It takes several days of attempting to wean Cadance off of her frequent visits to the house before the hivemind takes my advice and stages a little vacation for Twilight and Moon Dancer with a nonspecific relative out in the country, though when all is said and done, I feel like they might as well have just said that they were having a slumber party at a friend’s house for how long the incubation actually took. As Shimmering Armor had said, with the sheer amount of love that we can spare for the process, it progresses an order of magnitude faster. Instead of the two to three weeks it took me to be rebirthed, they’re out in under two days, which is barely enough time for Cadance to get some friends together and drag Shimmering Armor off to her own sleepover while she’s still a mare.
When they finally do come out, I end up missing both Twilight’s and Moon Dancer’s rebirths, which is a little disappointing, but frankly I have better things to do with my time than sit around all day waiting for them to hatch. You’d think that once the lab was done I’d have gone back to spending most of my time down there, but that was before I’d gotten wings, which are everything I imagined they would be and then some.
…Well, they’re everything I imagined so long as I forget about the whole immortality and divine right to rule bits that I had expected to get with them.
Flying, though? Flying was awesome enough that I could forget. The best part was the sheer freedom it gave me—not just inside the house, but outside it, too. Sure, with Shimmering Armor dyed to look like Shining Armor she could take me out to the park or wherever, but apparently it’s a lot less of a problem for a pegasus my age to be flying around than it would be for me to be underhoof on the street, so I can basically go anywhere and everywhere so long as I come back home once in a while to fill my storage pods with glowing green magical goo—and I do. Go anywhere and everywhere, I mean, but the storage pod thing too, I guess.
The slowly growing number of filled pods on the wall is both satisfying and a small source of unease. I really, really wish I wouldn’t have to give up my wings for some unknown period of time when I become a dragon. It’s frustrating enough that my lie to Cadance has me going back to being a unicorn once in awhile just to sell it, which is something I never thought I’d say, but changeling magic is so weak at my age that using it is as aggravating as it is useful—something Moon Dancer will be learning as soon as she’d out of swaddling, I expect.
I’m a little fascinated at just how small Moon Dancer is compared to me. I’m still pretty tiny compared to everyone else, but right out of the chrysalis, she’s almost a foal to me, which is just bizarre. Apparently, when I was this small I was just swaddled up so much that nopony could actually see my excessively diminutive size when Twilight Velvet took me out to harvest love. I wouldn’t have guessed that that would actually work or that it would be any more than indirect love, but I suppose the logic behind that sort of thing is kind of fuzzy. As for Moon Dancer, she’ll be getting love from the cistern for the first few days until she’s a proper size for showing off, though we’ll have to be very careful about that, since we don’t want Cadance to see the foal-sized one at all regardless.
That’s a problem I hadn’t really thought about. I’d forgotten that Moon Dancer getting split into nymph and neurospast would mean she’d be starting over as a foal, if one with temporarily accelerated growth. Kind of a stupid mistake to make, but, well, I’ve been reminding myself that the hive’s problems aren’t my problems and clearly they have it under control.
Very much literally.
Part of what Twilight had been talking to Moon Dancer about for the days up to their going into the chrysalises had been preparing her for the experience of the hive mind. She’s still not a proper changeling with a connection of her own, but as a nymph she’s still able to connect through contact with another, and through them, control her body like Shimmering Armor has been controlling mine. From what I can tell, she’s been taking her submersion into the hive mind well, but the truth of it is, with everything she says and does going through said hive mind… how would I know?
I just try not to think about it.
The new granite kitchen counters are nice. Retconning the project as repairs from a magical accident instead of a remodel saved us from having to deal with the construction for the several weeks a proper remodel would have taken. The whole Discordian artifact lie really was a good one for something cobbled together on the spot.
…
Moving on, things have almost calmed down when Shining Armor finally comes out of his chrysalis, and this time I don’t miss it. Actually, the entire household—sans Night Light, who we still haven’t received a replacement for—is present, I guess because we actually have Twilight to give us some idea of what’s going on, instead of the… nobody who was monitoring Twilight and Moon Dancer when they were in the chrysalises.
I’m sure it was fine.
