothes. “Your home in Equestria… is it far enough away for memories? Or emotions?”
“Neither,” Ocellus answered. The weight of loneliness came crashing down with it, enough that Marie almost cried too. “Changelings don’t live in Equestria, they live in the Badlands. My family isn’t there.”
“Oh.” She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the group. “What about the others?”
Ocellus shook her head. “Sandbar’s family will be there. Griffonstone is close, it might be there. The rest no for sure.”
Marie winced. “Do you think the worlds will… come apart again?” That was her biggest fear about going with them, even though she hadn’t voiced it aloud. What if they went to Equestria and they couldn’t come back again? She did want to see her mum. David and Helen had their families too, was it right of her to take the chance they wouldn’t get to go home, just so she could go to Hogwarts?
“Alright, everypony!” Twilight called, loud enough that Marie and Ocellus both jerked. “We’re going home.”
“Uh…” Ocellus spoke up from the front of the group, raising her imitation human hand to get their attention. “I really don’t want to make this more difficult Princess, but when you say ‘everypony’ what about…” She looked down, struggling to complete the thought. She’d been so brave over the course of this whole adventure, but Ocellus was running out of energy. She’d already saved the world her fair share of times.
Twilight waved a wing dismissively. “Oh, uh… I think that’s better for…” She nodded to the human woman. “They’re her citizens.”
“Well, not from my constituency, but yes. I’ve been sent partially to see to their well-being.” She raised her voice just a little, and seemed to speak at the human foals more than to them. “Obviously the two of you will be remaining here. You both have families that have been zealously interested in seeing you returned. And you, Marie… the alien ambassador here promises she will do everything in her power to cure your condition. But the best help available is on their island, not ours. We’ll be sending a volunteer from base to keep you company for the duration.”
“There is no cure,” Ocellus thought to Marie, her heart racing. “Equestria has been trying to ‘cure’ the ponies we converted in the invasion for almost a decade. It’s not possible. You can get your color back, not depend on harvesting love any more, but that’s it. You’ll still be one of us.”
She looked up, meeting Twilight’s eyes. The princess had to know that. She had been at the forefront of much of the theoretical magic they tried. All her spells had failed. Twilight met her expression with a harshness that communicated its own message, without the need for any magic: I know, be quiet.
This is more politics. They’re doing this for diplomacy. Maybe the humans know too, and they just want to get rid of her. Unfortunately for them, the children weren’t cooperating. As her friends obeyed Twilight’s instructions, Helen and David locked arms with Marie, glaring at the soldiers all around them.
“You can tell our parents we chose to go with her!” Helen yelled, as though she thought she were still being recorded. Then again, we probably are. “We weren’t pressured into it, or forced, or even suggested. In fact you can tell them we went under all the bloody duress in the world. Tell ‘em you kicked and screamed and begged us to wise up, and we wouldn’t have a wee bit of it.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” MP Henrietta Prescott said, walking past Ocellus’s friends and closer to the children. She no longer seemed as afraid of them as half of the soldiers in the room. She lowered her voice as she got closer. “Your parents are the ones who get to make that decision.”
“I don’t believe for one second that Marie’s mum said she could go,” David said. “So why should ours? We’re old enough to know what we’re doing. We’ll be, like… ambassadors for the human race. It’s like Star Trek, we can do it. They’ll already be getting their information about humans from the way we acted.”
“Get over here Ocellus,” Twilight hissed. All her other friends were there, along with the Elements, all standing in the diagram that Twilight had chalked out onto the floor. But Ocellus hesitated. She took a step back, towards the others. David offered her his other arm as she got close—Ocellus took it.
Twilight’s going to be furious. But my family isn’t back there anyway. I’m not going to let them do this. Her motivations certainly had nothing to do with the flood of emotion she felt from David—admiration, pride, and something else. Something he had felt for Marie, not too long ago. Don’t even think about it, Ocellus. You will not.
She was though.
The human winced visibly at David’s rebuke. “Your friend here is a unique case. I know her mother would have her remain—but there the safety of all Britain is implicated. We don’t know the consequences of her… alteration. The best thing for everyone would be for her to go to their homeland and receive the treatment she needs.”
Ocellus almost interrupted right there to tell them the truth. But Twilight was already glaring at her. If she did much more to show her frustration, the princess might very well think she had betrayed Equestria. Then they won’t take my advice about avoiding a war. What if they think it was all a lie? Keeping Equestria safe was important to her. Maybe that meant staying behind.
She could see her own friends’ looks of desperation. Even Smolder seemed to be pleading her silently to just cross the room. Once she did that it wouldn’t matter what the humans did. Escape from this island was only a few steps away.
Ocellus refused to take it.
“So tell my clan the same thing,” Helen said. “Tell ‘em we all got real knackered with the horse flu, needed to see horse doctors. We’ll be back right quick, as quick as Marie.”
Commander Blackburn stepped up beside Prescott, speaking just loudly enough for all of them to hear. Well, the humans and Ocellus. Her friends and the Elements were on the other side of the room. “Do you want me to force this, ma’am? My men could… take steps.”
The woman’s eyes seemed to be entirely for Helen. A mixture of complex emotion boiled there, and eventually she settled on Ocellus. “What about you? I thought you were one of them. The shapeshifter, correct? Don’t you want to go home?”
