//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 - The Party Ends // Story: Changelings, Love and Lollipops // by Georg //------------------------------// Changelings, Love and Lollipops Chapter 14 The Party Ends The changeling watched the little students trot away into the crowd of partygoers while trying to maintain his far-too-false smile. He had tried not to think of the problem while enjoying himself at the party, but their simple request to hunt bugs had brought it right to the forefront. Tomorrow, all of the happiness he was bringing to the town today would be wiped away, just like he had never existed. No, that was not right. There would be changes from his brief visit. His death would hit those little ponies particularly hard. Little ones always considered their elders to be somewhat immortal, and the grief they broadcast when that fallacy was revealed could be felt for miles. A funeral was as close to changeling repellant as could be imagined. For Pinkie… Tomorrow morning, Pinkie Pie was going to wake up with a corpse next to her bed. It would be hard… difficult for her to manage, but she had her friends. When Twilight Sparkle had run away for her little breakdown, her friends had been running right behind her to provide comfort. He had never been able to count on a friend when he was out harvesting love or even in the hive. It was a changeling eat changeling world wherever he had been, and successfully stealing love meant the resulting pain was left far behind as he went to a new assignment. Love was to be stolen, pain was to be inflicted. Take and give. Even though it had felt so good seeing his imaginary nemesis prove to have hooves of clay, there had been a tiny stab of pain in his heart every time he thought about hurting the lonely bookworm in the library tree with only a baby dragon for company. Driving her away in order to protect his food source would have been a natural reaction for him a few weeks ago, but now it only brought the words of the Royal Guard echoing through his head in endless repetition. …but after they get hungry, they’ll be right back to being vicious love-sucking monsters again. He could not just run away into the Everfree Forest, even if Pinkie Pie was not waiting there with her infernal cannon. The happy and loving ponies would form search parties to go after him, possibly getting hurt or killed themselves. It was all very uncomfortable to think about, but there was very little time left to think. “Pardon me. Mister Tolliver?” The elegant unicorn from before peered hesitantly around the corner where the changeling had taken refuge with his thoughts. “I just have a few minutes before the next dance. Where did Pinkie, Rainbow and Twilight go?” “To the library.” The changeling intentionally looked away from the tall library tree in the distance and tried to maintain a cheerful demeanor. Tried and failed, that is. Rarity responded, but he had sunk too deep in his thoughts to hear her. Ponyville was an insane place, filled with insane ponies, but he had started to appreciate their particular brand of insanity, particularly the pink variety. I don’t want to die. Not this way. I had always thought I would die in service to the hive or be disposed of after becoming useless. Now for the first time in my life, I’m bringing happiness to others instead of sucking it away from them. I see why Pinkie Pie enjoys it so much, and I don’t want it to stop. I want to keep bringing happiness to others, just like her, but I can’t. I’m going to die. I’ll never help those crazy little ponies find their cutie marks, or find out what a crinkleberry is, or even why Pinkie Pie can see me for what I really am and still… “Still what, Mister Tolliver?” asked Rarity after a suitable pause. “I was talking out loud?” asked the changeling. “Quite.” Rarity shuffled her hooves in a discreet fashion and looked towards the dance floor where the young dragon was holding two paper cups full of punch and practically floating above the grass. “Perhaps you would join us on the dance floor, Mister Tolliver. There are quite a few young mares who asked about—” “I can’t,” said the changeling. “Look, when your friends come back, I’d like you to pass along my apology to Twilight Sparkle. I was…” To Rarity’s credit, she did not contribute any suggestions while he fidgeted. “I was a changeling to her,” he finally finished. “The town has been so nice to me even after they knew who I was. I don’t want anypony to see me die, so I’ll just go back to the jail and lock myself in the cell.” “Umm…” Now it was Rarity’s turn to seem uncomfortable. “I’m afraid Twilight had to repurpose the jail back to being a jail in order to get Mister Jailbird out of her house before, and these are her exact words, ‘Before I do something criminally stupid and wind up with foal.’” “Yeah,” muttered the changeling, “he doesn’t deserve that. I’m the one who triggered her hormones. My pheromones,” he added at Rarity’s curious look. “Because I’m starving, I’ve apparently been putting out pheromones that trigger heat in any adult mare I’ve been around, but Twilight Sparkle fixed that.” “I was wondering what was going on with my friends.” Rarity twitched her tail and glanced back out at the dance floor where the next song was just getting started and the little dragon appeared to be getting impatient. “Mister Tolliver, permit me to make a suggestion. Enjoy yourself at the party, and I shall give you my full assurances that I shall find you a perfectly acceptable location to await whatever happens tomorrow. Everything will work out in the end. