Changeling Therapy

Chapter Two - Dinner With A Friend

“You’re going to do WHAT?” Was the predictable reaction from Rainbow Dash when Twilight and Fluttershy were able to return and convey the news to an assembly of the Mane Six; spike present of course.

Eventually, after some heated debate, it was Fluttershy who persuaded Rainbow Dash that “Sonic rainbooming the changeling back to where he came from” was not in the spirit of friendship. The pegasus had sulked for a few hours, but had then come to realise that this was indeed true and had grudgingly accepted the proposition.

AppleJack and Spike were more on the suspicious side, Rarity had been a little more willing to agree to the idea but Pinkie Pie was too distracted making silly faces into the shiny flower vase to seem too concerned - she did however eventually contribute by suggesting throwing an extravagant ‘Welcome To Ponyville - No Longer An Evil Changeling” party.

Fluttershy suggested that Iridis was not quite ‘ready’ yet for that much ‘excitement’.

Eventually all the Mane 6 were on board - at least more or less - and it was decided they would return to Ponyville without Fluttershy for a week or two. She was to stay with Iridis to spend some time to get to know him a little better. She had thought ahead to how difficult it would be for him to walk into PonyVille and having to endure what she knew would be fearful and suspicious reactions. To that end her friends would talk to the mayor about trying to give PonyVille’s denizens a little warning, perhaps easing Iridis’s introduction.

During the few weeks’ time they had remaining in Canterlot, helped by aides and with their own guards: Fluttershy started to get to know Iridis a little better. He was remarkably withdrawn and quiet for the first week, not venturing far from the room they were both staying in, but with a little coaxing and tenderness she eventually persuaded him to at least take a walk with her on the ramparts, far from any prying eyes below.

Standing in the afternoon sun, looking across the jutting precipices of the mountain, PonyVille glimmered just slightly in the very distance.

“You know I nearly helped destroy all of this....” He said, suddenly and Fluttershy turned to him quietly, waiting to see if he wanted to say more. Iridis lowered his head slightly sighed then continued. “I was here some time ago. Helping to invade this place. I didn’t… I didn’t see what I was doing. The ponies here they were just ‘food’ to me. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that, you were like us, that you could have feelings in the way we did.”

“Do other changelings have feelings too?” Fluttershy asked, gently probing.

“We all do.” Iridis replied, both melancholy and thoughtful. “But we don’t feel love the way I think you do. For us it’s something we need to survive, something to feed on. The way I see you Ponies treat each other, being so kind: that’s something we don’t really have among changelings. It makes me sick that I can’t feel it the way you do.” He tugged for a moment at the inhibiting necklace which emitted an angry hum and glowed with blue runes before settling back to its shiny platinum sheen.

“Go on.” Fluttershy encouraged, her voice soft and inviting, like warm honey. Iridis felt the concern and tenderness in her voice and it coaxed a little more out of him.

“I… I did what Changelings do. I impersonated other ponies and drained them of their love. But one time… I tried to make a pony love me just for me. I found a mare, one I was supposed to take back for the Extracting Chamber deep in the Hive.. but I didn’t. I impersonated a stallion and became friends with her… but no matter what I did I couldn’t make her love me and in the end she grew tired and abandoned me, wished never to see me again.” Iridis finally trailed off and gave the appearance of crying even though his anatomy prevented him from shedding any tears.

“I’m glad you told me this Iridis.” Fluttershy replied, soothingly placing a foreleg over his shoulder and applying gentle and affectionate pressure. “But I’m afraid you can’t just ‘make’ anypony love you. That’s true for anypony, not just for you. May I ask though, if I can be so bold, why was it you chose to do this?”

Iridis seemed to reflect for a moment as though he was unsure himself. “I think….” He said at great length. “I saw her and… I couldn’t bring myself to take her to the hive. I couldn’t. She was…. I can’t explain it. I just couldn’t.”

Fluttershy pondered this for a moment and then gently replied. “I think you’re not as much of a stranger to how we feel love as you think Iridis. But I do know that you can’t ‘make’ somepony love you. It’s something that happens between two ponies, or being I guess, when you feel the same way about each other. And there’s more than one type of love too…”

Iridis looked up. “Yes Twilight sent me a list of them for me to study, there are many more than I thought.”

