Sarah’s eyes roamed around the room boredly. It had been a day since she’d first awoken in it and she was already sick of the place. The walls were too clean, the lights didn’t flicker, there was no coat of grime or century’s old decay on the floor, the windows weren’t coated with dust or even more commonly broken.

All in all, the place stood out to Sarah for one overall reason. It was entirely too clean.

And not blown up.

Or rusted.

Or... fuck, apocalyptic.

Should I find it worrying that you feel that way? Nim commented dryly within her mind as Sarah tried once again to force herself to her feet.

I don’t know, Sarah replied as she gritted her teeth and grabbed onto her I.V. pole with both hands and suppressed a groan of pain as she wrenched herself to her feet. All I know is that I’m not laying down any more!

Sarah, please lay down, you’re not yet ready, Nim said as the woman pushed the I.V. forwards and took an unsteady step after it.

It was just a week Nim, I was ready to go fight the Enclave a day after being out for a month, Sarah retorted as she gritted her teeth against both the vertigo and the pain running through her body.

Most of all, she desperately wanted to see Luna who had told her that she had to ‘see to something important’ which had forced her to leave the woman alone. Doctor Time and the nurses were also busy as well because once Sarah had staggered out of the room, none were to be found. She suppressed a shiver as the cool hospital air ran over her naked flesh, they still hadn’t gotten around to finding something she could wear yet, but ignored it. This was hardly the first time she’d forced herself to march out of somewhere with nothing on.

Sarah, please turn around, Nim thought to her, not wanting to take control of the woman’s weakened body in case she tried to struggle against the mare and ended up hurting herself further.

No, Sarah replied, pushing the wheeled I.V. forward further and took another step, her legs beginning to shake and shudder. I’m the Lone Wanderer, Nim, I’m not quitting this easily.

Sarah, your legs are literally trying to shake themselves to pieces, Nim pointed out while the woman passed the front desk of the room, heading for the large doorway.

They’ll stay together, I know they will, I have to see Luna again, Sarah stated, her eyes hardening as a low, lusty tone washed into her voice. I have to Nim.

... Sarah, what’s going on? Nim asked her worriedly.

I need to see Luna, Sarah replied, the I.V. moving a bit farther forwards. I don’t know why, but I really need to see her. Right. Now.

The woman’s voice sounded... desperate, as if seeing Luna again was the only thing that could stop something terrible from happening to her. A shudder ran through her body as a familiar, and much hated, warmth flashed through Sarah’s head.

Sarah! Get back to the bed this instant! Nim shouted in her head as Sarah began to shake, her fingers slipping on the I.V. as a sheen of sweat covered her palms along with the rest of her body.

I... I have to... see Luna, Nim, Sarah managed to struggle out, her breath coming out in rapid pants as more sweat pooled around her and her body shuddered even harder in place.

Sarah, it is the changeling venom, or more likely the lack thereof, Nim stated. You must return to the bed!

“Must. See. Luna.” The woman said aloud instead of mentally as she tried to take an uneasy step towards the door.

Thankfully, before she could get any farther, one of the nurses emerged from the bathroom. The white furred mare’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Sarah halfway to the door, covered in sweat and shaking like a leaf in the wind, but it didn’t stop her from quickly galloping up to her. As she approached Sarah, the nurse’s horn began to glow a deep blue and the woman’s shaking stopped as her body froze, surrounded by the glow.

“Stay calm, Miss Summers, I’m going to carry you back to your bed, alright?” the nurse asked, her voice soothing and gentle as Sarah felt her body beginning to float gently back towards the woman’s room. Sarah let out a groan of pain as another convulsion ran over her, causing the nurse shoot a worried look her way.

It didn’t take the nurse long to get Sarah back on the bed, the blanket thrown comfortingly over her as the nurse paged for the doctor. Doctor Time arrived a few moments later, a chart hovering next to his head as Sarah shivered and convulsed on the bed, finding it almost impossible to stay still even with the nurse doing her best to hold her still with her magic.

“What’s happened to her?” the doctor asked as he took over the task of holding Sarah down, his grip quite a bit stronger and gaining a bit more control over the woman whose eyes were wide with pain.

“I don’t know, doctor!” the nurse replied. “I got up to use the restroom and when I came out she was standing in the middle of the clinic sweating up a storm and shivering like she was in a blizzard!”

