Author's Note
This is my final story. Life sucks too much. I’m too depressed. And I’m tired of reaffirming that I’m not good at whatever I do. I’ve exceeded the amount of straws I can carry, so I give up.
Take that as you will, since I’m uploading this story anyway. It’s just one of those things where you follow through with something regardless. I disabled comments since I’m not out for sympathy or whatever. Rating is still a thing ‘cause I’m a glutton for punishment.
Lovestar
I stood rigidly in line while our queen slowly paced before us, reiterating what our mission was and what to expect while regarding us as if we were loveless creatures. Considering how she only considered us acceptable at the best of times, this was nothing new. It also wasn’t a surprise, since there was such a low chance of any of us succeeding in our task. I think we all expected to starve and die, instead of securing a new source of food.
While our queen had been masquerading as Princess Cadence, she had used her authority to enter the most secure section of the archives and learned, among other things, one of the spells created by Star Swirl the Bearded — specifically, the one that opened portals to other worlds. With it, she hoped that at least one of us would find a sapient creature that had the capacity to love, who would be easy enough prey to manage and harvest.
Between Equestria being aware and wary of us, and there not being a source of love outside of it that was even close to comparable, it would take a while to regain our strength and mount another attack. Our queen didn’t like the idea of waiting so long, and was willing to expend some of us to reduce how long it would take. I happened to be unfortunate enough to be within sight when our queen had come up with this plan, and ended up being among those arbitrarily selected for the mission.
I’ll try my best to meet her expectations, but... I really don’t want to die.
One by one our queen opened a portal and directed one of us to enter it, but not before hanging a medallion from our necks, which would be our only way back — provided any one of us could find enough love to power it. Normally she would say something to “encourage” us at this point, but she didn’t need to remind us of what would happen if we failed.
Eventually, it was my turn to be sent through a portal.
I found myself buried in tall grass and weeds, unable to see exactly where I was. After flattening enough of it around me to give my wings clearance, I took to the air and looked around.
I was in a small section of a larger field, one that was sparsely populated by trees and almost entirely closed off by a coniferous forest. I flew higher, so I could see over the trees, and didn't see anything that looked like there was a society here or nearby. I appeared to be in the middle of a forest, with mountains within sight but barely distinguishable from the pale blue sky.
My ears drooped at the sight, wondering if I'd be able to find any food, much less succeed in my mission. My queen hadn't bothered to check how much energy anyone had before choosing them, and — unfortunately — I'd been on the low side. I don't know how far I could travel beyond the current horizon, but I'm sure my situation will become dire if I see no source of food by the time I reach it.
At least the weather was on my side, with the sky being mostly clear, the air still, and the temperature only slightly chilly. If I had to make a guess, based on the state of the flora and the current weather, I'd hazard that it was Spring here.
My limited knowledge on the habits of creatures who established settlements suggested that I ignore the short mountains and head towards lower elevation, where the water would flow. So, once I was confident that I knew which way that was, I set a steady pace, to optimize how far I could fly, and hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, by the time I reached what had once been the limit of my vision, I continued to see nothing but wilderness within my new horizon. The only change was a small stream that was off to the side of my heading, which I decided to follow for the next leg of my journey. I was feeling a bit tired now, and began to worry about my prospects of survival if I didn't find something to eat by the end of this horizon.
I was beginning to lose hope, as I neared the horizon of my last stop, when signs of civilization began to appear. Almost too exhausted to be overjoyed, I changed course and flew directly toward it. Subtlety didn't even occur to me, because I didn't have enough energy for a disguise and I probably didn't have enough time to wait in hiding until I could subdue a creature without resistance or being caught by others of its kind.
As I neared the outskirts of what appeared to be a town, breathing labored and my wings struggling to keep me airborne, I realized I wasn't going to make it. I kept going because... I don't know. All I knew was that I would be dead for certain if I stopped now. Maybe, if the creatures that live here see me, there will be a chance that I'll be saved.
