A Shadow of Myself

Charlotte wondered how long Josie would be gone. Not that she was really gone. Her body was sitting quietly over in a nearby tent with Sapphire guarding it like it was the most important job in the world. Still, it would be nice to have her back with a report. It would put an end to Charlotte's current interrogation.

"Are you sure Empathy has been eating enough? He looks a little thin to me."

She sighed and looked at the diminutive little hippo. "I've been making sure he eats plenty. He seems to have a taste for berries. We brought plenty with us, along with nuts, oatmeal, and more. It's most of my pack."

Heavyheart looked at the backpack beside where Charlotte was sitting. "I need to inspect it to ensure it is a proper diet."

"You shouldn't be going through Miss Charlotte's things," Empathy insisted in a flustered voice.

The hippo looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Why don't you sit down and let me take care of things? I'm pretty confident you would accept any slop given to you if it meant serving a human. You wouldn't speak up about it. Let me make sure you haven't been neglected."

"You shouldn't question humans," Empathy insisted, crossing his arms.

Heavyheart pointed across the way at Shrieky. "I've spent the last two weeks dealing with that human. I question everything a human says. Even if Shrieky-"

"Miss Shrieky," Empathy corrected.

"Shrieky," Heavyheart repeated, the missing word stressed. "Even if Shrieky wasn't a miserable meanie, it is still our job to question humans. How are you supposed to help a human without questioning them? If they didn't need to be questioned, they wouldn't need to be helped."

"Miss Charlotte isn't a meanie," Empathy insisted.

Charlotte raised a finger. "Um, if you want to-"

"Hush a moment. Empathy and I are having a conversation," Heavyheart instructed her. She then refocused on him. "Maybe your human isn't a meanie, but that doesn't mean she knows how to care for you properly. She could be ignorant, and you are too starry-eyed to correct her mistakes."

"Miss Charlotte wouldn't neglect me. She cares about me," Empathy reasserted. "Look at me. I'm okay."

"You still look a little thin," Heavyheart said critically. "And her caring for you doesn't mean she can't neglect you. Let me take care of this. You know I only want what's best for you."

Empathy pointed at Charlotte. "What about what's best for Miss Charlotte?"

"I want what's best for her, too," Heavyheart answered. "What's best for her includes having you healthy so you're at your best. It isn't wrong to insist on our needs being met. We're not capable of helping as much as we can if they are not having our needs met."

"Really, it isn't any trouble to let her check my pack. I think she's speaking sense," Charlotte cut in. Anything to bring an end to Heavyheart's grilling and get the hippo off her back. She had a feeling Heavyheart's first encounter with humans being Shrieky had a lot to do with this. Also, all this fretting from Heavyheart about how she took care of Empathy made her a little worried that she wasn't taking as good of care of Empathy as she should. Had he lost too much weight while with her?

"I'm fine!" Empathy insisted. He then closed his eyes and scrunched up his gut. A second later, a balloon shaped like his belly badge popped out of his belly. He opened his eyes and pointed at the balloon. "See!"

Heavyheart didn't seem to be impressed. "Brightheart and some of the others can do that too, and they get that from serving Shrieky. Brightheart can even manage a call. Can you call?"

Empathy took a step back. "I don't know. I haven't had a need to."

"What's a call?" Charlotte asked.

Andrea, who had been sitting close by, smirking at the entire exchange, answered. "That thing where they blast you with their belly. It's a lot like a unicorn blast. That bear I fought tried to take me out with one. Don't think he anticipated I can absorb magic."

"That was a stare, calls are weaker than stares, but they are close to the same thing," Heavyheart explained. "A group of stares or calls can change the feelings of what they hit, while an individual one can be used defensively to cause a temporary disorienting effect and pushback, if an intuit is in trouble– stares hit harder. A group of stares can even transform an Autobot into a Decepticon. The stare and call are strongest together, but we don't associate with the bears anymore."

"You seem much more knowledgeable about things than Empathy," Charlotte commented.

