> Brouhaha
>  by Rokas
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Incoming!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was morning in Equestria, and everything was just fine. Or so it was for Twilight Sparkle, as she stretched out on a divan on the grand balcony of her castle. Ah, the sun is warm, the couch is soft, and I have all morning for reading, she thought, with a grin. I do love my friends, but sometimes a pony just needs to be alone for a bit and get deeply intimate with a copy of Homare's Histories. Twilight giggled at this idea even as she levitated said book from a nearby stack sitting on the clean, crystal floor. Spike's away helping Rarity again and the girls are all busy until our lunch date, so there's nothing that will keep me from reading a landmark history book.

A wordless thought washed over her mind at that, and then rolled down her spine. It chilled the alacorn and made her shiver a bit, and immediately afterward she propped herself up on the couch with a foreleg to glance around. She sat there for a few, tense moments, and then sighed in relief. Whew, for a moment there I thought I'd tempted fate, Twilight mused, as she once again lied down on her side. Ah well, to reading! she mentally added, and then rolled onto her back, levitated the book above he head with her magic, and then opened it and began to read. 

Fate, of course, has a twisted sense of humor. Thus it was nearly an hour later when Twilight was roused from her reading by an odd sound in the distance. Her ears twitched as the noise grew louder, and she frowned as she set her book back on the pile. What is that? she wondered, as she rolled on the divan until she could climb off of it. The noise had only increased in volume as she stood, and Twilight found she recognized it; That sounds like somepony screaming! But who? Is there—

She didn't get to finish that thought as the screaming continued to grow in volume, and Sparkle's equine ears finally pinpointed its direction. She thus snapped her head up in time to see an object fly through the air and come down right at her balcony, faster than she could react. A split second later the object rammed into the floor of the balcony, but only after it passed through the outdoor dining set Rarity had gifted Twilight after the castle decorating fiasco. The table shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and the force of the impact sent the chairs flying off to the sides, where they slammed into either the balcony's trailing wall or the castle itself and broke into kindling. By then Twilight had finally managed to move herself into action, and she cast a shield spell around her just in time to avoid having the wooden shrapnel from the event tear at her flesh.

A cloud of dust—mostly from pulverized furniture—filled the air, and Twilight could not see what had hit, but from the earlier screaming that had stopped with the impact, she could only surmise it was a living being of some sort. Oh my gosh, is it all right? she wondered, as she dropped the shield spell, and then spread her wings and flapped. Weather control lessons from Rainbow were pretty useful after all, she mused, as her pegasus magic worked the air and sent a breeze to clear out the dust cloud. A shape was soon made out on the balcony floor, and after a moment the cloud was gone and Twilight froze in place, her wings spread out and wide. “Changeling!” she shouted, automatically.

“Huh, what?” the black, chitin-covered being uttered, as it snapped its head up and opened its eyes. Twilight only caught a glimpse of blue before it shut the eyes again, and then hung its head and quickly shifted to sit on its haunches. “Oh geeze, my head,” it—he, Twilight though, as the voice sounded masculine to her, even through the sibilant undertone—muttered, as he held up his forelegs and cradled the sides of his head. “How hard did she throw me?”

Twilight blinked at that question, unexpected as it was. “Uh, who threw you?” she found herself asking. What's going on here?

“Huh?” the changeling asked, without changing his position. “Someone there? Oh, right, of course, I can feel you,” he said, and then sighed. “Sorry, I think I have a concussion or something and...” The shapeshifter let his voice drift off for a moment, which only added to Twilight's confusion. “Wait a tic, if I can feel you, then—” he cut off his speech, dropped his forelegs down to the floor, and then opened his eyes and frantically looked around his surroundings until his eyes met Twilight's, and he froze. Several long moments of silence—confused on Twilight's end, panicked on the changeling's—passed, but finally the intruder managed to find his voice. “Oh... you're... You're Twilight Sparkle, aren't you?” he asked.

“Uh,” Twilight began, unsure of how to handle the odd situation. The sudden arrival of a screaming, flying changeling on a ballistic arc, its own apparent confusion about the events, and now the sudden look of fear upon its face all worked to befuddle her. “Yes, I am?” she half replied, half asked.

“Ohhhhh, crap,” the changeling said, and then clenched his jaws and sucked in a breath between his teeth. “I'm going to die now, aren't I?”

“What!” Twilight exclaimed, as she flinched back from the equinsectoid. “What on Equis makes you think that?”

“Um, the whole invasion thing?” the changeling asked, even as his wings—short stubs compared to the ones she'd seen on other changelings—nervously fluttered. “I mean, the queen did kind of abduct your brother's fiance and almost marry him in her place. That doesn't make you angry?”

Twilight could only frown at that. “Well, yes,” she carefully began. “But while I am indeed very upset over that, I'm not going to kill a changeling on sight.”

“Oh,” he said. “So... you'll close your eyes, first?”

“What? No!” Twilight replied, shocked. Who does this bug think I am? Sombra?

“Nuts,” the changeling muttered, and then turned his head to glance off to the side. “I was hoping to run when you did that.”

The princess could only groan in frustration, and then face-hoofed. “I am not going to kill you, period. Alright?” she asked, and then looked back to the intruder as she lowered her leg.

The changeling blinked his iris-less blue eyes, and then turned his had back towards the alacorn. “Really?” he asked, hopefully. When Twilight nodded, he sighed in relief. “Oh, wow, that's... that's awesome news,” he said, as he gazed off to the side and a goofy grin spread along his muzzle. Then he blinked as the grin fell away, and he looked back to the princess. “Uhm, while I'm happy you're not going to kill me, just how long am I going to be in prison?”

“Prison?” Twilight echoed. “For what?”

“Being a changeling,” the male said, with a tilt of his head. “Oh, and I guess the whole landing on your balcony and kind of intruding thing,” he added, and then looked around. “...and I think I broke something of yours.”

“Some furniture, yes,” Twilight replied, even as she raised an eyebrow back at the shapeshifter. This is the oddest non-Pinkie Pie conversation I've ever had, she mused. “As for the rest, it's not exactly against the law to be a changeling. And while you are kind of intruding, it doesn't seem like you did it with malice, or even on purpose. Although,” she added, and then looked around the balcony a bit. “Part of me wonders if this isn't a distraction...” she mused aloud, even as the idea entered her head and made her wary. She also began to glance around, just in case another changeling tried to take advantage of her inattention.

“Huh,” the changeling in front of her muttered. “I guess I could be a distraction,” he admitted, with a frown, and then began to look around himself. “That would make sense why she didn't kill me outright. And threw me in this direction.” He paused as if to think and tapped his chin with a hoof. “Although it didn't look like she was deliberately aiming anywhere specific, and most of the soldiers were sitting around and making rude gestures at me when she wasn't looking; doesn't strike me as pre-attack behavior.”

Twilight could only grimace as the changeling's words registered on her mind. “Stop,” she said, with a raised hoof towards the shapeshifter. “Just... please stop,” she added. The male she spoke to fell silent, dropped his hoof back to the floor, and then just gave her a quiet, curious look. Okay, I can do this: I can make sense of this, Twilight told herself, and then took in a deep, calming breath. “I think you need to explain some things to me,” she began. “Namely, who are you, why are you here, and who else are you talking about?”

“Oh!” the changeling replied, and then smiled friendlily. “I'm Bakran, how are ya doing?” he asked, and then proffered a hoof. Twilight, however, just kind of glanced at the hoof, and then stared at the changeling with a raised eyebrow. The male, Bakran, lowered his foreleg after a moment and let his smile turn into a sheepish grin. “Heh, right, still kinda upset at changelings. And me. I get that,” he said, and then briefly sighed. “Okay, uh, I'm here because I got thrown out of the hive by queen Chrysalis.”

“Thrown out?” Twilight asked, with a hard blink of her eyes as she put several factoids together. “Wait, she literally threw you?”

“Yeah,” Bakran replied, as he reached up with a hoof to rub the back of his neck. “I kinda made her mad.”

“Really?” Twilight asked, befuddled. When the changeling nodded his head, she felt her face twice into a confused frown. “What did you do?”

“Aheh,” Bakran said, as the sheepish grin returned. “I, uh, may have gotten drunk last night. And I may have saw her making one of her 'look at how important I am and you're not' tours of the hive. And I may have decided to tell her that she's a stupid bitch who screwed over our economy and made up ripe for counter-attack with her idiotic invasion idea.”

A long, heavy silence fell over the pair at that, and Twilight felt her jaw drop until her mouth was large enough to fit a Sugarcube Corner cupcake in whole. Bakran just pensively sat still as his face turned a tinge of red. I guess their blood is red, too, Twilight irrelevantly mused, before she finally shut her mouth and shook her head. “That...” she began, but it was a false start as words temporarily failed her. She frowned for a moment, and then tried again. “That is possibly one of the strangest, dumbest things I have ever heard,” she stated.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Bakran replied, with a sigh. “Anyway, so yeah... the soldiers kind of beat me up a bit, clipped my wings, and then threw me in the dungeon. Then this morning I get dragged before her royal butt on top of the highest tower and get told that she's going to be 'generous' and just exile me,” he continued, and then winced. “Then she wrapped her magic around me, forced my body in a generally aerodynamic position, and then launched me. After a while I kind of landed here and... well, you know the rest,” he added, and then waved a hoof in Twilight's direction.

“I... see,” Twilight said, and then fell into a thoughtful silence. Bakran apparently sensed her need to contemplate, and so just quietly sat still and looked around the balcony, for which Twilight was grateful. This is one of the dumbest stories I've ever heard... which means this is either an elaborate and painfully stupid ruse, or my life has taken a turn for the weird. Even as she thought this, Twilight felt her wings ruffle, and she mentally sighed. Okay, fine, I don't get to complain about weird anymore after becoming an alacorn princess, but still... what the heck do I do now?

The silence was interrupted then, as a growling came from Bakran's belly. “Heh, sorry,” he said, with a chagrined look on his face. “They didn't feed me all last night or this morning, so I'm really hungry.”

Twilight frowned again, and a sense of unease crept up her spine. “Uh, okay... but I'm not sure if I know how to feed you. I mean, I'm not about to let you take somepony's shape and imponyate them or anything.”

“Huh?” Bakran asked, confused. Then he face lit up in understanding and he smiled a bit. “Oh, no no, that's okay, I'm good on emotions. Just a sandwich or something would really hit the spot.”

Another wave of confusion washed over Twilight, and she felt one of her ears start to twitch. “Wait, so you eat physical food, as well?” she asked, curiously.

“Well, yeah,” Bakran replied, surprise coloring his tone. “I mean, you don't think this body can be fed on emotional energy, do you?” he asked, as he waved a foreleg over himself.

“Uhm, well,” Twilight began, and then sheepishly rubbed a fetlock over the other foreleg. “Maybe? We don't actually know a lot about changelings, only that you need to feed on love.”

“Ohhhhh,” Bakran knowingly said, with a nod. “Okay, yeah, I can see how you'd think that, with the invasion and all. But nope!” he added, with a grin. “We need to eat like ponies do. We just absorb emotions to fuel our magic, since we can't generate thaumaturgical energy ourselves.”

The princess blinked at that, as a feeling of horror briefly filled her. “You can't?” she asked, shocked.

“Yup!” Bakran energetically replied. Then he paused and tilted his head as a thought seemed to cross his mind. “Oh, I mean, nope!” he added, and then frowned. “Uhm, I'm not sure how to reply to that question, but correct, we do not generate our own magic.”

I think my face is going to freeze in this expression, Twilight mused, as she frowned again. “So, what happens if you can't feed on... you said 'emotions', so it's not just love?”

“Yup,” Bakran repeated, with another nod. “Any positive emotion. Love, lust, friendship, joy, contentment, gratitude, curiosity, satisfaction, if it makes someone feel good, then usually we can use it,” he explained, and then skewed his jaw to the side. “Although some changelings are kinda weird and like the negative stuff.”

“Okay,” Twilight said, slowly. “So what happens when you can't feed on emotions?”

“Oh, uh,” Bakran temporized, as he seemed to take a moment to think. “Well, we sorta get hungry. Not food hungry, but it feels kinda the same, though you can ignore emotion hunger a lot easier than you can the physical kind. But since we can't generate our own magic energy eventually we become next to helpless, with no flight, no telekinesis, no gripping, no shapeshifting... Yanno, anything that requires magic at all,” he explained, and then shrugged. “It won't kill us, but since just about every predator in the world has some magic ability, it means we'd probably get eaten alive outside the hive.” He paused at that, and then chuckled slightly. “Heh, that rhymed.”

Twilight ignored the offhand statement, and instead applied her mind to absorbing the changeling's words. This is a lot to take in, she mused. How much of this is actually true, though? This changeling just drops from the sky, acts all friendly and open, and offers all sorts of information? Something's not right. She looked around the balcony at that, and then grimaced as a new idea entered her head. “Uh, Bakran?” she began, as she looked to the equinsect just as he looked back at her. “I hate to go back on my word, but I think that I might have to ask you to, uh, stay in one place for a bit?”

The changeling's face fell. “Oh, so prison after all?” he asked, morosely.

“N-no, nothing like that,” Twilight hastily added. Why the hay am I feeling sympathy for that face? Might be changeling manipulation, need to get clear for a bit and run some spells. “Just, well... maybe not prison per say, but, well...” she lost her momentum for a moment, and lightly waved a hoof in front of her as she tried to collect her thoughts. “Just, lock you up for a bit in a guest room while I make sure this isn't an invasion attempt?” she asked, hoping that he would be amicable.

“Ah,” Bakran replied, and then took a moment to think. Then he slowly nodded. “Okay, I guess I can see that,” he allowed, and then sighed again. “I mean, this is really weird for me, but you were just sitting here doing pony things when I dropped in; you have no idea whether I'm telling the truth or not. I get it,” he added, and then paused as his stomach growled again. He then offered a wan grin to the princess. “Heh. I don't suppose I could have a snack while I'm in there?”

The alacorn could only grimace a bit in response. “I'm sorry, but I don't think I can spare any time for that,” she sadly explained. The return of Bakran's frown tugged at her heart, though, so she quickly spoke up. “However, if I find it's all clear and it looks like you're telling the truth, I'll take you to get something from a bakery, okay?”

Bakran immediately brightened up at that. “You will?” he asked, with a surprised look on his face.

“Absolutely,” Twilight affirmed, with a nod of her head. “So, uh, follow me then,” she said, and then turned around and headed for the door to the castle. Wait a minute, why am I turning my back to a possible enemy? she asked herself, and then glanced behind her. Despite her justifiable paranoia, Bakran had simply stood and had begun to follow her.

