//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Itinerant living // Story: Itinerant Kingdom // by Istaran //------------------------------// It was strange to me, seeing Wind Chaser as a stallion. He had told me when we first met.. when he first met the other me anyways, that he was male. Given his desire to feed off of my love, he had willingly assumed a female form for the vast majority of our time together, so I had taken to thinking of him as a 'her'. The truth with all changelings of course is that neither was entirely, much less exclusively, correct. While I had the same magic at my disposal, and had had a few passing curious thoughts, I had yet to even experiment with a female form, much less let my sense of self lose its death-grip on the idea of my own masculinity. Wind Chaser approached the nearby pear farm as 'Earth shaker', a large, muscular earth pony stallion with bulging muscles, bright green fur, and mane, and a tilted tree as a cutie mark. I was 'Little buck', a smaller earth pony stallion with an upright tree shedding a few leaves as my cutie mark, and deeper forest green shading. The ladies passed as our 'special someponies', with the older pegasus playing as 'Gathering Storm', sky blue pegasus mare with a basket of pears as her cutie mark, and the younger unicorn going as 'Delicate Balance', a pale yellow unicorn mare with a pile of pears as her cutie mark. I took the lead, as my 'brother' was supposed to be a stallion of few words, and knocked firmly on the door. We waited patiently for an answer. It didn't take long before the mare of the household answered the door. "Can I help y'all?" the bright red earth pony mare asked. "I do hope so, ma'am," I said, regretting the lack of a hat to remove. "I see yer trees are ripe for the harvest, and my brother and I were hoping fer some simple honest work to earn a bit or two." I did my best to emulate the simple country folk way of speaking without smirking or laughing, or simply delving into painfully obvious parody. I kind of wished the more experienced infiltrator was the one with the speaking parts, but it was too late for that now." Our marefriends can help with bringing in what we can buck for y'all, if you're willing to hire us for a time." "Sure, we can always use help at harvest time! A couple buckers and a couple gatherers.. do y'all mind being paid as a group?" the mare replied. We haggled a little over our rate, Wind Chaser silently guiding my interactions, until we finally shook hooves, and she went to lead us out to the trees. "My name is Pear Fritter, by the way. Y'all have come at a really good time, as I'm sure you've noticed. We've got more pears than you can shake a stick at, which is great! But if they're left too long, it won't be so great, and my family and I can only buck so fast, and we haven't gotten any other seasonal workers stopping by just yet. Here, why don't you start with the trees in this enclosure here, and I'll point you to the next one when you finish?" I took a moment to introduce our pseudonyms, hiding a smirk at the way she looked over Wind Chaser's disguised form, while Fog Dancer remembered to give a jealously possessive glare. I wondered how sincere the glare was. It seemed pretty convincing to me, and I didn't know how good of an actress Fog Dancer was. But I did know Wind Chaser's disguised was basically a color-swapped version of her late husband, a form that she physically appreciated despite the person underneath. And it was being worn by none other than her savior, the one who had made the bad pony go away forever. As we got to bucking, I was trying to decide whether I should be jealous if the pegasus decided to start feeding my changeling some love of her own. It soon became hard to maintain any thoughts of jealousy, however, as Midnight began to literally work her magic on me. As Wind Chaser and I bucked the trees to knock loose the ripened fruit, Fog Dancer swooped through the air with a basket and Midnight Oil's telekinetic powers snatched fruits from midair. But the unicorn was skilled enough to keep at least some of her power touching me at any moment, and she was disturbingly good at teasing an earth pony stallion. I had to cheat, having Deus override my body's natural responses, or I would have surely tripped over my 'fifth leg' and been injured in hilariously embarrassing ways. As we worked, we made a point of talking out loud, to a minimal degree. It was almost entirely work related: things like 'moving to the next tree', or 'you missed one', or 'give me a second'. Just enough to keep from being unnervingly quiet. Meanwhile we had a lot to talk about through our silent communications. Midnight in particular seemed intent on finding a full list of ways to work sexual innuendo into our conversation. Meanwhile, I could make out that Fog Dancer and Wind Chaser were trading messages back and forth, but they had managed to encrypt it in a way that Deus couldn't break through. This was a bit unnerving for me, as the other subnets shouldn't have been able to hide things from me like that, at least not when I actually inquired. But Turbine seemed to have a level of authority equal to my own, and was able to deny me. Eventually, I let it go. If I couldn't trust Wind Chaser, the kingdom was doomed anyways. And it probably was just some romantic entanglement