Interview with a Changeling, Pt. 2

Twilight was surprised they’d managed to find a Sungbohn Changeling willing to let her examine him so closely. The dark purple-eyed Changeling sighed slightly, mouth held open as Twilight used a small mirror and a tiny metal prodding tool to tap against the sides of each tooth, examining the fangs quite closely. The teeth were primarily designed, judging by the strength and sharpness of the canines and the premolars, to pierce through flesh with a powerful bite. The molars appeared thick as well, designed to give a good grip to whatever food the Changeling ate, but, most interestingly, the structure of the teeth was…odd.

“Keratin.” She realized aloud, her translator Shinedown informing their Changeling volunteer what she’d said with a simple word. “These teeth are made of Keratin, not dentine.”

“Gagjil?” The changeling asked, looking confused as his thick, slightly pointed tongue lapped up, licking Twilight’s tools as she removed them from his mouth. “Igeos-eun mueos-eul uimi haneunga?”

“He wants to know what that even means.” Shinedown asked of Twilight, waving his hoof in the air, blue hair slightly matted with sweat from being in the room for so long as he wiped his brow. Twilight, for some reason, didn’t seem to mind, but she noticed the Changeling they were speaking to,  Yu Yeon, was also rather hot. An idea came to her as she put a hoof up.

“Might I…feel your hide?” She asked, the changeling nodding a bit as she carefully rubbed her hoof alongside the sides of his body, feeling the almost scaly texture before then feeling Shinedown, making him blink in surprise. “…your Changeling blood seems to share another commonality. Your bodies naturally absorb heat at a slightly faster rate than Ponies. I suspect its designed to help you through periods of hibernation and rest out in the wild. Unlike Ponies like myself, your race has been nomadic for so long you’ve adapted by sucking in any bit of heat so it can be stored inside you for the long, cold nights?”

The Changeling nodded, Shinedown translating his words. “We would often have to hold up together in caves and caverns in the wild, bunkering down for days on end because the weather was too extreme or harsh for us to safely migrate to safer lands. But we can only stay in such a position for two weeks before the cold finally begins to break through.”

“I appreciate you answering my questions.” Twilight said, clasping her hooves together and giving the Changeling the proper respectful bow as Shinedown nodded in approval, the Changeling Yu Yeon also nodding. “There’s something I’d like to inquire about. If its too personal, please, don’t be afraid of telling me.”

“Go ahead. Ask away.” Yu Yeon remarked.

“…from what I’ve gathered, you were also present during the minotaur invasion of the great Changeling capital. Yet that was centuries ago.” Twilight admitted, scratching her head as Yu Yeon smiled wryly. “How can you…be so old? Yet you don’t look that old, truth be told. My town’s mayor has more grey hair than you.”

“Do you know why we need to cocoon up others? It is not just so we may have a full reference for what the being we’re imitating looks like.” Yu Yeon informed her with a small chuckle. “It allows us to more fully imitate them through physical contact through the cocoon,  but it also allows us to sample their Kokoro, to take it for ourselves.”

“Ko…koro?” Twilight asked, confusedly glancing over at Shinedown, who placed his hooves together, nodding slightly.

“Kokoro is their word for Spirit. Soul. The heart, as it were.” He told her.

“By sampling of their Kokoro in the cocoon, the disguise is complete and we can sample their memories and histories within them. Sample their life. Leech it away and thus make it ours…”

“You mean your race has survived for so long by leeching off the lives of others?” Twilight asked, eyes wide in horror, mouth gaping in disgust and surprise. She didn’t want to judge but…the idea that they used those cocoons to literally steal away the lives of others just to continue an illusion of a life that wasn’t their own was…

“That seems…cruel.” Shinedown admitted with a grunt.

“Oh, it is.” Yu Yeon sighed. “I don’t pretend otherwise. It’s very selfish to take other’s Kokoro from them in the name of keeping the lie we live going, but…we don’t want to die.” He said simply. “Members of our species have done this for so long in the name of trying to recreate the kingdom we once had, in a time when we didn’t need to fear others and hide among them to live peacefully. Chrysalis was going to make Canterlot our kingdom…it would mean we would have a home of our own and we were desperate for that.”

“I…I need a minute.” Twilight said, holding her head in her hooves, shaking it back and forth. “Its just…I…”

“I think you’d best let her have some time alone.” Shinedown whispered to the Changeling. “We appreciate you answering our questions, Yu Yeon.” He added with a respectful nod, opening up the door and allowing the Changeling to leave, turning to Twilight.

