Those Who Walk Among Us (Twilight) Part 2
Rarity has always been one to take notice of the little things in life. Granted, she often overdramatizes their absence, but she recognized what I was going through during Spike’s stay in Canterlot sooner than anypony else. She would have seen it sooner if her attention to detail hadn’t been so focused on finding proof to back her claim that Morpheus and I should be a pair. The problem is, even having an eye for detail, she has a tendency to start seeing what she wants to see, rather than what’s actually there.
I cringed as Morpheus—in his earth pony guise from the other night—knocked on the door of the Carousel Boutique. “You know, if the sign reads ‘closed’ this late in the morning, chances are she’s sleeping in from a late night bout of inspiration.”
As if to contradict my words, the sound of shuffling hooves approached the door, and a fatigued, but nonetheless awake, Rarity opened the door. There were bags under her eyes, but the slight slump to her posture disappeared as she saw us. “Oh! Twilight and—” She looked pointedly at Morpheus.
“Wicked Smooth,” he supplied without the slightest hesitation.
“Wicked Smooth!” Rarity continued with a slight giggle. “I was hoping you would come by. Inspiration has been buzzing in my head for the past couple days, and I’ve barely slept trying to get all my ideas down.” She pointed to Morpheus. “I’ve got an entirely new lineup planned, and it’s all thanks to you. You simply have to see it!”
Dragging us inside, she shut the door with a bit too much force. The actual showroom was as pristine as ever, but as she pulled us into the adjoining hall I began to see the usual signs of manic creativity in progress. Swaths of fabric covered every piece of furniture in the rooms we passed and crumpled sketches littered the floor. Her more successful ideas were pinned to the walls or hung from the ceiling, usually with a partially clothed mannequine nearby. Leading us into her sitting room, however, I found it as immaculate as ever.
Turning back to us she smiled charmingly, although the circles under her eyes somewhat ruined the effect. “Where are my manners though? Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”
Morpheus closed his eyes for a second, standing absolutely still. A few seconds later he muttered, “Feels like we’re the only three here.” His disguise fell in a flash of green fire. “Sorry, I’d love some tea, but perhaps another time. We’re on a tight schedule. I need two suits—one of which has to be finished within several hours.”
He paused and tilted his head before adding as an afterthought, “Twilight may also want a new dress within the next few hours. I’m not sure what she has available.”
Rarity tittered. “Oh really? And what would the occasion be? Are you, perchance, planning on a night on the town?”
I felt my face burn, and I started sputtering incoherently.
Morpheus, however, took her comment in stride. “No. Ve doubt it’s a good idea to go out of Castle with what ve have planned.”
The giggling increased in intensity, and Rarity waved her hoof at the prince. “Oh, scandalous! And here I thought Twilight was in denial when she said didn’t want my help. I guess she just had her own plans. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure your date will be magnificent.”
I shrunk in on myself as Morpheus blinked and looked between me and Rarity.
“Date?” His eyes turned glassy, and Rarity squeed at all the typical signs of a daydreaming stallion. I, however, knew him well enough by now to know that wasn’t the case.
She pulled a measuring tape from somewhere so fast I could swear she had them stashed randomly throughout her house in case of fashion emergencies. “Oh! This is going to be wonderful! We should get started on the measurements right away!”
The whipcrack of a tailor’s noose snapped Morpheus out of his daze, and he looked at me. “Ve’re not missing some form of context are ve? All ve did was sneak into your room to wake you up.”
The excited clip-clop of what Pinkie would call a’happy dance’ joined Rarity’s giggling. “You woke her from the realm of dreams with sweet serenades?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Morpheus, make it worse for us.” His eyes widened, and I hastily realized my error. “I mean, no, Morpheus. All you did was sneak into my room and watch me sleep for who knows how long. Some might find the stalker approach romantic—-” I glared at Rarity “—but those ponies read far too many romance novels for their own good.”
The prince nodded. “Ah. An understandable mistake. You really shouldn’t put so much faith in those books, Rarity. Changeling studies have determined that only a very small percentage of them portray love from a realistic standpoint. Most are far too biased in how they are written.”
“You mean there’s a reason they’re known as trashy romance novels?” I snarked.
“Besides,” he continued, “there are a good number of reasons why it would be extremely unideal for us to pursue such a relationship with her.”
In the background, I groaned as I realized we were not, in fact, moving away from the subject of my love life. He was just going to accidentally egg Rarity on.
He tapped his hoof as he began listing off reasons. “The most obvious reason is the invasion, of course. Not only does Twilight have history with Mother, but there’s almost a hundred percent likelihood her brother would not approve for similar reasons.”
