Things Are Rarely as They Seem

Chapters

One Dark Knight
There's a Changeling in my Barn
The Book
Bad Dreams
Mother Knows Best
Pale Moonlight
Chores for a Changeling
Honest Work
The Request
To Start a Garden
The Glade
Drinks Between Friends
An Odd Awakening
Eyes of Red
Nightmare Night
The Harvest
Snowfall
Of Changelings and Ponies
Love
Nightmare's End
Come the Spring
Crashing Down
A New Kind of Change
Recovery
Farewell
The Fiendish Minds of Fillies

One Dark Knight

The moon, full and bright, showed over the land as the stars surrounded it like glitter. Underneath it, amidst the dark forest just west of Canterlot, skipping along a dirt path, was a lone figure.

He was a changeling; a drone, to precise. While not much different in appearance than the rest of his kind, his dark chitinous frame and teal eyes possessed a certain liveliness to them, and he had a small chip that was indented in the front of the horn sitting on his head from an incident in the distant past. With a light green, patchwork handkerchief wrapped around his neck like a bandanna, and a small sack tied and carried at the end of a stick he held in a makeshift bindle, he danced as he trotted and occasionally fluttered in the early autumn air with his transparent, insect-like wings, happily humming a small tune to himself; enjoying the little sound that was around to blot his voice out.

"Love, love, oh love! An emotion of cheer, of mirth and merry, and spirit that raises me far above! Free am I from the iron grasp of my queen, Chrysalis, and far away from my gloom-bound swarm! Free am I to travel the world myself, and upon its contents I shall gorge!" he sang, pausing only to take a breath of air or look ahead to make sure he was still following the path. "Oh such a joy it is, to be so free! Like a little bug riding in the summer breeze! At longest last, I may partake in my own spree, and that desire is to just be me!"

Habeas Brittle was the name of this changeling, and he continued his little ditty with more skipping. Pebbles were scattered about as his hole-filled hooves clattered about and landed on the ground. It looked as though Habeas would keep this cheerful act up for the rest of the night, when the sound of a branch snapping went out from behind, breaking the quiet that came with every interval of his song like a rock against a sheet of glass. Stopping in his tracks without a second thought, he spun around to see who made the noise.

"Hello?" he asked aloud, clear enough for any beings within a fair distance to hear. His eyes scanned the dark woods for life of any sort for a good minute, but to his confusion, found nothing of interest. Only the still-green trees befell his sight, and all was still.

Shrugging, Habeas turned again to resume his journey, when he jumped back and nearly shouted in startled reaction. A figure now stood before him, several feet away, on the same path. It had a pony-shaped body, but was covered hoof-to-head in intricately-made silver armor, and held a spear of a similar color over its shoulder as Habeas himself was holding his bindle. In addition to the small black 'mane' behind the helmet, dark cloth drooped down from the armor as well, covering any spot that would have otherwise shown fur or flesh.

The only bit that the armor didn't seem to cover was the visor of its helmet, and through that, the moonlight revealed two eyes that stared at him in an intimidating leer. One of them, the right one, was of an icy blue color that conveyed nothing but cold frigidness, while the other, to the changeling's curiosity, was clouded and grey, with a clear vertical scar stretching over it like a solid streak of white.

"Um... hello, pony," Habeas began, knowing that this stranger probably thought ill of him, due to the general opinion of his kind in this land. "Please, do not be alarmed by my appearance. I am simply a traveler."

The pony (or whatever it was) made no noise, and instead moved its spear from its shoulder, shifting it into what Habeas, beyond all the haze of his sunny optimism, recognized as a combative position. Growing anxious over this being's actions, he gave a small, nervous smile that showed off his two, saber-like fangs.

"Ahem... I, um... mean you no harm, good sir," he said once more, splaying his webbed ears back uneasily. "If you'll please just let me pass-"

Before he could finish his sentence, with little warning, the knight lunged forth, brandishing its spear and shooting its barbed tip downward in an attempt to stab him and penetrate his chitinous flesh for a deathblow. Avoiding such a fate, the changeling jumped to the side, and the knight swung the spear horizontally upon landing on its own hooves, aiming for the changeling's head. Habeas only just ducked below it with a shriek of fear. Grunting, the being heaved the weapon back and prepared to jab it, but by then its prey had jumped back again, out of reach.

His horn glowing a bright green color, Habeas shot out a similarly-colored beam of balefire magic his kind was known for possessing. The knight effortlessly sidestepped the attack, allowing the small ball of green flame to impact against the ground and make a crater, and charged again, using the one hoof holding the spear to swing it horizontally once more. Before he could move, the spear's metal side hit Habeas directly in the stomach, knocking the wind completely out of him.

Habeas's hooves wrapped around the weapon as it struck him, seeing that there was no other action he could perform in his stupor. Lifting him to see how hard he clutched onto it, and with a bellow that the changeling found he could barely hear in his panic, the knight violently thrust him away with enough force to rival a manticore's might. The tip of the spear scraping over his chest painfully as he was sent flying, Habeas crashed through the trees lining the path, and immediately began to uncontrollably roll down the steep, ravine-like hill previously unseen from the dense foliage; crushing bushes, small trees, and colliding with sharp rocks in his descent.

The knight slowly walked up to the corner where Habeas had fallen with its clanking armor rattling behind it. Gazing over the edge, it saw nothing but darkness, and the sound of the changeling rolling down it had ceased. Lifting its head after a few more seconds of observation, it lifted its spear back over its shoulder and began to quietly walk away.

Screaming loudly until the rapid feeling of thin-but-coarse tree branches and thorny plants brushing and scraping over his chitinous face got him to finally close his mouth, Habeas continued to tumble down the steep hillside at a rapid pace. Then, with a final crash and thud over dirt and grass, the changeling emerged from the forest's hillock in a sagging heap. After letting a second pass, he was able to lift his head, and looked to his aching back.

His wings had been utterly shredded by the many brambles and jagged flora that littered the woods. Granted, such a wound would heal in time, the damage done was catastrophic. What had been done to his wings, however, was not the worst thing to occur to his body.

His right front leg was broken. What told him this was the way it was bent out of place, and the throbbing pang of agony that shot through his body like a jolt of lightning every time he touched it, causing him to whimper slightly in pain. Holding back the urge to cry out from how much his wounds hurt, his teal eyes shot upward in an attempt to find someplace safe that he could rest by.

As if by some miracle, once his blurred vision adjusted, he spotted the shape of a building sitting in the clearing he was at. One with a faintly red complexion in the moonlight. Without dawdling further, he picked up his (now broken and battered, but still usable) bindle in his mouth and limped toward it in a most hurried fashion, coming around to its front. After getting a firm look at it, he soon recognizing it as a barn.

Peeking at the glass windows that sat on its sides, Habeas could see there were no lights coming from within. Pushing the large door open with a creaking of old hinges, he shuffled inside and closed the door behind him with a mighty thud of wood-against-wood.

After a minute of aimless wandering through the darkened building, he found a mostly-empty stall in the far back, most likely meant for storage, and he proceeded to stumble inside of it, nearly collapsing in the process. The only objects of intrigue in it were several bales of hay, each stacked upon one another like blocks. Finding a small bed of straw, most likely formed by whatever strands of the wheat that had fallen from the bales in the past, he threw his bindle to the ground and fell onto it with little argument against such an action, and then looked to his injured leg.

Spending the next few minutes instinctively spitting a sickly green, resiny goo from his mouth onto the leg where it had been broken at the joints, it soon began to harden over the limb after Habeas had begun the taxing, painful effort of bending back into its right place.

After what felt like hours, when in reality it was no more than a few seconds, the deed was done, and Habeas let his head drop limply onto the hay that cushioned its fall, panting in exhaustion. For the longest time he drifted in-and-out of consciousness as the fiery feeling of his other wounds also began to call out for his attention, until finally, with his breathing slowing to a normal pace, he was consumed by the dreamless void of deep sleep.

Author's Note

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There's a Changeling in my Barn

Peach Blossom awoke with a mighty yawn as the first rays of dawn showed through the screen window inside of her room, hitting her eyes and parts of her light-brown body and white-tinted muzzle. She brushed her uneven, dirty blonde mane back from her face, and within meager moments filly had sprung forth from her resting spot in a burst of energy. Quickly making her bed's sheets nice and neat before making her next move, she dashed out of her room.

Running down the stairs with a hollow clop, clop, clop of her hooves on the wooden steps, Peach Blossom finally made it to the bottom floor of the living room, and walked the rest of the way from there. Rounding a final corner, she spotted a shape on the far end of the house, in the back of the kitchen.

It was her mother, Persica, and she appeared to be busy with cleaning some things in the sink in front of her. She was a sturdily-built mare with creamy brown fur and a long, chocolate-colored mane adorning the back of her neck, but at the moment it was wrapped back slightly by a blue bandanna, as to not obstruct her work. Her face was currently obscured from view, facing only the dishes.

"Good morning, Mom," Peach Blossom said in a happy voice.

"Good morning, my little Blossom," she greeted back, wiping a smudge away from another plate with the soap and foam-filled water. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Very good," the filly responded, trotting up to the right side of her parent. "You weren't home in time to tuck me in, but I still had sweet dreams."

"Oh, sorry about that, dear..." Persica apologized in a sorrowful tone, taking a split-second moment off of her work to glance her right, blue-tinted eye down at her daughter. "I got caught up out on the road again."

"You'd think the road wouldn't be so busy out here in the country, huh?" Peach Blossom inquired with a smirk.

"They can be a bit more busy than you think," the mare chuckled, placing another dish on the drying rack. "I left your breakfast on the table."

"Thanks!" Peach Blossom said wholeheartedly, jumping up to kiss Persica on the cheek. She grinned again before dashing off to the dining room. Persica smiled to herself as she heard her daughter grab the cup of orange juice and the plate of sliced peaches and buttered toast, plop them onto her back, and hum an earworm to herself as she made her way toward the door to the house with the delectable meal. Not a few seconds after she had left, Persica busily returned to wiping the last of the plates and pans. Being a single mother with several entire acres of land to take care of, there was a lot of work to be done in the day.

Outside, Peach Blossom trotted merrily along. She loved to go out into the nearby barn and eat her breakfast on lovely days like this, when the sun was shining brightly and everything was peaceful. As she went on her little journey, careful of the glass plate and cup bobbing up-and-down on her back in a steady rhythm, she looked out to the peach tree orchard that covered most of the land beside her and her mother's house, admiring how the rays of the rising sun pierced through the leaves, leaving specks of brightness on the otherwise shaded grass below them.

Turning her head forward again, she soon arrived at her destination. The barn, red and large as it always was, was her favorite place to eat breakfast because of the way the morning sun's beams shined through the rafters in a tranquil and calm, yet at the same time beautiful and wondrous display. With a huff and puff of air, she pushed one of the doors open with a loud groan of the hinges connecting to it, and made her way inside, instantly sending her gaze upward when the task was accomplished. Through minuscule cracks in the walls and ceiling, she could see hints of a cloud of dust looming above from the sunlight showing through, causing her to sigh in amusement. Setting her plate and cup down, the filly sat down and rubbed her hooves together in preparation to enjoy her meal.

Picking up one of the slices of buttered toast, Peach Blossom was about to take her first large bite from it, when she heard a small, but clear commotion coming from behind. She knew it was no mouse scampering about, nor the wind blowing through the aged wood of the building's walls, for what she heard was a vivid crunching of hay. And the second it graced her ears she spun her head around and spotted where the sound had originated from; to a stall in the back. Putting her toast back down onto the plate, she slowly got to her legs and approached the stall.

The first thing she spotted in her approach of the compartment was the sight of something that looked vaguely like a... tail. Quietly, she grew closer and closer, going around until she had full view of the entire, utterly alien being lying within, limp as a feather on a pile of dry, dull-golden hay.

The slumbering creature she saw had the shape of a pony, but it was most definitely not one. It possessed no flesh or fur, just a hard carapace of armor-like chitin, not unlike what one would see on a bug. Its hooves were riddled with holes, and its 'mane' and ears looked webbed and pointy, like a fish's fins. It also looked like it had a horn on its head and a nasty pair of fangs adorning its mouth, but the filly didn't find them to be too threatening. Seeing him not moving, Peach Blossom lifted her hoof and sharply poked him on the side out of pure, unrefined curiosity.

Habeas felt the prod, and awoke fully within the span of about thirty seconds. Groggily mumbling to himself, he blinked his teal, compound eyes tiredly several times, and looked in the direction where he saw something's outline taking up the most space of his view. Once his eyes adjusted and the figure was as clear as it ever would be, his eyes shot open and his entire face went blank, as though he had a sword pointed at his throat.

Peach Blossom simply seemed amused by his reaction to seeing her. "Hi!" she greeted him.

Habeas didn't move a muscle when he registered the words. For what seemed like the longest time, he just stared into the pony's own green eyes. And like a mirror that conveyed the opposite emotion of the one who beheld it, she stared back, her grin still wide and brimming with energy and pent-up excitement only a child could express. Her brow soon curled in a questioning way, and she spoke again.

"Can you talk?"

"Uh... Y-yes," Habeas finally responded in a stutter. Moving himself again, to get a better spot on the hay he sat on, he grunted as he felt the tenderness of his battered body. "Hi, I guess..."

"You look injured. Are you okay?" the filly then gasped, spotting the wounds Habeas possessed as he unintentionally showed off the injured joint in his leg and what little remained of the wings on his back. Peach Blossom had never seen such wings before, but she knew that the tattered things they resembled were not supposed to look like that.

"Yes, I'm hurt," he replied, bluntly. "I got attacked by a stranger last night as I was walking along the road, and whoever it was made me break my leg and hurt my wings in a fall. Sorry if I'm taking up space here..."

"Oh, it's fine." Peach Blossom flicked her hoof easily. "We just use this place to store any hay bales we might need and farming equipment. I like to come here to see the way the sun shines through the ceiling. You're free to use it, if you want."

"Well... thanks," he said sincerely. No sooner had he spoken those words, his nose caught a familiar, sweet scent that made him realize his stomach was rumbling. Looking to the side, a short distance away, he saw it was coming from the plate she brought in.

That food on the plate was practically radiating love from it. It must be made with love, thought the changeling, noticing how his pangs increased the moment his eyes spied it. With a pleading expression overtaking his face, he turned back to the filly.

"Your food looks yummy," he spoke aloud. "Would it be alright if... maybe I had some of it? I was supposed to be in the next town by now, where I could get food there, but after what happened last night..."

"Um, sure!" Peach Blossom agreed, knowing he needed it more than she did. Pushing the plate and cup of orange juice to him, she gestured for him to have as much of it as he wanted. Habeas eyed its contents carefully, not being too much a fan of tangible foods, especially fruit, but he accepted it either way. Using his good front hoof, he brought the plate and cup up to himself.

"My name's Peach Blossom," Peach Blossom said as he grabbed and took a bite from the toast. "Who, and what, are you?"

"I'm a changeling. I presume you haven't met any before, unsurprisingly," he murmured. "And my name's Habeas. Habeas Brittle."

"'Changeling'?" Peach Blossom questioned. "My mom's told me stories about changelings. She's always said that they're evil monsters that will suck the love right out of you without a second thought. You seem nice enough, though, Mr. Brittle."

She suddenly gave Habeas a more cautious look. "You aren't like that... right?"

"Me? Nah..." he started, before shifting another peach slice into his mouth. After chewing it and swallowing, he continued, "We changelings do eat love, yes, and many of us serve our queen in a way that would make you see us as such, but I'm not like them. I left my hive a while ago to explore the outside world, and find other ways of getting love. Like how this food here was apparently made with it."

"'Hive'?" the filly asked again. "You mean likes ants and bees?"

"In a way, yes."

"Neat!" Peach Blossom exclaimed. Habeas soon finished the breakfast with a downing of the orange juice, and when he was done, he placed it down on the empty plate.

"Thank you for the meal," he said, wiping the last remaining crumbs from his mouth to the barn's dirt floor. "That tasted good."

"Don't mention it," she replied. "You looked hungrier than me." A minute of silence came between the two, and during it, Peach Blossom decided to get a much better look at how her new friend appeared, now that she was right next to him. Then, noticing what time it probably was, she stood up abruptly.

"Well, I've gotta go now..." the filly sighed dejectedly. "My mom's going to take me to school in a little bit. I'll be back tonight though, Mr. Brittle."

"You can call me Habeas, if you want," he insisted gently.

"Alright, Habeas. I guess I'll see you later," said she. "And don't worry, I won't tell my mom about you. I bet she'd freak out."

With a small wave of her hoof and a cheery smile, she collected her plate and cup and began to bound out of the barn the way she entered it. Soon, Habeas was alone inside of the small building once more. Finally remembering his leg from the night before with the tranquil quiet to allow his thoughts to clarify, he looked to it and saw it was still hardened at the joint inside of the resiny, solid substance.

With a mumble of something resembling a mixture of happiness and hopefulness at his luck at finding an understanding pony, he lied his body down on the hay and let it settle again, lowering his head as he tried to relax himself. Closing his compound eyes, Habeas, though not sleeping, began to rest, knowing that this course of action was the fastest he would get to healing properly. He let his mind drift to alleviate his boredom, and remained still as a statue for the rest of the day.

The Book

All Peach Blossom did during her free time at school was try to find out as much on the subject of changelings as possible. After the surprising moment that had transpired the day before, she now had a new meaning in looking into the matter of the peculiar shape-shifting creatures, as well as a great vigor to do so. She ran to the library during lunch and tried to find some books on the creatures, most of which were simple bits on recent history or ancient lore.

With the sound of page after page being flipped rapidly going out through the place of study, Peach Blossom read as much as she could with the time she had, but decided not to check any of the volumes out. If her mother saw her with so many books on the topic of changelings, she just knew that there would be questions that would follow suit. And besides, she wasn't the best when it came to lying.

And so, the school day ended in its own time, and Peach Blossom jumped aboard the school-cart. After hopping off of the cart once it rounded the corner near her and her mother's orchard, she trotted merrily down the path in search of her parent.

It didn't take long for her to find Persica. A few scant moments after entering the orchard, the filly could see that she was atop a wooden ladder placed against one of the many peach trees of the grove, and in one of her hooves was a medium-sized wicker basket. She was wearing a large, pale-colored, wide-brimmed hat over her head, and as she grabbed at another of the spherical fruits hanging from the tree, Peach Blossom could see the brim covered both of her eyes.

"Hi, Mom," she said when she was within earshot.

"Hello again, my sweet little Blossom," Persica smiled, giving a quick glance to her daughter before returning to her activity.

"Whatcha doing?" the filly asked innocently, tilting her head to the side.

"Just collecting some more peaches," her mother replied, pointing out the obvious. "And I must say, I've found quite a few large ones in these last few bunches. We're doing a good job tending to the trees this year, dear."

Peach Blossom couldn't help but grin with pride at the compliment. "That's wonderful to hear, Mom. I've got no homework tonight, so I'm, uh... just going to go play in the barn for now, okay?"

"Have fun. Oh, and be careful around the equipment," Persica reminded sharply and seriously. "I'll have dinner ready in about an hour-and-a-half."

"I will. Thanks, Mom," the filly assured, turning around and trotting away. Persica watched her beloved daughter leave from the corner of her right eye, and didn't take it off of her until she was out of sight. With a content sigh, the mare set her attention fully on her work once more.

"So, your family grow peaches here?" Habeas inquired. He had been roused from his rest not a few dozen minutes before by Peach Blossom entering the barn and was now happily sharing a conversation with her about each of their lives.

"Yep. My mom also has a small garden she uses to grow vegetables in by the house," she went on. "She's thinking about expanding it soon, and I just can't wait to help with it!"

"What about your dad? What's he do?"

At that, Peach Blossom's expression shuddered for a moment. "He... It's just me and my mom," she sighed. "My dad passed away some time before I was born. Mom said he was in a terrible accident."

Habeas' cheerful visage changed greatly as her words graced his webbed ears, as though it was a pane of glass that had been shattered by a rock. "Oh. I'm... so sorry to hear that," he spoke, his voice full of regret. "I shouldn't have asked..."

"No, no it's fine," she quickly said, flashing him a small smile. "Mom and I talk about him a lot. His name was Chantilly Cream."

In an effort to remedy the conversation, seeing how she had placed both herself and the changeling in a bit of an awkward situation, Peach Blossom looked around for something she could use to change the subject. "What do you have in there?" she asked, pointing to the sack at the end of the bindle. Habeas shifted a look to it, before straightening the handkerchief around his neck out.

"My most valuable possession lies in there," he responded, reaching for it. Using his mouth to undo the knot holding it close, the patchwork cloth fell open, revealing a rectangular object that Peach Blossom noticed was a book. Its title, written in large, red words over its black-and-white, checkered cover, said Cooking With Love.

The filly struggled to hold in a snigger of laughter as she realized it was a cookbook.

"This is what made you want to leave your hive?" she asked, her voice rising in its pitch like a helium-filled balloon. "This?"

"Yeah," Habeas answered nonchalantly, lacking any form of the humor in his tone that Peach Blossom was showing in hers. "Before I got my hooves on it, my former queen, Chrysalis, would always preach to us from the day that we're born that love is nothing more than a form of food and power that must be stolen from others, and something that only the so-called 'weak' and 'foolish' believe in. But after I read this... this well of forbidden knowledge, I saw the truth of things."

He tried his best to stand, and attempted to strike a flashy pose. "I saw that all we had been told was a lie! A sham to keep us in line, a fib that would result in only vileness toward others, and something that ultimately sow discontent among us all!"

Habeas soon plopped back onto his rump as his strength began to wane. "Heheh... but that's not all of it," the changeling chuckled lightly. "After I began to tell other drones in the hive of what I was reading and what it was teaching me, Chrysalis soon got word, and sent out a dire threat for me to stop my tirade or else I'd be executed. So naturally, I packed my things up and fled before she could make good on her promise."

"That sounds awfully brave of you, standing up to your queen. I heard she was really nasty, especially after her invasion of Canterlot a few years ago," Blossom said, intrigued by his tale. She soon gave the book a more inquisitive look as another question entered her mind. "Say... how did you find this?" she asked.

Habeas put his good hoof to his chin and looked away, as if entering a deep, pleasant reverie. "It was just after the invasion of Canterlot that I discovered this book, for it had been flung away with me and the rest of my hive when Princess Cadence and her husband used their magic to repel us. After reading the book thoroughly, I decided to try and find out if there were other, less malicious ways of finding love my kind so desperately craves. And guess what? It was right."

"You're looking for food that has been made and prepared with love?" Peach Blossom murmured, scratching her blonde-maned head.

"Food made with love is just a start," Habeas went on with great ambition surrounding his voice. "If my suspicions are correct, I also think that there are other cordial methods of acceptably accruing affection. And I intend to find out. That is why I travel around Equestria like a vagabond."

He suddenly sunk lower to the ground as the sting of his many cuts and damaged chitin being reopened from his rapid series of movements set in. "Or, at least that's what I did before I got beaten up by that darn knight-thing."

"My mom leaves a once every week-or-so to go sell peaches to some vendors in Canterlot, and she did that the night before I found you, but I don't think she saw anypony resembling who attacked you," Peach Blossom told the changeling. "She does occasionally say that she gets caught up a bit on the road, but that's usually only if there's a willing customer she happens to pass by."

"I don't think 'Mister Knight' was really in the mood for fruit," Habeas chuckled, settling himself down further. He unleashed a small yawn and then began to let his eyelids flutter and droop. Wrapping his book back up in the cloth, the changeling hooked it back up to the stick and set it down.

"You look tired," the filly noted, standing up. "I think it might be best if I let you rest again for now."

The changeling slowly nodded his head and murmured something in agreement. "It may very well be."

"The weekend starts tomorrow, so I'll be here most of the day unless my mom decides to take us both to sell more peaches or vegetables in Canterlot," Peach Blossom smiled. "I can bring some more food to you, too."

Habeas couldn't help but grin back in gratitude. "Thank you, Peach Blossom," he said, before his head dropped over his good hoof like a pillow. The two kept their happy expressions even after she had turned about and started to leave. With a creak of the hinges, the changeling heard the barn door open and close, and he was alone once again.

It was a short time ago that night had fallen over the land, covering it in a blanket of darkness and stars. The moon glimmered brightly as it orbited the earth on alicorn magics, illuminating all that lied below it like a loving parent. And yet, despite the peacefulness of the world, one armored figure treading upon the dirt path expressed an emotion opposite to its surroundings, yet also not aimed at it as well.

Hate.

Hate burned and flared within the knight's mortal frame like a fire within a furnace. Hate and levelheadedness, both mixed together like dragon flame and hardened ice. What little could be seen of the knight's face seemed to be twisted into a permanent leer, showcasing the emotions hidden within like dampened candles, and expressing very little else except vigilant contemptment. It walked forward at a snail's pace, dark armored hooves clanking on the dirt below with every step.

The unseeing, grey, clouded eye on the left side of its face, as well as the white, streak-like scar covering it, reflected the moonlight very much like the sheen of the armor it wore, and too reflected what hideous damage rested within its memory. Still it walked about, patrolling the area in an autonomous manner, its armor rattling and spear clanking as it tapped against the ground.

A dry rustling of bushes went out when there was no wind to cause such a disturbance of the quiet. With what at first seemed like a little, numbed reaction, the sentinel swished its tail and held its spear up in a hoof, tip facing forward in preparation of a fight. Its eyes, both sightless and seeing, were facing the direction where the disturbance occurred, widened and bloodshot. Then, hopping out of the forest, came a small, fuzzy figure.

It was a squirrel. The red-furred creature let out a squeak of curiosity as it saw the larger being staring at it on the road, and as if in reply, the knight lowered its guard and lifted its spear once more, sensing no threat at all in the rodent. With a shrug, the small animal returned to its activity. After rummaging around through the leaves and grass for a few seconds, the rodent found its prize, a simple acorn, and stuffed it into its mouth.

Smiling dumbly, it dashed back off into the forest, watched the entire time by the armored being. The look of murder once shining prominent in its right, blue eye had by now faded away, and so with a sigh, it turned its attention upward toward the moon with a much more mollified look.

The moon seemed to stare back, and the two remained locked in each's gaze until the knight allowed its head to fall. Turning itself about, it began to walk off, returning from whence it came.

Bad Dreams

Peach Blossom lied unconscious in her bed, a thick bead of sweat breaking over her forehead. Mumbling something in a panicked fashion in her sleep, she pulled and tugged at the many-colored quilt that lied draped over her in a way that expressed abject terror. Finally, with a shrill squeak, the filly sat up, fully awake.

She swallowed several deep breaths of air and was soon calm. Pushing the tangled hair back from her face, she fell hard back onto her pillow with a loud wumf. With her senses fully back to reality, she knew it was nothing more than a nightmare that she had just suffered through.

A shallow creak sounded out through the room all of a sudden, and Peach Blossom shot her head in the direction where the noise came from, seeing that her door had been opened, and the faint yellow glow of the hallway light shone from it, illuminating a shadowy shape standing in the doorway. It started toward the bed in a slow walk, and it remained concealed by a silhouette until it was close enough that Peach Blossom could make out the figure's face through the darkness. The first thing Peach Blossom noticed about the being was a pale, wicked scar was marked over its left eye. Seeing this, the filly knew right off who was approaching her.

"Oh, it's just you, Mom," she sighed. Yawning after the mare was standing over the bed, she gave her mother a lazy, tired look. "You're back."

"Having trouble sleeping again?" Persica asked, brushing a hoof through her daughter's hair while looking at her with her good eye in a motion of care. "I could hear you from just outside the door."

"It was a bad dream," Peach Blossom responded in a low voice. "Just a bad dream."

"A bad dream?" Persica repeated inquisitively. "What was it about?"

Peach Blossom tugged her covers closer to her snout as she thought back. "I felt like I was... falling," she started. "There was nothing around me but the dark sky, and it didn't look like there was any kind of stopping that was going to happen."

Persica playfully winced back. "Ooh... I hate dreams like those," she spoke tenderly. "I got them a lot when I was your age. As a matter of fact I still do, some nights..."

"Are they still as scary when you're an adult as when you were as old as me?" Peach Blossom asked.

"At times, they can be," Persica said. "But once you realize it's just a dream, you lose that fear."

"I wish I had that much courage," Peach Blossom mumbled enviously. "You're really brave, Mom."

"And so are you," she replied, nuzzling her snout against her daughter's cheek, earning a small chuckle of delight. "And remember, even if you find yourself afraid of anything, I'll always be here to protect you, my little Blossom. I'll always be here, and never forget that." Her words appeared to provide a good deal of comfort for the filly, who closed her eyes and grinned contently.

As she watched her daughter's head become comfy on her white pillow, Persica began to hum a small song; one she had sung to her daughter on the day she was born. She hummed the charming, soft tune, filled with nothing but love behind her voice, until she knew Peach Blossom was sound asleep a few minutes later. Soon, the only sound to fill the room was that of Peach Blossom's heavy, happy breathing. Smiling, Persica bent down and kissed her on the forehead before making sure her covers were set nicely, and turning to silently leave the room.

After closing the door behind her with a barely-audible click of the knob, Persica began to walk down the short hallway that would eventually lead to her room. Passing by the edge of the stairs and the guest bedroom, she found herself in front of the door she was looking for and entered it after turning the hallway lights off.

Upon entering the room, she couldn't help but catch sight of one of the picture frames sitting on a tall drawer. In the picture was a young mare of her coloring, and a stallion with light blue fur, bright green eyes, and a blackish mane with a white streak going through it. It was a photo of both her and her husband, Chantilly Cream, on their wedding day. There was her younger self, eyes closed and smiling with the greatest of joy, clad in a white, shimmering wedding gown, while Chantilly himself was dressed in a fine tuxedo as black as pitch, and expressing a similar ecstatic emotion as he held her close by the waist in a tight, loving embrace.

That was before she had Peach Blossom. Before she lost Chantilly. Before she got the scar.

Exhaling a deep breath she didn't realized she had been holding, Persica rubbed a hoof over her blind eye and the mark of pale, disfigured flesh that ran across it. She remembered the day she received the wound as vividly as yesterday. Pulling her face from the photo, she began to pace toward her bed, fruitlessly attempting to remove the painful thought from her mind in the process.

As she crawled into it, Persica finally found a new thought to occupy her mind. The changeling. The changeling she met on the road the night before. The one she sent screaming off of the path it was traveling on. She inspected the spot where she was sure it had fallen this night, yet found nothing but damaged underbrush, and it made her feel at peace knowing it most likely fled far from here, away from her daughter and herself.

Out of all creatures that inhabited this planet, the ones she despised most were the dirty, wretched, love-stealing, thrice-damned changelings. Sure, the one she met seemed rather queer and quirky compared to the malevolent mannerisms of the rest of his kind she met in the past, but there was little doubt that this one had been truly any different.

And so, with the memory of ridding herself of the threat filling her mind, only to promptly dull into nothingness, did the mare with the scar covering her blind eye finally fall asleep.

Habeas Brittle found his slumber restless as well. He tossed and turned his chitinous frame upon the bed of hay he slept upon, dreaming a terrible nightmare of re-encountering the dreaded knight that left him in such a sorry condition. Only, it was much worse than before. He felt as though the knight was standing directly over his helpless, hapless, broken frame, the tip of its barbed spear pointed at his throat, pressing it forward and then-

His teal, monochromatic eyes shot open as he felt a sharp, grinding sting of pain coming from his broken leg. With a grouchy gurgle, just a few seconds after his abrupt awakening did he realize that he had rolled over it. Sitting himself up, the changeling examined his damaged limb, and found nothing major had gone awry in his unconscious clumsiness. The leg showed no sign of healing yet, and most likely wouldn't for some time.

Grunting, he began to get to his other three, usable legs. The idea that he needed to clear his head was what ultimately won out in his mind, and to help this plan along he began to pace around the small environment he was confined in, in a limp. Glaring through the darkness and what specks of moonlight shown through the window, Habeas could discern the shapes of many tools scattered throughout the barn. Hoes, rakes, pitchforks, and other assorted gardenware hung from racks upon the wooden wall, some covered in rust that signified their age, and others coated only in a thin layer of dust, muddling his prediction of the time it must have been since their last use. He even spotted a medium-sized plow suspended from the ceiling by ropes of an exceeding thickness, right next to the barn's attic.

After a few more minutes of repeating the same action, Habeas eventually lost interest in the inanimate objects and returned to the stall where he sat himself down once more. He still couldn't believe his luck in being found by a pony who understood him, and didn't seem too fearful of what he was, even without the need of shifting onto the guise of another pony.

The only thing to worry Habeas at the moment, besides the memory of that fearsome knight, was the thought of what would happen if Peach Blossom's mother discovered him. He shuddered at the very image of such an encounter. For all he knew, she'd chase him out into the wild where he was sure to be devoured by some manticore, chimera, bear or other beast of that type in his current condition, assuming she wouldn't just flat-up beat him.

The changeling quickly removed these thoughts, knowing they weren't helping in the slightest. Shaking his head and the chipped, curved horn that poked out from it, he fixed the handkerchief wrapped around his throat, lied down, and closed his eyes, intending to use the remaining darkness of this night to sleep and regain his energy.

Mother Knows Best

"Peach Blossom, what exactly is... this?" Habeas inquired, scratching his chip-horned head with a hoof and fixing the bandanna around his neck in confusion. What now sat before his laying shape was a pile of at least ten books that the filly had simply dumped there after bringing them into the barn.

"Just some books that we have in the house," Peach Blossom replied, having returned home from the school she had this day not a half hour before. "I thought that since you like to read, you might like to look over them yourself. Ya'know, to pass the time."

"That's really kind of you," Habeas complimented, using his magic to take a random book off of the pile and scan over what its title was, before floating it back to the top. "Thank you, Peach Blossom."

She giggled, easily flattered by his gratitude. "Yeah, well... I bet it gets boring just reading a cookbook in your spare time, so I wanted to expand your horizons. Also, I kinda, sorta, maybe might have filched some mushy romance novels my mom likes to read. She has so many of them around, after all..."

A moment of quiet spread between them, and just by looking at her mirthful face Habeas knew that there was something she wanted to say to him. "You look like you've got a question you want to ask," he commented. "Is there something on your mind?"

She anxiously pawed at the dirt on the floor with a hoof. "Um... I kind of want to see if you can do something. Can... you maybe change forms for me? I really want to see what it looks like."

Though Habeas would have gratefully done it anyway, the pleading look she gave him with her big eyes after speaking made him chuckle in amusement. "Sure, why not," he said.

Peach Blossom cheered and jumped up. "Oh, thanks! It's just that I've never seen it before, but I heard it's really weird. And cool."

As he stood up from his resting spot with a groan, he stretched out his good legs and prepared to shift forms. Unable to hold in her inquisitive desires, Peach Blossom asked him another question.

"So how do you do it?"

"Like this," he began, before motioning for her to get back. "Watch this!"

Putting some of his effort into it, a wisp of green fire enveloped most of his body. When it parted but a second later, what stood in front of Peach Blossom looked just like her, save for the damaged changeling leg her doppleganger still bore; unable to shift forms in its current state. It was her size, her shape, and even had the same look of surprise and joy over its face. It was like looking into a mirror.

Peach Blossom let a tremendous grin curl over her face. "That's amazing!" she clapped, slapping her hooves together in vigorous applause.

"Well, we changelings are born to do this," Habeas shrugged, using the filly's voice, to her delight. One wisp of green fire later and the same changeling from before stood once more in front of the pony. Sitting down again on the hay, he let out a sigh before looking to injured leg. Peach Blossom finished her clapping and decided what to do next; now satisfied from the feat she got to see.

