"Hello Miss Pastel," Gem Fire gave her friendliest closed-mouth smile to the pink changeling who sat nervously on the couch across from her, "I want you to know that you're not in trouble, and you don't have to hide anything from me. I'm just here to make sure changelings who want to live with ponies don't end up with bad ponies."
"Oh," Diane smiled brightly, and noted happily that the dragoness only fliched a little, "Then everything’s okay! You already talked to Charlie, so you know he's a good pony! Also, I'm not Miss Pastel yet, not until we're married."
"Well," the dragoness smiled back, "I still need to talk to both of you. You can take your natural form if you'd like. What's your maiden name, if don't mind my asking?"
"Pinky Pie #7," the changeling shuffled uncomfortably, "and this is my natural form. It's the only form I have."
"I... see," Gem Fire scribbled something in her notes, "There's nothing wrong with role playing, in it's time and place, but I need to talk to the 'real' you, right now. Not a made up celebrity name. It's okay to be the real you. Does Dayglow make you pretend to be Pinkie Pie?"
"I'm not pretending," the pink changelings smile twitched dangerously, "My name is Pinkie Pie #7."
"Well," the dragoness said in soothing tones, "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be somepony else..."
"I don't want to be somepony else," her voice began taking an edge the changelings from the hive in her world would have recognized as a dire warning, "I'm happy being me. I am Pinkie Pie. Don't tell me I can't be Pinkie Pie!"
"I'm not saying you can't 'be' Pinkie Pie," Gem Fire looked thoughtful and spoke in kind, if somewhat condescending tones, "What if I said I was a griffon? I'm clearly a dragon. Now, I could probably pay a unicorn to shape-shift me into a griffon, but I would still be a dragon."
"Oh," there was no Diane, Pinkie Pie #7's voice echoed noiselessly, "You're not saying I can't be Pinkie Pie. You're saying that I'm not Pinkie Pie. I understand the difference now."
“I don’t mean to upset you,” Gemfire tried to reassure the changeling, “But sometimes ponies will take advantage of changelings. I notice you keep calling Mr. Pastel ‘Charlie’. Is that a human name?”
“Charlie is a human,” Pinkie Pie #7 hissed in what sounded like a normal conversational tone, “He didn’t let other ponies call him Charlie. They called him Ki. Only I get to call him Charlie. You have to call him by his pony name.”
“I see,” the dragoness made a quick note, then gave a worried smile, “You wouldn’t know this, but I’m a fan of human stories. A while back, I went to something called Biped Con, and this author there said he had a real human. I was completely amazed when I saw him the first day. Everypony thought they had seen something we only hear about in fantasy stories. But by the second day the spell had started to wear off, and only the pony’s top half was human. In the end a group of concerned ponies took him to the authorities and he was transformed back into a pony before any permanent damage could occur. You see, it was a hoax. There’s no such thing as humans.”
“Is that what you believe?” Pinky Pie #7 cocked her head sideways.
“What I believe is that Dayglow Pastel has filled your head with his own fantasies,” the Dragoness frowned, “I’ve seen this happen before. A pony will use a drone to play out their own dirty little fetish dreams until they get bored of it, then they move on, leaving a confused and broken hearted little changeling to pick up the pieces. I’m afraid I can’t approve this marriage license, and I would strongly advise that you look into additional therapy. It’s not healthy to think you’re somepony you’re not all the time.”
“You’re saying I can’t marry Charlie?” Pinkie Pie #7’s jaw began to twitch, causing the shark-like teeth the clack together loudly, “Charlie didn’t say this was a matter of life and death.”
“It’s alright dear,” the psychologist smiled kindly, “You're not in trouble. This Dayglow pony might be, though. It’s certainly not the end of your life. It’s a chance for you to find yourself and start your own life again. A happy life where you don’t have to pretend to be Pinkie Pie just to get a selfish pony to feed you.”
“Who said anything about my life,” the twitching stopped with a sharp snapping sound, and Pinkie Pie #7 stared silently at the dragoness with eyes that reflected the laughing abyss.
-=-=-=-=-
“Mandatory marriage counselling sucks,” Dayglow sat grumpily in the lobby, absently flipping through various pony magazines he had no interest in.
“It is required to get a marriage license in Fillydelphia,” Madame Butterfly reminded the former human, “And Dr. Gem Fire has extensive experience working with our hive. We’ve had a real problem with stallions from Canterlot wanting to take drones home with... less than pure intentions. The floor show at the factory is one thing, there’s supervision in place and if a pony tries to take things too far, they get to spend the night in a feeding pod. They have a similar screening process in Canterlot I’m told. Ponies sometimes think they can get around it by coming up here.”
“That makes sense,” Dayglow nodded, “But did you have to pick a head-shrink who doesn’t believe in humans?”
“Oh?” The queen looked thoughtful, “I suppose I should have told her more about your origins going in, but I’ll just explain when she finishes with Seven.”
“I just hope she doesn’t make the mistake of telling Diane she’s not…”
He was interrupted by a series of loud crashes before a terrified dragoness rushed through the door slamming it behind her and holding it closed with strength born of desperation.
“You told her she couldn’t be Pinkie Pie didn’t you?” Dayglow rolled his eyes in annoyance, “I’ll go in there and calm her down, but first I need you to sign this wedding license. Good, good, and initial at the bottom, excellent, now in the notes write ‘I do believe in humans, mommy’.”
The doctor looked incredulous, drawing out Dayglow's amused response, “Or you can hope the door holds and wait till she calms down on her own. I wouldn’t worry too much, from the sounds of it, I don’t think she can keep up this level of destructive energy for more than a couple of hours.”
Gem Fire quickly wrote the magic words in shaky, panicked script.
“Okay,” the tazzlpony took a deep breath, “Give me ten minutes before you open the door again. Don’t worry if she has my head in her mouth, she’s not trying to eat me, it’s how she shows affection.