Creating A Hive

by Authora97

Rainbow Falls

Raspberry turned another page in her folder. She used her magic to dangle a cat toy. Cookie reached for it again, swiping at it with her claws. Dark Justice was trying to read a comic book, pointedly ignoring his two sisters. Dynamite kept trying to throw Cookie off by throwing another toy.

Thorax caught the toy before it could make an impact. He sat beside Raspberry, beaming. “What did I miss?”

Raspberry hummed. She kept scribbling on her papers.

“Starry?” Thorax prompted.

She kept scribbling.

Thorax turned to Dark Justice. “What did I miss?”

Dark Justice ignored him to read the book.

Thorax turned to the girls- his good family, who surely would be the ones to answer his question. “What did I miss?”

Cookie had caught the toy. She was chewing on it now, trying to reach the small bell inside. Dynamite rolled her eyes. “Nothing, Dad. We’ve just been sitting around.”

He relaxed. He moved to sit closer to Raspberry. His body changed into a puppy dog. He curled into Raspberry’s side. She used her wing to hold his back. She kept working on the papers.

“Have you seen Thor-” A blue changeling walked up. They squeaked, clapping their hooves over their mouth.

The kids looked up. They all gawked at the changeling. They hadn’t met any changelings before, not since they all changed.

“Wow!” Cookie buzzed over to the embarrassed changeling. “A new changeling!”

Dynamite leaned in. “What’s it like to not have chitin anymore?”

Dark Justice lowered his book. He didn’t see much reason to ask questions. He kept reading, but kept an ear out to their conversation.

“Do really eat friendship now? Or- or are there other things you eat?” Dynamite asked.

Cookie buzzed around the changeling. They ducked to avoid the griffin’s curious claws. “Like Daddy! He eats other food all the time. Like he eats cookies and cake and pancakes and one time he ate hay nuggets!” She stopped herself, perching on the divider on the seats. She whispered in the way all children did. “But don’t tell Mommy. She thinks I eated them.”

The changeling squeaked again.

Thorax sat up from Raspberry’s wing. He shifted back to his changeling form. “Sorry Ziggy! You don’t have to answer that.” He lifted Cookie off the divider. The griffin giggled. “Everything okay?”

The changeling nervously glanced at the gathered family. “Uhh...just wanted to say...thanks for joining our relay time.” They shifted on their hooves. “It- Uh- really means a lot.”

“Oh no worries!” Thorax beamed. “Queen Thorne offered me any part in the Olympics and, well, considering how few changelings signed on at first I volunteered for the flag and for a sport. After our first meeting a lot more signed on, you know? But Queen Thorne still wanted me to be in an event.”

Beside him, Raspberry scribbled on her papers. She turned the page, reading it with the same intensity of a heart surgeon.

“She said I would be great in the relay, so that’s what I signed for!” Thorax cheered. “Who else is on our team?”

“Waffle.” Ziggy stuttered. They glanced around at Raspberry again. “But...but she was- um- just-”

“Yeah?” Thorax prompted, curious.

Ziggy swallowed. “I- gotta get back to our carriage. Bye!” They rushed back towards the exit door. They practically slammed it shut, they were in such a hurry.

Thorax sat back, confused. “Huh.”

“What was that about?” Dynamite asked.

Thorax shrugged.

“Why does they- that changeling have the name, Toby-bia?” Cookie asked.

Raspberry snickered.

“Well Cookie, it’s easy. Some changelings were given scary names by the old Queen.” Thorax explained. “Some of them chose to Equestrianize their names. One of the changelings was called ‘Poison’ and she changed it to ‘Waffle’.”

Raspberry hummed, thoughtful.

“Waffles can be poisoned.” Dark Justice noted.

Raspberry gave him a proud nod.

Thorax held back a sigh. She’d been thinking the same thing, huh? “Another changeling I heard about was Phobia. They’re probably thinking about changing it. I can understand. If my name was scary, I would change it.”

“Like how my sister changed her’s?” Raspberry joked. She glanced up from her paperwork to smile at Thorax. He smiled back.

“No.” He replied.

“Hi every-ah-body!” Twilight cheered. She walked over to their seats.

