The last changeling queen is in captivity, Equestria is at peace.
Trust. Trust is the foundation of Equestria. The foundation of harmony. Changelings are a threat to that trust. Their lies have already disrupted Equestria. Even now, neighbors watch, waiting for one another to crack and crumble... into a changeling. Their lies have already corrupted my faithful student, Twilight, and through memory magic unknown they have turned her to their side. As a final insult, they even forced her to become a consort to one of their Queens. I hear their lies for what they are when they tell me that they are the last. I know there are hives out in the Badlands, plotting their next move. Before then, we must prepare. Before then, we must wrest my faithful student from their grasp. I can only hope we have time.
This is a direct sequel to "Who needs the sunshine" read that first as this contains spoilers.
"The only time people have the best of intentions is when something goes wrong."
A silence rolled across the Badlands. It stretched over the dunes and wove its way through rocky outcroppings of long-dormant dune crabs. It edged its way around the last part of a noisy carrion feast, as one of the desert's great beasts passed back to the soil from which it came. And it gathered heavy around a figure in the desert, with whom it had been friends for a very long time.
The figure lay in the sand, quietly caught midway between a sobbing breakdown and a coughing fit.
She-no, she did not deserve to even call herself that anymore-It had failed them. It wheezed another gout of blood from its broken chest. It didn't deserve a name anymore. It reached one hoof in front of the other, and attempted to drag itself out of the sandy valley It found itself in.
But like so many times before, It would almost reach the top, and then a rock would slip, and It would tumble down into the valley below. It hated that valley. It hated that valley almost as much as It hated this interminable hell of a desert. Almost as much as It hated Itself.
Its only motivation now was hatred. It would claw its way out of this valley and-
It paused and looked up, as a shadow fell across It. It saw a Nightmare, something from days long past.
"Go away." It rasped at the Nightmare. "You can't help me, nopony can."
"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that," Nightmare Moon said in an oily voice.
It glared up at Nightmare and prepared a retort, but Its words were drowned out by another coughing fit.
"We both know I can't help you with your more... difficult problems," Nightmare said as if her hoof was not suddenly slightly damp. "But I can help you with revenge."
With that, It was listening completely to what Nightmare had to say.
And the silence rolled away across the desert, pierced by the sound of unpleasant laughter.
Twilight was once again in the changeling hive, and this time she was with a group of guards, archeologists and the pony equivalent of anthropologists. In the past week, Twilight had been given an honorary Equestrian medal of honor for taking down a major threat to the safety of Equestria. And then she was shipped here.
The medal had been presented to her by Princess Celestia herself, to a massive gathering in Canterlot, which took place after a more private tear filled reunion with the Princess.
And how the medal burned at her chest when she put it on, like an icy spike driven into her heart. She knew that somewhere, Naudia was in the Castle dungeons, her fate uncertain.
Of course, Celestia had a reason for doing most everything, and the reason for this was so that Twilight could lead an expedition into the changeling hive, in order to find out where the rest of the changeling hives were. She couldn’t know what Twilight knew: that there were no other hives, or even changelings, outside of Canterlot. It ate Twilight up inside, not being able to tell Celestia.
"Uhhh, Ma'am?" came a gruff voice from the side, shaking her out of her reverie. "There is something the head anthropologist thought you would want to see."
Twilight followed the guard through the ornate hallways, upwards, until she reached a wide set of double doors that had green gems inlaid onto them that still glowed faintly green.
She pushed the door open with her magic and gasped. Inside was a throne room that was beyond immaculate, every part of it was perfect. Ornate copper chandeliers hung from the ceiling, each one made from a unique design of changelings in various poses. Columns that held up the roof were elevated from mere structural supports to works of art. Every part of the room directed the eyes upwards, towards the arched ceiling.
Twilight knew that every piece of changeling craftsmanship had a story behind it. Most of them were hidden or lost, but the painting on the ceiling had a very clear meaning.
The ceiling was painted in a fresco of changelings and ponies, presumably the entire history of changelings and ponies. Not an inch of the ceiling was wasted: every painting merged into the next, so that the eyes flowed down the hallway, seeming to be following a story as they were drawn inevitably towards the unfinished end of the hall.
It was horrible.
Crammed into every corner of this fresco was every imaginative thing ponies had done when they caught a changeling. Every injustice conceivable was laid out there. The whole thing turned Twilight's stomach, and the medal she had been awarded weighed on her chest like an anvil.
Trying to look anywhere besides that horrible painting, Twilight's eyes were drawn to the windows. Every one of them was just as monstrous as the fresco above.
Here changelings fought Draco Adamas, battered changelings held the line in gruesome detail. There they fought off sand walkers, bearing down upon wounded changelings huddling together in the sand. And it all just kept going, on and on, every part of the room revealing new horrors for Twilight.
She bolted out of the throne room, tears flowing freely.
----------------
Stakeout was an uncomplicated guard, well suited to his namesake and probably exactly where he should be in the Equestrian guard. His superiors had never considered him for promotion, but that had never bothered him. After all, he had never been ordered to earn a promotion.
He also had a very clear measure of what made a leader, having spent years taking orders from them. And by his measure, Twilight Sparkle didn't have it in her to make a military leader. She just didn't carry herself right, and there was no military composure in her expression.
As to why she was assigned to be his superior, he had no idea. In fact, he was ordered to have no idea: that was heavily classified information. That didn't stop the rumor mill from running around the camp.
He had heard all kinds of rumors about Twilight Sparkle in the last few days. She had converted Nightmare Moon with her gaze, some said. Or that she had burned a hydra to death with pure anger. Out of all of them, the most absurd (and most common) rumor was that she had beaten the changeling queen one on one, and dragged her all the way out of the Badlands on her own, coming out herself with all limbs attached.
Stakeout assumed the bookish librarian had some sort of berserker rage state, so while he may not have trusted her as a leader, he respected her as a ticking time bomb. So, with great trepidation, he attempted to knock on her tent door.
"I want to go home." Twilight said through the canvas tent.
"Uhh," Stakeout said, "I'm not the one who decides that, Ma’am."
"Well then," An angry Twilight said, poking her head out of her tent, "Who is?"
Stakeout flinched back, mentally going over the list of his superiors, which took a second or two, throughout which Twilight glared at him patience growing visibly thin.
"So far as I can make out Ma'am, that would be you..." Stakeout looked around nervously. "Or, perhaps, Princess Celestia."
----------------
Normally, Twilight would just send a letter to the Princess. It was cheap and she felt it was kind of... traditional. But this was military work, and she had access to cutting edge magical communication technology, and that got her a magic mirror. Well, an ordinary mirror with two unicorns channeling magic into it. So instead of showing Twilight in the mirror, there was a faint image of Celestia.
Looking at Celestia, Twilight shuffled her hooves. Unnecessary as she knew this expedition was, she couldn't vocalize those thoughts to Celestia. At the moment, she felt trapped, and guilty. And piled on top of that, was a feeling of failure.
"I can’t take being being inside the changeling hive right now, I... I would like to go home." she said.
----------------
Twilight walked back to her tent even more distraught than before. Celestia had seemed... off. When Twilight had asked to go home, the first thing Celestia asked for was a report of the findings so far. She was not used to the Princess being so callous and ignorant of another's feelings. Indeed, as her student, she found that Celestia often knew Twilight's feelings before she did herself.
Further into the conversation something far more troubling was revealed, something so deeply wrong Twilight couldn't even fully grasp the concept herself.
Celestia was afraid.
Even now, Twilight wanted to believe that it was a trick of the light, her imagination, anything other than what she had seen. But she knew it was there in Celestia's eyes, that one lapse in composure. That had been the most terrifying thing Twilight had ever witnessed.
Twilight crumpled another draft of a letter to Celestia into the trash.
It was nearly half full now. She would have to burn those later.
This is futile, Twilight thought to herself, I can't allay Celestia's fears about changelings, not without telling her the truth.
Twilight threw up her hooves in disgust. She had arrived in the library in the dead of night. Spike was still asleep and so, sleep nipping at her heels, she had attempted to write a letter to Princess Celestia about the changelings.
Absentmindedly, Twilight looked up at the clock, and went back to fail at writing another letter. Seven seconds later, she looked back up at the clock in a sleepy haze. Her sleepy mind clicked its way around, telling her that it indeed was not the afternoon.
"Three thirty!" Twilight exclaimed. Suddenly, she felt a LOT more tired than before.
She looked down at the letter she had been failing to write and decided she could wait to dispose of them, nobody would be digging in her trash anyway.
Passing by on her way to bed, she did not notice a small purple dragon, who had been watching her agonize over the letter for the past five minutes.
"Boy," Spike said to himself, "She really looks like she could use some cheering up."
----------------
Twilight unfolded the newspaper and blearily checked the headline. She was not a morning pony. She was a "stay up until morning studying" pony, so being up in the mornings wasn't her best trait.
Almost immediately after looking at the paper though, she was as awake as if somebody had given her a kick in the ribs.
The front page read, in bold, large-font letters: "Princess Celestia to preside over closed court for Changeling Queen."
A single hair twitched out of place on Twilight's mane.
Twilight Sparkle seismologists would have marked this event as at least a 3.5 on the Smarty scale. And the subsequent events throughout her daily routine would have definitely raised the alert level to "general warning: stay in your homes." Unfortunately, there wasn't any such thing as a Twilight Sparkle seismologist, so she was free to drop her checklist for today and go outside to get some fresh air.
Constituting a 7.0 on the Smarty scale.
Everything is fine, Twilight told herself, I just need to get out of the library, and get my mind off changelings.
Twilight steeled herself and stepped outside the library's front door, and was met with a wonderful day in Ponyville. A perfect 75 degrees, with no chance of rain.
A slight breeze wafted an enticing smell to Twilight, and she finally remembered: today was the Summer Sun Celebration!
The festival was in Ponyville for the second year running. It was all she could do not to squee in excitement. Maybe she could pick up some funnel cake this year!
Most thoughts of changelings forgotten, Twilight trotted off to join the festivities.
----------------
Twilight hit her first snag as she was about to take her first bite of funnel cake, when she saw, off in a corner near one of the tents, two foals playing with some dolls.
Twilight watched in mild horror as a Celestia doll proceeded to defeat and stomp a changeling queen into the dirt. Instantly, she was brought back to the newspaper article from this morning.
I mean even if she made an unjust ruling, ponies would object if she just had Naudia turned to stone. Twilight thought, as she watched one of the foals demonstrate the "amazing magic missile" action feature to launch the doll's horn at the changeling. It wouldn't just be me, would it?
Her demeanor threatening to fall apart as fast as her hair, the noticeably more disheveled looking unicorn walked into a stall without bothering to check what it was first.
Inside she found a nerdy shop filled with models and miniatures. Instantly perking up, Twilight was somewhat more in her element. After all nerds and geeks were... well, to be honest, she wasn't quite clear on the difference, but she knew that she was one of them and at least a metaphorical sister to the other.
She smiled as she looked through the glass at the immaculately detailed figures. Some of them even had period-accurate weapons! And then she saw the razor in the candy floss: interspersed throughout the display were figurines of changelings. Every one of them was painted up to be as evil looking as possible.
One could almost hear the twang of her nerves as paranoia reached a new relative peak. Twilight turned to a comic rack, thoughts racing.
What if I'm asked to testify against Naudia? What if I'm outed as a changeling sympathizer when that happens? What if- Twilight bit her lip, trying to stifle the thought before it could even fully form, but it was inevitable now. What if Celestia lets her prejudices get in the way as the judge?
But even the comic rack failed to remain unaffected by recent events and Twilight found herself staring at "The Fight of the Century!!! Power Ponies Vs. The Changeling Swarm!" On the cover, a costumed version of herself faced down a fierce looking changeling queen.
Twilight fled the fair, looking much more disheveled than she did coming into it.
And in a small secluded room in Canterlot Castle, the official Smarty Pants Seismometer peaked at a never-before-seen 9.3.
"Everything is OK. Everything is OK." Twilight muttered to herself frantically.
I just need a snack, Twilight thought, I never did finish that funnel cake, my blood sugar must be out of whack.
Twilight didn't notice everypony on the street giving her a wide berth, as ponies do to things that twitch and mutter to themselves. She was far too busy trying to stay together to notice the market stall frantically being packed up to get out of her way, or the crowd of foals hurried away by Cheerilee peering around the teacher to see if Twilight would explode right then and there.
Coming up on Sugarcube Corner at that moment was a blessing for Twilight. The curtains were drawn, and it looked a little dark inside, but surely Pinkie wouldn't mind Twilight coming over. Pinkie never minded anypony coming over. Also, hadn’t Spike said something about Sugarcube Corner to her this morning while running off to the fair? Twilight had to find out about that sooner or later.
Pinkie would never abandon a friend in need, Twilight thought, and muttered out loud, unbeknownst to her.
After a few knocks, Twilight pushed the unlocked door open. Everything was pitch black inside.
Heh, she thought, maybe it’s a surprise party.A mere second later, she found out how right she was--how horribly, utterly right she was.
"HAPPY 'YOU DEFEATED THE CHANGELING QUEEN’ PARTY, TWILIGHT!!!" Five ponies and one baby dragon shouted, as the lights flicked on.
Several quiet seconds passed as Twilight took in the scene in grisly detail. A custom banner, repeating exactly what her friends just said, hung across Sugarcube Corner. The last two letters were cut off. The banner hung over a crowd of decorations, ranging from cupcakes with little figures of Queen Chrysalis on them, to a full-fledged cake in Twilight's colors, topped by none other than Twilight herself, fighting off a truly monstrous caricature of a changeling.
Even my friends think Naudia is a monster, Twilight thought, looking at her friends and their fixed smiles, the world already fuzzy through the moisture in her eyes.
As the weight of the world thrummed across Twilight's conscience all over again, she finally broke.
----------------
Applejack could feel that something was off. You didn't need a pinkie sense to tell. Twilight's silhouette alone told Applejack that something was wrong. Unfortunately, right now, the only pony who DID have a pinkie sense was concentrated on throwing the best party she could, and continued to ignore a few extremely troubling twitches in the process.
But it was only after the lights flicked on that Applejack could see the full extent of this catastrophe. Tiny, frightened pupils stared back at her, from a face that hadn't seen much sleep in the last few nights. Twilight's broken face was framed by her hair, which looked like it had exploded into unruly curls and split ends.
Applejack stared at Twilight in shock. Twilight, in turn, hadn't moved, save for a growing stream of tears flowing down her cheeks.
Before she knew it, Applejack was moving towards Twilight. She barely managed to catch Twilight before the purple unicorn dropped to the floor where she stood. Twilight was sobbing openly.
"Oh, dear," Rarity said. "Perhaps it was too soon for this party after all..."
"I betrayed her," Twilight wailed, her face buried against Applejack. "I can't believe I betrayed her."
"Betrayed? Who?" Applejack asked, without thinking.
"She was so nice to me too! She didn't have to be, she didn't have to be at all." Twilight was babbling now.
"Twilight, who are you talking about? Your friends are all right here."
