A mischievous grin grew on Trixie’s muzzle as she subtly leaned over to tap Starlight on the withers. Her friend and fellow unicorn responded with raised brow as she looked up from her half eaten plate of pancakes. From there it only took Trixie a slight head tilt to direct Starlight’s attention toward their third companion at the breakfast table, Twilight Sparkle.
Deeply engrossed in a stack of notes, the purple alicorn appeared to be oblivious to her surroundings as she ate her own meal. Guided by magic, a levitating fork would periodically skewer a piece of pancake on her plate and deliver it into her open mouth. Then once the morsel had been thoroughly chewed and swallowed the process would just repeat itself in a reminiscently robotic manner.
Unsure what the blue unicorn was trying to point out, other than Twilight being Twilight, Starlight again adopted a confused expression. One more Trixie motioned to Twilight and then silently mouthed ‘watch this’ before adding in a conspiratorial wink.
Channeling her own magic, Trixie stealthily levitated the remainder of the alicorn’s pancakes and a stick of butter; then, in-between bites, swiftly replaced one with the other. Starlight had to cover her mouth with a hoof to suppress a giggle as the fork pierced the butter and brought the entire thing up to the unsuspecting alicorn’s maul; but when she witnessed Twilight’s shocked expression after biting into it, she couldn’t hold back laughing any longer.
“Huh!?” Twilight exclaimed as she sputtered around the mouthful of butter, inadvertently sending speckles into the pages in front of her.
After snatching up a napkin and using it to obscure her muzzle while collecting the unwanted tidbit, the alicorn gave the duo sitting across from her an excusatory glare.
“Don’t look at me,” said Starlight, futilely trying to stop from chuckling.
Twilight frowned deeply, switching her focus to the smug looking Trixie.
“Why would you do something so rude?” questioned the alicorn. “Especially after I invited you to join us for breakfast.”
“Excuse me, but isn’t it rude for a host to ignore her guests?” retorted the blue unicorn. “You’ve spent this entire time with your snout in those papers.”
“Sorry but the changelings are scheduled to stop by this morning for their checkups and I wanted to go over my notes again before they arrive,” Twilight explained as she used another napkin to clean up the notes.
“The good changelings or the bad changelings?” asked Trixie.
“Cricket and Maxilla, from Thorax’s hive,” said Starlight now that her giggle fit had played out.
“The good changelings,” Trixie nodded. “They enjoy seeing Trixie’s wondrous feats of prestidigitation!”
Twilight and Starlight both rolled their eyes without the blue unicorn noticing.
“Anyway,” Starlight turned to the alicorn, “have you discovered anything yet?”
“No, nothing,” Twilight sighed, “and it’s been months since I started.”
“What’s been months?” interrupted Trixie as she leaned over the table to pick up a piece of toast.
“Really Trixie?” Starlight deadpanned. “You don’t remember what I told you about the reformed changelings?”
“Don’t be silly, of course Trixie remembers,” said the blue unicorn with a nonchalant chuckle and a dismissive wave of a hoof. “But, you know, a little refresher wouldn’t hurt.”
“Last time they met, Chrysalis told Twilight that the reformed changelings will end up getting sick by some unknown illness,” Starlight clarified. “So Twilight has been working with some of the changelings from Thorax’s hive and monitoring their health.”
“Wait, is that why they’ve been showing up every few weeks?” Trixie balked, stopping in the middle of spreading jam on her toast.
“That’s right,” affirmed Twilight.
“Oh…” frowned the blue unicorn.
“Oh?” asked Starlight, tilting her head. “Why did you think they had been visiting Ponyville so much lately?”
“I thought they’ve been coming all this time just to see Trixie perform her spectacular magic acts,” the show-mare muttered disappointedly.
“Trixie, they go to your show to feel better after Twilight’s finished with them,” joked Starlight.
“Hey! I’ll have you know my bedside manner is very professional,” the alicorn defended herself.
“Sorry, I was only kidding,” Starlight responded seriously.
“I guess I’m just frustrated about how little headway I’ve made,” Twilight said and then released another sigh as she straightened out her notes.
“What about the doctors from Canterlot that you’ve been working with?” asked Starlight, “Haven’t they been helping?”
“Not as much as I had hoped,” Twilight replied. “A few of them even abandoned the research project; said ‘they have pony patients to worry about instead’.”
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” scowled Starlight, “but that seems typical of Canterlot ponies.”
“Right now I feel like I’m not much better,” Twilight admitted. “Between running the school and everything else, I’ve only been able to devote a small amount of time to this.”
“Twilight, changeling biology has never really been researched before,” Starlight said trying to reassure her friend. “And it hasn’t even been a year since you started. Nopony expects you to figure everything out about them overnight.”
“I know, I know,” breathed Twilight. “Still, I wish I had something to ease their minds…”
“Honestly, I think you’ve been worrying about it more than they have,” Starlight said. “Well, at least from what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, they always seem so upbeat,” added Trixie, “I’ve never seen any of them acting sad or upset.”
