Changelings, Love and Lollipops

by Georg

Chapter 6 - Sleeping With the Enemy, Waking Up With a Friend

The world swam slowly back into view, one pink portion after another. First the pink ceiling. Then the pink walls. Then the pink mare with her mouth locked onto his. Then the pink—

I’ve gone to the bad place.

He could not help but cough weakly, and Pinkie Pie pulled her mouth off of his with a gasp, grabbing a towel and wiping the side of his face while babbling.

“I’m sorry, so sorry! I didn’t think there was that much confetti in your nose but it just kept coming out and coming out as I plunged and I didn’t think about you breathing until you kind of quit and I thought I had killed you before I even had the chance to give you a party and if you were dead, I’d never get to give you a party except for maybe a wake so I dragged you really quick out of the tubbie just like the lifesaving drills I learned as a Filly Scout and gave you mouth to mouth resessessatatation only your lips kept moving and it was distracting because the dummy never moved his lips in the class and I wasn’t used to moving lips although it felt kind of good in a weird way but not like the dummy because I’m not really into inanimate objects for self-gratification except for a couple that I keep locked up and I got to thinking some thoughts I probably shouldn’t have been thinking since I almost drowned you and I’m sorry!”

Even without his empathic sense, the changeling could almost see waves of dark misery rolling off the drooping pony, all soggy pink and wet with little flecks of sparkly confetti throughout her mane. He coughed again, blowing his nose on a provided tissue and taking an experimental breath. What he should have done was exploit the situation. If he threatened to reveal her ‘attempted murder,’ she might be convinced to open the window and let him flap away, but right now he was so exhausted he didn’t feel like flapping, fluttering or flicking a single wing, and leaping out the window would just result in a rather dangerous soggy impact with the ground. Blackmail was a perishable product, particularly with mares, best used before the expiration date of Really Darned Soon, but Pinkie Pie looked so intensely unhappy, with downcast blue eyes that had no trace of the playful sparkles that he had been dreading so much. He could not bear to crush what little happiness she had left with cruel words, but instead blew his nose again and took a deep breath.

“That’s—” The resulting explosive sneeze nearly took the top of his head off and he clutched a tissue to his face as he sneezed again, spraying little flecks of glitter and confetti into the soggy lump of soft paper. “That’s okay,” he managed to blurt out before another sneeze, taking the tissue from Pinkie and turning it into a soggy mess almost instantly.

Between the blowing and the coughing, he almost did not notice Pinkie toweling him off and guiding him into another room. While he settled down on a soft pink sleeping bag, all he cared about was a constant supply of tissues and the glorious feeling of air whistling through his sinus cavities, even if it deposited glitter and pink specks every time he blew.

You never appreciate things until they’re gone. Like air. Or love.

When he did finally quit blowing long enough to get a good look around, the first thing he noticed, to no great surprise, was that the room was pink, from pink ceiling to pink walls to pink curtains to a pink pony sized bed with a pink sleeping bag beside it that he was laying on, and with a pile of used tissues to his side. Which of course were pink in part.

“Don’t look,” called out Pinkie, which piqued his curiosity and made him look at where the pink pony was wriggling into a set of (wait for it) pink pajamas decorated with tiny green alligators and yellow ducks. He turned away before she finished dressing and regarded the thin line of ribbon that connected his leg to a post on the bed. He tugged a little, not enough to break the fragile ribbon, and considered his situation.

Brain hurts. Belly hurts. Tired. Hungry. Dark. Wait. When did it get dark?

A little balloon-shaped night light clicked on by Pinkie’s bed, revealing the pink pony as she snuggled under her covers like a tunneling pink mole. “Night, Mister Tolliver. I’d stay up and we could do sleepover stuff but I need to get up early in the morning, and it’s been a long day. Tomorrow I promise we’ll stay up late and do each other’s manes — well, hoovesies, and tell ghost stories and make s’mores. You like s’mores?”

He had heard about s’mores somewhere. They seemed to live in the forest and attack campers, if he was remembering right, which seemed to be a strange thing if Pinkie wanted to make them, but ‘strange thing’ seemed to define Pinkie Pie fairly well anyway.

“Yes,” he declared, “I like them.”

“Liar,” she muttered, snuggling down in her covers with a sinuous motion like two kittens in a sack, leaving the changeling alone with his pain.

Waiting was always the hard part, even when he had been able to consume love while biding his time. Normally a brief romantic encounter would end by allowing the other pony to fall asleep and then engineering a gentle wiggle out of any ensnaring limbs and a silent escape. Using magic to stun the other pony was only used as an absolute last resort in order to avoid detection as a changeling, which was a huge moot point now.

It took an amazingly short time before the pink mare was snoring, a soft whistling that covered any noise he made by using his magic to untie the ribbon and set it to one side. The pain and fatigue made it hard to slip away with his usual style, but it still carried him out the door and down the familiar staircase he had just traveled up an hour or two ago. A few fireflies dancing in the main room night light of Sugarcube Corner allowed the changeling to avoid any noisy chairs or other obstacles in his path to freedom, but he paused with one hoof on the front doorknob.

What if she’s waiting outside with her cannon?

It was a stupid idea. Impossible. Still, he removed his hoof from the door and slipped back upstairs into the bedroom. She was still there, in exactly the same pose. Even her snoring was perfectly regular.

See, it was a stupid idea.

Slipping back downstairs like a ghostly shadow and this time taking a few minutes to eat the last few pastries that would not be missed out of the ‘Day-Old’ box, he again moved up to the front door and paused, one hoof on the doorknob.

You know she’s out there.

