Changelings, Love and Lollipops
Chapter 20
There’s No Place Like Hive
The interior of the Ponyville Golden Oak library was a comfortable place, part friendly loaning library and part cozy little apartment for Princess Celestia’s favorite student. At times, it may have been a little too comfortable as patrons found themselves face-to-face with a groggy unicorn in a bathrobe coming out of the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking out of her face, or invited into the kitchen to sample one of Spike’s pancake variations. Even after regular business hours, the most insomniac of town residents had a fair chance of finding the front door unlocked and the lights on so they could pick out a book to wile away the evening, provided that book was not currently one of the dozen or so that Twilight Sparkle was reading at the moment.
This evening was no exception. Six good friends and one dragon lay on the library floor around a heap of puzzle pieces, chatting about the week’s events while attempting to wedge oddly-shaped pieces of colored pasteboard together to recreate an original picture that seemed so simple when seen on the outside of the puzzle box. However, there was an underlying tension in the air tonight that finally broke out when Applejack put down her puzzle piece and pointed at the changeling, still stuck half-way through one of the library bookshelves.
“Ya can’t just leave Pops there, Pinkie. It’s distracting as all getout.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said the changeling, using his magic to pick up a puzzle piece and bring it up to his nose for closer inspection. “It’s remarkably comfortable.”
Compared to the way I got here.
“I do hate to agree with Applejack on this, Pinke, but she’s simply right.” Rarity pointed with one hoof. “His coloration simply does not go with the rest of the furnishings. Perhaps if he were a nice dark brown or even—” She cast a critical eye on the changeling as green fire surrounded him and his color shifted from his yellow unicorn disguise to a dark mahogany unicorn with a plum-colored mane. “Yes, that’s much better. Thank you, Mister Tolliver.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Rarity,” he answered, floating the piece over to the puzzle and locking it firmly against another.
“That ain’t what I meant and you know it,” said Applejack. “You tell her, Twilight.”
“Well,” began Twilight Sparkle, trying to look as if the eight puzzle pieces hovering around her were the center of her entire attention. “He is filed incorrectly under History. He probably should be on the Species of Equestria shelves under Arthropoda.”
“Or projectile weapons,” suggested Rainbow Dash.
“Do you think he’s injured?” whispered The Fluttershy. “We could pull him out and check. I mean, if he’s hurt, he needs to be treated.”
“No,” said the changeling, shifting his position inside the somewhat-splintered encompassing bookshelf. “We changelings use stored love to heal injuries. I’ve got enough love inside me to recover from just about anything.”
“Too bad we can’t get my comic books back out of you,” groused Spike, holding up a pair of puzzle pieces to the light and turning them.
“Spike!” said Twilight Sparkle. “I said I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t buy a replacement copy of Marevengers #14 in mint condition.”
“I’ll buy a copy and have it shipped here,” said the changeling. “After all, Twilight Sparkle was trying to save my life when she destroyed your comic, so the least I can do is repay you.”
“Oh,” said the little dragon. “That’s cool then.” He walked over and exchanged hoof-bumps with the trapped changeling. “Do you want me to go get some more cookies, Pops?”
“Yes, please,” said Rainbow Dash, licking the powdered sugar off one hoof. “These are all gone.”
“Yer still dodging the issue,” said Applejack. “It ain’t natural for nopony or changeling to come a blasting across town, scattering fake doggie doo and whoopie cushions in his wake, and get stuck in your library shelves, Twilight.”
“Rainbow Dash does it every Tuesday,” said Twilight Sparkle, fitting three puzzle pieces into the corner.
“Not every Tuesday,” protested Rainbow Dash. “Just a few lately. And I normally land over there.” She waved a hoof at an empty bookshelf packed with pillows and with concentric circles drawn around it.
“It weren’t just that neither,” said Applejack. “It’s the way he did it.”
“Did what?” asked the changeling.
“You shouted ‘Wheeee!!’ while flying through the air,” said Twilight Sparkle, picking up another puzzle piece. “And you asked ‘Did I win?’ after you crashed into the bookcase.”
“I did?” asked the changeling, although after a moment, he shrugged. “I guess I did. So?”
“It just goes to show that maybe you oughta belong here after all,” said Applejack. “And that it ain’t right for you to go back to that overgrown beehive when you could make a home in Ponyville,” she huffed. “That is, without needing none of that stuff that Pinkie’s trying to hide behind her back there.”
“Who, me?” asked Pinkie Pie, shifting uncomfortably on a tall stack of manacles, tape, glue, ropes, chains, and one mousetrap, size large.
“I told you before,” said the changeling. “The peace treaty between changelings and ponies necessitates my return back to my hive. I’m going back with The Night… I mean Princess Luna’s guard drones tomorrow. I tried going home earlier tonight, but I don’t know which way the Badlands are and no I don’t want a map, Miss Sparkle,” he added, pushing away the Travel Guide to Equestria’s Little Appreciated Landmarks book that she floated over to him. “I got Pinkie’s hopes up when I came back to ask directions, and she… reacted poorly. But with love. I’ll just stay here in the bookcase until she calms down, and tomorrow I’ll be going home.”
