• Published 16th Jan 2019
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To Be a Changeling - PlagueRat



A newly hatched changeling feels like the world around is more strange than it should be but can't understand why.

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Chapter 55

Pupa’s interest in watching Katydid and Lacewing model different disguises began to wane after a few hours. The nymph instead turned her attention to the magazine in front of her to help pass a little more time while waiting for her molt to finish. Mostly it was filled with advertisements, and mainly targeted to mature mares, but there were also tidbits of gossip related to pony society Interspersed throughout the publication.

“Why would ponies want to use something like this?” Pupa asked aloud.

“Like what?” Lacewing responded, shifting back into her natural form along with her sister.

Turning the magazine around so it faced the approaching caretakers, Pupa pointed out an advert showcasing a diamond shaped bottle filled with a golden amber liquid.

“If you unfold the little flap there on the page, you can smell what’s in the bottle,” the nymph said.

“That’s perfume,” explained Lacewing. “Some ponies enjoy the scent of it.”

“But why?” Pupa asked, crinkling her snout. “It stinks.”

“For different reasons,” said Lacewing, “like trying to attract a mate or to hide their natural scent, or just because they think it’s fancy.”

“Some of them smell okay but, ugh, you’re right, this one does stink,” commented Katydid, turning her head away with a disgusted expression after giving it a sniff.

“And look at this,” said Pupa, flipping a few pages back and locating an article she saw about hair care. “Why would you waste a perfectly good egg on your mane?”

“An egg?” Lacewing tilted her head.

“What kind of egg?” Katydid asked, leaning in and skimming over the paragraph.

“Chicken egg,” clarified Pupa.

“Really?” Lacewing frowned, ears turning back, “but they’re so delicious.”

“I know, right?” agreed the nymph, “but this says to mix an egg with olive oil, milk and lemon juice to keep your mane silky.”

“How would mixing that together keep a mane silky?” asked Lacewing, trying to look around her sibling’s head to see the page.

“You have to rub it in to your mane after you mix it,” Pupa illustrated by running her front hooves over her hair.

“That does seem wasteful,” Katydid concurred, “but then we don’t have manes.”

“Me and my mom don’t use anything on our manes, ponies are just weird,” declared the nymph, closing the magazine and causing the caretakers to giggle in response to her observation.

“Now I want an egg to eat,” chuckled Lacewing, “I wonder if we have any.”

“Oh! I want one too!” exclaimed Pupa, rising swiftly to her hooves; but when she felt a tearing sensation at the back of her neck leading down to her withers, she froze in place with wide eyes.

“Princess, are you okay? Lacewing said with concern at the sight of the nymph’s shocked expression.

“Something happened,” Pupa whispered, staying still as a statue save for her pin prick sized pupils that darted between the two caretakers, “along the back of my neck.”

“I think I know what it might be,” said Katydid with a singsong inflection.

Hovering over the motionless nymph, Katydid checked the indicated spot and then turned back to her sibling to give her a knowing nod.

“Ah,” Lacewing smiled, understanding her sister despite the simple non-verbal clarification. “How much longer do you think?”

“How much longer till what?” Pupa questioned, daring to turn her head slightly in Katydid’s direction but stopping when she felt the strange sensation again.

“You’re breaking through your old carapace now,” said Katydid.

“So your molt will be over soon,” added Lacewing.

“Do I need to do anything?” the nymph squeaked.

“Start by rolling your withers,” Katydid suggested while demonstrating the motion.

“That will loosen up the old carapace,” Lacewing continued, mimicking her sister’s movements.

Needing a little more space to move around, Pupa made an attempt to crawl down from the alcove she was in and onto the nursery floor. However, over the past few hours, the stiffness in her legs had increased and it ended up being a bit of a struggle for the nymph to stand up straight.

“Would you like some help getting down princess?” Katydid offered, a touch of good hearted humor in her voice from watching as the little changeling wobbled to her hooves.

“No, I can do it,” insisted Pupa, waddling to turn herself around so she could slide, rear end first, to the ground.

A few moments of tentative maneuvering later, the nymph stood triumphantly in front of Katydid and Lacewing.

“So I just do this?” inquired Pupa, wiggling herself from side to side.

“No, withers first,” corrected Lacewing, showing the nymph again by sliding her right shoulder forward, her left shoulder back and then rotating them in a circle.

“Move your neck a little too,” Katydid advised, turning her head and stretching her neck from side to side in a serpentine manner.


At this time the youngest member of the hive’s guard, Phasmid, just so happened to be passing the nursery’s entryway while out on patrol of the corridors. When the sound of groaning emanated from the room a chill ran down his spine and he stopped dead in his tracks. With his ears perked up in alert he took a few steps backwards, turned to face the door and cautiously approached the cavern. With a shaking hoof and a nervously clenched jaw, the young guard reached for the curtain.

“Now you got it,” he heard Katydid say enthusiastically from the other side of the fabric.

“You’re doing great for your first time,” Lacewing’s voice agreed, “keep moving just like that.”

“Try arching your back a little too,” said Katydid, “that should help.”