Rarity smiled daintily. “Love transcends such problems, darling. Those are trifling things compared to getting invaded on your wedding day, and Cadance and Shining Armor certainly overcame that.”
“Perhaps.” Morpheus shook his head. “But how would we manage the difficulties my being a changeling entails? The fallout from the invasion was not limited to affecting Twilight and her brother. It wasn't even limited to Canterlot. Ponies everywhere were negatively affected, and there would most likely be outcries of horror if we dated.”
Sighing, I sat on the couch, figuring it was best to let him handle this. It would let me see how he got along with Rarity, and he was arguably in a better position to refute her given that he could literally taste love.
“And once again, those are trifling things compared to the power of love.” Rarity’s eyes sparkled as she spoke. Her horn lit up and a tea tray and scones levitated in from the kitchen. A secondary spell started reheating the tea. “Think about it, dear. It doesn’t matter what others think, so long as you’re happy.”
The prince snorted and rolled his eyes. “It certainly does matter when the Hive is on the line. Such a relationship itself would bias negotiations in a way that an arranged marriage never would.”
He tilted his head, tapping his chin. “Granted, it would most likely be a bias beneficial toward changelings as Twilight would be even more invested in helping us, but that would be entirely unfair to her and the relationship. If negotiations fail, changelings will go extinct, and it would not be healthy to have that issue hovering in the background.”
Rarity levitated a scone and a freshly heated cup of tea over to me. At some point, a small stage had been levitated in, and she began measuring the prince as I nibbled on the pastry.
The fashionista chewed her lip as her measuring tape flew about. “I admit, perhaps your problems are a bit larger than one measly invasion.”
I nearly choked on my tea when Rarity said that. Measly was not how Rarity usually described the changeling incursion. She could be quite creative with her descriptions of the wedding. Of course, she focused more on Shining and Cadence’s fairy tale romance and how it defeated the changelings, but every fairy tale had a villain, and she had gotten quite inspired with some of her lines decrying them as such.
“Still—” She narrowed her brow to gaze critically at Morpheus “—I’m sure you could work things out.”
Morpheus shook his head, causing Rarity to tsk at him. Standing still again, a click-clacking filled the air as Morpheus drummed the holes in his leg open and closed.
“Alright then, if you’re so sure love conquers all, let’s try a different approach. Ve admit, Twilight and I share some key qualities that might suggest we could form a successful couple—
I massaged my forehead. He should not have said that. Rarity would never let it go. It was clearly evident just from her newfound vigor of movement and tittering, and she almost choked him as her grip on the measuring tape tightened. After recovering his air flow, he glanced at me, most likely sensing my irritation. Rarity scolded him to stop fidgeting, and he turned his head back again before continuing.
“—That said, there are far better choices for Twilight than I.”
The sound of fracturing china filled the air, and I hastily cast a repair and cleaning spell. There was no way he was taking this conversation where I thought he was. He was better than that.
“Have you considered Big Mac, for example? He’s strong, quiet, hard-working, and is surprisingly intelligent, from what our reports gather. He also has the simple farmer angle going for him, allowing for that sort of storybook romance of royalty falling in love with a commoner.” He thrummed. “Ve even have notes from one lucky harvester that can attest to his abilities in bed.”
Sweet Celestia, he was taking it there. I blushed and shrank in on myself as they both started talking about stallions that were supposedly perfect for me. They talked about anything and everything—which was a lot when that blasted Hivemind was involved—and whatever squeamishness Morpheus had about changeling intimacy clearly didn’t extend to pony intimacy.
At least he had the decency to discuss the matter scientifically.
Still, if the conversation wasn’t going to die horribly in a fire anytime soon, there had to be something I could occupy myself with. Fiddling with my hooves? Reading a fashion magazine? Petting the cat?
For her part, Rarity was all smiles and laughter as she worked on Morpheus. Some of it had the telltale signs of being forced, but I was glad that most of it seemed sincere—even if came from an embarrassing discussion on my love life.
Morpheus, meanwhile, would periodically fidget from being forced to stand still. It was quite remarkable really, seeing the difference between chitin and fur coats. Disturbances in his movement were much more noticeable; entire plates shifted—sometimes in a cascade effect—when his muscles moved, and his wings made little scritch-scratchy noises beneath the cases he’d shifted up for them.
Their conversation carried on for so long I tuned it out. So when Rarity turned to ask me something, it took me a second to realize she was addressing me and not Morpheus.
“What do you want, Rarity?”
