Byce

Bryce is a changeling, friends in his very early childhood with a filly named Brie who lived in Ponyville, unbeknownst to Brie's family. One day, while he and Brie were playing, there was an accident, resulting in Brie's death. Not wanting to be blamed, he took Brie's place in a panic, and still holds this form today, eventually changing his name to Bryce. He felt more at home in his earthpony body than he ever did as a changeling, and lived genuinely loved by his adopted sister Stella. He lived a normal life, until the day his sister passed suddenly. No longer having a source of love to feed off of, he struggles now to maintain his earthpony form and blend in.

Bryce's story occurs alongside the Mane 6's timeline, isolated and an alternate, speculative storyline from the main canon. It's undecided if there are any major differences in the original timeline, but it's currently designed to fit into the main story in a different, unseen perspective, without directly interfering with it.

It begins when Bryce is a child, hatched in Chrysalis' changeling hive. Bryce is a queen hatchling, who would be intended to take a portion of the hive's population and settle a new hive elsewhere. However, when Chrysalis realizes he's developing into a queen, she intends to kill him, as she's done to every other queen, to ensure that she remains the only queen in existence. Bryce is unceremoniously crushed, permanently deforming his shell and wings, but survives, and is found by one of his siblings, who carries the injured hatchling out of the hive and leaves him in a forest near a small pony village.

Bryce, in recovery, finds a lost filly in the woods named Brie, becoming friends with her. She eventually finds her way out of the forest, but regularly returns to visit and play with Bryce for the next two years. One day, they're playing on a cliff face, when the edge Brie is playing on crumbles and collapses, killing her. Bryce buries her in the forest, and fearing the blame of her death, shapeshifts into her and returns to her family to take her place. The changes in Bryce's personality are blamed on a head injury, but his new sister, Stella, detects that he doesn't look quite right, as he struggles to perfectly copy at his age. In the end she's able to work out who and what he is, mourning her sister, but accepting her brother, and keeping his secret. Bryce is mainly raised by Stella due to their mothers' absence in caring for either of them.

Bryce is 14 when he takes Bryce as his actual name and identity. He goes to school, and college, and lives a relatively normal pony life, provided all of the unconditional love he needs to survive and thrive by his sister and his best friend Amelia, maintaining his earthpony form indefinitely, fully seeing himself as a pony, and trying hard to forget his origins.

However, shortly after his college graduation, his sister passes away in a work accident. Bryce falls into a depressive state, avoiding Amelia and as a result falling out of his friendship with her. In this period he meets Liam, a pegasi weatherpony who regularly visits his workplace, a shop in town. Despite his isolative state, they become friends due to Liam's constant borderline harassment of him. Over the next couple of months, Bryce's strength weakens as he begins starving, leading him to further emotionally close off to everyone around him. Eventually, Bryce stops coming into work altogether. Liam asks around, but no one has seen him. He ends up asking Amelia, who opens up to Liam about Bryce's avoidant personality, but encouraging him to check on him, giving him a key to his apartment.

Liam goes to Bryce's apartment, and after a long period of getting no answer, hesitantly lets himself in. After not finding Bryce in the rest of the small apartment, he checks the bathroom, where Bryce, forced by his lack of energy back into his changeling form, is curled up in the bathtub, dying. Liam flees initially, but eventually returns, and after a bit of talking finally understands what's going on. Liam decides to stay with Bryce until he dies, much to Bryce's dismay, who is too weak to force him to leave. He drags him back to his bed and sits beside him for the next couple of days, only briefly leaving to get himself food and whatnot. They talk, and though Bryce doesn't tell him much, Liam ultimately figures out what happened with Stella and why Bryce is dying.

However, Bryce doesn't die, and they both realize that Liam's presence is keeping him alive. Bryce expresses terror that a one-sided love drain might end up harming or killing Liam and repeatedly tries to push him away, but is of course unsuccessful.

Over time, Bryce is strong enough to return to his preferred form, and recovers fully over the next couple of weeks.

(WIP)