The zebras have a tale, of a scorpion and a frog. The frog is to carry the scorpion across a river, and the scorpion is not to sting the frog, for to do so is to doom itself as surely as it is its companion. And yet the scorpion stings nonetheless; such is its nature.
My name is Pale Reflection, and I have been a Pegasus baker named Hay Culture for thirty-four months. In that time I have worked in a bakery, bought a house in Canterlot, and met and married the love of my life.
Know this: I loved him. I love him still, with every fiber of my being, and I will love him until the day I die. I want that written on my headstone, or in my obit, in the hangsmare’s register. For all that I have done, I loved him.
It was not a perfect life we lived, but we were content, me to bake and him to smith, him to love and me to feed, and it might have gone on forever, or at least a few more years. But then my Queen came to Canterlot, with callow dreams of conquest and the end of our bitter hunger, and failed. Suddenly it was no longer safe to be a changeling living among ponies, for all I never raised a hoof in Chrysalis’ Folly.
Bent Nail loved me as I loved him, deeply and completely. No, I do not lie, I do not hyperbolize, I know and knew his love like you closed-minds never can, could never dream of! The gentle smile when he thought I wasn’t looking, the simple meals by candlelight those few chances we could, all are merely a distraction from the knowing. Perhaps I helped it along here or there at the beginning, like a new lover would buy her stallion gifts of a romantic dinner, but by the time we took our vows he and I were mirrors in eros. Leaving was never an option.
I couldn’t not tell him. Not after the attack. Not with what it might mean for him and what it would surely mean for me. And besides, he loved me, I knew he loved me, I could feel it. So when he stood frozen in shock, backed away in disbelief, I did not worry. I knew he loved me. When he confronted me, demanded his wife back from the vile changeling, I hesitated, but I could still feel his dedication. When I told him it had always been me and only me, I did so with trepidation, but as he broke into tears, his love never wavered. It was when he rose to strike me, his love still shining like a star, that I knew I had to act.
I put him to sleep, a simple spell, and made ready to leave with him beside me. We would start anew, a home in the countryside, just as soon as he awoke with a calmer head. I just had to wait for him.
But this was the first time I’d used my magic in years, and suddenly I was ravenous. Love, freely given, had been enough when hidden, but all I could think of in that moment was him and the shining star in his heart. I should have waited, every unicorn in Canterlot knew what changeling feeding felt like now, but his love was mine, and if couldn’t have it then I would take it. There was no choice at all.
You know what happened next. You were there when I came out of the feeding trance. You were there when he was pronounced dead on arrival. You’ll be there tomorrow when I join him. Just, please, write it down somewhere, let someone know, don’t let think think I was a monster. I loved him.
And the scorpion stung the frog, as was its nature, and they both floated down to be hung by the neck until death, and the tombstone and obit and hangmare’s book went under the rushing waves with them, and not one word of love graced the tombstone, and not one word of the obit was ever printed, and not one word was in the book but names and dates and numbers, and together with a changeling corpse were all swept downriver together into the endless trackless ocean to be forgotten.
