You ever do something so outside the bounds of common sense or what is considered normal, only to find yourself questioning your actions later? Maybe, at the time, it even made sense to you. Right now, staring down at one of the questions in my inbox, I was questioning that right about now. Worse, it made me want to drink, and I didn't want to make getting trashed a habit. It's been days. Pipp's still mad at me, and she won't even tell me what I did.

Pokey Nose: 'Do dragons eat trees?'

Normally, I'd have dismissed such a question as utter nonsense. After all, what kind of context could a pony have to ever get such a question in their heads? Hell, most ponies these days have never even seen a real dragon, and Sparky is hardly a good representation. His dragon breath is mostly transformative. Of course he could eat a tree.

Unfortunately, I knew exactly what had happened to cause this. On the day that I flew Izzy to Bridlewood and then Zephyr Heights, I kinda wanted to stock up on a bunch of extra biomass to make up for what was spent while transforming back and forth between eastern dragon and pony shape. My unicorn friend assured me we were far enough outside the settlement that nobody would notice me stripping the branches off a dead tree and then unhinging my jaw like a snake to eat it. Clearly, she was mistaken.

Luckily, there weren't any videos yet, but the damage had been done. It was apparently all over a gossip column online. The others knew it was me—thank you Izzy—and they all seemed to think it was hilarious. Me, I was just worried that ponies were gonna start wondering what else I could eat when they found out. 'If the bug can do that to a tree, she could kill a pony and eat the evidence!'

Rolling off my sofa, I landed on my hooves and started going for the door. My phone levitated alongside me, while my mug levitated over to the love casket to get my serving of love. Rather than opening up the portal to the Brighthouse, I morphed a portal spell on my leg linking the main anchor stone in my room's door to BridleUnbound-01. The moment I opened the portal, I shifted my shape until I'd taken on my alicorn mask. At the last moment, I levitated over my glasses and harness from beside my bed.

Stepping through, I was kinda surprised to find that it wasn't yet dawn. I hadn't even thought to look at the clock on my phone before getting up. As the phone floated through the portal after me and slipped itself into my harness, I realised that dawn wouldn't be for another fifteen minutes. "That really puts a damper on my plan," I muttered, draining the mug of love and then popping it into storage. "Guess I should go watch the sunrise."

Spreading my wings, I rocketed off toward the forest canopy. There was a very specific tree that I'd seen the last time we came through, and if there was somewhere that'd get the best view of the sunrise over the ocean of trees that was Bridlewood. Admittedly, the locals might take umbrage with me sitting atop the Wishing Tree, but what are they gonna do? Throw stuff at me?

The moment I touched down on a particularly stable branch, I got comfortable. Even in the twilight just before the sun crested the horizon, I couldn't deny that Bridlewood reminded me of what was once home. It wasn't just the slowly healing Everfree Forest that came to mind; it reminded me of the forests of Alaska, as well. It was a place of wonder and danger, a verdant sea within which one could easily get lost.

It also seems like as good of a place to catch up on some questions for the Vlog as any.

From within my magic storage, I withdrew a list of questions I'd collected over the last few weeks that didn't particularly seem to mesh with any of my previous themes. A quick modification to my eyes gave me the dark vision of a night pony, and then I levitated my phone in front of me, in the portrait orientation, setting it to record.

"Good morning, night owls and early birds!" I greeted my own reflection on screen. Since it was still super fucking early, though, I kept my voice down. "It's your favourite changeling queen, Anonymous Flicker, coming to you live from the highest point in all of Bridlewood! Got a few varied questions to address today!"

I panned the camera around to give people a good idea of where I was before focusing it back on myself. "First and foremost, a lot of rumours have been going around about dragons, so I figured I may as well address Pokey Nose's question: 'Do dragons eat trees?'" I carefully transformed my head into that of the dragon form I'd used the other day, keeping it small enough that it wouldn't break my glasses. "Unless a dragon's magical fire breath has transformation magic in it—like a certain hatchling I know—dragons are not typically known for their arboreal appetites. The dragon that a pony witnessed eating a tree the other day? That was me, and I'm a special case. Trees count as organic mass, so if I need a lot of extra mass for transformations, dead trees are as good of a source as any."

