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A Princess and Her Queen

by kildeez

Chapter 19: Chapter XIX: An Eventful Night

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Bait braced his shaking, flour-covered hooves against the stove, nearly buckling under his own weight. His ears folded back out of sheer exhaustion, his neck barely able to support the weight of his head. “Puh-Pinkie…” he rasped.

“You need a break?” She asked cheerily. “Alright, big boy! You just close your eyes, and let me handle everything else! I got the rest covered!”

The changeling turned to rest a sugar-coated cheek on the countertop. Pinkie stood just a few yards away, cheerfully throwing licorice and taffy together into a pan, stirring it with sprinkles, and tossing the entire concoction into an industrial-strength oven that whined with another flash of fire, as if complaining about its huge workload. I feel your pain, bud, his half-asleep mind thought as his eyes slowly drifted shut, easing him down into sweet, blissful sleep…

Wait…

Jerking up as if a bolt of lightning had just hit him square in the spine, the changeling slammed his hoof into the countertop. Instantly, the kitchen filled with a green flash and a solid rock stood where Pinkie had been, her head the only thing exposed to the air.

“Hey, what the…” she said in a tone that only suggested annoyance as she glared at her reformed body-prison.

“Did you think I was that stupid, pony!?” Bait barked, adrenaline keeping him wide awake as he strode intimidatingly towards the little pink and green prison. Well, as intimidatingly as a changeling covered in flour, sugar, and a pinstripe apron could, at least. “Did you really think I’d fall for that?”

“Fall for what?” Pinkie asked cheerfully, flashing a big pair of innocent, blue eyes up at the changeling.

“Oh, don’t act all innocent with me!” He levelled an accusing hoof at her, taking no mind of the glob of pudding dribbling off its end. “You want me to go to sleep so you can set about poisoning the food supplies, isn’t that right!? You want me to sleep so you can conspire to kill me and as many changelings as you can! Well, it won’t work, missy! I’m onto you! So, what do you think about that!?”

Completely unfazed, Pinkie’s tongue promptly snapped out of her mouth and lapped up the pudding, licking it right off Bait’s hoof like a frog snatching up a fly. “I think that’s a really good impression of Twilight! You even got her eye twitch down!”

“Eye twitch?” Bait asked, a hoof trailing to his face, leaving a chocolate trail as he found the set of muscles just below his eye quivering like a Jell-O mold in an earthquake.

“Yep! Ooh, you got a really good one, too!” She sighed. “I guess that’s the sign that we should be done for the day, eh?”

“I…yes,” he stomped his hoof, releasing her from her prison. “Yeah, I should get you back into your cocoon now anyway.” He gazed at the cuckoo clock just over one of the massive ovens, trying not to look panicked as he realized he was already five minutes late for his shift in the tunnels.

“Oh, what? But I’m not even…” she started before suddenly collapsing to the floor with a low thud.

“What the…Pinkie!?” He gasped, trotting cautiously to her body. Slowly, carefully, he reached a hoof out to her neck to feel for a pulse, his body tensed and ready to leap back at a moment’s notice. He felt a nice, steady pulse on her throat. Thinking fast, he pulled a quick scan of her emotional state, her body humming momentarily with the green hue of his magic.

“Let’s see…emotions calm, brain activity low…” A loud snort filled the room and Pinkie turned over, swatting lazily at the air with a hoof as she smacked her lips. “Out like a light!” The changeling realized, shaking his head as he scooped the mare up in his magic. He cradled her as he trotted back to the supply closet and lowered her gently into the cocoon for recuperation.

“Few hours in there, and you’ll be right as rain,” he whispered, zipping the tiny cell up as the mare disappeared into the goop. Nodding satisfactorily, he returned to the kitchen to try and tidy up. It wasn’t much: a few pots and pans, some flour on the floor. For someone as spontaneously random and energetic as her, Pinkie was surprisingly diligent about keeping a clean kitchen.

