Cadance sighed tiredly as she walked past her subjects whose energetic chatter had filled the once so quiet and cold tower chamber. After she and Shining had sent the two confused and protesting crystal unicorns back to their homes to get the rest they had more than earned, the all remaining mages (both Equestrian and crystal) who had been able to leave their daily duties had been called to take part of the massive magical “spring cleaning” as some of the younger ponies liked to call it. To put it simply, the operation mainly contained scanning the every book, piece of jewellery or cloth they were able to find, even the walls and floor of the room were checked in case of any kind of spells that needed to be undone, were they dangerous or not. After this, the safe items were handed to the group of crystal ponies who inturn wrote the objects’ information down before sorting those for the future filing. It was monotonous and time taking job, but at least some of the Cadance’s subjects seemed to have a good time while doing it. Especially the old librarian had never been seen so excited as she was now.
“Oh, so here you have been this whole time,” the greyish violet mare chuckled happily while riffling through yet another book about crystallography. “I have been looking you everywhere. I should have realized that feather-brained boy just forgot to return his books again. Uuu! But what we have here! This one is not part of library’s collection!”
Naturally the books and jewellery hadn’t been the only things ponies had been avle to find. It had turned out that, just like it had happened with Fire Jasper, the paintings on the walls were an excellent memory triggers to many ponies, which was the main reason behind the cheerful atmosphere (and the royal couples’ stress) inside the chamber. While the working, ponies chattered with each other and compared their new-found memories, checking if they could find any similarities between them and fill the holes the others had.
“Hey! Isn’t this the amulet that Queen Blue Jade always wore during the Crystal Faire?”
“I swear Dough, I used to tutor Princess Cerceta with magic before she moved to Equestria. Just because you can’t remember it, it doesn’t make me a liar.”
“I wonder what happened to my neighbours after Sombra went nuts. They were changelings you know.”
Once again Cadance felt how her muscles unintendedly tensed for a short moment when those shapeshifting bugs were mentioned. It had been disturbing enough to find the face of one of her worst nightmares hanging on the wall in one of her castle’s rooms, but learning also that the Empire had once been her and her people’s home land, just as much as it was home to the crystal ponies... It was almost too much to Cadance’s sanity.
The Princess of Love shook her head slightly to clear her head from the grim thoughts, then make her way to the anteroom where Shining Armor was overseeing the transfer of the chamber’s treasures down the stairs, which were now moving on their own thanks to the spell that Frost Gem and Fire Jasper had found. The cheerful giggles from the staircase made a small smile sneak on Cadance’s muzzle and she was already able to see the future arguments that the maids would end up having when the time to decide who would be allowed to clean the new champers would come.
The alicorn’s eyes found her husband standing next to the painting of the former royal family, talking with one of the many pegasi guards who were helping with carrying the heaviest objects. When Shining noticed Cadance approaching he dismissed the guard, who in turn muttered polite greetings to the princess while passing her.
“How are you doing?” Shining asked and snuggled Cadance when she was next to him.
Cadance smiled at him, pressing a soft kiss against the deepening stress lines on his forehead, knowing it would help her over worrying husband relax at least a little.
“I have been better,” she admitted and glanced towards the frozen faces of her ancestors. “There is just so many things to accept and get used to…”
“I know.”
“They looked so happy…. He looked so happy…”
The white unicorn pulled Cadance closer and gently snuggled her again, letting the mare lean her head against his.
“Shining… What happened to them?”
“Who knows,” the stallion sighed. “Maybe it was a curse? A traumatic experiment? An ugly divorce?”
The last one made the alicorn to give him a blank face, which only brought a weak but amused smile to his muzzle. “What I mean is that ponies can do crazy things and even though their excused might seem stupid to us, to them those might be the most important thing in the world.”
Cadance agreed to his words with sort hum before turning her attention back to the painting in front of them and the prince on it. “I would still want to know…” she sighed. “He is my great-uncle after all.”
The voice Shining let out was some weird mixture of chocked laugh, groan and shocked yelp, making the now giggling Cadance guess that the whole idea had never come to her husband’s mind before she had voiced it.
“Excuse me, your Majesty,” a voice of the old librarian, who had walked behind the royal couple while they had been talking, brought Cadance attention back to the world around her.
“Yes, Mrs. Maresbury?” Cadance asked politely, noticing a nervous, and bit embarrassed, look in the older mare’s eyes as she offered a simple looking leather book to Cadance.
“The boys found this little thing from one of the desk’s drawers and after accidentally hearing a part or two from your discussion, I thought that its contest could interest you.”
Cadance accepted the book, not much larger than average almanac, and opened its cover her eyes full of curiosity and read out a loud the curvy, yet childlike, words written on its cover page.
