I collapse back on the bed and gasp for breath as Three slides off of my face, and now I’ve got all four of his legs around my neck. I could think this was just a dream, and no one could blame me. One is there, Ten is there. Heck, even the paladin good guy… Bright Star is standing in the back. The instinctive trickle of information through the hive mind, though, assures me that this is perfectly real.
Relaxing on my back, I allow myself a smile.
“...what hurt the most… wasn’t that I felt as if I was melting on the inside… but that I was more and more certain… that I wouldn’t see any of you… ever again...” I croak and grunt in pain, “Alright… the melting was a close second...”
“You were poisoned, dad,” says a rather strange tall changeling who, if my hive link wasn’t telling me so, I would never guess to be Four.
“I… noticed...” I chuckle.
“Oh shush,” she giggles, and puts a hoof over my mouth, “Whatever the dwarves used on you seemed to have been made specifically against a heavily adaptive immune system. I couldn’t make anything natural to neutralize it, so I had to… improvise.”
With a hiccup, I let out a plume of fire which makes Four quickly withdraw her hoof.
“This is kinda a side-effect. You see, the poison was a bunch of really tiny machines changing their structure to drain resources from their surroundings and destroy biological matter. I had to make a heavy oil which they couldn’t decompose quickly enough, and Bright Star here enchanted the liquid with fire magic. If you had a pony digestive system or anything, it would poison you even worse, but as a changeling, the oil spread inside your body, and when the machines tried to decompose it - boom.”
“...boom…?”
“There might be some related side effects for some time. I wouldn’t turn into a pony any time soon if I were you,” she bites her lip, “Well, just don’t be surprised if you throw up and it comes out as napalm.”
“...ouch...”
“Don’t be a big larva, dad,” she can’t keep a serious face, and with a wide grin, teary eyes, and utmost care, she hugs me, “And if… if lord Bright Star wasn’t here after that… your body just stopped taking love completely. If he wasn’t here with real healing magic, our love, everything we did… it would have been pointless.”
“...come on… I’m not supposed… to make you… cry...”
Surrounded by happy hive links, it doesn’t take me long to figure out what’s missing.
“...where… is… Two…?”
Suddenly, silence.
To my surprise, it’s Five, whose legs now look like a starry night sky for some reason, who steps up and salutes.
“Two’s heroic sacrifice saved Three and Six as well as allowed them to return with information which we eventually required to cure you, boss. Two is gone. I deeply apologize for not being able to prevent it. It should have been me instead.”
I guess all this really was too good to be true. With a long sigh, I gather the strength to wrap one foreleg around Three whose warmth is doing wonders to quell the lingering pain. I feel like crying, but it seems that I’ve run out of tears at this point.
“...how about… you tell me… everything?”
“Yes, boss,” Five nods, “Shortly after you got poisoned-”
I stop her with a raised hoof.
“...not that. Not yet. What happened… after… Las Pegasus…?”
Four stops hugging me, and sits down by the side of the bed. Eight hops on next to me and Three, while the others make themselves comfortable everywhere around the bedroom. With the exception of Five, obviously, who takes her place by the door and resumes standing guard.
With everyone ready, Four starts talking.
“I’ll try to make this short, otherwise we’d be here for a while, and you need your rest,” Four shifts nervously, “Lord Bright Star found me inside our hideout and took me to Canterlot. I was scared sick, but everyone’s links disappeared, so it was either believing him or staying there alone with the house crumbling around me,” she blushes a bit, “Not my brightest moment, I admit. Well, lord Bright Star took me to Canterlot by train on his own, no other paladins anywhere.”
“I knew what Star Trail was capable of with the alicorn amulet, and I had no doubt that if I revealed that I got Ten and Gem here out of the city, he would have executed them no matter what I said.”
“...Gem…?”
“That’s my name now, dad,” says Four, “Miss One came up with it when I was thinking of a name to live among ponies. They’re kinda weirded out by our numbers.”
“Gem… I like it,” I smile at her.