They all greeted her.

“I thought it was really awesome of you guys to sign on for the relay.” Twilight praised.

“Correction: he signed on for the relay. And the flag carrying.” Raspberry corrected. “I am being the parent that watches the kids.”

“That’s us!” Cookie cheered. She hopped back over to Dynamite. The pegasus caught her, dropping her down on the seat. “We are the kids!”

Twilight smiled at them. “That’s great. I’m looking forward to seeing you compete. I would show more support, but Ponyville is my team. I know the others support you too-”

“We get it.” Raspberry waved her hoof. She didn’t look up from her papers. “Rainbow Dash is on the- Cookie stop pulling her wings.”

Cookie pouted. She let go of a struggling Dynamite’s feathers. At Raspberry’s condemnation, she crawled over to Dark Justice.

“No. Don’t do that either!” Raspberry warned.

Thorax’s antlers lit up in blue. Cookie was floated into the air. She whined as she was brought into Thorax’s hooves. “Sorry Twilight. She’d been antsy since Lilac went away.”

Cookie yelled loudly. Raspberry rushed over to put a good on Cookie’s beak.

Dynamite chuckled. Dark Justice glanced up from his book.

“See you at Rainbow Falls!” Thorax cheered, hugging a struggling Cookie to his chest.

Twilight gave them a polite wave before walking away.

He turned to Raspberry, who was putting away the papers in her saddlebags. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that stuff?”

“I’ll tell you later. It’s not a big thing.” Raspberry held out her hooves. Thorax passed over the struggling Cookie. “You go see the changelings.”

“Really?” Thorax asked. Raspberry nodded. “Thanks!” He kisses her cheek before rushing off to the other carriage.

Raspberry blew out a breath.

“He’s going to mess up something in the relay, isn’t he?” Dark Justice prompted.

“Oh without a doubt.” Raspberry replied. She handed a chew toy to Cookie. The griffin child latched onto it, happily teething it with her beak.

==CAH==

The Rainbow Falls were aptly names. The falls were surrounded by a tiny fishing village. They had sky full of rainbow clouds, which poured down rainbows in waterfalls. The waterfalls themselves cast rainbows down into rainbow puddles below.

All in all, beautiful scenery.

The Stardust family walked off the train.

Thorax turned to Raspberry. “I gotta go help the others settle in.”

Raspberry nodded. She tucked her paperwork into her saddlebag. Something different than her usual Infinity Bag. This was a simple saddlebag. Thorax had realized he’d never seen her wearing one before. “I’ll walk the kids around the block. Think I see a toy store over there.”

“You’re volunteering to take Cookie to a toy store?” Thorax joked.

Raspberry shrugged. “They’d have it in rainbow. And I’d like to see what they got.”

“Ah. Human Pride.” Thorax nodded. “You’ve got our flag carrying plan done, right? On the train?”

“No. I did paperwork from Tracy.” Raspberry answered. Thorax’s eyes bugged out. “What?”

“You did paperwork from Tracy?” Thorax repeated.

Raspberry said nothing to Thorax. She turned her head towards the kids. “Younglings, come on! Time to go full tourist.” She walked past Thorax. She made sure to kiss his cheek before walking off. “You can buy one thing for the whole trip. And I mean it! Choose wisely. Dynamite, I’m looking at you!”

Thorax watched in confusion while his family walked off into town. Before he could overthink it, a changeling leapt onto his back.

“Hello!” Thorax knew this one. He turned his head to see a neon orange changeling, with compound blue eyes beaming at him. “I missed you!”

Thorax chuckled. “Waffle, you just saw me on the train.”

“And then we got off the train. And then you walked over here without us. I missed you!” Waffle hugged Thorax tighter. Thorax gagged.

Ziggy flew over. “Come on, Waffle, he needs to breathe.”

Waffle froze. “My bad!” She let go of Thorax, sliding off his back. She beamed as if she hadn’t just been reprimanded. “Have you seen how many rainbows this place has?! It’s so many. I didn’t know they came from clouds! It’s so exciting. Where are we going?”

Thorax pointed out towards the relay training area. “Over there. There’s going to be a lot of other competitors, so we each get a little patch of land for training and flying.”

