There's a Changeling On My Couch, and Other "Tails" From the Far North

by Super Trampoline

Chapter 32: Waking Up (From Ash and Dust)

Chapter 32: Waking Up (From Ash and Dust)

Ereton awoke. She awoke expecting the walls of the hive to confront her vision. Instead her view was taken up by scruffy orange mane. “Heh, oh yeah, I’m dating Flashpan,” she sleepily mumbled to herself. This was nice. She could get used to this.

In truth, she hadn’t slept in the hive for twenty three years, but she still sometimes dreamt of it. There is a saying among changelings that you can take the changeling out of the swarm, but you can’t take the swarm out of the changeling. And it was true. She still felt a longing for home from time to time. She missed family gatherings. She even missed all the voices in her head sometimes. Only a few other changelings lived in Sparkler, and they didn’t really have much to say, other than, “Congratulations on not getting killed and thanks for not ratting us out.” “No problem,”[1] she had replied. After seeing how the townsfolk reacted to her, she had no desire to place anyling else in danger. Really, not getting them lynched was the least she could do.

But no, despite that which she had lost, she was very happy where she was. She was tolerated, if not accepted, by those around her. She was making more fudge than Double Bubble, and orders went up when she started putting the royal seal of approval on the packaging. She had recently gotten the new Chartreuse Sabbath album she had ordered, much to the neighbors’ chagrin. But these were not why she was so happy.

She was happy because she was loved. But no, that alone wasn’t the source of her happiness, though it was the main source of her nourishment. She was so happy because for the first time in her fifty six years of living, she actually loved him back. That was something strange to hear from a changeling.

It was ironic really, Ereton thought. Changelings were afraid of change. But it wasn’t their fault. It was their preys’. After all, the last time a changeling’s true nature was revealed, ponies almost killed it. That was her of course. She was extremely lucky to be rescued by her knight in shining armor. Even if he didn’t think of himself as such, Flashpan had been nothing less than that for her. And he was lying next to her. Was their relationship that of a predator and its prey? Was he her prey? Was he an animal that she hunted for sustenance? That was the paradigm she had been raised on. Was it true? More importantly, did it matter?

Since she had become his fillyfriend, Flashy had been sleeping a lot more. He was complaining of sore joints and headaches. That was to be expected. After all, she was essentially a vampire, only it was not his lifeblood but his love she sought and plundered. Sometimes she took too much. She might have caused him to faint the first time they made out. But she couldn’t help it! His love was so delicious! It was sweet and savory and pure; there were no manipulative or selfish undertones in it like that of so many other ponies she had laid claim to. It was an authentic love. And for the first time in her life, her love was authentic as well. That wasn’t to say that she hadn’t put effort into her past relationships. But it was always for the sake of keeping her partner happy. An unhappy pony in an unhappy relationship makes for a lousy host. Sure, some changelings sucked their victims dry then hopped town, but she had a name for them and it rhymed with “mold bigger”. So she did what she could to keep the love flowing, but she never really meant it when she said “I love you” to her mare or stallion. Until now. This guy was different.

“This guy” rolled over and smiled at her. “Hey beautiful, what’s up?” he said weakly. It was nine forty; the morning was half way over.

“It depends love bug, how smart alecky of an answer doth my prince desire?” She was of course asking whether Flashpan really was interested in the position of their ceiling (which was indeed up), or whether he simply wished to know how she had slept. But she got neither, for he protested:

“Hey! You can’t call me love bug! That’s my pet name for you. If we start calling each other each other’s pet names, we could bring anarchy and chaos to the city of Sparkler. Is that your intention, you monster?”

He held a straight face for as long he could, which was about 2 ⅜ seconds, then began to giggle as he wrapped his fillyfriend in a warm hug.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“You’re supposed to say ‘I love you,’ back Ereton, not ‘I know.’”

“I know.”

“You’re hopeless. Come on, let’s make breakfast.”

Author's Note:

[1] I know that technically this should be a new paragraph since the speaker changes, but I feel in this case that that would interrupt the flow of the passage even more than this footnote does.

My desire to write chapters that are actually a decent length is overwhelmed by my desire to finally update this story. Sorry!

Comments

[tsaukpaetra]

Hmm, so no "directed true love doesn't drain the giver" clause here, eh? Pity.