You know how ponies are supposed to have this perfect society where they all live perfect lives and spend their days dancing around with songs and junk? Love, tolerance and all that? Well, that apparently isn’t the case at the dinner table.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The whole thing started off well enough. Me, Twilight and the Twilight who didn’t have wings all got into a carriage to take us to…Tea Love’s Tea Room. It was this girly, frilly little thing that probably would have made me groan and vomit twenty-four hours ago.

But as things were, I was fine with it.

Perfectly.

Absolutely.

FINE WITH IT!

After all, I had sex as a girl, so wearing a dress wasn’t bad or anything, and going to a little frilly place that served tiny cakes where we were expected to sip tea also wasn’t…too…much…either.

We got a private room and sat down at a rectangular table meant for a few more ponies than we had that had pony chairs. Or cushions with backs to them anyway; which meant the restaurant was supposed to be swanky. Most equines had enough junk in their trunks to not need cushioning, and considering even the rich didn’t wear pants… God, please tell me they wash these things.

I briefly wondered if I could get sick.

Not the crazy island/sea sickness thing that I had recovered from about a day after getting back on dry land. I still didn’t know what the fuck was up with that other than I was staying on dry land from until the day I died thank you. That crap had made me feel like I was dying towards the end, and by the time we got back onto a train, I was fine.

No, I meant the normal kind of sick. The normal kind of sick that normal people get when they’re touching their bare asses to things other bare asses have touched. And I have never been more thankful for my lack of food intake, I told myself after images of public toilets filled my head.

Then Twilight opened her mouth. “Dad, this is my fillyfriend, Fae.”

“Mister…um…”

“Night Light my dear,” he replied in a brisk voice that sounded a little deeper than Shining’s. “I must say, when Shining told me Twilight was involved with another mare, I didn‘t expect another alicorn princess! When was your coronation? Velvet, did you know about this?”

The nervousness in the other Twilight’s scent grew, and she coughed before looking away from me and over to her husband. “Well…no dear. It’s a little embarrassing to be honest.”

“Oh, she’s not a princess,” Shining told his father. “Or a…she, really.”

“What?”

I sighed and looked down at the little pink teacup beneath me as I shook my head. “It’s complicated sir.” Hell, I wasn’t even sure of what I was anymore. I was having sex as a girl for crying out loud. And...liking it.

I wasn’t a guy anymore…not really. Twilight’s spell had been giving me hope, but I took the biggest plunge I could and it turned out to be pretty good. Then I get a dress and…it wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be turning into Rarity, but I only had a irritating need to rip the damn thing off instead of the powerful one I thought I would.

But, I could figure out that stuff later, when I wasn’t being examined by Twilight’s parents.

When her father gave me a curious look, Twilight dropped the bomb. “Fae is a changeling Dad,” she explained evenly.

Judging by how Velvet started choking on a tiny bit of cake and I could Smell her unnerved scores as they went from 5 to over 9000 in an instant… Oh fuck, Shiny and Cady didn’t tell them after all.

Night Light was a little slower on the panic train. His eyes widened, and he started getting in front of his wife.

“A WHAT?” Velvet shrieked before looking over to me in fear, then back to her daughter. “And you just brought that thing into Canterlot? Have you gone completely insane?”

And then the dad managed to catch up with his wife.“She must be under a spell! S-Shining! Quickly! Before it captures you too! Put it in a containment field!”

As I watched any hope of ever being liked by pony Mom and Dad go up in smoke with a pretty horrified expression on my face, Shining Armor face-hoofed and groaned. “Mom, Dad…Omnifarious isn’t evil. He, or um…” he mumbled before looking me over for a minute. “She, helped save the Crystal Empire from Chrysalis just a month ago!”

Of course I also put it in danger to begin with, but it was probably best to leave that part out. And…while that was what happened up north, it wasn’t the story that made it into the papers. According to them, I had turned on Mom at the last instant and then surrendered to Celestia. There was no mention of my betrayal of Twilight. As far at the pony population at large knew, I just stabbed Chrysalis in the back…or vagina…whatever.

