//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 - The Mourning After // Story: Changelings, Love and Lollipops // by Georg //------------------------------// Changelings, Love and Lollipops Chapter 15 The Mourning After He was alive. Or at least he was fairly sure he was alive. He remembered being alive before, and this seemed fairly close to the same sensation, so he probably was alive, but it was difficult to think. The changeling’s entire mind seemed filled with confetti, little bits and pieces of memory all jumbled and tossed around in a hurricane without any convenient numbers or color codes to help reassemble what used to be a perfectly good head. Focus. Start with now and work backwards. Now was fairly easy. From the ticking noise of Pinkie Pie’s alarm clocks and the faint noises of the bakery getting ready for the morning, he was obviously still in Pinkie Pie’s room. Why he was still there and still alive was a mystery, but it was fairly obvious, therefore he was willing to take his location on faith. The pain in his gut that had been his constant companion over the last few days was gone, replaced by a warm glow that filled his entire body. It was much like basking on a sun-warmed rock in the chill of the evening, only without the rock, or at least if the rock were soft, pink, and wrapped all the way around him in an unbreakable embrace. Somehow Pinkie Pie had managed to become both closer to him and more comfortable in her perpetual hug, with her nose buried behind his ear and a certain amount of stickiness between them that indicated the possibility of… other activities in their recent past. With considerable reluctance, he opened one eye and checked the time on the alarm clocks in the darkened bedroom. It was much later than the alarms normally went off, but Sugarcube Corner was supposed to open a little later because of the party last night, which he remembered in great detail. And the walk home, which he also remembered. And being dragged into bed with Pinkie Pie, which he remembered. And attempting to pour the pitiful remainder of his cached love into— Oh, snap. The warm glow resolved into an inferno of pink fire, a soft wrap of furry coat around him that could only be Pinkie Pie, except she fairly blazed from nose to tail with an all-encompassing emotion that he could actually feel for a change. It was heat and light and fire and brightness that poured through his body like a cascading waterfall and vanished into his middle somewhere, obviously being consumed the way that he was used to, but different someway. He still could not feel how much love he held, but something had suddenly become painfully obvious to him. The pain in my gut wasn’t starvation. It was indigestion. His open eyes tracked through the murky shadows of the dark bedroom, lit only by the night light and the illumination from the hallway where Mister and Missus Cake had already gotten up and begun to start the day. There were several things in the room that caught his attention, causing him to study them for a moment until the memory behind their presence clicked into place and he looked away. One piece at a time, he began to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of last night and wondered at the strange and wonderful picture that emerged. Is that a tuba? Oh, yeah. And an accordion. How did those hoofprints get on the wall? And how did we wind up dancing on the ceiling? Little white smears of flour in the shapes of horseshoes intertwined in a dance up the walls, across the ceiling, around the light fixture, and back down the opposite wall. He was still trying to figure out if the steps were a waltz or a tango when he heard the sound of hesitant hooves out in the hall. “Pinkie?” sounded the voice of Mister Cake from in the bathroom, although somewhat puzzled and a little groggy from lack of sleep. “Why is the bathtub filled with banana pudding? Pinkie?” he added as he swung the door to her bedroom open a little more and looked inside. “Ah…” Carrot Cake looked around the room for long moments, his jaw slowly dropping farther and farther with every odd object that he could see before focusing his attention on the changeling still wrapped around/being wrapped around Pinkie in the middle of their bed. One pillow had departed their vicinity sometime during the night and burst into a cloud of downy feathers that drifted across the floor, and now that the changeling had a moment to consider the placement of the bed, it seemed to have moved about halfway across the floor somehow as a cloud in a sea of feathery fog. We’ve broken Mister Cake. Without another word, Carrot Cake backed out of the room