“Awesome!” Waffle flew up, dashing away.

Thorax winced. “I didn’t tell her which area.”

Ziggy sighed. “So we should chase her down, huh?”

Thorax heard murmurings at his side. He looked over, seeing the Equestrians eyeing his people with caution. He looked over to see a lot more changelings gawking around at the rainbows. There wasn’t a lot of color back in the Hive, despite all the changes made recently. waiting by the train station.

“You go. I’ll catch up.” Thorax stated. Ziggy gave him a confused look. “Consider it early practice. I need to get everyling else to their stations.”

Ziggy gave him a look. “You won’t get side tracked and go do something else, will you?”

“What? No. Why would I do that?” Thorax asked.

“Cause-” Ziggy glanced away. “Whatever. Just remember to come practice.” They buzzed off after Waffle.

Thorax hummed. “That was weird.” He went over to the group of changelings gawking at the rainbows. “Alright everyone! We need to get started, okay?”

The changelings all beamed in joy. The attention and looks from the Equestrians not even showing up on their faces.

“Dodger, you take the competitive flyers to the area marked in...ah...purple!” A green changeling nodded. He and two other changelings flying off that way. “Aztec, take the disc throwers to the one marked in blue.” Another changeling nodded before going off. “Lance take the lance throwers-”

“It’s the orange one.” Lance replied. “I read the pamphlet on the train a hundred times!”

“Of course you did.” Thorax noted. “Well hop to it!”

Lance nodded before flying off.

Thorax watched the last of the changelings head off. Once that was done, he went over to find where his group had ended up.

If he spared a look towards town, searching for Raspberry and the kids, he never said.

==CAH==

“How do we play?” Waffle asked.

“You signed for a game you didn’t know how to play?” Thorax asked.

“Yeah!” Waffle answered.

“Okay.” Thorax couldn’t really say anything. He signed on for a lot of dumb stuff in the human world- at Morgan’s suggestion- without knowing before hoof. Morgan had definitely done it to make Darcy laugh. “Okay...I can work with that.”

Waffle beamed.

Ziggy walked up. They held up a hoof. “I know how to play!”

“Oh, cool.” Thorax grinned. “Then I guess I won’t have to get too into the-”

Three pegasi zoomed by overhead. Thorax, Ziggy, and Waffle watched them go by.

“What are those?” Waffle asked.

“The Wonderbolts.” Ziggy supplied. “They do extreme flying stunts. I heard they were really good flyers.”

“And we’re going against Ponyville, the team with Rainbow Dash.” Thorax added. “So we have a high bar. I’m not even gonna aim for first or second, just as long as we qualify we should be fine.”

“How do we qualify though?” Waffle asked.

“We be in the top four racing teams.” Thorax answered. “Waffle, we can explain the rules-”

“Give us some clouds!” Two loud voices shouted. Thorax tilted his head. He looked off towards the distance, seeing a pair of cheerleaders dressed up in Cloudsdale coloring. “Give us some dale! And what do you get? Cloudsdale! Woo-hoo!”

“Do we have cheerleaders?” Waffle asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh! Oh!” Waffle hopped in place. “I know!”

Ziggy winced. “Please don’t say-”

“Wildberry Poptart could do it!” Waffle suggested. “He likes to dance.”

Thorax blinked. “...I’m sorry, who?”

Ziggy pinched their forehead. “It’s...it’s her brother.” They rubbed the side of their head. “Changed their name.”

“Ash changed it to...Wildberry Poptart?” Thorax repeated. “Why? How did he even know about those?”

“You had them at the meeting.” Ziggy noted.

“Starry suggested it.” Thorax admitted. “Said...said aliens liked poptarts, when they first came to Earth. Oh by the Queen it was a reference-”

“We don’t have time.” Ziggy dismissed. “Remember?”

“Right! Right.” Thorax nodded. He turned to Waffle, who was blinking blank compound eyes at him. “The rules are easy. First you hold the baton- which looks like a horseshoe-”

The next few minutes were spent explaining the rules to Waffle. She seemed to get them for the most part. A few times she got confused about how to pass the baton, but Ziggy was able to correct her.

