A Pierced Heart

Chapter 2: Beginning at an End

Pokey lay in his bed, tossing and turning about. What’s my nightmare going to be like this time? he thought. His eyes fluttered shut and he winced as disgusting and macabre images floated through. I shouldn’t have talked to her. I had to lie about my parents. What if she finds out it was lie? What was I going to say? ‘Oh, I don’t know who my father was. Oh no, he didn’t run away, my mother just services every single male in the hive!’

Pokey’s eyes snapped open. “No,” he said, “I have to make sure she hasn’t been hurt from my feeding.” He shut his eyes again. “That bitch can give me all the nightmares she wants. I’m not going to hurt Rarity.”

His eyes once more closed as he slipped into a fitful sleep.

*****

Pierce was being guided along by a changeling drone in a high ceilinged room. Hanging from the roof were hundreds of green, stuffed cocoons. He had heard stories of the feeding chamber, but had yet to see it, changeling maggots did not have the need for love, all the energy they needed was passed down from the queen to them before laying.

Pierce had pupated just three day's prior and had become accustomed to his new form. His compound eyes diffracted light to a fluorescent, yet simultaneously sickly green colour. His chitinous hooves struck the hard floor beneath them, small holes permeated each of the appendages, creating a frame like grid that offered strength while also lending to decreased weight. His wings could carry him several feet off the ground. He had an eye for detail, he had observed the other changelings when most other grubs were busy trying to gnaw their way through solid rock. As such Pierce was ready for his metamorphosis rather quickly, but the energy he expended with early flight and basic magic warranted that he be fed much earlier. That was the purpose of his being here, to have his first thrill of actively absorbing the emotional essence of a pony.

The drone who was leading him, Snaggle, stopped before a particularly low hanging cocoon. Inside was a little unicorn colt who couldn't have been more that five years old. Snaggle pressed his jagged horn to the turgid sac and drew it across, opening it up and spilling the colt onto the floor unceremoniously.

The adult drone turned to the younger and opened his mouth. A wheezing constantly played in the back of his voice, "Now you learn how to force love out of prey, you need to keep your magic focused, and pierce their mind, examine its contents, and find where its love is, then, just imagine pulling it out."

Pierce stepped to the figure timidly, the colt was no bigger than he, but his alien features made him frightening to the grub. Lowering his horn to the colt's head, Pierce gathered his thoughts and magic, and delved into the blue unicorn's mind. It was like being submerged in liquid, or taking flight. There were three dimensions at one's disposal, and all was filled with thought. Pierce followed a sweet scent as images of two large ponies snapped in front of him. Not sure how he knew, Pierce figured one of them to be female, and the other male. The yellow mare unicorn had a distended belly that she was eyeing lovingly. The purple male earth pony was whispering to the stomach. Soon thereafter Pierce saw another image, this time the blue unicorn was nuzzled against its mother and the sweet scent of love was ambient and Pierce attempted to draw it into himself.

At this point the blue colt's eyes opened as two thin crimson trails flowed from his nostrils onto the cracked dirt beneath him. "MOMMY!" He screamed. Startling Pierce, and causing the connection to sever. The blue colt lifted himself and ran to a corner, eyes wide in fright.

"What are you doing? Keep feeding!" Snaggle expressed his discontent as he scratched at the ground. At this Pierce lowered his horn and began channelling magic once more.

As the blue unicorn felt the invasive presence once more, he entered into hysterics. "MOMMY! DADDY! I don't want to go away! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME! SAVE ME!" At this Pierce stopped channelling again, noting a series of new scratches had formed on the foal's flank, oozing blood.

Pierce glanced at the colt, and before Snaggle could interrupt asked, "Who are you?"

The unicorn foal turned to Pierce and shut his eyes tight. "Pokey," the colt then began whispering. "This isn't real, changelings are just a story, thiscan'tbereal!"

"ENOUGH!" Snaggle yelled. "Pierce, finish feeding now!" At this Pierce took a step back and shook his head.

"No," was all Pierce could say. There was so much more, but there were no words he could summon. He couldn't think how to express that after just a flickering glimpse into the unicorn's mind, that using what made him himself was somehow, and this was the word that he did not know, wrong.
"You will feed, or I will force you."

Snaggle stepped to the young unicorn and lifted his perforated fore hooves. Before either Pierce or Pokey could realize what was happening the hooves crashed down on the foals head, letting out a sickening crack. Pierce could then feel seeping from the body, some last traces of love, and he stepped back, repulsed at feeding on it. Snaggle grasped the emotion in his magic and forced it into a cloud surrounded Pierce. Images of the colt's life flowed through him and permeated his being, the last image he experienced was an outside view of himself, his own eyes a reflection of terror, and then darkness.

*****

Pokey Pierce bolted up from his bed and galloped to the washroom and began retching into the toilet. Nothing came out, how could it? He hadn't eaten at the party a single thing, but all the same he felt gorged on the kindness Rarity had shown him. Pokey Pierce looked at himself in the mirror, he had grown so much since then. He had run from the hive just two days after the events of his nightmare. Over time he discovered all the methods of changeling survival on his own, but he had promised himself that he would never be the death of another pony. Over time he could subtly steal ambient love from those around him by mere presence. In Ponyville there was enough to sustain him, and he was always careful to only draw a small amount from any individual, always stopping if a nosebleed began.

Pokey lowered his head and a green flame enveloped him, donning his disguise, he wanted very much to wish it was his true form, but that couldn't be. He turned his head to look back into his bedroom and noted that it was already morning. He stepped downstairs and set up his shop for the day. His thoughts constantly turned to the young colt whose guise he had taken, and Rarity.

I took more love from her than I had taken from others several times over, but she was still healthy when I left. I didn't even need to go for it. It just, came to me. I’ll check on her with the date, make sure she’s okay, and then? Maybe I can love without destroying.