"I'll leave you be so you can see what stories you like," she said to him, turning around to the door and looking at her friend over her shoulder. "See ya soon, Mr. Brittle!"

"Goodbye, Peach Blossom," he bid farewell in return.

"Be back soon!" she said again, before closing the door with a squeak of the hinges. Trotting off a ways, the young filly turned her head in front of herself - just in time to bump into a large shape. Stepping back in startled reaction, she looked up and saw it was her mother she had run into.

"Whoop- sorry!" her mother quickly apologized. "You got me in the direction of my bad eye."

"Oh, um... hi, Mom," Peach Blossom greeted, fitting on a happy face. Finished recuperating, her mother rubbed a hoof over her chin and looked to the building her daughter had just exited from.

"I was coming to check on you. You've sure been spending an awful amount of time in the barn as of late. Is something... in there?" she asked, raising a brow.

Peach Blossom gulped. Knowing the curiosity-provoking consequence of saying 'nothing', she gave the first lie that came to her mind afterword. "It's just... an injured bird I'm taking care of," was her shaky response. "I've, uh... got it tucked in safely in a box filled with cotton and... stuff. I didn't want to tell you..."

"An injured bird, you say?" Persica gave a very interested look and puckered her lips. "And you didn't inform me of this before... why?"

"I... I wanted to take care of it by myself," she affirmed, confidence coming into her voice as she sensed her mother taking in the great fib. "Remember that hurt chipmunk that we both saw had gotten attacked by a hawk last year? Remember how I brought him into my room and cared for him until he was strong enough to be on his own again, right?"

Persica smiled. "I remember the chipmunk. He was a feisty little fellow, wasn't he?"

Peach Blossom nodded before continuing. "The thing is, since I did such a good job with helping that chipmunk regain its health by myself, I wanted to help this bird that way too."

Persica thought for a few seconds on this new predicament before looking down on her daughter with a mien of easiness and understanding. "Blossom, have I ever told you how mature you act for your age? Don't worry darling, if you say you know what you're doing, I won't interfere," she spoke. Peach Blossom put on a matching expression and was more than ready to head to the house, when something else came up.

"One more thing..." Persica started once more, but with a sly glimmer in her good eye.

"Yes, Mom?"

The mare smirked. "What kind of bird is it?"

Peach Blossom's face went from rigid and sure, to loose and pale as the words graced her ears. "What?" she finally asked back.

"What kind of bird is it?" her mother repeated. "Do you know?"

"A... it's a sparrow. Yes! A sparrow," Peach Blossom mumbled, thinking of the first species of bird to come to her head. "A brown one."

"A brown one, you say? Interesting..." Persica let out a hum. "Have you been feeding it plenty of birdseed?"

"Of course I have."

Persica smiled and patted her daughter's soft head proudly. "Very good. I hope you've been giving it water too."

"Yep!" the filly replied. "And I've been reading stories to it. It's asleep right now, so I'm trying not to bother it."

"And you don't have to worry about me. As I said before, I won't bug it either," her mother assured. "Where are you off to now, might I ask?"

"Just going to finish up the last of my homework from school," she responded, trotting to the other side of her parent, closer to the house.

"Good. I'll be in the orchard if you need me," Persica replied. After witnessing Peach Blossom happily walk off and disappear into the house, Persica turned away and went about tending to the rest of the business she had in store for the day. As she made her way to the peach orchard, her mind only focused on the thought of the conversation that had befallen between herself and her daughter.

As the middle of the night came around, Habeas was sound asleep on his hay pile. Small snores from the soundly-sleeping changeling were the only noise to echo through the otherwise-still air. Placed over his prone face and left there since he fell asleep reading it, muzzle snorting through it, was an open book; one of the many given to him by that kindly filly.

His wounds healed better when he slept, and he knew, come morning, he would be strong enough to move around better than he had today or the day previously. Happily, for once in what felt like a very long time, he was asleep without worry to clout his mind.

But as he dreamed, a small, grating creak went out through the entire barn, tearing through the air like a sword in spite of its low volume. It was enough to stir Habeas awake from his once-peaceful slumber with a sluggish start. The book falling from his snout and to the ground with a plop, he rolled off of his back and looked around.

Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. After a few seconds longer of checking over his surroundings, he could make out a faint shard of moonlight shining through the tall doorway on the other end of the barn, now cracked ajar by scant inches. In spite of the silence still blanketing him, that was when he knew something was terribly wrong. He got to his shaky legs and was on them for five seconds, when a horrible sound touched his ears.

"Hello, little sparrow," an unfamiliar, female voice greeted in a cold, growling hiss. The blood in Habeas's veins froze like ice, and his jaw fell open, moments before he felt a large, warm and fuzzy body impact against him in a violent tackle.

Pale Moonlight

All Habeas could do was clumsily stagger around in the pitch darkness of the barn. It was chaos, plain and simple. He had no idea where the being attacking him was, she probably had just about as much of a clue as to where he was now that he was on the move and out of her clutches, and the clatter that followed rang aloud. What Habeas naturally did was make his way to the building's door as fast as he could and blundered into the cool, night-laden outside.

Turning about as he heard the hoofsteps of somepony pursuing him, Habeas finally got a clear look at his attacker. From what he could see in the faint moonlight shooting through the dark clouds above, it was a brown-furred earth pony mare roughly his own size emerging from the barn, and clutched tightly in her front hooves, both of which were currently scraping across the ground, was a plain, three-pronged pitchfork she must have snatched while in there. Her long mane blew about in the breeze, and Habeas decided next to get a look at her face. What he noticed first made him freeze like a statue in shock.

That scar. That long, horrid scar stretching vertically over her gray and cloudy left eye was one that Habeas recognized right off. It was the same scar possessed by the knight on the road. The other, seeing one, showing like a jagged shard of ice, expressed the same malice and hate no different than what he saw that night.

Habeas was so distracted by his realization of who his attacker was that he failed to react in time as the pony charged at him like a furious bear. She silently raised the pitchfork in preparation for a mighty horizontal swing, but the changeling lifted his hurt leg in startled, defensive reaction, having forgotten his terrible wound in the haze that was provided in this moment. When the makeshift weapon struck across his arm as fast as a bolt of lightning, it shattered the hardened resin bracing it like glass and damaged the already-crippled limb to a degree worse than before; nullifying whatever healing that had been done thus far.

As the newly-wrought pain set his mind aflame with searing agony, Habeas could do nothing but cry out loudly as he desperately stumbled back, eventually hitting his body against the wall of the house a dozen feet behind him and slumping down to the ground. The pony, a dagger of pure malice shimmering in her good eye whilst the other showed a similar, duller expression, got ready to lunge forward to finish him.

Peach Blossom, once sleeping contently on her bed, was shaken awake as the sound of an agonized shriek hit her ears. Quickly regaining her wits, she realized that the noise was coming from somewhere outside. Throwing her covers back as an expression of both realization and horror overcame her face, she knew exactly what was going on.

Without thinking against it, she dashed out of her room as fast as she could run, jumped down the stairs and burst out the front door so hard and fast that she thought for a second that it would come flying off of its hinges. Looking around rapidly, the sound of fearful and pained grunting led her to the sight of two shapes nearby.

As the filly feared, there her mother was, a pitchfork in her hooves and looming over the hurt form of Habeas Brittle, who was curled up and cornered against the house's wall. The pitchfork came dangerously close to his exposed throat, and there was barely a thing he could do to stop it from getting nearer. It was here when Peach Blossom cried out.

"Mom, stop it!"

"Peach Blossom!" Persica shouted back to her daughter, but with her view still trained on Habeas. "Get back inside at once! This creature is dangerous!"

"No!" she shouted back, running toward them as she spoke. "He's not dangerous! He's my friend!"

"He's a changeling! He's been deceiving you!"

"No he hasn't!"

"He has only cast an illusion over you, my naive child," Persica growled next as she jabbed the pitchfork closer to her prey, almost getting Habeas to whimper, which he stifled instead. He gave a glance to Peach Blossom as Persica went on. "He's cast a spell on your mind that puts it in his control as he siphons your love from you."

"I-if I wanted to drain her of her love, I-I-I would have been all healed up from th-the love and be gone by now!" Habeas interjected from where he sat cradling his hurt limb with a stutter. "But I'm not like those changelings! Like I told her, I'm different from them! I-I just want to-"

"Stop talking," rasped Persica, pointing the pitchfork's tip closer to the hurt changeling's throat. If she felt like it, one swift thrust was all it would take to end his life now, and Habeas could not help but squirm about in fear of that certainty and from the pain in his re-hurt leg.

"Mom, this isn't some trick! I'm not under any spell! Just please don't kill him!" Peach Blossom continued to frantically speak out. She ran to her mother's side and placed her hooves upon one of her front legs, pulling the mare's view to her. "Mom, look at me. Do I look like I've had the love stolen from me? Do I look mind-controlled? Because I don't feel mind-controlled."

Persica took her attention off of the changeling at long last and looked into her daughter's eyes. She expected to see a twinge of changeling magic hanging about her. A small, easily-missed clue in her young eyes that would tell the mare that Peach Blossom was not herself. What she saw was...

Nothing.

Persica wanted to deny this for many reasons, but her daughter's plea was sincere, and that was something she failed to ignore. "Fine," she finally hissed with hateful venom dripping from the sharply-spitten word she uttered, aimed with the utmost malice toward the changeling. Glaring at him as though looks could kill, she slowly lowered her pitchfork from the changeling's throat, but made sure to scrape its tip lightly against his chitinous hide without hurting him as she removed it.

Habeas and Peach Blossom sighed in mutual relief while Persica planted the pitchfork into the ground beside her. She glared at the changeling with a bellicose sort of animosity. "Get out of here changeling. Leave my house," she growled once more at him, pointing a hoof to the forest bordering her land. "Now."

"I-I can't," Habeas managed to mumble, his voice still very much pained. "I would if I were able to, but my wings are too torn up to use. A-and... you sort of just hurt my a-already-broken leg pretty badly-"

"No excuses!" Persica stomped her hoof to the ground, causing her unwanted guest to flinch. "Get out!"

"Mom, he's too hurt to make it anywhere," Peach Blossom butted in once more, trotting up beside her friend before Persica could stop her and putting a hoof over his shoulder to help him back to his shaky feet. "Yesterday, he was barely able to stand. How can you just cast him out like this? How far will he go before he can't move any longer?"

"Far enough to be away from here," retorted Persica, quite clearly showing her disdain for the changeling's condition.

When Habeas was stable, Peach Blossom walked forth toward her mother, put her two hooves together, and gave Persica an innocent look that would warm the heart of a pony with even the most callous of souls. "Mom... can he stay here until he gets better? Pleeeaase?" she insisted in the most pitifully pleading voice she had ever performed; all in an effort to get her stern mother to relent. "He's been so well-behaved and nice so far. He's an honest and good changeling, I swear! I can't just watch you kick him out in this state. What if he... gets eaten by something? Or catches a terrible disease?"

"Then good for us," Persica snorted.

"'Good for us?'" repeated Peach Blossom, quite shocked by the sentence. "Mom, what would you do if he was a pony?"

"He's not a pony," Persica dismissed dryly.

"Then what would you do if he truly is a good being? Just because he's a changeling, would you let him walk off and die, alone in the forest, for no other reason?"

"I would-" The mare could not finish her sentence. She found herself unable to bring forth the words she sought in front of her daughter. Peach Blossom could see her at the loss she came upon, and believing she finally found the proper reasoning within her mother, could not help but smirk triumphantly.

A minute passed by as the crickets chirped in the field behind them with the peace restored, when Persica reluctantly relented at long last with a sigh that reverberated from her throat not unlike a wretched cough. She looked back at Habeas, and he stared at her with his teal eyes in turn, hopefully.

"Get back in the barn, creature. You've been sleeping there, and that's where you'll keep sleeping. Just until you're strong enough to move out, but that's it!"

"M-my name is Habeas. Habeas Brittle," he weakly said back, speaking in a more friendly manner to the pony in a way that he thought would lessen her ire toward him. He knew it was a vain attempt, but tried anyway.

"I don't seem to care about whatever your name is at the moment," Persica huffed back as sourly as a carton of month-spoiled milk. "Now get in there like I said, before I change my mind."

Lowering his head, Habeas did as he was told. Persica and Peach Blossom watched him collect his bearings and shuffle toward the barn on his three good legs after what felt like an hour, and just before he opened the door up with his mouth, the changeling managed to shift to the filly a look conveying nothing but gratitude. She returned it with a happy nod, before being rendered as still and unmoving as the air itself by a disapproving leer cast down by her parent. Persica returned her gaze back upon Habeas until he had vanished into the barn.

"As for you, daughter," she began, turning to Peach Blossom and glaring at her with the same intimidating look as five seconds ago. "You let a changeling wander into our midst without telling me. Not only that, you've been caring for it with no concern for yourself whatsoever, and you lied to me when I questioned you. You're grounded for three months. Do you understand?"

"I thought as much..." Peach Blossom mumbled to herself under her breath sadly, lowering her head. "I understand, Mom."

"Good. Now get inside," Persica continued, but more lightly as her temper mollified, "and go back to bed. You have school in the morning, and don't think for one second that this changes any of that at all."

Doing as she was told, the filly started to trudge inside the house, though with some hints of a positive strut in her stride at her victory in keeping Habeas both okay, and here. Persica noted them well, and could only shake her head in disagreement over this entire debacle.

Changelings were nothing more than malefic fiends born and bred to steal the love of others until their hearts were just as dark and malevolently vile as their own. She knew that much, and she learned it quite clearly from her personal experiences. But the fact that this one; this strange, odd one had not harmed her dear Peach Blossom was a mystery in and of itself. Perhaps it was some excessively convoluted trick. Or perhaps her daughter was somehow right, and this creature's nature was an aberration from the rest of its kind.

But knowing that she wouldn't think as clearly in her current tired state as she would come morning, she retired into her home behind her daughter. All in spite of the fact that she knew that she would most likely get zero sleep with the knowledge of what monster she was allowing to rest in her barn.

Chores for a Changeling

As early morning came and the orange sun had risen to gold over the horizon, Peach Blossom quickly made her way from her house to the barn with a plate of peach slices and toast over her back, a cup of juice in her hoof, and purpose in her stride. Scampering into the building, she found Habeas sitting upon his bed of hay, yawning as he too began to awaken.

With a smile on her face, Peach Blossom approached him. Setting down the plate and cup, she told him to eat. Habeas asked if it was her meal she was sharing, to which she replied that her mother made this course specifically for him. Without further argument, Habeas set to eating the food as his hunger gripped his weary mind, sensing with some surprise that there was love made in this food as much as the last one he devoured.

"So that mare's really your mother?" he asked the filly, after finishing the peach slices.

"Yeah," sighed Peach Blossom, anxiously pushing a pebble around on the dirt floor. "She can be a bit, erm... strict at times, but she's the best mother I could ever ask for."

"She tried to stab me with a pitchfork," Habeas mentioned with a hint of unease at the end of his sentence, taking another, hurried bite from the toast, scattering crumbs about on the barn floor. "It's going to probably take me some time to see her the way you do."

"Once again, I'm super, super sorry about what happened last night," she apologized, looking down to his injured leg. "I hope your leg's doing better."

"Well, I put it in a new cast," he said, lifting the broken limb and revealing the new gooey substance that had hardened around it. "So long as she doesn't try killing me again, I think it will be fine and heal back perfectly."

Peach Blossom let out a very small chuckle at how he phrased it, silencing herself right after. Seeing that he was done eating, she gathered his plate and cup up and turned to the doorway. "Well, I gotta get to school now. I guess I'll see you later, Mr. Brittle. Have a good day."

"And you as well," he said back. Peach Blossom smiled and finally left, knowing well that her friend would be fine now.

As the door creaked close, Habeas took in a deep breath as he got comfortable where he was. He didn't mention to the filly the fact that her mother was the same armored individual who put him into this sorry state in the first place. He had little idea of how she would act upon this information, and he certainly had no wish to cause a scene that would provoke yet more ire from the fearsome mare.

Exhaling a deep breath, he lied his head back down and tried to rest.

Persica returned home in a short time after bringing her daughter to the school in Canterlot. When she snuck into the barn, silent as a mouse, she could see Habeas was still there and sound asleep upon the bed of hay; dreaming happily by the look of the cheerful visage painted on his still face. To say she was disappointed about this creature deciding to remain here would have been a drastic understatement.

Huffing in annoyance, she walked up to his sleeping side and knocked a hoof against his chip-horned head twice. Groaning, Habeas's eyes opened up and he groggily lifted his cranium. When his sight caught the shape of the mare with the wide-brimmed hat over her head and a scar over her eye looming above him, he let out a frightened yelp.

"A-are you here to... kill me?" were the first words to come out of his quivering mouth. Persica rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going to kill you," she calmly said. "So stop the sniveling." He did as she said, but his face still looked worried for a few moments more.

"What do you want of me?" he asked next as the seconds passed them by, feeling more like hours of foreboding silence to the changeling.

"What I'm here to do is put you to work, changeling. If you're going to stay and recover from your wounds, you'll pull your weight around here the rest of us."

"I don't know if I'll be able to do that," he sadly said. His eyes drifted to his broken leg and stayed there. "My leg's still... pretty hurt."

"Yes, I know it's hurt. That doesn't make the rest of you useless," stiffly replied Persica. "You've still got three more to walk on, and the magic your kind possesses is still usable. I'm not going to be able to keep an eye on you all day with chores to be done, so you're going to do them whether you like it or not, creature."

"My name is Habeas Brittle," Habeas said, mirroring a response he gave to her the night before.

Persica appeared unmoved. "I still don't care."

Quiet was sure to settle in again like a blanket of fog, until a question popped into the changeling's head. "What's your name?" he asked. "Peach Blossom only told me that you're her mother."

Persica thought for moment whether or not a revelation such as this was appropriate. Eventually she shrugged upon seeing no harm in it. "My name is Prunus Persica. Just call me Persica, though."

"O-okay, Miss Persica." Habeas began to rise to his three good hooves and stretched them out. Motioning to the door, Persica waited for Habeas to move to it. Fearing she was of the impatient sort, he complied to her silent order as quickly as he could muster. When Habeas's limping shape passed her, Persica went behind him and they both walked together, exiting the barn and heading in the direction of the grove of peach trees upon the mare's directing. The wind ruffled the leaves of the great plants, which Habeas looked up into curiously.

In the trees, hanging from their branches, were a great many peaches. Some were large, others small, and a few were green and covered in thick fizz - clearly not yet ripe. Stopping when he was close enough, he examined all the fruits for a good minute until he heard Persica place something on the grass beside him. Spinning his head, he could see that she had put a big, pony-sized wicker basket there.

Persica fixed her hat and looked at the changeling in a commanding way. "The first thing you'll do is collect the peaches from some of these trees, and put them into this basket," she spoke to him, pointing to the tree and then it. "And only pick the ripe ones. Grab enough until the basket's full, and that will be good."

Habeas, placing a good hoof on the large wicker object, looked around for a ladder he could use or some other object of that ilk, and spotted none. "How'm I going to do that?" he questioned.

To this, she shifted him a grumpy sideways glance. "Your magic."

"Oh, right," Habeas laughed heartily to himself at his forgetfulness, which the mare did not share with him; instead opting to keep her stony expression. It awkwardly died down after but a few seconds and the changeling began to move forward, toward the tree. As he prepared his mind, Persica walked to a wooden chair she had also brought nearby and sat down in it. Lifting a small cylindrical glass containing some form of juice, she slurped up some of its delectable contents through its straw and put her eyes back upon Habeas.

His horn beginning to glow a pale shade of green, the changeling grabbed at a single peach closest to him in a halo of energy bearing a similar color. It was weak, but after a few seconds of pulling and twisting, he finally wretched the fruit from the branch by its stem. Letting it slowly drift to the ground as the sound of rustling leaves died down, he plopped it into the basket. Looking back up to the tree, he used his power to pull down another, and then another, setting each one he grabbed neatly into the basket.

"How'm I doing?" anxiously asked he after several minutes drifted by, plucking another one of the fruits with his magic.

"Meh. Keep going," halfheartedly responded Persica. Undeterred by what he clearly saw was a minor taunt meant to discourage him, he went on with the harvesting. The basket in front of him was filled with around twenty peaches by the time he finished with picking all the ripe ones.

"I'm done with this tree!" he grinned merrily. Humming, he turned around in time to see that Persica had left her chair and was now standing directly in front of him. Habeas practically jumped when he saw her sour, glaring face an inch away from his own. The look of abhorrence in her eye was like a knife placed at his throat.

"M-Miss Persica, I can... I can understand that you don't like me, but please can you stop being so... vehement about it?" he inquired.

"Don't worry about that. Just seeing that jolly grin of yours makes me want you to know what will happen if you decide to betray me and trample over the hospitality my daughter and I are giving you," she growled, poking her strong hoof against his chest with enough force to cause Habeas to almost step back from its suddenness. "You so much as think to harm my daughter, and I'll make you wish you were never born. And when I do, I won't kill you right off. I'll take my time with your demise, that I promise you..."

"I... am not like that. I'll never be like that," he adamantly responded, regaining his composure. "To not be like that was the very reason I left my hive. I don't care if I'm called a traitor by my kin for it. I don't give a rat's flank if they take the time to send some form of 'assassin', or something else of that kind for me! I just want you to believe me."

"Huh. You sound sincere," Persica said again, almost convinced by the pitch of her tone. "But, then again, you can never tell with changelings. Don't think I don't know how masterful your kind is at lying and manipulating others..."

Habeas cleared his throat. "Miss Persica, there is a question I really want to ask you. I know you're that knight-thing that attacked me on the road a few nights ago. So why'd you do it? Why did you attack me when I was just trotting along and minding my own business? I would have passed by this house, and that would have been that. I would have never even met you or your daughter had you not decided to maim me as you so harshly did."

Persica's eyelids closed for a second before she murmured something, and soon began to walk off from the indentured changeling, back to her chair. "I could tell you why. And I would so very much like to. But I won't," was all she ended up muttering. Grabbing her drink in her hoof, she took a slurping sip from the straw and sat down as she had done prior. "Now get back to work. There are still plenty of peaches that need picking."

"As you command, mon capitaine," Habeas sardonically spoke with an equally-sarcastic salute, though he had to lean his body against the tree to perform it with his good hoof. With a confident swagger in his lame strut, he picked the basket up by its handle in his fanged mouth and set off to the next tree. As he began to cheerfully harvest the fruit from it like he performed with the last one, Persica watched him very closely from under the brim of her hat, noting the almost disgusting levels of sunny optimism he continued to express while his harvest went on.

Changelings by their very nature were evil and cruel beings who only found joy in the suffering of others. Yet, as she could see so far, there truly was something different about this particular one. He was merry, cooperative, and the fact that he had not yet harmed her daughter still scraped at her brain like a blunt scalpel. She simply could not find the will to believe this, but from what had been put in front of her face in the last day alone, it seemed as though only time would tell whether or not this changeling truly was as despicable as the rest of its kind.

Honest Work

Persica wandered through the dark forest clad from snout to hoof in her gear. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, but made sure to keep her spear balanced over her shoulder in her right hoof as she did so. Panting, exhausted breaths left her mouth as she sped forth, both her eyes desperately looking everywhere as her head swung to and fro.

For all of her searching, she could not find who it was she looked for. She continued on scouring the forest with as much desperation as she could give, but still nothing befell her sight. It was only after hearing a loud, wailing cry rip through the air did she stop in her tracks and turn in its direction. It sounded like a creature in pain; going through the worst form of agony one could ever possibly suffer, but the weak voice to which it belonged was one Persica just barely recognized with fear. With more haste than her body could truly afford, she ran to where she heard the noise. Several gut-wrenching minutes later, after breaking into a small clearing within the wood, did she come upon the individual whom she had been looking for.

It sat there in the corner of the forest's opening, by an old and haggard tree, curled tightly in a fetal position and sobbing aloud. Its skinny and frail, defiled form whimpered, whined, and cried out like a newborn mewling vainly for its never-to-come parent, and tears like ice streamed from its eyes.

Persica knew this nightmare well. Every single time she slept since it happened to her in the realm known as reality she experienced it, but the experience itself was sometimes twisted into something else, though never by much. And no matter what she felt, she could not stop herself from constantly reliving it in all of its hellish glory.

Without a thought to stop her, she ran up to the creature until she stood over it. In her pain, she could not find the words to say this poor soul's name. So Persica, with tears of her own falling down from her eyes, slowly put her quivering hoof out to it. To comfort it in in the only way she could. Instead of accepting her warm touch, the second her hoof met its side, it violently batted it away.

"G-go away!" the creature sulked, howling out like a injured hound. "Y-you did this to me! This is all your fault, Persica... All your fault..."

With little warning, it suddenly snapped its face toward her's and glared malevolently. Its eyes, once an earthly brown, were now as red as fiery embers. "I... hate you... I'll..."

The creature she once knew and loved arose like a shadow cast from a great bonfire. Persica, torn by despair just from what she heard, dropped her weapon to the ground where it landed with a clatter. The creature's facial features began to curl and twist into something from pitiful and devoid of hope, to horrifying and unnatural. Something evil and burning with all-consuming loathing entered its visage, and it took its first step forward as Persica took her first step back.

"I'll kill you," it spoke once more, its voice as silent as a intimate whisper, yet as loud as a rabid beast's roar. Baring its fangs, it set upon her with arms widely outstretched, and the pony, unwilling to defend herself from the coming assault, found nothing she could do to halt its attack. Lashing its horrible head out, its fangs sank deeply into her shoulder, sending a powerful jolt of wretched pain through her brain. Lifting her body up, it shook her about violently before throwing her back to the ground, and its claws tore the armor over her chest to bits before getting ahold of the fur-laden flesh underneath, spilling red onto the soil soon after.

"Persica," it spoke tauntingly into her ears as it tore her body apart and sundered it into bloody ribbons, rending her limb from limb like a spent doll as she could only scream out in agony through a mouth she didn't have. "Per-sic-a!"

"Persica, I'm done!" Habeas said for the third time from where he stood by one of the far-off peach trees. From what he could see, the pony had quietly dozed off in her chair twenty minutes into his harvest of the peaches, and so Habeas took it upon himself to shout her name until she stirred. He dared not attempt to wake her up close, fearing that she would lash out at him in surprise from merely hearing his footsteps approaching.

When she finally registered the words, Persica quickly woke up with a mumbling start. Shaking her head and looking about, she pushed the brim of her hat back from her eyes and soon could see the shape of the changeling standing a few dozen feet in front of her, waving one of his hooves in the air as the rest of him leaned against the filled basket.

"About time," she grumbled. Slowly getting up, she left her seat and began to trot his way. Inspecting the basket as Habeas stood in attention, the changeling waited for her to give him the news on what she really felt toward his efforts, some random insult, or, dare he even hope for it, a compliment.

"Good job," were the two words Persica casually uttered. Taking the basket by its handle as Habeas silently laughed in victory, she effortlessly hoisted it over her back with one leg. Before going off to take care of the fruits, she shifted another glance to the changeling.

"There's still plenty that needs being done around the here," she spoke, looking back to her abode. "But before I forget, the inside of the house needs to be thoroughly cleaned. That means the floors need to be swept, the windows need to be washed inside and out, and everything needs to be dusted. Care to join me in doing that in a few minutes, changeling?"

"If that's what you want me to do," Habeas replied after sensing that there really wasn't much choice in the matter, already making his way for the house before she could lead him to it. Keeping a careful watch on him until he opened the door and ventured inside, Persica eventually shrugged as she went off with the big basket of peaches still behind her back.

It was a few hours afterword that the pair's work neared completion. As the time rolled to just past noon and all the duties to be done inside the house were finished, Persica asked Habeas if he felt, in whatever way he knew how, 'hungry'. When the changeling said he did, the mare went into the pantry and whipped out four slices of bread, a jar of purple, sweet jelly, and another jar of peanut butter. Using a butter knife to make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from what she gathered, she handed one to him, and the pair had a small lunch at the kitchen table.

Things were quiet as they ate together, both sitting opposite of one another; the only noise to go out being the typical munch, munch, munch sound one hears when they chew on the soft flesh of bread. The silence was finally broken a few minutes later when Persica finished her meal and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"What can you tell me about yourself, changeling?" was the question she had chosen to ask once that was done. "What really made you decide to, supposedly, leave your kingdom and begin anew?"

Habeas looked up from his sandwich, now only consisting of the last bit of crust he was ready to devour, to her and gulped down the bite of food currently in his mouth. Turning his head over his shoulder, he saw nobody else was around, and soon after came to the fantastical realization that she was speaking to him. "You want to know about... me?" he asked, putting a hoof to his chest in bewilderment.

"That's what I said," she blandly replied. "And that's what I mean to know. So tell me, why have you ventured so far from your horrendous homeland by yourself?"

"Because I want to change my fate," Habeas spoke with a hint of pride in his tone. "I don't want to harm anypony. I don't want to steal from anypony. I wish only to make an honest living among your kind."

"And your inspiration to do so was...?"

"The idea came into my head because one day, I..." Habeas straightened the bandanna around his neck and coughed into his good, hole-filled hoof. "...came across a cookbook."

"So a cookbook is what got you to leave your hive? A cookbook is what caused you to decide to put your whole life behind you?" Persica simply could not help but inquire. "Just that?"

"That's one way of putting it," Habeas chuckled, looking away for a brief moment. "I was raised never knowing of the other varieties of love in the world. When I discovered a cookbook and read through it, I found out that there were other, savory ways of getting the food we need; one such way being how ponies typically make their food with love. Take the food you made, for example."

Persica, rubbing her hoof in a circular motion over the crimson tablecloth, was visibly taken aback by these words. "Huh. Changelings are always starved and never content, but you've been keeping yourself fed on the normal food that I've prepared, because it has love in it. That... actually is beginning to make some sense."

"I've told your daughter, and I've been telling you, that I'm different," Habeas insisted. "I mean it."

"It sounds like you really, really want me to believe you, don't you?"

"I do."

"And that's the thing." Persica gave of a small smile as she turned her head and shook it. "It will take a long while and great effort for a thing like you to gain my trust, changeling. And by then, should your injuries heal, you'll probably be gone before you even get the chance."

Habeas sighed and lowered his head. "Yeah, I guess you may be right. I just... sort of wish that wasn't so, if only to do that."

Persica's lips wrinkled in slight confusion at his dejected response. "But no matter. We shouldn't trifle ourselves with such thoughts anyhow," she murmured, pushing her seat back and standing up. "Peach Blossom will be home soon. We'd best finish the last of the chores. There isn't much left, so don't worry too much."

Habeas slowly and stalely nodded in agreement as he too left his chair, taking a last bite of the crust before doing so. "Yeah, I guess."

The Request

"Mom, please can Mr. Brittle stay in the house with us?" Peach Blossom asked her mother for the fifty-seventh time that night, her her voice as high in pitch as her vain hopes.

"No," came her mother's fifty-seventh response as she trotted through the house at a mild pace. "He stays in the barn."

"But whyyy?" her daughter continued to whine as she follower her through the living room and into the kitchen. "We have a spare bedroom. It's much more comfy than laying in a barn."

"I won't let him sleep on one of our beds, spare or not, because a creature like him is bound to dirty it up," Persica spoke from over her shoulder, brushing her mane back as her head spun around. "And besides, he hasn't complained at all so far about sleeping in the barn. Never fix what is not broken, Peach Blossom."

One whole week had passed since Persica had discovered Habeas and allowed him to stay, and things had started to visibly settle down quite a bit. Habeas helped out around the house, he worked as diligently as he could with what injuries he had, and Persica's treatment toward him had lessened in terms of coldness; now the worst she tormented him with was the occasional bout of dry sarcasm. It was clear that his strength was returning, though slowly, and he was still nowhere near what he needed to be in order to go off on his own. His wings did however lose their shredded and tattered appearance, and they would most likely regrow to their full height and regain their usability within the next month or so.

"Before I go to bed, can I at least bring him that last slice of peach cobbler?" Peach Blossom went on, pointing a hoof to the remains of the dessert her mother made that night, currently sitting on a square, metal tray in the counter. "I think he deserves to have a sweet treat, since he's been so helpful for you."

"No." Persica shook her head. "You know you should have been in bed over half-an-hour ago, Blossom. A school night's still a school night, and I've already been generous by letting you stay up this late. Brush your teeth and get to bed, dear."

Peach Blossom frowned and looked away with a pout on her young face. "Yes, Mom..."

Persica's good eye watched her daughter begin to trudge off to the stairs; her head hung low and dejected. The mare could never stand seeing the precious filly become cloaked in sadness, and witnessing Peach Blossom so sullen by her stern words gradually took its toll on the soft spot of her mind, until she finally acceded to the demand set forth with a grumble. "If you're so distraught about it, then fine. I'll take it to him," she sighed.

"Really?" Peach Blossom immediately smiled from the stair she stood on.

"Ugh... really," her mother confirmed, shuffling over to the table, scooping up the cobbler and dropping it onto a plate in her hoof. "I'll tuck you in when I get back inside," she said again, making her way to the door.

"Thanks, Mom!" Peach Blossom shouted in an overjoyed way, before hurrying to finish the last of her night duties. Mumbling a curse to herself under her breath, Persica left the house and walked through the night-laden area of dirt and short grass between there and the barn, before inevitably reaching it. When she entered it with a squeak of the door's hinges, Habeas Brittle, near-perfectly concealed in the darkness within, lifted his chitinous head from the hay pile he was upon and saw the shape of the mare.

"Oh, um... hello? I-is there something you want, Miss Persica?" he anxiously asked her after a few seconds. Walking up to him, Persica laid the plate bearing the dessert on the floor in front of him.

"I made a peach cobbler a little earlier, and there was one last piece left when Peach Blossom and I were finished with it. I figured you should have it," she quietly told him. "For all the help you provided around the house."

"Thank you for this, Miss Persica," he instantly said, bowing his head in gratitude after getting a good look at it.

"You're welcome, changeling," she returned. Soon after saying that, her head took a chance to look upward and her eye caught sight of the old plow that hung from the ceiling, suspended by several thick ropes that held onto it tightly and safely. Persica had been thinking to herself about her plans for its use for the past three days, and just being where she was now caused her to inhale a deep breath. "Before I leave you again, is there something I may speak to you about?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "What is it?"

"There's a little hobby I've been wishing to pursue for some time," she began. "I've been wanting to make a garden, but I've not really found the time to plow and till the part of the field with all the other activities that need being done around here."

Habeas's webbed ears perked upward in interest. "Your daughter told me about that! Wait... what is it you're asking of me?"

"What I want to know is if you can pull that plow up there. It would help me out greatly if an extra, ready hoof would be here to do just that, and you're the only viable one available." Persica said, pointing to the large piece of equipment dangling stably several feet above them. "I only wish for you to accept if you think you're strong enough. Because if you hurt yourself doing it, I don't want you to stay here even longer for it."

"I... think I'll be able to move the plow," he said, staring up to the object with a newfound interest. "It shouldn't be too much of a problem. My back legs work fine enough. It's just the front ones I'll have to be careful about."

Persica bit her lip before forming it into a flat smile. "For doing this, you... have my earnest thanks, changeling," she spoke gently. She turned around and was beginning to walk toward the exit, when Habeas's voice spoke up.

"Oh, Persica, there's one thing I wish to say as well," he said. In turn, Persica stopped and looked at him.