“Hopefully this will make you stop writing on napkins. Love, Little Duck,”
“Little Duck?” Shining asked, reading the words over Cadance’s shoulder and turned his eyes towards the librarian. “Anyone we should know?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Maresburn chuckled. “That’s just a nickname the royal family used for Princess Cerceta when she was just a little filly. Though, I have heard that Sombra continued use it when it was just two of them.”
The alicorn continued turning the book’s pages full of messy writing; notes dealing with wields of magic, crystallography, biology and combination of them all and much more she was hardly able to understand, stopping occasionally to eye drawings and more diary like excerpts. “So are you saying that this is Sombra’s… journal?”
The greyish violet crystal pony nodded her head. “It seems so. Mages also said it has enlargement spell, meaning that the book has more pages in it than it shows on the surface.”
Cadance nodded her head, remembering seeing notebooks with similar spells on them in the bookstores back in Canterlot. They were useful if you wanted to keep hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of pages between the same covers. The only problem was that sometimes the pages could fuse together making them impossible to read or, if you were lucky, making them explode out of the book causing a terrible mess around the poor owner. Never though she had even imagined that the spell was created so long time ago that it could be found in the Empire.
“Thank you, Mrs. Maresburn. This means a lot to me,” the Crystal Princess said gratefully, then used her magic to teleport the book to her and Shining’s personal chambers.
The old mare just gave Cadance an understanding smile and nodded her head. “I just hope that the old thing has something to ease some worries on your Majesty’s heart.”
“Yes…” Cadance agreed, glancing once again the portrait on the wall -and she was sure she would do the same thing many times more during the following hours- and the ponies it had immortalized. “Me too…”
Many hours later, at the evening of that very same day, Princess Cadance laid on her bed, studying the small book in front of her, turning its pages every now and then with help of her magic. The book hadn’t revealed anything that interesting from the life of the young Prince Sombra, who had apparently been slightly younger than Twilight was now when his sister had given the journal to him as a gift. As she had noted earlier, the writings in the journal were mostly notes about Sombra’s studies, making Cadance believe that he and her sister-in-law would have become great friends if the Crystal King hadn’t turned into… Whatever corrupted creature he had been before his defeat. His specialty seemed to be a crystal related magic and the young prince had clearly spent countless days by studying crystals and trying to improve the spells he had learnt from the mages and books he had been reading.
But Cadance had yet to find even one indication of Sombra’s future fate. Sure, it seemed that Sombra was a bit antisocial and some of his experiments seemed to be a quite dangerous in exploding way, but nothing related to dark magic, which had surrounded the monster Cadance had faced.
And not even once had he mentioned the name of the Changeling Queen.
“Found anything interesting yet?” Shining Armor asked as he entered in their bedroom, clearly tired from the day’s events.
“Not much,” she answered without taking her eyes from the journal pages. “It seems that changelings were indeed part of the Empire, or at least Sombra mentioned in one of his notes how one changeling in the weather team always forgot that he is not able to stand on top of the clouds in his unicorn form.”
The stallion let out a short laugh while he levitated his sash on the edge of the chair where he could easily find it at the morning. “That’s something I would like to see.”
Cadance smiled a bit to Shining s comment. “But how was the rest of your day? Did you manage to finish things in the tower?”
“Mostly yes. There was this one ugly chest that we weren’t able to neither open nor move, but I’m sure that somepony will be able to figure something out tomorrow,” the unicorn told her while he walked towards the window with troubled look in his eyes. “Though I still don’t get why that tower was hidden so well… As far as I know, there was nothing too important or powerful that needed to be hidden from Sombra in there. Of course, there is a change that it was a symbolic act, separating him from the rest of the royal line or something like that, but I still can’t shake of this feeling that I’m missing something.”
Cadance turned to look her husband. “Maybe there is some kind of hidden space under the floor or something similar. That is where I would hide my secrets.”
“Yeah, you are probably right,” Shining admitted with uncertain voice and watched how his wife continued reading, firstly deep in his thoughts but slowly mischievous glint sneaked in his eyes.
“How about I take that,” the stallion suddenly announced, grabbing the journal into the hold of his magical aura and away under Cadance’s muzzle, causing the pink mare let out a surprised yelp.
“Shining! Give that book back right now,” Cadance growled and used her wings to fly-jump towards the stallion who had already danced to the other side of the room, levitating the small book teasingly between him and his wife.
“What book?” he asked innocently while sidestepping to the right, once again saving his catch from the hooves of his beloved wife. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Cadance let out an annoyed huff, her eyes filled with laugher, as she cased the unicorn around their bedroom without even trying to use her own magic to steal the book back.
“Stop. Being. So. Childish,” she growled/giggled between her attacks that Shining always managed either block or avoid a teasing grin on his lips.
“Oh, come on Cady,” he just laughed back. “We both know you are smiling.”
