• Published 23rd Feb 2016
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Buggy and the Beast - Georg



When a critically injured changeling is discovered by the ugliest and most disagreeable unicorn stallion in Baltimare, her only hope for survival is to somehow help them both to feel love again.

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15. That's Love

Buggy and the Beast

That’s Love


The next evening rolled around in a manner somewhat different than Beets was used to. Nectarine actually knocked at Beet Salad’s door, and when he answered, Beets found two somewhat subdued Nocturne standing outside of his door, although at least Sergeant Roquefort was carrying a paper sack in his mouth.

“They’re my Aunt Gladiolus’ breakfast muffins,” admitted the fully armored Night Guard in a somewhat embarrassed mumble. “Gabby Gladdy cornered us yesterday morning and I didn’t tell her about your… guest’s special attributes,” added Roquefort rather strenuously, although in a very low tone of voice appropriate for the apartment building hallway.

Nectarine promptly jumped into the lagging conversation with all four hooves. “She got a look at you when you dropped over to the clan house and couldn’t stop talking about how much healthier you seemed. She thought it was great that you were actually dating somepony who could change you so much, and made up a little something special for you and your little lovebug. Peppermint frosted sorghum muffins with chocolate chips and raspberry preserve filling. They’re shaped like little hearts and if you bite into them just right, the filling runs down your chin.”

Beets pressed a hoof into his forehead. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Neither of the dark pegasi talked much on the trip to work, although Nectarine did give a quick promise to meet with Beets for lunch as usual before he went winging off into the gathering darkness, and Roquefort avoided saying anything at all when he slipped away. This left Beets alone again as he tucked his sack lunch into his locker and punched in, which was perfectly to his liking.

As he walked the pathways of his patrol, the feeling of isolation continued, which was nearly to his liking. The occasional sound of a fluttering wing in a nearby cloud was the only sign that his impression of alone-ness was actually shared. Even his fellow night watchponies seemed to be avoiding his patrol path, and turned away when they saw him approaching in the distance, which was fine with Beets because it let him be alone with his thoughts.

Lunch, of course, was not alone, although Beets was surprised when Roquefort gave the pretense of stopping by to eat lunch with his cousin, which left the three of them almost wordlessly exchanging lunch items around the outside table. Even though Beets did not really like the orange he had in his carefully-labelled lunch, or the note encouraging him to eat it instead of just throwing it away, he actually managed to choke it down.

He was having more problems trying to choke down the way Roquefort was subtly implying that the situation would be better if Beets were just to give in and allow him to search the apartment.

“Get a warrant and we’ll talk,” said Beets for about the fifteenth time.

“We can talk now,” said Roquefort. “Once I get a warrant, we won’t be doing much talking.”

“You’re just trying to egg me into slugging you once,” said Beets. “You can use my arrest as an excuse to get a search warrant while I’m in the pokey.”

“Actually, I’m amazed you’ve lasted this long without hitting him,” said Nectarine, snacking on a small plastic container labelled ‘Friday - Mango Slices for Annoying Friend’ in the changeling’s neat script. “Maybe you can ask your marefriend if she has a sister for Rocco. Anything to make him less annoying would be appreciated.”

Once Roquefort had flown off to resume his distant and clandestine observation of Beet Salad, Nectarine leaned in close and whispered, “How are you holding out?”

“Holding out for the weekend tomorrow. I figure I should just vanish inside my apartment and not come out for two days.”

Nectarine snorted as he stuck the empty mango container back into the bag labelled ‘Friday Lunch Cleanup - Wash and store in cabinet.’ “You mean like you normally do over weekends. I swear, you have the social life of a hermit. One good thing about your roommate is she bugged you out of your normal routine.”

“Yeah.” Beets attempted to look contemplative while collecting his lunch things and separating the trash, recyclables, and reusables. “I’ve got another psych appointment this morning after work. You want to actually go someplace normal for breakfast for a change afterwards?”

“Well, I’d really like to…”

Nectarine fidgeted in a way Beets could recognize from a mile away. “But you’ve got plans with some sweet young thing,” he continued.

“Not really. My oldest colt has a day open tomorrow, and I was going to take him to the park to get a little flying practice in,” admitted Nectarine, carefully avoiding the word ‘visitation’ which he had always associated with prison. “He’s got Flight Camp coming up next year, and he’s been awfully self-conscious about living with a single mother.”

