Gift
Warden sat in awkward silence, watching the changeling at the other end of the table.
Kuno was quite happily eating her half of a loaf of bread, picking the best bits out of the stew and downing them with the stew as well. She seemed completely oblivious to exactly how uncomfortable Warden was.
The pegasus had retreated to his room for a few minutes, and then returned with his spear and armor equipped, sitting warily at one end of the table. Kuno had taken her usual spot, sans the tether and collar, and without the restraints, seemed at least eight times more dangerous and intimidating than before.
“So... aren’t you going to ask me stuff?” Kuno asked, raising an eyebrow at the pegasus with a sly grin.
Warden tightened his grip on the spear, even though he knew, deep down, that if it came to actually using it, he wouldn’t be able to. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, I know your history now. You know nothing of mine. You were apparently going to try and make me a goody-two-shoes. So let’s just forget, for a moment, that I need to feed on love. We’ll just skim over the impossibility of you finding a way to provide free love, and we’ll move onto you turning me nice. Obviously, the starting point would be to get a groundwork for my personality, yes?” Kuno tilted her head slightly to the side, chewing another piece of bread.
Warden frowned at that, glowering at her from under his helmet. “I... I guess.”
“Well?” Kuno asked, brows raising. “Don’t be shy, now.”
“...How many ponies have you killed?” Warden asked bluntly, pursing his lips.
Kuno giggled softly at that. “Right to the hard questions, huh?”
“Yeah, like you were going to answer anyway,” Warden said dismissively, snorting and turning his head.
“Three,” Kuno stated dismissively.
Warden made a soft choking sound.
“What? Too many?” Kuno asked casually, an ear perking at the pegasus.
“Y-you’ve killed ponies...” Warden said weakly.
“Yup, three of em,” Kuno reiterated. “And? You asked the question.”
“W-who were they?” Warden whispered weakly.
“Well, the first one was an accident. Definitely my fault though. I was trying to get into a hospital to imitate a cancer patient and garner a little extra love, back in my homeland... but while I was masquerading as a nurse, I was required to treat a patient. I prescribed diazepam for a weak heart disorder. Apparently, that’s not such a good mix. The pony died.
“Number two was also an accident. I’d knocked out a dominatrix pony so I could take her place and leech love from her ‘suitors’, as it were. When the pony dropped the ball, I didn’t know that this was the sign for me to release him from his asphyxiation restraints. By the time I realised that his pleas for me to stop were, well, genuine and not his submissive rape fantasy, he went unconscious. I tried to revive him, but he never started breathing again.”
Warden stared at the changeling, mouth open, shocked and dismayed.
“What?” Kuno said defensively, her ears splaying back. “I tried to revive him!”
“A-and the third?” Warden murmured, half-afraid of the answer.
Kuno’s gaze hardened. “A high-class unicorn I came into contact with. It was a month before I figured out he was a major player in the slavery game. His cronies would go around to different orphanages, adopt the children, and then sell them off for literally anything.”
Warden stared at her, aghast. “R-right here in Equestria?”
Kuno shook her head. “Nope, back home. Across the ocean. I was forced to leave the country because the unicorn’s cronies figured out I was a changeling. I suppose, I was found covered in blood, in my true form, with a salad fork shoved through his eye socket. But I digress.”
The pegasus could only continue to stare, speechless.
After several long moments, Warden found his voice again. “W-what did you kill him for?”
Kuno gave a giggle at that, shaking her head. “I killed him because he was an absolute lousy lay.”
Warden could only continue to stare. “...Really?”
“No.” Kuno shook her head with a snicker, before sobering. “I killed him because he was trafficking orphan foals to some really, really horrible ponies.”
“But...” Warden frowned deeply.
“But what? You think it’s impossible for me to feel empathy for ponies?” Kuno accused, frowning in response.
Warden shook his head. “Just... you make yourself out to be heartless, and then you go and kill somepony because he was trafficking young ponies...”
“No, I didn’t make myself out to be heartless,” Kuno stated, pointing at the pegasus with a piece of bread. “You just assume that I am heartless.”
“You threatened to kill me, casually. That is heartless!” Warden responded with a huff.
“The easiest way to garner information in an interrogation is to either cause grievous bodily harm and threaten more... or make the future of the interrogation subject questionable. If you know you’re going to die anyway, then why bother telling me anything? Whereas if you know that I won’t kill you, the knowledge will fortify you,” Kuno explained calmly, matter-of-factly.
“I... I really have nothing to say to that,” Warden responded with a slow shake of his head, eyes wide.
“Torture 101,” Kuno said with a cheery smile.
“What the fuck are you?” Warden asked after a moment, his tone exasperated.
“I’m a changeling,” Kuno replied, puffing out her chest with a grin. “Isn’t it awesome?”