One of the mare’s elegant eyebrows rose as if accepting some unsaid challenge. Suddenly, in the middle of her flight, Cadance turned to press her hooves against the crystal walls of their room and used it to push herself a bit more momentum as she once again speeded towards the book stealing stallion. This time though Shining didn’t even try to avoid the alicorn’s attack. Instead he turned to grab his front hooves around the mare’s waist, pulling them both on the floor where Cadance’s speed caused them to roll across the room and Shining to lose his hold from the book, making it to land somewhere out of their sight.
“You are one big idiot,” Cadance giggle when she was finally recovered from the scare her husband’s sudden stunt had given to her and hugged him tightly.
“I know,” Shining chuckled and gave a soft kiss to the mare laying on his side on the floor. “But I’m your idiot.”
“True,” she hummed lovingly after answering to his kiss with her own.. “And nothing makes me happier than that.”
The married couple spent couple more minutes on the floor kissing and snuggling each other before they got back up from and started make their way towards the bed so both of them could get the rest they desperately needed after day like this. On her way there, Cadance picked up the Sombra’s journal, which had fallen under her dressing table, and let her eyes travel one more time over the open spread. The Princess of Love froze as she noticed a note written on the bottom of the right page with capital letter.
REMEMBER! THE CRYSTAL FAIRE IS TOMORROW! DEBUT OF THE CHANGELING PRINCESS!
Cadance swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, feeling a weird mixture of excitement and anxiety as she turned the next page revealing one of those few longer journal entries that told about The Crystal Prince’s day.
“Cady?” she heard her husband’s voice calling her from somewhere far away.
“His telling how they first met…” the mare whispered with shaking words while her eyes speeded over the words, sucking the information it offered to her like a sponge, somehow without understanding even a single word.
It wasn’t until Shining Armor’s strong hooves took the book from her and the stallion started to walk her towards their shared bed Cadance managed snap herself out from the whatever trance she had fallen in.
“How about I read what Sombra wrote in this old book and you listen?” the stallion offered with understanding tone.
Cadance just nodded her head and laid herself down on the soft sheets, letting her side rest tightly against her husband’s warm body.
After one last act to make sure that his wife had everything okay, Shining cleared his throat and started to read with deep voice….
Crystal Empire
Over a thousand years ago
With annoyed sigh, I tugged my collar and the ascot tie under it, trying to make the cursed thing feel at least slightly more comfortable without any noticeable result. I was already half way considering to open it completely and make breathing much easier when a familiar jade green hoof slapped my leg off my neck.
“What did I said about touching your tie, Sombra,” the Queen simply asked as she started to fix the torturing tool know as a necktie.
“Not to do it,” I sighed, surrendering in my fate while playing staring contest with my reflections who seemed to be even more bored than I was in the crystals of my mother’s headdress.
“Then why you keep playing with it, you big dummy?” Cerceta’s voice chimed in and soon the filly herself appeared from somewhere to stand next to our mother. Since she was still too young to wear the ceremonial headdress – and apparently, the headband pun thingy she usually wore during the Faire was now too childish – my little sister had made the maids to curl her teal mane to corkscrew curls after which it had been pulled to high chignon, making the filly look too much like a young mare to my taste.
“I like when mom does it for me,” I stated trying to bring my words some joking sarcasm, but mother still ended up to pull the tie just slightly too tight to show her disapproval.
“And your mother would like if her firstborn would stop acting like a moody teenager and take the first meeting with his future co-ruler more seriously.”
I mentally flinched to the way how she spoke those words. She was using her “Queen voice”, the same one that made even the most suborn minister feel like they were a school foal under their teacher’s eyes after being caught red-hoofed cheating in exam. To me and Cerceta the voice usually meant that we had done something really stupid, like burned some important papers (usually me) or made half of the castle guards run all around the city after some imaginary thief only so you could steal the captain’s cookies (obviously, that had been Cerceta’s doings).
Still like a total fool, I blurted out probably the worst possible response: “I just can’t see the reason why you are making so big deal out of this, mother. It will take at least decades before even one of us will inherit your thrones, so there is a plenty time for us to learn know each other. Also, I’m quite sure that the old bug has already given the princess a wonderful description how excellent heir I am.”
“Show some respect towards your elders, son,” my father scowled as he entered on the balcony where three of us had been waiting the arrival of the changelings, while the crystal ponies under us gathered around the Crystal Heart, many of them eagerly staring towards the mountains where the hive of our sister race was build. “Especially to those who are in response of ruling the country.”
I just grumbled to him, earning another warning look from my mother before she moved to fix her husband’s sash and vest which had looked perfectly fine to me. She must be more nervous than I had thought, making me regret my precious words slightly and silently promise that I would do my best to welcome the Changeling Princess with respect and kindness that I was expected to show - no matter how much her mother seemed to despise me and my father without any good reason – and hope that she would threat me the same way.
