Chapter 5: The Journey, Part One

I awoke to the soothing ministrations of my phone vibrating between my calves. “Fuck off…” I mumbled as I grabbed the offending device, stopping the alarm. The first thing I checked was the battery life. 77%. I held the power button until my phone shut itself off.

I was groggy. On an intellectual level, this bothered me. On a physical level, I didn’t give two fucks about anything. Grabbing my rifle, I stood from my meager cover and lazily scanned the surrounding area. “Fuck,” I muttered, realising I still wasn’t dreaming. Every time I blinked my eyes felt heavy, almost as if I would fall asleep while standing. The forest canopy blocked most of the sunlight which I was thankful for because cursing the sun would have cost me more energy than I felt like spending at that moment.

Looking over at the sleeping changeling, I noticed her twitch a few times. Sighing, I made my way over to the oddly adorable creature. “Kiera,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Get up.”

Her eyes opened in a panic when my hand touched her, then she looked confused. Looking back towards me, she donned a rather hurt looking expression. “My name is Kania…”

“Jesus fuck,” I said, mentally facepalming at my horrible memory for names. “Sorry.”

She sighed. “It’s alright, I guess. Is it time to get going?”

She looked far more awake than I felt. “After breakfast.” I reached into my bag and grabbed for the leftovers from my previous two meals. I ‘drank’ a strawberry sport drink package and slowly ate some stale Ritz crackers.

When that was out of the way, I sluggishly packed away my blanket and my groundsheet, yawning several times as I worked. “I hate waking up…” I grumbled, remembering how I used to love waking up, so long as I wasn’t in CFB Wainwright. “I don’t want to ruck march…” I whined. As we passed into the blindingly bright desert, the sun was well into its downward arc. It would still be another two hours before it was on the horizon. “I hate sunlight…”

“You sure complain a lot…” Kania observed dryly, obviously not at all moved by my hundred pounds of plight.

“Embrace the suck,” I replied cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It’s something I heard from the Americans. Means something like ‘Life sucks when you’re infantry. Get over it.’”

“What’s an American?”

“Someone from America.”

“Like how you’re from Canadia?”

“Yes, like tha—” I stopped mid sentence, thinking over her words. “No, I’m from Canada.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No problem.”

My legs already felt tired from rucking for the ten or so minutes we had been in the desert. I really did not want to go for another 20km to the base of the giant conical mountain. “So, you said something about there being… ‘guest species’ in your hive?”

“Umm… We don’t live in a hive.” she replied, obviously offended. “We aren’t insects you know.”

I didn’t, so I shrugged in response.

“Whatever,” she said icily. “Yah, theres all kinds of other species who live in Mount Éros. From visiting minotaur noblemen, to dragon diplomats, to griffon peasants. The only living creatures who don’t visit us, or even acknowledge our existence, are those agápasen ponies.” Her anger let me know that whatever she just said, was some kind of curse.

“Say again, over?” I said, not quite understanding exactly what she said.

“Oh, it means something equivalent to ‘bucking’.” she replied neutrally.

“Uh huh.” Taking her not so helpful explanation in stride, I let her continue her explanation.

“We actually have a fairly well established trading hub.” Pride was evident in her voice as she continued to describe more of her home, even though she probably said most of this to me earlier when I was in my rucking trance. “But since the ponies control about eighty percent of trade because of the…” she paused to spit on the ground before grimacing and continuing. “... Sun Goddess, we only make a fraction of what we should. Not only that, but with the recent return of the Moon Goddess, everyone has been scrambling to try and gain their favour with Equestria.”

Right. Goddesses. Of course. Why the fuck not. I smiled and nodded, drinking a bit of water from my Camelbak as I waited for her to continue.

“Every mention of changelings in Equestria vilifies us. When the traders come back, they no longer want to trade. They don’t shower us with affection, or even sympathy. They just hate… So much hate.” She shivered.

I honestly felt bad for the little creature. It sounded like she had suffered a lot over her presumably short life. “Wait,” I said, mostly in thought. “Why were you in Equestria if they hate you there?”