and pulled the door closed after him with a soft click that cause Pinkie Pie to stir in the changeling’s embrace. Nuzzling her way from the back of his ear to the front with considerable side trips, she stopped at her destination and gave a soft nip that made his back leg twitch against the bed. “Again?” she whispered. “Again?” he asked in response, trying frantically to remember just exactly what they would be againing. “Oh, drat!” said Pinkie, looking at the alarm clocks with one eye. “We’re late. That is late to make breakfast, not late as in my heat cycles, although it’s so nice to finally be rid of that and I kinda wish we could have foals but even since we can’t that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make foals again once the lunch shift is cleaned up and we can slip back up here—” She nipped him on the nose, her bright blue eyes glittering with promise in the darkness. “I promised I’d take the Cutie Mark Crusaders grasshopper hunting this afternoon,” he blurted out, feeling torn between relief and regret at not ‘againing’ once all of the kitchen chores were done. “They nibble on your lips,” said Pinkie Pie, demonstrating the same technique on the writhing changeling. “I promised,” he managed to gasp between nibbles. The wave of chill that followed made him shiver despite his close embrace, as the blistering blast of warmth that Pinkie was emitting flickered and dimmed to a radiant glow that still scorched his skin but no longer threatened to engulf him in flames. “I don’t want to make you break a promise,” she whispered. “Race you to the shower.” * * * After a brisk bathtub-cleaning and a confusing quick morning shower that involved both considerable crinkleberry shampoo as well as considerable mutual shampooing, Pinkie bounded down the stairs to the kitchen while the changeling stayed behind to ‘tidy up the bedroom a bit.’ His initial confusion at their nighttime activities was not helped by a number of objects scattered about the bedroom that he really had no memory of at all, including a unicycle and a trapeze, but after putting the bed back where it belonged, and shoving all of the accumulated odd items back into the far-too-small-but-don’t-think-about-it closet, he busied himself with a towel held in his magic to erase the floured hoofprints on the ceilings and walls. He was just beginning to get his mind straightened up and the last of the wayward pillow feathers captured when there was an extremely timid tapping at one of Pinkie Pie’s windows. With one final look around the room for any misplaced evidence of their nighttime activity (whatever it had been), the changeling put on a fake smile and opened up the curtains. At first, the empty darkness beyond the window confused him, as he was expecting to find a lost bird or some other nighttime creature who was attracted by the bedroom light. Then a wave of yellow and pink swept in through the window. The Fluttershy seemed disheveled and sweaty, her eyes wide and dark as she followed his backwards path into the bedroom. If eyes were the windows to the soul, there was a four alarm fire burning inside, and the changeling abruptly remembered just how long he had spent in the terrifying pegasus’ kitchen while most probably emitting a thick cloud of invisible pheromones. “Hello,” she whispered, her nose almost touching his, even though the changeling continued his backwards retreat through the room. “I hope I’m not disturbing you and Pinkie Pie, but I haven’t been able to sleep, and when I saw the light on, I thought that maybe I could stop by for a… bite.” The back of the bed collided with the changeling’s hind legs and he stumbled backward onto the mattress even as The Fluttershy continued to flow almost as a yellow fluid up his chest and so close to his nose that he could feel her hot breath across the short hairs around his mouth. “...she always tells me that she doesn’t mind sharing and even though this is a very different type of sharing, I thought that maybe perhaps I could just ask.” Her damp nose touched the changeling and he yanked back at the blistering emotions that surged from that simple contact. “Ask what?” he squeaked. “It’s just a teeny, tiny thing, really. All I want is…” Fluttershy’s mouth opened up and moved forward, her soft warm lips seeking out his even as the changeling’s horn flared with magic. * * * A few moments later as the changeling stumbled down the stairs on unsteady pony legs, he found Mister Cake with a bag of flour coming out of the storeroom. The lanky stallion gave the disguised changeling a long look, then glanced around to make sure there were no other witnesses. “Should I ask?” he