Three sharp knocks against the old oaken door to my apartment in Canterlot’s Upper West Terrace jolted me from my writing. Right out of a world belonging to a daring unicorn sorcerer who struggled to protect his fellow ponies from monsters and spirits long thought to be mere myth.
My chestnut ears twitching, I set my quill back in the inkwell and began to rise. I gave a wince as my hind knees popped like bubble wrap, the product of years of abuse from sports.
“Looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer,” I mused aloud to my characters. The children of my overactive imagination, and the only family I had, save for my mother.
I took a quick trot out of my workroom—really, just the corner of my sitting room—right by a few old awards and plaques both from my playing days and a few of my early short stories. A quick glance in the reflection of a glass case housing a picture of my late father reminded me to brush my auburn bangs out of my hazel eyes.
Mostly because it might have been mom at the door. Knowing her, she’d start straight in about getting my mane trimmed if I opened the door looking like a bum.
The battles when I still wore earrings had been grating enough.
To be perfectly honest? When I opened the door and found myself muzzle to aquamarine muzzle with a changeling, staring into those alien, pupil-less eyes the color of burgundy wine, I would’ve preferred my mother dress me down while I was in the midst of a root canal.
In fact, get a bigger drill bit, doc.
“Good afternoon, sir or ma’am,” the changeling mare read from one of a stack of index cards held aloft by a lime green glow. “My name is Diplurida, the representative of the Changeling Empire assigned to your neighborhood-slash-district-slash-town, and I’m here to talk to you about the benefits of sharing love between changelings and ponies.”
The now-named Diplurida looked up to take stock of me. I thought she might let out a maniacal laugh, toss her cards aside, and lunge at me with fangs bared right then and there.
Instead, she hummed, nodded to herself, looked back down, and—I swear by Celestia and Luna’s crowns—flipped to the next and picked right up where she’d left off.
“You might be curious as to the benefits of sharing love—and with, of all things, a changeling. An excellent question, sir or ma’am, and I’m happy to shed some light on the subject with the help of Princess Twilight Sparkle, friend of the Empire.”
Again, she glanced at me, then just flipped to the next card. She had to be having me on. She just had to be.
But she just kept going. “Sir or ma’am, it may surprise you to hear that Princess Twilight herself has conducted these studies, however …”
The sheer absurdity of the situation, a changeling trying to educate a pony about sharing love in the same city her kind had once invaded by reading off literal cue cards was just about enough to make my brain melt.
Frankly? I think that would’ve helped my sanity.
For whatever reason, out of all her spiel, my brain and mouth latched onto the most ridiculous part of her pitch.
“I-I’m a stallion,” I muttered.
Diplurida broke off her recitation to look up at me and blinked. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “Could you repeat that please?”
“I-I said that I’m a stallion,” I repeated slowly.
Those alien orange eyes flitted down, then up again to survey my form in an instant. I dared think she might apologize for essentially form-lettering her greeting.
Oh, if only I knew then what I know now of how strange changelings could be.
The mare arched her brow. “Yes, I see you’re a stallion currently,” Diplurida replied just as slowly as I had. “However, I would hate to limit you should you change your mind about that.”
My thoughts ran headlong into a brick wall. I let out a strangled sound, sputtering a moment. “Ponies can’t just change that!”
“I believe the lovely mares down the street might disagree with you, but if you wish to define yourself as such, I shall take note, sir.”
“Mares down the—oh.” My ears splayed ever so slightly. I’d forgotten about her.
Diplurida bobbed her head. “Razzle Dazzle is quite pleased with her transition and Cherrywood seems equally so with their relationship. I believe it’s considered rather rude in your society to deny Razzle’s validation in that matter.”
“That’s not what I meant at all!” I blurted. “Razzle’s a good friend of mine!”
“It is what you said, though.”
“No—well, okay, my wording was terrible, but I meant we can’t change like … like …” I gestured at her wordlessly for a moment, hoping she’d get it.
She didn’t. My efforts yielded little more than a tilt of her head and her brow arching higher. If she had a mane, I daresay it would’ve disappeared beneath her bangs.
Or she just wanted to make me say it. Changelings are tricky like that.
At the time, though, my only guess was that she genuinely get it. Which meant I’d have to explain changelings … to a changeling.
Again, the absurdity of all of this was enough to make my brain melt. More importantly, it was enough to make me hope it melted quicker.
“We can’t just … just, y’know …” I shifted awkwardly, mumbling, “We can’t just fwoosh and be what we want on a whim. It’s a procedure!”
Diplurida continued tilting her head until I noticed she was actually rotating it about to look at me upside down. Like that would make me seem any more sensible by her standard.
In a half second and a series of sickening cracks as her joints adjusted, she righted herself and fixed me with a flat look. “Well, that much is obvious. You’re no changeling—I would know on sight.”
“How would—not the point! The point is that I’m a stallion and that, while I do support Razzle Dazzle and encourage ponies to be happy with who they are, I have no plans on changing who I am!”