“That’s because a lot of them still think Chrysalis was lying about the entire thing,” admitted Twilight. “And it doesn’t help her credibility that she hasn’t followed through on the agreement we’ve made.”
“What agreement?” Trixie asked with a mouth full of jelly smothered toast.
“Chrysalis was supposed to send a changeling from her hive every now and again to act as an ambassador,” said Starlight. “But the last changeling anypony has seen from her hive was Phasmid and that was the day after they moved away.”
“And he only wanted to talk to his sister, Cricket,” added Twilight. “I tried to convince him to help with the research, since his sister is one of the reformed changelings, but he was too apprehensive. He wouldn’t even give a little blood sample.”
“To be fair, Trixie wouldn’t let you take a blood sample from her ether,” quipped the blue unicorn.
“Changeling blood is really fascinating actually,” said Twilight ignoring the show-mare and flipping through her papers, “for one thing, despite its greenish yellow hue, it’s more similar to a ponies than an insects’ and while ponies have red blood cells that transfer oxygen throughout our bodies, the changelings have green ones; and despite having a carapace, they have a vascular system instead of an open circulatory system.”
“An open circular what who?” blinked Trixie.
“Insects have an open circulatory system,” Twilight said, smiling as she went into full on lecture mode. “That means their hemolymph is in direct contact with their organs for oxygenation and the transferal of nutrients. While, in contrast, ponies have a vascular system where our blood is transferred to our organs through veins.”
“Right, of course,” nodded Trixie before leaning over to Starlight and whispering, “what’s a hemolymph?”
“It’s an insect’s version of blood,” whispered back her friend.
“Ah,” responded Trixie and then she looked at her half eaten piece of toast, slathered in red strawberry jam. “Maybe this isn’t the best discussion to have while Trixie eats.”
“Oh! The changeling’s digestive system! “Twilight excitedly said, “That’s another interesting thing.”
A teasing smirk grew across Starlight’s muzzle as she looked over at the show-mare who was increasingly growing uncomfortable. Sensing the other unicorn’s intent, Trixie gave Starlight an imploring look, silently begging her not to encourage the conversation to continue in its current direction.
“Really Twilight? How so?” asked Starlight which in turn caused Trixie to grit her teeth and glare at her supposed best friend.
“Well, from what Thorax and the other changelings have explained to me, they have a very unique set of organs, since changelings feed on both organic matter and emotions,” the alicorn said. “First chewed up solid food travels down the esophagus and into the crop where it’s stored until it’s ready to be digested in the stomach or regurgitated.”
“Why would a changeling need to regurgitate their food?” Starlight inquired.
Growing pale, Trixie slumped in her chair.
“For two reasons actually,” explained Twilight, completely immersed in her impromptu lesson. “One, it's done to feed their larvae, since they have trouble with solid foods; and two, by mixing the slurry with a specialized salvia and depending on the salvia to slurry ratio, create the hard resin like material used in the formation of their hives; or the more gelatinous substance used to construct cocoons.”
“So let me get this straight, when we visited the changeling hive we were walking around on changeling vomit?” asked the visibility nauseous Trixie.
“No no no, vomiting and regurgitation are two different things,” clarified Twilight. “Vomiting is the expulsion of the stomach’s contents and is usually involuntary due to illness while regurgitation is a voluntary process.”
“Trixie will need to pack boots next time she travels to the changeling’s kingdom…” murmured the show-mare as she pushed her plate away.
“So what happens to the love they eat?” Starlight asked before taking a sip of her orange juice.
“Even the changelings aren’t one hundred percent sure; but from what I’ve been able to gather, it’s transferred through the crop,” Twilight said, flipping to another page in her notes, “and then it’s absorbed by another smaller organ, at least that’s the theory. That’s why today I’m going to ask one of the changelings, again, to volunteer to an x-ray so we can have a better idea of how their organs are arranged.”
“Again?” asked Starlight, her head tilting a little to the side.
“I’ve tried to convince them a few times to get one, but they always back out at the last minute,” said the alicorn. “Something about the machine frightens them. That’s why this time I’m going to show them this!”
In a flash of light Twilight vanished, teleporting away from her seat at the table and leaving two confused unicorns behind. When Trixie was about to open her mouth and ask Starlight what just happened, the alicorn reappeared; only now holding in her hooves a pane of black tinted glass encased in a strange crystal adorned rectangular frame.
“And what’s that?” Trixie asked.
“This,” Twilight said, proudly holding the object in front of herself, “is silica, housed in a thaumaticaly enchanted frame that will imitate an x-ray. All I need to do is apply the proper amount of magic and, voilà.”
Eager to demonstrate her invention, the alicorn shot a small beam of energy from her horn and into one of the crystals. A light hum resonated throughout the frame as the magic divided itself up, transferred equally to the remaining crystals and then into the glass causing it to glow.
The result immediately caused Trixie and Starlight’s eyes widened in surprise.
“So that’s what a brain looks like…” Starlight commented quietly to herself.
“Trixie should have just let her read her papers…” said the show-mare before promptly fainting.