asked in a hesitant fashion. “About?” said the changeling, half terrified about who he left unconscious in Pinkie Pie’s bed and half trying to make sense of the morning. After all, he had completely expected to be dead this morning, not explaining anything let alone two such dramatically different somethings. At least being dead would have been easier. “Pinkie Pie, of course,” continued Carrot Cake. “I’m not sure what happened,” admitted the changeling, oddly thankful about the direction the conversation was going even if his response could have been used for either situation. “I can’t describe it, I can’t remember more than about half of it, and I think I need more time to think about it.” I think I just described Ponyville. “Oh,” said Carrot with a sudden relaxation around his shoulders and the beginning of a smile. “Well, if you ever need anypony to talk about it, just let me know. Welcome to the family.” Carrot Cake trotted by and vanished into the kitchen with the bags of flour, leaving the shaky changeling alone in the stairwell with his scrambled thoughts that ran around and around inside his head. I stunned The Fluttershy. The stun spell only lasts a few minutes. At any moment, she’ll wake up. I stunned The Fluttershy. The stun spell only lasts a few minutes… Still sensing the blazing warmth of Pinkie Pie still coming out of the kitchen, the changeling tiphooved to the back door of the bakery. Even though there was a Royal Guard chariot coming to Ponyville this afternoon to pick him up and carry him away, he would still have to survive that long to escape. A brief burst of changeling magic gave him the familiar form of Carrot Cake, as better to blend into the populace and less likely to be cannoned in the face by Pinkie, and he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He fumbled with the doorknob, keeping his weakened empathic sense so focused on the torrent of love pouring out of the bakery kitchen that he totally missed a substantial amount of panic coming from the huge stallion who bolted in the opened door and slammed it behind him. “Carrot!” gasped Big Mac. “You gotta hide me.” “I didn’t do it!” blurted out the changeling before he realized that he still had Carrot Cake’s form as a disguise. “What did you do?” he asked quickly, trying to cover up his goof. “Ah was just tryin’ to fix her pipes like Apple Bloom said,” said Big Mac, shoving a huge barrel of molasses across the floor to block the back door, “but she didn’t have no problems with her plumbing.” “Uh… Cheerilee?” guessed the changeling, frantically going through his fragmented memory in the vain attempt to determine any other adult female ponies he had spent any time with. “Ah ain’t seen nuttin’ like this since the Love Poison,” he replied, pausing and trembling as the sound of “Schnoopie-doo?” echoed around the darkness outside. “Quick!” hissed the changeling. “Upstairs. You can hide in Pinkie Pie’s—” Before the changeling could even finish his sentence, the huge stallion was already darting up the stairs. “—room,” finished the changeling as the rapid hoofsteps trailed away and the sound of Pinkie’s bedroom door closing echoed down the stairwell. In rapid succession, he could feel the emotions of confusion, realization, panic, and passion flood down around his ears, and the changeling turned to regard the impressive bulwark of cooking supplies that Mac had managed to assemble in front of his escape hatch in such a short time. I should feel bad about that. Really. Eenope. * * * Surrendering to the inevitable and changing back to his yellow unicorn form before returning to the kitchen, the changeling really expected an air of repressed tension during the morning baking as Carrot and Cup Cake bustled around. After all, it was fairly obvious what Pinkie Pie and her odd houseguest/prisoner had been up to. She was singing about it. After a few stanzas, the changeling expected the Cakes to sing along. After the second song, they did. After the third song, he found himself joining in on the chorus. When the jingle of the bell on the bakery’s front door sounded, he darted in that direction with a quick, “I’ll be right back.” It was more of a self-defense mechanism than he was wanting to admit, as several vivid memories of last night had come back in full force when reinforced in rhyming couplets, and although they were… interesting, he needed a few moments away from the crazy to attempt to make sense of it all. The problem was that going out of the kitchen and into the front room of Sugarcube Corner did not lower the crazy level at all. Twilight Sparkle was standing impatiently at the front counter, her mane a frizzy