It was all going so well.

Sadly it was a Tuesday so it all had to go wrong.

==CAH==

Thorax realized he didn’t have the baton. Correction, he had forgotten to even pack the baton. He remembered it being shipped to them by Thorne. He remembered seeing it on a table. He could not- for the life of him- remember packing it.

“You’re an idiot.”

“That’s what my wife says all the time.” Thorax agreed. He smiled. “It’s how she says she loves me.”

Ziggy didn’t seem to agree. “Are you sure about that?”

“I can feel her love.” Thorax sighed happily. “It’s enough to feed me for a month, back in the old days.”

Ziggy looked away for a moment.

“Hey. Is everything okay?” Thorax asked.

Before Ziggy could answer, a loud scream cut her off.

“DADDY!” Cookie yelled before pile driving into Thorax’s side. He fell to the ground as Cookie hugged him. “Daddy I missed you did you miss me? Were you looking for me?”

“Totally.” Thorax replied through clenched teeth. Her claws were biting into his chest. “Babe!”

“Coming, honey.” Cookie was lifted off in a glow of gold. She was lowered onto Raspberry’s back. Thorax spotted Dynamite and Dark Justice sitting nearby. Justice still in his book. Dynamite seemed to be working on a contraption. Raspberry smiled. “You’re hard changelings to find. You didn’t even set up the tent yet.”

“We got busy explaining the rules to Waffle.” Thorax admitted.

Raspberry blinked. “The rules to who?”

“Me!” Waffle buzzed down. She floated above Raspberry’s head, looking upside down into her eyes. “My name’s Waffle! It used to be Poison but I changed it!”

Raspberry stared on. “...your eyes are blue.”

“Like blueberries!” Waffle agreed. “Hold on-” She gasped. “You’re the Great Betrayer!”

“You lot still call me that?” Raspberry asked. She walked over towards an empty patch of land, where the setup for a tent lay. “Oh, Bee, you left this in my saddlebag.” She lifted up a copper horseshoe.

Thorax sagged in relief. “You had it!” He rushed to her side, picking up the shoe. He kissed her cheek. “Where would I be without you?”

“Destitute.” Raspberry answered. She lifted a jingle toy out of her bag, passing it to Cookie. The griffon squealed in delight before playing with it. “Hi Ziggy!”

Ziggy stared at Raspberry, with a nervous expression. “You- you know my name?”

“Bee told me.” Raspberry answered. “He’s really excited for the relay. But he’s also a puppy made into a changeling, so he gets excited when I walk through a door.”

“You were gone for ages!” Thorax whined.

“It was one hour.” Raspberry countered. Thorax laughed- more at feeling her own feelings of joy and delight from their back-and-forth. “Do you guys still call me the Betrayer?” Raspberry asked.

Ziggy said nothing.

Now Thorax was feeling a little off. He knew Pharynx still did- which irked him for a whole other reason. “Ziggy?” Thorax prompted.

“We need to start practice.” Ziggy buzzed up into the sky.

“Oh! I gotta chase them!” Waffle recalled. She buzzed up into the sky.

Thorax and Raspberry watched them go. Thorax turned to Raspberry, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “Babe?”

Raspberry hesitated. “An orange changeling with blueberry blue eyes, and dark orange chitton? Babe, you friend named herself after breakfast food and she looks like it.”

Thorax decided telling her about Wildberry would be the worst idea of his life. “Yeah...funny how life works out.”

Raspberry sprung up their tent. “Did you know they still called me that?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you know they still called me a traitor?”

“Is there a right answer?” Thorax asked after a pause. Raspberry worried the skin of her lip. “Maybe they don’t mean it as an insult. I mean, you betrayed Chrysalis. Not the whole hive. You saved the Hive!”

Raspberry said nothing. She sat down on the grass, pulling out the documents Thorax had seen that morning. “You need to train with your team.” Raspberry replied. She was trying to be cold and detached, but Thorax could feel that she was anything but. “Ziggy and the living changeling Waffle.”

“Starry.” Thorax tried.

“Tracy really wanted this done last week. Last week on Earth, so I’ve been putting it off for three months.” Raspberry noted. “Huh. You’ve done it. You’ve actually done it. You found a way to make me do this paperwork: watching you do sport.”

