The Bug in the Herd

by Skijarama


2 - Unusual House Guest

        Chrysalis blinked at Tone Shift, a curious, confuzed tint coming over her eyes. The little nibble she had got from him looked like it had given her at least a little bit of strength. She narrowed her eyes at him before shoving his hooves off of her face and glaring at him. “And why should I do that?” She asked coldly, trying once more to stand up.

        Tone Shift took a step back to make some room for her, a stern look coming over him. “Because if anypony else sees you, there will be a riot, complete with pitchforks and torches faster than you would think possible.”

        Chrysalis snorted as she finally, albeit wobbly, got to her hooves. “Well, then I suggest you turn around and go home before anypony gets suspicious and comes looking for you.” She turned to start walking away, though it was still perfectly clear to Tone Shift she wouldn’t last more than the night with what she had gotten from him.

        “There is also the fact that you’ll starve out here.” He said bluntly, giving Chrysalis pause. She turned her glare back to him, a scowl coming over her face.

        “And what’s to keep me from pinning you down and draining you dry?” She snarled, making her fangs quite visible. Tone Shift had to admit she was intimidating, taking a nervous step back, ready to bolt at an instant’s notice if she lunged for him.

        “We’re too close to Ponyville, and I think you should know, I’m a bit of a screamer.” He gave her a smirk, though it quickly faded as Chrysalis gave an angry hiss, baring her fangs threateningly.

        “Then I’ll just go for the throat!” She snapped before lunging at him. Tone Shift acted on reflex, stepping back and throwing his forelegs up to catch her before she reached him. She impacted against him, snarling, snapping and hissing at him, her body weight and the force of her lunge causing him to topple backwards. The two struggled against each other for several moments, grunting with effort.

        But in her still very weakened state, Chrysalis lost her strength before she could get in any decent hits. Noting this, Tone Shift pushed back and rolled them over, pinning Chrysalis down beneath him, one hoof just under her horn, another on her chest to minimize resistance. Thank Celestia for earth pony strength…

        She had gone still, his hoof under her horn giving a push to make it quite clear he was not against the idea of striking if he had to. “That. Is. Enough!” He snarled at her, having her full attention now. “You’re in no condition to be running off in the forest if you can’t even best an earth pony with a lazy job like me!”

        Chrysalis growled at him, but said nothing in rebuttal. After several moments, Tone Shift slowly removed himself from Chrysalis, making sure she wasn’t going to try anything else before backing up fully. Chrysalis pulled herself to her hooves, slumping against the tree and taking a few deep breaths. Tone Shift gestured at her. “Disguise. Now.”

        She spat at the ground, but complied, a swirl of green fire providing the disguise she had been using before. Tone Shift winced at the sight, as the change was so abrupt. He had never really seen a Changeling do their thing up close, and he had to admit, it was rather unsettling. “Alright… come on.” he said a bit more gently, trotting up next to her and letting her support herself on him.

        “What are you planning?” Chrysalis droned, sounding tired and resigned. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes downturned and closed as he began to help her along.

        “That is a good question…” Tone Shift silently mouthed to himself before actually answering her question with, “For now, I’m going to make sure you aren’t going to drop dead from starvation, get that leg of yours patched up and then probably take you to Princess Twilight.”

        Chrysalis scoffed and looked away from him even more giving a short, agitated “Hmph.”

        Some clouds were overhead, but luckily there was no rain. Some moonlight faintly peeked out from behind the clouds, giving spots of faint illumination. The trek back to Tone’s house was silent, save for Chrysalis occasionally hissing in discomfort from her wounded leg and their hooves brushing through the grass.

        Her eyes shone with disgust as she glanced around Ponyville, but she didn’t get much of a chance to depreciate the architecture as they shortly came to Tone Shift’s house. “Here we are.” He said simply, pushing the door open and bringing Chrysalis inside. He brought her to the couch, made her sit and then went to the windows. “Go ahead and drop your disguise. Save your energy.” He said as he locked each window and closed the curtains.

        Chrysalis glared at him, but otherwise complied, dropping her disguise. Soon, all the windows were locked and covered, leaving Chrysalis’ eyes as the only source of illumination for a moment. Tone Shift was on top of things, swiftly moving to the couch and turning on a lantern he kept next to it for whenever he needed to do something at night. The glow was enough to illuminate the room with a soft yellow light.

        Chrysalis watched Tone Shift intently as he started moving around the house, checking things and then disappearing into the kitchen. “Question!” Tone Shift’s voice called from the other room. “Do Changelings eat anything besides love?” Chrysalis blinked in surprise. Food?

        “Bring me an animal corpse and I’ll demonstrate.” She snarked dryly, looking straight ahead.

        “Carnivore… gotcha.” Tone Shift said from the kitchen. Chrysalis looked around for several moments, examining her surroundings from the couch as though looking for an escape route. Several minutes passed before a scent caught her nose, prompting an instinctual inhale and her mouth to water. Whatever it was, it smelled good.

