It was just another day and Twilight was soon going back to Canterlot next week on a trip with her best friend and Barb to help with wedding preparations. They still didn’t know who Fleur was getting married to, but they’d find out when they get there.
Twilight’s parents would be glad to house them while they were in the city, they would be stopping off there for a brief visit before they set out for Fleur’s home. Right now they had their bags packed ahead of schedule with everything they needed when they leave next week and they had a bright day ahead of them in Ponyville. Well at least Tress had a bright day ahead of her.
“I really dislike dresses. A pony might think I would like them given my special talent is based in bathing and beauty products but I don’t.” Tress sipped a mug of hot cider and looked at a sheet of paper with the jobs they could do today.
“I don’t understand dresses either Tress, at least a well made one can feel nice on my coat. So anything that catches your eye today?” Twilight still eventually wanted Tress to have a dream to chase. At least they weren’t bad in bits with the odd jobs they’ve been having. “You might as well make yourself busy since I’m going to be creating one big defensive enchantment around the library and our house. It’s going to take me the most of the day to even set up a working solution for it and it’ll be incredibly boring for you to just sit around me all day. Go and live a little Tress, while you’re out doing jobs you could maybe even visit the park with Palatable?”
“Fine, Pal come on out we’re heading to the park after I do a job or two. I got you’re rope toy, so some tugging and fetching may be in today’s agenda.” The cat immediately ran up to Tress and began rubbing up against her while meowing in a pleasant manner. “Why I even value the notion of you as a pet I’ll never understand.”
“Oh come on Tress, I know you like the little monster that nearly tore us to shreds.” If it were any other pony then Twilight, the cheery tone of her voice would have been seen as sarcastic instead of how she really felt.
“I think the only reason we keep him around is because his droppings are actually chocolate chip cookie dough. Also that we’re both too highly amused by the phenomenon of how weird my new pet is to actually finally be rid of him.” Another oddity that Tress did not need to know about the cat, but found out anyway. Apparently fruitcakes did go to the bathroom and when they did a number two, cookie dough came out instead of animal waste. Tress chalked it up to the enigma that was the power of magic.
Shape of a cat, half the mind of a dog, properties of a magically altered living fruitcake that liked Tress a bit too much and its fecal matter that was nothing but raw cookie dough and chocolate. Twilight even checked and studied it to make sure. Never will there ever be another pet quite like Pal in existence. Tress shook her head and trotted out the door with her saddle bags, the cat happily padding after her.
As Tress walked down the road and passed by an alleyway minding her own business, something shifted in the alleyway she just passed. A pair of bug like eyes followed Tress down the street and as the creature poked its head out and followed the target with it moving down the road, it didn’t see too many ponies around. It was about to follow when it heard a growling sound. Turning to the angry looking red eyed cat, the bug eyed creature’s ears wilted when the cat leapt at its face and started mauling it.
“Pal, come on! I’m not going to play with you if you get lost today, so stop mauling whatever poor sap that earned your ire.” Tress nodded to herself that she had the cats’ attention as he came out the alleyway looking rather victorious. She just shook her head at his antics and continued onwards, she had a visit with Carrot Topper of the Golden Harvest clan as a first stop. She had a taste for carrots lately and a job with a carrot farmer might be good for some quick cash and a minor discount on a snack.
The changeling didn’t know what had hit it, but it was definitely hurting now. As a rule of their species, changelings invaded weddings and or parties as often as they possibly could. The reason for this was because changelings ate emotional energy and the emotional energy of choice was love. The quickest source of love involved sneaking into a wedding and not doing anything other than feed off the ambient atmosphere.
This particular changeling was following Tress as she was a bride’s mare, kidnapping Tress and taking her place was the quickest way to find out if the bride and groom truly loved each other. If a changeling was found infiltrating your wedding, then you were likely guaranteed the feelings of love there were completely genuine between the two being married if it had stuck around that long. Not to mention love was tasty to a changeling like the cake usually served after the marriage ceremony that takes place.
The changeling had not been counting on Tress having a pet; one of the few things a changeling couldn’t sneak by was an actively intelligent pet. Said pet had just mauled him quite vigorously before running off at Tress’s voice. There was no information from the others that Tress even had a pet, this changeling had tracked the brides letter to Ponyville and had hit a small complication already. The cat would likely be left behind with a pet sitter or something while they went to the wedding, so the plan was still viable and there was always more than one way to skin a cat.
A changeling was a creature usually with a black exoskeleton, had a carapace that came in various colors, bug like wings, a horn that channeled magic, two fangs alongside teeth that weren’t used very often, bug like eyes and patchy holes in their legs and wings. The defining trait of changelings is that they could take on the appearance of any creature that is close to their size, height and weight. Ponies were the most likely candidates for changeling infiltrations, they sometimes went after buffalo’s and there was one changeling that managed to disguise itself as a cow. They generally didn’t have a true gender as they were hermaphroditic in nature and weren’t too great at direct physical confrontations. Unless they were outnumbering the thing that dragged them into said confrontation, they would avoid fighting as much as possible and killing was something a changeling would not do as they did not need ponies discovering their temporary intrusions.
