It's been a while since anything happened. I call for attention a few times, but nobody answers. And in the total darkness, I can't tell the difference between minutes and hours. With all this time on my ... hands, and nothing to see or hear, all I can do is feel and think. Eventually, there's nothing to do but face uncomfortable truth.

"I'm a pony," I mumble. By my voice settling naturally where I once had to squeeze out a falsetto, I'm a female pony, at that.

Damn, I'm going to miss being gay. At least, I hope I'm not still gay as a ... a mare. I don't want to lose interest in guys, my boyfriend in particular. But how does something like this even happen? I'm on Earth, I was human a few hours ago, and magic. Is. Fiction! This is not a thing that happens.

Is it? I briefly wonder if this is how I lost my boyfriend. Briefly, because I'm interrupted by the loop yanking on my neck, forcing me to turn right and start walking. Clop clop clip clop. The sound irritates me, and I speak up to get my mind elsewhere.

"So, what's happening now?" There's no answer, and several more right turns later I'm convinced I'm being led in circles. I'm finally allowed to stop, though, on what feels like a dense carpet. Because feeling through my ... hooves ... totally makes sense. I guess it worked in the show.

"Eat," a voice rasps. It's a little higher, and maybe lighter, than the one before. I think. "You are going to need it."

"Whammph?" I start to ask, before a mass of granola - or no, just oats, I guess - is shoved against my mouth. It stays there, despite my attempts to shake it off.

"If you require help to eat, I could cover your nose." So I don't get a choice. That's alright, the police should be along soon. If this is poisoned, well, emergency services will already be involved.

So I eat, and discover raw rolled oats aren't all that bad. It's almost like my mouth was made for them. Wait, of course it is. I still have trouble accepting what happened, much less understanding how. So less thinking, more munching. I'm hungrier than I thought, and the oats are quickly gone.

"You are ready." No, I'm not. What am I even supposed to be ready for? "You will be fine."

"Easy for you to say." I give my cuffs an emphatic tug. "I don't see you cuffed and dragged around by your neck."

"No. You must wait until I am off duty for that." She, I suppose, pauses for a moment. The buzzing starts again, loud and close. It sounds like the flight of a locust or something similar, almost right in my face, and sudden realization distracts me from the heat rising in my cheeks.

"Wait, you're the one making those sounds? What are you?!"

"Laughing," she says - though as before, her expression shrouds itself in a monotone. "You are funny. My mate was correct. Guess twice." My mind races.

What sounds like a bug, speaks English, and hides in the dark?

What would it have to do with butterflies or Shining Armor?

I consider the last point first. The pass phrase "I have a crush on Shining Armor" has to mean something, but the stallion was remarkably absent from most of the series. He played a role in the Crystal Empire episodes - including Games Ponies Play and the season three pilot with King Sombra - but before his wedding, he and Princess Cadance didn't exist in the show at all.

What about butterflies, then? What significance could they possibly -

"Your time is up. Guess." A dozen thoughts flash through my mind, and I push them out of the way. If I'm a pony now...

"A pony?" A stab in the dark. Ponies don't sound like bugs, or live in the dark, but I feel I have to say something.

"Sometimes," she says. Oh, shit. There's only one creature I know of that can be a pony 'sometimes.' Now the relevance of Shining Armor is clear. "Second guess."

"A changeling," I stammer. I am so dead.

"A changeling," she concurs. I squint, trying futilely to bring up a hoof and cover my eyes against a sudden green light. When I can see again, the room around me is lit up by brilliant green magic from the jagged horn of a black, chitinous parasite: A smallish changeling drone wearing her native form and a big grin. Around us, the floor is covered in what looks like a fairly new carpet of the kind one might find on the floor of the waiting room at a doctor's office; it and the walls are what might be fairly neutral shades of brown, although it's hard to tell with the green lighting. There's no furniture of any kind, and I can barely make out the silhouettes of empty doorframes in the two walls furthest from the corner I'm standing in.

"I'm afraid to ask, but, what are you going to do to me?" I try to keep present the thought that the police should be breaking down the doors... soon. Very soon. Right?

"I am going to talk to you." Her tone is still flat, but I notice her wings flutter on various syllables. Perhaps body language is a more important part of their native tongue? Hang on, anatomy and culture later, I'm kind of tied up and cornered in a room with an emotional vampire!

