Vanilla and Double had passed the night in the dining room. They had not had further words; they seemed unnecessary. They had simply held onto one another, surrounded by food. They had even slept in that position, as awkward and uncomfortable as it had been. They awoke a bit stiff, somewhat embarrassed, and had disentangled themselves, to make breakfast out of the vast assortment of food still around them.
Only after taking the edge off of their hunger did they slow down consumption and start to talk. “So... what is your real name? I doubt it's Dee Dee,” Vanilla asked, nibbling on a prickly pear tart.
“Double Dealing,” Double answered, taking a bite out of a similar tart. “I was... under pressure when I was pressed to create the name. But it seemed proper to my supposed station.”
“I certainly never questioned it,” Vanilla said, rubbing his chin lightly. “Though really, I should have. Not because it doesn't fit but... I knew your body was wrong.”
Double tilted her head at the statement, blinking is disbelief. “I thought the figure was perfect. Just thin enough, long enough, a tiny bit of softness. I was good enough to try and be a model but just enough to have an excuse for why I was not. I know my business.”
“The night I saved you in the garden...” Vanilla said, leaning back a bit and looking off at nothing. “I didn't know it then, with you covered in mud and me in a panic but I felt the holes in your legs and I saw your horn being curved and smooth. From the moment I saw your pony body I knew... something was wrong. I wondered how anyone could lie with their entire body. Now I see how but at the time I just thought your duplicity went deep. I guess it did...”
“I am so sorry about that stupidity on my part,” Double said, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. “I misread the cues you gave. And it's part of my nature to attempt to infiltrate. Oh...” Double coughed into a hoof and gave a grin. “That's how we survive. We have to move in disguises and pretend to be what we aren't. I thought you expected a high-class mare to act like that and then to come on to you once she had expressed her contempt.”
“I've seen it happen... I hated that kind of thing. The fake actions and... well, never mind,” Vanilla said. “Why do you need to go in for all that falsehood and such? What do you do? Steal from ponies, take valuables and food and things that you can use for survival?”
“Remember how I said I could taste the emotions in your food? There's a reason. Changelings can survive on normal food but we have a second need. We also feed on emotions. We draw it off to feed our hunger and drive our power,” Double said.
“Is that why you tried to hit on me?” Vanilla asked.
“Yes. I wanted to replenish my power. I had been keeping my needs low, not transforming or using much magic,” Double said. “I could have maintained the illusion until I healed, especially with more small bits of love coming from your food. But drawing it off is purer and more potent.”
“A new flavor experience, I would love to know what my love of cooking tastes like,” Vanilla said with a laugh and shake of his head. “I guess you have to do a lot of dating, going to ponies, learning about them, figuring out what they like, how they are... I'll bet you'd be great on stage.”
“I do need to learn but... it's... not new folks...” Double didn't want to admit anything. Not so soon. But she had already broken the most important rule of being a Changeling. Hiding the ugliness didn't take that back. “We have a way of temporarily making ponies forget they have seen us. They sleep and then return. It takes a lot of preparation. While we have them, we imitate them. We siphon off the love their families have for them, especially husbands and wives and children. It's not meant for us but we siphon it off anyhow. We can even extract it but that causes severe fatigue and is very noticeable...”
One of the knives leaped up from the floor, held in Vanilla's magical grip, while he slid back a ways. “Does it... hurt them?”
“Only the forceful siphoning, and that's mostly aches, lack of focus, fatigue, general weakness. Like not getting enough sleep or having the flu,” Double said, calmly. If the sudden defensive move frightened or offended her she didn't show it. “I'm not a threat to you. You're more of a danger to me. You don't love me, so I can't get a hold on any love to extract. If I was intent on doing it, why would I tell you? You'd notice right away and stop me.”
The knife clattered to the ground again and Vanilla rubbed his neck. “Sorry. I wasn't thinking. I guess I should have thought that through. Still... it's not a very pleasant thing to hear first thing in the morning from someone I thought I had been getting to know. I guess that was all a lie too.”
“Only any details I gave. Those were pure invention, and rather good ones, if I may be proud of my personal business,” Double said, with a smile on her face. “However, I confessed more to you than I have ever told anyone. More, maybe, than I was willing to admit to myself. It's not a pretty life but we are very ugly things.”
“That seems a bit harsh. You'd think you'd at least think you look nice. The holes are a little odd and the fangs are intimidating but it's not a bad look,” Vanilla noted, looking Double over.