Chagrin washed over the princess, and she turned her head back around. She also focused on her magic, with which she did two things: firstly, she cast a changeling detection spell that could reach far enough to scour her entire castle and a small area around it, and quickly found out that Bakran was the only one she could find. Secondly, she cast her telekinesis and opened the balcony doors so she could lead the changeling into the castle.

The next few minutes were passed in tense silence, as Twilight continued to cast detection spells, and Bakran wisely remained silent as the two moved through the halls. Soon enough, however, they reached one of several doors set in a corridor, and Twilight brought them to a halt in front of it. Once again her magic reached out and pulled the door open, and she then turned to face Bakran and backed up a bit. “So here we are,” she said, with a crooked smile, as she waved a hoof towards the door. “It's not actually decorated yet... Or has any furniture... In fact it's just bare,” she explained, even as Bakran walked up to the door and looked in. A cursory glance showed him that the room was as described, and he turned his head back to Twilight as she resumed speaking. “But at least it's got some space so you shouldn't feel too cooped up or like it's a dungeon cell or anything.”

“Oh no, it's quite fine,” Bakran responded, with a polite smile. It only lasted a moment, though, as he then looked back into the room. “But isn't that window kind of a potential escape point?” he asked, and then gestured with a hoof towards the large window that dominated the room and let in plenty of sunlight.

“Oh!” Twilight uttered in surprise. “I hadn't thought of that...” she added, and then pondered for a moment. Then she grinned a bit as an idea hit her. “Okay, one second,” she said, and then charged her horn for another spell. A brief moment later she aimed her horn towards the window, and then cast her magic towards it, whereupon it flattened and formed into a purplish layer over the glass. “There, that shield spell will last an hour or two and keep you from leaving while I make sure there's nothing untoward going on,” Sparkle explained.

“Ah, good idea,” Bakran said, and then walked into the room. Once he was past the door, he then turned around and faced Twilight again. “You might want to do the same to the door when you close it to make sure I can't get out that way, either.”

“O-of course,” Twilight replied, and then smiled crookedly again. “I was going to do that.” I am such a terrible liar, she thought, as she gripped the door with her magic. “If everything looks good, I'll be back within the hour,” she said.

“Okay,” Bakran simply replied, with a nod. “See you, then.”

“Right. See you,” Twilight said, and then closed the door to the guest room. Then she charged her shield spell again and applied it to said door, and once this was done she cast her changeling detection spell one more time. Still only finding one right near me, she realized, and then sighed. That's good, I think. I mean, if Chrysalis was going to attack again then it would be now when I'm utterly confused at how NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE WHAT IS GOING ON? 

Her angered thoughts ripped through her mind, and Twilight could only sit on her haunches and rub her aching head with her hooves, while her wings lost their tension and draped down to the floor. Okay, calm down, she told herself, and then began to run through the breathing exercises Cadance had taught her. Calm down. I'm sure there is a reasonable and logical explanation here. It might even be that everything Bakran told me is the truth and it's just one of the weird coincidences that Ponyville just seems to generate like a monopole of madness. Twilight paused in her thoughts, and then took in another, deep breath. Okay, first I'm going to my study and I'm going to go through all the spell books to see if there's a way of self-detecting brainwashing spells. Then I'm going to check myself, make sure this headache is actually from the insanity and not from that thing Chrysalis was doing to Shiny, and then check the town.

And after that? a small part of her asked. Twilight could only purse her lips, and then looked to the sealed door off to her right. I guess after, I'll have to talk to Bakran again.

She wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.
> Parity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As expected of a princess who happened to be a world-class bookworm, Twilight Sparkle had a rather well-stocked study. It had been easy to find a book on counter-spells, and a quick check of the index had pointed her to a cleansing spell that would remove all but the most insidious of charms or glamours. Once applied, Twilight had sighed in mixture of relief and frustration to discover that she still felt the same about the situation in general, and Bakran in particular. Rats, she thought, as she put the book back in its place with her magic. That means the confusion and frustration are real, and I actually have to deal with them instead of just throwing magic at it, she mentally grumbled, even as she walked out of her study and headed back to the balcony. Does that make me a bad pony, wanting to just find a quick and easy answer? Twilight wondered, as she reached the place where her day turned upside down, and then looked around. Am I getting lazy? I love to study and work on problems, but honestly, that's because the problems I usually work on are ones related to an obvious goal I want to accomplish. I'm not even sure what goal, if any, I'm supposed to have with this... fiasco? she wondered, and then paused to think. No, not quite a fiasco yet. Brouhaha? Yes, that fits.

Twilight Sparkle blinked then, as she realized she had started to woolgather. Okay, let's just put the naval gazing aside for a bit and check the town, she decided, and then spread her wings and took off.

* * * *

Ponyville was easy enough to check, as all Twilight had to do was fly around and repeatedly cast her detection spells. She quickly discovered that Bakran was almost the only changeling in town; there was another she had picked up in the marketplace, but with it now being late morning and the market in full swing, Twilight figured unmasking it could cause a panic. It was also in the middle of her sweep, and so she decided to continue her survey to see if there were any other hits before she started investigating further. By midday, however, she had found no other changelings, and the first one from the marketplace had disappeared. Does it know I'm looking for it? Twilight wondered, as she lazily banked over the busy area. Or was it simply getting food  and now it's off to wherever it stays? Maybe it was merely passing through? Or was it a scout to make sure Bakran made it to his target and stirred things up?

The princess could only groan aloud as the conflicting thoughts warred in her head. It seems all so suspicious and contrived, yet my gut feeling tells me to believe Bakran, if only because an actual invasion or attack would at least involve a plan that doesn't make the target suspicious and paranoid.

…Unless that's part of the plan, to be so painfully obvious that I dismiss it entirely, Twilight realized. A chill ran down her spine at that, and she lost some altitude as her wings briefly stopped flapping. Just come out, act completely like an idiot so we lower our guard, and then BAM! Changeling swarm battering down our shields.

The very thought made Twilight's skin crawl, and she had to glance around to make sure no being was angling to intercept her. Ugh, this is really starting to drive me crazy, she thought, with a frown. If only I could just see what's going on inside Bakran's head... I wonder what he's thinking about right now?

* * * *

Boredom had set in rather easily for Bakran, and so the changeling had lied down and stared at the wall until his imagination started to kick in. Although as time passed on musings to keep him entertained slowly started to spiral into outright hallucinations. Bakran himself did not notice it much, as he grinned and stared at the wall and the shapes he saw dancing around on the floor in his mind's eye. Hehe, silly ball, you cannot into space, he thought, and then chuckled as the multicolored spheres continued their odd interactions.

* * * *

Twilight sighed as she flew aimlessly, lost in thought. Maybe I should contact the other princesses? she wondered. At the very least a changeling arriving like that indicates that Chrysalis' hive is, if not in Equestria, then at least close enough that ballistic projectiles could be lobbed at our towns and cities. This might require a complete reworking of—

“TWILIGHT!” a voice yelled in her ear, and Twilight Sparkle yelped in shock as she instinctively flapped her wings hard to veer away from whatever had interrupted her rumination. A moment later she managed to get a hold of herself and spun in mid-air to see Rainbow Dash giving her a queer look.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed, as she held a hoof to her chest. “You scared the wits out of me!”

“Heh, sorry, Twi,” Dash said, with a brief grin. Then her face quickly shifted back to a mix of concern and confusion. “But I've been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes and you were just flying around like a zombie; I didn't know what else to try.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, and then blushed. “I-I'm sorry, Rainbow. I just had something crop up a little while ago and it's got me all mixed up.”

“Really?” Dash asked, surprised. “Do you need any help with it?”

Twilight smiled a bit at that. Nopony's more loyal than Dash, she thought. Doesn't even know what the problem is, but wants to help out. “I'm... not sure, actually,” Twilight hesitantly replied. “It's kind of complicated.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said, with a drop in her tone. “Well, if you need any help, you let your friends know, alright?” 

A warm feeling washed over Twilight at that. “Alright,” she agreed, with a smile. “So anyway, why were you trying to get my attention?” 

“Oh yeah,” Rainbow replied, and then chuckled. “Sorry. We were all waiting for you at Sugarcube Corner and you hadn't come in, so I went looking for ya.”

Initially the alacorn was confused. “Sugarcube—oh, nuts, is it that late already?” she asked, as understanding filled her, and she glanced up to check the position of the sun.

“Yeah, it's about half past noon,” Dash answered her, even as Twilight noted the time for herself. “You're usually so punctual so we were all kinda getting worried.”

Twilight blushed. “Yeah, I guess I kind of got distracted,” she replied. “I was scanning all over Ponyville because...” Her voice tailed off as a memory ran through her mind. “Oh, shoot!”

“What?” Rainbow asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Is this that problem you were talking about?”

“Yes,” Twilight answered, and then shook her head. “I need to go let him out,” she added, and then turned and began to fly towards her castle with purposeful beats of her wings.

Rainbow Dash easily caught up and held position off to Twilight's left. “Let who out?” she queried.

The alacorn's initial answer was just to sigh. “It's a bit of a story,” she explained. “Just do me a favor?” she asked, and then waited for Dash to nod. “Go back and tell the others I'll be there in a few minutes, along with a guest. I'll explain everything once we get there.”

“A guest?” Rainbow asked, and then smirked. “You talk about letting a 'him' out, and now a guest? Got a coltfriend there, Twilight?”

“WHAT!” Sparkle shouted at Rainbow, even as her wings shot out. She lost a few meters of altitude before she regained control of her body and then stabilized into a hover. She then gave Rainbow a pained look as the latter descended to meet her. “He is most certainly NOT my coltfriend!” she hotly denied.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Rainbow said, as she held up her forelegs in a placating manner. “I get it. Just chill out, Twi.”

Twilight took in a deep, slow breath at that. “I'm sorry,” she said, with a chagrined expression. “It's just, this morning has been troublesome and I'm not sure how to handle it. But I shouldn't have snapped at you.”

“Eh, it's nothing,” Rainbow said, with a wave of her hoof. “No biggie, Twi. Just,” she added, and then gave a friendly smile. “Maybe relax a bit before you blow a fuse or something.”

“Heh, sure,” Twilight acknowledged, with a sheepish grin. “Anyway, could you go tell our friends like I asked? I'll only be a few more minutes.”

Rainbow Dash hovered silently for a moment, and then nodded her head. “Sure thing,” she said, and then gave a casual salute. “See ya soon,” she added, and then spun around and zipped off at a rapid pace, leaving behind a fading rainbow contrail.

Twilight sighed in relief, and then turned and resumed flying to her castle. Well, I'm glad that's taken care of, she thought, and then shook her head. I can't believe I lost track of time! That's so embarrassing.

Not as embarrassing as what Dash surmised, though, part of Twilight's mind noted, and she shuddered a bit. A changeling as a coltfriend? Ugh, imagine that! she mused, disgusted at the thought. Of course, she didn't know my 'guest' is a changeling, but still, the very idea. Ugh.

Having cleared her mind of the bothersome thoughts, Twilight noted she was almost at her castle, and so banked down and angled for a gentle landing on the balcony. She accomplished this with grace and then tucked in her wings and proceeded to walk into the castle. It was a short walk to the room she had left Bakran in, and Twilight was pleased to see her shield spell remained on the door. Good, he should still be in there, Twilight figured. But then an idea entered her head: If this is some kind of trick, though, then he could be equipped for anything. He could be lying in wait for me to come back, maybe hanging from the ceiling using some kind of super gripping magic, or maybe he tunneled out by spitting up acid, she mused, and then shook her head. Who knows what kind of strange, alien physiology changelings have?

Well, you're not going to find out just sitting here, Sparkle told herself. She stifled another sigh, and then dismissed the shield spell before she pushed the door open with her telekinesis. “Bakran?” she asked, as she cautiously moved forward to poke her head into the room.

The changeling was, to her relief, just lying on the floor in the middle of the room, staring at the wall. Okay, good, no ambush. ...I think. Twilight glanced around the room at that, and then cast another detection spell for good measure, but everything she did just confirmed that Bakran was simply waiting patiently on the floor as he appeared to be. Although he is kind of quiet, Twilight though, with a frown, and then slowly walked into the room and headed for the changeling. “Bakran?” she repeated, but the male remained silent and still. Warily, the mare walked up and set a hoof on his shoulder. “Ba—”

“YOU CANNOT HAVINGS MINE CLAY!” Bakran shouted, as he recoiled from Twilight's touch. Sparkle also recoiled, as her wings snapped out and then slammed down hard in an instinctual reaction to propel her backwards through the air and land two meters away. The two then just stared at each other, their eyes open wide and breathing heavily, until Bakran finally blinked and then shook his head. “Oh, uh, sorry,” he said, with a sheepish grin.

Twilight took a moment to catch her breath, and then forced her wings to fold up. “What the hay was that?” she half asked, half demanded.

“Uhm,” Bakran replied, and then tapped a hoof to his chin as he thought for a moment. “I'm not too sure. I kinda got lost in a daydream about a bunch of poorly educated people arguing over petty cultural differences.”

A heavy silence fell over the two, as Twilight just stared incredulously at the changeling. Eventually, though, she took in another deep, calming breath, and then gave him a level look. “Anyway,” she began, and then lifted her head a bit to give herself a bit more confident air. “I'm fairly convinced that you're telling the truth, at least for now,” she explained. “Although I did detect one other changeling briefly in the market. I don't suppose you'd know why it was there?”

Bakran's expression had brightened when Twilight mentioned her belief, but then turned puzzled at the second bit of news. “Can't say that I do,” he replied, and then shrugged. “I never dealt with emotion collection, I was just a builder,” he said, and then looked to Twilight's face. He saw the confusion there, and then decided to elaborate. “A blue-collar type, yanno?”

“You mean, a construction worker?” Twilight asked, as curiosity overcame her other emotions.

“Yeah, I think that's what you call it,” Bakran agreed. Then a rumble came from his stomach, and he chuckled. “Sorry. I don't suppose I could have a sandwich? I don't have any bits, but I could like, wash your dishes or something.”

Twilight blinked owlishly at that. “So, you don't have any money?” she asked.

“You think queen butt-head would have let me keep anything once she decided to exile me?” Bakran countered. “The soldiers took my coin purse when they arrested me, and probably went right to my bank to seize my account,” he explained, and then sighed. “I wouldn't be surprised if they spent my life's savings on beer and hookers by now.”

A feeling of sympathy washed over Twilight at that, but before she could say anything Bakaran blinked, and then smiled at her. “Aw, thanks,” he said.

Twilight blinked in surprised, and then blushed. Right, emotivore, can sense emotions, she thought and then steadied herself. “You're welcome,” she said, sincerely. Then a thought struck her, and she paused to think for a moment before she spoke again. “And what you said gives me an idea.”

