Love is...

Love is meant to be a weightless thing. That's how the romantics portray it in song and story, but that interpretation is both too innocent and too jaded. It implies that true love cannot result from being forced together for the purpose, that it must be a creeping, devious thing that twines itself in your very veins before it is discovered. Even though we stayed together for the first few days only as a matter of a misplaced and disgruntled sense of duty, we discovered the seeds of weedy affection had taken strong root.

It was three years before the invasion, in April, that I'd told Connie about the changelings. Two years and ten months since my I got down on one knee and asked if, maybe, she'd do me the honor of staying married to me. Much as I wanted to hate her in defiance of my life having been appropriated, I know a good thing when I see it. I lack the superlatives to exemplify how she was the best thing that could ever have been foisted upon a miserable coward as me. I had no intention of losing her.

It might be the case that I'd downplayed certain details, such as to whom she had said her vows, and the multiplicity of creatures involved, but I set the main points out before her. She was livid for days, but not for the creatures who'd invaded her life and bed as one might expect. She was angry that I'd told the changeling that I'd originally felt she might be more interested in lodging in my home than in building a life together. I'd only mentioned it in passing as emblematic of how wrong I'd been. It was meant to be humorous, even, something I said to break the tension. It is the case that I'm not that good with mares, but I've made a note not to cast them as gold diggers, even in jest, I think it may qualify as axiomatic.

Once I got to know her for myself I found that the changeling assessment had been spot on and I easily grew to love her. When I wrote my treatise on the changelings I carefully kept the timeline and exact dates vague, somehow she still caught on to the things I'd left out, clever mare that she is, but she never said a great deal about it.

The threat of the changeling swarm became a popular bogeyman and it was played up by the local officials to secure military funding and perpetuated by the popular bards and entertainers. Soon there was a whole industry selling anti-changeling charms and devices meant to reveal them if some something turned a different color or what have you. It was common knowledge that they would one day swoop down upon us and steal away all our mares. As the foremost expert on the matter I tried to quell such loose and idiotic talk.

Imagine my surprise when it actually happened just as predicted, almost as if their plan of attack had been plucked directly from our own zeitgeist. If we'd had the time to collectively pick over and reason through the circumstances involved I'm sure we would have found them to be overly suspicious and our reaction would have been more careful, more nuanced.

I was fortunate just to keep Commander Victory from declaring martial law and drafting the whole of the populace in his zeal to retrieve the town's mares and fillies. That's not to say that there were any malingerers to speak of anyway. Everypony capable of bearing arms and any number who weren't had volunteered.

Considerable guilt hung over my own head as I had long been attempting to temper the anti-changeling rhetoric that had driven the town to hysteria before the raid. Also it is no small matter that my own Connie had gone to visit her mother in the country so as to present our new foal, thus my own little family was safe. If that fact were well known, the more reactionary elements might deem it a sign of culpability.

In the current climate, such a coincidence was likely to get me hung should it be revealed too broadly, but keeping it a secret would likewise cast me in a sinister light. There was nothing for it but to strike while the iron was hot and attempt to rescue the mares. Fortunately the hot blooded amongst us had already come to that conclusion and there was no dissuading them in any event. I mean, primarily, Commander Victory. After our little confab in the university he was pacing and flexing his wings in excitement over his forthcoming chance to ignite the changeling hive and we'd taken to brainstorming ways that he might meet with this goal with the minimum level of casualties on our end, drawing and erasing plan after plan on the blackboard.

It should be noted that the Commander was a genuine war hero, a real brawler who relied more on motivating his troops to surpass their limitations than on actual strategy. The truth was that he was scarcely older than I, but he was punch drunk and shouldn't have been left in command after his last tour fighting the griffons. Tanis had heard of his glorious triumphs and had hired him at a below market salary to lead their guard when their military budget had first started to balloon. They soon realized why he could be had and so cheaply, but left the error uncorrected to save embarrassment on both sides.  We needed the commander because he controlled those several thousand members of the self defense force. The majority of those were reservists since there were rarely any plausible threats here, but at least they were trained and equipped, unlike the many thousand ragtag volunteers.

He would have been lost from day one save for his lieutenant, Lightning Strike. She ran the show and managed to respectfully keep him in check. She, of course, had been taken with the other mares and it had been left up to me and my colleagues, and for long hours we were stumped.

