The next morning starts off quietly, both forms in the house snoozing away peacefully thanks to the stallion’s decision to give himself Sundays off. Still, even without his alarm clock on, Rhino finds himself being woken up by outside forces. His unconscious mind slowly becomes aware of two things that are disturbing it. The first thing he notices is tiny light tapping randomly happening on his muzzle. This, along with small puffs of air tickling his nose, slowly rouses the stallion into awakening.
Unlike most mornings, remnants of his previous nights dream still flicker around in his head. While the details are as hazy as usual, Rhino can recall feelings that he felt during his time in the realm of sleep; ones of contentment, warmth, and protectiveness. As his eyes open and he looks to see what had disturbed him, the stallion groggily blinks, wondering if he has even woken up at all. Even as his vision sharpens, the form before him remains clear.
Before him, swaddled in a navy blanket, is a changeling. However, there are a few differences between this one, and those the general public has come to know as the image of said race. For one, this changeling seems to actually possess a mane. Though slightly transparent, it still provides a blue curtain for its head. Secondly, and most eye-catchingly as its hooves flail again while its face expresses discomfort, is the size. This changeling appears incredibly small, even when taking into account only its upper body pokes out of its blanket. Its whole body seems smaller than the bottom of just one of the stallion’s hooves.
Rhino has just enough time to give himself a slight pinch to ensure he isn’t dreaming before his eyes widen as the changeling moves once more. With a tiny yawn showing a mouth of only gums, the miniature changeling opens its pure sapphire-colored eyes, staring at the pony laying next to it with only curiosity.
As his mind finally starts to recover from the shock of the situation, enough things come together in the stallion’s mind for a startling revelation.
This is a changeling foal. More than that, this appears to be a changeling newborn.
Between this realization, the innocent look it is giving him, and wisps of leftover feelings from his dream, a part of Rhino's mind can't help but see the little one as cute. A small smile comes to his face as his expression softens.
Almost as if it can sense his change in feelings, which it probably can, the newborn lets out a happy-sounding chirp-like noise as it reaches a hoof out towards him.
"Heh," with a small pleased laugh, the stallion moves his own, quite larger, hoof closer to the changeling, touching against its hoof with the lightness of a feather.
Eyes locked onto the mass of green next to it, the newborn brings its other hoof up and grabs onto the offered limb. With a small coo, it closes its eyes and starts to nuzzle the pony limb.
A warmth passes over the stallion as he smiles wider, simply enjoying the moment. As his mind relaxes, a voice he has never heard before echoes around his head, the slightest buzz to it.
"She is yours now… take good care of her"
Rhino blinks, confused and curious once more as his thoughts turn to the question he had yet to ask himself and the newborn. "Where did you come from?" As if in response to his words, he feels a damp spot surrounded by a tickling sensation on his leg.
A glimpse down reveals the obvious culprit; the tiny changeling has made its way partially out of its blanket cocoon and climbed partially onto him, gumming his leg as it nibbles.
The increasing warmth in his chest reflected in his smile and gaze, the stallion gently levitates the newborn out of the blanket with magic, setting it against his chest as one of his forelegs curls around it.
"She is yours now..."
The voice once again echoes deep in his mind while the changeling squirms. As he brings his other hoof over, gently nudging it to try and help the newborn be comfortable, Rhino makes a quick check to be certain of something. "Well, you're definitely a girl..."
The now-identified newborn doesn't respond directly to this. Instead, she makes a few more happy chirps as she settles herself against him. Her back is to his chest as she tries to be as close as possible to him, half of her body actually snuggled down into his thick coat while she secures herself in between his foreleg and chest. As if this wasn't enough, she follows it by looking up into his eyes with her own, cooing happily.
"... take good care of her."
Rhino blinks as he looks down at the newborn, the words sinking in. "Take care of you..." He curls his neck, setting his head down on the bed next to the changeling. As he looks at her, she looks back, one tiny holed hoof stuck in her mouth as she sucks on it. "Could I really do that? You literally appeared overnight... almost like you popped out of a dream."
Only hoof-sucking answers him as the newborn leans against his muzzle, his breath sending her straight blue mane fluttering with every exhale.