Bakran tilted his head quizzically at her. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, with a nod. “I was thinking while I was out on how little we know about changelings, and what to do if it looked like you were telling the truth. Now you you tell me you don't have any money, and I think I have a solution for the both of us,” she continued, and then took a moment to collect her breath. “An... employment of sorts; you can tell me everything you can about your race, your hive, your culture, and I'll see about giving you some room and board, at least until you can get back on your hooves.”

“Really?” Bakran asked, with wide eyes. When Twilight nodded, he hopped into the air and then landed on his hooves. “Wow, thanks!” he said, and then started to shift about in an impromptu dance. “Barely out of the hive and I've already got another job!” 

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. “So, the idea of betraying your race is that easy for you?” she asked, incredulous.

Bakran halted his movements at that, and then turned to give the alacorn a confused look. “Betray? How do you figure that?” he asked.

“Well, I'm asking you to tell me all of your race's secrets,” Twilight elaborated. She was then taken aback as Bakran suddenly chortled. “Whaaaat?” she asked, dragging the one-word question out in exasperation.

“You think we all have some kind of great, big secret!” Bakran replied, in between guffaws. “Princess, if an entire race knows something, then it isn't a secret,” he explained, and then paused to wipe a tear from one of his eyes. “And most changelings I know are all blabbermouths and gossips; couldn't keep a secret to save their lives. Heck, that's why the Ministry of External Affairs has such hard tests before they issue an emotion-collecting license.”

Twilight blinked at this new information. “You... there's a ministry?” she asked, befuddled. “Licensing?”

“Well, yeah,” Bakran replied, as he became confused in echo of Twilight's consternation. “I mean, how else is the government going to keep centralized control over the economy if they don't regulate everything?”

“Bwuh?” Twilight uttered. Then some clarity returned, and she shook her head to help sort her thoughts. “I don't think economies work that way,” she countered.

“Not very well, no,” Bakran admitted, with a shrug. “But centralized economies work well enough to get by, and since queen butt-face is more concerned with control rather than the comfort or livelihoods of the common changeling, she doesn't care to change it.” He paused, and then chuckled again. “Heh, imagine that, a changeling that doesn't like change.”

A moment of silence passed between the two beings as Twilight Sparkle could only stare at the changeling, her face twisted in utter bewilderment. Bakran just waited patiently and peered at her face. “You know, you don't look as scary as the propaganda ministry makes you out to be,” he observed. “I mean, we all figured Chrysalis was full of crap so no one really believed the stories, but I always thought you would be at least a little bit frightening.”

That broke Twilight out of her brain-lock, and she blushed as she shook her head again. “Me, frightening?” she asked, shocked. “You thought that I would be frightening?”

“Well, a little,” Bakran replied, with another shrug. “I mean, you are an alacorn princess, and supposedly like the living embodiment of magic. That's kinda scary to us mere mortals.”

Another moment of silence. “I...” Twilight began, and then sighed. “I honestly don't know how to respond to that,” she admitted.

Bakran frowned slightly as he felt the mare's emotional turmoil. “Well, if it helps any, you're not actually scary,” he offered.

“So you've noted,” Twilight replied, and then thought for a moment. “So, you've got a prop—” she began, but then halted as this time her own stomach rumbled. “Heh,” she chuckled, with a sheepish grin. “Maybe we should actually get lunch before I ask any more questions.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Bakran agreed, with a quick nod. “So, uh, that means me, too, right?” he asked, suddenly unsure, and with a tilt of his head.

Twilight couldn't help but chuckle a bit at Bakran's sudden hesitation. Heh, yanno, despite being a bug he's kinda cute when he does that, she thought. Then she realized what she had 'said' in her internal monologue and froze in horror. No not like that! Like a pet! she wildly thought, and then blanched at the new mental image that came from that. Oh ew ew ew EW EW! That's so wrong! she thought, and then violently shook herself. Dammit, Rainbow Dash!

“Uh, are you alright?” Bakran asked, with a concerned look. “You're kind of acting weird and your emotions are all over the place.”

“Fine!” Twilight replied, and then took a moment to calm herself down. “I'm fine, thank you,” she replied, and then put on a polite smile. “I'm... hungry, that's all,” she elaborated and then gestured with her head. “We should probably get going to Sugarcube Corner,” she added, and then turned and started walking down the hall.

Bakran quickly moved up to join the mare, and soon was holding pace to her left. “Sugarcube Corner?” he echoed. “That's like, a place in town, right?”

“Right,” Twilight replied, with a nod. “Why do you... ask...” she trailed off, and then stopped; both physically and mentally. Then she face-hoofed. “Which means you can't go out like that,” she said, and then gestured with said hoof towards Bakran. Just as she did, though, a new thought entered her head, and she blinked. “Wait, but you're a changeling, so you can just assume a pony's shape.”

“Oh, yeah!” Bakran replied, as his expression brightened. “I forgot!”

Twilight felt the twitch from earlier return. “You... forgot?” she asked, and then waited as Bakran sheepishly grinned and nodded. “How do you forget an inherent ability your own species possesses?”

“Lack of use?” Bakran offered, his voice rising in a half-question. “We kind of don't need to use it inside the hive, and like I said only specialists get to go out, so most of us aren't really practiced in shapeshifting,” he explained.

“It's not an instinctual ability?” Twilight asked, with a frown.

“It kinda is,” Bakran replied, with another shrug. “But it takes practice to do it really well, and most of us don't get that. Because of that most of us would just look wrong or creepy to real ponies, and then we'd get found out really easy. Otherwise we all would have shapeshifted and gone into Canterlot with queen Chrysalis and been inside the shield instead of waiting outside and then pounding on it.”

Twilight processed that information. “Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she observed. Then she blinked again, hard, and then spitted Bakran with a suspicious look. “Wait, you were part of the invasion?” she asked. “I thought you said you weren't a soldier.”

Bakran took a step back at her look and sudden shift in emotion. “I'm not,” he insisted, and then squared his shoulders. “But just before the invasion all the soldiers went roaring through the hive and conscripted a whole bunch of us to fill out the ranks or something like that. Told us 'just look intimidating to the pony civilians, we'll handle the guards'.”

“And you just went along with it?” Twilight asked, with a dubious frown.

Bakran mirrored the alacorn's expression almost perfectly. “I don't know what ponies consider 'conscription',” he began, finally sounding a bit irritated. “But where I'm from that means 'come with us or we'll jab a spear in your gut.' And then they make sure to have enough soldiers with each group of conscripts so that if anyone tried to run once we were outside the hive they'd get a spear in the gut anyway for their troubles.”

The princess unconsciously took a step back as her mind struggled to process the ideas given to her. “Really?” Twilight asked, shocked. “They forced you to fight?”

“Well, yes,” Bakran replied, somewhat bewildered. “You're surprised,” he stated, somewhat incredulously, with another tilt of his head. “Don't you know that's basically how conscription works?”

“Er, no,” Twilight admitted, and then nervously rubbed one of her forelegs with the other. “I mean, I've read it in some very old texts and I know the meaning, but I... I guess I never thought about it,” she added, and then sighed. “That's just horrible.”

Bakran nodded, and then shrugged. “Yeah, well, it is what it is,” he stated, and then lifted a hoof to rub his belly. “Speaking of which, could we get something to eat, now?”

“Oh,” Twilight said, and then nodded. “Of course, we should go,” she added, and then started to move off, but then halted herself again. “But we still have the problem of your appearance,” Twilight reitereated, as she looked over to Bakran. “So can you change into a pony shape or not?”

The changeling fell quiet for a moment and looked pensive. Then his expression switched to one of concentration and he stuck his tongue out of the side of his muzzle as he seemed to strain against some invisible force. A second later green flame washed over Bakran, and when it dissipated a copy of Twilight Sparkle was sitting in his place. “How's this?” it asked, in a copy of the alacorn's voice.

Twilight herself could only stare in a mix of amazement and bemusement. “Uh, well,” she began, and then started to pace around the changeling. “It's... it's me,” she stated, as she inspected her new doppelganger. “And it's a fairly accurate representation of me, I think. But I don't think that having a second Twilight Sparkle is going to be inconspicuous.”

Bakran blinked, and then blushed and awkwardly grinned. “Hehe, sorry,” he said, and then concentrated for another moment before green fire washed over his body again to return him to his natural state. “I told you I'm not very good at this,” he said, with a shrug.

“I thought that meant you'd make errors in appearance that would put you firmly into the Uncanny Valley,” Twilight lightly retorted.

“Well, yeah, if I tried just making some pony out of whole-cloth,” Bakran replied. “That takes practice to get right. But the whole ingrained part of the skill is just to copy what we see.”

“So basically, you can change, but only into a pony that already exists?” Twilight asked, and then groaned when Bakran nodded. “This is troublesome,” she added, and then let her gaze drift off to the side as she delved deep into her thoughts. 

Bakran gave her a moment, and then walked over to nudge her shoulder with a hoof. “Yanno, aren't you an actual princess?” he asked, once he garnered the alacorn's attention. “Couldn't you just, I dunno, walk me through town and just tell ponies it's all under control, nothing to see here, move along?”

Twilight gave an incredulous look in return. “Are you suggesting that I just parade an undisguised changeling through Ponyville?” she asked, in a tone that matched her expression. “The ponies here panicked when a nest of rabbits ran through town; I don't think they'll take kindly to seeing you just march around.”

“Hmm,” Bakran hummed, as he sat on his haunches and then rubbed a hoof along his chin. “You have a good point. Also a salient argument, as well.”

Twilight blinked as the words were sorted in her mind. “Wait, did you just make a joke about my—?”

“But,” Bakran interrupted, as he continued to speak. “Ponyville is somewhat of a minor legend for its insanity, even in the hive. And that comes from the collectors telling stories, not from the propaganda goons, so I tend to believe those a bit. Shouldn't this place be used to the weird and unusual by now?”

A moment of silence and a hard stare met his question, and Bakran shrunk in on himself a bit. Twilight finally relented in her visual onslaught, and then sighed. “You have a p—a salient argument,” she said, with a rueful look as she corrected herself. “Which only raises more questions, especially on how you know these stories when you claim you don't deal with emotion collection, as you called it.”

Bakran shrugged at that, as he ignored the rising suspicion. “Okay, so maybe I did leave out the fact that I'm a kind-of friend with one of the collectors,” he said, evenly. “She's a fellow drinker, and she always comes in to the bar we frequent for a binge whenever she gets back from one of her runs.” He paused, and then seemed to think for a moment. “Never really tells me where she goes, but she's always muttering about how ponies in general, and unicorns in specific are all crazy.”

“And you didn't think this was pertinent information to tell me before?” Twilight pressed.

“No, not really,” Bakran replied. “I mean, you kind of want to pay for my room and board while pumping me for information. Wouldn't it be in my best interests to not dump everything at once, thus removing your incentive to 'employ' me, as it were?”

Twilight opened her muzzle to reply, but then had to close it when Bakran's words fully registered. She then took in a breath and let it out in a huff. “Okay, fair point,” she allowed.

“Plus, I told you I don't know how emotion-collecting works, out in the field,” Bakran continued. “Which is true; all Sweets told me is stories about ponydom, nothing about how she operates.”

Once again the pair fell into silence as Twilight absorbed and considered her visitor's words. Finally, she sighed. “Alright, this whole random question and answer session isn't getting us anywhere,” she said, slowly. “Let's just go to Sugarcube Corner and get some lunch before my brain hemorrhages,” she added, and then turned and started to walk off.

Bakran joined her again, though he gave her another questioning look. “Is that what happens when ponies get hungry?” he asked.

“No, just when we're bombarded with insanity,” Twilight sardonically replied.

“Ah,” Bakran acknowledged. “So, about my appearance?”

“Screw it,” Twilight answered. “Your friend's right, Ponyville's had plenty of weirdness lately; if you upset anypony, then they haven't lived here long.” And I find myself entirely out of concern for the moment, she thought. I just hope that my trust in Ponyville's resilience is not misplaced.
> The Naked Lunch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Huh, and here I thought Marephy's Law would have kicked in by now, Twilight Sparkle mused, half in surprise. She had led Bakran out of her castle only a few minutes ago, and while the pair was certainly getting looks as they walked through town, no pony had panicked.

Yet, Twilight silently amended. We haven't seen the “Flower Trio” so far, and heavens know how they react to things. She suppressed a sigh, and then just shook her head. 

“Interesting feeling,” Bakran observed from his place to her left and a pace behind the mare's lead. Twilight turned her head back to glance at him, and the changeling continued. “A bit of frustration and annoyance, mixed in with a hint of pity.”

“...Yeah,” Twilight said, and then decided to vocalize her thoughts. “Just thinking about a certain, extra-panicky group,” she explained, and then turned her head back to the front. “Also I'm starting to realize how annoying it might be to have an emotion-reader hanging around.”

“Ahh,” Bakran replied, and then fell silent for a moment as he thought. “Maybe that's why changelings and ponies have been separate?” he mused.

“How so?” Twilight asked, with another look back at the changeling. 

“Well, like you said, it's probably annoying,” he explained, as the two took a turn around a corner and headed down the street that led to Sugarcube Corner. “I'd imagine this could cause social friction. Not to mention the fact that being able to read emotions we could probably tell when ponies are lying or some such just from noticing when they get all nervous in spite of any outward deception.”

Twilight paused at that, and the moment it took Bakran to notice and halt with her drew them up side-by-side in the street. “That... is actually a good hypothesis,” Twilight mused, as she stared off in the distance and thought about the idea, and even began to stroke her chin with a hoof. “And somewhat ironic, that a species that deceives others could be used to uncover lies and deception.”

Bakran could only shrug at that, and he buzzed his stubbed wings for good measure. “Life is funny that way, I've noticed,” he observed.

“Indeed,” Twilight sardonically replied. “Well, it's another thing to consider,” she added, and then resumed walking towards their goal. Bakran, of course followed immediately, though he remained silent.

Thus the two walked, until finally a pegasus pony approached them. “Hiya, Twilight!” the walleyed mare said, and then blinked. “Oh, right, I mean princess.”

Twilight smiled at the gray mare. “I told you, Derpy, calling me 'Twilight' is just fine,” she replied. “And is there something you needed?”

“Oh, uh,” Derpy said, and then frowned a bit as one of them seemed to wander to Bakran, even as the other remained fixed on the alacorn. “Just, you do know there's a changeling standing next to you, right?”

The purple mare suppressed a sigh. “Yes, he's a guest of mine at the moment,” she answered. “His name's Bakran,” Twilight added, and then glanced to the male.

Bakran took the cue perfectly, and he smiled and extended a hoof. “Hello,” he greeted, as Derpy reached out to shake the proffered limb. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you too,” Derpy replied, with a friendly smile. Then she turned to Twilight Sparkle again. “Okay, just wanted to make sure there wasn't another invasion, temporal inversion, or dimensional overlap or something like that.”

This time it was Twilight who had to blink hard as her mind played catch-up. “Wait, what?” she asked.