Thorax wanted to stay on land. He wanted to talk to Raspberry until she told him what she was thinking. He could sense her emotions for days and days, and still have no idea what was going on in her head.

But he knows it takes her awhile to even admit she has feelings. Much longer to sort through what those feelings are. Thorax could help, fuck yeah Thorax could help with that, but only when Raspberry let herself be open to him. Which came about as often as a blue fucking moon.

So Thorax went up to the skies.

==CAH==

It didn’t get much better after that.

Thorax had checked on the other teams, ones trying out to qualify in the various other arenas for the Games. A lot of them were surprisingly good at the events, while the others were so bad it was laughable.

He mostly stayed in the skies. If he went to ground, he’d check on the kids and Raspberry. If he did that, Raspberry would definitely get mad instead of working out her feelings. It would just start something that Thorax did not want to unpack.

There was an incident a few teams over. Soarin, from the Wonderbolts, had crashed into one of the rings. Dash had caught him before he hit the ground. By the look of his wing, he wasn’t going to be flying by the time the competition came around.

As a competitor, Thorax thought that gave his team a chance.

As somepony with empathy, Thorax wanted to send a card.

Cloudsdale had offered their third empty spot to Rainbow Dash. The speedster had agreed, after some inner debate. Thorax knew- without Raspberry even telling him- that Rainbow would go back to Ponyville’s team before the competition.

Thorax had just run through another lap of the race. It was decided that Waffle would fly first, Ziggy second, and Thorax would finish the race. It would be tricky sorting out the flyers, considering Dash was flying with Ponyville on the last leg of the race, but Thorax thought he could cover it.

It would be easier if they could shift in flight. Only Thorne had told them it was considered cheating, likened it to using magic to make sure the arrows hit the targets and the like, so no shapeshifting to aid their chosen game.

Ugh.

Thorax, Ziggy, and Waffle went to their tent to get water. Raspberry was using her magic to keep a different toy always just out of Cookie’s reach. Also Dynamite, as apparently the pegasus was constantly trying to grab the toy to keep it away from Cookie.

Justice sat beside Raspberry. The two of them focusing on the papers in front of them.

Raspberry pointed a hoof as the changelings approached. “Water in the cooler. And snacks.”

“Did your sister make them?” Thorax asked. One would think Killjoy would be left out of the meal planning process, but apparently she liked it. And she was good. Thorax was always cautious with her baked goods though.

Ziggy was already opening the cooler.

“She cut the bananas.” Raspberry replied. She glanced over her shoulder to the girls. “Dynamite, could you seriously stop trying to grab it?”

“But I wouldn’t let her catch it!” Dynamite promised.

“It’s not about her ‘not’ catching it, it’s about getting her to use her wings.” Raspberry explained.

Ziggy pulled out the snacks. There were a lot of cut up bananas, along with yogurt packets and boxes of raisins. They eyed Raspberry as they passed out the snacks. Thorax accepted the raisins and bananas before going up to Raspberry’s side. He shifted into a snake to curl around her neck.

Raspberry rubbed his back with her hoof. She glanced over to Ziggy. The two had a moment of silent exchange, ignoring the excited chewing noises of Waffle and the complaints of Cookie at her sister.

Thorax tightened on her neck, to get her attention.

Raspberry seemed to give Ziggy some subtle signal. The blue changelings just turned their nose, snacking on raisins.

There was a shout.

“Dynamite!” Raspberry called back. “I mean it. Cookie needs to grab it herself.”

“But I wanna do it!” Dynamite whined.

“You can already fly!”

“Yeah! So I can hold it really high!”

“Nu-uh! It’s mine!” Cookie argued. “Mama said!”

“Dynamite you can’t fly high enough for it.”

“I could try!”

“No! Mama said that it was ME!”

Justice huffed to their sides. Thorax turned to the colt, giving him a long blink. Justice looked at Thorax like Justice was suffering the most cruel punishment ever. How dare they put him in the same air space as those two loud children? Thorax hissed at him, sticking out his tongue. It only made Justice roll his eyes.

Thorax could almost pretend this was a fun picnic.

