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// 39 - Cleaning house 
// Story: A Penny for your thought 
// by Damaged 
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I didn't want to shift back. These big, spikey changes I made to myself took more than the usual amount of energy to shift. So I stood.

Well, it was more of a case I couldn't lay down, darn spines.

"Stick, you're bleeding." Penny advanced on me with a cloth. I sighed and dropped the changes reverting to my much more approachable self. "Here, let me clean you up. How much of this is yours?"

Penny was fussing, cleaning up my carapace and finding all sorts of little spots that were sore and at least two slight punctures.

Looking down at two new scars I gave a little whine. My marefriend was quick to respond, however. "Don't be like that. Each mark you have taken, Stick, is one protecting ponies you care about." The wave of love that thrummed from her made me giggle and I kissed her nose in reward.

"It's all silly. Changelings weren't meant to be tough fighters, we are supposed to be sneaky and clever, not brawlers. It was old bossy-pants Chrysalis that goaded us to outright combat with ponies." 

"For what it's worth, I am glad you can fight like that." One of the big stern guards said, standing a good ways away from the body of the shadow creature. "If you weren't… I don't want to think about it."

He was right, Penny too. "You are in just as much danger as I am right now, I… Oh…" It hit me, why they would have attacked and taken Penny. Would they have known I could sense their un-pony-ness? Their lack of love? Without Penny I would need to be drinking from a lot of other ponies just to stay here.

Penny was pressed against me her cheek against my neck. I really, really wanted to do very nasty things to any shadow that wanted to hurt us. Any of us.

The door opened again and both guards, along with Sharp, were all at the ready to defend Shining. I reached out and found Cadance. There was so much love there that I pulled back sharply to avoid being overwhelmed. "Princess."

The guards visibly relaxed.

"What is this?" She was startled by the cooling body of the shadow on the floor of the room.

"A creature posed as one of the doctors, tried to sneak through." Sharp reported and stepped over to the thing. "We weren't sure what to do with it."

She looked startled then over to us, eyes narrowing. "You detected them?"

I nodded and realized I  should elaborate. "They don't have much love in them, and what they do have is a little twisted. Ponies are brimming with it, I judged this as being a time I should be more free with my talent."

There was a touch of disgust on Cadance's face but it was tempered quickly with acceptance. "Very well but, from what I know of your kind, there will be consequences."

Penny was looking a little worried about this. "She really is doing it to protect, I don't-"

I nipped at her jaw gently. "She means, if I drink from ponies against their will, I will gain holes again."

The adorable lunar unicorn at my side pressed tighter. "Don't care if you fill with holes, this is a good thing and I will love you no matter what."

The declaration melted more than my heart, Cadance was actually smiling at us. She waited a moment before going on. "How is my Shiny?" Stepping by, she was looking down at the big stallion on the bed. He was bandaged up still, of course.

"His color seems to be improving." Penny walked over beside the alicorn, looking at Shining while he recovered. "If that shadow was the one who made the wounds initially… at least it had a relatively small knife." 

Two more ponies came into the room then, looking to be a doctor and a nurse from earlier. I reached out and found love within each. I had only the slightest taste and withdrew. "They're okay." The three ponies guarding the door now let them through and they started to fuss around Shining, the mare righting a pillow under his head while the doctor carefully unwrapped the bandages.

I looked to the wounds, they looked nasty but were visibly closing. 

"You can't just heal them with magic?" Penny looked at the doctor who shook his head.

"Doesn't work like that." He tilted his head at her, as if she had asked something crazy. "Well, there are rare ponies who can heal with magic, but I don't think any are at all close by."

Cadance jerked at that, a big grin suddenly appearing on her snout. The room seemed to brighten, the cloudy fear that was on the edge of everypony's thoughts clearing. "No, but there might soon be one." Leaning in to kiss Shining Armor's forehead, she whispered something nopony heard and turned.

Looking directly at me, Cadance dipped her head a little. "Please, Stick, keep your vigilance." I nodded right back.

She trotted out, head held high again. Almost as an afterthought she picked up the dead shadow with her magic and left with it. 





She always seemed to brighten the room, when her mood was high. I watched the revitalized alicorn trot from the room, clearing that nasty creature.

Turning my attention to Stick I saw them. "Already?" I trotted to her and leaned down to nose at one of the holes in her leg. "Well, you got rid of them last time, we can get rid of them again right?"

Stick looked down in surprise to spot the holes herself. "It was a little different last time, but yeah, I am sure we can get rid of them once things calm down."