"Naudia asked me to turn her in, but I didn't want to, and she insisted, she told me 'this is the way it has to be, Twilight,’ and now she's going to die!" Twilight erupted into a fresh gout of tears.
Applejack took a long appraising look at Twilight, and, not taking her eyes off Twilight, she growled off to the side.
"Spike. Take a letter."
----------------
Twilight found herself tied up inside Sugarcube Corner with five anxious ponies and one very anxious dragon.
Well, only one anxious pony at this point: the rest of her friends had left for the other room after her attempts to convince them she wasn't crazy. Only Applejack was left watching Twilight.
"But, Applejack, I'm telling you! She never cast a spell on me, I... I really do love her for who she is."
Applejack put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder and said the most chilling, heartbreaking thing Twilight had ever heard.
"Now don't you worry, Twi." Applejack's voice shook, and she couldn't bear to look Twilight in the eye. "Celestia will be here soon, and we'll have you fixed up in no time."
"But... there's nothing wrong with me..." Twilight could feel the tears welling up in her eyes again.
Applejack stood for a moment, staring at the floor, the wall, anywhere but at her friend. Eventually, even Applejack couldn't take it anymore.
"I'm sorry Twi..." she said, edging out of the room dejectedly, "I just can't..."
Applejack took a deep breath, and finally looked at Twilight directly, and cringed back, her eyes meeting the floor again.
"I'm sorry." Applejack said again, before she left Twilight alone to wait for the princess to arrive.
Twilight was torn. On the one hand they hadn't cut off her magic in any way but... Princess Celestia was on her way. She couldn't think of a way to disappoint the princess more than becoming a fugitive on the run.
Twilight curled up on the floor, tears soaking into the untreated wood.
----------------
"Is she going to be all right?" Spike asked. Instantly, everypony in the room turned their heads to face the pony who just came through the door.
Applejack never wanted to lie more in her entire life.
"I don't know, Spike. I really don't."
The silence here was heavy and uncomfortable, like a winter coat on a summer day. Even still, it was a minute before anypony spoke.
"What if she isn't lying?"
Everypony turned to Fluttershy, who clamped her hooves over her mouth as if she could take back what she had just said.
"She isn't lying, she's just under the control of that changeling crone." Rainbow said.
"But that's not what I..." Fluttershy trailed off out of nervousness.
"She does have a point though. I mean, what if we really are wrong here?"
"Well, what would you want if you were in her position?" Applejack said. "I mean, knowing where we are now… what would you do?"
The silence came back, weighed down by an impasse none of them could see their way around. It lasted for nearly half an hour before Celestia finally arrived, guards in tow.
Nervously, everypony bowed, except for Spike who ran directly up to Celestia and asked.
"Will Twilight be all right?"
Celestia looked down at the seriously stressed out baby dragon, and had a very hard time telling him the truth.
"I will do my best to ensure Twilight is safe." Celestia looked up at the five ponies in the room, everyone having second thoughts on their faces, plain as day. "You all did the right thing notifying me immediately of the problem."
That mollified their doubts for the moment.
"However time is of the essence now, I've got some-well, most-of the top doctors in Canterlot waiting in the Palace. So, where is Twilight now?"
Everypony shuffled their hooves. Nopony wanted to go back into that room.
"She's... in the back, Princess. Ah'll show you where." Applejack said.
Applejack walked back into the back room, hesitating at every step. Twilight was lying curled up on the floor, still tied up. Twilight did not react when they came into the room, she did not react when Princess Celestia spoke to her, she did not even react when the Princess gently levitated her into the air and took her out of the room.
Twilight simply lay limp in Celestia's magical grasp, awake and... well, blank, all the way out, until Princess Celestia levitated her outside and into a prison carriage.
Princess Celestia turned to the group of worn-out ponies.
"I think it would be best if you all came to Canterlot as soon as possible. This may be hard on Twilight, and she will need to see some friendly faces before this is over."
As the carriage clanked off into the sky, half held up by pegasi guards and half by the Princess herself, Applejack couldn't suppress a small thought in her head.
This may not sound like an unusual occurrence, but for the Lunar diarch, friends were hard to come by. Outside of Ponyville, most of the ponies she came into contact with were nobles, servants, or her guards. The nobles had lost something since her day, in her opinion--tact. They were polite as punch in person, but as soon as they thought she was out of earshot (they did not know Luna's ears could shoot farther than most), she could feel, and often hear, the rumor mill turning.
The servants didn't live in constant fear of Nightmare Moon anymore, but it was easy to see them step carefully, even now, around the Princess of the Night, as if they were afraid she was about to explode back into Nightmare Moon the second her tea was too cold. Their rumors were much less widespread, less harsh, but their actions were no less disheartening.
The Night Guard were professional, terse, and polite to a T, but that's all they were. Luna trusted them with her life, but she wouldn't trust even her guard captain to hold up a decent conversation. Inevitably, they faded into the background. The thestrals naturally faded from anypony’s awareness, and indeed their view, quickly. That was what they were trained for; that was what they were best at. So, after a few too many awkwardly one sided conversations, Luna left the Night Guard to stand where they were comfortable, stock still and on alert. Luna hated to think of them as furniture, but it was hard when they slid in so easily between the grandfather clock and leather chair in her study.
So when Luna met friends, she held onto them as tightly as she could. This is the kind of thinking that led her to volunteer to head up the changeling prison camp. Which was a fortunate turn of events for all involved, because she still liked their company and they practically worshiped her.
It wasn't an ideal solution, but it worked. The camp was loose, nopony tried to escape, and no prisoners were mistreated. Luna had to drop her open door policy after a bit because she was flooded with would-be visitors and handmade gifts, which the changelings made with whatever they had to hand.
Now she took appointments and it was doing wonders for her self-esteem. Luna was even in talks with Celestia for hiring out changelings to replace her day-to-day servants. In fact, the changeling guards who stayed with her in the castle were there with her now instead of her normal guards. Standing out, talking back, it was like a breath of fresh air compared to the stagnant mediocrity of tradition.
Luna was stopped mid-contemplation, however, when Celestia burst into the room with a hastiness and lack of decorum not often seen.
"Luna-" Celestia stopped mid-sentence, glaring at the changeling standing in the corner of the room, as if it were on guard, Celestia thought.
“Luna, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask your guard to leave the room.” The word guard was spoken in a diplomatic tone, as if to say ‘guard, oh yes he’s a guard, but he’s not one of our guards.’
Mattar looked somewhat taken aback at this, but a nod from the Moon Princess was enough to make him leave the room.
Luna turned back from watching Mattar leave to find Celestia casting a spell on the entire room.
"Sister, what is the meaning of this? Surely nothing could be so-"
"Twilight has been compromised."
"I'm sorry, what?" Luna's demeanor changed instantly into her court face, unreadable and focused.
"Sometime during her time with that changeling queen, Twilight was turned to their side."
"Surely, sister, you jest. Twilight checked out clean from the first moment getting back. She even brought home the Changeling Queen single-hoofed."
"Well that changeling queen got something by us. Twilight just broke down completely after her friends threw her a surprise 'happy you defeated the changeling queen’ party. " Celestia said the word queen with all manner of disrespect intended, deliberately saying it with a lowercase Q every time.
"That can't be all the evidence you have. That could just be stress. You told me yourself that she requested to be taken off the expedition into the changeling hive."
"She broke down crying and babbling about how she betrayed Naudia."
Unconsciously Luna brought a hoof up to her mouth. "Oh dear."
"Yes. So I've got doctors re-running all those tests on her mind, and I've got even more of them examining her for any chemical means of control."
"So why are you here? What do you want me to do?" Luna asked.
Celestia sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Everything seemed to be going so fast for her. She didn't have the time to slow down that she desperately needed at the moment.
"I need you to do a deep dreamwalk on Twilight."
Luna simply stared at Celestia, completely at a loss for words. Eventually, Luna collected her wits and closed her mouth.
"But you, especially you of all ponies, know how dangerous that is."
"Nevertheless, Luna, I am asking you to do it.”
Luna looked very much like she wanted to say no.
“Twilight helped you when you were in the grasp of Nightmare Moon. She needs your help now.”
“Very well...” Luna said, but her demeanor still said no. “But only after all other options available to us have been exhausted.”
----------------
Mattar left the meeting between the Princesses in a state of unease. While his loyalty to Princess Luna was firm, it was entirely secondary to protecting his Queen. And if things came down to the line, he would side with Naudia every time, no matter what. It was at least partially personal: he wanted to have kids someday, and to his knowledge, Naudia was the only Changeling Queen in existence.
"You look worried, is there something wrong?"
Mattar looked to the side of the door where Kiri, Luna's other changeling guard was standing.
"Celestia just shooed me out of the room like I was a spy."
"Well yes, Mattar, but they are heads of state. There is a whole range of things they could be talking about in there. She just as easily could have shooed out one of her own guards."
"You know you don't believe that. You've seen the way she looks at us. We're less than dirt to her."
Unfortunately, Kiri didn't have a chance to answer. She appeared to have frozen in place. Mattar looked around frantically and... everything seemed to have frozen in place. Flags stopped mid-billow, and pegasi hung motionless in the air.
Frantically looking around, trying to figure out if he had gone mad or not, Mattar didn't notice the strange figure until it was almost right in front of him. It stood there in an unnaturally motionless way, such that it became hard to notice among all the other unnaturally motionless things.
Then it spoke.
"Mattar."
Mattar nearly jumped out of his skin as it turned its head to him.
"Do you want to save your Queen?"
"Wh- who are you?"
"I am very important, but that's not why I'm here." It held out a key on a chain in one strange five-fingered appendage. "I'm here to help you save somebody very important to you."
Mattar shuddered, the thing spoke unnaturally, it moved unnaturally, it looked at him unnaturally. If there was some creature in the badlands more unpleasant than it was, Mattar had never fought it.
"I am here to help you save your Queen, Mattar."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You can't. But you can trust yourself. You know something is wrong here, and you know she's in danger. And you cannot know what Celestia has planned, but I do. And I can tell you this: Celestia will have a new statue in her sculpture gardens by the end of the week."
It idly dangled the iron key on its chain.
"Unless you decide to do something about it."
Mattar was silent for a time.
"What do you want from me?"
"From you? Nothing. I only expect you to do what you think is right. And decide where your loyalties lie."
Mattar was silent once again.
"Ah, well. I'll just leave this here and let you think on it for a bit. Not too long, though: I hear Celestia is ordering an increase in the security around the dungeon. And this prison camp. Something about unrest among the prisoners... and all that."
And then the thing was gone, the key lying on the ground, foreboding, as everything started to move again. Mattar looked up and noticed for the first time that there were several large holes in security around the camp. Pegasi guards not paying attention at their posts, major blocks in the field of view of guards who were, and a complete lack of a magic suppressor on his horn.
The key didn’t even jangle on its chain when he picked it up.
----------------
It was a dungeon, a fairytale dungeon, barred by a thick wooden door, with bars at roughly face height for a pony. Nearly bare, the cell was made of stone and had just the barest amenities, a very shallow washbasin, and what could charitably be called a toilet.
None of this much mattered to Naudia as she sat on the lumpy straw mattress hung on the tasteless, and frankly stereotypical, stone wall.
She had been idly whittling away the time in between visits from the guards doing precisely nothing.
Nothing at all.
Out in the desert, she had played her last card, thrown it away so that Twilight could be safe from suspicion. Naudia had no regrets now. Twilight was safe with her friends, and that was all that mattered now.
Hours, minutes, or seconds later, it mattered very little which, she heard hoofsteps outside her cell.
A dull clink of soft, weighty metal.
The Princess had come to visit her once again.
She did not look forward to visits from the Princess. They were always punctuated with glares of suspicion, and tasted of a kind of lowburn hatred and stubbornness. Naudia had tried to be as patient as possible with Celestia, but her continued suspicion had evolved into what Naudia could only call prejudice, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her cooperation. Naudia couldn't quite be sure.
"Get up." The Celestial ruler’s voice was cold as the winter sun.
Knowing she would be lifted up if she didn't comply, Naudia rolled off the bed and came to the door, noting how Celestia flinched backwards as she did.
"What is-" Naudia began but was cut off.
"What have you done to Twilight Sparkle?"
"I'm sorry?" Naudia dropped her carefree attitude, now completely paying attention to Celestia.
"What. Have. You. Done. To Twilight?" Celestia asked, her voice a picture of menace.
"Did something happen to her?" A genuine hint of worry crept into her voice.
"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed that even you would stoop that low. Now I will ask you one last time."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Naudia burst in, now seriously agitated, now that something had happened to Twilight.
"Don't play dumb with me. You will tell me how to reverse any and all magic you have cast on her immediately."
"But... but I haven't cast any magic on her!"
Celestia merely glared at Naudia, letting out a frustrated sigh.
"Very well then. Your trial is tomorrow, and I will be presiding over it. You have until then to change your mind."
Celestia left the unveiled threat hanging in the air as she turned and left the dungeon, each hoofstep echoing in Naudia's mind.
Naudia looked up at the magic suppressor on her horn for a long moment. She had put it on as an act of good faith, a metaphorical white flag to any that saw her, to show any and all precisely what her intentions were.
It’s just a shame she never included a way to allow herself to unlock it.
A train screeched into Canterlot, its boilers glowing cherry red from prolonged operation at higher temperatures and pressures than they were designed for. The train itself wasn't any different from most that came in and out of Canterlot every day.
There were only two passenger cars attached to it, only two passengers on the train, and only two pieces of luggage on the train. There were no shipments of Crystal Empire goods, people or mail on this train. A cursory glance into the cabins would reveal that the train had been stripped of any extra weight outside what was necessary for the two passengers and its crew.
In short, this train was fitted to move fast from the Crystal Empire, day and night, without stopping. All other traffic on the rails was diverted out of its way well in advance as it screamed its way down the rails at a speed that was just this side of tipping it over.
One of the two passengers stepped out. The Princess of the Crystal Empire was not one accustomed to serious situations, even though Cadance often found them thrust upon her. Even then, she usually was able to keep a positive attitude, and seldom let her frown show through. Her frown was showing now. Even coded, the message from Celestia was terse, and tense. Celestia was not one to keep secrets unless she felt that the safety of Equestria was at stake.
The other passenger stepped out onto the platform. Shining Armor was used to having serious situations thrust upon him, as former captain of the guard and Prince of the Crystal Empire. Nevertheless, his nervousness showed through. Celestia's message said very little and spoke of problems within Equestria. The way things were going in Equestria, that hinted that his sister was involved somehow, or would be involved soon. Shining wouldn’t have been surprised if a similar letter wasn’t CC’d directly to Twilight word for word.
They were greeted on the platform by a squad of guards who checked the crown prince and princess over for anything, even going so far as to ask Cadance to remove her vestments of office. Several spells, some of which Shining recognized, some of which he didn't, were cast on them.
Shining turned to the head guard and huffed.
"And why was that necessary, Commander?"
The commander looked surprised, but then remembered the Crystal Empire wasn't even circulating Equestrian bits yet, much less Equestrian mail.