Ocellus blinked. The human had actually asked what she wanted, while Twilight just gave her instructions. But what did she want? She didn’t actually care what the human diplomat thought, no matter how much the other humans respected her. It was these new friends she was concerned about. “If you’re worried about them not letting you come back, Marie, I could stay behind. They’d want to get me back, I’m sure. Like… trading hostages.”
“You can right shut up,” Helen interrupted. “No need to be martyr for the cause, mate. We got yer back too.”
Marie might be new to her powers, but Ocellus could see at one glance that she could feel herself becoming the center of conflict for the entire room. Here I am upset that Twilight didn’t ask what I wanted. “What about you, Marie?”
Maybe the human had enjoyed being on the sidelines, because she squeaked quietly at the pressure, and struggled to answer. But then she did. “I want to see your world. And I know that everyone here hates me. They’d rather just have me gone—I make negotiations scary and awkward. Better to just disappear.”
“We don’t,” Helen said, squeezing her arm. “We’ve been with you this long, Marie. Not gonna turn around now.”
Prescott glanced to the side again, and Ocellus could feel her deliberating. Where the human warriors kept their minds disciplined, this one was only hard to read because of how much emotion she felt at once. She was under the pressure of an entire country, maybe a whole planet depending on her. And now they’d thrown a wrench into her perfectly negotiated plan.
“We could stay,” Smolder said, walking slowly across the room until she was beside Ocellus. “I was eager to get home. I’m sure everycreature was. But if we’re here… that means the big ponies are going to be rushing even more to get something worked out, right? Pressure negotiations are great. They stopped dragons from invading Equestria. Could work out great to keep ponies away from this place.”
“We were never going to…” Twilight began, watching in horror as one by one Ocellus’s friends crossed the room. They weren’t going to leave her behind. Some felt frustrated, or frustrated that they weren’t going back. But they also felt loyalty, for her as well as Marie.
“There’s nowhere else to keep you,” Prescott said, her voice desperate and rushed. “I’m told you haven’t enjoyed your time here in Armitage so far. It could be some days before an agreement is reached. The Prime Minister doesn’t even arrive on the flotilla until tomorrow.” But then she seemed to realize who was listening, and she trailed off.
“Eh, I’ve lived in worse.” Smolder flopped to one side on the cement. “Not having the sun is pretty rotten. But maybe you could get some of those guys with weapons to bring some big lamps or something.”
“Or movies!” Silverstream supplied. “Your movies are amazing! The one about the princess who almost cursed her kingdom with eternal winter… that’s so relatable! Maybe you have more movies about that?”
“Eh, could’ve had more dragons,” Smolder muttered, feigning disinterest.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather make this simple for all of us?” Twilight asked, desperate. “Almost everypony would be back where they belong. It would be the most direct resolution for all involved.”
“We’re sure,” Gallus said, resting a wing over Silverstream’s shoulder. You’re only staying because she wants to. But Ocellus found she didn’t even care. Their relationships were what made them friends. It didn’t matter that some felt a little different than others.
“Yona wishes we were outside,” she declared. “But friendship is more important. She knows what it would be like to get separated from her friends. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“I…” Prescott glanced to Blackburn one last time, then turned away. “I need to make a phone call. Princess Twilight Sparkle, if you’d come back with me for a moment…” And they left.
Ocellus couldn’t hear them from across the room, though she could feel the roller-coaster of emotions from Twilight and a confusing mess from the human woman. She couldn’t guess who they were talking to that would be more important, but it didn’t surprise her a phone was involved. The most powerful magic in the human world. I bet if ponies had phones they wouldn’t be half as afraid of us.
Commander Blackburn folded his arms, watching their group while Prescott talked. “I’m glad she didn’t want me to separate you,” he said. “It would be unhappy all around if we were ordered to… well. We still might be. The safety of our nation is in jeopardy. Perhaps two nations, or more. I apologize in advance if we’re asked to do anything.”
“Oh, you’ll do more an’ that mate,” Helen said. “Me family will be right furious if that happens. The ethics complaints you’ll be gettin’, you won’t believe.”
Blackburn was unintimidated. But while his face remained flat, Ocellus could sense a little of what he hid. He actually admired Helen’s loyalty. When he said he didn’t want to hurt them, he meant it.
“You realize we’re going to friendship kindergarten for this,” Sandbar said, conversationally. “And we failed our exam.”
“You think?” Silverstream asked. “I think we did pretty good. No wars yet!”
“I don’t know what’s the big deal with the exam anyway,” Gallus said. “What happens if we fail, we stop being friends? Who cares about the dumb grade.”
Ocellus cared—but not as much as she cared about her new friends.
“Alright, troublemakers…” Twilight said, crossing the room a few moments later. Ocellus winced in preparation for the worst—but it was mostly frustration she felt. “Apparently the rescue has been canceled. Unless you’re willing to change your minds and go to all the right spots…”
They all shook their heads.
“Yeah, I thought not,” she sighed. “Negotiations are… well, none of your business. But we both agree that we have more to gain from friendship, and you’re all safe enough here…” She didn’t look happy as she said it, though. “I’ve received a promise that you’ll be brought to the flotilla after all the peace agreements are signed. That should be more than enough time to work out all the details about who is going where. Maybe for you human foals to get your permission. I’m… not really party to that process. But you need to know…” Now she looked away from the humans. “If you stay behind, we won’t be mounting another rescue. You’re all past cutie-mark age. You have the right to decide this for yourself. I would be no Princess of Friendship if I broke yours.”