“Er…” Shame was the predominant emotion on her face. Exactly how I was able to read that, I don’t think I’ll ever know. “Well… you see…” She was stalling. I wonder if I can convey through emotions how few fucks I give. “Iwaskindofinfiltratingthemtostealtheirlovetosurvive!”

I stared in shock after her run-on ‘sentence’. “Wow. It almost sounded like you just said that you were stealing peoples emotions…”

“I kind of sort of was,” she mumbled, shame-faced.

“Oh. Can’t you just get love from other changelings?”

By unspoken mutual agreement, we desperately latched onto the new conversation topic to avoid discussing her emotional thievery. “No. We can transfer gained love, but we can’t create our own.”

The more she explained her species’ biology, the less sense it made to me. A creature like her simply couldn’t exist. This entire world couldn’t exist. I was trapped far from home in a land of magical fantasy with my entire purpose d'être dashed upon the rocks of the earth I once knew. The realisation made me feel as if a part of my very soul had been taken from me.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. I felt a wetness on my cheeks and realised she had caught me crying.

I inhaled sharply, then let out a slow exhale. My eyes darted around the bleak terrain to help me find a way out of answering truthfully, but the dreary landscape held no escape. “No.” I replied sadly, continuing in a whisper, “Just another disposable hero, abandoned to the annals of time.”

“What do you mean by ‘disposable hero?’ No one is disposable!” I could see the glistening of tears in her eyes before I had to look away.

“I’m a soldier. It’s the life I’ve chosen.” She opened her mouth to cut me off, but I spoke anyway, “My purpose has been taken from me.”

“Soldiers defend the innocent. You defended me, didn’t you?” she asked, a tear sliding down her confused face.

“My purpose is to serve Canada, and her people. Nothing more, nothing less.” I blinked hard, trying to stop the flow of tears by concentrating on the massive weight on my back.

“You can still serve her from here…”

Ignoring her, I picked up the pace and grabbed the radio headpiece from its dangling position on my tacvest. “This is One-On—”

My radio call was cut short by an abrupt scream from behind me. Turning, I saw Kania doubled over and clutching her head in her hooves. “By Éros!” she screamed, “What did you do?” Her eyes were still clamped shut as I approached her twitching form.

“Er…” I replied dumbly. “I tried to contact literally anyone?”

“But it hurt so badly!” she all but wailed.

“I… That makes no sense… It’s a bloody radio… And besides, didn’t you respond to my radio procedures earlier?” I said with a raised brow.

“I responded to a voice in my head and followed the magical trace.” She replied, rubbing her temples.

“Right. And that makes you sound crazy,” I said with an eyeroll, completely ignoring the fact that I had indeed seen magic performed in the world I now inhabited. “Actually, we should experiment!”

“Wait, what?” she mumbled, a look of horror on her face as I turned the cryptography knob back to PT.

“Ready?” I asked, a manic grin on my face.

“No!” She yelled, back pedalling from me with her eyes wide in terror.

I pushed the PTT switch and waited for a response from Kania. When none came, I put down the receiver and looked up to the changeling who was huddled in a trembling ball of tears. “Aww shit… Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay to you!” She yelled, not really asking a question at all.

“Well,” I said sarcastically, “You aren’t doubled over in pain.”

She blinked.

I blinked.

She blinked again.

“Huh. I guess you’re right.” she mumbled, giving herself a once over. “That was still really reckless though.”

“You can’t gain ground without an offencive.”

“Still… You really scared me…”

“Sorry,” I said, glancing back to the radio. “But seriously, it was the only way to really test just how in the fuck you responded to a radio message without a radio set of your own…”

“But I heard it clear as day.” she seemed just as confused as me by this point and stared at the radio.

Looking over the radio, I saw that it was still on channel 2 as I hadn’t touched it since I called for help, and that the frequency was set to 49900. This wouldn’t have stood out nearly as much to me if this was what I had set it before I left the FOB. Channel 2 was supposed to be on frequency 35500, which means that somehow the frequency changed when I hopped worlds.

