“There's only six of you!”
Stan flinched at the princesses outburst. He could of sworn he saw her eyes go red for a second. “C-calm down, I meant there’s only six of us that are not incapacitated, the rest are either injured or...well, you know.”
“Dead…” Celestia said in a grave tone of voice. She was beginning to understand why it was just him who came. “But what about Chrysalis?”
“She’s...she’s okay, she's just...um…” Stan didn’t want to tell her about the queen, he still didn’t trust her. What if she was just getting information so she could plan an attack. Fear or no fear, he wasn’t going to tell her.
Celestia bent down to eye level. “Please tell me chan- Stan, I need to know if your queen has survived or not.”
“Why, what will you do if she’s dead?” Stan looked both suspicious and scared at her, he was beginning to think that she would have an easier time getting rid of his race if she found out.
“Because I need to know if I can talk to either her or whoever is second in command in your hive.” Celestia continued to look as serious as possible to Stan, making him still shake in fear.
“I honestly don’t-”
“Just tell me you bug!” Stan started seeing her monstrous face again, making him reel back in horror.
Stan’s eyes started going wide again. “O-Okay okay!...She...she’s...she’s so injured that she can’t even move without any help from us.” Stan blurted out before shielding his face with his hooves incase he angered the princess to the point of her taking a bite out of his face.
“So it isn’t possible for her to come here?” Celestia said in a more calming voice.
Stan looked through the hole in his hoof to see she was looking at him with a different, more serious face. “Um..yup..hehe, no way for her to make it...completely immobile. C-can I go now?” Stan put on a smile in hopes she would understand she is currently freaking him out, and that he didn’t want to tell anymore secrets to her.
“But why did she bring you here?” Celestia asked, making Stan’s smile vanish.
Stan sighed and pointed at the paper. “She wanted me to bring you that.”
“This?” Celestia grabbed the paper with her magic and looked at it. “It has nothing on it.”
“It use to, it told everything. I just wish I could’ve read it before I soaked it in a puddle.” Stan looked down on the floor, it was getting really hard to stare at her, the more he staired, the brighter her red eyes got.
“I’m sorry for that, but I must know what it said?” Stan was starting to hate how this mare continued to talk like this. That motherly tone was scaring him more than usual.
“I-I don’t know exactly, b-but I do know that she said it was a treaty.”
“A treaty?” Celestia let go of Stan and looked at the paper, trying to find some source of information about their surrender. “You expect peace?”
Stan flinched. Did he hear that right? “W-what?”
Celestia faced him again. “I asked if your queen wanted peace between my little ponies and her changelings.”
Stan shifted his hooves. “W-well, we...don’t really know what else to do…we..” Stan was starting to back up a bit from Celestia constantly looking at him. Her face was starting to return to that look of pure evil.
“You what? Can’t she find others who can help?” Celestia took a step forward every time Stan took a step back, and with her having longer legs, she was getting closer.
“F-finding help is...hard…” Stan started seeing the red in her eyes again.
“Why didn’t you ask for help the first time, we would’ve given it to you!” Stan started hearing that low voice of her’s again to, it sounded just like his brothers when they did their impressions on her.
“We...we...we were...just…just.” Stan yelp one he felt his flank hit the side of wall, had he really been backing up this quick?
“Or were you just trying to enslave us?” Stan was at the point of cowering in fear with this alicorn walking closer and closer to him.
“We...I...she...us…” Stan and sunk to the floor and Celestia had her shadow looming over Stan.
“Well, we’ll kill you before you even try to-”
“PLEASE DON’T” Stan grabbed her hooves and started crying, making Celestia look down in shock. “D-don’t p-p-please, we didn’t do anything, sure we tried to capture your kind to use as food, and we even put you in a cocoon, and r-r-ruined that captain’s and that other alicorn’s wedding, but you need to understand that we had tohohohohooo.”
Celestia started feeling her hooves get wet from the constant crying. She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. All she asked was why they came here, and why attack, and why they didn’t just ask for food. She opened her mouth to say something, but Stan stiffed snot into his nose and continued talking. “We..we...we weren't even going to attack in the beginning, the plan was to just replace the princess long enough for our queen to get the love that we needed, b-but it was like she changed or some *sniff* something.” Stan hiccuped and continued to cling to Celestia’s feet like a hatchling.
