Author's Note

I hope that you didn't expect me to completely change the events of the movie.

Just a forewarning: this chapter involves a nightmare sequence culminating in an attempted suicide. I know that themes of suicidal ideation aren't easy for many to handle, and some may even be turned off by this sequence. That said, it is the culmination of one's fears and doubts taken to the exaggerated extreme, as the mind is wont to do. Fact of the matter is that Anon has, up to this point, been handling everything too well, and upon finally breaking down, it was of course going to be hard on her.

This marks the end of the 'darker' parts of the story; the next several arcs are wholly intended on being much more lighthearted. Well, entry 46's drama notwithstanding.

Entry 43

The moment we entered the castle and the doors were closed behind us, the toxic miasma of negative psychic energy lessened. Seemingly in response, the nasty feeling illness mostly passed, although the headache remained. Our procession only stopped long enough for Tempest to allow Twilight to make sure I was doing alright. You know, testing pupillary response and follow the light around the tip of her horn—it wasn't like the cage could really block her from creating light inside the cage, after all—and a few silly little questions.

"Why do you even care what happens to her?" Twilight managed to ask as we started moving once more. She seemed stupefied by Tempest's inconsistent behaviour. "I'm just a magic battery to you, but she wouldn't have nearly enough to make any sort of substantial contribution to whatever it is you're planning on doing with our magic. I have serious doubts that she'd be willing to make combat spells for you, either... so why?"

Conscience, duh, I thought, burning away the black secretions by reapplying my transformation. Even if she won't admit it, she doesn't want to be responsible for killing a kid.

"Call it whatever you want, Princess of 'Friendship'," Tempest shot back, not giving Twilight the satisfaction of meeting her gaze. "I might present her to the Storm King as a pet or a future project. I could see plenty of uses for shapeshifters in the future."

By that point, I'd had more than enough time for my brain to start processing properly again. Twilight was partially right, earlier, when she said it was like alcohol poisoning. The fear, hate, and despair were intoxicating to changelings, but dangerous in high quantities. If I'm unpacking this absolute spaghetti-fest of a brain dump that Hunger pumped into me correctly, I was leaking condensed emotions... It was likely this was happening because I've not learned how to turn off my empathic powers, so I can't exactly filter out whatever emotions I feed on passively. For that matter, that's another thing I still don't know how to turn off. Basically, I was overfeeding and binge-drinking without even intentionally doing it.

How shitty is that? If I can't learn to control that set of abilities, and Canterlot stays this way, am I not trapped in but a larger, gilded cage?

That left a question in mind, though... I'd been leaking that same ichor before I became a changeling... Admittedly, it was while I was being prodded along that dark path by Désirée, but it shouldn't have been happening then. Or was I slowly changing even then? Could whatever had happened back with Chrysalis be responsible for that slow change?

Before too long, we were led through the massive doors of the throne room. Waiting for us there was a rather chilling sight. Three obsidian statues were placed in a seemingly random pattern to either side of the red carpet leading up to the throne. Except, they weren't really statues; they were the princesses, frozen away in black glass. Celestia, normally so stoic, was trapped in an expression of terror. Cadance, on the other hand, was more of a mix of shock and confusion. Then there was Luna. It looked as though she was caught mid-flight, looking back over her shoulder.

Maybe it's some protective magic in the castle, but even with the openings to the balconies behind the throne, it doesn't feel too bad in here... Or maybe it's just that the palace is mostly empty and there's not enough ponies to create that bad juju.

As two guards offloaded Twilight and myself, another two led the slaves and the cart back out the doors. Once they were gone, Grubber was there to slam the doors shut, accompanied by some manic laughter, behind them. That was when I took another look at the princesses. I'd thought at first they were randomly placed, but if my depth perception and spatial awareness hadn't failed me, it appeared that each of the princesses were spaced equidistantly. A perfect square.

I think Twilight picked up on the same thing, although as the more experienced magic user, she probably understood the significance a lot better than I did. She brought herself up to the bars and pleaded, "Tempest, don't do this; don't give the Storm King—"

"Your magic?" the dark unicorn interrupted with a smirk. "Did you really think you could keep it all to yourself?" She turned away from Twilight, and in a mocking tone added, "Time to share."

