We live in a time when we do not listen to our hearts, but our heads. We praise our cunningness and our wisdom and we put our pride into the machines and projects that we create. I have equally been as guilty of doing so, and I have seen and felt first hoof what cleverness destroys when it is not backed up with a pure heart. Knowledge is half a battle, but that battle is still lost without love.
~The Last Great Speech of Princess Celestia

Entry 021 - A Change Will Do You Good (Part One)

Up to this point, my life had felt like a slipping slide into a quagmire of the slurried bodies that I’d helped to destroy, which my own body would soon be joining and absorbed up as punishment for my deeds. However, when Gypsy Breeze told me she was expecting and she wanted me to be a part of the wee bairn’s life, I felt like I’d been given a stepladder to climb off of that slope. Although Gypsy’s loss of the foal knocked my escape route away, Molasses Candy immediately came to my rescue. She pulled me onto that new pathway and put a little worm in my ear that started to tell me I could do better in life, I could BE a better griffon.

The peril of a new path is that the old one never stops taunting you. It never lets you forget it, and every so often, from far away, you hear it whispering, “what if…” What if I kept surviving? What if the route of the wrong proved safer, and stronger and wiser than the route of the moral and just? What if I was making another foolish mistake by following my heart over my head?

The call to remake my choice started far sooner than I would have liked, and my attempts to claw my way out of being a no-good scoundrel began as the end of the Seven-Day Rule drew near…

Moderately still soaked but clothed, our feet and hooves slipped and slid on the false stone floor as Mole and I skidded into the Songbird Sector. We raced past ponies as I checked we were heading to the location on my PipBuck, where the message had promised me Gypsy was due to, or already had, performed. We were not to know whether we’d missed her, only that she had chosen to sing her ascension song at one of the music halls.

Regrettably, getting through the Songbird Sector wasn’t as easy as was hoped. It was busier than a bazaar selling sweet rolls for a-bit-per-bag. There were long queues for each of the music halls, for both watchers and singers alike. It wasn’t hard to tell which was which; one fed into the main archways, oak doors or ascending grand stairways into each auditorium, the other led into the sides where ponies with clipboards took their names and details. The biggest crowd by far gathered at the “Falling Shadow Concert Hall,” which I first believed might have been our destination. Onyx pillars held up a bold coliseum of chrome and jet black metals. Flashing blinding lights made the whole building feel like a chunk of space, cut out of the sky and placed in the Stable like a slab of sparkling cake on a plate. To my surprise, it turned out not to be the platform for Gypsy Breeze’s performance.

“That’s Hot Shot’s music hall,” Mole informed me when I asked why it had such a popular following, “if you go in there, you may not only ascend, you might also be picked to be the next big thingie in the Stable!” She gave an over-dramatic sigh. “I tried once, he said I ‘must try harder,’ but I had already tried the hardest I’d ever tried! So I went to “The Magnolia” instead. I like it there, the judges are always friendlier and say, ‘just try your best, Molasses Candy,’ and I do. Then they say, ‘good job, Molasses Candy,’ and I leave feeling super good about myself!” I chuckled, rolling my eyes at another case of Mole sharing more than necessary, and kept us moving through.

“Kiva’s Moon Palace,” was the eventual stop via the guidance Bucky gave me. Although smaller than the ‘Falling Shadow,’ it still looked important, impressive and stylish, with sky blue walls finished with a darker tiled roof, long white legs holding up the entrance and matching windows. The doors were open, welcoming all inside, and the queues around it were only paled in comparison to those for the big black cube behind us.

Over the hubbub and the eagerness to see or be seen from the other ponies, a voice found its way to my ears. The harmonies, to me, were perfect, the tune partially melancholy, with enough hopefulness in the lyrics to bring light to foggy dawn. The last time I heard the song, it had been sung cracked and occupied, but now it was clear, and pure, and perfect. Without thinking, I hopped up, almost leaving Mole behind.

“Crow!”

“Come on, lass!” I called to her, then flew over the heads of the ponies waiting and hovered into the grand hall in search of my songbird.

Cloud-like chambers were what I’d stepped into, filled to the brim with ponies in plush cyanic chairs, surrounded by thick solid white and aquamarine walls, very clearly decorated by somepony wanting to remember the old days of what Cloudsdale had once been. Even the stage misted over, as the lights fell on the singing starling, projecting her voice into the squall. There was no other noise, no interruption or disturbance of her heartfelt calling to the room. The lights, the eyes, and the hearts were all set on her, her microphone and her voice.

The melodic harmonies were easily mistaken for Sweetie Belle’s from a crystal clear radio transmission, the first time I heard that angel sing. It was an elementary mistake to make; my eyes were closed, my body broken. After the forty-eight hours before that wake-up call, I ought to have been dead.

My vision hurt, but only for a moment. I had not been subjected to waking up in any bright lights, even if that was hard to find in cloud-punished Equestria. I had just one candle, a bed that was some relief no matter how hard and lumpy it was, and the passerine who sat watchfully over me, soothing me with her aria.