Celestia knew she had to say something to calm him down. She could ask questions later. “W-why did-”
“SHE TURNED EVIL! OKAY!” Stan yelled as Celestia regretted even thinking that. “She said that there was plenty of love to go around.” He said while extending his hoof in the air. “And that if we forgot the plan about sneaking and blending in with the rest of the ponies, than we could have all the love in the world if we went for a full frontal assauhahahhahalt.” Stan made another roar of cries at Celestia’s hooves again.
She tried to think of something, calming him down was the first step to figure this all out, but now it was like she broke him, he wouldn’t let go of her feet, and his constant cries of mercy only made her think that this changeling was...afraid of her.
“Stan…”
“W-we were just following orders…”
“Stan.”
“And...and...and she realized her mistake once we were out.”
“Stan.”
“All we wanted was to live!”
“STAN!” Celestia took hold of him with her magic and brought him to eye level. “Please calm-”
“For queen’s sake DON’T KILL ME!” Stan covered his eyes with his hooves and continued to tremble in fear.
Celestia’s jaw dropped once he said that. “Why would you say something like that? What? Do you think I’m some sort of-”
“Monster.” Stan lowered his hooves to look at her with eyes full of tears. “Y-yeah...I...I do.” Stan looked down in both shame and fear. He was sure that now she was going to-
“So all of this is because you’re...” Celestia looked at him in worry and motioned her hoof for him to answer her.
Stan sighed. “Because I’m...I'm...afraid of you.”
Celestia gave a slight gasp, but Stan ignored that and continued. “You've...you've scared me since I was a hatchling...you...you’ve been in my dreams where you would...try your best to...scare me, or you would just flat out kill me or my friends” He looked down, not wanting to even look at her while he was explaining all of this. “I’ve..I’ve been seeing visions of you throughout this entire journey…I” He looked up at her. “I just hope the stories are not...not…”
Now Stan’s jaw dropped, he had never thought he would see something like this, this was something the others said the white tyrant would never do, something that she would cause only to others. Something that a pony like her can’t do.
She was crying.
Celestia wiped a tear from her eye and held Stan by his sides. “W-where ever did you hear such things little one?”
Stan then remembered just why he was afraid of her. “My...my older siblings, they told me stories about you, how you...killed our kind and ate our bodies and...”
Celestia’s mouth gave a slight wiggle before pulling in Stan for a hug, burying his muzzle in her chest and slightly crushing him while doing so. “I am telling you right now, that I would never do something like that to any creature. I don’t care what you did or what you do. I will never hurt anyone like you.” She closed her eyes and continued her embrace.
“T-that's nice.” Stan grunted. “Now can I...Breathe for a sec?…”
Celestia shot her eyes open and pulled him out from her hug, he let out a gasp of air before she let go of him. “Sorry, I was just...caught up in the moment.” She blushed a bit and looked down at him. “Are you, still afraid of me?”
Stan had to think about that for a second. This alicorn had been haunting him for years, almost every few months he would have a dream of her scaring him, forcing him to sleep with the queen that night, but now he finally understood just why this happened. He knew for a fact his siblings were gonna pay for this.
He looked up at her again. Her face wasn’t scary at all, her teeth weren't sharp, her eyes weren’t glowing red, and she had a smile that didn’t make him afraid, but made him...happy. It was making him smile. So, after a quick laugh, he said. “No, I don’t think I’m scared of you anymore.”
Celestia gave a sigh of relief. “Good, so, now that that's out of the way, can you tell me more about what state your kind is in?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What is taking them so long?”
Carl continued to walk back and forth in front of the double doors, hoping that they would open soon. Shining was also there, tapping his foot impatiently, as for the rest of the guards, they went back to their posts, not wanting to wait for something like this.
“I don’t know changeling.” Shining said, making Carl glare at him in anger, Shining then realized his mistake and said. “I-I mean, Carl.”
Carl just rolled his eyes and continued walking back and forth. “Stan should’ve come out by now, he’s great at talking his way out of things...or was that Sally who did that?”
Shining tilted his head. “Sally?”
Carl stopped in the middle of the doors and faced him. “Yeah, I think it was her who was good at talking out of stuff, like this one time, she talked her way out of doing her chores."
Shining rubbed his chin and smiled. “Pretty talented girl, were you good at anything?”
Carl smiled, he knew that now noling would stop him from telling his story. He leaned against the doors and rubbed one of his hooves on his chest. “Me? Well, how about I tell you from the beginning.” He cleared his throat. “Now, when I was born, I-”
*SLAM*
Carl was then pushed off the doors and went flying past Shining and into the wall. “I’m okay.” He said, sliding down the wall.