“Nice trait for a pony,” the changeling mused as he swept a few grains of sugar into a dustpan. Sighing, he counted off what still needed to be done before he could rest for the night. He still had to clean out the interior of oven #3 from one of her earlier experiments (he had no idea why somepony would ever think licorice would taste good in brownies, but it was still interesting to find licorice’s reaction with severe heat and baking soda could be so violent), then give the kitchen another once-over, then he had to take stock to make sure they had the supplies for the Queen’s dinner the next day, and then he still had a shift to pull in caverns with Switch…

Something caught his eye in the dim light, perched on one of the countertops. Blinking his night-vision into place, the changeling looked it over: a tiny plate with a wrapped cupcake perched upon it, next to a note written in crayon. Stunned, he lifted the tiny piece of paper up to his eyes.

SWITCHY-

MANAGED TO SAVE ONE FROM THE LICORICE-OVEN FIASCO JUST FOR YOU. ENJOY!
-PINKIE

“Where in the heck did she even get a crayon?” He asked aloud, looking the piece of paper over. “Or a chunk of construction paper?” Shaking his head, he looked the cupcake over. A cupcake she’d saved. Just for him. Odds were he’d need to throw it away, he just couldn’t trust it, but still the fantasy, the idea that this little pony had actually done something for him, for her captor…

“Whatta mare,” he sighed as he lifted the cupcake off its plate and carefully dropped it in the nearest waste bin, his heart giving the smallest little wrench at the sound of it hitting the bottom. Shaking his head, he pulled off his apron and hung it on the little wooden hook by the door, flicking off the lights as he galloped off, through the cavernous, crystal-coated hallways of the palace and to the actual cavern hidden deep beneath it.

Every scrap of chitin in Bait’s body ached as he trudged his way along, past hallway after hallway, his pace slowing as stairway after stairway passed beneath his hooves. As he walked, he tried to keep his thoughts from wandering to the pink mare, trying to forget her warm laugh, or the way she kept herself perked up no matter her exhaustion, or her mildly chubby frame with its soft, warm flank…

Slapping himself a few times, Bait kept his hooves moving, down through the vaults of the Crystal Caverns and into the underground chamber where the feeding chambers had been set up. The Swarm had yet to ensure the Palace Throne Room back up top had been totally secured, and ever-efficient, the Night’s feeding was being held in the same chamber they’d carved for themselves while breaking into the palace.

As he approached the luminescent hole in some deep, forgotten corner of the caverns, the sounds of a hundred hooves beating against the cavern’s floor greeted his ears, echoing in the caves. He shivered as it was accompanied with a slightly less welcome sound: somepony crying somewhere. Numbness washed into his heart on reflex, squeezing off all emotion until the sounds faded into the background as so much white noise. It was a necessary sound that was bound to accompany what was a necessary process. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

Lifting off from the edge of the hole, he dropped down through its center, swooping into the pit and landing deftly on a small outcropping overlooking the chamber. Below him, a line of ponies was being led to a large underground lake, glowing an eerie green and bubbling periodically. A group of changelings stood on the lake’s edge, their fangs dripping to collect a few trickles of love, whereupon the pony would be led off on shaking hooves to…a large table filled with desserts? What the hay was that doing there?

Despite the weirdness of a fancy buffet table in this place, Bait grinned to himself. “So they already have the love stores set up. Cool.”

Swooping out of his hiding place, he trotted along, scanning for a familiar face among the numerous changeling guards, ignoring the downtrodden ponies being led in two long trains around him, like a river parting around a rock. Of course, he did not expect the larger changeling standing atop a rock near the curve of one of the lines, directing orders from behind a clipboard.

“Keep it movin’, now,” the larger changeling bellowed. “Make your donation to one of the collectors on the lake’s edge, and move along to the exit. Oh, and don’t forget your complimentary dessert.”

“Switch, m’man!” Bait called happily, his wings buzzing him off towards his friend.

“Bait!” The larger changeling turned his attention from his work long enough to hoof-bump his friend. “How you been!?”

“Aw, not bad, not bad at all,” Bait shrugged. “I see they gave you guard duty on the love stores.”