As she saw me waking, she did not cease to sing, only boosted her voice an octave more, stroking the only cheek that did not hurt. As I looked to her, I wondered if I had died, and this was the new vision of Celestia; not a mare of graceful white but now an amethyst with a top and tail of pure golden ambrosia. Her eyes reflected the light of the simple flame in my room as she silently promised that, from that moment on, she’d look out for me in this brave new world; where I would be without the wings of Periwinkle to guide me. Where I would lose my nerve to soar as I had once done. Where I would follow the only stallion I’d be foolish enough to follow.

The crowd burst into thunderous applause. Molasses reached me as Gypsy Breeze stepped around the microphone stand on the stage and took a curtsy to her new fans, though she seemed above it all. Something about the Gypsy I first met, and the mare here today was very different, and it didn’t take a psychologist to work out what.

“Wow, Gypsy Breeze,” beamed one judge, once she’d managed to settle the excited crowd with a wave of her hooves, which gave me the opportunity to see who it was. Midnight Dreamer reared up on her desk and whinnied in awe, “that was, by far, the best rendition of that song I have ever heard! You’ve got a real voice; a beautiful, talented voice, pony! I think you’re in for a real shot at ascending this year!” More cheers followed this suggestion, and Gypsy took another awkward bow.

“Splendiferous!” proclaimed a mare who appeared to be fond of making up words next to Dreamer. The stallion on her other side just wordlessly nodded, and although I could only see the back of his head, shadowed by the stage lights, I could easily imagine he was smiling too.

“Do you want to say anything to your crowd, Gypsy?” Midnight had to call over the whoops and hollers for my gracious but tired-looking celebrity. The mare on the stage did not hesitate, nor show an ounce of previous consideration before her eyes drove around to me. The focus on me flooded the blood from my upper-body and chilled me to my guts, causing my wings to seize so that I had to land. As she looked, so did the auditorium, hundreds or maybe a thousand eyes staring right back at me, like a jury of judgment for my crimes to the unborn young that never took a breath. I shrank back behind Molasses.

“I do, actually,” she levitated the microphone off of the stand and trotted to the edge of the stage.

“I wanna just say a big welcome to the Guardian Griffon, thanks for making it tonight, Squawk. Without Crow, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. She’s saved my flank countless times, and she did so again only a few days ago so… Yeah. Phew…” She looked like she was about to take a dizzy spell and sat down on the stage. I got up quickly to go to her but was instantly mobbed by the crowd who had exploded with overzealous behavior the moment Gypsy got past thanking me, rather than destroying me for putting her in that danger in the first place. Cheers, stomps, and whistles deafened me, but my ears were relieved quickly.

“Are you alright, Gypsy Breeze? Is she alright?” When everyone settled down, I saw Midnight stood up with her forehooves on the desk, as a grey stallion stage manager came out of the wings to check her over. The mare hurried fussed them away and pushed her straying mane out of her eyes, looking frustrated at the ponies treating her like a porcelain doll.

“Fine, I’m fine…”

“If you’re sure,” Dreamer looked to her fellow deciders, “we’re going to take our vote, now so you can rest up. It’s an easy yes from me.” That pushed the button for the audience, who became ecstatic at the first upvote for my talented pal.

“Absolutely!” Grinned the mare on Midnight’s left. The stallion on her right waited for the adoration to die down before he placed his verdict.

“It was a great performance, but was it ascension worthy? I don’t know,” the stallion stood, rubbed his chin and looked to his other two judging partners. It was the first time I recognized the stallion as the Overstallion himself. Midnight’s ears fell back as she returned the frown at him.

“Come on, dad. We need an answer!” Her response blind-sided me. Overlook was Dreamer’s father?

“In that case, I’m going to follow suit and side with my daughters. Congratulations Gypsy, you’ve got three yeses.” I sank as the community rose, a sad bluebell amongst gleeful roses. I was still going to lose my Gypsy, after all of this. “You’re through to the next round.”

The next round? I’d completely forgotten that this was a competition, not a lottery. I squawked happily with the rest of the gleeful onlookers and applauded my friend, expecting Molasses to be just as joyful as well. The look of seething jealousy took me by surprise, instead, and I gave her a shove and a questioning shrug. She didn’t explain herself but immediately changed her attitude to one of guilt.

Of course! That kiss! I’d been a fool to think Mole would forget it so quickly. I had to hope the pair would patch their differences up or this would be an extended stay in the Stable, however long that would be. That was another question on the growing list to pose to Elmwood and Gypsy.

“...and it says here the Guardian Griffon has yet to perform her Ascension song.” I came out of my musings to the sound of Overlook’s revelation to the crowd. “Crow, would you like to ascend onto the stage?” Buck!

“I cannae!” I belted out as the ponies rose to more showers of adoration, “I said, I cannae-” but Dreamer, her father nor the extra judge, apparently Midnight’s sister, weren’t hearing me over the delighted audience. I kicked myself back into the air with clenched fists and drew in a breath, letting loose a sound my feline half kept inside until it was imperative to release it.

The bellow caused the entire building to go silent, so much so that it was possible to hear a singer from a neighboring hall.

