The Lost Human

Chapter 32

1-1-14, 12:07 P.M.

Jeremy attempted to roll out of bed to find that his bed was liquid. And he was naked. He made a startled sound as he attempted to escape, only to find Chrysalis staring at him. “Is it really that bad?” she asked. Jeremy looked down at the cocoon he had just been in, filled with green slime.

“Well… no… I guess not,” he sleepily answered. “Just… I’ve never woken up like that before…”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Get used to it – if you want to sleep with me, I’m not settling for those ridiculous ‘beds’. Too uncomfortable.”

Jeremy shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, sure, I guess. What even happened last night?”

Chrysalis laughed. “After you passed out midway through the conversation, I offered to escort you to bed while Luna left to catch up with Celestia.” Jeremy frowned.

“I passed out? I didn’t think I was that tired…” Chrysalis chuckled.

“After what you just did? Nobody blamed you for still being exhausted.” She teleported a set of clothes next to him, and a towel. After attempting to wipe as much of the oddly viscous slime as possible from his body, Jeremy gratefully pulled them on.

Chrysalis then walked over to the secret lab, and Jeremy followed, once again thankful that the odd properties of the carbon-like, porous substance that coated every wall prevented any dust or dirt in the cramped passageway. He entered the lab to find that his suit was there, once again in pristine condition. “You know, I think I’ll leave it here for now,” he commented. Chrysalis looked at him in surprise.

“You’re not worried about anyone attacking you?” Jeremy made a so-so motion with his hand.

“Not really – you’re still officially queen, and I’ve got no current political problems with Equestria.”

Chrysalis slapped a hoof to her forehead. “I meant on Earth, you id- er…” Jeremy smirked at her.

“Okay, yes, that’s a fair point,” he noted, choosing to ignore the insult. Chrysalis visibly relaxed, and he looked at her in consternation as he pulled the suit on. “You don’t have to keep a civil tongue around me – half my friends call me the worst names imaginable in good fun.”

Chrysalis appeared surprised at this, before shaking her head and smiling. “You humans are just so… refreshingly odd.”

Jeremy laughed. “I could say the same about everyone here.”

They discussed what had happened after he had won. A group of delegates, one from each Hive that made it to the final five groups, presented Chrysalis with her crown, which had been taken away from her at the start of the Trial. Chrysalis then unveiled the love machine, showed how it worked, and allowed every changeling in the room to have a taste, making sure to keep it away from Jeremy due to his earlier requests. After that, the changeling delegates had very quickly acquiesced to her new rules, and Chrysalis had arranged their transport home. Jeremy looked embarrassed for a moment, before Chrysalis asked him what was wrong. “Well, it’s just… You talking about how I don’t manipulate or lie reminded me… I put a self-destruct in that love device, in case you ever betrayed me.” Chrysalis appeared surprised for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

After a moment, she calmed down enough to explain. “I knew that – Luna told me when you were… gone. I was angry at first, but I got over it.” Jeremy noted this with interest – she didn’t even care? Chrysalis lightly punched him in the waist with her hoof. “As if I’d be that angry that you were intelligent enough to prevent my betraying you – that’s just common sense!” After a minute of intense confusion, Jeremy mentally shrugged – changelings.

He departed cheerfully, Chrysalis stopping him at the last minute to steal a quick kiss. “Get a hold of me when you get that portal working, okay?” she muttered.

Jeremy nodded. “See you when I see you,” he replied, and exited through the portal. Walking out into the bright Equestrian sunlight, he at first shielded his eyes.

Ponies stared at him for only a moment before going back about their business – and this time they were only making comments about his alien attire. Jeremy smiled and walked to the throne room – he was fairly certain that his update on events counted as “royal business”.

Celestia was calmly sitting there as usual, answering questions about various aspects of Equestrian life and signing documents. Jeremy calmly stood in line, subtly trying to keep his posture straight while still appearing relaxed. To his delighted surprise, the line didn’t take long – Celestia’s judgment on each item was well-reasoned, quick and as to be expected, final. Finally, it was his turn, and he approached her with a small smile on his face. “How goes it, Jeremy?” she asked politely.

