"So your parents…" Penny sipped at the milkshake that accompanied her breakfast. It had been a full day since their visit to Celestia's court.
Hay smiled. "They are exploring their love in a whole new way. Oh, dad asked if you could, uh, escort him to meet Princess Fast Change."
"Of course I can, I am kind of like him in a way. I couldn't even dream of being stuck in a hive again, without Penny." Stick leaned and gave the mare in question a kiss on the cheek.
"So, half changeling? It doesn't show on the outside. Anything feel odd?" Penny turned and returned the kiss with her mare.
"Like what? I feel the same I always have. Should I feel different now?" Hay lifted a hoof and examined it.
Penny pondered this and grinned. "I have an idea…" She began to channel, only a little. "Feel anything?" She looked between Stick and Hay.
Hay watched as the drone seemed to melt into Penny's side, a dreamy expression on her features. She searched around, trying to work out if something felt different. A sip of her own milkshake did have her blink. "I think I can feel… something. Like an itch in my throat."
"It is different, when she pushes it out like this. If you have some…" Stick waved a hoof in the air, searching for a word.
"Latent. Suppressed?" Penny kept up her light channel, supplying words for her lover to use.
"… suppressed? Reduced? Okay, if you have some kind of feeding like a changeling, she might be able to stimulate it more than normal. You don't seem to need feeding though, I would think before you embrace this. What if triggering it makes other things change too? What if you start to NEED to feed?" Stick floated a little bit of the pancake on her plate up and popped it in Penny's waiting mouth.
"I should ask-" Hay got cut short in her reply.
"No." Penny had managed to gulp down the food and cut in. "This is your decision. You can ask for advice, but nopony should tell you what you should or shouldn't do. If you do start this, and need to feed, I can help you while we are here at school. But know that you might have to move into the hive, or at least near it, if it comes to that."
Stick nodded, thankful for once that she hadn't kept Penny quiet with more food.
"You… you would do that?" Hay Cart sounded surprised, blinking her big eyes at the other unicorn.
"Of course, helping a friend is something everypony does!" Penny smiled wide enough that her eyes closed in the effort.
"When is your dad going to the hive?" Stick had to struggle with herself not to want to do more with Penny. With the soft channeling the mare was keeping up she was making the changeling ache to do more than just drink from her.
"Tomorrow. Is that too soon for you?" Hay ate her own pancakes bite by bite.
Stick shook her head. "Nope, will be perfect, I think Penny has another session with Giddilee." Penny nodded. "There. Will you be coming too?"
Hay seemed to shrink a little and nod.
"Then I will have two new friends to show off to our princess." Stick looked down and realized she had emptied her plate.
The half changeling perked up at the statement and a light seemed to come on over her head, her features pulling back into a smile. "I guess she is my princess too now, oh and I get to meet her? I am going to need a dress!"
Rarity sneezed, looking at the dress that had been ordered by one of her friends as a gift. For some reason she suddenly thought it might be best to finish it that day and get it delivered to Canterlot.
All three mares, having gathered in the larger room of Penny and Stick to study, heard a knock at the door. They were all winding down for the day, having been studying together again. It seemed the vice principal had left them bundled together as 'troublemakers'. Hay was a little ahead of the two special someponies, but it helped the two no end. Hay could have likely complained, but she liked spending time with her friends.
"Come in." Penny sat up on the bed, folding her book closed.
"Do I have the right room? Oh, darlings, I do!" Rarity trotted in, making the room feel a little smaller, particularly with the dress that floated in behind her. "Is this the lovely mare I made this for?" She was looking at Hay.
"Hi Rarity! It is! This is Hay Cart. Hay, this is Rarity-" Stick was introducing them when Hay seemed to squeal in excitement.
Bounding up to her hooves and bouncing around, she was trying to inspect the dress even through the protective cover Rarity had over it. "Oh! Oh! I am so excited! Everypony will just faint with jealousy when they see me wearing an original Rarity creation!"
If there was ever a way to get Rarity to excuse bad manners, it was complimenting her creations and herself. "Oh well I wouldn't go too far, it was just something I put together for a friend of a friend…" The white unicorn mare was blushing a little at the praise.
"Rarity." Penny got her attention with a half-serious tone. "Nothing you do is simply 'put together', your most simple creations are a study in excellence." Penny was, of course, bedecked in a fine sun-dress the designer had produced along with the more formal ones she had made for Penny. It flowed with simple, light fabric and best of all she could run and dance in it. "You know my history, you know it won't come easy to say, but I like wearing your dresses." Penny blushed furiously as she admitted it, she saw Stick lift a hoof and pump it in the air.
"Darling, I simply must make you more. I almost forgot how stunning that fur of yours is, you need more bright things to surround yourself with." The fashionista batted those long lashes and Penny almost swooned at them. She definitely had a bent for mares, she decided, and Rarity was an amazing example of such. Getting compliments from her made Penny tingle nicely.
"Rarity, you must let her try it on immediately, I don't think Hay could survive another minute without seeing it." Stick pointed her hoof at Hay, the mare trying to peek under the cover at the dress.