“Aw yeah,” Switch snorted and turned back to the line, watching as another pony was led up to a changeling, who sank his fangs into the pony’s neck and sucked awhile before releasing them. The changeling turned to release his love stores as a torrent of greenish liquid into the bubbling lake behind them while the pony was led off, dazed, stumbling a bit, and with a cookie shoved into their hoof. “Really, it ain’t so bad. Just make sure these idiots don’t panic and try to riot, make sure everypony donates…”

“Yeah,” Bait shrugged. “So, how was your first day with your charge?”

Switch blushed for the quickest instant, but fortunately his partner was too distracted watching the line of ponies filing out through the pointed-rock teeth of the cavern to notice. Swallowing his embarrassment, he nodded. “Pretty good. She was…uh…pretty cool with feeding the hatchlings.”

“Yeah?” Bait scrunched up the chitin of his forehead. “No complaining? None of that usual crap about calling them little monsters?”

Switch frowned at the memory of many a mare, ponynapped and brought to the old hive’s hatchery, only to immediately scream and yell, calling the hatchlings that wretched name. Made his stomach twist, and took the edge off any guilt he felt about the ponies being led into this place. The hatchlings might not have been able to understand it, but for a newborn to hear that wretched name directed at them at such an early age… “No, none of that. She seemed…only too eager to feed them.”

Bait’s ears perked up at that. “Huh. Weird.”

“I know,” Switch cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “So anyway, what about you? How did your first date go with the pretty little pony?”

“Oh, it was…WHAT!?” He turned and gawped at his partner as the larger changeling flashed a healthy grin his way.

“C’mon, she is ‘quite the mare,’ isn’t that how you put it?” He asked in a mocking, sing-song tone.

“I…you…y’know what, screw you!” Bait yelled, snatching the clipboard from his partner’s hoof and setting his sights on the line. “Your shift’s over, I’ll take it from here!”

“Whatever you say, lover-boy!” Switch laughed as he turned, trotting towards the cavern’s entrance, right past his friend as he scanned the board.

“Lessee…lessee…” the smaller changeling grumbled, looking through what was needed, pushing his embarrassment to the back of his mind even as his partner made kissy-noises to him over his shoulder. It looked like Switch had completed most of the day’s orders, separating ponies whose discovered talents made them ideal for jobs needed by The Swarm to maintain themselves, all except one.

“Huh, he never got the couple needed to feed the second hatchery,” he mumbled. “Weird. Alright, let’s see who…oh…oh, I see,” Bait sighed. All of a sudden, it became all too clear why Switch had neglected to collect these two ponies. Well, now that he was in charge, it might be time to correct this little ‘oversight.’

“Are Ajax and Nightshine Strongshield in the cavern?” He called. “I repeat: I am looking for the Strongshields!”

After a few minutes, a couple of crystal stallions walked out of the line and slowly made their way to him, forehooves enclosed in one another’s. Bait nodded to them; though they were no longer wearing their armor, the pair was unmistakable.

“What did you want with us…uh…sir?” Ajax asked with Nightshine’s forehooves wrapped around his neck, holding the stallion close like a child with its stuffed animal.

“You two have been selected for an important duty for the swarm. Your love has been determined to be strong enough to feed our…”

“Wait, hold up!”

Pins and needles crawled up Bait’s spine at the sound of his partner’s voice. The larger changeling had made a sudden U-turn just short of the cavern’s entrance, making a bee-line for the trio gathered between the lines as they filed past. No, not now, don’t do this now… he silently begged.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Switch barked at his friend.

“Fulfilling this request you forgot to finish on your order form?” Please, please, please just drop this. He silently begged. Chrysalis…Faust…hell, I’ll even pray to Celestia, just please, let him shrug his shoulders and walk away right now!

The larger changeling looked the pair of stallions over, Nightshine still holding onto Ajax’s neck as he stared up at them defiantly. One of Switch’s eyes twitched, his nose wrinkling involuntarily. “Aheh, I don’t think so. I have a hard enough time imagining their…love mixing in with my rations, thank you very much.”

“Woah,” Ajax suddenly perked up, lifting his head away from his lover’s. “What’s that supposed to mean? All the other ponies are being made to donate to that pool-thing!”