Double giggled into a hoof. “You're very much a charmer. I think that's why I managed to make myself so at home here despite the oddity of the situation.” She sighed and shook her head. “No, we are an ugly species in that we must deceive others in a quest to steal love them meant for someone they actually love. We do unpleasant things to ponies... and don't have an easy life even away from that.”
“You said you were a follower, you considered your heritage a burden. I thought you meant lost nobility and too much money, but it means...” Vanilla began.
“Living underground, in the swarm's hive, basking in the mana buzz of concordance, performing a distasteful task for a Queen who cares little for us, where the price of failure is... culling...” Double trained off with a shiver.
Vanilla looked pointedly down to the cast on Double's leg. “You said if you went back...”
“The slightest sign of weakness... or failure. The invasion was a failure and I am injured. Perhaps Chrysalis would show mercy if I came back whole, we all failed. But injured, I would be a useless dead weight. We would need to slim down and prepare for a hard time, because now ponies know we exist. I had planned to return once I was recovered,” Double said, looking at the cast herself.
“I thought you were going to break the mold, be an innovator, the best of what you are, a beacon to others,” Vanilla said, not looking at Double.
“What I am is a Changeling. The best of a Changeling is a cog in a machine, an interchangeable part to be replaced if something goes wrong. The beacon leads others to similar. It's what it means to be me,” Double said, passionlessly, sullenly nibbling on a slice of cake.
“That can't be true. You must be more than just a cog. You were proud of yourself, you said so,” Vanilla affirmed.
Double was quiet for a bit, still nibbling her cake. “We can be... better than others. Minimum acceptable success is needed. But it's not like being better is rewarded. Other Changelings may be in awe or impressed but there is no prize for being the best infiltrator, the best imitator. I'm proud of what I can do but noling else is.”
“I'm impressed you fooled me so easily. Maybe it was concern and fear, and because as a pony I care so much but... you got me to believe you, with a simple story invented on the spot,” Vanilla noted.
“I did, I certainly did,” Double said with a smile, her wings buzzing pleasantly. “Thank you. I think... maybe we should finish eating and clean up. I don't mind but I doubt you want to bring in ants.”
“Right, right! Like I said, we'll be eating these for a while...” Vanilla laughed, horn glowing and lifting the plates of food towards the kitchen.
- - -
Vanilla was lounging in his usual place, finally able to bring himself to listen to his records again. He still wasn't up to reading Daring Do again, but he was getting there. The revelation of the other day was still echoing around in his head, and it was quite a thing.
Dee Dee... Double Dealing was nothing at all as she had appeared. He had suspected that some parts of her story were lies, by omission or substitution. He had known the grand lie of her body had meant something significant. It meant more than he could ever have imagined.
“Changeling...” He said slowly, feeling the name leave his mouth after dancing on his tongue. “The name sounds nice. Too bad it isn't all that nice...” It was hard not to think ill of her. Even setting aside the fact that she was the captive soldier of a hostile foreign power who had rather rudely invaded a wedding, she was in the habit of ponynapping others, taking their place and stealing love.
'To live...' Vanilla reminded himself, with a slow nod of his head. 'She does it to live, both as a food source and so she is not killed.' He wasn't very positive about the act but he could at least understand some of the impetus for it. Basic survival, keeping her hunger and her queen at bay.
But it was more. Double had confessed to being particularly good at it. She took pride in doing that, in infiltrating, in stealing love meant for another. That was certainly much less ambiguous. She prided herself on how well she could hurt ponies and obey rather hurtful instructions.
Vanilla cleared that thought from his head with more consideration. Her pride came from necessity. Basic survival and her queen had made it right. Like a child never taught that breaking things is wrong, she had become proud of being very good at something that ponies considered very bad.
He heaved a sigh as he considered the matter. She had to live, she had to satisfy the desire of the queen. Really, there was no good solution. In Equestria such a thing would have been resolved simply, with sharing and cooperation. But he had to imagine that the Changeling mindset was such that duplicity and deception had simply become the only way it could ever work. It would be a rather hard sell, to be sure.
Could cooperating and sharing even work? Could love be shared if it wasn't felt? It was a strange notion. Vanilla actually got a chuckle out of the idea of a Changeling going to a neighbor to borrow a cup of love. He cleared the idea from his mind when he realized he had effectively created the opening scene of a pornographic movie. 'That's one way to do it...' he thought, blushing a bit.