“I’m sure,” Ocellus said. “And if that means no more rescue, I’m okay with that.”
But they wouldn’t be rotting away in the Armitage facility forever. Less than a week later, Commander Blackburn arrived to announce they had a ride waiting. “Hope you’re all ready to look pretty for the cameras! It’s time to sign some treaties.”
Marie was the only one of her friends not wearing one of the outfits chosen for them by the boring child phycologist and military people. Her dress and blouse and gold-buttoned sleeves looked quite convincingly like she’d worn the real thing. But they were as illusory as her lack of weird eyes, wings, or fangs.
It was not physically uncomfortable to remove her wings, not the same as it was to keep them trapped by her clothes. But as she walked down the blind cloth tube, she found herself still feeling trapped. I hope they do let me go to Equestria. I would really like to learn to use them.
The Armitage facility had provided them with many comforts over the last week or so. The finest foods had been brought in for their guests to try, some of which had been amazed at all the different ways humans had to prepare their meat.
Some, like Marie, would’ve rather had Nando’s than roast duck any day. But after the second day, Helen’s first care package arrived from her family, and none of them were bored anymore.
Even the aliens had enjoyed the musical rhythm game on a projector screen, doubly useful for watching movies. All unassuming children’s films, but still. Better than endless Smash rematches on the only Switch that had been waiting for them.
The tunnel was completely enclosed, with fully artificial lights overhead. It had no windows, just a blast of air following them forward like when they left the Airbnb house.
“Yona does not like all this dark,” she said from just in front of Marie, stomping one hoof on the plastic with enough force that it tore. It revealed green grass underneath, cut quite short. Where are we, anyway?
“It’s alright,” Agent Smith said from up ahead of them. He was one of the many support staff that would be coming along. His partner had been replaced with the child psychologist, Miss Norington, along with a doctor and a soldier who had been unofficially appointed as the ponies’ ambassador to the rest of the base. Mostly he brought them sweets and hay. “They brought in the biggest thing we could for this flight, given your, uh… size. She has windows, and you’ll be allowed to use them as soon as we’ve flown far enough from Armitage. And once we land aboard ship, you’ll be free to join your delegation.”
“Must be pretty big,” David said, from a few spaces behind her in line. He was walking beside a human-formed Ocellus, who was imitating her right down to the outfit so far. “We’re going to be landing on the Queen Elizabeth, right? I can’t think of anything else we have that could carry all of us… unless NATO sent a V-22.”
“She is big. One of ours, not some loner,” Smith agreed, tasting impressed for a second with David’s deduction. Though Marie couldn’t understand why. If it was signing day, of course the queen would be there.
The tunnel reached the side of an already-open loading ramp. The space had been completely stripped, even down to the seats, with the exception of a few in the front. There were blankets and ropes hanging seemingly at random, and a few undeployed nets, but that was all.
“Now.” Smith stopped at the front, tapping loudly on the metal with his knuckles. “Word of warning for, uh… you two.” His eyes settled on Ocellus, and then darted back to Marie. “I don’t know which god you bribed to break the laws of physics and change mass. The implications terrify me. But for the sake of a smooth trip, do not do that while in flight. Remain… small, if you would. Pilot tells me we’re nearing the service range for this payload. Given your unwillingness to be split up… well, just don’t change while you fly, alright?”
Ocellus nodded. “I spoke to Blackburn about that already. I don’t really understand how your airships fly without a lift-stone, but I can stay as one thing for a few hours.”
“Human airship,” Silverstream said. “I know lots of birds in the hippogriff navy that would love to see this. And there’s a ramp, too! You made a whole ramp out of metal!”
“The whole thing is metal,” Smith said, but despite his apparent annoyance Marie could see the truth in his mind. The more he relaxed around them, the more she could taste what he was feeling. He thought they were adorable. “But don’t take that to mean she’s invincible. Aircraft are made to be as light as possible, so she’s not going to stand up to a beating like the inside of a concrete bunker. I’m going to need the lot of you to be on your best behavior while we’re in-flight. We’ll basically have to sit down and wait until we land. I hope you all used the facilities…”
Loading took another twenty minutes or so. Marie got into one of the chairs beside her friends, and listened to a navy pilot in a fancy uniform as he went over the safety information for their flight and passed out headphones with little microphones on the end.
Then they took off, and any awe the ponies had for their strange “airship” became animal fear and frustration at just how loud the helicopter was. Even Marie felt it, though her headset was properly sized and not something makeshift put together from retention wire and pieces of real headsets.
“Is it always this loud when you fly?” Ocellus asked from the seat beside her. But where her friends were in various stages of near-panic, the changeling was more collected. Because she can feel all our emotions. She knows there’s no reason to be afraid if the humans controlling it aren’t.
Just how many ways would Marie be able to use her powers to cheat? So long as she had friends, she’d never have to let anyone see what she really looked like anymore, Ocellus had guaranteed that. There was no ‘cure’ waiting for her in Equestria. But that didn’t matter.
