Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Hard Landings
Chapter 2 - Grounded
Chapter 4 - In Durance Vile - With Benefits
Chapter 5 - Nose-Snorkels and Compensation
Chapter 6 - Sleeping With the Enemy, Waking Up With a Friend
Chapter 7 - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Oven
Chapter 8 - Cute Tea Mark Crusaders
Chapter 9 - The Fount of Knowledge
Chapter 10 - The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 11 - Letters From The Ponyville Jail
Chapter 12 - Paradise Frosting
Chapter 13 - The Party Begins
Chapter 14 - The Party Ends
Chapter 15 - The Mourning After
Chapter 16 - Concussive Flight Delays
Chapter 17 - Coming Out of the Closet
Chapter 18 - Rise and Shine
Chapter 19 - Homing Instinct
Chapter 20 - There's No Place Like Hive
Chapter 3 - If At First You Don't Succeed
Chapter 21 - Hearth’s Warming Hearts Warming

Chapter 1 - Hard Landings

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 1
Hard Landings

The world was pink.

One moment the changeling had been happily returning to his Queen after chasing down and glueing another pegasus guard to the Canterlot castle floor. The next moment, pink.

He was beginning to hate pink.

Not just any pink, but the cloying, nostril-stunning, tidal wave of absolute pinkness that smashed him in the face just at the exact moment he had cleared the castle wall to enter the Queen’s new throne room. There was even a flavor to that pink-to-the-face. It tasted pink. Somehow it smelled pink, probably due to the colorful bits of confetti he had still jammed in his nose after that horrible fight with the terrifying mares. Much of the confetti was pink too, and some of it had jammed up his nose so far he swore he could hear it. And worse, it sounded pink.

The air was not pink. It was a soft blue, speckled with little black dots, and one larger dot who his fuzzy pink brain idly identified as the Queen, tumbling head over thorax into the distance. The other dots must have been fellow changelings, caught in the pink too.

Air roaring by his ears grew thicker, and the ground was coming up very fast. Fortunately, it was not pink. Unfortunately, it looked like he was going to land in a tree. Fortunately it was a blessedly soft, green tree filled with springy leaves to soak up any impact.

Unfortunately it had a house.

Right in the middle of the tree. A huge, solid, house. What kind of idiot puts a house in a tree?

The stars he saw when he crashed through the roof were not pink. But somehow even the darkness that swallowed him up seemed to have pink undertones.

~ ~ ~ ♥ ~ ~ ~

For the fourth day in a row, the changeling lay curled up in the back of the treehouse, wrapped in a blanket and wishing he could just die. The disgusting blanket may have been pink, but it was warm, and the evening chill warranted more than just his chitinous hide for protection. In particular, he appreciated how the soft fuzzy nap protected his battered bottom from the hard wooden floor of the house, because otherwise he would have happily thrown the cursed pink thing out the window. Scrounging through the loose cardboard box he had discovered stuffed under a table, he pulled out the last juice box and slurped the contents down while trying to keep his rebellious stomach in control.

Something inside his gut had certainly broken when that damnable pink sphere had thrown him and the rest of the changelings out of Canterlot, because the low buzzing of the Hivemind was completely absent for the first time in his life, and it terrified him more than his present battered condition. A changeling was defined by his link to the Queen. Without it, he was nothing but an abomination to be rendered down for food or killed on sight. Even though the multitude of cracks in his chitinous skin had healed somewhat, and his wings could be flapped now without the hammering pain in his head making him blind, he had no real interest in flying back to his hive and being killed.

He still could not change forms; the fuzzy spinning sensation that had encompassed him the last time he tried had taken nearly a day to go away. And despite multiple attempts to clear his sinuses of confetti, he still could not breathe right, and little flecks of pink kept fluttering out at random times when he exhaled.

At least for the last three days, noling and nopony had found him in the tree house, giving him plenty of time to distract himself from the stabbing pain in his belly by thinking about his ultimate fate. Since he was unable to return to the hive without being killed, and certainly unable to wander about the pony lands in his natural form given their certain reaction to the invasion, that only left hiding in the dark and forbidding forest somewhere until he either starved to death from lack of love, or became some creature’s midnight snack, neither of which really held an appeal to him.

As the sun began to set, the changeling settled down uncomfortably on the floor of the tree house and tried to sleep. The emotions of any sentient creature approaching his tiny hive of one would awaken him from his slumber, and maybe if he was lucky, give him enough time to painfully fly away into the darkness unnoticed.

What he failed to notice was three little figures who had already crept up to the clubhouse on silent hooves and were watching him through the windows.

With rope. Lots and lots of rope.

Chapter 2 - Grounded

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 2
Grounded

At least they weren’t pink.

The three little larvae… no, pony fillies who had ambushed and tied him up were all different colors, but the closest to pink they had was the flightless little pegasus with her explosion of unruly magenta mane. He had to admire their knot tying abilities — from the very close introduction he had of them — as well as their stealth, but right now he had something far more troublesome to worry about.

He could not sense them at all.

Even as the three little fillies squabbled and fought as only best friends could do, he could not sense the slightest bit of emotion from them. There should have been a few threads of bitter sarcasm, some wafting sense of impatience, the constant glow of youthful joy at simply being alive, and the warm flood of friendship that such close friends put out on a constant basis. It was nothing compared to the delicious scent of romantic love or the sweet sensation of overwhelming lust, but after fighting those six young mares in Canterlot during the invasion, he would never underestimate the power of friendship again. He had always viewed friendship as somewhat the frosting on the cupcake, or the glaze on a loaf of bread, sat off to one side from the normal flow of love that a proper changeling fed on so that it could be used to flavor the energy he collected for the hive.

And if he could not even sense that powerful emotion any more, then he was going to starve to death in a matter of weeks.

Whatever hope he had of survival in the woods by sucking love out of families of woodland creatures was gone. He could not sense emotions, therefore ipso facto he could not feed off those emotions, which led inevitably to a dead changeling. The irony of a changeling dying of hunger in the middle of a bunch of loving ponies was almost too much for him to take. Perhaps that was where the ancient legend of Tantalus had originated, from a crippled changeling starving to death despite all the normal pony food he could stomach.

Somewhere deep in his aching gut, a spark of rebellion flared to life as he mulled his fate. Even deaf to the emotional world and doomed to die, he still had a responsibility to his hive. Since he was still alive at the moment, there had to be a small supply of love tucked away in his belly even after what he had used to start the healing of his painful injuries, and that love would be desperately needed by the hive due to all of the injuries caused by that infernal pink explosion. He had to get back to the hive, although they would kill him. His death would at least mean something there, as opposed to mouldering away in some forest creature’s stomach.

Of course, there was the matter of three little fillies and an enormous amount of rope to overcome first.

Step One: Gain their confidence

It took a few fake tears, some sniffles, and enough lies to float a boat to convince the little fillies that he was just a frightened little changeling, afraid of all of the big ponies who would most certainly do something horrible to him if he were turned in. It was a hard sell. Apparently all three of the little pests were involved in the Queen’s failed wedding, and the changeling swarm had frightened them down to their horseshoes. But a little whimpering about not being able to fly got the little pegasus on his side, and some tears about never being able to use his magic to change since he had been a little grub convinced the little unicorn. The earth pony filly just grumbled about “bucking him in the head and dragging him to Big Mac,” but in that adorable way that ponies believed in voting instead of the proper rulership of the most powerful, her little friends won her over.

Step Two: Setup

By way of numerous promises and something that involved sticking an imaginary cupcake in one eye, he got them to release him from the ropes in order to be taken to somepony named ‘Zecora’ out in the forest. She sounded like an older and much more suspicious pony than these three little fools, and with a fake smile on his face and many nods, he stretched his wings and worked them up and down a few times inside the treehouse. It was going to be a little painful, but once he got outside and into the cloudless blue sky, it would be clear flying to home, hive, and a worthy death. At least he would not have to confess to the indignity of his capture.

Step Three: Escape

“Well, kiddos. I can’t say it’s been fun. Because it hasn’t. See ya!” He burst for the entrance to the treehouse, taking two long steps with his wings tucked in to pass through the doorway.

Only to see a familiar pink pony with a far too familiar cannon in his path once he emerged into the sunshine.

And the world returned to darkness with an explosion of pink.

♥ ☆ ☄ ★ ☆ ♥

He slowly swam back to consciousness at the sound of a bright and cheerful voice calling out, “Thanks for bringing me and my party cannon back to Sugarcube Corner, girls. Stop by after you take Mister Promisebreaker over to the mayor’s and I’ll make you all cupcakes!”

Even the voice reminded him of pink.

The ropes were back, tied even tighter around his aching gut, and the sensation of confetti packed into his nose was almost overwhelming. A quiet attempt to blow a little air out through the packed passages gave no results, although the hammering feeling of high-speed ground travel afterwards did smack a few small flakes out.

It probably would have helped if the little menaces had not stuffed him into the wagon head-first.

Repeated cranial impacts every time the wagon hit a bump made the throbbing pain in his gut easier to deal with, and the wind whistling through a crack in the rope wrapping around his rump gave him a rough indication of the headlong pace his jailors were making through town, a velocity that he had last experienced when being hurtled away from Canterlot. The only positive thing he could think of was absence of the color pink, and the probability that his resulting impact at the end of the trip would kill him.

Remarkably, the end of the trip did not end with all four of them smeared against some tree in an indeterminate mixed jelly of changeling and pony parts. The ropes actually cushioned his impact when he tumbled out of the wagon at their destination, rolling across the street and into a set of very solid stairs that led up into the largest building in town.

With a great deal of huffing and puffing, three little ponies grabbed sections of loose rope and dragged him, tail first, up the stairs and into a building, giving him a good look at the tiny rickety contraption into which his life had been entrusted. It really did not raise his confidence in the possibility of surviving a return trip, but since he was being turned over to the civil authorities, he decided to look on the bright side.

The ponies may execute me in some horrible and painful fashion, but at least I don’t have to ride in that wagon any more.

Once they had dragged his mummified body in the waiting room, the three little ponies promptly dropped him on his head and galloped into the other room to began a loud conversation with the mayor.

“Mayor Mare, we captured a changeling!”

“Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. What have I told you about making up stories?”

“But it’s true this time! It really is a changeling!”

“Right. And so was that traveling salespony you dragged in here after your train ride back from Canterlot.”

“But that was just an accident. How was we to know he was a salespony?”

“Or when Apple Bloom dragged poor Rose in here from the marketplace just because she wanted to buy hummingbird food?”

“But ah thought that was changeling food!”

“Changelings eat love, Apple Bloom. Not nectar.”

“But this time we really, really did catch a changeling, Madam Mayor. It’s out in the waiting room, because it was too fat to drag in here. Come look at it!”

Fat?

“Not again, Sweetie Belle. We’re just lucky the last two ponies didn’t sue the town. I’m still writing apology letters.” Raising her voice, the mayor called out, “I’m sorry, sir or madam. The kids are just a little excited about changelings after that wedding fiasco. I hope you’re not angry?”

Oh, sweet nectar of life. I may survive this after all.

“No, of course not,” he responded with as real a chuckle as he could put into his best female voice, seeing the faint glimmer of an escape in the distance. “Kids will be kids. I remember when I was a Filly Scout, we once convinced the scoutmaster we had seen a bear. Of course, this was in the middle of Manehattan, so she was a little skeptical.”

A little pushing on his magic to change forms into something a little more female pony-shaped, and when the mayor came out to see a poor unsuspecting citizen all tied up, she would let him go. They were such suckers about mares that way.

Just a little pushing on his transformation magic.

A lot of pushing.

Shoving, even.

Nothing.

Eggshells!

The mayor’s voice came filtering through the door, mixed with the sound of rustling paperwork. “At least let me apologize for our most infamous residents, Miss…”

“Tolliver,” he said, grabbing for the first name that came to mind.

That’s one ponysona I’ll never use again. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter anyway. Goodbye world. Goodbye hive.

“Miss Tolliver,” muttered the mayor to the sound of a scribbling quill. “Scootaloo, you and your friends please take Miss Tolliver over to Sugarcube Corner and apologize to her for treating her like a changeling. I’m including four vouchers for milkshakes, so try not to—”

“Sweet! Come on!” The three little ponies came stampeding out of the mayor’s office in a flurry of hooves, scooped ‘Miss Tolliver’ up as if he was weightless, and before he could even blink, he found himself sitting in the wagon with a helmet jammed down on his head.

“Ice cream! Whoo-hoo!” Scootaloo jumped onto the scooter, brought the buzzing of her wings to a shrill roar, and took off like a shot for Sugarcube Corner.

Causing him to go flying out of the back of the wagon as she accelerated.

They came back for him.

Twice.

And they only ran over him once in the process.

Chapter 4 - In Durance Vile - With Benefits

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 4
In Durance Vile - With Benefits

The constant squeak, squeak, squeak of the wagon wheels brought the changeling out of his stunned state, blinking in the afternoon sunshine and trying to make sense of his surroundings. Ponyville was filled with fragile houses topped with flammable thatch and covered with openable windows, but the lumpy grey building that Scootaloo was headed towards was their exact opposite. Thick stone walls were pierced only by small barred windows, and the sturdy steel door squeaked as she pulled the wagon through and into a cool open room. The damp ropes had returned, wrapped with great care and with the addition of streamers to keep him totally immobilized except for his face and his throbbing nose, which once again was packed to a solid state and even his mouth fluttered out little bits of confetti at unexpected times when he exhaled.

“Hello? Jailbird? Are you in here?” The little pegasus checked the two barred cells and the office before dragging his wagon over to an open cell and pushing the changeling inside, wagon and all.

“Hey!” The changeling coughed once, a desperate deep and tubercular cough indicating immediate respiratory failure unless encumbering ropes were released. “Kid? You’re not going to lock me up, are you? Scootaloo? Hey!” With a flick of her magenta tail, the little pegasus hopped on her scooter and zipped out the door, leaving him alone in the cold stone building.

“Oh, pucker.” Now in addition to the throbbing pain in his gut and the agonizing itch everywhere the rope touched, the damp ropes were tightening up as they dried and getting cold in the process. He shivered and took a few minutes to closely examine the stone walls, stone floors and stone ceiling for undisclosed secret passages or decaying weak cracks that could be kicked open before settling in and waiting.

And waiting.

The sunbeams moved across the floor in a slow arc. A fly flew in through the window, buzzed around for a while, and then departed in the same way. The merry chimes of an ice cream cart drifted through the air. The lines of itching dulled slightly as the ropes dried. The aching pain in his gut continued, getting slightly more tolerable as a source of distraction from the boredom.

As the sunbeams had transitioned to near horizontal lines, a thin earth pony with a perpetual nervous tic came skittering through the outside doorway, followed by Scootaloo, who was anything but happy.

“He’s a changeling. Doesn’t that mean he should be locked up?”

“Not if he hasn’t committed any crimes in Ponyville. This is a local jail, not a Royal jail.” The skinny little earth pony eyed the changeling, the open cell door that Scootaloo had not closed, and the door which he had just entered the building before skittering behind the big desk in the office and scribbling something on a clipboard.

“JB! He stole our crate of juice boxes,” declared Scootaloo.

“I did have a report of missing juice boxes,” said the skinny stallion, leafing through the blizzard of papers on the desk and kicking up a little dust. “Where did you three get them?”

“Um…” Scootaloo fidgeted. “He knocked a hole in the roof of our clubhouse?”

“No report. No crime.”

“Well, fine! I’ll make a report, JB. Will that work?”

“You’re a minor.” Jailbird cringed away from the blistering look he received from Scootaloo and pushed a short stack of papers back in her direction. “If you get somepony who isn’t a minor to fill out the forms, I’ll submit them to the Mayor and see about getting her to issue an arrest warrant. You’ll still need an Officer of the Court to carry it out, though. As a prisoner, I can’t arrest anypony.”

“Fine.” The little pegasus turned to leave with the forms as Jailbird cleared his throat.

“He can’t stay here. He’s not under arrest or serving a sentence, so he can’t be housed with any other prisoners.” The scrawny earth pony wrinkled up his nose. “Besides, he’s in my cell.”

“Fine!” Scootaloo stomped across the floor and grabbed the handle of the wagon before starting to tow it outside, shoving the forms under the changeling so they would not blow away.

“Don’t forget to wear your helmet.” The heavy door to the jail slammed in what must have been a satisfactory manner before Scootaloo bent down and tied the wagon back to her scooter, grumbling all the way.

“Now where am I going to find an adult to help me fill out a bunch of dumb forms?” Scootaloo turned slowly, looking at the changeling with a growing look of curiosity. “How old are you?”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

“Size and shape of hole?” The changeling’s voice was somewhat muffled by the pencil in his teeth as he lay on the floor of the clubhouse and regarded the partially-finished crime report, which when filled out, would allow him to spend the rest of his short life in a small barred cell instead of in the presence of insane little ponies. It seemed to be a fair trade. It would even get him unwrapped out of the cocoon of ropes that was starting to feel like a second skin. Maybe he would emerge as a beautiful butterfly changeling. Maybe it would cure his inability to sense emotions. Maybe the tight ropes were cutting off circulation to his brain.

“Twenty by twenty four,” came the thready reply from out on the clubhouse roof. A series of scratchings noises sounded as Scootaloo moved the measuring tape around. “I mean twenty three by nineteen,” she added.

“Well, which is it?” he huffed. “We’re not halfway done with the form, and it’s going to be dark soon. Why don’t you just let me go and I’ll measure the hole.”

“Ha!” There was another scrabbling noise and a few leaves fell through the hole. “What shape is kind of round but not really round, more of an oval.”

“An oval?” he hazarded, marking it down on the Criminal Damage to Property report under the description of the damage.

“Yeah! You know, Apple Bloom could probably get this fixed in two hours if she wasn’t so busy at the farm.”

“Two hour’s labor at…” He paused and considered the damages to the roof. “So we’re talking three boards, a flat of shingles, half a box of nails, and two hours labor total. What’s the prevailing wage in Ponyville?”

“I dunno.” A small curious face stuck through the hole and watched as he scribbled a few more lines. “Why do you ask?”

“Estimated loss.” He prodded a line with the pencil clutched in his jaws, feeling much like a wooden-toothed caterpillar as the little pegasus buzzed down from the ceiling to land at his side. “Three boards run around seven bits a board, shingles are twelve bits a flat, the nails are ten bits a box, and labor costs around Baltimare were nine bits an hour for non-union and fourteen bits an hour union scale.”

“What’s a union?” asked Scootaloo.

“Nine bits an hour then. Now we add them all up and we get…sixty one bits.”

“Fifty six bits,” said Scootaloo, pointing with a hoof. “It only takes a half box of nails. And you didn’t add in a sheet of tar paper, which runs three bits a square, or consider the rental of any equipment needed to make the repairs. Big Mac charges us for the ladder and the hammer, two bits an hour with a ten bit security deposit.”

“You sure know your repairs,” said the changeling, turning the pencil around in his mouth and laboriously correcting his figures.

“Practice,” said Scootaloo proudly as she laid down beside him and pulled another pencil out of her mane. “Now let’s look at the rest of your numbers.”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

Darkness had slipped up on the odd pair of mismatched figures inside the clubhouse, the ebon blanket of night silently wisping through the oval hole in the roof (Final cost, one hundred and fifty one bits plus cost overruns), curtained windows and open door, which still hung by one hinge (six bits, Hays Hardware, included in the damage report). Scootaloo lay draped over one rope-wrapped shoulder of the drowsy changeling, her whistling snore right in one ear preventing him from dropping off to slumber too. Well, that and the throbbing pain in his gut, the whole body itch of the ropes, and one leg that had gone totally pins-and-needles from his position. In the concealing darkness, he bent his chin down to nibble at the ropes, stopping after a brief period to spit out the disgusting fragments.

Dying in prison would be better. Where did they find this horrid rope? Tastes like tree sap.

Still, the warmth of the little pegasus across his back was better than the cold concrete cell he had been in earlier. Changeling magic was far weaker than Unicorn magic even on a good day, but he managed to light his horn just enough to boost the tattered pink blanket up and drape it across Scootaloo, who wriggled a little at its touch and snuggled closer to the rope-bound changeling.

And ever so slowly and painfully, the changeling drifted off to sleep.

The false dawn of morning stretched across Sweet Apple Acres, lightening the colors from Luna’s silvery night and spreading a pastel warmth across the rows and rows of ripe apple trees. There was a familiar but annoying noise that awoke the changeling first, a constant noise that he had heard every day in his hiding spot, but had never gone outside to investigate.

First there would be a solid ‘whump’ as if a heavy weight had just been dropped.

Then a series of smaller thuds like distant hailstones.

Louder or softer at times, it would repeat over and over and over and over, with a brief break around noon, and only ending when the sun touched the horizon again.

As if an echo, a low rumbling now followed the pattering thuds, which puzzled the changeling until he realized it was coming from the stomach of the small pegasus sleeping on his shoulder. Despite the pain in his aching gut, being used as a pillow felt warm and comforting, or at least until the ramp going up to the clubhouse door clattered to the rhythm of little hooves on wood and Scootaloo woke up, doing a little tapdance on her ‘mattress’ before greeting her friend, Apple Bloom.

“Scoots! We’re gonna to be late for school! Where’s your homework! Did you sleep out here again? Come on, let’s go!”

“We can’t just leave him here!” yelled Scootaloo while stuffing papers into her saddlebag. “He could get away!”

“Yeah,” muttered the changeling in the most sarcastic tone he could muster. “I could creep out of here on my belly like an inchworm.”

“See! Help me get him into the wagon!”

“Oh, no!” The changeling cringed back from the eager hooves, but he was too slow and the little ponies too fast. Before he could get another word out, there was a helmet jammed onto his head and the familiar feeling of the far-too-small-for-adults wagon jammed onto his rear, which at least was the right order this time, even if the helmet was on backwards and down over his eyes.

Without a visual frame of reference, the pell-mell wagon ride was terrifying, but probably slightly less terrifying than if he had been able to see. Bumps and potholes slammed him from side to side and pitched him off the wagon as they made a sharp corner with a fading cry of “Sis,keepaneyeonourchangelinguntilwegetbackfromschool…”

The distant thudding noise had stopped.

So had the pitter-patter of small thuds that followed it.

As a matter of fact, it was very quiet.

So quiet he could hear breathing.

Angry breathing.

A pair of hooves removed the helmet and the changeling looked up into the green eyes of a pony he had seen only once before, although their brief meeting had made quite an impression on him. Applejack, that was her name. And from the look on her face, she was seriously considering finishing the beating she had dished out on their first meeting.

“Hey, don’t I know you?” The golden farm pony held a hoof to the side of the changeling’s jaw and placed it squarely on a nearly-healed bruise the exact size and shape of the earth pony’s hoof. “Yeah, I do know you. Ah thought Apple Bloom was just rattling on about another red herring, but I guess not.” The menacing expression on her face settled in like a boulder perched precariously above the changeling, and Applejack began to tap her front hooves together with a little metallic clink of iron horseshoes.

“You’ve got a lot of gall showing your face ‘round here after what your kind pulled in Canterlot. Just what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry?”

The stern expression on Applejack’s face remained untouched by sympathy.

“I’m really sorry?”

A few pebbles rolled away from the earth pony’s emotional dam, but the supporting earthworks were still solid.

“If you just unwrap me and let me go, I promise to go fly away and never bother you again?”

“Ah ain’t got time for this,” grumbled Applejack. “Ah’m taking you back to Ponyville and tossing you in the hoosegow until—”

“JB said I can’t stay there without criminal charges,” gasped the changeling, taking a stab at the meaning of ‘hoosegow’ and hoping there were no other folksy sayings he would have to live through. “And since there are no criminal charges, you have to let me go, right?”

“Assault, attempted regicide, kidnapping, criminal damage to property, creating a public disturbance, and I believe treason,” said Applejack with a growing scowl. “And that’s just fer starters. I’ll bet the Royal Guard’d like nothing more than to get their hooves on your slimy hide.”

“Chitin,” corrected the changeling. “And it’s not slimy.” In a fit of inspiration, he coughed again, a long wet cough that was suspiciously easy after being wrapped up in damp ropes yesterday. “Besides, I’m sick. I won’t last long enough for your Queen’s Guard to get their revenge. I’m dying.”

“Yeah, and I’m the Alicorn of the Harvest,” muttered Applejack as the changeling flopped his head down on the cool grass, although her tone shifted a little more sympathetic as she unwrapped the ropes around the rest of his head. “You is awfully pink where the rope was touchin’ though.”

“Fungus,” he blurted out.

“Eww.” Applejack took a step backwards. “Reckon I could get Miss Fluttershy out here to take a look at—”

“No! I mean…” He paused for thought, or at least as much thought as he could think while still wrapped up like a knit sock. “Please, not her! She already knows. She sent me to Pinkie Pie, who gave me a bath in something that she got from a pony called Zecora. I’m feeling much better? But I’m still dying.”

“You are the worst liar.” Applejack stood and shook her head, looking between the changeling and the endless expanse of fruit-laden trees. “I suppose I could take you to see Twilight Sparkle.”

* * *

In an island of light surrounded by inky darkness, rows of brilliant lights shone down on a bloody dissection table with a changeling manacled securely to the cold steel surface. The violet unicorn looming over the table produced a long serrated blade and began to slowly saw her way down a series of bright lines inscribed on the screaming changeling, talking to her hideous deformed dragon henchling while cutting through his thin chitin in a constant spray of green blood.

“Take a note, Spikeavarous. Remind me to extract samples of all the organs and glands before the subject expires. It’s fascinating to see the way the creature’s remaining love supply can be used to keep it alive during the organ extraction process. Whoops.” A spurting lump of changeling flesh popped out of one of the gaping holes in the writhing subject to splat onto the floor, being slurped up by the fanged dragon before it even had a chance to splatter.

“Spikeavarous! I was going to do arcane experiments on that before the subject expires. Oh, well. I’ll just have to dig a little deeper. There’s some more of them here buried in nerve tissue along its spine. How did it taste?”

“Delicious,” growled the dragon, leaning forward to drool over the bloody changeling. “Dibs on the brain.”

* * *

“No!” yelped the changeling. “Anything but that! Please!”

“Anything?” Applejack paused, a pleased look coming over her face that made the changeling seriously reconsider his previous statement.

Five minutes later

“So, six bits an hour with grub, you don’t try no runnin’ off, and at the end of the day, ah’ll see ‘bout getting JB to give you his nice warm cell for the evening instead of turnin’ you back over to mah little sis and her friends. Sound about right?”

“I don’t have to ride in the wagon, right? Anything but the wagon.” He gave a nervous glance over his unwrapped shoulder, seeing only the few turns of rope tying his wings to his pinked middle and no sign of that devilish contraption. Despite his plugged nose, he could breathe for the first time in forever, and had finally taken advantage of the opportunity to water one of the apple trees for a considerable amount of time without even thinking of escape at the moment.

Of course, the moment was fleeting.

“No wagon,” assured Applejack. “Just don’t touch the apples. Use your magic to pick up the spares that miss the baskets. Good ‘uns go in the baskets, bruised ones go into the buckets for the pigs. And no escaping. Got it?”

The changeling nodded and used the incantation that had served so well previously. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Step One: Gain their confidence

The golden pony was an absolute machine at work, rear hooves slamming against trunk after trunk with a force that would have shattered his legs all the way to the knees. He followed behind, dutifully using his weak magic to toss apples one at a time into baskets and buckets, taking the occasional moment to eat one of the bruised ones that otherwise would have just wound up being pig food. Although his emotional senses were dead, his taste buds were either compensating or these apples were the best he had ever tasted.

As they worked, he had time to think. From the perspective of an Infiltrator, there was no way Applejack could ever be approached for harvesting purposes. Any changeling powerful enough to match her physical prowess and gain her romantic attention would be guarding the Changeling Queen instead. Still, he could not help but admire the sinuous flow of muscles under her hide while they worked and try to imagine what love from her would taste like.

Probably apples.

When they broke for lunch, delivered by a hefty red stallion who eyed him suspiciously and talked for a while with his jailer, the changeling took the opportunity to look innocent while laying down in the grass and just wriggling to scratch at every itch that covered his sweaty chitin. If the young mare was strong enough to buck apple trees as he had seen, the changeling had no intent of finding out just how hard Big Mac could hit. After all, ‘squashed like a bug’ was a phrase he had no intent of experiencing.

“Yer not that bad a worker,” said Applejack in an approving tone that he suspected was about as high praise as the earth pony could muster. “Twilight, she can pluck a half-dozen trees bald at a time, but she kinda scares me when harvestin’ apples. I keep thinkin’ she’s gonna yank a couple trees up by the roots.”

* * *

A hulking violet unicorn grasped the cowering changeling in her massive magical field, getting a good grip on his limbs. “He loves me,” she growled, ripping one changeling limb off and throwing it over her shoulder to feed her henchdragon. “He loves me not,” she continued, ripping off another limb…

* * *

“Really?” he asked, cringing down into the grass and scratching his aching belly. “She sounds… scary.”

“Naa,” scoffed Applejack while hoofing over some delicious deep-fried pastries to the changeling. “She’s the sweetest thing, although she was plum furious about yer little invasion. Ya’ll done threatened her kinfolk, and ah don’t think she’s gonna let that one go.”

* * *

The purple unicorn levitated a bound and chained changeling in front of her, placing it down at the hooves of a fierce white unicorn with a flourish. “Happy Birthday, Shining Armor. Do you want me to get the skewers?”

“No, my darling and wonderful sister.” Shining Armor pulled out a bundle of sharp steel spikes, covered in long, thin spines that fairly dripped with poisonous acidic slime. “I brought my own.”

* * *

The afternoon slipped by without more conversation, which he appreciated. Every time he thought they were going to run out of empty baskets and take a break, the heavy red stallion would trundle up with an empty wagon covered in empty baskets, give him a menacing look, and trundle away with the loaded wagon they had just finished harvesting. Thankfully, there was plenty of water to drink, allowing him to take brief breaks on the other side of a tree from the hefty mare to ‘do his business’ and ever so slightly readjust the coil of rope binding his wings.

Step Two: Setup - Complete

Timing was going to be critical. There was no way he would be able to outrun the muscle-bound mare, even after an entire day’s work on her part. Those thudding hooves had not slowed or weakened in their strokes through the whole day, but once the sun was close enough to the horizon to blind any pursuers, the time would be right.

“Well, that’s pretty good timing,” said Applejack, looking at the last empty tree in the row. “Thought we’d be working ‘til sunset again, but we’ve got about an hour of light left. You’re a pretty darned good helper, there…” She paused, looking somewhat embarrassed. “You know, I ain’t never got your name. You do have names, don’t ya?”

“Tolliver,” he replied, taking a long drink of water from the jug. It was going to be a long flight back to the hive and he had a nice bellyful of apples for energy, even if it did make his aching gut throb with pain. It seemed as if there needed to be something else said before he made his break, and he added, “Thank you, Miss Applejack. You’ve been very kind.”

The mare actually blushed, taking her hat off and fanning her face. “Shucks, ‘twen’t nuttin’ any pony would do for somepony stuck away from home. Heck, we’ve got enough time. Why don’t you come on up to the house and we’ll cook you up a farewell dinner afore you go to the jail. All Jailbird’s gonna feed you there is take-out food anyways.”

“Thank you again, Miss Applejack. Just let me use the little Buggie’s room, and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Sure thing.” Applejack put her hat back on and took a deep drink out of the jug while the changeling vanished around the back of a nearby tree. “You know, you ain’t all that bad, for a changeling. It’s hard to get anypony to put in a good day’s work anymore. Apple Bloom’s always running off and Rainbow Dash only comes around dinner time. If we bump your wages up a few bits, maybe you could stick around for a few days until — Mister Tolliver?” Applejack looked around the back of the tree, only to see a discarded coil of rope.

“Consarned lying bug!”

Step Three: Escape - Again

Wind whistled through the holes in his carapace as the changeling flashed through the air into the blazing sunset. The itchy tingle of the pink fungus had faded to a dull throb while the piercing pain in his gut had flared up, but the air fairly flew behind as his beating wings rammed a tunnel through the sky, promising blessed freedom. Well, at least for a day or two until he starved to death from lack of love. Still, it was worth it, to feel the flow of air across his tongue, to see the ground fall away beneath his holey hooves, to see the bright blue of the sky with a vivid rainbow pacing him to one side.

Rainbow?

“Hey, you must be the changeling that Scoots captured,” said a blue pegasus mare who was casually flapping along backwards to his side. “Did she let you out to get some exercise? Because you’re flying away from Ponyville. You really need to turn around.”

The changeling leaned into his wingstrokes with a vengeance while trying to leave Rainbow Dash behind. In the lecture he had attended before the invasion, there were two important points about the pegasus that had been brought up that he just could not remember at the moment, due to gasping for breath. The only effect he noticed from his increased speed was a slightly increased waving in Rainbow Dash’s windblown polychromatic mane and the hint of a grin.

Competitive. That was one of them. What was the other? It was really important. Something about who she is seen with. A pranking buddy.

“Welp, I warned you.” The slim pegasus made a quick loop around him and darted straight up into the sky, calling out, “Okay, Pinkie. You’ve got a clear shot.”

Pinkie?

Unfortunately, flying into the sunset not only concealed his departure from prying eyes, but it also blinded him to anypony in front of him. Or anything. In this case, the thing appeared to be a flying pile of candy, from striped supports and taffy bars to candy cane landing gear, topped with a little blue balloon and being peddled frantically by an entirely too familiar pink mare. But what really captured his attention was the huge cannon strapped to the undercarriage.

Oh, eggshe—

Chapter 5 - Nose-Snorkels and Compensation

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 5
Nose-Snorkels and Compensation

Familiarity was supposed to breed contempt, but the sensation that the changeling felt as he swam his way up to consciousness had little contempt and a lot of tired resignation. He could vaguely hear five voices arguing through the ringing in his ears and the hammering in his head, although one of them was being very defensive and quite shrill in his defense.

“No, the jail does not have any facilities for prisoners with medical needs. He’s unconscious, so you need to take him to the hospital.”

As a stationary hospital bed sounded like a pretty good deal, the changeling stirred and tried to speak out in favor of the idea, only to dryly cough out some small fluttering pink flakes of confetti.

“There,” snapped Applejack. “He’s awake. Scootaloo, give JB the damage report and I’ll walk you home afore your parents get all bent out of shape about you stayin’ out after dark again.”

The smaller administrative pony took the stack of papers grudgingly and hoofed through them, looking as if he were intensely uncomfortable with this many other ponies inside his jail. “Over a hundred bits in damages,” he groused. “A Class Five Misdemeanor, unless he makes restitution, in which case he can get probation.”

“I don’t have any money,” the ‘he’ in question stated after a brief cough, “but if you let me go home, I can—”

“Wait up there, Tolliver,” said Applejack. “Ah still owe you for yer help out at the farm today. Ten hours at six bits an hour.”

JB noticeably perked up. “Sixty bits drops the damages down to a Class Six Misdemeanor, punishable with probation, provided you complete your restitution. I’ll just get you a sign-out sheet and a clipboard for your probation officer. Here you go.” He shoved the items into the changeling’s unsteady hooves while pushing the collection of unwanted guests out the door of the jail. “Please be careful out there this evening and if you have any legal questions, I’ll be glad to answer them during regular business hours. Good night.”

The heavy steel door to the jail slammed shut after them, and a solid thud from inside indicated the throwing of a substantially thick bar, which would not have raised the hackles on the changeling if he had not read the shiny steel sign right next to the door.

“Ponyville Jail and Ursa Minor Shelter?” he asked, the mystery of the ‘sign-out sheet’ suddenly taking a back seat to the concept that the town had an actual shelter specifically designed for one of the legendary star-beasts of the Everfree Forest. “How often do—”

“Lemmie see that sheet,” grumbled Applejack, taking the clipboard away from the changeling and reading it in the warm glow of a nearby streetlight. “Says here you need a probation officer.”

“Me! Memememe!” Pinkie Pie bounded up to the clipboard and grabbed the pencil in her teeth to scribble a signature. “I’ve always wanted to be an officer. And if I’m an officer, that makes you a private, right?” She stopped her bounding around with her warm nose pressed firmly against the changeling’s cold nose while she giggled. “I’ve got a private with privates.”

“Aaaand we’re out of here.” Rainbow Dash put a foreleg around Scootaloo and began pushing her down the street. “Come on, Scoots. Education time is over, bedtime is now.”

“But I want to know why…” The little pegasus’ complaints faded as Rainbow vanished at high-speed down the street with her involuntary companion, leaving Applejack to give the changeling a very peculiar look as Pinkie Pie set about fastening a streamer through the holes in his leg.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right there, sugarcube?” asked Applejack.

“Oh, don’t worry, silly!” Pinkie gave a tug to the thin ribbon that tied herself to the changeling. “See, I’ve got him all tied up so he can’t get away. And I’ll give him another bath, and use some of Gummy’s scale polish on him so he’s nice and shiny. You’ll love Gummy! He’s just like you, only green instead of black, and with cute little claws instead of holey hoovsies. And smaller.”

“Ah. Pinks? I really wasn’t talkin’ to you there.” The farm pony fidgeted and looked away from the changeling, twisting her hat in her hooves. “Mister Tolliver, ah’m really torn. If’n I hadn’t had you out at the farm this afternoon, I’d never trust you enough to let my friend Pinkie Pie watch over you. All of them changelings swarming all over Canterlot scared me a mite.”

“I’m sorry,” said the changeling, trying to figure out why he was not just flying away from the two earth ponies like a loose balloon, trailing the ribbon behind him like a freed kite.

Well, other than the rope.

“See, now that’s what ah mean. Ah should be afraid of you, and there’s no way I should be comfortable with you being watched by my friend.” Applejack placed a hoof on the changeling’s back gingerly, paused for a moment, and then unwrapped the rope that was binding his wings.

“Ah still don’t trust ya much. And I still think you’re gonna run off the moment Pinkie looks the other way. But if you hurt Pinkie Pie or anypony else in town, I’ll track you down and turn you into bug paste, you hear?”

“Yes’m.” That annoying feeling swept over him again, a dichotomy between the most critical thing in the universe being flying away right now and the idea that running was a horrible idea that was certain to end in an explosive pink bang.

He trotted along behind the pink pony as they traveled through the dark streets of the small town, feeling much more comfortable with dirt beneath his hooves instead of carooming along at full speed in the back of a wagon. The thin pink ribbon that Pinkie Pie had tied onto his foreleg tugged with every step, making him feel just a little like a pet out for a midnight stroll instead of a sentient being. But still, something else was bothering him.

Rope = No Cannon

Rope = Good

Ribbon = ??

Ignoring the ‘Closed’ sign on the garishly decorated bakery, Pinkie Pie trotted right on in, followed by a somewhat perplexed changeling who could not help but notice the vast amount of pink confetti still scattered around the doorway from yesterday.

I guess I didn’t inhale all of it.

“Welcome to Sugarcube Corner,” whispered Pinkie Pie, closing the door behind him. “The Cakes are asleep, so get up on your toesies and I’ll sneak you upstairs and into the bathroom.”

“Bathroom?” he echoed, although in a matching whisper.

“I still have some of that not-fungus stuffies from Zecora, and you’re still pink.” She giggled, looking at the dull pink rings that circled his body. “You look like a pink zebra,” she added.

The familiar bathtub took a while to fill, and the changeling stood uncomfortably by while Pinkie filled and stocked the tub with bubble bath and a myriad of other strange objects. “You’re not going to drown me, are you?” he whispered.

“You’re not going to blow sparkly snot all over my face, are you?” Just for the tiniest fraction of a second, the changeling could have sworn the happy perky pony had darkened into something terrifying, and the perpetual smile that always seemed embedded on her face had turned into a grim frown. Then she turned off the water and turned to face him, the momentary change in her face turning back to her happy smile as if nothing had changed, even though her voice seemed strained. “Come on, up into the tubbies and let’s get you all scrubbied up.”

It was, determined the changeling, most definitely mind control of some fashion that made him crawl into the tub while Pinkie continued to chatter. “Hop on in, but not really a hop, because you’ll splash water over the floor, and the Cakes don’t want water dripping downstairs because it’s really difficult to mop the ceiling unless you stand on a stepladder or use stilts and mine are at the repair shop because the Crusaders borrowed them to see if they could get their cutie marks as acrobats but they fell off and knocked over one of the carts in the market so they’ll probably smell like oranges when they get patched and that’s not bad because I like oranges. Do you?”

He was startled out of his slow slide for the edge of the tub closest to the door by the abrupt question. Normally a question like that was asked while he was disguised, and his first train of thought was to his cover story. At the hive, noling ever asked what he wanted. The queen ordered. Ponies asked. Changelings obeyed. Ponies did whatever they pleased. Then again, he only had a few days to live anyway. Why not?

“Yes, I like oranges. And apples,” he added at the thought of the odd day spent out in the warm sun with the healthy farm pony.

“How about bananas?”

“Erm.” He had to think for a moment. “Why?”

Pinkie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s supposed to be funny.”

That odd feeling of wrongness still clung to her as she manipulated the scrub brush much more gently this time, allowing the soothing warmth of the bathwater to creep through his chitin and dissolve away a great deal of the ‘I’m going to die’ and ‘Impending doom’ that had taken over his life as of late, as well as most of the smaller pains that were riddling his body. If it was not for the fierce pain in his gut and the feeling of a ton of confetti in his nose, it might have been pleasant. He floated on his back, trying to ignore the overwhelming sense of pinkness that surrounded him and concentrate on just how long he had to live, which was a little difficult with the silent scrub brush licking against his thin soft chitin like a mother grooming her little grub. At the soft prodding to his side, he rolled over onto his belly and lay with his chin on the side of the tub, breathing through his mouth while the odd pink pony scrubbed his back. It had been a very long day, and everything hurt, in particular his nose, which was blocked up so bad he could swear it was affecting his hearing from the sniffing sound he heard from behind.

