What is Love?
“Baby, don’t hurt me,” Ocellus sang.
She had a really nice voice! But Sandbar wasn’t sure why she sang. Or what she sang. He tilted his head. “What? Are you okay? I didn’t step on your hooves or anything just now, did I? I don’t think I’ve even moved for the last ten minutes.”
“No, no! You’re fine. Sorry,” said Ocellus. “That question is...the title of an old changeling lullaby.”
“Oh.” Sandbar stuck his tongue out. “Well, what is it?”
“A lot of things,” said Ocellus. “The most basic definition is—why didn’t you ask Princess Cadance last time we went to the Crystal Empire?”
They were in the middle of a ring of fire right now. Some old volcano hydra had been awakened and taken them prisoner because he was mad that Gabby disturbed his sleeping grounds on her way to the Dragonlands to deliver a message. Their friends were on the way to rescue them. Probably.
“SCREAM, WHELPS!” roared the hydra. Sandbar had forgotten their name. It was really long and he had just woken up from an afternoon nap when the ceiling exploded and the giant, firey claw reached in and grabbed him out of his and Gallus’s shared dorm room.
He and Ocellus looked at each other and smiled, and then they raised their mouths to the sky and screamed bloody murder. The hydra clearly thought that his fire ring was giving them third degree burns or something, but he was old and confused, and probably didn’t understand how in the last five thousand years (or however long he was asleep) creatures’ ambient magic fields had evolved to give them basic protection against magical fire.
For a while, at least. There were at least seventeen minutes before their fields would be drained of juice and they would burn to death. Plenty of time for Gallus, Silverstream, Yona and Smolder to rally their ex-professors, realize that they were taking too long, and then rashly come by themselves to save him and Ocellus.
Back to the question though.
“I wasn’t wondering that, back then. I had the hottest two royals in Equestria blocking up all possible thought,” Sandbar said.
Ocellus squeaked happily, reaching out to give him a tight hug. “Ohmygoshohmygosh, right?! I thought that I was the only one who found them more attractive than the other three alicorns!”
Sandbar wheezed under her strength, but made no effort to push her away. It’d been a whole day since someone had hugged him. He really needed it. He pat her elytra gently, rubbing over the surface of them in little circles like he knew she liked. Now that he thought about it, him and Ocellus hadn’t hung out one on one in a long while, and he was grateful for the opportunity.
“Yeah, man,” Sandbar said. “Shining and Cadance are like, top tier.”
“Smolder always makes fun of me for gushing over them!” Ocellus pulled away, frowning. “She’s always like ‘Oh, but Luna’s right there’ and I’m like ‘Who cares? Have you seen Shining Armor?’. But anyway! I guess that makes sense. I turn into a space cadet whenever I’m around them.”
“So?” Sandbar asked.
“So what?”
“What is love?” Sandbar asked.
“Baby, don’t hurt me,” Ocellus sang, smugly this time. “Ah, that question brings back some good memories. Bad ones too. Lots of screaming ponies.”
“Cellyyyyyyy….”
“Sorry!” Ocellus chuckled, reaching out to pet his neck, making him whinny happily. Sandbar loved to be pet. How glad he was to have friends who liked to pet him! “Well,” Ocellus continued, “as I was going to say, the basic definition of love is strong affection for another.”
“Another what?” Sandbar asked.
“Another...something!” Ocellus said. “Just about anything.”
“But that doesn’t explain what changelings eat.”
“That’s true,” Ocellus said. “We feed off of the magical energy that gets created when love happens. Or when it’s directed towards something.”
“Does it have to be pointed at something?” Sandbar asked. “You can’t just feed off of someone...loving themselves?”
“Well, even then, love is directed,” Ocellus said. “If you meant to ask why we can’t just love ourselves...we just can’t. Not in a way that feeds us. We can have good self-esteem, obviously. Pharynx is proof of that.”
Sandbar hummed in polite agreement.“Where can you find love?” he asked. “Is it hard?”
“You know,” Ocellus said, “I used to think that it was. Back when we were...starving. But it’s a lot easier now.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Especially after moving to Equestria. Everyone here does everything with love.”
“So that’s not just a metaphor.”
“What is?”
Sandbar twirled his hoof. “You know, um, ‘cooking with love’, ‘working with love’, that sorta thing.”
“Yes!” Ocellus beamed. “Like I said, love is when you feel strong affection towards something. And all ponies have at least one thing that they do with all the love that they have.”
“Why are you staring at my butt?” Sandbar tilted his head.
“It’s very cute,” Ocellus said. “I’m more staring at your cutie mark than your whole butt, though.”
“Oh.” Sandbar said. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, I see. Special talents.”