Shining Armor splashes out onto the ground in front of the chrysalis, the clatter of his chitin on the ground muffled by the thick liquid. The ribbed flooring does an amazing job at containing the splash of amniotic fluid, but I still cringe in disgust as a few droplets splatter across my face. I make note to stand further back next time.
Actually, why did I want to be here for this, again? Twilight Velvet is drying him off with towels while Twilight Sparkle casts spells and little mini Moon Dancer watches in fascination from her position perched atop her neurospast’s head. Everyone else seems to have something to do or a genuine interest, while I’m just standing here having more in common with my own empty neurospast standing in the corner just blankly watching the proceedings, still dyed to look like the stallion in question with a manestyle and makeup straight out of a fashion magazine.
It isn’t long until the actual Shining Armor has recovered enough to stand on his own. Twilight Velvet moves on to first helping him with a glass of ice water, then a glass of lovemuck, which is a word I just invented on seeing the cloying, sticky pink substance in an actual regular pony drinking glass, looking all kinds of wrong to me.
“Okay, Shiny,” Twilight Sparkle says, levitating a clipboard in front of her and checking several things off. “Everything looks good so far. Try levitating the—” The glass shatters. “…rubber ball and place it in the glass. Well, raw power seems to be a success, but spending a week and a half as a mare doesn’t seem to have improved your impulsiveness and ability to listen. Please attempt to retrieve the glass from the ribbed flooring. As a test of your fine control, of course, and for no other reason.”
To Twilight Sparkle’s disappointment and my entire lack of surprise, Shining Armor soundly fails the fine control test, though with some coaching, he’s able to sort of press a semi-tactile blob of magic into the crevices and pull everything down there up like it’s stuck to a giant wad of gum. Doing the same exercise after retaking his proper pony disguise shows a marked improvement except for the part where he nearly singes off everyone’s eyebrows with the blast of green fire that accompanies transitioning to said disguise.
I’m getting bored and considering going back upstairs to find something to do when a loud bwomp interrupts my thoughts and the entire lab is lit by the glow of a pink bubble around Shining Armor.
“At this level of output, you’ll definitely be able to fake a proper shielding specialty as utilized by an above average unicorn,” Twilight Sparkle tells him almost absently. “Which is fortunate considering I had the foresight to include that in your cutie mark story.”
Shining Armor is rolling his eyes and insisting that it’s not foresight when every changeling in the world has an affinity for shields, but my mind is stuck on something entirely different.
“How is the bubble bubblegum-pink?” I blurt out, interrupting the argument before it can really get started.
Everyone stops to look at me.
“I mean, I thought changeling magic was always green?” I say, gesturing at the absolutely one hundred percent pink bubble.
Twilight gives me a flat glare. “I have, in a single step, advanced changeling magic by generations and you’re worried about the color?”
I blink. “Aren’t you?” I ask, honestly wondering if she doesn’t see the point. “I mean, woo, the incredible power of an above average unicorn and all, but you expected at least that much. Colored magic—that seems like the sort of thing that a species whose primary survival tactic is disguise would have solved already if it had the ability to do so.”
Twilight rolls her eyes and turns back to Shining Armor. “Yes, it’s a useful mutation and I’ll look into it, but I didn’t come here to pioneer pink magic. Now, Shiny, try to pick up the pencil without crushing it…”
Ugh, fine. I didn’t want to be here anyway. I fly upstairs and go looking for a snack.
⁂
The brief, unguarded moment of disappointment when Cadance sees Shining Armor in all his stalliony glory is an adorable kind of schadenfreude I don’t normally find amusing. It’s too bad changeling disguises have that whole ‘burst of fire’ thing going on, or he could say the accident left him with a permanent ability. Maybe he could say it only works when he’s alone? Hmm… nah. Too complicated and he’d never go for it. Considering she didn’t let his renewed appearance stop her from taking him out for a slightly more masculine version of their previous outing, I figure they’ll be fine anyway—though I do notice Cadance eyeing me and biting her lip on the way out for some reason.
I don’t have to wait long to find out what that’s about. She shows up at the house the very next day insisting that she take me to Cloudsdale while I still have the opportunity. The look on her face is just so eager, and it does sound interesting… I have a bad feeling that I’m going to regret this, but my wall of glowing green pods is actually looking rather full these days, so this might actually be one of the last things she actually gets to do with ‘Whitewash’ and I’m not that cold-hearted. “Sure, that sounds fun.”