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” The changeling eyed her suspiciously. “You know that type of promise only brings pain.” “Trust me.” Rarity fairly glowed with a broad smile that made her eyes sparkle. “You won’t regret it.” ~ ~ ~ ♡ ~ ~ ~ “I’m going to regret this.” The changeling muttered the words repeatedly as he trudged along after Rarity with a sleeping baby dragon on his back. The moon and stars in the cloudless sky provided a pale light as they walked through the small town, but the occasional street lamp kept him from bumping into things in the shadows, most probably things that should not be bumped into. He had begun repeating the words when the party had finally broken up, and continued even after Rarity had enlisted his assistance to carry the baby dragon back to his home. “Twilight Sparkle is going to—” “My friend will listen to your apology, Mister Tolliver. Stop worrying.” Rarity continued to trot alongside him with considerable swishing of her tail until she added, “Spike was so much a gentlecolt at the party tonight, don’t you think?” “Yeah.” He shifted his pace slightly to keep the somewhat warm dragon from sliding off his back. It was difficult trying not to think about how terrified he had been of Spike just a day ago, which probably explained his lack of tact as he continued, “You’re not planning on mating with him, are you?” Seeing no response other than a far-off look in the mare’s eye, he added, “Interspecies romance never works. Take it from a professional. The differences are too great.” “Oh, so you have attempted to romance a pony as a changeling then, Mister Tolliver?” replied Rarity with just a hint of frost in her voice. “Other than Pinkie Pie, of course.” “I have not. Um… Sex doesn’t count,” he added in an uncomfortable outburst. “Who said anything about sex?” Rarity flipped her mane back and smiled. “Spike is an extraordinary friend, who cares deeply about me right down to the tips of his claws. He has a fire in his heart that no stallion could possibly match, and there are times when I wonder…” That sly smile only grew, and she stole another glance at him as they walked. “Tell me, Mister Tolliver. Have you ever truly cared for another creature who cares for you in return, just the way you are? Even a pet?” He had to think about it, but only for a short time. “No. Pets don’t give off enough love to sustain a changeling, and nopony could possibly love a changeling once they know who they are.” Rarity’s only response was a quiet snort. True to her word, the crazy unicorn in the library actually listened while he apologized, and although it felt good somewhere in his chest to watch her discomfort at trying to apologize in return, he squelched the feeling. Twilight Sparkle was properly civil while she tucked her sleeping dragon into his bed, promising not to write anything drastic to their pony Queen that might result in perhaps a large celestial body being used to beat a certain changeling into the ground before dawn. In return, she extracted a non-Pinkie promise from the changeling that in the unlikely event he did not die a horrible gruesome death from starvation overnight, that he would voluntarily surrender to the Royal Guards and allow himself to be carried off to the hive with the rest of the changelings, where at least nopony would have to watch him die. It should have been a fair deal. It sent him where he supposedly wanted to go in the first place, provided that he survived that long, but something bothered him about the deal in a long and constant itch that only emerged when Rarity was escorting him away from the library tree. “What about Pinkie Pie?” Rarity smiled an enigmatic smile that would not have been out of place on Queen Chrysalis. “What about her? You said yourself that interspecies romances are doomed to failure.” “I know that.” He scowled and kicked a pebble down the pathway. “I’ve seen several, and they’re about as one-way as gravity. Changelings can be loved, but they can’t love back. Even producing offspring among changelings is a fairly reluctant affair that the Queen dictates. Once the hive has enough love