A Sparkle-ling Perfection

by Cast-Iron Caryatid

Chapter Five 【Twilight】

I would say that Sunset Shimmer is being intentionally difficult, but I do not believe that I have yet experienced her behaving in any other manner.

“I am not being intentionally difficult!” she cries, and then seems to reconsider her words. “I mean—I am not being difficult!”

That gets a frown out of me. “You heard that?”

“Your nose touched mine!” she says, covering the point of contact with her forehooves and attempting to scurry further back into the wall behind her, which she cannot do because it is solid—

Crack!

“Hey, stop that!” I shout, realizing that she has managed to break through into the hollow, rib-like structure of the lab wall. “I had to spit up resin for days to build those supports!”

A tiny white changeling head pokes out from between the supports to look at me. Her eyes then turn inwards to look cross-eyed at the flat piece of green resin in her mouth, which she immediately spits out. “Oh yuck!” she says, scraping her tongue off on one of her chitinous forelegs, which I do not think is any cleaner. “You need to tell me these things sooner.”

“I am most certain that I have,” I insist.

She disagrees. “You have not. You tell me nothing unless I pry it out of your snide buggy mouth.”

“It hardly matters, anyway!” I say, rearing up and gesturing with my forelegs, getting a little fed up with the constant sidetracking. “Changelings put far dirtier things in their mouths than my perfectly sanitary, lab-grade resin!”

Sunset Shimmer’s face curls up in disgust. “Okay, it’s time for you to stop talking. I don’t need your accidental innuendo in my head right now.”

“It was not accidental, nor was it innuendo,” I inform her with a haughty sneer. “I was plainly referring to—”

“Err, no, you see,” she interrupts, “the way you said it, it sounded like you were talking about—”

“—intercourse, yes,” I finish, interrupting right back, somewhat offended. “I placed an egg in your brain, you’ll remember. I know how biology works.”

“Kind of hard to forget,” she grumbles under her breath. “But that’s not… no, you know what? Fine. Whatever. You’re a shapeshifter that can look like whatever you want, makes sense you’d use it to get some action, I guess, but that’s still disgusting.”

“The point,” I say with a huff, “is that the collectors make frequent use of it in their duties, so I assure you that changelings are quite resistant to infection and disease.”

“The… collectors?” she asks, wary of both the subject matter and her attempt to slip out of the hollow where I have cornered her. “Do I want to know what they’re collecting?”

Is the answer not obvious? “Love, of course.”

She freezes in the middle of her attempt to get away. “Okay… pretend this is another one of those things that you haven’t explained to me at all, because this is another one of those things that you haven’t explained to me at all.”

“This would all be much simpler if you would just let me touch you,” I insist, giving her a stern look as I move to cut her off. I am successful, and she backs away, bristling.

“Uh-uh,” she says, shaking her head stubbornly. “I don’t care if I’m a bug for the next couple weeks, I am not gonna let your freaky hive mind back in my head. I like being able to think without having to ask permission.”

I find myself groaning in vexation. If only she hadn’t found a way to shed her disguise in the first place, she never would have been traumatized by the neurospast and its absolute bond with the hive mind. “And I keep telling you that you do not have to. I will shield you from the hive mind. Do you not trust me?”

“No!” she screeches, her voice reverberating like a banshee—which is totally not what we call the queen over the hive mind to keep from getting in trouble.

“Right. Stupid question,” I admit. To be honest, I don’t trust Sunset Shimmer, either. I mean, sure, she came back that one time. She let me stuff her brain with embryos and she’s pretty much stuck in the body of a changeling until I say otherwise…

…but still, she’s not part of the hive mind, and that means she can’t be trusted—and that’s fine. Our relationship doesn’t have to go any further than that. Give and take. Business. Okay, maybe it’s a little ‘take and take’ at the moment since I haven’t really done anything much for her, but… that’s just how it has to be; there’s nothing I can do to rush things.

The problem is that I kind of want her to trust me. Strange, I know, but I do want her help. Giving up on that now would just be admitting to Shiny that I was wrong.