“Eee!” she squeals, picking me up and squeezing me like a plush doll. “This’ll be great!”
I’m less enthusiastic about spending the entire day with her, but I do make sure to run inside to empty myself of love and top up on magic before we go to give myself the best chance I can to actually enjoy it. It’s actually the first time I’ve reclaimed any of the green, liquid magic. It tastes… like nothing, actually; almost like water, but instead of a mineral taste, there’s a faint creaminess? I wholeheartedly regret that description, but it’s accurate and my body has no problem gulping it down so I do my best to try and forget all about it as I rush back upstairs.
I find Cadance in the kitchen getting permission from Twilight Velvet for our little trip. There’s no trouble there, of course, and Cadance lifts me onto her back with a smile when she sees me. I get her to make a short detour upstairs to fetch my sunglasses, and we’re off.
⁂
I still find it a little uncomfortable going back to riding on ponies’ backs like the foal I am, though at least with Cadance I don’t have to worry about accidentally connecting to the hive mind just by touching her. Actually, riding on Cadance’s back is just about the ideal position for me since it tempers the sheer force of her love to a gentle glow when I’m not actually in her field of view. Even so, I expect I’ll be spitting little pink love bombs off the side of Cloudsdale every chance I get. Actually, I should probably start sooner rather than later. There’s no reason to wait until I’m completely bloated and have to act like I’m hurling when I could deal with it a mouthful at a time.
…
Wow, we’re all idiots, aren’t we? Admittedly, Cadance pretty much invented the problem of ‘too much love’ and she sprung it on us that first night, but has not a single one of us really thought of keeping a sippy cup, flask or something with a straw handy to discreetly discharge love rather than constantly running downstairs to the cistern?
My muffled scream of frustration sounds like a whimper and draws Cadance’s attention while she’s busy paying for our ferry ride. She pretends not to have noticed anything as we board the, squat, open-sided airship, but once we’ve found someplace near the railing to sit, she turns up the doting foalsitter act and asks if anything is wrong.
I’m quick to deny it, but, well, I suppose I might as well just lie. “It’s just… I hafta go back to Trottingham this week.”
It takes her a moment to remember the details. “O—oh, that’s right, you’re technically Twilight Velvet’s sister, aren’t you?” She actually looks a little sad. A small, mean-spirited part of me wants to look down on her for it, but the rest of me is actually kind of touched that she cares that much about some foal she only met a couple of weeks ago. “You’re from Trottingham? You don’t have the accent.”
“Well, we only just moved there,” I tell her, thinking quickly. “That’s why I’ve been staying with my sister’s family, actually. Mom—mother—has been getting things set up there.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” she says, accepting the lie easily. “I know what it’s like to have to move to some far off place where everything is strange and you don’t know anypony. You might think it’d be less complicated as you get older or that living in luxury in the palace would make everything easier, but it can still be difficult and scary when you’re thrust into a new situation and things don’t go like they always have.”
Wow, way to comfort the foal, Cadance. Who here is supposed to be reassuring who, again? “Did something bad happen when you came to Canterlot?” Shit, is that the sort of thing a foal would say? I don’t even know.
“You could say that,” she says with a sad smile, looking out over the landscape as it passes us by. “There was somepony I tried to make friends with, but she didn’t want to be friends with me. I thought, as the princess of love and all, that if I just kept trying and kept being nice to her that she would eventually come around, but that’s… not right. It was actually kind of naïve and selfish of me, since I didn’t actually consider what she wanted.”
My life is a sitcom. My only lament is that I don’t have a connection to the hive mind to broadcast it to. “For you to go away?”
“If that’s what somepony really wants, then that’s their right. Not everypony easily falls into friendships like you and I do, and that’s okay,” she says with a helpless shrug. “But a lot of the time, ponies want to be left alone because they’ve been hurt or—actually, no, that’s too condescending; forget I said that. A lot of the time, ponies want to be left alone because that’s how they’ve learned to live their lives and it’s what works for them; maybe it is because they were hurt in the past, maybe they didn’t have anypony worth caring for or maybe they just had other things that were more important, but they’ve already made their decision, probably long before they ever met you.”