to sustain a new changeling, she picks two likely changelings, stuffs them full of love so they can spawn, and that’s about it. Afterwards, he goes back to harvesting or whatever his job was and she sits around until the little grub is born and weaned enough for the creche. We spend so much time trying to pull love out of others that we can’t push like you ponies do. Well, except for the queen, and when a harvester puts their collected supply of love into the hive storage.” “Sounds a little like bees,” said Rarity. “Or maybe bats.” She eyed him in the moonlight as they walked. “Have you? I mean… mated?” “With Pinkie? No. She offered when she was in heat, but…” “You turned her down.” The way Rarity said it, the phrase was more of an award than a question. “It takes a true gentlecolt to refuse a mare in the grip of her hormones.” “Or a dying changeling,” he added. “There was no purpose in having sex with her. Without my ability to absorb emotions, there was really no point.” “Diet sex,” said Rarity with a giggle. “And I thought Pinkie Pie was solely interested in calories.” Even as depressed as he was feeling, he could not help but giggle along with her. “After getting to know her over the last few days, I’m not sure if I could survive sex with her.” “Pinkie Pie does tend to throw herself head-over-hocks into anything she does,” said Rarity as she tried to suppress the last of her laughter. “She’s never had a coltfriend, you know. Well, for more than one date. What I was asking, Mister Tolliver, is if you had ever been… well, I suppose from what you said, changelings don’t get married. If you had ever considered taking a mate.” “Me?” He stopped in the middle of the dark path. “Why?” “Because Pinkie Pie is my best friend, Mister Tolliver. I can see things about her that nopony else can. When she talks about you, there is a sparkle in her eyes that I have never seen before. There has always been a darkness about her inner self that all the light and candy in the world cannot quench. She brings joy for so many, but she has never been loved in a romantic and passionate way in return, and at times I’ve worried about that absence.” “Me?” The changeling shook his head violently in a cascade of red and white mane. “I don’t love her; I’m just clutching onto her in some doomed reaction to starvation like she’s a little pink hive of one. Changelings steal love, not give it.” “Since you cannot steal love any more, are you really a changeling, Mister Tolliver?” Rarity sat there in the moonlight with a faint shimmer running down her mane, looking suspiciously like Princess Celestia for a moment. “My friend Pinkie Pie is giving you a gift that you cannot refuse, and like it or not, she loves you. In her own Pinkie way,” added Rarity rather quickly. “She loves everypony, but tonight when I saw her with you, I saw something different than I have ever seen during all of the years I’ve known her. Do you understand, Mister Tolliver?” “Changelings have sixteen different words for love,” said the changeling, “but nothing for that.” “Then Pinkie Pie will just have to create a new word,” said Rarity, walking down the path again while flicking her tail from side to side. “Just remember. Pinkie Pie has always been the happiest pony in Ponyville, but if you make her unhappy— Rarity’s eyes flashed in the darkness, suddenly looking very predatory “—I shall end you.” * * * They found Pinkie Pie in the middle of a small group of townsponies packing the party games and rides back into their containers. One game had not yet been packed up, and Pinkie had stuck her head into the mesh cage in order to call out to the last pony inside. “Rainbow Dash! You get out of the ball pit right now!” “You can’t make me! I like it here.” Rarity leaned over to the changeling and whispered, “Rainbow is always like this whenever Pinkie Pie throws a party with a ball pit. Once during a cutecinara, she was ‘Rainbow Shark’ at the bottom of the pool with a cardboard fin and the rather annoying habit of chasing the other little foals around while biting at them.” Rarity paused. “They did seem to enjoy her antics, though. Have you ever been in a ball pit, Mister Tolliver?” “No, I can’t say that I have.” The changeling eyed Rarity and backed up a step. “You’re not going to throw me in there, are you?” With a shake of her head and a sly smile, Rarity continued, “Pinkie Pie taught me that life is too short to take it seriously. You have to grab opportunities to live as they come around, because you can never be certain they will ever show up again before you die. She may be crude at times, or incomprehensible, but if you have only a short time to live, she will pack more life into those few minutes than anypony else could in a century.” “So you’re going to throw me in the ball pit,” said the changeling. “Of course not!” said Rarity. “How gauche. I would