And I’m not wrong.

“Ffffffine,” I whine begrudgingly. “Come out, and I’ll… explain. With my mouth. Because that’s what ponies do.”

She hesitates.

I tap my hoof and roll my eyes. “What?”

“When you say ‘with your mouth…’”

“Oh, for the love of the queen—yes!” I yell. “I will waggle my throat flaps in precise undulations that vibrate the air, producing sounds describing the necessities of changeling life.”

Still, she hesitates.

“Well?” I say, waiting for her to do or say something.

She blinks and looks at me, before suddenly becoming flustered. “Um. Yes. I just… got distracted for a second. I really didn’t need that image in my head,” she explains, making a face of disgust.

I let out a snort of laughter. “If you want, I can remove it for you.”

She freezes again, one hoof out of her hidey-hole. “You… can’t really… do that… can you?” she asks, wide-eyed, then shrinks back inside. “Oh Celestia, you probably can. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Nrrrrgh.” I try not to curse. “No, even though you have no ability to resist the hivemind, I can’t make you forget things that have already happened. I could, in theory, prevent memories from being recorded, but there are drugs that do that anyway—alcohol and worse. And certain hormones, which your body is capable of producing on command. But that’s not the point. Memories, once recorded, are a part of the soul and cannot be removed or changed.”

She narrows her eyes at me from inside the hole. “But you could make me not care about them, like the ponies who experimented with soul transfer in the past. I bet you could do it selectively.”

Honestly, the things she comes up with. “You have a sick mind, Sunset Shimmer.”

“I’m not hearing a no,” she retorts with a glare.

“Well… you’re not wrong,” I say with a sigh and a shake my head. “It’s no coincidence that you can’t regulate your connection to the hivemind. The body of a nymph is not designed be a fair and equal member of changeling society.”

“It’s a prison,” she whispers coldly. “Complete with all the tools you need to get whatever you want out of whoever you put in it, and no way to escape.”

Well, if she was going to be dramatic about it… “Yes,” I say, taking advantage of her more sedate mood to take a few steps closer and sit down. “Yes it is.” I take a breath, and slowly let it out, hoping that she will remain calm if I do. It is a thing that Princess Celestia does, as I realized after the fact of her trespass. “But also all the tools I need to give you what you want. Just… remember that, okay? You knew you were putting your life—and your mind—in my hooves. You’re vulnerable, yes, but no more vulnerable than you were in the chrysalis and less than you will be as an infant dragon.”

She doesn’t respond for several minutes, and I consider just leaving her to think things over and get used to the idea of being what she is, but she has already spent the entire night alone, so instead, I wait patiently.

“I think it’s time you tell me how you’re going to get me in the egg,” she says. “And everything else. All of it. I’m not going anywhere until there are no more surprises.”

Well, there goes my day.

Actually, no, though it would have been better if that really was the case, as it would mean I had more to offer her.

“There actually isn’t much to say about the process, from here on out,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “And none of it is anything you should find objectionable.”

She lets out a soft whicker, though it comes out with a buzz thanks to her untransformed state. “It’ll be a windy day in tartarus when I take your word about something like that.”

“Look—it really is simple,” I tell her. “Dragon eggs need to be incubated in magic in order to mature. Usually, this just happens naturally in the conditions found in a typical dragon’s hoard, but it can also happen by chance in other magic-heavy environments, or be artificially stimulated by the directed use of magic. Under normal circumstances, the egg would just keep absorbing magic at a steady rate for however long it takes to collect the energy required for its development, but we will actually be using four different methods of feeding it magic to get the result we want.

“For the first phase, you’ll be incubating the egg directly with your magic as it undergoes its initial cell division. This is actually the most crucial stage, as you must stop just before the embryo begins to form a soul, and there must be no outside sources of magic to push it over the threshold.