"Sir. I have orders to escort you to the dungeon. Celestia will be waiting for you there."
And that was all Shining could get out of them the entire trip into the palace, down through the cellars and into the Dungeons which were built into the crystal rock beneath Canterlot.
They came around a corner to find... Celestia.
But not the Celestia that Shining knew.
The Celestia that Shining knew could have been carved out of ice, but she was not cold to her fellow pony. The Celestia he knew could convince a rampaging dragon to halt with words alone, but seemed to have words enough for all who met her. She was never nervous, rarely agitated, and always, ALWAYS in control.
This was not the Celestia Shining had served under all his life. Signs of stress etched her face. Before she noticed their approach, she appeared to have been pacing back and forth. Her greeting to them spoke volumes of weariness, worry, and a hint of something that shook Shining Armor to the core--even more than when it looked like Sombra had won, even more than when Chrysalis had almost stolen everything from him. So much so, that he didn't even hear what she said, his mind was focused on one thing and one thing alone.
Celestia didn't know what to do, and she was afraid.
----------------
Cadance couldn't find words, she hadn't seen Celestia like this either, ever.
"I suppose you're wondering why I asked you to be here now." Celestia said, her manner indicating she wanted to get around to the crux of the matter in the most roundabout way possible.
She paused, cleared her throat and started again.
"I'm sure you're aware of our victory over the changelings?"
Cadance finally woke up, half-remembering paperwork to that effect, among other paperwork, a mountain of paperwork. Her and Shining's responsibilities in a fledgling empire a thousand years out of date were great, and she could not remember much.
"I remember reading something to that effect. I couldn't look into it because we've been trying to get the Crystal Empire running again."
"Unfortunately, that is now a secondary matter."
Celestia took a deep breath.
"We believe that changelings have altered your sister's mind, Shining."
Years of military training cracked and Cadance noticed Shining's expression change, but he said nothing.
"Without her, we cannot use the Elements of Harmony and we are vulnerable to... Non-Conventional Threats." Celestia spoke the last as if it was a codeword.
"Are there likely to be any popping up anytime soon, Tia?" Cadance asked her aunt.
"While I hate to say it: Yes. Yes, there will be. Luna's return has altered power politics outside of Equestria, as well as inside. I don't have to tell you how many we've encountered in the last three years alone. Nightmare Moon, Sombra, Discord... Chrysalis."
"How sure are you that they've corrupted my sister, Celestia?" Shining asked.
Celestia sighed again. It wasn't any better when things slowed down. Doubts crept into her mind, festering. She didn't like being helpless, knowing that there was nothing she could do. Celestia could raise the sun, but she could not read minds, and she could not help Twilight escape from a prison that was inside her own mind.
She could only imagine what the real Twilight Sparkle was going through in there. Was she asleep? Unaware of the outside world going on around her as this... this fake operated her body for her? Or was she aware? Did she know every action, every shepherding impulse, while helpless to do anything about it?
Just as Celestia herself was helpless to aid her student now.
The thought that Twilight was honest, that she would ever side with the changeling queen, over her, was incompatible with Celestia's state of mind.
Celestia realized that Shining and Cadance were waiting for an answer.
"It is undoubtable she has been corrupted by the changeling, Shining. They spent a long time together. And her friends tell me they were close, too close, too quickly, even before whatever happened in the Badlands. She was on the changeling queen's side almost as soon as they met. Whether she knew or not. And then Twilight spent a long time out in the Badlands with her, alone."
"Surely that cannot be all, Princess." Shining said, in tones that said he expected a lot more evidence than that to accuse his sister of treason.
"You're not going to like this, Shining Armor. But your sister could not have escaped the Badlands without help. Skilled as she is with magic, there are far too many things out there that prey on magic users specifically. Her special talent would be a weakness out there. And then she admitted to helping the changeling queen out, and putting that magic limiter on her horn. I can only assume she is now an agent of the changelings in the Badlands… and wholly under their control."
Cadance took it well, at least outwardly. Better than Shining did.
"Can we see her." What Shining meant was: I want to see her for myself. His voice was flat.
----------------
Twilight's cell was different than Naudia's. She didn't know it but she was treated a lot better than her girlfriend. The toilet was something that the average pony on the street would recognize, and even use. It looked newly installed. So did a lot of the furnishings around the cell. The bed had no lumps in it. The window, while magically sealed and barred, provided a (magically generated) scenic view to the outside world. The food was well above average, compared to typical prison food, something a pony off the street might actually have paid for.
Twilight Sparkle noticed none of this. She could see none of it through the fog of depression.
Twilight Sparkle never realized it, but she was very rarely, if ever, alone in her entire life. Even at school, she made friends with her teachers, and she was never more than 100 feet away from another pony who at least wouldn't stand up if she decided to sit at their lunch table. Even in the Badlands, she had Naudia.
The Badlands...
Naudia...
It hurt to think about her. Everything about her revealed new avenues for hurt to assault Twilight. The history of the changelings was all one long slow decline, like a festering wound infected with prejudice and fear. The current status of the changelings still alive was a puzzle of impossibilities revolving around food, breeding, and land.
And Twilight was at the center of it all. Broken. Broken and in prison, abandoned by her friends, abandoned by Celestia. Her mood spiraled downward, feeding off of itself.
She felt responsible for the actions of her ancestors. She felt responsible for the deaths of all the changelings in Canterlot. She felt responsible for failing Naudia.
The door to her cell opened.
Twilight did not look up, she did not care who it was. They would not listen to her, no matter what she said.
"I don't know why you bother to come back here." Twilight said to the clink of metal horseshoes. "You will never hear anything I say."
Twilight wasn't chained down, but that didn't matter to her. A magic suppressor locked away her magic. Her special talent. It wasn't often that a pony hated their special talent, but in this gout of depression and helplessness, it was just another thing for Twilight Sparkle to be depressed about.
Twilight learned not to listen when anypony came into the room, because she knew everything Celestia would have to say. It had all been said a hundred times. Things like:
"Don't worry, Twilight. If you're still in there, I will find a way to get you out."
"Come back to me, Twilight, please!" Celestia had even sounded like she meant it too. "Come back..."
"This is for your own good, Twilight."
And other such phrases that tore at Twilight like no insult, no sword ever could.
She was brought back somewhat to the real world when she noticed that the alicorn trying to talk to her was pink, not white.
Slowly, not daring to hope lest her foalsitter disappear in a puff of imaginary smoke, Twilight looked up into her face.
"Cadance?" Twilight asked.
----------------
Cadance looked at the unresponsive form of Twilight, lying on a bed clearly moved in from another part of the castle, sitting in the most worrying room Cadance had ever seen.
The cell was one quite small step away from a padded room. There was nothing sharp in it, not even anything that could possibly be made sharp. No edges on any of the sparse furniture. Even the toilet was gravity-fed without water. There was a sink, but it could not hold water. All this, and a number of other telltales about the room, revealed that the changes were not to prevent harm to the guards.
But to Twilight.
The room sent chills down Cadance's spine. That Twilight needed to be housed in it only sent an even deeper shiver, rooted somewhere in a shared childhood.
"I don't know why you bother to come back here." Twilight said darkly not looking up from the wall. "You will never hear anything I say."
"Twilight? It's me... Cadance." Cadance said.
Twilight said nothing, didn't even acknowledge her existence.
Coming around to Twilight's line of sight finally got a reaction out of Twilight. She turned slowly to look at Cadance with a look of disbelief on her face.
And then Twilight hugged Cadance like she was the last pony on earth.
Twilight said nothing for a long time.
"You have to help me, Cadance! I've... I've never felt so alone before." Twilight whimpered so quietly that Cadance almost didn't hear her.
Fluttershy wandered around Canterlot Castle aimlessly. She was officially a guest of the Princess, and technically all of the Castle was open to her. Well, the artifact vault was shut to anypony save Celestia herself. And the bathroom around the corner from the kitchens had been magically sealed shut, for "the sanity of the cleaning staff." And she couldn't technically go into Celestia's personal chambers without permission.
What mattered to her most, though, was that she couldn't go and see Twilight. Not because of any guards, or orders, or even Celestia. Rather, she didn't want to go and see Twilight. Not again, at any rate. Fluttershy, like the rest of Twilight's friends, had willed herself up to seeing Twilight the first day they had arrived in Canterlot. And that was it: Fluttershy couldn't bring herself to go back into that cell. She had this nagging feeling that all this, everything that had happened in the last day, was wrong, but... Celestia said that they had done the right thing.
So she wandered about the castle, trying to stay out of the way of servants doing their day-to-day chores. Inexplicably, she found herself in front of Spike's bedroom.
A thought occurred to Fluttershy: Spike knew Twilight better than almost anypony, maybe he would have... anything. Anything to snap Fluttershy out of this purgatory of indecision.
Pushing open the door into Spike's bedroom, she found that it was actually Twilight's old bedroom. Fluttershy knew this because it looked like a library that somebody had decided to camp out in.
Inside, she found Pinkie Pie... being Pinkie, dressed up as a clown trying to cheer Spike up.
At least Pinkie has found something to do, Fluttershy thought.
Fluttershy sat and watched Pinkie perform a comedy act with a balloon, unnoticed by anypony in the room. There, she had enough time to think about the whole situation, something she had apparently failed to do, because something occurred to her right then.
"Uhh, Spike?" Fluttershy said, loud enough to actually be heard for once. "Did you actually read those letters Twilight threw away?"
----------------
Cadance paced around her room anxiously. She had gone back to see Twilight, and Twilight had opened up to her, spinning a tale about the Changeling Queen far different than the one she heard later from Princess Celestia.
Unlike Twilight's friends, Cadance knew Celestia wasn't perfect, and she knew there was something wrong here. Unfortunately, like the "Pinkie Sense," just "Something wrong here" doesn't hold up in court, or disprove anything. Or stand up to Celestia's admittedly well-founded arguments.
Another round of pacing took its toll on the rug in her room.
I don't even know what Celestia expects me to do here. Cadance thought. This is a job for a very skilled psychiatrist, not a princess.
Another round.
"That's not the right way to think, Cadance." She told herself.
Another round on the carpet, and Cadance sat down at her vanity in frustration.
"I just can't think of what I can do here." Cadance met her own gaze in the mirror.
"I mean I'm just the Princess of..."
And then it hit her. It hit her so hard, she was out into the corridor running before her mind caught up with her legs.
"SHINING!" Cadance shouted into the corridor, uncaring of the looks the servants and guards gave her.
----------------
Spike leapt into the air his own height in surprise, and Pinkie popped her balloon out of shock, when Fluttershy spoke. Neither of them had heard her come in, or even noticed she was there.
"I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I didn't hear you come in, could you repeat that?" Pinkie said, ears ringing.
"Well," Fluttershy said, retreating back into her mane. "I was wondering if either of you had read those drafts that Twilight had written to Princess Celestia, that Spike mentioned. There might be something important in there."
Pinkie and Spike just stared at Fluttershy for a second, who in turn retreated farther into her mane than before.
"OF COURSE!" Spike shouted, filled with new hope. "If there is anything we can find out to help Twilight, it'll be in there for sure!"
"But Spike." said Pinkie. "Won't those be back at the library?"
"No, those are evidence, they'll be locked up somewhere here in the castle." Spike deflated a little.
"Well the Princess did say we can go where we like in the castle," Fluttershy said. "I'm sure if we ask nicely, they'll let us take a look at them."
----------------
"SHINING!" Cadance shouted as she burst into a guardroom for the fourth time, but for the first time, this one actually had Shining inside it.
Shining looked worse for wear, but he was on the job, in a comfortable groove where he had been trained to forget about distractions. Nevertheless, he looked propped up on determination alone, caffeine and willingness to work apparently having left several hours earlier.
"Yes, dear?" Shining said, rubbing his face with a hoof.
"When was the last time you took a break?" Cadance asked, momentarily forgetting why she burst in.
"Uhhh," Shining said, looking at the current captain of the guard, "Sometime today? That isn't the only reason you're here, right, Cadance?"
"Well, no. I needed to ask you a question; a lot of questions, actually. And, well, privately..."
Shining Armor sighed.
"It’s important, right?"
"Very important."
Shining looked like he was about to say yes, so Cadance grabbed his hoof and dragged him into the nearest spare room, kicking out a pair of maids in the process.
"I hope this is more important than the defense of Canterlot."
"I should hope you think it is. It’s about Twily."
Shining instantly lost any bit of exhaustion.
"I'm all ears."
"OK then. I need you to tell me about Chrysalis."
----------------
"What?" Spike shouted at a guard.
"The Princess has declared that those documents are off limits to the public." said a sweating guardspony smart enough to know when to follow orders exactly, but also smart enough to recognize the Elements of Harmony when he saw them.
Pinkie tried persuading the guard, in her own... way. It didn't work; evidently the guard was smarter than to leave his post and go to a party down the hall, even if there indeed really was a party down the hall. Fluttershy tried asking politely, and that looked like it was going to work until she made a crucial misstep in reminding the guard what he was guarding.
Spike looked at the guard with a nonplussed expression, as he brushed a streamer off his head. The kind of expression that bodes trouble for ponies in a guard’s paygrade. Possibly even of a general’s paygrade.
"I'm sure you recognize Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy here." Spike said nonchalantly. "I know you do, because you were one of the guards at Luna's first Summer Sun Celebration."
The guard looked surprised at that. Most ponies couldn't tell them apart when they had their armor on.
"Yeah, I can tell you apart. I learned the trick from Shining Armor."
"Now we can do this three ways,” Spike went on. “You agree with us that we aren't normal civilians, and you give us access to those documents, or I can come back here with a search warrant from Celestia, and a PB-203-R Reprimand form for interfering with issues of national security."
The guard in question almost looked afraid at this point. He really did when he realized the little dragon in front of him wasn't done yet.
"OR, I can come back here with the guard-captain himself, Celestia herself, and a FU-84-12 form. And let me tell you, I know all the tricks to get paperwork passed through quick around here."
"I thought they took those out of service years ago." the guard whimpered.
"You wanna bet?" Spike said, with malice aforethought.
“NO! No, of course not, I'll get you those documents right away." He bustled off into the back.
"Spike, whats a FU-84-12 form?" Fluttershy asked, once she'd remembered how to work her jaw.
"And how do you know all that paperwork mumbo-jumbo, Spike?" Pinkie Pie asked, once she had actually picked her jaw up off the floor.
"Well a FU-84-12 is sort of a legend around here, only been issued twice. It’s an order to attempt to clean the bathroom around the corner from the kitchens... I probably shouldn't have pulled it on him, but he knew who we were. And I know so much about paperwork because I was practically raised by Twilight, and Shining Armor was like my big brother."
Spike shuffled his feet in embarrassment.
"You kinda have to know paperwork with a family like that."
----------------
Cadance wasn't even listening to Shining right now. She had her eyes shut and was concentrating hard. Willing what she was learning to be wrong, hoping it was wrong, trying to convince herself that it was a fluke.
But no, here it was: everything she was expecting to see and nothing she had hoped to see.
"I need to talk to Celestia." Cadance interrupted Shining. "We have made a grave mistake."
