You shut the door behind you, following Atlas into your room.

“Dude! Fuckin’ high five. Tag team princess fuckers for the win!” you held out your arm, waiting for Atlas to return the gesture. He didn’t so much as move. All you heard was a quiet sniffle. “Uh… Atlas? Mission control to Atlas? Come in? Do you copy?”

He slowly turned around until you could see his tear stained cheeks and watery eyes.

“Shit,” you sigh, “Atlas, what’s wrong? Do I need to put on pants?”

A pale green fire slowly enveloped his body, lingering for far longer than usual. In his place stood his true form, but the tears still stayed.

“What’s wrong, Anon? Really? You know exactly what’s wrong!” she yelled back at you.

“Em, calm down. Where’s all this coming from?”

“You ask me to love you, ask me to do the impossible for you, ask me to build a heart where there should be none, and then you rip it to pieces before it even stood a chance! Why do you have to stick your dick in every single pony you meet?”

“You said it was okay! And last I remember you fucked somebody too!” you chided. Damn, that felt cold, even for you.

“This is all a joke to you!” she cried, loosely punching at you with her hooves.

“Em,” you stopped her, grabbing her hooves and pulling her into a standing embrace, “You’re not a joke to me. You’re the only real thing I have here.”

“I’m the least real thing you have here! There’s nothing real about me!”

“That’s just not true,” you disagree, still holding her tight as she struggled weakly against you.

“Anon, my entire existence is a lie!”

“Who are you mad at here, Em?” you asked, “Me or yourself?”

“You, me, both? What does it matter?” she whined, “I’ll never be what you want… and I-”

“You’re everything I’ve ever wanted,” you told her, stroking gently along her neck, “I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted.”

“A-Anon?” she asked, looking back up at you, “I don’t get to want somepony. That’s not how this works.”

“Sure you do,” you soothe, releasing your hold on her, “and if that’s me I promise I’ll try harder to make you happy.”

“That’s not… What makes me happy is irrelevant. All that matters is what keeps me alive, what feeds the hive.”

“Then why are you jealous?”

“Because I’m weak!” she cried, turning away from you, “Because I’m not satisfied with the love you’ve already given me. Because I’m more than just hungry for once!”

“It’s terrifying isn’t it? There’s a reason they call it falling in love.”

“I’m not…”

“Aren’t you?” you ask, “What are you feeling?”

“That’s my point, Anon! I’m feeling things. Emotions are weakness. That’s why we feed on them, thats why ponies die without them. I can’t afford to feel.”

“Em, that’s…”

“Shitty, right? The universe has a dark sense of irony like that, and Changelings seem to be the butt of every joke.”

“I’m not laughing,” you say, not quite sure what you mean. She paused at this as well, maybe she knew what you meant. “Tell me what you need, Em.”

“I need y…” she trailed off, “Can you hold me again?”

“Sure,” you answer, walking over to the bed, “C’mon, let’s get comfortable.”

“Anon I don’t want-”

“We don’t have to,” you finished plainly, hopping up onto the spacious bed.

“Not yet at least,” she added, climbing up next to you.

You laid back, propping yourself on your side. She approached you with trepidation, as if her world could shatter with any step. Once she stood even with you, she sat, then laid, then rolled on her side, facing away from you. You reached out and grabbed her, pulling her close. One hand came to rest on her chest, splayed out against the cold chitin between her forelegs. Your other arm wrapped around her midsection, coming to rest against the comparatively warmer area just below her ribs.

“Just like that,” she said, breathing deeply as she wiggled into your hold, “I’ve never been held like this. Not in disguise, not as a nymph, never. Changelings don’t crave comfort in the same way ponies do.”

“You keep talking about all these things you don’t need, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have them anyway.”

“Doesn’t it? How do you know if any of this is real, if any of this will last.”

“I don’t, which is why it means so much in the moment,” you explain. God you hope it will last.

“If you’re not sure, why waste your love on this, on me?”

“This,” you tighten your grip, “isn’t a waste. You’re not a waste. If this was all I got, it’d still be worth it.”

“But you don’t get anything out of this. I understand being up for the sex, maybe I even understand why you’d want to go on a date, but what do you get out of this? What benefit does this have?”

“Not everything is about getting something back, Em. I’m doing this because I’d rather be here, with you, than anywhere, anything else.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what love is,” you guessed, “I like fucking you, I like yelling at pompous stallions in defense of your honor, but I love this.”

“I can taste it,” she said, “Your love, I can taste it, but it doesn’t taste right. It’s… missing something.”

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“There’s more than usual but it…” she pauses, “It makes me feel empty.”

“Empty how?”

“Like no matter how full I get, there’ll always be a something missing.”

“Something that blossoms only in soil tended to by that selfsame thing…” you mutter, quoting Luna.

“Exactly!” she said, her brow furrowing as she rolled to face you, “But those aren’t your words, are they?”

“No,” you admit, “It’s something Luna said to me today, talking about true love.”

“You don’t mean to say…”

“Do you think,” you paused, crossing your arms around her back, “…is that how it works?”

“I don’t know…” she hesitated, “but if it is, how do I make it grow?”

