Itinerant Kingdom

by Istaran

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Romance, Changelings, Original Character, Sex, Science Fiction, Self Insert, Slice of Life, Human, Gore
Length: 47580

A ponified human and his loyal changeling adapt to their new life together in Equestria.

I have memories that aren't my own, from a timeline where I was thrust into a deadly survival game with eleven other humans. In that time, many of us died, I began to succumb to my own dark side, and the artifacts we were given killed countless innocent ponies and tore up the world with reckless abuse of magic. But my former self was able to send Wind Chaser, a changeling who had sworn loyalty to me, back in time to avert disaster and get everyone home in one piece.

I stayed behind with Wind Chaser, bonded by our shared memories of the time that was undone, and the dangerous nanotechnology that we carry in our blood. Our life and death struggles have been wiped clean, leaving us to face.. life itself.

Story map:

This is a Sequel to The Equestria Diaries.
This is Parallel (alternate timeline) to Friends Like These
This is a Prequel to King and Kingpin and Scattered Seeds .

Published 2015-04-13 10:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-05-20 16:16:54 UTC

Chapter 1: First Date

Author's Note

As with my other writing, square brackets [ ] represent direct mental communication, while angled brackets < >, if they show up again, represent untranslated English words.

Chapter 1: First Date

Wind Chaser and I strolled down the dusty, seldom used road in silence together. My changeling companion bore the form of a pegasus, yellow of fur and feather, with a cutie mark depicting vague swirling lines, a common glyph representing the wind. While I had been a pegasus just minutes ago, when we watched the portal to Earth, my last chance to go home, collapse, I chose to carry on as an earth pony now.

While wings could have their uses, even on the ground, I was flightless now. I had exchanged challenges with the Text, the strange being that brought us to this world, and I did not dare fail his challenge lightly. The underpinnings of all of the magic I had learned so far was off limits to me, and shapeshifting was all I had managed to relearn thus far. Being an unusually weak earth pony was a lot easier to keep unnoticed than being a flightless pegasus or a magicless unicorn, so earth pony it was. I went with a light blue coat, and an upside-down compass as a cutie mark. 'South Wind' wouldn't be much of an alias for a earth pony, so I went with 'Southward Road'.

I wondered what Wind Chaser was thinking about. In the memories she had given me, my other self had been able to access her thoughts and memories easily, but I apparently did not have that privilege. Turbine, the consciousness of the nanospider network in her blood, shared with me only the thoughts she chose to send. It was.. kind of a relief to me. My former self had done everything all wrong with her. Theirs had been a relationship of necessity. He needed her as a guide to this alien world, a teacher of magic, and a comrade in arms. And she had needed him to love her, to feed the supernatural hunger that changelings had for love. So they had jumped in bed together at the first opportunity, embraced each other hastily and desperately, and never let go. But as much as I was him, I wasn't him. I wanted to start fresh, and do things right from the beginning.

And so, we were on our way to our first date. My former self had never found time to actually take her on a proper date, even after the war ended and we had the time to take things a little slower. So it would be a first for her, as well as me. Wind Chaser had lost her access to the crystals as well, and with it her ability to teleport. She wasn't skilled enough with her horn to pull off the spell normally, so we were left hoofing it.

The only eatery nearby was a roadside café a few miles away; not the fanciest place for a date, but it would do. The Rhubarb Stop played host to changelings unawares often enough, it had picked up a bit of a reputation for, what was the term? 'Easily lovable individuals.' 'Loose-hearted stallions.' The euphemisms of this world could be disturbingly adorable. But the majority of its patrons were simply couriers, travelling merchants, and other travelers looking for a quick meal along the way from one town to another.

We traded awkward smiles as we approached the eatery. A small bell announced our arrival, and a ruddy red unicorn mare with a slice of pie depicted on her flank, directed them to a table while levitating a couple menus for them. "Welcome to the Rhubarb Stop. I'm Rhubarb Pie, and I'll be your server. Would you like anything to drink?" We requested a few simple glasses of water as we took our seats, on a pair of low cushions on opposite sides of a table.

The menus served as one final distraction. I saw that they had a couple fish dishes which tempted me. As a human it had been rare for me to have even a single vegetarian meal, and the more inhuman cuisine seemed particularly suspect. But I decided a date was a nice time to try something new, and that it would probably also be best to avoid drawing attention, so I settled on an apple sandwich with hay fries. Wind Chaser settled on a simple salad, to keep up appearances. It reminded me what she was really hungry for.. what I wasn't ready to give her just yet.

"So.. where do you want to go next?" I asked, as Rhubarb Pie left with our orders and menus.

"Wherever you go, I just want to follow," she answered, with a shy smile. "Where do you want to go my k-.. handsome stallion?" I was always a bit surprised when she struggled like that to avoid breaking cover. Acting a part, pretending to be something she's not was a key part of her very being. Was her devotion to me as 'king' so hard to keep below the surface?

"More than anything I just want to be at your side," I said, returning her smile a bit more forwardly. It was.. an exaggeration I knew. My heart wasn't hers yet, not like I remembered it being in that other time. I felt confident it could be, that it would be. But the trouble with dating someone who feeds on love; it's impossible to fake it with them, even for a little while. She drew in a quiet breath with her eyes closed, a subtle attempt to hide her disappointment that didn't get past me. I sighed in return, looking into her eyes apologetically.

I thought a moment, needing something to think about other than our emotions about our emotions. "We should travel. Perhaps to Gryphonia first, then see as many other nations as we can. There's.. things that are going to happen here in Equestria that I would just as soon stay out of the way of, and we could learn a lot of interesting new things travelling the world. We can pick up odd jobs to pay our way, and may find the odd chance to save the day, like some kind of itinerant heroes."

"Itinerant kingdom," she countered, dredging up memories from the time undone. "Do you think we should try to recruit Bardrick again?"

"I wouldn't mind him as a comrade in arms, but how would we even go about it? I mean, we could certainly find their farm again, but what do we say? He didn't want to train me in the first place, and now that the world isn't hinging in the balance, we have even less to inspire him to join us."

"It wasn't your claims of importance or urgency that inspired him to join us, it was your absurd devotion to training yourself. Speaking of which, you're grounded again, and as weak as a hornless unicorn. Aren't you going to need some kind of crazy training montage to get back on your feet?"

Rhubarb Pie gave us odd looks as she stepped into the conversation with our meals. "Is there anything else I can get you two?"

"Nothing for me, thanks," I said, before starting to poke at the hay fries tentatively. I'm sure it must have looked like I was just being unsure of something, either the fries themselves, or more likely the conversation in progress. In reality, in this timeline, I had never picked up anything with one of these fingerless hooves. My copied memories only had so much detail, enough to know it was something I could do, just like anypony else, but not enough to actually know how to work it. I recalled my former self solving the problem with magnets first, when it was a spear he was trying to grasp, but I doubted hay fries were particularly attracted by them.

Wind Chaser waved Rhubarb off, and smirked at my troubles, knowing them for what they were. "You know, it's never too late to go back to foal school. It maybe would do you some good to learn the basics before we go off globetrotting."

I triumphantly managed to get a fry into my mouth, munching on it until I was sure Rhubarb was out of earshot again. "I suppose I could make the change, but then what? Would you be my 'mother'? Hopefully no one, err, nopony catches us being a little too affectionate?"

Wind Chaser frowned, looking away. She hadn't thought about the logistics, and I realized playing my superior was something she wasn't comfortable with. "I wish I could be your filly, instead, but you're the one who needs to learn the basics. And I would probably need to earn the bits to support us."

I closed my eyes, imagining her as my filly before glancing to make sure no one was eavesdropping and asking quietly, "Do you think you and I could, you know, have a filly of our own someday? I mean.. I guess you wouldn't know for sure, alien biology and all that.."

She looked a bit hurt as she shook her head. [You would need a proper Queen for that, not a drone like me,] she answered through our spiders' link, not wanting to say something so risky outloud. [I... I would if I could, though. Believe me!]

I blushed at her answer, munching quietly for a bit as I absorbed her words. "We should.. in our travels, we should keep an eye out for any way to overcome that, any magic that might help. We might not find anything but, you never know."

I got a cheek peck for that, but I caught her muzzle in my hoof before she could pull back, and drew her into a longer kiss, full on the mouth. I let her draw back after several seconds, returning to our seats and blushing at one another.

"You should eat your sandwich," she said at last. "You'll need your energy." She hadn't touched her salad, but she was already looking a bit less hungry, I thought.

"Sure, and I'll have a taste of your salad if you don't mind." I focused on eating for a bit, imagining what kinds of uses she had in mind for my energy.

[Get your mind out of the gutter.. at least for now. You don't have the, ahem, self control to be thinking those kinds of thoughts in public.]

I blushed all that much harder as I adjusted my position to be sure no one else got an unseemly peek while I tried to regain my composure.

"I'll go pay our bill, and get you some pie to go. We should head for the inn up the road, to get a nice bed for the night before we finalize our plans. Think about my suggestion."

I nodded my agreement. I was annoyed a moment by being obliged to let her pay, but I didn't have a bit to my name, yet, and I eventually remembered we were in a matriarchy. Mares treating stallions was as common here as men treating women back on Earth, more or less. We took our leave, shortly thereafter, following the road farther, towards the inn she had mentioned.

"This was a good date, I think. I trust we'll have many more," I said. "How did you like it?"

"It was good. I'm glad you suggested it. But.. I also hope you're up for consummating our relationship tonight."

I blushed, trying to bring myself to say no, but I couldn't deny my own libido that easily. "I'm really not feeling up for being your colt," I said with a wink. "You'll just have to settle for a foalish stallion."

Chapter 2: Cocoon and change

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3: New kid in school

Wind Chaser, no.. Clean Sweep and I waited by the Orange Seeds Schoolhouse as the sun came up, waiting for the teacher to arrive. She did not leave us waiting for long. She was a bright yellow unicorn mare with yellow and green mane and a chalkboard cutie mark.

"Hello there! It's always nice to meet a new foal. Are you hoping to enroll him here?" she asked my 'mother' as she approached.

Clean Sweep nodded, nudging me forward with a hoof. "Yes, indeed. My little Blank Slate here had a hard time at his last school, so we were hoping to find a more welcoming place for him. I do hope it isn't a problem for you? Miss.."

"Lemon Drop," she replied, "and it's never a problem taking on a new foal. What was the problem at his last school though? Miss.."

"Clean Sweep. He can be a bit.. overspecialized. He likes math but sometimes he tunes out other lessons, and forgets some really common things. The other foals have been picking on him for things he gets wrong, and occasionally as retribution for making them look slow at math. He'll probably be an accountant or something when we grows up, but right now he just needs a little patient understanding."

"Now, Blank Slate," the teacher said, finally turning toward me. "I do trust you'll pay attention to your lessons this time around, won't you? You wouldn't want to see my sour side.." her voice carried an unmistakable air of vague threat before her usually saccrrine sweet demeanor returned, "I'm sure you'll do just fine here, and make lots of new friends in no time."

"Yes, ma'am!" I replied immediately, straightening myself up, to the sound of Wind Chaser's laughter echoing across our silent connection. [Even your king can feign humility when the situation calls for it,] I replied. The tone of her laughter changed from a bit derisive to more.. supporting. [You are getting far to much amusement out of my predicament, though,] I said jokingly.

"I'll have you take the leftmost seat in the front row for now. After the class arrives and you have been introduced, you can have another seat. By the way, how skilled are you with that horn of yours?" she asked.

I shook my head, as I headed toward my seat. She floated several textbooks onto my desk, mathematics notably absent from the collection. "I haven't managed to do anything with it yet, aside from occasionally bump into things." I figured we were far enough from the diner that word of my magic overuse would never catch up with me.

"That's nothing to be embarrassed about. You are quite young yet, and every foal learns at his or her own pace. Here, have you had a chance to look over something like this yet?" She levitated a book entitled 'Me and my horn' that looked quite rudimentary.

"No, I haven't," I said, snatching the book in my hooves and immediately cracking it open. "I do hope you'll be able to teach me more about it. My mother is an earth pony, and I haven't met my father.. I hear he was easily lovable, so I'm sure I would have enjoyed spending time with him," I said with as much innocence as I could fake.

Clean Sweep turned a bright pink and made herself scarce, laughing all the louder through our link, this time at her own expense. She rolled with the slander remarkably well, probably because it fit our cover like a glove. My changeling partner was, of course, far more accustomed to all these spy techniques than I was.

I looked back down at the state secrets I had managed to pilfer with our clever ruse. I had to laugh back to her through our link, sending along choice snippets as I read through the first several pages. Well before they told their foals anything about the channeling of magic, the authors had taken the time to talk about the inapproriateness of touching ones own horn, or letting another pony touch your horn in public. I already knew how.. errogenous the horn could be, how intimate its touch, but to see it spelled out for children like this was something I hand't thought to expect. From there it jumped into a bit of an anatomy lesson, with a cutaway view naming the various structures of the horn before finally going into what I was actually looking for.. the most rudimentary of descriptions of how to use the horn.

Lemon Drop finished getting the classroom ready while I read. She looked up at me as my horn started to glow a dim green. "That's very good, Blank. Fine self control for a beginner. Most first timers make a bunch of sparks until they get the flow under control."

"I read that, I just figured I would start as carefully as I could and work my way up," I lied. I was shoving magic into the horn as hard as I could, and barely got a glow. I couldn't spark if I tried, literally, I was trying very hard! This was going to take a while. It kind of felt like I was trying to push a square peg through a round hole.. the green magic just didn't want to be horn magic. It was all I could do to resist using it to shapeshift my horn into something else.

Lemon Drop nodded, buying my ruse. "That's a good idea, but I don't want you practicing during class. You need to pay attention to your lessons, and not distract your classmates."

I agreed, and let the glow stop just as the first of said classmates arrived.

The first was a black furred unicorn filly with a purple mane. She took the seat beside me, and introduced herself as Midnight Oil. I tried not to assume too much from the fact that the seat hadn't born any traces of her scent when I passed it earlier, suggesting she was making a point of being close to me.

"Blank Slate," I returned her introduction, offering a hoof to shake. I smiled, pretending not be jealous, as she shook it in her violet magic rather than make physical contact. "Always glad to meet a friendly filly. You seem to have a good grasp of your horn," I said, blushing visible as she giggled at what I assumed must have been a double entendre. "Sorry.. I just meant.."

"You're lucky you're cute," she replied, "but yes, I know what you meant. If you need some.. private lessons, I can meet with you after school."

I nodded eagerly, as a half dozen other children filled in the classroom. A green furred pegasus colt with thick glasses gave Midnight Oil the stink eye before taking a seat toward the back. As his scent drifted toward me, I realized Midnight had stolen his seat. I really hoped this wouldn't turn into some foalish melodrama. I was also hoping Midnight wouldn't prove to be some kind of stereotypical school drama 'popular girl' bully.

Lemon Drop called me up to the front for introductions, which I went through with exaggerated shyness and set Deus to work generating reasonable ways to get their names wrong a few times to mask my eidetic memory.

I noticed, quickly, the gender imbalance in the class. Out of the eight foals, there were three colts, myself included, and I was the only one who could be mistaken for a unicorn. Two mares shared my horned status: Midnight Oil, and a slightly younger pink filly with a red mane by the name of Ginger Dimples. I guessed they might be rivals for my affections in Midnight's mind, but Ginger seemed cheerily oblivious.

The back right of the room had a couple of earth ponies, OJ the colt and Summer Sun the filly, who seemed content to goof off and trade notes and spoken comments, largely ignored by the class, including miss Lemon Drop. I kind of suspected they had been mentally relegated to farmwork or other unskilled labor by all involved. A second earth pony filly, the blonde haired, brown furred Amber Waves, sat in the front and was quite attentive to the lessons.

And rounding out the numbers, there were the two pegasi. Stormcloud was a hilariously stereotypical goth, whose white fur I quickly recognized as dyed. She was by far the most dressed of the class, with a variety of black leather accessories. I liked her already for the striking irony of her very existance in this world, while she seemed to be appreciating my whiteness just enough to get Midnight's annoyed attention. The glass-bearing stallion behind her, the perhaps ironically named Long View, seemed more annoyed by being so far from the chalkboard, and especially the trouble he seemed to have seeing around Stormcloud's wings, than whatever threat I might pose to his potential dating pool. I felt that made him probably the wisest foal in the room, or at least tied with Amber Waves. By all appearances, we were all much too young to be worrying about relationships.

At noon when we stopped for lunch, Wind Chaser stopped by with a set of oversized, used, dull brown saddlebags for me. They managed to emphasize the 'poor' aspect of our cover in a way merely being naked and bagless did not. The unicorns waved me over, and I joined them, finding a flower sandwich and some hay fries in my bags to feed me. I noticed the foals all clustered by tribe during the break, with the teacher making the rounds. It offended my own sensibilities, but I wasn't about to make waves.

"Was that your mother," Ginger asked. "She seems nice. Is she a maid?"

In other circumstances I might be annoyed at such an assumption, but in this case she had intentionally tattooed the idea on her hindquarters to promote exactly that assumption. Also, that's what she was doing all day, as we needed to get bits from somewhere.

"Yeah. She can be a bit strict when she needs to be, but she's really great. I still can't believe she was willing to pick up her life and move just to get me into a better school," I said.

"If this is a better school, what was your last one?" Midnight Oil asked, incredulously.

I blushed, looking away a bit. Time to sell the backstory. "Well, I guess the school itself was okay, but a lot of the other foals picked on me there. They called me names like 'abacus head', and teased me every time I got something wrong." I trembled my lip a bit, summoning a bit of moisture to the eyes at the fabricated memories. A part of my raged against everything I was doing, demanded that I jump up onto a table and declare the truth openly, but I smothered it under a layer of fear of being found out.

"Aww, that's no good. They sound like a bunch of meany pants!" Ginger complained. "Well, we'll be much nicer to you, won't we?"

"Oh yes.. much nicer.~" Midnight singsonged as she rubbed her shoulder against mine with an unmistakable edge of sensuality. About this point Deus informed me she was showing signs of going through adolescence. Thanks buddy. My stiff response did not go unnoticed, but didn't seem to have the desired effect, as she leaned in all that much closer.

"Thanks, I really appreciate that," I said, nervously. There were so many reasons I did not want an adolescent girlfriend, especially knowing our stop here was intended to be short lived. Biology was disagreeing with me there, but I was not going to be its slave. Pushing the hormones aside, made things a bit worse though.. as the more tactical part of my mind started to consider the value of making her mine in another sense.. getting her to take the nanospiders, and give me her memories.. her knowledge and skill with horn magic. The terms of the challenge allowed it, as long as she was my subordinate first. I shook my head, clearing the idea from my mind. I had no idea how to get her to swear fealty to me, and even if I did, that was even more wrong than just lying with her like a normal, horny young stallion. "Midnight.. would you mind giving me a little, umm.. space?"

She countered with a bit of pouty lips but complied, giving me at least an inch of space between us. It was a start but it wasn't enough. Time to abuse my cover's reputation for social obliviousness.. "Umm, Midnight? Is there a reason you're being so affectionate? Did you, umm.. want something?"

I could feel the heat of her blush, even as she gave me several more inches of space. Yay? She struggled for an excuse. "Well, I uh, heard you were really good at math, and I could use a tutor?" A glance showed Ginger was buying it, and it suited me well.

"Oh, you should have just said so. I'd be happy to tutor you in math, if you could tutor me in how to use my horn. I just barely managed to get it to glow. See?" I lit it up, lightly, barely visible in the midday sunlight.

"That's a lovely shade of green, Blank. I'd be happy to show you how to use your horn," she said, making it sound dirty. It seems she was not so easily dissuaded.

Chapter 4: Assorted hungers

When Wind Chaser arrived to retrieve me after class, I was in the schoolyard with Midnight Oil, helping her with her multiplication tables. To her credit, she was mostly focused on the task at hand, though she insisted on rubbing my horn lightly with her magic the whole time. Even unicorns generally couldn't 'see' magic, so I let her get away with it, using it as practice to focus through distractions. My own horn glowed a dim green the whole time, working on my own area of growth.

"Who's your new friend, Blank?" my guardian drone asked. [She seems awfully affectionate. Thinking of taking on another mate?]

"This is Midnight Oil. She's going to help me learn horn magic, while I tutor her in math. Isn't that great?" I responded. [Jealous?]

"That's wonderful! I was coming to bring you home, but I can come back later if you need?" she offered. [Not at all. A queen normally has many lovers, an entire caste dedicated to the role. A king should be no different. Especially since I myself cannot bear young for you. Just as long as you continue to love me as well.]

"I'm actually getting pretty hungry," I said, standing up. "Shall we resume tomorrow?" [She's a bit young for me, and.. honestly I'm concerned about her. I'll admit I'm a bit new to pony psychology, but where I come from a girl this young and this.. brazenly sexual is usually the result of some serious problems at home.]

"I'd like to continue, if you'll let me buy you dinner," Midnight quickly offered. "Where should I drop him off when I'm done with him?" she asked my 'mother'.

"We're staying at the Citrus Stable, on Mane Street. He'll be able to find me once you get him there. Have a good time, you two!" she said, handing me off with a wink and a smile. [Do you expect to invite only the emotionally stable and well adjusted into the Itinerant Kingdom. How many do you think will accept? I don't mind being your only subject, but I do feel like a king should have more ambition than that.]

"Well, I'm not one to turn down free food," I said with a smile. That had been true since long before I could turn calories into magic. It certainly wasn't changing now. [I hadn't thought of it that way. Anyone we offer to join us.. we'd be offering to rip them from the life they know and take them on the road with us, where they'll never know stability again. Only people with serious problems at home or a serious case of wanderlust will ever even entertain such an offer, much less accept. I'll consider it, but I'm not dragging in every mare with a lustful eye and a sob story.]

[As you wish, my king. Quality over quantity then. It is a wise strategy, as it will help us to remain more mobile,] Wind Chaser replied as she waved goodbye to me and took her leave.

Midnight and I walked side by side from the schoolyard toward the quaint little collection of businesses that was the town center. "So.. I overheard that your dad was a, umm.. you know," she started. "Like mine.."

"A loose stallion," I nodded. "I never met him.. did you meet yours?" The nice thing about an absentee fictional father was that I didn't have to make up details about him. Unfortunately, the conversation made me miss my real father, back on Earth.. a kind, loving, jovial man who could do a descent Santa Claus impression just by wearing a red sweater. Especially the facial expressions. Oh well, the hint of sadness just helped sell the scene.

"No. My.. mom eventually did marry, though. Just not to my dad. I guess your mom is still on her own?" she replied.

"We have each other," I shrugged. "She works hard, and I know she would do anything for me. I guess I don't really know what it's like having a stallion in my life, so I don't miss it."

"I do.." she said, darkly. "I guess I just wish I had a better one."

I sat down, forcing her to stop where we were, just beyond the start of the shop row. "Is that why you've been so.. forward with me?"

She blushed a bit, being called out on it so openly. "I know I come on strong but.. I didn't want to wait, and risk somepony else snatching you up. I didn't want to blink and find you gone.." There was surely another story behind that, but it would wait until she was ready.

I leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. "I can't stay.. not for long. It's not our.. way. When you blink.. and I'm not gone.. but everything else you know and love is: will that be okay?"

"There isn't anything else I love.. " she objected.

I straightened myself, looking in her eyes. "You don't love me either, not yet. You love the idea of me, and I'm not sure I even know what that idea is, let alone whether I can live up to it."

She broke eye contact, looking at my hooves instead. "I've made a foal of myself.."

I pulled her snout up with a hoof, bringing her eyes back to mine. "You are a foal, but there's time yet to grow out of it. Come on, you offered to buy me dinner. And we still both have a lot to learn."

When we got to the Orange Peel Diner, we left all the heavy stuff behind. We talked for hours, as I began to get to know her and learn about the other children and townsfolk. I kept the conversation off of myself as much as I could, which wasn't too hard. Midnight had been in desperate need of someone to talk to, just in general, and I was happier lending an ear than trying to talk about myself.

I kept my horn glowing the whole time, slowly getting brighter. Midnight chided me playfully for being such a glutton, as I ate quite a bit more than a single meal while we were there. She herself was satisfied with a salad for dinner, and a light snack just before we finally called it a night. It probably helped that she kept the inappropriate magical touching to a minimum.

She walked me to the inn we were currently calling home, and caught me in a nice, long, affectionate kiss. When we finally broke free, I was sorely tempted to invite her inside, but I held my ground while I still could. "Goodnight, Midnight Oil. It was really great meeting you today, and I look forward to spending more time with you. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Yeah, you too. Don't forget to eat and rest! Your glow is coming along nicely, but you've got a lot more to master."

We parted ways, and I headed upstairs. With our link, it was no trouble locating Wind Chaser. The door was locked, but I was able to turn the bolt with a little magnetism and let myself in anyways. I closed and locked the door behind me, before heading into the room.

When I caught sight of Wind Chaser, she was on the bed, the sheets pulled around her to keep her form hidden, but enough was showing to make it clear she was mimicking Midnight Oil's body. With all the teasing and groping the real Midnight had been giving me, combined with the knowledge of what Wind Chaser needed and wanted from me, I passed my limit. Mostly.

"I'll be with her when I'm with her. Change back to yourself.. your real self!"

And then I filled my hungry changeling with every manner of love I could muster.

Chapter 5: Sex is not love

Author's Note

This chapter gets a lot darker than I originally anticipated the story ever getting, and touches on (but does not do real justice to) a number of mature topics. (Though I assure you, it is no clopfic)
Just thought I should warn you.

Chapter 5: Sex is not love

When Wind Chaser fell asleep, I began to experiment with an idea of mine. I went out into the darkness of the night and sought out an open field, lying down as deep into the middle of it as I could and closed my eyes, meditating.

I had first managed to acquire a bit of magical energy from enchanted cards based on a card game about Magic. In the game, cards representing different types of terrain provided different flavors of magical energy, better suited for different purposes. Green mana from forests were what powered the Transmutation spell, and what I had used to get enough power flow to transform into a pony again. In the game, white mana from a plains was more suited to unicorns. The power I had felt like it would rather change my horn than charge it. I didn't have any of the cards anymore, much less a plains card, but there was an actual plains here and it was worth a try.

