It was rather startling, not waking up in her own bed. Misty had slept over at the Brighthouse once or twice before by this point, and it was always jarring not waking up looking at a wall or ceiling in Opaline's castle. That said, any previous time she might have spent here, she usually woke up in the living spaces on the first or second floor. Instead, she found herself somewhere she'd only glimpsed through portals.

That in itself would have been rather jarring, as she'd never once been invited into Anon's chambers—likely due to her continued affiliation with the fire alicorn. What was more unsettling was that she found herself laid out in the loaf position atop some pillows in a rather compact space. She technically had enough space to climb out of said space, but in the dim light cast by a dying illusory flame at a nearby writing desk, she could see just enough in the room to know that she was rather high off the ground. There was even a hardened black substance forming a hexagonal tube that seemed to house her.

The next thing she noticed was that she wasn't in her Nightmare Night costume. In fact, if she peeked out over the edge of her little 'cell' she could see a sofa on the opposite wall that seemed to have not only her belongings, but those of Sunny, Pipp, Zipp, and Hitch laid out neatly beside her own. A quick look nearby revealed that there were six other cells built around her own, although she couldn't peer into them without risking falling two metres. What she couldn't see, however, was the owner of the room.

"Hello?" Misty called out, trying to catch any sign of life. "Is anypony else here?"

There came a groan from one of the adjacent cells, and not long after, that inquisitive pegasus mare, Zipp Storm poked her head out. "What in Equestria happened last night?" She wasn't slurring at all, but it was clear to the unicorn that she was just as disoriented from the previous night's imbibement and shenanigans. "What the hay is all this?"

All around her, the others slowly started to rouse until finally only one cell did not have a pony's head sticking out of the opening. A quiet discussion began as the pegasus sisters slipped out of their nooks and started helping the others get down to the ground. Some recalled having too much to drink, others recalled coming back to the house. None of them, however, could recall coming down into Anon's underground lair.

Although she wouldn't admit it, Misty hadn't had nearly as much alcohol as any of the others. In fact, she remembered everyone but her and Anon passing out in the living room. She recalled Anon not giving her back her necklace, but then things got hazy. Anon muttered something about sleepy eggies, and then everything went dark.

Just as Pipp and Zipp helped Izzy down from the highest cell of the black honeycomb marring Anon's wall, the room flooded with light and the smell of something. The smell seemed off for a reason that she couldn't quite fathom. That was when Anon staggered through the open portal to the upstairs, levitating along several bowls. The glow of her horn flickered, and she nearly dropped the dishes, but as soon as she saw everypony gathered in her room, she quickly set everything down.

Her eyes were alight with glee as she stumbled over with a happy squeal. "Awww, my little sleepy eggies have all hatched!" As the changeling drew closer, Misty noticed that there were several strands of seaweed wrapped around various parts of her body, and it looked like there were shiny flecks covering the chitin on her hooves. Then Misty noticed the necklace still around her neck. "Look at all my pretty little nymphs!"

"Anon, what's all this about?" Sunny demanded, moving to stand in front of the changeling queen, gagging slightly as she drew closer to the bowls. "Why did you put us up there, and what in the world did you cook in the kitchen!?"

Interestingly, Misty noted as she joined Sunny, the two pegasi in the group didn't seem so averse to the smell. Their wings were twitching, and the sisters seemed drawn to the bowls. She idly wondered if she was about to witness the pair dig into whatever the meal Anon had prepared was as though they were cats, but they seemed content just to sniff at it, and announce, "It's a soup?"

Anon turned to the princesses with a grin, although if anything, her eyes seemed unfocused. "Only the best, nutritious seafood chowder for my little ones! Gotta get lots of protein if you wanna be big and strong like Momma!" That was all Anon could get out before she slumped against Misty and Sunny. "Oof."

Everyone immediately rushed over to Anon, the bowls of soup quickly forgotten. Misty tried her best to support the changeling while casually retrieving her necklace, but it was kinda startling just how warm the bug was. Although the bug wasn't overly touchy-feely, she'd been around her enough times to recognise that this was outside the norm. If anything, wasn't Anon usually cool to the touch?

