Shining Armor watched on from the edge of his bed, through his bedroom window as the search party left the palace. Snow gently drifted down, landing on the already fogged window. Darkness ruled over the area, aside from a few hastily-made camp-fires with homeless ponies crowded around.
Good luck. You're going to need it.
"What's the matter, Shining?"
Shining looked over his shoulder. Cadance had sat down on the right side bed.
"Nothing. Just watching the search party leave." He pulled his hind-hooves onto the bed, resting his head and upper-back on the large pillow at the head of his bed.
"You seem like something's bothering you." Cadance had a slight frown on her face.
"Just hate to send another group of ponies out there. Doesn't seem as easy to after this."
"You're telling me." She sighed, pulling her hind-hooves onto the bed. "I've had to send dozens away who's been asking to be put into the homeless shelters. They're already overcrowded and it hasn't even been a week."
"Did Princess Celestia send anything back after your letter?"
"She said that she's sending building supplies, food, and water as quickly as she can, thank goodness. We'll have to just give out blankets until they get here and hope it gets here soon.
"Yeah, really. Half the Crystal Guard are either in the hospital or missing. I've been trying to look out for everypony but-- it's overwhelming."
"To say the least." Cadance chuckled, before sighing. "Hopefully this'll all be over soon and everything will be back to normal."
"Yeah. I'm just glad Twilight's here. Hopefully she'll be able to help out, whether it be with my magic or just this whole situation."
"Really."
"Well, it's been a long day. Goodnight, darling." Cadance pulled the covers over her chest.
"Goodnight."
---
"Thank you." Twilight Sparkle held her plate in front of her chest, a crystalline cup filled with hot tea sitting in the middle. She magically picked up the tea and took a sip out of it.
"Of course, your highness. Do you need anything else?"
"No thank you." The servant bowed and exited the room.
Twilight looked around the room, examining the architecture; there was a small, square crystal table in the corner with two chairs(one of which Twilight was sitting in), a average sized bed where the usual wooden frame was made up of crystal(which Spike was sleeping on) with pillows filled with down feathers and a very comfortable mattress, the walls were made of crystal tiles, there was a small window at the far right of the table beside the foot of the bed, a crystal door which led to a private bathroom at the right side of the room, a crystal door at t he front of the room that led into a hall outside to the archives, and the floor was made of shimmering crystal.
Twilight looked out of the window. Night had fallen, and snow was gently falling, landing against the window before quickly melting.
Too bad I over slept. I could've gotten in more research. She sighed. Looks like I'll be staying up in the archives tonight.
Twilight took another sip from the cup and sat it back down on the plate.
I probably need to start studying soon.
She stood, her horn emitting her raspberry magical aura, holding the plate close to her chest as she opened the door.
---
A breath calmly slipped through my lips. Dripping echoed throughout the room.
Horseapples... did something spill? I opened my eyes, only to be met with the darkness of my cell. Right... horseapples.
"About time you woke up." I turned to Lance Force. Her tired eyes shot daggers at me before turning back to Blooming Lily, sound asleep in her fore-hooves.
"Sorry. I thought I'd give you and your sister some alone time and I ended up falling asleep. Was kinda a stressful day for the lot of us." Blooming released a low yawn, before turning her onto her back.
"I guess she's had a long day too?" I chuckled.
"Mmhm. We all have."
"Do you want to get some rest while you can? You must be tired." I'd offer. Lance shook her head immediately.
"Sorry. I can't. I've got to look out for Blooming."
She obviously needs to sleep. Maybe I could try to convince her...
"Well, I-I could look out for your sister." I offered once more.
"Nice try, but do you honestly think I'm going to trust my younger sister with somepony I barely know?" Lance held her Blooming closer.
"Do I really look like the kind of pony who'd hurt a filly, especially after what she just went through?"
"No... not really. I still don't trust you though."
"Fine. Have it your way, then."
CLICK
I looked up at the ceiling, where I thought the sound came from, and saw something was moving from above them.
"Do you hear that?" I'd ask quietly as I looked down at Lance.
"Yeah... shhh..." Lance said as she looked up at the bars. They opened at after a moment.
"Mov- Move away from hole" What I presumed to be a changeling said in surprisingly well Equestrian. He is a changeling...
Lance picked up Blooming and moved her away, to the bottom left corner, before returning to the same spot to she was previously in. I looked over to her in confusion.