After a long pause, Beet Salad lit up his horn with the changeling detection spell and played it over his best friend.

“Now cut it out!” protested Nectarine. “It’s just… Seeing you and your cuddlebug made me realize I’m not going to be young and ravishingly attractive for more than another twenty years or so. There’s so many fillies to choose from, but someday I really need to pick just one and settle down.” He paused. “Maybe two.”

“Or three,” suggested Beets.

“Two,” stated Nectarine decisively. “At the most, and only if they can get along. Seriously, you’ve never heard a worse racket in your life than two mares laying into each other, hoof and horn, over who is going to get a little slice of Nectarine in their life.”

“I’ve heard a couple of your ex-marefriends say something about slicing,” said Beets with great solemnity. “It didn’t sound quite as pleasant as you think.”

* *

As he strolled home with his two ‘escorts’ to either side, Beet Salad exchanged his traditional path to his apartment for a visit to the neighborhood bodega. He nodded at the checkout mare on the way in, and produced his bits for the bill when he left, but that was about the extent of his interequine communications until he was back at his apartment door with several bags of groceries and one unwanted Royal Guard.

“Thank you, officer.” Beets levitated the last bag of groceries off Roquefort’s back and stacked it next to the door with the others.

Nectarine chimed in. “Yeah, thanks. A frail young thing like Beets really appreciates a strong handsome Royal Guard like you escorting him home through this dangerous neighborhood. Would you like a kiss from him as a reward before you leave?”

Roquefort regarded Beet Salad with a level stare which most distinctly did not include any puckering up.

“Well, you’re not getting any further than first base,” huffed Nectarine with a suppressed snort of laughter. “Unless…” He fluttered his eyelashes, which finally broke Nectarine, making him bite down on a hoof to suppress a snicker while he sat down with a thud on the other side of the hallway. “What would you like for breakfast, cuz?”

“A warrant,” said Roquefort.

“Stop,” begged Nectarine, who had curled himself up into a ball and wrapped himself in his dark wings to keep from laughing. “Oh, please. I need a camera. You two look like an old married couple.”

“Ain’t going to happen,” said Beets, feeling in a much better mood than he had in months. “The only way you’re getting in here without a warrant is if you have Princess Luna standing by your side, saying ‘Pretty please.’ The real Princess Luna,” added Beets. “I’ve got a spell to check for changelings now.”

Once Roquefort had flown away and Beets felt fairly confident he was not going to return soon, he cast a serious glance at his giggling friend. “Whatever would I have done if he kissed me?”

“With tongue? Bit him, probably,” said Nectarine with one last laugh. “Remember when Tubby Tangelo kissed you on a dare in fourth grade?”

“Tangy wasn’t… chubby,” said Beets. “Besides, I was in a particularly bad mood. Now get up off the hallway carpet and help me lug the groceries inside if you expect me to make you any breakfast muffins now that—” Beets glanced down the empty hallway “—Sultry’s are all gone.”

“Really?” Nectarine helped bring in and put away the groceries, which included a lot of the ‘mix’ and ‘pre-baked’ food groups, before regarding the glowing green lump still in the corner of Beet Salad’s living room. “You don’t think she just made enough to cover her time in the slime, do you?”

“If so, she would have hatched by now.” Beets dug out a cookie sheet and distributed frozen blueberry muffins over it before turning on the oven. “Our lunch was the last container she packed for me.”

Nectarine grunted absently, still looking at the glowing green lump. Once the muffins had been put in to bake and Beets joined his friend, he added, “Beets, does it look darker than before?”

“How in Hades am I supposed to know?” growled Beets. “Probably. I hope that means she’s growing a new skin, not going rotten.” He shuddered with the thought of the translucent green goop which had come out of the changeling’s dry chitinous container. The pale violet shell was still leaning against the wall, and he stood it up for a while and examined it. It was weirdly reminiscent of a blow-up doll who had made an appearance at one of the Port Authority employee’s bachelor parties, only splintered and cracked in places, and entirely far too anatomically correct to pass off as an ordinary pony.

* *

Once he had taken his shower and Nectarine had gone home with one of the freshly re-baked muffins, Beets sat down with the rest of the hoof shellac and a tattered brush. It seemed a little like renovating an apartment after the occupant had moved out, or his own stressful time while cleaning out the family home by himself after his mother had died. Still, he propped the dry changeling ‘skin’ up against a chair and applied the brush carefully in order to seal the splintered places where the inhabitant had broken the surface while moulting.