“You’re not happy.” The changeling turned to look over his shoulder and blinked a bubble out of one eyelash. Pinkie had quit scrubbing his back and was just sitting there like a soggy lump in the tub, looking with mournful eyes that seemed to be vast oceans of tears just waiting to burst—

...sitting in the tub?

“I’m sorry, Mister Tolliver,” started Pinkie, squatting down in the tub until only her eyes were visible above the soapy suds. “I can’t let you go because you’ve been a bad pony or buggie or changeling I suppose, and when you do bad things, you have to go to court and they make you swear to tell the truth only you don’t really swear and the judge gets all mad if you really do but if you describe just why you snuck into the house to decorate it for the surprise party only it was the wrong house number and the pony living there really didn’t have their birthday yet and they weren’t very happy about it and even filed charges which don’t involve electricity or a metal file at all and make you go in front of Mayor Mare with her white foofy wig and you explain really well, you can get probation and community service which is a lot like what I do anyway and if you do that, I’m sure Princess Cadence will be all forgivey about your queen kidnapping her and trapping her in the castle crystal mines and stealing Shining Armor and wrecking her wedding and maybe you can just be an accessory which isn’t something you put on a dress but it’s more like an assistant party planner who gets caught with you in the house and doesn’t get as big a sentence so you won’t have to go to prison and we can have a party?”

“That sounds good?” he hazarded, trying to figure out how he could turn this into a way to escape his imprisonment. Without getting a cannon to the face, that is. “I’ll be more than happy to have you throw me a party once this is all over.”

“Liar.” The pink of Pinkie was almost totally submerged now, with only her flattened and soggy mane sticking up above the pink suds. “You don’t want a party. You’re a party pooper.”

“I’m not lying,” he protested, then paused to think. “I would like to have a party. I just don’t think that’s going to happen.”

A little pink nose covered in soap bubbles poked out of her sudsy concealment. “You’re not lying?”

“Eh…” He paused, one hoof already raised to cross across his heart, but the last several times he had done that had ended rather pinkly. Playing the ‘I’m dying’ card had not worked any better, and maybe, just possibly, the truth would get him out of the situation he found himself in. Although he would just die afterwards, which made it not seem worth the effort anymore. He sagged down in the water too, rearranging his limbs beneath the bathwater’s surface to fit around the submerged pink pony. “I’m used to lying,” he admitted, with only his muzzle and eyes above the waterline.

“Applejack likes you.” It was a little difficult to pick out pink pony from pink bubbles, but two deep blue eyes among the pink observed him through slitted lids. “Scootaloo likes you too, I think.”

“Well, you hate me,” growled the changeling. “Blowing that stupid cannon up in my face everywhere I go. My nose hurts worse than my stomach.”

That suds-covered pink head lunged out of the sudsy pile it was using for cover and the changeling found himself literally nose-to-nose with Pinkie, which startled him a little, and then startled him a little more when she pulled out a giant magnifying glass and stuck it up to his face.

Where did she get that?

All he could see was one huge blue eye. If he had not been laying on his back in the bathtub, he would have recoiled backwards just out of reflex, but Pinkie had him pinned in what might have been a pleasurable position if his stomach were not hurting so much and if he had a moment to think about what was happening.

“Wow, you really have it packed in there.” The magnifying glass vanished to some unknown place and a red plastic bulb of some sort replaced it as the object of his attention. She was weighing it in one hoof, the little plastic snorkel on the object bobbing up and down as she talked and watched his nose the same way a hungry cat would watch a mousehole or a prospector would watch a pony at the edge of his claim. In fact, the more he thought about it, the little red bulb was starting to look familiar, as if he had seen one before, and as Pinkie talked, he felt a horrible sense of impending doom.

“Missus Cake bought a whole bunch of foal stuff and got some at her foals shower for when the foals are born including this little nose snorter, but I never thought about why you would need a nose-snorter for foals until now, because if they get frosting or confetti up their little nose they could just blow but I suppose there needs to be some way to get it out but without blowing and this is only a little nose snorter and you’ve got this big ol’ snoz so maybe I should get a bigger nose snorter.”

That’s a toilet plung—

The rubber cup descended like the hoof of a vengeful Queen and the changeling found his head underwater as the wooden handle of the infernal device was slammed up and down, bonking his head off the bottom of the tub until he broached the surface of the sudsy water in a whale-like splash, spitting soapy water and one muffled obscenity before the plunger descended again and again.

And amidst the notes of a cheerful tune about nose-plunging, the familiar darkness poured in around him.

It felt pink.

Chapter 6 - Sleeping With the Enemy, Waking Up With a Friend

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 6
Sleeping With The Enemy - Waking Up With a Friend

The world swam slowly back into view, one pink portion after another. First the pink ceiling. Then the pink walls. Then the pink mare with her mouth locked onto his. Then the pink—

I’ve gone to the bad place.

He could not help but cough weakly, and Pinkie Pie pulled her mouth off of his with a gasp, grabbing a towel and wiping the side of his face while babbling.

“I’m sorry, so sorry! I didn’t think there was that much confetti in your nose but it just kept coming out and coming out as I plunged and I didn’t think about you breathing until you kind of quit and I thought I had killed you before I even had the chance to give you a party and if you were dead, I’d never get to give you a party except for maybe a wake so I dragged you really quick out of the tubbie just like the lifesaving drills I learned as a Filly Scout and gave you mouth to mouth resessessatatation only your lips kept moving and it was distracting because the dummy never moved his lips in the class and I wasn’t used to moving lips although it felt kind of good in a weird way but not like the dummy because I’m not really into inanimate objects for self-gratification except for a couple that I keep locked up and I got to thinking some thoughts I probably shouldn’t have been thinking since I almost drowned you and I’m sorry!”

Even without his empathic sense, the changeling could almost see waves of dark misery rolling off the drooping pony, all soggy pink and wet with little flecks of sparkly confetti throughout her mane. He coughed again, blowing his nose on a provided tissue and taking an experimental breath. What he should have done was exploit the situation. If he threatened to reveal her ‘attempted murder,’ she might be convinced to open the window and let him flap away, but right now he was so exhausted he didn’t feel like flapping, fluttering or flicking a single wing, and leaping out the window would just result in a rather dangerous soggy impact with the ground. Blackmail was a perishable product, particularly with mares, best used before the expiration date of Really Darned Soon, but Pinkie Pie looked so intensely unhappy, with downcast blue eyes that had no trace of the playful sparkles that he had been dreading so much. He could not bear to crush what little happiness she had left with cruel words, but instead blew his nose again and took a deep breath.

“That’s—” The resulting explosive sneeze nearly took the top of his head off and he clutched a tissue to his face as he sneezed again, spraying little flecks of glitter and confetti into the soggy lump of soft paper. “That’s okay,” he managed to blurt out before another sneeze, taking the tissue from Pinkie and turning it into a soggy mess almost instantly.

Between the blowing and the coughing, he almost did not notice Pinkie toweling him off and guiding him into another room. While he settled down on a soft pink sleeping bag, all he cared about was a constant supply of tissues and the glorious feeling of air whistling through his sinus cavities, even if it deposited glitter and pink specks every time he blew.

You never appreciate things until they’re gone. Like air. Or love.

When he did finally quit blowing long enough to get a good look around, the first thing he noticed, to no great surprise, was that the room was pink, from pink ceiling to pink walls to pink curtains to a pink pony sized bed with a pink sleeping bag beside it that he was laying on, and with a pile of used tissues to his side. Which of course were pink in part.

“Don’t look,” called out Pinkie, which piqued his curiosity and made him look at where the pink pony was wriggling into a set of (wait for it) pink pajamas decorated with tiny green alligators and yellow ducks. He turned away before she finished dressing and regarded the thin line of ribbon that connected his leg to a post on the bed. He tugged a little, not enough to break the fragile ribbon, and considered his situation.

Brain hurts. Belly hurts. Tired. Hungry. Dark. Wait. When did it get dark?

A little balloon-shaped night light clicked on by Pinkie’s bed, revealing the pink pony as she snuggled under her covers like a tunneling pink mole. “Night, Mister Tolliver. I’d stay up and we could do sleepover stuff but I need to get up early in the morning, and it’s been a long day. Tomorrow I promise we’ll stay up late and do each other’s manes — well, hoovesies, and tell ghost stories and make s’mores. You like s’mores?”

He had heard about s’mores somewhere. They seemed to live in the forest and attack campers, if he was remembering right, which seemed to be a strange thing if Pinkie wanted to make them, but ‘strange thing’ seemed to define Pinkie Pie fairly well anyway.

“Yes,” he declared, “I like them.”

“Liar,” she muttered, snuggling down in her covers with a sinuous motion like two kittens in a sack, leaving the changeling alone with his pain.

Waiting was always the hard part, even when he had been able to consume love while biding his time. Normally a brief romantic encounter would end by allowing the other pony to fall asleep and then engineering a gentle wiggle out of any ensnaring limbs and a silent escape. Using magic to stun the other pony was only used as an absolute last resort in order to avoid detection as a changeling, which was a huge moot point now.

It took an amazingly short time before the pink mare was snoring, a soft whistling that covered any noise he made by using his magic to untie the ribbon and set it to one side. The pain and fatigue made it hard to slip away with his usual style, but it still carried him out the door and down the familiar staircase he had just traveled up an hour or two ago. A few fireflies dancing in the main room night light of Sugarcube Corner allowed the changeling to avoid any noisy chairs or other obstacles in his path to freedom, but he paused with one hoof on the front doorknob.

What if she’s waiting outside with her cannon?

It was a stupid idea. Impossible. Still, he removed his hoof from the door and slipped back upstairs into the bedroom. She was still there, in exactly the same pose. Even her snoring was perfectly regular.

See, it was a stupid idea.

Slipping back downstairs like a ghostly shadow and this time taking a few minutes to eat the last few pastries that would not be missed out of the ‘Day-Old’ box, he again moved up to the front door and paused, one hoof on the doorknob.

You know she’s out there.

The silence was deafening, but try as he might, he could not hear the whispering snores of Pinkie Pie from upstairs. Ever so slowly, he took his hoof off the doorknob and slipped back upstairs, this time headed to the window at the end of the hallway. A few limbering up exercises with his stiff wings and he reached for the window latch with hesitant hooves.

What if she’s downstairs outside of the front door and outside this window?

There was a faint breeze whistling outside, with just the smallest hint of a regular thumping noise, much as a hoof-driven flying machine might make, or even a flapping shutter somewhere in town. For just one moment, he considered how much he wanted to be able to open both this window and the door downstairs at the same time, except for the sinking feeling that Pinkie Pie might have found some way to also be in both places at the same time, and he was just starting to get used to the wonderful feeling of breathing through his nose again. Besides, there had not been a single sign of that infernal cannon inside her room, and it had to be somewhere, so why not just outside the window?

Ever so slowly, he lifted his hoof off the window latch and put it back on the carpeted floor, then slipped soundlessly back into Pinkie’s bedroom to vanish into his own sleeping bag, feeling just like a little grub again. He twisted a little to get as comfortable as his aching gut would let him, then reached outside to grope around until he found the loose piece of ribbon, tying it back onto his leg and resting his head on the cotton-candy scented pillow.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Still, this has to be something.

In the darkness, surrounded by pink, the tired changeling faded slowly into blessed slumber.

♥ ☆ ♥ ☆ ♥ ☆ ♥ ☆ ♥ ☆ ♥

The rustle and bustle of a changeling hive continues every single moment of the day and night because the Princesses of the Sun and Moon have no sway underground, with the soft glow of luminescent fungi and the occasional ever-burning magical torch illuminating the tunnels in soft shades of green and violet. The changeling had been away from his own kind far more often than not, to the point that the relative silence of the quiet bakery was of more comfort than the constant background sound of his fellow changelings doing various tasks around the hive. Still, the low familiar clatter of tin pans and baking utensils downstairs lifted him ever so slowly from a most delightful dream where he had been swimming in strawberry-flavored love while a choir of forest creatures sang a harmonious song about tubas in the background. Honestly, it didn’t make much sense, and had been strangely pink, but cracking one eye open to peek out at the dimly-lit pink room and his snoring pink jailer didn’t make any more sense.

The clunks and rattles filtering up from downstairs as the dark bakery prepared for the first wan rays of sunshine reminded him (and not in a good way) of months spent in Stalliongrad and the endless lines of ponies queueing up for their daily bread ration. It had been so cold with a biting wind that just sliced through the thickest of coats, both purchased and transformed from his own thin chitin, most certainly not worth the relatively thin gruel of love he eked out as a result. Pulling the warm sleeping bag up to his chin, he rearranged himself as comfortably as he could and just luxuriated in the fuzzy nap that surrounded him on all sides.

I may die here, but I won’t ever have to be cold again.

One eye opened regardless of his desire to go back to sleep and stay in the warm larvae sack substitute. It was just a little bit too quiet for his comfort, and he took a rather evaluating look at the contents of the rumpled bed, just in case. Pinkie had rolled over and shifted several times during the night, twisting into a horribly uncomfortable position on her back now, one rear hoof up on the night stand, one on the headboard, one foreleg thrown over her face, and the last leg dangling over the edge of the bed just a few inches from the changeling’s face.

I wonder what she tastes like.

It was a dumb idea. He had felt Pinkie’s lips on his own already, but his scrambled brain had not actually thought to register the taste until it was too late, and now that lost opportunity was presenting itself again. The urge did not have the excuse of intoxication or a foolish bet to drive it, but the faint smell of Pinkie filtered through his nose, mixed with the overpowering scent of cotton candy from the pillow and the ever-present scent of baking that underlaid the building even when the ovens were as cold as ice. After all, her hoof was right there in front of his nose, just as clean as their mutual bath last night could make it. After glancing into each and every dimly-lit corner of the room, he leaned forward, opening up his dry lips and sticking out his tongue as slow and quiet as he possibly could, and every so gently, ran it up the bottom of her hoof.

It’s amazing. She tastes just like—

In a cataclysmic orgy of sound, every alarm clock on Pinkie’s nightstand went off at once with a mix of clanging and gongs that catapulted the pink pony straight up into the air and quite solidly into the ceiling overhead, quite nearly followed by the changeling but for the inconvenience of being wrapped up in a sleeping bag. He had barely managed to struggle free of the bag and get to his hooves when a bright and cheery yellow stallion poked his angular face into the bedroom door and bellowed, “Pinkie! You’re sleeping through your alarms again!”

What could only have been Mister Cake stood blinking in place at the doorway, watching the rattled changeling standing over the unconscious pink pony covered in plaster dust. The long and very noisy moment of mutual confusion stretched out until a sleepy pink hoof reached out and jabbed each of the alarm clocks to turn off the cacophony of sound that was preventing all conscious thought.

“Good morning, Mister Cake!” The subsequent jaw-cracking yawn and stretch paused as Pinkie looked at her damp forehoof and frowned for a moment. “That’s strange. Oh, well. Time to make the donuts!”

She rebounded off the bed like a trampoline, making it all the way to the bedroom door in one leap with her pajamas and the bedcovers falling impossibly into a neat and tidy arrangement behind her. Skidding to a halt in front of the stunned yellow stallion, she reversed course and bounced back over to the changeling and untied him from the bed post. “Silly me. I almost forgot you, and since I’m your prostitution officer—”

“Probation,” he corrected.

“—probation officer,” she continued without pausing, “you’re my responsibility, and if there’s one thing Pinkie ‘Responsibility’ Pie knows, it’s responsibility. And parties!” She drew herself up in a sharp salute and snapped out, “Private Parts, are you ready!”

“Yes?” he hazarded.

“Great!” She bounded back out of the room with the changeling in tow. “Let’s get cooking!”

Chapter 7 - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Oven

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 7
Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Oven

The changeling had expected the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner to look much like the dull and utilitarian bread bakery from Stalliongrad, with row after row of bland stone oven doors and identical bowls of featureless black bread dough rising, two on the slab for every one in the fire.

Not quite.

Upon taking his first step into the back room, he was greeted by automated equipment for kneading the dough for any kind of pastry, a mechanical cutter and deep frier that could practically fling frosted cake donuts out onto trays, and the most modern oven that he had ever seen. Pinkie Pie hopped past him and opened up a wall shelf where stacks of cupcake papers and frosting tubes were stored, grabbing a couple at random and dropping them on the table.

“Isn’t it great?” bubbled Pinkie, patting the steel and chrome oven. “This baby is the Thermoflex Convection 3001, with deluxe humidity and intensity control, a full suite of cooking configurations, and every possible internal shelf and gadget they make. We can bake a cake big enough to jump out of, but you can’t put anypony inside the cake before you bake it because that would be bad and Mister and Missus Cake lectured me for a whole hour on it before they let me touch it but it just doesn’t seem to do breads right so we mostly use it for cakes and cupcakes and carrot cakes and souffles but it really hates souffles and turns them into pancakes but I love pancakes so that’s not a real problem like the bread issue which we were going to work on before the wedding but things got all complicated and we just worked so hard that week and everypony wanted to celebrate so we just baked until the cows came home and then we made them some extra special cupcakes because they kept us in milk during the rush and we appreciated it since Missus Cake is feeling a little lumpy-wumpy with the twins and isn’t moving as fast as she did when she was unpregnant.”

“Ah… Pinkie?” Mister Cake paused at the kitchen doorway, looking at his pink assistant and the changeling she had on the end of a thin ribbon. “Is that…”

“Hi, Mister Cake, again since I said ‘Hi’ upstairs but you never can say ‘Hi’ enough in the morning. This is Mister Tolliver, and he’ll be staying with me since I’m his probation officer until he goes to Canterlot to face trial on his invasion and kidnapping and assault and postponing my party charges. Mister Tolliver, this is Mister Cake.”

“Call me ‘Pops,’ please,” said the changeling with sudden sympathy for the startled stallion. “I don’t want to cause any trouble here. All I want is a nice peaceful incarceration.”

“And he lies,” said Pinkie in a low growl, which switched almost immediately to her perky babbling, “but only about really, really important things like Pinkie Promises and parties.” She whirled around so fast her mane seemed to remain in place for a fraction of a second before catching up with her face, which was just a fraction of an inch from the changeling’s tingling nose.

“I know what!” Pinkie grinned so broad that the changeling thought it was possible that the corners of her mouth would meet behind her head. “You can stay here today and help us make cupcakes! We’re really far behind even though we’ve got a help wanted sign out front but most of the applicants only work for an hour or two before they leave, some of them screaming a little and running really really fast so I can’t catch them and give them a going away party but I think you’d work out at least until you have to go to Canterlot and do the prison and trial and whatever they do for treason thing but it won’t be too bad because I can testifry in your defiance and tell Princess Cadence that you were a good changeling when we were sleeping together and you didn’t try to attack me or escape once other than when you came downstairs and ate the last of the day-old donuts but those are free for employees and if you start today you’ll be an employee and you can have as many of the donuts that don’t sell that you want but they almost always sell out lately because we’re so short on help so do you want to?”

* * *

Five minutes later, the changeling found himself in an apron while measuring small gloops of batter into cupcake papers and for some reason seemingly missing the last four minutes of his memory. There was a blur that he remembered involving ‘hoofie soap’ and a good deal of ‘morning scrubbie-wubbie’ that preceded a complete and exhaustive (and exhausting) tour of the bakery complete with full instructions on every modern piece of baking equipment and his own coffee cup.

It was very good coffee, two sugars and a dash of cream, just the way he liked it.

He didn’t ask how she knew. He might have gotten an answer.

There should have been an organized process for preparing the morning fritters, donuts, cupcakes and other frosted goodies, and as far as he could tell, the overwhelmed Mister Cake was trying to maintain an order to the chaos that engulfed the whole room, but it was an uphill battle, much like rowing up a waterfall. During a brief break while Pinkie was carrying completed pastries out into the other room and he was side-by-side with Mister Cake, filling up the giant mixer, he managed to blurt out, “Is it always like this?”

“Oh, no,” protested the tall stallion. “When the missus is up and working, it’s… only about half this bad. We’ve been trying to find somepony to help out while she’s in her delicate condition, but most of them… run away.” He eyed the thin ribbon that tied the changeling to the giant mixer. “We’ve never tried tying them up before.” His eyes traced their way up the changeling’s holey legs to his bruised face. “Or hiring non-ponies.”

“Hey!” protested the changeling, switching to his best Rushian accent. “Vhen I lived in Stallviat Rushia, all ponies vere equal. Ve all starved the same. In Glorious Ponies Bakery and Machine Shop, ve produced enough bread to feed an army. Vich we did. Unfortunately, ve also needed to feed ourselves, vich ve did not, most of the time.”

Mister Cake blinked, which the changeling had begun to recognize as a symbol that he was processing something unexpected, and a response was forthcoming if you would please wait for just a moment. After the anticipated moment, Mister Cake tentatively asked, “As a changeling?”

“Nyet!” snapped the changeling with a good-natured scowl. “Vas proud member of unicorn bourgeois doing his patriotic duty as good proletariat worker.” The changeling switched his accent off as he folded up the empty flower sack and sat it to one side so that he could begin to measure a few liters of milk into the mixer. “Just another Rushian unicorn trying to make ends meet in a bakery in Stalliongrad during the coldest winter I have ever seen!” He shivered as he turned on the mixer and set the timer, taking a surreptitious look out the window to make sure it was still dark.

Step One: Gain their confidence - complete

The truth seemed to be a much safer routine to start with this time. He remained patient as the morning baking went on, waiting for just the right moment when both Mister Cake (or ‘Carrot’ as he preferred to be called) and Pinkie would be together out in the main room and the cheerful changeling would be left alone in the kitchen just long enough to slip out the back door and trot, not gallop, away into the pre-dawn gloom. When the moment arrived, it took only a single burst of green magic to free his leg from the ribbon and five steps for the back door where freedom await—

“Hi’ya, Mister Tolliver.” Standing just inside the back door was the golden earth pony from yesterday, with one eyebrow raised and her hat held against her chest. “Still here, I see.”

The changeling really did not know how to respond, but stating the obvious seemed like an option. “Yes?”

Applejack shook her head with a sly smile. “Now I knows you was a wantin’ to get to work this mornin’ out at the farm all early like, since we didn’t get a good start yesterday, so I thought I’d mosey on down to Pinkie’s and pick you up.”

He could not help but look out the window at the pre-dawn darkness. “It’s still night.”

“Shucks, I know that, but it’ll be dawn in just a few.”

“And Pinkie would like me to stay and help with the baking. Since they’re short-hoofed.”

“Well, I suppose I can stroll on out and have a word with Pinkie,” said Applejack, putting her hat back on and walking forward towards the door into the main room of Sugarcube Corner in a rolling fashion that made her hips sway from side to side. “Maybe we can come to some sort of a compromise between us, you bein’ such a hard worker and all.”

The changeling watching the earth pony walk out the door could not help but notice the muscles under that golden coat as Applejack walked, swishing her tail from side to side with each step, and he kept his head turned to watch in the direction of the closed door even as he began to move to the back door and his exit out of the crazy bakery.

Too bad I’ll be gone. I bet she does taste like apples. Ooph—

Instead of walking into the hallway door, he seemed to have collided with a concrete wall covered in short red hairs. With a growing pit in the bottom of his aching stomach, his eyes traveled upwards, past the huge hooves, the muscled chest, the thick wooden collar around the stallion’s neck, and to the blocky and totally expressionless face that was observing him in the exact same way as if he were considering just how much empty land there was on an orchard to hide a body.

* * *

Bright sunlight filled the orchard as the mayor placed a shining blue ribbon on Big Mac’s chest while both of them stood next to a gigantic apple tree filled with huge red apples, some of which were nearly the size of a pony themselves. After the photographers for the prize committee had finished taking pictures, she turned to the big stallion and asked, “So, Big Macintosh. What is the secret to your growing such a magnificent tree?”

“Pest control,” he mumbled into the microphone. “And lots of love to help them grow. Particularly ‘round the roots.”

* * *

“Hi.” What should have been a reassuring soft tone to calm the savage ~~beast~~ older brother was more of a panicked squeak that would not have been out of place in a mouse nest. The changeling took a step back, and then a rapid second and third as Big Mac stepped forward, causing the changeling to scuttle backwards like a cockroach when the lights came on. Just before being backed out the door into the main room, the changeling scrambled to one side and the big stallion swept by with a brief rumbled apology and a scathing glare indicating their conversation was not over, and his trip into the other room was only going to last a minute before returning to finish it.

The changeling kept an eye on the closed door to the main room, backing carefully across the kitchen until he could feel the hallway door against his tail. From there, it was only a quick dash through the hallway, past the storeroom, and out the back door — where a cannon filled with pink confetti most probably awaited. He paused, considering his options.

Back door - Confetti
Orchard - Fertilizer
Bakery - Pinkie Pie

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

The breakfast rush had tapered off and the lunch rush was still a hour away before the changeling managed to get a break, little splatters of batter still covering every bit of his body that the apron had failed to protect. Shortly before dawn, Missus Cake had descended the stairs to grace the kitchen with her pregnant presence, and even though the changeling could not tell how much of her rotundness was water retention, fat, or foal, he was smart enough to keep any wise comments to an absolute minimum of zero. Strangely enough, she took the presence of a changeling in her kitchen about as calmly as her husband, taking a skeptical look at the ribbon tying him to the mixing machine before shaking her head and just getting out cupcake pans.

He wanted to ask. He really did. He was just afraid of getting an answer.

After a little while when the Cakes were at the front counter, Pinkie Pie came back to the kitchen to help him with the baking, which was… weird, but nice. Although he had spent months in Stalliongrad baking bread, he had learned more this morning than he had during his entire Rushian trip, and now as he picked through the oven manual while on their break, he was learning even more.

“Since when does an Equestrian bakery run by earth ponies have a Minotaur oven designed for Griffons?” He held up the manual and turned it sideways while squinting at a series of controls. “I swear by the First Egg, this is the weirdest thing.”

Well, the second weirdest thing in the room.

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I love my oven. I just wiggle the levers and twist the knobs until it looks right and the cupcakes come out perfectly brown.”

Although he opened his mouth to protest, a few moments thought about the old Stallviet factory supervisor who was in charge of the bread forging machine changed his mind. The crusty earth pony had a soft hoof for the controls and the lowest reject rate of any factory, although he never looked at the dials.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he said, sticking the oven manual back into the dusty niche that he had pulled it out of. “I’d still like to whip up a few loaves of bread.”

“Oh, I know,” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing over to the mixer and beginning to throw in ingredients. “We could make hot buns, and then you could have buns in my oven, like Missus Cake has two buns in hers.”

“Ah…” Under normal circumstances, the comment could not possibly be accidental, but Normal Circumstances was probably about a three hour train ride away from Ponyville in any direction. “That sounds good,” he said instead of trying to figure out just exactly what she was intending.

As it turned out, hot buns were on the menu in more than one way, but not quite what he had expected. Pinkie was excited at trying a new recipe, and bounced around the room while singing, which resulted in a few accidental scorch marks on his tail as he occasionally was startled into backing up by a sudden explosion of pink smiling face at nose length away during the chorus. It was late afternoon by the time Missus Cake ~~waddled~~ went upstairs to take a nap and Pinkie bounced away to help cover the front desk, leaving the changeling alone in the kitchen.

It was almost fifteen minutes later as he hefted the agitator bars from the mixer into the dishwasher that he realized how much he missed her constantly chattering voice. It was a little like being back in the hive with dozens of changelings chittering away at the same time, or the background murmur of voices in the hivemind that he missed so much. She had stood up for him, saving his life by insisting that she needed him more in the bakery than out in the middle of a bunch of apple trees with no witnesses and lots of deep holes, and he decided to pay the favor back by finishing the cleanup instead of bolting for freedom and getting cannoned in the face again.

I can slip away this evening when they’re all asleep. Pinkie has been burning so much energy that she should sleep like a rock until I’m long gone. And no cannon.

He was broken out of his reverie by the sound of the timer ringing on the oven, which had been repurposed back to cupcakes after their successful breadmaking experiment. It took a moment to find the potholders and turn to scoop out the hot trays, and the door to the kitchen banged open while he fumbled for the timer with his weak magic.

“I’ve got ‘em, Mister Cake,” he called.

A rough male voice that was most definitely not Mister Cake responded in a parade-ground bellow from around the corner, “Don’t worry, Carrot! I’ll get ‘em. We’re in a hurry.”

The tramp of metal shoes on the kitchen floor panicked the changeling. Acute hearing picked out the sound of armor shifting in position along with the perfectly even tread of an experienced soldier, and in just a second, the Royal Guard was going to turn the corner to find a changeling with a tray of cupcakes held in his magic, and his response would most certainly not be as forgiving as the Cakes. Instinct trumped panic, and when the broad-shouldered unicorn guard rounded the corner, there was a young unicorn of a cheery yellow hue standing there instead of the previous occupant.

“You must be Carrot’s new recruit,” bellowed the Royal Guard unicorn in a powerful voice that the changeling considered must be his normal volume. “Good to see he’s got a young buck here to help out while the wife is in the infirmary. You worked here long?”

“Just today,” the changeling managed to respond, brushing a loose strand of his dusky orange mane back out of his eyes in a motion that he found comforting in his current practiced form. He placed the cupcake pan on the table before turning back to the oven in a forced casual pace, levitating out the second tray as the other unicorn watched.

“How’s Pinkie treating you?” asked the guard, masked by a somewhat slobbery noise that indicated the dozen cupcakes in the pan behind him were now one less.

‘She ties me to her bed’ did not sound quite like the response that would alleviate any suspicions on his part, so he settled for, “Uh. Fine?” while floating two more cupcake trays into the oven and setting the timer again.

The broad-chested unicorn took in a deep breath of the warm air wafting out of the oven. “Fresh cupcakes from Cup Cake. Nothing like ‘em anywhere in Equestria. Bag me up two dozen, please. It’s a long way to the Badlands with our passengers, and no place to stop on the way to pick up grub.” He paused, as if waiting for a laugh. “Grub. You get it? Our passengers? Oh, never mind. You’re about as talkative as they are.”

The changeling was rattled by the close proximity of the guard, but not rattled enough to forget to keep his magical aura shifted to a softer red as he levitated the cupcakes out of the trays and stuck two dozen of them (plus one) into a bag. If three little ponies could beat up and subdue the weakened changeling, a Royal Guard would make short work of him, but his curiosity still itched. After all, the Badlands was where the hive was located, and any ‘passengers’ headed that way with a Royal Guard escort could only spell trouble.

“So… Who are you taking out to the Badlands?”

The unicorn gave him a perplexed look. “Why, the changelings, of course. We’ve been tracking all of them down and picking them up all between here and Canterlot for the last few days, except for any that fell into the Everfree Forest, of course. Those are probably long gone as love-flavored cupcakes for the monsters who live there.”

The disguised changeling could just see out the window from where he was standing and into the broad grassy yard that surrounded the bakery. A Royal Guard troop transport was resting outside Sugarcube Corner with four pegasi in the harness and a rather bulky earth pony guard standing around impatiently on the front. In the back, heaped up and piled together, were the motionless chitinous bodies of changelings, sprawled out in a heap that was probably bringing the transport fairly close to its maximum weight.

“Ch-ch-changelings?” he managed to stammer out.

“Oh, don’t be afraid,” scoffed the guard, hefting up the bag of cupcakes in his magic. “Where they’re going, they’re never going to bother you again. But if you see one around, make sure to let us know. They may look harmless now, but they could be dangerous. Just let us handle them.”

The changeling was almost unaware of the guard leaving to the front of the store to pay for his purchase, only shaking out of his terrorized train of thoughts as the guard scrambled onto the transport and it took off.

The pony Queen is tracking us down and killing us. It only makes sense. We attacked their Queen, and now while we’re weak, she’s killing every changeling she can get her hooves on and dumping the dead bodies at the hive as a message. I have to get out of here. There’s probably a bounty on all of our heads. I wonder how many milkshakes my head would be worth to those little ponies? They could get their clubhouse fixed and still… No, I need to focus. Pinkie Pie and the Cakes probably don’t know about the bounty or they would have turned me in. Buy twenty four cupcakes and get a free changeling to throw on your wagon full of corpses.

The changeling shuddered as he looked out the window again, terrified that he would see the wagon landing to pick up an additional body. With one last glance, he turned back to work, trying to keep calm while he planned.

I have to act normal until tonight when I can try to escape again. Whatever I do, I can’t tell—

“What’cha doing?”

“Wha—” Still unused to sudden exposure to a weapons-quality grin at point-blank range, the changeling hopped backwards, then hopped forward even more energetically as his rump made contact with the hot oven. The resulting impact tasted of frosting and cinnamon as he tumbled to the ground, surrounded by pink. Well, Pinkie.

Somehow their tumble across the floor wound up with him on his back and a giggling Pinkie on top, and she pressed her nose down on his and giggled. “Silly changeling.” She kissed him squarely on the lips and bounced to her hooves. “If you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was ask. I know you changelings live on love and snuggy hugs, but you probably didn’t get much of that when the Cutie Mark Crusaders were running you around town—” Pinkie’s eyes narrowed momentarily “—or you better not have.” The brief shadow across the sun blew away, and the perky pink pony was back at full volume. “So I had a cupcake while I was up at the front counter and I’ll bet you can’t guess what kind it was!”

“Pumpkin spice with cream cheese frosting and red-hots,” he replied almost automatically, licking his upper lip where a tantalizing remnant remained. It almost managed to pull him out of his depression, except for the descent back into crushing despair when he thought of so many of his hivelings being hauled away like garbage.

“Oooo, you’re good!” Soft pink lips pressed against his again, and while he was trying to make sense of the affectionate kiss, Pinkie promptly popped up off of his chest and bounced over to the mixer. “So I was thinking we could have a dozen each of pumpkin, radish, raspberry, blueberry, orangeberry, and avocado cupcakes this evening at the party!”

“Party?” he echoed.

“Your Welcome to Ponyville Party, of course,” said Pinkie. “I mean you’ve already been in town a few days out at the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse, but that’s outside Ponyville, and now that you’re inside Ponyville, you deserve a party!” Her voice abruptly dropped an octave and she glared at him. “Even if you are a liar and a Pinkie Promise Breaker.” Just as quickly as her cheer had vanished, it was back in a beaming grin. “So when we have the party here tonight, I’ll introduce you to everypony in Ponyville. Won’t that be great!”

* * *

A howling mob with torches and pitchforks carried the bound changeling out into the town square while shouting for their favorite method of execution.

“Burn him at the stake!” screamed a tan stallion.

“Tear him limb from limb!” shouted another.

“Turn him over to Twilight Sparkle for experimentation!” called out a third.

The shouts from the crowd instantly silenced as the entire group of ponies stood and looked at the frightened changeling, who was all tied up in a cocoon of thick ropes.

“Let’s not get carried away,” said the Mayor, waving her own torch. “After all, it may be some sort of demonic monster, but we should at least show it a little compassion. Put the stake over there and we’ll douse the creature with oil before we light the wood so it won’t suffer.”

* * *

“I-I’m not feeling much like a party tonight, Pinkie,” he stammered, adding a little cough at the end. “My stomach really hurts, and I think my skin is itching.” The changeling looked down at his cheery yellow coat and added, “Under the disguise, of course.”

“I thought Sweetie Belle said you couldn’t change,” said Pinkie Pie with a suspicious glare at close range. “She told me all about your story, but Applejack says you were using your magic to pick up apples all day yesterday, and I saw you using your magic today with the baking. Were you lying to that sweet little filly?”

“No?” The changeling writhed somewhat under the relentless gaze, but rallied quickly. “No. I couldn’t change without getting really sick after I crashed, but when that guard came around the corner, it just… happened.”

“Ohhh. Like my Pinkie Sense. I never know when it’s going to happen until it does and then sometimes it does things I never realized before and it takes a while to figure out just what happened. Can you change into any other ponies? Oh, like me! Do me! Do me!” Pinkie Pie bounced around the messy kitchen in long bounds.

No wonder the hive has Ponyville on the forbidden list. They’re all crazy.

“I’d really like to do you, Pinkie,” started the changeling, only realizing what he was saying after the words left his mouth.

“Your next words better not be ‘but,’ Mister Tolliver.”

Fortunately, Missus Cake came trotting into the kitchen at that moment with some sticky trays on her back. Her rapid waddle towards the dishwasher took somewhat of a stutter as she glanced towards the other two ponies in the room. Then looked a second time.

“Um. Pinkie?”

“Good Afternoon, Missus Cake,” called Pinkie with a wave. “I was just talking to Mister Tolliver about his but.”

The long pause and the rather slow blink from Cup that followed were getting to be familiar to the changeling, perhaps some sort of coping mechanism for being trapped in such close proximity to that much pink for a long period of time. “That’s… nice, Pinkie,” she added, dropping the trays into the soapy water and trotting back towards the front of the store with slightly more speed and making the door close with a sharp bang.

“I don’t have enough energy,” blurted out the changeling in a desperate attempt to get ahead of Pinkie for a moment.

“No problem. I’ve got lots of energy.”

The world became pink again, flavored with cotton candy and frosting. It was far from the best kiss he had ever been given, but on a scale of one to ten for enthusiasm, it ranked somewhere around thirty-eight, and even without his empathic senses, it made certain reactions flare to life.

In particular, it made his aching stomach give out a sharp pain that distracted him from the sound of the door opening again, and the voice of Carrot Cake calling out, “Pinkie? What are you doing!”

The kiss quit, and in the resulting vacuum he could actually hear Pinkie Pie grinning. “Mister Tolliver is all out of energy, and I wanted him to do me, so I’m giving him some of my extra super-duper energetic energy. Isn’t that right?”

“Uh. Huh?” By the time he had blinked away the pink, the door to the front of the store had closed, and all he could think about was the brief glimpse he had gotten of Mister Cake’s sympathetic look of terror. And the growing pain in the changeling’s gut, which must have shown in his face.

All of the happy energy surrounding Pinkie Pie vanished in a heartbeat, and the pink pony held a hoof to his sore tummy. “Does your tum-tum still hurt?”

“Yes,” he moaned, with a little extra emphasis that he could not help.

“Maybe we should get you over to the hospital, then.” Pinkie prodded his tummy slightly with one hoof. “We’ve got a really neat hospital with all of the modern beepy and pingy things. The Cakes took me there on one of Missus Cake’s maturnalty visits, because she’s having twins, and the doctors get all worried whenever she gets a little twinge in her tummy, but mostly it’s just gas and indigestion because the twins are pushing all of her internal organs around like when you have twenty foals at a party in a room that only holds ten and you get out the Twister mat. I’ll bet they can use one of their pingy thingies to look in your tummy and see what’s making it hurt.”

* * *

“Frau Doktor Sparkle, we have restrained the patient and are ready to apply anesthetic.” An old, wrinkled nurse with a mallet nodded at the cackling purple unicorn, who was sorting through her collection of custom scalpels.

“Not yet, Nurse Bludgeon.” Twilight Sparkle pointed at the tied-up changeling on the operating table with one razor-sharp blade nearly the length of a foreleg. “I haven’t even calculated the best point to make the cranial incision, let alone how deep a channel to cut with the bone saw in order to expose the maximum amount of brain tissue.”

“But, Doctor Sparkle,” interrupted the nurse. “The patient is suffering from a stomach ache. Shouldn’t you be cutting him open around the middle?”

“Who’s the doctor here, you or me?”

* * *

“No!” blurted the changeling, covering his mouth with a hoof immediately afterwards. “I mean… It’s an upset tummy. We changelings can heal about any major injury with love, but not minor things like indigestion.” Or starvation. “I think all I need is some… medicine.”

The depression that covered the pink pony vanished as Pinkie Pie jumped to her hooves and began pushing him towards the front door. “I know just the pony! Come on, let’s go!”

They passed the confused couple cleaning up the front of the store with a rushed explanation by Pinkie Pie as they traveled.

“We need to take off early Mister and Missus Cake so I can take Mister Tolliver here to get some medicine for his tummy so he can do me afterwards. Oh, and then we can see if he can do the rest of my friends! This is going to be so great!”

And they were out on the street, running as fast as they could, although the changeling heard the quiet thump of Mister Cake fainting as they left.

Chapter 8 - Cute Tea Mark Crusaders

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 8
Cute Tea Mark Crusaders

“So your stomach had been giving you trouble ever since the Princess of Love created that bubble. I can see how the incident could make you quite ill, but I’m really surprised that you didn’t get killed.”

The changeling did not respond, still looking around the hut and its strange inhabitant in disbelief. Zebras were creatures of ancient legend and stories from the other side of the world, not next-door neighbors who lived inside a spooky dark forest. But still, there was Zecora the Zebra, striped in a way that gave the changeling a throbbing headache whenever he tried to look at her.

Stripes. Give me a plain pastel pony to copy any day of the week. Except Pinkie.

While Pinkie told his life story to date, including all of the times he had lied to her in specific and precise detail, the changeling continued to silently observe his surroundings. An alarm bell was ringing in the back of his mind at the size of the fairly small windows and the thickness of her front door, and in particular the ivory-white object sitting on a nearby shelf. The foreleg-long thing came to a sharp point on one end, and widened at the other, looking almost like a—

“It is the claw of a bandersnatch’s paw. By grinding the substance into a dust, I can stop the sensation of unending lust.”

“Uh?” The changeling looked up into the zebra’s blue eyes, which seemed to twinkle dangerously in the dim firelight that lit her small room. “Really?”

“To have another burn with unquenchable fire is a sensation that changelings desire. This potion quenches that unbearable need so that a changeling has nothing upon which to feed.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” chirped Pinkie Pie before whispering something into the zebra’s ear.

“We don’t feed on lust,” protested the changeling, although after a moment he added, “mostly. Admittedly it’s good for flavor, but it would be like a pony trying to survive entirely on frosting.”