Fluttershy giggled a little and a few strands of her deeply pink mane fluttered in the breeze. “Well Twilight does like her lists… I honestly don’t know them all to be honest but I’m sure she tried to explain them to be once a long time ago.”

“She told me…” Iridis pondered. “That one of things she most admired about you was that you had abundance of the love known as Agape. Or a love for everyone.”

The pegasus blushed very deeply. “Well I don’t know I love ‘everyone’, but I do find I see the best in most ponies.”

“Even in a creature like me?” He asked, almost rhetorically, with an edge of frustration and sadness glazing his words.

“Yes. I do.” She replied, noticing how he was beginning to look very tired, she nudged him gently with her hoof. “It’s time for you to have something to eat Iridis, you look hungry and tired.”

He turned away a little and snorted. “I hate that we need to do this.”

“I don’t mind. Truly.” Fluttershy reassured. “Come on, let’s go somewhere more private.”

Iridis followed him. “I hate my body for needing this...”

Fluttershy turned slightly and shushed him gently with a mumming hoof clasped firmly over the tip of his mouth. “Oh Iridis you can’t help the way you are… now not another word, just let me help you.”

Once the pair had found somewhere private and secluded Fluttershy turned and motioned for Iridis to relax down onto his haunches: dutifully he folded his punctured legs under his body and waited, patiently.

When Fluttershy had first agreed to take on her new charge, Celestia had explained how there would be a difficult and intimate task she would need to be willing to perform. For as a changeling Iridis could not survive without feeding on love, more specifically love directed at him.

As she had done a number of times now, Fluttershy moved in close and rested the weight of her head on his shoulder, allowing the cherry-blossom waterfall of her mane to cascade over his back. Iridis was always polite, repressed and silent during this ritual, but he found a jolt always ran up his back as he felt the closeness of her breathing, and the softness of her scent.

Fluttershy closed her eyes gently and concentrated, thinking about Iridis, only about him and of nothing else. Summoning within her all the affection, empathy and sympathetic love she could: she let it collect in her as a well of feeling, letting him sense the fullness of her emotions.

Iridis reached around his friend with a hoof and pulled her slightly closer, then lowering his head slowly he began to let himself feed - the inhibiting collar seeming to wax like the moon, glowing a brilliant blue as it prevented him from hurting her by drawing too much at once.

Fluttershy gasped a little, as always, at the strange sensation, it felt like a long sigh but with little pinpricks of electricity that made her short coat bristle and strand proud. At first it had felt unusual to her, unpleasant even. But after the first few times she began to realise the sensation was quite enjoyable; infact very pleasureable.

Both their breathing became heavy and laboured, the rhythms of their chests reaching a synchronised cadence as Fluttershy could not suppress a few tiny gasps and ‘ooofs’ of pleasure as the feeding continued. She moved her rear hooves a little, occasionally stamping gently from tiny involuntary spasms. Her cheeks were soon painted in the rosy tint of a deep satisfied blush as she resisted the urge to hold Iridis too tight.

Easy Fluttershy.. She said to herself. Remember this is about him, not you, try to stay focussed. If only it didn’t feel so good though………….

For Iridis too the ‘procedure’, if one could call it that, was a confusing melange of feelings. On the one hand the hunger he had felt as a changeling was something he’d wanted to leave behind him, to deny about himself. On the other hand Fluttershy seemed genuinely unbothered in performing this intimate rite with him. The love coming from her was like nothing he’d ever tasted before, not as torrid or as unpredictable as lust, or heavy like romantic attachment - it was instead constant, deep and gentle. It had overtones of other feelings, hidden things he couldn’t discern like gazing into the abyss of an ocean trench.

There was something else he was feeling too. He felt towards Fluttershy something like he’d felt towards that mare he’d refused to capture. It was alien to him and hard to articulate, much less comprehend. Part of it frightened him, and part of it gave him hope.

A little later, once Iridis was finally sated, the two collapsed a little, both slightly exhausted; Fluttershy more so. He opened his mouth to say something but she cut in before he could get the words out.

“Please Iridis, don’t apologise for what you are.”