The commander sat alone among us eggheads, obviously bored and annoyed. He was toying with a chalk holder that could be fitted with five pieces at the same time so as to neatly write musical notation. It was missing one piece of chalk and he sat on a stool near the board shuffling the chalk to move the gap and crosshatching lines on one corner of the board. He grunted and dropped it to the floor, letting the chalk pieces fragment and spray across the floor. The individual pieces he ground into the floor with his hoof, sighing heavily.

Much as I dislike him, it was his outburst that finally spurred us back into action. Musty Scroll had been vehemently arguing against a conventional assault, lobbying for a siege, "You can't fight them head to head, even if we do have more ponies, we don't know their full capabilities and they have hostages. More than that, what happens when our forces clash and they turn into copies of our own troops, then what? You can't kill them if you can't tell the difference."

"We could wear armbands." Somepony suggested.

Scroll rolled his eyes and accented his rebuttal with sprayed spittle and chalk dust, "If they can copy us they'll copy the armbands and we can't have a password either, they'd pick up on that almost immediately and we'd be right back where we were."

"Well we can't lay siege to the hive. Sure there's a lot of us, but if they stage a breakout we'll be right down to hoof to hoof combat, so a siege is no better than an attack. Besides, who's to say for certain that they can become us convincingly enough to fool everypony?" On of the professors protested.

"They don't have to convince everypony, they just have to confuse us long enough to make us hesitate, that's all it takes." I said, "Mind you they can become perfect copies of us from what I've seen, what I suggest..."

"Oh, we've already heard your suggestion and I say we can't wait for the Canterlot guard to get here." Musty Scroll interjected. It was at this point that Commander Victory stood, yawned noisily, drawing the attention of everypony in the room. He made a show stretching slowly. At length he spoke.

"Wars aren't fought by committee and there's a reason for that. When you take all the possibilities, lay them out there, and try to hedge against them you'll come up deciding every single time that victory isn't assured and it's not worth the risk." He began simply, then assumed the stance of an ice hearted general, his predatory glare holding us fast, "In this case, it doesn't matter. No matter what the risk, we have to fight and we have to win. All we're doing by delaying is giving the enemy a chance to prepare." He glared angrily, feet splayed, volume rising, "Against my better judgment I came here to consult with you supposedly learned ponies and all you've done is waste my time. I had hoped that you'd have given me something better than 'attack them head on and burn their hive to the ground', which is my preference, but you haven't, so I'm leaving to go start a war. I've got confidence I'll win, but I was hoping to keep the casualties low, since I'll be leading civilians, but so be it. If you happen to have a plan, tell it to me before I make it out the door." The other ponies in the room all started yelling and speaking over each other. The Commander waved them all off, "Quiet! I didn't mean you professors. Traitor, tell me your plan. Quickly now."

"Don't call me traitor." I seethed.

"You bug bucking maggot lover, give me something I can use or go to Tartarus! Ponies are going to die because you tried to play it safe and cover all your bets. Tell me now or let it be on your head!" He demanded, walking towards the door.

"Fine! Fine, just, give me a minute..." He kept walking so I just started talking, hoping something would stick, "Okay, divide the forces in half, no...thirds, okay? One force approaches directly, makes camp and act like they're preparing for battle in the morning, right? They should make a big show of it. It should be around twilight when we get there. One of the other forces will flank them on the East by blending in with the low hills. Now the changelings will probably attack at night and if they do, the main force should retreat to a regrouping point. There's a meadow three miles on that will be perfect."

"The flanking force will follow behind and bottle them up in the valley between the hive and the meadow. The pegasi will have to keep the air inhospitable with hit and run tactics. There's not enough of them to get entangled in a running fight but we just need to keep the changelings low enough our archers can get to them."

"Maybe." Commander Victory pondered, having stopped walking and now listening intently, "What about the third force?"

"That's where you come in, I think." I continued, "See we want to get our mares back. Decimating the changelings might be good for vengeance, but it's meant to be a ruse. I don't believe we could exterminate them even if that were our primary intent. While they're all distracted with the battle your force will destroy the part of the changeling hive that's farthest from our prisoners and the most irreplaceable. The nursery."

"All you'll have to do is douse it with a generous helping of naphtha and light it up, then the whole hive will be there trying to put it out and save their foals. While they are so occupied you'll raid the pod where the prisoners should be."

"Should be?" He asked, annoyed.

"Yes. Should be, but honestly I don't know how they'd fit every mare in the city in that dome alone, it was already pretty full before. There's another one set up just like it, but it used to be changelings only in there. They might be in that one too, I imagine they'd have to be." Admittedly there were a lot of holes in the plan, but it's certainly better than doing nothing while the changelings do Celestia knows what to the mares.

