“Twilight, what are you doing in Canterlot?” Metamora asked in surprise, looking up to see a purple pony where she expected a creature with less hooves to be joining her.

“I, well… Princess Celestia told me the news, but I had to come see it for myself. A reformed Changeling, one I’d inadvertently met nonetheless.”

“You’re taking the news much better than she did. She um… well, I’ll let her tell you that story when she’s ready.”

“Not a fan at first? She's so predictable...”

“No, so very much not a fan at first. But you must have so many questions, like-”

“How much of Atlas was real?”

“Like that one…,” she started, sighing, “Atlas was real. You already knew him well when I replaced him.”

“You replaced him? When did you?”

“Oh, a few weeks after the incident with the flowers.”

“The flowers…” she sighed, “That was real?”

“Atlas liked you, you know,” Metamora said, “Before I had to… Before I was him.”

“How do you know?” Twilight asked in return, looking at you with curiosity.

“We talked, when he was still…”

The Everfree was becoming familiar to you. Your ability to navigate it, furthermore your ability to navigate it while remaining hidden, were both well developed at this point. So you found yourself, as usual, stalking that orange unicorn as he traipsed through the forest as if it weren’t full of some of the biggest dangers in Equestria. You knew that you needed to replace somepony in order to get close to Twilight, and this oaf was the best shot you had. Ironic that studying Changeling behavior would lead to, well, what was about to happen.

Of course, he’d get a spectacular chance to study your behavior. He looked like a nice stallion, you might even reward him if he were cooperative. Either way, he was about to be intimately familiar with these woods and at least one of the creatures that called it home. After weeks of stalking him both inside Ponyville and through the forest you finally had enough context to finally replace him. And how convenient that you’d just be able to come out here and make use of him any time you needed love.

You snuck forward, coming up behind him so you could get the drop on him and incapacitate him. Fifty feet, twenty five feet, you could hear him talking to himself now…

“Celestia, how could I be so stupid!” he said, kicking at the ground.

“I can’t believe I fucking did that. She obviously doesn’t like me and now I’ve gone and cocked up our friendship or working relationship or whatever we did have.”

He sighed, waltzing a few feet forward to look at something on the ground.

“And as if I hadn’t made it weird enough with the damn flowers. No, as soon as I realized she didn’t like it, I just had to open my mouth, ‘As a friend’ my ass. I’m so fucking dumb.”

“Maybe finding a Changeling out here wouldn’t be so bad after all,” he thought aloud, “At least then I could pretend it was Twilight.”

He sighed again.

“No, Atlas. Don’t even think about that. Changelings kill ponies.”

Did you? You hoped not. Of course, ponies had been known to die after time in captivity, but you wouldn’t outright kill a creature, not when you could still get love out of them.

“Plus that wouldn’t be fair to Twilight. I’d… I couldn’t hurt her like that.”

A twig snapped underfoot. Shit, you really needed to pay more attention.

It’s fine. He didn’t notice you. Fuck, nope… he definitely heard that. But he didn’t see you. You got behind the tree just in time.

“Who’s there?”

You stood still.

“Please, I’m just a researcher. I don’t want any trouble. I-I… please don’t eat me, whatever you are.”

Well this was an impasse. He was frozen in that spot, and you couldn’t move without being noticed. Fuck it, new strategy.

“Atlas,” you called out in the most soothing voice you could muster as you stepped out from behind your tree, “Don’t be alarmed.”

He shivered, but stood his ground.

“I know you’ve been researching Changelings out here. I know you’re… more open than most ponies. I know you want things.”

He breathed heavily. You stepped toward him, each cautious, calculated step more terrifying for both of you than the last.

“It doesn’t have to be Twilight. I can be whatever you want. Anypony you desire. I just want a few things in return.”

“I’d never aid a Changeling!”

You stopped.

“But you’d also never hurt one. Otherwise you would have used that horn already.”

“I-I…” he hesitated, “Stay back!”

“Oh, but I can’t gather your love from over here, now can I?” you asked, starting to move towards him again, closing within ten feet of him.

“I said stay back!”

“You don’t really want me to do that, do you? You’re really hoping that I make this decision for you, aren’t you?”

“N-No! You’re a vile creature and I’d never give you what you want!”

“Oh come on… We both have needs. You need to sink that dick into something, I want to taste your sweet, delicious love.”

“I won’t let you rape me!”

“Atlas, I would never!” you gasp in fake offense, “Whatever we did it’d only be because you wanted it.”

He seemed to ponder that idea for a moment. Maybe this would work out after all.

“Fine. But only because I’m curious.”

You squealed in delight, prancing closer yet.

“But I don’t want what you think,” he cautioned, “I want to study you, not fuck you.”

“That’s so… boring!” you sighed, hopefully making your disappointment evident. “I’ll do it, on one condition. You give me a day’s worth of love and I’ll tell you any one thing you want to know about Changelings.”

“One question for an entire day’s worth of love? That hardly seems fair!”

“You’re going to come out here every day are you not?”

“Yes… but.”

“Then I don’t see the problem. Now are you in or not? Think of the things you could learn!”

“I-I… How much is a day’s love?”

“Just a kiss, Atlas. Nothing serious.”

“Just a kiss…” he said, mulling it over, “Okay. Fine.”