After a while, he began to hum while painting. It seemed an oddly intimate experience, for some reason far more so than when the shell had been inhabited. If it generated a little love for the survival of the battered bug in the green goop nearly within touching distance, that was just fine. He brushed the thin areas around the joints and applied his drying spell as he went, so the hollow changeling could stand on her own as he progressed upwards. Certain areas he left untouched, as even without her inside, he really did not want to be exploring them with a brush. It was most certainly a futile and stupid maneuver. If the changeling survived, she was going to destroy the shell as evidence, and if she died…

Idiosyncrasy and her kind would most certainly want this kind of evidence of their existence to vanish. Him too, if possible. The fact that changelings had been living with ponies for years was an obvious secret now, but had been well-kept… well, ignored for centuries. Certainly, there were newspaper articles and photographs now, but given the tendency for ponies to ignore what ceases to be news after a few months or years, the changeling detection spells being so vigorously used now would most likely be ignored totally by next year and forgotten in ten. Actually, from the newspaper articles he had read about changelings showing up every century or so, Sultry could possibly be hundreds of years old. The papers had even mentioned something about the queen being able to put her swarm into a deep sleep for extended periods of time. She could even be as old as Starswirl the Bearded, who had first discovered the insectile race and supposedly had been instrumental in their initial defeat.

For an old geezer, he sure got around. I wonder if he ever slept with her.

Beets was just touching up a particularly tricky series of fractured places on the back of ‘Shelly the Changeling’ when there was a sharp knock at his apartment door. It swung open almost immediately afterwards, proving conclusively that Nectarine was incapable of locking the door after himself.

“Apartment visit,” called out Missus Spitonoikokýris as she stepped through the doorway.

She stopped talking immediately afterwards, as her sharp eyes took in Beet Salad kneeling on the floor with a paintbrush, applying shellac to a ghostly-appearing changeling while a glowing green lump of goo in the background throbbed slowly. Beets knew just how sharp a griffon’s vision was, and how his landlord could size up a single scratch on the wall across the room and tell how many bits it was going to take to fix in a glance. Those sharp blue eyes darted from Beets, to the hollow changeling shell, to the glowing green lump on the floor, and back again, over and over.

“Can I help you, Missus Spitonoikokýris?” He had to ask. It was the only thing he could think of which was not profanity.

Something seemed to click in the griffon’s mind, and those sharp eyes darted over to meet his in a fierce glare. “You should have told me,” she snapped.

Beets shrugged. It seemed to be as much as he could do at the moment.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of staring, the elderly griffon clicked her beak several times and left without a word. Beets reached out with his magic and quietly closed the door after her. He did not bother with the locks, because Missus Spitonoikokýris had the keys, and most certainly the police officers she was going to bring were not going to care if he attached the little security chain.

He went back to painting. It seemed to be the right thing to do at the moment.

After about an hour as he was running a drying spell over the last bits of his work, there was another knock at the apartment door. It was far slower and more respectful than the police would use, lacking as it did the sound of a battering ram and the bellowing of officers shouting orders. It repeated after a brief moment, and Beets put down the touch-up brush he had been using on a few small shellac cracks in order to open the door.

Instead of a phalanx of heavily-armed police officers, the apartment hallway held three griffons. The first was his landlord, who looked more submissive and meek than ever before. The second was a somewhat larger but similarly meek griffon of similar colors with a starched shirt and pressed jacket. The third…

He was a tall and distinctive tiercel, with every single feather and plume in place and glossy with a perfect coat of oil from extensive preening. Few griffons wore jewelry. Even his landlord only wore a golden ring on one wing primary feather as a memento of her departed mate, and on very special occasions, an ornate silver band around one foreleg. This griffon looked as if he had been mugged by a jewelry store. A tasteful jewelry store, where none of the pieces had price labels and if you were to ask how much, you were politely asked to leave. Each claw or wing had some sort of adornment, ranging from a complex weave of gold wires up to a thin band of gold and silver studded in amethysts and rubies across his right foreleg. There was even a crown of sorts reigning over his head, studded with perfect little diamonds in a diaphanous golden mesh of wires looking more woven than forged.

The large griffon looked down at Beet Salad as if he had all the time in the world, looking very regal and patient. The slightly smaller jacket-clad griffon to his side stepped forward and asked, “Is this the residence of Beet Salad?”