“Special talents that are often connected to your life’s purpose,” Ocellus said. “And more often than not, you’re always so happy with them. That kind of contentment bleeds into everything else that you do. You know why Smolder and Gallus always complain about how fluffy ponies are? It’s because they’re jealous. I am, too. I imagine Silverstream and Yona feel the same. You have your greatest love tattooed on you. No other creatures in the world have that.”
Sandbar kicked a hoof, blushing a bit. He hadn’t heard too many positive things said to him about ponies from other creatures before. He had always just assumed that ponies were sort of like coral. Like, like how pretty coral is on the ocean floor but there was always some much cooler fish or shark or turtle swimming through them. Coral was pretty good, but the things that lived beside the coral were just so much better. He wanted to tell Ocellus that, but he felt like maybe it would sound patronizing after all that she just said.
So instead he asked, “Can little things have a lot of love?”
Ocellus didn’t look like she really understood what he meant.
He rephrased. “You ever read poetry?”
“Do you?” Ocellus asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Plenty!” Sandbar said. He stuck his tongue out at her. “We have to read it when we’re foals. It helps us with musical numbers.”
Ocellus’s other eyebrow raised. “Right.”
Sandbar nodded. “Okay, so: to me, the best poems ever are always about the small things in life. The smell of laundry being hung to dry. The ants on your favorite tree that you loved to climb as a kid. The way that your mom always made sure to pack your water bottle and your daffodil sandwich on opposite sides of your backpack because she knew that you hated soggy bread. How much love can be gleaned out of that kind of stuff?”
Ocellus put a hoof to her chin. “You know, I’m not too sure. I’ve never actually thought of it like that. When we consume love it’s always the bigger gestures. Hugs, kisses, holding hooves. Or, as I said, when you get really into doing something related to your cutie mark. Pinkie Pie could feed a good third of the hive with the love that she throws an extra special birthday party with.”
“Really?” Sandbar asked. “Not the Pinkie thing. I know that. I meant: only the big stuff, then?”
“I guess I can’t speak for all changelings, but yes. A little peck on the cheek can be a nice snack, but I don’t think that I’ve ever thought too hard about love in small gestures like what you just described.”
“You can sense it, right? Love?”
“Yes.”
The ring of fire flared up. They checked themselves. No burns yet, but it was definitely getting warmer.
“Does that volcano hydra feel love?” asked Sandbar.
“I don’t know. Probably,” Ocellus said. “I’m sure at least once in his life he’s felt love. I can’t say for sure. But I don’t get anything from him.”
“Do you?” Sandbar asked.
“Of course I do!” Ocellus frowned. “Why?”
“Do our friends?” Sandbar asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, can’t you feel love when they do their little things to show that they like us?”
“I’m not too sure what you mean.”
“You know,” Sandbar shrugged. “The stuff they never say out loud but they do anyway.”
Ocellus looked even more confused now. “What?”
“When the professors throw things at us and Smolder always catches them for you,” said Sandbar. “Or when she knocks you down accidentally and always, always makes sure to help you up with two claws and a smile, even if it’s in the middle of an intense game of buckball, or if she’s racing laps with Gallus around the gym. There’s no love there?”
“There’s—” Ocellus paused. “There is.”
“And when we’re out somewhere and my hooves start hurting because we’ve been walking so much and Gallus and Silverstream team up to fly me there so I don’t have to walk. Or when Yona doesn’t interject to tell us that yaks do it better whenever one of us is proud of something that we’ve accomplished. That’s not love?”
“It is,” Ocellus said. “It—it is! I think. I’ve never...I’ve never thought of eating that.”
Sandbar hummed. “They should be here soon.”
“They should. It’s getting really warm.”
Sandbar let his mind wander after that. His question hadn’t been answered, but he had a nice talk with his friend and that was enough. Now he could think about how he hadn’t had any food today. He wanted something sweet. From Sugarcube Corner. A pie. Was that a healthy thing to eat for breakfast? Was it still breakfast when it was the middle of the afternoon?
“How about when I doze off,” he said, blinking his eyes slowly. It was warm, but it was making him sleepy more than it was scaring him. “How about when I get distracted by my own mind and we just sit here beside each other and do nothing together? Is there love there?”
Ocellus chuckled softly to herself. “You’re too sweet for your own good, sometimes.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes, Sandbar. I love you, too.”
She sidled up to him and put her head on his shoulder. They waited together until they heard somegriff call out, “Hey, lizardbrain! You’ve got our friends!”
There was a big battle. Some rainbows. Ocellus and Sandbar waited until the ring of fire that surrounded them suddenly died down, and there was a smoking, knocked out hydra some miles away and just meters from them were their friends. Gallus, Silverstream, Yona and Smolder all relieved and beaming and happy to see that they were okay.
“And how does the daring rescue taste?” Sandbar whispered to Ocellus as they got closer.
“It’s delicious,” she said, wonder in her voice. “It’s amazing.”
Sandbar smiled as they were pulled in for a group hug and whispered again. “I thought it might be.”