Shining looked at his reflection. It was the real him, not the disguise he wore.
"Your legs are changing faster, and your horn." Cadance nuzzled against the stallion's cheek. "Time to get ready, though. We need to go and visit Twilight and her friends today. Did you send word to the Cakes in Ponyville to get them to make something special?"
Breathing a sigh of relief, Shining nodded. "Of course." The buds of where his wings would grow in itched on his back and he tried to reach up with a hoof to rub them.
"Don't scratch those, Careful said if you damage your wings as they grow in then they won't be usable until after your first full moult." Cadance reached up and gently rubbed the balding patch just between the two wing buds.
Shining practically melted at the attention, falling to his belly before the might of the Empress. "I also booked us the Friendship Express, that should get us there with a little less… fanfare."
"Oh, that will be perfect. Of course She knows we are going, I made sure the old annoyance got a leak. I am sure she will send a small bevy of changelings to try to monitor us." Cadance almost purred, her first steps as a leader had been unsure, but she had taken to the role with much vim.
Chrysalis had her eyes closed and was resting on her little nest. The glorified goop-mound was surprisingly comfortable, just as she remembered Him being.
"Shining Armor, are you awake?" Chrysalis looked down at the mind-controlled pony. She got the slightest of nods from him. "Good, you will relax, this is not going to hurt at all."
"… not going to hurt…" Shining's voice was a monotone as he stared off at the wall. He couldn't think one thing himself right now, his queen had commanded him not to.
"This day is going to be truly perfect, and if it isn't, if just the slightest thing goes wrong… I will not lose you." Chrysalis held up the ball of goop. The stuff would taste terrible, as well she knew, but inside was the smallest drop of the pure essence of a changeling. Poison to normal ponies, with the right flick of magic at the right time it would change from deadly drug to mutagen.
"Here, Shining, this is a nice big… uh, muffin." Chrysalis was briefly at a loss as to what to call it, pony food was not her strong point. What predator ever kept track of the food of its food?
In the green glow of Shining's eyes, the pile of slime on the dark, hole-filled hoof looked like the most delicious thing ever, and his Cady was hoofing it right to his mouth. Shining opened wide and gulped it down whole.
"Perfect, so very perfect." Chrysalis petted the unicorn on the head.
Jerking awake, the changeling queen was angry, she felt tears in the corner of her slitted eyes. "No, it won't do just to send drones. I need to see him. My Shining Armor. My King."
A pillar of flame poured out from Chrysalis, her own magic surging just as mighty as ever. She thought first to assume a pony and infiltrate herself, but there was the problem. All her drones that got near that horrid alicorn just went missing.
She would catch two ponies with one pod.
When the fire receded, a changeling drone stood in the queens place. "Ugh, I feel so small and…" Chrysalis almost spat at how miniscule she felt like this.
"What are you doing in the Queen's Quarters?" Sneaky, the hive's spymaster, had caught his queen in the most perfect of disguises. "Get out of here before she catches you!"
Chrysalis was about to reprimand the drone before her but realized this could be better and better. Not even her own drones would know she had infiltrated the ponies. "My queen gave me orders. I am to join in the infiltration of Ponyville during the royal visit there."
Sneaky raised a non-existent eyebrow. "She did, did she? We will see about this." The drone turned and stormed out of the room.
Dashing over to her desk, what was little more than a pile of goop with some harder goop on top, Chrysalis quickly scrawled a note, explaining her absence. "Perfect."
Trotting out of the room, she felt the smaller body move around her, it wasn't perfect, really, but a clever changeling like herself learned to improvise.
"Yes My Queen!" A half dozen voices chorused out.
"No, I am a princess, not a queen." Cadance was trying again. This little game never went well. "Even when you are in your normal changeling shapes, you must address me as princess, not queen."
"Yes Queen princess!" The voices sounded serious, deadly serious.
"Just princess, please?" Cadance was halfway slumped to the floor.
"Yes Queen Just Princess!"
"Give up, love." Shining leaned in and kissed his wife. "They are too used to their ways. It isn't like anypony is going to see them outside of their disguises. Are they?" The last two words the stallion directed to his fellow changelings. And he did think of them as fellows, there was an odd connection he couldn't fathom. But it was there.
"Yes, My Prince!"
"Just Shining is fine, guys." Shining had a wing draped over him by Cadance as the princess realized that she wasn't the only pony they did this to.
"Yes, Prince Just Shining!" Although this time the perfect synchronization was broken by a tiny giggle at the back of the gaggle of changelings, though none would break ranks and tattle, or so it seemed by their steely resolve.
Shining let his disguise drop in a flow of fire and there were a few gasps now from the changelings and all of them bowed deeply. "My Queen." A few of them murmured the honorific and it appeared to hit Shining right in his ego.
"Guys, please stop playing games." Shining marched over to them and did what he could to get them to stand back up, but as soon as he left one to work on another the first would drop to their belly again. "Oh get up!"
As a group, every drone did and they gazed up at Shining, every blue eye locked on the green mane that now had very little of the blue hair still in it.
"Are you going to behave on this trip or will I have to tell Queen Cadance to leave you all here?" It was an empty threat, they needed the changelings to help root out any more of their kind that would be lurking in Ponyville.
So many fearful little black faces looked up at Shining that he instantly repented his harsh threat and immediately felt like taking the whole group out for ice cream. The stallion shook his head. "Then behave."
"Yes, My Queen!" The voices were strong and united.
Cadance just giggled.