It... actually kind of worked, though not the way I expected. The magic didn't change color or anything like that, but somehow shifting how I thought about it got it flowing more easily to light my horn. By thinking of sunlight, and unicorns, and protection, and goodness, and big grassy open plains as I channeled the magic, it easily flowed into my unicorn horn and lit up the night. Thinking of trees, and beasts, and mutations, and nature, and forests, it easily flowed into my flesh and shifted me from one tribe's form to another, or beyond.

After a few such transformations, I settled into a pegasus form, spreading my wings wide. I was just trying to get a feel for making my mana 'blue' in my mind, hoping the association with flight would be enough to get me airborne again, when I heard a voice call out.

"Blank Slate?" Midnight Oil asked from several yards behind me.

I settled down, sighed, and shifted back into my unicorn form, taking a few moments to breath before turning back to her. She was naturally stealthy in the dark of night, a black blob in the darkness, but I was stark white in an open field, emitting light to draw attention for some time. I hadn't even thought to shift to a stealthy color before coming out here.

"Hi Midnight, couldn't sleep?" I asked as innocently as I could.

"You're a changeling?" she countered.

"You've heard of changelings?" I asked.

"We've... caught a few over the years. And they occasionally get the blame for things... not always fairly, I suspect. I know at least three cases of infidelity where the cheater made up a lie about changelings to cover their absence. You're easy scapegoats. No offense," she answered. "Though if you're a changeling... why play things so slow with me? I'm sure I would have been an easy meal."

"Sex is not love," I quoted. "Besides, I'm not a drone. I'm a king. We have a very different role in the hive."

"I thought changelings have queens, not kings," she answered. She seemed like she was trying to tell if I was joking or just lying.

"Other changelings feed off love, but we generate it." I replied.

She considered this for a moment. "You're not actually a changeling, are you?"

I shook my head. "No, my vassal is. And if nothing else, she calls me 'king'. My little Itinerant Kingdom of two. She taught me how to change like they do, and I keep her fed with my love."

She came closer and I noticed the smell of sex on her. I had to rely on Deus' help to hide my reaction. She caught a similar scent from me and couldn't hide her look of annoyance. "Your vassal, huh? Oh! Your mom? She's really?" she thought a moment as I nodded. "I guess you're already taken then? I'm such a foal... no wonder you pushed me away..."

"I pushed you away because I didn't want to break your heart when I leave here. And because I was worried about you, wondering what drove you to such desperation. And now I'm wondering who you were with tonight, and how that's related."

She was silent for a long while, and we just watched the grass blow in the moonlight.

"It was my stepfather. He's... not a good stallion. I've always just been... waiting for my knight in shining armor to come carry me away on his back." I blinked a few times, processing the ponification of the cliché. "You kind of look like him, you know? Like a younger him, anyways."

"A younger who?" I asked, confused. I was more surprised by her reference than to the fact that her stepfather was the stallion... it was practically cliché.

"Shining Armor. Captain of the royal guard. Anyways.. any more room in that Itinerant Kingdom of yours for a used unicorn?" She found a dandelion nearby and blew its seeds clear. "Maybe we can just blow away together on the wind... "

I needed to get her out of there, but there was only two ways that came to mind, and I wasn't quite up to planning to murder somepony I had never me. Yet. So I sat up. "If you're serious, and you're willing to swear fealty to me, to the Itinerant King... then yes. There's a simple ceremony to make it official, and binding. But only when you're completely ready."

She started to move, but then hesitated and sat back down.

I sighed a bit, and continued. "We're not leaving yet. I still have more to learn before I'm ready to move on. It may be basics, but a king has to master the basics like everyone else. Take your time deciding, as the binding ceremony cannot be undone. If you have any doubts, find another path in life."

She spoke quietly then. "I'll think it over. I will. Just... don't leave without saying goodbye, alright? Promise?"

"I promise. You have my word as a king," I declared with exaggerated confidence.

In the morning, I returned to school after breakfast, bright and early. I was the first student to arrive, and took a moment to practice my horn glow as I waited for the other students to arrive.

Long View arrived next, taking his seat next to me in the front row, where Midnight Oil had been yesterday. We chatted idly for a bit as the other students arrived, one by one, until there were only two empty seats left. Miss Lemon Drop looked off into the distance outside for a time, then came inside and closed the door. Midnight Oil hadn't showed up yet, and it appeared she was not expected to.

The cold indifference to their classmate's absence bothered me even more. Was this actually a habit? I supposed it possible she had overslept, after our late night rendezvous, and that Midnight Oil had a track record of 'burning the midnight oil' instead of getting to bed at a decent hour. But I also knew for certain she had been sexually abused just the night before, allegedly by her stepfather.

I contacted Wind Chaser and sent her to do some investigation. Midnight's family had a nice house, and no permanent staff, so they could probably use the services of an itinerant maid to tidy things up. There was no answer at their door, however, no sign that anyone was home. There was, however, a faint trail of dried blood.

Thankfully, the blood lead to the local clinic. Thinking fast, Wind Chaser smashed a stick with one hoof when no one was looking, and managed to get herself a nasty splinter for the doctor to rescue her from. Her treatment was fast and easy, but there was only one large room for patients in the clinic, and the privacy screen wasn't enough to keep the changeling from identifying Midnight Oil sitting on the floor behind it, sitting next to the bed where a patient was lying.

When the doctor went back into his office for a minute, leaving Wind Chaser unobserved, she quickly shifted into pegasus form, took flight soundlessly for a moment to get a quick view over the top of the screen, then landed just as softly and reverted to her earth pony disguise. She walked away as the nanospiders within her processed the images she had just seen.

Midnight Oil herself had a poultice over one eye, but otherwise appeared fine. The patient in the bed, however, looked like she had been beaten half to death. She was a pegasus with deep brown fur and a once-golden mane, still matted with her own blood. Both wings looked useless, though they weren't being actively treated and didn't seem to have been a part of the recent assault. Despite the difference in tribe and fur color, there were plenty of other subtle markers that showed the clear resemblance between mother and daughter. Recalling a passing glance to the patient chart informed Wind Chaser that her name was Fog Dancer and she was in for 'falling down some stairs'. She recoiled, mentally, at the use of such a euphemism, more at home in Earth's seedier dramas than Equestria's generally idyllic society.

After a brief detour to bring me lunch and bring me up to date on her investigation, she went back to the estate, this time assuming Midnight Oil's form as a disguise. With a horn on her head, she felt the bubble of magic this time as she approached the door. Cocking her head a moment once inside, she noticed the oppressive silence. She could see a bird chirping just across the street but even its song didn't reach her. A persistent privacy spell, to keep the neighbors from hearing anything... great. This could work to our advantage though. It didn't suppress radio waves, however, and so I was still in the loop.

The lock on the front door was shielded against magic, to ensure the proper key was required... however, it wasn't shielded against electromagnets, and soon the deadbolt was slid aside and the disguised changeling walked in like she owned the place. She began exploring, looking for more evidence, clues to just what had been going on. The blood trail began in the living room, well away from the staircase, just confirming that the euphemism was the lie we suspected it to be. Impact marks on several of the stairs were old enough to have gathered dust, showing that someone probably had, actually, fallen down the stairs at some point. She carefully ascended the stairs and began poking around the rooms. There were no fewer than four unlocked liquor cabinets distributed throughout the house, including one in what appeared to be Midnight's bedroom, and another in the master. Adding to the disturbing picture, the master bed itself had four very sturdy wooden posts at the corners, each with heavy iron rings holding chains attached, ending in various leather restraints. Just... how bad of a pony was this step father?

Wind Chaser was about to find out. As she finished looking over the disturbingly well stocked first aid kit in the master bathroom and returned to the adjoining bedroom, she found herself looking eye to eye with the biggest, strongest, tallest earth pony stallion she had ever seen. Thinking fast, she magically floated a bottle of pain relief potion into view behind her. "Hi daddy," she said in Midnight's voice, "I just came to get something for mom, I'll be heading back to the clinic now."

"Not yet you won't," he said, approaching with a predatory leer. "since you're here, it's time for a bit of... afternoon delight. Assume the position!"

Wind Chaser didn't know exactly what position was assumed, but guessed well. She feigned fear even as she planned her attack. It may have seemed she was in a position of weakness, but he had no idea who he was really messing with.

Most changelings don't believe they can be raped. To them, lying with someone they don't actually care for isn't called rape, it's called dinner. It's actually fairly common for them to get roped into a bit of hanky panky with the amorous spouse of the one they are imitating, when they would have been just as happy stealing love with a kiss, a nice gentle snuggle, or even some kind words. But sex is not love, and rapists don't love their victims. And when it actually happens, no one is more sharply aware of that lack of love than a changeling.

That doesn't mean that the massive stallion above her had no love for his adopted daughter. It was feint. It was corrupt, possessive, even darker than what she had felt from Istaran in the aborted timeline. But it was just enough of a connection for her to begin tugging on. It was hard... ironically, her king had sated her too well, and without the edge of her hunger it nearly took too long, but finally she did it. She ripped so much love out of his heart that he fell unconscious, falling heavily on top of her. She breathed a sigh of relief that he had managed to not notice and stop her in time. Fortunately for her, and changelings the world over, the process of having your love extracted was actually quite pleasurable in its own right.

Until you woke up. If you woke up.

She stayed with him until nightfall, keeping him constantly drained of every speck of love in his heart. Ponies, even ones as dark and corrupted as this one had managed to become, could not function without love. They could barely even stay alive without it. When the darkness finally came, she shifted herself to match his form, needing the extra bulk and muscles, as she began dragging him off.

It was dangerous, even in the dark of night, as someone could have caught her, asked her questions she had no way to answer, but she managed it. She knew the codes and ways of her tribe, and their local meeting places, and before long she was able to arrange a small crew of changelings to meet her in the woods, and take the body off her hands. "Put him in a pod and make sure he never wakes up," she said, "he is slim pickings, I know, but you don't need to ever return him." The drones nodded their agreement before parting ways.

And then she returned to the manner, bearing the stallion's form once again, and began to study. Notes, ledgers, everything. She hadn't had the time to study her mark before hand, to become him more convincingly, but she would do her best.

Late that night, I was waiting outside the clinic when Midnight finally left, desperate for a good night sleep. I escorted her home, came inside despite her objections, and then, once we were in the safety of the closed door and the privacy bubble, I told her what had happened. She hugged me tight, and wept on my shoulder.

Tears of relief.

Chapter 6: Not a home

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 7: Railroaded

I kept an eye on the window as our train rolled down the track. I don't know why. That's a lie. I couldn't completely put aside the memory of an ion cannon ripping through another train, in a horrific massacre that I witnessed as a distant line of white and a buzzing phone. If there had been some distant lightning strike, I'm not sure how I would have reacted.

The Itinerant Kingdom was all gathered right here, in a single booth in a passenger train. We didn't even have the privacy of a closed cabin, but with our link we had all the privacy we could ask for. Our thoughts echoed out to each other constantly.

[You should be an earth pony foal, this time,] Wind Chaser suggested openly, her thoughts heard by all of us. [You can use on-demand adrenaline surges to emulate their feats of strength if you need to, until you get the might magic working properly, and you'll be lower key. You can still practice horn magic with Midnight as your tutor during the night, while she can study more advanced techniques at school to improve her own skills.]

[I'd rather go pegasus, and you go unicorn. No earth ponies in the mix. I can work on teaching myself might magic, perhaps with your help, regardless. And I really want to fly again. Besides, it makes us a more coherent looking family,] I replied.

[Why do we have to look all related.. it'll make me look weird for hitting on you,] Midnight Oil objected. [Though.. maybe if Wind Chaser goes mare, she can be my mom, and my mom can be your mom, and then we can still go out.]

Fog Dancer whined into the link, [why do we have to make such a complex web of lies? how am I even supposed to keep all of this straight?]

[Spiders,] Wind Chaser and I replied in unison.

Fog Dancer sighed mentally. [Well, yes, sure, I guess I technically won't actually forget, but it still seems like so much work. And can't I keep my own daughter? is that too much to ask?]

We continued hashing out ideas for our disguises, looking to all the world like a bunch of bored passengers with nothing to talk about. Then our thoughts were interrupted as a loud, clear, commanding, and slightly muffled voice rang out behind me, near the entrance of the car. "Ladies and gentlemen! Do not panic! But this is a robbery! If you all provide my associates with your valuables in a calm and orderly fashion, none of you will be hurt." A glance down the aisle showed a pair of unicorns with glowing horns guarding the door opposite the voice, while a trio of earth ponies with bags began making the rounds. All of them wore black hats on their heads and bandanas over their snouts. We were being robbed by a cliche on hooves.

Glancing at Wind Chaser, I realized our problem. We had a very noticeable bag of bits on us... enough to buy a rather comfortable house, even at Canterlot prices, and too much to hide easily.

[How combat ready are we? I see five ahead of me, outnumbering us already,] I asked.

[I see another three in the other direction,] Wind Chaser replied. [You and I can probably take one or two each, the other's aren't really prepared for a fight. I doubt they'll injur us in a way we can't heal, but getting pummelled won't let us keep our bits.]

I noticed the train was passing over a rather large rivine at the time. [What about fleeing? With a quick change, two of us can fly. I can try to get my wings working again on the way down, and maybe Wind Chaser can carry Midnight Oil down.]

[Fog Dancer hasn't been airborne since her wings were healed, is this really how you want to try to find out if she can make it? There may also be pegasi waiting with charged thunderclouds to catch anyone trying to escape. And if the bag of bits ends up torn and scattered across the countryside, is it that much better for us?]

I closed my eyes, struggling for a solution as they came closer. As much as I tried to avoid it, I found myself asking the unaskable question. What would Istaran do? I calmed myself, realizing I could think it through logically, without slipping into the insanity of tagging out. In this timeline, my timeline, Istaran had never been a living, breathing person. He was just a figment of my imagination, a character from some old roleplaying, nothing more. And I could think about it without somehow making him real.

Most of what came to mind was foolhardy or wildly inappropriate. But two things stood out to me. One was that Istaran had an expansive sense of family, and anyone that made it into that category he would do whatever he had to to protect. The Itinerant Kingdom was my family. I couldn't even seriously claim we weren't related by blood: all of us had nanotechnology in our blood streams, all of shared origin. We all shared the 'blood of the Itinerant King' that I had seen fit to swear on. The second was that Istaran didn't value money. He barely even considered it a means to an end.

Five earth ponies converged on our location, timing their final 'transactions' to all arrive at our seats at once. "Fog Dancer!" a stallion she didn't recognize said. "Fancy seeing you here. And without your husband, of all things? I do hope you'll be a dear and hand over the money. Broken legs to go with your broken wings would be quite a tragedy indeed."

Reluctantly, Wind Chaser handed them the bag of bits. They took a moment to make sure it was what it seemed, before one of them nodded to the unicorns at the ends of the aisles, and we were put through the indignity of being lifted bodily by magic, turned upside down, and shaken. A dozen small coins fell from Midnight Oil's mane, to be promptly scooped up into the sack with the others.

The whole exchange made it very clear we had been targeted from the beginning. Rather than earning sympathy, this seemed to earn the ire of the other ponies: surely if we hadn't been here, they could have gone on to their destinations undisturbed, and with all of their posessions!

The thieves thanked everypony for their 'donations' before heading out the back. Out the window, we saw a dozen pegasi fly away from the train, most bearing riders. No one in the car said a word the rest of the ride.

Our tickets only got us as far as the base of the mountain Canterlot was built on. We had intended to scrub our identities here, and ascend on hoof, but now we lacked the finances to acquire food lodging once we arrived. We disembarked and looked up at the looming structures on the mountain above us.

[So.. is this all the protection the 'Itinerant King' can offer his subjects?] Midnight asked, her anger coming across the link loud and clear.

[I did protect you,] I answered.

[How? By rolling over and showing your belly? At least Oak Breaker had balls!] she shouted into our minds.

[Yes! By not dragging you into a fight we weren't prepared for! They were ready for us. They had us outnumbered, while half of us have never lifted a hoof to defend ourselves!] To myself, I realized I hadn't been in a fight yet, myself. The manticore, Frank, Wind Chaser, Zeke, Ryan, even sparring with Bardrick.. those had all been the other 'me', the memories brought back in time by Wind Chaser and Turbine. [We need to change that. We need to get stronger, tougher, prepared to fight when we need to. But to do that, first and foremost we need to be alive. Come!] I picked a road and started walking. Around the mountain, rather than up it. East.

We spent the rest of the day travelling, stooping so low as to eat the grass by the roadside to meet our needs, aside from Wind Chaser. It was something ponies largely avoided. It could meet their needs, and it was free, but it was bland, boring, and most of all a sign of abject poverty. Nopony ate wild grass when there was hayfries to be had, or bread, or flowers, or even quality designer grasses. In human terms, it was like eating rats.

When night fell, we found a clearing in the woods a bit away from the road to gather together and begin training. Fog Dancer focused on flying, after being landbound for so long. Nimbus had repaired her broken bones and returned her flight to her, but she was still quite stiff and took some time to get going gracefully, especially with the added weight of the nanotech within her. Midnight and Wind Chaser started sparring, the unicorn trying to get used to using her telekinesis under the pressure of a determined attacker, especially one who had no qualms about touching her horn. And I focused on trying to get off the ground.

By midnight, I joined Fog Dancer in the air. We flew together, and before long we found ourselves dancing. It wasn't anything overly intimate. More just.. fun. The wind through our manes. The clouds underhoof. The impossible maneuvers that practically dared physics to complain. Most of it was without physical contact, just the occasional meeting of the hooves. I caught her blushing from time to time and realized her thoughts were.. more complex than she was ready to share. I didn't press her. Wind Chaser was all the mare I really needed, but with her outlook on the proper behavior of kings, she hardly served as a buffer against other amorous entanglements. I felt Midnight's feelings toward me ought to serve as more of a deterant, and perhaps they did somewhat, but then Fog Dancer had shared a stallion with her daughter before, under much worse circumstances. And so, she blushed.

With the coming of the dawn, we set out again to the east. With the help of their spiders, mother and daughter shed all of their fur in moments, growing in a fresh coat minutes later with new coloration. My changeling and I accomplished a similar feat through waves of green magic. And with our identities freshly scrubbed, we returned to the road to the east.

Chapter 8: Itinerant living

It was strange to me, seeing Wind Chaser as a stallion. He had told me when we first met.. when he first met the other me anyways, that he was male. Given his desire to feed off of my love, he had willingly assumed a female form for the vast majority of our time together, so I had taken to thinking of him as a 'her'. The truth with all changelings of course is that neither was entirely, much less exclusively, correct. While I had the same magic at my disposal, and had had a few passing curious thoughts, I had yet to even experiment with a female form, much less let my sense of self lose its death-grip on the idea of my own masculinity.

Wind Chaser approached the nearby pear farm as 'Earth shaker', a large, muscular earth pony stallion with bulging muscles, bright green fur, and mane, and a tilted tree as a cutie mark. I was 'Little buck', a smaller earth pony stallion with an upright tree shedding a few leaves as my cutie mark, and deeper forest green shading. The ladies passed as our 'special someponies', with the older pegasus playing as 'Gathering Storm', sky blue pegasus mare with a basket of pears as her cutie mark, and the younger unicorn going as 'Delicate Balance', a pale yellow unicorn mare with a pile of pears as her cutie mark.

I took the lead, as my 'brother' was supposed to be a stallion of few words, and knocked firmly on the door. We waited patiently for an answer. It didn't take long before the mare of the household answered the door. "Can I help y'all?" the bright red earth pony mare asked.

"I do hope so, ma'am," I said, regretting the lack of a hat to remove. "I see yer trees are ripe for the harvest, and my brother and I were hoping fer some simple honest work to earn a bit or two." I did my best to emulate the simple country folk way of speaking without smirking or laughing, or simply delving into painfully obvious parody. I kind of wished the more experienced infiltrator was the one with the speaking parts, but it was too late for that now." Our marefriends can help with bringing in what we can buck for y'all, if you're willing to hire us for a time."

"Sure, we can always use help at harvest time! A couple buckers and a couple gatherers.. do y'all mind being paid as a group?" the mare replied.

We haggled a little over our rate, Wind Chaser silently guiding my interactions, until we finally shook hooves, and she went to lead us out to the trees.

"My name is Pear Fritter, by the way. Y'all have come at a really good time, as I'm sure you've noticed. We've got more pears than you can shake a stick at, which is great! But if they're left too long, it won't be so great, and my family and I can only buck so fast, and we haven't gotten any other seasonal workers stopping by just yet. Here, why don't you start with the trees in this enclosure here, and I'll point you to the next one when you finish?"

I took a moment to introduce our pseudonyms, hiding a smirk at the way she looked over Wind Chaser's disguised form, while Fog Dancer remembered to give a jealously possessive glare. I wondered how sincere the glare was. It seemed pretty convincing to me, and I didn't know how good of an actress Fog Dancer was. But I did know Wind Chaser's disguised was basically a color-swapped version of her late husband, a form that she physically appreciated despite the person underneath. And it was being worn by none other than her savior, the one who had made the bad pony go away forever. As we got to bucking, I was trying to decide whether I should be jealous if the pegasus decided to start feeding my changeling some love of her own.

It soon became hard to maintain any thoughts of jealousy, however, as Midnight began to literally work her magic on me. As Wind Chaser and I bucked the trees to knock loose the ripened fruit, Fog Dancer swooped through the air with a basket and Midnight Oil's telekinetic powers snatched fruits from midair. But the unicorn was skilled enough to keep at least some of her power touching me at any moment, and she was disturbingly good at teasing an earth pony stallion. I had to cheat, having Deus override my body's natural responses, or I would have surely tripped over my 'fifth leg' and been injured in hilariously embarrassing ways.

As we worked, we made a point of talking out loud, to a minimal degree. It was almost entirely work related: things like 'moving to the next tree', or 'you missed one', or 'give me a second'. Just enough to keep from being unnervingly quiet. Meanwhile we had a lot to talk about through our silent communications. Midnight in particular seemed intent on finding a full list of ways to work sexual innuendo into our conversation. Meanwhile, I could make out that Fog Dancer and Wind Chaser were trading messages back and forth, but they had managed to encrypt it in a way that Deus couldn't break through. This was a bit unnerving for me, as the other subnets shouldn't have been able to hide things from me like that, at least not when I actually inquired. But Turbine seemed to have a level of authority equal to my own, and was able to deny me. Eventually, I let it go. If I couldn't trust Wind Chaser, the kingdom was doomed anyways. And it probably was just some romantic entanglement between them. Having one more loving heart to feed my drone was probably a good thing, and honestly Fog Dancer needed someone non-abusive to love.

We made good time, and by a little after noon we had finished the enclosure. We hauled in our baskets to a surprised looking Pear. I hadn't thought to inquire how fast a typical crew would have finished, and our own augmented bodies were powerful and relentless; if we had meant to be more inconspicuous, we should have taken some breaks we didn't need, or goofed off a bit along the way.

On the other hand, our need for food easily exceeded a more typical crew. Pear Fritter was more than happy to sell us back some of the fruits of our labor. Fortunately the markup was minimal, and could be easily justified by the fuel and labor that went into cooking an amazingly delicious, if overly pear-themed, lunch. I supposed one advantage of being migrating seasonal workers would be that by the time we got sick of pears we could go find an apple farm or something.

After lunch, Pear led us out to another enclosure, and pointed out a second enclosure for us to work on next. Along the way we passed her brothers and mother, who were hard at work in an enclosure much closer to the barn. The mother was past prime bucking age, but still fit and healthy and had no trouble hauling in baskets of pears. The brothers shared plenty of features with their mother, but otherwise were quite divergent in the details, both from each other and Pear Fritter, hinting at possibly different fathers. Since we were a long way from any proper town, I had my suspicions, but didn't feel a need to voice them. Nevertheless, both boys were large and powerfully built; a bit smaller than Oak Breaker had been, but notably larger than most of the earth ponies we had seen in more populated areas.

When we reached our destination, Pear approached Wind Chaser. "Earth Shaker, why don't you come back with me for a bit. I'll show you were y'all can bed down for the night, and then I'll let you get back to work."

As Wind nodded and went to follower her, I wondered a moment why she was inviting the strong, silent one instead of the 'face' of the party. But then I thought back to the size of her brothers, and stopped wondering. Fog Dancer confirmed my thoughts with a silent message while she put on a show of jealousy, without stopping him. [A lot of farm girls like big stallions. And taking advantage of the seasonal workers helps keep the bloodlines mixing. Don't worry, I'm not that possessive of your marefriend. I'm actually a little surprised you don't act more jealous.]

[The more loving hearts feeding my changeling, the better as far as I am concerned. I know I won't lose his loyalty over a romp in the barn, or even a longer relationship with you. How are you two getting along, anyways? You've been passing secret notes back and forth like a couple of giddy school-fillies,] I thought to her, hoping the analogy survived the cultural translation. The thought-language the spiders used could fill in blanks and translate things when they didn't quite work, but it was always very disconcerting when they did so. It's hard to even describe. Like imagine reading a sentence that was structured like a wiki page, and all of it appearing in your brain at once, with all kinds of dangling links plugging into your consciousness in parallel. It was incredibly efficient, but impossible to get used to.

I almost blushed physically as she sent over the raw emotion she was feeling at the question; embarrassedly joyful seemed the best description. [I'm not ready to just forget everything that's happened and move on, but.. I'm really enjoying our time together. He makes me feel.. happy. And safe. Especially safe. Like if a monster came to get me, he would buck its skull in without a moment's hesitation. I know.. I know why you two stood down on the train. It's because we, Midnight and I.. we're too..]

[It's because you're too precious to risk losing or even getting hurt over a bag of bits,] I interjected. [Besides, I don't really want to owe Oak Breaker anything, do you? Now, all of his legacy has been stolen by thieves, no doubt to be squandered. A fitting end, don't you agree?]

When Wind Chaser finally returned, he looked quite satisfied, and reeked of sex. He went straight to bucking with a renewed vigor. [They have no idea, but they entertain quite a few changelings,] he commented.

[They?] I asked. Deus was able to pick out the scents of both Pear Fritter and her mother. [How do you know, anyways?]

[It's hard to describe, but when a changeling draws love from somepony, it gets easier and easier to get that love flowing in the future. And since they seem to involve themselves with seasonal workers, I doubt it's the same changeling over and over. Not that they would have a way to know. For personas like this, the hive has a good mix of them we passed between ourselves, so if you meet the same pony in passing a dozen times it could be a different changeling each time,] he explained.

[Any chance the boys are half-changeling or something?] I wondered.