Three hallways later, she ran into a magical barrier and just barely managed to stop without hitting it.
"OK Cadance, slow down," Shining said from the hallway behind her. "Tell me what’s going on before you go and embarrass yourself in front of Celestia."
"Shining, I can prove it. We've done something terrible, I can prove it!" Cadance said frantically, almost in tears.
Shining merely looked blankly at her.
"I think you're going to have to start from the beginning, dear."
----------------
Spike looked down at the crumpled letters in horror. Pinkie and Fluttershy surreptitiously tried to maneuver around his head to get a look at what he was seeing.
Finally, looking like she was about to explode, a question burst out of Pinkie's mouth.
"What does it say, Spike?"
Spike looked up at her for a moment, open mouthed.
"I'm not sure if I should tell you what it says. It’s a bit... private."
"Oh?" It took a second to register, and then Pinkie and Fluttershy said in unison, "Ooooh."
"But I can tell you what it means." Spike had an angry look on his face. "It means that once I make a couple copies of these, we are going to Celestia."
"Why do you need to make copies, Spike?"
"So I can send them to the Equestrian Humanities League, Ponies for the Fair Treatment of Non-Equines, and a couple other places. They are not going to like what Celestia did here." Spike looked a little embarrassed for a second. “But not complete copies…”
----------------
"So you're telling me that you can prove--you HAVE proven--Twilight is acting of her own free will, because of your power over love." Shining said skeptically.
"Yes, Shining, whatever she's saying about Naudia is genuine."
"And you proved this, how, exactly?"
"By talking to you about Chrysalis. Even now, the way you feel about her hasn't changed from when you were under her control. The negative feelings still sorta seep through. But Twilight..." Cadance looked down and blushed. "When I talk to Twilight about Naudia, it feels a lot like you do for me."
----------------
Luna sat in her office in the prison camp, happy as ever, examining a model of Canterlot Castle the changelings had made for her out of toothpicks. It even had a little door that opened.
She had actually been seriously agitated about Twilight's situation when she came in to manage the camp, but the changelings would have none of her moping. As soon as she arrived, Luna was surrounded by a sea of concerned faces. The changelings gathered around her and started proffering her gifts, and offering to play board games with her. It was strange, because she couldn't find any kind of ulterior motive from them. They didn't dote on any of the other prison staff, and the day she was gone with court matters, her stand-in was entirely bored that day.
Luna frowned. She didn't like thinking of this as a prison camp. It didn't have any of the atmosphere of a prison. If anything, the changelings were in here more for their own protection rather than any need to keep them contained somewhere. There was more of a need to keep them contained at a comfortable distance from Luna most of the time.
Luna couldn't find any motivation behind them other than wanting to see her happy.
The door to her office opened and some changelings stepped in.
"Oh, good morning!" Luna said cheerily. "What do you need help with... today?"
It began to dawn on Luna that these weren't changelings from inside the camp. They had teal carapaces, which glowed faintly. But what really tipped her off was the fact that she could no longer see the two guards she had stationed outside her door, through the frosted glass.
"We are the Children of the Stars, and we hope you can forgive us for this."
Before Luna could cry out or even get up from her chair a changeling opened up a box it was carrying and she was hit by a spell. She fell out of her chair, knocking over the toothpick Castle.
As one of the changelings lifted her up, she heard it say.
"Mother will be angry with us if-"
And Luna blacked out.
----------------
Celestia was staring down at a stack of paperwork that would have made Twilight Sparkle nervous. Twilight would be particularly nervous, and perhaps a bit angry, if she knew what it was.
It was paperwork for the case against the changelings. It was very well-researched and, while most of it was speculation, Naudia would have been distressed how much of it referenced psychiatrists from the edges of the Badlands.
She was nearly ready to start when both doors at opposite ends of the hall burst open, to reveal four agitated ponies and one angry dragon. Celestia didn't even have time to greet them before she was bombarded with five confused voices, all trying to talk over one another.
It was some time before order was restored.
"I can't hear you all if you're talking over each other, so one at a time, please. Spike, you first."
"Have you read these notes that Twilight threw away?" Spike sounded genuinely angry. "I know you don't like changelings much, but I'm pretty sure that with this evidence, I could prevent you presiding over this case entirely."
"Yes, Spike, I have read those. And they've led me to circumstantial evidence, and finally an answer, as to why there are twice as many psychiatrists on the borders to the Badlands as anywhere else." Celestia replied in even tones. "Changelings have been abducting ponies out there for years."
"Oh..." Spike seemed to lose a bit of his bluster at that.
"That doesn't matter now." Cadance said. "I can prove Twilight is not under the control of anybody, changelings or otherwise."
Celestia looked surprised, but motioned that Cadance should go on.
"I've talked to Shining Armor and Twilight, and Twilight doesn't show any signs of current or previous changeling control."
"And you've proved this through...?" Celestia asked.
"Her love for Naudia feels different than Shining and Chrysalis's... relationship." Cadance said indicating that it wasn't a ship, so much as a relation, and not a happy one at that.
That gave Celestia pause to think for a second, as much as she wanted to protect her subjects from changelings. As much as she wanted to protect Twilight from changelings. Love was Cadance's special talent, and that didn't need to stand up in court. It stood up on its own outside of court, anywhere, even in griffon lands. Denying it would involve calling Cadance a liar, or, even worse, indicate that Celestia doubted Cadance's special talent. Cadance's very self.
It was at this time that light dawned in Celestia's head, and certain events started to make sense. It made sense to assume that Changelings could read emotions, read... her emotions, about them. The chains, the magic suppressor, Twilight's flawless health, her tossed out letters, and her odd actions of late.
"Oh, dear..." Celestia felt the world dropping away beneath her. "Will she ever forgive me?"
It dropped even farther when she realized that the wards around Twilight's cell indicated unauthorized access, possibly by a Twilight Sparkle she had not yet had time to apologize to.
----------------
Celestia tore through the castle.
Servants, tables, guards, and nobles were magically shunted out of her way in a rude manner. The sound of broken glass and a cloud of carpet mangled by her golden-clad hooves followed in her wake.
She had long ago left Spike and the Element bearers behind. Shining and Cadance were only faintly-heard shouts, well back in the castle, as Celestia used every trick she could think of to move at a blistering pace.
How could I not see?
The dungeon doors were ripped from their magically-reinforced hinges in seconds as Celestia burst through, barely making corners and scraping her wings on the corridor's cramped walls.
It was all there in front of me, all the information I needed.
A torch sconce was torn off the wall by her frantic pace, but Celestia did not stop her mad dash. Celestia's eyes teared up, as in hindsight she saw all the little things that looked so clear now.
It was just so easy to believe they were evil, so easy to invent an alternate motivation.
The world seemed to slow for Celestia as she saw the door to Twilight's cell was open.
Inside, she found Twilight embracing the Changeling Queen like a grieving child, her horn aglow with the telltale sign of magic.
"TWILIGHT!" Celestia shouted, without thinking.
Celestia would never forget the look of fear that Twilight gave her. It tore her heart to little pieces to see her closest friend look at her like that.
And then Twilight was gone, whisked away by a teleportation spell.
Naudia paced around her cell, agitated and afraid.
It had been driving her up the wall that she couldn't find a way to escape. Indeed, driving her all the way up the wall, and around the ceiling, pulling at the stone to try to find a way out. She knew there wouldn't be one, but she needed to do something.
Her mother’s voice came back to her, unbidden.
"Never work without a backup plan or an escape route."
But that was Mother talking about small operations, operations where the risk was maybe having to replace a pony or change their memory. Never the fate of the entire changeling race resting firmly upon her hooves.
She was stuck to the ceiling, attempting to see if any of the tiles were loose or could be pressed for the third time that day, when she heard something from outside in the corridor.
It didn't sound like a guard, and it didn't sound like Celestia.
Naudia poked her head up to the bars and saw nothing. Then her face was met with a black hole-filled hoof and a key.
She stumbled back from the door and found a familiar face peering through the bars, with a nervous expression on his face and a key in his hooves.
"Mattar! What are you doing here?" Naudia shouted.
Mattar did not move. Mattar did not react in the slightest. The key was held unusually still in his hooves, hovering in mid dangle. The world began to take on a muted palette of colors.
Suddenly, the smell of burnt flesh permeated the room, pungent and fresh. Naudia turned away from the apparently frozen Changeling and found... something, sitting in the room with her. It was hard to describe from Naudia's point of view because there hadn't been anything on Equestria like it before. It looked like it stood on two legs, like a dragon or a diamond dog, but it wore heavy black clothes and a fedora. It had neither fur nor scales. Only its bare skin showed in what little space wasn't covered by a trench coat.
It was sitting at a table with a chessboard, neither of which had been in the room before.
"Sit down." It said, gesturing to a chair on the other side of the table. "We have a contract to discuss, and I've come up with a chess metaphor to tell you."
Naudia looked at the thing sitting in front of her--and she did think of it as a “thing.” Naudia would hate to think of It as a person. Everything about It oozed with malice. Its every word was a threat, every gesture it made was calculated just so as to be easy to turn into a blow at a moment’s notice. Even the look It gave her through those mirrored sunglasses told her that It was ready at the slightest provocation to abandon this facade and leap at her throat. But she would never call It a thing in front of It, because she didn't want to encourage It to gain any amount of self-satisfaction out of her. For that matter, she wouldn't put it past It to actually leap at her throat.
Naudia sat down in a guarded way, not taking her eyes off of It.
"I'm assuming you're the one that is responsible for this." She said, gesturing to the frozen changeling.
"Yes." It said, "All of that, especially the key he's holding."
Naudia glanced down at the chessboard.
"No, we're not going to play. I brought it for illustrative purposes. Also, I've found that it helps you look smarter when you appear to play chess and can talk about it."
Naudia was beginning to not like this creature. Not because It was clearly evil, but because It was so blatantly rude; even as It spoke, Its gaze wandered about the room--not in a nervous way, but in a way that suggested It was looking for something more interesting to look at than Naudia. While It was directly talking to her.
"I'm assuming you already know my name. What should I call you?" Naudia asked, feeling the need to at least appear polite.
"Continue to think of me as 'It.' But if you insist on a name to refer to me as, consider using something insulting." It said, in an infuriating tone. "And something... changeling-ish. I confess I don't know much about your culture, so I would find it interesting."
After a moment of conversational impasse, It clapped its hands together and spoke again, in a voice that woke up something primal in Naudia which demanded that hooves should meet with faces.
"Anyway, I think I should get to the nature of the contract before this drags on too long." It looked at the frozen key in Mattar's outstretched hoof. "That key is special. It is a key to your cell, Twilight's cell, and Twilight's magic suppressor."
"And why are you giving me a key to my cell and Twilight’s?"
"Well, consider it from the point of view of a chess board. If this was a chessboard, nobody would care if tomorrow you were turned into stone. However," It turned its silvered gaze over to her and continued almost angrily, "the world is not a chess board. You cannot sacrifice a queen and expect all the pieces to move on the board in the same way that they always have."
"The knights would have to conduct a search among the pawns as to how this grievous error of security took place. The rooks would be searched, top to bottom, for this regicidal assassin. The bishops would be called off to perform a ceremony for fallen royalty. The king would need time to mourn his lost love, and plot his vengeance against their assassins."
"It would be stupid to assume you could simply sacrifice the queen, and expect the rules of the board not to change."
Taking a moment to put two and two together, Naudia tried to see what point It was getting at.
"Twilight. You're doing this for the benefit of Twilight."
"Good." It said. "I'm doing this so I can ascertain the services of an intact Twilight, sometime in the future. Something that I have negotiated for with another entity in power."
"And what do you want Twilight for?"
"I'm afraid I don't need to tell you at this point in time."
"And if I decide not to help you?"
"Then I will allow you to decide how far back you want me to retroactively remove my help."
"Retroactively?"
"Yes." Its glasses didn't flash, they seemed to be reflecting a void quite unlike the room around them. "My... help. Little things. A nudge here, a push there... ever wondered why Twilight didn't cave in your skull when you popped up in the Badlands? Or why Celestia hasn't called you to court yet? Or indeed why Luna's guards were distracted at exactly the right time for you to capture her?"
There was a long pause, as Naudia considered her options.
"I don't have a choice in this, do I?"
"None whatsoever. But don't you want to rescue Twilight?" A note of acted concern entered Its voice.
"Don't pretend like she means anything to you."
"No, you're right about that, but she has a value to you. As such, she has served her purpose here."
Naudia thought for another minute trying to find something wrong with Its plan, something she could do. Something she could throw in Its face. Finally, a thought occurred to her.
"How do I know you're not working for Celestia?" Naudia asked.
It cast it's silvered gaze back from some part of the wall and onto Naudia. "Do you expect that Celestia would even suffer me to exist, if she knew about me?"
Naudia flinched back from the empty gaze, "No, no, I couldn't see that happening."
"Very well. If you have no further objections, we can consider your end of the contract a deal."
It offered Its hand to her for a hoofshake, and just for a moment, the sleeve of its jacket pulled back just enough to see the.. skin underneath. Now Naudia knew where the smell of burnt flesh was coming from. It was coming from... that thing.
Naudia considered for a long moment what to do.
"You're trying to think of another way out. None of them will work. Some I've seen that to be so, and others... others lead to paths you do not want to tread..." A tone of glee entered its voice. "Like corruption. You know what a corrupted changeling queen could do, don't you?"
Naudia shuddered, and stuck out her hoof to accept. She did have a choice here, but it wasn't a choice she was willing to make over this... thing.
Its hand was not slimy, not sticky, or skeletal. It gave as much of a hands-off handshake as it could, and with an expression of intense discomfort, as if touching her was somehow repugnant. And its hand was warm, but not in the way that Naudia associated with living things.
"Now. I expect you out of Canterlot as soon as possible. Twilight may have reason to stay if you wait long enough. But you both MUST be away from Canterlot." It let a pause drag on too long, and then spoke again. "Keep in mind that this is as far as my help goes. After this, I can get what I want regardless of your personal safety or mortal status."
"So watch your step, because I won't be watching it for you."
And just like that, the thing was gone, the chessboard and table were gone, and colors faded back into the world. A little chess piece of a queen remained on the stone floor of the cell.
----------------
Naudia crept along the corridor as silently as she could, specifically along the wall of the not very well lit corridor, somewhere up near the ceiling. She was alone right now. Mattar, having intercepted the ward on her cell, was ordered to leave. She decided that the guards shouldn't know he was involved with any of this.
Come to think of it, she didn't want to be involved in any of this herself. But whatever that thing was doing, It did give her a key to her cell, and had so far held up its side of the... extortion. Whatever the risk it presented, however, Naudia needed to get Twilight out of this predicament that she had placed her in.
Up ahead was a lone guard, standing in a pool of light in the otherwise unlighted dungeon corridor. He didn't look bored; he looked like the kind of guard who would need orders to be bored. Which was probably why he was stationed in this mostly unlighted, almost abandoned, palace dungeon.
Coming up behind him, Naudia made no more noise than a torn spiderweb and...