"Yes?" she asked. "What is it?"

From where he laid, Habeas pawed at the ground with worry, though still confident in what he wished to share. "I got a good look at the two armor casings sitting in the living area when we cleaned the house that one day," he said again, thinking of what minor feature of the house he witnessed out of the corner of his eyes when they tidied it up a week ago. "I never thought to talk about, but it's been eating at my mind. Seeing them really tells me who you were, before settling down with your daughter."

"What is it you're getting at, changeling?" Persica asked, the brow over her good eye rising and voice lowering.

"You were... a knight once, weren't you?" he asked. "A royal one from Canterlot, right? I can see how. You have fancy armor, you can wield a simple pitchfork with the deadly efficiency of your spear... you're a warrior anypony would fear to face in combat." To this, Persica gave him a look that expressed only uncontainable, entertained hilarity at his words. Her cheeks began to bulge as she desperately sought to keep her emotion in, and just as Habeas thought her head was going to pop, she suddenly burst into a tremendously loud fit of mirthful laughter that echoed through the barn like violent thunder.

The laughter caught Habeas off guard, and his expression became utterly unnerved. Persica eventually stopped after a short time went by, and she wiped away some tears that had begun to form around both of her eyes. "No! No, I was no knight, changeling. Never was one, never will be. What I was, was... something else. I was something that delved into activities others would consider, er... 'dirtier', if you know my meaning."

"I do not know of it," Habeas responded, regaining his composure. "Could you please inform me?"

"Some other time, maybe," she chuckled with an easy gesture from her hoof. "For now, I think it's best if we all get some shuteye. You especially..."

"This isn't a matter you can simply speak of, then put off," Habeas returned with an adamant tone, truly wishing to know more. "Please, tell me."

"Some other time," the mare repeated, her voice starting to become annoyed.

"But-"

"Goodnight, Habeas," Persica bid a final time, silencing him with a glare his way and opening the barn door with a small creak as she did so. Turning to it, she was taking her first step out of the building until four more words broke through the air, all coming from Habeas again.

"You said my name," he softly spoke. Instantly looking back to him, she spied a small smile that had come over his face, and in spite of its pure warmheartedness, Persica found it quite bothersome.

"Yes, I suppose I did," she mumbled. "Let's not make a big deal of it."

Instead of faltering from her comment, Habeas's grin only grew wider. Now heavily irritated, Persica finally took this chance to leave the changeling before he could start speaking again, and the barn door loosely shut behind her in a clap of wood. His day made with this conversation, Habeas thought about this positively delightful shifting of events.

Persica might be tough, stubborn, and no short amount of terrifying at times, but Habeas knew that she was slowly warming up to him. He was proving to her that he was indeed a trustworthy creature, and he felt a sweetly warm, fuzzy feeling glow within him from the idea of changing the mind of a pony who so greatly once wanted to kill him.

And yet, something bitter still hung over Persica like a looming shadow. Something darkly foreboding and a little bit... melancholy, somehow. Due to their instinctual habits, all changelings possessed a powerful, innate sense of empathy when it came to detecting the emotions of other beings. From what he could gather and assume, a horrible and wretched event had happened to her in the past, but Habeas had no discernible thoughts on what it could be. That scar she had did, however, give him some vague hints.

The idea remained in his mind, but his stomach rumbled when the smell of the peach cobbler again caught his nose. With a turn of his head he looked at it lying on the plate that sat over the ground like a puddle in front of him. Savoring every bite of it, he ate the incomparably delicious and love-filled treat and then soon after went to bed.

To Start a Garden

Come the morning, after Persica returned from bringing Peach Blossom to school, Habeas had himself a look at the spot of the land he was about to work on. It was a medium-sized area right in front of the house, laying in between it and the peach orchard and outlined with a series of picketed sticks. The mild fall wind blew past him, through the trees and rattled their leaves; some of which were just starting to turn from their traditional dark green colors to the bright tints of the season.

Going into the barn and carefully lowering the plow to the ground with the ropes that suspended it, Persica rolled it out and presented it in front of the changeling. He looked it over now that he had the ability to see it up close, and the metal contraption clearly had an aged appearance, but was still very much sturdy and solid.

"It sure is... heavy-looking," he spoke after a minute had skipped by, pointing out one of the more obvious facts to be known.

"Don't tell me you're having second thoughts on this," Persica huffed, cracking a smile.

"No, I'm not," Habeas affirmed, smiling back. "I just thought it looked smaller from where it was on the ceiling." With that, he confidently positioned himself on the front of the old piece of equipment, and Persica, still keeping her smirk, went and strapped him into its harness. After adjusting just a few pieces and taking a final examination of the plow and changeling who was soon to pull it, she deemed all was set.

Without even being told, Habeas started to go along the pathway marked before him. "How's it moving?" he asked after about three minutes of huffing and puffing.

"Swell, so far as I see," Persica said, inspecting the cultivated trail that was forming in the earth. "Think you can keep it up like this while I get to work on my usual things?"

"I'm certain," he assured, stopping for a moment and catching his breath, before going forward with renewed vigor; neatly tilling the ground beneath him. With that, Persica went about her business collecting peaches from the trees in the orchard, checking all of their leaves for any pests that had the chance to be camping out in them, and watering the smaller garden she kept near the house before going inside to make sure everything was tidy enough to her liking.

As four hours passed by, Habeas had drawn to the end of his work. He had gone over the terrain many times in the appropriate way, making the once-rough soil nice and soft; perfect for planting seeds. And as soon as he parked the plow just outside of the tilled field, that's what he did. He happily trotted toward the pile of bags Persica had left for him, all of which contained various seeds of varying species.

So he gleefully went to placing into the ground vegetable (and fruit) seeds of nearly every variety, then inserted small plastic signs beside each spot to designate which was which. Peas, turnips, tomatoes, kale, squash, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, celery; all were buried within the dirt with the utmost care by the changeling. If the dirt in some random patches was still not soft enough for bearing seeds, Habeas made sure to fix that with the hoe that was kept nearby for just such an occasion. He proceeded to water them all fairly with the can Persica had left for him, and when that was done and he was happy with all that he had performed, he brushed the remaining dirt off of his good hoof with his handkerchief and trotted over to the edge of the new garden where Persica was also waiting for him.

"Do you think they'll all grow enough to be harvested before winter gets here?" he cheerfully, albeit tiredly inquired as he walked to her side.

"With enough of the special brand of plant food I have, yes," Persica responded with a content sigh. A long bit of silence came between the two as they both looked at the wide bed of dirt with simple fascination and much hope, illuminated well by the golden rays of the sun from the blue sky above. It seemed as though this quiet would last for a while, when Persica could take it no longer.

"Habeas," she finally spoke, her voice as soft as the farmed soil sitting before them.

"Yes?" Habeas asked her, looking her way as she did the same. "What is it?"

The mare gave him a frank smile and looked forward again. "Thank you. Thank you for doing this for me."

The moment these words touched his ears, Habeas wanted to jump up and cheer to the world of his accomplishment, but only barely resisted the urge to do so. To compensate, he stifled a joyous giggle and responded accordingly to the pony in a respectful and calm voice. "You're welcome, Miss Persica."

"I... I tried to help you!" Persica sobbed to the creature lurking in the misty void of darkness that sat like a cloud before and around her; the only barren spot not to be consumed by it being the dead dirt she stood her trembling shape upon. "I tried! I tried! You have to believe me!"

"You failed!" the tortured voice lurking in the all-consuming blackness spat forth like a stinging miasma. "You failed, and now I'm rotting away in the ground! Now, all because of you, the only comfort I ever feel are the maggots that infest my corpse!"

"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything!"

"You lie!" the voice howled back, a sense of hatred and betrayal evident in its torn pitch.

Persica could do nothing but listen to these cruel, penetrating words, and both terror and guilt consumed her entire being. "But I am! All I want is your forgiveness! That is all I ever want!"

"Never!" it shouted back, finally emerging from the inky blackness and showing Persica its horrific form. What it revealed was nothing but a hideous, rotting corpse of a pallor as dead as it truly was; animated and shambling forward like a demented drunkard. Persica's heart stopped in her chest, but still she stood there as it continued speaking. "I'll never forgive you."

Wracked with sickened agony, she tried to at least twist her head away from the terrible sight, and the creature saw this action right off. "Look at me!" it demanded in a harsh voice through its short snout of worm-eaten and bleached bone; its blank, rotted eyes looking at nothing but focused solely on her. "Look upon me and see all that you caused!"

"I didn't do it!" she cried, her throat becoming sticky as the unkempt tears falling in a river from her face began to blind her. "I d-didn't do it... You know I didn't..."

"Yes, you did..." it growled, leaping forth and effortlessly slamming Persica to the ground with a violent strike from what was left of its right hoof, leaving a red, festering welt on her hide.

"P-p-please! S-stop this, I b-beg of you!" Persica cried out desperately, paralyzed and unable to do anything as the creature began to crawl its withering form over hers. Instead of obeying, it dropped its head down, placing the remains of its foul mouth on the side of her head.

"You don't even deserve to be alive! You don't deserve to raise that filly you call your daughter! You let that creature do this to me! You killed me! You! You! You! You!" it screamed into her ear, over and over again in a hellish cacophony as it savagely ripped at her body and mercilessly tore her throat out with its bare teeth.

Persica awoke with a gasp; the once hot-feeling of what she dreamed was her blood spilling about turning cold as ice as the night air touched her fur-covered flesh. Thick beads of sweat fell from her forehead and landed in dark droplets on the white mattress she laid over. Her red-and-blue sheets had been kicked back during the nightmare she had suffered through, and now sat in a messy and mismatched pile at the foot of her bed.

Placing both hooves through her disheveled brown mane, the mare unleashed a loud sigh as she started to calm down. Turning her head to the clock on the wall beside her bed, she could see it was only fourteen past eleven. As usual, her much-needed sleep had been lost to the night terrors she seemed to have been cursed to suffer with. Stretching her legs for a brief instant until her mind was no longer hazy and blurred, she slowly left her bed and entered the hall outside her room. Carefully tiptoeing past Peach Blossom's room, she walked down the stairs with as much noise as a draft of wind and came into the living area.

In it sat two large, rectangular glass cases laying adjacent to each other, both of them holding matching sets of dark, heavy armor on frames of metal meant to imitate the basic shape of a pony. Walking up to the case on the right, Persica pulled on the handle of it and opened it. Staring at the armor inside as though it were a person, she put on a thoughtful, but very dejected face.

"Hey, Chantilly," she murmured with a saddened smile, stroking a hoof over the side of helmet with the gentle intimacy of a lover. "Is it that time again already?"

As it always did, the armor did not respond to her question. Smirking again, Persica shook her head at her sentimental foolishness before removing the helmet from where it rested and placed it over her head, followed by the other parts of the set. When all the pieces were donned upon her muscular body, Persica went to the ornate weapon case laying just a few feet away and silently lifted it. Upon looking at the well-crafted spear for a few minutes, recollecting on all the times she used it with both pride and horror, she lifted it into her hooves.

With it all her gear set and ready, she left the place as quiet as a mouse. Passing through the front door like a phantom, she strolled along the trail that left the house, passing the barn in the process. She certainly had no intention of awakening that changeling sleeping inside of it, and so the warrioress took soft steps. When she knew she was in the clear a few minutes later Persica continued her walk, but at a much faster pace; now unhindered by caution.

However, unbeknownst to the mare, she did awaken him.

The rattling sound of metal coming from just outside of the barn might have been quiet, but it was just loud enough to arouse Habeas from his slumber on the mound of hay where he slept on inside. Licking his lips, his teal eyes opened groggily before coming to full attention. When he had just gotten to his three good legs, it was when the noise was just beginning to stop, but the changeling was active and desiring to know what it was that awoke him.

He hobbled up to one of the barn's windows - the one facing out into the direction where he distinctly knew this strange noise originated from - and peeked out just in time to catch a dark, pony-esque shape covered in dark armor disappearing into the moonlight-cast shade of a tree that stood over the wide path leaving this pony's property and connecting to the main road.

What in the name of Queen Chrysalis? he thought to himself. That shape he saw was clearly wearing a familiar set of gear that rang more than just a bell in his head, and because of this he soon realized who it was. Persica, what are you doing?

With this information snapping him to full attention, he immediately went to the entrance of the barn and passed out through the two large doors. He looked out to the road with a squinting gaze but could no longer see the mare, but his curiosity overrode anything else at the moment. He knew that if he hurried, he could catch up to her in his weakened and sore state and find out what exactly she was doing at this ungodly hour.

Hoping with all of his heart that what he was attempting wouldn't lead him to too much trouble, Habeas quietly began to follow the fresh tracks in front of him as quickly as he could manage.

The Glade

When Habeas caught up to Persica, he did so by traveling through the less-dense part of of the woods when he had the chance. Lurking behind the thick bushes, ignoring any irksome thorns he happened upon to best of his abilities, he quietly observed what it was the earth pony was doing in that heavy-looking apparel on the road under the light of the moon; her spear moving about in the air in an almost rhythmic pattern.

For what seemed like the longest time, all she did was patrol the area leading from that part of the road to the area near the house. It was odd, and Habeas wanted answers more than anything else at the moment. But the last thing he wanted to do was march out there and politely ask the intimidating, armored pony if she was in the mood for a cheerful conversation. Might as well ask a dragon if it was in the mood for changeling stew. The thought sent shivers down his back.

He took one step forward to get just a foot closer to the road, if only to get a better look as Persica's passing shape, when an audible snap sounded out from below him. His blood freezing in his veins, he realized a moment too late that he had trodden upon a stick. Persica instantly stopped in her tracks the moment she heard the sound, and spun her head in the direction of the brush where the changeling was concealed in with a spear at the ready.

Well, no need to worry just yet... Habeas thought to himself hopefully. There's no way she would think it was me, much less walk in to investigate. She'd sooner suspect a squirrel or some other animal before thinking it was me...

"Habeas, are you in there?" she asked. The changeling squeaked in fear.

"W-will you attack me if I said yes?" he responded shakily.

Persica lowered her spear and sighed as her unlikely fear was realized, before mumbling a small chuckle and lifting it back up. "I won't hurt you. Get out here."

His feet still trembling for a few seconds more, Habeas tugged nervously at the bandana wrapped around his neck when he left the brush and walked onto the road. Getting close to Persica at this spot felt eerily reminiscent to that night where she attacked him and left him in such a damaged state, but he tried to drive out the worried thoughts by speaking again. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Call it a hunch," she said, irritation coated lightly in her low volume. "What are you doing out here? What business of yours is it to follow me?"

"Because seeing you just leave the house at this late hour was quite a curious spectacle to witness," he replied. "Why are you out here, patrolling around like some lost guard?"

"Reasons that are my own," she grunted.

"What is that supposed to mean? Why are you acting like this?" he inquired again, demanding answers. Persica let out a grumpy huff and tapped the bottom of her spear to the ground as the blade remained above her head, unsure on how to think of an excuse until she realized there was nothing she could use to defend herself from the truth.

"So, you really want to know why?" she asked. Habeas nodded his head, and she in turn sighed. "Then follow me. I want to show you something that'll tell you all you need to know about me. Something... personal."

Abruptly turning about, the mare began to trot over to the edge of the dirt path lining the woodland several meters away until she was off of the road. As she entered the forest, Habeas felt confusion build up inside of him, but he followed suit and went into the dark woods. The two ventured through it without a word as the sound of insects chirping and buzzing went about, passing by thick bushes, trees with gnarled and aged bark, and the occasional boulder. It appeared as though this would continue for the rest of this peculiar walk, until Persica began to speak.

"Has Peach Blossom told you of who my husband was?"

He responded accordingly. "Yes, she did. She told me his name was Chantilly Cream. If I may ask, how'd the two of you first meet?"

Hearing this question with clarity, Persica smiled in reverie. "What can I say... we met as foals, became the best of friends, and that friendship later evolved into something more when we got older."

Habeas smiled at the description. "That sounds sweet," he said, before his left brow slanted. "But you told me you were not a knight, yet you have two sets of armor. What did you two do together, I wonder?"

Persica uttered a long hum. "My husband and I... we were monster hunters," she said at last, gaining a surprised expression from Habeas.

"'Monster hunters'?" he questioned with a hint of disbelief and awe. "You?"

"Yeah, monster hunters. Together, we fought against dragons, wrestled with cragadiles, faced off with hydras, et cetera," she confirmed. "And for most of our adult lives, that was what we did for a living. And we excelled at it. We went from town to town offering our services to those in need, and if there was a problem with one or more of the local wildlife, we dealt with it and were paid afterward. Either by reasoning with the beast, chasing it off or defeating it when no other option was available, we got by easy enough. The challenge was exciting, the money was plentiful, and... we were together."

"It sounds as though you were nearly content with your profession, and from first-hoof experience with you, you had the proper skills for it," the changeling commented. "What made you stop?"

"I became pregnant."

"Oh."

"So... yeah..." Persica murmured again nostalgically, kicking an armored hoof at a small pebble in her path as she sensed they were closing in on their destination. "Chantilly and I eventually wanted to settle down and start a family while we were still young enough to do so. Our jobs around Equestria became fewer and fewer as time marched on, and when we found out a foal was on the way, we practically stopped altogether. Our last job was taking care of an infestation of changelings that were camped out and threatening some inhabitants of Canterlot's outer country area. Once we had driven the creatures away from the land with some shouts and displayed blades, we finally settled down on my parents' old peach farm as we had planned for a while."

It was then that Persica and Habeas exited the trees and entered a clearing filled with nothing but dirt and short grass. From what the changeling could see, it was a small glade. The sight that immediately caught Habeas's eye as he looked around was something reflecting a bright sheen of moonlight coming from around the center of the area, and when the two eventually grew closer to it, the changeling could see it was a sword embedded in the ground. It had a long, steel blade of grand craftsmanship, while a long, red ribbon flowed from its pommel in the wind like a flag.

"Peach Blossom told me he passed away in an accident," he spoke as he examined the weapon from where he stood.

"Well... it was no accident. It was... because of me," she responded dejectedly, causing Habeas to look back at her in surprise and sheer bewilderment. "It was a warm summer day almost eight years ago. I was due to give birth in roughly three months, life was as still and peaceful as we wanted, and all seemed normal. But that turned out to not be the case. With nothing to warn us, a lone changeling appeared out of nowhere on the edge of our property as dusk approached and quickly caught our attention. What I'll never forget about this changeling was that it had one eye as red as a rose petal, and clearly meant to snatch away our gazes with the way it tauntingly pranced about on the treeline near our house."

"I do not know anything about a red-eyed changeling," Habeas spoke up. "I am sorry."

Persica appeared to ignore his words as she focused her gaze on the sword, and simply went on. "The moment it saw us getting ready to apprehend it, the red-eyed changeling ran off into the woods. I wanted to run it down alongside Chantilly, but he told me to stay behind because of the child I bore. He said he could handle it, and I truly believed he could. But when he pursued after the changeling and failed to return after an hour, I grew fearful." Persica closed her eyes from behind her helmet's visor. "I... I never should have let him do that. I gathered my gear and set out at once to find him."

The mare's unflinching stare toward the sword only tightened. "I don't honestly know how long I ran around looking for Chantilly before I discovered him. Minutes. Hours..." she sighed. "But when I heard a ghastly wail, I followed where it came from and found him lying against a tree in this small glade, crying like a child."

Habeas's expression became very uneasy at this description, and Persica still continued. "The changeling had somehow beaten him. I don't know how, but it did. The creature fed off of Chantilly and left him in a tortured state I will say was very much worse than death. It drained his heart dry of every last bit of love for anything that lived within it, leaving nothing but blackness; charred and withered. A wretched husk. What I saw in his eyes as he looked at me was all he had left. Despair, misery, anger, fear, and hate."

She continued, her voice becoming lighter. "As I attempted in vain to comfort him he jumped to his legs with a roar, shouting out that I was dead to him, and that I had betrayed him. Then he... attacked me. He tried to kill me, without a care for anything else except my death. I tried my hardest not to fight back - I attempted to subdue him - but in my pregnant state, I was much too slow. After one fatal slip-up, the... thing Chantilly had become managed to strike his sword across the left side of my face, leaving my eye blind and scarred. And he laughed as he saw me reel back and cry out in pain. With... sheer panic and fear for the child within me taking over, my instincts acted for me before I could halt myself. After he had thrown me to the ground and was rearing up to plunge his sword at me once more, I sent... I sent my spear into his chest and killed him."

Habeas was silent with shock and wanted nothing more than to ask Persica to halt in her tale, but still she went on. "So he passed here at this very spot, but I made sure to bring him to Canterlot and bury him there. Peach Blossom doesn't know how he died, much less what his and my professions were, and I plan to keep it like that. But almost every night when I go to sleep, in my dreams I see that horrible moment in full detail, but played out in different, hellish ways. I look into his eyes, and I see the same unremitting hatred and utter despair smoldering in them when he attempted to take my life. A monster of guilt and remorse. A twisted creature made to haunt me. And I deserve it for abandoning him when he needed me most, Habeas."

Persica placed her hoof upon the sword's pommel, the choir of insects surrounding them nearly overcoming the sound of wind-rustled leaves overhead with their chirps. "Heh. It's... ironic, really," she gave off a small chuckle after some time had passed, her head bobbing with it. "I fought monsters for most of my life, and just as I thought it was time to settle down, I was wrong. I let my guard down for one minute, and paid for it in the most heinous way I could imagine. That's why I'm out here. That's why I patrol the road and the area around my house. So I never make the same mistake again. Because Peach Blossom is all I have left."

A single tear droplet, shining silver in the moonlight, fell from within her helmet to the ground below and touched the dirt at the sword's base. Habeas was at first speechless with shock, but overcame the urge to remain silent when he stepped forward and began to open his mouth.

"Persica, why would you think like this? It was not your fault. You were too handicapped to chase and fight a creature as nimble as a changeling. You had an unborn daughter to keep safe," he spoke to her, his voice tender and soft. "Your guilt... your self-hatred... that's what I've been sensing around you. It hasn't been aimed at me, it's... toward yourself. That's the negative bitterness I've been feeling when I'm near you."

Persica turned her head until her good eye was glaring his way. "Who're you to judge me on my feelings, changeling?" she snapped. "What's it to you about the condition of my emotions? Why do you give a damn in the slightest?"

Habeas's normally mirthful face was devoid of anything except seriousness and concern. Without so much as thinking of the consequences, he took a deep breath, put his hoof onto her armored shoulder, and kept it there.

"Because you're my friend. And I don't want to see a pony as wonderful as you to suffer under such repulsive and deplorable feelings of self-loathing when you have no reason to in the first place. Feeling like this is not healthy, Persica."

The words pierced Persica's mind like the tip of her own spear, and as though stunned by them, she let Habeas' hole-filled hoof remain where it lay, unable to force away the small amount of comfort he was giving.

"Let's get back," she mumbled a minute later, finally building up the will to move herself out of his foreleg's range.

Habeas silently agreed. Persica hoisted her spear back into her full grasp and upon shifting a final glance at the sword, the pair left the glade through where they had entered it to begin with. The travel back to the homestead was in complete silence, as neither had the thirst for further conversation after the events that had come between them, and during the short trek Habeas thought to himself of the tragic tale she had shared with him.

When they reached the barn first, they both entered the red outbuilding together. While the changeling moved to where his bed of hay sat, Persica was deciding on whether or not she should leave right then or say something first.

She eventually sighed when she reached her conclusion, pulling her helmet off and revealing her scarred face. "Habeas," she spoke again. The changeling immediately and respectfully turned to her as he heard his name being called.

"Yes?"

"I wish to apologize for assaulting you on the road, and again later when I found you sleeping here in the barn," she said to him. "Ever since the day I lost Chantilly I've seen all of your kind as being the same pitiless monsters to be killed on sight. But you... you're different than what I've been led all my life into believing. I never once thought a changeling could express benevolent actions and emotions except for nothing more than when performing a cruel ruse. But what you've done for me around here so far is as genuine as I bet it could ever be."

Habeas easily raised his good hoof. "You have no need to apologize," he spoke. "You and your daughter have given me shelter, food, and care for my troubles. And, let's face it, had you not harmed me as you did, you might never of known such a positive fact about me, yes?"

The earth pony gave him a small smile. "I suppose so. But if it's all the same to you, I wish you a good night."

"And you as well," he said with a quick bow. Habeas began to lay down on the pile of hay and books as Persica was just starting to leave, when she stopped and looked back at him.

"Before I forget, Habeas... please, don't tell Peach Blossom the story I shared with you about Chantilly," she implored with concern evident in her tone. "She is not yet ready to process such... horrible information."

He quickly nodded. "I understand, Miss Persica. I will not tell her."

"Good." She resumed her journey to the barn door, and pressed a hoof on it until it opened for her. "I will see you in the morning."

And with those last words, she quietly departed from the barn. Habeas had a lot to think over with what had occurred between him and Persica, and this idea gradually consumed his weary mind, even as it started to eventually drift back off into deep sleep.

Drinks Between Friends

As she had told him, Persica and Habeas left the house at noon. Knowing that the public would probably not be happy with having a changeling in their midst, Habeas chose to change his form. The disguise he had decided to put on was a simple form that he didn't take long to think up. After shifting into it he appeared as a unicorn of a simple complexion, with light gray fur and a darker-shaded mane. His injured hoof, still in its sling, was able to transform as well with its current condition, making his disguise practically foolproof.

Earlier that morning Peach Blossom had been picked up by her friend, leaving the mare and the changeling on their own for the rest of the day. After hooking herself to the cart, Persica and Habeas set off from the house to Canterlot. While traveling on the barren road, Habeas thought of the fine city and pony capitol of Equestria.

Habeas had been to Canterlot before, during the time where he and his hive invaded not two years ago, and that same memory still remained as fresh as a daisy. As a matter of fact, he was also once here visiting peacefully for a short time before he took a trek along the road that led him to Persica in the first place.

It was as the city came into their sights that Habeas voiced his question toward their mission. "So what kind of drinks are we fetching, exactly? Some kind of juice?" he asked.

Persica snorted at his naivety on how brewers worked. "Peach schnapps," she answered. "The very best, too."

Habeas looked confused. "Schnapps?" he questioned. "My cookbook never mentioned those. What're they?"

"Just a form of alcoholic beverage," Persica said. "You know, these ones are made by one of my friends, Cider Keg. Let me tell you, when he makes drinks out of my peaches, you'd think you never had anything else as good."

"I don't think I've ever even had a drink like that before..." he replied. When a few more minutes of walking passed by, they came into the city.

Habeas loved to be in Canterlot. He never grew tired of having such grand, fantastic buildings take up his sight. He had lived most of his life in a dark and shapeless, cavern-esque hive in the Changeling Kingdom, and spying the colorful architecture here that bore such alien, but extraordinary visages and stable geometries to them that he could not help but admire it. After a walk through the square with all of the passing townsponies none the wiser, Habeas and Persica came to a plain-looking establishment neighboring the main castle and entered it after parking the wagon aside.

Inside, behind a counter and clearly waiting for his next customer, was an earth pony who Habeas quickly distinguished as most likely being Cider Keg. The first thing he noticed right off about him was that he was a stallion of a somewhat wide girth. Covering his stout configuration was coarse orange fur and a mottled white-and-blue shirt, as well as a curled mane of a dark shade of brown. On his flank was a cutie mark resembling a large brown barrel. His face, bearing a grand handlebar mustache and a pair of bushy eyebrows, looked perpetually, if not roughly cheery, and this instantly made Habeas feel welcome.

"Top of the morning to you, Persica!" he greeted in a hearty voice. "Came at just the right time, too! It's been a hustle for most of the first half of the day, but we've finally got us a break here."

Persica smiled back as she approached the counter. "That's why I always come here at noon, Cider. Is my order ready?"

"Indeed it is!" he replied. "Let me go fetch it for you."

He turned around and casually entered the door standing behind him. Coming back from it after less than a minute, he had a large crate wrapped in his left hoof, and he placed it on the counter for both the mare and disguised changeling to see.

"Half-a-dozen bottles of my finest peach schnapps," he said, patting the crate's wood as though it were a pet. "All as a token of my thanks for the peaches you so graciously delivered to me yesterday. The rest'll sell good once winter comes around."

"As they always do," Persica grinned.

"Hey, what happened to your friend?" Cider then asked her, pointing to the disguised changeling as he took notice.

"Him? Oh, he, um..." Persica tried to answer for Habeas, only for him to answer with an excuse before her.

"I... fell down some stairs," he said.

"Some stairs?" Cider Keg questioned.

"Yeah, some stairs."

"Oh... that must've been a nasty fall!" Cider Keg winced back and rubbed his foreleg as he imagined the idea of hurting himself in a similar way. Getting back to his previous stance, he turned to Persica again and smiled. "But anyway, enjoy the drinks!"

Nodding appreciation, Persica lifted a crate up with near effortlessness over her shoulder. She intended to bring it out to the wagon, when Habeas trotted to her before she could so much as turn around.

"Allow me," he offered sincerely. Thinking for a second and eventually rolling her eyes, she plopped the crate onto his back. Though his body sunk low for a second, once Habeas collected his bearings, he nodded to the earth pony and set off for the door, as to deposit the crate in the cart. Cider Keg watched it all from where he stood with an intrigued glint in his eyes.

"Who is your companion, Persica?" he asked her, his mustache twitching with curiosity. "I've never seen him around here before, and I know most ponies to inhabit this fine city."

"He's from out of town," she replied. "He's staying at my house until he's able to go off on his own again, and I have him do work around it as payment."

"Seems like a delightful fellow," the brewer went on. "I can see why you keep him around."

"Among other reasons..." she uneasily sighed. "I'll see you around, Cider. Thanks again for the schnapps."

He grinned, showing his square white teeth from behind his thick and wiry facial hair. "Don't mention it, my old friend. It's what I do."

Habeas and Persica returned to the homestead soon after, and the changeling immediately went to work around the place. He checked the garden first, and then made sure the peach trees were all good to start off. Once that was done and over with, Habeas focused on the rest of the smaller work activities to be done around the house. Come sunset he finished the last of the chores set upon him by Persica, and went off to look for her in order to tell her that he was done.

Habeas eventually found Persica on the porch of the house, sitting upon one of the two wooden chairs resting on it and looking out to the property with her good, blue eye; a slight sparkle of contentment shining in it, causing it to look less like a cold chip of ice and more like a shimmering flower petal. There was a clear cloud of calm tranquility that sat over her like a wonderful morning mist, and Habeas could feel the vibe strongly. Taking notice of the changeling, she turned to him expectantly.

"I finished all the work that needed doing," he told her once her attention was on him.

"And you did a good job, Habeas. Care to sit with me?" she inquired.

"Oh, um... sure," he concurred. Slowly walking onto the porch, he looked at her with an unsure visage, and only sat down in the free chair when she gestured for him to do so with a hoof. With the limb in the cast sitting by his side, he tried to get as comfortable in his seat as he could. The only thing between himself and the pony was a small table propped up on three thin legs, and situated on its flat, round surface were two small glass cups, and one bottle of what Habeas recognized was the peach schnapps the two picked up that day; freshly plucked from the crate.

"What are you doing right now?" he asked in an effort to start a conversation, noticing how she only appeared to be doing nothing else at the moment.

"Meh... just admiring the sunset. Taking it in as much as I can," she replied, pointing out to the beautifully crimson horizon. With the way the rays of sunlight showed through some reddened clouds in the sky above, Habeas had to admit the view was lovely. But there was still another question in need of being answered now that he was up here.

"What's with the bottle and cups?" he asked next.

She took a quick peak at the items in question and gave a halfhearted shrug. "I guess I was thinking that you might deserve to have some of the first sips of this fine brew. For all the hard work you've done for me."

"But... peach schnapps? An alcoholic beverage?" his voice sounded ripened with concern and a minuscule hint of angst. "I've never once heard of a changeling that drank something like that before. What if I... have a bad reaction?"

"Please," Persica murmured skeptically. "It's nothing more than distilled and flavored fruit juice that's been processed into a light brandy."

"Are you sure it won't... kill me?" Habeas eyed her suspiciously, as though she was intending to poison him.

"Oh, c'mon. You'll like it," she insisted, grabbing the bottle and undoing its cork; already loosened from the corkscrew she previously used inside. Tipping it slightly, she poured some of the drink into her glass before setting the cork onto it again and putting it back onto the table. "Those brewers put their blood, sweat, and tears into making this stuff. A changeling like yourself will find as much love as you want, if I were to hazard a guess. So, put your worries behind you, pour yourself a glass, and let's allow a good and merry time to come between the two of us as friends sharing a drink."

Holding his breath, but releasing it with her gentle words, Habeas reached for the bottle. Picking it up and tugging the cork out, he carefully put its tip to the glass and watched as the contents within it spilled into the cup. After it was filled just over half, he placed the bottle on the wooden planks making up the porch's floor beside himself, as to not clumsily knock it over with his shoulder or elbow in the small chance he was to spasm out from drinking it.

"You're sure this is okay?" he inquired a final time, picking the glass up and examining the clear, peach-tinted fluid within.

"I'm sure," she responded, truthfulness in her tone as she lifted her own up. "The only side effect I bet you'll experience is a relaxation of the joints and an ever so slightly slightly dulled mind."

"Well then... here I go," Habeas mumbled, trusting her. Putting the cup to the tip of his fanged snout, he took a small sip from it and allowed the cold fluid to enter his mouth, right before Persica did the same.

"Y-you were right, Persica..." Habeas hiccuped in a heavily inebriated and happy voice. "This stuff is good. Like, really good."

Silence was all that responded back to him. Persica had been looking at him with a widened eye for the last few minutes, and still could only scarcely believe what level of drunkenness had become of the changeling's once-meek and cautious disposition. "I... told you, I guess," she finally said, a smirk of slight amusement coming over her.

"You sure did, heh... Wait, how much of this stuff did I have s'far?" he asked, his brow sluggishly curling in confusion as he eyed his cup and the drink that still occupied a fourth of it.

"You're still on your first glass," she answered with a small snicker. "I must say, you changelings sure get tipsy real fast."

"I don't think any of us had peach schnapps before!" he said back in a hearty laugh. "This stuff izz... different from anything I've had before. It makes my insides feel warm, and soft, and... warm."

For a time after that, Habeas spoke of many, mostly trivial things in his addled state, and Persica was an avid listener of these drunken rambles, until he spoke of something else. "You know, yesterday, Peach Blossom and I talked a lot. And I mean a lot. She told me about how much she liked school, and how fun it is to have a changeling as a friend, and what she was going to dress up as for 'Nightmare Night', or something like that," he droned on with the occasional hiccup to accompany his dizzied words, still warranting Persica's amused expression. "And another thing, I think something she told me... er, asked me, was if I... if I liked you, Persica."

The mare's face went as still and blank as a pale slab of stone, and once she had a proper grip of what her ears picked up, her cheeks flushed like the tint of the setting sun. "What... did she ask you?" she inquired in an emotionless whisper.

"If I... heh, heh, like you!" he repeated with a childish chuckle, causing Persica's face to remain as it was. Still, past Persica's shocked visage, Habeas continued on; his expression as lightheartedly mirthful as ever. "A-and you know what's a li'l bit funny?"

Persica ground the teeth in her mouth around in gritting circles and placed her empty glass to the table beside her as her eyes formed into a glare. "What's funny, Habeas?"

He looked to his cup for a moment; swishing around the contents within it and watching with dumb amusement on his face at how the ripples swirled about. "I think I... kinda, sorta... maybe... do. Heh, heh!"