between them. Having one more loving heart to feed my drone was probably a good thing, and honestly Fog Dancer needed someone non-abusive to love. We made good time, and by a little after noon we had finished the enclosure. We hauled in our baskets to a surprised looking Pear. I hadn't thought to inquire how fast a typical crew would have finished, and our own augmented bodies were powerful and relentless; if we had meant to be more inconspicuous, we should have taken some breaks we didn't need, or goofed off a bit along the way. On the other hand, our need for food easily exceeded a more typical crew. Pear Fritter was more than happy to sell us back some of the fruits of our labor. Fortunately the markup was minimal, and could be easily justified by the fuel and labor that went into cooking an amazingly delicious, if overly pear-themed, lunch. I supposed one advantage of being migrating seasonal workers would be that by the time we got sick of pears we could go find an apple farm or something. After lunch, Pear led us out to another enclosure, and pointed out a second enclosure for us to work on next. Along the way we passed her brothers and mother, who were hard at work in an enclosure much closer to the barn. The mother was past prime bucking age, but still fit and healthy and had no trouble hauling in baskets of pears. The brothers shared plenty of features with their mother, but otherwise were quite divergent in the details, both from each other and Pear Fritter, hinting at possibly different fathers. Since we were a long way from any proper town, I had my suspicions, but didn't feel a need to voice them. Nevertheless, both boys were large and powerfully built; a bit smaller than Oak Breaker had been, but notably larger than most of the earth ponies we had seen in more populated areas. When we reached our destination, Pear approached Wind Chaser. "Earth Shaker, why don't you come back with me for a bit. I'll show you were y'all can bed down for the night, and then I'll let you get back to work." As Wind nodded and went to follower her, I wondered a moment why she was inviting the strong, silent one instead of the 'face' of the party. But then I thought back to the size of her brothers, and stopped wondering. Fog Dancer confirmed my thoughts with a silent message while she put on a show of jealousy, without stopping him. [A lot of farm girls like big stallions. And taking advantage of the seasonal workers helps keep the bloodlines mixing. Don't worry, I'm not that possessive of your marefriend. I'm actually a little surprised you don't act more jealous.] [The more loving hearts feeding my changeling, the better as far as I am concerned. I know I won't lose his loyalty over a romp in the barn, or even a longer relationship with you. How are you two getting along, anyways? You've been passing secret notes back and forth like a couple of giddy school-fillies,] I thought to her, hoping the analogy survived the cultural translation. The thought-language the spiders used could fill in blanks and translate things when they didn't quite work, but it was always very disconcerting when they did so. It's hard to even describe. Like imagine reading a sentence that was structured like a wiki page, and all of it appearing in your brain at once, with all kinds of dangling links plugging into your consciousness in parallel. It was incredibly efficient, but impossible to get used to. I almost blushed physically as she sent over the raw emotion she was feeling at the question; embarrassedly joyful seemed the best description. [I'm not ready to just forget everything that's happened and move on, but.. I'm really enjoying our time together. He makes me feel.. happy. And safe. Especially safe. Like if a monster came to get me, he would buck its skull in without a moment's hesitation. I know.. I know why you two stood down on the train. It's because we, Midnight and I.. we're too..] [It's because you're too precious to risk losing or even getting hurt over a bag of bits,] I interjected. [Besides, I don't really want to owe Oak Breaker anything, do you? Now, all of his legacy has been stolen by thieves, no doubt to be squandered. A fitting end, don't you agree?] When Wind Chaser finally returned, he looked quite satisfied, and reeked of sex. He went straight to bucking with a renewed vigor. [They have no idea, but they entertain quite a few changelings,] he commented. [They?] I asked. Deus was able to pick out the scents of both Pear Fritter and her mother. [How do you know, anyways?] [It's hard to describe, but when a changeling draws love from somepony, it gets easier and easier to get that love flowing in the future. And since they seem to involve themselves with seasonal workers, I doubt it's the same changeling over and over. Not that they would have a way to know. For personas like this, the hive has a good mix of them we passed between ourselves, so if you meet the same pony in passing a dozen times it could be a different changeling each time,] he explained. [Any chance the boys are half-changeling or something?] I wondered. [No, changelings don't work that way. We take love, we don't give it. Oh! I forgot, humans work a bit different, and nopony has explained it to you yet. For humans, a bit of fluid is enough to impregnate a woman, but for ponies it takes a massive surge of love