I had heard about the changeling attack that occurred during Princess Cadance's wedding. Most news had filtered into Our Town eventually, despite its isolated location. To have thought I would one day meet one—and like the bug, too—well, that was the revelation of the day, more so than the idea that you could learn a friendship lesson anywhere from anypony.
The best thing was that I was simply Twilight Sparkle's student, neither the mayor of a tiny town nor the countess of a wealthy earldom, and unless specifically asked and then strenuously convinced, I could ignore anything political. A friendly changeling implied all sorts of strategic opportunities, perhaps even leading to a day when we could ensure Queen Chrysalis posed no further threat to Equestria. The aurora in my cutie mark hinted I specialized in seeing darkness, but I was still learning the lesson about not dwelling there. I was a bad pony. I had destroyed Equestria a half-dozen times learning a lesson in miscommunication, and, but for Twilight, I might have been the last pony alive with the sorriest win in the history of revenge. I owed Twilight everything. The least I could do was stay out of her mane.
Today, I cherished being forgiven. It felt good to leave the politics to Twilight and the stealthily sly-savvy Cadance. Princess Celestia had made a good call with that former pegasus. I just hoped she was watching her flank around the empress now that she had an alicorn heir.
So, here I was, strolling down the Avenue of Empires on a frosty day with a really good excuse to finally do the tourist thing, amusing myself thinking of the spells the ancient ponies might have used to grow buildings out of single rubies, emeralds, and tourmalines. I could also spend time observing crystal pony behavior. This morning I had observed what happened when the discovery of a changeling in the Empire had spooked the population. Being spooked wasn't something I could easily relate to, but it was amazing to compare this morning's euphoria at seeing Spike, and the subsequent panic, with the current milling of ponies in the cafés and the businesses, talking and trotting, not noticing a lone formerly evil lavender unicorn in their midst.
"So how is my sweet snow bunny today?" a stallion whispered in my left ear as his warm body leaned gently into my side, from flank to withers, in an inappropriately familiar way.
It wasn't Sunburst. My soulmate didn't know how to do that husky voice, and was occupied as Flurry Heart's levitator-in-chief.
I jumped.
I also barely contained a shriek, but found I had a force spell queued up as I turned, heart racing to find a white earth pony, with ice-green streaked white bangs flopped across his eyes, smiling at me with a wide toothy grin. I glanced at his triple snowflake cutie mark, gracing a very muscular flank, to assure myself I hadn't misidentified my former lieutenant. He'd looked substantially different than he looked during the years he spent with me unmarked…
He leaned forward with his scruffy bearded face. As I found myself looking into his glacial blue eyes, he kissed me.
I blinked. Heart-racing, a magnetic attraction took over, neigh, a hunger. I let my body do what it wanted and leaned into the kiss, returning it until I needed to breathe again. Marked or unmarked, he had and still did radiate a certain intrinsic animal magic which I felt as a tingling all the way down to the frogs of my hooves and up to the embarrassing lift of my tail.
My subconscious had continued functioning. I found I'd cued up a spell I hadn't used in a long time. Hyperaware and feeling more alive than I had felt since the day I cast all those time spells and battled Twilight, I cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear and fluffed out the effect radius so it surrounded the two of us.
"Whoa!" he said, his keen eyes detecting the slight glimmering of the high-level illusion…or maybe the shocked faces of the crowd that had been caught watching us kiss when we disappeared. One pink stallion reared.
Right. Changelings.
Face red, I hoped I hadn't spooked anypony, but, feeling like a teenage filly, I didn't care.
"This way," I whispered, giggling, motioning with my head and a waggle of my tail. He trotted off down a side street with me. The moment there were no ponies around, I dropped the spell.
"Where are we going, Starling?" he asked in that surfer dude voice that made me want to melt.
"I— I don't know. I'm staying at the palace and we can't go there."
"Yes we can. I'm your friend, remember?"