“Nothing!” Bait leapt between the two. “Nothing, he means nothing! He just…uh…”

“Well, excuse me for not wanting some fag love mixed in with all the normal stuff!” The larger changeling bellowed.

The entire line ground to a halt. The downtrodden ponies, along with their changeling guards, all stopped and stared wide-eyed at Switch. One of the changeling’s jaws dropped, then his eyes widened, tearing up as he turned and took off for the cavern’s exit, tears streaking out behind him. “Crashy, wait!” Another changeling screamed, taking off after him.

Nightshade pulled his head out of his partner’s fur long enough to look, dumbfounded, up at the larger changeling. “I-I thought these days were over!” He bawled, burying his head in Ajax’s neck.

“Aw, dude…” the unicorn stallion standing right behind them said.

“Not cool. Very not cool.” The guardling holding the unicorn at spearpoint completed with a slow shake of his head.

“I-it’s not his fault!” Bait screamed, shoving Switch towards the tunnel’s exit. “It was his father! H-he’s a decent guy once you get to know him!”

“Oh, sure,” Ajax grumbled, glaring at the pair as he and his partner trotted off to rejoin the line. “Don’t waste your breath, hon, we’ve heard it all before!”

“Wait…I…” he sighed, the clipboard falling to his side. Then, he glared up at Switch.

“What?” The larger changeling asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “I was just lookin’ out for the hive.”

“Oh, I know,” Bait hissed, still glaring. “I just never thought I’d see the day when I’d be totally embarrassed to be your friend, that’s all.”

Bait turned around and walked away, following the lines deeper into the cavern as they started up again, leaving the larger changeling to watch him leave, his eyes wide in absolute shock.

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It was a damn good night to be a changeling, as Atraxis and Meelah knew very well. With songs from the old changeling empire rising from their throats and alcohol from the Palace's private stockpile sloshing in their stomachs, how could they not? They had just taken part in the second-most audacious invasion in the Changeling Empire’s history, and this time, they had succeeded. Just then, it seemed as if the entire world lay before them, as if they could do anything, go anywhere, be whatever they wanted to be, and all without the usual stigma that dogged every changeling wherever they went.

The pair of perfectly generic changelings stumbled drunkenly through the streets, paying no mind to the ponies that suddenly fled indoors as they passed, or to the mares that crossed to the other side of the street as they approached. Why should they? They were so occupied with their drunken chorus, their voices warbling in high, barely-audible clicks in some ancient changeling song, that everything else just seemed to fall by the wayside.

“Ohh,” Meelah cackled happily once their latest slurred chorus had come to an end. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we finally won somethin’!”

“Eh, it was only a matter of time,” Atraxis snickered, taking another sip from the wine bottle hovering between them. “If you make enough tries at somethin’, shooner or later, one of ‘em’s bound t’work!”

Meelah looked to his friend, surprised. “Traxy, dude, you should totally write that one down. That was shum deep stuff, bro.”

“What can I shay, man? I got da heart of a poet right…” he stumbled and fell flat on his face, spurning a laughing fit from his friend.

“Yeah! And the grace of an elephant!” Meelah guffawed while Atraxis slowly pulled his face out of the crystal street and admired the face-smear he’d left behind. He looked up, and immediately his eyes lit up.

“Mee! Sh-shut up for a minute!” He yelled, scrambling to his hooves and jamming his friend’s muzzle shut. “Just seriously, check dat out over dere!”

Looking to his friend with drunken, unsteady balance, the changeling turned, gazed up the street, and grinned malevolently. “Well, I’ll be.”

A mare ducked out of a darkened path leading out of one of the Empire’s many parks, shooting along one of the lines of bushes on its borders. She took one look over a teal-covered shoulder, her curly mane falling over her face, and her eyes instantly widened in fear. She turned back to focus on the sidewalk, head bowed, staring straight ahead.

“Whaddya think, Mee? Feel like a little midnight shnack?” Atraxis asked, a mischievous grin on his face.

The corners of Meelah’s mouth dropped ever-so-slightly. “I dunno…we’re really not supposed to…” he mumbled.