“I’m Beet Salad,” said Beets, trying to figure out if lighting his horn with the changeling detection spell would be a good idea or a lethal insult. He decided against the urge, if nothing else to keep blood out of his new carpet, which Missus Spitonoikokýris would probably charge his estate to clean afterwards.

“Might my master enter?” The shorter but still tall griffon bobbed his head in a gesture Beets recognized as subservience, but it still rankled him to be treated this casually.

“Might I have your master’s name?” asked Beets, putting just a hint of a sneer in his voice. The griffons most certainly were not police, and there was no way he could honestly think of them as changelings, but he was having trouble adjusting to the concept that some important griffon who was wearing more jewelry than the whole building was probably worth would come to his door.

The griffon reached into his vest and produced a small golden box, which he snapped open to extract a gilt-edged card with a flick of his wrist. Beets cautiously floated the card over in front of him and looked at it, trying to maintain his composure.

Roux

“Never heard of him,” responded Beets and floated the card back over to the smaller griffon, who simply grasped the card and pushed it in his direction again.

“My master only has a few hours free in his schedule, but his aunt convinced him to visit your studio so that he might see your latest work. He is quite interested in changelings.”

Beets took the card in his magic and considered his situation.

Buck it. How much worse can it get?

He opened the door and went inside without saying a word, but left the door open for the griffons to proceed inside, each of them bobbing their head to get under the doorframe except for Missus Spitonoikokýris. They ignored the glowing green blob in the corner of the room, but instead, lined up in front of the empty shell of the changeling, with the tall, gem-encrusted griffon in the center.

Griffons had a way of looking at things far differently than ponies. Roux cocked his head to one side abruptly, then slowly moved it back and forth as he took in the empty shell from one end to the other. He even turned his head upside-down to look underneath it, which was a little unnerving for Beets. Finally, he turned to his servant and gave a short nod of his head.

The servant turned to Beets and repeated the short nod. “Two thousand bits.”

Something deep inside Beet Salad’s chest snapped. Just a few lengths away, the changeling who had occupied that brittle shell was fighting for her life, a fight she was probably going to lose, and these griffons were only interested in how many bits her empty carapace was worth.

“Get out,” he growled, almost under his breath.

“Pardon me?” The servant cocked his head and looked at Beet Salad, but took a step backwards when Beets stepped forward.

“I said, get out. Get out of my apartment. Now.”

“But—” started the servant. He did not get the chance to finish.

“GET OUT!” shouted Beets, stepping forward to put his nose right up against the servant’s beak. “How dare you! Get out before I throw you out! NOW!”

The servant crabbed backwards, his tall aristocratic superior stumbling to keep somegriffon between him and the unhinged unicorn. “Perhaps we can negotiate a—”

“OUT!” bellowed Beets, flaring his magic up and shoving the larger and considerably more lethal predator backwards. “You have no idea how much this means to me! You don’t know what I’ve gone through!”

“Ten-thousand bits,” said the servant, stumbling backwards into the doorway as the rest of the griffons piled into the hallway outside. “I assure you—”

“You can’t put a price tag on something like this!” bellowed Beets. “For the first time in my life, I cared about something, and you think you can just make it go away by throwing bits at me?” He grabbed his door in his magic and tried to shut it only to find the servant’s foreleg in the way.

“Fifty-thousand bits,” he gasped as the door slammed against his foreleg.

“OUT!” bellowed Beets, slamming the door again.

“Seventy-five thousand,” gasped the griffon almost inaudibly as the door slammed into his foreleg again. This time, Beets forced his magic against the griffon to shove him away from the door before slamming it with a satisfying noise which shook the building.

As his hammering heartbeat began to calm and his temper cool, Beets took several deep breaths, trying not to think about what he had just done. It was remarkably ineffectual, considering that the griffon in the hallway was scratching at his door and calling out, “One hundred thousand, and that’s our last offer.”

What?

Beet Salad slowly opened his door and regarded the three griffons outside in the hallway with just as calm and placid an expression as he could manage. “What?” he asked, verbalizing the question which had been bouncing around inside his empty head.

The tall wealthy griffon stepped forward. “My gallery has many representations of the races of Equestria, but nothing from the changelings. Your artistic interpretation of a changeling drone is most impressive for an amateur, but there are some serious flaws in your other work.” The griffon pointed past Beet Salad at the glowing lump of changeling goo in the corner of his living room. “An obviously flawed representation of a changeling cocoon, without the correct coloring, texture, or luminosity. It also reeks of artificial coloring and muffins. I suppose you built it with colored gelatin?”