“At that point, there should be enough changeling magic in it that your changeling body will recognize it as a rudimentary hive mind. With some effort, you should be able to force your soul to actually enter it. Since the soul is, by gross description, a mass of magic, doing this correctly should be a great enough influx to trigger the embryo’s next two stages of development; this is important because we want the egg to use your soul in place of developing its own—skipping that stage of growth entirely. Once I have confirmed that everything is as it should be, I will have your nymph body destroyed in order to avoid complications.

“From then on, the egg—that is, you—will continue to be incubated in magic that you will have stored previously until your brain has developed enough to support your significantly older-than-intended soul. For the final phase, we will have the neurospast take over using its pony magic for the remainder of your development. By the time you are ready to hatch, the changeling magic should all be flushed out of your system with no lasting effects.”

“Really? That’s it?” she asks, hovering between incredulous and hopeful. “Then I can just stay down here and sit on the egg until it’s ready?”

“Ah, no,” I say, reluctant to dampen her enthusiasm and risk another argument. “I swear, I thought this was obvious, but changelings are shapeshifters for a reason. As a changeling, you require love to survive, and we are not allowed deliveries of it here. We must fend for ourselves in that regard, and you will need quite a bit to make up for the magic that you will be expending.”

Sunset’s jaw tightened, but she managed to reign in her temper. “You… you expect me to go out there and—”

“No, of course not,” I interrupt. “You are still much too weak to leave the house; your disguise could fail or be breached. Instead, we will be bringing in a pony to feed you. Fear not; all you will have to do is lie back and think of—”

She makes a sputtering, choking sound. “Twilight, I am not having sex with a random pony you picked off the street!” she says, now getting upset, which I find interesting. “At… at least give me some say in the matter.”

I blink, wondering how it is she keeps coming up with these things. “That is not what I meant, and will not be necessary. Platonic, motherly love is a perfectly acceptable substitute. The pony in question will merely be a foalsitter.”

Sunset Shimmer blanches. “That’s worse!”

⁂

I am finally able to lure Sunset Shimmer out of the hole that she has made in my beautiful laboratory wall using a plate of scrambled eggs and the promise that a decent serving of protein would help delay her looming need for love. It’s not a lie, but it is rather moot at this point. The babysitting arrangements have already been made and she’s going to need to do a lot more than not die to incubate the egg, but at least it is something to distract her and, with any luck, make her feel a bit better.

It seems to be working.

“So,” Sunset Shimmer says, struggling through bites that are too large for her tiny mouth. “I couldn’t help but notice you don’t have your lab filled with crystals for storing magic. I suppose there’s a disgusting, slimy love-sucking-bug reason for that?”

I nod. “The changeling body is able to produce a number of substances with the help of several glands. One of them is for storing magic; it’s actually very important, as otherwise we would have difficulty storing food.”

Sunset Shimmer gulps down her mouthful of food and uneasily brings her hoof to her throat. “That sounds unpleasant. A crystal’s capacity to hold magic increases exponentially with its mass; logically, you’d want the product to be… as large as possible.”

“Trying to pass solid magic would be unpleasant, yes,” I say, trying to imagine it myself. “In theory, that could happen if you gorged yourself too much, but it’s not a practical concern.

“Your body will collect love through your horn and chitin, even when you are disguised. This love pools in your amoreal sac as a viscous pink gel, which your body will then digest into a green, more liquid form of magic. Either form can be expectorated in a membrane for storage, but once the love is converted into magic, it is unique to you and cannot be shared.

“The liquid magic is prone to crystallization, as you would expect, and the process can be accelerated with additional magic. Love does not naturally crystallize unless it is particularly strong and pure, making it much more difficult to transport.”

“Hrm,” she says, growing a frown.

“What? What issue could you possibly have with that?”

“No, just thinking about liquid magic,” she says, busying herself with another bite that’s half as big as the last, yet still twice as big as it should be from the look of discomfort on her face as she swallows. “That’s actually kind of cool. If it’s really dense enough to crystallize, then that means it’s not just magic-infused slime.”

“You shouldn’t call it slime anyway,” I grumble. “It’s unscientific.”

Her little white nose scrunches up. “Hey—I happen to remember almost drowning in that chrysalis, and the stuff was thicker than pitch pudding.”