"What about their shapeshifting? We don't have a way to circumvent that, do we? We might end up slaughtering our own troops!" Musty Scroll protested.

"Well...we can't use some sort of clothing as a symbol and I don't think a password's going to work unless we can rotate it...we need...I got it! How about we sing? Something we all know like...the Tanis national anthem? It's long and everypony knows it, but I bet the changelings don't!" I suggested, thinking it a stroke of genius myself.

"Fine. If that's the best we've got." Commander Victory acceded. I think he would have agreed with any plan which allowed for his pyromaniacy to be practiced, which is why I let the plan revolve around it. He motioned for us to follow him. By this time his subordinates had assembled the civilian volunteers on the campus lawn. Their mass covered the ten acres with flesh and steel.

Many of them wore armor and they were all armed. Closer inspection revealed the armor to be piecemeal bits of surplus, hand me downs and freshly cobbled together, makeshift versions of some ingenuity. A great many of the weapons, though, I recognized. They'd raided the museum for their armament which irked me considerably. It seems like every instance of emergency makes everypony think they have the right to commandeer whatever they want in the heat of the moment, but here an entire stretch of history was going to waste for a fight that could be waged just as well with shovels and pitchforks. Were they likely to return the relics after the battle or feel entitled to keep them as souvenirs of their fight?

More of history seems to be lost to war's predations than to time's weathering flow. In my anger I missed most of the Commander's speech, right up to the point where he put me in charge of what he named the bait division.

"Wait, what?" I stopped him, "I can't lead an army, I'm just a scholar, I should go with you to the hive."

"Nah, we need you in the bait division for sure. A coward like you ought to be right at home leading a division whose sole purpose is to flee from battle." He chuckled, "Besides, I haven't got anyone else to do it, I need all my squad in the air to keep the skies clear. You're it, bug lover."

Then he finished his speech to a loud hurrah. Soon enough the stallions had been divided off and our three divisions were marching to war. It was a sudden thing. Early this morning had been as peaceful and idyllic as any in this sun drenched university town and I'd been as far from a soldier as it was possible to be. Things change, and when they do, it's often with considerable rapidity.

The other two divisions were lightly provisioned and were doing their best to shadow us by filtering through the trees, brush and cover on either side while we marched loudly and conspicuously down the center of the valley.

We made camp almost on the doorstep of the hive with as many tents and fixtures as we'd been able to carry. Our campfires stood out like bull's eyes. We were making a show of laughing and talking but every eye scanned the sky, waiting for a dark shape to come between us and the bright pinpointed stars above us.

The changelings came not by air but rather by slithering towards the visibly unguarded side of the camp. I'd intentionally let that spot look unguarded, but in fact there were sentries looking out from under the edge of each tent and when the changelings were spotted they ignited conflagrations of oil and timber that drove back the dark and starkly highlighted the aggressors against the pale, uninviting soil. Unfortunately it wasn't a proper attack force, rather just a scouting party of about a dozen creatures and they fled from the light with cockroach-like speed.

"Douse the fires!" I yelled and they were quickly smothered with wet blankets and the world descended into night once more. Our defenses had been tested and we'd sprung our trap and come up empty. Now every stallion stood vigilantly, waiting for the real attack. It was one thing to march with an army and encamp with them in anticipation of a battle, it was quite another to have been thus tested and waiting for the real force to appear. It was maddening. It jangled my nerves and I started at every sound in the camp as the long minutes wore on.

"Is that a cloud or is that...?" I heard one of the sentries speculate, then, "Incoming! There's got to be thousands of them!"

The archers started to fire blindly but in an ordered pattern into the night and clashes in the air above us could be heard, undoubtedly the pegasi engaging the swarm. Their efforts seemed to be paying off as a rain of the creatures fell to the ground. They fell like comets, trailing streaks of green flame and shattering the earth where they landed. Between our camp and the hive was a sea of that emerald fire that I felt fortunate was not landing on us. If their forces had infiltrated ours already, how much worse this would be, but for now we faced a solid line of black snarling creatures.

A difficulty I had not anticipated presented itself. The chitinous armor our adversaries were equipped with was seemingly impervious to our arrows and our swords were useful only as bludgeons as they likewise would not easily penetrate, though the sound beating still seemed to accomplish a great deal. It was with some relief that I ordered the retreat, but when we regrouped the same problem would present itself.