As she said, "I'd love for everybody out there to know what I can really do," I heard the clop of hooves behind us. When I turned my head, I saw a figure step into the light filtering in from the balcony entrance marked with the sun. It was bipedal, had legs like a pony or a goat, and appeared have horns at first glance, although they might've been a feature of the crown it also appeared to wear. He, I decided, was also holding a staff that was as tall as, if not taller than him. If he had wings, I'd swear it was Baphomet.

"Oooh, fascinating" came a voice that was strangely... not all that intimidating. Even with the scowl on his face and the way he slammed the butt of the staff into the floor, he struck me more of a radio-host sort of guy than an evil ruler. Kinda flamboyant, really. "What can you really do?"

His appearance caught both Grubber and Tempest off guard, although the former was quick to begin with the bowing and scraping. "Your bidding, of course, Your Mighty One..." the hedgehog said as Tempest composed herself. A moment later, he seemingly decided he was needed elsewhere, and booked it out of the throne room. That action earned an eye roll from Tempest, and I could relate. Can only imagine how bad it felt for a subordinate to embarrass you in front of your boss.

If the Storm King was at all bothered by it, he didn't show it. He just swaggered up to Twilight's cage, oozing arrogance. "Bidding's good. I like bidding." He looked down at Twilight, and seemingly noticing her for the first time, he asked, "Um, what are you supposed to be?"

Surprisingly, Twilight seemed to have some fight left in her. She didn't shy away from him or the bars when she stated, "I'm the Princess of Friendship."

The arrogant bastard just started laughing at her, wiping away some tears and flicking them away in an exaggerated manner. "Oh, that's nice." He turned to Tempest, gestured at Twilight with his thumb, and growled, "Why's this one still moving?"

"She and her friends put up a bit of a fight, but she's alone now," Tempest replied, looking at Twilight and then me with a smirk. "She won't be a problem. Neither of them will."

Finally, he seemed to notice me. "Oh, yeah; what's with the brat?" he asked, reaching down to pick me up by the lead. Suspended by the leather strap now wrapped tightly around my throat, all I could do was hang there and hope he'd drop me before I blacked out or my layrx collapsed. "This one wasn't in any of the intel, was she?"

Tempest winced seeing me hang there, and I thought I might've even heard Twilight call out my name; without the hard carapace of my true form, the strap was cutting off the flow of oxygen to my brain, and I could feel my blood pounding in my ears. The edges of my vision were starting to go dark, and it felt like I was falling... and then I hit the floor, landing flat on my back.

As I struggled to catch my breath, and the Storm King stared at me in disgust and shock, Tempest stepped into my vision and grabbed me by one of my black-shelled limbs. Before I knew what was what, I was upright in my Hunger-imposed natural form. "This, My Liege, is a young changeling queen," she explained, giving me an apologetic look. "She may be young and useless to us at the moment, but if she can be swayed to our side, she and her future offspring could be of great use in our war efforts. Imagine it... an entire army of shapeshifters able to infiltrate anywhere and conquer in your name!"

If anything, he only looked less and less impressed by her explanation. Pinching the bridge of his nose between one of his two fingers and his thumb, he shook his head, looking to Twilight. "I thought you ponies exterminated these disgusting bugs," he said in an exasperated voice. He didn't even give Twilight the opportunity to respond though, because he quickly turned back to Tempest. Before either of us knew what was what, the tip of the big crystal in his staff was pressed right up against her snout. "Do you have any idea what kind of problems these bugs can cause if left unchecked? You saw the intel! They almost overthrew this nation themselves before being wiped out, and you want to let them repopulate!? These things are like cockroaches!"

He pointed at the two guards. "You and you," he growled, snatching up the leather lead. With one fluid motion, he whipped it around and threw me as if he was participating in the hammer throw event in the Olympics. "Take this thing outside and kill it." As he turned back to address Tempest, I thought I heard him mutter, "I swear, if you want things done right, you have your own army do it."

I could hear Twilight screaming out my name and begging him to let me go as one of the creatures hauled me up onto its shoulder. My mouth wouldn't work as I was hauled away, nor would my body; I was paralysed with shock. Despite its seeming obedience, neither soldier seemed overly enthused about executing a little kid. Even Tempest looked horrified and was voicing a protest, but that bastard had already broken off into some other rant about fucking cuteness of all things. How fucked up is that? He just casually orders that I—a child—be killed, and then rants about cute things and how he hates it, like I didn't mean anything.