"You were deliberately put here, that much is certain... But by who? And why?" Rhino continues asking his questions aloud, knowing she probably doesn't understand him, but for some reason he doesn't really care. "Very strange… I don’t suppose you have anything to help clear things up?”
She simply nuzzles against him more, continuing to suck her hoof. Suddenly, she starts to squirm, making small distressed noises.
Rhino's ears stand straight up as he raises his head, looking down at her. "What is it? Something wrong?"
She looks up at him and whines, her noises getting louder as her eyes pierce his. One of her hooves goes to her stomach as she continues to squirm.
His heart starting to race as he worries, the stallion's mind goes a mile a minute. "Okay okay, babies cry for three main reasons..." Levitating her and standing up, he finally gets out of bed. Levitating her back into the crook of a foreleg against his chest, he tries to calm her as she tries to squeeze herself tightly against him, still whining. "You're not tired because you just woke up... You don't have a diaper, so you didn't soil yourself... Of course, babies are hungry when they wake up!"
The stallion quickly weaves through his house towards the kitchen, the newborn squirming against his soft fur the whole time. As he enters the room, his eyes widen as two problems immediately occur to him. He doesn't have milk for babies, just regular cow milk, and he also doesn't have bottles.
As she continues to wriggle and whine louder, Rhino leans down as he tries to stay calm, despite his worry. "Shh... It's okay little one, I'll figure something out and get something in your stomach." Looking around, he desperately tries to think of something he can whip up on the fly. Pantries open and close quicker and quicker as the tiny form huddled against him gets closer and closer to crying fully. Finally, inspiration strikes as he pulls out a small sealing plastic bag. "This will have to do..."
With the bag levitating next to him, he walks over to the fridge and pulls out the single gallon of milk in it. "Going to have to get more milk soon..." Pouring the milk into the bag, he seals it and sets it on the counter. As his horn glows brighter, a strange circle of symbols appears under the bag while the milk floats back into the fridge. He lets the bag sit on them for a moment before dispersing them, setting his hoof on the impromptu feeding idea. "Not cold anymore... Good. Okay, little one, ready for a small meal?"
At the sound of his more upbeat tone, she looks up at him. Sitting down and and shifting her to a more comfortable position, he lifts the bag, flipping it over and nipping one of the corners with his teeth before pinching it with magic.
"Now I know it's not normal, but it does give you something so I hope you'll bear with me this one time." He tilts the pinched corner towards her mouth, nudging it against her lips.
Grumpy, the newborn growls at the bag, swatting it with a hoof as she continues to whine.
Inwardly wincing at her unhappy sounds, the stallion persists, still tapping the corner against her lips. "Please... this will help, I promise."
She continues fighting off the method of feeding until it taps her lips one too many times. With another growl, she opens her mouth and bites down on the offending bag. Quickly, Rhino eases his hold on the corner, allowing a tiny stream of milk to run out into the changeling's mouth. Instinct taking a front seat, the little one drinks the fluid. A happy hum comes from her as she relaxes, hooves coming up and gripping the sides of the bag as she starts to nurse on it.
The green unicorn sighs in relief, the small bout of panic he had fading away. As the tiny changeling continues feeding, Rhino finds himself time to think. “I am definitely not prepared to take care of you… Am I really even considering it?” As he looks back down at her, she treats him to some of the most effective doe eyes he’s ever seen, not even offset by the small dribbles of milk dripping out the sides of her mouth. Despite his usual reflex of discomfort as it starts to run into his fur, the unicorn merely floats over a small washcloth from the sink, dabbing a bit of the milk off her. Before he even knows what he is doing, he leans down to nuzzle her once she is clean.
She lets out a small squeal as she nuzzles him back, going right back to her nursing afterwards.
His eyes are soft as he answers his own question. “Of course I am. You’re my little filly… and nopony will tell me otherwise.” At the mention of other ponies, his mind turns to that subject.
He has no idea how ponies will react to his new little one. It’s true that changelings were now a part of Equestrian society and had all the same rights as ponies, but even after the new queen… the stallion struggles to remember her name but fails to recall anything other than she was blue, he always was bad at remembering names... After the new queen had replaced the dethroned Chrysalis, ponies still had trouble trusting the shapeshifters, not to say the reverse wasn’t true in some areas as well.