Kuno sat outside, for the first time in days, basking in the sunlight and just enjoying the fresh air. The sun was setting in the west, slowly dipping below the horizon.
Warden was in the garden, where he had been since before Kuno had come outside. His spear was on the ground beside him, just out of reach, but close enough for him to grab it should the changeling suddenly launch herself at him.
The changeling’s happy reverie was mildly disturbed by the nigh constant ache in her wings. she still hadn’t finish healing yet, and even though Warden’s affection for her was helping in some small way, it would be days before she felt one hundred percent.
Idly, Kuno watched the pegasus working. He was using his hooves to arrange and delicately place creeping vines in place, so that they grew evenly up over a trestle. He had non-edible vines, tomato vines, pumpkins, melons, any kind of vine Kuno could think of, and some she didn’t even recognize. He even used his wings to help arrange them, allowing him to work at an astounding pace.
“Why don’t you eat any of the stuff you grow?” Kuno queried, curious.
“None of it’s ripe yet,” Warden pointed out with a slight frown. “I mean, you can eat the unripened stuff if you want. You’ll only be sick for a little while... Why do you even eat? Do you need to eat?”
“Eating is... well, it’s uhm. I have no idea how to explain it to a non-changeling...” Kuno admitted, frowning down at her hooves. “Love feeds us. Food can sustain us for a little while. But it’s never actually enough. For our first years, food is all we require. But once we get a taste for love, food stops... working. It stops being sufficient. But it can supplement a love diet. We can certainly go without, but it’s... bland. I guess?”
“And if a changeling never feeds on love?” Warden asked, looking up from his gardening.
Kuno blinked once. “Impossible. They’d have to have no contact with any pony ever, nor their parents... other changelings...”
“Would a changeling taking love from another changeling be like... cannibalism?” the pegasus asked curiously.
“Well, not really. It is an equal exchange though. Give another changeling a week of love, and lose a week of love in response. But that’s non-consensual. So... loving-rape?” Kuno suggested with a giggle.
“Loving rape,” Warden repeated blankly, before slowly shaking his head. “Changelings are weird.”
“Ponies are weird!” Kuno retorted, snorting once. “If it wasn’t for the fact that I needed you ponies to survive, I’d have gone and moved off to a nice quiet mountain somewhere already.”
“What’s it like?” Warden asked suddenly, looking up at her again. “Feeding on love? What’s it feel like?”
Kuno pondered on that, shrugging and scraping one of her large front teeth over the chitin of her hoof to try and remove a scuff mark. “It’s... hard to explain. Sort of warm. And fuzzy. Kinda tingly. Feels a little bit like a liquid... and a little bit like a gas. Sort of like... that condensation on the side of a pot when you’re boiling water in it. It sort of just coalesces inside you and then spreads across your insides like a warm pool of molten... well, warmth.”
“That sounds... explicit,” Warden stated with a slow shake of his head.
“Oh grow up!” Kuno snapped, picking up a stick and tossing it at him.
Warden gave an amused snort, grinning at the changeling, and then seemed to catch himself, pausing and blinking, sobering. His ears lowered, and he turned back to his gardening with renewed vigor, biting his bottom lip, looking disgruntled.
“Was it something I said?” Kuno asked, unperturbed.
“I just... It’s nothing,” Warden responded flatly, digging vigorously with a spade to make a new hole for a vine to be planted in.
Kuno giggled softly at that, shaking her head. “Surprised that I made you smile, huh?”
Warden paused in his digging, going quiet. It was several long moments before he nodded jerkily and then went back to digging.
Kuno hummed happily to herself as she scrubbed her chitin with a sponge, getting it nice, shiny, and liquid black.
“What’s it... feel like?” Warden asked from the door, staring at her. “Your... scales. Or hide. Or whatever it is?”
“My carapace?” Kuno asked, peering up at him, a trail of bubbles stuck under her chin. “It’s made of chitin. Like a bugs. But it’s softer and more malleable. Feels kinda like... linoleum. You know, before it’s pressed to the ground and stepped all over forever.”
“Linoleum...” Warden repeated blankly. “Odd.”
“You didn’t get a feel when you were carrying me back and forth?” Kuno asked, raising a brow slowly.
“I... tried my very hardest not to touch you,” Warden admitted, looking away.
A soft hum left the changeling. “Out of respect or disgust?”
“I guess a bit of both,” Warden replied with brutal honesty.
Kuno nodded reasonably. “Understandable, I guess. C’mere. Feel for yourself.” The changeling extended a hoof towards the pegasus.
Warden blinked once, his ears pinning back. He shifted his weight awkwardly from hoof-to-hoof, before his curiosity got the better of him. He took a step closer to her, and then tentatively lifted a hoof towards her own.
“I don’t bite,” Kuno chided, shaking her head. “I mean, unless you’re into that. Then I can make an exception.”