The ride out the throne-room doors and into one of the side halls was hardly comfortable, either. What I'd initially believed to be white manes on these things turned out to just be long white quills spilling off the tops of their heads and out of their armour and helmets. I found this out when the quills on the motherfucker that was carrying me kept jabbing into the joints of my carapace.

Am I really about to die here? I asked myself. Is this really the end I was supposed to meet? I shook my head. No. I've been in this new body for less than an entire day! Thoughts of Emerald, of Starlight, Twilight and her friends, Sunset, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders filled my head. It wasn't fair! There was so much I still wanted to do... to see. I made Emerald a promise.

I know what I've gotta do, I thought as cold filled my belly.

"H-hey," I murmured. The soldier carrying me held me out in front of it like a cat, putting its hands beneath my forelimbs. I couldn't see its face or its eyes thanks to its masked helm, but based on its emotional aura, it seemed to pity me. Throwing on the waterworks and adding in a little lip tremor, I begged, "I know you guys are about to kill me and all, but I'm scared... Since you seem reluctant too, could I get a group hug before you do it?"

The dude looked over at his partner. For its part, the other one gave the universal hands up shrug. Grumbling slightly, the one holding me pulled me close to its bristly neck. It even let me put one arm around its neck. After a moment the other let out a begrudging groan before wrapping its arms around its buddy and letting me put my other foreleg around its neck.

"Sorry, boys," I whispered as I transformed my forelegs into copies of the scythe-like spike I'd made back in the barracks in Manehattan. Before they had time to scream, I drove the points of my altered limbs down diagonally through their quills, punching into the backs of their necks and into their chest cavities. Once lodged inside, I altered the blade-edge to add serrated hooks. It took much more effort to rip them back out, but between the arterial spray that covered my face and glasses, and the chunks of their windpipes stuck to my legs, there was no chance they'd survive.

I hopped down to the floor... almost pleased with myself. There were no cries for help from the two, and nobody really knew where we were. Instead, they collapsed mostly silently, their helmets tumbling off as they flopped onto their backs. They stared up at me with pleading, fearful eyes as I loomed over them on my hind legs, propped up by the vicious implements I'd made of my forelegs.

An image flashed through my mind: an earth pony stallion laid out on his back, his breathing quickly growing laboured. He looked so scared and confused as to what had just happened, and why he couldn't move. I hadn't really paid attention when I laid him out back in the warehouse, but with all the bone fragments that must've shot around his chest cavity, he was probably drowning in his own blood. Unlike these two, he didn't even get the dignity of an apology.

"Sometimes, even if they wanted to change... some ponies just can't be redeemed." Twilight's defeated words echoed through my mind as I watched the two creatures die. Although it was kill or be killed, I'd just killed them without hesitation. Worse, I'd just killed them in a cruel and underhanded way.

Another image flashed through my mind: a pegasus stallion looming over me. He wasn't breathing. He couldn't—not with my hoof punched clean through his breast-bone and crushing his heart. He'd been killed just as mercilessly as the first. Were his last thoughts of regret? Of loved ones?

More and more images flashed through my mind. The rest of the seven that refused my offer of amnesty... each and every one of their faces appeared in my head... Their last moments before I tore them apart like some kind of living blender. All the damage I'd done to them... I almost wanted to say it was for the best that Hunger's spell disposed of the bodies, because if anypony had to see what was left of them, they'd probably be traumatised too... and they didn't have to live with the knowledge that they were capable of that sort of viciousness.

"Some ponies just can't be redeemed." I turned into a monster that day, and monsters don't just stop being monsters. They had to be redeemed. Even if I could put part of the blame on the manipulation of an entity like her , it was still my mind that created the methods of their executions... my instincts... my tools... My breath hitched in my throat and my eyes grew misty. I feel guilt, but even without her influence, I killed without hesitation or mercy... Could I be redeemed?

I rubbed at my temples with the armoured joints of my restructured legs, struggling to force my breathing to stabilise. Gotta get away from here, was all I could think as I shuffled down the hall, panting and sobbing. It was no use though. Either my breath would hitch, or I'd begin to hyperventilate. I knew I was panicking, but it was so bad that it was absolutely filling the hallway, folding back on itself. Even dragging myself away from the bodies and getting down a separate passage didn't help. Twilight's gonna hate me... my friends are gonna hate me... I'm a monster who can't be redeemed.