We allowed ourselves to be driven before the changeling army, the rear guard clashing briefly with our pursuers as we galloped away from them. It was no great remedy to my anguish that, even now, their army was being flanked and boxed in from behind. It hadn't occurred to me before that our role was to be the anvil that the hammer crushed them against. The snarling aggression of the glistening black drones would cow even the hardest veterans and here we were, a force of the weakest and most callow sorts, no true iron in our ranks save the archers. We quailed in fear at the hellish creatures nipping at our heels.

After a tense retreat in which our rear guard was miraculously never broken we made it to the regrouping point. The rear guard redoubled their speed and slipped past lines of our little militia who formed up a palisade of mismatched, razor sharp iron and bronze. Upon meeting with such a formidable wall the changelings reared and they themselves retreated, blending back into the cover of night.

We heard the din of battle from the distance and we marched in tight formation towards the sound with it in mind to aid our brothers. In the dark, the battle lines were poorly defined. What we found over and over was stallion fighting stallion, the changelings were trying to blend into our forces and attack from within.

"Sing the anthem! Now, sing out and we'll see who's who." I yelled out and the slow, embarrassed singing began. Even to save their own lives most stallions would prefer not to sing in front of others, but now the plodding, militaristic song rang out from every lip in unison.

"We are valiant ponies, sons of honour,

And all we’ve sacrificed to gain our freedom.

Emerging from malicious grip of fate, from Tartarus a'fire,

We scored a victory of glory and success!" They sang, eyes scanning each other for anypony lip synching along or stumbling over the words.

"Soar high up in the sky, oh, eagle of freedom,

Call up to harmony, agreement and accord!

For hero’s might and strength is in the nation,

Just as unity is the nation’s razing sword!" No infiltrators had been found and so we all figured them to be as clever at impersonation as might be supposed. We, as a whole, got close enough to our fellows to hear them sing out the words clearly and them deemed them to have passed.

"While honouring our mothers and respecting

The cream of cream of our rising nation

We welcomed all ill-starred and struck by ruin...

Our homeland, the steppe, a sacred cradle

Of friendship and accord

Gave all a shelter and a hearty refuge." It was quickly discovered that there were none who were not singing the anthem in earnest, but once started it carried on as if a living thing all of it's own.

"Soar high up in the sky, oh, eagle of freedom,

Call up to harmony, agreement and accord!

For hero’s might and strength is in the nation,

Just as unity is the nation’s razing sword!" Our forces, trained and novice alike, formed into ranks so as to preclude any outside infiltration and discern our numbers. The song went on.

"We’ve overcome the hardships

Let the past serve bitter lesson

But ahead we face a radiant future.

We bequeath our sacred legacy implying our mother tongue

And sovereignty and valour and traditions

So dearly cherished by our forefathers

As true mandate to future generations." All heads held high, the assembled ranks came to attention.

"Soar high up in the sky, oh, eagle of freedom,

Call up to harmony, agreement and accord!

For hero’s might and strength is in the nation,

Just as unity is the nation’s razing sword!"

The changelings had melted away into the night, we'd only been fighting against ourselves, wasting our efforts and our time. I'd fallen into step with the rest, the now combined force's command having been usurped by one of the Commander's officers. We didn't know how they had eluded our grasp but we marched now towards that black and vile hive, intent to give our enemies a lesson on our nation's razing sword.

By the time we marched back down the valley two dawns greeted us. On was the gentle pink radiance of Celestia's sun, the other was the  cast by high flames licking at the changeling hive. Before the hive, being attended to by Commander Victory's forces were the town's mares. Our entire army broke ranks with a joyous whoop and charged down the hill. I alone stood aloof, observing skeptically from the low ridge. At length the commander joined me, his medal bedecked uniform covered in ash.

"Mourning your buggy buddies being given the boot?" He asked with a smirk.

"How did you beat them? They completely gave us the slip, I'd have figured all of them to come back and attack your force." I mused.

He shrugged, "It was a rout. When they saw the numbers they were dealing with they just turned tail and ran. Damned smart of them to do it, too. We'd have decimated them."

"Even though their armor was proof against our weapons and we would be reduced to using brute force against flying, fanged monsters who can see in the dark?" Irked by his assertion I pointed to the field before us, to the mingling ponies in the field, "Maybe they wanted the town, it's almost completely undefended now."

