Hello, My Name Is

by LoyalLiar

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Luna, Changelings, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Queen Chrysalis
Length: 5689

A changeling's disguise fails him on the most important day of his life, leading to a startling discover about the ponies around him.

Limited Liability is a changeling with a very routine life. He works at a bank. He lives with a marefriend. He goes through every day making sure he isn't discovered.

At least, that is, until the day that the hive has planned to invade Canterlot. On that day, his love runs out, and his disguise fails. Trapped in public with a chitinous body for all of Equestria to see, Liability has to find a way not only to survive, but to avoid ruining an invasion years in the making. Along the way, he learns a very interesting lesson about the ponies around him.

Written for the Equestria Daily "Outside Insight" contest.

Cover Art by Ruirik.

Published 2014-08-15 04:50:08 UTC
Last updated 2014-08-15 04:50:08 UTC

A Very Bad Day

Hello, My Name Is

by Loyal Liar

Edited by Dusk Watch, The 24th Pegasus, Ruirik, and SolidFire

Cover Art by Ruirik

“Oh, you’ve had your hooves lacquered…” The little black dots of the boss’s eyes, squeezed between his cavepony brow and the bloated fat of his cheeks, swept up from my forehooves to the little nametag hanging from my lapel, now thoroughly damp with sweat. “...Limited. Though it looks like you’ve got a pretty bad chip there.”

I wanted to wipe my brow off, but I couldn’t risk drawing attention to my face. “I’ve… uh… got an appointment to take care of it on Tuesday.” I almost slapped myself when I realized what I had said. That ‘appointment’ was actually for the complete overthrow of the Equestrian government, though if my boss decided to look away from floor-indicator in the elevator, the plan would be in terrible jeopardy.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Hello. My name is Limited Liability, or at least it has been for the last ten years. I’m a changeling. My real name is something closer to the smell of hash browns that went down in a ship’s galley forty years ago, but I know you ponies don’t really do pheromones, which is unfortunate. I mean, seriously, I don’t know how you do it. Matching names to faces is so hard―and how can you even tell who’s related to who, or what their caste is?

Alright, to be fair, I’ve gotten to the point where I can usually tell you ponies’ castes apart by smell. The rich ponies always smell like rotting flowers and musk, and the poorer variety usually come across like fermented wheat and dried mud. In my time as a pony, I started as the latter, but I was slowly growing more and more accustomed to the former.

Before I was Limited Liability, he was a schmuck: an alcoholic bank teller who was struggling to make ends meet and had a bad habit of betting his paychecks on the underdogs in the B-list Wonderbolts races. And, to be honest, he was about as thick as a good milkshake. It takes a particularly stupid pony to look at a letter from a Zebrican prince pledging an enormous gift in bits, and―I kid you not―actually buy an airship ticket to Zebrica. And don’t think he’s the dregs of your society, either. He worked for one of your biggest banks, scowling at high society over a discrete flask. I’m sure he’s having a fantastic time sobering up and enjoying his new job working for those pirates on the Congallop River…

Probably dead though. I mean, let’s be honest here. I’m already telling you I’m a changeling, so why pretend?

He oughta be grateful anyway. See, after I became Limited Liability, his whole life turned around. He sobered up, cleaned up his act, and met a nice mare from Neighples. He started showing up to work on time, he shaved (mostly because I’m no good at shapeshifting into facial hair), and he smiled when he helped the mares and stallions of Manehattan with their finances. The bosses took notice, and soon he found himself rising through the ranks. First a junior loan administrator, then a branch manager, and then all the way up to the headquarters in Lubuck.

Of course, things weren’t all perfect. The mare from Neighples didn’t really love Lubuck that much, and it came between us. We argued. She filed for divorce. She stopped loving me.

That’s where the real trouble began.