“And not come back,” said Applejack with a scowl. “Pops, it seems mighty unneighborly to make a friend… or something more than a friend, and just leave her behind forever.”
“We could come visit your hive,” suggested Pinkie Pie.
* * *
A small group of changeling survivors gathered on a nearby hill to watch the erupting volcano that had once been their home. Giant plumes of pink lava shot skywards, raining flaming chunks of molten rock around the ground as the earth trembled beneath their hooves.
“Just for one day, you said.” The changeling queen turned to the suffocating changeling she held by the neck and shook him. “What harm could it do, you said.”
* * *
“Uh… No,” said the changeling. “Security, with you being the Elements of Harmony and all that. Probably a bad idea. Plus my queen would probably want hold you as hostages.”
What a wonderful idea…
“What I really want,” he continued, “is for you all to be there with Pinkie Pie when I go.”
“What, so we can hold her back?” asked Applejack.
“Yes. No. Well, yes and no.” The changeling took a deep breath. “I want you there for her. She’s going to need the support of her friends.”
“What about you?” whispered Fluttershy.
“I’ve got the… All of the changelings in the hivemind… I really don’t need…” The changeling ground to a halt and considered his situation, which was considerably more complicated than merely ‘stuck inside a bookshelf in a proscribed town while a jilted marefriend conspired to imprison him and his hive prepared for war to get him back.’
“Don’t you worry, Pops,” said Rainbow Dash. “We’ll all be there for you too, and so will Scootaloo and her little friends.”
Then again, maybe leaving Ponyville while still alive might be a good idea.
There was a warm sensation about the group of friends that grew as the puzzle became more complete and Spike was bedded down for the night before he could nibble any more pieces into ‘correct’ shapes. It grew as the night went on and a few bottles of cider were brought out to be carefully rationed around the circle. Pinkie got two, of course, as well as Rainbow Dash, while Rarity restricted herself to a small glass ‘In respect for my girlish figure.’ They even gave a bottle to the changeling, who smiled and raised it in a toast along with all of her other friends at Pinkie’s prompt.
“Here’s to my friend, my snuggle-bug, and my sexy—”
Which was as far as she got before five hooves covered her mouth and Applejack was convinced to finish.
“Here’s to Pops, and his time spent with us. May he find happiness wherever he goes, and always remember that a part of him will remain forever in Ponyville. And, of course, to your eventual return, because nopony makes a loaf of cinnamon apple bread as doggone good as yours.”
“Hear, hear,” chorused the other ponies, with Pinkie Pie adding, “And soon.”
“Thank you,” said the changeling. “Does this mean I need to make a speech?”
“Yes!” declared Twilight Sparkle with a hiccup, floating over a collection of writing materials and settling herself for a literary siege. “It’s a speech for history. The first one ever given by a changeling to ponies. That we know of. Other than Queen Chrissy.” She hiccuped again and inked her quill all the way past the nib before floating the puzzle box in front of her and regarding it with drunken suspicion. “Somepony’s been drawing on my paper. It’s good though.”
“One cider,” said Applejack with a roll of her eyes.
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
The alcoholic incapacitation of their fearsome leader seemed to take the fight out of the remaining Elements of Harmony, a fact that the changeling thought would be of considerable interest to Queen Chrysalis, although how she could possibly take advantage of that shared weakness was far beyond him.
* * *
”You’re not a bad bug,” slurred Twilight Sparkle as she slumped up against the larger form of the Changeling Queen in the depths of the scummiest bar⁽*⁾ in Canterlot. “You just need a little loving.”
(*) To be honest, Canterlot did not have very many bars of extremely low reputation. Even the worst of them was rumored to make the cockroaches wipe their feet before entering and only thinned the drinks with pure artesian water.
“S’true,” said Chrysalis with a stentorian belch. “All my years, I’ve looked for… Do you know what I looked for, Twi?”
There was a very long pause in the empty bar before Twilight responded, “What?”
“I’m not shure,” said Chrysalis while burying her nose in the unicorn’s rumpled mane. “If ah found it, ah woudn’t be looking. Maybe it’s conditioner. You smell nice.”
* * *
As he walked Pinkie Pie back to her room at Sugarcube Corner, the changeling found himself leaning against her with increasing pressure. Her friends had known he was a changeling, and they still directed their friendship towards him in an emotional wave that he could not mistake for anything else. Maybe that was why Ponyville was a proscribed town. It would have been a terrifying thought to have been treated this way before the invasion. Thousands of years of changeling history, blown away by six colorful mares with no sense of tradition. Ponyville was such an exclusion to the rules that governed most Equestrian cities that any changeling who visited here would be in danger of developing habits which would lead to discovery and ruin anywhere else.
It’s a good thing I was only here for a short time.
