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// The Feast: Day of Deception 
// Story: He never had so sweet a Changeling 
// by Gabriel LaVedier 
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	Once the hurt had passed and understanding seemed to fill the place it had occupied, things became more pleasant in the home holding Vanilla and Double. With Vanilla being less standoffish and aloof he was more approachable, much more cheerful, and poured more of his heart and soul into the things he prepared. For her part, Double had dropped the veneer of an upper-terrace elitist and pared her personality down to what she might normally present to a pony when attempting to be normal.
She was only halfway through her recovery, or perhaps a little more than that. She was not strong enough to do very much. She had perfected the art of hobbling on three legs to the facilities, and did it very well. But she was not in any way capable of getting down the stairs. She was reasonably content with that. Vanilla did not seem to mind coming up to feed her.
Days no longer peeled painfully away, they transitioned with a rising sense of normalcy. She rose with a real smile and went down with soft hum of contentment. Besides the increased happiness of not having to maintain an adversarial relationship, the void within screamed far less as the drips and drabs of second-hoof love fell in from all that food he was enjoying making.
It had not taken too much convincing once he had been stung by guilt and made to see things as they were. How odd... she used truth to help herself, supporting a lie that fed her hunger for love. Truth rather than deception... it was a coincidence. That was all. It had the effect of helping but that was hardly what truth did. Not for Changelings.
Vanilla was far more alive than he had been before. Ever since his retirement from professional cooking he had struggled through his odd half-life. Then Dee Dee came down into his life. It was like those movies he found so odd and unbelievable. The strange mare coming into a life and shaking it up.
It had not been easy to bear, of course. He had always thought of those crazy ladies as unbearable. Fun to watch but surely Tartarus to live with. And while Dee Dee was in no way like those manic mares, she was an insufferable presence. Or had been. After both confronted the irrationalities of their assumptions she had become much more bearable.
He had become bearable as well, he reflected. While had had thought long and hard on her insufferable nature and the unkind comparisons to the horrible mares of the nobility he had responded only to the initial coldness with his own coldness. He had to accept part of the blame for making it an unbearable time. For all he thought of himself as different from the others he had been acting like them.
Thankfully, nothing was irreparable. Conciliation, laughter, admission of the stupid mistakes... not to mention the occasional chef's table meal and light conversation.
”So... this may seem odd dinner table conversation between strangers but can you tell me a little about yourself? I never really like to eat with those I don't know.” A few nights after the late lunch when things had become more pleasant, Vanilla and Dee Dee were eating dinner, a modest repast of greens with plenty of fresh biscuits and a generous vanilla torte, as a point of amusement.
“Strange, perhaps, in ordinary situations. But this is hardly ordinary.” Dee Dee laughed musically and shook her head a touch. “After all, I have been living in your home and taking advantage of your generous hospitality and delicious meals. It seems only fair. Well now... I am, as you correctly surmised, a mare of the upper classes and terrace. I have no title, though my family, at one time, had such. Money came from that, then from canny investments. We did not create and innovate but we supported such with our monetary might once the social might had been removed. But nobility is no great prize, as you seem to know well.” She laughed again and toasted Vanilla with her water glass.
“Ahh yes. The story I have heard a thousand times. It may have taken a thousand years but the nobility is dying by inches. Perhaps some will remain but none take them seriously. I must say, I have decent respect for the likes of you, who accepted the loss of title with dignity and panache.”
“Do not admire me.” Dee Dee waved off the honor with a sour look. “It was not my doing. It was those that came long before that made me what I am. I can claim nothing more than treading in the steps of their hooves. A follower.”
“I know. I did not invent the santoku, the paring knife, the reduction process or the technique for making flaky layers in puff pastry. But I use them. I wield these ancient gifts like a painter with palette and brush. He also didn't invent the colors and paints, but they will be used in unique ways.”
Dee Dee actually looked stunned by that. She sipped at her water for longer than was usual, her eyes casting about for something that clearly wasn't there. “I never... considered... I usually consider my heritage a burden. Nothing more than dead weight that informs what I do.”
“It can be. Why do you think I live here? I'd never hear the end of 'The Tortes are meant to stay in cooking' if I lived up there on the mountain. I accept my heritage and I am good at what it had brought to me. But in some sense I am crushed by it. The grandeur and the sweep, just what it means. I don't like it when it is like that, but I did it for a long while because I was told it was strictly necessary.”
“I... understand...” Dee Dee munched contemplatively on a mouthful of greens, still casting around for something on which she could focus. “In the oddest way I understand. I may not enjoy all that being who I am implies, but it is a duty.”