I was heading toward a park, because it was closer, but there didn't appear to be many inhabitants of the town nearby. My vision began to dim as I came in for a landing, and tumbled end over end when I made touchdown and my legs crumpled underneath me. I ended up on my belly, fortunately, but I wasn't strong enough to get up. All I could do was reach out hopelessly as my view of the world tunneled, my salvation so close and yet so far.
No! Not like this...
My eyes slowly opened, revealing a world of hazy colors. It took me a moment to realize that I was awake, and thus alive. Blinking my eyes clear, I saw that I was in some kind of living space, although I couldn't be sure with some of the strange things that I saw in the room. Like that rectangular object that seemed to show an event taking place in another location, where I could faintly hear the alien creatures that were being shown — the ones that I had seen from afar before, I assume — talking about something around a weird-looking desk.
The next thing I register is that I'm warm, and kind of sitting on my haunches while I'm secured against something soft. A glance downward revealed that there were a pair of clothed limbs around my middle, pressing my back against the creature that was holding me. I seemed to be sitting on another pair of clothed limbs, that bent toward the floor and disappeared over the sofa cushion.
I was still weak, so I didn't know what to do, beyond remaining still. That I was alive at all suggested that I had received a bit of love at some point, though, so I hoped that the creature who held me was friendly.
I must have moved without knowing it, or did something else to give away that I was awake, because I felt my captor move as they leaned over me and softly ask, "How are you feeling?"
Surprised that I could understand them, whom — by the sound of their voice — I assumed was a her, it took me a second to recall what my queen had told us, regarding what one could expect to encounter in a parallel universe. She had said that they often shared many of the same things with their home universe, even if they happened to be in a different form. The same language could exist, for instance, despite there being a different history behind its origin and development.
Considering how I'd likely been fed with sympathy, at the very least, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to speak, rather than remain silent. I'd still be careful about what I say, though. "Tired."
A few seconds passed by in silence before she spoke again. "I saw you flying and how you landed. What happened?"
I remained silent, since I wasn't about to give away my mission — especially when I knew so little about my situation. When she realized that I wouldn't answer, she changed the subject. "I guess you're from another universe, huh? If I can discover you like this, there's no way changelings could have remained hidden until now. You even look like you're from a cartoon."
Since I had nothing better to do, and it seemed safe to sate my curiosity, I asked, "What's a cartoon?"
I watched as she reached over to grab one of the two similar-looking devices that were lying beside us on the couch, which she pointed at the "window" showing others of her kind talking. When she pressed one of the many buttons with her thumb, the scene instantly changed to one that showed both ponies and changelings in a chapel, including my queen, except now there was no sound and no one was moving. By the look of things, I assume it was showing the past, when we had attacked during the royal wedding. I couldn't be sure, though, since I'd been outside of the castle.
"A cartoon is like a book," she explained, as she switched to the second device and depressed another button, which returned sound and motion to the scene, "except you watch and listen to it."
Watch and listen I did, as this... fiction played out. It wasn't until the changelings were cast out of Canterlot by Cadence and Shining Armor that I thought I might be seeing exactly what had happened to us, since I hadn't been all that close to ground zero. I guess, in this universe, our universe was... fiction and entertainment? To my disappointment, it didn't seem to follow the changelings' story, either. Then again, perhaps it was for the best that our embarrassing defeat wasn't focused on.
Another thought occurred to me after the cartoon ended and began to display — what I'm guessing to be — the names of those involved in its creation: if she knew what I was, and what I could do, then why was she holding me, possibly helping? Was her species strong, and she was confident that she could handle me even if I wasn't in a weakened state? Did we have something in common that made us comrades of a sort? Or was she just being... nice?
I couldn't help but ask, "Why did you save me?"
After turning the view in the "window" black and setting the device aside, she returned to holding me with both arms and replied, "Even if you were a bad bug, I couldn't bear the thought of you dying if left alone. And if someone else didn't kill you out of fright, then maybe they would take you away and experiment on you. As it is, I can only hope that passing you off as some kind of toy has avoided unwanted attention."
