A Monster in the Mirror
“Well, that’s not me.”
I was looking into the mirror, but it was not me who was not staring back. It was a changeling. Which couldn’t be right, as I was most certainly not a changeling. What should have been in the mirror was a green unicorn, with a lighter green mane. And a stallion as well. As far as I could tell, there were no parts down there one way or the other.
The wings spread out from that monster in the mirror, and I grew apprehensive. Was it about to attack? Put me in a cocoon and slowly drain my love away until I was nothing more than a dried up raisin of a pony? I slowly backed away from it, and when I saw it move I bolted for the doorway.
The closed door wasn’t kind. I met it at full sprint, and all the force went straight into my muzzle. I was dazed, but quickly remembered what I was running from. Opening the door with my magic, I ran out of the bathroom and went to the one place I felt safe: my bed.
I dove under the blankets and waited. There was some part of my brain that knew that no part of these blankets would save me from a changeling’s fangs, but most of my brain was just looking for any comfort it could find.
Hours later, I heard something slam from far away. I cringed back from the sound, but realized that it must have been someone coming into my house. I emerged from beneath my safe haven, peaking my head slowly to survey my surroundings. There was nothing in my room. The light from the windows suggested that it was no longer morning. Maybe sometime around noon. It was hard to tell.
Suddenly, a form of something vaguely pony shaped rushed into view, and I retracted back into safety.
“Greeny? Is that you?”
That voice pulled me from my fear. I knew it well, and it always found a way to calm me. I almost jumped out just to wrap my hooves around him and cry, but then remembered what I saw in the mirror.
What if he was just a changeling? What if he just wanted to toy with my emotions, play with his food?
I didn’t answer, and didn’t dare move. Hardly even breathed.
“Dude, what are you doing in bed? You were supposed to meet me for lunch at Celestia’s Sunflower. Wait, did you even go to work?”
I felt the bed shift as he climbed on the bed. What was most likely a hoof pressed gently onto my back through the covers.
“Are you feeling ok? Should I get somepony? I hear Nurse Redheart does house calls.”
I was torn on what to do. There was a changeling on the loose. I couldn’t trust anypony anymore. But… they couldn’t have possibly known about my lunch date. I didn’t keep a planner (though I probably should, what with everything I’m always late for). And he was being so nice to me, as he always did. Each stroke down my back made me more and more sure that this was actually the pony I loved.
I popped my head through my blanket fort and looked up at the smiling face of Cirrus Storm.
And just like that, all of my worries floated away.
I decided not to tell Cirrus about what happened.
I knew I should have. I knew that just telling him what I saw would make me feel so much better, and that telling lies is so much more stressful than admitting to the truth. But as I looked back on the events of the morning, I wasn’t even sure if I believed me.
When I was eventually coaxed out of the bed, I did double check the bathroom mirror, just in case. I was relieved to see my own reflection this time, but there was a small part of me that found this fact unsettling. I ignored it. After all, what could possibly be wrong with that.
As the both of us headed into the kitchen, I realized just how hungry I was. Apparently not eating all day left me rather ravenous. I took out some leftovers from the previous night (a simple salad in some tupperware), sat at the dining table, and devoured it all in under a minute.
Cirrus sat across from me, and by the time he got comfortable, I was already done. I glanced up from my meal and noticed his raised eyebrow. “Skipped breakfast?” he asked.
Smiling sheepishly, I nodded. “Y-yeah.” Then my stomach rumbled.
It must have been loud enough for Cirrus to hear it, as he chuckled a bit. “And I’m going to assume that doesn’t mean you’re full yet, am I right?”
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak my stomach decided to answer for me with yet another long, loud rumbling. I closed my mouth and blushed, getting up from my seat and opening the refrigerator again.
The problem with choosing what to eat from a fridge is a strange one. No matter the amount of food, the variety, or how good any of it was, I always had trouble deciding. The only reason I had chosen the leftovers so quickly, I had thought, was that I was practically starving. But with my hunger temporarily sated, the urgency was gone, leaving me with too many options and not enough opinions. I leaned into it a bit, as if the slight change in perspective would help me. It didn’t.
“You still have those juicy tomatoes?” Cirrus asked from where he was sitting.