“A harder one, I imagine. You can't stop being what it is you are.”
“What was that?” She clattered her fork on her plate, a small strain of fear showing in her eyes.
“I mean... I am a chef. It is what I am and what I do, a job as well as a destiny based on my skill. I can stop that, and move to this place, becoming a quiet hermit. But you, you were born a rich pony into the bloodline that claims you. You cannot stop being what you are. You can only be the best example of what you are, a beacon to others. Perhaps you will be the one that creates and innovates, does something unlike the long line behind you.”
Dee Dee considered that, picking at her greens carefully. “You know... you may be right. If I am not satisfied with the status quo of my family, I could break the mold in some sense. Perhaps only a small amount, but I could.”
Vanilla smiled and toasted his guest. “You will have all my support. When you are recovered you will go off and do great things, I am sure.”
“Yes...” She suddenly sounded a little hollow. “Great things...”
“Great things...” Double shook her head and grumbled. She would never do great things. Not as a worker. A failed worker. She would escape culling, the greatest thing she could hope for. The swarm would regroup, return to small infiltrations and know far better than to try anything so foolish as an invasion ever again.
She was content with that thought. She had long anticipated returning to the swarm and just forgetting everything. It almost seemed a shame. True, the stress and strain between herself and Vanilla had been very trying. But there had been more than a few lessons that had been beneficial. And far more than a few meals that she would want to remember forever.
But there was more to it all than pithy lessons and good meals. It was a memory of her failure and the sensation of weakness, something intolerable to her Changeling nature. She was in a strange place. Glad of memories she would do anything to forget, and anticipating a return to a grim, unforgiving life of monotony.
“These ponies have strange powers.” She had never thought poorly of her life before. Or never in those kinds of raw and blatant terms. She had been... content. She thought.
The limitations of the swarm... she had never considered them limitations before. The culling was unkind, and she knew well what unkindness was. The lack of ability to breed or even be together freely was not very kind. The requirement of strength and rigidity. The lack of learning beyond the needed... there was plenty there to add.
All the technology of Equestria was delightful. She had seen the advantage of it all on prior missions, though from a detached perspective, just something to use on the mission or exploit to further her ends. She had not seen much of it in her time with Vanilla, aside from medical technology, but she had heard his record player and enjoyed even the muffled sound of the music, though he tended to overplay that one record. She also knew there was a television and would have been interested in that, though she was almost certain he never used it.
The new desire was strange. She was almost willing to put it down to her dwindling tactile memory of the Concordance of the swarm. Almost. But they were her own thoughts, coming without coercion. Vanilla surely had no influence, not given the hostility of their relationship.
She resolved to let the matter drop. Her belly was full and the void was screaming less intensely. It sufficed for her. But... it didn't. Not truly. She wasn't satisfied with the strange limbo she found herself in. She was lying and telling the truth at the same time. She was uncomfortable with such waffling. She wanted to be all lies. That was the Changeling way. Injecting truth, even the tiniest kernel, made her uncomfortable. Admixtures like that blurred too many lines. She needed to return to full lies or full truth. Yet given the state of her mentality it would not work very well.
She could lie, of course, become overly friendly and saccharine sweet. It would be suspicious but be accepted, thanks to the new friendliness Vanilla had been expressing. But it would hardly benefit her or get her more protection and feeling. The more truth she told, in contrast, would probably frighten him. He had her, a prisoner of battle, an invader. She could try to escape if he tried to hold her, but she would fare even worse in the world than she had being in his company.
She sank against her pillow with a nicker, body shifting uncomfortably. That was not something likely to be resolved, not even by the time she was fully healed. But really, it probably mattered little. He accepted her story as it was. She could do her best to stick out the half lies and it would be good enough.
Down in the kitchen, Vanilla was carefully easing out layers of phyllo, using several before laying down a thin layer of oil and either white cheese or vegetables. He was using a mix of thin-sliced vegetables tossed with oil and herbs, primarily courgettes, carrots and leeks mixed with basil, thyme, bay and fennel. It was a delicate process, given the thinness of the dough.
He was using his focus because the process required it, not because his delicate ego required it. He smiled a bit at how unafraid he was of admitting that was the reason. He had thought himself above the ego-driven, image-fixated nobles. But he had found a small poison stream in himself, born of his isolation and self-imposed desire to not be a tool.
Despite the focus he still had some chance to think about his guest, for whom this dish was being crafted. It was not made to impress her, as the previous had been, but to fill her belly and be a proper dish for her. She deserved it, with her slow growth into honesty. She would open up.
