Chapter Six: One On One

The water slowly rippled off of Augury’s hooves as he sat at the edge of the water, the changeling staring at his reflection with a blank stare. Night had taken over day, the cold air of night fending off the warm rays of the sun once more for another cycle of darkness and light. Augury tilted his head from the water and up to the sky, the thousands of stars surrounding the moon in the black abyss sparkling gently. Memories from Ponyville slowly filled Augury’s head, his first night out with Tranquility, spending time with his friends under the moon, even causing some trouble with Frost in his earlier years in the town. The nocturnal sky had always been a gateway for Augury to escape into, letting his mind wander off into a world where everything was perfect. Nothing, however, lasts forever. Augury sighed lightly and lowered his head to his legs, the small waves of the water just barely touching his chin as they pushed outwards and receded over and over. Augury’s eyelids felt heavy as he stared into the water, missing two days of sleep beginning to catch up with the changeling. The soothing sound of the wind and the movement of the water lulled the changeling laying at the edge of the lake into sleep slowly, Augury’s eyes twitching slightly as they came closer to shutting. However, even with his eyes closed and his body relaxed, Augury found himself laying tiredly awake, a certain force within his mind pushing against him gently to the point of mental unrest. The sight of Rarity exhaling and inhaling the dark blue assimilation gas that Augury had put in the cocoon with her replayed itself in the changeling’s head. Not only what he had done to Rarity kept Augury awake, the thought of having to do such a thing five more times also found itself implanted into Augury’s thoughts.

“Something keeping you awake, Augury?” Chrysalis spoke, her voice breaking the peaceful silence that had occupied Augury’s ears. The changeling laying at the edge of the lake opened his eyes slowly and sat up, breathing in deeply through his nose and forcing the air back out slowly.

“How long have you been standing there?” Augury asked, lifting his hooves to his eyes and rubbing them.

“Long enough to see that something has been keeping you from sleeping.”

“I thought I told you not to show yourself to me.”

“It would seem that your lack of sleep is keeping your focus off balance. Even if you tried, you wouldn’t have the energy or the concentration to cast even a telekinesis spell.”

Augury sighed and turned his head to look at Chrysalis, the changeling queen standing off to his side. “What do you want?” Augury asked tiredly, returning his gaze back to the water.

“I wanted to see how you were doing.” Chrysalis said as she slowly walked to Augury, sitting down next to him. Augury, too exhausted to do even stand up, stayed where he was, his tired eyes staring at the lake in front of him.

“You? Coming to check up on me? Did you eat something funny or what?”

“Does everything have to be so hostile with you? I came here to see if you were over your little ordeal with the mare back there. Tranquility really means that much to you, doesn’t she?”

“What?”

“Tranquility was the reason that you assimilated the mare you brought back, wasn’t she?”

“The reason I assimilated Rarity is because I didn’t want either her or Tranquility to get hurt. Since it seems like the only way you’re going to get anything out of me is through threats, I was going to have to do it eventually. That thing you said, about me going to have to assimilate the other mares that I capture, is that still happening?”

“Unfortunately for you, yes. As much as you don’t want it, if you’re going to get past any of the security that is going to be put up around Ponyville, knowledge of changeling magic and how changelings work is practically required.”

“How do you know that there will even be any protection put up?”

“By the way the two princesses of Canterlot acted when there was a threat declared during the wedding, I think the knowing of there being an actual threat will spark a lot more attention than just spoken words. Security is going to be tight around Ponyville, you’re going to need as much experience as possible with changeling magic if you’re going to make it through.”

“What does assimilating these mares into changelings by my own magic have to do with gaining knowledge of changelings? I’m just creating more abominations.”

“The usage of pure changeling magic will get you more comfortable with using the changeling side of your magic. Practice makes perfect. Once you’ve mastered your changeling abilities, then you should have no trouble in completing your missions.”

“What about Rarity? What’ll happen when the process of her transformation is complete?”