The casual tone in the nursery caretaker's voices caused Phasmids' concern to melt away into curiosity. As silently as possible, he pulled the fabric aside and peeked into the room.

Facing away from him, near the center of the chamber, were the two sisters. Both posed with their front legs stretched out before them with rumps raised slightly in the air. Together they wriggled their withers as if trying to alleviate an itch they couldn’t reach. Unsure about what he just intruded upon, Phasmid could only stare on dumbly while gradually leaning forward.

Then he noticed, princess Pupa was standing opposite the sisters and mimicking their posture. That’s when he lost his balance, pulled the curtain down over himself and stumbled into the room.


“Well what do we have here?” Lacewing wondered aloud while straightening to her full height.

“It seems we have a guest,” said Katydid, prowling up to the covered figure.

A soft green light surrounded Katydid’s horn as she focused on the curtain and her channeled spell yanked up the cloth. When they realized the identity of the intruder, both caretakers converged on him with vulpine grins.

“Hello Phasmid,” Lacewing purred, looming over the prone guard.

“It looks like you had a little trouble coming in,” tittered Katydid.

“Yes, you don’t need to pull down the curtain, just push it aside,” said Lacewing.

“Or,” trailed off Katydid as she looked over to where she and her sister had been standing a moment ago, “perhaps something distracted you?”

“Oh, you naughty colt,” Lacewing gasped, pretending to act appalled when she caught on to her sisters insinuation. “Were you peeping on us?”

“N-no!” stammered the guard as he scrambled to get to his hooves. “I was just checking on a noise I heard.”

“What kind of noise?” Katydid leaned in, almost nose to nose with the flustered changeling.

“A groaning,” Phasmid answered, backing away a step and bumping into Lacewing. “I wanted to make sure noling was in any trouble.”

“Ah, that was the princess,” said Lacewing, placing both her front hooves on the guard's lower back, just below his wings, and gently guiding him away from the exit.

“Yes, I know that now,” acknowledge Phasmid, digging his hooves into the floor and trying his best to resist being escorted deeper into the nursery. “But just what were you two teaching her?”

“She’s going through her first molt,” Katydid said.

“And we were instructing her on what to do,” divulged Lacewing, looking to the location where the nymph had last been but was now absent from.

During the commotion Pupa had hidden behind a moss engulfed rock formation and now looked out at the intruding male, scowling.

Confused by her angry expression, Phasmid stopped trying to combat Lacewing’s nudging and as a result, tumbled forward onto his belly. Both sisters swiftly took advantage of his vulnerable state and sat on his back, keeping him in place.

“Look, you made her mad,” Katydid said to the guard. “She didn’t want anyling else to see her while she molts.”

“What?” Phasmid blinked.

“It’s okay Princess,” Lacewing said to the nymph, “we caught the bad ling. You can come out.”

Still scowling, Pupa grumpily waddled out from behind her cover revealing that the carapace from the back of her mane down to between her wings had split apart and now hung open across her withers.

“Oh,” the guard said plainly, “so that’s all you were doing.”

“Of course,” Katydid said with her muzzle, and her sharp fangs, dangerously close to his ear. “What exactly did you think we were doing?”

Blushing slightly, Phasmid glanced off and kept his mouth shut.


A deal had been brokered between the sisters, Pupa and Phasmid; and in exchange for his release, he agreed to fetch them all something to eat. At first he did protest, insisting he needed to continue his patrol, but he acquiesced when Katydid pointed out that the request did, in part, come from Princess Pupa.

“So why haven’t you just helped her to molt?” asked Phasmid while picking out a small beetle from the bowl next to him and tossing it into his mouth. “My sister always helped me with mine once it reached this stage.”

“Because it’s good for her to know how to do it on her own,” responded Lacewing, taking a bite from her slice of fruit. “You can’t always rely on there being someling around to help.”

“She’s a queen,” the guard pointed out, “there’ll always be another changeling around to assist her.”

“Most likely,” Lacewing nodded, “but it’s still something she should learn.”

“I’m right here, I can hear you,” Pupa called out to them, “and I can do it myself.”

Resuming her task, the nymph craned her neck and swerved her head from side to side. The maneuvering continued to gradually separate more of her old carapace from all around her neck and along her scalp.

“Ugh, it’s caught on my mane,” Pupa said.

“Try pulling the portion you’ve already shed,” coached Katydid, tapping the back or her neck, “just take it slow.”

Nodding, the nymph lowered to her belly and reached back with her front legs, fumbling around until she managed to hook her hooves behind the split area of her carapace. By using a combination of tugging back with her neck and pushing forward with her hooves, she peeled the loosened cuticle off like a mask.

“It feels so weird,” Pupa shivered, looking down at the detached, semitransparent, section at her hooves.

“That’s the hardest parts out of the way,” said Katydid while lifting up Pupa’s chin with a hoof to get a better view of the freshly revealed carapace around the nymph’s face. “The rest should slip off like a banana peel.”

Pupa furrowed her brow, mentally picturing the remainder of her molt literally peeling off her barrel like the skin on a banana.

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