"Why did you put so many onions in this?" Sharp Mind chewed away at the "rock stew" Spike had made. She suddenly had to stop and coughed, producing an emerald. "Spike! This isn't rock stew at all, you used gems!"
"Maybe a few, I thought I got them all…" It hadn't been easy for Smooth Horn to "fit" with the Spike way of life, but once she had really embraced the ideals of her guise, it had become easier. "Are you going to eat that… oh no, not with the onion-" He burped, once, twice, and then tilted his head back and let out a gout of flame and expelled a scroll. "I thought we asked not to send things during meal-times?"
Sharp caught the scroll as it flipped through the air.
"And you are going to go ahead with the gala?" Twilight Sparkle blinked at Celestia. A dozen scrolls materialized around her and she started trying to find what she was after. "I just don't know if Sharp is ready for that. What are you going to have her do?" Twilight found the one she was after, reading her notes on Sharp Mind.
"But I have to have my gala." Celestia closed her eyes as she said the words, deeply regretting that she had even started the gala all those years ago. "Besides, I think having a changeling organize it will make it a lot more fun." She suddenly imagined sharing a dance with Chrysalis while all the snooty "no fun" ponies were trapped in pods. Princess Celestia started to smile.
"Organize it? If she is doing things properly she will… well, do a very good job." Twilight reread her notes. "But I suggest against having Smooth Horn along… Spike that is."
Princess Celestia pondered that. "But it would look wrong if I just said not to bring him… what about if we sent Spike on an important mission to the Crystal Empire?" Sending a changeling to deliver something to Cadance. This could be an even better gala than last year's.
"Where are you sending me?" Spike wandered into the little house that had become his recent home. He was, of course, munching on a gemstone.
"Not you, Spike, changeling-Spike." Twilight was terrified, she was delighted. Could this work? Of course it would work!
"You know I am a changeling, right… uh…" Easy Glide was sitting in a tree on the edge of town, with the town's local "friendly changeling" sitting at the foot of the tree.
"Kevin." Kevin looked up, he had done it, he had remembered his disguise name! Now if only he could actually pull off the disguise. "And yup!"
"I hated this at first. She has a stupid pet, stupid friends, lives in a stupid house… it is nothing like being back in the hive." Easy gave a deep sigh. "But Fluttershy really seems to care, Tank is… well, he is asleep now, but he is pretty cool in his own way."
"Your friends aren't all stupid." Kevin tilted his head back, looking up into the branches of the winter-whited tree.
"That's the thing, they really aren't. I thought this town was full of caricatures, ponies pretending to be what they weren't." Easy stretched her blue wings and flicked the rainbow-colored mane she sported to one side. "But Twi is actually pretty cool, figured she was just another egg-head."
"You like living here?" Kevin remembered what the Princess… the real Princess, had said. "I like it. No queen telling me what to do… not that Queen Chrysalis even told me what to do, she told other changelings to do things and they told me what to do."
Easy poked her head down, looking at the changeling. "That… I can see why you would like it here. And don't worry, I think I have convinced nearly everypony that you are no harm. I liked the hive… a little. It was good to have a place and not have to worry about something pushing you from it. Here… I work every day to be me…" Easy froze at that thought. She wasn't even her here, she was Rainbow dash. Not that that wasn't pretty cool.
"You weren't very nice when I first met you." Kevin looked up at the mare above him. Anew he marveled at her disguise. "You were nice to me, but other ponies…"
"I was a bit horrible, wasn't I?" Easy shook her head. "I think I realized what did it. Everypony here actually cares about me, not just the role I fit into. I don't have a role in this town-hive, but it is okay, ponies don't like me for what I am, they like me for who I am." The words tumbled from Easy's snout, she stopped talking and just stared away into nothing.
"I like it when ponies like me, they taste nicer and seem more friendly." Kevin started to inspect a hole in his hoof, blowing into and across it.
The words were so simple, they were things any filly or colt learned while growing up. For Easy, however, noling had taught them to her, but she liked to think she was slowly picking them up. A soft, moaning melody started to rise in the air, it haunted and bounced through the wind. Easy looked down and saw the most astounding thing. Kevin was literally blowing a tune out on the holes in his foreleg, like some odd set of pan-pipes.
Easy kept her snout shut, closing her eyes and focusing on the seed of an idea the other changeling had planted in her. And the music. The haunting and happy music. Maybe my hive is just the ponies I make friends with?
Sharp got off the train and turned to wave to spike. It wasn't because it was expected, but she just felt a little alone without him. "Bye Spike!" A small shiver ran down her spine. "Better you than me in the Crystal Empire…"
Turning as the train pulled back out, Sharp Mind looked up at the huge castle and shivered. She had been here before, and last time… hadn't been so fun. Putting one hoof in front of the other, the disguised changeling made her way through the streets and toward the center of Equestria.
"Twilight!" A unicorn mare bounced up and halted beside Sharp. "Don't tell me you forgot all about me?" Minuette giggled. "Remember, from school? Minuette!"
"Oh!" Sharp moved to give the other mare a hug, it feels like a hugging situation, and got it returned.
"What are you here for? 'Princess things'?" Minuette felt something was a little off about Twilight, but wasn't quite sure what. "You look a little pale, are you alright?"
