Habeas and Persica's lips remained locked together for a time unknown to either of them, with only the quiet, puckering sound of their mouths breaking off being the only noise each of them heard, even though a new, upbeat earworm had by now started on the radio. They looked at each other with the sparkling magic in their eyes lost, and the staring only ended when Persica, holding her breath, stepped back and looked away.

Unable to think properly with the sound of the music blaring on, she walked to the radio first and turned it off before turning the side of her head slightly behind her, at Habeas. He looked ready to wince back with the storm of angry words he was prepared to endure from the trigger-tempered mare, but she didn't speak like that.

"Habeas..." she spoke in a light and very controlled tone, but one that was also as fragile as glass. "I think it's time for you to leave."

Habeas hoped with all of his heart that he would never have to hear those words, and especially after the moment they just shared, he positively dreaded them. But here they now were, and there was nothing he could do to change that. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but halted himself before he could speak and instead closed it. Turning around, he walked into the kitchen and after he had retrieved something from the counter in it, he walked back into the living area where Persica still was. From what Persica could see, it was an envelope he had fetched.

"Give this to Peach Blossom. It's a note telling her how... thankful I am that she decided to befriend me and help me heal," he spoke, his tone soaked with melancholia not even a changeling such as he could conceal. "Call me a coward if you will, but I know I won't be able to bear the look on her face if I tell her in person. If there's one thing I really do suck at, it's saying goodbye."

Once a second had passed, Persica took the envelope in her hoof and placed it on the mantle hanging over the fireplace. After she had done that and made sure it was secure, she stared back at the changeling in a semi-glare. He looked like he had something else to say, and while she was half-tempted to just kick him out then and there, she allowed him to talk.

It took him a few seconds, but he finally spoke in a shaky tone that grew more stable as it went on. "Persica... I... I... want to tell you one more thing before I go, and I want you to keep these words close to your heart."

He stepped up to her and took a gentle hold of her hoof, raising it slightly toward him as he continued, finally mustering the courage to speak his mind as Persica could only watch and listen. "I want you to know that you're not a terrible pony, Persica. You're a wonderful pony. Persica, I loathe to see you hate yourself and turn away help, and I don't see any reason why you should even feel that way to begin with. You're caring, strong and beautiful. Smart, too. You're a mare anypony would want to be with if they only knew you. You don't deserve to let yourself feel as though all the misfortune and tragedy to happen to you is entirely your fault, if at all."

He inhaled a deep breath, blinking thrice before continuing on. "When I leave, I want you to take these words and keep them in your memory over everything else I've done. Please, do that. That's the last thing I ever want to ask of you."

Persica had turned her gaze to the wall on the side as she heard Habeas talk to her. Looking to him again a few seconds after he had finished, she uttered a small huff. "So, you're a liar after all."

Habeas tilted his head in confusion. "What? What do you mean?"

"You just told me you're terrible with goodbyes," she started to explain, moving her face just enough to look at him from her good eye. "And yet, the one you share with me is... well-spoken, I suppose."

Habeas went silent, and stayed this way for a few delicate seconds before finding the proper response. "I guess that would be because... I've never really said it to someone I've... really grown to care for as much as I do for you."

More silence befell the two. It looked like it was going to last for a while, until Persica turned her head away and spoke one last thing in a voice as cold as the ice outside. "Goodbye, Habeas."

Fearing he had made everything somehow worse, and most certainly not wanting to add onto it, he turned around and walked out of the room. He eventually made his way to the door, exiting it with a squeak of its hinges and headed off to the barn to pick up his things. Standing still for a few seconds longer, Persica exhaled a deep breath and started to move around the candle-lit room. She wander aimlessly for a short time, when she came face-to-face with the two sets of armor sitting in its back. Without anything she thought better to try, she walked up to one of them.

She looked into the glass casing and at the armor of her husband that dwelt within. A thin layer of dust had collected atop of its surface from the few months of no use. She had worn the armor most nights to sate the paranoia that hovered over her head like a flock of ravenous harpies, and to find some minuscule shred of comfort if she could, but with the real comfort that changeling had given that one fall night when he had followed her, that feeling of constant and tiresome terror had fully left her.

