“Caramel and Sassaflash, sitting in a tree, K – I – S – S – I – N – G!” sang the fillies and colts as they pranced around him and the turquoise pegasus.

“Hey, knock it off, we just happen to be eating at the same table, that’s all!” squeaked Caramel, shaking a hoof at his twelve classmates. They simply laughed and sang louder, and he could feel his whole face turning red.

“He’s a special somepony, she’s a special somepony!” they chorused. Shining Armour and Lucky, the oldest colts in the class, were the ones singing the loudest, as well as having the biggest, dumbest grins on their dumb faces.

“Gah, quit it, you guys!” Caramel yelled at the unicorn and earth pony. He was sorely tempted to lob his bowl of cereal at them. Preferably at Shining.

“Meh, ignore them,” Sassaflash said, waving a hoof at them as if their classmates were little more than pesky flies. “My mom says ponies like them just want attention. They want everypony to see how ‘clever’ and ‘cool’ they are for making fun of other ponies. And that’s needy.”

“Sash, why don’t you sit at our place for once?” asked Minuette, gesturing towards another table. “You don’t have to sit with Caramel all the time.”

Sassaflash raised an eyebrow at the blue unicorn. “What’s wrong with sitting with Caramel?”

“Kinda everything,” Lucky piped up. “Have you seen him play hoof ball? He went crying to Miss Ruby after falling down. Once.”

“That’s not what I meant…” Minuette mumbled.

Caramel’s forehoof instinctively went to the plaster on his flank where he’d scraped himself on a rock at the game yesterday. It wasn’t his fault it hurt so much, and it wasn’t fair that the teacher didn’t believe him when he told her that it had been one of the older colts who had pushed him!

“Yeah, what a cry-baby,” Shining added with a snigger. “Come on, Sash, you can sit with us.”

Caramel blinked hard, feeling a sniffle coming on.

Not again!

Why did he always cry so easily when he was teased? He really didn’t want to. It wasn’t fair!

Sassaflash suddenly got up from the table. Caramel stared at the pale turquoise pegasus, the only one in school whom he might call a friend, even though he couldn’t figure out why she even liked him. But he did know that he liked her company more than being alone. Was she going to leave now? He wouldn’t blame her; Shining Armour was a handsome unicorn with that white coat and blue mane, and even though Lucky was just an earth pony like him, at least the grey colt was tough. He was a monster on the hoof ball field, and everypony always wanted to have him on their team.

The filly trotted up to the older colts, who both gave Caramel looks that pretty much said “See? This is what being cool is like.” She gave them both a sweet smile and gestured for them to lead the way, and when they'd both turned their backs to her, she casually bucked them right in the rumps. One hind hoof for each colt.

They went crashing into the dirt like a pair of potato sacks.

“Blargh, what was that for?” sputtered Lucky, spitting soil and grass out of his mouth.

Shining Armour was sprawled on the ground, speechless for once. He was simply staring at Sassaflash in surprise.

Everypony else had hushed, too. There was a bit of murmuring here and there, but on the whole, everypony’s attention was on Sash and the two bullies.

“That was for being mean,” she replied, turning and making her way back to Caramel’s table. As she trotted, there was a flash of green on her hind quarters, and when it faded, there were two yellow lightning bolts on her previously bare flank. She paused and inspected them in surprise, saying, “Huh, would you look at that?”

“Hey, you got your cutie mark!” Minuette cried.

“What does it mean?” another filly, Berry Punch, asked. “Those lightning bolts look really cool!”

“Well, I’ll figure it out later,” Sassaflash huffed, taking back her seat opposite Caramel.

Shining Armour and Lucky approached their table with determined expressions, as if they had something mean to say, but when Sash gave them a sweet smile and an oddly piercing look, they seemed to think better of it and began trotting away, trying to pretend that they hadn’t just been scared off by a filly almost half their size. Others tried to crowd in after they’d left, to have a better look at Sash’s cutie mark and to talk about it, but she gave them all a similarly unreceptive treatment, and one by one, they reluctantly sidled away.

“Thanks,” Caramel mumbled, absentmindedly stirring his cereal. “For, you know… that.”

“You’re welcome!” she replied with a cheerful grin. “Those bullies had it coming.”

Caramel didn’t feel like saying more, since he hadn’t been the one to teach them a lesson, but when the silence stretched on, the turquoise filly suddenly stretched out a hoof and asked, “Best friends forever?”

“Uh… yeah. Okay,” he replied, hesitantly bumping her hoof with his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be friends with her, but he was feeling kind of confused right now. There was a warmth spreading out in his heart, sort of like the feeling you had for Mom and Dad when they hugged you, but just a little different. Was his heart beating a little faster than usual? Maybe it was. There was nothing wrong with that, right? If that feeling stayed, then maybe this year of school wasn’t going to be as bad as he thought.

