A Penny for your thought

by Damaged

51 - Friendship prisoners

"Are you okay?"

The words startled Penny out of her funk. Looking up, the mare saw that she was being addressed by the umbrum who had led those who captured them. "I am, but a little hungry. We were on our way to get some food so I could feed my marefriend."

"Such a simple request? Not 'let my friends go' or 'you will not get away with this'?" It was definitely a mare they were speaking to and she smiled then, in a way that would horrify most happy little ponies.

Penny was not just a pony and smiled back, showing off a little fang. "The first? You aren't going to do that. The second? Please, I am not that melodramatic. The decisions will be made by those further up the chain and we simple ponies will live with it, either way. If you find me some food, I will be your friend forever."

It got a laugh from the umbrum who gave the order to others. "You don't have to just lay there, you can stand up and stretch your legs."

Stick looked to wobble a little and Penny was instantly on her hooves and supporting her friend. "Here, not too much though, I don't want to pass out too." Penny channeled a little magic, directing it all internally to that odd place within her. Stick moved almost on instinct, her teeth bared and rubbing the mare's neck. "Whoa girl, calm down, we don't want to give them a show."

"What are you doing?" The words were from another umbrum, it's eyes wide at the display before them.

Penny couldn't speak then, as fangs slid gently into her neck.

"She is feeding her. Stick, there, is a changeling. They feed on love." Twilight, to the rescue, distracted from the Luna-statue. "Mostly they tend to be aggressive about it, although from what I understand Stick is only this way when she is drained."

Penny tried to nod to this but the changeling's fangs were quite insistent she hold very still. An umbrum returned with some bread rolls. "Will these do?"

"Stick, please, I will eat and you can have what you want from me." The fangs in Penny's neck released and her neck was kissed, then licked.

"Sorry, it… I don't like being this hungry…" Stick sounded tiny, like she was really scared.

"Thank you. My name is Penny Farthing. This is Stick." Penny introduced herself to the umbrum who brought the food.

"I am called Shadow Whisper." They gave a little bow. "Help your friend, she did really well to protect you."

Penny nodded to the reply and started scoffing the food, feeling it practically dissolve in her belly as the molecules were quickly broken down into energy. Energy Penny channeled. Stick was suddenly close again, but not bitey this time.

"You really feed her like this? All the time?" The leader looked fascinated with the act. "Oh, I am Dreams Caress."

Penny grinned around the food and nodded, but it was Stick who spoke. "She does, although I try not to drain myself like this. Needing to feed is pretty instinctual, but it doesn't have to be all fangs and nasty all the time. I could show you if you want?"

The implication that the changeling feed off her had Dreams a touch intrigued but she had to shake her head. "I need to remain impartial here. I don't know what tricks you could do, for instance, could you drain me? Enslave me?"

"A stronger changeling might do the latter, the most I can do is drink you to a dangerous point. All you would need to do is focus on emotions other than love." Stick shrugged and leaned in against Penny, kissing some crumbs away from one cheek. "My marefriend here is stuck, silly filly can only ever seem to think of love when I am around."

Penny paused long enough to kiss Stick's nose, getting a sneeze from the changeling who was now standing much more easily.

"Enough, my little snack, eat for yourself and our future." Stick drew back a little so she could nuzzle Penny's belly.

"You didn't lie, she is with foal?" Dreams blinked a few times now. "Your foal?"

Stick nodded with a silly grin. "I hope they are mine, or Penny has a lot of explaining to do!"

This confused the umbrum. "But you are both mares? This is… odd?"

"Here, have some more energy, show her." Penny radiated more love to the changeling and, in a moment, there was a duplicate of Shining Armor standing there. The green flame that brought about the change faded.

"Hi!" Stick flicked her more voluminous mane and stood tall. "Whoa, calm down." She quickly shifted back to her normal shape as the umbrum seemed startled at.

Shadow had moved in front of Dreams and Penny suddenly had the realization that they were possibly a couple, or destined to be. "Please, it was just a display, she won't do it again." Penny stepped between the umbrum and Stick and this seemed to make even Shadow back down a little, unwilling to attack a pregnant mare.

