Several months have passed since the dragon migration and the overall mood of the group currently residing in the forests of the Smokey Mountains has only gotten better since Persephone joined. Better for the only resident human in Equestria that is. Tirek, on the other hand, has only been subjected to torment far worse than his time in Tartarus.
Fortunately, today seemed to be a relatively calm day, to the joy of the centaur, who was currently leaning against a tree while eating an apple. He watched as Ethan performed various stretches with a self made body length wooden staff. One would almost call him graceful as he shifted from pose to pose, controlling his breathing all the while.
Persephone and Cerberus were currently keeping themselves busy by attempting to draw on the ground in an area Persephone had previously burned on accident. It also happened to be the old location of Ethan's tent, but the human had yet to elaborate on the sudden moving of his tent overnight.
The day had yet to have anything interesting happen, as was the same with the majority of their days. But with each passing day, Tirek could feel his powers slowly beginning to reveal themselves. The most recent of which was his magical awareness, because what was the point in being able to take magic from things if you couldn't tell how much magic something had? He could feel the large amounts of magical power from both Persephone and Cerberus, which was expected, but the amount they had still gave him pause.
Ethan though, was another conundrum entirely.
Tirek knew he wouldn't get the same feel from Ethan as the rest of the creatures in Equestria, given that his body doesn't react at all with magic. Yet, the general lack of any magic whatsoever on his body took a while to get used to. If Tirek closed his eyes, he could feel general magical presences and accurately guess their location. Whereas the human he could pinpoint exactly where he was at any point within his range of magical perception, simply because of the sheer lack of anything magical where he stands.
Even when Persephone was in his hair, her magical aura would shift around the human completely, but no magic seeped into his form. Tirek had hypothesized about the potential benefits this could have. The most prominent of which was using him as a magical shield, one that, most likely, wouldn't be capable of breaking. The only issue with that plan was having Ethan's consent with using him in such a way, since magic wouldn't be capable of subduing him. Not that that would stop him from trying if he was against the idea.
"Hey, Tirek? Did you also get a weird feeling just now?" Ethan asked, having come to a stop in his stretches to peer through the hole in the tree line, with Persephone and Cerberus joining him. Unfortunately, the trees were too tall to really see anything other than things directly above their clearing.
Tirek focused on his surroundings, attempting to find what Ethan was asking about. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and pushed his magical sense outwards as much as he could. Sweat accumulated on his brow as he focused for several seconds, nothing seeming out of the ordinary. Just as Tirek was going to tell Ethan off, he suddenly felt a very large magical influx occurring from the direction of Canterlot.
"Holy Shit!" Ethan shouted, causing Tirek to open his eyes and look up towards the sky. A massive purple wave of magic was shooting across the sky, carrying along with it hundreds of black figures. Several seconds passed before the wave of magic dissipated, but the black figures continued to be blasted away from Canterlot.
'It seems those Changelings have reappeared in Equestria. Tirek thought, continually amused by the Changeling's repeated failures at taking over Equestria throughout the years, having heard many stories of the creatures when he was growing up.
Cerberus's pounding steps could be heard coming in his direction and Tirek looked down to see Ethan coming closer with Persephone resting in his hair like usual. A headache started to form in preparation for the questions he was bound to be asked.
"That... was something else. What the fuck is strong enough to launch all those things that far?" The human asked as he got close to the centaur, curious and slightly concerned that there are things so powerful in Equestria.
"Knowing those ponies," Tirek spat. "It probably had something to do with the power of 'love and friendship', bah" Tirek sharply waved a claw.
"They have an ultra powerful weapon that uses love and friendship to work? That's... kind of lame actually, and really cliché too," Ethan said, disappointed by the reasoning behind such powerful looking magic.
'It couldn't have been some ultra powered technology or one of the princesses letting loose... No, it had to be love and friendship, because of course it is.' Ethan thought to himself as he stopped near Tirek, sitting down on the ground in front of him. He reached up to his hair and held out his hand, feeling Persephone step onto his palm. Pulling her down to his lap, he let her jump from his hand and get comfortable. Cerberus layed down just behind Ethan.