This changeling was nearly not big enough to transform into Tress and would have had some issues with trying to impersonate her if that cat was always going to be around, it was the only changeling around that was capable of mimicking Tress feasibly. The changeling wasn’t a quitter and would continue to pursue the best course of action, which to it was trying to infiltrate the wedding as some pony close to the bride. This meant continuing to stalk Tress to find out more things about her; just enough to fool the bride at the wedding to eat some high grade love and quickly escape. To say it wasn’t a very bright changeling was not the problem as changelings could be quite intelligent. They were just incredibly accident prone and were notably very unlucky creatures as karma liked to kick them around for stealing.
Staggering to its hooves the changeling transformed to look like an earth pony and quickly tried to pick up Tress’s trail again, it needed to know how Tress acted around other ponies. The trail started leading out of town and the changeling smiled. This was a perfect opportunity to catch the mare and take out the annoying cat; the changeling could always say the cat got lost as Tress had hinted that it had wanderlust about it.
Tress was currently struggling to pull a carrot out of the ground and Pal was digging up some of the dirt around the carrot to help her. After two more pulls the carrot popped free of the ground and flew out of Tress’s hooves causing her to fall onto her back.
“Your right Carrot Topper you’re job isn’t as easy as you make it look.” Tress’s ears perked up at the shriek sound from the direction the large carrot flew, didn’t sound like a noise a pony would make.
The changeling had a carrot impaled through one of its legs and was screeching its head off at the unfortunate circumstance. Then the red eyed colorful cat came and the changelings ears wilted and its frill at the back of its head went completely limp against its neck. It watched as the cats eyes narrowed on the carrot and then on it, it hastily started trying to pull the carrot out of its current position of being stuck in its leg.
A minute later Pal had successfully fetched the carrot from the other monster he thought was trying to steal his owners’ affection. The bush he just left had a small puddle of blood flow from it and a groaning pained moan of unbridled agony surfaced for a few seconds.
“Good cat, I might actually enjoy playing with you later if you keep this up.” Tress took back the carrot and showed it to Carrot after looking it over carefully.
“It didn’t even use its teeth and this carrot is perfectly fine, needs to be washed off first to be safe though. That cat is indeed good; he’s your little helper I take it?” The earth pony mare had a thickly curled orange mane, three bundled carrots as a cutie mark that went well with her slightly pale yellow fur. She established that Tress was to help her harvest and replant a small field of carrots.
A few hours later and after some successfully harvested carrots, Tress packed a bundle of five carrots into her saddle bags. Carrot was a generally friendly mare and was easy to get along with; the job was short and easy with Applejack’s next door neighbor. She did have to admit that Pal helped dig up the carrots without damaging them, Tress still didn’t entirely forgive the cat for gluing her to that ceiling but she was getting close to doing it.
“Next thing… aid Applejack with pie making? Eh, can’t be too hard. It’s a good thing I’m thankfully not a unicorn or else this wouldn’t be a feasible task.” It was becoming an alarming trend for Tress that unicorns weren’t very good cooks, they could usually cook only one thing well and that was about it. Some unicorns could cook really well but those were the minority and Rarity was one of those few unicorns that had no cooking problems.
The changeling followed after Tress with its wounds wrapped in vines that held medicinal leaves to its multiple mauling injuries as makeshift bandages. It hadn’t been able to see Tress interact with that earth pony nor what she had done with her, but apparently it involved farming. Hopefully wherever Tress was going now would be less painful.
“So my cat and your dog have free reign to clean up whatever we accidentally drop in the process of making a variety of different types of apple pie?” Tress received confirmation as long as Winona didn’t get into any chocolate they were good to go ahead with making apple pies with all kinds of different ingredients in them. Honorary family members could help out and Tress would be making a few bits from this adventure.
“Yep and this is the final result!” Applejack turned and put a hoof forward while holding onto an extremely fresh and hot pie lightly dusted with cinnamon. Her hoof landed on a rolling pin that was sitting the floor having fallen there when Applejack had her back turned. Her hoof hit the rolling pin and she slipped slightly, reflexively throwing the pie at Tress by accident. “Whoa Nelly, are you alright there sugar cube?”
“Yeah I’m fine, but I think that pie is a lost cause.” Tress had ducked out of the way of the pie and looked out the open window before turning back to Applejack with a shrug. The cat and dog immediately ran out the pet door to go lick up the pie.
The changeling thought it was a safe distance away from the house and was able to watch the interactions with a pair of binoculars until something came zooming out the window at an upward arc. The changeling lowered its binoculars and looked up straight into the pie that slammed into its face.
The changeling sat there for a moment contemplating the amount of pain it must be in for all its nerve endings to have just suddenly shut down like they did. The pie filling was in its wounds, the pie chunks were in its unblinking eyes and it felt a slow burning sensation that its body was vaguely reading as painfully hot at the moment. There was nothing that could possibly make this more agonizing like another immediately predicted red eyed demonic cat mauling to go on top of all the pain it was most likely currently in.
Hearing a growl both familiar and unfamiliar, the changeling looked down and immediately regretted its previous thought as it saw both the cat and a dog. They turned to each other and were seemingly communicating which part of its body to go for first for its next mauling by meowing and barking respectively towards each other.
Later that afternoon and after the changeling had given up for the day to recuperate from multiple injuries, Tress was playing with Palatable and Winona in the park. She was being paid a few bits to pet sit Winona for a while and Tress might have even enjoyed spending time with Pal. Pal wanted to be in her good graces and was doing a good job of it getting along with Winona despite his catlike appearance.