Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Hasbro and was created by Lauren Faust. This fic and any original characters belong to their author.

Canon Characters: Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance

OCs: Princess Melody, Patchwork Dream, Bells And Bows, Splashworks, Love Bug, etc.

Notes: Still working on Starless and Backlash (formerly titled Fallout), but here, have one more! Just because I love the changelings so much, haha. Melodious is kind of an in-between of my other two fics, in that it involves both canon and original characters. This should be interesting!

MELODIOUS
Prologue: Canon
By Senashenta

The bundle was tiny, all things considered. Small and still and silent, wrapped in dark cloth and left in the emptiness of the middle of the Everfree forest, alone to face the dangers of the night.

Not for long.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a magical aura lifted, and the bundle of blanket floated up off of the ground, away from the grass. The edges of the cloth tugged away—and the magic's owner paused, only for a moment, before smiling a little, almost absently. Before her was a changeling foal, young and vulnerable—innocent, still, uncorrupted by the rest of her kind and, for some reason, clearly unwanted.

Changelings were dangerous, conniving and deceitful, not to be trusted under any circumstances. They were different from the other pony races of Equestria. They were cloaked in blinding shadows and emptiness. They would strike you down without a second thought, if it would benefit them—and often even when it wouldn't.

But Princess Luna had never been afraid of things that belonged in the dark, and this filly—this child—was no exception.

"Someone left you here alone, didn't they?"

She knew what it was like to be alone. It was that knowledge, that instinct that had drawn her into the Everfree forest on this night in the first place.

The little changeling before her shifted then, wiggling in her blanket before opening her huge, luminous blue eyes. She blinked once, twice, then met Luna's gaze for a long moment. Then abruptly there was a shift, and where a tiny black foal had been was a small, perfect copy of Luna herself.

"Ah… no, no. We can't have that." The Princess laughed softly, shaking her head. "We'll have to teach you to find your own form." Then she leaned in a little closer, inspecting her new charge. "But that can be Tia's job, okay? I'll teach you games and fun, instead."

And so she tucked the changeling foal against her chest, half-wrapped one of her front legs around her, and leapt into the night sky to return them both to Canterlot.