As my head slowly returned to the normal pony shape, I glanced at the list floating alongside my phone. "Speaking of transformations, that seems like a good segue for Lost_In_Translation's question. 'If Changelings don't shapeshift periodically, can they get stuck in a particular form if they use it for too long without a break? Is it actually possible to forget how to shapeshift due to lack of use, like muscles atrophying from long periods of disuse?'"

I shrugged and looked past my phone to the horizon. "It is possible to get form-locked, but it's not a matter of atrophy or forgetting how to transform—which is a fairly instinctual process," I explained in a soft voice. "We require two things in transformation: love and stored biomass. Don't ask me how it works, but when changelings consume 'food', it's metabolised, and the processed organic material gets converted to energy to be stored specifically to fuel transformations. If a changeling doesn't have enough stored mass and love to safely change shape, they would be stuck until they could get more."

Cracking my neck, I rolled onto my side on the branch I was using as a perch. "Next question was an anonymous ask from someone I suspect to be a guard in Zephyr Heights." Honestly, the question made me smile, because it was actually a good, practical question. "'How did the royal guards defend against earth pony and unicorn assailants in the past?' Usually, the guard squads were mixed tribe to cover for gaps in abilities, but that's not always a possibility when it comes to pursuing suspects. For an earth pony, you need to get them off the ground with, say, a net and immobilise them. Unicorns are a bit different because it requires a bit more of a measured response. A gentle horn-tap while spellcasting is a good way to disorient them, but without magic dampening rings, it's hard to keep them from casting once they recover from the spell backlash."

I blinked as I moved down the list to the next one I'd written down. "Wait, this isn't a question; why did I write this down?" I muttered aloud. "Best_Served_Cold commented, 'Honestly Pipp deserved more for the whole kiss debacle. You should've turned into Zipp and threatened to kiss her then.' All I have to say is that I'm pretty sure I got retribution severalfold based on the fact that she's still mad at me for whatever I did the other day."

On and on I went, answering the odd question or even responding to interesting comments that I'd written down. Could ponies shapeshift? Not at the same level as a changeling, and it was gonna be a long time before I shared transfiguration magic. Eventually, the sun began to rise, and I decided to address one last question. It was a pretty hard one, to answer, too. "No name came with this last one, but somepony asked, 'Am I a bad pony? How do you cope with your mistakes? We had to give up our son after he was born. He was the cutest colt you could have laid your eyes upon. But he was different from us. I don't know if he is still alive out there.'" It was such a powerful question that I actually had to turn the camera to catch the sunrise instead of my facial expression as I considered how to answer.

"I won't lie; in the old Equestria, a parent abandoning a child over being a different tribe—at least, that's what I was able to infer from the phrasing—was extremely rare, and usually universally vilified. In the world this new era is stepping out of, I imagine such a thing was not only socially acceptable, but expected," I said in a sorrowful tone. "You were, all of you, indoctrinated to believe that the other tribes were monstrous, and yet inherited genetics meant that there's always a chance for tribal genes to pop up after several generations of dormancy. This would likely have been devastating for any mother, thinking that they've been cursed with such a creature...

"But I will not cast judgement," I concluded in a voice of finality. "All you can do is search for answers and forgiveness. If you can't find the answers you're looking for, dedicate yourself to ensuring that no foal—regardless of tribe—goes without a home ever again. Visit the other settlements, and ask the locals if they know anything about your son. Maybe you'll get lucky, and maybe you won't..."

Turning the camera back to my face, I let out one last sigh before shaking my head. "This is your someday motherly queen, signing off."

~ 10 ~

Maybe two hours later, I was enjoying a cup of tea with my favourite queen—other than myself, I mean—and my favourite tea shop owner. To be honest, I was kind of surprised that Haven was there given how early in the day it was. The mornings were always the busiest part in Mom's schedule when she took over for Celestia and Luna, so I always kinda imagined that Queen Haven's royal court was probably somewhere similar. Then again, young love and all that, right? I couldn't pass up at the opportunity to passively feed on the blossoming love the two felt for one another.