I shuddered, and hoped for the same. I was lucky to be found by someone like her, who was willing to help me even though she didn't know if I were bad or not.
"So," she spoke after a span of silence, "what's your name? I'm Angie."
"Katydid," I offered.
Angie leaned over me again and concernedly asked, "Are you getting enough, um, food from me, Katie?"
Seeing an opportunity to get more love, and not needing to lie to pursue it, I ignored the nickname and easily replied, "It's enough to live on, but I wouldn't have a lot of energy for anything."
Angie was silent for a while, and I assumed that she was contemplating whether to risk allowing me enough energy to be a threat, or keep me powerless. I didn't know what she would decide, but I anticipated that her next words would inform me that I should expect my current state to be normal. What she actually said, though, came as a surprise.
"Tell me," she began, "why would changelings do something that their prey would resent if they're after their love? Why don't they establish good relations so others will give them love voluntarily?"
"I don't know," I found myself answering, as I began to wonder about that myself. "Maybe we tried that in the past and it didn't work out."
At least, that's what I would like to think. Any changeling with half a brain could tell that Equestrian ponies had an abundance of love, especially in comparison to other creatures in the world. They also had good relations with a lot of other creatures, who were also welcome to visit and live in Equestria. I don't know why our queen chose to attack first, but — as far as I know — that's always been her way of doing things. I'd like to think that she had a good reason, since she was much older than any of us and thus more experienced.
After a pause, Angie decided, "I'll see if I can get some people I know and trust involved, so you can eat more love. It's going to be impossible to keep you hidden from everyone, anyway."
Upon hearing that, on top of everything else, I almost couldn't believe my good fortune.
During the first few weeks, Angie introduced me to most of her immediate family, because she wouldn't be able to avoid them while I was present, and carefully picked a few of her friends to bring into the circle. None of them had welcomed me with open arms, but they did warm up to me eventually, which was helped along when I had the opportunity to tell them of how I would only be able to get back home if I charged up my medallion with enough love, and how I was here because we couldn't get enough to eat where we lived and were desperate for food. It was all true, of course, but I made sure to make myself look especially pitiable and exaggerated how bad our situation was.
Angie, being the one who actually knew something about changelings, had remarked that we had brought the situation upon ourselves, but nonetheless offered to find an acceptable way to help us. So, while I was living comfortably enough, I waited and occupied myself by learning more about the world I found myself in. I wasn't going to be filling up the medallion any time soon anyway, and I didn't want to ruin what stability and security I had until I was sure that I had a good plan that I wouldn't lose control over.
It took about a month for Angie to come up with an idea on how to help me. Apparently, Internet personalities were really popular, and the plan was to use my shapeshifting ability to both stand out from the crowd and make enough money to afford a stage show at a convention, so I can harvest enough love for the medallion. I don't know why we couldn't do something local that was on a smaller scale, requiring multiple undertakings, but it did sound like a good idea for the hive, rather than a single changeling. Of course, if her idea worked out that well, I'll have to do something about everyone who knew that I was a changeling, so I could do stage shows indefinitely and report my success to my queen.
The plan was for me to assume a female human guise, one that was in her early teens, except with an appearance found in anime. While there were other personalities with an anime appearance, none could act in real-time and avoid appearing computer-generated. Also, I was to learn how to sing and dance, and generally behave like a young girl while assuming the identity of a magical girl, one whose powers were fueled by love that's provided by others. Finally, I would be espousing the tenets of love to attract people who naturally express it, or to inspire more people to do so, in order to ensure that I would be able to harvest enough love when the time came for it.
Before I could make my debut on streaming and video-sharing websites, though, I spent another month learning everything that I would need to know, and how to present myself as both an idol and magical girl. It took a few days just to get walking as a human down, but it probably would have been longer if not for having some experience as a minotaur. Honestly, getting accustomed to the human girl in the mirror was harder, who was designed to be expressive and winsome, with her large, expressive orange eyes and long, neon-blue hair done up in twintails. I don't know what it was that was bothering me, since I've assumed long-term roles to acquire love before, but something about this whole thing was different from the usual and I couldn't put my hoof on what it was.
