//------------------------------// // I’m Going to Die Next Chapter // Story: Well, That Stinks. // by Nugget27 //------------------------------// So, I was just left alone in my room just before everyone had to go to bed. Well, it’s not exactly going to bed, since I sleep under it. So I just bit off a chunk of the night stand and started licking it to pass the time. There were books, but I didn’t know how to read, so that was out. I could also… I don’t know, really. I’m not used to having free time, so I’m just gonna keep licking my new hunk of wood, because it’s fun to lick, and also because I am bored out of my mind and can’t sleep. Without another word, or disturbance, I got bored of the piece of nightstand, so I stuck it back on(changeling saliva is like glue), and crawled under my bed to sleep. The next day, my eyes snapped open, as I sniffed out the scent of a pony. A female pony, low and behold, it was the maid, Harmonic Breeze. “Good morning!” She happily greeted me. “I was assigned to be your personal servant and maid!” I blinked a couple of times. “That means I serve you,” she said plainly. “...Somepony to serve me?” I tilted my head. “Why would anypony want to do that?” “Well…” She hummed. “Changelings aren’t used to being served, are they?” Harmonic asked. “No, we serve the Queen usually. Mostly in giving her most of our food, getting dismembered whenever she’s bored, and all this fun other stuff. Once somebuggy got sick and the Queen thought it would be funny to inject the drone with random chemicals for fun. She laughed like a normal pony after injecting the drone with some acid. It was really… I don’t know, it kind of hurts to see, since she made every other changeling in the Hive watch as she played with the sick changeling, myself included.” I shivered. “So I love my mother, what do maids do?” Harmonic Breeze blinked a couple of times, before shaking her head, I sensed that she was feeling a little shocked, I don’t know why. She lives in a castle, serving two Princesses that move celestial bodies and she doesn’t blink an eye. Why would my family stories be so surprising? “Well, say you want something-” “I want to chew on something,” a stick of gum was presented. “Basically, if you want or need something, it’s my job to make sure I get what you need, or want, done.” Oh. “For instance, you wanted to chew on something, so here’s some… gum,” she looked at the nightstand. “Why… Why is the coffee table partially green?”  “I chewed on it earlier, and stuck it back on,” I said proudly. I am proud of my jaw strength, okay? “...You stuck it upside down, backwards, and it’s holding? That makes no sense!” Harmonic threw her hoof at the nightstand. “How did you even bite off that bit of the night stand? You took off half the bucking-” Harmonic took a deep breath. “I am going to have to put an order in for a new nightstand for your room, you bucking changeling…” she whispered. “You are so, so lucky that you’re kinda cute, or I would be a lot more angry about this,” she sighed. She handed me the stick of gum and I ate the wrapper, and stuck the gum in my nose. It smelled nice. My maid’s brain probably stopped working, because her eye twitched and she just froze in place. I sat down in my chair at the breakfast table, a bowl of cereal was immediately pushed to me, and Princess Celestia and Luna were sitting across from each other. Princess Luna was eating a pineapple, while Celestia had a stack of pancakes in front of her. “Good morning, Stinky,” Celestia waved. “How did you sleep last night?” She asked, a warm smile took place on her face.  “I slept great! I got to cuddle with a bit of the nightstand, had no nightmares, and woke up to a pretty pony maid that I broke.” Celestia tilted her head. “I didn’t kill her, she just started having eye twitches after I swallowed gum, wrapper and all. It tasted good; I want more gum now.”  “Wait, you cuddled with the nightstand?” Luna asked. “How in the buck-“ “I bit off half of the nightstand and licked it for three hours.”  “…As somepony who once struggled with modern day Equestrian culture, I suppose I shall teach you a couple of things. Meet with me after breakfast; I am going to need coffee, a lot of coffee, I am not used to being awake past eight in the morning. It will be best that I have caffeine so I can continue to woo- teach you about how to live in modern day Equestria, and how to fit in with ponies… After a poll, I have found that I am the favorite out of Equestria’s Princesses, and after some research…” Luna blushed a little. “Well, some have weird fantasies.” That sounds like something I should not dive into, so I’m not going to look into what Luna was talking about. I watched Luna’s hips sway on the way out, they’re hypnotizing. I found myself laying on Luna’s bed. The Princess had brought me into her chambers, pulled out a book, and draped a wing over my back as she read me a book. Apparently modern ponies are really into reading books while cuddling, but since I couldn’t read, Luna was reading aloud, her lovely voice was very relaxing when she was in narrator mode. “And this is the letter D, used in words such as ‘dog’,” I grabbed a pencil and wrote the word dog out. I think I did. “You won’t ‘Dag’,” Luna giggled. Luna pointed each letter out. “Use dog in a sentence please.” I tilted my head, and I felt Luna’s inner ‘awe’. Why was she thinking that? I don’t know. “Why?” Even though I questioned the merit behind this, I did it anyway. “Because knowing