This one time, at bug camp
Max sat in the library, ready to endure yet another round of ridiculous tests as Twilight attempted the impossible; sating her yawning curiosity. It had been a few weeks since the Pinkie-corn incident and being badgered into a promise to help the librarian learn more about the changeling race, and while he had learned a lot as well, some days it just wasn't worth losing his free time. Seriously, he could be sleeping right now. He was sure Dash was. No, wait, there she is, reading the latest Do book, no doubt, lounging on top of one of the bookshelves.
It wasn't going to be a good day. If some mad god or eldritch abomination wasn't attacking the town, someone's dark secret was being revealed. Two days ago he heard the mayor was caught smuggling a bottle of hard cider into her office. Last week a hydra hit the town as well, so there would be at least another week before another animal attacked. That left the dark secrets. Considering what he was here for, whose secret was getting revealed was a sucker bet. The only question was which one.
Twilight, shuffling her notes about on the table with a pleased smile, shifted a bit on her cushion. "Ok, Max, Today I'd like to start with a brief Q&A over-"
"Oh c'mon, egghead! You ask him the same dumb questions every day. Ask him something cool!" Swooping down from her perch, and moving a nearby cushion to the table, the jock gave him a smug grin. Ever since the "pranks" he pulled on her friends, the pegasus wasn't nearly as cold as she'd started to him, but she still didn't trust him, and often going out of her way to make his life difficult.
'This is going to be one of those days...' Max thought to himself.
"Have you ever gotten drunk? Don't give me that look, Twilight, you're telling me you've never wondered if changelings have something they get licked on? 'Cuz I know for certain it's not salt! I saw you at the last party Pinkie held, and that stuff did nothing to you, even after I added to it."
"That was YOU!?!" Twilight shouted. Apparently, while she was capable of unraveling the mysteries of the universe she was oblivious to something as obvious as the town prankster spiking the punchbowl.
Max winced at the two arguing females. While his first time drunk back home was quite silly, there was nothing of real interest that occurred. Sure he drunk dialed his parents, something they still brought up when the topic of alcohol came up, but he wasn't being interrogated on his time on Earth. Not only that, but the local elixir did nothing for him. No, the poison of choice for changelings was a bit... strange.
"Wait, wait-wait-wait" Dash giggled "Changelings get plastered... off of lust? Bah-Ha-Ha-Ha!" Unable to hold it anymore, she fell over, rolling along on the floor by the table.
"But, but that doesn't make any sense!" Twilight yelled.
"Oh right, and getting drunk off of salt does? That stuffs a seasoning back home. Literally every table at every restaurant has salt and pepper on them." The changeling tapped his left hoof with his right as he counted off."Salt, pepper, ketchup, and mustard."
Twilight's retort died on her lips, even as her mind greedily snatched up the details Max let slip of his home. He had made it clear early in the study sessions that while she was free to ask and only minimally hindered with her experiments on changelings, anything else was often stonewalled.
RD was having none of this, however. "Don't change the topic, I smell a story behind that response! C'mon, spill it! How'd ya find out it was lust?" Were it not for the fact that they were herbivores, Rainbow's grin would have been considered predatory.
Max sighed. Once the jock was after something, be it information or favors, she was often more doggedly persistent than the bookworm. No, there would be no escaping this with his dignity intact.
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Years ago, in the town of Bushels, Max was attending a party that was being held in the town hall, as that was the largest building in the town. Someone, yes, he later did find out who it was, as they were upset that he was unaffected and yelled at him, had spiked the punch. And the desserts. And he was pretty sure the water fountain was tampered with as well. There wasn't much he could do with chaos on this level, so Max merely sat back and enjoyed the shenanigans. Seriously, drunk people are great fun to watch. Drunk ponies? Even better!
Eventually, the saboteur approached him, calling out his lack of drunk participation, leaving him in a bit of a pickle. So he blamed his genetics, said he'd never been drunk in his life, and left. Still being a bit nervous, he decided to take a shortcut to his apartment through the city park. Sure it was dark, but it was a small town. You didn't have attacks in the park, no matter what time it was. Of course, having better night vision than the average pony helped too.
About half-way through, in a particularly dark section of the trail, he noticed a strange scent, a strange taste on the air. It was absolutely wonderful! He wanted, no, needed to have more! The last thing her heard was a few hushed whispers and giggles before everything went black.
