A Mote of Dust

by That One Guy

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Changelings, Original Character, Comedy, Princess Celestia, Pinkie Pie
Length: 18029

In which a nameless changeling, parading as a faceless guard, discovers what it means to be a pony.

Welcome to Trotondo, where the lakes freeze overnight and the snow never stops falling.
Welcome to the outermost Equestrian colony, where the foreign threat is so marginally low that only two royal pegasi guards were needed to keep it safe.
Welcome to the town protected by Dawn Guard and Dust Mote, two peacekeepers so hopelessly in love that they don't even know it.
... Thankfully, the other four hundred and thirty eight denizens of Trotondo are more than willing to help resolve this predicament.

Published 2012-07-31 08:24:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-08-17 22:00:40 UTC

Lovestuck

Word of the Canterlot Invasion spread fast. Within six hours, the news had made its way to the urban areas of Manehattan and the like. Eight, and smaller towns began to catch wind of the incident, among them Ponyville and Appleoosa.

It was nearly six days before the burgeoning colony of Trotondo knew of it.

Dawn Guard slowly clambered out of bed, blinking nine restful hours of sleep from her eyes. The feathery pony extended each of her limbs in turn, stretching and preparing for the admittedly predictable day. Finally, with a ruffle of her perfectly maintained wings, Dawn slipped downstairs to eat some oats, a smile creeping onto her face the farther she got from bed.

By the time she had reached the kitchen in her small lodging and eaten her fill of cereal, the pegasus was practically skipping along, a happy tune on her lips. The happiness emanating from her and coalescing in the air was nearly tangible as she burst out of her front door, the beam on her face rivaling that of the rising sun on the horizon.

Nearly a half second later, Dawn realized that bursting open her door and leaping outside with a massive smile and eyes shut from happiness-induced lack of worldly presence was a horrible idea. This was partly due to the fact that there were several early morning joggers on the street, their attention attracted by the, partially due to the whole ‘your door is made of improvised material and is quite liable to breaking with enough force’ issue, but mostly due to the other guard who was standing at her doormat, hoof extended in a way that most ponies about to knock on a door would have it in. Given that he arrived every day in the exact same fashion at the exact same time, Dawn figured that she really should’ve seen this coming.

About fifteen seconds later, both of the considerably disoriented pegasi were groaning from a pile of pony and wooden shards at the bottom of the concrete steps leading to Dawn’s now-nonexistent front door.

‘In hindsight,’ Thought Dawn blearily, a sore stiffness crawling up her shield-emblazoned flank, ‘Maybe the builder was right when he said twenty six steps was overdoing it.’

Several moments passed as the two lay, heaped together, on the sidewalk, mushed together in a position that wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as it may have seemed. Eventually, the winged stallion decided to make the first move; and a daring one, at that.

The pegasus guard poked the pegasus guard in the stomach and quietly whispered the word ‘boop’ into her ear. She shivered.

“Dust Mote, you… you…” Dawn began, pushing herself up and to her hooves as she struggled to find words that would properly encompass her feelings at that moment. “You.”

“Me.” Replied the similarly armor-less guard, flashing his friend a beaming smile. “I must say, Dawn, I’ve never fel- seen you so happy this early in the morning. Care to explain?”

Red-faced, Dawn simply turned away and began the climb up to her house, putting a little less pressure on her left hindleg than normal. Rolling her eyes to Dust’s apologetic cries of ‘but you told me to be more forward!’ she simply waved him in with a hoof. A silly little accident like this was hardly reason enough to disturb their daily ritual of sorts.

Dawn sat opposite Dust around her little round table, each taking their sweet time in drinking their large cups of imported-from-Canterlot coffee. Neither really needed to say anything, and so the silence that hung between them held no tension or hard feelings – rather, it was a peaceful truce for the briefest of moments, each pony content simply sitting there in the company of the other.

All of a sudden, a rush of red flew to Dust’s cheeks, and the pegasus looked down into the cup that had been empty for nearly a minute. Dawn noticed this, and briefly wished she could peer into his head to see her comrade’s thoughts, especially those regarding herself. For the eight long months that the duo had been posted to Trotondo, Dawn had tried every trick in the book to get the abnormally meek pegasus to express more boldness in their day-to-day lives, if only to amuse herself during the long winter months. Surprisingly, as Dust began to grow more emboldened, little corners of his personality previously unseen had begun to show on the surface.

For instance, his peculiar dislike of spinach. Or the way his breathing became slower and deeper when he was scared (the few instances in which she had observed this occurring being the Ursa attack and at the first big party he had attended). Or even the way he would become more emotional, more full of life, when the two guards were sharing meaningful conversation – and even moreso when said contact was physical, too.

She tried to hide another blush by way of looking down into her empty cup. ‘I seem to be the same way too, though, when it comes to getting close…’

Eventually, Dust looked up with a smile on his now blush-free face, shortly met by Dawn’s equally blush-free gaze. The two proceeded to follow the unspoken schedule that they had adopted a while back: Drop the cups into the sink, engage in conversation that really achieved nothing but to hear each other speak, and have Dawn escort Dust to the bottom of the twenty sixth step, regrouping ten minutes later at the meager Town Hall in the same worn suits of golden pegasi armor that they had been using since Trotondo had been founded. Then, together, the pair of snow-white pegasi would march around town for the waking hours of the day, paid to keep the peace in the colony – which, in all honesty, usually accounted to nothing but ‘trot around the marketplace and engage in light conversation with one another and everypony who decided to spark a chat.’

As such, asking anypony in town about the status of the local guard, they would most likely answer simply and without hesitation: “They love each other so much that they don’t even know it yet.”

… Perhaps then, it is with good reasoning that the residents of Trotondo (with the possible exception of two simple pegasi) were not known for their subtlety.

All in all, it had been a great day. The townsponies had been bit more interactive than normal, and as a result Dawn and Dust had managed to have quite a few interesting moments; from the mare who wanted to give Dust a pretty white rose (Dawn had felt inexplicably annoyed at nopony in particular for a brief moment when he had accepted. When Dust noticed and asked about her grimace, she blamed the glare of the sun in her eyes.) to the newest colt who had joined the colony and needed some help getting his bearings (Dust felt obligated to do so, while Dawn felt obligated to do it better than her fellow guard. Not too much chaos ensued.), the duo felt as though they did a job well done.

Or at least Dawn did - but she presumed Dust felt great too, given the massive smile on his carefree face and the eagerness in his stride. It wasn’t as though she could read his mind or anything, after all.

By the time the shifts of the sole two guards in the colony had ended, the sun was already beginning its descent into the Greater sea, and the smell of dinner hung heavily in the air. Still fully clad in their suits of celestial armor, Dawn Guard and Dust Mote took off on their final walk through the ‘heart’ (or ‘center’, given how small the town was compared to most others) of Trotondo, an act that always – albeit inadvertently – caused parents to issue the ‘wind down’ order to their foals and loving pairs to turn in for the night (or, if the atmosphere was romantic enough, to one of the three restaurants in town). It was here, in the pale light of the magical lampposts, that Dawn and Dust really connected and shared some of their deeper moments. Usually.

Tonight, though, they walked through without a word, a silence quite like that of their mornings embracing them. Several of the ponies still out on the streets gave cheerful little waves to the pair, and Dawn could’ve sworn that more than one of them were throwing her subtle ‘wink-wink-nudge-nudge’ gestures, indubitably their way of saying ‘you two look perfect together’.

Slowly, over the course of their ten-minute-walk, her gaze shifted from Dust and to the nearby fenceposts, the glaring blush decorating her cheeks only encouraging further silent motivations from the crowd. Closing her eyes tight, the pegasus tried her hardest to will the crimson from her face by way of thinking of very unappealing things.

‘Old ponies.’ She thought, the beating of her heart still reverberating around her skull. ‘Old, wrinkly ponies. Granny Smith from Ponyville. Tangent’s house. Cats. The drapes in Dust’s bedroom window…’

She paused in her thinking of grotesque things. ‘Well, actually, they pair up quite nicely with his bedcover and wallpaper; it’s just that the rest of the junk he leaves in there tends to leave a really ugly picture. Unlike Dusk! Who is actually re-*’ She blinked quickly and shook her head a miniscule amount. ‘Artificial barley vats. Giant oat packaging facilities!’

“Dawn?”

‘No, I’m not that ugly, Dust said so. Kinda.’ She thought, the once-vanishing blush now returning in full force. ‘I mean, he was a little drunk off of the lemonade I spiked a little bit, and he was complimenting everything… Well, everything about me, at least – actually, I don’t even think he was really all that tipsy, he seemed perfectly coordinated, and that’s always the first thing to go when he is…’

“Um, Dawn? Dawn Guard?”

‘And it isn’t like Dust to lie! He’s truthful about everything, even that one time when he couldn’t resist and stole all of my cake mix and made a variety of cake-like things, only one of which was edible, which he gave to me!’ Dawn’s now completely red face gave a miniscule smile. ‘And he was so adorable when he did it! Like a little baby puppy who had just-‘

“Dawn!”

Dawn’s eyes snapped open and, momentarily annoyed, snapped at her botherer. “Quiet Dust, I’m thinking about how cute Dust is when heee-eeeeey Dust! …… Sup?” She finished on a high note, the thumping in her chest nearly loud enough to drown out a percussion band. “Wha- er, what did you want?”

Dust (whose face was also as beet-red as, well, a beet) looked down at Dawn through the four or so inches in height that separated the two. “I was wondering if you, ah, wanted to go to Salad’s for a bowl of… um…” He seemed to be having a massive internal conflict when it came to matching his partner’s semi-amused (albeit mostly-flustered) gaze.

“… Salad?” She finished, atypically meekly, fully accepting that her blush couldn’t cover any more of her body. “I’d love to, Dust.”

He smiled. She smiled. They continued to gaze into each other’s eyes, now standing immobile in the middle of the street. Their faces began to inch together, the romantic tension in the air around them growing by the second. Somepony in the huge crowd that had formed behind them gave a cheer.

Understandably, Dawn and Dust jumped about four feet off of the ground in that awkward moment when they noticed half of the town staring at them.

“Well, I, uh, I, don’t really…” Sputtered out Dust, eyes dilating a bit, as his breathing slowed drastically and became significantly deeper. “Have… any bits on me…”

“I’ll pitch in a few!” Shouted somepony from the back of the crowd, shortly followed by several other enthusiastic donators. “Anything for the happy couple!”

“No, really, I’m good!” He squeaked back to them, Dawn completely immobilized from the embarrassment and shock. “It’ll be better if I use my own bits! Which are at home!”

“I’ll get them!”

“Noooo thanks!”