"Uh, sure! Sure I am, err, Minuette!" Sharp looked around for an exit, realized she was outside and beside the castle. "I really should go, Princess Celestia sent me a letter requesting my help!"
Minuette blinked at the rapid-fire explanation and the fact that Twilight had almost vanished in a puff of pony-shaped cloud. "Huh, guess she is okay… same ol' Twilight Sparkle!"
Sharp panted, she had panicked and just run from the unicorn that likely, even now, was contacting the royal guard. She trembled a little in fear before she heard hooves, heavy hooves, approaching from behind. "Twilight Sparkle." Sharp Mind knew the voice, she had heard it when they invaded.
"Yes, Your Highness?" Sharp turned to look at a smiling Princess Celestia. "You sent me a letter?"
Celestia smiled. The drone was doing an excellent job. If it were the real Twilight she likely would have had a panic attack by now. "As you know, the Grand Galloping Gala is next week and I thought, 'Who better to organize it than the best organizer in all Equestria?' " The eye that Sharp could see twinkled with mirth, the alicorn clearly finding something delightful in all this.
"M-M-Me?" Sharp almost let go of her disguise in panic. Ruffling the feathered wings on her back, the changeling inhaled deeply and dipped her head. "Of course I will, Princess Celestia." She almost had to jump back when Celestia lifted both forelegs and clopped them together.
"That's wonderful, Twilight." Celestia approved of the drone's initiative and presence, if she was half as good at organizing a gala as Twilight would be, this would be great. If she were terrible at it, it would be even better. Celestia had to keep from snorting at her own joke. "So, first thing we need is a guest-list."
Sharp had been training herself to be Twilight Sparkle. She had driven her changeling senses to their limit to embrace the alicorn and not just emulate, but really feel her every emotion. A scroll appeared in a flash of magic, Sharp beaming in delight. A quill was just as quick to appear and started scribing a title for the list. "Ready!"
Smiling, Celestia began to read off ponies she knew would expect to be invited. While reciting the list, she kept watching the drone, smiling at the enthusiasm they showed for taking down a list, for getting to do her job. She didn't even realize she had stopped talking and just sighed.
"Your Highness?" Sharp looked at the melancholy expression on Princess Celestia. "Is something the matter?"
"Just remembering an old foe that I really wish hadn't been. Where was I?" Celestia had read the report Twilight had written, about Chrysalis. She had packed it up and sent it on to her niece. Cadance had some issues to work out with Chrysalis, and hopefully hearing such an honest account of the changeling's life might help.
"You were… Fluttershy." Sharp looked down the list and smiled. "I wonder who she will bring, probably Discord?"
Something tickled Celestia in just the right way, it was one of the little jolts of premonition she sometimes got. "No, add Discord to the list, make sure he gets a 'Plus One' ticket."
Sharp was pulled up short by the insistence. "But Discord is… he will likely…" She looked up at the beaming white alicorn. She wanted to press, wanted to ask what Princess Celestia was thinking. "Yes, Your Highness."
"She is doing admirably. Remind me when this is over, to offer her a job." Celestia was relaxing, sipping some tea with a little tray of cakes.
"You would hire… well, of course when it is over she will be more pony, but still, a changeling?" Twilight was incredulous at the thought of it. "I thought you said she was too meek?"
Celestia levitated a little plate of cake over to her former student, taking another for herself. "She is only that way because she is a lone changeling infiltrating Canterlot Castle and having to deal, daily, with 'Princess Celestia'." Using a dainty fork, Celestia fetched some cheesecake into her mouth. "This really is amazing, Twilight."
Twilight's snout was open, she was staring at Celestia in amazement. "I… I know, when Princess Luna told me Gray had been ready-"
"No, Twilight." Celestia giggled. "I mean the cake."
Realizing she was the butt of a little joke, Twilight decided to at least test her mentor's theory. She tried some cake and sighed. "Oh… wow…"
"See!" Celestia ruffled her wings and shifted in place. "And you know who made it? Who spent the time to make the most perfect cheesecake I have ever tasted?"
Trying to keep up with Celestia's mental bounds, Twilight had a guess, "A changeling?"
"What? No. It was a young pony who had thought himself useless. He is now my head pastry chef. He had been a farm worker, thought his cutie mark had been a cart-wheel." Celestia devoured the next mouthful slowly, letting the sweet desert dissolve slowly. "His fate was stolen from him with the misinterpretation of his cutie mark. From your notes, and with a little digging, I see there was another filly out there who thought her destiny was to defend her family and fight for them."
"Chrysalis?" Twilight hoped she had gotten it right this time.
"Yes, Chrysalis. Hearing of her affection for a pony, her confiding in him and even helping him, it is a very different side of the queen that attacked Canterlot." Celestia sucked another load of cake off her fork, letting it dissolve slowly on her tongue.
"Your Highness?" A masculine voice belonging to a royal guard intruded on Twilight and Celestia's tea. "Princess Twilight is here to see you."
Celestia looked to Twilight. "Is she ready to be outed?" Twilight shook her head as she cast the vanishing spell. The plate of cake and her cup were gone a moment later as she pulled those into the shadows that eyes couldn't see. "Guard? Let her in." Celestia smiled.