It felt like a hand clamped down on my shoulder carapace, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm proud of ya, boy," came the last voice I expected—or wanted—to hear. It was that man, and whether it was real or imagined, didn't matter... The words were like a knife through my heart. "Yer just like yer Pa now."

Even as I spiralled inward, appearing within the dream room atop my pillow pile, I felt myself screaming. I couldn't stop it... my body or mind wouldn't let me. I apparently even startled Emerald, who was lying on her bed reading my letter. She rushed over to me, but that just made me panic more. I'm a monster... I don't deserve to be near her... Eventually, my vision grew dark, and despite the little filly's best attempts to rouse me, I collapsed. Please don't hate me...

~ 43 ~

My eyes flitted open. The sky above was overcast, and I could feel the tickle of dry grass and fir needles against my belly's softer chitin. A quick look about revealed that I was in a familiar looking park, nestled in a hollow dug beneath a tree. Based on the fact that I could see the mountain city of Canterlot off in the distance—now, and forever more, shrouded in smog—it was definitely the one in Ponyville. Didn't I come here while high that one time, and then get pulled into that stupid bullshit with Dash, Evening Script, and the others?

Dragging myself out of the little nest, I looked around in confusion. Did I decide to go camping? There was no sign of any sort of campfire, but that was the exact sort of bedding I'd set up when I used to camp out—back before I got my hands on a sleeping bag. So why was I there?

The sound of my stomach distracted me, and I was suddenly painfully aware of just how hungry I was. Bringing one of my hooves up to touch my belly, alarm quickly joined that hunger. When did my belly become so concave? I wondered as I caressed my narrow abdomen. At last I checked, I'd almost gotten myself up to a healthy weight for a filly my age, and it almost seemed like I'd only gained weight since my transformation.

Time to go home, I guess. For some reason, when I had that thought, my instincts told me to crawl back into the hole beneath the tree. But that couldn't be right; I lived with Twilight, Spike, and Starlight in the big crystal tree-castle. Why the hell would I think I lived under a tree in the park?

I brought my hoof up to rub my temple, but before I could do that, I froze. The chitin on my leg looked... wrong. It was flaking away in places, and it looked almost like there was a hole going straight through it. Wait... No, it was just a straight-up hole; there was no looks like about it. My haemolymph went cold as I looked at my other limbs. They were all in similar or worse states. Even my wings looked like they were hole-ridden.

Something's seriously wrong... this only happens when changelings are starving, and it's not supposed to happen like this until I'm fully grown. Even though I wanted to run back to the castle, I didn't have the energy. Look's like I'm hoofing it.

My trip through Ponyville was strange. Although I could always hear the din of conversation and a lively town up ahead of me, whenever I reached somewhere occupied, it always went quiet. More than once, I caught sight of ponies darting into homes and slamming their doors. Others merely stopped talking, choosing instead to glare at me. The most talking I ever heard was whispering.

"Monster.,,"

"Murderer..."

"Shapeshifting fiend..."

"Disgusting..."

Whenever I got close to one of the cafés or the storefronts, the business owners quickly found reasons to switch their signs from open to closed. Maybe the worst part were the emotions. The air was alive with hate, fear, and disgust, all of it directed at me. It got so bad in places that I started to get overwhelmed with dizziness. They know what you did.

Eventually, I made it out of the town proper and to the castle. Things were little better there. The moment I got to the door, I was intercepted by two guards. These were the MPs who stuck around after the Chrysalis affair. The large pegasus spread his wings, getting himself between me and the door, while the bespectacled earth pony levelled his spear at me.

"Step away from the castle, Anonymous," Strongwind bellowed. "You know better than to come back here!"

What do you mean? I couldn't help but wonder. I clearly don't know better—or why—which is why I'm here. I live here after all.

Specks jabbed at me with his spear, forcing me to back up. "Yeah, you've got a lot of nerve coming back here after what you did."

"What the fuck, dude?" I muttered. Looking up to the balcony to Twilight's study, I saw the door was open. "Twilight, what's going on?" I yelled upward. "Why are the guards trying to kill me!? Why does everypony suddenly hate me?"

It took some time before she came out to peer down at me. She looked paler than I remembered, her eyes red-rimmed and baggy. The moment she looked down at me, I saw a hateful expression the likes of which I'd never seen before. "The starvation must have started to eat your brain for you to forget," she shouted back down at me. "It's because of you that the Storm King's armies put Starlight, Trixie, Emerald, and all of Manehattan to death! Why couldn't you have just died so that they could live?"