“That’s great,” she smiles back, “So, when we got to Canterlot, we met up with Ten, and lord Bright Star took us to the castle where he confronted Star Trail in front of princess Celestia, and told her everything that happened between us and the paladins.”
“Which led to the disbanding of most of the order,” Bright Star chuckles, “I made a lot of my old friends really mad, as well as Sunnybuns herself, but it was for a good reason. What Star Trail did was inexcusable. As far as I know, he’s serving life in Canterlot castle prison for… a lot of things, really.”
“Deserves to be… kicked in the… nuts...” I mumble, feeling a little more generous now that both One and Three are back among the living.
“Among other things, yes,” Bright Star nods, “Although I wouldn’t be too harsh on him. Most things he did to you… changelings did to him first. Unlike you and your group, he didn’t have the inner strength to seek peace, only revenge.”
“And thankfully, he failed on all fronts it seems,” Gem pats purring Three’s head, “After the fate of Star Trail and paladins was decided, Ten and I had to face the changeling trials. Mine was very easy-”
“My damn well wasn’t...” grumbles Ten.
“-and it only took some questioning over few days, as well as rather gentle mental magic from princess Luna. She was careful after what miss One did to her in Ponyville, but she didn’t hold a grudge. In fact, I learned that she helped us.”
“She did,” Bright Star nods, “She sent us to Manehattan to look for you after you escaped from the Castle of Two Sisters. Unfortunately, Star Trail was suspicious of her being confused by your changeling magic, and instead of assuming we lost the trail in Manehattan and you disappeared somewhere across the sea to the Griffon Empire, he returned to Ponyville and eventually tracked you to Las Pegasus. We all know the rest.”
Everyone goes quiet before Gem decides to brighten up the mood.
“Anyway, back to Canterlot. I promise it was much less grim than what happened before-”
“Speak for yourself...” grumbles Ten again.
“-I am,” she sticks her tongue out at him, “You might want to know how miss One fits into all this.”
“Saving the best for last, I see,” One winks at her.
“Heheh, I wouldn’t forget you, miss One,” says Gem, “So, when I got to Canterlot, I heard a familiar voice in my head. Guess who decided that my mind needed a roommate?”
“Ever since we had to deal with the old rulers, their ability to transcend their body fascinated me, and if those old hags could do it, there was no way I couldn’t. And I was right, and also much better at it than they ever were. I didn’t need a whole hive to feed me, I just needed one cute little buggy. I’m just THAT good,” One laughs.
“You won’t catch me ever disputing that,” Gem nods, “Still, having miss One inside me was as enlightening as it was taxing. Her teaching me far more than she originally wanted to was more necessity than good intentions.”
“You WOUND me!” One puts a hoof over her heart.
“Oh please...” Gem waves her foreleg dismissively, “I know how secretive you are. Anyway, as soon as I even got to the trials, I got assigned a pair of guardians to watch over me - a pegasus by the name Common Crest, and a changeling who called herself Half-hearted Fury. I think she used to be rank sixteen or thirteen or something along those lines. She was very similar to you, miss Eight, actually. Only the dominant kind of changeling, and she was blind beyond healing. Not that it stopped her, really.”
“Wasn’t it exhausting having One in your head?” I ask, slowly regaining control over my tongue.
“In all senses of the word,” Gem dodges a quick smack over the head from One, which is a feint as One scoops her into a hug from behind. This doesn’t seem to disturb Gem in the slightest, “but I had the best teacher, and I had to learn very quickly. Yes, it was draining. Yes, I had trouble even getting out of bed some days. Thankfully, my guardians loved me unconditionally as if I was theirs. I had to pretend a lot at first in front of everyone, which wasn’t easy either since I was too scared to leave my room in fear of the paladins and guards and everyone being armed in the castle. What helped were visits from lord Bright Star, and occasionally even Ten... when the guards let him out of sight.”
“She was shaking like a leaf whenever I took her even only to the castle gardens,” interjects Bright Star, “Good camouflage, though. I couldn’t blame her. So shortly after the invasion and with the trials being a secret, albeit an open one, ponies weren’t exactly comfortable around a changeling.”
