I pushed the open psychology text book aside and turned towards the spell formulas on the dry-erase board; after a moment of consideration, I exchanged one of the symbols for another. Around me, several of the Research and Development team compared notes, checking and double-checking the accuracy of our work. The formula on the board was a modification of a memory spell designed for high-detail mind reading, theoretically superior than the blunt-force approach of the hive mind. While the initial test would be conducted with the aid of the link, it was our goal to wrap up the spell and associated method into one easy-to-use package: the ultimate in mind healing.

Sally-Anne sat quietly nearby. The partial blindness from the Soul-Sight accident had damaged her ability to recognize certain shapes; her chief issue was the loss of the ability to read written languages. In response, one of her co-workers had gotten her a kit to teach herself Braille and a Braille keyboard. However, Sally-Anne’s heart just was not into learning at the moment. The loss of Ian had acutely affected her, leading to her falling into a depression.

There is an idea among the humans that emotions are contagious, which is true, to a certain extent. Among changelings, emotions can become epidemic, especially if the source is a higher ranking changeling. In this instance, we have a double-whammy; I, the hive controller, was not especially cheerful right now, which increases the whole hive’s vulnerability to emotion, and Sally-Anne, the head of the R&D branch of the hive, was emotionally compromised. The net result was a mild depression had settled among a decent portion of the hive.

Eventually, the mass depressions lead to R&D turning its attention to mind healing. The plan we had come up with for her treatment involved the disassociation of love from Ian, blurring her auto-biographical memories involving him so that they felt like an event from a very long time ago, and then carving his face out of her visual memory, so that she would not recognize him anymore. Then, we would help her mind fill in the blanks by convincing her that he was an infiltration mission gone wrong.

Of course, she would remember agreeing to mind healing – we videotaped it, just to be sure – but would not remember why she needed healing in the first place. If everything went to plan, she would walk out thinking that someone she knew had died a long time ago, but it was irrelevant to the now. Well, we hoped.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked Sally-Anne as soon as the team declared us as ready as we could be without practical experience. When she nodded, I sat down in the seat next to her and placed my hand against her forehead. “I have absolutely no idea what this will feel like, so be ready for anything. Stop me if I go too far, ok?”

When my hand lit up, I found myself pulled into her memory. It was a unique experience; rather than the sensation – for lack of a better word – of the hive mind or the mental world created by the World-Capture spell I had developed in the beginning, I found myself floating within a large glowing web. Around me, I could feel her consciousness pulling at the memories as she remembered them.

However, above me, I could sense an absolutely massive entity… myself? I must have been looking through the hive link. It was odd seeing me from that perspective. ‘Is that really what I feel like to them? I feel like something out of a horror novel!’ I thought.

Contrary to common belief, memories are not recordings but reconstructions, at least according to the psych textbook. To test this, my mental projection reached down and examined a nearby memory, ‘APPLE.’ Literally, it was just the characters that spelled the word ‘APPLE.’ branching off from it were several other memories. I followed the strongest of these connections, which lead me to the image of an apple.

After what seemed like hours of wandering her memories, I had all but given up on finding exactly what I was looking for. When I realized that I had another way of searching, I mentally face-palmed. I began to push my consciousness into her the old fashioned way: through the hive mind. From the dual perspective that I currently possessed, the sight struck me as creepy; her mental connections discolored as my will superimposed her own. I then recalled details of Ian, as one would with any memory, and watched as the correct pathways illuminated for me.

My elation was, unfortunately, cut short by a disturbance on the hive mind. Not wanting to accidentally do any further damage to Sally-Anne’s mind, I immediately withdrew completely; it was better to be safe than sorry. Glancing at the clock on the wall upon my retreat, I saw that my searching had objectively lasted a matter of minutes rather than my subjective hours.

Adjusting my mental focus to the link, I realized that it was Ted, the bartender at the Eye of the Beholder, who was urgently calling for me. <<King, some girl just asked for you by name. She’s not quite human; she has wings. What do I do?>>

Startled, I mentally conjured up a list of possible scenarios. <<Show me the memory,>> I ordered. When I saw her, my heart skipped a beat. It was Catherine, my sweet Catherine, as a griffin, and asking about both the old me and new me. It struck me then that Catherine was a Gatekeeper like Selene and me. Even if she had been bonded to the number one predator of changelings, my heart still yearned for her. Without asking for permission, I slid my consciousness into Ted, effectively allowing me to be in two places at once. I made a mental note to compensate him later.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentle-‘lings,” I said to the R&D staff, “Something very urgent has come up that I must sort out before I can safely heal Sally-Anne here. If you’ll excuse me...”