I rolled out of bed one morning in July to the feeling of my belly groaning for food, but I blew it off. I had already made plans to slip some sleeping pills in my “friend” Schmuck’s coffee, head back to his place wearing his stupid grin, and ride his marefriend into the sunset. All I had to do first was sit through a day of boring work. I threw on my fresh new suit (not just a collar, like everypony wears in Canterlot; we changelings are cold-blooded, and Lubuck is awful close to Stalliongrad), grabbed my company issued nametag, and wandered out the door.

Now, I could sit and tell you all day about Lubuck―its history, its layout, the whole big deal behind the gigantic lumber industry―but there’s really only one thing you need to know to understand how the city works: banks were invented here. And can I just take a moment to say: whatever you ponies were smoking when you thought of banks, I want some. Because this whole money thing? It’s insane. If I went up to the Queen and told her I wasn’t working unless I got some little metal disks, I’d get laughed out of the hive. Then I’d probably starve to death. In the hive, you do the job you’re born to do, or you don’t eat. I’d think that would be even more obvious for your kind, with your destiny literally stamped right there on your butts, but apparently that wouldn’t be free enough for you.

That’s not to say I’m not enjoying the idea of money, or the fact that I have tons of it. The average pony living in my part of town makes about ten times as much as a Neigh-list movie star, even though nopony knows our names. I’m just a junior partner at Jurisprudence, More Gain, and Chase Investments (J.P. More Gain), but the head of the National Treasury regularly buys me dinner. I own shares in the weather factories in Cloudsdale, casinos in Las Pegasus, and brand-name hay. My next big plan is the iron mining conglomerate coming together out east, but that has to wait a few seasons. Never invest in Stalliongrad in winter. It took me three small fortunes―and a lawsuit―to figure that one out.

Anyway, as I was walking the gold-plated streets and taking careful notes of whose ambitions were getting close to earning three-piece suits, I felt a strange heat on my back, like an ant under a magnifying glass. As an aside, on Tuesday, that was going to become a terminal offense. I put the weird heat aside as the symptom of sleeping in a cushy pony bed instead of a nice rocky crag and headed through the revolving door to the office lobby. I was early, and so found only one other pony amongst the polished marble floors and ostentatious rounded Cirran columns. He was a huge goliath of a pony, but not in the direction that would make him attractive. I caught myself wondering how many servant-caste ponies it took to stuff him into that suit.

To everypony in the office, he was ‘Mr. Gain’, though I tended to think of him by his overwhelming scent: Sweat. Craftier than sin at numbers, his sole virtue was a wholly unnatural ability to tell exactly how much work his subordinates were actually performing without the need for pesky communication. Case in point, he didn’t even turn to look at me until we were both on the elevator.

As the metal box lurched, I thought about the day’s work, and just how I was going to phrase my request for a vacation to Canterlot over the upcoming weekend. I paid very little attention to the heat on my back until it started swelling under my suit jacket. That moment was when I realized that I was on fire, and I was terrified.

Now, I know some of you ponies are thinking I should be dead, but let’s clarify: changelings catch on fire all the time. The fire was green, and it signaled my disguise burning off.

In an elevator in the middle of an office building.

Right next to a pony.

Right next to my boss.

Four days before a major invasion that would be ruined if, say, a changeling infiltrator was caught in the ranks of one of Equestria’s biggest banks.

So yeah, I panicked. Killing Mr. Gain would be nearly as bad as being caught, and the queen had strict rules not to kill ponies except in self-defense. I took my next best choice: stepping back against the rear railing of the elevator and out of Mr. Gain’s peripheral vision. Every thought of work was gone. I needed love, fast.

See, here’s a little thing about us changelings you might not know. Love’s our food, but we can, and do, eat regular food too. The difference is that while bananas and hay might keep us alive, they don’t give us magic. When a changeling runs out of love, we can’t transform. We also can’t fly, or use our horns, or whatever stupid thing it is that the earth pony caste does to make them special. I couldn’t use a unicorn illusion to save myself. I couldn’t jump out a window and fly off. I was, to put it bluntly, horned.

