Wake up in the morning feelin' like P-Diddy. Who's P-Diddy? Who cares! I have joy to spread to the people! I toss off my covers and sproi-ing over to my calendar. Hmm, two birthdays today. But first! I bound over to the library to see Twilight.
*KNOCK*
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*Muffled crashing noises*
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The door opens and I manage to stop my hoof from smacking into Twilight's bedraggled face.
"What." She asks. Oh, I might have forgotten that she isn't a morning person. Oops... Hehe!
"I wanted to know if the changelings were in town yet?"
"Yes actually. They're setting up a stage just outside of town with a lot more of them on the way." I do a little jump for joy and wiggle my hooves midair. "Fluttershy was actually the one to tell me. Apparently they caused a huge disturbance in the Everfree yesterday. She saw the entire swarm passing by from under the canopy."
"Oh I knew they were coming today! I just knew it!!" She looks at me.
"Pinkie, you've been waking me at the Celestia forsaken hours of the morning for the past five days with the same question."
"...And?" She sighs loudly at me, turns around, and gestures for me to come in. You can't fool me Twilight! I saw that slight smirk on your face! Mission accomplished, nyahahahaha!
I dressage trot into the library to see a bedraggled looking Fluttershy here as well. Must have stayed the night, poor girl.
"Hello Fluttershy! Is the bunny here?"
"Angel is in the kitchen, yes." In her dignified manner.
"Goody!" Not eating here today then. "I'm going to go put together a welcome party for the Changelings then! Bye!!"
"Pinkie? Pinkie Pie wa-" Aaand I'm gone. Man, this is going to be great! These guys brought their own stage even! All I gotta do is get some ponies to open up some stalls in an orderly fashion that won't impede whatever they're doing here. Shouldn't be too hard. Won't even make it into the top twenty crazy things I've done to make sure a party goes off without a hitch!
Let's see... I need to get all three ponies in town who have a cotton candy machine, any businesses on Main Street who would be interested, call up a short notice farmer's market, go to the Mayor's office for a quick bribe to squash any concerns about any pesky noise ordinances-
"I can't believe they managed to get a Celestial Edict for that kind of business." I hear from one of the secretaries. Nevermind about the bribe then. Celestial Edicts are no joke. Trotting over to my next errand, I see a strange young pony passing out flyers on the street. He's a teenage stallion with white fur and a green flame cutie mark. Hmm. I go over and take a flyer.
Changelings And You
With a nice little picture of a silhouette of a black insectoid pony and a white unicorn nuzzling each other. Oh my, how risque. Reading through it, it details how the new queen wants her changelings to interact with ponies, with respect and such. That if you see a changeling you like the behavior of, to not hesitate to pursue any kind of personal relationship at all. Then it goes into detail about what changeling hunger is like, and the conditions they were living under, under Queen Chrysalis. Wow, that's actually kind of horrible... It's a good thing I'm already throwing them a party now then, isn't it?
Looking around I'm seeing a lot of these white ponies with that same cutie mark. Probably all changelings then. Looks like an even split between stallions and mares. Weird. Almost all of them are teenagers too. You know I think this needs some investigation. And Celestia did tell us to find out if they were up to anything when they came into town. Ninja pony time! One quick whirlwind change gets my equipment on, and I pick a couple likely targets. A super rare adult pair going into a side alley. I follow them from the rooftops.
"Change back. Now."
"Nunya, this is stupid. I am an adult changeling."
"Do it! This was an order from our queen herself! You were there!" He changes into a teenager and starts grumbling.
"I can absolutely pass as an adult. This is stupid." As he kicks the dirt. Oh my Harmony how petulant! He's adorable! "What's even the point of this?"
"I'll tell you, you smooth brained grub. It's because almost none of us drones are 'suitably socialized' to interact with the ponies. But any social missteps done by a teenager are more likely to be excused as growing pains of some sort." Ooh, that's actually kind of clever!
"Is that really necessary, though?"
"Necessary? It's everything!! We need to be accepted by the ponies for the Queen's peaceful integration to work. If you screw this up for us don't think it will end well for you. She may seem softer than Chrysalis, but Queen Degurechaff's heart runs five times colder than hers ever did." She shoos the now teen out of the alley. A couple seconds after that she looks vaguely up to my location.
"Hey there peeper~ Want some cuddles?" Meep! She spotted me! Abort! Abort!! Abort!!!
So I'm admiring my work with the impromptu festival when Twilight manages to catch up with me.
"Pinkie Pie! I was worried about you!"
"Whyever for silly? I was just organizing a party. Something I've done close to a thousand times by now."
"Pinkie Pie be serious! I remember the last time we faced off against these changelings. They kicked all our flanks at once."
"I'm not worried. Seems like the new queen really wants this diplomacy gesture to work. She has all the other changelings running scared and obedient."
"Running scared- You don't know the half of it Pinkie!! The rest of us caught one of the changelings cornering a mare and trying to feed off of her. She ran back to the stage here, only to have the queen come out and personally demand an explanation. Once we gave her one she just looked at the changeling and she was terrified! Smashed her face into the dirt, bowed and scraped, and begged for us to punish her! That's not normal!"
"Oh no! What happened to the changeling?"
"She's in jail now. Queen Degurechaff gave us a diamond enchanted to extract and hold love so nobody has to directly feed her. Quite the fascinating enchantment really."
"Hehehe! Twilight if you're feeling safe enough to start talking about book stuff, then I'm feeling safe enough to go try out that cuddle tent they set up over yonder. Wanna come with? These changelings have so many stallions available."