At that moment, I surged my magic, teleporting myself a thousand feet straight up. I buzzed my wings to keep myself suspended and shifted the color of my chitin to match that of the overcast sky. I spun around, orienting myself. A second later, I winked out of existence, only to reappear above a landmark building. Again, I spun to orient myself and again, I flashed to a new location, bringing me ever closer to the Eye.

While I flew and teleported with my real body, the projection of my consciousness in Ted’s body conversed with Catherine and her vaguely familiar companions. However, I pretended that I was Ted as I spoke with her. “Funny,” I said through Ted. I spotted the emerald necklace that adorned her neck. A faint smile crossed my real face, which was echoed across Ted’s. “You know, he’s been thinking about you, lately, wondering if you would come for him.”

Catherine growled at Ted, anger welling up inside her. Her companions mirrored her emotions for reasons that eluded me. “Which one?” She asked.

‘Which one?’ I thought. ‘Do I miss her, or does William? And since when did I start thinking of us as two separate people?’ Eventually, I replied “Does it really matter? William foolishly hoped that you’d come back as a lover. Rex feared that you would return as an enemy. They never suspected you would show yourself to be a griffin.”

I finally spotted the bar below. With just a thought, I teleported to the rear of the building and landed on the pavement. For the first time in nearly two years, I donned the face that I was born with, though aged up properly and about a dozen pounds lighter, bringing it down from chubby to decently healthy. As I started walking towards the front of the building, I cast a very mild Notice-Me-Not on myself as a precaution.

Inside, Catherine said to me-in-Ted, “And you’re the changeling I’ve been feeling.”

Damn, she knew. ‘I guess she really is a griffin. It’s no surprise she figured it out.’ Her companions seemed to tense at Catherine’s accusation. In an attempt to both test the waters and emotionally disarm the trio, I said, “Feeling… You know, I’ve always wondered what it was that made griffins lunge at our throats and eat our corpses.” The horrifying thing was that my words were absolutely true. Chrysalis loses dozens of changelings a year to the griffins; the only thing that keeps her hive from extinction is that the griffin kingdom is on a separate continent from her hive, limiting their interaction. Of course, starving griffins have been known to eat ponies, too. I made a mental note to keep both of my daughters from her for the foreseeable future.

For her part, Catherine and her companions looked absolutely disgusted at my accusation. “Perhaps it’s the energy leaving your body at the slightest happy thought within forty feet of a changeling. It’s quite disgusting, actually,” she retorted.

“So, that’s it? You can feel the passive feeding?” I asked, thoroughly amused. Her sudden guilty expression was all the confirmation I needed. Mentally, I commanded the two changelings in the bar to suppress their feeding while I did the same. Satisfied, I turned my attention briefly to my otherworldly counterpart. [Hey, Chrysalis, I have good news!]

[Yes, Rex?] the queen of the changelings asked.

[There’s a girl over here who is bound to a griffin, like you and I are bound together.]

[That is wonderful news,] Chrysalis sarcastically replied.

[No, well, I know that. No, the real good news is what I got her to say. Griffins can detect a changeling feeding on them, including passively. This could be the key to a more peaceful coexistence where we don’t die left and right every time we encounter a griffin,] I explained. [I’ll keep you posted on if it actually works.

I walked my real body into the nearly empty nightclub. Though technically open, the Eye of the Beholder would not see any real traffic until after sundown. The only occupants currently were the human kitchen staff, a changeling waitress and bartender, two angry human customers, and one griffin who was filled with a borderline murderous rage.

In an effort to keep the situation from escalating too far, I took to tweaking my physiology. My pupils dilated, my posture relaxed, a faint blush adorned my features, and I started producing a massive concentration of pheromones of both human and griffin types. The end result was that any human or griffin that got too close to me would subconsciously read me as ‘submissive and horny’ and would be less willing to strike me, or at least that was the plan.

I stepped into the bar unnoticed by Catherine or her companions – who I swear I remember from somewhere – and sat down next to my ex-girlfriend. “You know, it’s a pain to turn that off,” I simultaneously complained through both my real mouth and the bartender’s mouth, referring to the passive feeding. “You could at least appreciate the gesture, Catherine.”