"You know... from my world the power of friendship is a more grounded concept. Its simply used as an alternate means of saying work with others is easier than work on your own. The better you work with others, the better you'll be overall," Ethan sighed. "It's still a lot to adjust to, yah know? The fact that friendship is actually the reason things are defeated. Or that upholding strong virtues of self gives you access to the most power weapon on this planet. Those 'Elements of Harmony' you briefly mentioned back in Tartarus," he finished as he gently pet the phoenix in his lap.
Tirek stared at the human for several seconds. "I might as well explain what they are in more detail. You may be a buffoon, but at least you can be a knowledgeable one," Tirek said with a smirk, causing Ethan to flip him off.
"The Elements of Harmony are quite literally the jewels of the ponies. They are one of the most dangerous things in Equestria; capable of defeating any creature, no matter how powerful. They only have two weaknesses: one being that they must all be used together, even just one missing leads to the jewels being just that, jewels. While the other is that the individual or group must embody one of the elements. It matters not whether one of them imbodies only two of the elements and four others embody only one. It just matters that they're all shown. At least... that is what my brother told me long ago, before he betrayed me and helped those princesses imprison me," The centaur finished his explanation and just before Ethan could ask another question their attention was taken by a sudden buzzing sound in the distance.
Quickly standing up, the group all turned to face the sound as it got progressively louder with each second. Cerberus started growling and Persephone began to glow on Ethan's shoulder, preparing for a fight. Several seconds passed but just as suddenly as it came the buzzing sound stopped.
Tension filled the air, the silent standoff stretching on as they waited for any kind of sign as to what was coming.
*CRACK*
Everyone whipped around to face the nearby tree line behind them. Tirek couldn't feel any magical fluctuations though, which meant that the creature could either hide it's magical presence or that the creature was so weak it was near indistinguishable from the magic given off from the environment. He knew which he would prefer now that he was at the front of the group instead of the giant guard dog and the pheonix.
Tirek continued to slowly scan the tree line, looking for any kind of movement. Multiple scans of the tree line resulted in nothing though. Taking the opportunity, he motioned for Ethan to step up next to him. The human making sure to hide the sounds of his footsteps, so as to not make the creature aware of his and Persephone's presence getting closer.
After stopping next to Tirek, the human glanced questioningly at the Centaur, who took a few steps backwards while gesturing him forward. Ethan gave Tirek the stink eye and rolled his eyes as Tirek shrugged his shoulders with a smirk.
Getting an idea, Ethan looked at Persephone, who was watching the tree line like a hawk. Giving her a slight poke, she looked at him. Ethan brought his hands together in front of them and made and explosion motion with his hands, with a silent boom on his lips.
Understanding what he wanted, Persephone cracked her neck and glowed brighter, feeling excited about what was to come. Flapping her wings a few times, Persephone suddenly shot off of Ethan's shoulder and beelined through the trees, hoping to catch the intruder off guard.
It only took a few seconds for Ethan, Tirek and Cerberus to hear a girlish scream nearby and rapid movement coming towards them. A black figure, which Tirek recognized as a changeling, burst out from the bushes near the tree line with a fire lit at the end of it's fibrous tail. Before any of them could make a move towards the creature, buzzing could be heard as the creature took flight straight towards the river. The group watched as it dove straight underneath the water to quickly put out the fire on it's tail.
Persephone gracefully flew out from the tree line and landed back onto Ethan's shoulder, joining the group as they walked close to the edge of the water to greet their new guest.
The changeling pulled up from the water, coughing and gasping for air, only for a throat being cleared to get their attention. Looking up, the changeling felt it's heart sink as six pairs of eyes bored through their chitin.
"I surrender!" The changeling said as it threw it's front legs into the air.
Ethan let out a snort, amused by the changeling's action and dropped his guard.
