The smallest things can make the biggest changes in our lives.
A routine medical procedure reveals a previously unknown link between the King of the Changelings and the Prince of the Crystal Empire. With this knowledge now revealed to them both, will they find a way to contend with the change?
Or is it simply easier to keep things the way they are?
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Rated Teen for mentions and discussions of conception and paternity.
Thanks to happytime27 for the pre-read.
My entry in the My Little Pony Renaissance Contest.
Cover Art Borrowed from racingwolf.
Featured From 6-29-2021 to 7-4-2021. Thank you all.
Chapters (3)
Ohhh burn lol love it 🤣
Shining Armor took a deep breath, rolled up the scroll, and returned it to his saddlebag. He gathered himself and looked at her head-on. "Is Thorax my son?"
"Yes." Chrysalis replied with no hesitation.
I did not see that coming and wow that's something dang 😥
Manly
tearsliquid pride was shed while reading this story. Best of luck in the judging.Damn, now we need a sequel involving the lucky mare meeting her future in laws
Oh man that was very revealing here so it looks like yours has been passed ever since the coronation but it looks like Shining Armor need some answers Queen Chrysalis and Twilight and starlight is going to use their magical powers to free her for only a few minutes and that trap her again and with that she is free again Shining Armor ask a few questions about the history giving birth of a changeling and to be honest I didn't know that either but what really draw shining armor from this other question was very shocking that thorax is his son what's that was freaking mind-blowing and I don't know maybe make sense to be honest because he was so much different from the other changelings and Chrysalis thinks that she bested him despite her failure and within all the few minutes she's trapped in the stone once again and now what is shining armor going to do with this information guess we'll find out
Trust me I hated it as well it brings the worst out of people sometimes
Looks like Shining Armor told Princess Cadence about this whole situation and what he also discovered as well she told him to talk to thorax about this whole thing but Shining Armor is worried about how this will affect their relationship but right now all he had to do is to talk to him and see how this will go hopefully for me things will get better hopefully
Oh hey! I recognise this premise from the Fimfic Discord! Congrats on finishing it! :D
That A/N hit harder than expected.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Brilliant story, heartfelt and satisfying. Amazing job.
This one hit, man. A good friend of mine had this exact thing happen to him. He had a night terror, and woke up choking out his wife. They separated for a few months, he went to some in patient PTSD treatment place, and today they're doing fine.
Awwww thats so sweet 😢😭
Edit: did I say something wrong
Wow this was a pretty very interesting story here so Shining armor and thorax finally got the chance to talk to each other after the discovery of the truth what Chrysalis told them sure things couldn't have gone different ways but you know but for what it's worth maybe if it wasn't for that situation thorax will never been born and probably the changeling would have been their enemies still with a lot of Aura surrounding thorax that's why he's a little different from the others which that's a pretty interesting Theory actually which that would make sense but anyway nothing changed between them and I'm kind of glad of how much honey mama is very proud of thorax what he does this was a pretty good story keep up the good work
wow....
I can heavily relate to this...due to my dad and his...decisions in life. THANK YOU for writing this. it was wonderful.
Thorax is really a testament the Shining and Cadance's love and how it was truly Chyrisalis' down fall. I still like the idea that regular changelings can breed on thier own, that the are more pony than but. But this is an interesting alternate take.
This was wonderful. I've always found the idea that Shining fathered a changeling an oddly-compelling tweak; the idea that Thorax could be that changeling just makes so much sense. Especially the way you describe it here, where it's not neccesarily a 100% strictly-biological process.
10882393
It’s honestly funny for me that a lot of my best traits came from my father who was a loathful evil man. You can pick your influences but you can’t pick your family, and despite a very rocky road my mom has led me down a good path
... I'm feeling attacked right now...
Very attacked.
Very intriguing so far! Can't wait to read on!
No. He's not. The Crystal Empire was inherited through Cadance's line. It's matrilineal. Thorax isn't her child, so that couldn't happen.
Really nice. Really sweet. This was a fun, quick read. Be proud of this.
Discord confirmed in season 3 that being turned to stone still leaves you conscious of everything around you.
10882509
For him, maybe.
Ok, 1, I suspected that would be where you were going with this, and 2... Thorax was present at the invasion, and got blasted away alongside the rest of the changelings, so how old was he at that point, and how long had Chrysalis been wearing Cadance's face?
This was a very sweet story! I very much like reading about these themes, and I think you kept everyone very close to their character.
10882509
Jim Miller said on Twitter that it doesn't.
10882442
Me too, but I always favored it being Ocellus.