"No thanks, I'm not really interested in that sort of thing. Are you sure you wanna go in there?"
"Of course I am." As Twilight's face gets really strained. "I've seen a good few ponies go in, then come back out already. Worst that happens is they get jelly hooves, or look a little tired." She's looking scared, while looking straight at me now. Okay, I've seen enough action to see where this is going. I jump and spin around midair.
"Ha!!" I'm eye level with a solid black chitin chest. I look up to see the face of Queen Degurechaff looking down at me. I've seen her at a distance already visiting the stalls here and there. Apparently, she's the only changeling allowed out in her natural form.
"Hello, would you happen to be Pinkie Pie?" She doesn't look half bad, really. A couple holes here and there is all. Compared to Chrysalis she's drop dead gorgeous with her intact wings and straightened horn! None of that weird reverb in her voice either.
"Yepperoni!!"
"Good. I was speaking with some of the vendors out here. They said you were the reason they were out here to attract the other ponies."
"Of course! You're one of Princess Celestia's guests! I just had to throw you a welcome party!"
"How very thoughtful of you. I shudder to think how badly this could've gone without your help." I beam at her. "How would you like a job?"
"Working for you? I'm flattered, but I already have a job at the bakery."
"Not a permanent job, just organizing our reception until we get to Canterlot." I open my mouth to refuse again before she beats me to it. "I'm prepared to offer fifteen thousand bits a week for this." And all that can come out of my mouth after that is a high pitched
*Squeak*
She smirks down at my dumbfounded expression.
"Hold on!" Interjects Twilight. "That's super suspicious. Who spends that many bits just on parties?" She squints at Twilight.
"I recognize you from the wedding. You have been to Canterlot, haven't you?" Silence from Twilight. "You are right of course. I'm not spending this much on just parties. I'm spending that much on what looks like to be the perfect mare for the job." As she points to my flank. "I also have a dream. A dream where changelings everywhere are free to walk into any town like this in their natural forms and not get chased out simply for being different." Twilight looks uncomfortable at that. "The path to making that dream a reality starts with exposing as many changeling to ponies in as peaceable a manner as possible. This," gesturing to the intermingling going on around us. "Helps." Twilight looks grumpy. Silly Twilight!! Even if she has nefarious purposes, I totally believe her about wanting to be able to walk around unhindered.
"Can I think about it?" Twilight gapes at me.
"Sure. Just so you know I'm willing to count today as part of your first week. I'm expecting to be on the road for a couple weeks, but if we go into our third week I'll pay you for the entire week. It all depends on how many villages refuse our patronage." Hehehehe. Nopony would dare refuse a Celestial Edict!! Easy money~
"I think I'll have to sleep on it. Hey, if I accept do I get any discounts in the cuddle tent?" She looks to the side, a little embarrassed.
"Unfortunately not. All the changelings listed there haven't yet learned to take exactly as much love as they need to. Embarrassing really, it's like potty training for you ponies. Chrysalis should have taught them all as soon as they could walk on their own. Fortunately, it's a fairly intuitive skill. Only takes about two or three times to get right. And until they do they're all under heavy empathetic supervision from the older changelings. Did you still want to go try it out?"
"Sure!" Twilight tries to grab me, just to keep me safe probably, but I deftly dance out of her grasp. Mama knows what she wants. I wonder if I can request that stallion that Nunya was scolding?
The next day I wake up to inform Mr. and Mrs. Cake about my gig. They were super understanding about it all. And when I was just finished packing Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash knocked on my door. I invited them in.
"Hey, Pinkie Pie, we were wondering if you were planning on taking that job from the Changeling Queen."
"Y-y-yeah, it seems super d-dangerous." Agrees Fluttershy.
"And we can't kick their butts if we're all separated." From Rainbow.
"Yeah guys, I am. I don't think you realize what a life changing amount of money 45,000 or even 30,000 bits is! I could open up my own shop when I get back!"
"You think she has the money?" Asks Twilight.
"Uh, yeah? Didn't you say she's been in Equestria for like, hundreds of years? More than enough time to save up. Plus she talks like one of those stuffy noble unicorns from Canterlot. Total old money type right there."
"And you think she's going to pay up? I don't believe it." From Twilight again. "She said her whole motivation for all of this is to be able to walk around without fear, and that's just not enough for a species built on deception to go to all this trouble." Fluttershy's head snaps over to look at her.
"Yeah!" Exclaims Rainbow. "Monsters like that don't really get fear, unless they're the ones causing it." Fluttershy looks over to her now.
"HEY!!" And that's my cue. I duck into a Pinkie Hole while they're distracted. No clue what set Flutters off, but it made a good distraction. Now halfway across town, I set off for the stage.
Queen Degurechaff was kind of interesting. Real formal with me, but almost aggressive with her subjects. I don't think she likes them very much... I was given a tent to myself and informed I could either be responsible for packing and unpacking it, or request help. I told her I wouldn't be able to be quite as successful in the other villages as I was here without my community connections, so she started working on enticing some vendors to come with me on the trip. Then she presented us all to everypony to make sure we were treated right by the changelings. The plan is to spend the night here, and travel to the next village tomorrow.
Then Fluttershy barges into my tent with suitcase in hoof and bunny on head.
"Why are you two here?"
"Twilight was being paranoid and stupid." She mutters with a frowny face on.
Wow.
She must be really mad for some reason, huh?