"Quite a trick." Dreams stepped around the stallion, her form brushing his just slightly in a way that made Penny giggle. "I bet it would make sneaking among regular ponies quite the thing."

"I don't like sneaking, not when I can be open about who and what I am." Stick stepped up to Penny's side and lifted a hoof toward Dreams. "Sorry about startling you, friends?"

The umbrum mare looked shocked worse now than when Stick had shifted her form. "What… what do you mean? We are enemies. We are monsters!"

Stick was left hanging a moment before Shadow lifted his hoof and clopped it against the changeling's. "Don't be so old-school, Sombra said they could be let out, they didn't fight us." He emphasized the word 'fight' and sent a glare toward the statue of Luna standing beside the other cage and it's occupants. "And she is as much a monster as we are. Dreamy, even her friend has fangs!"

Dreams was defeated on so many fronts. Her sometimes-special-friend was speaking a lot of truth and could she not stand where he dared? "Damn you for being so nice." Nopony would be able to tell if she directed it at Shadow or the other ponies, but she finally clopped her hoof to Stick's.

"There, now we need to plan. If all this goes belly up, what do you think should happen?"

Penny surprised everypony present. "What do you mean? King Sombra… your pink princess… they will decide…" Dreams looked a little lost.

"You really want to put your lives in the hooves of those ponies? Don't get me wrong, Sombra is wicked-awesome, so much power it sends chills up my spine. And I love Cadance in a way that defies words. But I don't want either running my life."

Shadow shook his head. "King Sombra got us out of that forever-damned place. We owe it to him to stand by his word."

Contemplating that answer, Penny gave a sigh and nodded. "Okay then, I can understand that. I was dying, when I first came to this world. That pony," she gestured to the Luna-statue, "saved my life and gave me a new beginning to live. If she were harmed I… I don't know what I wouldn't do. So let's sit here, then, and wait."

Stick lay down with Penny, at her side.

---

"What's that sound?" Articulate Equation perked an ear, the one not trapped in the gentle teeth of a mare.

"Hrmm? Oh, probably some fool thing. Lets leave princesses and elements to fight it." Perfect was snuggled against Art, each of them with a pad of paper out, idly writing down ideas and thoughts.

"I guess you are right, if it is something crazy, neither of us are equipped to deal with it. Oh, what is that?" The stallion gestured to some equations that Perfect had been reworking.

"This? Just working out how we are to lend bits. I think we base the amount that needs to be paid back off two things. If we can get a partial share in a running business and secondly, how soon they intend to pay us."

Art liked this in her, she made her mathematics apply into the real world. He enjoyed seeing real uses for the functions he loved. "Did you ever see what those railway ponies were writing down?"

The words surprised Perfect, she wasn't aware he had any interest in that project at all. "No?"

"So much mathematics is involved in their trade. Even the design of those wheels the trains run on are strictly calculated." She raised an eyebrow at his description.

"Did you want to look at them? I could probably get a copy." Perfect lifted a hoof and swapped pads with Art, startling him but getting a giggle as his diagrams of trains was suddenly replaced with financial mathematics, that he continued on with, not a single pause taken.

Perfect began something that soon had his attention; she was drawing trains now. "What are… smaller? A train that small couldn't carry anything!" It had his attention, she added details, to it that he was astounded somepony who didn't spend every other waking moment watching the things would pick up on.

"You like these monsters of locomotion, what if we made a small one, just the right size for a pony to play with?" Perfect held up her pad to him and they swapped again. "Oh, you solved this?" His short work of the function she had been wrestling with earned him a kiss that soon distracted the stallion even from his trains.

---

"You are terrible at inciting rebellion." Stick nipped at Penny's shoulder. "Why even suggest it?"

Penny sighed. "Because this is all silly. Sombra can take his ponies and find a nice place to live. Cadance can restore Luna and whatever other pony it was that was shattered. There could even be rainbows, just not destructive ones." She turned to look at the sullen 'mane six'. "This is all just formality and Luna almost died because of it, it's stupid."