        Tone Shift returned about a minute later with a simple plate balanced on his back. He slid it onto the couch, revealing to Chrysalis that it was covered in scrambled eggs, very lightly salted. She glanced up at him quizzically, asking him a question with her expression alone.

        “No, I don’t eat the eggs on their own,” Tone Shift remarked dryly, rolling his eyes. “They’re usually used in the baking of cakes and other such things.”

        “I know that, idiot.” Chrysalis said condescendingly, looking more at the plate than him now. “I’m wondering why you’re feeding me.”



        “Because I figure it would be rather rude to let my guest starve on my couch in the middle of the night.” Tone replied bluntly before gesturing to the plate. “I don’t know how much that’ll give you, but eat up.”

        Chrysalis looked at Tone Shift with growing surprise. Not only was this pony feeding her, but he was also acting with surprising confidence. Still, the grumbling her stomach made pushed all other thoughts aside. She shoved her face down into the plate and began greedily eating. She must have been more engrossed in this then she realized, as she didn’t even notice Tone Shift leaving and coming back with a simple blanket until it was set down in front of her.

        “Once your done eating, get some sleep. We’re gonna be talking in the morning.” he turned slightly and looked at her more directly. “And please don’t try to leave, okay? I don’t like the idea of somepony, even you, dying when I could have prevented it.”

        Chrysalis snorted at him before  wolfing down the last remaining scraps of egg on the plate. “And what’s to stop me slipping out through a window when you’re asleep?”

        “For one thing, all locked, and I have the key. Secondly, I’m not leaving this room until you’re asleep.” He replied simply, giving her a coy look and sitting down with his back to the wall, keeping an eye on her.

        “I’m a Changeling — no, I’m the queen of the Changelings. What makes you so sure you can tell that I’m actually asleep and not just faking it?” She asked confidently, giving her own smirk.

        “I think I’ll know.” Tone Shift replied, putting on a challenging look.

        “We’ll see about that.” Chrysalis accepted his challenge confidently.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

        Chrysalis let out a content snore upon the couch, well and truly fast asleep. Tone Shift let out a yawn and blinked tiredly before removing himself from the wall and making his way for his room. He had to give her credit, she stayed awake longer than he would have guessed she could have. She had really given him a run for his money for a while, faking sleep for almost an hour before it truly claimed her. He could tell it had because of the way her sleeping changed. She went from simple deep breaths to surprisingly loud snores. Plus, she started shifting around and mumbling to herself. Tone Shift had spent a good thirty minutes making sure she was really asleep before now.

        He checked a wall-mounted clock as he went to his room, and flinched as he realized that he must have been tending to Chrysalis and staring her down for a good long while. It was well past midnight. He made it to his room and flopped into his bed, making sure to set his alarm clock for around eight thirty AM. He would like to get more sleep than that, but he also wanted to make sure Chrysalis didn’t break out of his house when the sun came up. He knew she’d try that if he wasn’t awake first.

        As soon as his alarm was set, he looked up at the ceiling and passed out.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

        Chrysalis’ face scrunched up as the curtains were pulled back just enough to let in some sunlight. She quickly opened her eyes, becoming fully awake in only a second or so as she quickly took stalk of her situation. She seemed to mentally berate herself as she realized she had fallen asleep. Once she had blinked the remaining sleep from her eyes, Tone Shift let the curtain fall back into place, casting the room into relative darkness once more. Sunlight still pierced through the curtains, but at least now nopony looking at his windows would see the Changeling queen sleeping on his couch.

        “Good morning.” Tone Shift said groggily, obviously still casting off the remainders of his own sleep. He held a mug of coffee in his free hoof, freshly brewed. He took a sip before half trotting, half stumbling away from the window to attend to some items he still had sitting on his office desk.

        Chrysalis didn’t say anything, simply staring at the back of his head as he set about writing something down on a few slips of parchment before placing them into envelopes. He stood after he was done, took another swig of coffee and turned to look at Chrysalis. “Alright, time for that talk I mentioned. I have questions for you.”

        “Is that so?” Chrysalis grumbled dryly, tilting her head back slightly to look at something else.

        “Yes. First of all, how much does physical food effect a Changeling? I know you primarily survive on love and all that, but I’m not about to go giving up mine willy nilly.” He asked, stepping forward slightly and taking on a more relaxed posture.

        Chrysalis looked at him with an almost curious gaze, now. She decided to humor him, leaning back slightly and adopting a neutral expression. “For Changelings, physical food doesn’t have much taste and doesn’t feed us nearly as much as love does. That plate of eggs you gave me was less even than the snack I absorbed from you passively.”

        “And that wasn’t even that much.” Tone Shift inferred, earning a nod from Chrysalis.

        “Correct.” Chrysalis said simply before falling silent, waiting for Tone Shift to say something else. He rubbed the back of his head a bit before groaning tiredly to himself. “Aren’t you going to say something? I would have thought you had more questions.” Chrysalis said tauntingly, earning a look from Tone.