Because of him, she felt more at ease and forgiving with herself than she had ever felt in a long time. She genuinely smiled a few times in his presence, and that was a fact that had happened too many times to deny. And something else Persica never could hope to forget anytime soon, she remembered how she would always simply roll her eyes and look away when she watched the little adventures and activities Habeas and her daughter got into with the glee and cheerfulness of longtime friends, and this stung as much as it soothed. Peach Blossom never had a father figure to look up to, and Persica would call herself blind in both eyes if she didn't see the likes of someone like that in Habeas.

Out of all these things Habeas did for her, he had left one heavy feeling that sat in her mind like a stone in a river. But what was the word to describe this confusing emotion? She had felt it before, that much she knew, but it was a long time ago. It was so... utterly alien to experience again. It was queer and odd. It was perverse and demented... it was...

Love.

What she was feeling was love. True love. And when she realized this undeniable fact, Persica felt another emotion overtake the fore of her senses: regret. In this one fragile instance, in this one palpable moment of realization most fierce, Persica immediately regretted all that had gone on and all she had said over the last several minutes. Her mind now clear, more clear than it had ever been in years, she ran out of the living area and to the kitchen, to look out the front window and see what Habeas was doing.

When she reached the window she stared out of it, just in time to see Habeas's dark shape exit the barn a fair ways away with his bindle over his back, and take off into the air on his fluttering, insectile wings. With incredible haste and titanic purpose in her stride, Persica instantly dashed to the door, burst through it like a battering ram, and into the snowstorm outside.

"Habeas!" she desperately called out to sky, the only thing to befall her sight being the raging blizzard's falling snow. Seconds passed by, and she cried his name out again and again, hoping with all her ailing heart that he could hear her. "Habeas! Habeas Brittle! Come back! Come back to me... Please..."

Nothing. Nothing responded back to Persica, save the cruel howl of the uncaring wind in the below-zero temperature of the storm. Nothing heeded her call, and it took her a full agonizing minute to realize this fact. A tear falling from her eye and freezing solid onto her cheek almost instantly, Persica's jaw hung loose and numb, and she sank to her knees as her strength abandoned her.

She had lost her chance. Left it alone too long - just a minute too long - and let it spoil. Closing her eyes so tightly that they began to feel sore from the stinging strain, Persica lowered her head, apathetic to the biting cold that enveloped her. For the one creature, the one changeling she had grown to not only adore, but earnestly love, was now gone.

She held herself back from what she truly wanted. She let her fear take control and ruin everything. Everything. The spark she shared with Habeas was snuffed out. Lost. Forever. Because of her weakness. Her miserable, stubborn weakness in letting go of the past that she had kept herself rooted and mired in for so damnably long.

And because of that, she was alone.

Persica sat there, with only herself for company, for a time she couldn't fathom in her despair. Her head still bowed and teeth tightly bared, tears fell freely onto her cheeks, turning the fur there brittle and icy with the freezing liquid staining them. She was so densely enveloped in the wretched pain that took its hold of her mind like a winding punch to the stomach that she failed to hear the sound of buzzing wings over the roar of the storm grow close to her position and hole-filled feet land softly in the snow a scant few feet in front of her.

"Persica?" a light voice suddenly, and softly spoke out. Without a second to spare, Persica's eyes flashed open and she she shot her head forward, spying a shape that nearly made her jaw drop. There Habeas now stood, right in front of her, having descended from the sky not a second before as his webbed ears picked up the sound of his name being shouted out. "I... thought I heard you call my name. Are... you okay?"

Persica did not move, but kept her view focused solely on Habeas. The silence of her surprised mind blotted out the noise of the surrounding storm as though she were deaf, and time itself seemed to stand still as he stayed in her presence. When she finally took a chance to stand back up, she started to move toward him, and stopped only when she was a mere hair's length away from him.

"Persica...?" Habeas spoke again as a minute passed, unsure if he should feel confused or somewhat terrified by her quiet, ominous approach and the blank expression that sat over her face like a bomb waiting to explode. "What do you... um... need?"