Stick nodded and lay her head on Penny's back, resting her neck over the mare's soft-furred spine. "She can be un-stoned?"

"Remember what Cadance and Silver were asking us about, shards? They are of another pony who was stoned like that, then shattered. If they think they can restore from that much, a statue is easier, right?"

Stick nodded a little, Penny not needing to see it to know she agreed.

"Right, so we wait and waste time that could be spent planning doing nothing."

Shadow lay down near them. "Okay, now that I can agree on. So we could plan for both ways this could swing."

Dreams gave up her efforts to deny her attraction to Shadow and lay beside him. "So, which do we start with?"

"You go first. If Sombra stands defiant, wants this to be a fight, what do we all do?" Penny turned to look at the pair.

"Well, the first step would be to secure the city. Everypony needs to be captured." Shadow had that answer.

"And food? Ponies need to eat, I am not sure of your kind, excuse my lack, but if you don't have a good food supply there is going to be a whole lot of useless ponies." Penny turned further and nuzzled Stick's cheek.

Dreams nodded. "You are right there. So we move in advance, we can get ponies to their crops and get food moving now. Supervised of course."

"That is sensible either way, ponies need to eat…" Stick trailed off and implied the question again.

This had the pair of umbrum looking quite surprised. "Wait, what do you mean we…" Shadow looked perplexed.

"Have been locked away… I don't even remember if we do eat…" Dreams looked just as lost. "Maybe we should try?"

There was still a few loaves in the basket Shadow had gotten for Penny, the lunar unicorn offering one up. "Strange…" Dreams looked surprised and distracted by the odd sensation that was eating.

Author's Note:

If hunger makes you angry and upset, and the umbrum have been locked up for long enough to forget what food is, does this mean all their problems can be solved by cake and muffins?

Maybe Sweetie Drops could have saved everypony the trouble and just brought some chocolates?

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Comments

[Dravkwn]

Penny in one area, Silver in another, they conquer the common in one and the leaders in the other. I'm loving these two stories pairing up so well.

[No one is home]

I've seen few problems that cannot be solved with the proper application of bread.

[harts fire]

a chapter to think about I have a feeling Penny and Stick made a new friend. Dreams

[terrycloth]

Cake or Death?

[Daremo]

Looking up the mare - Looking up, the mare

Who girl - Whoa girl

scoffing - scarfing

basked - basket

and it was offered - passive voice here

*****

Well, if they do need to eat there are a lot of umbrum that are going to be fading with hunger shortly. Hopefully they prefer grains, fruit, and veggies to ponies.

Each chapter is more and more enjoyable as we read how your story meshes with Mr. Silver's, and the contrast between challenge solving strategies. Penny and Stick really embody the make love not war mentality... or is that speak softly and carry a large Stick?

[Damaged]

6947181 Food is important. If you are hungry all the time you end up more grumpy. Maybe Sombra could use a chocolate bar?

Also, "scoffing", as an informal verb, can mean eating :)

6947142 No choice, even Celestia knows.

[Daremo]

6947385

Also, "scoffing", as an informal verb, can mean eating :)

Ah... just looked it up and you are correct. Scoff was the original word derived from dutch and scarf is the more recent mispronounciation. Learn something new every day. Thanks!

[Daremo]

6947385 Imagine how much faster minds would turn if they'd fed the umbrum chocolate instead of bread? Quick, someone summon Sweetie Drops to the Crystal Empire!

[tsaukpaetra]

We need Pinkie's emergency party supplies STAT!
Also *insert Snickers commercial here*
Keep going! ;)

[Vutava]

He emphesized the word 'fight' and sent a glare toward the statue of Luna standing beside the other cage and it's occupants.

emphasized

So lets sit here, then, and wait.

let's

[Cursed Quill]

Dreams Caress."

Dream's Caress...perhaps. Too little context to tell if it's supposed to be possessive.

[Damaged]

7248164 "Dreams Caress" is their name.

[Chrome Masquerade]

If hunger makes you angry and upset, and the umbrum have been locked up for long enough to forget what food is, does this mean all their problems can be solved by cake and muffins?

Or at least a few well-placed Snickers bars.