Heavyheart gave Empathy a long-suffering look. "He never paid much attention to his lessons, always goofing off, always leaving me to figure out how to bail him out of trouble."

Empathy rubbed two of his fingers together in embarrassment. "I'm not very smart; not like Heavyheart."

The hippo sighed. "You aren't stupid! You just only apply yourself to a very limited number of things. You do very well at the things you do make an effort at. I just wish there were more of those things."

Empathy smiled. "I apply myself to helping Miss Charlotte."

"Good for you," Heavyheart replied, she didn't sound sarcastic. It sounded like an actual compliment. The hippo didn't linger on it, though. She walked over to Charlotte's backpack, unzipped it, and began rifling through it.

She muttered as she examined things. "Not enough green food, too many sweet berries, oatmeal seems okay, but smells funny. These nuts are too small."

"There's a dirty joke I could say about that, but I don't think you guys would get it since you both lack any kind of…." Andrea trailed off and then shook her head. "You know what, forget I even brought that up. It was kinda juvenile anyway."

Heavyheart chuckled. "I'd get it; Empathy wouldn't. He paid attention to the lessons about intuit reproduction, but he got sick listening to the ones about human reproduction. Bodily fluids, anything that comes out of the body really, other than saliva upset him. My poor Empathy has a weak stomach for that kind of stuff."

"Do not!" Empathy protested.

"Blood. Urine. Semen. Vomit. Puss. Crud," Heavyheart listed off.

Empathy whimpered.

"Hey! He didn't even flinch when I vomited on him!" Charlotte said in his defense.

Heavyheart shrugged. "When he commits to doing something, he can't be deterred by anything, no matter how foolhardy a thing he commits to. I told you that when he does apply himself, he's great at it. He's fully committed to serving you. His worry over you overrode his fears. I've lived my whole life with him. I know him. I bet he can't stand to see you use the bathroom. You're urinating and crapping. He can't take that under normal circumstances."

"She's got you there. Not that I'd want you hanging around while I was on the toilet," Charlotte confessed. "When someone goes to the bathroom, you split from the area faster than Sunset does at the mention of a spider."

Heavyheart looked up from the bag in confusion. "I'm sorry. I didn't understand that last word."

"It's a tiny eight-legged monster that catches other little monsters, wraps them up, and sucks their blood– spider," Empathy explained with a shiver.

The hippo's purple fur took on a green hue. "Sunset sounds wise. You all come from a very scary world."

"Spiders aren't that big a deal," Charlotte asserted. "I don't know why she freaks out the way she does."

"I know," Andrea replied. "She caught a poisonous one nesting in her tail once and she's been freaked out ever since."

"How do you end up with a spider nesting in your tail?" Charlotte asked.

Andrea shrugged. "I don't know. How do pegasi pick up bugs and mites in their feathers all the time? You brush against something, or go flying through the air, and the next thing you know, you have a passenger."

"Pegasi get bugs in their feathers?" Charlotte asked with disgust.

"All the time," Andrea stressed. "I heard it's like half of the preening process to just get them out."

"I wonder how many bugs Sapphire has accidentally eaten while preening," Charlotte mused.

Andrea chuckled. "You're lucky. You didn't wander around much outside as a pony where there are bugs. I saw the way you dragged your tail half the time. That's basically asking for an infestation."

"I found that part of Empathy's story very interesting," Heavyheart cut in. "I was wondering, could Sunset Blessing turn me into a human?"

Charlotte shrugged. "She said it would take time to study intuits for her to be able to manage it, but I'm sure she could." She smirked. "Are you trying to find a way to get Empathy to serve you?"

Heavyheart shook her head. "No, but I would like to get out of serving, now that there may be more humans. Many of the others serve happily, but my reason for service always comes with misery. I am Heavyheart, and I serve by helping with your heavy heart. That might be fulfilling, but it isn't a happy existence."

"You haven't had your opportunity to serve. You could be wrong," Empathy insisted.

