I knew it probably qualified as stalking. I didn’t care.

The drizzle hadn’t stopped yet. I don’t really get the point of drizzles. Why can’t the weather teams dump all the rain in torrents and get it over with? It was probably mentioned in the weather bits when we were studying arcane science in school. I’d never paid attention in that.

The drizzle hadn’t stopped yet, but I wasn’t bothered. Neither was she, by the look of it. She (and I) walked down the street with a purpose, striding through puddles without a second look. Her dress connived with the water to remain spotless, flashing cleanly in the pale streetlights. Even this late, the streets had enough traffic to obscure me slightly. Still, I wasn’t sure if fifty feet was far enough. All she had to do was look over her shoulder, and… But she never did. Why would she? I was quiet. And I was curious. A dangerous combination. I wasn’t sure what I was accomplishing, but I couldn’t turn away. Maybe I’d spent so many nights alone that just talking with her had caused me to grow an attachment to her. The recent bad spots in my life and complete lack of better attachments made me ignore how unhealthy it was.

She walked. I followed. She walked. I followed. Minutes passed. She turned down Latigo Avenue, an empty street that connected two busy parallel thoroughfares because something had to. The street was deserted. I slowed my pace, hoping all the more that she wouldn’t look over her shoulder. Then she changed.

It was quick, easy. One second, an earth pony was walking down the street, and suddenly her body was engulfed in green. At first I thought it was reflections from the puddles, but all the lamps were the cold white of light gems, and by the time I’d registered that, she was a pegasus. She never broke her stride.

I broke mine on nothing and my breathing hitched up a notch. I followed her a little more, forcing myself to stay slow, the regular rhythm of my hooves making me calm down. And then it clicked: changeling.

I didn’t know much about changelings, aside from a few facts. They were shapeshifters. Obviously. They’d fed on love. Finally, they weren’t supposed to be a threat anymore. Chrysalis or whatever their princess’s name was had been kicked out and the entire species had turned over a new leaf. Unlikely, in my opinion, but every one of our princesses had vouched for them. Either way, what was a changeling doing in a Canterlot dive? And where was she going now?

She never looked back. I kept following. I noticed that more than just her body had changed; her dress (now red) was a smaller, more functional thing, less concerned with looking nice and more concerned with covering up. Her mane was spiky and had a bleached look.

She took a left at the intersection and risked vanishing into the crowd. I managed to keep my eyes on her, following that red dress. She soon entered Catalina’s; the doorpony outside only nodded at her. I tried to enter Catalina’s; the doorpony stopped me and scrutinized my greasy coat and frizzy mane for an uncomfortable few moments before grudgingly letting me in.

I’d never been in Catalina’s before. Inside was a roiling miasma of rhythmic colored lightning and redundant electronic thunder that hit me like a hammer to the face. Ponies twirled and whirled on the dance floor, lost in themselves and their partners and the molten crowd. I almost missed her, but the red dress screamed out to me. She was alone again, at the bar, watching ponies in a chrome-plated section of wall. No drink. As with Hole-in-the-Wall, she looked like she belonged here. I was uncomfortably aware of how much I didn’t, especially without a partner.

I grabbed an empty seat at a table that had a good view of the bar and was hopefully close enough to hear her. All the while, I prayed she wouldn’t look over her shoulder…

When she finally did, it was in the opposite direction. “Hey, foxy mama!” A stallion with a loose shirt and tight pants sidled up to her. From his smile, he looked buzzed. I immediately started cataloguing his voice; not unlike mine, from what little I’d heard, although I’d rather drill holes in my head through my eyes than use a term like that.

I expected her voice to change again. It didn’t disappoint. “Hey! Lookin’ stylin’.” It sounded like it had when I met her, only now, I had to resist the urge to gnaw on the table.

“You wanna stomp with?” Some slang I couldn’t comprehend.

She could, though. “I’m down.”

“Groovy.”

Soon they were on the dance floor, ritualistically going through a series of ridiculous poses. He looked like he was having fun, but he wasn’t the most coordinated, especially not next to her. Her movements were crisp, precise, and that was when I spotted the chink. Her dancing was perfect. She always hit the floor on the beat, always landed her hooves in the right spot, always moved her tail in just the right way. Not a hair was out of line.

Her dancing was technically flawless, which meant it was rote.

All around her, the other dancers, the “real” dancers, kept slipping up, in a way. A syncopated stomp here, a twist in the wrong direction there. The more I watched, the more I saw. None of them was the same as any other. But they weren’t mistakes; nothing they ever did hurt the whole. They were the dancers’ own spin on things. Her dancing looked like it’d been learned from a book: graceful, yet artless. She was dancing because she had to.

After a minute or so, I was considering ordering a drink in a vain attempt to look like I was meant to be there when she spoke again. “Hey, listen, you’ve been a great partner, but I gotta get going. It’s gonna be early tomorrow, you dig?” I only barely snatched her voice from the din.

“I dig,” said the stallion. “Catch you tomorrow, maybe?”

She laughed, but it somehow sounded hollow. It might’ve just been me. “Maybe.” She left the dance floor and the crowd absorbed her in. I tailed her; if she hadn’t been wearing that red dress, I would’ve lost her.

I knew changelings weren’t supposed to feed on ponies’ love anymore, but I wasn’t about to discount renegades who didn’t listen. Still, she didn’t quite seem like she was taking love. In fact, it was like company repulsed her; I talked to her, she left the bar a minute later for another one, that stallion talked to her, she left that bar a minute later. And the way she watched ponies… I didn’t think she was scoping them out, just watching them. Why?

My mind kept telling me to leave well enough alone. It was none of my beeswax and she wasn’t hurting anypony. This could only end in tears, especially after the way my last friendship had ended.

It was still drizzling as I followed her out.