“Aww, don’t be such a goody two-hooves!” His friend pouted. “You really need to learn how to kick back and have a li’l fun sometimesh, y’know?”

“Hey! I have fun! I’m three sheets to da wind now, aren’t I!?”

“Only ‘cause I pushed ya into it. Face it: if it weren’t for me, you’d never have volunteered for the invasion force, and you’d still be back in the hive, doin’ whatever boring-ass thing yer always doin’.”

Meelah’s tiny, little frown suddenly went through puberty and became a big, strong scowl. In his drunken mind, he knew just how right Atraxis was. All the lonely Friday nights spent studying infiltration tactics while his friends all donned disguises and went partying with whatever species happened to be nearest to the hive, all the days spent locked in the Imperial Libraries just to have more time with his studies, all the hours with his nose thrust in a musty, dust-covered old book, they all popped into his mind, and while sober Meelah might have been proud of the willpower and determination it had taken to do it all, drunk Meelah was too filled with testosterone to see anything but wasted nights and wasted opportunities. The only time he’d ever gotten to have any real fun was with the changeling now at his side, and while a few of those times might have ended like the night they all went pony-tipping and woke up on a griffon-run merchant marine, just a few minutes from being shanghaied to the outer Baronies, he considered those nights the best of his life. Sure, they usually only got out of those situations because of sheer dumb luck, but that’s what it was all about, right? The simple thrill of the thing, the adventure! So what if they’d woken up with a few dozen Equestrian spears levelled on them once or twice, Drunk Meelah still thought those nights were worth a hundred times whatever those days spent in the libraries might be! Sober Meelah might disagree, but he was a wuss! To Drunk Meelah, there was only one possible response to his friend’s suggestion.

“Let’s do this,” he said with a little grin. Atraxis returned the grin, and the pair drunkenly advanced, ears folded, eyes glowing in the dim twilight. In their minds, they were stealth incarnate, invisible as shadows. Of course, in reality their drunken stumbling could be heard for miles, so it was actually a little surprising that the mare didn’t hear them until they were just a few yards away.

She turned at the sounds of barely-suppressed giggles and shambling hooves, her eyes with a far-away glaze to them. Then her pupils sharpened and her jaw dropped. “Nuh…no…” she whimpered.

“Yesh,” Atraxis hissed, trying to sound like a threatening predator but coming off more like a large wasp after a few hits from a bug bomb.

“I…but what did I do!?” She gasped, backing away from the pair with a fearful quiver in her step.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll come up with somethin’,” Meelah hissed, taking a few steps towards her, stumbling, and correcting himself with a little cough to make it look like the stumble had been intentional.

“Wait…please…I…I…” she stammered, tears welling up in her bright-green eyes, then suddenly took off in a panicked gallop.

“You gotta love it when they run,” Atraxis hissed gleefully as he and Meelah took off right on the mare’s hooves. Drunk Meelah felt a massive smile cross his face. This was the way things were supposed to go. The wind in his face, the fear of his prey almost a palpable tint in the air, the moon highlighting every detail of the crystalline street as it whizzed by under them, all blocking the annoying voice of Sober Meelah, screaming under the surface: You’ve got wings, you moron! Why aren’t you using them!?

Shut up, wussy, I drunk better when I’m think! Drunk Meelah retorted, his eyes never leaving the bobbing tail of the Crystal Pony before them, which finally convinced Sober Meelah to just give up, put his feet up, and let Future Meelah worry about the consequences of what was about to happen, which he knew would inevitably be the pretty little pony getting away because they were two changelings who were too drunk to walk straight and she was a perfectly sober mare who probably worked on her cardio, judging by the toning in her flank.

Just as Sober Meelah started crafting fantasies to occupy Future Meelah’s time, most of them involving that toned little flank bobbing up and down like a prize in his vision, the mare darted across an alleyway, only to be engulfed by a shadow from the darkness and pulled off her hooves. Meelah came to a shocked stop, feeling Atraxis bounce off his shoulder thanks to a delayed reaction.

“Ow, dude, what the…” Atraxis started, but trailed off the moment he looked over Meelah’s head and spotted an empty street. “Aw man, did we lose ‘er already!?”

