The normal parade of happy and friendly ponies had an interruption. Please struggled to lift her head and gaze up at the floor above her. Inquisitiveness and greed flowed through the mare and she tilted her head. "I wonder who that is?"

"I could go check?" Cuddle lifted her head. The mare stuck in the basement was much nicer to her than Slice, and curling up at her side was more comfortable than the softest of beds.

Please blinked at the filly a few times, before a wash of green fire swirled around her and a cute little unicorn with no cutie mark was standing there. She looked so normal to Please that the former pegasus fought against her restraints to pull her into a hug. "Remember what I said?"

"If it is a big changeling stallion, tell them everything as fast as I can. If it is a big mare that looks a little like a changeling, do the same." Cuddle recited what she had been told and hugged the trapped mare back. "I'll be careful."

With an extra squeeze from both, Cuddle trotted up the stairs and pushed back the doors to the kitchen above.

Now that Please had a feel for singling out a source of emotions it had become a little uncanny that both Cuddle and Slice were just blank, empty. She knew the filly wasn't. "Maybe changelings can't feel changelings…"

Upstairs, Cuddle looked at the stallion her 'father' was chatting with in the living room. "Here is my little angel now." Slice turned to look at her, giving her a glare the moment the visitor couldn't see his features.

"Hi!" Cuddle studied the new stallion, definitely not a changeling, not that she would be able to identify one if they were disguised. "Oh daddy, I was just playing and I heard you talking."

"A perfect little darling." Caballeron gave the least sincere smile anypony had ever seen. "As I was saying, I was trying to find my good friend, Daring Do. The mayor said she is staying here?"

"'Was'," Slice smiled back, "a quiet pony, barely said two words. Got a letter and had to leave really suddenly."

The description set off Caballeron's alarm bells, the Daring Do he knew was anything but quiet. "Ah, such a shame, I did so wish to meet with her." He knew a liar when he saw one, he was one himself. This stank of something but he wasn't sure what. "If she happens to return," Caballeron lifted his hoof to ward off any false reassurances that she wouldn't, "please, give her this." He held out a bag. It was full of a special magical dust that would let him, with the magical Map of Everseek, find the target.

Slice almost crowed, hoping that the bag contained something valuable. "I can do that. No promises of course." He took the bag and resisted the temptation to open it.

Caballeron noticed something out of the corner of his eye. The little filly's foreleg wasn't the same light-violet as the rest of her. It was pitch black, and had holes in it. The small pony held her other hoof up to her snout, motioning for silence but, and it hurt Caballeron to admit it, her expression was making him want to grab her and drag her away. A puff of green flame surrounded the leg and it was back to normal again, so fast that he had to wonder if he had seen it at all. "No rest for the whickered." He stood up.

Rising smoothly, Slice hadn't noticed Cuddle's deception, he was so focused on what was in the bag. It felt soft, so it wasn't bits. Although it still could be gold dust or something. "Oh, oh yes. And I promise, if I see that pegasus again, I will give her this." Slice beamed at his clever promise, he hadn't even lied.

Trotting outside, Caballeron cast one last look back into the house, seeing a measure of real panic and fear on the filly's face before the door closed. "Doctor Caballeron, you fool, you horrible fool." He strode toward the castle he could see in the distance.

Fleur had a contact in the town she would have to meet before proceeding further. The problem was, the last forwarding address for her was a cloud-house. Deciding to try the obvious first, the unicorn slipped into her prancing trot and headed for the previous home. Heads turned as she walked and Fleur felt she was being given her proper amount of looks. Stepping up to the little house near the middle of town, she lifted a carefully hooficured limb and clopped lightly on the door.

"Are you looking for Muffins?" Fleur spun and saw a little filly with the most amazingly colored wings.

"I am. Those wings are gorgeous, who painted them for you?" Fleur was quite taken and watched as the filly spread them so she could see better.

"Uh, they grew like that. You were looking for Muffins, weren't you?" Scootaloo was blushing at all the attention.

Smiling widely, the unicorn struck a little pose. "Of course, we were in the same school as fillies and I just had to catch up with her. I have a photo shoot nearby."

"A photo shoot? What's that?" Scootaloo was intrigued now, the pretty mare seemed nice and it was always interesting to meet new ponies. "And she is living with her wife, Rainbow Dash." It had been hard for the filly, to see her 'big sister' so taken with another pony, but Scootaloo couldn't deny how much happier Dash had been since they had become a couple.

"Rainbow Dash? The—Rainbow Dash?" This was news, and Fleur's eyes were wide. "I would never have thought my derpy friend would aim so high! Where are they? I must congratulate her!"

"I could fly up and see if they are home?" Scootaloo smiled, enjoying the adult attention, this pony treated her like she was a grown mare and it did nothing but spark her confidence.

"If you could? That would be wonderful!" Fleur gave a little hop of delight, it never hurt to let your emotion show when it was useful. "Tell her Fleur Dis Lee is here."

Fleur didn't have long to wait, the filly was nothing if not fast with her flight. Scootaloo winged down and came to a landing before the unicorn. "They aren't home, you could try up at the castle, they foalsit for Princess Twilight a lot. I can show you up there!"

Without waiting for her to reply, the filly had spun around and was trotting toward the clearly visible castle on the edge of town. "That would be great." Fleur sighed happily, enjoying the foal's excitement as she started prancing along. "A lot of things have changed lately here. I heard a windigo attacked, a whole swarm of changelings… and then the Princess had foals."