I narrowed my eyes and stared, thrashing my tail back and forth, not saying that I hoped nopony had recognized me on the street, and I didn't want to have to explain certain things to Sunburst, not yet, like my—well, I wasn't going to call it a sordid past because I liked my past, or that I had had special, uh, male friends and had had intimate, um, transactions with mares and stallions. My face grew hot again, but my petty embarrassment was just stupid, having been the most evil pony in the history of Equestria. Yeah, so-called Lord Tirek and self-proclaimed King Sombra, you go top my time spells for total mayhem, why don't you!? And that was after unmarking ponies, and after being a gang enforcer, and being a bodyguard during a gang war, and beyond other times taking up another profession where a mare had to do what a mare had to do to get along without a copper bit to her name by choice.
I was breathing hard, and it wasn't from fear or guilt or repentance for what I had made of myself, but simply from looking at Double Diamond. He was beautiful, and athletic, and well—
And I was breathing hard!
His mouth opened and he nodded. "I'm staying at—"
"Good-let's-go-now."
* * *
I lay there relaxed, my jaw on Double Diamond's warm white velvety haunch. My throat hurt a little bit, but when that happened it always meant our playtime had been great. I was about to close my eyes when he got up. "Hey!" I said, lifting my head.
"Hay is for horses. I need some water," he said as he walked away through the small business suite. A mussed up mane—I had helped with that—and the shadows of the suite combined to make him look even more athletic, masculine, and desirable as I stared at his perfectly proportioned, albeit retreating, flank. Walls of ruby were softened by beige wood moldings and a shaggy forest green carpet, and a smattering of paintings of amphoras and clay lamps. There was a sofa, a chair, a desk, a kitchenette, and the small bed I flopped over on.
Late afternoon light streamed in from a window to compete with an interesting variation of Illumination that caused a faint white light to emanate from the ceiling. He returned with two milk-bottle glasses balanced on his back. Fascinating how non-unicorns could do that sort of thing. It made me feel like a klutz having to use magic to grab my bottle, which I drank laying on my side.
After drinking his, he said, "If you hadn't lied, you would have won." When water revealed my cutie mark.
For my part, I managed neither to spray the water I was drinking nor cough. With a hard swallow, though, I said, "I could never have won." I rolled on to my stomach and looked away. "Unmarking ponies was wrong."
Double Diamond sighed. I heard him place his bottle on the nightstand and the bed rocked. I felt him lie beside me and snug himself against my side, which considering his accusation left me confused and ready to bolt, but he said, "Well, there you are wrong, Starling. Unmarking wasn't wrong. Lying was."
I shimmied a bit so I could look into his cool blue eyes. It was exceedingly uncomfortable to think of my new friends this way, but… "Unmarking without consent was never going to work—" I was going to add that Twilight and her friends would have found a way to get their cutie marks back had Fluttershy failed, but he interrupted.
"There you go. If you hadn't fought the princess and instead humbly explained to us that you kept your magic as a sacrifice for us, we would have stayed by your side."
"I don't do humble."
He laughed. "I do wish the princess hadn't rushed you through Our Town last year on your friendship tour. We had a lot to tell you that was kind of impolitic with her listening."
"How's Night Glider and—"
"You did a lot more good than bad, Starling. And I'm not just speaking for myself, either."
Himself. Double Diamond. He wasn't the first I unmarked, but when I found him in the mountains, I saved his life. He'd been a champion skier and ski instructor who had been found—rather ironically considering the half-year I spent blackmailed serving as an enforcer under the hoof of a crime boss in Canterlot—using a performance enhancing drug called nettle-ewe. It ruined him. When I'd found him, he was clean but unable to do what he loved most: compete. Skiing at all had become like ashes to him, despite what his cutie mark was telling him. He had stuck his skis and gear in a snow drift and had stood eying a steep drop into a canyon. His unmarking removed an immense burden. In return, it released in him an intense loyalty and an unexpected intelligence. It was he who convinced me to found Our Town.
And he had other skills that made living in isolation with little magic bearable, too.
I leaned against him, and basked in his warmth. My hide ticked and shifted at his ticklish touch and I remembered more of what I liked about him. My heart began to beat quicker. He had wonderful athletic skills, too, and though not a stallion to attach himself to any mare, and we understood this, he always brought what was necessary to share his athleticism. No exception today. With a wicked smile, I pushed him over causing the bed to squeak and pinned him there. His smile showed he didn't object.
***
"I'm hungry," he stated, pulling away and sliding off the bed.