The silence was deafening, but try as he might, he could not hear the whispering snores of Pinkie Pie from upstairs. Ever so slowly, he took his hoof off the doorknob and slipped back upstairs, this time headed to the window at the end of the hallway. A few limbering up exercises with his stiff wings and he reached for the window latch with hesitant hooves.

What if she’s downstairs outside of the front door and outside this window?

There was a faint breeze whistling outside, with just the smallest hint of a regular thumping noise, much as a hoof-driven flying machine might make, or even a flapping shutter somewhere in town. For just one moment, he considered how much he wanted to be able to open both this window and the door downstairs at the same time, except for the sinking feeling that Pinkie Pie might have found some way to also be in both places at the same time, and he was just starting to get used to the wonderful feeling of breathing through his nose again. Besides, there had not been a single sign of that infernal cannon inside her room, and it had to be somewhere, so why not just outside the window?

Ever so slowly, he lifted his hoof off the window latch and put it back on the carpeted floor, then slipped soundlessly back into Pinkie’s bedroom to vanish into his own sleeping bag, feeling just like a little grub again. He twisted a little to get as comfortable as his aching gut would let him, then reached outside to grope around until he found the loose piece of ribbon, tying it back onto his leg and resting his head on the cotton-candy scented pillow.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Still, this has to be something.

In the darkness, surrounded by pink, the tired changeling faded slowly into blessed slumber.

The rustle and bustle of a changeling hive continues every single moment of the day and night because the Princesses of the Sun and Moon have no sway underground, with the soft glow of luminescent fungi and the occasional ever-burning magical torch illuminating the tunnels in soft shades of green and violet. The changeling had been away from his own kind far more often than not, to the point that the relative silence of the quiet bakery was of more comfort than the constant background sound of his fellow changelings doing various tasks around the hive. Still, the low familiar clatter of tin pans and baking utensils downstairs lifted him ever so slowly from a most delightful dream where he had been swimming in strawberry-flavored love while a choir of forest creatures sang a harmonious song about tubas in the background. Honestly, it didn’t make much sense, and had been strangely pink, but cracking one eye open to peek out at the dimly-lit pink room and his snoring pink jailer didn’t make any more sense.

The clunks and rattles filtering up from downstairs as the dark bakery prepared for the first wan rays of sunshine reminded him (and not in a good way) of months spent in Stalliongrad and the endless lines of ponies queueing up for their daily bread ration. It had been so cold with a biting wind that just sliced through the thickest of coats, both purchased and transformed from his own thin chitin, most certainly not worth the relatively thin gruel of love he eked out as a result. Pulling the warm sleeping bag up to his chin, he rearranged himself as comfortably as he could and just luxuriated in the fuzzy nap that surrounded him on all sides.

I may die here, but I won’t ever have to be cold again.

One eye opened regardless of his desire to go back to sleep and stay in the warm larvae sack substitute. It was just a little bit too quiet for his comfort, and he took a rather evaluating look at the contents of the rumpled bed, just in case. Pinkie had rolled over and shifted several times during the night, twisting into a horribly uncomfortable position on her back now, one rear hoof up on the night stand, one on the headboard, one foreleg thrown over her face, and the last leg dangling over the edge of the bed just a few inches from the changeling’s face.

I wonder what she tastes like.

It was a dumb idea. He had felt Pinkie’s lips on his own already, but his scrambled brain had not actually thought to register the taste until it was too late, and now that lost opportunity was presenting itself again. The urge did not have the excuse of intoxication or a foolish bet to drive it, but the faint smell of Pinkie filtered through his nose, mixed with the overpowering scent of cotton candy from the pillow and the ever-present scent of baking that underlaid the building even when the ovens were as cold as ice. After all, her hoof was right there in front of his nose, just as clean as their mutual bath last night could make it. After glancing into each and every dimly-lit corner of the room, he leaned forward, opening up his dry lips and sticking out his tongue as slow and quiet as he possibly could, and every so gently, ran it up the bottom of her hoof.

It’s amazing. She tastes just like—

In a cataclysmic orgy of sound, every alarm clock on Pinkie’s nightstand went off at once with a mix of clanging and gongs that catapulted the pink pony straight up into the air and quite solidly into the ceiling overhead, quite nearly followed by the changeling but for the inconvenience of being wrapped up in a sleeping bag. He had barely managed to struggle free of the bag and get to his hooves when a bright and cheery yellow stallion poked his angular face into the bedroom door and bellowed, “Pinkie! You’re sleeping through your alarms again!”

What could only have been Mister Cake stood blinking in place at the doorway, watching the rattled changeling standing over the unconscious pink pony covered in plaster dust. The long and very noisy moment of mutual confusion stretched out until a sleepy pink hoof reached out and jabbed each of the alarm clocks to turn off the cacophony of sound that was preventing all conscious thought.

“Good morning, Mister Cake!” The subsequent jaw-cracking yawn and stretch paused as Pinkie looked at her damp forehoof and frowned for a moment. “That’s strange. Oh, well. Time to make the donuts!”

She rebounded off the bed like a trampoline, making it all the way to the bedroom door in one leap with her pajamas and the bedcovers falling impossibly into a neat and tidy arrangement behind her. Skidding to a halt in front of the stunned yellow stallion, she reversed course and bounced back over to the changeling and untied him from the bed post. “Silly me. I almost forgot you, and since I’m your prostitution officer—”

“Probation,” he corrected.

“—probation officer,” she continued without pausing, “you’re my responsibility, and if there’s one thing Pinkie ‘Responsibility’ Pie knows, it’s responsibility. And parties!” She drew herself up in a sharp salute and snapped out, “Private Parts, are you ready!”

“Yes?” he hazarded.

“Great!” She bounded back out of the room with the changeling in tow. “Let’s get cooking!”