When Wind Chaser fell asleep, I began to experiment with an idea of mine. I went out into the darkness of the night and sought out an open field, lying down as deep into the middle of it as I could and closed my eyes, meditating.
I had first managed to acquire a bit of magical energy from enchanted cards based on a card game about Magic. In the game, cards representing different types of terrain provided different flavors of magical energy, better suited for different purposes. Green mana from forests were what powered the Transmutation spell, and what I had used to get enough power flow to transform into a pony again. In the game, white mana from a plains was more suited to unicorns. The power I had felt like it would rather change my horn than charge it. I didn't have any of the cards anymore, much less a plains card, but there was an actual plains here and it was worth a try.
It... actually kind of worked, though not the way I expected. The magic didn't change color or anything like that, but somehow shifting how I thought about it got it flowing more easily to light my horn. By thinking of sunlight, and unicorns, and protection, and goodness, and big grassy open plains as I channeled the magic, it easily flowed into my unicorn horn and lit up the night. Thinking of trees, and beasts, and mutations, and nature, and forests, it easily flowed into my flesh and shifted me from one tribe's form to another, or beyond.
After a few such transformations, I settled into a pegasus form, spreading my wings wide. I was just trying to get a feel for making my mana 'blue' in my mind, hoping the association with flight would be enough to get me airborne again, when I heard a voice call out.
"Blank Slate?" Midnight Oil asked from several yards behind me.
I settled down, sighed, and shifted back into my unicorn form, taking a few moments to breath before turning back to her. She was naturally stealthy in the dark of night, a black blob in the darkness, but I was stark white in an open field, emitting light to draw attention for some time. I hadn't even thought to shift to a stealthy color before coming out here.
"Hi Midnight, couldn't sleep?" I asked as innocently as I could.
"You're a changeling?" she countered.
"You've heard of changelings?" I asked.
"We've... caught a few over the years. And they occasionally get the blame for things... not always fairly, I suspect. I know at least three cases of infidelity where the cheater made up a lie about changelings to cover their absence. You're easy scapegoats. No offense," she answered. "Though if you're a changeling... why play things so slow with me? I'm sure I would have been an easy meal."
"Sex is not love," I quoted. "Besides, I'm not a drone. I'm a king. We have a very different role in the hive."
"I thought changelings have queens, not kings," she answered. She seemed like she was trying to tell if I was joking or just lying.
"Other changelings feed off love, but we generate it." I replied.
She considered this for a moment. "You're not actually a changeling, are you?"
I shook my head. "No, my vassal is. And if nothing else, she calls me 'king'. My little Itinerant Kingdom of two. She taught me how to change like they do, and I keep her fed with my love."
She came closer and I noticed the smell of sex on her. I had to rely on Deus' help to hide my reaction. She caught a similar scent from me and couldn't hide her look of annoyance. "Your vassal, huh? Oh! Your mom? She's really?" she thought a moment as I nodded. "I guess you're already taken then? I'm such a foal... no wonder you pushed me away..."
"I pushed you away because I didn't want to break your heart when I leave here. And because I was worried about you, wondering what drove you to such desperation. And now I'm wondering who you were with tonight, and how that's related."
She was silent for a long while, and we just watched the grass blow in the moonlight.
"It was my stepfather. He's... not a good stallion. I've always just been... waiting for my knight in shining armor to come carry me away on his back." I blinked a few times, processing the ponification of the cliché. "You kind of look like him, you know? Like a younger him, anyways."
"A younger who?" I asked, confused. I was more surprised by her reference than to the fact that her stepfather was the stallion... it was practically cliché.
"Shining Armor. Captain of the royal guard. Anyways.. any more room in that Itinerant Kingdom of yours for a used unicorn?" She found a dandelion nearby and blew its seeds clear. "Maybe we can just blow away together on the wind... "
I needed to get her out of there, but there was only two ways that came to mind, and I wasn't quite up to planning to murder somepony I had never me. Yet. So I sat up. "If you're serious, and you're willing to swear fealty to me, to the Itinerant King... then yes. There's a simple ceremony to make it official, and binding. But only when you're completely ready."
She started to move, but then hesitated and sat back down.
I sighed a bit, and continued. "We're not leaving yet. I still have more to learn before I'm ready to move on. It may be basics, but a king has to master the basics like everyone else. Take your time deciding, as the binding ceremony cannot be undone. If you have any doubts, find another path in life."
She spoke quietly then. "I'll think it over. I will. Just... don't leave without saying goodbye, alright? Promise?"
"I promise. You have my word as a king," I declared with exaggerated confidence.
In the morning, I returned to school after breakfast, bright and early. I was the first student to arrive, and took a moment to practice my horn glow as I waited for the other students to arrive.
Long View arrived next, taking his seat next to me in the front row, where Midnight Oil had been yesterday. We chatted idly for a bit as the other students arrived, one by one, until there were only two empty seats left. Miss Lemon Drop looked off into the distance outside for a time, then came inside and closed the door. Midnight Oil hadn't showed up yet, and it appeared she was not expected to.
The cold indifference to their classmate's absence bothered me even more. Was this actually a habit? I supposed it possible she had overslept, after our late night rendezvous, and that Midnight Oil had a track record of 'burning the midnight oil' instead of getting to bed at a decent hour. But I also knew for certain she had been sexually abused just the night before, allegedly by her stepfather.
I contacted Wind Chaser and sent her to do some investigation. Midnight's family had a nice house, and no permanent staff, so they could probably use the services of an itinerant maid to tidy things up. There was no answer at their door, however, no sign that anyone was home. There was, however, a faint trail of dried blood.
