Thorax held a leg over his head, groaning as he rubbed it around. “Is this what a migraine feels like? I feel like this is what a migraine feels like.”

Tea poured out from its kettle on the table, a cup handed over to the changedling king and held in his magic. He lifted the cup to take a test sip, and let it rest in his other leg after not liking the temperature. If only he could be a dragon so that any hot drink he got didn’t burn his tongue and make him waste time on it cooling.

“Grrrrrrr…” a low wolfish growl came from his side.

“Keep petting him. He doesn’t like it when you suddenly stop,” Twilight noted, sitting across from Thorax and sipping on her own cup of tea. The former changeling drone recoiled in surprise for a moment before returning his free hoof back down to his side, where a current changeling drone, smaller in stature than the normal changeling he’s seen and known throughout his life, accepted the offering with its head.

“Mrrrr…” it purred, smiling as Thorax petted it, smiling happily and twitching its left once or twice in excitement.

“And for your migraine, if it’s pulsing that’s bad, but if it’s a dull ache that’s sorta normal, considering. Just drink the tea, it’s helping me at least.”

“Yes, and considering,” Thorax hesitated, darting his eyes back and forth between the small purring changeling and Twilight. “Mind explaining to me what’s with this suddenly new hive of changelings?”

Twilight set her cup down and began to pour more tea. “It started this morning, just as I stepped outside…”

“OH GEEZ!” Twilight flinched back, opening her door to a black and unchanged changeling waiting right on the welcoming rug for the castle. Said changeling became changelings, as two others popped from the bushes and quickly rushed up to her.

Charging a defensive spell just as she stepped back, she held her breath for just a moment before rational thought won over instinct. They were up close at her but they weren’t… doing anything. They just sat up and stared at her expectantly.

Looking down to Ponyville, she could see others had their own changeling problems as well. Some immediately went back into their houses, scared out of their minds, while others just stared right back at their little changeling(s).

Little. That word came up and she took a closer look at her own changelings. Indeed, they were smaller than the normal changeling drone, and their eyes were bigger than the average pony as well. Even their fangs weren’t as pronounced as most other changelings, only being a little snaggletooth.

They were also all smiling. Not a grinning smile, just a smile with their lips turned up.

“Heya Twilight!” Applejack called from down the road. A changeling tied to a cart carrying bushels of apples followed her. Applejack walked close to the changeling for one moment and patted her hoof on top of its head, before trotting innocently up to Twilight. “How y’all doing this morning?”

“Applejack. There are changelings.”

Applejack looked to where Twilight was pointing, seeing the 3 changelings that looked at her with the same expectant smile they gave the alicorn.

“Yup! Have ya petted them yet?” Applejack replied.

“Pet? Have I what?” Twilight recoiled in horror. As soon as she said “pet”, the changelings leaned forward, their smiles widening.

“Oh Celestia, you haven’t pet them yet!?” Applejack yelled, rushing to the un-petted three changelings. Lifting her arm up, she rubbed her hoof across all three changeling heads in quick succession, trying to keep each pet to be fair to all three.

It wasn’t fair to the fourth, however, with it humming a low whine for more pets from the pony that hooked it up to a cart. “Hold on there, sugarcube, I’ll get to you soon enough. Here, Twilight, just pet them and they’ll be happy. Like they got the brains of dogs or something.”

Right after they were petted, the three changelings looked to the cart where the fourth was hooked. They quickly rushed over and tried to hook themselves up to the cart to receive more petting, knocking the original changeling out of the way.

“Hey!” Applejack yelled. “Look, if y’all wanna work here, fine. But don’t y’all run over each other like cats gettin’ wet, ya hear me?”

She trotted up to the cart, restoring the first changeling and giving it a scritch at the back of their head. “Sorry to be short, Twi, but I gotta give the Apple Family Orientation to my newest workers. Catch ya later!”

Applejack trotted off with her changeling workers, and Twilight, a princess of Equestria and newly head of school, did her best impression of a fish as her mind tried to comprehend what her eyes just witnessed.

“Petting… they just want… petting…” she repeated to herself, her early morning coffee not effective to the tasks of today’s problems.

