“How did you ever handle it?”
Celestia looked up from the comfy she was drinking, looking over at Cadance as the young mare came up beside her.
“Handle what?”
“……how did you handle carrying that thing?”
“Ah, you are wondering how I handled my daughter Pupa.”
The look the look that came over Cadance’s face then caused Celestia to frown, “and I am also wagering from your expression that you are wondering how I could see her as my daughter.”
“…Ye…yes, I have a hard time seeing it, I mean…their changelings!”
“And they are a beautiful race Cadance, and I cannot believe you would allow your mind to be so poisoned against that truth.”
“But that was over a thousand years ago,” said Cadance, “they’ve changed Celestia, they have become monsters and if you would just…”
“Cadance,” said Luna behind her, “we cannot believe you would speak this way, we thought Celestia taught you better.”
“But…but they….”
“Cadance,” said Celestia softly, “I understand you anger over this, but with the Crystal Empire back the changelings have a chance to redeem themselves, and besides, eventually you ponies will want to trade with them once again.”
“WHAT!”
Celestia sighed, and then twitched, her eyes flashing green for a moment before she turned towards Luna. “Luna, take care of this, I must go.”
“Celestia what just…” started Cadance, only to stop as Celestia left the room, turning to Luna with a questioning gaze. "What was that…why did her eyes…”
“I expect Chrysalis was contacting her, for Celestia has long been connected to the hive mind.”
Cadance actually looked sickened, and Luna knew where her mind was taking her. “Before you vocalize that thought, Celestia would never let her personal feelings for her daughter Pupa or her lover Anthra get in the way of protecting her ponies, and after the attack she spent days going over every one of her memories to make sure she had not missed anything, to make sure she had not heard anything from the hive, which she had not, for in their starved state, the hive had shut her out.”
Cadance continued to look sickened, causing Luna to growl, “Cadance whether you like it or not, your crystal ponies will someday soon come to you asking to let the changelings back into their empire.”
“But why?”
“Because Changelings and Crystal Ponies share a symbiotic relationship, for before the empire was built, Crystal ponies were the ones who provided food for the changelings. Crystal Ponies are as you know fountains of love, and due to this, they can supply infinite amounts of love without repercussions. Also, Crystal ponies are immune to changeling coercion magic, and have an innate sense of when that magic is being used by rogue changelings. On the other half of the coin, in exchange for their love, Changelings grant Crystal ponies the ability to manipulate crystal, and can also grant unique abilities to any others who willingly give their love, how else do you think Celestia was able to move the moon?”
Cadance’s eyes widened, “what…you don’t mean, but that doesn’t make any sense, Twilight was able to move the sun and moon and she…”
“She is the alicorn of magic, and because of that she has a knowing far beyond even ours. It was through the combined efforts of Pupa and Anthra that Celestia was able to call upon the magic to move the moon, and it was changelings years before them who made it so that the unicorns of old could move both the sun and moon before we were allowed to take up our stations. Changelings are more important to the working of the world then you will ever know if you remain blinded so, and they will continue to be so if Twilight agrees to carry the child, so you must learn to accept them.”
Luna then got up, heading for the door before stopping as Cadance spoke up.
“Would you have…have carried it?”
“Without question,” said Luna, “and I would have considered it the highest of honors. Now, I suggest that you return to the Crystal Empire and clear your head, for until you do, you will only be a hindrance here.”
She then turned and left, leaving Cadance alone with her thought, and a hope that the young alicorn would see the darkness that had grown in her heart…before it was too late.
Yay! I need more!! Good job trying to explain how Celestia moved the moon and other stuff!!!
Oh dear lord Cadence don't do it. I know Nightmare powers are tempting but don't you do it!
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Its not the Nightmare one should fear, but that shadows they live in to tempt you
4854541 Words of wisdom right there.
nightmare cadence!
I LOVE this story I kinda freaked out when celestia's eyes flashed green
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twas meant to freak people out, glad it worked.
Kinda got me there when Celestia's eyes went green.
