We Aren't All Monsters

by Arctic Inferno

My Name Is...

Up close her eyes were large and inviting and her home was filled with light and warmth. It took every ounce of the Changeling's willpower not to shudder with hatred.

"Hello," Twilight said happily shortly after answering the door.
"... Hey, er, there," The Changeling responded, not yet attuned to his new voice. It was much more trustworthy and soft, he realised, and had some kind of accent that he couldn't identify. "I was just stopping by to, uh..."
"... Yes?" Twilight said after a brief pause, her face changing from a smile to a look of obvious confusion.
"I, was, uh... just walking through town," He spoke slowly, making up a story as he went along. "I-I'm new here, you know..."
"I was about to ask," She responded with a slight chuckle, "I've certainly never seen your face around here before!"
"Y-Yeah," He agreed, trying to copy her tone, "I just moved in from... um..."
"Yes? From where?"
The Changeling tried to think back to his lesson on pony cities in the hatchery and spoke the first one that popped into his head. "From, uh, Manehatten."
"Ooh! We don't get many Manehatten ponies over here." She chirped happily.
He nodded, starting to grow into his new form. "Yeah. So, uh..."
She smiled and tilted her head a little. "Not much of a talker, huh? You remind me of a friend of mine. So, what's your name?"
The Changeling looked up. "My... name?"
"Yes, your name!"

The Changeling thought for a moment. He didn't have a name, no Changelings did. The only Changelings who ever received names were the ones who were lucky enough to be selected for his Queen's annual egg-laying season, but they got names from the Queen herself, like "Gutly" and "Spittle". Their names never lasted long, though, because they didn't either; his Queen usually consumed her annual mate when they were finished. In a distant and blurred memory of bringing her a meal he remembered spotting a box under the desk in her room containing a number of skulls, but he had dismissed it as her toys from when she had been a hatchling.

"Um, well, my name is, uh..." He started, trying to pin two words in his head. A slight evening breeze drifted by through the darkened night sky and he suddenly got a burst of inspiration. "B-Breeze... Breeze, um..." He glanced up to see she had a slightly cocked eyebrow and quickly looked around for something else to day, remembering pony names usually had two words. Eventually his gaze drifted upwards.
"Breezy... Breezy Stars." He said after a moment.
"... Well, then, Breezy Stars," Twilight said after an awkward pause, "My name is Twilight Sparkle. Can I ask why you've come to my house when I'm about to go to bed?"
"Yeah, the thing is, uh... I'm new, like I said," He began, "And I have nowhere to stay, so... Would you mind if I stay here for the night? Just one night." Everything he had learnt about pony social habits in the hatchery was coming back to him now and he slowly felt more and more confident.
"... Oh?" Twilight began, not entirely sure what so say. She gave him a careful look over before responding. "... Yes, I'm sure you'll be fine for just one night. Come on in."

Breezy stepped into the library and flinched from the sudden feel of light hitting his skin from all directions. Ponies were used to this, he told himself; they had smooth skin and soft fur to keep them warm when it turned cold. The Changeling carapace was what he was used to, a sturdy exoskeleton of smooth black bone. A shell was so much better, keeping him protected from harmful and irritating things, like light. For a moment he wondered to himself if ponies shed their skins and grow new ones like Changelings do when they hit puberty, but he was interrupted in his thoughts when Twilight spoke up again.
"So, did you bring anything with you from Manehatten?" She said chattily as she started to trot up the stairs running up along the wall. Breezy settled down on the floor by a bookcase as she spoke.
"No," He said simply as if it were perfectly normal, "Didn't think I needed much... or anything."
"Then how-" She began, stopping on the stairs and turning to face him, then suddenly going quiet. "... What are you doing?"
"... Getting some sleep."
There was a pause and she suddenly burst into laugher, catching him off guard.
"Oh, Breezy!" She said between giggles, "Stop messing around and get up here so I can set up the guest bed for you!"

Breezy cocked an eyebrow as he rose from the floor and followed her up the stairs. There were more and more things that kept popping up today that just seemed... strange to him. He knew that ponies slept every night- Changelings got a few hours sleep a week, it was all they needed- but never before had he heard about 'beds'. When the weekly sleep came back at the hive the Changelings all assembled into one room and slept in a pack on the floor; all aside from the Queen, of course, who refused to sleep with her children for reasons unknown to him. Or the other Changelings, for that matter. Now that he thought about it, all Changelings were brothers and sisters, as each were born from eggs his Queen gave birth to every year. That and the converted Changelings, but he tried not to think about those.

Twilight led him upstairs and to her room, which had a strange flat thing rising up from the floor and a small basket on the floor next to it containing what he guessed was a ball of some sort covered in a blanket. She pulled another flat thing out of the wall from a compartment and set it up, getting a thinner flat object- rolled up at first- from within a closet and set it out.
"There you go." She said cheerfully, patting his shoulder with a hoof, "Sleep well!"
And with that, Twilight turned to the other flat thing and lay down onto it, pulling a thin flat object over her and turning her head away from the window next to it. Breezy watched her and copied what she did exactly, but couldn't think exactly why.

So this was a bed, he thought to himself. He hated to admit it, but the way the squashy flat object covered his body almost felt... nice. Warmth was a rare thing and he had been taught to hate, but now he found his head swimming and his eyelids drooping and, before he new it, Breezy was fast asleep.

Comments

[Mr Marshmallow]

Aaw!

[Divine Path]

He's so adorable being clueless and under-prepared.
Though, I must wonder what Twilight thinks of this. She seems rather trusting of somepony who can't provide their name swiftly.

Turning away ever so slowly,
you wander so lost,
further still,
into a nothingness far from what you've learned,
far from what you know.
Is it so,
that even as soon as this,
of this hour so bleak and bitter,
your light grow brighter this cold night?

We shall read on.