That’s when Mr. Gain’s eye caught my hoof. “Oh, you’ve had your hooves lacquered…” His head turned and his gaze swept up my body, though it thankfully stopped when he reached my name tag. “...Limited. Though it looks like you’ve got a pretty bad chip there.”

Of course, the chip was actually one of the holes running clean through my leg, but I wasn’t about to point that out. I was sweating buckets, which is pretty difficult to manage when you’ve got chitin and no sweat glands, but let me assure you in no uncertain terms that somehow I was managing to sweat, and that liquid excretion couldn’t possibly have been anything else at all. No siree, I was a sweating changeling.

“I’ve… uh… got an appointment to take care of it on Tuesday,” I explained. As has already been covered, it was a dumb thing to say, but it actually played out in my benefit.

“Oh?” Mr. Gain smiled, in a way that made my chitin crawl. “So today, then?”

“Uh, sir, today is Monday,” I told him, with slightly less confidence than the average agoraphobic skydiver.

“Oh, you must have had too much to drink at Rich’s promotion party last night.” Despite his word choice, Mr. Gain was unamused. “Today is Tuesday. Here.” He idly produced a pocket watch from inside a jacket that probably fit him forty millimeters of mercury ago, and flipped it open for me. It was one of those look how rich I am models with the little meters for the day of the week and the calendar date on separate faces alongside the main clock. Sure enough, it was Tuesday. I managed to avoid swearing, and he in turn closed his watch. “Where are you headed today, then?” he asked, even as he returned his attention to the little dial above the door that indicated what floor we were on. For a creature with hooves, he spent a lot of attention on his hands.

I allowed myself a breath when I was sure he was looking away. “Canterlot, Mr. Gain. Actually, I was hoping I could have the day off―”

“Vacation?” He laughed a bit. Well, maybe ‘laughed’ isn’t the right word. He actually just said “Ha. Ha,” with a noted flatness to his tone. Then he shook his head. “No, it’s the busy season.”

Fun fact about working at an investment bank: it’s always the busy season.

“We can’t spare you now, Limited. That being said, I do have some work you could take to Canterlot. You’re a junior partner, right?”

In retrospect, it says a lot about the stallion that he needed to look at my badge for my name, but knew my rank and how much vacation time I had taken in the past decade by memory. Rather than point that out, I told him, “Yes, Mr. Gain.”

“Excellent. Come with me.” As if on cue, the elevator chimed on the thirty-seventh floor, and the doors began to open. Ask not for whom the elevator chimes, it chimes for thee.

The world promptly failed to end as my portly employer shuffled his way out into a room filled with dozens of ponies clicking away at typewriters and shuffling beads on abaci. If you didn’t know that was the plural of ‘abacus’, you’ve never worked in a pony bank before. At J.P. More Gain, a weathered abacus whose plain wooden beads slid along worn rods was like unto a marvelous painting, or a beautiful sculpture.

I wanted to sprint across the room, diving for the doors to the nearest office on the opposite wall, but I knew that was certain to get me noticed. Instead, the rational part of my mind warned me to be calm and cool. Maybe, just maybe, I’d somehow make it. The first few steps were terrifying as I nearly clung to the side of Mr. Gain so his girth would shield me from half the office. It was the other half I watched with terror, hoping that none of the ponies would look up. I was certain I was going to die… I mean, soon. I’m not immortal or something, so that’s still going to happen someday, but not in the timeframe of the next few minutes. At least, that was, supposing that Exchange didn’t decided to stand up from his desk for a coffee break. Thinking as quickly as I could, I grabbed a nearby stapler with the notch in my right hoof, and flung it as hard as I could toward the far wall. It resounded with the altogether too familiar clang of a stapler punching through sheetrock before colliding with the concealed pipes of a bank’s interior plumbing, and then tumbling down three floors as it bounced from pipe to pipe within the walls themselves, before finally coming to a stop somewhere near the water heater for the executive bathroom. As everypony turned to stare at the wall, I ducked into Mr. Gain’s office, silently empathizing with whatever poor janitor-drone had to retrieve that unfortunate office instrument.