"You think they'd sacrifice their whole hive just for that, only to have all of us march right back home in forces they couldn't hope to counter? How many changelings do you think are out there anyway?" He shook his head, setting his cap askew, "No, I think they're just like you, craven cowards. I think they put their safety far above their honor, I mean consider the results. Did your forces kill any changelings?"

"I wouldn't guarantee that we even hurt any of them very badly." I admitted, I'd seen a few splatters of green blood, but nothing like I'd anticipated.

"Us either." He smirked, "If this had been a battle between ponies or griffons we'd still have won but the field would be littered with corpses. Now we had several fatalities. One stallion tripped and managed to impale himself on his own weapon, one died of a heart attack and still another was crushed when he stopped in his charge and his fellow soldiers did not. Tragedies to be certain, but ridiculous for a real battle. No, I think that they retreated just as soon as they saw that we intended to fight and the numbers we had on our side. Again, just how many of these creatures are there? Hundreds? A few thousand? What?"

I'd never been able to say with any certainty just how many there were out there. In the hive at any one time I'd estimated five thousand, but there were more out there, foraging for their ill gotten foodstuffs. My speculation died as our whole force broke apart, seeking out reunions with their mothers, sisters, lovers, and were swept up in ebullient victory.

Even the Commander was likewise swept up in an improperly emotional embrace with that certain subordinate of his, Lightning Strike. When all of this had calmed down I meant to have a word with her about the Commander's competence, and lack thereof. When he'd raided the hive he'd lit up the wrong dome, the one that should have contained the sleeping ponies.

"Oy!" I grunted to get some attention from whomever might still be able to be engaged as soldiers, "I need volunteers to help drag any survivors out of that pod that's ablaze! Now!"

There was a low grumbling before one of the commander's underlings spoke up, "Begging your pardon, sir, but we already cleared it. The hive's empty."

"That's impossible, there were hundreds of ponies cocooned up in there!" I blurted.

"They must have taken them when they retreated. With your force in plain view they had enough warning, I suppose." He replied.

I was dubious, but had no reason to doubt him. Regardless, I saw an opportunity to sate my own curiosity and to finally see the only part of the hive that I'd been denied thus far, so I asked again for volunteers. It seemed like an intolerably bad idea to go alone. Two ponies who'd been in my force and thus hadn't seen the hive up close stepped forward, and we made our way towards the hive.

The blaze was slow burning and hot. By evening the hive was certain to be nothing but ash, but for now it seemed safe enough. I gave it, perhaps, an hour before the passage out became too hot to brave. Rescuing survivors from the pod room was, perhaps, a little unrealistic. The heat was such that it was hard to even look in, so it's fortunate that no trace of the cocoons or their inhabitants were visible in either of those chambers. From there I proceeded directly to my desire, the royal chamber where the queen once resided. My two soldiers hung back fearfully as I trod up the sweeping ramp and approached the portal that held the only door in the changeling hive, a great thick double door, patterned with whorls and gilding across it's center panels. It stood slightly ajar and I slipped in like a thief.

Lacking it's occupant, the room was rather disappointing. It was large, but not extravagantly so, and was built of the same materials as the rest of the hive. In contrast, it had bookshelves lining one curved wall, sadly, all empty, and it had a bed. A bed, of sorts, anyway. It looked like a fairy tale style four poster that had been liberally drizzled with tar. In fact it was grown right into the floor. The mattress was made of the same material the cocoons were, and if there had ever been sheets, they had been stripped off in the retreat. On the green fibrous pillow was a sheet of paper, an endpaper torn from a book from the look of it and a sense of foreboding washed over me as I reached for it.

"I think she left a note. Weird, right?" I said, and looked back at the soldiers who'd followed me who were just within the doorway, marveling at the scant architecture. I picked up the note, turned it over and read it's one simple line aloud, "'Ponies are extremely predictable', it says. I wonder what that's supposed to mean?"

There was no answer, but I didn't really expect one. I turned the paper over again, looking for something further, when I finally noticed an asthmatic wheeze coming from behind me. I spun around and found my soldiers had been replaced by a familiar, scarred changeling and a still runty changeling filly who waved exuberantly.

Absently I waved back. My older acquaintance slowly trod towards me, her size unaccountably expanding with each step, her grin turning lascivious. When she stood face to face with me, her stature left me bowed far back on my wobbling knees to meet her gaze with my wide eyes and gaping jaw. With a tiny green blaze, a black and turquoise crown bloomed upon her head. She chuckled and then...

...Then she winked at me.

"Oh. Oh buck."