“It’s a changeling Shiny! Don’t you remember what happened at the wedding?” Night Light replied as it backed away from the table until they ran into the private room’s wall, then moved to place himself fully between me and Velvet.

“Oh no! It must have gotten both of them under its control, and now it’s come after us!” Velvet said while she cowered in the corner behind her husband. The sight was…probably the most disturbing thing I’d seen since coming to Equestria. And hell, I had watched babies die.

But, they were evil babies.

“WHAT?” Twilight shouted as she reared her head back.

Shining Armor just groaned and gave me an uneasy, but apologetic look.

As for me, I just stood there, looking at them with my mouth hanging open just a bit, unsure of what to do. I had seen ponies edge away from me before, get nervous and stuff like that, but…the level of fear Twilight’s parents had…it was new.

And I didn’t like it one bit.

The same kind of thing had happened to me in Ponyville, but…it was nowhere near to the extent I was seeing in front of me.

Or it was…and ponies simply had somewhere else they could run off to before we crossed paths when they saw me coming down the road. That was a pretty disturbing realization actually. If it were true I mean… Although, considering Mom and Dad’s reactions…there probably were some ponies back in my hometown that I had cared the shit out of and simply didn’t get close enough to feel their emotions like the waves I was getting off of Twilight’s parents.

That was another thing that was disturbing about changelings in general. When we…Smell emotions, for a lack of a better term, we do get an emotional response from them. Like how normal people think this or that smell nice. Fear…it may not have tasted very good, but it still smelled pretty nice. Which was really creepy to be honest.

I opened my mouth to say something to them but…hundreds of instances, both fictional and not, flooded through my mind of what tended to happen in situations like this and I just sighed. Forcing people to confront things that had them shaking in fear wasn’t a good idea.

“Well…this didn’t work out like I thought it would,” I mumbled before I got up to leave.

“Fae! Where are you going?” Twilight asked in a panic.

A sigh escaped from my lips. “Look, this isn’t going to work out. Maybe-”

“Sit. Down,” the purple pony princess ordered.

“Twilight,” I mumbled before stealing a look at her parents.

“I said, Sit! Down!” she ordered again before I felt her telekinetic force slam my butt onto the ground.

Then she turned on her parents. “And you two! Do you have any idea of how…how ashamed I am of the way you're acting?” the alicorn yelled. “Fae is one of the most loving, dependable, and accommodating ponies I have ever met! She was terrified that you would reject her on the way to Canterlot, and this…this is what you do?”

“Twilight, I know you you’re not in control of your actions right now, so what you‘re saying-” Velvet got out before her daughter silenced her with a shout.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” she yelled before starting to pace back and forth. “I thought I’d just have to listen to another ‘oh Twilight couldn’t you have waited until after having a foal or two to become an alicorn speech’ or ‘Twilight, you need to talk Shining into getting broodmare’ or-”

Shining let out a groan and mumbled to himself as he shook his head, “they talked to Twily about that?”

“-some other stupid thing, but this?” Twilight groaned and looked at me. “Look. Let’s…try this again. Fae, can you make them forget I told them you’re a changeling, and we’ll start over.”

Oh…fuck. That was not something I was ever hoping to hear Twilight say.

My stomach lurched and I looked away from the alicorn to let out a breath before I could answer her. “I’m sorry Twilight, but…I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” she said as she looked over to me. “You said you wiped the memories of the train conductor and the squadron of guards you and the other changelings replaced don’t remember what it was like when you had captured them. So-”

“Twilight, there are three things that I’m not ever going to do no matter how hard you ask, and that’s one of them,” I told her with as much resolve as I could, which wasn’t much. “I’m sorry.”

Twilight turned back on me and frowned in confusion. “What three things?”

I sighed and looked up at her with a frown. “I’m not going to mind control ponies,” I told her while telling myself a little misdirection about my cutie mark wasn’t really mind control. “Turn into another pony without good reason, or mess with another pony’s memories.”

