//------------------------------// // Expermenting and learning something new // Story: My Life as a Changling // by rainbowPOOTIS //------------------------------// As the sun's rays woke me from my sleep, I found myself staring into Peekos eyes, an expectant look on her face. Right. I said I would teach her how to properly shapeshift after she snuck out of the trailer to try and find me. “Alright, alright, I’ll teach how to shapeshift!” She giggled excitedly and hopped down to the floor, where I stretched myself out, before before shaking the last vestiges of sleep from my system. Once I was wide awake, a thought occurred to me. How was I going to teach Peeko how to shapeshift? Perhaps if she could see what she was supposed to transform into? I grabbed the pod containing Sugar, and levitated it over, causing its occupant to attempt to struggle, to no avail. I could feel she was angry with me, although not as angry as before. Apparently even passive feeding was enough to slowly get her emotions back under control.  “Now, as I recall Peeko, you tired transforming in front of the bathroom mirror, and your attempt went… rather badly. Could you perhaps explain what you were thinking while trying to transform?” “Ummm… Thinking of Trixie, then thinking of me being her… then I was wondering how to get rid of the leg holes…” I don’t think that much focus was required to transform… ‘Hey, Nightmare, can I get your opion on this?’  ’What do you want?’ ‘I’m not exactly sure how to explain how to transform…  the first time I did it I merely started it with a thought and it kept going even after I started freaking out, and beyond that, it’s basically been instinctual for me.’ ’Than tell her that. Besides, you turned into a mute, scarred, wingless filly without your instincts.’ ‘I said instinctual. it's basically like breathing at this point, I just do it.’  “Peeko, you're overthinking it. You just need to… uh, ‘spark’ it, and it will finish by itself” “Okay momma!” A quick plume of flames later, and I was staring at Sugar… albit with Peekos eyes. “Did I do good Momm… oops…” She hadn't changed her voice either. “Well, you did a lot better than before… Why don't you try one more time, just picture what you want to become, and once the flames start, let your mind go blank?” Two burst of fire later, a perfect duplicate of Sugar was standing before me. “Did it work?” She had even gotten the voice right this time “It worke-” I didn't even get to finish my sentence before Peeko glomped me, still in the form of Sugar. And with her disguised as a full grown pony, the force of said glomp knocked me to the floor. And then promptly licked me while giggling like a maniac. “Heh, yes, I get you’re happy, but was that really necessary?” “...Yes.” “Funny. Pigments been a bad influence on you I see.” I coaxed Peeko off of me, where she reverted to her normal changeling form, before clearing my throat. “Now that you know how to shapeshift, I guess I could take you on a little hunt tonight.” With that out of the way, I picked up the pod containing Sugar, and after walking up the wall and onto the ceiling, expelling some of that adhesive slime to stick the pod to the ceiling, where nopony would be able to reach her. *later that night.* The plan was simple. Find a hobo, because nobody ever misses the hobos. The very first thing I had Peeko do was transform into a kitten, before I used my cloaking spell and hid in an alleyway, while I monitored what Peeko was doing through the hivemind. I watched as Peeko grabbed the bag of bits I had brought, and started making a trail starting at where I was, before eventually going around a corner. Watching through her eyes, I observed as she continued with that trail, stopping just before the corner to another alleyway, and setting down the bag, before peeking around the corner, revealing an dirty, orange stallion, who  had a brown mane, and was currently wearing a rather beaten grey cap. As Peeko got closer, she, and by extension I, noticed the bottles strewn about. The sight of that made me a little queasy, remembering my previous experience with alcohol. Peeko mewed, causing the hobo to roll over. “It's on. its on like-” He snored loudly, before suddenly jolting awake. “Wha-?” Peeko mewed again, catching his attention, before ducking around the corner, and grabbing the bag of bits, dashing back the way she had come, until she reached where I was. Peeko beamed at my sense of approval, before revealing her true form and crawling up the wall of the alleyway, peeking over the edge of it. “Haha! My lucks finally taken a turn for the better, who’da thought somepony would lose so much money!” He was taking the bait alright. As he walked into the alleyway, picking up the bits as he went, I got ready, sneaking up the wall, until I was right over top of him. I uncloaked, and as I readied a blob of gel to spit, he looked up. “What the fu-” I