Chapter IV
Twilight was wrapping up her umpteenth reiteration of the cover story for Luna's disappearance, each word tasting like bile as it left her mouth, when a swirling, expanding black vortex tore the fabric of reality asunder and bathed the throne room in ultraviolet light and magical radiation, making the paint peel off the walls and the tiles of the checkered marble floor melt together like squares of chocolate left out in the sun.
She was unaffected, but her subjects, who were frozen with terror as they beheld the profile of the draconic figure taking shape before them, would surely be reduced to crumpled skeletons in puddles of fleshy slag if they stood around much longer. No more than two seconds had elapsed since the vortex appeared and she made her observations, and in no more than three, she had rose to her hooves, teleported all in attendance into the hallway, and sealed the room with a powerful ward, assuring that neither light, sound, nor magic would escape. If the thing before her proved to be hostile, which she had little doubt it would, she needn't hold anything back.
The vortex evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the air so thick with ozone that the flaking paint was starting to brown and bubble around its edges. The figure the vortex had brought into existence hunched over on his eagle claw, lion paw, green-scaled foot, and goat-like knee as if bowing. His tiny wings, one indigo and leathery, the other that of a turquoise pegasus, twitched, unfurled, and gave a few testing, unsynchronized flaps. The white deer's antler and cyan goat's horn that jutted out of his grayish-tan wildebeest head were flanked by a slick black Mohawk that ran down his neck like a fin and abruptly cut off above his lithe brown-furred torso much like the ruby-scaled tail tipped with a prehensile tuft of white hair that snaked out behind him. The overall effect was what might be derived from a blind foal taking the leftover scraps from a doll maker's shop, stitching them together, and cursing the resultant abomination with life.
"What are you?" Twilight asked, though she knew all too well from the moment the perception-skewing effect of the vortex had waned that the creature before her was Discord.
Discord raised his head like a cobra, his posture and long neck making him look almost equine if she blurred her vision enough. He looked at her with his disproportionate yellow eyes and red, pupil-less irises, raised his extraordinarily bushy white eyebrows, and stroked his goatee with his claw before grinning, snapping his talons, back flipping, landing upright on his hind legs, striking a pose like a tap dancer, and asking, "Who, me? Why, I'm a draconequus—a patchwork amalgam of all manner of unsightly creatures and the physical manifestation of Equestria's former chaos and disharmony, brought into existence, appropriately enough, by the cessation of those conditions." He paused. "Now that I think about it, that seems a little long winded, so you can just call me Discord—it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Don't answer that. The real question is," he said, snapping his talons, disappearing in a flash of light, and appearing beside Twilight with his lion arm wreathing her withers before her brain could process what had happened, "who are you?"
Twilight ducked out of his reach, stood with her legs braced and her head lowered in a fighting stance, and said, "I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, bringer of the sun and physical manifestation of Equestria's newfound—"
"Ooh!" Discord cooed, squishing his cheeks between his paw and claw before pointing a talon out the towering window behind him toward the late afternoon sun as it burned its way through the sky and saying, "You mean you're in charge of moving that thing? That sounds like fun!" In another flash, he had his back to her, his paw on the windowsill, and his claw in the air. He snapped his talons, and in an instant, the sun dropped vertically below the horizon and was replaced by the moon as if hoisted to its apex by a pulley. "Haha!" He snapped his talons again, and the sun was back in the sky. He repeated the action several times, announcing each repetition, "Night, day, night, day, night..."
Twilight seethed in silence, her teeth gritted, her eye twitching, and her temple throbbing as she watched him juggle the celestial bodies with blatant disregard for her ward as if doing so were as simple as flipping a switch.
"...Day." Discord twisted his neck away from the window, his body lazily following as he looked at her with a manic glint in his larger eye. "Hey Celestia, what do you think would happen if I—" A bolt of golden magic splashed across his abdomen. He looked down at the petrification magic spreading out from his belly, rolled his eyes, snapped his talons, slowing its progress to a crawl, and sighed, "Really now, Celestia. If you're going to turn me into statuary, you ought to at least give me a chance to pose." He snapped his talons again, materializing a marble pedestal out of thin air, stepped onto the vacant platform, his movements awkward on account of many of his vital organs being petrified, wrapped his tail around the pillar, struck a pose like he was just waking from a nap or perhaps giving an impassioned speech, snapped his talons once again, and yawned just before the wave of magic washed over his face.