If it weren’t for the murky feelings lingering beneath Raspberry’s skin. For the distaste in Ziggy’s look. If not for the Equestrians that kept glancing at their tent with suspicion.

So not a great picnic.

Then again, Waffle decided bananas made a better face mask than snack, so he had that going for him.

He shifted back into his changeling form. He kissed the top of Raspberry’s head. She patted his hoof with her’s. There was a small dose of love in the touch. Thorax was soothed by it. He turned over to the girls, still bickering over who was actually supposed to catch the toy.

He winked at Raspberry. She glanced over her shoulder, smirked, and nodded.

Thorax buzzed over to catch the stuffed reindeer. Both girls whined when he caught.

“Oh, was this your’s?” Thorax asked them.

“Yes!” Cookie yelled, somewhere between frustrated and excited.

“So...you should catch me!” Thorax ran out towards the training hoops.

“Dad!” Cookie complained, but still she chased after him.

“No fair!” Dynamite yelled before chasing him too.

Thorax laughed as they chased him into the sky. He looked over to their tent when he could, seeing Waffle still smashing bananas onto her face. Raspberry and Ziggy were still giving each other chilled looks.

This was going to blow up in his face. Thorax just hoped nopony kicked him.

==CAH==

Two days of that.

Two days of training. Of Thorax practicing with his team, checking on the other changelings groups. He had encouraged the changelings to reach out to the ponies, to show them that changelings were different now. It seemed to slowly be working. Especially as the ponies saw that the changelings were greeting Princess Twilight with ease and she back.

Cookie did eventually start catching the doll. Even if she would catch it from Dynamite, who stole it before Raspberry could take it for the day.

Though between Ziggy and Raspberry, it was still tense. Raspberry had gotten through a lot of the paperwork that Tracy had sent over, which didn’t leave her a lot of options to pretend not to notice the looks. Ziggy pretended they weren’t pointedly ignoring Raspberry by focusing more on training.

Thorax didn’t like where it was going.

==CAH==

Rainbow Dash ducked behind a tree. She changed out of the borrowed Cloudsdale uniform. She let out a relieved breath. Training like this was actually starting to give her some wear, so she paced herself before heading back to the Ponyville team.

She scooped up water into her hoof, drinking it. She heard voices nearby. She was worried somepony was gonna spot her switching teams so she hid in a tree. She looked out, seeing it was Raspberry and a blue changeling talking.

“-just saying, if you have a problem with me just say it.” Raspberry told the changeling.

The changeling just scoffed.

“I mean it. Bee can tell you’re acting like this with me. He won’t work with changelings that don’t accept his family.”

“I accept Thorax’s family.” The changeling countered. “The griffon and pegasus are loud, but they aren’t so bad. The colt is cool. He just sits and reads the whole time.”

“I know.” Raspberry replied. “And it’s clear that I’m the one you don’t like. You still think I’m the ‘Great Betrayer’.”

The changeling said nothing.

Rainbow Dash kept an ear open. She remembered that name being used for Raspberry from changelings, that she heard it from the other changeling teams. They all liked Applejack’s brown bettys- said they were made with love and it made them taste better.

“What, is it a grudge thing?” Raspberry asked. “A lingering issue with Chrysalis? You still side with her?”

“Noling follows Chrysalis!” The blue changeling argued. “Queen Thorne is the best thing to happen to our hive in a long time.”

“So it’s just about me, then.” Raspberry reasoned.

“Just because you betrayed an enemy, doesn’t mean you won’t betray anyling again.”

“You think I’d betray Bee?” Raspberry asked, sounding not surprised by the idea but maybe surprised that they were actually thinking about it. The blue changeling said nothing. “Why?”

“You’re Princess Raspberry Stardust. You’re the one who fought Chrysalis in the first place, got all of us changelings redeemed. If you changed your mind about us, about Thorax, the rest of Equestria would too.”

Rainbow Dash wished she had popcorn.

“So?” Raspberry asked. “You think if I betray Bee, I’ll throw all the changelings under the bus?”

The changeling blinked. “The what?”