Thankfully, the blood lead to the local clinic. Thinking fast, Wind Chaser smashed a stick with one hoof when no one was looking, and managed to get herself a nasty splinter for the doctor to rescue her from. Her treatment was fast and easy, but there was only one large room for patients in the clinic, and the privacy screen wasn't enough to keep the changeling from identifying Midnight Oil sitting on the floor behind it, sitting next to the bed where a patient was lying.
When the doctor went back into his office for a minute, leaving Wind Chaser unobserved, she quickly shifted into pegasus form, took flight soundlessly for a moment to get a quick view over the top of the screen, then landed just as softly and reverted to her earth pony disguise. She walked away as the nanospiders within her processed the images she had just seen.
Midnight Oil herself had a poultice over one eye, but otherwise appeared fine. The patient in the bed, however, looked like she had been beaten half to death. She was a pegasus with deep brown fur and a once-golden mane, still matted with her own blood. Both wings looked useless, though they weren't being actively treated and didn't seem to have been a part of the recent assault. Despite the difference in tribe and fur color, there were plenty of other subtle markers that showed the clear resemblance between mother and daughter. Recalling a passing glance to the patient chart informed Wind Chaser that her name was Fog Dancer and she was in for 'falling down some stairs'. She recoiled, mentally, at the use of such a euphemism, more at home in Earth's seedier dramas than Equestria's generally idyllic society.
After a brief detour to bring me lunch and bring me up to date on her investigation, she went back to the estate, this time assuming Midnight Oil's form as a disguise. With a horn on her head, she felt the bubble of magic this time as she approached the door. Cocking her head a moment once inside, she noticed the oppressive silence. She could see a bird chirping just across the street but even its song didn't reach her. A persistent privacy spell, to keep the neighbors from hearing anything... great. This could work to our advantage though. It didn't suppress radio waves, however, and so I was still in the loop.
The lock on the front door was shielded against magic, to ensure the proper key was required... however, it wasn't shielded against electromagnets, and soon the deadbolt was slid aside and the disguised changeling walked in like she owned the place. She began exploring, looking for more evidence, clues to just what had been going on. The blood trail began in the living room, well away from the staircase, just confirming that the euphemism was the lie we suspected it to be. Impact marks on several of the stairs were old enough to have gathered dust, showing that someone probably had, actually, fallen down the stairs at some point. She carefully ascended the stairs and began poking around the rooms. There were no fewer than four unlocked liquor cabinets distributed throughout the house, including one in what appeared to be Midnight's bedroom, and another in the master. Adding to the disturbing picture, the master bed itself had four very sturdy wooden posts at the corners, each with heavy iron rings holding chains attached, ending in various leather restraints. Just... how bad of a pony was this step father?
Wind Chaser was about to find out. As she finished looking over the disturbingly well stocked first aid kit in the master bathroom and returned to the adjoining bedroom, she found herself looking eye to eye with the biggest, strongest, tallest earth pony stallion she had ever seen. Thinking fast, she magically floated a bottle of pain relief potion into view behind her. "Hi daddy," she said in Midnight's voice, "I just came to get something for mom, I'll be heading back to the clinic now."
"Not yet you won't," he said, approaching with a predatory leer. "since you're here, it's time for a bit of... afternoon delight. Assume the position!"
Wind Chaser didn't know exactly what position was assumed, but guessed well. She feigned fear even as she planned her attack. It may have seemed she was in a position of weakness, but he had no idea who he was really messing with.
Most changelings don't believe they can be raped. To them, lying with someone they don't actually care for isn't called rape, it's called dinner. It's actually fairly common for them to get roped into a bit of hanky panky with the amorous spouse of the one they are imitating, when they would have been just as happy stealing love with a kiss, a nice gentle snuggle, or even some kind words. But sex is not love, and rapists don't love their victims. And when it actually happens, no one is more sharply aware of that lack of love than a changeling.
That doesn't mean that the massive stallion above her had no love for his adopted daughter. It was feint. It was corrupt, possessive, even darker than what she had felt from Istaran in the aborted timeline. But it was just enough of a connection for her to begin tugging on. It was hard... ironically, her king had sated her too well, and without the edge of her hunger it nearly took too long, but finally she did it. She ripped so much love out of his heart that he fell unconscious, falling heavily on top of her. She breathed a sigh of relief that he had managed to not notice and stop her in time. Fortunately for her, and changelings the world over, the process of having your love extracted was actually quite pleasurable in its own right.
Until you woke up. If you woke up.
She stayed with him until nightfall, keeping him constantly drained of every speck of love in his heart. Ponies, even ones as dark and corrupted as this one had managed to become, could not function without love. They could barely even stay alive without it. When the darkness finally came, she shifted herself to match his form, needing the extra bulk and muscles, as she began dragging him off.
It was dangerous, even in the dark of night, as someone could have caught her, asked her questions she had no way to answer, but she managed it. She knew the codes and ways of her tribe, and their local meeting places, and before long she was able to arrange a small crew of changelings to meet her in the woods, and take the body off her hands. "Put him in a pod and make sure he never wakes up," she said, "he is slim pickings, I know, but you don't need to ever return him." The drones nodded their agreement before parting ways.
And then she returned to the manner, bearing the stallion's form once again, and began to study. Notes, ledgers, everything. She hadn't had the time to study her mark before hand, to become him more convincingly, but she would do her best.
Late that night, I was waiting outside the clinic when Midnight finally left, desperate for a good night sleep. I escorted her home, came inside despite her objections, and then, once we were in the safety of the closed door and the privacy bubble, I told her what had happened. She hugged me tight, and wept on my shoulder.
Tears of relief.