Dust attempted to swallow the lump in his throat, nearly choked, and turned to Dawn, the blushes on their faces having drained away in a matter of milliseconds. “How about tomorrow?” He whispered as quietly as his voice would let him (which was loud enough to let Hearing Aid at the front of the audience to hear, and as such repeat to the rest in the form of excited shouting. “About this time, after our shifts?”

Dawn slowly regained motor control, and looked from Dust to the crowd and back. In lieu of answering, red began to rush back to her cheeks.

“Please?” Asked Dust, doing his best to phase out everypony else (who had all acquired popcorn by this point from the mysterious pink vender). “For me?”

Dawn cracked a tiny, almost invisible, smile. “Okay.”

Dust looked at her blankly for a few seconds, the glowing fire in his eyes burning as steadily as ever. After a moment of this, a huge grin burst out on his face, and, oblivious to the entire world (except for Dawn, of course), brought one of his hooves to meet her own.

The following musical number was simultaneously the most amazing, touching, emotional, and heartfelt thing that Dawn had ever seen, only magnified that Dust – the shy little pony who had shown up for his first day of guard duty underdressed in the freezing cold of the north – was singing it himself. (Granted, half of the town was ensemble and seemed to be performing flawless choreography in the background, but the whole ‘Dust is leading them by himself’ thing was all that mattered to Dawn.)

And in the end, when all was sung and done, as Dawn slowly ascended the last of the twenty six steps to her house (with a brand new door, thanks to Fixit’s role in the song) with Dust by the first on his knees, the pair shared one final glance – a look that conveyed every ounce of the mutual feelings they held for each other. In that briefest of moments, Dawn realized that maybe, maybe, they could be more than simple friends. The moment that the thought breached her head, the stallion at the sidewalk gave her a mighty blush-and-shame-free smile and raised himself to all fours. Dust gave a little bow, a quiet ‘good night’, and left for his home six streets down, a light skip in his step that the mare had never seen before.

Dawn shut her door, the thumping in her chest being the only noise she could hear. Almost as if in a dream, the pegasus slipped out of her enchanted armor and felt the rush of magic that shifted her pelt from the snow white characteristic to the guard to the rosy mahogany that was characteristic to Dawn. Down flopped her fancy orange mane, and the squarely cut blue tail that all guards had was suddenly replaced by her own luxuriously long one. Her cutie mark, previously obscured by the curve of the armor itself, stood out among her fur: a blue shield, emblazoned with a symbol of the moon.

She made her way to her bedroom door, and peered for a moment at the mirror affixed to the outside of it. Her reflection stared back, a faraway look in its eyes that told tales of a sense of rightness and hopes that, after kindling for so long, had burst into vigorous flame. Perhaps that was why she awoke that morning with spirits held high in the clouds – a good omen towards great things to come. In that very moment, Dawn Guard was on top of the world, emotions that had sprung to life beneath her very nose just now blooming into the start of something beautiful. She could feel it.

And in that very same moment, she knew that Dust did too. She had no proof, no magical emotion-reading sense, no hidden cameras strewn around the stallion’s house, she simply knew; she knew that Dust Mote, the silent guardspony with an unspoken past, loved her back.

She allowed the smallest of smiles to touch her lips as she climbed into bed, mind full to bursting with thoughts of tomorrow. Just as Dawn drifted off to sleep, she had decided on one solid thing: No matter how tomorrow’s encounter went, she would cherish it for the rest of her life. She owed him that much – after all, he had been the one to ask her out.

That night, Dawn Guard slept the best sleep she had slept in years.

Thumpthumpthump!

Dawn slid open an emerald eye, a huge grin immediately spreading across her face. The richly colored pegasus burst out of bed, spending only a split second on her daily stretches, and nearly flew downstairs (this was, of course, quite impossible given how thin the staircase was) in delight. Briefly noting that it was a bit early for Dust, Dawn gave a teeny little giggle.

‘Anticipation getting to him too, ey?’ She thought, the bubbling happiness only growing stronger every second it took her to reach the door, ‘Well, it’s not like I can blame him; I remember him saying he’d never been on a date before! I remember my first one, and I was a little early too!’

Dawn honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so hyped up. As such, she didn’t quite notice that upon bursting open the door she gave a powerful hug to Post the mailpony and not Dust – the former’s hoof still extended from when he first knocked (about two seconds ago, total). The beige unicorn looked confused for a good three seconds before he gave her a big smile.

“Dust finally ask ya out, Dawn?” He inquired, prompting said pegasus to leap off of him and apologize repeatedly for not noticing it was actually him, all the while pretending to not have heard his question. The old mailpony looked amused at her flustering, and in after silencing her with a calm wave of his hoof, floated over a newspaper within a sealed plastic film. (Trotondo was quite far north, and it was quite likely that any given day would welcome a hail of snow and ice – after the sixth shipment of ruined newspapers, Equestria Daily had decided to spend an extra few bits to seal them and leave it at that.)

“Now now, no use hiding it, lil’ missy.” He laughed, Appleoosan accent slipping through a bit. “A certain somepony eight blocks down nearly missed me when he went nearly skipping down the street in this direction. Had to practically throw the paper at him to get him to read it!”

Dawn let out a little chuckle of her own, only to have it get caught in itself. “Wait, he was already headed out this way? He usually flies here, so why isn’t he…?”

Post threw her a halfhearted shrug. “I’unno, wasn’t my buisness to ask, but he seemed pretty excited for sum’n. At least up until he got a good look at the newspaper, then he just turned back and shut himself up in his house.”

The pegasus blinked, her bubbly attitude quickly melting into a puddle of concern for her friend. “Do you-… Oh, nevermind.” She said, taking the paper and handing Post a few bits (sure to hoof over a few extra as a means of conveying her gratitude to the mailpony who had to travel through a chilly land of ice every two weeks). “Thanks for the paper, Post. Make sure to bring me another one next time, as always.”

He nodded his head, floating the bits into his saddlebag. “My pleasure, miss Guard. Seeya ‘round."

Quietly closing the door, Dawn peered at the clock. Six fifteen – a quarter hour until Dust typically arrived.

‘It was probably nothing,’ She thought, idly flipping through the paper as she started up the coffeemaker with the typical setting of ‘three cups’ (usually enough for both guards), all the while making hollow comments to herself about how Canterlot had repelled a changeling invasion using the power of love, of all things. ‘He probably just forgot something or other. I’m sure Dust’ll be here – why wouldn’t he?’

Dawn arrived at Town Hall at seven on the dot – as always. However, instead of trotting up to the large double doors deep in conversation with her fellow guard, the pegasus approached the sign-in sheet alone. As always, she signed her name on the paper and wrote ‘7:01’ to the side; the same line of text that had been repeated two hundred and fifty eight times on this and previous pages, intertwined with the equally repetitive line of ‘Dust Mote, 7:01’ all the way through the stack of paper affixed to the side of the door.

Except, oddly enough, on Dust’s half, the slot for the current date was empty.

Now, as one might imagine, Dawn was now thoroughly worried for Dust. He may not have been the most organized of ponies, but if there was one thing he was constant on it was timing – after all, he had arrived at her house at exactly six thirty each and every day for nearly eight months, even when he was caught into a conversation along the way (an occurrence which he told Dawn happened quite frequently), a feat which most ponies would have an enormous amount of trouble doing. However, the code of the royal guard clearly stated that active duties took priority over locating absent guards, likely due to repeated mishaps that probably involved varying combinations of true love and ferocious monsters (it was Equestria, after all), and Dawn had long since pledged to hold true to this code to the best of her abilities.

As such, Dawn Guard patrolled her typical route alone on that seemingly normal day.

At first, the mare was caught up in her worry for Dust, as was explained in detail above. Later, however, this worry began to shift to an emotion more akin to confusion; absolutely nothing had changed in town, so why would her companion be absent in his duties? Foals still leaped around happily in the streets, and a great number of ponies continued to give her huge smiles and congratulations (the word of their date had spread fast, so it seemed).

If one didn’t count the understandably common question of ‘but where’s Dust?’ the day went perfectly normally.

Yet as she passed by the venders and restaurants, this single question relentlessly plagued Dawn’s mind. Briefly stopping to talk to Salad and confirm that Dust was indeed not at her restaurant, the confusion sprawled across her mind began the return trip into worry. Disregarding the option to simply return home and work from there, the pegasus - shift now over - began to trek across town, stopping at nearly every establishment she could think of.

However, Dust had gone unseen by everypony at the local supermarket. And bar. And bank. And post office. And clinic. And housing agency. And city gates. And gym. And so on, and so forth.

It only took Dawn an hour and a half to confirm that nopony in Trotondo had seen her date that day, which left only one option clear in her mind – an option that, in all honesty, she was dreading for one reason or another: Dust Mote’s humble abode.

Swallowing deeply, the pegasus (still bearing her armor, given that there were more pressing issues than ‘take off armor’, even though she passed by her house numerous times, even popping in once to make sure Dust wasn’t there) made her way to the comparatively tiny house that read ‘MOTE’ on the mailbox. She always preferred to not visit Dust’s house – it wasn’t the way it was perpetually messy, or how the colors inside seemed to blend into a dark grey, or even how sparse the vegetation was nearby (as though it avoided the place). Rather, it was how the stallion treated it that discouraged her visits: every time the duo would pass by it, he would try his hardest to look away, and on the rare occasion that she let herself in, he would always try to hastily improve upon it in some way, be it cleaning or decorating, as though he was ashamed at the very thought of her (or anypony for that matter) seeing the dark and foreboding interior of the tiny house he had insisted on buying.

It hurt Dawn to see her friend try to change his sole sanctuary to better accommodate her. She had figured that he liked the dark, was more comfortable in an organized chaos than a chaotic organization, and she could hardly bear to see him change it simply to seem more ‘normal’, if such a concept could apply to anypony at all. It was for this reason that Dawn preferred to invite him to her own house; so long as it wasn’t his own home, Dust didn’t seem to mind the light and cleanliness (especially on their morning coffee/bonding time), and the shame that she could almost feel pouring off of the pony whenever she came over was enough to keep her away. She kept her distance for both of their sakes.

But on that night, as she lifted her hoof to strike the door as he had hers so many times, that reluctance simply wasn’t there. Her concern had simply overridden it, and the blameless guilt she felt for not being there for Dust in whatever was happening was more than enough to get her to rap three times on the oak door. Promptly, a crash rang out from within, accompanied by a hushed grunt of pain.

Dawn’s eyes widened, and her hoof flew straight to the doorknob. A futile rattle later, and a renewed round of knocking befell the hinged sheet of wood.

“Dust, are you in there? Dust, if you can hear me, let me in!” She called, the intensity of her knocking increasing tenfold. “Dust, please let me in!”

The barrage of pseudo-blows ceased for almost ten seconds, almost as though awaiting a response.