mess that sprang up all around her head making her look like some horned violet lion with wide eyes, and for some reason, she was carrying a spoon. The moment she spotted the changeling in his unicorn disguise, her eyes lit up and she fairly danced over to him with the spoon hovering at her side. “Here, taste this.” Said spoon was rather abruptly jammed into his mouth the moment he opened his mouth to ask about it, and the heaping pile of grey goo that it carried tasted of library paste, dust, and vaguely of… comic books? “I was up all night,” babbled the unicorn, “but I was determined to find a solution to this problem because when a friend has a problem, there is nothing I would rather do than help solve the problem, and I was a little worried that you might have died of starvation before I could get done but you’re still alive and now you won’t have to worry about starving to death because of this!” Twilight Sparkle held out a bowl filled with a dull grey paste of some sort and emitting a pungent odor of socks and mashed papers. It reminded the changeling of the familiar taste in the back of his mouth that vaguely seemed like— “Love!” exclaimed Twilight Sparkle. “I managed to extract the essence of Spike’s love for comic books into a nutritious paste that should be able to sustain a changeling for days. Here, open up.” She levitated another spoonful of the gunk up to the front of the changeling’s mouth, which adamantly refused to open, less from his willpower and more due to the goop having set up like a thick cement in the back of his throat. “Come on,” wheedled Twilight, waving the spoon around in front of his nose. “Be a good changeling and take your medicine.” “I don’t—” he managed to blurt out before a second spoonful of paste darted inside his mouth. “Need—” managed to escape before the third spoonful was forcefully inserted. “Itanymore!” The fourth spoonful of the horrid gunk stopped just short of his lips where he could breathe in the horrid odor that seemed to get stronger with every bite. “What do you mean, you don’t need it any more?” Those dangerous bloodshot eyes squinted into a vicious glare. “Don’t tell me that—” Whatever Twilight Sparkle was about to say was blotted out by the joyous arrival of Pinkie Pie, who danced through the Sugarcube Corner front room with a song as she stocked the glass cabinet with frosted baked goodies for the morning rush and a kiss right on the lips for the startled unicorn mare. “Good morning, Twilight! Isn’t it a wonderful morning! I’m so glad I’m not all tied up on the insides with my heat any more.” She added a kiss to the changeling with an enthusiasm that made any previous kisses seem like gentle pecks on the cheek before dancing back into the kitchen on happy hooves. Leaving him alone with Twilight Sparkle. “You didn’t!” hissed Twilight, lighting her horn. “It really depends on what you mean!” blurted out the changeling, still trying to recover from the kiss and trying to remember if he had been chewing bubblegum before, because he certainly was now. “I mean we did a lot of things. You’re going to have to be more specific. And yes, I can feed on emotions again. I can tell you’re angry… well, more than angry… actually I’ve never felt anypony that angry before. Do you think you could point that thing… somewhere else?” “Give me one good reason I should.” Twilight Sparkle lowered her head so that all he could see was the shimmering waves of magic coming off the suddenly sharp-seeming point aimed right between his eyes. “You’d make Pinkie Pie unhappy?” The brilliant glowing horn that so entranced his eyes with visions of his imminent demise shimmered, and then went dim. “Talk,” growled Twilight, pulling out a notebook and a quill. “And make it good.” It actually was a relief to be able to spill his guts… well, talk about what he had been going through over the last few days, even though the occasional thumping noise from upstairs or the plaintive call of “Schnoopie-doo!” from outside was a distraction to his recitation. The whole story of the evening — properly summarized and edited to remove any mention of Big Mac or The Fluttershy — seemed to mollify the flustrated unicorn. He even ate a few more bits of her atrocious gluey love porridge, and silently determined that dying of starvation would be much more preferable than suffering through a diet of the substance for more than a week. As they talked and he soaked in the staccato waves of emotions that burst from her like frantic musical notes in a song, a realization began to soak in. After all, Twilight wasn’t really that difficult to understand. She was Princess Celestia’s party cannon. Point