I… don’t know what to say to that. “Pitch pudding?”

“Zebra delicacy, if you can call it that,” she says and mimes gagging. “It’s not actually expensive or anything. Ceremonial, maybe? I don’t remember. Castle Canterlot cuisine might be all cakes and caramel ninety percent of the time, but when there are foreign dignitaries visiting… it can be hard to tell when they’re actively trying to poison each other or not.”

“I’ll… remember that,” I say. “There isn’t actually—”

She nods and points at me with her fork. “Zebras. They seem all wise and shit when they come here, but back in Zebrabwe, they’re eating ash and tree bark… and figs. Oh Celestia do I hate figs.”

“Okay, firstly, there is no way the amniotic fluid in your Chrysalis was actually as thick at pitch or anything containing pitch to a significant degree, and second… you no longer get to complain about anything that has to go through your mouth.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh like you can talk. I doubt all the cellulose in these walls came from cabbage and asparagus.”

“Need I remind you that you’ll soon have a taste for rocks?” I counter, puffing out my cheeks in indignation. “You’d actually do well to eat a table leg or two and repair my wall; any kind of internal magic would be good practice for dragonhood… in theory.”

That shut her up. She made a sour face and went back to eating her breakfast.

No, wait, that isn’t what I wanted to do. That isn’t what I want at all.

“Sorry…” I say, forcing myself to apologize. “I didn’t mean… I don’t want to make you regret that. It’s supposed to be a good thing.”

She lets out a sigh. “It’s fine. It probably won’t be a half as gross as changeling stuff; it’s just going to be a big change not having a horn at all. At least I know that dragons are capable of the kind of magic I’m used to; not like you and your awful chitin.”

Huh? “What’s wrong with chitin?” I ask.

She hesitates and looks away for a moment before bluntly responding, “It’s crap, Twilight.”

I let out a snort of laughter. “You just don’t know how to use it.”

“Maybe…” she admits with less confidence. “But I don’t think so. I get that it’s how the disguise magic works, and if it’s part of how you feed, too, then you probably don’t want to hear this, but just being there, it draws magic away from the horn. I’m used to having pinpoint control, and this…” She gestures at her tiny white nub of a horn. “It’s like trying to write a letter with my entire face, at best. The horn may as well not even be there.

“You can make a changeling using my body as a template, but if you don’t get rid of the chitin… Celestia, I don’t even know what the result would be. Powerful and really good at changeling magic to be sure, but don’t ask it to do anything delicate or complicated.”

“Well, we’re going to find out. Shiny is going in the Chrysalis tonight.”

“Already?” she says, though I’m not sure why that surprises her. “Well, it’ll certainly make him stand out. I’m serious, though. You really need to do something about it for yourself if you’re going to be Celestia’s student. If you can’t get rid of it… maybe you can just separate it, but I don’t envy you if you do. It’d be like having two horns.”

⁂

Teaching Sunset Shimmer to restore her disguise without the help of the hive mind is proving difficult, to say the least. Somehow, though, trying has turned out to be paradoxically gratifying in spite of the time wasted. If she’d just let me, I could show her how to do it in an instant using the hive mind. She is only going to be a changeling for a few weeks anyway, and if she’d just stayed in her pony form in the first place then we wouldn’t even be in this situation.

And yet…

Making do without the hive mind is implicit in my purpose. If I’m going to spend years learning magic from ponies, books, and even Celestia herself, then I might as well get used to the idea.

If only it were going better.

“Oh sure laugh,” Sunset Shimmer says, venting her sour frustration. “But it’s not easy going against years of practice using only a horn. It’ll be even worse for you and ‘Shiny’ if you try to learn proper unicorn magic without even a body designed for it.”

“I’m not… I wasn’t laughing,” I insist, relatively certain that it is true. “I actually thought we were doing rather well.”

She falls back onto her haunches with a huff. It might have been more effective if she had more stature than a loaf of bread. “Yeah, well, we’re not,” she grumbles. “I’ve only got another try or two in me before I collapse. I’m used to pushing my limits, but this body is kind of pathetic.”

