With a twist of a lever, the shower sputtered to life.

A blissful noise issued from Rarity’s throat. It was as though she’d taken a single bite of salmon filet inside some luxuriant five-star restaurant, and had paused to let the cream sauce sink into her taste buds. She didn’t even need to open her lips as the water pattered against the floor and over her body.

“Mmmmmm...”

Lero heard all this from behind the bathroom’s door. His back was against it, he was looking towards his feet. He still had his underwear on.

“The water’s fantastic, Lero! Aren’t you coming in?”

That was a good question. Was he coming in?

He almost didn’t. Almost went back into bed to go back to sleep, until she’d finished showering on her own. And then, of all things, he remembered the letter that Princess Celestia had sent Twilight. Within his mind, Lero heard Celestia’s mellifluous voice as clearly as if she’d narrated it aloud.

“Be there for them, for they are all suffering, and have no idea how to help themselves. They will all need every last friend they can still cling to, that won’t abandon them when they are at their worst. Be a pillar of strength for all your loved ones.”

“She’s not a usurper,” he whispered to himself. “She’s not a witch, she’s not some fairytale changeling, and she’s not a stalker.”

Rarity was humming to herself behind the door.

“She’s Rarity. She’s... she’s a prisoner in her own body. Buried under ancient magic and... and Rainbow Dash. But Dash doesn’t mean harm. She’s no evil spirit, she’s trying to love us and be there for us, but right now she just has no way else to do it than this. She’s a prisoner too. And I’m not going to shun them. I won’t be resentful or embarrassed by them. I’m their friend.”

As he took off his underwear and opened the door, Rarity’s humming briefly transformed into song:

“Love, I thank you,

For all my pain and torment,

And I’m content for every sorrow.”

Then she went back to humming. It was a strange tune; slow, sublime, and ethereal. Tendrils of steam exuded from behind the shower curtain. Uncertainly filled Lero’s heart, and he froze in front of the fogged mirror. How was he going to do this? Just step in, and act like... like...

...like some stammering, weak-kneed, wrong-footed yutz with stage fright? Rainbow and Rarity need you.

His muscles relaxed. He strode towards the shower as though the unicorn within were just another customer at the spa. Or rather... as though he really were the Lero Michaelides of Rarity’s altered memories. He opened the curtain.

“Good morning, my love,” said Rarity, as the hot water washed over her body.

“Good morning, Rarity.” Under the spray of rushing water, his muscles relaxed all the more. Kissing Rarity chastely on the cheek, Lero got to work; squeezing shampoo into his hands, lathering it up, and working the foam into Rarity’s water-flattened mane. She made a happy little noise at the feel of his fingers.

“Did you sleep well last night?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered. “What about you?”

“I slept well enough... WHOA!”

A large dollop of thick liquid had landed on his hair. He looked up to see the shampoo bottle floating upside-down over his head.

“Did some of it get in your eyes, dear?” Rarity asked, turning in concern.

“No, no,” said Lero, resuming his scrubbing of her. “The shampoo just snuck up on me, is all.”

On one hand, floating shampoo was actually not all that new to Lero. He’d showered with Twilight and Lyra before. On the other hand, Lero had entered the shower thinking, ‘Rainbow Dash, Different Look,’ except this was a Rainbow who could levitate.

They scrubbed each other up. Rarity’s magic was like having a nearly-invisible woman work the suds into his scalp with nebulous hands. After finishing with with her mane, Lero switched from the shampoo to the coat wash, beginning with her shoulders and withers.

“Did you dream of Rarity-Dash again last night?” she asked.

Blankly, Lero first thought Rarity was referring to her own self. Then he remembered the ‘dream’ he’d told her about last night.

“I don’t think so,” he told her.

“Are you suuuure?” she persisted, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Well... I might’ve...” he allowed. For all Lero knew, he had.

"Oh? Tell me about it!" Rarity insisted, eagerly.

Well, shoot. “Ah... Dreams can be such difficult things to recall, you know? Speaking of which, what’d you dream about last night?”

“I dreamed that you and I were naked together under a hot, steamy shower, and you were dodging my questions.”

Sometimes, when Rarity touched him with her magic, it felt like many thin, fingerlike pressures pressing upon his body; as though she were approximating Lero’s own hands. Other times, the telekinesis could feel harder and blockier... more like hooves. This time, it was more of the former. Only, Rarity wasn’t limiting herself to a measly two hands.

"Tell me!" she cooed.

Magical fingers, touching lightly inside his armpits, where the skin was soft and the hair was scraggly. Magical fingers, poking hard under his ribs. A single featherlight fingertip, brushing along the rim of first one ear than the next. All at once.

"Tell me tell me tell me!" She cajoled him.

“Hahahahahaahaah! S-s-stoppit! Rar-rari--t-t-tee hee hee hahahahhaahahoho stah... hah... HA HA HA!!!”

The harder Lero begged for Rarity to stop, the more she just kept up her assault, tickling him senseless in places he hadn’t known he was ticklish, adding more and more magic-fingers along his legs, his toes — she was a telekinetic octopus! — until he was a curled-up ball of giggles on the slippery, wet shower tiles.

All the fingers vanished, his body uncurled somewhat leaning up against the tile wall. Rarity pressed her front against the center of his chest, pinning him against the wall, looking at him playfully through water-soaking bangs. Nowhere near hard enough to crush anything, thank God, but hard enough to be firm. Too firm to wriggle out from, trying to escape just created uncomfortable pressure, but keeping in place like she clearly wanted was precisely calibrated to be his comfortable option.

“So the recurring dream didn’t recur tonight? Hmmm?” She asked with a tiny, playful pout.

Lord, she was powerful, in more than just body. Prior to the Swap, he would never have thought such a thing of Rarity... but that was before she had exchanged ribbons and lace for downpours, hailstones, and thunderclouds. To think, all this time, she’d been hiding such vast strength... even from herself, most likely! She’d be strong enough to stand beside Twilight and Lyra in a fight to the death.

And the look on her face was pure ‘alpha female.‘ It said: You may be my prince, but I rule this house, this herd and you as Princess. And while Lyra and Twilight were both still stronger than Rarity, the white unicorn impressed him far more with just her force of personality, especially considering what she had to back it up...

“It’s alright, Lero, my sweet,” she promised. “I gave you permission to be with that Dream-Dash, didn’t I? Now I want to know how far she went. So go ahead. Don’t spare one single detail of your tryst. Everything you did with that pegasus-who-thinks-she’s-me.”

...After all, the other two unicorns hadn’t been swapped.

“I’m sorry, Rarity,” he said, “I don't think I had that dream tonight... or at least I can't remember a lick of it!”

She backed away from Lero, and helped him to his feet. “What a shame for both of us. After you told me what you Dream-Dash did... I was planning on figuring out a way to OUTDO her in real life.” She smiled at him. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

“Maybe she got frightened away by your excellent advice,” he said, tickling her chin.

“Pity if she did.” Then her magic shut the shower water. Lero opened the curtain and reached towards the towel rack. “What are you doing?”

He frowned at her. “I’m... grabbing a towel?”

She shook her head. “Oh, Lero, haven’t I taught you better than that? Towels are only for when you’re showering by yourself, or you’re with one of your other marefriends who isn’t me.”

Hot air span softly around them both, a swirling, weightless cocoon of warmth. The water dribbling off their bodies were sucked up into the gentle whirlwind.

“There we go!” She trotted to the sink, and grabbed a toothbrush from the drawer. Lero had to roll his eyes: of course she’d picked the green one Rainbow Dash had been using before she’d been...

Rarity sniffed at the toothbrush’s bristles. “Huh? This doesn’t smell like my mouth!” She shot a baffled look at Lero, who hastily weighed his options, and chose to shrug.

“Twilight must’ve grabbed...” Now she rolled her eyes. “I swear, we all need to get more sleep around here!” And she threw Dash’s toothbrush out, picking a new green one from its little cardboard box.

Having almost been undone by a toothbrush, Lero put on his best nonchalant face and grabbed his own toothbrush. What a perfectly mundane picture they both made: boyfriend and girlfriend, side-by-side, scrubbing plaque off their teeth in front of the mirror.

He pondered Rarity’s explanation for Rainbow’s toothbrush... had she honestly come up with that by herself? Or had Discord’s bewitchment channeled it into her brain? Where did the explanations come from? Was the magic itself making up ideas, (meaning the magic, itself, was an intelligent force,) or did it just instill a powerful compulsion in everyone to rationalize everything? If so, how did it all sync up? Did it just go with the first idea anyone came up with? No, that'd get sloppy and bizarre fast. How did it pick ideas? Decide what was best?