“Then why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”
I sucked in a breath, unable to counter that one. “Let’s get back to the love sharing thing,” I ground out.
Diplurida beamed. “Oh, good! I was hoping that tangent would end soon! You ponies focus on the strangest things.”
That I didn’t yank my father’s picture off the wall to show her reflection as she went back to her cards was a testament to my both my self-control and self-preservation. After all, there was still the very real possibility she was just playing the long con and indulging in some form of sick, changeling game. Playing with their food had been something they’d enjoyed during the invasion, if their glee at chasing us through the streets was any indication.
I watched and waited for her to continue, my incredulity and sheer fascination at this scene outweighing my terror long enough to keep me rooted in place.
Slowly, her bright smile gave way to a frustrated little frown. “Wait, hang on,” Diplurida murmured, glaring at her cards as she rifled through and brought a hoof to her chin. “Where in love’s name was I?”
She spread the cards out in midair and looked over each, muttering under her breath.
I heard her stomach growl, deepening her frown.
Perhaps it was time to stop being persnickety in front of the hungry predator and give her a hoof. “You’ve said hello,” I offered.
“Yes, and you sidetracked me somewhere in that.” Her frown deepened. “Have I told you of the tingly feeling when you’re being fed on?”
“Uh … no? Wait, I thought this was sharing but now you’re talking about feeding upon me?” I took a big step back.
“Yes. Sharing,” she said slowly, looking up from her cards to fix me with a quizzical look. Her stomach growled again, drawing a dissatisfied rumble in the back of her throat. “I feed, you feed. We feed. That is how it works. Was Princess Twilight incorrect in telling us that ponies understood the concept of sharing?”
My nostrils flared. “I understand sharing just fine!” I snapped, stomping my hoof despite my position as prey in this interaction. “But ponies don’t eat love!”
For some strange reason, she smiled again. “Ah! That’s true normally. However, with changelings sharing love, it’s now possible for you to taste the same delicious, sweet love we’ve fed upon for generations!”
“R-Really?”
She beamed, nodding so fast I was reminded of an excitable puppy for a moment. Before I remembered this puppy could’ve just as easily taken all my love then and there.
I admit, I blanched at the notion. Something about that just seemed … well, as unnatural as most things changelings could do.
But my curiosity got the better of me, even in that situation. “How?”
She gestured toward the cards and said, “It’s right here on one of these cards. The science escapes me, but it’s verified by your princess!”
Again, right back to the cards, frantically searching. I could see her impatience in her posture, whether the product of her wanting to indulge old habits or hunger or just pure irritation that I’d questioned things that seemed so nonsensical to her, I couldn’t say.
Then, her stomach growled a third time. The sound like that of a bear’s angry rumble, enough to make my ears splay and tail tuck between my legs.
More importantly, loud enough, in combination with her hunger pains, to kill off what was left of her patience.
“Oh, forget this!” Diplurida let out a furious hiss and tossed her cue cards to flutter to the ground below. She stepped forward, her orange eyes flashing as she brought herself nose to nose with me once more. “Look, I’ve tried to do this King Thorax’s way, and that’s gotten me barely enough love to be an appetizer this entire week, and allowed me to share barely enough to begin to make up the difference as well. I’m hungry, sir, and I’m irritated.”
“I’m sorry,” I managed to squeak.
“Not just with you,” she hastily added. “But you ponies? Look, we were monsters, but you guys are freaking rude! Do you know how many times today I’ve had some grown stallion shriek like a banshee and slam a door in my face? Or some mare throw a cast-iron skillet at my face because I was anywhere near her foals?”
It wasn’t rhetorical, I realized after a moment’s silence. “T-Too many?”
“I hit too many two days ago.” She blew an angry breath through her nose. “But I’m trying. We’re all trying. We want to make things right, we want to be friendly and share love, and we want to find some common ground, and we know it’s going to take time. A lot of time. But all of us, even King Thorax, are getting a little tired of checking our faceplates over for cracks.” Diplurida gave a manic grin, showing that, no, she had definitely not lost her fangs since her change. “Can you imagine having your nose broken daily and having to fix it? My sister went through that last week. She had the last stallion pinned against a wall before she cooled off enough to ask him not to do that again.”
“Is this a bad time to mention I was thinking more along the lines of running?”
She drew in a slow, deep breath. “I’d be a bit annoyed at having to catch you and calm you down, but I wouldn’t mind that quite as much,” the changeling admitted. “It’d be close enough to a hunt to let me blow off some steam.”
How exactly does one respond to that?
I sure didn’t know. So I changed the subject as quickly as I could. “S-So, Razzle was nice?”
“Oh, she was a sweetheart once she stopped whimpering.” Diplurida’s eyes seemed to soften. “Cherrywood even made tea. They were both quite nice about it, even if they weren’t entirely comfortable letting me have more than a little sip. They invited me to go to a coffee shop to talk this weekend.” Then, her frown returned. “And then they said to skip a few names and come visit their author friend down the road, and all I got were ridiculous questions!”