"About what?" I ask warily. I've never seen a changeling speak, besides Chrysalis, and conversation with one is going to be a complete unknown.

"Why you are here." Darkness takes everything once more as she extinguishes her spell.

"And I'm here because what, exactly?" What's taking the police so long? Maybe they're fighting the changelings? But I don't hear anything suggesting a fight - just buzzing and the occasional hiss, which I'm now certain are more of my kidnappers.

"You do not understand. None ever come to us. We bring them in, instead. You came to us. Tell me why." Memories flash behind my eyes, and I stand silent. If his disappearance is their fault, knowing I came for him could make things even worse. It also might not, but I'm not interested in assisting these kidnappers anyway.

"Romantic love." It sounds like the changeling inhales deeply, and I can see a thin thread of green arc from me to her horn, seeming to spin in several directions at once as I feel my eyes cross. "Yours is obvious and tasty. Tell me what sort of fruit this is, that it tastes like."

"I can't taste love," I say flatly, hoping she did not intend to imply anything 'fruity' about my relationship or person. Although, I guess if there were a scale of gayness, getting turned from a male human to a pretty little girl pony would be pretty high on it. Maybe.

"No, you can not," she replies, with a light buzz. "So you believe we are responsible for the disappearance of your marefriend."

"Boyfriend." There's a brief pause before either of us speaks again.

"A novice mistake," the changeling says. "I am sorry."

"That's it?" My tone is more than a little incredulous. "You kidnap my boyfriend, do goodness-knows-what to him, kidnap me, completely change my sex and my species, tie my legs, lead me around on a noose, and the thing you apologize for is calling the most important man in my world my marefriend? What is with your priorities?! What do you think you're going to do to me? Where are the police? Where is my - " That's when a glob of something warm and gooey covers my mouth, reducing the next few words to noises that are like pulling a rubber boot out of thick mud - half-sucking, half-bubbling. I'm almost okay with that - I'd lost control of my outburst, and who knows what information I could have spilled if I'd been allowed to continue. I am not, however, okay with being gagged outside of the bedroom.

"You are right. I apologize for your wait. When you arrived, we did not expect a visitor. Your nap was delayed by the sentry not knowing what to do. He has been disciplined.

"I apologize for how long you had to sleep. We were beginning to move you to this facility and several police entered. If you are responsible for their coming, thank you." I groaned in my throat. Of course it would be too much to ask that unarmored men with small arms forcibly evict magical, flying, chitin-plated kidnapping shapeshifters that can eat emotions and perfectly mimic the form of anyone they see. Thanks, option three...

"I am a gatherer, but I did not execute your accommodation to perfection. I apologize."

"Stop playing with the food," says a masculine voice I recognize from earlier. His toneless rasp is frequently accompanied by a hard buzz. Anger? "You are to blame for the nightmares that lower production among half of the humans collected this month." A quick, sharp buzz in front of me is apparently the response, and I hear hoofsteps moving away. Then the noose jerks me into a quick walk, the sound of a moment's strangulation reduced by the substance over my mouth to a soft blup.

I am brought to a halt quickly, and feeling of dread creeps over me. This is the last stop, I think with certainty.

I hate it when I'm proven right.

A loud series of buzzes and hissing, and the room lights up with green. The details of the room don't catch my eye; I'm more concerned by the six changelings surrounding me, their horns all glowing brightly. The noose lifts from my neck in an aura of magic, but I'm not idiot enough to think I can get away with half my legs bound.

"Do not worry," says one of them from behind me. The voice is the one that apologized for all the wrong things. Did she really believe I wanted to be here? I amend that thought - yes, I wanted to be here, but not like this. "Nothing in your life will ever hurt as much as this."

"Idiot," says the one who, earlier, made it apparent he was her superior.

That's the last I pay attention to them, as a wall of brilliant green flame closes in from all sides. Time seems to slow.

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Okay what do they do in the movies oh yeah they jump through the flames as fast as possible one two three GO! I dive into the oncoming doom - and faceplant, my bound forelegs failing me.

That's when I learn what it's like to be on fire.

Unconsciousness is the only mercy I receive.