David thought he was being clever, holding Ocellus’s hand like that. Helen was on his other side, so she wouldn’t be able to see. But Marie didn’t need to be able to look at them to feel it. There was a strange contentment from both of them, mixed with a bubbly rush of the forbidden. They knew how stupid this was, yet they didn’t seem to care. “Oh good, these things are all on the same radio channel. The answer is no, Ocellus. Flying is loud, but most of the time we use jets. They’re pretty quiet on the inside compared to this. But this is a military helicopter. I guess they don’t care if the soldiers aren’t comfortable.”
Should I be mad that she still looks like me?
“Welcome to the armed services,” said another voice, one Marie hadn’t heard before. She might’ve wondered who it was, except that he introduced himself a few seconds later. “This is your captain speaking from the cockpit. We’re on track for arrival on the Elizabeth in about four hours. We’re expecting clear skies all the way out. Please leave the shrouds on the windows for the next hour or so. Once we’ve made a few course changes and we’re over the ocean, you’ll be free to take them off.”
“Because if we found out where Armitage is, you’d have to kill us, right?” Helen asked. Far from being uncomfortable on the plane, she radiated excitement at the flight.
“Something like that,” Smith said. “Let’s just keep it simple. Get our visitors back home, get you… well, not back to your parents exactly. But that’s not my place to talk about.”
They flew on. There was little drama during the rest of the trip over, except for when they were finally free to uncover the windows and creatures rushed around to get a view outside. The aliens were so gigantic that some of them walking around could shift the internal balance and make their course start to wobble.
It wasn’t really worth the view anyway. Marie got out of her seat, wandered over to the window, and saw only water as far as she could see. Wide skies and the occasional wisp of cloud. She probably could’ve made out a few ships somewhere if she really stared, but watching a black-and-white ocean just didn’t entertain her.
My first time flying was on the back of a griffon. That was way more exciting than this.
“Hey, Marie,” Sandbar said. Like every one of the aliens, he was looking bored, resting his weight against a cargo net and half-sitting on the metal floor. “You’ve been practicing your magic, haven’t you? Why don’t you show us?”
“You have?” Silverstream looked up, beaming at her. “Oh, I wanna see! Can you do animals yet? Or… maybe plants. Oh wait, do me! I wanna see if a human can do a hippogriff!”
“She won’t be doing any of that,” Agent Smith said over the radio, only slightly annoyed. “Remember, we can’t change mass.”
“And it’s probably a better idea to avoid too much experimentation with those mutations,” Miss Norington added, her voice far more sensitive. “You’re going to be cured soon anyway, Marie. Growing too dependent on them will only cause you pain later.”
“If you say so,” she thought, for only Ocellus to hear. “I haven’t practiced with changing me,” she muttered, blushing a little. Maybe she should have. A trip to Equestria probably would be easier if she could walk like the natives. But swimming around with a tail had been weird enough. Four legs would probably break her brain or something. “I’ve been practicing with clothes, mostly. I always wanted to cosplay, but my mum… we never had the money for it. But now it’s free.”
“What is a… cosplay?” Smolder asked, suddenly interested. “Not that a dragon cares about clothes or anything, obviously. I’m just trying to learn more about our new neighbors. That’s the only reason.”
Marie wasn’t pleased there were so many eyes on her now, when she would’ve been happy to show off to just one. But now that everyone was watching her… “Cosplay is… I guess it’s mostly older people. It’s half crafts, half tailoring, and half performance I guess? I dunno, I think it’s a rich people hobby. I just figured… the way changelings copy is in your mind, right? Holding a picture in your head so good it gets physical. No reason I couldn’t do that with costumes from my favorite shows. Like…”
She concentrated, and the overly formal black and white clothes she was wearing faded to an oversized blue dress, with many overlapping layers that looked like ice. “Frozen? I know I don’t have the right body for it, but… I still like Elsa’s dress. Or…” She spun around again, and this time settled on shorts and a vest, with straps down her arms. “How about Tomb Raider? She’s bloody awesome!”
Each time she changed, Marie could feel that little bit of magic draining away from her. Nothing quite so concrete that she could put numbers to, but it was certainly there. Even holding the clothes in place took a little of it.
With all these ponies to look at and appreciate her work, the costumes weren’t even monochrome anymore.
“It’s cool,” Smolder muttered. “Humans have lots of different costumes, huh? We might need to investigate that. For… trade purposes or whatever boring pony stuff. How hard are they to make normally?”
“It’s amazing!” Ocellus exclaimed. How she’d got right next to her to watch, Marie couldn’t tell. But she was walking a slow circle around her in the helicopter. Miss Norington had told them several times not to move while they flew if they didn’t have to, but after so many hours of flight no one was listening anymore. “I think you might’ve come up with a genuinely new way of using our magic, Marie. In Equestria, clothes aren’t important. But for you humans, they’re almost like… your whole identity or something. It seems like ‘cosplay’ is a way for you to go halfway to changelings already.”
“Yeah, well… don’t look at the Tinkerbelle I made back home. It’s… really bad. But this is great!”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Agent Smith interrupted. “But pilot just told me we’re coming in for our final approach. Maybe you should go back to the outfit we gave you, Marie? And everyone else, sit down. We’re just about done here.”