....No wait, Rarity was under the effects of Starswirl’s incomplete spell, not Discord’s bewitchment. Ugh. Magic was too freaking weird and started making less and less sense the more he thought about it. Forget it! Lero began combing his hair, while Rarity reset the braid in her mane. She looked over at him.

“Lero, your mane... it’s getting a little bit shaggy, wouldn’t you say?”

Lero felt the back of his head. His hair hung past his shoulders. “So it is. Guess I’ll schedule an appointment with Sleek Pomade again.”

Sleek Pomade was the manedresser both he and Rainbow Dash had always used. Rainbow never looked forward to haircuts, but even she had to go somewhere when her mane had grown TOO long.

“Pomade? Pomade’s... not a bad stylist, but let me save you a bit of money.”

Her horn shone, and the bathroom door opened itself. His chair floated inside, setting itself right behind Lero, in front of the bathroom mirror. Her horn continued to shine, and a towel wrapped itself around Lero’s neck.

“Sit.” He sat, while she considered his hair. “...I might’ve dried your mane a little TOO well. Perhaps a fresh rinsing?”

The steam in the room coalesced into a small raincloud over his head, and released its tiny little downpour. It felt like a thick, waterlogged sponge being wrung over his head.

“You and your clouds,” Lero chuckled, as droplets wound down his face and neck. She laughed, and did a turn, flaunting her cutie mark at him.

“Oh, you know me! I never miss an opportunity if I can. Weather magic is my passion, my reason for being! Outside of loving you, of course.”

Then she circled around to his back side. Another side drawer opened and a comb and scissors flew behind Lero’s head... a gift from Twilight, rarely used. He felt the comb lift a small swatch of hair by the nape of his neck, and then it was snipped off.

“Hey, Rarity? There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask about telekinesis.”

“Yes?” Rarity was working at a practiced pace; reddish-blonde hair drifted onto the floor with every snap. The steady metallic clicking of the scissors was sharp in his ears; every so often, the floating comb would lift a section up to be snipped off.

“This one time, I remember watching this unicorn bring a porcupine out of her house. I think the critter must’ve wandered in accidentally. But what got me was, the unicorn’s magic had the porcupine grabbed straight by its quills. Y’know, its spines. I mean, if I tried to grab a porcupine’s quills with my hands...”

She winced. “Oooh, ouch... yeah, that’d be as painful as grabbing it with your mouth, right?”

Lero’s own mouth stung at that very thought. “Exactly. However, I’ve also noticed that... when you... or the other girls are using your telekinesis on me... y’know, as a masseur would... you’ll make your ‘mmmm’ and ‘aaahhhh’ noises, even when you’re across the room. So my question to you is this: how much of a ‘sense of touch’ does that power actually have? How... what’s the word...”

“Tactile?” Rarity suggested.

“Yes! How tactile is telekinesis?”

She paused in her trimming, really contemplating his query. “I’m sorry for not answering right away. It’s just not something that unicorns ever really think about. It’s like being asked how I can blow cold or hot air whenever I choose.”

“Oh. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, dear, it IS an intelligent question.” Her rhythmic snipping resumed. Magic brushed lightly over his neck, dislodging stray strands. She clipped by his ear, extra-carefully. "It just requires a bit of thought to answer."

She took a breath.

“Telekinesis DOES have a sense of touch. Let’s say you were to blindfold me, command me to stand in place, then lay several objects on a table and ask me to identify them. With telekinesis, I’d be able to feel whether those objects were metallic or wooden or liquid... I’d be able to feel what shape they were — square, round or whatever — what size they were... the objects’ temperature... and also whether they were fragile or sturdy.”

“Basically, the same as my own sense of touch.” Right now, Lero was keenly aware of how his own cut hair was itching against his skin. The scissors were working on his beard and mustache.

“Indeed. But here’s the big difference between your hands and my telekinetic fields: biologically speaking, they evolved to be impossible to attack.”

“Impossible to attack? What does that mean?”

Snip, snip, snip... snap snap, snap, comb, snap, comb and snap...

“Let’s say we were in a fight,” said Rarity. “I swing my club at your arm; you’d be damaged. You swing your club at my mouth; I’d be damaged. But if you tried clubbing one of my telekinetic fields, the most you MIGHT do is dissipate it... and it’d have to be quite a good swing.”

“Huh."

“Moreover, if an object happens to be physically injurious, my telekinetic ‘sense of touch’ is automatically blunted to the point where all I can feel is the object’s weight and shape. Because of this, unicorns have been able to handle things like red-hot coals, poison frogs, and cactuses without any pain or injury. No bruises, no burns, no paper cuts.”

She was applying some gel to his hair.

“The only exception is when, say... the boulder’s too heavy to lift, the weed’s too firmly rooted to the ground... the locked door won’t give to telekinetic brute strength... you need to give the telekinesis a rest... stuff like that. That strains our minds until our strength gives out.”

“Makes sense,” said Lero. “Our bodies have to let us know what our limits are.”

Rarity nodded, levitating a brush out from the drawer and sweeping the loose hair off him. “However, if our fields are touching something we know to be safe and pleasant... like a luxurious velvet dress, or a kitten’s fur, or...”

Here, Lero felt Rarity’s own telekinesis caress the crook of his neck, then trail backwards to rub a circle along the top of his spine.

“...the soft, smooth skin of your favorite human...”

The towel came off his neck.

“...then the sensation of the texture is sent directly to a unicorn’s mind.”

Rarity had finished. She held up a small handheld (mouth-held? magic-held?) mirror, so he could look at both sides of his head. It was great! Lero couldn’t have asked for a neater trim!

“I look good enough to run for mayor! Amazing!”

“Only the best for my stallion!” Her happiness was so sincere, he couldn’t help kissing her on the lips. She was too cute not to! The white unicorn almost seemed to grow a quarter-inch, right on the spot... what a joyful smile!

“Who taught you to style hair like that?”

It was brief. Barely three seconds. But it came like a horror movie jump scare. Her eyes shot open and turned unfocused; her head drooped slightly to the side. The same vacant gape of Rainbow Dash when she got swapped.

“Who... taught me...? Who taught...?” Then her soul returned.

“Why, I’ve always had a special knack for all forms of cosmetology! Nobody needed to teach me anything. You might as well ask a fish who taught it to swim! I’m a natural-born prodigy!”

A natural-born prodigy. Of course she was. Because the real Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have wasted ten seconds of her life on something so frivolous and frilly as hair care. Let alone the years which the real Rarity must’ve spent honing her hairdressing skills to this degree.

How silly for him to suggest that hair styling needed to be learned. As though beauticians actually went to school for that! After all, haircuts were just a simple matter of bringing scissors up to your hair and snip, snip, snipping away until the job was done. Easy as writing a novel! (All you had to do was write enough words on enough pages!)

He eyed Rarity’s swapped mark with annoyance, feeling pity for her.

...for both of them.

* * *

Star Sparkle had already left their house at some point very early in the morning, before anyone else had woken up. She hadn’t even left a note, but that didn’t bother them. None of them were particularly sorry that she’d left.

Today’s breakfast was cereal with blueberry muffins and a large bowls of fruit salad. Lero and Spike ate the marshmallowy Wonder Flakes, while the unicorns munched on Timothy-Os. (made from 100% timothy hay, and thus 100% inedible to Lero.) The human sat between Rarity and Twilight, as Spike got the coffeepot percolating. At first, it was a fairly unremarkable sort of breakfast. Spike, Twilight and Rarity were sharing stories about stuff they’d dreamt last night.

“I dreamed I was talking to my four-year-old self!” Twilight said. “She had come forward from time because she was wanted to know what the future would be like for her. I told her all about my adventures with all of you, and how Princess Celestia would come to be my teacher, and also about the Magic of Friendship! My younger self asked if it was worth making friends early on! I was hesitant to answer her, because I was afraid of causing a time paradox. But eventually, I said yes.”

“Well, it’s just as well. You spoiled so much about the future to Past-You already... might as well make some friends!” Spike said, pouring himself a second bowl of cereal. “I dreamed I was with my dragon mom and dad, and they were giant-sized and awesome, and they took me on a ride into the sky, and Mom had laid a new clutch of eggs and they wanted to live with our herd here in our tree-house!”

“Well, the world can only benefit from having more dragons like Spike in it!” Rarity said. “I wish I could’ve met your mother.” The little dragon gave her a loving look. “For my dream, I had gotten robbed.”

“Robbed?” asked Lero.

“Yes,” she said. “Thieves in masks came in, tied me up, placed a mana blocker on my horn, and took away everything in my house! Including the bed, every bookshelf, and every book!”

“Gah!” Twilight yelled. “Don’t say that! Now you’re going to give ME nightmares!”