For some reason, his comment seemed to strike the zebra as hilarious and Pinkie as insulting, earning him a laugh and a scowl simultaneously.

“Perhaps this is the problem causing your stomach ills,” said Zecora. “A simple malady which can be treated without pills. Your consumption of the Royal Couple’s love caused you to plummet down from above, but in that explosion of burning desire, came the condition which set your stomach on fire. A simple cure may be found not from me, but from one who truly knows her tea.”

~ ~ ~ ♥ ♥ ♥ ~ ~ ~

“Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique. Oh, Pinkie Pie. What a pleasure. And who might I ask is your handsome friend?” The snow-white unicorn mare fairly glowed with a friendly acceptance, her deep violet curls thrown back in a fashionable bounce, looking nearly identical to the briefing the changeling had received, although the puzzled expression she was wearing now did not match her fierce scowl when they had last met in Canterlot. In fact, it looked familiar, as if Pinkie Pie somehow induced bafflement with her very presence. Rarity’s eyes traced a line from the thin ribbon tied to her friend’s hoof, then over to the disguised changeling, and then back again. It should have triggered a question, but it seemed that the inhabitants of the town had developed a strong tendency not to ask questions that they did not want answered, much like the changeling was learning.

“This is Mister Tolliver,” bubbled Pinkie Pie, bouncing around him with the streamer trailing in her wake. “He’s a meany-weany changeling who lies a lot, but—”

“Changeling!” shrieked the unicorn, turning and running upstairs with a clatter of hooves. “We’re closed!” came a muffled shout from behind the bedroom door, mixed with the solid thuds of a number of heavy objects being piled up against it.

Pinkie started to bounce up the stairs, stopped, and quickly tied the changeling to a nearby dressmaker’s dummy before resuming her dash after her friend. “Don’t worry, Rarity! I’m his Habitation Officer,” echoed down from the staircase as the changeling quietly untied the ribbon from the mechanical pony. Holding the end in his teeth, he silently tip-hooved for the front door before stopping in frustration.

I untied the wrong stupid end of the ribbon. I’m getting too used to being treated like an animal.

The door a few feet in front of his nose slammed open and the little white unicorn from yesterday bounced happily into the room. She stopped almost instantly upon seeing him, her eyes taking in the ribbon with an entirely too intelligent expression and an exuberant grin that the changeling knew was the first sign of impending disaster. She vanished out the door even quicker than she had appeared, returning with both of her friends. “See!” she declared. “Right there. He’s a he.”

“It’s a pink ribbon,” said Apple Bloom.

“I thought you said you couldn’t change,” said Scootaloo with a suspicious glare.

“I can’t!” he blurted out with an empathetic wave of one yellow hoof, adding, “I couldn’t! I mean I couldn't then but I can now.” He paused, one hoof in the air and considered the devilish wagon most likely parked outside the door.

Don’t tell them about tea. They’ll drag you off screaming to some horrid torture chamber and feed you bizzare poisonous concoctions until you die. That is, unless the wagon crashes into a tree and kills us all.

“So are you here to get a disguise from my sister?” asked Sweetie Belle with her head cocked to one side and a puzzled frown.

“Naa. I bet it means you’re going to get a hat for when you’re out at the farm helping with my apple picking chores this afternoon, right?” asked the little earth pony.

“No way, Applebloom!” declared Scootaloo, which gave the changeling a tiny fraction of a second of relaxation before she continued, “He’s coming with me out to the school so we can show everypony we actually caught a real, live changeling.”

* * *

“Good morning, class,” announced the teacher, smiling at the classroom filled with eager little ponies. “Today we have a real treat in store for us. Normally in Biology class, we have you dissect a frog, but thanks to Scootaloo, we have something a little more challenging.”

She swept the tarp off the restrained changeling, struggling against the dissecting pins shoved through each limb and looking in horror at the dotted lines covering his body and a huge supply of barbed identification tags labelled with things like Liver, Spleen, and Unidentified Wriggly Bit.

“Now everypony grab a scalpel, and we’ll all take turns. Once we’ve got our specimen opened up enough, I’ll get out the electrical wires and we can demonstrate his galvanic response.”

* * *

“I’m supposed to be taste-testing teas!” he blurted out.

Mercifully, he could not remember much of the next few minutes, other than the helmet jammed down over his eyes and the roar of the wind.

Unfortunately, when he could think, he found himself in a familiar small house, surrounded by small animals who did not like him one bit.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

“Cutie Mark Crusader Tea Party!”

Three small fillies and one uncomfortable changeling in the guise of a yellow unicorn sat around Fluttershy’s kitchen table, with a pot of hot water on the stove and a number of small containers strewn around the various cabinets and shelves. Off to one side, the collection of animals maintained a wary relative silence, exchanging tweets and chirps between themselves as they watched and waited. A few of them even exchanged seeds and nuts while consulting with a cranky white rabbit, who appeared to be running a betting pool.

The animals did not bother the changeling very much. Well, other than the bear. It was the relative absence of the yellow pegasus that worried him. She could be out in the frightening forest at this very minute, retrieving some horrible changeling-eating monster to dispose of the body, or worse.

* * *

The quiet pegasus crept through the steamy forest and up on the dark cave opening before calling inside. “Mister Fangy? Could I get just a teensy, weensy little favor from you today?”

The resulting rumbling screech shook the trees and caused birds to fly away in terror.

“Oh, nothing that serious,” whispered Fluttershy. “I just need you to come to my house and eat a changeling. If you don’t mind, please.”

A second bellowing screech sounded, and Fluttershy shook her head. “No, just one of them. But I think we have some barbeque sauce left, if that would make him more tasty for you.”

* * *

“Here, drink this and see if it helps.”

The changeling eyed the teacup with considerable suspicion. “First, that’s cold water with some weeds in it. Second, you dropped them on the floor and stepped on them just a minute ago. And third… No, I think that will do it.” He cleared his throat and dumped the ‘tea’ into the sink before adopting his Rushian accent again. “First, you need hot water for tea. Heat brings out flavor in leaves and keeps you varm in bitter Sneighberian winter.”

Scootaloo looked outside. “It’s Fall. We haven’t even had the Running of the Leaves yet.”

“Nyet! Less talking, more listening. Vere is dat hot water?”

“How can we tell when the water is done?” complained Sweetie Belle, lifting the lid of the teapot and twisting a knob on the oven.

“Normally it catches on fire for you,” said Apple Bloom, rummaging through a box of teas and scattering mismatched brown leaves across the counter.

“Or explodes,” added Scootaloo, trying to untangle a small bundle of silvery tea infusers.

“Errr…” said the changeling. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be that ho—”

An explosive bang surrounded the stove with steam, and by the time Sweetie Belle got the stove put out and the kettle of boiling water put on the table, the changeling decided it had become safe enough for him to look out from under the table for survivors.

“Darn,” said Scootaloo, somewhat muffled by the fire extinguisher in her mouth. “No fire-fighting cutie mark. Do you think we need more hot water?”

“No!” yelped the changeling. “Just… This is just fine.” He looked around the table and quickly gathered up the tea things in front of him before they could be turned into any more deadly weapons, to Apple Bloom’s expressed disappointment.

“We should have gone over to Twilight’s. She knows her tea.”

* * *

Drop by drop, the viscous tea-flavored fluid dripped into the changeling’s propped-open jaws as the attentive unicorn sat by his side, clipboard at the ready.

“Now remember, when you start to lose sensation in your limbs, grunt once, and when the poison begins to affect your thinking, just squeal in pain. Try to be descriptive,” she added. “It’s for science, after all.”

“It’s going to spoil the taste of his brain,” grumbled the dragon, coiled around the helpless changeling’s body and sniffing at one ear. “Can’t I just have a few bites now?”

* * *

“I think I’d rather be here,” said the changeling in a very small voice. “So… Have you three ever made tea before?”

“No,” said Sweetie Belle with a frown. “Not all the way before it caught on fire.”

“I think I have,” said Scootaloo. “You just put the powder into the milk, right?”

“Does it take apples?” asked Apple Bloom.

If I’m going to drink their tea, I better teach them how to make it or they’ll poison me by accident.

“Tea can be a very complicated beverage,” said the changeling, lifting the tea kettle and filling a cup. “Over seven percent of the inhabitants of Canterlot have cutie marks that are tea-related.” Slightly nervous at the sudden intense concentration on the behalf of his previous jailers, the changeling opened up the small silver cage of a tea infuser and pointed. “That’s why the infuser was invented. No fuss, no muss, just add tea leaves, dunk, and drink.”

“Seems like cheating,” said Apple Bloom, struggling to open up one of the little silver balls.

“What’s wrong with cheating?” answered the changeling, floating over a few leaves from the first container and stuffing them inside the tiny infuser.

“Will it help us get our cutie marks?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“Um. Yes?”

Every changeling was trained to look for weaknesses that could be exploited in the further progress of love harvesting. The phrase ‘cutie mark’ was most certainly the convenient handle with which to manipulate all three of the cute little larvae, and if he could only think of a way to convince them that releasing him would provide some sort of Changeling Freedom Contributors cutie mark, he would be up in the sky and on the way to home in a minute.

Although with the way his stomach was hurting, it would be a very long and painful flight, if he could get off the ground at all.

Tea was the key, or at least the strange zebra in the tree said that’s what the solution would be. So for one entire kettle of hot water, he dutifully dunked infusers and drank the result, watching as each time the little fillies would look at him in giddy anticipation, check their still-bare flanks, and sigh in dejection. There were an amazing variety of teas in Fluttershy’s various cabinets and bins, from small packages with a few loose leaves to what seemed to be about a solid bale of a pungent green leaf that he could barely stand to taste. The plain chamomile seemed to work the best, but with as much fun as the little ponies were having, he really did not want to just abandon them in the middle of their project. So he sipped and talked, trying to figure out just what was driving the three little energetic ponies into such a frenzy.

“So do changelings really get cutie marks?” asked Scootaloo, gesturing to the crossed lollipops on her prisoner’s flank.

“Not really,” admitted the changeling. “We tend to have our specialties, but I picked this one several years ago because I liked it and it was fairly common. Little ponies like candy… Let me rephrase that. Since ponies get their cutie marks early in life, sometimes they get a cutie mark in something they don’t wind up doing for a living when they get older.” He finished off his second cup of the mushroom tea and licked his lips. “Like this delicious shitaki tea, for example. You did a very good job chopping up the fresh mushrooms and mixing it, but even if you got a tea cutie mark—” Scootaloo took a quick check, just in case “—you could still wind up doing something else for a living that you liked just as much.”

“Like racing?” she asked, bouncing so much that the table shook.

“Or teaching racing, or same-day parcel delivery, or something else. You might even start a tea shop with a delivery service for your tea.” He added more finely-chopped mushrooms to his third cup and poured steaming water over it as the little filly thought.

“Miss Cheerilee says that sometimes cutie marks are a metaphorigal… metafarmacal…”

“Metaphorical, Scoots,” suggested Sweetie Belle. “That means your mark can look like something completely different than what it seems to mean, just like hers. She’s got three smiling flowers.”

“Like this?” The changeling concentrated and in a flare of green magic, three bright yellow flowers replaced the crossed lollipops on his flank.

“Cool,” whispered Apple Bloom. “They’re the wrong color, and shape, and too small, but that’s still awfully cool.”

“Do Rainbow Dash!” blurted out Scootaloo, so caught up in the moment that she buzzed up halfway to the ceiling, but descended with a solid thud a moment later. “Ow!”

“No falling down cutie mark,” said Sweetie Belle, looking down at her fallen friend.

“Not everything in life is related to your cutie mark,” said the changeling, sitting his cup down on the table and looking for another sample of tea to try, now that the mushrooms were gone.

“That’s easy for you to say, Mister Tolliver,” snapped Apple Bloom. “You can have whatever cutie mark you want just by using your magic. We gotta earn ours!”

“Yeah,” added Scootaloo. “We’ve tried everything, from skydiving to bungie jumping to deep sea diving.”

“Technically that was the lake,” interjected Sweetie Belle.

“Deep lake diving,” corrected Scootaloo. “We’ve painted and sculpted and cooked—”

“I thought we agreed not to mention cooking again,” said Sweetie Belle.

“—and skiing, and tobogganing, and yodeling and butterfly catching—”

“Fluttershy really didn’t like us for that,” said Apple Bloom with a pout.

“ — and rodeo, and house painting, and crabbing—

“Technically it was only one hermit crab,” said Sweetie Belle. “And it died when you tried to teach it how to swim.”

I’m so glad I’m not one of their pets. Oh, wait…

“I think the chamomile tea worked the best,” said the changeling as he got up from the chair and stretched, stumbling a little at having been seated for so long. “I’m sorry you didn’t get your cutie marks, but there’s always—” He paused as a rumbling noise filled the small kitchen, then dashed over to the sink to be violently sick.

“Oh, no!” wailed Sweetie Belle. “I killed him.”

The changeling managed to blurt out, “No, I’m—” before heaving again, looking at the odd-tinted vomit that was filling the sink and the small chunks of mushroom swirling down the drain. “I think it’s the—” He cut off as his stomach spasmed again and the three little fillies ran around in a panic.

Actually, ran around in a most decidedly un-panic, as Apple Bloom grabbed a book off a nearby shelf, Sweetie Belle pulled out a notepad and a pencil, and Scootaloo scooted a chair up to his side and was checking his temperature and reactions in a far-too experienced fashion.

“Any allergies? Cramps? Is the room spinning? Let me see your eyes,” rattled off the little pegasus at the prompting of Apple Bloom reading down the page of her guide.

“No allergies,” he gasped, trying not to throw up again. “Yes, cramps. Room spinning. Tastes funny.” A third spasm drove the last of the ‘tea’ out of his painful gut and he managed to gasp, “Mushrooms.”

“You mean those mushrooms I picked in back of the compost heap weren’t mushrooms?” asked Scootaloo.

“Toadstool poisoning,” said Apple Bloom, flipping to the correct page. “Characterized by gastro-enter-itus, and my… my…”

“Myalgias,” said Sweetie Belle, scribbling a note. “That means muscle pain.”

“And headaches.” Apple Bloom looked up at the staggering changeling. “Any headaches?”

Three of them…

And the darkness returned.

Chapter 9 - The Fount of Knowledge

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 9
The Fount of Knowledge

-beep-

It was an annoying noise.

-ping-

And it had a friend, who was even more annoying.

-beep-

Then again, he was alive to be annoyed, so at least that was something.

-ping-

And he could breathe through his nose, which was something else.

-beep-

The Queen didn’t need to make Ponyville a forbidden town. All it would have taken was just one or two survivors staggering back to the hive, and noling would ever think about coming here. That is, if there were any survivors.

Cracking one eye open just a tiny slit — in case of cannon — the changeling carefully examined the quiet (well, nearly quiet) sterile room surrounding him. It certainly seemed to be a hospital room, with hospital curtains and dull hospital colors on the wall, as well as many other pieces of hospital equipment that certainly were quite expensive and comforting to any pony who would find themselves in this situation. If nothing else, the IV bag hanging at the side of his bed was a dead giveaway, so he took inventory of his remaining parts once he determined the coast was clear.

Nothing feels missing. Or itches too badly. Unicorn disguise is still in place. Stomach still hurts, but not as bad. Throat hurts, probably from getting my stomach pumped. Rear hurts, probably from enema. Left leg tied down and has an IV, probably for fluids. Thing hurts, probably from catheter. Oh, now they’ve got me doing it.

There was a suspiciously cold section along his furry right side, as if there had been an additional blanket piled there and recently removed, and for some reason the right side of his fuzzy face was ever so slightly damp, and smelled of cotton candy and peppermints. Part of him just wanted to lie in bed as a pony for the next few days and pretend to be in a coma, while the other part of his rebellious mind insisted on reminding him about other things found in a hospital, such as Morgues and Operating Theatres.

* * *

“Thank you, thank you!” shouted the blood-splattered purple unicorn to the cheering crowd. “No other surgeon in Equestria could possibly have not only amputated two of this poor wretch’s limbs but managed to sew them back on while blindfolded and…” Twilight Sparkle trailed off as she observed her unfortunate patient and the mismatched limbs that were sticking out in different directions. “Oops. I can fix this. Spikeavarous, bring me a chainsaw and a flamethrower.”

* * *

Eyeing the IV needle and tubing in his strapped-down furry foreleg with distaste and a faint longing for the much more comfortable pink ribbon, the disguised changeling sat up, ever so gingerly, even managing a queasy smile for the nurse who slipped through the door moments later as if she had been lurking in wait, probably with a needle.

“Good afternoon, Mister Tolliver.” The cheerful earth pony smiled as she strolled up to his bed with the warm, radiant beaming joy of somepony who just discovered a few hundred bits next to a sign that said ‘Take me.’

Situation: Tied down, catheterized, and attached to an IV tube.
Positive points: They don’t know I’m a changeling.
Prognosis: Probable Escape.

“You’ve been asleep since yesterday when you were brought in. I’m Nurse Redheart, and we’re so glad to see you awake, sir. You know, we don’t get many changelings in here.” She held a hoof to her lips and giggled. “That we know of, that is. Now if you’ll hold still, sir, we can get that nasty catheter out and see if you’re feeling well enough to visit with your guests.”

Modified Prognosis: Doomed.

The catheter removal process was… educational, at best, and only slightly painful at worst. The nurse seemed to take great pleasure in brushing up against him while working, and managed the needle removal out of his leg as slick as anything. After a visit to the toilet that she supervised with diligent attention, the nurse tucked him back into his bed and fluffed his pillow, making sure he was comfortable before slipping out of the room with a promise to return for his sponge bath later.

It was a little scary. He deliberately took the time to look around the room for hidden cameras to see if he had somehow been dragged into a movie set for Naughty Nurses - Changeling Challenge. A few days ago, the weird idea would have never occurred to him, but after the experiences of the last week, there were a lot of unusual things that were becoming usual.

As if the universe were reading his mind, the door to his hospital room opened just a crack, and three little noses poked in.

“Are you certain he’s not dead?” whispered one frightened voice. “He didn’t look too well when we dragged him to the hospital.”

“Hey, we got him here as fast as I could flap. I still think we should have gotten an ambulance cutie mark out of it,” whispered a second voice. “Besides, he has a room. If he was dead, they wouldn’t have given him a room.”

“Well, you go on in first,” whispered a third voice. “If’n he’s dead, just yell real loud.”

The door opened up just a little bit farther, and Scootaloo looked in, her eyes as wide as saucers. “Mister Tolliver?”

“I’m not dead,” said the changeling, rolling his eyes as the door shut and three loud voices could be heard in the hospital corridor.

“Scoots, why’d ya come runnin’ back out? He said he’s not dead.”

“Yeah, but Pinkie Pie says he lies about everything. What if he’s a zombie?”

“They don’t change shape. He’d have to be a werepony,” suggested Sweetie Belle. “They change shape into timberwolves.”

“But they’re not dead,” insisted Apple Bloom.

Well, that’s a relief. At least they won’t storm in here to put a silver crossbow bolt through my heart.

“Vampires are dead,” said Apple Bloom, “and they can change their forms too.”

“Where are we going to find a wooden stake in the hospital?” mused Sweetie Belle just before the changeling yanked open the door to his room and hustled the three little disasters in before they could come up with some other way of getting him killed.

“I’m not dead,” the changeling said to Scootaloo in just as sincere a voice as promising to return to the hotel room right after going downstairs to check on a few things. “And I’m not a werepony or a vampire,” he continued to the other two. “I’m just a sick changeling. Well, not as sick any more.” He prodded his only slightly painful stomach with one furry yellow hoof, and considered the skeptical squints he was getting from his audience.

“How do we know you is really a changeling?” asked Apple Bloom, grabbing the clipboard at the hoof end of his bed and peering at it intently.

“Yeah!” said Scootaloo. “You could have changed into somepony else over at Fluttershy’s so when we came here, you could do away with them and make your escape. Or something.”

“You mean I might have killed Mister Tolliver?” gasped Sweetie Belle, although with a suspiciously quick peek at her own flank to see if she had perhaps gotten an exterminator cutie mark out of the theoretical murder.

Let’s not bring that up as a possibility. They’ve almost killed me several times by accident. If they actually try to kill me, they might succeed. And if they got their cutie marks doing it, no changeling in Equestria would be safe.

“I’m Mister Tolliver… Well, technically Mister Tolliver doesn’t exist—”

“You killed him?” gasped all three little ponies.

“No!”

“Are you some sort of super-spy like Reins Bond?” asked Sweetie Belle. “With ultra-sneaky disguise skills and all kinds of fancy gadgets that let you pretend to be a changeling so you can sneak into their secret volcano lair and blow it up?”

“No! Wait. Where are you getting all this? I’m just a changeling!” With considerable effort, green fire surrounded him in a blaze of light, and when it faded, he was once again in his normal chitin-covered form with a holey hoof resting on his forehead in frustration.

Brilliant. Now how am I going to escape?

“Cool,” breathed all three of the little ponies.

“Do it again!” prompted Scootaloo. “Can you do Rainbow Dash? Please?”

Now that would be an inconspicuous form to try my escape from town with.

“No. Now if the three of you—”

“Can you come out to the school for Show and Tell?” asked Apple Bloom, hopping up and down like some sugar-powered bouncing ball.

“Oooo!” squealed Sweetie Belle. “That’s a great idea.”

That’s a horrible idea.

* * *

How did I let them talk me into this?

“Coming through, make way. Somepony open that door, please.” Underneath the sheet on the gurney, all the changeling could do as the three little ponies pushed him through the hospital corridors was try to keep his breathing shallow and not panic, a task made more difficult by the number of impacts his transportation made against walls and doors before the sweet smell of outside air and the warmth of sunshine covered him. With a flourish, the little ponies whisked the concealing sheet away to reveal the back of the hospital, outside of all the security and watching eyes. Their plan never should have worked, and he expected to have to flee into the air at any moment throughout the entire trip, but now that they were outside, one question forced itself to the surface.

“They just let the three of you trot out the door with a body? Have you done this before?”

“No,” said Sweetie Belle. “But we’ve been here a lot.”

“Mostly stitches,” volunteered Apple Bloom.

“And X-rays,” said Scootaloo. “I’ve got the whole collection up on the wall at home.”

The distant chiming of the hour on the town clock tower brought all three of the little ponies into an instant tizy. “Ohmygosh!” gushed Sweetie Belle. “Lunch is almost over and we’re not back at school yet! We need an ambulance!”

“I’ll get my scooter!” shouted Scootaloo, vanishing around the corner.

“I’ve got the rope!” declared Apple Bloom, pulling out a long coil of the familiar sticky object.

Wait a minute!

“And I’ve got the anysthesia!” said Sweetie Belle from behind him.

What?

And then the wooden mallet descended.

~ ~ ~ ✮ ~ ~ ~

“See. I told you he was alive.”

The sweet little voice cut through the hammering chorus in the back of the changeling’s head like a saw, but was only made worse when a second little voice, tinged in sarcasm and snark, added, “I thought for sure you three blank flanks were going to get your cutie marks in bug squashing.”

“Girls,” chided a third, more adult and possibly more sane voice. “Please don’t fight in school.”

A soft comforting hoof caressed his cheek and triggered an amused giggle. “He’s so warm and soft. He even smells nice. Are you girls sure he’s a changeling?”

“He’s got holes in his legs,” volunteered a voice that he recognized as Scootaloo.

“And that smooth buggie stuff all over him,” said Apple Bloom.

“It’s called chitin,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Very good, Sweetie Belle,” said the adult voice. “It doesn’t feel as rigid as chitin, though.” Once soft hoof traced down his chest and the changeling opened his eyes. Two smiling magenta mares hovered over his head, blurred a little from the concussion that had to be related to the sharp pain in the back of his head and the three (or six?) little pains he could see peeking over the edge of the hospital gurney.

Which was not in the hospital.

It seemed to be a small school of some sort, from the multitude of small ponies all looking over the edge of his hospital gurney. While a part of his battered mind tried to make sense of his location, the other parts considered just how fast the wheeled bed had to have been traveling down the dirt streets of Ponyville, and if it was safe to look if perhaps there were one or two slower-moving ponies who were pasted to the front or trapped under the wheels.

Maybe if she put a bell on the front of her scooter, it would give innocent bystanders time to jump out of the — wait a minute. The goal is escape, not trying to save lives. Although it seems a little like leaving a lit bomb behind if I escape town and leave these three unleashed on some other poor unsuspecting victim.

Focus. Step One: Gain their confidence. Without getting killed.

“Hello,” he managed to whisper. “You must be Miss Cheerilee.”

“See, Diamond Tiara!” declared Sweetie Belle with all of the enthusiasm of declaring victory over some implacable foe. “His brains aren’t mushed up at all. I knew I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Our Show and Tell project for today is a changeling named Mister Tolliver,” said Scootaloo, pointing at the changeling with one hoof. “And we know he’s a mister, because he has a—”

Despite the hammering in his head, the changeling managed to get one hoof over the little pegasus’ mouth before she finished. “Can I get a glass of water first, girls? It’s been a very long day, and… It’s been a very long day.” He managed to wobble to a sitting position on the gurney, which rolled a few inches before the mob of little ponies around him managed to stop it. “Will the hospital be needing this… back?” he asked, gesturing to his peculiar mode of transportation.

“Don’t worry about it, Mister Tolliver,” said Cheerilee, removing the top from a thermos and filling up a cup with steaming water. “If nopony shows up for it, I’ll push it back after school. The girls were telling us that you preferred chamomile tea, so I thought I’d make you a cup, if that’s all right.”

“As long as there’s no mushrooms in it.” He slid off the gurney and wobbled to his hooves, trying to keep the crowd of little ponies from retreating too far with a friendly smile, which did not work as well as he had hoped.

“He’s got fangs!” squealed one little pink pony with a sparkly tiara.

“Is he going to eat us up?” moaned a second little grey pony to her side, trying to hide behind her friend.

“They only eat love,” scoffed Apple Bloom. “You’re perfectly safe, Diamond.”

“We eat other emotions,” said the changeling, sitting down on the floor and taking a cautious sip of the tea that the teacher brought over to him. “Love is just the most useful for us. Positive emotions allow us to digest foods that no other race in Equestria can stomach and survive in hostile environments.”

Like Ponyville.

If the back of his head did not hurt so bad and his stomach were not still doing little flips of nervous anticipation, he probably would not have just sat in one place and told everything he could think of about his species. Well, everything except sex. They were a little young for that, but their teacher seemed as if she would have been interested in a private educational experience. It was a little disconcerting that Miss Cheerilee just sat behind him the whole time, running a hoof through his mane when she was not refilling his cup. He actually went through three cups of chamomile tea made by their teacher, before he began to realize the sheer amount of changeling information he was divulging to the curious little ponies in the class.

* * *

”So, my little changeling,” hissed the Queen, sliding up behind the changeling and sticking her tongue in one ear. “Are there any of our secrets that you did not divulge? The numbers of our warriors? The infiltrators we have in every city? Our recipe for love-infused nectar?”

“I didn’t tell them that you sleep with a little stuffed plushie, Your Majesty,” whined the changeling.

“You should have never brought Mister Flufflebottoms into this,” hissed the Queen as she stuffed the changeling into the incinerator chute.

* * *

It was somewhat like being back in the creche again, with all of the other little changelings hissing and wrestling for dominance while one powerful hivemother watched over them all. The little pink pony with the tiara seemed to be the Alpha of the tiny hive, most likely to grow up into a powerful queen like Chrysalis. Maybe pink was a color of leadership among ponies. The signs were obvious, from the dominant position she took during questioning and the little glares of resentment from most of the other little nymphs. Well, ponies.

And the questions! From food to recreation to careers, the little information sponges soaked it all up and asked for more. Where changelings ate love, ponies obviously consumed information in an unstoppable torrent, and the big eyes on the little ponies were powerful forces of compulsion. Maybe the pony queen used them for interrogations.

* * *

“So, you won’t talk,” said the powerful white alicorn, brushing one wingtip across her changeling prisoner chained to the wall of the dank dungeon cell. “Well, we have ways of… convincing you. Bring in the Filly Scouts.”

Three little multicolored ponies with sashes full of merit badges trotted into the dank cell and looked up at the cringing changeling, their big eyes deep wells of begging blues and violet hues.

“Please, mister? It would mean so much to us if you would talk to the Princess. And when you’re done, we can have cookies. They’re only fifteen bits a box.”

The changeling writhed, flinging himself against his unyielding chains before slumping in resignation and asking in a cracking voice, “Do you have any Thin Mints?”

* * *

Nursing his last cup of chamomile tea, the changeling sat to one side of the teacher’s desk as she ran through the end-of-day lessons and he ran through his escape plans. There was certainly something suspicious going on, from the way the excited little students kept looking at the clock and the soft whisper that Cheerilee had made into one ear after Show-and-Tell was over and everypony was returning to their seats.

“Stick around after class. We’re having a party and you’re invited.”

He was almost positive that there were no cameras concealed in the school building for the filming of Educating the Hapless Hiveling or whatever other strange behavior was sweeping over the populace of Ponyville. Cheerilee had even sniffed him behind the ear like a delicious flower, and he was fairly certain that she would have nibbled if the school building was empty.

Still, whatever supply of love he had in his aching gut must have been almost depleted by now from the number of times he had been injured or almost killed. Responsibility decreed that he return to the hive as quickly as possible so he could have whatever few drops of leftover love siphoned out to ensure the survival of the rest of the injured changelings. It would really — to use pony slang — suck to survive through all of this and the flight back to his home only to be as dry as a windblown corpse at the end.

What step am I on? Have I gained their confidence or what? I certainly have Cheerilee’s confidence, but after the bell rings and all of her students leave, I’m not quite sure what she has planned. Well, other than mating.

He was distracted from his musing by a knock at the schoolhouse door, which he went to answer almost by reflex, although as he reached for the doorknob, his instincts kicked in.

No time to plan. Just out the door and into the air before the little larvae and their hivemother even realize what happened. One. Two. Thr—

With one giant yank, he flung open the door and paused in his lunge towards freedom.

That’s one huge cannon.

Chapter 10 - The Tree of Knowledge

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 10
The Tree of Knowledge

The changeling paused at the schoolhouse door, looking down the barrel of a cannon so large he could have crawled inside and had enough space left over for a book to read while waiting for the end. It was only a brief glimpse, because his over-tenderized brain knew exactly what was coming next. With eyes tightly closed and shoulders hunched, the changeling waited for the end.

And waited.

“Hi, Mister Tolliver,” chirped a familiar cheerful voice. “Could I get you to move just a smidgen to the left?”

He obliged, shuffling his hooves to the side, although he kept his eyes tightly closed.

Maybe she just doesn’t want to splatter the little nymphs with changeling goo. That’s not just a cannon, it’s field artillery. Partillery?

Giggles filled his ears as Pinkie Pie tapped him on the shoulder. “Not that left. The other left.”

Shuffling carefully, he moved again, and then again as she added, “Just a touch more. An itsy-bitsy smidgen more. Aaaalmost there. Just a little further. One more step. Perfect! Okay, you can open your eyes now. You don’t want to miss this one.”

Taking a deep breath to steel himself for the end, the changeling opened his eyes just in time to see the cannon go off with a massive blast. Confetti and streamers filled the air with flying objects, one of which smacked him in the head with several orders of magnitude less pain than he was expecting, and remained stuck on his horn afterwards.

“Surprise! Happy Birthday, Dinky!” echoed around the room, boosted by the lungpower of a dozen energetic little colts and fillies. Blinking away an errant piece of confetti, the changeling tried to make sense of each of the little school desks, which were now covered in confetti and topped with a single slice of cake. Each of the little ponies was now wearing a little paper hat, almost exact duplicates of the silvered paper cone topped with a sparkly pom-pom stuck on his own horn. Even Cheerilee’s desk had a small paper plate with a substantial slice of creamy white cake sitting on it, and a paper cup full of punch to one side.

Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask!

“How did you do that?” he blurted out as Pinkie Pie bounded over to the little birthday filly and rubbed her noggin. “How did she do that?” he continued to Cheerilee. “That’s a cannon. It shoots!”

“And today it shoots cake,” said Cheerilee, sneaking a quick bite of hers and patting the floor next to her chair. “Would you like a piece?”

“Now?” His eyes drifted over to where Pinkie Pie and the birthday filly were dancing around in circles while singing a song about birthday wishes.

“Cake now,” clarified the teacher, closing her eyes as she sunk her teeth into a second bite. “We can talk later, but for now, just sit down here beside me. Would you like a fork?”

* * *

It was, he decided, educational. The changeling had worked in several office environments and experienced their version of parties, which mostly consisted of a group of ponies who otherwise would never have talked to each other standing around and eating cardboard cake out of a cardboard box. Rushian versions of parties involved vast quantities of alcohol and… well, something else. He had never been able to remain conscious long enough to find out.

The little ponies and Pinkie Pie might as well have been from a different world than his previous life. This party had laughing and singing, games involving removable pony body parts, presents for the birthday filly, and despite his best attempt to remain gloomy and out of the festivities, participation.

Although it probably was not exactly the same as any of the other parties Pinkie Pie had thrown.

Near the end when everypony was just starting to show signs of the party breaking up, the royal little pony, Diamond Tiara, had made a rather snotty comment about Toliver being a ‘pitiful blank flank changeling’ just like the three other little ponies who had made his life so miserable. It should have felt good, having the three little menaces put in their place by one of their own kind, but instead, it felt as if his own heart was being torn out when he looked at their anguished little faces.

I must just be weak from hunger and trying to assimilate into whatever insane hive I can find. I’m still doomed to die. But I might as well go out in style.

He bent down and put a hoof on the shoulder of the little birthday filly while trying to smile as best he could without showing too much fang. It was a new experience, and he was a little uncertain about how best to approach the topic, but ‘head on’ seemed like a good place to start.

“As a hatching day present for you, I’ll change into whatever famous pony you want. Sapphire Shores, Daring Do, Poggles the Clown, anypony. Even one of the Princesses, if you want.” He winked. “I even changed into Santa Hooves once.”

Even though it was forbidden and dangerous. Little ponies swarm like flies to that form, and can see through the slightest flaw in the disguise.

Over the gasps of amazement in the small audience, Scootaloo piped up with, “Rainbow Dash! Do Rainbow Dash!”

“Can you change into any pony?” asked the little filly, her little golden eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“If you can describe him or her well enough, yes,” he said, holding a hoof over Sweetie Belle’s mouth in anticipation of the inevitable question about what would happen to his ‘thing’ if he took a female disguise.

“Well…” The little filly fidgeted uncomfortably before beginning her description, which was quite detailed, right down to the precise color and shape of the target’s cutie mark and style of his mane. The warning signs were all there, if he had been paying attention, and it took until after he had filled the room with the glare of green fire from the transformation spell before the depth of his mistake soaked in.

The little golden eyes of the birthday filly swam with tears as she wrapped herself around his neck, holding onto him with a fierce intensity that should have filled the changeling with cascades of love to fill his empty aching belly. Instead, the pain in his gut only grew as a faint trickle of tears damped the snow-white fur on his neck and the muffled sobs of the filly were the only thing that could be heard in the deathly silence that filled the schoolhouse. After an uncomfortably long time of nearly strangling the disguised changeling, the little filly sniffed one last time and took a step backwards into the company of her little peers.

“Thank you, Mister Tolliver. You can change back now.”

Taking a well-needed breath and trying not to wince at the pain in his gut from where one errant hoof had pressed during the intense hug, the changeling asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said the filly, sounding much more grown up than her age. “I know you’re not really my daddy, but I’ve missed him so much.”

With a brief hesitation, the changeling flared with green fire again, this time emerging as his familiar lemon-yellow unicorn form, which carefully knelt down on the schoolhouse floor.

“Look, kid. I know how hard it is to lose somepony you really care about. It hurts so much, like your heart is being torn out. It may fade with time, but it never really goes away completely, and it makes you afraid to love anypony else, for fear they will be taken away too, and the pain will come back. But do you know the best way to deal with it?”

After a brief sniff, she asked, “How?”

“You go right back out there and keep on loving. You’ve got your mother, and all of your friends, and all of the town who love you. And someday you’ll discover your special somepony, and the two of you will make more little ones just like you to love.”

“Do I have to?” echoed the birthday filly in protest. “I mean, colts are icky!”

Giggles from the older ponies mixed with the universal vocal agreement to the concept from both the little colts and fillies in the party, and the changeling had to laugh despite himself. “That will change too, over time.”

~ ~ ~ ♡ ~ ~ ~

After the party bits and pieces had been picked up and the changeling found himself pushing the gurney back towards the hospital with Pinkie Pie tethered at his side, he had a few moments to reflect on life without staring down the barrel of a cannon. Well, he was fairly certain that the cannon she was towing behind her was loaded, and could pick him off at altitude before he could shed his leash and get away, but as long as it was not pointed at his head, he could at least think straight and ask the questions that had been bothering him.

“Do you know why Miss Cheerilee seemed so interested in having me stay behind after school, Pinkie?”

“I dunno,” she chirped while hopping along, “maybe because you’re so sexy and handsome in that form.”

“It can’t be that,” he scoffed. “I’ve used this form before. It never really attracted the mares until now.”

“Well, maybe Cheerilee is attracted to you because she’s lonely and single, and you’re lonely and single, and you could be aaaaaany pony she wanted. And she’s in heat,” finished Pinkie Pie with a giant bound that made the massive cannon she was towing hop a little too.

After a little thought, he had to agree with Pinkie. Normally, a pony in heat was a beacon of fire to a changeling’s emotional senses, which made reading their physical cues unneeded. Without the ability to sense emotions, he was at a strategic disadvantage… well, it did not matter anyway. Still, it was puzzling. “Is Applejack in heat too?” he asked, almost without realizing it.

“Yep,” chirped Pinkie Pie. “She said it just came out of nowhere, just like mine.”

“Your town is weird,” said the changeling.

“Yep,” chirped Pinkie. “Are you feeling any better?”

“No. My stomach hurts more than ever. Although the chamomile tea helps a lot.” He pushed the gurney a while longer before asking, “Are you going to let me go?”

Pinkie’s bottom lip trembled, although the cheerful expression she wore did not change. “I’d like to,” she started, her hops losing a little altitude and the cheerful bounce in her mane becoming a little flatter, “but you’re my responsibility. I signed for you, and that means I promised, even though it’s not as fun as I thought it would be. I mean you’re so alone here with none of your little buggie friends and you must be so lonely and terrified at being in such a strange place and nearly getting killed even though I’m really really sorry about almost drowning you and I’m sure the Crusaders are really sorry about almost poisoning you and being flung through the roof of their clubhouse, but if you want to go with Corporal Crumpet tomorrow, I suppose…” She trailed off with a sniff. “I didn’t get to throw you a party.”

They walked side-by-side for a little while longer as the clues tumbled down around his ears. “You curled up in bed with me last night and most of the morning at the hospital, didn’t you?”

How in the world did she manage to stop in mid-air?

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” The pink pony floated back down and just sagged when her hooves touched the ground. Even her puffed-up mane seemed to lose a little puff, and her tail dragged in the dust. “Because I can understand if you’re angry at me and hate me because I’m keeping you from escaping but I really kind of like you because you’re fun and different and interesting even if you’re a meany liarpants who tried to invade Canterlot and put all of the ponies into coocoocoons and suck all the happiness out of them.”

“True,” he admitted after thinking for a while, quickly adding, “but I’m not mad at you, I’m—”

How do I tell her that she’s the closest thing to a changeling I’ve found in this crazy town? That she’s amazing and mind-baffling and can change in the blink of an eye, and that every time I’m around her chattering, it feels like home? Wait a minute. Is that what I really think?

“Do you like me?” asked Pinkie so quietly that he could barely hear. “Because I can’t tell if it’s the hormones or the fact that you’re so different than everypony else. I mean, I’ve never had a very special somepony or I guess somebuggy before so I don’t know what it feels like but I’ve been in heat before and it’s a little like that but not quite and I know you’re not supposed to tie up your very special somepony except on special occasions with code words and velvet rope but that’s all I can think about when you’re around so maybe if you’re not feeling very well, I should put you somewhere away from me for a little while so I’m not really, really, really tempted to—” Now it was Pinkie Pie’s turn to look around, darting over to nearby bushes and trees to look behind and underneath them before dashing back over and putting her mouth right up to the changeling’s ear and whispering, “—make foals.”

“We’re not fertile,” responded the changeling almost immediately, babbling a little in his haste. “I mean ponies and changelings aren’t fertile. After all, our two races have mated for years, maybe centuries, and there haven’t been any offspring. Even changelings who want to have offspring with other changelings take a huge amount of love from each of them in order to become fertile, and then the female changeling needs a lot of love over the next few months while the little grub matures inside.”

“Oooooh,” said Pinkie Pie. “Does she bite her mate’s head off and suck all the love out of him in order to feed their new foal?”

“No!” There was a brief pause where the changeling thought back to his time in the hive and the rather suspicious absence of most of the male progenitors, who were supposedly ‘out harvesting’ while their assigned mates gestated. “Not that I know of,” he corrected.

Pinkie Pie’s ears perked up and the sparkle in her eyes grew into a blinding dazzle. “So does this mean we can get rid of my heat by going back to my room and having s—”

The changeling paused, one hoof on Pinkie Pie’s mouth, and tried to gather his thoughts. It was a process that would have been easier if Pinkie had not been licking him on the bottom of his hoof. “Pinkie,” he managed to say through gritted teeth, “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t think has ever been said by any changeling all the way back through history.”

“Wmumph?” mumbled Pinkie around the impeding hoof.

“I don’t think we should have sex.” The changeling carefully removed his hoof and observed, trying to figure out if he would be able to make a break for freedom in the amount of time Pinkie would take to turn the cannon around and shoot him.

“How about nookie?” asked Pinkie with a tilt of her head.

“No nookie,” declared the changeling.