At the knowledge that this indeed wasn't some cruel illusion or foul hallucination, Persica's face formed into a large, overjoyed smile, and the tears of despair had replaced themselves with ones of pure exultation. Wiping them away with a quick brush of her foreleg, she closed the gap in between them by brushing her chest against his. The mare wrapped her hooves around Habeas's neck, pulled him close, and placed her mouth on his own as her soul, driven and consumed with passion, demanded her to do. In his utter shock, the changeling dropped the bindle he was carrying an it plopped into the snow below. While at first in a panic, he was quick to be infected by the warmth and love she gave to him willingly and conceded to the kiss wholly. It lasted until the need for air took charge and their lips separated.

After getting a firm, albeit fuzzy hold of his mind again, Habeas couldn't help but put on the most confused and wide-eyed face of his life. "P-Persica?! I- wha-?! Wha-?!" he stammered, unable to make sense of all that was happening. "What was that?"

"Habeas..." the mare spoke, butting her forehead against his and looking into his eyes. "I was wrong."

"Wh-what?" he continued to stutter.

"I... I was wrong!" she said again, quickly locking her lips with his once more, letting out a temporarily satisfied moan as a pleasurable fire coursed through her veins. "Habeas, I was so stupidly wrong! I can't let you leave! I never should have told you to!"

"B-but you said that you wanted me gone!"

"Forget what I said!" she spoke, poking her snout against his and giving him a desperate and happy expression. "All I said then was nothing more than garbage. It was meaningless. Right now... right now, just be mine, Habeas. For tonight, let me be yours. Please, all I want to hear you say is yes..."

Persica nearly felt her heart burst from her chest when Habeas suddenly kissed her back, giving her his answer without words to confirm them. When he removed his chitinous lips, he gave her a small smile and wide eyes of pure, unadulterated glee and affection for the mare he loved. "Yes, I... I will be yours, Persica," he was quick to speak; his fear gone and mind ready to admit a truth he had been hiding for far longer than he ever wanted. "I love you. I always wanted to tell you, but I was too afraid. I didn't ever want to make you think I felt otherwise, though."

"I've been denying it for so long, but I just can't anymore," Persica sighed, trembling with need as she hugged him close. "I love you too. Celestia only knows how much I've really wanted you. You're so hardworking, kind and generous, even in spite of all the things I did to you..."

Habeas didn't want this instant to end, but he then noticed just how frigid he felt with the storm blowing around, and also realized it posed a sizable threat to this precious moment altogether. "It's, um... rather cold out here. Do you think we should continue this inside, maybe?" he asked politely. Smirking and giggling at that playful charm in his voice that had stolen her heart completely, she grabbed him by the hoof and pulled him away with her great strength before he could so much as react, leaving the bindle in the snow behind them; forgotten. She dashed through the snow with him and entered the house, and as soon as they had gone through the door, Persica yanked Habeas back to her chest and wrapped her hooves around him, fervently kissing him as he kissed her back.

What was once a house full of stern and concrete tension had turned into pure bliss. The feelings of love and lust had ensnared their minds in its massive net of passion, and they were helpless but to surrender to it. They were utterly lost in this sea of warm feelings and given emotion, and basked in it like a greedy dragon wallowing in its horde of gold. They both wanted more and more as things escalated, and they knew there was only one way of stimulating the unfettered desires they so desperately and wantonly craved.

"Where...?" was all Habeas was able to ask of his love, unable to form a full sentence in the heat of the moment. Though it was but one word, Persica knew what he meant by it.

"The living room?" she suggested, after they had broken off and caught their breath for a single minute.

"Uh... I'd rather not knock down any of the candles," he said, looking to the now-dwindling flames on each of the holders he had previously placed about. Persica thought about this for a moment. As she came to her answer, she had resumed her kissing of the changeling.

"The... the guest bedroom," she eventually spoke into his ear when enough of her mind had returned to her, hot breath backing her words. Without delay, the two stumbled through the house as their osculating continued, never letting go of the other for even a second, though occasionally stopping to continually savor their moment, or at least catch their breath.