never enforce my will on somepony in that fashion, no matter how badly they need it. If your life is nearing the end, you should be voluntarily seizing whatever opportunity you can to live your life to the fullest extent you possibly can. Seize the day, Mister Tolliver, for it shall never pass this way again.” “So you’re not going to throw me into the ball pit?” asked the changeling. “I promise, I’m not going to throw you into the ball pit,” said Rarity. “Good.” The changeling eyed the ball pit and the polychromatic pegasus rolling around inside while tossing balls at Pinkie Pie. “Although it looks like fun—” “Oh, Pinkie Pie,” caroled Rarity, taking a step back, “Mister Tolliver has never been in a ball pit before and says that it really looks like fun. Do you think you could—” There was a blur of pink, a sensation of rapid motion, and the cry of “Cowabunga!” as the changeling found himself submerged in a multicolored flood of plastic balls. ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ He wanted to be depressed while walking back to Sugarcube Corner alongside Pinkie Pie. After all, he was still going to die of starvation sometime soon, and he was still tethered with that length of pink ribbon. The problem with trying to be depressed was that his memories were still filled with the rainbow of multicolored plastic balls being flung vigorously around the inside of the ball pit by Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and himself. He had laughed himself silly until his ribs hurt as they threw and dove, a joyous occasion only brought to an end from fatigue and the realization that most of the balls had been siphoned out by the packing crew during their battle. It was made only funnier at the thought of what he would look like after their battle if he had been in his natural form, with all of the holes in his chitin filled with little multicolored plastic balls. “That was so much fun,” giggled Pinkie Pie, bumping shoulders with him. “Next time we need to see about getting Rarity in the pit too.” There was a peculiar stutter in Pinkie Pie’s step, but when the changeling looked, everything seemed perfectly normal. She was just as bouncy, smiling, and happy as ever, but there was a certain air about her that he was just beginning to recognize, even though it frightened him a little. He walked while she bounced along at his side, the tattered pink ribbon tying them together swaying with every hop, until he could not stop from asking the question that rattled around in his head like loose confetti. “You’re not happy, are you?” “Of course I’m happy!” said Pinkie Pie with a deliberate bounce. “Why shouldn’t I be happy?” “The party’s over,” said the changeling. “Everypony’s going home, the games are all packed up, and… I’m not going to be here for the next party.” The series of bounces that propelled Pinkie Pie began to lose altitude, eventually turning into a slow trudge to his side. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered. “The party always ends.” “Everything ends,” said the changeling, stopping under a streetlight. “No, I mean it ends!” sniffed Pinkie Pie, stopping and leaning her face into the changeling’s fuzzy yellow coat. “I want the happiness to go on forever and ever in a big fuzzy happy ball of joy that fills you up and up and up and never goes away, but it always does. Even when I’m with my friends, they all go home after the party, and…” “You’re all alone?” asked the changeling with a sudden pang of homesickness. “Yes!” filtered out in a somewhat muffled fashion from where she had buried her nose into his neck in a damp embrace. “I can hardly wait to see them again and I start planning the next party the minute I get home, but Missus Cake has Mister Cake and all I have is Gummy. He loves me, but it just isn’t the same, because he’s a gator and I’m a pony. Do you know how that feels, Pops?” After a brief hesitation, the changeling cleared his throat and said, “Not until this week. Ever since I was an itty bitty buggie, no matter where I went, I could always feel all of the rest of the changelings in the Hivemind right about—” he pointed at his breastbone “—there. Now they’re all gone, and all I have is… a crazy pink pony.” “I’m sorry.” Pinkie snuffled and wriggled around for a warmer spot on his neck. “You feel so alone and there’s nothing I can do to make you feel better.” Suppressing his first practiced response, as well as the second and third, the changeling said, “No, you’re wrong. I’m wrong. When I was all alone in the hospital, you were there with me. And when I was alone in the jail, you took me home so I could be with you. You only shot me because I betrayed your trust and broke a promise.” “I had a responsibility,” said Pinkie in a muffled fashion from her comfortable spot nuzzled into his warm neck. “We’re the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. We