Don't fraternise with the patients.

The rule echoed in his head over and over again as he found himself sitting in the lap of the big, black bug queen. Her arms were joined around his slender waist, resting on his own wide hips as she rested her chin on the top of his head. He sipped from his coffee, eyes narrow with bemusment, as the Changeling Queen hummed a tune he did not recognise. She swayed side to side, happy and contented to baby what was supposed to be her psychiatrist and her corrections officer, and dragging Dusk with her in the motion.

"Be careful not to burn your tongue," she said in a warm, mothering tone.

"I know how to drink coffee, Chrysalis," Dusk said with a sigh. "But thank you for your concern. I appreciate it."

"It's my job to look after all the little ones in my hive," she smiled, hugging him tighter and nuzzling him, a weird noise coming from the bag of her throat.

"W-what..." Dusk began, turning to look at her. "What is that?"

"What's what?" she asked, cocking her head in confusion.

"That... clicking? Grinding?" Dusk asked quizzically. "You're making a noise right now."

"What d'you... oh. Oh!" she exclaimed, nodding profusely. "It's a thing Changeling Queens do when they're happy. It's two pieces of chitin in my sinuses that rub against each other really fast. Dunno what you ponies call it. It's basically a sound that's supposed to comfort all the larvae whenever they're feeding."

"Purring," Dusk stated in a firm tone. "You're purring, Chryssy."

"Ah... maybe," she shrugged. "What else does that?"

"Cats purr... big cats purr harder," Dusk shrugged, sipping more of his coffee. "You're like a big, mothering... kind of rapey cat..."

"Isn't that what all boys want in a mother?" Chrysalis asked.

"No, I'd have been pretty weirded out if my mother had tried to rape me," Dusk disagreed.

"Seriously? Have you seen your mother before?" Chrysalis exclaimed with a loud, booming laugh. "I'd have been the happiest insect on the planet if your mom tried to rape me."

Dusk was silent for a long moment, eyes nearly burning a hole into the floor with the stare he threw down at it, his face twitching with barely-contained rage.

"You remember how we talked about the list of 'things I wouldn't like someone to say to me' in regards to conversing with people?" Dusk asked after a slow, calming breath.

"I mean... kind of? That was the one with the orange pamphlet with the 'dos and don'ts', right?" she asked, scratching her head in confusion. "I was kind of out of it at the time..."

"Energy deprivation making you feel sick?" Dusk asked.

"No, I think Eris and I had just wrapped up a three-day cocaine bender before then, so I was uber fucked the day after," Chrysalis shrugged. "I remember it was stuff like... 'compliment people's mane and make-up, not talk about how digestible their inner love cores are' and 'make small talk about the weather and sports events, don't try to hypnotise people's husbands into making them let you suck them off in the street'."

"You're forgetting the last half of that," Dusk sighed.

"Am I really... oh! Yeah, I remember 'don't try to hypnotise people's husbands into making them let you suck them off in the street in front of their spouses!' That was it!" she smiled, puffing her chest out proudly and sticking her tongue out as she smiled.

"Indeed you did," Dusk sighed.

"So I'm fine to go whole-hog on a fat cock in front of the town choir so long as I'm not doing it in front of their lawfully wedded cum-rag, right?" Chrysalis asked. "Because that's what I took away from that."

"I think we might need to go over that course a few more times," Dusk growled, rubbing his eyes between his finger and thumb whilst desperately fighting off the urge to gouge the fucking things out. "But the reason I brought it up is still relevant. You know how you just said you wanted my mother to rape you?"

"Yes?" she asked, looking down at Dusk before kissing him on the back of the head.

"Not really the greatest conversational branch in the linguistic tree," he pointed out with a raised finger. "Try bringing up something else a little less... the most insulting thing you've probably ever said to me, maybe?"

"Okay, uh..." Chrysalis hummed, tapping her feet on the wooden floor in thought. "I sometimes lactate through my dresses whenever I've got a clutch going?"