        “Quiet, you.” He said before downing the last of his coffee. Setting the mug down on his coffee table, he circled around and looked at Chrysalis’ wounded foreleg. She recoiled at his sudden proximity, baring her fangs threateningly on instinct as he picked it up to look at it. The puncture marks were closed up, but it was still swollen and looked rather painful still. “What bit you?”

        “Begging your pardon?”

        “You had puncture marks on your foreleg last night, the locations said to me that you had been bit. What bit you?” he explained, looking it over a bit more thoroughly, finding the scabs on the side of her foreleg to be only slightly brighter than the rest of her body.

        “Why?” Chrysalis asked seriously, earning a glance from Tone Shift.

        “Well, if it was venomous, it could still pose an issue.” He replied, mentally berating himself for forgetting to check on that the previous night.

        “I meant why do you care?” Chrysalis snapped, sounding irritated. Tone Shift quickly retreated at her voice, ready to leap to the side if she tried to lunge again. She glared at him with a mixture of anger and confusion. “What in equestria makes you even want to see me live?! Any other pony would have either left me to die or immediately turned me into the authorities, who would have either imprisoned me or executed me!” She went to step off of the couch, hissing in pain as her swollen leg touched down. “So, why oh why are you trying to help me?! What could you possibly stand to gain from it?!”

        A tense silence filled the room, Tone Shift’s eyes had dilated from her proximity, as she now practically had him pinned to the wall, teeth bared and eyes burning with confused anger. She hadn’t even noticed how quickly she had approached him, but didn’t back off, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘Answer me!”

        “I…” Tone Shift gulped, the only thing separating Chrysalis’ fangs from his throat being an awkwardly positioned forehoof. “...I kinda can’t think straight with you this close to me.”

        “Don’t snark me! Answer my question!” Chrysalis barked, her horn lighting up and forcing Tone Shift’s hoof away, pinning it to the wall and giving her free reign to tear out his jugular, if she so pleased.

        “B-because I… I w-want to r-repay you!” He finally managed to sputter, causing Chrysalis to back off and let him collapse to the floor.

        “...Repay me?” Chrysalis asked, looking at him with widened eyes.

        “Yeah… as I understand it, you saved my life… even though I doubt you really needed to.” He said carefully, his voice trembling as much as he was as he slowly got to his hooves.

        Chrysalis tilted her head at him, backing up to give him some room. “What do you mean, ‘as you understand it’?”

        “I don’t remember the event. I only remembered your disguised self, and the ponies on the train told me you brought me back, having patched up some pretty grievous wounds.” He said, taking a deep breath to calm himself down a bit more. “But here’s what I want to know…” He turned his eyes to Chrysalis’ own, his own curiosity starting to shine through. “What happened? What was I doing in the woods anyway?”

        Chrysalis blinked and grunted. “I kidnapped you and took you into the woods, if you must know.” She said, glaring at him, though the way her eyes were shifting away slightly made her look almost embarrased.

        “Kidnapped me?” Tone Shift asked, surprised.

        “Yes. In case you forgot, I was usurped from my own hive! I’ve been scavenging for food wherever I can these last months. You just happened to be a meal along the way.” She said, turning away from him and making her way back to the couch. Tone Shift looked surprised, but then a slight smirk came to his face.

        This is gonna go badly… but I just gotta. He found himself thinking as the words began to leave his mouth before he could catch them.

        “So… let me get this straight. You abducted me from the train, took me into the woods, and then drained me of my love?” He said with a certain coyness to his voice that earned a quizzical glance from Chrysalis.

        “That’s what I just said, yes.” Chrysalis said carefully, eyeing him questioningly.

        “How did I do?” He followed up, causing Chrysalis to blink.

        “Excuse me?”

        “Well, I mean, how was it? How much food did you get out of me? Did you enjoy it?” He followed up. I should really stop while she doesn’t get it…

        Chrysalis looked at him for several moments, but then her expression flattened into one of annoyance. “...You really don’t know how we get food, do you?”

        “Well, I mean, I was assuming that-”

        “You should really stop assuming things.” Chrysalis snarled, baring her teeth at him. “Now go get me some food, or I might just have to drain you in more ways than one.” Her tone lowered to emphasize the threat. “And trust me… you wouldn’t like how it would end for you...” She gave her fangs a lick with her forked tongue. Tone Shift started blushing, and then his face paled considerably.

        ‘Ah, a-alright!” He said quickly before making a very swift exit to the kitchen. From where she was, Chrysalis heard the sound of pans rattling around as he moved around the kitchen. A loud clatter and crash indicated he dropped something.

        “Tch. Idiot.” Chrysalis muttered humorously to herself. “You don’t live as the Changeling Queen for as long as I have and not pick up on that sort of misconception… or how to turn it on your prey for your own amusement.” She grinned to herself before settling back down on the couch to take the weight off of her wounded foreleg.