Eleven seconds later, the door was bucked clean off of its hinges. A startled shriek came from within, and the scampering of hooves could be heard as the being within hurried off to corners unknown. Eyes narrowed, Dawn pulled back her hindhooves (the sudden ache in her left one forgotten the minute the muscle there had decided to fully strain itself), flew around in a circle…

… And felt a resounding chill blast through her body as she saw the room within.

Dawn Guard, still magically painted white within the protective shell of golden armor, took a tentative step into Dust Mote’s house. Her eyes darted around in shock, the disturbing silence within magnified a hundredfold by the appearance of the house.

It was clean.

But not just clean - obsessively clean. Every single trinket had a place, and a freshly sanded-and-repainted coathanger stood at the ready to her left, standing vigil to whatever terrors lay in the outside world.

The soft fluff of new carpeting met her armored hooves as she made her way through the main hallway, and the smell of professional-grade glue wafted calmly in the air: homage to the wallpaper (clearly meant to resemble the wood of an ancient tree) that was affixed to every vertical surface. Not to say that the walls were blank, though; picture frames were affixed here and there, round and rectangular arranged in a hauntingly beautiful array.

Yet Dawn’s unease only grew when she realized that the frames were essentially empty. Not a single one held a picture of Dust; instead, they were filled with images of flowers, mountains, boats… Even ponies from around town! There was Post, Fixit, Salad and even herself, among others. Everypony was fixed in a static smile, and those of children were more often than not of them playing around in the snow. But no matter how many frames Dawn peered into, not a single white pegasus stared back – for, armor or not, Dust was the only cream-coated stallion in town.

She gazed into the first door to her left; the kitchen was meticulously clean – a drastic change from the haphazard mess that once was. Neither a dish nor morsel of food could be seen out of place, undoubtedly hidden within the numerous cabinets and drawers now bearing a fresh coat of distinctive golden paint that matched the wallpaper exquisitely. Without moving her hooves, she glared to the right – a gleaming marble bathroom shined back, the old stone that had once composed it having vanished without a trace. She didn’t even have to enter to imagine the ornate handles on the faculties and repaired mirror.

Nine steps forward and again two doors branched off: one way boasted a magnificent, flawless set of polished mahogany furniture and a majestic globe of Equestria, all organized beautifully around a sparkling glass table, while the other - upon gently pressing open the new door – revealed itself to be a bed made of another expensive wood, fully adorned with trimmed edges and a blanket that was likely as fluffy as it looked. A handsome dresser stood silent in the corner, and a little table sat to the side of the bed, complete with a mechanized alarm clock and…

Dawn furrowed her eyebrows and took a step into the bedroom that smelled strongly of new. Silently, she approached the nightstand, and looked into the wooden rectangle with fragments of glue affixed to its face. The shards of glass that had once made up a simple mirror were lying by the wind-up alarm clock, split into fragments so small that they were hardly distinguishable from a meager pile of dust.

Building up a sudden suspicion, the mare backtracked to the bathroom. A large frame there, despite having the flattened glue that proved a new mirror had once been affixed there proudly, was now nearly vacant, the only remnant of reflective material being either in jagged shards along the edges or in glass needles cluttering up the floor. Without a word, Dawn carefully picked up one of the larger shards. It was warm.

Suddenly, a low groan reverberated through the house, causing Dawn to drop the sliver of glass. If she had been looking, she may have noticed it breaking into a fine powder as it hit the floor; instead, she traversed to the very end of the hallway, where the noise had originated.

She stopped four feet from the back wall. ‘This is wrong.’ Dawn thought instinctively, the reeling in her stomach reaching its climax as she searched desperately for the priceless mirror that once stood, strong and proud, where there was naught but an empty wall coated with the same generic paper as everything else. The mare turned her head to the sparkling house, every ounce of unfitting beauty contained within only encouraging the churning in her stomach.

‘This is very wrong. Dust would never do… this…’

A groan (or was it a sob?), this one low and rumbling – as though on the verge of breaking – sprang from the barrier of brick, nearly twisting Dawn’s heart from its place in her chest. She could tell, without a doubt, that the sound couldn’t be coming from a stallion like Dust; but even knowing that, the mare raised her hooves to the featureless surface and began feeling around on it for a means of passing through the obstacle.

‘Dust, what are you hiding?’ Thought the very concerned Dawn, pressing down on each and every crack and bump in the wall as she came to them. ‘What could you hide in a room like this?’

Her hoof meshed itself firmly on a surprisingly wobbly board. ‘A monster?’

Swallowing, she applied a small amount of pressure to the faded piece of wood. ‘A dream?’

The pegasus’ eyes widened as a tiny click rang out from the plaster, and a thin line of dim light emerged from the extremes of the wall, where it attached to the floor, ceiling and walls. A jagged crack split down the center, and the two halves of the wall began to inch their way apart, a near-invisible mist pouring out from between them.

‘… A lie?’

Without warning, the hidden doors swung open and Dawn was forced to turn her head from the violent flash of sickly green light that shot out at her. It was in this moment of shock that a pearly white stallion burst from nowhere and slammed into her chest, the pair skidding several yards on the carpet until they came to rest inbetween the bedroom and living one.

“D-Dawn! What are you doing here!” Came a familiar voice, a pair of armored hooves gently bringing Dawn to her hooves. “I thought that you, I mean I assumed that you assumed that I, I… I don’t…”

The mare snapped her eyes open, hardly able to keep from hurling a barrage of questions at the gold-clad stallion. Instead, she simply raised a hoof and gave her fellow guard a light slap to the face, already preparing to give him a relieved reprimanding about skimping on his duties, as any good friend would.

Understandably, Dawn was surprised when Dust recoiled as though she had hit him with a truck and stood immobile, hoof resting lightly on his cheek. Immediately, she extended a forelimb in an effort to make amends, yet the flinch that he let out just before the hoof came into contact with his chest wasn’t lost on her in the slightest - and thus, she willed her leg to stop in that position, two centimeters from the gleaming sheet of metal that separated the stallion from the world.

Dawn wasn’t sure how long she stood there, trying to piece together what had happened to cause such a frightening change in her friend. She took in as many clues as she could from his demeanor; the way his chest was rising and falling almost unnaturally slowly, even as subtle ripples suggested that his heart was racing (a combination that really wasn’t good for anypony’s body); the miniscule twitches of his tail and right hoof; the way his eyes refused to look at her, the spark within that she had fanned to the best of her ability sputtering as though lost in the cold.

She blinked. He blinked, and looked in another direction, only to have his eyes dart back away. She threw a glance in the general direction that his had flown earlier, and her eyes came to rest on the fireplace.

The fireplace that was feeding hungrily on a single roll of paper.

The Equestria Daily.

She blinked again. ‘’At least until he got a good look at the newspaper, then he just turned back and shut himself up in his house,’ Post said - why would the paper have anything to do… with…’

Dawn’s thoughts raced back eight months. ‘He had arrived, out of absolutely nowhere, with nothing but a tattered set of royal armor, and knocked on my door at three in the morning. When I had finally come out to answer it, the stranger had nearly lost a wing from the cold and told me that he couldn’t feel his feet. In the morning, when he finally regained consciousness, I asked for his name. He looked at the window, the one that used to be broken and let a beam of light shine through and make all the gunk in the air visible. Then he turned to me and said ‘Dust Mote’, and that was that.’

She lowered her hoof as her eyes began to widen.

‘’What do you mean you don’t know the code of the guard? Wow, didn’t know they gave out these suits just for being handsome. Heh, don’t worry, just teasing! Ah, don’t look so embarrassed – here, I’ll tell you what, you can borrow mine.’’

Her breath caught in her throat.

‘’You’re pulling my leg, right? … How does ‘Princess Celestia, the all-powerful-yet-surprisingly-nice-ruler who raises the sun every day’ not ring any bells?’’

Dawn glanced one last time to the fireplace, the ashen remains of the paper glaring back at her, as though mocking her deductive reasoning abilities. She looked at her hooves, which were shaking of their own accord. She looked at Dust.

And the stallion began to smolder.

Gasping, she reached for him yet again. Something in the way she moved, though, the way her eyes seemed to stare right through him, must have caused Dust’s heart to stumble and fall. He twisted away from her touch; extremities already engulfed in a blaze as brilliantly green as the flash from earlier, and the gold-adorned pegasus turned away, hooves striking the floor unevenly as he bolted towards the hidden door left ajar in the confusion. The mare leapt, and managed to snag his tail with a golden shoe – but instead of dragging the stallion to the floor with her, the navy-blue tailtip broke off and crumbled to scentless ash in the split second she touched it. Without a counterbalance, she tumbled to the floor unceremoniously; chin bumping against the carpet with a dull thud.

Only, it was no longer carpet. Before her eyes, the lush brown coating burst into brilliant green fire around her, blackening and twisting as the flames consumed it. Dawn clambered up to all fours the moment she realized that the magical blaze held no heat for her, and bolted towards the rapidly closing wall, leaping through the tides of green without hesitation. Even as the jagged crack in the hidden brickwork sealed itself, she closed her eyes and braced herself, willing the green fire to consume the barrier as it was the rest of the house.

A resounding crack was heard as her magically enhanced helmet snapped in half on hitting the very solid wall.

And so, seeing nothing but stars and hearing nothing but a dull ringing, Dawn Guard stumbled backwards through the burning house, finally understanding.

The green fire had finally burned its way through the faux woodwork and incomprehensible cleanliness, leaving not charred remains but a relieving – even if unfamiliar – image in its place. Looking to her left, a bed piled high with filthy sheets and unwashed clothes smiled back. To the right, and several pieces of well-used, shabby furniture piled high with books and half-eaten boxes of take-out beamed at the mare. Nine stumbles back, and a truly frightening visage of a bathroom glared, adorned with sufficient spiderwebs and oddly cracked stone to fully stock a haunted house. The kitchen, on the other hoof, was simply blocked off from the amount of debris that had fallen in from the rodent colony that had collapsed the roof several weeks prior.

She finished her reverse tour by smacking her head on the last remaining limb of a truly pitiful coathanger. It responded by snapping in half and poking her in the stomach in a way that may have hurt if the wood wasn’t old, damp, and full of holes.

So Dawn lay there, taking in everything that had become clear in the last five minutes. She took a long, slow blink. For an instant, the mahogany-lined walls and hollow frames replaced the decrepit hallway, only to melt away as she saw through the façade. Slowly, she got up for the fourth time that day and braced herself for what she had to do.

The dull howl of the wind and light chatter of ponies on the street faded out as Dawn traversed the hallway, finally seeing it for real this time. No frames hung upon the barren walls, and the barely-standing roof drooped down in several places. She gingerly stepped over a black splotch by the kitchen door, and was cautious enough to not place a hoof into the small holes that revealed the concrete foundation holding up the floorboards. The smell of cheap air fresheners assaulted her nose, and more than once she had to hold back a sneeze from the overpowering scent of unkempt wood.