"Me, too," I said, trying to grab him with a hoof like a cat. It wasn't food I craved, but to bury my nose in his sweaty hide and luxuriate in the smell of horsey musk and the pollen-scent of our pairing. I had enough dignity to quash a developing pout as he quickly returned with a bowl of raisin and peanut trail mix and a couple of Hay There! energy bars. I quickly unwrapped the chocolate one and the honey one, doing it because even though I'd tasted most every salty part of his body and we'd shared quite a bit of spit, I still couldn't get over pegasus and earth ponies using their mouths to serve food.
As he lay, I nuzzled his belly and wormed my way under his right leg. I didn't care if it was uncomfortable for him, I just wanted the contact and my nose against his drying white fur. As I brought the honey bar to my mouth, I noticed him staring. "What?" I asked, failing to prevent myself from grinning.
"I love me some alpha mare, don't think that I's don't, but even I need some time to recover!"
I pushed him over and snuggled greedily against him so I'd know immediately when he recovered. We both laughed as we munched the snack. So like him to have "sporty" food. I asked, between honeyed mouthfuls of toasted hay, "So why are you in the Crystal Empire?" As my words came out, I realized he couldn't be competing in any snow competition. He'd been banned.
"To find me a mare to keep warm in a cold clime."
"Seriously!"
"Am I not keeping you warm?" He did a perfect surfer dude duck-face that made me melt.
Nevertheless— "Inside and out. Inside especially, but, Deedee..."
"So long as we are clear about the inside part." He kissed me. He had a very satisfied expression as he chewed a mouthful of trail mix before saying, "I'm looking for ponies to invest bits in an Our Town ski chalet up on King Glacier Mountain ten miles north of the city."
"Our Town...? That— that sounded like a brand name."
"The Princess really should have let you visit us longer."
"She can be a little bit myopic and oblivious at times, but nopony gave me a hint... Or wrote me a letter."
"Yeah, well." He scratched his messy white mane. "In any case, most of us stayed in town, especially when news of Our Town spread and tourists started flooding the town. It might have started as curiosity about a notorious mad-mare—"
I sat up. "Notorious? You're making me sound like that train robber Billygoat Kid out of Dodge Junction!"
He chuckled nervously. "We gave tours of the vault and your home, but I kept them factual. I am sure you don't know this, but being without our cutie marks healed most of us. Our Town became famous not because of you but because of Sugar Belle's incredible muffins and baked goods, The Salt Lick Gastro Disco Club that Party Favor and Happy Hooves built, The Coat and Scarf that Clotheshorse stocked with his elegantly functional winter wear, and much more. We all experienced a burst of creativity from having been divorced from our talent. After a couple of snow ponies chatted me up about local skiing, I went out and scouted some good bunny and diamond runs. They brought their friends, and their friends brought friends, forcing the town to shut down a week so the collective could build a chalet."
The bedspread had bunched under my rear, so I squirmed around to face him, him looking up in a sphinx pose with his blue eyes, luminous in the light of the westering sun. So earnest. But I stuck on something. "Helped most but not all?"
"The twins. Loquacious is a former captain in Celestia's foreign legion, according to her anyway. What ever her talent was, it haunts her. She started babbling a day later, and disappeared a week after that. If you ever encounter her sister, Lucky Star, go the other way. She hates you. She left to find her sister and we haven't heard from either since."
I looked away. "Sweet Celestia!" I am a bad pony.
Maybe I'd said the last aloud, because he sat up suddenly, shaking the bed enough to upset my perch, and touched my shoulder. "You are a good pony. You missed a calling, for Celestia's sake! No doctor is perfect. Your talent could help thousands. It helped most of us. You could have been, no, you might yet consider being a physician."
I moaned without realizing it. "The half year I lived in Canterlot, I met Celestia's personal physician. He patched me up and I intuited his technique for healing using a very arcane growth spell. He offered to train me because he feared he'd never retire if I didn't replace him."
"What?"
"There's a bunch you don't know about me. Unmarking is an extension of the technique and I earned my cutie mark when I unmarked a crazy crime boss so he could be captured by the constables."
"You're a hero, and Celestia's physician wanted you—!"