Regardless, I had a mission to accomplish, and unwitting accomplices who provided all manner of conveniences with their support, so I quelled my misgivings and got to work once I was deemed ready. I wasn't perfect, and there was still so much about my situation that was different and novel, but when my ignorance and inexperience showed themselves they usually came off as endearing or cute to my unseen audience.
Fortunately, I made enough of a splash to become popular in short order. A large part of the attraction, which Angie had been keen to include as a part of my character's story, was making it plain that I was streaming and making videos in order to raise enough money for live performances, with the promise that I'd look exactly as I do on screen, and claiming that it would be achieved by way of a magic trick rather than being another video or a hologram. Lots of people ate it up despite all of the skepticism, but Angie counted on the adults to suspend their disbelief instead of concluding that I was a cartoon come to life when they saw me live.
At first, I simply went through the motions and treated the whole thing like a chore. Gradually, however, I found myself becoming more invested in the feedback and community, especially the more I realized how much I began to mean to so many people. And the more people I won over by simply being nice, charming, and uplifting, the more often I'd find myself thinking about my queen's methods of securing food, which had inspired ire and resentment instead of love, and when Angie had questioned said methods.
By the time I was able to make a public appearance at a convention, I found myself conflicted: do I follow through with my queen's plan, or should I take matters into my own hooves?
I've been on this world since Spring, and now it was Autumn — the perfect time for a harvest; to reap what I have sown.
Currently, I was crouching and hiding on the rigging above the stage, waiting for the cue to make my appearance and get the show started. I could hear the din of the gathering audience, making me both giddy and nervous. More importantly, I could feel a steady tide of love wafting toward the stage, which already eclipsed any amount I've ever been on the receiving end of, and the hall hadn't reached its full capacity of twelve hundred yet.
In the not-so-distant past I wouldn't have been able to control myself and gobbled all of the love up, rather than be patient and allow it to soak in, but — strangely — I haven't really felt hungry in a while, save for when I expended too much energy. I've had a few good sources of love before, but despite that I had still felt the pangs from my unending hunger. I don't know what I've been doing differently, aside from my nature not being a secret to those I've been feeding off of, but I have more important things to think about right now.
I looked over my outfit one more time, to make sure everything was alright even though it should have been, considering how I'd had to envision it when I assumed my "Magical Girl Amore" identity. The dress, whose primary color matched my hair while the secondary matched my eyes, was tight but stretchy, so it would show off my nascent curves without hindering my movement, with ruffled, off-shoulder straps and a skirt that kissed the top of my knees, which was given some body with petticoats. I also wore gold opera gloves, short-heeled ankle boots of the same color, as well as neon blue and gold-bordered butterfly bows that decorated the base of my twintails.
The only part of my ensemble that was real, if I excluded the microphone clinging onto my ear, was my magic wand, which functioned as both a prop and a baton. It was kind of tacky, with a large, pink heart at the end, but it was a common enough component of a magical girl's appearance that most people seemed to be willing to overlook it. I also wore the medallion, since I planned on charging it up, but I had it tucked away and its necklace incorporated into the inside of the dress, to keep all of it hidden and secured.
Finally, I saw Angie give me the signal from the wing, and took a steadying breath to help prepare myself mentally for the task ahead. I proceeded to clutch my magic wand more tightly and allowed myself to fall forward, with my legs tucked up to my chest and my arms loosely wrapped around them, so I'd look like a ball as I flipped down to the stage. My limbs shot out at the last second, with my feet meeting the stage and my arms parallel with it. Then, I twisted my torso and head to one side, so I could wink at the audience, and brought my free hand up to my face, so my open eye could peer between its index and middle fingers.
I exclaimed, "Magical Girl Amore! Here to spread the love!"
