I awoke the next day in our Canterlot suite cuddled up with my marefriend. There was a slight hangover reminding me of the fun we had last night, maybe it was a mistake trying to keep up with the amount of wine Luna consumed. It had been a wonderful night with all of our friends and lots of happy moments. After a few hours, even Celestia had been able to join us.
I looked out of the window, the sun was surprisingly high, it seemed like we had slept through the morning and lunch was right around the corner. My hand brushed through Twilight’s mane and I kissed her soft fur-covered cheeks.
“Morning Honey.”, I whispered.
She was humming happily as she stretched her limbs and slowly opened her eyes. Instead of answering me, she drew me into a deep kiss.
“That was one of the best nights I ever had.”, she said after our lips had parted. “It was so much fun to be with all our friends.”
“It was.”, I replied. “And it seems to be noon soon, so we can skip breakfast and have lunch instead.”
Surprised she looked towards the window. “No wonder I feel so well rested.”
…
We were on our way to Chrysalis room after we had fished our breakfast/lunch. Twilight had a light salad, while I had gone all out on grilled veggies and pasta.
“Maybe I overdid it…”, I mumbled while I patted my belly.
“You were shoveling like crazy, I was afraid you would eat the plate as well.”, Twilight remarked with some disgust in her voice.
“I skipped a meal, you don’t want me to starve, don’t you?”, I replied giving her a sad look.
My marefriend sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you behave like Dashie. You have enough energy reserve to go awhile.” She poked my hips which had gained a bit extra mass over the last weeks.
“Well, maybe we have to burn more energy together, we wasted to much time sleeping lately.”, I told her with a lewd grin.
“I’m always open to that idea.”, she answered while we took the last corner.
“Oh get a room you two!”, Chrysalis shouted grinning standing in front of her room, the two guards on her side.
Twily blushed while we approached her, I myself was just a bit surprised.
“Changelings have excellent hearing.”, she explained. “Far better than ponies.”
I thought about it for a moment. “I think it does make sense, you are a kind of predator after all.”
The changeling princess showed a big grin, revealing her fangs.
“Don’t you have anything you want to take with you to Ponyville?”, I asked her after seeing nothing next to her.
“No, I have read all the books I got and I’m pretty sure where we go isn’t any shortage of new ones. Lavender told me she will visit me within the next two days, so nutrition isn’t a problem either.” She came towards us and turned around to the guards. “Thanks for guarding me and giving me a pretty good time here.”
The guards looked surprised by this sudden praise and fumbled a bit for words.
“Just stay out of trouble.”, one of them finally replied.
We left this part of the castle and walked towards the main gate.
“I’m a bit surprised you are this friendly towards your guards.”, Twilight remarked.
“Their job wasn’t only to hinder me leaving but to protect me from others as well who would attack ‘the strange evil creature’. Also, they only followed their orders. I see no reason for ill feelings towards them and I didn’t smell any hate from them.”
My marefriend stops walking and looked confused. “You didn’t smell any hate from them?”
“Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot to tell you she can smell general feeling from ponies when she is close to them.”, I explained.
Her purple eyes widened and she had problems standing still. “Wow, that’s so interesting, it will be so much fun studying your race. What do I smell of now?”
Chrysalis approached her and began to sniff. “Curiosity and excitement.”
“I think everypony could see that right now even without special powers.”, I said laughing.
…
We were in luck as we arrived at the train station half an hour later, a train destined to Ponyville was just waiting for departure. We quickly entered one of the wagons in front and walked through the train searching for a spot with few ponies, we didn't want to unsettle others with our special company.
As we entered the second wagon we heard a familiar voice.
“Hello darlings, so nice to meet you here.”, the white unicorn greeted us surrounded by the CMC.
“Hi Rarity.”, Twilight responded. “Would it be okay for us to accompany you?”
“I insist you do so.”, she replied. “Why wouldn't it be?”
Instead of answering Twilight took a side-glance to Chrysalis.
“Oh pish-posh.” Rarity used her magic to levitate the front page of a newspaper nearby before us.
Next to a surprisingly accurate drawing of our changeling companion, I read the following text out loud: “Princess Celestia announces: There is a new race among us, Changelings. One of them will live with us so we can study and get to know each other. The changeling is under the personal protection of the princess and shall be treated like one of us, because she is.”
The rest of the article was describing smaller details so I stopped reading.
“Wow, I’m impressed.”, Chrysalis stated while she sat opposite to the crusaders which stared at her wide-eyed.
We all took a seat while the train started to move.
“You look so cool!”, Scootaloo suddenly shouted. “Can I touch your horn?”
Sweetie Belle used a hoof to hit her side. “You should know from biology from school… horns are private”, she muttered towards her.
Scootaloo started to blush immediately.
Chrysalis showed a big grin. “It’s okay if you touch it gently.”
She bowed her head down so she was able to reach it and after a little hesitation the little crusader carefully examined it with her front hoofs.
“It is huge!”, she commented. “It’s bigger than my head. What is that clamp for?”
Chrysalis slowly raised her head again. “It prevents me from using magic.”
Rarity’s happy smile turned into a frown. “Oh my, I don’t what to imagine how that would feel, we unicorns get so dependent on our magic.”
“Well I can’t say it feels nice to be restrained like this, but I’m used to do things without magic since have been disguised many times as something else than a unicorn.”
“Hmmm… I see.”, Rarity responded staring at the clamp. “At least it looks pretty… maybe I should think about something like this for my new collection.”
“We saw the two of you fighting at the wedding.”, Applebloom changed the subject. “Since we weren’t allowed to have wine we could see everything.”
“From our hideout behind the curtains.”, Sweetie Bell added.
“Just like a hero vs. supervillain fight from a comic book!”, Scootaloo shouted fired up again. “The way you two used your abilities against each other until…” She fell silent while Chrysalis and myself tensed up.
There was silence for a few moments before anypony spoke again.
“How is she?”, Sweetie Belle asked.
“We are lucky Celestia was there to heal her.”, I explained. “She will be ready to leave the hospital any day now.”
I could see the relief in all of their faces.
“Well, the fangs are cool too.”, Scootaloo stated after a while and ‘Chryssi’ used a big smile to show them off.
This perked up the white filly again. “Ohh, I saw in a magazine there is a way to get fake ones permanently attached, maybe someday we can…”
“NO!”, Rarity interrupted with a stern look.
“Awwwww…”, all the crusaders moaned.
I pictured it in my head and smiled. ‘Cutie mark crusaders vampires’