“Banging?” asked Pinkie, tilting her head the other way.

“No banging, no making whoopie, no grinding hips, no doing the horizontal slide, no dancing the bedtime boogie.” With each ‘no’ he spoke, a little air seemed to escape Pinkie’s mane until it lay flaccid against her neck in a thick layer of dull magenta. She stood there for a long time, just looking into his eyes. Finally, she blinked, and her mane puffed back up into its original splendor.

“Can I still throw you a party tomorrow?” she asked, the familiar sparkle showing back up in her eyes again.

“Yes,” he said with considerable reluctance. “If I’m still alive tomorrow, you can throw me a party.” He paused. “A party, that is. Cake, punch, games. Party games with other ponies.” He paused to scratch at his side and run a hoof over his aching stomach. “A small piece of cake. That cursed itching is back. I wonder what that rope is made of.”

“Then it’s a date!” declared Pinkie, bouncing down the path again with her cannon behind. “And I know just the nice quiet place to put you until tonight so you won’t be bothered.”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

It was a peculiar building, but then again, Ponyville was a peculiar town filled with peculiar ponies, one pink pony in particular. Libraries belonged in cavernous stone buildings filled with elderly earth ponies and elderly books, and with little nooks and crannies where pairs of young lovers could cuddle up together with books of love poetry and pretend to read.

This library was in a tree. It contained no elderly ponies, but it was jammed to the bark with books of all ages and types, giving the structure that homey lived-in characteristic that ponies preferred in their businesses. Once Pinkie had bounced on back to work, he checked out the small bedroom and kitchenette, just in case an elderly librarian was shriveled up in a forgotten corner. There was even a tea set sitting on the modern stove, and he popped a small package of dried chamomile flowers into the teapot to steep while he regarded the task which he had been given.

“Reshelving. Joy.”

For a library as empty of patrons as this, there certainly seemed to be a lot of books that needed put back on shelves, but at least the citizens of the town were well-read. As he shuffled around the book-crammed main room, referencing tags and putting away books where they belonged, he sipped his tea and considered the dwindling possibility of escape.

With as much as my stomach hurts, I must be almost out of love. I might be able to make it until Pinkie’s party, I hope, but if I die in the middle of it, she’ll never forgive me.

Stopping to blink a few times at the mental image, he shook his head and returned to reshelving.

This place is not only crazy, it’s contagious.

After shelving an entire series of advanced spellbooks dealing with the somewhat near to his heart issue of mind magic, he paused at the next set of flimsy paper books, comic books to be specific. They had been tucked behind the cover of a large magazine titled Equestrian Library Association - Organization Weekly, and seemed well-used, detailing such colorful antics as the Power Ponies monthly adventures against various costumed villains. He sat down on the couch and flipped through a few pages, eventually just relaxing and reading through the whole collection as the afternoon wore on, chuckling at the little pony who followed the six heroes around and the misfortunes that followed him in turn just as inevitably as… well, himself.

“Hey, what are you doing with my comic books?”

Glancing up at the main room of the library, he caught a glimpse of a small purple creature of some sort, standing oddly on its hind legs much like a minotaur, only with the slit pupil eyes and sharp teeth of a—

* * *

The huge dragon coiled in the bottom of Twilight Sparkle’s lair snapped and snarled at the purple unicorn who was counting the hatching eggs, making little sparks and curls of smoke rise into the cavern roof as the newborn little dragons tumbled and played in the sandy floor.

“...seven, eight! What a wonderful hatching, Spikeavarious. You must be very proud.”

“Little vermin,” snarled the vicious dragon. “Starving little beasts, always wanting to be fed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Spikeavarious,” said Twilight Sparkle, picking up one of the little spawn and giggling at the way it tried to bite her nose off. “I’ll put a lure spell on some comic books in the library, and that should bring in enough changelings to feed your brood and then some.”

“I suppose,” rumbled the dragon. “Although they’ll probably eat up the brains first and just leave me the hooves.”

* * *

“DRAGON!”

Comics went flying as the changeling launched himself at the door, his disguise peeling away in a streak of green fire that only added velocity to his sprint. There was no telling how many of the vicious little monsters were about to tear him limb from limb, and the changeling went through the door faster than he had ever flown before. Even Rainbow Dash would have been left in the dust as he slammed his trajectory into a sharp ascent of roaring changeling wings with the intention of rocketing into the sky.

It probably would have worked better if he had not flown through the door to the basement.

While the stairwell in the oak tree went down, the rapid velocity of the changeling went up into the very hard and unyielding oak. Then down into the stairs. And more stairs. And more stairs. And a very firm and unyielding table leg at the bottom of the stairs.

* * *

The huge dragon coiled around the basement under the library blinked in surprise as a small snack was delivered right into its claws, tenderized by its rapid descent down the stairs. Uncoiling just slightly, the dragon moved its head enough to sniff the morsel and delight in the way it still twitched.

“Ah, fresh and still warm,” it rumbled, opening cavernous jaws and licking its lips. “I love delivery.”

* * *

Through the stars that still danced across his vision, the changeling staggered to his holey hooves and frantically looked for an exit. The lair under the library was considerably smaller and less dragony than he had expected, but piles of equipment under concealing dust covers sat around the walls, and ranks of test tubes and colorful potions crowded a nearby table.

And working at that table was a purple unicorn, whom he recognized at first sight even though she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Changeling!” screamed Twilight Sparkle, lighting her horn and lowering it at the soon-to-be-squished bug in question.

“Twilight!” screamed the changeling, turning and flying up the stairs with all the speed that a near lethal dose of adrenaline could provide.

Unfortunately, there was a heavy oak door in the way.

Also unfortunately, it had the hinges on the wrong side for rapid egress from the basement.

Fortunately, the door was not broken in the resulting impact.

And the darkness returned.

Chapter 11 - Letters From The Ponyville Jail

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 11
Letters From The Ponyville Jail

There was a certain pattern to Twilight's voice that broke through the hammering pain in his head, a panicked stream of consciousness that went straight from the emotions right to the mouth without pausing at the brain for any constructive editing, much the way Pinkie Pie talked, only without the underlying panic and terror he could hear now.

“...but if I write her a letter, she’ll think I can’t handle just one changeling even though we fought dozens of them in Canterlot and lost and she lost and I’ll just remind her of that horrible time that we just want to forget but I can’t forget and I don’t want to use a memory spell because that might get rid of a memory I want to keep and it moved! It moved!”

Taking a long, slow breath, the changeling opened one eye. The jail cell seemed familiar but different in some fashion than his last visit. For one, there were no ropes binding his limbs or his wings, just the blessed firmness of the jail mattress under his battered back. Secondly, the skinny stallion who seemed to run the place was missing. And thirdly, there was a familiar terrifying presence lurking behind the massive oak desk in the main office. His disguise was gone, thrown away in his haste to flee the terrifying little dragon, and now he had to face the terrifying unicorn who had been the center of so many rumors around the hive.

She sounds like a terrified wimp.

Taking a deep breath to brace himself, he opened both eyes and blinked away the spots in order to get a better look at the Immortal Celestia’s student, Bearer of the Element of Magic, the most powerful unicorn since Starswirl the Hairy.

All he could see was the tip of a trembling violet horn behind the solid oak desk, but he could hear a distant rumbling. It was oddly ominous, much like a stampede, and the source became obvious as a horde of little ponies cascaded through the front door.

“Hi, Twilight!” said Apple Bloom, bounding over to the desk. “JB said you were over here with Mister Tolliver and—”

“Stay back!” shouted Twilight Sparkle from behind her desk, a wave of purple magic scooping up the little fillies and colts and dropping them behind the desk, out of sight of the changeling. “There’s a dangerous changeling trapped in that cell, and I need to — You know it?”

“Him,” said Sweetie Belle in her most authoritative voice. “Pinkie Pie says he has a thing.”

“And we was going to have him help fix the clubhouse this evening,” said Apple Bloom. “Since he broke it in the first place. And then Applejack said he was welcome to come over to the house for a piece of pie afterwards. And I didn’t even know she baked one today.”

“We can pay him this time,” said Scootaloo. “Miss Cheerilee gave us some bits if we’d talk him into going by her house and working on her plumbing tonight. Something about a dripping pipe.”

“Aww. I wanted to have him and Snails help look for bugs tonight,” complained a short, chubby unicorn colt.

“Well, I wanted him to show my mom how he can change forms,” said Dinky. “Maybe he can teach us how to do it.”

“Wait a minute!” The top of the desk gained a pair of skeptical eyes, which glared at him from above the intervening paperwork. “How do you know that’s the same changeling? There could be dozens of them in town! How do I know you’re not all changelings!”

The air behind the desk glowed with the violet light of a spell, there was a brief pause, and then Twilight continued. “Well, you’re not changelings. But he is!”

“There aren’t dozens of changelings in town, Miss Twilight,” said the tall gangly colt who the changeling was finally able to identify as Snails. “He said he’s the only one.”

“And that he got throwed here by Princess Cadence’s spell,” added Snips.

“He could still have you all under his nefarious mental influence!” The suspicious eyes made an appearance again and glared across the room at him.

“He said,” Snails paused a little, and the changeling could easily imagine him with his tongue stuck out of one corner of his mouth in concentration, like he had at the party. “Changeling spells to influence minds are only transient—”

“That means short,” said Snips.

“—and that only the Queen has the ability to take control of a pony for more than a few minutes, because of their inherent limitations—” drawled Snails.

“That means—”

“Yes! I know what ‘inherent’ means!” Suspicious eyes glared at him from over the desk again. “I know he’s doing something with mind magic, because I can sense it.”

“Oooooo.” An entire forest of curious eyes peered out from all sides of the desk in his direction before Dinky’s voice quietly asked, “How can you tell?”

“Because!” The suspicious eyes narrowed. “He was using some sort of emotional magic on me in the library. That’s why I dragged him here.”

Getting carefully out of the bed and checking his aching limbs, the changeling gingerly touched the throbbing lump on his head. “Did you go into heat too?”

Twilight Sparkle hissed in reply, hunching farther behind the desk. “That’s not— There are foals here!”

“Oh, we know all about heat cycles,” scoffed Scootaloo.

“It’s when mommy dresses up in her best outfits and goes dancing with our neighbor the clock repairpony,” said Dinky.

“Rarity locks herself in the boutique and eats a lot of chocolate,” said Sweetie Belle.

“My sister writes the weirdest stuff in her diary when she’s in heat,” said Snips. “I’m just glad colts don’t have to go through it.”

“That’s… not important! And I’m not in heat! My schedule is precisely twenty-seven days, and it’s only been two weeks! I c-c-can’t be in heat!”

“Why is your tail sticking up, Miss Twilight?” asked Apple Bloom.

While Twilight Sparkle spluttered, the changeling leaned forward to rest against the jail cell bars. Everything else on his body hurt (except certain thing-related areas), but his aching gut finally had settled down to a relative quiet, probably an indication that all of his cached love had been expended, and the end was quite near. If nothing else, he could spend his final moments laughing at the idea that he had considered this confused and spluttering young unicorn mare a threat. During the fight at the Queen’s wedding, he had specifically avoided crossing her target area, choosing instead to feel the unmerciful pounding of Applejack’s hooves and Pinkie Pie’s cannon. Now it seemed a foolish decision, to be afraid of a wimpy librarian who could not even—

All thought ceased the moment his forelegs touched the jail cell bars. Actinic light flared in a soundless explosion of violet and white runes embedded in the bars, flinging him backwards like a limp doll and into the back wall of the jail cell. Which reacted in exactly the same fashion, only with slightly more enthusiasm and increasing his velocity for the return trip. If it were not for the mattress, he might have rebounded around in the cage until turned into a changeling slurry, but during one particularly panic-filled flyby, he managed to grab onto it with all four hooves.

And upon landing on the floor, which thankfully Twilight Sparkle had not enchanted the same lethal way as the walls, the scorched changeling decided to remain under the mattress like some sort of insectile turtle.

“Please,” he moaned. “Just leave me alone.”

There was a clatter of tiny hooves on the cold concrete floor and he felt a gentle touch of magic on his jagged horn. “Are you hurt, Mister Tolliver?”

“We should get you over to the doctor’s, so you can get a shot and feel better,” said a second little voice.

“Let me go get the keys so we can get you out of there, Mister Tolliver,” said a third.

“No! No, no, no!” shouted Twilight, as a bright flash of violet light yanked the little ponies away from the cell bars.

No, they’re cage bars. I’m just a dying bug in a cage.

“He’s a dangerous changeling!” ranted Twilight Sparkle. “He’s probably using his mind magic on you right now.”

I’m about as dangerous as a dry mosquito. Why are the little ones defending me?

“He broke into my library, frightened Spike, and touched my books! Right there! In my library!”

Pinkie said it was a nice, quiet place where I wouldn’t be bothered. I should have been suspicious.

“He even touched my tea things! There’s a pot of some mysterious potion sitting on my stove right now that probably is—”

“Chamomile tea,” said Sweetie Belle. “He takes it for his tummyache.”

“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle. “Well, that makes — Wait a minute. How do you know he drinks chamomile tea for his stomach?”

“We had him out at Fluttershy’s for a tea party,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Until Scootaloo put some poisonous toadstools in his tea,” said Apple Bloom.

“Hey!” protested Scootaloo. “We got him to the hospital so he could get his stomach pumped.”

“And then he came to the school for Show-and-Tell,” said Snips. “It was so cool!”

“Yeah,” drawled Snails. “He told us all about his hive out in the Badlands, and how its kinda like an ant hill or a hornet nest, with sentries at the entrances, and little cells where they sleep, and a big creech where they raise all of their little changelings.”

“Creche,” said Twilight Sparkle with a snort of outrage. “That’s where their queen lays the eggs after—”

“They don’t hatch out of eggs,” said Snails, sounding indignant. “They’re more of a live birth gestational mammal than an arthropod. They even nurse their young for two months before turning them over to the… creche so an older changeling can take care of them while the parents go back to work.”

“How do you… When did he… Fine!” spluttered Twilight Sparkle. “He was probably being mind-controlled by his queen when he told—”

Snips promptly interjected, “He said the hivemind only lets the queen communicate in general terms. She has to talk to them directly, ‘cause otherwise she could have just stayed at home and done the whole invasion from her hot tub.”

“She has a hot tub?” asked Twilight Sparkle, her puzzled tone quicking shifting back to suspicion as she continued, “It’s probably full of poisonous slime and ooze.”

“She likes strawberry scented bath salts,” said Sweetie Belle, “so I don’t think her tub would have any slime in it.”

“I don’t know,” said Apple Bloom. “Remember when he went streaking naked through Sugarcube Corner’s main room, wearing nothing but suds? I thought it was because changelings didn’t like baths.”

“Oh, he’s over that,” said Sweetie Belle. “Pinkie Pie said he was in the bathtub with her last night so long that he almost drowned.”

“The bathtub?” said Twilight Sparkle in a near-whisper. “With Pinkie Pie?”

“And she ties him to her bed at night so he won’t run away,” added Scootaloo.

There was an exceedingly long and quiet silence, so long that the changeling could not restrain his curiosity and peeked out from under the mattress. The circle of little ponies around Twilight Sparkle looked concerned, perhaps a little distraught at the way little strands of mane kept popping up along her back, and the somewhat dazed look in her eyes.

“She’s my probation officer,” he whispered. “Can I go now?”

* * *

Once Twilight Sparkle had chased all of the little ponies out of the jail and locked the door behind them, she turned back to the desk. Huddling behind it as if it were armor and retrieving a quill and paper as a sword and shield, she began to write while casting suspicious glances at the quiet changeling who was still trying to hide under his mattress in the cell.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” she started, her quill scratching in a familiar rhythm. “There is a changeling in Ponyville…”

She paused, looking at the paper for a long while before wadding it up and throwing it into the trash. Starting again, she raised her quill over the paper. “Dear Princess Celestia. There is at least one changeling in Ponyville…”

This time she looked at the paper for a long time before the changeling suggested, “You could say I’m in the jail.”

“Right.” She crumpled the paper and threw it away, getting out another sheet. “Dear Princess Celestia. There is a changeling in the Ponyville jail…”

“Shouldn’t that be active voice?” he asked.

“Oh, good point.” Wadding up the paper again, she pulled out another sheet. “Dear Princess Celestia. I captured a changeling today and have him imprisoned in the Ponyville Jail.”

“And I’m going to release him so he can fly home.”

“Good. And I’m going to—” Scowling fiercely, Twilight Sparkle wadded up the paper and stuffed it in the trash. “Dear Princess Celestia,” she started with a growl. “Today I captured a sneaky changeling and have him imprisoned in the Ponyville Jail. I plan to…” She paused, waving the quill in her magic. “Plan to…”

She glanced at the changeling for inspiration, and he shrugged from under his mattress armor. “Don’t look at me. Changelings don’t plan. The Queen makes our plans for us.”

“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” she growled, turning back to the paper. “I don’t know how she expected the sun to rise after she captured Princess Celestia.”

After a few moments of thought, the changeling volunteered, “She must have had a plan. It would have been a pretty dumb idea otherwise.”

Twilight Sparkle took a few more minutes to prod listlessly at her paper before saying, “I suppose she could have taken Princess Celestia’s form in order to raise the sun.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” said the changeling, scrounging around on the bed above him with his weak and flickering magic until he managed to pull over his pillow. “We can just look like ponies. We can’t take over their powers. Otherwise the Queen could have used Princess Cadenza’s powers to make Shining Armor love her instead of controlling his mind.” He cringed, thinking of just whose sister was sitting just a few yards away, but Twilight Sparkle had a look of unbreakable concentration as she played with her quill.

“She had enough power drained out of my brother to beat Princess Celestia and trap her in a cocoon. She could have mind-controlled her to raise and lower the sun.”

The changeling shuddered. “Then we would have needed to fight The Nightmare. Why do you think we attacked during the day?”

Twilight Sparkle frowned. “Could she have controlled both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?”

“Only if she wanted her brain turned to tapioca. Controlling one pony is insanely difficult. Controlling two alicorns…” He shuddered and hid under his mattress except for his eyes. “I better not talk about it.”

“Well, I…” Twilight Sparkle shook herself out of her reverie and glared at her prisoner. “You’re doing it again! You’re influencing my mind so I’ll let you out of your cell and help me write my letter so that afterwards we can go over to the library and you can check out—” She snapped to a halt, grabbing her inkwell and papers in a flurry of purple magic that knocked over the trash can and upset several nearby chairs. “I’m not fooled by your smooth words,” she snarled, backing for the jail door. “I’m going to tell Princess Celestia all about you, and she’s going to be so proud that I caught a changeling. She’ll send the Royal Guard to drag you back to Canterlot and get the truth out of you! She’ll keep you in her deepest dungeons, chained to the wall, except I don’t think the castle has any dungeons for prisoners, so we may have to keep you in a guest room. A cold, unfurnished guest room. With a draft. And no maid services! And we’ll question you every day, just the two of us alone in a room with you. And we’ll ask questions! About military stuff and your evil schemes over tea and biscuits. She has the most amazing biscuits. And cake. And tea! Yes, we’ll have tea while we question you, just the three of us, nice and close for hours and hours. What do you think about that!” she snapped, her rear end against the jail door and her mane in a springy halo of curled hairs around her face.

“Sounds… nice?” he volunteered.

“Nice? Nice!” With a whinny of frustration, Twilight Sparkle vanished out of the doorway, slamming the heavy steel door behind her with a solid clang. The heavy locks on the door clunked and clanked, then he could faintly hear the sound of departing hooves outside on the street.

After a few moments of silence, the hoofsteps returned, growing in volume until the door clunked and clanked again. Opening just a crack, a quill levitated up into the air from the desk Twilight Sparkle had been writing on. It flew through the air, wrapped in a purple magic field until it vanished out the door, which closed with the same clunks and clanks as before, and the clatter of rapidly departing hooves.

* * *

The concrete floor of the jail proved far too uncomfortable for his back end to meet his final end on, so with a muttered curse, the changeling lugged the mattress back onto the steel-framed bed, tucking in the jail sheet under the jail-comforter⁽*⁾.

(*) With a hoof-stitched title of ‘Ponyville’s Model Prisoner,’ embroidered by the Ponyville Retirement Home Quilting Society in recognition for Jailbird’s community service over the last five years of his sentence including his participation in Meals on Hooves, Homes for Equanity, and the bi-monthly blood drive.

“If I’m going to die, I don’t want to go like a bug on the floor. What happened to the changeling, Twilight Sparkle? Oh, we found it all shriveled up in the corner and threw it into the trash. They’re going to drag my dead corpse onto that wagon and throw it into some gulley in the Badlands and nopony will care.” He gave the covers one last vengeful tuck with a subdued grunt before flaring bright green with changeling magic. In moments, a familiar yellow unicorn, somewhat battered and bruised, slipped under the covers and tried to make himself comfortable for the end.

“I’m going out like a proper changeling, looking like a pony until I die. I don’t care what that crazy unicorn thinks, I don’t care if the teacher wants to examine my plumbing, and I don’t care to see another apple, be it the pony or the fruit, ever again. The world doesn’t care about me, and I don’t need to care about the world. Changelings take from the world, and I certainly don’t need anything given to me.”

With a final tug of his covers, he snuggled down and waited for the end. Despite the comforter, the chill of the evening made him tremble in the dull red and oranges of the sunset reflecting in through the cell window. He was cold, all of his limbs ached from his ping-pong match against his cell, and the lump on his head where he had smashed into the unyielding oak door was giving him such a headache.

“Here you go.” Two small aspirin pills on a pink hoof appeared in front of him when he opened his eyes, and he swallowed them with the glass of apple juice Pinkie Pie provided.

“Thank you, Pinkie Pie.” He settled back down to rest, then opened his eyes. “Pinkie Pie?”

“Yes?” The pony in question was barely a nose away, looking straight into his eyes and fluttering her eyelashes.

“How did you… What are you… Why are you in my cell?”

“Well,” she started with a deep breath, “you and Twilight were having your nasty argument, and you sounded like you were so much in pain that I ran back home and got two aspirin and then ran over to the hospital to check if it was okay to give you aspirin after mushroom poisoning and they said yes so I came back over to Sugarcube Corner to get the apple juice because when I take pills, I always take them with apple juice so they don’t get stuck in my throat and darn! I forgot my medicine at Zecora’s. Anyway, then I came over here and used the oven mits to open the door and here I am.”

He blinked. Pinkie Pie held up the pink ribbon.

He stuck out one leg.

Later that evening as the freshly-bathed changeling was settling down into his sleeping bag in Pinkie Pie’s bedroom and his roommate/probation officer was brushing her teeth (and somehow singing about it at the same time), there was time to think. It was a complex situation and a little bit frightening, but two things stood out.

He was starting to like pink.

And his stomach was hurting again.

Author's Note

Late that night in the Ponyville Golden Oak Library, Twilight Sparkle put down her frazzled quill into a pile of similarly worn feathers and regarded the last piece of paper on her desk before crumpling it up and throwing it in the direction of her overflowing trash can.

“I’m not giving up. There has to be a way to warn the Princess about Mister Tolliver… I mean the changeling in the jail without sounding like some madpony, but I’m just not seeing clearly tonight. At least he’s safely locked up, so I can get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow it will all make sense.” Capping her inkwell, Twilight stumbled up the stairs to her room and flipped back the covers to her bed, only to stop in shock and stare at what was revealed.

“What are you doing in my bed?” she shouted at the skinny stallion, who yawned in response.

“My bed,” grumbled Jailbird, groping for the missing covers.

“What?” shouted Twilight. “This is my bed, in my library! Get out!”

“It’s my bed now,” said Jailbird, pulling the covers up around his neck. “You closed the jail. Ponyville city regulations state that incarcerated prisoners such as myself may be housed in other unoccupied public buildings in the event that the jail becomes uninhabitable.”

“This building IS occupied!” shouted Twilight. “By me! And Spike!”

“Don’t drag me into this,” came Spike’s drowsy voice from his basket.

“It was unoccupied when I moved in,” said Jailbird. “But as I am a public-spirited citizen who doesn’t want our citizens sleeping in the streets, I let Spike sleep in his basket, and I’ll let you sleep downstairs on the couch.”

With a flare of purple magic, the bed and its unwelcome inhabitant became airborne. “Get out before I throw you out,” growled Twilight.

“That would be assault and battery,” came the muffled reply from under the covers, “punishable by three to six months in the jail. Which is currently closed by order of Princess Celestia’s student, so you’d have to be housed elsewhere. As the senior prisoner in the secondary jail, I get my choice of beds. I choose this one. Go sleep downstairs.”

After a few minutes, Twilight came trudging downstairs, a spare pillow and sheet towed behind her in a flickering violet aura. She settled down on the couch with a grumble and pulled the sheet up over her head.

“I hate changelings,” she growled.

Chapter 12 - Paradise Frosting

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 12
Paradise Frosting

There was something about the morning that woke the disguised changeling before Pinkie Pie’s alarm clocks. It could have been the familiar pain in his belly. It could have been the sound of pots and pans being readied downstairs in the Sugarcube Corner kitchen as Carrot and Cup Cake prepared for the morning rush. It could have been the hooting of an owl outside the window, who had peeked in and seen something he probably should not have. Or it could have been that the pink sleeping bag he was tucked into had somehow overnight gone from an occupancy limit of one to two.

If it were possible to be closer to Pinkie Pie and not have sex, he was not quite sure how that could be managed. Her nose was buried in his yellow furry neck, with both forehooves wrapped around his back, and even their tails were intertwined down in the bottom of the fuzzy sleep-sack. It was nice, but… well, it was far better than nice, trending above cuddled and bumping dangerously into erotic territory involving phrases such as ‘all night long’ and ‘never knew a weathervane could be used that way.’ If he were still able to absorb love magic, it would even be considered breakfast and lunch.

Still surprised that he was still alive, the changeling tried not to shift his position as he reached out with his magic to silently turn off each of Pinkie Pie’s alarm clocks. After all, if she reacted the same way as last morning, she would probably break his neck when they went off. Which still left one important problem.

How do I wake her up? Well, other than sex.

The question occupied some time. Despite the familiar shooting pain in his gut, nothing was pinched or had fallen asleep, except for his jailor. Even as pink as the embrace was, it did not raise his previous revulsion for the color as the last few days had. In fact, the scent of her mane was relaxing, and the little grunting noise she made while nosing into the white and red of his own disguised mane took away all of the incentive he had for attempting to escape the sleeping bag.

* * *

“It’s called a Pinkei Trap, Your Highness,” said the armored soldier as he pointed to the military Research and Development’s latest discovery. “You see, the changeling is attracted by the scent and emotions of a mare in heat. He crawls into this cloth tube here, and is promptly ensnared by the amorous female here, thus rendering him defenseless.”

“Very neat and tidy,” said Celestia, towering over the test trap and the sample subjects. “What happens then?”

“Well, we reset the trap by popping the changeling over the head and dragging him away,” said the soldier, raising the butt end of his spear and cracking the helpless changeling on the temple.

* * *

“Pinkie!” Carrot Cake paused while looking into the quiet room and the empty bed, eventually looking down at the overstuffed sleeping bag and the apologetic changeling.

“I’m trying to figure out how to wake her up without getting killed,” whispered the changeling.

Carrot stayed still for a very long time, eventually looking up from the sleeping bag to the cracked ceiling and back down to the changeling. After a few more moments of contemplation and the apparent desire for a large mug of coffee or a camera, he rolled his eyes and whispered back, “Pops, you just need to incentivize her. When I’m trying to get Cup out of bed, I tell her I’m going to make coffee.”

The changeling raised one furry yellow eyebrow in confusion and Carrot Cake smiled in a way that the changeling knew was going to be painful.

“Pinkie,” called Carrot, “aren’t you going to get ready for Mister Tolliver’s party this afternoon?”

There was a sudden yipe, a blur of pink, and the changeling found himself upside-down against the bedroom wall and wearing Pinkie Pie’s pajamas. The sounds of brushing teeth, combing mane, and face washing all came out of the bathroom simultaneously, and then Pinkie was past in a blur, shouting, “Hurry up! We need to get ready for your party!”

After turning himself back upright and checking to make sure he still had all of his limbs, the changeling winced and held a hoof to his stomach. “I’m sorry, Carrot. I don’t think I’ll be much help in the kitchen. My stomach is really bothering me this morning.”

Carrot Cake shook his head, ducking out of the doorway for a moment and returning with a large mug labelled ‘Pops - Employee of the Month’ and emitting the tantalizing scent of chamomile tea. “We’ve been around Pinkie a long time. I think it’s rubbing off.”

* * *

There was a distinct advantage of wearing a unicorn disguise, considered Pops as he drank from his personalized mug and floated fresh cupcakes out of the oven at the same time. It used up whatever leftover love he had internalized as magic at a discouraging pace, but he did not have to run around the room at the same hectic pace as Pinkie Pie. If they had both been running around the crowded room, the possibility of collision would have been a near certainty and at a velocity that might throw off subatomic particles, even though the impact would be soft and cushioned in pink.

“Pops!” she sang as she danced over to the mixer and threw in what seemed to be totally random ingredients. “Rhymes with mops and stops and hops and flops and tops!” She paused with her nose buried in his mane to take an appreciative sniff. “And you smell like crinkleberries.”

“You used your crinkleberry shampoo on me last night,” he responded. “I wasn’t even aware there were crinkleberries.”

“Don’t be silly,” she giggled as she tossed another cupcake pan onto the table and began shuffling cupcake papers into the recesses just as rapidly as a Las Pegasus gambler dealing cards. “How would they make crinkleberry shampoo if there were no crinkleberries?”

A week ago, I would have been baffled. Today it makes sense. I must be going faint from hunger, but I don’t care. I’m going out happy, with a party, and smelling of crinkleberries, whatever they are.

Pinkie Pie stopped her rapid dash around the room with a gasp. “Do you think it’s your birthday too?”

“Changelings really don’t celebrate birthdays,” said the changeling, “but I think it would be in a few weeks anyway, so we can have the party cover both!”

“Yeah!” The changeling watched Pinkie Pie dance through the kitchen with a glow in his chest that almost covered up the pain in his gut. Feeding on love only gave a shadow of the originating emotion, but causing happiness seemed to feed back through his disguise and down to the tips of his hooves. It was a wonderful sensation that he only wished he could have learned years ago instead of right before the end.

Pinkie skidded to a halt in front of him with a grin larger than ever before. “Pinatas?”

“Yes?” he promoted, trying to remember what a pinata was.

“Great!” She whipped out a checklist and marked off one box with pink icing the way normal ponies would use a pencil. “Pin the Tail on the Pony, Twister, Karaoke, a ball pit, a bounce house, or Prance Prance Revolution?”

“Yes!” he declared, deciding that a good answer was too good to throw away just because you didn’t understand the question.

That is the happiest dance that I have ever see—

One pink hoof sticking out of the whirling dance of joy snagged him into a blur of happiness that swirled around the kitchen, out into the dining area, briefly into the darkened streets, and back into the kitchen, with happy singing all the way. Vaguely, he found himself singing along, and somewhat disappointed that there were only two other ponies out on the dark streets to dance along with them, although several windows had been thrown open and happy voices had emerged. Once he was back in the kitchen and he had caught his breath, he managed to stammer out a rather brief, “That was—”

“Streamers!” cried Pinkie. “I need to get more streamers for the party. Fortunately I have streamers cached all over Ponyville for such emergencies. I’ll be right back!” There was a blur of pink, the slamming of the door, and the changeling found himself alone in the kitchen again.

After that display, I better hang on until after the party or she’s going to prop my body up at the end of the table. With a party hat.

He actually found himself whistling as he popped the cupcakes into the oven and set the timer, a bubbly emotion that swept him through the morning baking and made the pain in his belly almost ignorable. Like a pink yo-yo, Pinkie would periodically whirl through the kitchen with decorations and singing, sticking around at most for a stanza or a chorus before zipping away to parts unknown. She still kept him tied to the mixing machine, but lengthened the leash enough so that he could reach the table and call out the door to the counter when another load of cupcakes was ready for sale.

And sell they did. Between the cupcakes for the party tonight and the ones selling out front, he found his magic taxed to the limit keeping paper-lined trays of raw dough flowing into the oven and the flurry of oven mitts keeping the brown intermediate product flowing out. Pink icing flared green in his magical aura, spreading out over entire trays at once in perfect thin layers, and then perfect thicker layers once he realized how good it tasted and how much the ponies loved it. Sprinkles were applied abundantly, from natural alfalfa seeds and popped sorghum all the way to sugary crystals of honey and… well, sugar. Gumdrop tops seemed popular, until he ran out of gumdrops and Pinkie Pie went streaking out into town on a replacement mission, returning mere seconds later with enough gumdrops to placate an army. The pain in his stomach grew almost inconsequential, subdued by nearly a gallon of tea and frequent trips to the bathroom to deal with the aftermath.

Although he was always careful to tie himself back to the ribbon once he had finished and washed his hooves.

As the lunch rush was dying down and a surplus of cupcakes was cooling on the rack, something unusual slowly became clear. He watched carefully as he spread a layer of icing across the sunflower-and-applesauce cupcakes, trying to make sense of the little green sparkles that were left after the icing was applied. It was familiar somehow, and it took until the last tray had been frosted and set aside for the party until he realized what it was.

Love. I’m putting love into the frosting. I probably barely have enough love to last until the party this afternoon, and I’m burning it on cupcakes.

“Hey, Pops!” called Carrot Cake from the doorway. “We’ve hit a slack spot, and Honeybun has an gynecological appointment in a few minutes. Can you cover the counter until we get back?”

“Sure thing, Carrot,” he called back out of reflex.

“Thank you!” Carrot and Cup looked a little bedraggled when he walked out of the back room and tied himself to the cash register, both seeming more than happy to get a few minutes away from the endless line of ponies holding bits, and Cup even gave him a little kiss on the cheek before they left.

“Thank you, Mister Tolliver. You’ve been so much help lately, like Celestia herself sent you to watch over us.”

More like Shining Armor and Princess Cadenza.

He smiled back, actually meaning it. “Thank you, Missus Cake, for giving me a chance.”

It was a few minutes later as he was serving the line of smiling customers that he realized the store was empty of Cakes and Pies, although it did have a considerable number of cupcakes. All it would have taken is a quick step into another room, a changeling spell, and some anonymous pony could trot away into the distance. He could even take as many bits as he wanted out of the overflowing cash register.

Then what? Even if I could fly home and possibly squeeze out a few drops of love, it is far better to stay here and bring happiness to hundreds of ponies in my final hours.

As the afternoon sun moved through the sky, the line in front of Sugarcube Corner had thinned out to just a few ponies, then a sprinkling, and finally just one or two dropping in at a time. Pinkie Pie had left to inflate the bouncy house and load the ball pit, which she said was going to take some time, but it seemed like she had been gone forever. He missed the sound of her happy voice, the pink of her bouncing, and the smell of crinkleberries.

“Excuse me. I said I’d like a daisy muffin and a Celestia-sized coffee please.”

He blinked away the pink and looked at his next customer, a familiar purple unicorn with bleary eyes and a vicious scowl, who had a familiar small dragon standing to her side.

“And one of those!” said the little dragon, pointing into the display case with greedy eyes and a small drip of saliva from his protruding tongue. “Can I get emerald sprinkles, Twilight? Please?”

“Whatever. One of those too, Mister—” Bleary violet eyes looked up, focused onto his name tag, and blinked “—Tolliver.”

He could actually see the idea percolate through her head, being processed for content and possibilities as the various ear-flicks and eye-twitches progressed into a final strand of her distressed mane springing up with an almost audible ‘sproing!’

“Changeling!” she screamed, grabbing him in her magic and pinning him against the wall. “Spike! Take a letter! No, this is too important! Take a memo!” Little crackles of violet magic ripped across his disguise, tearing it away until he was in his original form with only the apron and the nametag to show that he had been the same yellow unicorn at the counter.

“Um, Twilight?” prompted the little dragon, poking her in the side.

“Quiet, Spike! Dear Princess Celestia, Ponyville is being invaded! By changelings! Make sure you tell her they’re changelings! Even my enchantments on the jail can’t hold them!”

“Twilight!” This is important!” Spike prodded her harder in the ribs, which seemed to only drive the panicked unicorn into grabbing her prey in a stronger grip and slamming him against the wall again in a cloud of plaster dust.

“I know this is important, Spike! We have to spread the word that there’s a changeling loose in town before…” The panicked unicorn slowed to a halt as she read the banner stretched across Sugarcube Corner’s dining area. “Come to ‘Pops’ Tolliver’s Welcome To Ponyville Sorry You’re Going To Prison Because You’re A Changeling And We’ll Miss You Party Tonight. Is this a joke?!”

“We’re going to have karaoke,” he managed to croak despite the magic that still held him pinned to the wall. “And Prance Prance Revolution. Whatever that is.”

There was a quick cheer from a pony out in the dining area, whom Twilight Sparkle glared at with unspeakable vehemence. “You knew he was a changeling?”

“Well, duh,” said a mint-green unicorn over by the window. “We all do. You need to get out of the library more often, Twilight. Besides, he’s been sleeping with Pinkie Pie for the last two days.”

Those bloodshot violet eyes swung in his direction again, and the changeling cringed. “We haven’t been having sex,” he blurted out. “She just keeps me tied to the bed. And we wash each other’s back in the bathtub.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Spike. “Twilight always makes sure my back is washed. Now, about that cupcake. I was thinking emerald sprinkles and a ruby top.”

It took considerable coaxing from the dragon and the offer of a second and third complimentary cupcake before Twilight Sparkle slouched over to a table to devour her purchase and stare. Even then, she took notes when he used his changeling magic to put his unicorn disguise back on, and kept her quill next to the paper in the event he were to do something threatening, like skimp on the cupcake icing or add extra foam to some customer’s coffee.

It felt a little creepy to be studied in that fashion, as if he were some sort of dangerous bug that needed a pin and a scientific tag. Still, he shrugged it off and continued to serve customers until Pinkie bounded through the front door and was promptly captured in the unicorn’s magic and dragged over to her table.

Changelings not only have very good hearing, but a lifetime of filtering out multiple conversations in the same enclosed area. Keeping one yellow ear turned to the two mares, the changeling continued to mind the cash register and deal with incoming customers while listening intently.

“Spike,” hissed Twilight Sparkle, “go back to the library.”

“Aww,” moaned the little dragon. “Now?”

“Yes, now!”

While the little dragon was dragging out of the bakery, the changeling grabbed one of the cupcakes from the display, dumped a heaping pile of crushed emeralds on it with two rubies on top, and floated it over to him.

From gloomy to giddy in one cupcake. Even if I can’t sense emotions any more, I can still make others happy for the next few hours, and nothing can take that away.

Once the little dragon was out of the bakery and Twilight Sparkle had given him an additional fuming glare for spoiling her pet dragon, she turned back to Pinkie Pie and hissed, “I can’t believe you slept with him!”

“Yeah, I know,” said Pinkie Pie. “It was hard.”

“Of course,” harrumphed Twilight. “I know he was manipulating you, and you fought it as hard as you could—”

“No, I mean it was really hard, and kept banging into me whenever we shifted positions.”

There was a substantial pause in the conversation to the point where the changeling actually spared the two mares a quick glance. The unicorn looked boggled, croggled, baffled, and a little perplexed.

I’m so glad I’m not the only one that Pinkie does that to.

“I’m not sure I want to know about that, Pinkie,” said Twilight Sparkle in a very slow and deliberate manner.

“Well, I thought I should ask you about it,” said Pinkie. “After all, you know everything about everything, and if anybody knows how to sleep with something that hard banging into you at night, it would be Twilight. Or Rarity. Do you want me to go ask Rarity instead?”

The marshmallow who ran screaming up the stairs? Yeah, she’s a wonderful one to ask about sex with a changeling.

He could actually hear Twilight Sparkle shudder. “No, you’re a friend, and a good friend can always be counted on to be there when you need it, no matter how embarrassing the situation.”

“Thanks, Twilight. You’re the besties! Now, when you’re sleeping, how do you keep from banging your head against a coltfriend’s horn. I mean it pokes out right there, and rubs across the top of my mane when we—”

“Horn?” The conversation in the rest of the dining area took on a distinct lowering in volume, as if suddenly there were a lot more ponies attempting to eavesdrop on the soon-to-be-interesting conversation.

“Well, duh!” said Pinkie. “What did you think?”

“Oh, thank Celestia,” said Twilight in a voice that might possibly have been heard as far as Canterlot. “I thought he was trying to have intercourse with you.”

The resulting silence was so incredibly quiet that he could hear Twilight Sparkle’s ears blushing, and it was only with the application of considerable willpower that he continued to count his current customer’s change instead of reacting.

One giggle, one chortle or snort of amusement, and there’s going to be changeling blood all over the walls.

* * *

”Your Most Royal Highness,” announced an overstuffed pony in a postal service uniform, “your student, Twilight Sparkle, has sent you the changeling that was infesting Ponyville.”

He floated over an envelope with a few grams of ash in it, which wafted away on the breeze as Celestia opened it and checked for a note.

“Well, she seems to have taken care of the problem by herself,” said Celestia.

* * *

“Well,” hissed Twilight Sparkle in a considerably quieter voice that the changeling could barely hear. “Did he?”

“Well…” said Pinkie.

“Wait!” said Twilight Sparkle. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“Okailie dokilie!”

The changeling counted under his breath until Twilight Sparkle abruptly shouted, “Pinkie! Tell me! Tell me!”

Seven. Prolonged Pinkie exposure seems to build a tolerance in the sanity of nearby ponies. I would never have gotten past three.

“Well… I wanted to…” started Pinkie. “But he said no.”

Twilight sat back in her seat with a loud thud. “I don’t get it.”

“I didn’t get it either,” said Pinkie Pie. “I’ve never felt like this around another pony before.”