What the hay is she planning?
A small, brown object was thrown into the cell, interrupting my view of her for a second.
"Where is that coward you call a leader?!" Lance jumped up towards the bars.
"Lance, don't you- ah!" She immediately fell back, (of course)landing on me. I coughed roughly, the air pushed out of me as her chest landed on my stomach and her head crashed into my chest. Laughter erupted from the hole where the bars formerly were.
"Idiot crystal ponies!" A changeling said through it's laughter.
"Grrr! L-look at who's talking, you overgrown bugs!" Lance pushed herself up off of me, sitting up beside me. A slight blush had spread across her snout and cheeks.
"Ya, ya... here's your food." A brown, loaf-shaped object fell into the middle of the cell, before a large bucket was dropped atop of it, crushing it and sending dark liquid out of it and across the cell, covering my hind-hooves.
THUNK
The bars had fallen back to the hole and locked, sealing our only way out. Lance slammed her fore-hooves against the ground.
"Horsefeathers!"
"Celestia--" I stood, coughing. "Coulda warned me before you tried that."
"Not funny. Those things hurt my sister. I want to beat the hay out of that coward they call a queen." Lance stomped her right fore-hoof against the ground with anger.
"No need to get angry. I get it, trust me." Lance sighed. "What happened, by the way?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you land on me?" I questioned. Lance anger and serious demeanor disappeared almost immediately as the words slipped through my lips. The blush across her cheeks and snout spread to her ears and became brighter.
"I... I didn't realize my wings were chained... at the base" Lance said. Really?
I burst into laughter. How did she notice?!
"Shut it!" Lance punched me in my right shoulder, clearly embarrassed. I rubbed my shoulder.
"All right, all right!" I bit my lip, forcing my laughter down. "What did they drop in here?" I'd say as I got up from my seat on the floor and trotted up to the bucket. The bucket was half-filled with dirty, brown water.
"It looks like water. Dirty water, but water all the same."
"Well, I can see that. Let's see what that other thing was." I'd say as I'd pick up the bucket and set it aside. The brown object had been flattened out and broken apart. I pick up a piece of it and examine it.
"It looks like old bread."
"Is it safe to eat?"
"I don't know. Why are you asking me?"
"Well, you said you were a member of the guard, right? Surely they must've trained you to tell when food's been poisoned or not."
"I said I was a reserves member. It's been ages since I went to training camp. Besides, it's not like I'm an under-cover soldier or whatever-- I'm a miner. And I doubt it was poisoned. Queen Chrysalis has us trapped already. She'd have no reason to poison us. The most I'd say that's bad about it is that it's a bit old and stale."
"Do you realize who you're talking about? If Queen Chrysalis would throw my sister into a place like the one my sister described to us, then what would stop her from poisoning us for the enjoyment of seeing us die?"
"True... horseapples."
Grrrrr
Blooming turned onto her left side as the growling slowed to a stop. She groaned.
"I guess she's hungry too" I chuckled, Lance sighed.
"Well, looks like we're doing this the hard way." Lance said, pulling the bread out of my hooves, halving it, and separating one of the pieces of the bread into two small pieces.
"What are you planning?"
"We're going to eat these." Lance said. What?
"You're kidding me... there's no way I'm- mmph!"
Lance shoved the piece of bread into my mouth as she did the same to her's. I(unfortunately) ended up swallowing it.
"Are you insane?!" My anger and panic got the best of me.
"Nope. Calm down?"
"How am I supposed to calm down when I could've just eaten a poisoned piece of bread, you crazy mare!"
"Exactly; you could've. You don't know for certain whether it was or wasn't. The way I'm looking at it, there's a fifty percent chance that I'm right." Lance sat down beside Blooming. I'm a surprised of how she can look at it like that.
"Buck, buck, buck!" My panic, again, got the better of me.
"Look. Calm. Down. You're going to wake up my sister. She needs the rest more than me." Lance said. I don't know why, bit it made me even more angry. But, I bit my tongue and refused to speak. I trotted back over to the corner of the cell and sat down, grumbling a few curses under my breath.
She didn't think this through... we might be dead.
---
Changelings have been known to take advantage of their unknowing owners by absorbing their love, whether it be from just being around said owner, or by sucking the love out of them through their fangs. Survivors of these attacks say that the experience is one that is not very pleasant(as you readers could imagine).
A cold shiver shot down Twilight's spine as she imagined having the love sucked out of her.