Habeas laughed aloud, unaware of how Persica was taking this sudden news. The color on her face returning to normal as a minute passed by, her face soured and she folded her forelegs over her chest. She remained looking like this for a while, casting her malevolent leer toward nothing but the far off red horizon as though hoping to cause the sun to explode with just her dirty gaze. "Habeas," she finally spoke, her tone mollified a fair bit, but facial features holding onto their bitterness. "Could you please pass me the bottle?"

He blinked at her groggily and let his wits slowly catch up to him. "Y-you sure you want another round of this stuff?" he asked her.

"Just give it here," she muttered back. Shrugging, Habeas turned to the floor behind him and, with as much care as he could muster up, lifted the bottle from where it rested in his wrist and gave it to Persica. Without delay she snatched it out of his hole-filled hoof in a quick motion, pulled the cork off with her teeth, and spat it out onto the table.

Currently uncaring of anything else, she took a long swig from the thing, not even bothering to hesitate in performing such an inane action. Though his mind was blunted immensely, the changeling was still very much startled by what he witnessed Persica do.

"Persica," he spoke, his voice only partially sobered by his surprise. "Are you okay?"

Finally parting the bottle from her lips, Persica set the thing down on the table with a light clap of glass-on-metal from the momentum. "I'm just fine, Habeas," she grumbled back in a tone that was beginning to sound a little bit intoxicated. "Just. Perfectly. Fine."

An Odd Awakening

With only silence surrounding him, when Habeas woke up, the first discernible thing he noticed was that he was laying upon something soft, and draped in a set of blankets of a red-and-blue coloration. Lifting his chipped-horned head from the white pillow it was on, he slowly started to open his eyes. He didn't know where he was, but he did know it was a bed of some sort, situated in a medium-sized room with tan-tinted walls.

What happened last night - what happened yesterday for that matter - felt like a blur. He tried to recollect as much of it as he could, and when his memory started to return to him on how he had gotten to and fallen asleep on such a soft surface, he began to relive some of what had transpired in his mind.

Persica had drank most of the bottle of peach schnapps as the evening progressed. She had gone from grumpily surly, to happy, then back to surly, then back to happy again. She eventually stayed in a carefree and jolly mood, if not in a ditzy sort of way, and both she and Habeas had gotten into a conversation about one another's pasts. When Habeas had finished his part in saying how he was just a drone that found something more in life, Persica took her turn.

Mostly, she talked about how she and her husband traveled throughout Equestria in their ventures as monster hunters for-hire, and of the many beasts they had encountered, both fierce and strange. Currently, she was speaking to him of one time, as their adventures began to draw to their end.

"Anyway, what we got was a message that led us to the small town of Ponyville," she went on. "See, they were having a huge problem, I think. A very... hungry problem."

"So what was happening there?" asked Habeas, always intrigued by these tales.

"It was something along the lines of an unseen creature that was raiding the food storages of some ponies who lived on the edge of the place, neighboring the Everfree Forest. So we see one farmer, who tells us that the same creature recently ransacked the shed where he keeps most of his important foodstuffs, and it ended up devouring his prized wheel of cheese in the process. By the sound of his voice... I think he really wanted that thing caught."

Habeas tried to picture the image in his fuzzy-feeling head. "That poor cheese..."

"We looked over the damage, smelt a horrible, almost unbearable stench sitting about in the air, and came to the conclusion that it was a great swamp troll. So generally, we got ourselves ready and quickly tracked it down to its lair in the nearby woods. And as soon as we got there, whoo! It reeked."

"So it was smelly?" Habeas chuckled, wishing to know the ending to this tale. "Then what?"

"And," Persica sniggered again, "As it turns out, it wasn't a great swamp troll. It was an... an old, blind cockatrice, just sitting about in its lair, and the cheese it had eaten in the shed was giving it a bad case of gas!"

The two guffawed.

"Haha! Hehe! Oh, what a funny story..." Habeas mumbled once their laughter had died down, wiping a tear from his teal eye. "That sounds almost hard to believe! But yet, you say it's true?"

"It sure is," she replied, looking into her bottle and once more finding that there was no more schnapps to drink. Sighing, she clumsily placed the bottle on the table, taking a few seconds before she had put it there in a properly straight and stable fashion. "After a brief scuffle we ended up capturing the the thing and re... relocated it to a deeper part of the Everfree Forest. Considering it's a cockatrice and all, I'd... I'd, uh... bet it's still alive, and probably still trying to digest that cheese, heh. Celestia help whatever poor thing happens upon it during one of its gassy 'moments'..."

There was another, quieter round of giggling, then everything went silent for a short time before Persica broke it again. "That was one of Chantilly and I's last hunts. We loved doing it, and it was what got us both together to begin with, but we wanted to raise a family together more. And with Peach Blossom... I'd sooner die a thousand deaths than give her up for anything."

"And that's a noble promise more than worth keeping," Habeas nodded in agreement.

Persica looked up to the bright moon looming above them in the sky. Night had long since set over the countryside, and the with nightfall came drowsiness. Feeling tiredness she could no longer ignore creeping over her, Persica got up from her chair, still sensible enough to want to fall asleep indoors. She had wandered to the door with a yawn, when she stopped and turned back to the changeling as a thought came over her.

"Uh... Habeas. I'm gonna hit the hay. Wanna... come inside with me?" she asked him. "You look quite cold out here by your lone self."

"Oh, it isn't that cold..." he murmured back, looking to her from his chair.

"C'mon, I insist," she smiled in a warm way that made it far too hard for him to refuse. The changeling looked at her for a good few seconds before he gave into her words, and left his seat with a squeak of its legs over the porch floor.

"Are you... sure you're fine with this?" he questioned in a suspicious voice, walking up to her side in a tipsy way.

"I'm sure. With all you've done for me after what I did to you... I think you pretty much deserve it," she replied. With easy grins on their faces, the two dizzily ventured inside of the abode, sometimes humming or hiccuping the occasional chuckle to each other.

Habeas Brittle was suddenly snapped out of his memory as he perceived the feeling of a hoof tightening around his waist and realized a sensation of warm of breath had graced over his webbed ears from somewhere right behind where he lay. In that one moment of surprise and terror that followed he stopped breathing, and swore his heart failed to beat for a quick moment.

Oh no. Oh, no. Sweet Chrysalis, please no. No, no, no, nonononononononononononono... The thoughts spinning in Habeas's head were of a chaotic mix that left him feeling sick and faint, but all showed the same feelings with the burning clarity of a bee's sting. Panic, fright, and dread most intense filled all of his senses like the choking smoke from a blaze.

He was laying in the same bed as Persica.

How he had gotten into this situation was like a nightmare made manifest, and it left him almost completely paralyzed. It was roughly five minutes later that he dared to turn his head to look at the pony he feared most, and found his eyes spying her sleeping face less than a few inches away from his own.

She was just snoozing there right next to him, quite peacefully by the way her mouth hung slightly ajar where her head lay against the pillow and eyelids easily shut. The only movement she seemed to make was the deep breaths that caused her chest to slowly expand and deflate. She had him in a small, but firm embrace with her left hoof, and didn't appear to be willing to let go of him anytime soon.

If she were to wake up now... oh, the consequences he would face would surely make a lifetime of imprisonment in the fiery depths of Tartarus look paltry in comparison. Silently shivering at the horrid thought, Habeas got his mind straight and started to concoct a plan to avoid falling to such an awful fate.

Without a word to utter, Habeas began his escape, starting with getting out from underneath Persica's hoof. As he was just completing moving barely an inch after what felt like an hour, Persica unconsciously mumbled some nonsense from behind her idle lips, her grip around Habeas's waist constricting further and forcing him to freeze in his attempt.

"Mmm... no, Chantilly," she whispered groggily and tenderly, rubbing her furry snout over the back of his neck with a smile curling over her lips, yet still dead asleep in spite of all of it. "Another... minute..."

Habeas gulped a stale river of saliva down his throat. When he reclaimed his courage, he put his good, but shaking hoof on her own, and with enough care to not irk a fly, he slowly, slowly began to slide it off of himself. He continued performing this one action until he succeeded in taking it off of his body, and lowered it by Persica's own side without her knowing.

After seeing his sling was all set around his lame leg, Habeas started to slither off of the bed, through the sheets until he had touched down on the floor. Lifting himself up, he looked around the room and saw, like a wonderful miracle, the door out of here was directly ahead of him.

Habeas crawled to it, treading over the floor with long and heavily cautious steps, and was seconds from leaving the room when he realized something unmistakable was amiss. Putting his hoof to his bare, chitinous neck, he failed to feel the old piece of green, patchwork cloth he always had wrapped around it.

Where's my bandanna? he thought. Snapping his head back to the bed, he looked for but a moment before seeing it. It hung over one of the bed's front posts, on the side where he previously laid. Holding his breath with the knowledge of what could happen if he just left this incriminating piece of evidence here, he snuck back over to the bed with as much care in his steps as when he was leaving it, and used his magic to quickly levitate it toward himself when he was close enough.

Wrapping his bandanna around his neck where it belonged, Habeas turned to depart, when he heard a faint commotion of moving bedsheets, indicating that Persica had stirred. With blood freezing in his veins, he slowly turned his head back around and looked at the earth pony once again, just in time to catch a small bout of movement on the bed.

Persica was rolling over with a small grunt, continuing in this sluggish motion until she pointed her still-sleeping face toward the other side of the room, and went still. Habeas exhaled the deepest breath of his life when he noticed she was still absorbed in dreamland and, without further delay, tiptoed to the door and finally left the room as quiet as a mouse.

It was some time that passed by before Persica herself awoke. She yawned and raised her head from the pillow, sitting up as well as she could manage and rubbing her sore face with her hooves. With a groan, she pushed back her untidy and disheveled mane from her face and opened her eyes. Taking a deep breath of the stagnant air into her lungs, her wits slowly came about her.

Nearly everything from yesterday was a blur, including how she had gotten into the bed in the first place. Her head ached terribly; an effect of the hangover she had given herself from the night before. Cursing herself for her ineptitude in controlling her impulses from whatever it was that got her to drink so much in the first place, she stretched her aching limbs out and sat up on the bed.

She sat there like that for a few minutes, recuperating from the stiffness of her limbs, and only then did she come to the realization that her sleep in the night was utterly unfitful, nor did she suffer through any of those accursed nightmares. It was a curious thought, as this was the first time she could properly recollect where this had happened.

She eventually felt well enough to leave the room, but as soon as she had done so at her leisure, a strange, but delectable odor caught her nose. It was a warm, crisp aroma, not unlike that of a certain morning meal she was used to preparing for her daughter some days, and had the tang of something that left her empty and hungry stomach rumbling.

What is that wonderful smell? she thought to herself, taking in another, longer whiff of the scent that seemed so heavenly at the moment. She wandered down the stairs in search of the origin of the smell, which she had realized was coming from the kitchen, and swiftly entered it, only to come upon a sight that left her quite surprised.

The first thing she saw, illuminated fully by the late morning sunlight shining through the windows, was Habeas. He was standing over the heater of the stove with a frying pan, and something of a golden yellow coloration sizzling upon it. She could see that it was scrambled eggs that the changeling was cooking with that trademark grin of his on his fanged mouth, and on the counter beside him was a plate that bore a trio of pancakes.

Habeas eventually noticed the mare's shape standing in the kitchen entrance out of the corner of his compound eye, and turned to her instantly. "Morning!" he cheerfully greeted to the awestruck mare.

"You can cook?" she inquired, disbelief coated in her tone.

"You do remember me saying I repeatedly and obsessively read from a single cookbook for the last two years of my life, right?" he chuckled. "I was bound to learn a thing or two on how to make food properly."

Finishing with the food, he lifted the scrambled eggs from the pan with the spatula and put them on the plate, next to the pancakes. Getting the bottle of whipped cream he had out and ready, he sprayed a depiction of two eyes and smile onto the pancakes themselves, and then placed a single strawberry in the center to replicate the nose. When that was done, he brought the plate to the table and presented it in front of Persica.

"For you, m'lady," he said, bowing in a courteous fashion. Eyeing him oddly, then doing the same to the plate, Persica took a seat at the table and lifted the fork laying on the nearby napkin. At first testing it with a few pokes from the fork, she soon carved into the pancakes with it and took her first bite, closing her eyes as she savored the sweet taste that rolled over her tongue.

Habeas watched her eat for a few minutes before going to wash the dishes and deciding it was appropriate to speak again. "Persica, about last night..." he started, unease evident in his voice.

"It's okay, Habeas. Last night was... mostly my fault, I guess," Persica stated, setting the fork down for a moment as she looked to him. "But there is one thing that's gotten my mind twisted in a worse knot than it's already in. If I remember correctly - and that may not be the case, given what happened between the two of us - you said you... 'liked me'."

"I... I did?" he stuttered, caught a little off guard by the comment. "I... I... don't think I..."

Persica halted him before he could properly explain. "Stupid question. Forget I asked. It's just that... we both drank more than we should have, and you said a few things that you didn't mean to say. I probably did too. Agh, my head hurts like all hell..." She rubbed a weary hoof over her temple.

"How did you, uh... sleep?" he asked her, hoping that she didn't notice or remember him being with her. Before replying, she lifted her glass of orange juice and took a long sip from it.

"Dreamless. Peaceful," were the two words that came back when she was done, causing him to sigh in relief. "It was good. Best I've slept in years, possibly."

"That's... good to hear," Habeas spoke, clearing his throat as he finished up washing the pan and spatula. Persica stroked her chin with a hoof for a second as she thought of something rather strange.

"Why'd you... decide to come in here and make me breakfast?"

Leaving the kitchen counter and approaching the table, he took a seat and looked at the mare with a kindly expression painted over his face. "I just like being nice from time to time."

"Sure you do." Persica took another sip from her orange juice as another thought came to mind. "Before I forget, do you know what time it is at the moment?"

"Last I checked... it was five minutes to ten," he replied, his torn-up wings flittering briefly.

"Five minutes to ten? Oh wow... I've got to go pick Peach Blossom up!" the mare then said in a hurried voice. "I told Blossom to inform his friend that I would be at their house to get her by ten-thirty."

"If you're leaving right now, while you're gone I'll... start on the morning chores then," Habeas said to her in a much calmer tone by comparison. He was unsure if his words were heeded though, as Persica was busy downing the last of the food on her plate, after which she ran from the kitchen, collected her wide-brimmed hat, and sped toward the door.

"I'll be back soon, Habeas!" she shouted to him.

"Alright then! I'll be here!" he shouted back, trotting up to the left-open doorframe and watching as she split from the house and soon out of view. Sighing once more in relief on the news that she hadn't remembered snoozing with him in her room, Habeas returned inside to wash the plate she had left behind.

Eyes of Red

Ten-thirty came around swiftly enough. With what little things she brought over all packed up in her backpack, Peach Blossom walked through the house of her friend at an unhurried pace. The house itself, of an upper-class design, sat like a meager stone under the shadow the grand main castle of Canterlot, and was one of many that possessed close ties with the retainers dedicated to serving the royal sisters, Princesses Celestia and Luna.

Peach Blossom was nearing the door, when the shape of her best friend, Bumble Bee, came up from behind her to give his last goodbye.

Bumble Bee was a unicorn colt around her age with yellow fur covering his entire form, and a dark, near-black color that showed off from his mane and tail. One of his eyes was of a green texture, and the other, right one was light crimson. It was a unique feature he had, and it wasn't anything too special, though Bumble liked to brag about it quite often to his classmates. Having met not quite a year ago in school, the two had become the greatest of friends.

"So... when do you think you'll be able to come over again?" he asked her, both of them finally making it to the door.

"Who knows?" she responded with a shrug. "Maybe my mom will let me come over next week."

"I hope she does," he wished. "See you in school on Monday!"

"You too!" Peach Blossom said back, opening the door and trotting out. Bumble walked up to the window and watched as she reunited with the hatted mare he could clearly tell was her mother waiting on the sidewalk, and after a small embrace, the two went on their way.

Bumble watched them for a few seconds longer before leaving the window. He ventured through his abode a short ways, thinking of the upcoming Equestrian holiday that was approaching at a tantalizingly rapid rate. His thoughts were soon interrupted, as the back door that led to the backyard opened up from behind him. He turned around and looked to it, and witnessed a figure clad in a white suit enter the house.

It was his mother, Apini Bee was her name, and she was clad in her beekeeping gear. Her face was currently concealed in the dark veil her protective, hooded hat bore, while the rest of her body was similarly kept hidden in the suit. She normally spent her days working outside on the small plot of grassy land containing over a dozen large beehives at its edge, which dwelt near Canterlot's Royal Garden.

"Has your friend left, Bumble?" she said to her son, taking her hat off and revealing her one-horned, yellow-furred face; a light blue mane trailing down her neck. If one looked closely, they would see that her left eye, like her son's right one, was red. The other bore an earthly brown color.

"Yeah, she just got picked up by her mom," he replied.

"Good to hear. You haven't gotten yourself dirty, have you?"

Bumble, at first caught off guard by her words, put on as innocent of an expression as he could manage. "Um... explain 'dirty'," he said.

Apini blew a drooping part of her mane away from her red with a puff of air and put on a wry look. "I know you and her both played in the dirt outside after breakfast, and may have gotten yourselves dirty," she spoke. "Let me have a look at you."

In response, Bumble turned himself around in a circle, allowing his mother to observe all of his body. Apini looked unconvinced when he finished.

"A look at the real you," she restated with a roll of her eyes. "I know how much filth you can hid by staying as you are."

"Oh, okay..." he relented with a small sigh. A wisp of green flame enveloped his small form, and what was shown when the flame disappeared was not a unicorn, but a young, diminutive changeling. Though one eye was as teal as most others of his kind, his other was still red in texture. He looked up to his mother expectantly, and she checked him over for any signs of much that had the chance to be clinging onto his dark carapace.

"So? Am I... clean as a whistle?" he snarked with a lighthearted snicker.

She smiled at him, her eyes easy. "You're clean."

He returned with a smug hum and looked to be seconds away from trotting off to the yard to truly dirty himself up, right before an important thought came to his horned head.

"Um... Mother?" he asked, looking to her.

"Yes, son?" she responded.

"When Nightmare Night comes by in a few days, I'm still allowed to go with Peach Blossom and collect candy with her around the city, right?"

Approaching Bumble, Apini tapped a hoof on his furless, chitinous shoulder and gave her offspring a warm smile. "Of course, dear. Chrysalis knows I'd never let you miss a chance to collect some free sweets for yourself."

Bumble smiled back, exposing his small, developing fangs, when the sound of an infant's whining cry suddenly went through the air of the house like a knife cutting through paper, causing both to halt in their small conversation. Apini turned to it and let out a sigh.

"Honey's woken up again," she said, pointing out what Bumble already knew. "I'll go lull your little sister back to sleep. Bumble, while I'm doing that, could you be a dear and go eat your lunch now? I have it prepared in the fridge."

"Is it... an egg salad sandwich that was made by the royal Canterlot chefs?" he inquired first. Apini huffed and smirked at his question.

"Yes, it's egg salad sandwich made by the royal Canterlot chefs," she answered.

"Then of course!" he nearly squealed with joy, shifting back into the form of the young unicorn colt. As he gleefully skipped his way to the kitchen, Apini turned to the hallway of their house, removing the other parts of her beekeeping gear and placing them upon the floor as she moved. Soon coming upon the room where the horrible noises originated from, she quietly entered it.

Moving to the rocker-situated crib in the center of the dark, pink-walled room, Apini morphed into her true form before looking down at her screaming young daughter as her minuscule, white shape squirmed about; her only two limbs right below her tiny-horned, bulgy head waving in the air as her whining grew louder. The little creature's cries started to mollify the instant she caught sight of the loving presence of her parent happily looming above her. To calm her further, Apini placed a hole-filled hoof on the cradle's edge and began to slowly, carefully rock it, whispering a soothing lullaby to her child that went in perfect rhythm. The crying eventually ceased altogether, and Honey let out a mighty yawn that brought a smile to Apini's face.

Nothing more than a grub at the moment, Honey would soon grow from a larva into a nymph like Bumble, and then eventually an adult. Like her brother and Apini herself, one of her eyes, the left one as a matter of fact, was red. It was quite a distinguishing feature that ran in her family's bloodline since a single generation beforehoof.

And it was the very same reason Apini was kicked out of the hive as but a child long ago. The trait that her own parent was first born with was more a curse than a mark of beauty. The red eye would always stay with them whenever they tried to mimic the appearance of another. Seeing this revealing mutation as a threat that had the chance to spread and 'taint' the hive's bloodline with their genetic flaw, Queen Chrysalis kicked her father and her young self out of the hive, but still demanded complete loyalty from them. Now, the queen only seemed to use them for otherwise foul, extracurricular activities since they were outside of the changeling kingdom.

With her father having long since passed away on his own, the things Apini had done to keep herself - to keep her own offspring - alive and happy were of the occasional dark and demented variety, but they had survived for it. For quite a time now things had been and remained peaceful for her and her family, and she cherished every moment of it. For many years she had grown accustomed to working as just a royal beekeeper for Canterlot's two alicorn princesses when not serving out Chrysalis's nefarious will, and the love given from the royal meals and for the fresh honey she produced for this city's people fed her as much as she wanted.

But... something boded very poorly as of late. The filly who was her son's friend had a peculiar, particular odor hanging loosely about like an invisible aura that had rubbed off on her from something else. The last time she had detected a scent remotely similar to that was like the one specific drone Chrysalis sent to check up on them little more than a year ago, and in the process had a moment of weakness with that resulted in Honey's inception; same as the circumstances with Bumble. She had her thoughts on what this particular fact could mean, none of them very good, and it irked her to no end.

With Honey now back asleep and happily snoring away in her crib, Apini shifted back into her pony form and silently left the room, closing the door behind her as she did so. There were still more beehives to check over and collect from, and so she collected her fallen gear and donned them once more. Checking on her son chowing down mirthfully on his sandwich in the kitchen, she returned outside after adjusting her hat and veil a final time.

She approached the royal beehives in the far back of the yard and smoked them down before extracting their valued honey. The bees buzzed around her protected head as she calmly went about her honed business, but something still seemed to cause her an unsettled twinge of anxiety. It was like a leech hooked to the back of her head, acting as nothing more than a vile nuisance she could not rid herself of.

Apini could sense something big was coming along. And it left her feeling unsettled and anxious, as moments such as these always did.

Nightmare Night

Nightmare Night had come at last.

The moon was full and at its peak in the night sky, the air was fresh with but a slight chill to it, and children, all wearing their costumes, had spilled forth upon the streets of canterlot, hungry for candy and scares only such a night as this could provide in plenty. Under disguises depicting monsters, ghosts, ghouls and goblins of all sort, the ponies prowled the city in droves, searching for the sugary prey their hungering teeth craved.

Persica and Peach Blossom had come into Canterlot just as the sun had set over the horizon. The filly had dressed as something many would actually find more harmless than fear-provoking; a peach. She made the bulgy, poofy cloth costume herself over the summer time, and she was quite excited about finally being able to wear it at its proper time. Even Persica had gone and dabbled a bit into the festive mood. She had a black witch's hat resting over her head and a black cape sitting about her shoulders.

As they neared their first destination, to pick up a certain individual, the two spotted a shape entering their sights. There, on the edge of the street corner and in front of a single house, stood a little vampire dressed in white makeup and a red-and-black cape. He had the appearance of a suit underneath his cowl, and his mane had been brushed back neatly.

"Hello my friends!" greeted the vampire, or as the foal Peach Blossom knew him as, Bumble Bee. "Tonight, we feast on the candy of the living! Ah, ah, ah!"

Peach Blossom attempted to hold in a snigger at how his comment ended in a cheesy laugh, and her half-suppressed giggling only grew louder as he used a hoof to raise his cape to his snout in a way they would do in the old stories and plays, as though thinking it would provoke only fear from all who beheld him.

"Nice costume!" Blossom complimented. "How'd you get your fangs to look so real, Bumble?"

"Just got 'em at a really good store," he spoke as he tapped a hoof against one; not telling her that they were actually his real fangs, only undisguised. "And sweet peach costume, Peach Blossom!"

"So your mother isn't coming with us?" Persica took the liberty to inquire, seeing him being the only one there.

"No. She needs to care for my sis," he replied, motioning his horned head in the direction of his house. "She told me to be back by nine."

"I wish I could see your little sister sometime," Peach Blossom said. "Little foals are always so cute when you try to play with them."

"Well, you know... she's young. We're just... very protective of her right now," Bumble sighed, using the same excuse his mother trained him to use. "Around the time when she's able to walk and speak is when she'll be alright to be around others."

"I understand completely," she sighed. "But... I think that's enough about family matters. Are you ready to get some candy!?" she then shouted, shooting one of her front hooves into the air in front of him.

"I am ready to get some candy!" he answered in kind with a smile full of vigor and glee for the night ahead, sending his own hoof to meet hers and clapping them together.

They ended up spending the first few minutes at that same block, reciting the holiday greeting of "Nightmare Night, what a fright Give us something sweet to bite!" one was to speak if they wanted yummy treats given to them, all as Persica watched over them with a surveilling eye. An hour swiftly passed by as the venture around the city went on in repetition, and Peach Blossom and Bumble ended up accumulating a great deal of candy in their individual sacks. But as time went on, the two foals were beginning to feel as though something was missing.

"Hey, Bumble," Peach Blossom began. "I know that some of the costumes we saw other ponies use were pretty creative and creepy and stuff, but is it me, or are there not as many ponies actively scaring others as last year?"

"Yeah, I noticed too," Bumble said, poking his nose into his bag to get a quick look at the acquired loot. "You'd think there'd be more on Nightmare Night, huh?"

Persica lowered her brow, eyeing them skeptically. "You know, I heard a rumor going around that Princess Luna herself is out and about right now, looking for little foals like you two to scare the fur off of."

"She is?" the two children both asked at the same time.

"I'm willing to bet so," she said, before giving a playfully wary glance to the two young ones. "So I'd watch the shadows if I were you... She is the Princess of the Night, after all. She could be lurking anywhere. In the shadows, in the sky above; anywhere..."

Peach Blossom turned to Bumble. "I'm not scared or anything, b-but if that is somehow true, how do you think she's going to scare everypony? Do you think she'll try to scare us?"

"I don't know," he said back. "How would she even do it?"

"I think she'd try to swoop down from above," Peach Blossom surmised.

"Or, maybe, she could be in the castle, plotting her plans," Bumble guessed, shifting his view to the shape of the castle in the center of Canterlot.

"Or maybe she's right behind you!" a new voice boomed like a clap of thunder from right behind them. Both the foals squealed in panic and hugged each other close in fright as the dark-furred shape of the Princess of the Night herself, Luna, pounced out from behind a large, decorated shrub on the street corner; her eyes aglow with blank light that had the potential to unnerve even the bravest and most stoic of souls. Their terrified screaming growing quieter after a few seconds and eventually evolving into a fit of laughter, all four of the ponies joined in on the sounds of startled delight. Finishing her stunt, Luna gave them a brief, flicking wave with her hoof and quickly took off to the air with a sweep of her great wings, searching for more young ponies to scare.

"Now that is a lot of candy." Habeas unleashed an impressed whistle at the sight of all the sweets sitting within Peach Blossom's bag. She had since shed the costume she wore for most of the evening so far, and was now going through the stash she had collected for herself in the living room of the house with her changeling friend. Most of the amassed loot took the shape of chocolate bars, colorful candy wrappers, and swirly-designed mints.

"It was awesome, Mr. Brittle. We, got to visit so many houses, and we saw some really cool costumes, and we even got scared by Princess Luna!" she exclaimed. "This was the best Nightmare Night ever! Now, to enjoy my spoils..."

"Remember Blossom; don't have too many sugary sweets before bed," Persica spoke to her daughter as she walked by with the peach costume in her hoof. "It's still a school night, you know."

"Yeah, I know..." she mumbled, her lips puckering in small annoyance with the fact. "It's so weird how they don't make the day after Nightmare Night a holiday so you can sleep in, when you're supposed to be out late getting treats."

"'Such is life'," Persica quoted. "I'll take care of your costume for you while you have a few pieces of your candy."

"Do you think I'll be able to use it again next year?"

The mare shrugged. "For all we know, you might become too big for it next year."

"Yeah, I might be," the filly agreed. "I should start thinking of what to make next!" As her daughter singled out a normal-looking chocolate bar to devour, Persica left the room, leaving Peach Blossom and the changeling alone for the time being.

Peeling back the red rapper and taking a bite from her chocolate bar, Peach Blossom gave Habeas an inquisitive expression. "Do changelings have holidays like us?" To this, Habeas pondered on this question for a few moments.

"An excellent question. Well, we have National Bow-Before-the-Queen Day, where all changelings go to Queen Chrysalis and pay their personal respects to her. And on Birthing Day, all the eggs placed in the hive's egg chamber hatch at the same time. There's... nothing else but that, actually."

"Huh. It doesn't sound very fun being a changeling," Peach Blossom mumbled before taking another bite of her sweet candy, another question coming to mind. "I don't think I ever asked before, but what's your queen like?"

Habeas didn't even need time to respond to a question like that. "Well, Chrysalis is tall and intimidating. She... has leadership skills, I suppose. Oh, and she can get quite mean when things don't go her way. A pony like you wouldn't ever, ever want to meet her," he said. "She always demands the largest share of love we collect in order to keep herself 'powerful enough to defend the hive' from any threats. I think I see why she never did like it when I said there was a chance at finding an alternative solution at finding love in a more peaceful way."

Peach Blossom finished her treat and let something she really wanted to speak about come to mind. "Habeas, another quick question that's a little off-topic, and I swear it's nothing too major, but have you ever... fallen in love before?"

Like a light being turned on in a dark room, his thoughts switched to the other day not too long ago, when this same, devil-minded filly caught him unawares with a similar question about her mother. This new query though sounded much less open and penetrating, and so, after a few seconds had passed, he decided to reply. "No. Sadly, I have not," he said to her with a shake of his chip-horned head, looking to the piece of cloth wrapped around his bad leg. "When I was still an ignorant drone, I stole love from other creatures without even thinking to return it, and I never really gained too dense of an affection toward any of my fellow changelings. Ever since I changed my ways and left the hive, I've been peacefully accumulating love by ingesting the food you ponies make, but I've almost never really had time to form connections to anypony with how quick on my hooves I've been. Well... until now, that is."

He waved his bad hoof and the sling that contained it in a brief motion. The limb appeared to not be as sluggish and stiffened as it was when it was first broken, as Peach Blossom could plainly see.

"Your leg looks like it's almost healed," Blossom said, still watching as he moved it with near-ease.

Habeas too looked to the sling, stretching and rotating his limb at its joints as the sound of hoofsteps heeded Persica's return into the room. "Yes, I... suppose it is nearly there."

"Talking about secrets and rumors, are we?" the mare asked from several feet away, noticing the conversation between her daughter and the changeling.

"No, just talking about how close I am to being able to use all four of my legs at once again," Habeas replied. "We both can see that my leg's almost fully mended, but my wings are..."

"Still like shredded paper," Persica finished for him in a sigh. "Just continue to remember; the moment you're strong enough to be on your own, you're out of here. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."

"I still haven't forgotten," he said back. He would have been content with remaining quiet after that, when he thought of something that he noticed earlier in the day, while the other two were preparing for Nightmare Night. "Before I forget, have you guys seen the garden? The veggies should be ready to get harvested in less than a week," he spoke to the two in quite an excited tone. "Everything looks healthy and almost ready for picking."

"Just a week? Oh, boy!" cheered Peach Blossom, clapping her hooves with glee. "I can't wait to see how they look!"

"And it couldn't come at a better time," Persica grinned. "From what I know, the first signs of frost'll be setting in less than two from now."

"It's most certainly... great news," Habeas said, yawning. "Well, I'm beat. I think I'll head off to bed now. Goodnight Persica. Goodnight to you, Peach Blossom. May you both have the sweetest of dreams," Getting up and stretching his limbs, the changeling started to make his way to the door, as to trot over to the barn outside, when Peach Blossom voiced her opinion.

"Mom, can Mr. Brittle please, please, please sleep inside the house tonight?" she pleaded to her mother. "I know that you know he won't cause and trouble."

Persica groaned at her daughter's reluctance to accept the set rules made for her friend. "No, Blossom. As I've said many times before, Mr. Brittle is to sleep in the barn."

Habeas took his turn to speak up. "Oh, but sweet, merciful Miss Persica, could you at least think about what would happen if you were to use your authoritative power to allow the other option to come to light?" he inquired in an overly-polite tone, looking to the mare with a respecting sheen in his teal, compound eyes as he passed close to her. "Don't you think I've at least deserved to rest a single night inside this house for working for your kind self?"

Persica couldn't help but genuinely smile at the changeling's flattery, and murmured a quick chuckle as she gave him her reply; looking into those deep eyes of his all the while.

"No."

The Harvest

When the day of the harvest came, the bounty all could see that the garden had provided was like something out of an old painting. Vegetables, all healthy and fully grown, were showing in abundance. Now ready for the picking, Habeas was the first to set upon collecting them after wheeling the wagon up to the garden when noon hit. And when he started, he nabbed as much as he could with that hallmark grin of determination glowing on his face, and it seemed especially brighter now that his leg had healed up enough for him to take the sling off.

His wings were clearly beginning their own healing process, but with his hoof now usable again, he found this to be a great time to exercise it. Instead of using his magic to snatch up the many vegetables, he used it instead. The hole-filled limb handled all it grabbed ahold of with ease, and from there he deposited them neatly into the cart, and then repeated the process.

Also joining him in this endeavor was Peach Blossom. She was more than happy to help him with the job, and that could be seen clearly with how she hard she worked alongside him. When they both eventually began to focus on the area of the garden containing the patch of squash, the changeling couldn't help but crack the worst pun imaginable.

"Ooh... you'd best be very careful now," Habeas spoke to Peach Blossom in an ominous fashion as she was just picking one of them up and balancing it over her back. "You don't want to trip and end up... squashing the squash, do you?"

The filly chuckled at his lame pun, but still brought the vegetable over to the cart in a careful stride. "Really, Mr. Brittle? That's the best you could come up with?"

"Little do you know how much of a fan of the cheesy jokes I am," he said back with a smirk of his own. "But even so, there's a certain brilliance in simplicity, am I right?"

From a short distance away, Persica was putting away the last of the gardening equipment and plant food into the deeper parts of the barn; storing them away for next spring. When she left the building through its front doors, clapping some dust from her hooves, she looked in the direction of the garden and at the changeling who was cheerfully working within it.

Habeas was mirthfully going at it with as much energy as when he started. Glad that he wasn't paying attention her way, she took the time to look him over while he toiled on. One thing worth noting was how he certainly looked less awkward now instead of when he was walking around on three legs.

But other things about him caught her eye, like a fish swimming toward a glittering lure in a cold stream. Aside from his odd chitinous exterior, he did at least have a... mildly attractive physique, she began to think. It was the sheer level of exuberance he had and gave off, and the amount of politeness he expressed when addressing her that was what made her see him in that light, she supposed. And the way he was so unfailingly helpful, played and got along with Peach Blossom as though she were his own child, and all-around did his best not to be a nuisance was quite... prepossessing. To say she didn't find him somewhat desirable would have been a lie...