“So… leave them alone?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “Maybe… but regardless of life’s ups and downs, most ponies do desire companionship of one manner or another. In the right circumstances, even the grumpiest pony could find a lifelong friend in the unlikeliest of places, but it’s getting there that’s the problem. Ponies who don’t respond well to overtures of friendship generally want most of all to avoid the shallow kind. I think the best thing you can do in that kind of situation is to just… well, this probably isn’t the best example for you, but I’d suggest treating it like a date.”
I… what? “What?”
“Well, a platonic, one-sided date, of course, but if you think about it…” Her mood improving a bit as it leans toward teasing. “The purpose of a date is to get to know somepony, compare your likes and dislikes and see if there’s any room for the two of you to grow together. If the only option for friendship with someone is a serious one, then you have to treat it seriously and that includes asking yourself if you could really fit with that person and moving on from there. If the answer is yes, then that should give you some idea of how to reach them.”
“And did it work?”
She shakes her head. “She… left… for reasons that weren’t directly related to me but might as well have been. I never really properly got to know her, so I don’t know what would have happened if I’d done things right. It really hit me hard and I spent a lot of time talking it out with auntie—um—that is, Princess Celestia. That’s one reason I jumped into foalsitting with all four hooves; I had to go back out and keep trying to make friends, though, uh, in the end I haven’t really actually run into anypony like that since then.”
Cadance lapses into quietly looking out of the ferry for the rest of the trip, which isn’t too long this time of year. Eventually, we can see Cloudsdale in the distance, which seems to bring her back to the present. “Oh, uhh, sorry; I guess all of that wasn’t really what you wanted to hear. I’m not good at the…” she gestures vaguely in the air. “Uplifting princessly wisdom thing yet. All I was trying to say was that moving to a new place can be hard, but you can’t let it stop you from going out and making new friends.”
“O…kay,” I answer as the ferry pulls into Cloudsdale and the half-full cabin is suddenly full of bustling ponies and flapping wings as most of them just leave over the side.
Cadance waits until all the activity has died down before finally getting up and lifting me onto her back, which seems like a very Celestia thing to do. “Well, enough of that. We came here to have fun, didn’t we?”
⁂
We do have fun. The end.
⁂
Okay, okay, so the trip is worth more than that. I find Cloudsdale rather fascinating in spite of it not really being a tourist town like Las Pegasus—particularly because it’s not a tourist town like Las Pegasus, actually. There really is no way to make Cloudsdale ground-pony-friendly, even for those who can actually cast the cloud-walking spell, so instead everything is taken to the other extreme; there are no roads, buildings have entrances on all levels and the deep-fried fish stand where I get a drink the size of my head to quickly finish off and slowly fill back up with love is on its own little cloud floating around the city not unlike an ice cream cart.
Since there’s no brochures or tour guides telling us what to do, we just fly off, heading nowhere in particular. It’s interesting enough just flapping from roof to roof looking at all the things that are different from life in Canterlot, and Cadance has more than enough enthusiasm for the both of us, prompting me to ask if she hasn’t been here before.
“Nope!” she cheerfully admits as we fly over what looks to be an empty sports stadium. “I’ve told you before that I grew up in an earth pony village, right? It was way out in the Baahamas; not even technically part of Equestria, but out in sheep country, so we didn’t even get weather deliveries out there. I’ve wanted to come, but I’ve never just made the time since it wasn’t urgent and I didn’t have anypony to come with.”
Well, I can hardly argue with that. I mean, there are touristy things in Canterlot that I’ve never done. I can’t name any of them off the top of my head, but that also kind of proves the point, doesn’t it?
As for the sights, sounds and smells of Cloudsdale, there are plenty of interesting things to see and do, but the prevalence of fish in restaurants and cloud vendors is less an interesting curiosity to me and more something I could do without. I’ve seen plenty of meat dishes served at the castle, but it’s always been politely subdued, not something you can smell from a mile away. Unfortunately, Cadance notices me turning up my nose at them and gets it in her mind to take me to a fish and chips place for lunch to try and change mine.
She fails completely.
