I snapped away to a hand on my forehead. A rough looking man with a cold look about him grimaced as he held my hair up over my face. "It's her." He mumbled softly and took his hand away. "Celestia, it's her."

Princess Celestia loomed over me from the other side. "It is, isn't it?" She looked me in the face and levitated a small picture next to me. "...Able?"

The man grabbed his head and turned to Celestia. "I don't know."

Celestia looked back to me. "You need to decide quickly. It is a changeling, it could be--"

The human shook his head and walked up next to me. He stared at me and dropped down to my level. "You have ten seconds to show me your real face."

I swallowed hard. "This is my real face. I promise I'm not lying."

Celestia walked up next to me, her eyes a bit watery. "Able?"

"What!?" The human snapped upright and grabbed his head. "What?"

Celestia sighed heavily. "What do you want to do with it?"

I licked my lips. "Um--"

"Shut up!" The pair of them shot me down immediately.

Celestia looked back to me. "Able, we either keep this thing here...or we turn it over for study." She put a hoof on my bed. "A changeling hybrid could mean a lot, it could hold a lot of rather horrid implications."

The human shook his head. "You're not killing her!" He slammed the table by my head and knocked a lamp off. "Celestia! You can't!"

Celestia stared at the human. "I can, and have before. Perhaps not with this, but I've sent creatures to their deaths for the betterment of everypony!"

I held my breath as the two spoke.

The human turned away. "How much would it help? Would it be worth losing another family?"

Celestia walked around my bed towards the human. "Able, I'm asking you. What do you want to do?"

I sunk down into the bed I was laid in. The man looked down at me with such a mournful frown I couldn't help but flinch. "I want to try...."

Celestia hugged the man with her wing. "Alright. What should I tell Dawn?"

The man rubbed his face as he looked at me. "Tell her she has a new babysitter." The man stepped away from Celestia and towards me. "And you...if you fucking abuse this chance, I will hang you from a streetlight." He poked me in the chest and held me down. "I will make sure you swing."

"Able!" Celestia nipped his collar and pulled him back. "That's enough!" She pulled him back towards the door out of the room. "It's enough."

I found myself alone in the room for a few moments. The princess of the land I roamed, and a man with such a hurt look that not even the Princess could calm him, both had just stood before me. I couldn't help but feel like I had missed something, somewhere. Even the sheer fact of my continued life seemed to burrow into my gut and twist around.

I felt something cold linger in the air. I took a deep breath. Twisted spice of anger, regret, and mourning dripped from the human's side. And the other, mint, cold mint hung in the air. Nervousness and trepidation mixed with a single-minded view from pure use. I was sitting between an argument between emotion and calculation. And yet all I could do was lay down and wait while shouted came from the door.

I looked to the windows, barred and sealed tight. I looked back to the door, shadows and footsteps surrounded it. I was trapped.

Celestia's head peaked back into the room. She looked directly at me. She walked in and carefully set a picture down on my hooves. She nodded once and backed out.

I waited until the door closed and picked up the picture. It was old, printed out from common paper and wrapped in plastic.

The man that had yelled was standing with a smile, his arm around a girl with one arm. Her face a mirror of my own. Her skin a pale milky white the same as mine. Her eyes a solid turquoise just like mine.

I felt my stomach sink, like a lead weight had just been dropped straight down my throat. I dug my fingers into the soft sheets laid over me and held my breath. The speech about turning me into a science project dug deeper though. My ass burned rather hot as I tried to think of the stories I'd been told of Celestia.

A mare of kindness, talking of my death. A world of ponies, treating me like trash. I reached down and dug my fingers between the holes in my legs. I was a changeling, but that couldn't be the only reason. I ran my hand up my leg to the joining between my carapace and my skin. I was changeling, I was human, I was something more or maybe something less.

My stomach growled loudly.

Above it all though, I was hungry. "Um...hello?" I rubbed my sides, I could feel my ribs through my skin. "Hello?" I looked around the room. It was a slightly elegant white, the bed was simple but with an ornate hoofboard, and a carved headboard. The windows outside were barred from the inside. This was a guest room in the castle, not a holding room.

I scratched my head and laid back down. Why would you give a room to something you plan to kill?