They ate their meals in silence after that. But when the bell rang and recess was over, just when they were on the way back to class, Sassaflash trotted up right next to him and nuzzled him on the cheek. He froze and stared straight ahead, but she simply smiled and trotted onward and into the schoolhouse. There was that warm feeling in his chest again. And on his face, too, as he realised with a mix of surprise and horror that some of the fillies who’d seen were giggling at him.

It had taken Caramel ages of stumbling about in the semi-arid wilderness, far from civilisation and eating nothing but scrawny berries and dry grass and drinking dirty rainwater, but he’d finally found what he was looking for.

The hole was about ten feet wide and almost perfectly circular, descending at a gentle incline from an entrance that was partially hidden by gnarled, dead trees. When he tapped its walls, he found that it was made of a hard but lightweight-sounding material, being porous, rough to the touch and seemingly impervious to scratches. Almost like a cross between cardboard and limestone, judging by the hollow sounds it produced.

He looked skyward and spent the next minute or two simply watching the sparse clouds sail across the blue sky, savouring every second of the sun’s warmth and committing it to memory. It might be his last chance to see the surface for a long time. Once satisfied, he retrieved his last flashlight from his saddlebag, silently cursing his carelessness for losing the rest. It was a good thing he’d brought six from the start, or he’d be left to wander into the hole without so much as a firefly by way of illumination.

I guess there really is such a thing as a talent for losing stuff.

The tunnel quickly became pitch black once he’d gone round the first bend, but every now and then, he’d glimpse something in the blackness beyond: little specks of blue light that flickered out whenever he shone the light on them, revealing empty space or holes that led into more darkness. The humidity was increasing, too. Some sections of the tunnel walls here were covered in something with a glossy, green sheen, but he knew better than to go around touching stuff like that.

It wasn’t long after he’d gone about fifty feet below the surface when something landed heavily on his back, smashing him onto the grimy floor. He spat out his flashlight in surprise, and it bounced several times on the ground before clattering merrily down the tunnel. Then it went around a bend and left him in total darkness. But a second later, there was a burst of green light, and when he craned his neck around he realised that his assailant had a ball of light hovering on the tip of its horn.

“Hold still, or I’ll chew your head off,” hissed the changeling.

Caramel’s knees were badly scraped and his heart was pounding, but he had decided long ago that showing weakness would have been the worst way to approach this. Twilight Sparkle had mentioned in her changeling awareness seminars that fear was amongst the few emotions that would actually whet the appetite of a changeling. And in his situation, that would’ve been pretty bad.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Caramel explained, ignoring the burning pain in his scraped knees. He then stared straight into those blue, unblinking eyes and growled, “But with all due respect, I’m not here to be your doormat, either.”

Taking care to make no sudden movements, he straightened out and rose to all fours slowly but steadily, noting with some satisfaction that the changeling wasn’t strong enough to hold him down by itself. He simply shrugged it off and stood still. And when it grabbed onto his saddlebag and hooked a foreleg around his neck in an attempt to pull him off balance, he simply shoved it away with a shoulder, not too hard that it might be taken as an attack, but just with enough force to show that he was not in a mood to foal around.

News flash: I’m bigger than you, he thought.

When the changeling realised that its efforts at restraining him were getting nowhere, it backed away and made some clicky, screechy noises, which were soon followed by the sounds of shifting gravel and dirt. All of a sudden, sections of the tunnel walls collapsed, pouring out several more changelings along with earth and grime.

What the hay? How could they crawl out of the freaking walls, just like that? He was pretty sure that there hadn’t been so many large holes everywhere a few seconds ago!

No, he told himself. Focus. Bewilderment wasn’t good, either. Caramel shoved off his original attacker and stood his ground, completely surrounded by bug-ponies. Giving each of them what he hoped was a look that was aggressively nonchalant, he said, “I would like to see your queen. Could you please show me the way?”

His demand was met with wide-eyed, incredulous stares, followed by a lot of hissing and chittering. It took him a moment to realise that they were laughing at him.

“I’m serious,” he growled, scowling at the lot of them. “I really want to see her.”

One of the changelings approached him. It was a little different from the others, having a thicker and shinier carapace, as well as larger horn and wings.

“And what, stupid pony,” it said with a husky voice and derisive tone, “makes you think that our queen would even want to see you? What’s stopping us from just stuffing you into a cocoon and feasting on your sweet dreams for the rest of your pathetic life?”

The other changelings buzzed with what he assumed was agreement, and they began to close in on him, fangs bared and wings all a-twitching.

Now or never. This is what you came for.

Before they could swarm him and end his quest prematurely, he stood up to his full height and said loudly, “My name is Caramel, and I’m here to join your hive.”

Silence greeted his words. All changelings were staring at him, eyes wide. Some were slack-jawed. He could have sworn he heard a cricket chirping somewhere.

“Well, this is new…” one changeling muttered.