Nim, what’s happening to me? Sarah demanded in her mind as her body shook and stabs of pain shot through her mind.

I’m not sure! Nim replied anxiously as she tried to control the woman’s limbs. Like I said before, the best I can come up with is that this is being caused by the lack of changeling venom.

“It appears like what Captain Armor went through, though much more severe,” Doctor Time stated as he began to examine Sarah more closely. “Much, much more severe...”

Sarah’s mouth opened in a silent scream of pain and she forced her eyes closed as she tried to block out the pain coursing through her.

Nim-get my breathing under-control, Sarah gasped, her mind riding on the aftershocks of a particularly intense explosion of pain.

Trying, Nim retorted as she exerted her will on Sarah’s chest and lungs, doing her best to halt the woman’s rapid breaths into something more reasonable before she hurt herself. She was successful, partially. The woman’s breaths no longer came in rapid, uncontrollable pants but now came in great heaves that lifted Sarah’s torso off of the bed.

That-didn’t help! Sarah growled as she tried to control her body, finding it to be a painfully alien experience. Nothing was working the way it should! Her arms felt like limp noodles while her legs had turned to jelly and above all else, pain lanced through her brain every few seconds, stabbing through any coherent thought she could have.

“What are you doing here?!” Doctor Time’s voice exclaimed somewhere outside of Sarah’s current little world.

“Preventing her from dying,” the other voice, lyrical and oddly sensual replied. “Which will happen shortly if you do not let me help.”

Sarah let out a groan of pain as her body constricted forwards and her eyes were forced open so that she could see the new speaker. Unfortunately, the current level of pain spiking through her mind caused the image to be indistinct. All she really saw was that whoever the speaker was, they were teal colored.

The next thing that Sarah knew, a pair of fangs had slipped into her neck and... the pain stopped. It was an immediate thing. One second, the pain was overwhelming, the next, it was gone. Then Sarah remembered that there was someone biting her neck. On impulsive instinct the woman lashed out with her non-I.V. hand and her fist slammed into rock hard chitin. The woman let out a cry of pain as the fangs were forcibly dragged across her neck before tearing out of her flesh, opening up a pair of heavily bleeding wounds.

A second stab of pain roared through her as the previous pain returned, this time three fold.

Sarah, I believe whoever bit us was trying to help, Nim murmured in the back of her mind as Sarah felt a bandage pack being hastily shoved into her now bleeding neck. She detachedly thought about whether or not she’d torn open an artery and how long it would take her to bleed out if she had.

Before Sarah could contemplate that idea too heavily, the fangs stabbed into the other side of her neck and the pain departed, replaced by a small surge anesthetic like pleasure. The woman lay there, her bare chest heaving up and down against the bed for a full minute as her vision cleared enough to give her a good look at whoever it was that had saved her.

It was obviously a changeling, though one who looked almost entirely different then Chrysalis or any of the changelings who’d lived within her hive. Instead she was... curvier? Sarah’s mind swam as it tried to come up with a good group of words to describe the changeling currently attached to her neck. Her brain failed to do so and instead said ‘fuck it, curvier is what she is’.

Well this is new, Nim murmured. Yet painfully familiar.

Tell... tell me about it, Sarah said as the curvy changeling released her jaws from Sarah’s throat without even a drop of blood escaping from the wound which then began to heal itself completely. The woman flinched, half expecting the pain to come back, but it didn’t. Instead, the anesthetic like pleasure continued to stream through her system and she looked up at the changeling with grateful eyes.

“Thank you,” she managed to gasp out.

“It is my duty to make up for my sister’s mistakes,” the changeling replied with a simple shrug of her insectoid wings.

“What did you do to her?” Doctor Time asked with a deep frown.

“She was suffering withdrawal from Chrysalis’ venom, and a rather bad case of it at that,” the curvy changeling answered. “I gave her a very minor dose of my own to counteract it. It is not a permanent fix, but it should keep her from suffering long enough for her body to regain the will to fight it itself.”

That... makes a bit of sense I suppose, Nim muttered as she began to check Sarah’s body over from the inside out, making sure that nothing invisible to the outside observer had been ‘broken’. Inquire for more information, Sarah.

“What?” Sarah asked blankly, directing the question at the changeling. She had a... marginal idea of what she was talking about but it was a very miniscule margin.