Just like that, the guard was helpless in her grip, unable to flex his wings or cry out. He made closed mouth noises and tried to move his head. Naudia leaned in close and whispered in his ear, with that odd many-voiced sounding tone her mother had used for intimidation.
"Where is Twilight Sparkle." The tone was not of a question, but of an order.
The guard shook his head and tried to put on a brave face.
"Now, Twilight would be angry at me if she heard that I had mistreated you, but I think she would be lenient if I got the impression that you have been mistreating her. Well, I don't quite know what she'd say about any mistreatment on my part."
The guard attempted to keep up his brave face.
"Very well." Naudia said, placing a hoof on either side of his head in a position for maximum torque.
"CELL 3B, TWO CORRIDORS DOWN, ON THE LEFT SIDE." The guard shouted.
"Thank you." said Naudia, using her normal voice again. "Now, this should wear off in a couple hours, but I'm sure if you shout enough, somebody will find you before then."
Naudia glued the guard to the floor with some hacked-up changeling goop and was gone.
Stakeout felt relieved. He felt like she had been about to...
But she wouldn't, would she? With what she said about Twilight.
Stakeout had only been to a chiropractor once, a big burly guy, and it had hurt a lot. I doubt she even has a license for that.
Then a feeling of absolute dread came over Stakeout at that moment, and he furiously began to try and pull at his goopy bonds.
Maybe she’s going to get Twilight to reprimand me!
Meanwile, Naudia stalked her way along the remarkably guard-free corridor on her way to Twilight's cell, hoping against hope that this key would work... or maybe, that it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to be indebted to that… thing.
----------------
Mattar slipped back into the changeling prison camp to find it in complete disarray. Even he could tell some minutes before entering, or even coming into sight of, the camp, that there was something deeply wrong. Something unnoticed at the back of his mind had winked out.
Mattar couldn't think of what was gone, because it had felt so familiar to him.
It was dead simple to get back into the camp. Mattar had simply posed with other escaped changelings running around outside the camp. He didn't bother to check as to what they were looking under every rock for, but he fitted right in, such that the guards didn't notice when they came to corral them back into the camp.
Mattar's military instincts noticed a crowd of ponies gathered around the Canterlot side of the camp, with cameras and lines being drawn by guards to keep them out of throwing distance of the fence and prisoners within.
Something was wrong here. His instincts also told him that these guards were unsure and without any direct orders, which was quite unlike Luna. It was uncharacteristic of her to keep them in a holding pattern of simply rounding up prisoners, who had simply wandered outside the camp of their own accord.
Now that Mattar thought about it, he had never really wanted to leave the camp before. It had never occurred to him before that thing came with the key. So far as he knew, Luna didn't cast any spells on him, and none of the guards had either. He had just... never wanted to walk too far away from Luna.
Finally, Mattar decided to ask one of his fellow changelings what was so wrong here.
"Don't you know? Can't you feel it?" she said (it should be noted all changelings are, by tradition, referred to as female until they get their first disguise).
Mattar shook his head.
"Luna is gone! We can't find her anywhere!"
----------------
Naudia peered through the bars of a third dungeon cell, expecting this one to be as empty and dilapidated as the last three, and instead found herself gazing into what could easily be a princess's studio apartment and...
"Twilight!" Naudia shouted, unable to control herself.
Hastily, she fumbled the key into the lock and opened the door, as a bleary Twilight gradually became aware of her presence.
Before Naudia was halfway across the room, she was tackled by Twilight, who pulled her into a hug just this side of a tear-filled breakdown. They stayed that way for an endless minute.
"Twilight, we need to get going." Naudia said, reluctant to let go of Twilight. "I forgot to disable the alarm wards on your cell. Celestia will be here any moment!"
Twilight looked panicky. Ten days ago, she had never thought that Celestia could have punished her with something worse than magic kindergarten, even intentionally. Ten days ago, she wouldn't have been so scared to hear her mentor's name.
"But, but, neither of us has our magic! How are we going to get out of here?"
Naudia dangled the key from her hooves.
"Now stand still, and be ready to get us out of here, because this won't work on mine."
The magic suppressor clattered to the floor, and Twilight slumped over against Naudia out of horn shock. An ominous rumbling could be heard now, getting louder by the second.
The rumbling was just outside the door before Twilight began to cast her spell. Closing her eyes, and holding tight onto Naudia, Twilight felt like she was about to fail.
And then she heard Celestia shout. Opening her eyes, she saw Celestia herself at the door, running at them in a mad dash.
Fear and adrenaline lent Twilight new strength, and they vanished in a teleportation spell.
She reached up to feel for a magic suppressor and-
found nothing, just her horn unadorned. She did knock her crown off her head, though.
Looking down to the bed onto which it fell, she found another surprise. No mere rotting lump of wood jutting out of a wall here, this was a high-class bed, with higher-class sheets that looked like they had been plagiarized from the ones in her castle bedroom through some sort of telescope. The patterns were there, but they were rough, as if the maker had them described secondhoof and put through a work order through a third pair of hooves.
The rest of the room was, quite frankly, appropriately furnished for a princess, or a queen. While none of her usual amenities were there, the room had an air of familiarity about it. Despite the walls inlaid with glowing teal swirls.
She didn't feel all that horrible. The spell they must have used to knock her out was good--painless, and powerful, whatever it was. Luna hadn't had time to get a good look at it, but it had looked like a spellbox, the sort used a long time ago.
She knew how spellboxes worked before she was banished. If they were crafted strong enough, you could keep a serious spell, even one cast by an alicorn, stable for practically forever. She still had one in her room at Canterlot. She stored enough power in it to raise and lower the moon in case she had to take a sick day. And that was why they were popular: Inscribe a strong sigil on a spellbox, and even a weak unicorn can cast powerful spells, provided enough time.
Luna got up, hindered by the lack of chains, and almost tripped when she realized that, indeed, she wasn't bound in any way other than a light covering of bedsheets draped over her. Firing up her horn, she checked the room for any sort of magical reinforcement, or teleport wards, or anything of the sort, and... nothing again, just a few anti-scrying and stealth spells that she herself had on her own room to keep out paparazzi and the like. These were much stronger, however, than the ones on her own room.
Then, Luna realized what had caused her to feel that air of familiarity. Looking over onto the dresser, she found a number of small amenities that, in recent months, had gone missing from her room. A hairbrush that still had her hairs in it, a hat that she thought had fallen behind a dresser some months ago, silverware she had assumed the servants brought back to the kitchens. Other such small things, placed in an almost reverential manner.
Even the furniture in the room was arranged in such a way to resemble her own, and had obviously been made to look like her room in her castle with a not-so-subtle changeling touch.
Feeling somewhat creeped out, Luna decided to finally check the door. It was unlocked. Opening it as silently as she could, she peered through the crack in the door.
Through the pale green light, she could make out a single changeling guard outside the door wearing…
No, it couldn’t be.
It was wearing the regalia of her commander of her Lunar guard.
Furiously, she pulled it inside with telekinesis, jammed it against the wall, and aimed her horn at its throat, in one noisy and complicated second. To her surprise, it looked a little nervous and... happy?
"Mother! You're awake!"
----------------
"What do you mean, you can't find them?" Celestia asked the captain of the Day Guard, attempting to hide the fact that she was puffy-eyed and in no mood to rule at the moment.
"We cannot find a single thestral anywhere in Canterlot. None of Luna's guard, none of the normal citizens. Nopony." He looked unfamiliar, as if the guard had drawn lots and plopped the loser into the captain's armor.
"That can't be everything that's going on here. What about relatives? Families? Businesses?"
"The only story we've been able to get is that they all packed up and left in a big hurry, they left a lot of stuff behind, and they wouldn't say why they were leaving."
"Did you find out where they were going?" Celestia asked.
"Unfortunately, no. We didn't exactly have a warrant. And we were more concentrated on finding where Luna went."
"What?"
----------------
"What did you just call me?" Luna growled, trying to hide her confusion with anger.
"You're awake! Do you want me to get you something to eat?" the changeling in guard's armor asked her, almost as if unaware of the horn pressed up against its throat. Eventually it did look down at her horn, and swallowed. "Also, would you mind not touching me so much? It’s hard enough to maintain my position without more accusations of favoritism from Mother."
Luna let go of the changeling out of confusion. This was not how you acted when a prisoner got loose, or how you imprisoned somepony.
"What's your game here?"
"Following your orders. Is there anything else you needed? Was the bed comfortable? Did anything go wrong with the spell?" The changeling was talking like an excited fan-servant.
Luna’s look of sheer bewilderment caused the changeling to finally get a grip on itself.
"Sorry, I keep forgetting. I expect you need some explanations."
"Yes, that would be appreciated." Luna was very off balance at this point, either this changeling was a VERY good actor, or it actually believed the words coming out of its mouth.
"If you could permit me to just..." The changeling indicated that it wanted to cast a spell.
Assuming the changeling couldn't cast a spell she couldn't block or at least recover from, and not exactly in her right mind at the moment, Luna nodded her consent.
It cast a weak spell at her, and she was engulfed in green flames.
----------------
Luna was missing, Twilight was on the run from Celestia, and every thestrel in Canterlot had disappeared with suspicious timing.
Nothing was stolen, no wrongdoing could be attributed to anypony other than herself. If it wasn’t for the lunar guard vanishing without a trace, Celestia wouldn't have any idea where to start looking to unravel this mess.
Closer inspection showed that all the guards gave the same reason for leaving: they were heading to their homeland. Unfortunately, Celestia had never found out where that was. They said they kept it hidden out of fear of xenophobic ponies. She was too busy being happy that ponies that enjoyed Luna's night had finally found her and kept her company, to even consider questioning their motives.
Or, at least, Celestia assumed they kept her company. Luna was happier when they were around, but they didn't seem to talk to Celestia very much at all. Come to think of it, Celestia couldn't recall talking to a thestral in anything other than passing or strictly professional matters. They always came to night court with their petitions.
So while Celestia knew what to do, she couldn't leave Canterlot, and with an understaffed guard she couldn't send anypony out looking. She didn’t even know where to look if she could.
What Celestia really needed right now was to talk with or at least write a letter to Twilight, a long letter, possibly on waterproofed paper. Unfortunately, Spike had not gone with her, and was still in the castle.
The door to her room opened and Cadance stepped in, hesitantly, as if fearing reprisal.
"Celestia?" Cadance said.
"Yes Cadance?" Celestia said, failing to put on a brave face.
Cadance pushed the door open all the way and strode into the room as if she had just given herself a pep talk.
"Celestia, while I understand you have your own ways of coping, we need to talk about this situation." Cadance smiled. "Also, while I know cake won't affect your figure, I think the chef stresses himself out when you... binge like this."
"But I-" Celestia paused for a moment, and then shamefacedly wiped the icing off her cheek. "But I can't think of anypony to talk about this with right now."
"You can talk to me about it."
Celestia's mask only held out for mere seconds before cracking.
"I just feel like I failed Twilight. I was trying to protect Twilight and Equestria from changelings, and I failed to protect her from myself." Celestia looked as if she had reached a new low. Even her normally animated hair was subdued and barely flowed at all. “I can't believe what I almost brought myself to do.”
Cadance sat down next to Celestia and put a hoof on her shoulder.
"While I can't condone what you did, I can accept that you had good intentions, and you were trying to put Equestria first. I would just appreciate it if you accepted that you could be wrong about things. Being wrong isn't a sign of weakness."
"But she was in love with a changeling queen! You of all ponies should know how manipulative they are!"
Cadance looked contemplative for a moment.
"I recently talked to Shining about the police force in the Empire. They've had to re-educate them to solve crimes and, importantly, to do questioning."
Celestia listened closely.
"Even a thousand years ago law enforcement cliches existed. We found police starting to do questioning by watching for tells. You know, little twitches that might be signs of a guilty conscience. And they became so focused on that, they stopped trying to see if their actual story matched up or even made sense. I'm sure you know that being questioned by authority causes people to be nervous and make mistakes. They just translated that in their heads into an admission of guilt."
"Yes… Twilight always panicked every time I visited Ponyville.” Celestia smiled, but only for the time it took her to put two and two together. “I... I should have taken that into account."
"But the important thing here is to learn from your mistakes. You were too close to this whole business to be impartial. You should have let somepony else handle this."
"But I... I didn't want Twilight to think I didn't care. She's too important to me to leave this to anypony else. I mean if she woke up from the changeling queen’s control… I..." Even to herself, her words sounded hollow.
"As much as I hate to say it, but I don't think anypony else will: the more you distance yourself from changeling matters, Celestia, the better off Equestria will be."
Celestia looked taken aback.
“Nopony has said anything like that to me in... “ Celestia tried to remember the last time somepony had disagreed with her, and failed. “I don’t know how long.”
All Celestia could remember was crowds of nobles agreeing with her, but as doubt crept into her mind, critical thinking began to criticize.
Didn’t they react in a certain way? That little pause as they waited for somepony to go first. A hesitation to slip out of line with the all-powerful goddess of the sun.
Celestia brought her hoof up to her mouth.
“Oh, dear. I thought it was because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
"Generally it was because you weren't. But ponies have gotten used to you not doing anything wrong, and they’ve started taking it for granted. I actually talked to your current captain of the guard, and I don't think even he would have had the guts to speak his mind to you." Cadance thought for a second. "Come to think of it, he barely had the guts to tell me."
There was a long pause as crimson light flowed in through the window.
"Isn't it time for you to lower the sun, Celestia?"
Celestia's blood ran cold. The moon was rising into the sky blood red, giving off a dark glow of its own. The magic surrounding it felt entirely unfamiliar to her as it rose in the sky, seemingly of its own volition.
Luna was not raising the moon.
----------------
The changeling was pressed back on the wall, this time in a position that could never possibly be construed as anything remotely positive, or favoritism of any kind.
Several words had been bellowed in the last few rage-filled seconds such as "Change me back." and "What did you do to me?!" Including others which are considered… unprintable.
The green flames of changeling magic faded to reveal perforated limbs, strangely enough her hair was the same, however most importantly they revealed a jagged black horn that was sturdy and sharp. And pressed up against the changeling guard's throat.
The changeling guard in question sat stock-still, fear in its eyes. It hadn't said anything the whole time.
"Well." Luna the changeling said, voice etched with fury.
"I haven't done anything to you."
"LIAR!" Luna screamed. "How do you explain THIS?!"
"I... I..." The changeling's demeanor was faltering by the second. Any creature with a normal digestive system would be standing in a puddle of water at this point. "You asked me to," it pleaded.
"I NEVER ASKED YOU TO." Luna slammed her hoof into the floor, taking out a sizable chunk of stone. and knocking her crown from her head. "TELL ME THE TRUTH!"
The guard, unsupported by Luna, was now cowering on the floor. It didn't dare move. It looked up at her in terror, but was completely unwilling to even attempt to defend itself.
Luna realized what position she was in, again, and stopped staring down at the changeling, her face unreadable.
The silence dragged on for a second as Luna thought.
"Could you say I was a good soldier before I go?" it squeaked.