Well, I'm thoroughly frightened now. On to the next chapter.
Twilight flipped the page, ending that chapter and going onto the next.
The Magic of Changelings
Ah. Here we go...
Not much is known about the magic Changelings use. The only magic that is recorded is magical beams to damage their victims' environments. However, there are many theories that their queen is the main source of all magic in their kingdom. Basically, she chooses what spells the changelings use, and that she knows all the spells that changelings know and more. But, readers must remember, these are theories, and there has been little to no experiments to actually prove these theories(due to the risk and danger of Queen Chrysalis and the changelings).
Interesting. I should probably make another note of that. Just in case.
Twilight picked up the quill from the bottle of ink and wrote down another note in her notebook(which she had unknowingly brought with her in her saddlebags). She had come to the library a few minutes ago.
Queen Chrysalis: Leader of the Changelings
Queen Chrysalis is the leader of a now cold and vengeful changeling nation. She has been known to invade different kingdom/governments for her sheer enjoyment of seeing the government collapse and the ponies under that government suffer and die.
I need to find information about her magic. Come on...
She also has been known to take said ponies away from the situation that she has created and bring them to the Changeling Kingdom. Not much is known about what happens to the ponies after she captures them; the main reason being that there has been no filed reports of anypony who has entered the Changeling Kingdom escaping from the queen's clutches. They are presumed either to be killed or to have the love sucked out of them via the changelings or Queen Chrysalis herself.
Nearly nothing is known about the magic Queen Chrysalis uses. Some speculate that she creates her own spells, others said say that she modifies spells from unicorn royalty that she captures. Nopony knows for certain
Perfect...
Twilight sighed as she flipped to the next page, hoping to find something to help her brother.
---
Shining Armor eyes slowly opened. As he looked around his now dark room, he noticed that it was still night. He let out a quiet sigh as he let his head fall back to the pillow and let his eyes close. However, there was a nagging thought at the back of his head.
The search team... I wonder if they found anypony.
Shining opened one of his eyes and looked over at the window. Luna's moon wasn't in sight.
Be patient, Shining... you can't do anything about it.
Shining shut his eye and tried to fall back to sleep.
---
I took a large gulp from the bucket of water, trying to ignore the repulsive taste.
"I don't know how you can drink that stuff." Lance had sat beside her sister and had barely moved from her spot since we had eaten those pieces of bread. I sat the bucket down and ignored her.
"Oh, come on. Look on the bright side-" "There is no bright side. We're trapped in a cell inside one of the most ruthless and evil kingdoms in Equestria, we have no idea what Chrysalis is planning to do, you force fed me a piece of bread that could be poisoned, and it's too bucking dark to see what we're doing in here." I said, interrupting Lance. Clearly, I wasn't feeling it.
"Well, excuse me." Lance looked away from me, frustrated. We both became silent afterwords.
"P-please, stop f-fighting." Blooming said timidly. She had been shook up due to her experience with Queen Chrysalis(as any normal pony would, let alone a filly her age).
"Fine." We said simultaneously . I looked away from her towards the cell wall. Then, I realized something.
"You two want anything to drink?" I asked them as turned to the two sisters, holding the bucket in my right fore-hoof.
"Sure." Lance grabbed bucket and took a big gulp out of it.
"Do you want any, Blooming? It does taste bad, but it's better than nothing." Lance offered to Blooming as she held the bucket in front of Blooming. Blooming nodded and took the bucket out of her hooves, clumsily drinking from it.
"Ew..." Blooming gagged and sat the bucket down in front of me. I picked up the bucket and poured out the remainder of the water.
"What are you planning?
"I noticed that they have a metal ring in the middle of the wood. If I could just..." I trailed off, smashing the bucket into the wall, breaking off some of the wood. I heard Blooming let out a small yelp as I smashed it into the wall a second time.
"Let me guess, you're going to try to use the metal to break off the bars or something?"
"You could say that." I broke off the bottom of the bucket.
"I'm not sure that it'll work, but-" Lance stopped in the middle of her sentence.
"But what?"
"Shh! I think a guard is coming. Hide that somewhere!" Lance whisper-yelled to me. I swiveled my head around the cell quickly, trying to find somewhere to hide the remaining half of the bucket. There were no covers, no beds, nothing I could cover it with. I'd look over to the corner farthest away from the cell door.