The pegasus jerked his hoof back at that, glancing at the very toothy smile Kuno was giving him. With a soft shudder of indecision, he quickly reached forwards and touched her hoof, poking it once and then withdrawing.
“Oh, I should have told you that you’ll get infected now, all changelings have little hooked barbs on their chitin that carries all sorts of nasty things,” Kuno said matter-of-factly.
Warden blanched, his eyes widening as he began to scrub his hoof vigorously against the wall
Kuno dissolved into giggles, falling back into the tub with a splash.
The pegasus realised that she had been messing with him, and ceased rubbing his hoof, shaking his head and glowering at her.
“Why did you throw this out?!” Kuno asked, her tone annoyed and confused. A slight jingle heralded her approach, and Warden looked up from his bed, and the half-dismantled alarm clock that Kuno had smashed.
Kuno was holding the collar and bell in an outstretched hoof, scowling.
“...I didn’t think you’d appreciate having it lying around,” Warden admitted, his ears lowering.
“Don’t just... don’t just throw it out!” Kuno scolded, waving the collar at him for emphasis. “It’s mine!”
Warden blinked once, and then shook his head. “Fine. I won’t throw it out... what are you, a compulsive hoarder?”
Kuno frowned, holding the collar to her chest and shaking her head. “No... it’s just... I have my reasons!”
The pegasus raised an eyebrow at the changeling again, seeming to pick up on the fact that it was a point upon which she was uncomfortable. “And those reasons are?” he pressed.
Kuno huffed once, looking down at her hooves and frowning deeply. “It’s just the first... well... it’s the first thing anyone ever got me.”
“The first gift you ever got?” Warden asked incredulously, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I’ve gotten plenty of gifts!” Kuno retorted, huffing once. “Just... none of them were for me... for Kuno. They were always for the ponies who I was impersonating.”
“That... is really sad,” Warden admitted, frowning deeply, before shaking his head. “I’d hug you, but I’m afraid you’d try to eat my tongue or something while I was doing it.”
“Eyeball,” Kuno corrected with a bright smile. “Much tastier.”
“Well that’s an image that won’t stay with me forever,” Warden stated, turning back to the destroyed alarm clock and trying to fix it again.
The next time Warden saw Kuno was just as he was getting ready to sleep. The changeling crept into his room as quiet as a whisper, and pulled up the edge of his blanket, nosing underneath it and then worming her way up beside him, snuggling up against his back.
The pegasus stiffened on reflex, eyes going wide. “W-what are you doing?”
“I’m sleeping on your bed,” Kuno stated matter-of-factly.
Warden blinked once shock and disbelief. “What.”
“You think I’m cute,” Kuno pointed out with a weary yawn, nosing in against his wings curiously. “And snuggling up to you to sleep is quite a cute thing to do, yes? It reinforces your affection for me, I get more love from you, and you get a cute changeling snuggled up to your back. Everypony wins, yes?”
Warden pursed his lips but didn’t offer any argument, his form still stiff.
“Relax, you stubborn mule, or I’ll give you a wing massage with my freaky, hole-filled hooves,” Kuno threatened, nipping the leading edge of one of his wings.
Warden stiffened further at the nip, before he forced himself to relax.
It was a long time after Kuno had drifted off to sleep that the pegasus found unconsciousness as well.
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This chapter is full of sexual tension and feels. I love it
Damn, she's smooth.
Once again I bow down to you good sir.
Another grand chapter in place, this just keeps getting better and better.
Haha. Poor Warden. Hope he'll get even with her somehow, now it's all one-way jerky teasing :D
Getting better and better!
Looks like Warden is going to be making a deposit in the Bank of Awkward.
1620615 He's gonna own that bank soon.
daaaaawwww
Hmm yes, the situation is shaping nicely, I wonder whats coming next.
Cute
So when are you going to write the part where Kuno goes through some emotional turmoil/ gets brutally tortured and left an emotional, crying wreak and our hero comes save the damsel in distress?
That is a potentially juicy part....
Very juicy. Think of that Chrysalis story where she actually falls in love with an Earth pony after
playing pretend as Cee the unicorn.
1620616 Good to know, good to know
Oh-la-laa...
I can already see where it is going... and how.
To be honest, I predicted a row of events, and something like this as well.
And if the story goes as I think it will (which is about a 70% chance), then... hm... heheheh.
Awwwwww. Isn't that sweet.
Kuno is best changeling.
One of the best fan fictions I have been reading! I like the way it's starting to get Kinky
I want one.
But I have to ask: is Kuno going to be the only one that puts moves here, or is the Warden going to say soon something along those lines: "Did somepony call for a really hairy plumber? Bow chicka bow wow!"?