"Well... that was quick." Ethan clapped his hands together. "First things first then. What is your name and what are you?" Ethan asked the changeling. "Oh, hold on," Ethan said and turned to Tirek. "Tirek?" The centaur raised a brow in response. "Go grab some vine to tie them up with," Ethan ordered, Tirek tsked but did as he asked, silently agreeing that it was a good idea.
With Tirek walking away, Ethan turned to look at the changeling, one of the creatures Tirek had told him about in their time together in Tartarus.
"Please continue. I have questions and you're not exactly in a position to not answer them are you?" Ethan rhetorically asked as he gestured to Cerberus and Persephone, with the changeling rapidly nodding it's head in response.
"M-my name is Pupa (Pew-Pa), sir. I'm a ch-changeling," The now named changeling answered shakily.
"I already knew that, the changeling part at least. I simply acted like I didn't know what you were to see whether or not you'd lie, even when captured," Ethan explained as he waved off Cerberus and ran his hand down Persephone's back to get her to cool off.
"Well, Pupa, it seems that it's your lucky day. You're not gonna get killed anytime soon, because quite frankly, it's boring in this clearing we call home and you seem like an interesting individual," Ethan said with a smile. Pupa gazed at him with her large solid blue eyes, taking some time to process what she was just told.
"Why?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
Ethan gave her a strange look, "What do you mean why? I just told you the why."
"No no no, you don't understand... I'm a changeling. Insect pony that feeds off of emotions? I can even show you," Pupa said as she stepped out of the water, walking closer to Ethan. Opening her mouth, a green mist reached for Ethan, but before it connected to him it sharply turned upwards and towards Persephone instead. The pheonix let out a panicked chirp as she felt the mist hit, feeling her emotions getting slowly drained.
The mist cut off near instantly. Persephone gave a harsh breath and shuddered as her emotions returned to her. The changeling looked as shocked as the human.
Ethan turned his head back to Pupa, giving her a harsh glare as he quickly picked Persephone up off his shoulder and brought her to his chest. "That was probably one of the worst things you could have done. You better have a good explanation for that or maybe you'll become Cerberus's new chew toy," Ethan said as he thumbed towards Cerberus, who gave a growl deep enough for the changeling to feel in her chitin.
"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened," Pupa anxiously tried to think of an explanation. "I could feel the amusement coming from around you. I didn't know that it was the bird that was giving off the emotion instead. I tried to suck a little bit of emotions from you, not her! You've got to understand! I swear on my chitin that I wouldn't try to do that after being shown mercy!" Pupa shouted, getting more and more desperate by the second.
Ethan silently watched as the changeling started shaking like a leaf. Pitying her, he gave her a second chance to make a good impression. It helped that, according to Tirek, his current magic expert, that magic wouldn't act correctly when he was involved. The same could not be said for Persephone, who took to making herself as hot as possible without burning the grass or leaves nearby. Ethan noticed this but let her safeguard herself since it reduced the risk of him being attacked as well.
"Fine, I believe you," Ethan said causing Pupa to sag in relief.
"But!" The changeling tensed. "You must follow some ground rules while you're here. Rule number one: You ask before you take someone's emotions in the group. If what you and Tirek have told me about your species is true, then you can't be sustained by normal food, correct?" Ethan asked with a raised eyebrow. Pupa nodded her head.
"Figured as much. Second rule: If you're going to be gone for longer than a day be sure to let one of us know. I don't really care where you go, and I know for certain Tirek could give less of a shit whether you're dead or alive. It's more of a precaution in case you decide to stick around and join our little group. Final rule: Don't be a rat. Nobody likes rats and we, and by we I mean Tirek, have some future plans that would get wrecked if the wrong ponies heard about it too soon. Now, make yourself comfortable and feel free to ask any question that's on your mind," Ethan said as he turned around and walked towards his tent, content with wasting the rest of the day away.