She had already made admissions about her family's lost nobility and monetary abundance. It had been general, focused on giving biographical details that were locked together like a proper story. He could appreciate the good education the upper classes received, especially in literary matters, but it was not a good way of talking about personal matters. It would make for a good novel but he knew she was holding back.
She had confessed to her uncertainty and lack of confidence in herself, given her feelings of being nothing more than a follower, nothing but an attachment on something that had nothing to do with her. He thought he had given her some decent advice, she had seemed to think deeply on it, but still she would not confess more about herself, or the circumstances of her fall.
A mere follower, an attachment locked to some part of something she never chose. She had said a mouthful in her silence and the coy manner of her admission. Locked inside the narrative she crafted according to her education was the truth.
He had been right from the beginning. A rich mare being joined to some other important bloodline. Maybe they were richer, maybe they still had a title. Some mare or stallion selected for calculated reasons without a hint of passion. They may even have been completely undesirable. But the family saw bit pouches or a shield of honors in their future, and used Dee Dee as a chess piece. A thing to be pushed around. A tool. A tool...
They were both afraid of the same thing. He was moved around by trends and modes in dining. He had read a dozen magazines a week to forecast the trends like some old Hipposian soothsayer. It was bad enough of a representation of him as some object to be used by forces beyond his control. But to stand there with the power flowing through him, moving the objects without focus. No wonder he had been so afraid of his own skill, it completed the transformation from pony to machine.
She was her family's plaything. Slid across a map of family lines and bank statements into a strategic position. In the most extreme cases he had heard of she may have been pawned off on some family to give some other sister or brother a better position with yet a third family, who had an interest in the doings of the second. While it was blissfully rare and sharply criticized when found, it still existed as something that could happen.
From simply ignoring her preferences to using her as a trading chit her family had disrespected her in the most fundamental and terrible way possible. She was being used, like a thing. While it was a most extreme response he could see why she dove for her freedom, under the cover of the royal wedding's fireworks. The length of time which had passed was strange, with no notice or bounty hunters coming to seek her.
They either thought she was dead or had been doing something potentially embarrassing and were keeping it quiet. It may have been a maneuver, or a marriage that shocked the Equestrian sensibility on a deep level, like a herded marriage to a griffin.
With a start he realized he was repeating himself. He had had this exact line of contemplation before. Griffin herded marriage and all. The difference was he had actually asked and listened between the words. She had confirmed his mere suspicions. Of course, he had no idea of the nature of the marriage; that was mere speculation. But he had gained some decent cause to guess in such a fashion. It was less blind groping and more logical consideration.
His attention went back to his work, finding his creation complete with a final layer of phyllo and a coat of oil. The thing went into the oven and he set his timer for it. His book was still waiting for him and there were plenty of records to play.



Later that night Vanilla was bearing a heavy burden. He had previously brought up the small table, along with tomato juice, plates and utensils. All that remained was the baked dish and his cranked record player. He thought it was appropriate to have it. The meal was especially nice, and without any live musicians it was the best he could manage. He was also eager to share his musical taste. He hoped she would appreciate it.
“And here we are, the last elements for a proper dinner. The dish, and some music,” Vanilla said, settling the pan down in the center of the table and the record player off to the side, swiftly turning the handle with his magic.
“This like a lot of effort. Is there some occasion I do not know of?” Dee Dee asked, leaning over to smell the still-steaming dish. It was even better up close.
“Just another way of saying 'thank you' for the help you've given me. I never even realized I was so self-involved,” Vanilla said, setting the record to play, letting the sound of fiddles, drums and guitars ring through the room. “It's because of you I can have a repast like this for you. For anyone, really.”
Dee Dee nodded, inhaling deeply as the crust was cut, releasing a heady puff of aromatic steam. “And it smells delicious! What is this?”
“It's a Hipposian dish, the name escapes me but the recipe remains. Olive-oil-brushed layers of white cheese and seasoned vegetables, baked to crisp perfection. It was creations such as these that made me known as more than just a pastry chef. That's the secret to branching out, to seeing what neighbors your limits and touching it. This is a main dish, but it is made with phyllo, something whose properties I know well,” Vanilla noted, proudly, serving out slices for himself and Dee Dee.
“Clever,” Dee Dee noted, waiting for the piece to stop steaming before she cut a piece and took a bite. She nearly fell to the tabletop as her senses were assaulted by an explosion of savory flavor and the sharp taste of genuine love for a task. He had really put himself into the making of it. It was wonderful. She had stopped herself from falling, but she couldn't keep the smile off of her face. “Delicious! Absolutely delicious.”
