"There's one!" Vicious felt the thing but although it had the signature of the other parasites, it felt odd.

Muffins beamed. "Bringing it here, Gel, be ready." The power of the derpy alicorn flared and a unicorn mare was suddenly in their midst. Her first reaction was to raise a protective shield.

"What… no!" The mare looked around at the cabal of very powerful ponies. "Please don't hurt us!"

Gel's quick movement was held back by the shield, but not for long as with so many powerful alicorns in the room magic would not save the creature. But something tickled his thoughts. "Wait, you speak?"

"Yes! Please, we haven't harmed ourselves!" The mare looked terrified but had focused on Gel as the biggest threat. "We had to run away, our brothers… they are horrible!"

The denouncement got even Muffins' attention and she stepped up. "Then what have you done with the mare you inhabit? Destroyed her mind and self?" The gray alicorn clopped a hoof down.

"What? No, I couldn't… they tried to make me and we ran…" The mare shank down on trembling hooves. A slightly different cast took her features. "He hasn't hurt me, he just wants to live."

"Who are thee and who is he?" Luna stepped up closer, more than a little intrigued.

The mare's features shifted again to stark terror. "We don't have names, not like Starry has a name." The features shifted again to resigned and fearful. "My name is Starry Field, please don't kill him yet, he hasn't done anything wrong… well, he did bond to me, but I don't want to hold that against him! They can't even think properly until they bond… it gets a little confusing, he has a lot of memories that are hard to follow, but he deserves a chance!"

The surprise for the ponies was Vicious, who trotted up and stood before the mare, facing the assorted alicorns and changelings. "You took a chance on me, I… I don't know why I feel it, but I think we should give him a chance, listen to him… her…"

Celestia smiled at this. "I ask you two things, one, do not make more of your kind and two, you will allow Gel to reside within the mare with you, at all times. On these conditions I will allow you sanctuary."

Gel looked from Celestia to Starry, tilting his head and waiting for the reply.

"He… he can kill my kind in the blink of an eye… I… I accept." It was that terrified voice, but there was the slightest burr of hope. "Just please don't end me unless I give you good cause to…"

The gooplicate, small as a foal, waited for the mare to lie down. Gel pressed his nose to Starry's plot and pushed forward, working himself into her. Her frame was a very lean one, long and dainty of leg, and so he took care to thin himself to more manageable proportions. Squirming and wriggling, enough of him was outside her to hear the mare start to pant and feel her tremble.

The surprise for Gel was waiting at the mare's cervix, it was already stretched and held open by a pair of long tendrils. A welcome but an odd one. He slipped forward, flowing into the mare's uterus, curling up into the shape of a little foal and slipped his conscious focus back to the part of him that was wrapping Muffins' torso.

"Okay, he is inside us and… he seems dormant." Starry looked around the assorted royalty. "I guess we have a story to tell."

"A story would be a good start." Celestia sat down, a sign for the others to follow suit.

Starry Field had been having a wonderful day. Her little stall selling false futures to ponies eager to hear such things made her enough bits and nopony took her too seriously. But the latest mare to enter her tent was something else entirely. "Hello and welcome to Starry Stories! For two bits I can tell your future, past or divine your one true love!" Starry began her usual catchcall.

"I need… mare…" The pony looked very distracted, almost to the point of worrying Starry.

The unicorn 'mystic' didn't judge. "Of course I can tell you what your ideal mare would be like, but first you need to tell me a little about yourself and…" Starry reached and jiggled the little glass with a few bits in it, her morning take so far.

What happened shocked the mystic mare. The other pony jumped at her, landing atop her back and bearing her into the ground. "What are you-" Starry's voice cut off and she opened her mouth to scream but another pony had slipped into her tent and shoved a hoof in her mouth. Something was poking around her plot and, worse, she felt the strange thing push into her!

Starry whined and struggled, her mind too disgusted and terrified to bring her magic to bear, she felt the thing work deeper and deeper, her terror rising right up to the point where she felt the oddest of tingles in her head and then, another presence was there, with her. The first sentiment the mare got, from the thing that had forcefully bonded to her was, "Oh what have I done?"

It felt all kinds of strange to hear another voice in your head, to feel new thoughts floating around and, more astoundingly, to have new memories. "What… what are you?" She tried to say the words, but the thing that had invaded her body discovered them even before they were muffled by her attackers.

