//------------------------------//
// Tin Can by Europa 
// Story: Tainted Love: A Twysalis Prompt Tag Collab 
// by Foals Errand 
//------------------------------//

by Europa

Twilight turned over in bed and nudged her wife. Meanwhile outside of their chambers, a one-changeling chorus was going on. "Hey, your turn," she muttered.

"No," Chryssy said in return. "I got her last time. It's your turn."

"Mmr, hoped you wouldn't remember." Twilight pulled herself out of bed and ruffled her wings to try and get the feathers to align. It was no substitute for preening, but it would have to do for the time being. She rolled onto the castle floor and clip-clopped her way out, leaving Chrysalis to have the bed all to herself.

Twilight trotted out into the cold castle, empty save for the pony Royal Guard and changeling Imperial Guard dotting the doorways. They saluted to her as she passed, until she reached the room in question. It used to have been Spike's, until he moved out to begin his draconic adolescence, and then Veridian Light - Twilight had carried him as opposed to Chrysalis, so he'd been born a pony - until he also moved out.

She found her room and opened the door. The lights were off, so the only light came from the shining eyes of the inhabitant. Inside, Princess Diplotera, a tiny little nymph about the size Twilight had been when she hatched Spike, was dressed up in an orange gown at least ten sizes too large for her, and was busy banging a kitchen spoon against a tin can like a drum, hollering at the top of her lungs a discordant tune. She held the spoon in one of her leg holes.

"Hey, honey," Twilight said.

Diplotera, or 'Tera', yelped and dropped her instruments of annoyance, looking her way. The royal changeling's double-ringed purple irises narrowed in shock, and she laughed nervously. "Hi mommy," she said in a weak resonant voice.

Twilight walked over to her daughter. "Tera, it's way past your bedtime. Plus you're keeping everyone else awake."

Her ears - like changelings, her ears were narrow and horizontal to the ground - folded down. "Sorry, mommy," she whimpered.

Lighting up her horn, she gripped the tiny changeling in her magic and lifted her carefully. Twilight walked with her and floated her over to her bed, which looked as though somepony had taken a changeling cocoon, opened up the top, drained it of the paralyzing fluid, and filled it with pillows and bedsheets. That was, of course, precisely what happened, and Twilight carefully set her down.

"Now, go to sleep honey, okay?"

"Yes, mommy." For a moment, Tera lit up her tiny horn which had just started growing out of her chitin with a miasma of magic the same color of Twilight's own, adjusting her pillows. She gave her membranous wings one more light flutter, tucked them under her purple shell, and closed her eyes. When she did, the dim purple light of the room went out in tandem. "Night mommy."

"Night, Diplotera." Twilight walked away, closed the door, and went back to her and her wife's room.

She slid inside and closed the door behind her, making her way to the bed. Once there, she groaned.

Chryssy was hogging the sheets again.