Today (The day before tomorrow)by Fictional Fanatic
Chapters
Chapter 1 Awakening, First Encounter.
Glimmer Thorn suddenly opened her eyes but quickly closed them again due to the pain. Her head felt like it had been shoved through a wall. Once again opening her eyes, slowly this time, she took in the view of the cottage she was in. The cottage she realized must have been the inside of a tree seeing how both the walls and the floor where made of one and the same giant piece of wood. All around the walls where masks of different kinds and a few shelves with either some books or bottles of some kind. In the middle of the building there was a cauldron on top of a fire pit. The only source of light where some lit candles and the fire in the fire pit to keep the brew in the cauldron brewing.
All this Glimmer took in whit a glance before she noticed somepony next to her, or rather some zebra.
"Well, looks like you're awake, that was quite the shake." The zebra said as Glimmer looked at her.
Next to the bed Glimmer was lying in was standing a zebra with gold-colored rings around her neck and right foreleg, also wearing a golden-colored earring on each ear. Her cutiemark was a sun made out of a spiral with triangles representing rays coming from it. The zebra it-self had a light and dark gray coat with stripes on only her legs and mane and tail, however her mane having white and dark gray colors instead.
"Where am I,who are you?" Glimmer asked trying to understand her situation better.
"I am Zecora, see. And you are in my little tree." Zecora answered with a little smile seeing how the unicorn was trying to realize where she was.
"And now who might you be, pony running into my tree?" The zebra asked before the unicorn could ask another question.
"My name is Glimmer Thorn and... wait, did you say i ran into your tree?" Glimmer asked with a surprised tone in her voice while looking around the insides of the tree more closely.
"Yes" Zecora answered shortly amused at the unicorns surprised look, but a little worried at the same time.
"Well, that explains the headache, but... I can't remember anything!" Glimmer realized as she was speaking to Zecora. The horror soon showing on her face.
"That is horrible to hear, but i have a potion to help with that fear. Now I think it's time for you to eat, as sleeping that long is quite a feat." Zecora told Glimmer before walking up to a shelf starting to look at the different books.
"How long was I out?" Glimmer asked. At the same time feeling the hunger that her headache earlier suppressed.
"You've been sleeping for two days, none of my potions helping in any ways." Zecora said in rhyme once again and started reading something from the small book she was now holding.
Glimmer deciding to follow the zebras advice got out from under the covers and stepped down on the floor. When after two days in bed she stepped onto the floor she almost fell and had to rely on the bed for stability as her body soon adjusted and her balance returned. Now getting real hungry she scanned the room for food and saw a small bowl on top of what looked like a small drawer next to the bed.
As she was enjoying her first meal in two days, she noticed that Zecora had stopped reading the book and was now packing it down into some saddlebags with a few other things.
"I will have to go to Ponyville for getting something, or else my potion is no longer an option." Zecora explained with a barely acceptable rhyme to answer the unicorn looking at her. Now finally able to get a good look at the unicorn for the first time since she had found her unconscious outside the house.
The pony called Glimmer Thorn had a white coat, her mane was reaching down to her neck and was rough and a little wild yet beautiful in it's own way looking a little like actual thorns at the ends, the same going for her quite short tail. Both the mane and her tail where wine red only a few shades brighter than the color of fresh blood. And her eyes where green, reminding of the color of emeralds. The cutiemark was two branches twisting around each other with one having leaves and the other having thorns. But the most peculiar thing about the unicorn was actually her horn, the horn was not like the rest of the coat, all white, but half black and half white in the normal twisted pattern horns had.
"I will hopefully be back soon, so you don't have too leave this room. But if you're bored out of your mind, you could help me clean if you'd be so kind." The zebra said as she left.
Having nothing else to do, Glimmer found a broom and started cleaning, as she had to repay the kind zebra who had taken care of her and given her food. Yet at the same time, using the time to try and remember what she could have been doing out in the scary forest, she had now seen outside the windows.
