Chapter 6
“Miss Orange?” Fine Roast repeated as he raised an eyebrow at the intruder of his bedroom.
“Oh, um, I-I’m sorry,” Orange Mint stammered, “I was looking for the restroom and I—”
“The restroom is downstairs, clearly marked.” He then nodded his head at the closet. “And I’m fairly certain you’re not going to find what you’re looking for in there.”
“Oh, my mistake. I just thought—”
“I mean that they’re not there,” he interrupted.
“W-what?”
“The purple things. Eggs, crystals, whatever they are. And the bits,” he clarified. “They’re not there.”
Firefly nearly panicked. Those were her lifeblood. Without those her situation could look a lot more bleak.
Orange Mint took a step forward. “Where are they?” she asked harshly.
Roast ignored her question and stood in the doorway. “I was devastated when you left last night. I wasn’t sure what to do. After I… recovered—” she almost held back a wince “—I began to go through your things. I don’t know what I was looking for. Maybe just something to remember you by.
“Then I found them.”
Her heart sunk and her mouth went dry. “What… what did you do with them?”
“They’re in my desk.”
Her face scrunched in confusion as she peered past him into the hallway. “In your desk?”
Roast moved out of the doorway and into the bedroom, pointing down the hall. “You can have them.”
This is too easy.
“This is a trap isn’t it? You want me to go on a wild chase to try to find them and then they’ll come in and—”
“Sweet Leaf,” he cut her off and gave her a deadpan look, “when have I ever done or considered doing something like that to anyone?”
She thought on it for a short moment. “Well, never.”
“Then why would I do that now?”
She stared for a moment, but couldn’t answer him.
“But before you take them, I’d like to make a request.”
She swallowed and set her jaw. “What do you want?”
“I only want to talk,” he said as he broke eye contact and sat down. “That’s all I wanted to do last night.”
“Oh,” she voiced quietly.
Roast looked at her again. “But can you do something for me first?”
“What?”
“Change to yourself. To your normal form.”
She contemplated it. Was it his curiosity, perhaps? Or was this a ruse? Did they just need proof? Something to get her to drop her guard and then the real guards would come and take her away.
Except he’d already said it wasn’t that.
“I can’t,” Orange Mint answered after a moment.
He tilted his head. “Why not?”
“What about the shop downstairs? I can’t risk being found out by anypony else. I can barely believe I’m having this conversation with you.”
“It’s safe,” he said. “I closed the cafe. Told them it was an emergency.”
“But—”
He raised a hoof. “I haven’t told anypony either. Unless somepony else saw you, I’m the only one that knows.”
She shuffled her hooves and didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Not once since she’d been ousted had he been overtly hostile. She wanted to believe he wouldn’t harm her, that she could just walk out. It’s what she was trained to do. Except her training never covered what to do when all of ponykind knew about changelings.
“Alright,” she conceded.
Taking a deep breath, she shed her form consciously for the first time in front of a pony. Green flames surrounded her body, leaving black carapace in place of orange fur.
For a moment he took her in, eyes trailing up and down her black carapace. She looked away and felt a flush cover her face as his eyes roamed her body.
“What did you want to say?” Firefly asked, her two-tone voice filling the room.
“I…” Fine Roast falsely began, seemingly startled. He continued after a moment, “What’s your name? Your changeling name.”
She debated in her head. Was there any harm in giving him her name? It’s not like he could do anything with it. “It’s… It’s Firefly.”
“Firefly,” he said quietly as if tasting the name. “Firefly. Don’t leave.”
Her eyes grew wide. “W-what?”
“Don’t leave,” he repeated. “I don’t really understand who or what you are, but I know that I want my wife.”
“I’m not…” Firefly started, shaking her head. “Sweet Leaf isn’t real. I made her. She was a perfect mate, even tailored you could say. Sweet Leaf was the one that loved you.” She sat down, still looking at Fine Roast. “She had to be. There was always the chance I could be discovered and would have to run.”
“But you don’t have to.”
She nodded somberly. “You’re right. It’s a little late for running. There’s a response to this kind of situation that they train us for. Technically, running was always a last resort. At this point I’m supposed to do anything I can to ensure that all witnesses of me cannot get word to anyone else about changelings.”
Firefly could feel the spike of fear that ran through him. He was good at keeping it off his face. The stallion was trying to be brave.
A sigh left her. “This is the point where I’m supposed to disable you, put you in a cocoon, and send you off to the hive. I make up some story about how you’re visiting family or something and wait for some changelings from the hive to come replace us and move out of the spotlight, making Sweet Leaf and Fine Roast effectively disappear. A cleanup crew.”