Her grin turned predatory, and she raised a hoof to her mouth to titter, somehow showing far too many teeth. “Oh my, Twilight. Are you perchance staring at somepony’s—or rather someling’s—flank?”
“I— Wha— Huh?!”
I had not been staring. I had been studying. There was no way the term flank was accurate when chitin was involved, and I had been trying to come up with a better term—mostly to stave off boredom. Sputtering that fact incoherently with flaming cheeks did not help my case, though.
“Really, Rarity?” Morpheus chuckled. “I already told you Twilight doesn’t feel like that about me, no matter what you see.”
“But she was!” Rarity whined.
“And her emotions are currently a mix of boredom, curiosity, and now embarrassment,” he retorted. “Besides, even if she did, it’s not like I would return them. Most analysts are pretty sure it’s impossible for changelings to love like that anymore.” He shrugged at Rarity’sgasp. “Spousal love stems from the biological urge to find a mate and reproduce. Even breeders—who literally have the word breed in their caste name—haven’t had that urge for more than a millennium. Ve’re pretty sure it’s been written out of our system.”
I flicked an ear. “How is that even possi—”
“What do you mean you can’t fall in love?!” Rarity cut me off with all the volume of Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice.
If I had thought I could shrink in on myself, I was wrong. The only way to describe Morpheus’ reaction is that he collapsed inward. Muscles and chitinous plates folded together in the most morbidly fascinating way to make a very small lump of changeling.
“O-oh… y-you know… it all comes down to the birds and the bees….” His voice was a tiny, wavering fragment.
There was the squeamishness I had expected earlier. It seemed it was time to take charge and change the subject. “Hey! I just realized you never told me about what happened at Sweet Apple Acres yesterday.” He looked to me and I gave him a ghost of a smile.
Returning it, he nodded and stood. “Yes. That sounds like a good idea. We can compare notes on where I went wrong.”
“So you’re telling me Rainbow punched you hard enough to give you a concussion, and Zecora cursed you to cure you?” I was massaging my forehead again. “Do you realize how crazy that sounds? Rainbow may be a little brash, but this sounds like something else….”
At some point, we had moved to the fitting room proper, and he was currently swathed in cloth with a rather silent Rarity pricking needles into him. The prince was watching my reaction through the mirror in front of him.
He shrugged, causing the frazzled looking Rarity to prick him a little harder than necessary. “Ve believe Rainbow is simply having a hard time adapting to us. It’s my own fault for rushing things with her.”
“Oh, it’s much more than that, darlings.” Rarity finally broke her silence with a tired voice. “Rainbow Dash is clearly jealous of our guest.”
We both looked at her at that, Morpheus chuckling weakly. “Now I know you’re over thinking things. There’s no way you can think Applejack likes me like that.”
Rarity tsked. “Not that kind of jealousy.” She shook her head. “Imagine what it must be like for her when she feels we’re taking your side over hers. She’s the Element of Loyalty, for Celestia’s sake.”
I raised my head in a eureka moment. “And if we’re taking his side first, we’re pretty much spitting in the face of her loyalty by giving ours to Morpheus. She just wants to make sure we’re safe, after all.”
Rarity nodded. “Rainbow’s always been overprotective. If she really thinks we’re favoring you over her, chances are she assumed—probably still assumes—foul play was involved. You are a changeling after all.”
I winced at Rarity’s lack of tact, but Morpheus just thrummed like it was nothing. “Yes, yes… ve could see that. It would explain the itchy feeling I couldn’t place. Jealousy can feel like that.”
I shook my head. “Even if that’s why Rainbow overreacted, you were still basically goading both her and Applejack for a reaction. You might have been hoping for a more positive reaction by playing off their competitive side, but that doesn’t leave you completely fault free.”
The prince’s ears flattened against his head. “And yet when we reach the end of the day~ Be true to yourself is what you’ll all say~ What else should I do?~ What else should I be?!~ When it’s so hard to like me for me?~”
“And then there’s that,” I groused. “I still can’t believe curses are real or that Zecora can actually cast them. It doesn’t help that you can’t explain them.”
He shrugged. “Blame the Malpractitioners, not us.”
I tilted my head and putting my hoof to my chin. I felt like I’d heard of these Malpractitioners before, but I couldn’t remember where for the life of me. Sighing, I let it go. “Regardless, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be yourself, Morpheus. Some ponies can be a little manipulative and still mean well.” I briefly glanced at Rarity. “Just remember that some won’t take to it too kindly no matter what your intentions are.”
“Et voilà!”
I blinked, realizing just how much progress Rarity had made.