I held my pose for a moment as I took in my audience, who were applauding, shouting their excitement and expressing their awe at my appearance, with many holding up phones and tablets to record my performance — not that it was necessary, since there was a professional crew present to film the event. As I expected, there were a lot of young girls in the audience, but there were plenty of adults as well, fairly split between the sexes, and I had no idea how many were the parents of the children and how many were not.
By the time the audience finally settled down, I was facing them properly and eager to begin, so I could get what I came for. First, however, my persona demanded an entrée of cheese before the main course.
"I'm so glad you could come!" I merrily addressed the audience. "I wouldn't be here without your support, after all, and it's thanks to your love that I can be a magical girl." She paused, allowing the audience to express how they felt about that for a moment, mostly with applause and cheers, before finishing with a double-entendre. "Now, allow me to express my gratitude: by showing you the fruits of my labor!"
The first of three songs, that Angie and one of her friends had put together, began to play through the speakers, and the room lights dimmed while the stage lights began to behave as programmed. The audience was delighted by this development, and I soon launched into the first verse of the song and moved my body to the beat, my choreographed moves hardly needing to be thought of after months of practice.
As I danced and sang, and saw all of the excited and happy faces, my mind drifted to the months I'd spent putting so much of this together in front of millions on the Internet. I had been so embarrassed, especially when I had spoken about — and encouraged — love in the vlog portion of my public routine, which I had learned to tolerate. Now, though, while there was so much love in the air that I could actually feel my body move through it, I began to wonder what had once been wrong with me.
I couldn't find the right way to describe how wonderful this was, and I hadn't even inhaled any of the love yet. I can't believe I wasted so much of my life hungry and struggling to stay alive by masquerading as someone else and getting love from one or a few individuals clandestinely, or forcefully draining the love out of someone, when I could be... myself, in a way, making others happy and actually love me. I could have a job or career, like a lot of other creatures, to get by.
This is what my queen wanted, wasn't it? She wanted what Princess Celestia had, instead of concerning herself too much about our efficiency: she wanted the adoration of all of Equestria's ponies. At least, I'd hate to think that she would go out of her way to do that and still employ the same methods to get love. Although, I don't like the idea that she would deny any of us something like what I'm doing right now either, which I think is equal or better to our combined individual efforts back home, because she wanted to be the only one to experience it.
It was during the third song that I knew what I had to do. I've been hesitant to make a decision ever since the idea of going against my queen's wishes crossed my mind, but I liked meaning so much to others, and spouting stuff about love doesn't even bother me anymore. If I'm being honest, though, I think it makes sense to champion love — to be on the right side of it. I'm thinking that our queen must have done something wrong, if love was what had been responsible for our failure at Canterlot.
We had to change our ways.
At the end of the song, I posed with my wand raised in the air and my other hand pressed against the middle of my chest as I sang and held the last word of the final verse, "For love," for five seconds. I maintained my pose afterward, even as the audience erupted into applause and loudly voiced their joy, admiration, and love, using the hand over my chest to surreptitiously guide the love that was all around me into the medallion. At the same time, as I breathed heavily from my exertions, I feasted with each inhale.
To my utter amazement, although it took me a second to realize it, I actually became full. I didn't know that such a thing was even possible. Despite that distraction, though, I couldn't help noticing the soft halo enveloping my body, due to the density of the love around me. I'd noticed the buildup during my performance, where it had been a glow that could have been attributed to the lighting, but the natural draw from my body, combined with the medallion and my body being full, in addition to me standing still, had taken the accumulation to a level that I could have only dreamed about before.
Between my performance, the reaction I got from it, and being full for the first time in my life, I was feeling quite euphoric. When my focus fully returned to my audience, my fans, the ones who'd given me all of this love... It seemed like such a shame to waste it. On a whim, since there was plenty of love to eat, I pointed my magic wand at the audience and channeled the love that I had ingested through it while shouting one of "Magical Girl Amore's" pretend healing attacks.