Well, that explained how defensive she’d gotten of them.
And, honestly, I felt rather happy for some reason. I’d seen a few ponies acting stuffy toward some zebras in past travels for my books, so knowing there were one or two who could try to see past old crimes and forgive was …
Exactly what our princesses would want.
Even if my poor nerves screamed for me to run.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “You said your name was Diplurida?” I asked.
Look, I could at least try to be polite if she was.
“Yes. That it is.” Wrinkling her snout, she drew back. “My apologies. I lost my list of residents when an old stallion chased me with his cane and Razzle didn’t tell me your name.”
“Er, Silver Spinner,” I replied, offering my hoof. “Nice to meet you.”
She didn’t accept it. Her eyes remained locked upon my face, her brows furrowing.
“You’re taller than I imagined,” she said after a long silence.
My ears perked up. “Y-You know me?”
Diplurida nodded once. “We enjoy your books. They’re the closest thing anypony has come to depicting the nature we and the other fey races share.” She gave a little shrug, adding, “You still miss a lot, but you’re decent enough for surface level material. The Cold Queen is your best character other than the protagonist.”
I gaped, more than a little offended at the slight. “And just what did I miss, pray tell?”
“Nothing that you’d be expected to know, honestly.” She waved me off like it was nothing. “Like I said, we enjoy them. Now, about that love sharing …”
Flicking my tail, I turned and glared at a few of those writing awards on my wall. Awards I’d won with incorrect world building.
My obsessive compulsion went into overdrive.
“I want specifics on where I messed up,” I grumbled.
“That will take longer than you realize,” she replied, a hint of amusement to her tone.
Turning, I blew a sharp breath through my nose. “How does not being hungry every day other than the ones you stop by my apartment sound?”
Diplurida beamed. “Worthwhile.” She fixed me with a coy look. “Now, would you like to indulge me here where every pony can see the aftereffects, or—”
I stepped to the side and waved her in. “Come right in, make yourself at home—preferably without sliming the place.”
It hadn’t been my intent to make her laugh.
But she did.
“Oh, Mister Spinner,” she teased, flicking her gossamer tail across my snout. “You’re no fun at all.”
I did my best to ignore the heat in my cheeks as I closed the door behind her and guided her into the kitchen. At very least, we could have somewhere to sit while I ignored every bit of sense and instinct telling me to do the exact opposite of this.
So, that’s it, Ledger. That’s why you’ve heard those stories about me walking around town with a changeling, taking her to restaurants and plays and concerts. They’re not rumors, sir.
They’re all true.
All of them.
Yeah, even the ones in the tabloids with us standing with her King and our princesses. They’d invited us to the castle to tell us how proud they were to see us coming together as friends despite our differences and the history between our races.
King Thorax even blushed and apologized for his cue cards contributing to our misunderstanding.
In any case, that’s it. Diplurida is the reason I haven’t been updating you on my progress for Winter’s Hoof. The things she’s told me that I’ve missed in all my depictions of the fey races …
They break almost everything.
And you know how I am. I can’t just ignore something I can fix.
So, I’m going to rewrite my stories and publish them again, like I said in the last letter. I’m not sure if there’s some way we can work that out so my readers aren’t paying for another whole book, but I’d like to discuss that with you if possible. I want these stories to be fun and enjoyable, but I want to do them justice.
I can’t really do that when my changeling friends look across the table with me and pat me on the hoof and say, “It was nice of you to try.”
I just can’t.
She’s taught me a lot, Ledger. Both about her kind, the other fey races, and, surprisingly enough, myself. My friendships with her sister, some of the changelings I’ve met, Razzle, and Cherrywood are some of the best I’ve ever had.
So that’s why she’s stayed with me so long.
And that’s why I’m leaving Canterlot tomorrow to stay in the hive for the next year.
I’ll never understand them if I don’t try. None of us will if we don’t try to live as they do, and vice versa.
I’m willing to bet that’s how it was when the tribes united.
And I’m willing to leave this publishing deal behind for something bigger if I must. I have the support of my princesses, my friends, the King of All Changelings, and my marefriend. I won’t say I won’t be disappointed if I don’t have yours.
But, to be perfectly honest, I can take my writing elsewhere if need be. I can’t replace them.
I can’t replace her.
Speaking of which, Diplurida is waiting. If I’m late, our date is going to turn into a game of hunt the pony, and I just never seem to win at that one.
Then again, I don’t consider the end result losing, either.
I hope to hear from you soon.
With respects,
Silver Spinner.
P.S. For what it’s worth, Diplurida is sorry she scared you last night. She just forgets that she needs to make her steps louder so we know she’s coming. It’s a bit of a habit among her kind.
I guess some of that infiltration and sneaking just isn’t going to leave them anytime soon. Don’t worry, though. I shrieked the first time she got me too.
Author's Note
Silly? Check. Changeling? Check. OC? Check. Dumb? Check. Yup, it's a me-story.
Hope y'all enjoyed reading this weird foray into whatever this is.