"You guys, Anon's kind of hot, isn't she?" she asked, trying to draw attention to that fact.

Everyone's heads snapped in her direction, and she realised that she was now being regarded with a critical stare. Princess Storm was the first to actually manage a response however. "I mean, yeah," she said in disbelief, earning a look from the purple pegasus sibling that promised later discussion, "but is now really the time for that? She seems really out of it."

Luckily, Sunny was there to clarify. "No, Misty's right," she interrupted, grabbing the white sister's hoof and pressing it against Anon's forehead. Even the unflappable pegasus couldn't help but wince at the heat being thrown off by the bug. "She's running a fever, so she's probably delirious."

Even as Sunny had Hitch help her get Anon over onto her sofa, and the others started cleaning up, Misty found herself paralysed with indecision. Part of her wanted to return to Opaline and report the situation; after all, wouldn't her mistress take pleasure in Anon's misfortune after how she'd spoken to her last night? Still, she didn't doubt for a second that Anon would stick around and nurse her back to health if the tables were turned.

Stroking her necklace, she wondered if the artefact wasn't to blame. Opaline once told her that the magic item was suffused with some of her magic to allow her to communicate with Misty, but warned that there was a nasty surprise in store if anypony other than her wore it. Something about a curse that would cause the wearer to engage in self-destructive behaviour. Yet Anon didn't seem to show any of that last night; if anything, she'd seemed unaffected.

"Misty, could you go upstairs and get a bucket of cold water and a wash cloth?" Hitch requested as he laid her flat on her side. "Sunny, do you think we should call a doctor?"

The young unicorn had never been in this room before, so she wasn't experienced with opening the portal that was upstairs. As a result, she had to wait until Izzy, who was now levitating several of the bowls alongside her, opened the portal once more and stepped through. She didn't catch what was said in response, although when she looked back, she saw Sunny filling a mug from the huge cask beside the couch and bringing it over to Hitch.

When she stepped out into the living area, her eyes were immediately drawn to the attached kitchen. There was a large pot on the stove, undoubtedly with more of the strange-smelling soup that Anon called chowder. The only other thing worth note was a cutting board that appeared to have a bit of blood and a pile of the same shiny flecks that'd been all over her hooves. Belatedly, she realised they were fish scales, but there were no bones to be seen.

"I'll get some washcloths," Izzy announced as she set down the bowls of soup on the counter. "There's a big bucket under the sink. Might wanna rinse it first to get any loose glitter out. Sunny made me responsible for mopping up all the glitter spills, and lemme tell you, we spill a surprising amount of glitter around here."

When Misty just nodded numbly, her fellow unicorn scampered off upstairs. Evidently, Izzy was understating just how much pink glitter was at the bottom of the big plastic bucket, because the bottom of the sink was coated until it all went down the drain. Once the bucket was full, she made her way over to the door, but realised rather quickly that she was not able to open the portal.

Setting down the bucket, she debated once more slipping outside to contact Opaline. Even if she had until tonight to get home, she had half a mind to argue that staying to help Anon while she was sick would likely cement everypony's trust in her and grant her better access to the Brighthouse down the line. Besides, the alicorn couldn't exactly hide the fact that she was hoping for a repeat of the free dinner. Anon couldn't do that if she were as sick as death.

Her fellow unicorn arrived before she could come to a decision. Just as she was about to turn and make a break for the door, Izzy was there at her side. The portal opened, and Izzy went in with an entire stack of washcloths and towels. Misty followed suit, grabbing the bucket's handle in her mouth and carrying it through. Finally, she set it down beside the sofa, where the changeling's head was now propped up on some pillows.

"Yes, that's right," Zipp was saying to somepony on her phone. This was interrupted by a loud cough and a groan from the bug. "No, I'm pretty sure she hasn't had any sort of check-up since she got here, so she probably isn't up to date on her vaccinations."