her at a problem and everything else in the universe ceases to matter. I am so glad she doesn’t consider changelings to be a problem that needs eliminated. I wonder how she would solve our hunger problem? I know how Pinkie would. * * * ”Lunch call!” shouted Pinkie Pie over the sounds of hundreds of changelings crowding into the dining hall. “We have Love Souffle, Love Pudding, and Cinnamon Love Bread, made fresh with the last shipment from Las Pegasus. And don’t forget to have a Banana Love Smoothie at our dairy bar. * * * Still, as they talked, he became increasingly uncomfortable. Technically, ponies were food, but in this case, the meek informationavore was feeding on his words with a passion normally only found between the sheets or on the roof. It was more than a little eerie to feel her ravaging hunger subside as he talked, replaced with the warm fuzzy sensation of the Fourteenth Love (Learning), only for that starvation sensation to return whenever he managed to take a breath. To make matters worse, she slipped nearer with every sentence until he had to stop talking and put his hoof down. “Miss Twilight Sparkle, Ma’am? You’ve got your nose in my mane again.” “I’m sorry!” squeaked Twilight Sparkle, sitting back up and rubbing her nose with one hoof. “It’s just that there’s something odd about your…” She broke off by lighting her horn and burying her nose in his striped mane again, giving a sharp sniff. “You must not be putting out pheromones any more, because the deodorant spell expired but your non-aromatic organic volatile level is almost nonexistent. Well, other than that weird scent.” “Crinkleberries,” said the changeling. Twilight Sparkle frowned. “What are crinkleberries?” “I have no idea.” The changeling shrugged. “Emotions smell somewhat like scents to us, and crinkleberries smell a little like Artistic Appreciation mixed with Sports Fan and Spousal Passion, I suppose. A little like Shining Armor, actually.” As the feeling of consternation slowly subsided and was replaced by the crisp sensation of Third Love (Sibling) mixed with concern, the changeling had a horrible idea of where the conversation was going to go next, and tried to stop it with a quick, “We’re not fertile with ponies, so you don’t have to worry about becoming an aunt.” “I wasn’t thinking about that!” gasped Twilight. “Stop reading my mind!” “I wasn’t reading your mind!” blurted out the changeling as he found himself looking down the pointy end of a loaded unicorn again. “You just smelled like Third Love and I knew your brother and Queen Chrysalis had—” His mouth exerted a great deal of self-preservation by freezing shut at that point as the boiling emotions of an overstressed unicorn mare in the grip of sleep deprivation and raging hormones were quite close to being released in a changeling squishing spell of great magnitude. * * * The messenger changeling bowed and scraped in front of Queen Chrysalis, keeping his face to the ground as he spoke. “I bear good and bad news about the criminal who was discovered in Ponyville, Your Majesty.” “Give me the good news first,” purred Chrysalis. “Was he dismembered? Boiled alive? Imprisoned forever?” “No, Your Majesty. The ponies mailed him back to us.” The messenger unrolled a thin sheet of what appeared to be a paper cutout of a changeling, frozen in a look of abject horror but with a postage stamp on one ear. “Well, we can’t have everything,” mused the queen. “What is the bad news?” “He was postage due.” * * * “How do you know what happened between my brother and your queen?” growled Twilight Sparkle, her incandescent horn pointing right between the disguised changeling’s eyes. “He never would have… I mean just because… They didn’t have sex!” “Of course not!” said the changeling, scooting back as far as he could on the bench seat of the booth. “Not even once. Probably never even kissed.” The door to the kitchen opened and Twilight Sparkle extinguished her horn almost immediately as Pinkie Pie came bounding out with another several trays of baked goods. After a musical moment to finish stocking the display, she skipped over to the changeling and gave him another astonishing kiss which made his tail straighten, followed by a second kiss right on the lips for the frazzled unicorn. “I’m so glad you two have made up,” bubbled Pinkie Pie, “but I could have sworn I felt somepony telling a naughty nasty lie out here.” She darted around, looking under each of the tables and above the ceiling fan. “It was a sneaky twitchy-twitch, but it’s gone now so I better get back to work! We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to get everything done in time for—” She darted