“Come on then,” you coaxed, bringing your muzzle close to his.

He pecked your cheek with his mouth, the whole affair over in an instant.

“On the mouth, Atlas! Hive, you really are dense!”

He looked taken aback by your insult, but after a moment he closed his eyes, leaning forward and pressing his mouth against yours. And then you showed him a kiss…

“It went on like that for, I dunno, a couple weeks or so. I told him so much about me, I… It wasn’t even about the love anymore. Of course I never did tell him that his kisses were definitely at least three days worth of love,” she paused, fond memories coming back, “After a while… I believed in his research, I guess. He was the first pony I’d ever heard of that thought of me as more than an animal. He… I wanted him to be successful. Maybe I liked him, I didn’t know what that felt like at the time.”

“So that’s where all those crazy theories came from. I knew he had something more than hoofprints for reference. I never would have guessed…”

“Yep, he asked me about everything. Well, almost everything. He never asked me for anything more… as much as I would have liked it. He was a pure heart like that, all the way until the end…”

“Wait, what… what happened to the real Atlas?”

Metamora sighed, looking at the floor.

“I killed him,” she admitted, hanging her head, “Looking back I regret that most of anything I did, mostly because he- mostly because I couldn’t save him.”

“Save him? But you just said you killed him.”

“I didn’t want to!” Metamora barked, “I had to! He… he asked me to.”

“He asked you to kill him?”

“When I found him again after our last… he was-”

“Atlas!” you called out.

Nothing.

“Oh come on Atlas, no sense hiding, you know what’s out there.”

Still quiet.

“I know you’re there… After last time, I knew you’d be back. Don’t think I didn’t catch you staring at my ass last time.”

A soft ruffle in the distance.

“That’s it, come on out, scaredy colt. Is today the day you’re going to finally do some hands on research, loverboy?”

Another faint crunching sound in the distance, but no Atlas.

Then you smelled it. Blood. It was strong, fresh, nearby. A curtain of iron aroma hanging in the air everywhere. You looked down, at first not seeing anything, then… you caught the trail. It darted off to your left, the drips far enough that… he was being chased.

Oh no. He was always so careless! There was no telling what he could have been attacked by out here. You had to find him. You needed to find him. You needed him.

You took off following the trail, running as fast as your hooves could carry you when you saw it. An orange mass with a lumbering timberwolf standing over it, apparent that it had done a number already. You didn’t even have to think about a course of action. You just watched as the timberwolf yelped in pain, his entire body enveloped in a burning green flame. He scurried off, running as fast as his fiery legs could carry him. You didn’t even watch, knowing that Atlas was much more important than wherever that timberwolf went.

He was in bad shape, cuts and scrapes all over his body, a horrendous gash on his chest, an enormous bite mark in one of his legs. You couldn’t fix this. Not after you just drained so much energy on that timberwolf.

“Atlas!” you screamed, trying to apply pressure to the most serious injury, the large wound over his chest.

“Please don’t…” he asked, his voice quiet and pained.

“Don’t what? I’m going to- I have to save you!”

“You can’t. It’s too late,” he resigned, his breaths short and sudden.

“Stop it! You’re going to be fine. We’ll just get you to town, to the hospital and…”

“Are you hearing yourself?” he almost chuckled before his expression soured in pain.

“I’ll do it. For you I’ll do it.”

“No, I’m going to die here. Please, don’t let me suffer any more.”

“I can’t kill you! I-I… I need your love!”

“Then for all the love I have left,” he begged, his horn flickering as he cast his last spell.

“I-I,” you cried, feeling an abundance of love as his horn petered out like an extinguished candle, “I’ll make it quick.”

“Wait… I never did ask your name,” he rasped, in a quiet, gurgling voice.

“My name is Metamora.”

“Thank you, Metamora. For everything.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, turning away.

“I’m not.”

You winced. Even through your magic you felt the snap. You heard it plain as day, the one quick twist that drained the last of his life, and with it ended his pain.

You were Atlas now, and he’d never be quite the same.

“I- that…”

“I regret everything about it, Twilight. I’m really sorry.”

“No, I… I understand. You had to do it. He just…” she wiped a tear from her face, “Damnit Atlas! ”

“I know how you feel. He reminds me a lot of Anon… Just, well, without all the rough edges.”

“Yeah…”

“Did you, you know…”

“The flowers, they were so out of the blue. I hadn’t even thought about the idea of stallions for so long before that. When he gave them to me, I just, the whole thing was kind of funny. But it got me thinking, and… well… I never did get to tell Atlas how I felt.”

“Would you like to?”

“I think so.”

Flash.

“You can tell me anything, Twilight.”

Author's Note

Another chapter that grew legs mid-write. You know, for all this time my idea of what went down with Atlas was: Metamora startled him > He ran off > He fell down some crevasse and mortally wounded himself > Metamora had to make a tough choice. In that version the two had never exchanged so much as a word but for a few in Atlas's final moments.

She still had to make a tough choice in the end, but it was so much tougher than what I originally had in mind. I like this version more, but it also hurt to write. I hope you think it's meaningful.

This is the first chapter in a while that I didn't have to write in multiple sittings. I feel better about this chapter than I have in a while. This was just what I needed.