The two-piece suit was a dark grey—darker than the charcoal of his Wicked Smooth guise yet still not quite as black as his chitin. The coat had a small V-neck for the collar with a rich emerald ascot, riddled with small slit-like holes, that added color to his breast. A pocket over his heart had three diamond shaped holes – revealing the dark green felt lining of the coat. The coattails were similarly marked, and the cuffs reversed it – with the sleeves folded back and diamond holes in the lining reveal the dark grey fabric beneath. The pants were similarly dark grey and also had holes revealing the lining around the hooves.
“Hmm….” Rarity gazed critically at her work. “No. It needs one more thing. Wait here!” She flew out of the room, and the faint crashing of frantic searching could be heard. “Aha!” She returned with a bowler hat in her telekinesis.
Placing it upon Morpheus’ head, she tilted it slightly off-kilter. “Perfect!”
The prince stared at his reflection for a second before straightening the hat. “Perfect.”
Rarity unstraightened it again. “No, no, no. The angle is what makes it work, darling.”
He snorted and refixed it.
She sighed and let it go this time. “I suppose straight works too….”
He nodded and stepped from the stand. “Now about the method of payment.”
“Pish-posh!” Rarity scoffed. “The first outfit is always on the house.”
“And that is partly why ve ordered two.” He smiled. “Besides, I have a feeling you’ll like my offer. How would you like to be the first to use changeling silk in your designs? Depending on what emotions it’s initially processed with it can have a variety of features to mimic almost every known fabric, and it can have a few surprises you won’t find in common fabrics—shifting color based on the wearer’s emotions, for example.”
Rarity flinched slightly as his grin unintentionally bared his fangs, but her eyes began to light up as he expounded on several other aspects of changeling silk.
As we left the boutique with a deal made, Morpheus glanced at me in his reraised disguise.
“What?” I flicked an ear as we walked back towards the library.
Hesitating slightly, he finally responded. “You weren’t afraid. When we first met, you were instinctively afraid of some of the things I did—like smiling. They were little blips you controlled, mostly, but they were there. You haven’t had any of those all day. Why?”
I blinked. “Is it so hard to imagine me not being afraid of you? That seems a little counter-intuitive for somepony hoping we can become friends.”
He snorted. “I was expecting friends who looked past the fear, not miracles.”
I stumbled for a sec, ears flattening against my head. “Oh…. Well, if it’s that important to you, I guess it came from Chrysalis.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, and I realized how that might of sound to him. “I mean, when Chrysalis saved me in the Everfree, I realized something. Her actions and motivations were so inexplicable, it finally sank in that I couldn’t think of her as a pony. Just like Discord. I don’t hold him to pony standards.” I tapped my head. “He’s just too different up here.”
I looked to Morpheus. “You’re in the same boat. It’s not fair of me to look at you like a pony when you’re a changeling, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that sooner.”
“So you were afraid because of the uncanny valley,” he mused, and I looked at him, puzzled.
“When an emulation is so close to perfect that the remaining small imperfections become greatly disturbing,” he clarified. “No matter how much ve act like a pony, ve will never truly be one, yet I’m close enough to bother those who don’t realize this.”
He sagged slightly, but there wasn’t much I could say.
I could act, though.
I stepped closer and punched him lightly in the shoulder like Rainbow did to me when I was overthinking things. He looked towards me before nodding, and we continued on to Castle in comfortable silence.
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I like what you're doing with the curse. At first I thought it was going to be everywhere, but the way you put just a bit of it in some places makes it enjoyable.
Thanks for the chapter, and keep up the good work
7001384
Yeah. I'm making sure not to do that. The reason it was so prevalent in the first chapter it popped up in was to better establish it. Now that it's "settled in" it's mostly having a light touch on things until it's resolved -- ocasionally annoying the prince.
Like a drug dealer!
It's all Chryssie. That's my bet.
Personally, I always find that whole "changelings eat love, therefore they can't feel it" twist silly. It's like saying "I eat meat, therefore I can't be made of it." I patently am.
7013951
This is actually a case of they think they can't feel love but they actually can. There's a reason for that, and it ties into how Morpheus specified it as spousal love being the kind of love they couldn't feel not all love.
I have this mental image of a quivering, football-shaped lump of chitin, four hooves sticking out of the bottom like over-sized pushpins, and the tip of muzzle of a poking out the front
.
7040540
This is either counting Babs Seed and maybe the reformed DT or the fact that they're using the crusaders to help other foals with their cutie marks. I haven't decided which yet. Thus it's only one or two extra or a lot of extras.