Ugh... what am I thinking? The clear words were like a jolt of static electricity that snapped her away from the outrageous idea forming in her head. It was all just a crazy thought. Nothing more or less. Sighing, she watched the changeling as he went on with his business, digging around and hoisting up a particularly sizable squash with his changeling magic, since the thing would probably be quite unwieldy for him to lift away in his bare hooves.

"Mom, why are you looking at Mr. Brittle like that?" The voice of Peach Blossom ended the train of thought zipping around within Persica's head. Snapping back her regular self, she instantly stared down to her daughter who stood to the left of her.

Were this any other pony she was speaking to, Persica may have snapped up a quick and unfriendly excuse, but to her daughter, her response was calm, collected, and lacked any form of worry whatsoever. "Oh, I was merely staring at the large squash Habeas was carrying away. It must have been my bad eye you saw pointed in his direction."

The filly was quick to point out the flaw in her hastily-drawn defense. "Are you sure? It looked to me like it was your good eye looking his way. But I guess I shouldn't be so nosy. I only came over to ask you when you were going to help pick out some of the plants with us."

Persica peered down at Peach Blossom with a curled brow. She thought for a moment about chastising her daughter for her assumption, but ultimately found that she had nothing worth speaking of without causing a scene. "I'll be over to help in a moment," was all she replied with. Saying nothing and smirking, Peach Blossom passed by her mother and began skipping back to the garden. "Hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm..." she hummed into a tune positively reeking of teasing derision, merrily rejoining Habeas in the harvest.

Sighing again, Persica also went to the garden and entered it behind her daughter. As the changeling had started on collecting the tomatoes, smallest to biggest, she in turn focused on digging up the potatoes from the dirt. While Persica did that with some of her scooping tools, Peach Blossom noticed one more squash still remained, one of an impressive size that was partially hidden under a leafy vine, sitting just in front of a patch of cabbage. Dogged and determined to bring it to the cart herself, she severed its stem and hoisted it over her back. The moment she did so though, the weight of the object instantly made her top-heavy, and she started to teeter with instability.

"Uh-oh..." she mumbled to herself. Traipsing over a particularly moist patch of soil, she slipped on it, losing the last of what little balance she had and inevitably falling with a panicked shout.

"Wait, Peach Blossom!" came two voices at the same time. Just before she and the vegetable could collapse onto the dry soil, Peach Blossom felt as two pairs of hooves simultaneously caught her and the squash, holding them in place. Staring to either side of her, Peach Blossom saw, to her relief, that Persica and Habeas had saved her.

"Whew..." she puffed with a hoof to her chest, after the changeling and her mother set the vegetable to the side. "I almost really did squash the squash, hehehe..."

"And the squash might have also squashed you," joked Persica. "Good thing you're both okay."

"Yeah, it sure is," she smiled as she looked to her mother, and then Habeas. "If you guys hadn't saved me, we might've had one less thing to keep for dinner. Thanks for catching me."

Deciding to go after some of the vegetables in the garden more to her size, Peach Blossom trotted off. With the ordeal over with, Persica looked to Habeas as he raised up the large squash on his own with his magic to bring it away safely. Whether from the mild temperature outside or not, the second their eyes met, her cheeks seemed to pick up a light reddish tint to them, as though blushing. By the slightly wide-eyed look on her face right afterword, she knew about it, and reacted accordingly.

"Thanks for... helping to catch my daughter before she could get herself hurt, I guess," she said, looking to the peach orchard a ways away; the year now too late for the trees to bear fruit. "That was very nice of you."

Habeas chuckled sheepishly in return, rubbing his back with once-lame hoof. "You're welcome."

For dinner that night, the three dined upon the hardly-wrought spoils of the garden's exceptional bounty. Mashed potatoes, peas, pods, and Brussels sprouts littered everyone's plates, including the one belonging to Habeas. Persica had allowed him to join them at the table as part of a personal 'thank you' gesture for all he had done with the garden, and it didn't really help that it was Peach Blossom's goading that inspired her to do so in the first place.

Habeas was the first to clear his plate. "That was a great meal," he said, putting a hoof to his mouth as though he was about to let out a small belch, which never came. "If you both will excuse me, I need to go use the restroom."

"We'll be having some fresh peach cobbler when you get back," Persica mentioned, as her fork stabbed at another sprout. "It's still in the oven right now. Don't be gone for too long, or it might get cold."

Habeas smiled. "Sounds like a plan." With that, he got up from his seat and headed off to the washroom as the mare and her daughter finished up the last of their meals. He entered it, closed the door behind him, but instead of relieving himself, he filled the sink up with water and looked at his scrawny self in the mirror hanging above it. As what his image was currently doing, he came in here to reflect on some things.

He had shortly before come to a (rather grim) realization that being with Persica made him feel happier than normal, almost content with most things, and... very warm. Warmth that felt many thousands of times better than the kind experienced by lazily laying in a great sunbeam on a cold morning. It was a sensation in his chest that he noticed he was beginning to crave. A sensation that he didn't want to lose, and having the mare just staying in his vision ensured that it would remain.

He sighed and stared at his unsure face looking back at him in the mirror. So much had transpired in so little time, and his mind felt greatly weary from it all. One, single, damning word to describe these feelings came to his mind many times over the last few weeks, but he continued to ignore it until he could deny it no longer.

Was it love he was feeling? True, earnest, undeniable love? For Persica? The very same mare who once- no, twice nearly took his life without a thought otherwise? To this incredulous question, Habeas was not sure if he had the answer. Splashing his face with the cold water in the sink and then drying it off with the handkerchief around his neck, it seemed to help him refresh his mind a tad, though not truly by much.

He did find her quite attractive and simply blithe to be around - in the ludic and dry sense, anyhow. But there was a fine line between common desire and true, passionate endearment. A line as thin and perilous as the blade of a knife, and Habeas was starting to find himself balancing on its edge. Ever since that night where the two had drunkenly fallen asleep together, he could sense a greater amount of ease and peace with herself coming about her. He could feel that sulking murk within her faltering with every passing day he was around, and what replaced it was a warm feeling that he perceived was very similar to what he himself was enduring. Habeas only wondered if Persica saw it the same way he did.

As her scar told all, she had been through much. Too much. She had her own husband, one she seemed to love more than anything else, and she had lost him in the most monstrous way fathomable. That was the only fragment of gloom that rested within her soul, clinging to it like a cancer, and Habeas knew it wouldn't leave anytime soon.

But then, before he left the bathroom, that one question came back into his head. Was he actually falling for Persica? Had this mare, unintentionally or otherwise, ensnared his affections to her infatuating being like a moth flittering mindlessly to a flame, daring to be burned? Did he even hope to think that he was in love with that fierce, battle-scarred, warrioress-of-a-pony? To all of these queries that came into his head like a flood breaching a dam, Habeas finally came to his conclusion he felt comfortable with.

He believed he was.

And for quite an obvious reason, as he returned to the dinner table for the oncoming round of dessert, he felt extremely worried about it.

Snowfall

Persica stood shivering and unmoving over the cold, damp ground with an expression conveying panic, hopelessness, and fear. There was a malevolent force flying around her like a barn owl stalking a sniveling mouse through the pitch darkness that her eye could never seem to adjust to, and she didn't know what she could possibly do. Terror was all she felt at the moment, and it sapped her of every last drop of her will. She was unarmored, unarmed, and had no way of defending herself. And so she stood there, still shivering and waiting for this presence to strike first.

"What do you see in him?" a voice suddenly asked, echoing like a hellish bell long after it had spoken. "What could you possibly see in him?"

Knowing of who its spoke of right off, Persica was hesitant to answer, but she did so anyway in spite of her near-crippling fear. "I... I don't know. No, I don't feel anything for him. I don't feel anything for Habeas at all."

"Liar," hissed the voice. "You see something in him you want. You want to replace me with him. With a savage beast whose kind was the entire reason for my death in the first place. Disgusting and wrong are the only words I have to describe that."

"He's nothing like that! He's nothing like the one who did this to you!" Persica argued before she could silence herself. "He wouldn't harm anyone! He's kind. He's generous. He's..."

"Replacing me!" the voice thundered. An invisible force suddenly slammed into Persica from above, sending her crumbling to the ground beneath her. Before she could get back to her feet, another force punted her away with a yelp of pain, the impact hitting her square in the face. When she landed in the dirt nearly a dozen feet away she lifted her head in a desperate attempt to find where the attacks were coming from, her nose broken from the damage and bleeding profusely as tears fell from her eyes.

"Before everything, you said that I was your most valuable possession. You said you loved me more than anything in this world, and I believed it. But the second I went off in the forest to fend off one of his kind, you left me to do it on my own. And then you killed me," the voice continued to speak over the sounds of Persica's agonized whine. "And now that changeling's come into your life. And as soon as he did some little, trivial favors for you, you're already thinking about giving that worthless insect the same 'undying' pledge as what you gave to me. Next thing you'll do is merrily invite him into your bed, correct?"

"N-n-no! N-no... I-I could n-never..." the mare tried to respond. But from behind the haze that clouded her mind, Persica could tell that the apparition didn't believe her. And it deserved to, as she herself could no longer tell if what she said really was the truth anymore. Without warning another blow came at her like a crack of a whip, and as she felt her skull splinter and crack from the force everything went red, then faded to black.

Persica's eyes flashed open. Her wits quickly came about her, and she lifted her head groggily from the pillow it laid upon in a sluggish motion. The imaginary pain her dreams instilled upon her left her heart beating rapidly within her chest, but with the revelation that there was nothing really happening, it eventually slowed. She rolled a hoof over her blind eye and traced the tip of it over the scar that covered it.

After catching her breath she soon slithered off of her bed and slogged her way to the window on the other side of her room to lift the shades from it, already knowing morning had come upon her due to the fact that a faint light was translucently illuminating from behind it. Pulling the curtain up she looked out it and saw something of a bright color that caused her to shield her eyes for a second behind her leg. But as her blurry view became clear and she removed her leg, she saw the brightness was because of something of a near blindingly white complexion spread out over the yard.

It was snow. Colorless and powdery in form, it fell in great clumps from the gray clouds in the morning sky to the ground below. Already the dry grass of her property was covered by more than five inches of it. Peach Blossom was to have school today, but as reports in yesterday's newspaper predicted, that wouldn't come to pass with this weather.

"Well, well," she sighed, knowing how her daughter would react to this news the moment she was to awaken. "It's..."

"...Snowing!" Peach Blossom shouted with glee, watching what was currently happening outside from behind her bedroom window. Already almost a foot of the stuff had accumulated on the ground, and that could only mean one thing. "No school!"

She continued to chant those two words as she skipped out from her bedroom and dashed down the stairs, then zoomed past the kitchen. "No school! No school! Hahaha!"

Without hesitation or desire to eat some breakfast first, she put on her jacket that was waiting for her like a loyal pet on the coat rack by the front door. After that she wrapped a red-and-blue scarf around her neck, and put on a small, warm cap over her head. With haste in her stride, she then burst out from the door and retrieved the sled she had kept laying against the side of the house for just such an occasion. After that, she sped in the direction of the long, but short hill that sat a fair distance past the peach orchard and away from the house.

As many dozens of minutes went by, Peach Blossom sledded many times down the slope, and trudged back to the top of the hill to do it again with great vigor. After trekking back to the summit of the hill again, the filly was preparing to jump upon her small wooden vehicle once more, when she saw the shape of Habeas walking up the hill through the snow to join her; brought out to greet her by the loud sounds of childish chuckling that had reverberated through the morning air. The changeling was dressed in a warm, brown wool coat he was given by Persica, among other things to keep him more comfortable in the barn at night.

"What's all this?" he asked as he neared Peach Blossom. "Oh, I know what it is. Sledding, right?"

"Yessir," she replied. "Best time to do it is when the snow falls like it has right now. It canceled my school for the day, and I'm sure as Celestia not going to waste even a single moment of it!"

"Looks fun," he commented again, his eyes squinted from the brightness of the cloud-covered sun's light reflecting from the snow. Peach Blossom was just about to push herself off, when a thought came to her mind. She looked to Habeas and smiled deviously.

"Hey, why don't you try?" she asked him.

"Me? Sledding?" Habeas inquired back as the filly exited the sled and circled around to his other side. "No, I couldn't."

"Oh, come on," she said, pushing him toward her sled until he had no choice but to put his first foot in it or else trip. "You'll love it! And I'd bet none of you changelings have ever gone sledding before."

"That may be so, but Peach Blossom, even I know I'm too old for something like this," he insisted, his other front foot now in it with Peach Blossom's pushing, followed closely by his first back hoof. With a grunt, the filly managed to get the rest of him into it, and pressed him down into a sitting position soon after.

"Nopony's too old to go sledding!" she exclaimed, cracking the wirsts of her hooves and silently chuckling to herself. "Get ready, Mr. Brittle..."

"Peach Blossom, I don't know about thi- aaagh!" Habeas let out a sharp cry as Peach Blossom gave him a powerful shove, sending him down the hill leading to the direction of the barn and house. He continued in his uneasy shouting as he zipped onward without stopping, every cold snowflake brushing past his face causing him to flinch as though they were razor blades falling from the sky. From a more positive and collected standpoint, it looked like the ride would go smoothly between the house and barn, and this brought some peace to his panicked mind. That peace of mind was then abruptly shattered into unreformable scraps of glass when he saw a figure exit the barn and go on the path to the house.

It was Persica. She had decided to get some more wood for the fire she started inside, and so picked up a few pieces of chopped-up wood from inside the barn. She was wearing some snow gear in the shape of a thick plaid coat and had earmuffes over her head. To Habeas's horror, she seemed oblivious to the sled-riding changeling heading directly her way.

"Persica!" Habeas shouted in a panicked voice as he sped toward her direction like a lightning bolt, despite his best efforts to turn the sled; all methods of which failed. "Look out! Incoming!"

From behind the earmuffs over her hears, Persica heard what sounded like a dulled shout that she quickly recognized as belonging to the voice of Habeas. Curious, she turned in its direction, just as Habeas's sled hit an area of sunken earth hidden beneath the snow, throwing him from it and at her like a cannonball. His screaming, cloth-covered, chitinous body impacted against hers before she could so much as gasp in surprise. The wood that was being carried over the mare's back was thrown like confetti into the air and then landed on the ground with individual thuds, and both the pony and the changeling went soaring away into the bank of snow behind Persica, disappearing within it.

From the top of the hill, Peach Blossom had watched the entire fiasco with her breath held and her hooves covering her mouth. When she realized that everything had gone still, she raced down from it and toward where the pair had crashed, hoping neither of them had gotten hurt.

"Mom! Mom!" she shouted, dashing as fast as her legs could carry her to the area of snow where they had disappeared under. "Mr. Brittle! A-are you two okay?! Answer me!"

Back at the spot, and sucking in a deep breath when she was sure she was okay, Persica opened her eyes and her good one looked around as her neck brought her head upward. She was mostly above the deep pile that was kicked up with the impact, yet the snow that was falling upon her from the sky had already mostly covered them up.

Yes, them.

Through it, and easily felt seconds beforehoof, she could see Habeas was there with her, wearing a fearful face with his eyes closed; his hooves hugging tightly around her as his body shivered. His grip was strong, and he wasn't doing any other real movement.

He looked very much terrified. While Persica wanted to do nothing more than push him off of herself, there was a part of her that kept her from doing it. A part of her that she was just then noticing didn't want this moment to end. Keeping her hoof wrapped around his shelled back, Persica held him close to her in a firm but gentle way, for a few seconds longer anyway.

And then she realized what she was doing, and reacted appropriately.

"Habeas," she growled as she took her hoof off of him, her expression suddenly souring like curdling milk. "You have exactly three seconds to get off of me."

Slowly, Habeas opened his eyes. His head lifting from Persica's chest, it broke through the inch of snow covering both of them and looked around, very much bewilderingly. "I-I'm not... dead?" he stuttered, snowflakes falling past him.

"You're about to be," she mumbled again. Roused to action by her words, Habeas instantly let go of the mare and sat up, fully emerging from the snow just as Peach Blossom had reached them. Persica also popped out up and got to her feet, brushing as much of the snow from her body as she could get off. With her earmuffs noticeably missing, the mare turned back to the ground and rummaged around for them as Habeas backed up in the filly's direction.

"Are you both okay?" Blossom asked him.

"I am," he replied. "I think your mother is too, but I'm not fully sure..."

"I'm fine," Persica said, overhearing the two of them from where she stood sifting around through the snowy ground. "I've just lost my earmuffs."

Taking a chance look to his left, the changeling saw a dark, fuzz-edged object sticking out from the snow next to him. "Um..." he started, picking it up. "I found them."

Persica turned to him. "Oh. Well, thanks," she mumbled, walking toward him and snatching the headgear from his hoof. After shaking them off and putting them back over her head, she looked at the many pieces of wood that had been scattered about in the snow; all now dampened by the snow and too wet to be used in the fireplace. Huffing, she walked over to the closest one and stretched a leg out to pick it up, when Habeas's hoof touched it at the same time as hers.

"I'll do it," he said to her, both of them looking at each other.

"No, I'm doing it," she said back, tugging it away with both of her hooves.

"Please, let me," he repeated as she set upon the other ones. "I think I deserve to bring them back and get new ones after that little crash."

"No, really," Persica adamantly refused. "I've got this."

"Are you sure?" Habeas inquired, trotting behind her wherever she went.

Persica sighed. "Habeas, I can handle this. Right now, could you stop being so... so..."

"Helpful?" he finished.

"Yes. Stop being so helpful. Please."

"But... I like being helpful," he said dejectedly. As their small argument went on, had anyone taken a look over in Peach Blossom's direction, they would see an expression of amusement growing on her face as she watched the adults go at it like young children fighting over who was going to do the chores, only in reverse. She decided to leave them alone when she saw her mother collect the last of the wood into her grasp and head back to the barn, only for Habeas to follow behind her. After all, all those snowponies destined to be formed on this luscious field of white certainly weren't going to build themselves...

Persica tried to close the barn door behind her after going through it, but Habeas stopped it and went in himself. By the time he had gone to the center of the barn, Persica had gotten to the back, where wood had been stacked up. After placing the wet pieces at its base, she took time to look for a few dry pieces to grab, already preparing to leave afterword. Habeas stood quietly behind her for a few seconds before speaking again.

"Persica," he spoke again. She grumbled angrily at the fact he was appearing to continue this conversation long past the point when it should have ended, but the changeling was able to remedy this feeling with what he said next. "Listen, this isn't about the wood. I just... want to know why you're being so... rigid around me still. It's been almost two months, but your disposition has changed only a little. Am I doing something that you don't like?"

Persica stopped collecting from the stack for a moment. "Habeas, you're not doing anything wrong," she started. "I trust you well enough. I know you mean no harm at all. But..."

"But what?"

Persica shifted her view from the pile of wood to the changeling in front of her, and stared deeply into his eyes. Her thoughts went back to her late husband. To that last look she could ever remember seeing in his own eyes as the life left them all those years ago. The life that she took. The mare gritted her teeth until her gums started to ache with the horrid memory, and what she said next came out in a faint whisper. "I couldn't tell you, Habeas. I just couldn't. I'm sorry, but I have other things in need of tending to at the moment."

"But I-"

"You'd be a big help if you were to go out and keep watching Peach Blossom for me," Persica interrupted in a much lighter and normal tone, turning around and picking up three pieces of wood to bring inside. "Please, do that. And tell Blossom that I'll have her breakfast ready in a half hour."

She hoisted the wood she had gathered onto one leg and brushed past the changeling before he could speak again. Watching her then walk out of the barn so casually would make just about anyone see nothing as being wrong in the situation, but the forlorn feeling Habeas could sense was lingering in the cold air told him everything. Watching her bear such a burden and hold out under the weight of her own negative feelings was like witnessing a pony drowning right in front of him. Every time she was close to opening herself up in any way, any minuscule, microscopic way at all, that one, rotten, self-hating feeling within her soul kept coming out and slamming the doors shut.

Habeas wanted desperately now to know how to mend and warm her broken soul. Her scarred soul. She did not deserve in the slightest to let herself feel this way, and when he was to inevitably leave however few days laid between now and his wings fully healing, Habeas most certainly didn't want to leave this wonderful, beautiful mare in the state of mind she was currently in. Long had he actually known that Persica barely, if at all meant all the things she did in the various ways she had antagonized him since accepting him here, but only now was he noticing why she acted so grumpy and distant as they grew ever closer.

Habeas had been here long enough to know that there was an affable, cheerful side to Persica that she was trying with most of her might to hide, almost as if disguising herself under a facade resembling her suit of armor. She let her guard down that night they both shared those drinks, and it really brought out a friendly, playful shade of a personality that seemed very unlike her. He only regretted the whole thing a tad due to the incident that occurred the morning after.

Sitting there on the barn's floor, he pondered on many fruitless ideas with his mind, and when that brought up few useful results, he thought with his heart. And as it beat within his chest, he trusted every word of wisdom it gave to him. He stayed in this practically-meditative stance for a few minutes in his efforts to uncover the coveted solution, until he came to his final decision on what had to be done. And it was a decision that felt as dangerous as it did worthwhile.

If Persica wasn't going to open up to him, then by everything good in this world, he was going to open up to her. Whether the attempt would lead to something more, something less, or more mangled limbs at worst, it was a grim fandango only fate could ultimately decide. And for his and Persica's own sake, he was more than willing to go through with it if it meant changing her life for the better before he was to depart her forever.

But how would he do it? How could he do it? That was all there was left to plot out...

Of Changelings and Ponies

It was a good amount of time after leaving the house through the rapidly-growing snowstorm that Persica and Peach Blossom reached Canterlot. Her friend Bumble had once more invited her there to play and sleep over at his house, and the filly was all too eager to ask her mother for permission. She granted it of course. After a small trek through the city, they soon arrived at the location of the Bee residence through the freshly-plowed streets.

Seeing them arrive through the frost-coated window, Apini Bee went to the door and opened it just a crack. She motioned a hoof through it for the filly to enter, while keeping it mostly shut to shield the inside from the storming elements outside. Peach Blossom, wearing a backpack and clad in a very thick jacket and hat, as well as a pair of large boots, looked to her mother a last time.

"I'll see you later, Mom," she said, hugging Persica tightly and warmly.

"I'll see you later too, sweetheart," Persica replied, kissing her daughter on the forehead. "Now, go have fun with your friend."

Peach Blossom left her mother's side and trotted to the steps leading up to the door of the house. Apini Bee opened it fully from the other side for the filly, but just before she could shut it behind her, Persica had followed behind and put her hoof out to stop it when it was merely a hair ajar.

"Might I just ask one thing of you, Apini?" she asked.

"Of course," the being on the other side responded. Out of the few times she had the chance to speak with Apini, Persica never had truly spoken with her face-to-face. It was either concealed in beekeeping equipment or hidden behind a door, as it was now. Such a factor was a minuscule bit of trivia to be sure, but it was an interesting thought to mull over for but a brief second.

"Just... take care of my daughter," Persica said next. "Just make sure she stays out of trouble, that's all."

"I shall, Persica. I'll make sure to keep a close eye on both her, and my own child," the voice on the other side agreed. "Did you see that grin on her face when she came in? She seems a bit more excited than usual, don't you think?"

"That's what I've noticed too. Blossom's been just plain adrenalized to spend more time with Bumble," Persica concurred. "Just make sure she doesn't run too fast when they inevitably go to play outside. Slippery ice, and all that..."

"I'll watch over the both of them. And Hearth's Warming is just around the corner," Apini chuckled from the other side of the door. "Kids are bound to get as excited as they are."

"They surely must be," Persica chuckled lightly, the frigid wind howling in her ear as though it was a voice telling her all was fine and it was time to depart. Giving a nod, Persica, somewhat reluctantly, turned around and started to slowly tread down the steps and walk off. Apini watched this from the crack of the slightly-open door, then after giving a final glance, she closed it.

After leaving Canterlot behind, Persica was in a bit of a hurry to get back home. As she had previously left it with her dear daughter, she distinctly remembered seeing Habeas Brittle enter the house as they reached the road; a small brown sack hoisted over his shoulder that triggered only the mare's curiosity. Though not at all paranoid that the changeling she had grown to fully trust was about to do something dreadful like steal some of her possessions, she did believe that he was up to a troublesomely mischievous activity. While she trotted over the road through the blinding rain of falling snow, another thought came back to her mind from but three days before, as she had taken him to Canterlot while she was shopping for some spices and other assorted ingredients for future meals.

When they had trotted through the marketplace, she saw him speak and barter with one of its many vendors. She had given him some money to buy supplies for when he was surely soon to leave, whenever that day was to come, but what he had gotten was concealed within a sack he also purchased. That same sack he went into the house with was what he used to store whatever it was he bought.

Her property came into sight as the mid-afternoon sky was just beginning to grow into a darker shade, and she quickly shuffled through the thick snow on her way to the front of her house. Knowing she'd have to eventually shovel out the path enough to reach the road, or better yet, perhaps get Habeas to do it, she made a mental note before getting to the door. Kicking the snow off of her hooves, she entered it and came into a mostly dark room that her eyes needed to adjust to. Closing her eyes to help the process go faster, she removed her hat and coat and intuitively placed them on the nearby coat rack, just as her ears detected and recognized the sound of holiday music playing on the radio somewhere in the background, singing through the halls.

Opening her eyes, she turned about and came upon an unexpected sight. Like something one might do in a power outage, candles were scattered about the house on nearly every placeable corner; each one set safely in a holder and lit with flickering yellow flames, sending off a waxy smell into the air. Another odor soon caught Persica's nose as she started to venture deeper into her abode, deciding against flipping the light switch along the way, and it smelled of something positively scrumptious that was cooking in the kitchen oven.

She got to the kitchen and who she saw, just in front of the oven, was Habeas, jigging joyfully to the current tune the radio was giving out. Bobbing along the edge of a counter possessing a host of unlit candles, there was a lighter in his hoof and he was moving from one inactive candle to the next, lighting each one with the device. He instantly took notice of the mare as he brought the lighter near the last unlit candle, and peered her way.

"Habeas," she asked with curved brows and heavy annoyance in her tone that demanded an explanation for his odd antics. "What is this? What did you do to my house?"

He lit the final candle and placed the lighter down before turning his attention back to the stove for a brief second, then to Persica herself. "Allow me to explain. Persica, I know as a fact that you've seen how my wings have grown back. I tested them out last night and I briefly flew around without a hitch. They're able to fly again, they're able to carry me aloft in the air as good as they ever have," he sighed. "I'm fit as a fiddle."

"And I said that as soon as that's so, you're to leave," she grunted. "Why haven't you skedaddled yet?"

"That's... kind of why I put all this on," he said. "This is most likely going to be the last time I have the chance to dine with you. I didn't want to just abruptly leave after all that has occurred. I wanted it to be... memorable."

"That's why you did all this?" Persica was taken slightly aback by this news. She took another look around the kitchen and at the candles littering its edges like scattered pebbles. "This sure looks like it was awfully... tedious to put up."

"What's more memorable than dinner by candlelight?" He glanced back to the stove in a brief motion; the food held cooking within ready to be taken out at any minute. "I can't wait to see you feast your eyes on the meal I've prepared."

"What's cooking in there?" Persica asked. Habeas smiled back to her.

"A delicious green bean casserole, and an apple pie," was his reply. "I bought the ingredients for them when we were in town last. Well, and these candles too."

"You didn't buy anything for yourself?" Persica gawked. "I gave you the bits to do that!"

"I already have everything I need," the changeling said back, right before the sound of the oven's timer went off with a chiming ding. With haste he opened the oven up, letting a small cloud of light smoke escape out of it, and peeked inside. Seeing with pleasure that the food was indeed ready, he put on a pair of oven mitts and removed the two items from within with his hooves, and put them on top of the stove to cool off for a few moments. The pie looked solid and splendid, and the green been casserole was quite exquisite; the golden-brown onions scattered over its tip giving off as much a desirable vibe as its delectable smell.

"Mm-mm-mm!" he hummed. "This is going to be great!" As Persica only watched, Habeas then went to a cupboard and pulled out two empty glasses to put upon the table, then approached the fridge and opened it. What he took out was one of the few bottles of peach schnapps that still remained since the previous autumn. He went up to the glasses with the bottle in hoof, undid its cork, and began to pour the liquid substance into one of them.

"Are you sure that's a bright move?" the mare asked the changeling when he began. "You do remember what happened the last time you only ingested a small amount of it, right?"

"That's why I'm only having this much," he grinned, pouring his glass to only a measly few centimeters. Tapping the bottle against its rim with a clink, he went to her cup and poured a much more sizable amount in comparison, which to say was half-full. Persica thought about what she should do next as Habeas went about getting out plates and scooping the casserole onto them, but the only conclusion she came to was accepting the meal he had worked so hard to prepare, and so went to her chair and sat down at the table. Habeas passed her one plate and fork, sat down with his own on the other side of the table, and they both started eating under the candlelight and sounds of music on the radio.

It wasn't long before more words sprouted up through the silence. "This is... pretty good," Persica complimented, taking another bite the moment she finished speaking. "I've eaten plenty of green bean casseroles. But how'd you make this taste so... divine?"

"Well, I made it with as much skill and love as I could muster," Habeas said. To this, the mare lowered her brow in doubt.

"You did, eh? If that's so, then how do you eat food - that you yourself made - that has love in it?" she inquired, stewing around and prodding at the palatable meal on her plate with her fork. Habeas put a hoof to his jaw and pondered for a moment before answering.

"Well, I guess it's kind of like how you would picture vomiting up your breakfast, and then preparing it for-"

"Okay, I get it. Too much information." Persica lightly chuckled and held a hoof up to halt him, just in the case her words did nothing to stop him. With a respecting nod, Habeas ceased his story and looked to his dinner. Shrugging and putting on a small smile, he began eating it again.

When they both finished up the casserole and downed their schnapps in the process, Habeas brought forth the apple pie. Cutting into it with a knife, they both served each other a few pieces and quietly dug into it while the light of the burning candles surrounding them illuminated the otherwise dim room pleasantly. The changeling felt a pulse of pleasure flash through him when he heard Persica let out a moan of elation when she first tasted the dessert.

A few more minutes passed by them while they devoured the pie. As she was just getting to the crust of her current, and potentially last slice, Persica made a glance toward Habeas and provoked a thought into coming to her mind when she noticed something she never before asked about. "If I may ask, how did you get that chip on your horn?" she inquired, pointing a hoof to the curved outgrowth sticking out of his forehead.

"This? Heheh..." Habeas chuckled anxiously and rubbed a hoof over his back. "That's a bit of a long story, actually. To make it short and sum it up, after I went about preaching my beliefs on how we changelings had alternative ways of acquiring love for everyone in the hive, Chrysalis gave me a very specific 'warning' on why I should stop."

"Oh..." Persica said. "That sounds like it must've sucked to go through if it never grew back properly."

He smirked and winced back in remembrance of the event. "It was a fire spell that seared it like that. But even so, I still don't regret a moment of it. Had it not happened, I might not have had the incentive to leave. Had I not left, I'd have never been able to explore the world. Or meet you and your daughter."

"Fate's a funny thing sometimes, isn't it?" Persica sighed, looking back down to the remains of the pie slice sitting before her. She was just about to carve back into it, when the current caroling tune on the radio ended, and replaced itself with another.

Persica recognized this song right off with a sniff of snide disgust. It was a couple's song, about someone admitting their pure, unconditional love to another. It was soft and pleasant, made for slow dances. She was perfectly content with ignoring it, but the changeling saw this opportunity differently.

"Ooh. Heart and Soul. I love this song," Habeas suddenly spoke. Exiting his chair with a squeak of its legs, he ventured in the direction of the living room to dance along to it before it could end, when he passed by Persica's still-sitting form. Stopping, he looked to her curiously, and then a dangerous idea popped into his head almost immediately.

"Care to dance?" he asked, extending a hoof. She quickly, but softly brushed it away, closing her eyes and snickering.

"Why should I?" she asked back. "I haven't danced in years."

"Then it's the perfect time to start again!" he giggled, reaching forward again and tugging on one of her front legs. "'Live every day like it's your first' is the creed by which I live. And it is indeed a good and healthy creed, if I do say so myself."

Deciding not to punch him to get him off of her, as it could have the unfortunate repercussions of injuring this delightful pest enough to get him to stay a few days more, Persica decided to humor the changeling and finally left her seat. Flittering the transparent wings on his back in joy, Habeas led Persica to the open living area where the radio was located. When he started to dance, Persica simply watched him go at it for a few seconds.

He clearly knew the tune enough to know the right moves to match up with it, and he appeared to be quite... good with these moves; as she'd have judged him were she a critic on how to dance, anyway. Sighing and shrugging, infected by the sheer happiness he gave off, she joined him.

Step forward, step forward, step back, step back. It wasn't hard to catch up with and match Habeas's routine with her now-active hooves. When she did, though, Persica saw that they were performing the proper couple's routine in perfect unison and harmony. As the music went on in its grand and high melody, the pair danced to it together; facing each other with only a scant few inches keeping them apart, but never touching. Persica was beginning to feel a rise in jubilation come from within her from doing this activity correctly and fluently with her odd partner, and soon she found herself quietly enjoying the experience. Habeas was more visibly having a great time, seen by the huge smile on his lips and closed eyes that reflected his personality quite correctly.

Step left, step right. Step left, step forward. As time went further on, the sound of the slow, soothing beat seemed to take over their movement completely. Now nothing more than stringless puppets slaving away to the soft and beautiful music, they danced on as though there were no other care in the entire world to plague their minds. Habeas's eyes opened after a small while, and when they did, the first discernible thing they saw was Persica's absolutely enchanting face. Only seconds after that, she then turned her attention away from anything else in the room and onto, and also into, those big, lovely eyes of his.

His eyes. His eyes were like a vast ocean of tealness, infinite and endless with charming mirth, and glowing brightly with raw affection, the glitter reminiscent of the sparkle of diamonds. Like a small boat finding itself astray in a massive swirling torrent of water, she started to find herself getting helplessly lost in them. Helplessly, hopelessly, and blissfully lost.

Seemingly in turn, Habeas became completely entrapped by her warm blue eye and her gray, sightless eye like a fish on the end of an angler's lure. They both seemed so utterly captivating and hypnotizing, even in spite of the latter's clouded rigidness. He could not help but gaze into them further, if only to feel his blood warm his body as it did. He was so mesmerized, so enthralled in Persica's sight, that he failed to notice his head drift toward her; his mouth opening just a crack. Neither did she notice this as well, as her own head drew closer to his in a similar manner. Their dancing had by now stopped, and as only paltry centimeters laid between their faces, their eyes began to close when an irresistible force overtook their senses.

And then, and only then, as the song came to its final conclusion and both their hearts began to truly pound within their chests like drums amidst a symphony of royal musicians, their lips finally touched.

And all went silent.

Love

Habeas and Persica's lips remained locked together for a time unknown to either of them, with only the quiet, puckering sound of their mouths breaking off being the only noise each of them heard, even though a new, upbeat earworm had by now started on the radio. They looked at each other with the sparkling magic in their eyes lost, and the staring only ended when Persica, holding her breath, stepped back and looked away.

Unable to think properly with the sound of the music blaring on, she walked to the radio first and turned it off before turning the side of her head slightly behind her, at Habeas. He looked ready to wince back with the storm of angry words he was prepared to endure from the trigger-tempered mare, but she didn't speak like that.

"Habeas..." she spoke in a light and very controlled tone, but one that was also as fragile as glass. "I think it's time for you to leave."