Oh
yayno! Anti-Changeling dark Cadence!!! NoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOk, basically everything up until the end of chapter three has been impossible to relate to. First, the emotional repercussions of holding a baby which was teleported into you and which was designed to induce hormones that trigger motherly instinct is something that people don't deal with, but that's ok since you still have plenty of time to use that as a dramatic focal point while you explain it. What didn't make any sense at all, was any pony actually believing that parasites are a good thing. See, no matter what, the changelings were still a harmful race of parasites which militarily struck the capital and still has reason to attack again. The relationship with the crystal kingdom actually makes sense in cannon, since the kingdom had been missing. The ability to grant magic powers is flawed in that it is OP, made up on the spot as an excuse, and still not well explained, but it's still vague enough that you can make it work. The crystal-pony thing means that ponies were never meant to be the target of the parasites evolutionarily, which means that no pony has to actually believe that being fed on is a good thing. Celestia and flesh-ponies could just understand that the correct targets were missing and now that they are back everyone can live in peace again. This means that celestia understands that her daughter was an abominable freak of nature and a danger but it's ok because there is another way to live with her.
What I am saying is, the emotional appeal you are trying on it's own doesn't work since it's like getting people to love tape worms, but if tape worms were actually supposed to, say, latch on to fruit trees and cause them to grow more fruit instead of eating us and something were preventing that, people would probably be a bit more motivated to help out the tape worms.
4855788
OK, I need to know what other cannon you seem to be coming from, for if you are drawing off of the cannon from the comic books, I have to tell you that cannon is not relevant to this story. Also, if you plan on reading anymore chapters from this point on, you need to drop the notion that they are parasites, because is this story they are not. Yes, they can be harmful to ponies if they are not careful, but only when they are forcing the love out of ponies or overdrawing on their love reserves, like what happened with Shining Armor. Also, if they were parasitic in origin, why would they starve themselves to protect their food source, normally in nature a parasite would not do such a thing.
Also, the ability to grant magical power to those they feed on is not OP, after all, it took the combined efforts of two changeling queens to give Celestia the ability to move the moon, and it took several normal changelings to grant the ability to move the sun and moon to the unicorns of old, so again, not OP. And besides, by that logic Twilight Sparkle is OP by default, due to her talent.
And to reiterate, I already provided a fair enough explanation behind how they coexisted before the attack by Discord, and in fact fought against him when he started wreaking havoc, to their detriment.
Anyways, I hope this clears some of this up, but if you still have problems with the story, I am sorry for that, and if these problems cause you to leave the story, that will be understandable, though I will be sorry to see you go.
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Also one more thing, Everything that I have revealed so far will be elaborated on in later chapters, but till then, like I have said to several people before you, they will have to be left behind a veil of mystery till they can be elaborated on.
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4855128
More will be elaborated on later, but lets just say, due to having to keep her race from expanding beyond feed-able levels, Chrysalis felt that her hooves were tied in terms of asking for help, for she in her mind, their was no help that could be given.
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Twilight sparkle's cutie mark is a magic sparkle/a star/a representation of her friends and herself. It does not mean that twilight can just create new magic powers whenever she wants to, it means that she is very good at learning/preforming magic and being the center of attention, and she will have 6 friends.
It's just kind of hard to imagine changelings having enough power to use their blessings to trade for their food but not having enough power to grant enough new magic all the time that things get chaotic for everyone.
Just the show and your story. The only really important cannon thing I drew on was the fact that the crystal kingdom did not appear until after the wedding events, which i was congratulating you on.
A parasite is "an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense." They literally lay their eggs in other creatures. A parasite does not have to kill you are harm you very much. As a matter of fact, there are a very large number of parasites in everyone. As for protecting your food source, most parasites are not intelligent. The changelings are sapient. they are probably capable of understanding the value of a stable food source and the value of maintaining a good political position. The main argument for them not being parasites is that they are outside of the body, but that would make the show's changelings non-parasites too and it isn't what we meant.
And I acknowledged it? They coexisted by feeding from the crystal ponies.
ANYWAY
the point I was trying to make was that, while no one has any business trying to relate to either a suddenly pregnant alicorn or trying to cheer on a race that has to feed exclusively on other sentient creatures, they DO have business rooting for someone who suddenly lost their livelihood and their place in the world because of chaotic circumstances outside of their control.
I was trying to point out how someone who has been forced to make sacrifices and twist their very senses of self and morality to do things that needed to be done to survive is a very redeemable character who many many people can relate to. After all, we have all lost something. Granted, it's not normally as large as loosing an entire empire which is also your only moral food source, but we can still relate.