The whole damn thing was a slippery slope that I didn’t even want to go near because, to be honest, the power to just rewire a pony’s brain in every way Code Geass could come up with made me afraid of ever touching that shit again beyond the bare bottom basics. If I did…well…I knew a mind controlled Rainbow Dash, followed by the rest of the Mane Six wouldn’t be all that far behind. Just like how shapeshifting could pretty much let me get away with murder if I wanted to, and the memory alteration stuff…I could have pretty much had the girls doing whatever I wanted at night, and not even remember it come morning.

“Without a good…Fae! You turned into Pinkie last week to sing that duet at her party!” Twilight exclaimed. “And you mind control ponies all the time not to look at your cutie mark, and did it to the crusaders to forget they ever saw you the first time you met!”

I rolled my eyes and let out an angry sigh before giving my counter argument. “I had Pinkie’s permission, making ponies not notice something is a long way from making them actually do something, and the CMC were terrified of me for no good reason!”

Twilight threw out a hoof to point at her parents. “They’re scared of you for no good reason!” she yelled back.

“No, they’re scared of me because I’m a changeling,” I told her. That was actually a pretty damn good reason to be afraid of me, and I told her so. “My entire species is designed to hunt and eat ponies. To sneak up on you in the night and feed off your emotions.” Luckily, I managed to stop myself before I started getting Twilight flashbacks…and not of the purple pony kind. “I may smile and dance with the rest of you girls in Ponyville, but Twilight, but when it comes to my species as a whole, we’re monsters.”

The emphasis I put on last word actually got Twilight to take a step back, and while she was still too stunned to insist otherwise, I looked over to her parents with a somber expression. “I’m sorry I frightened you, and how this all just got dropped on you. All things considered, you do have a right to be afraid.”

“Fae-”

“I’ll meet you at the castle,” I told her before charging my horn for a teleport and finding a nearby location that had been marked. One good thing about having a hive mind was that I didn’t need to actually hang around someplace for awhile to fix it good enough in my head to teleport to without being in sight of it.

Of course teleporting without seeing where you were going had its own problems. I popped in about a foot off the ground, and didn’t have enough time to catch myself before I landed nose first in Celestia’s throne room. And it wasn’t even on the damn carpet.

“Intruder!”

Oh God, what now? I wondered before getting up and looking above me to see four pegasi guards coming down from the ceiling, and a pair of unicorns running through the entryway doors.

But, before the morons could try and arrest me or try something stupid I was not in the mood for, Celestia’s voice called out right as the pegasi landed. “It’s alright my little ponies. She didn’t mean to cause a disruption.”

“What? I’m not enough to rate some recognition?” I asked the pegasi before spreading my wings to show off the fact that I at least looked like an alicorn. I could get Twilight’s parents not knowing about me, but I think I had come to the palace enough for ponies to notice!

I looked around the chamber and frowned, it seemed kind of empty for the middle of the day. The only ponies around where Celestia, some big unicorn with blonde hair I hadn’t seen before standing on the carpet where ponies usually addressed the princess, an older unicorn I recognized as Celestia’s advisor, and the guards.

The sound of the giant pony coming down from her throne drew everyone’s attention, and the guards backed away to let her into the square the pegasi had formed around me. “Fairy my friend, I see we have urgent matters to discuss.”

What?

She turned back to address the unicorn. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut your audience short nephew,” Celestia told the stallion who she had probably been talking with before I arrived.

I just looked over to the douche bag went, huh…so that’s Blueblood, before Celestia used her wing on my ass to turn me around and get me moving forward.

“Come, the details of your assignment should not be discussed where they can be overheard,” the goddess told me before leaning in to whisper in my ear while relief just flooded from the alicorn. “Thank you!”

After Celestia realized I could walk under my own power, she led me out of the throne room and through the halls into her private quarters. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what they were judging by the big golden sun on the doors. As soon as we were inside, she brought out a try with a glass covering to offer me some food.