Yes, yes, changelings are bad at magic, I—wait. “What? Why didn’t you say something?! If you run out—”

She just shrugs, and I realize that she’s breathing heavily. “It’s no big deal. Give me an hour or two and I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t!” I yell, jumping to my feet and panicking bit—just a bit, mind. “You’re not a pony any more, Sunset Shimmer, you’re a changeling! You need love to do magic, and you need to look like a pony to get love!”

She frowns. “But you said food would help with that.”

“Help, yes,” I say as emphatically as I can. “It will keep you alive and give you enough magic to maintain a disguise, but that’s all. A changeling on its own without a disguise usually has no choice but to forcefully drain the love from somepony, and I don’t think I have to tell you why that’s a bad idea in general, let alone in our situation.”

“Well… damn,” she says, straightening her back and trying to force off the exhaustion. “That sucks. I guess I’ve gotta make the next one count, huh?”

She’s not going to—“Wait!” I cry.

Thankfully, she stops and gives me a strange look. I think she’s trying to raise an eyebrow at me, but changelings don’t have eyebrows. “What?” she asks. “Got any last-minute tips that you haven’t mentioned yet?”

“Just… wait,” I say, trying to slow my breathing after panicking. “Let me think.”

“Fine,” she grunts, and sits back down, crossing her stubby white forelegs in front of her. “Hrm.”

“What?”

“Just… being in a body like this really does suck,” she muses. “I hadn’t really considered what it was like to be… not me.”

“It’s only for a few weeks,” I remind her, but it sounds repetitive, even to me. “It’ll get better—I promise.”

She takes a deep breath and lets it out with an unintentional squeak-buzz that is, nonetheless, adorable. “Yeah, sure,” she says. “But then what? Am I gonna be a rockin’ dragon, or just some shmuck? You get to keep remaking yourself until you get it right; I’m gonna be stuck with whatever’s already in that egg forever.”

She has a point. “I don’t believe that. You could be the weakest, scrawniest whelp in the, uhh…”

“Clutch,” she offers. “I think dragons have clutches.”

“Right. You might be the runt of the clutch; it could happen—though I’d hope not considering the rate and volume of the magic we’ll be feeding you—but even if you completely lost the genetic lottery, you’d still be you, and you wouldn’t leave it at that.”

“I thought so too,” she says. “But as you reminded me, there are drugs that can make a pony forget that they care. About anything. I’m going to be at the mercy of whatever hormones dragons have pumping through their blood.”

“Ah.” I take a moment to change mental gears in order to respond to that. “That’s a different matter entirely, and not one you should worry about.”

She cocks her tiny head to the side. “Why not?”

“I take it that you see see dragons as lazy?” I suggest.

“You don’t?”

“Well… I’m biased,” I have to admit. “Dragons and changelings actually aren’t that different, in a way, but of the two Changelings are lazier.”

“Now that, I doubt,” she says.

I shrug. “Fair enough, but you’ve only seen a few changelings,” I remind her. “You see, both changelings and dragons derive magic from external sources. Changelings feed on love, as I’ve explained—any emotion to a certain degree, actually, but love most of all—and dragons… well, they’re harder to explain in as many words, but suffice it to say, they draw magic from the fundamental structure of the world—order and chaos in equal amounts.

“The difference, though, is that changelings are, above all, efficient. You’ve only seen special changelings like Shiny and me. For us the hive mind is optional, but other breeds are… less capable depending on their intended duties. None are quite so reliant as the neurospast, but then, that, too, is a changeling in its own way.”

“Oh, well… good to know there’s something worse that could have been done to this body,” she says. “I guess prisoners aren’t as useful if they can’t even think.”

That is a good way to put it. “Yes, optimism!” I say in an upbeat manner. “Optimism is good!”

She just stares at me with a flat look on her face. “That was sarcasm.”

Hrm. Sunset Shimmer’s brief contact with the hive mind seems to have infected her with its poor grasp of sarcasm. Best not mention that to her, or she might react poorly.