True to his reputation, Mr. Gain promptly disregarded the noise and pushed through the mass of distracted ponies to enter his office. There, he once more ignored me in the interest of reaching down to a pile of ledgers on his desk. With some degree of reverence, he lifted what I assumed to be a spellbook from the top of the pile. With a total lack of reverence, he dropped the ancient book onto the surface of his desk with the whap of an incredibly dense newspaper hitting a resilient fly.

That would earn a public execution by trampling in another couple days, in case you were curious.

“The folks from advertising dragged this up, believe it or not,” he grumbled as he pulled the book open. The ancient volume’s spine groaned, much like an elderly pony might if their spine were being peeled open. “It’s our oldest open ledger. It dates back to Director Red Shield, when we were still a branch of the Liga Horseatica banks.”

“Wow…” I feigned, knowing next to nothing about ancient pony history.

The fat pony nodded. “Well, there’s one account in here that’s still open. And, frankly, it’s worth sort of a lot of money. You see, before she was banished, Princess Luna opened an account with us.”

“Oh.” I said, as the gears in my mind promptly froze. “A couple thousand bits, invested at give-or-take a 12% return… for... one thousand forty four years…”

“No. Just a single bit. Now, it has forty-nine digits,” Mr. Gain interrupted. “The formula doesn’t hold up that far, seeing as that’s more money than has ever been minted.”

“Uh… so what do we do?”

“She started accumulating controlling share in the companies we were putting her investment in. She actually owns the bank.”

“What?!”

As if to disrupt the extended chain of uninterrupted dialogue, Mr. Gain then did something that scared me to my very core: he looked up. And it was in that moment I learned something incredible about ponies.

“Are you alright, Limited?”

It’s incredible how dense a pony can be if he puts his mind to it. Thankfully, the brief instant of terror worked to kick my brain back into gear. “Oh, I’m fine, sir. I’m still just trying to get over the shock myself. Forty-nine digits?” I wiped my definitely sweat from my brow with my jacket sleeve. “Actually, come to mention it, I am feeling a bit under the weather.”

“Oh? Well, in that case, you really should be heading to Canterlot.” He slammed the book shut and thrust it toward me. “Just, uh, do please hurry out of the building. I’d hate to have anypony else wind up feeling, ahem, under the weather. And while you're in Canterlot, ask the Princess what she wants us to do with her account. This kind of money could very well topple the economy.”

I took the side streets to the train station, stopping only long enough to lift a hat from a particularly enlightened young colt, whom my nose named Desperation. Sneaking onto the train was easy enough too, when all was said and done. I’d never actually tried it before, but it turns out if you sit down opposite the restroom in a passenger car, wait for the conductor to start taking tickets, head into the restroom stall, and then sneak into the dining car behind him, you can get away with a free ride.

I guess you could say I took a ride on the gravy train.

Of course, the plan of arriving in Canterlot via train didn’t survive first contact with the enemy. In this case, ‘the enemy’ was a giant wall of pink magic. My first instinct was the soldier caste had already begun their assault, and that it was just a physical shield. That the train didn’t smash on the barrier was the first sign something else was up. Before I really had a chance to react, the magic rushed over me. All I felt was a tingle. It wouldn’t be until later that I learned it was designed to block changeling magic, and that my lack thereof was the only thing keeping the wall from driving me to the back of the train car, and then splattering me like a mammal.

Doesn’t sound great when I use your taxonomic class, does it? Maybe next time you’ll think twice before you crush an adorable, innocent little fly.

I got off the train at the main station, and proceeded to keep my head low so nopony would look past my stolen hat. I had no real intention of visiting Luna, but the enormous ledger served as a good explanation for my presence, so I held onto it. My real goal was to find the Queen, and lend her my aid. Thankfully, as always, her peculiar scent was thick in the air. Tracking her down would be easy enough. My attention turned to the street.