“Cake?” the princess asked while practically waving the strawberry covered thing under my face. “Don’t worry, the container is enchanted so it stays fresh. I just have to hide it in here or Kibitz gives me such a hard time. To him, lunch might as well be all bran muffins.”

Did she just use me as an excuse to skip out on a meeting and stuff her face?

I looked down at the food and gulped before looking back up at the princess. “I don’t eat normal food, remember?”

Celestia seemed a little surprised by the fact. “Hmm, that’s…interesting. The spell should have given you an intestinal tract to process food. I wonder if it has something to do with your magic, or perhaps your changeling magic interferes with it. I should ask Twilight about…come to think of it, where is Twilight? I know Blueblood can ramble on for hours, but I didn’t think it was time for tea already,” she said before her face and feelings became slightly concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“I…well…” I stopped and gulped before avoid her gaze. “I met with Twilight’s parents.”

She raised an eyebrow. "Did they not like you?” she asked before magically cutting a slice of cake for herself.

“Worse,” I groaned. “They were afraid of me…and now Twilight doesn’t like them.” Or at the least, she was mad at them about it.

Celestia’s face turned somber for a moment as she set her cake aside without taking a bite. “…oh dear,” she mumbled. Then, the alicorn looked back up to me. “And what did you do?”

At first, I thought she meant, ‘what did you do to make them angry at you’ but...I could Smell Celestia's concern didn’t have anything in the way of animosity, only pity. So, she was really asking for how I responded to the situation.

That was the part that really made me flinch. “I kind of sided with them, and then teleported here.” When that didn’t seem to be good enough for the alicorn, I let out a sigh before giving her the whole story in as much detail as I could.

When it was all over, Celestia nodded to herself. “I see. And you ran away from everypony, why exactly?”

“Look Tia,” I grumbled. “Having your girl friend, or filly friend…whatever, chose between her family and her lover might sound all romantic in fairy tales, but real life…it bucks. Not to mention the stupidest thing you can do in a relationship. Even if I came out on top, it would still be putting a wedge between Twilight and her parents. And that’s something I can’t do.”

I had no intentions of breaking up with Twilight or anything like that. I could just avoid them for the rest of my life…or their lives anyway. I was pretty sure changeling queens lasted longer than over the hill ponies.

When Big Ms Know-it-all didn’t step in with some words of wisdom, or a jab at my logic, I frowned at her. Whenever we met before, she always poked fun and annoyed the hell out of me, but having her just sit there being all silent was even more unnerving. “What?”

“Shh! I’m concentrating,” Celestia told me as she stared at…well, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Oh dear, it would seem that Twilight is already on her way here. It looks like I will have to intervene on your behalf with Twilight’s parents in private.”

The words threw my through train so off kilter I think it took me a whole four seconds before I could actually respond. “Wait…what?”

“Twilight is coming here-”

I held up a hoof to try and stop Sunbutt from talking. “Not that part!” I said. “What do you mean you’re going to talk to her parents?”

For once, it actually looked as if I had thrown Celestia for a loop. She just stared at me with a raised eyebrow and a half-turned away head, like what I had just said was complete gibberish, or there was something just freakily off about me. “Because you’re my friend?” she practically asked. “You’ve been living with Twilight for long enough that I thought you understood how that works here in Equestria. Is it different with humans?”

And just like that, I found the tables turned on me, and looked at Celestia like she was the crazy one.

Because she was.

Because we weren’t friends.

Not in any sense of the word.

Sure, she kind of saved my ass back in the Crystal Empire, and it kind of turns out I did the same since I’m pretty sure Chrysalis would have laid the smack down on at least two or three alicorns before they managed to take her out, but…friends was not the term I’d use to describe the relationship between me and Tia. She was more like that annoying neighbor you have that does shit just to annoy the hell out of you but isn’t really all that bad when it got down to it.

“Tia…how in the hay are we friends?”

And then I just felt like an even bigger poser when the giant pony started to become saddened. As if I still wasn’t carrying enough baggage from Twilight-classic and Night Light.