"I'm done with this conversation," Dusk growled, standing up out of Chrysalis grip, sipping his coffee, chucking it in his own face, and teleporting out of the room halfway through a scream of rage, anger, and frustration.

Chrysalis sat there in an awkward fashion for a brief moment, tapping her hands on her thick thighs before snapping her fingers and summoning up a little journal and green-tipped pencil, scrawling down a few updates to the charts she kept in her book:

Times abandoned conversation within minutes of starting it: seventeen.

Times reminded about boundaries and sexual assault: eighty-three.

Times Dusk has thrown his own coffee in his face during the conversation: four.

"Wow, that last one's down from last week," Chrysalis smiled to herself. "Dare I say it, if it keeps up at this rate, he'll be fucking a new hive into me on our wedding night within the next month!"

Dusk lay face down on his bed, hoping that if he buried his face deep enough into the pillow, he might be able to rediscover his will to live. He felt like ripping his mane out, felt like crying his eyes red, and felt like quitting on the spot as he felt like these girls were a mental brick wall he had no hope of getting through. The most bearable one out of all of them for the month had been Tirek, and that was mostly because while the others had habits of raping, playing god, arson, and attempting to slaughter those who looked at them wrong, Tirek...

Tirek just kind of beat him up a lot. It hurt like a bitch and he never enjoyed going through the experience... but at least it didn't involve having to apologise to a whole town and promising to put children through therapy after Nightmare Moon had thrown out a necromantic revival wave to tear corpses from the ground in an attempt to throw them into battle with the shadow legion Umbra had summoned.

Tirek just broke his nose, ruptured his organs, and painted pictures every few days. Said it was her 'venting strategy'. Not the painting, the beating him up.

Good for her.

"There you are, my lesser being!" came the exclamation from the doorway.

Begging for death as he turned around, his eyes fell upon Umbra, hands joined behind her back and a rather sinister smirk on her face. Her eyes swirled and glowed an ominous green as they always did, thick, luscious, black mane perfectly quaffed and slicked back over her powerful shoulders. Her body was clad in simple, yet-expensive, garments: a tight-fitting grey tank-top with a pair of lycra leggings, all premium brands and very well-used in her exercise... and often used in teasing attempts to all that felt lucky enough to try their luck with her. Body buxom, curvy, and muscular, she sauntered over to him, hands still hiding behind her back as she looked him up and down.

"Umbra, its against policy for a patient to be allowed in my private quarters," he said, sitting up on the side of the bed.

"And it's also against policy to set fire to surrendering enemy combatants, and yet we all do it anyway," she shrugged in that usual light-hearted... villainous mass-murderer charm she possessed. "I have come to present my apology!"

"I... is it just a simple apology?" Dusk asked, blinking blankly.

"Of course not!" she snapped, turning her nose up at the mere insinuation. "As the Queen of the Darkened Realms, I have a reputation to uphold and a specific standard of quality that comes with all I do."

"Is that the same standard of quality that came with you setting the kitchen on fire?" Dusk asked. "Making a smoothie."

"It's not my fault your equipment has faulty wiring," Umbra growled.

"It usually tends to after you throw it across the room and chuck a dark energy blast at it," Dusk nodded.

"Well, it shouldn't have been using those absolute nonsense measurements that don't even exist on it!" she hissed.

"You mean 'the metric system'?"

"Yes, that absolutely stupid pile of made up terms and rules," Umbra nodded fiercely. "What the seancing fuck even is a 'litre' anyway? Sounds like a measurement for distance that got spelled wrong in translation."

"Getting back on topic and away from your crusade against modern measuring systems, I'm again going to have to ask you to leave the room and wait for me to come talk to you in a designated area-"

"-Dusk Shine, I, Queen Umbra of the Eternal Abyss-" she interrupted in a grandiose, hollering tone.