I once again began sweating when a mass of spear-wielding guard-caste ponies led by a purple-armored stallion appeared atop a nearby wall. I stood there, quivering for a moment and hiding behind my book, until realization slowly approached that nopony was actually looking at me. To my eternal gratitude, the guards decided to direct their attention toward a boisterous little unicorn whose colors matched the guard leader. She was shouting at him, and he in turn seemed glad to see her. I had neither the time, nor the inclination to pay attention to the intricacies of a lover’s squabble, so I turned once more for the road.

Walking in broad daylight through the streets of Canterlot was hilariously, embarrassingly easy. Ponies greeted each other in the streets with open displays of trust and mutual affection, giving freely of their precious love on the outright faith that it would be reciprocated. I caught myself staring at least a few times, and had to keep my hooves moving by stringent focus. Even the ponies at the bank weren’t that crazy. These weren’t lovers or family, at least as far as I could tell―they were merchants and travelers, customers and hosts, greeting each other with the sort of frivolous faith that would put the average infiltrator in an early grave.

Soon enough, I was away from the metaphorical madhouse of the literal city and coming up on the drawbridge to a rather elaborate castle. I took brief notice of the marble and the gold and the… amethysts?... that made up the walls, though it was the flowers on the drawbridge chains that really caught my eyes. Beneath those flowers, two guards stood at stiff attention and completely ignored the hoof full of ponies who were walking completely unhindered into and out of the castle. For a moment, I wondered what the point of having guards who didn’t do any guarding was, though I ultimately chalked it up to just another insanity of ponies, and went about my business again.

The castle was full of formally-dressed ponies, amongst whom my formal business suit managed to blend with some degree of comfort. Most were absorbed in conversation, or concerning themselves with decorations, but I still found myself hiding behind the halfway-literal shield of the ancient bank ledger. Each step left my nerves more and more frayed, but they also brought the scent of the queen closer and closer. It wasn’t long before I found what was sure to be my last obstacle: a pair of guards flanking one of those red velvet dividers. They blocked the way to a narrow hallway deep into one of the castle’s mushrooming towers. Without an obvious way past them, I was stuck. I was sure I couldn’t fool guards the way I’d fooled worker-caste ponies throughout the day. Surely they’d look at my face. My best bet, it seemed, was to find a nice corner and wait for a distraction.

Before long, I saw a little troupe of ponies, following around a looming white stallion with a chin that could probably cut diamonds, and a cologne that could almost certainly do the same. The Queen hadn’t explicitly planned any laws about perfume and cologne that I’d heard of, but I was certain she’d soon elect to make them punishable by something humiliating or painful. Possibly both. Anyway, Demon-stench walked over toward me, looking up toward the ceiling so far that his eyes couldn’t properly focus on me. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go, and soon they were upon me. The leader spoke up, revealing clearly that he thought cologne also made for a good mouthwash.

“Gah, look at this peasant! How hideous!”

I shuddered at the thought that I’d been identified as his company laughed.

“I mean, really. Who wears a business suit to a wedding? How… plebian.”

I squinted, sure they were about to start attacking me.

Another chorus of guffaws crescendoed out of the assembled cronies. “How astute, Prince Blueblood.”

I only had moments before the guards seized me. The world was closing in.

“Really, his kind shouldn’t be at a wedding at all.”

The laughter continued for a good twenty seconds before I dared to open my eyes. Between my squinted lids, I realized something rather… fortunate. All the ponies had their attention on Demon-stench, and it seemed none had actually spared me a glance. Sensing an opportunity, I spoke up in a voice that I like to imagine was, let me assure you, the absolute pinnacle of self-assurance and confidence.

“Uh, you see, sir… I’m, um… I’m not actually here as a guest. I’m with J. P. More Gain, and―”

Demon-stench snorted, somehow still managing to exude his scent instead of ingesting it. How he survived breathing so close to himself, I’ll never know. Yet another mystery of your kind. “A banker? How droll. What do you want, banker?”

“I, uh… I need to get past―” My gestured hoof was enough.

“Guards!” the stallion declared. “Let this one through!”