Zecora was not actually sure if she would be able to find the ingredient she needed to finish the memory fixing brew she was going to make. She was hoping, as not having ones memory actually could drive somepony crazy, she had seen that once before and didn't want to see it happen again. But at least she could always ask some of the ponies in town for help if the missing ingredient wasn't for sale in ponyville. She was sure Twilight would agree to help.
Not wasting any time she increased her pacing speed a little so she could make it to ponyville a bit before noon.
When Zecora reached ponyville she turned towards the market as she usually did, once there however she was unable to see anypony.
"Now the're not scared of me again I hope, I don't think i'd cope." Zecora thought as she instead started to walk towards the library trying to find Twilight to find out what was going on.
Chapter 2 Flower Dance.
Twilight could not believe what just happened, she had by mistake cast a spell making everyone in Ponyville change color when all she had tried to do was to turn a sunflower into the color red! Just about able to reverse the spell, as everyone in Ponyville who where effected by the spell had gathered outside the library and asked for her help, as none where able to figure out what had happened. Not telling them it was her fault to begin with she had reversed the spell and was now dead tired lying on her bed, sulking about her failure at preforming such a simple spell. (But seeing a purple and green Rainbow Dash was quite entertaining).
As Spike, the small now once again purple and green baby dragon came up to her and started trying to comfort her. However, a sudden knock on the front door made them both jump. Spike looked at Twilight who only nodded for him to go and open the front door. As Spike quickly ran for the stairs to open the door, Twilight started getting out of her bed but at a much slower rate. As soon as she had reached the stairs she could hear talking downstairs and recognized Zecoras voice.
"Twilight, Zecora is here. And she wants to talk to you about something!" Twilight heard Spike screaming from downstairs.
"Alright, I'm coming down." Twilight answered and hurried down the stairs as fast as she could without falling over.
Zecora saw the purple unicorn make haste down the stairs. The library reminded her a bit about her own house in Everfree forest as it was also inside a tree. However it was brighter inside of the library than it was inside Zecoras house, mainly because it was located in a forest that didn't let in much light but she liked it the way it was. The biggest difference was however the amount of books, almost every wall was covered in shelves filled with all kind of books. Zecora didn't come here often but she knew that the library was quite unique as it contain the books she had at home aswell as other books she herself was unable to get her hooves on, so she had ended up borrowing many of them from Twilight, including the one she brought with her.
"Hello, my little pony, care to..." Whatever Zecora was about to say it was interrupted by Twilight.
"Please Zecora, I'm really not in the mood for rhymes. Could you just tell my what you wanted to talk about? If it isn't urgent i'd rather go and have some rest..." Twilight said with a little whiny voice.
"Very well, if you say so. The matter i wanted to bring up Twilight is the fact that i two days ago found a rather peculiar unicorn beside my home. She was hurt apparently by having run straight into my tree and only awoke today. But it seems her memories are gone and I want to make a brew to help her, yet i can't get a certain flower and was wondering if you'd help me." Zecora simply said with a frown as she actually had to focus a lot, not to rhyme as Twilight had asked her.
"Oh... Well i guess i could help you with that flower, I happen to have a few samples of some unusual flowers in the basement. It doesn't have to to be fresh does it?" Twilight asked and looked at Zecora who to her surprise had stopped rhyming once she had asked her.
"No it doesn't i must admit, but a fresh one would be a bigger hit." Zecora said resuming her rhyming much to Twilights annoyance.
"So what kind of flower where you after?" Twilight asked not bothering asking Zecora to stop rhyming again. Meanwhile Spike left the room, no longer interested in the conversation.
"A red-bell flower, it got quite the power."Zecora said almost walking into Twilight as she stopped at the sound of Zecoras words on her way to the basement.
"Okay, be calm. Calm down and think about this in order." Glimmer told herself as she was trying to calm down after starting to panic. She had just realized that she had forgotten that she was able to use magic, MAGIC! she was a unicorn for pony's sake. She had stopped cleaning some time ago, giving her enough time to start to think about anything that caught her interest. This time it was her memories.
