Well, booksy, boss was right, and we’re in the maximum security prison of the Crystal Empire. They tried to take you away from me, but you’ve always come back to me. I knew you were resourceful, booksy, but outsmarting Crystal Guards is a whole new level. Anyway, I hope Thirteen is okay. When the guards threw us into a wagon outside the castle, she was unconscious, but she didn’t look too badly hurt other than a bleeding muzzle. The guards said she ran into a door, and I believed them, because Candy princess wouldn’t employ real meanies who would hurt someone like Thirteen.

There’s not much to do here other than scribble and draw a bit, but it’s not like I want to get out anyway. The room isn’t too warm, so they must know we changelings prefer our home a bit dank, and I don’t have to share with anyone. I mean, it would be nice to have some company, but this is prison, so some ponies must have made big mistakes to end up here, and there might even be some straight up baddies. The bed could be a little harder, but this way I can even bounce, although when I did that the wardens yelled at me. A series of books miss Gem brought me from the surface once made prison life seem super scary. Despite that, the plan is to stay here, and when prince Shiny realizes his ponies really don’t understand the dwarven blueprints I have to translate those. Still, I would feel a lot better if I could see Thirteen.

Oh, and there’s one super important thing I have to do, according to the books. The important part is to walk up to the biggest and the most scary-looking guy in here, and show dominance. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that, but-

“Hey, where did he get the book and a pencil again?” a crystal unicorn warden, one of the two guarding Three’s solitary cell scowls, “Hey,” he grabs the bars, raising his voice at Three scribbling into his journal, “How did you get those things from the locker this time?”

“Wait, didn’t we station a permanent guard there? And prince Shining Armor himself set up the protective barrier last time,” the other warden facehoofs, “I guess we’ll just have to burn the book straight up this time.”

“Hey, no!” Three presses the journal against his barrel with a pout, “Booksy has been with me since boss took me to Canterlot for his first summit of world rulers. Last summit too, because everyone was mean to us, and boss didn’t want much trade and any migration anyway.”

“Summit of world rulers?” a warden only scowls harder, “What are you even talking about, changeling?”

“Wait,” the other one raises a hoof, “I think I read about it in history books. It used to be an annual event in the pre-corruption era, but that’s at least two hundred years.”

“Yeah, isn’t booksy awesome?” Three beams, misunderstanding now fully solved in his eyes, “I’ve got tons of pictures and old stories here. I’ve been writing daily, you see, because boss said that without practicing, my hoofwriting looks like it was done by… umm… an epileptic during a light show inside a circus tent. I’ve never been an ellipse or in a circus, so I don’t really understand what he meant,” he scratches his head in mild embarrassment.

The smarter warden does some math inside his head, and says:

“That’s an inch-thick book.”

“Mhm,” Three nods.

“You’ve been writing and drawing into it daily for at least two hundred years...”

“Mhm.”

“The same book. And you haven’t run out of pages?”

“Told ya booksy was awesome, and that’s why you can’t burn him. Besides, he didn’t do anything to you, and had nothing to do with the huge hole in the sky that ate the sun. I didn’t even write down anything important about it, because boss said I wasn’t allowed to.”

“But-”

“Stop talking to the prisoner!” barks the mean warden, “We’re her to make sure the changeling doesn’t escape, that’s all.”

“Oh, I can’t escape anyway,” Three waves his hoof as dismissively as two sets of shackles allow him, “At least not until I have translated the blueprints for machines that can grow food without the sun. Boss said we had to help, because we caused the apocloplypse even though we didn’t want to,” Three wipes saliva from the corner of his mouth, the result of him trying to say apocalypse.

“Speaking of food, what are the orders about changelings and meal time?” asks the smart warden.

“No special treatment.”

“Even though they don’t eat-”

“I said no special treatment!” mean warden repeats himself, “This is the maximum security prison, not a weekend at your grandma’s. If they want some ‘love’, no one is watching them in the showers.”

It’s meal time, and Three is one of several dozen creatures currently waiting with varying degrees of complaining by a set of plastic windows in a wall behind which crystal ponies are serving a semi-liquid goop that someone without a conscience and with talent for lying could call vegetable stew. It goes ‘blub’, as Three notes to himself.

“This is disgusting,” growls a unicorn ahead of Three in the queue fitted with a heavy suppressor, “You’d better get this sorted out by tomorrow or you will be on the menu,” he snorts in contempt as he gives one final disgusted look to the bowl that the serving mare pushed through a slot in the window.

“Ponies can’t eat other ponies,” says Three, opening his mouth, “See, you don’t have those shapr teeth. Even if you could nibble someone, you can’t digest them anyway. Miss One once caught a criminal who tried that, and then she made him eat his own hind leg after she broke it off. It took forever with all the begging and crying, but in the end she had a wooden one made for him, and I haven’t heard of him causing trouble ever since. I guess he was limping a little afterwards, but now he can pretend he’s a pirate. Yarrr!” Three scratches his head, unfazed by the unicorn’s twitching eye, “Or, well, he could while he was still alive. It was a long time ago. Hey, are you okay? You eye’s all red. Is there a medicine pony anyw-”

“No bucking doctor will fix you after I’m done with-”

“Aaand what’s going on here?” a warden is never too far away in a facility like this, and the more experienced ones have a sixth sense for escalating situations.

