This week's (short) CSP snippet. (Patreon)

Here's the bit I managed to write yesterday. This scene was specifically requested by our top Patreon donor. 

I will officially fly Mission 22 in KSP next week; whether it's streamed or merely recorded and posted online for viewing will depend on a couple more tests to be run after I get home from Louisianime.

* * * * * *

Cherry Berry smiled politely, signed the autograph, posed for the cheap disposable Breezie(TM)(383) camera, and tried to make progress once more towards her destination, the astronaut center kitchens where the mission meals were to be prepared. 

She hadn’t got far before encountering something that looked like a changeling had got into a fight with a paint mixer and lost. In fact, as she looked more closely, paint was still dripping off the poor thing.

The colors weren’t bad, as colors went. The changeling had at least tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the turquoise of his mane-ridge, tail and wing-covers separate from the calming peach tone he’d chosen for his body in general. Had he had the foresight to apply the turquoise first and wait until it dried before attempting the peach, it might have worked. Instead, the colors were running together in rivulets that ran down the bug-pony’s body, defining every curve (Cherry was disturbed to notice) of his body and draining (even more disturbingly) into his leg-holes.

“Hi, Miss Cherry!” the changeling said cheerfully. “What do you think?”

“About what?” Cherry asked, hoping and praying against all expectation that she could avoid the obvious conversation to come.

“About the new me!” the changeling said, gesturing to himself. “Sclerite gave me the idea. She thinks the tourists will be less spooked and more likely to give us love if we look like ponies too!” He grinned ever wider, and Cherry squirmed as little runnels of paint dripped down his fangs and into his mouth. “I picked the colors myself! The blue stuff matches my eyes!”

“Um, they’re very nice colors,” Cherry said, the only polite and truthful thing she could say. “But, um, could I just ask you one teensy, weensy little question?”

“You wanna know where I got the paint?” the changeling asked. “Well, they’re having a sale at the general store in Horseton, so-”

“Nooooo,” Cherry said. “I was just wondering if you’d run this little idea by your queen first.”

“Nope! I wanted it to be a surprise!” The changeling actually looked proud. “I figure I might get a promotion out of this! Oh, and Sclerite too, just to be-”

Cherry’s restraint snapped. She grabbed the sticky changeling’s shoulders with her forehooves and shook hard enough to send paint drops flying. “ARE YOU SUICIDAL??” she asked. 

“Hey! HEY!” The changeling managed to get loose from Cherry’s grip(384). “What do you mean by suicidal?” Confusion turned to worry. “You mean you think the queen won’t like it?”

No, Cherry thought, I mean she’ll think you stepped out of the nightmare she described to me once, in detail, and pound you into paste in a fit of panic. But I can’t tell you that, because I promised not to tell anypony else... “It’s always a bad idea to surprise Chrysalis,” she said instead. “You’ve known her longer than I have, you should know that.”

“You spend more time around her than I do,” the changeling pointed out.

“Well,” Cherry said, “for now, let’s go wash off that paint-”

“Shan’t,” the changeling said flatly. “I like my new look. It feels like this is who I am under the chitin. And besides, it matches the wings. Look!” The changeling opened his wings, which Cherry noticed didn’t have a single hole in them(385). And they glittered almost as much as Luna’s star-filled ethereal mane.

Cherry rolled her eyes. Maybe not suicidal, she thought, but suicidally stupid. “Look,” she said, “you’re a changeling. A shape-shifter. Why didn’t you just shape-shift into a pony, if you want ponies to be calm around you?”

“I’m tired of hiding who I am,” the changeling whined. “I mean yeah, the first time you go on an infiltration mission is really exciting, and there’s this thrill about fooling ponies and maybe getting caught...” He sighed and finished, “But it gets old, you know? And being scary isn’t as much fun as the queen make it seem like.” 

“Okay, fine,” Cherry said. “But you need to let Chrysalis know about your idea before you show her the new, the new... I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Lepid, Miss Cherry.”

“Lepid. Nice name.” Cherry took a deep breath. “Lepid, there will come a day before too long when anypony, or anyling, can show to the world who they really are, without fear. Within reason, I mean.” To be perfectly honest, she was quite happy with Chrysalis not showing the world who she really was. Fake Chrysalis was much nicer to be around, and Real Brutal and Possibly Genocidal Dictator Chrysalis... well, Cherry hoped that Chrysalis would be very afraid of showing her true self in public. “And if you want to live to see that nice and happy day, you’ll come with me right now to the infirmary so they can get that paint off of you before your queen sees it and murders you. I’m not fooling about this, Lepid.”

“You really think-”

“Without even pausing to think about it,” Cherry said. “And you know as well as I do she wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it.”

“Awww... okay.” The defeated changeling hung his head. “I guess it’s just as well. My tummy’s been aching ever since this morning.”

Cherry watched more runny paint run into the changeling’s mouth as he talked. “Um,” she said, “did you make sure the paint you bought is non-toxic?”

The changeling looked at Cherry in confusion. “Would ponies really sell toxic paint?” he asked. 

“Right,” Cherry sighed. She wasn’t getting to the kitchen until after lunch. “Come on. To the infirmary. You have a date with some paint remover... and a stomach pump.”

Footnotes:

(383) Because Equus hasn’t got any brownies.(386)

(384) Hooves are not renowned for their gripping power, and the changeling was still covered with runny paint, so this wasn’t especially difficult.

(385) They did, on the other hoof, have quite a lot of paint splotches and streaks on them, even though the changeling’s elytra had scraped most of the loose paint off.

(386) So far as anypony knows, anyway.