I suppose, in theory, if changelings can eat pony food in order to fit in then I should be able to stomach fish, but… no thanks. She pulls out the “When will you ever have this chance again?” argument, but it’s ineffective—not that I can tell her why. At length she pouts and gives in once she realizes we’re making a scene and orders me the hayfries and mushroom burger I ask for, but it’s too late for our disagreement to go unnoticed.
The fish and chips shop has more than the usual complement of gryphons, which we’ve been seeing a few of here and there, and Cadance makes the mistake of asking if I’ve ever known one before.
“None I’d like to mention,” I grumble without even thinking about it. “Even the nicer rich ones think honor means walking around with a chip on their shoulder and the poor ones are apparently in the business of kidnapping orphans.”
Cadance seems to be in a hurry to leave after that. I make sure to bring my second drink of the day with me.
⁂
Late in the afternoon, we chance across a field of clouds that looks like it’s been put together as a three-dimensional playground. Several areas are set up for different sports, while the rest is a mess of obstacles that form a series of courses. It looks fun, so we give it a shot and I learn three things.
One, I’m apparently not nearly as good a flier as I thought.
Two, neither is Cadance, in spite of her having actually grown up as a pegasus.
And three, I get lost easily and am therefore an absolute master at cloud-hide-and-seek.
Ironically, it’s the third point that actually outs me as a tourist—sort of.
A whole group of fillies and colts gather around after the game, which I apparently won. “That’s cheating, right?” one gruff voice says, though I think it’s good-natured. “That’s gotta count as cheating!”
“Hey, be nice!” somepony else with a softer voice retorts. “Albinism is a serious disease, can’t you see the glasses?”
“Your face is a disease, Breaking Wind!” I seriously hope that’s a nickname.
A slim, older filly with a lightburst cutie mark comes up beside me. “Hey, name’s Dazzleflash, what’s yours?”
“Whitewash,” I tell them. Everypony stares at me. “What?”
“Ah, don’t let em bother you,” Dazzleflash says, waving it off. “You’re from the ground, right?”
“Yeah?” I say, prompting an explanation.
Dazzleflash shrugs. “Eh, with your coat and mane, there’s no way if you were born here that your name wouldn’t have ‘cloud’ in it at least once.”
I give her a level look. “At least once? So, what, someone might have named me Cloudy Cloud?”
“Ask Nimbus Thunderhead the Seventh over there if you think I’m joking,” she says, jerking her head in the direction of a slate gray colt with black hair and a thunder cutie mark.
I’m tempted to tell them I’m actually a unicorn who’s been turned into a pegasus by a Discordian artefact.
We play tag instead and the clouds are lava.
⁂
Staring out into the sunset on the ferry home, I wonder how it is I had to become a changeling to feel like a normal pony… and feel like being a normal pony is actually an okay thing to be.
⁂
Twilight Sparkle and Moon Dancer are waiting for me after Cadance drops me off at home and says her goodbyes. It’s moderately creepy having them both just standing there with blank looks when I open the door, though the second, smaller Moon Dancer riding on the original’s back tilts the situation back towards merely surreal.
Nopony would ever accuse changelings of not having a sense of drama.
I sigh. “It’s time?”
Twilight nods.
“Figures,” I say, shaking my head and walking over the threshold. “The cup on the stoop has something like a half a litre of love in it. It’s a fraction of what I produced today, but it’s something and my amoreal sack hasn’t crystallized wholesale, so there’s that.”
I can hear Twilight banging her head on the threshold as I glide down into the basement.
A minute later, it’s actually Moon Dancer’s neurospast that comes down with the cup on her back, the real, nearly foal-sized Moon Dancer holding it in place. I’m never going to get used to that.
“So, you’re giving up being a changeling to become a dragon?” Moon Dancer asks through the neurospast as she empties the cup of love into the cistern. I think it might actually be the first thing she’s said to me since Twilight came back and possibly the most normal that I can remember off the top of my head.
I shrug. “Yeah, that was the deal,” I say, noncommittally.
She cocks her head. “You don’t have to.”
I hesitate. It would be a lie to say that I hadn’t considered it, but it would also be a lie to say I’d done so properly, so I stop and think. Is becoming a dragon really what I want? To become a creature of greed and hunger who will eventually grow too large to even enter a city, let alone properly interact with ponies? Would that make me happy, or would settling for a life as a changeling, knowing I’m loved, make me happier?