She even Smelled… Oh God damn it! “Tia…you know I can detect emotions, right?” I can’t believe I actually felt pity for Equestria’s biggest ass! And I mean that in all the ways it could sound!

The alicorn let out a melodious giggle. “Oh spoil my fun why don’t you,” she said with a smirk. “But I do consider us friends. And I help my friends.”

Before I could hit her with the snappiest comeback ever, she stood up and walked to the door, disrupting my train of thought when she stuck her head out the door while giving me a view of her enormous butt. “Guard, would you alert the palace that Twilight Sparkle is on her way here. Have her directed to my personal quarter’s foyer.”

With nothing better to do, I found myself checking out Celestia’s ass.

Not in the sexual, I want to fuck a pony way, I didn’t even do that with Twilight for crying out loud! Hell, the first time we did it was because she just jumped me and not doing her would have broken my cover…and…well…sex is sex…
…
…
…guy or girl.

So…I was checking out Celestia’s…athletic form. As the closest thing to a real horse…with wings and a horn…and that freaky mane of hers…I could actually judge just how fit the horse who did nothing but stuff cake in her mouth all hours of the day. She was…still pretty good looking actually, according to my horse racing knowledge away. No idea exactly what breed she would have fallen under though.

Thoroughbred, maybe…

“Fairy what kind of tea would you…are you staring at my plot?”

“Um…” Ah crap need a quick-witted response, fast!

“…yes,” I replied quickly, and fast…but without the wit.

Did I mention that Celestia kind of unnerved me? Because she did! I mean, giant talking pony that I could probably walk under without much trouble? Hello? How was I supposed to react to her? And yeah, her face was a giant pony face, not a horse’s with all the expressions that came with it.

Like, at the moment, she was just giving me this knowing smirk as she sat back down. “Oh what do you extra dimensional types see in me?” she mumbled with a smile that I hoped was some kind of thing to show she was just trolling me.

Oh please God let her be trolling me, I begged.

Although, there was no way in hell I was not taking the bait she offered. “So, uh…what the hay is that supposed to mean?”

And so for the next twenty minutes while we waited for Twilight to show up, Celestia regaled me with a story about how she used to actually travel to alternate words, sliding between dimensions, where it was the same place, and the same time, but everything else was different. Then she met a Bizarro Sombrero, fell in love, had to leave and actually ended up coming back to his dimension a few weeks ago to find an evil version of herself was raising hell before the girls stopped her.

The whole thing made me realize three little things. The first and second was how a line Princess Fatass from Equestria Girls actually made sense when you factored in some kind of cross-dimensional contamination. Apparently, if to dimensions were pulled too close together some weird side effects started to occur as the two worlds began to mirror each other…which made a creepy amount of sense when I really thought about it.

The third was a bit more trippy. But anyone with a background in scifi could see it. Celestia’s little tale was your usual opposite world story, with one important fact I managed to pick out…

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “Discord was a good guy on the other side of the mirror? Don’t you think that’s a little telling?”

Celestia just raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Oh come on!” I exclaimed. “Look, Tia, you’re the pony who can see good in every pony, I get it…but…Discord is going to stab you in the back! You know it, I know it, hay, even he knows its just a matter of time before the king of jackasses finds the opening he needs and does what I did to Chrysalis!” Hell, he already took care of the Elements for crying out loud!

Now the only thing keeping him from turning into a world conquering slime ball was…well…fuck, it was me and my changeling ability to pretty much make a meal out of him regardless of his emotional frequency. I could already feel the target on my back.

“I think you’re underestimating the power of friendship Fairy. It won you over, after all.”

“And I think you’re underestimating the power of scorpions!” I countered with a hoof pointed at her face.

Of course, Celestia didn’t seem to get the reference, judging by her frown. “That makes no sense.” And words her words.

So I sighed and started my long-winded explanation. “Look, it’s a story from my home world. It varies from telling to telling, but the just of it is this. One day, a frog, or some other small amphibious animal, came to a shallow river, and saw a scorpion standing on its bank. The scorpion walked up and asked the frog if he would take the bug over on its back.

