‘Sweet Heart’ grimaced as she stared at the cottage in the distance and it grew deeper the closer she approached. The cottage itself looked quite peaceful and idyllic. The little brook that trailed in front of it gurgled contently and the trees surrounding it appeared peaceful despite their proximity to the Everfree. To any hopeless romantic pony, this was the perfect place to live quietly. However, Chrysalis’ keen eyesight and emotional senses picked out every single animal that lived around the place, hiding in the brush or up in the branches. Suffice to say, she didn’t like the numbers she was facing, much less the different kinds of animals. It was too early in the day to deal with this.

“Twilight, what are we doing here?” Chrysalis turned to the purple unicorn, who was carrying several pieces of equipment in her magic behind her, “I already said that love from animals works about as well as eating air.”

“Yes, and you also said that it would take a lot of animals to get any amount of love. Well, Fluttershy is the only pony around with enough animals for testing and this is an experiment to properly document the amount of love gathered from such a method. I don’t know if changelings have done such research but from the sound of things, they likely didn’t keep good records.”

Chrysalis sniffed. “We keep excellent records, for your information. I just don’t happen to remember them well.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Even so, we’re still going to record this so that I have a baseline to work from.”

“Oh, alright. But don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” Chrysalis strode up to the door and knocked on it. A muffled voice was heard and then the door opened to show a small white rabbit staring up at the visitors. Chrysalis moved to enter, but the rabbit glared at her and then slammed the door in her face, nearly hitting her. “What the-?”

The door opened up again a second later, revealing Fluttershy with an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry about that. Angel is in a bit of a mood after getting his shots, but he’s not usually this rude to visitors.” Perched on her shoulder was said bunny, who was glaring daggers at Chrysalis, or at least her disguise. “Please, come in. I just made some tea.”

Chrysalis stepped in and took one quick glance around the room. She then immediately turned on her heels and stepped back outside. “You know, today’s such a pleasant day. Why waste it inside? We can do this experiment outside, right Twilight?” she asked with a pleading grin.

Twilight and Fluttershy shared a bemused expression, and Fluttershy asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? Why would anything be wrong? There’s nothing wrong at all,” Chrysalis said, her words clipped and slightly manic, “Everything is the complete opposite of wrong. Now can we please do this experiment elsewhere? Some place with less rats?” The desperation in her voice, as well as the pitch, grew higher with each word.

Turning around, Twilight and Fluttershy saw the makeshift hotel for mice that sat in the middle of the room. It was almost as if somepony had taken an open room dollhouse and tossed out all the fancy clothes and accessories to make room for the rodents to run around in. There were even little tunnels connecting the rooms like a massive hamster cage. Almost every room of the hotel was filled with mice, but none of them paid the ponies any mind.

“They’re not rats,” Fluttershy clarified, “They’re just mice.” She ducked behind Twilight as Chrysalis yelled back.

“They’re vermin! They are nothing but an infestation who will consume everything!” Chrysalis got close to Fluttershy’s face, looming over the frightened pegasus as she moved closer. “Look into those beady little eyes of theirs and tell me that’s the face of mercy!” she spat.

Twilight pulled Chrysalis away with her magic. “Stop that. We’re here to perform the experiment, so stop giving excuses to get out of it.”

Chrysalis reeled back as if struck. “Excuse? I’m only voicing my concerns on where we perform our experiment.” She glared at Twilight defiantly.

The glare was returned in kind, but out of frustration. Still, it didn’t last long as Twilight seemed to come to a realization. “Chrysalis... are you afraid of mice?”

“A queen fears nothing!” Chrysalis folded her arms assertively, but she refused to meet Twilight’s eyes. “I’m just deeply concerned about my, I mean, our safety and well-being. You never know when or where the little monsters will show up and bite you to little bits!” She chomped her teeth a few times for emphasis. Chrysalis shuddered as if she could already feel the little critters crawl all over her skin and under her clothes.

Sighing, Twilight looked to Fluttershy apologetically. “Sorry about this. Can we do this outside?”

Fluttershy nodded. “That would be best. I can’t really move the mice until the owner comes to pick them up next week.”

“Then I’ll go set up the equipment while you two get the animals together.”

Chrysalis grimaced. “Fine, but if so much as see a tail of those things, I’m outta here. Love or not.”

***

Twilight made one last calibration to the testing equipment, much to Chrysalis’ annoyance. “Alright, so for the first series of tests, we’ll be starting off with domestic animals. Given that they are common pets, I believe they should put out a significant amount of love energy compared to more wild animals. Let’s start off with some kittens.”

Chrysalis advanced towards Fluttershy, who sat on the ground with several cats playing on and around her. Chrysalis couldn’t recall the last time she had interacted with a cat. Probably because the last cat she met hissed at her and ran off after she replaced the owner. Thankfully, it seemed to be able to take care of itself at least.

Fluttershy picked up a pair of kittens in her lap and gently held them out for the changeling to take. “Just hold them in your arms and they should curl up. Mind the claws, though.” The kittens mewled as if to agree with her.

As gingerly as she could, Chrysalis picked them up and held them close to her bosom. The kittens purred as they nuzzled her chest, one of them even climbing into her cleavage for a better spot. “Are you getting anything, Twilight?” Chrysalis asked, wincing slightly at the claws that pressed into her skin.

“Only ambient noise.”

Chrysalis huffed and said, “Fine.” She maneuvered her arms around to pet the kitten on her chest while holding the other. “How’s that?”

“Still ambie- wait, no… okay, just a little bit more than ambient noise, but not much and it keeps disappearing,” Twilight said as she examined the instruments.

Fluttershy spoke up, “Um, maybe you should try showing him some more affection?”

“If by that, you mean calling it by some grossly cute pet names, then I’ll pass.” Chrysalis’ face twisted in disgust at the thought of even saying something like ‘Snookums’ or ‘Fluffy-Wuffy’.

“Then how about adding more cats?” Fluttershy patted the ground next to her, and once Chrysalis sat down, she gently placed more and more kittens in the changeling’s care. A couple on her legs, another for her arms, three to climb the back, one for the shoulders, and several around her waist. In seconds, the little kittens were jumping and climbing all over Chrysalis like she was some kind of living mountain. “Will that work, Twilight?”

“Please tell me it doesn’t-Ow! Stop scratching!” Chrysalis said as she tried her hardest to stay perfectly still, lest she drop any kittens.

Twilight frowned as she looked over the data. “It’s more than before, but the readings are a little erratic. Possibly due to either the number of kittens or just because they’re cats. I would need to conduct more tests to confirm it though.”

“How about we move on to something else? Can you get these cats off me already?” Almost as soon as Chrysalis asked, a torrent of water splashed down upon her, drenching her and the kittens. Spooked by the sudden bath, the cats howled and scattered across the yard, but not before leaving dozens of little scratches across Chrysalis’ skin as they lashed out. Fluttershy gasped and ran off after the kittens, leaving Chrysalis to writhe in annoying pain.

“Ow, ow, ow! How do tiny claws get so deep?” Chrysalis hissed out. Amidst all her pain, she felt her emotional senses flare as she picked up a burst of pride, and then she heard the laughing.

“Who likes wet pussy now?” Rainbow Dash taunted from on top of her recently emptied raincloud. She then raced off, laughing as Chrysalis shot magic blasts in her general direction until she was out of sight.

Author's Note

Like I said, another shorter chapter. Next one may take a while as finals are almost upon me, but I'll see what I can do.