I opened the uncut-veggies drawer. Tons of different types of leaves, cucumbers, carrots… “No, don’t think so.” I turned to look back at him, pushing the organizer back into place with a back hoof. “Shouldn’t the Vines be back at the market today? It is Saturday. We can get a refill later if you want.”
He was already shaking his head. “The whole market is closed today, Green.”
I scrunched up my nose in confusion. “The whole market? Why’s that?”
He was concerned for a moment, but it faded quickly as he replied with a simple, “It’s Nightmare Night.”
I just sat there for a moment. Had it really been a month already? I could have sworn it was the start of Autumn just a few days ago. “Huh, I guess I just… forgot.”
Cirrus narrowed his eyes for a moment. “Are you sure we shouldn’t head over to the hospital to get you checked up? You’ve been acting rather strange today. Might be a concussion or something. I hear those make you think funny.”
Before he had even finished speaking I was waving him off. I appreciated his concern, but it really wasn’t necessary. “I told you, I’m fine. So I lost track of time. Everyone does. And this morning was just… a bad dream mixed with me being a wuss. I’ll be fine!”
Despite my reassurances, I could tell that he remained unconvinced.
“Ok, ok. But I’m sticking by your side today. First sign of trouble and you’re going straight to Doctor Oath. Alright?” He emphasized his point by nuzzling me. I couldn’t say no to that.
“Deal,” I replied, nuzzling back.
Already I was feeling much better than this morning, and much more full than a few minutes ago. I must have eaten so quickly that my body didn’t really have time to properly process that I had eaten anything at all. I haven’t done that since I was a colt, though that was with a sheet of Grandmam’s freshly baked cookies, not something as boring as a salad.
Cirrus pulled away first, giving my forehead a kiss right below my horn. It was always a little sad when we had to pull away from each other, but knowing he’d return made it bearable. He was my stallion, after all, and I was his.
“So,” he started, moving slowly towards the door, “you just totally ditched your job. You wanna go check in?”
I didn’t. But I had to. Obligations suck. I found myself wondering why I couldn’t just snuggle up with Cirrus all day. It was sounding like a better and better idea as time went on.
But duty called. “Sure. It’s a little late to clock in, but I can probably ask for a double shift sometime next week to make up for today.”
He opened the door, gesturing for me to exit first. While I did so, he asked, “A double shift? Ouch, dude. And you can’t just take the loss?”
“Nope. I’d prefer not to take too severe a financial loss, especially when it can be avoided.” We were both outside now, and heading towards the bowling alley, where I worked. “Speaking of,” I nudged him in the side, “when are you planning on moving in with me?”
Cirrus groaned. “Still haven’t sold my current house yet. Cloud houses have, like, a third of the market that regular houses do, ‘cuz only pegasi can live there. Well, pegasi and griffons. There are a ton of great things about cloud houses, but being easy to sell is not one of them.”
“You could still move in. I’m paying for this place already anyways, and being here isn’t making that place any more or less sold,” I pointed out.
He didn’t reply right away, which made me anxious. Had I said something wrong? Is he upset? No. Something about him told me otherwise. Probably his indigo eyes that I always seemed to get lost in, as corny as that sounds.
We were almost to the bowling alley, and I was starting to doubt my intuition, but he finally spoke. “Look, I’d just really like to stay where I am until I get all this sorted out. It’s nothing against you, I swear.”
Pushing open the glass doors, we were greeted, as usual, by the cold wind of the air conditioning. Why they always kept it so cold in here, I’d never know. “They” meaning the owner, who visits so rarely that nopony here even knew his name. We could pick him out in a crowd and that was about it. I got through his visiting days by calling him Sir, with similar strategies from my colleagues.
And speaking of colleagues…
We were immediately sieged by Purple Prose. “Greeny?! Where did you run off to earlier today? I had thought that you were just sleeping soundly while your alarm was blaring, or that your sleep was not peaceful, and that you had instead found yourself alone in the sterile hospital after a disastrous accident left you unable to carry out your noble responsibilities!” She noticed that we were only really half listening to everything she was saying, and brought her hoof up to cough into it, clearing her throat. “But now you’re here. What are you doing here now, after your shift is over?”