The hippo shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm not sure feeling fulfilled and feeling happy always go together, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. I will serve if the opportunity arises, it is an itch I can't otherwise scratch, but I'd rather choose what purpose I am serving. I did not choose this purpose. I wish I had one like yours, or most other intuits. I'm instead forced to help others endure sadness and misery, and the thought of always being surrounded by it and seeking it out depresses me. Being a human or one of these ponies seems a much better way to live. Our nature forces us to serve, which is slavery, and I don't like that. I want more. It seems almost like I was better off with no humans to serve."

Heavyheart rezipped the pack and sighed. "You feed him adequately, for the most part, but he needs to lay off the berries and get more nuts. He isn't getting enough hard foods. That's why he is losing weight."

"Hard foods make my gas worse," Empathy complained. "Miss Charlotte finds my gas disgusting."

"I never said that!" Charlotte protested.

"Empathy might not be the smartest, but he is good at perceiving those things," Heavyheart said. She gave Empathy a hard look. "Your human will put up with it if she cares about you. Eat more nuts."

Charlotte didn't look forward to the extra stench, but she could put up with it. Empathy needed to stay healthy. She didn't have many nuts in her pack. Perhaps the intuits had more. Come to think of it, how were they, Shrieky, and Beastly feeding themselves? There was no sign of plantlife up on the surface. She had noticed the little flower pots earlier. Did they have a proper garden in a greenhouse down here? She could ask about it when she went looking for food. Hopefully, they'd be generous. She didn't have much she could afford to give up in a trade…not unless they liked pink plastic bracelets.

"If you want to change into a human or pony, what would become of Empathy? Doesn't he need you to reproduce?" Charlotte asked.

Empathy gave Heavyheart big pleading eyes as she considered her answer.

"I would hope he would join me and transform as well," Heavyheart replied. "He could still serve, if he wished, as a pony or human. He might not fill a belly badge by serving, but that just means his service is what he wants. We don't even know if the two of us need be a couple if we transform. I think I would still want to be, but I don't know if that is my desire or what I am made to think. Perhaps he could pursue you instead if he were human."

Empathy blanched at the suggestion, but went red-faced a moment later. "No! I always knew I was supposed to be with you."

"But is that your choice or the way you were made?" Heavyheart asked. "I want it to be our choice."

"Well, pursuing Charlotte wouldn't work out. She prefers female company," Andrea said with a chuckle.

Heavyheart shrugged. "We are intuits, those things are flexible. He could be a she if he wished. Yesterday Gentleheart and I had briefly discussed the possibility of taking each other as mates. She has lost hers and I had thought I had lost mine. Taking an unintended mate is something that is rarely done, but we both thought we had a need. We are both female, and we briefly discussed which would switch to male. It is an ordeal, and it rewrites our personality and job in the family unit, It is very uncomfortable for the first generation."

"Um…considering none of you has biological sex, why does that matter?" Charlotte asked in confusion.

"The magic for reproduction just works that way. It seems silly to me, but we are designed that way for who knows what reason. I personally think the Cloudkeeper was making it needlessly complicated by preassigning us roles within the family. If I ever meet my maker, I'm going to tell him he's dumb," Heavyheart explained.

"Hey, at least it is a choice you can make," Andrea pointed out. "You said you get to make no choices."

"It's a miserable choice. Done only for survival," Heavyheart growled.

"Like clownfishes," Andrea mused. The intuits probably didn't understand what was said.

"You guys are really strange," Charlotte muttered.

"Says the lady that comes from a world of bloodsucking monsters," Heavyheart countered. "But, yes, and I hate it."

"Gentleheart is here?" Empathy asked, looking about. "I thought that line ended."

Heavyheart scowled. "The bears got Braveheart and Baby Braveheart, but Gentleheart and Baby Gentleheart survived and came here. It has been so long that it is now Old Gentleheart and Gentleheart. She is too shy. She has had opportunities at finding a replacement mate, but always delayed until they ended up finding a replacement first. She needs to find a mate soon, or her line is done."

