Thorax sat at the table with a variety of other creatures, devising how to go about his plan. He knew how he was going to do it, but he needed to make sure he could match the conditions, and right now, the conditions were not meet. He looked over the table; Twilight was sitting at the head of it. On her left was Celestia, Ember, Rutherford, and Gruff. On her right, Luna, Spike, Thorax himself, and finally Seaspray. At the end of the table sat Starlight.
Thorax was stumped on how to go about his plan. All he needed was any sort of DNA sample from any female and he could activate the changeling biological backup. An emergency pheromone that would force a gender change, to be used if the gender ratio of the changeling race became too unbalanced. As luck would have it, there was an overflow of male changelings at the moment. The main problem was that not many chose to take the magical journey of gender reassignment, especially since each changeling could only do it once. Thorax took a breath and listened to the conversations of the table.
"So how does this holiday work?" Seaspray asked.
"It's about giving your love to another," Twilight said
"YAKS BEST AT GIVING LOVE!" Rutherford yelled. There was a moment of silence before Spike and Gruff broke into laughter. "RUTHERFORD WANTS TO BE IN ON THE JOKE!" He demanded.
"It's nothing," Spike laughed as Gruff slowly but carefully hung a heart decoration on Rutherford's horn.
"WHAT IS JOKE?!" He demanded, "IS IT INSIDE JOKE?!"
"Yes." Spike laughed as Rutherford looked around.
"YAKS HATE INSIDE JOKES!" He shouted angrily, destroying his bit of table in the process. Thorax shook his head, a decoration swinging into his view. He realized Spike had managed to get him with a decoration, while Gruff had gotten Rutherford.
"I shall have my revenge!" Thorax declared, his voice carrying the unmistakable tone of joy in it.
"You're not supposed to say that so happily!" Spike laughed as Thorax took off the heart decoration.
The changeling looked around the table. Celestia was trying to stop Ember from eating the table, Luna was telling Spike off for trying to copy her, Gruff was still laughing as Rutherford demanded a new table to smash. Thorax sighed and looked over at Starlight who was looking at him suspiciously. Thorax looked at her in silence. Then she mouthed the words ‘I'm watching you, buster’.
Thorax sighed. “Great." He muttered. "Like this wasn't hard enough." Starlight’s suspicious gaze turned into one of concern as Thorax slowly placed his head on the table, several of the other patrons of the party looked over to him.
"You okay there, bud?" Spike asked. Thorax gave no response.
Starlight sighed and enveloped him in her magic. "Excuse us, I need to have a private talk with our friend." She said as she left the room dragging him behind her. Once they were a good distance away, Starlight placed him in a sitting position. "Look, I wasn't gonna say anything, but I can tell you’re planning something. So spill, and if it's not totally fucked up or stupid, I'll help" Thorax sighed.
“I'm trying to think of a way to activate my changeling biological backup," Thorax explained.
"Your what?" Starlight asked.
"In the event that the gender ratio of the Changeling race is thrown off, a changeling can activate it and force a one-way gender change, as long as they have a strand of DNA from a female anything."
Starlight looked at him in silence. "So you could take a strand of any random mare's mane and become a lady?"
"Yes and no," Thorax muttered. "If the creature isn't a changeling it could slightly or drastically change my biology. It could do something as small as changing the hue of my body, or something as big as changing the structure of it entirely, leaving little resemblance to what I was before. There are fewer chances of alteration the closer the creature is to a changeling in shape and size."
Starlight nodded. "So you need to pick carefully, and pick a mare with a similar biological structure, so in other words," She looked down at him. "You're trying to figure out a good way to get a strand of Celestia's mane?"
"Or Luna's," Thorax added. "Not Twilight, though. Personality shifts could happen too, and I don't want to deal with more panic than I already have in my life." He sighed and looked up. "So Starlight...will you help me steal a strand of hair from one of the princesses?"
Starlight looked down at him and sighed. "Alright, I'll help you on your odd mission to become a girl."
Thorax smiled as he shook her hoof with tears in his eyes. "Thank you so much." He sniffed, slowly getting to his hooves. The two soon turned to head back to the room they left. "Let's do this!"