"Come on Sally, they pay you real good." The woman, barely recognizable as such thanks to the fatigues she was almost done putting on, was tightening straps around her left leg. Her knee had taken a bit of shrapnel a few years ago and now needed a little more support than a knee bandage would give.

"Hey, merc, you ready to work for your pay?" Her sergeant poked his head in her tent. There was no privacy in this line of work.

She was reaching for her gun when there was a bleep from the sat phone beside it. "Oh damn it, what now." Her hand reached for the comms device instead. "Who the hell sends a text to these things? Costs em a fortune, might as well just ring me." She turned it back off without even reading it.

She picked up her gun and was reaching for a magazine for it when the thing bleeped again. "You might as well read it now."

"Shut it Perkins." Sal was upset. Nothing worse than getting upset before a job. Picking the phone back up, she sat her gun down in it's place. "The hell…" She read the message.

'Where do you want to go?'

It was an unknown number, but there was a number. On a lark she typed back. 'Anywhere but here.' She made to set the phone back down when it beeped again.

'Perfect, is there anything you want to bring with you? It must be something you own and I warn, the more useful the item the less desirable your destination.'

"Like I would go anywhere without my gun-" Sally had been about to continue when she felt the presence of her gun, familiar and weighty. It was like night had fallen suddenly, there was darkness all around her.

She reached for where she had set down the mag for her gun and couldn't feel the table. "Okay, very funny, what is going on here?" She fell forward, and with instinct born of training, she rolled and was on a knee, her gun raised. It felt light, though. "Damn damn damn." Sally reached for where her combat tack would normally have her spares but she remembered, she was about to go to their ammo dump to grab them.

"What's this?" The voice she heard in that dark place had an odd sound to it, like an undertone of what a cricket sounds like.

Slinging her gun around to her back, she reached for her blade instead, the old bayonet coming free into her hand. "Whoever you are, keep back." She wove the blade in front of her.

"Silly pony." The voice chittered to her. "What makes you think I am not at your back, already?"

The words floated and she turned to follow them until she was looking behind herself. "Damn it, you touch me and I am going to make your world hurt."

A flash of green flame just out of reach highlighted the speaker. If only for a moment. Sally was off guard suddenly. "The hell, a pony?"

There was a deeper green glow and the shape was outlined again. This time the glow came from the pony's horn, a curved and black thing. Sally started to feel light headed, her world seemed to spin and for a moment before she started to fold in on herself, she swore her vision started to turn green.

Sally was dreaming, she had to be. Her family, she knew they were dead, but in this dream they weren't, they were all near her, they hugged her and told her everything would be alright. It was hard not to want it to be real and she let herself relax into the dream. It couldn't hurt after all.
It seemed like days in her dream, just in a gloriously happy, relaxed state. But it wouldn't last, it never could. Nothing so nice could. Coughing and spluttering, Sally spat out the green goop that had filled her mouth.

"Come on, out you get." More chittering words.

Her vision slowly cleared, faster when she wiped the goop from her face. It was another of those dark black… ponies. They had blue bug-like, multifaceted eyes, green insectile wings and a horn.

"New food are always the worst." Her hand was gripped in a green glow as the creature's horn had a glowing leash trailing to it. The leash jumped to secure at her neck. "You can't stay in the pod, it will hurt you, get out, food."

She felt drained, her legs were weak and… naked. Thoughts, horrible thoughts, filled her head. But she steeled herself against them, if they intended that, they would do it regardless of if she tried to hide herself or not. A tug at that leash told her all she needed to know. She was a captive. "Food?"

"Yes, you are."

She crawled from the dark pod-like thing she had been in, the inside was full of green goop and she could see another pony, this one yellow with a green mane, being led toward the pod by another of the black-creatures.

"No, I mean I am hungry." She lifted her head and sniffed. The green stuff smelled vaguely sweet, but she couldn't pick up much of anything from the insect-pony.

"Yes, you get fed. You eat food, we eat you."

Sally stiffened. "You… eat me?" The creature turned back and looked at her and the mercenary suddenly felt something inside her head, it was like there was teeth, sharp and long. They bit into a part of her, deep inside.