7041619 Ah. Vagueness. The best weapon a fanfiction author has when writing about something already undefined. Works for me!
Anyway, just finished reading the latest installment, and you can consider me hooked on this story. I'm loving Morpheus as a character and I'm enjoying this unique look into changelings as a whole; it's a wonderful example of Blue and Orange...well, not quite morality, but something. And I'm looking forward to seeing it continue.
Rarity is the best, even when she is trying real hard to see things that aren't really there.
Oh my!
I Ship It!
Rarity is showing her perceptive side again. I really like.
You can't blame her for her shipping tendency's due to her being into romance novels. She still provides useful insight to both Twilight and Morpheus, especially regarding Rainbow Dash.
The 'uncanny valley' is also a very fitting explanation for ponies to feel 'in comfortable' about changelings.
All in all the characterization of Rarity was pretty spot on here, and Morphy not getting the context of her pairing them both, then making it worse for Twilight when he accidentally implies the truthfulness of Rarity's suspicions, was pretty amusing.
But here is something I forgot to mention, something which bothered me greatly, in an earlier chapter regarding relationships between the mane 6.
With Twilight blushing about the intimacy of her love life, and Rarity being so invested and amused about shipping both the prince and Twilight, once again giving her attitude towards love an obvious impression, I was a mighty bit unsatisfied how Rainbow Dash and AJ being an actual couple, was introduced so casually a thing that it's already known to ALL of the Mane 6.
While a good size of the fandom likes shipping those two, it felt to me as too much of a "cat out of the bag while dropping out of the sky" thing, or for short "bombshell".
Also, what adds to the effect of, "reader is overwhelmed while the mane 6 don't give a heck, because the couple is a generally known fact already", is what Morpheus more or less implied when he went to town as the ice cone mare, and that happened before Twilight casually revealed her awareness of AJ's and RD's relationship, and that the others knew too.
From chapter 9:
Aj entered the scene and it was indicative that either AJ or Dash brought love into the mix.
Now it's confirmed. But the reader can easily assume that their lovers quarrel, in a market place, where busy noises cover their argument, was only heard by him because he had such good hearing.
I went with that train of thought. The whole scene gave me the impression, that Morpheus labeled their relationship a taboo topic, as if he kept to himself, the nature of their quarrel.
This was secret info.
From there on I was under the impression, that their relationship would be revealed to at least Twilight, and that the others didn't know as well (except Rarity maybe).
At least I expected Twilight not being into the loop of their relationship.
But then it was dropped, when Twilight simply stated: "You apologize and go talk to your marefriend about exactly what counts as petty."
So everyone already knew, even Twilight who is not an expert, and can be out of the loop a lot, regarding love relationships.
As a reader I was expected to simply accept the fact that this was a general info, known to everyone, and that they casually talk about it since it's no big deal to them.
The shipping was default to everyone.
That was a bit sudden to be honest, and that it wasn't thematized/addressed at least a little bit further, especially with Rarity in the room and her romance attitude, was bothering me. Instead it was made casual knowledge to all of them not worth to further talk about.
No big news to anyone, me was bothered.
The blatant suddenness, brought forth by Twilight's casual order towards RD, to being forced to accept that info was no secret to anyone of the mane 6, didn't feel right to me.
Especially because I felt misled previously.
I really thought this deserved more attention by at least somepony, better then none at all.
Anyway reading on!
Despite how you have portrayed certain characters, I do like this depiction of Rarity.
Oh look the birds and bees comment again...
I'll just say it wasn't amusing and didn't really fit the first time, and it's more annoying for it to be brought up again now.
Edit:
I did come across the reveal in a later chapter on this subject, and I must say I am amused that it was all a misunderstanding/gross overestimation of pony stances on the subject of reproduction. However, this stands out as odd for multiple reasons even still.
One, the entire hive, throughout all its history, isn't able to understand that reproduction is something often spoken about? From Twilight's reaction, it's not something commonly talked about, but it is a subject she doesn't shy away from.
Two, the hive assumed ponies would have the same reaction towards Changeling reproduction as it would towards their own despite not sharing that many similarities?
This just seems like a gross failure on thousands of changelings parts and the hivemind as a whole rather than a calculated decision. I suppose it could be a ploy by someone among the lords to get him to screw up with false notions, in which case I have to wonder what they're high on because making talks of reproduction awkward in this context doesn't change a whole lot and it was easily dispelled once they actually talked about it.
On the annoying aspect, the only recommendation I can suggest is to drop hints that it is an act on Morpheus part. You might have already done so, but I certainly missed them. Whether you're being a bit too subtle or I'm missing it is hard to say.