The hazy-eyed insect locked her gaze on Misty and immediately started grinning. There was a startled yelp from the young mare as she was gently lifted into the air and flew over to the sofa. Before Hitch could put a damp cloth over Anon's forehead, the young unicorn found herself thrust into the bug mare's waiting forelimbs, and trapped in a gentle, but firm grip.

"Oh, Mimic, you'll always be my favourite daughter," Anon babbled, nuzzling the top of Misty's head, yet taking care not to get her now runny nostrils anywhere near her mane. "You're gonna grow up to be the best infiltrator ever, and you'll get so much love for the hive that your little brothers and sisters will never ever go hungry."

Unable to help herself, Misty simply froze up in the mare's grasp. It wasn't just that the mare's delirious rambling risked exposing her as an agent of the group's unseen enemy... That would have been too simple of a reason. No, what made her freeze up was the fact that genuine affection for a child that didn't exist was being projected onto her, and she was kind of enjoying that feeling. She almost didn't want to make it stop, because Opaline had never showered her with such love, and that selfish desire made her feel guilty.

Although Sunny and Pipp likely thought the display was cute, they were kind enough not to laugh. Meanwhile, Hitch just worked around the now stationary bug, placing several cool damp cloths across her body. Izzy was nowhere to be seen, and Zipp seemed to be finishing up her phone call. "Right, so a doctor and a nurse are being sent over to check her out. Hopefully, Anon won't have to be hospitalised."

Hitch nodded, glancing at a now blushing Misty. "I don't get what happened, though," he muttered, speaking more to himself than anypony else. Then Anon seemingly fell asleep, trapping the young mare in her arms. "She was fine last night..."

~ "I hate being sick." ~

*Tap*

Ow.

I cracked my eyes open, and winced at the bright light that greeted my eyes. My head was killing me, and it was hard to make heads or tails of what I was seeing. My thoughts were all scrambled, and I couldn't remember how I would've gotten somewhere full of bright light. After all I rarely ever went to sleep with the illusory sun in my room left on.

When the light stopped overloading my brain, and my vision cleared, I found that I was in a rather cushy hospital bed. There was a nasal cannula feeding me air, and an intravenous line slipped in between the chitinous parts of my foreleg. More concerning was the fact that I was strapped to a hospital bed with a strange device tape—

*Tap*

"Ow."

Why in the fuck is there a ladle on a motor taped to my forehead, and why is it intermittently smacking me in the horn?

Not gonna lie, when the door opened, I half-expected Redheart—an earth pony nurse from Ponyville who became a doctor when I was in my teens, and had been my primary care provider. It couldn't be her though, because... well. I don't actually know how many years she's been gone. Still, the pony that entered could easily have been one of Redheart's descendants. She was a snow-white pegasus mare with a two-tone pink and blue mane and a Rod of Asclepius within a heart on her flank. The only reason I could tell that she was wearing a lab-coat was because of the name-badge that read Dr. Feather Grace, and the pink stripe going up her sleeve.

The mare was trotting in on three legs, with a clipboard cradled in her foreleg, but it did not appear as though she noticed I was awake yet. If anything, her attention seemed almost entirely focused on whatever notes were on my chart. I somehow doubt that they know that I used to have a bad habit of getting my dumb ass hospitalised when I was a foal.

I quickly remedied that absence of attention by letting out a gentle cough and hoarsely asking, "Could someone take this thing off my head?" There was a pitcher of water and a glass on a table beside me, but the moment I tried to levitate it over...

*Tap*

"Damn it," I grumbled, wishing my legs weren't strapped down. My hooves desperately wished to rub at my horn, which now felt like a fucking tuning fork. "I'm gonna have a migraine if that thing keeps tapping my horn."

It took the mare a couple of moments to realise that I'd spoken. When she looked up and my eyes met hers, she visibly shivered, as though she weren't used to seeing slit-pupils. Or maybe it was how creepy a croaked voice sounds when it has that weird dual-layer effect. At least when she got over that fact, she quickly rushed over and took the weird horn-tapper device off of me.

