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// We've got to go back! Back to the examination! 
// Story: Sky's Changing Secret 
// by Sky Sprinter 
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The three ponies entered the examination room. Sky went back to his place near the chalk board while Twilight grabbed the pen, paper, and inkwell. Redwind meanwhile was halfway between Sky and the door as she took in the entire room looking at everything.

Twilight returned to Sky and said, “Alright, I’m gonna first take a quick look-a-round to get a basic bearing on external changeling physiology before I begin the more intrusive parts of this.

Sky nodded and closed his eyes still not completely comfortable with the whole process.

Twilight took her quick look at the general parts of Sky’s changeling body that one can get at a general look-over. She took in the leathery skin at the joints, the black chitin, the seamless transitions between, and the color; the fairly light black of the skin and chitin and the green of Sky’s shell. She wrote every detail down on the pad.

Twilight then slightly stepped back and said, “Alright, now I’m gonna take a closer look; starting with the head then to the limbs and ending with the barrel.”

Sky nodded and allowed her to get in close; the air was thick with the taste of apples.

Twilight came in close looking deep and noting various things; she noted where the chitin became skin around the face. Areas around the mouth, eyes, and ears received this treatment and she took in how tough and supple the skin was. She then had Sky open his eyes so she could study them.

“Hmm, your eyes seem to actually be a sea of green in front of a white light. What causes that effect, I’m guessing, is perhaps a large lenticular single-color lens and the area around the iris being a bit more translucent compared to the rest of the eye allowing the light reflecting off the retina to almost be bounced back to the world,” she said while writing it down.

Twilight then asked Sky to open his mouth and so he did while Twilight made notes. She made notes on the fangs and molars, the incisors and upper-molars.

“An omnivorous mouth from the look of it, it seems to indicate either earlier in their evolution Changelings had a omnivorous diet, they currently have such a diet, or even are able to shift into species with meat-eating tendencies,” she said taking notes. Both she and Sky shuddered at that thought, Sky’s being more pronounced; meanwhile Redwind continued her looking around the room.

Twilight next took note of the ears noting how they would twitch and how they were structured to be useful for the dissertation and generally picking up sounds while keeping the theme of missing bits of the pony counterpart which changelings seemed to have around their whole body.

Finally she looked at the horn which had a very unique structure seeming to be even more a part of the changeling body than a unicorn’s.
“Alright I’m gonna move onto the legs and hooves,’ Twilight said to inform Sky.

Twilight moved herself to Sky’s legs, taking note of the chitin and the skin around the joints of the shoulders and thighs, the elbows and knees, and the hooves. She took note of the holes and what their functions were according to Sky and wondered exactly what purposes those zones would have there. Next she wondered the ramifications of those holes, their concentrated nerve endings, and the effect of air running through them which brought her to say a little, “Oh my…” in response when she thought of a particular one.

“It could explain why Chrysalis and the changelings were so smiley during the invasion, I guess,” she said to herself eliciting a small chuckle.”Alright, next I’m going to take a look at your wings, Sky,” she then said to Sky who nodded in assent. The amount of apple he was taking in was almost intoxicating, so much that his body involuntarily stopped soaking in emotions to completely take in and churn the emotions he’d already taken in that day, the last time his body did that was during the “Welcome to Ponyville, Sprinter Siblings” party.
“Whoa,” he said to himself.

‘What is it, Sky?” Twilight asked.

“I just stopped taking in emotional energy,” he replied.

“Is that bad?” Twilight then asked worriedly.

“Actually no, it means that I’ve taken in so much emotional energy that my body needs time to really use it and store it,” Sky explained.

Twilight nodded and then inquired, “What do you mean store it?”

“Normally every month or so, a changeling takes half of the intake of emotions from that month and expels it for use later on during lean months,” Sky answered.

“What do you mean ‘expels it?’ And how did you collect that much energy today, is it your time of the month?” Twilight asked.

“First off: no it is not, actually I have about a week until that time, and besides I’d have told you earlier about this perhaps as I’d have asked for jars, lots of them actually. Second off: By ‘expel’ I mean regurgitate, like how a mother bird feeds it’s child except I’m feeding myself later on. Third off: the total amount per day for a changeling to intake, I believe, is dependent upon that changeling’s metabolism as a changeling is only able to intake a certain amount of emotional energy per day,” Sky explained.

“Is there a certain measurement or does it just happen?” Twilight asked.

“It just happens,” Sky answered.

Twilight nodded and returned to her examining Sky’s wings.

“The wings seem incredibly dissimilar to Pegasus wings suggesting a separate evolution in that area similar to the horn. Yet again there are holes in this area of the body; if your suggestion of them allowing them to flap quicker is true then this will certainly challenge some ponies ideas of the physics behind Pegasus flight. Now Sky, if you’d allow me to, I’d like to test the sensitivity of your wings. Yes? Alright, I’m gonna stroke my hoof up and down a wing and you are going to tell me the feeling, now I’m gonna make sure you are fine with this. You are? Good,” Twilight said while taking her notes of the wings.

Sky wasn’t 100% comfortable with the idea of Twilight touching his wings considering that in Equestrian society it was quite the intimate moment but he could tell that Twilight was solely doing it for the science so he allowed it. Plus there was a part of his mind that thought it cool that such an, admittedly, attractive mare was touching his native form like that, but that was a small part of his mind that was holed up in his unconsciousness.

When Twilight finally brought her hooves to Sky’s wings he shuddered as the sensitivity got to him, he had to convince her to continue. It took just under a minute but the awkward moment was soon over. Twilight seems to focus more than usual on her writing afterwards, which Sky guessed was to take her mind off that situation, unfortunately for Sky he had nothing for himself so he looked over to his sister who took small glances in the direction of the two;  he wondered how long she had been doing that.

“Alright Sky, now for the final part of this examination I’m going to examine your barrel and tail,” Twilight said before Sky nodded allowing her the opportunity. “The chitin to skin transition happens around the waist, midriff, leg joints, the neck, and the flank. The shell starts off as a light green but transitions to a darker green, I hypothesize that it is a chitin material, the color variation, if it is defined as you say it is, is probably a biological function that the queen of a hive is finely in tune with tweaking and without that influence it is chosen by the brain to whatever it believes is needed, unfortunately with only one subject and no future birth to view the results of I cannot test this hypothesis.”

Twilight then viewed Sky’s tail, noting how it and Sky’s mane both had a fur-like feel combined with an insectoid chitinous texture and they, like the changelings of Chrysalis’s hive, were grey like the bands on Sky’s side.

“Now Sky, I’d like to move onto the undercarriage,” Twilight said full-on-into the science of the moment and about to take a look underneath before being stopped by a hoof on the forehead.

“I think that’s far enough, Princess,” Sky said not comfortable with an examination down there.
“Oh, sorry about that Sky, I guess I got a bit too into the science, um, I believe we’re done now. You and your sister can walk around the castle while I compile my notes and, um, try to sort out what information to put where. It might take several months before we’re ready to release the book,” Twilight said blushing and, after the first sentence, not looking at Sky.

Sky nodded and both he and Redwind exited the room to spend some quality time with each other before Stardust’s overtime ended.