“Well, that actually might take a while. I have assimilated plenty of changelings in my time, yet it still takes about one to two weeks for the transformation to be complete. Since you are only just starting with changeling magic, it’s going to take even longer.”

“By how much?”

“‘I’m not sure. Could be a year, could be a month. Though, once the assimilation process is done, you’re going to have to make the choice of whether you want to take control of the ponies you assimilate, or let them act on their own. They won’t be happy about their new form, mind you. You only get one chance to take control of them once they come out of their cocoon, so the choice you make is going to have to stay.”

“What if I don’t take control of them and they decide to try and run away, what then? Am I just going to let them go, or what?”

“Oh, no, you’re not going to let them go. You’re going to stop them in their tracks and make sure they don’t try and escape again under any circumstances. I can’t afford to have a changeling on the outside.”

“What about the ponies that you assimilated before? Why did Equestria never see any of them? With all of those changelings, there had to have been as least one that slipped in between the cracks.”

“Well, most of the changelings I assimilated I took control of, but I couldn’t control all of them at the same time. There was a portion of the army that was uncontrolled assimilated changelings. While they were a little resentful during their first few weeks of adjusting to their changeling forms, that problem took care of itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The changeling inside of them. Whether they liked it or not, the ponies that were assimilated had changeling blood. Eventually, that blood takes over them. Although it varies from pony to pony, there’s always that point where changeling overrules pony within the assimilated. It really depends on the pony’s willingness to give in and finally accept that they’re not what they used to be. It just takes time.” Chrysalis shifted her eyes to Augury. The smaller changeling had his head tilted down slightly, a seemingly worried expression on his face.

Chrysalis giggled to herself. “Don’t worry, Augury. With your attitude towards changelings, you should be good for the long run.” Chrysalis said, nudging Augury lightly.

“I wasn’t thinking about that, if you should know.” Augury quickly replied, pushing against Chrysalis’s side with his hoof lightly. “Just thinking about Ponyville again.”

“Missing home? You’ll be heading back there soon enough. You still have five more of your first section of missions.”

“Do you have any sense of compassion, or do you just have the constant need to trample me further into the pit I’m already in?”

“What? What did I do?”

“Just, please, keep quiet for a second. It’s the best that you can do right now.”

Augury and Chrysalis fell into a short silence, the two changelings staring at the gently waving water in front of them.

“Augury...” Chrysalis started to say.

“What did I just tell you?” Augury snapped.

“Can’t we just converse without any hostility? Forget that I’m who I am, just pretend like I’m Tranquility.”

Augury turned his head to Chrysalis, giving her an uncertain look.

Chrysalis’s eyes opened wide and she leaned backwards slightly. “No no no, not like that. What I meant is, lets just talk. Changeling to changeling.”

Augury turned his head back to the lake. “What is there to talk about? The week I was suspended in the cocoon? The past three days? Between you and me, there’s nothing we have to talk about.”

“I don’t mean let’s talk about what has been happening lately, I just want to talk. You know, just a normal conversation.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

“You could tell me about Ponyville, what it’s like, your experiences.”

“Ponyville’s a fairly large town. Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. Residents are nice for the most part. Weather isn’t too bad a lot of the time. Nice view of Canterlot.”

Chrysalis gave Augury a frustrated look, Augury smiling as he saw her expression.

“Alright, alright.” Augury said and cleared his throat. “As I said before, I moved to Ponyville when I was ten. A few years in doing some work around Ponyville, I finally was able to afford my own house on the outskirts. I had always liked caring for others, whether it had been my parents when they were sick or my friends. Friends, they saw it as a little weird of me to tend to them when they were sick, but after they were all better, they seemed to have been thankful. My parents always enjoyed the company I gave them when they would get sick and I would stay with them. Sometimes I would think to myself that they were getting sick on purpose. But, anyways, caring for others has always been a thing for me to do, and I enjoy seeing them better than when they were injured or sick, knowing that I had helped them get through it.”

“And that’s when you got a job in the hospital?”

