The deafening gunshot of the hunting rifle pierced through the air as a target of Principal Cinch’s head vanished in an explosion of wood, sending splinters spiralling to the grassy floor below.

Silver Rose lowered the rifle from her shoulder and opened her right eye, a smile on her smooth face. That would teach Principal Cinch to exude such nasty smells.

“Well done, daughter.” Ebony Wings gave her a quick pat on the shoulder, then clicked a button, which raised another set of Principal Cinch targets. “With a little more practice, perhaps you’d be as good as me one day. Perhaps.”

Silver Rose smiled and loaded a fresh clip of bullets into the rifle. Since the start of the break, she’d been getting better at firing guns. She did wonder why her mother wanted her to be such a marksman, seeing as her aunt didn’t let her carry guns out of the house. Perhaps this was a skill that was only needed for burglary situations. Even so, their claws and fangs were more than enough to deter any common criminal.

Ebony Wings watched as her daughter began to plug holes in the pictures of Principal Cinch. She was most accurate, landing headshots nearly every time. There was a certain lack of finesse in her actions though, and Ebony wanted her to shoot as naturally as she breathed.

“Oh yes, something I wanted to talk to you about, Silver.” Ebony Wings looked at her fingernails, then blew at them. “You haven’t been bringing home as much love recently, both Moonglade and Silver Rose. I wanted to ask what your problem is.”

“O-Oh…” Silver missed her next shot, making a new hole in the wall behind the targets. “Well… I just… umm… I’m not s-sure how to go about, uh, all this business. Without loving H-Home Run I mean… As for Sunny, well, she’s, uh… rather obsessed with, um, doing that.”

“Stop stammering,” Ebony said sternly. “I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised about Sunny Flare, since you’re not seeing her as often as you would during the school year, but with the boy, I would have thought you would have some inkling of how to hunt him properly by now.”

Silver squirmed in her clothes. What did her mother want? If she went along with Home Run, she would end up submitting to her true feelings and she would get a beating. If she didn’t, then the food she brought back would be insipid and she would get a scolding. Either way, her mother wasn’t going to be happy.

What am I supposed to do?

“What is the boy’s take on sex?” her mother said after a brief silence. “And get back to shooting the targets.”

“Uh-umm, what…?” Silver’s cheeks glowed red as she shakily raised the rifle to fire at the Cinch targets.

“Well, I figured with all the practice you get with Sunny Flare, maybe you can bring some over to the boy. You enjoy it anyway, don’t you?”

“I-I don’t… um, enjoy it…” Silver looked away and winced. She kind of did, but she didn’t want to admit it to herself and especially not to her mother. “Be-besides, Home Run isn’t like Sunny. I think he would rather take this slow.”

Ebony Wings took a long, deep breath of air. Then she picked up a pistol from the selection of guns that lay on the nearby table. She turned her back to the firing range, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply.

Then she shot the pistol over her shoulder, under her arm, and in variously increasingly outlandish poses until the gun clicked empty. She turned around.

Each Cinch target had a hole in it, some more than one. But Ebony Wings had not missed a single shot.

“That’s what I hope you’ll be able to do one day,” The celebrity actress said, putting the pistol back down on the table. “As for your pathetic love life, I suggest you pick up on that too. I didn’t release you to the world so you could bring home scraps. I expect more work on that House Run boy, whether you need to seduce him more or not.”

“Ye-yes, mother…” Silver gulped, completely unsure on how to proceed.

“Nhm-hmm,” Ebony Wings said, unconvinced. “Keep shooting, and when you run out of bullets, pack up. I need a drink. Oh, and if you see any drones flying about, well… put those shooting skills to use, won’t you? Just make sure it doesn’t see you shooting at it, or we’re going to have some media problems in the future.”

As Ebony Wings retreated back into the house, Silver sighed and raised the rifle to her shoulder, and continued shooting at Principal Cinch. “Good talk, mother.”

Ivory Wings had not seen her sister all day. She had been holed up in the workshop for most of the daylight hours, plotting and tinkering with various gadgets and simulations. Now that she was done, Ivory wanted a talk with her sister, but she was nowhere to be found in her usual haunts.

Ivory Wings sighed in exasperation. She sniffed at the air, looking for her sister’s scent. She followed the trail all the way to the kitchens, where the trap door to the wine cellar lay open.

Climbing down the ladder, Ivory was treated to the earthy, faintly fruit-scented smell of the cellar. She could smell her sister down here, and she tiptoed around some casks of wine and mead to find Ebony Wings sitting on a picnic blanket in the corner with a dismantled roast chicken, a pie, and several opened bottles of wine around her.