“Okay, you two take care now!” Derpy said, apparently unaware of Twilight's question. “I've still got errands to run, so see ya!” she added, and then took off and into the sky.

The two watched her go, silent for a bit. Then Bakran spoke up. “So, do you usually get temporal inversions and dimensional overlaps here?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

At least, I think that's where an eyebrow would be, Twilight mused, as she briefly reflected on the changeling form. Amazing how the face is so malleable; must not be the kind of chitin we'd normally associate with insects. She filed these musings away, and then shook her head. “Not really... but then again...” she muttered, and then glanced to the side. “It might explain a few things. Like how Derpy's always around when something odd happens.”

“Hmm,” Bakran hummed, and then shrugged. “I dunno. She seemed nice. Her emotions were very open and unguarded and she was genuinely concerned about you until you introduced me, and then she was all happy and joyful.” He paused for a moment, and then gave Twilight a curious look. “You also seemed to be happy to see her, as well. I'm guessing she's a friend?”

Twilight actually managed to smile at that. “Yes, actually; she's the town's mailmare, and to be honest we're all quite fond of her,” she explained, and then chuckled. “Even if she is a bit clumsy at times,” she added. A thought crossed her mind at that, and the smile faded into a look of puzzlement.

Bakran again raised his eyebrow as he felt the change in the mare's emotions. “Is something the matter? You're getting all pensive and that has a really weird taste.”

The question broke Twilight from her reverie, and despite the question pressing on her mind, a new one boldly shouldered to the fore. “Emotions have flavor?” she asked, surprised.

“Well, yes,” Bakran replied. “I mean, sort of. We consume them, after all, so there's something like a flavor to them. Equish kind of doesn't have the right words for it, but those analogies are so close that the difference is negligible.”

Fascinating, Twilight mused, as her mind absorbed the information like a sponge. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but her stomach chose that moment to remind her of their purpose outside the castle with a rumble, and she quickly shut her mouth and looked chagrin. Right, talk later, food now, she thought and then turned and started to walk off in the awkward silence.

Bakran seemed to understand her plight, and he followed without comment. It's probably because he can sense my emotional state and thus can anticipate when either silence or encouragement would work better, Twilight Sparkle mused. That does remind me, though... “Bakran?” Twilight began, without looking back or stopping. “I noticed that you seem to adapt pretty well to reading the emotions of ponies, despite the fact you say you haven't been outside the hive before. I also noticed when you landed on my balcony that you were surprised to detect my emotions, which indicates that you can't read other changelings. So,” she added, and then looked over her shoulder and at the changeling. “How can you read emotions so well?”

Bakran felt suspicion rise again in Twilight's emotions, but he mentally shrugged it off. Can't blame her, this is just too weird, he mused. “Well, as I said, we do kind of consume emotions, so we do know what they feel like,” he explained. “Even if we've never been exposed to them directly, we do kind of get the gist of them when we eat them. Plus, we're not emotionless ourselves; we just don't leak them into the air like ponies and other species do,” Bakran added, and then managed to half-shrug his shoulders as he walked. “We know how we feel, and when we 'taste' how other species feel and it feels just like how we'd feel, we kind of get the feeling for feelings.”

A moment of silence passed, only for it to end as Twilight slowly came to a halt as her mind tried to parse the changeling's words. “That is one of the most grammatically tortured sentences I've heard this week,” Twilight observed, as she turned to face Bakran.

The male was at a loss for a moment, but soon grinned. “Well, what can I say? I'm just good at being me.”

Twilight felt a matching grin spread along her muzzle despite herself. “I haven't even known you that long, but that sounds about right,” she agreed, and then turned to resume their walk down the street. Sugarcube Corner was mercifully close, and so Twilight decided to switch topics. “Alright, let me go in first and let my friends know that you're not a threat,” she said, and then glanced back. “A couple of them are kind of known for acting first and questioning later.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bakran replied, with a nod. Then as the two reached the steps leading up to the door, he went to the side and sat on his haunches on the ground next to the stairs. “I'll just sit here 'til you come back.”

“Thank you,” Twilight replied, with relief in her tone. “I shan't be long,” she said, and then opened the door with her magic and stepped into the bakery. Once the door closed behind her, though, she did take a moment to run another changeling detection spell to make sure he was staying where he said he would. It's like what Celestia told me about international politics; “trust, but verify”, she mused, and then turned to look for her friends once she confirmed that Bakran was staying true to his word.

“Twilight!” came a familiar country twang, and an orange hoof waved in conjunction. The alacorn had just spotted the table with her friends at the same moment Applejack spoke up, and so she smiled as she began to walk over. Other hooves were raised in greeting as the rest of her close friends—Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie—were there as well, and their faces reflected Twilight's own joy at seeing each other.

“Hello, girls,” she said, as she moseyed up to the table. “Sorry I'm late, but this morning has turned out to be more hectic than I planned.”

“Rainbow did mention that, yes,” Rarity said, evenly. “I do hope there's not a significant problem?”

“Yeah, you were really out of it, earlier,” Dash chimed in.

Twilight sighed. “Well, it's a bit of a story,” she said.

“Well then, pull up a chair and tell us about it,” Applejack replied, with a wave of her hoof towards an unused chair set against a nearby wall. “Although, I thought Rainbow said you'd have a guest?” she asked, curiously.

The alacorn could only offer a crooked, sheepish grin. “Yeah, about that,” she began. “There's something I need to tell you about him...”

* * * *

Bakran remained in place as time wore on, though constant pain of an empty stomach did make him shift around a bit. That and the ponies staring at me, he thought, as he casually turned his head to look around the area. Sugarcube Corner was indeed at a corner, but not just of an intersection; a small square, paved in cobblestone, stretched out in front of the shop and the other businesses around it. And like most such centers of commerce, ponies were out and about visiting shops and making purchases and the like.

Or they would be, if there wasn't an undisguised changeling sitting near the steps of Sugarcube Corner. Instead, the edges of the square were becoming more and more crowded as ponies out and about on their daily errands reached the location, spotted Bakran, and then froze. Are their minds broken? The changeling mused, as he let his eyes drift over the multicolored equines. How much does it take to break a pony mind, anyway? Twilight Sparkle seemed to be pretty close herself, and she's like, a princess. Well, not like a princess, she is a princess, but the point remains; are pony minds easily broken? Is it their nature as a prey species? Or is it just because this place is known for being weird?

His reverie was broken as one pony pushed her way through the crowd that was starting to block the streets. “Out of my way, chazwazzers,” the green unicorn said, as she maneuvered around a particularly obtuse specimen of ponykind, who just stood there and continued to gape. Just as she maneuvered around the stallion, though, the mare caught sight of Bakran and froze herself. Unlike her fellows, however, she quickly adapted and resumed walking forward, straight towards Sugarcube Corner.

Bakran could only raise an eyebrow as the green pony walked up to him. Horn's not lit, so I guess she's not about to blast me, he mused. Maybe she'll just kick or slap me instead?

His silent questions were answered, though, then the mare stopped in front of him and then looked him up and down for a moment. “I hate to break it to you, buddy,” she said, and then leaned in and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “But I think you're not disguised.”

Now it was Bakran who was stunned for a change, though he recovered after a few moments. “Uh, I know, thanks,” he replied, evenly. “I'm kinda not here on, uh, official changeling business or anything.”

“Oh,” the mare said, and then fell silent. Bakran himself had no idea what to say, and so the two sat there for a solid minute before the unicorn spoke up again. “Oh, uh, anyway, I'm Lyra Heartstrings,” she said, and then held up a hoof.

“I'm Bakran,” the changeling replied, and then reached up with a leg to shake the proffered hoof. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Lyra replied, and then tilted her head once the hoofshake was over with. “So, may I ask what you are doing here? And why are you just sitting outside Sugarcube Corner?”

Bakran gave a rueful chuckle at that. “I, ah, kind of got myself exiled from my hive. But fortunately I met princess Twilight Sparkle and she's offered me a job,” he added, and then jerked his head towards the door of the bakery. “She's inside talking to her friends to let them know not to turn me into paste when they see me, I think.”

“Ah,” Lyra said, with a nod and a knowing look. “That's a good idea; some of her friends can be rather jumpy,” she added, and then sighed. “Really good ponies, but I swear Rainbow Dash might start a small war one of these days.”

“To be fair, my old queen pretty much did that herself,” Bakran interjected.

“Ah, true,” Lyra replied, pensively. “So, how'd you meet Twilight, anyway? At least,” she added, irreverently. “Without her turning you into a protein supplement on sight?”

Bakran chuckled again, this time more freely. “Well, when I said I got exiled, I mean I was literally thrown from the hive by her royal buttheadedness and I, ah, kind of landed on the princess' balcony.”

“Ah, that would do it,” Lyra agreed, with another nod. “She's never been one to turn down a curiosity, and that's certainly something new.”

“Really?” Bakran replied. His expression became confused, and she shifted on his haunches. “Because I get the feeling that she's rather put out about all of this.”

Lyra shook her head. “Nah,” she said, and added in a dismissive wave of her foreleg for good measure. “She loves new stuff. You probably just caught her at a bad time or something.”

Bakran remained silent at that as he thought over the mare's words. He didn't have long, though, as Lyra spoke up again. “So anyway, you seem like a hardy sort,” she said, friendlily, and then back-hoofed Bakran in his stomach. Fortunately, his carapace easily kept him from getting winded, but in any case Lyra went on without a pause. “If that job with Twilight doesn't work out, you come talk to me; I could always use a sidekick when I'm out and about.”

“Sidekick?” Bakran asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I guess I didn't really fully introduce myself,” Lyra said, and then shifted her pose to throw out her chest and lift her head back. “I am Lyra Heartstrings, Gentlemare Adventurer!” she proclaimed, as she brought up a hoof to press against her chest. “Explorer of the unusual, the bizarre, and the downright weird.”

I think I'm starting to appreciate her highness' attitude, Bakran thought, as he mused on Twilight's mood. “Uh, aren't all three of those the same thing?” he asked, confused.

“You'd think so,” Lyra said, as she relaxed from her pose and looked Bakran in the eye again. “But it turns out to not be that way at all.”

Bakran blinked. Then he blinked again. Then a third time and he shrugged as well. “If you say so,” he finally replied.

“And I do,” Lyra confirmed. “Now, you said Twilight's in there with her friends?” she asked, and then waited for Bakran to nod in response. “Good, I need to talk to AJ.”

“Who?” 

* * * *

“So lemme get this straight,” Applejack began, and then waited for her friends' complete attention before she continued. “This here changeling drops out of the sky and onto your balcony?” she asked, and then waited for Twilight to nod. “An' he's all polite and easygoin' and open and all,” Applejack continued. “So ya scan Ponyvile to make sure it ain't a trap or plot or anythin' and ya found one other changeling, who ain't there no more, and so ya offered this Bakran feller a job an' now he's waitin' patiently outside for us?”

“That sums it up nicely, yes,” Twilight replied, with a nod. 

“Are you sure he's still there?” Rarity asked, as she glanced towards the door.

Twilight lit up her horn at that, and then concentrated for a moment before she let the magic fade. “Yes, he's still there,” she answered. “At least, one changeling is, and I doubt that other one is going to wander in and change places with Bakran in the few minutes we've spent talking.”

“Uh-huh,” Applejack replied. “Now shug, ya do know that admittin' ya got a problem is the first step towards getting over it, right?”

Twilight frowned as Applejack's words at first failed to register. After a moment, though, she put the pieces together and then blushed heavily. “I am not drunk!” she protested. “Honestly, have you even seen me drink before?”

Applejack frowned back, and then tapped her chin with a hoof. “Well... to be fair, I can't say I have,” she admitted. “But still, this here sounds like somethin' a drunk would come up with.”

“Maybe she's drunk all the time?” Rainbow Dash posited, and then settled back in her seat with a neutral expression as the ponies at the table all turned their attention to her. “I mean, for all we know she's actually way more uptight sober than she normally is, and she just gets smashed every morning just to get through the day without strangling somepony?” she asked, as she struggled to suppress a grin at her friends' horrified expressions.

Twilight was rendered speechless, even as her face turned entirely new shades of purplish-red. As such it was Rarity who spoke up next. “Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed, in a chiding tone. Though she dropped it back into a more conversational volume as she pitched her head back slightly. “It's not our place to question what royalty does in their off, or even on time. If Twilight wants to be drunk every moment of every day it's well within her right.”

Twilight finally found her voice at that. “Rarity!” she half-shouted, in shock. “I am not drunk! I do not get smashed just to get through the day! And I have not had a single drink since—” She halted at that, as her memory caught up with her mouth, and the blush on her face seemed to do the impossible and deepen even more. “Uh, I mean, I don't drink,” she continued, in a much calmer tone. The expression remained, however.

“Uh-huh,” was the repeat utterance from Applejack, though this time it was joined in chorus by the other four of Twilight's close friends.

“...And besides, I'm not drunk right now,” Twilight went on, after a moment of hesitation. The dubious looks from her friends made her sigh, and she then shook her head. “How about I just bring Bakran in and you all can meet him?” And see that I'm not insane.

“Sounds good, dear,” Rarity spoke. “We’ll be waiting for you here,” she said, and then glanced over to Pinkie Pie as the latter opened her mouth. “Patiently,” she added, with a pointed glare at the party pony. Pinkie simply smiled as she closed her mouth and nodded.

“Thank you,” Twilight said, as she shifted out of her seat and then stood. “I’ll be right back with Bakran, then,” she added, and then turned and walked towards the entrance of the bakery. Once there, she casted her changeling detection spell again to verify that Bakran was still where he was. He is; good, Twilight thought, and then applied her magic to the knob.

“...so next thing I knew she was choking the life out of me,” a familiar voice said, as the door opened. Twilight froze as her eyes registered the mint-green mare at the exact same moment her brain recognized the voice. Oh horseapples, it's Lyra.

“Is that norm—” Bakran began, but then suddenly whipped his head around as he felt a strong peak of emotions wash against him. “Oh, hello, princess,” he said.

Lyra turned her head when he said that, and then grinned widely. “Twilight! Long-time no see!” she said, as she turned her body to face the alacorn and then walked up the steps to Sugarcube Corner. Once at the top she reared back on her hind legs and then wrapped Twilight in a hug around her withers. “How’ve you been?”

“Uh,” Twilight temporized, as she struggled to get her mind into gear. “I’ve been good,” she added, as her thoughts raced. Oh horseapples, this can’t be good, she thought. I really hope she hasn’t talked to Minuette or Moondancer lately.

“That’s good,” Lyra said, as she disengaged from the hug and then took a step back to give Twilight some space. “I was talking to Minuette the other day and she told me how you got back together with the girls.”