“He’s not a pony,” scoffed Twilight Sparkle. “He’s a deceptive, lying, scheming changeling who is emotionally manipulating you in order to steal your love.”

“How can he steal my love if he won’t even take it when I give it to him?”

Something deep in the changeling’s gut twisted and he took a moment to slip into the back room and refill his tea. By the time he had returned, Twilight Sparkle was slouching out the door and Pinkie Pie bounced past with a kiss to his cheek. “Are you excited about your party tonight, Pops?”

Whatever gloom clung to Twilight Sparkle’s vicinity blew away like clouds when faced with the full power of the Badlands sun. “Yes, I am.”

Pinkie squealed as she dashed into the kitchen. “This is going to be the best party you have ever had in your life!”

He was still musing over her words a few hours later when the Royal Guard transport landed out in front of Sugarcube Corner again, filled to near overflowing with motionless changelings. He tried to take his mind off of his final destination by putting on a false smile and running into the back room to box up two dozen assorted cupcakes, with a few more added just for balance. He made it back to the cash register at the same time the Royal Guard corporal from before strode in the front door, his voice already raised in a parade-ground bellow.

“Carrot! We’re running late, do you have — Oh, thank you.” The guard took the box of cupcakes in his magic and popped the top open for a quick look. “Wonderful! Prompt delivery and service with a smile. A young colt like you is going to go far in life.”

To some unmarked gully in the Badlands, most probably.

Catching the guard as he turned for the door, the changeling cleared his throat. “Hey. I just wanted to say… Could you save a space on your trip tomorrow. We’ve got a changeling in town—”

He was interrupted by an impatient customer who dashed in through the door behind the guard, waving one hoof and asking, “Bathroom? You’ve got a bathroom, right?”

“Over there, behind the partition,” said the changeling with a wave of one yellow hoof, stopping in shock as the changeling galloped past at full speed in his bare chitin-covered and hole-pierced body, taking the corner with one hoof on the wall to speed his way.

“Hurry up,” called out the guard. “I told you to go before we left.”

“That was a changeling,” said the changeling, feeling much as if he had been shot by a party cannon and had not realized it yet. “A changeling. Alive.”

“Of course they’re alive,” bellowed the guard. “They’re harder to kill than cockroaches all stuffed full of love like that. We pulled one out of the wall of a house today, stuck all the way in up to his waist for the last week. Just sat there and sang showtunes, like some drunk cadet out on a three-day bender while the old grandmother in the house showed him grandfoal pictures and fed him cookies. Took forever to get him out of there.” He waved at the wagon, which displayed a few sluggish movements as one or two other changelings looked at the building and most probably were considering their own bathroom break. “They’re fat as ticks and happy as hamsters now, all bubbling over with love and sunshine, but after they get hungry, they’ll be right back to being vicious love-sucking monsters again.”

“That’s… nice.”

“Nice? Ha!” snorted the guard. “I’ve no idea what the Princess is up to, letting them go like this. Anywho, send our little buggy guest out to the transport when he’s done, would you? I’ll go distribute our inflight meal and show everypony where the emergency exits are. Get it?”

Seemingly disappointed at not getting a laugh out of his jab, the unicorn trotted back out to the transport and began distributing cupcakes, just as he had said. The changeling was so deep in thought that it took a moment to realize when the other changeling had come out of the bathroom and was poking him in the flank.

“Pops? Is that you? Hey, Pops.”

“Oh! Hi…” The changeling blinked a few times to center himself and looked at his counterpart. “Wenx. I see you survived.”

“Yeah, but my stomach hurts like crazy and I can still taste plaster.” Wenx cocked his head and squinted. “What in eggshells are you doing here, Pops? And why is there a ribbon tied onto your leg?”

“Oh. I got captured.” He tugged on the knot that secured him to the cash register. “I’m trapped here while I work off the damages.”

“You know that’s just a ribbon, right?” Wenx reached for it with his magic. “Just untie—”

“No!” Pops stopped with his hoof over the knot. “Really.”

“Uh, right,” said Wenx, backing up a step. “Well, I suppose we can talk when you make it out to the hive in a few days. See you later. My ride is waiting.”

“Just a sec!” Pops dashed back into the kitchen, returning in a few moments with a box full of cups of iced chamomile tea, each with a slice of lemon, travel lid and straw. “This should help with the stomach ache.”

Wenx looked at him with a frown until he floated over a glass at random out of the box and took a sip. “Hm. Not bad. Not bad at all.” The changeling hefted the box onto his back and turned for the door. “Thanks, Pops. We’ll see you in a few days.”

“Thank you for dining at Sugarcube Corner and have a wonderful day in Ponyville,” said Pops reflexively.

“Ponyville?” asked Wenx, holding the door open and trembling. “You’re trapped in Ponyville?”

It was amazing how fast his fellow changeling sped back to the transport and flung himself inside, even more amazing that the cups of tea in the box stayed with him during the whole trip, but there was something more important bothering Pops. Once the transport lifted off into the sky and the Royal Guard pegasi could no longer be seen, he slipped back into the kitchen and marked the time on the clock.

The absolute minimum time to pour a cup of cool tea, drop in two ice cubes and a lemon slice, put on the top, stick in the straw, and put it into the box worked out to about a minute, but somehow he had done over two dozen of them in so little time that the swinging door back to the kitchen had not even quit swinging.

Pinkie’s contagious, and I’m infected. If I go back to the hive, I could infect them all. Thousands of pink pony changelings doing impossible things. It could destroy Equestria.

Chapter 13 - The Party Begins

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 13
The Party Begins

‘Party’ was far too simple and short a word to describe what was going on in Ponyville’s streets. ‘Riot’ really did not fit either, nor ‘bash’ or even ‘explosion.’ Ponies crowded into every space on the street, with games, contests, and challenges all over the place. The ball pit had a line, the bouncy house had a line, and there was even a line in front of a pale blue unicorn’s ‘Tartar Blasters’ booth, where the prizes included toothbrushes and coupons for a free cleaning. There were barrel races and trampolines, danceoffs and five-legged races, parachutes and popcorn balls, and at least one strolling banjo player. Somehow Pinkie had managed to make a giant changeling balloon float over the street with holes in all of the limbs and no possibility of staying in the air.

Although it did.

And the food. Oh, the food! From competitive eating contests with unbelievably good barbecued corn on the cob to candyfloss on a stick, the changeling could not open his mouth without somepony sticking something in it to taste. If his stomach did not hurt so much, he would have wound up unable to waddle down the street, but even with that excuse there were still far too many things to eat. Or snack. Or sample. The entire street was a riot of happiness and joy, damped only slightly when Pinkie Pie told him that Summer Wrap-Up Festival next week was going to be bigger, and that she was going to write an extra-special invitation to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna so that they could bring him along and keep an eye on him.

* * *

”Hello, Pinkie Pie. We brought your friend as you requested.”

Both pony princesses strode side by side from the Royal Chariot into the middle of the giant celebration with a changeling bobbing in their magical fields behind them. He remained stiff and unmoving as they floated him down in front of the happy pink party pony.

“He died a few days ago, but we had him stuffed and mounted with a plush cover.”

Pinkie Pie hugged the yellow unicorn with a squeal of joy. “He’s so fluffy! Come on, Pops! We’re going to go on all of the rides, and then I’m going to take you home and snuggle you all night long! Best princesses ever!”

* * *

There were only two horned lumps in his oatmeal. One, of course, was a certain purple unicorn who stalked him through the festivities in gleeful anticipation of perhaps a dramatic speech where he would describe how he was going to take over all of Equestria by indigestion and carnival food.

The second was odd, and that was saying something for Ponyville. After the party had gotten into full swing and he was just starting to enjoy himself, Rarity slipped up to him and simply stood silent for a short while. She chewed on her bottom lip and looked as if she would have much rather been wrestling bears, making a brief attempt to speak before stopping and looking away. Finally, she lowered her head and said, “I’m sorry, Mister Tolliver.”

“I’m sorry?” asked the changeling.

“I treated you so unkindly when you came into my shop,” said Rarity, still looking at the ground. “My best friend in the world was trying to introduce her new friend, and I behaved like some sort of uncultured beast. Can you ever forgive me?”

She wants forgiveness for treating me like… me. Ponyville is weird. I might as well be honest. There’s nothing to lose now.

“You have literally nothing to apologize for, Miss Rarity,” he began. “A few weeks ago if we had been introduced that fashion, I would have been doing everything I could to twist your emotions around and milk out as much love as I could.”

A tiny wrinkle appeared on Rarity’s brow and her eyes narrowed. “Has Pinkie Pie changed you this much?”

He chuckled grimly. “Hardly. More like Shining Armor and Princess Cadenza. Whatever they did that threw us all out of Canterlot burned out my ability to sense and consume emotions. I must have been right next to the explosion because the other changelings don’t seem like they’re suffering as much.” He paused for a moment’s thought. “Or at least Wenx didn’t say anything about dying.”

“Dying?” Rarity held a hoof to her chest. “I know you were injured, but I didn’t think it was this serious.”

He shrugged. “I tried to tell everypony before, but they all thought I was lying, and frankly I can’t blame them. Without any way to tell how much love I’ve got stored away and no way to absorb any more, I could go at any time.”

I should clutch my chest and fall over right now, just to see the marshmallow panic. It would be hilarious, but Pinkie wouldn’t like it if I were to frighten her friends.

“Why that’s terrible!” The unicorn lit up her horn and waved it several times at him, giving him a tickle in his tummy as her magic washed over him. “I wish I could help, but this is really quite outside my specialty. I can’t get any kind of an abnormal reading from you other than the changeling detection spell that Princess Luna showed us in Canterlot. Perhaps if Twilight Sparkle were to—”

The changeling held up one fuzzy yellow hoof. “I don’t think she’s that interested in helping me. The first time I saw her in Ponyville, she threw me in jail and electrified the bars. The second time she nearly put me through the wall of Sugarcube Corner. Besides, she’s in heat right now, and that’s doing something weird to her brain.”

“It is not!” The muffled retort filtered through the air, coming from a nearby bale of straw with two strategic eyeholes and a violet horn poking out.

“Well,” started Rarity with a glance at her friend’s hiding spot. “We all were traumatized by what your queen did to Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, but a good friend should be willing to help anypony… or creature who needs assistance. Twilight Sparkle is a very powerful unicorn, as well as a very good friend of mine, and if anypony can help you, she can. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a few moments, there’s a handsome young gentledrake who was wanting a dance. I’ll be right back.”

Watching Rarity trot away with a spring in her step was a little like watching the last lifeboat row away from a sinking ship, which did not help when the nearby bale of straw shuffled over to stand next to him. It made a poor replacement for the elegant young unicorn mare, who was promptly set upon by the infant dragon he had been so terrified about before. He and the bale of straw watched the mismatched pair swirl into a vigorous country jig across the grassy dance floor until the relative silence was broken by a quiet cough.

“They seem really happy,” said the bale of straw.

“How could I tell?” said the changeling. “I can’t sense emotions any more. Weren’t you listening?”

It took until the second song before the bale asked, “Where’s Pinkie Pie?”

“Chimichanga eating contest,” he responded. “I couldn’t bear to watch. My stomach hurt too much.”

“Oh.” The bale of straw rustled for a moment as the purple horn withdrew. Eventually there was a quiet pop of teleportation and a considerably chastised and somewhat ruffled Twilight Sparkle appeared next to him. “I still hate you,” she said with a low growl. “You’re doing something to induce heat in my friends, just so you can get inside their heads and steal their love.”

“I think the only thing in my head is confetti,” said the changeling. “I still get these little pink flecks flying out when I breathe sometimes. I lost count of how many times Pinkie Pie shot me with that thing. Although it must have made me smell good. Everypony keeps sniffing me, like I’m some exotic flower. And then they try to nibble.”

“Sniffing?” said Twilight Sparkle. She leaned over with her horn glowing softly and took a cautious sniff of her own, ending in a sharp cough. “The detection spell is picking up a lot more non-aromatic organic volatiles than you should be emitting. I wonder if maybe the concussions shocked your pheromone glands into activity.” Twilight’s nose wrinkled up as she swept her magic over the changeling several more times, each wave of her horn causing a more intensive look of concentration on the thoughtful unicorn. “If you’re starving, that would be a way for you to induce positive emotions in surrounding ponies. It could be an instinctive reaction.”

“That… actually that’s possible. We don’t have any conscious control over our scents.” The changeling considered while nodding. “And since I can’t sense emotions, whatever might have triggered my pheromones doesn’t know to turn them off.”

“I can devise a spell to solve the problem,” said Twilight Sparkle with a frown of concentration. “It would have to be fairly complicated to interact with a mare’s hormonal system and counter the pheromonal interaction. It could take weeks.”

“Or you could just get a potion from the zebra,” said the changeling. “She apparently has already made a bunch from some claw she found out in the forest.”

“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle. “That’s… well, if you want… darn.” She glared at him briefly before another idea caused her face to light up in a grin and her horn to glow with magic. There was a silent flash of light that dazzled the changeling for a moment and he quickly patted himself to make sure none of his body parts had been forcefully removed. Twilight Sparkle looked unbelievably smug, taking one step forward and deliberately burying her nose into his red-and-white striped mane with a giant sniff.

“Ah-HA! Nothing!” she declared with a happy little wriggle of her tail. “Much simpler. My deodorizing spell worked perfectly. Any volatile organics you’re giving off are being magically deactivated for the next few days, so you won’t make any more mares go into heat and start having dreams about dragging you into the library and tying you to — Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Rainbow Dash!”

The unicorn reached out with her magic a considerable distance farther than the changeling could have tried, grabbing a passing multicolored pegasus by the tail and dragging her down to their little corner away from the crowds.

“Sniff him!” declared Twilight Sparkle.

“Uh… Twilight, are you feeling okay?” asked Rainbow Dash, backing up a pace while glancing back and forth between Twilight and the disguised changeling.

“Go ahead! It’s perfectly safe. Watch.” The unicorn buried her nose in his candy-striped mane again with a deep and energetic sniff.

“Well, if you say so.” The pegasus stuck her nose into his mane on the other side and gave a sniff, then a much deeper sniff with a matching frown. “He doesn’t smell like anything, Twilight. What gives?”

While the pegasus was sniffing him again, Twilight Sparkle fairly leapt around in some weird display of ecstatic unicorn enthusiasm, having produced a sheet of parchment and a quill from somewhere and topping the whole dance off with a series of rapid-fire questions.

“Rainbow, are you experiencing any wing positional shifts? Atrial tachycardia? Intrusive thought of an erotic nature? Unbounded libido? Paroxysmal positional vertigo syndrome? Synesthesia? Involuntary abdominal contractions? Itching? Spontaneous keratinous degeneration?” The pegasus sneezed and Twilight Sparkle flinched, but was cut off before she could ask any more questions.

“Sheesh, Twilight. I just got some mane stuck up my nose. Relax and give Pinkie’s coltfriend a little space. He smells just fine.”

“Coltfriend?” Twilight Sparkle’s pupils shrank to tiny pinpoints as she put on an obviously false grin. “No, no, no, no! He’s not Pinkie’s coltfriend. He’s a hippoarthropodic adaptive creature with substantial pseudologia characteristics using pheromones to alter the underlying pharmacological stability of our trust-based relationship within the domain of our rural peer group.”

“I think she means I’m a lying changeling,” said the changeling to an obviously confused Rainbow Dash. “Because I was leaking pheromones all over town and sending your friends into heat.”

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash took another sniff of his mane. “You don’t smell like heat or pherowhatsits. You don’t even smell like Pinkie’s crinkleberry shampoo.”

The changeling pointed at Twilight Sparkle. “Unicorn!”

“Hi girls!” Pinkie Pie bounced into their discussion with a chimichanga flavored kiss right on the lips for the disguised changeling. “I won the contest! It was easy since Big Mac wasn’t there and everypony else had been eating so many yummy cupcakes that they couldn’t eat very many chimichangas so I thought we should have cupcake eating contest but they already had the chimichangas out so we ate them and I won like I said but we’re going to have a cupcake eating contest next and I wanted all of my friends to be there with me now that you’re done sniffing Pops’ mane unless you’d rather have a mane-sniffing contest.” She buried her nose in the white-and-red striped mass and took a deep breath. “Hey. Why don’t you smell like crinkleberries any more?”

“I fixed him,” said Twilight Sparkle with a broad grin.

Pinkie took a quick look underneath the changeling in question. “No you didn’t. He still has his—”

“Fixed as in made me stop spreading pheromones,” said the changeling quickly, “not fixed like a pet, Pinkie.”

Don’t give Twilight Sparkle any ideas.

“Ohhh.” Pinkie rubbed his aching tummy, which gave him a sudden urge to wave a back leg. “So your tummy doesn’t hurt any more and we can go compete in the cupcake eating contest! This is great! Come on!”

To Twilight Sparkle’s credit, she did try to explain further during their pel-mel flight through the street party, and before the cupcake eating contest started, and even with a mouth full of cupcake. He could not help but enjoy the young unicorn’s frustration, filled with spluttering bits of cupcake and constant attempts to convince Pinkie that her ‘friend’ was in fact… well, what he really was. Even the pain in his gut faded into the background as he watched her fume and fuss. A compassionate smile concealed his vindictive pleasure, all the way until the end of the cupcake eating contest when Twilight Sparkle stood looking at the last cupcake with a peculiar quirk to her lips, as if she tasted something familiar.

“I knew it! They’re made out of love.” Twilight Sparkle turned the cupcake around in her magic, the little sparkles of green in the frosting obvious in the outdoor lighting as her own grin began to grow to an unnatural degree.

“Attention everypony! This is important!” shouted Twilight Sparkle, leaping up onto the table and waving the cupcake over her head. The music stopped, all of the dancing ponies nearby looked at the table, and the awards for the cupcake eating contest ground to a halt as she continued.

“The cupcakes are full of love!”

The crowd cheered, and Twilight gained a little tic in the corner of one eye. “No, I mean they’re full of love! The frosting has love in it!”

“Don’t be silly, Twilight,” giggled Pinkie Pie as she bounced up on the table with a tray of cupcakes. “Everything we make at Sugarcube Corner is full of love. And sugar! Cupcakes for everypony!”

“Are you just a little upset at coming in third, Twilight Sparkle?” said the changeling.

“Yes! No! Aaaahhh!” With a thunder of hooves and a disparaging cry, Twilight Sparkle dashed through the crowd and in the general direction of the library, closely followed by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. The crowd chuckled, but in a good-natured fashion as if the explosion of emotions from the young mare were a common event. The changeling accepted his fourth-place prize (a cupcake, of course), and made a brief speech before turning back to the festivities and trying to figure out what to do next.

Pinkie Pie was right. This was the most fun he had experienced in his entire life. For just a few hours, he could pretend he was not some hated and feared bug trying to disguise himself as somepony better. Losing his emotional sense was the best thing to happen to him, even if it meant he was going to die in gruesome agony tonight sometime when he ran out of love. He licked the icing off the cupcake as he thought, although it probably did not gain him back the five minutes of life he had put into it.

“Hey, Pops?” A half-dozen or so energetic little ponies cascaded up to his hooves, carrying balloons and wearing considerable frosting across their faces. Apple Bloom and Snips were in the lead, appearing as if they had been competing in a youthful cupcake eating contest of their own. Somehow, most of them had managed to get pink icing all the way up on their foreheads, while Snips sported a gumdrop on the end of his horn.

“Have you seen Miss Cheerilee?” asked Scootaloo. “We wanted to see if she’d help collect grasshoppers tomorrow for Miss Fluttershy’s trout pond as extra credit towards our Biology class, but we haven’t seen her since school was out on Friday.”

“Ah ain’t seen Big Mac since then neither,” said Apple Bloom. “Not since he went over to work on Miss Cheerilee’s leaky pipes.”

“And we only have one more day in the weekend,” said Sweetie Belle. “If Scootaloo doesn’t get some extra credit points for Biology class, she’s going to have to stay after school next week. She could miss getting her cutie mark with us!”

“I know! I know!” shouted Snails, jumping so high that the gumdrop impaled on the end of his horn bounced perilously close to the the changeling’s nose. “Pops can go with us instead. He’s buggy like, and probably knows where all of the good bugs are hiding.”

* * *

While watching the changeling out in the forest clearing, the students whispered to each other in low, hushed tones.

“He’s sure is attracting bugs, Snips,” said Snails.

“I’ve never seen somepony hold that still for so long,” said Sweetie Belle.

“I just wish he’d attract something other than flies,” said Snips with a glance upwards. “And buzzards.”

* * *

“Tomorrow may not be the best time,” said the changeling. “The Royal Guard is taking me back to my hive.”

Stiff as a board and thrown in the back of their wagon to be dumped in some dry and empty gully.

“But they don’t show up until late in the afternoon,” protested Sweetie Belle. “By then, Pinkie Pie normally gets off work and can help us, but she doesn’t like collecting grasshoppers.”

“They bite your lips,” said Apple Bloom. “Snips is too much of a chicken to pick one up with his magic, and Snails just plays with them.”

“They’re very complicated creatures,” protested Snails.

“What about Sweetie Belle?” asked the changeling. “I’ve seen her pick up things with her—”

“They blow up,” said Sweetie Belle morosely. “Or catch on fire. Or both.”

“Oh.” The changeling regarded the circle of plaintive eyes surrounding him and swallowed back a lump. “I suppose. If I’m still around after work tomorrow, I’ll go with you to collect bugs for… What were you doing with them again?”

“We feed them to the trout in Miss Fluttershy’s pond,” declared Snips. “They jump to the surface and grab ‘em as fast as we can dump the jar.”

* * *

”Wow.” The group of students watched in amazement as the last few ripples in the pond calmed down and the still surface of the water reasserted itself. “They just gobbled ‘em up like Pinkie Pie eating popcorn. Do we have any more bugs?”

“One more,” said Twilight Sparkle, hefting the dead changeling in her magic and tossing him out into the pond, where a massive swirl in the water and the flip of one huge fin was the only sign of his demise.

“Ooooo,” said the little students. “That was so cool. Do you think we can find any more changelings?”

Chapter 14 - The Party Ends

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 14
The Party Ends

The changeling watched the little students trot away into the crowd of partygoers while trying to maintain his far-too-false smile. He had tried not to think of the problem while enjoying himself at the party, but their simple request to hunt bugs had brought it right to the forefront. Tomorrow, all of the happiness he was bringing to the town today would be wiped away, just like he had never existed.

No, that was not right. There would be changes from his brief visit. His death would hit those little ponies particularly hard. Little ones always considered their elders to be somewhat immortal, and the grief they broadcast when that fallacy was revealed could be felt for miles. A funeral was as close to changeling repellant as could be imagined. For Pinkie…

Tomorrow morning, Pinkie Pie was going to wake up with a corpse next to her bed.

It would be hard… difficult for her to manage, but she had her friends. When Twilight Sparkle had run away for her little breakdown, her friends had been running right behind her to provide comfort. He had never been able to count on a friend when he was out harvesting love or even in the hive. It was a changeling eat changeling world wherever he had been, and successfully stealing love meant the resulting pain was left far behind as he went to a new assignment. Love was to be stolen, pain was to be inflicted. Take and give.

Even though it had felt so good seeing his imaginary nemesis prove to have hooves of clay, there had been a tiny stab of pain in his heart every time he thought about hurting the lonely bookworm in the library tree with only a baby dragon for company. Driving her away in order to protect his food source would have been a natural reaction for him a few weeks ago, but now it only brought the words of the Royal Guard echoing through his head in endless repetition.

…but after they get hungry, they’ll be right back to being vicious love-sucking monsters again.

He could not just run away into the Everfree Forest, even if Pinkie Pie was not waiting there with her infernal cannon. The happy and loving ponies would form search parties to go after him, possibly getting hurt or killed themselves. It was all very uncomfortable to think about, but there was very little time left to think.

“Pardon me. Mister Tolliver?” The elegant unicorn from before peered hesitantly around the corner where the changeling had taken refuge with his thoughts. “I just have a few minutes before the next dance. Where did Pinkie, Rainbow and Twilight go?”

“To the library.” The changeling intentionally looked away from the tall library tree in the distance and tried to maintain a cheerful demeanor. Tried and failed, that is. Rarity responded, but he had sunk too deep in his thoughts to hear her. Ponyville was an insane place, filled with insane ponies, but he had started to appreciate their particular brand of insanity, particularly the pink variety.

I don’t want to die. Not this way. I had always thought I would die in service to the hive or be disposed of after becoming useless. Now for the first time in my life, I’m bringing happiness to others instead of sucking it away from them. I see why Pinkie Pie enjoys it so much, and I don’t want it to stop. I want to keep bringing happiness to others, just like her, but I can’t. I’m going to die. I’ll never help those crazy little ponies find their cutie marks, or find out what a crinkleberry is, or even why Pinkie Pie can see me for what I really am and still…

“Still what, Mister Tolliver?” asked Rarity after a suitable pause.

“I was talking out loud?” asked the changeling.

“Quite.” Rarity shuffled her hooves in a discreet fashion and looked towards the dance floor where the young dragon was holding two paper cups full of punch and practically floating above the grass. “Perhaps you would join us on the dance floor, Mister Tolliver. There are quite a few young mares who asked about—”

“I can’t,” said the changeling. “Look, when your friends come back, I’d like you to pass along my apology to Twilight Sparkle. I was…” To Rarity’s credit, she did not contribute any suggestions while he fidgeted. “I was a changeling to her,” he finally finished. “The town has been so nice to me even after they knew who I was. I don’t want anypony to see me die, so I’ll just go back to the jail and lock myself in the cell.”

“Umm…” Now it was Rarity’s turn to seem uncomfortable. “I’m afraid Twilight had to repurpose the jail back to being a jail in order to get Mister Jailbird out of her house before, and these are her exact words, ‘Before I do something criminally stupid and wind up with foal.’”

“Yeah,” muttered the changeling, “he doesn’t deserve that. I’m the one who triggered her hormones. My pheromones,” he added at Rarity’s curious look. “Because I’m starving, I’ve apparently been putting out pheromones that trigger heat in any adult mare I’ve been around, but Twilight Sparkle fixed that.”

“I was wondering what was going on with my friends.” Rarity twitched her tail and glanced back out at the dance floor where the next song was just getting started and the little dragon appeared to be getting impatient. “Mister Tolliver, permit me to make a suggestion. Enjoy yourself at the party, and I shall give you my full assurances that I shall find you a perfectly acceptable location to await whatever happens tomorrow. Everything will work out in the end. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

The changeling eyed her suspiciously. “You know that type of promise only brings pain.”

“Trust me.” Rarity fairly glowed with a broad smile that made her eyes sparkle. “You won’t regret it.”

~ ~ ~ ♡ ~ ~ ~

“I’m going to regret this.” The changeling muttered the words repeatedly as he trudged along after Rarity with a sleeping baby dragon on his back. The moon and stars in the cloudless sky provided a pale light as they walked through the small town, but the occasional street lamp kept him from bumping into things in the shadows, most probably things that should not be bumped into. He had begun repeating the words when the party had finally broken up, and continued even after Rarity had enlisted his assistance to carry the baby dragon back to his home. “Twilight Sparkle is going to—”

“My friend will listen to your apology, Mister Tolliver. Stop worrying.” Rarity continued to trot alongside him with considerable swishing of her tail until she added, “Spike was so much a gentlecolt at the party tonight, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” He shifted his pace slightly to keep the somewhat warm dragon from sliding off his back. It was difficult trying not to think about how terrified he had been of Spike just a day ago, which probably explained his lack of tact as he continued, “You’re not planning on mating with him, are you?”

Seeing no response other than a far-off look in the mare’s eye, he added, “Interspecies romance never works. Take it from a professional. The differences are too great.”

“Oh, so you have attempted to romance a pony as a changeling then, Mister Tolliver?” replied Rarity with just a hint of frost in her voice. “Other than Pinkie Pie, of course.”

“I have not. Um… Sex doesn’t count,” he added in an uncomfortable outburst.

“Who said anything about sex?” Rarity flipped her mane back and smiled. “Spike is an extraordinary friend, who cares deeply about me right down to the tips of his claws. He has a fire in his heart that no stallion could possibly match, and there are times when I wonder…” That sly smile only grew, and she stole another glance at him as they walked. “Tell me, Mister Tolliver. Have you ever truly cared for another creature who cares for you in return, just the way you are? Even a pet?”

He had to think about it, but only for a short time. “No. Pets don’t give off enough love to sustain a changeling, and nopony could possibly love a changeling once they know who they are.”

Rarity’s only response was a quiet snort.

True to her word, the crazy unicorn in the library actually listened while he apologized, and although it felt good somewhere in his chest to watch her discomfort at trying to apologize in return, he squelched the feeling. Twilight Sparkle was properly civil while she tucked her sleeping dragon into his bed, promising not to write anything drastic to their pony Queen that might result in perhaps a large celestial body being used to beat a certain changeling into the ground before dawn. In return, she extracted a non-Pinkie promise from the changeling that in the unlikely event he did not die a horrible gruesome death from starvation overnight, that he would voluntarily surrender to the Royal Guards and allow himself to be carried off to the hive with the rest of the changelings, where at least nopony would have to watch him die.

It should have been a fair deal. It sent him where he supposedly wanted to go in the first place, provided that he survived that long, but something bothered him about the deal in a long and constant itch that only emerged when Rarity was escorting him away from the library tree.

“What about Pinkie Pie?”

Rarity smiled an enigmatic smile that would not have been out of place on Queen Chrysalis. “What about her? You said yourself that interspecies romances are doomed to failure.”

“I know that.” He scowled and kicked a pebble down the pathway. “I’ve seen several, and they’re about as one-way as gravity. Changelings can be loved, but they can’t love back. Even producing offspring among changelings is a fairly reluctant affair that the Queen dictates. Once the hive has enough love to sustain a new changeling, she picks two likely changelings, stuffs them full of love so they can spawn, and that’s about it. Afterwards, he goes back to harvesting or whatever his job was and she sits around until the little grub is born and weaned enough for the creche. We spend so much time trying to pull love out of others that we can’t push like you ponies do. Well, except for the queen, and when a harvester puts their collected supply of love into the hive storage.”

“Sounds a little like bees,” said Rarity. “Or maybe bats.” She eyed him in the moonlight as they walked. “Have you? I mean… mated?”

“With Pinkie? No. She offered when she was in heat, but…”

“You turned her down.” The way Rarity said it, the phrase was more of an award than a question. “It takes a true gentlecolt to refuse a mare in the grip of her hormones.”

“Or a dying changeling,” he added. “There was no purpose in having sex with her. Without my ability to absorb emotions, there was really no point.”

“Diet sex,” said Rarity with a giggle. “And I thought Pinkie Pie was solely interested in calories.”

Even as depressed as he was feeling, he could not help but giggle along with her. “After getting to know her over the last few days, I’m not sure if I could survive sex with her.”

“Pinkie Pie does tend to throw herself head-over-hocks into anything she does,” said Rarity as she tried to suppress the last of her laughter. “She’s never had a coltfriend, you know. Well, for more than one date. What I was asking, Mister Tolliver, is if you had ever been… well, I suppose from what you said, changelings don’t get married. If you had ever considered taking a mate.”

“Me?” He stopped in the middle of the dark path. “Why?”

“Because Pinkie Pie is my best friend, Mister Tolliver. I can see things about her that nopony else can. When she talks about you, there is a sparkle in her eyes that I have never seen before. There has always been a darkness about her inner self that all the light and candy in the world cannot quench. She brings joy for so many, but she has never been loved in a romantic and passionate way in return, and at times I’ve worried about that absence.”

“Me?” The changeling shook his head violently in a cascade of red and white mane. “I don’t love her; I’m just clutching onto her in some doomed reaction to starvation like she’s a little pink hive of one. Changelings steal love, not give it.”

“Since you cannot steal love any more, are you really a changeling, Mister Tolliver?” Rarity sat there in the moonlight with a faint shimmer running down her mane, looking suspiciously like Princess Celestia for a moment. “My friend Pinkie Pie is giving you a gift that you cannot refuse, and like it or not, she loves you. In her own Pinkie way,” added Rarity rather quickly. “She loves everypony, but tonight when I saw her with you, I saw something different than I have ever seen during all of the years I’ve known her. Do you understand, Mister Tolliver?”

“Changelings have sixteen different words for love,” said the changeling, “but nothing for that.”

“Then Pinkie Pie will just have to create a new word,” said Rarity, walking down the path again while flicking her tail from side to side. “Just remember. Pinkie Pie has always been the happiest pony in Ponyville, but if you make her unhappy— Rarity’s eyes flashed in the darkness, suddenly looking very predatory “—I shall end you.”

* * *

They found Pinkie Pie in the middle of a small group of townsponies packing the party games and rides back into their containers. One game had not yet been packed up, and Pinkie had stuck her head into the mesh cage in order to call out to the last pony inside.

“Rainbow Dash! You get out of the ball pit right now!”

“You can’t make me! I like it here.”

Rarity leaned over to the changeling and whispered, “Rainbow is always like this whenever Pinkie Pie throws a party with a ball pit. Once during a cutecinara, she was ‘Rainbow Shark’ at the bottom of the pool with a cardboard fin and the rather annoying habit of chasing the other little foals around while biting at them.” Rarity paused. “They did seem to enjoy her antics, though. Have you ever been in a ball pit, Mister Tolliver?”

“No, I can’t say that I have.” The changeling eyed Rarity and backed up a step. “You’re not going to throw me in there, are you?”

With a shake of her head and a sly smile, Rarity continued, “Pinkie Pie taught me that life is too short to take it seriously. You have to grab opportunities to live as they come around, because you can never be certain they will ever show up again before you die. She may be crude at times, or incomprehensible, but if you have only a short time to live, she will pack more life into those few minutes than anypony else could in a century.”

“So you’re going to throw me in the ball pit,” said the changeling.

“Of course not!” said Rarity. “How gauche. I would never enforce my will on somepony in that fashion, no matter how badly they need it. If your life is nearing the end, you should be voluntarily seizing whatever opportunity you can to live your life to the fullest extent you possibly can. Seize the day, Mister Tolliver, for it shall never pass this way again.”

“So you’re not going to throw me into the ball pit?” asked the changeling.

“I promise, I’m not going to throw you into the ball pit,” said Rarity.

“Good.” The changeling eyed the ball pit and the polychromatic pegasus rolling around inside while tossing balls at Pinkie Pie. “Although it looks like fun—”

“Oh, Pinkie Pie,” caroled Rarity, taking a step back, “Mister Tolliver has never been in a ball pit before and says that it really looks like fun. Do you think you could—”

There was a blur of pink, a sensation of rapid motion, and the cry of “Cowabunga!” as the changeling found himself submerged in a multicolored flood of plastic balls.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

He wanted to be depressed while walking back to Sugarcube Corner alongside Pinkie Pie. After all, he was still going to die of starvation sometime soon, and he was still tethered with that length of pink ribbon. The problem with trying to be depressed was that his memories were still filled with the rainbow of multicolored plastic balls being flung vigorously around the inside of the ball pit by Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and himself. He had laughed himself silly until his ribs hurt as they threw and dove, a joyous occasion only brought to an end from fatigue and the realization that most of the balls had been siphoned out by the packing crew during their battle. It was made only funnier at the thought of what he would look like after their battle if he had been in his natural form, with all of the holes in his chitin filled with little multicolored plastic balls.

“That was so much fun,” giggled Pinkie Pie, bumping shoulders with him. “Next time we need to see about getting Rarity in the pit too.” There was a peculiar stutter in Pinkie Pie’s step, but when the changeling looked, everything seemed perfectly normal. She was just as bouncy, smiling, and happy as ever, but there was a certain air about her that he was just beginning to recognize, even though it frightened him a little. He walked while she bounced along at his side, the tattered pink ribbon tying them together swaying with every hop, until he could not stop from asking the question that rattled around in his head like loose confetti.

“You’re not happy, are you?”

“Of course I’m happy!” said Pinkie Pie with a deliberate bounce. “Why shouldn’t I be happy?”

“The party’s over,” said the changeling. “Everypony’s going home, the games are all packed up, and… I’m not going to be here for the next party.”

The series of bounces that propelled Pinkie Pie began to lose altitude, eventually turning into a slow trudge to his side. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered. “The party always ends.”

“Everything ends,” said the changeling, stopping under a streetlight.

“No, I mean it ends!” sniffed Pinkie Pie, stopping and leaning her face into the changeling’s fuzzy yellow coat. “I want the happiness to go on forever and ever in a big fuzzy happy ball of joy that fills you up and up and up and never goes away, but it always does. Even when I’m with my friends, they all go home after the party, and…”

“You’re all alone?” asked the changeling with a sudden pang of homesickness.

“Yes!” filtered out in a somewhat muffled fashion from where she had buried her nose into his neck in a damp embrace. “I can hardly wait to see them again and I start planning the next party the minute I get home, but Missus Cake has Mister Cake and all I have is Gummy. He loves me, but it just isn’t the same, because he’s a gator and I’m a pony. Do you know how that feels, Pops?”

After a brief hesitation, the changeling cleared his throat and said, “Not until this week. Ever since I was an itty bitty buggie, no matter where I went, I could always feel all of the rest of the changelings in the Hivemind right about—” he pointed at his breastbone “—there. Now they’re all gone, and all I have is… a crazy pink pony.”

“I’m sorry.” Pinkie snuffled and wriggled around for a warmer spot on his neck. “You feel so alone and there’s nothing I can do to make you feel better.”

Suppressing his first practiced response, as well as the second and third, the changeling said, “No, you’re wrong. I’m wrong. When I was all alone in the hospital, you were there with me. And when I was alone in the jail, you took me home so I could be with you. You only shot me because I betrayed your trust and broke a promise.”

“I had a responsibility,” said Pinkie in a muffled fashion from her comfortable spot nuzzled into his warm neck. “We’re the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. We protect Equestria.”

“And I’m…” The changeling trailed off in thought before continuing in a near whisper. “I’m not anything. Changelings change. It’s our nature. We’re like those three crazy little ponies, doing anything we can in order to get what we want, but when we find it, we don’t know what to do. Even if we blunder into it by accident, we never return to the same place twice, so we would never know.”

“So who are you then?” Pinkie Pie backed up a step and touched a hoof against his cheek, brushing away a tear.

“I’m part of the hive.” The changeling pressed a trembling hoof to his chest. “I was part of the hive. I’m part me and part us, only since my connection to the hivemind was destroyed, I’ve only been me.”

“There’s no us?” Pinkie Pie attempted to blink back tears, but one huge droplet rolled down her cheek and fell to the dark dirt of the road.

“There can’t be any us, Pinkie. Changelings take love. We can’t give it.”

Where did she get that cannon?

“I thought you liked me,” said Pinkie Pie, still trying and failing to blink away tears, although the dark muzzle of the immense cannon never stopped tracking the changeling’s nose. “You could have tried to run away a dozen times, but you stayed and you helped me in the kitchen and you had fun at the p-p-party and I thought you were getting over me shooting you in the face so many times b-b-but now…”

Say something good or you’re going to be splattered all over Ponyville.

“I do like you, Pinkie,” he said, grabbing for the first thing that floated up in his soon-to-be-splattered mind. “More than any other pony or changeling I’ve ever met. You’re not like any other mare in the… wait a minute, that’s from our training. Give me a second.”

“Your training?” One pink hoof moved slightly, pulling the firing lanyard on the cannon taut.

“Do you want me to lie to you?” he blurted out in a panic. “I can do that. I’ve lied to everypony over my life.”

There was a blaze of green fire and a Ponywood movie star stood there, his sparkling blue eyes glittering in the warm glow from the nearby streetlight. “Frankly, my love, I think you look ravishing in the moonlight.”

A second blaze of green fire revealed a young college stallion with short-cropped mane and a diploma for a cutie mark. “I’d love to study biology with you tonight, dearest. Particularly since that big test is coming up.”

A third flare of green and the Ponyville road contained a Royal Guard, who stood casually with a warm smile and a dimple on one cheek. “Why, yes, I do guard Princess Celestia. Why don’t we take a walk and I’ll tell you about her.”

Green fire flashed again and a furry Rushian unicorn with a distressed coat stood on the road and nodded at Pinkie. “Evening, Miss Pie. Could I ask for the favor of your company for drinks and some fooling around?”

He stood and panted for a moment while looking down the barrel of the cannon until a very small and distant voice called out, “Do Rainbow Dash!”

“Go to bed, Scootaloo,” he called back into the night.

“Please?” drifted down the small voice again.

Heaving a sigh, the changeling flared with an intentionally polychromatic flare of magic and took the form of the trim colorful pegasus. “Better?” he called back into the small town.

Trying to ignore the distant sounds of cheering, ‘Rainbow’ turned back to Pinkie Pie. “Better?”

“No.” Pinkie Pie seemed to have deflated worse than the bouncy house, the giant pile of magenta mane just sagging down both sides of her face instead of her tangled curls. “The truth hurts.”

“That’s why we were taught to lie.” He lowered his head and looked at the ground. “I never cared about hurting anypony before.”

Abruptly, Pinkie shoved the party cannon to one side and turned her back on him. “Fly away.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “Go away. Leave. Fly home.”

He crouched and spread his wings, looking up into the moonlit sky which seemed to beckon him. They were the words he had been waiting for. And they stung like blades shoved beneath his skin.

“If you love someone, set them free,” he whispered. “If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.”

“More of your training?” said Pinkie Pie in a low, gravelly voice, still hunched over and facing away from him.

“Eh… Yes, although it was supposed to be used to get away from an overly clinging lover.” The changeling looked at the moon again before tucking his wings away and trying to look back at Pinkie. “You know, like ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. How might I compare thee to a summer’s night?”

“Day,” said Pinkie Pie, looking up with those impossibly blue eyes. “Summer’s day. Why are you still here?”

