Tired, hungry, scared and angry; those were the four emotions he was feeling right now. Tired, not only from just breaking free from his cocoon but from repelling an evil alicorn and her horde of mismatched minions. Hungry, from not eating after who knows how long. Scared, after waking up in a strange unknown place without his mother or any other changeling around. And angry because he wasn’t sure what to do or how to go about doing it. So out of those four emotions he let anger take the lead.

The floor was littered with damaged books and broken decorations, mostly near the doorway where, occasionally, the head of a pony or another creature would peek into the room. He ran out of objects to throw and so he had to resort to baring his fangs, buzzing his wings furiously or hissing loudly to try and frighten them away. So far it was working.

He had tried to escape through a large hole in the wall that he found, but an invisible force stopped him. The creatures must have been trying to conceal it because it was hidden behind some hanging blankets. It was now smeared with a coating of green tinted saliva in the places he attempted to chew his way through.

On the other side of the hole he could see a vast cavern. It had no visible walls and it made him dizzy when he looked up at the fluffy white things floating in the blue where the ceiling should have been. Also there was a large glowing yellow orb that stung his eyes, so he fled away from it.

Currently he was huddled up under a lavender pink blanket, peeking out at the rooms exit and sitting on the top mattress of a bunk bed. To him it was a large rectangular soft thing held up by four wooden poles. It was the highest point in the room now, after knocking loose a wall shelf, and the best place for overseeing his environment.

It made his heart leap and ears perked up when he heard a familiar buzzing noise from the doorway. Thinking someling had come to rescue him, he excitedly leaned forward; but what stepped into the room didn’t look like any changeling he’d ever seen before.

This changeling’s chitin was not black like he was used to, but a faded blue. She had a clear pink frill running down the back of her neck that was wavy instead of pointy. On her back she had a magenta elytra with lighter colored spots. A curved horn rose from the center of her forehead and split just slightly into two points, one below the other facing backwards. Her tail was the same color as her frill and looked like a single wing with small spots that reflected the light.

The odd changeling’s eyes widened when she looked at him and she tried to back out of the room. Something out of his view from beyond the doorway made her pause and her ears perked up as she looked back over her withers.

“O-okay,” she timidly said to whatever was outside the room. “I’ll try.”

She crossed the room slowly while carefully stepping around the broken shards of glass and ruined books. About halfway between him and the exit she stopped.

“So um…” she stammered, “my name is Ocellus, what’s your name?”

He stared at her silently, he didn’t have a name that he knew of. They always called him ‘the larva’ or ‘it’.

“I don’t know,” was all he could answer with.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized, “I guess you wouldn’t have one yet.”

“What are you?” he asked and slipped out a little more from under the blanket.

“I’m a changeling,” she said, “like you.”

One strand of his mane fell over his eye while he studied her and he idly brushed it away with a hoof.

“Why don’t you look like the other changelings?” he questioned.

“Ah, well we…” she hesitated, “we all went through a metamorphosis a little while ago and now we look different.”

“What’s a meta-mo-foe-cist?” he inquired, tilting to his head a little to the side.

“It um…” she fumbled for an easy explanation. “It’s when something changes from one thing to another. Like how you went from a larva to what you are now.”

“Oh,” he said, “did my mom meta-mo-foe-cist too?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Do you know her name?”

“Chrysalis,” he stated. “Do you know where she is?”

Ocellus froze up and her ears folded back against her head. She shuffled on her hooves and her elytra opened and closed nervously.

“C-chrysalis?” she stuttered, “Are you sure she’s your mom?”

“That’s what she said,” he answered, nodding his head and causing some of his messy mane to fall over his face again.

“S-she said?” Ocellus’s voice cracked as she looked around the room like she was trying to find something. “When did she say that?”

“Before I meta-mo-foe-cists,” he told her, pushing back the hair from his face again.

“Ah, w-wait one moment please,” she quickly said as she opened her elytra, extended her wings and flew out of the room.

Sitting quietly with his ears perked up and twitching, he tried to make out what the whispering voices coming from beyond the doorway were saying. A few moments later Ocellus returned.

“Chrysalis didn’t go through the metamorphosis with the rest of us,” she told him.

“Oh, okay,” he said. “Do you know where she is?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t,” she answered while her ears drooped.

The two quietly looked at each other until a loud growl broke the silence. He sat up onto his haunches and looked down while placing a hoof on his carapace were the color changed from black to a blueish green.

“Are you hungry?” she softly asked.

He looked back up at her and nodded.

“Do you…” she trailed off and shuffled on her hooves again, rubbing one of her front legs against the back of the other, “know how to feed?”

He tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide and waited for her to feed him. When she didn’t move he closed his mouth and tilted his head at the confused look she was giving him. Her ears suddenly perked up again, understanding now written across her features.

“No, no,” she shook her head, “that’s only how larva eat. You have to do something… different now.”

“How?” he asked.

“Um… hold on again please,” she said and flew out of the room once more.

The whispering outside the room started up again. A few minutes later Ocellus peeked her head back in.

“I’m going to bring in a friend who will help me show you,” she told him, “they aren’t going to hurt you so please don’t throw anything at her okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded tentatively to her.

Ocellus entered the room again this time followed by the pink unicorn pony who looked around the destroyed room with wary eyes.

“This is my friend Starlight,” Ocellus introduced the pony. “She’s going help me teach you how to feed.”

“Hi…” said Starlight. “So how do we do this?”

“You just have to stand there really,” Ocellus told her.

The two just stood in the center of the room looking at each other and after a few awkward moments Ocellus let out a sigh.

“Sorry, I haven’t had to do this in so long,” Ocellus blurted out to Starlight with tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “This is just really hard for me.”

“It’s okay Ocellus,” Starlight consoled her, “maybe we can feed her another way.”

“No,” Ocellus said while shaking her head, “she needs to learn how to absorb and eat love before she can eat anything else. It’s just how the changeling nymphs are, or well, how they used to be.”

“Okay, then, just take your time,” Starlight said to Ocellus.

After another quiet moment Ocellus took in a deep breath and then let it out. The blue changeling walked up to Starlight, opened her mouth and started to draw in wisps of pinkish mist from the pony. She abruptly stopped only a few seconds later, looking guilty and sad.

“L-like that,” she stuttered. “Did you understand?”

“I think so,” he nodded and leaned over the edge of the mattress with his mouth open wide.

Starlight moved a little closer to him and the pink mist started to flow from the pony once more.

He lost himself when the first taste of it reached his tongue, greedily pulling forth more of the pony’s love and only when a pillow was thrown over his head did he stop. After removing it he saw the pony now laying on the floor with her eyes closed and a worried Ocellus looking down at her.