While opposed to conflict on principle, Twilight couldn't help feeling cheated by how unceremoniously Celestia had terminated what should have been a very climactic and memorable battle. Twilight sighed internally, canceled the ineffective ward, and called to her unicorn servants, who cautiously stepped back into the room from the windowless hallway and looked around.
The first one froze when her eyes fell on Discord's statue. The second absently stumbled into her, knocking her off balance and eliciting a yelp as they fell to the carpeted floor in a heap. The third sighed, shaking his head, and as the other two pulled themselves to their hooves, asked, "You called, your majesty?"
Twilight nodded to the statue and said, "I've incapacitated the intruder. Put him on display in the castle gardens and have somepony alert me immediately if he shows any signs of autonomous movement. Let the nobles know that I'll be retiring to my quarters for the evening."
"Yes, your majesty," the servants said.
Twilight closed the throne room door behind her and took the long way to the secluded tower that served as her quarters to avoid having to explain what had happened before she had time to fabricate a sufficiently impressive cover story. By the time she arrived, her biological clock told her the time to raise the moon had arrived despite Discord's antics having set the sun back several hours. The sun took its cue and rushed to make up for lost progress as she reached out to the moon and found once again that she couldn't coax it into movement as Luna could. Twilight had to rely on the brute-force method and still have enough energy left to establish a telepathic connection to send the love Luna would need to survive during her thousand-year imprisonment. The connection wasn't strong enough for conscious communication, thus circumventing the issue of the voices, but it allowed them to see fleeting glimpses of each other's memories and mental state.
Through such glimpses, Luna had garnered the knowledge of how the events surrounding her disappearance had come to be misconstrued and how Twilight couldn't afford to challenge the popular conception that Luna had gone mad lest Twilight risk being dethroned and being unable to serve as Luna's lifeline.
Through such glimpses, Twilight knew Luna understood that their predicament was nopony's fault, but the centuries she would spend with only the hive as company would invariably twist her into the monster Equestria thought she was. That was Chrysalis's endgame, Twilight realized. Chrysalis couldn't have Equestria, so she would make it tear itself apart instead.
***
Twilight gazed out the window of her quarters at the gold-and-marble spires of the castle below and the city beyond. She had wondered how her brain would handle a thousand years' worth of memory, but save for a few notable incidents, everything just blurred together. Despite already knowing the future identities of the Element bearers, she had spent the last few decades studying divination magic to discern them and corralling them toward Ponyville, where she sent the Apple family two centuries ago to create a base of operations in close proximity to the Everfree Forest ruins. That Applejack herself would be a bearer was a fortunate coincidence, and though she was currently residing in Manehattan, both Twilight and Celestia knew how that would end.
With the date of Luna's return approaching and the pony to fill the salient role of bearing the Element of Magic having thus far eluded her, however, Celestia feared she would have to either retract her love from her sister and let her starve after having kept her alive for the past thousand years or watch Equestria burn. The choice was simple, but she doubted she'd be able to make it when the time came.
Fortunately, the rainbow explosion that Twilight knew heralded her discovery and induction of herself into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, her decision to take herself on as her personal protege and train herself to become the mare Equestria needed her to be, and the appearance of her and her friends' cutie marks chose that moment to tear across the sky, followed in short order by a flash of lavender magic and a green-spined purple dragon's upper body punching a hole in the roof of the spire where she was taking her entrance exam. Of all the strange experiences Twilight had been privy to during her stay in Celestia's body, meeting herself was one to which not even Celestia could lay claim, but Twilight would have as many years as the memory persisted to grow accustomed to it.
***
Twilight relaxed on a couch in her drawing room, nursed a steaming cup of imported Zebrican rooibos tea, and contemplated the dusty aftertaste while awaiting the arrival of Shining, whom she had invited to introduce his fiance. She heard the aged mahogany doors creak on their brass hinges and looked up, but instead of the white-coated blue-maned unicorn stallion she had expected, a frazzled Luna stood in the doorway. "Greetings, sister," Twilight said pleasantly. "It's a bit past your bedtime, isn't it? Are you here to meet with Cadence as well?"
"You could say that," Luna said, stepping into the room with a stack of official documents floating behind her in a cerulean aura. She closed the doors and tossed the documents onto the coffee table so they spun and slid to a dramatic halt in front of Twilight. "Have a look at what I found in the Canterlot Archives."