It was also pretty interesting to hear how much of an effect the Equestrian Fast Travel Network was already having. Apparently, lots of ponies had already come by and bought out most of Alphabittle's pre-made teabags, and he'd gotten quite a back-log. Now he was looking at hiring an apprentice to ease some of the work-load. Meanwhile, ponies were definitely making use of the portals to Zephyr Heights in order to do some shopping. Economies were up, and I imagined that I might soon need to consider making some sort of centralised shipping warehouse.

It was about eight in the morning when I was alerted to an incoming video call from Zipp. Excusing myself, I paid for my tea and stepped outside the shop. The moment I hit accept, I was greeted to the sight of not only Zipp, but also Pipp in flight. The moment Pipp realised she was in frame, she turned her nose up and flew out of frame. What did I do to get her so mad at me?

"Anon, you haven't seen Sparky, have you?" Zipp asked, not acknowledging her sister's catty behaviour. "He disappeared from the sheriff's office this morning, and Hitch is on the warpath looking for him."

I shook my head. "Haven't been in town since before dawn, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't followed through by the little troublemaker," I replied, flicking my gaze to the nearby fast travel platform. The only tracks in the soil were those of ponies, though. "I might have a means of locating him, but I'll have to run a quick test, first. I'll keep you guys updated on my findings."

She nodded, and it looked off-screen for a moment before gritting her teeth. "Alright," she acknowledged. "And Anon? Once all this is done, I think you, me, and Pipp need to sit down and hash things out."

At that, she closed the connection. That was a shame, because I was gonna offer to say 'Hi,' to her mother for her, since she was also in the area. Ah well. I can tease that her Mom's hanging out with her new coltfriend some other time.

Without further ado, I cast Fuck It, I'm Out and dropped back into my bed in the Brighthouse. Just as I was readying myself to fetch that scrying spell slate from my magic storage, however, I thought I heard the very familiar babbling of a certain little dragon. This was quickly followed by some very familiar 'evil' laughter from my favourite little redemption project. My heart sank, as I had a very good idea of why they were having such a hard time finding him.

Sure enough, when I pulled the spell out of storage and focused on Sparky, I saw an image of the storage room—basically one big walk-in closet—appear on a transparent pane in front of me. The door was blocked off by a pile of junk, and I could see the missing baby dragon accompanied by Opaline's servant of dubious willingness.

As I strained my ears, I could hear him laughing at her, and her rebuttal through the vents. "Hey, give me a break! I'm still working on the evil laugh." She glanced over at the junk mound and nodded. "Okay. So far, my wall of junk to hide us worked. Check! Now, all I have to do is sneak you out of the Brighthouse somehow and then bring you to Opaline."

Poor little Sparky had no real sense of self-preservation, and just did what happy little dragons apparently did: purr for some goddamn reason. "Oh, she'll be so proud of me, and so powerful, she'll... she'll finally give me my cutie mark!" To my surprise, there was a lot of guilt on her face as she exposed her plans to the little fellow. "It's all I've ever wanted, Sparky! That's why I have to do this."

Shaking my head, I disposed of the scrying slate and hopped out of my pillow nest. As I made my way out into the Brighthouse, I came to a decision. I levitated my phone out of my harness and quietly pulled up the picture I'd taken of the framed photo at the Crystal Tea Room. I didn't yet know what Opaline's plan was, but if it involved the scaly toddler, it wouldn't be anything good... Worse, based on the guilt I saw while scrying, Misty knew it was wrong. So if that cunt was gonna force her proxy to do something unconscionable, I was going to have to shake that proxy's faith.

I barely paid any mind as I opened the storage room door and magically forced the junk barricade out of the way. "Hey there, kids," I all but sang as I crossed the threshold and closed the door behind me. Immediately I could feel her fear and alarm filling the room. As she met my eyes, I frowned and gave her a look of intense disappointment. "Mind if I join this little party?"

The young mare wilted, falling weakly onto her haunches as she looked wide-eyed up at me. Funny enough, our would-be foalnapping victim picked up on the unicorn's distress, and rather than try to get away from her, he put himself between us. He even growled a bit and spat a warning tongue of flame my way.