"The lion and the lamb were together?" Andrea asked in astonishment. "Heh! Sunset would have something to say about that."

Charlotte gave her sister a dirty look. "We shouldn't laugh at it. They're talking about the extinction of family lines. It's like losing people for good."

Andrea hung her head. "You're right. That was out of line. Sorry, Heavyheart."

Charlotte glanced over to where a nearby transformer was working. "How do those guys reproduce?"

Heavyheart shrugged. "I do not know. I only met or heard of them for the first time when I came to the surface. I was completely unaware such beings existed. I know that some of them are very old, older than I can imagine. They said they were not created by the Cloudkeeper, but something called Unicron, which was the first being made with the Allspark. They said that Unicron had gone mad millions of years ago. Unicron said the master plan he was made for did not make sense, and he wanted to destroy everything. The Decepticons were originally the ones that defeated him, and freed all the transformers, but when the humans came along, the Decepticons went mad too, and they've been fighting ever since. At least, that's what the Autobots told me."

"Who is this Cloudkeeper guy, and where is he now? And what master plan?" Charlotte asked.

"Cloudkeeper our maker, a human of great magic," Heavyheart stated. "Cloudkeeper helped the Autobots once with fighting off a Decepticon invasion of Earth. They let him borrow and study the Allspark after that, and he used it to make us and the bears. He was long-lived, but wasn't immortal, and he died of old age. Shrieky's father and No Heart were both apprentices to Cloudkeeper, but they were never as powerful or skilled as him. As for the master plan, even the transformers don't know. They just know they were originally made to help carry it out."

"What about Shrieky's dad? Can he help us?" Andrea asked.

Heavyheart shook her head sadly. "That is why I attempted to serve Shrieky. No Heart killed him, his own brother. Shrieky has a heavy heart, and she refuses to face it, but I know. Empathy isn't the only perceptive one."

The hippo looked back and forth between Andrea and Charlotte. "You two do as well. I will not be pushy, but when you want help, I'm here. I still serve a purpose. Come on, Empathy. I said some things that upset you. We need to talk about them…in private."

Charlotte and Andrea watched the pair leave. Heavyheart was not what she had been expecting. She had been expecting someone a bit more serious than Empathy, but not so dour.

"Do you think Sunset will do it, make her a pony or human?" Andrea asked.

Charlotte shrugged. "She probably will, if asked. I mean, she fully supports self-determination, and she is living in Equestria, so she can cast whatever she wants. Luster could do it if-"

"We aren't even going to mention it to Luster," Andrea said with a hint of harshness. "We don't want to screw them up. Say what you want about Sunset, at least she gets her spells right."

Charlotte knew it was best not to press that. She was surprised Andrea was dealing so well with Luster being on the team.

"We'd have to bring her home with us for Sunset to do it,," Charlotte pointed out. "I'm not sure we can. What would this do to Empathy?"

"Don't know Those are questions for another day," Andrea said with a sigh. She then flicked her ears. "Hey, can we go find a tent and you help me switch my earrings to human? I'm tired of being short, and all this magic is messing with my senses."

Charlotte raised an eyebrow at her sister. "Why not centaur?"

"I still want the extra safety if I get shot or something," Andrea answered. "Plus, I want to take a little pressure off you. Most of the intuits have been giving us space so far, but it is only a matter of time before they swarm you. They have to be considering you a better option to serve than Shrieky."

Charlotte smirked. "You just want a bunch of intuits fighting for your attention."

"I'm sure it gets old fast," Andrea replied. "I wonder how long till Josie is done. She's been at it for a long t-"

"Y'all need to come. Josie's got word about Bursa and the humans!" Apple Bloom said in a rush as she ran by them.

"Answers that question," Charlotte said as she started heading towards where the others were headed.

It only took a moment for them to all gathered around Josie. The pony looked grim.

"Bursa is alright, and awaiting us. As for the humans…there's some serious Matrix shit going on."