Luna found herself, again, standing over a changeling seconds from death at her hooves. A resigned changeling too terrified to even shield its head with its hooves. But there was no part of her mind that egged her on this time.
Luna stopped. Something was missing, something that had stood at the back of her mind for the better part of a millennium, speaking to her, cackling and impressing dark compulsions on her. Luna didn't black out this time. Panicking, she tried feeling for the grasp of Nightmare Moon and found nothing...
As one last desperate attempt, Luna looked into the mirror on the vanity, hoping, praying to see Nightmare's face grinning back at her.
All Luna saw was a changeling with starry hair, and her cutie mark. Alone, standing over a crown and a cowering changeling.
"Nightmare Moon has returned," the changeling said, interrupting her thoughts.
Suddenly, becoming a changeling was the least of Luna’s problems. The least of Equestria’s problems, and any existential quandaries would have to wait until she was sure the sun would rise tomorrow.
"That's why we brought you here...Mother."
"What do you know about Nightmare Moon?" Luna growled, her fury returning instantly.
"Not much, but I think more could be explained if I showed you something." The changeling didn't get up, though. It didn't move anything but its mouth.
Luna thought for a moment.
This is the second time I've been captured by changelings, They've put me in one of the best rooms, have a small shrine of stolen objects of mine, and this one is calling me "Mother..."Luna considered the treatment she'd got from the last changelings she'd been imprisoned by and compared it to the changelings here.
I'll never forgive myself if I at least don't make an attempt to find out what is going on here.
"I don't see how things can get worse from here." Luna said, looking down at her perforated hooves. “Show me, then.”
The changeling led her out into winding hallways of, presumably, its hive. They were tastelessly decorated in black, inlaid with glowing green crystals, and looked like some of the shots Luna had seen of the abandoned hive, except as if they had been decorated by somepony in their teens who thought studded black trenchcoats were cool.
Luna frowned. That was basically her a thousand years ago. Of course, on the moon she'd...
And the memories grew hazy there, as if Nightmare Moon had taken them with her. But she was sure she'd done... something...
Shaking her head, Luna failed to run into anything during her daydream.
This was a great deal more complicated than it initially sounds, because as she was trying to remember her time on the moon, Luna had walked into a bustle of changeling activity. This had caused a not undue amount of chaos as changelings, who had heard her thunderous voice well through whatever stone this place was made of, scrambled to get out of her way. Luna's walk was unhindered, but she left a path of tripped changelings and fallen objects.
Looking around now, she also seemed to be trailing a crowd of gazes, specifically gazes directed away from herself. Everywhere she looked, she saw changelings staring at everything other than her, with none of the telltale flinches of guilty eyes being moved from where they shouldn't be.
Even the guard stared straight ahead, its posture so rigid Luna could have sworn it thought it was marching to its death. Not exactly the impression Luna wanted to get across past actions excluded.
"All right." Luna said. "This has gone on long enough."
Instantly the room around her froze. Nopony was looking at her, but all were flicking their eyes towards the nearest exit.
"My name is Luna, or at least it was when I woke up this morning." That modern language tutor was getting a raise whenever she got back to Canterlot. "And I can see we got off on the wrong hoof here. But I would like an explanation as to what in Tartarus is going on here, Mr...?”
Luna's words hung in the air for another annoyingly long moment before the changeling in guard's armor, well kept armor if Luna was any judge, turned to face her.
“Actually its ‘Ms.’ and my name is Chandra. But you know me better as ‘Nightwhisperer’.”
Nightwhisperer… Luna thought, the name sounds familiar.
“Wait, you’re saying you ARE my captain of the guard?” Luna said skeptically. “Prove it.”
“Uhhh, on my third day on the job I got a little overzealous with my guard work, and you caught me hassling the chef attempting to bring dinner into your study.”
Luna didn’t look quite convinced. Chandra noticed and shuffled her feet a bit.
“You ran into me coming back from the cafeteria through the servant’s hallways, while I was bragging about how good a guard I was.”
Luna looked more or less convinced at this point, and was about to say so, but Chandra barreled on as if she had something eating away at her mind for awhile now.
“So after that, I really made an effort to shape up as a guard, so I wouldn’t disappoint you again but…” Chandra was babbling now.
“But I was the one who stole that hairbrush from your room! It just got so lonely without you around, and you never talked to us anymore, well you did, but you didn’t recognize us anymore, and I just wanted something to remind me of you!” Chandra’s training as a guard had stopped her from physically breaking down into tears, but nevertheless, Luna still felt the urge to comfort the unraveled-looking changeling.
Luna did so by awkwardly patting her on the back, when a thought occurred to her.
“Wait. So, were you the one that sent that report of a changeling in Manehatten?”
Chandra shook her head. “No, that was Chrysalis hoping to only fight one alicorn at a time. I would have said something, but I couldn't think of any excuse to know anything about changelings.”
“Ok,” Luna was taking this exceptionally well. Actually, she was taking it rather badly, but over the years she had learned how to hide something so small as 'taking something badly' through experience dealing with actual minotaur war-leaders who, by tradition (a thousand years ago), would attack at the first sign of weakness in their opening parley. “Tell me this, then: How many of my guard are actually changelings?”
“All of them.”
“What? You can't be serious.”
“Every thestral in Canterlot is a changeling. You created the design for 'night ponies...' so we used it.”
Luna opened her mouth to speak. Or she would have, except she felt a twang of electricity run down her spine through her connection to the moon. It felt weird, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Celestia probably raised the moon for her. It did remind her that she should probably get things moving along.
“I... well I have to believe you for now. However, I think it’s time you took me to wherever I could get a proper explanation for all this.”
“That would be the Memory Room! Although you've previously instructed that no changeling be present when you perform the ceremony.”
“Oh... good.” Luna smiled the smile you give to your stalker as they've cornered you in a department store, and are telling you about all the things they thought you told them.
----------------
If the vanity in Luna's plagiarized changeling bedroom was a shrine to her, then the Memory Room was more of a cathedral. And indeed it was a cathedral.
It was excessively large for an underground structure, and the domed ceiling gave off a further illusion of height due to a fantastically painted rendition of the night sky. It was rimmed by more of those odd glowing crystals Luna had seen throughout the rest of the hive, giving it the appearance of a geode. It was supported by spidery columns made of some type of dark woven metal.
Standing across from the door and at either side of the rows of seats were three statues of Luna. They matched her colors, being dark blue with gemstones for eyes, and each one of them was robed and in some sort of... prophetic position, as if ready to bring word to the unclaimed masses.
As Luna passed by one, she read the plaque below it. It read “Luna, Queen-Mother of the Night.”
She was unsure whether or not to be creeped out by all this, or just unsettled. It wasn't uncommon to worship the Celestial sisters as gods. Technically, they were. But Luna had never seen anything taken to this degree before.
Coming around the edge of the hall towards the center statue, Luna found four more spellboxes at its hooves. Each one of them was a work of art in and of itself. Luna leaned in past the railing to look at the perfect glyph-work on one when she felt a hoof on her shoulder.
“Open that one at first. It-or more accurately, you-will explain everything.” Chandra said, pointing at the spellbox sitting up on an altar. It was made of metal and welded down. “It will tell you what the other boxes are for.”
And with that Chandra left the room, and so did every other changeling in the hall, leaving the swirl patterned double doors to shut with a muffled thump.
Several seconds passed in silence before Luna scanned the room for anything that might be watching, both with her eyes and her magic.
Finding nothing, Luna immediately began opening a two-way scrying channel to Celestia but stopped short of actually allowing visual contact. On the plus side, it worked through her connection to Celestial bodies and was almost undetectable and impossible to trace within time-spans shorter than an hour. On the downside, she couldn't use it to figure out where Celestia was and vice versa.
“Sister? Can you hear me?”
There was a surprised noise, and a sound like a plastic tub being dropped, from the other end, before Luna heard anything coherent.
“Luna! Luna is that you?” came Celestia's frantic voice. “Where are you?”
“At the moment, I don't have the slightest idea... best I can tell you is an underground cathedral dedicated to me.”
“What?”
“I would like to explain, but I don't know everything. AND we have a much, MUCH larger problem on our hands here.”
Luna took a deep breath.
“I hope you made up with Twilight, because Nightmare Moon has returned, and she has possessed somepony other than me.”
“So that wasn't you raising the moon earlier?” Celestia asked, dancing around an outright accusation of possession by Nightmare Moon.
“I thought that was you!” Luna rubbed her face in frustration. “At least tell me you've figured out a way to make amends with Twilight.”
There was a long and uncomfortable silence on the other end.
“...I've proved her innocence but-” Celestia put forth hesitantly.
“Something went wrong, didn't it.”
“I didn't have a chance to tell her before she escaped, the changeling- er, Naudia, in tow.”
“Semprini.” Luna cursed under her breath. “Do you at least have an idea where she went?”
“The best we've managed to nail down is 'somewhere in the Everfree Forest.'”
“And I'm certain you have guards combing the forest, loudly shouting apologies, as we speak, right?”
Silence.
“Right?”
“I can't. When the blood moon rose, I needed all royal guard, and even some of the police force from Ponyville, to stop Canterlot from rioting. Especially with the Night Guard entirely missing.”
“All of the Night Guard?”
“Yes, all of them disappeared at the same time as you did. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?”
“It’s related to the situation with Nightmare Moon. I don't know how much I can tell you right now.” Luna shuffled her hooves nervously. She didn't want to tell Celestia her changeling status yet. “However, I may be able to find out more about the situation, and I'll be able to update you on it once I'm done.”
“Don't take too long. I don't know how much time we have to find Twilight, and...” Celestia said with a sniffle, “And apologize to her.”
“Put on a brave face for me, Celly. We WILL make it through this, one way or another.”
Luna shut off the scrying spell, turned to the box in front of her, and took a deep breath.
----------------
The box opened without any sound. No scratching rust, no creak of distressed metal, just another well-oiled and -maintained hinge, performing its purpose without complaint.
Luna had cast any number of shields on herself before even going near the box, though: magical wards that would protect Luna--anything from the common cold to unquenchable fire.
However, there were no surprises inside the box. The only thing that came out was an illusion of an empty room, which sat empty for several seconds before a changeling walked into the field of view and sat down on the rug in the center of the room. It was clearly a queen, and it looked like it had prepared a speech to somebody they didn't know.
It spoke.
“Hello, me, or… well... future me.” It coughed into its perforated hoof nervously. “If you're hearing this, then something has gone seriously wrong with Nightmare Moon, and before I start, I would like to ask Celestia to leave the room if she's here. This recording is for me, er, that is, Luna, and Luna alone. Anything said here is for her to disclose, if she wants to.”
There was a pause as presumably it was waiting for a Celestia that wasn't there to leave the room. Luna took measure of the changeling queen in the image, while she waited. She did share some resemblance to the changeling Luna saw in the mirror less than half an hour ago--most notably her night sky hair. Leaning in closer, Luna could swear the queen had the same cutie mark as her own, but the angle was wrong for her to see it properly. This changeling almost looked like she was in her teenage years.
But they're masters of transformation, the logical part of her mind told her. Changing shape is easy for them.
“Now I'm going to verify that you're listening to Princess Luna, Goddess of the Moon, so Celestia better not be listening in right now.”
“Three years after I started my tutelage under Starswirl the Bearded, I thought I knew him well enough and pulled a prank on him.” It turns out changelings’ faces can flush with embarrassment. “Just a simple whoopee cushion, nothing fancy, but we missed study time that night. The next day I forgot, and sat on it myself, but I never admitted to him that I put it there.”
Luna's look of shame mirrored that of the changeling in the image almost perfectly.
“Now I suppose you're wondering why you're a changeling, and possibly why you can't remember your time on the moon at all. This all begins with the nature of Nightmare Moon herself.”
The changeling's horn glowed and an image of Nightmare Moon came into existence in the air to her left.
“This is Nightmare Moon as you knew her, and possibly as you still know her, but this is not her... for lack of a better term, 'real' form. This form is merely a reflection of us, a darker side given form. Nightmare Moon has no real form to speak of. It will always take on some reflection of those it possesses.”
“Nightmare Moon, in her own way, is a reflection of the Elements of Harmony, but while harmony stands together, discord stands alone.”
“Indeed he did.” Luna mumbled under her breath.
The changeling Luna in the image continued on, ignorant of Luna's commentary.
“Doubtless you remember Discord. He was an embodiment of disharmony as well. Anyway, when Celestia banished us to the moon, we did not know the extent of Nightmare Moon's influence, nor the grip she had upon us.”
She looked shaken, and took an uncomfortably long time to collect herself before continuing.
“On the moon, I discovered that Nightmare Moon was slowly beginning to consume our soul to sustain herself. With a thousand years for her to work with, there wouldn't be any of us left to redeem. Of course, neither I nor Celestia knew this beforehand. And I am ashamed to admit that after too many years of calling out for help from the moon, I... I gave up.”
“Then I heard something I had not for decades: prayers. Somepony was praying to the night. I almost didn’t believe it at first, but those changelings that brought you here have ancient traditions of worshiping the night, and by extension us. They had been working for years to circumvent Celestia’s banishment and contact me.” The changeling Luna swallowed like she was about to say something difficult. “Also, depending on how long it is before you discover this, it is entirely likely that most, if not all, of them are our daughters. So I hope you didn't hurt any of them.”
“I worked with them for several years, filling the hours between my contact with them by gathering my strength and preparing for drastic measures. In that time, we constructed and grew the body of a changeling queen without a resident soul, discovering a great deal about the nature of changelings in the process. We developed it past adolescence, then by connecting my new body to the natural ley lines of the moon, we developed this glyph.” Luna, in the image, gestured to another image that projected itself out of the box: a complicated, inverted summoning circle, surrounded by scribbles and calculations that Twilight Sparkle would have happily attempted to decipher.
And, hopefully, fail to decipher. Luna thought darkly. These are far more dangerous than dark magic, this is soul magic… not something that should be trifled with, much less experimented with.
“And through that summoning glyph, separated my soul from that of Nightmare Moon. I dared not ask them to go to Celestia with any of this, because I knew it would destroy her if she knew what almost happened.”
And it still might. I will have to be VERY careful how I broach the subject to her. If I do at all.
“It took three days to cast the spell, and while I was saved from oblivion, you can see that we are changelings through and through now. The current plan is that I will spend the next eight hundred years in hiding, split off from the rest of the changelings, who went south. We have headed north and are hiding in the Crystal Mountains.”
“Now, we are already planning the final stages, in order to keep any of this from reaching Celestia's ears, and we’ve created this spellbox here to explain the contingency plan, and reasons for the current situation, in case something goes wrong with Nightmare Moon.” Now the changeling-Luna in the image took on a business-like tone. “In order for your replacement of Nightmare Moon the moment she is destroyed to be complete, I will be locking away my memories of being on the moon and being a changeling.”
“If you are listening to this, then you need to make a decision as to how much you want to know. You’ll see that in front of you are three spell boxes of ascending power and complexity. The smallest will unlock what you learned about Nightmare Moon during your banishment, nothing else.”