I... what? My legs gave out beneath me. Tears began to spill down my cheeks as I looked up at her in confusion. The hate on her face momentarily gave way to pity. How many times had we had this exact conversation? No... Starlight and Emerald were fine... right? They have to be!

I blinked, and I was back in the hollow beneath the tree, lying atop grasses, boughs, scraps of cloth, and other bits of detritus. It was night now, and it felt like a very long time had passed since I'd last been this lucid. There was snow on the ground now, and my little nest did nothing to protect me from the cold. Not that it particularly mattered now.

Everyone I ever cared about is dead or hates me.

Even if the cold doesn't kill me, I don't have long left in this world. I rubbed at my barrel, which was dented inward in the shape of a large hoof. As if it wasn't bad enough that my carapace was dented inward, somewhat crushing my organs, there were several massive cracks leaking a dark green haemolymph that even a hive resin patch job couldn't completely stymie.

It was hard for me to breathe, but what did I expect? That Big Macintosh wouldn't catch me trying to get into the cellar beneath their barn to steal some apples? Maybe I would've been luckier if he'd kicked my head in, instead. I winced at the dark thought, but honestly it was more because of the fatigue. I'm just so tired of everything...

"That's what this is for, though," I croaked, patting the rope coiled in front of me with my hole-ridden hoof. I didn't manage to steal any food from the Apples, but I did manage to snag this rope from the barn on my way out. I'd decided the moment I found that the bleeding wouldn't stop that I'd give these ponies exactly what they wanted. Not only that, but I'd do it in a way that gave the biggest middle finger to them all.

You'd think it would be hard to carve a message into your own shell with a broken piece of metal, painful even. But no, it was relatively simple to carve 'You all did this. I hope you're happy.' into my side. Didn't hurt a bit, and even though I knew that should alarm me, I just didn't care. Fuck all of you.

At that, I threw coiled the rope over my withers and crawled out of my little burrow. I had half a mind to scratch a fire spell into the bark of the tree and burn it down behind me, but... if I botched this, it'd be better to have somewhere safe to spend my last moments.

With all the holes in my legs now, it was hard enough to walk. The dent in my side just made the limping gait more pronounced. Still, I was glad I had the moonlight to guide me. It almost felt like Luna was there, alive with me... Keeping me company as I marched toward the clock tower. I was silently grateful that my membranous wings hadn't degraded to the point where I could no longer achieve lift, because it made getting up there a much easier prospect.

Once I was up top of the tower, I looked out at the town that I once called home. From up here, I had the best view of Canterlot and its perpetual smog. It was bitter reminder of what had happened to Equestria with the other princesses gone and the Storm King atop the throne. Maybe it's for the best, I thought darkly as I anchored my rope to the clapper of the clock tower's bell. Midnight wake-up call you'll never forget.

It wasn't until I finished shaping the rope into a noose that I realised I wasn't alone up here. I hadn't heard any wing-beats, nor could I feel anyone's emotions close by. It was the clip-clop of metal-shod hooves in a long corridor that gave it away. There was only one pony I could think of who would come to bother me now. How many times had I just barely been missed with lightning? "Come to watch, Rainbow Dash?" I asked bitterly, slipping the rope around my neck. "Maybe you'd like to do the honour of pushing me so I don't pussy out?"

I knew it was all in my head, but I heard that man's voice whispering, "Yer gonna be just like yer Pa."

"Do you not think you have tormented yourself enough?" came a voice that I never again expected to hear. I snapped my head around, and I was so surprised that I nearly fell off the tower in shock. Had Princess Luna not been so quick to catch me with her magic, I might even have fallen. Instead, she pulled me away from the edge and sat me in front of her. "Would you not rather wake up and join the others in celebrating Twilight's Friendship Festival and victory over the Storm King?"

I could only stare at her in confusion. "Is that all you have to say after being gone and dead for two months?" I cried, unable to rise to my hooves to stand defiantly before her. I'd seen the rubble her body had left behind when it'd been smashed by the Storm King... I couldn't fathom why now of all times she'd choose to reappear, nearly two hundred days later. Everyone would be better off if she let me... "Maybe you haven't heard yet, but I'm an irredeemable monster!