The answer comes easier than I thought it would and actually surprises me.
“No, I don’t have to, but it’s what I want. The hivemind makes me too uncomfortable and I hate having to avoid touching anyling. The sheer capabilities and potential of changelings is incredible and there are things I’d really love to do with them… but I’d want to be in charge. I’d want Twilight’s job or even my own hive.”
Moon Dancer looks me dead in the eye and says, “You can have them.”
I… frown. “No, I can’t. The hive mind would never allow it. Changeling hives don’t get along, so helping create another one wouldn’t make sense.”
“Twilight is sure that she can rebirth me into a more proper changeling,” she says, walking over to the wall and sitting down next to it, the smaller Moon Dancer climbing on top of her head. “She can do the same for you—anything you want to be. She can make you the kind of changeling she is and you’d be able to shut off the hive mind completely. You could completely isolate yourself… and you might even metamorphose into a queen while still technically being a part of ours when you want to be. You’re smart, Sunset Shimmer. I have no doubt that any project you want to do would benefit the hive enough to justify the resources.”
I wonder, offhand, when I stopped talking to Moon Dancer—or if I ever was? “That’s flattering, but still… no. I don’t plan on abandoning Twilight and her project, so having another kind of magic on hoof can only help when we need to approach problems from another direction.”
“Huh… yeah, I can see that,” Moon Dancer responds and I blink at the sudden casualness of it, as if she wasn’t invested in it at all. “So, how does one become a dragon?”
“You don’t know through the hive mind?” I ask.
Moon Dancer shakes her heads. “The hive mind’s collective knowledge doesn’t store every last bit of information. I could try to work it out from the information that’s there, or I could ask someling who knows, like Twilight, or I could ask you.”
Oh, yeah. Twilight had complained that the hive mind doesn’t make a very good library, hadn’t she? “Well, the way I understand it, I saturate the egg with the changeling magic I’ve stored until it’s about ready to grow a soul, at which point it should essentially be my own little hive mind, which I then enter, and Twilight straight up murders my changeling body, leaving my soul nowhere else to go. From there, someone uses my old body to feed more magic to the egg until it’s clear of any changeling magic and eventually it hatches.”
“That is correct,” Twilight Sparkle says from the door. “Or mostly correct, in any case. You neglected to include the stage after I ‘straight up murder your changeling body,’ wherin we shall continue feeding the egg your stored changeling magic for a time before slowly weaning you onto pure pony magic, but at that point it will be… none of your concern, so your memory of the procedure is adequate for your needs. Shall we begin?”
⁂
There’s some shuffling as the cistern is capped off, Twilight procures the egg, I shed my pegasus disguise and everything is prepared.
⁂
The magic-resistant resin peels off the egg like one of those stupid wax-coated cheeses, except without the little tab of cloth that makes it easy to break the seal on. Seriously, a little foresight would have helped a lot more than getting the bread knife from the kitchen.
⁂
My horn grows bright and hot as I pump magic into it, stop to gulp down more of it in liquid form and continue as quickly as possible. I probably have nothing to worry about since it’s orders of magnitude faster than a natural incubation, but I press on anyway since my immortal gender is at stake.
⁂
I lose track of time somewhere around the tenth pod of stored magic. When I’d insisted we do this in a single sitting, I hadn’t actually considered what it would entail. If my horn wasn’t already curved, I think it would be warped that way by now.
⁂
I’m desperately chugging another pod of glowing green fluid when Twilight finally yells, “Stop!” and I freeze. She lets me finish the pod and I wipe the spillage from my mouth with my bone-white arm.
⁂
For some reason, I had expected connecting to the egg as if it’s a hive mind to be difficult, but with no ability to regulate my connection, I all but fall in the moment I touch the egg.
⁂
The sensation of an empty hive mind is completely unlike the real thing. Is this what it would have been like if I’d taken Moon Dancer up on the offer to become queen?
⁂
I only have a moment to think about it before a sharp pain enters the back of my head and takes away my ability to think.
⁂
Wait.
⁂
Was that the bread knife?
⁂
Did she seriously just kill me with the bread knife?
⁂
Really?