Fewmets, Twilight internally cursed. Her recent jaunt to Canterlot to amend fences was still fresh in the alacorn’s mind, and she chastised herself for not remembering an important factor that Minuette had related to her: they visit Lyra here in Ponyville all the time, she belatedly remembered. “Well, I just didn’t want to completely forget about my past life, you know?” Twilight offered. Even though sometimes I wish I could.

“Well, I’m kind of hurt you didn’t think to talk to me about it,” Lyra replied, with a slight frown.

Twilight winced slightly, and internally she felt her panic shift into a deep, swirling pit of guilt. “I guess I forgot more than I thought,” she offered, with a wan smile. “I would love to make up for that sometime, though,” she added, even as she thought that it would be a bad idea.

Lyra’s expression lightened up, though, and so Twilight cooled her concern. “That’d be great!” Lyra said, with a wide smile. “I’ve got all sorts of stuff I’d like to discuss with you, too, like theories and ideas I’ve picked up in my travels.”

“Oh, you… travel?” Twilight asked, in surprise.

“All the time,” Lyra replied. “But we can talk about that when we have a meetup. Right now Mac sent me to find AJ, and I heard she was here?”

Another wave of surprise washed over Twilight as she absorbed her erstwhile friend’s words. Mac? As in Big McIntosh? She wondered. Then the question finally impugned on her train of thought, and Twilight managed to get an answer out. “Oh, sure, Applejack’s inside if you want to speak with her,” she relayed.

“Groovy,” Lyra replied. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? Got business to attend to right now,” she said, and then waited for Twilight to nod before she smiled once again and then walked past the alacorn and into the inside of Sugarcube Corner. She paused at the threshold, though, and then glanced back to the changeling watching from the sidelines. “Take care, Bakran,” she added.

“You too,” Bakran replied, friendlily. The mint unicorn then departed at that, and the male turned his attention to Twilight Sparkle, who was just watching the doorway with concern. What the hay is the story here? Bakran wondered. Well, guess I might as well ask; I’m already living on borrowed time as it is, so I might as well push my luck. With that, he cleared his throat to get Twilight’s attention, and then spoke when she turned her head to look at him. “So, uh, your highness,” he began, carefully. “Are you alright? You seemed to be having some kind of emotional distress while talking to Miss Heartstrings.”

Twilight winced openly, and then blushed. “Yeah, I guess you would’ve noticed that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, and then sighed. “It’s… It’s complicated,” she added, even as she shifted her gaze to look at the door to Sugarcube Corner. “Lyra was in my circle of friends back when I was a student in Canterlot. Well, as close to a friend as I had in those days.

“But the thing is, she was more friends with Minuette and Lemon Drops than she was with me,” Twilight continued, as she returned her gaze to Bakran. “And truth be told, she was always getting on my nerves the way she went on about her obsession with human myths and the like. It just bothered me so much that she would take them so seriously when they’re nothing more than…” Twilight blinked as her mind made a connection. “Old… mare’s… tales.”

Bakran frowned as he felt Twilight’s guilt, which had been a constant background since Lyra left, rose to the fore and swamped all of her other emotions. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked, even as Twilight herself slowly sat on her haunches. 

“No, not really,” Twilight admitted, and then looked down to the ground. “I’ve been a horrible pony again,” she added, and then looked around the square. Fortunately much of the earlier crowd had dispersed when Lyra and Twilight had conversed near the changeling, the ponies apparently having realized that the situation was under control. Thus assured that the two shared a bit of privacy, Twilight sighed and then glanced at Bakran. “I judged Lyra so harshly, even after I learned about Nightmare Moon and got upset when nopony wanted to believe me,” she said, and then looked down again. “Here I am, supposedly the princess of friendship, and yet I still hold on to impressions and derisive ideas that I should be beyond now.” She paused, and then sniffed. “I’m a terrible pony. Some friend I am.”

The shift in the alacorn’s emotions and her sniffle set off triggers in Bakran’s male brain, and he reached out with a hoof and placed it on Twilight’s withers. “You’re not a terrible pony,” he said, somewhat hesitantly. “I mean, I haven’t known you for very long, but given I thought you were going to literally kill me when we met I’m pretty sure that it’d be hard for me to have a lower opinion of you than that,” he explained, and then gulped as Twilight frowned at him. “Er, what I’m trying to say is that given how justified I thought you’d be to turn me into paste, you didn’t. Instead you’ve been nice enough to hear me out and even offered me a job to help me get back on my hooves. And for the suspicion, well, double-checking things is a sane and rational response.” He paused, and then took in a breath to calm his nerves. “I know it might not mean much to you coming from a changeling and all, but you’ve been an exceedingly nice pony despite all of the insanity today, and I appreciate it.”

Twilight felt her guilt abate at that, and she managed to bring out a tiny smile on her muzzle. “You mean that?” she asked, and the smile grew a bit as Bakran nodded. But a new though soon entered her head, and the smile disappeared. “But, would a nice pony really be so put off about Lyra?”

“Maybe?” Bakran asked back, and then withdrew his hoof as Twilight gave him a sour look. “Look, I’m not the one to ask about friends. I barely had any acquaintances, and the closest I had to a real friend was a habitual drunk who has problems keeping her voice the same when she’s on the hooch,” he said, and then sighed. “But I do know that sometimes, beings just don’t like each other. And sometimes, they don’t like each other at first, but get over it later,” he continued, and then smirked a bit. “My friend I mentioned? She threatened to punch my face in when I tried hitting on her. Took a bar fight and getting thrown in the slammer together before she’d give me the time of day. We’re not exactly best buds now, but we talk politely and all.” Bakran paused at that, and then gestured to Sugarcube Corner’s entrance. “Maybe you won’t get along with Lyra. Maybe you didn’t get along in the past, but now you can. I don’t know, but either way that doesn’t make you a bad pony. Hay, just the fact that you feel bad about it shows that you aren’t nearly as bad as you think you are.”

A moment of silence settled between the two, though Twilight soon smiled again. “Thank you, Bakran,” she said, and then stood up. “It’s… nice to know that friendship is such a universal constant that even a being from another culture can comfort a silly mare like myself,” she wryly observed.

Bakran shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we don’t pick up on things,” he said. “I mean, I never left home before, but every time something new swept through the hive it always came from one of the collectors. So I figure we had to have picked up something from you ponies after all this time.”

Twilight smiled again. “Well, maybe that means we have a lot more in common than we thought,” she said, and then turned to walk towards the nearby bakery’s front door. “And that gives me hope that introducing you to my friend won’t result in a massive food fight.”

“Even if it does,” Bakran chimed in, as he followed the mare into the building. “That just means free food.”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle at that, and her light laugh echoed Bakran’s own. “Behave, now,” she chided, to which the changeling could only nod his head. Accord reached, the two walked over to the corner of the room where Twilight’s friends and Lyra were waiting.

The latter was standing by the table and speaking with Applejack as Twilight and Bakran walked up. “You’re kidding me?” she asked, and then shook her head. “Well, I guess we’d better put off the announcement; wouldn’t want to steal their thunder after all.”

“Well, where the hay have you been?” Applejack asked. Then she noticed the new arrivals, and she turned her head to first smile at Twilight, and then frown at Bakran. “Well, ya weren’t tellin’ stories after all, were ya, Twi?”

Twilight shook her head at that. “Sorry, Applejack,” she said, and then took in a breath. “Everypony, this is Bakran, the changeling I told you about. Bakran,” she added, with a brief glance back at the chitin-covered being. “These are my friends, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and—”

“HI!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, as she virtually exploded from her seat and bounced over the table to land in front of the changeling. Bakran flinched back at that, though that’s all he could do before Pinkie began her idiomatic rapid-fire speech: “My name’s Pinkie Pie how are you doing it’s so wonderful to finally meet you even though I only heard about you a few minutes ago and I was wondering how to greet a changeling like would I need to buzz or hiss or something because that would get in the way of saying ‘hi and welcome to Ponyville’ which I haven’t gotten to do yet because Twilight’s been hogging you all to herself even though you got her all flustered and even though that’s not hard to do because she’s like all really stressed out and today was supposed to be an off day but now you’re here so maybe she’ll relax now that you’re all introduced and we can finally have your welcome to Ponyville party soon and what kind of cupcakes do you like or do you prefer ice cream because nothing makes friends happier than their favorite flavor of ice cream so what—”

A purple aura wrapped itself around Pinkie’s muzzle then, and Twilight sighed as the party pony continued to make muffled noises through her tightly-held mouth. “…And this is Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said, tiredly, and then released Pinkie’s muzzle when the latter finally fell silent and just beamed at the changeling. “You’ve met Lyra already, of course,” Twilight added, with a nod to the unicorn.

“Of course,” Bakran echoed Twilight, and then turned to her seated friends. Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were all giving him poisonous looks, and Fluttershy was cowering in her seat, with only the top of her head and eyes visible above the edge of the table; only Lyra and Pinkie were smiling at him politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” he said, evenly. “I do realize you may not like changelings all that much and I don’t blame you. But I do hope that we can be peaceable to each other. Or at the very least I’d like it if you don’t beat the stuffing out of me,” he added, with a wry smile.

For a wonder, both Rainbow Dash and Applejack blushed slightly and looked a bit contrite. Rarity, though, was the one who spoke up. “I think we can all remain civil, dear,” she said, her tone mostly even, but with a brittle edge to it. “Provided you do the same, of course,” she added.

“Of course,” Bakran replied, with a nod. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything to the contrary.”

“Yay!” Pinkie Pie interjected, as she moved from her position near Bakran and then began to hop in circles around the changeling. “Now that we have all the introductions and threats out of the way that means we can finally start planning your welcome party!”

Bakran took a moment to step back from Pinkie when she was in front of him, and he spoke up as she stopped hopping and turned to face him. “Wait, threats?” he asked.

“Well, duh,” Pinkie replied, happily as usual. “Rarity was all subtle about it but anypony could tell she was saying ‘make one wrong move, buster, and you’ll be sorry!’ And Applejack and Rainbow Dash haven’t said a word yet so I know they’re fuming like the loyal but prideful ponies they are which is why they’re so awesome  but it can really get in the way sometimes like when Dashie and I went to the Griffon kingdom or is it really a kingdom now since they haven’t had a king in years and they’re all kind of an anarcho-mercantile association going ‘gimmie gimmie gimmie’ except for Gilda and her friend now they’re going to change the whole place one griffon at a time and that would be a great tagline for a movie or a book or something like ‘in a world where stuff happens, even more stuff happens!’ and then there’s that BWAAAA noise that every trailer has now and wait am I leaking over?” At this the party pony finished her brief barrage of wacky words, and the sudden, odd question at the end took everyone else in the vicinity for a loop. Fortunately the silence was brief as Pinkie smiled and then began to speak again. “Anyway so like I was saying, the threats are all over with and we’ve said ‘hi’ and all, so what kind of cake and ice cream do you want for your party?”

She had addressed Bakran at the last, and the changeling took a moment to think. “Uh, chocolate and vanilla, respectively,” he answered, in an unsure tone.

“Great choices!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, with a hop in the air to punctuate her words even further. “Both are classics and go together really well!” she added, and then turned to walk towards the door to the bakery’s kitchen. “I’m going to see what we have in stock! I’ll talk to you all later!” With that said, Pinkie disappeared through the aforementioned door.

The group remaining behind all stood or sat in silence for a few long moments, before Bakran finally turned his head from the kitchen door to regard the ponies he was with. “What the hay just happened?” he asked, in a perturbed tone.

“That’s Pinkie Pie for ya,” Applejack answered, with a faint smirk. “She’ll leave ya more confused than a pig in a henhouse.”

“Considerably more than that,” Twilight wryly observed. Then she sighed and turned her head to regard her friends. “But she got one thing right; the threats are over with. Which means I’d appreciate it if all of you keep a level head in dealing with Bakran,” she added, and then took a moment to move her gaze over her friends. “I know it’s awfully suspicious and strange, but everything he’s said so far has checked out and I still haven’t found any changeling army or plot in progress, so I think it would be fair for all of us to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Until and unless I do something obviously evil,” Bakran chimed in.

Five of the six ponies present blinked, and then gave Bakran incredulous looks. “Wait, what?” Twilight asked.

Bakran shrugged again. “Well, look, you don’t know if I’m telling the truth or not, so it would be prudent to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.”

“Wait, lemme get this straight,” Applejack spoke up. “You’re tellin’ us to be suspicious of you?” she asked, bemused.

“Uh, sort of,” Bakran replied. “I’m saying, if a pony suddenly dropped into the hive, we’d all be kinda suspicious of him, even if he said he meant no harm. So it’s just fair you’d be a bit wary of me, as well.”

A stunned silence fell over the group, though it was mercifully short when Lyra lightly chuckled. “Well, makes sense to me,” she offered.

“I suppose,” Applejack slowly said. Then she turned to regard Bakran. “But it’s awfully strange for somepony to just out and out suggest others oughta suspect him.”

“Except I’m not,” Bakran evenly replied. “I’m saying you should be wary and keep your eyes open, which is a fair response to something like someone you thought was a mortal enemy dropping into town,” he explained, and then tilted his head to the side. “I mean, I could just tell you to not worry and all, but I am trying to be honest and forthright here. I am not actually up to no good, but my conscience tells me that I should at least be fair and give you tools to defend yourself, even if I’m not a real threat.”

Applejack and the others seemed to mull on this, and after a moment the farmer pony spoke up. “Well, that’s a right stand-up way of behavin’, I’ll give ya that,” she observed, with a note of respect in her voice.

“It’s one of the reasons I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, myself,” Twilight interjected, with a nod. Then her stomach rumbled, and she blushed and offered a sheepish grin. “Well, in any case, we came here for food, and I think it’s high time we got some.”

“On that I could not agree more,” Bakran chimed in.

“Then it’s good I whipped something up!” Pinkie Pie suddenly exclaimed, as she popped out from under the table that her friends were sitting at or standing around. Every pony flinched back in surprise at this, and then again as she pulled out a covered platter from the same space she had appeared from, and then laid it on the table. The party pony then followed this up by reaching into her mane to pull out several plates and forks, which she then quickly distributed along the edges of the round table.

Bakran simply stared in utter bafflement. “Wha?” he muttered, even as Pinkie finished setting the table and then zipped around the main room and collected chairs, which she then shoved under the flanks of Twilight, Bakran, and Lyra. Stunned by the speed, the three newly seated persons meekly accepted their new places as Pinkie Pie pushed them next to the table and then stood aside for a moment, as if to appreciate her own work.

“Uh,” Twilight uttered, as she worked to get her mind to accept what had just happened in the space of only a few seconds. “What did you make for us, Pinkie?” she asked of her friend.

“Salad!” Pinkie Pie joyfully replied. Then she reached over the table and yanked the cover off of the platter to reveal a serving bowl of leafy greens and sliced carrots and tomatoes, and on the side were a bowl of croutons and a bottle of dressing. “I’ll bring out some muffins, too, when they’re ready in a few minutes.”