“Better,” Jeremy answered, assuming Luna had told her about his outburst. “Chrysalis is still Queen, so no worries there – and they’re working on being a more peaceful nation.” Celestia nodded.

“Excellent. By the way, see me after dinner?” she asked. Jeremy nodded.

“You got it. Have a great day!” he called as he left. Before he could exit the castle entirely, he was stopped by a royal sun guard, who promptly took him up a back staircase and through a corridor before arriving at Luna’s door. “Isn’t she asleep?” Jeremy wondered. The guard shrugged and knocked once before leaving him there.

“Enter!” Luna’s voice called, and Jeremy stepped inside.

As usual, her room was messier than Celestia’s, being covered in books and all manner of papers and notes. “Hey, you’re up. In the daytime. What gives?” Jeremy asked, confused.

“Our sleep schedule’s all messed up ever since we headed over there, so we are taking a day off to recuperate. And we heard thee downstairs, so we sent a guard down. We have something new to show thee!” And without further ado, she pressed a button next to her bed and a portal opened on the wall, leading into solid blackness. “Hmm… well, thou do have the suit on…” mused Luna, and used her magic to push him through. Jeremy fell through the void, yelling in shock as he landed on seemingly nothing. He looked up at where he thought he had entered from.

“Luna, what the hell, where am I?” he asked, still a little frightened and irritated from the sudden change.

“Oh, just wait for it!” she called back.

Wait for what? Jeremy wondered, dreading and yet anticipating what might happen. A loud electronic noise started, and he covered his ears, only to open them in surprise. “Rise and shine, Dr. Freeman… rise and… shine…” an eerily familiar voice opened, and Jeremy was surrounded by odd hallucinations. “No way. No way,” he exclaimed, instantly delighted.

“We thought this might help thee blow off some steam and keep thyself in shape.” Jeremy laughed.

“This is the best thing! Thank you, so much!” He contented himself with watching the intro scene for a while longer, before experiencing the odd sensation that was being spatially inserted into a train. Reminding himself, he called out to Luna, hoping she could still hear him.

“We can hear thee regardless of thy volume. What is it?” she asked, with amusement.

“I have to see Celestia at dinner, so don’t leave me in here too long.” Luna gave him a thoughtful hum.

“If thou wish to exit, simply think about opening a door somewhere in the game to here.” Jeremy interestedly took note of this.

Hours had passed before he wished to quit – and the door instantly opened in the side of a wall as soon as he thought about it. “What time is it?” Jeremy asked as he exited the odd pocket dimension, the coat of blood and sweat vanishing off of him as soon as he stepped through.

“About 3 P.M., thou art fine,” Luna replied without looking up from her latest book. Jeremy sat down on the edge of the bed with her, and stroked her hair, and Luna sighed contentedly.

A few more hours passed, and it was time for dinner. Jeremy and Luna attended together, eating inside the castle as was custom during the winter months – and of course it was magically warm. After he finished, which was as usual much faster than anyone else, Jeremy approached Celestia, who swallowed her bite of food before addressing him. “You said I was to see you?” he asked. Celestia cleaned her face off with a napkin before nodding and standing up, motioning for him to follow. Surprised that she had interrupted dinner for this, Jeremy followed her down to a secret staircase, accessed by her horn only. Inside was a single stone panel, and Celestia used her magic to press a button. A portal opened, golden yellow in color, and his room – his bedroom, on Earth – was visible through it. Jeremy looked at her.

“You can leave anytime you wish,” Celestia stated, wiping a tear from her eye. Jeremy noticed with dismay the look of sorrow on her face.

“Aw, don’t act like that – it’s not forever, I’ll probably visit every day!” he protested. Celestia shook her head to clear it.