Twilight gave her a skeptical glance before lowering her gaze to the documents. The first was a perfectly ordinary report dated from the previous year's census, featuring a color photo of a pink unicorn mare followed by a list of details such as her name, race, sex, cutie mark, mane color, coat color, eye color, birth date, marital status, and residence. Other than the birth date, which was left blank, the report was entirely unremarkable. Twilight looked to Luna questioningly.
"Read the next one," Luna said.
Twilight flipped the page and read the next document. It was another report. This one had a black-and-white picture of the same mare followed by the same list of details. Even the blank birth date was the same. The only differences were the crumbling edges of the yellowed parchment and the census date. This report was filed at the turn of the last century.
Twilight flipped to the next page, and the next, and so on. The ones taken before photography became widespread featured only hasty sketches, but the details that followed confirmed that they were all the same mare. There were ten reports in all. The oldest dated back to a few years after Luna's banishment. Twilight was speechless. Celestia wasn't, "What could it mean?"
"I should think it's obvious," Luna said. "Cadence is—"
A knock on the doors cut her off.
"Come in," Twilight said, stashing the documents beneath the couch.
The doors opened wide to reveal Shining standing beside the same ageless mare from the reports. Bowing, he said, "Greetings, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna, we're honored you decided to join us." He draped a foreleg over the mare, who leaned into him and smiled respectfully at Twilight and Luna. "This is my fiance—"
"Cadence," Luna finished. "Might we have a word with you in private?"
Shining exchanged a glance with Cadence, his face running the gamut from surprise to confusion, caution, and concern.
"It's okay, Shining," Cadence said, her voice betraying her real thoughts on the matter. "I think I know what they want to talk to me about."
Shining went to say something, thought better of it, and backed into the hallway as she stepped into the room.
Cadence smiled reassuringly and waited for him to close the door before turning to Twilight and Luna, who were taken aback first at the unrestrained glee on her face, then at the feeling of her forelegs pulling them both into a hug, and finally at her crying into their manes and saying in a metallic voice they hadn't heard in over a thousand years, "I missed you two so much after you left. When your connections severed, I thought you'd been killed and I'd never see you again, but here you are!"
"Mother?" Luna asked, her voice quavering.
"Yes, my children," Cadence said, dispelling her illusion to reveal her insectoid form, which looked exactly as it had more than a thousand years prior save for the chitin over her neck, which bore two adjacent cavities lined with scar tissue resembling a vicious snake bite. Changeling queens may be unkillable, but some wounds never heal. "After a thousand years apart, we're finally together again, and I couldn't be prouder of how far you and your sister have come."
"Aren't you angry?" Twilight asked. "We turned our backs on the hive."
"Perhaps I would be were I still the queen, but I lost that title to Chrysalis long ago," Cadence said, spitting the name as if it left a vile taste in her mouth. "She severed my connection and sent me into exile, intending for me to die of starvation. I would have had I not realized, as you have, how much more powerful love freely given was. Of course, I still had to learn to earn it."
"Your census reports say you've never been married, but you must have taken on lovers to have survived this long. What makes Shining any different?"
"Well, that's a long story. I actually took this name and appearance from my first lover as a homage of sorts after she died. She lived in solitude far from pony civilization, trying to prove that unicorns could learn to manipulate nature magic better than earth ponies. She had never heard of changelings before, much less seen them before she found me curled up in the roots of a tree that had been upended in a thunderstorm near her cottage. She gave me food and a place to stay, I gave her company, and one thing lead to another. I would have married her, but like I said, she died. I'm not sure what makes Shining different from the others. He's not the first with whom I've wanted to spend my life, but I hope he'll be the last. I guess... I'm just tired of starting over."
"Are you going to turn him into a changeling?"
Cadence's eyes fell, and her ears drooped. "No, not unless he wants. I'll be happy if he does, but if he doesn't, I've lived a long life, and I'll be just as happy to join him in death's embrace. I'd never force the transformation on him. I killed my first lover that way."
"As did I," Twilight said, sniffling. A thousand years had passed, but her last few moments with Platinum were among the few memories still fresh in her mind.
Cadence looked up, her eyes widening in realization. "Oh, my. You poor, poor thing. How have you survived this long without taking on lovers?"
"How do you know I haven't?"
Cadence hazarded a smile. "You're not the only one who reads minds, dear."
"I couldn't live with more blood on my hooves, so what choice did I have?"
"You had more choice than I. Abstaining wasn't an option. I could either take on lovers or starve. Fortunately, with minimal loss of life, I learned to control whether or not I passed on my condition."
Twilight strained a humorless, painful chuckle. "That would have been nice to know a thousand years ago. Maybe you could teach me."