“Not being suicidal, the frog said no pointed out the obvious, that the scorpion would sting him. But then the scorpion told the frog how stupid that would be, since they would both drown,” I explained. “So the frog got on the scorpion’s back, and they both crossed the river.”

Celestia stared at me for a moment, utterly confused. “So, you’re saying…actually, I don’t understand. Your story shows how two creatures can become friends to overcome obstacles.”

Then I told her the slightly edited ending. “And when the frog got to the other end of the stream, and asked the scorpion to get off, the bug stung the amphibian and left him to die. When the frog asked the scorpion why, all the scorpion did was laugh and go, it’s my nature.”

Unfortunately, my little story didn’t sit too well with Celestia. A real melancholy took her, and she just gave me this sad look. “Is it hard, not being able to have faith in others?”

Honestly, that one kind of came out of the blue, and I had nothing to counter it with. Didn’t know what she meant either. Hell, I had faith in people, and ponies too. Amalgamation monsters that had all the power in the world and used it to fuck with people? That’s what made me angry. Especially when they were just given their second, hell, third chance?

But me? Ooooooh, nooooooo! Not the human in Equestria!

I show up at the Crystal Empire, get my ass stomped by Chrysalis, and Twilight’s parents still cower in fear. Oh but Discord acts like a total dick, and ponies just love him. Where the fuck was my love and tolerance, huh?

I mean damn. I finally go native with the damn homo sex, put on a fucking dress, sing the songs, and even manage not to take over the world. And what happens? It’s a changeling, everypony run!

“Fae!”

The sound of my name brought me out of my little internal diatribe, and I looked up from my tea to see Twilight standing at the door. I could tell the little purple pony was pretty perturbed by the way she was looking at me, and the whole changing empathic thing. Good God did I need to find a way to turn that thing off while in pony form.

“Um, look Twilight, about lunch,” I managed to say while trying to come up with something to say. Honestly, the whole shock to my system that Twilight gave me kind of knocked me out of my building rage quit, and I was kind of just…somewhere between wired and quickly approaching bleh on the adrenaline scale.

The alicorn, as in the short purple one, let out a disgruntled…well, grunt. “Yeah, about that. Apparently, since you decided to leave without draining the love from my parents and Shining managed to convince them we weren’t your mind slaves, they decided to…give you another chance,” she grumbled before shaking her head. “I can’t believe them.”

Neither could I to be honest, what with how they reacted to me at first. I mean hell, Velvet and Light had to have been at the wedding. Seeing your goddess bitch-slapped, your son enslaved, your daughter beaten up and having to experience being shoved in a cocoon was enough to traumatize pretty much anybody so… Well fuck, now I’m all understanding and shit again, I realized before looking over to Twilight and her perturbed face.

Damn Twilight and her need for me to make her feel better! I was supposed to be the one put off here after all. But then she shows up all mad and I just have to start reasoning ways to calm her down with tolerable logic. So I started with a kiss to her cheek, and a foreleg around her in a sideways hug. “So we’ll meet up again, talk, and every pony will be all smiles. Happy endings all around.”

“Of that I will be glad to hear,” Celestia spoke up, getting a little jump from Twilight.

Then, after Twilight’s little freak out over the fact she had just ignored the princess, assurances by the princess that everything was alright, and that helped her get back into the swing of things after only five minutes of apologizing.

Once that was all done with, Twilight got some tea for herself and a slice of cake before giving Celestia a nice fat loaded question to shoot me with. “So, what were the two of you talking about?”

“Nothing much,” Sunbutt replied. “I was just discussing the various mirror worlds I have seen. You know Fairy, it occurs to me that I have not heard much about your home world.”

Considering our earlier conversation…I had a disturbing feeling that she might have actually planned to ask me that, I dunno…days go. Tricksey fatass aliconses, always tryin to ferrit out our precious secretes!