In retrospect, he saved my day with those words, though at the moment, I once again began to sweat. The guard approached, and in a fit of nervousness, I struggled to conceal my face behind my stolen hat and my book.

“I.D., please?” the guard asked.

“I, uh… I don’t have any.”

The guard glared at my eyes, just visible over the cover of the book. “You’re wearing a badge right there on your suit, sir. Can I see it?”

“Oh?” I looked down, and sure enough, there was a picture of Limited Liability. Slowly, I hoofed it toward the guard. He glanced at it, up at the little sliver of me he could see between the brim of the hat and my book, and then down at the I.D. card again. And then he told me two words I could never have imagined.

“Move along.”

I’ll admit fully that I was in something of a mental haze, so I don’t recall much else of the castle. I wandered through the laughably empty hallways, following the Queen’s scent, until I came upon a room decorated by a single dresser, a plurality of flowers, and far too many mannequins. I didn’t pay them all much mind, though, for in the center of it all stood my Queen. I knew her by her unmistakably regal smell, even despite the frankly unappealing disguise she had donned. I found myself wishing my apologies on whatever poor pony had been born with such unappealing colors.

“Your majesty.”

“What are you doing like that?” she snapped, glaring with the full force of her considerable spite. “You’re jeopardizing the entire invasion!”

Swallowing, I once more wielded the heavy tome as a shield. “I wasn’t caught, I swear! I’d be disguised, but I ran out of love this morning!”

“No surprises there, infiltrator.” She rolled her eyes. “What are you doing with that massive book?”

I flipped it open for her. “It’s actually Princess Luna’s savings. I―or rather, my face―works for a bank. I got sent to report her earnings to her, since she’s been accumulating them for a thousand years.”

The queen seemed unamused. “And were you intending to walk straight up to her face as well?”

“No, I was―”

Her body froze in place, and she turned toward me with a smile on her face. “You’ve got no love, you said, infiltrator?”

I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. It was all too easy to imagine her holding a giant pin, just ready to add me to some sort of morbid collection.

Since you’re probably wondering, that’s not something we were quite so worried about making illegal as other bug-related atrocities. Giant pins are the preferred method of public execution in the swarm.

“Actually,” the Queen began, “that’s an excellent plan. Why don’t you go deliver Princess Luna’s earnings to her.”

A sarcastic little part of my mind was tempted to call her out on just how suicidal the plan was for me. Thankfully, I caught my tongue quickly enough, remembering what happened to changelings who crossed the queen. “Very well, your majesty. May I have some love? I’m sure I won’t be able to fool Princess Luna.”

“Oh, I’m certain you won’t. She’s down the hall in the main throne room.” That ugly pink face smiled at me even wider. “Try and give her a good run for her money.”

I didn’t have a chance to reply before her magic hurled me out of the room and onto my flank. I’ll spare you a recitation of my subsequent crippling mental breakdown, and skip ahead to the bit where I grew an exoskeleton and headed off toward my death.

Those of you canny ponies who’re noting that I’m still here telling you this story sure are clever.

The throne room was really big, and really... pillar-y. I’m sure there’s an architectural word for that, but I wouldn’t know it. Besides, I was much more concerned with the mare sitting at the top of the throne on a mound of daises. She looked across the room at me. “Who are you?”

“I’m Limited Liability, Princess,” I greeted her sheepishly. “I represent J. P. More Gain. I’m here to report on your earnings.”

“You’re a changeling,” she observed, making her the very first pony to do so. “I must admit I find myself impressed by your sheer gall. Please, come forward.”

In the interest of my continued self-preservation, I both hesitated and ultimately approached the lowest dais on the stack. With nothing else to say, I opened the enormous ledger. “Our records show that, one thousand and forty four years ago, you invested a single bit with the Red Shield Bank of Lubuck. Um… over the course―”

“You truly believe I am concerned with my investments at this moment?” she asked me.

“Well, I sort of figured you’d have killed me by now otherwise.”