“So what about you, Lero?” Spike asked.

Lero gave a shiver. “If if’s all the same to the rest of you guys... I’d rather not discuss my dreams right now. Can we talk about something else?”

“Aw, c’mon, big guy!” Spike said, elbowing him playfully. “Spill it! Let me guess: you’re walking through town naked? Oooh, the shock and horror!”

Rarity gave the young dragon a sharp look. “Spike! If Lero doesn’t want to say, then he doesn’t have to say!” And she patted the back of his hand with a hoof. “It’s okay, baby, I’m still here.”

Spike stuck his forefinger deep into his mouth as though he were about to perform an act of bulimia.

The closer their meal came to finishing up, the more Rarity kept anxiously shooting glances at her cutie mark. As though it were a clock, and an appointment she had to keep was drawing nearer. All the rest of them noticed it plainly.

“Does it hurt?” Lero asked.

“Er... what?”

“Your flank. You keep looking back at it. Does it hurt?”

“Oh no, don’t worry, my love. There’s never any pain unless...” Rarity stood up. “I need to go.”

“Where?”

“Work.”

Spike and Rarity both left the table. Spike raced to the coffeepot, while Rarity went to grab her saddlebags. The front door swung open under Rarity’s magic, but Spike was faster, dashing in front of Rarity before she could leave. She drew in an anxious breath. “Spike, please, don’t stand in my way when I...!”

“Coffee?” He held out a thermos with a hopeful look. “Just the way you like it?”

The anxiety trailed away from Rarity’s face. She took a sip of the coffee, smiled, then levitated the dragon up to kiss his cheek before galloping out the door. Grinning goofily, Spike staggered back to his chair at the table. “Ain’t this Swap thing GREAT? Who needs Rainbow Dash, anyway?”

Twilight watched the door. Lero heard her counting down from ten. “Three... two... one... okay, Spike, clean these dishes.” She looked towards Lero. “It’s time you and I had a chat about a certain chaotic somebody.”

“Alright,” said the human. “But Spike’s gonna want to stick around for this. It concerns him too.”

Celestia’s faithful student sighed, and levitated all the dirty dishes into the kitchen sink for her dragon to clean later. Unlike with Rarity, Lero was able to tell the whole undisguised truth to Twilight Sparkle and Spike: about showing Rainbow Dash her old stuff and being kicked out, getting plastered, Discord spiriting him away to a nonsense-world. He shared everything Discord told him about bewitchment, the Swapped Five...

“The ‘Swapped Five?’” Twilight had interrupted him.

Lero nodded. “Yeah. That’s my name for them, collectively. The Swapped Five.”

She’d snorted. “You make them sound like a gang of comic book supervillains.”

...and Discord’s Exemption List. Spike gave him a piece of paper, and he recreated the list.

“Well I, for one, am GLAD that Discord put me on this list!” Spike had said, with an over-dramatic crossing of his arms. “Could you imagine me being bewitched and believing that you and Rarity were meant for each other?!”

“Yeah,” said Lero. “You’d probably be chasing after Applejack.”

The dragon’s jaw went slack. “Oh my GOSH! You’re RIGHT! I WOULD be!”

Lero slapped him on his spiny back. “I can see it now!” the human proclaimed, sweeping his other arm out, as though over a vast horizon. “You writing love sonnets to AJ! ‘Each strand of your mane is a golden ray of sunshine! Each accented syllable you breathe is nourishment unto my soul! Your hat is a diadem of purest...”

Spike shoved his hands over his ears. “Stop, stop, stop! I refuse to listen to this! Rarity is the only one for me!”

“Are you sure?” Lero asked. “You could always do what I did and form a herd.”

“GAAAH!”

Twilight hadn’t been listening to any of the teasing. Her eyes were fixed upon Star Sparkle’s name on the exemption list. “But... why, out of all ponies, would Discord have exempted my mother? Why Star Sparkle, and not Shining Armor or Princess Cadence... or my REAL mom, Twilight Velvet?”

“From what I’ve seen of Discord... he’s just being a mean little gremlin. Making you the butt of his joke, even as he’s trying to help you.”

“Discord’s a Chaos God!” Spike added. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he’d secretly railroaded Star to our door! Like, maybe caused some kind of roadblock here, put a thunderstorm there... like she was a character in Discord’s badly-contrived novel!”

Sympathetically, Lero patted Twilight on the back. “I wouldn’t worry about Star Sparkle. She’s come, she’s had her laugh, and she’s left again. Who can she possibly even TELL the story to, with the bewitchment in place?”

“Right now? No one. But if things go well, and I do find a cure, she’ll tell EVERYONE! I’ll never live it down! Everyone will know that Rarity was living with us as a herdmate... that she and I...”

Twilight stopped at the looks on Spike and Lero’s faces. Clearing her throat, the unicorn looked back down at Star’s name, more pensively. “Still... was that the ONLY reason she was exempted? Just to have a laugh at my expense? Nothing else?”

“Who knows with Discord?” said Lero. He also briefly left and came back to show them his wallet, cell phone, car keys, the clothes he’d worn in the motel room, even the little shampoo and conditioner bottles with ‘Criddos Motel,’ on the side. He realized this had been a mistake when Twilight began asking too many questions about the objects, and took them away, so they wouldn’t get off-topic, promising to discuss them more later. Then he went on to revealing how Twilight was apparently the only one capable of ending the Swap.

“So according to Discord... there really IS a cure?” Twilight said, “And I’m the ONLY ONE who can find it?”

Lero nodded. “That’s his story, O Glorious Child of Destiny.”

“Well, on one hoof, it’s a relief knowing that a cure DOES EXIST. I was starting to worry this was just a wild goose chase, and that my friends’ condition was now untreatable. On the other... I’m the only one who can find it.”

A single strand of Twilight’s mane sprang out of place, all wiry and crooked, like a damaged bedspring. “So no pressure!”

“How ARE things coming along with the cure?” Spike asked.

“Still in the research phase.”

“How long until we pass the research phase?” asked Lero.

“No comment.”

“No comment?” he repeated.

“None.”

Lero even told them about his late-night conversation with Rarity last night; the one which had ended with her promising that she’d one day marry him, Twilight, and Lyra, and have kids with Lero.

“Rarity... Rarity... wow,” That was all Twilight could get out at first. “I hate doing all this, you know? It feels like we’re all conspiring behind her back.”

Lero poured himself a cup of coffee. “Hate to be the one to break it to you, Twi, but we ARE conspiring behind her back. For her own good.”

“I know,” she said. “I just wish all FOUR of us could put our heads together on this. She’s just so sweet and loving.”

Lero dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee. “Best case scenario: she’d have the three of us committed. For our own good... the best shrinks money can buy. And they’d all be on her side. Worst case scenario: she’d believe us, then go bonkers, and we’d need to commit HER. Or worser still: kill her in self-defense. Sorry, it’s gotta be this way. Want some coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Twilight turned resolutely to Spike. “Spike! Take a letter! I want you write to Lyra, telling her everything Lero just told us! We need to keep her in the loop!”

For several minutes, Spike just wrote. “How’s this?” he asked when he was done.

Twilight read it over. “Perfect! Go ahead and send it!”

Spike took in a breath. The door opened, and Rarity stepped inside. “Have any of you seen my....?!”

Spike exhaled. The former fashionista watched the letter go up into smoke which wafted away, out the door she was holding open.

“What was that you just sent?”

Guiltily, Twilight admitted; “A letter. To Lyra.”

“And you didn’t wait for me?”

“Um...” said Lero.

“Well...” said Spike.

“We... sorry, Rarity. That was thoughtless of us,” said Twilight.

Rarity’s cutie mark twinged; Lero saw the muscles underneath the mark give a small spasm. Rarity shot it a look, then scowled in impatience. “Ugh! We can argue about this later, right now I must go and...” But then she stopped herself. “Twilight, I haven’t written to Lyra at all, have I? Not since she left on that sabbatical of hers.”

Twilight licked her lips. “No, Rarity. I can’t say you have.”

Rarity’s mark began to spasm... but this time, the white unicorn completely ignored it. “...It can wait five minutes. Family comes first.”

Lero was impressed that she was able to restrain herself this much. Rarity sat by Twilight, whispering something in her ear that sounded like, ‘learned my lesson.’

“Spike! Take a letter!” she bade the dragon, and Spike raised his quill. “My Sweet Songbird...”

Spike paused. “...Who’s ‘Songbird?’”

“Lyra, of course!” The frown on Rarity’s face said: You should know my pet names for everyone, Spike!

“...Sweeeeeeet Soooooong-birrrrrrrrd,” the dragon wrote out. “Continue!”