“I’m afraid I’m as bad at flying away as I am at poetry. Besides, I ate so much at the party, I don’t think I could get airborne.” He looked down at his tummy and pouted. “Rainbow Dash looks pregnant.”

“You liked the party?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“It was fantastic,” he admitted. “And I’m not lying. I’ve never been so happy in my life. I just… don’t want to see you unhappy.”

“If you left, you wouldn’t have to see me unhappy.”

“I would know.” He swallowed and blazed with green fire again, reappearing in his yellow unicorn stallion disguise. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

* * *

The air in Sugarcube Corner felt flat and stale as the two of them lugged the party cannon inside, up the stairs, and shoved it into Pinkie Pie’s closet. Even the bubbles in the bathtub afterwards seemed dull and listless, although it did bring Pinkie’s pet gator out to attempt to cheer them both up, or at least that was what Pinkie said Gummy was trying to do. His own mind was filtering down a completely different path.

It looks like an alligator.

No, that’s silly. Alligators are not found in the bathtub. It’s a bath toy.

It’s not a bath toy. It blinked.

Correction. Most alligators are not found in the bathtub. This one is. It’s unique, just like Pinkie.

He had seen alligators before. They were greenish, large, and had more teeth than they should. This one was green, smallish, and had no teeth at all. It also clamped down on Pinkie Pie’s mane as she worked the scrub brush through his own mane, allowing him a very distracting look at its impassive face while she scrubbed and rinsed. It was fascinating how Pinkie managed to hold the scrub brush in her teeth and talk without stopping more often than to say “Rinse” or “Bad Gummy! No biting!”

But as the bath finished and they dried each other off, the constant chatter slowly faded away into a glum silence again. Due to his shorter mane and less drying time needed, the changeling managed his toothbrushing at the small sink first, excusing himself to tidy up around the bedroom while Pinkie finished her bathroom chores. As he tucked the covers in on Pinkie’s bed and arranged his pink sleeping bag for his last night, one thought burned in his mind with a pain worse than his stomach.

I never told her I’m dying. I told everypony else but her, so she must know, but she deserves to hear it from me.

“I’m sorry,” filtered in by way of the open door as Pinkie poked her nose into the bedroom, somewhat camouflaged by the preponderance of pink paint in her vicinity. “Whatever I did, I promise I won’t do it again if you’ll just stay. Please?”

“I have to go tomorrow,” he replied, trying his best to avoid looking at those dangerous eyes. “I really don’t have a choice. I promised.”

“And breaking a promise…” Pinkie trailed off with a plaintive sniff. “Will you come back?”

He could feel that sucking vacuum of emptiness around her, the dichotomy of being the happiest pony in Equestria as well as the most lonely. The bulwark of friendship she had built with the entire town, from those other strange mares to the Cakes to everypony she threw a party for, was the only thing keeping her from slipping into that dark abyss, allowing her to dance her way around the edge of destruction and prevent others from being claimed by its depths.

“Changelings never return,” he managed to choke out. “Never. Even if we want…”

Pinkie Pie curled up into her bed and turned out the light while the little alligator scuttled under the bed. The changeling just stood there in the darkness, not even tethered by the thin pink ribbon while a poem from his training forced its way out of his mouth despite his best efforts.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.”

“Seize the day,” whispered Pinkie Pie from under the blanket. “Are you really going to die since you can’t feed on love anymore?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Soon.”

A hoof from the darkness grabbed him and pulled him under the blankets. He didn’t struggle, although he trembled until Pinkie Pie wrapped him in a crushing embrace. “Nopony should be alone for that,” she whispered. “After all that you’ve done for me in just a few days, I just wish I could give you something more in return.”

“Me too,” he whispered as she held her face to his and bumped her head on his horn.

Maybe I can leave her something when I’m gone.

Do it before you lose your nerve.

Despite the agonizing pain in his belly disrupting his concentration, he still tried to focus on the spell he had last used to put his harvested love into the hive. Without knowing how much love he retained, there was no way to tell when to stop, but that did not seem important right now. Dead and gone, he would still leave behind some small light to illuminate the darkness and maybe the world would be a better place for it. He swallowed away a lump as he gently placed his horn on the top of Pinkie Pie’s head and began to focus his magic, gathering up all of the love he still retained and preparing to push.

“Goodbye.”

Author's Note

Note: The story is still incomplete.

Chapter 15 - The Mourning After

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 15
The Mourning After

He was alive.

Or at least he was fairly sure he was alive. He remembered being alive before, and this seemed fairly close to the same sensation, so he probably was alive, but it was difficult to think. The changeling’s entire mind seemed filled with confetti, little bits and pieces of memory all jumbled and tossed around in a hurricane without any convenient numbers or color codes to help reassemble what used to be a perfectly good head.

Focus. Start with now and work backwards.

Now was fairly easy. From the ticking noise of Pinkie Pie’s alarm clocks and the faint noises of the bakery getting ready for the morning, he was obviously still in Pinkie Pie’s room. Why he was still there and still alive was a mystery, but it was fairly obvious, therefore he was willing to take his location on faith.

The pain in his gut that had been his constant companion over the last few days was gone, replaced by a warm glow that filled his entire body. It was much like basking on a sun-warmed rock in the chill of the evening, only without the rock, or at least if the rock were soft, pink, and wrapped all the way around him in an unbreakable embrace. Somehow Pinkie Pie had managed to become both closer to him and more comfortable in her perpetual hug, with her nose buried behind his ear and a certain amount of stickiness between them that indicated the possibility of… other activities in their recent past.

With considerable reluctance, he opened one eye and checked the time on the alarm clocks in the darkened bedroom. It was much later than the alarms normally went off, but Sugarcube Corner was supposed to open a little later because of the party last night, which he remembered in great detail. And the walk home, which he also remembered. And being dragged into bed with Pinkie Pie, which he remembered. And attempting to pour the pitiful remainder of his cached love into—

Oh, snap.

The warm glow resolved into an inferno of pink fire, a soft wrap of furry coat around him that could only be Pinkie Pie, except she fairly blazed from nose to tail with an all-encompassing emotion that he could actually feel for a change. It was heat and light and fire and brightness that poured through his body like a cascading waterfall and vanished into his middle somewhere, obviously being consumed the way that he was used to, but different someway. He still could not feel how much love he held, but something had suddenly become painfully obvious to him.

The pain in my gut wasn’t starvation. It was indigestion.

His open eyes tracked through the murky shadows of the dark bedroom, lit only by the night light and the illumination from the hallway where Mister and Missus Cake had already gotten up and begun to start the day. There were several things in the room that caught his attention, causing him to study them for a moment until the memory behind their presence clicked into place and he looked away. One piece at a time, he began to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of last night and wondered at the strange and wonderful picture that emerged.

Is that a tuba? Oh, yeah. And an accordion. How did those hoofprints get on the wall? And how did we wind up dancing on the ceiling?

Little white smears of flour in the shapes of horseshoes intertwined in a dance up the walls, across the ceiling, around the light fixture, and back down the opposite wall. He was still trying to figure out if the steps were a waltz or a tango when he heard the sound of hesitant hooves out in the hall.

“Pinkie?” sounded the voice of Mister Cake from in the bathroom, although somewhat puzzled and a little groggy from lack of sleep. “Why is the bathtub filled with banana pudding? Pinkie?” he added as he swung the door to her bedroom open a little more and looked inside.

“Ah…” Carrot Cake looked around the room for long moments, his jaw slowly dropping farther and farther with every odd object that he could see before focusing his attention on the changeling still wrapped around/being wrapped around Pinkie in the middle of their bed. One pillow had departed their vicinity sometime during the night and burst into a cloud of downy feathers that drifted across the floor, and now that the changeling had a moment to consider the placement of the bed, it seemed to have moved about halfway across the floor somehow as a cloud in a sea of feathery fog.

We’ve broken Mister Cake.

Without another word, Carrot Cake backed out of the room and pulled the door closed after him with a soft click that cause Pinkie Pie to stir in the changeling’s embrace. Nuzzling her way from the back of his ear to the front with considerable side trips, she stopped at her destination and gave a soft nip that made his back leg twitch against the bed.

“Again?” she whispered.

“Again?” he asked in response, trying frantically to remember just exactly what they would be againing.

“Oh, drat!” said Pinkie, looking at the alarm clocks with one eye. “We’re late. That is late to make breakfast, not late as in my heat cycles, although it’s so nice to finally be rid of that and I kinda wish we could have foals but even since we can’t that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make foals again once the lunch shift is cleaned up and we can slip back up here—” She nipped him on the nose, her bright blue eyes glittering with promise in the darkness.

“I promised I’d take the Cutie Mark Crusaders grasshopper hunting this afternoon,” he blurted out, feeling torn between relief and regret at not ‘againing’ once all of the kitchen chores were done.

“They nibble on your lips,” said Pinkie Pie, demonstrating the same technique on the writhing changeling.

“I promised,” he managed to gasp between nibbles. The wave of chill that followed made him shiver despite his close embrace, as the blistering blast of warmth that Pinkie was emitting flickered and dimmed to a radiant glow that still scorched his skin but no longer threatened to engulf him in flames.

“I don’t want to make you break a promise,” she whispered. “Race you to the shower.”

* * *

After a brisk bathtub-cleaning and a confusing quick morning shower that involved both considerable crinkleberry shampoo as well as considerable mutual shampooing, Pinkie bounded down the stairs to the kitchen while the changeling stayed behind to ‘tidy up the bedroom a bit.’ His initial confusion at their nighttime activities was not helped by a number of objects scattered about the bedroom that he really had no memory of at all, including a unicycle and a trapeze, but after putting the bed back where it belonged, and shoving all of the accumulated odd items back into the far-too-small-but-don’t-think-about-it closet, he busied himself with a towel held in his magic to erase the floured hoofprints on the ceilings and walls. He was just beginning to get his mind straightened up and the last of the wayward pillow feathers captured when there was an extremely timid tapping at one of Pinkie Pie’s windows.

With one final look around the room for any misplaced evidence of their nighttime activity (whatever it had been), the changeling put on a fake smile and opened up the curtains. At first, the empty darkness beyond the window confused him, as he was expecting to find a lost bird or some other nighttime creature who was attracted by the bedroom light.

Then a wave of yellow and pink swept in through the window.

The Fluttershy seemed disheveled and sweaty, her eyes wide and dark as she followed his backwards path into the bedroom. If eyes were the windows to the soul, there was a four alarm fire burning inside, and the changeling abruptly remembered just how long he had spent in the terrifying pegasus’ kitchen while most probably emitting a thick cloud of invisible pheromones.

“Hello,” she whispered, her nose almost touching his, even though the changeling continued his backwards retreat through the room. “I hope I’m not disturbing you and Pinkie Pie, but I haven’t been able to sleep, and when I saw the light on, I thought that maybe I could stop by for a… bite.” The back of the bed collided with the changeling’s hind legs and he stumbled backward onto the mattress even as The Fluttershy continued to flow almost as a yellow fluid up his chest and so close to his nose that he could feel her hot breath across the short hairs around his mouth.

“...she always tells me that she doesn’t mind sharing and even though this is a very different type of sharing, I thought that maybe perhaps I could just ask.” Her damp nose touched the changeling and he yanked back at the blistering emotions that surged from that simple contact.

“Ask what?” he squeaked.

“It’s just a teeny, tiny thing, really. All I want is…” Fluttershy’s mouth opened up and moved forward, her soft warm lips seeking out his even as the changeling’s horn flared with magic.

* * *

A few moments later as the changeling stumbled down the stairs on unsteady pony legs, he found Mister Cake with a bag of flour coming out of the storeroom. The lanky stallion gave the disguised changeling a long look, then glanced around to make sure there were no other witnesses.

“Should I ask?” he asked in a hesitant fashion.

“About?” said the changeling, half terrified about who he left unconscious in Pinkie Pie’s bed and half trying to make sense of the morning. After all, he had completely expected to be dead this morning, not explaining anything let alone two such dramatically different somethings. At least being dead would have been easier.

“Pinkie Pie, of course,” continued Carrot Cake.

“I’m not sure what happened,” admitted the changeling, oddly thankful about the direction the conversation was going even if his response could have been used for either situation. “I can’t describe it, I can’t remember more than about half of it, and I think I need more time to think about it.”

I think I just described Ponyville.

“Oh,” said Carrot with a sudden relaxation around his shoulders and the beginning of a smile. “Well, if you ever need anypony to talk about it, just let me know. Welcome to the family.” Carrot Cake trotted by and vanished into the kitchen with the bags of flour, leaving the shaky changeling alone in the stairwell with his scrambled thoughts that ran around and around inside his head.

I stunned The Fluttershy. The stun spell only lasts a few minutes. At any moment, she’ll wake up. I stunned The Fluttershy. The stun spell only lasts a few minutes…

Still sensing the blazing warmth of Pinkie Pie still coming out of the kitchen, the changeling tiphooved to the back door of the bakery. Even though there was a Royal Guard chariot coming to Ponyville this afternoon to pick him up and carry him away, he would still have to survive that long to escape. A brief burst of changeling magic gave him the familiar form of Carrot Cake, as better to blend into the populace and less likely to be cannoned in the face by Pinkie, and he took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

He fumbled with the doorknob, keeping his weakened empathic sense so focused on the torrent of love pouring out of the bakery kitchen that he totally missed a substantial amount of panic coming from the huge stallion who bolted in the opened door and slammed it behind him.

“Carrot!” gasped Big Mac. “You gotta hide me.”

“I didn’t do it!” blurted out the changeling before he realized that he still had Carrot Cake’s form as a disguise. “What did you do?” he asked quickly, trying to cover up his goof.

“Ah was just tryin’ to fix her pipes like Apple Bloom said,” said Big Mac, shoving a huge barrel of molasses across the floor to block the back door, “but she didn’t have no problems with her plumbing.”

“Uh… Cheerilee?” guessed the changeling, frantically going through his fragmented memory in the vain attempt to determine any other adult female ponies he had spent any time with.

“Ah ain’t seen nuttin’ like this since the Love Poison,” he replied, pausing and trembling as the sound of “Schnoopie-doo?” echoed around the darkness outside.

“Quick!” hissed the changeling. “Upstairs. You can hide in Pinkie Pie’s—” Before the changeling could even finish his sentence, the huge stallion was already darting up the stairs.

“—room,” finished the changeling as the rapid hoofsteps trailed away and the sound of Pinkie’s bedroom door closing echoed down the stairwell. In rapid succession, he could feel the emotions of confusion, realization, panic, and passion flood down around his ears, and the changeling turned to regard the impressive bulwark of cooking supplies that Mac had managed to assemble in front of his escape hatch in such a short time.

I should feel bad about that. Really. Eenope.

* * *

Surrendering to the inevitable and changing back to his yellow unicorn form before returning to the kitchen, the changeling really expected an air of repressed tension during the morning baking as Carrot and Cup Cake bustled around. After all, it was fairly obvious what Pinkie Pie and her odd houseguest/prisoner had been up to.

She was singing about it.

After a few stanzas, the changeling expected the Cakes to sing along.

After the second song, they did.

After the third song, he found himself joining in on the chorus.

When the jingle of the bell on the bakery’s front door sounded, he darted in that direction with a quick, “I’ll be right back.” It was more of a self-defense mechanism than he was wanting to admit, as several vivid memories of last night had come back in full force when reinforced in rhyming couplets, and although they were… interesting, he needed a few moments away from the crazy to attempt to make sense of it all.

The problem was that going out of the kitchen and into the front room of Sugarcube Corner did not lower the crazy level at all.

Twilight Sparkle was standing impatiently at the front counter, her mane a frizzy mess that sprang up all around her head making her look like some horned violet lion with wide eyes, and for some reason, she was carrying a spoon. The moment she spotted the changeling in his unicorn disguise, her eyes lit up and she fairly danced over to him with the spoon hovering at her side.

“Here, taste this.” Said spoon was rather abruptly jammed into his mouth the moment he opened his mouth to ask about it, and the heaping pile of grey goo that it carried tasted of library paste, dust, and vaguely of… comic books?

“I was up all night,” babbled the unicorn, “but I was determined to find a solution to this problem because when a friend has a problem, there is nothing I would rather do than help solve the problem, and I was a little worried that you might have died of starvation before I could get done but you’re still alive and now you won’t have to worry about starving to death because of this!”

Twilight Sparkle held out a bowl filled with a dull grey paste of some sort and emitting a pungent odor of socks and mashed papers. It reminded the changeling of the familiar taste in the back of his mouth that vaguely seemed like—

“Love!” exclaimed Twilight Sparkle. “I managed to extract the essence of Spike’s love for comic books into a nutritious paste that should be able to sustain a changeling for days. Here, open up.” She levitated another spoonful of the gunk up to the front of the changeling’s mouth, which adamantly refused to open, less from his willpower and more due to the goop having set up like a thick cement in the back of his throat. “Come on,” wheedled Twilight, waving the spoon around in front of his nose. “Be a good changeling and take your medicine.”

“I don’t—” he managed to blurt out before a second spoonful of paste darted inside his mouth.

“Need—” managed to escape before the third spoonful was forcefully inserted.

“Itanymore!” The fourth spoonful of the horrid gunk stopped just short of his lips where he could breathe in the horrid odor that seemed to get stronger with every bite.

“What do you mean, you don’t need it any more?” Those dangerous bloodshot eyes squinted into a vicious glare. “Don’t tell me that—”

Whatever Twilight Sparkle was about to say was blotted out by the joyous arrival of Pinkie Pie, who danced through the Sugarcube Corner front room with a song as she stocked the glass cabinet with frosted baked goodies for the morning rush and a kiss right on the lips for the startled unicorn mare. “Good morning, Twilight! Isn’t it a wonderful morning! I’m so glad I’m not all tied up on the insides with my heat any more.” She added a kiss to the changeling with an enthusiasm that made any previous kisses seem like gentle pecks on the cheek before dancing back into the kitchen on happy hooves.

Leaving him alone with Twilight Sparkle.

“You didn’t!” hissed Twilight, lighting her horn.

“It really depends on what you mean!” blurted out the changeling, still trying to recover from the kiss and trying to remember if he had been chewing bubblegum before, because he certainly was now. “I mean we did a lot of things. You’re going to have to be more specific. And yes, I can feed on emotions again. I can tell you’re angry… well, more than angry… actually I’ve never felt anypony that angry before. Do you think you could point that thing… somewhere else?”

“Give me one good reason I should.” Twilight Sparkle lowered her head so that all he could see was the shimmering waves of magic coming off the suddenly sharp-seeming point aimed right between his eyes.

“You’d make Pinkie Pie unhappy?”

The brilliant glowing horn that so entranced his eyes with visions of his imminent demise shimmered, and then went dim. “Talk,” growled Twilight, pulling out a notebook and a quill. “And make it good.”

It actually was a relief to be able to spill his guts… well, talk about what he had been going through over the last few days, even though the occasional thumping noise from upstairs or the plaintive call of “Schnoopie-doo!” from outside was a distraction to his recitation. The whole story of the evening — properly summarized and edited to remove any mention of Big Mac or The Fluttershy — seemed to mollify the flustrated unicorn. He even ate a few more bits of her atrocious gluey love porridge, and silently determined that dying of starvation would be much more preferable than suffering through a diet of the substance for more than a week. As they talked and he soaked in the staccato waves of emotions that burst from her like frantic musical notes in a song, a realization began to soak in. After all, Twilight wasn’t really that difficult to understand. She was Princess Celestia’s party cannon. Point her at a problem and everything else in the universe ceases to matter.

I am so glad she doesn’t consider changelings to be a problem that needs eliminated. I wonder how she would solve our hunger problem? I know how Pinkie would.

* * *

”Lunch call!” shouted Pinkie Pie over the sounds of hundreds of changelings crowding into the dining hall. “We have Love Souffle, Love Pudding, and Cinnamon Love Bread, made fresh with the last shipment from Las Pegasus. And don’t forget to have a Banana Love Smoothie at our dairy bar.

* * *

Still, as they talked, he became increasingly uncomfortable. Technically, ponies were food, but in this case, the meek informationavore was feeding on his words with a passion normally only found between the sheets or on the roof. It was more than a little eerie to feel her ravaging hunger subside as he talked, replaced with the warm fuzzy sensation of the Fourteenth Love (Learning), only for that starvation sensation to return whenever he managed to take a breath. To make matters worse, she slipped nearer with every sentence until he had to stop talking and put his hoof down.

“Miss Twilight Sparkle, Ma’am? You’ve got your nose in my mane again.”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Twilight Sparkle, sitting back up and rubbing her nose with one hoof. “It’s just that there’s something odd about your…” She broke off by lighting her horn and burying her nose in his striped mane again, giving a sharp sniff. “You must not be putting out pheromones any more, because the deodorant spell expired but your non-aromatic organic volatile level is almost nonexistent. Well, other than that weird scent.”

“Crinkleberries,” said the changeling.

Twilight Sparkle frowned. “What are crinkleberries?”

“I have no idea.” The changeling shrugged. “Emotions smell somewhat like scents to us, and crinkleberries smell a little like Artistic Appreciation mixed with Sports Fan and Spousal Passion, I suppose. A little like Shining Armor, actually.”

As the feeling of consternation slowly subsided and was replaced by the crisp sensation of Third Love (Sibling) mixed with concern, the changeling had a horrible idea of where the conversation was going to go next, and tried to stop it with a quick, “We’re not fertile with ponies, so you don’t have to worry about becoming an aunt.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that!” gasped Twilight. “Stop reading my mind!”

“I wasn’t reading your mind!” blurted out the changeling as he found himself looking down the pointy end of a loaded unicorn again. “You just smelled like Third Love and I knew your brother and Queen Chrysalis had—” His mouth exerted a great deal of self-preservation by freezing shut at that point as the boiling emotions of an overstressed unicorn mare in the grip of sleep deprivation and raging hormones were quite close to being released in a changeling squishing spell of great magnitude.

* * *

The messenger changeling bowed and scraped in front of Queen Chrysalis, keeping his face to the ground as he spoke. “I bear good and bad news about the criminal who was discovered in Ponyville, Your Majesty.”

“Give me the good news first,” purred Chrysalis. “Was he dismembered? Boiled alive? Imprisoned forever?”

“No, Your Majesty. The ponies mailed him back to us.” The messenger unrolled a thin sheet of what appeared to be a paper cutout of a changeling, frozen in a look of abject horror but with a postage stamp on one ear.

“Well, we can’t have everything,” mused the queen. “What is the bad news?”

“He was postage due.”

* * *

“How do you know what happened between my brother and your queen?” growled Twilight Sparkle, her incandescent horn pointing right between the disguised changeling’s eyes. “He never would have… I mean just because… They didn’t have sex!”

“Of course not!” said the changeling, scooting back as far as he could on the bench seat of the booth. “Not even once. Probably never even kissed.”

The door to the kitchen opened and Twilight Sparkle extinguished her horn almost immediately as Pinkie Pie came bounding out with another several trays of baked goods. After a musical moment to finish stocking the display, she skipped over to the changeling and gave him another astonishing kiss which made his tail straighten, followed by a second kiss right on the lips for the frazzled unicorn.

“I’m so glad you two have made up,” bubbled Pinkie Pie, “but I could have sworn I felt somepony telling a naughty nasty lie out here.” She darted around, looking under each of the tables and above the ceiling fan. “It was a sneaky twitchy-twitch, but it’s gone now so I better get back to work! We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to get everything done in time for—”

She darted back to the table and whispered into the changeling’s ear, “—you know.”

After Pinkie Pie bounded back into the kitchen and the sounds of frantic baking could once again be heard, the changeling turned back to Twilight Sparkle and blurted out, “Twice. At least. She was emoting all over the hivemind so we couldn’t help but hear, but she got better at hiding it after the second time.”

“You could have not listened!” hissed Twilight Sparkle before making a puzzled face and chewing on her gum.

“We can’t not listen,” said the changeling. “I mean I couldn’t at the time.” He drooped at the table and took another bite of the atrocious paste. “I can’t hear anyling any more. My link to the hivemind is burned out. When I go back to the hive…”

Twilight Sparkle stopped chewing her gum and leaned forward with a worried expression. “They’ll be able to treat you, I hope. At least they’ll find you somewhere to work where your handicap won’t be a problem. Right?”

The bell to the front door jingled again, followed by a solemn voice intoning, “His fellow changelings will not trust one to whom they cannot speak. When he returns to his distant home, his future at that point will be very bleak.”

“She means they’ll kill me,” said the changeling, trying to ignore the zebra who had just walked into the bakery. “Well, they’ll extract out all of my stored love first, and that will kill me. Without my link to the hivemind, I’m an invader in the hive.”

Zecora nodded, although with a slight frown. “Like our bees attack those of other kinds, the changelings pay heed to each other’s minds.”

“That’s horrible,” gasped Twilight Sparkle. “Why not just stay in Ponyville?”

“I don’t belong here,” said the changeling. “Even if I wanted to stay. Since everypony knows I’m a changeling, I’m about as out of place here as…” He managed to stop talking for a moment, but his eyes tracked up to the zebra and he had to ask, “So why are you here?”

The zebra opened up her saddlebag and began to place several potions on the table, all looking nearly identical and making the changeling wonder just how many raw ingredients she still had left in her little hut. “A potion order I have prepared for many frantic young mares. The fire of desire has caused them much stress, and your presence is something we need to address.”

“I’m leaving this afternoon,” he said.

“All by yourself, without force?” asked Zecora. “You are quite the peculiar little horse. One would think that a bug who finds himself in a position this snug would fight to remain now that you’re not in pain.”

“I promised,” said the changeling, feeling as if that verbal life preserver was being eaten by sharks. “Besides, I’m a changeling. We go out into the world and harvest until ready to return. Then we go back and they suck out all of the love we’ve accumulated so we can go back out into the world again somewhere else. We don’t make friends and we don’t fall in love. The hive is our only family.”

“That doesn’t sound like a family,” said Twilight Sparkle. “More like in-laws. Or accountants.”

“It’s what we do.” The changeling shrugged. “Normally the hivemind is what draws us home. We can fight it for a little bit, but eventually everyling returns.”

“To be killed,” said Twilight.

“To go home,” said the changeling, although after a pause, he added, “It’s like a Pinkie Promise, I suppose.

“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle as if that made changeling behaviour sound more pony-rational. The frazzled unicorn chewed her gum for a while, lost in thought while Zecora pushed a potion over in front of her. “So even though you can’t hear the hivemind any more, you’re still going back to your hive, even though it will get you killed. That’s stupid.”

He shrugged. “We’re changelings. If I was smart, I wouldn't have gotten captured by the Cutie Mark Crusaders or I would have managed to escape this crazy town by now.”

The bell over the front door of the bakery chimed again and the changeling regarded the darkness outside the windows before turning to his newest customer. “Applejack? Doesn’t any pony in this town sleep until after sunrise?”

“Not many,” she admitted, looking at the changeling with an expectant expression he was beginning to dread. “All I really wanted is—”

“Justamoment!” blurted out the changeling, darting off to the coffee machine and returning in a few moments with a number of foam coffee containers in his wake. With a brief flare of his reddish magic (carefully shifted from green to keep up appearances), he distributed one steaming coffee to each of the pre-dawn customers. “Here you go!”

“Mmmm…” sighed Applejack after a deep drink. “Apple spiced, just the way I like it.”

Twilight Sparkle did not comment, as she was half-way down the Grand Vente Celestia with the obvious aim of reaching the bottom before she had to stop for a breath, and all Zecora did was sit and blink, looking at the steaming coffee so laced with creamer that it seemed to be about half coffee and half milk.

“Anywho,” said Applejack after a second drink. “Have y’all seen—

The bell above the bakery front door dinged again and a very sweaty and out of breath Cheerilee dashed inside. “Big Macintosh!” she called. “Are you in here?”

“Congratulations!” beamed the changeling, floating over the last foam container of coffee to the frustrated teacher. “You’re our fourth pre-dawn customer of the day, and you win a free coffee!”

“Thank you, but—”

“Go ahead, Miss Cheerilee,” urged the changeling. “Drink up.”

“Really, Mister Tolliver. All I want is—”

“Not until you tell me how much you enjoy your coffee,” said the changeling, trying not to show the desperation in his voice and trying not to think about how Zecora’s potion would taste or be altered after it had been mixed with the coffee, as well as a generous slug of vodka he had added to the schoolteacher’s cup.

* * *

“Mac!” bellowed the huge mare that towered over the small town, stomping her way down the main street and pulling the tops off buildings to look inside. “Bring me Mac!”

* * *

“Fine.” Cheerilee took a drink of coffee with the obvious intent of stopping after one sip, but continued to drink while the changeling suppressed the urge to chant ‘Chug! Chug!’ in the background. Finally she reached the bottom of the cup with a gasp for breath. “Whew! I haven’t done that since college. Anyway, have you seen Schnoopie— I mean Big Macintosh?”

“I believe he was headed for the market this morning,” said the changeling, mentally redefining the word ‘market’ in order not to be lying and picking up the empty cup as the speedy teacher darted back out the door on her anticipated rendezvous with her plumber.

“Well, heck,” said Applejack. “Ah was lookin’ for the big galoot too.” Those dangerous green eyes turned in his direction, and after another sip of coffee, Applejack asked a question that was not really a question, but more a prequel to serious violence.

“He ain’t at the market, is he?”

Fortunately, the changeling was given a moment to think before answering by Pinkie Pie dancing through Sugarcube Corner’s front room again with a customized cupcake and a kiss for all of her friends. Unfortunately, the kiss did nothing to help organize his thoughts, but rather scattered his train of thought all around the room as she danced back into the kitchen to continue baking.

“What in tarnation was that?” muttered Applejack. “And why am I chewing gum?”

“I’ll tell you after you’re done with your coffee,” said the changeling with a forced smile.

“Hows about you tell me now, while you still have teeth?” said Applejack, flexing one hind leg after another as if the changeling had a pair of ripe apples on him that needed bucked. “If you’ve hurt Big Mac, I swear—”

All eyes in the room drifted up to look at the ceiling where an air vent had just given the breathy cry of ‘Yes!’ in a soft and gentle voice that could only be from The Fluttershy mixed with a deep and rumbling baritone panting.

“You didn’t,” whispered Applejack.

“It seems your brother is with another,” said Zecora. “I had brought the potion which Pinkie forgot, but it appears my aid has been all for naught. Now it also seems that your kind friend’s need is being satisfied by a quite noble steed.”

“It was either him or me,” blurted out the changeling. “What was I supposed to do?”

* * *

The six Elements of Harmony sat around the table that had the bound and gagged changeling stretched across it, each looking over the sheet of paper that Twilight Sparkle had just passed around.

“So it’s settled,” she declared. “Since we’re such good friends, we can share him without having to cut him up into pieces or anything like that. We each get him for one day a week, and try to keep the damages to a minimum.”

“What about Saturday?” asked Pinkie Pie, waving a set of padded hoofcuffs. “That’s always the best party day, and I’ve got so many plans for him.”

“We have a previous claim upon the creature,” came a dark and sultry voice from the shadows as darkness began to swirl around one end of the table and a pair of cold teal eyes glared at him. “Your Princess of the Night has need—”

* * *

“No!” yelped the changeling, jolted out of his vivid daydream by the Nightmare and cringing back at the number of concerned stares he was getting. “I mean… I put Zecora’s potion in the coffee and tricked Big Mac into going up to the bedroom where I had stunned The FluttershyIdidn’thurther!” he blurted out as Twilight Sparkle’s horn seemed to light all on its own and point between his eyes again. “It’s an instinctive spell we can use to get away but it only blocks out short term memory for a few seconds and doesn’t have any long term effects.”

“It don’t sound like you’re lying,” said Applejack, putting her empty coffee container in the trash and regarding the changeling with a skeptical squint. “But yer one sneaky little bug, and you’ve fooled me before. I don’t think we should trust a word that comes out of that pretty little mouth of yours.” She promptly blushed and gave a sideways look at Twilight. “Still, you’ve been fairly darned square with us ponyfolk on occasion, and I can only think of one thing that can prove yer tellin’ the truth.”

Applejack took off her hat and held it to her chest. “Zap me.”

“What?” The changeling glanced between Honesty and Magic, who had arranged themselves to pin him between them.

“If yer tellin’ the truth, Twilight there’ll be able to see if I’m okay. If yer lyin’ to us, she’ll—”

There was a flash of light and Applejack stood in place and blinked. She did not move for a short while other than breathing until she put her hat back on and looked around. “Hey, where’s my coffee?”

After Twilight Sparkle explained the situation and gave her friend a magical inspection that only lacked a blood sample and a pelvic exam from being overintrusive, the unicorn sat back down at the booth and growled, “He was telling the truth.”

“It’s getting to be a bad habit,” he muttered. “I’m used to lying.” He glanced upwards at the air vent, which was still emitting the occasional noise as well as an emotional bounty that he tried not to sniff. “They seem to be… comfortable with each other. Do you think I should slip a few potioned coffees up into their room for when they take a break?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Zecora. “For the relief of this burning need, I have made many potions, but to give her one would be following the motions. It seems that Pinkie’s need for the quenching of her fire was solved last night soon after I retired. A solution for our kind friend’s condition also seems to be found within the same position.”

“Eww,” said Applejack, standing up and putting on her hat. “That is my brother and one of my best friends we’re talking about, ya’know?” After a brief hesitation, she turned to the changeling and asked, “Do you think Shining Ar—”

“My brother didn’t have sex with the Changeling Queen!” blurted out Twilight Sparkle. “And they’re not going to have eggs! I mean babies! I’m not going to be Auntie Sparkle to a bunch of little love-sucking nieces and nephews who will visit the library and tear all the pages out of the foal’s literature section and chase Spike onto the top of the bookshelves!”

“Riiiight,” said Applejack, backing up towards the door while the changeling slid a second potion over to the distraught unicorn. “I’ll just get to work bucking the south field and when Big Mac gets… done, send him on out. Less’n you want to come out and help, Twilight. It would do you good. Get you out of your tree and into some healthy sunshine. Well, once Celestia raises the sun, that is.”

“No,” snapped Twilight Sparkle, pushing the bottle of potion back over to the changeling and getting up. “I’m going back to the library and working on a project. Just because Mister Tolliver can’t sense how much love he has stored inside, doesn’t mean we can’t find the answer with science.”

“That’s… good, Miss Sparkle,” said the changeling, vaguely disconcerted by the determined look in the unicorn’s eyes as she trotted out the door with her friend. Turning to the last customer in the front room, the changeling regarded her untouched coffee. “Is the coffee not to your liking, Miss Zecora?”

“It is quite perfect, not too thick and not too thin,” said Zecora, swirling the cup around and watching the lines of black coffee and white creamer dissolve into each other. “What disturbs me is what lies within. The solution of my potion I need not, for nothing is burning inside my—”

With a soundless flare of green magic and considerable effort, a male zebra with a spikey mane and broad stripes appeared where the changeling had been sitting.

There was a sharp intake of breath, an uncomfortable squirming from the zebra mare, and a fierce glare. Then Zecora lifted the coffee cup and drained the contents in one long gulp.

“Your point is made, you vicious brute,” she said, getting up to trot outside. “Now I must leave, while you’re still cute.” After a smoldering backwards glance, Zecora trotted back outside and left the changeling to clean up the booth.

Chapter 16 - Concussive Flight Delays

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 16
Concussive Flight Delays

Thankfully, there were no cutecinerias or birthday parties for little foals scheduled for the day, because the changeling was fairly certain that having a pink pony dance through a crowd of little ponies singing about the joys of… procreation, would not be taken well by the assembled parents. For several hours he was afraid that her exuberant explicit outbursts were going to be permanent, but as lunch approached, the number of gender-specific songs decreased to the point where the Cakes felt that it was acceptable to allow her into Sugarcube Corner’s front room, as long as she limited herself to hugs instead of kisses and kept from increasing the vocabulary of the various Ponyville youth. The coffee machine at the serving area was kept quite busy from the instant that the front door officially opened as the yawning populace of Ponyville seemed to have all somehow heard about the ‘Free Pre-Dawn Coffee’ promotion, and cries of “Pops! Another one! Keep ‘em coming!” kept him pulling levers and moving foam cups at a staggering clip.

It was yet another reason why a unicorn disguise was so useful, as he could be preparing, pouring and presenting all at the same time, as well as keeping an ‘ear’ out for the rough and sultry blasts of triggered hormones whenever one of the mares who had been just a little too close to the changeling over the last few days wandered in, looking for something hot to cure their thirst. And whenever one of the victims of his inadvertent pheromone leakage did show up, he was quick to provide a coffee ‘fortified’ with one of the extra potions that Zecora had left behind ‘On the house,’ just in case there could be any legal charges laid against him.

Although the probability of him surviving to face any kind of trial was still nil.

He could feel the emotions of the happy and loving ponies, but there was still no sensation of the hivemind at all. Noling had ever lost their connection to the hive and regained it, although with some consideration to the tautology, any changeling who had lost their connection and regained it certainly would not have bragged about it, and the ones who had lost it and been discovered had been swiftly killed, so they certainly would not have even had a chance to see if it would come back.

There was no place in pony society for a changeling, even if he was no longer a part of the hive. Neither race could ever trust him. Far below the ponies’ conscious mind, they all knew what his kind was capable of, and would blame him in a heartbeat the instant something bad were to happen in town or across Equestria. Even though the happy ponies were all smiling and laughing in his presence, he could still feel their distrust on a deep instinctual level.

Well, except for Pinkie Pie.

The pure nectar that poured out of her like an endless chocolate fountain did not have a single tinge of resentment or anger tainting its delectable flow. It was distracting as heck, and even after Carrot and Cup Cake took over the front counter so he could grab lunch, he found himself humming along with the pink pony as he dove into his mixed fruit bowl.

“What is the name of that song, Pinkie?” he asked, trying not to grin through a mouthful of strawberries and apples as she loaded several loaves of bread dough into the oven.

“I dunno,” she sang, pivoting on one hoof as she closed the door to the oven and fiddled with the dials. “Do you want to sing along?”

He did.

It was a liberating experience, singing about nothing in particular while running the dishwasher and cleaning up the kitchen. Pinkie had been amazingly productive in the field of frosted and baked goodies over the course of the morning, which thankfully so far seemed to be the only real symptom of having his excess love poured into her last night. As far as he knew, nopony had ever had a changeling’s accumulated love pushed into them, at any time, ever. It was a criminal act almost unthinkable by changeling standards. It was worse than wasting food, it was giving it away, although with the numbers of free coffees he had poured this morning before dawn, he was grateful the ponies did not have the same criminal laws, or there would have been a fight over who got to execute him if he were to survive that long. Which he was not.

A welcome freedom flooded his chest and loosened the tight chains of worry that had bound him more securely than any of physical sticky ropes or ribbons he had been trapped within recently. Absolutely none of his numerous concerns about pony society or criminal actions or even death stuck to his happy sense of self-awareness any more, but instead slid off like water off a duck, or unhappiness off Pinkie Pie. He was going to die in a few hours after the Royal Guard dropped him off at the hive, and it no longer bothered him even slightly.

Rarity had been so right about Pinkie Pie in so many ways, it was hard to believe that she was so wrong about love. If Pinkie was really in love with him, the pure fountain of joy that she was pouring out with such abundance would have been tainted with grief or regret at his upcoming demise. Nopony could possibly love a changeling unless she loved everything so much that a changeling could metaphorically just slip in under the door and soak up whatever splashed out over the edges of her overflowing tub of affection. When he was gone, she would miss him for a few minutes until another pony took his place. Changelings were used to being replaceable that way. He would die, she would still be happy, and the world would continue on as if nothing had happened.

“Mithter Tolliver? The girlth are all ready to go hunting for grathhopperth. Are you and Pinkie about done with the ditheth?” A smiling little earth pony filly with the most vibrant red mane was regarding him from the kitchen door, and he returned her curious stare with a cheerful wave that scattered a few suds around the room.

“Just a moment, Twist,” he called back. “We just want to make sure all of the clean pots and pans are put away to dry before we can go. How are we doing, Pinkie?”

“Almost there!” she caroled in return, bouncing a trio of pie plates in a peppy beat that ended in a crash as she bounced them off her rear and up onto the top shelf. “Done!”

“Done too!” he said as he floated the last three long-handled skillets up onto the drying rack. “I’ll bet I can catch more grasshoppers than you can.”

“Nuh-uh!” replied Pinkie, sticking her tongue out. “I’m the bestest grasshopper catcher in Ponyville. Nopony catches bugs better than me!”

“Well, you better get running,” he called out over his shoulder as he darted out the door. “Because this bug has a head start! Come on, girls! Race you all to the pasture!”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

It was not a single feeling. It was several hundred feelings, all tied together with ribbons and bows in one giant pink-flavored mega-gigantic feeling that overloaded his every sense. It was so many feelings and emotions at once that he was almost numb to them all. For some reason it seemed as if he could even feel the grasshoppers leaping in the meadow in joyous bounds, singing their songs of spring and freedom.

Well, until they were snagged in a net, popped into a jar, and tossed into the pond to be eaten.

He had been in meadows before, and had even caught a grasshopper once by accident, but he had never had a group of little ponies just run him ragged until he could barely breathe and then somehow make him volunteer to play kite puller. While Scootaloo held onto a flimsy contraption made out of paper and twigs, the changeling held the string in his teeth and ran at his top speed through the grass with the screaming little pegasus somewhat float/bounce/hover/rebounding along behind. Little ponies with nets sprang from ambush as the frightened grasshoppers took wing and fled from the bizzare duo, and in almost no time at all, it was time to visit the pond and throw them all in.

The grasshoppers, not the little ponies.

And then it was time to do it again, and again, and again, until his knees were wobbly and the world seemed to be swimming around him in slow circles. The little ponies were bottomless barrels of energy, laughing and calling to each other as they swung their nets and leapt from grass tuft to hillock, even occasionally managing to catch one of the wildly flying grasshoppers. It was Life, lived as he had never lived it before, so distant from his previous life of stealing love that he might as well have died and gone to the Heavenly Pastures already. Rarity had been perfectly right in one particular way, and he only regretted that he had not met Pinkie Pie sooner.