“In any case,” I continue, picking the subject back up. “Dragons are the opposite of changelings in many ways. Dragons personify greed above all else; their sheer size demands it. The reason we have a dragon egg in the first place—and the reason I can just give it to you—is because we’ve tried to integrate them before, and it never worked out. It didn’t matter if we created draconic changelings gene-by-gene, or simply put changeling souls in dragon eggs; the former would drain the love reserves dry in a week, and the latter was even harder to sate. Only the queens retain any of the changes that were made at that time, and that, I think, is only because they were the ones that made the decision.”

Sunset Shimmer taps the floor absently with her hoof, exploring its texture as she thinks. “So, changelings are the ones at school that sit in the back of the class, chat and only pay enough attention to get by?” she suggests.

I nod. “Usually, yes.”

“And dragons are the ones with their books out in the cafeteria at lunch so they don’t have any homework?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are no dragons at your school.”

⁂

The conversation had lapsed into me detailing various breeds of changelings and what to expect from the ‘adults’ in the house. The short answer? Not much.

“Wait, you mean they’ll even take orders from me?” she asks, disbelieving.

I shrug, looking over my shoulder from where I am cleaning up the chrysalis. “Yes, though ‘orders’ is not the right word. Changelings do not actually have that kind of hierarchy.”

“But you have a queen—or queens,” she counters somewhere between confusion and curiosity. “How does that work, then?”

My cheek stings even underneath my disguise at the mention of queens. “Queens are… a special case, but even so, they don’t make laws and pass down decrees like you’re thinking. A queen is—naturally—the mother of her children. Though she does not raise them, she is always present in the hive mind, which she serves as a focal point for, but does not control. Strictly speaking, her primary function is to breed, and to that purpose she has some influence on food and logistics. In the end, however, she still obeys the will of the hive mind.”

“Weird,” Sunset Shimmer says, stretching out her back in a manner which, due to her size, is reminiscent of a cat. I don’t tell her this. “So… the egg you used had to come from somewhere. Do I call her ‘mom,’ then?”

I can’t help it; I wince. “No. Never do that—though I don’t intend for you to meet her while you remain a changeling. Only other queens are acknowledged as true daughters; it gets confusing otherwise.”

“Why does me being a changeling mean I shouldn’t meet her?” she asks. “Wouldn’t she trust me more?”

Somehow, she always manages to ask the questions she won’t like the answers to… I wonder if her being a hatchling has anything to do with it. “She would trust you, certainly; you would not be able to resist her. Much like the neurospast, she cannot regulate her connection to the hive mind, because in a way, she is the hive mind. Unlike the neurospast, however, she would not have to touch you to establish contact; just being in her presence—or hearing her voice in particular—would override your will.”

If Sunset Shimmer could have paled, she would have. As it is, I notice her unconsciously gravitate back to the hole she had burrowed in my wall. “Um. Right. Stay the hay away from the queen. Gotcha.” Awkward silence. “So, what happens if she… you know… dies?”

“A queen is connected to all of her progeny from birth, no matter the distance. They would take it badly, but they would survive—at least, at first. Without the queen that spawned them, a changeling’s connection to the hive mind would be limited by power and distance, and we’ve already covered how reliant the average worker or drone is on the hive mind. Large groups of them, however, would survive, as would most specialized breeds.”

For the first time I can recall since I’ve met her, I can’t seem to read Sunset Shimmer’s face. I guess she has some diplomatic training after all… probably an automatic response to the usual sort of genocidal thoughts that naturally arise when dealing with politicians and diplomats.

“Generally speaking, though,” I add. “Killing a queen is a terrible idea to almost any goal.”

She snickers. “Well of course you’d say that.”

“Please,” I retort. “I said any goal, and I meant it objectively. There are other hives and other queens.”

“Fine; what’s so bad about a bunch of ad-hoc drones running around?”