“I am not singing!” I declared, flinging my forelegs out as a sign of the fact. That introduced horror to the listening throng, something Overlook was keen to expel.

“Don’t worry, everypony, it’s natural for someone who has not had the luxury to sing every day as we have to get cold feet. Ahem; Crowella, you have to sing. Everypony does, and our only griffon must as well, for the good of the continuity of our Stable. Do you not want a chance to be with our fair Princesses in their bountiful gardens?” He smiled so warmly at me, I couldn’t tell him that he was a bucking loon for believing that drivel.

“I-I’m not saying I wouldnae… I-I mean, I’m jus’ savin’ meself fer tomorrow, I haven’t perfected my song…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Crow!” Dreamer called to me, “It’ll be fine! You’ll do great, come on, get on stage...” she waved her hooves to me. Some buggar in the third row thought it would be a wise idea to start chanting my moniker in encouragement. It wasn’t.

“Guardian Griffon! Guardian Griffon! Guardian Griffon! Guardian Griffon!”

I showed Mole my worried face as the rest of the crowd fanatically demanded my audio sacrifice, shaking my head urgently. She saw the look in my eyes, she sensed my fear, and miraculously, that was all she needed to come to my rescue.

“I VOLUNTEER!” She cried out, raising a hoof to the roof while hopping eagerly on two legs, managing to shout better than I could over the clamor. She shot me a wink, and I’m pretty certain she said, “bet Gypsy would never do this, huh!” before galloping through the aisles, leaping onto the seat rests with agility a mountain radgoat would be jealous of, over and sometimes briefly onto heads, before spiraling over the judges and landing on stage beside Gypsy.

“Wow,” gasped the flock, the judge’s bench and I. I didn’t miss the look of smug one-upmanship Moley gave my previous lip-sharer, before smiling at her evaluators. Dreamer picked her jaw up off of the floor and checked her PipBuck.

“Well, sure, it says here you’ve yet to perform, Molasses, and by the way, we’re all happy to see you are looking much better too…” the auditorium shared that sentiment, “...but wouldn’t you like to let these good ponies to hear the song your savior’s going to sing?”

“Well, maybe, sure, I bet they would, but -er… They can’t!” I could pretend that the lights were making Mole sweat, and nerves were making that leg twitch, but the face screamed that she was covering for me, I never expected anypony to fall for it. “Not until I’ve sung my song, for her. I have to! She saved my life,” she nodded, breathing out the air she’d been safe-keeping. The three unicorns with the power looked to each other, considering it.

“Okay, Molasses Candy, you can sing your song first. You will be doing the usual song, “Smile,” again, right?” Midnight lifted a hoof to ready the band that this hall had prepared for all its applicants, only for Mole to flag her down.

“No, no, no, no, no! Not this time! I want to do a special one, for Crow,” she cuddled the microphone in one leg and smiled across to me as she touched it to her lips.

“Err, okaaay? Cool! What do you want to sing?” Dreamer let her leg droop as she waited for my little heroine to decide how she was going to rescue me. Mole first shot Gypsy a questioning look, who was still hovering on the platform with bewilderment at the latest turn of events. The golden-maned wonder shook away the confusion in her head and backed off of the stage on my side of the suite.

“Oh! I’d like to sing “Imagine With Me,” you got that one?” she looked to the musicians, each shuffling papers and nodding in turn. The maroon mare beamed at the panel with a slight bleat behind her smile, showing off the shiniest teeth I’d ever seen on a pony. Overlook gave his appraising gesture, his daughters took their seats, and the instruments aroused the song’s cue.

I was mesmerized by the tiny soul with the voice as big as the set, who did not falter as she seamlessly transitioned from an excited little beast to a powerful siren. The song alone had majestic energy although notoriously difficult to sing. Molasses Candy did not make it seem that way at all.

In the stunned stupor, I wasn’t aware of Gypsy until she bumped me firmly with her hip to get my attention. I fought to pull my eyes away from the show, finally twisting my head around to my friend.

“Molly’s not a bad little entertainer,” she mused over the song, “I think it’s in the genes.”

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to interrupt the atomic act put on and dedicated to me.

“So what’s with the big uproar about singing, Crow?” Breeze insisted, “you don’t want to ascend, do you?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure...”

“Hey!” she socked me devilishly hard in the leg, fuming when I turned to look hurt. “You’re not listening to me! What’s with… Oh.” Perception changed her expression. I should have been listening to her and concentrating. Instead, I showed my cards too early and I could tell she’d sussed me and Mole out. Now, she had my full alertness.

“Gypsy, let’s talk about this-”

“No need. You’ve made your choice. Good on you, Crow,” the sliver of the smile on her face did not feel very friendly as she turned back to the girl swaying on stage. She had the crowd joining in with her, some even raising hooves into the air.

“I mean, how could you resist?” Gypsy grunted, “younger, cuter, a virgin… was, at least.” She snorted enviously, squinting at the prancing artist as she poured her heart into the tune.

“Hey now-” I chirped, but Gypsy was already turning to leave. My heart tore between the singer on-stage and the grown mauve horse exiting along the aisle. I wavered, eyes looking into the honest green gems of my beloved for the answers.