10882509
Or at least it did for Discord - his magic is entirely different from anyone else's.
10882553
The length of time Chrysalis body-snatched Cadance is entirely up in the air.
There was a line, cut in editing because it seemed clunky, that hinted that Thorax was still very young during the invasion. That it was, in fact, the first time he'd left the nest.
10882476
Yeah, Thorax would be an illegitimate child in this situation, and as such wouldn't be in line for the throne.
Um, no, Cadance is the sitting royal, Shining is the consort. So Thorax would have no claim even if he wanted it since he's Shining's kid, not Cadance's. Flurry is still next in line.
10882509
Discord is Discord. Other characters turned to stone (see: Twilight in S1) don't remember their time in it.
10882720
To be fair, Twilight wasn’t turned to stone the same way as Discord.
This was nice.
Hey you made it to the top of the featured pretty awesome huh
10882509
And before that, he said he doesn't turn ponies to stone. -_-;
10882476
10882705
So very sure of ourselves, are we? We don't know that Cadance inherited the Crystal Empire. In fact, most of what we see strongly suggests she didn't. She is never stated, in either FiM or in any supplementary material, to have any family connection to pre-Sombra Crystal Empire royalty. If you believe the comics and the chapter books, Amore was a unicorn (albeit of great stature) before being petrified and shattered in Sombra's coup, and Cadance was a pegasus before ascending to alicornhood. Pony tribe inheritance isn't so strict as all that, but unicorns tend to produce unicorns and pegasi tend to come from pegasi. Neither Amore nor any other Crystal Empire ruler before Cadance is ever said to have had any children. The Crystal Empire is said to have had a "first queen" who established the Crystal Faire, which implies more queens following on, but these needn't have been her descendants. She might have chosen her successor like Celestia and Luna did,* or the monarch could have been elected like the Princess of the Fall Formal. Cadance seems to have been hailed or acclaimed ruler by the Crystal Empire's people - that is to say she won the throne by dint of popularity (which she won in turn by selflessly protecting the Crystal Empire from Sombra, that is, by being good) rather than by dint of right. And against a monarch who won the throne by dint of a coup, that's more than good enough. Also, given that the Crystal Heart appears on her butt, there's more than a bit of divine providence at work too.
As for Shining Armor's status, we don't know if he's a consort or a co-monarch a la William to Cadance's Mary, or like Celestia and Luna (but see the footnote: Celestia and Luna weren't co-monarchs because they were family, but because they were both alicorns and willing and able to protect Equestria - being family may have had something to do with them both being alicorns, though). It's a perfectly reasonable and even likely guess that he's a consort - he doesn't seem to have been acclaimed by the people like Cadance was, and doesn't seem to participate in events like the Princess Summits or the Grand Equestria Pony Summit even though Cadance does - but the evidence is very thin on the ground. And whatever his status is, we know exactly nil about what it implies as far as the Crystal Empire's inheritance laws go (or again, what, if anything, those inheritance laws have to do with the monarchy). Which is to say, authors can make up whatever they like.
We do know that Flurry Heart is important enough during Twilight's reign as sole princess in Equestria to get her own stained glass window, which also features the Crystal Castle and Crystal Heart, so it stands to reason she takes over the Empire at some point, maybe even inherits it.
But really, the question is moot, because having a claim is not the same thing as pressing one - and pressing a claim against a rival claimant to a throne implies war. But Thorax is notoriously conflict-averse. He needed Ember to help him assert himself against Pharynx and his followers, who were fairly numerous at the time of Triple Threat (they're described as "this renegade group of changelings who still feed off of love") but who were won over between Triple Threat and To Change a Changeling. Pharynx's ideological beef was with his brother's anti-militarism. When all the other world leaders were spoiling for a fight in School Daze, Thorax, Celestia, and Luna were the only ones who held themselves aloof. He's not going to lead the changelings in a march on the Crystal Empire. He got enough of that shit when he was bred for cannon fodder against Canterlot. And because of how changeling reproduction and descent work in this story (no male genetic material is necessary to father children, and descent of all changelings is reckoned through the queen), Thorax's claim would die with him.