“Just like you’d grow anything else. Time, attention,” you think for a moment, “love.” You lean in and kiss Metamora on the lips, her eyes briefly fluttering, and then closing. You felt it, the fireworks that everyone always dreams about. You felt her too, as a feeling you could only describe as pink washed over you, wrapping you in a saccharine cocoon. You knew it came from her, but what was it? She eventually pulled back from the kiss staring at you with a fire in her eyes.

“Anon, you incorrigible beast,” she giggled, “That love tasted much more like I remember. No surprise you couldn’t keep it down with your favorite Changeling rubbing all over you.”

“Em, I’m not…” you pause, taking stock of the complete absence of activity between your legs, “I mean keep saying stuff like that though…”

“Wait, you…” she paused, pulling away, “That wasn’t?” She inhaled deeply, looking at you as if you were suddenly some kind of terrifying monster. She leapt to all fours, creating a sizable distance between the two of you.

“What’s wrong?”

“That love…” she paused, “It wasn’t yours.”

“Then whose was it?” you asked.

“It was…” she hesitated, “It was mine.”

“No shit! I knew you had it in you!”

“That’s not what I…” she paused, “That wasn’t love I made, it was love I held. I fed you, the same way I’d feed love I’d gathered to another Changeling.”

“But why would you…”

“I didn’t mean to! It just happened!”

“What does that mean, then?”

“I don’t know. But I didn’t even notice it happening, which means it’s very dangerous. I could easily drain myself completely without even thinking!”

“That sounds…”

“Deadly,” she reiterated.

“I don’t want…”

“Hold on,” she shushed, coaxing you to roll on your back and then climbing on top of you. “Let me see if I can control it.” She lowered her form to meet yours, the cool hardness of her exoskeleton quickly betraying her inner warmth as she came in contact with you. She leaned in once more, brushing against your lips as her eyes closed. You closed yours too as you felt that same aura envelop you. It was the like the feeling you got when you saw an old friend after too long, or when you kissed your marefriend. Wait, marefriend? You opened your eyes at the realization and found that you could see the aura the two of you were encased in. Swirls of various hues of pink darted around the two of you, knitting a loose sphere that captured the both of you in the middle. Suddenly the bed felt softer, and the… was the ceiling getting closer?

You broke the kiss, holding tightly to her. The swirls continued, only growing in number as they streaked around like comets. “Wow, Em… This is something else.”

“It sure is,” she hummed dreamily, her eyes fluttering open to beam down pleasantly at yours. “This is what you’ve been feeding me. And this isn’t but a fraction of it.”

“It’s beautiful,” you admired, “you’re beautiful.”

“I… I” she started, a look of concentration forming on her face, “I l- lu-” she stuttered, the aura around you frenetic with energy now as each trail of pink sped around you faster and faster.

“You don’t have to,” you said, squeezing her tight, “not yet.”

“I-I… I’m sorry” she apologized, a tear running down her cheek.

“Don’t be,” you calmed, “I’ll love you enough for both of us right now.”

She just looked at you, but there was something new in her eyes.

“I love you, Metamora.”

She coughed, the pink orb around you suddenly starting to glow as the energy that made it turned from pink to white to a shimmering gold. The sphere became simultaneously brighter and smaller until you could only make out her dark silhouette against what felt like staring straight into the sun. She was breathing rapidly, her eyes distant and her form tense. Then as suddenly as it started, the sphere collapsed, seeming to shrink straight into Metamora’s chest.

As you fell back to the bed, she slumped lifelessly against you.

“Em, what was that?” you asked, astounded by the display.

She didn’t stir in the slightest, her form slack against yours.

“Em, hey, what’s going on?” you plead, shaking her franticly as she moved like a ragdoll atop you.

You rolled her off of you and towards the edge of the bed as you jumped over her, landing on the floor just beside it. You violently shook her,

“No no no no no, Em, wake the fuck up!” you screamed, “You can’t leave me now! Not after-”

She gasped, eyes flying open as she tensed briefly.

“What the hell was that?” you asked, half terrified, half relieved.

She hesitated for a moment, not quite sure how to answer until finally she decided, “A seed.”

“A seed?” you asked, her answer making absolutely no sense to you.

“A seed,” she repeated, “The kind that grows…”

“Em, you’re not saying…”

“I don’t know,” she answered, “But I’m so very tired. Can we sleep now? Together?”

“Of course,” you confirmed, sliding back onto the bed and peeling the covers out from underneath her. As you made yourself comfortable, she once again wiggled herself into a position next to you, content to be the little spoon once more. You reached out to hold her close, both hands drifting lower this time. She gasped softly before relaxing into your embrace. You drifted into a quiet, dreamless sleep, still holding your Changeling tight to your chest as if she would disappear the second you stopped.

And with not a soul taking notice, the ear held to the door pulled away, its owner disappearing down the dark corridor of the castle, a soft smile on their face.

Author's Note

Originally, this was going to be a shameless clop chapter where Metamora holds Anon down and fucks him until she has some kind of lovedrunk epiphany, but I think this honestly feels more real.

I'd like to reiterate that Anon was stark naked this entire chapter and didn't pop a boner once. Can he get a fucking round of applause?