"It's never too late to learn," Cadence said, telepathically imparting the knowledge to Twilight and Luna as Celestia had the memory.
"Thank you, Mother," Luna said. "Perhaps we can return the favor. Call back your disguise, if you would."
Cadence pulled away, closed her eyes, lit her horn, and once again wore the body of a pink unicorn mare. She opened her eyes to find Luna's horn aglow and felt Luna's magic wrap around her like a winter breeze. Whatever Luna had done was over in seconds. Cadence asked, "What did you do?"
"See for yourself, Princess Cadence," Luna said, smiling and gesturing to Cadence's back.
Cadence gave her a funny look before twisting her head around and gasping. Where there had been nothing but her bare coat a moment ago, two pink wings were folded against her back. She extended and flapped them, too busy marveling at how the sensation differed from using her natural wings to be embarrassed that she hadn't noticed such a dramatic change until Luna pointed it out, although that did beg a certain question, "What am I going to tell everypony?"
After a moment's deliberation, Twilight cast another spell on her and said, "From now on, anypony who looks at you and who would remember your old appearance will have their memories altered to believe that you've always looked as you do now. Altering a thousand years of historical records would be too much hassle, but nopony has bothered to check since Luna, so there shouldn't be any issue. Shining will be the test of how well the spell works and whether it needs adjustment, but before we let him back in, there are two more matters we need to discuss. First, since you're royalty now, tradition dictates your wedding and reception will be hosted here at the castle. Is that acceptable?"
"As long as you two can attend, I couldn't care less where they're hosted. What's the second matter?"
"As you know, my sister and I preside over the sun and moon. You'll need to fill a similar niche for ponies to accept you as the third princess."
"Well, I never picked up my first lover's talent for nature magic, but I've had the last thousand years to perfect my inborn love magic."
"From this day forth, Equestria will know you as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza."
***
"Twilight?"
"Mmm," Twilight murmurs, snuggling against the speaker's warm, smooth body.
"It's time to wake up, Twilight."
Twilight reluctantly lifts her head, yawns, and cracks open her eyes to find herself lying atop the pristine white sheets of Celestia's bed and curled up against the chitinous skin of Celestia's side. She blearily looks up into Celestia's dark face and caring eyes and asks, "How long was I out?"
Celestia glances out the window to see the sun dipping below the horizon and says, "A few hours. You lost consciousness when I cast the memory spell, and I thought you'd be more comfortable up here."
Twilight makes no effort to leave Celestia's side. "How can that be?"
"You weren't reliving my past so much as remembering it as if the memory had always been there. A thousand years may have passed from your perspective, but the experience only lasted an instant. The rest of the time was your mind recovering from the shock. I'm sorry you had to see some of the things you did, but perhaps now you'll understand how a creature who feeds on emotion can understand love."
"The rumor that you intend to make me a princess certainly seems a lot more grounded in reality now."
"That's actually why I called you here today."
Twilight blushes scarlet, her tail swishing involuntarily and Celestia's skin against her side suddenly inspiring a very different feeling. Trying in vain to make eye contact, she asks, "It's not a rumor, is it?"
Celestia caresses Twilight's back with her filamentous wing in an attempt to soothe her but stops when it has the opposite effect. "It's a rumor in that I would never force the transformation on you, though I think you're strong enough to handle it, especially since I'd be by your side every step of the way.
"Platinum's suicide is a tragedy I never want to see again. The decision is entirely yours, and even if you were to accept, I presume you wouldn't want to change your friends' memories of you, so significant planning would have to go into framing your transformation in a manner that blurred the connection to its true cause. I merely wish to discuss the possibility. Chrysalis's magic during our confrontation at the royal wedding damaged my ability to maintain my disguise for extended periods of time, so I need to find an heir in case my condition worsens lest I give Equestria's presumptive populace cause to fall into chaos."
"Discord may have reformed," Twilight adds, having regained some of her composure, "but I doubt he'd be able to resist the opportunity."
Celestia nods and continues, "The thousand years of memories we now share coupled with your innate talent for all types of magic makes you an ideal candidate for running the nation, and in time, taking over the cycles of the sun and moon." She lowers her head to eye level with her. "More importantly, I can think of nopony I'd rather take on as my first lover in a thousand years than you, Twilight."