My Sweet Songbird,

Please forgive me for my lateness, Lyra. For being just a little bit slower to write to you than the others, here at home. It’s not the same for any of us with you gone. All of us miss you. All of us are constantly guessing when it is we’ll be seeing you again in Ponyville. Myself included. I don’t ever want you believing that you’re just an afterthought to me.

How I wish that Spike had a twin brother, and that twin was with you on your journey! That way, we could hear back from you instantly! Then again, perhaps it is for the best that things are the way they are. Long-distance is no proper way for family to interact. I cannot wait until we can see each other face-to-face and trade stories. Lately, our lives have once again become more tumultuous than they have any natural right to be.

Lyra, if I told you that I worry about you, all on your own, thousands of miles away from us, would you think me a silly filly? I do worry, even knowing what a strong and capable mare you are. Sudden disaster can strike anyone at any time, even the strong. I had to relearn that lesson. Maybe the others already told you this in their own letter, but something horrible almost happened to Lero. And I would hate for anything like that to befall you, my sweet Lyra, in some lonely stretch of nowhere where we wouldn’t know how to reach you. I’d miss too much about you.

I’d miss the music of your clàrsach. Your unique way of thinking and your tranquil serenity. I’d miss your soft smile and voice. I’d miss all your little wisdoms, all the insights you share throughout each day. And I’d miss your touch. This is more than a mere letter, Lyra. This is a long-distance kiss from me to you, my sweet songbird.

I’m sending just a little bit of my love, and am eager to deliver the rest to you in person.

Until We Meet Again,

Rarity

“How does it look?” Rarity asked the others, once it was done.

“It’s... it’s REALLY nice,” Twilight spoke in awe.

“Really, it IS touching, Rarity,” Lero concurred.

“Oh good, glad it’s passable. I was just rattling off thoughts from the top of my head. Wish I’d had time to make the wording more elegant. But now THAT’S over, has anypony seen the mail?!”

Twilight had Spike pass her a stack of envelopes. Rarity runs through them, flipping rapidly through them like cards in a deck. “Is this everything?!”

“Yes, that’s all the mail.”

Rarity rans upstairs. From downstairs, they heard a commotion as she rummaged about through the stuff, and her shouting; “It’s not there! None of it’s there!” She rushed back downstairs, looking frantic. “Have any of you touched my Weatherpony stuff?”

Lero carefully took a long sip of coffee, hiding as much of his face behind the mug as he could, while Twilight said, “No, why?”

“Because it’s all gone! My ID, my paperwork, everything that proved that I work with the Weatherponies! Aaaugh! And she galloped out the door. From inside, they watched her summon a cloud down from the sky, cast the cloud-walking spell on her body, and lift herself into the heavens.

“Hold on. Not yet, Spike,” Lero said. The dragon had been about to send Rarity’s letter to Lyra on its way. “One more thing I think we should add.” He took Spike’s quill and ink and wrote:

P.S. From the rest of the Herd: Lyra, if any skepticism should still remain in your mind about what Rarity has now become, we hope this will remove all doubt.

He wrote these words right next to the letter’s greeting: My Sweet Songbird.

“Now send it.” Spike did. “To think... I’m a sweet prince, Twilight’s a sweet enchantress and now Lyra’s a sweet songbird.”

“So what am I?” asked the dragon.

“Spikey-Wikey,” said Lero.

“Where are you going?” Twilight asked, as the human stood up.

“Bathroom. Then I’m headed to my job at the spa.”

* * *

Lero rose from the bathroom’s bidet, pulled up his pants back up, and strode over to the bathroom sink. As he grabbed the soap bar and ran it across the front and back of his hands, the human mused upon how much this whole Swap business would affect his career, working for Lotus and Aloe.

Perhaps, if he were lucky, it would barely affect it at all. And he could just relax, get lost in his work, and be able to pretend, for just a few hours, that nothing in his life had changed at all. Once his hands were cleaned, he scooped soapy water into his hands, and splashed it into his face...

...Something brushed his thumb when he brought it towards his ear. Something light and ticklish.

Feathery.

Lero lowered his hands and stared into the mirror. Yes. There it was. There it had been, all along. The cyan feather hanging from the braid by his ear. So much a part of him at this point, a thing he maintained without a second's thought... that rediscovering it now had been like finding a treasure hidden in plain sight.

Ironically, the first thing he heard in his head when he gazed at it was Rarity’s voice:

“Rainbow Dash! Is that feather yours? Oh! How unbearably romantic! I didn’t think you had it in you!”

Lero undid his braid, holding the feather in his palm. He took its stem between his fingers, and spun it slowly, examining its every angle.

“Actually… y-you can keep it, if you want. It’s kinda… giving you a piece of me.”

Lero wondered to himself why it was that Rarity had never noticed the feather there. Usually, she was quite observant. Then he recalled the bewitchment, and reasoned that the unicorn must be perceiving it as a... as a horn shaving of hers, or something.

“Why you? Oh, I dunno, maybe ‘cause your personality clicked with mine like no one else’s ever has? Maybe because I’ve never had a closer friend in my whole life? Maybe even because we had so much fun together that I wanted to keep you around some more? And yeah, I’m not supposed to say it, but you’ve got pretty eyes and nice flanks, even with you, ya know, not being a pony.”

Voices, memories started coming to Lero, unbidden, unstoppable.

“Oh, I am so tempted to not even share you.”

“Share me? What do you mean by that?”

“Y-you know... W- wi- with other mares.”

The feather twirled in the mirror, rolled between his finger, the intensity of the memories such that he swore he could see the wing it came from...

“Okay. You really want me to decide if you stick with just one mare or not?”

Moments with her danced before his eyes.

“Round two? You mean we can keep going?Really?”

The touch of her wings, the feel of her hair, even her scent, came back to him.

“I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I love you. I can’t even tell you how much.”

“I’d figured that out.”

“Thought so. Still needed to say it, though.”

“I love you, too, Rainbow. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner.”

The moments of joy, love, happiness...

“All I can think of is going over there, getting you naked, and making love to you over and over and over.”

The intimacy that meant more than just pleasure, more than just fun, but a deep connection to the girl he loved, and the happiness her joy gave her...

“What you and I’ve got, it’s not gonna go away just ‘cause we’re sharing with Twilight. It's always gonna be there, y'know?”

And more, the Generosity and Loyalty she showed in sharing him, a concept alien to him, that she guided him through, showing him the love he could have for others without loving her less, and making his life the richer for it...

“I love you, big guy. Even if you manage to make me mad, I won't stay that way.”

Someone who for the first time in his life, he knew that they'd work as hard as he would to make things work, to always be by his side, because it matters just as much to her as to him.

“I'd love to fly with you. I've had dreams about flying as long as I could remember.”

“Doofus, why didn't you freaking tell me? I love flying almost as much as I love you, and I'd be happy to carry you all the way across Equestria if you wanted me to!”

Someone who wasn't afraid to share any part of herself with him, because she was sure he'd love her no matter what, and would do the same for him.

“The spell’s perfectly safe. See?”

“And even if it weren’t, I'd catch you.”

Someone who'd look out for him, not just because he was her stallion, but because he was the love of her life.

“I... I don't deserve you, Lero.”

“You deserve better than me, Rainbow. But you've got me, for as long as you want me.”

“What if I want you forever and ever?”

“Then you'll have me at least that long.”

Someone who wanted to be with him forever, Someone who wanted to be his wife, someone who wanted to start a family with him.

“And if you've got a problem with him, then you've got one with me,”

Someone who would jump to his defense without a thought.

“I could go with you. If you wanted me to. Unless you wanted me to stay behind.”

Someone who would sacrifice everything to be with him.

“I love you. I want to spend my life with you, Rainbow Dash. I can’t imagine not being with you. Can’t imagine my world without you in it.”

“You didn’t realize?”

“Realize what?”

“Goofus. I’ve felt that way for a long time. I thought you realized what it meant when I gave you this.”

And Dash had touched the cyan feather braided into his hair.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to stay with me… but I wanted to stay with you. So I gave you this, so even if you left, a piece of me would stay with you.”

Lero shut his eyes. There were too many tears right now.

"You and I… we’re gonna be there for each other? Always?”

Someone who gave him the one thing that he really needed in this stange, alien world: A place to belong. A family. A home.

He couldn't close his eyes to her suffering. Even if it was just a part of her.

He knew what he had to do next.

* * *

"...But... But vhy, Meester Lerro?"

Oh, God dammit. Why was none of this ever easy? After making his decision, He'd headed right over to his place of work, the Ponville Day Spa. Lero really didn't want to do this, but it was necessary. Having no idea how else to go about it, he'd found his bosses, Lotus Blossom and Aloe, and announced his intention to quit.