It's dark, but I'm not sure it's dark enough to hide it in plain sight to where a guard wouldn't notice.
I'd hear loud hoofsteps approaching the cell and began to panic.
But this is the only place I have the time to put this!
I'd trot over to the corner and prop up the remaining half of the bucket in the corner, hoping to Celestia that they wouldn't notice. I got it done in the nick of time as well, because the cell door opened almost immediately afterwords.
"Out of the cell, crystal ponies."
We did as the changeling told us and were greeted with three other changeling guards. I couldn't see them too well, mainly because now that we were away from what little moonlight I had. The only thing I could see of them were those cold, blue eyes.
---
Shining Armor's eyes opened, only to be greeted by a pink mass.
"Huh..." He said, groggy as he lifted his head and noticed something off. One, his head was resting on Princess Cadance's neck. Two, there were two holes in Cadance's throat that looked like bite marks.
What happened?
Shining wiped his eyes as he looked up at his wife's face, who seemed to be a bit disturbed while she slept. Her coat also seemed a bit darker than it usually was
"Cadance..." Shining whispered, his throat dry. He looked back down at the bite marks. Cadance's eyes tightened for a moment, but she didn't wake up.
What the hay happened?
Shining cautiously rested his head back onto Cadance's head, testing out the angle of his head and the bite marks on Cadance's neck. It almost looked as if he was the one who had caused the bite marks.
There's no way I...
"Mmmm..." Cadance moaned in her sleep and brought her left fore-hoof up to her right eye and wiped something away. Shining quickly, yet gently, rested his back into the crease of her neck and shut his eyes, pretending that he was still asleep.
"Huh, oh..." Cadance giggled. Shining felt a hoof rub his head and heard his wife sigh blissfully. After a few moments of laying silently(and hoping she wouldn't notice the bites), Shining opened his eyes once more and continued his investigation.
There's no way I could've done that. I don't even have fangs!
Shining, confused beyond all belief, quietly got up from the bed and exited the room.
I need to tell Twilight about this.
---
The changeling guards led us through the darkness. I felt their jagged spears stab into my right hind-hoof every few minutes.
They lead into a vast room, just like the first time we were here. The stench in the air and the hundreds of blue eyes around the room made my suspicions rise.
"Queen Chrysalis, the pr'soners are in your presence."
"Good. Leave us." The sound of somepony scurrying away echoed around the room.
"So, have you all learned any manners since your last visit?" My heart skipped a bit as I heard the sound of Queen Chrysalis' voice. Neither I nor Blooming Lily or Lance Force spoke.
"You are to speak when spoken to, do we have this clear? Or do I need to throw you all back into that Tartarus like place?"
"Yes, your highness." I said, trying to sound as brave as I could. But, admittedly, on the inside, I was trembling.
"Good. Now that I know I won't be addressed improperly and will be treated with the respect that I deserve, I may finally be able to address you."
I gulped nervously.
"First off, you are guests in my kingdom, and you should act accordingly. You are to address me as. 'your majesty', 'your highness', 'my queen', somewhere along those lines as long as you're respectful. Secondly, if you're going to survive in my kingdom, then you are going to be obedient in my kingdom. Any attempts of escape will be met with a severe punishment. And finally, if you disrespect me or my subjects, you will not survive here. Have we got this clear?"
"Yes, your highness." Lance said. Her voice came from my left, and she didn't even sound scared.
How is she able to keep her cool like that in front of the leader of the changelings?
"Good. Now, as for that foal... Blooming, was it?"
I felt somepony holding my right fore-hoof as they shivered.
"Y-yes, your highness." Blooming's jittery and jerky breath touched my hoof as she clung to it tightly. She was obviously scared.
"I hope you realize how disrespectful you were yesterday. Hopefully you've learned your lesson, otherwise you may return to that place."
"I-I d-do, your highness. I-I-I've learned my lesson a-and I s-s-sincerely apologize." Blooming's hooves trembled. I allowed her to move closer to me.
"Ah, it does seem like you've learned some etiquette. Good. Now, begone."
The all too familiar pressure of a spear against my hind-hoof pushed me forwards. I feel somepony jerk into my side as Blooming still clung to my hoof, making it a bit difficult to walk.
That went better than the last time.
"Oh, and you crystal ponies. If you didn't think I was onto your plan before, you're all wrong. My servants found the metal ring in your cell and removed it along with some other things."
Horseapples!
---