Matthias felt his mind spin around at the complications that could be behind Chrysalis statement. He suspected that the changelings were related to the aqir, the servants of the Old Gods… and Sombra-
“No.” he interrupted his own train of thoughts. “If they were, by some chance, under the control of an Old God, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If they wanted to spy among ponies they would have a lot of better options that this. And besides… with that spirit that possessed him being gone… I’m not even sure that was an Old God.”
Matthias frowned. The more he knew, the more questions he had.
“Why do you think that?” he asked Chrysalis, but she shook her head.
“I have my reasons to believe that. I won’t reveal to you what made me attack Canterlot so easily, Lightbringer.”
He fought to not cringe or sight. Now even changelings were calling him by this name.
“That information, along with others, will be known to you when Equestria agree to this truce.” Chrysalis continued, with a scowl appearing on her face. “I don’t find it easy to admit I’ve been manipulated, in such an odd manner at that. But whoever did that underestimated how infuriated I will be for this!” she stomped the ground with one of her hooves, leaving a deep mark. “I will not let such offense remain unanswered!”
“I can understand that.” Matthias told her, trying to speak soothingly; the last thing he needed right now was for her to lose her temperament. “But if I am to convince the Princesses that you speak truly, I will need something more.”
“Hmph… I suppose I can tell you this:” she replied after a second of hesitation. Leaning closer, Chrysalis said: “You were being watched.”
Matthias raised his brow in now even deeper confusion and tried to ask about details, but the Changeling Queen continued on her own accord, answering his unasked questions.
“My spies noticed something else observing you as well. However, they were unable to discover their identities, as they had to watch out for both them and you to not be discovered.” she paused as a frown crossed her chitin-covered face. “Unfortunately, whoever they were, they finally took notice of my spies. Taking to the account that since then they left Ponyville, it’s safe to assume that this was the same unknown third party that manipulated me and my Swarm into attacking Canterlot.” the frown turned into a scowl, but this time Chrysalis took a blink of an eye to return her face into a neutral expression.
“When was that?” Matthias asked her, trying to take the news in. “When they left Ponyville, I mean. Was that during the time I and my friends traveled to Altomare?” he asked, precisely recalling the evil intent he briefly felt before they left.
“I should have looked into it.” he reproached himself. But he wasn’t sure what this sense he acquired was until the Crystal Empire. Matthias had every intention to find out what was this malice he noticed few days earlier, but after he failed to help Sombra it slipped his mind. “I let my feeling of guilt endanger us.”
“Exactly.” Chrysalis replied to his question; not entirely unexpectedly, she was not surprised that he was right. “Also… they did a bit more than just ‘observe you’... provided that they were observing you, of course. Ponyville has so many ponies worth watching living here, after all.”
The paladin had grinded his teeth. If she was right and the ones targeted were his friends and not him…
“What did you mean when you said that they did a bit more?” Matthias asked.
He was surprised to see her genuinely angry over what those unknown characters did. “I meant that they did something unforgivable.” she hissed. “They used a certain filly as a diversion to get you all out of Ponyville.”
Matthias felt his eyes grow wide while his jaw dropped for a second, and only a second. The next one it was clenched so tightly that some ponies would fear for his teeth. Matthias was bristling with fury he had felt a while ago when he had realized that a changeling was personating Scootaloo.
“Those fiends nearly killed Apple Bloom?!” he hissed. “For what?! Why did they want me away from Ponyville?!”
Why hadn’t he thought about it earlier? Why had everypony assumed the fillies lied to them and went playing into the Everfree Forest? Why hadn’t they brought this subject up again?!
“I honestly have no idea.” Chrysalis replied calmly, taking a sip from her cup of liquid love. “My spy hadn’t actually witnessed this mysterious person infecting little Apple Bloom with spores from the deadly strain of Poison Joke.”
“Then what did that spy of yours witnessed?!”
