Bug Hugs

"Come on, boy, wake up."

Jac's eyes slowly slid open, and he quickly remembered where he was.

"We don't have all day, man."

Jac sat himself up, feeling immensely guilty for-

"You're okay! Oh, praise Celestia!" Gummy Bear's delicate arms surrounded Jac in a not-so-delicate hug. The rest of the party was looking at you, not with judgment, but... concern.

"I'm..."

Jac could not finish due to the ice-cold water bottle Gummy Bear gingerly shoved into his face. The guard placed his hands firmly on Jac's shoulders.

"You'll have to get off the train since it has to leave soon, but you can take it easy for today if you aren't feeling up to it." The guard leaned closer to Jac's ear. "Between you and me, if you were part of the Guard, I'd have your ass right now, but since you're just a one-time draftee I'll let you off easy."

Jac wasn't sure if he should feel supported or afraid. Naturally, his senses defaulted to the latter.

After that little spectacle, Jac was definitely not ready to start working with these ponies. They certainly seemed polite, but after making such a scene, it would be hard to escape the remnants of such a first impression. Positive or not, Jac would rather be treated as an irrelevant nobody.

The train station was, in reality, more of a "train area". Beside the tracks was a flat stretch of pavement with a few crude wooden stalls constructed around for whatever miscellaneous tasks needed to happen in a makeshift train station. Well, and a bathroom, of course. The only other outstanding feature of this environment was that nearly everyone here was a changeling.

The guard, whilst escorting the party towards seemingly nowhere in particular, began to debrief.

"I know most of you dorks have probably never seen a changeling before, so we've arranged a little meet and greet here for the next fifteen minutes. If you're gonna gawk and gape, now's your chance - after this, you're gonna work."

The party reached the end of the pavement and stepped onto the hard stone of the mountainous environment. A large cliff face loomed over the clearing below, which had been terraformed into a strange terraced structure with various buildings embedded into the walls, and extending from them. Changelings were flying through window holes all over the town, many carrying bundles of stone or building supplies. There was a distinct lack of magic at work for a species capable of performing magic, which was clearly the reason for this expedition.

Despite this limitation, the creatures seemed oddly excited for their manual labor. They talked excitedly among themselves whilst constructing walls or sharpening tools, laughing with each other as they conversed.

Jac was not ready for the loud whistle blow from the guard, which promptly caused his ears to ring painfully.

This got the attention of multiple changelings who were working in the ground level portion of the town, who immediately dropped what they were doing and excitedly hurried towards Jac's group of acquaintances.

"What's it like living in wood houses?"

"How do you get by without wings?"

"Do you also think love is delicious and tasty?"

"How big is your hive?"

"Can I feel your wings?"

Needless to say, Jac wasn't expecting the changelings to be four times as interested in him as he cared about them. Not that he didn't care, in fact this environment was honestly rather interesting, but nonetheless it wasn't what he expected.

"My name's Honeysuckle!" a particularly orange changeling exclaimed, shaking Jac's hand wildly. "You're cute!"

Jac blushed. He figured that changelings were much more open with their feelings, being such a love-based species... and something about this thought put his mind at ease. Maybe he'd stand a bit closer to the changelings most of the time.

"Y-you too."

Honeysuckle froze.

"OH. MY. GOSH."

Honeysuckle's hand dropped like an anvil, leaving her in a state of pure shock and awe.

"THE CUTE PONY THINKS I'M CUTE!"

Honeysuckle hugged the nearest changeling beside her, causing him to blush in panic and confusion.

"THE CUTE PONY THINKS I'M CUTE!!!"

Jac sighed. Sure are a lot of spazzes today... he thought. But this isn't too bad...

"Oh, don't mind Honeysuckle, she's a bit of a spaz. I'm Thorax."

Wait. What?

Jac turned around to see where this voice came from.

"Oh, do you recognize my name?" Thorax, in all of his mango-ey splendor, looked towards the ground. "Well, I guess you would, considering..."

"King Thorax!" the guard proclaimed, cutting off Thorax. "You snuck up on us, you blended right in with the rest of you!"

Thorax blushed. "You say this every time, Carbon. I try not to... put myself above anyone. I don't want to be a king, so much as... a leader, I guess."

"Well how are you supposed to be a leader if nobody can tell which one is you? You silly bug!" The guard gave Thorax a rough scratch behind the ear, causing him to blush profusely and explode into a wriggly mess of "Nggaaahhhhh!"

"Come on, show us what we can help with."

It took Thorax almost as long to recover as it did for Jac.