The human airship had been impressive in its own way, even if it became incredibly frustrating as soon as the engines actually turned on. But Ocellus kept her mouth closed and didn’t complain during the flight. Compared to her friends, she was fantastically lucky. At least she didn’t have to spend the entire trip strapped into one place for fear that walking around would unbalance the whole thing.
Equestria might not know how to make airships stay as warm inside, they might not know how to make them out of metal, or work without the huge balloons or lift stones. But even so, she’d take a Solar Navy ship over the constant roar of the rotors overhead any day.
“If you look to your right, you’ll see the flotilla. We’re coming in for landing approach now, so this is the last chance you’ll get to see it from above.” That was the pilot, better at making conversation with his passengers than plenty of the human military people Ocellus had met in the last week. “That big one there is the HMS Queen Elizabeth, largest aircraft carrier ever built for the royal navy. Best pub on the water too, if you get a chance to visit.”
“I think the Equestrians might be too young to drink,” said Miss Norington, the strange woman that had been sent to supervise the humans. Ocellus didn’t really like her—everything she said seemed calculated, like she was trying to change their thinking without their realizing. Even she had caught herself answering questions she never would’ve dreamed of answering to anyone else.
Ocellus leaned forward just a little, so she could see out the window. Even from the air, the incredible scope of these human machines made her feel suddenly small. It looked like the humans had built a metal city in the sea, even bigger and mightier than anything the Storm King had kept in his fleet. Would’ve been good friends to have back then. He couldn’t have held half the world for ransom. Except that thought led to an obvious conclusion. What if they’re better liars about their intentions than we think? How is Equestria supposed to fight enemies like this?
“I’m probably the oldest one on this airship,” Smolder said. Her headset fit the best of any of them, aside from Ocellus. Probably because the human one just had to move out of the way of her headfins and it could still work. “Dragons age slow. Like, unbearably slow when you’re growing up. But they all say you wish it had been slower once you get there.”
“That part sounds familiar,” Agent Smith said.
But Ocellus wasn’t listening anymore. She squeezed David’s hand a little tighter, watching as they closed in on the biggest ship of all. So large that a dozen Hippogriff Coursers could’ve lined up in front of it without even crossing half its length. “How do you get so much metal to float?”
One of the reasons that she enjoyed David’s company so much—apart from how he felt about her, obviously—was his willingness to answer questions that would’ve annoyed all the other humans. He would sit for hours and explain things to her, even more than once. What was more, he enjoyed it too. He wasn’t humoring her, he wasn’t taking pity, or trying to get anything out of it. He just liked being with her.
“Buoyancy,” he said. “I, uh… I don’t know a whole lot about the maths. I just know that if you push down more water than the weight of the ship, you float. Otherwise, you sink. A ship like this goes down really deep into the water. It’s called the… draft! That’s it. There’s almost as much you can’t see from above as the parts you can.” He squeezed her hand, then noticed Helen looking their way and abruptly let go. All his affection for her changed in an instant into fear for how she would respond, if only she knew.
It’s okay. He isn’t embarrassed about me. He’s worried for his friend’s feelings. Ocellus still wasn’t sure exactly how it was that humans could read each other’s emotions. Sometimes the answer to that seemed to be poorly.
There was a sudden jolt, and the roar of the engines overhead settled down. The huge metal things on the top of the helicopter (that David had told her about during the flight, of course) sounded like they were slowing to a stop. She watched her friends rise, removing their headsets.
“I have, uh… one request,” Smith said. “For you, Miss Ocellus. If you wouldn’t mind appearing as your natural self for the cameras. There’s no reason to confuse them all with two of the same child. Her life is going to be complicated enough by this whole situation as it is. There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that everything happening today is being watched by every human on this planet. This is our generation’s moon landing. Smile for the history books, eh?”
Ocellus rose from her seat, walking some distance away before she reluctantly gave up her human disguise. Each time she felt that wave of shock and fear from the humans—some of them, anyway. None of the children were afraid of her anymore, even Helen.
“We don’t have to do anything, though, right?” Marie asked, adjusting her newly-recreated dress with one nervous hand. “The queen wrote the treaty, not us. We aren’t even here to sign anything.”
“The queen didn’t write the treaty, dear,” Miss Norington said. Even the humans had removed their headsets now. “But her Majesty will be signing it, yes. While the three of you… the nine of you won’t be asked to perform any diplomatic tasks, there are reporters here from both sides of the border. I know some of them have requested an interview. You’ll be allowed to tell them anything you wish, except the, uh… details regarding you, Marie. Knowing there is a process that might be used to alter humans against their will would damage the goodwill between our nations.”
“Before you ask,” Smith said matter-of-factly. “I have absolutely no idea how our counterparts with more legs do things, but everything on our side is being screened. Anything specific you say about Armitage or anything hinting about what happened to Miss Evans will be censored. Other than that…” He shrugged. “I won’t be coaching you. Certainly not instructing you to lie.”
“Just by omission,” David muttered, sour darkness swirling in his mind. Impotent anger—though not very strong. Ocellus tasted his indecision gradually solidify into begrudging obedience. “Wouldn’t it be good to tell them that Ocellus saved her life?”
“Maybe one day,” Miss Norington said. “I know it must be upsetting not to be able to tell your whole story. But this day is for lots of people, not just us. Not even just Britain. Smarter people than all of us get to make these decisions. I’m sure whichever of you writes a book first will get very rich.”