Luna chuckled to herself. “A reasonable fear, I suppose. Though I have to wonder why you would dare to wander in here completely undisguised if you truly fear me.”

“Well…” I had to struggle a bit with that one. “I ran out of love to disguise myself. I was sort of hoping that if I gave you a whole ton of money, you’d let me leave.”

“A bribe? And a bribe of what is rightfully my own money in any case, no less. Surely, I find myself curious as to how you are so overflowing with gall, you haven’t given yourself stones.” I cocked my head in confusion, and she seemed to read into it. “Oh, does your kind not possess gallbladders? I profess, I myself have never been a great student of equilogical philosophy. You see, in ponies, there’s this little sack…” Her voice trailed off slowly. “That joke is dead, isn’t it? Celestia is always telling me that if I need to explain such humor, it is better letting it rest.” Before I could cut in, the long-winded Princess spoke again. “Well, I suppose I should take care of you. We can hardly have a changeling infiltrating the Royal Wedding, especially after all the trouble Captain Armor put up with. I daresay I have never been a fan of attending weddings regardless, so I shall make this fun. Start running, little changeling, and you may have a head start.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

It turns out the head start she gave me lasted a full six hours. I’d like to pretend it was because I’m some master of stealth or acrobatics, but in practice, it stems entirely from the fact that a train happened to be leaving the station just as I reached it, and that the Princess was morally unwilling to destroy such a large piece of hardware just to get at me. I also suspect she wasn’t flying quite as fast as she was able. Regardless, she caught up to me in some dustbowl town full of apple trees and worker-caste ponies.

“It looks like our game is up, changeling. It’s too bad, you nearly made it back to your hive and your own kind. You needn’t worry, though; I don’t intend to harm you. I merely need you to answer some questions.”

Her horn began to glow, and I stared up at it, sweating―

―okay, you know what? I’ll admit it. I was pissing myself, what with my lack of sweat glands. I dare you to do better staring her down.

Anyway, she started charging up her horn in this sort of misty glow that really reminded me of the night skies over the hive when I was just a larva, and made me think of how much I was going to miss them, and just how long I could keep a sentence going for the sake of building up dramatic tension. My salvation came in the form of a group of dark spots on the horizon.

Luna’s spell stopped when the first changeling drone fell out of the sky beside me. Another soon followed, and then another, until I was certain I had found myself in Weather Mares music video. Finally, almost three-hundred dull and uncomfortable collisions later, the Queen smacked her face down beside me, once more restored to her elegant and attractive natural form.

“What… what is this?” Luna asked, eyes widened.

I smiled, my growing confidence escaping in the form of a quip that I’m perhaps just a little ashamed of in retrospect. “Hello. My name is―” I interrupted my words with a hissing spray of my own hash-browns-under-the-sea-scented pheromones, and continued, “and I’ve been your distraction this evening. Now, about your investment accounts…”

The princess looked ready to attack, and my confidence trailed off for just a moment. Then the queen stirred, and a few of my brothers and sisters as well. It was at that moment, I'm sure, that Luna realized just how brutally outnumbered she was.

I’ll never be able to properly express the joy I felt when Luna fled.

So, with all that said and done, what’s the moral of the story? You ponies with your ridiculous castes and your utter faith in giving your love to each other for free probably think it’s that you probably ought to pay more attention to one another, and maybe actually look one another in the eye once in a while. But the truth is this: next time you want to trust somepony, follow your nose instead of your heart.

As for me, I headed back to Lubuck on the next train, enjoyed a good night of fun with Schmuck’s marefriend, and headed into the office the next morning. Only one thing had really changed: I went to the secretary and applied for a new I.D. card. Now, every day, I head into the bank with a smile on my own face, and a perfect reminder of the absolute, unshakeable truth: ponies are morons.

Author's Note

I'd like to give a huge thanks to my editing team: Dusk Watch, The 24th Pegasus, Ruirik, and SolidFire. Special thanks go to Verlax, whose fic Gold Wins Wars inspired the setting.