Twilight finds herself unable to look away from Celestia's radiant emerald eyes even as her cheeks burn, her blush returning in full. The complete sincerity in Celestia's expression makes her wonder why she's so embarrassed—perhaps because she never said anything to hint at her feelings for her, always having dismissed them as too unrealistic to be worth pursuing.
"My telepathy and attunement to love, while nothing compared to Cadence's, have made your affection hard to miss," Celestia says as if to answer Twilight's unspoken question. She lifts her head and looks back out the window. "That said, I understand if upon seeing me for what I truly am, you don't feel the same anymore."
Despite reliving a thousand years of Celestia's memories, Twilight will need considerable time to reflect before she's sure of her thoughts. Fortunately, her feelings aren't so complicated. Before she realizes what she's doing, she rises to her hooves, putting herself once again at eye level with her, and leans in to touch her lips to Celestia's cheek in a feather-light kiss.
Vividly remembering how overwhelm the simplest displays of affection could be for Celestia and realizing Celestia must be even more affected than her, Twilight suppresses a giggle at the fluttering in her chest and says, "I'll admit I was uneasy when I first saw you for what you are, as you put it, but now that I can put things in perspective, I can't help finding a certain exotic attractiveness about your natural form, and I'm honored you trusted me enough to expose yourself to me like this."
Twilight traces her hoof down Celestia's neck, eliciting a delightful shiver. She'd normally be too timid to be so sensual, but after all she went through with Celestia, Twilight can't imagine anypony with whom she'd be more comfortable. Twilight whispers, "Beneath your smooth, chitinous exoskeleton, you're still the same Celestia I know and love, and while saying that I wouldn't mind being your lover and possible successor would be an understatement, I won't have my feelings cheapened by a sense of obligation to maintain the masquerade. Other ponies will love you regardless of your outward appearance once they hear your side of the story. Tomorrow morning, you should leave your disguise at the door and hold court as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Ponies will be shocked, confused, and probably afraid, but once they realize you're still you, they'll have questions, and you can answer them."
"I'd worry that they'd reject me outright," Celestia says. "Without their love, I'd wither and die."
"I wouldn't let you," Twilight says.
"Neither would we," Luna says, emerging from the shadows with Cadence.
Cadence takes a moment to settle herself after the unsettling experience of being completely immaterial before continuing, "The question is not whether they'll come around but how much time they'll need."
Luna finishes, "You kept me alive until everypony was ready to accept me again, so I can do the same for you."
Celestia smiles a small, fanged smile as tears well in her reptilian eyes and says, "I love you all so much."
"If you loved us anymore, you'd have none left for yourself," Twilight says, nuzzles Celestia's neck, closes her eyes, and smiles into Celestia's bioluminescent mane as the warmth of Luna and Cadence's wings and forelegs wraps around them.
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Apparently I'm incapable of putting Twilight and Celestia in the same room without shipping them.
2112954
I don't think you'll hear any objections about it though.
Good chapter, Discord was rather... anti-climatic to be honest. Appeared, then stone, with a very very short time passing.
2112954 LOL. As long as this is not the end I don't care what you do.
2113035
I almost forgot to mark it "complete."
2113009
Discord's anti-climactic defeat was intentional, but I admit it was a poor choice story-wise. I even tried to lampshade it.
That is soo HNNNNg!
2113042
Oh, this was the end? Damn.
Well, obligatory remark as to whether you might expand on this idea in the future. Was a nice story.
2113045
I hope that's the good kind of heart attack.
2113047
It's supposed to fit into canon, so you could interpret it as a prequel to Magical Mystery Cure.
2113061 oh don't worry I'm taking plenty of cheeseburgers to make sure it happens again next time I see something so DAWWWWWW!
2113140
In that case, I'd shamelessly self-advocate The Magician and the Fiddler.
That's... it?... Really?... REALLY?!
I... kind'a expected a bit more than just a rewriting of history with Changelings in place of Alicorns... very disappointing, particularly where the tags never really manifested. First, there's no tragedy--a couple sad parts, yes, but the story is no tragedy. Then, there's no romance! Just adding a short exchange of "I'm a Changeling, so I know you love me, but do you want to spend the rest of eternity with me now that you know the truth?" "Yes" at the end does not a romance make!...
2113852 the only thing I wish was that there was a continuation. of sorts. but it is good as it is. however you might just want to switch the tags to alternate universe, and switch cadence for changeling since she is pretty much a back ground character like chrysalis throughout the story.
aw, it's over
was good, but I do want more.
2113966
I rather liked Platinum, myself. That her attraction to Celestia and desire to see her and Luna succeed was the death of her was one of several tragedies. Think of what their success precipitated.