Without warning, Helen and David both pointed at Marie. “She needs the money,” Helen said. “Hell, I’ll help. But she can print it. Then maybe you can spot me a cone every now and then, stead’a the other way around.”
“Sure,” Marie muttered. “If there’s time. I… really want to go to Equestria after this. For the ‘cure.’ Or… whatever. Is that still happening?”
“That isn’t for me to say,” Smith said again, unhelpfully. “But what I can tell you is what’s about to happen. There are about a hundred cameras outside that ramp. Everyone is getting in position. Exit in whatever order you want, then cross to your delegation. The signing ceremony happened a few minutes ago—one of the first items on that list was an official exchange of prisoners. You’ll remain with your delegation for a few hours… and whatever happens is way above my salary. But it’s been a pleasure getting to know you all.” He nodded politely to Ocellus, who happened to be the closest. “I doubt I’ll ever get involved in this mess again. I’m sorry things got tense during our first meeting. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad we could keep things civil. It would’ve been a right shame if our first contact with an alien species went bloody.”
“Thanks,” Smolder said, answering before Ocellus could even open her mouth. “I guess you guys weren’t the worst in the world.” Then she spun, facing the children in their seats. “Don’t you guys even think about saying goodbye. We owe some hospitality on our side. Flying lessons for you, Marie. I’m sure you’ll be great on those wings.”
Someone knocked on the side door, and a soldier in a fancy uniform stepped inside. “The press corps are ready,” he said, mostly to Agent Smith. Though he tried to keep his eyes front, Ocellus could feel his attention wandering back into the room. He was as curious as anyone outside about what was in here.
“Alright.” Smith stepped forward, resting his hand on a large button on the wall. “I won’t be joining you all, so good luck. Remember, join your delegations. And do watch your step, if you’re unfamiliar with sea travel. I’m told the swells can be a bit unpleasant given the disruption to the local currents.
He smacked the big red button, and the ramp went down.
On an intellectual level, Ocellus had felt some idea of just how many minds were outside. She knew it was a big group, knew that there would be many eyes on them. But she hadn’t imagined anything like this.
The deck of the Queen Elizabeth was even more massive as she stepped out onto it, near the back of her group. Thousands of creatures were gathered not far away, separated only by a little velvet divider. Lights began to flash in their direction, like the flashbulbs sometimes used in Equestria. Only instead of going off once and then smoking, these just kept flashing. Over and over, so that she had to look away from the incredible number of people.
They were shouting questions, too. “How long have you been in the UK? Did you hurt anyone? Is it true that a child was injured? Were you invaders? Did you think you could stay hidden?” So many questions that they turned to white-noise in Ocellus’s mind. She focused her attention briefly, and with a small effort of will banished all of them.
Poor Marie had no training in crowds, however. She looked like she was about to fall over, so overwhelmed with the number of people. “It’s okay, Marie. Take a deep breath. Ignore them. It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t feel okay,” she replied, sounding sick. “I can’t even hear my own brain anymore.”
“Hold onto your friends. Focus on them. That will help.” Ocellus would’ve given her a little of that help herself, but she wouldn’t be transforming in front of all these people. They’d been told to just walk to their sides. Now it was finally time to cooperate.
On the other side of the boat were the familiar, Equestrian creatures. There was no physical line drawn, but she could make out the point quite clearly where humans ended and ponies began. Even though they were far less numerous, their side still seemed more packed. Space that provided standing room for many humans forced ponies to stand close together. Many of them were Royal Guard, though there were some reporters near the front. Their own flashbulbs were so weak by comparison that she hadn’t even noticed them going off. Both sides are crowded so close they almost make it to the edge. I hope nobody falls off into the ocean.
While the human ships were mostly seagoing, all the Equestrian ships Ocellus could see hovered overhead. Equestria had sent its biggest zeppelins, including the Solaris, its gold-plated metallic struts glittering in the sunlight.
They didn’t have far to go. They walked a hundred feet or so, to where two groups stood separated from the reporters by more velvet dividers. Princess Celestia and Twilight were there, along with Starlight Glimmer of all ponies. And on the other—she had no idea who the humans were. An incredibly old woman, looking remarkably spry for her years, a handful of others who weren’t so nice-looking. Both sides had a few soldiers, though they were the ceremonial kind. The human weapons were all white, and didn’t look like they could be used. The Royal Guard carried their solid gold spears, without any practical application whatsoever.
“We’ll talk soon,” she whispered to David, before separating with the others to their side. Silence gradually descended on the gathering, broken only by the occasional crashing of waves against the huge ship, and the wind whistling through the metal building beside them. Despite the warning, Ocellus barely noticed the ship’s rocking. If it was doing that, she couldn’t tell.
The human spoke first. She had the assistance of a strong-looking man as she stepped up to a wooden podium, holding her stable the whole time. As she watched, Ocellus realized the incredible force of attention on this woman. It’s like Celestia. Maybe she’s the one who moves the sun in this world.