She pointed to me and nodded in time with the tune. I gave her a soft, dumb smile.

She thrust her hoof outwards and upwards, hips shimmying. I flicked my tail. What was she trying to tell me?

Oh. I got the message that time, my rust-colored diva giving me the distraction needed for me to escape before I was called to take her place in front of the demanding and hungry watchers. I spun as she sung the same word over and over, thrust myself to the top of the room and chased Gypsy’s tail through the door.

I paused to listen to the crowd bellow calls, stomp applause and it made me grin proudly at the thought of my little munchkin finally getting some recognition from her peers. Then I flapped hastily after the striding pony, who stopped without notice so that I collided into the back of her.

“You following me?” I was asked curtly, my sight clouded by the gold locks of her tail. I didn’t answer but didn’t have to. “Good, because I want to show you something.”

The rest of the trip through the Stable streets she remained silent to me, no matter how hard I tried to communicate with her. I would have got more words from Bucky, and I did as the PipBuck Boop game flashed up no less than five times along the journey. I groaned awkwardly and had to sit with the grumpy cow as I attempted to boop my way to glory, winning a free hay burger with fries, a cuddly toy and three free rides at Glad Rags.

Thrice the attention from the game gathered ponies over to once more want to speak to myself and the Ribboned Rescuer. She was ten times more gracious and chatty to them than she ever was to me, and I was left to play happy families until they left as well. The only time she showed some concern to my wellbeing was when I growled and thrust my PipBuck against a wall once more, forgetting I’d tried and failed to break it days ago. I caught her thoughtful expression for a second, but then she was trotting again.

We secreted ourselves into the rare passageways that I was becoming increasingly well aware of, into the stinking sewers below ground and onto a second path I hadn’t previously traversed. I think I made a joke about the smell, I don’t recall what it was now. In truth, Gypsy’s new cold shoulder frazzled my brain until I couldn’t think of anything but my worries and problems. It made the guilt and grief inside me all accumulated until it was the pit of a peach that had to be spat out.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first. I was going to but, it all happened so fast! She came on to me-”

“Really? That’s why you think I’m upset?” the angered nag turned on me so fast that her mane’s bows fluttered, snorting with a stomp, “I couldn’t care less how you took that little things’ virginity, and to be honest I’m very glad you did because you turn into a spoilt little princess when you don’t get a lay. Why do you think I pushed you towards so many mares over the last couple of years? I can answer, don’t worry; it’s because you turn into a real bitch when your snatch is overruling your brains.” My mouth moved, but there wasn’t a word on my tongue that the cat had not already stolen. The bombshell kept raining fire on my attempts to continue, pushing her mane back stressfully.

“What really twists my teats is that you couldn’t bring yourself to ask about the foal,” her voice cracked, her carmine eyes trying to stop my gaze from slipping away in shame, “no, it’s not just you. No pony wants to talk about her. It’s like she didn’t exist! But I felt her inside of me, I felt her life, and I don’t want to pretend she was just a bucking dream.” She didn’t raise her voice, and she did not need to. Her face was a picture of all the emotions that she was bleeding out. “She had a name. Memory Breeze. She was supposed to be safe here, Crow. Safer than out there.”

“I’m sorry… It’s all-all my fault…” my beak somehow managed to utter. I did not expect her to deny it, and I was still unprepared for her next sentence.

“It is. You’re right.” Her dark red stare killed me. I lost my fight and sank, shrinking under her, letting her have the winning blow. Yet, she would not take it and turned, leaving me with a worse comeuppance; the pain of an unfinished argument. It hurt more than the soccer punch Elm dealt me.

She thrust herself through a doorway and into a carbon copy of the room I’d been in not a few hours earlier, even occupied by the same two Tunnel Bugs I’d seen there, alongside Bones and Woody himself. The differences included the last of the company sat at a bench, working like a mad scientist on a bunch of odd contraptions. There was the same shooting range, but with different targets, ones far more pony-like and familiar to me. They’d taken the trouble to set these boards up with Steel Rangers on them.

“Lover’s tiff?” asked the calcite horse, not turning around.

“Continue bucking yourself with your toys over there,” answered Gypsy.

“Fair enough,” nodded Elmwood, waving a hoof, “hi Crow.”

“Um, hullo, all of you,” I said inadequately, feeling more ashamed and low now knowing that my friends had all heard the complaints against my character and furthermore, how true they were. I glanced around the squad and scratched an arm, looking to somepony other than Gypsy. “What is this all about?”

“Exactly!” Elmwood leaped out of his seat, one eye enlarged by a magnifying glass attached to a leather band around his head, looking like a crazed and malformed creature wanting to judge everything the icy eye set itself on, “that’s the right question. Finally, somepony else asked it other than me.” There were smugs of grease in his fur and his scars seemed even more defining in this light. “Why a singing contest to discern something as important as joining Princess C’s orgy fest? Why aren’t there old ponies in this Stable? Why let a bunch of raiders into a Stable, knowing full well they’ll piss in the cooking pot, and why, among all other things, haven’t you told Crow or I who these three really are? What is going on here, Gypsy?” I stared at the stallion with a tired and defeated heart.