"Please, I didn't mean to… I… this is horrible, they want me to kill your memories…" The creature could sense its kin, it could feel their desires and wishes, it was horrified. "I won't, please, we need to get away from them!"

This was a sentiment Starry loved the idea of and, strange parasite living in her or not, she agreed with this new voice. "I can't do much until they let me up, but when they do we run, okay?" She didn't get a thought back in answer, but the feeling of total agreement made her smile. It wasn't so bad if the thing inside her wanted to get away from the bad things just as much as she did. The hoof came from her mouth first, then the weight eased up and she got to shaky legs. Starry smiled sweetly and kicked the main pole out of the tent.

It was chaos, the two attackers were weighted down by the heavy tent and, although Starry was as well, she at least had been in this situation before. Years of dealing with the worst tent design ever gave her the edge, literally. Starry stuffed her head under the bottom of the tent and squirmed out. Her morning take was inside, but all that interested her was getting away. "I can help, you use your magic to slow them, I will keep us running." The voice in her head suggested something odd but right now the day was past odd and well into completely messed up. She relaxed her legs and they kept pounding the stones of the market.

Starry turned her head and saw the two ponies getting out of the tent and used her magic to pull the thing back over them. "Gotcha!" She laughed and turned back to find her new friend had brought her to the station. "We going…"

"Away, nothing will stop them, we need to leave!" The voice was insistent and Starry felt a tugging inside herself. She planted her hooves and stopped.

"Wait, you said you were better than them." She was speaking out loud, ponies were looking strangely at the crazy mare. Starry didn't care. "So prove it, let me decide."

There was a tremble within Starry's mind but it settled. "You are right. I just… their thoughts and ideas spill out to each other, to me. I really don't like them and… I wasn't joking, they will destroy this city in days, we should leave."

"I don't like just running but… I am just a little unicorn, this is the kind of thing we need the Elements of Harmony for… lets go." Starry closed her eyes and thought nice things toward her companion, who seemed to accept them in the spirit given.

"You could have come to the castle." Celestia's chastisement was light, however. The mare was right, she was just a single pony and would likely have been thought crazy until events were sparked up anyway. "But I think you carry no malice, either of you. But you carry potential for it. Do you believe any of your… offspring, would have a similar view to you, or your less-nice brethren?"

"We don't know." Starry looked back at herself, her belly had a slight bump to it, having two passengers now. "He… I… we," Starry gave a deep sigh, resigning herself to the 'we', "we just don't. We could test it, but if they turn out like the others… that would be bad!"

Muffins twitched and felt Gel flowing up and over her head. The mare relaxed and smiled. "There is a way… it would require some work but I think I could provide a pony body, empty of thoughts, memories and, above all, it wouldn't endanger anypony." Gel stretched Muffins smile wider.

"And just how would you do this?" It wasn't Celestia, Luna, Muffins or either of the changeling queens. Starry looked at him with mixed hope and trepidation. "I can't imagine how you could even try to… what? Why are you smiling?"

"Because you have reservations." Gel smiled at the mare with Muffins' features. "You are going to need to come back to Ponyville with us, I think we can leave the fine city to its inhabitants for now?" With that, Gel flowed back down and, to Muffins' giggling delight, slipped inside her completely and gave her belly a slight bulge.

Hope, real hope dawned on Starry's face and none present were sure if it was her passenger, her own, or both. "So Ponyville? Is it nice there? I heard it was nice there…" Starry smiled, finding it a little reassuring that the stallion was taking her to his home.

The train ride was normal and about as mundane as could be. Muffins' presence on the train sparked a few ponies to talk but none realized the really strange thing was Starry and her own passenger. The train slowly pulled in at Ponyville, the first stop on a long trip out to the edges of the empire.

"Here we are and look, Gel is waiting for us." Muffins pointed out the window at the dark changeling form waiting on the platform.

Starry ruffled her silver-highlighted dark mane. "He really is something… what… what is he?" The fact that the mare had part of him inside her was a bit complicated an idea, but it made her want to get to know him. Particularly since he seemed nice, despite being… well, he had destroyed all the other parasites quite handily.

"A changeling, from what he has told me Chrysalis made him the way he is and from what we know all his changeling energy focuses on keeping him that way. I don't really know what his plan is, but if he thinks it can work, it probably can. He is a clever stallion and adorable." Muffins got up and lifted the huge bag of bakery goods she had brought back with her. She might feed partly on ponies now, but muffins were muffins, and for Muffins, they were the best food to sink her new fangs into by far.