Chrysalis looked at him coldly before she answered: “Your rage is perfectly understandable, Sir Lightbringer, but I do not like the tone or the volume your voice has taken.” the Changeling Queen said nonchalantly, as she set a lock of her hair behind her ear, giving Matthias time to take the hint and take a few calming breaths. “And as for what my spy had witnessed, he can tell you himself.”
As if on cue, a soft sound of buzzing that could be from changeling’s wings came out from the direction where Chrysalis guards and Nymph flew off to. A changeling, no different from the ones he saw today (although Matthias, thanks to his familiarity with nerubians, could tell them apart by subtle differences, such as size of body, size of muzzle, tone of voice, and so on) landed beside his queen and the pony.
“Lightbringer, this is Ghost Step, one of my Swarm’s best… information gatherers.” Chrysalis introduced the changeling. Matthias gave him a brief nod in greeting. “Ghost, tell him what you reported to me over a month and a half ago.”
“As you wish, my Queen.” Ghost step replied with a bow, and then turned to Matthias. “The night before Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor arrived in Ponyville, I was observing the library where you, Lady Twilight Sparkle and her assistant dragon Spike were sleeping. The two other changelings assigned to Ponyville were located in key points of the town, so they witnessed the figure, cloaked in some magic that made it not only resemble a shadow rather than living being, but also shielded it from our sensing ability. The figure then traveled towards Sweet Apple Acres, and either stayed there until the next day you and your friends came there rushing, or teleported in and out of the location.”
“And what did that ‘figure’ do afterwards?” Matthias asked, recalling what Chrysalis told him.
“When you all split up, some of you going into the Everfree Forest and some staying either at Sweet Apple Acres or moving between it and Ponyville, this unknown character hastened back to town, but we quickly lost sight of him.” Matthias frowned and opened his mouth, but Ghost Step explained: “Our standing orders were to observe you and your friends. Only if we had a direct order from our queen would we concentrated on the shadowed figure and at the time Her Highness was preoccupied and we couldn’t reach her.”
Matthias massaged his temples, trying to somehow put everything together in his head. For some reason, they were being observed, and at one point, they needed them out of town for… what? Logic would indicate that they needed to accomplish something in Ponyville without raising suspicions, but… what could that be? Matthias hadn’t noticed anything different…
“I will need to ask Luna to have her night guards to investigate.” he concluded finally. As much as he wanted to deal with everything personally, he understood that he was still just one pony, and for all his abilities and knowledge, some assignments were best left for specialists.
“I appreciate you sharing this with me…” Matthias started, speaking both to Ghost Step and Chrysalis, but he paused when he glanced at the Changeling Queen.
Her eyes were closed.
“So this sword used to belong to the windigo?” Twilight asked, holding Storm’s blade in her magic’s embrace.
Despite her attempts at questioning Wind Reaver further, the changeling ignored her. Either because he wanted to avoid letting his tongue slipping again and reveal something else, or he was bothered by the fact that the Princesses were going to arrive any minute now. Twilight was a bit bitter about that. She would have loved to learn more about changelings, in contrast to what she thought earlier.
“Those changelings were six years old?” Twilight repeated in her head what Wind Reaver told them about the group that tried to intercept them in Canterlot. “They didn’t seem any different… and if they hatch from eggs, are they also going through metamorphosis? Larva stage? How long do they live?”
But, to her frustration, Wind Reaver remained deaf, at least to her. He was currently in the middle of an argument with Rainbow Dash for some time now. Twilight, who long since lost interest in their boasts and insults, had turned her attention to the sword Storm Clash brought back from Northville.
“Yes, but it was different.” the pegasus replied, his attention shifting from her (with Rarity, Applejack, Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders who were also curious) to the changeling and back, although with the other three paladins keeping a close eye on him Storm could leisurely allow himself to entertain everypony. “It was more curved, and instead of the golden glow it was pale blue.” after a second of hesitation, he added: “Also, the cross-guard was different.”
