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With his attention so focused on finding Scarlight, the yellow and pink stallion almost missed the crack of magic streaking through the air. The boom of thunder preceding it had been the only thing to catch his attention, and with eyes wide in horror, he watched as a bolt of dark blue zigzagged through the air straight towards Royal. For a moment, Starshine couldn't breathe. He was entirely certain he had just seen his friend's demise, but, when the glow of magic ebbed, he was unharmed!

Quickly, he turned and sprinted toward the blue pony that had just been attacked. "Royal!" He called once he was close enough, breathing a sigh of relief when he was still able to move and seemed to be speaking. At least that meant that whatever attack that had been was successfully deterred.

"Are you okay?" Star questioned swiftly, his words tumbling over one another. He was still a little panicked, but seeing that the other stallion was unharmed helped to quell a bit of the emotion swirling in his chest. "What's going on, Royal? What just hap--"

He cut himself short, having just noticed the fiery pony standing with him. One he vaguely recognized but he didn't think they'd been properly introduced. His eyes moved from Royal to the mare, gauging how he should react to this new pony. When he saw nothing but comfort in Royal's stance, he relaxed a bit more and offered a friendly smile, despite the situation. "Hello....? Are you all right, too, miss?"

Morning Glory didn't seem to wait around for an answer. Seemed like the Cobalt family had enough on their hooves to worry about and in all fairness it was best if they kept themselves together.

Turquoise eyes glanced at Delicate and the flower crown that he'd placed on her. He frowned a bit then felt realization dawn on him. He glanced down at the bundle of flower crowns he still carried and then blinked at Just Lance. Dim lightbulb swiftly brightened as he sprung into action now prancing his way over to Just Lance and slipping a crown over his head as well.

"Here. We can use these to pinpoint the ones we've already checked!" he partly beamed, but his own little twinge of worry sparked in the back of his expression. If anything Morning Glory just wanted to feel useful at this point.

He followed behind Just Lance and slipped flower crowns on the ones that were deemed safe or innocent. Teal Tale and Silver Gale each got their own special flower crowns to label them as innocent. Needless to say, Morning was grateful to see that Royal was ok... Though that didn't stop him from nearly leaping out of his skin at the crack of lightning that threatened to strike his Cobalt Family friend. Still, relief washed over him as he was saved by... something and lightly nudged his friend's flank. "Keep the crown on. I'm putting these on those we know are not changelings." he half whispered to Royal.

As Mango came back with Just Lance and deemed innocent as well, Morning Glory slipped a flower crown over their head.

Lumi squeaked and almost tumbled over backwards when the other pony practically barreled into her. "Uh... n-no..." She stammered, looking up and blinking her own dark-colored eyes at her. "Are... are they lost..?" Fighting her own fears, Lumi knew she had to help. Plus there was safety in numbers and all (in theory). She could try to fly above the town to look, but would it really be safe for her to do so?

"Not lost. just behaving weird?" She paused and tried not to think beyond that.

"He was panicking, I was trying to comfort him and he just took off, talking about finding a hole in the barrier." She put her head in her hooves.

"The changelings tried to attack my brother, we voted ANOTHER innocent pony to be checked by Lance. and now.. Glitch has ran off." Piper was a mess and barely holding it all in.

She looked over and saw Royal, Lance, Mango, and Cherry all standing together. I could go let them know. But will we just vote another innocent pony up there?

Teal shivered standing there in shock. She wasn't sure what she seen. There had been that bolt and but Royal was fine? She didn't know them directly but knew of them given the festival size and who frequented it and of course that the blue family was rather large. She watched as Just Lance did his magic on Mango of all ponies. She couldn't even fathom Mango not being herself. Cherry was speaking with Royal. Another pony took off after almost running into another pony. Why were they all spreading out? The strange force that had taken Just Lance's wife could literally change shape. Hence being called changelings... So ponies now just wanted to take off by themselves and possible end up frozen only alicorns knew where in a possibly dangerous situation? If that were the case they could snagged and replaced until the barrier dropped and then dragged off who knew where for whatever reason the changelings had taken the other ponies in the first place. It made about as much sense and running around full speed in Deli's glass work stall and not pay attention to anything. A combination that just spelled disaster. Groaning she looked around for help but all that was there was Deli still frozen in the cart and a few ponies coming over. it seemed they were more coming to see and check on Royal though she could not blame them. Who was still frozen? Would anyone even notice if it happened to a stranger right now? She started to look around.




words in part two so far1,158

Cowards! When Royal was struck again this time it made her jump. “Bring him here!” She dragged the cart awkwardly toward Royal. “We can place him in with Deli to help keep him safe.” The cart would be a bit snug and she would have to get out some of the fruit but it would be better the leaving him just standing there in the open like that. What if there was another bolt? “is there anyway to call out this changeling mother and find out why she is doing this? Why steal a pony and put in some changelings?” She looked to Just Lance to see what he though. What was more worrying was that the ‘mother’ was coming. She had to protect Deli and find a place to hide her and now Royal too.





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Shadowed felt funny, in her gut and heart and head and whatever other places it would be possible to feel strange in. Normally she was a master at biting her tongue, keeping everything under wraps and just smiling and nodding; living a life where you were the brown branch on a blueberry bush would make anypony learn to live that way. But here, with accusations being flung out in the same way people tossed candy at parades, it didn't feel right with her.

Why couldn't she just act like everypony else and dismiss it? Or act terrified and cry and worry like the others, gathering together for comfort and snowballing along with the pointing of hooves. Sure she'd joined in twice, following the lead with some hesitation, but now her gut hurt and she didn't want to do this anymore. Already aware some ponies probably didn't like the tone she'd snapped (though a majority was in her head, admittedly), she tried to suss if her sister would be okay before looking around more. Sapphire looked as though she would be okay, there hadn't been any visible injuries, and so Shadowed felt some relief there.

But now what was going on? Mango had been proven innocent, ponies were still moving around, and then - there was the crack of blue and color again, along with the voice, and Shadowed winced. When everything settled her eyes fell on the location her brother had been...and still was. Though apparently he'd taken the hit for real this time, not protected against any harm, and the brown mare's heart dropped entirely into her stomach. It dropped even more at the sight of what was coming at him.

Moving quickly, probably faster than she ever had before, Shadowed Flower all but bodied Piper away from Royal in every ounce of her strength. "You! Don't you dare touch him! Back away!" Rearing up, the Earth pony stomped down and kept the changeling back, placing herself between the mare and the stallion. It didn't matter that this could be Piper or whatever else, but enough.

Just enough.