“I…KNOW they just want normal lives. I KNOW they want to live somewhere where they won’t have things thrown at them just for being Changelings, but…the mere idea of…of being trapped in one of those…those things, having your life leeched, day after day, somebody wearing your face, living in your home, lying next to the one you love, year after year untilyou’reashriveledoldHUSKofapony-” She shuddered, hanging her head as Shinedown gently put a hoof on her shoulder, she looking up into his deep blue eyes as he took her hooves in his.

“Do you need me to leave?” He asked. “To give you some time alone?”

“No, I…I just…” She bit her lip, shaking her head back and forth. “…I…need to write. I calm down when I can write. Where’d I put my-” Shinedown handed her her notepad, Twilight nodding in appreciation as she began to scribble down her observations and what she’d learned so far, Shinedown sitting in a nearby chair as he sighed quietly.

“People are willing to do horrible things in the name of just staying alive. You can forgive them. That doesn’t mean you forget what they’ve done. But you forgive.” He said softly.

“I…need to move past this.” Twilight insisted. “I can’t keep thinking of them as monsters in the back of my mind. I know I’ve got good reason to fear them, but it’s just not right.”

“We’ll find others you can speak to.” Shinedown offered tenderly.

…

…

…

… “I miss the giant koi.”

Twilight was surprised by Ms. Sol’s remark, the old, barely-alive Changeling sitting in a plain white dress with oddly ornate loopings around the v-neck it had, a carefully-painted necklace she wore the only thing noteworthy about her. It was the same quiet pale white color of her now blind eyes, yet…Sol was speaking as if the sight she could see in her mind was right before her.

“Giant…koi?” Twilight inquired, scribbling down in her notepad, raising an eyebrow up in the air in confusion.

“The koi fish in the river that ran through the castle.” Sol murmured quietly. “…they had such…beautiful patterns. Little flecks of gold spattered about their cheeks, deep, blazing reds and oranges, like little sunsets popping out of the water to smile at us. They were always so cheery and pretty…” She whispered with a wistful sigh.

“You never tried to…y’know…eat them?” Twilight asked, Sol looking horrified.

“No! Of course not! They sang.”

“They…sang?” Twilight asked. “Like…whales?”

“Oh, yes.” Sol remarked. “They had a whistling, crying way of singing to each other when they were mating. People would just bring up their chairs to the river during mating season and just…watch and listen.” She admitted, waving a hoof in the air and sighing slightly as she shook her head back and forth, her whispy hair flopping about in the air. “And if you were lucky, they’d let you touch them. Their skin felt so much like our own and they’d sing if you rubbed them just right.”

“Hubba-hubba.” Shinedown wisecracked.

“What happened to them?” Twilight wanted to know as Sol was quiet for a long…long time. Then she finally spoke, her voice a soft whimper.

“The minotaurs needed SOMETHING to eat when they were besieging our city.”

Twilight inwardly cringed. That truly was tragic. It wasn’t unheard of in Pony history that a species would get damaged somehow from careless pony interaction…the Breezies came to mind, of course. Yet this seemed…excessive.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did…how did you get  blind?” Shinedown suddenly inquired of Sol as she chuckled. “You’ve got…faint burn marks around your eyelids.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she peered more closely. Yes. Sol DID. She hadn’t noticed the faint scarring around the changeling’s eyelids as Sol responded. “Chemical burns. The Zebras started sieging the city too and they had some…unpleasant surprises.”

“You seem awfully…passe about it.”

“My dear, I was screaming like a banshee when it hit my eyes, but I got off lucky. My neighbor literally lost her head.” Sol intoned with a deep sigh.

“Chemical warfare is…I mean…” Twilight trailed off. “…Celestia will need to speak to the heads of the Zebra nation about such a thing.”

“You think they’ll ADMIT it?” Sol laughed, high, cold, sad and desperate, head thrown back as Twilight cringed. “We were the enemy and it was hundreds of years ago. There’s no proof left. All the jars full of acidic foulness they tossed over the city walls to drench us in and demean and degrade us are long-destroyed by now thanks to the annals of time, my little pony. You’d be lucky if you found ONE, let alone any acidic trace left inside. And good luck finding written documentation from the Zebras talking about it. I’m guessing all of that has somehow mysteriously been chipped away from the great stone artwork they do in the Desert lands?”