back to the table and whispered into the changeling’s ear, “—you know.” After Pinkie Pie bounded back into the kitchen and the sounds of frantic baking could once again be heard, the changeling turned back to Twilight Sparkle and blurted out, “Twice. At least. She was emoting all over the hivemind so we couldn’t help but hear, but she got better at hiding it after the second time.” “You could have not listened!” hissed Twilight Sparkle before making a puzzled face and chewing on her gum. “We can’t not listen,” said the changeling. “I mean I couldn’t at the time.” He drooped at the table and took another bite of the atrocious paste. “I can’t hear anyling any more. My link to the hivemind is burned out. When I go back to the hive…” Twilight Sparkle stopped chewing her gum and leaned forward with a worried expression. “They’ll be able to treat you, I hope. At least they’ll find you somewhere to work where your handicap won’t be a problem. Right?” The bell to the front door jingled again, followed by a solemn voice intoning, “His fellow changelings will not trust one to whom they cannot speak. When he returns to his distant home, his future at that point will be very bleak.” “She means they’ll kill me,” said the changeling, trying to ignore the zebra who had just walked into the bakery. “Well, they’ll extract out all of my stored love first, and that will kill me. Without my link to the hivemind, I’m an invader in the hive.” Zecora nodded, although with a slight frown. “Like our bees attack those of other kinds, the changelings pay heed to each other’s minds.” “That’s horrible,” gasped Twilight Sparkle. “Why not just stay in Ponyville?” “I don’t belong here,” said the changeling. “Even if I wanted to stay. Since everypony knows I’m a changeling, I’m about as out of place here as…” He managed to stop talking for a moment, but his eyes tracked up to the zebra and he had to ask, “So why are you here?” The zebra opened up her saddlebag and began to place several potions on the table, all looking nearly identical and making the changeling wonder just how many raw ingredients she still had left in her little hut. “A potion order I have prepared for many frantic young mares. The fire of desire has caused them much stress, and your presence is something we need to address.” “I’m leaving this afternoon,” he said. “All by yourself, without force?” asked Zecora. “You are quite the peculiar little horse. One would think that a bug who finds himself in a position this snug would fight to remain now that you’re not in pain.” “I promised,” said the changeling, feeling as if that verbal life preserver was being eaten by sharks. “Besides, I’m a changeling. We go out into the world and harvest until ready to return. Then we go back and they suck out all of the love we’ve accumulated so we can go back out into the world again somewhere else. We don’t make friends and we don’t fall in love. The hive is our only family.” “That doesn’t sound like a family,” said Twilight Sparkle. “More like in-laws. Or accountants.” “It’s what we do.” The changeling shrugged. “Normally the hivemind is what draws us home. We can fight it for a little bit, but eventually everyling returns.” “To be killed,” said Twilight. “To go home,” said the changeling, although after a pause, he added, “It’s like a Pinkie Promise, I suppose. “Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle as if that made changeling behaviour sound more pony-rational. The frazzled unicorn chewed her gum for a while, lost in thought while Zecora pushed a potion over in front of her. “So even though you can’t hear the hivemind any more, you’re still going back to your hive, even though it will get you killed. That’s stupid.” He shrugged. “We’re changelings. If I was smart, I wouldn't have gotten captured by the Cutie Mark Crusaders or I would have managed to escape this crazy town by now.” The bell over the front door of the bakery chimed again and the changeling regarded the darkness outside the windows before turning to his newest customer. “Applejack? Doesn’t any pony in this town sleep until after sunrise?” “Not many,” she admitted, looking at the changeling with an expectant expression he was beginning to dread. “All I really wanted is—” “Justamoment!” blurted out the changeling, darting off to the coffee machine and returning in a few moments with a number of foam coffee containers in his wake. With a brief flare of his reddish magic (carefully shifted from green to keep up appearances), he distributed one steaming coffee to each of the pre-dawn customers. “Here you go!” “Mmmm…” sighed Applejack after a deep drink. “Apple spiced, just the way I like it.” Twilight