“Nothing...” growls the unicorn, giving Three a ‘if you open your filthy mouth, no amount of bars will save you from me’ look before turning away.

Of course, Three’s best translation of the unfamiliar situations is:

“I think that pony is just grumpy because he’s hungry,” he says, “He wanted to eat me but, I mean, I can share my stew since I won’t be eating it anyway.”

“I will destroy-” the bowl of stew floating weakly in the unicorn’s suppressed telekinesis drops, which makes 3 jump for it just as the warden’s blackjack hits the unicorn in the face.

“Hey, what are you doing?” asks Three, balancing the bowl on his head, and looking at now three wardens beating the unicorn.

“That’s the prison band and that unicorn volunteered to be the drum,” growls a griffon passing by who takes the bowl on Three’s head, adding “Take your meal and come with me.”

“Don’t you mean the drummer?”

“No.”

“Ooooh ooh ooh!” Three pokes one of the busy wardens, ”Can you teach me to play the guita-”

“Come on!” the griffon raises his voice, and smacks the back of Three’s head. With one nose scrunch his way, Three bites the handle of his bowl, and follows the griffon.

Moments later, Three hops next to the griffon onto a bench by one of many long tables inside the prison cafeteria. With a careful look around, he tries to spot Thirteen, but either she’s not there or she’s hiding too well for him to see.

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” says the griffon, “Some of the guys here are pretty nasty.”

Having nothing to do with his double portion of food, Three examines his presumably friend. He’s got a sand-colored coat, and rusty red talons as well as head feathers. He’s sinewy but strong and covered from head to paws with scars.

Come to think of it, he looks familiar.

Noticing Three’s confused pout from the corner of his eye, the griffon faces the small changeling, grabs his foreleg and raises it up, scrutinizing the glowing strings of purple runes around each of Three’s fetlocks and around his neck. Three isn’t particularly bothered about the griffon playing with him like with a doll.

“I can make those change colors, hnnng...” Three furrows his brows in concentration, and when nothing happens, he sighs, “Or I could if I didn’t have all these rings and shackles on me.”

“I thought so,” the griffon smirks, “It is you, Three, isn’t it?”

“Ohmygosh you know me?” Three beams wide in response, “Wait, but I don’t know any griffons other than mister Cromach, and even if you dyed yourself, you’re not as big as he was.”

“My name is Magpie,” says the griffon, “I’m a friend of a changeling from your hive - Gem. I’ve seen you in your hive’s throne room a month ago.”

“Ohhhhh, you came with miss Gem, miss Harriet, that unicorn mare made of fire, and that huuuuuge corrupted dragon. Right when I… umm… I think I got teleported into that broken city where I met this silly black alicorn lady and that big bad unicorn wizard who needed a hug. Now I remember!”

“I… I’m not really sure about the latter part, but yeah, I passed out soon after we got to your hive, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the Crystal Empire and Crystal Guards swarming around me.”

“And they took you here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” Magpie shakes his head, “They said I helped make the sky disappear, but honestly, I’ve got nothing but guesses. Gem thought we would close the huge void rift over the Crystal Empire, but apparently something went wrong.”

“Well, I only heard about it, but boss said ponies think our hive was responsible for opening the void rift.”

“And were you?” Magpie raises an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t! I didn’t even know anything was going on until you appeared with miss Gem and everyone. But boss said Seven did some really, really bad stuff on boss’ orders...”

Magpie sighs.

“When I saw you, I was hoping you’d know something, but I guess we don’t have a choice but to find a way to contact Gem. She’s locked up in here too, you know?”

“Whaaaat?” Three squeaks out loud, “Somepony caught miss Gem? That’s impossible!”

“I think Prominence had a hoof in it, that’s the fire unicorn lady you mentioned. She’s… you know what? I don’t understand it myself what she really is, but she has something to do with princess Celestia. There’s no point in speculating.”

“Hmmm...” Three hums to himself, “You’re right. I still need to find Thirteen.”

“Another one of yours?”

“Yep, boss sent us here to the Crystal Empire to help ponies, but since we ended up here in prison, there’s one thing I need to do first if I remember my prison books right. Mind waiting a while?”

“No problem,” Magpie returns back to eating the slop in his bowl while Three takes both his bowls and walks off.

Before he can finish his meal, though, he hears a collective gasp from most current occupants of the cafeteria. When he looks up, he sees Three standing on the table in front of a heavily-built, muscular minotaur, looking intensely into his eyes.

Expecting the imminent crushing of Three, Magpie stands up just as Three hugs the minotaur’s wide neck and nuzzles him.

“I know you’re not a bad minotaur, and that you just made some poor decisions or got into the wrong company. They can’t be feeding you properly here, so you can have my portion because I eat love anyway, and I got one extra from that unicorn who volunteered for the prison band.”

With that done, Three sits back down on his haunches, smiling broadly at the minotaur.