When she came to a halt at the end of the hallway, Dawn briefly considered mashing down on the loose board to pop open the wall, though given how precariously everything seemed to be going at the moment, a touch of softness seemed appropriate. So she pressed her ear to the wall, swallowed the lump in her throat, and gently called out Dust’s name.

Or, rather, she tried to. What she really did was voice out the ‘D’ before nearly ejecting her breakfast as a bolt of discomfort and uncertainty rocketed up her throat. As though triggered by the attempt at speaking, doubts began bombarding her rational mind, the temptation to press down on the plank, or better yet, bolt and leave the corporeally decorated house forever screamed to the forefront of her brain.

‘He’s one of them!’ Shouted the loudest uncertainty, blaring through her being like a trombone, ‘A vicious, love-stealing, friend-impersonating, pony-abducting-‘

“Changeling…” She murmured, the urge to remove her ear from the wall and just go away almost painful in its strength. Yet she remained in place, steeled her stomach, and surprised herself with the unmistakable quivering in her voice. “Dust, please… Just let me in.”

A soft shifting and the clanking of metal. “N-no. Just… Just go away, Dawn…“ A muffled voice replied, accompanied by several more metallic thuds. “… I… I’ll come out later, and everything’ll be back to n-normal, okay? I… I promise…”

‘Normal…’

A deep breath filled her lungs of its own accord. Eyes wide, she took a step back from the passage in the brickwork. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it Dust? Being normal.”

No response – one wasn’t needed.

“You came to Equestria as far away from the capital as possible, in the form of a faceless guard, all to be normal? All to fit in?” She said, voice rising. “Dust Mote isn’t even your name, is it!? Just a false one you made to seem a normal, run-of-the-mill pony! How could you come here and create a life where everypony loves you for who you are while lying to us about what you are! How could you do that to everypony! How could you do that to me!?”

That last syllable hung in the air for a moment, daring somepony to break the silence it wrought. For nearly five whole minutes, not a single sound came from either guard, not a single move made. And then, without the smallest warning, the wall slid open and beckoned the mare in, the once solid layer of brick replaced with a small, descending stairway.

A few endless seconds later, it slid closed behind her with an emotionless click.

The spiral staircase stretched down for nineteen steps, not counting either of the floors. Each time one of Dawn’s armored hooves came to rest on one, the more jumbled her thoughts became. On the first step, she felt deceived. On the second, angry. The third, guilty. By the nineteenth, the mare simply didn’t know what to think anymore.

During those nineteen gradual drops in altitude, hundreds of progressively unrealistic ideas of what lay below whisked through her head. Maybe the stairwell led to a tunnel connecting the town to a changeling hive. Perhaps she’d find half of Trotondo down here, already having been replaced with chitinous doppelgangers. Buck, she may even come across a superweapon primed and ready to destroy Equestria!

But on the eighteenth step, Dawn hesitated, hoof floating above the last, where the shadows thinned to whatever source of light lay behind the corner. Twice that day she had been frozen at the gateway to something jarring and unexpected; the first time had led to the discovery of the fake house, and the second opened her eyes to her best friend’s darkest secret. What more could a changeling hide?

She shook her head almost violently the instant that thought came into being. How could she think that way? Even if Dust was… one of them, she didn’t have the right to call him such. For all the time she had known him he had been a loyal and true friend (and a pretty good guard, for that matter), even if he had been hiding what he looked like behind a mask.

‘You know what, buck common sense.’ Dawn let her hoof rest on the floor. ‘A silly little secret like this is hardly reason enough to ruin our friendship. Changeling or not, he asked me out, and one way or another he’s going to take me out!’

Thus, confidence restored, the mare swung herself around the corner, fully prepared to face whatever lay around it. Maybe there was a death ray. Perhaps Trotondo awaited in silent stasis. Ten thousand changelings may even lay in wait, ready to lunge. But so long as the day came to a close with herself and Dust sitting around a candle-lit table making awkward eye contact while eating salad and drinking alcohol, she didn’t care. She’d break it, she’d free them, she’d beat them all single-hooved – and as Celestia was her witness, she’d do whatever it took to have that day end on a good note.

“Skitter.”

The word pierced the silence that had befallen the tiny, barren room. Both of the beings within probably would’ve found Dawn’s courageous gallop into a nearly-vacant room from around the corner to be side-splittingly hilarious earlier that week, but in that moment, to laugh was an impossible feat. Dawn had clearly been expecting something grand, some grand culmination of a vile changeling scheme.

Instead, she had burst into a basement that was hardly large enough for two ponies to sit in, much less scuffle. Within the room there were only two things worth mentioning. The first, propped on the back wall, rested the ornate mirror that once hid the passageway from prying eyes. The large reflective surface had a crack running down its height that seemed to tell more than the meager creature that sat in front of it: the jagged line that split its owner’s image in two spoke of pain, of anguish, and of fear. Each curve in this line seemed to be different from another – while each one may have originated from the round indent of the hoof that caused the fracture, not a single portion of the mass was identical to another. They each held their own story, their own life.

The black being that wore the golden armor much too large for it slumped down, wishing for a moment that it could cry. Fate had taken everything: his hive, his family, his normalcy, and now his final chance. Perhaps it would be better this way – now his presence wouldn’t hinder the beautiful town that he had helped to protect for eight long months.

“Skitter,” Repeated the inhabitant, obscured entirely by the equestrian suit of armor, “You wanted to know my real name… It’s Skitter. Drone two thousand eight hundred nineteen of the dead hive Axium.”

Guilt poured from Dawn, and the being felt her approach. “I’m sorry to have snapped at you like that, Du-“

“Dawn, don’t.” He said firmly, cutting her off. “I’m a monster. A changeling.”

He took in a shuddering breath, trying to hide just how rotten he felt at that moment for saying such things about himself, all the while believing them to be true. “And, as a royal guard acting under the will of Celestia herself, it is your duty to apprehend any threat to the area you’re stationed in.” The self-proclaimed monster took a long look at the mirror, placing a hoof upon its surface and wiping away some of the dust that coated it. The pegasus reflected within refused to mimic the appearance of the being on the other side. “Go on, do with me as you will.”

Confusion. Anger. Sadness. Each emotion radiating from the mare seemed almost tangible as they brushed by the changeling, each one promising different flavors and tastes if he were to draw them in – yet he did nothing, letting the excess of emotion flow by him and become lost to the air. It took nearly a minute for Dawn’s emotions to contain themselves and become obscured from changeling detection.

Not making an effort to stay quiet, the guard trotted up to the monster’s side. She shook her head once, looked unsurprised at the way Dust was reflected, and flung her armor to the floor with a clang. Needless to say, the other entity in the room jumped, startled. ‘What is she…?’

And then he felt a pair of hooves wrap around him in a warm embrace. His vigil melted almost immediately, and the head still wearing the much-too-big helmet turned to face his companion, who was – of all things – smiling at him with her big green eyes. The smallest of tears began to form in his reflection’s eyes.

“You can be Dust or you can be Skitter, I don’t care,” She said to him, bringing him even closer, “You’re still the pony who comes to my house every morning at exactly six thirty, still the colt who thinks it’s funny to act like an idiot in public, and still the stallion who asked me to Salad’s last night.”

He gave her a gaze and opened his mouth. With a lopsided smirk, she placed a hoof on it and stopped him before he could utter a word, all the while reaching around and pulling off his golden helm, revealing the inky black chitinous shell and membrane-like mane below.

“We both know that you’re not a monster, Dust, and so does the rest of Trotondo.” She stated, pouring care all over him. “So I’m asking you, as a friend and not a guard...” She gestured towards her discarded chestplate with a mahogany-shaded hoof, dismissing it without a second thought, “Will you stop being so angsty and sweep me off my feet for that date, already?”

Eyes wide and quivering, the changeling looked first at the pegasus stallion in the mirror, who’s tear-stained cheeks were drying. Then he looked to his hooves, where the golden shoes hung loosely around the cheese-like limbs that had long since stopped shaking. Finally, he stared at Dawn, his knight in shining armor. Or rather, knight-who-made-a-point-by-throwing-off-said-shining-armor. Heck, she wasn’t much of a knight at all; that was supposed to be his job!

And so, smile breaking from his fanged mouth, Dust Mote shook himself free from armor, sorrow and worry alike as he rose to his hooves. Interlocking a forelimb with one of Dawn’s own, he opened his mouth to speak, to thank her, to accept her pseudo-invitation.

After about twenty seconds of him standing there with his mouth wide open, struggling to find a fitting way to cram his feelings at that moment into the perfect sentence, his date rolled her eyes and pulled him towards the stairs.

“Come on, Salad’s is closed by now – I have some food at my house, we can have our romantic, candle-lit dinner there.”

The changeling quickly stopped, turned her around, and gave Dawn a great big hug.

“Thank you, Dawn, thank you so much. For this. For all of this.”

She let out a breath she didn’t remember holding and squeezed him back. Neither of them said a word for the duration of the hug, and neither of them looked back, to the side, or pretty much anywhere but ‘at each other’ as they walked, smiled, and laughed their way through midnight in Trotondo.

‘So tonight went a little bit differently than planned…’ Thought the mare as she found herself snorting in humor at a cheesy line emitted by a changeling, a monster rumored to to suck positive emotions from ponies via lies and treachery, ‘But, in this case, I think that ‘different’ is one of the best things to ever happen to me.’

In that moment, Dawn had a powerful urge to overzealously make out with the still-undisguised Dust. She resisted.

Dawn, for one, could wait until the actual date started before getting all sappy.

“And here we are.” Stated Dawn, referring to the first of the twenty six steps that led to her front door. She gracefully nudged her chitin-plated companion in front of her. “Youth before beauty and all that.”

Dust continued to stare up at the rather daunting stairway. “… It seems taller than I remember.” Was all he said before beginning the trudge upwards. “Or is it just me?”

The pegasus giggled in a way that Dust had hardly seen before. “Just you; you seem to have shrunk about half a foot since this morning.” She explained, pausing momentarily in her ascent to pat his head, for emphasis. She giggled again. “You seem to have traded ‘handsome’ for ‘adorable’ overnight.”

Ah. That would explain the giggling. The explanation itself was reason enough for the changeling to break out in a profuse (albeit invisible and arguably nonexistent, thanks to his non-pony biology) blush, and the way she continued to coo over him when she figured out he was doing so didn’t help all that much.

“Daawnn…” He groaned, giving her his best puppy-dog-eyes (which actually came out decent, even with the whole ‘no-pupils’ thing). If he had known that being a changeling would elicit such reaction from her (albeit in a completely different way than originally expected), he’d have turned back into a pegasus for the walk.

He could almost hear her heart explode. The face she made was immensely amusing.