Just before her UNIX-based neural system could finally reboot, another changeling popped up from the edge of her vision and sat close to her, albeit this one did not have an expectant smile. It just stared at her, as if it demanded food and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Um… nice, changeling?” she hesitantly greeted, reaching her hoof forward to pet the newcomer. Immediately, the changeling practically melted into her hoof, purring and rubbing its face all over. When Twilight took her hoof back, however, it hissed, baring its small and actually-not-menacing-at-all fangs.

“Ack! I’m petting, I’m petting!”

“…and that’s basically been the morning. If I need to do something, like writing a message to you, I just ask Glimmer to start petting it. She says he’s a lot like a cat, while other ponies are saying their changeling pets are like dogs.”

Thorax raised an eyebrow. “Changeling… pets?”

“Mmhm. There’s already one seller in the market that was selling collars and customized name tags for owners.”

Thorax lowered his eyebrow and sighed, raising his hoof (the one not petting the cat-ling next to him) to his forehead again. “Well, as soon as I heard there were old changelings, like you said, I came to investigate. Considering what you just explained, along with this little guy,” Thorax tapped twice on the cat-ling’s head before resuming to pet him, “I think I know these guys. They’re a small group of changelings that are, er, more receptive and more sustained on positive physical output than just love. They usually just stick to themselves and just pet each other, or the queen pets them, but sometimes–” Thorax waved his free arm around, “they’ll come out to one village or another and scare half the residents to death while weirding out the other half. They’ll leave whenever the queen wants them back to pet them herself, which will probably be… a week, at least.”

Twilight finished her tea, and set the cup down instead of refilling it. “And how’d you know of this hive? Did you run into them while you were with, uh,” Twilight hesitated, suddenly realizing the faux pas with bringing up Chrysalis, but pressed on, “with Queen Chrysalis?”

At this, Thorax began to shift his eyes around the room, scratching the back of his head. Twilight could swear his cheeks were warming up too. “So, uh, that queen of this hive I mentioned? I, uh… kinda know her…”

A quiet but melodious hymn echoed far off, making everypony and the changeling turn their heads in confusion. The changeling suddenly stood up and marched towards the front door, turning back to Thorax to gesture to him.

“He wants us to come outside. I think she’s here…” Thorax said, mentioning whoever she was with a deadpan breath.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she followed the changedling king. Outside, she was met with a full force of tiny, pet sized changeling drones, and their queen.

The queen had the same colored hair as Chrysalis, but that was where their similarities ended. She was shorter than Chrysalis and Thorax (though still taller than Twilight), and her mane seemed less damaged than the deranged former queen of changelings Twilight and her friends knew very well.

“Thorax! Honey! Where have you been? I was waiting for you during our picnic under the stars, and you never came back from your bathroom break,” the queen asked.

Thorax leaned over to whisper in Twilight’s ear. “She locked me in a cage while cackling that our children will be powerful and plenty. I asked to go to the little lings room, and she opened it just like that.”

“Hey, who’s that pony you’re whispering things to?! WERE YOU CHEATING ON ME?!” the queen yelled, stomping her hoof in frustration as she prepared a menacing looking spell with her horn.

“What, no! She’s just a friend! And we’re not dating at all, you locked me up because you thought that was one of my ‘fetishes’, whatever that word means!” Thorax retorted, marching up to the queen. She quickly dissipated her spell and gave the king a cheery smile.

“Oh, well, my bad. I haven’t been ‘in the game’ in a long time, so to speak. But hey, now that you’re here, we can continue with our date!”

Before he knew it, Thorax was lifted up from his hooves and held in the air upside down by the queen’s magic. Rather than struggle, however, he just folded his hooves and sulked.

“Just keep the pet-lings company and try not to get them killed. Ask Ocellus any questions,” he said to Twilight, raising his voice as he was carried away by the queen flying off into the horizon.

Twilight, once again, had to reboot her system, trying to comprehend the bigger insanity she just witnessed even after the major crash from all the pet-lings suddenly arriving. Unfortunately, there was an error in the boot up sequence, and Twilight stood still and rigid as her eyes glazed into a thousand yard stare.

The cat-ling, meanwhile, walked over to Twilight, laying down and curling its small body around Twilight right foreleg.

“Mew…”

Author's Notes:

They say petting your dog or cat is a great way to sooth stress.

I need to pet my dog more.