"Persephone, go find Tirek and bring him back to the camp. I doubt we'll need those vines anymore." The pheonix looked hesitant at first to leave but slowly nodded her head and flew away in the direction of Tirek, being sure to heat the changeling up a little on her way out to keep the bug in line while she was gone.
After ducking under Persephone's pseudo-attack, Pupa could instantly feel why she couldn't suck the emotions from the weird monkey creature. He was not giving off any emotions at all. It was like she was talking to a brick wall. In all her years in the hive, she had never seen or heard of such a creature. Some creatures lacked certain emotions, like how many primal creatures lacked empathy, or dragons the ability to love. But never the lack of any emotions at all.
She continued to stare at the strange creature as he laid down next to a tent and appeared to just stare into the sky. The last few days had been rather busy for Pupa, between preparing for the invasion of Canterlot, to their eventual defeat yet again at the hooves of those ponies.
They were so close this time too, with Celestia having been imprisoned in a cocoon and Queen Chrysalis having been more powerful than she had been in centuries.
It was a roller coaster ride being one of Chrysalis's minions in the hive. Full of a few highs and many lows, with each loss hurting the hive even more than before. Most changelings stayed true to the hive ways, trusting the Queen to eventually lead them to salvation in Equestria. Yet, for the last few centuries they have remained pitifully weak, the entire hive retaining the holes on their hooves and tears in their wings and tails from a lack of nutrition. This led to some beginning to question the hive ways, and if their Queen was truly the best thing for the hive.
Pupa was one of these changelings; having been one of the original changelings to come out of the rotten tree alongside her Queen all those years ago. She had been there through all the highs and lows, unlike the majority of the hive. She was the only one of the originals with these questioning thoughts, not that she had asked. It was highly forbidden to voice these thoughts, or else the changeling would expect to be personally reprimanded by Queen Chrysalis. For the lucky ones, they were exiled from the hive entirely to fend for themselves. It was a risk none were willing to make. But Pupa knew she couldn't be the only one with these thoughts.
So her current situation presented her with a few rather unique options: To stick around and see what happens, or to find Queen Chrysalis again and go back to the same self-destructive routine that the changelings had found themselves in.
The choice was rather obvious.
Walking over to the lounging creature, the changeling could feel Cerberus's footsteps behind her as he followed, causing her to gulp. Stepping up beside Ethan, her shadow partially covering his face as she waited for him to open his eyes. She held her patience for several minutes. It wasn't until Cerberus walked away that she decided to just wing it.
"Um... sir," Pupa softly called, getting no response in return.
"Sir," She said more firmly, giving him a light poke on the shoulder to get his attention. Ethan didn't flinch in the slightest.
"I have a question to ask you. So stop ignoring me and look at me... please." She poked him harder and yet he might as well have been dead. Starting to get annoyed, Pupa huffed. What floored her even more was that she swore she saw the human's lips fighting off a smile.
"Fine. Don't say you didn't ask for this," Pupa said nonchalantly. Walking back towards the river, she brought her muzzle to the water and sucked in a mouth full of water. She made her way to Ethan and hovered over him, giving him a few seconds to stop ignoring her. She saw the slight glistening of his eye as he cracked an eyelid open. Steeling her resolve, she blew all the water in her mouth onto his face.
Ethan shot up, banging foreheads with Pupa causing them both to lean back and grab their heads in pain.
"Do you have a death wish or something?" Ethan asked as he rubbed his forehead with a hand. The changeling in front of him groaned as she struggled to massage her headache away with her hooves.
"No. I-ow... I just wanted to ask you a questi-ow," Pupa tried to say as the pain in her head persisted, making her feel light headed. Whimpering, she laid down, trying to will the pain to go away.
Ethan saw that she was struggling to get her head to stop hurting. Sighing, he crawled next to the changeling and nudged her hooves away from her head. She cracked an eye open to look at the human as he reached for her head.
"W-what are you doing?" She shakily asked as her nerves flared when she felt the human's hands grasp her head.