Rarity turned and shooed the other white-furred unicorn back. "Stand back now, you will appreciate it more." Slowly, as the cover lifted, the most amazing pure white dress was revealed.
Hay bounced on all fours. "That is amazing! Oh this will be perfect for something else too. But tomorrow I am visiting the hive with my dad and I want to look my best beside him!"
This seemed to confuse Rarity a touch. "Your father is visiting the hive? I thought when ponies went there they…" Rarity flushed just a touch.
The half changeling's mood wasn't decreased in the slightest. "No, it was all a big mess and complicated, but I found out my dad is a changeling!" She pointed to Stick. "We are going together, tomorrow, to visit and meet Princess Fast."
Rarity nodded to this. "Meeting your 'new' family is important. I think you will be the most beautiful mare there. Oh, are you, well, half changeling?"
Hay nodded, looking proud as punch.
"Darling, I must say, you certainly don't look it." Rarity looked from Hay to Stick, as if needing to be sure what a changeling looks like.
"They say that if I… find that side of me, it might change." Hay sat down, paying more focus to the conversation now than the dress. "I know what it is like being a unicorn, but I have never been a changeling, how could I understand what the difference is?"
Penny and Stick both giggled, the latter trotting over and putting a hoof over the mare's withers. "Then you really need to go tomorrow. There will be a pony there who knows exactly what you are feeling and could feel." Penny nodded to her mate's words.
"What do you mean? There are other half changelings?" Hay sounded both confused but intrigued.
Stick gave her a little squeeze through the shoulders. "No, I am talking of Princess Fast. She was a unicorn and-"
Hay bopped herself on the forehead. "And became a changeling. Of course!"
"I would love to stay, but I simply must return to Ponyville. I have a million and one things I need to get ready." Rarity realized when it was time to part. "Oh, but I almost forgot. Stick." She opened her pack and lifted out a new-looking book. "Twilight sent this."
"She finished her book!" Stick was over to Rarity, accepting the book and grinning happily.
"Oh, that reminds me." Penny unfolded and unpacked two books. "This first one was Twilight's, I needed to return it. The other is a gift to her, I am sure her library has room for a new book on crystal pony magic."
Rarity rolled her eyes as she accepted them. "Heavens forbid Princess Twilight Sparkle not have room for more books." She took the two and folded her bag closed over them.
Their goodbyes were said and the ponyvillian left the three. Penny noticed something about Hay, the mare was shaking a little. "Stick…" At her word, they both moved over and leaned in from each side to flank the mare. "You will see, being different isn't wrong, it is just… different."
Hay took a deep breath, her trembling stopped, after a few more such breaths. "Would you like company? We have a spare cot you could sleep on?" Stick's offer surprised Penny, but certainly didn't displease her.
"I couldn't…"
"You can and will." Penny was already reaching out with her magic, trying to pull the cot out from under their bed unsuccessfully.
Hay Cart giggled, seeing the cot tremble as it tried to move. Bringing her own magic to life, she helped pull it free.
"This isn't a completely open invitation, mind you." Stick sounded half business, half playful. "She is my mare and she stays on the bed. You understand?"
Penny's hot blush got a full laugh from Hay. "I promise, no foalnapping."
Despite their jokes and banter, Penny did feel a little odd with her friend in the room. She found herself, a few times, moving to become a little more intimate with Stick but having to restrain herself. She realized with a slight start that it WAS her trying to initiate things. Was this really her?
Stick rolled so that they were facing each other. The changeling leaned out and kissed Penny's nose. It got a giggle from the lunar unicorn but she held herself from taking it further.
Over on the cot, Hay was already asleep. She knew her friends were holding back from what a couple would normally do when alone in their bedroom. It made her appreciate them all the more that they would go this far for her. There was not a single nightmare in her dreams that night, none could fit now that she had good friends around her and a surprising new family.
Pretty Cart lay in the moonlight, her husband… her real husband, behind her. She still had to get used to his dark black hide, but the way his hooves worked over her back she could barely focus on words. "Just… right there yes… where did you learn how to do this?"
His hooves found knotted tension in her back and worked at it. "Relax with my loving wife, or massage?"
"Both." Pretty closed her eyes. She didn't do it to ignore his form, she did it so she could focus on all the things she loved about him.
"Massaging I learned by spending many years with a loving mare who works herself too hard to make her stallion feel at home." His wings chirped a little on his back. "Relaxing with my most wonderful and forgiving of mates? That I had trained into me by my first love."
Pretty decided she really liked knowing everything, particularly when it meant Dray could be so honest about himself. "Tomorrow you are visiting the hive?"
The massage stopped, Dray simply didn't know what answer he could give that wouldn't upset his mate.
"Visit them, but make sure you come back to me. I just found you, all of you, and don't want to have to break the law to get you back." Pretty reached her hoof back and rested it against one of the stationary ones that had been rubbing her side.
"Of course, I left one hive to be with you, another is a simple matter. But I must talk with Que-, with Princess Fast." Leaving one of his holed hooves resting on hers, Dray continued massaging his wife.