protect Equestria.” “And I’m…” The changeling trailed off in thought before continuing in a near whisper. “I’m not anything. Changelings change. It’s our nature. We’re like those three crazy little ponies, doing anything we can in order to get what we want, but when we find it, we don’t know what to do. Even if we blunder into it by accident, we never return to the same place twice, so we would never know.” “So who are you then?” Pinkie Pie backed up a step and touched a hoof against his cheek, brushing away a tear. “I’m part of the hive.” The changeling pressed a trembling hoof to his chest. “I was part of the hive. I’m part me and part us, only since my connection to the hivemind was destroyed, I’ve only been me.” “There’s no us?” Pinkie Pie attempted to blink back tears, but one huge droplet rolled down her cheek and fell to the dark dirt of the road. “There can’t be any us, Pinkie. Changelings take love. We can’t give it.” Where did she get that cannon? “I thought you liked me,” said Pinkie Pie, still trying and failing to blink away tears, although the dark muzzle of the immense cannon never stopped tracking the changeling’s nose. “You could have tried to run away a dozen times, but you stayed and you helped me in the kitchen and you had fun at the p-p-party and I thought you were getting over me shooting you in the face so many times b-b-but now…” Say something good or you’re going to be splattered all over Ponyville. “I do like you, Pinkie,” he said, grabbing for the first thing that floated up in his soon-to-be-splattered mind. “More than any other pony or changeling I’ve ever met. You’re not like any other mare in the… wait a minute, that’s from our training. Give me a second.” “Your training?” One pink hoof moved slightly, pulling the firing lanyard on the cannon taut. “Do you want me to lie to you?” he blurted out in a panic. “I can do that. I’ve lied to everypony over my life.” There was a blaze of green fire and a Ponywood movie star stood there, his sparkling blue eyes glittering in the warm glow from the nearby streetlight. “Frankly, my love, I think you look ravishing in the moonlight.” A second blaze of green fire revealed a young college stallion with short-cropped mane and a diploma for a cutie mark. “I’d love to study biology with you tonight, dearest. Particularly since that big test is coming up.” A third flare of green and the Ponyville road contained a Royal Guard, who stood casually with a warm smile and a dimple on one cheek. “Why, yes, I do guard Princess Celestia. Why don’t we take a walk and I’ll tell you about her.” Green fire flashed again and a furry Rushian unicorn with a distressed coat stood on the road and nodded at Pinkie. “Evening, Miss Pie. Could I ask for the favor of your company for drinks and some fooling around?” He stood and panted for a moment while looking down the barrel of the cannon until a very small and distant voice called out, “Do Rainbow Dash!” “Go to bed, Scootaloo,” he called back into the night. “Please?” drifted down the small voice again. Heaving a sigh, the changeling flared with an intentionally polychromatic flare of magic and took the form of the trim colorful pegasus. “Better?” he called back into the small town. Trying to ignore the distant sounds of cheering, ‘Rainbow’ turned back to Pinkie Pie. “Better?” “No.” Pinkie Pie seemed to have deflated worse than the bouncy house, the giant pile of magenta mane just sagging down both sides of her face instead of her tangled curls. “The truth hurts.” “That’s why we were taught to lie.” He lowered his head and looked at the ground. “I never cared about hurting anypony before.” Abruptly, Pinkie shoved the party cannon to one side and turned her back on him. “Fly away.” “What?” “You heard me,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “Go away. Leave. Fly home.” He crouched and spread his wings, looking up into the moonlit sky which seemed to beckon him. They were the words he had been waiting for. And they stung like blades shoved beneath his skin. “If you love someone, set them free,” he whispered. “If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.” “More of your training?” said Pinkie Pie in a low, gravelly voice, still hunched over and facing away from him. “Eh… Yes, although it was supposed to be used to get away from an overly clinging lover.” The changeling looked at the moon again before tucking his wings away and trying to look back at Pinkie. “You know, like ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. How might I compare thee to a summer’s night?” “Day,” said Pinkie Pie, looking up with those impossibly blue eyes. “Summer’s day. Why are you still here?” “I’m afraid I’m as bad at flying away as I am at poetry. Besides, I ate so much at the party, I don’t think I could get airborne.” He looked down at his tummy and pouted. “Rainbow