Sober Meelah would have shrugged his shoulders and turned away, maybe leading his friend to the barracks where he could sober up. Sober Meelah would have decided that if something that fast and that dark wanted to snatch up somepony, it was probably best to leave them to it and pretend nothing ever happened. Drunk Meelah, however…

“Somethin’ shnatched her up,” he grumbled, eyeing the alleyway with a low growl building in his throat. “Somethin’ stole our shnack, man!”

“Bullshit!” Atraxis stumbled over to the alleyway and charged into the darkness. “C’mon! I’m sure we can head ‘em off!”

“Right behind you!” Meelah screeched, hooves sliding drunkenly as he attempted to catch up with his friend. The pair bounced along, dodging and diving past overturned garbage cans and rotting dumpsters with the sort of nimble touch usually reserved for gymnasts. At least, that’s what they thought they were doing. In reality they drunkenly stumbled through a few puddles, bouncing off alleyway debris like a couple of lopsided pinballs before landing face-first in the street on the other side.

“Racing shadows!” Atraxis announced proudly.

“Hokay,” Meelah bolted to his hooves and looked around. “I dunno whatchoo assholes think you’re…doing?”

A pair of muscular changelings held the mare between them, her muzzle having been wrapped in changeling goop. She looked up pleadingly as a massive changeling turned to the drunken pair behind him. His eyes widened in surprise, then quickly settled back into a cold neutral. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A couple of soldiers getting drunk while on duty?”

“Hey! How do y’know we’re drunk?” Atraxis bellowed, pointing a hoof accusingly, only to stumble off to the side and narrowly avoid crashing head-first into a garbage can.

“Oh, a lucky guess and a few signs,” the large changeling hissed threateningly, those cold, steely eyes never letting up. “One of those being the fact that neither of you has seen fit to salute your superior officer since your arrival.”

“Wha-oh!” Meelah quickly raised a hoof in salute, trying to stand as straight as possible, only to nearly fall over from throwing his own center of gravity off. “Colonel Buzzwing, sir! We’re so…we’re so…” Meelah would have continued, if not for the sudden bout of hiccups that wracked his frame.

“We just got back from the Crystal Palace, sir,” Atraxis explained, desperately trying to pick up where his more eloquent, but more intoxicated, friend had left off. “Some of the Lieutenants found a huge stash of the ponies’ alcohol and divided it amongst us all.”

That look of disgust and cold steel never left the Colonel’s eyes, though a grin started to stretch his muzzle, much like the grin of a wolf spying a herd of unguarded sheep. “Well now, if it was the ponies’ stash you all were using, I can’t say I have much against dividing the spoils of war amongst yourselves.”

“Thank you…sir…” Meelah intoned, hoof still raised in salute despite the rising urge to vomit.

“But why don’t you boys get on back to the barracks, yeah?” He motioned for the soldiers flanking him and tossed the mare over his shoulder, her muffled cries and pleas never even making it past the goop wrapped around her muzzle. “We’ll make sure you make it back in one piece, right fellas?”

“Yes sir,” the pair replied in unison.

The commander rested a hoof on one of the soldier’s shoulders, balancing the mare in his other arm in a feat of strength that made Meelah take a half-step back out of reverence. “Just find out what their plans are for the rest of the night and…take care of them, alright?” He asked.

Sober Meelah would have instantly realized something was very wrong with that picture. The way the commander said ‘take care of them,’ the way the pair advanced on him and Atraxis with a look in their eyes like a couple of changelings on a mission from the Queen herself, rather than a pair asked to escort their comrades back to their barracks, the entire situation with the kidnapped mare and just where these changelings thought they were taking her, it all would have shot up a half-dozen red flags for Sober Meelah. However, Sober Meelah was nowhere to be found. Instead, we had Drunk Meelah.

“Hey cool,” Meelah said with a little smile, not noticing the cold looks the soldiers gave him through his drunken haze. “Private escorts.”