Habeas hoped with all of his heart that he would never have to hear those words, and especially after the moment they just shared, he positively dreaded them. But here they now were, and there was nothing he could do to change that. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but halted himself before he could speak and instead closed it. Turning around, he walked into the kitchen and after he had retrieved something from the counter in it, he walked back into the living area where Persica still was. From what Persica could see, it was an envelope he had fetched.

"Give this to Peach Blossom. It's a note telling her how... thankful I am that she decided to befriend me and help me heal," he spoke, his tone soaked with melancholia not even a changeling such as he could conceal. "Call me a coward if you will, but I know I won't be able to bear the look on her face if I tell her in person. If there's one thing I really do suck at, it's saying goodbye."

Once a second had passed, Persica took the envelope in her hoof and placed it on the mantle hanging over the fireplace. After she had done that and made sure it was secure, she stared back at the changeling in a semi-glare. He looked like he had something else to say, and while she was half-tempted to just kick him out then and there, she allowed him to talk.

It took him a few seconds, but he finally spoke in a shaky tone that grew more stable as it went on. "Persica... I... I... want to tell you one more thing before I go, and I want you to keep these words close to your heart."

He stepped up to her and took a gentle hold of her hoof, raising it slightly toward him as he continued, finally mustering the courage to speak his mind as Persica could only watch and listen. "I want you to know that you're not a terrible pony, Persica. You're a wonderful pony. Persica, I loathe to see you hate yourself and turn away help, and I don't see any reason why you should even feel that way to begin with. You're caring, strong and beautiful. Smart, too. You're a mare anypony would want to be with if they only knew you. You don't deserve to let yourself feel as though all the misfortune and tragedy to happen to you is entirely your fault, if at all."

He inhaled a deep breath, blinking thrice before continuing on. "When I leave, I want you to take these words and keep them in your memory over everything else I've done. Please, do that. That's the last thing I ever want to ask of you."

Persica had turned her gaze to the wall on the side as she heard Habeas talk to her. Looking to him again a few seconds after he had finished, she uttered a small huff. "So, you're a liar after all."

Habeas tilted his head in confusion. "What? What do you mean?"

"You just told me you're terrible with goodbyes," she started to explain, moving her face just enough to look at him from her good eye. "And yet, the one you share with me is... well-spoken, I suppose."

Habeas went silent, and stayed this way for a few delicate seconds before finding the proper response. "I guess that would be because... I've never really said it to someone I've... really grown to care for as much as I do for you."

More silence befell the two. It looked like it was going to last for a while, until Persica turned her head away and spoke one last thing in a voice as cold as the ice outside. "Goodbye, Habeas."

Fearing he had made everything somehow worse, and most certainly not wanting to add onto it, he turned around and walked out of the room. He eventually made his way to the door, exiting it with a squeak of its hinges and headed off to the barn to pick up his things. Standing still for a few seconds longer, Persica exhaled a deep breath and started to move around the candle-lit room. She wander aimlessly for a short time, when she came face-to-face with the two sets of armor sitting in its back. Without anything she thought better to try, she walked up to one of them.

She looked into the glass casing and at the armor of her husband that dwelt within. A thin layer of dust had collected atop of its surface from the few months of no use. She had worn the armor most nights to sate the paranoia that hovered over her head like a flock of ravenous harpies, and to find some minuscule shred of comfort if she could, but with the real comfort that changeling had given that one fall night when he had followed her, that feeling of constant and tiresome terror had fully left her.

Because of him, she felt more at ease and forgiving with herself than she had ever felt in a long time. She genuinely smiled a few times in his presence, and that was a fact that had happened too many times to deny. And something else Persica never could hope to forget anytime soon, she remembered how she would always simply roll her eyes and look away when she watched the little adventures and activities Habeas and her daughter got into with the glee and cheerfulness of longtime friends, and this stung as much as it soothed. Peach Blossom never had a father figure to look up to, and Persica would call herself blind in both eyes if she didn't see the likes of someone like that in Habeas.

Out of all these things Habeas did for her, he had left one heavy feeling that sat in her mind like a stone in a river. But what was the word to describe this confusing emotion? She had felt it before, that much she knew, but it was a long time ago. It was so... utterly alien to experience again. It was queer and odd. It was perverse and demented... it was...

Love.

What she was feeling was love. True love. And when she realized this undeniable fact, Persica felt another emotion overtake the fore of her senses: regret. In this one fragile instance, in this one palpable moment of realization most fierce, Persica immediately regretted all that had gone on and all she had said over the last several minutes. Her mind now clear, more clear than it had ever been in years, she ran out of the living area and to the kitchen, to look out the front window and see what Habeas was doing.

When she reached the window she stared out of it, just in time to see Habeas's dark shape exit the barn a fair ways away with his bindle over his back, and take off into the air on his fluttering, insectile wings. With incredible haste and titanic purpose in her stride, Persica instantly dashed to the door, burst through it like a battering ram, and into the snowstorm outside.

"Habeas!" she desperately called out to sky, the only thing to befall her sight being the raging blizzard's falling snow. Seconds passed by, and she cried his name out again and again, hoping with all her ailing heart that he could hear her. "Habeas! Habeas Brittle! Come back! Come back to me... Please..."

Nothing. Nothing responded back to Persica, save the cruel howl of the uncaring wind in the below-zero temperature of the storm. Nothing heeded her call, and it took her a full agonizing minute to realize this fact. A tear falling from her eye and freezing solid onto her cheek almost instantly, Persica's jaw hung loose and numb, and she sank to her knees as her strength abandoned her.

She had lost her chance. Left it alone too long - just a minute too long - and let it spoil. Closing her eyes so tightly that they began to feel sore from the stinging strain, Persica lowered her head, apathetic to the biting cold that enveloped her. For the one creature, the one changeling she had grown to not only adore, but earnestly love, was now gone.

She held herself back from what she truly wanted. She let her fear take control and ruin everything. Everything. The spark she shared with Habeas was snuffed out. Lost. Forever. Because of her weakness. Her miserable, stubborn weakness in letting go of the past that she had kept herself rooted and mired in for so damnably long.

And because of that, she was alone.

Persica sat there, with only herself for company, for a time she couldn't fathom in her despair. Her head still bowed and teeth tightly bared, tears fell freely onto her cheeks, turning the fur there brittle and icy with the freezing liquid staining them. She was so densely enveloped in the wretched pain that took its hold of her mind like a winding punch to the stomach that she failed to hear the sound of buzzing wings over the roar of the storm grow close to her position and hole-filled feet land softly in the snow a scant few feet in front of her.

"Persica?" a light voice suddenly, and softly spoke out. Without a second to spare, Persica's eyes flashed open and she she shot her head forward, spying a shape that nearly made her jaw drop. There Habeas now stood, right in front of her, having descended from the sky not a second before as his webbed ears picked up the sound of his name being shouted out. "I... thought I heard you call my name. Are... you okay?"

Persica did not move, but kept her view focused solely on Habeas. The silence of her surprised mind blotted out the noise of the surrounding storm as though she were deaf, and time itself seemed to stand still as he stayed in her presence. When she finally took a chance to stand back up, she started to move toward him, and stopped only when she was a mere hair's length away from him.

"Persica...?" Habeas spoke again as a minute passed, unsure if he should feel confused or somewhat terrified by her quiet, ominous approach and the blank expression that sat over her face like a bomb waiting to explode. "What do you... um... need?"

At the knowledge that this indeed wasn't some cruel illusion or foul hallucination, Persica's face formed into a large, overjoyed smile, and the tears of despair had replaced themselves with ones of pure exultation. Wiping them away with a quick brush of her foreleg, she closed the gap in between them by brushing her chest against his. The mare wrapped her hooves around Habeas's neck, pulled him close, and placed her mouth on his own as her soul, driven and consumed with passion, demanded her to do. In his utter shock, the changeling dropped the bindle he was carrying an it plopped into the snow below. While at first in a panic, he was quick to be infected by the warmth and love she gave to him willingly and conceded to the kiss wholly. It lasted until the need for air took charge and their lips separated.

After getting a firm, albeit fuzzy hold of his mind again, Habeas couldn't help but put on the most confused and wide-eyed face of his life. "P-Persica?! I- wha-?! Wha-?!" he stammered, unable to make sense of all that was happening. "What was that?"

"Habeas..." the mare spoke, butting her forehead against his and looking into his eyes. "I was wrong."

"Wh-what?" he continued to stutter.

"I... I was wrong!" she said again, quickly locking her lips with his once more, letting out a temporarily satisfied moan as a pleasurable fire coursed through her veins. "Habeas, I was so stupidly wrong! I can't let you leave! I never should have told you to!"

"B-but you said that you wanted me gone!"

"Forget what I said!" she spoke, poking her snout against his and giving him a desperate and happy expression. "All I said then was nothing more than garbage. It was meaningless. Right now... right now, just be mine, Habeas. For tonight, let me be yours. Please, all I want to hear you say is yes..."

Persica nearly felt her heart burst from her chest when Habeas suddenly kissed her back, giving her his answer without words to confirm them. When he removed his chitinous lips, he gave her a small smile and wide eyes of pure, unadulterated glee and affection for the mare he loved. "Yes, I... I will be yours, Persica," he was quick to speak; his fear gone and mind ready to admit a truth he had been hiding for far longer than he ever wanted. "I love you. I always wanted to tell you, but I was too afraid. I didn't ever want to make you think I felt otherwise, though."

"I've been denying it for so long, but I just can't anymore," Persica sighed, trembling with need as she hugged him close. "I love you too. Celestia only knows how much I've really wanted you. You're so hardworking, kind and generous, even in spite of all the things I did to you..."

Habeas didn't want this instant to end, but he then noticed just how frigid he felt with the storm blowing around, and also realized it posed a sizable threat to this precious moment altogether. "It's, um... rather cold out here. Do you think we should continue this inside, maybe?" he asked politely. Smirking and giggling at that playful charm in his voice that had stolen her heart completely, she grabbed him by the hoof and pulled him away with her great strength before he could so much as react, leaving the bindle in the snow behind them; forgotten. She dashed through the snow with him and entered the house, and as soon as they had gone through the door, Persica yanked Habeas back to her chest and wrapped her hooves around him, fervently kissing him as he kissed her back.

What was once a house full of stern and concrete tension had turned into pure bliss. The feelings of love and lust had ensnared their minds in its massive net of passion, and they were helpless but to surrender to it. They were utterly lost in this sea of warm feelings and given emotion, and basked in it like a greedy dragon wallowing in its horde of gold. They both wanted more and more as things escalated, and they knew there was only one way of stimulating the unfettered desires they so desperately and wantonly craved.

"Where...?" was all Habeas was able to ask of his love, unable to form a full sentence in the heat of the moment. Though it was but one word, Persica knew what he meant by it.

"The living room?" she suggested, after they had broken off and caught their breath for a single minute.

"Uh... I'd rather not knock down any of the candles," he said, looking to the now-dwindling flames on each of the holders he had previously placed about. Persica thought about this for a moment. As she came to her answer, she had resumed her kissing of the changeling.

"The... the guest bedroom," she eventually spoke into his ear when enough of her mind had returned to her, hot breath backing her words. Without delay, the two stumbled through the house as their osculating continued, never letting go of the other for even a second, though occasionally stopping to continually savor their moment, or at least catch their breath.

After what seemed like an entire hour, the two finally reached their destination and blindly shoved the door open when they doddered into the dark room. As they fell upon the once-straightened bed as if it were a field of clover, still kissing one another, the blue bed sheets were transformed into a rippled mess. Their mouths were never more than seconds apart, and their game had nearly turned into a contest to see who could outdo the other in terms of whose mouth had more control over the other's. While Habeas's thin, forked tongue explored Persica's mouth and became besotted with the taste it experienced, Persica's entered the changeling's own and shifted around, rolling over his two long, smooth fangs in the process like a prisoner squeezing through a set of thin bars.

As Habeas made love to this beautiful mare on such a soft surface, he thought of what other methods he could perform to please her. Finally coming to a conclusion, he started crawling over her prone shape and explored it with his lips. The moment he did this, Persica thought herself in heaven. Every time he kissed at her face and neck, she would moan aloud in approval as he continued on. Every time she cooed words of love and nibbled on his webbed ear when it brushed past her nose, he in turn would laugh and whisper back his undeniable affection for her. He was reaching the base of her collarbone, to Persica's audible delight, when a particularly salacious idea took a firm hold over his mind like a predator that had grabbed its prey by the tail; instilled and driven on by the sheer amount of love sitting about in the air like the most irresistible of aphrodisiacs.

"Persica," the changeling quietly murmured, his voice soft and tender as goose down, though containing a noticeable hint of mischievousness. "Part your legs."

Blinking, Persica looked up at him with both of her eyes widened at his boldness. "Habeas, you're... you're..."

"Hungry," he purred seductively, placing another, delicate kiss on her neck. Persica was at first still startled by the suggestion, but she soon relented to her lover's demands and moved her legs apart for the changeling to do with as he wished. Waiting until she had lowered her eyelids to a crack and nodded her head in confirmation, Habeas carefully positioned himself over her in the way his instincts told him was proper and true, and with a final kiss shared by his inamorata, he began.

And what happened between them then and lasting for a grand long while, suffice to say, was nature taking its course, and pure, unrestrained love. It was as private as a heavily guarded secret, but as passionate as could possibly be. And, most importantly perhaps, it was wholly true. The changeling and the mare fully gave themselves to the other, and held nothing back. And for as close to forever as they could achieve, they did this under the shroud of blissful darkness.

When their erotic acts did finally come to an end, and the bed upon which they laid ceased its relentless creaking from the energy and vigor of their carnal activities, the two lovers butted their heads together with expressions of mirth still shimmering like stars on their lips; hot air panting from their mouths and bouncing off each other's faces like clouds of steam.

"That felt... amazing," Persica was the first to sigh, breathless and ecstatic. There was a pleasant soreness that continued to linger about the lower section of her body that made her want to squeeze her thighs together, and she did just that. She regretted not even a single moment of what had transpired between her and the changeling she adored. She ran a hoof gently across his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes once more. "Oh, Habeas... My sweet, handsome Habeas..."

"My beautiful, darling Persica... I love you. I love you so much..." he replied with sincerity in every word, sliding his face to her shoulder and nuzzling his smiling snout against its soft fur as she did the same to him, both closing their eyes and savoring the moment as though it would never end. Exhausted from the strain of their venereal escapades, Habeas slowly fell by her side on the bed and held her close to himself, the mare hugging him back just as fiercely and intimately. Finally having been able to break through the wall of emotion separating them and do something so intimate, private, and precious; to touch one another's flesh as they did in such a manner, incomparable euphoria flooded through both of them and stayed hanging around like a soothing mist.

It was a meager few minutes later that the two succumbed to the exhaustion gripping them and fell into the calm, ever-dark folds of deep, immensely satisfied sleep; still holding onto one another and passing out with loving smiles on their faces.

Author's Note

Sorry this came out later than usual. The scene of love between these two was going to be a bit longer (and admittedly raunchier), but with some helpful advice from one of the moderators here, I realized it was a tad too... saucy for a teen-rated story. So I toned it down, rewrote it a tad, and released it like so.

Nightmare's End

Persica found herself alone, in the spot where she had lost him. The sky above was black, missing both the moon and the stars. The air was cold and clammy, as well as dry, but no snow was present. She could see nothing in the rank surrounding forest, but she detected a dark presence within it that quickly made itself known.

"You did it. You did it, like a stray, worthless mutt." The voice that greeted Persica's ears was threatening and foul, but for once, she was ready for it. "Before I punish you like the dog you are, I want to ask you why. Why did you choose to betray me in such a callous and uncaring way?"

"I did not betray you," she said, growling defiantly. The brief moment of quiet that followed told Persica that the presence did not expect this reaction, but still it went on with its tirade. Persica could hear it move about in the brush surrounding her; snapping twigs and rustling leaves as it circled about, looking for her blind spot.

"Who is this wretched changeling to you? Who is he to you that you would so easily become seduced by his foolish antics? Were you truly this desperate to be sated by the touch of a stallion that you would lay with a beast?"

"He is no beast. He's the one person I've been looking for in my life. He makes me feel good about myself. He makes me... happy."

Like a raindrop snuffing out a candle, a horrible laugh erupted from the presence that froze the blood in the pony's veins. "No. You yourself know in your very soul that he isn't the one you've been 'looking for'. He's just a figurehead. A proxy. Nothing more, and greatly, greatly less. He'll never compare to what you really want."

"You're wrong. I know he is," she argued back, stirring an anxious hoof over the dirt below her hooves. It grunted and growled, then in a flash of movement, a dark shape approached her and stood directly in front of her. The haze of the inky darkness was too thick to make out, but it took the basic shape of a pony.

"How can that be, when you still want me." The presence suddenly poked an icy hoof of shadow at her chest with enough force behind it that Persica could feel her rib bones there splintering under its ghostly strength, but still her features were rigid and unmoving in spite of the burning jolt of excruciating pain. "Deep down, in that miserable, unfaithful heart of yours, you know that you still need me!"

Persica's face was stone. "No. I don't need you. I don't need to fear you anymore." She then took a single step forward, pressing against the force against his chest, and clearly surprising the entity as she said its name. "I'm not afraid of these wretched confrontations of ours any longer, Chantilly."

The beast unleashed a wretched scream of outrage that rang in Persica's ears so loudly, they might as well have been bleeding. Lunging forward, it engulfed her completely in its horrible, light-less form. Persica flinched away as it enveloped her with predatory intent, expecting only the worst.

What she felt next was not gnashing teeth that were set to inflict a gruesome death upon her, nor long claws that would go on to tortuously tear her to bloody pieces, but the pleasant warmth of sunlight hitting against her hide. No agony came upon her, only what one would feel from a typical warm summer day, and that was all.

The pain in her chest no longer ailing her, Persica only opened her eyes when she felt a pair of warm, familiar hooves suddenly embrace her, and a sniffling cry come against her splayed-back ears.

Recognizing the feeling before she even saw it, Persica knew from instinct that it was Chantilly who was holding her, and not only had Persica noticed that, but her surroundings had also changed. Where she now stood was an otherwise uninhabited field bearing long, golden grass as far as the eye could see, that swirled around in the wind like the briny surf of the ocean. Above them, once a cold night sky, was cloudless and as blue as glistening sapphire.

"I-if you go with him... if you keep him..." the tone had descended from a threatening growl and turned to a softer, sadder voice. Chantilly's voice. "You'll... you'll forget me. You'll forget me and all th-those times we spent together. You'll forget the bond we formed and shared since we were foals. The love we gave one another. You'll forget it all."

With a trembling caution in her movement, Persica carefully, carefully wrapped her hooves around her husband's shivering form, and through the soft, light blue fur that lined his back. She held him close, letting him cry into her shoulder as the beginnings of teardrops formed into her own eyes. It felt so vivid and real; the wetness building up on her shoulder fur, the sounds of the passing wind, the heartbeat of Chantilly's chest... all of it felt like it was happening in reality, even though she knew good and well that this was a dream.

"I would never forget you," she decided to speak in a tender whisper; working up the words through a startled mind that was choked up with emotion. "I never will."

"I just... I don't want to go. I don't want to go," he sobbed. "I don't want you to stop loving me, as you did before. Before that creature made you take me from you."

"I do love you still, but I'm moving on. I have to," she calmly spoke. "Just because I love you long after I've lost you doesn't mean I can't give my love to another. It doesn't mean I can't share it. I'll always love you as much as I did before when my times comes, that I promise you, Chantilly."

The two held onto each other for a long while. The wind whistled past them, and the tall grass they stood over would brush along their legs. Persica didn't want to let him go, and she knew he felt the same. When that did eventually happen, Chantilly took his face off of his beloved wife's shoulder, and raised it to her own.

"I'm sorry. About everything," he started to apologize, his tone still cracked, but a little more stable now as he looked into her eyes with his handsome, near-luminous green ones. "I'm sorry about all those nights of hell I put you through. I cannot say it enough."

Persica grinned past her tears, and managed to let out a single, somber chuckle. "There's nothing to be sorry about, Chantilly. All those dreams were of what I saw of you last. Not who you were. Just dumb figments of my worst imagination, that's all. What you are now... this is who you are. This is who you are to me."

There was a silence, and it only lasted for a few moments until Chantilly spoke again. "Our daughter... Peach Blossom... what's she like?"

"She's beautiful. She's smart. She's got your eyes and your personality shines like the sun in her. And she's probably got your silver tongue too, judging from all the times she's convinced me into permitting a few things."

He smiled. "That tongue's gotten us both into more predicaments than I could have ever hoped for. Or wanted."

"I've raised her well," Persica went on. I've taught her almost everything I know, everything you would have taught her, and... she might have even made me learn a few things along the way."

"And I'm thankful for this," he sighed, leaning his face in to her own. Neither could fight the longing feeling of affection that was taking its inevitable hold, and the gap between them soon closed.

When their lips touched, for the last time, Persica and her husband shared a long, final kiss with much bliss following. Before their mouths separated and her wonderful dream came to its conclusion, Persica heard the sound of her beloved Chantilly Cream say one last thing into her ear as a precious, soft whisper. A whisper that also sounded like that of another voice she knew and cared for in equal measure.

"I love you... Persica."

Persica's eyes slowly opened, coming face-to-face with a dark figure beside her on the bed she was upon; his muzzle sitting next to hers as both rested on their sides. What she once saw as the pony Chantilly Cream was replaced by Habeas the changeling. He was fully asleep, but he was mumbling something.

"I love you... so... much..." the changeling unconsciously repeated, his hoof tightening slightly around her waist a little bit. His grip was still a little loose due to the fact that he was still out of it, but it was still firm enough to let Persica know that he didn't want to, and most certainly wasn't going let her go.

Seeing no reason in moving as of yet, she just laid there with him, savoring the moment and enjoying his presence. The lower region of her body still felt very much sore from the way Habeas held and pleased her last night, but it was a light, soothing pain. Having done what she did; stripped every last one of her defenses away and opened herself up to him in such a private manner brought comforted feelings to her still-weary mind that surprised her fairly greatly, and she found herself quite okay with it.

Morning light was shining through the blinds of the window nearby, but by the pinkish-reddish hue of it, it was early morning. Knowing that there was plenty of time to spend before having to move around and prepare for the full day, Persica continued to use the time to remain relaxing in the bed and bide her time for Habeas to wake up. He eventually did a meager few minutes later, starting with a murmur that came squeaking through his mouth. When his eyelids groggily lifted, the first thing they spied was the waiting face of the mare he adored looking at him.

She smirked toward him with a lazy, loving eye. "Morning."

"Morning," he repeated back, smiling happily. Persica crawled a few inches closer to him, putting her snout up to his and giving him a kiss, which he gave back. "How are you feeling?" he asked, once it ended.

"Mmm... satisfied," was all Persica sighed, stretching her limbs out from under the sheets that covered them both. "Last night was spectacular, Habeas."

"It was," he agreed in a whisper, the memory of it still fresh as a daisy in his mind. "Thank you for letting me share it with you, Persica."

"I should be the thankful one," she insisted, snaking her front hooves around his form and pulling him in a little closer across the mattress. "If it wasn't for you, Habeas, I... I may never have opened myself like this. To anyone, ever."

"If it wasn't for you, I might never have found a... special somepony," he remarked back cheerfully, a minute passing by when he heard the light growl of Persica's stomach and felt it rumble against his chitinous hide. His brows raising, Habeas thought of what it meant.

"You sound hungry."

"Well... maybe I am a tiny bit," she tittered, the embrace ending softly like a pleasant, fleeting breeze. Careful of disrupting the sheets covering the mare, Habeas rolled himself about and started to leave the bed. As he left her side, Persica couldn't help but take notice of a particularly striking, glittering sheen his transparent, insectile wings now seemed to posses on his back. It was a little bit different from what they looked like before, but it was a minor feature overall.

"You just get up and ready at your leisure, and I'll go make you some breakfast," he smiled, searching for and quickly finding his handkerchief on the ground nearby; having previously lost it in the heat of the tender moment they shared the night before. "Any dishes you may wish for me to serve in particular?"

She chuckled as she looked to him tying the bandanna around his neck, laying her head flat against the pillow again and sending her long mane sprawling out over it like water spilling out from a tipped-over glass. "Surprise me."

Peach Blossom just couldn't get over how cute Honey Bee was. Now that she was old enough, Apini deemed her fit to be in the company of others. She crawled around, through the carpeted floor of the house's main living area. Honey mumbled childish gibberish as she did so, and played with Peach Blossom and Bumble with as happy of a face as a baby could have.

Watching the three children from the corner of the room, smiling, was Apini. There was a look of calm awareness on her face, and she was ready to act if anything drastic was to happen to any of them, even in spite of the relative safety of their surroundings.

She watched her young daughter mosey about the room as the other two children spoke to her; both fruitlessly asking her to do simple things in a language she did not yet understand, but found much amusement in hearing. Honey had very recently matured successfully from a small grub into an equally-small nymph, which meant she now had the ability to change forms. Using her changeling magic on her, Apini cast a spell that would make sure she stayed looking like a foal of her young age, until she was old enough to learn how to control her powers. She had accomplished it with a common spell most changelings knew and could use on each other, and was completely harmless.

Eventually, Honey came across some toy wooden building blocks laying on the floor. For the next several minutes she went on attempting to stack a tower with them, only for it to inevitably collapse and fall after several blocks were put atop one another, and start again. But, after growing bored of it; her infant mind quick to lose interest at seeing the same outcome happening over and over again, she brought one of the wooden blocks to her face and her toothless pony mouth teethed on its edge, earning another pair of squealing chuckles of amusement and delight from Peach Blossom and Bumble. Apini was tempted to join in on their reactions, but the disguised, red-eyed changeling still wanted to keep her dignity in front of the young ones, and so instead only mumbled a silent chuckle.

It was just before lunchtime, and as Apini was about to ask if either of the older foals were hungry, the sound a hoof knocking on the front door went out. Turning her head to it for a second, Apini looked over to Peach Blossom when she realized who it most likely was, considering the time that the filly was scheduled to be picked up.

"Peach Blossom, I believe your mother is here," she spoke, looking back to the children.

"Oh? Okay," Blossom responded back from where she sat with Bumble and Honey. "Well, looks like it's time for me to go, Bumble."

"I'll see you later, then," he said in a merry voice when she got to her legs. "Have a happy Hearth's Warming!"

"You too, bud. I hope you have the best," she said, playfully punching her friend in the shoulder. Blossom leaned in and tickled the Honey as she passed by, to the infant's visible delight, and then finally fully set off to collect her things. As she did that, Apini went to the door to speak to whoever was on the other side, just as another sound of a hoof rapping against it went out.

Unlatching the lock, Apini opened it and peeked out to see two figures standing there. One was the pony she instantly recognized as Persica, and the other was a unicorn stallion of a light gray coloration.

In the dim light the doorway, Persica could hardly make out Apini's face, much less her eyes, but bid her greetings either way. "Good morning, Miss Bee," she began. "I've come for my daughter."

"Have no fear Persica, she'll be out soon," Apini said. "She's just grabbing the last of her things."

When she finished the sentence, Apini eyed the second pony standing beside Persica with a curious visage. He was a unicorn she had never once before seen around Canterlot, and as such, was curious about him.

"Who's this?" she decided to ask with a neighborly smile that replaced the inquisitive look.

"Habeas," Habeas spoke. "Habeas Brittle. I'm a... friend of Persica, here."

"'Habeas Brittle'?" Apini pursed her lips in interest. "Sounds like quite the outlandish name for a pony."

"I'm not from around here," he admitted with a single breath. "But I hope to stay."

"Mom!" a new voice suddenly shouted out from behind Apini. In a speedy blur of light brown fur, Peach Blossom, a pack over her back, whizzed by the disguised changeling, down the few steps sitting along the doorway, and up to her mother, whom she wrapped her comparably smaller hooves around in a large hug.

Seeing them as ready to leave, Apini reacted accordingly. "Have a happy Hearth's Warming, you all," she bid farewell before lightly closing the door with a creak. Peach Blossom looked to the second 'pony' after the hug she gave ended, and looked at him suspiciously. Habeas rolled his eyes and chuckled at this.

"Don't worry, it's just me," he said in the voice she recognized, causing the filly to smile contently. After double-checking that her backpack was all set, the three then set off from Canterlot, headed for home.

Aside from Peach Blossom's stories of what happened while she was gone, the walk was quiet for the most part. It was when Peach Blossom, who walked right beside Habeas as her mother led ahead, spoke to him that things became a little less so. "Mr. Brittle, I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask whatever you want," he said. "What is it?"

Peach Blossom looked a little haunted when she began. "You look like you're all better, and you and I both know that my Mom says that that means you have to go," she sadly said, her voice quiet. "Do you have to? When would you? You'll... tell me when you will, right?"

Habeas listened intently at the flurry of questions that came upon him, first responding back with a chuckle as his hooves crunched over the hard snow and ice below him. "Well, to that I do not truly know. Persica, do you know?"

"Know what?" Persica asked, slowing her pace down a tad so that Habeas and her daughter could catch up and stand on either side of her.

"Oh, just about when I'm to leave like you said I had to. Since I'm all better, and such," he said in a greatly casual voice. Persica, a lip raised and a cocked eyebrow on her face, stared back at him with her good eye and huffed.

"I said that, did I?" she inquired. "Funny you should mention it. Personally, I don't think you'll be leaving for quite some time just yet."

"Is that so?" the changeling snickered, looking briefly back down to Peach Blossom before shifting his view back to the mare and humming a purr. "Might it have something to do with the dinner we both had last night?"

"Mmm... possibly," she mumbled, her head bobbing from side to side. "It also might have something to do with a charming changeling who set it all up to begin with, of course."

Habeas simply could not help but pull his lips back into a delighted grin. "Oh, I bet you're just saying that," he said teasingly, bumping his shoulder against her. Sensing a challenge in the motion, Persica bumped him back with slightly more force.

Peach Blossom barely believed what she was seeing happen between her mom and Habeas, and her hanging jaw would tell anyone the same. It was something even a foal like herself could see was blatant flirting. Flirting? Between them? After all the hostility her parent gave to the changeling not a few days before? Wait... if they were flirting - to each other, no less - then that could only mean...

"M-Mom? Mr. Brittle?" she inquired in an unsure tone. "Why're you two talking like that? What are you hiding?"

It was then that Persica and Habeas both mutually noticed that they were perhaps being a bit too obvious on the teasing they each were taking part in, and so silently agreed to cut it back a fair ways on their rambunctious behavior. "We're not hiding anything, sweetie," Persica spoke. "We're just..."

"...Having a playful conversation. Between adults," Habeas finished for her. The mare quickly nodded in agreement, and as she did so, Habeas turned his head to Peach Blossom and winked at her. The filly was at first confused, but she received the message all the same. A message that was much more like a wish granted than anything else. A smile, large and wide, grew over her face and she only just managed to contain her unkempt joy.

If she was getting this correct, her mother and Habeas actually liked each other. They liked each other! They did! It had to be! There's no other way they'd be acting like this if it wasn't so! They liked each other!

And for the rest of the trek, with this new fact boiling in her mind in a most delightful way, Peach Blossom practically danced all the way home ahead of the two, her happiness that drove the motion absolutely and unbelievably colossal.

Come the Spring

Habeas, Persica, and Peach Blossom all spent Hearth's Warming together, and the company they each provided for each other was enough. The three celebrated in happiness, and when that special holiday ended, they spent the rest of the remaining winter in energetic mirth of an almost equal measure. In the process, they ate up the rest of the hard-grown food that remained from their previous harvest.

When the annual Winter Wrap Up eventually came by as a few months passed to herald the end of winter, spring had come to the land of Equestria in full force. The last of the snow to lay upon the ground melted away, revealing the green grass underneath. The southern birds migrated back from the lands they had originally gone to in order to escape the cold times, and their lovely, tweeting tunes once more sang loudly in the fresh air.

And just as every other area seemed to burst into greenery and life, so did the land on and surrounding the Peach Farmstead. The plow that had been used last year was taken down from where it hung for all of the winter, and brought over to the area where the vegetable garden they had constructed in the fall sat. The soil, no longer stiff and hard as it was in the wintertime, but soft and pliable, was absolutely perfect for seed-planting.

The plow was hooked up to Habeas and he spent the next few hours toiling away with dignity and purpose, marching with it across the bed of dirt. Now the spitting image of changeling health, it was a lot easier for him to use without a broken leg to hinder him. Habeas eventually finished, and as Persica went about tending to the peach trees and making sure each one was healthy and ready for the year ahead, Peach Blossom and himself planted as many seeds as they could into the fresh soil, labeling and watering the spots soon after.

Now done with the plow, it was eventually brought back to the barn to be put back away by all three of them. They tied a newer, stronger rope around its metal frame, and when it was successfully rigged back to the pulley system, the old piece of equipment was raised up. They continued hoisting it higher and higher until it dangled exactly where they wanted, stably.

"Nice!" Peach Blossom cheered after Habeas tied the suspending rope into several tight knots on a hook nailed next to the barn's front doors. "That'll be there for a while."

"Just remember, Blossom: Be careful around the hook, and don't play with the rope," Persica reminded her daughter after inspecting the knots herself. "We don't want to sever it and cause a few hundred pounds of metal to come crashing down to the ground, possibly even on somepony."

"Oh, Mom..." the filly chuckled, flicking her hoof without worry. "You know I wouldn't do that. Besides, I'm far too old to be entertained with the simple likes of rope."

"Well, you're still my daughter," the mare said, rubbing her hoof over Peach Blossom's head. "It'll be another year-or-two before you can call yourself a teenager, and even then I'll have to keep an especially wary eye on you."

"We'll see about that..." she replied deviously, slowly walking out of the barn with a smile on her mouth. It left Persica and Habeas alone, and they used that time together with wisdom comparable to grand old sages. The pony and the changeling walked to the barn's opened entrance and looked out to the property, to the garden they had made. To the peach trees already in bloom, soon to bear fruit. As their sightseeing entered its second minute, Habeas turned his head to Persica and he shuffled a few inches closer to her.

With immense care in his movement, he gently put his hoof around her shoulder. A few months might have passed since they confessed and consummated their love for one another, but there was a big reason for it. He definitely wished not to slip and make even the smallest of mistakes that had the capacity ruin everything that had been built up between them, and so every move of his was cautious and coordinated.

Though they hadn't openly admitted it, both knew that Peach Blossom had found out that they were positively smitten, and it didn't help that Persica had allowed him to sleep inside the house now (in the guest bedroom, for now of course). The filly would make the occasional remark that had something to do with why her mother was spending an awful amount of time with him, and Persica would always note the larger-than-usual, toothy grin her daughter would put on after the scarce times she would bring Habeas around a nearby corner to give him a quick peck, before returning to the filly's sight.

"It sure is beautiful, isn't it?" the mare took the liberty to inquire.

"Yes you- it is." Habeas knocked himself over the head with a light pat from his own hoof, smiling a little bit nervously as she gave him a glance from her good eye. "Sorry. Slip of the tongue."

"A welcomed slip," she corrected, leaning her head against his neck and resting it there. Habeas didn't move, for he was far too absorbed by the feeling to even think of doing anything else. That one night of ecstasy and bliss a few months back was the only time they had gone that far, but Habeas didn't care about the next chance he would have to experience such a tender moment again. What he did care about, wholly and truthfully, was Persica and making her happy.

He was hers, and that was all that mattered to him.

And for a time, perfectly content with how things had turned out and the life that was only just starting for them, the two stood there at the entrance of the barn together, admiring their handiwork as the sun had just started setting over the now-reddish horizon.