“I wasn’t allowed to transform during the first months to show that I took my citizenship status seriously and didn’t try to avoid oversight,” explains Gem, “So, as I said, the first months were hard-”
“Until the true hero of the story was done with his own trial,” Ten winks at Gem who gives him a curt bow.
“Please, maestro, spin your tale of wonder and enjoyment,” she says with a smirk.
“My trial took long, and it was far less gentle and invasive than in Gem’s case,” Ten sighs, “Mostly due to my role in the invasion which I admitted to show how changed a changeling I was. In retrospect, lying might have been a better idea for everyone involved.”
“I admire your courage, Ten,” I say.
“Huh,” he pauses, “That still means a lot to me, boss. I think I was trying to prove that I was someone better after my time with you to both myself and my memory of you. Of course, once the nobles, servants, and mostly everyone else started calling for my execution in the open, I did regret it. But, and by that I mean Sunbutt intervened as well as Luna, Fury, Bright Star… and I’m pretty sure Sunbutt refused the calls for my death just to spite some nobles. Anyway, I always say - don’t look a gift ling in the holes,” Ten shrugs, “That doesn’t change the fact that I was shadowed by intelligence service, private detectives, and I don’t doubt a variety of scrying spells. I couldn’t leave Gem alone in her room, so I enlisted Bright Star, and with my constant entourage, I started showing her around Canterlot. Let me tell you, it’s funny when you go to some no name play at the opera, and you are more interesting to the audience than the murder on stage. So, aside from ruining Gem’s innocent reputation… and annoying Fury to no end with her having to escort Gem around, I took her mind off of the prospect of being hunted down and killed. Oh, and the best part? Luna, as the official leader of the intelligence service, was paying for everything both for us and the definitely random ponies watching us from distance. Seriously, EIS agents are like our newborn infiltrators. It was fun, actually. The real problem came when Gem shared with me that she wasn’t alone inside her head.That was… a year and something into our stay in Canterlot, maybe?”
“Give or take,” Gem nods, “Some time before the whole mirror mess started.”
“Mirror mess?” I raise an eyebrow.
“To be honest, I don’t know too much about that,” Gems looks a little hesitant, “One day, life’s all normal in Canterlot, a week later, the city is under siege by a huge army of some shadow king, and I’m apparently a hero for leading citizens into the mountain mines where we used to live so that the invaders don’t find them. Ten would be a hero too, but in his case all this just balanced out the bad stuff during the changeling invasion. Come to think of it, living in the capital city of Equestria does invite disaster. Well, then the army picked up and marched north to the Crystal Empire which appeared out of nowhere short time before, we get no news for few weeks while we teach ponies how to make stew out of cave moss and spiders, and then everyone is gone, literally. No soldiers, no shadow king, nothing,” Gem shrugs, “As I said, weird,” she suddenly claps her hooves together, and beams, “Oh! You wouldn’t know that, probably, but guess what came out of the mirror invasion?”
“I’m still lost about what mirrors caused what shadow king to do what to ponies...” I say.
“Changelings and ponies made peace!” Gem announces.
“What? WHAT?!” I sit up and clutch my everything in pain, “That’s grea- oh holes what did I do to deserve this…?!” I slump back on the bed.
“Yep. Apparently, queen Chrysalis saw the error of her ways, and decided to give cooperation a shot.”
“That is astonishingly wrong, and yet it encompasses the whole situation so neatly,” says One in a singsong voice, “You see, a string of events preceded all that, but it ended with good old me. Chryssie and I had a little chat, we talked about what you did to the old rulers, and when some batpony offed himself trying to defend Chryssie during the first battle of the mirror invasion in the Everfree Forest, she used it as an excuse to start working on alliance proceedings. Some mushy nonsense along the lines of his bravery showing her that ponies are worth talking to.”
“Miss One!” Gem raises her voice, looking offended, “Mister Sharp Biscuit died valiantly in defense of queen Chrysalis against an enemy general who surprised her and everyone with his power!”