“Have the guards caught any sight of the ‘lings yet?” Cerceta inquired from our father, impatiently sifting her weight from one hoof to another, occasionally glancing towards the mountains.
Dad chuckled softly to my sister’s lack of patience before he awkwardly nodded his head, trying to avoid hitting his chin to the sharp crystals on his wife’s mane. “They just told me that the swarm has flew out of the hive’s doors, so we can expect them to appear here any minute now.”
Those words had barely left from my father’s lips, when an overjoyed shout of young pegasus foal, who had flown on the top of the castle’s highest tower, probably wanting to be the first one to see the arrival of the changelings, wafted in the ears of every single pony and soon we all were able to see the closing black line traveling above the fields between the mountains and the city.
“Here we go,” mother sighed as I took my place from her right side. As magnetize buzz filled the air around us, the Queen turned to give me one last serious look “I hope I can trust you to act as your status demands.”
For a moment, I stared in my mother’s storm blue eyes without giving her answer – my a childish but satisfying revenge to her from tying the necktie too tight – before bowing to her. “Of course, your Majesty.” I promised, purposely using her title so she would know my words were honest and serious.
“Thank you son.”
Soon we were able to discern individual changelings from the black mass tinted by hundreds of shades of blue and green that their manes and tail brought into their swarm. And middle of it all, for the first time in the more than a thousand years, flew two larger figures instead of just one.
The Queen and Princess of the Changelings.
They landed in front of my family, accompanied by traditional flugelhorn fanfare and lowered themselves bow to their fellow royals in which us ponies answered with our own. The shorter of the two changelings was a very familiar face that I saw almost daily while walking through the halls of the castle. The old Queen’s chitin lacked all that natural gloss her subjects had and it seemed to be barely strong enough to support its own weight. Even her mane, which the years had faded into greyish green shade of asparagus, seemed to hung lifelessly on her head, even though it had been almost completely covered under the net full of ball shaped emeralds.
The princess, on the other hoof, was a completely different story. For some weird reason, I had half expected her to look more like her mother, even though some old history books and paintings claimed that the Changeling Queen had once been a true beauty among her kind, just like her daughter was now.
The Princess’ mane was like a waterfall under sparkling sun with its dark cerulean colour. The harlequin shell on her back and almost perfectly black chitin may have been hidden under a semi-transparent silk cloak but it was still easy to see how both were clearly in much better shape than her mother’s duller ones.
But, on my opinion, the best thing in her were the eyes. They were so full of curiosity, wonder, laughter… Nothing like the Changeling Queen calculating and bitter ones. And when she lifted her head from the bow and the smile she offered to me brightened her face, she looked so much like Cerceta that I could not be swearing once again in my mind that I would protect this child’s innocence with my life.
“Greetings, Queen Naiad,” my mother greeted her co-queen with same words as every single year before this one. “We crystal ponies thank you for accepting our invitation to this simple Faire.”
“And I we greet you, Queen Blue Jade,” Queen Naiad answered with her hoarse voice. How the ponies on the ground were able to heard her words was beyond my understanding, but if I had to guess, I would have said she was using some kind of spell. “Shall this be the day when we renew the spirit of love and unity in the Empire so our shared home will be protected from harm for another year.”
After these words the old Queen turned to look at the young nymph on her side, who had been following the two queens’ exchange with acuity of hawk. “Today I have also brought my heir under your gentle eyes, my old friend. If the Crystal Heart recognizes her as the Princess of Changelings, the union between our races shall continue through yet another generation.”
It was weird to hear those words come out from the old Queen’s mouth. A couple years ago, when I had gone through my own Recognition, mother had been the one who had spoken those lines and the Changeling Queen had been the one to answer. I could only imagine what it was like to the over two-thousand-year old changeling who had spent numerous of generations greeting the new princes and princesses of the Empire when they started their travel towards the throne.
So there my mother was now, looking in the eyes of the second changeling princess the Empire had ever seen. “The crystal ponies greet you as well, young one, and are asking the name of the one who has born to share the burden of crown with us?”
The princess stool tall and proud as she responded to my mother’s question. “And I greet you and your people the Queen of Crystal Ponies. Chrysalis is my name, and I swear when my time to rule my people comes, I shall share the throne of the Empire with same respect as my mother has done before me.”
“We have heard your words Princess Chrysalis and thank you for them,” mother smiled then turned to look the ponies on the ground and changelings hovering above them.
“To you, my dear ponies, I say: go and enjoy the Crystal Faire we have built. Embrace our brothers and sisters from the Hive, since they are the ones who gave this land to us to live in. Fill your hearts with happiness and love, because tonight it all will be shared.”