“Thank you. I've had a lot of reviews from a lot of famous folks, but I'm very glad you give it your approval,” Vanilla said with a slightly nervous chuckle. “You're here, in front of my face, not sitting far away, detached. I can see your reactions. It's remarkably hard to lie with the little motions that just come unbidden.”
The comment seemed to stifle further comment from both of them, leaving them to simply eat and enjoy the music that played lightly in the background. The songs ranged from slow and thoughtful to somewhat raucous, leading to a few head-bobs or gentle swaying in time to the tune.
That went on until a song came on that seemed to be about the legendary fae creatures that were said to live in woodlands and other hidden locales. Somehow, that made Dee Dee very uncomfortable. She squirmed slightly and looked around through the opening verse and the chorus, attempting to drown her energy in consumption and long swallows of juice. But as the second verse let drop the line, “Beware of this prize as a curse in disguise,/ For your mortal life soon will be through. So please c-” she flashed her magic and lifted the needle off the record with a soft grunt.
“Well now... I do think that that will suffice for music for the evening,” Dee Dee said by way of explanation, attempting to look blasé and mild.
“So...” Vanilla looked around, slightly nonplussed by the action but attempting not to offend by showing such puzzlement, “Aside from the sudden end of that song what did you think of the album? I found it by sheer happenstance and have enjoyed it greatly ever since then.”
“I see the attachment and the delight you find. She is certainly a songstress. But as I said, that will suffice,” Dee Dee said, finishing off her portion of baked vegetables and her glass of juice. “Thank you for a wonderful meal, and some wonderful company. It was more than I usually expect of an evening. Oh!” She blushed slightly and waved a hoof. “That came out wrong...”
“No, I understand,” Vanilla said, having his suspicions somewhat confirmed, “I take the compliment as you intended it and will not read more into it than I should.”
“Thank you much,” Dee Dee said, looking at the spread of items. “Goodness... I do wish that I could be of some help somehow but...”
“It's a simple process,” Vanilla said nonchalantly, waving off concern, “I brought them up I can take them down. You probably want to rest. Unless you need some help...”
“No, no, I can manage. I find I am becoming much more dextrous on three hooves, at least as far as reaching the facilities is concerned,” Dee Dee said, moving as carefully as she could into bed.
“If you say so. Don't mind me,” Vanilla said, magically lifting his record player and the baking dish. “Should be a quick job like before.”
Dee Dee settled down in bed and rested her head against the pillow, with a slight smile on her face. The screaming void whispered, and her belly strained from the delicious and filling meal. She thought to the small comment Vanilla had made, about finding what the neighbors of a skill were, to stretch and meet them and get better. It was something to consider.
The near neighbor to her new openness was honesty. Anathema to Changelings, in practice, but things were changing. She was growing, in a way she had never considered desirable or even possible. She was getting love by inspiring it. Not uncommon for a Changeling but she had done it without taking over a loved pony's place. She was doing it on her own, by earning it.
She heard the plates clattering as the table was moved out, with some commentary from Vanilla. He wasn't so bad, all told. A useful pony. And... talented. Kind. Handsome? She did not tend to think that way but he was still pleasant enough to look at. She drifted off with ease, all her body's complaints silenced. It was more than pleasant.
Vanilla started in on the dishes, never one to leave them for another day. It would be over quickly. His magic took the lead, commanded by his own mind. The flow was easy and natural, and still left him free to think. She was opening up, perhaps more than she intended. She had been oddly particular about what had caused her to turn off the music. The song was not generally offensive, but it could strike at certain nerves.
That point she had chosen. Her life being through. It was too raw, too reminiscent of what stared her in the face if she went back to Canterlot proper, to her 'enchanted' life in the very unreal heights of the fabulous city. Some horrible fate tied up in thoughts of bloodlines or money. No wonder she had stopped it. That was certainly a curse in disguise, though she had peeled back the mask and seen the ugly truth behind the beautiful fae figure.
The whole thing made him consider the future, at least the immediate future. She was going to heal, she was perfectly on track for it. He would have to take her back to the mountain, to a family that would use her. It would be unethical, in the extreme, to send her back to a place he knew she would despise. He'd feel like a monster. He could not just send her off... he could, but it would be dishonest. Stuff a pack with food, give her a cloak and shoo her off into the anonymous distance. It would help but leave a family probably hurting in some sense.
There were few good options. He could only think about possibilities and wonder what he was going to do when the time came. He had one more thing he could try but it was beyond foolish, especially considering the history they had had together. He'd do it, and take the consequence. The outcome could even make the decision about the future for him.