"Hold up there... Celestia wouldn't want a criminal as her physician. Um, I worked for said crime boss." I held my breath.
There must have been something in the way I wouldn't meet his eyes as I started putting events together in my head. That and my thrashing tail. He said, "And...?"
"Running Mead blackmailed me."
"No. You're hiding something about Princess Celestia."
I glared at him and said, "I'm a bad pony. Don't you get that!? I'm responsible for hurting—" I shut my eyes tightly and started hitting my forehead my hoof. I'd made so many mistakes. How could Twilight forgive me? What had I not made her understand?
He caught my hoof. I looked at him and saw tight lips curled into a tight smile; his lifted eyebrows gave him an inquiring look. When I didn't respond, he whipped his tail and whispered, "You're a liar."
I burst into a rain of tears and collapsed on the bed with my head hanging off the edge. I covered my eyes with my front legs.
"Tell me."
It was as if he had set a pin to a balloon. I wailed, "Celestia forgave me for all my crimes and asked me to be her personal student, like Twilight, because she knew she was cursed and Nightmare Moon was about to return and she needed help, and I threw it all in her face! ...And ran away, again! Why do all the ponies insist on forgiving me! Don't they know I don't deserve it!"
"Starlight!"
I screamed, "I'm evil! Celestia needed me to save Equestria and I told her to go to Tartarus! I'm responsible for—"
Double Diamond grabbed me into a tight enveloping embrace. I beat at him with my hooves, but he held tighter, repeating my pet name "Starling!" over and over again. It took minutes until I quieted into a sobbing mess and he could lay me down.
"Someponies accuse me of being an airhead, but I think you're caught up in over-thinking stuff. Give yourself a break. For a change, ask others what they see in you."
"You're supposed to mount me, not make me cry," I whispered.
"Since you refuse to ask, I'll tell you. I owe you; you saved my life. We owe you. The collective voted unanimously that had you explained nicely why you did what you did and then had given the princess and her friends' cutie marks back, we would have supported you against her. Regardless, we're agreed, we are all better for knowing you, everypony."
"Except Loquacious and Lucky Star."
"Do you enjoy being a martyr!?"
"No."
"The collective voted that after this business trip, I would go to Ponyville and offer you a stake in the collective's assets—"
"No."
"—because we owe all our success to you—"
"I don't need your bits. I don't need any bits." This was beginning to feel like Celestia's blood money all over again.
"Considering how we lived in the mountains, I'd always thought you were a bit of an ascetic, but this going too far."
I snorted. "You don't know me. You don't know me at all!"
"Well, you're getting the bits whether you like it or not."
I growled deep in my throat. "I don't need bits!"
"Why?"
Oh, no. Celestia had figured out who I was though I was a homeless runaway who'd changed her name. Twilight (or Spike) knew something, because, that week I met Trixie, Spike put up a banner of me at the dinner party in the castle—something protocol required for official visits of aristocrats. I inhaled deeply and sat up, wiping my eyes. Blinking, I looked him in the eye and said, "Is omitting stuff lying?"
"Oh, come on, Starling! Just tell me."
"I ran away from home when I was twelve because I was sure I'd inherited something that was Celestia's blood money. I didn't want to grow up to run a tainted royal land-grant."
"You inherited an administrative job?"
I shook my head and my mane flopped in front of my eyes. "I'm no different than I was, but I will be in a moment."
"I don't understand."
I made to get up off the bed because I was going to leave after my next words, but he quickly put a hoof in the small of my back, forestalling any retreat.
"Fine!" I said, then sighed. "I'm Countess Aurora* Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having. That's a township above Horseshoe Bay."
"An aristocrat?"
"Granted to me because my parents died in the service of the crown, leaving me an orphan. I accused the princess of getting my parents killed, but I know now that's how I twisted the truth to justify—"
"A— A Lady?"
"Me?" I snorted, then smiled, looking at him and shrugging off his restraining hoof. His wide blue eyes glistened as he blinked at me. "Not hardly! And if you have the temerity to call me Aurora, or by my title, I'll blast the hide off of you."
"Aurora?"
"Frankly, I don't see how you get all the mares. You are an airhead, Deedee."
"I love you too. Wait! What? Midnight?"
