Ten-thirty came around swiftly enough. With what little things she brought over all packed up in her backpack, Peach Blossom walked through the house of her friend at an unhurried pace. The house itself, of an upper-class design, sat like a meager stone under the shadow the grand main castle of Canterlot, and was one of many that possessed close ties with the retainers dedicated to serving the royal sisters, Princesses Celestia and Luna.

Peach Blossom was nearing the door, when the shape of her best friend, Bumble Bee, came up from behind her to give his last goodbye.

Bumble Bee was a unicorn colt around her age with yellow fur covering his entire form, and a dark, near-black color that showed off from his mane and tail. One of his eyes was of a green texture, and the other, right one was light crimson. It was a unique feature he had, and it wasn't anything too special, though Bumble liked to brag about it quite often to his classmates. Having met not quite a year ago in school, the two had become the greatest of friends.

"So... when do you think you'll be able to come over again?" he asked her, both of them finally making it to the door.

"Who knows?" she responded with a shrug. "Maybe my mom will let me come over next week."

"I hope she does," he wished. "See you in school on Monday!"

"You too!" Peach Blossom said back, opening the door and trotting out. Bumble walked up to the window and watched as she reunited with the hatted mare he could clearly tell was her mother waiting on the sidewalk, and after a small embrace, the two went on their way.

Bumble watched them for a few seconds longer before leaving the window. He ventured through his abode a short ways, thinking of the upcoming Equestrian holiday that was approaching at a tantalizingly rapid rate. His thoughts were soon interrupted, as the back door that led to the backyard opened up from behind him. He turned around and looked to it, and witnessed a figure clad in a white suit enter the house.

It was his mother, Apini Bee was her name, and she was clad in her beekeeping gear. Her face was currently concealed in the dark veil her protective, hooded hat bore, while the rest of her body was similarly kept hidden in the suit. She normally spent her days working outside on the small plot of grassy land containing over a dozen large beehives at its edge, which dwelt near Canterlot's Royal Garden.

"Has your friend left, Bumble?" she said to her son, taking her hat off and revealing her one-horned, yellow-furred face; a light blue mane trailing down her neck. If one looked closely, they would see that her left eye, like her son's right one, was red. The other bore an earthly brown color.

"Yeah, she just got picked up by her mom," he replied.

"Good to hear. You haven't gotten yourself dirty, have you?"

Bumble, at first caught off guard by her words, put on as innocent of an expression as he could manage. "Um... explain 'dirty'," he said.

Apini blew a drooping part of her mane away from her red with a puff of air and put on a wry look. "I know you and her both played in the dirt outside after breakfast, and may have gotten yourselves dirty," she spoke. "Let me have a look at you."

In response, Bumble turned himself around in a circle, allowing his mother to observe all of his body. Apini looked unconvinced when he finished.

"A look at the real you," she restated with a roll of her eyes. "I know how much filth you can hid by staying as you are."

"Oh, okay..." he relented with a small sigh. A wisp of green flame enveloped his small form, and what was shown when the flame disappeared was not a unicorn, but a young, diminutive changeling. Though one eye was as teal as most others of his kind, his other was still red in texture. He looked up to his mother expectantly, and she checked him over for any signs of much that had the chance to be clinging onto his dark carapace.

"So? Am I... clean as a whistle?" he snarked with a lighthearted snicker.

She smiled at him, her eyes easy. "You're clean."

He returned with a smug hum and looked to be seconds away from trotting off to the yard to truly dirty himself up, right before an important thought came to his horned head.

"Um... Mother?" he asked, looking to her.

"Yes, son?" she responded.

"When Nightmare Night comes by in a few days, I'm still allowed to go with Peach Blossom and collect candy with her around the city, right?"

Approaching Bumble, Apini tapped a hoof on his furless, chitinous shoulder and gave her offspring a warm smile. "Of course, dear. Chrysalis knows I'd never let you miss a chance to collect some free sweets for yourself."