I have a feeling that Warden will fall in love with Kuno during those moments where Kuno acts more serious than causal. It's just a prediction, but I think her more serious (and non-threatening) side may end up as something similar to Swarm's personality. Of course, I can't be sure until I know how the late Swarm acted.
*Reads the dominatrix scene again.* In retrospect, Kuno really should have learned the concept of safe words/actions if she was going to impersonate a dominatrix.
This may be just me, but I think that both food and love are necessary for Changelings. Food provides the nutrition for their bodies while love provides energy for their arcane life-force. Not enough nutrition or magic? They wither. Still, it must be such a hard life for them. They are able to fly and do magic, but at the cost of always needing arcane energy in order to live.
I know Warden is part of the Reserve Guard, but it's amusing how green he acts sometimes. It's funny to see someone linked to the Royal Guard get so easily provoked.
On a slightly related note, I think I may have thought up a good reason for Kuno asking Warden's history now that I read this chapter. According to this chapter, she can't fly and she still barely has enough energy. That probably also means she can't transform. She knows she'll have to still rest with Warden since trying to sneak out of Canterlot without being able to transform is almost suicidal, so she needs to know quite a bit about Warden since she's going to live with him. She could be able to transform into Swarm later on in her recovery to see if that would help speed things up. In short, I mixed your explanation with bits from this chapter. I thought that would be a nice gesture, since I didn't want to leave you hanging on that. I mean other people might point it out, so I thought I should at least help out.
"I'm a changeling; isn't it awesome?"
*gives Kuno some love to eat*
Her demeanor towards Warden is a bit surprising. Maybe in the next chapter, in the prose or in her thoughts, you could explain her motives for - for lack of a better word - hitting on Warden. Is she starting to like him a bit, or is everything a cynical ploy to get more love?
The ending is great. I just love where it is going.
Awwwwkwaaaarrrd
I'm liking the relationship between these two. Though it seems a tiny bit formulaic in conversastions.
omg read the first 5 words anf it was love at first sight!!!! ill keep looking for updates rock on!!!!
she certainly knows all the ins and outs of the science of "cute" doesn't she?
1620616
Soon he is going to own the bank of changeling-pegasus hybrids
1620842
WHY ARE YOU EVERYWHERE I GO
STOP STALKING ME
1620731 By the stars, not another Tucker.
1620979 She is a master of the art of 'cute'.
Poor Warden, guy has no chance. Commence the sexy time.
1621007
Calm your tits young one.
Yet im probably older than you...
And im a guy...
Kuno seems to partially or at least have a tiny bit of actual attraction toward Warden seeing as he did spare her life, regardless of reasoning. Kuno though is working an angle to gain more love but it does appear if she holds some sort of true feelings toward him
Warden seems to have an odd attraction to Kuno aswell, though I cannot tell if it is she reminds him of his dead wife, strong willed and what not. Additionally he may hope to turn the changeling so she can take the form of his wife, or actually be attracted to the changeling.
I do wonder though if this is in Cee's universe.
This chapter.......... I like it ANOTHER
I like it.
1620694
.............................
Moar plz.
1621166 I didn't mean it like that. You're good to Wilhelm.
oh god .... it falls in decadence .. for the greatest good ;3
This is absolutely adorable, seriously.
wow this is touching.
Part of me wants this to work, but part is saying it can't. Lets watch and see.
Oh god this is adorable. More. More! MORE!
dud, at least could you tell us when will they kiss?
Very . . . interesting. It needs some proofreading, but I like it.
Hmm... I wonder if this is the whole truth, or if, perhaps, Kuno just reminded him of Swarm...
Swarm is an odd name for a pony to have, I do get that it has to deal with her talent with bees, but still. Anyway I loved the chapter, and I am looking forward to more.
Good read... but I require MORE! static2.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/USED+TO+BE+A+brony+you+got+out+but+how+_fde946e4944a5c1119ccb450883d90dc.gif
Why do I fantasise about Anonymous Pegasus saying "LET THERE BE CLOP!" and then it being good
digdang.com/media/images/hawkward_13739.jpg
Somepony is getting lucky tonight.
a "pony and changeling fall in love" story where the changeling isn't the woobie? this is the best thing evar!
Kuno is amazing. for a creature that normally survives by lying and deceiving, she's hilariously blunt.
(then again, maybe that's why she's so blunt. in disguise, she likely never got the opportunity to be herself, so now that she's got this sucker to leech from, she's gonna damn well tell it like it is.)
I grinned at this so much.
at first I was like "I want one too!", but then I realized I already have a cat.
moar please!
BDSM takes another victim and remember kids don't impersonate any medical staff and as for high class orphan smuglers ,Get. A. Fork.
Cute kuno is best kuno
i.imgur.com/WHG4N.gif
Why didn't Warden question that? Didn't she lie and say her name was Fleetwing? Maybe I missed her telling him her real name.