Our noses touched and we nuzzled. "You have some study to do, too." I gestured with a hoof toward the books that lay almost forgotten. I reached into my right-side pouch and took out the keys, levitating them toward Stick. "Open one and give me those back, I have strict orders about them."

Stick unlocked the more bluntly titled of the two books, sending the keys back to me whereupon I tucked them away again. With the books out in the open, as it were, Sharp stepped over and stood beside Stick.

Although Cadance had liberated the shadow creature from the room, there was still a nasty stain on the flagstone floor. "I'll be back." I headed for the door, opening it and looking to one of the two guards there. "Where would I find a mop and a bucket?" They looked surprised and one gestured down the hall in the opposite of the direction I had come from initially.

"There is a maid cupboard down there a little ways, should be some things in there." I nodded and was about to close the door behind me when one of the guards from inside stepped out to look around.

"You, Bright, escort her." 

One of the pair saluted sharply and made to trot off at my side. 

Out of earshot of their partner at the door, the pony guard, Bright, whispered something. "Pardon?"

"Is he going to be alright?" He sounded scared.

"Of course he will be, he has the best doctors and even the best guards making sure of it." It made him stand a little straighter to realize he was counted in that 'best guards'.

"The changeling, what is she doing in there?"

"Stick? She is my marefriend and she is… well, you know how changelings feed?" He shook his head. "Oh, well, they can drink from the love another pony feels. Love for their work, love for another pony… apparently we are full of love."

He looked shocked at this. "Has she been eating me?"

I pondered how to reply. "Well, she would normally only drink from me, we are marefriends you know. But with all this mess she has been sipping just a taste of everypony who goes in to visit Shining Armor."

This confirmed that he had probably been drunk from and he looked a little shocked before his training kicked in and he thought some more. "Shadows not as nice as ponies?" I nodded. "Then I guess it is alright. That thing the princess took away…"

"The doctor who came in earlier, alone?" He tilted his head. "That was it. Apparently it wanted to finish the job it had started. Stick saw through it and even fought it off from his bed until one of the guards could pin it with his weapon."

He went a little green around the gills, so to speak. But his weapon never dipped an inch. "If she protects him, then she is alright by me. I really like Shining, he is a great captain."

"He is more, he is a great pony. He stood up for Stick, you see. But that isn't the only reason she is defending him now." I left it there, there was more to Stick's motivations than this guard really needed to know.

"Here it is." He opened the door to a small room that had a myriad of cleaning supplies. 

I selected a mop and bucket, a scrubbing brush and a little glass jar of what was labeled cleaning soap. Tucking everything into the bucket, I lifted it up with my magic, it was a bit of a strain so I leaned in and grabbed the bucket's wooden handle in my mouth.

"Okay, lets head back." The stallion nodded and poked his head out first, looking down the hall each way before letting me move out too. I appreciated his dedication.

"You said you and… Stick was it?" I nodded to him. "You said you were together?"

"We have been for a while it… it's a bit complicated, but yeah, she is everything to me." I was distracted by my feelings for a bit and almost missed him asking something more.

"Need a stallion?" I almost dropped the bucket, my blush probably easily visible in the light of the hallway. "I mean, as a stud. I… I know things have changed a bit, since He was banished and we were gone, but is it right for a stallion to ask a pair of mares if they need his services anymore?"

So many questions raced through my head, I didn't know if it was socially a thing back then or now. "I… it's nice of you to offer. I don't think we have actually thought about that and…"

"It's okay, really. You seem like a nice mare and your special somepony certainly seems like a very upstanding pony. Oh I have made a mess of this." He seemed to have lost all the confidence he must have built up to ask.

I stopped short of the last turn to be within sight of the door. "I am going to be really blunt and honest, you deserve that." I took a deep breath. "I am just not really into stallions, like, at all. I am a little unique in being a lunar unicorn, and the princess who watches over us, lunar ponies that is, she would really like me to have a foal. You are on a short list." The last bit I said quietly, not wanting to even admit there was a short list, or that I would think of a short list. 

Why did life have to be so complicated?

He surprised me with a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. We should get back."

I nodded to him and found myself trotting with a little extra spring. Was it bad that I liked the idea that a stallion might find me attractive? 

Stick was still buried up to her nose in one of the books. She looked up to me with a smile as I entered. I put down the mop and brush, taking the bucket into the facilities to fill it with clean water. 

And I thought being a pony would be rainbows and sunshine all day long...