I let out a sigh. “I… stayed in my bed a bit too long today. Looking to see if I can slot myself in the calendar sometime soon.”
“Ah, I see.” She rubbed her hoof under her chin, trying to make it obvious she was thinking. “Well, I may be planning on taking a romantic trip with my coltfriend next weekend, and it would be super helpful if somepony could take my Friday off my hooves. Nopony else has signed up for it, so I can’t sign out of it yet.”
“Sure,” I answered her unasked, though heavily implied, question. I had already turned towards the calendar and sign-up sheet posted by the door. I quickly marked my name on Friday’s morning time-slot, an action made trivial with magic. “And you make sure to have a wonderful trip. And tell Marmalade I said ‘Hey’.”
She giggled excitedly. “Will do, cap’n! I don’t know if I’ve even thanked you yet, but thanks again for this. You’re super.” She focused on Cirrus and mock-whispered, “You should keep him.”
I blushed, but pretended not to notice and left the building, Cirrus following soon after. Stepping to the side of the doorway so as to not block the entrance, I sat down and let out a big sigh, closing both eyes and rubbing my temples.
“You feeling ok?” Cirrus asked, once again concerned.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just need a minute. Probably just a stress headache. Should go away as soon as I start relaxing.”
Cirrus chuckled from beside me. “Well a whole lotta relaxing you’re doing sitting here. C’mon, I got a pretty sweet relaxing spot.”
He nudged me to my feet and started guiding me on the path out of town. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, then I think I know the way.” This way was where he first asked me out. There was a little hill that overlooked much of Ponyville, positioned such that the evening sun shone its orange hues onto the town so beautifully. Cirrus liked to call it Broken Heart Hill, because I actually rejected him the first time he asked.
He glanced back at me, a bit confused for a moment, before he recognized what I was talking about. “Oh, yeah. No, it’s not that. I found someplace else during one of my fly-bys. C’mon, I’ll show you!”
And just like that I was practically being dragged out of town and over the rolling hills. They were fairly well known and were often the subject of professional painters, but it was much less fun actually walking on them.
But then Cirrus plopped down under a single tree. I looked around, and didn’t notice anything special about this place.
“Wh—”
“Well, you know how the other place wasn’t really hidden from pegasi?” he prodded. I winced, remembering an unfortunate evening, and nodded. “Well this is. It may not look like much, but after some thorough testing that even that bookworm Twilight Sparkle would be proud of, I can safely say that no pegasus will find us out here.”
I looked around once again. Upon further inspection, it did seem a little more secluded, and this tree was making a sort of umbrella with its leaves. I returned my gaze to Cirrus, and he was smiling so proudly. This was something he must have been working on for a while. I trotted over to where he was sitting and turned as he was, facing Ponyville.
It wasn’t as close to the town as our other spot had been, but it was still close enough to be pretty, which I thought was enough. It wasn’t sunset yet, there were still a few hours left in the day, which gave us ample time to cuddle up to each other while it was still above freezing.
I sidled up to Cirrus, pressing my body into his as much as I could. He turned back and gave me a kiss just under my horn. Usually this is as far as it would go, at least for several more hours.
But I wanted more. I reached up a hoof and held his face, returning his kiss on his lips.
He was surprised, but didn’t fight back at all. When we parted, he asked, “Now? Are you sure?”
I nodded quickly and got right back to making out. That seemed to be answer enough for him, and he lost himself in the moment as well.
But I wanted more. I pushed my tongue into his mouth, and he moaned around my tongue, letting me control the situation. It wasn’t often that I was the dominant one, but something was different today.
I needed more. I pushed him onto his back, and he squawked as he fell, splaying his wings out to his sides. His dick was now fully visible, and it was as hard as mine. When had mine gotten hard? I hadn’t even noticed.
I climbed on top of him so we were face-to-face, but Cirrus was probably noticing the dick-to-dick more. Lighting up my horn, I started stroking them both together. Along with thrusting my hips, I was awarded several more moans from him.
“W-wow… you’re—”
I pushed my face back into his, now with much more leverage. It was not the time for talking. He was very surprised by my forwardness, I could tell, but when my tongue re-entered his mouth, his moans returned full-force.