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” One leans backwards a little to face still embraced Gem.
To my surprise, Ten gives One a firm glare.
“One, that wasn’t the tone to take here! Sharp Biscuit helped me get into the paladins. I’ve been visiting his memorial statue in the Everfree Forest every month.”
“When did YOU grow a spine-” One pouts, about to verbally slam Ten just as I interrupt her.
“Let’s not argue, please. One, you know how your sacrifice was eating me inside. Don’t dismiss the pain of others.”
One pauses, staring at me for a moment.
“I’m… sorry.”
“Did queen Vulcan’s infernal hive just freeze over, or have you found your meeker streak?” Eight can’t resist taking a jab at quite honestly surprising reaction by One.
“Eight...” I open my mouth, but this time I’m stopped by One’s raised hoof, and the infiltrator says:
“Maybe there’s wisdom waiting for you out there somewhere as well, Eight. You just have to punch it hard enough and drag it into your cave.”
“If I had the strength to move, I’d hug you both. Or spank… I’m not sure right now,” I chuckle.
Situation diffused successfully. Awarded 100 EXP.
“Leave that for later when your hoof won’t break off,” One sticks her tongue out at me.
“But, am I missing something? How did you get out of Four, One?” I ask the pressing question.
“When a queen is full of eggs and they gestate on enough love- ouch!” to my utter horror, it’s Gem who has just smacked One over the head to stop her sarcastic monologue, “Alright, just for that I’m telling your dad everything, you little drug dealer!”
“Mistakes were made!” yelps Gem.
“Now own up!” One starts jabbing Gem’s lower back.
“Fiiiiiine...” Gem sighs, “You see, my innocent reputation in Canterlot was more thanks to what I managed to hide with the help of miss One. As I said, keeping miss One inside me was extremely difficult despite her best efforts. I was young and inexperienced. However, I got an opportunity to hear a couple of guards arguing - a marefriend and a coltfriend. The stallion’s problem was that he was being punished by back to back shifts and had no strength to go out with his mare. So I… made him some candy from my venom which miss One taught me to mold into a performance enhancing aphrodisiac. The word spread, and suddenly I had quite a few customers wanting ‘love potions’. Of course, what I did had nothing to do with love potions, but it gave me an inspiration and I tried to learn to make them. You know, short time love, quick feeding for me. Actually, Bright Star here taught me my first recipe, and then he introduced me to the court alchemist who was an old guy who enjoyed the attention of a pretty little mare. All I had to do to secure his teaching was transform from time to time and wear some really funny outfits. Unfortunately, while he was a pervert, he wasn’t senile, and he refused to teach me the more advanced stuff, so we parted ways.”
“I think he became suspicious by the time he recognized you were trying to make LSD,” One snickers.
“Umm yes… I had no idea what substances were either illegal or questionable among ponies,” Gem chuckles, “Thankfully, Ten here had contacts from his life before the invasion, and landed me a back alley ‘teacher’ working for some mare by the name Vinyl Scratch. I learned a ton, and made some drugs for Vinyl’s parties. On complete accident, I experimented with adding my venom to those, which at the time was rather potent due to miss One’s teachings about self-control, pheromones, and all the fun infiltrator stuff.”
“That was one hole of a rave,” One nods in acknowledgement.
“Anyway, I started dealing some helpful doses to guards and friends, and experimenting with control over my own fluids under miss One’s tutelage, eventually learning on my own how things work. It helped take my mind off of the prospect of impending doom. Remember, this was before the mirror invasion and my reputation as a savior.”
“I assume this gave you the exposure you needed to make friends, albeit some less reputable ones, and the chance to gain a lot of lust.”
“Exactly, love too. A Nightguard mare by the name Choking Darkness was my first bigger guard client, I met her on one of Vinyl’s parties, and she spread my stuff throughout the guard ranks as well as the serving staff in the castle. You see, love potions produce much less negative effect on our feeding than pure lust or venom taint, so I was gaining a lot of energy my body wasn’t able to process. Such waste.”