“Uh. Yes.” Beets cast a quick glance over his shoulder, trying to figure out just what he would say if his roommate picked this particular unfortunate time to ‘hatch.’ Somehow, he did not think he could pass it off as performance art.

“Dispose of it before it begins to rot,” said Roux. “I had the misfortune of purchasing a Diamond Dog exhibit piece similar to your creation. It stunk up my whole gallery, and it took a week to clean up the mess. Now…” The griffon held out a claw and his servant placed a checkbook in it.

* *

Several hours later after the griffon had packaged his odd purchase and departed, Beets sat in the quiet apartment, looking at the check. Missus Spitonoikokýris was certainly going to get her claws onto a certain amount of those zeros for having an unapproved art studio in his studio apartment, but the rest of them were going into the investment bank where his family’s estate money had gone, less taxes.

There was another knocking at the door, and Beets checked to make sure the changeling cocoon was totally covered in newspapers before he opened it up, expecting to see Sergeant Roquefort with a platoon of Royal Guards and a cage. Instead, Nectarine was standing there, shifting his position from hoof to hoof as if he was expecting to see his cousin and a platoon of Royal Guards inside the apartment.

“Beets!” said Nectarine as he looked around the apartment in a frenzy. “I heard a bunch of griffons came by and I flew right over. What happened? Where’s… the thing?”

“Gone. Missus Spitonoikokýris’ nephew bought it.” A sense of tired whimsey overcame Beets, and he waved the check around. “Actually paid me for it, too.”

“Daaad?” came a youthful voice from around the corner. “I thought we were going to go flying.”

“My son,” explained Nectarine with a furtive glance backwards at a bright blue colt who was rolling his eyes and tapping one hoof in the hallway. “We’ll be done in a minute, Flash.”

“I told you, Dad. My name’s Spark Gap now. See!” The little colt displayed his rump and the lightning bolt on it with all the pride of a youthful cutie mark owner.

Beet Salad nodded in approval, trying to act like ‘Uncle Beets’ despite the chaos whirling around in his head. “Very good. I think I still have some muffins under the cover in the kitchen. Since I missed your cutecinerea, would you like one?”

“You bet!” The little colt bolted between Beet Salad’s legs and into the kitchenette quicker than Beets could blink, and was on the chair with a muffin crammed into his face a moment later. Nectarine slipped into the apartment behind him and slumped up against the wall, lowering his voice.

“You really sold it? I thought you were going to sleep with that thing. I had no idea you’d sell it at a yard sale. Did Buggie hatch out and leave?”

“No. She’s under the newspapers back there.” Beet Salad lit his horn and moved more newspapers on top of the glowing green lump, just in case of youthful curiosity. “There seem to be visible lines deep inside it now, so hopefully she’s about ready to hatch.”

Or she died, and I just won’t admit it.

“Look, I’m bushed,” said Beets. “It was a long night at work and I had to deal with griffons this morning. If you want to be helpful, run this check over to Fiscus, Procurator, and Año and have it deposited in my family account for me. Please?”

“I had plans!” announced Nectarine with a dark hoof across his chest. “We were going to go to the park and practice flying.”

The little colt looked up from the crumbs of his third blueberry muffin. “I thought you were just going to stand around the park all day and talk to mares like you normally do.”

“Flying,” announced Nectarine with great sincerity.

“How about this?” Beet Salad dug out his bit bag and peeked inside before floating it over to the little colt. “I need somebody reliable to watch over my friend while he runs some errands for me. Here’s fifteen bits. If you make sure he takes my check to the investment bank, and takes you flying afterwards, that should be enough money for the both of you to have ice cream and cake, my treat. Deal?”

“Deal!” said the little colt, darting over and giving Beets a high-hoof.

Beet Salad tore a deposit slip out of his checkbook and scribbled in the amount before endorsing the check and floating the two pieces of paper over to Nectarine, who tucked them away and turned for the door.

“Come on, Sparky. Get some sleep, Beets. I’ll see you tonight—” Nectarine lowered his voice to a bare whisper “—just don’t cuddle up to your cuddlebug before she hatches.”

He was still chuckling when the apartment door closed and Beet Salad flipped all of the locks including the security chain, but it was Beets’ turn to chuckle when he heard the gurgled cry through the door a few moments later.

“A hundred-thousand clams? Beets!”