“Well, thank you, Pinkie,” Rarity said, as she recovered her mental balance. “But I don’t see any serving tools.”

“Oh! I must’ve forgot,” she said, and then turned and started to walk back towards the kitchen door. “I’ll be right back!”

The group watched the baker depart for a second time in only a few minutes, and then turned to each other. “Uh, was any of that normal?” Bakran asked, cautiously.

“Not for most ponies,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, as she reached forward with a hoof towards the bowl. “But Pinkie is—ow!” She was forced to interrupt herself as a light blue magic aura briefly appeared around her outstretched limb and a snapping noise was heard.

“Rainbow Dash, manners!” Rarity scolded the pegasus, while the latter hastily withdrew her hoof. “Other ponies have to eat from that plate as well, so no mussing it up with your dirty hooves.”

“Well you didn’t have to sting it like that,” Dash petulantly replied, and rubbed the afflicted spot with her other fetlock. “And for your information I do wash my hooves before eating!”

The two friends fumed at each other silently for a moment, though it ended as Lyra cleared her throat. “Uh, should I leave?” she asked of the others, as she looked around the table. “I get the impression you were all here for your own thing and I don’t want to intrude.”

The close friends amongst the group shot each other quick looks and soon came to a silent consensus. “I think I speak for everypony here in that we don’t mind you joining us,” Rarity spoke up, and her friends nodded their assent. “After all, Twilight brought a guest, so I suppose Applejack might as well have one herself.”

“Speaking of which,” Pinkie Pie interjected, as she approached the table in a far more conventional manner than last time. As such, she was not a surprise and easily garnered the group’s attention as she spoke and laid out a set of serving tongs on the salad platter. “I got a Pinkie Sense that somepony is going to need a party soon and here Lyra is and I’m betting that Big Mac finally proposed didn’t he?”

“What!” Twilight uttered, as she looked ever to Lyra in shock. “You and Big McIntosh?” she asked. “Since when?”

Both Applejack and Lyra frowned slightly in confusion at the alacorn. “Uh, since before you got your wings there,” the latter answered, with a gesture of her hoof. “Why are you so surprised?”

Twilight blushed a bit at that. “Uh, well, I guess I never saw you two together, but I kind of see you and Bonbon all the time being… really close,” she explained, cautiously.

“Like, really really close,” Rainbow Dash chimed in from her seat. A quick glance from the others at the table revealed that she had taken advantage of the situation to grab some of the mixed salad and put it on her plate, and even now she was munching on a bit of it. Fortunately for Rarity’s ideal of propriety, a pair of tongs had apparently materialized and been used, and a fluffy pink tail just disappearing under the edge of the table alluded to the cause of the utensil’s sudden appearance. “Everypony thinks you’re lesbians.”

“Rain. Bow. Dash,” Rarity ground out, through clenched teeth. “Do you have no sense of decorum at all?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know. How do you spell it?” she asked.

Rarity looked like she was about to blow a fuse, but fortunately Lyra’s heavy sigh broke the tension, and the mint unicorn brought a hoof up to rub one of her temples. “Is everypony still going on about that?” she asked, tiredly. “We keep telling them we’re just great friends!”

“Great friends that like to rub up against one another a lot?” Twilight asked, tentatively, even as she used her magic to lift some of the salad onto her plate.

“And are always looking at one another with lovey-dovey eyes?” Rarity chimed in herself, as she eagerly dropped all pretenses now that the topic was brought up. She also began to grab salad with her magic, as well, and the other ponies and changeling at the table followed suit with magic and tongs.

Lyra frowned at the two ponies’ questions. “Look… there are some very good reasons for that,” she ambiguously replied. “But that doesn’t mean we’re lesbians.”

“Yeah, but it sure looks like it,” Rainbow Dash restated. 

“Trust me, Dash,” Applejack chimed in, after having finished a bite of salad. Her expression was strained to say the least. “If the noises she an’ Mac make are an indication, she’s straight.”

A blush-filled silence fell around the table at that, though it was brief as Rainbow Dash started to laugh. “Oh, wow!” the pegasus said, in between guffaws. “That’s hilarious! Is she a screamer? No no, wait,” Dash barely strained between chuckles. “I bet it’s Mac, isn’t it? It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Rainbow!” all of her friends chorused, clearly scandalized. Even Fluttershy managed to raise her voice to join the others, despite the massive blush on her face.

“Actually it’s a bit of both of us,” Lyra replied to Rainbow’s question, and everyone at the table turned to her to see a blush and a smirk both occupying her face. “Unicorn magic is great for hitting those hard-to-reach spots, and Mac’s got a tongue that would put a bard to shame.”

“Augh!” Applejack groaned, and then reached up to pull on her hat’s brim and used it to cover her face as much as possible. “I don’t want ta hear it, Lyra!” she ground out, and then let up her hat so she could glare at the green unicorn.

“…I could stand to hear a bit more,” Rainbow Dash half muttered. 

“Consarnit, Dash!”

* * * *

As Applejack and Rainbow Dash got into an argument about what was appropriate to discuss about one’s relatives, Bakran leaned over to the side so he could talk to Twilight Sparkle semi-privately. “So, is this what usually happens around here?” he asked, in a quiet tone and with his head only half-turned to the princess, as he wanted to keep the argument in sight. “Because this is both is and is not what I would have expected from the stories I heard.”

Twilight heavily sighed. “Honestly? This is a new level of random,” she replied, in an equally low voice. Like Bakran, she also only had her head half-turned towards her conversation partner. “Although it’s unsurprising, considering the way my life’s been going lately.”

Bakran hesitated at this, and then looked down at his plate. “Oh, sorry about that,” he said, quietly, barely above the level of Rainbow Dash’s proclamation of Big McIntosh’s ‘hotness’.

For her part, Twilight paused to register Bakran’s sudden downward shift of mood. Then she blushed again and mentally restrained herself from a face-hoof. “No no, it’s not you,” she said, as she turned her head to fully face the changeling. Bakran, too, swiveled his head towards the purple mare, though he gave her a flat look that made Twilight offer a sheepish smile. “Well, okay, not just you,” she amended, and then sighed. “It’s just… well, how would you like it if you actually changed your entire subspecies and are now a possibly immortal font of magical energy and this was only after you defeated two madgods, a homicidal magic vampire, a chaaaaan-hostile invasion, and a whole host of strange, almost comical events in your day-to-day life?”

Bakran managed to smirk as Twilight tripped over her own words. She’s cute when she’s trying to not be offensive on a topic that isn’t really offensive in the first place, he mused, and then shook his head as she finished speaking. “I guess I can’t really imagine it,” he admitted, and then shrugged. “When you put it that way, it sounds like your life has been rather interesting lately,” he added, and then turned to munch on some of the salad on his plate.

“Interesting is certainly one word to describe it,” Twilight half-muttered, and then turned to her own plate and delicately took a bite. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in some strange stage production,” she added, after a proper chew and swallow.

“Fine!” Rainbow Dash shouted from her position across the table, which prompted both Twilight and Bakran to return their attentions to the argument. The multi-hued Pegasus had sat back in her seat in a huff and petulantly crossed her forelegs in front of her chest. “I won’t talk about your brother like that anymore!”

“THANK you!” Applejack half-shouted back, and then sighed and settled back in her seat. “The last thing I need is horrible mental images runnin’ through my head,” the farmer added. She then seemed to think for a moment, and then winced. “At least, not any more than this’un’s gone and ruined my brain with,” she added, with a wave of her hoof towards Lyra.

“Hehe, sorry about that,” Lyra sheepishly said, and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “We’re not trying to traumatize anypony, just kind of get carried away now and again.”

“Well just so long as y’all don’t get caught by Applebloom and mess her up for life, we’ll call it even,” Applejack replied, with a huff. 

“I’m glad that’s taken care of!” Pinkie Pie interjected, as she seemed to appear from nowhere to pull a seat up to the table between Bakran and Lyra. She then quickly sat down and promptly began to grab salad from the bowl with the serving tongs. “Now we can all get to eating so we can all calm down and ask Bakran all sorts of things!”

Bakran suppressed a sigh at that. And here I was hoping they could all start to relax around me, he thought, as the ponies around the table returned their attentions to him. He also felt their returning suspicions as well, though it was to a lesser degree than before. I guess being honest and on good behavior really does help, the changeling mused.

“So Bakran,” Rarity began, her voice in perfect control despite her earlier anger and the slight blush that remained on her face. “What can you tell us about yourself?”

“Well, there’s not much to tell,” Bakran began, after a bite of food. “I was born to two middle-caste workers, and I have two siblings, a brother and a sister. After I gained my majority I was assigned as a builder and I’ve been doing that for the last seven years.” He shrugged at that. “Not much more to say, really. Oh, aside from the fact that yesterday I really ticked off the queen and she exiled me,” Bakran added, nonchalantly. 

“Yeah, about that,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, now recovered from her pout. “What did you do to get literally thrown out of your home, anyway?”

Bakran blinked, and then looked to Twilight. “You didn’t tell them?”

“Well, I told them you were exiled for offending Chrysalis,” Twilight replied, evenly. “I figured if they really wanted to know, they could ask you,” she added, and then turned back to her salad and took a bite.

“And I’m asking,” Rainbow added in, as she leaned forward and rested an elbow on the table. “What the hay gets a changeling exiled, anyway?”

Bakran sighed. “Well, I got a bit drunk last night,” he began. “And when the queen was walking by the bar on a tour of the hive I kind of called her out and told her she was a terrible queen and she screwed up the economy and ticked off Equestria.” Bakran paused as the ponies who didn’t yet know the full story worked to absorb the story. He felt their disbelief, but it didn’t trouble him. I’d have a hard time believing it myself if I didn’t live it, he reasoned. “The guards descended on me at that and started beating me, and it probably would have ended there, but…” Bakran trailed off and then hesitated for a moment as he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “I, uh, kind of panicked and thought I was gonna die anyway, so I really let her have it and said she was also fat and stupid and smelled like moldy cheese.”

Twilight’s ears perked up at that, and she turned to regard Bakran with a stare composed of equal parts of irritation and questioning. “You didn’t tell me that part,” she said, accusingly.

The changeling uncomfortably chuckled. “Well, I’m not exactly proud of panicking and all,” he explained, wanly. “It’s not really something I’d want to remember.”

A quick moment of silence followed that, though it was soon ended by a quiet voice. “Which sibling are you?” Fluttershy asked, finally breaking her shy-spawned muteness. “Oldest, youngest, middle?”

“Oh, oldest,” Bakran replied, evenly. “My sister came next, then my brother.”

“Actually, that brings up a question,” Twilight Sparkle interjected, with an apologetic glance towards Fluttershy. The latter simply smiled and nodded her assent to the unspoken request for primacy, and so Twilight pushed on. “While we’re on the subject of families and all, how does changeling reproduction work? You look so much like insects that it’s hard to imagine you being born like ponies.”

Bakran nodded. “Well, that’s because we’re not,” he replied, and then took a moment to munch on a lettuce leaf as the others around the table took on looks of confusion. “We hatch from eggs.”

Silence once again met this statement, during which the looks on the various pony faces ran the gamut from flabbergasted to disgust. Except for Fluttershy, whose face suddenly brightened. “Oh, how does that work?” she asked, her voice a bit louder and more relaxed. “Are you like bee hives where the queen lays all the eggs? Or are you more like mating pair insects? Are they fertilized before or after laying? Hard shelled or soft? Any growth after laying?”

“Uh,” Bakran muttered, confused at her sudden and intense interest that he could not only see, but feel as well. And is that…? Oh boy. “Well, when a mommy and a daddy changeling love each other very much, they kind of do the horizontal mambo and then lay eggs. At least, that’s how it’s described to me,” he carefully replied, with a profound blush on his face. “As for the rest, soft-shelled and there is actually some growth after laying so they’re generally kept in a nutrient solution until hatching.”

“OKAY!” Applejack suddenly burst into the conversation, her face sporting a curious shade of green. “I want to know how the hay we got into this sort of topic over a meal when some of us would like ta eat?”

“Also, why do you know so much about insect reproduction, Fluttershy?” Twilight added in, as she looked towards the aforementioned pegasus.

Fluttershy blushed heavily at that and seemed to shrink down into herself. “I, uh, help out insects too sometimes,” she replied, very, very quietly.

Yet another bout of silence fell upon the gathering as every pony turned their heads to give Fluttershy curious looks. Bakran, though, simply coughed and turned his head to the side. “So, uh, where is miss Pinkie Pie?” he asked, as he looked around the main room of Sugarcube Corner. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“I’m sure she’s fine, Bakran,” Rarity chimed in, as she turned her head away from Fluttershy, and the changeling could sense a hint of gratitude from her. “But tell me, darling, do your people wear any kind of clothing, or have any sort of fashion?” she asked, the curiosity thick in her tone and emotions.

“Well, we have some clothing for certain jobs where you need extra protection,” Bakran replied. “As for fashion, I sometimes hear some upper caste office workers talking about that sort of thing, so I guess there’s some kind of fashion going on. But I couldn’t honestly tell you about it as I never saw any of that myself.”

Rarity seemed to sink back and pout a bit, but Bakran could sense she was only mildly disappointed, and so he took no umbrage. It was not her who spoke up next, however. “So what’re the fangs for?” Applejack asked.

Bakran slightly balked at the sudden topic change. “Well, for fang stuff,” he replied, cautiously.

“Fang stuff?” Applejack repeated, while she gave the changeling her distinctive deadpan expression. “Care ta explain that?”

“I’d rather not,” Bakran responded, and shifted in his seat. “I mean, you got disgusted over the egg thing, so I’m not sure how you or the others would like me explaining fang stuff.”

“He eats meat,” Lyra interjected. This garnered everyone’s attention, of course, and the beings around the table all looked to see her giving them an amused expression even as she levitated a fork with leafy greens on its prongs. “There are places outside of Equestria where it’s a common enough thing, especially since it’s only in Equestria that we have enough ambient magic to raise the level of animal intelligence to basic sapience.”

A chorus of blinks met this declaration, and was followed by an exclamation: “Cool!” Rainbow Dash said, from her position opposite of Bakran. “So you eat that stuff?”

“Er, at the hive, yes,” Bakran replied, even as he had to again shift in his seat. The disgust coming from half the ponies here is not doing wonders for my digestion, he sarcastically mused. “Like miss Heartstrings said, animals outside of Equestria’s magic field tend to be pretty dumb and we don’t mind eating them since it’s not like eating a person or anything like that.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be,” Fluttershy managed to speak up again. She shirked down a bit as everyone’s eyes turned to her, but she managed to steel herself and continued. “Many of the animals I take care of tell me how it is outside of Equestria and even the Everfree; not enough magic and their counterparts there are just like empty shells to them.”