Man, he never expected his bosses to look so sad. Aloe and Lotus Blossom were some of the nicest ponies he'd ever had the pleasure of working for. On top of that, they were cute and had adorable accents, which just made his guilt worse.

"Vhen are you leaving?"

"Effective immediately."

“Immediately?! Not even so much as a twoo-veek notice?” Their eyes were full of confusion and worry, dangerously close to being outright hurt.

"Is et your pay? Vee thought yoo vere happy vith-"

He held up a hand. "No, I'm sorry, I said this wrong. Let me make it clear: I'm not quitting because of anything you two did."

They looked at each other with bafflement. "Then vhat?" Lotus ventured.

Lero sighed. "Something very important suddenly came up in my life, and I don't have time to handle everything anymore. Something had to give and... I'm sorry, as much as I love and enjoy working for you two, you're the thing I can afford to give up the most."

"But ve have so mahny clients lined op!" Aloe protested. "Et is leeving us en such a bind!"

"I know! And if I could be any other way, I would, but I can't!"

"But if ve can't deliver our promeeses, et vill be bad for our reputati...!" Aloe found herself silenced by Lotus Blossom's hoof, who then walked up to Lero, putting a hoof on his leg.

"I understand Meester Lero. Yoo've been gut to us, helped us more than yoo know. Go, do vhat yoo need, ve vill be fine."

Smiling, he took her hoof in his hand, squeezing gratefully. "Thank you. I'm glad you understand. I don't think it'll be forever, so when I make it back, I'll make it up to you, alright?"

"Just come back to us soon, okay?" She said with a regretful smile.

"I'll do my best." He gave her a hug, which she returned. "Give everyone my best, okay?"

"Ve will." With that, he let her go, gave his farewells, and headed out.

When he was out of sight, he managed to overhear them speaking to each other.

"How can yoo let heem leave? He was our best moneymaker!"

"Seester, fate sent heem to us from nowhere, now it take him away. How can ve complain?"

Dammit. This whole mess was wrecking things for everyone, even those only tangentially involved. But he needed to do what needed to be done...

* * *

Pastoral cottages had no right to be this intimidating. Not when it was broad, sunny daylight. Not without a few freshly-severed heads jammed upon pikes in the middle of the front yard.

Even so, it was not Lero’s imagination when he looked around to the birdhouses and the chicken coop, and saw that every robin, bluejay, chicken and jackdaw peered back at him with foreboding glowers. And he could hear them all the rest of them from within; the birds, the beasts... and Rainbow Dash, who was yelling out as one of them sunk its fangs upon some tender part of her body. How ironic... between all the vicious critters it was the damsel that distressed him most. But there was no turning back. Absolutely none. It was more than just a matter of burned bridges... of rejecting Discord’s bewitchment, then quitting his job. It was about living up to his convictions.

Lero knew if he were to chicken out and go home, all Dash’s screams and sobs which he was hearing would echo endlessly in his mind, throughout the day, throughout the night, and throughout the next day after, until his feet brought him right back to this door again. All her noises of misery were unendurable. Even trepidation could only root him to the spot for so long, before he hammered his fist upon the door, until the pegasus cried,

“Alright! Alright! Alright, already!” And she opened the door to see who had come. “Uh, hey, Lero,” she greeted apprehensively.

“Hi, Rainbow Dash.”

“Oh, hey, your voice came back, huh?”

Lero nodded. “Yeah, Twilight was able to cast a spell to fix it.”

No terror from her. No running away. Lero could see Discord had been as good as his word: Rainbow Dash didn’t remember a thing about his last visit, it really might as well have never happened for her. Such a relief.

But he could also see so much else about her that was the farthest thing from relieving. Missing patches of fur on her coat. Spots along her mane and tail where her pretty rainbow hair been torn out or bitten off. Bandages that hadn’t been changed in days. And her eyes... to say that the circles around her eyes had darkened would be a gross understatement.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes were blistered orbs of bloodshot red, sunken in pits of inky blackness.

“Good. That’s good.” She looked past him, surprised to see nopony else was with him. "So... what're you doing back here again?”

She flinched in dread at a noise from inside the cottage: the unmistakable growling and ripping noises of two large dogs having a tug-of-war with a tablecloth.

“Uh... I’m sorry, Lero, I...!”

She tried shutting the door, but Lero had already wedged his foot inside.

“Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry, but it’s really important that I talk to you. I wouldn’t have come over here if it wasn’t.”

Past Rainbow Dash’s head, Lero could actually see one small flock of cardinals engaged in a bitter battle with a small flock of canaries, along the ceiling.

“This isn’t the best time for me to be having guests over the house...!”

“Then, if you don’t mind, would you kindly step outside here with me? It really IS that important, and frankly, it’s much better that we’re not distracted by your animals.”

The pegasus looked ready to duck back into her house, anyway, but he gave her his most pleading expression. “O-okay," she said, stepping out and closing the door. "What was it you...?"

RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE! It sounded like very large, boxy objects were being thrown down the stairs.

“I... I’m sorry, Lero! I can’t! I just can’t! I gotta...!”

But before she could charge back inside, Lero placed himself between her and the door. “Please, Rainbow, let me ask one question... one SINGLE question, and if I like the answer, I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

She frowned hard at him. “Oh, ‘if‘ you like the answer? Who died and made you...!”

He looked at her hard in her red, bleary eyes. “How many hours of sleep do you plan on having over the next two weeks?”

She took a step back. “What?” That... really wasn't a question she was expecting.

“I don’t know the exact number for ponies, but humans are supposed to get seven to nine hours’ sleep a day, or so the experts say. How much sleep are you going to let yourself have, from now on? How many hours will those monsters in that cottage allow you to have?”

“I... They...” She was so lost for words that this time, she didn’t even notice a live raccoon being hurled straight out a side window of hers. The raccoon got back up, shaking its paw like a fist and barked at the window he’d been thrown from before climbing back in to rejoin the pandemonium.

“Starving yourself of sleep will be the end of you just as certainly as starving yourself of food would be. You won’t make good decisions. You won’t be rational! Every setback, every hurt you suffer, is going to feel ten times worse because you’re so tired and stressed out. And have you been feeling paranoid, any? Suffering hallucinations? If you haven’t already, I’m impressed, but it’s due in your very near future.”

“What do you even care?!” she snapped.

Lero flinched slightly at that. Paranoia, check.

She seemed to notice his reaction, and in a more respectful tone, she continued, “Uh, no offense, Lero, but you and I... we’re not exactly what you’d call ‘close buddies.‘ When it comes right down to it, to me you’re just Rarity and Twilight’s coltfriend who I barely ever talk to. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a nice guy, but I have a closer personal relationship to Applejack’s cat."

Lero winced. This was an exaggeration... But not much of one. When he'd first come to Equestria, Fluttershy was actually one of the first ponies to take the time to befriend him, and for a while he'd spent a lot of time out in this cottage, chatting with her about what little he knew about earth wildlife, and much to his surprise, subjects such as biology and evolution, which he'd not initially thought she'd be aware of. However, as his focus had been on history, he eventually ran out of things to to talk about with her and they hadn't much other interest in common. As about that time, Rainbow had started aggressively befriending him, he'd just let his friendship with Fluttershy just.... lapse, making not much of an effort to maintain it. As she'd done much the same, he'd figured that the circumstances suited her as well... But now, he was deeply regreting his choice.

“Well, you aren’t ‘nobody’ to me, Rainbow!”

The intensity of his voice took Rainbow aback. “I-I’m not? Then what am I to you?”

Lero needed to get himself back under control. He thought of Lyra and a particular saying she’d share for moment like this:

“All the cosmos surrender to the mind that is still.”

He stilled his mind. He soothed his heart. He opened his eyes... and FORCED them to not see a cyan coat, but a yellow one. To not see many colors on her mane, but only one: pink. To focus on the three butterflies.

And Lero tailored his speech accordingly.

“To me, Rainbow, you’re one of Twilight’s truest friends. You’ve always been there for her. Being with you, learning from you, has helped shape her into the wonderful mare I love. I’m pretty sure you saved her life quite a few times as well. The same goes for Rarity. On top of that, you did take the time to be nice to me when I first got here, which almost no one else did. Even if it didn't result in a close friendship, it meant a lot to me. A girl like you is a treasure.”

His praise surprised the frown off Dash’s face. She looked genuinely touched.

“But consider this angle as well, Dash: you are one of the Elements of Harmony! You’re the Element of... crud, I’m sorry, which Element are you again?”

“Kindness.” Behind Dash, several sooty birds shot out from the cottage’s chimney without any explanation.