‘So if I did this…?’ He wondered, putting on a bit of a false pouty show. “I thought you said I’d still be the same guy as I’ve always been!”

Twice. He could almost hear her heart explode twice. Dust could see how he could use this to his advantage in future arguments…

Eventually, though, Dawn recovered and meekly stated that she’d try to not go all obsessive on him. At least not any more than was expected of a marefriend, of course.

Coincidentally, the mare had said this at the twenty-sixth step, giving the changeling an excuse to stop and bug his eyes out. While he enjoyed the newfound power over making her heart flutter uncontrollably via enlargement of his retinas, Dawn had only the words she spoke to blame for the wave of forced adorable.

“M-marefriend?” Dust choked out in the sudden realization that he was actually on a full-blown date, self-image crumbling without delay. “But, I haven’t taken a shower or put on a suit and I don’t even have my wallet and-“

Dawn laughed. A good, pure, honest-to-goodness laugh.

“Dust, I just spent a half hour reminding you how good a stallion you are, in a hidden room, underneath your house, all after spending a few hours running around town with my armor on, looking for you.” She explained, pulling out a key and defeating the lock guarding her front door. “You, on the other hand, spent all day creating what I assume to be a powerful illusion spell on your house, all the while being completely depressed about not being normal.”

“Uh…”

“What I’m saying is that we had a very, very long day, and I, for one,” Said Dawn, swinging open the door to the darkened house and throwing her date a grin, “Don’t mind if our date is a little bit unconventional.”

Maybe it was silly, maybe it was just a result of having sucked up too much emotion on the walk back, but Dust felt his heart (or equivalent thereof) beat faster. Sure, it was different, being shorter than the mare he had always towered over. Yeah, his ‘lips’ were pretty much a solid and hers were still very much those of a pony. True, they didn’t have a crowd of ponies edging them on.

But if there was one thing that remained the same the second time their faces moved together for a kiss, it was the out-of-world experience that surrounded the duo, encompassing them in a feeling that anyone, from the smallest changeling to the eldest pony, would verify as love.

And maybe, just maybe, if you asked the two in that exact moment if they held romantic feelings for each other, they wouldn’t have denied it.

“SURPRISE!!!“ Shouted half of Trotondo from within Dawn’s kitchen, causing both beings in the doorway to freeze, lips about two centimeters from connecting. Their eyes had shrunken to tiny points, staring nowhere in particular but forward, and they were both fully aware that the moment was over.

“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! What’re you guys’s names? I came over here from Ponyville because my left elbow was a-shakin’ and that always means romantic tension is happening off somewhere really really far away and…”

Dawn and Dust took in the surroundings. There was a super-ecstatic pink earth pony with poofy pink hair that neither of them knew who was babbling on about how nice a couple they made, about two hundred Trotondan ponies that were slowly realizing that there was a changeling pressed up next to Dawn Guard (all somehow crammed into the tiny kitchen), and in the middle of it all a darkened spotlight that held a small, round table lit with candles and adorned with plates of salad.

Clearly, the best option was to close the gap between their faces and complete the action they had begun some thirty seconds ago.

And so, they did.

FUN FACT ONE: I AM THE AUTHOR! Hello!
FUN FACT TWO: Dawn's descent down the hidden stairwell took twice as long to write as the whole rest of the story AND the yet-to-be-published epilogue combined and multiplied by two. Sad, I know :c
FF3: I will read every single flippin' comment and review and criticism and dangit I will listen and edit and fix the horrible, pre-readerless mess that is 'A Mote of Dust'!
FUN FACT FOUR: I encourage FF3! MOCK MY WRITING STYLEEE! ... Preferably constructively :v
HELP: My art skills are horribad. If anyone has a pretty picture that would fit better (preferably in the 'obscenely vague' style that I actually kinda pulled off on my other story's picture) please draw it/notify me and say its awight if I used it. Pwease :|
HELP the SECOND: Prereaders. I have none. If you really like this and are good at butchering bad plot/grammars, don't be afraid to ask for sneak peaks at the next chapter(s) or storie(s). Forewarning though, my writing schedule is almost as bad as my art :'(
FUN FACT FIVE: If this story gets no views and whatnot I shall feel super idiotic for having written this hurblurb XD
INQUIRY: Do you official Fimfiction people hate it if/when I type out author's notes beforehand? If so, just say so and I shall smite them in the beforehandtime! Without tarry! Huzzah!

Mangled Ramblings (Epilogue)

It had been exactly one year since Dawn Guard had been stationed to Trotondo, the Equestrian colony placed far in the frozen north. Coincidentally, it had been two months and six days since she had started dating Dust Mote, the only other royal guard stationed in the small town.

Well, perhaps ‘stationed’ is too strong a word. ‘Snuck in under the guise of one who knew what he was doing’ would be more a more precise term to describe the colt.

As it stands, one year (or even ten months, in the stallion’s case) was a long time to have to remember every single thing in the guard’s code, and Dawn’s little booklet detailing such things had long since been lost to some stray bookshelf, probably never to be pulled out again.

Essentially, it was safe enough to assume that neither of the two pegasi would remember that the annual security check always took place twelve months from the assignment of the first guard.

This guard in question was tearing through the marketplace, new helmet and recovered golden armor securely fixed in place, in hot pursuit of a smug-looking diamond dog adorned with the tattered rags and old-fashioned hat that one would expect any self-respecting canine evildoer to be wearing.

“Stop, thief!” She called again, tucking her wings to her side and rolling under a low-hanging stall, doing her best to keep up with the dog’s quick bounds on the ground. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the ground of the north was interlaced with enough ice to prevent the easy escape via digging that the dogs were capable of doing back in central Equestria.

However, as Dawn had quickly discovered, this was hardly a handicap when it came to taking down a diamond dog. While the pegasus may have been faster on land and much faster in the air, the dog had a stockier frame and a well-rounded physique; sure, if it had been a large field or plain she would’ve been able to catch him without much effort, but here, in a crowded marketplace full to bursting with ponies, obstacles and easy ways to lose a trail, the dog’s ability to turn on a dime and duck or leap without losing speed was making short work of her attempt at pursuit.

‘Alright, new plan,’ She thought, extending her wings and blasting off into the sky. ‘Don’t let him press his advantage.’

From the air, she may have been unable to see the dog directly, but a steady trail of commotion and startled shrieks gave away his position, all of which pointed directly to a large alleyway void of civilians. With a mighty clap of air-on-feather, she hurtled herself downward, extending a hoof forward and hoping that the thief didn’t catch on quickly enough to change direction.

As evidenced by the dull thud of metal horseshoe on skull, he didn’t.

Dawn flipped backwards over the dazed dog’s head, scanning the nearby ground for the bag of stolen gems – but by the time she saw it, heaped gracelessly several feet behind the perpetrator, the thick-headed canine had shaken off the brutal blow and swung a paw at her, claws sharp and at the ready. Leaping to the side to evade the swipe, Dawn figured her armor could take three hits from her attacker, given the strength built up in the dog’s forelimbs from a subterranean lifestyle.

“Last chance to surrender, thief.” She said stoically, attempting to sway the battle in her favor with a strong demeanor and references to power. “The rest of my squadron will be here shortly, and I doubt you can take on ten of Equestria’s finest at once.”

The dog laughed, pointing a twisted digit at the mare. “You all talk! Pony alone, that why I rob town!” He exclaimed, making himself look as tall as possible; an attempt to frighten off the pony, doubtlessly. “Easy pickings!”

The next second, he was knocked head over tail and into a wall as Dawn darted under his outstretched arm and landed a full-force buck to his torso. He gasped for air briefly, then fell to his rear, clutching his midsection.

‘Suits him right for letting his guard down.’ Thought Dawn smugly, trotting over to the bag and checking that the contents were still present. ‘At least now I know that diamond dogs are-‘

Dawn didn’t get to finish the thought as a very solid fist smashed into her skull, sending her spinning. Another firm hit, and she was on the ground, staring up at the dog, who was grinning manically, bag in tow.

“Haha! Pony let guard down, pony get beaten!” He cackled, looming over her evily. “Pony should know diamond dogs tougher than wall and kick to belly!”

Dawn froze, staring upwards.

“Now I get away with all these gems and nothing pony can do to stop me!” He continued, prodding at the bag. “… That your cue to hit diamond dog as hard as you can.”

The mare, still crouched down, shook her head back and forth quickly, eyes darting to and from the dog and something behind him.

“Dawn, I’m letting my guard down. Again. That’s the whole point of this.” Stated the dog, setting the bag down and putting his paws on his sides. “I’m too tough to take down like most other baddies, so you have to keep it up. Dogs aren’t invincible, just hard to hurt.”

He scratched his head to Dawn’s panicky gaze, and bent to his knees, extending a paw.

“Come on, I didn’t even hit you that hard. I know from experience that you can take hits just as well as you can gooomph!”

The diamond dog was cut off mid-sentence as something grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and lifted him a good foot above the ground. He gave a little confused shout, flailed his limbs about, and turned to see the entity that Dawn had tried, fruitlessly, to warn him about.

The entity in question was an abnormally large pony, coat a very light pink, with a cutie mark that depicted, unmistakably, the sun. Her mane and tail seemed to flow in a nonexistent wind, the colors of the rainbow shimmering through them. All of these features seemed a bit pale compared to the realization that she had both a horn and wings.

Plus, the alicorn was frowning. That was most definitely not a good thing.

“You’re Princess Celestia, aren’t you?” The diamond dog said, feeling an onslaught of chill rush through his veins.

The alicorn nodded.

“… Um, this isn’t what it looks like?” He sputtered, trying to think up something, anything, that would stop the deity of the sun from looking at him like that. “Dawn? Help? Please?”

As if awakening from a stupor, Dawn shook her head and leaped to her hooves, mind racing.

“Uh, you see, we were only practicing, Dust thought that we should step up our defenses and since diamond dogs are-“

Princess Celestia locked her steely gaze with Dawn’s considerably less-steely one. “Are you saying that this robbery was staged, and that this diamond dog,” She bobbed the dog up and down once for emphasis, “is guilty of no crime?”

They both nodded furiously. Both let out deep breaths when the diamond dog was set gently on the ground, and the dog and pegasus wasted no time in embracing. Celestia raised an eyebrow, but gave no additional comment.

“Erh, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you here, Princess?” Asked Dawn, letting go of the diamond dog and turning to face Celestia. “Is something happening down south that we need to know of?”

“Not that I am aware of.” Replied the princess, turning to the marketplace and gesturing for the duo to follow. “I just came to ensure that things are running up smoothly. I trust that I’m not late for the annual check?”

Dawn and the diamond dog shared a quick, relieved glance.

“Oh, the annual check-in!” Said Dawn, loosening up by a fair amount. “Apologies, princess, Dust and I must have forgotten about it.”