She may be crude at times, or incomprehensible, but if you have only a short time to live, she will pack more life into those few minutes than anypony else could in a century.

He excused himself from the current race to the pond to throw in the grasshoppers by claiming fatigue, and leaned up against a tree to watch the swarm of little ponies race Pinkie Pie. There should have been no way Pinkie could lose, but she was out in front, then tripping over her hooves as two or three little ponies dashed by, and then neck and neck, keeping up a running commentary as she hopped and skipped along.

The rough bark of the tree felt cool against his sweaty back and scratched as he laughed, but it turned out to be surprisingly comfortable as he rested and watched. Little ponies had it made. As a small changeling, he had been drilled in the endless lessons that all changelings were subject to until he felt as if his brains were going to leak out his ears. Learning was drudgery, youth was endless labor, and his adult life had been one long string of assignments. Slip into a role, drain as much love as possible, return it to the hive, and repeat in a different location. Little ponies got to laugh and play in the sun; little changelings strove to be as alike and obedient as every other changeling.

The bright sun filtering through the shady tree and warming his sweaty coat was too pleasant to make moving from his grassy spot any kind of a priority item on his bucket list. He giggled as Pinkie and the little ponies waved the jars in the breeze and sent another cloud of grasshoppers across the still water, which rapidly turned into a churning mass of happy fish, and a loud ‘plop’ as one of the little ponies followed the bugs.

Shrieks of joy soon followed, as did the rest of the little ponies with a series of small splashes and one larger Pinkie-sized splash while the trout pond became a pony-trout pond, and their happy laughter and cries filled the air. It was wonderful, comfortable, and warm under the tree, and he had just rested his eyes for a moment when a cool shadow swept over his body.

“So thou art the Changeling who is attempting—”

The changeling’s eyes sprang open. The moonlit night sky spread out in glorious array above, eclipsed by a dark alicorn with blazing eyes and an ebon, star-swept mane who towered over him. Out of sheer reflex, he bolted to his hooves—

And awoke, while still bolting to his hooves in the warm summer sunshine, with no trace at all of any terrifying Nightmare who would gobble him up and spit out his bones, leaving only the empty shell.

Although he was still under the tree.

With a low branch.

At about forehead level.

After the stunning impact, he sagged back to the damp grass as his eyes unwillingly closed once again, and just as before, the Nightmare towered over him in the starlit night as if he had not even moved a muscle.

“—intimacy with the Bearer of—”

This time he sprang to his hooves with a panicked shriek, lunging forward, and coming out from his nightmare at a dead run, with his disguise peeling off in a yellow blur and tufts of grass flying in all directions as he threw every bit of energy he had into pure speed and only ending when he ran out of sun-drenched meadow and ran into the cool pond.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

Pinkie giggled as she bounced beside him, much as she had been giggling ever since he had hit Fluttershy’s trout pond at full speed and put up such a massive wave that Scootaloo had tried to surf on it. It had not helped that a few of the smaller trout had actually gotten stuck in the holes in his legs and it had taken several minutes of uncontrollable ticklish laughter to extract them, after which he really did not want to revisit his short but memorable visits with The Nightmare. It was something that needed to be forgotten, a minor distraction much like his disguise, and although he could feel the distrustful glances sent his way by the townsponies on the way back to Sugarcube Corner, they had only been slightly uncomfortable at his natural shape, probably made up for by the tattered pink ribbon he was wearing as a leash .

“Mister Cake! We’re back!” he called out as the two of them bounced into the bakery. “Has the Royal Guard wagon been here yet?”

“Not yet, Pops,” called out Carrot as he backed out of the door to the kitchen with a box balanced on his head. “I’ve got the cupcakes all boxed up for them, and…” The stallion trailed off with a puzzled blinking at the sight of the changeling looking like a changeling for a change.

“I decided not to wear my disguise,” said the changeling. “I thought it would be easier for the little ponies if I wasn’t as identifiable.”

“I… suppose,” said Mister Cake as he put the box of cupcakes onto the counter. “You know, if you wanted to stay here—”

The changeling cut him off with a raised holey hoof. “My place is at the hive. I thought about it for a long time, and Pinkie Pie has helped me realize where I belong. I’ll miss all of you, but it has to be this way.” The changeling stepped forward and gave Carrot a hesitant hug, which was returned in a very stallion-to-stallion fashion and broke up when the older stallion looked out the window.

“Looks like they just landed.” Carrot swallowed and wiped away something from the side of his face. “I’ll just run the cupcakes out to them while you… say goodbye to Pinkie.”

The changeling took one last pass through the kitchen, making sure the oven was turned off and all of the pots and pans hung back up with Pinkie Pie tagging along behind him. He really did not want to get all teary and maudlin, which was certain to happen if he were to look into those dangerous blue eyes, so he contented himself with polishing one small speck of cupcake out of the bottom of a tray while trying not to say the words that finally broke out.

“Looks like it’s about time for me to go.”

“Yeah.” He could hear Pinkie Pie behind him, putting the last of the dry muffin tins back into the cabinet. “The party’s over, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. Looking out the window showed several of the townsponies all gathered around the Royal Guard wagon, which seemed to be upsetting to the half-dozen or so changelings cowering in terror inside. The ponies looked as if they just wanted to say goodbye to him in person, which at least would be brief and less painful than what he was going through right now. “Well, everything seems to be in order here, so I better get going.”

He took one last look around the kitchen with lines of shining pots and pans all in perfect array, much like a changeling hive with every single changeling doing their part in one cooperative whole. There was just one little flaw that bothered him somewhat. One of the long-handled skillets was missing from its rightful place, and he turned around to tell Pinkie before leaving.

Oh, that’s where it—

The skillet met his skull with a deafening thud, swung with unerring accuracy in the firm grip of Pinkie Pie’s powerful jaws. He staggered on his hooves for a long moment as the kitchen turned in slow circles, barely able to pick out the words that Pinkie was saying over the ringing in his ears and the skillet handle in her mouth.

“This party’s not over until I say it is.”

Then the skillet descended again.

Chapter 17 - Coming Out of the Closet

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 17
Coming Out of the Closet

The world slowly faded back into view, even though ‘world’ in this case appeared to be Pinkie Pie’s closet, and ‘faded’ was more like a throbbing pulse of cranial trauma that subsided just enough for him to make out the surrounding circle of various sized party cannons, all seemingly pointed at his bound nose-to-hoof body. The changeling was getting used to pain the longer he stayed in Ponyville, but the echoes of the saucepan landing on his head twice still seemed to be bouncing around between his ears even as his skull was growing two sizable bumps that would technically make shifting into his disguise less a unicorn and more a triacorn, or triceracorn, or whatever a three-horned pony would be called.

In a quite succinct summary of his present situation, he groaned once. He even tried to put a hoof on his aching head, only to find the mummification of his body by way of tightly-wrapped streamers was nearly complete, with only the lack of canopic jars to separate him from the specimens of embalming he had once seen in a museum from the outside.

From the inside of his head, it didn’t look much better.

With the greatest of care, the changeling shifted into the smaller form of Scootaloo and shrugged out of the loose ribbons before changing back to himself. It could not have been very long ago that he had been slugged over the head with the skillet, and possibly the Royal Guard wagon was still out in the yard. With luck, he could slip out of a window and over to the escape wagon before anypony even noticed he was gone. If so, there was no time to waste. He flung open the closet door and paused.

So that’s where Pinkie Pie and her cannon—

* * *

This time as Pinkie’s closet slowly faded into view around the changeling, there were a few changes that he could not help noticing. For starters, his nose was packed completely full of confetti. Again.

Secondly, the additional streamers that had been tied all around his body were strung through the holes in his legs this time, making it impossible for him to change forms without incredible pain.

Thirdly, the number of party cannons in the closet was one short, which he really should have noticed before.

And fourth, there was a stabbing agony in his chest that felt as if somepony had ripped his heart out and packed the bloody cavity with burning salt. It made it very difficult to light his horn and use his magic to unwind the tight ribbons, but he struggled through the agonizing pain and associated tears.

Whatever body part that had broken was unimportant. He had to escape while Pinkie Pie was away. He couldn’t hurt her any more. As long as he was here, she was going to be in pain, like a long wooden splinter that only quit hurting when it was removed. At last, he managed to get the final ribbon pulled free from his leg and regarded the closed closet door. Again.

There were only two distinct sensations of love in the immediate vicinity, which he could easily identify as Carrot and Cup Cake. All the rest of the emotions from the small town were vague and fuzzy all around him, but he could not feel the distinctive sensation of Pinkie’s bubbling personality anywhere within range, so he flung open the closet door and stumbled out into her bedroom.

Oops. She must be really good at hiding her emot—

* * *

The closet swam slowly into view again, somewhat blurred and echoing from the ringing in his ears and the taste of an entire mouthful of confetti, and also seeming as if all of the cannons stored around him were duplicated due to his eyes not wanting to focus. After working up enough saliva to spit out the wad of tasteless flakes, he took as deep a breath as he could from inside of his tight cocoon of streamers and considered his next move.

First, I’m not going to open that door.

The agonizing pain in his chest only grew as he lay there and considered his condition, but at least the rest of his body was remaining un-cannoned. Undoubtedly, Pinkie Pie was still outside the closet door, which was the only way out of the closet, so for now, his world had shrunk down to a very small space filled with unloaded party cannons and various other party materials.

And pain. It was an unusual pain, and even gently using his magic to unwind a few of the encasing streamers and look at his chest did not enlighten him to the source. Although none of his thin chitin was split or cracked, it seemed as if the pain came from inside, radiating out from where he normally could feel the flow of love pouring into his chest.

Or more correctly, where he could still feel the incoming flow of love, mixed with a bitter emotion he had never felt before: Loss.

So this is what it feels like.

He wanted to run, to fly away as fast as possible, to tunnel through the floor of the closet, anything that would get him far, far away from the agonizing pain that poured directly into his heart. The wave of pure pain grew until all he could do was sob wordlessly into the floor for the longest time, and then all of the sudden with no warning at all, it cut off.

In the dead silence, he could hear Pinkie’s bedroom door creak slightly open and Twilight Sparkle’s voice whisper, “Pinkie? Are you up to having visitors?”

“Yes.” Pinkie’s voice was nearly inaudible, and the faintest echo of that unbearable pain made the changeling hold his breath in fear of it returning. The shuffling sound of another pony coming into Pinkie’s bedroom preceded another long silence, mixed in with the occasional sound of two uncomfortable ponies sitting next to each other on the edge of the bed, neither of them willing to speak first.

Finally, Twilight Sparkle ventured, “So, he’s gone?”

“Yes,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “I told him to fly away.”

“Oh.” There was a faint rustle of somepony rearranging themselves instead of talking, then Twilight Sparkle continued, “I wondered why I didn’t see him go out to the wagon.”

“He said it would be easier for the little ponies.”

“I see.” The sound of Twilight Sparkle uncomfortably shifting positions mixed with the faint rustle of a set of notecards and she continued, “You knew he had to go. He’s not like other ponies.”

“I’m not like other ponies either, Twilight. None of us are. He could stay and everypony could get used to him. He can’t help what he is, but he can change. He’s a changeling after all. They change. He told me so.”

“He can’t change from being a changeling, Pinkie,” insisted Twilight Sparkle. “If he were still here, he would be sucking the love out of everypony in town.”

“No,” said Pinkie. “Just me.”

“We can’t know that for certain. He could be a scout for an invasion, or a saboteur, trying to prevent the Elements of Harmony from being used against them.” There was a faint flipping noise of notecards being rearranged. “He could even be here to kidnap somepony or steal something.”

There was a sniffling noise from Pinkie Pie. “What if he only wanted my love, Twilight? And I was giving it to him without any stealing at all.”

“He can’t give you any love back, Pinkie. Changelings don’t give back.”

“He does too. He makes me happy,” said Pinkie Pie. “He’s never really been really happy before, and when he’s happy, I’m happy, and that makes him happy too in one great big circle of happiness. Is that what you’re protecting me against, Twilight? Don’t you want me to be happy?”

There was an exceedingly long pause before Twilight Sparkle said, “He’s still here, isn’t he?”

“Maybe,” said Pinkie Pie.

With a glow of unicorn magic, the door to the closet creaked open very slowly and the changeling looked out into the bedroom. Twilight Sparkle was staring in his direction with a mixed expression of physical tolerance and mental exasperation while Pinkie Pie just kept her head bowed with her normally poofy mane all flattened into a dull cascade of magenta down the sides of her face. It took considerable effort, but the changeling began an inchworm-style crawl through the bedroom until he could curl up at the base of the bed and brush up against one of Pinkie’s hooves.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know how much leaving would hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“You did,” she whispered back with a dry sniff. “I’m sorry for hurting you too. You were just trying to go home and I panicked. I’m a bad pony.”

“You’re not a bad pony. You’re never a bad pony. You know I’m going to have to go back to the hive eventually or I’ll explode,” he added, trying not to envision just exactly what would happen to an overfed changeling and how large the eventual explosion would be.

It will probably involve confetti. And streamers. And cake.

“Stay just a little while longer,” she whispered. “Please?”

He rubbed his horn against Pinkie’s hoof as he tried to make sense of the flood of emotions that poured down on him. Love had been such an easy emotion to absorb that he had avoided all of the others that she radiated, leaving a sour residue to her taste now. There was regret at leaving her family rock farm, fear that her friends would abandon her, uncertainty about her ability to laugh when times got difficult, and he opened his heart to the bitter flow. Despair, loss, guilt, envy, they all poured into the vast pool of love he had already harvested, swirling around as they mixed and frothed inside. He could feel the pride she had in her friends, the joy of seeing a little foal’s face light up at a party, respect for the towering Princess Celestia and her fragile sister, Princess Luna. Even the fear of losing her brother’s love to her childhood foalsitter…

The changeling shifted positions a little farther from Twilight Sparkle, trying to make the words as soft as possible. “And you’ll let me go?”

“If you love something,” she recited, “set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours.”

“Changelings don’t come back.” Still wrapped up in the entirety of her complicated emotions, he huddled up to the one pink hoof that he could reach from the floor. “Ever.”

“Then I’ll know,” she replied, sliding the hoof down the side of his face and beginning to untie the streamers. “Come on. Let’s get you out of those things and into the tub.”

“I’ll just…” Twilight Sparkle slipped off the bed and backed up towards the door. “I’ll leave you two alone for a while.”

He never even heard the door shut.

* * *

Late that evening after they had gone to bed, the changeling remained quiet with Pinkie Pie wrapped around him in a very possessive fashion. The agonizing pain in his chest had faded to a dull throb, but Pinkie had maintained close physical contact from the moment the last streamer had been untied, even in the tub and the long soak that it took to clear his sinuses of multicolored flakes. They had settled down into bed some time ago, but he remained awake with his thoughts as the moon slowly rose outside the window and spilled its light across the floorboards to highlight the room in cold silver.

His familiar unicorn form seemed more appropriate to wear this evening, even though the slightest move away from her seemed as if a strip of flesh was being peeled off his furry chest. After all, fur worked much better than chitin for soaking up the frequent tears or sniffles, despite feeling as if he were lying about his true self.

Would it be wrong to stay? No changeling has ever stayed after being found out. What’s the worst that could—

He cut off that line of thought with a distinct wince. With only a few days in town so far, it seemed as if his life was being lived at the whim of some violent sadist with a typewriter who was constructing a script in which the maximum amount of laughter could be extracted from his mishaps until the eventual end of the story and his life. But that was just a foolish thought. More likely, it was a firm indication by Fate that showed just why ponies and changelings needed to keep a certain amount of distance between them.

As if Pinkie could read his mind, she snuggled closer into the longer yellow hair that covered his disguised body, wedging her damp nose under his foreleg and relaxing with a ripple of tense muscles from her ears down to her tail.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked with one long stroke of her cheek against his chest, shining silver in the moonlight that beamed in through the open window.

“No,” he admitted. “My mind is all full of thoughts.”

“Me too,” she said, moving her lips to his.

Chapter 18 - Rise and Shine

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 18
Rise And Shine

Go home…

The changeling shifted uncomfortably under the full-body entwining of pinkus dianus pieus, the only known pony python in existence. He managed to open one eye, the only voluntary muscle movement he was capable of at the moment. Speaking would have been impossible without gaining an entire mouthful of pink, and he was exceedingly happy that all of the confetti had been soaked out of his nose last night, or he certainly would have suffocated in this position.

That would have been far too ironic.

The faint glow of morning was filtering in through the windows, far later than Pinkie normally slept in. It had been a stressful evening last night, and the Cakes had each peeked into Pinkie’s room twice this morning before slipping away while radiating various degrees of confusion. Even the alarm clocks had been neglected, each of them slowly ticking away until they reached the end of their springs and stopping at various times.

There was no danger of the changeling running out of spring. If he had been a clock, he had enough love in him to tell time until Celestia was old and grey, and more love poured in by the minute. Eventually, he would reach his limit again and would be forced to flee before exploding like an overblown balloon. The little voice inside his head constantly whispered it with increasing insistence.

Home is changelings. Home is not ponies. Go home. Give the love that fills your body to the hive. You are needed at home.

He was needed here far more, and not just in a physical fashion, although that was part of it, he supposed. Throughout the night, they had experimented somewhat awkwardly with each other. She had been a clumsy kisser, despite a burning desire to learn and an enthusiasm for the activity that bordered on terrifying. In other regards, she had been almost timid, filled with fear of rejection and afraid of hurting him. It was… different than before, almost as if he had been with another changeling who could not decide who she was going to be at any one moment.

He had followed, at first, then led for a while as they determined each other’s pace. For a time, they had even tried to lead each other, but that didn’t work at all, and in the end they returned the bridle to Pinkie’s bottom drawer and returned to bed with the mutual understanding that the use of the device was not nearly as pleasant as rumor had claimed, or that perhaps there was a trick to it that neither of them understood.

They had even spoken of foals, in hushed whispered words under the covers as if Pinkie were afraid that the Cakes would hear. Neither of them had the most pleasant of memories from that time, but much like him, she still viewed the simple rock farm where she grew up to be the center of her world, and held her family in the highest regard. In that regard too, she was torn. The Cakes were her family as much as the Pies, and she worried that to love one to the extent she desired would somehow reduce the love poured out onto the other.

The odd thought that he was sucking away what was rightfully the property of others bothered the changeling far more than he was willing to admit. The fountain of love that poured out of Pinkie only seemed endless. No one pony could possibly be this filled with life and determined to spray it all around wherever she went without eventually running dry. It stuck with him while they were brushing their teeth, side-by-side, and as they bumped flanks while walking down the stairs. She deserved to fall in love with a real pony, one who could return that love, one who could give her the foals she wanted, grow old with her, and eventually die with her after wringing every single drop out of life that the two of them could squeeze.

As they strolled into the kitchen, they saw Mister and Missus Cake taking a brief morning break with Cup resting her pregnant bulk on a flattened cushion and mopping her brow while Carrot brewed her up a quick cup of tea and kept an eye on the front counter. The two of them looked both exhausted and elated, with the symphony of married love between them that made the changeling pause just to take a deep breath and appreciate the fine aroma. Even the faint taste of the growing foals flavored the air with undercurrents of so many kinds of love that the changeling could not consider matching them with the bland tags he had learned during his long months of training. Like the many ingredients of a cake, when properly mixed and treated produced a delectable treat, this was a dessert he would never be able to create on his own, and he muffled a sniff by excusing himself to go cover the front counter while Pinkie dove into the baking with a vengeance.

For some reason, his flank felt cold at the front counter as he served up the waiting line of customers. Perhaps it was a draft from the ice machine, or a welcome absence of hormone-inflamed customers. It certainly was not from the ponies, who all greeted him with smiling faces and outstretched hooves, insisting on a hoof-shake or a quick kiss on the cheek ‘as a snack’ before giving him their bits and taking away their baked goods. After about the tenth “So glad you decided to stay,” he decided that it was futile to explain that he had not really voluntarily remained in town when the Royal Guard wagon departed. After all, the lumps on his head had subsided and Pinkie Pie continued to dance into the room every so often to replenish the shelves and steal a kiss of her own, so it would be rather difficult to explain last night.

Or, as he was beginning to dread, they would understand far too well, and possibly offer more encouragement.

He was just transitioning his worry into concern about the Royal Guard wagon returning this afternoon, when a young earth pony mare entered Sugarcube Corner.

No, ‘entered’ was the wrong word. She used a sinuous movement somewhat similar to a sashay, with small segments of a slink, or a sway, and even a strut tossed in there somewhere as strong muscles rippled under her tan coat and polished hooves clicked along the floor. Most of her body and in particular her gently flowing amber mane swung along in a delightful counterpoint to her measured pace and to the musical accompaniment of small bits of jingling chain that draped all around her shapely shape. She paused at the counter, ignoring the line of stunned customers she had passed on her way in, and studied the changeling as if he were some sort of chocolate dessert, and she was determining just where to insert the spoon.

“So you’re a changeling,” she whispered in a husky contralto that brought a shiver up the changeling’s neck. Her questioning gaze swept up and down his body until she leaned forward and gently nipped the apron off of his unresisting body in one slow motion.

“Interesting,” she added. “Change.”

“Whay?” he managed to stammer out of a suddenly dry throat.

“If you’re really a changeling, show me,” she added with a sultry sweep of her eyelashes that jingled a few nearby metallic links on her face.

It took several false starts for the changeling to actually drop his disguise, feeling oddly self-conscious about the whole activity much like the brief time he had spent as a male dresser⁽*⁾. Finally, a wave of green changeling magic swept over his body and he stood in place, trying not to feel as if the observing mare were evaluating him like a bundle of carrots in the marketplace. After an uncomfortably long time, she nodded and pulled a small card out of her mane. Placing it on the counter, she put the apron back onto the changeling and delicately lipped a pencil out of his pocket, using it to draw through the ‘By Appointment Only’ line on the business card.

The changeling stood frozen as the young mare picked up the card from the counter with her lips and delicately placed it behind one of his ears, brushing the thin chitin as she returned to her position with a soft whisper of, “Later.”

And with the soft jingle of her metallic jewelry and a sultry swaying of her shapely hips, she made her way back out the front door of the store and vanished from sight.

“Whips and Chains,” read Pinkie Pie just inches from his twitching ear as she examined the business card. “Professional Therapists. I didn’t know Chains and her sister both were Psych-it-rists, Pops.”

“Psychiatrists,” corrected the changeling automatically, trying not to think about what her couch would look like, or the possible accessories that it would contain.

(*) Although most of the dressing clubs cater to young stallions who drink oversalted drinks and watch young mares strut back and forth on stage while putting on clothes to loud music, there are a few more ‘select’ establishments in which the genders of the participants were reversed. Most changelings considered both types to be the equivalent of candy stores: tasty but not very nutritious. However, on occasion, the queen prefers a little bit of candy mixed in with the harvested love.

* * *

It was far more comfortable to remain back in the kitchen and deal with the end of the baking day as Pinkie Pie covered the front counter and the Cakes retreated for a well-deserved break. Maybe staying was an option after all, if he could avoid Ponyville’s ‘Psychiatrists.’ Perhaps even Twilight Sparkle could find some way of collecting the excess love he was accumulating for shipment back to the hive.

* * *

The delivery changeling dressed in the milkcolt’s uniform paused at Sugarcube Corner’s doorstep to look at the collection of glass bottles that had been arrayed for his daily pickup. It was a little more than the usual pickup, but the deep ‘chug, chug, chug’ of the milking machine could still be heard from somewhere inside Sugarcube Corner.

“So, that’s four bottles of Affection, two of Passion, six of Gastronomic Glee, and one of Lust,” he said over the sound of the milker. He looked up at Pinkie Pie, who had been checking off a list as he read. “Seems a little high for Glee this morning, Ma’am. Isn’t he done yet?”

“We had a sale on Applejack’s Apple Fritters yesterday and he’s still in the milker until it all comes out,” chirped Pinkie while producing a paper bag. “I saved a couple of fritters for you and Queen Meanie.”

* * *

It was a very busy day in the bakery that kept him either mixing, cooking or cleaning in one long line of baking pans that fortunately kept his mind busy enough to avoid thinking, but as the lunch rush slowed and the end of the baking day approached, his rebellious mind insisted on bringing up more reasons both why he needed to go home and why he should stay. He had just finished washing the long-handled skillets and was polishing a somewhat shallow dent out of the bottom of one, when a gentle touch on his shoulder alerted him to the fact that somepony had managed to slip up on him while he was lost in thought.

“Excuse me,” whispered The Fluttershy as every single voluntary muscle in the changeling froze up solid. “The girls are out collecting grasshoppers again today so the trout have enough food for their long trip upstream to… you know. They wanted to know if you wanted to help them again. You know. If you want to.”

* * *

The cheerful pegasus fluttered down to the group of small ponies at the edge of the trout pond and hefted the large bag from her back. “Hello, girls. The nice changeling didn’t want to come help us collect grasshoppers to feed the fishies today, so I had to bring a bag of food instead.”

“Gee, that’s too bad,” said Apple Bloom, scooping up a hoof-full of the dark pellets inside the bag. “He was so much fun, and I know he liked feeding the fish. What is this stuff, anyway?”

“It’s a high-protein fish food made by drying and grinding up… things,” said Fluttershy, scooping up a cup full of the little granules and spreading them out on the water to the trout’s obvious approval.

* * *

“Yes?” volunteered the changeling, ever so slowly removing his hoof from the kitchen coffee grinder and trying not to look at The Fluttershy.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “And… Um… I wanted to thank you for… the other thing too.”

“Other thing?” asked the changeling as his mind went totally blank except for an irrational need to flee.

“Oh, yes,” breathed The Fluttershy. “I mean, I never would have gotten the courage to ask Big Macintosh, even though he’s so handsome and kind, and so helpful around the house whenever Angel Bunny breaks something that needs fixed, which happens a lot. I hope I wasn’t too rough on you. Please tell me I wasn’t too rough.”

“You weren’t too rough,” he repeated automatically.

“Thank you.” She touched his shoulder and ran one hoof up the smooth chitin to his neck as cold prickles darted up and down his spine. “Maybe next month during my heat, I can stay at my house and you can come over—”

“It really was Big Macintosh,” he blurted out in a panic.

There was a faint squeak.

He decided not to mention Cheerilee’s hormone-driven pursuit of Big Mac too.

There was a quiet thud.

He decided not to mention any of the other mares who had gotten a dose of pheramones either.

There was a very long silence.

He really did not want to look. But he had to. And after he looked, he wished he had gone with his first instinct.

I’ve killed The Fluttershy

* * *

Despite being torn between an irrational urge to hide The Fluttershy’s unconscious body and an overwhelming urge to flee out the back door and fly home, the changeling managed to settle on a third option that did not involve either physical or magical contact, or a facefull of confetti: Summoning Pinkie Pie out of the other room.

Once she had woken Fluttershy up and the changeling was fairly sure there was not going to be any vengeful retaliation, he slipped out into the front room to clean. It was very difficult to think after such a shock, but the taste of the mop handle in his teeth was somewhat reassuring. It was a physical reminder of his placement in the world, part of the four points that a changeling needed to cover when they first arrived in a location: Cover, Food, Residence and Employment, although if possible Residence and Food could be lumped together by seducing some cute young thing into a few nights lodging, and frequently Employment could be acquired from that relationship too. Oddly enough, that was roughly the sequence he had taken upon his dramatic arrival in Ponyville, although Cover was so nonexistent as to be laughable, and Food had nearly killed him multiple times.

So what really is preventing me from staying? Other than the daily near-death experiences.

A consideration of his recent brushes with death and an honest evaluation of their causes nearly all pointed back to himself, from breaking Pinkie Promises to irrational fear of perfectly ordinary ponies.

He took another look back through the kitchen doorway to where Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were talking, with Pinkie holding her front hooves a very particular distance apart and Fluttershy looking suitably embarrassed before returning to his mopping.

Well, maybe they weren’t perfectly ordinary ponies, but none of them had really attacked him without suitable cause. Even Twilight Sparkle had done nothing more than hold him up against the wall. Oh, and accidentally made the barrier spell on the jail cell entirely too effective. And fed him that horrible glop. He suppressed a shudder and tried to imagine what a changeling would have to do in Ponyville in order to not distress the ordinary townsfolk other than the nametag he wore at the bakery.

Hello. My name is
Pops
the Changeling

Changelings changed. Just because noling had ever been accepted as themselves in pony society before did not mean it would never happen. If he were going to try, it would take some changes to himself, which he started by bursting into a blaze of green fire and appearing in his familiar unicorn disguise. That would calm the nervous flower-themed ponies of the town, and if he kept in the same form for a long time, they might even eventually forget he had another form. After all, the town was used to a fire-breathing dragon and his fire-breathing owner, so maybe a changeling would actually be easier for them to accept. He already had the Employment covered, as he shifted his grip on the mop to his much more convenient unicorn magic and plunged the watery scrubbing tool into the harder to reach corners of the bakery main room. Sleeping with Pinkie Pie provided both Food and Residence, although he probably should buy his own toothbrush sometime soon. That only left the hardest question: How would Queen Chrysalis react?

* * *

What?” Queen Chrysalis grasped the unfortunate messenger drone in her magic and slammed him against the wall of the hive, putting her sharp teeth inches away from his cringing face as she snarled, “How can there be one changeling left in Equestria? I ordered them all home!”

“P-p-princess Celestia says there’s one left who hasn’t come home yet, Your Majesty,” stammered the drone.

“Well go get him!” she snapped. “Get a couple dozen of my finest warriors and bring him here, in as many pieces as possible!”

“W-we’d be breaking the t-treaty,” stammered the drone. “A-a-and the drone is in P-p-p-ponyville.”

The magic supporting the drone against the wall cut off and the unfortunate changeling slid down to the floor. “Ponyville,” she growled. “I’m not sending my soldiers into that pestilent pit of depravity. All of my changelings the Equestrians have returned smell like cake and tea. It’s disgusting. Send a letter to Princess Luna instead. She can deal with him, as long as she sends the body back to us after she’s done with him.”

Queen Chrysalis abruptly turned and looked right at Pops. “Or he could just come home right now!”

* * *

“Excuse me, Mister Tolliver?” Sweetie Belle waved a hoof in front of his face as Pops blinked his way out of the daydream. “I asked if you want to come hunt grasshoppers with us again right now.”

“Uh… Yes?” It seemed to be the safest answer, and the only one that sprang to mind while he waited for his heart to quit hammering away in his chest. He still did not quite feel as calm as before, even after collecting Pinkie Pie and several ‘practice kisses’ from her, but he soon settled back into the same comfortable routine as they galloped out to the meadow like before and happily trounced through the tall grass to scare up the insects. After an hour or two of sincere sweating and an inhaled mosquito or two from his high-speed towing of Scootaloo and her battered kite, Pinkie Pie actually grew comfortable enough with him out of hoof’s reach to take the little ponies swimming while he prepared to relax under the same spreading tree as before.

With a little modification.

The saw tasted of wood and sweat as he ran it back and forth across the base of the badly-placed tree branch, making a nice stream of sawdust filter down even as he tried to ignore the little voice in the back of his head.

Where did you get the saw?

“Shaddup,” he muttered from around the saw’s handle as the last of the stubborn wood gave way and the soft patch of ground was now noggin-knocker free. He tossed the limb to one side and arranged a tuft of dry grass for a comfortable spot to lie down and watch the ongoing water fight that threatened to send several trout up onto the banks of the pond.

Where did the saw go?

“Shaddup, shaddup,” he muttered, settling down on the sun-warmed grass and trying to just absorb the moment without irrational fears or anything else interfering. The decision had been made, or at least if he could treat the decision as being made, he would not have to think about how terrified he was to be making such a large leap of faith on his own instead of being told how to act or what to do by the hivemind. Still, little niggling doubts assailed his confidence with the assurance that returning to the hive would be the right thing to do, the action that he had been exhaustively trained to do, what a changeling would do without thinking and what he had been spending entirely too much time rejecting.

Putting the worries behind him, he tried to consider just exactly how he was going to tell Pinkie Pie that he was staying. That is, without being crushed in the inevitable hug that would follow, or some other possibly fatal reaction to his decision. Despite his initial worries, a disguised changeling unable to connect to the hivemind should be able to go unnoticed in the larger pony scheme of things without being dragged back to the hive to be executed. After all, the amount of love that the hive would gain by his execution would be fairly miniscule compared to the free love provided by all of the other changelings who had already returned, and Ponyville was still a double-proscribed town, so there should not be any changelings blundering into him by accident.

That still left a few dozen changelings who had seen him in town, but for now, he was going to avidly not-think about what could happen if they thought about it too much and Queen Chrysalis noticed.

Ponyville? Why in the swarm would anyling want to stay in Ponyville?

In response to his thoughts, the changeling looked over to the pond where Pinkie Pie was currently launching little ponies up into the air in order for them to make impressive splashes when they landed in the cool water. He may not have been able to love her in return, but she certainly seemed to be comforted by his presence… well, far more than comforted. She led a life of endless joy, and if she wanted to splash a little of that on him for as long as she wanted, that was fine with him, even if he couldn’t splash back. It couldn’t last, of course, but if it went on a year or two, that would be far, far more time that he had expected to live over the last week. It felt a little like his own hive of two, a very changeling-like sensation of finding his place in a vast organization where his own talents would be best applied to the needs of the Queen, who in this case reigned over a very tasty kingdom and had room for a hivemindless drone at her side for as long as it lasted.

Breaking his train of thought, a cool shadow swept over the sun as a tall dark alicorn strode into his view and towered over him. The Nightmare looked furious, with little wisps of star-swept mane curling and snapping in the nonexistent breeze and her eyes narrowed to thin slits in the bright sunlight. Before he could even react, strands of indigo magic bound his legs, and a thick magical gag slapped over his face, although she mercifully left his nose free so he could pant in panic.

“Hello, changeling,” growled The Nightmare.

Chapter 19 - Homing Instinct

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 19
Homing Instinct

The changeling blinked, but that did not change the sight of the furious Nightmare standing over his previously peaceful shaded resting spot. In the background, he could still hear the happy splashing sounds of the little ponies playing in the pond, a distant chirping of a bird, and the sudden hammering of his heart. The indigo bonds of magic still wrapped him securely from hooves to face so he could not scream or thrash as he so much wanted to do as The Nightmare lowered her head and growled.

“Why hast thou—”

The changeling couldn’t help it. He fainted.

* * *

The star-strewn night sky of the Dreamscape surrounded the changeling on all sides as he opened his eyes and took a deep breath to scream. The Nightmare remained almost perfectly aligned with her place in the waking world, staring down at him dispassionately as she continued the speech she had started before he fainted.

“—ignored the summons of thine—

With a screech of terror, he woke up.

* * *

…and found himself still held in The Nightmare’s magic underneath the same tree as she continued to talk.

“—duplicitous Queen of the Changelings in order to—

He still could not help it. He fainted again.

* * *

Endless darkness covered the world, with only the smallest of silver flickers of light to show there was still anything in existence beyond his eyelids. In that infinite darkness, something which drank the remaining bits of light like a sponge coiled and writhed, coming closer and closer with the hiss of scales and the faint scent of draconic breath. One tiny fleck of silver at a time, the lights vanished as the immense bulk of a titanic beast formed in front of him, the only sign of its size being two slits of deep blue-green far, far above his head. With a rumble of massive scales pressed against each other, the eyes grew closer, and closer, until an entire cavern of needle-sharp teeth opened up below them and a voice more powerful than the mountains bellowed.

Awaken!

* * *

The changeling woke up trembling in the restraints of The Nightmare’s powerful magic and prevented from screaming by the magical barrier across his mouth. He gave several convulsive spasms in an attempt to escape, changing forms from pony foal to hefty guard back to his normal chitin-covered form before remaining almost rigid on the slightly-damp grass. The Nightmare looked down on him, her face set in a grim frown and with no mercy in her voice.

“Art thou going to faint upon us again?”

The changeling shook his head as much as he could.

The Nightmare cleared her throat.

“As I was saying, why hast thou ignored the summons of thy queen? Dost thou have a nefarious plan involving dear, sweet Pinkie Pie, or is this another of Chrysalis’s devious ploys to see just how far she can push the conditions of our treaty? Our temper hath been restrained while waiting for the last of your ilk to be cleansed from our lands, but we hath reached our limits. Speak, before I lose my temper.”

There was an exceedingly long silence before the changeling meekly squeaked against the magic bonds that covered his mouth.

The stern facade on The Nightmare cracked with a tiny bit of embarrassment before the magical gag across his face faded away. He took a quick glance in the direction of the pond and the happily splashing ponies in it before swallowing and working up his nerve.

“I’m deaf. I mean deaf to the hivemind,” he quickly added as The Nightmare took a deep breath of her own. “I can’t hear the hive any more, and since I’d just be killed there, I was starting to think I might… stay here.”

Go home…

He was expecting a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning that would reduce him and the tree he was under into smoking ashes. The last thing he expected was the terrifying Nightmare to blink in astonishment and take a step backwards, casting her own surreptitious glance at the pond full of splashing ponies who had not noticed her arrival yet. Taking a step forward again and tucking her spread wings back onto her flanks, The Nightmare shook her head and regarded him with puzzlement.

“Our agreement with thy queen is most clear. Wouldst thou risk open warfare among our kind for a single changeling, or is this some ploy of your ilk to see how far we can be moved in our negotiations?”

“It’s not a trick.” He flared with a soft green light and resumed his yellow unicorn disguise. “I think I could. Stay here as a pony, that is. Since I lost my connection to the hivemind, my hive won’t accept me any more. I’ll be killed if I go home.”

Go home…

“Are you sure he can’t stay, Princess Luna?” An extremely damp and dripping Pinkie Pie had somehow slipped up next to The Nightmare and regarded her with big sorrowful eyes. “I’ll keep him fed and let him sleep in my bed so he won’t cause any trouble. He’s been really handy around Sugarcube Corner with the baking and the serving and the cleaning and my heat… Oopsie, I probably shouldn’t have said that. But it was only one or two or twelve times and it won’t happen again unless it does and you don’t have to worry about us making a bunch of little pink buggies because changelings and ponies can’t cross-breed well I suppose they can but they can’t have any little foals out of it no matter how much fun it is trying or how many times they try which is probably a good thing for Twilight because I don’t think she could accept a cute little buggie niece or nephew no matter how huggie and kissie they are. I’ll even keep him tied up so he won’t get out at night.”

The changeling helpfully held up the tattered pink ribbon which was still tied to one leg.

She’s treating you like a pet…

The Nightmare looked between damp pink pony and cringing disguised changeling with increasing displeasure before turning to Pinkie Pie. “The creature is simply using you, Miss Pie. By spell or pheromones, he has addled your mind. We shall take him away and return him to his kind so that you may recover from his mental influence in the company of your friends.”

Finally!…

“She’s right, Pinkie,” he said with a sudden leaden feeling in his chest as all of the little voices he had been attempting to ignore suddenly made sense. “All I’m doing is feeding off your love. I’m a changeling. I can’t give it back.”

“Liar,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “You just don’t know how. I can teach you.”

“No, you can’t,” he responded as the leaden feeling spread across the rest of his body until he might as well have been turned to stone. “I just realized something. I can hear the hivemind now. I’ve just been ignoring it by trying to pretend to be something I’m not.”

He took a deep breath and just listened for a long moment to the faint whispers that had been on the edge of his hearing for his entire life. Ponies could never understand what it was like to be so close to so many others, somewhat like being with Pinkie Pie but multiplied by thousands. And with less cannons.

It brought him joy to be reunited with his hive, but that happiness was far outweighed by the crushing responsibility that a changeling bore to his fellow ‘lings. As much as he wanted to stay, now he had no excuse. A pony, even Pinkie Pie, was not more important than his hive. His home.

Go home…

“The Nightmare is right,” said the changeling with a brief sniff. “I’ve probably been manipulating your emotions, even if I don’t realize it.” A sharp fluctuation in the emotions of the area made him look up into the eyes of the dark alicorn, who had begun to radiate a smoldering rage just one step away from bursting into flame. Out of reflex, he lowered his head and tried to put as much of an apologetic tone into his words as possible.

“I’m sorry, Princess Luna. I’ll go back home, but can I please stay with Pinkie for a little while longer? Just a day or two until she has a chance to get used to me leaving. I may not be able to love her in the way she loves me, but I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have. Once I leave, I won’t be coming back. Changelings never return.”

There was a very long silence in which he could only hear the alicorn’s breathing, short and strong breaths as if she were mentally wrestling with the idea. Finally, she spoke in a much calmer voice with just a hint of regret. “Very well, for Pinkie Pie’s sake. We do not believe that you wish to keep her from harm, but it seems she has developed a certain bond with you. No changeling could possibly develop feelings of their own for a…”

The dark alicorn paused, as if she had caught a whiff of something drifting through the air. Closer and closer, that inquisitive nose descended until it pressed against his disguised head to part the orange and red stripes of his mane…

And sniffed.

The Nightmare’s eyebrows shot up and she recoiled back with a look of astonishment. “Thou didn’t!”

“Several times,” he blurted out, “although we couldn’t figure out how to use the bridle.”

To his growing horror, he could see The Nightmare’s tail begin to rise, as well as her wings.

“Pheromones!” he added in a blind panic. “I must be leaking them again! Don’t…” He trailed off, trying to figure out just what he did not want her to do. Detailing a full list would take hours, but he had several entries which would be on top of the list.

* * *

“Good evening, Queen Chrysalis,” said The Nightmare with a giggle as she glided into the queen’s throne room on wings of darkness. “I hath brought thy missing subject.”