“People of the United Kingdom. Friends the world over, welcome. We are here today to commemorate…”
Diplomacy had never been Ocellus’s strength, even before the world got torn apart. It had taken every drop of determination and cleverness to keep her group from fracturing—or worse, from inviting the humans to go to war. But after hours of fancy parties, of listening to speeches and promises of peace from both countries, she dared let herself feel a little pride. She had done it. There would be no wars today. Humanity would’ve made a dangerous enemy, but now they would become a friend.
Even so, she had questions. Questions she asked Twilight as soon as she got a spare moment with the princess. It was already night by then, and the party in the “Queen’s Head” was winding down. Many of the diplomats had got just drunk enough that she could finally catch the princess alone.
“I don’t understand the point of formalizing all this,” she whispered, quiet enough that she hoped she wouldn’t be overheard. “A peace treaty is great, but… that treaty is huge. International recognition… fishing rights? Trade, tourism… what’s the point? Aren’t we going back to our world? This spell will reverse itself, won’t it?”
Twilight glanced around to see that no one was listening, then her horn shimmered for a second. The sound of the party all around them—the quiet music, the friendly voices—all went abruptly silent. “This isn’t common knowledge yet…” Twilight said, her voice low. “But it was discussed. It’s in parts of the treaty that aren’t going to be shared yet.”
“Okay…” Ocellus fluttered up to the chair next to Twilight. But there was only one pony cushion at this table, so she had to change. Ocellus got taller, lankier—and suddenly she was human. Almost Marie, though at insistence from Miss Norington she had made a few changes. Blonde hair instead of brown, some random alterations to her face. Otherwise she might as well be the same pony. Maybe an older sister? “So what?”
Twilight blinked, then shook her head dismissively. Apparently Ocellus’s mastery over human imitation wasn’t interesting enough for her. Plenty of the diplomats were staring, but she ignored them. She’d already showed off her powers for them hours ago. “Equestria isn’t the first,” she said quietly. “The magic that brought us here is not tearing us off our world. It’s replacing the land that always should’ve been here. Have you ever looked at a map of human land?” She didn’t actually wait for an answer. “It’s gigantic. Like unbelievably big. Everything on our whole planet could fit inside one of their continents with room to spare. Because it used to be here.”
As shocking as that revelation was, Ocellus actually found her heart leaping with joy. “You mean I’ll get to see my family again?”
Twilight nodded. “Probably soon. Months, not years. We’re still unraveling everything back in Equestria, but what we know for sure is that the magic originated there and spread outward. The further land is from Equestria, the later it will come back. But it’s all coming back.” She sat back, sipping at her human drink. Ocellus wrinkled her nose at how strong it smelled, but Twilight seemed to need it. “It’s a good thing the humans didn’t ask for much. It could’ve gone bad.”
“What did they want?” Ocellus asked, unable to restrain her curiosity. “You didn’t have us to talk to during negotiations… I hope the treaty is fair.”
Twilight’s eyebrows went up. “We aren’t helpless, Ocellus. We had the best ponies for the job, don’t worry. You can read it yourself. Just… don’t ask me.” Her horn stopped glowing. “I’ve had enough business today.”
Some of her friends were still here. She could see Smolder talking to a group of humans in black and white uniforms—she recognized them abruptly. Marie called them “police.” Unless she had completely lost her mind, those were the humans that had found them on the beach. One of them had shot Smolder.
Did Smolder need her help? Ocellus crept closer for a few seconds, listening in as best she could. But one of them clasped the dragon on the shoulder, and she puffed a little blast of fire into the air in front of them. They cheered, and one replaced Smolder’s mug with a fresh one.
Guess that’s forgiven. Ocellus slipped back into the party, moving as casually as she could. There was still one question unresolved. Of course they didn’t tell me. The humans are the ones with the decision to make. She got up, searching around the room. No sign of David at a glance. “Marie, where are you? Not at the party anymore?”
“No. We got tired of all the noise.” She probably meant that she got tired, and her friends had left with her out of sympathy. But Ocellus didn’t correct her.
“Where are you?”
“Fancy stateroom a few floors down.” She passed the directions on, and Ocellus slipped out of the party. It wasn’t hard, really. Despite her differences, everyone seemed to assume she was Marie, and told her where to go. Besides, this whole section of the ship was housing dignitaries and guests from both sides—only if she tried to go into the military sections below would soldiers stop her.
She reached the section of little rooms—officer’s quarters, according to the signs. I hope the officers who would be staying here aren’t too upset we stole their spot. One of the bedrooms had its door hanging open, and no one visible inside. The other was shut. She tried that one, and it opened without a lock.
All three of the humans were inside, clustered near the wall around the thing called a “Switch” again. They were all wearing pajamas. Most notably, Marie’s real features were visible, wings poking out through the back of her top and her eyes solid blue. She was the first to notice Ocellus’s approach, since she’d been able to sense her through the door. “Done with the party?”
The others turned, though Helen only briefly. She was more interested in the game. David set his controller down without another word, watching her. But it was Marie who answered. “Too many people. My head still feels like it’s gonna explode. They gave me something for the migraine, but… I’ll be happier when I’m not on this boat.”
“That’s…” Ocellus sat down on the edge of the bed. “Something a lot of grubs went through when they were young. But you don’t just live with it. There’s training you can do. When you come to Equestria, I’ll teach you. Err…” She hesitated. “That’s why I’m here, actually. Do you get to come? Once the important ponies and important humans started talking, we just didn’t matter anymore.”