to begin, and sustained love to grow until they are ready to be born. Of course the surge has to happen while the mare is receptive, or it won't work. Changelings are never receptive like that though, except for our queens. We can fake it, if we want to use our pheromones to entice a stallion, or as part of keeping up appearances in a longer role, but faking it won't make a foal.] [What about as a male, though? If you're with a receptive female, then couldn't you, you know?] I was a bit fascinated by the topic, to the point where Deus had to take a bit more active control of my muscles to keep the pears coming. [No. Well, maybe? Changelings have a special caste of breeders that keep the queen heavy with eggs, but the rest of us don't give love during our encounters, only take it. A pony normally won't really notice the difference, but it does keep us from having a bunch of bastard children running around. I guess, umm.. ] Wind Chaser hesitated before concluding, [if you and I switched roles, maybe I could impregnate you? But that's assuming you would even be capable. As you once said, you're a king, not a queen. Even if you have the right physical form, your aetheric net probably couldn't support a foal.] [Aww, so you do love me after all?] I thought, grinning physically, [what about Fog Dancer though? You just met a few days ago, so it's probably too early but..] [No. It's in our nature to love our queens, not somepony else. I love you like I loved my queen before I was given to you. I love my king like I loved my queen.. I don't know how to give any other kind of love. I hope you aren't disappointed. As the kingdom stands, any foals are going to be coming from you loving the ladies here.] Since we had been broadcasting openly, Fog Dancer cut in. There was a twinge of sadness to it, but she didn't say why. [It's not quite as simple as loving each other, either, you also both need to love the union, if that makes sense. Sex helps make it all come together, but it isn't necessary for a truly loving couple.] [Finally getting 'the talk' at your age?] Midnight teased. [Actually the changeling bits are new to me too. What was that about humans though?] [Oh, women are normally fertile a few days a month, and if we have sex at that time there's a chance of producing children. Love has nothing to do with it, other than helping guide who has sex with whom. It.. honestly can cause a lot of problems at times. Sex is quite enjoyable in its own right, and it's far too common for someone to seek out that pleasure, only to end up with a child on the way that they aren't prepared to handle, often with the father leaving entirely, sometimes without even knowing it. So we have a lot of social rules around sex to keep that from happening too often, and various technologies to make pregnancy less or more likely. Ideally, a couple will commit to one another in love, and marry, before anyone gets pregnant.] [Why not just avoid the fertile days?] Midnight asked. [That's what we do, but for us we have to avoid any close contact at all, in case something comes up and things get.. you know.. too lovey. I would think it'd be easier to just avoid having sex.] I thought about it a moment, putting together some of what I knew, and some of what Deus was able to skim quickly from the other nets. [Human fertile days are a lot less obvious than pony fertile days; we much more easily notice the opposite end of the cycle, actually, and since the timing can shift a little unexpectedly, even those that are planning carefully can be caught off guard. Honestly, the easiest symptom to notice on the fertile days is an increased desire for sex, which doesn't exactly make it easier to avoid those days.] I thought a moment. [Why aren't ponies more, you know.. free with sex. We have to be cautious because of unplanned pregnancies, but if you don't love the pony you're with..] [Why would you want to have sex with a pony you don't love?] Fog Dancer answered. [Trust me, it's not that great. But beyond that.. the heart responds to sex. Ideally there's a surge of passionate love, enough to make a foal naturally. And if there isn't.. usually there's a surge of something else. Hatred. Shame. Something. Can a human really be that close to someone and not feel anything?] [Some can. But.. no, usually not. Not if we're honest about it,] I concluded. [That's why you held back,] Wind Chaser mentioned. [But also why your other self lay with me so quickly. He was in a rush to fill my needs, but you were guarding your heart.] [Do you wish I had hurried more?] I asked. [No! Your.. love is much purer this time than it was then. Before.. it was tainted with shame, self doubt, regrets. Now that we're on the topic.. that's why Istaran locked out your permissions to Turbine, and elevated my own. It was a gift to you. Your past self felt guilty, knowing that he could order me to do anything and I would be forced to comply. Even though you would never do anything to harm me, the fact that you could was enough to trouble that soft squishy heart of yours. You don't have to feel that way. I am my own drone, as much as I can be. More than I care to be, honestly, but.. I trust that you won't leave me. Trust that I won't betray you.] We bucked in pure silence for a time, as I took in the revelation, and all the other words that had been exchanged.