“Yeah,” Atraxis said, his mind slightly more aware than his friend’s thanks to years of similar nights with similar amounts of alcohol in his bloodstream. Something in those cold glares just really turned him off, making his buzz suddenly seem a bit less sweet and more like a burden. “Th-that’s really not necessary, sir.”

“Oh no, I insist,” the commander replied, and once again Meelah missed the coldness and anticipation in the smile flashed their way, the mare an all-but-forgotten piece of luggage in the other changeling’s grip. “Someling’s gotta make sure you boys get home safe now, right?”

“R-right,” Atraxis replied, falling in step with the soldiers as they disappeared down the alleyway. Meelah tailed behind, still completely oblivious to the cold, calculating way their new escorts looked at him and his friend, waiting for one of the pair to break the ice.

“So,” one of the soldiers said as he stamped through a shallow puddle. “You guys do this often?”

Meelah couldn’t help but smile drunkenly at that. “You have no idea,” he chuckled, shaking his head at his friend. “You ‘member, Traxie? The shit we got into with that griffon captain?”

“Yeah,” Atraxis grinned, but it was uneasy, the grin of a stallion trotting into a lion’s den. “I still don’t remember how we got out of that one.”

“I do,” Meelah said. “I always ‘member things, even when we’re drunk!”

The pair came to a halt just outside the alleyway. Meelah and Atraxis slipped past and trotted into the street before they even realized their escorts were now just standing at the alley’s head, regarding them coldly. “That a fact?” One of their escorts asked, barking the question so it sounded more like an order.

“Y-yeah,” Meelah said with a little frown, then tapped his head with a silly grin spreading over his muzzle. “Like a steel trap up here, it is!”

The guards regarded him, analyzing him appraisingly, and then tiny smiles spread across their lips. “That’s fascinating, really,” one of them said, stepping in close. Meelah watched uneasily as the other guard took a position next to Atraxis, then the pair threw their hooves over their shoulders. “I mean, able to remember something, anything, in spite of being so obviously drunk? Quite the talent you have there!”

“Uh, yeah…I guess…” Meelah laughed nervously, the actions of the guards finally breaking through the drunken haze to raise a few little red flags in his head.

“That really is somethin’,” the soldier led him back towards the alley’s entrance, but Meelah fought back, his legs dragging. The soldier’s attempts at leading him along morphed into an impatient, nearly desperate tugging, then slacked off all at once. “Not sure I’ve come across a talent like that.”

“Y-yeah, I read a lot,” Meelah said, trying to take a few steps back into the open road, only to find his way blocked by the hoof around his shoulders, locked in place like a vice. “Guess it jus’ developed o’er time, or somethin’.”

“That is fascinating, truly,” the guard replied, and in his drunken state Meelah never noticed the way his free forehoof slid out of view, reaching into the crack where the chitin of his torso met the coverings on his hind legs. “You seem like a great guy, man. Like someone I could get to know better.”

“Really?” Meelah looked hopefully at the larger changeling’s face, yet for some reason, the soldier did not meet his gaze, apparently looking over Meelah’s shoulder at his partner for reasons his drunken mind couldn’t even begin to discern. “Y-you wanna be friends?”

“Well now, friends would be a bit extreme, ‘cause there’s one thing I make sure anyling can do before I start calling them a friend.”

“Oh?” Meelah said, the drunken haze over his eyes keeping him from seeing the slight nod the pair shared with one another. “Whazzat?”

Without another word, the soldier pulled his hoof into view, clenching a long, thin, black dagger that glinted in the moonlight before plunging into Meelah’s body. The weapon expertly missed the tougher parts of the chitin, sliding into a crack where the back plates met and driving between the ribs, piercing his heart. Meelah managed a quiet, desperate gasp, more of surprise than of pain, before he felt the darkness close in around his vision, the glowing, green ichor pumping through his veins flowing from the new orifice in his body, soaking the dagger’s handle.

“How t’keep their fuckin’ mouths shut,” the soldier hissed into Meelah’s ear as he gave the dagger a final twist and slid it out. As the blackness closed in, Meelah felt the urge to vomit rise from his stomach again. He didn’t fight it this time.

Next Chapter: Chapter XX: Tea with Chaos Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 39 Minutes
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