I didn’t know how, but I could feel his lust, his love. I was sure that that’s what I was sensing. It was radiating off him in blinding waves, and it was all just too much for me.
I pulled out of his mouth, then immediately bit his neck. He let out a quiet yelp and a whimper, but I didn’t really notice. I was lost in the overwhelming sensations, and with a few more furious thrusts I came.
I rode out the orgasm for as long as I could, but was brought back to the world suddenly by a terrible taste in my mouth. That’s when I remembered that I was still biting Cirrus’ neck, and quickly tried to release him.
However, something made that a little more difficult than it should have been. I pulled up, but I still seemed to be stuck to him, even though my mouth was wide open. I started to panic, moving my head from side to side, trying to release him. I eventually succeeded, and dragged something out from his throat. I had a mini panic attack until I realized that, for some reason, he wasn’t bleeding at all anymore. There were two large holes there now, almost like he was bitten by a vampire.
Or a changeling.
I looked down at my hooves, now covered in a hard, black material. I felt my fangs with them, long, curved, and pointed sharp at the ends. I closed my eyes.
The monster in the mirror this morning wasn’t a dream. It was me.
I teleported straight home, carrying Cirrus on my back. I couldn’t make half that jump on my best day, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that I was powered up by the love I had stolen from my coltfriend. Also, I was possibly the most scared I had ever been in my life, and fear can make anyone do crazy things.
Currently, it was making me sit in front of the bathroom mirror. I just couldn’t stop staring at myself. After getting past the heart-pounding, gut-wrenching reality of being something other than myself, watching a changeling match my own movements exactly was surreal. Move head left, changeling goes left. Move hoof up, changeling moves their hoof up. And when I blinked, and breathed, and shivered, so too did it.
I don’t know how long I was in there looking at… me, I guess. I was broken out of my trance by a rumbling in my stomach. I was about to head into the kitchen when I realized I still had an unconscious coltfriend on my couch.
I walked over to him, my mind in a haze. What was I supposed to do now? What was going to happen with Cirrus? Will he be okay? Will I ever go back to being Green Pastures instead of this… thing?
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. What was I thinking? I should be trying to get Cirrus help right now, not moping around. But where would I go? The hospital immediately came to mind, but would they even know what to do? They had never dealt with changelings before. In fact, nopony here had. I remembered a few reports of changelings being found in Manehattan and Las Pegasus, but none here. There wasn’t a single pony who—
Twilight Sparkle, the librarian. She could help Cirrus. She was there in Canterlot on the day of the attack. In fact, it was her brother who managed to throw them out of the city.
I blanched. He threw them out of the city. Oh Celestia, he’s gonna fling me to the Badlands. Twilight Sparkle is going to get her brother and his wife to banish me from Ponyville forever.
No, they’re not. He’s a Prince, married to a Princess complete with both wings and a horn. There’s no way they would ever do that. Right?
I wormed my way under Cirrus and put him on my back. I was going to the library and that was final. I closed my eyes, opened the door with my magic, and walked outside.
I had expected screams, or pitchforks, or really anything to meet my presence. Instead, as I opened my eyes, I realized that there was nothing and no one who cared about me one bit. I looked around and spotted a few colts and fillies running around in quickly-made outfits of pirates and princesses and everything in between.
Nightmare Night.
I praised Luna, thanking her for having been banished for a thousand years so I could get a few minutes of peace. Well, that wasn’t why she was banished, but it was inarguably a result from it, and one I was eternally grateful for.
I hesitantly took a few steps, as if moving might shatter the illusion of safety, but when nothing broke, I started the trot towards Twilight’s library in a tree. I so desperately wanted to run, but that would have just drawn attention to myself. There was no way I’d ever be able to outrun anypony here, even without Cirrus on my back. I was never much of an athlete, and though this new body was close to my own, it wasn’t exactly the same, which resulted in some awkwardness. So I forced myself into an easy trot. Brisk, but still completely reasonable.
In no time at all, and way too much nervous sweat, I made it to the library. It was only just a little bit over a block from where I lived, but it was still a surprise. I stopped at the door and looked around. Not a soul was suspicious about the changeling carrying an unconscious body around town. I shivered. I didn’t like the implications of that…
I turned back to the door. Solid oak. I just had to knock on it, and everything would be fine. Deep breath, and—
Knock, knock, knock!