"Helping you. I'm sure those hooves aren't too good at massaging and I've been told I'm pretty hard headed," Ethan smirked as he started to gently rub Pupa's head. Feeling the smooth chitin under his fingers he maneuvered around the horn on her head while making sure not to press too hard. Going right under her horn, he felt a slight crack run underneath his thumb.
Moving his thumb, he leaned in to get a better look at the damage, noticing the small crack where he must've hit her. Tsking, he went back to rubbing her head, trying to avoid the crack on her head.
Ethan's fingers worked magic on the pain pulsing through Pupa's head. Relaxing her body, she let her head drop onto his lap so he could have easier access and to relieve some extra pressure.
"You'd probably like to know that you've got a crack on your head now," Ethan said casually, hoping she didn't freak out while her horn was so close to his body.
Any relief Pupa was feeling immediately vanished into thin air and she tensed, feeling her head throb again but ignoring it in favor of quickly getting up and flying over to the river, her wings having dried off enough to allow her to fly again. Looking into the stream, she attempted to see her reflection, but the water was moving too fast for her to get a solid look at her head. Hearing footsteps walking towards her, she turned around and watched as Ethan awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck with a hand.
"How bad is it?" She bluntly asked, her tone leaving no room for jokes. Ethan took a moment to lean in and inspect the crack more, he guessed it wasn't that bad.
"It's... not the worst?" Ethan half smiled in sympathy. "Maybe like an inch long but I'm not seeing hardly any separation, so it shouldn't kill you. Do changelings have the ability to heal that?" He asked.
Pupa nodded her head slowly so as not to aggravate her injury more than she already has. "We can, but we need emotions for that and I definitely don't have enough love to spare for a healing pod. Explains why my headache won't go away at least," The changeling said, trying to look on the bright side. Only for her vision to literally get brighter as Persephone dove in between the two of them, her wings alight with fire. Both Ethan and Pupa leaned back in surprise from the pheonix's sudden appearance.
Hearing a groan, they looked towards the sound and saw Tirek entering the clearing with a half burned piece of vine and multiple spots where smoke was coming from his fur. The centaur walked up to Ethan and shoved the vine into his chest, not waiting for Ethan to grab it before he let it drop to the ground.
"If you send that chicken to get me one more time, I'll make sure I absorb all the magic from her first. Got it?" Tirek said with a glare while patting out the last of the embers on his body. The human nodded and Persephone blew a small amount of fire in Tirek's direction in challenge.
"Now, I'm taking a nap and if any of you think about waking me I would be delighted to show you just how hard i can kick my hindlegs," Tirek threatened as he went towards his tent, promptly collapsing and crawling his way underneath. Snores coming from him not a minute later.
Ethan stared at Tirek's tent for several seconds. Taking a deep breath, he slowly released it and turned to face Pupa, who had silently edged herself into the water to deter the pheonix from attacking her yet again. Said pheonix took the opportunity to land on Ethan's shoulder, cooling off in the process.
"You guys are some of the weirdest creatures I've ever ran into," Pupa commented. Ethan couldn't help but agree that to any creature native to Equestria, their little band of misfits was quite the sight to behold. An alien from another world, a power hungry centaur, the guardian of Tartarus and a sadistic pheonix; quite the sight indeed.
"Well, you best get used to it 'cause from the looks of it, you'll be hanging around us till you can heal that crack of yours," Ethan said as he pointed to the middle of his forehead. Persephone tilted her head, curious about what he was talking about. Looking at the changeling sitting in the water she focused on her head and saw the crack forming on her head. Believing she had something to do with it, she cawed quietly and jumped off of Ethan's shoulder to fly over to Pupa.
Pupa flinched back as she and Ethan watched the bird fly directly overhead of her and slowly land on top of the changeling's head. Who froze at the potential threat being so close to her recent injury.
"Persephone."