After this, like always, Queen Naiad spoke her own lines. “Go my children and enjoy the Crystal Faire we have been given. Embrace our brothers and sisters outside the Hive, since they are the ones who saved us from eternal winter. Fill your hearts with happiness and love because tonight it all will be shared. And remember, after the Heart has given its infallible judgment, we shall see if Princess Chrysalis is suitable to rule our kind after my era has ended.”
The cheer of thousand ponies and changelings filled the air and the crowd around the castle started to break as everypony rushed to study what the colourful tents had to offer this year.
On the balcony where we stood, I noticed how my sister started “stealthily” inched from the side of our father towards me and the Changeling Princess, who was still staring the laughing citizens of the Empire over the railing, like she was a little filly first time in a candy shop.
And in a way, she probably was.
“Enjoying the view?” I asked causing unintentionally princess to jump before she turned to look me that same exited smile on her muzzle as before.
“Oh, yes,” she almost giggled. “There is so many colours out here and you ponies are so fluffy, not even mentioning the air.”
I could not but smile. It was natural from young changelings who entered in the city for the first time to be a slightly overwhelmed and act a bit hyper because of the colours and the love in the air. Though this was my first time properly talk with “the new one” as they were often called, and I could only imagine how the Crystal Heart would affect to her later at night when the Heart ceremony would take place. “So have I heard.”
The young princess turned her attention back the city below them. “Am I allowed to take part of the Fair or…?”
I shrugged, knowing very well that we only had a moment before my little sister would attack on Princess Chrysalis with dozens of questions and drag the poor nymph to play her favourite games, wanted she it or not. “Usually Cerceta and I take part in some activities before the evening ceremony, so I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same.”
“Are you sure?” the princess asked, the light and hood on her head creating illusion of sparkling eyes (or maybe it was changeling thing) as she looked at me hardly managing to hide the zeal radiating from her.
“Of course we are,” Cerceta chirped, as she speeded past me, stopping to dance just inch away from the older female’s snout. “We will have so much fun. There be magicians, jesters, tons of games and more little stalls full of amazing stuff than you can count and-”
“Don’t you need to breath little one?” Princess Chrysalis giggled interrupting my sister’s otherwise endless torrent of words, and surprisingly leading the filly actually close her muzzle with sheepish smile.
“Princess Chrysalis, this is my younger sister Princess Coração da Cerceta,” I introduced my sister since of course she had forgotten to do it herself, though the filly didn’t seem to approve the use of her whole name. “Cerceta, Princess Chrysalis.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet a fellow princess,” the changeling smiled and shook the blue unicorn’s hoof, making my sister grin once again like an idiot, before she turned to look at me. “And you must be Prince Sombra then, am I right?”
I blinked my eyes a couple times, quickly repeating our discussion inside my head, and mentally hitting myself after realising I had indeed forgotten to introduce myself.
“Actually,” Cerceta smirked like little imp she was, “His whole name is Sombra do- mhph!”
I glared the filly, covering her mouth with my hoof, which she answered with her own glower, before I turned to smile politely at the princess who was clearly holding another flow of giggles as she followed our childish squabble.
“What do you say, princess? Would you like to join us and start going through those games Cerceta so eagerly wanted to show you?” I proposed politely, hoping this would be the only distraction I would need to make both females to forget the whole name thing.
The Princess glanced towards her mother who was having casual sounding conservation with my parents, most likely trying to guess if the old queen would accept her leaving with us. Even though the Queen didn’t seem to notice her daughter’s gaze at all, Princess Chrysalis soon turned to bless us with her beaming smile.
“I would love to.”
Assuming that there had been some sort hive mind talk between the two changeling royalty (an interesting type of passive magic that had hardly been studied outside the Hive), I moved my hoof from covering Cerceta’s muzzle, allowing the excited filly start leading our guest out of the balcony and down there where Faire had just began.
As always, the Crystal Faire turned out to be very colourful and mood lifting event, just like everypony loved it. The numerous little tents were raised to serve as stalls to sell goods, baskets, jewellery and even some high-quality fabrics from Yakyakistan that those few traders making business with the yaks had managed to get on their hooves. Naturally, ponies hadn’t been the only ones who had decided to be part of creating the Faire, even though technically the old writings described it as praise to the race that had let our ancestors to make home in their Motherland and our ruler to stand as equal next to their Queen.
Some changelings had just build their stands in front of their already existing to sell their fine silk and love filled wines, made with ancient techniques that only changelings knew. Then there were sirens: a group of dancing and singing changelings (usually nymphs) who’s each movement was followed by smooth change of their chitins colours making the show look even more mesmerizing than it would have been without this skill. Though some ponies seemed to get headache from it, but foals (and all changelings) loved it never the less.
“So what next?” Princess Chrysalis asked while licking the snow cone Cerceta had insisted her to try despite changelings’ lack of taste buds that allowed us ponies to detect different flavours of what we called food.