“No, I meant, why have you brought me down here? I haven’t a clue on the rest of what you just blathered on about, Elmwood,” I muttered softly, flicking my wings, looking at my front feet in self-deprecation. I heard the guy backtrack on his joy of finding someone thinking just like him but then clopped over to me.

“Oh. Well, one reason is your PipBuck. I am going to need to take a look at it, Crow, please? It’s easy to take off, you just-” I popped the locks off with ease, now that I know how to do so thanks to Mole’s tuition, and held it out on my palm for him.

“Clever bird,” he smiled reassuringly and took it in his teeth, trotting back across the room to his private desk. Meanwhile, Gypsy had taken a seat beside Joke and-

“Whoa,” I coughed as though the smoke of the cigarette she’d just lit had already reached me, “you’re taking that up again, hen?” ‘Gone-out’ is an expression the Trots use when a pony briefly steps out of their minds, and that vacant glance was exactly what Gypsy used for me when I chastised her for returning to a habit I’d seen her kick a while ago.

“Leave the bottle alone, then we’ll talk, Squawk,” she uttered before another drag. I didn’t like the way she used the once-fraternal nickname in that instance. This emotional shiv in my ribcage was digging deeper.

“I’m sorry, Gyps, but, err-” Private Joke hemmed and hawed over his following choice of words, “there’s the matter that we discussed and, well, we Tunnel Bugs have sorta been preparing for this for, well, ten years…” I rose my eyebrow to the group, shrugging and shaking my head at the mare with the grudge. Deciding that she couldn’t play the stuck-up card and be productive at the same time, Gypsy levitated her cigarette before her and went for a walk around the three dwellers from the Stable.

“Honestly, this is going to answer some of your burning questions too, Detective Woody,” she began, running her hoof along Boney’s shoulders. The mare, who I knew from the jail was unnerved by feminine wiles, shuddered as she glanced between the blondie and me. I realized that, without her helmet on this meeting, the chestnut scruffy mane she had suited her pale buttercup fur. Intriguing, her eyes matched PJs, and when I checked this on Big Lum, the stallion’s eyes were not all that different either. Different contrasts of cerulean, each with a slightly ominous glow behind them, like someone had lit a tiny candle behind their pupils.

“I know,” advised Elm, to Gypsy’s response, still not looking up from his work on my PipBuck. I wondered what he knew, what all of them knew that was due to be such a surprise to me, and I wasn’t going to have to wait long. “It’s going to open a whole apple-cart more too, and you’re not going to tell me the answers to those, are you?”

Mistress Breeze huffed, and as predicted, she did not answer. Instead, she walked across to Lumbah and sat, sipping smoke from her death stick and holding it in her lungs until she couldn’t contain the sweet burn any longer.

“How much do you know about changelings, Crow?”

“HAH!” Elm smacked the table before I had a chance to answer, startling me fiercely, “I knew it! -Sorry! Sorry, continue to allude to the answers, oh wondrous alluder.” He waved his hooves towards her in a sorcerer’s fashion, earning a fractious scrunch from his partner. Answering the question seemed to be what was expected of me, but I was just yammering at the present events unfolding before me.

“I, err, they’re critters who look like bugs, can change into anything their size. They feed and bide on something pure weird like the energies of feelings, fear, love, that kinda thing? Um, there was a hive before the war and a queen, I dunno, some legends reckon they turned barmy, others say they were stoatin’, I don’t ken muckle about ‘em at all, really.” I eventually gave a non-committal raise of my shoulders, more concerned about still trying to apologize to Gypsy Breeze with my eyes.

“Today’s your lucky day, Flappy, you get to have a one-on-one workshop with some representatives of those elusive little love-suckers.”

“Hey,” grunted Boney in irritation, “that’s offensive.”

“-But true,” finished Gypsy, who seemed unwilling to consider the feelings of others at the time. Disbelief, confusion, and denial all filled my head at once as I squinted from Lumbah to Joke, the three appearing to stand in order of ultra-cool to extremely nervy. Joke was breathing slowly and laboriously as Bones gave a dismissing bat at the air between myself and Gypsy.

“This isn’t funny, it’s not even clever. I got your foal killed and I’m really bucking sorry for that, you two,” I counted Elm in my commiserations, considering that I had to be thorough if I wanted the madness to finally end, ”But tossing this egg full of shite at me to get your own back is low, it’s obscene!” I observed Gypsy’s only reaction to my tirade, leaning over to whisper in Private’s ear, but I was too engrossed in finally fighting my corner to pick up on it, “I deserve to be chewed out, aye, but not toyed with! After everything we’ve gone through together, a simple, ‘ta for your services Crow, now buck off,’ would suffice, wouldnae you say? And another bucking thing-” but that other bucking thing was lost to the echoing chamber, as a wave of blue flame erupted quickly around Private Joke.

The gaseous fire disappeared as quickly as it had come. I did not see everything immediately, but I saw the sheen of the exoskeleton and that was enough for me. I squawked in horror at the creature in its waking form and turned to climb the walls and escape.