“Well, if you're looking for dimensional contamination or something,” I began while thinking of a way to bullshit my way out of this little problem. “We do have some. I mean, there’s cities named Man-hattan, Appa-loosa, Van-coover and Baltimare…or Balti-more I mean.” You knew you were living in pony land too long when the cliché names became your norm. “Oh, and we have stuff like musicals too.” And a cartoon show named My Little Pony that was in fact not the product of using magic to peer through the dimensional wall into the private lives of ponies…but there was no way in hell I was mentioning that!

Although, after Tia’s little explanation on how cross-dimensional travel worked…the idea that I wasn’t dead or hallucinating had pretty much won the argument. So…there was that.

Of course when she saw I had actually answered the question about the mysterious magical land of humans, Twilight got this disturbing giddy look in her eyes that made me want to gulp. You see, I had actually managed to stave off the majority of Twilight’s questions about Earth by appealing to her morals. You know, since talking about Earth reminded me of the family and life I left behind for Equestria and all that.

Twilight was curious, but not to the point of insensitive. At least...once I had explained everything to her.

Still, she still knew a few little facts here and there, as well as had a complete knowledge of the English alphabet that she had actually turned into some kind of scientific report and as a translation key that she shared with pretty much all the ponies she knew. I think only Celestia had been interested in it though, probably due to the nostalgia of her old dimensional wanderings.

“Just um…no personal questions,” I asked them both.

They agreed, and we spent the next few hours just talking about the differences in our societies while keeping clear of things that might pertain to me personally such as relationships. What Celestia seemed particularly interested in was the American system of government and its differences with theirs. You know, how they had two immortal princess who loved their subjects and Earth was stuck with a bunch of shortsighted politicians who didn’t care what happened ten years down the line, and a majority of the populace who couldn’t even think about what do at the end of the month.

“Seriously,” I told them after explaining the whole idea behind the election system that we used. “It’s the biggest mistake we ever made. Everyone gets a voice, the most corrupt ones shout the loudest, and the idiots all flock to them based on impossible promises like change and accomplishing missions.”

Twilight seemed to find some fault with my words though, judging the frown she gave me. “That’s funny. You made it sound like a paradise the first time you spoke of your homeland.”

I shook my head before deciding to correct her. “No, I said it was predictable. Hay, the entire species is. We’ve been moving to the same song and dance for over five-thousand years. The only difference is the tools we use became easier for others to acquire.”

As we continued to talk, a thought about just why the hell Celestia was looking into my human past did occur to me, and by the time we were done, I managed to re-grow my balls long enough to ask. “So um…about all these questions…are you trying to find out about my home world so you can send me there?”

Honestly, the possibility had me feeling conflicted. I mean sure, ponyland was fun and all, but Earth was home. Even if I was finding the ponies to be more…fun, I did have a life back where I came from. Hell, the curiosity of just what the hell happened to me alone was enough to make me at least want a peek.

“No,” Celestia told me, which actually left me pretty surprised. “Even if you wanted me to, I’m afraid I cannot allow it. You were born here, as a member of the changeling race. Even if you were to pass through a portal to remake yourself into your old form, you would still be of our world.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Twilight visibly relax.

I did too, if only just a little.

Then the topic of our conversation switched to what Twilight had been up to lately, and we had to go into the events of pirate island. Of course Tia got all concerned when we mentioned me kind of getting a few inches from death’s door for no apparent reason, as well as all the shit Twilight did to me afterwards to try and figure out why it happened. Don’t worry, no probes were involved in the animal testing process of why I had such a bad reaction to cliché adventure.

After that was the discussion of my upcoming work at Celestia’s school, the basic plan of which she had already approved, so it was just a little T crossing and I dotting. Although Twilight got an odd look on her face when she learned I was planning to give the class a test on day one.

And about three hours after the whole thing began, Celestia had to excuse herself and go deal with…whatever the hell god-beings did to run a country.

So, with a few hours to kill before the sun went down, Twilight showed me around the castle…despite the fact I had seen it all before and had the placed mapped out thanks to changeling #4 being one of Celestia’s advisors. I did humor her by acting surprised at some of the interesting things though.