My sister looked the stalls around us, luckily still managing to levitate her own bright pink cone in her pearl white aura. “Hmmm… How about jousting?”
“Not going to happen,” I shook my head knowing too well what was she had in mind. “I’m not going to let you to trick me into the arena like last year.”
“Aaaw, come on Sombra. It wasn’t that bad” Cerceta smiled innocently. “One more round and you would have beaten that guard.”
“We clearly remember things quite differently, dear sister,” I huffed, almost feeling once again the pain and humiliation that had greeted me in that day. Half of the guards still refused to let me anywhere near the jousting lances while the other half used the memory as an excuse to make me train more often with them so I could “reclaim my honour” or something like that.
At least Princess Chrysalis seemed to find the idea quite assuming.
“I assume you aren’t one of those drones who enjoys showing their strength in front of female,” she sniggered with teasing glimmer in her eyes. At some point during our wandering through the Faire, the Changeling Princess had lowered the hood of her pale green cloak, breaking the illusion of her being surrounded by sparkling mist but same time letting her see better the area around us.
“I prefer showing my strengths in the fields of magic and mind instead of muscles and metal,” I answered simply, slightly nodding my head towards the cutie mark on my flank.
The changeling glanced curiously the blue crystal spikes, identical colour with the Heart itself, then the twisty pearl necklace on my sister’s flank. “Ah, yes these cutie marks… Isn’t it weird how every pony seems to have one that shows them their true strength while us changelings and yaks of the north have nothing like this to guide our lives.”
“Not as weird as Queen Naiad having a foal at that age she currently is,” Cerceta struggled, once again letting her mouth to speak before thinking.
“Cerceta,” I hissed and hit her with my elbow before turning to apologize from the Princess my sister’s rudeness, but apparently, she had found the whole thing once again to be amusing enough to start laugh. Maybe, for once, love hyper changeling was a good thing.
“Actually, little one, my egg was laid over thousand years ago,” she explained through her giggles, causing my sister’s eyes grow large as plates when she understood what the Changeling Princess’ words meant.
“Changeling Queens traditionally use a certain spell to put their female eggs in “dormancy”, as they like to call it,” I explained to her, quoting the book that one of the mages had recommended me to read a while ago. “This is to ensure that there is only one adult Queen in the Hive at the time, and this way making sure that the events of the Crown Wars won’t recur.”
On my side the changeling raised her eyebrow, making her look much more like her mother, though instead of old Queen’s scorn, her eyes showed something more gentle. “I’m impressed, Prince Sombra,” she praised, and I felt my cheeks grow warm under my fur out of self-pride. “Not many crystal ponies are aware of the pre-Imperial history of the Hive.”
“I’m doing my best,” I bowed her slightly with small smile, enjoying the feeling of my knowledge being recognized by fellow royal.
But there was still something bothering Cerceta, “But what happens if the Queen has more than one foal… I mean egg?” she asked nervously as we arrived next to the ewe pen where a group of little foals were happily playing around the little sheep that had been brought into city from near farms just to their entertainment.
The changeling’s eyes softened as her eyes followed the laughing children, especially little colt with small insect like wings seemed to earn the future queen’s attention.
“As you brother implied earlier, the sons of the Queen are let to hack normally and they will become the members of the Hive just like every other changeling,” Princess Chrysalis finally started to explain, her eyes never leaving the playing foals, as if she was talking about some meaningless topic. “The daughters, on the other hoof, are let sleep in their chamber until their sister’s heir has laid her first egg. After this, it’s the Queen’s duty to free their souls so they can become once again one with the Mother Tree.”
“Wait, so you just kill them!” Cerceta shrieked in horror, earning some unwanted attention from ponies and changelings around us. “But they are just little babies!”
I turned to give apologetic smile towards the crowd, trying to motion them to ignore the two princesses while now confused Princess Chrysalis turned to look my shocked sister.
“I don’t understand why you find this so upsetting, Princess Cerceta. Those eggs are less than couple days old when they are put in dormancy. At that point you can hardly call the developing fetus a baby, let alone living creature.”
“But they could be!” Cerceta argued, small tears starting to form on the corner of her eyes. “They deserve to life just as much as we do!”
Princess Chrysalis shook her head clearly not understanding how Cerceta could see anything wrong in their ancient ways. Once again, I noticed how her eyes stopped for a moment on the half-breed colt, who was now riding away from us on the back of drone who probably was his father. This sight of momentary happiness seemed to be enough to steel the Changeling Princess’ mind and she turned to glare down my sister with new kind of coldness in her voice.
“We are only doing what is best to our Hive,” Princess Chrysalis told my sister in tone that reminded me way too much of her mother. “We are not like you ponies who are willing to follow whoever is strong enough to claim throne to themselves. The Hive need a Queen to rule them, a Queen whose whole body has been created just to protect and take care of those under her care.”