"The day the invasion started, I killed the entire crew of an airship with one spell. I didn't feel an ounce of guilt," I spat, weakly dragging myself back to the edge of the platform. "Probably a few individual Storm Guard that day too. Then, I let myself get manipulated into going on a bloody rampage to save Starlight and Trixie from Emerald Flicker's mob-boss stepdad. I took eighteen lives."

I trembled at the look of horror and pity she gave me. Maybe she'll do me a favour and kill me herself. "Only seven of them I feel bad for, because I only gave them the one chance to choose life." Tears began to spill down the flaky, cracked chitin of my face as she took a step towards me. "The other eleven were all Emerald's sexual abusers and deserved what they got, but every single night I've spent since it all ended, I've seen the faces of those seven."

"Anon, none of this is real," Luna said, her horn igniting with a spell that sent ripples throughout the space around us. I looked down at my legs in confusion as her magic washed over me. The holes and flakes burned away, revealing whole, sturdy black shell. The ache in my chest and the agony of my dented side vanished, and my body was no longer emaciated. "You've been in a catatonic state for not more than two days. The torment you suffered here—" She gestured out at Ponyville, which had begun flaking away into the familiar nothingness of my old coping mechanism. Then she reached over and poked me gently in the forehead, just beneath my stubby little horn. "—was all in here. Time works differently in dreams, Anonymous, and nightmares of self-recrimination in particular can feel like... an eternity."

I looked away from the princess, unable to meet her eyes. "Still... everyone must hate me for what I've become," I whispered. "Twilight said some ponies can't be redeemed, even if they wanted to, and even if I wash my hooves, I know that blood is still there."

To my horror and indignation, the princess pulled me into what would have been a bone-crushing embrace. Come to think of it, do I even have a skeletal structure in this form? "I will not lie to you," she whispered. It was weird to have her petting the back of my head, but pony—and I guess bug—brain chemistry found the act calming, reassuring even. "There are some who do not trust you. Although it was young Spike that found you, it was Twilight and the others that found what had become of your would-be killers. They are split on whether or not they can trust you."

As the last of Ponyville faded away into nothing, I felt her dragging me up, out of the dream... Not to wherever my real body must have been, but up into the dream room. All of a sudden, I was being physically pulled out of my pillow nest by the princess, with Emerald bouncing on the bed excitedly behind her. "Regardless, there is somepony that I know to be very excited to see you," Princess Luna remarked.

"Anon!" Emerald squealed, launching herself off the bed and bowling me right back into the pile as she wrapped her forelegs around me in a hug. I winced at the contact, simulated though it was, and had to tell myself not to panic. "I was so scared and I didn't know what was going on! But now you're back, and tomorrow, Prince Blueblood is taking me and Starlight on a sky chariot to fly to Canterlot! Then we'll all be together again and I can meet all the princesses for real!"

Luna just smiled at me and began to walk towards the door. "I'll let the two of you spend some time together," she said. "But somepony will be by to rouse you before dinner. Worry not, though. You will not be alone, nor have you been in the entire two days you've been unconscious."

~ 43 ~

Although I didn't really feel up to it, I forced myself to be strong for Emerald. Spending time with her gave me a little time to reorient my mind, and figure out what was real and what was the nightmare. True to Princess Luna's word, after what felt like two hours of playing games with my new little sister had passed, I found myself being gently shaken awake in a bed. After bidding the foal farewell, my eyes were met with the sight of a familiar pair of maids. "We've got to stop meeting like this," I joked in a tired voice, looking from Natural Talent to Refined Skill. "Someone might start thinking we're an item."

Much to my surprise, the pair actually giggled at my bad joke. I don't think they actually found it funny, so much as they were trying to comfort me. "Dearest sister, we must take care," Talent observed with a titter."It would be quite bad if ponies believed we were courting a foal."

That drew a nod and a smile from Skill. "Indeed, darling sister," the other twin remarked. "How the tongues of the nobility would wag if word got out." Looking across the bed to someone out of of my field of vision, she said, "I trust we have your discretion, Sir Spike?"

I struggled to try and sit up, except when I tried to leverage myself up, I found my forelimbs punching deep into the bed. Natural Talent was quick to help me sit up, but neither seemed to want to help me with my legs. Catching sight of the serrated scythes lodged in the bed, I couldn't blame them. Not with how vicious those look. Although I'd clearly been washed while I was unconscious, my brain told me those blades were still covered in blood. I could almost see the blood on them.