I also met up with ‘Ulquiorra’ and got things ready for later during the tour.

The whole thing finished with a stop at Twilight old tower where she showed me her old study room and I finally got some questions answered as to how the hell she lived in a tower while being taught by Celestia if her parents were just a short walk through the city away. Apparently, Twilight did go home plenty when she was younger, but as the years wore on and late night experiments and study sessions became a thing for her, Celestia just gave her a tower to stay in when she was tired.

“So, just how many late night experiments and study sessions did you have a week when you got older?” I asked with a smirk, already guessing the answer.

Twilight actually showed her knowledge of how akweird she used to be by blushing a bit and letting her eyes drift to look at the wall behind me. “Seven.”

But her recovery was quick. “Now let me show you my bed.”

As she had already shown me her old bookshelf, her old study desk, Smarty Pants’s old study desk, her old textbooks, and pretty much old everything else that was left behind when Twilight moved to Canterlot. So I really didn’t think much of it until we got upstairs where her old bed was and my clothes were covered in a purple glow, and then they became my pieces of shredded clothing as Twilight licked her lips.

Oh…show me her bed.

Once the dirty deed was done and we were just laying in Twilight’s told bed once she had magicked the sheets clean, I got all close to her again and did the whole wing wraparound thing to hug her.

We just laid in bed for awhile, although it was getting closer to sunset, so I did feel the need to get going. Although…all the question the ponies had been asking me all day had put me in a bit of an inquisitive mood, and…with the way her parents had reacted to me, I found myself thinking about something that I had been ignoring for a good month up until now.

“Hey Twilight?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

The alicorn sifted in my pony arms until she was on her side and we could look face to face. “Of course you can Fae. You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“Well…remember all that stuff…with Chrysalis and the Crystal Empire? Um…why’d you come back for me?” I finally asked. “I mean, after you found out I was a changeling, you just…I mean…why didn’t you act the way your parents did?”

I didn’t want to, ask that is. But…I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been wondering about it. And considering I was giving Twilight my…um…mare virginity now, I was pretty much putting myself all into the relationship. So, I wanted answers to one of my more nagging questions.

“Oh…that,” she mumbled before turning quiet for a moment. I could tell she had been expecting something of the like eventually, and…truth was, I was a bit afraid of the answer.

“I was…afraid of you,” Twilight admitted as she began. “But at the time, I was more…saddened, and then confused. I mean… When I saw you for the first time, the real you I…it’s complicated.” Then she went silent for a few minutes before trying again. “At first, I felt sad. Sadder than I ever felt in my life. So sad it hurt. I gave you everything, and it was like…I thought it was all a lie! I couldn’t…do anything, it was like I just wanted to lay down and die!”

Twilight’s words hurt. It was the make you guilty kind of hurt that someone can only accomplish when they’re not trying to eviscerate you with their tongue. Trust me, it’s much worse than when someone really is trying to guilt trip you.

“Then she took me back to the crystal palace and started gloating,” the alicorn continued. “And…somewhere between all of Chrysalis’s laughter, taunts and everything else, I…I realized that even though you were a changeling, for some reason I couldn’t understand…you risked your life to try and save me. And it was like the Valley of the Sun all over again.

“Well, then Princess Celestia came and rescued me, and explained the situation and…when I learned you were still alive…that you were willing to throw away your life again to save me, I…that’s when I fell in love with you. The real you,” she finished before kissing me on the lips.

As touching as the story was, my human mind found it a bit too…fairy tale. You know the kind, where the prince shows up for five seconds and the princess sees him riding a horse. Then she falls into a coma and he fights a dragon before awakening her with ‘true love’s’ kiss? Never mind something as realistic as liking someone for that whole personality thing.

Okay, so maybe that was being a little harsh on the poor alicorn, especially since I was pretty much living in a fairy tale, but…I was forced to wonder, what if I had just done the semi-sensible thing the first time around during the Daring Do incident and turned into a changeling in front of the alicorn? Would Twilight have still wanted to be with me?

Or would she have tried to blow my head off?