Twilight nodded absentmindedly, her attention much more focused on the runes engraved on the blade instead of anything else. There wasn’t any magic in them, they’ve seemed to be nothing more than just… words. But she had no idea how to read this writing.
“I thought about giving it a name.” Storm Clash’s voice pulled her out of her musing. “Spring Binder. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a lovely name.” Rarity replied, and Twilight had to look the other way. Not because of Rarity reaction (the lavender unicorn no longer found it that amusing), but due to Storm’s cheek getting redder.
“If we had a rematch, I would have beaten you in ten seconds flat!”
Unfortunately, by doing so Twilight found her attention shifted to the other discussion.
The changeling snorted. “I will have you know that I am considered to be one of the best fighters in entire Swarm.”
“Okay, maybe there is something to be gained from listening to their argument.” Twilight thought, wondering what else was Wind Reaver going to reveal.
“So?” Rainbow Dash countered, not backing down. “And I am the best flyer in whole of Equestria.”
Twilight exchanged glances with Applejack. They both thought the same, but they felt that bringing their pegasi friend back to earth wouldn’t be appropriate, given the company.
“You are faster than me and probably better in the air, I will give you that.” Wind Reaver admitted. “But I am speaking about fighting, not flying around in circles doing stunts.” he snorted again. “Although, your inferiority to me in that term comes less from you lack of skills, and more from your stupidity to not use them.”
“What?!”
“You can do the Sonic Rainboom.” the changeling replied, as if talking to an infant. “If you could figure out how to ‘weaponize’ it, you would have been probably able to stop our attack on Canterlot.”
“Yeah, but to do that, I would have needed to leave my friends to get enough distance!” Rainbow Dash replied, now borderline furious. “I would never leave them surrounded by a bunch of oversized bugs!”
“Um, Rainbow…” Twilight tried to interrupt the argument. Not only because the Princesses could be near, or because Fluttershy was getting scared of their raised voices, or that the ponies guarding Wind Reaver were abashed by this. Twilight just… even though she still found herself hating Chrysalis for what she had done to her, her family and friends, after meeting Wind Reaver and Nymph she found herself… unwilling to think of changeling as ‘oversized bugs’.
But her friend wasn’t listening.
“Of course, I wouldn’t expect a thing that feeds on love to understand this.” she sneered. “Heck, you probably bail on other changelings at the first sign of trouble, abandoning them-”
Buzzing of the changeling’s wings, a black blur and Rainbow Dash’s groan was all that Twilight managed to register in the next second. After it passed, she saw Wind Reaver pinning her cyan friend into the ground several meters away, his right foreleg raised.
Everypony yelled in alarm, and Twilight had a spell at the back of her mind, when the hoof descended… and stopped an inch away Rainbow Dash’s head.
“I suppose I should apologize for Wind Reaver’s outburst.” came from changeling’s lips… but it didn’t sound like it was his voice. Or rather, it was, but he wasn’t the one using it. The distortion in his voice deepened, and now it sounded as if there was a second person... speaking out of sync. “Although, I would like to point out that you ponies are terrible hosts.”
He turned his head away from Rainbow, who was currently gazing at him in shock- and glared at everypony.
With eyes green and pupils oval.
“Chrysalis.” Twilight stated. There were a lot of emotions going through her right now: anger, confusion, fear, curiosity. But she managed to keep her voice calm. “You supposedly send Wind Reaver here to prove that you have no evil intentions. Care to explain what just happened?”
“There is nothing to explain.” Chrysalis spoke through Wind Reaver while she guided his body away from Rainbow Dash. “My subject reacted to an insult and he lost control over himself. He will be punished for disobeying his orders and nearly breaking the word I gave through him, rest assured.”
“That’s all you have to say?” she asked.
“Should I also apologize for those paladins inability to stop him?” Chrysalis replied, Wind Reaver’s face twisting into a smirk. Turning to them, she added: “Don’t feel bad, knights. I wouldn’t have sent here a someling that wouldn’t be able to escape if things would have gone badly.”