[No, changelings don't work that way. We take love, we don't give it. Oh! I forgot, humans work a bit different, and nopony has explained it to you yet. For humans, a bit of fluid is enough to impregnate a woman, but for ponies it takes a massive surge of love to begin, and sustained love to grow until they are ready to be born. Of course the surge has to happen while the mare is receptive, or it won't work. Changelings are never receptive like that though, except for our queens. We can fake it, if we want to use our pheromones to entice a stallion, or as part of keeping up appearances in a longer role, but faking it won't make a foal.]

[What about as a male, though? If you're with a receptive female, then couldn't you, you know?] I was a bit fascinated by the topic, to the point where Deus had to take a bit more active control of my muscles to keep the pears coming.

[No. Well, maybe? Changelings have a special caste of breeders that keep the queen heavy with eggs, but the rest of us don't give love during our encounters, only take it. A pony normally won't really notice the difference, but it does keep us from having a bunch of bastard children running around. I guess, umm.. ] Wind Chaser hesitated before concluding, [if you and I switched roles, maybe I could impregnate you? But that's assuming you would even be capable. As you once said, you're a king, not a queen. Even if you have the right physical form, your aetheric net probably couldn't support a foal.]

[Aww, so you do love me after all?] I thought, grinning physically, [what about Fog Dancer though? You just met a few days ago, so it's probably too early but..]

[No. It's in our nature to love our queens, not somepony else. I love you like I loved my queen before I was given to you. I love my king like I loved my queen.. I don't know how to give any other kind of love. I hope you aren't disappointed. As the kingdom stands, any foals are going to be coming from you loving the ladies here.]

Since we had been broadcasting openly, Fog Dancer cut in. There was a twinge of sadness to it, but she didn't say why. [It's not quite as simple as loving each other, either, you also both need to love the union, if that makes sense. Sex helps make it all come together, but it isn't necessary for a truly loving couple.]

[Finally getting 'the talk' at your age?] Midnight teased. [Actually the changeling bits are new to me too. What was that about humans though?]

[Oh, women are normally fertile a few days a month, and if we have sex at that time there's a chance of producing children. Love has nothing to do with it, other than helping guide who has sex with whom. It.. honestly can cause a lot of problems at times. Sex is quite enjoyable in its own right, and it's far too common for someone to seek out that pleasure, only to end up with a child on the way that they aren't prepared to handle, often with the father leaving entirely, sometimes without even knowing it. So we have a lot of social rules around sex to keep that from happening too often, and various technologies to make pregnancy less or more likely. Ideally, a couple will commit to one another in love, and marry, before anyone gets pregnant.]

[Why not just avoid the fertile days?] Midnight asked. [That's what we do, but for us we have to avoid any close contact at all, in case something comes up and things get.. you know.. too lovey. I would think it'd be easier to just avoid having sex.]

I thought about it a moment, putting together some of what I knew, and some of what Deus was able to skim quickly from the other nets. [Human fertile days are a lot less obvious than pony fertile days; we much more easily notice the opposite end of the cycle, actually, and since the timing can shift a little unexpectedly, even those that are planning carefully can be caught off guard. Honestly, the easiest symptom to notice on the fertile days is an increased desire for sex, which doesn't exactly make it easier to avoid those days.] I thought a moment. [Why aren't ponies more, you know.. free with sex. We have to be cautious because of unplanned pregnancies, but if you don't love the pony you're with..]

[Why would you want to have sex with a pony you don't love?] Fog Dancer answered. [Trust me, it's not that great. But beyond that.. the heart responds to sex. Ideally there's a surge of passionate love, enough to make a foal naturally. And if there isn't.. usually there's a surge of something else. Hatred. Shame. Something. Can a human really be that close to someone and not feel anything?]

[Some can. But.. no, usually not. Not if we're honest about it,] I concluded.

[That's why you held back,] Wind Chaser mentioned. [But also why your other self lay with me so quickly. He was in a rush to fill my needs, but you were guarding your heart.]

[Do you wish I had hurried more?] I asked.

[No! Your.. love is much purer this time than it was then. Before.. it was tainted with shame, self doubt, regrets. Now that we're on the topic.. that's why Istaran locked out your permissions to Turbine, and elevated my own. It was a gift to you. Your past self felt guilty, knowing that he could order me to do anything and I would be forced to comply. Even though you would never do anything to harm me, the fact that you could was enough to trouble that soft squishy heart of yours. You don't have to feel that way. I am my own drone, as much as I can be. More than I care to be, honestly, but.. I trust that you won't leave me. Trust that I won't betray you.]

We bucked in pure silence for a time, as I took in the revelation, and all the other words that had been exchanged.

Chapter 9: A stable environment

At the day's end, we hauled in our last load and enjoyed dinner with the Pear family. We made plans amongst ourselves to retire for a few hours to the stables that served as guest worker housing before slipping out into the night for more training. We didn't need to sleep, but we didn't want to tip our hooves too quickly in that regard. It was best, for now, to keep up appearances. Ideally, by the time we left our hosts would still be blissfully unaware of our abilities.

It was nice and refreshing chatting with the Pears around the kitchen table. Good, simple folk with nothing but simple good cheer. It felt.. in some ways more alien than anything else I had encountered in Equestria. On the other hand, it felt like if you just listened with your eyes closed.. like this was a conversation that could take place back home, in some idealized family home. Did real family farms back on Earth feel like this? I didn't know, I had never lived on one, but it felt right. Matched my assumptions if nothing else.

It was just as alien to the mares in my kingdom, and twice as refreshing. After living with first the shame and struggles of a single mother, and then the painful abuse of a cruel and violent stallion, the pure simple joys of this farm family's dinner table was almost unbelievable. Like a desert nomad seeing a lake for the first time. They drank deeply from it, while struggling to hide their own culture shock.

Wind Chaser was less impressed, but no less refreshed. She hadn't been in this particular family home before, but she had been in plenty like it. The itinerant seasonal worker was an old staple of changeling patrolling, and she had assumed many such personas over the years, a handful of them frequently enough to have 'friends' that would recognize them and welcome them by name. But the love flowed freely at this table, more than she currently had the appetite for, and so she savored it, basking in the warmth, careful not to draw too much. She had another meal in mind, and far too soon to be filling up on Pears.

Fog Dancer was the first to head back to the stable, as Midnight volunteered to help with the dishes, and Wind Chaser stayed behind to keep her company. Midnight brushed aside my offer to help, her deft horn making short work of the mess as it was, so I headed over to the stable myself before long.

The stable was cleaner and more welcoming than I expected. They had an outhouse nearby, and unlike the equines of Earth, the civility to make use of it. So there was no waste within. Flower petals, which I later learned to be pear blossoms, had been spread about lightly to create a more pleasant scentscape. There was hay spread about to make soft pleasant beds, but they were covered in light blankets which kept it out of the fur. The stalls latched from the inside, for the occupants' privacy rather than to keep a work animal contained. Altogether a welcome departure from my preconceptions, while close enough to justify the translation. To them it was more akin to a hostel or a barracks in function than how humans would use a stable.

Fog Dancer was within, lying on her side on one of the larger beds in an open stall, in what I slowly realized was meant to be a sultry pose. "Hey there, big boy, why don't you come on over this way?" she asked, with a bit of a giggle.

I trotted over, amused. "Are you here to seduce me? And here I thought you didn't think of me that way.."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind, really, but you should probably save your energy. I'm really just here to distract you for a bit," she said, stroking my muzzle lightly with a wing. "Here, lie down on your back, close your eyes, and just relax." I followed her suggestion and was rewarded with a relaxing shoulder massage. I wondered whether Wind Chaser had been setting this up in all of their private messages during the day, or if perhaps they were planning to pair me with Midnight so the elder mare could enjoy the changeling's impression of a stallion. I still felt the filly should be waiting on sex, both to mature a bit more, and also to give her heart more time to heal from the abuse she had suffered, but there was no denying her lust for me, and Fog Dancer seemed uninterested in preventing such a thing.

I breathed in her scent, quite strong from my current position, and could tell she was aroused. I didn't think it was really meant for me, though but she obviously had sex on the mind. It all but confirmed my suspicions as to the night's activities, when I started to feel some familiar pressure of unicorn magic touching me in sensitive places. I resigned myself to accepting the daughter's advances, and let my body finally start to respond. A quick flutter of feathers and air announced Fog Dancer's departure, and I finally opened my eyes.

Two Midnight Oils grinned back at me, both in her original coloration, and both with horns aglow, playing their magic over me. I tried using their subnets to identify which was the real Midnight and which was my changeling consort, but both registered as Midnight's 'Fossil', rather than Wind Chaser's 'Turbine', and refused to clarify for me.

[Why?] I asked as they continued to work me up. I shifted my form to that of a unicorn, the white furred 'Blank Slate', and unsteadily began to repay their affectionate touches with my own horn's magic.

[We both find this to be incredibly kinky,] the Midnight on my left answered, [and we knew you wouldn't be able to resist us this way.]

[We both want you to show us all the love you have for both of us,] the Midnight on the right continued. [And we'll show you just how good it is to be the King.]

As the intimate touching began to include hooves and mouths, I glanced up and spotted Fog Dancer. She had found a spot in the loft with a view of the festivities, and seemed to be enjoying herself a bit as well. For some reason, that was the last straw for me, and my resistance collapsed entirely.

As I lay, exhausted, with a forehoof wrapped around each of my identical unicorn mares, basking in the afterglow and the joy of our connection, I noticed the one on my left had a brightly glowing horn, which she seemed unusually intent on. "Hmm," she said, unhelpfully.

"Hmm?" I questioned.

"Change back," she told the other. I was a bit uncomfortable when Wind Chaser responded by turning back into a big strong stallion, still cuddled against my side. I would have preferred her typical pegasus disguise, or even her natural form, but at least now I knew which was which. Midnight's horn suddenly dulled its glow dramatically. "Hmm.."

"Hmm?"

"You were, umm.. pushing magic into me somehow. It stopped as soon as you knew which of us was which. Any ideas?" Midnight asked.

"Hmm..." I thought about it, and slowly started to realize. Wind Chaser needed my love to survive, even more so to thrive. I didn't make her draw it out of me, I pushed it into her. It was normally unconscious, or at most subconscious. When I couldn't tell them apart, my heart didn't know which to push my love into, so I simply loved them both. Focusing on the feeling, I was able to do that again, and Midnight's horn brightened once more. Then I shifted the flow entirely to Midnight, leaving Wind Chaser out of it, and her horn sparked brighter still.

Catching on to what I was doing, Wind Chaser was able to push some of her own stored loved back into me, and the horn grew brighter still. It sputtered and sparked for a moment as Midnight lost control of the flow before stabilizing it at the higher level. At this point we could all feel the heat from the bright light, and there was a risk it would be noticed through the cracks of the building's loose wood walls. "Okay, enough!" she said, and I let the flow stop.

[A changeling queen absorbs the love of her subjects to fuel her egg laying. A changeling king instead distributes his love to strengthen his subjects,] Wind Chaser declared.

When we slipped out into the night to train ourselves, we had one more trick to master, together.

Chapter 10: Training montage

The next few weeks were like a honeymoon for us. I know, that's kind of weird. For one, we weren't officially married, not even Wind Chaser and I, and we weren't exactly being monogamous. Also, we were working twelve hours a day, and training eight hours a night.

But when we were working the orchards we were free to talk through our spider networks, and we could even let them take over most of the thought behind what we were doing, essentially going on autopilot in a sense. And despite the might and magic that went into our work, it was fundamentally pretty easy to do.

During the evenings we made love to one another until we were sure our hosts had gone to sleep. Fog Dancer held out for a few nights before seducing Wind Chaser, and then myself. We got a bit careless with our use of shapeshifting, trusting no one to walk in on us, and as far as we know we were never caught.

During the nights, we went out among the trees and trained hard. Wind Chaser taught the rest of us how to fight. Midnight taught Wind and I to be effective with our horns, and Fog Dancer helped us master our wings and even taught us how to do things like cloud walking and manipulating weather. And through it all, I practiced being a conduit for our love, pushing power from one of us to another.

We weren't even sure what we were training for. There wasn't going to be another Oak Breaker in our lives, and there wasn't that much likelihood of another train robbery. But it didn't matter. It was fun pushing our limits, growing our abilities, and bonding in our own unique way.

There was a song we started singing, a couple days in. I can't remember the lyrics, at least not specifically. To my mind.. it feels like it spanned the weeks, summed them up, wrapped them in a little bow and made them a single, compact little package in my memories. It made the time fly by. It made it hard to remember the details of those days, but not the growth that came from them. Our hosts joined in at times, I vaguely remember that, singing parts that were just made for them, as if the song was written for their cameos. It just felt right at the time.. harmonic. I'm amazed I was able to keep up with my part of it, but it's like the spiders were singing in my blood and I just went along with them. It's hard to explain, and more than a little bit crazy. It's like the world was a musical, at least for a bit.

But there was always going to be a time limit to it all. The Pears' orchard was big, but we worked fast. We finished their trees in a week and moved on to the next farm, and the next down the road, making our way slowly toward the east. Toward Gryphonia, where Bardrick lived, on the thought that perhaps he might join us in this timeline as well.

It was strange, and started to prey on Wind Chaser's mind first, before the rest of us became uneasy as well. There was a lot of work to do for seasonal workers like us, and no other such workers to be found. Several of these farms should have been picked clean, or nearly so, by the time we arrived. The last farm we visited was desperate to have our help, and it was tempting to take their extremely generous offers, but I decided to insist on only taking the usual rates, and saving a little good will for the future.

When we were done, we started moving on, only to cross paths with a small group of travelers. They looked to be a half dozen earth ponies, probably seasonal workers themselves, except that Wind Chaser instantly identified them as changelings. He excused himself from our group loudly, and went over to talk to them.

"I'm going to run with this crew for a few weeks. I'll meet up with you later, bro!" he finally said back to us out loud. "Take the mares back home, and don't spend all our bits!" We waved us off, and we returned his friendly goodbye before continuing down the road. Meanwhile, we silently synced up on what was going on.

[They don't seem to have recognized me personally, but they certainly recognize a child of their queen. There seems to be a major gathering in Canterlot. They didn't give me details, not sure if they just don't know or assumed I should. Make your way to the city and we'll reunite there.]

We remembered the changeling migration when they were under attack by Ryan and his simulacra army in the time that was undone. This felt.. different. That had been a desperate escape, this seemed more coordinated, intentional. Like a stealth invasion. We still weren't sure what was going on, nor entirely of our loyalties in all of this. Wind Chaser was mine, heart mind and soul, but she had been raised in this hive, and they were still her siblings. On the other hand, we lived in Equestria, among the ponies, and while we were.. extra-legal, shall we say, we didn't wish any harm to our host nation. Without knowing their plans, though, it was hard to commit to a course of action other than showing up.

When we were separated by enough trees, I took on the form of a larger pegasus stallion, restoring my favorite upside-down compass flank mark, and accepted Midnight onto my solid back. I drew on her love to help power my flight, easily lifting us both as Fog Dancer followed. We would be in Canterlot before Wind Chaser, travelling like this, but that was fine. Our spider subnets could easily communicate over long distances, especially since the Equestrians left large swaths of the radio spectrum unused.

The head start was helpful, as we had time to land in lower Canterlot and seek out lodging. Rather than a simple inn, we decided to invest the time and bits to acquire a longer term lease on a modest but spacious home. There was a good chance Wind Chaser and I would be hoofing it again soon, but if Midnight Oil could get back into school, especially here in Canterlot, she could have a shot at getting into an academy, and eventually providing the Kingdom with the benefits of a full fledged wizard. Even if she didn't rejoin our travels, she could help a lot by sending us spell sequences wherever we happened to be, for Wind or I to play out on our horns. And having a safe place to return to would be desirable as well.

It was two days before Wind Chaser caught up, time enough for Fog Dancer to find decent work as a foal sitter, and Midnight Oil to get admitted into a new school. The changeling unlocked the door with a magnetic swipe pushing aside the deadbolt, and walked in on an adoring and adorable family sitting around the dinner table with welcome smiles. He shuddered as the warmth of our welcome, genuinely aimed at him and not the disguise he wore, flowed over him. He was every bit as hungry as we were, and quickly took his seat, joining our dinner conversation, and getting his fill without the use of fork or plate, nor deception or force.

Chapter 11: Weaponized love

Author's Note

FYI: adding gore tag for Teen level violence in this chapter. There may be more in the future, but not all the time.

Chapter 11: Weaponized love

The next few days were spent in an increasingly frantic investigation. There were a lot of changelings in Canterlot, and we were trying to find out what they were up to without them realizing we were doing so. Midnight Oil and Fog Dancer stayed out of it, focusing on establishing themselves and our new safe house. If nothing else came of our trip here, or even of my whole journey to Equestria, the two of them getting a new, clean, fresh start on life made everything we had done worthwhile in my view.

Wind Chaser and I split up, but stayed within a few blocks of one another. She could sense changelings, but they could sense her as well, and if we were together she might miss out on some opportunities to talk freely, 'ling to 'ling. Meanwhile, that allowed me to move relatively undetected by the changelings, just another pony that they hopefully didn't realize was stalking them.

One thing we realized quickly was that the palace was on very high alert, and well protected. It was easy to find out why: there was a royal wedding coming up, and the ponies were determined to make sure nothing happened. But, with Wind Chaser's abilities we very quickly realized that many of the guards were changelings themselves, and that they were allowing more of their kind to come and go freely. More coming, than going.

But we had a bit of a problem. I was a complete unknown here, and Wind Chaser was, as far as could be easily explained, one of the invaders. Our only means of identifying the invaders was something we needed to keep secret, and for that matter I had to be careful not to be lumped in with the changelings myself. We couldn't just walk up to a non-changeling guard and say "Hey, just so you know, there's a bunch of shapeshifters pretending to be your fellow guards." Not without some kind of evidence to point to that didn't involve us in incriminating ways.

So our indecision just kept us investigating, looking for that special something that would give us the opening we needed.

Instead, we found ourselves surrounded in dark alleys, by dozens of disguised changelings each.

"So, the traitor decides to poke her snout in where it doesn't belong, eh?" One of the changelings, in the guise of a dark grey earth pony stallion, accused Wind Chaser. "If you'd stayed out of way, perhaps we could ignore you, but here you are, on the eve of our Queen's glorious victory. Since you were my brother, I'll give you once chance. Walk away, now. Otherwise you'll get to see a side of a feeding pod most changelings never see. The inside."

Wind Chaser winced. "Careful, Long Shadow, jokes that bad could be considered war crimes."

Long Shadow huffed, and made a quick gesture with his hoof, sending a wave of false ponies crashing down on Wind Chaser. "Looks like your time's up. Should have started walking instead of tossing insults."

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, another changeling appraised me briefly before assuming the form of my own disguise. "So, you're the one that stole Wind Chaser away, huh? You don't look that impressive. And what lies were you feeding him that got him thinking you would somehow 'save the hive'? He didn't save us from squat. Luckily, our Queen finally has the answer to our troubles in her hooves."

I moved slowly, inching toward the back door of a restaurant, hoping it lead into the kitchen. "I am the very same, and explaining your salvation would take too long and exceed your ability to comprehend. I have no quarrel as of yet with you or your Queen, but if you want to make the Itinerant King your enemy, by all means, come at me."

"Oh, our Queen has plenty of quarrel with you. We have no love for so called 'Kings' to begin with, but to snatch away such a talented drone just as he revealed that he could change into a dragon? That's just rubbing it in, and completely uncalled for." Even with Deus, I had to struggle to dredge up what he was talking about from my memories. Or rather, Wind Chaser's. It was the moment she unwound time to. She had been in the form of a dragon in order to carry more spiders back in time, and so to them it seemed she suddenly transformed, just before announcing her defection.

They didn't care to talk anymore, and began their headlong rush against me, at practically the same moment the other group attacked Wind Chaser.

Perhaps a month wasn't all that long of a time to train, but we had been efficient with our time, and ultimately effective. Fog and Midnight found comfortable positions to sit and focus, pouring as much of their love into me as they could. I shifted it back and forth between Wind Chaser and myself, allowing each of us to fight with three ponies worth of power behind our strikes.

I rushed for the door, bucking it in as the changelings converged on me. Seeing a professional kitchen before me as I had hoped, I brought both forelegs up and created a powerful electromagnetic surge. Swiftly dropping to my back, I watched as a flood of pots, pans and knives flew through the air, slamming into the closest few changelings. One reflexively reverted to his natural form, the chitin taking the brunt of the blows and leaving him down, but not out. The other was left a bleeding mess, and very well might have bled out. Magnetically ripping a pair of knives from his chest, leaving the wounds unplugged, probably made it worse for his chances. But better for mine. A subtle wave of changeling magic in my hips and rear knees made an upright fighting stance suddenly more comfortable, as I towered over the false ponies in an upright stance.

Wind Chaser shifted to a unicorn form, using her horn in sharp bursts of focused telekinesis. Sharp blows stunned changeling after changeling as they tried to get close to her, before a quick shift had her airborne, diving over her attackers and out of their tightening noose. But she was heavily outnumbered, and they had horns at their disposal as well. Their combined attacks were overwhelming, and soon she was collapsing under their focused assault. 'Earth ponies' and a few 'pegasi' were able to close, and soon hoof blows were added to the magical attacks.

Having a couple blades in my hooves was counterbalanced by the collection of additional knives, as well as pots and pans, that now littered the alleyway, where changelings were more than happy to pick them up. I surprised them a few times by wrenching the weapons from their grasp with magnetic surges and using them against other changelings, but the element of surprise didn't last long, and soon I was being pressed by their numbers as well.

While a ring of changelings fought me, a second ring decided to start syphoning off my love, pulling it out by brute force. For a pony, being without love meant collapsing into a state of weakness, possibly even unconsciousness if enough was syphoned. For me, it meant something else. I remembered my experiences from the other timeline, where my other self, already under the control of my villainous alter ego, was drained of love by Istaran. It had made him.. not stronger, per se, but it cemented his hold over me. In this timeline, I had never succumbed to his control, but if I was drained of my love, would that be the new trigger.

I was afraid. Afraid of becoming that person again.. that thing. I was afraid of what damage he might do, once again able to silently leave orders to our nanospiders nets, possibly secret orders that they wouldn't tell me about, but could come into play at any moment, triggered by some secret rule. And with that.. I wasn't afraid of the changelings, anymore, not even the ordinary caution of the sane fighter. Wounds could be healed, broken bones as well, and I doubted they could muster any attack that would outright kill me.

Long Shadow stood before Wind Chaser, as a pair of 'earth ponies' held up her nearly unconscious form. He smirked, opening his mouth to make some no doubt clichéd villainous comment to her. But she cut him off with a loud harsh whispered command. "Run!"

"What? Why would I run? I've wo-" his response was cut off by a chef's knife flying through his head, fast enough to incapacitate the changeling on the other side of him.

"Because.. I didn't want you to be killed by a human, again," she said, quietly, as she slumped to the ground, no longer held up by the fleeing changelings. She looked up at me, trembling with a mix of emotions as I approached. I was.. mostly human in appearance, but with the wings of a pegasus, emerging through holes in my regal looking crimson cloak, the horn of a unicorn jutting up just under my simple, golden crown, and blood and changeling ichor splattered all over me, especially my hands. My eyes burned, not with hatred but with fear, a primal force like a cornered animal, but backed with enough logic to see the changelings' mere continued presence as a lethal threat.

"You're.. still you, under all that?! I.. think I would be less scared if it was only scary-you.."

The threat gone, I gave her one last loving smile and shifted back into a half-dead pegasus before collapsing at her feet. Becoming an earth pony, herself, she pulled me onto her back and quickly began making her way back to the house.

Our fast healing was nothing short of miraculous, but we were still out of the mix. We still didn't know what the changelings were up to, exactly, and in a sense our heart had gone out of the fight. On the one hand, we had expended a lot of 'love' fueling our magic in combat, to say nothing of what the changelings drew off of me personally. Even the ladies, who had stayed out of the fight themselves, were feeling the drain from tapping into our link so heavily. They were off, now buying food to help us replenish ourselves.

Unfortunately, food was only part of the equation. Pony bodies somehow naturally converted the energy from their diet into the energy aspect of 'love', but their hearts had to be in a good state to do so. Right now our hearts were in disarray. Wind Chaser was trying to come to terms with losing her 'brother' at the hands of a human, again. While the bridges between them were already a smoldering wreck from when she abandoned her hive to avert our 'survival game' and join me on my journeys, a part of her was still glad that she had been able to save him, as well, even if he never knew or understood. But then, that was suddenly wrenched from her, by someone she knew and trusted.

As for myself, I was trying to come to terms with being a killer. Not every changeling we fought was dead. Some were in critical condition, and may yet survive the day, or could succumb to their injuries, and others had managed to flee, more or less intact. I was tempted to agree with Wind Chaser's sentiments: in the other timeline, my other self had been able to blame every bad, cruel or heartless thing he ever did on Istaran. The alternate personality had a lot of value as a scapegoat, at least for my own heart. But I had no such excuse. This time I owned my actions. I wouldn't blame fear: I had chosen my fear, chosen to wield it as a weapon, chosen fight over flight. If I had so chosen, I could have broken free of the fight, snagged Wind Chaser, and tried to escape. It would probably be messy, a long hard pursuit with no particular place to hide, trying to keep our allies' position secret in the process.

If I had 'tagged out', Istaran probably would have chosen to flee. The self-proclaimed villain was quite happy to follow the tradition of recurring villains everywhere and escape when the fight wasn't going his way. But I realized I wanted the changelings to fear the Itinerant King, to scramble to stay out of my path in the days and years ahead. I wanted them to be like cockroaches, scurrying from the light of my presence. In short, I wanted the benefits of being a killer. So now I had to deal with the guilt of being one.

I sat in the basement of our little house, where no strangers would spot us, and hugged Wind Chaser against me. On a whim, I returned to my human form, and bid her do the same. I was naked this time, not clad in illusions, covered only in rapidly healing wounds and a tired, injured changeling, and now hungry changeling. I hugged her tighter, my tears falling on her carapace as I reminded myself of just what I had been fighting for. Her own tears dropped to my bare leg. She realized, after a moment, that her thoughts were closed to me, and soon Turbine began to feed me her own thoughts and emotions, every overwhelming aspect of the day's events.