There was mostly a quiet atmosphere that had settled within the Bee household. Apini was currently in the kitchen taking care of some unwashed dishes in the sink; her duties tending to the recently revived and active beehives done for the day.

In the living room far behind her, Bumble was attempting to teach Honey how to speak a few words more than just 'mommy', 'Bumble', and 'cat', all with some success. The only real troubles right now seemed to be trying to get past his little sister's lack-of-teeth-induced lisping. It was quite the endearing, and Apini would sneak a few looks over her shoulder just to see it while she worked.

She was finishing up scrubbing the third-to-last glass cup, when the sound of the doorbell ringing went out. "I've got it!" Apini was the first to shout, mere seconds before Bumble could volunteer. Shrugging, the nymph went back to playing with Honey, and Apini, taking off her apron, trotted over to the door. She opened it, and a figure roughly her own size stood waiting on the other side with an expecting expression.

He was a male pegasus with yellow-tinted fur and wore a brown coat over his skinny frame, as well as a fedora of a matching color over his head, but there was a certain scent about him that told otherwise. The scent he had told Apini that this was actually a changeling in disguise, but it wasn't the smell that told her this. This was the same disguise he used the last time he came to visit.

It was her husband.

"Hello, Bombini," she greeted the drone from behind clenched teeth. "What brings you here, I wonder?"

"Hello, Apini," he spoke in a polite, soft, and sorrowful voice. "I know you must be vexed with me at how I've been unable to send any letters to you for the last month, but I swear by my wings to you, it was because the hive's been running me wild with all the tasks assigned from of our queen's latest plans."

Apini looked indifferent to this news. Bombini put a hoof into the doorway and spoke again. "May I... step in for only a few moments?"

"You're not coming in." Apini adamantly halted him before he could so much as think about attempting to enter by moving in his way.

"Why can't I?" he asked in a sullen voice.

"Why should you?" she rebutted in a most unwelcoming way.

"I only wish to visit with our children, for a few moments at the very least. How are they... faring here? I've gotten all their letters, and please, please believe me when I say I've tried everything in my power to reply to them," he asked in a fragile tone, looking past Apini and through the crack of the door to see the sight of two small figures playing in the background; oblivious to his presence. His head eventually lifted again to witness the face Apini staring at him in a glare.

"My children are doing perfectly fine," she spoke coldly. "But why have you come here? Did the queen send you on business, or is this simply an early checkup for this year?"

Bombini sighed and lowered his saddened head. "The queen wishes for me to deliver a message. It is... an assignment."

"How typical," mumbled Apini, leaning her body against the frame of the doorway as she prepared to hear what . "What is it? Does the queen want me to kill somepony? Poison a noblemare? Spy on the princesses' latest activities?"

"She wishes for you to slay a drone."

"A drone?" Apini's brow lifted in confusion and interest. "Who? Why?"

"He is a rogue drone who goes by the name of Habeas Brittle. He is a traitor who turned his back on the hive."

To this, Apini recognized the name right off and blinked in surprise. She had heard the name a few times now over the last few months starting just before Hearth's Warming came around, even seen the individual who bore it twice during that time. But the memory of her first encounter with him was what showed the most clearly in her mind. And she knew who knew him. "What did you say his name was?" she asked after getting past her shock.

"Habeas Brittle," he repeated. "Queen Chrysalis said he had been a terrible nuisance to keep under control to begin with, and tried to instigate a rebellion of freethinking within the hive's ranks. She attempted to get him to stop before doubt could be sown into their minds, and he up and abandoned the hive itself a few months ago under the cowardly fear of reprisal. If there's a chance he has survived this long, and other drones find out that he had been using his unsavory methods to do just that, all that doubt he has cast has the potential to evolve into something more insidious. This is a terrible idea to think upon, and so Chrysalis wishes for him to be destroyed if found to prevent that. He could be anywhere, but if he does happen to be lurking about in any sort of cityscape, the queen said he'd be in an area like this."

"In other words, I'm... to keep watch for him?"

"Yes. And eliminate him should you discover him," said Bombini. "The hive has sent loyal drones to scout for him elsewhere, but here in Canterlot is where the queen wishes for you to look."

"If that is what I must do... So be it," Apini said back, anger clear in her held back voice over the fact that the period of bloodless peace and tranquility she was experiencing was now over, and she had to once again dirty her hooves for a hive that despised her. As she finished her sentence, Apini could see an urgent look appear in Bombini's eyes, and she knew that his obedience to the hive, as strong as her own, was telling him he had spent enough time in the presence of family and not solely enforcing the will of the queen.

"I wish I had more time to visit, I truly do, but the queen is demanding the presence of nearly every last one of us drones as part of her larger-scale plans. Goodbye, Apini. Until next we meet," he spoke to his wife, his pain at leaving clearly evident. "I swear we will reunite as soon as I am able to slip away from my duty."

"Goodbye, Bombini. And... I hope you have safe travels back to the hive," she said back to her husband, almost begrudgingly, but with true care in her voice. Bombini looked like he was about to turn and leave, but stopped mid-turn and looked back to Apini.

"Before I go, I... got you some flowers," he spoke, bring forth a bouquet of daffodils, tulips, and peace lilies he had previously hidden perfectly underneath the folds his coat in a bright display. "I made sure to get your favorites, and only your favorites. Are they to your liking?"

Apini was caught like a fly in a web the moment she laid her different-colored eyes upon them. She accepted them into her hooves and quickly, and deeply inhaled their fragrant scent. "They are. I... thank you," she sighed in a more forgiving way than before, taking in another whiff of their heavenly smell. Bombini put on an easy smile at his wife's pleasure from his gift.

"In return for these, might you be able to tell the kids their father stopped by and said hello?" he asked.

She took her attention off of the flowers to look at Bombini and rolled her eyes, a small smile coming over her face. "Of course I will."

"Then... I can now leave somewhat happily." Bombini fixed the hat over his head, and after making a final look at Apini, he paced down the steps and started to walk off. Apini watched him leave, and only after he had traversed several dozen meters away was when she went back inside and closed the door.

"Who was that, Mom?" came a question from Bumble, turning away from his sister for a brief moment as Apini walked by with the flowers in her grasp.

"I'll tell you a little later, dear," she smiled, already knowing the expression he'd put on when she would tell him who it was. "Right now I have to prepare for something quite big tomorrow." And that was what she did. Finishing what little work there was to be had in the kitchen, she set to silently planning the course of actions she would play on how she would take care of this supposed 'renegade changeling' come sunrise next morning...

Crashing Down

The morning that came this day was beset by a bright sun shining over a clear sky. The temperature was as warm as the day before, and was only going to change for the better once summer came rearing its lazy head around. The garden was finished and quiet, having not yet sprouted anything, but surely destined to very soon.

Habeas had gone to Ponyville an hour before to pick up some more plant food for the garden, just in case something bad had the small chance to happen to it throughout the year. So to compensate for not really having to do anything that morning, Persica helped her daughter with some of her homework from school.

Peach Blossom did well answering the problems by herself for the most part, and only seemed to truly ask for help on deciphering the answers to the bonus questions on the ends to each of her papers. As she decided to try and figure out the last one for herself - a complicated math problem - Persica used the time to walk out to the porch and get some fresh air. She looked out over the yard with her good eye and smiled as the warm breeze passed through her mane.

Her life and mind felt so peaceful, she could swear she was merely suffering through the greatest dream of all time, and was bound to wake up and have the illusion crumble away any minute now. But that never came. It never came, and she was glad for it.

She continued looking over the property, past the garden and to the orchard. She was seconds from turning about and walking back inside, when she suddenly detected a dark shape from the corner of her eye, a far ways off at the base of the forest's treeline. And it was that dark shape that made her freeze in place. She recognized what it was quite quickly, and squinted to make out any further features on it, before her eyes widened in surprise, fear, and then despair.

It was a changeling alright. The curved horn on its forehead, unlike Habeas', was smooth and fine. And what made Persica's mouth drop then was what she saw in one of its eyes. One eye, one damnable eye on this changeling, the left one, was as red as a rose petal.

Then the creature started jumping about to and fro at the base of the treeline with a grin of playfulness on its face, as though purposefully attempting to get her attention like a child to a parent. The same bout of movement she remembered seeing all those years ago. The same maneuver that started the series of brief events that ruined Persica's life.

Persica had know idea how to react to this nightmare made manifest, and her body trembled with a thousand emotions that struggled for dominance over her brain. Her face was limp and pale like a dead fish, and her stomach curled in a way that made her simply want to retch, which she never did. It didn't take long for Peach Blossom to eventually turn her head in her mother's direction and spot the strange mannerisms she was showing.

"Mom?" Peach Blossom asked from the table she was at, seeing that her mother wasn't doing anything else except exhibiting this odd, and rather demented form of behavior. "Mom? What is it?"

Persica didn't appear to even register her daughter's words. She continued staring out at the being at the edge of her property, her teeth gritting together until her gums started to bleed. It wasn't until a few more seconds crawled slowly by that she finally worked up the stable mentality to respond.

"Blossom... Blossom, stay inside. Go to your room." Persica's tone was monotonous, but there was unmistakable grimness there as well. Peach Blossom knew something was terribly wrong, and this feeling was only solidified by what came next. "Lock your door, and do. Not. Come out. No matter what. Do as I say right now."

"I... I... yes, Mom," Peach Blossom obeyed, hurriedly leaving the table and chair and scrambling up the stairs to her room. Persica looked back out to the treeline and glared.

The creature was still there at the edge of the property, prancing about like a spring stoat entrancing a rabbit for the slaughter. Persica took one last look at it and vanished inside her house for only a few seconds. When she reappeared, she had her spear clutched tightly in one of her hooves.

The changeling with the red eye let off a toothy sneer that Persica could see from where she stood. The second Persica began making her way in its direction with long, heavy steps in her stride, the creature vanished into the woodland standing behind her as though she were a shadow fading away. Unheeded, the mare marched forth with a blank face of hatred and wrath curled over her face, uncaring of anything else except mindlessly pursuing.

She entered the woods and followed the hoof-shaped tracks in the ground for several dozen meters. The tracks eventually came to a stop in between a pair of old oaks, but still she went on, scanning around the environment with cold desperation and light sweat raining down from her face. She went deeper and deeper in, unaware of the dark shape effectively hiding in the thick foliage of the trees above.

Knowing exactly what form she could use to catch Persica off guard, Apini, sitting on a thick branch, transformed into the shape of the stallion she still vividly remembered defeating many years beforehoof. Then, as Persica just started walking below her, the changeling wearing the form of Chantilly Cream silently pounced downward onto her with a grin.

Habeas returned to the farmstead soon enough. He placed the bags of plant food he carried in the cart behind him by the barn, and then parked the cart nearby it. After performing that, he made his way to the house and pushed the door open a little.

"Persica, I'm home!" he sang out with a smile. When he fully entered the house and heard only his echo, he realized nobody responded. Looking around, he saw no one either.

"Persica?" he spoke again, scratching his chin. He went into the kitchen and living room, but still there was no one. "Peach Blossom, are you there? Hello? Anypony?"

With that, he tightened his handkerchief around his neck and decided to exit the house again, hoping that they were somewhere outside. After a brief check around the garden he went to go search around the orchard. But no matter where he looked and no matter how many peach trees he poked his head around by the time he got to its end, he saw no hide nor hair of them.

He pondered what had potentially happened to the two as he stood there. Only when his webbed ears suddenly picked up the rustling sound of brush being trampled and pushed over did he turn his head to the forest bordering the property, and a brown-furred shaped instantly came into his sights. His jaw dropped and his heart nearly stopped when he saw that it was Persica lurching weakly forward from the treeline, a hoof to her chest and red blood leaking past it, as well as stained over some other patches of her fur.

"P-Persica?" he stammered. Breaking out of his daze, he rushed forward, through the grassy ground separating them as fast as he could run, and to Persica's side. The moment he reached her, Persica collapsed with a breathless and blank sigh, and Habeas only just caught her in his outstretched hooves. Terror coursing through his entire being, he held her close and looked into her spinning, hurting eyes.

"What happened?!" he spoke to her in a high-pitched squeak, holding one of his hooves over the one she had covering her wound.

She looked at him with an utterly bewildered expression, then shifted her view to behind him. Her face twisted into a fearful visage, her mouth opened, and her lips fluttered frantically, trying to form words. "Be... behind-"

Her sentence was thrown off when Habeas experienced a burst of agonizing pain suddenly tear through his upper left leg, straight into the base of his thigh. He gasped in surprise and shot his head downward to it, seeing the silver shape of a spear tip completely impaled within it; piercing through the back and exiting through the front.

"Wha-?!" he sputtered, shouting out loudly from the wretched feeling. When he turned his view to who held the weapon, he saw a female changeling, bearing one bright red eye, looking into his own eyes from less than three feet away with a sadistic leer on her face.

"Hello, traitor," the changeling greeted through grimaced fangs. With a sharp and unforgiving pull, she tugged the spear's tip out of his thigh, making sure to twist it around for added excruciating torment first. Recoiling from it with a cry, Habeas staggered forward from the pain with Persica still drooped over his shoulder. He looked behind himself and saw the creature standing in place, cleaning the changeling blood from where the weapon had penetrated his flesh and shooting a taunting look toward him. Knowing that she was merely toying with an easy kill, and wanting more than anything to escape the attacker, he limped forward to the only place he could see that offered only a sliver of protection for Persica and himself.

The barn.

He quickly limped and hopped to it as fast as he could, and by the time he flung open its entrance he was out of breath. Bringing her in with the assistance of his fluttering wings to speed the process further, he went further into the barn until he was able to set her down on a bed of hay in the back. When that had been shakily accomplished, he looked her over, staring at the horrible injury she received and wincing in horror.

"You're... you're going to be okay!" he said exasperatedly, trying as much as he could to convince himself that this was the truth as he tried to convince her, even though it was blatant to both of them that this was not the case. "It's not... that bad..."

"It is... it's deep," Persica wheezed as a small red stream of blood started to form at the edge of her lip, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to endure the agony that felt like a bonfire burning within her lungs. "Sh-she jumped me... I r-ran into the woods after her... she jumped me... took my spear... I'm such an idiot..."

"Shh... shh..." Habeas hushed quietly, ignoring his own wound to the best of his abilities as he looked to hers. He placed both of his hooves gently over it, but failed to stop the bleeding. "Don't talk. Just breath."

Persica could not heed this command. "She's the s-same one. The same changeling who t-took Ch-Chantilly... it's her... she turned into h-him when she jumped me. I didn't know, I... I c-couldn't... I couldn't..."

"Yes, I will admit that. I am the one who caused the downfall of your dear husband," the voice of the invading changeling, nearly emotionless and cold like ice, piped in with more worse an effect than even when Habeas had been struck in his leg, causing both him and Persica to look her way. She stood at the barn entrance; Persica's spear in her hole-filled hooves, and a frown upon her face.

"You..." Habeas growled, his brow lowering in unbridled anger. "You came for me, didn't you?" He looked to Persica, then back to the other changeling. "That's why you're here. You want to kill me, right? Is is because Chrysalis wants me dead?"

"That is correct," came Apini's response. She paced forward a few more feet until she stood in the middle of the barn, less than six feet away from her prey, and under where the plow hung above. She held the spear forward, ready to use it if one of them mustered the strength to attack.

"Then why her?" Habeas asked next, motioning to Persica. "I'm the one you want. Why did you harm her?"

Apini turned her head away for a second, briefly thinking of what to say. "I guess you could say I've been... monitoring you two for quite some time. I've seen enough to know that you truly do love this mare... you love her enough to forget your duties to the hive. Enough to forsake them completely." The words came out of her mouth like rancid venom dripping from an adder's crooked fangs. "I have known nothing but hardship from our hive, 'Habeas Brittle'. But still I serve Chrysalis to the best of my abilities."

"Why?" Habeas asked as he still held onto Persica's shivering form, her ragged breathing betrayed the damage that had been done by her wounds. "Why on earth do you?"

"Because I'm something you are not," the changeling with the red eye hissed. "I am loyal. I have been given ample rewards for the services I performed in Chrysalis' name. But for a traitor such as yourself, you don't deserve anything for this crime. You don't deserve to take what you had for granted, and expect to be given something greater than what you got beforehoof. You took your faith and gave it to a mere, miserable mare. And not only that, but a specific pony that has hunted our kind in the past."

Persica could hear this, and she glared with all the strength that remained within her. "You d-don't know... anything," she grunted.

Habeas too looked very much enraged as he did hurt. "She's no different than you or I," he growled. "We met as foes several months back. I was gravely injured, but she took care of me and we became friends. Time passed, and now our relationship is... something more. Something better."

"Something wretched and abominable," Apini corrected, her red eye flashing brightly. "Your 'love' is blind lust. It is more a vain illusion than you'll think it ever is. But no matter. It will end whatever there was of this twisted lie when I finish draining every last drop of love and affection she ever had for anything from her... aching heart."

"You... you wouldn't!" Habeas sputtered in terror, holding Persica tighter in his grasp defensively, as it was all he could do without directly letting her go.

"And another thing. As I said before, I recognize this mare. I devoured all the love from her equally-despicable husband years ago on orders from our beloved queen, and let him go after her himself," Apini continued on. She looked directly at Persica, and her sneer intensified. "You know, Persica, I thought I'd let him finish the job for me, but when you pulled through and I found that you had a sweet little child in tow, I decided to spare your worthless hide from my own power. I see now that mercy was a mistake. One that will soon be corrected."

"Heartless... bitch..." Persica spat, coughing up a small wad of crimson from her lips to the ground in front of their tormentor.

Apini simply could not help but smile cruelly, her grip on the spear slacking just a small bit. "Those words will soon fit you quite well, worm. For however longer you live after to embody them, anyway."

Habeas couldn't take it anymore. Hearing the threat, the dark promise that this changeling gave, was the last thing he could take. "No!" he screamed, quickly and carefully letting go of Persica and flinging his ailing form forward at the changeling that threatened him and the pony he loved. As he sailed through the air on his fluttering wings, his chipped horn lit up in a green light as he prepared a spell, and his front hoof smacked away the spear to the floor while it wasn't aimed at him. His body hit Apini square in her chest, but she endured the blow fully.

Apini grunted and reeled her head back in response to this assault. Her own horn glowed as well, with a particular malevolence behind it, and she slammed it forward against his head with all of her power. A sickening crackle went out from the force used, and Habeas let out a piercing cry as he felt his horn splinter and peel away until it shattered; chitinous bits scattering everywhere about the barn's floor and leaving naught but a smoldering stump in its place.

He was tossed back by a sharp kick from Apini's upper hooves, and impacted against the barn's walls several feet away, crumpling to the ground. Now without him to antagonize her foul progress, Apini returned her attention to Persica and opened her maw. Persica winced back and groaned in burning pain as she felt her love abandon her. It formed into a stream of pink energy that was pulled out from her chest and floated towards Apini's waiting mouth, becoming swallowed whole.

Habeas could do nothing about it. He tried to summon up his power to do something, anything to stop this incident from happening as it was, but realized too late that his horn was gone. Destroyed utterly. He tried to get to his wounded legs, but stumbled and fell back down; too weak, injured and helpless to do anything. Tears were falling from his face and clouding his vision at the unfairness of it all, but through his soaked and blurred eyes he caught the sight of a short figure of some kind appear at the barn's entrance, several meters behind the feeding changeling.

Before Habeas knew it, the sound of something like a rope snapping suddenly went out, followed by the squealing and screeching of the roof-bound pulleys they were connected to. Apini was caught unawares by this ear-grating sound, and she lifted her up head to where it originated from in turn, just in time to see a large, dark, metallic shape rapidly descend upon her.

Crunch.

A New Kind of Change

When Habeas opened his eyes after the dust had settled, he saw, with no small amount of shock, what had become of the changeling who was attacking them.

The changeling with the red eye had been crushed beneath the plow that fell from above. She wasn't squashed into paste, merely laying underneath the crashed plow with her whole body intact, but the force had clearly mangled her lower back and hind legs. Her eyes were closed and she did not move a muscle, telling Habeas the life had left her.

When he remembered seeing the shape that had surely done this deed, Habeas looked in its direction, and he saw fully who his and Persica's hero was standing in the doorway of the barn.

Peach Blossom, shaking horribly, was the figure who stood there by the severed rope. At her feet were a pair of shears, and on her face was a look of horror and disbelief aimed toward the changeling she had just willingly crushed. The filly finally worked up the sense in her dizzy mind to travel forward into the barn, and on her way in she stumbled and stopped several to catch her shaken breath. Sensing the terrible emotions she was feeling, Habeas managed to get to his legs and he walked over to comfort her. The moment he was in front of her, Peach Blossom put her hooves around him and openly cried.

"I-I... I-I had too. I-I saw her attack you from my w-w-window. Sh-she was g-going to... to..." she sobbed, tears falling from her eyes as she snuck another peek at the fallen creature's body. "She was going to k-kill you."

"It's okay, Peach Blossom... It's okay..." Habeas whispered into her trembling ears, hugging her back. His words provided only some comfort. "You did what you thought you had to do... Just don't think about it. Don't think about it..."

Peach Blossom did as she was told, and instead thought of the other important person in the barn. "M-Mom..." she mumbled, leaving Habeas and running up to her parent's side. She saw Persica's wound wight off after reaching her limp form that laid upon the small bed of hay, and it made her wince back and green-faced for but a moment before she stared again.

Noticing her daughter's presence, Persica started to move. A sluggish hoof came up and swiped weakly at Peach Blossom, easily missing when the filly gasped and took a step back in surprise. "M-Mom?" she spoke, panicked at the unexpected action she performed toward her.

Persica mumbled a growl and looked up with an immensely weak glare. There was a forlorn look in her good eye; a look of despair and fear, of loathing and hopelessness, and it stayed there as she looked to her daughter. Peach Blossom had no idea how to react to this, but just as Habeas came over to aid her, Persica's eyes rolled upward and she collapsed onto the floor; passing out.

Peach Blossom was still catching her breath when Habeas spoke. "The changeling had devoured some of her love," he told her. "I can sense that it wasn't all of it, but it was... too much of it."

"What can we do?" she desperately asked.

"I can't use magic," he responded, touching the still-smoking stump that remained of his horn on his head. "We need to bring her somewhere else. Somewhere better than... here." Hoisting her injured and spiritless form over his shoulder, Habeas limped with her out of the barn, uncaring of his own stinging wound. He and Blossom brought her to the house and ventured in, and once that was accomplished, Persica was carried into the living area.

After Peach Blossom had brushed any possible thing off of its surface, Habeas placed her on the soft carpet floor lightly. Persica was too weak to even move a muscle now, much less open her eyes. All the two could do was sit there with her and look at her slowly bleed out.

"What now?" Peach Blossom was the first to ask. "Your horn's gone and we don't have anything to patch up a... gash that bad. I wouldn't even know how. What can we do now?" Habeas pondered the one option his mind could come up with, and exhaling a deep breath, he replied.

"There is... one thing that may work."

Peach Blossom shot her head toward Habeas. Th-there is?" she asked. "What is it? What is it?!"

Habeas gulped with nervousness, but he was adamant. "I can give her the love within me."

Blossom's brow curled in confusion at the changeling's response, as though he had told a horrid joke. "Habeas... I've known for a while that you actually love my mother, and that she loves you more than she'll ever tell, but how in Celestia would that work? What do you mean?" To this, he grunted.

"No, I mean my love. The love resting within my soul, Peach Blossom. All of it." His words were grim, but as he said them he brushed a caring hoof over Persica's tense and growling, but limp and otherwise inactive face. "I've been taught that if a changeling was to ever give all of his or her love to another being at once, basically expunging all they ever gathered, the sheer power of the given love it contains will fill whatever creature it is aimed towards. Changeling or otherwise, it will be absorbed by them, and not only will it fill their soul with the gathered love, but the love magic will help that creature in the same way with any ailments as it does when it rejuvenates my kind, except on a lesser scale. It could heal some of her injury, just enough for you to lead her to a hospital in Canterlot."

"If that's all you have to do, then why do you sound so... morbid about it?"

Habeas held his breath and slowly backed away from the mare. "Because if a changeling performs such a ludicrous action, without an ounce of love to sustain them thereafter, it is said that they themselves will die."

Peach Blossom had no words to speak for several seconds. When she did, she was quick to spout them out. "Wh-why can't you just take back the love from the changeling who stole it from her?"

"I can't. I made a vow to never, ever steal love from anything else again, it won't heal Persica, and either way the changeling looked dead when we left the barn. The love's surely left her." He sucked in a deep breath and looked to the carpeted floor. "I can't let Persica suffer through this fate. I need to do this."

Peach Blossom looked quite disagreeable. "Habeas, wait. We can try-"

"I'm doing it, Peach Blossom. You know there's no other choice in the matter. She will die if I don't. Die as a bitter creature, devoid of all the affection she had once given us. And I'd rather gnaw my own legs off than forsake her now." Habeas' voice was low and somber. As he walked past the filly and up to the mare he loved he took a second to look at Blossom with a slightly warmer expression, smiling. "It's as much as I owe her. As much as I owe you both."

Blossom once more found her heart in her throat. She tried to find a way to stop him before it was too late; to think of a solution to this impossible problem. She was still trying in vain to find an answer by the time Habeas started his ritual several feet away from her mother's prone shape, and all she could do then was watch him. Watch him and hope some sort of miracle would happen.

What happened first was something Peach Blossom had never seen before. After Habeas closed his eyes and gathered all the power within his horn-less body, he began to levitate over the ground. His chest lit up in a pink glow, in the configuration of a heart. As he spread his forelegs apart into a T-shape, a ring-like, continuous beam of pink energy shot out from his very form and headed straight for Persica's limp form like a missile. It hit her body, and Persica unleashed a loud sigh upon its impact, like someone sucking in a deep breath of air after almost being asphyxiated.

Chaos seemed to envelope every corner of the room as various objects once sitting normally about - picture frames, books from shelves, and even the curtains from the nearby windows - all were suddenly thrown around as though a tornado had entered and was wreaking havoc. To keep her own small self from being carried into the air, Peach Blossom had to press her body low to the ground to anchor herself down, and shielded herself from the debris by covering her face with her hooves. And then, just as soon as it had started, it ended and all went still.

Peach Blossom removed her hooves from her eyes and looked around, quickly coming to focus on the body of her mother. The blood soaking her fur and the surrounding floor had... vanished. She still had a wound on her chest that was very much visible through the fur on her body, but it looked smaller and less grave than the condition beforehoof. She was still breathing, but it wasn't weak and erratic.

Spinning her head around, Peach Blossom looked next to Habeas, and what she witnessed was the last thing she expected to see. Where Habeas once stood was an odd object. It laid upon the ground like a stone, and its very shape was something Peach Blossom could only compare to being like that of a giant chrysalis she had witnessed as part of a class experiment dealing with the life cycle of monarch butterflies. The texture it had was that of a raw lump of greenish-tinted crystal.

Curiosity consumed the filly, and she crept closer to it. She lifted her leg, if only to feel what it was like, and the second she placed her hoof onto its smooth surface, a blinding light overtook the filly's eyes. She hopped back in fear and shielded her face from it. By the time she removed it and peered forward again, a new shape stood before her. Her jaw loosened and she gaped in awe.

It was a being of roughly the same size and shape as Habeas. The aquamarine coloration his chitinous skin had was peculiar, but the facial features and basic build of his body told the filly right off that this was Habeas Brittle. Yes, it was clearly him from what she could see. While he was indeed very bizarre in form, the other differences from what he looked like before were largely minor.

A patch of light, rich orange-ish fuzz, like the observable fur possessed by a bee or other insect of the like, covered the base of his neck and grew thicker around his chest. Transparent wings, longer than what they appeared as before but just as insectile in form, emerged from and drooped a bit over the end of his shelled back like a parody of a fanciful cape. His eyes were no longer teal, but appeared to be sparkling brick in color. His fangs were gone too, and the holes that littered his legs had seemingly vanished; revealing them to now be smooth and sturdy. Even the one that had been harmed by the spear now looked healed.

As he became aware of his surroundings and looked over himself with equal surprise and wonderment, Peach Blossom studied his head. He had his horn again, sitting where it belonged above his brow. There seemed to be a slight chip in it, though it looked less carved and circular, and more pointed now, like a splinter shard. His head eventually turned from his body to the filly, and their eyes locked on to one another.

"Well..." Peach Blossom's words were heralded with a shrug. "I don't think you're dead yet, Mr. Brittle."

"I am..." he appeared slow to come about to looking over his new form a second time, and this time patted a curious hoof to his fuzz-lined chest, noticing that is felt so incomparably alien now, especially with how he was touching it with his hole-less leg, and all the new senses that limb alone provided. "I am... a-alright? I don't feel hungry? I'm... still alive?"

"And different," Peach Blossom pointed out in full, until her smile of glee vanished in realization and her facial features quickly changed to alarm. "Mom!"

Without further ado, the two rushed up to the side of the downed mare. She was breathing deeply, which was a vast improvement over the ragged gasps she performed previously, and her body was starting to stir. Habeas knelt down on the floor beside her and began placing his hooves gently under her body as her eyes started to sluggishly open.

"Persica..." he softly cooed into her ear, lifting her head up into his forehooves. "Persica, can you hear me?"

"H-Habeas...?" she quietly whispered in turn, squinting at the unfamiliar shape looming above her that carried with it a familiar voice. She lifted a hoof to his face and touched it, and the warm feeling it experienced intuitively told her it was indeed him. "Is that... really you?"

A tear formed at the corners of his eyes, and a smile came over his mouth. "It is. It is, Persica," he spoke. Blinking twice, the mare's left brow lowered in incertitude.

"You look... odd," she was quick to note with a drowsy, murmuring titter once her vision adjusted properly. "Did you... do something with your mane?"

He managed to give off a laugh of his own. "I don't know how it happened, but... if you don't like it, I bet I can still change back to what I looked like before."

Persica's extended hoof shifted to behind Habeas' neck, and with a soft pull, she brought his head down to hers as the warm emotion that had filled her up demanded. "I think you look kind of... handsome, if I'm allowed to say that."

Habeas was about to respond, when Persica pressed her lips to his. Unable to resist or ignore it, he joined in on the kiss fully. In the background, Peach Blossom put her hooves to her mouth and giggled behind them in delight. The pony and the changeling's kiss was only interrupted several moments later by a pained grunt on Persica's end. Their lips separating, they both looked down to her chest and saw her wound, still very much there, had begun to fester once more.

"We need to get you to the hospital," Habeas told her, once their eyes returned to one another. "What I did wasn't able to fully cure your wound, just slow it. I don't know any healing spells that can deal with this level of damage, so..."

"G-good idea," the mare agreed. She tried to stand up, but when it was shown she could not on her own, Habeas lifted her into his hooves. His wings beating hard, he flew her to the door, and Peach Blossom opened it for them, allowing them to exit and following the two in turn.

Habeas quickly flew to the road hastily, but careful enough not to cause discomfort to the mare laying in his grasp, and Blossom ran after them in an equal pace the whole way there and further. Looking down as they went on, Persica could see her daughter running by Habeas' side, and wanting many answers to her questions, decided to speak to her.

"Do you know what happened to me, Blossom?" she asked her daughter in a hazy tone. "The last thing I can remember is being cornered by a foul changeling in the barn, and then nothing..."

"Mr. Brittle saved your life, Mom," she responded. "Well... I saved both of your live from that... evil changeling. But after that, Mr. Brittle healed you and restored your love with his own."

"So he did," she lightly voiced, looking to Habeas and laying her head against his shoulder as they continued hurrying on the path to Canterlot. "So he did."

A series of rasping breaths escaped Apini as she awoke. When her mouth started to open, she let out a wretched cough, pushing back some dirt and dust that laid on the ground in front of its stagnant air. Her eyes slowly opened, and she became aware of where she was and what was pressing down on top of her.

From what she knew, it was a large metal object. She eventually collected enough data to see that it was a plow of sorts, made to be strapped to a pony and put to use in the fields. Seeing nothing else of interest, as well as noticing how her prey had vanished from sight Apini began to escape from under it, placing her front hooves forward and using them to drag her body out.

Apini crawled further forward, pulling herself out from under the plow that had toppled onto her with only her forelimbs for aid. For some odd reason, her back legs failed to move when she commanded them to, and she noticed this queer fact right off with a hint of a terrible disturbance forming in her mind.

She had no idea why it was happening. They didn't respond. She felt almost no pain in them, but with the numbness that they also had she inherently knew something was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong. Apini strained to turn her head over her shoulder and saw a sight that she feared to see most.

Her legs were not simply broken, but horribly twisted and crippled and crushed, and the lower section of her back where they connected looked as thoroughly injured as them. From the impact of the giant mass of metal that came down on her, her entire lower body had been paralyzed. It took her a few minutes to realize this new fact, but when she did, Apini unleashed a despairing scream. She screamed and screamed until her lungs gave out and she could scream no more. Sinking to a small wail, and then ending as a whimper, her head plopped to the floor.

Her lower quarters were paralyzed. And Apini, having lived most of her life among ponies and learning what they knew, knew how it must have happened. The lower portion of the fragile endoskeletal spine of hers that sat within her slightly-stronger exoskeletal body had been damaged in a severe way. Her hindquarters and limbs were being tormented by what had to be a most intense pain she could not feel, and there was no magic she knew that could cure such a malady. For nearly an hour after this, all Apini could think to do was lay there like a useless bag of malt on the dry barn floor; tears of agony slipping from her eyes and to the ground her cranium was pressed against, quickly building up into a small, muddy puddle.

Apini's scrambled thoughts fluttered to the future. She had no idea on what to do. She had told her children she was only going to be gone for a few hours on 'simple business'. She was supposed to kill that traitorous changeling and go back home, but instead she sought to vent out her own version of hive justice on his worthless, lucky hide first. Or... was it frustration? She only wanted to show him why she deserved to be treated as well as an unpersecuted natural-born like him before she slayed him, and now everything was in shambles. What would her children do now...

Her children. Her children. Just thinking of them made this entire situation seem infinitely worse than the catastrophe it was now. Apini had never once told them of these secret and amoral activities she performed, and for all they knew, she was out shopping for groceries. If she didn't make it out of here... If she were to just leave them, if she were to succumb to injuries and fail to return to them, what on earth would they do?

She had to make it out of here. For them. For the the two things in this world she cared about most and devoted her entire life to raising. Hive or not, they needed her more than she needed it. More than she wanted to sob, and whine, and cry, and piss and moan over her newfound disability. Baring her fanged together in defiance and choking back more tears that bled through her clenched-shut eyelids, she planted her two front, and still-working hooves into the dirt that laid before her, and pushed herself forward even more.

The moment she moved a mere inch, she experienced a jolt of the real pain her body had been keeping from her. It was not merely a small bout of discomfort, but fiery agony her shock had prevented her from experiencing. It felt like lava was running through her veins. All the changeling could feel was this excruciating pain, most of all perhaps affecting her right shoulder that she only now realized was probably more hurt than it seemed. She screamed again, through a clamped mouth and the gritted teeth that were behind her chitinous lips, but still she pressed on; blind determination controlling her movements now more than anything. A river of wet snot ran and dripped from the tip of her snout and joined her tears on their journey to the floor. She dragged herself forward, while her two back legs trailed behind her as though they were two more sagging tails to rest on her flank, until she was at the entrance of the barn.