“You know how old my mother is and her age is not that different compared to the others before her. A single Queen can live longer than thousand years. In that time, she can have hundreds of children and dozens of heirs who all have the same drive in their blood to rule the Hive. The drive that will most likely never be filled if they all are let to live. Now imagine if all those dozens of heirs give birth another dozens of heirs of their own. Your simple herd animals’ mind can’t even imagine how much in pain those poor unfortunate souls will be. They will spend their whole lives yearning something they are literally born to do, but never can because on their way is too many of those who are suffering just as much as they are. Letting my aunts and sisters to sleep instead of forcing them to live in pain is more noble and merciful option than the one you seem to find to be the right one, Princess.”
My sister gritted her teeth, her ears falling flat against her head out of anger as she glared the tall nymph through her tear-filled eyes. “That is not mercy. That is-”
“Cerceta please. That’s enough,” I said, placing my hoof on her shoulder. I knew my sister well enough to know that this argument wouldn’t go anywhere. She was way too young and naïve to be able to understand, much less accept, the ideals that didn’t fit in her world view. Maybe later, I could make her understand by explaining how bloody and cruel the Crown Wars had truly been, but now I needed her to stop making a scene in front of our subjects and insulting our sister nation. “Changelings have their own traditions just like we have our own and you need to respect that.”
“But mother always says-”
“Mother knows about the Sleeping Princesses and has accepted their existence, just like you should.” I interrupted her once again, maybe a bit too sternly, because Cerceta slapped my hoof of almost immediately after those words had left from my mouth, now directing her anger towards me instead of Princess Chrysalis.
“I won’t and you are wrong!” Cerceta stomped her leg against the road’s crystal tiles. “Mother can’t know about this! She would never allow this! And I’m going to prove it.” And before I had change to say anything, she had already run off, most likely planning to grill our mother and try make her to agree with her desire to bring “justice” to the Queen Naiad’s sisters and younger daughters.
When Cerceta’s pale teal tail had completely disappeared in between the confused looking ponies and changelings, I turned to voice my apologies to the Princess next to me, which surely was happening a lot today. “She believes that every single life is gift and should be treated as one,” I tried to explain Cerceta’s actions to Princess Chrysalis who was staring over the crowd, most likely still able to follow my sister thanks to her much taller physique. “It doesn’t help that she is at that age when foals think they know everything, yet still failing to realize how little they actually can understand the world around them.”
The nymph sighed and turned to give me a sad smile, “There is no need to apologize your sister’s desire to defend what she believes in, Prince Sombra” she assured to me. “She is still just a child. I should have understood that explain things to her in more… gentler way, instead letting my pride to control my tongue,” she chuckled dryly “No wonder my mother says it will get me into trouble someday.”
“Cerceta will get over it,” I promised to her and started to lead Princess Chrysalis towards the magic related games, which were there mainly for changelings and the unicorn minority of the Empire. Princess was way too kind hearted, even though her earlier lecture had proven that Queen Naiad had managed to rub at least some of her stricter tactics in her heir. “Trust me, you will be her Best Princess Friend Forever again before the week ends.”
Princess Chrysalis raised her right eyebrow, part of her earlier happiness already returning to light her green eyes. “I wasn’t aware of that there are more princesses in the Empire or in its neighbouring kingdoms,”
“Well, technically the current King of Yakyakistan has seven daughters, if I remember right, but in their culture only oldest child has the tittle so currently they don’t have any official princesses,” I babbled, happy to show my knowledge to someone else than the mages and scholars, most of whom were my teachers and more than pleased to correct any mistakes they were able to find in my explanations. “And since the only known nation from south was destroyed by that Chaos Spirit, it’s very unlikely that nopony else than those few refugees who were insane enough to travel across the frozen desert, survived… So yes, there isn’t any known princesses beside you two. But don’t even imagine that it’s going stop my sister calling you that.”
It was a joy to hear that bell like laugh of her to escape from the young princess. It was clear she would grow up to be a great Queen someday – and much more pleasant to work with than her old mother who had been embittered by millenniums she had lived through – but now I just wanted her to enjoy her youth just like every other changeling. Or pony.
“So,” I smirked when we stopped in front of the small stall hosting one of my favourite games where you were supposed to try make large, multi-coloured crystal turn completely in colour of your magical aura as fast as possible. It was a quite tricky task and unlike most ponies believed, it demanded more right tactic than raw power, though the later worked too, in theory giving everypony equal chance to win. “Do you want to try this?”
Princess Chrysalis studied shortly how small brownish red colt with sand yellow mane tried to his best to impress his non-horned companion by managing to make the yellow shades to take over the crystal’s surface in surprisingly steady pace.
“Why not,” the slightly interest nymph agreed, “It doesn’t look that hard.”