Bumble smiled back, exposing his small, developing fangs, when the sound of an infant's whining cry suddenly went through the air of the house like a knife cutting through paper, causing both to halt in their small conversation. Apini turned to it and let out a sigh.

"Honey's woken up again," she said, pointing out what Bumble already knew. "I'll go lull your little sister back to sleep. Bumble, while I'm doing that, could you be a dear and go eat your lunch now? I have it prepared in the fridge."

"Is it... an egg salad sandwich that was made by the royal Canterlot chefs?" he inquired first. Apini huffed and smirked at his question.

"Yes, it's egg salad sandwich made by the royal Canterlot chefs," she answered.

"Then of course!" he nearly squealed with joy, shifting back into the form of the young unicorn colt. As he gleefully skipped his way to the kitchen, Apini turned to the hallway of their house, removing the other parts of her beekeeping gear and placing them upon the floor as she moved. Soon coming upon the room where the horrible noises originated from, she quietly entered it.

Moving to the rocker-situated crib in the center of the dark, pink-walled room, Apini morphed into her true form before looking down at her screaming young daughter as her minuscule, white shape squirmed about; her only two limbs right below her tiny-horned, bulgy head waving in the air as her whining grew louder. The little creature's cries started to mollify the instant she caught sight of the loving presence of her parent happily looming above her. To calm her further, Apini placed a hole-filled hoof on the cradle's edge and began to slowly, carefully rock it, whispering a soothing lullaby to her child that went in perfect rhythm. The crying eventually ceased altogether, and Honey let out a mighty yawn that brought a smile to Apini's face.

Nothing more than a grub at the moment, Honey would soon grow from a larva into a nymph like Bumble, and then eventually an adult. Like her brother and Apini herself, one of her eyes, the left one as a matter of fact, was red. It was quite a distinguishing feature that ran in her family's bloodline since a single generation beforehoof.

And it was the very same reason Apini was kicked out of the hive as but a child long ago. The trait that her own parent was first born with was more a curse than a mark of beauty. The red eye would always stay with them whenever they tried to mimic the appearance of another. Seeing this revealing mutation as a threat that had the chance to spread and 'taint' the hive's bloodline with their genetic flaw, Queen Chrysalis kicked her father and her young self out of the hive, but still demanded complete loyalty from them. Now, the queen only seemed to use them for otherwise foul, extracurricular activities since they were outside of the changeling kingdom.

With her father having long since passed away on his own, the things Apini had done to keep herself - to keep her own offspring - alive and happy were of the occasional dark and demented variety, but they had survived for it. For quite a time now things had been and remained peaceful for her and her family, and she cherished every moment of it. For many years she had grown accustomed to working as just a royal beekeeper for Canterlot's two alicorn princesses when not serving out Chrysalis's nefarious will, and the love given from the royal meals and for the fresh honey she produced for this city's people fed her as much as she wanted.

But... something boded very poorly as of late. The filly who was her son's friend had a peculiar, particular odor hanging loosely about like an invisible aura that had rubbed off on her from something else. The last time she had detected a scent remotely similar to that was like the one specific drone Chrysalis sent to check up on them little more than a year ago, and in the process had a moment of weakness with that resulted in Honey's inception; same as the circumstances with Bumble. She had her thoughts on what this particular fact could mean, none of them very good, and it irked her to no end.

With Honey now back asleep and happily snoring away in her crib, Apini shifted back into her pony form and silently left the room, closing the door behind her as she did so. There were still more beehives to check over and collect from, and so she collected her fallen gear and donned them once more. Checking on her son chowing down mirthfully on his sandwich in the kitchen, she returned outside after adjusting her hat and veil a final time.

She approached the royal beehives in the far back of the yard and smoked them down before extracting their valued honey. The bees buzzed around her protected head as she calmly went about her honed business, but something still seemed to cause her an unsettled twinge of anxiety. It was like a leech hooked to the back of her head, acting as nothing more than a vile nuisance she could not rid herself of.

Apini could sense something big was coming along. And it left her feeling unsettled and anxious, as moments such as these always did.