Just a moment.
“There is a pony going by the name Choking Darkness. You’re kidding me, right?” I chuckle, “Is she like some warlock necromancer dark mage in disguise?”
“No no no, just a harmless batpony sex addict. Frequent client who actually led me towards making a new body for miss One.”
“I’m getting the feeling that I know how...” I say with growing certainty.
“Yep!” One grins, “Little miss innocent here got more cock inside her than an industrial chicken coop.”
Thank you for the image, One. Really. On the other hole, it’s not like Gem is still my little fragile changeling barely able to move her legs in the right order. She’s grown way more than I have in the time since our split in Las Pegasus.
“As I said, hosting miss One was harsh. I doubt I would have survived if it was anyone less mentally capable than she is.”
“It was rough trying to survive inside someone less than a thousandth of my power. Well, look who I’m telling that too, mister changeling hotel head. On the other hole, Gem here learned very VERY fast. Guess she didn’t take much from her mom, did she?” One wiggles her eyebrow at Eight who gives her an unimpressed glare before jumping forward, untangling One from Gem in a blink of an eye, and switching positions with her.
Eight nuzzles now rather frazzled Gem’s neck.
“Who’s a good aberration? You are, yes you are!”
“Come on, mom,” pouts Gem, “I’m flattered, but we’ll never finish the story if you keep fighting over me like fillies over a plushie.”
“Alright,” One sits down, “Everyone shut up and let Gem here tell how she fucked her way into greatness. My greatness, to be exact.”
She’s the one talking the most. Let’s not point that out…
“Aptly stated, actually,” Gem sighs, “With all my contacts and ability to generate lust on a ridiculous scale, miss One started nagging me about new body again. The problem was how to make one, and still have enough love to feed her and myself, so my body had to adapt to me forcefully stuffing myself with love and lust. A LOT of lust. It hurt, and I didn’t enjoy most of the sex, because I was focused on separating genetic information out of my partners to make the mix for the perfect specimen miss One wanted. Eventually, I was able to create a single changeling egg inside me and bear it to term.”
“That sounds like a lot of work, really,” I tilt my head.
“You don’t think I would want to start over as some nobody baseline changeling, right? Even the egg Gem so meticulously crafted under my supervision was woefully weak. At least the birth was easy on little princess here, right?”
“Well, umm, yes, it was,” Gem blushes, “After what and who I had to take in order to extract the genetic bits miss One wanted, a fully grown changeling egg going out was pretty relaxing,” she pats her hips, “And let me tell you that what they say about zebra stallions is mostly untrue. Mares have sweet bods, though,” she smiles inwardly.
“What do they say?” asks Three, his ears perking up.
“That stallions are monstrously more endowed than ponies. That’s a myth. They are longer, but less thick. Dragons rule anyway, if you ask me,” One quickly adds a ‘helpful’ explanation.
“I see. So, these zebra stallions are like striped noodles with legs,” says Three victoriously, proud of his analysis of the situation.
“Yes… yes, they are...” One hangs her head in defeat, “Well, dongs aside, that’s how, after months of back to back orgies of pure lust, I was born.”
Gem squeals like an excited filly.
“EEEEK! SHE WAS ADORABLE! That tiny head with a broken top of an egg like a small helmet… heheheh. I’ve got a photo back in Canterlot.”
Oh yes, I’m sure I know exactly what she means. After all, I saw her like that.
“I DESTROYED IT AND ALL OTHER EVIDENCE!” One bares her teeth.
Huh, blushing One. That’s new.
“I made a looot of backups. I know you,” Gem lets out an evil chuckle.
“Ahem,” I clear my throat as Gem and One enter a staring contest, “You got your body, but where does the peace with Chrysalis get into it?”
“Didn’t I say? I found her afterwards, talked some sense into her, and then the mirror invasion happened, so she could engage in diplomacy without seeming weak. In fact, she looked positively noble when she said her speech about her ‘pony protector’,” One snickers, “Sorry, sorry.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah,” One shrugs, “A possible epic mental battle between changelings may or may not have happened, but Chryssie is really reasonable when her back isn’t against the wall, believe it or not.”