An indigo glow of her magic brought out a somewhat rumpled dark form, looking much like a deflated changeling balloon, which the Nightmare placed at the foot of Chrysalis’ throne.

“Thank you, Princess Luna,” snarked the queen, prodding at the listless heap of deflated changeling with one hoof. “Was he any trouble?”

“Oh, no,” breathed The Nightmare with a tremble to her coat that traveled down her neck and across her flank. “He was wonderful. Which reminds me. There is just one thing I wanted to add to the conditions of our peace treaty.”

She floated over a scroll, which Queen Chrysalis examined with interest. “You would offer these generous concessions in exchange for two of our subjects every month? Why two?”

The Nightmare giggled again. “Don’t be silly. Celly and I share everything.”

* * *

The changeling froze in a rigid stance, too terrified to think of fleeing even if The Nightmare’s magic was not still wrapped around his limbs. There was an… expression on The Nightmare’s face, much as if she had seen something which could not be unseen, or perhaps in her role as Princess of Dreams having viewed a rather nearby daydream with unusual clarity. One tiny fraction of an eternity at a time, The Nightmare’s tail descended, her wings folded back onto her sides, and a particular look of ravenous hunger faded into a firm glare of unyielding willpower.

“We will send our guards to take him home tomorrow,” she stated with unusual force, before releasing him from her magical bonds and striding away.

Pinkie did not even wait for a second step before slipping up besides him and wrapping him in a soggy hug that made his bones creak. It was a restrained embrace, relatively, and he found himself contributing to it in equal measure while watching The Nightmare… No, Princess Luna walk through the meadow, down the road and away from them. The alicorn paused at the intersection of two roads, read the sign, and turned quite solidly to the right before accelerating her brisk stride to a rapid gallop.

“Um… Pinkie?” he hazarded as the pony in question began nibbling up the side of his neck. “I’m leaking pheromones again, so you probably shouldn’t… That’s really… We really should get some of Zecora’s potion into you.” He glanced at the pond where the happy little ponies were still splashing and playing, and then to the road that led to Zecora’s forest home, which he could have sworn was down the left-side path while Sweet Apple Acres was down the right-side path. Then he looked at Pinkie, who had nibbled her way up to his nose. “Right?”

“It will wait,” she whispered, pulling him behind the tree and out of sight of the little ponies in the pond. “We only have a day.”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

“…and that’s how we wound up covered in so much poison ivy, Twilight.”

Pinkie Pie had not quit scratching and itching since they had sent word with the damp little ponies to retrieve the sheltered librarian, who showed up in a full-body suit complete with respirator. After setting down some orange cones around them and unlimbering a large steel cylinder with a hose, Twilight Sparkle proceeded to spray both of them down with a sudsy solution that smelled of elderberries

“Scrub my back?” asked Pinkie, holding out a scrub brush.

Where did that brush come from?…

“Only if you scrub mine too,” he said, holding out a brush of his own and trying to ignore the wheedling little voice in the back of his head.

“Would you two give it a rest?” said Twilight Sparkle, somewhat muffled by the containment suit she was wearing. “What were you even doing in the… never mind. I don’t want to know.” From the unbroken pouring of curiosity, it was obvious that she was lying, but the changeling kept his mouth shut. Besides, she was far too accurate with the stream of suds, and far too impatient to wait for long.

“So, you said Princess Luna gave you one more day in Ponyville,” started Twilight Sparkle, once the scrubbing was fairly well underway.

“That’s right!” said Pinkie around the handle of her brush as the changeling continued his futile attempt to untangle twigs out of her tail. “I thought we would go to all of my favorite places in Ponyville, like Bon Bon’s candy shop, and Shuffle’s Chocolate Truffle shop, and Poppy’s Popcorn Palace, and Lickety Split’s ice cream store.”

Twilight Sparkle gave her friend a long stare after removing the containment suit helmet and shaking her purple mane out of her eyes. “If he doesn’t explode from too much love, he’ll explode from too much sugar. Why don’t you do something a little more quiet once you have all of the poison ivy oils scrubbed off, like reading, or… studying. You could bring him over to the library tonight for our monthly puzzle party. Rarity brought back a really big one from Manehattan that promises to be a lot of fun.”

“Just a minute, Twilight,” said Pinkie, still scrubbing diligently. “I found a big one too. It’s all pink, and the more I scrub, the more it—”

“Pinkie!” The changeling flattened down on the sudsy grass and tried not to blush, or at least not to blush as much as the bright-red unicorn in front of him, who looked as if she were seriously considering just how big a mess he would make if squashed.

“Aww,” complained Pinkie. “It’s a little like a puzzle too, only the pokey-out part fits into—”

“Pinkie!” Twilight Sparkle hesitated a moment before turning the sprayer on Pinkie Pie at full pressure, covering the pink pony with bright white bubbles and knocking Pinkie onto her back. “Not in public, please. Not in private either,” she added with a shudder. “In fact, never mention his… attributes ever again in my presence.”

Her horn lit up as Twilight Sparkle scanned the cringing changeling from top to bottom, ending with a decisive sharp nod and a faint smile. “There we go. The deodorant spell should last several days this time, or at least until you get back to the hive and they milk… I mean suck… I mean extract out all of your excess love. Let’s see just how much extra you’re holding, shall we?”

Without even a moment’s pause to get a protest to her perfectly objectionable question, Twilight Sparkle pulled out what looked like a small orange propeller, which she floated over and placed securely on his twisted horn. “There we go, one thaumic anemometer, calibrated to rotate once per thaum expended. Let me get out my stopwatch to time the revolutions and we should be ready to go. I really haven’t had a chance to test this, since there are no other changelings in Ponyville, but I don’t think any of the theoretical issues with a measuring enchantment of this type will be much of a problem. I mean, you haven’t exploded yet, and—”

With a sharp whir and a scream of sundered air, the propeller accelerated to a blur and shot straight up into the sky in a long orange streak of light, and ending as it struck a cloud in a colorful explosion that lit the sky, even through the bright afternoon sunshine.

“Yet?” asked the changeling, staring up into the now-cloudless sky at the long streams of brilliant sparks cascading down, as well as a few startled pegasi who were looking around for the source of the odd fireworks.

“Interesting,” said Twilight Sparkle in a somewhat distracted fashion, her quill scratching away at notes even while she looked up at the cascading sparks fading out above. “I wonder if we used a denser form of thaumic concentrator and reduced the ratio on the converter, if that would give a more accurate reading on his power level. Do you—”

Twilight looked around, but her experimental subject and her friend were both missing, with the only clue to their location being a long trail of bubbles headed in the direction of Lickety Split’s ice cream store.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

“Oooo, I don’t think I could eat another bite,” moaned Pinkie Pie as the two of them slipped in the front door of Sugarcube Corner and headed through the kitchen. “Oh, look! Sugar cookies.” With her mouth full and trailing crumbs, she held one out to the changeling. “Want one?”

He held one yellow hoof across his expanded stomach and shook his head. “No, I better not.”

Just one? They’re delicious…

“Just one? They’re really yummy.” Pinkie waved the cookie under his nose until he gave in to the inevitable and nipped it out of her hoof to the chorus of many unseen voices matching his brief groan of pleasure when he bit down.

The hivemind had been getting stronger as Pinkie Pie had taken him to every sweet store and prank shop in Ponyville, which had been quite an extensive tour for such a small town. His newly-acquired saddlebags (from an early trip to Rarity, another oddity in small-town living) were nearly packed to the top with various forms of sugar and clever devices of pony design, some of which could be mistaken for sugar if consumed carelessly.

He had tied the saddlebag flaps down, just to prevent absent-minded snacking.

She had bubbled on about him pranking his fellow changelings back at the hive while popping some flavorful delicacy into his mouth whenever he opened it for questions, or on frequent occasion using her own lips to the same goal. It was no wonder his fellow changelings were paying more attention to him over his connection to the hivemind. It was such a relief to feel their presence again, but also somewhat odd. He had somehow gotten used to the silence, and felt a sense of self that he had never really experienced before. Years of training had impressed the use of ‘I’ instead of ‘us’ in conversation, but that was only supposed to be a shell over his real self, not an actual independent creature.

The thought bothered him, because if he actually had fallen in love with Pinkie as an individual, he could wind up feeling that same chest-tearing sensation of loss when back in the hive. Or maybe being around his kind again would make his newborn sense of self fade away until he could not even remember the pink pony who made his heart smile.

“Pinkie,” he said with a hoof gently over her lips in order to get a word in edgewise. Mustering up his courage to continue, as well as his willpower to ignore Pinkie licking the sugar off the bottom of his hoof, he said, “Since you have a meeting this evening with all of your friends, and their support will be critical after I’m gone, maybe I should slip away this evening. I can guide my way back to the hive using the stars, and you can be with your friends.”

“Is that your decision, or Queen Meanie’s?” she asked, once he had removed his damp hoof.

“Mine,” he said after a moment’s thought. “If I leave tomorrow with… Princess Luna’s guards, it will be a big, flashy event with lots of crying.”

“I’ll cry too,” said Pinkie Pie, sniffing away a tear.

“The foals will be upset and all of the ponies will turn out to see me leave,” he continued with a sniff of his own. “It’s not really the way a changeling should leave town. We normally sneak out while disguised as somepony else.”

“I don’t want you to go, but it should be your decision. It’s wrong to force you to stay.” She looked out the open window at the distant oak tree that served the small town as a library. Lights had begun to shine out of the windows as a number of colorful ponies walked in the front door with boxes on their backs and a burst of happy friendship that he could even feel from this range.

“If you love someone, set them free,” she whispered. “If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.”

“You know I’m not coming back,” he whispered in return.

“That’s what you say,” said Pinkie, turning around to wave her tail at him. “My tail says different.”

It was indeed a very distracting pink tail, connected to a very nice pink pony, but he lowered his head and turned for the window anyway. This was his decision, and if he were to make his own decisions without the benefit of a semi-sentient tail or a queen looking over his shoulder at all times, he should stick with that decision like taffy.

“I won’t go until you say you’re ready,” he said, shifting out of his unicorn disguise for his natural form. It felt oddly like a disguise too, as if he were attempting to show Pinkie how different he really was, and that she should be willing to accept his departure better as a changeling instead of as a pony.

“Fly,” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”

He lunged forward, out the window and up into the darkening sky, ascending with a loud buzz of his insectile wings despite the heavy saddlebags on his rump. The feeling of little spots of love beneath him faded as he gained altitude, although a beacon of pure affection still poured into his heart as if distance was no impediment to Pinkie’s reach. Leveling out above the few puffy clouds that remained in the sky, he turned…

Where in Equestria is home?

The hivemind had no directional finding ability, and although he wanted to fly back to his hive, the surrounding river valley and forest looked completely alien to him. Even when the stars eventually came out, they would be of little use. He would be able to tell directions, but that would not help the fact that he did not know which direction he needed to go.

On the trip here from the hive, he had actually followed the rest of the changelings, and had not actually taken any mental note of the terrain he was flying over other than to marvel at how green it was and bask in the gentle touch of the loving ponies they were all flying over. On all of his collecting missions, he had taken the train or followed other changelings in whatever group he had been assigned. Being a follower had been easy. Now he had to lead his hive of one, and it was no fun at all.

Let’s see, if Canterlot is over there, and we approached it from that side… No, we circled around a few times while waiting on… I am so bucking lost.

There weren’t even any bits left of his wages to pay for a train ticket, and he didn’t think the train stationmaster would accept a saddlebag full of fake doggie doo and whoopie cushions for a ticket. The noisy hivemind was no help at all, and even seemed to be laughing at his circumstance. That left only one option, which he really, really did not want to do, but now it seemed as if he had no choice.

I’m going to have to ask directions.

Feathering his wings to a slow descent, the changeling glided back into Ponyville, down through the scattered clouds and in the direction of an open window that a near-solid stream of pure love flowed in his direction like a beacon. Pinkie was still in the window, looking up at him as he fluttered down with a beaming expression of pure joy, which lasted until he came to a halt outside the window and asked his question.

“Pinkie, what direction is the Badlands from here?”

The sheer torrent of love cut off immediately, and Pinkie Pie vanished from the window, only to reappear in less than one hammering heartbeat and bringing a very familiar object.

That’s the biggest party cannon I’ve ever—

Chapter 20 - There's No Place Like Hive

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 20
There’s No Place Like Hive

The interior of the Ponyville Golden Oak library was a comfortable place, part friendly loaning library and part cozy little apartment for Princess Celestia’s favorite student. At times, it may have been a little too comfortable as patrons found themselves face-to-face with a groggy unicorn in a bathrobe coming out of the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking out of her face, or invited into the kitchen to sample one of Spike’s pancake variations. Even after regular business hours, the most insomniac of town residents had a fair chance of finding the front door unlocked and the lights on so they could pick out a book to wile away the evening, provided that book was not currently one of the dozen or so that Twilight Sparkle was reading at the moment.

This evening was no exception. Six good friends and one dragon lay on the library floor around a heap of puzzle pieces, chatting about the week’s events while attempting to wedge oddly-shaped pieces of colored pasteboard together to recreate an original picture that seemed so simple when seen on the outside of the puzzle box. However, there was an underlying tension in the air tonight that finally broke out when Applejack put down her puzzle piece and pointed at the changeling, still stuck half-way through one of the library bookshelves.

“Ya can’t just leave Pops there, Pinkie. It’s distracting as all getout.”

“Don’t worry about me,” said the changeling, using his magic to pick up a puzzle piece and bring it up to his nose for closer inspection. “It’s remarkably comfortable.”

Compared to the way I got here.

“I do hate to agree with Applejack on this, Pinke, but she’s simply right.” Rarity pointed with one hoof. “His coloration simply does not go with the rest of the furnishings. Perhaps if he were a nice dark brown or even—” She cast a critical eye on the changeling as green fire surrounded him and his color shifted from his yellow unicorn disguise to a dark mahogany unicorn with a plum-colored mane. “Yes, that’s much better. Thank you, Mister Tolliver.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Rarity,” he answered, floating the piece over to the puzzle and locking it firmly against another.

“That ain’t what I meant and you know it,” said Applejack. “You tell her, Twilight.”

“Well,” began Twilight Sparkle, trying to look as if the eight puzzle pieces hovering around her were the center of her entire attention. “He is filed incorrectly under History. He probably should be on the Species of Equestria shelves under Arthropoda.”

“Or projectile weapons,” suggested Rainbow Dash.

“Do you think he’s injured?” whispered The Fluttershy. “We could pull him out and check. I mean, if he’s hurt, he needs to be treated.”

“No,” said the changeling, shifting his position inside the somewhat-splintered encompassing bookshelf. “We changelings use stored love to heal injuries. I’ve got enough love inside me to recover from just about anything.”

“Too bad we can’t get my comic books back out of you,” groused Spike, holding up a pair of puzzle pieces to the light and turning them.

“Spike!” said Twilight Sparkle. “I said I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t buy a replacement copy of Marevengers #14 in mint condition.”

“I’ll buy a copy and have it shipped here,” said the changeling. “After all, Twilight Sparkle was trying to save my life when she destroyed your comic, so the least I can do is repay you.”

“Oh,” said the little dragon. “That’s cool then.” He walked over and exchanged hoof-bumps with the trapped changeling. “Do you want me to go get some more cookies, Pops?”

“Yes, please,” said Rainbow Dash, licking the powdered sugar off one hoof. “These are all gone.”

“Yer still dodging the issue,” said Applejack. “It ain’t natural for nopony or changeling to come a blasting across town, scattering fake doggie doo and whoopie cushions in his wake, and get stuck in your library shelves, Twilight.”

“Rainbow Dash does it every Tuesday,” said Twilight Sparkle, fitting three puzzle pieces into the corner.

“Not every Tuesday,” protested Rainbow Dash. “Just a few lately. And I normally land over there.” She waved a hoof at an empty bookshelf packed with pillows and with concentric circles drawn around it.

“It weren’t just that neither,” said Applejack. “It’s the way he did it.”

“Did what?” asked the changeling.

“You shouted ‘Wheeee!!’ while flying through the air,” said Twilight Sparkle, picking up another puzzle piece. “And you asked ‘Did I win?’ after you crashed into the bookcase.”

“I did?” asked the changeling, although after a moment, he shrugged. “I guess I did. So?”

“It just goes to show that maybe you oughta belong here after all,” said Applejack. “And that it ain’t right for you to go back to that overgrown beehive when you could make a home in Ponyville,” she huffed. “That is, without needing none of that stuff that Pinkie’s trying to hide behind her back there.”

“Who, me?” asked Pinkie Pie, shifting uncomfortably on a tall stack of manacles, tape, glue, ropes, chains, and one mousetrap, size large.

“I told you before,” said the changeling. “The peace treaty between changelings and ponies necessitates my return back to my hive. I’m going back with The Night… I mean Princess Luna’s guard drones tomorrow. I tried going home earlier tonight, but I don’t know which way the Badlands are and no I don’t want a map, Miss Sparkle,” he added, pushing away the Travel Guide to Equestria’s Little Appreciated Landmarks book that she floated over to him. “I got Pinkie’s hopes up when I came back to ask directions, and she… reacted poorly. But with love. I’ll just stay here in the bookcase until she calms down, and tomorrow I’ll be going home.”

“And not come back,” said Applejack with a scowl. “Pops, it seems mighty unneighborly to make a friend… or something more than a friend, and just leave her behind forever.”

“We could come visit your hive,” suggested Pinkie Pie.

* * *

A small group of changeling survivors gathered on a nearby hill to watch the erupting volcano that had once been their home. Giant plumes of pink lava shot skywards, raining flaming chunks of molten rock around the ground as the earth trembled beneath their hooves.

“Just for one day, you said.” The changeling queen turned to the suffocating changeling she held by the neck and shook him. “What harm could it do, you said.”

* * *

“Uh… No,” said the changeling. “Security, with you being the Elements of Harmony and all that. Probably a bad idea. Plus my queen would probably want hold you as hostages.”

What a wonderful idea…

“What I really want,” he continued, “is for you all to be there with Pinkie Pie when I go.”

“What, so we can hold her back?” asked Applejack.

“Yes. No. Well, yes and no.” The changeling took a deep breath. “I want you there for her. She’s going to need the support of her friends.”

“What about you?” whispered Fluttershy.

“I’ve got the… All of the changelings in the hivemind… I really don’t need…” The changeling ground to a halt and considered his situation, which was considerably more complicated than merely ‘stuck inside a bookshelf in a proscribed town while a jilted marefriend conspired to imprison him and his hive prepared for war to get him back.’

“Don’t you worry, Pops,” said Rainbow Dash. “We’ll all be there for you too, and so will Scootaloo and her little friends.”

Then again, maybe leaving Ponyville while still alive might be a good idea.

There was a warm sensation about the group of friends that grew as the puzzle became more complete and Spike was bedded down for the night before he could nibble any more pieces into ‘correct’ shapes. It grew as the night went on and a few bottles of cider were brought out to be carefully rationed around the circle. Pinkie got two, of course, as well as Rainbow Dash, while Rarity restricted herself to a small glass ‘In respect for my girlish figure.’ They even gave a bottle to the changeling, who smiled and raised it in a toast along with all of her other friends at Pinkie’s prompt.

“Here’s to my friend, my snuggle-bug, and my sexy—”

Which was as far as she got before five hooves covered her mouth and Applejack was convinced to finish.

“Here’s to Pops, and his time spent with us. May he find happiness wherever he goes, and always remember that a part of him will remain forever in Ponyville. And, of course, to your eventual return, because nopony makes a loaf of cinnamon apple bread as doggone good as yours.”

“Hear, hear,” chorused the other ponies, with Pinkie Pie adding, “And soon.”

“Thank you,” said the changeling. “Does this mean I need to make a speech?”

“Yes!” declared Twilight Sparkle with a hiccup, floating over a collection of writing materials and settling herself for a literary siege. “It’s a speech for history. The first one ever given by a changeling to ponies. That we know of. Other than Queen Chrissy.” She hiccuped again and inked her quill all the way past the nib before floating the puzzle box in front of her and regarding it with drunken suspicion. “Somepony’s been drawing on my paper. It’s good though.”

“One cider,” said Applejack with a roll of her eyes.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

The alcoholic incapacitation of their fearsome leader seemed to take the fight out of the remaining Elements of Harmony, a fact that the changeling thought would be of considerable interest to Queen Chrysalis, although how she could possibly take advantage of that shared weakness was far beyond him.

* * *

”You’re not a bad bug,” slurred Twilight Sparkle as she slumped up against the larger form of the Changeling Queen in the depths of the scummiest bar⁽*⁾ in Canterlot. “You just need a little loving.”

(*) To be honest, Canterlot did not have very many bars of extremely low reputation. Even the worst of them was rumored to make the cockroaches wipe their feet before entering and only thinned the drinks with pure artesian water.

“S’true,” said Chrysalis with a stentorian belch. “All my years, I’ve looked for… Do you know what I looked for, Twi?”

There was a very long pause in the empty bar before Twilight responded, “What?”

“I’m not shure,” said Chrysalis while burying her nose in the unicorn’s rumpled mane. “If ah found it, ah woudn’t be looking. Maybe it’s conditioner. You smell nice.”

* * *

As he walked Pinkie Pie back to her room at Sugarcube Corner, the changeling found himself leaning against her with increasing pressure. Her friends had known he was a changeling, and they still directed their friendship towards him in an emotional wave that he could not mistake for anything else. Maybe that was why Ponyville was a proscribed town. It would have been a terrifying thought to have been treated this way before the invasion. Thousands of years of changeling history, blown away by six colorful mares with no sense of tradition. Ponyville was such an exclusion to the rules that governed most Equestrian cities that any changeling who visited here would be in danger of developing habits which would lead to discovery and ruin anywhere else.

It’s a good thing I was only here for a short time.

Pinkie Pie leaned her head against his shoulder as they shuffled inside the front door of the bakery, climbed the stairs to her bedroom, and maintained that close presence through tooth brushing, a quick bath, and as they each climbed into their pajamas to get ready for bed.

“Pinkie,” he asked, “since when do I have pajamas?”

“They look very nice on you,” said Pinkie. “All covered with candy hearts and flowers. Very nibbleable. I think Rarity snuck them up here.”

He considered the gift, as well as the rest of the room. “They go well with the saddlebags. And the candles. And the chocolates on the pillow.” He nipped the top chocolate off the pile and split it with Pinkie using a shared kiss to ensure they each got the most benefit out of the candy.

“Tastes like love,” said Pinkie with a giggle.

After a second and third chocolate had been shared using the same method, he agreed. “Tomorrow is going to come around awfully soon. Let me get the clocks wound up.”

“I’m not very sleepy,” admitted Pinkie.

“Standard Response #14,” said the changeling as he continued to wind the clocks and set the alarms. “By my training, I’m supposed to either ask what you want to do while striking a suitably sexy pose, or just nibble.” He paused, stretched out across the bed with a clock key in his teeth and waggled his eyebrows at Pinkie. “Want me to go into the closet and get out the board games, or maybe a quick game of Twister? We could even play a card game if you want.”

Pinkie shook her head and scooched up onto the bed to sit. “I thought you wanted to make your own decisions.”

“You know, you’re right.” He put the clock key back onto the shelf and arranged the alarm clocks while thinking.

“Soo…” Pinkie Pie cocked her head to one side and watched him. “What do you want to do?”

He turned out the light.

~ ~ ~ ♡ ~ ~ ~

The next day streamed past at blinding speed. It seemed as if the alarm clock had only rung a few minutes ago before the busy kitchen traffic had begun to slow, and a dark Royal Coach landed on the grassy patch outside Sugarcube Corner. If there was any doubt at to the coach’s purpose, the four sunglass-wearing Night Guards in the traces made it obvious, as well as an impassive Princess of the Night standing quietly in the center of the carriage.

“I guess the party is over,” said Pinkie Pie, standing by the changeling’s side as if she had been glued there by splatters of frosting and cake batter.

“As long as there’s a Pinkie Pie, the party is never over,” he said in return, giving her a gentle peck on the nose.

They walked, flank by flank through the crowd of quiet townsponies, each of whom insisted on a brief brushing of hooves or a gentle kiss on the cheek. Even Big Mac was there, doing his best not to look at the Royal Coach or its contents while giving the changeling a friendly hoof to the shoulder that made his entire leg ache. As they got closer to his destination, they traveled through Pinkie’s friends, who each contributed their own goodbye, from Fluttershy’s gentle kiss on one ear to Applejack’s firm hoofshake, and even a full kiss right on the lips from Rainbow Dash, who took the opportunity to whisper into his ear before breaking her embrace.

“You better come back, slowpoke. Pinkie and I never even got to go out pranking with you.”

Twilight Sparkle merely regarded her colorful friend with a skeptical although bloodshot eye, shifting the icepack on the top of her head and making one quiet request for just a tiny changeling blood sample, which he turned down after looking at the fairly large jar she had brought.

Finally, Rarity kissed him on the cheek after wrapping his neck in a burgundy scarf embroidered with little balloons and making sure his saddlebag was properly packed. She even floated over a large thermos of chamomile tea which she insisted had not been touched by any hoof other than hers, and that she had kept sealed against any attempted additions by three particularly helpful little fillies.

None of the Cutie Mark Crusaders kissed him on the cheek, but they all exchanged very formal hoofclasps with assurances that they would write him about their ongoing struggle for identity, a task which he had at one time believed he understood completely, but now was starting to think was a completely unknown land to his experience.

And then it was time.

The changeling hesitated only slightly before wrapping Pinkie Pie in a hug, a cautious and gentle embrace that went on for far longer than expected.

“I don’t want to go. But I have to.” The changeling held onto the thermos of tea like a life vest in a hurricane, swallowing hard before continuing, “It can’t work, Pinkie. I’m a changeling. I can’t give you love.”

Pinkie reached out with one hoof and brushed away the tear just under his eye. “Liar,” she whispered. “Go on. Luna’s waiting on you.”

He turned for the coach and the impassive alicorn standing patiently inside, taking one slow step after another as his yellow unicorn disguise burned and fizzled away into the breeze. Princess Luna shifted gracefully to one side as he climbed on and turned to look at Pinkie Pie.

They locked gazes, pure blue pony eyes and solid teal changeling eyes in a matched pairing that could never be as the coach rose up into the sky and turned for home. The blue of her eyes vanished as the coach climbed up into the sky, but the small pink dot remained, growing smaller and smaller as he continued to watch until he could no longer see even the smallest bit of pink.

But he still watched, even when the coach began to descend to his hive.

He missed pink.

Chapter 3 - If At First You Don't Succeed

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 3
If At First You Don’t Succeed

“Here’s your milkshakes, girls.” The happy pink pony bounced three overflowing glasses to the three little ponies that he was starting to think of as jailors, each little pony looking at their ice cream with sparkling eyes that should have made him stagger back under a wave of positive emotions.

Still nothing. Whatever portion of his changeling anatomy that felt and absorbed emotions had completely burned out in that disgusting pink bubble. He could not even slump in the chair due to the amount of ropes wrapped around his body that only left his eyes and mouth exposed. He had never really stopped to just breathe in the scents of a place without the emotional overtones flavoring the mix. Restricted to breathing through his mouth, it still smelled a lot like the bakery he had worked at during his Stalliongrad deployment, only without the dour undertones of hundreds of depressed grey ponies plodding through the Rushian winter snow. There had been so few little sparks of love and affection that long, cold winter that he had felt himself slipping into the same grey outlook that the rest of the customers seemed to inhabit all of the time, and the greyness was beginning to return now as he considered his fate.

“And here’s your milkshake.” The pink pony dropped his ice-cream laden glass on the table directly in front of him with a crooked straw just barely out of reach of his lips, before flouncing back into the bakery kitchen.

“Ah don’t think Pinkie Pie liked the way Mister Tolliver backed out on his Pinkie Promise,” said Apple Bloom.

“I thought she was a Miss, not a Mister,” said Sweetie Belle with a thoughtful grip on her straw and an inquisitive look in his direction that made him shudder.

“He broke a Pinkie Promise, so maybe he lied to the mayor about being a mare.”

“Or she,” prompted Sweetie Belle.

“Or both,” said Apple Bloom.

“I’m a male,” he said, glaring at the milkshake just out of reach. “Honest.”

“Liar!” The word filtered back from the bakery kitchen, flavored with a bitter spite that he could recognize despite the lack of his empathic sense. “You broke a Pinkie Promise!”

After determining that the chair he was sitting on did not scoot forward when he tried to hop, and that he could not even muster a small spark of magic to scoot the milkshake to him, he slumped in his bonds and tried the absolute last ditch ploy he could think of.

“Look, girls. I’m dying. It hurts all the way through my chest, my wings are in pain, and whatever you tied me up with makes my whole body itch. Just let me go so I can fly home and die in peace.”

“Ah don’t trust him,” growled Apple Bloom.

“Or her,” put in Sweetie Belle.

“They could be like Snips’ pet lizard,” suggested Scootaloo. “It took Fluttershy to figure out if it was a colt or filly.”

“Hello? Dying here.”

“Ya mean changelings don’t have things like lizards?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Rarity says it’s impolite to talk about the size of a stallion’s thing,” said Sweetie Belle in a most authoritative voice. “Or a mare’s… private places, except among other proper mares, with tea and biscuits. Besides, colt lizards do have things, they’re just hidden. And little.”

Three sets of inquisitive eyes looked at him, and he found himself blushing despite his circumstances, which was made only worse when he blurted out, “I do too have a thing.”

“What would a cutie mark for Changeling Gender Inspection even look like?” mused Apple Bloom, slurping down the last of her milkshake.

“A thing, probably,” said Sweetie Belle as she pushed her empty milkshake glass to the center of the table.

“Ewww!” protested Scootaloo, having finished her milkshake some time ago. “Gross!”

“I’m really thirsty. Maybe if you could just push the milkshake a little closer.”

“We’re gonna to have to find somethin’ different to get our cutie marks in. Other than things,” added Apple Bloom.

“Just a little nudge. I just need to reach the straw.”

“He did say he was hurt.”

“Or she.”

“A little ice cream might help. A little bump in this direction?”

“Well, we ain’t gonna fix he, she, or it up by ourselves, not after what Twilight made us promise the last time.”

“I still say Twilight’s ankle was sprained. And we have all those extra bandages left over after wrapping it.”

Three sets of little eyes looked in his direction. Three sets of little minds contemplated his situation. One carefully watched changeling tried not to smile at the thought of being taken to the hospital, where it would be easy to slip out of a window once the infernal ropes had been removed. Again.

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

It was not a hospital.

It looked more like a refuge for wounded animals.

An earth pony styled house, filled with little curious creatures staring down at him from the safety of their perches and nests, without a single easily-deceived nurse in sight. His little bugnappers had even left the milkshake behind.

If his nose and stomach did not hurt so much, and his wings, and his torso, and everyplace where that blasted rope touched did not itch so much, he might have considered a protest.

The very large and very grumpy bear standing just a wingspan away contributed to his decision.

“Fluttershy, please? He says he’s hurt bad.”

“Or she.”

“And he’s not a pony, so that makes him a wounded creature.”

“Or her.”

“Sweetie Belle, will you stop that?”

The barricade of furniture in the middle of the room shifted slightly and he could just make out the smallest hint of horrible pink from the top of a mane that poked out from above the couch.

“He’s really, really, really hurt?”

“Or she.”

Picking up his prompt, and deciding on a much more natural male voice this time, he coughed once before responding. It was a wet cough, formed from years of experience with emotional manipulation. You had to be careful not to put too much phlegm into a cough for fear of making the target withdraw in fear, but it had to sound like it came deep from the lungs in a noise that only close mothering under the covers and lots of soup would cure.

“I’m dying.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” This time the pony behind the couch came almost halfway over the top, looking so worried that for a moment, he did not recognize her.

And then he remembered the name.

Fluttershy.

The Fluttershy.

The Terror of the Everfree Forest, Curse of the Cockatrice, Bane of the Basilisk and the Doom of Dragons. It was whispered among the cells of the hive that she had once defeated a giant dragon with nothing more than a look and a disapproving word. It was her presence that had Ponyville labelled as a double-proscribed town, forbidden to all changelings under penalty of dismemberment and death.

And she had a pink mane, too.

It was all he could do to keep from peeing or moulting in terror as she finished coming over the couch and touched his ropes with one gentle hoof. “I can’t treat him if he’s all tied up.”

“Or her.”

“Don’t let him out,” protested Apple Bloom. “He’ll just try and get away again.”

“Yeah!” added Scootaloo. “We caught him fair and square. The mayor gave us each a milkshake for the reward.”

“Now girls. I’m sure that if he, or she, promises very very much, it will be just fine to get him or her out of the ropes.” Turning those dangerous teal eyes in his direction, she smiled just a little bit, making him whimper in fear and blurt out a response.

“Crossmyheartandhopetoflysticktwocupcakesinmyeyes?”

It was, he considered, a very useful phrase. The terrifying pegasus seemed to relax somewhat, and even made the three little ponies help unwrap the ropes from around his body, although Sweetie Belle only seemed to be interested in getting a quick look underneath. Even the bear backed up a little, moving close to the only door out of the animal-choked cottage and leaving The Fluttershy enough room to carefully examine his injuries.

He tried not to look at the open window.

Step One: Gain their confidence Check.

Step Two: Setup

He grunted and winced in the appropriate places as Fluttershy poked and prodded, feeling a little like an injured puppy instead of a proud changeling, although he did eat the tasty little treat she slipped him after the examination, with brief mourning for the ice cream still sitting on the table in Sugarcube Corner. The words ‘cracked’ and ‘sprained’ came up a lot more often than ‘broken and ‘shattered’ like he had expected, but she seemed pleased with his physical healing progress so far, with one welcome exception.

She absolutely refused the three little ponies’ politely worded requests to check if he had a ‘thing.’

His confetti-packed sinuses seemed less of a concern to her than the reddish tint to his soft chitin in places that she had examined with great caution and gentle touch, eventually declaring the possibility that it could be a fungal infection much like the termites in the house got at times, and that a good scrubby bath with some herbs from Zecora would make it all better. When she turned to open a cabinet, and while the three little ponies were playing with a puppy, he saw his chance.

Step Three: Escape!

This time he did not call out or telegraph his intentions in any regard. One moment he was sitting quietly on the rug in the middle of the floor, trying to ignore the powerful scent of an unknown number of mostly housebroken animals that somehow managed to leak through the thick plug of confetti in his nose. The next moment he was in full flight out the open window, curving his ascent past a fluffy cloud with a number of colorful balloons concealed behind it.

Balloons attached to a familiar pink pony.

And her cannon.

♥ ☆ ☄ ★ ☆ ♥

The first thing he felt as the darkness slowly receded was his nose.

Or at least the absence of it.

There had to have been such an enormous amount of heavy confetti rammed into his poor nose that if he were dropped into a lake, he would be weighted so that only his tail would stick out of the water. Pressure from his plugged sinuses made his nose numb, his head hammer, his ears ring, and some sort of echo of laughter bounce around inside his skull.

Or maybe it was just having a cannon explode in his face for the — well, however many times it had been cannoned today. He was pretty sure it wasn’t even noon yet.

The firm pressure of ropes all around his torso again was getting to be a familiar comfort. As long as the ropes were there, no cannons exploded in his face. The equation was simple.

Ropes = No Cannon

Ropes = Good

After a few deep breaths, the ringing in his ears had subsided enough to hear the joyful chuckles and splashes of small ponies at play in a bathtub, so with considerable trepidation, he opened his eyes a crack to take a peek.

And closed them. There was entirely too much pink in the room. The walls were pink. The rug in front of the bathtub was pink. The bubbles in the bathtub were pink. And the pony with the scrub brush in her mouth, vigorously scrubbing three little ponies, was, of course, pink.

Pinkie Pie + Fluttershy + Ponyville...

Oh, eggshells. The hive is going to force-feed me love just to keep me alive during the dismemberment process. Getting eaten by a bear is sounding better all the time.

Of course, there was a lot of rope between him and that goal. Again.

He opened his eyes just a crack and looked around. One door. No windows. At least they had not noticed he was awake yet.

One pink leg trembled, one bushy magenta tail twitched, and Pinkie Pie turned to look straight into his eyes.

“Whoopsie, Mister Liar Liar is awakies.”

The little white unicorn gave out a startled ‘Eep!’ and ducked back under the suds. “Rarity says it’s not proper for a gentlecolt to see a young lady in the tub,” she gurgled.

“I thought he was supposed to be a she,” said Scootaloo.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure,” said Pinkie Pie.

Five minutes later…

He was getting used to indignity by now, but being taken into another room and examined in great detail before being dragged back into the bathroom and propped up with a pillowcase stuck over his head so he could not see the ‘naked’ fillies in the tub was a new one.

“He lied about being a mare,” grumbled Pinkie Pie, apparently using the brush again from the vigorous scrubbing sounds that ensured. It took longer than he expected for the three little fillies to finish their bath, get toweled off, and gallop downstairs with the promise of cupcakes, but as the sounds of wet towels being tossed in the hamper quit, the pillowcase over his head was whisked away and all he could see again was pink.

And amazingly blue eyes.

“All right, Mister Liarpants. I’ve got the tubbie all filled with Zecora’s fungicothingie herbs and bubble bath for you. Fluttershy said you need to scrub everything on you to make sure none of the pink fungus remains, although why it’s called a fungus is beyond me if you have to scrub it off. I mean wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be called a notfun-gus?”

“Um. Yes?”

“Good!”

Powerful earth pony legs lifted, there was that brief moment where he could see his death by drowning approaching, and then he could see nothing but water.

Water with pink suds.

Wrapped up as he was, there was no way to get his nose above water to take a breath. That devilish brush descended into the soapy water repeatedly, jabbing painfully into his healing thin chitin and bouncing him along the bottom of the tub while its wielder was actually singing about the scrubbieness and tubbiness of it all.

It was obvious now. She intended on drowning him. While singing. He tried to fight, but that brush plunged down whenever he managed to get a quick gasp of air and rolled him over and over amidst the bubbles.

Finally he managed to get just the end of his nose above the suds, and the hydraulic pressure of all the water he had breathed in exploded. Confetti went everywhere, mixed with snot and unmentionable goo that he could have sworn was brain tissue. Every liberated sinus cavity in his head burned with unnatural fire as he coughed and spluttered for air, only catching a glimpse of where most of the confetti had gone after taking one deep breath of blessed oxygen.

Pinkie fairly dripped with the sparkly ammunition for her cursed cannon, with a huge glob of multicolored confetti oozing slowly down her face and mane, pausing on the end of her nose, and plopping onto the floor with a disgusting noise. Narrowed blue eyes regarded him with a fierce glare, and as he raised both hooves to his head to try to hold back his burning sinuses, he realized something wonderful.

The ropes had come loose.

* * *

It said something for Sugarcube Corner that a dripping wet changeling bursting out of the back stairwell and pelting through the customers scattered around the floor was not the strangest thing that had happened there.

Although it did place fairly high on the list.

The changeling leapt tables, darted between customers, and snatched one muffin right out of the air to eat it in a single bite. With a single hop over the counter and a quick grab for a juice box, he yanked open the front door and dashed outside.

There was a fairly substantial silence.

Then the stentorian bellow of a party cannon with a double-load of Maximum Power Pink confetti sounded, and the limp changeling came hurtling back into the store.

Chapter 21 - Hearth’s Warming Hearts Warming

Changelings, Love and Lollipops

Chapter 21
Hearth’s Warming Hearts Warming

Epilogue:

Hearth’s Warming decorations filled the interior of Sugarcube Corner in an array of multicolored blinking lights and cheery pony figures, all in festive garb to add to the season’s holiday cheer. Glittery paper snowflakes adorned the ceiling and walls while figures of gingerbread ponies and gumdrop dragons carried out happy Hearth’s Warming shopping trips around a score of dioramas that decorated each table. There was even a ‘First Hearth’s Warming’ plaque displayed proudly on the wall, with three large hoofprints and two somewhat smeared little ones underneath, as well as a few blurred smudges of joyful tears.

Despite the decorations of the holiday season, there was just something a little off about the interior of the warm and pleasant-smelling bakery, as if there was a hole in the festive atmosphere that all of the cocoa and marshmallows in the world could not fill. Even the little silver bell over the front door seemed to be duller than normal as it jingled to the sound of yet another customer coming in out of the chilly weather for some holiday cheer and something to fill their empty tummy.

”Welcome to Sugarcube Corner. How may I serve you.”

Pinkie Pie’s voice sounded much like it normally did, but an acute observer would have noticed a miniscule flatness to her hair and dullness to the shine in her eyes, both of which abruptly regained their normal sparkle as the pony who had just walked into the bakery sat a thermos down on the counter.

“Pardon me, young lady. I just dropped by to get something hot, but I saw your sign in the window while I was freezing my buns off and I really kneed the dough. How much bread would I be making? That is, if the job is still available.” The ‘Help Wanted’ sign from the front window levitated over to the counter and settled down quietly, his green magical aura fading away as their eyes met.

Pinkie’s hooves fumbled a bookmark into the book⁽*⁾ she had been reading, sticking it back under the counter while a huge grin lit up her face. It matched the same grin almost tooth-for-tooth on the lime-yellow unicorn who stood casually at the counter with red cheeks and the glitter of snow crystals in his candy-striped mane from his wintery trip but none the worse for wear, even to the tattered pink ribbon he wore tied around his horn in a bow.

“I-I think so. I’ll have to check with the Cakes. Can I have your name?”

“Lollipops,” said the young stallion with a twinkle in his dark green eyes. “But you can call me Pops.”

(*) Hybrids: From Conception to Contractions: Everything You Need To Know As The Mother Of A New Species

Author's Note

Author’s note:

And attached to the ribbon is a tiny tag:

From: Queen Anonymous
To: Pinkie Pie

Merry Hearth's Warming Greetings from the Badlands

P.S. Don't visit.