Luna glanced down at a fairly basic spellbox that was finely crafted and ornate, but her practiced eye recognized that only very few of the glyphs inscribed on it were not ornamental in nature.
“The middle one will do the same as the first and additionally unlock what you need to know to be a changeling queen.”
The second box was only marginally larger than the first but an overwhelming majority of its glyphs were part of a web of spells so complex that Luna could swear she caught a glimpse of the ley lines the box created.
“And the last one will unlock everything, after opening it you will remember everything, including your time on the moon.”
Luna automatically began to reach for the largest and most ornate spellbox, which glowed faintly in its own miniature magical ecosystem.
She almost opened it up before the image spoke again.
“Remember, I locked these memories away to protect Celestia. Take only what you think she is ready for. I have no doubt she will be able to see through any mask you try to put up, with too much firsthand knowledge of the situation.”
Then the image winked out, leaving Luna alone. She paused before reaching for a spellbox again.
Can I trust them?
Luna looked up at the lovingly carved statue of herself. It gazed down at her with a gentle smile and open hooves. The detailing was far beyond what could be done in a hurry, and any spells she tried showed it to be completely magically inert, save for a self powering spell for preservation.
And then Chandra's words came back to her from less than half an hour before.
"Could you say I was a good soldier before I go?"
Luna brought todays events into context with what she knew about the pilgrim thestrals that visited her night court. They all acted the same way, some of them coming to ask Luna to bless this child, or even in small groups, simply to awkwardly meet the Princess of the Night. Every one of them had this strange air about them.
Feeling adventurous Luna made a snap decision and reached for a spellbox.
Twilight started out of a nightmarish sleep to find herself sleeping on something that could not be described in any way cloud-like. It was warm, for one, sort of like a hot water bottle. It rocked gently and went ‘gloop’ when she moved around.
Opening her eyes, she was met with the back of a changeling queen in one eye and a close up view of her current bed in the other. Groggily, Twilight began to recall about the bed--or hammock, as it were.
The mere memory gripped her heart like an icy phantom.
Twilight wasn't the slightest bit worried about sleeping in a Changeling goop hammock. It was unsettling to see Naudia excrete the goop from her mouth, horn glowing, but the hammock was comfortable enough that Twilight got over that rather quickly. Naudia insisted calling it “ichor,” but Twilight still thought of it as “goop.”
What she didn't get over quickly were the nightmares. Twilight had had nightmares before. magic kindergarten, Discord's reign, those nightmares came and went. Even the next night after Discord's chaotic reign, all she had to do was wake up and remind herself that Discord was a statue. Or to look up at her graduation certificate, from magic kindergarten, which she still had on her wall.
These dreams were much, much worse.
Twilight awoke from the hounding shadows of formerly friendly faces, only to be reminded that it wasn't all a dream. It had happened, and, indeed, would still be happening, if it hadn’t been for Naudia. Because in all those other dreams, there was always hope, always a way out: the elements of harmony (even if they didn't work), or graduation.
But there... there, in the intricately detailed dream prison, there was nothing. Only false friends to comfort her, false comforts dotted the room in a futile attempt to distract her from her hopelessness. It was not just the magic suppressor on her horn, nor the bars on her window that kept her from escaping. It was the crushing knowledge that there was nowhere to escape to. No friends to offer her shelter, and nopony willing to believe her long enough to get her out of this crushing purgatory.
Twilight's thoughts spiraled ever downward at this point, festering and feeding upon themselves. Because, in her heart, she was certain that even if she managed to escape that, no hole, no crevice, no fresh hell was out of Celestia's reach. It was only a matter of time.
The only way she had gotten any sleep at all was by crawling into Naudia's bed and hugging her like a teddy bear.
“You seem frightened, Twilight.” Naudia said.
It was an odd phrasing, considering what she meant, but Twilight had asked her not to use “taste” in the same context ever again.
“Just nightmares...”
Naudia wormed her way around to face Twilight.
“And what kind of 'just nightmares' could convince you to sleep in the same bed as me? After all, it was your idea to sleep separately in the first place.”
“The guidebook said that it was not proper for ponies to sleep with each other until after marriage.”
Naudia gave her a deadpan expression.
“I'm not sure if that’s exactly what they were talking about.” Naudia took a deep breath and let the other shoe drop. “Another problem I can see with that is… I don't think we could get officially married now, even if we tried.”
“I... suppose it was a little bit silly to be worried about something like that at a time like this.” Twilight mumbled shyly.
“It was cute, mind you, but until we can find you a steady source of food, things that don’t poison you or turn your horn floppy, worries like marriage will have to wait.”
“Well, its just that this whole situation has me really confused, and I'm trying not to think about a lot of things right now.”
"My teacher always told me 'bottling it up never helped anybody,' and while I know emotions aren't the same for ponies and changelings, I think that still holds true here. I don’t think ponies could put emotions into physical bottles, anyway."
Twilight got up from the hammock to pace around and think before speaking.
"Am I wrong to side with you?"
"I think you're going to have to explain that one to me a little bit further."
"All my friends, even Celestia, are against us right now. Heck, probably even Shining and my parents at this point, and..." Twilight deflated a bit. "And I can't help but wonder if we're in the wrong here."
"I cannot think for you, Twilight, but I can tell you what I think. The world isn't all black and white. Consider for the moment: What do your friends know? What did they see you do since you've come back?"
Twilight sat down for a moment and thought hard about the last few days.
"Almost nothing..."
"And that's mostly my fault. I misjudged Celestia in my plan to keep you out of all this as much as possible. That's mostly why I came to get you first." Naudia tried to slip the word “mostly” past Twilight unnoticed.
It didn't work.
"Mostly? You mean you had another reason to come rescue me?"
"Well, not exactly... Kinda..."
Twilight did not look amused.
"I kinda had to make a deal with… something. In order to break out, and break you out."
“Something?” Twilight was on the alert now.
Naudia, hoping to cushion the blow with as much honesty as possible, dropped the third shoe heavy, unwashed and smelling of feet.
“In order to get out of the Canterlot dungeon, I had to make a deal with something that, by my estimation, was the most evil creature I've ever laid my eyes on.”
“And?” Twilight narrowed her eyes at Naudia.
“And its only stipulation for breaking me out was that it wanted your services at a later time.”
“AND?”
“...And I haven't the faintest clue what it wanted you for, or what it was.”
“Is there anything you DO know?”
“We wouldn't have made it out of that dungeon without its help. It made that very clear.”
“SO let me get this straight, Naudia: You made a deal with some sort of… unnatural demon monster? Worse than anything you’ve seen out in the Badlands. In order to rescue me. Now, you’ve got me signed up to work for said demon monster, and you didn’t think to ask what I thought about it?”
Naudia looked sheepishly at the floor.
“Celestia said she was going through with the trial. I had to do something. Believe me, I looked at every possible way out of there at least twice except for…”
“What could POSSIBLY be worse than putting somebody else in service of something that bad?”
“Well… there was some hope that I could maintain control of my corrupted self long enough to break you out. You know, if I just let myself be consumed...”
Twilight almost spoke without thinking, and then her brain interrupted her with what Naudia just said.
Twilight froze up.
There was a long pause before Twilight got up and walked out of the cave, mumbling only:
“I… I need some time to think.”
Naudia attempted to busy herself inside the cave and give Twilight some space. However there wasn’t much, if anything she could do at the moment.
All the generously labeled “furnishings” were was good as she could make them with crudely cut wood and changeling ichor alone, which meant that they weren’t very good.
The box, into which they’d put everything salvaged from Twilight’s library, only held together with uncured ichor because they’d stayed up too late last night strategically jamming it into a corner and attempting to prop up the edges with sticks. It now resembled a box with a lean to add on for small rodents.
The “writing desk” Twilight had insisted on for reading wobbled, and would periodically fall over due to, once again, uncured ichor.
Naudia wished she had a kiln right now so she could do something useful with it. Twilight had said she could approximate one with magic, but not easily. Sure, the rubbery uncured stuff was great if you needed to hold somebody down or make a hammock, but it couldn’t hold a table together until you fired it and then charged it with magic to sort of weld it down.
After fidgeting around for a long time, with nothing to do but watch fungus grow at the back of the cave, Naudia finally gave up on doing anything useful or productive. She fashioned a crude ball out of changeling ichor and began to bounce it against the back wall of the cave. It was misshapen, but then again, so was the cave, so it worked out, more or less.
Naudia shrugged herself down and prepared for a long wait.
----------------
Outside, Twilight found herself in an entirely different predicament. As Celestia’s personal student, she had made more of a study of the Sun and Moon than most scholars had. And with Celestia’s direct help, she had figured out many things that astronomers had never been able to find the answer to, mostly owing to them considering asking Celestia to be “cheating,” such as how the upper atmosphere of Equestria acted as a magically charged lens, and how Luna did not control or create the stars--she only made them visible through the otherwise obscuring atmosphere.
It wasn’t considered cheating when sailors asked, or if something particularly important came up (a fairly rare occurrence when you had a goddess managing the skies above). It was still considered “bad taste” to ask, however, and was right up there with “asking for directions” in the list of things the astronomers would not do. In reality, the astronomers’ guild had a long and proud history of being prideful, and, in recent times, abusing the skills of younger and more driven ponies to circumvent their eternal stalemate with Celestia--and, in the past few years, Luna.
Twilight suspected the entire guild was attempting to bash down Celestia’s door at the moment to ask for an explanation as to why in Tartarus the moon was out during the day, stark blood red.
She could only guess at why it was happening. Was it because of her? Did Luna have some sort of searching magic tied to the moon itself? Was Luna hurt?
Any of those seemed unlikely. Twilight was unaware of any threat beyond the changelings themselves, and they were... well, they were taken care of, for the moment. So Luna couldn’t be hurt. Twilight sincerely doubted Celestia could convince Luna to perform magical sweeps with the moon, simply because of how tedious it would be to search with it, as doing all that work by herself overstepped any kind of sisterly coercion. That left her only one terrible conclusion: something else had taken control over the moon.
Simply standing outside in its reddish light made her uneasy. It was unnatural, unpleasant, and as unsettling as if somepony was standing directly behind her.
She decided to return to the cave, having made up her mind about at least one thing.
Twilight found Naudia sitting at the back of the cave, bouncing an ichor ball against a wall.
"Naudia..."
Twilight waited for Naudia to notice her, but she seemed to be in another time and place. Finally, Twilight cleared her throat in a conspicuous manner. Naudia woke up from her stupor, and the ichor ball bounced off her head.
"Wha?"
"You were miles away there, Naudia."
"Oh, sorry... I was remembering something from my childhood. Nothing important, just something I haven't done in a long time."
"I wanted to tell you that I think you did the right thing, and I’m sorry for snapping at you back there.”
“We’re all under a lot of stress Twilight. I’m still worried about...” Naudia went back to being miles away.
“If something’s bothering you, we should talk about it. It’s the least I can do after earlier.”
There was a pause as Naudia attempted to collect herself, breathing deep a couple times.
“How often do ponies have nightmares, Twilight?”
“That’s an odd question, but since Luna got back, I would say no more than once a month or so. Why, are you having nightmares as well?”
“I’m not used to nightmares, Twilight. Changelings may not have a complete hive mind like you would think, but there is a... connection between us. I can’t communicate with my brothers and sisters over it, but it’s what I remember falling asleep to every night as a foal.”
“But recently, I haven’t been able to hear them. It was only last night that I had my first Nightmare in a long, long time. Well, until you crawled into the hammock with me.”
“What was the nightmare about?” Twilight asked.
“I dreamt that Celestia turned evil and held the changelings in Canterlot hostage, demanding I return to face execution.”
Twilight tensed up and Naudia noticed.
“Is something wrong?” Naudia said, as dread crept up through her hooves.
“The moon is still up, and it’s blood red. I’m assuming something is wrong with Luna.”
“But, all my people are in Canterlot, Twilight!”
“Well we can... Uhh...”
“I hate to ask you this, Twilight, but would you be willing to come with me back to Canterlot? I have to know if my family is all right.”
“But... what if we get captured again, I couldn’t stand to lose you!”
“We aren’t going in unprepared this time. I have an idea.”
----------------
“PAPER armor? Are you serious? Please tell me I didn't waste that much magic for this.” Twilight said, exasperated at the small mountain of scrolls Naudia had gathered up.
“Not just paper, Twilight, laminated ichor armor!”
“That’s even worse!”
“You just get that magic kiln you told me about started and I’ll do the rest, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll make a test sample for you to abuse.”
It took quite some time, and some parchment fashioned into a crude measuring tape, but eventually Naudia was ready to start treating paper and turning it into armor. With a bonus Twilight Sparkle hovering over her shoulder, attempting to figure out how skeptical she should be right now.
“OK, so I’ve covered the sheets you asked me to in the unfired ichor. What now?” Twilight asked.
“Now I’m going to manaweld the surface with the fired ichor and begin layering them together.”
“How do you know so much about this, anyway?”
“Mom was really hard on me. I had to learn about every aspect of changeling life.” Naudia had a bit of a guilty look about her.
“Yeah, but smithing? Seriously?”
“I did kinda ask her to teach it to me.” Naudia said sullenly.
Several seconds passed.
“OK, OK, I begged her to let somebody teach me, because I was a big O&O fan back in the day.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Twilight said with a bit of a smirk.
There were several more seconds where Naudia got to work uninterrupted.
“I do have one question though. No, two. Why didn’t we get any of this armor back at your hive? And… how do you know about Ogres and Oubliettes?”
“To answer the easier question first, we rarely took money from ponies we captured--after all, it was worthless in the hive--but we did take books. Quite a few changelings had jobs simply copying out any pony books we picked up off explorers. I was fortunate enough to get the original third edition O&O book when I was ten.
“As to why we didn’t pick up any armor there, well, we either recycled it back into love or took it with us. At that point, the hive was pretty well stripped down of anything edible to us that wasn't embedded into walls. I don’t think Mother actually planned ahead long enough to think about coming back.”
“She actually let you study pony things?”
“Well, yes. I was generally the first to get the originals after a couple decent copies were made.” Naudia said as she plastered another layer onto the armor.
“But you told me she hated ponies. Why would she let you have anything from us?”
“She hated them, yes. But you were necessary to her plans. Anything she could do to subvert, control or defeat Equestria was on the table.” Naudia took the first and smallest sheet off the line where she was hanging it. “All right. That’s your test sample. Wait about five minutes then give it some abuse.”
As Twilight walked away, Naudia noticed something she couldn't quite place.
"Hold on a second. Twilight, could you come here for a minute."
"What is it?" Twilight was weirded out by the way Naudia was trying to look behind her head.
"Just turn your head to the right for a moment." Naudia had her eyes fixed on the... indescribable something that was floating behind Twilight's head.
Tentatively, she reached a hoof out to touch it, but her hoof went right through like it wasn't there.
Then she tried grasping it with her magic.
It felt like an electric shock directly to her brain.
----------------
All Twilight knew was there had been a light, and then Naudia had passed out on the ground. Still breathing, but, as Twilight lugged her into the hammock, having a very restless sleep.
Twilight couldn't explain what had just happened, nor could she think of anything to do for Naudia but wait.