Hearing her name, she looked at Ethan, seeing his stern gaze, she smirked and winked at him before beginning to heat up. Pupa felt the heat beginning to build on her head. Resigning to her fate, she closed her eyes and waited... and waited... and waited. Scrunching up her face she opened her eyes after not feeling more pain, but rather slight relief, this time from Persephone. She watched Ethan sigh with a small shake of his head and a smile.
Persephone was using Pupa's horn as a stabilizing point to wrap her wings around it and cover the crack with her wings, making sure not to get too hot so she doesn't burn her again.
"What are we going to do with you girl?" Ethan rhetorically asked while pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Uhm... Preferably keep her away from the crack in my carapace," Pupa said, causing the pheonix to huff and fly back to Ethan. The changeling stepped out of the water, kicking her legs to dry off, and walked over to the firepit that was currently out. Cerberus, who had laid down on the other side of the firepit after determining her to not be a threat, gave her a glance. Just as he did so the changeling's stomach growled, and she hissed quitely. Getting three growls in return from Cerberus's massive heads.
Hearing Ethan chuckle at their interaction, Pupa felt her face heat up, glad she could not blush like the ponies.
Ethan slowly made his way over to the changeling and sat down next to her. "Hungry? For emotions, yeah?" He asked.
"Yes; our latest mission of storming Canterlot failed, and we were already starving. Unfortunately it's not exactly easy to get a good food source when everyone knows everyone, so taking ponies isn't really something we can do often." Pupa sighed. "We make due with animals and some lone travelers that no one would miss, but it's just not enough for everyling. Many of us go hungry for weeks," she said, reminiscing over the hardest times for the hive.
"Jeez, that sounds rough. Back ho-" Ethan paused and took a deep breath. "I've seen similar issues before, but that was just because of poor food distribution, not a lack of food entirely." Pupa noticed the sudden pause but decided not to question it.
"Sounds like you had it easy then if that was where your problems came from," Pupa said, causing Ethan to scoff. Tilting her head in question, he explained.
"Basically if you aren't one of the top dogs, metaphorically speaking that is, in either power and or money then you have essentially no say in any major decision. Well... theoretically you could, through a revolution to make the words of the people have meaning, but it would take a very well spoken individual, with many assets, to fire up a whole country to fight back without getting secretly killed." Ethan rolled his eyes, "And let's just say there are a lot of issues that could be solved if the top dogs weren't so fucking greedy and learned to set egos aside. So if this land hasn't really had any crazy issues like that in over a century that's a win."
"Wow... that does sound pretty bad," Pupa admitted. "Celestia, Luna and the Princess of Food are the rulers in Equestria and they certainly don't keep everything for themselves. There's a reason the ponies have prospered for so long after all. I just wish things were different. I'm sick of hiding in the shadows and being bossed around by little miss prissy," the changeling hissed out. Another stomach growl came from her, getting another round of hisses as she dealt with the standard hunger pains as Ethan watched in concern, both for her and himself.
"Does it matter what emotion you eat?" Ethan asked, a plan forming in his head. Waving Cerberus over, he watched as one of the heads noticed him and got the attention of the other two before he walked around to their side of the firepit.
"No, love is the best, but any emotion would help right now," Pupa said, feeling her nerves flare as she had an idea of what Ethan had planned as he brought Persephone in front of him.
"Cerberus, Persephone. I've got a huge favor to ask of you both." Both focused on what he was saying, "I need you guys to allow Pupa here to feed of of your emotions, she's starving and hurt. I know you guys aren't the cause of either, but my options are limited right now and we need as many hands, hooves, paws and claws as we can get. I would do it myself but magical stuff just doesn't work on me here for whatever reason." Cerberus and Persephone continued to stare at him. "I have that favor with Tirek still... I'm sure we could make something work to make it worth your guys' time. Plenty of belly rubs and me time to sweeten the deal," Ethan practically begged, upon hearing that, the two decided it would be worth it.
"You... You don't have to do this. I can manage," Pupa weakly defended as her stomach growled yet again, but this just further solidified their decision to help the changeling.