“Still, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before… I mean imagine how much trouble it was to integrate griffons.” The sight of the newborn looking up at him with a tilted head interrupts the stallion’s train of thought. “Heh, I think you’ve already started giving me the bad habit of talking to myself…”
Her response is to blow a raspberry and tap his nose with a hoof.
Chuckling, he sets the bag in the sink, seeing as she is done. “Okay, okay, but I do need to think about this kind of stuff. I mean, I don’t even know anything about you beyond the basic changeling information that was released when they went public. Guess that’s something else I’ll have to try and learn, huh?”
Flipping over, she snuggles into his fur once more, her sapphire eyes looking up at him adoringly. A now familiar wet sensation greets his foreleg as she starts trying to nibble on it, her tail wagging behind her as she does so.
“Well, I’m glad you’re so positive about this.” He smiles, holding her close. “Just one step at a time, right? What would be first, though… supplies, information… What do you think-” A certain fact smacks him upside the head. “I… I don’t even know what to call you. There wasn’t a name tag or anything on your blanket… you don’t have a band with a name on… Does that mean I have to name you?”
She only chirps, still gumming his foreleg.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” As the two simply sit there on the kitchen floor, Rhino debates what to even begin calling her. Admittedly he knows very little aside from her appearance, her actions, and how she seemed to appear overnight. “Almost like a…” He blinks as he looks over her once more, a few words fluttering around in his head until a certain combination comes up. He tries others, but that particular one always comes back. Finally, he smiles as he raises her up in front of his face. “I think I’ll name you… Dream Jewel.”
Very good, I'll. be waiting for more
Dream Jewel meh could have came up with better name.
The cuteness is strong with this one.
4954377 I think "Dream Jewel" is cute. She'll just have to grow into it.
Extraordinarily cute. That is an adorable little changeling.
Although Rhino's reaction was rather... muted. He came off as only mildly surprised, although clueless, and didn't seem to be actually disturbed or worried by the sudden appearance of a baby in his bed, or the fact that someone was in his room talking to him in his sleep. I guess there might be a bit of delayed reaction going on, but it doesn't seem to fit a pony that is regularly startled by customers (or was it just Mr. Davenport?) stopping by his shop even after 6 months in Ponyville.
I like this story. Favorited.
4956871 His reaction was muted both from the dreams that were used to put him in the right mood the night before, in addition to a large amount of general befuddlement to where he sort of went on auto pilot for a time. When his mind finally caught up, the shock had passed and bonding had begun. Think like... if you woke up with a random cute puppy licking your face, the freakout isn't immediate, or at least it isn't to some, they just enjoy it for the moment and question it after.
The Davenport thing was him getting lost in his thoughts and essentially getting a jump scare, though he does have a tendency to panic whenever he feels he has a time limit or a very tough decision that he doesn't have an obvious good answer to that he is comfortable with.
Changeling foal is best foal.
i nearly died of a heart attack reading this chapter. that means you have done well to capture the cuteness
4967287 This is only the beginning. Prepare your hearts.
4967480 but im not a time lord i don't have two hearts
4967844 Then go get some genetic splicing with a manticore so you can have three.
4967892 i have a respwan systum im good
4967892 also can't spell for crap
All hail Queen DJ! What? Too early? :D
He should totally parade her through town asking all the mares (in the most awkward way possible) how to raise a foal, then wonder why their hints are not all that useful when applied to nymphs.....
Oh, I think you meant" a part" instead of "apart" up there, ruins the meaning the way it is now.
Keep going! ;)
This is so adorable. Well done.
5096745 Thank you for all that. I always appreciate these in-depth comments for improvement.
...what? It's a Breezie Changeling!
Question... how does a pony pinch oneself without opposing thumbs?
Hehe. She's a bundle of d'awws, all right.
Heh. Rhino is a clever fellow.
But... aren't they emotivores?
I don't really think milk for baby cows and milk for baby ponies would be THAT different; both are grazing herbivores. And since he probably won't find milk specifically for baby changelings anyway, I doubt it'd make any difference whatsoever.
Huh. Changelings are mammals, then, hm?
Well, all right. For the purpose of this story... headcanon accepted!