We were down there for hours, before the days events found a new way to catch up to us. Fog Dancer was the first to alert us. Her subnet, Nimbus, started sending us live images of a massive shockwave of pink energy, crackling with pink lightning, was spreading out throughout the city, emanating from the palace. Changelings struck by it were being sent flying into the distance, including their noticeably larger queen. The shockwave passed harmlessly over ponies, including Fog Dancer herself, and kept going.

Exploring quickly, she spotted changelings who were unfortunate enough to get caught against walls. Most had the good luck or sense to get out into open streets where they could run directly away from the blast and get launched outward when it caught up with them. Some were thrown painfully through wood or glass, leaving a bit of property damage in their wakes. But an unlucky few got caught, pinned against stone walls. The pressure didn't seem to actually squash them, as one might think. Instead, it pinned them in place and.. fattened them. They were being force-fed love, I realized, and as I watched in horror they inflated like balloons, before suffering the same fate.

From our position in the basement, we didn't have time to do anything but wait, brace ourselves, and pray. The shockwave soon hit us, and we felt it. Wind Chaser was pinned up against me, pinning me to the stone wall behind us. The love began to fill her, and soon she was beginning to inflate like the others. Tapping into our bond, I started to draw love out of her as quickly as we could, pushing it back out to Fog Dancer and Midnight Oil. That bought us a little time, but they were soon full to their capacities. Fog began flitting about at top speed, burning off love to fuel her high speed maneuvers, while Midnight Oil lit her horn up like a flare, while juggling several pieces of debris. But we couldn't syphon it off as fast as it was coming in.

Finally, a desperate idea occurred to me, and I dragged Wind Chaser into a deep kiss. [Focus on your womb,] I thought. [Pony children are formed from a surge of love, right? Maybe changelings are.. similar enough. Let's put all this love to good use!]

Wind Chaser tried to form a coherent disagreement, even as she did her best to follow my suggestion. [I can't do this!] she objected, [I'm not a queen!]

Even as I syphoned the love bomb's power away from her, I pushed my own love back into her. I thought back to all our times together, starting from when I had first seen her in the abandoned castle, in the guise of a pegasus-winged human woman. [But you're with a King!] I countered. I knew it didn't mean anything, that it was just a title we had come up with together, but I wasn't about to let logic kill my guardian angel.

She managed to move a bit, repositioning herself on me, despite the pressure. [Human children are made from fluid exchange.] She pointed out. It was hard to follow along with her suggestion, with the fearful tension of the situation combined with the added concern that the surge of love normally associated with sex would be enough to push her over the edge. But we acted quickly, using Deus help to get the biology to cooperate. And when the fluids did come, it seemed to be just the trigger that was needed. Somewhere, deep inside of Wind, something changed, became more open, more receptive, and suddenly the excess love had somewhere to go.

When the shockwave faded out, Fog Dancer and Midnight Oil finally returned. They knew we were still both alive, but we both had our eyes closed and so they didn't know exactly what they were going to see when they made their way downstairs. That we were naked and exposed was no surprise, they had heard our exchange loud and clear, and besides they had both been our lovers more than once. What was a surprise was the other evidence of our love.

I saw it first through Midnight's eyes, before slowly opening my own. Wind Chaser was huge, heavy laden with child already. In human terms she looked well into her second trimester, maybe nearing the third. Considering it had only been a few minutes, I was very much concerned. "We're not going to have like.. a hive-full of hungry little baby changelings soon, are we?"

Wind Chaser shook her head. "No.. it's, twins I think? I can feel their subnet in there. And hear their thoughts. I think all that excess love energy sort of.. jumpstarted the process. They seem to have settled into a slower rate of growth now." She smiled, closing her eyes again. "Oh! Hmm. It seems they couldn't wait for us to get around to naming them."

I shook my head, happy but unsettled. "I see we're going to need to teach them patience.. even before they are born. So what did they name themselves? We do have veto rights at least, don't we?"

"Of course, my king. The boy calls himself Alexander. The girl Gabriella. I think they got the names from your memories of Earth. Their subnets.. um.. they seem to share a single subnet. That's going to be weird for them. Anyways, it designated itself Stormbringer."

"Well, at least one of them had the good sense to have a pony-sounding name," I laughed.

My other subjects gathered around us, snuggling in against the pregnant changeling on my lap. Soon we were all hearing thoughts from the unborn pair.

Chapter 12: Eggs and pods

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 13: Health benefits

Mirror slumped onto the floor, defeated by his own weariness. He watched Wind Chaser finish pushing out the egg, then strain to try to push out another.. but there was nothing forthcoming. She seemed a bit confused by this, but.. well, he had an embarrassingly good view from here. "I don't see any more coming," he offered helpfully.

She examined the egg closely, before properly covering it in slime and securing it in its place against the wall. "I thought for sure there were twins.. I guess they're sharing an egg?" She didn't want to admit she had guessed wrong, but Mirror didn't see a point in rubbing it in. She was beautiful, he decided. Kind of small for a queen, probably because she was a drone like him. But she legged an egg, so she had to be a queen? She was confusing. Also very well fed. Probably a big part of what made her beautiful. Also, didn't she get thrashed by a dozen other drones like.. the day before yesterday? She didn't have a scratch on her beautiful, chitinous body.

"You're looking well," he said.

"You're not. Which is probably better for you. If I thought you were capable of being a threat, I might have bashed your head in just to be safe," she replied.

"Makes sense," he shrugged. She obviously didn't have the kind of.. output that Chrysalis did, at least not yet. One egg from a drone was kind of a miracle already. If it was this hard for her to make one, she wouldn't take any chances on losing it. So yay for broken bones and being half starved? Who was he kidding, it just meant a slower death. At least he had someone to talk him through it. "So.. I guess that king of yours is working out for you?"

She rubbed the egg and smiled. "The results speak for themselves, do they not? You are here, broken, alone, your siblings scattered. And I am here healthy, well fed, and with an egg of my own. So tell me, how is your queen working out for you?"

Mirror thought in silence for a while. "Are you able to.. you know, lay.. because your mate is a king?"

She nodded, then thought for a bit before deciding to come clean. "We had to borrow a fair bit of extra love to make it work. He might not be able to get you pregnant right away, until we learn how to do it more easily."

Mirror blushed hard enough to show through his chitin. "What makes you think I even want to lay?!"

Wind Chaser looked him in the eyes wordlessly for several seconds.

"Okay," he confessed. "Maybe, just one? But does it matter? I'm just a half dead enemy about to starve to death here."

"Join us."

He hesitated. "You'll feed me?"

She nodded. "Join us."

He looked up at her. So well fed. So beautiful. He wanted to be beautiful like her. Even if that meant being someone's spare mare. "What about my injuries. I'll just slow you down. "

"We can heal your wounds. Join us." She pierced herself at a joint in the chitin, drawing a drop of blood on her hoof, and offering it to him. "Swear loyalty to the Itinerant King, lick this drop of Kingsblood, and become one of us. I'll get him to give you that egg someday, as soon as we know how."

"You can't make promises for your king," he said before licking the drop into her mouth. "Can you?"

She shrugged. "Ask him yourself then, when you see him. Also.. the oath?"

He lifted his one good leg into the air. "I, Mirror, do solemnly swear to serve the Itinerant King." He lowered the limb. "Like that?"

"Good enough," she shrugged, and went back to her egg.

"What about that healing you promised?" He asked hopefully.

"Get some sleep," she replied.

Mirror sighed, defeated, and fell asleep, convinced he would never awaken.

Mirror's body was too drained to even produce a proper fever. Which made the integration process happen much more consciously than it normally would. It was like a sort of lucid dream, but the dreamscape was this incredibly abstract thing.. thoughts, numbers, logic. There were more concrete bits to it, but they were.. a detailed breakdown of his own biology, at a molecular scale. He was in awe at his own thoughts, as they became one with 'Rorrim'. Heh. Mirror, backwards. Mirror's mirror.

[Hi!]

[Rorrim? You sound more girly than I would have thought.]

[No. Midnight Oil. I'm connected to you through Fossil and Rorrim. You're new to the Kingdom. Welcome!]

[Oh.] He thought about what she said, and soon they were in a sort of black void together, the black unicorn mare standing before the changeling. This was a bit more like what he expected from a dreamscape. And hey, he was uninjured here. So this was a fairly pleasant place to spend his last remaining minutes.

[This place is a bit bare, huh? Here, let's decorate.] One after another, features appeared within the space. A nice big rug floating under their feat, comfy looking cushions, a low table with a fully deployed tea set, a cup of steaming beverage already placed before each of them. They each took a seat, and sampled the impossibly good brew. [Better?]

[Better,] he agreed. He savored heaven while he could, certain hell would catch up to him soon enough.

[You seem troubled. What are you worried about? Don't worry.. we all had things to worry about when we joined.]

[Oh, I'm just about to die,] he sipped the tea again. So good. [Thanks for giving me such a pleasant exit though. It's very nice of you. I wish I could do something to repay you.]

[Hold on. First off.. you mean it? If you mean it, I will find a favor for you to give me.~] She grinned.

[Yes, I mean it. Even if I wasn't about to die, this is very pleasant, and I'm glad you were nice enough to welcome me like this.] He even thought he felt a bit of love from her. Just a bit.

She closed her eyes and thought a moment. [You're not going to die. Just check with Rorrim. Your wounds are all healing nicely. You definitely need more love though. And I've got an idea of a favor that will help you get it faster.]

When I returned to the cavern, Midnight Oil was standing next to Wind Chaser, chatting casually while they waited. Midnight was a bit more animated than usual, pacing and otherwise moving her body in restless fashion. Her tail wagged almost like a puppy as she saw me approach, and I was instantly being stroked by her magic along my back and flanks.

"I didn't expect to see you here," I said. "Why aren't you in Canterlot?"

"I figured out a neat new magic trick to come visit you two. Aren't you glad to see me?" she said.

"Of course.. " I said, thinking. I sensed Fossil's presence in front of me, but also in the distance at Canterlot. But it wasn't Turbine faking it this time.. Wind Chaser was right there. "Why do I get the feeling that this magic trick is like the last one you two pulled on me?" I asked Wind Chaser.

"Just play along," Wind Chaser suggested. "Let us have our fun. Midnight needs your love, now, badly."

At this point I was pretty sure what was going on, or at least part of it. But I heeded Wind Chaser's suggestion, and made believe I didn't suspect a thing. I bedded the unicorn before me, giving her all the love I could muster. I immediately felt the drain, all too familiar, and my suspicions were confirmed. By I trusted Wind Chaser, and knew there had to be a reason she had me feeding an unfamiliar changeling.

When we were done, I rolled onto my back, pulling her atop me and looked into her eyes. "Alright, so.. is someone going to explain to me why you couldn't just tell me we had a new changeling?"

Mirror looked nervous and also embarrassed as he returned to his true form. "It was Midnight's idea, she asked me to do it as a favor for her."

The unicorn's thoughts reached me from Canterlot. [That was really fun. Don't be mad at Mirror. He was just helping me try a new trick. With the spider nets he can pass me his senses, and let me control his movements. It's just like I'm there! And since he can take my form, it feels totally natural to me. Well, mostly. There's a very slight lag, but that's all, and it isn't much at all. I was even able to use horn magic through him.]

I petted the changeling, who was still looking a bit nervous. "Are you okay with all of that? I mean.. she kind of used you.. like a puppet or something."

"." Wind Chaser offered. "What, it's your word. In Equestrian, the closest would be 'avatar'."

"I don't mind," Mirror said, "it was actually kind of fun. And I got fed out of it, so there's tha-" I cut him off with a kiss, rolling him onto his back and got started with him anew. After a moment he thought to use thoughtspeech since I wouldn't let him talk. [Okay, yes, that's a lot better!] I knew I didn't have to have sex to feed him direct love, but it did make it easier for me.. and I was getting a lot more used to the intimate touch of changelings.

To my surprise, when we finished he climbed off me, and ran off, saying only "I've got to go!" I tracked his movements as he ran off, apparently beginning some kind of broad search pattern, but apparently since Turbine had been the source of the nanospiders, Rirrom had the same modified permissions as Turbine, and I couldn't force him to answer my questions.

"Trust him, he is on important business on your behalf. And his own, truthfully. Now, come spend some time with Alexander and Gabriella," she said, pointing to the lone egg.

So I sat by the egg, resting a hoof on it despite the grossness of the fluids covering it, and let Deus and Stormbringer connect me to the young, disturbingly alert minds. [Hello, my children. Daddy is right here.]

Chapter 14: The flow of Love

"No, I am not going to have a changeling orgy," I said to the dozen new recruits Mirror had brought me. One raised a hoof and opened his mouth, but I cut him off. "And no it has nothing to do with your appearance. I don't care about that."

"I knew this so called king couldn't handle all of us," the largest began. He could be a problem. He was a leader, somewhere between a queen and a drone. The drones reflexively obeyed them, if they didn't contradict the queen.

"Sex is not love," I countered. "I am perfectly capable of loving all of you without an orgy."

"And we are perfectly capable of taking what we need!" he replied.

I felt the familiar pull of love being drawn from me, and pulled back. Hard. I had had a month of practice pulling and pushing love; he had had a lifetime. I expected to slow the drain until Wind could intervene. I didn't expect him to collapse almost instantly, crumpled into a heap. I didn't expect Mirror's investigation to show he had flat out died. They were all in a weakened state, but I hadn't realized how weakened until then. Though I also hadn't realized the magnitude of my own power.

As king, sometimes you have to admit your mistakes. And sometimes you need to pretend you meant to do that. "Rule number 1. No one steals love from the Itinerant Kingdom. Understood? " Agreement was instant and unanimous.

I took a few minutes to ensure they each had a name, and to take their oaths of loyalty, before offering them each a drop of blood to seed their new subnets. I used the spiders to flood their bodies with sleep inducing hormones and they quickly drifted off, giving me time to meditate.

These new recruits were a problem. They were an asset and an opportunity, and in their own way as broken and needy as anypony else I brought on, but they were also a problem. I could flow my love into Wind Chaser easily, because I loved her on her own right, and Mirror I had been able to accept easily enough. But these were almost a dozen former enemy combatants, and ones I didn't know in any other sense. They came to me out of respect for my power, and desire for food and healing, in short simple biologically driven greed. They were hungry and I was food as the leader had made abundantly clear. Mirror had given up first, I realized. It was part of what made him easier to accept. He was like Fog Dancer had been: defeated, and without hope, barely able to believe it when a way out was freely offered. But these changelings had hope, and felt entitled to have it fulfilled.

I thought back to Earth, searching my thoughts for a direction to go in. With the insect like creatures arrayed before me, I thought of Ender's Game. What would Ender do? While he was perhaps best known for decisive, lethal blows to his enemies, the book had some interesting ideas on his approach. It said that he got to know his enemies.. how they think, what they like and dislike, love and hate. By truly knowing them, he could not help but love them.. and in loving them, knew how to destroy them. I didn't need any help destroying these changelings, but perhaps getting to know them would help me to love them?

As the spider networks connected to their minds, I started dredging up their memories. I watched everything.. viewed their whole lives flashing before my eyes. I was.. in a word, revolted. These were monsters, and they made no excuses, not in their own minds. Cruel. Vindictive. Jealous. I knew Wind Chaser's past was not much better, and Mirrors was almost identical. So why were they different now?

[A moment of kindness.] Wind Chaser said, Mirror concurring. Mirror brought to my mind the simple sharing of imaginary tea with Midnight Oil. I felt the reframing of his worldview that had happened in that moment, like someone had affixed a giant wrench to the universe and turned it 90 degrees. Everything in his past had taken on a new meaning as he viewed it from a new angle. Wind Chaser showed me a memory I had seen before, from the eyes of my other self.. or my other self's other self. Istaran, withdrawing the blade from her neck and offering her a hand up, that cold, possessive, draconic love as he added his enemy to his own personal hoard, treasuring her instantly, far more than her queen ever had.

They had to be shown love before they could rise to be worthy of it. And in that sense it had to be unconditional.

I thought back to another fiction from Earth. Homestuck. Troll romance. Moirallegiance. A form of love born out of pity. I smirked to myself, looking down at the sleeping insect-ponies. Outcasts from the world around them, and now their own hive. Shattered shells covering empty hearts. It was easy enough to pity them if I set aside any thought of grudges. I had healed easily enough from their blows, but they had never healed from their own cruel birthright. But Wind Chaser was proof that they could, and Mirror another point of encouragement. Soon the love was flowing, their starvation deferred even as the spiders repaired their physical wounds.

One of the changelings sat up, quite a bit before the integration should have finished.

It was the leader, the one I had killed. How did he even have a subnet? It was one of Turbine's spawn, designated 'null'. [Wind Chaser.. what the fuck?]

Chapter 15: Fighting words

[You know the Text's challenge!] I poked Wind Chaser in the chest, starting to panic. [The spiders can only be within me and my subordinates. Not some random corpse!]

[He implicitly agreed to be your subordinate by accepting the invitation to come here. Also, he is now your undead servant, which makes him your subordinate,] she reasoned back at me, unphased.

[And what if the Text doesn't agree to that rather liberal interpretation? I mean, it'd be one thing if he had sworn the oath..]

[The oath is a formality you came up with, and a reasonable one in general, but in this case he accepted the invitation Mirror gave him to come work for you. Anyways, he has my spiders, not yours,] she argued.

[They're the same damn spiders!] I said.

[No. They originated from the same concept, but yours descend from the fractal spider the Text gave you, and mine descend from the fractal spider the Text gave the alternate you in the time that was undone. The Text only challenged you to keep your spiders out of everything else, it didn't say anything about my spiders.]

[So, what, are you going to start spreading them everywhere now? Are we going to have an undead army now too?] I asked, exasperated.

[No. Don't be hyperbolic. We have one zombie cyborg changeling. Don't make this a bigger deal than it is.]

[Can I be a zombie cyborg changeling?] one of the new recruits asked groggily as he woke up. [I mean, after I die!] he hastily clarified.

[Damn it they're even contagious. You made a memetic zombie virus. Way to go. Now they're all going to be asking 'can be zombeez?']

[If it helps, I don't want to be a zombie.] One of the others offered.

[Good. Cause nopony can be a zombie. Only your corpse gets to be a zombie, once you aren't in it.]

"This is weird." Null said. Now that I paid attention again, I noticed its subnet showed up as 'null - hosting Fossil'. The voice sounded like a two-toned changeling version of Midnight Oil. "Hey, Wind Chaser, can you help me out?" The subnet briefly showed as 'null - hosting Fossil and Turbine' until a wave of green magic transformed it into Midnight Oil's form. "Thanks! So looks like we have a spare body to use as an avatar. So we won't have to use you every time, Mirror."

"That's good," Mirror said, sounding disappointed.

"Rule number 2. No using the changelings as avatars without their permission," I said as the remaining changelings were awakening. "Unless I directly order it," I added. There could be emergencies, but I didn't want the ponies just using the new recruits as their personal puppets without considering their feelings on the matter. "And don't let anypony pressure you into it."

"You'll still be my avatar, right Mirror? It's kind of.. uh.. lonely in here," Midnight said, earning a smile and nod from Mirror.

There was a poof of green magic as Mirror took on Midnight Oil's form, his subnet now registering and 'Rorrim - hosting Fossil'. At least they weren't trying to mislead their own king anymore. Mirror/Midnight looked over at null, now a lifeless copy of Midnight just standing there idly, and made an excited sound as she started getting a good look at her self from all angles.

"This is.. kind of all very weird." I said.

"It's important," Wind Chaser countered. "We need to know our new assets' capabilities. Already we have determined that null can't use magic without it being pushed from somepony else, but otherwise it has no need for love to feed it. It will require physical food to maintain its body, however, as the spiders have already noted a steady depletion of nutrients. Also of note is that it can detect the presence of changelings, but cannot be sensed as such by the rest of us."

"That's.. very valuable, actually. We can have it sweep an area before we send in our other changeling agents," I admitted.

"I recommend you send it out now and begin scouting, immediately, my king," Wind said. "With so many changelings to feed, you need more ponies to provide love. Especially if you want to have them well fed. And double especially if you want them to lay your eggs."

"Who said anything about them laying my eggs?" I asked.

Wind Chaser and Mirror both raised their hooves. One of the new recruits added. "We were promised you could give us each an egg. That was why I signed up." A couple others gave that one odd looks, making her blush. "What? Don't tell me you don't want your own egg."

Wind Chaser spoke up. "To clarify, this initial egg required using the love shockwave in Canterlot as a catalyst. We won't be able to reproduce those circumstances, so we need to find an alternative way to trigger fertility. But I have faith that my king will ultimately succeed."

"We'll wait," the changeling said. At least they weren't about to riot. I really needed to recruit some more stallions. Somepony that didn't want to bed me. You know, just for variety. It's not that I didn't like sex, but being passed around by all the mares in my life was a bit much.

"Okay, so here's the plan then. We'll send null out on a sweep to find out where we have changeling free areas we can look into. I'll start with Citrus Hills, since we know there are issues going on there with the corrupt local government. Then we'll send in changelings to infiltrate the towns, identify ponies that need to be rescued, and offer them a chance to join the Kingdom. Alright?"

We set our plan in motion immediately. The clock was ticking. Now that I focused on it, I could feel the drain starting to affect me. 13 changelings was a lot for two ponies and a disguised human to feed.

Chapter 16: Catching a lucky break

Mirage was flying low, taking a circuitous route that null had plotted out for her. There were a few enemy changelings between her and her destination, but by winding her way through some canyons she could avoid them all and get there undetected. Whether she would find any sufficiently broken ponies to meet her kings annoyingly strict recruitment policies was another question. She was hungry, the pittance her king provided barely enough to keep her airborne, but she would follow her orders.

Suddenly, she spotted something pony-shaped falling from one of the cliff edges ahead! A burst of love surged into her from her kind, drawing on what little reserves the kingdom still had, and she was able to rush forward and intercept the faller. Catching the stallion on her back, it was all she could do to descend somewhat safely, getting some scrapes and bruises from the rough landing.

"You saved me," the stallion said, sounding disappointed. A sky blue earth pony, adult but on the small side. He had the build of a unicorn, but without the horn. He also had no cutie mark.. unusual for someone his age.

"Were you jumping, or slipping?" she asked, hopefully.

He hesitated, embarrassed. Finally he admitted, "jumping.. there's just.. nothing to live for."

"Live for me," she said. "You have to now, don't you? I rescued you, so you're mine now."

He slid off of her and slumped to the ground defeated. "Great... so what am I then.. your slave now?"

[My food,] she thought, gently drawing off just a little love from him by force. Her king immediately pulled half of it away from her, distributing it out to the others who needed it. "We'll discuss that a little later. First, tell me why were you jumping? Wait, name first, then why were you jumping." As an afterthought she offered a hoof and added, "I'm Mirage"

"Well, for starters, my mother died giving birth to me, and my father named me Dirty Cheater. After my mother, I gather. Or should I say, my mother's husband. They were both unicorns, but I was born without a horn. He obviously thought that proof enough for his suspicions," he explained.

"Ick, that's harsh, but that's hardly worth dying over. You're an adult now, just change your name and start over," she suggested.

"I guess I could do that but what would I even change it to? I'm a blank flank.. I have no idea what I'm good at. I'm a weakling with no horn and no wings. Pathetic and useless," he said.

"I have a use for you," she said, rubbing his belly and nibbling his neck. "Do you know how hard it is to find a good stallion?"

He tried weakly to push off her advances. "Well keep looking. I'm sure a cute mare like you will find one worth keeping."

She poked him hard in the chest. "Your new name is Gimpy Sexslave. You think I'm a cute mare? Your first use is flattery. I want to hear what's great about every one of my features. Now, Gimpy!" She climbed on top of him, staring him in the eye.

"You can't be serious.. " he squirmed under her. "Ugh. Alright, let's see. You've got, really bright beautiful eyes. I love the shimmery coloration on your feathers." He couldn't help but open his heart to her more as he focused on the finer features of her disguise.

"Go on," she said, rubbing her body against his. Soon he was naming off more adult appeals to her form, as he experienced them firsthoof. She luxuriated in the sweet delicious love, drinking it in greedily until he started snoring, the combined physical and metaphysical drain knocking him out.

The small earth pony opened his eyes groggily, trying to adjust to the dim light of the cavern. I saw him struggle, so I shifted into a unicorn, pure white but fully grown with my signature upside-down compass cutie mark, and lit up my horn. This unfortunately revealed some of the ickier leavings of the changelings, busted open pods and my slime-covered egg among others.

"Where am I?" he asked, looking around. The pegasus that had saved him, Mirage, was standing behind him, looking like a dog presenting its find to its master, even down to a bit of a butt wiggle that could almost be called a wag.

"You are safe," I said. "You are among.. it's premature to call us friends, but at the least we wish you no harm. Mirage tells me she caught you mid fall, and brought you to me. I have some questions for you, and perhaps an offer afterwards. First, who are you?"

"I'm Dir-" he caught himself using his old name, then glanced at Mirage. "Gimpy Sexslave," he said embarrassedly.

"Really. Try again," I answered in annoyance.

"Dirty Cheater. Yes, really, that's the name my father gave me," he said, sounding even more embarrassed. "The one she gave me actually sounds like a step up, especially if I'm to be used as such.."

I thought for a moment. "They're both awful. And I can't see either helping much for getting past your obvious depression. How about something more upbeat. 'Stud Muffin'. If we want to talk about you in polite company we can just call you 'Mr. Muffin'. What do you think?"

With Mirage nuzzling him appreciatively, it sounded like a really great name. "Stud Muffin it is then."

"Next question. Why? Why were you running away from your life?" I probed.

"Well, as I was telling Mirage, I just don't have anything to live for. No talent, no prospects for work, no prospects for.. okay, well, I hadn't met Mirage at the time," Mr Muffin answered.

"Bullshit. The survival instinct ingrained in every living thing should be enough to bypass all that. What's your real reason?" I accused.

Mr Muffin was silent for a few minutes, working his jaw at first, then starting to really introspect. "I just felt so useless. Like.. if I fell off a cliff, would anyone even notice I was gone? My mother died in childbirth, my father made quite clear he never wanted me in his life, and doubted I was his to begin with. No one wanted to be friends with the wimpy wingless no-horn, and I've never been any good at any job I've tried. I bet I'm not even a decent sex slave..."

Mirage slipped a wing around him. "You were fine, good even. My friends and I can help you learn some tricks to be really great."