Dash looks pregnant.” “You liked the party?” asked Pinkie Pie. “It was fantastic,” he admitted. “And I’m not lying. I’ve never been so happy in my life. I just… don’t want to see you unhappy.” “If you left, you wouldn’t have to see me unhappy.” “I would know.” He swallowed and blazed with green fire again, reappearing in his yellow unicorn stallion disguise. “Come on. Let’s get you home.” * * * The air in Sugarcube Corner felt flat and stale as the two of them lugged the party cannon inside, up the stairs, and shoved it into Pinkie Pie’s closet. Even the bubbles in the bathtub afterwards seemed dull and listless, although it did bring Pinkie’s pet gator out to attempt to cheer them both up, or at least that was what Pinkie said Gummy was trying to do. His own mind was filtering down a completely different path. It looks like an alligator. No, that’s silly. Alligators are not found in the bathtub. It’s a bath toy. It’s not a bath toy. It blinked. Correction. Most alligators are not found in the bathtub. This one is. It’s unique, just like Pinkie. He had seen alligators before. They were greenish, large, and had more teeth than they should. This one was green, smallish, and had no teeth at all. It also clamped down on Pinkie Pie’s mane as she worked the scrub brush through his own mane, allowing him a very distracting look at its impassive face while she scrubbed and rinsed. It was fascinating how Pinkie managed to hold the scrub brush in her teeth and talk without stopping more often than to say “Rinse” or “Bad Gummy! No biting!” But as the bath finished and they dried each other off, the constant chatter slowly faded away into a glum silence again. Due to his shorter mane and less drying time needed, the changeling managed his toothbrushing at the small sink first, excusing himself to tidy up around the bedroom while Pinkie finished her bathroom chores. As he tucked the covers in on Pinkie’s bed and arranged his pink sleeping bag for his last night, one thought burned in his mind with a pain worse than his stomach. I never told her I’m dying. I told everypony else but her, so she must know, but she deserves to hear it from me. “I’m sorry,” filtered in by way of the open door as Pinkie poked her nose into the bedroom, somewhat camouflaged by the preponderance of pink paint in her vicinity. “Whatever I did, I promise I won’t do it again if you’ll just stay. Please?” “I have to go tomorrow,” he replied, trying his best to avoid looking at those dangerous eyes. “I really don’t have a choice. I promised.” “And breaking a promise…” Pinkie trailed off with a plaintive sniff. “Will you come back?” He could feel that sucking vacuum of emptiness around her, the dichotomy of being the happiest pony in Equestria as well as the most lonely. The bulwark of friendship she had built with the entire town, from those other strange mares to the Cakes to everypony she threw a party for, was the only thing keeping her from slipping into that dark abyss, allowing her to dance her way around the edge of destruction and prevent others from being claimed by its depths. “Changelings never return,” he managed to choke out. “Never. Even if we want…” Pinkie Pie curled up into her bed and turned out the light while the little alligator scuttled under the bed. The changeling just stood there in the darkness, not even tethered by the thin pink ribbon while a poem from his training forced its way out of his mouth despite his best efforts. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may Old time is still flying And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.” “Seize the day,” whispered Pinkie Pie from under the blanket. “Are you really going to die since you can’t feed on love anymore?” “Yes,” he whispered. “Soon.” A hoof from the darkness grabbed him and pulled him under the blankets. He didn’t struggle, although he trembled until Pinkie Pie wrapped him in a crushing embrace. “Nopony should be alone for that,” she whispered. “After all that you’ve done for me in just a few days, I just wish I could give you something more in return.” “Me too,” he whispered as she held her face to his and bumped her head on his horn. Maybe I can leave her something when I’m gone. Do it before you lose your nerve. Despite the agonizing pain in his belly disrupting his concentration, he still tried to focus on the spell he had last used to put his harvested love into the hive. Without knowing how much love he retained, there was no way to tell when to stop, but that did not seem important right now. Dead and gone, he would still leave behind some small light to illuminate the darkness and maybe the world would be a better place for it. He swallowed away a lump as he gently placed his horn on the top of Pinkie Pie’s head and began to focus his magic, gathering up all of the love he still retained and preparing to push. “Goodbye.”