“Mmhm. It was only a week into my work at the hospital that I was a full fledged doctor. Ponies came in either injured, pregnant, sick, other, I checked them in, I helped them to health, and when they were ready, I let them go. Everyday, I either broke the news that somepony was dying or that someone would make a full recovery. Things started to get out of hoof. I couldn’t do it anymore. I started to lose the grip on what I once cherished. I started to hate my own cutie mark. My own existence, my own purpose, the reason that I live, I couldn’t stand it.”

“Tranquility, she needed to get away from it as well? That’s why you two came out here, an escape from your own lives?”

“Ponies think that this world is so happy, so friendly. While that may be true for the most part, what if you hate yourself? What can you do? That one small percent of the population, stuck with the one thing that they despise the most. What are they going to do?”

“But you enjoyed caring for others. You said yourself that you loved the feeling you got from knowing that you helped someone back to health.”

“And I did. The happiest feeling in my life was knowing that someone was gaining from my actions. I loved it, I wanted to help everyone in Equestria. That hospital changed everything. I still love to care for others... just not in that damn hospital.”

“Once again, your true nature surprises me. What about your friends? Did they see any of this? I wouldn’t suppose they wanted to interfere with your problems.”

“As much as I didn’t want them to, they did. Tranquility, my parents, even Frost wanted to know what was wrong. I just sat there and told them nothing was wrong, that I was fine the way I was. Frost, especially, surprised me. The first friend I had made in Ponyville and my best friend ever since, slapping my words out of the air and punching me straight in the face. Metaphorically speaking, of course, he didn’t actually punch me. He did argue, though. Frost wouldn’t let go until I told him that I needed a break from my job. The whole vacation thing was sparked in my mind because of him.”

“He cared that much, did he? What about Tranquility, what made her agree with the idea of going out on an escape?”

“Tranquility is a substitute teacher at the Ponyville school. She would stop in during class when Cheerilee was teaching, you know, say ‘hi’ to the foals and at least get some kind of feeling that she was actually working. On the days Cheerilee was out, Tranquility would take over and sometimes, if I had the day off in the hospital, I would stop in. There aren’t too many injuries around Ponyville too often, so the hospital was barely ever busy to the point where I was swamped in work.”

“But the times that there were patients, they were fairly severe, weren’t they?”

“Every other time a patient would come in, I would sit there and think to myself, ‘Am I going to have to do this again?’. I would sit there in my office, hoping that the patient coming in would only have a minor injury, something that could be treated easily. That’s when my job as a doctor began to go downhill. Anxiety took over and I started to get scared of even coming face to face with my patients. The time that Frost came in, I was scared almost to death. I wasn’t there when Frost broke his leg, so I had the worst thoughts in my head rushing through me when I heard the news that he was down in the lobby. Did he lose a limb? Did he get sick with a fatal disease? It was only after he recovered that Frost saw that I was starting to lose my grip on what I did best.”

“Frost really wanted you to get better. Is he still living in Ponyville?”

“To my knowledge, yeah. Unless he moved out in the past three weeks and three days, he’s still there.”

Augury yawned quietly and shook his head, lifting a hoof up to his face and rubbing his tired eyes.

“You should get some sleep, Augury.” Chrysalis said as she stood up. “Your next mission will begin tomorrow whenever you’re ready.”

“Will do.” Augury said, putting his hoof to the ground again.

Chrysalis began to walk away, but stopped a few feet from where she was standing and turned to the changeling by the lake. “...and Augury?”

Augury fixed his gaze on Chrysalis. “Yeah?”

“Thank you, for talking with me. I’ve... never had a conversation like that.” Chrysalis felt a small smile on her face, Augury smiling back and nodding. Chrysalis turned away and walked off into the forest, the changeling queen disappearing from Augury’s sight in the darkness of night. Augury turned his head back to the water and rolled onto his side, letting out a small sigh and closing his eyes. After two and a half days of being awake, Augury could finally get some rest. Next Chapter: [7] A New Threat Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 51 Minutes