Scootaloo looked over her shoulder and up, grinning. "Yeah, but we have the best ponies here to deal with things. And when there are real problems The Tree helps us!"

"A tree helps you? What do you mean?" Fleur felt she was missing something, she hadn't been keeping meticulous attention on the little town, but now she was starting to think she should.

"Not 'a tree', The Tree!" Scootaloo did a little dance, flapping her wings and sending a spark of music out into the plant-link. "We ate her seeds, they grew inside us and she protects us now."

This certainly didn't sound like the folly of a foal, it sounded like something really strange was happening. "Well, that is nice…"

"You don't believe me. It's okay, but you could ask Muffins, she knows about it." Scootaloo had found herself unconsciously copying the unicorn's prance and, as she stepped into the open doors of the castle she almost trotted right into Rainbow Dash. "Dash!"

"Hey Scoots!" Rainbow reached out one of her wings to hug the filly. "You're getting bigger, how are those wings doing?"

The filly bounced up and down excitedly. "I can do all the patterns in the book you gave me, but now I need somepony to fly with me!" Scootaloo's implication was obvious.

"I might be able to get some time off." Rainbow found herself leaning in and nuzzling the filly's neck. It wasn't something she had ever done before, but lately she had been looking at foals and even bigger fillies and colts with a whole new set of eyes.

"Great!" Scootaloo reached up to the mare and gave her a hug back. "You're the best, Rainbow Dash."

"You got that right!" Rainbow was lifting her hoof to get a bro-hoof from the filly when she heard a gasp behind her. She turned her head. "What's wro-" She didn't get the question out.

"Fleur!" Muffins flew forward like an alicorn-shaped missile, wrapping forelegs and wings around the leggy unicorn mare. "You got it done at last?" She gave her friend a look, nodding. "You look great!"

Looking a touch embarrassed and more than a little panicked, Fleur blushed and nodded. "I don't really like to talk about it, I was here for… uh…" She looked at the two pegasi intently following their reunion. "Well, it is a little private…"

Muffins' eyes rolled to the sides, then slid back straight on and the unicorn nodded to her. "Righty-o!" Turning back to Rainbow Dash, she leaned in and kissed her wife. "Sorry, secret stuff."

Rainbow Dash knew her wife had been, well, a spy. But this was in the present, very much 'now'. "Uh, sure Muffy." She looked at the alicorn sternly. "If you need help, you call me, okay?" The blue mare was wrapped in wings and forelegs, hugged tight by her wife. "Muffins! Too tight!"

Fleur waited for the two pegasi to wander off together before turning her attention back to her 'friend'. "Muffins, I am on a mission."

Daring Do swung from the rope-like vines, she would have flown but then her wings would get tangled in the plants. "This isn't right!" She had said the words an uncountable number of times. "It worked too well, he isn't here…"

The ground she landed on opened up to reveal a pit filled with water… and crocodiles. "I like this less than when he is following me constantly." Daring flapped her wings a little more, getting out of 'snapping' range of the reptiles.

"One, one, two, three…" The pegasus sang a number set the pony tribes in the south of Equestria loved, hopping on only the stones with the right numbered glyphs. "But if he isn't here, that means… Caballeron… you better not be hurting my sister!"

Daring's hoof reached out, grabbing the priceless relic from the little pedestal. The huge stone that started to roll toward her was almost completely ignored as she took to her wings and started out a hole in the ceiling. "Don't worry, Please, I am going to save you!"

The emotions in the strange pony upstairs swapped for an instant to surprise, then calmed down to almost nothing. Please was so startled by it that she lost her balance and fell sideways. A crack sounded from her belly when she landed a little hard. "What was that…" She looked between her forelegs to see the goop that had hardened and sealed her into the shell had cracked.

The hope that bloomed in the mare warred with happiness and stirrings of protectiveness. If she could get out of this heavy thing she could get to the Prince and warn him of the viper living in the town. Rolling to her back and kicking, Please lost track of the goings-on upstairs and was trying to squirm and get free.

"It needs to crack more." Slice was standing at the top of the stairs, watching the mare struggle. "You need to hit it with a hoof, hard." Striding down he approached the trapped pony and lifting a hoof, brought it down sharply on the belly of the carapace.

Please heard a louder crack, and saw as a much larger portion had split. "You know, even when you get out, you can't go back to your friends. You know what they do to changelings, right?" The mare was a touch confused, surely this drone hadn't managed to miss all the recent history involving changelings? "They will beat you, they will starve you, you have noling to turn to but me."

The mare's hoof seemed to suck at the vacuum between it and the shell, but she managed to pull it up and out of the hard carapace. Using the leverage to pull her other back leg up, she adjusted them and pushed down at that crack, driving her limbs free. "I… I guess so…" Please was a lawyer, she could lie well enough to make a living from it. "So what do we do? Are we trying to get our own little herd of ponies together to… to farm?"

Slice's eyes opened wide, the 'ling grinning. "I like the way you think. But no, we are lying low here, the last town we were in was… a touch hostile." He produced the bag. "A friend of yours came by, said he had a gift for you." The changeling drone opened the bag he carried, and sneezed. "What is this?" His snout was covered in the dust.

Author's Note

What is this? Caballeron not portrayed as a one-dimensional mockery of a villain? I must be crazy!

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