* Actually, that's not quite accurate, because Twilight wasn't Celestia's and Luna's successor so much as she was their co-monarch until they abdicated and left her alone in the position, but sussing out the distinction requires examining Equestria's constitution, which is a bit of a mess. That is not a criticism of the worldbuilding, merely a description that can apply to several real-world countries, including, for instance, the United Kingdom, a highly successful state. The Realm of Equestria is, as far as can be determined, the union of Unicornia, Pegasopolis, and Earth, with additional territories annexed after the union, or split off from the original states but remaining under the union. Each state under the union has its own government, with those forms of government being quite eclectic. The princesses incarnate the union of the [major] pony tribes in their persons, and their constitutional role is protection of the realm - government of the realm is something Celestia aggregated to herself over time as a capable statesmare and permanent political fixture, not something inherent to the position. You can see the distinction between Celestia on the one hand and Luna and Twilight on the other between seasons 4 and 7, where only Celestia seems to spend much time on government (Twilight starts taking a bigger role in government beginning in Season 8, and Celestia gives her the reins of government at the end of Season 9). You can think of there being senior and junior princesses, but the distinction is personal rather than constitutional. So is the division of labor with respect to the celestial bodies. The princesses have it because they can handle it (protecting the realm's resource of powerful unicorns from being burnt out on sun-raising duty and freeing those powerful unicorns to devote their talents to other pursuits from which the nation can benefit) and divide the work among themselves based on talent. Celestia could handle the moon, she did so for a thousand years, but Luna has a personal connection to it and is better at it, so she gets it. There can be as many or as few princesses as there are alicorns willing to devote their time to incarnating the union and protecting the realm, and if one is predominant, they are merely the first among equals - the princeps if you will (etymology is fun).
As a royal bastard, Thorax does not have a claim to the throne over a legitimate daughter, at least not in a land where ruling mares are the norm.
10882622
Or, and follow me on this one, Discord is a lying liar who lies, and lied about this to make the ponies feel bad about imprisoning him, and to weaken their resolve to do it again.
Discord claimed to be able to hear what Celestia said while he was petrified, to wit, that the ponies were planning on reforming him and counting on Fluttershy to make it happen. But he could just as easily have guessed these things as heard them. There isn't much of a reason for the ponies to de-petrify him if they don't think he can be reformed, and of the main cast Fluttershy was the only one not susceptible to his mind games.
10883068
Cadance is descended from Amore. She's even the same color. Princesses are rulers in Equestria. Shining Armor was a guard captain before he was a Prince, a title he gained through marriage.
So... yeah. I'm pretty damn confident.
This is a very deep and moving story, and I applaud you for doing such a great job. It was beautiful.
10883068
Cadance was royalty even before she took the throne of the Empire, even if only due to her alicorn status/adoption as Celestia's niece, Shining wasn't(arguments about the Sparkles nobility status aside, it's pretty clear they weren't royalty pre Shining's wedding/Twilight's ascension.) Also it's CADANCE we see sitting on that throne in most trips to the Empire afterwards, while Shining continues in his role as a guard captain.
So yeah, even discounting the word of god connection to Amore, CADANCE is the one providing the royal lineage, meaning Thorax wouldn't be in line for the throne, since aside from being married to his sire, she has no connection to him as far as family lines go.
10883068
TL;DR
10882476
That’s something I actually did notice myself while reading. Thorax is an illegitimate child, so even if he was of the ruling line he would not be the rightful heir which he’s not.
In all fairness to the story, succession wars in history have been fought on weaker claims. Henry Tudor VII of England was only related to the ruling house through a consort’s line when he took the throne and William the Conqueror was also illegitimate.
nice story
but i feel like maybe a sequel detailing the changeling side of things would be great
Fantastic story by the way. Felt very real with regards to the range of emotions Shining was going through related to the reveal and the conclusion. Loved it!
On a lighter note, I find it oddly amusing how House Sparkle, which probably was a regular common house only a mere 20 years prior, is now one of the most powerful dynasties in the world.
Twilight rules Equestria as sole monarch. Her niece is heir to the Crystal Empire. Her nephew is the sole king of the changelings. Now we only need Spike to marry Ember and they nearly rule half the world!!
Great work!
10883471
Careful, or you’re gonna have folks arranging dynastic marriages for Flurry and any of Spike or Thorax or Twilight’s future foals when they grow up with that kind of thinking.
Unfortunately, I cannot relate to this story on a personal level, BUT I can still say that this is one of the best stories I have read in a long time.
10883471
Reminder that Grandpa Gruff is the de facto leader of the griffons and Gabby is (as best evidence we have) one of his wards. And thus theoretically Spike's in on that line of succession, too.
10883882
So what you’re telling me is Twilight has plenty of options with regards to put her relatives on foreign thrones
Twilight has secretly been playing 4d chess while everyone else has been playing Chequers!
Good feelings in this story. Very good feelings. Liked and Faved.