"Ah, Queen Anonymous! You're finally awake!" Doctor Grace exclaimed. When she noticed my attempt to light my horn to levitate over the pitcher of water fail, barely an aura flickering around the object, she quickly filled a glass and carefully helped me drink it. "You may find your body—and maybe your magic, as well—to be quite weak right now. You've spent the last month in bed, and quite sick, at that."

That proclamation caused me to tense, which in turn caused me to cough and sputter as I ended up with water in my lungs. "W-what happened? Where am I?" I asked when I no longer felt like I was gonna cough all over the nice mare. "Last thing I clearly remember is singing karaoke at the Nightmare Night party."

That caused the mare to raise an eyebrow and glance at her notes. "So you don't recall all but cocooning your friends in wax cells, calling them your 'eggies', or going out to sea and catching a tuna?" My face must have shown the horror I was feeling, because she just shook her head pityingly. "You seemed to have come down with several viral infections all at once, although the flu seems to have been what put you in that initial state of delirium." She glanced down at my chart before listing off, "Influenza, feather flu, horsey hives, pony pox, measles, and rotavirus. Let me tell you, nothing in medical school prepares you for a changeling vomiting." With a bit of a shiver, she muttered, "So much black stuff everywhere..."

She nodded once before turning her attention back to me. "You're very lucky your friends were able to get you to Zephyr Heights General Hospital. You were very touch-and-go for a little while." She let me have another glass of water. "Something must have really stressed your body out and suppressed your immune system, because most of those viral infections got in deep, and you only finally began to rebound in this last week."

After telling me to get some rest, and that she would inform my friends that I was conscious and lucid, she finished unstrapping me and told me to get some rest. That was of course easier said than done. She said that I'd been here for a month, which meant that I lost all of November to work on transcribing the Hearth's Warming pageant script. I probably couldn't get that and Mom's favourite Hearth's Warming story transcribed now, and I'd rather share the history rather than just a story referencing it.

So I simply lay in bed taking stock of my body. There was of course the intravenous line and the air feed in my nose, but that wasn't all. Someone had also taken the time to give me the catheter treatment, although I'm sure I was vexing them to no end. After all, my body didn't need to expel waste the 'natural' way all that often. I can just imagine some poor nurse going up to Doctor Grace and saying, 'I think there's something wrong with her. No matter how much water we give her, her urine is infrequent and always dark like she's dehydrated.' Wonder if one of my friends relayed what I told them way back when I first moved in?

Other than that, my sinuses were somewhat congested—though I could feel the pressure slowly bleeding away the longer I was awake—and my lungs were full of phlegm. The former I couldn't really do anything about, but I had no doubt that I could clear my lungs out lickety-split once I was feeling stronger. There was also this horrific itching at all of my joints, probably leftover from the measles, pony pox, and the horsey hives.

Probably the worst of it was my wings. I know that elytra technically counted as a forewing, but functionally—at least for me—all they did was protect my more delicate bug wings. Put a different way, it could be described as a foreskin for the wings. It served as protection, but required a lot of hygienic care. Sweat, chitin flakes, and even parasites like wing mites—even if you're not a pegasus, those dumb little shits don't care—get trapped in there, and without proper cleaning, it's a right mess.

Right now, I could feel a vaguely slimy sensation beneath my elytra, as well as the occasional sensation of something moving. What that meant was that nobody had been properly caring for my hygiene for about a month. Even if I couldn't exactly blame the pegasi for not knowing how to care for my wings, it still disgusted me. It'd prevent me from fully transforming in a safe manner, but worse, I worried I might have to cut my wings off and spend mass to regrow them.

Maybe half an hour later, a nurse caught me trying—and failing—to transition from being on my back to being in the loaf position. I, for one, hated being on my back because of some trauma I unpacked during my years of therapy. Two ponies were never meant to share one body, and when Emerald started waking up all those years ago, I received all sorts of unwanted memories that I managed to repress for a time. Couple that with what I sometimes had to do to survive as a human, and being on my back just made me feel so weak and powerless.

Plus, being on my back makes it much easier for sweat to collect there.