Pinkie Pie leaned her head against his shoulder as they shuffled inside the front door of the bakery, climbed the stairs to her bedroom, and maintained that close presence through tooth brushing, a quick bath, and as they each climbed into their pajamas to get ready for bed.
“Pinkie,” he asked, “since when do I have pajamas?”
“They look very nice on you,” said Pinkie. “All covered with candy hearts and flowers. Very nibbleable. I think Rarity snuck them up here.”
He considered the gift, as well as the rest of the room. “They go well with the saddlebags. And the candles. And the chocolates on the pillow.” He nipped the top chocolate off the pile and split it with Pinkie using a shared kiss to ensure they each got the most benefit out of the candy.
“Tastes like love,” said Pinkie with a giggle.
After a second and third chocolate had been shared using the same method, he agreed. “Tomorrow is going to come around awfully soon. Let me get the clocks wound up.”
“I’m not very sleepy,” admitted Pinkie.
“Standard Response #14,” said the changeling as he continued to wind the clocks and set the alarms. “By my training, I’m supposed to either ask what you want to do while striking a suitably sexy pose, or just nibble.” He paused, stretched out across the bed with a clock key in his teeth and waggled his eyebrows at Pinkie. “Want me to go into the closet and get out the board games, or maybe a quick game of Twister? We could even play a card game if you want.”
Pinkie shook her head and scooched up onto the bed to sit. “I thought you wanted to make your own decisions.”
“You know, you’re right.” He put the clock key back onto the shelf and arranged the alarm clocks while thinking.
“Soo…” Pinkie Pie cocked her head to one side and watched him. “What do you want to do?”
He turned out the light.
~ ~ ~ ♡ ~ ~ ~
The next day streamed past at blinding speed. It seemed as if the alarm clock had only rung a few minutes ago before the busy kitchen traffic had begun to slow, and a dark Royal Coach landed on the grassy patch outside Sugarcube Corner. If there was any doubt at to the coach’s purpose, the four sunglass-wearing Night Guards in the traces made it obvious, as well as an impassive Princess of the Night standing quietly in the center of the carriage.
“I guess the party is over,” said Pinkie Pie, standing by the changeling’s side as if she had been glued there by splatters of frosting and cake batter.
“As long as there’s a Pinkie Pie, the party is never over,” he said in return, giving her a gentle peck on the nose.
They walked, flank by flank through the crowd of quiet townsponies, each of whom insisted on a brief brushing of hooves or a gentle kiss on the cheek. Even Big Mac was there, doing his best not to look at the Royal Coach or its contents while giving the changeling a friendly hoof to the shoulder that made his entire leg ache. As they got closer to his destination, they traveled through Pinkie’s friends, who each contributed their own goodbye, from Fluttershy’s gentle kiss on one ear to Applejack’s firm hoofshake, and even a full kiss right on the lips from Rainbow Dash, who took the opportunity to whisper into his ear before breaking her embrace.
“You better come back, slowpoke. Pinkie and I never even got to go out pranking with you.”
Twilight Sparkle merely regarded her colorful friend with a skeptical although bloodshot eye, shifting the icepack on the top of her head and making one quiet request for just a tiny changeling blood sample, which he turned down after looking at the fairly large jar she had brought.
Finally, Rarity kissed him on the cheek after wrapping his neck in a burgundy scarf embroidered with little balloons and making sure his saddlebag was properly packed. She even floated over a large thermos of chamomile tea which she insisted had not been touched by any hoof other than hers, and that she had kept sealed against any attempted additions by three particularly helpful little fillies.
None of the Cutie Mark Crusaders kissed him on the cheek, but they all exchanged very formal hoofclasps with assurances that they would write him about their ongoing struggle for identity, a task which he had at one time believed he understood completely, but now was starting to think was a completely unknown land to his experience.
And then it was time.
The changeling hesitated only slightly before wrapping Pinkie Pie in a hug, a cautious and gentle embrace that went on for far longer than expected.
“I don’t want to go. But I have to.” The changeling held onto the thermos of tea like a life vest in a hurricane, swallowing hard before continuing, “It can’t work, Pinkie. I’m a changeling. I can’t give you love.”
Pinkie reached out with one hoof and brushed away the tear just under his eye. “Liar,” she whispered. “Go on. Luna’s waiting on you.”
He turned for the coach and the impassive alicorn standing patiently inside, taking one slow step after another as his yellow unicorn disguise burned and fizzled away into the breeze. Princess Luna shifted gracefully to one side as he climbed on and turned to look at Pinkie Pie.
They locked gazes, pure blue pony eyes and solid teal changeling eyes in a matched pairing that could never be as the coach rose up into the sky and turned for home. The blue of her eyes vanished as the coach climbed up into the sky, but the small pink dot remained, growing smaller and smaller as he continued to watch until he could no longer see even the smallest bit of pink.
But he still watched, even when the coach began to descend to his hive.
He missed pink.