“Huh, so I guess it ain’t like you’re eatin’ some poor sap with a family, then?” Applejack asked of Bakran, as she turned her head back to the changeling.

“Indeed,” Bakran replied, and mentally sighed as he felt the disgust at the table wane. “Most of it is butchered long before it gets to our dinner tables anyway, so all we see are the cuts of meat.”

“So how’s it taste?” Rainbow asked. She then learned forward and rested an elbow on the table as she awaited the reply.

“What, meat?” Bakran asked back, and when she nodded, he could only shrug. “Like meat. It doesn’t really taste like anything else that you’d find in a vegetarian diet, not even cheese or eggs.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said, with a wave of the foreleg that wasn’t propping her up. “I was—am friends with a griffon,” she said, hesitating only to correct herself. “She’s told me that, but I mean, what’s it like? Every meat-eater I talk to acts like they’d rather lose a leg than stop eating it, so what’s so great about it?”

“Rainbow, must we have this conversation now?” Rarity interjected, with a frown at the addressed pegasus. “It's bad enough that bit with the, well, you know,” she she said, and then waved a hoof dismissively. “But now this?”

“C'mon, it's just food,” Dash countered.

“Maybe miss Rarity is right, though,” Bakran spoke up, and he waited until he garnered the arguing parties' attentions before he continued. “I can feel the discomfort coming from other ponies here and so it might be a topic for another time and place.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at that, but she sat back in her seat and huffed. “Fine,” she ground out, reluctantly. “But you and me are having a chat later,” she said, and pointed a hoof at Bakran to add weight to her words.

“Okay,” Bakran replied, cautiously. He paused for a few moments, during which he and others took bites of the lunch they'd been neglecting, but soon spoke up again after a swallow. “I didn't realize you all would be so curious about changeling stuff.”

“Well, changelings are pretty reclusive compared to other races,” Twilight replied.

“And ya had to have expected a question or two 'bout things,” Applejack added in.

Bakran shrugged. “Well, sure, but I didn't expect the Royal Inquisition.”

A sudden slam was heard and made everyone at the table jump. Then a voice shouted loudly from the front of the room: “NOPONY expects the Royal Inquisition!”

As one, the group at the table turned heads and bodies alike to view the source of the outburst, and we to a being shocked to see three changelings had burst through the front door to Sugarcube Corner. All three were dressed in red robes, and the one in the lead wore a broad-brimmed hat. He apparently had been the one to shout, as now that he had the attention of everypony in the room he began to speak again. “Our biggest weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear,” he added, quickly, as if he had just remembered something. “Our two weapons are surprise and fear.”

“Wait,” one of the changelings next to him spoke up, and the leader turned his head to regard his compatriot. “What about our ruthless efficiency?”

“Okay, right,” the leader said, and then turned back to the room at large. “Our three weapons are surprise, fear, and ruthless efficiency.”

“Yeah,” said the third changeling. “And an almost fanatical devotion to queen Chrysalis.”

“And our almost fanatical devotion to queen Chrysalis,” the leader echoed, without looking back. “Our four weapons—no, amongst our weapons are such diverse elements as surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to queen Chrysalis.”

A heartbeat of silence followed that, and then the second changeling spoke again. “What about the snazzy uniforms?” he asked, with a look to the back of his leader's head.

At this, the leader blinked, and then face-hoofed. “Augh! I forgot the snazzy uniforms,” he said, and then lowed the hoof. “Okay, wait, we'll come in again,” he said, and then turned around and started to lead the robed changelings towards the door they had burst through.

Said door, however, was suddenly surrounded by a purple aura and slammed shut in their faces. “Bakran,” Twilight growled from where she remained seated at the table. Her head and vision were affixed to the door she held shut in her magic and the three now-confused changelings at the front of the room, but she could still see the addressed male out of the corner of her eyes. “What is this?”

“Uh, it looks like the Royal Inquisition,” Bakran replied, bemusedly. “They're Chrysalis' enforcers in the hive and are widely feared, but, I have no idea what they're doing out here.”

“You expect us to believe that?” Applejack grumbled herself, even as she and the other ponies began to get up from their seats.

All save one; Lyra remained seated with a frustrated look on her face. Strangely enough, it was her who spoke up next. “Oh for eff's sake,” she said, and then face-hoofed herself. “Will nothing ever escape the Monty Python Singularity?” she asked, and only then started to climb out of her seat to join the others.

This garnered confused looks from the rest of the group, but any further conversation was interrupted as the changelings at the front of the room started to pound at the door. “Stupid pony door,” the leader grumbled. “No one told you to close!”

“I don't think it's the door, Larry,” the changeling on the left said. Unlike the other two he had turned his head back to look over the room, and he was now locking eyes with the angry ponies (and one confused changeling) who were now starting to walk over. 

The leader of the dressed group turned around at that, and then gasped. “The traitor!” he shouted, as he raised a hoof and jabbed it towards Bakran. “I should have known you'd be in cahoots with the anti-Changeling forces!”

“Traitor?” Twilight echoed, and then turned her head to look at Bakran, who himself was starting to frown. “What's this about?”

“He spoke out against our righteous and glorious queen!” the leader, Larry, heatedly answered for Bakran. His hoof was still raised and now was being waggled at the aforementioned confused changeling. “And now we see he is collaborating with our political enemies!”

“These guys are feared in your hive?” Rainbow Dash asked, as she turned her head to Bakran. 

“Feared, yes, because they can have you arrested and executed by the guards for any reason,” Bakran replied. “Respected? No. As you can see, they're pretty dumb,” he added, and then leaned towards Twilight Sparkle a bit and lowered his voice just enough to seem like he was being circumspect, yet remained loud enough so that no one had trouble hearing him. “We think it's the upper caste inbreeding,” he noted.

“Insolence!” Larry shouted, and then shook his raise hoof at Bakran. “I see exile was not enough! Truly now we shall unleash the full wrath of the Inquisition upon you!”

Bakran gave the snazzily-dressed inquisitor a deadpan look that was eerily mirrored by Twilight Sparkle and the other ponies in the group. “You and what army?” Bakran asked, caustically. “If you haven't noticed, we aren't in the hive anymore and you don't have guards to help you.” He then blinked, and glanced over to Twilight. “Uh, they don't actually have an army, do they?”

Twilight frowned, and then cast her detection spell again. “No, not an army, but—the kitchen!” she suddenly interrupted herself, and then spun around and ran towards the back of Sugarcube Corner. Surprised, the other ponies and changelings all stood there in dumbfounded silence for a few moments before Rainbow Dash launched herself into the air and chased after the alacorn, followed immediately by the other ponies and Bakran.

Save Fluttershy, who just slowly sat down and looked at the inquisitors. The changelings looked right back, and then glanced to each other briefly. “Uh, aren't you going to run, as well?” one of the two followers asked.

“Oh no, I'm not really fond of excitement,” Fluttershy replied. “Also I think that Twilight and the others might want to question you later, so I'm going to keep an eye on you so you can't leave.”

Larry chortled at that. “Hah! You? Even in the hive we've heard of your meek demeanor, oh Bearer of Kindness!” he said, in a mocking tone. “Do you think that three of Chrysalis' best will... be...” His voice trailed off at that, as the look Fluttershy gave him suddenly intensified in a way he couldn't comprehend, and a sudden, overwhelming urge to appease the pegasus filled him.

“I think it's time to be quiet now,” Fluttershy said, evenly. “Please sit down and wait for my friends to come back,” she added, and then smiled when the three inquisitors rapidly sat on their haunches. “There's some good changelings,” she said. “Now, would any of you like a snack?”

* * * *

Twilight burst through the door to the kitchen and was immediately struck by the disarray the room was in. Pots and pans and baking sheets of all kinds were strewn about, and coatings of flour, sugar, and various other confectionery ingredients were liberally spread over every available surface. Several small appliances had been uprooted and seemingly thrown about, and one of the ovens was even slightly on fire. Even the back door had not been spared, and it lied flattened on the floor.

Worse than that, though, she saw both Carrot and Cup Cake tied up and gagged on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, both giving her pleading, panicked stares. Without a thought Twilight ran over to them and used her magic to remove said gags. “What happened?” she asked, worriedly, as Dash and the others started to file into the room.

“No time!” Carrot Cake shouted. “Changelings grabbed Pinkie and took her out the back!”

“What!” Rainbow Dash shouted, and then without waiting for a reply shot off immediately to fly through the broken rear entrance and into the alley behind the bakery. “There they are!” she shouted, and then disappeared in a polychromatic flash.

“Rarity, stay here and help the Cakes,” Twilight ordered, and then ran out the back, with Applejack at her heels. Surprisingly, both Bakran and Lyra were following as well, though the alacorn simply filed that away for later as she reached the alley and turned the direction Rainbow had disappeared down. Although the alley was long empty of the speedy pegasus and the ones she pursued, a quick cast of her detection spell revealed the direction and approximate distance of the three other changelings who had apparently absconded with her friend. “Hang on,” Twilight said, as she slowed to a halt, prompting the others to mirror her. “They're heading for the main road out to the farms bordering the Everfree; I'll teleport us there,” she added, and then charged her horn up.

A flash and a sudden feeling of the world turning inside-out for a moment washed over the group, followed by a brief moment of disorientation as their minds worked to resolve the unnatural discontinuity of suddenly finding themselves on a dirt road just outside Ponyville. Twilight, naturally, recovered first, and she scanned the area around her for the kidnappers; a task made easy as there were no ponies in sight on the road, or amongst the occasional house, garden, or unused plot of forested land that lined the path. Thus the dust cloud the kidnappers threw up as they came roaring down the road was easy to see, as was the rainbow contrail that followed them at an altitude that would be considered suicidal for most pegasi flying at that speed.

“Well, that was easy,” Applejack said, as the black blobs in the cloud closed in and resolved into the shapes of three changelings in some kind of odd, thin plate armor, one of whom had a squirming, hog-tied and gagged Pinkie Pie on his back. The latter were not oblivious, though, and soon came to a rapid stop as the saw the party waiting for them.

“Oh horseapples, Applejack,” Lyra groaned, from where she lined up with the other ponies and Bakran across the road. “Did you really have to say that? Now they're going to do something unexpected.”

The apple farmer blinked, and then turned her head to give a bemused look at the minty unicorn. “What the hay do you—?”

“Wait, they are doing something unexpected,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted, and the three ponies and Bakran all focused their attention to the kidnappers. The one carrying Pinkie Pie said something to his compatriots, who then turned around and started firing off offensive blasts of magic back at Rainbow Dash as she closed in on them. This kept the pegasus from moving into an attack run, and also allowed the apparent leader to take something spherical out from a pouch he wore around his neck. “What are they up to?” Twilight asked.

She was answered, but not by a pony's words. Instead the leader of the kidnapping changelings fiddled with the object he had pulled out and a sudden, piercing whine started to emanate from it. It started off very low and quiet at first, but started to build rapidly over a period of four seconds into an ear-aching volume that almost, but not quite covered up the shocked gasp that came from Lyra. Then the noise raised up a few more decibels and reached a crescendo that sounded like a mix of an explosion, breaking glass, and a waterfall, while a sphere of blue energy appeared around the kidnappers and their prize while the world around them suddenly looked bleached of all color. Then a split second later the odd energy ball disappeared as the odd booming-breaking-falling noise sounded again and color returned to the world.

Twilight blinked her eyes, as the scene had hurt to look at, yet had happened so quick she hadn't thought to look away. When she looked out after her vision cleared, she was startled to see that the kidnappers had completely disappeared. “What the hay?” she uttered, in shock. “Did they teleport?” she asked, even as she cast the changeling detection spell again and, to her shock, found only Bakran nearby.

“No,” Lyra answered, in a steel tone. The sudden word, spoke so surely, brought Twilight, Applejack, and Bakran out of their surprise and they all turned their heads to see the unicorn giving the area where the changelings had been standing a hard, angry look. “That was a chronosphere. I recognize that distinctive effect.”

“What the hay is a chronosphere?” a new voice asked, and the group turned their heads again to see that Rainbow Dash had approached them and landed.

“I think there's an even more important question,” Applejack interjected, and then turned, raised a hoof, and punched Bakran across the face. The changeling was completely unprepared for an attack, and he grunted in pain and fell to the ground as a result. Before he or anyone else could react, though, Applejack had already advanced and now pressed the hoof she had hit him with against his throat to keep him on the ground. “Namely, why in th' name of Tartarus did your buddies kidnap Pinkie?” she asked, of the changeling.

Bakran yelped a bit as the hoof landed on his throat. “I don't know!” he replied, in a mixture of confusion and surprise. “I'm as surprised as you are!”

“Lair!” Applejack shouted, and then dug in her hoof just a bit. “You expect us ta believe that a changeling who drops from the sky into Ponyville ain't connected to the other six that start a ruckus and kidnap one of our best friends on th' very same day?” she asked, heatedly. “I'm a farmer, boy, but I ain't stupid!”

“I'm not lying!” Bakran replied, with a bit of panic in his voice now.

“I don't think he is, AJ,” Lyra said, even as she moved to stand directly in front of the earth pony as the latter kept pressure on the changeling. Lyra made sure to meet Applejack's eyes as she continued. “The three buffoons in robes were clearly a diversion, and the ones who grabbed Pinkie Pie were the real team. But Bakran already had us alerted to the possibility of changeling plots, and Twilight had her detection spell all ready to go, which she wouldn't have if Bakran hadn't landed and stirred things up.”

The group paused to consider this, and Twilight made a small gasp as she had a realization. “That's right,” she said, as her eyes looked off into the distance. “I hadn't used that spell in months, and I actually had to brush up on it a bit after Bakran landed just to make sure I was using it right.”

“And it was Bakran who turned to Twilight and asked if those inquisitors had an actual army waiting, thus prompting her scan,” Lyra added in, even as she continued to meet Applejack's stare. “If it wasn't for him we might not have noticed Pinkie Pie's abduction until the kidnappers were long gone, and we would have had no lead on finding her again.”

“What lead?” Rainbow Dash interrupted, and all the group turned their heads to her. The pegasus had taken to hovering in the air just above the ground, and was using her forelegs to help express her frustration as she threw them wide. “They disappeared into thin air!”

“And that wasn't any kind of teleport spell I know,” Twilight added in. Her face was scrunched up in concentration as she started to simultaneously run through her memories of spells, as well as casting a few of them as she spoke. “Nothing about magic teleportation mentions effects like that, and none of my tracer or changeling detection spells are tracking anything.”

“That's because it's not magic,” Lyra replied. “It's a quantum foam wormhole expanded to transport the targeted subjects using a brute-force method that requires lots of energy, but no magic. That's why your tracing spells aren't working.”

