Twilight Sparkle was out like a candlelight, if her unconscious body laying across the floor had anything to say about it. Chrysalis did not see what happened (the blasted spell was still active), but from what Anon had claimed, Twilight was simply really tired and wanted to get some rest. From what Chrysalis had gathered and so far understood about Anon, this was most likely not the case. Plus she did hear something, a loud THUNK that had rattled Chrysalis’ skull while it skipped rope with her frontal cortex.

All roads led straight to him. And now that her body was free from its second prison, she could investigate further.

“Anon, are you sure she didn’t give herself a concussion?”

Anon gave her a slight smile. “Chryssi—”

“It’s Chrysalis, you buffoon.”

He tilted his head. “What’s a buffoon?” His rapid fire blinking earned him a resounding groan from Chrysalis, which spurred him further in his nerve-wracking rambling, “No, really? What does it mean? Is it just some buff raccoon lifting trash cans into the air and piledriving them into ponies?”

“No, the word is you, Anon.”

He blinked again. And again. And again.

…

Then he snorted. “Great joke. Unfortunately, your mother.”

“My… mother?”

“Yes, your mother, Chrysalis. Your. Mother. Besides, I relate more to the phrase ‘classically brain damaged’, thank you very much.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. Out of all creatures that could have been interested in her and that would consent to be siphoned of their love freely, this was the one that signed up? Him? The one whose face is a question mark with a floating smile underneath it? The one who creates nicknames on the fly without considering if they even made sense? The one who decided it was worth walking up to her and saying she was pretty? The one who…

She sighed. The green monstrosity in front of her had more words to spare, his arms folded into his chest as he spoke, “Anyway, Christie, you shouldn’t worry about the friendship addict. She’ll… she’ll come around eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“Yes, did you not hear what I said?”

Chrysalis glared at him. “Yes, I did, you pile of skin and bone.”

“Actually—”

She grunted before shoving her hoof straight into Anon’s mouth, interrupting the nonsense flowing from his gullet. It didn’t stop him from blasting her hoof with whatever incoherent ramblings he was trying to spill—wait, that was probably his saliva, eugh!—and she wasn’t keen on discovering what his feelings were on the matter. No, she had dissipated that spell, the one known as ‘secretly siphoning all emotions that were associated with her intended targets’.

She really should shorten that name.

Thankfully, the name didn’t matter. It would never matter. No other Changeling would even use it, let alone the spell. Those that even could use it despise her, seeking refuge with he who shall not be named. She grit her teeth, choosing to rid herself of the anger associated. She didn’t need to brood over it; it was a waste of energy. Besides, she didn’t need her emotions fogging up her mind. Her decision-making needed to be clear, concise, and without some blubbering buffoon murdering another source of energy she could siphon.

She flickered her gaze back toward that source. Twilight was still knocked out, but her chest started to rise and fall, like she was sleeping off a cold. Maybe Anon was telling the truth after all. She wouldn’t admit that to him, even if the proof was staring right at her. Chrysalis could even hear Twilight’s soft snores, and a smile warping ever-so-slowly on her face. No, Chrysalis couldn’t. She wouldn’t admit that to him! Not even remotely.

Then, why did she feel like she needed to tell him something?

What was this feeling? Urgency was for drones, not for her. There had to be something else. Something that she didn’t notice. Like a spell. Yes, a spell was cast on her to think this way. Anon must have his own magic reservoir and she had fallen victim to his own ploy and—wait.

Wait.

Why hadn’t she knocked him out yet? What was stopping her from making Anon her new practice dummy to completely knock unconscious? Was there a barrier that she needed to annihilate?

Those questions lingered, yet the only thing that physically happened was her staring at him, menacingly. She stared at his paws that gripped onto her hoof, hoping to pull it away from his already plugged-up mouth.

That wasn’t happening. He needed to stay quiet. Maybe she needed to teach him that tranquility could be achieved from simply keeping his mouth shut!

She smirked as she shoved her hoof further in, making his eyes widen.

“Listen you waste—err… willing siphonee. I’ll temporarily remove my hoof from your maw if you promise me to stop your incessant yapping.”

He stopped his deadpan stare for a moment, tapping one of his paws to his chin, before inevitably shrugging at her with his shoulders. Then, he nodded.

“Very well.”

She slowly brought her hoof out, which made Anon gasp for air. He briefly panted, his paws clawing at the ground with each breath, before he coughed and wiped his paws on his tongue. She could have sworn a piece of dirt flew out of there—

“Oh my god,” Anon said, before hacking up another piece of what she thought was dirt. “I think I grabbed the shit bucket!”