Celestia opened her mouth to speak, but was quickly cut off by the diamond dog, who was carrying the ‘sack of gems’ from their simulation. “Not that we aren’t ready for verification! Everything is in order around town, and we’d be more than pleased to show you around. Your highness.”

The three turned a corner, returning to the bustling marketplace. Immediately, dozens of ponies stopped whatever they were doing and dropped their heads low, bowing for the princess.

“Wow.” Said the diamond dog quietly, amazed at how much respect everypony held for the princess. This didn’t go unnoticed by the alicorn.

“Hello everypony,” Said the princess, motioning for the ponies to rise, “No need for formalities, these two individuals were just going to show me around the colony. Continue as you were.”

The canine let out another ‘wow’ as everypony did just that. It was so different from earlier encounters with royalty – and in a much better way, too. Yet Celestia kept walking forward, now following the lead of Dawn, as though nothing had happened. It was just amazing how much love the ponies held for their princess!

Several seconds later, the dog finally caught up to the princess and guard, giving both a smile and the second a poke on the shoulder.

“Hey Dawn, I’m going to go return our ‘gems,’” He said, shrugging the bag slung over his shoulder. “Where will you be taking the princess first?”

“Town hall.” She replied simply, returning his smile. “Then the supermarket, then gym. Check at those when you finish, wouldn’t want to hold up the princess!”

The princess let out a little laugh. “Believe me, I’m in no hurry. Before you go though, what are you named?”

The diamond dog and Dawn locked eyes for a split second as Celestia prompted for a name. The mare shrugged, and the diamond dog rolled his eyes.

“Dust Mote. Your majesty.”

“What a unique name, for a diamond dog. I’m glad they’ve decided to liven up the variety of the populace with the next generation.” She intoned, smiling. “Ah well, good luck in your little adventure, Dust Mote. We’ll see you shortly.”

And then, they were off.

Dust blinked. She, the leader of the ponies, had complimented his name and wished him good luck in returning a bag of potatoes.

‘No wonder nopony speaks ill of her!’ He thought, making his way over to Papa Tater’s stall. ‘If all the queens were even half as nice as Celestia… Ha, I wish.’

“An interesting coltfriend you have there, Dawn.” Said the almighty ruler of Equestria, attempting to strike a conversation with the mare. “May I ask how the two of you came to be a couple?”

Her victim’s face turned a nice shade of red at this. ‘You still got it, Tia.’

After a moment to compose herself, Dawn nodded lightly. “Well, Dust arrived about two months after I was stationed here. After a bit, everypony started dropping hints that we’d go well together, and a few weeks ago, I guess we just took their advice.”

She smiled, a faraway smile that Celestia recognized. She’d seen it many times over the ages, and it had even graced her own visage a few times.

“… And, in the end, they were right. He’s a great guy, in his own way.”

Celestia wanted to believe that story. It would’ve been perfect, the pony and the diamond dog, a story for all ages. However, one glaring point stuck out, one that the princess simply couldn’t ignore.

“And the ponies of Trotondo…” Implied the princess, just now noticing that Dawn seemed to be fidgeting a bit, as though she had remembered an important detail a little bit too late. “Not to be offensive to you or Dust, the townsponies openly encouraged a romance between a pony and diamond dog?”

Celestia expected a quick, snapping anger. A stubborn huff and an instinctive death glare. Pointing out how different one’s coltfriend was of a race generally disliked, or even hated, by most ponies was a surefire way to evoke a reaction from a mare.

Instead, Dawn gave a nervous little laugh, attempted to flip her mane (which failed, given that her helmet held it in place above her head), and pointed forward, changing the subject as subtly as a train wreck in motion.

“Eheh, look, town hall already! Wow, time sure flies fast! I’ll show you around inside, Princess…”

‘Interesting.’

“Thanks, Tater!” Exclaimed the diamond dog, turning and setting a brisk pace for himself in the direction of town hall.

“Anytime, Dusty!” Replied the older unicorn, waving a farewell. “And say hi to Dawn for me!”

With a quick nod and smile, Dust dropped to all fours and prepared for a very doggish sprint to town hall. As he surged forward, ducking, swinging and spinning through and around the marketplace, the wild joy of being one with his glamour pulsed through his body. Seeing a group of young ponies, he gave a wicked smile and braced himself to jump over them, unable to restrain from showing off a bit.

But when he came close enough for his powerful eyes to scan the little group of colts in detail, the dog planted all four paws into the ground and came to a giant, dusty, screeching halt right next to the used pocketwatch vendor where the colts were gathered. The group in question cheered and applauded the diamond dog that had nearly run them over.

“Flare?” Asked Dust, pointing to one of the little ponies lumped near the center of the mob. “Flare Dare, is that what I think it is?”

The colt in question, a maroon-hued earth pony with a flaming red mane, leaped to his hooves. The little crowd gazed in wonder as the five-year-old pony surged to the diamond dog and gave him a great big hug.

“Dust! It worked! I knew it would work!” He cried out, excitement pouring from the little tyke in waves. “You said that tight roping over Miss Pastry’s clothesline wouldn’t get me my cutie mark, but it did! It did!”

The diamond dog rolled his eyes and pulled the hyper little colt off his chest and examined his flank. Indeed, where earlier that week there had been nothing but a maroon patch of fur now sat proudly an image of a flaming pogo stick. It was an interesting cutie mark, for sure, but Dust had seen odder ones in his time in Trotondo.

He looked up to the sun to guesstimate the time. He still had a bit.

And so, the diamond dog hunched down and met Flare’s adorable little stare with his own. “You remember what I said I’d do when you got your cutie mark?”

Flare’s head nodded so eagerly that Dust thought it might’ve fallen off. “A changeling ride?!”

Dust nodded. “A changeling ride.”

It took a few minutes for Flare’s little group of admirers to stop glomping him, and a few more for him to run and grab his miniature set of goggles and aviator’s cap. Nodding once to his friends in a way that must’ve looked super cool to the colts (and the filly gazing amorously at him from a bush), Flare stated proudly that he was ready.

Cracking a grin, the diamond dog gave a wink to the filly, pulled his paws in front of him, and gave them a firm crack. He dropped to all fours in front of the eager group of colts, closed his eyes, and spontaneously burst into bright green fire. Everycolt responded with a wave of cheering and awestruck glances towards Flare.

When the flames had died down, where the diamond dog had once stood was a strange, insect-like creature that was slightly less than average sized compared to most ponies (which meant that it still towered over the colts). Instead of fur, its body was coated in thick black plating, with the only breaks being the odd holes of varying sizes in its legs and two solid, blue eyes that seemed to have points of brightness to indicate where the creature was looking. In lieu of a mane and tail, the changeling had a substance that seemed partway between aquatic membrane and thin, lizard-like scale – while this substance may have been bunched up and wrinkled at his rear to form a short tail that looked merely like a pony’s, a single, thicker layer of it stretched up his neck and onto his head for a thin, Zebracan-style mane.

Plus the hole-filled, instectoid wings and seamless curved horn. But really, who would miss traits as vital as those.

“So, I heard one of you got their cutie mark today!” Said the changeling in his melodious, echoing voice loudly and somewhat redundantly – he may have already known, but it was so much fun to hype up the children as he did. “And that a certain somepony wanted to fly around on a changeling. Who, if I would be so bold to ask, would this colt be?”

Flare had long since lost all traces of childlike dignity, now hopping around with an arm extended high into the sky. “Me! Me! Dust, I got my cutie mark! Me, Flare!”

Dust smiled, feeling his fangs brush on his lower lip. He never really liked the fangs, they couldn’t even pierce cardboard and were such high maintenance. Even if they did help channel emotions and make him look awesome, he’d have gladly traded the two pieces of fragile bone for a multipurpose horn. But, at that moment, his mental ramblings were irrelevant.

What was relevant was making sure Flare was strapped in tightly to the little leather harness that had appeared with a flash of green when the colt had been lifted to his back. When Dust was confident that his passenger was safely secured, he imagined himself a pair of matching goggles (that appeared, tightened perfectly, with a rivulet of green fire) and struck a pose, wings extended.

“You ready for the flight of your life, Flare Dare?” He asked in that echoing, layered voice. He felt furious nodding come from the little pony holding tight to his neck. “Then let’s do this!”

Dust Mote flung himself into the air with a bout of rapid flapping, did a front flip right in front of the little group of colts as a preview of what was to come, and blasted high into the air, doing his best to make Flare’s day as special as possible.

After all, that was what a good guard did. Give the ponies they watched over a sense of safety, freedom, and joy. Some ponies got these feelings by watching a gold-plated stallion walk through the marketplace, ready at all times to leap into action. Others did by talking to these stoic guardians, knowing that they, too, were ponies who did their best to help others.

And then there were ponies like Flare Dare, who felt safe, happy, and accepted by feeling the air rush by their face, held aloft on the wings of their heroes.

Dust’s airborne grin only grew larger as his passenger let out whoops of excitement and shouts of joy. He liked that; Dust Mote the changeling: hero to the children of Trotondo.

“And here is the log, where we sign in for daily duties.” Finished Dawn, proudly holding up the ream of paper for Celestia to inspect. “And I’m pleased to report that we have one of the lowest absence rates in the nation!”

Again, Celestia found herself smiling. Dawn seemed so eager and proud when it came to accomplishments, as shown by the back wall of the town hall; for more than half of the medals pinned there, she had given a brief recounting on how they (or, in several of the earlier cases, just her) had helped Trotondo in some way or form. During this time, the princess had smiled and nodded at each explanation. Sure, she had heard each plaque a thousand times, but with every new pony that read them aloud came a new vigor, a refresher on how great the ponies of the time and age could really be.

Yet during this time, the same sentence kept coming up again and again. ‘… to Dawn Guard and Dust Mote, royal guards under Princess Celestia.’ This suspicion was only reinforced when the princess saw the two lines of text that extended, almost solid, through every sheet of paper through the stack – the stack of paper reserved solely for members of the royal guard.

Halfway through Dawn’s rather touching recounting of how she and Dust had been vacant for three days to return an injured gryphonlet to its parents, Celestia cleared her throat in a way that suggested much experience in the act.

“Dawn Guard, it has come to my attention that, through both your verbal recounts and these solid pieces of evidence, Dust Mote seems to be referred to as a royal guard.” She said, not letting the slightest bit of emotion seep through her calm demeanor. “However, I was under the impression that Dust is a diamond dog, and physically incapable of, as this commendation states…”

Celestia peered towards the third plaque to the left, eyeing the wording. “… Posing, in full royal guard attire, for the sculptor Clay LeBleu with his companion Dawn Guard, also in full attire, for four six-hour sessions.”

The princess turned back to Dawn, who seemed to have frozen in place. Again.