I saw her blink and turned to look at me out of the corner of my eye. “You know, it makes me feel good that you didn’t sell the emerald I gave you,” I said in double, then released my grip on Ted’s mind while apologizing.

I smiled at my love. “Hey there, my sweet Catherine.”

I felt her emotions tumble inside her. Love, lust, happiness, joy, sorrow, despair, misery, anger, hatred, and wrath all whirled around inside Catherine’s head; by comparison, her companions’ minds quickly settled on confusion and anger, though the pheromones slowly evoked a slight carnal desire within the two humans.

“How… How DARE YOU!” She roared, literally at the end. “HOW DARE YOU WEAR THAT FACE, YOU SICK BASTARD!” I flinched slightly, both from my own emotions and the physical pain of having that much anger directed at me.

“But Catherine-” I started to say before her gloved fist met my face. I fell of the bar stool and landed awkwardly on the ground, only to be pounced upon by Catherine; her fingers wrapped around my throat and slammed my head against the ground. I just barely managed to hold the majority of my form; however, my eyes had other plans and momentarily reverted to their natural, inhuman color.

“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EVEN SAY MY NAME!” She roared. The skin of my neck started blistering under her grip; direct contact with someone feeling that much rage was literally burning me. In a panic, I teleported across the room and scrambled to my feet. The moment I was standing, I saw that she had beaten me to it; she and her companions were all standing with guns drawn and aimed at me.

Though I stood totally still, my mind was anything but. I relayed for help, but it would take time for any changelings to get to us since. I ordered the waitress, Shimmer, to evacuate the human kitchen staff and Ted to sink through the floor and escape through the basement. Unfortunately, Ted refused to abandon me and Shimmer returned as soon as the rest of the staff was safe.

“Ok, ok, I won’t say your name. Now, could you please set down your guns so that we may talk like civilized human beings?” I asked.

“Odd choice of words, changeling,” the man with the cast on his wrist said. “Drop the false skin; I want to see what you really look like. Both of you.” To emphasize his point, he readjusted the aim of his gun towards me and jerked his head in the direction of the bartender.

Sighing, I complied. In a flash of green fire, I reverted back to my eight-and-a-half foot tall true form. I motioned to the bartender to do the same; anything to keep them from shooting, after all. Behind his back, the bartender summoned his magic to try to disarm the trio, but – to his horror – discovered that he could not get a grip on their weapons, cloths, or bodies. He quickly warned me of said discovery.

“Disgusting,” the male human commented. Catherine’s wings flared, while the woman who had yet to speak blushed.

“What? It’s not my fault that clothing burns away when we change,” I said, struggling not to laugh at Catherine’s wing-boner. Their discomfort stemmed from the fact that I was butt-naked and my impressive but inhuman manhood was visible for the world to see.

“I don’t care about that,” Catherine declared. “Tell me, what did you do to William?”

“What, really?” I asked, honestly confused. “Catherine, you were one of the smartest kids in high school, what with straight A’s in the advanced classes… I cannot honestly believe that you haven’t figured it out. What’s the name of the voice in your head? Where does the stuff go when you snap your fingers?” I snapped mine in demonstration, but was confused and disappointed when their guns did not vanish and, instead, a napkin on the table near me did. “Tell me, what specie is she? I’d bet everything that you are a human that bonded to a griffin and became one yourself.”

Catherine did not react, but the woman next to her gave a nervous glance towards Catherine. I continued speaking, “See, there was this human girl named Selene. She bonded to Princess Luna of Equestria, and now Selene is a blue alicorn. Can you guess where I’m going with this?”

Sudden realization dawned on Catherine. “No… It can’t be…”

“Rex or William, he’s still a monster,” the man said to his companions resolutely. “Remember me?” he asked me while adjusting his aim. “I’m Dave. You cut my hand off and flirted with my girl. Now die.”

The bang was deafening, but was nothing compared to the agony I felt as the bullet tore through my arm, which was now only attached by two paper thin strips of chitin and muscle. Before I could fight of the pain enough to call upon my magic, before Ted or Shimmer – who had hidden in the corner – could hit my attacker with telekinetically propelled objects, Dave took aim at me again and –

Author's Notes:

*Ding*