The water is running, drumming a staccato as it pelts the porcelain shower floor. The air in the bathroom is hazy, so full of steam that you almost feel like you’re swimming as you close the door quietly behind you. With the roar of the shower, you couldn’t even hear the latch click into place. You keep your footsteps silent as you disrobe what little you’d worn to bed the night before and step closer to the glass doors separating you from your beloved. Through the frosted glass, you can just see a small, waist-high black form swaying back and forth.
She doesn’t notice as you open the door and step inside. The water is running over her slick chitin, leaving it gleaming even in the dim lighting. She’s standing upright on her hindlegs, her fores stretching out before her against the wall to hold her up. Her ashen-grey fin parts the water such that it splashes against her thin, splayed ears. Her eyes are closed, so she doesn’t notice as your shadow envelops her.
She’s humming a small tune; not a melody like a song, but instead a long, continuous note that gradually rises and falls in an undulating pattern. It’s something she often does, especially when she’s lost in thought. She told you once that it’s essentially a changeling lullaby; a tone that calms anxious grubs and pacifies them. She says she can still remember being a grub, resting in the holes of her Queen’s leg and being lulled to sleep by that ‘song.’
Perhaps sensing your presence, she opens her eyes, which are a brilliant blue. Not just in the cornea, but the sclera as well. The entirety of her eyes are as blue as the sky above. Upon locking with yours, hers widen in shock. She gives a small gasp, not so much audible over the water as it is visible, and a roar of emerald flames erupt across her body. A second later they clear and a pony mare stands in her place.
Her body is long and lithe, with the lanky look of a pony who’d grown several inches taller in a very short period of time. Her coat is the light grey of freshly-burnt charcoal and her mane is cut into a curly burgundy bob that falls just short of her chin, though at the moment the water is dragging it down straight. Her eyes are slightly unfocused; you know she can’t see well without her glasses.
“W-what are you doing up?” she asks in a breathless voice. She spins around to face you, putting her back against the wall. She slides down to sit on her haunches, looking up at you all the while.
You sit down on your knees to try to close some of the distance between you. Even then the tips of her ears barely reach your nose. “I only get to see you when I get up early,” you say simply.
She blushes and gives a faint smile but looks away from you all the same. “I’m going to be home all day, just like every day!” she grumbles, though she sounds happy regardless. “You’ll see me plenty…”
“I’ll see Star Shine all day,” you say pointedly. “And she's great for a pony, but she's not you. I want to spend time with you. Turn back for me, would you?”
She insecurely fiddles with her hooves. “But…”
“Please?”
She seems to mull it over for another minute before shrugging. There’s another flash of green flames, and finally a changeling sits before you again. From her front, you can see the translucent band of blue flesh around her stomach, revealing her insides. Her chest heaves as she sits there, not looking at you, awaiting your judgement. You reach out to trace your hand along her cheek. She jumps ever so slightly at the first contact, but quickly leans into it. In the back of her throat, her changeling song starts again.
You sit there under the stream of water, letting the warmth soak into your bones as you gaze upon your beloved. Eventually she crawls into your lap, savoring the feeling of being completely embraced by you. After a time, her smooth, curved horn illuminates an acidic green and she levitates over a bar of soap that she uses to scrub your body. She starts with your arms and legs before moving to your chest, neck and back, getting every part of you she can reach without moving. When she exhausts everything readily available, she drops the soap, evidently satisfied for the moment. All the while you play with the small holes in her legs, tracing their edges with your fingers. The differences between you and her fascinate you.
“Why do you like this form so much?” she asks quietly. Like she’s afraid that asking it any louder might make the question more offensive.
You don’t even need to think about it. “Because I love you.”
“But…” she says, squirming in your grasp until she’s facing you. “I’m still me when I’m in disguise! Why won’t you love them instead?”
“Why do you want me to?” you ask.
“Because they’re prettier!” she cries. “They aren’t covered in hard exoskeleton or have weird bug eyes or holes in their hooves! Wouldn’t it… wouldn’t it be nicer to be with a nice pony instead?”
You take a moment to act like you’re thinking it over, when in reality you don’t need to. Pretending to come to a conclusion, you shrug and give her an extra squeeze, resting your head atop hers and squishing her flexible fin to one side.
“Nope.”
She splutters. “Th-that’s it?! Just ‘nope’?!”
You smile. “Yep.”
One of her hard, chitinous hooves smacks your forearm, making you instantly regret your moment of glibness. “Ow!”
“Well!” she barks, wrinkling her nose. She clearly feels bad for hitting you but can’t bring herself to show it yet. “You shouldn’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not!”
She gives you a hard look.
“I mean it. I like you exactly the way you are. You’re a changeling, not a pony. And I think you’re the most beautiful… umm… what do changelings call their females? Is it still a mare?”
She makes a bug-like noise, a chittering of some sort. You’re not exactly sure what it means, but it doesn’t sound particularly upset. “No, but I know what you mean. Thank you, but…” she trails off for a moment, biting her lip cutely with a fang. “Do you really mean it?”
You’re silent for a moment, looking deep into those big blue compound eyes that reflect your face back to you a million times. She looks so scared, so unsure. You can just barely see her trembling even in the blazing hot water. But then you lean forward, closing the distance between you until your lips meet hers.
Kissing a changeling is strange, to say the least. She’s so much smaller than you, her lips feel as thin as paper against yours. Her fangs make prominent bulges that are impossible to miss, though they’re not so sharp that you have to be careful around them. Her tongue is abnormally wide and flat for its size, and her saliva has a distinct spicy taste to it that leaves your mouth tingly every time. She says that there are traces of changeling acid in her saliva. It’s enough to taste but not enough to be harmful, or so she says. But you trust her.
She’s breathless as you pull away, a strand of green trailing between your lips and hers. There’s a barely noticeable sickly-green flush visible on her black chitinous cheeks. However, she seems mollified and relaxes into your lap, leaning back against your chest and humming once again. You think she’s prepared to finish the rest of your shower when she suddenly speaks.
“I’ve always worried that you made love to my changeling form to… I don’t know, make me feel better? Like you were going out of your way to do something you didn’t like just to prove how much you cared for me. But you really do like it, don’t you?”
“With all my heart,” you whisper into her ear. “You have the ability to be any pony in the world, but there’s no one I’d rather be with, right here, right now, than you.”
She gives a small laugh, somewhere between a chuckle and a giggle. “I’ll admit, I always secretly liked it, however much I worried aside. It feels so much nicer, you know? When the love is meant for you, not the pony you’re pretending to be. It’s… warmer. Sweeter. It keeps me full longer. I never… I never feel hungry with you.”
You smile and hold her closer as a new warmth spreads through you that has nothing to do with the shower. “And when I’m with you? I never feel alone.”