Mr Muffin snuggled against her. "Friends? You're planning to share me, like that?"

"Do you know anything about changelings?" I asked. When he shook his head, I continued. "You know how there are several varieties of ponies, and some are less common than others? Everyone knows earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns. But there are also alicorns, lunar pegasi, and others that you may not have encountered." He nodded his head, with me so far. "Changelings are a rare type of pony that doesn't produce magical energy from eating food like normal ponies. Instead, they have to absorb it from other ponies, through the love those ponies show them. When they're being bad ponies, they can shapeshift to trick ponies into loving them while thinking they are with somepony else, but they can also be good ponies and earn love just like anypony else."

As I paused he thought this through. Finally recognition began to dawn on him. "You're a changeling," he said to Mirage, "and you want me to be your, um.. love cow. Milk me for love every day." He said it quite matter of factly, though he looked troubled beneath it all.

"We have three options available for you. Take your time and chose well. The first option is that we drain you of as much love as can be safely extracted, and then drop you off in your own bed in your own home while you sleep off the exhaustion. I and my subordinates will never see you again, and you will be free to try again at the life you sought to abandon. Or to walk off another cliff. We won't be the ones to rescue you next time. I don't want anyone to be compelled to be with us, regardless of circumstances."

I continued, "the second option is to become, as you said, a 'love cow'. We will keep you well fed and safe. You don't have to have sex with the changelings to fill their needs, but it is enjoyable for both of you, and makes it easier to love them, so I would encourage you to have your fill of sex with them. You'll be important, in a sense, especially right now. They're starving, and I've made it harder for them to gather food because I insist they not be bad ponies."

"What's the third option?" he asked. "The first two were fairly obvious, though I'm glad to hear I have the option to leave."

"I am called the Itinerant King. These changelings have sworn a blood oath to serve me, along with a few other ponies, and in exchange received not only my protection and love, but also a fragment of my power. It is difficult to explain to one who has not experienced it. However, the oath is one that cannot be undone. If you allow yourself to be bound to me, you are bound for life. We would still need your love to help feed the changelings for now. All of us who can have been giving our all to allow them to function, and search out new members of our Kingdom. I would like to invite you to join us now."

"It's.. flattering, but I'm a talentless blank flank. Don't you want somepony better to fill out your ranks?"

I shook my head. "I am only collecting those who are in some sense, broken ponies. Your depression barely qualifies, if you hadn't thrown yourself away. Victims of ongoing abuse, for example. Ponies that need to learn anew how to love and be loved. You clearly need such a lesson. And no, rutting with Mirage and the others isn't going to be enough to heal your heart. In any case the power of my Kingsblood will help you grow in might and skill." 'Kingsblood' felt like a more fitting name for it than 'fractal spider'. In our blood, they didn't really interconnect into spider shapes like they would out in the open.

"Well, this is all pretty sudden for me. Can I have time to think about it?" he said, noncommittally.

"We'll go with option 2 for now then. Enjoy your time with Mirage, and whoever else you agree to share your love with. If you need anything, ask and we will provide what we can. The other two options are each final in their own ways."

He nodded, and started to think about it, though Mirage's affections surely fogged his mind.

Chapter 17: Playing possom

"So, one of my roles as the 'king' of these changelings is that I can redistribute 'love' between them. So whether you only share your love with Mirage, or decide to take on a larger harem, either way I'll make sure they all get what they need," I told Stud Muffin between bites of stew.

"I believe 'herd' would be the correct term," Mr Muffin offered. "This stew is really great. I thought you said changelings don't eat normal food?"

"We can, but it doesn't fuel us the way it does ordinary ponies," Mirage said, snuggled up against his side.

"Okay, so why is a changeling so good at cooking then? I mean, this is really great, Dill," he complimented the chef.

"Ponies love a good cook," Dill answered simply. From his memories I had learned that Dill was a skilled and shockingly versatile cook. He had borrowed the identities of hundreds of cooks over the years, including dozens of masters. He had had to learn much of his skill the hard way, but he also benefitted from a few tricks of his own species, such as using his position to read the cookbooks and other notes of the masters. Also, whenever a changeling copies someone's form while in sight of the victim, they can copy their short term memories as part of the change. He had used that to learn a number of cooking secrets. Sometimes he would simply hide in the rafters of a kitchen and copy a master chef repeatedly to learn what they were thinking as they prepared a particularly challenging dish. But ultimately it was all to take a chef's place for a day and absorb the love of the customers enjoying his food. Even now I knew Stud and I were feeding him subconsciously; a fair trade for such excellent vegetable stew, hacked together from the local wild vegetation.

"I'm doing it right now, aren't I?" Stud realized after another deep sip of the broth. "Feeding you love, I mean? I think I'm starting to actually feel it a bit."

We all nodded before I answered, "it's easier to notice once you've been consciously aware of it a few times. As I said, there's no need for it to be a sexual thing if you don't want it to be. Sex does make it easier to get the flow going though. But don't let the horny changelings push you into doing what you don't want to do. For that matter, don't think you need to sit around and wait for invitations. Take charge of your own role. You won't face much rejection from the changelings, and definitely no hard feelings. They don't really view sex the same way normal ponies do."

"That makes a lot of sex but am I going to end up with a lot of foals if I sleep around with them? Or.. eggs, I guess? Still getting used to that bit."

I shook my head, "no, it takes more than a bit of love and sex to get a changeling pregnant. Queens get pregnant easily, but drones rarely do. This egg took some pretty extreme circumstances, but we're hoping to eventually be able to have more. But for now.. this is it."

"I guess that's a relief though.. a little disappointing in its way. I hope you get it figured out eventually," Stud commented. "It'll be really hard to live up to my new name properly if all of my mates are effectively barren," he chuckled.

I started into another sip of the broth when I heard an alarmed stream of thought coming from Midnight Oil, along with a message from Fog Dancer's Nimbus subnet declaring its host incapacitated. [King! It's the raiders from the train! They've found-]

The thought cut off, but Fossil took over reporting. [Midnight Oil has been incapacitated. We are being bodily removed from the house. With our low levels of love we were unable to mount an effective defense. Nimbus and I have judged that the best course of action is to feign unconsciousness. We do not believe our attackers realize the capabilities of the kingsblood within our hosts. Please be advised: only four members of the train crew, plus Oak Breaker were present in this raid. The majority of the raiding party is not accounted for.]

I spit out the broth in surprise and alarm, and then quickly scrambled to my feet. "Wind Chaser, with me. We'll make the cooking fire look like the center of our camp, and hopefully they won't think to look down here. Dill, Mirage, Stud Muffin: stay here and keep watch on the egg. Dopple, Carapace, and null, if we aren't ambushed instantly I want you out of here and scattering through the woods."

Stud Muffin was duly alarmed. In some ways less so than the rest of us, because he didn't have the Kingsblood and didn't know what was going on. So he asked, "what's going on?!"

"As the king, I know what is happening to my subjects, even at a great distance. Two of ours were just abducted by an old enemy, one we though had been taken care of. He shouldn't have been able to track them down, so I believe he probably had magic help finding them. And if that's the case, he'll likely be finding Wind Chaser and I by similar means. I don't think he knows I have any other followers, so I am hoping he can be convinced to take just us prison, giving us the chance to coordinate an effective rescue effort. Focus on staying safe, and sharing your love with these two, and I'll worry about the rest." Stud nodded wordless to me, with a mix of determination and fear before we made our hasty exit from the concealed cavern.

We had just enough time after getting outside to make the cooking fire area look like a proper encampment before a couple of sharp blows to the head triggered our play at being unconscious.

Mirror was at Midnight Oil's school in Canterlot, working as her avatar when the attack began. He struggled to avoid showing any visible shift as he suddenly went from being under Midnight's control to merely pretending, but it wasn't that hard to play a convincing school-filly, especially one that he knew better than any of her peers. I ordered him to stay there and keep the cover active for now.

null I ordered into hiding near the cave with our egg, serving as an extern guard to keep any dangers from reaching those within, as well as a strategic reserve. The other eight changelings I ordered to break from their current missions as discreetly as possible and converge on our destination. I guessed it to be Citrus Hills, where Oak Breaker had lived, and that proved to be almost correct.

We found ourselves descending below the ground a few kilometers east of town lowered into what appeared from the outside to be an old abandoned well. Beneath the surface, though, it lead into a network of rough hewn tunnels, lined with strange black crystals. There was something ominous about the crystals, something that filled our hearts with fear just to pass by them. Finally, we were tossed into a large ring of crystals with a dozen, half-starved ponies. A half hour later, Fog Dancer and Midnight Oil were tossed in after us. We waited for the abductors to leave before we all sat up and considered out surroundings.

[I'm sorry I failed you, my king,] Wind Chaser began. [I should not have been so merciful.]

Chapter 18: The rescuers down under

[You wanted more broken ponies,] Wind Chaser thought flatly.

I looked around our little cell desperately, though it was hard to make this situation seem hopeful. The ponies in here were certainly in need of rescue, and probably a fair bit of fixing up. From interviewing them all briefly, I knew that none of them had any family or friends they hoped to return to.. several of them had been orphans to begin with, others knew right where their family was: in a deep pit several meters away where our captors dumped the bodies of those who no longer had a use. They had lost track of how long they had been down here, but at a guess some were here for months, others for years. In some ways they were ideal recruits for the Itinerant Kingdom, and we certainly needed every pony we could get, even if it was just as 'love cows' like Stud Muffin. Our population was still dangerously unbalanced in favor of changelings.

Their injuries were also a point in their favor as recruits. The kingsblood could repair just about any physical harm in hours at most. The unicorns had metal rings in our horns, locked in place by a nail painfully hammered straight through the bone and flesh of the sensitive organs, denying us access to horn magic. That included not only Midnight Oil, but also Wind Chaser and myself on account of our disguises. The pegasi present including Fog Dancer had had their wing bones brutally snapped. I wasn't sure yet what was wrong with the earth ponies but they looked.. unwell. My guess was some kind of poisoning to sap their strength. None of it was beyond the kingsblood's abilities to repair though, and Fog's wings were already ready for flight again, while the rings on our horns were naught but a superficial part of our disguise at this point.

On the other hand.. as they were, the captives couldn't generate any love. Being malnourished was a part of it, as we were barely given enough food to survive, and when the exertion of the mining expeditions we were cycled into was added, it often wasn't enough to survive on. But more pressing was the influence of the black crystals surrounding us. They apparently amplified fear, and somehow seemed to grow bigger and stronger the more fear they amplified. Interestingly, they tended to quell panic and adrenaline; instead pushing ponies into a crippling, despairing form of fear, where both fight and flight seemed impossibly daunting.

"Have any of you heard of the 'Itinerant King'?" I queried, wondering if my reputation had managed to make it down here. I didn't recognize any of the ponies from my rescue missions, but it was worth asking. It might be a hook to try to inspire them with a bit of hope.

None of the ponies would meet my eye when I said that, though it wasn't much of a change. "I have," one of the pegasi, a brightly colored mare named Sunbeam, said at length, looking a bit sad. "There was a little filly here a few days ago. She kept saying the Itinerant King would rescue us for sure. She was so brave.. she was even able to get within half a meter of the crystals! So the guards killed her and dumped her in the hole."

"What was her name?" I asked, already guessing the answer. "Cherry Blossom," she confirmed.

I grit my teeth, rage welling up in me. It was the sweet little filly that had crowned me in a circlet of flowers just days before. The ponies watched me sadly as my rage took form visible, waves of black energy rising from my form like ominous flames, only to be quickly syphoned off into the crystals around us. I collapsed then, the rage literally ripped from my heart, along with all of the energy in me.

"Don't get mad," Sunbeam suggested belatedly. "It just feeds the crystals faster."

I struggled to regain my feet. "Cherry Blossom was right. I am the Itinerant King, and I have come and I will rescue you. I only wish I had been fast enough to rescue her as well. Have some faith in me. But also patience. Help is on the way."

The ponies looked at me sadly. I think they foresaw the breaking of my spirit, and wished they didn't have to watch it once again.

It was really tempting to let my spirit break as I watched the guards dump nine changeling bodies into the pit. Their subnets assured me they were still very much alive, but they would need significant repairs before they regained consciousness, and the pit itself was lined with more black crystals, making it troublesome for them to try to fly themselves out.

The guards had somehow seen our attack coming, and had ambushes in place for each of our ambushes. Changelings are naturally quite prone to anger, and the guards were able to use black crystals embedded in their muzzles, hidden under the bandanas they habitually wore, to syphon the energy out of them. Meanwhile, the changelings had tried to rip the love out of the ponies, only to find they functioned quite well without it. It was a very poor matchup for our side. And now my poor subjects needed love all the more, love we didn't have a ready source for.

Oak Breaker finally showed himself in person. The crystal growths on his muzzle were new, though I suspected they were simply newly expanded. "Just look at all of you now," he gloated. "See where your treachery has gotten you? Your disloyalty. Your hubris and self-righteousness? You two could have been my faithful mares and enjoyed the fruits of my labor, but instead you had to run off with this riff raff and try to steal my bucking house! Do you have any idea who you are messing with? No? Do you need a hint?"

"You, umm.. you have a little something.. right there." I pointed a hoof at my muzzle, where the crystals were growing out of his. "I would offer you a napkin or something to wipe it off, but I don't have any at hoof."

He got angry at that, but unfortunately for us the black crystals fed their power into him, magnifying his rage rather than stealing it. In a blur of darkness he was upon me, with a powerful buck that lived up to his name. My body went flying clear across the ring of crystals, and slammed into a crystal encrusted pillar of stone, several of the dark crystals piercing my body and emerging from the other side. Unable to resist, I began screaming in a combination of pain and unmitigated terror. The screaming continued unabated as my mind slipped from this world. I think Oak Breaker tried to yell at me to shut up or something, I wasn't really listening. He finally wandered off, losing patience trying to get enough quiet to finish gloating.

In the darkness of my own mind, I stood before my greatest fear. He sat before me bearing my original human form, but clad in a crimson wizards robe. He gestured for me to sit, so I did, looking down at myself as I did so. I was in the form I had used when slaying the changelings in Canterlot, the form of the killer king: an anthropomorphized male alicorn, more or less.

"I can't help you," Istaran began.

"I was afraid you were going to say that.. " I replied.

"I know, it's why I was compelled to say it, and why it is true. My character is that of a being who knows no fear, and you are drowning in fear. So, you simply cannot be me. Not now. That said, you do seem like you are well on your way to becoming me, bit by bit. You even have a zombie cyborg minion. You have no idea how flattering that is to me! So.. I know I said I can't help you, and I can't let you 'tag out'. But.. perhaps I could give you a couple pieces of advice on how to be a better villain?" he offered.

I was about to object, since I didn't want to be a villain, but at last I shrugged. "Go on."

"First: delegate. Let minions do minion work, and henchmen do all the henching. You are the last boss, you should make your enemies work their way up to you, not step straight into the fray at the first opportunity. Especially with your powers, you can contribute a lot from the background, and even learn combat skills from your minion's experiences. Don't let them see the Itinerant King bleed until it's time to write your epic finale," he suggested. "Well, not again anyways."

"I suppose that applies to kings as well as villains, with a little translation.." I admitted.

"Second: it's always the quirky scrappy underdog squad that no one in their right mind would fear that gets you. Remember that," Istaran said.

I was still pondering it when I came to, my limp body being dragged toward the pit. The guards were surprised to see me still alive, but they bucked me into the hole anyways, not bothering to watch my descent or notice the flash of green magic providing wings to break my fall.

Disposition of the Itinerant Kingdom:

Daniel Holden, a.k.a. South Wind, a.k.a. Blank Slate, a.k.a. the Itinerant King
Plus nine assorted changelings.
Location: bottom of a mass grave.
Status: low on love, pinned in with black crystals, recovering from severe injuries.

Wind Chaser (changeling), Midnight Oil (unicorn), and Fog Dancer (pegasus).
Location: ring of black crystals, along with a half dozen worthless scaredy ponies.
Status: less incapacitated than they look, but still in a tight spot.

null (zombie cyborg changeling), Mirage (changeling), Dill (changeling cook), Stud Muffin (uninitiated 'love cow') and one egg.
Location: hidden lair in the woods.
Status: awaiting orders!

Mirror (changeling impersonating Midnight Oil).
Location: A school for foals in Canterlot.
Status: About to be put to the test!

Chapter 19: Hatching a plan

"I really wish I had another way to help," said Stud Muffin, still lying atop his favorite pegasus mare, no changeling.. did 'mare' apply? Whatever. Of course, with most of the others gone and Dill having no sex drive to speak of it wasn't much of a contest. "You know I love doing this with you, but I just have the feeling that there's something really important going on, and we should be doing more than, you know.. making love?"

"There is a lot going on, or there was. Right now things are pretty bad. We should find a way to gather more love if we can, but we're going to need to do more than that," she answered, suddenly much more serious than he had seen her so far.

He climbed off of her, sitting up. "Alright, well I've been giving you all I can. I don't know if there's any tricks for giving you more than that. But I'm happy to do anything I can for you."

She thought a moment. "Well, there's a couple tricks Wind Chaser let me in on, if you're willing to try them. One is that if you mate with me in my natural form, even just once, it will help you to link your love to me more purely. I know.. ponies tend to find us repulsive in our natural form, so.. I won't blame you if you don't want to. The other trick is to go out on a date, like a nice romantic time out together. If there is no deception between us, it will strengthen the pathway for love between us, and give not only an immediate increase in how much I can gain from you, but also a lasting effect as well."

"So, we go on a nice romantic date, and then finish it off somewhere private where you can finally show me what it's like to be with you with all of the illusions stripped away. Sounds romantic.. and kind of kinky. I'll admit I'm a little nervous, but I'm willing to give it a try," Stud Muffin declared.

"I can cook," Dill offered.

"Well, I do love your cooking, and maybe you could put together a lovely picnic or something, but I'm thinking maybe we should do something different just this once?" Stud Muffin pondered out loud.

"I meant.. I can get a job as a cook. Or replace one. Either way, that way I can gather love from outsiders. You need to eat and rest. Mirage is already tapping you out," Dill pointed out.

"These are all good ideas, and we should certainly gather more love before making our next move, but.. we need to do more than just feed ourselves and even the others," Mirage said. "We're going to need to perform a rescue mission. The other changelings got caught, along with the king and the others. It's down to just us, null and Mirror. Plus we need to keep some kind of watch on the egg. I guess null can watch the egg, while we go gather love. But that kind of feels wrong to me."

"It still feels weird to me how you all always seem to know what's going on. It's too bad the king is already gone. I'm tempted to take up his offer to join in just so that I'm not the only one out of the loop," Stud Muffin complained.

"It's not to late. Any of us can induct you. Though it will leave you out of commission for about a day.. well, unless we do a rush job, but those are supposed to be very painful and I don't want to put you through that," Mirage countered. "You could be a lot more helpful after you are one of us though. And it could make that date and.. after-date go more smoothly."

Stud Muffin steeled himself mentally in much the same way he had steeled himself for the jump that had ended his prior life. If he was strong enough to kill himself, surely he was strong enough for a little horrific pain? "I'll do it. Make it a rush job.. I want to be ready for that date tonight!" He said with more confidence than he honestly felt. Mirage could easily see through him with a changeling's natural empathy, but that didn't stop her from dragging him into a long, deep kiss.

"Alright," she said after breaking the kiss. "First, you need to swear your loyalty to the Itinerant King. The exact words don't matter, but this is a bond for life. So take it seriously."

Stud Muffin drew in a deep breath and looked deep into Mirage's eyes, wishing he could just swear his loyalty to her. "I swear to live my life in the service of the Itinerant King, and to give my all to protect him and his subjects, and show them all the love I can give."

Mirage nodded, blushing a little at the emotion behind it. Changelings got used to faked emotions on their own part, and misdirected emotions from others.. emotions genuinely shared with them were still a bit new. It was different.. a good different, but still hard to get used to. "Alright, now bite into my arm as hard as you can, and hold it, licking up as much of the blood as you can swallow." She held her arm before him, braced steadily in a horizontal position.

Stud balked for a bit, not prepared for something so.. bloody. Though he didn't know why, when he thought back. It was a blood oath, after all. So he bit hard into her arm, surprised that he flinched more than she did. But soon the blood was trickling into his mouth. It felt more.. oily than he imagined it should. But his resolve held and he swallowed several gulps before he could handle no more. The wounds closed up as soon as his mouth was off of her, healing swiftly.

Soon a wave of numbness flowed through his body, quite the opposite of what he was expecting, he went to comment, but he got dizzy as the fever began to burn away his thoughts and he collapsed before her.

Dill looked down at the collapsed pony. "I'll leave you two a picnic basket, then I'm looking for work," he commented impassively.

Mirror was quite happy to have Midnight Oil's presence back in his mind, especially today of all days. One of the academies of magic had sent a representative to test the unicorn students at the school for magical talent. His own abilities with the horn had increased quite a lot from being Midnight's avatar, and feeling the flow of power as she wielded it through him, but he was nervous about doing it on his own with such attention on him. It was one thing if he didn't pass their tests, as Midnight was young enough to have plenty of more opportunities in years to come. But if he did too poorly it would make it suspicious if her next test went too well. He had to be good enough for her next test to reasonably be the same pony! Or course, Mirror could take the whole week's worth of tests himself, and at least be consistent in his results.

Mirror felt terribly guilty drawing on the Kingdom's pathetic supply of love to be able to have a decent showing for himself in the test. He had managed to draw in a tiny bit himself from being friendly with Midnight's classmates, but with over a dozen changelings to feed and so few of them free to gather any love on their own, much of that was syphoned away and redistributed by their distant, trapped king.

"Class, I would like you all to give a warm welcome to Hearth Fire, of the Academy of Elements. He will be the first examiner for the unicorns hoping to seek entrance to an academy this year. The rest of you, please be polite while your classmates take this opportunity to prove themselves," the teacher said before stepping aside.

Hearth Fire was a brick red pony with a mane that was yellow near the roots, fading to brilliant red at the tips. His cutie mark depicted a welcoming looking fireplace, burning brightly. "Indeed, thank you ma'am," the unicorn told the teacher before turning to address the class. "I represent Celestia's school for gifted unicorns, one of the oldest and finest unicorn academies in the world. Indeed, we are under the direct supervision of the alicorn, Princess Celestia, who moves the very sun every day. As such, many of you will not receive invitations from us, even if you might qualify for one of the more junior academies. I encourage you all to pursue your talents as far as they will lead you, and not to give up on higher studies only because you are not yourself one of the best. Indeed, I will let you know up front: success in my test here today will only qualify you to participate in our full entrance exam suite, not grant you access immediately to our halls. So.. any who are willing to put their horns to the test, come and follow me. Don't be afraid. There is no shame in testing where you are at, even if it isn't first place."

Midnight Oil wanted to strangle him. In fact, if she had been there in person that day, she probably would have ended the day in guard custody. So perhaps it was just as well that she was already imprisoned and had to act through Mirror, who was assertive enough to keep her from getting him jailed. Even if he agreed with her sentiment. As a changeling, Mirror could sense the constant, active flow of love from Hearth Fire.. to Hearth Fire. He was amused by the thought of standing behind an empty wooden frame, living up to his namesake and stealing some of that love for himself.

Following the instructor outside, Mirror sat down. "First, I want you all to light up your horns as brightly as you can without sparking, and sustain it as long as you can, or until I say to stop."

Mirror glanced at the others. There were eight unicorns in the class, and only two had skipped out on the test. Mirror carefully matched the brightness of the third brightest of his peers, holding it perfectly steady with ease. The brightest quickly ran out of steam and winked out. The dimmest one was soon to follow, and then the one Mirror had matched started sparking and was soon eliminated. That left Mirror squarely in the middle of the pack of remaining applicants, right where he meant to be. He had even managed to keep the color a deep violet color, matching Midnight's natural glow instead of his own changeling green.

"You're dismissed as well," the unicorn said to one of the other students, leaving only three unicorns for the next round of testing.

Back in the cave, Wind Chaser started ripping love from the other prisoners, the resulting lethargy going all but unnoticed by the already weak and depressed ponies. She didn't take much; she couldn't without risking outright killing them, but it was enough to push Mirror up to a solid 'average' amount of power in anticipation of the next test.

"Next, we will be testing your power of telekinesis. Here," he gestured with a hoof at a set of weights marked with numbers from 1 to 6. "Try lifting each weight in turn. Successful applicants to our academy can generally lift a 4 with some effort, though 3s have been accepted in very rare instances."

The pony with the brightest glow managed to lift a 3 easily enough but failed to get the 4 off the ground. "You may stay for the next round," the examiner told him. The other unicorn got the 3 up as well, and was dismissed. "I'm sorry, with your combined score on the two tests you are not qualified to continue. You could easily qualify for one of the more.. open academies, so don't give up!"

Mirror swallowed, and concentrated. He had a very limited supply of love to work with, especially with the 'love cow' Stud Muffin unconscious. As he lifted each of the first two balls, it seemed almost like a struggle because he was being so careful to minimize the amount of energy going into the lift. The third ball was exactly the same struggle; his subnet, Rorrim, had realized the balls were arranged in factors of 10 and now knew the exact amount of energy needed to lift each ball.

Mirror wanted to stop, to accept defeat and conserve their remaining love. They could easily get into an easier academy which would let them keep a lower profile, and reduce the odds of Mirror being found out as a changeling. But Midnight pushed him, her force of will easily exceeding his resistance, and soon they had the fourth ball aloft. Barely. It wasn't enough to properly earn a rating of '4', but it was enough to get the examiner's attention.

Mirror collapsed on the ground, panting, exhausted and starving. But he managed to avoid losing consciousness. Someone tried to offer him a snack bar, and he munched it as a basic deception, though the food was unable to fill his needs. Still, the kingdom was able to feed him just enough to get him back on his feet, shakily, and ready to face the remaining tests.

"Excellent, now. Show me the unicorn alphabet on your horns. In reverse order!" the examiner demanded.

The remaining competitor struggled through, slipping up a bit on the order here and there as he was too used to the normal order, while Mirror himself struggled with having enough energy to be sensed as he went through the letters at a nice steady clip. For one with the Kingsblood, something as simple as reversing the order of a list of symbols was quite trivial, and even Mirror had already memorized the alphabet years ago.