“And how exactly are things going right now?” Twilight just about had it with her attitude. Had Matthias were been anywhere but right next to the actual Changeling Queen, she would have some difficulties to not blast her in the face.
“Wait, did she just say ‘someling’? Huh...”
“I would say they are coming along nicely.” she replied. “I think Lightbringer and I will soon wrap up our business over here and he will be on his way back before your Princesses will arrive. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The green eyes disappeared, and once again Twilight saw blue without pupils ones. Wind Reaver shook his head, looking confused for a moment, and then stood still, with paladins and royal guards now all but surrounding him, their weapons in hooves.
Twilight sighed and went along with the rest to help Rainbow up and see if she wasn’t hurt. Soon this whole thing would be over.
Matthias waited patiently for Chrysalis to open her eyes. If Ghost Step was surprised by his understanding of what was going on, he did not show it.
“Contacting Wind Reaver?” the earth pony asked once Chrysalis was fully there again.
“Something along those lines.” she replied with a strange note in her voice, as if mixing smugness with disappointment and… embarrassment?
“‘Along those lines’?”
“More like stopping him from crushing your rainbow-maned friend’s head, to be honest.”
Matthias could have sworn his jaw hit the ground. Beside him, Ghost Step facehoofed.
“Come again?” Matthias asked after a moment of awkward silence.
“You friend provoked him.” Chrysalis explained, now even more embarrassed… and at the same time, somehow still managing to be nonchalant about it. “In hindsight, I will admit that perhaps sending a changeling with a personality so alike to Rainbow Dash and with such issues to your Abbey might have been not the best idea.”
“My Queen, if you would allow me…” Ghost Step began, and when Chrysalis nodded, he continued: “This is exactly why I and the others disagreed with your decision to send Wind Reaver with this mission. His psychologic profile-”
“Are you suggesting I am not aware of a mental state of a changeling?” Chrysalis hissed, making Ghost Step stop at once. “I, of all changelings?”
“I did not mean that.” the male changeling replied, dropping to a knee. “If you took my words as an offense, please forgive me. I just speak out of concern for the Swarm.”
Matthias listened to the exchange with a great interest. Based on it, he could deduct that Ghost Step’s function in the ‘Swarm’ was more important than just ‘information gatherer’; and that while changelings seemed very obedient to Chrysalis, they were not mindless, and had their own ideas. Also, the Changeling Queen had a bit of trust in him to allow the paladin to bear witness to this discussion.
And most importantly, he deducted that there was a psychopath within his Abbey, in close proximity to his friends.
“I know and your opinion is, as always, appreciated.” Chrysalis told Ghost Step. “But I already took decision regarding this matter.”
“Excuse me?” Matthias interrupted. “Mind going back to the part when your messenger attacked one of my friends?”
“Don’t worry; this is not going to repeat.” Chrysalis assured him. Turning to Ghost Step, she said: “You are dismissed.”
The changelings once again bowed to her, then nodded to Matthias and flew off.
“So, an information gatherer?”
“I did not lie, although I admit that he has other duties.” the Changeling Queen replied. “Suffice to say that he is one of my… advisors. On the side note, he was among those who supported the idea of coming here and asking for your help, and through you, trying to make peace with Equestria.”
“I’ll make a mental note.” Matthias said, inwardly feeling a bit impatient about getting to know all the details of a changeling’s social life. “But let’s get back to Wind Reaver; I thought he volunteered for this mission?”
“He did… due to a certain reason.” Chrysalis answered uncomfortably. “I suppose you could say that he has a lot of interest in forming an alliance with Equestria.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have one more condition Equestria will need to fulfill before I will agree to an alliance.” she replied instead. “Other than just having all ponies with authority to be willing to give this a chance, I want prove that you ponies can treat us changelings with compassion, and not as some…” she grimaced, “parasites.”