“Crow, whoa, whoa, whoa, Crow! Stop!” despite Elmwood being closer, Lumbah caught me first and held on to me, avoiding my slashing talons as I screamed and panicked. The next thing I knew, I was in his legs, frozen. I couldn’t move my head, or feet, or claws. Gypsy skidded along the wet stones in between me and the door, her glowing horn proving to be the real culprit.

“This is why I didn’t tell her from the off. I knew she’d react like a raving retard,” she took a fresh seat on the cold ground and leaned in, snout inches from my beak. “It’d have been so much easier if you just…” she paused on the words, glancing around me to Elmwood. I couldn’t see him, but I could still hear his tools tinkering away and I knew he wasn’t paying any attention. I always got the impression that nothing surprised him, that he knew what to expect every minute of every day. The mare let out the sigh she was holding.

“You’re being a dumb bitch right now, but you’re in a safe place here. If Lumbah and I let you go, promise you won’t try to scramble away again?” In my head, I was still trying to get my legs and wings to move, but it was no use. I stopped resisting and stared her out.

“Ah wernt,” I said through my stuck beak, which suddenly returned power to me once the groan left through the closed shell. Lum did his best to buddies release me befittingly, and I landed on all fours, swiftly moving into a corner of the room not occupied by, what I felt then were, freaks and assholes. I didn’t try to take my leave again, but for that first hour, I was twitchier than Mole after one-too-many Sunrise Sarsaparillas (something I have seen twice in my lifetime, so far).

“I’m sorry,” another lightning-quick taste of electric blue and PJ was back in the body I knew him as.

“Hey, no.” The ring-mistress pointed demandingly at the transformer, “turn back. We need her to get used to this. Lumbah, Antennae, need you to do likewise, please.” The three long-term pals shared uneasy glances before three more energy tsunamis washed over them.

To look at, the Tunnel Bugs still resembled their pony forms, similar in color, definition, and height. The speckled, completely indigo eyes sent the chills through me, even after I was confident they were still placid beings. Their chitin skins only partially revealed their translucent wings, their tails and film crest flimsy, and their horns were crooked and spikey. They moved around to stand with each other and Private Joke shared some sympathy for me.

“Sorry for spooking you, Crow, this wasn’t the way we wanted to do this.”

“What in the bucking egg is going on, Joke? Why in the buck are you changelings?” I scoured them for answers but couldn’t gain a single clue from their definitionless eyes.

“You can call me Pons,” PJ told me, “Private is my pony name. Saw Bones real name is Antennae.” I looked to Lumbah and gave him a searching glare.

“And you?”

“Oh, actually. Lumbah is his real name. He doesn’t go out into the main Stable much so he’s never needed to adopt a pony name.” Private Joke, Pons, gave the stallion a big pat on the shoulder and tried to flash me a warm smile. Shuddering involuntarily, I kept my eyes on the most prominent and meanest looking one.

“Really? You live down here and in the walls of the Stable? How do you cope with that? I’m guessing being a bug hel- Oh. Tunnel Bugs. Ha-dee-ha ha. I get it.” I pushed my face into my claws, cursing my poor attention to details that I hadn’t realized this sooner, and snapped my beak angrily. I was getting sick of being tricked. “How’d a clawful of changelings in here? Did you sneak in here with the rest of the insects?”

“Careful, Crow,” called Elm from his workbench, though not caring enough to look over to the scene going on over this side of the storeroom, “you’re getting dangerously close to being racist-”

“No!” I thrust out my wings, clenching my fists. “No more fucking games! I want to know how they turned up in this shithole!”

“We were already here!” suddenly yelled Antennae, catching me off guard with her previous incarnation of a timid aphid growing a backbone. “One hundred years ago, we were here first, and this Stable was built for us. The ponies were brought in to feed us-”

“That’s sick-”

“-WITH THEIR LOVE!” The creature I knew as Bones stomped down both hooves to silence me, clicking snappily, “the songs and-and-and the Minstrel days? Those are all for us, to keep us alive. Their singing keeps them happy and fueled with a warm meal. They don’t even know we’re down here.” She stared at me furiously, and I hooted indignantly, scraping talons over the moist flagstones.

“Och, sounds like slavery to me…”

“That’s enough.” Gypsy stepped between us before Bones could retaliate, or I could say something stronger that would get one of us into even deeper trouble. She had a way of becoming the pony that was needed at the moment a situation called for her. I never really appreciated that then, but I do now. On that occasion, school ma’am Ms. Breeze broke up the fight before it could get nastily prejudice. “We’re all on the same side here.”

“She’s right,” added Lumbah, who’d been a big silent rock up until this point, “we were helping the ponies upstairs to ascend, that was what we’d been tasked with by StableTec. We could not reveal ourselves until the ponies had ascended, but once they did we would be there to greet them-”

“Oh, aye?” I glared at him, “on the mysterious vale of Celestia’s Equestrian gardens, aye?” My snappy backbite did little to change his reposeful conduct.

