//------------------------------// // Idling Around I // Story: My Little Changeling -- "I" is Magic // by Wing Dancer //------------------------------// It was a sunny and warm afternoon – perfect weather for the picnic Melel and his wife Sun Flare had planned. The two packed a few sandwiches and light deserts, wrapping it all in a red and white squared sheet. They would probably pick up drinks on their way to the park; the lemon stand owned by Mr. Floaty was one of the best on this side of Manehattan… Twilight smiled briefly. This wasn’t so bad. It was surprising that Chip read something decent for once. “Wonder where this is all going. It’s only like…a tenth of the book so far. Everyone seems pretty happy and content so far,” she said to herself, adjusting the position she was lying in and pinning her stare to the book. * * * “Thank sun and moon you switched appearance before that pony came in.” sighed Celestia. Even if he did, there wouldn’t be much trouble in catching him, thought Chip. “Well, now that you have been seen, there isn’t much we can do. You will have to stay here, as your current…state would raise too many questions. And I don’t have any clothes you could put on your back. All the ponies who think of themselves as high society tend to wear at least a tie, and I have nothing that could fit you. Nothing coltly, at least.” The changeling shrugged. Another fun fact about ponies. They liked to cover their bodies, and that made them ‘high society’, whatever that meant. Did that mean that they had ponies, this ‘high society’ thing and then the Queens, err, Princessess? Not being able to ask such a question irked Chip more than the fact that he would have to spend at least a few hours in this boring room. “I’m really sorry, but I’m late as I am right now. Please, stay here, don’t open the door, don’t let anypony see you. Nopony should enter here anyway, but you can never be too sure,” said the Princess, opening the door and peering outside. Nopony in sight. “I should be done in four, maybe five hours. If Luna will come around faster, I’ll be relieved even earlier, but I doubt that sleepy head will even try and do something nice for me for a change. Eh. Anyway, stay safe my friend.” With those words Chip was left alone in the room the sun goddess slept in. Stuck in a disguise with a swollen face, barely capable of swallowing saliva or even breathing, he decided to lie down for a while. The bed was so soft the changeling panicked for a second, certain he would get enveloped in the sea of blankets. They indeed end up wrapping around him, obscuring view and igniting his sore face. Chip fought for a while, tumbling left and right, hearing strange ripping sounds that he would probably regret later. Finally, after some time the sheets yielded, falling off the bed ever so gently. The room floor was now covered in what looked like expensive dresses and a sheet that one could put a hoof through in more than just one place. It kind of reminded the changeling of his former den, but without the books and other clutter he so much treasured. I wonder what Chrysalis did with my stuff. She threw it away? Kept it? Burned it? I miss my books. I miss my hive. I miss being a…a changeling. Chip loosened up, allowing his thoughts to darken and give birth to some rainy clouds above his head. Great time to get homesick, he thought, staring at the ceiling and remembering his former life. One that he had barely a month or two ago. * * * ”Have another, Anon. Bright Twinkle threw you out of the house again?” asked a worried Melel, hoofing a beer over to his friend. “Yeah,” sighed the colt, swirling the liquid in his mug. “I just don’t know what's wrong. I mean, I love her, she loves me, but sometimes…sometimes, I just get the feeling that she doesn’t understand me. That we are in two different, uh, worlds. You get what I’m saying?” Melel closed his eyes and wrinkled his forehead. “Well…maybe. Kind of. Me and Sun Flare love each other too, but…yeah, sometimes we fight. Over nothing. Why the curtains are red instead of magenta, why do I spend so much time with you, and so on, and so on…” “Mares,” chuckled Anon, sipping his beverage. “They totally don’t get stallions, now do they?” The librarian craned her neck left and right. After some adjustments a relieving click sounded from the back of her head. Not like she read long enough for her to be stiff or anything but… A loud groan erupted from her belly. “Yeah, I guess it’s time to eat something. This isn’t such a bad book. Can’t wait to see how they’ll solve their problems. Maybe…” The mare blushed, shooing away thoughts of a certain non-pony she had lingering thoughts about. “Nah. It’s just fiction. This is not a manual. You are not a manual,” she said to the book. If it could, it would feel offended for being thought lesser of. “I wonder if Spike is home…Spiiike!” * * * In the barracks huddled close to the Canterlot castle walls, a group of guards listened carefully to their friend as he relayed a story out of this world. “…and then, I heard a smack. As if, you know, somepony broke a chair or something. I come to the door, you know, not sure if I should check up or not. I mean, this is the Princess, you know what I’m talking about?” The others nodded with understanding. There was no set of rules or codices that described how to act around the Princess, and the mare herself always encouraged her subjects to ‘loosen up’ around her. It wasn’t that easy when somepony towered over you, her mane and wings with horn reminding you of her awesome power and immortality. “So, I just respectfully knock and open the door a little bit. I was like, ‘is everything okay, your highness?’ And then I froze.” The others waited, egged on by the dramatic pause the pegasus guard made. “Holy Luna, I’ve never seen such a mess. Clothes everywhere, the bed was all ruffled up, I swear I saw some blood on the floor. And there, just in the middle, she was there. Princess Celestia. I mean, wow, she was as stunning as ever, but that expression! It was…it was…I don’t even know!” The guard waved his hooves around, causing ripples of whispering through the crowd. “And there was a guy in there too. Big, beefed up, almost as big as her. But his face, oh Luna, his face! It was like a mashed tomato with a side order of ketchup. All red, swollen, sun and moon she must have smacked that poor bastard hard. But you know what? I think he liked that. He was kind of smiling, if you could ever read that thing he called a muzzle.” “And then what? Did she want you to ‘come in and help?’” Everypony burst out laughing, silenced by a single hoof of the storyteller. “You stupid? I just excused myself and ran for the hills. Luna, if she ever finds me, I’m done for! I can only imagine the stuff she’s been doing with the bloke. I mean, we all knew the Princess had it in her, right?” A grunt from the audience prompted the guard to carry on. “I never even would have suspected she liked it that rough.” “You know, power over the nation, power over the bed,” said somepony in the back, a salvo of laughter following his words. “Yeah, that could be it. Anyway, let’s thank that poor colt, whatever his name is, for quenching Princess Celestia’s, uh, thing. So that we, as loyal guards that swore to do anything She asked of us, don’t have to. Thank you unnamed colt. You did us a favor. May you live on to ‘fight’ another day.” United in the only thing colts could truly unite in, the audience and story-teller went silent, each reciting their own personal wishes and prayer to ‘The Princess Tamer’. * * * Chip felt like sneezing. He was curious how his body would handle that with…with an obstructed wind…wind…w- AchooeyeeelPFFFHhhh When air wanted to get out, it simply did. It didn’t matter if it was the mouth, the nose or any other crevice. Nothing can stop a sneeze, not even a heavy allergic reaction. Pain or comfort weren’t a factor that air cared about. It was like an arrow, it had just one purpose – to escape. It could ride a tide of snot or saliva to just burst out from even the thinnest of mouth or nose holes. After Chip stopped hissing in pain, he took the closest, least fancy looking cloth piece and begun to gingerly wipe his face. “Ow. Ow. Ow…ach. Ow.” Well, at least the dark clouds got blown away for good. The changeling’s good spirits were returning from their trip to somewhere else when the colt decided he was clean enough to lie in bed again. He returned his gaze to the ceiling. Sweet Celestia… he sighed internally, reaching for the cloth again and beginning to wipe the ceiling. * * * Anon and Melel stood there, in the rain. None of them brought an umbrella. Not that they had any back at home…not that they had a loving home to come back to. Neither knew where rain begun and tears ended. This has probably been the biggest fight they had with their loved ones since forever. Words that should not have been said escaped their cages, ripping and tearing at everypony’s hearts. Truth never did as much damage as it did in that time. “I knew they wouldn’t understand, Melel,” said Anon, his voice choked down and breaking. “Nopony understands,” whispered Melel. His thoughts were in disarray, but he knew his friend needed a shoulder to lean on more than he did. He was so timid… “What are we going to do now? Where can we go?” “I…I don’t know yet,” said the taller colt, gently stroking his friend’s mane. It was all wet and stuck to his skin, which was only a bit warmer than the summer rain. “But for now, we should find some shelter. Uhh, that shed should be alright. Let’s go,” he whispered into Anon’s face, giving him a reassuring, warm smile. Hoof by hoof, they slowly strode to the shack, finally leaving behind the hail that the Manehattan pegasi planned today… “Huh?” Twilight frowned slightly, again searching for that wonderful crack in her neck. “Such a fight over spending time with friends? Are those mares insane or something? Of course everypony needs friends! You can’t just tie down somepony just for themselves…ahh,” sighed the mare, finally experiencing the sweet release of her spine aligning itself properly in the back of her head. “Spike! Are you back yet?! There is something gross on the floor that needs cleaning!” yelled the librarian, but to no avail. The baby dragon was away for some time now. “Maybe he went shopping or something,” shrugged Twilight, returning her reluctant gaze towards the book. * * * The ceiling was no longer pristine white. As hard as Chip tried, there was just no way of wiping everything clean and dry with this one piece of cloth. Hopefully, Celestia didn’t sleep on her back too often. And even if she did, she would probably not connect Chip and the barely visible stain together. “Whatever. I gotta find something to do,” grumbled the colt, incinerating the useless piece of cloth. It burned down into nothingness within a second. Chip looked around the room again. Apart from the many wardrobes, there were some dressers whose contents could prove entertaining. The colt opened the first one… * * * “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. NOPE,” repeated Twilight, dashing up the laboratory stairs. “Nope, nope, nope, nu-uh, nope, nope,” she continued, full speed ahead up her bedroom staircase. “Nope, nope, no, no, nope, NOPE,” she finished, in one fluid motion diving under her blankets and covering her head with a pillow. She wanted to mute out the voice that constantly repeated the last few sentences she read in that hell-spawn book. Alas, it was impossible. The voice along with gross images attached to it persisted in her mind, rewinding and fast forwarding like the worst short clip ever. I knew it. I. Knew. It. Chip is a pervert. The book is evil. Who writes stuff like that?! Who owns books like that?! Where the hay he got it from?! The mare was fighting with herself, twitching and fidgeting under the blanket. She should have known something was amiss when the two colts nuzzled each other. She should have guessed it was coming when the author spent like half a page describing colt anatomy in a very suggestive way. And now?! Ugh. Twilight had nothing against literature in general, but as any reader, she had her tastes. She didn’t pay much attention to romance mainly because the scenarios within were over the top and too heavy for her. And now, now that she decided to give the genre a chance, she got surprised like that. Surprised from behind, of all things. Oh Celestia, why did I think thaaaat…