“Idiom from Home.” Raspberry rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t do that to Bee. He’s the reason Equestria is starting to accept you. He changed first, proving that all of you could do it. All I did was tell him to power kick his mom.”

“Really?”

“Yeah...it was gonna be awesome.” Raspberry smirked. Rainbow Dash did too. It would’ve been so cool if somepony kicked Chrysalis in the face. “I know how changeling bonds work. Bee chose me, but I also chose him. We’re family, all of us. If I go against the changelings, I go against him. And I won’t ever do that. No just for the kids, but because I can’t imagine ever doing it to him. It would break him, break me with him.”

“Nopony is that loyal.” The blue changeling argued.

“You’d be surprised.” Raspberry stated. She glanced up to the sky. Though when Rainbow looked back, she realized Raspberry had been looking for her. “And I’m not a pony.”

The blue changeling said nothing.

“We need to get back.” Raspberry suggested. “Waffle is gonna smash yogurt on her face if we don’t.”

The changeling whined. “I don’t get it.”

“I think she’s heard about face masks being made of food, and she just thought-”

“No, not that. I mean it’s confusing but I don’t wanna know Waffle’s thought process there.” The blue changeling shuddered. “I still don’t get why you’re doing all of this. You didn’t have to.”

“I never do.”

“We’d all get it if you avoided us.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even go to the meetings.”

“Bee is worried I’ll overwork myself. And I will.” Raspberry conceded. “Now come on. She’s opening the cooler.”

“By the Queen!” The blue changeling squeaked, rushing off towards their tent.

Rainbow Dash sighed, enjoying the little show. She had no idea about all that changeling stuff. She wondered if it would get resolved before the competition. She reclined on the tree, thinking maybe a catnap was in order.

“It’s not easy practicing with two teams, is it?” Twilight asked, leaning against the foot of the tree.

Rainbow Dash yelped, falling from the tree.

==CAH==

“Did Rainbow Dash seriously fake an injury so she wouldn’t have to pick?”

“Yep.”

“...I should be concerned.”

“Nah. Waffle is seeing how many raisins she can fit in her mouth before her mouth gets full...or we run out. Which ever goes first.”

“...I am concerned.”

“Thatta boy.”

==CAH==

In the end, Rainbow Dash flew with Ponyville. Soarin’ had ‘recovered’ from his ‘injury’ so he could fly with Cloudsdale.

And Waffle could fit in six boxes of raisins.

==CAH==

Cloudsdale and Ponyville had qualified already. Thorax was waiting as his starting point, watching as Waffle handed off the baton to Ziggy.

“You can do it Dad!” Dynamite shouted.

“Woohoo!” Cookie screamed. She was dressed up in a rainbow cheerleading outfit. She waved multiple pom-poms in her claws. “D-A-D! Go Dad!”

“Sport!” Raspberry shouted.

Thorax laughed, just in time to see Ziggy rushing up.

“Double sport!” Raspberry shouted.

Ziggy stopped just before Thorax with the baton. Thorax took it, buzzing off.

“Yay!” Raspberry cheered.

“D-A-D! Go Dad!” Cookie shouted.

“Go Thorax!” Pinkie shouted.

Thorax focused on dipping and diving to make it through the hoops. He could still hear ponies cheering, along with his fellow changelings.

He raced through the finish line. He landed himself on the barrier, watching the pony with the timer.

“The changelings qualify!” The representative announced.

Thorax let out a whooping cheer. Below, the crowd gave loud encouraging cheers too. He flew back down to the land, pulling Raspberry into a hug before kissing her. She laughed through the kiss.

When they kiss ended, Thorax found they were all surrounded by happy cheering ponies and changelings. He grinned at Raspberry. “You’re married to a pro athlete.”

“I regret every life choice leading to this moment.” Raspberry deadpanned.

But Thorax could feel she was lying. And he was so bursting with joy the only option was to kiss her again.

When that kiss ended, Raspberry went over to congratulate Ziggy and Waffle. Waffle had looked like she would explode in glee, while Ziggy did not look so cold towards Raspberry. The two even shook hooves!

Thorax was even happier that nothing hit him in the head.

==CAH==

Thorax came home with a medal around his neck. Killjoy’s first instinct was to choke him with it.