“I have a feeling that you have something concrete in mind.” Matthias noticed.
“One of my subject…” she hesitated, and Matthias, to his surprise, saw genuine pain in her eyes. “She’s been missing ever since attack on Canterlot. I cannot contact her, cannot feel her… no.” Chrysalis corrected herself. “When I struggle to reach her, I can feel… her terror.” she looked Matthias into eyes. “And absolute fear unlike anything I have known during a millennium. We’ve been searching for her… I think she’s somewhere in Equestria, but it’s been over two months and we haven’t found any trace of her.”
“Perhaps she’s…” Matthias said uncomfortably.
“I would have felt if she died.” Chrysalis cut him off.
“So this is what you want Equestria to do.” he said instead. “Find your missing subject.”
“Yes. I have hope that you, with your resources, will be able to locate her. Especially since she was most likely taken by whoever is working against all of us.”
“They manipulated changelings to attack Canterlot, imprisoned one of them, spied on us, and poisoned Apple Bloom to do something in Ponyville.” Matthias summed up. “Who could be responsible for all of this?”
Unable to find an answer, he asked instead: “This changeling… she’s some- someling important to Wind Reaver, isn’t she.”
“Yes. She was his intended mate.” Chrysalis replied, and once again pain slashed across her face. “Because I let myself be manipulated, one of my subjects became imprisoned, and another is suffering as well.” the pain turned then to scowl. “When I get my hooves on them…”
“I won’t envy them.” Matthias said diplomatically, inwardly thinking that if they were really on somewhere on Equestria’s soil, they would have to stand on trial first. “I suppose I’ve heard everything I need to hear.” he told her instead. Frowning, he added: “Bear in mind, I must still consider the chance that this is all some rouse.”
“Of course.” she replied, smirking. “My kind’s secrecy works against us now. And you should bear in mind that I must suspect you will tell us that Equestria will welcome us with open hooves, only to backstab us later.”
“Considering that, I’m surprised that there isn’t something like an ‘Element of Trust’.” Matthias snorted, earning a chuckle out of her. “For all it’s worth, know that I believe you, and I will do my best to convince the Princesses and everypony else.”
Chrysalis closed her eyes for a moment. “Thank you.” was all she said, and then rose from her seat. Her horn flashed, and the seat, as well as the small table, cup, and the glowing orbs dissolved into the air, becoming a green mist that soon also disappeared… or rather, was absorbed by Chrysalis magic.
A buzz of changelings’ wings once again sounded, and soon a group of nine changelings joined Chrysalis. One Matthias recognized as Ghost Step, and two others as the guards that were with her when Twilight and he came here. Four others also wore the same strange armor as they. Suddenly, green flames surrounded one of the changelings the moment she touched the ground, transforming her into a black unicorn mare with green mane.
“Nymph will be staying with you along with Wind Reaver, as a means of contact with me.” Chrysalis explained. “Also, she will be able to give you information regarding changelings biology and social life.”
Matthias glanced at Nymph, who upon seeing his gaze, looked the other way. She still had green eyes, although now her pupils were normal ones instead of oval, and unlike the filly version of the shape she bore, she now had a cutie mark.
A green amber, shaped into a form of heart.
“Lightbringer.” Chrysalis said, leaning closer. “All of my subjects are dear to me. Do you understand?”
Oh yes, he understood. Because of that, he ignored the pang of pride and bowed before Chrysalis: “I give you my word that I will see to their safety.”
The Changeling Queen rewarded him with a smile, an honest one, for a change. “I’m glad to see I wasn’t mistaken to trust you.” She flexed her wings. “And I’m glad as well that we managed to finish our business before your Princesses arrived.” Chrysalis looked at Nymph, and a strange expression crossed her features. Glancing back at Matthias, she added: “I leave the rest to you.”
Matthias nodded and watched as the group of changelings soared into the sky, quickly disappearing from sight in the darkness of night.