“I… of course,” she replied thickly. Jeremy hugged her tightly.

“As if I would ever leave this behind,” he muttered. Celestia smiled, and pulled away, trying to appear regal once more.

“So… when do you plan to… head back?” she asked, clearly trying to make such a thing sound non-permanent.

“Tonight, I guess. I already invited Chrysalis to hang out on Earth sometime – you and Luna are welcome to join whenever you get time off,” he mentioned. Celestia nodded wisely.

“I think we’ll take you up on that,” she answered, and the two went back to dinner.

The evening was uneventful, and after a while of waiting Jeremy traipsed back to the hive to alert Chrysalis that he was going to Earth. Almost immediately, she bounded out of the portal and stared at him expectantly. “…What, you’re coming with? Now?” he asked, perplexed.

Chrysalis looked at him, hurt. “I thought you wanted me to attend?” she retorted. Jeremy made a calming motion with his hands.

“I just meant – don’t you have queenly duties or something?” Chrysalis shook her head.

“My drones are building more love machines – once we get those distributed to the individual hives, I won’t have to do much of anything for a while.” After a moment, Jeremy shrugged and turned around, leading her out the door and into the Canterlot streets.

Ponies who saw Chrysalis immediately moved to the other side of the street, skittish at her presence. “How come they didn’t run when you were at the karaoke thing?” Jeremy wondered.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I could tell they wanted to, but their princess was there.” Jeremy grimaced.

Finally, they came to the throne room. Jeremy entered, and stopped. Chrysalis looked at him curiously. “What?” she asked. Jeremy cleared the memory from his head – that begrudging glare of Celestia’s would never quite leave him – and instead decided to continue on. Luna merely nodded in his direction, and he smiled at her as he wandered over to the corridor that led to the secret staircase. To his dismay, Celestia’s horn-based lock was closed.

“Well… shoot. Forgot about this. Celestia’s probably asleep, too…” he thought out loud. He leaned against the door, intending to puzzle out what to do next, when it swung open, and he toppled over. Chrysalis laughed, and he grumblingly picked himself up off the floor.

Taking the steps down two at a time, Jeremy approached the blank dead end of the staircase. “Why do they even have this staircase, anyway? It doesn’t lead anywhere…” Jeremy mused. Chrysalis had no answer for this, and Jeremy reached out and pressed the button to activate the portal. It did so, opening with a small tremor, and Jeremy stepped through. He looked for Chrysalis at his side, but she was struggling to enter, pushing against some unseen barrier.

“I can’t get through!” she burst as she pushed and strained. Jeremy tried to think of how this might have happened, laughing slightly as Chrysalis pushed against nothing.

“Oh, wait, I got it. I have to give you permission or something. Um… I, Jeremy, give Queen Chrysalis permission to enter and exit this portal as she pleases.” Chrysalis instantly toppled through when he finished the sentence, and he resumed his laughter from earlier as she glared at him. “Now we’re even,” he remarked, and looked around. His bedroom was just as he remembered it, which was always a good thing.

Chrysalis examined his room. It was typically messy, to the point that walking on any given part of the floor would make noise due to the papers and plastic objects that were strewn everywhere. Jeremy explained that this was on purpose, and Chrysalis shrugged. He went over to his computer, and booted it up, waiting a while. Once everything was loaded, he examined his games – he had completely forgotten about some of the newer ones he had gotten after Luna had copied over his old computer data, and wondered if he could get the new stuff over in Equestria as well. Chrysalis was preoccupied by the TV in a corner of the room, fascinatedly pressing buttons and changing channels. She noticed the long-abandoned console plugged in, and picked it up. “You have more games?” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, I stopped playing those a while ago,” Jeremy offhandedly mentioned. Once he was satisfied everything was in order, he opened his email and promptly stood up – at the rate his emails loaded on this old thing, he would have a while to wait. “Want to see the lab?” he called out to Chrysalis, who reluctantly abandoned the TV to follow him once more.