D'awwwwww some more
Remarks and corrections:
> For one, this changeling seems to actually possess a mane, though slightly transparent, it still provides a blue curtain for its head.
Another comma splice. You should start a new sentence after "possess a mane".
> the miniature changeling opens it’s pure sapphire-colored eyes
Tsk. "it's" = "it is". When in doubt, expand it. So yeah, "opens [its] pure sapphire-colored eyes"
> This is a changeling foal, more than that, this appears to be a changeling newborn.
Again, comma splice. "This is a changeling foal" should be one sentence, and the rest should be another. Don't comma-connect two sentences which are complete on their own.
> He doesn't have milk for babies,just regular cow milk
missing space behind that comma.
> “I am definitely not prepared to take care of you… am I really even considering it?”
The "am I really even considering it?" is a separate sentence, so give it a capital letter.
5096779
Small note: people don't get reply notifications if your response is in a different chapter than the original comment you're replying on. So unless the comment is on the last chapter (all comments made on the main page end up in the last published chapter), it's best to open the actual chapter the comment was made in and reply to it there. Otherwise they'll never find out you responded to it. It's a bug in fimfic.
I specifically checked the full comments after I finished chapter 2 because I had a suspicion you'd reply to it this way
Note that this doesn't really count in reverse; if people respond to your comments here you'll always get notifications, even if the chapter is wrong... but that's simply because you get notifications for all comments made on your own fic
5096878 Using this to reply to both comments: thank you for the information on how the reply notifications work, I didn't know they had to be in the same chapter.
I think you might actually be one of the first 'breakdown commenters' I've had, I love when people say the specific parts they like.
To answer some of your comments: Yes, I do have a rather large number of changeling headcanons, something very easy to do for me since they've only been seen once and thus have a lot to speculate on. A non-spoiler one is that I consider them to be able to eat, but they need love to survive. The exception being when they are young where they need a combination. The emotivore thing is actually present, but proximity and ambient feelings from him directed at her serve to satisfy that currently.
To the errors, I thank you for pointing them out once more. I admit the its vs it's thing is something I try to keep an eye out for but does slip past when I get on a roll. The comma splice however is something of a persistent problem for me because my mental interpretation of their lines sometimes gets blurry on a slight aural pause due whether due to commas or periods.
I hope to use this in the chapters I'm currently writing, spent quite a lot of time doing more planning for the story after I got the first few chapters out and things should go smoothly because of it.
5096966
Well, I write stories too, so I know what kind of comments I'd like to get
(Sadly, detailed comments are quite rare )
Anyway. I wish you good luck in your writings, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this fic
As for the remarks and corrections... they're a free service. We're not perfect, but the fics should be!
Alrighty then, I am definately going to follow this story a bit more.
It has certainly caught my interest.
I cant critique the story in the normal sense I usually do when I read something new, because A. It is written clearly differently. And B. Its your headcanon, so all my petty annoyances are mainly just because I would imagine changelings and such differently.
Keep on Writing, I really want to see where this is going. Even if I feel things have gone a bit, Fast at the start.
5106037 sudden uproot was sort of the intent as it reflects the situation, but I also chose to jump in at this point because, to be completely honest, the stallion's like was fairly boring at this stage and I am trying to avoid dumping world building stuff all at once.
5106064
Well I get the concept of sudden uproot, I just felt that a tiny bit more of worldbuilding would have been appreciated. At least when it concerns to Rhino. I know he was supposed to be unremarkable, but still.
Again, its just a personal gribe.
5106216 Well, hopefully that is alleviated with future chapters.
5106246
I am certain they will
I am eagerly looking forwards to the next chapter. I always love stories with these kind of cute elements, and Changelings I also have a great facination with.
Though thats also the sad part, because everyone and their Dog has headcanons, and no one can be completely content with all of them
5106254 Yes... though personally I enjoy seeing the different headcanons of changelings then comparing them to my own, maybe accounting for things I had not thought of before.
5106259
Yea that is quite interesting.
A feel...I felt a feel... THE WORLD IS ENDING!!! RUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!! *scrambles away*
Has anyone noticed that "Dream Jewel" sound a lot like "Dream Gel?" Spell "jewel" with a G and say it out loud. Sounds like "Gel," doesn't it?
I don't think its a coincidence