Wanting to appear as in control of the situation as possible, I did what any sane soldier would do and started turning knobs. The first thing to change was the channel. I set the channel knob to 3, noting it was on channel 36500 which was what it was supposed to be on and grabbed the receiver again.

Holding down the push-to-talk switch on the headset, I looked straight at Kania. “Can you hear this?”

When she shook her head no, I switched the radio back to channel 2, and spoke again. “How about now?” Both of her ears twitched when I spoke this time, giving me the answer even before she confirmed my suspicions that she had indeed heard it. Changing the plain text back to its original encryption settings, I tapped the PTT switch again, immediately letting it go when I heard the static of an in-use line. Kania’s reaction to the low decibel static was to scrunch up her eyes and wince in pain with a low hiss.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” she stated with finality.

“Yah… You want some headache drugs?” I switched the crypto knob back to plain text to avoid accidentally injuring my companion further.

“Drugs? You mean like Cannabis?” Kania’s head tilted much the same way a dogs would when it was expecting something.

“No. Not fucking weed…” It was hard resisting the urge to facepalm at her question. To assist me, I grabbed the pill bottle I had stored in one of my utility pouches, opened it up, and grabbed a small green liquid gel capsule. “Ibuprofen.”

“Gesundheit,” she responded with a straight face.

“It’s the chemical in the pill. Just swallow it, and the pain will go away.” Even though I knew I was probably just giving her a placebo, it was better than nothing.

“Is it safe?” she asked with trepidation, levitating the pill from my grip.

“Would I do something to deliberately hurt you?” I asked innocently.

“Yes,” she said, giving me a minor guilt trip before she brought the pill to her muzzle and stopped short. “Do you have any water?”

“So now you want water from me,” I said as I pulled out my canteen from my tacvest, “even though you think I would hurt you? How do you know it’s not poisoned?”

She grabbed the hard plastic bottle in her magic with the pill, before taking a swig of water and swallowing the pill. “A little trust goes a long way, right?”

“Touché,” I responded with a simple head nod, as I took back the canteen.

When I looked to objective, the mountain looked no closer, but the sun was steadily gliding towards the horizon. “We should make camp before it gets too cold.” I commented to the changeling.

“Right… You said you’ve been in a desert before, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know how cold it gets at night, right?”

“Yes.”

“I… uhh… Have no way to retain body heat in the desert night…” Her sheepish look probably would have melted the heart of a lesser man, but I couldn’t help but think of what she was implying.

“Right. You can share my sleeping bag.” I said with a roll of my eyes. I had shared my sleeping bag plenty of times on the colder nights with both men and women. If it was necessary to survive, most soldiers wouldn’t think twice about getting comfy with each other.

“You’re just going to… sleep with me?” she asked, incredulous.

“Well, what do you want me to do? I only have one sleeping bag.”

“Right…” she mumbled, blushing. “Can I help you with anything, at least?”

Considering her request, I looked over the current problem of making shelter in a flat desert. “Yes, actually, you can. When I get the lean to set up, put some sand over the edge. I really don’t want to dig right now...”

Construction of the camp went by fairly quickly as it always did when there was more than one person doing the work. When Kania went to light a fire however, I stopped her. “We can’t afford to be seen. No fires.”

“But, how will we cook our food?” she asked innocently.

“Well, my rations come pre cooked, so I’m going to eat them cold.” A lightbulb lit in my head as I remembered our previous conversation about changeling eating habits. “And besides, didn’t you say you ate emotions?”

At this remark, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, her face became cherry red, and she started stuttering. “I… But… You…”

After I chuckled her stammering stopped, but her blush continued. “Relax, Kania. I’m joking.”

Her only response was to stick out her tongue and pout in my direction.

After a second wave of the sillies took me, I shook my head in dismissal. “Seriously though, I would love to learn how that works.”

The sun had set by the time she finished explaining to me how changelings ‘ate’ love using a lot of words I’m pretty sure she made up on the spot. It wasn’t exactly a necessity for them as they could survive off of real food, but love was vastly more nourishing for them. I started getting very sleepy however, when she got into the thaumaturgical reasoning for this.