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"...and that's when I blacked out." Max said. If he didn't have a mountain of blackmail on the Pegasus, and a confidentiality agreement with the unicorn, he'd have been sure this story would be on everyone's ears by tomorrow night. As things stood, he just had to make sure he refreshed Dash's memory of the situation. Her memory tended to be strained by good gossip.
Finally getting her latest fit of laughter under control, the multi-hued mare stared at him expectantly "Well? what happened then?"
Max's response was to quirk an eye. It took him a bit to learn the trick, not having eyebrows in this form, but he managed to get his point across: What part of blacked out don't you understand?
She met his quirked eye's and raised him an eye-roll "I meant after you woke up, duh!"
"Oh, uh..." Max shifted uncomfortably. Awkward didn't even begin to describe the situation he woke up in. Actually, he was still surprised the situation didn't end with his death. Or at least with him being gelded.
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Max slowly returned to the realm of conscious thought, and much to his consternation, had no clue where he was.
'This isn't my room.'
It was a fairly well kept bedroom, with access to a shower and a second door providing access to what he guessed was the living room. Actually, it seemed like a larger version of his apartment. One door, apparently the bathroom from the sounds of a shower running, was currently occupied, if the noise that woke him up was anything to go by. Whoever was in there sounded quite upset.
'That makes two of us. What the hell happened to me?'
The fog of whatever hit him the night before was still hanging over him, but he was aware enough to notice two things when the other door opened. First, Rain Mist walked in from the other room, a young pegasus he'd often seen in the company of the terran Lily Blossom who, now that he thought about it, was probably the one in the shower. The second thing he noticed was that he was naked.
'Now wait one moment' you may say, 'technically he's been going around naked for just shy of a year, right?' to which Max would respond 'What do you know, scrub?' Changelings were in disguise as often as humans wore clothing, hell, more often, actually, since he could bath and sleep in it.
Only a few things stopped him from snapping his disguise back on and bolting out the window. First, did they see his other form? Second why wasn't Rain panicking?
"Oh, your up, good morning. *yawn* Not sure if it would help, but I left a spare dose of hangover cure on the nightstand."
Max was left gaping at the absolutely unfazed mare. "You're not going to, you know, panic?"
"Huh? About wha- Oh, that. No, actually this isn't the strangest situation I've woken up in. Quite tame, to tell you the truth. In fact, listening to Lily complain, I'd say that she's more disappointed than upset. Something about 'Finally finding one with a backbone, and it's on the outside?'"
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"HA-HA-HA-HA" Rainbow had tears rolling down her eyes as she clutched her side, the absurdity of the situation too much for her. Lily's biggest complaint after being drugged and waking up next to a bug, was that the bug was the wrong species.
"After that, Lily, Rain, and I showered, separately of course,discussed what we remembered over breakfast, and I told them who it was that spiked the punch bowl and food. Don't know what happened to her, but I remember hearing Lily and Rain mentioning 'gathering the others and repaying the nag'. Otherwise, they didn't bother me for the rest of the time I was in town. Think they agreed with me when I said it would be best to just pretend the entire night never happened."
Before he could remind the weathermare about why she shouldn't 'share' his stories, she took off, probably for Sugarcube Corner. 'Dammit, probly going to relay it to Pinks. I'm gonna have to get a Pinkie Promise out of her to keep her mouth shut on that one.'
"But it didn't matter right? I mean, it's not like anything could have come from the relationship, right?"
" 'To better help them blend into society, a changling in a relationship with another creature will produce children of the non-changelings species.' I got that information in my next 'emotion for information' trade. Decided that knowing how that works would be a good idea before I found out the hard way." Max stares at the table, a mix of fear and relief on his face. "The only reason I got out of that situation was because she thought the same thing you did. Stars only know what she'd have done if she knew the truth."
Ponies didn't have firearms, so what would the local term for a shotgun wedding be?
Author's Note
First off, I use the term terran when thinking of the earths. We have Pegasus or Pegasus ponies, unicorns or unicorn ponies, and earth ponies or... earth ponies?
Second, this idea, with changeling getting drunk on lust, is an old one I thought of shortly after hearing about them eating emotions.
Third, regarding my refusal to have max use somepony. I draw great pleasure from thinking about how xenophobic it sounds when someone says that, and thus refuse to have my characters say it. Seriously, I'd laugh at them for that kind of thing.
Fourth? Cookie for catching the name reference.