spat it, splattering it across his face, blinding him, and causing him to reel back in fright, just as Peeko jumped off the top of the wall and landed on him, knocking him to the floor as she drove her stinger tail into his back. Within a few seconds, he went limp, the venom having taken effect. “See Peeko, it’s easy if you know what you’re doing.” “I did good?” “Yes Peeko, yes you did.” “yaaay!” She glomped me again, wings buzzing excitedly. Looking at the hobo, I cast a cloaking spell, before dragging him in the direction of the trailer. After wrapping the hobo up in a cocoon, and hanging him from the ceiling, I summoned the nymphs. Soon Peeko, Pigment, and Tranquil stood before me, Pigment looking a bit nervous. Peeko looked at him with squinted eyes, before transforming into him and booping him on the snout. “Pay attention please.”  I said calmly. The nymphs attention was almost immediately drawn to me. “Now, I want you to try and feed on this guy here,” Pointing to the tied up hobo. “Now I know I told you all not to do that on your own, but I’m not going to be able to do it for you all the time. And I didn’t want Trixie or Sugar getting drained dry, or Gilda. Who knows what an ampathatic meat eater would do. So, you can learn how to pull emotions from him instead. Peeko why don’t you go first, you helped catch him.” Peeko walked up to him, unsure of what to do, hugged him. “It might be a bit forced, I had to force love out of Sugar at first. Search through his emotions and find the one that ‘tastes’ best.” I spared a glance at the pod that held Sugar, she seemed to be leveling out finally. It took her awhile but she did find love in him, it probably would have been easier to find if it wasn’t buried under a mix of over emotions. Now that she had found it, she looked confused at what to do next. “Now that you’ve found it, you need to pull it into yourself. This is why I want you to use the hobo instead of somepony else, figuring out how much to take at once. If you take too much they’ll be drained and it’ll take longer for them to recover, if you take too little it won't be enough to sustain you. Nither of which is good.” Peeko still seemed a bit confused about how to do it, I’m sure she’d figure it out like I did. Thinking about how I drew love from Sugar and thinking of a good allegory for it. “Like this, your magic and the love inside him and like spools of thread, tie yours to his and pull on it, unwinding his spool and adding it to yours. And when you’ve taken enough, cut it off.” Peeko scrunched her face up concentrating, and eventually, I saw the first few wisps of love energy begin being sucked into her horn. I smiled. “See?” “Now, There's one other thing I need you to learn, how to pass these emotions on to the others.” Peeko gave me a confused chirp, like she thought she had done something wrong. Why can't I do that!? Giving her a soft nuzzle, I comforted her, telling her she had done nothing wrong. “Mommy?” Peeko asked. “Why no make noise?” She chirped again to demonstrate. I felt myself flush at the cheeks, and heard Nightmare cackle in my head. ’You don’t know, and yet I have to listen to it drown out your snoring! ‘What do you mean?!’ ’You chirp in your sleep all the time!’ My cheeks flushed further. ‘I-I do!? But, how do I do it? And why didn't you tell me about this!?’ ’You never asked. ‘You suck, you know that?’ I replied in annoyance. ‘Be thankful im feeling merciful.’  “Mama? Are you talking to Hidey again?” “Yes…” I blushed even more intensely. “Peeko? Can you show me how you do that?” 'You have to ask a child, how to do something that you should already know how to do?' I quickly got the mental image of basically vibrating something that peeko didn't know the word for in your throat I tried to imitate it, and after two or three coughing fits, managed to produce a deeper, more bassy chirp, which Peeko happily chipped in reply to. “Trixie demands to know whats making all this noises, Is there a bird loose in here!?” We both turned and chirped at trixie in response. “... Trixie hates both of you.” With that being said, she slammed the door closed and walked away in a huff. I promptly burst into laughter, causing a chain reaction making Peeko laugh too, and I could hear Pigment laughing somewhere too, before Tranquil faintly joined in too with silly giggling. “Okay, somebody care to explain what's so funny pigment just started spontaneously laughing?” Gilda inquired as she opened the door trixie had shut not moments ago. “Trixie had a ‘fuck this shit i'm out’ moment when she found out i discovered how to make that chirping noise.” After a moment of silence, if you don’t count the giggling from Peeko or the others that could be heard, I chirped at Gilda. She sighed and walked away, muttering ‘i don't get payed enough for this…’ which prompted more laughing from everyone. “Trixie believes you don’t get payed at all!”