“Wait…” Chrysalis muttered, before her eyes widened. She put her bidding in the back of her mind to focus on both the nitwit and her newly acquired problem. “Anon, where is the nearest bathroom?”

“Well, considering we’re in Twilight’s chambers, and I mean we’re not actually in it, but—ACK! Dude what did this guy eat? It’s so earthy and—we’re actually in her study which is connected to her room…”

Then, she witnessed Anon stand up and walk toward the door. “Take a right and you should see it. It’s got this big white door that looks ginormous and—wait, where are you—WHOA!”

Chrysalis had no time to explain to him nor to the slumbering Twilight of her actions. All she had was gumption, grit, and quite frankly, no patience for his rambling. She rushed up to him and lowered her head, which made Anon fly straight onto her back with an emphatic grunt and subsequent pained groan. She knew he would be fine later, and he would probably thank her later for doing this, but if what he said was true, then he needed to wash his mouth out, and she needed to wash her hooves… and probably everything else.

So, without much thought left, Chrysalis smirked and hauled herself out with Anon sort of splayed on her back.

“Hey, could y-you wait!”

“No time like the present, you poor excuse of sperm!”

“At least lower your—”

She tuned him out as she lowered herself a bit. Unfortunately, his suggestion was a tad bit too late, as when she traversed through the big white door that he had said was the bathroom, his head was on a collision course with the top of the doorframe. She knew this because she kept an eye behind her, just to see if he was dealing well with her sudden decision-making.

Clearly, she was about to see if his head was made of steel.

BANG.

She watched as Anon’s body fell backwards. Thankfully, he didn’t hit his head twice in one action, his arm bracing the brunt of the impact. There, on the floor, he groaned and writhed on the soulless granite floor.

Maybe he was built to withstand death?

She skidded on the floor and bumped up against the bathtub, which shot a sharp pain through her back. Thankfully Anon wasn’t still on her back as the force she had would’ve most likely sent him sailing into the wall. That would’ve been the true test. Maybe she could pick him up and try that again real quic—

“Can so-somebody get the l-license plate number on the truck t-that hit me?”

“Anon, are you alive?”

He winced as she looked at him. One of his paws was gripping his head like it was the only thing keeping it up. Yet, despite that, he brought that same paw down and pointed one of his digits up toward the ceiling.

“Barely—agh. Were you trying to kill me?”

Chrysalis shook her head. She wasn’t trying to do that, but now that she thought about it some more, if her test truly had failed and he didn’t get back up, would she have been charged for murder?

…

Probably.

“No, you just warned me too late!”

There, that would totally—

“Fair enough,” Anon replied, shrugging before dusting himself off the best he could (she could’ve sworn she saw some dust come off his pant leg just now. Where did that come from, a sawmill?). “Thanks for the concussion check, though. My doctor would be proud that I was able to visit Purgatory to finally see that the place was a giant factory made of chocolate.”

She raised a brow. “What?”

He snapped his paw at her. “Exactly. Anyway, other than the possible concussion, my dignity got shot in a back alley somewhere. Probably in a big city. Makes the most sense.” He walked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. “Wow, I still look like I should’ve been aborted!” He laughed—she didn’t want to know what an abortion was— “Let me real quickly get a swig of that wonderful H2O from the faucet and I will most likely be fine.”

“Most likely?”

Anon shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m not a doctor! Nor did I actually see Purgatory!” He opened his mouth for a moment, only to gag at what he saw. “Eugh, there’s still some of it on my teeth!” His paw suddenly flicked the handle on the sink with no regard for her or himself, for that matter, and his reward surged from the spout where water flowed freely. He held his paws out and cupped them underneath its raging barrage. Once filled with as much water as he wanted, he brought it to his lips and slurped it into his mouth. He swigged the water around a bit, before spitting it out. “Agh, gotta do this for a bit just to be sure it’s all gone.” He groaned. “I can’t believe I couldn’t smell it! Was my sense of smell out for lunch or something?”

Chrysalis watched intently as Anon continued his water-retrieval. “I could hold up my hoof toward your nose just to be su—”

He sputtered out whatever water was in his mouth and threw a paw at her. “No, my sense of smell is back. Besides, that’ll just make me throw up.” He then eyed her up and down. “You should take a bath while I’m doing this. You are not going to go around here with poop-stained hooves and… whatever your body is made of.”

“Chitin,” she breathed out, before letting out a chuckle. “And your paws are—”

“Paws?” He wriggled those little malnourished digits at her. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not!” She shouted, glaring back at him with the intensity of a solar flare. “I have never seen anything like you, so what else am I to do except compare you to a diamond dog?”