Firefly let silence reign for a moment. This wasn’t in her orders though. It was both a relief and a spike in her heart. He wouldn’t have to be sent to the hive to have love stolen from his unconscious form. But she was still supposed to abandon him.
“But,” she continued, “that can’t happen either.”
“What—What do you mean?”
Firefly felt a grimace coat her face. “It’s too late for that. Equestria’s already aware of us. Ponies are going to be suspicious of everything. If they replaced us, they’d be found out in less than a day. Transporting you in a cocoon would also be very hard to keep under cover.”
“So, that means—” he started, timidly.
“It means you’re safe. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
She could feel the relief flood him. She wished she could say the same.
“But I am no longer safe here.”
If she had been feeding off his relief, she may have gagged as it was immediately washed over with dread.
He shot to his hooves. “But I’m the only one that knows! We can keep you safe! No one else has to find out!”
“Roast!” She stood as well. “You don’t even know who I am! You have no idea what I’ve done.”
“I know the only thing I need to right now,” Roast said. “You’re my wife and I am going to stick by her side. Thick and thin.”
“Sweet Leaf is your wife,” Firefly emphasized for the second time, “and she isn’t real. I crafted her, fabricated her, specifically to be someone you would love. Her emotions, if you even want to call them that, are not mine.”
“If we’d met a month ago I’d believe that. Hay, even if it was six months ago.” Roast took a step toward her. “But four years? You mean to tell me that every time you felt sad, every time you felt lonely or scared or unsure, every time you cried, that you faked it?”
She rolled her eyes. “That isn’t the point—”
“That is exactly the point, Firefly,” Roast interrupted and took another step. “I don’t believe you. And you’re right, I have no idea what you’ve done. I don’t know this other half of you—” he put his hoof up as she tried to interrupt “—and I fully believe that it is in fact another half of your whole. But I don’t believe you could truly be as bad as you want me to believe.”
Firefly looked straight into his eyes. “I could still imprison you, damn the consequences,” she tried to threaten. “I could have you taken back to the hive, put up in a cocoon to have your love drained for the rest of your days.”
“Of course you could,” Roast said, taking another step to stand directly in front of her. “But you wouldn’t.”
“You’re an idiot,” Firefly chided softly. “Standing in front of a viper, trying to hide your fear. What makes you think I won’t bite?”
Roast smiled, despite the fear and desperation pouring from him. “I’m afraid because I believe you could. I’m standing here because I don’t believe you would. I don’t believe you and my wife are two separate creatures. The experiences we’ve had, the laughter, the sadness, the pain we’ve gone through together, I don’t believe you can be someone for four years and yet claim to be someone completely different underneath.”
She snorted. “Fine, believe what you want. Last night, you said you saw me changing. When was that?”
“Three years ago,” Roast replied, looking away as he recollected. “Just a couple months after we got married.”
“And you didn’t think to tell anyone?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t that. I was scared at first. I thought everyone would think I was crazy. I went to the library when you were out and looked up anything I could find about a creature like you. I came up empty.”
“So you just let it slide.” Firefly stared at her source incredulously. “If I’d have known I’d married such a reckless stallion, I’d—”
“I wasn’t reckless,” he interrupted her. “I watched you closely after that. I tried to find anything that was different, odd, wrong about you.” He paused for a moment. “I kept you in the corner of my eye. I observed your every move. I started imagining you doing… things. Sucking out my blood. Wrapping me in spider silk.
“But after a couple weeks I did notice a change in you.” He looked her in the eyes. “It was me.”
She tilted her head in confusion. “You?”
“For weeks I was paranoid. I was distant and cold to you. I hadn’t even realized and you started suffering for it. You were on edge, scared almost. You tried to get through to me just like you’d done since we’d been together and I pushed you away.
“I realized it was me who was wrong. You hadn’t done a thing differently than you’d done before. So after a lot of hard thought, I forced myself to push aside my worries and accept you for who you were. If you wanted to tell me what you were, you’d do it in your own time.”
Firefly recalled the one time in their relationship when she had to consume some of her emergency love crystals. “I think I remember that. There were these few weeks where there was no love at all from you. It was just bitterness, suspicion, and anger. I thought I’d been discovered, that the guard was going to jump out at any time and take me away. I almost called it quits.”
He looked away as embarrassment flowed from him. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”
She smiled at him. “It was a long time ago. Whatever happened during that time, I’d already forgiven you. You don’t need to feel such shame and self resentment. It doesn’t go well with your love.”
“My love?” He met her eyes, his head tilted in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Us changelings, we’re emotivores. We can taste and consume other creatures’ emotions. I could feel your embarrassment and shame and now your surprise. That was one of the things I always loved about you. You’re never afraid to feel around me.”