Arching an eyebrow at the little dragon, I shook my head. "Relax, little dude," I murmured, raising my front hooves defensively. As he seemed to pick up on the lack of aggression, he calmed down. That opportunity was quickly taken to transform into a teenage version of the draconic form I'd used to fly Izzy around. Just like that, he rushed over to get a better look at me. "I'm only here to talk."

As I sat myself down on the ramp, and beckoned Sparky up onto my lap, Misty stammered, doing a very good job of mimicking the way Fluttershy used to hide in her own mane. "Anon, this... I... I..." It was clear that she was trying so hard to come up with some sort of believable lie, but she knew better than to try and bullshit the empathic shapeshifter. After a few moments of indistinct noises from her, she sighed. "I know this looks bad, and this is exactly what it looks like." Too bad she couldn't bring herself to meet my gaze.

For my part, I just looked down at Sparky and tickled his nose with a claw as he looked in awe at the feathered ruff around my neck. "You know, I know this stallion in Bridlewood," I began, smiling as the little gremlin wrapped his scaly little hand around my digit. Even Misty couldn't help but smile at the display as she took a seat at the foot of the ramp. "Many moons ago, his little filly went missing. I never asked what happened to his wife, but I imagine that daughter was all he had to remember her by, and then one night, she just up and vanished. Never found out what happened to her, and the poor guy refuses to leave the forest most of the time, just in case she finds her way home..."

When I cast my gaze from the happy draconic tyke to the would-be felon, I could feel my eyes misting over. "That's what you taking Sparky would do to Hitch," I whispered. "His spirit will break, and he'll become a shell of his former self... and sure giving Sparky to Opaline as a power-up would mean you wouldn't have to see any of these ponies again, but can you honestly say that you wouldn't feel the least bit bad knowing you traded his little boy for a chance at getting your cutie mark?"

At first, she seemed taken aback by my story, but when I hit her with the potential consequences of her actions, I could sense her revulsion. "I... no, I can't, Anon." She looked away from me, and from Sparky. "I don't know what to do, though. Opaline's all I've ever known... She took me in, she gave me a home and a purpose. It feels like I'm supposed to do this, but it feels so wrong." A tremor ran across her body. "I know she's not a good pony, but I'm scared..."

I nodded. It figured that Opaline would have her hooks that deep in the girl. Activating my phone screen and unlocking it, I levitated it over to her. "Misty, I don't know if you're this stallion's daughter, or if the resemblance is all kinds of coincidental, but... if there's even a chance that you're his missing filly, you ought to know."

As she held my phone in her hooves, staring down at the little blue unicorn with the curly buns, the room began to swirl with confusion and despair. Even without the empathic ability, you only needed to look at the tears beginning to stream down her cheeks and the way her free hoof drifted up to touch her face to see that she was fully out of it now. Honestly though, the emotions in the room were so intense that they were actually making me feel a bit dizzy.

What would be the best way to compromise? I knew that even with this revelation—this dangled thread of hope—she likely would not abandon Opaline so easily. She was nothing if not indoctrinated, and it would take a lot more to get Opaline's hooks out of her. If she kept failing and coming home empty-handed, though, I didn't doubt that the bitch might decide that Misty had outlived her purpose and decided to dispose of her. I can't lose another, though...

I glanced over to one of the shelves, where there were some empty mason jars that I imagined Sunny might have been keeping for pickles. Suddenly, I had a stupid, stupid idea. Back years ago, when I had to spend periods of time away from Mom, Star, and Emerald for my therapy, my bodyguard had been given a jar of Spike's fire in order to send letters quickly. It was just a plain jar then... but could I somehow convince sparky to breathe fire into a jar?

It really isn't worth the risk of giving Opaline even the teensiest bit of power, but...

With a sigh, I levitated over one of the jars. Carefully, I transformed a rudimentary fire-breath spell onto my palm, and then quickly grabbed the little dragon's attention. "Hey, Sparky, could you do me a favour?" I asked, taking the lid off the jar. Slowly, I pantomimed breathing fire, complete with my own little tongue of blue flame shooting through the air, into the jar. "Can you breathe flames into this? It's a gift for our friend over there."