David sat down beside her, not quite close enough to touch. She resisted the urge to just read what he was feeling and figure it out, waiting to hear what he had to say. “Our parents are on their way out,” she said. “They’ll be coming with us. Well, my mom will.”
“And me dad,” Helen called, not actually turning around. “Equestria’s a bloody new market, yeah? Finally did something he noticed. Maybe he’ll even get my name right this time.”
Marie laughed. “My mum actually tried to tell them no, if you believe it. Said I needed no part of Equestria or anything else. Said I’d been ‘corrupted enough.’” She chuckled. “But she didn’t actually get a choice. She’ll probably be bloody peeved when she finds out there’s no cure, though.”
“There could be,” Ocellus said. “I mean… there could be a ‘cure,’ if you just never let her see you do magic ever again. Oh look, I’m better! See world! Totally better. No magic here.”
“There’s going to be magic everywhere now,” David said, taking her hand. Ocellus’s heart raced, but she didn’t pull away. Isn’t he worried about Helen turning around again? What if she sees? The warmth in her chest didn’t care who saw. Maybe David didn’t care anymore either. “They’re talking about tourism. In a few years there might be an airport in… what’s the capital again?”
“Canterlot.”
“Canterlot, right. An airport in Canterlot, with tourists flying all over the world. Or… at least to the NATO countries, Australia, and Switzerland.”
Ocellus’s eyes widened, and she leaned in close. “Wait, you actually understood what the treaty says?”
“Most of it. I mean half of it was just ‘we agree you exist, we agree you’re a country and you have a right to control your territory. Now we agree the same things about you, boring boring legal boring.’ But there were a few things. There’s, uh… it could still get ugly. Half of the world doesn’t recognize Equestria’s autonomy yet. Not sure what they’ll do. My phone caught something from Iran saying you were an affront to God or something?” He shook his head. “Stupid.”
“Of course it’s gonna get bloody ugly,” Helen spun around. Her eyes widened a little as she saw the two of them, but she restrained her shock. Not half as well as Agent Smith, but she managed to keep talking. “There are people involved. Things are always messy. But those places are far away and we’re right here. That’s what having allies is about, yeah?” She finally set her controller down, voice faltering. “So, uh… you two? Does that even work?”
What does that mean? Ocellus couldn’t make sense of whatever Helen was thinking. It was confusing and strange and she quickly stopped looking.
David seemed to read the implication more than she did. “I’m sorry, Helen.” He let go. “I know you… I mean, I think I know. I hope this won’t ruin our friendship.”
“I don’t know.” Helen folded her arms, looking Ocellus up and down with sharp eyes. “Let me get back to you. She seems like a sweetheart and all, but… I ein’t sure if it’s better or worse she’s an alien.”
“If it helps…” Ocellus muttered, voice feeble. “I’m not sure my uncle would approve? But I don’t actually know anything about what’s going to happen. I might not see my family for months, maybe years. Who knows how long you’ll be able to stay in Equestria. They might not want a changeling like me ever setting hoof on your island again. Lots of questions. Lots of ways to ruin it.”
David took her hand again, squeezing reassuringly. “Forget all that. We basically saved the world, if you think about it. Maybe we can just… be here. Let the grown-ups worry about tomorrow.”
That sounded like a good enough idea to her.
But she couldn’t stay, not when her friends were waiting for her. Ocellus rejoined them on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth an hour or so later, where an Equestrian airship had lowered a long wooden bridge onto the side of the ship. The airship seemed to take several pegasus ponies just to hold it in place against the wind.
Gallus waved to her as she approached. “Still… lookin’ like them huh?”
“Oh!” She blushed, then changed back into herself, wings buzzing with embarrassment. “Not anymore!”
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone native on us, Ocellus.” Smolder met her for a hug—the others soon joined her, until the guardspony on the edge of the ramp tapped his spear impatiently on the metal deck. “We’ve got a long flight.”
“Did Twilight tell you about our grade?” Sandbar asked, as they were walking up the ramp. It creaked a little underhoof, but nothing like all the human buildings and vehicles they’d been using for weeks now. Ponies actually built things sturdy enough to support weight.
“Oh, no. I… completely forgot about that.” Her ears flattened to her head. “How many years did we flunk for this?”
“None!” Silverstream jumped into the air, circling once around the ramp before landing on the edge of the airship up ahead. “Straight As! We’re graduating!”
“Oh.” Ocellus felt herself smiling. “Guess we didn’t do that bad a job.”
“We better graduate, after all those needles we let them stick in us,” Gallus said, landing beside Silverstream. He lowered his voice, and Ocellus didn’t catch what he said next. But she sure felt it when they kissed.
“What about the small friends?” Yona asked, utterly oblivious to what was going on a few feet away on the airship balcony. “They were coming back with us, yes? Teach Marie to fly! Wasn’t that…” She turned to Gallus, then stared. The resultant shout was loud enough that it echoed off the ship, and made several humans on deck jump.
Ocellus climbed off the ramp at the back, shaking her head. “They’re coming tomorrow. The flotilla is sending a ship to Manehattan with some goodwill gifts. They’ll catch the train from there.”
Nopony was at war, nopony had died. So far as final projects went… Ocellus figured they could’ve done worse.