"Alright, lets see what I can remember first. Okay, My name is Glimmer Thorn, I am an unicorn and i can use magic. I like exotic food and hate swimming. I'm in the middle of a scary forest, in the house of a stranger who probably saved my life and might be able to help with my memories." So far so good. Glimmer thought to her self. "Now over to things i don't remember. I do not know how old I am, I can not remember what my cutiemark represents and what my special talent is... and..." she hesitated felling something resembling a stream of cold water going through her coat, waking her from her current mental state. She heard hoof steps getting closer. But there where more than one, and it did not sound like it was Zecora...
Chapter 3 - Uninvited
The forest was dark and scary as it always was. Yet there they where, both Snips and Snails.
"Are you sure this will work?" Asked Snips nervously looking around.
"Yes, it'll work. All we have to do is ask Zecora for help and everything will work." Answered Snails looking confident as he remembers the plan they had thought out.
"But what if Zecora doesn't want to help us? I mean nopony else did." Snips complained looking back where they came from. "Maybe we should go back?"
"What?! Snips, we already came all this way and you wanna go back now?" Snails said looking at Snips.
"...Fine, but she still might say no." Snips said after a while.
Snails started to wonder, why wouldn't anyone help them with their plan? Was it really so bad? Nah, they where all just scared of what everypony else would think if the plan went like it should. It was meant to work as something to get attention. And everyone would be happy afterwards, it was just a harmless joke on Rainbow Dash. That prankster needed some pranking back, and seeing how nopony else was gonna do anything about that Snips and Snails had chosen to do it themselves.
"Ah, there it is!" Snips exclaimed as he saw Zecora's house coming into view.
Walking up to the door the two unicorns looked at each other and nodded before knocking on the door in unison.
Glimmer was wondering, what would be the best course of action. There was somepony outside, on the other side of the door. But they didn't knock. It was as if they where waiting for her to open the door and just let them in. Glimmer was scared. It might be someone who knew Zecora, but also it could be somepony else. Glimmer decided to wait, to pretend that none was home. But it didn't seem to matter, they didn't leave. Glimmer started to panic, this really didn't feel right. "Maybe i should just ..." SMASH! Glimmer never finished her thought, something had started to bash against the door, as if it knew there was someone there. The door would not hold for long, it would probably swing open any second, the wood around the lock started to crack. "Who would try to bash in the door?" Glimmer thought right before the door swung open.
As soon as Snips and Snails touched the door it swung inwards, the lock mechanism was broken and the door had no resistance opening inwards. Inside was a mess, the cauldron in the middle of the room was lying on it's side and it's content lying all over the floor together with all of the previous content of the shelves in the walls.The walls and floor damaged by what looked like claw-marks. It looked like a crime scene.
Snips and Snails looked at each other, and ran for their lives, back to Ponyville. They where terrified, but they ran to tell everypony of what they thought had happened to Zecora.
"I'm sorry Zecora, I can't help you with this. I would love to but i can't." Twilight said looking as sad as if she had just failed a test.
Of all the things to happen today this was something Zecora was not prepared for, the last ingredient was unobtainable. The flower in question had nearly died out and was now under Canterlot protection for fear over the flower dying out. This means picking the flower without special permission was considered a crime. To get permission could take months and by then the potion would not be effective.
"This is trouble indeed, we're only trying to get one stupid little weed!" Zecora said in frustration. She never had this trouble before.
"But Zecora, is there no other way to make somepony remember whatever they have forgotten?" Twilight asked, surprised how frustrated Zecora was.
"Unfortunately other methods are out of the question, as they cause great depression." Zecora said, but soon gained another idea. "Maybe, actually one, if we ask the Princess of the sun." Zecora said looking on Twilight with a slight smile.