“Additionally, these attendance records that you’ve shown me clearly label Dawn Guard and Dust Mote as the sole two guards stationed in Trotondo. However, by my memory, only one guard was assigned to this colony – one Dawn Guard.”

The alicorn gazed intently at the pegasus, who remained almost as active as a block of ice. Unmoving in her own way, Celestia regarded Dawn with amusement. She hadn’t been expecting even half this reaction – without a doubt in her mind, the princess knew that something was off about this ‘Dust Mote’, but the question was, what?

The answer, as it stands, came considerably sooner than the monarch had expected.

The door burst open, and in flew a creature that a great many deemed to be a parasitic monster – a creature encased in black chitin, a set of gossamer wings, a very unpony-like curved horn, and hole-filled extremities. The solid blue eyes of the creature seemed to be filled with a blazing azure fire, and on its back the princess was thoroughly surprised to see a little flame-maned colt wearing a set of aviator goggles.

“Dawn!” Shouted the changeling, staring intently at the still-frozen mare with a passion that honestly surprised the goddess. “I felt fear, and panic! Are you alright!? What happened? Why… did…”

The changeling was now staring at Celestia. His eyes were bugged out as large as they could go and, after a brief glance down at a hoof to verify that there were indeed holes in it, he swallowed loudly.

“I’ll… just be outside…” He whispered, voice inexplicably hoarse in the presence of the princess. “Don’t mind u-urk!”

Celestia stopped the changeling with an effortless wall of magic as he tried to sneak back out of the door. She slowly dragged the black critter towards her with a telekinetic wave. Then, as completely emotionless as always, she spoke.

“Release the colt, changeling.”

Without delay, the harness flickered and burned out of existence, sending the maroon colt flailing head-over-hooves to the ground. A spare twinkle of light pink caught him, setting him gently to the ground, where he pulled up his cap and gazed up at Celestia.

“Care to explain why you barged into the town hall of a moderately-populated Equestrian settlement, focused on a royal pegasus guard indistinguishable from all others (on account of her armor enchantment) over the formidable being that is myself, goddess of the sun and co-ruler of all Equestrian ponies, all the while having a child under my protection strapped to your back?” She asked in the same tone as one would ask a baker if their inventory contained muffins.

The changeling almost spoke, but seemed to think better of it and merely made himself as small as he could, cowering before her with eyes obscured as best as they could be with his hole-filled hooves. The alicorn sighed, took a step back, lifted her head high into the air and channeled a focused sphere of radiant white magic to flare from her massive horn. With this power, the princess-

“Excuse me, Miss Princess Celestia?” Came a small, piping voice, accompanied by a tugging on one of the royal horseshoes. “Before you do whatever it is you’re going to do, can I ask something, please?”

The princess, ever a sucker for the whims of the young, allowed the glow to dissipate and gazed down at the little colt with kindness and patience that had been all but nonexistent several seconds prior. “Yes?”

Hooves brushing over one another, the little pony looked waaay up to the towering figure of Celestia and asked, in a voice piping with sorrow, if she was going to hurt his friend, Dust.

The princess, royal guardian of the sun and Equestria, banisher of Nightmare Moon, etc. etc., looked down at the colt in genuine confusion. “No, of course not! Why would I hurt your friend?”

The large set of copper eyes blinked once. “Because when he and Miss Dawn were gonna make out the second time, after Miss Pie came over and brought us all into Miss Dawn’s kitchen with their romantic candle-lit dinner, and when they opened the door they were about to kiss but we all shouted ‘surprise’ and they were surprised and then Miss Pie went over and introduced herself and said how nice a couple they made but then we all realized that Miss Pie was talking about Miss Dawn and Dust but on the doorstep we saw that it was actually Miss Dawn and a changeling - we all knew because Mister Post brought us all a newspaper that told us about it – and they looked around for a few seconds and then they went and kissed in front of everypony and Miss Pie clapped and everypony from town looked confused and kind of sat around until they stopped kissing which took almost five whole minutes and then Miss Dawn explained that the changeling was actually Dust and that it was okay and we shouldn’t report him to you, Miss Princess Celestia, because he was actually nice, not like what the paper said and everypony agreed that having Dust exiled and banished to a prison in the jungle on the moon like Miss Princess Luna but forever because he was just a changeling and not your sister, and then in the morning after Miss Dawn had kicked us all out because she said she wanted a private romantic dinner with Dust they made an announcement with Mister Mayor Stallion that formally introduced Dust to town as the second royal guard and that it had been him the whole time and then they said ‘the issue was resolved’ but it wasn’t because not everypony was entirely convinced that Dust was actually a changeling and they kept thinking up elaborate ways to prove that he was actually evil but after Dust used his changeling powers to protect us from an oncoming army of actually evil changelings and he took a cherry pie aimed at Miss Dawn who was protecting Mister Mayor Stallion and he almost died but he got better after about two weeks and by that time everypony finally realized that he was really a good changeling and our parents let us include him in our games in public instead of in private like we had to before they were entirely convinced, but as it stands he’s still a changeling and I know that Miss Princess Cadence and Mister Shining who are your respective niece and nephew-in-law had a really bad experience with a changeling queen and her hive that Dust explained went insane over twisted ideals and a mental illness that had been going around at the time and I thought that you might hurt or exile or do horrible things that nopony says we should know about because we’re too young but we already learned about from comic books anyway and we all really love Dust and I really hope you don’t hurt him or anypony else just because of how they look like, Miss Princess Celestia.”

It took an amazing amount of effort to not break her composure when faced with the colt’s speech. Never once in her considerably long life had the princess ever heard such a long speech voiced entirely without the aid of breathing, and this marvel was only magnified by the fact that, even after spitting all that out, the colt continued to respirate normally, chest rising and falling as slowly as ever.

Fortunately for the colt’s speech itself, Pinkie Pie had been born in this generation and had reminded the princess of the finer arts of comprehending large, hard-to-follow rambles. Granted, the princess found it more informative regarding the backstory of the faux guard than convincing regarding what she was to do, but she was quite sure that if that speech had a spirit, it could rest happy knowing that it served a pivotal purpose: finish convincing the princess that the changeling was, in fact, harmless. Two last questions, though, and then she would finish the spell she had since begun.

“What is your name, brave colt?” She asked, her lack of reprimanding reassuring him. “And, if you don’t mind telling me, why was Dust carrying you around on his back?”

“I’m Flare Dare, leader of the Super Adventurer’s club!” He exclaimed with pride, puffing out his adorable little chest. “And Dust was carrying around because he promised me he’d give me a changeling ride if I got my cutie mark before I was too big for one!”

The royal eyebrow (left edition) raised. “A… changeling ride?”

Flare nodded a few times, goggles flapping about wildly. “It’s where Dust is a changeling and he flies me way high into the sky! And then he does all the cool tricks that he did while pretending to be you, Miss Princess Celestia, during Nightmare Night – but with me on his back!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Celestia would’ve noticed the emotional equivalent of a bright red blush pop up on Dust’s face through the holes in his legs from where had been frozen, perhaps a bit unfairly, on the floor in the exact same position he’d been in for several minutes. She couldn’t blame him, though – she made one heck of a Nightmare Night costume, and he was just one of thousands who impersonated her on that night. But his response had brought up another question in the regal mare’s mind, and despite the whole ‘Luna I’ll be back in a half hour or so’ line she had said three hours ago, Celestia figured that it wouldn’t hurt to tickle her fancy a little bit more.

“And why, Flare, did you want to fly around on a changeling and not somepony like me, or Luna, or even Discord? Wouldn’t that be cooler?”

He looked from Celestia to Dust, and motioned for the deity to move her head closer, as if for a secret. Bending over almost double to do so, the colt eagerly whispered into her ear. “Maybe it would’ve looked cooler to fly around on your back, or even zig around in weird shapes with a Discord-qwus, but, between us, I think that Dust is the coolest friend to have, ever!” He said, clearly pouring out a great secret to the princess. “And I wanted a changeling ride and not some other thing ride because he never wants to be one! He’d give me a Princess ride anytime if I really wanted to have one, but he tries really hard to stay disguised in public, even if he told us it wasn’t easy to always be a pegasus, because he still thinks he’d make everypony uncomfortable if he didn’t pretend to be somepony he’s not. Besides, it’s not his fault, that’s just the way he was born!” He shot another glance at Dust, who was still crouched in the exact same pose as before. “I just wanted to let him know that he doesn’t have to pretend just to be the pony that I want to be when I grow up!”

Celestia looked at the colt oddly for a minute.

‘That… was deep, to say the least.’ She thought, allowing one of her characteristic smiles to appear upon her face. ‘It makes me wonder what sort of stallion this colt will grow into – especially given his cutie mark of 'flaming pogo stick'.’

“Between observing and conversing with the three of you, I have reached a conclusion.” Stated the princess, bringing herself to full height and re-lighting her horn with that celestial white glow. ‘Dust Mote, changeling, I banish you, and your witness, Dawn Guard…”

Flare gasped, and the two guards would have done so as well if Celestia hadn’t frozen them in place with her magic some time back, “… To the immigration embassy!”

The colt almost lunged for them, but shortly realized that the princess had not said ‘the moon’ or ‘lifelong imprisonment’. And by the time that he had remembered exactly what an immigration embassy was (he was still five, after all!), the three ponies in the town hall had exploded in quaint little showers of golden sparks.

He frowned, turned to the door, and made to leave. That was exactly why he liked Dust more than Celestia: he was blunt enough to tell him exactly what he was going to do, and not say some random vague words and teleport away before anypony could figure them out.

It seemed like a lot of the newer ponies were doing that lately. In all honesty, Flare found those ponies who purposefully mangled their wording to be the dumbest of them all.

Bang!

The mare, the changeling, and the alicorn burst into existence with an explosion of golden light. Contrary to what one may have expected, the ‘bang’ didn’t come from the teleport itself. No, teleportation only caused an audible noise as the teleporters left, owing to the sudden vacancy in space that air rushed furiously into. The ‘bang’ actually came from the serene water cooler that the princess’ wing had bumped into on teleport, which proceeded to splash into the luxury heater, creating a complex chain reaction that ended with the immolation of said heater.

Still holding both of her captives in their frozen states, Celestia quickly swiveled her head to the left, then to the right.

And then, holding herself with a grace practiced over hundreds of years, she sprinted down the brighty-lit lobby, hurled Dawn and Dust through one of the pony-sized metal doors near the end, and exploded in another shower of sparks – back to Trotondo, to ensure that there weren’t any additional beasties there.

By the time the embassy’s sole, overworked janitor had run in to see flames spitting from the heater-concealing rectangular grate in the floor, the hallway was empty once more. With a groan, Posh Tips picked up the large bag of bits that had since appeared in the middle of the floor – just enough to fix the heater. Again.