The idea of free-flowing emotions was a strange thing. As though the feeling, the internal thing was an object like fruit juice or something. The idea was not impossible. Even if he had been bored by the thaumatology courses he knew that mana was all over and had distinct fields, upwellings, flows and such. Love, friendship and other such things had powers in Equestria. Perhaps there was a radiant field that could be siphoned off during emotion.
“Emotional ingredients. Fifth dimensional cookery. I have a new thing to make me crazy...” Vanilla chuckled. Taste. Smell. Texture. Presentation. The cooking dimensions hew knew. Even if the emotional trace was technically a taste, it was an unknown element. It was separate and distinct. The taste came and then the emotional flavor. He could pour skill into a dish, but with no love it would be bland and lifeless underneath. He could accidentally infuse rage, frustration, fear... cooking would become a therapy session. Changelings would probably be good at that...
'Emotional flavors,' he thought, returning his focus. Could he induce an emotion he wanted paired with a dish? Sweet adoration lavished artificially onto a warm cake? Smoky-fiery rage or resentment in a pepper-infused candy? The potential excited him but made him aware of how deceptive that would be. He wanted genuine emotions. Emotions had to be sincere, even if they didn't 'pair' with an ingredient. Sincere...
“Flesh against the thorn...” Heather Lea sang, as the song faded out, oddly apropos for the situation.
“What hurts the most is the most important. I get it,” Vanilla said to the empty room, his magic lifting the needle from the record and lifting the record off and into its sleeve. He then got up from his chair and made his way upstairs.
“Well, now, what a nice surprise. Is it time for a snack? I still have my appetite,” Double said cheerfully, laying on her back in bed and reading one of Vanilla's Daring do books. It was a way to keep herself entertained.
“No, no snack right now. I thought I might... come up for a visit...” Vanilla said, a bit nervously, a hoof gently rubbing the back of his head while she tried to hide a blush. “I hope I'm not disturbing you.”
“Not at all. I'm enjoying this book of yours, but I would never turn down conversation from you. It's your home after all, and you've been so nice to let me recover here,” Double said, giving a fang-filled smile to Vanilla.
“It only polite. No... it's not just that... I wish I was better at this...” Vanilla shook his head and slowly approached Double, his hooves moving as though they were filled with lead. “I came up here to talk about something important, but something that I can't seem to get right.”
“Maybe I can help. I've had a lot of experience doing a lot of things, and this sounds like something emotional. You can imagine I'm very good at that,” Double said with a chuckle, scooting slightly to the side and offering a space on the bed.
Vanilla remained standing. In fact, he paced in a tight circle beside Double. “When I thought you were an upper-terrace noblemare or a glamorfilly or something equally monied and haughty I thought everything you did and said was either a lie or just unpleasant by design...” He swallowed a bit and gave a wan smile to the small moue of distaste that met the comments, “But I know better. You wanted to do what you usually did. I understand and can appreciate the skill that requires. I had thoughts about that, about potentials and about you... some of which I tried to discard or at least shove completely aside.”
“I hope you've done that! You can certainly dismiss thoughts about me as an unpleasant mare angling to just take pleasure. Well...” Double blushed a bit and gave a little grin, “I am angling but it is for survival. I was never deceptive in that respect... strangely enough...”
“No, no, I've recovered from thoughts like that, I promise... but some thoughts I shoved away, well, they... they're coming back again. Your honest revealing of what you are and who you are gave me what I wanted since the beginning. The truth. I think well of you now that I know what was under the mud,” Vanilla said, briefly nibbling on his lower lip as he considered his next words. “There were parts of that time... parts that I now see were part of your real personality... the good parts... they.. and I...”
“Slow down. Just breathe, and think, and put your words together,” Double said comfortingly, reaching out her uninjured, holed foreleg to lightly caress Vanilla's passing withers.
The touch stopped Vanilla dead in his tracks. He did not look disgusted. He didn't seem to have any reaction besides halting. He just took the advice. He breathed slowly, eyes closed and facial muscles tight as he concentrated. “The good parts, were very good,” He finally said, eyes still closed. “I thought you seemed nice. I was completely willing to help you escape what I thought was a forced marriage. I cared enough about you to want you to have a life that would suit you.”
Another blush rose up on Double's cheeks, her hoof softly stroking Vanilla's withers in thanks. “You really would have done that for me? That's... that's really nice of you. I think I could always tell you were a good pony. I was afraid for a while that I had angered you so much you would have forced me away or let me wither in bed but... I always came around to the thought that you were a good pony. That you would always be good to me. I guess I was right.”