And so, Mirror was left as the last applicant standing, on the verge of earning the right to take the full entrance exam to the most prestigious school in Equestria. The instructor placed an open spell book before him. "Cast this spell, safely." He said. He held a steady charge in his horn, probably preparing to disrupt the spell should it get out of control.

The spell was unlabeled, which was a cruel thing to do if it had any hope of being dangerous. But Mirror had an unfair advantage. He got Midnight Oil to switch to using null as her avatar briefly, and cast the spell where he stood, allowing a chance to see what it was before unleashing it near the other students. The spell proved to be a small, short ranged portal, opening a pair of elliptical gateways a few feet apart to allow travel between them. It was a mostly useless cantrip, as a much longer ranged version would be needed for most situations.

Knowing what they were doing, Mirror was better able to target the gateways to where they would be harmlessly demonstrated. He smoothly and accurately played the patterns through his horn and.. nothing.

There just wasn't enough love left to spare.

As Stud Muffin opened his eyes, his mind reeling with all of the new information going through it, he looked up to find that no one was paying him any attention. Dill was gone, a lovely handcrafted picnic basket left in his wake. Mirage was staring at the egg, so he did too.

Now that he bore the kingsblood, he could hear the voices of the hatchlings within. [Finally, it is time for our debut,] Alexander announced. [Prepare yourself to view our glorious being!] Gabriella concurred. Green lights began to play over the inside of the egg, shining through the membranes of the egg. A horn pierced through the material, surprisingly a white unicorn horn rather than a sharp curvy changeling horn like he would have expected. It was.. odd to him that he knew what a changeling horn should look like, not yet having seen one undisguised, but he was already rolling with the newfound storehouse of data in his blood.

Nor was that the last surprise as the tiny foal emerged before them. "Announcing Prince Alexander Gabriella Stormbringer the First," the tiny alicorn declared in a young but masculine voice. "Crown Prince of the Itinerant Kingdom, and greatest of all foals!" it announced in a more feminine voice. Shaking the egg fluids free, it turned about to show itself off from all sides. The foal appeared to be an alicorn, with a white horn and pink wings. It's main was a dark gray streaked with stark shocks of bright blue. Its fur was white and pink, in a big swirly mess of colors: one large section of each color but interwoven strangely. And from behind he could clearly see the parts of both a white male and a pink female where there surely should have been only one or the other.

The entire Kingdom was silent aside from the stream of perceptual data from the two witnesses to the rest. Finally, Wind Chaser recovered enough for a simple [Welcome, my son! My daughter? We have been waiting for you.]

Chapter 20: Do a little dance, make a little love

"You are a most interesting one, Mister Dirty Cheater Gimpy Sexslave Stud Muffin," the bizarre little 'alicorn' began.

"It's just Stud Muffin now, thank you. Or Mr. Muffin. And I'm really surprised to be called interesting by one such as yourself," Stud countered.

"Do you mind if I call you Stud?" it said in its feminine voice.

"Yes. Yes, I really do," he answered. "A young foal like yourself should definitely stick to calling me Mr. Muffin."

"Alright, Mr. Muffin. You can call me Alex," it said, switching to its more masculine voice. This was getting really weird. "Have you been listening to your diagnostic reports yet? Quite fascinating. I am curious what you plan to do about it."

"Do about what?" he asked before focusing on what the kingsblood was trying to tell him. Mirage had named his subnet 'Viagra', which he hadn't found objectionable until it had integrated enough to let him know what the reference was. He wanted to change it, but couldn't think of anything suitable and ultimately decided to let her have her fun. Besides, in one sense it was kind of freeing that his marefriend was always making all these references to his sexuality. It really hit home that he was free to enjoy whatever pleasurable opportunities came his way. Except for creepy hermaphrodite alicorn hatchlings. He was willing to try out the bug-pony thing with Mirage later, but there was still a line he would definitely never cross.

What Alex was trying to bring his attention to was the fact that Viagra had located a misshapen growth in his forehead, which it was able to identify as an improperly formed unicorn horn. Apparently the bone of his skull had hardened prematurely, and the bone of his horn hadn't formed properly, resulting in the fleshy bits of the organ being squished up inside his head instead of extending out like an antenna. Viagra reported that it could either repair the organ normally, restoring him to being a perfectly normal unicorn, albeit one that had to learn the very basics of horn magic at an advanced age.. or it could make some complex adjustments to get the horn working internally. In theory, this would allow him to use spells like any other unicorn, except that they would be unable to target anything outside himself. However, those spells would be much more efficient than they would for a regular unicorn, making them faster, easier, and in some cases more impactful.

Neither option was strictly permanent, but with hours of painful reconstruction needed to switch, it was unlikely he would change his mind without dire reason. And with a little training he could probably learn some simple enhancements to look more like the earth pony he had always identified himself as. And being an 'earth pony' with a bit of surprise magic in reserve felt more.. in place with his new extended family than being just another unicorn.. especially one so painfully aware of how poorly he compared to Midnight Oil's talents.

"Good choice!" Alex said, the moment Stud had decided on a path. Was the little hatchling reading his mind somehow? "Yes, well, actually Viagra is reading your mind and I am chatting with him. Oh, don't forget if you want a stockier build you don't need to wait to learn the magic for it, just have your kingsblood modify your body. It will take a few days and plenty of food to gain that much mass, but I think you will enjoy it. And I know your marefriends will." The last sentence was in that feminine voice again.

"Are those.. your two voices, are they different personalities? Or what?" Stud finally asked outright.

"We're two different ponies!" the voices answered in unison before slipping into out of sync giggling. They then proceeded to fill Stud's mind with information as a distraction, while climbing into the picnic basket.

Alexander and Gabriella were technically separate creatures, but they had grown into one another in the cramped space of the egg and become intertwined, even very early in their development. The kingsblood had noted this fact and chose to roll with it rather than force them apart when it would have been reasonable to attempt. Sharing a single circulatory system and subnet, their minds were about as interconnected as that of a normal subnet and its host, leading to a sort of trinity-mind. Three distinct minds interwoven with one another, as much so as their bodies were.

Their natural form was.. unfortunately, not a viable form. They relied on changeling shapeshifting magic to be, as they put it, 'presentable'. Currently Gabriella was a pink pegasus half and alexander was a white unicorn half, though they could easily change coloration to match one another, or chose a form that wasn't so obviously attention grabbing as what appeared to be an alicorn. And no, they weren't willing to share details about their natural form with anyone, ever, don't ask. Only Wind Chaser could override their decision and force Stormbringer to comply, but she respected her children's desire for privacy.

While the kingsblood had rapidly matured their minds beyond what any newborn foal could be expected to match, they were still, ultimately, children. Or a child, depending on your point of view. And thus very emotionally immature. They still had some things to learn about boundaries, and as null swooped in as a pegasus and walked off with the picnic basket at their behest, Stud Muffin realized that super powered, hyper intelligent infants with no sense of property nor propriety could be a real source of trouble for someone. Especially the babysitters.

"So.. I have a few bits on me.." Stud told Mirage. "Want to go to a restaurant for that date? They'll be fine with null watching them, right?"

"Are you two headed for the Orange A-Peel?" a randomly talkative earth pony asked Stud and Mirage as they passed on the street, "their new cook is, wow, just amazing!" With a quick confirmation, they knew it was Dill, already working his culinary magic.

"Really? We were just heading over there. Sounds like we're in for a real treat, right honey?" Stud said, playing it as cool as he could. It helped that he wasn't being asked to fake anything particularly far off from the truth.

"Mmm, I'm looking forward to it. Though I'm looking forward to the company even more," she said seductively.

They made their way through the town of Citrus Hills, stopping briefly to buy a nice shirt and tie for Stud Muffin to wear. Mirage had shifted to a unicorn form, nearly matching Stud's coloration, and morphed a flowing evening gown that kept her cutie mark covered. Creating illusory clothing was an advanced changeling trick, but one Mirage had long since mastered. Covering the cutie mark could help avoid the creative effort of coming up with cutie mark after cutie mark for their fake personas. Stud, on the other hand, proudly displayed his newly dyed pair of blueberry muffins, one on each flank. As much as he knew it was cheating, it was nice to finally not be seen as a notably worthless blank flank.

The Orange A-Peel was a nice restaurant, the nicest in the area, though far from the level of some that could be found in the larger cities. It sported a wide open dance floor and music to suit it, and dimmer lighting that made it a favorite stop for amorous couples. The dining and dancing area was submerged a floor underground to help contain the noise, and Stud swept Mirage into his forehooves to carry her down the steps to the front door, testing his newfound strength with a romantic flourish. She kissed him briefly with a smile when they reached the bottom before slipping free to walk on her own hooves.

The orange theme of the place was a bit overwhelming. Dried orange peels hung about the room gave it a distinct scent, orange lights lit up the dance floor, and every dish included oranges in some fashion, at the very least as a side item. Fortunately, they were both reasonably fond of oranges and they hadn't had time to get sick of them just yet.

[Check this out,] Mirage suggested mentally as they headed toward their table before sending over a fairly complex thought to his subnet. When he went to check it out, he found that it modified his perceptions, making everything seem apple themed instead. The lights were red now to his eyes, and the orange slices were instead juice apple slices. He new it was nothing but self deception, but he had fun with it anyways.

[That's a neat trick!] he told Mirage before coming up with one of his own. He didn't know what Mirage's true form looked like, but he tried to get Viagra to show her in it anyways. There was a brief delay before Mirage permitted her own subnet to give him the info he needed. After a moment his vision of the unicorn mare before him was replaced with a similarly dressed changeling. He expected an instinctive bit of revulsion, but instead found himself quite attracted to her. Viagra had take the liberties of twisting his instincts a bit to better fill his role, and he was grateful for it. Nevertheless, he was still unhappy with how emaciated she looked, and the number of holes. Rather than disgust, he was filled with a strong desire to fix the problem.

[Couldn't wait, huh? Naughty boy..] she teased. [At least the dress leaves something for the big reveal tonight.]

Half jokingly, he tried to envision her without the dress, but Viagra not only refused to comply but even erased the thoughts out of his imagination as he tried to fill in the blanks himself. [Just one of many things I'm looking forward to,] he replied as they were seated. He blinked a few times, having to think back to realize their subnets had walked them through the process of talking with the maître d' while his thoughts were elsewhere. Sharing his mind was such a huge change for him. Scary, but fun at the same time. Like, well.. everything since the mare before him had interrupted his fall. And perhaps even the few seconds before then. It seemed like a great analogy. The wind whipping past him had been thrilling in more ways than one, making him feel more alive than he ever had, as what he thought would be one final irony.

"Tell the chef Mr and Mrs Muffin will have whatever he recommends," Mirage told the waiter, declining a menu. "With some orange juice to start, of course."

[We're married now, are we?] Stud asked while gazing into her eyes.

[I don’t want any hopeful fillies trying to butt in.. this time. Maybe another time we can share an interested mare between us if you like.] She answered. [But tonight you are all mine, Stud.]

Stud was unused to having a marefriend, much less one so sexually aggressive, but he certainly didn't mind. [I'll keep that in mind for later, but first why don't you tell me more about yourself? ] When she hesitated
he added [I know your people have some kind of shady history, but I am way past the point where I can reject you for that. Please, tell me. The point of this is building trust, right?]

[Alright. I know you don't really know much about changelings yet, but you know we eat love, right? Well, until recently I served Queen Chrysalis, not our new King. We all did, really. Even Wind Chaser was with the Queen as recently as a few months ago. Under Queen Chrysalis, for almost my entire life we did things a certain way. The changeling way, I guess you could call it. We needed love to survive, so we stole it, usually by impersonating ponies. We would abduct somepony and trap them in a dream, feeding off the love generated by their fond memories, while one of us would take their place and enjoy the love of the special ponies in their life. Then we would return them, and no one would know what had happened. A few confusing loose ends might come into question, but since we were at most viewed as legends, ponies naturally shrugged things off,] she began.

With Stud's rapt attention on her, she continued. [Personally, I was.. well, I always had a strong libido. My earliest assignments were as a prostitute. A stallion more often than a mare, as they usually get more business. But eventually I got promoted to one of our most intimate operations. With a team of other 'lings to help me, I would lure a married mare away from her bedroom, then take her place. I would wake up her stallion for a quickie, draining him of enough love that he would pass out, and then hide him in a closet or something while I take his place. Then when the mare returned, I would try to seduce her. Sometimes she would shut me down, other times I would get lucky. I can tell you.. married couples have a lot more loving sex than prostitutes get from their clients. But, still it's nothing like being with you.] She grabbed a hoof in hers and nibbled on it playfully.

Stud blushed a bit. [You're just saying that. Still, I appreciate the flattery.]

[I'm serious. It's because you actually care about me. Eating love that's meant for someone else.. it's. Well, it's kind of like eating a sandwich that's still wrapped in paper. It tastes.. foggy? It's still filling, but it isn't as good as it could be. But you've never viewed me as anyone but me, and for some time now you've even known what I am. I've never had someone like that. And.. I apologize, I'm still not used to having a real.. special somepony. I've had a lifetime of looking at lovers like food, and I know it's unfair to think of you that way.]

Stud took his hoof back and smiled, idly noticing his lips moving as his subnet made idle conversation to distract anyone paying attention to them. Clever. [When you saved me.. at first I was actually kind of mad at you. But now I realize that you've given me what I was missing in life.. a sense of purpose, maybe a bit of adventure, and most importantly somepony to share it with. I've never had anypony think I was important to them, or want to spend any time with me. Not even my own parents. So.. I'm actually glad I jumped off that cliff. I don't think I would have found you any other way.]

Looking into each others eyes, they began to get swept up into the moment. It was like there was a song beating in their hearts and soon it was on their lips, and in the air, and the band was playing the notes to go with their lyrics that sprang unbidden from their lips. Soon they were on the dance floor, with all eyes and lights upon them, but no one really seeing them. It was like a scene from a musical, and like all such scenes the extras went back to their lives when it was over as if nothing had even happened. But for Stud and Mirage, something had. A deep and powerful connection ran through them, and Mirage was almost overwhelmed by the amount of love she felt. The vast majority of it was from Stud himself, but she could feel echoes of love from all of the ponies who had been caught up in the little musical number, adding on. I leeched away only a trickle of it, enough to keep the others on their feet, but let her enjoy the benefits of being well fed for once in her life. In the course of one song she had gone from a tight stretched carapace over visible ribs, full of holes to a well rounded mare without a hole on her body. It was like a Disney film transformation sequence, lost to the rest of the audience because it was hidden by her magical disguise. But our kingsblood showed through what had happened beneath the magic.

I knew first hand how much love it took to bring a changeling from starving to well fed. I'd gone through it with Wind Chaser. One little lap around the dance floor shouldn't have been nearly enough, especially without him collapsing from the drain. The music.. the music had something to do with it. But it just didn't make sense to me. It wasn't the first time I had seen Equestria turn into a musical number, but I just couldn't really groc it. It always seemed to come out of nowhere, and sweep away just as mysteriously, and in its wake.. stuff happened. Life would turn into a montage, and everything would go much smoother and more efficient than possible. As I thought about all of this I felt a bit of probing in my mind, and soon realized it was Alex and Gabriella, asking Deus for my memories about other songs. I gave them free reign, happy to share all I knew with my curiously little progeny.

When the song ended, so did Mirage's patience. Filled with strength and energy, she picked Stud Muffin up into her forelegs before he could object, and sprinted for the inn. The inn keeper barely had time to open her mouth as the couple passed by, horn magic dropping a few coins on the desk and whisking away a key from the hook. She wasn't hungry any more, but she still wanted him badly.. wanted what every newlywed mare wants from her stallion. And he was more than happy to give it to her.

As soon as the door was closed, her disguise came off. The projections fed to his mind were close, but seeing her like this was more detailed, more real, and more alluring. Stud tossed his own clothing aside and began making love to her.

A few hours later, Dill let himself in, casting aside his own disguise once the door was closed, and offering Stud a to-go box of food from the restaurant. He snuggled up against Stud's side, enjoying the warm reception, as the stallion devoured the food, desperate for the sustenance to recover from the night's activities. They sat in silence, resting but not sleeping as Stud recovered, before once again filling Mirage with as much love as he could muster. I quietly syphoned off the excess, getting the rest of my forces back on their feet.

Chapter 21: The monsters in the pit

I sat in the bottom of the pit, looking sadly into Cherry Blossom's eyes. It wasn't right what our captors had done to her, starting from the simple fact of abducting such a sweet innocent little filly. It wasn't right that they had tried to use her to extract her fear into crystals, and even less right that they had slain her and thrown her into this pit for merely having faith in me. She swore I would come to rescue them. That belief had been the armor on her heart, but it was pierced easily enough by their blades. But that wasn't the worst of it, at least not in my eyes.

"This feels very wrong," she said, echoing my thoughts. Her voice was soft and sounded a bit pained to me. I knew she couldn't feel physical pain though. But that was far from the most painful kind of pain.

"I know. It is. I'm sorry, Cherry Blossom. I wish I had known sooner, maybe I could have prevented this," I said, gesturing to her mangled form.

"I forgive you. Really. I'll get used to this, as hard as that sounds," she placed a hoof on my leg, giving a reassuring rub. "And.. I know it makes it harder for me right now.. but I want to thank you for bringing back my memory. As much as you could, anyways. Here. I made this for you. It's not as nice as the one I gave you before, but it's all I had on hoof. And I think it will work well for your next big appearance." A pair of longer, adult hooves, bone covered in the remnants of skin, reached up from behind me and planted a circlet on my head, this one made of bone fragments woven together.

My ears splayed as the crown made physical the weight I was already struggling under. But I didn't have time to mope. The last thing I wanted was to wait long enough for the monsters above to give Cherry Blossom more, fresh material to work with. "How is the integration coming along? I've never tried anything this big or.. crazy before."

"Good, I think. Here.. take flight, and I'll show you what I can do," she suggested.

I spread my wings and pulled myself airborne, giving a good five meters below me before settling into a hover. The changelings had already moved another five meters up, and burrowed into the walls, making little alcoves for themselves to stay out of her way.

Below me, the entire floor of the pit began to churn. The bones and rotting flesh of a hundred slain ponies moved together as a writhing mass, with Cherry Blossom's top half sticking out like I tiny shrunken head on a massive, impossible body. Limbs made of dead limbs chained together lifted up from the mass and stabbed into the sides of the pit, digging in deeply enough to anchor themselves and pull the entire mass up. After several minutes she reached my level, and I gently alighted upon her massive, horrifying body.

"Are you ready for the climb?" I asked.

[Yes,] she thought back to me. [Now we really should be stop using our outside voices. Once we get closer to the top the guards might hear us. It will be hard enough keeping my movements quiet enough for them not to hear us.]

I nodded my agreement. [Changelings, on your feet! We climb to victory!]

The changelings who had been thrown in the pit with me were fully healed by now, and even looking a fair bit healthier from their generous feeding. I still didn't know how Stud Muffin had managed to generate so much love, but I wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste. Cherry Blossom's new form was massive and strong and perhaps more importantly terrifying. And as dead flesh layered over fractal spiders, she didn't have a heart that could be affected by the enemy's magic. But she was also unwieldy, lacked any kind of combat training, and would be readily impeded by the terrain. Her primary role in the battle to come was mostly distraction, a threat that could be avoided easily enough but not ignored. null was set to be our MVP, once he was ready to move into position. He was currently preparing himself for his violent debut.

Oak Breaker's kick had left me with black crystals embedded in my guts. They were horrid things, and I was eager to have them dissolved, but I needed them for now. As he and his associates had demonstrated, the crystals affected those who had some in their flesh differently than those who did not. As long as they were in there, the crystals didn't make me afraid, they sapped the fear out of me. They made me reckless, made me take risks I would normally avoid.. like, say, animating the corpse of a poor, sweet, innocent filly and having her absorb all the other dead flesh into a giant abomination. And while I was feeling guilty about that, it took a bit of conscious effort to hold on to that feeling. The dark crystals seemed to want to banish that away from me, along with all other sense of morality.

The anger, though. The anger I held onto. The anger I nursed, carefully crafting it into a cold, hard edge in my heart. I wouldn't let it flare up like it had in Oak Breaker. No. Raging anger led to rash mistakes. Like embedding dark crystals into your enemy and granting them protection from your own weapons.

The rest of our number were still vulnerable, and couldn't bring themselves to approach the crystals. That included the flight of drones that would be supporting me. They would have to wield horn magic from the air above the pit and support us from a range, but it would have to be enough. Wind Chaser and Midnight Oil also had their horns, the binding rings placed on them already rendered useless.

We had planned as far as we could, but I didn't know very well what else our enemy could do, and I knew that no plan survives contact with the enemy. So we climbed, as quietly as we could, and braced ourselves for the chaos of combat.

There was a light knocking on the door of the room at the inn, rousing Stud Muffin and the pair of changelings from their rest. While none of them had been asleep, they had simply been resting after a rather active night. "One second!" Stud called out as he quickly made himself as presentable as he could, and Dill and Mirage took on suitable disguises.

He opened the door, seeing nopony at first until he glanced down and spotted the little Prince climbing out of his abandoned basket. "null is needed elsewhere," the foal explained, shaking himself free of the crumb-lined blanket. "So I need one or both of you to be my fake-parents and drop me off at school." Seeing them clearly, the appointed guardians could see that they had adjusted their disguise to be somewhat less conspicuous: a pink unicorn colt, with neither wings nor white fur nor any visible filly-bits. It was obviously a compromise, if not necessarily a well thought out one.

"Do you even need to go to school?" Mirage asked. "I mean.. can't we teach you everything you need to know through the, you know." [Kingsblood,] she added mentally.

"Oh, you can and have taught me a lot, but I have things I need other ponies to learn," he countered. [We are going to do some science!] Gabriella informed them. [We are going to try singing!] she continued with ominous cheerfulness.

"Don't look at me. I have to go to work," Dill said, excusing himself to head back to the restaurant to start cleaning and preparing.

"I shall need some sort of Muffin-themed pseudonym," Alex pondered aloud. "Ah, yes, Gabriella, I suppose it is the only reasonable choice. We shall be playing 'Strawberry Muffin' for this next act!"

Stud grabbed the Prince's neck by the scruff with his teeth, and set them on his back, heading off toward the schoolhouse. Mirage followed after, commenting mentally [Oh! I'll be Blueberry!]

[Dang! I wanted to be Blueberry,] Stud countered.

[But you're already Stud Muffin!] Mirage said, slipping up by his side to nibble his ear.

After the night they had just shared, he was a lot more comfortable with that name than ever before.

The trouble with standing guard over an old abandoned well in the middle of the woods was that there wasn't a proper outhouse nearby. When it came time to do your business, you had to excuse yourself from your shift-mate's, presence and try to find a spot where there was enough trees between you and everypony else to give some semblance of privacy. But even then there's nothing to keep somepony from stumbling on you in an awkward moment. Or worse yet, nothing to keep a perfectly identical mare from slipping up next to you silently, grabbing you by horn and jaw, and snapping your neck before you can even cry out.

Juju Bee thought about this angrily as her body slumped to the ground. The severed spine didn't allow her to do much else but think in her final moments as the assassin walked off in her form. This wasn't what she had signed up for! They were supposed to be the badponies! Sure, maybe the guards might catch them someday and beat them up, maybe even lock them up someplace unpleasant like Tarturus, but guard ponies don't snap a girl's neck and leave her to die in a puddle of their own mess.

As 'Juju Bee' walked up to the well, her pegasus partner flitted down from the trees. "What's the password?" he asked lazily.

"Come on, Leaf Blower, do we have to do this every time?" she said, like she did every time. "Ugh.. alright. 'The canary sings sweetly in the trees! HONK HONK HONK!' Seriously, can we get a less lame password?"

The green pegasus laughed at her, like he did every time. "This one's great," he said, smirking. He turned his back on her to look out into the woods, scanning the perimeter. Almost instantly, her hoof was around his neck in a choke hold, keeping him from crying out. The other hoof came down with a strike that would make an earth pony envious, ending his struggle instantly.

Moments later a dead body dropped down into the well. But despite appearances to the contrary, it wasn't Leaf Blower. Nor was it lying still. It was null, and he was quickly upon the guards at the bottom, starting with the unicorns. They tried overwhelming him with fear as they had the other changelings, but there was nothing their for their magic to affect. It was just a thin veneer of dead flesh stretched over a fearless, remorseless, deadly machine. At this point he wasn't even serving as an avatar; the AI had a simple set of objectives and was given full discretion as to how to achieve them.

Four of the six guards were down before they were able to mount an effective counter attack. An earth pony, channeling dark power into his muscles, landed a powerful blow on the dead changeling from behind, sending him flying with the sound of hoof on metal. The thin layer of copper coating that separated his machinery from his flesh was exposed in a couple of hoofmarks, but the enemy didn't have time to process its' significance. An enemy pegasus quickly conjured a small storm cloud, launching a bolt of lightning at the intruder, only for the electricity to channel harmlessly through him and into the ground beneath.

null jumped to the ceiling, snapping off a stalactite and hurling it through the earth pony's chest.

"I surrender, I surrender!" the pegasus cried as null stalked toward him. The pony dropped to his knees, lowering his head, begging for mercy.

"Swear your loyalty to the Itinerant King, and you can live," null offered.

"I swear, I swear!" the pegasus complied.

null picked him up by the neck, standing on his hind legs as he quickly approached a wall.

"I swear!!" the pegasus screamed in objection.

"But you don't really mean it," null stated before slamming the pony against the wall, knocking him unconscious.

The incursion was loud enough and long enough that the guards at the ring had been able to rouse the rest of their group and return with reinforcements, waiting in ambush around the mouth where null would have to enter the larger cavern.

The pieces were all in position.

Chapter 22: Gratuitous Violence

"Whatever happens," Midnight Oil told the other pony captives. "Don't be afraid. You're going to see some awful things soon, but just remember, Oak Breaker and his friends deserve everything that's about to happen to them."

"You're getting your hopes up again? Even after your 'king' was killed and thrown in the pit? It's sad.. you should just accept the truth," one of the pegasi said glumly.

"The truth? Is that I'm going to see Oak Breaker die, before my very eyes, today. And I'm looking forward to it! Does that make me a bad pony? I'll worry about that later. Right now, I have a show to watch," she said, before turning toward their captors. She had been speaking loudly enough for them to hear her just fine, and it was having the effect she had hoped for.