"Ugh, no taste good. Better in your pod." The fangs left her awareness.

"You don't mean to actually eat me, do you? What do you eat?" She trembled a little as she got up to follow the pony, her legs moving automatically. When it was inside her, doing whatever it tried, she could barely move.

"Love, happiness." The insect-pony flashed it's fangs as it chittered to her. "You tasted really good in there. Queen herself sampled."

Sally thought this over. She was weak but they seemed inclined to take care of their 'food'. "If I stay in too long, it hurts me?" The pony nodded. She looked back to see the new occupant being sealed in and many more of the insect-ponies coming out and standing around the pod, some licking their lips and fangs. "You treat your food well?"

"Of course, if food dies, we have no food."

"What's your name?" She tried to make a little more contact with the creature, walking faster so the leash shortened.

"Food not need to know names. Food just be happy and think happy." She felt a petting on the top of her head. Indignity started to flare and, if she wasn't quite as naked as she was, she might have tried to fight.

Struggling to calm her temper, she quickly decided to try and work on the facts. She was trapped here. They had some kind of… well, magic. There seemed to be a lot of them. They had a ruler.

As she worked, she was led to a chamber in the caves they had been walking through, there was a fence at the entrance but it wasn't anything actually secure. "Stay here or be hunted, I take it?"

The insect-pony nodded. "And no food for a day. Be good, we give extra food and let you relax in pod, rather than eat every time."

Sally had to bide her time. She had nothing to even try and fight back with, except her mind.

The contents of the cave was a mixed bag. She was the only human, it seemed, but there were more of those non-insect ponies, as well as what looked like a big dog made from sticks and a small swarm of bunnies. "Uh, hi?"

One of the ponies lifted a head, tilting it to the side. "Hi." Their reply lacked any real conviction. Sally had to assume it just meant, to them, that someone else was trapped.

Sally crouched down. She needed information. "Where are we?"

The pony who replied to her greeting looked at her with some interest now. "We were all just farmers. If you get out, head north, and keep heading north. That will help you better than any description I can give you, I think. I'm Apple Stew." The pony stepped closer and lifted a hoof.

Not sure what to do about the obvious greeting, Sally ended up lifting a hand, balling it up and bopping the end of the hoof. "Sally Gailor." It was hard not to give a little smile, the creature was quite adorable. "Guess I'm not in Kansas no more?"

"I don't know where that is, but we are quite a ways south of Equestria, are you cold?"

Sally had started to shiver a little, her smooth flesh not as resistant to the chill of the caves as the pony's coat of fur.

"Clear Skies, can you come over here?" Apple gestured to one of the other ponies, one with wings.

Sally looked startled. "Pegasus? I really am a long way from home, or I took a good thump to the head." The other pony looked a little lost. "Is… he, is he okay?"

Apple Stew shook her head. "He has been here a long time. He was the reason the changelings started pulling us out and giving us rest times. His taste soured and he can't think very well anymore. Clear, can you wrap your wing around Sally?"

The stallion looked at Apple a few moments but stepped closer to Sally and in a moment it felt like she was wrapped in feathers, because she was. There was warmth there too, and Sally decided that be damned if it was odd and leaned into the pony. She reached up and rubbed one of his ears, getting a surprised gasp from the stallion before he leaned into it.

"He likes you." Apple grinned at this. "Are you the type who is going to try and run?"

Sally sighed and nodded. "I gotta try, this isn't the life for me."

"Thought as much. If you need help, we can give it so far as not leaving our pen."

The food brought to her was simple stuff. A thin porridge made from water and oats, some berries and a small pile of apples.

"Thank you." Sally looked up to the changeling who had brought it. It never hurt to say that, not even now. The oats were warm and the heavy food settled well in her. "This the normal fare?"

Clear Skies nodded, sinking his snout into one of the wooden bowls to eat like an animal.

Sally moved over to him. "Hold up there, come on." She reached down and lifted the bowl up from where he was getting it all over his snout. She tilted it so he could eat the oats without wearing them. "There you are. You help me, I help you." She plucked up an apple and offered it to him. He smiled and started munching on it.