He smiled, looking back at her. “I—”
Her smile dropped. “And now I can taste your usual flush of happiness and admiration you get whenever I, or rather Sweet Leaf, would compliment you. And now a little unease and fear, likely about me. About if I’m just manipulating you to feel what’s most beneficial to me. Am I wrong?”
“N-no, but—”
“Because that’s exactly what changelings do.” She looked him in the eyes. “We give you little nudges in the direction we want you to go, in the way we want you to feel. We push you and shape you and mold you into what we think will give us the best return. The best meal.”
She let him digest that for the first moment of silence since they started talking. She watched as he looked down at the floor between them. A wide range of emotions ran through him and she looked away.
Firefly wanted to believe that a fairytale could become true, that she and Roast could still live together. But Firefly was never a part of this house and now that Roast knew, there was no way they could go back to being Sweet Leaf and Fine Roast. Roast knew too much about her. His naivety and ignorance would soon run out, and he would see what changelings were truly capable of. Her own feelings couldn’t be taken into account. The risk was too great.
Fine Roast looked back at her after a moment. “But isn’t that what everypony does?”
“What?” she raised an eyeridge. “Manipulate others for their own gain?”
“Everyone does it,” he said again. “A friend compliments another to make them feel better about themselves. In return, over time the friends forge a deeper relationship because of it. Parents rear their foal to ensure they develop, shape, mold into what they think is the most beneficial to them and society.”
“But we’re different, we—”
“A society exists specifically to manipulate its fellow creatures into what is most beneficial to those around them.” He looked her in the eyes. “Despite your intentions, you’ve made me happier than I’d been before I met you. The times we shared, both good and bad, forged our relationship into what it is. I won’t believe the result is bad.”
“You are not wrong, Roast. Mostly. The only thing you’re forgetting is that once you’re of no use to us, we throw you away like spoiled fruit.”
Roast chuckled. “Oh? Is that so?”
“Yes,” she half growled, “did you not hear what I said about cocoons and putting you in them?!”
“I did, Firefly. But I have to ask, if that’s true then why are you still here?”
Firefly opened her mouth, but her voice caught in her throat.
A knowing smirk spread across his face. “If you truly throw away your prey, then you should have left already. You shouldn’t have even given me the time of day when I said I wouldn’t stop you. Yet you’re still here.”
I am still here. He’s right. I’m just delaying the inevitable. I can’t live in this fantasy anymore.
“I don’t know…” she whispered.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
She couldn’t respond.
“At the risk of sounding conceited, I think you, Firefly, love me just as Sweet Leaf does.”
“You can’t know that. How do you know I’m not manipulating you still?”
“Several reasons. First, what do animals do when they’re cornered? They lash out. They don’t want to feel whatever pain they believe they are going to be subject to.”
Firefly squinted at him. “Good to know I’m just an animal to you…”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. But with all your lashing, you haven’t managed to hurt me. You could cocoon me, if only to make your escape. I’m sure you could even drain me of love, right here. But you haven’t done anything except talk.”
After a moment of silence he continued.
“Second, what is it that you have to lose here? Convenience? Perhaps, but I think it’s something greater. It’s this relationship, it’s our friendship, it’s our love. If I truly believe you and Sweet Leaf are not separate beings, but rather one, then I know that you’ve experienced what it’s like to have a companion. A real companion, and losing that would hurt for anyone.”
She raised an eyeridge. “Is that all?”
“There’s one more. It’s simple, really.” Roast raised his hoof and set it against the warm, hard carapace of her chest. “I still love you and you can feel that.”
Firefly huffed. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I do know.” He set his hoof back on the floor. “I’m asking to be with my wife.”
“It couldn’t work. There are a lot of changelings who hate ponies.” Firefly hated that she couldn’t meet Roast’s eyes. “There are many whose goal is to steal as much love as possible, even going as far as to suck them dry. There are even changelings who simply replace a pony so they can get love from both the cocooned pony and that pony’s special somepony.”
“And who are you?” he asked softly.
She whispered, “I’ve done bad things.”
“Is Sweet Leaf back in your hive, being drained of love as you take mine?”
“N-no, I already said she isn’t.” She shook her head. “But I’ve helped capture ponies. I’ve helped put them in cocoons as they were brought to the hive, taken from their homes and families.”
“And why did you do that?” the stallion asked without malice.
“I…” she began, closing her eyes briefly. “Because we needed to. We were—we are starving. We don’t have enough food, not enough love. We never have.”
“Many would do a great deal of things if it meant they wouldn’t have to go hungry.”