“...Yes. Kindness,” Lero agreed. “Anyway, what’ll happen when the next Queen Chrysalis or the next King Sombra swoops in to endanger us all? You know it could happen at any time! You owe it to Equestria to be at the top of your game! You owe it to your friends, too, they’ll be DEPENDING on you! Or are you just going to race into battle as a burnt-out wreck?”

Chagrined, Dash dug a shallow circle in the dirt with her hoof. “Okay, Lero, I admit, you make some good points. I’ll try to rein it all in, if I can. But dude, c’mon, it’s not like I’m the only girl with problems! I mean, why come to me? Why not my other friends? Their lives are all pretty crummy too right now!”

The human put his hand on her shoulder. “Because out of all of them, you’re the one who most desperately needs help.”

She actually managed a wry chuckle. “Oh, come on,” she said, with a droll tilt of her head. “Am I really as bad-off as THAT?”

Lero regarded Rainbow Dash. So thin. So filthy, and unwashed with such (he had to be honest) rank breath. So not like herself OR Fluttershy. Smiling as though his hyperbole was indeed amusing, but it was time to acknowledge the joke for what it was.

“The way I see it? Yes, Dash. At least Applejack can go to bed at night when she’s done making dresses for the day. She has a sister and parents who love her, and her clothing won’t attack her at night. Pinkie Pie too; when she’s done farming, she can go home to a terrific family. The Cakes love Fluttershy, warts and all, it says a lot that they haven’t fired her yet. Even Rarity... for all that our neighbors are growing to dislike her... Twilight and Spike and I are still there for her with open arms when she comes home.”

Lero swallowed. He was trying very hard not to come across as harsh, mean or condescending in any way... to just tell things as they were. His words were still cutting her to the quick, though. Yet, she had to be woken up to the truth. One way or another.

“But you, Rainbow? You’ve shut yourself in this little house, alone with all these vicious, unmanageable animals who hate your guts. All around the clock, from dusk to dawn and back again... they bully you and hurt you. Endlessly and without remorse. I’ll bet there are times you completely forget there’s a world outside this cottage! And the worse part is... your friends aren’t even free to help you! Twilight’s working on this super-important spell from Princess Celestia, and the other four... well, as you say, their lives are all pretty crummy right now. You are the most alone of all.”

“You big dumb meanie!”

It had never been easier for Lero to mentally superimpose Fluttershy’s face over Rainbow Dash’s than this very moment. He felt like he were giving the most vicious verbal beatdown imaginable to Shirley Temple herself. The tears were what really did it for him.

“How dare you!” she sobbed. “How dare you make fun of my pain!”

But his truly grief-stricken look stopped her breath.

“Make fun of it? Dash, I’m heartbroken by it! You’re a truly wonderful girl! You deserved to be treated right! It was agony watching you in so much pain yesterday! You can't imagine how it hurt that I couldn't talk! It outright haunted me, which is why I came back! It’s a crime how you’re undermined at every turn, how outnumbered you are! At the rate you’re going, if you don’t die of sleep deprivation, then these animals will just eat you alive one day!”

Clasping his hands beseechingly, he broke into tears himself: “Please, I feel so awful for you! Let me help you, please! Someone should! Otherwise, I won’t be getting any sleep just thinking about you! You’d be just as cruel as your animals are!”

Through the tears still falling down her face, Rainbow Dash gawked at the human; this strange otherworldly colt-friend of Rarity’s and Twilight’s. To put it in terms of a biological family, Bellerophon Michaelides had always been the sixth cousin five times removed to Rainbow Dash. The cousin that always showed up to graduation parties, weddings, and funerals, and just more or less filled one of the empty chairs. He’d always been kindly enough to her, and for a while they'd sort of been friends, but Dash knew they had too little in common to make a lasting friendship. And now from out of nowhere... he was absolutely, truly heartbroken for HER sake! Begging her to let him help her! Why...?

From inside Rainbow Dash’s home, there came noises she could not ignore: the sound of every shelf and cabinet within her cottage hitting the floor all at once. With a pained cry, she raced back inside, leaving the door wide open. Lero held back just long enough to see whether or not she’d leave the door open for him or shut it behind her.

She left it open. He headed in.

* * *

Filthy. Absolutely trashed. It had gotten impossibly worse since the time he’d visited yesterday; a combination of pigsty and war zone. Anything which could’ve conceivably been gnawed on or scratched up... had been; practically every object and especially the furniture. Soft things such as the cushions and pillows on the couch had been burrowed into; their cottony stuffing either eaten and vomited back up, or spread out all over. The drapes over the broken windows were the shredded tatters of haunted houses.

Muddy paw prints of every sort were tracked all over the floor. Wooden shavings and shreds of old newspaper — the type used for bedding in rabbit and hamster cages — were spread out everyplace. Lero took a step forward and was startled by a sharp, high squeak! He lifted his foot — it wasn’t an animal, just a headless squeaky dog toy. To his right, there was a toppled bookshelf; Lero saw birdwatching guides, pet care manuals, a pack of cassette tapes with a minotaur’s head on the cover, zoological textbooks, and bedtime stories with animal heroes.

The stench of mouse droppings, bird droppings and all sorts of other droppings overwhelmed the smell of stain-and-odor-remover fluid, (which must’ve been poured on by the gallon.) He felt grateful for the shoes on his feet... poor Dash had to step in this bare-hoofed.

Strangely, there wasn’t an actual animal to be seen. At least, not here, on the ground floor.

“Noooooo...” he heard a miserable pegasus moan. “Oh noooooo....”

Rainbow Dash stood between two staircases. The one to her right led to the cottage’s upper floor, towards the bedroom. The one at her left led down to a basement cellar. Animal chitters and noises of destruction trailed up and down from both sets of stairs.

The moment Dash started upstairs, something huge would crash from down in the cellar. The moment Dash started towards the cellar, there’d be a tremendous bang from upstairs. Twisting left and right, and going nowhere, Dash seemed to want nothing more than to split herself in two like an amoeba. She was just a few seconds away from breaking down into hysterical tears.

Time to take charge.

“Dash!” She looked towards him, almost stunned that he’d followed her in. “You go left and I’ll go right!”

He was halfway up the stairs before she called out to him. “Wait, Lero! If you’re really serious about helping me, you’ll need to take one of these!”

He came back down, and found Dash by the kitchen. Next to the overturned refrigerator there was a large pile of empty animal cages, haphazardly thrown into a pile. Very likely by the animals, themselves. Birdcages, dog cages, rabbit cages, ferret cages, hamster cages, exotic-looking cages for exotic animals, even a few cages the size of small cabinets.

Dash picked up one of the birdcages in her mouth. “Whatever you do, if you see Angel Bunny, DON’T go after him unless EVERY other animal has been caught again! Even if he makes you think you can catch him!”

“Understood!”

Lero perused the selection at his feet and decided he’d take the large cabinet-sized cage. One large cage to shove a lot of smaller animals into... that’d be a good start. Just to be sure, he put a few more smaller cages inside as backup.

Dash took a gulp. “Hey, Lero...you’re very thoughtful for doing this,” Her tone was deeply respectful as she spoke through the bars in her teeth. “I just want you to know that when you run away screaming from this house, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Only if you run away first, Rainbow.”

Laughing hollowly at that, Dash cantered down the cellar.

* * *

Lero Michealides’ parents had been dog owners, ever since they’d bought him his first two puppies for his tenth birthday. (Iapetus and Eurynome, both Samoyeds. God rest their fluffy, face-licking souls.) So Lero DID know a few things about dog care from his days on Earth. But as for all the rest of the animal kingdom? He felt like a pianist having all the instruments in a one-man band attached to his body. If ever there was a case of the blind leading the blind, this was it. But that wasn’t even the point.

The point was to not let Rainbow Dash suffer alone anymore.

The cottage’s upper floor consisted of a bathroom, the main bedroom, a guest bedroom, and a broom closet. Animals crawled all over everything; small birds perched and fluttered along the higher reaches of the upstairs hallway. It was more cacophonous than a petting zoo.

Lero set down his large cage, which was a bit bulky but weighed next to nothing. Where to start...?

A slow tortoise crept by the guest bedroom’s open doorway; Lero grabbed it and set it gently on the floor of his cage. So far, so good.

“Hey, Lero, you’re very thoughtful for doing this.”

Lero looked up. Jabbers the Parrot was perched on a high ledge, looking down on him. He’d need to ask Dash for a net or something. He refocused on a very old-looking Pomeranian, fast asleep on the floor. It didn’t even wake up as he put it in the cage, beside the tortoise.

“Hey, Lero, you’re very thoughtful for doing this,” parroted the parrot.

Lero nodded and set his sights ahead. That kitty-cat up ahead looked cuddly enough to grab...