"Magical Love Beam!"
I didn't expect it to have any effect on anyone, but I didn't get to see if it did or not: because I felt the most peculiar feeling throughout my body as... something from within bloomed outward before snapping back and enshrouding me, whereupon I was bereft of sight, felt weightless, and experienced more strange sensations while I was unable to move. Before I could truly begin to panic, whatever had encapsulated me burst outward, releasing me from its grip and lighting up the hall in the process. As I felt my weight settle onto my feet again, I looked around, seeing that the audience was confused and slightly worried as their vision recovered from the bright flash of light that had spontaneously come from me.
Since the people in the audience looked alright, I took stock of myself because I sensed that something had changed. I didn't see anything different until I checked a shoulder and spotted something out of the corner of my eye, and that something turned out to be a butterfly wing. A quick check on my other side confirmed that it had a companion, and both kind of looked like stained glass windows, except the veins were translucent, sparkly crystal, and the cells were nearly transparent, colored pastel orange and blue.
I began to hear people gasp, both in surprise and awe, as well as speak animatedly, so I looked back toward the audience, where they could now clearly see my transformation, which quite a few were pointing at. I couldn't allow this to look as if it weren't part of the show, so I quickly ran through everything that I had learned about magical girls and ran with the best explanation that I could come up with.
"Oh, wow!" I voiced, acting surprised and happy about my discovery. "You gave me so much love that my magic has reached a new level of development! Now, as Super Magical Girl Amore, I'll be sure to spread even more love!"
The audience ate it up, enjoying the cherry on top of the rest of the performance. I simply waved a few times before taking a final bow, wanting to hurry to a private place without looking like it, so I could investigate what had happened to me.
"So that's really your default form, now, huh?" Angie inquired from her seat at the vanity.
I stood in front of a full-length mirror, which is where I've been since entering the dressing room and ensuring that we wouldn't have any surprise visitors. I continued to look over my naked body, even though I haven't seen anything new for a while, aside from the butterfly wings from earlier and the antennae that the mirror had revealed to me, which had sprouted just above my hairline.
"Yeah," I said, not knowing exactly how to feel about that just yet. "Even when I disguise myself as a changeling, I turn back to this when I release it."
"That's not going to stop you from going home, is it?" Angie asked, with a measure of concern. "Especially after all of the effort to fill up that medallion of yours."
I looked down at the aforementioned item contemplatively, which was hanging from my neck. "No... It's another challenge I'm worried about."
"Oh?" Angie prompted.
I turned away from the mirror, regarded her with a flat look, and replied without any heat in my voice. "Thanks to you making me realize that there's a better way to get love, compared to how my queen goes about it, I can't go back to the hive and carry on like I used to."
Angie flippantly responded, "Why not feed your queen with a 'Magical Love Beam?'"
I cocked my brow and wondered if she was being serious.
"Just a thought," Angie said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "Treat others as you'd like to be treated yourself, sharing is caring, and all that jazz."
After I shake my head in response, I look down at the medallion as I lift it up from its resting place. "Well, I don't have to go back immediately, so I'm going to figure out what I'll do before I leave."
"Love will find a way, I'm sure," Angie remarked with a slight grin, before suddenly becoming solemn. "It's a shame you can't stay, Katie. I'll miss you."
I was silent for a moment, and refused to look at her. I'd gotten to know Angie fairly well over the months, and she was a quirky and laid-back person, which I found to be an odd combination. It wasn't bad, but we didn't exactly mesh all that well, which was exacerbated by how often we've been together in a small-ish living space. Still, I couldn't deny that I'd regret never seeing her again. I wish I could cast spells like my queen can, so I could create my own portals...
Eventually, I turn my head away from Angie and mumble, "Anyway, thanks for all you've done for me."
"No problem," Angie softly replied. "But if you want a goodbye hug, be sure you're dressed when you have to go."
I chuckled. "Sure."
And I'll make sure that I'm dressed whenever I can find my way back here, too.