Firefly furrowed her brow at him. “You’re acting like the things we’ve—I’ve done are okay, like they’re not a problem.”
Roast shook his head. “That’s not it. Taking a mother or father away from their family is a horrible thing to do.”
Firefly snorted and looked away.
“But, if you had the choice now to tear a family apart or to try to find another way to get love, which would you choose?”
She barely had to think. “I’d search for someone like you who was wanting a companion and find a way to get close to them.”
Not just because the return of love is greater.
“See?” he stated. “This is why I trust you. I believe you did those things because someone in your hive told you to help.”
Firefly stomped a hoof. “Roast! This can’t work! It doesn’t matter why I did those things. One day I could get told to bring you to the hive or move out of Hoofington or something!”
He looked at her for a short moment before a smile grew on his face.
“What? This isn’t a joke, Roast.”
“It isn’t, but do you know what I didn’t hear from you? There was no ‘I don’t want to be here.’”
Firefly simply stared at him for a moment. “This isn’t fair.” It sounded more like a pout than she’d intended.
“What isn’t fair? That you get to be happy? The real you, not just your mask? Sometimes life has a way of giving us a bunch of horseapples, but it also has a way of giving good things, too.”
He raised his hoof to her warm chitin cheek. “It gave me you.”
It took all of her willpower not to lean into his hoof. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
Roast grinned as he set his hoof back down. “I’m pretty sure that’s my line.”
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter what I want. The only way this can end is with one or both of us getting hurt. I’d rather… I’d rather that not be you.”
“That’s entirely possible, Firefly,” Roast said somberly, “but we made vows, vows I intend to keep. Through sickness and pain. For better or worse.”
A frown crossed her face once more. “But you made those with Sweet—”
“I made those with you,” he said. “My wife.”
“But… I-I can’t, we can’t…”
“I made them with you, Firefly,” Fine Roast said softly, gently. “I may not have known your real name at the time, but you’re the mare I’ve loved for the past four years. And before you start, it doesn’t matter right now what you’ve done in the past. We can only deal with one thing at a time and you being here—staying here—and being my wife is what’s important.”
Firefly stared at him for a moment, arguments flowing through her mind, but none seemed good enough to refute him.
“So please, Firefly.” Roast held out his hoof. “Would you please stay with me?”
She looked down at his hoof. She could feel it. He was honest and true about his feelings for her and it wasn’t something she’d expected in all her years. Prior to Fine Roast she wouldn’t even have considered it. To be loved and accepted, not as her role, but as herself.
Slowly, she raised her hoof above Roast’s own. She hesitated, knowing this was a decision she couldn’t go back on. It meant Roast would be hers, Firefly’s, and in return, she would be his. There would be so many troubles they’d have to face. The hive had never seen anything like it before. She didn’t know what they would do if they found out.
As she looked him in the eyes she could feel, his doubt, his anxiety, and his fear. But she could also feel his eagerness, his want, and his love.
She made up her mind and set her holed hoof down onto his whole.
“Y-yes. Yes, I will.”
Roast immediately pulled her into a hug and she felt tears come to her eyes.
My husband. Truly mine.
“Firefly,” Roast managed. “I love you, Firefly. Always.”
Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals, check out this fantastic vector of Orange Mint and Fine Roast that was commissioned!
Thanks a bunch to Dogman15 for commissioning it!
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Pure bliss.
Well, yea, I guess it qualifies.
Ah. She's finally done torturing the poor guy with obsolete scenarios. She's really just trying to push him away. Betcha it won't work.
But she's been Sweet Leaf for years... and she liked it.
I mean, it beats the option of burning all her bridges. After all, there are precious few bridges left out there, with the wedding fiasco.
Roast smirked. “What makes you think I won't like it if you bite?” He raised an eyebrow. “So. Changelings can blush, huh?”
Meaning, at the time he found out now, he was fairly sure she was a changeling all along, and unlike Wavy Palette he probably never thought she might've been replaced.
I think Firefly just admitted that she married him
And you make someone happy in the process. Gosh, that is such a horrible thing to do
Heh. She already confirmed Sweet Leaf "wasn't real". Our little nymph is getting cornered!
Hey, Firefly. Hey. Guess what.
You're tearing a family apart right now
And there's someone like Roast in need of a companion standing in front of you
Uh-oh. Is she gonna Thorax-fairy-poof now?
I'd be perfectly fine if she didn't, by the way. I like my classic changelings.
All mine! Muaaahahahahahaaa!
Dawwwwwwwwwwwwwww
"... Now change into Marechelle Pfeifer!"
*SLAP*
"... Worth it."
MY HEART! clutches chest
This does bring a smile to my face
Husband of the year everyone.