"Muffins!" Gel was quick to greet his mare as she got off the train, hugging her and even twitching a little inside her. "Want me to hop out now?"

Muffins flushed a little and squirmed. "Not just yet, I like having you close." She nipped his shoulder and trotted past. "How is the castle? How is Twilight?"

Starry blinked, the pair were practically… wait, were they? "Uh, excuse me? I… are you… well…"
Gel looked to Muffins, got a look back that confirmed how she felt. "We are, Muffins is my mare, I am her stallion." Gel felt good to say it, he loved the look Muffins gave him when he did.

"But you live at the castle? With Princess Twilight Sparkle?" Starry sounded a little confused still. "Are you her guards?"

"It's complicated, lets go and see her, bringing you, both of you, into her town requires that at least." Gel walked with Starry at his side, he knew that as far as spreading was concerned, she was safe. But if the parasite within her decided to get nasty, how long would he have to notice and save the poor mare. "Please don't ever hurt her."

"Hurt who? The Princess?" Starry looked a touch confused but a big black hoof came out and booped her on the nose. "Oh… well, we hadn't planned to… we like Starry, she is nice…"

"She is, and I want to keep her that way." Gel looked at the mare as he walked. "So just… yeah it sounds lame, but please don't hurt anypony, I hated the look on those poor mares, empty…"

Gel felt it then, the tentacles of the parasite reach for him within the mare's womb, he was ready for an attack, but got a hug. Starry blinked a few times and smiled. "We like it when we are happy… I am a pretty poor example of my species, we are meant to destroy and dominate and we end up falling in love…" Starry suddenly looked very surprised, her eyes widening.

"I almost wish I could hear the conversation going on in your head right now. I bet it will be most enlightening. You speak of love, but you still invaded her body against her will." Gel opened the door to the castle, leading the way inside.

"I… we… I… couldn't really think, before I bonded with Starry. All instinct and reaction. It wasn't until I had linked us that I could even think and…" Gel watched the mare's features subtly change, "and then it was too late, he had bound to me." There was emotion in the words that the changeling was sure that Starry was speaking, none of the emotions were regret. It made him smile a little.

"Oh, you are back, where is Muffins?" Twilight trotted out to greet Gel, leaning in and hugging him, giving the stallion a kiss on the cheek. She spared a glance to the perfectly ordinary mare beside him. "And who is this?"

"The Princess as well?" Starry couldn't help it, the words tumbled from her mouth. "Are you making some kind of herd?"

Twilight blushed at this but it was Gel who shook his head. "Sort of? Not really? I love Twilight and Muffins, both are very important in my life…"

"But you are all together?" The mare gestured back behind them vaguely in a Muffins direction, and at Twilight.

"Not really." The blushing alicorn finally got a hook on her emotions. "I like Muffins, she is a fun mare, but not really the… well, herd thing."

It was clear his mare was floundering in how to handle the questions but Gel thought she was doing quite well. "So what we are is happy, we sometimes have friends visit, or we visit them, but I try to make sure I come home to Twilight, and Muffins." Gel gave Twilight a kiss again, this time a brief one on the lips.

"So, who have you brought home, Gel?" Twilight smiled to the innocent, although very questioning, mare.

"This is Starry Field, she is a clever unicorn who worked telling stories to ponies in Canterlot. Inside her," Gel watched as Twilight's attention was gained by this, "is the friendliest of a parasitic species that was trying its hardest to take over every mare in Canterlot. Now," Gel had to lift a hoof to stop Twilight from entering panic mode, "while 'friendliest' could mean 'not immediately trying to destroy everypony they meet', in this case it means genuinely friendly."

Twilight just blinked at this, not quite sure how to react.

"Hi?" Starry smiled up at the alicorn, her mind relaxing a little and letting her other half take over. "They… we… really are as nasty as we sound, if you ever meet another of me… well, I would suggest asking Gel to kill it…"

Author's Note

Okay, we took a bit of a long route to get here, but the chapter's main element is now established and we have a new character... well, two characters really. Say hello to Starry Field and her special friend.

And having a new pony around, an inquisitive new pony, means some questions can get put in, as the characters try and explain their relationship to her.

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