“Oh, it isn’t,” I grinned again and paid the drone standing behind the stall the needed two cons. “Though I must warn you, your Highness. In past three years, nopony have been able to broken my personal record in this.”
“True story, my Princess,” the drone with moss coloured mane commented with teasing tone. “Though I would love to finally see somepony to beat this smug colt. It would do miracles to his huge ego.”
I just shook my head to playful taunting of the drone, who I now recognized as Gnat, one of the guild’s lover mages whose job was teach those few unicorn foals who lived in Empire to control their untamed magic. Princess Chrysalis though seemed to take up the challenge seriously, her expression turning blank and eyes burning with determination as she walked in front of the crystal and lighted her saber like horn with its brilliant green aura.
“So, tell me Prince Sombra,” Princess Chrysalis turned to give me one last challenging smirk. “How fast was that unbreakable record of yours?”
In the end, I was able to keep my tittle as the King of the game. Princess Chrysalis magical strength had clearly been above my level, but the nymph hadn’t been familiar with the right tricks nor that trained with crystal magic, causing her to bend the crystal under her will only using raw force. The effort had tired the princess a quite lot and at the time we arrived back to castle and made our way up to the balcony from where we had left many hours earlier the Princess of Changelings was barely able to keep her head high. When we entered, Queen Naiad turned to give me dry and maybe slightly disapproving glare, as if it had been my fault that her daughter was a bit too competitive and ended up to use too much magic at once. Well, technically I had been the one proposing the game and bragged just a little bit about my earlier victories while she had tried to change the crystal’s colour, but otherwise no pony could blame me for Princess Chrysalis’s condition.
Another person who was giving me a cold shoulder was Cerceta. My sister was standing firmly next to our father, refusing even acknowledge our presence when Princess Chrysalis and I took our own places on our respected mothers’ sides. I did notice though that her eyes were slightly red from crying but luckily, she didn’t seem to be that angry anymore, just sulking in way she always did when not getting something she wanted. I still made a mental note though to take small break from my studies and talk with her tomorrow.
Maybe after the lunch would be perfect time…
The Heart ceremony itself went like usually. We send all love in our hearts to the Crystal Heart, strengthening its ancient magic, older than the Empire or even Hive itself.
The legend told that the first changelings born from the Mother Tree herself had found it soon after leaving the Heart of the Mountain in which they would later build their Hive. Even before its discovery, the Crystal had been collecting love of the near creatures, changing it and strengthening its magic, but it wasn’t until the creation of changelings when the Crystal had gained its first purpose. To feed this new race with its collected love who, in following centuries, would learn what the Crystal needed and build their farm full of animals callable of love and compassion around it.
That was how things were a long time until the first pony colony arrived. These unlucky travellers whose furs and eyes held the same shine as the crystals had gotten lost in blizzard and would probably have died if changelings hadn’t found them on time. Since changelings had never seen ponies before, they mistook the travellers just another kind of animals with more love in their hearts than any other species had. Of course, that misunderstanding was later sort out and the two races were able to find a common language and, without place to return, the ponies decided to stay in the safety of the Hive.
Then one day, the unicorn known as Amore had found a way to use crystals to conquer the element and create summer middle of frozen wasteland. Amore had wanted to create more than just a small garden at the foot of the mountain but she hadn’t had crystals to do so. This had lead her asking the changelings’ help and in all her wisdom, the Queen of the Changelings, a mother of the now ruling Queen Naiad, had decided to give Amore the most powerful crystal she had: the Crystal that had fed her people almost a hundred millennia.
Through countless nights and days Amore had worked with the Crystal, changing its already powerful natural magic into something greater, something that was able to create and protect, not just take like it had done before. She even cut the Crystal into shape of a heart so it would show everypony who saw it the source of the Crystal’s power, its purpose and most importantly, its meaning into lives of the two races it was created to protect.
The day Amore finished the Crystal Heart was the same day when the Crystal Empire was born. On that same day, the Queen of the Changelings made Amore her equal, a very first Queen of the Crystal Ponies. It was this very same day when we now, exactly three thousand years later, stood once again around Amore’s creation. Not as allies, nor friends, but as equals. Just like our two Queens then and now.
As symbol of that bond, the Crystal Heart covered the furs of every single pony and chitins of every single changeling with identical crystal like glow, for once making me and my father and many other descendants of ponies from Fallen Kingdom of South shine like those around us.
And when I looked towards the princess I had just met that very same morning, I saw the Crown of the Changeling Princess appear on her forehead, showing to everypony that the Heart had recognized her as Queen Naiad’s heir and the future Queen of the Hive.
And I could do nothing else but smile.
Smile to that childish wonder in her eyes. Smile because of memory of my own Recognition. Smile because of knowledge that this young nymph was now destined to be my most trusted ally. My partner on the shared throne of Empire. My greatest friend.
My equal.