As I held the open jar in front of him, it looked like he was deep in thought. He glanced up at me, and then over his shoulder at the insensate unicorn. Finally, after a few minutes of consideration—Is an infant his age even capable of considering things?—he grabbed the open mason jar and filled it to the brim with some of his transformation magic. Once it was full, I took the lid and screwed it back on.

After what had happened the morning after Izzy's sleepover, I knew that I couldn't just carelessly get emotional and give instructions. While Misty was staying true to what I'd inadvertently commanded her with a geas, I knew that stacking them or using them repeatedly would start having detrimental effects on her. Besides, I wanted to genuinely believe that she wouldn't have told Opaline about my non-interference oath even if I hadn't whammied her.

"Look," I interrupted, snapping her attention away from the picture after what had to be several minutes. Her eyes had a familiar-looking faraway quality to them. "The last thing I want to do is enable Opaline's behaviour, but you know I can't let you take Sparky." The jar levitated out of my draconic claw, and I stood up, cradling the whelp. "Every part of me is screaming that I shouldn't do this, but I know that as it stands, I can't quite shake her grasp on your heart and mind... so in order to protect you from her wrath, I want you to take this back to her."

Her eyes moved down to the jar for a moment, before snapping back to the picture on my phone. "When you've had enough of her, let me know, and I can arrange for you to meet that stallion." I snatched up my phone in a telekinetic field, and turned up the ramp. "In the meantime, you ought to get out of here. I'll buy you some time to escape by taking him for a short flight before letting the others know I found him."

As I clipped my phone to my harness once more, I let my feet carry me out of the storage room. I momentarily wondered if it would be possible for me to get one that would fit well whether in pony, changeling, or teenage dragon shapes. As it stood, it was loose and tight in all the wrong places, without managing to interfere with my wings. This form was pretty useful, and the little dude seemed to enjoy seeing other scaly beings.

Scaly... Why does that elicit more than just the thought of dragons?

Once we were outside, I smiled down at Sparky. "You ready to fly, Sparkmeister?" His only response was excited babbling and the flexing of his too-small-for-flight wings. With a nod, I braced him across my chest with one arm and rocketed into the sky. "Let's go see your Daddy."

Soaring through the skies of Maretime Bay, the happily babbling sounds of the baby dragon kept a smile across my face. Even though I wanted to cry and scream at the thought that I might have just powered up Opaline, the happiness of a little one was enough to make me put it aside for now. His immediate safety was the most important thing right now, and it fell within the interference level permitted to me by my oaths.

Maybe not so great, I'm pretty sure this was starting to trigger some instincts and desires I'd really rather not deal with. Mostly, it was a desire to find a stallion—or a mare, as the process wasn't that picky—to get genetic material from, and start a hive. In the back of my mind, I could picture lying in my lair, covered in crawling larva, while a couple of nymphs played in front of me. Even now, I could feel a building desire to mommy the ever-loving shit out of this little guy. No... Not just Sparky, I realised. I'm pretty sure it's more than just big sister instincts that make me wanna help Misty.

Once I thought I had given Misty enough time to get out of the Brighthouse, I activated my phone and held down one of the side buttons to activate the voice assistant. "Call Zipp, speaker on." It took a few moments for her to pick up, during which time, I took the opportunity to give Sparky a fun ride, throwing myself into a dive before pulling up into a nice loop-de-loop.

"Hey, Anon, any luck?" I heard her ask, just in time to hear a little dragon practically beg for me to pull that manoeuvre again. "Was that Sparky!?"

"Yeah, and you'll never guess where I found him," I called out over the wind shear. "Anyway, where are yo—" Just as I was about to ask where they were, I spotted Zipp living up to her namesake, zipping around over the rooftops of Maretime Bay in the opposite direction that I was flying. "Hold one, can you maintain that course for a second?" I tightened my grip on the little dragon and whispered. "Hang on to your scales, Sparky."

I slowly rolled until my belly and passenger were exposed to the sky. Then I pitched down toward the ground. Due to the excess height I'd built up, I let us pick up some speed before pulling up to rocket off behind Zipp. The change in Gs made the little dragon whoop in excitement and maybe a bit of fear. "Sky Princess, this is Black Queen, approaching from your six at two-fifty knots. ETA thirty secs."