After what seemed like an entire hour, the two finally reached their destination and blindly shoved the door open when they doddered into the dark room. As they fell upon the once-straightened bed as if it were a field of clover, still kissing one another, the blue bed sheets were transformed into a rippled mess. Their mouths were never more than seconds apart, and their game had nearly turned into a contest to see who could outdo the other in terms of whose mouth had more control over the other's. While Habeas's thin, forked tongue explored Persica's mouth and became besotted with the taste it experienced, Persica's entered the changeling's own and shifted around, rolling over his two long, smooth fangs in the process like a prisoner squeezing through a set of thin bars.

As Habeas made love to this beautiful mare on such a soft surface, he thought of what other methods he could perform to please her. Finally coming to a conclusion, he started crawling over her prone shape and explored it with his lips. The moment he did this, Persica thought herself in heaven. Every time he kissed at her face and neck, she would moan aloud in approval as he continued on. Every time she cooed words of love and nibbled on his webbed ear when it brushed past her nose, he in turn would laugh and whisper back his undeniable affection for her. He was reaching the base of her collarbone, to Persica's audible delight, when a particularly salacious idea took a firm hold over his mind like a predator that had grabbed its prey by the tail; instilled and driven on by the sheer amount of love sitting about in the air like the most irresistible of aphrodisiacs.

"Persica," the changeling quietly murmured, his voice soft and tender as goose down, though containing a noticeable hint of mischievousness. "Part your legs."

Blinking, Persica looked up at him with both of her eyes widened at his boldness. "Habeas, you're... you're..."

"Hungry," he purred seductively, placing another, delicate kiss on her neck. Persica was at first still startled by the suggestion, but she soon relented to her lover's demands and moved her legs apart for the changeling to do with as he wished. Waiting until she had lowered her eyelids to a crack and nodded her head in confirmation, Habeas carefully positioned himself over her in the way his instincts told him was proper and true, and with a final kiss shared by his inamorata, he began.

And what happened between them then and lasting for a grand long while, suffice to say, was nature taking its course, and pure, unrestrained love. It was as private as a heavily guarded secret, but as passionate as could possibly be. And, most importantly perhaps, it was wholly true. The changeling and the mare fully gave themselves to the other, and held nothing back. And for as close to forever as they could achieve, they did this under the shroud of blissful darkness.

When their erotic acts did finally come to an end, and the bed upon which they laid ceased its relentless creaking from the energy and vigor of their carnal activities, the two lovers butted their heads together with expressions of mirth still shimmering like stars on their lips; hot air panting from their mouths and bouncing off each other's faces like clouds of steam.

"That felt... amazing," Persica was the first to sigh, breathless and ecstatic. There was a pleasant soreness that continued to linger about the lower section of her body that made her want to squeeze her thighs together, and she did just that. She regretted not even a single moment of what had transpired between her and the changeling she adored. She ran a hoof gently across his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes once more. "Oh, Habeas... My sweet, handsome Habeas..."

"My beautiful, darling Persica... I love you. I love you so much..." he replied with sincerity in every word, sliding his face to her shoulder and nuzzling his smiling snout against its soft fur as she did the same to him, both closing their eyes and savoring the moment as though it would never end. Exhausted from the strain of their venereal escapades, Habeas slowly fell by her side on the bed and held her close to himself, the mare hugging him back just as fiercely and intimately. Finally having been able to break through the wall of emotion separating them and do something so intimate, private, and precious; to touch one another's flesh as they did in such a manner, incomparable euphoria flooded through both of them and stayed hanging around like a soothing mist.

It was a meager few minutes later that the two succumbed to the exhaustion gripping them and fell into the calm, ever-dark folds of deep, immensely satisfied sleep; still holding onto one another and passing out with loving smiles on their faces.

Author's Notes:

Sorry this came out later than usual. The scene of love between these two was going to be a bit longer (and admittedly raunchier), but with some helpful advice from one of the moderators here, I realized it was a tad too... saucy for a teen-rated story. So I toned it down, rewrote it a tad, and released it like so.