“What are you doing?” Ivory Wings asked as she approached. It was still rather dark in here and the only source of light was coming in through the trapdoor.

“Having a picnic, what does it look like I’m doing?” Ebony shot back, taking a fork and spearing a piece of chicken on it.

Ivory rolled her eyes. “Yes, but why in the cellar? Don’t people usually have picnics above ground, outside?”

Ebony Wings picked up a bottle and poured it out into a wineglass. “If you think I’m going to risk being seen by some drone pilot, think again. The cellar is perfect. It’s cozy and smells nice, and there’s all this drink! Why wouldn’t I want to have a picnic down here?” And with that, she plopped the piece of chicken into her mouth, chewing with obnoxiously obvious relish.

Ivory resisted the urge to slap her hand to her face.

“Fine,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about some things anyway. May I sit down?”

Ebony ate another piece of chicken. “Sure, but watch the wine bottles. Some of this stuff is expensive.”

Ivory ignored that comment and sat down opposite the picnic basket. “So, about the sirens’ gems first. I need a few modifications in your house so I can work on them.”

Ebony dabbed her fingers with a napkin. “As long as it doesn’t involve changing the aesthetics of my beautiful home, go ahead. Do what you need to do.”

“I need to install a skylight-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Ebony sniffed. “You’re not cutting holes in the roof of my mansion, thank you very much. Don’t you have a house of your own to do renovations on?”

“Uh, it’s in Manehattan, sister,” Ivory reminded. “And besides, a skylight could do your house some good. A moonlit night would look really nice indoors if you had one.”

“I don’t want a skylight.”

“It’s for the sirens.” Ivory watched her sister guzzle down a litre of alcohol. “You’re rich anyway. If you don’t like it, you can remove it once I’m done.”

Ebony Wings drained the bottle and set it down. “I thought you had safehouses scattered all over the place,” The actress picket up a slice of pie and bit the tip off of it. “Wha’ no’ yoose wun o’ does?” She swallowed the pie and sighed. “I’ll even pay for the thing.”

“Well…” Ivory gave her chin a rub. “If you put it that way… I guess I could relocate myself to one of the safehouses.”

“There we go. See, you don’t need to mess up my already perfect mansion.”

“Right…” Ivory Wings reached a hand into the basket and picked up a piece of chicken. “Well, I’ll send you a note on what I need done at the safehouse. So I had a chat with your daughter on the shooting range. She’s still there, by the way. She said you told her to keep shooting till she runs out of bullets?”

Ebony took another chunk out of her pie. “That’s right, I did.”

“You gave her eighty magazines to use.”

“That is also true. I’ll have Silver Platter buy some more bullets later to make up for what my daughter shoots.”

Ivory popped the chicken piece into her mouth. “Just make sure you don’t go buy it all at once. The shopkeep might think you’re preparing for a war. Anyway, she also told me about what you want her to do to that boyfriend of hers. I must say, I don’t agree.”

“Why not?” Ebony pouted, uncorking another bottle of vintage red.

Ivory sighed deeply. “I’ve said before. A girl her age shouldn’t even be having sex. You don’t think so, apparently.”

“It’s one of the fastest and more enjoyable ways to feed, isn’t it?” Ebony Wings said as she tipped the bottle back. She then took the cork and flipped it in the air, where it landed on Ivory’s head.

The younger changeling swept it off and glared at her sister. “It may be, but you should at least give her two or more years before getting her to do it this frequently. She’s still schooling. So is the boy. Hay, so is Sunny Flare. It wouldn’t do them any good if they’re caught in the act.”

Ebony Wings didn’t reply immediately. She instead opted to take a straw out of her sleeve and put it into her wine glass. Then she began to blow bubbles into the drink, which floated up around the two.

“Are you even listening to me?” Ivory snapped. “Have you heard a single word I’ve said?”

“I can do single words,” Ebony replied scornfully. “It’s when you start stringing them together in long bits that I get bored.”

“She’s actually serious…” Ivory ran a hand through her hair in exasperation. “Ebony, I don’t think your daughter is ready to go for a full-on sexual relationship yet anyway. Not with the boy, at least.”

“There’s no difference. She had sex with Sunny on a weekly basis when school was still on. She should be doing it with House Run too. The love she’s been bringing back tastes remarkably drab. She needs to step up her game.”

“It’s not about the love!” Ivory exploded, throwing her hands up in the air. “What kind of things is your daughter learning? She won’t be around forever like you and me. You can’t treat her like she’ll get better in a hundred years, because she won’t! Am I getting through to you?”