After the nurse helped me get into a more comfortable position, I mentioned that I needed his help in cleaning my wings. Admittedly, asking some random pegasus to effectively preen me wouldn't have been the most socially acceptable thing, given that it's supposed to be something very intimate to them. Luckily, this was a medical professional and he didn't take it at all in the wrong way.

He quickly fetched a washcloth and some soapy water, although I warned him not to get any of it on my inner wings, 'cause soap could fuck them up. When I spread my elytra and fanned out my wings, a rather foul smell reached my nose, and the nurse gagged, dropping the cloth into the bucket, darting from the room. Dr. Grace Feather was horrified when she was brought in.

When they told me I had a fungal infection and that there was mould on my wings, I inwardly sighed and asked them to show me a picture. When they showed the degree of mould—large swaths of the once pristine glassy wings were covered in black, and some of the wing surface looked to have been eaten away—I simply told them to just take care of the inside of my elytra and the carapace beneath the wings themselves with as strong a cleaning solvent they could, and that we could just cut the wings off. That of course got a loud objection from the mare. Yeah, yeah, do no harm.

When I lifted my free foreleg to my mouth and bit a chunk right out of the chitin and flesh beneath, spilling green haemolymph on the bedsheet, the nurse fainted and the doctor recoiled as I swallowed it down. Despite the pain that one action put me in, I quickly focused on my body's innate transformative magic, willing the limb whole once more. A weak blue flame raced up my foreleg just past the place I bit into, and when it passed over, there was little more than a depression in my shell.

Just how much did I vomit!? I wondered when they finally consented to operating. In the meantime, they got out some industrial cleaners; that'd probably require some mass spent on healing up chemical burns, but I'd rather have to heal my wings and elytra all at once. In the meantime, I'd have to convince them to get me a one tonne hay bale for some quick mass. I shouldn't have had any problem regenerating just that little chunk.

~ "Anon, go home!" ~

A few days later, when I was finally able to regenerate my wings and the chemical burns from what they used to get rid of the mould, the hospital staff was ready to release me. I was still really weak, and probably needed to directly feed from somepony, but they were confident I wasn't in any more danger. That said, I was restricted to bed rest until I could actually stand on my own.

Which means I won't have enough time to get the play manuscript out this year. Damn.

After having taken stock of my reserves, I was almost terrified by how little mass I had stored. Legitimately, I'm surprised I didn't have any holes forming yet. This also meant that I couldn't do the easy thing and project spells onto my carapace for quick use. That meant that I either had to finally learn how to horncast something other than telekinesis, or go back to the tried and true method of keeping useful spells on my person.

Maybe it's time to consider that idea I had about shrinking down spell slates and putting them into baubles to be hung from a necklace. At the very least, I might wanna get my Magic Storage spell put into an earring.

It was while I was being wheeled out of an elevator, puzzling over where all my stored biomass went that I remembered something the doctor said when I woke up. 'Nothing in medical school prepares you for a changeling vomiting.' Rotavirus was one of those ones that provoked vomiting, wasn't it? Flu too! That must've been a lot of vomit.

Come to think of it, though, I don't think I've ever regurgitated stored mass without the express purpose of creating hive resin... There was that time in that cage where I lost a bunch of cake, but... I don't think the gland activated back then. An image formed in my mind of the inside of a hospital room like the one I'd spent several weeks in, every inch covered in the most versatile building material known to changelings... Then an image of the outside of a multistory building with a flood of the stuff coming out a window before hardening. "Say, nurse?" I asked in faux innocence, going so far as to use the voice I used to use as a foal. "I'm not gonna be receiving a bill for the clean-up of an excessive amount of hardened black resin, am I?"

From the reflection on the polished steel of the elevator door, I caught the shiver from the nurse. He tried not to meet my reflection's gaze, but he couldn't quite hide the haunted look in his eyes. "No... nothing quite like that happened," he murmured. "I think the admins had to get a hazardous waste company to come and take away all the black gel... stuff you filled an entire wing with, but we aren't about to punish you for being sick."