The moment my breath hitched, I felt a presence to my right, and something warm wrapped itself around me. "Anon, it's okay," he said in a soft voice. "You're safe."

If it had been anyone else, my panic would've only gotten worse. Instead the need to reign myself in, to make sure I didn't lash out at him, drove the panic from my mind. With a steady breath, I mentally undid the transformation, forcing my legs to their natural form. Huh, I'd have thought that would've reverted naturally when I blacked out. Maybe it's different for alterations to my natural form? Casting an apologetic look to the maids, I murmured, "Sorry... You must think I'm a monster..."

Both maids shook their heads in unison. "You are far from the worst guest we have had in the castle," Talent replied calmly before dropping into a more conspiratorial tone. "One griffon dignitary shredded several expensive linens in his sleep, or so he said, during his stay."

Spike let out a sad-sounding chuckle beside me. "I know a thing or two about feeling like a monster," he said, finally releasing me from his hug. Even still, he kept one clawed hand on my shoulder. "Before Twilight became a princess, I had a little trouble with something dragons call greed-growth. I grew rapidly, and destroyed a good portion of Ponyville trying to create a hoard. Even though nopony said anything about it to me after, I still felt bad since I could've really hurt somepony. For a while it felt like ponies were scared of me, talking about me behind my back."

I flinched, remembering the nightmare I'd had. It was a feeling I knew too well—a fear I knew too well now. At the same time though, it was kind of relieving to know someone—other than Princess Luna—who I could relate to about it. Sure, it wasn't exactly a fair comparison—he became a kaiju and destroyed property, while I became a mass murderer and turned into a bug—but it was the thought that counted.

Without really thinking, I gave him a hug of my own. "Thank you, Spike," I whimpered. It felt like I might have started to tear up. Looking to the maids, I asked, "Who all will be at the dinner?"

Brushing some of her blue bangs from her eyes, Refined Skill looked up at the ceiling as she started listing off names. "Princesses Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Twilight," she began. "Then there's Ladies Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Spike of course will be joining you, as well as the leader of the reformed changelings, King Thorax."

The traitor, Hunger's brain spaghetti reminded me. He who 'corrupted' the changelings towards Harmony.

"Commander Tempest Shadow has a standing invitation," Natural Talent added, casting a spell on the bedding and the mattress. I watched with minor interest as the tears from my forelegs repaired themselves. "Though she has not confirmed if she will be in attendance."

I looked owlishly from Skill to Talent, unsure of which unexpected guest I was more surprised about. Luckily, Spike was there to chime in. "Thorax was brought in, along with a changeling doctor, to figure out if you were physically okay," he explained. "They'd never seen anything like what you did to your legs before, but other than that and being unconscious, they said you were a perfectly healthy nymph."

"And Tempest?" I asked.

To my surprise, the door opened at that moment to reveal none other than Twilight. She looked a bit bedraggled, but happy to see me nonetheless. Even as the maids stepped away from the bed, the alicorn princess had already hopped up to join us. Although I shied away, her words still heavy on my mind, that didn't stop her from pulling me and Spike into a hug and wrapping her wings around us both.

"Following the defeat of the Storm King, she remained to unconditionally surrender on behalf of his forces," Twilight explained. "She'll be remaining in Equestria, and has volunteered her services in repairing the damage caused to Canterlot. She was worried about you, too."

She nuzzled the top of my head and whispered softly, "I'm so sorry, Anon... Luna told me what you said, and a bit of what you left out from the story you told on the airship." There was no disappointment in her voice, and upon pulling away, Twi made me meet her gaze. "I never should have said what I did. I was hurting, and I didn't even stop to think about what you'd gone through or how you might be feeling. I never meant to hurt you."

Her words released some of the weight on my shoulders. It was enough that I could bury my face in her neck and cry. It wasn't a happy cry or a stressed sort of cry. It was one of relief. Even if I doubted myself, they were words I needed to hear. Even after I was all cried out, we stayed like that for a while. For her, it was to comfort me. For me, it was admittedly so I could take in some of the affection. Meanwhile, Spike just wanted to be included.

"Whatever happens," I murmured into her neck, "Could you promise not to leave me alone?" Twilight wrapped her wings around me tighter, and I wondered what else Luna told her about the dream. "I know it was all just a nightmare, but it all felt so real... like I've been alone for so long. I don't trust myself to be alone right now."