I recall what the hive memory of Chrysalis told me as we were watching her copies fight One and Eight, and smile.
“You know what? I do believe you. What’s with the demon thing, though?”
“We all know how lust is a drug and a poison, right? I was reborn from it, and I was powerful enough to survive on it with only very little love. My body kinda got used to it during my quick growth back into an adult. Lust overdose is something that happens to other changelings now. I wonder whether that brought Scream to me one day. It was quite random, really.”
Huh, I didn’t notice Scream sitting in the back. Although to be frank, the most shocking thing is her being quiet all this time. She stands up and shrugs.
“That’s how it works, really. You sense a useful individual, you use them. Simple. Besides, these days there are too many amateur demonologists and not enough succubi. Good thing they keep summoning blood demons on accident to thin the herd.”
Bright Star furrows his brows as to him we all look silent while Scream is ‘talking’, but doesn’t say anything.
“We didn’t see each other since my rather confused ascension. I don’t feel used,” One pats Bright Star’s shoulder, “I’ll explain later, Brighty.”
“Just you doing your work with such gusto grants me power. Don’t overthink it,” Scream says in the tone of a benevolent ruler.
“Is that it? I thought there would be some grand universal plan,” I have to chuckle at the absurdity of everything.
“I plan many things, but even I was blindsided by this. A pleasant surprise, certainly, especially since it led to Chryssie mellowing out a bit,” says Scream as One whispers explanations to Bright Star’s ear, licking it randomly. The paladin’s self-control must be stronger than steel, because all he does is flick said ear and listen.
“That was the boss’ job most of all. We helped kill the old memories of the changeling rulers. Gotta admit, the hive felt much less hungry even before the peace treaty. Those old relics did drain us hard,” One stops her interpreter job, and adds her two bits to the idea, “Can we get to Ten now? There’s not much to say anymore. Chryssie was back in the old hive, I bitchslapped some sense into her, she was livid about what paladins did to you, actually, and in the end I left the hive for good without her being able to lift a hoof against it. I’m just that awesome now. As for my life as a succubus, I really doubt you want to hear about my string of summonings and debauchery. I’d rather demonstrate later when you can move. You wouldn’t believe it, but some ponies were into weirder stuff that I am. Imagination is truly limitless. Ten, your go.”
The changeling shifts as all eyes move on him.
“There isn’t too much to say which I haven’t said already, really. My trials were a web of interrogations, mental magic, and constant oversight. Finding love was next to impossible at first. Thankfully, I’ve often managed to hide and shapeshift to get close to princess Celestia, and I survived on the ambient warmth around her.”
“The EIS agents knew about what you were doing, they just had no clue why,” interjects Gem, “They thought you were either planning an assassination or listening in to court proceedings. You falling asleep most of the time threw a wrench into their plans.”
“When they had to admit I wasn’t doing anything dangerous, I helped get Gem with her fear of ponies, and eventually got a job as a servant in the castle, which lasted until the birthday incident. I wanted to try becoming a paladin’s squire, but since they booted Bright Star immediately after arriving in Canterlot, and since I only made the other paladins reach for a can of Raid, that didn’t go well. Not my brightest moment, being a servant at the castle, but serving mares often have affairs with guards more than long-term partners due to the constant nature of the work, so I had enough food. I worked my way up to sometimes serving Sunny by taking every opportunity to just bring her tea or something.”
“You really do love more than just her booty, do you?” I chuckle.