“Well, they tend to die or get caught, for one. A bunch of feral drones running about isn’t good for anyone; they aren’t really capable of feeding non-destructively, so they tend to get ponies upset, making life hard for everyling else. The real problem is the ones that don’t go feral, though, because once things settle down, any ‘ad-hoc’ changeling hivemind with a healthy food supply will find itself with a new queen whether they like it or not, and these new queens tend to not get along.”

“Wonderful,” she says sourly. “Kill one queen, end up with a dozen more. I see your point. Why wouldn’t they get along, though? Why should brother kill brother, etcetera and so-forth?”

I shrug. “It’s just biology. Other hives… think differently.”

⁂

The weak green glow of my magic flickers as I levitate a glass of water over to Sunset Shimmer. “Are you feeling any better?” I ask.

Sunset shimmer groans as she stretches her tiny white chitin as far as it would go. “No,” she admits, her head drooping as she takes the glass in her tiny hooves and sets it down in front of herself while she shifts her position. “But you knew that.”

“I am sorry about the whole changeling thing, you know,” I say quite honestly. “I mean, I am aware of how lousy we are at magic, obviously.”

She takes a moment to gulp down as much of the glass as she can in one draw; not much, considering the fact that it just about reaches her withers.

Maybe I should have brought a smaller one.

She exhales loudly and coughs a little as she slams the glass down “If you’re going to apologize about something, apologize about making me a freaking albino!” she yells. “You told me I’d be a cockroach for a few weeks; you said nothing about crippling photosensitivity!”

“It shouldn’t be that bad,” I say with some concern. “Are you in pain? We had to—”

“I get why you did it, but it was still a surprise,” she interrupts. “And no, I’m fine in here. The bioluminescence is… nice, actually. Probably changeling instinct or some bullshit. I… can’t spend all my time in here, though. I don’t want to spend all my time in here.”

“Um…” I try and remember how rude it is to call somepony out on an obvious contradiction. The appropriate response eludes, me, and I decide it can’t be that bad. “I’m pretty sure you declared your desire to do just that earlier this morning.”

“That’s not—okay, that is what I said, but that’s not the point. Look, Twilight. I’ll make you a deal.”

I raise one eyebrow in question. “Go on.”

“I’ll… let you do it,” she says, forcing the words in fits and starts. “I’ll let you touch me… show me how to do the disguise thing… but after that, you let me go where I want.”

“That is the idea,” I tell her.

Her face twists into an adorable pout. “No, I mean, outside; alone. I just need some time away from all… this.”

Oh. “I… can’t agree to that,” I tell her. “I’m sorry, Sunset.”

“Twilight,” she insists. “Look at me! You’ve got to know I’ll come back!”

I sigh, set down the mess I’m working on and go back over to her. “Sunset—it’s not about that,” I say, sitting down in front of her, close enough that she has to look up at me. You look at yourself; even for a changeling, you’re barely old enough to be walking. I told you that your disguise is too fragile to go out.”

Her pout deepens into a sulk. “I know, but—”

“Look,” I interrupt. “I’ll have Shiny take you to the park, okay? He can keep anyone from running into you on the streets, and then he’ll hang back like a normal brother. You’ll barely know he’s there.”

Sunset Shimmer’s face instantly twisted to show what she thought about that idea.

“It’s the best I can do. Maybe in a week, after you’ve had a few visits from the foalsitter and some experience maintaining your disguise, that’ll change, but until then… you can still go out, but only if you have an escort for your own safety.”

“Wait—you said Shining Armor is going in the Chrysalis tonight. How long is that going to take?”

“There are fewer stages to rebirthing. A week, maybe.”

“Great. Just great.”

Author's Note:

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Comments

[Reese]

Nice to see more chapters of this. :)

"me. You look at"
Missing quotation mark?

[fractalman]

I blink, wondering how it is she keeps coming up with these things. “That is not what I meant, and will not be necessary. Platonic, motherly love is a perfectly acceptable substitute. The pony in question will merely be a foalsitter.”

Sunset Shimmer blanches. “That’s worse!”

HAH.

[Venerable Ro]

Nothing is ever as simple as we expect it to be.