Twilight blinked as her mind processed the unicorn's words. “How would you know this?” she asked, confusedly.

Lyra shrugged. “I told you, I travel.”

“Uh, ladies?” Bakran spoke up, and the mares around him all looked back down at the changeling, who still had an orange hoof on his throat. “I don't mean to be rude, but could Applejack let me up now?”

Applejack shot looks to the other ponies at that, and then grimaced a bit when she saw all three of them giving her a tired look. “Sorry,” she said, as she quickly removed her hoof from Bakran's neck. “I'm just a little on edge.”

“It's alright,” Bakran said, and then coughed as he pushed himself up to sitting on his haunches. He then rubbed his throat with a hoof and continued. “I understand, your friend just got abducted and it looks suspicious, I get that.”

“Dude,” Rainbow Dash said, in a bemused tone. “You're taking this way too easily.”

“Well, I did say for you all to be wary of me, didn't I?” Bakran replied. “Plus, I'm putting myself in your horseshoes. I mean, if a pony suddenly appeared in the hive, and then a second group of ponies came in and abducted my sister, I'd think the first pony had something to do with it, too.”

Applejack blushed a bit at that. “Er, Pinkie's not my sister,” she said.

“Well, you certainly seem to consider her to be one,” Bakran said, and then seemed to roll his eyes as Applejack gave him a suspicious look. He then reached up and tapped the side of his head. “Changelings are emotivores, remember? I can feel all of your emotions, including how you all feel like sisters to one another,” he said, and then looked over at Lyra. “Well, except for her, but I think that's a friend dynamic thing.”

A light cough sounded over the group, and they all turned to regard Twilight Sparkle, who now seemed to have regained her bearings and had assumed a somewhat regal-looking stance. “As interesting as this conversation is, we're wasting time,” she said, with a mild form of urgency in her voice. “We need to find out where they took Pinkie Pie, and why, and get her back,” Twilight added, and then looked over to the unicorn in the group. “Lyra, you seem to have some knowledge about the situation, so I'm going to have to ask you to assist.”

“Of course, your highness,” Lyra respectfully replied, and then gave a brief bow that mortified Twilight slightly. “Even if you didn't ask, I'd insist; the use of a chronosphere here signifies a threat I cannot ignore.”

“I... suppose,” Twilight said, somewhat confused as her air of regality faded. “You're going to have to explain more on that, and why it's so significant.”

“Gladly,” Lyra replied, and then turned to look towards the center of Ponyville. “But first, I think we should question the over-dressed ninnies back in Sugarcube Corner.”

Twilight blinked at that. “Oh, shoot!” she exclaimed, with a frown. “I forgot about them; they're probably miles away by now.”

“Heh, I doubt it,” Rainbow Dash interjected, and everyone turned to see that she wore a smirk. “I saw Fluttershy walking towards them even as I flew into the kitchen, so I'm pretty sure she's got them waiting for us.”

“Fluttershy?” Bakran asked, surprised. “She doesn't seem the type to hold back inquisitors. I mean, yeah, they're dumb, but they're also ridiculously aggressive and prone to being physical even without guards to back them up.”

“Trust me,” Twilight said, as she started to share Dash's smirk. “They'll be there.”

* * * *

The scene that Bakran witnessed befuddled him to no end, as he walked in after Twilight Sparkle and her friends to see that the three inquisitor changelings were sitting peaceably near the front door, with Fluttershy sitting in front of them. The two cronies were munching on something and making small talk with the buttercream pegasus, though their leader silently fumed as he held his forelegs crossed over his chest. “How the flip did she do that?” Bakran muttered.

“Dear Fluttershy can have a way with even uncooperative guests,” Rarity spoke up, from where she was waiting in the middle of the room for her friends' return. “The Cakes are upstairs and resting from their dreadful ordeal,” she added, as she spoke to Twilight with a hopeful look. It soon soured, though, once she saw the frown on the alacorn's face. “I take it you couldn't stop them and get Pinkie back?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Twilight replied, and then sighed. “But we'll get her back,” she added, and then glanced over to the other unicorn in the group. “Lyra, do you have any suggestions how to proceed?”

The addressed mare nodded at the alacorn. “I do. Let me start,” she said, and then waited for Twilight to nod back. At this Lyra turned back around and headed towards the trio of captive changelings, with Twilight following just behind her. Lyra tilted her head back as she approached, and when she spoke next she heavily emphasized the Canterlot accent she normally worked to suppress. “Hello, quislings,” she said, to the confusion of every other being in the room. “And who might you be?”

The two minions looked to their leader, who simply frowned and stared up at the unicorn. After a few moments of this, however, Fluttershy cleared her throat and made eye contact with the hat-wearing male. “It's not nice to ignore a question,” she said, sweetly.

Yet something she said seemed to affect the leader, and he flinched. “Er, yes,” he said, and then returned his gaze to Lyra with a slightly less offended expression. “I'm Larry,” he said, and then turned his head to gesture to the changeling on his right. “This is my brother, Darryl,” he said, and then turned his head to the other minion. “And this is my other brother, Darryl.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked hard at that. “You have two brothers named Darryl?” she asked, and then frowned when she received nods from all three changelings. “Doesn't that get confusing?”

“Not really,” Larry said. “Watch,” he said, and then cleared his throat and looked forward. “Hey, Darryl?”

“Yeah?” the changeling on his right asked, after he finished a bite of the cupcake he'd been munching on.

“See?” Larry asked, as he turned his eyes back to the princess.

Twilight's face twisted into a mien of confusion. “But, what if you wanted your other brother?”

“Oh, watch,” Larry said, and then cleared his throat again. “Hey, Darryl?”

“Yeah?” the changeling on his left asked back, after having nearly swallowed a chocolate chip cookie whole.

“See? Not a problem,” Larry said, with a wave of his hoof.

“Yes, we do see,” Lyra said, even as she shot a glance over to Twilight Sparkle, who remained somewhat confounded. The alacorn nevertheless got the message, and then nodded for the unicorn to continue, which Lyra did after returning her gaze to the lead inquisitor. “Now, why did you storm into Sugarcube Corner?”

Larry frowned and crossed his hooves against his chest again. Darryl, though, spoke up after he finished another cookie. “Queen Chrysalis ordered us to storm in and abduct the pink one,” he said, matter-of-factly. 

His brother and leader shot Darryl a nasty look, but Lyra and Darryl both ignored it. “Really?” Lyra asked of the more talkative changeling, and when he nodded she pressed on. “Did she give you these orders herself, or did she pass them down the chain of command?”

At this, Larry finally seemed to stir a bit, and he raised his head high. “Her royal majesty Queen Chrysalis recognized our prowess and devotion as enforcers of her glorious rule and personally had us visit her throne room for our orders,” he proudly responded.

“Really, now?” Lyra asked, skeptically.

“Really,” Larry replied, with a nod.

“Interesting,” Lyra said, and then began to pace back and forth in front of the trio of captives. “So tell me, then, if Chrysalis is so great then how come her plan failed?”

Larry opened his mouth to retort, but all words died in his mouth as he had a sudden realization. “Her plan was flawless,” he begrudgingly answered, after a moment of thought. “It was our execution that had some issues.”

“Or she was stupid,” Lyra countered, and then smirked inwardly as Larry bristled. “After all, her brilliant plan was to throw away her best in a frontal assault without any chance for them to escape being captured, forever stuck without hope of retrieval. How callous she must be to simply throw away her best troops for such a frivolous mission.”

“She is not stupid nor callous,” Larry ground out.

“Oh really?” Lyra countered, as she stopped pacing and then walked over to push her muzzle into Larry's personal space. “Then why are you still here? Don't bother to answer that,” she added, quickly, as Larry opened up his mouth. “We all know why you're here: because her plan was so deeply flawed that she left you no way, none whatsoever to escape captivity and return because she's a fool!”

“Chrysalis is no fool!” Larry nearly shouted at the unicorn. “If she was a fool, would she have given us this?” he asked, and then reached up with a hoof to whip off his hat. To everyone's mild surprise, there was another, curious sphere sitting on top of his head, somehow perfectly balanced. “With one press of the switch we can be home instan—hey!” Larry shouted, as he was interrupted by Lyra's magic coming alive to snatch the object from his head. “Give that back!” the changeling said, and began to reach for the trinket.

A second aura of magic came alive, and a purple field gripped Larry and held him still. Twilight Sparkle made sure the lead inquisitor was secure and also that his brothers wouldn't intervene—not that they seemed to, as Fluttershy had apparently kept them supplied with food and thus complacent—before she walked up to where Lyra was examining the sphere in her golden aura. “What is it?” Twilight asked, as she laid eyes on the strange, metal object with a large button of some kind on the side. Huh, a safety cover over it, the alacorn noted. A good idea, if that button activates whatever it does. “Is that one of those chronospheres you were talking about?”

“No, it's only a retrieval beacon,” Lyra replied, as she continued to closely examine the object as she rotated it in her aura. “An actual chronosphere is as tall as Ponyville's town hall, three times as wide, and six times as long,” she continued, and then sighed. “And unfortunately, this doesn't tell me who built it.”

“What do you mean, 'who built it'?” Rainbow Dash interjected, as she and the others started to crowd around the princess and the minty mare. “The changelings are using it, so they built it, right?”

“No,” Lyra stated, heavily, as she turned her gaze towards her peers. “The technology for this kind of device is principally exclusive to civilizations in realities with a low or non-existent magic coefficient, since they're the only ones who need to mess around with the finer mechanisms of existence to achieve certain capabilities.”

Silence met this statement, though it was brief. “Realities? As in, parallel realities?” Twilight Sparkle deadpanned. When Lyra nodded a reply, the princess sighed heavily. “Lyra, here I thought you were experienced, but it seems to me you've been letting your imagination run away with you again.”

“Why?” Lyra asked. “Because alternate realities are 'not scientifically possible'?” she countered, and then smirked as Twilight winced. “If you can go back in time and create a stable time loop, then isn't it a bit of intellectual dishonesty to refuse the possibility of alternate realities?”

“...Alright, I suppose that's a fair point,” Twilight ground out after a moment. “But even if that's true, how would you know about them and what they have?”

“Like I said,” Lyra replied, with a smug grin. “I travel, Twilight.”

Again, silence met this declaration. “Wait, so you travel to other realities, like in books?” Rainbow Dash asked of the minty unicorn, who nodded. “Coooool,” the pegasus said, with a grin.

“How would you even do that?” Twilight demanded, with a hint of frustration in her voice. “And more importantly, why didn't you tell anypony?”

“I did!” Lyra retorted, with a frown. “I personally visited Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in Canterlot with my findings. They gave me a royal letter of marque to oversee the Causeway. Didn't they tell you about that?”

Twilight froze for a moment, and then her face fell. “No... they didn't,” she said, quietly.

Lyra's face lightened a bit as she saw the hurt expression on the alacorn's face. “Well, I'm sure they were going to get around to it,” she offered. “I mean, this is really the first time any of this stuff has actually spilled over to our reality, so it's probably just never been a problem before.”

Twilight seemed to recover a bit from that, but it wasn't her who spoke up next. “Look, I guess this is all kinda... interesting,” Applejack said, and then looked at the two most learned ponies of the group. “But how is this going to help us find Pinkie Pie?”

“Oh, I know!” Rainbow Dash excitedly said, as she took to the air and hovered in place as she raised her forelegs up. “We're going to activate that beacon thingy and instead of it being those bozos it'll be us and we'll storm the hive and get Pinkie out,” she said, as she practice punched the air. Then Dash grinned and looked down at Lyra. “Right?”

“Wrong,” Lyra replied, which caused Dash's expression to go straight into a pouty frown. “That would be a very foolish thing. Even if they weren't expecting us, they'd be transporting us to a secure area filled with guards; I doubt we'd get very far without being captured ourselves,” the unicorn continued, and then turned her head to regard the beacon again. “Also, it's been a while since the other changelings shifted back, so they'll probably suspect these guys have been captured by now,” she added, with a wave of a hoof towards the captive inquisitors.

“In fact,” Bakran spoke up, his voice soft as he seemed to stare into the distance as his mind worked. “Given how dense these guys are, and how dense inquisitors are in general, Chrysalis probably expected them to be captured.”

“Which means, it might be a trap,” Twilight Sparkle chimed in, as her own mind started down the same tracks.

“Exactly,” Lyra said, with a nod. “Which means that half of this plan might just be a ruse to get you girls to hop straight into Chrysalis' clutches in an eager and hurried attempt to rescue your friend.”

“That seems awfully complex for one of Chrysalis' plans,” Rarity observed. “I mean, this is a being who thought that conquering just the capitol city would be enough to conquer all of Equestria.”

“And did a poor job of pretending to be Cadance, to boot,” Twilight added, in agreement. She then looked back to Lyra again. “Can we be sure that was the plan?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Lyra replied, with a shrug. “But it might not be her making the decisions; she's got tech that shouldn't exist in this reality, and that means she has to have found an ally in some alternate reality.

“Or, more worryingly,” Lyra continued, as her voice dropped a bit. “That someone from another reality has found an ally in her to work against Equestria.”

A heavy silence fell over the group at that speculation. “That don't sound good ta me at all,” Applejack opined.

“It isn't,” Lyra agreed, with a nod. She then turned to regard the inquisitor changelings, who had been listening in rapt attention. Even Larry, whom Twilight had released during her conversation with Lyra as the male had settled down. “Have you seen any new beings in your hive as of late? Any strange occurrences or unexplained phenomena?”

“Why should we help you?” Larry retorted. “You are anti-Chrysalis, and seek to undo her plans.”

“Because she's in over her head, you idiot,” Bakran chimed in, rather heatedly. “Don't you see? Aren't you understanding what they're talking about?” he asked, as he waved a hoof over at Twilight and Lyra. “This is some kind of greater threat to our very world, do you really think it will be best friend forever to the hive? Or don't you think it'll turn on Chrysalis and the entire changeling race the instant it gets what it wants?”

Larry seemed defiant, as he crossed his forelegs over his chest again. His two brothers, though, shared a look behind his back, and then the Darryl eating cupcakes spoke up. “There are rumors from the other inquisitors that some changelings have gone missing, without the Inquisition actually doing anything,” he said, even as Larry shot him a shocked look. “Supposedly there's a flash of light and then they're gone.”

“And there's rumors of strange voices coming from the queen's throne room late at night,” the other Darryl added in, also ignoring a glance from Larry. “Also laughter. Lots of deep, booming laughter.”

“Hmm,” Lyra hummed, as she absorbed this information. “That's not too distinct, but it does sound familiar to someone I encountered some time ago,” she offered, even as she brought up a hoof to stroke her chin. “But we'll need to be sure before we do anything.”

“And how can we be sure?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Lyra turned to her and then gave a most unsettling smile. “Two words: road trip.”