“Then what do you want her to do, then? Let’s hear it. She’s not going to get any better if you don’t push her.”

“Look,” Ivory said sternly. “You’re treating her like how you would have treated our brothers and sisters from back then. You need to start thinking of your daughter like… your nephew.”

“Ha!” Ebony spat. “Don’t talk to me about my nephew, Ivory. We all know how that turned out. I would’ve killed him myself if I knew what I know now.”

Ivory knocked the basket of food aside, her fingertips glowing with green fire. “Don’t talk about Morn like that. It was your fault things turned out the way they did.”

“Now let’s not play the blame game here-”

“No, I think we should play the blame game!” Ivory Wings snapped again. “You are the queen, and what your word says is law. But I am your advisor, and you will listen to me. I lost Morn because of you. I will not lose my niece because of your voracious nature, okay? Your majesty?”

“You woulda’ losht ‘im anyway,” Ebony muttered through a mouthful of pie.

“But I would’ve had plenty more years to share with him. Anyway, this isn’t the point. What’s done is done. I can never get Morn back, but Dea is still here. She won’t last forever like we will. I suggest maybe toning down your expectations for her.”

“What, you want me to let her live out a normal life? Is that it? To bring this miniscule amount of love home? You might as well let her fall in love with that boy, then. She already is. She’s been holding back because of that. I smell it. Yeah, we might as well, right? She’s a failure of a changeling after all. Why not.”

“You can’t give up on her,” Ivory said reproachfully. “For just once in your life, can you act like her mother and offer some love and support instead of writing her off as a failure?”

“What do you want me to do?” Ebony dusted her hands and wiped them on a towel. “Give her a hug? A kiss? Tell her it doesn’t matter if she can’t survive on her own out there? What, Ivory?”

“I think it’s time you admitted that she will never be as good as us,” Ivory said, picking up an empty bottle and setting it aside. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of years to hone our skills. Chrysidea’s had what, eighteen? It’s not fair to raise the bar so high for her.”

“But I know she’ll never be as good as I am. Besides, I was already this skilled at eighteen. That’s no excuse.”

“Do you even remember being eighteen?” Ivory Wings ran her finger around the mouth of a bottle and licked it. “Because I don’t.”

“I’m sure if I did remember, I would remember being an extremely skilled hunter. Because I’m an extremely skilled hunter.”

“So you don’t.” Ivory concluded flatly.

“No, I don’t, but I know so. I’m good at everything.”

“Except being a reasonable ruler and mother it would seem,” Ivory said under her breath.

Ebony pretended not to hear and helped herself to more chicken, walking over to the basket to bring it back to where she had been sitting. “So you suggest… she doesn’t have sex?”

“I suggest she take it slower, okay?” Ivory took a deep breath to calm herself. “I’m not opposed to the act. You’re right. It feels good, but I’m opposed to her having so much of it at her age. Sure, that Sunny Flare might be a tad bit crazy, but Home Run isn’t. Let her have a more normal relationship with him instead.”

“So… in short, do nothing different?” Ebony concluded, knocking back another half full bottle of red wine.

“No,” Ivory said patiently. “Take things a little slower. And maybe not beat her again. She’s afraid of that, you know.”’

“Nothing doing.”

“Wha-Why?”

“I beat her because she fell in love with the boy. She deserved that beating. Hay, I should beat her again for still being in love with him, whether she’s showing it or not. Now she’s bringing home scraps because of that.”

“She doesn’t know how to control her emotions.” Ivory shook her head. “I don’t even know how she’s fallen for him, but she has. That beating of yours got its point across and obviously, she doesn't want to get one again. So what does she do? She becomes awkward around the boy. You see what you’ve done?”

“What, you know that she can’t fall in love. If the humans find out, it’d be the old days all over again. Not even you want something like that, yes, Ivory?”

“Yes, but you’ve done it the wrong way, sister. That beating wasn’t the way to go. You’ve made it worse.”

“Well, as my advisor then, what do you think we should do about this?” Ebony chewed noisily on another piece of chicken. “Hmm? What do you think we should do?”

“I…”

“Hmm? What?” Ebony asked impatiently. “What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know, Ebony!” Ivory clutched at her head and walked around the picnic mat and rested her head against one of the many wine barrels in the cellar.

That was where Ivory began to think harder. There were just too many problems to deal with right now. Fixing the sirens’ gems, her dealings with Sunset Shimmer and the Twilight Sparkle from the other world, Chrysidea’s falling in love with a human, plus her sister’s stubborn attitude, these were all a complex situations on their own. Together, they made quite a mess inside her head.