Shining cringed and looked back at the doors to see that they were open. With an alicorn and a changeling beside one another. “Princess, Stan. How did it go?”
Celestia smiled. “It went very well,” She looked down at Stan, who smiled back. “me and Stan were able to-”
“Stan? Stan!” Carl turned around to see his friend, who he then tackled and spun him around while hugging him. “Oh. It’s nice to see you again.”
Stan pushed him off while rolling his eye, but with a smile this time. “I was only gone for a few minutes.”
“Try like, half an hour,” Carl nudged. “and the whole time, I thought for sure that changeling chomper would chain ya up and send you back to the cells.”
Stan looked at the princess, who was raising an eyebrow at his friend. Stan laughed nervously and pulled Carl’s ear stem to his mouth. “Um..Carl, you know she’s not a ‘changeling chomper’ right.”
Carl pulled his ear away from Stan, closed his eyes, and waved a hoof in the air. “Yeah yeah, I know. So, what's the news, did you guys talk it out?”
Stan looked at Celestia, who just winked at him and smiled. “You could say that.”
Carl raised an eye and smiled. “Oh...I see, so how was the ‘negotiating?’”
Stan smacked him again. “Not that kind of talking!”
Celestia walked up to them and pulled them in with her wings. “We just talked about how your’s and our kind are now at peace, and that we will be helping the changelings get back to health.”
Carl looked at Stan in confusion. “Wait...you guys are hurt?”
Stan just smiled at him and looked up at Celestia. “Not for long I hope.”
Shining walked up to the three of them. “So...now what. Will you be going back to your hive?”
Stan nodded. “Yup, and I’ll be sure to tell the queen that we’ll be getting help from you guys. Right?”
Celestia nodded and looked at Shining. “Indeed, and I’m sure your team can aid them, correct?”
Shining crossed his hooves and glared at both the changelings. “I don’t know, they destroyed my wedding and their queen practically brainwashed me.” Both Stan and Carl flopped their ears down, thinking this captain still held a grudge, but Shining just smiled and extended a hoof. “But I’m sure they won’t do it ever again, and will make up for the mistake, right?”
Stan and Carl came out of their wing hug and shook his hoof. “You can count on it.” Stan said.
“Well, lets get a move on.” Shining craned his neck to the doors leading outside. “Your queen's waiting.”
Celestia started walking out, Stan was about to do the same, but Carl tugged on him. “Should I stay here? I don’t want the queen to hate me when she sees me, I hate it when others hate me?”
Stan tugged him back and started walking again. “Oh, come on man, I’m sure she won’t hate ya if you come with us. She might even praise you for what you've done.”
Carl tilted his head. “But, what did I do?”
Stan shrugged and put a hoof on the outside door. “You helped me get here, that's enough for an achievement.”
Carl smiled and held his head high. “You're right, and I will help you from here on out. No matter what the danger is, I will be at your side.”
Stan laughed and opened the doors. “Carl please, I don’t think there’s anything else that will...w-w-wi-will….” Stan froze, making Carl curious.
“Uh, Stan, you’re making that face again.” He stepped outside and looked where Stan was looking. “What are you even looking a-a-ahahaaahahaaat…”
Both Stan and Carl went wide eyed as they saw what was next to Shining and Celestia at the bottom of the stairs. It was the most horrifying thing they had ever seen. Both of them had heard of this creature from their older brothers before, how it chewed on bones, how it ripped flesh, how it drank blood. It was the...the-
“Oh Stan, Carl. Nice of you two to finally come out here.” Celestia waved at them and turned toward to what Stan and Carl were looking at. “I’d like you to meet a...friend of mine. His name is Discord. He’s, well...nice when you get to know him.” Celestia smiled nervously while Discord flew up to the changelings.
“Ah, you must be the fresh meat right off the street; name's Discord, recently reformed, so tell me a little bit about yourselves.”
Both Stan and Carl held one another and screamed. “I-its...its..its El Discordtalantilo!" Stan said while pointing at him.
“HIDE YOUR HATCHLINGS!" Carl screamed as they ran back inside, shutting the doors behind them.
The others stood there in amazement once the doors closed. Discord looked at Celestia and shook his head. “You meet the strangest creatures princess. I’m surprised you haven’t scared any of them yet.”