"-or we can just start screaming, that works too-" he sighed.

"-offer you, from my own personal collection and my own personal feelings, the deepest, most-heartfelt, and genuine apology one of this world can muster for the offence my actions have caused you!" she dropped down onto one knee, holding out a fancy box, velvet black and about over a foot long... signalling it was something big. "I hope that you and I can patch this rift between us, come together as before, and unite stronger than ever in a friendship that shall benefit us both, and all who may share our strength!"

Dusk knew he was going to regret taking the gift, but he did so anyway. He took the velvet box from Umbra's larger hands, fingers rubbing the soft, expensive material as he worked the clasps on the front of it. With a creak of the old hinges, Dusk opened the box and stared at the contents, eyes nearly falling out of his skull in amazement... just before his responsibility kicked in and ruined the moment.

Sat in the soft confines of the box was a dagger. Black steel with a ruby set in the pommel, clearly-well used, but also well-maintained. It appeared to be a hunting dagger of some kind, with a thin, sharp blade designed for skinning and cutting. The thing certainly wasn't an ornate wall-hanger, that much was for sure. Inscribed with the initials of a master smith, having seen it's fair share of action, and definitely being one of the most expensive things he'd been given as a gift, he was amazed at the quality of...

The piece of contraband Umbra had just handed him.

"I... Umbra, you're... it's against the rules to..." he began, unsure of how to word himself.

"Are... are you rejecting both my gift and my apology?" she asked with an angered growl in her voice. "I come to you with one of my most treasured possessions and you return it to me with a look of disgust and disrespect on my honour?!"

"Of course not, Umbra!" Dusk snapped. "I gratefully accept the apology and hope we can get along great from now, and I'm also gobsmacked about how nice of a gift this is, but..."

He looked down at the dagger once again, knowing the history, the expense, and the quality of the gift, but at the same time needing to follow the rules he himself had set down.

"But you're not allowed to have weapons in here, gifts or otherwise," he sighed. "They pose a health risk to both on-site staff and the patients present and are safety violations in Equestrian medical establishments. You could get in serious, serious trouble for having this, and I could as well if I accepted it..."

Umbra's eye twitched again, nostrils flaring and smoke billowing out of her eyes as her anger boiled to a point she could almost not control. Her fingers twitched, her muscled arms trembled, and she prepared to throw herself back to her feet and storm out of the room... only for Dusk's hand to touch hers as she attempted to close the box. He smiled softly, speaking in a gentle tone as he leaned towards Umbra.

"So this is gonna be our little secret, okay?" he asked with a confident grin. "Nobody has to know about it, right?"

Umbra's anger melted away good and quick, her own mischievous smile returning to her face as she got to her feet, nodding amicably as she looked down at the much-smaller stallion.

"I'm glad you've chosen to see it my way, Dusk," she said with a grin, crossing her arms underneath her enormous bust and eyeing towards the door. "I take it to mean that you allowing this little... allowance means that I'm your favourite, no?"

"I don't have a favourite," Dusk sighed. "I hate you all equally."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, my little friend," Umbra purred, eyes lighting up in a seductive, playful manner as she looked down at him. "Maybe there are... other misgivings I can encourage you to overlook... for a little fun?"

"Oh, no, uh-uh," Dusk said, setting the box down on his bed and getting to his feet. "I'm risking enough for you already, Umbra, and it's not gonna happen again. You and the rest of the girls better be on your best behaviour from now on, or else you'll find me under your bed with that knife you just gave me."

"Yes, sir," Umbra faux-sighed as Dusk guided her out of his room. "You'll hear no trouble from me for the rest of the day."

"That's what I want to hear from..." he trailed off, eyes hardening as she stared deep into her own evil orbs. "What do you mean the rest of the day?"

She blew him a kiss over her shoulder and closed the door behind her, leaving Dusk and his new present alone to think about the absolute horror story Umbra was cooking up for him in the coming days.