“…I’ll find some proof of what they did. The nations should stand up to what they did if true reconciliation is going to happen. You can’t just sweep the past under the rug.” Twilight insisted firmly, Sol looking…surprised. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as she brushed them away. “Are, are you alright?”

“I’m-I’m sorry, I…nobody’s ever shown that much concern for us before. And YOU of all people, somebody who has the most reason to hate us, I…we don’t deserve somebody as decent as you trying to give us a voice.” Ms. Sol murmured out.

“Nobody deserves anything. But you’re owed better.” Twilight decided. “I’ll find some proof. SOMEHOW.”

…

…

…

…looking at the drawings it was not too difficult to understand why some ponies would be afraid of Changeling tastes. There was a term for wanting to be consumed. Voraphilia. “Vore”. Some ponies were IN to the idea of Changelings preying on them. It was rare, but it happened. But it was rarer still for her to see a Changeling try to explain why her species had such an…unusual fascination with the act of literal feeding on other beings.

Yet that was what she was seeing. She looked down at the nearest drawing to her right hoof, labeled “Bubble Bath”. It was a cutaway of Queen Chrysalis’s stomach, with some poor unfortunate soul inside, partially dissolved by stomach acids, her face a mixture of pleasure and pain. Another drawing was in a comic style, Princess Celestia was being overpowered by an enormous snake before being gobbled down.

The teenage Changeling was nervously glancing to the side, the pack he’d carried the drawings in slung over his shoulder. “It goes beyond just satisfying our species inherent craving for meat, it…this is…”

“This is erotic to you?” Twilight inquired.

“…yes, ma’am.” Yun admitted with a nod and a quiet sigh. “I know its crazy to you. Not right. And other Changelings think I’m weird for…drawing pictures of Changelings being eaten. It just fascinates me.”

Shinedown looked over one such drawing. It was of a minotaur female with enormous breasts, large areolas with freakishly long nipples licking the taste of changeling off her pointed nails as her meal made impressions against the belly it was trapped in. He tried not to cringe. But it was very, VERY hard.

“When did you start drawing? I mean, despite the subject matter and some wonky perspective, these are…quite detailed.” Twilight had to admit, despite inwardly gulping, fearful of the answer as Yun the Changeling bit into his lip, his slightly subdued voice struggling to articulate his point.

“Well…I…there were some chicks.” He admitted.

“What?”

“We had some chicks. I was imitating this little colt who’d died out in the woods. I felt bad for the parents, knowing they’d never see their tyke again so…so I took on his appearance and just…became their child. They lived on a farm, they had these chicks…little yellow puffballs, soft as could be.” Yun admitted.

“Did they die?” Twilight inquired with a tilt of her head.

“No, no. They didn’t die. I took good care of them. I like animals a lot.” He seemed to grapple with revealing the secret to them, Shinedown continuing to translate as he hesitated, taking long pauses. “I would go out to the barn where they were, I’d been with them for five, six weeks, and…and I’d reach into their pen and pick them up.” He said, holding out his hoof’s palm as if he had a chick in it. “And…and I’d just pet them. And then I thought about just…squeezing. Squeezing and SMOOSHING. And I felt horrible until starting thinking about just…swallowing them.”

“Swallowing?” Twilight asked, Yun nodding slowly.

“Yes, just…swallowing and hearing them peep inside my belly, letting their little chirps sing me to sleep. I just kept thinking about holding those chicks in my belly and…it became sexual.” Yun finally murmured, blushing deeply in embarrassment as he waved a hoof in the air. “I don’t know how else to explain it. Just the idea of…overpowering them and taking them into me. I didn’t really wanna hurt them, I just…wanted them. So much.”

“I can understand feeling…uncomfortable sharing this.”

“The thing is, other Changelings don’t like the idea of being prey. They prefer being in control, but…that seems kinda unfair. Everybody should be on the menu, y’know? Equality.” Yun remarked. “We’re not better than anyone else. We’re not even the only pony-esque species that preys on other similar species. Don’t those, ah…bat-ponies drink blood occasionally?”

“Ah, that term is rather…demeaning. It would be like calling me an “Inkblood”.” Shinedown interjected suddenly. “They prefer the term “Mountain Clan” if you absolutely have to refer to them as anything but normal ponies.” He insisted with a firm nod. “But yes, they do…and there are reports of…pony cannibals. There’s rumors the Insane Colt Posse are cannibals.”