“Boss… you’ve met her only once and she was trying to hack you into pieces. That’s not who she is. You have no idea how it is being around her. The warmth, the love… even when I was a changeling, and she knew… nevermind,” Ten shakes his head, “Well, that all ended with me drowning under her in the bathtub. When she came to her senses, she threatened execution. I told her I would shift my wings away and jump out of the window myself if she really wanted it. I guess she understood how I felt about her, so she just kicked me out of the castle. Thankfully, Bright Star here is a noble with estates around Equestria, and he offered me a job around his mansion in Canterlot where I spent my time up until the mirror invasion. When I helped Gem evacuate the citizens, my castle ban was lifted… with caveats. However, the paladin order had to be reformed in full so that their ranks could help in case another attack happened, so Bright Star was called back into service some time later, and I became his squire in the end. Unfortunately, our first mission to redeem our names was… strange. We were sent to the Griffon Empire to investigate some disappearances of important ponies. Black crystals, undead, weird stuff everywhere.”
“Ahem!” Bright Star clears his throat.
“Aaaaand we’re still not allowed to talk about it,” Ten sighs, “Especially with what it led to.”
”I’ll tell you everything when Bright Star isn’t around. It’s not important to our situation anyway. Too much, I mean,” Ten immediately adds through the hive mind..
“What DID it lead to?” asks Gem.
“Supposedly, the guy involved there was the baddie from the zebrican invasion,” Ten raises his hoof, “Not saying anything else.”
“ANOTHER invasion?” I ask.
Gem sighs.
“I don’t know any whys and wherefores, but quite recently, a huge army of undead and mercenaries attacked Equestria from over the southern sea. They marched north until they were stopped in a huge battle near the Everfree Forest. I was a medic in that army after helping evacuating south settlements, and trust me when I say that I’ve seen enough pain and death to last for lifetimes,” she shakes her head, “BUT, the bad guys were stopped, that’s all that matters, and some good actually did come of it.”
“How?” I’m having trouble finding good in scarring my little changeling for life.
It’s Ten who answers that.
“Minotaurs played a key role in that battle, supposedly. Some ‘dark prophet’ of theirs united the clans, they moved into the mountain above us, and built Rift, which gave us a safe base, and a diplomatic reason, to keep following the trail Eight left and Gem discovered in Vanhoover and Crystal Empire.”
“Wait, dark prophet...” Eight furrows her brows, “You mean the black unicorn I found dying in the snow?”
“Well, there’s a pony statue in Rift, but he’s an alicorn there, although that might be more artistic representation than anything.”
”Aaand let me stop all of you right there,” Scream butts in, ”I know everything about that, and it doesn’t concern you. His path isn’t yours.”
One relays the message to Bright Star.
“Scream might be right,” Ten nods, “Whatever happened with the minotaurs and the invasion is over. We have our own problems, and we’re all together again. So, in the spirit of completeness, I’ll just add that mine and Bright Star’s mission as well as my involvement in the battle of the Everfree granted me the rank of a paladin on probation. I mostly got it because I wanted to go with our heroine Gem up north, and princess Celestia wanted to show she cares about diplomacy, so she would send TWO paladins instead of one and a squire. And now we’re here.”
Ten claps his hooves together as if realizing something.
“Wait, this means we can now arrange a meeting with Celestia, because you’re a ruler of a hive, boss!” he adds, “I’d be happy to do that. Dwarves don’t have any ass- I mean class. Oh screw it, ass. Minotaurs are a lot more fun to watch and have diplomatic relations with.”
Oh Ten, never change.
I yawn.
“I’ll think about it, but for now, I’m about to pass out,” I chuckle, “I’m so happy you’re all alright, and when I can move again, there will be hugs aplenty. Now, I could use a pillow. Who isn’t busy?”
Three jumps on the bed next to me with such force he bounces away on the floor. Eight does so with much more care, and wraps her legs around me just as Three crawls back up, and curls up above our heads, his hind legs wrapped around Eight’s and forelegs around mine.
“Okay,” I chuckle, “I’m all for a good love pile, but let’s save the rest of you after you won’t squish me. Good night,” I yawn again.
“Good night, dad,” says Gem, “Alright everyone, let’s give boss time to rest. That goes for you too, miss One,” she grows claws and starts pulling One away by her ear.
“I’m a demon of lust, stop that!”
“I’m a doctor. My patient, my rules.”
“Ow ow ow ow stooooooop…!”
Ahhh… peace and quiet.