Out of sheer exhaustion, Apini laid there for several minutes. When she had caught her ragged breath as best as she could, she let the damaged shell on her back open, revealing her slightly crumpled wings. She tried to get them to move, as they were her only true hope of escaping from here now, and to her utter relief, the sound of them slowly fluttering to life became apparent.

They still worked. They still worked, and she couldn't help but smile lightly and change her falling tears from agony to joy. It took a few minutes, but after their buzzing had become less scattered and more like that a single, continuous hum, she managed to bring her hurt self into the air.

Her body crippled, will shattered, and failure complete, she crookedly and weakly turned away from the farmstead and buzzed off into the sky. She headed for home and was uncaring of anything else but getting back to her family. For they were all that mattered to her.

Author's Note

What can I say? Love conquers all.
And I know most of you probably want to hunt me down and castrate me for making this decision, but I'm keeping it. I'm too much of a lorekeeper to forsake making the changeling not turn into a changedling. Sorry to those who hate the look, but I for one welcome our new changedling overforms.

Recovery

Habeas shifted into his unicorn form right before they got to Canterlot, having been reminded to do so just in time by Peach Blossom. When he had done that and they rushed forth to the hospital, she was taken in immediately and put into emergency care. Habeas and Peach Blossom spent the next three hours in the waiting room, knowing in their hearts that Persica was fine, though with no short amount of worry plaguing their minds.

All that worry came to naught when a youthful earth pony nurse eventually came by and politely informed them of Persica's condition and whereabouts. She offered to lead them to her room, and before she could even finish her sentence on the subject, the pair had agreed and quickly were on their way to her through the wide corridors of the hospital. They arrived at it soon enough.

The room was spacious, bearing five beds in total, with the only one in use being Persica's. Currently she was laying in it, dressed in a blue patient gown that was hidden under the white covers. Having been allowed entry by the nurse, Habeas and Peach Blossom stood by her side and spent the next hour talking with her.

"So... it's not that bad, right?" Peach Blossom asked her mother for the third time.

"Don't worry," she smiled to her in a sore voice. "They said I'll only be here for a short time, depending on well I heal up. The doctor told me she'll be by to double-check on my injuries a little bit from now. To see what else needs tending to, and all that..."

"You're beginning to sound drowsy," Habeas noted as she let out an immense yawn.

"Yeah... the doctor also cast some sort of... anti-bacterial spell, or something like that on me," she mumbled again. "She said it keeps out whatever germs have the chance to get in my wound while my bandages settle into it, but it would also eventually makes me feel a little tired as a result. Nothing to worry about."

"Well, I'm going to be worrying. Just until you get out of here, anyway," Peach Blossom said again. She walked up to her mother's side and gave her a hug around the neck, to avoid accidentally disrupting the hurt part of her body. "I hope you feel better really, really soon, Mom."

"I'm sure I will, dear," Persica whispered tenderly. "I was told I shouldn't be in here for more than a few days. I'll be on my hooves before you know it."

The hug soon ended, and Peach Blossom gave one last hopeful look into Persica's eyes before departing from her side. As the filly trotted a few feet away, Habeas took this second to go up to her himself. "I'll make sure to take good care of Blossom while you stay here."

Persica smiled reassuringly. "I know you will." Her expression turned serious a moment later, as another, important detail came to her mind. "Just... when you get home, how will you... take care of the-"

"-The changeling? I already told the city guard of the encounter," he finished for her. "They sent a patrol to the house an hour ago, but when they returned they told me that all they found was blood from the fight and a trail that made it look like something was dragged out from under the plow. They stopped at the barn's entrance and that was it. The changeling seems to have... vanished."

Persica thought on this for a few moments. "Do you think an animal came by and carried her off?"

"I asked that too, but they said that after making a thorough inspection around the farm, no animal tracks were found," Habeas responded. "They told me that they're going to station a temporary patrol to keep watch around the property, so I don't think we'll have anything to fear from it for a time."

"Well... that's good news, at least." Persica quietly said. She looked about ready to settle down and get comfortable, when yet another thought struck her and she looked the changeling's way once more. "Oh, one more thing, Habeas. Before you go."

"Yes?" he asked her, leaning his disguised head in. Persica smiled and extended her thankful face to his, giving him a kiss on the tip of his muzzle.

"That's for everything," she spoke when it finished. It was nothing more than a quick peck, but when Persica got back into a comfy position and took a look at Habeas, the results were something to behold. Were anyone else to judge the look on his face, they'd probably have guessed that he had just won the lottery. "I... I, um... got it," he smiled in a goofy fashion, struggling to keep his love-struck mind set on maintaining his current disguised form with all the intense emotions of infatuation making him lose nearly all focus on keeping it. The changeling drifted slowly from Persica to the door, and when he moved out of the mare's way Persica saw Peach Blossom beaming at her from the corner of the room.

"What're you looking at?" she asked her daughter with a curled brow.

Keeping that shining smirk on her face, Peach Blossom chirped "I'll see you in a few hours, Mom. Love you!" and simply turned to the door and skipped off after Habeas, closing it behind her afterword. Persica could only shrug and pulled the last of the white, clean covers over herself. When that was done she laid her head flat upon the pillow below it, and tried to relax her stiffened muscles. Ever so slowly, she could feel her mind slipping away; succumbing to the welcoming influence of the medicine, healing magics, and her fatigue in general from this day's extreme events.

Her rest lasted not five minutes before it was interrupted, however. After the squeaking sound of the door being opened made her eyelids lift, Persica bore witness to two nurses carrying in a pony of a yellow color on a stretcher. They trotted over with the pony to the bed straight to the left of Persica's own, and with extremely careful hooves, began to take the new character off of the stretcher and place them on the bed. Persica wasn't able to see much of the nurse's faces, as their backs were turned to her while they operated in eerie silence. Only when they were starting to finish was when she got a good look at them.

There was a dull look in their individual eyes, as if they weren't fully focused on what it was they were doing. After finishing up situating their patient, the two left the room in silence. Persica looked at the bed her new roommate was in and studied it as closely as she could.

There was a small metal frame set rigged to the end panel of the bed that was carefully holding the braced and concealed lower legs of the pony up a small ways. It was quite the spectacle to observe, and from what little she could see, they poor pony had some form of severe lower-body injury. Just how severe it was she couldn't tell, but it was indeed interesting to witness, to say the least.

"Hmph," Persica grunted, merely testing the water for a reply.

"Humph," the pony in the adjacent bed huffed back in a feminine voice, gaining no small amount of surprise and intrigue from Persica.

"Hmm... Do you got a name?" she decided to ask, in an effort to make real conversation. There was a long silence without a response, but eventually, just as the mare had given up hope, she did.

"Apini."

"Apini..." Persica recognized the name right off. "Apini Bee? Is that you?"

"Who wants to know?" Apini mumbled back, a sour note evident in her tone.

"Prunus Persica does. Peach Blossom's mother, remember?"

"P-Persica?" Apini's voice seemed to be overcome by a high twinge of what sounded like panic, before a long, steady and cool breath came over it and it sunk back down to a normal, if not partially shaken one. "Why are... you in here?"

"Spear wound to the chest," she spoke in a rasping grunt as she shifted into a different position in her bed. "I was... attacked at my house by a changeling, believe it or not. The creature got ahold of my own weapon when it did it. It was defeated in the end, but the damage was done. It's going to keep me down for a while."

"That sounds... absolutely dreadful," Apini gasped, horrified from what Persica could discern in her voice.

"In what manner of injury are you in here for? And how did it happen to get you such an odd form of casts?" Persica took the liberty to ask.

Apini's mind was rough like a rock's surface and feeble like a flimsy twig, but she was able to piece together a clever and detailed lie soon enough. "A... I was walking down a lonesome and mostly-empty road, minding my own business when some workers who were... hoisting up a big wagon-thing onto a something-or-other above me let the ropes slip their grasp and it... dropped on me."

"It dropped on you?" Persica turned her equally fuzzy-feeling head in the direction of Apini. "How bad is it?"

"Doctor says it did a lot of irreparable damage on my spine, among other places. I'd be considered lucky if I were to ever walk on my hind legs again. I'm... paralyzed. A paraplegic, in the term I was told of. Quite the... q-quite the bit of downer news, eh?"

"Celestia," Persica gasped, her tone full of true shock at this bit of news. "That's... that's terrible. How are you feeling about all this?"

"Well, it's not as bad as being actively attacked by someone else, if I were to compare," the disguised changeling managed to breath, thinking back to the encounter. "But at least you'll heal up, right? Those clumsy workers... seemed to have vanished after the deed was done to me, and I'm only here now because my kids found me crawling up to them on the front door."

The hollow sound of a hoof knocking on the door went out as Apini finished. Both of them looked to the door just as it opened a crack, and the red-furred head of a nurse poked his head through to look at them.

"I am terribly sorry to intrude Miss Bee, but your children wish to see you," he said. "Shall I let them in?"

"Of course you may," Apini replied without hesitation. Nodding, the nurse pulled his head out from the door and closed it for a brief instant. When it reopened seconds later, one small shape of a unicorn entered, holding a large bundle in one of his hooves. Within the bundle was what Persica could see was a young foal, also a unicorn. She knew right off the colt was her daughter's friend Bumble. And to match up with the descriptions she received, she knew that the smaller child was none other than his little sister, Honey, whom Blossom talked of constantly.

Ignoring Persica for the most part, they paced up to Apini's bedside. They looked at her, and she stared back in a disheartened, but loving and motherly way. "H-hey, Mom," Bumble was the first to speak, his voice full of sadness, all while Honey giggled and spoke childish gibberish at the sight of their mother. "How are you... feeling right now?"

"Oh, you know, heh..." Apini chuckled weakly, while in truth she was struggling to hold herself back from tearing up in front of her offspring for having to keep seeing her in such a pitiful state. "I'm... hanging in there."

"Mumma!" the infant squealed, continuing to wave her minuscule hooves about in front of her parent, seeing nothing wrong in the situation with her innocent and naive mind. "Mumma, Mumma, Mumma!"

"That's enough, Honey," Bumble spoke to his sister, patting her lightly with his spare hoof in an attempt to calm her down. "Please be quiet now. For Mom."

"Mumma?" she questioned.

"Yes, Mom," her sibling confirmed. "She's really, really... tired right now. She needs her rest, okay? That means no loud noises."

"Oh. Uh-huh..." Honey slowly agreed. Her attention was then stolen away from Apini to Bumble's ear, and she began playfully batting at it when he spoke up again. "What did the doctors say?" he asked her.

"It's a little bit... complicated," Apini spoke. "You wouldn't really understand the full set of details. I will tell you that they said I... may not walk again. On my back legs, of course..."

"I... understand." Bumble's head lowered in lament and his ears also began to sink, causing Honey some confusion, as she was just playing with them.

For a time after that, Persica heard Apini converse with her children. It was mostly trivial matters, about side information the doctors had given her, the rough draft of the plan she had been forming and putting together for how things would go while she was staying here, and so on.

"...And until I'm able to leave here, she'll take good care of you," Apini finished her current sentence, which dealt on the matter of how Bumble and Honey would be cared for by a fellow castle servant and next-door neighbor, 'Mrs. Bramble', or somepony of some other name like that from what the weary Persica had gathered. "Bumble, you know how to take care of Honey, right?"

"You always ask me that, Mom." He rolled his eyes and gave off a small smile. "Of course I do."

"It never hurts to make sure," she chuckled. "Keep a close eye on her. And most importantly, behave - as I taught you - for Mrs. Bramble. Got it?"

"I got it," he said, shifting Honey into a better part of his arm when she started to squirm in his grasp. "I'll be good for her, and I'll make sure Honey is too."

"Good..." Apini's tired voice sounded like it was starting to trail off as the conversation with her children reached its end. "Now then... I think it is best if you go on now. I know you both'll be perfectly fine without me for the time being. If you have any doubts whatsoever, just visit me."

"Bye-bye, Mumma," Honey spoke as her tiny hooves stretched out and softly touched Apini's face, her voice more noticeably quiet and melancholy than the jovial, twittering tune it was before. Persica knew that, in spite of the infant's young age, she was intelligent enough to see the cons in not being able to be in contact with her beloved parent.

"Goodbye, sweetie. Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you both." Apini's words were just as sad and filled with an unmistakable grief. With a final, reluctant nod, Bumble spoke his farewells and turned away with his sister to the door, carrying her with him safely. Persica could hear the younger foal beginning to let out a mumbling whine just before the door closed, and everything in the room went silent when it clicked shut.

That silence stayed about until Persica decided to break it. "You know, Apini, you're fortunate to have such a loving family," she complimented. "Your two kids are something else."

"They're the ones who I've devoted my entire life to raising," she replied, sighing as heavily as her aching lungs could allow. "They both take a lot after their father, you know."

"Peach Blossom's never mentioned him," Persica said, before she came to what she thought was a fatal conclusion. "Is he...?"

"It's a... long-distance relationship..." Apini murmured, her eyes focused on the ceiling above. "I never see him often. Once every few months, or so. He always claims to be so... busy with everything he does, all the time. He says he cares about the kids, and I have a strong feeling he does, but I don't know if I really know..."

"Relationships like those are always of the complex variety," Persica spoke. "I know how it must feel. I've been a single mother for the longest of times."

"I've seen you with that other... pony," Apini brought up, finding some solace in the fact that she was able to speak with the pony who failed to recognize her for her true appearance. "I'm willing to bet that things are... more than what they appear to be between you two, yes?"

"They might be," the mare hummed, keeping the truth vague from the pony whom she saw as a common friend and nothing more. "They might be..."

The sound of the door opening with a squeak of its hinges alerted Persica and Apini that somepony new was once more coming in. Persica was the first to see this individual enter, whom she quickly recognized was the doctor she had met some time before. The doctor was a unicorn mare with red fur and a pink mane that also had a swirling white color within it. A set of circular glasses rested over her snout, a colorless lab coat was worn over her body, and a clipboard was sitting in her hoof. She was pulling in an empty stretcher on wheels, not unlike the contraption Apini was brought in with.

"I'm here for a Miss... Prunus Persica," she said, staring at her clipboard a second time and then lifting her head back up to the sight of the two patients. The doctor quickly saw who she was looking for here from the bed with the matching name bolted to the front of it. "Ah, you must be her," she said next.

"That I am," Persica agreed. Going up to her, the doctor used her magic to gently pull back her bed covers and levitated Persica into the air as though she were a feather; carefully bringing her down onto the stretcher's soft surface.

"Are you all set? Comfortable?" she asked next upon settling her patient down and buckling her in. Persica nodded in confirmation, and with that the doctor steadily pushed her out of the room with a squeaking of the stretcher's wheels. Persica managed to make one last glance in Apini's direction just before she fully left the room and the door closed. Apini saw it, and she unleashed a loud sigh of pure relief that only she heard.

As she lay there by herself, Apini lifted her head just enough to see her shattered legs concealed in their casts and braces, and then let it fall back down to the pillow with a whumf. Something ghastly she had never once felt before was gnawing at her insides since she was brought to the hospital, and the conversation she had with her would-have-been prey was the cause of her realization of it. Whether it was something as wretched as guilt or not was something she tried not to care for deciding over, but the question burned inside her like a hot brand.

She was still able to shift her upper body into other forms, and a combination of her children sneaking her in here and her magic were the only reasons she was able to enter the hospital without anyone realizing what she was, hypnotize the medical aids and staff and get the doctors to work on her without compromising her true identity. As she feared, the thought of her being horrendously crippled from the ordeal at the Peach farm came true. She had to cope with this new condition of hers in one way or another, but she as of yet knew not how she possibly could.

With the mixture of terrible thoughts swirling inside of her sore head like a violent maelstrom of misery, Apini tried, as best as she could, to forget them for now and fall asleep.

Farewell

Morning had come to Equestria. It had rained the night previously; the grassy ground was wet and the sky was filled to its edges with a dreary host of gray clouds. The cemetery in Canterlot, home to the resting places of many a brave soldier and hero from Equestria's past, looked very much like an ominous, albeit peaceful sight from the impact of this weather.

A light mist currently drifted over the burial ground, hovering just above the damp, dew-laden grass and floating past the many headstones and mausoleums. In the mid-morning light, three shapes could be seen slowly walking over the dirt path that trailed throughout the area, two of them bearing individual bouquets of flowers in their grasp. Those three shapes were Persica, Peach Blossom, and Habeas.

It had been two months since Persica recovered from her wound and left the hospital in near-perfect health. Today was her late husband's birthday, and with that, as they did every year, the mare and her daughter came to visit him with flowers in their hooves. Habeas had also chosen to accompany them, once more in his unicorn disguise, but he was wearing a genuinely sullen look on his face like they had on theirs.

After a few minutes of wandering through the cemetery, Persica and Peach Blossom stopped when they realized they had gone far enough. When Persica glanced to Habeas and gave him a small nod, her daughter and herself left his side and walked from the path to their destination, which laid on the grass away from the path. Despite the tempting feeling to join them, Habeas knew it wasn't his place to do so, and so he stayed back. For a time, he simply observed them.

It wasn't thirty seconds before the two reached Chantilly's spot little more than a dozen feet away, though the trek felt much longer. The burial site of Chantilly Cream was marked by a standing, thin block of smooth, dark, and partially reflective stone. On the grave, written in the headstone was an epitaph Persica herself had spent many long hours perfectly etching in during the days preceding his burial.

Here lies Chantilly Cream
A Faithful and Loving Husband
A Kindly and Brave Soul
A Father Who Departed Far Too Soon
May He Forever Rest in Peace

Peach Blossom heard Persica inhale a deep breath from next to her when they stopped in front of it. Exhaling, she laid the flowers she held at the foot of Chantilly's grave. Peach Blossom in turn placed the flowers she had beside her mother's own and approached it a little bit closer. She placed her hoof onto its smooth, untarnished surface, closed her eyes, and whispered an intimate wish describing her deep desire to have met him and known him better. It was a conversation that nobody else could hear, but after all, it was only meant for one, dearly departed pony's ears.

When she finished and opened her eyes again, Peach Blossom took her hoof off of the headstone and turned around. When she looked at her mother's face, Blossom gave her a weak, meaningful smile, and hugged her leg in a warm, tight embrace. Knowing full well that she wished to have some time alone at the graveside for now, the filly gave her mother another small and fragile grin before letting go of her and walking off to the sound of wet grass crunching underneath her feet. Persica watched her daughter leave and make her way to where Habeas stood a fair distance away, and only after she knew the filly was out of hearing range, she turned back to the gravestone and began to speak.

"Hey there, Chantilly..." Persica saying the name of her husband felt as fresh as the first time she had ever spoken to him when he was alive. "It's been a while. I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, among other things. Knowing you, you probably want to know how I'm doing, huh? I'm... doing, and feeling, a lot better than I have ever been before, as of late."

A long silence befell her, as though she was hoping for a response to somehow grace her ears. "You want to know why, right?" she asked next. As she thought of the proper way to give him the important set of news, she turned her attention to the two bouquets of flowers that sat before her. As her mind spun about for the explanation she sought, she pressed a hoof down on them to set them in place better so that the summer wind wouldn't push them away after she would inevitably leave. "Chantilly, I've... found somepony. Well, someone, I guess I should say."

She paused for only a second, and then went on. "You may never have met him, but I know you would've liked him," she ended up saying next in a quiet voice. "He's jovial, helpful and kind, and as cheerful as a spring cricket. He's, uh... also a good cook, heh. He's the kind of guy who makes me laugh when I'm down and glum. Just being around him now makes me feel like I've... finally found someone else. Someone who can make me feel happy, like you did."

Lifting her head up, she looked up to the gray sky as a sliver of golden sunlight was just starting to sneak through it, before looking back down to the gravestone. She knelt her knees down onto the grass and sucked in a breath of the fresh, cool air. "I just want you to know that even with this outcome, I'll never replace you. I'd never be able to. I'm only moving on. I only wanted to find the one person who I know I could feel like... this toward again. And he's the one who I found. I... I love him, Chantilly. I love him just as much as I love you."

Persica sighed and relaxed the muscles she was only now realizing she had tensed. "That's... that's all I have to say, Chantilly. I hope you can understand, wherever you are. Goodbye, for now. I love you more than you could ever know, and I miss you just as much."

After bending forward and rubbing her hoof over the name inscribed in the stone, Persica sat there in silence for three still minutes, looking at the gravestone, the ground in front of it that housed her husband's remains deep within the earth, and the damp grass that surrounded it all like a great sea that bore a lonely ship on its ever-shifting current. When she felt ready to depart, she dried the tears that were starting to form around her eyes and stood up. She gave one last look at the grave and the flowers placed at its base before turning around and walking off.

Habeas and Peach Blossom were patiently waiting a mere dozen feet away, and only watched in respectful silence as she slowly approached them. "Let's go," she told them upon arriving. Upon organizing themselves they walked through the cemetery, out of it, and onto the bustling morning streets of Canterlot. Habeas noted the silence Persica gave off as Peach Blossom started to energetically skip ahead of them, and acted accordingly.

"How are you feeling?" he whispered into Persica's ear as they were just passing out of the city gates, gaining her attention.

She shrugged. "Good, right now. Content, I guess you could say." She looked up to the sky again, and this time saw a very promising sight. The sun was just starting to peak through the gray clouds and reveal its golden glow, as well as some of the blue sky behind it. The way it started to glisten off of the wet grass on either side of the dirt road and leaves in the trees all around them made a smile start to form on her mouth. "It... looks like it's going to turn out to be a good day, wouldn't you say?"

Habeas nodded his head in agreement. "You know something, I've traveled around the world long enough to realize a few things. One such thing being what happens at dawn."

"And that meaning?"

"That whatever or however the morning may seem, it may never turn out to be a day it presents itself to become. Sometimes it starts off with beauty to match a painting; with a wonderful sunrise and cloudless sky, and the next thing you know, it transforms into a raging storm. Other times it starts out dreary and depressing, but evolves into something wondrous and utterly breathtaking."

"I take it you changelings never had good weather forecasters?"

He managed a small smirk. "No, not really. If anything, we mainly made things up as we went along and saved the planning ahead for the most important of occasions."

"So that's how you must have left your hive then, am I right? Planned it all up and fled before long?"

Habeas shrugged. "Meh... I'd say it was half planning, half being rushed to action by a fear of getting my wings pulled off by the queen."

"Ever get the same, wing-pulling feelings about me when you first started staying with us?" she questioned, remembering just how long ago it was they met, and under what circumstances.

He let out a small, short, stale laugh. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind once or twice. But shortly after our second confrontation upon you discovering me sleeping in your barn, when you allowed me to recover in there, I quickly started thinking otherwise."

Persica turned her head away a few scant inches, her good eye looking to the pebbles and gravel lining the road on the ground. "I'm glad I started thinking the other way as well. If it wasn't for you and Blossom convincing me to think in a different manner... had I stayed with the rotten feelings I held for your kind, I... honestly don't know how things between us would have turned out."

"Don't trouble yourself with mind-twisting thoughts like that. It's all in the past," Habeas said back in a soft tone. Detecting that they were far enough from the city to not be spotted, he then morphed into his true form in a small flash of light. As he finished transforming, Persica inspected him meticulously, still fascinated by his new 'normal' appearance months after he metamorphosed into it.

"You know, Habeas," she commented, "I don't think I may ever get used to you looking like that now."

"Well, as I've said many a time before, I can shift back to my original form if this one troubles you. I still very clearly remember what it was like," he suggested. Persica shook her head and gave off a small chuckle.

"I didn't say it troubles me, I just don't think I'll get used to it. At least, not anytime soon," she repeated. "That's not to say I don't find you rather handsome."

"Hmm... Do you really?" he asked, shifting her a playfully skeptical look.

"Truly," she smiled, leaning her body slightly against his chitinous one as she, her love, and Peach Blossom continued their long walk home. "Truly, honestly, and sincerely, you... gorgeous little love bug."

Habeas couldn't help but titter at her words and gently nuzzled his cheek against Persica's, gaining a gratifying hum of amusement from the pony he utterly adored. "I love you, Persica."

"And I love you too," she tenderly whispered back.

Author's Note

I would personally like to state my appreciation to all of you for reading this story. I, for one, am glad I was finally able to focus on one of the many stories I put out, and what do you know, it became my longest one to date! Thank you all for reading this, and thank you all for the support, opinions, and critiques!
...Oh, and one more thing. As long as I don't get too bogged down with my work outside of writing, the sequel may be out shortly. Have fun!

The Fiendish Minds of Fillies

It was the weekend. After morning had come and gone, Persica had started for Canterlot with a cart filled with freshly-plucked peaches behind her. Arriving at one of her normal patrons, she unloaded them there, accepted the bag of golden bits as payment, and went back on her way with her now-empty cart. With the wooden wheels behind her squeaking as they rolled over the street, she went to do a quick bit of shopping for one kind of specific set of items.

With the secrets she confided to the changeling not two-and-a-half weeks ago, an ambiance of peace came to her weary mind. She felt much more... comfortable around Habeas, for lack of a better word, and it was an easy, carefree comfortableness she had not felt toward another creature, not even her daughter, for a while longer than she could remember. He was definitely a being who had earned her trust, and perhaps even something more, though she couldn't quite put her hoof on just what it was...

However, any suspicion on what it was vanished as she arrived at a small, local agricultural shop situated in Canterlot's square. Persica always came here for plant needs, and why she had come now was for that very reason. Parking her cart near the entrance, where the check-out booth also laid, she entered and looked around for the objects of her search. After spending the next few minutes collecting what she needed, she brought her items back to the entrance and approached the booth, where a certain pony waited for her.

"So, what'll it be this time, Persica?" the unicorn and owner of this small store, Garden Flower, asked from behind it. She was a young mare with crimson fur and a short black mane lining the back of her neck, and always seemed to have an inquisitive mien about her.

Persica hoisted the bags of plant food she had acquired up onto the counter. "I'm here to buy a few bags of Magic Miracle Quick Grow," she said.

"Huh," Garden Flower hummed, her green eyes witnessing all the bags pile up in front of her. "You certainly have quite a few. What's the occasion? Stocking up for your flowerbed next spring?"

"I just need the plant food to get the crops in my garden to flourish before autumn ends."

"You actually got your garden started? The big one?" she asked as she processed the materials and was handed the proper amount of pay for them, quite surprised by the look on her face. "You've always told me you'd never find the time to make it."

"Well, I kind of had help in its realization," Persica spoke, right before she started moving the purchased bags back into her peach cart. Garden Flower rubbed a hoof across her chin in deep thought and gave off a small smile.

"Surely it couldn't have been that daughter of yours who did the work," the unicorn snickered. "Who did it?"

"Just a..." Persica thought for a moment. "Tenant. He's a friendly fellow who decided to lend a hoof."

"Just a tenant?" Garden Flower asked, equal parts disbelief and teasing in her voice. "All these years, and not once have you told me that somepony's rented out a part of your house. And yet, the moment one lone pony does, they turn out to be a guy who was willing to lend you quite a bit of assistance. Persica, are you sure that this is 'just a tenant', and not some... dashing stallion you haven't told me about?"

To this eccentric inquiry, Persica gave the unicorn a response in the form of a large, deep glare from her good eye. "What is it that you're trying to say, Garden Flower?"

"That maybe, just maybe, you finally found yourself a... special somepony," she replied with glee. "So tell me Persica, have you?"

"Your claim is faulty," Persica muttered dismissively. "And not to mention utterly absurd."

"Is it?" the unicorn smirked. "Is it absurd? Sounds to me like you're trying to hide something."

Persica sighed before grumbling her response through gritted teeth, which she had twisted into a grin in her attempts to remain affable. "Insist that I have feelings for him one more time, and I can guarantee that you won't like what happens next, Garden Flower." Anyone who knew Persica close and long enough, Garden Flower being no exception, knew full well that she wouldn't make good on these vague faux-threats. But still not wanting to be too rude to a customer, she refrained from further egging Persica's ire on, though the devious smile on her lips held firmly. After exchanging brief good-byes to one another and watching the mare trot off with the cart of garden supplies in tow, Garden Flower went back to her business.

Persica moved through Canterlot with her wagon at a leisurely pace. As she passed by the many ponies who roamed along the streets and sidewalks on her way out of the city, she thought on the words of that shopkeeper; on her accusation of harboring affectionate feelings for her 'tenant', which to say was the changeling currently living and recuperating with her. And as she reached the road and traveled from it to her house, she continued to muse and argue to herself on how such an idea was insane, plain and simple.

"I still can't believe it. They're growing so fast," Habeas spoke to Peach Blossom, watching with grand fascination as the seeds he had planted not too long ago were already closing in on full maturity; doing so in the forms of becoming healthy, thick green stalks and leafy patches that jutted from the brown soil. There wouldn't be much more time left until they all bore their trademark foods, less than another two-to-three weeks most likely.

"I told you that the plant food my mom gets is filled with special things that helps them grow quickly in times like these," Peach Blossom spoke up from just outside the short picket fence walling the garden off from whatever pests had the audacity to attempt to enter it. "The stuff they put in it is some kind of magic."

Habeas's condition had improved immensely by now. His broken leg, now fixed into its proper shape, felt close to being fully healed. His hard cast of resin broke to little bits just two days ago as it finally rotted away, but that was a natural occurrence. He planned on making a new one, but Persica, sensing that it was not needed, put the lame limb in a sling of white cloth instead. The large slash over his chest had also sealed up as well, and the only thing that seemed to be lagging behind in the healing process was his wings, which still looked as tattered and useless as they had become at the beginning of the month.

Though she was happy for him, Peach Blossom found this to also be a tad on the bitter side of things. Soon, Habeas would probably be back to full health and have to leave. This thought troubled her greatly, for she so very much liked her new friend, and watching him be around her mother was the perhaps the happiest Peach Blossom had ever seen Persica since she could remember.

When the filly secretly observed how the pair of them acted when she was visibly not around, she could see how gaily both of them got along. They spoke often to each other, mostly about matters she couldn't quite hear from the distance she spied on them from, but talked with the disposition of cheerful old companions. Also, for the last week, the young pony had one, single, important question she wanted to ask at least one of them, if only to sate the unclear suspicion that was eating at her. And with Habeas currently being the only one with her at the moment, that was exactly what Peach Blossom sought to quench.

"Habeas, could I ask you something real quickly?" she inquired.

"Sure thing," he said as he reached one of the tomato plants with a watering can close by and inspected it closely for any hornworms that had the chance to be crawling about on it.

Holding her breath, Peach Blossom asked away without care for possible reprisal. "Do you think my mom's... pretty?"

"Well, yes," Habeas freely admitted, still carefully looking over the small plant with his snout practically touching it. "She's a very attractive mare with many spectacular qualities. I have little thought on how anypony would see her otherwise."

The filly couldn't help but smile at this delicious new bit of information, and simply couldn't help what came out of her mouth next as well. "Mr. Brittle, I've noticed how good you two have been together. Do you think you might... like my mom?" This odd question, as Peach Blossom could see by the way the changeling's head shot up so fast his chipped horn almost scraped across the plant, came down like a bomb on Habeas.

"Wha- n-no! Of... of course not!" he sputtered, looking at Peach Blossom with eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Where on earth did you get that idea?"

"Mmm... just asking," was all she responded with in true, mischievously childlike fashion. Habeas looked barely convinced by the filly's statement, and kept the cocked-browed look as he picked up the watering can in his mouth and began sprinkle the sprouts and stalks below with a small shower. However, now that she had spoken about the subject, the sting of it burned within his mind.

Yes, as he had said, Habeas thought of Persica as a beautiful creature. She had a curiosity-provoking, albeit rugged air of mystery about her, she was a kinder and more pleasant pony now that the two had gotten to know more about each other, and the way she smiled at him, however rare such an occasion was, never failed to warm his heart like a candle to snow.

"Um... Mr. Brittle?" The voice of Peach Blossom snapped the changeling out of his thoughts. Coming back reality, he looked at her with the can's handle still in his mouth.

"Mmf?" he mumbled.

"I think you're starting to overwater the tomatoes."

Habeas looked down, and instantly pulled the watering can away. Placing it to the ground, he examined the moist soil closely, to see if he had made a mistake that would bid fatal for the poor plant. It was nothing major in the slightest, and that revelation made him exhale a deep breath as he lifted his cranium.

"Sorry, I was just lost in thought," he laughed lightly as he looked back to Peach Blossom, going quiet shortly afterword.

"Hmm... whatcha thinking about?" she wondered aloud.

"Just... things," he hurriedly replied, thinking of a way to avoid the conversation before it could become any more awkward than it was. "Say, Peach Blossom, I'm a little thirsty from this work. Could you fetch me a glass of water please?" he asked politely.

"Sure thing!" the filly agreed before spinning around and trotting toward the house, giggling to herself and leaving Habeas alone with the image of her question still freshly planted in his head like the plants in the garden. He could do nothing else but stew on it as he continued with his work.

Oh, such a maddening thought it was! To just think of a changeling and a pony falling for one another, much less him and her... the very concept itself sounded outrageous. Habeas shook his head and chuckled to himself. Of all the ideas to suddenly plague his mind, speculating that he was beginning to feel more intimate and affectionate emotions toward that wonderful mare was an enigma.

Right?

He shook his head again. That was... a crazy thought, and nothing more. A daydream for the utterly hopeless. Mumbling an innocent insult to himself and putting a wide grin on his fanged mouth for it, he mirthfully went back to work without a worry in the world.

He wasn't at it for long until he was once more interrupted. Peach Blossom had just come back out and given him the small glass of water he requested, upon which he thanked her, when the sound of squeaking wagon wheels came into their ears. Both the changeling and filly looked to it and saw Persica's returning shape coming down from the road, pulling her cart along with minimal effort. As she parked it by the barn, Habeas, without flaw, chugged down the glass of water, left the garden and approached the cart, from which he unquestioningly started to help her move the cargo within by flopping one of the bags of plant food over his shelled back.

"Habeas," she said to him with a chuckle of amusement at his unkempt generosity. "You're certainly eager. You don't really have to do something for me this minuscule..."

"Oh, I insist," he replied, using his magic to levitate another in a halo of greenish energy, bringing them into the barn where they were stored. Persica, rolling her eyes, allowed him to carry on with a shrug. Picking up as many bags as she could carry herself, she entered alongside him. Peach Blossom, seeing them readily go about it together again, collected the empty cup and quietly slipped away back to the house, as to not bug them.

When the last bag was put away after a short amount of time flew by, Persica dusted her hooves off with a clap and looked to the changeling. "Habeas, now that you can walk well, I was wondering if you'll want to put on a disguise and come to town with me when I go into it again tomorrow. Interested?"

"What for?" he asked, curiously.

"I delivered that cart of peaches I was carrying to a brewer there today, and I'm expecting to get a good share of some of the masterfully-concocted results when I return tomorrow come noon. I may just need some assistance with it."

"That definitely sounds like something I'd want to do," he agreed, as the two started to exit the barn. "But what about Peach Blossom?"

"In case she hasn't informed you yet, she's sleeping over at a friend's house tomorrow," Persica replied, pushing the door open for the both of them. "There'll be somepony to watch her."

Habeas gave off that cheerful smile of his that Persica had grown quite accustomed to by now. "Sure, I'm up for it! It'll give me a real chance to move my legs around."

"Great," she smiled back, setting off for the house. "And remember, we'll be leaving just before noon comes around."

"I won't forget," he said back. Persica soon vanished within the house, and Habeas, watching her as she left, sighed in contentment at the realization that this well-spoken mare was the same pony who once tried to kill him. Humming a happy little tune to himself, he went back to check on the last parts of the garden in need of tending to.