I held my breath. There were vague sounds of somepony moving behind the door. Those five seconds it took for the door to open lasted an eternity.
A baby purple dragon opened the door, then looked up to me expectantly. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, sir, but is Twilight Sparkle home? I really need to speak with her.” I tried not to sound too urgent, but I don’t think it really worked.
The little dragon continued to stare for a moment, and I was about to say something else, but then he turned around and ran up the stairs, leaving the door partially ajar. “Weird kid…” I mumbled.
A few moments later, the mare I recognized as Twilight Sparkle came down and opened the door fully. Her eyes opened wide when she saw me, and I was afraid I was busted right then and there. But then she looked around a bit and released a breath. “Your costume is so good that I thought you were actually a changeling! I hear there’s a costume contest happening in front of Sugarcube Corner, you may want to com—”
“Twilight, I really have to apologize, but I really need your help, and I may be in a lot of trouble. So if we could cut the niceties out and head inside to talk privately, I’d really, really appreciate it,” I interrupted her, shifting Cirrus to show that there was more to the situation than she knew.
Her eyes grew wide again, then narrowed, then she let me inside, closing the door behind me. I felt a weight get removed off my back, and was relieved to see my coltfriend in her magical aura. “Oh, thank Cele—”
It was my turn to be interrupted as I was pushed up against the nearest wall by Twilight’s magic. My back slammed into the hard wood, making little black dots swim in my vision.
“You’ve got one shot at explaining all of this, changeling, or else you’re going straight to Celestia.”
I didn’t know if she could actually do that, but I wasn’t willing to find out. So I explained everything. The mirror, the hunger, the walk, even the sex, though I kept it to the necessities. When I was done, I slumped down to the ground. I didn’t know at what point Twilight’s magic had faded, but I was free to move now. I was still cautious to do so; I wasn’t eager to repeat getting smashed against a wall.
“So, you aren’t a changeling?”
Finally! “No, I’m not. You may have seen me around Ponyville, though maybe not. Name’s Greeny. And that right there is Cirrus. Can you help him?” I honestly didn’t much care about what happened to me, I just wanted him to be ok.
She glanced over to where she had set him, just beside her. “Oh, yeah. Changeling biology prefers to keep their victims alive for feeding later. He’ll just be unconscious for the next few hours. Shouldn’t even need medical attention as long as he doesn’t come to more harm. And,” she laid a magical hoof on my chest, not painful but definitely firm, “he won’t come to any more harm, will he?”
“Celestia, no!” I answered at once. “He’s my coltfriend. I… I love him. As long as he’s ok, I’m fine with being…” I gestured down at myself, “a monster. If I have him with me, I know everything will turn out ok in the end.” I sat myself up proudly, despite the magical force trained on me.
The light from Twilight’s horn fizzled out and she drew back slightly, apparently finding my speech a little strange. I wilted slightly, but still tried to keep up what hopefully looked like a determined façade. And it was a façade. In truth, I had been panicking inside since before I teleported back home. But things tend not to get done when I panic, so for now I was determined.
Twilight looked between me and Cirrus, and it was obvious she was thinking about what exactly to do with me. I had shown myself to be a danger. Maybe not a whole changeling swarm type of danger, but enough to hurt others. Twilight was smart, smartest pony in all of Ponyville. There was only one thing she could decide to do from here. I kept my head high, but my eyes were close in anticipation. When she started to speak, I couldn’t help but flinch.
“Alright, I believe you,” she said.
What? I snapped my eyes back open. She was still sitting there calmly, as if she hadn’t just broken the fabric of reality.
“But,” she continued, “my friends and I will be watching you closely. I’m still not entirely sure what rules Pinkie Pie plays by, but they’re probably closer to whatever Discord was working with. Be on your best behavior from this point forward, got it?”
It took a moment for all the words to catch up to me, but as soon as they reached me, I nodded furiously, unable to quite make the necessary movements with my mouth to say anything.