The hive starved for another thousand years, Chrysalis could only retaliate by mentally and physically raping Luna, depriving Celestia of companionship and hoping to play them off one another to destroy Equestria, and Cadence, the former queen, had to move from one lover to the next to survive with no time to grieve.
Perhaps I should write an alternate ending where all three princesses are rejected by their subjects and slowly starve to death in the ruins, the transformation kills Twilight, the Elements are rendered inert, and the ensuing chaos forces the newly freed Discord to relapse into his old ways. Fluttershy tries to reason with him, representing Equestria's last bastion of hope, and he turns her into a sock puppet. Would that slake your thirst for tragedy?
2115651
Hmm. Sarcasm senses... tingling...
Anyway...
"Tragic" happenings do not label a story "Tragedy". A literary tragedy ends--keyword: ends!--on a "down" note, which this does not, therefore "Sad" is a much more appropriate tag. That's what I meant by "the story is no tragedy"; I'm not saying there's "not enough for the tag", I'm saying that the tagging was incorrect.
2115721
For the record, I'm considering writing that just to spite you.
I noticed you were among the first to read In Love and War, which ended in tragedy for at least one main character.
2115801
Ha!
-but actually... I haven't gotten around to finishing that story. I stopped on Chapter V. Always meant to finish it, but other updates buried it
2115886
VI and VII are the best. VIII will feel tacked on unless you realize who's really being shipped.
Twilestia all over this fic!!
images.wikia.com/mlp/images/6/64/FANMADE_YEAH!!!.gif
But i have to agree with Zephyrus Scary, at least in the part that becuase of the tragedy tag i expected Twilight to refuse Celestia and expose her or something. But then again i like it how it is regardless of tags.
But one tragic moment does not make a story a tragedy, like a pun/joke does not make a fic a comedy. Tags are always so complicated to pick though.
But still wonder how Chrysalis and her changeling army survived for a thousand years, i mean the princesses knew about them so i can only assume that they were tyring somehow to keep them off killing their ponies (knowing their methods since they used them too just helping them).
Still just the Twilestia ending is enough for me to like it.
so Twilight becomes a changeling.
it would be interesting to see ponies reactions to her suggestion about Celestia being out with it. and eventually Twilights friends. "so Twi, if the princesses are changelings... and you became a princess..."
2115969
I limit myself to no more or less than two tags, and I chose Tragedy for the second because it fits the overall tone if not the idealistic ending. That said, you two would do well to be careful what you wish for.
2116984
Well i got what i wished for so have to wonder, like said im happy with the ending regardless of the tag being missleading. Like said, a joke does not make a story a comedy. I love happy endings anyway so was unsure about reading this until i saw that the tag is a lie
But just in case your confused, have a quote from the Fimfiction FAQ/Rules
2117102
I prefer the happy ending too, but since I've started down this road, I might as well see it to its conclusion.
2117176
Your story so up to you, Don't plan to read it but good luck regardless if thats how you see it ending.
Excellent writing.
2128152
It's not my best, but it has its redeeming qualities.
2128465 Then I'll make sure I read all your other works as well, hehe.
You know. That's the thing I think makes Changelings an awesome species. It's so easy to come up with new and interesting ways to work them into the continuity and the sometimes awesome changes it makes. This is one of those awesome changes!!!!!!!!
So the hive will corrupt without having talking voices in somepony's head? Also, I am not really seeing a difference in how this would corrupt them, Luna and Celestia were part of a hive before and dealt with it just fine. They were also able to cut themselves off from the hive, what is preventing them from doing that again?
What prevented Chrysalis from having Equestria? Is she incapable of waiting to subdue Celestia when she is weak like she did to Luna?
I am assuming we are saying the Elements somehow informed her.
Sorry to say this, but the "memory alter" spell seems like a bit of a copout.
If it seems like I am being overly critical and skeptic, you can just look to the title you have chosen.
I should've read this ages ago but I was scared away by the combination of a tragedy tag and a title that, given the context, felt more likely to be a harbinger of "bad end" than a Dawkins reference.
My advice regarding tragedy tags is to treat them as meaning "the only ending offered is sad."
Twi's been reading romance novels.
Also, should I be reading the last bit as the prelude to an incestuous, inter-species orgy? Because that's how I'm reading it.
*considers reading the alternate ending then decides 'nah' cause he likes this ending and doesnt wana ruin it*
Awwww wholesome end.