Jabbers the Parrot drew in a deep breath. “HEEEEEEEY, LEEERO!” he screeched. “HEEEEEEEY, LEEEERO!”

At first, Lero worried that the bird was hurt or something. But the human found out the truth soon enough. This wasn’t a cry for help. This was a call to arms.

He felt like one of the robbers in that old movie Home Alone, walking into an obvious trap. He felt like he was Elmer Fudd, foolishly going after Bugs Bunny, all his bunny children, plus the entire non-human cast of the Looney Tunes cartoons, convinced that he could get the better of them all. The cottage critters were all THAT aggressive.

A dozen small birds flew at his head all at once; pecking at his scalp, and tangling their little bird-claws in his hair. The more Lero hollered, the harder they dug and pecked at his hair, as though it were full of earthworms and free birdseed. In a sudden moment of brillance, he snagged one of the smaller cages, and shook his head violently, shaking them off, popping the cage off his head and snapping it shut. "Ha! Not so smart now, huh?" At which point he was promptly dive bombed by a mockingbird.

While still vicious, the remainings birds took a more cautious approach, flapping along the ceiling top, then swooping down suddenly, one by one. He managed to catch and cage just one bird bare-handed: Jabbers, himself, seizing him by his little feathery neck.

“Wait, Lero!” the parrot called, as Lero shut the cage on him. “If you’re really serious about helping me, you’ll want to take one of these!”

He felt a beak bite down on the back of his neck, and wheeled around in a fury, swatting away a cackling raven. Ugh! This was no good, being all bareheaded like this! He needed supplies! So Lero went to the storage closest... a competent animal caretaker like Fluttershy would’ve SURELY stocked SOMETHING useful in there!

Bats. Seven of them. Large, ugly fanged little mice with wicked leather wings, and boy, were THEY not happy to have daylight shone in their eyes! He suddenly had the entirely unique experience of bats plastered to his face, and he didn't much care for it. The feel of their wings on his skin was every bit as creepy as Halloween made it out to be. Lero promised himself he’d wash his face in fresh-cut garlic, while yanking the bitey things off and tossing them in the cage!

...Was it alright to shove birds, bats, and dogs in the same one cage? Screw it, he'd worry about it later; Gotta catch ‘em all, first! Peeking into the bathroom, he spotted a promising-looking plunger... something that might be useful on the animals! He spotted Gummy the toothless baby alligator swimming inside the toilet bowl when he went to grab it. (Thankfully, there was nothing else floating inside the bowl, but still... ewww...) He poked the gator with the plunger, and it obligingly snapped down on it, allowing Lero to heft it over into the cage.

Then a long, silver-colored water snake splashed up from the bathtub across from the toilet, lifting itself off its belly the way snake charmers were somehow always able to get them to do. It tasted the air with its forked tongue, eyes fixed upon Lero’s. Reacting in pure panic, Lero swung the rubbery end of his plunger straight at its head; it hit the wall, and splashed back into the tub water. He stepped back out into the hallway.

“Eee-yaaakk!! Ennnngh, enngh... Hnurk, nyurk, nyurk!”

It came up the stairs on long, reedy legs, its webbed feet slapping each step wetly. Pink and lanky with a curved black beak. A flamingo. The noises issuing from its throat were the polar opposite of melodious birdsong: honks and warbles and strangled-sounding hacking quacks.

A flamingo. What was he supposed to do with a flamingo? Were they vicious?

Well, this flamingo was. It stalked towards the human angrily. As though Lero were Alice in Wonderland...and Alice had been using its head as a croquet mallet one too many times for the flamingo to forgive.

“Kkkk-krAAAA!” went the flamingo, charging at him.

Lero dashed for the storage closest, and shut himself in.

The flamingo stopped, examining the shut door in satisfaction as he heard the sound of cloth tearing from within.

“How many hours of sleep do you plan on having over the next two weeks?” Jabbers asked the flamingo, in a delighted, congratulatory tone.

The flamingo turned his back on the closet, leading out a proud, “Nyyyyrrrack! Enh-enh-eh!” and this was when the closet door sprang back open, the human grabbed the flamingo around the neck and midsection, spun it around and flung it into the storage closet before it knew what was happening.

The human HAD found useful items inside the closet. For starters: the caged catcher’s mask and catcher’s chest protector. (Fluttershy had played baseball?) Neither were fit for his bipedal figure... but he forced the makeshift armor to stay on by tearing strips off his shirt off and tying them onto the baseball gears as head straps and body straps.

He readied his plunger like a batter’s club. “So who’s next?”

“AAAAAAHH!” This scream wasn’t from any animal... that was Rainbow Dash!

“You big dumb meanie!” shrieked Jabbers, as he raced down the stairs. “How dare you make fun of my pain!”

“MWWWRRRAOOOO!!!” screeched the curled-up cat which Lero tripped upon, on the sixth stair down. He took a tumble, landing on his knees, and pulled himself back up.

This was all worse than one of those video games where if your character bumped into a single animal, every other critter in the forest converged on you as if you'd just uttered a dire insult about their mother.

He hurried down into the cellar. It appeared that this was the place that Fluttershy had stowed all her kibble, extra pet toys, and everything else a girl like her would need to care for a menagerie this big. There was a lot.

At the bottom of the stairs, he found Rainbow Dash, lying on her side, moaning in pain. An entire warren of rabbits was using her body as their trampoline: brown bunnies, gray bunnies, spotted bunnies, but the one with the cruelest and nastiest sneer of all was Angel Bunny. Angel was bouncing up and down atop her head as though it would split open like a rotten melon if he kept at it long enough.

Angel Bunny: the Napoleon of this Orwellian Animal Farm.

Lero charged in, and with a swipe of his arm, smacked the lagomorphs away from her.

“Rainbow!” he called, lifting her up. “Are you right?”

“You’re... still here?” she croaked.

Lero felt something unpleasantly furry try to scamper up the inside of his pant leg. He shook the creature out; it was a old, ugly sickly-looking rat. It darted forward, meaning to clamp down on him or Rainbow with it foul, yellowed teeth. Lero smashed his foot down, crushing it underfoot. For a second, the other animals were intimidated, cowerin and scampering away. However, the brief moment of triumph was washed away as Dash’s butterfly cutie mark twitched very visibly, and she screamed out in deep psychological dismay:

“MY ANIMALS! NO! DON’T KILL ANY OF THEM! I’M THEIR CARETAKER! I NEED TO KEEP MY ANIMALS ALIVE! I NEED TO KEEP ALL MY ANIMALS ALIVE!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, until she managed to calm down. With her riding piggyback upon him, he began proceeding back up the cellar stairway and... and yes, that WAS a capuchin monkey at the top of the stairs, and yes, that WAS a bottle of Slippy-Shine™ brand floor polish that capuchin was dumping down the stairs, (Slippy-Shine!™ Removing dinginess and traction from your floors for 30+ years!) Twilight favored the brand, herself!

"Oh, you naughty monkey...!" Lero practically snarled, as it slapped its butt at him. With tremendous care and focus, he took a step up. Angel Bunny hopped onto a stack of boxes, and from there, onto the stairway bannister.

Lero took another tentative step, his shoe squelching on the floor polish. Angel Bunny leapt from the bannister onto the human’s head... now using him as his trampoline.

BOUNCE! Had to focus. BOUNCE! Angel wouldn’t get the satisfaction of making him fall. BOUNCE! Okay, this little punk had asked for it.

Mid-bounce, while gravity had just started to pull the hopping Angel back down towards Lero’s head, the human tilted his face upwards and opened his jaws. Angel’s furry little hind leg fell inside Lero’s mouth. He sank his teeth into it like a dog.

“YEEEEEKK!!!”

The white rabbit kicked at Lero’s nose with his free leg until he let go, and Angel took a fall, tumbling down the stairs.

“What a maroon.” he quipped. Bit by bit, Lero managed to climb the stairs without once slipping. He was too focused on climbing stairs to see Angel rise back up, seething in anger and dripping with floor polish. But the time Lero was on the last step, he heard a loud bell being rung down below.

“There was a bell down there?” he asked. Rainbow Dash only response was a slight groan.

“WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

Dogs. Big dogs. And they were bounding straight for him! But Lero was ready: he pulled out one of the other things he’d grabbed from the upstairs closet.

“See the ball, boys?” He bounced it enticingly, and gave a chirpy whistle. “See the ball? Ya want it? Huh? Huh?”

The anger left all the dogs’ faces, and their tails wagged eagerly.

“Go get it!”

And he made a toss down towards the cellar. All the dogs raced downstairs, each letting out fearful yipes as they slipped on the floor polish. Lero gave a slight smirk at Angel's expression as a pack of large dogs carreened out of control towards him. Lero shut the cellar door on them: producing the tennis ball in his hand. He hadn’t actually thrown it.

