Decoy

The purple changeling dozed off a bit, cheek resting on one hoof as it waited patiently in the office, sitting in front of the desk. It was a really boring office, with the usual filing cabinets and bookshelves and knickknacks and a diploma on the wall that it didn’t bother to read because it knew that no one really cared what it said. There was a whiteboard full of boxes and arrows and buzzwords that it didn’t really understand and that probably wasn’t possible to understand without the context of whatever discussion had been going on when it had been marked up. There was also a big leafy plant that it had to assume had seen better days because it couldn’t possibly have grown that big without ever being watered.

Its wings twitched, under its elytra. With a sigh, it got to its hooves and poked its head out into the hallway –

“I’m coming!” said a mousy brown pony with glasses and a file balanced between her wings. “Sorry for the wait, I needed to get your file from the mail room. I know I should have gotten it earlier but –”

“It’s fine,” the changeling said, sitting back down by the desk. “I’m not in any hurry.”

“So,” the pegasus said, sitting down behind the desk and opening the file. “Miss… Decoy? Mister Decoy? It doesn’t have a sex listed.” When Decoy didn’t respond, she frowned. “Are you a colt or a filly?”

“I’m a shapeshifter,” Decoy replied.

“Yes, but do you consider yourself a changeling stallion or a changeling mare?”

“I consider myself a shapeshifter,” Decoy said. As the interviewer continued to wait expectantly, it sighed. “Fine. Mark me down as a mare.”

She smiled. “Miss Decoy – can I call you Dee for short? Dee, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your work history. It says here that…” she paused, and flipped the page. “Sorry, like I said, I only just got my hooves on this file. Maybe you can tell me about your prior experience? Were you a construction drone?”

“Oh, in the hive?” Decoy asked, blinking. “No, I was a troubleshooter. I thought you knew this.”

“I wasn’t originally meant to handle your entry interview, but you know how it is. Auger had a last minute ‘family emergency’” she made air quotes around her head with her wings while saying that “so I have to fill in…” She smiled at it. “So you took care of problems that popped up around the hive?”

“Sometimes,” Decoy said, smirking. “Usually it was problems outside the hive though.”

“Oh?”

“Ponies,” Decoy said. “I took care of problem ponies. Put them in a cocoon, drained their love, shipped them off to the Kludgetown slave markets.”

The pegasus stared at it, frozen.

“We always got a good price – love-drained ponies are really easy to enslave. Then I’d take their place for a few days, and either fake my death or have them ‘move out of town’.” Decoy used its hooves instead of its wings to do the air quotes, since its weren’t as mobile as a pegasus’.

“But this was before you reformed,” the pegasus said, taking a deep breath. “I imagine you were very sorry –”

“Not especially?” Decoy said, wiggling a hoof. “They were enemies. Most of them didn’t know they were enemies, but being discovered would have ruined our infiltrators’ work and we all would have starved. Starved more, I mean.”

“But those poor ponies...”

“Uh huh,” Decoy said, unimpressed.

“So… would you still cocoon and enslave ponies now?”

Decoy shrugged. “The princesses are in charge, so they can disappear their own problems. Like me. I got disappeared into a hundred-year indenture contract, which I guess you bought? I’m not sure why you’re interviewing me now. It’s a bit late to send me back.”

“I’m afraid I can’t comment on our recruitment strategies,” the pegasus said, flipping a few pages and then frowning at what she saw. “I can say that, aside from dragons, changelings make the best workers in a desert climate. We’d have really preferred you to have some experience, however. Construction work is skilled labor.” She closed the file, and looked Decoy over. “How is your shapeshifting?”

“Pretty good,” Decoy said. “I can do a maulwurf or a diamond dog, if that’s what you’re asking. Also assorted animals, plants, inanimate objects, and of course any sort of pony.” It let the flames wash over it, and changed into a duplicate of the interviewer, straightening her posture and adjusting her wings to match the pony’s body language.

“Please don’t impersonate other employees,” the pegasus said, in clipped tones, her face hard.

“Okaaaay,” Decoy said, flashing back to its default form. “I was pretty sure you were going to be able to tell which one of us you were.”

“There are rules,” the pegasus said.

“Yay. Rules.”

“You are expected to follow the rules at all times –”

“Wow, you ponies don’t know me at all.”

“—or else you will be subject to disciplinary action.”

Decoy rolled its eyes.

“This is not a joking matter,” the pegasus said. “Since we can’t fire you, we’re allowed to impose drastic penalties, including withdrawal of privileges not strictly necessary for your survival, corporal punishment, and imprisonment.”

“But you can’t drain my love, leaving me a withered husk, and then feed me to the tatzlwyrms,” Decoy said. “So it’s still better than working for Chrysalis. Look,” it added, “I don’t want to be here. I don’t know why you want me to be here. This is making it really hard for me to take this interview seriously, but I’m not going to…” it trailed off. “I’ll go along with whatever sort of job you assign me to.”

“So you’d be willing to do construction?”

“Of course. Every changeling learns the basics as a grub. I’m sure some of it will come back to me.”

“How about security? Guard duty?”

It crinkled its muzzle. “Sounds boring, but whatever.”

“Paperwork? Data entry?”

“Eh,” it said. “Sure.”

“How about sex work?”

“Sounds fun.”

The pegasus paused before checking off the box, quill still perched between her lips. “Do you actually mean that, or are you just glibly agreeing to whatever I ask so that it’s as hard as possible to find an actual placement?”

“Sex isn’t a big thing for me,” Decoy said. “We weren’t raised that way. Pony attitudes just seem… weird? And sad? I can pretend to have pony sensibilities about it but I would have to care enough to put on an act and I don’t. If you want me to fuck random ponies then I’ll shapeshift some genitalia and go to town.”

She paused, staring into its eyes, then checked the box. “It wouldn’t be a full-time position – we’re not running a whorehouse. You’d be working a few extra shifts servicing the occasional visiting official or their staff. It’s one of the few things we can pay indentures for.”

“Alright. Any other options?”

“Janitorial duties?”

“Boooring. But easy. Sure.”

“Landscaping…”