Twilight, realizing she could still help and maybe learn something new got exited and nodded. If anyone would know of a spell or a safe way to bring someponys memory back it would be her or Luna. Calling spike and sending a letter to the princess didn't take long and soon she was standing alone with Zecora again. When about to suggest going and seeing this pony (mostly out of curiosity) Twilight noticed a commotion outside. Taking a look at Zecora she saw that the zebra had also noticed and they left the library to see what was going on.
As they neared the commotion Twilight recognized Snips and Snails telling other ponies something that sounded like an exaggerated story, however they looked utterly terrified. As Twilight made it to them with Zecora in tow asking them what had happened, they both looked at Zecora and realized their mistake. Soon they explain what they saw and how they ran back to Ponyville (leaving out the parts of what they thought had happened to Zecora).
Zecora and Twilight looked at each other in horror, this was bad. What Snips and Snails had described could only have a few meanings, thankfully some of the worst ones being unlikely as they said they hadn't seen any blood. But still, this was bad.
Chapter 4 Abducted
The first thing Glimmer felt was stone, cold stone. She appeared to be lying on a stone floor or otherwise something both cold and hard, it was not comfortable. Next thing she noticed where the sounds, there where none, only silence. Slowly, she opened up her eyes and looked around without moving her head. From the angle she was only able to see a stone wall about 2 hoofs away from her face. This meant that if she wanted to see where she was she would have to move to be able to see her surroundings. She didn't like it. If she was to suddenly move, then she would alert anypony else in the vicinity, and she didn't want the ones that captured her to know she was awake.
After about 10 minutes of silently laying on the floor listening, Glimmer decides it's safe to move as she isn't able to ear a single sound other than her own heartbeat and some water dripping far away. Slowly rolling other to her other side, she sees to her surprise that she isn't in a jail cell. The room she is in is big and is filled with what looks like green spherical crystals. But doing another take of the room corrects that error, they are not crystals. It's green cocoons, each and everyone filled with a sleeping pony. Only now noticing that she herself is standing in what looks like a puddle of this green goop she realizes she too must have been trapped in a similar fashion. But why was she now free? Once again looking around the room for an explanation, she gets none. Dropping the matter Glimmer approaches one of the cocoons for a better look. It is crystallized and the pony within seems like it's just sleeping. Looking at the crystallized goop she deduces that trying to kick it or using magic on it would likely hurt the pony inside more that the crystal. And not knowing how/why she herself is no longer trapped doesn't prove to be of any use.
Unable to save the ponies from whatever fate had in store for them, Glimmer walks out of the room through the "for some reason" unlocked door. Nervously looking around the green and black hallways as she is trying to find the exit. While walking down an empty hallway she realizes that there had been no guards or anypony else near the room she had been confined in, or anywhere else for that matter. Changelings where never th... "Suddenly, a mental gear fell in place and begun to spin at its max. She remembered memories of changelings.
The changelings that had attacked her in Zecora's home had been familiar to her but at the time she could not remember. Now she suddenly had a ton of information jumping into her head in a seemingly random order. The memories brought with them not only her previously lost knowledge about changelings, but also visions of her fighting, running from and ambushing changelings in a group with other ponies. Suddenly she remembered everything she ever learnt about changelings, how to identify them, what spells would and wouldn't work on them, what vital spots one had to strike to quickly kill or immobilize a changeling. Even how their feeding on other things than love worked to how they worked during their sleep. Other memories where confusing, shattered and seemed to be unreliable as she remembered being tortured and having her mind altered more than once. After making sure she herself was still sane and not under the influence of magic and torture she started organize the memories that had awakened within her.
This proved to be a difficult task as the amount of information spread wide over a few years and where only containing information about changelings and mostly nothing else. Some memories containing the group she seemed to be a part of where in bad shape and she was only able to get a few flashes of one pony's color of coat and a few words coming from another, not revealing anything more of them as they where often either out of sight or the memory was to badly damaged. Mostly the second one.