The changeling turned back towards her, odd golden eyes looking over the woman silently for a moment and Sarah suddenly had the oddest feeling that she was staring down an angry deathclaw matriarch whose eggs she’d pilfered. Then the moment passed and the changeling answered her question as if it had never occurred.

“Chrysalis’ venom is designed to make those under its influence crave it in both in body and mind, the craving becomes worse the longer you are without it to the point where your body ceases to function,” the changeling answered. “I do not know the deeper designs of my sister’s plan for you but I’d imagine that she was going to use her venom to break you physically before breaking down your mental defenses from which point she would slowly wean you off the venom as she mentally conditioned you to do whatever it was she wanted. You would have become her willing slave, without a will of your own beyond gaining her approval.”

Sarah stared at her for a moment, a bit of the color draining away from her face. It was one thing to have an ‘idea’ of something like that happening to you, it was entirely different to be told in such a direct manner. Then the woman swallowed and met the changeling’s gaze as her perceptive mind caught something else.

“And that isn’t going to happen with your venom?” the woman asked as she dragged her torso up so that she was on equal ground with the curvaceous changeling. “After all, if one changeling thought it would be a good idea to turn me into a slave, why wouldn’t another?”

“Because I have no use for you,” the changeling said blandly, though she did incline her head slightly. “Though that was a good thought.”

“Errhm,” Doctor Time interjected with a small cough. “Perhaps, Queen Aurora, you could explain what you were doing barging into our hospital wing in the first place,” the doctor said pointedly.

Ah, so that’s who she is, Nim commented within Sarah’s mind. Interesting.

Sarah tuned her out for the moment, more interested in what the curv-Aurora had to say.

“I wished to see who I traded my sister’s life for,” Aurora said in a blank, unemotional, detached voice. Sarah felt a shiver roll down her spine but suppressed it, she’d faced bigger bugs than this one, and they spat gobs of acid! Aurora turned back to her and stared silently for a second as the woman’s eyes narrowed and then she nodded. “At any rate, it is fortunate I came by. You would be dead were it not for my intervention.”

“Speaking of which, you said that your venom will give Sarah here time to fight it off on her own; what did you mean by that?” Doctor Time asked.

“I mean that my venom will stay in her system long enough for her to start eating normal food and doing actual exercise again,” Aurora stated, turning back to the doctor. “Which by my estimate should be starting today.”

“She’s supposed to be bed-ridden for three months!” the doctor protested, causing Sarah’s eyes to widen in surprise. No way in Hell she’d be doing that.

“That is if she was a pony, she clearly is not,” Aurora stated blandly as she looked over Sarah and despite the blanket over her, Sarah felt astoundingly naked. “From what I can see, she more closely matches the body of a minotaur or possibly that of a gryphon, at least in terms of durability. Get her walking or running, teach her swordplay, anything to help her body back to full strength and feed her well, likely she eats meat.”

The changeling monarch then turned on her hooves and walked out of the room without even pausing at the door which opened for her automatically.

Doctor Time was silent for a moment before looking up at Sarah with a frown. “She... may be right,” the doctor said with a frown. “You are not exactly a pony... or any other creature that I’ve heard of living in Equestria.”

“Really?” Sarah asked sarcastically, Aurora's venom giving her a boost she’d been lacking before as she swung her legs sideways on the bed, gripping to I.V. with a hand as she pondered whether or not to rise.

Sarah, I think you may be forgetting something, Nim commented within her mind.

Oh? Sarah replied with a mentally raised eyebrow.

Yes, you lack pants, Nim pointed out reasonably.

Sarah blinked and then remembered the fact that she was naked. Truth be told, after a week of being naked she’d kind of forgotten about it. The woman frowned, she suddenly had the urgent impulse to slip into a comfortingly heavy suit of power armor. Yet none existed in Equestria.

“I’m going to have to fix that,” Sarah said to herself before glancing back at the doctor. “But first, I’m going to need some panties and a bra, at the very least.”

“A what?”

Sarah looked down at the stallion with a blank look, one she found being returned to her.

Sarah... not many species actually have breasts in Equestria, Nim commented in her head. Only the centaurs and the minotaurs, and I don’t recall whether or not they used anything nearly as advanced as humans do.

Sarah blinked.

Well then, I guess I’ll just have to explain it to someone who makes clothes... wait... does anyone here actually wear clothes?