“We know you know that the world above is not what the ponies here believe it to be,” He answered firmly. “Our job was to prepare them for that. There was a time we believed that the songs that they learned would help them to heal Equestria, as they had done so long ago. The singing competition ensured that the right ponies were picked to leave. That was what StableTec imposed on the Changelings living here; make sure they go out singing.”

“That was before the blackout.” Pons sighed deeply, shaking his head, “there was a portal for us changelings to come up and down into the Stable as much as we needed to, but when the power went down in the Stable, the three of us came down here to check that things were okay. Then, we got stuck in here. The elevator wouldn’t return us, even when we fixed the problem with the generators and got the power back. Communications to the top went down as well. We have no way of knowing what happened to our friends and family up there, or why.”

“Hang on,” Elm clicked, looking back at us without turning his head so that his face was upside down, “the ascension stuff, however you do it, that’s still working. How come?”

“Again, no idea,” shrugged Pons, “we sent a few of our people back through it, but no matter who we sent the problem was never fixed. We never heard from them again.” That earned a curious “huh,” from Elm, but he was contented enough with the answer to continue with his work. I wasn’t.

“...And you’re all okay with that?” I asked reproachfully. “Ye all gladly let ‘em keep sending ponies to the top and an uncertain future?”

“Of course not,” snarled Antennae, “we went to the Overmare immediately, as soon as we found out we had no way of solving the problem. We asked, no, we begged her to stop sending the ponies to the ‘Gardens of Equestria,’ but the response back was that we had to continue to ascend the Dwellers of Stable T-Thirty. She said it was our mission, given to us by Celestia herself. That didn’t change with the new Overstallion either.”

“Overlook knows you all exist?” I exclaimed, puffing my wings out in surprise.

“Of course. He’s our Overstallion too, Crow,” advised PJ, “but he is the only one. We’ve kept to the rules, even when things went from cool to crazy in ten seconds flat. No changeling must ever reveal themselves to a pony that hasn’t been ascended. You guys are the first to see us for who we are in ten years.”

“Even when we’re in the presence of good, honest ponies, we’re still a bad influence,” sniggered Elmwood, making the ‘Tunnel Bugs’ scuff their hooves uncomfortably. Gypsy stepped into command once more, standing before me.

“The changelings aren’t the ones fucking with us here, nor are most of the ponies up there. But there is somepony bucking us up the tailpipes, and we need to figure out who before they make a bad mess.”

“I love your imagery sometimes, darling.” Elmwood chuckled from his desk. After another glower at him, I stepped tentatively out of my safe space towards Breeze.

“You’re talking about Procrustean,” I suggested matter-of-factly, “I’ve seen him murder a stallion in cold blood when he was interrogating me. He tortured me into being a snitch for his wee plans too.” I rubbed my shoulder, remembering the pain, and felt a pang of annoyance when Gypsy shook her head at that.

“No. The Chief’s a big fat mother-loving dick, but he’s the monkey, not the organ grinder. Overlook would be the next prime target, but-”

“We’ve done extensive research on both of them, Crow,” Pons explained over Gypsy, “both grew up in the Stable and have families here, it couldn’t be either of them.”

“We need to figure out who’s giving them the orders, and how. Antennae, that means I have a fresh task for you. Come with me.” Seeing as the mare had eliminated the conflict between the bugs with me and was taking charge of this entire operation, I watched her lead the female changeling across the room, the latter of whom gave me one last decidedly grouchy look before moving over. On the other side, she had her station of operations, where papers and what looked like a full map of the Stable sat. Joke started to approach me, but I wasn’t prepared to deal with or understand him at that moment. As his mouth opened, my voice was faster.

“Elmwood, how are ye getting on with my PipBuck?” I swiveled on the spot and marched deliberately across the floor to take my place beside my oldest, and what felt like the only friend there at that moment. I was wrong, of course, but I wore rose-tinted glasses that had been mucked by years in the Wastes and wars. I wasn’t ready to see what really mattered. Snubbed and hurt, Private turned to Lumbah, who just dismissed the rude gesture and chose to follow Gypsy.

“Almost there, just got to erase the annoying sprite the fit into the FunBucks-”

“Whoa, no. Hold it, pal,” I protested, “you cannae go erasing Bucky! He’s grown on me!” I got a look from the kook like I was the maniac in this scenario and a cock of an eyebrow.

“You like the annoying little thing?” He judged me as one judges somebody who likes a particular singer when that celebrity is notoriously disliked and seen as a bit of a brainless dipshit. I held onto my pride and responded with a taunting shut down.

“Aye. I do. He reminds me of you,” He pretended to belly laugh shortly, before giving me a vacant, sarcastic scowl. He muttered something about supposing he might be able to make the best of both worlds, before getting back to work on my PipBuck. I didn’t realize that, in the week I’d been wearing it, I’d grown accustomed to having it. My leg felt oddly bare and clumsy without it now. I looked at the markings it had left in my ankle around an old but big scar, pinkish-grey and wrinkled. It wasn’t one of my favorites, in fact, it was the ugliest thing on me. That made it all the better that I could hide it.

“Why isn’t this new to you, Elm,” I asked, keeping my voice low, “why isn’t your skin crawling the same way mine is?” I glanced back to the conference table Gypsy was at.