Sparkle did not comment, as she was half-way down the Grand Vente Celestia with the obvious aim of reaching the bottom before she had to stop for a breath, and all Zecora did was sit and blink, looking at the steaming coffee so laced with creamer that it seemed to be about half coffee and half milk. “Anywho,” said Applejack after a second drink. “Have y’all seen— The bell above the bakery front door dinged again and a very sweaty and out of breath Cheerilee dashed inside. “Big Macintosh!” she called. “Are you in here?” “Congratulations!” beamed the changeling, floating over the last foam container of coffee to the frustrated teacher. “You’re our fourth pre-dawn customer of the day, and you win a free coffee!” “Thank you, but—” “Go ahead, Miss Cheerilee,” urged the changeling. “Drink up.” “Really, Mister Tolliver. All I want is—” “Not until you tell me how much you enjoy your coffee,” said the changeling, trying not to show the desperation in his voice and trying not to think about how Zecora’s potion would taste or be altered after it had been mixed with the coffee, as well as a generous slug of vodka he had added to the schoolteacher’s cup. * * * “Mac!” bellowed the huge mare that towered over the small town, stomping her way down the main street and pulling the tops off buildings to look inside. “Bring me Mac!” * * * “Fine.” Cheerilee took a drink of coffee with the obvious intent of stopping after one sip, but continued to drink while the changeling suppressed the urge to chant ‘Chug! Chug!’ in the background. Finally she reached the bottom of the cup with a gasp for breath. “Whew! I haven’t done that since college. Anyway, have you seen Schnoopie— I mean Big Macintosh?” “I believe he was headed for the market this morning,” said the changeling, mentally redefining the word ‘market’ in order not to be lying and picking up the empty cup as the speedy teacher darted back out the door on her anticipated rendezvous with her plumber. “Well, heck,” said Applejack. “Ah was lookin’ for the big galoot too.” Those dangerous green eyes turned in his direction, and after another sip of coffee, Applejack asked a question that was not really a question, but more a prequel to serious violence. “He ain’t at the market, is he?” Fortunately, the changeling was given a moment to think before answering by Pinkie Pie dancing through Sugarcube Corner’s front room again with a customized cupcake and a kiss for all of her friends. Unfortunately, the kiss did nothing to help organize his thoughts, but rather scattered his train of thought all around the room as she danced back into the kitchen to continue baking. “What in tarnation was that?” muttered Applejack. “And why am I chewing gum?” “I’ll tell you after you’re done with your coffee,” said the changeling with a forced smile. “Hows about you tell me now, while you still have teeth?” said Applejack, flexing one hind leg after another as if the changeling had a pair of ripe apples on him that needed bucked. “If you’ve hurt Big Mac, I swear—” All eyes in the room drifted up to look at the ceiling where an air vent had just given the breathy cry of ‘Yes!’ in a soft and gentle voice that could only be from The Fluttershy mixed with a deep and rumbling baritone panting. “You didn’t,” whispered Applejack. “It seems your brother is with another,” said Zecora. “I had brought the potion which Pinkie forgot, but it appears my aid has been all for naught. Now it also seems that your kind friend’s need is being satisfied by a quite noble steed.” “It was either him or me,” blurted out the changeling. “What was I supposed to do?” * * * The six Elements of Harmony sat around the table that had the bound and gagged changeling stretched across it, each looking over the sheet of paper that Twilight Sparkle had just passed around. “So it’s settled,” she declared. “Since we’re such good friends, we can share him without having to cut him up into pieces or anything like that. We each get him for one day a week, and try to keep the damages to a minimum.” “What about Saturday?” asked Pinkie Pie, waving a set of padded hoofcuffs. “That’s always the best party day, and I’ve got so many plans for him.” “We have a previous claim upon the creature,” came a dark and sultry voice from the shadows as darkness began to swirl around one end of the table and a pair of cold teal eyes glared at him. “Your Princess of the Night has need—” * * * “No!” yelped the changeling, jolted out of his vivid daydream by the Nightmare and cringing back at the number of concerned stares he was getting. “I mean… I put Zecora’s potion in the coffee and tricked Big Mac into going up to the bedroom where I