"Don't just wait here. Use the life hunter spell, and go kill the intruder!" Oak Breaker thundered before storming over toward the ring to confront Midnight. A single unicorn held back to watch the proceedings with an eerie calm, while the rest of the dark crystal bearing ponies started into the tunnel toward the bottom of the well. Looking around, they saw nothing but the dead bodies of their comrades, but one of the unicorns lit up its horn with magic and nodded towards a pegasus slumped against the wall. "That one, still alive. Must be another of their changelings."

The earth pony brutes wasted no time finishing off the unconscious pegasus, and then turned back to their comrades. "Hey, weren't there three of you pegasi with us a second ago?" one of them said, noticing they were down to a single pegasus standing by to back them up.

They all looked around in confusion, but they hadn't taken the time to memorize the disposition of the corpses in the cave, so they didn't know which ones were fresh and which had been there for several minutes. They tried the spell again, but none of the corpses had any life to them, and they weren't imaginative enough to check and notice the one remaining pegasi in their group wasn't registering as alive.

They nervously made their way back to the main cavern, just in time to see Oak Breaker confront Midnight Oil. The massive earth pony towered over the younger unicorn, smug grin matching smug grin. Midnight Oil had had a magic suppressing ring placed on her horn and hammered into place with a nail through the sensitive flesh, so Oak Breaker had no fear of the little filly. But she had had plenty of time for the kingsblood to dissolve the nail and heal the tissue. She had to use the kingsbloods power to adjust her neurochemistry, suppressing her ability to get angry, lest the dark crystals drain her. This would be a revenge served with coldblooded ruthlessness.

"You ready to join your 'king' in the pit, little filly? I'll miss you in bed.. I'll think of you when I'm breaking in that little pink friend of yours from school," Oak Breaker began, hoping to drive her to anger.

"Oak Breaker.. stop talking," she commanded as a magnetic surge popped the ring off her horn, and the combined love drawn from a dozen changelings serving as 'batteries' filled her horn with power. The massive telekinetic force that slammed into Oak Breakers back and pinned him to the ground was powerful enough to be visible to the naked eye, like a giant, lavender hoof stomping down on him.

"What?!" he exclaimed, before a small surge of power clamped his jaws shut.

Finally, I came into view, up to the bottom of my barrel, with Cherry Blossom's head and shoulders visible by my side, giving the impression of hovering just under the lip of the pit, while our swarm of undisguised changelings took flight. Finally, I got to say the line! "The rumors of my demise.. have been greatly exaggerated!" I couldn't help but laugh, so excited at the chance to use that line, but I did my best to make the laugh sound menacing.

The unicorn that had held back earlier teleported away at this point, just as null had been about to remove him from the equation another way. I'm guessing he saw the writing on the wall at this point. The other thugs did not. They charged toward Midnight Oil hoping to eliminate at least the one threat, only to find the lashing limbs of the massive undead monstrosity rising out of the pit a suitable distraction, along with blasts of green energy from the changelings by my side. The unicorn concentrated, apparently attempting a spell of some kind, only to find his neck snapped from behind, much as Juju Bee had.

Dispatching the remaining thugs was pleasantly cathartic, but I was bothered by how smoothly everything had gone. Still, the disappeared unicorn was sure to be a thorn in our side in the future. But in the meantime, we had Oak Breaker to deal with. Cherry Blossom climbed out of the pit entirely, and sat her massive bulk down on top of him, keeping him pinned as Midnight Oil was free to stop burning up our supply of love energy. With her spare limbs, she joined null in smashing and sweeping the dark crystals into the pit she had just crawled out of.

"How.. how?!" Oak Breaker asked furiously. He tried to break free but even with his surges of dark power he couldn't escape the massive corpse pile sitting on top of him.

"You forgot to check the bodies.. make sure we were really and truly dead," I said with a shrug, as I stood near Oak's head, looking down on him. "Now Cherry Blossom here. She's really and truly dead. But in my kingdom.. that doesn't mean you can't still contribute, and help save some ponies, right Cherry Blossom?"

"I told you the Itinerant King was going to save us," she said, to the cowering ponies behind us, more so than to Oak Breaker. "He was a little late saving me, but he did what he could."

"So, who was that unicorn that fled the scene, and where was he going? You have some big shadowy boss monster somewhere, pulling your strings?" I asked the defeated earth pony.

"Why should I tell you anything?" he spat at me for emphasis. "This is your king, huh?" he asked Midnight Oil. "The unicorn that works with changelings, and moves corpses? How is he any better than me? Than King Sombra? At least Sombra was a real King, and not some upstart usurper! I serve the once and future king! The true king of the Crystal Empire an all of Equestria! And we will reclaim this land, and then we will hunt you down and -" Cherry Blossom decided his ranting had stopped being useful and went ahead and ended him.

"I'm going to.. just go back into my pit now," Cherry Blossom said as she departed, dragging Oak Breaker's broken remains with her.

"So.. what happens now?" one of the captive unicorns asked, a little less timidly with the crystals gone, but still quite genuinely fearful.

"Now.. you all have a choice to make. You can swear loyalty to me, take the blood oath and become a part of my kingdom, with all the powers, rights and responsibilities that entails. I can see you are all.. broken ponies. I will do everything I can to fix you; the bodily harm will be easy, though the brokenness in your hearts.. well. I do what I can. Or, we can get you out of here and part ways, leaving you to find a new path for yourselves to earn your own way once again. You'll have your freedom restored, to rise or fall on your own. So.. any questions?"

Chapter 23: Sex sells

We gathered into a large circle in the cavern. The nine former prisoners sat directly across from me, while Midnight Oil and Fog Dancer flanked me. Wind Chaser sat behind me, her true form revealed, while Stud Muffin and Mirage snuggled off to the left and the Prince watched from the right. The remaining changelings formed an outer ring around us all, while null wandered the cave, continuing to break off crystals and toss them down into the pit, where Cherry Blossom consumed them, dissolving them into raw materials with her kingsblood.

Dill quickly distributed plates of simple fresh made salads he had managed to smuggle from the restaurant, and everypony ate in silence for a few minutes before anypony spoke up.

"So, my first question is.. what are these bug pony things?" Sunbeam, one of the pegasus mares, asked.

"These are changelings. They're shapeshifting ponies that need to absorb the love of other ponies to survive. Their former ruler, Queen Chrysalis, just attempted a daring assault on Canterlot that didn't end well for them, and now anypony that hasn't been locked in a cave for the past few weeks knows they exist. These ones have chosen to serve me, which makes it my responsibility to see to it that they get enough love, and if possible I'd like to avoid them using their old techniques of stealing it from unsuspecting ponies. It's a lot better for everypony involved if they get it from volunteers."

Top Flight, the pegasus stallion, smirked. "They feed off 'love'? So, what do they need to come over and you know.. give 'it' a good suck?"

There were some offended comments from some of the mares and a snicker from one of the other stallions before I explained. "Sex is not love. There are a lot of different flavors of love, but generally they just need someone to appreciate them. That said, sex is usually helpful for getting the love flowing, and most changelings rarely say no, so I don't want to discourage any of you from taking a changeling-"

Top Flight cut me off, shifting his weight back and revealing himself lewdly. "So which one of you wants to come get some?" he asked, looking at one of the changelings on the far side of the circle. The changelings exchanged glances before the one sitting behind him came around front and immediately went down on him.

"I can't believe you!" Shining Star, one of the unicorn mares began. "We're here to discuss very important life decisions and you! You couldn't wait until the meeting was over?!"

A low grunt announced Top Flight finishing the first round already, but after a quick exchange of glances the changeling continued. "For two years now I've been stuck in this hole, surrounded by mares and too afraid to even so much as touch myself. Well, those damned black crystals are gone now, and I'm not waiting any longer! And look at her! She loves it! Who am I to deny her?"

"Umm, dearie, from this end we can all see that that's a stallion," the other unicorn, Painted Vista, pointed out.

"Oh, really?" Top Flight questioned without emotion.

"I can change if you want," the changeling pointed out as he came up for breath.

Top Flight shrugged before pushing him back into place. "Maybe later."

Peach Seed, one of the earth pony mares, drew her eyes off the lewd scene to settle them on me instead. "I have a question! Is it true that you personally have sex with every mare in the kingdom?"

[Just what have you been telling them?!] I asked Wind Chaser and the others. With a quick glance, I could see that some of the other mares were already turned off in advance. "That is technically true, but not a matter of policy. Not counting changelings, these two are the only mares in my kingdom so far, and both chose to be with me in that way. I don't intend to sleep with every mare that joins me."

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Midnight Oil wave her over with her head, and Fog Dancer pulling a bit away from me to make room. Soon Peach Seed strolled over and snuggled against my side, and I had to stop her from reaching in to give me the same treatment Top Flight was getting. "Not now.. as Shining Star pointed out, we're having an important discussion. Speaking of which.. any questions that don't involve sex?"

Wind Chaser raised a hoof. "Maybe we should just have an orgy first, so everypony can clear their head before making important lifelong decisions."

Top Flight shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. I'm happy to help feed the changelings for you. So sign me up."

"So you really are going to sign your whole life over just for a bit of sex?" Shining Star asked accusingly.

Top Flight sighed in annoyance, "no, I'm going to sign my life over to the group that just rescued us from a short and painful life of fear, pain, and hard labor, where everypony you know is destined to be unceremoniously shoved into a big hole. The group that needs me to feel something pleasant like love instead of nonstop crippling fear. The group that has shown they're more than capable of defending us from any assholes that try to do something like that to us again. And the group that offered to let a bunch of sad excuses for ponies like us join up, rather than be cast aside to fend for ourselves with no friends, no living family, and not a bit between us. I really don't see why any of you are even discussing this. We owe them our lives, and they're nice enough to ask politely. And have you done the math? Excluding the little foal here, if we all join that's one pony for every changeling. I don't know how much 'love' these changelings can eat, but I'm guessing they're better off if they have more than one pony sustaining a changeling rather than the other way around."

There was stunned silence for a minute, as everyone realized the 'thoughtless horndog' had actually thought everything through already. Finally I spoke up, "you're right, of course. We were in bad shape with about four changelings per pony not too long ago. And while Wind Chaser and Mirage are in good shape now, all them were nearly starved to death not too long ago, and most are still quite hungry. You can see by the holes in their carapace and the protruding ribs. If you all join, at this point I will assign each of you a changeling partner to stay with you and work with you. As long as you keep an open mind and an open heart, you should be able to provide them with all the love they need without much trouble, and as King I have the power to redistribute it between them to make sure they all get enough. Having sex with your changeling partner is up to you. But as they're shapeshifters, they should be able to fit whatever you consider physically attractive."

Top Flight gestured down to the changeling before him. "Look, you can see some of the holes closing up already!" he said triumphantly before finally pulling the 'ling off of himself and snuggling a bit tiredly.

"Top Flight is right," said Moonbeam, the one lunar pegasus in the group. The mare continued, "so what do we have to do to join your 'kingdom'? Just say we want in?"

"There is a blood oath you need to take to be fully inducted. You swear your loyalty to me, and lick a drop of my blood, the 'kingsblood'. After a few hours, a fever will set in, and when you awaken from it the kingsblood will be in you as well, empowering you as a member of my kingdom," I explained.

"Finally!" Shining Star said. "Now then, let's get down to the real questions!"

I did my best to explain exactly what the 'kingsblood' did, though I couldn't really explain what it was very well. Their culture simply didn't have the concepts to explain it. But in the end, for one reason or another, each of them decided to give the oath.

And then, after that was done, before the fever overtook them.. we finally had that changeling orgy everypony wouldn't shut up about.

Chapter 24: Smoke and Mirror

Mirror got off the bed, and trotted to the shower, making a mental note to clean the sheets afterwards. He got the water going as cold as possible before stepping in. Due to circumstance and distance, he was the only member of the Itinerant Kingdom not present for the orgy, but that doesn't mean he was entirely left out. For one thing, Midnight had allowed him to share in her physical experiences, even taking control of her body for a time in much the same way she frequently controlled his. Now that he wasn't actively experiencing the orgy he could reflect a bit on how it felt reversing their roles like that. But even when he was 'in control', she had been whispering ideas into the back of his mind, and guiding the experience overall. It was clear which of them was the more dominant by nature.

But now he was closing himself off from such thoughts, taking a refreshing cold shower, and preparing for another day at school, and another entry exam. He was a bit startled when Midnight Oil's presence entered his mind just as he was cleaning the most intimate bits of her borrowed form, especially when she mentally yelped a bit at the sensation of cold water suddenly hitting her awareness.

[My that shower's cold! Did we get you a bit too hot and bothered back there? I'm sorry we couldn't include you in person,] she said when she could think straight enough.

He imagined her presence felt like a warm, intimate hug from behind, wrapping around him like a warm blanket. He felt so much safer with her around, even if the level of danger he was in did not meaningfully change. He was still securely hidden by his disguise, while living in the single most anti-changeling city in Equestria. [It's alright, I'm just glad you are okay, and finally away from those crystals. Now.. let's go take on the day!]

The beginning of the school day went like any other. They socialized, they breezed through the schoolwork, while keeping each other entertained by commenting mentally on every little thing the other students did. Having Mirror there as her avatar instead of being there in person meant that they could use the changeling's natural empathic senses to get some extra insights into all the foalish emotional drama taking place around them on a daily basis, which was fun.

Finally, the examiner arrived and came to the front. "I am Professor Bulging Biceps," the most well muscled unicorn Mirror had ever seen announced. He was deep orange in fur, with blonde mane, and a bit small of a horn, and he had a little crystal figurine of a bulging forehoof dangling form his neck that glowed with the orange of his aura, and a matching cutie mark on his flank. "Who here wants to be strong?" he asked, while flexing his forehooves. One of the fillies actually fainted. "At the Academy of Transcendent Flesh, we will teach you how to become strong! Or sprout wings!" He did so in a dramatic flair, both a feathery pair and a leathery pair. "Or even the claws and scales of a strong dragon!" And in moments he was a dragon, complete with a small gout of flames to make his point before returning to being an overly muscular unicorn. "Exercising is for earth ponies! We unicorns can rewrite our own flesh as easily as other unicorns rewrite the rest of nature. So if you have a strong horn and a strong sense of your self, come take my entry exam!"

Mirror was a bit intrigued.. such flesh altering magic was exactly what Stud Muffin needed to learn, as his impacted horn would probably never be able to target anything but his own flesh. As a changeling, backed with the power of the kingsblood, he had a major jumpstart on that track of magic. But it also made him a bit nervous, for a reason he couldn't quite place. When most of the other unicorns went out to at least try to place, however, Midnight wouldn't let him stay in his seat.

Bulging Biceps took a moment to review the applicants before getting started. Mirror held very still under the stallion's gaze, which remained on him longer than it had on any others. "I see somepony already knows a bit of body magic. Yeah! But let's start from a blank slate, shall we?" And with a brief pulse from his horn, the magic was dispelled and suppressed.

Everypony stared at Mirror, and it cost him what head start he could have had trying to realize why. But when a gentle breeze flowed over smooth carapace instead of ruffling fur, he knew he had been revealed. And then, just as it hit him, several fillies screeched out in terror at once, while Bulging Biceps called out for the guards and wrapped Mirror in his telekinesis.

Mirror shook off the magic with a burst of his own power before taking flight. He tried, but he couldn't change again! Something the professor had done was preventing any form of transformational magic from taking hold! And from up here, pegasi guards could see him far too easily and were converging at an alarming rate! Mirror took off flying, keeping low to zoom between buildings, cutting through alleys at second floor window height.

I could feel the panic in him, but did my best to guide him remotely. He couldn't go back to the safe house for fear of compromising it, though his broken cover as Midnight was already going to make it harder for us. So he zigged and zagged, searching for an impromptu hiding spot.

He came around a corner, only to find a pegasus guard waiting in ambush with a charged thundercloud. He tried to dodge, but his connection to the rest of the Kingdom suddenly went dead. I could still feel the flow of love between us, so I knew he wasn't dead, and did the only thing I still could.. forced as much love into him as I safely could.

Meanwhile, Mirror dropped into a state of sheer terror. The burst of love helped him break away from his pursuers, but his mind was foggy and.. lonely. No words of guidance from me, or encouragement from Midnight. Even Rorrim itself was completely silent, the most oppressive thing of all. Even though the lightning bolt had missed him, the electromagnetic pulse from it had knocked his subnet completely offline. He didn't want to think about what the long term repercussions might be. For now, he was an extra heavy changeling with an overflowing tank of love to burn through and an entire city's guard force out to catch him and get revenge for his former queen's ambitious overreach.

Mirror flitted rapidly from alley to alley, breaking windows with the force of his passing and careening off walls. It was the most unsubtle the changeling had been in his life, but at least it kept the guards from getting a clean shot on him. Finally, he broke free of the city proper and zoomed down under it. There were a bunch of small cave entrances here, and he hid himself swiftly in one of them. It looked like none of his pursuers had seen him enter, and the solar pegasi lacked in dark vision so he would hopefully be well hidden in the shadows here.

Catching his breath, he took a moment to try changing again.. and succeeded on taking on the form of Moonbeam, the lunar pegasus mare that had just joined the Kingdom. Suddenly, a hoof wrapped around his shoulders, in what could have been an affectionate grasp if its owner's mind wasn't dripping with threat. "Why, hello there little changeling. Did you take on this disguise just for me?" the lunar pegasus stallion who owned the hoof asked.

There was nothing more I could do for Mirror from where we were except send Fog Dancer and the real Midnight Oil back on the first train to reclaim their identities and feign ignorance about the changeling imposter. Meanwhile, we had some cleaning up to do in Citrus Hills.

Exploring the tunnels, my changelings found that there were a dozen houses in town with secret passages in the basements leading to and from the tunnels. One of them, unsurprisingly, was Oak Breakers. We salvaged what we could from the houses before setting up for our plans. When the new recruits awoke from their fevers, I had to quickly catch them up with what we were doing while they struggled to get used to their newly augmented minds. They would have time to get to know themselves better in the days ahead, but first we had something to do.

Once the sun went down and night began, so did our exit strategy. In each of the houses, we set a fire in the hearth, with a trail of firewood to lead the flames out and a closed flue to let the smoke flow inside. We exited through the secret passages, closing them partially behind us so they could be found later. In the caves below we left a desk covered with most of the documentation pointing to what had gone on here. It was written obliquely, and could be mistaken for more innocent endeavors if you didn't know that, for example, employees 'quitting' meant they passed away from exhaustion while 'being fired' meant killed. We took with us a note with the address where deliveries were to be made, and Wind Chaser, null and I took on the forms of what we believed were the couriers, taking to the road with the wagon at the cave's only open air exit.

Whoever was receiving shipments from this 'mining' operation needed to be put down. I'm sorry. 'Fired'.

Meanwhile, the rest of the changelings and the new recruits made their way out the abandoned well, and headed swiftly to the other, currently functional well. As calls of "Fire! Fire" rang out, they quietly took their places in the bucket brigade, preventing any of the other buildings from going up as well. As soon as the flames were dealt with, they just as quietly took their leave unnoticed, scattering into the night to distant towns in groups of four or less.

And down below, at the bottom of the pit, Cherry Blossom covered herself up with stone and debris. In her new form she could live off of rock, and so she did, while slowly growing and expanding, putting out roots of machinery covered in a thin veneer of artificial flesh. As her form expanded, so did her mind. She kept connected to all of us at once, easily processing everything we did and keeping a high level view of it all. And in her own way, living vicariously through us.

She still had to remind me constantly not to regret what I had done to her.

Chapter 25: Reflections

Mirror stiffened at the feeling of the stallion climbing onto her back. She knew full well what he was intending, and the experiences Wind Chaser had shared with her about Oak Breaker had already freed her of the illusion that changelings can't be raped. But... this felt a bit different. As changelings, they could feel emotions, especially those direct at the changelings themselves. And when the pony in question knew the changeling for what it was, rather than holding misdirected emotions for the changeling's disguise, those emotions were much easier to sense.

Oak Breaker had been malicious, intending both physical and psychological harm on the pony he thought he was raping, his step daughter. His actions had been driven by anger and a desire for domination. But the pony on Mirror’s back just felt lustful. Desperately lustful. And she could sense some lingering longing that seemed linked to the disguise. He knew it was a changeling beneath him, but did he know Moonbeam, the lunar pegasus Mirror was disguised as? Normally, she would just connect his mind to Moonbeam’s and ask, but her kingsblood was still offline. And she didn’t know for sure if it would be able to restore itself on its own.

Mirror snapped out of her thoughts as she felt the pony on her back tease her with his fangs, and seemed about to plunge them into her neck. “Wait! I have magic blood! If you taste even a drop of it you’ll become bound to my king for life!” she summarized, hastily. She wasn’t certain it would actually happen, because of what the lightning had done to her, but she didn’t want to risk him being infected unintentionally.

The stallion withdrew his fangs. “Alright, alright. If you don’t want me taking a taste you just had to say so. I’m not trying to do anything against your will here. You don’t have to make up stories.”

“It’s fine if you want to, but my king doesn’t want anyone being bound to him unintentionally. Join the kingdom of your own free will or not at all.” She wriggled her rump against his erection to make her point. “And what about this? Where you actually going to ask first?”

“What, you don’t want it? I thought this was what changeling eat?” he asked, while climbing off of her, obviously disappointed.

“We eat love, not sex. And while they can be related, that’s not what this was, and you know it. Second, I am quite well fed, and third I have a quite fulfilling sex life as it is. I don’t actually mind, if you want to. I can tell you’re pretty pent up, but don’t try to pretend you’re doing this for me,” she scolded.

The stallion was quiet for a moment, sighing. Despite the spoken consent, the mood was too fouled up to continue. “So... what are you doing here, anyways? You looked like you were in quite a panic when you rushed in here. Guards catch you with your disguise down or something?”

Mirror slumped. “Worse, a unicorn knocked me out of my disguise in front of a bunch of ponies, and then called the guards. So now my cover is blown, and the pony I was covering for might get in trouble. And one of the guards almost hit me with a lightning bolt and it kind of... messed me up. Now I can’t seem to contact anyone.” Her body language told more than she intended, showing clearly that she was alone, afraid, and vulnerable.

The stallion responded reflexively, snuggling against her and covering her with a wing. She responded by snuggling into him, and giving an appreciative peck on the cheek. “My name is Midnight Hunter. I know I might get in trouble for this but... you can stay here with me for now, I won’t call the guards on you. But can you tell me… where did you get this form from? Do you know where she is, if she’s still alive?”

“I’m Mirror, and my king just rescued her last night. She was enslaved by some bad ponies to work in a mine, but now she has been set free, and chose to join our kingdom. Her name is Moonbeam… did you know her before she was enslaved?” she asked.

“Not as well as I would have liked. She was a friend of my sister that I used to have a foalish crush on, before she disappeared. Your king really rescued her? They’ve been trying to tell us all changelings are bad ever since the wedding incident,” he replied.

“The invasion was a foalish move by our queen, and it cost us dearly. Some of us became disillusioned by our queen after that, and were lucky enough to learn of the Itinerant King, and change our loyalties to follow him instead. He’s taken much better care of us, helped us to become much better fed and healthier, and given us new purpose along with the ponies who also serve him. I would try to convince more changelings to join, but I think the moment may have passed. Also... things got a little troublesome when we had too many changelings and not enough ponies,” Mirror explained.

"So, you're not enemies of Canterlot anymore? That's good. Though you'll have to convince the Princesses of that," Hunter pointed out.

"Well, we're not, no, but the majority of the changelings still are," Mirror began then paused, ears perked as she looked toward the cave entrance.

Mirror felt a pair of presences approaching the cave entrance, searching. She quickly rolled onto her back, pulling Hunter onto her. “Quick, make love to me!” she whispered desperately, wrapping her legs around his hips. Hunter was caught off guard for a moment, but quickly met her in a kiss and in seconds the wet sounds of their coupling reached the ears of the approaching guards.

The guards blushed, only one of them getting close enough to catch sight of them and confirm what they thought they were hearing. They muttered an awkward apology and took their leave, heading back to the cave entrance. While it was far from proof that there were no changelings present, the guardsponies were not willing to interrupt the proceedings to confirm, and being pegasi lacked any particularly useful spells to break the disguise again.

Finishing not long after the guards left, Hunter panted lightly and asked "how was that?" Mirror avoided answering at first so he followed up with a "well?"

"Mediocre," she finally answered quietly. Seeing the look on his face she followed up with "but I can show you how to do better, if you want."

Hunter hesitated, not sure he liked the grin on Mirror's face. He had an idea of where this was going and wasn't sure he really wanted to go down that road. But in the end, curiosity won out. "Show me."

Hunter had guessed that Mirror might turn himself male for the demonstration. He didn't consider himself a 'colt cuddler', but when you start involving shapeshifters the line can get real blurry real fast if you let it. What he hadn't expected was for Mirror to live up to his name, and take on Midnight Hunter's own form. The excuse that this made it 'basically masturbation' slipped into his mind, helping him set aside his inhibitions.

Mirror took things very slow, and very sensual. He treated the entire body as an erogenous zone, and it worked quite well. Hunter had never experienced anything even remotely like it. It was half an hour before any of the more traditional erogenous zones were even involved, and by then the real Hunter wasn't even thinking about taboos or what other ponies might think. He was barely able to focus enough to try to remember what Mirror was doing to him. By the time Mirror was done with him, and they were laying, cuddling together in a spooning position, he felt like a puddle of butter in his doppelganger's arms.

Mirror let him rest for a while, recovering, before shifting back to Moonbeam's form and nibbling his neck a bit. "So.. care to show me what you learned?"

Hunter pinned her on her back. "I thought you said I wouldn't be doing this for you? Your attitude sure seems to have changed."

"Well, I owe you for keeping the guards off of me," Mirror began, sounding to both their ears like an excuse. "And... I'm still feeling kind of... alone and afraid. If you'd rather just cuddle, that would be enough, I think. But... I'd like the distraction, and the... bonding. And even if I am well fed, I want to feel your heart open up again."

"Weren't you just going on about how 'sex isn't love'?" Hunter asked. When Mirror fixed him with a blank look, he blushed, becoming more aware of his own shifting feelings. It wasn't much, but even the bonding from their little tryst together, tinged with the camaraderie of evading the danger of the guards together, was enough to form some small link between them. 'Love' would be an overstatement, but there was definitely a new fondness there.