“Dash, what do we do now?! You’ve lived with them longer! What do we do?!”

But Dash was out cold. Still breathing, but she’d reached her limit. She needed sleep. And Lero could see that.

“Dash, I’m going to take you to my place," he spoke a little louder. You’ll be able to rest there for as long as you need... Twilight and Rarity have healing spells! Is that okay?”

Dash slept on.

“Silence gives consent,” said Lero, heading outside with the mare still dozing on his back.

* * *

That... had gone better than Lero expected. Lero had successfully made his point to Rainbow Dash, won her trust, and now... well, he was taking her home, thank god. Sure, she might be upset about it later, but he was sure that after a good night's sleep, a filling meal, her wounds treated, and her friends around her, she'd forgive him.

Twitch.

Oh, no.

TWITCH.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

He could feel it, he could feel her cutie mark start to twitch and spasm the farther away he got from her cottage.

"C'mon, stay with me, don't do this, don't wake up, please, please, please..."

The moment he stepped past the last birdhouses that marked the edge of Fluttershy's home, Rainbow Dash snapped awake.

"Nooooo!" She said blearily. "My animallllssss!" she weakly started to struggle in Lero's grip. "I can't leave my animals...."

Lero managed to supress the urge to scream a loud expletive, but only just.

"Fine, Dash..." He circled around, and the moment he was back within the property line, the spasms receeded, and Dash was out like a light once more.

"...Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Why didn't Starswirl name this spell 'Starswirl's Inescapable Torment!?'" groused Lero, pausing at the door, planning for a moment. making up his mind, he strode inside like he owned the place, shutting the door behind him, and carefully placing Rainbow on the couch, before turning around addressing the assembled animals now staring at him with confusion.

"Alright, listen up you filthy animals, I'm in charge now, and unless you want to end up like the rat in the cellar, you'll do what I say." Lero said, in the most intimidating bluster he could manage, hoping that this would work.

His only response was the unsheathing of claws, exposing of teeth, and angry growls and hisses.

"Shit."

Faster than he could blink, the animals dogpiled him, not even giving him enough time to appreciate the irony that it contained no dogs, as they were all locked in the basement.

"Aaaggggh, getemoffgetemoffgetemoff!" Lero thrashed around blindly, Finally stumbling into the pile of cages in the kitchen with a loud crash. The animals detached themselves as he fell in, watching to see if he'd emerge, or just cower, freeing them to attack the sleeping pony. After a moment, they turn to look at the helpless Dash...

With a sudden explosion of action, cages suddenly flew out of the pile, some snapping shut about startled animals, others just knocking them for a loop. Lero stood up out of the pile, glaring at the animals. "No one touches her." He said with a determination he didn't know he possessed. With a flurry of action, he charged at the animals, slamming cages down atop them, ignoring their attempts to hinder, ignoring the bites and scratches.

With resounding thuds, he starts plopping the occupied cages into a barricade, a literal wall of cages around the couch. He heard scrambling and cries from other areas of the house, apparently other animals had heard the commotion, and were coming to help. Lero grabbed a broom from the kitchen dumped out a metal dog bowl, and slapped it on his head, before jumping behind the barricade, turning around, standing protectively in front of the sleeping Dash, brandishing the broom.

"Alright, you furry bastards, let's do this."

* * *

Lero honestly lost track of time, as he fended off waves of assaults, foiled infiltrations, and narrowly-avoided ambushes. When an unexpected noise caught him off guard, he swung his broom around... and stopped short when he realized he was looking at a very startled Twilight Sparkle over the rim of the barricade.

"...Oh, thank God, it's you." He said, relieved. The few handful of still-active critters were imprisoned in her telekinetic bubbles. However, the vast majority of the animals were lying about, exhausted by the protracted battle.

"Lero! What're you DOING here!? It's been hours, and I've been looking everywhere for you and..." Twilight paused her tirade, looking around the room. "...What happened to this place? And what are you wearing?"

"Armor." He slid the helmet off his head, and started undoing the rest of his makeshift defensive gear, revealing the torn and blood-spotted clothes underneath.

"Lero! You're hurt!" Twilight said with concern, which he waved off.

"Don't worry. Just pecks and scratches." Behind him, there was a loud yawn. They turned to see Rainbow awaken. In spite of everything else wrong at this cottage; he smiled for she at least looked rested.

"Hey, Dash, how you feeling?" Lero asked. Dash looked up in surprise, shocked anew to still see him here.

"Uhm... I'm alright, Lero. I feel a lot better."

Twilight cleared her throat. "Ah, guys? What exactly happened here?"

Dash blinked at Twilight and laughed. "Oh, don't worry, Twilight, I'm not making time with your stallion. Lero here just dropped by to help with my animals."

Lero nodded. "Make sure you get some decent rest, okay?" Dash nodded, and gave him a smile, which he returned. Inwardly, he whooped in joy. This was a small victory, but it represented solid proof that progress could be made against this damnable spell.

He would make more.

"Oh." Twilight managed to not look disappointed, but rather asked, "Mind if I get him home? He needs to be tended to."

Dash shrugged. "Sure, he's not mine to hog."

Lero reached down and gave her an affectionate, comforting, but chaste pat. "Don't worry, Dash. I'll be back to help tomorrow."

Dash laughed. "Dude, go home, get some rest. You need it. And I'll understand if you never come back, but... thanks for what you did and what you said." She gave him an affectionate nuzzle and his heart soared.

"Anytime." After a few more seconds, he reluctantly broke contact, Twilight shifted the cages out of the way telekinetically for him to walk out. Twilight closed the cottage's door behind him before he could hesitate about leaving.

"What are you thinking!?" Twilight said. "What are you doing back here? You were the one that told us how hopeless and not to mention suicidal it is to try to bring them to their senses!"

"That's not what I'm trying to do, Twilight." Lero responded, trying to be serious, but unable to keep the smile off his face. "I'm NOT trying to 'bring her back to her senses.' Right now, she can keep the identity she has, and I'll play along."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to help her. Her, just as she now is. That mix-up of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy."

Twilight Sparkle tilted her head at him quizzically, so he explained, "I realized earlier today that loving the part of Dash that's in Rarity isn't enough. I can't let any part of Dash suffer." He pointed up and down at his own collection of wounds. "Especially not like THIS."

"Lero..."

"All the rest of the Swapped have someone to depend on: Pinkie has the Apple family, Rarity has us, AJ has Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy has the Cakes..." He looked over his shoulder at Dash's new home. "Back when it WAS Fluttershy living at that cottage, those animals were like family. Not anymore, though. They're just EVIL to Dash. So now, Rainbow has no one. I can't in good conscience leave her alone like this."

Twilight ducked her head slightly, looking guilty for not thinking of all this herself. "Okay, I guess that makes sense... but where are you going to find the time to do that? I mean, I looked for you at the spa, and you weren't there. Are you taking vacation time? Or what?"

"I quit the spa," He replied as they reach the borders of Ponyville. Twilight formed a shield to protect them from the rainbow-colored raindrops falling from the sky.

"You WHAT!?" the unicorn balked.

Lero raised his hands defensivelly. "Just until this is all sorted out. Dash is more important than money to me. Besides, we have more than enough saved up. Plus, there's your stipend from the princess and Lyra's reserve pay and money from concerts will be more than enough to keep us afloat. And... I assume the weather service will still pay Rarity."

He winced at the sight of bright whorls of color and shapes forming in the sky, like paint on a canvas... dripping down various colored liquids over Ponyville. Visually, the effect was rather breathtaking, but he hoped whatever it was that was raining down didn't stain.

"Yes, but... you know that I'm the only one that can find the cure. You can't help them." Twilight protested.

"That, I take as a challenge, my dear Miss Sparkle." She scoffed at that. "Look, Twilight you work on the cure. I'll make sure they all don't destroy themselves in the meantime, alright?"

"They all?" Twilight repeated. "What, are you going to play foalsitter to all FIVE of them?"

As they neared a corner, they both paused as a familiar figure crossed their path.

"Ah, Rarity!" Twilight greeted, frowning at her downcast expression and body language. "Are you alright?"

She looked up, smiling faintly at them. "Ah, Twilight, Lero! Hello, my loves! I'm fine, I've just... gotten some rather frank evaluations of my work as of late." She smiles again. "See you at home?" She moved away, her figure slumping further downward as soon as she thought they couldn't see her face.

Be a pillar of strength for all your loved ones.

"Twilight, I'll meet up with you at home later with Rarity, okay?"

"Lero, wait!" But he sprinted off after the receding white unicorn without a backward look. She shook her head and continued on home.

Author's Note

It all starts with a first step forward...

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