“I swear,” Covert Tale said to herself, “it feels like somepony is following me.” Not that Covert would mind having somepony follow her home. A big, strong stallion, maybe, just needing to get the name of that strangely alluring mare who’d caught his eye at the little bistro, desperate to only get to know her, perhaps even then a short snu-
“There you are! Found you, found you, fooooound you” came a sudden flash of yellow-on-charcoal interruption, tearing asunder the daydream before it could hardly get started. Covert very nearly jumped clean out of her disguise. Said near-blur was carrying a saddlebag stuffed with vegetables. Emotions may power their magic, but food powered their bodies. Covert Tale’s own saddlebag carried sheets of paper and a fresh typewriter ribbon. She had been lucky, the office supply shop gave her a discount for being such a good repeat customer.
The changeling, a joyling to be specific, was once again skipping about without any form of form beyond her own bubbling enthusiasm. Niche was one of Queen Ebullience’s… somethings. Covert didn’t really understand Niche’s hive role well. A changeling free to act on her own, but still a full-fledged member of Joy Hive, instead of an independent individual? She had decided that Joy Hive and its Queen were just weird. Covert Tale had made the probably-a-mistake of renting a spare room to the overly perky joyling. Her new room mate (and self-declared best friend) was, somehow, able to not only belay the local population’s fear of her changeling-ness, but had even been accepted by the population-at-large.
Covert Tale wish she knew how to do that. She had opened a small bookstore, above which she lived, and had even had a few of her romance novels published, but she simply couldn’t connect very well with those around her. She longed for companionship. Thankfully, nopony knew that she-
“So, I was thinking, Covie, what about grilled asparagus for dinner, huh? Do you like that? or maybe steamed, with butter, oooh, that’d be good,” Niche continued. It seemed as if she had been speaking the whole time while Covert was lost in thought.
“Um, yeah that’d be fine, Niche.” Dinner wasn’t high on Covert’s list of priorities at the moment.
“Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll make it with loooooooove,” Niche finished, with an over-exaggerated wink and a slightly-too-forceful nudge to the ribs.
“Niche, stop that! No one knows-” but once again, and as usual, Covert was unable to finish her sentence before Niche piped up again.
“Oh, pfffft, Everypony knows! I knows, you knows, the dog knows. You nap on the bench all the time, right?”
“Um, right…” Covert continued to listen now, curious as to just where the yellow-maned joyling intended to take this particularly odd conversational road.
“And you’re a terrible infiltrator, right?” Niche held a hoof out, as if trying to lead Covert to something. maybe even to make her drink.
Covert harrumphed a bit, ears down, biting her lip. “Erm, right, thanks for the reminder.” Covert wasn’t, apparently, thirsty.
Niche giggled. “Sorry, sorry. Aaaaaaaaanyway, You should know, you can’t hold your form when you’re asleep at alllllll.”
Covert blanched, a sickening feeling tightening her stomach. She had made a habit of reading a book and taking a nap in the wonderfully warm afternoon sun on the bench on the front porch of her shop, shortly after opening said shop. Could it be possible? Could the ponies know she was a-
“So anyway, for a side, I was thinking carrots? I still have some joy-infused butter, that’d be good. maybe a-”
It was Covert’s turn to interrupt as she dragged Niche off the walkway and into an alley, between the greengrocer and the apothecary. “N-no, you’re joking again, right? Aren’t you?”
“Absolutely not! I have a whole tub of it!”
Covert used every ounce of willpower she possessed to avoid striking herself with her hoof, square in the forehead. “No, you silly muggins, about… about them knowing about me?”
“Oh, that? Yeah, of course they know.”
Covert Tale thought she might have a heart attack.
“Ummmmm, Covie, are you okay? You look as pale as a fearling in clown make-up.”
“Oh nooooooooo! They’ll run me out of town for sure, or worse!” Covert glanced about, knowing that a mob was surely already forming, maybe in the very next alleyway, or starting at the courthouse as written tradition dictated, like in Mare Shell’s Frankenhoof! Covert, in an almost absurd mental side-note, tried to remember where the local windmills were, so as to avoid them in her escape route.
“That’s silly.” Niche waved her holed hoof about, ‘pushing’ the thought through the air as if it meant absolutely nothing at all.
The panicking author stared at the irreverent joyling in disbelief. “Wh-what?”
“If they were gonna run you out of town, why would old Mrs. Clouds pull your blanket up over you when it’s cold, or Ocean Pinch put your bookmark in for you? Or Doctor Wall, he stopped and checked on you when you fell off the bench but kept sleeping that time? That was funny, by the way.” Niche giggled in memory.
“They… they did that?” Mrs. Clouds and Ocean Pinch were her neighbors, and Doctor Wall ran a clinic across the street.
“You betcha, they sure do!” Niche nodded her head up and down rapidly. “Everypony thinks it’s cute how you try to keep up the disguise, and hide it so poorly.”
“C-cute?” Covert blushed, suddenly finding herself on the cusp of another one of her daydreams.
“Oh, yeah, All the other ponies smile when they see you napping. You should get out more, get to know them. I love ponies. They’re alway finding something to take joy in. You should too!”
Covert stared at her effervescent room-mate. Ponies always did have a smile for her, and if they knew, and still smiled when they browsed her shop. Covert smiled a bit. Maybe it took finding her roommate to make her realize it; maybe in finding her roommate, she really had found her niche.