After giving up on setting up anymore order in her head, Glimmer Thorn regained her senses and took in her surroundings after her mind had swindled out of control from a mental cog that otherwise wouldn't have bothered her as it had been meant to be there in the first place. Opening her eyes and regaining hearing, smell and the other senses she imitatively realized she was surrounded by no other than changelings. "Speak of the devil." she thought to herself as she was rather prepared now that she had a few years of combat experience added to her head. The six changelings surrounding her where just about to jump her when she opened her eyes.
Quickly to avoid colliding with any of them she jumped and shielded herself with magic from anything that could otherwise hit her while midair. Resulting in two thrown spears bouncing of her shield and scrambling to the floor. The two changelings that had thrown the spears where the only ones able to stop from jumping her when they saw her regaining "consciousness" or whatever she had been lacking at the moment she was sitting still in the middle of the hallway. The other changelings had all collided and fallen to the floor and where now struggling to get up and once again attack Glimmer. Landing next to the bunch, she turned around and bucked them as hard as she could not giving them time to get up. Hitting one in the face and another in the chest they all went tumbling towards the two changelings that had tried impaling her with their spears. Not waiting for results she started running in the opposite direction hearing angry buzzing from behind, not knowing if it was the two changelings that had avoided crashing with the other four or all of them pursuing her as the for she sent flying could have regained control in the air.
Remembering the layout of this particular corridor she turned left and tried to do a full stop before ramming into the either the wall or the big double doors that where there, she had earlier tried to open them but they had been to heavy and she had given up to look for another potential exit. Her plan worked perfectly, the pair of changelings (probably guards as changelings usually didn't have weapons) turned the corner at a speed rivaling the Thunderbolts and slammed headfirst into the doors as it was impossible to stop in midair when traveling at such high speed. The doors shook and made a sound, much like stone hitting ceramics as the changelings carapace made contact with the stone doors.
Looking at the door was no pretty sight as it was covered in changeling blood and the mostly intact changeling body falling to the floor, the other was not as lucky as to stay in one piece, as it had hit the doors head on and cracked it's own skull open against the hard material, leaving the now mostly headless body lifeless and lying still on the floor, twitching a little before stopping it's movement permanently.
Authors note: I added a Gore tag for this, hope no one complains.
Seeing the two changeling bodies (or what was left of them) hit the floor sparked many feelings in Glimmer. Hope, relief, hate and a few others hard to describe feelings as she had her triumph over these creatures. The hate was one of the stronger feelings that was a direct result of all the memories she had gotten back recently. But, there was something that didn't belong in the mix, sadness. How could she be sad over the death of creatures she had killed and fought in the past?
Almost as to answer her question it happened. A mental gear, much like the other suddenly materialized (as far as something can materialize inside someones mind) and started to spin giving her even more memories to add to her recently filled head. But these memories where different, instead of the hate that filled every memory in her previous flashbacks these had none. Like the others they all where memories filled with changelings, but they where nice memories of her talking to, being with and doing other hings with changelings, almost like... like they where her friends. These memories also brought more knowledge that the "older ones" didn't include, they where less like drilled in knowledge and more like learned through observation. She was able to see the subtle differences between changelings as clear as day, she understood their customs she earlier only knew as strange unnecessary information learned from a scroll. She felt like everything she knew was wrong and that even changelings had as much feelings as ponies.
Suddenly snapped out of her trance like state by the sudden buzzing of wings approaching from around the corner, she once again saw the bodies of two changelings in front of her and realized in shock that there where soon to be four more added to the floor. Still confused and disoriented about her feelings towards changelings and her memories towards them she could do nothing but look in horror as the four following changelings turned the corner at the same speed the two previous had done. Not wanting to see what she knew was going to happen Glimmer looked away covering her ears with her hooves to escape the now considered horrible sound of breaking carapace.
But it never came, as Glimmer now looked at the doors she saw that they had opened enough to save the four changelings from impending doom and letting them into the room on the other side. But Glimmer could not feel happiness or anything else but horror as she saw who it was that had opened the door. In front of her where standing four more changelings pointing spears at her, and behind them, standing taller than any of them stood their queen: Chrysalis with an angry face as you would ever see.