"Yeah, yeah, my mother was the black beauty Midnight. What of it?"
"Midnight Blaze, the international diva? I remember reading that she toured all the capitols of all the countries in the world. She died tragically—" His good horse-sense finally caught up to his logorrheic mouth.
"It made her and her manager, secretly my father, perfect agents for the crown. Some monster murdered them in Trottingham."
"In the service of the princess?"
"Duh."
"I'm sorry."
I waved a hoof. "Old news."
"Starling?"
"Finally, my name. It's the one I gave myself—"
He leaned forward and kissed me. As I had a few hours before, I found myself returning the wet messy gesture with breathless open-mouthed gusto. What was it with this stallion, anyway? Well... experience, timing, playfulness, beauty, kindness, wonderful eyes, animal magnetism, an incredible musky scent, a nice flank, a soft voice, a good kisser, never any strings—
When he broke away a couple minutes later, I noticed our kiss demonstrated he had recovered. I began to grin as he said, "I think I finally understand you. Why you always do your best. Why— Oh." His mouth froze in a cute O-shape. "Don't take this wrong. I still totally want to mount you because you're incredibly sexy and we're friends—"
I gasped and blinked. That word. Twilight's word. The word I was sure I'd never understood, never earned even with Sunburst when we were foals, not really, until Twilight finally stopped me cold, but— "F-Friends?"
"Of course, always, forever. But that's not the point. We could keep it all in the family, I mean, the collective. Could you, I mean, uh, sweet Celestia... Would you consider investing in the King Glacier Mountain venture?"
Wow. From sex to business in ten seconds flat. Impressive. When it came to running Our Town, he had always been focused, sometimes to the point of being intimidating. I think his intensity was what freaked out Twilight when she arrived in town and forced my hoof with her. I had wanted to convince them about giving up their cutie marks but wasn't sure how. I ended up stealing them, something I'd never considered before, because I'd thought Twilight would return to Canterlot and ruin everything. Fact was, I'd ruined everything, and I couldn't blame Double Diamond for what he did when I hadn't even given him instructions. It was for the best that I turned down Princess Celestia's offer to become her third protégé. I would have made a bad princess, the same way I would have made a bad earl.
But... "Theoretically, I have plenty of bits. But it would be a gift—"
He stomped his hoof on the squeaky bed hard enough to make the both of us scrabble for balance. "Don't insult me! We called it Our Town for a reason. Don't you ever forget that!"
"Yeah." I shivered, that good shiver you get when you remember something profound. I scooted over beside him and butted him with my flank so he'd lay down and I could lay next to him. We'd decided, as that long ago winter approached—the seven of us because with him there were now seven—that we were doing this to form a better society where everypony was equal and everypony would benefit from everypony's work. The truth was, we were still equal in spirit even if we were differently abled. I had been an idealist, once. I now wanted to be a pragmatist, but it was hard. I absolutely had to help.
I understood. These were my friends.
"About that 'not deserving anything' horse apples."
"Ugh!" I lay my head on the sheets like a sad puppy. "Can't you take a hint like a good stud. You're ruining the mood."
"You deserve the best, Starling."
"Yeah," I said and looked up at him.
He craned his neck to meet my eyes, to try to capture my soul with his pretty blues. My soul belonged to Sunburst and would forever—but he was doing pretty good with certain parts of my body. I whispered, "Yeah, though getting there is going to take some work."
"A simple 'Thank you, you handsome hunk of stud flesh,' would have worked, too."
"No don't pout!"
He did. His duck face was monumental, but brief, and I laughed. It was going to take Sunburst awhile to loosen up and get into the swing of treating me the way Deedee did. He wanted to, very badly, and had gotten some books, some embarrassing books I wouldn't have thought Celestia would have allowed in the Canterlot library. And in the context of all this, I had a revelation.
Ponies loved me. Imagine that!
He said, "Seriously, though, about the best. I heard that the Royal family's crystaller—"
"Flurry Heart's Levitator-in-chief—?"
"That's the one. I heard his name is Sunburst—" He continued over my gasp, "Not a common name. Is he the giant horse apple who hurt you when he left you as a foal?"