Hazardous waste disposal, huh? I guess I'm not gonna get to ask to get all that stuff back. It'd probably be nasty as all fuck essentially eating barf, but that was almost fifteen years of accumulated mass I had to replace now... Not counting what was used and replaced when I was transforming into ancient dragons. The worst part was that I knew that it'd be a few months before I could manage a form big enough to do the tree thing again.

When the elevator door opened, and I was wheeled out into a lobby, I was surprised to find all of my friends waiting for me. They'd all been a bit to visit me at some point over the last few days, but everyone besides Misty and Alphabittle showed up to take me home. Even Queen Haven was there waiting. Apparently they'd all been checking in on me during the time I was out of it, but some sort of shenanigans kept them from me when I woke. They were all hugs or hellos.

Not that I wasn't happy to see them, but there was this super awkward vibe around everyone but Haven. Like, they were happy to see me, but none of the six I regularly saw could look me in the eye. Their emotions were a bit weird too. Like, all of them radiated embarrassment in addition to the usual philia they directed toward me. Some of them, though, namely the unicorn of the group I could feel a different flavour of love from: storge—just like the love Pipp and Zipp directed to their mother.

Honestly, I could see that coming as far as Misty was concerned. I was trying to be a big sister to her, but at times I wondered if I wasn't getting too close to mothering her. Looking back, I think I was actually more protective of her than I was with my own adoptive sister. Was I not trying to guide her on the right path, protecting her from Opaline, and looking out for her well-being? I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find Misty looking at me like that the next time I saw her.

Izzy was a bit weirder. Although our friendship wasn't sexual, there were plenty of times where the mare could be interpreted as being flirtatious. Sometimes, I even had to wonder if she wasn't doing it on purpose, yet there was never any lust. Sure, her philia was often tinged with ludus—indulgent or playful love—but she struck me as the sort of mare that wouldn't propose anything if she thought a potential partner wasn't okay with the idea. It felt wrong to feel storge from her, especially with the associated embarrassment.

"I suppose I got some explaining to do regarding what apparently happened on Nightmare Night," I began as Izzy took over with the wheelchair and started wheeling me out. "Much like ponies have oestrus, changelings have something of a breeding cycle as well. Normally, it's no more powerful than a regular mare's heat, and mine have never been particularly bad in the past..."

I shrugged as we went. On some billboard TV screen, some newscasters were talking about my release from the hospital and doing a little blurb on my history. We all paused momentarily as the broadcast began to play a video clip of ponies opening the time capsule I'd been stored within, and me climbing out. "Ahh! After ten thousand years, I'm free!" the deranged sleepy bug on the screen announced as she stretched. "It's time to conquer Equestria!"

With a snort and a shake of my head, I redirected. "I noticed that time Sparky went missing and got himself trapped in the storage room that I was having certain desires." This got a really weird look from all of them. "It wasn't so much a desire for sex so much as it was a desire to nurture larva and nymphs. You can't begin to understand how hard it is being the only one of your species, and hyper-compatible with just about every sapient species..."

It didn't take long for us all to enter the elevator to the royal district of the city. "I dunno if it was just all the mares in heat around me setting off the instincts, having established a nest under the Brighthouse, or being around a baby dragon for too long, but..." I swallowed. "Maybe it was the fever, Posey propositioning me, or just all the stress, but I guess in my delirious state, my brain decided you were all a part of my swarm... That you were my children, larva to be protected until they emerged as nymphs..."

Even as many of the ponies tried to squeeze in a hug, I found myself crying, and I didn't understand why. "It's hard, you know? Knowing that you're responsible for an entire species living or dying?" I whimpered. "My body wants nothing more than for me to pop out a clutch of eggs and begin repopulating the changelings, but how could I do that when Mom wanted me to watch over and guide you? How could I bring more foals into the world when I've already got five beautiful fillies and a colt to take care of just as much as they take care of me?" I shot an apologetic look to Queen Haven as I continued to rant. "I know they're not mine, but I can't control the instinct and it's driving me crazy."

Author's Note

Yes, the ending is intended to be and feel incomplete. Just like Anon's heart.