The instant that Celestia threw her into the darkened room, Dawn Guard was finally able to relax her wings, blink, and itch the spot on her flank that had been tearing at her for the past while. A nearby thud (shortly followed by a groan) alerted the mare to the presence of her stallionfriend, and she made a blind lunge towards him, wanting a hug - a physical reminder that Dust was still there and well.

She missed and hit a wall.

Eventually though, after a fair amount of shuffling and inability to see anything, the two had finally managed to find each other and place their heads within whispering distance. Sure, they could’ve just talked loudly, but both felt as though doing that in a warm, muggy room with absolutely no light source wouldn’t be quite fitting.

Well, that and the whole ‘it’s awkward to talk loudly when in the comforting embrace of your special somepony’ thing.

“What do you think is going to happen to us?” Came a voice after a time.

“I… Don’t know.” Replied the other. “But she said this was an immigration embassy - it doesn’t sound very bad…”

“So? Changelings may look amazingly handsome, but a lot of them are evil vermin.” Said the first voice, its joking tone brightening up the mood a bit. “You, of all people, should know that.”

“And why would I know anything of evil insect ponies?” Said voice two in a mock-insulted way. “My special somepony is much more knowledgeable when it comes to the more… intimate details.”

“… What, exactly, do you mean by ‘intimate details,’ D-“

“Juuuust this little trick...” Said the voice in a fashion that could be described as ‘unfitting for the current situation,’ accompanied with the calm, swathing noise that shell and fur make when rubbed together.

“Whatareyou!?! This is hardly the place for…!” Exclaimed the other voice, sounding quite different from normal. In fact, it sounded almost as if…

All of a sudden, a bright flash of light blazed through the room, revealing it to be a deep, rectangular box of sorts, where the only decorations were the glaringly white walls and two round couch-chair-cushion things that the duo had somehow managed to miss. The far wall exploded into blue light, and the magnified image of a pale grey unicorn appeared, face adorned with a suspiciously generic grin.

“Hello!” It said, staring at the chairs. “Welcome to Equestrian Immigration Office,”

There was about a two second pause. Dawn and Dust didn’t notice – they were still in the corner, pressed together in a position that could be called nothing if not compromising, inappropriate and kinky. They were frozen just as surely as before, but without magic holding them in place that time.

“… Number seven!” Finished the stallion in a slightly higher voice, only to have it drop back to normal on his next line. “To proceed with registration, please sit in the designated seats and await further instruction. From me. The Immigrator.”

The unicorn on the screen went silent, and continued staring intently at the chairs.

“Dawn… I don’t think he’s a real pony…” Said Dust after a moment, awkwardly standing up and patting down a patch of his marefriend’s coat that had been ruffled in their little activity. “I’m pretty sure he’s a recording or something.”

Nodding, she came to her hooves and trotted over to the comfortable-looking chairs. Figuring that there was no other way out of the white box, she sat. The changeling followed suit shortly after.

Immediately, the unicorn on the screen continued to speak, as though nothing had happened.

“Commencing changeling identification procedure.”

A low hum filled the room for a second or two. Dawn looked around, wondering what the sound was. Dust, on the other hand, sneezed violently and briefly erupted in green fire, which achieved absolutely nothing, seeing as he was already undisguised. As soon as the flames had receded, the hum shut off and the announcer blinked once.

“Changeling identified!” He exclaimed, continuing to stare closely at a spot somewhere between the two chairs. “Please enter the name you identify with on our patented name registrar. First and last, if applicable.”

A large sheet of blue magic sparkled to life in front of Dust, adorned with about eighteen of the most common alphabets. A semi-transparent 32-letter slot appeared in front of the Immigrator’s face, and he fell silent once more.

After receiving another shrug from Dawn, the black coated being rolled his eyes and brought his hooves to rest over the Equestrian alphabet, where he rattled off his name for the second time that day.

“DUST MOTE accepted as name!” The Immigrator cried out after several seconds. “DAWN GUARD, please confirm the identity and trustworthiness of DUST MOTE.”

“Uh, he’s a great pony! Er, changeling!” She said, almost tripping on her words. “He’s been a great friend and partner in the guard in the eight months I’ve known him, and-“

“Response accepted! Commencing final procedure!”

An unnoticeable panel in the floor slid open, and from within the blackened chamber shot out a white cylinder about four feet long on a thick metal pipe. On the end facing the duo, a gold-rimmed opening allowed a glimpse inside, where what appeared to be burnt ice cube trays were affixed to every inch of the interior. Quickly, the ring began to glow a vivid green and the contraption swiveled to point at the changeling’s face.

“De-atomizer charged,” Stated the Immigrator in the same pseudo-engaged tone, “Firing now.”

Dust didn’t even have time to express his confusion before a bolt of energy replaced him in his entirety with a little pile of ash. Dawn, on the other hand, had time to let out a choked gasp before she, too, became de-atomized.

The Immigrator blinked. Then he smiled, and stopped pretending to be a prerecorded message. Blinking off his monitor, he turned to the other Immigrator, who was displaying incredible discipline and resolve by way of listening to Pinkie Pie explain – in overzealous detail – how good a changeling a certain ‘Silky Sheets’ was.

“They make a nice couple, dontcha think, Joe?”

The other pony groaned, hit the ‘cough’ button on his microphone, and hastily spoke his mind before the two ponies in room eight noticed.

“… Shut up, Ralph, I’m busy.”

Celestia allowed the golden glow to fade from her eyes, only slightly disappointed. The changeling detection spell hadn’t picked up any more within Trotondo, and while this meant she wouldn’t have to go through the effort (mild, albeit) of sending them by the Immigrators, it also meant she wouldn’t be able to mess with them.

From her perch on the highest point on the church, the princess gazed around, scanning for the characteristic green sparkles that marked the locations of re-atomization (a marvel that essentially reproduced teleportation, but with science!).

And, lo and behold, at that very moment a sparkle of green shimmered into reality on the roof of the gym. Smiling at her amazing senses of intuition and timing, Celestia bunched up her hindhooves and gave a mighty whinny, leaping clean over 3rd and 4th streets as majestically as a pretty pony princess could.

Judging from all the amazed ‘wow’s, snapshots of picture magic, and wild applause, pretty princess ponies could jump pretty darn majestically. Granted, she managed to accidently crater the roof of the gym upon landing, but she was sure nopony would notice.

‘… Just to be sure, though, I’ll just leave a bag of bits here, where any decent repairpony would look…’

Dust exploded into reality with a bang, feeling thoroughly violated, for lack of a better term. The changeling managed remain upright, albeit quite disoriented, for several seconds, until he came into contact with a coat of fur that was considerably softer than the one he was used to. Slowly – ever so slowly - he looked up to match the grinning gaze of none other than Princess Celestia.

Without further ado, he fell to the ground in a dead faint. Several seconds later, Dawn Guard popped into existence and collapsed onto her coltfriend, already out cold from his ‘death’. Finally, a wisp of green smoke made its way to Celestia, transforming into the most blatantly manila folder in the entire kingdom.

Celestia looked to her left, then to her right. Confident that nopony was looking, she flipped open the folder and carefully examined its contents. Several very new documents, a small blue passport, the stupid mandatory ‘Welcome to Equestria’ pamphlet, and a hastily scribbled note peered back. She clicked her tongue and pulled the last item out, wondering in the back of her mind what the Immigrators were really spending their bits on.

“Nanoscan reported 97.84% of love to be directly from ponies, Neurocleanse located no hostility or underlying control paths in either being,” She read aloud, already used to Immigrator Ralph’s horrible hoofwriting, “One of the best immigrants so far – and that’s not even taking into account his relationship with a non-bearer. I have authorized and prepared his paperwork, and as of now, Dust is a legal citizen of Equestria.”

The princess nodded, stuffed the sheet of notebook paper into her pocket dimension, and shut the folder. With a nod of her regal horn, the world around them blurred into the mesh of colors and sounds produced by a subconscious-driven teleport spell, only to reorganize into a place she could only guess was one of their bedrooms – Dawn’s, most likely, given how impossibly messy most changelings were.

She gently lifted the duo into bed, arranged them into a respectably embarrassing situation, and lifted the blanket over the changeling’s head, letting it drop when it had reached midway up the pegasus’ chest. Dust’s documents were placed neatly onto the bedside table, and with a smile much less mischievous than the grins she had been making up until that point, Celestia placed the dreams Luna had given her into their heads.

Dreams of happiness, acceptance, and safety. Dreams that whispered of comfort and love. Dreams that would allow the two to wake up with a full feeling in their hearts and a subtle curiosity as to what had happened that day. Odd, customized dreams that were just too perfect for anypony to think up on their own.

Dreams that were quite literally impossible without the blessing of a princess.

‘Essentially,’ Thought Celestia as she appeared on the throne, perfectly in time for the third quarter of the Day Court, ‘Dreams that prove integration of the changelings is better for everypony than throwing everything with a carapace into Tartarus.’

“As requested by Princess Celestia herself, the Day Court is now open for requests regarding non-pony immigrations to Equestria!” Called out the pony at the front desk, who shortly ushered in about two hundred entities.

‘Dreams that, in a nutshell, prove I am indeed still the best pony.’

A beam of sunlight struck his face, and Dust cracked an eye open. Around him lay a set of very ruffled sheets, a very nice shade of wallpaper indigenous to his marefriend’s house, the most beautiful pony he had ever seen, and a folder that seemed distinctly out of place on the bedside table.

Gently crawling over Dawn, the changeling peeked at the folder adorned with, of all things, his name and a smiley face drawn on in sharpie. Gingerly, he reached for it, breath bated in quiet suspense for what lay within. His hoof brushed against the top for a moment, when all of a sudden the sleeping mare next to him shifted, letting out a little groan and sending her hooves idly through the sheets where her changeling once was, searching for him.

Dust blinked once, and pulled his hoof back from the manila-coated distraction, though not before throwing it a look that said ‘I’ll get you later’ in no vague way. After all, whatever secrets it held for him could wait – there were more pressing matters to attend to.

And that is the story of how Dawn Guard woke up on her three hundred and sixty first day as a royal guard; held in the soft embrace of a very non-atomized changeling whose face was locked in a contented smile, even through the veil of sleep. She gave him a small, almost unnoticeable, kiss on the nose before curling up to his chest, eager to rejoin him in the land of dreams.

I'm sorry :c

(For both having this be a whole lot later than I had wanted, but also because its so bad compared to the first one.)

For the life of me I couldn't keep it even remotely as serious as I wanted; though I'm glad it didn't go into grimdark territory, this thing is filed under /humor for a reason, or so I like to think :P

... Listen to a minute of this and re-read the Immigrator's scene. You will never think of him the same again :D

And yeah, thats all I got for the time being :c ~ Hope you enjoyed the adventures of Dawn and Dust! (Not that they're over, just going on a [slightly {lol}] longer break this time, thus the 'complete' marking :o)