When they went downstairs, she was quickly distracted by his food stores – more specifically, his fridge. “Luna wasn’t kidding – you do have meat in here!” Chrysalis exclaimed. Jeremy looked over, somewhat embarrassed.

“Yeah… sorry you had to see that…” he shamefacedly muttered. Chrysalis looked at him.

“Hey… it’s alright, I don’t care…” she responded, consolingly. Jeremy cleared his throat.

“Yeah… I just feel like I should now…” he mumbled. Jeremy opened the garage door, and led her out to an unused third car bay. This area was stocked with both Jeremy’s lab and the gardening equipment, which was perpetually rusty due to his younger self not understanding about acid fumes.

Beakers and flasks covered a wood worktable, which was stained with bright and varying colors of chemicals long since cleaned up. “Not a big fan of organization, are you?” Chrysalis asked, staring at the mess.

“A clean chemist is a lazy chemist,” Jeremy answered.

With not much else to do, he went back upstairs and entered his own bathroom in hopes of taking a shower, closing the door behind him. "You alright in there?" Chrysalis asked.

"Yeah, humans just need privacy when in the bathroom," Jeremy answered, and turned on the running water. For the next few minutes, he relaxed as the warm water washed away his troubles.

About half an hour later, he got out and got dressed again, this time in his pajamas. Finally, he grabbed a comb and made his way to the mirror, noticing the door had been opened. Smirking, he decided to ignore it, and resumed combing his hair. He had only just touched the comb to his hair when Chrysalis peeked through the door, and made a startled squeak at the sight of him. "What are you doing?!" she asked frantically, trying to take the comb from his hand.

"Combing... my hair?" Jeremy answered, feeling both startled and confused as he resisted her attempts to take his comb.

"But... you don't have to do that anymore!" Chrysalis cried, eyes watering as she looked up at him. Jeremy stared at her for a second, then put the comb on the countertop, leaning down to her eye level.

"Is there something I'm missing here?" he asked, and Chrysalis mouth opened in surprise.

"You don't... of course, you don't know! Oh, I'm sorry for yelling at you," she apologized. "It's changeling tradition to let your partner style your hair, so when I saw you doing it yourself..." she trailed off. Jeremy swept her into a hug.

"Sorry, I wasn't aware. Do you... do you want to comb my hair for me?" he asked, feeling embarrassed at asking such a question. Chrysalis immediately smiled, and nodded. Gently, she opened her mouth and lowered it towards his head, biting down on a lock of his hair - Jeremy shivered slightly at the odd sensation, as well as having her fangs so close to him. Slowly, she began to use her fangs as a sort of comb, teasing out the kinks and tangles in his curly swathe of copper hair with a practiced rhythm. "That does feel kinda good..." Jeremy mumbled as she laid her head on top of his quietly.

A few minutes later, she finished, and Jeremy examined his new hairstyle in the mirror. It wasn't much different from what he usually looked like - though she had neatly styled the hairline. "Looks good," he complimented, and Chrysalis blushed green. With that, he headed to the bedroom.

Chrysalis looked like she wanted to poke around some more, but Jeremy mentioned wanting to sleep and she instantly joined his side, looking up at him with a smile. “Do you want to use the guest bedroom? Or, wait, you mentioned something about a cocoon earlier,” Jeremy remembered. Chrysalis waved a hoof, dismissing his concerns.

“I forgot to bring it… so why don’t I sleep in your bed tonight?” she asked, grinning. Jeremy gave her an embarrassed grin of his own.

“I hope you enjoy me fidgeting constantly,” he replied. Chrysalis laughed, climbing into his bed as Jeremy changed into pajamas.

“Just don’t knock me out of bed,” she admonished, and Jeremy chuckled as he got into bed with her, immediately hugging her tightly. Chrysalis appeared surprised, staring at him with her luminous green eyes before slowly placing her hooves around his shoulders to return the hug. "I... thank you, Jeremy," she whispered. "For everything."