“That’d be telling,” he responded, curtly.

“And you cannae tell the griff who got your flank out of a badly-made deal back in Marehay?” I knew from the wince on his face that I had him. He sighed, putting down the tools and giving me a sideways glance, even lifting the spyglass out of his eye to look at me properly.

“You wouldn’t be backing the wrong side if you made friends with these guys, Squawk,” he answered softly, “I have a feeling there are worse things than changelings in this little rabbit warren.” He gave a low sigh and glanced over his shoulder at an unoccupied corner, his eyelids drooping to half-mast. It made me follow his gaze for a moment, and see the “STABLETEC GUTTERING NETWORK,” circular plaque with its one overseeing eyeball, but didn’t have the patience to see or imagine what he was seeing. What I did know was that my friend had an astute, eerily prophetic way of reading places, people and situations. If he said that these ‘things’ were the good guys, I knew he wasn’t saying it because he wanted to endorse the magic of friendship.

“Okay, fine, but I wish they didnae resemble Mirelurks,” I muttered darkly, earning a ticking from Elm as he got back to his task.

“Something I learned real early on, Squawk, don’t insult your hosts. Especially when you’re the minority.”

“Oi!” I cawwed, “that’s-” I couldn’t finish the sentence, and the stallion’s filthy smile told me he knew as much. I growled through my beak and bumped my fist thrice on his desk. “There’s only three of them, so they’re only a tiny percentage less rare that I, aye?”

“Is there?” asked my associate mirthfully to my disharmony.

“Aye!”

“Is there?” This time, his tone was more judicious, his eyebrow raised as he gave the PipBuck a few more taps and nodded sedately. “That’s done. I’ve modified the tracker, turned off the foal lock features, so you won’t get any more messages stopping you from taking a kill shot. The annoying games have been turned off, but what I’m most proud about is- Oh. Okay. Fine.” His last comment came because I had stopped listening and turned my back on him. I am sure he grunted about manners and imitated my accent as he thanked himself profusely, claiming himself to be a genius, but I only know that because it is the kind of thing he’d have done. What I was focused on now, as I floated myself across the room and strapped my updated PipBuck back to my arm, was getting a proper answer from the mare and her cohorts.

“How many changelings are in this Stable?” I demanded before I’d even touched down. Gypsy Breeze looked back to me and gave an objecting huff. She began to rebuff my question, but it was Pons who waved her down this time. Despite head shakes from the representatives of his fellow species, he took a short walk to a corner of the damp and murky place. I shot my gaze at Elm since he’d already pointed out this wall to me a moment earlier. What I had not noticed the first time around when I had looked, was that it was positioned at a jaunty angle, with the eye looking more quizzical than overseeing. Nor had I noticed the red wire attached to it, hung on hooks and running away into the wall adjacent to it. PJ placed his hoof on it and turned his head to me.

“We just want to live, Crow. We want to keep the ponies above safe, and we want our families to feel the same way. You gotta respect that, right?”

“Families?” I asked cautiously. The changeling turned around and concentrated on moving the disk, showing me that it could turn on a central axis back and forth. I didn’t realize until he did this that there was a notch above the circle that he was using as a marker, and the words around the circumference were spelling out something new.

There was a clank, and a sliding sound from the wall beside this one, which drew the attention of Elmwood as well as I. We watched as stone dust fell from the edges of the brickwork, before the entire thing moved aside slowly as one. When the whole thing stopped moving, the partial light from the small wire-strung bulbs above us lit a short corridor that cornered off to the left. The white stallion jumped to the chance to take the lead, cantering into the dark hole and hurrying around the bend.

“Wait!” Antennae raced after him, and Pons gestured for me to follow too. With him at my side, I entered more tentatively than my chum, taking the route through to the opening past the turn. Although there were more lights ahead, I could see that their attempts could not illuminate what had to a vast expanse. Elm had stopped on a stone path hugging the wall, his mouth gaped open, his head doing cartwheels at the sight unseen to me. I braved my way through the exit of the corridor and turned to see what he was looking at.

Revealed to me, hid snugly beneath the Stable, was a cathedral of catacombs surrounded by winding paths and a lot of circular caves dug into the walls. There were so many holes that the rocks and supporting pillars looked sick, as though infested with mites. This, I quickly realized, was a hive, which meant that the creatures flying around the vast chamber were the occupants.

“Well,” started Elmwood vivaciously, “you asked how many, Squawk. Start counting.”

Author's Notes:

Want to discuss the story? Follow me to the Scoundrel’s Settlement on Discord...

Song for this chapter; Dreambreaker by Alvin Stardust I wanted to pay tribute to a local legend and fantastic singer, plus I love this song.

As said in the previous chapter, this chapter and the subsequent one too all came about from what I had drafted for chapter fourteen. However, these three chapters felt that they had better flow and care for the characters this way.

Thank you to Blazie, for some of the edits in his free time. Aannnnd not forgetting Doomande, thanks for picking the nits <3.

If this is when you stop reading, goodbye and safe travels.

If you're still strapped in for the ride, see you in the next chapter.

All good things,
Duskhoof