Nodding their heads, Ethan smiled at their confirmation. "That's what I love to see. This means more to me than you guys realize," Ethan said sincerely before turning to Pupa.
"Now, with us doing this I just have one thing to ask. Don't lie to any of us, if its something you don't want to say or talk about, say so. We're not in a position to judge you. Tirek is constantly preaching about power. Cerberus is currently doing a terrible job at guarding Tartarus. Persephone is definitely growing to be a menace to society, and I'm... well... let's just say the less you know the better. Shit has been really complicated for me for the past... how ever long to say the least," Ethan said with a soft shake of his head.
Pupa nodded, "Doesn't take a scientist to figure that out. It's kind of the changelings' job to know every creature in Equestria and I can easily say nothing quite like you has ever been seen before." With that another hunger pain hit the changeling causing her breath to hitch. "I don't want to rush you, but can we get this over with so I can not be in pain and you can go back to being weird."
Ethan raised an eyebrow in mock question, a smirk ghosting his lips.
"Okay, weirder," the changeling corrected herself, getting a laugh out of the human.
"Yeah sure, we can get started. Though you're gonna have to walk them through what to do. Not exactly like they hand their emotions out to everyone they see after all," Ethan said while walking a fair distance away to watch, just in case anything unexpected happened.
Pupa took a deep breath and looked at Persephone and Cerberus. One towered over her, making her already weakened body feel like mere dust in the wind to his might. The other's yellow eyes pierced through her soul, glowing even in the light of the sun, searching for any deceit in her actions and promising immense pain to her if she finds any.
It was intimidating to say the least.
"Uh, r-right. So, I suggest getting comfortable, it can be pretty unpleasant even when you're expecting it," Pupa warned, giving them time to do so. Cerberus layed down on the ground, but kept his heads alert. Persephone opted to stand on top of Cerberus's middle head, not wanting to be on the ground at such a vulnerable time.
"Good. Now, just think about something that makes you happy, or something that you love. The stronger the feelings the quicker we can be done," The changeling stated, waiting for the spike in emotions.
It started slowly at first, but like the breaking of a seal multiple ample emotions filled the air around Cerberus and Persephone. The most prominent one was happiness mostly from Cerberus, followed by satisfaction, and finally a subtle amount of love coming from Persephone. Pupa eyed the pheonix knowingly, a small smirk on her muzzle. Persephone could only tilt her head in response, confused by the changeling. Pupa felt Persephone's change in emotions as the love slowly began ebbing away, confusion taking it's place. Knowing it was now or never Pupa exhaled and began to suck the emotions out of Cerberus and Persephone.
Despite both knowing and expecting it, the feeling of their emotions being drained away still brought a shock to their systems, causing them to jolt, with Persephone nearly having fell off the top of Cerberus's head. But just as quickly as it had started, it was over; Pupa having cut off the flow of emotions into her maw.
Relief instantly filled both creatures, followed closely by an all demanding tiredness forcing them to become limp.
Ethan's voice suddenly pierced the quiet air, "Woah. That... was a lot quicker than I was expecting." Walking back to the group he crouched in front of Cerberus's heads. At first nothing changed, but slowly his eyes opened, revealing his blood red pupils. Reaching out, Ethan began to pet each of the heads gently as comfort.
"You deserve the best bone in the world after that buddy. I promise you that we'll get it for you as soon as possible, yeah?" Ethan promised, watching as one of the heads licked his hand before Cerberus rested them all on his paws; planning to take a nap.
Persephone on the other hand was out like a light. Ethan methodically picked her up from Cerberus's head and made his way towards his tent where his lunch box was located. Gently setting her on top of the lunch box, her watched her slowly squirm in her sleep before curling up and becoming still. The only movement coming from her being the soft rise and fall of her wings as she breathed.
Smilingly at the sight, Ethan looked at Pupa, who was on her back in a near comatose state near Cerberus.
Rolling his eyes, Ethan called out, "You good?"
A half kicked hindleg was his only response.
Shrugging, he assumed that meant she was.