how to read and write will work out for you; you can’t get a job if you can’t do either of those things…” Luna sighed. “I would rather you remain in the castle so I can keep you,” she whispered. “But I got a job at a cafe, and I didn’t know how to read or write anything besides my name and my disguise’s name,” I frowned. “Am I stupid? My Mom always said I was.” “You are not stupid, just uneducated. Once you learn how to read and write, it should-” Luna stopped, reading what I wrote. “You wrote a paragraph, a short story about a dog playing fetch with its owner…” She hummed. “Perfect grammar, correct punctuation… you said you couldn’t read or write,” Luna glared at me. “Did you lie?” “I did; I can kinda read and kinda write. I had to learn how, so I snuck into a school, disguised as a white little, apparently cute, unicorn with a squeaky voice, and learnt the basics of writing. If I were in the Hive, I would’ve gotten lynched.” Sweetie Bell was rather confused about how she got a perfect A on a test she wasn’t even in school for; she was out of town, on vacation. “Apple Bloom, what the hay are you talking about?” “You taught us how to do multiplication last week, and you don’t know how to do it now?” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Great, now we can’t get our cheating on homework cutie marks.” “...I want to use a word that Rarity said I’m not allowed to use, because I don’t know what you guys are talking about!” The unicorn filly paused for a moment. “What the fu-” “Well, on the bright side, you don’t live in the Hive anymore?” Luna sighed. “I see why you would’ve kept being able to read a secret, so this was minute,” with a pop, all the reading and literature materials vanished. “Is there anything else you would like to do? I know you’ve been spending an unnecessary amount of time with my sister, so I need you to spend some time with me…” Luna nuzzled me, and I started hiccuping. “Did I do something wrong?” “Physical contact-hic-is a way for a changeling to feed off of-hic-a pony’s affection,” I hicced again. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the hiccups. “This sucks,” with another hic, I groaned, and fell on my side, just suffering in my own little world of hiccups, doomed to forever- oh, that feels nice. Luna had just started licking the inside of my ears, which felt… really good. Oh… “A little to the left?” I laid there, tongue hanging out the side of my muzzle, in pure bliss. The Princess giggled as my hiccups slowed down a bit. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, and Luna was grooming my belly. I think I died again, this has to be the afterlife. “This,” I happily grumbled. “Is why you’re my favorite, female pony, your highness.” The grooming stopped. “Is it something I said?” “No, but why specifically a favorite female?” “You are really pretty, your hips are hypnotic when you walk, and you groom me,” I let out a dog-like whine. “Please resume grooming me? I liked the feeling.” And you know, you’re a female, Luna. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a pony, a female pony at that, and I like you more than I like your sister.  Celestia is scary. “You think my hips are… what, now?” Luna giggled as my face started reddening. “You, Stinky, sure do know how to make a mare feel special, don’t you?” Despite my ability to sense emotions, I was having a hard time understanding if that was a good thing or not. “It’s a good thing, Stinky. Most stallions don’t even pay attention to mine, or my sister’s figure, and mostly care about trying to marry us for a leg up. Granted, there are many who consider the two of us very, very attractive, but then cannot approach us either because of titles, or because I am apparently too scary to talk to.” Luna rested her head on my stomach. “You know, Stinky, I never thought I would ever use a changeling as a pillow, but here I am. Nor would I expect to find that same changeling to be rather handsome.” “...Why do you and Celestia like me so much? I’m just a changeling, a drone, usually something that the Queen would use as a punching bag to relieve herself of stress,” I cocked my head. “I haven’t done a whole lot over the last few… however long it’s been since I’ve lived with ponies. It’s hard to tell when you can’t read calendars, or clocks.” “...Are you lying?” “Yes. I was just too poor to be able to afford calendars, so I never bought anything; I don’t know what a bit is.” I wasn’t lying, I heard of gold coins, dollar bills, even copper coins. Bits were a really old, outdated system of currency when you thought about it. Everywhere else uses paper, we changelings use rocks as money because that’s the only thing of value that we have. Luna simply shook her head. “You, my friend, you are a weird changeling.” So now it was lunch time, Luna had gone to bed, as she was already pushing her sleep schedule by being up past breakfast, so she was out like a light when I left. Moonbutt did take the opportunity to kiss me on the cheek before I left. Why the buck does she like me so much? For one thing, she seems intent on making me her changeling, like I was her property or something stupid, even though she just met me. Mom said nobody likes changelings, not even her, which is why she called us all ugly abominations that shouldn’t see the light of day. Despite me being an abomination, Celestia seems to enjoy my company, and Luna wants to get between my hindlegs, I guess. Anyways, I’m lost. I can’t remember where in the