"He is— are you reading my mind!?" I glanced at the blue snowflakes gracing his glorious posterior. "Are you hiding a curious cutie mark talent or are you some sort of evil unicorn with a retrositual horn?"
"Whoa, Starling, whoa."
I chuckled. He really knew me well. Too bad he really wasn't a unicorn who could talk math and magic into my heart or... No. Sunburst was my soulmate and that was a competition Double Diamond didn't have a chance of winning. "He's my soulmate."
"So you've met him?"
"Well, yeah. You remember the news about the cluster-buck that was Flurry Heart's crystalling?"
He pulled a clenched-teeth airhead expression confirming he'd missed something important.
I glanced at the window. Celestia had lowered the sun and it was getting late. "It's a long story, but Flurry Heart is Twilight's niece. Twilight knew we would be coming here and had found Sunburst's address in the city. She ginned up a rapprochement in the form of a 'friendship lesson' and forced us together. We talked it out, then I realized he knew how to fix the shattered crystal heart—"
"You saved the crystal empire?"
"He did."
"You both did."
"You're incorrigible!"
"Please stop it."
I sighed and leaned against his oh-so-warm side as if he were a sofa, curling my tail around my rear legs. "Anyway. We're friends again."
Looking skeptical and adorably protective as he stared out the window, he said, "With benefits?" Not jealousy. He was in big-brother-best-friend mode.
I scoffed. "You know me. Is my name Starlight Glimmer?"
"Actually," he turned his head so I looked at him in profile. "Your name is Aurora Midnight, Lady Roarie."
That toothy grin! "Touché."
"Yes, your ladyship."
I growled at him, which wasn't working since I was snorting at the same time.
"Is he your coltfriend?"
"No. No commitments, yet. I think my evil mare persona might have him a bit confused, but we're working it out. Long distance relationships can be very hard."
"Definitely. Very hard indeed."
I groaned at his double-entendre, then went, "Ohhh!" when I realized he was warning me of something good that I suddenly felt against my side. A certain amount of anger seemed to get the testosterone pumping in some stallions.
"About Sunburst. When you talked to him about the day he left you, I hope you ripped him a new flank—"
"Such language!" I said, doing a Twilight. I dropped my smile though and added, "But it was really my fault."
"Aw, Sweet Celestia, Starling! Not everything is your fault."
"In this, sorry Deedee, I was wrong. After I showed Twilight what happened that day—" I didn't explain how, because we didn't want the time spell thing to get out because most ponies weren't that forgiving, and, besides which, Double Diamond wasn't a semanticist by a long shot. "—I realized I'd been so traumatized that I didn't think to follow Sunburst home. I didn't go to see him, either. My butler, who didn't want me to interact with commoners, probably discarded the invitation to Sunburst's cuteceañera, to which I've recently learned I'd definitely been invited. I didn't even think to ask the stuck up prig. I did this to myself. It only came up in anger when we met, and I kinda quickly dropped it."
He didn't look convinced.
"Look, I'm pretty sure he's in love with me and just doesn't know how to say it yet."
"Bookhorses in love. Sheesh. You're pretty sure?"
"I think so. I mean. I don't know what I mean. I really want to know what I mean, but—"
"Yeah, he's your special somepony. Natch. Well, if that special somepony so-and-so should ever mistreat you—"
"I'll blast him."
He laughed. "I was thinking it might be more diplomatic to ask me to knock some sense into him and explain to the doofus the care and petting of the wild Starling."
"Yeah, that might be better, but..." I narrowed my eyes, and, before he could fully comprehend my sly look, I butted him aside. Since he was at the edge of the bed, most of the bedspread and him, legs windmilling, slid over the edge. He landed on the floor, hooves up, his interesting parts adorably exposed.
I dove after him, and stood above him, muzzle to muzzle, tail thrashing. I said melodramatically, "Oh no. Bad pony! You shall not disrespect the Countess Aurora Midnight of Grin Having. What will you do to repent?"
A lot, it turned out. I didn't return to the palace until past midnight.
Author's Note
*Aurora is the original name for the Starlight Glimmer character, and is documented in an interview with show staff. Unfortunately, it seems that Disney has made if very hard to use the name and another was chosen. The other backstory is my invention.