“Good. Now, on top of making sure you are kept in line, I’ll also be leading research on what changed you into this thing. As far as my preliminary scan, you’re one hundred percent a changeling.” She must have seen the horrified look on my face, because she quickly continued. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means, I promise. It just says that you aren’t under the guise of an illusion. Well, actually it also means several other very important things in terms of the science and magic behind your make-up, but in simplistic terms for the lay-pony— er, lay-ling, I suppose, it just means it’s not an illusion.”
My mind was swimming with all her words. There sure were a lot of them, and my brain seemed incapable, or at least unwilling, to parse through them all. I decided to simply nod. Not an illusion. Got it.
She didn’t even need to look at her desk of supplies in order to open the correct drawers, floating over several different quills and papers. She started writing on several of them at once, checked them over, then organized them into a neat pile and offered them to me.
“I’m afraid I’m going to need more confirmation than a simple nod in order to study a sentient creature. Read through these and sign at the bottom when you’re ready.”
Twilight got up from where she sat and started walking up the stairs before stopping suddenly. “Spike!” she called out, waiting for him to show himself from wherever he went while we were having our conversation. A few seconds later he ran out from a back room on the first floor. I could have sworn he had gone upstairs… “Can you watch him and make sure he doesn’t do anything evil while I’m busy?”
Spike looked between Twilight and myself, then nodded and sat down on a pile of books, staring at me. I tried my best to ignore him, but I could feel his eyes drilling even more holes into me. What was weirder was that I thought I could begin to feel his emotions, which could probably be most closely related to curiosity.
It made me feel a little better to know what he was feeling, but it unnerved me more that I even had the ability in the first place. I tried to busy myself with reading what Twilight had given me.
It may have only been written in a minute, but it was still a solid five pages of what I could generously describe as “mumbo jumbo”. Each sentence was a mystery that I had to unravel given very few context clues. As I went on, it did get a little easier, but it took me so long to finish that when I finally looked up, I saw Cirrus staring back at me from where he was lying still.
I almost dropped everything right there to run over to him, to hold him, comfort him, whatever he needed me to do. But then I felt just a trickle of what he was feeling. It was the smallest droplet, but it hit me like a sack of stones.
Fear. Real, palpable fear. Directed entirely towards me. I was the one who was supposed to make him feel safe, but I had hurt him, and more than just physically.
I felt tears start to well up, and I blinked them away as best I could, averting my gaze from his face. I couldn’t look at him, as much as I wanted to. If I did, I didn't think I would have been able to stop myself from bursting into tears and becoming a sobbing, incomprehensible mess.
I took a shaky breath. “Hey Cirrus,” I croaked. I coughed, clearing my throat, and tried again. “Hey Cirrus. It’s me, Greeny. I know I look pretty weird right now, but I promise it’s me.” I paused, and forced myself to keep staring at the ground. I desperately needed to know how Cirrus was reacting, but I needed to finish first. “I’m… sorry about what happened. I have never, ever wanted to hurt you. But I did, and I’m so ridiculously sorry. I didn’t know what was happening, and I couldn’t help myself, and it just got out of control so fast, and… I’m so sorry you got wrapped up in all this.”
Well, here I was, crying anyways. I looked back to Cirrus, who had remained completely motionless throughout my apology.
I laid back down and covered my head with my hooves, not wanting to be seen but unable to make any sort of escape.
Then nearly jumped out of my hide (carapace? Chitin? I’m going to have to ask Twilight for one of her books on bugs) when I felt a hoof wrap across my barrel. I whipped my head around to find the culprit, and was met with the beautiful sight of Cirrus, as well as his beautiful, loving emotions.
“You silly pony,” he said. “The only thing I’m mad at you for is not washing me up after we had sex. I’m all crusty and gross.”
I let out a gasping sort of laugh at that. His words might have been comedic, but his message was clear.
We were okay. We were going to be okay.
There wasn’t a cure for whatever I had.
Twilight never said it quite so directly, but under her technical phrases and scientific uncertainties laid the undeniable truth that there was no “back to normal” for me.
When she had first begun studying me, she had made sure that I knew the most probable outcomes. For the most part, it was either that she would be able to find a way to fix everything and turn me back into a unicorn, or she couldn’t. Knowing that early on definitely helped me deal with the news, but I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been in shock when she'd told me, not being able to sleep until well into the night, and even then I hadn’t done so peacefully.