As long as you don't try to get us to dislike the ponies who are mad at the changelings for attacking (cough cadence cough), you can totally say that the changelings were desperate and displaced from their place in the world and lost and adrift. See, even though they had to do it to live, they were still attacking. Even if everyone forgave them and everything is fixed and it will never happen again, they still attacked. And even if the attack is rendered irrelevant water under the bridge, that doesn't make it good or right.
So, talk about chrysalis as a person if you wish. Make her nice and kind and relatable and make everyone like her. But do not shame anyone or any character who might hold it against her that she committed at least 5 counts of high treason(kidnapping a princes, holding a princes prisoner, impersonating a princes, attacking a princes, preforming mind altering magic on the captain of the guard) and authorized hundreds of counts of assault.
New point
If we are supposed to be having an emotional reaction about something, but the information which makes that reaction reasonable will not be given until a later chapter, we will not have the reaction until that chapter.
4856994
Ah, I see, I seem to have misinterpreted you comment and I apologies for that. While I may not agree on your point in regards to the parasite thing, we can agree to disagree for the time being. However, you have pointed out something that makes me think you believe I am going to be letting Chrysalis escape any reprimands she would be facing in regards to her attack on Canterlot, so I would like to assure you that will not be the case. Chrysalis plans to pay for her misdeeds, for she is an honorable creature, and she knows there was no honor in what she did.
4856994
You make a vary good point, but I wanted to add a third opinion, here.
If the Crystal ponies are already able to manipulate crystals and Unicorns knew how to move the sun and moon, then the problem isn't 'not being able to' or 'not knowing how to'. It's not having enough power to do it yourself. If the Changelings acted as rechargeable batteries by allowing the Crystal ponies to draw power from them back and forth, then the problem of not having enough power to use said ability is fixed. Changelings get the love they need to survive and the Crystal ponies have a way to draw more power to use abilities they can't on their own.
4857206 That makes scene for the crystal ponies but it does not explain what the author said about the queens teaching celestia, who can definitely do it on her own.
4857047
There is a type of parasite in the ocean -though the name escapes me now- that eats the tongue of a fish and becomes the fishes new tongue, lunging out when the fish tries to eat, grabbing all it can before darting back in. Making it easier for the fish to eat and the parasite to feed off the fish. I'll never forget reading about that, freaked me out.
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I must of missed that.
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Maybe I misunderstood? Time to wait and see.
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Yeah...
didn't say any thing about teaching Celestia how to move the moon, Just giving her enough power to do so.
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It says neither teach nor supply power
it is a mystery
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I thought I just showed it did say "supply power". I think we're misinterpreting what Luna said because of the way she speaks.
4857047
This maybe something you want to clear up in the next chapter, Or right now if you can.
4855788
Gotta agree with you there.
As I see it, the story itself has a neat premise. It's even got its own unique flavor to it. The granting of power kind of bugs me (no pun intended), but I'm going to sit back and see how the author addresses it. The story is not bad, just needs some loose ends fixed to go with something better than the excuse 'because reasons'.
Continue to develope this story! It has a lot of promise!
I hope Cadence loses the battle against the darkness in her heart a couple of times. Would make for some interesting scenarios.
4857351
I will clear it up, in two chapters from now, for we still have to have the discussion with Celestia and Twilight, and then finally Twilight's decision, and from their, things will go a lot smother.
forshadowing?....
A realy good story. I looking forward for the next chapters. I like it when the changelings aren't evil.
Go Luna!
We will make you look like a racist, dammit!
Poor Cadance, they don't even let her finish a sentence. They just keep piling on as if she was the bad guy for not welcoming the creature who stole her life, left her to rot beneath Canterlot, and gloated about it, with open arms.
Also, you should be very quiet about everything, Princess Luna. If memory serves, you did pretty much nothing during the invasion. Stop lecturing your niece when she was the one who saved you sorry hide!
See what I did? This story is exactly like this text above. It messes too much with canon stuff without bothering to justify it. We're expected to accept so many things in so little time. This story is just like constant exposition stream. Onto the next chapter, I guess.
19 weeks late, but who cares if it's rushed? It's good, 'nuff said. Rushed or not, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.
Changelings rule! I like that this story gives them an actual place in the world, an important one at that.
Still, the wedding fiasco was very traumatic, Chryssie and the changelings should do their best to make it up for Cadance and Shining.
you made a common mistake its not their its they're (they are)
That makes sense I like it.
Are we going to have a https://www.fimfiction.net/story/80583/of-princesses-and-changelings incident.