“Ooh, I LOVE their work!” Yun proclaimed, grinning broadly. “Wanna see my fanart? I promise it doesn’t show them eating anyone!”

“I would like that.” Twilight said with a smile.

…

…

…

… “Our ruler was…you could say it was “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, yes. We almost regretted having Sombra as our leader, wished his father was back.”

Mrs. Nam sighed, chewing on some noodles that Shinedown had cooked up for her to entice her into speaking about her life in the capital before the war had truly gotten underway. She hadn’t been interested in Twilight cooking, oh no. She insisted on only Changeling noodles bought from a changeling shop and cooked by somebody of changeling blood. Sungbohn Changelings viewed pony noodles the same way Ponies viewed the food they gave to dogs. Taste wise, it might be just fine, but on a visercal level it just…didn’t appeal to them. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to eat.

“Lord Nyh-Tyaim, Sombra’s father, was rather harsh. Any time there were…uprisings…he’d crack down hard to get across the idea he would not tolerate disloyalty. But things never seemed so bad as what happened with Sombra and the invasion.” Mrs. Nam murmured in between bites of noodle. “Still, in regards to the first Shadowlord, my husband wanted to protest his reign but I always said no, yet even that didn’t keep him from joining in protests. One  day he joined in a march in which fellow Changelings were carrying the body of a young man killed in a fight with the guards. He’d tried to charge the Shadowlord to “end the madness” but hadn’t made it close enough.”

“What happened?” Twilight wished to know, eagerly taking down everything Mrs. Nam said as she slurped up the remaining noodles from the white and blue bowl Shinedown had served them in.

“Well, we saw another body being carried out of the local hospital. Someone we knew, Mr. Pak. The crowd immediately judged him another martyr so they began shouting revolutionary slogans, calling him a hero. Then my husband took notice of Pak’s widow coming out of the hospital, and she was upset by what the crowd was doing.” Mrs. Nam remarked, spreading her hooves out to gesticulate. “She insisted we all stop. I asked why, did she like the Shadowlord?”

“Did she?”

“No.”

“What did she say?”

“Dangsin-eun ihaehaji anhseubnida. Naneun wang silh-eo. Hajiman nae nampyeon-eun gam-yeom-eulo samang…” Mrs. Nam said with a small giggle as Shinedown blinked a bit before what she said truly sank in.

“Ohhh! She’s saying the old woman told the crowd to basically stop protesting because her husband wasn’t a martyr, he died of infection!” Shinedown said with a chuckle. “Don’t tell me that…”

“Nobody but me heard it, and my husband just started leading the crowd into a chant. “The king is a killer, we’ll catch you one day and we’ll make you pay”.” Mrs. Nam began giggling out. “So I just told her “Don’t worry. Your husband is a hero now”. And…and the best part is…SHE STARTED DEMONSTRATING WITH US!” She laughed, her, Shinedown and Twilight all laughing at this strange, silly turn of events. That was pretty funny, Twilight had to admit, Mrs. Nam wiping the tears from her eyes as she wistfully sighed. “Oh, my dear husband…how I miss him. He was such a vibrant man.”

“What are the…marriage ceremonies of Changelings like?” Twilight wished to know, Mrs. Nam holding up one hoof to her neck, showing off a small unmistakable set of bite marks.

“We Changelings only ever, EVER bite so deep as to leave such wounds when we do our marriage ceremony.” She remarked. “It is a sign we connect to each other and expose ourselves at our most vulnerable for all to see. After we each bite, we then embrace as our priests recite the Bonding Ceremony…and then we lick our wounds clean and finally kiss.” Mrs. Nam explained. “Biting on the neck is very…very intimate, I assure you. VERY intimate.”

“Yes, Changelings give new meaning to the phrase “I want to nibble on your ear”.” Shinedown admitted with a small chuckle.

“Jae felt so guilty he didn’t give me a present for our three hundredth anniversary, the last one we had together. But I told him he HAD.” Mrs. Nam chuckled as she tapped her hooves together and chuckled a bit. “He gave me a neck to nibble on…ears to nibble on…LIPS to nibble on…”

Many, many miles away, Pinkie Pie stiffened, suddenly shuddering. “Ewww. GROSS. Somebody is talking about old people hanky-panky!”