//------------------------------//
// playing with your food 
// Story: My Life as a Changling 
// by rainbowPOOTIS 
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It had been a long, uneventful trip from dodge city to baltomare. That meant that other than keeping my... 'Guest' and Peeko fed, I had been doing one thing. Scheming. With the recent revelation of my weakness to cold environments, getting the Crystal Heart was going to be a lot harder. And that was without Sombra. Not a chance in hell was I going to fight him head on, if canon is correct, he fought both Celestia and Luna to a standstill. The bigger issue was going to be if I wound up being seen by Cadence, assuming my plan for the wedding and Chrysalis was successful, I might find myself in a prison cell. 

A small squeak broke me from my musings, bringing my attention to Peeko, who was currently nuzzling my foreleg. She had grown quite a bit since we left Dodge City, and was now the size of a filly. Her teeth had fully grown in, yet, somehow, it only made her look more adorable.

Peeko nudged my foreleg again, making a distressed whining sound as she did so, causing me to stop plotting, and see what was wrong. Judging by the fact she was acting like she had been rolling in itching powder, she was ready to moult. 

...And there I go again, knowing things that I shouldn't know! That is really starting to creep me out.

I watched as Peeko frantically scratched at herself, unsure of what to do. It was when she started crying in sheer frustration at her inability to relieve the itchiness that I pulled her into my forelegs, and softly nuzzled her. 

*Crack!*

Oh, there we go. I flinched as Peekos chiten split open down the back of her head and along the length of her back, before Peeko begun extracting herself from it. I watched, enthralled at how different moulting was compared to how I shed my damaged chiten. Peeko squeaked in fright, causing me to sigh. "You need help, don't you? Alright, just hold still for a moment." I held a hoof to her tiny forelegs, applying just enough pressure to create some friction, and watched as Peeko tried to rear up, causing the crack along the back of her head to travel up to the base of her horn, before splitting open, allowing her to pull her head free. The first thing I noticed was how her new layer of chitin was a lighter shade of black, and glossy with some kind of fluid as well. She tried to continue extracting herself that way, but hit a snag at her wings. After the first attempt caused her pain, she whimpered and stared at me with quivering eyes.

I caved instantly. Curse your adorableness! I took the shell in my forehooves, and split the from open further, so she could slip her forelegs out, and then slid forward, sliding her wing coverings free of their old plates. Gently grabbing her tail in my mouth, I held it straight so she could slid the rest of the way out, getting her hindlegs and tail free as well, the sudden lack of resistance causing her to tumble completely free of her old shell, before flopping onto her belly. Gently pulling her into a hug, I noticed how she felt soft and slippery. 

I was not going to look forward to moulting myself. Shedding was one thing, but outright moulting? No thank you. At least I was no longer laying eggs on a weekly basis, after I had laid about a dozen and and a half, it stopped happening. At least, it had stopped happening until, in a fit of curiosity, I felt around for unfamiliar muscles in my thigh, and laid another by accident. That little incident left me embarrassed beyond all belief. 

Peeko squirmed in my forlegs, causing me to smile. This. This is what makes doing the things I had to do, worth it. 

“Mmmph!” What perfect timing…

“So You’ve woken up from your nap, have you?” I turned and grinned at Sugar, who was still suspended from the ceiling, struggling futilely inside of her cocoon. Setting Peeko down, I walked up the wall, and over to my ‘guest’, looking her straight in the eyes the whole time. The first thing I did was pull her cocoon free of the ceiling via my magic, before I set her down on the floor. “Honestly? I’ve gotten tired of waiting for you to cave in. So I’m going to have to manually re-educate you.” Her eyes widened as my horn started glowing with magic, before the spell took hold, enforcing my will upon her mind. “Now then, before I let you out, I’m going to have to set a few ground rules. Rule one: You will not attempt to harm me, Peeko, the eggs, or any hatchlings. Rule two: You will not attempt to leave this room, with the exception of going to the bathroom, during which you will go straight there and come straight back after finishing, or with my explicit permission. Rule three: You will not attempt to damage anything.” With that out of the way, I begun the long and tedious process of getting her out of the cocoon.





When the last of the gel had come off, but I had decided to leave the gel gag on her, Sugar jumped to her hooves, and predictably, tried to bolt out the door. instead however, she slowed to a stop as she approached the doorway, not setting a hoof into the hallway. When it dawned on her that she would never escape this room, she began hyperventilating. “Oh, don’t fret, its more comfortable than being bound up and hung from the ceiling, right?” I walked over to the panicking mare, and placed a hoof on her shoulder, watching as her entire body tensed up. she more then likely wanted to spin around and hit me, but the latent commands I had placed in her mind via the spell prevented her from doing so. “Now now, be thankful I decided to just keep you here. there are more…” I leaned in and whispered the last bit right into her ear. “permanent ways of keeping you quite, but this way, you do have some freedom. It would be such a shame if I had to rectify that...” 

Standing back up, I cackled at the look of absolute terror in her eyes, her mind most likely coming up with increasingly gruesome ways that she might meet her demise. “Aw, don’t be afraid, you won’t be alone…” Peeko conveniently chose that moment to walk up to Sugar Bomb and brush against her leg, causing her to go stock still, before she shuddered a little, refusing to look at my daughter. Growing bored, I picked the pony up in my magic, taking a perverse pleasure in watching her flail and scream into her gag, before depositing her in the middle of the room, and left.