She’d had centuries of experience in her niece’s situation. She could control her emotions, easy, but like she had said to her sister, Dea didn’t have centuries to do this like them. Being a half-changeling, she only had the average lifespan of a human being. She wouldn’t last forever even if she had a constant source of love. There was no way she was going to learn everything they did in only one life time.

“Maybe… Maybe…” Ivory mumbled to herself. “Maybe she doesn’t need to be like us…”

“What?” Ebony heard her anyway. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve learnt a lot about the humans in these last few years. Perhaps… Perhaps they aren’t what they used to be.”

“And just what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?” Ebony said, taking a bottle of white wine and staring into its depths with one eye.

“Maybe… Maybe not all of them are as bloodthirsty as we remember them to be.”

“Are you drunk?” Ebony drank from her bottle.

“I’m just saying.” Ivory raised both her hands. “There have been humans who have accepted what we are, Principal Celestia being one of them. Plus, look, they mingle with magical horse creatures that have come through a portal from another dimension. What I’m saying is… maybe they aren’t as condemning as they used to be.”

Ebony Wings grunted. “I wouldn’t put it past them to try and trick us like that. You know how they are. You’ve seen what humans are capable of doing. They don’t like anything that isn’t like them. They just can’t accept it. They fear what they do not understand.”

“Did you hear the part about magical horse creatures at all?”

The older changeling finished her bottle and tossed it aside. “Yes, but so what? You think Dea can be accepted into this little bubble? To trust them? To love them? Is that what you're thinking?”

“Your daughter won’t live forever like us.” Ivory rubbed at her forehead. “Maybe she deserves a normal life. To live how she wants till the day she dies. I don’t want to suffocate her in the little life she has. I want her to enjoy it.”

“So long as that enjoyment doesn’t come at the expense of the secrecy of our kind…” Ebony said sourly and picked up another bottle of wine. “And what does she know about what she wants? She is still a child and hasn’t the resolve to know what she desires. It’s up to me to decide it for her.”

And, satisfied with this statement, the actress tipped the bottle of wine back and drank it down in a single gulp.

“I’m just saying. I’ll still follow her on her dates to make sure things go alright. But… letting her hunt on her own terms, I think, would be better for her. I think we should try it. Letting her love this boy.”

Ebony choked on her drink. “You want my daughter to pursue this love interest?” Ebony burst out laughing, coughing up wine in the process and making quite a disturbing series of noises as her lungs ejected the fluid while still giggling. “It’s been a long time since I laughed at the words of someone who wasn’t an absolute dunce. Are you sure your role as my reaper doesn’t include being a jester?”

“I went to find out what I could about him.” Ivory removed her glasses and begrudgingly wiped droplets of wine from it. “A lot has happened since his arrival in Canterlot at the beginning of the year. He’s been exposed to magical horse creatures, aliens from outer space, mechanical suits… These are things no human would comprehend, yet, these things have become norms for them. If he truly loves your daughter, I think he would accept her for what she is.”

“I am not handing my daughter up to the humans. Her place is here with me. To do as her queen bids.” Ebony dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “She is a servant of the queen. Not some regular human girl who goes to school and falls in love. She is not out there just because she wants to be. She is out there because she serves me.”

“I’m not asking you to release her completely. But, she won’t be around forever. I want her to enjoy life. To enjoy what it has to offer, falling in love… being one of them. Let her hunt how she wants to. You said it yourself. The love she’s bringing back hasn’t been enough. Let her do this her way. I promise you, she’ll be bringing back feasts when she’s done.”

Ebony finished wiping her mouth with the napkin, then held out a finger. In the dark, the green flame burned most radiantly, incinerating the napkin. “And what if they don’t accept her? Remember, you are also my executioner and assassin. If this goes pear-shaped, I’ll task you with eliminating anyone who knows our secret. If you want to avoid any more bloodshed, as you seem to be doing these days, though I can’t imagine why, then it would be best to keep things in-house.”

“Like I said…” Ivory put a hand on her chest. “I’ll be monitoring her still. I’ll make sure she stays in line. If she doesn’t, well… You can punish me instead.”

“If she screws up you can bet your fangs that I’ll punish her and not you,” Ebony sniffed. “What kind of a ruler do you think I am? The kind of incompetent halfwit from the movies that kills a random minion for something another one did?”