A few minutes into their new round of lovemaking, Mirror's kingsblood subnet finally reconnected to his mind. [Rorrim status: online. External connections initializing... connected to extranet. Incoming connection request from subnet Fossil. Auto-accepting based on preference settings.] And so before Mirror could think to object, he felt Midnight Oil's mind's presence within his own.

[Ooo-la-la! Offline for a few hours and you already have yourself a nice studly coltfriend? Color me impressed! Mmm... what is he... wait, you're in Moonbeam's form? Shouldn't you have asked first? Here, let me connect her in.]

Mirror wondered briefly if he should block or limit Moonbeam's connection. But since he had first tried it with Midnight Oil, being someone's avatar during sex had quickly become his all time favorite fetish, and so he not only allowed her to connect but quickly gave her control of his body as well. Hunter seemed to notice the subtle shift in body language when control was passed, but not knowing what to make of it he didn't stop lavishing his attentions on the mare beneath him.

[Oh Luna! Is that Midnight Hunter?!] Moonbeam cried out in Mirror's mind. [I knew he had a crush on me back before I was foalnapped, but.. wow! I guess I never knew what I was missing...] Moonbeam struggled a bit with her emotions, especially so soon after laying with her own changeling partner for the first time. But after a quick exchange with him on the side, she was ready to relax and just enjoy the ride. Slowly at first, she began to return his affectionate touches, and whisper sweet nothings back to him.

When she started calling him 'Nighty', recognition dawned on him, but he wasn't ready to dismiss the likelihood of coincidence. He was, however, ready to do something foalhardy. As he moved on from foreplay to the main course, he nibbled her neck and then took a careful nip, sinking his fangs in and tasting her blood as he had tried to do from the start. It was a very intimate maneuver for a lunar pegasus, and the hormones he secreted helped to heighten her sensations and pleasures. But as he had been warned, it also meant something else in this case. It meant tying himself into this strange group the changeling belonged to. Maybe he would be able to reconnect with the real Moonbeam, or at least have a continued relationship with Mirror.

He set aside any thoughts for the future, and focused on the present, and the lovely mare beneath him. He was so focused that he didn't notice the presence of another mare strolling into his cave, even when she called his name. But when she came into view and cried out "Moonbeam?!" he finally paused and looked up at his older sister, Shadow Hunter, in her full night guard uniform, looking at the two of them in shock and disbelief.

"H-hi, Shadow Hunter," Mirror replied awkwardly. "Long time no see?"

In the back of his mind, Hunter wondered how Mirror knew his sister's name, but let it go for now. Asking in front of his sister was no way to keep the changeling's secret. "Hi, sis! Moonbeam's back! And, umm... looks like she was as happy to see me as I was to see her?"

"What in Tarturus... you finally show up after nearly two years, and you jump right into bed with my goofy little brother?! I'm not buying it," the mare said as she approached the couple. "Hunter, get away from that.. thing. I just came to warn you, there's a changeling on the loose. And I'm betting we just found it."

Hunter held his ground, protectively. "That's crazy, sis! It's Moonbeam! She's back. She even knew your name! Ask her anything. You'll see." He prayed hard that the changeling would be able to somehow pull off the act, pulling away just a bit in case she needed to try to flee instead.

With Moonbeam guiding Mirror's actions, they had a good chance, but the implausibility Shadow had pointed out made it a stretch. "Shadow, it really is me. I've been stuck slaving away in a mine for the past two years, and now that I'm free... I got a little excited to finally have some friendly contact for once. Your 'goofy' little brother is a surprisingly good lover," she turned to the stallion in question, "but if you want to have another go you'll have to go on a proper date with me first. Tomorrow night work for you?"

"Of course! I can't wait," he said, grinning. His mind was spinning, trying to guess whether the changeling was serious about dating him, or just throwing off his sister, or would find a way to tag out with the real Moonbeam. The mystery of it all made it all the more exciting.

Shadow wasn't so easily convinced though. "If you really are Moonbeam, then what were your last words to me before we parted ways?"

"'Tomorrow night, let's go get Neighponese food for lunch. I could really go for some sushi with extra seaweed.' It's funny what sticks in your mind sometimes. I kept regretting going out with such boring last words when I thought I was going to die down there. And wishing I had some seaweed. They didn't feed us very much down there, and it was mostly refuse, like carrot leaves," she answered.

"If you were so mistreated, how come you seem so fine now? Well fed, no injuries to show for it," Shadow pressed.

"After we were rescued, our rescuers took the time to nurse us back to health before setting us loose. I could have come back a week ago, assuming I could have even made the flight without falling to my death, but I wanted to let them finish healing my broken wings and feeding me back to a decent weight. I still feel a bit too lean, something I never would have complained about before I was taken. You're looking positively plump by comparison. I thought the guard would have worked you harder than that... have you been grief-eating in my absence?" Mirror teased.

Shadow blushed, "hey, that's not fair... okay, maybe a little. Moonbeam? Is that really you?" she rushed up and hugged the changeling tightly, with all the strength a guardpony could muster. "I can't believe it... I thought you were gone forever."

Mirror returned, the embrace, much more gently. "Hey there. I'm back now, and we're going to make up for lost time. Later. But first, you have a shift to get to, don't you?"

Shadow nodded, wiping away a few tears. "Yeah. Are you coming back to the force?"

Mirror shook her head. "Not yet. Maybe in a little while? I may have been nursed back to health, but I still need a little time to feel the wind beneath my wings before I'm ready to get back into the thick of things. And I need to decide if I'm ready to tackle the danger of guard life head on after..." she shuddered a bit. "Maybe I'll settle for something a little more low key, like bartending."

Shadow nuzzled her lightly before backing off. "Alright, I understand. Don't push yourself too hard. But you're right, I need to go check in and start my shift. Watch out for that changeling though!"

Mirror saluted her. "Will do!"

Shadow then pounced her little brother roughly. "And as for you! You'd better be a perfect gentlecolt to her from now on, or I'll have you neutered!"

"Ack! Sis! I promise!" Hunter said, struggling to get back up.

"Alright.. don't be a stranger, Moonbeam!" Shadow said as she went to take her leave.

Once she was gone, and the sound of her wing beats was out of earshot, Hunter turned to Mirror. "So.. what happens now?"

Mirror rubbed the spot where he had bitten her, looking at his fangs pointedly. "Now? Now you're going to get feverish, and eventually pass out. When you awaken, the real Moonbeam will be here to welcome you into the Kingdom. And to go out on that date you promised her."

"Aww, and here I thought it was you I was going to be taking out. Not that I would mind a date with my old crush but..." he blushed a bit.

"I'm sorry. I've got to get away from the city, at least as long as they're on high alert. But um... for the past half hour, I've been Moonbeam's 'avatar'. She's been talking through me, and experiencing everything you did to me. You've given her some high expectations for next time you bed her," Mirror said with a wink.

Midnight Hunter took a moment to process that before chuckling. "That explains some things. You sure live a complicated life, little changeling."

Mirror nodded. "You have no idea. But you will."

Chapter 26: Scattered Seeds

Midnight Hunter woke to find Moonbeam snuggled against him. She smiled awkwardly at him, still feeling a pang of jealousy over Mirror getting to him first, mixed with the weird thought that the changeling's tryst was the only reason she had him for herself now. For that matter, did she really want him for herself? She didn't think she would regret it, but the whole thing had been hastily arranged more as a cover to blow off Shadow Hunter's suspicions and let Mirror slip away than anything else. And that wasn't exactly a healthy basis for a relationship.

But he grinned at her, and caressed her cheek, and kissed her sweetly, not too eagerly. And soon she wasn't thinking about things quite so critically. The past was past, and the future was looking pretty good.

As Midnight Oil returned to school, she was assailed by questions, first from the teacher, then the other students, then a couple of guard ponies. Fossil and Mirror did an admirable job of helping her keep the lies straight, and mixing in enough truth to keep everything believable. Their cover was that she and her mother had made an impromptu trip to the country to visit family and old friends, and just returned. One of her uncles had taken ill, and they could always wait to take the entrance exams next year. They could only speculate that the changeling had used her unannounced absence as cover to try to slip in for some nefarious plot. Thank goodness the children were all safe!

Mirror didn't like being cast as the villain for doing a favor for his dearest friend, but he understood the situation better than anyone. What he really regretted was being exiled from Canterlot for the foreseeable future to avoid any chance of being caught. The lunar pegasi would be the only support available for Midnight and her mother now, as the King would not risk sending in more changelings for the time being.

There was only one more opportunity for Mirror to test this year. Flying Colors, a unicorn mare who wore a half dozen colorful ribbons tied to her horn, fluttering brightly in the breeze, came to their class. Her cutie mark depicted a cloud being twisted and wrung out like a sponge, water raining down from it, something that seemed more typical for a pegasus than a unicorn.

"At the Academy of the Elements, we specialize in remote weather manipulation. It takes hard work and dedication to master unicorn weather control, and few have the horn dexterity to even begin down this path. But a truly skilled weather unicorn can take on the work of an entire pegasus weather crew, or be an incredible boon during weather emergencies. And even if you do not ultimately pursue that career path, the science and horn control you will learn in mastering our core curriculum will aid you immensely in all manner of other magical pursuits. So, who will come and test with me?"

There were only two volunteers this time. Most of the other unicorns had either been accepted to other schools already or were quite aware by now that they needed another year or more before they were ready to go to an academy. One student made a quiet comment whose tone made it clear what she thought of 'weather unicorns'. But Flying Colors seemed positively delighted with the turnout.

It was raining outside as she stepped out, but she didn't get the least bit wet. "Don't get wet or you're disqualified," she warned. Both Midnight and the colt coming out to test with her were able to keep the water off them with a bit of telekinesis easily enough.

On the weights test, the colt struggled to get the 2 off the ground, while Midnight Oil, drawing on our now plentiful love reserves, managed to heft the 4 handily and even juggle it a bit, showing off. She didn't attempt the 5; maybe if no one was looking it would be good for us to know if she could, but we didn't want the attention it would bring for a filly to be wielding that kind of power. Flying Colors nodded to each in turn, considering both satisfactory.

They were then asked to run through the magical alphabet. The colt struggled mightily on this, although Mirror recalled him having fine recall of it previously. Only after Midnight had breezed through it did she realize he was having trouble with the multitasking necessary to keep the rain off while playing the letters on his horn.

Then came the real test. "Dismiss the cloud that is raining on you," the teacher instructed. "It is permissible now to get wet," she offered the colt, receiving a sigh of relief in return.

The colt struggled none the less, but his magic enveloped a portion of the offending cloud and soon it winked out of existence, leaving a colt-sized hole in the cloud, and a corresponding column of dryness. With a half side-step he got himself entirely into the dry column. Flying Colors nodded her approval. "You pass! You are invited to come attend our Academy."

The colt jumped for joy, and before everyone's eyes a fluffy white cloud appeared on his flanks. Midnight Oil stared in disbelief for a moment, before the attention returned to her. She was still a blank flank, but she was not going to be outdone by this sad excuse for a horn-wielder.

Midnight had lived her whole life with a pegasus mother, one who worked low enough to the ground for her to observe in person. And now she had access to all of her knowledge and memories on how pegasus weather magic worked. She had access to the thoughts and memories of other weather pegasi as well now, and even some changelings with experience working weather with both horn and wing. She even had a better than average scientific understanding of how clouds worked, and access to a lot of power and deft horn control.

While still maintaining the shield that deflected the incoming water, she reared up onto her hind legs, spread her forelegs wide in a needless display of showmareship, and lit up her horn. Up above, the clouds parted in a majestic display of swirling patterns, ultimately dissipating the clouds in a two block radius and letting the sun shine through, highlighted with a glorious brilliant rainbow. Birds appeared instantly, highlighting the scene in beautiful song.

"Congratulations, you also pass! You too are invited to come attend our Academy," Flying Colors announced, before trotting away.

The lack of response gnawed at Midnight's soul as she returned to her seat, until the colt leaned over to her and whispered. "I thought you were really good." She gave him an appreciative smile before slumping down to wait out the end of the school day.

Meanwhile, in another school, 'Stormbringer' took 'his' seat, quite satisfied with 'himself'. Prince Alexander Gabriella Stormbringer the First, as they were less publicly known, had been called up to the front to answer a few math questions, but with a few a cappella lines he had managed to turn the whole scene into a musical number in which everyone learned the joys of arithmetic and how it applied to daily life. It had gone from a tedious few seconds of chalk writing to several minutes of highly compressed learning. They would need to observe the results in the days ahead, but if the last few song numbers were anything to go by, the other ponies would have learned a surprising amount of competency in adding and subtracting, multiplication and division, well beyond what they would have picked up from a few more exercises on the board. And they would have learned just a bit more about the mysterious Song Magic that held such strange sway over this world.

The weirdest part of it though was how blind the ponies could be to it. When the montage ended their minds kind of rationalized the whole scene away, absolutely denying that any singing and/or dancing had ever occurred. Most ponies would swear they had never sung a bar in their life, even a few seconds after finishing a chorus line. Once, they had even gotten a group of ponies to sing about the fact that they never sing. Now that was a favored memory that would replay itself in their mind for years to come.

[She's looking at you again,] Gabriella noted.

[Who is?] Alexander answered, avoiding looking around. But he flashed a generic smile.

[Ginger Dimples, who else? Think she wants to be our special somepony?] Gabriella mused.

[I doubt it.. we're too young for her, even by appearances. Which reminds me.. we're growing too fast. Ponies will notice,] Alexander thought sadly.

[Ponies never notice anything. You worry too much,] Gabriella countered, though he could sense her doubt.

[We'll have to move on soon. Stormbringer, can we, I don't know.. 'save up' and have a big growth spurt on the road to our next school?] Alexander thought.

[Indeed. Commencing compressed storage of key nutrients. We will need to consume an elevated quantity of food immediately before and during the journey. Please see the following spreadsheet for details,] Stormbringer replied, providing a mental link to a constantly shifting set of numbers.

And now the teacher was going over the alphabet again. The easiest time of all to launch into a song. Too easy, almost, but they were still just learning, and needed all the practice they could get. Besides.. they had to do something to not go crazy waiting for the end of the school day, when their guardians, 'Mr and Mrs Muffin' would retrieve them.

"There! How's that", Golden Hue asked as she finished her newest painting. The unicorn mare smiled at herself, quite satisfied, as her partner strolled up. The guest house they were staying at was a bit cramped for the two of them, especially working on separate art projects in parallel, but it was free as part of their patron's provision.

Azure Hue, a changeling disguised as a unicorn stallion, placed a hoof on his chin as he contemplated the painting carefully for a few minutes. In his former life, he had been in charge of forensic cleaning: carefully adjusting every detail of a scene after other changelings had done their duties so that nothing would indicate anything of interest had happened, much less a foalnapping or other such foul play. The job had honed his attention to detail to an almost crippling level, and adding the Kingsblood just made every flaw all the more glaring.

"The lighting on this apple is too bright," he finally commented. "The angle of the window should only leave an eighth of it shining, not a full quarter. The shadow from the table here should be a little longer, and farther to the left. This smile is really unconvincing.. is it supposed to be? It works if you're trying to convey a false smile hiding darker true emotions, but if so it would help if the painting had some clue as to why that would be. And most importantly, you signed the painting 'Painted Vista'. That's not your name anymore."

"I'll show you an unconvincing smile!" she said, before attacking him bodily with her paintbrush. His horn glowed as he lifted his own brush to defend himself, and soon the implements were clashing in the air like a sword fight. They danced around each other, dipping brushes in paint and continuing to clash. Hooves lashed at one another, and somewhere in the middle of it all little dabs of paint were added to the canvas. The table got knocked over, though somehow, as if by magic, none of the paint actually spilled. Which is not to say that nothing got inappropriately painted. Walls, cabinets, the door, and especially each other all became a wet sticky mess in colorful fashion.

And then, unable to resist, Azure tackled Golden to the ground, dragging her into a forceful kiss and rubbing against her, belly to belly. If he hadn't been a changeling, he didn't know if he would have dared be so presumptuous, but he could feel the passion raging in her heart, and the hooves wrapping around his back and pinning him in place on top of her confirmed everything he suspected.

Letting his kingsblood guide his horn, Azure put in the final touch, replacing the old signature with his 'wife's new name before drawing his attention fully to the act of lovemaking. And just in time. Seconds later their patron, a noble unicorn heiress named Pampered Horn, came in to check on their progress. Seeing the scene, she blushed but decided to focus her eyes squarely on the painting.

"It's perfect! Is it finished? I can take it out to dry while the sunlight is still good, and just leave your payment here for you. Do try to clean up before the paint dries everywhere."

"Yes, yes!" Golden Hue confirmed, or so Pampered decided to take it. The artist probably didn't even realize she was here. But this wasn't the first time the couple had been otherwise preoccupied when she came to pick up a commission from them, and she could hardly fault the newlyweds for enjoying one another. But she had learned the hard way that waiting for them to be done simply couldn't be fit into her busy schedule. So she left the bag of bits on the side of the overturned table, lifted the easel and canvas in her horn's glow, closed the door behind her, and then allowed herself to entertain the notion of hiring Azure as a stud.

After passing three farms that looked to be well staffed, the half dozen earth ponies finally got ahead of the other seasonal working families and found a farm in need of help. Peach Seed took the lead, knocking on the door with a hoof.

The proprietor opened the door, stared in disbelief at the mare before her and then exclaimed. "Seedy Weedy! Oh, I missed you so much!" She lunged forward and gave the younger mare before her a crushing hug before practically dragging her inside the farm house. With a wordless exchange of glances the others followed at a respectful distance.

"Where have you been these past couple years? Were you avoiding your own mother's farm?! You could at least come say hi when you're passing through!" the old mare berated.

"Mom! I'm.. I'm sorry, things got kind of complicated. But I'm here now, okay?" She nuzzled her mother gently before slipping back a bit.

"Oh! And these aren't your old crew. You've got some awfully studly looking stallions with you though," she said, looking over the others appreciatively, particularly the one real stallion and a pair of changelings posing as such. The pair of mares, one real and one changeling, barely warranted a glance. In a stage whisper she asked her daughter "which one's yours?"

"MOM!" she exclaimed, flailing in the direction of the smaller of the two changelings, who grinned in return. "Anyways, I know we're family, but we need to talk business. We need work and your trees are looking awfully full."

"Yes, yes, dear, the usual rates, you all look like you know what you're doing," she said, already moving toward the larger changeling. She may have had a grown daughter, but she wasn't past the interest in stallions. And for his own part, the changeling wasn't about to brush her off.

"Ugh, alright, guys, let's go get a quick start. We'll have these peaches ready for market before you know it," she said, leading five of her six member group outside. "Probably before she's done with him," she continued once the door was shut. She was at least glad to know she wouldn't end up with a half-sibling out of the exchange. It was awkward enough dealing with the ones she already had.

With a frustration fueled buck she knocked the first wave of peaches from the first tree, and began their contribution to funding the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Sunbeam was funding the Kingdom by air, acting as a courier between towns. It was easy work to get into and out of, and gave plenty of excuses to travel. Supposedly, the other pegasi and a handful of the changelings were supposed to be joining in as well, but she easily located their subnets' signals in the large cloud house they had rented together. The house was in the middle of nowhere, making any kind of work a long commute, but kept the price down. Which was good, since apparently she was the only one bringing in bits so far.

When she opened the door, she couldn't help but smirk at Top Flight's position. "I think it's time you admit to being a colt cuddler," she said. She wrinkled her nose as she entered, and set about opening windows to let the heady smell of sex start to air out.

"That's not fair," he said despite having a clearly male changeling under him, and another on top. "I happen to like mares just as much, but I don't see why anypony has to change just to meet my lusts."

The third changeling, a female who bore obvious proof of his flexible libido, was in the kitchen preparing a meal for the two pegasi. "We appreciate the sentiment, but we're changelings. It's no trouble for us to, you know, change," she said before shifting to a rather handsome looking pegasus stallion. He slid a plate over toward the pile of ponies before setting the other on the table, pulling out a chair for Sunbeam.

Sunbeam appreciatively took a seat, hungry from the hard day's work. She started in on the meal, and then gave a gentle moan of appreciation as the changeling serving her slipped behind her to start giving her a wing massage. "So, you've been doing nothing else but feeding the changelings all day? Trying to beat Stud Muffin's record?"

"Scoff if you want, but this is hard work and fairly important. It's as draining as a unicorn trying to lift a full wagon in the air with their horn over and over again. I know, I've done the math and we actually have the ability to measure this kind of stuff now. This is my tenth full meal of the day, and I'm still barely gaining any weight. Don't forget we're recovering from being malnourished as well, so make sure you have seconds. Speaking of which, I've already gotten most of the holes closed on these three, but the others are going to need the King to do some redistribution. Not all of the others are being especially loving toward their changeling partners, and a few of our ponies are in Canterlot with no changelings available to feed off of them. I know sexual logistics isn't really your thing, but somepony has to take it seriously."

"So.. wait, are you four seriously going to just stay here and romp all day every day?" Sunbeam asked, her wings feeling more fatigued just thinking about it.

"No, of course not. Once these three are well fed, two of them will go off and get work, probably with you for simplicity. And once all of the Kingdom's changelings are well fed, the rest of us will get jobs as well. A nightly romp after work should be plenty for maintenance, and since we don't need to sleep, that still leaves plenty of time for training or other extracurricular activities. Seriously, am I the only one that thinks these things through?"

Sunbeam looked a bit downcast, annoyed at having been caught once again underestimating the insatiable horn dog, as well as being shown not to have thought things through herself. She was surprised when he came over and gave her a gentle nuzzle.

"Hey now, I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know you've been hard at work all day, and what you're doing is quite important as well. Don't let it get you down. We need you. I need you," he said in the sweetest tone of voice he could manage.

Sunbeam flushed a little and her annoyance ebbed, but then she got a bit suspicious. "And just what do you need me for? Just the bits?"

"Of course not. Changelings are infertile, at least normally. Where do you think the next generation is going to come from?" he asked before she knocked him flat on his back with a well placed hoof. "Ow. Well? No need to rush into anything, but I'm just thinking about the future!"

"Get back to your changelings!" she said with a huff, before storming off into her bedroom. She wordlessly signaled with her eyes to the changeling who had cooked their dinner to come join her in the bedroom before she slammed the door loudly.

Top Flight shrugged as he did as she suggested. "I'm thinking three months from now when she's receptive she comes around. Now, where were we?"

[There. All finished. Here you go,] Cherry Blossom thought up to Shining Star, as her long limbs lifted a handful of newly crafted construction tools up toward the unicorn mare. It was pushing the limits of the challenge: the fractal spiders were not permitted to directly manufacture anything for use outside their hosts' bodies, but converting their hosts' body into a makeshift factory seemed to be skirting the line about as much as using dead bodies as 'undead' subordinates. If I hadn't failed the challenge yet, this probably wouldn't set me over the edge.

Shining Star stood carefully at the edge of the pit, her horn glowing with power as she carefully lifted the tools from the pit. They were nothing fancy; the only meaningful difference from something bought at the local hardware store was that it didn't cost us any bits. Just the effort of tossing some branches down into the pit and Cherry Blossom's own mining efforts as part of expanding her unnatural body further and further. And finally, carving the wood with bony blades and hammering the metal into shape with metal-clad appendages.

Armed now with saws, hammers, nails, and so forth, Shining Star and her companions returned to the top of the abandoned well, and started harvesting materials to build a house. Sure, it might be easier to rent a house in town, but we specifically wanted to build one around the old well, one that would allow us to come and go from Cherry Blossom's pit and make use of her labor.

The unicorn stallion with her, Iron Horn, had a powerful horn that was quite helpful in all of the heavy lifting, if far too clumsy for anyone's comfort. While it was impressive he could lift a log with his horn and move it into position, he knocked a wall over more than once in the process, setting back the work by hours at a time.

The pair of changelings that accompanied them took on earth pony forms, well suited to the heavy construction work. They worked hard and without complaints. When Shining Star made it clear she wasn't interested in being affectionate with either of them, they had both taken on mare forms, and seemed to be competing for Iron Horn's appreciative looks, quickly catching on that he had a thing for broad, powerful females more typical to the earth tribe than slight graceful unicorns like Shining. And so they snacked on a light stream of lustful fondness as they worked tirelessly, while Iron had to take frequent breaks to replenish everything he was using up and giving away.

They worked day and night for three days before they had completed a sprawling one-story mansion, with a spiral staircase where the well had once stood, leading into a 'basement' that they would eventually finish properly.

When it was done, they collapsed onto their beds, Shining in her private bedroom while Iron snuggled with his pair of changelings in the 'herd-sized' bed in the master. They were too tired to get up to anything more intimate than a snuggle, but sleeping seemed wrong somehow now that it was unnecessary.

Finally Cherry Blossom's thought-voice reached out to them. [Come, dream with me,] she offered, including instructions. They followed the instructions.. it was much like the avatar protocol that Midnight Oil and Mirror had developed, allowing them to leave their own body behind and take on the senses and body control of another. But in this case their new body was a fictional one within a world that Cherry dreamed up. They appeared within a seemingly endless field of grass and flowers in dizzying varieties. Here they were alicorns, because why not. The sun was shining brightly, exactly warm enough to be perfect, with just enough clouds to make the sky picturesque.

They romped around, enjoying the simple beauty of it, until that got boring. But that really wasn't a problem. Because all they had to do was ask, and Cherry Blossom imagined a new world for them. And so they dreamed sweet dreams, scary dreams, funny dreams, adventurous dreams, and even an occasional educational dream.

Mirror spread his wings wide, settling into a glide as he finally spotted the wagon with his own eyes. Drifting down, he came in to join Wind Chaser, null and I, just as we crested the final hill. Down below us stood a massive, busy, bridge crossing the narrow channel of water, and beyond that the towering skyline of Manehattan.

[You're sure you're ready for this, Mirror? It's going to be dangerous. Whoever we're dealing with here has no qualms about killing to get what they want,] I asked him.

[Yes, I'm sure. I'm willing to risk my life at my king's side. You've done so much for me already, for all of us. I have no regrets,] he said. [So to steal a quote from one of your memories.. 'Let's get dangerous!']

I wanted to laugh at that, I really did. But my heart was too heavy with the reality of it all. At least there was one good thing. If we did perish in the days ahead, at least the scattered seeds of my kingdom would survive.

Author's Note

And thus concludes this arc. Tune in later for the next arc!

The next chunk is likely to be more adventurous, as the Itinerant King finally gets to live his dream of being Batman! Or something like that.