I had spent most of the night thinking of all the things I’d never be able to do again. Thanks to the quite amazing shapeshifting ability that changelings have, that list was surprisingly short, but it was nonetheless impactful.
I’d never be able to fully relax in Canterlot. Maybe after several years tensions would die down over there, but the first Canterlot had experienced from changelings was destruction, and that would never be forgotten.
I’d never be able to have a normal conversation with somepony again. Ponies just weren’t used to having someone know exactly what they're feeling before they have a chance to express those feelings. It often made things awkward and stopped them in their tracks, as if I had upset the natural order of the world, and they no longer knew where to go next.
And there was one thing that I knew wasn’t ever going back to the way that it was, but I was kept up by trying to decide how exactly it was going to change: Cirrus and me.
What was he going to do? Tartarus, what was I going to do? I didn’t even have a Cutie Mark anymore. I could remake it, sure. A few blades of grass blowing in the wind. Not exactly complex, and it was certainly one of the easiest that I tried making during Twilight's experiments. But it wasn’t having it that was the problem, it was that it wasn’t real.
While under the watchful eyes of Twilight’s friends, I had received multiple viewpoints in regards to switching back to my original form. Applejack said that shapeshifting back was a form of lying. Rarity preferred my pony form, as the bug wasn’t exactly a pretty sight, and was even scary to Fluttershy. Pinkie had suggested choosing whichever made me happiest. Rainbow Dash… was unhelpful. I think she had just wanted me to pretend to be Spitfire so I could get her into the Wonderbolts.
I had decided to remain a changeling. It was just easier that way. Everypony already knew me as a changeling, so I might as well lean into it. Trying to pretend I was something I wasn't not tended to lead to trouble.
But did Cirrus want to get wrapped up in all of that? It wasn’t exactly what he had signed up for when he became my coltfriend. Would he leave me to save himself the drama? Could we even still be friends?
I had worked myself into such a fit overnight that when Cirrus had woken up, he had to propose in order to convince me that he wouldn’t leave. I had to admit, it was a very convincing argument.
We weren’t quite ready to actually get married, though I had said yes. We set the date to be a year in the future and told no one. There were already so many things we hadn’t figured out yet, we didn’t want to add a wedding to the list of problems.
One problem neither of us really wanted to work through was sex. It was a pretty rough first go, and we weren’t eager to jump back into the saddle, so to speak. I had been getting a steady diet of love from Cirrus, but I was still scared that I could lose control. So was he, though he insisted otherwise. It was extremely difficult to lie to a changeling, even one that’s only a few months old.
That’s not even mentioning that I still (somehow) didn’t even know what bits I had. Twilight had said that changeling anatomy was different from pony anatomy, and that it was pretty much impossible to tell until I got “excited”. But it’s pretty hard to get excited when I’m stressed.
Cirrus did finally move in with me. It was mostly for emotional support at first. Cuddling together at night is a great form of therapy. I wish I was joking, but my therapist actually did prescribe me cuddling. She had said that cuddling with any interested party, whether coltfriend or regular friend, would be beneficial, but we both knew who I’d sleep next to that night.
Cirrus was my rock during those first few months. No matter what, he stayed by my side. There were ponies who I had considered my friends, but had abandoned me when they had learned of my change. Even my family had pulled back some. They had been so supportive of me throughout my entire life, but right when I needed them most, they appeared to have vanished into thin air.
There were definitely nights where everything suddenly caught up with me, and I couldn’t help but cry. There was just so much uncertainty in the world now, and it scared me. But no matter what, Cirrus was there to support me.
That’s why, when a year finally passed, I married that stallion. The crowd consisted of his parents, my oldest sister, and Twilight and her friends. Not exactly a wedding to oppose that of Shining Armor and Mi Amore Cadenza, but that’s not what we were going for. In truth, we didn’t need any crowd at all. I would have been fine if it had just been us two, squirreling away in the dead of night to marry in Las Pegasus. All that really mattered now was that we were together. Cirrus and Greeny would be together forever, and though the lines suggested a parting at death, we both knew that not even that could separate our love. And I would know, because now I could taste it.