buck my room was, since Luna filled me up with so much love with that kiss, that I was barely able to walk. So I just stumbled around, burping, hiccuping, and feeling like I just ate from the Princess of Food directly from the source… Who was the Princess of food? It can’t be Cadance, she doesn’t taste like love. Maybe it was Shining Armor, as ponies put it, I think his wife wears the metaphorical pants in their relationship… So I think Cadance is a stallion as well. Oh well, I’m not gonna question the merit behind those two weird ponies’ relationship, I’m a Changeling, not a love bug. Oh, I bumped into Cadance, her wife was standing next to her, staring down at a poor guard. The poor guard, a mare, stood there, unblinking, unwavering. “Well?” Shining Armor asked. His husband and I continued to ignore the impending doom that would be laid down on the poor, minimum wage on guarding a Princess that can blow up the country, pony. “Oh! Stinky,” Cadance jumped and turned to face me. “Why are you in the Royal Guard Training Grounds? It’s on the opposite side from the guests’ living quarters!” Shining Armor jumped when she heard her husband speak. “Oh Stinky, wanna help the guards train? You could be a changeling, a bear, anything! This’ll be great.” I hiccup’d so hard that I nearly fell over. “I…” I groaned inwardly; I just want to sleep off this excess love. “Okay… Please go easy on me; your aunt was a little rough on me.” Shining Armor blinked. “She had a little too much fun,” the guard blinked in confusion, while Cadance was simply giggling. Shining Armor just looked equally confused as his employee. “What? She Taught me how to read and write, that was mentally taxing.” I stumbled onto the training field as Cadance instructed, since she apparently knows a thing or two about running the guard, and her husband was broken from my little joke about me sleeping with Luna. I wanted to sleep with Luna… She’s very soft; she would make for a good pillow if she were okay with sleeping under her bed. A guard stood across from me, wearing padding instead of the nice, golden armor they usually wear. It was a he, judging from how his head kinda resembled a brick, and he had a wooden sword. He looked ready to kick my rear end into the stratosphere. “Is… now a good time to mention I’m a mere worker drone, not a fighter drone?” I turned to Cadance, who shook her head. “Can I not do this?” Shining Armor was sitting next to her, with the same expression as a foal, with a notebook. “Why do you have a notebook?” “Are you serious? This’ll be the first time anypony’s been able to record how a changeling fights! I could jot what you do down and teach it to my guards!” I blinked a couple of times. “Please do this?” “If I die, tell my Mom that she’s an asshole,” I sighed and stumbled forward. I can barely walk, so running isn’t an option. The guard came charging at me, I stumbled as he swung his sword at me, but I turned one of my hooves into the same type of sword, before parrying it. I stumbled again and fell on my face, and I felt back lefty collide with something. The sound of a quill on paper could be heard as I stood up. Crumple on the ground, was the guard, dazed, and probably knocked out since he was breathing, but wasn’t getting back up. “Now, how do I get the earth ponies to transform their forelegs into swords? Magical scrolls? That could work…” Shining Armor mumbled. “Like Older Brother, like Younger sister; Twilight Sparkle is just like him,” Cadance shook her head. “...I’m not going to say anything about that mare; I met her and she was far from pleasant to me,” I sighed. “Please don’t make me meet Twilight Sparkle again; she’s scary.” “Hey Stinky, wake up!” I grumbled. It had been a week since I started stopping by Luna’s room every night, and I had started adapting to fit her sleep schedule more. So you can tell how happy I was when I was woken up at nine in the morning by her big, white, Sunny sister. “Come on! I have someponies that I would you to meet!” I groaned, and stuck my head back under the bed. “Go away, Luna spent all night testing me on math…” I grumbled. “It was easy, but I just want to sleep; I was up until four in the morning!” I started being dragged across the castle floor while behind held in a golden glow. “Nooo….” I quietly grumbled as my carapace started rubbing against the carpet, and my head would jump occasionally as it hit a break in the carpet. “Who do I have to meet?” “My personal student and her friends. You’ll probably be working with them quite a bit in the future, so you will have to establish at least a friendly relationship with them,” Celestia happily marched on. “Tell them to buck off, I want to sleep.” My wing, the one not pinned under the rest of my body, buzzed a bit in annoyance. “Being cute will not make me allow you to sleep in for a moment like this.” My head bumped a door as it closed, and I still didn’t care. I was just trying to go back to sleep. There was a conversation that was going on, but it halted upon me dangling in the air. “Is that a dead changeling?” My eyes snapped open at the sound of that voice. Without thinking I swung my head around a couple of times until I had enough momentum to smack Celestia’s butt, and try to jump out of a nearby window… My plan didn’t work, I was stuck in place. I couldn’t even move my neck. “Can I dissect it?” That same voice said. Okay, that’s it, where is my personal, comfort Moon Princess? I want to hide behind her. Somebody save me!