“Right,” I said, stifling a yawn. “I think it’s time to hit the fart sack, before it starts getting too cold.”

“The what?” she exclaimed in horror.

“The fart sack. My sleeping bag.” I explained. “It’s a common term in the army, due to military rations giving everyone severe gas.”

“That’s… Kinda gross.” she said, looking to the sleeping bag where it lay, most likely contemplating whether to go through with her plan to stay warm.

Moving over to the sleeping bag, I unzipped it and started crawling in, my fighting and dying gear settled neatly to the right of the bag, so I could get to it in a pinch.

After an exaggerated sigh, Kania started making her way towards the bag as well, but I stopped her before she could get in. “One sec, I need to dress down.”

“What?” she asked again as I sighed at the complete lack of common terms between us. Rather than answering her, I pulled down my pants, letting them rest around my ankles, then pulled my shirts up until they both hung off my neck.

“Alright, get in.” I said, holding up the flap on the sleeping bag. “It might be a bit uncomfortable at first.”

“Right…” her still body brought me to the conclusion that she was staring at my mostly naked form.

“See anything you like?” I asked sarcastically, chuckling as she blushed again.

“No!” she stated far too quickly, before scrambling into the bag with her back to me. I had already positioned my two litre canteen below the head area on the sleeping bag so it only took me a few seconds to find my comfy spot. Kania on the other hand seemed to be trying to avoid physical contact with me in the tight confines of the sleeping bag, almost as if she was scared of getting close to me.

To remedy this, I grabbed her by the midsection and pulled her close. The feeling of hard chitin was what I had expected, but as it turned out, her exoskeleton seemed to be far more malleable than I would have guessed. It still had the hard edge you would find in bones, but it also had a measure of softness that you would find in cartilage. I filed that thought away for later. “You’re the one that wanted this…” I said as I felt her abdomen rise and fall in tandem with her ragged breathing. Oddly enough, I could also feel her heart beating far faster than my own.

“Sorry…” she mumbled, heart rate still racing.

“Holy fuck, Kania… calm down or you’ll have an aneurysm.” I stated flatly, hoping that changeling hearts didn’t normally beat that quickly.

Her only response was to whimper faintly and take long breaths to try to calm herself. “Don’t worry Kania, I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said in an attempt to stop her from panicking and making my rest uncomfortable. But I will use you for warmth and kick you out in the morning.

Chuckling lightly at the comparison between myself and a college student, I closed my eyes and waited to feel how the changeling reacted. She was mostly frozen in what I thought was fear, but eventually the subtle shaking stopped, and she seemed to have finally calmed down.

After an agonizingly long wait, her breathing reached a steady pace so I assumed she had fallen asleep. Taking this as my cue, I grabbed my floppy hat from the top of my kit and placed it over my face.

As we lay in our respective spots under the lean-to which was held up by my rucksack, I mentally deemed the area safe enough to decompress my built up thoughts of the last days ordeal.

The first thing I noticed was shivering. Not Kania’s as she was curled up in a peaceful ball as the little spoon, but my own. I wasn't cold, I knew that much. Then the tears started to race down my face and I knew what was wrong.

In the past two days I had seen more things that I was not mentally prepared for than I had during my incomplete combat tour. Horses were talking, myths were real, and I was an unknown species in an impossible alien world.

I was the minority in a world that had never heard of humans, or Canada, or by the sound of things, most modern technology. I would never see my comrades again, I would never see the beautiful country of my homeland, and I would never feel the touch of a real woman.

No one would be waiting for me when I stepped off the plane because I would never get on the plane to begin with.

The shivering was me sobbing silently.

I tried to get control of my emotions before I woke the sleeping changeling, but when she turned around and hugged me, I realised it was too late.

“It’s okay.” she cooed, “We’ll figure out how to get you home.”

I knew she was lying, but I took comfort in her words regardless before gently returning the hug and falling into an uneasy sleep.