had stunned The FluttershyIdidn’thurther!” he blurted out as Twilight Sparkle’s horn seemed to light all on its own and point between his eyes again. “It’s an instinctive spell we can use to get away but it only blocks out short term memory for a few seconds and doesn’t have any long term effects.” “It don’t sound like you’re lying,” said Applejack, putting her empty coffee container in the trash and regarding the changeling with a skeptical squint. “But yer one sneaky little bug, and you’ve fooled me before. I don’t think we should trust a word that comes out of that pretty little mouth of yours.” She promptly blushed and gave a sideways look at Twilight. “Still, you’ve been fairly darned square with us ponyfolk on occasion, and I can only think of one thing that can prove yer tellin’ the truth.” Applejack took off her hat and held it to her chest. “Zap me.” “What?” The changeling glanced between Honesty and Magic, who had arranged themselves to pin him between them. “If yer tellin’ the truth, Twilight there’ll be able to see if I’m okay. If yer lyin’ to us, she’ll—” There was a flash of light and Applejack stood in place and blinked. She did not move for a short while other than breathing until she put her hat back on and looked around. “Hey, where’s my coffee?” After Twilight Sparkle explained the situation and gave her friend a magical inspection that only lacked a blood sample and a pelvic exam from being overintrusive, the unicorn sat back down at the booth and growled, “He was telling the truth.” “It’s getting to be a bad habit,” he muttered. “I’m used to lying.” He glanced upwards at the air vent, which was still emitting the occasional noise as well as an emotional bounty that he tried not to sniff. “They seem to be… comfortable with each other. Do you think I should slip a few potioned coffees up into their room for when they take a break?” “No, I don’t think so,” said Zecora. “For the relief of this burning need, I have made many potions, but to give her one would be following the motions. It seems that Pinkie’s need for the quenching of her fire was solved last night soon after I retired. A solution for our kind friend’s condition also seems to be found within the same position.” “Eww,” said Applejack, standing up and putting on her hat. “That is my brother and one of my best friends we’re talking about, ya’know?” After a brief hesitation, she turned to the changeling and asked, “Do you think Shining Ar—” “My brother didn’t have sex with the Changeling Queen!” blurted out Twilight Sparkle. “And they’re not going to have eggs! I mean babies! I’m not going to be Auntie Sparkle to a bunch of little love-sucking nieces and nephews who will visit the library and tear all the pages out of the foal’s literature section and chase Spike onto the top of the bookshelves!” “Riiiight,” said Applejack, backing up towards the door while the changeling slid a second potion over to the distraught unicorn. “I’ll just get to work bucking the south field and when Big Mac gets… done, send him on out. Less’n you want to come out and help, Twilight. It would do you good. Get you out of your tree and into some healthy sunshine. Well, once Celestia raises the sun, that is.” “No,” snapped Twilight Sparkle, pushing the bottle of potion back over to the changeling and getting up. “I’m going back to the library and working on a project. Just because Mister Tolliver can’t sense how much love he has stored inside, doesn’t mean we can’t find the answer with science.” “That’s… good, Miss Sparkle,” said the changeling, vaguely disconcerted by the determined look in the unicorn’s eyes as she trotted out the door with her friend. Turning to the last customer in the front room, the changeling regarded her untouched coffee. “Is the coffee not to your liking, Miss Zecora?” “It is quite perfect, not too thick and not too thin,” said Zecora, swirling the cup around and watching the lines of black coffee and white creamer dissolve into each other. “What disturbs me is what lies within. The solution of my potion I need not, for nothing is burning inside my—” With a soundless flare of green magic and considerable effort, a male zebra with a spikey mane and broad stripes appeared where the changeling had been sitting. There was a sharp intake of breath, an uncomfortable squirming from the zebra mare, and a fierce glare. Then Zecora lifted the coffee cup and drained the contents in one long gulp. “Your point is made, you vicious brute,” she said, getting up to trot outside. “Now I must leave, while you’re still cute.” After a smoldering backwards glance, Zecora trotted back outside and left the changeling to clean up the booth.