He snorted. “A diamond dog? That’s what you thought I was?”

“Well I did think you were a human… but I couldn’t figure it out! Your kind are a thing of legend to the point that the only tales were told were that ‘they had paws’ or ‘they had claws’ and—”

“Hold up there, Crystal. Legend?”

Chrysalis paused and blinked like one of those strobe lights at a nightclub. “You’re… unaware?”

He tilted his head. “Conked-Light probably told me about it once or something and I forgot because it wasn’t important to my wellbeing at the time. You know how she gets…”

She nodded. “Of course. Twilimp definitely has a way with—”

Anon interrupted by shrieking. She winced as the horrid sound pierced her ear drums. “What in the—oomph!”

She was not prepared for the human to throw himself at her, his arms wrapping around her with ferocity. “I am so happy you are contributing to my nickname collection for her!”

Chrysalis flicked her wings out for a moment and threw them toward Anon in an attempt to thwart his sudden attempt at strangling her. “You’re—ack—damaging my carapace you—errk—miscreant!”

He brought her somehow closer to him. Her lungs were begging for air, and her eyes were bugging out. Twilight needed to unconk herself this instant otherwise she’ll— “Hugging you is definitely my new—”

“New what?” Chrysalis growled.

“The neewww… okay, stop looking at me like that! I’ll stop. I’ll stop!” He released her from his carapace-shattering hug. She panted while he continued, “I’ll get back to washing my hands here while you go soak up that kite-in of yours.”

“It’s chitin, Anon and—wait, those things are called hands?!”

“Yes. Hands,” Anon began, wearing the biggest smirk she had seen on his face thus far. He wriggled those digits at her again. They were starting to creep her out, but she wouldn’t tell him that. “And these are fingers. The fact that your books said I had paws and claws means those writers most likely sucked.”

She chuckled. “They probably did. Most of the lore I had heard was based on hearsay, so there was bound to be mistakes. Trust me, I had to pose as some of them.”

“You… had to pose as them?”

“Changelings can take the form of any kind of species Equestria has to offer. This was mostly to help them with disguises to siphon love from potential sources, but that’s just a blip in the history of this wretched place.” She snorted. “And fortunately for you, I cannot shapeshift into your kind. Not that I would.”

“Understandable.”

A smile warped onto her face as she retorted venomously, “You shall be—” Her brain tripped on the crack Anon laid in front of her. “Wait what?”

He awkwardly laughed and rolled his eyes. “Heh-eh. It’s not worth shapeshifting into someone like me. You’ll just get burned in the end.”

She tilted her head. What did he mean by that? “Burned?”

“You don’t need to know,” Anon dryly replied. He turned back to the running water in the sink and continued his deep clean.

Chrysalis didn’t know how to feel about his words. She didn’t know why she tasted a bitter feeling, even if her spell was off. Was that her own bitterness she tasted? Maybe. She didn’t know for sure, her emotions never tasted this mixed. And now that she focused on herself, why was heart beating so fast? Why did everything feel so off?

The only thing she knew was that Anon wasn’t going to talk to her for now. She wanted to know why. Maybe if she cast her spell again, she could sense his emotions and understand them instead of feeding on them. They would be full of turmoil and confusion, at least that’s what she imagined. Channeling that magic to actually feel what was going on would…

She didn’t want to finish that thought. She didn’t want to think about where those words of his came from. She just wanted to wash her hooves and get out of this bathroom. Maybe then things would be alright, and then she would turn on that spell again once Anon decided to stop his sudden mopeyness.

Chrysalis hopped into the bathtub and unfurled her wings. They fluttered at her sides, which made the buzzing noise they emitted all the more annoying to hear. She ignored them but not without vocalizing her distaste with a soft whinny, before she flicked the handle with one of her forehooves. The spigot began to funnel water into the tub. While it wasn’t surging out of there like the sink, she could still imagine it and—

She sighed and bent down to focus on her hooves. Only the sounds of running water filled the air.

Author's Note

Thank you all for the support thus far. Just a few tidbits:

1) The first chapter has been sitting in the archives since early May. Touched it up on the 29th (of November) as some of the wording was not what I would post now let alone back then (don't turn your brain off, folks).
2) This one I just wrote in a few hours. You're welcome!
3) Please enjoy horsewords. Enjoy them from more than just me. Shouting out a few authors that I've read recently here because I like to promote others too! Authors (in no particular order): Faeforches, PKAnon, Visharo, and Muggonny (the goat/Mr.404 image not found).

Anyway, more updates soon. Thank you all again for the support!