"More of a pony than the last who tried to get free." Apple wandered over, claiming a bowl for herself. Sally watched as the mare held it, impossibly, in one flat hoof. "She was a unicorn, all high and mighty. Changelings never told us what happened, I almost hope she didn't get free."

"Don't say that. If they got free best of luck to them. No one deserves to live like this. You said they changed their habits after Clear got… hurt?"

Apple nodded.

"Then they aren't stupid, maybe they can be reasoned with more?"

Apple looked astonished at this. "Reason with them? They… they own us!"

"Right, and they have a vested interest in not only our survival, but our state of mind."

The changelings came regularly, mostly for the rabbit things. The poor little creatures didn't seem all that smart, the rabbits, not the changelings.

Clear kept close to her and Sally appreciated it. Her knee was starting to get sore and she huddled into the gentle wing of the stallion.

"You, you next." The changeling gestured to the human with a hoof.

She got up to a wobbly leg, hobbling forwards. "Alright, alright. Hold your…" She sighed, there were going to be a lot of things she wouldn't be able to say here. "Don't use your collar thing, I'll be good."

The changeling shrugged and turned.

"When I get out, can you get me an audience with the… Queen?" Sally had phrased it casually, but it certainly got a reaction from the changeling.

"You want to talk to Queen Fangs?" They blinked their big blue, faceted eyes.

Sally nodded. "Sure. Right now good or should I wa-" The collar was back, the magic of the changeling tight and gripping her.

"We go now. You can be happy for her? It will make her like you more."

The human pondered this, she felt an odd chill and realized the changeling beside her was doing something in her head. She tried to think of her family, in a good way, but the violence of their shared lives intruded. A stray thought came, of the nice and gentle stallion in the cage.

"There, that tastes nice. Keep doing that." She felt that touch inside her seem to thicken, but gripped tight to the thoughts of the nice pegasi.

"What is this? That new thing that was found?" The voice Sally heard was full of power. "You feed on my morsel, cease this!" The sensation in her head of the changeling that had been leading her was suddenly gone, but was soon replaced.

Sally's eyes drooped a little as the Queen herself leaned in. "Oh, now here we have something nice. A new friendship? Pure and simple love." Sally dropped to a knee as the world seemed to go a shade of green. "Yes, a delight. You have earned yourself a moment of my time, state your desire."

She had seen right through Sally, the woman was on her knees in front of a much larger changeling, one that practically radiated power.

"Well, you bring us food but… it is not the best. Our bodies get little work while you… drink." The human's thoughts were in disarray, the changeling's handling of her had shown a casual lack of caring for her will, it hurt to know that not only were you a prisoner, but were considered little more than cattle.

"We take what we want from you, you are ours to do with, after all." The Queen's eyes dared her to challenge it, to challenge her.

It took a lot of Sally's will to not rise to that, to not try and drive a fist up into that carapace and beat the bug pony senseless. "Why not have us farm, raise our own food."

A change passed over the Queen's features. She went from what Sally had to assume was 'bored play' to 'interest'. "Keep talking, food."

Sally gulped. "I mean, you take food from somewhere already, the grain?" There was a nod of the royal pony's head. "So, why not capture that place, set up some pods there, have the ponies raise food for themselves and your other… guests…"

Fangs, real fangs, were suddenly in Sally's face. "You think you could do this, and make it easier to get free?"

Terror passed through the woman, terror like none other she had felt, short of her first time on a battlefield. She shrank back then, and did so now.

"I will think on it. But I think you and I need more meetings. You don't think like a pony, or a changeling. If I break you, it might harm that thinking." The creature drew back from her and smiled, those fangs, the hole-filled horn, it was an image she would not forget. "I think I will wear you down instead, rebuild you into a good little snack."

Sally tried to marshal the strength she used in her profession, but a part of her refused, told her it was impossible to fight this foe. The presence of the Queen, in her head again, turned the world around her green.

Sally passed out.

Author's Notes:

Okay, decided to assemble this list of shorts into its own story. Not sure if I will be keeping it daily, but I will be posting to it regularly.

Note, as listed, this is a little more freak-show than my other story and so I have plopped it in mature.