There was an audible snort over the phone line, followed by an amused, "Copy that, Black Queen. I'll call off the search." At that, she hung up the call, and maintained her course, which would probably take her toward the Sheriff's office. Her more sedate pace—at least in comparison to mine—meant that I had no problem catching up with her. Levelling off my speed with her was a bit more challenging, and I'm sure the sudden deceleration caused by the cobra manoeuvre I initiated when I overshot probably upset the little fella's tummy.

"So where'd you find him?" she asked as I finally met her flight speed. "We've been looking all over town with no luck at all."

I rolled my neck, inadvertently throwing myself into an aileron roll. "He was in the storage room." The best part about telling the truth is that it's easier to obfuscate with a lie. "Someone's junk pile fell over across the door, and he was stuck in there. Found him napping on some boxes."

She let out a loud groan as she began her descent. Down below, I could see Hitch, Izzy, Pipp, and Sunny all gathering outside the sheriff's office. At first, Hitch didn't even recognise me, which made sense. He might've seen me in the fully grown version of this form, but an adolescent dragon shape was a far cry from an elder dragoness. Still, he nearly bowled me over to get to his adopted son.

I didn't pay much mind to whatever happened next. Izzy and Sunny were fussing over the little tyke right alongside the stallion, but Pipp was a bit more sheepish. In fact, as soon as she saw me, she wilted a bit and looked like she was about to slink off. That didn't exactly work, because the moment I shapeshifted back to my alicorn disguise, I snatched her up in my magic and nodded Zipp towards the roof of the building we were in front of. Then we were right back in the air.

"So, Pipp," I casually said as the three of us alighted atop the building. "Care to explain what you were so upset about the other day? What was so bad that you needed space?"

That sheepish look transitioned to one of embarrassment and horror as she tried to cover her face with her wings. "It... It's nothing," the pegasus princess of pony pop pleaded. "I was being stupid and emotional..."

With a sigh, Zipp, patted her sister on the back. "Just tell her," she insisted, giving her younger sister a caring smile. "Then we can all laugh at how silly it all is."

I nodded, and smirked. "Yeah, I'm curious what I did that was so upsetting that you got trashed, and confused a tall, black, skinny lamp post for me." There was maybe a bit too much teasing in my voice, but I had to admit that, once you got past the whole 'that's kinda racist' thing, it was sorta funny.

It took her a few minutes to relent, and when she finally looked at me, her eyes were a bit teary. "Glowin' Up remains one of my biggest hits before the unification," she explained, her wings drooping as she sat her rump down on the roof. "Except it's one of the only songs that I can't sing live because of all the post-processing effects. The only time I got the chance to do it live, I had to lip-sync, and that whole night was one big disaster."

I blinked, remembering the day that I was setting up the Equestrian Fast Travel Network. The mention of the song reminded me of the fact that there were a lot of ponies watching and had their phones out, recording while I sang and worked. Of course those videos would make it back to her, and if she was that self-conscious about that song, seeing me singing it live—complete with those effects—would definitely push her over the edge.

Shaking my head, I stepped up to her, and wrapped my wings across her shoulder. "Sorry, girl, I didn't even think about that," I murmured, hugging her close. "I get so wrapped up in my work, and I don't even think, so I just start singing to fill the silence. Wasn't trying to upstage you or anything."

That was when the white-coated sister piped up. "After the whole thing with the lamp post, she was actually too embarrassed to face you," Zipp explained as she stepped closer. "Pipp was sure you'd get mad over the whole thing."

When she wasn't expecting it, I snapped my wing out and dragged her into the hug too. "Oh, I'm all kinds of offended, but I ain't mad," I teased as I brought my hooves up to noogie them. "Although... If you're mistaking a lamp post for me, are you trying to tell me I need to put on some weight?"

Stepping away, I let my transformation magic adjust my appearance to add a bit of fat to all the places that made a mare sexy—my flanks, my thighs, and even my teats. I reared up and struck a pose for them. "Does Momma Anon's new look suit your tastes, Your Highnesses?" Their only response was a hearty blush. I cackled, taking off from the roof to go torment the others.

Author's Note

It's a Friday surprise!

Next two chapters are the Nightmare Night and Hearth's Warming/Winter Wishday chapters respectively.