“It's not just that, though... I wanted you to get away, with some food, a cloak and directions to a town that could keep you safe and anonymous. But the thought of that, I confess... made me sad, because I... I didn't want to see you leave,” Vanilla said, with increasing softness as he reached the last words.
“What... was that?” Double asked, incredulous, leaning her head closer and looking at Vanilla's face, her blue eyes wide in shock and disbelief.
“I would have been sad to watch you go. I would have done it because it's the right thing to do, to keep you safe from the fate I thought you faced. But it would have been hard for me,” Vanilla said, rubbing his neck, hoof accidentally brushing Double's. “Maybe because I got used to you being here, or because I just loved your company or enjoyed having someone appreciate my cooking again, or the good advice you gave me or...”
Double stroked Vanilla's withers again, brushing across his hoof gently as she did, though not on purpose. “I get it. You like having me here. I'm not bad company I guess. And as a pony I made for good company and I at least provided some eye candy,” she laughed, getting a deadpan look from Vanilla that knocked the humor out of her. “So... what are you saying?”
“I thought you made a good-looking unicorn. And what was nice about your personality, that was great. But I hated the lie that you were presenting. Now that I see you, I still like having you here,” Vanilla said, very directly putting his hoof on Double's own. His head leaned aside and he touched his cheek against it.
Double gasped softly. It was considered impossible to get a pony to give any affection out of a disguise. The touch of cheek on chitin sent a rush of love into her. It was small, yes, an uncertain love, confused about so much. But it was there, more and delicious as the drips in the food. The void cried for more then went quiet. “No... impossible... ponies are disgusted and repulsed by our true bodies. We learned never to show them...”
“It's not usual. But we're very open. We can love donkeys and zebras and griffins and other creatures that don't look like us,” Vanilla said, softly rubbing his cheek against Double's hoof. “I care more that this is real. This is what you really are. This was what I had been waiting for... I think I was waiting to fall in love with what you really were.”
Double remained speechless for a time, taking in the slow trickle of blossoming love, something she had never tasted before, and savoring the feel of soft pony fur against her smooth chitin. “I can't believe any pony would wait to see this. I could go back to being Dee Dee. That would be nice for you, wouldn't it? A pony, the pony you fell for, the one you put all these emotions into and the one you made all that food for...”
“I didn't fall for Dee Dee. She never existed. She was a fake. It was you, underneath. Even if I didn't know it...” Vanilla slowly moved closer, until his head was resting on Double's neck. “I was slowly falling for Double Dealing, a hurt, scared Changeling that needed help. Now, it's clear. I can say it. Now that I know who you really are, I love you.”
Green-gold tears gathered at the corners of Double's eyes, as her breathing grew ragged. The love... new-made as it was, confused and slow and halting... it was so pure. Uncut with conditions, lust, mistrust, deceptions of all kinds. Such a rich and succulent treat. It was delicious and delightful and beautiful as anything could be. Her holed legs were thrown around Vanilla's neck and she held him to her body, lest he vanish. “I don't know what to say...”
Vanilla moved his head up, to look into the blue pools of Double's eyes. “Then we won't talk for now...” His head came down and he gave her a kiss. Her little fangs slid over his lips and he made a soft noise of surprise and some delight when he discovered that her kiss tasted like roses and honey.
Double was trapped, pinned to the bed by the kiss. It was wrong, to kiss a pony without her disguise, to feel him when she was so exposed. She was violating everything she knew as a Changeling. But there was so much delight in it, such pure love to fill the emptiness, but more, it was something she had been thinking about. She wanted what ponies had. They had each other. She now had that too. She sank into the kiss, content.
- - -
“I've been thinking a lot about emotional flavor,” Vanilla said, a few nights later. They had been enjoying a much more open relationship, able to say good things about other another while showing small bits of physical affection. Double was downstairs again, and they were sharing a large salad with some pomegranate reduction.
“I wish you could experience it. As you've said to me, it would add another dimension to food. I never even realized food had dimensions, I just ate it to stay alive. Now I don't know how I failed to see it,” Double said, daintily munching on her food.
“I thought a lot about artificially inserting emotion to pair with dishes, but that kind of insincere feeling is just unbearable to me. It's not a good thing at all,” Vanilla said with a firm nod.
