That isn’t her.
And I’m the only one who can tell. I look at the faces of our friends and neighbors when they talk to her, searching for any sign that they see that something’s wrong, and I never find a thing. Her cousin Apple Fritter just stayed with us for three whole days, and at the end of it I got her alone and tried to ask if she’d noticed anything funny about her. She grew up with Fiddlesticks on that little farm outside of Whinnyapolis. She’s known her all her life, and all she could do was give me a confused stare.
But it’s not supposed to be easy, right? I’ve done my research. Prince Shining Armor couldn’t even recognize that his own fiancée was Queen Chrysalis in disguise. And sure, you could say that it was because of Chrysalis messing with his mind. But she fooled everypony else, too! All you have to do is remember that none of them knew: her bridesmares, the Palace staff, Princess Celestia herself, if there was any doubt.
So of course this creature looks just like her, down to the tiniest little bits. The softness of her muzzle, the curl of her little eyelashes, the way the cobalt blue of her mane just forms that little pompadour so effortlessly. If she’d been a photograph, or a statue, I don’t think I could tell her from the real one, either.
But she’s not.
It’s all in the way she moves. Whatever Changeling is pretending to be her is doing a great job of it. Has all of her little mannerisms down cold. It’s just, like, too good, you know?
Like that look she’s giving me now. The corners of her smile drawing in just a little. Letting her eyes get real big, until they pierce me like how cold and thin the air gets when you fly up too high. Like she’s letting me know that she’s noticed I’ve been distant, and that she’s giving me a chance to say something first.
It’s a look she’s given me many times before, so of course I know it by heart. But here? It’s just a little too much like itself. Like it’s a parody of her. Like whoever’s in there is playing the role of Fiddlesticks a little too well.
She asks me what I’m thinking about, and of course it sounds just like her. All soft and warm, with that little bit of country twang that makes anything she says feel like home.
I tell her that I was thinking about one of the stories Apple Fritter told me about them growing up together, one of the many I’d gotten from Apple Fritter whenever we were alone. This one was about how when they were kids, during the endless summer storms, Fiddlesticks would look up at the sky and wonder what it would be like to be one of the weather pegasi up there, and try to catch a glimpse of them in the flashes of the lightning. Then one day, she got in trouble for staying out in the fields during one of the storms, playing her heart out in the pouring rain and howling wind in the hopes of catching the eye of one of them to swoop down into her life like an angel from the heavens. She came home empty-hooved, soaked from nose to tail.
The impostor thinks for a moment, her blue eyes turning skyward. She says no, that’s not right. That fiddle of hers was too precious to her to risk getting damaged out in the rain, and she was too sensible even as a filly to actually do something like that. It was one of the things the two cousins always talked about her doing, but she never actually did. Exactly what Apple Fritter actually told me.
And then she gives me a soft smile that looks just like the one the real her would always give, but she holds it for just a little bit too long. Sticky, is what I’d call it.
And I imagine the real Fiddlesticks, cocooned off in some hiding spot somewhere, being tortured for the information that the impostor had just received telepathically to not blow its cover. And I feel the anger and terror and fear rise up in me and I stamp it down as hard as I can and try not to think of it, try not to let any of it show.
But I’m not the Changeling staring back at me with concern in its eyes. I play it off as being embarrassed for not remembering right, and offer up my hoof. The Changeling reaches out a yellow hoof that looks just like Fiddlesticks’ to cover it, and when I stare at our touching hooves, all I can think about is how the green of my coat contrasts so nicely with hers, something I’ve always marveled at. And I close my eyes, and sink into the warmth of the touch of that hoof that feels just like the real thing, and I smile.
A genuine smile, because that’s what I need right now. To allay the suspicion of this creature that’s wearing my beloved’s pelt, because if it knew that I knew what it was, then what hope would there be for the real Fiddlesticks? No, I can’t think of that, or it will show on my face again. No. I have to focus on how when my eyes are closed, it really is like the real her is right next to me. Her voice sounds just like her, and sometimes I have entire conversations with her like this, so that I can forget that it’s not really her talking to me.
And that’s how I can stand to even touch this impostor, knowing that underneath whatever magic is mimicking the feel of her coat and skin so perfectly is nothing but gnarled chitin. I have to let myself sink into the lie, even if it feels like a betrayal of the real her. I have to, until I can figure out how to expose this creature in a way I’d be believed, to find help, to do whatever it takes to get the real her back.
Because what else do I have? I ruined my chance with the Wonderbolts because of my own pride, then spent years trying to convince myself that it was all for the best because I was somehow better than the ponies I’d spent my life looking up to. Then I took it too far, almost got a kid killed, and it all came crashing down around me. I was this ball of rage and anger against the world, pushing away anyone who got close, but she refused to be pushed away. She rescued me from the worst in myself, with all the patience and love and kindness that I was the last pony in Equestria to deserve.
And do you know what’s even more awful? She hasn’t had an easy life herself. There’s a reason why she’s living with me in this dingy Manehattan apartment instead of back on her family farm. But we never talk about it because I always get so uncomfortable because I’m afraid that I’ll say the wrong thing or not react the right way and that will just hurt her more. She gives and gives and I just take and take, and after all that she tells me that she loves me and that I’m everything she needs and I just can’t believe it. But I believe her when she says it, because I’d believe her when she says anything, and that has to be enough.
She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. My love for her is the only good part of me that there is. And maybe that’s why they’re doing this, those bastards. How cruel can they get? Maybe that’s why this impostor still hasn’t said anything even though I let my mask slip in front of it tons of times. It doesn’t matter if I know or not, I’m giving them all of the love they could feed on either way.
I can feel that love in me now, warming me up from the inside. All it takes is to imagine how the real her looked, in my mind’s eye. All it takes is to remember her smile, how her shimmering blue eyes seem like they go on forever, and every time it’s the happiest moment in my life all over again. And all I want to do is to believe what my senses are telling me: that it’s the real her that I feel in my hooves; that it’s the real her whose voice I am hearing.
And when I open my eyes, for a soft, fleeting moment, I really can believe it. The way she looks at me, the way she smiles, all of it is exactly how I remember, and my heart swells.
And then she breathes, and her face doesn’t move quite right, and all of it just evaporates. That warm feeling, that feeling of home that should be there when I see her smile just isn’t there, but I’m looking at her smile right now. And my heart reaches out desperately for anything to fill the wrongness of what should be inside of it, but I feel absolutely nothing. And that’s all I need in order to know.
That isn’t her.
