Family Love

by Amethyst-ACE

Learning Love

Before “Onyx” knew what had happened a week had gone by. He had sustained himself on meals prepared by Wisteria, and occasionally took the form of Iron Lance for passing moments to leech bits of love from her. Wisteria grew closer to the small child as the days went by. She would come home from work, teach her new friend how to do things like speak correctly, and act polite, and in the end the two of them would talk about what they did that day. Of course he spent all of his time in the house reading books and watching television, so he never had much to talk about. The boy feigned getting smarter to appease the mare; showing steady improvements day by day. Eventually even Iron Lance warmed up to the boy. His passing pats on the head escalated to single words of greeting, and by the end of the week they even held a conversation together.

“Where do you work?” Onyx asked him.

“I don't work. I don't have to.” Iron Lance turned away and stared out a nearby window. As if that fact was some kind of agonizing torture.

“You rich?” The boy questioned, intentionally messing up the grammar.

“No I'm not rich.” Lance responded with a sigh.

“Lucky!” the little one yelped.

Iron Lance shrugged and stood up from his seat. “Yeah...maybe I am.” With that he patted Onyx on his head like he always did and walked up the stairs to his room.

“Daddy?” Onyx mumbled.

Iron Lance didn't respond. He didn't stop on the stairs or even pause for a moment. He just kept walking.

~~~

“We should let Onyx go to school.” Wisteria suggested.

Iron Lance put down the paper he was reading and took a sip of his coffee. An aura of annoyance suddenly took hold of his face. “That's not possible and you know it.”

“Why isn't it?” Wisteria asked him.

“You know darn well why!” Lance shouted as he banged his hoof against the arm chair he was sitting in. “The school system isn't going to just randomly let a changeling into the school!”

Wisteria's attempt to rebuttal was interrupted by the sounds of magic coming from directly behind them. The two ponies turned around to see a miniature cutiemark-less Iron Lance looking up at them.

“No way.” Iron Lance mumbled under his breath.

Wisteria who was unable to contain herself let out an overzealous shriek and rushed over to Onyx. She scooped the child up in her hooves and hugged him tightly. The spontaneous shock of being swooped up broke the boy's concentration and he reverted to his original changeling form. “He's so adorable! Oh Lance this is just too perfect!”

Onyx felt strange all of a sudden. He had long since gotten use to Wisteria holding him in her hooves, but something about this felt genuinely different. It was then that he took notice; it was hard to tell at first since it was such a feint feeling, but once he realized there was no mistake. He felt small traces of love coming from Wisteria. He was feeding off of her without the need of a disguise.

Wisteria, Lance, and Onyx all traveled together to the school, with Onyx in his 'mini Lance' form. Occasionally ponies would stop and stare at the apparent family, and they would hear whispers coming from couples nearby. Wisteria felt proud about everything that was going on, but Iron Lance and the boy felt very much uncomfortable. Ponyville's school as luck would have it, ran a program for younger fillies whose parents wanted to get an early start on education for their kids. It wasn't taught by the same teacher as the normal school, but it was a free program, and only spanned about three hours. The classes started as soon as the regular school let out, so whenever Wisteria arrived with Onyx they would always see lots of little fillies scattering out from the school.

“Oh look at those little kids, they look like such great friends.” Wisteria pointed to three little mares in red capes who were spinning around in circles mentioning something about their cutie marks. Onyx wasn't engaged in their conversation at all, but was instead more interested in what Wisteria was saying.

“I hope you get to make friends like that.” She looked at the boy with a warm smile, and Onyx to his surprise found himself returning it. The two of them exchanged a quick snuggle before Onyx darted off towards the school. He felt the sensations from before returning to him. The unfiltered love from a creature aimed towards him directly, not to the person he was pretending to be. It was a wonderful if not addictive feeling. Had his brother been right all along?

~~~

The class had been rather boring. Everything that the teacher had taught them was either something the changeling already knew, or didn't care to learn. He went along with the games, and even found a few of them fun, but all n all he found himself mostly uninvested. When it came time for school to end the young colt dashed from the building without a second thought, nearly forgetting his backpack. He ran out to great his mother who embraced him with a quick hug.

“I'm all done!” He shouted eagerly.

“How was school?” The mare asked him

“Great! I really learned a lot!”

“That's wonderful dear. Now come along with me, we have much we need to discus.”

Wisteria's tone and choice of words sent a chill up the changeling's spine. He looked up at the woman who he was walking with and noticed in her eyes, an instantaneous flash of green light.