After arriving back at the castle with Twilight, Cicada and Lila were shown to the guest room by Spike.
“Sorry if it seems a little… empty.” he said. “We still haven’t gotten around to decoration the whole place, and we didn’t think we’d be using the guest room so soon.”
Cicada took a peek inside. Sure enough, there wasn’t much in the room besides a bed and side table for a lamp. There wasn’t even a lamp to go on side table yet.
“Don’t worry. I’ve had to sleep in worse places. This actually looks comfortable compared to most of the places I have to sleep in.”
“Well, once you feel like it, you can come down to where we’ll be having dinner in about half an hour.”
“Was it a left at the end of the hall and then a right four doors down?” Cicada asked.
“No, you want to make a right six doors down. And after that you’re going to want to take another right two doors after that.”
“Okay… I think I’ve got it.” The changeling replied as she finished writing herself a note. “Thanks for the paper by the way.”
“Yeah, I always keep some around just incase Twilight feels the need to make a list or note about something at that second. Pinkie actually helped me put them around the castle along with eyepatches, balls, and party cannons.”
“Why did she feel the need to put those around the castle?”
“Because she already had them hidden around the rest of Ponyville.”
“Actually I meant… *sigh* nevermind. Something tells me this is usual for you guys. But anyway, yeah, I’ll join you guys later.”
Spike left the room while Cicada worked on fixing up the room a little. For the most part, all she did was move around what little was in the room so it looked better to her. The only other thing she did was try and make a perch for Lila. There wasn’t much for the changeling to work with, but eventually she chose to open the on window in the room and use her magic to yank a branch off one of the trees she could see. It took a while with the tree being so far away from her window and her magic rather weak, but soon enough Cicada was able to get a branch to clean up and use as a perch.
It took the changeling the good part of an hour to work on getting the rough bark off and getting to the softer wood inside, but eventually she finished and took one of the few sheets on the bed to make a stand so the perch would stay up.
“There, that should work for now. Lila, don’t go on it until it had a proper base. I’m going to see if I can find one.”
Before Cicada could start to leave, her stomach growled a bit. “Alright, first you can come with me to have something to eat, then I’ll find a proper base.”
The changeling quickly turned to start leaving the room, but paused and turned back. When Lila gave a questioning caw, Cicada replied. “Sorry, just thought I saw something for a second there and I took a double take. I think it was just my imagination. Let’s go.”
Spike and Twilight had already started their dinner when Cicada and Lila arrived to eat. Each of them was eating a piece from a large thing that looked like it had started as a circle. After getting a bit closer, Cicada could see that the main part seemed to be much like bread, though it seemed to be darker than how bread normally looked after being baked. On the very top was a yellowish substance with some of the area with a few gems, most likely for Spike. In between the bread and the odd substance, was a chunky red layer, which unfortunately reminded Cicada of some of the horrible food to come from sector two.
Twilight cut a new slice and placed it on the place where Cicada had sat down. The changeling recoiled slightly as the food was put in front of her.
“Don’t worry!” Spike said, taking another bit of his own slice. “It’s good! You’ll like it!”
Cicada wasn’t so sure, and the red spots left around the drake’s mouth didn’t help, making her gag instead.
“Sorry, but I think I might go for something else.” The changeling shifted in her seat. “This is a little… too odd for me right now.”
Cicada couldn’t help thinking. ‘Are the ponies here any better that the ones back home? What if this is all some act before they turn on me? They mentioned some interactions with changelings already. For all I know, this is the same. How else would both Twilights be alicorns? Surely this one wouldn’t want to use dark magic willingly, right?’
“That’s fine. We can save it for later. I just thought you might enjoy having pizza for dinner and didn’t know if you had ever had some before. What do you want instead?”
Cicada had only half heard what Twilight had said. She looked between her two hosts, hoping one of them would repeat what was just said. Twilight opened her mouth to repeat herself, but Spike was the one who spoke.
“Not much of a loss if you don’t want it. What do you want instead.” Is how he summed it up.
“Not much of a loss?!” Cicada’s eye twitched. For a second or two, she could picture Twilight’s armor on her. That just made things worse. “You think lives ‘aren’t much of a loss’?!”
“Wait, Cicada! What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean! Food is hard enough for you ponies and while I’m pleased my changelings are being kept alive, you use them as slaves and barely feed them. And then when they die either from bad conditions or accidents, or maybe even in battle, you still use them to benefit yourselves in ways I am appalled by!”
The changeling got closer to Twilight, her horn lit up and starting to spark. When she was almost on top of the alicorn, Spike stepped in between the two, causing Cicada to stop and then blink a few times. She shook her head, before slowly backing away.
“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t mean… I just forgot… I-I’ll… can I just have salad in my room?”
Cicada ran out of the room a few tears just starting to form in her eyes.
“I almost attacked her. She didn’t do anything wrong. I was just thinking about the other her, and then I got angry at the other one. Then I started to get angry at this one. I don’t want to hurt any innocent changelings. Ponies… I mean ponies. Arrgg! Why did this have to happen!”
Cicada flopped on her bed to stop herself from pacing anymore. She kept replaying the scene over and over in her head. She could think of different ways she could have made it better, but the thought of her visualizing Twilight wearing her Twilight’s armor seemed to have been a big part of her breaking point.
“I’m the worst guest ever. They’ll just see me as some evil queen now, trying to take over the whole country for my own use.”
There was a knock at the door. Cicada didn’t open it at first, but the knock came again.
“Cicada? Twilight asked me to bring me the salad you wanted. Also, your phoenix is out here and she looks like she wants to come in.”
Cicada almost zoomed over to the door. before opening it, she calmed herself and peeked out, allowing Lila enough room to fly in, and enough for her to look out.
“Uh thank you Spike. Cou-could you maybe tell Twilight I’m sorry? I was thinking about my home right before my outburst and the… what was it called? Pizza? Anyway the food reminded me of something my Twilight does and it’s really cruel. I kind of decided to take out my anger on this Twilight instead.”
“Yeah! I think I can do that. Here’s your salad.”
“Thank you.” Cicada replied, picking up the salad with her magic.
She closed the door and went over to the bed. The salad was quickly devoured and the bowl set aside before the changeling quickly left the room and came back with a rather heavy and somewhat large vase.
Cicada jammed the branch she had cleaned into the top of the vase, where it fit in firmly. The vase alone was heavy enough that when Lila perched herself on the branch, it didn’t tip over or even wobble.
“I hope Twilight doesn’t decide to kick me out of here.” Cicada said, before giving a small laugh. “Never thought I would ever say something like that.”
Lila wasn’t paying much attention as she worked on finding a comfortable position to sleep in.
“Y’know what Lila? I think that’s a good *yawn* idea.” the queen said, finding herself sleepy. “Getting frustrated makes me more tired than I thought.”
Cicada got into bed and tucked herself in. She went to blow out the candle before realising there wasn’t one. She stopped to just tuck herself in some more before calling out. “Goodnight Nymph.”
She was replied only by silence.