Yes, that’s exactly what I think. Ivory frowned. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Ebony sighed and flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. “Well, if she fails, then it’s your fault. So you better make sure my daughter really knows what she’s doing. Don’t think I’ve forgotten what she did to that cubicle door at Quartz Prep Academy. Things like that could very well give us away. I’m not going back to living like the old times, sister. I’m pretty happy with the way we live now. Make sure it stays that way.”

“Right. It won’t, Chryssie. I’ll be there to keep an eye on things. You know how meticulous I am. Just… no more beatings, okay? I’ll just let her know she can hunt as she sees fit. We might as well put that love she has for the boy to good use.”

“Don’t forget about the sirens. We need that kind of magical edge as a failsafe if something does go catastrophically wrong.”

“And that’s exactly what I need the safehouse renovations for. How soon can you get that done for me?”

“I expect I’ll get someone to start next week.” Ebony flicked a piece of chicken from her teeth.

“Good.” Ivory nodded and got up. “Well, that’s all I have for you. I will leave you to enjoy your picnic down here in the dark. Try not to drink it all.”

It was nearing sundown when the last magazine clicked empty. Silver Rose sighed in relief, her knees buckling from standing up for so long. Spent casings littered the floor around her feet, and the air stank of gunpowder. All the Principal Cinch targets had basically been reduced to smithereens, with even a piece of her face among the casings scattered by her feet.

Silver was tired and all she could think about now was a nice hot shower to kick back and relax. Setting her rifle aside, the young changeling returned indoors and went straight up to her room.

She didn’t know why her mother had insisted she use up all the bullets, but at least her aim had gotten better in the process, though she still didn’t know what for. She wasn’t even allowed to bring guns to school, so there was no one to use them on anyway. Perhaps if she were to encounter another mugger on the streets again, but what were the chances of that, while she had a gun on herself.

Sighing, Silver threw her walk in closet open and grabbed her usual evening clothes, before dragging herself to the shower. Dinner would probably be ready soon and she didn’t want to turn up smelling of gunpowder and hot metal. She had only just removed her shirt when there was a knock at her bathroom door.

“Sweetie?” It was her aunt outside. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay, Aunt Ivory,” Silver answered.

“That’s great. Hey, so, I had a talk with your mother about your hunting habits.”

Silver groaned internally. “Yes, sorry Aunt Ivory, but I’m trying. I really am. It’s just… hard.”

“I know, sweetie. It’s not easy, hmm? So we talked about it and… I think we should let you hunt the way you want.”

Silver Rose blinked at herself in the mirror a few times. She didn’t know if she had heard her aunt right. “Y-You want me t-to… what…?”

“Believe me, your mother took a lot of convincing to do and I think she was drunk at the time, but that’s our decision. What say you?”

Silver thought for a moment.

“I thought changelings couldn’t get drunk.”

“We can’t,” Ivory shrugged. “But sometimes it’s fun to act like we can.”

“Uhh…”

“I know, sweetie. You still love the boy,” her aunt continued. “And that’s not how a typical hunt is supposed to go, but I think we can all agree that this is not a typical scenario for any of us.”

Silver didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have as long as we do. As long as we have a source of love, we’ll go on, but you, sweetie, in time, we won’t have you around anymore. I want you to be happy. I want you to enjoy what life you have while you have it.”

“R-Really? You mean it, Aunt Ivory?” Silver slapped herself once to check if she was dreaming. She wasn’t.

“You still aren’t allowed to let anyone know what we really are, your mother was adamant about that. As am I. She doesn’t want to go back to living like ‘the old days’, as she calls them. Being hunted isn’t fun, sweetie, know that much, okay? While I think that perhaps some humans may be trusted, your mother doesn’t.”

“Well, Silver Platter and the maids are human.”

“Well, yes, but your mother pays them. And humans will do and believe almost anything as long as there’s something in it for them. Preferably something green that folds.”

Silver nodded, but right now, she was ecstatic. She could hunt the way she wanted. She could love Home Run? That was something she never expected to be able to have again. She took a small moment to hop for joy, unable to hold it in.

“Yes, yes, you’re happy, and it makes me happy to know that, sweetie.” Ivory chuckled from outside. “But remember, no one must know what we are. As far as anyone is concerned, we’re human.”

“Yes, Aunt Ivory.” Silver danced around her bathroom. Then she remembered something else. Sunny and the others thought they were witches. “What about Sunny Flare?”

“Oh, that’s right. Witches, was it? While I’d like to let them go around thinking they know what we are, I don’t think rumors spreading would do us any good. Think you can convince them otherwise, dear?”

After hearing what she was allowed to do, dealing with Sunny didn’t seem all that bad. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror and laughed.

“Yeah. I’ll make you proud, Aunt Ivory.”