Prologue 2: royal beginnings
They say being changeling is a death wish, and my Celestia it is true. My name is Praying Mantis, the excommunicated princess of the Chrysalis hive.
I was born like most changelings, which was through the process of being an egg. An egg that hatched around the time of my sister’s egg who was Chrysalis.
Skip to our third birthday our parents died on the way back from negotiations with the regal princess of equestria who was none other than Princess Celestia. If I remember correctly when the guard came back that night from the negotiations, he gave both of us the bad news. That’s when I saw something snap inside my sister’s head, that night when our parents died she had changed. Changed into a monster that wanted to seek the destruction of the pony race, to kill off as many ponies as she can before she dies and passes on the royal crown to the next generation of royal changelings.
For me, it did not bother me that much, true they were our loving parents, but like usual it was just nothing to bother about, the pony who possibly did it only did it to take our money, or to try and start war between the two peaceful nations.
Because I was 30 minutes younger than my sister, Chrysalis took the throne and appointed herself as queen and I as her advisor. And from that day on, my sister planned war. A great big bloody war that would inevitably lead to either the extinction of our race or theirs.
For me I begged of her to change her mind, simply we could work this out with our neighbors and keep the peace between the two nations that have for centuries been at peace. For twenty years I begged and begged, but she would just never listen.
I remember distinctly that on my twenty-second birthday she finally had enough of the constant begging that she demoted me from being an advisor to the lowest rank of spies on her royal court saying that “you run your mouth so much that a spy’s life would be better for you”. I could not believe it, she demoted her own blood sister to such a horrible rank in one of the most notorious spies we have.
This had lasted almost 3 years. It was around the summer time and finally the princess of love was marrying her knight in shining armour, which was Princess Cadence and Shining Armour (oh the Irony, am I right ponies?).
For me my job was simple, and that was infiltrate the royal guards, simple enough it was easy, all you had to really do was knock out a mare royal guard, change into that guard and before she wakes was to drag her to the crystal mines where she had no hope of ever escaping. I did it so well that I accidently killed her by dropping her around 2 kilometers down the shaft.
I could not bare the fact I killed her, she was innocent just like me and yet I killed her in cold hard blood. I knew what I needed to do and that was to, and that was to play it off for the time being, after the wedding and the failed attack I will tell Celestia about the accident and she would hopefully forgive me, right?
Well after the failed invasion of Canterlot and the first defeat of my war mongering sister, the ponies decided, in one big loud voice that it was time for war, a war that would finally bring the corrupted Chrysalis to justice for the un numbered deaths of her royal guards. I remember that day when I heard the cried for war, even though I was still disguised as the mare that I accidently killed, I did what I thought was responsible and went to talk with the regal princess of the sun, that being Princess Celestia. When I stepped into the room she looked at me with a confused face before asking “is there something wrong my guard?”, the only thing I said was yes before changing back into my former self as a changeling, in her face I saw disgust and hatred of what happened at her nephew’s wedding that she stood up and almost attacked me. But before she did, she calmed down not wanting blood all over the royal throne room and asked “why would a changeling show its face when your queen attacked Canterlot on the day of the royal wedding?”.
I could not take it anymore and told her the whole story. The only thing Celestia did was sit and listened to what I said, on her face I saw shock when I told her that I was a princess of the hive before being thrown aside like some scrap of fabric. From this instead of sending me to the dungeons, she told me was “to get out towards ponyville and ask twilight if you can live there for the time being.”. I nodded and changed back into some random mare that never existed and changed my name to Starlight.
And since then I now live in ponyville as an assistant to Mayor Mare and started what i can see as a small relationship with a stallion by the name of Caramel, I just hope he accepts me when he finds out that i am not virgin because most of my spy missions involved me sleeping with high ranking officials during the royal wedding preparations. But i digress, I know he loves me and I love him back so much. But to end on a high note it is nice meeting you guys and I hope you respect what I have gone through.