“Nor is it very good as far as taste goes,” Double noted, rubbing a forkful of leaves through the reduction. “Perfecting a fake emotion is impossible. The artifice always comes through. It's not just bad it's insulting. Sometimes it's not intentional, such as if a chef feels one thing but is forced to seem another way. It creates two tastes. You... did that to me a few times. Love of cooking and frustration, or even anger. I'm... sorry I did that to you.”
“All in the past,” Vanilla said, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. “It... brings up another question. And tell me if this is too personal. If you can taste and eat emotion, is there a stomach for it somewhere?”
Double gave a high, buzzing laugh that finished with a soft chirp. She dabbed at her lips with a napkin and composed herself before saying, “There is a special organ inside, there's no real name for it in the pony language. I guess you could call it the emotion-stomach. It works to process emotions, but especially love, into a rich, dense fluid that circulates in us and is part of many processes. It tastes like roses and honey.”
“Oh that's why your kisses are so flowery and sweet. It's your saliva. Perhaps I could try cooking with it,” Vanilla mused.
“You'd cook with Changeling spit?” Double asked, giggling a little bit.
“Real honey is bee vomit. They digest nectar and vomit it up into little wax cells made by chewing up waxy secretions from their abdomens. I use honey all the time, and I don't even personally know the bees whose vomit I'm eating,” Vanilla said, losing his composure near the end and ending up laughing at his own descriptions.
“Fair enough...” Double said, laughing a bit as well.
“So, how do you know when your emotion-stomach is empty? Do you get a rumble in your belly, or... upper chest or back or wherever it is?” Vanilla asked, trying to be serious about it.
“We're always hungry for emotions,” Double responded, suddenly turning very grim and serious. “It's always with us. We have many names for it. The emptiness, the void, the screaming nothingness, the bottomless pit. It cries for stolen emotion, demands for and more. It makes us powerful, certainly, stealing emotion gives our illusions strength and makes us generally physically stronger for a limited time, but we burn our reserves soon enough and the void screams. It's so seldom satisfied we barely know what it means to be content.”
“Wow... I can't imagine a bottomless stomach. It would make food... meaningless. You eat and eat and never finish. I'm sorry to hear it,” Vanilla said, reaching over to touch Double's shoulder.
“It quiets down, but we always know it's there, deep down, rumbling, roiling, demanding. It's not called the screaming nothingness for nothing. When it demands it demands, and it will not be denied. It will drive you to do anything to throw more emotion into the bottomless pit. The satiation is more that the void is muffled... but never silenced...” Double said, voice dropping to a whisper at the end. She leaned slightly into the touch and smiled.
They finished dinner and Vanilla gallantly escorted her back to her room. They parted at the door with a long, lingering kiss. It spoke well of Vanilla, to Double's mind, that though she would have allowed a lascivious tongue-kiss, and he knew it, he did not. He was not chaste, there was a certain passion to the press of lips, but he kept the acceptable limit for a new romance. She'd taken over a few blossoming romances. But they had never felt so good.
Double sank comfortably into her bed, slowly rubbing her green, membranous midsection. There was so much to admire about Vanilla, but his food was really so very high on that list. With the falsehoods dropped his love was free to flow, and did it ever! Every dish was marinated in it, and that flavor would never get old.
More than that, he radiated love for her. Not to the image of Dee Dee, or some abstract idea like social consciousness. For her. In his touch, in his kiss, in the looks he gave her. Love filled them all. She was really giving the yawning void a feast. She hoped it was choking on it. It had tormented her all her life, as it tormented all Changelings. Revenge was sweet.
Vanilla was sweet. She brought her uninjured leg up to her muzzle and sighed though one of the smaller holes, to produce a soft little sound. It was like blowing across the neck of a bottle, though perhaps a bit more odd given that it was done with a hole in her leg. She had done it before while bored. Doing it while mooning and in love was a nice change of pace.
The tone was a little odd. She blew a larger puff of air across the hole. The tone was still off. She pushed her snout at the opening, and found she didn't quite have the same clearance around the circumference as she usually did. It was closing.
“Closing...” Double whispered, fearfully. Chrysalis' image crossed her mind, as well as the tales she had told. She had thought they had been just a myth. But no. Her queen had been right. “But that's... that's just... a legend... Chrysalis couldn't have been right... no...”
Double flopped onto the bed and stared into the darkness. She could swear she could feel every hole in her body growing smaller. Had she been more focused on what was actually happening to her body, she would have noticed that the howling emptiness had gone silent. No matter for how long or short a span, that was not supposed to happen.