And wait she did. Unable to keep still, Twilight resorted to nervously abusing the piece of test armor Naudia gave her.
Twenty minutes later, when Naudia woke up, Twilight was frowning at the sheet in the middle of the floor. It was worse for wear, that was apparent, but nothing you couldn't have listed beyond "minor damage" if you were trying to sell it.
"I wasn't joking about paper armor Twilight. I take it that it’s passed your test?"
"NAUDIA! You're awake! How long have you been up?!"
"Since right around the time you placed it on top of a rock and started jumping on it."
"What happened to you anyway? One minute you were acting strange, and then you were on the ground."
"I have an idea, but first I need to confirm it. Twilight, you said you had a nightmare last night, right? Could you describe it to me?"
"Well, it’s kinda hard to remember so late in the day, but I remember being chased by my friends and Celestia and... they weren't my friends, and they wanted to change me. I... I couldn't get away because there was nowhere to get away to..." Twilight lapsed into silence.
"Well, I know what happened now, but I can't explain why. Hanging out behind your head was a nightmare; the actual nightmare you had last night."
"How do you know that?"
"I just lived, well, slept, through it myself. Somehow your nightmare has manifested itself."
"I've never heard of ANYTHING like that before, and I've even researched the Nightmare Moon incident as far as anybody has been able to. The connotations of nightmares having any kind of physical component are immense!"
"That’s not the worst part though. The worst part was that before I touched it, it was staring at me."
Canterlot was in chaos. Not the fun type of chaos that Discord wrought: nothing so reversible, or enjoyable to the correct tastes (Discord’s tastes, specifically). No, this was a mass panic.
Ponies are naturally skittish creatures, as anybody who has ever tried to train them for the armed forces will tell you. They don’t react well to “unnatural” things. Sure, they’ll be fine if the weather ponies make a cloud delivery a day late, or if the sun rises ten minutes later than expected. In their world, that was normal, explainable, and fundamentally agreed upon as “Somepony else’s problem.”
The moon turning blood red and remaining up at all hours of the day was about as far from “Somepony else’s problem.” as was possible to get. It was out of the ordinary, and altogether too similar to eternal night for rumors of Nightmare Moon not to simply materialize out of thin air. The rumor mill barely had the time to make a full turn around Canterlot arriving at "Twilight Sparkle was possessed by Nightmare Moon and going to bring about eternal winter" before the city fell under attack.
Even now, the streets flowed with panic as living nightmares grew. The first day, they were small; nothing more than unpleasantly squiggly things that scuttled about in a highly disconcerting manner, having the singularly insect-like ability to seemingly phase through walls and into places you would not expect to see them. But, as the blood moon grew stronger, so did they. Feeding from an unknown source, they could no longer simply be erased by chucking them into the light of Celestia’s sun.
Now, Celestia led a contingent of royal guards, and even a few enterprising unicorns, in an attempt to clear out the as-yet-unexplained menace.
Cutting off the magic to her horn, Celestia left another emptied-out house. Already, fatigue was beginning to show through her normally stoic demeanor. It was fortunate that these monsters could still be killed by a powerful enough illumination spell, but what worried Celestia was that she hadn’t seen two alike yet. Her and the guard had purged nearly a quarter of the city already, and every one of them had wildly different descriptions of every one.
And they were getting larger, requiring steadily stronger spells to destroy.
As Celestia finally reached the front door, she was assaulted by the sound of wood splintering. A royal guard was thrown through a door directly across the street. Just barely managing to catch the guard in time, Celestia stopped to watch the monstrosity that launched him attempt to squeeze itself through the door.
If you could cross a crab, a spider, and an octopus, you might have an analogue for the chitinous sucker-armed creature attempting to fold itself up through the doorway. It did not have tentacles, merely extremely large suckers, like fingers on the ends of its spiky appendages. Their use could only be guessed at, as it used them to drag two motionless guards face-first. On its back, seemingly placed at random, were horrible... orifices, that seemed to be emitting spores into the air. It had eyes, but they weren’t covered by anything. The exposed flesh simply contracted around them as it stared Celestia down always keeping more than two eyes open.
Celestia began charging her horn with the power of the sun.
The creature attempted to scuttle out of her sight, but only managed to wedge itself into the door frame, cracking it with its chitinous shell. A flash of light, and the creature was gone, leaving nothing but an unpleasant feeling in the air, as if unease could be coalesced into a stench.
Rushing over to the guards, Celestia found all three of them to be entirely alive, but asleep. So deeply asleep, in fact, that Celestia could not wake them up, despite the wildly apparent and highly unpleasant nature of their dreams. This was clearly beyond Celestia’s domain. She would have to call in Luna, and send Shining and Cadance after Twilight instead.
That meant leaving the city without the protection of Shining’s shield spell. Celestia tried to think of a positive side to this, as she began casting her spell to communicate with Luna. The best she could think of was that the guard would be at full strength, rather than spread thin on shifts, reinforcing Shining’s shield while they were being attacked from within.
For the second time, Luna declined visual contact through their communication spell. Celestia didn’t pay it any mind; the spell was infallible.
The first thing Celestia heard from the other end was rushing wind as if Luna was very high up somewhere.
“Yes, sister? It is not entirely a good time at the moment.” Luna said curtly.
“Really? What's happening on your end?”
“I have to decide how much trouble the thestrals are in right now.”
“Really… So you actually know what has happened to them? Enlighten me. For all I know, they just up and left, all at once.”
“Somehow, they detected Nightmare Moon’s return, and collected me to make sure I wasn’t under her influence. Right now, I’m heading on my way to the Everfree to hopefully find Twilight.”
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to head back to Canterlot. We’ve got a situation, involving living physical nightmares, that I absolutely need your help with.”
“What!?” Luna sounded as if somebody had just slapped her with a fish.
“Manifested Nightmares are attacking Canterlot. I need you back here to see if you can deal with this any better than we can.”
“But who is going to find Twilight then?”
“I’m sending Cadance and Shining Armor after them.”
“Alone?”
“We can’t spare anypony to go with them.”
There was nothing but the sound of wind for a long moment. Then Luna spoke.
“Send the changelings.”
“Luna, you can’t be serious!”
“I’m deathly serious, Celestia. Shining and Cadance can’t find her alone, and you need all the help you can get.” Luna laughed, “Besides, you know the phrase, ‘set a thief...’ “
"I don't know, Lulu." Celestia said, actively searching for a reason to say no.
"You said last time that you had proved Twilight’s innocence, I’m assuming for now that means you’ve verified her story, and thus vindicated the changeling queen Naudia. Am I wrong about that?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but you’re more or less correct.”
“Then we have a bargaining chip with the changelings and, more importantly, a reason to put aside our grudges against them in the face of a greater danger.”
“But-”
“But nothing, Celestia. You of all ponies should realize that Equestria comes before any of your misgivings, and if Canterlot is still standing tomorrow, then we’ll have a chance to discuss whether or not this is the right decision.”
Celestia grumbled, but could not articulate a definite counterpoint for this argument at that moment.
“I expect every able-bodied changeling to be mobilized by the time I get there. I should be in Canterlot within two hours.”
----------------
“I’M GOING TO BE WORKING WITH WHAT!?” Shining and Cadance shouted in unison.
“You are going to be working with changelings to find Twilight as quickly as possible and bring her back here.” Celestia said, possibly with even more misgivings than the royal couple.
“But Celestia! You can’t possibly think this could be a good idea!” Cadance pleaded.
“I don’t. But with the city in the shape that it is, my hooves are tied. The changelings can probably find their queen better than any of us, and Twilight was willing to talk to you. You have to work with the changelings to find them.”
“Why can’t you go, Celestia?”
Celestia’s stoic mask fell for a second, as a pained look forced its way through.
“She won’t listen to me right now, whatever I say. If I was the pony to go and find her right now, I would only do more harm than good.”
The incredulous looks on their faces told Celestia that they were nowhere near convinced, let alone happy with their situation.
“I could go, and scare off what little hope we have of resolving this with the Elements quickly, or I could send Luna, and risk Canterlot being overrun before she gets back. Or, I could send you two, who Twilight might actually talk to and believe. I’m certain neither of you are happy about this situation, but it’s not about that right now. It’s about Equestria, and what it needs, rather than what you want. As leaders, it is your job to put aside your differences, so that if there is a tomorrow, you can resolve them at all.”
“Something you could have learned earlier, Celestia.” Shining let out of his mouth, before slapping his hooves up to his face, as if trying to pull it back in.
Another twinge of emotion passed through Celestia’s iron grip, this time profound regret.
“Yes... I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make it up to Twilight.”
Silence intruded on the conversation. It lasted for a while, until something occurred to Cadance.
“If we’re going to do this, then I need you to write up a full pardon for Twilight and Naudia.”
“Yes. With the connection I felt on Twilight, I know they are quite attached. Twilight won’t come if she can’t bring Naudia with her. Besides, you know what a stickler for paperwork she is.”
This was something Celestia very much wanted to argue against, and even spent a second or two attempting to think of an objection. In the end, it boiled down to cutie marks, and trusting Cadance. Celestia silently pulled a quill and parchment out with her magic, and wrote out a quick, almost clause-less pardon, before sealing it up with her seal in a golden light and silently giving it to Cadance.
“I... I think we should get going, then.” Cadance said, taking what seemed at the time like the only way out of this conversation.
As they walked away from Celestia, Shining nudged Cadance and whispered:
“Why’d we walk away like that? You know that means we’re going to have to be working with changelings, right?”
“Yes, but this is for Twilight, and to a lesser extent, Celestia. You could see how badly she was hurting. And you didn’t help much with that comment of yours.”
“Well… you know how heated I can get when it comes to my sister.” Shining’s ears folded down in shame when Cadance shot him a glare. “All right. I should have been more considerate. But still, you know what she did to Twilight.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. But a national emergency is not the time to bring up your grievances to the ruler of a nation.”
Eventually, they made it outside of Canterlot and to the changeling prison camp, to find it disturbingly quiet.
There were no changelings wandering about, nor were there any changelings in the first two dormitories they checked out. The lights were still on everywhere, but the buildings themselves were suspiciously empty. By the time they checked building number four, even Cadance was beginning to suspect the changelings had escaped on their own, despite the guard at the gate’s assertion that they hadn’t.
The fifth dormitory, the largest, was suspiciously quiet and dark. Sheets had been put up over the windows and not a hint of light shined from within.
Opening the door, letting the reddish midday moonlight in, revealed a mass of changelings. They did not skitter away from the light like insects, nor did they shy away from the Alicorn of Love and Prince of the Crystal Empire. Instead, every changeling in the room immediately turned and stared at them.
The room was packed with changelings. Every square foot of floor was packed with changelings, every wall was almost completely obfuscated by changelings hanging on. They even hung down from the ceiling, filling every possible place with either a changeling or an injured changeling in a hammock, so that seemingly, they all could fit inside this one building. Every one of them was staring at Shining and Cadance.
Both of them flinched back at the sudden gout of attention from hundreds of pupil-less eyes. Using her last bit of courage, and likely undoing months of therapy, Cadance spoke up:
“Who is in charge here?” Her voice displayed far more gumption than she felt as everybody in the room turned ever so slightly to look specifically at her.
“I am.” A changeling in armor skittered across the ceiling and then dropped in front of Cadance without hesitation, in a manner clearly meant to intimidate.
“We’re going to need your help finding Twilight Sparkle and your queen.” Shining stepped in to physically block some of the stares aimed at Cadance.
“Well then, we have something to negotiate with. I am Mattar.” spoke the changeling, meeting Shining’s glare with one of equal ferocity.
----------------
Forty five minutes later, Celestia acknowledged the changelings leaving their camp for the Everfree, but beyond that, she didn’t bother to count them, or send anypony to see if there were any of them left in the camp itself.
Fifteen minutes after that, Celestia was frustrated, more than anything. She could swear somebody was following her around, but whenever she looked, she could see nobody except the guard detail she was spearheading through the city. It was making her jumpy and agitated, and it was beginning to show to her subordinates.
It did not help in the slightest that their progress was stymied, and their early nearly uninterrupted march was seeming like a distant memory. The uphill slog of increasingly disturbing and resilient monsters only seemed to increase, as fatigue began to set in for all, including Celestia. The only thing that helped, the only thing that kept the guards under Celestia’s command going at this point, was the promise that Luna would be here soon with reinforcements.
Celestia was half considering contacting Luna again, but the last time she did (a mere five minutes ago) Luna made it clear that she was currently dealing with the logistics of getting the thestrals moving AND heading to Canterlot under her own wingpower, and now was definitively NOT the time to be bothered for an up-to-the-minute ETA.
Then the flares started coming up.
Guard emergency flares started flying up almost in unison across the entirety of the guard’s front line in Canterlot, and there was no way Celestia could reach them all. At the moment, it seemed like everywhere except her immediate vicinity was hit at the same time.
Just as Celestia was about to take wing and begin supporting the guard from above, she heard a voice from further up the street that was at the same time familiar and alien.
“You can’t leave right now Celestia. We haven’t talked yet.” The voice was an odd mix of many voices and the distinctive booming voice of Nightmare Moon. She was holding something in her hoof.
Looking down the street, Celestia couldn’t pick out where the voice was coming from. The myriad shadows that littered the street seemed to have almost taken physical form and become as impenetrable as a wall. And then she stepped out of the shadows.
“Chrysalis?”
It was Chrysalis but... not Chrysalis. While clearly still the changeling queen that crashed the wedding some months ago, she had changed. Her skin had gone from a uniform black to having splotches of purple and blue in it as if she had been caught halfway between a transformation. Her hair and wings were almost completely gone, but behind them were a ghostly image of pony wings and starry hair. And, poking through Nightmare Moon’s armor, was the stump of a horn broken off at the base.
Celestia unconsciously put her hooves up to her mouth when she noticed the broken horn. No matter how much she didn’t like Chrysalis, she would never wish for anybody to suffer a broken horn.
“Oh, dear. I don’t know what happened to you, but I am genuinely sorry for you now.”
“What happened to me?” Chrysalis’s voice exuded danger.
“YOU DARE, YOU DARE TO ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME CELESTIA?” As Chrysalis shouted, Nightmare Moon’s features shadowed themselves over her own, as if given form by her rage. “You ponies happened to me. More concerned with appearances than lives, your eternal xenophobia ends today.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“I went to your ‘changeling prison camp’ and what did I find? I found it EMPTY!” It was impossible to tell the difference between Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon at this point. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CHILDREN?”
“I haven’t done anything to them!”
“Then explain THIS.” Chrysalis threw a changeling prayer stone at Celestia’s face. “Where is my daughter, Celestia?”
“I don’t-”
Her fury finally boiling over, Chrysalis leapt at Celestia fangs barred, roaring deviance.
Only to dissipate into shadows on Celestia’s shield.
Desperately looking around to see where she landed, Celestia saw only lengthening shadows all around her. She attempted to summon the power of the sun, but they remained as solid as ever, even under the direct scrutiny of the sun itself.
The shadows only grew taller, mocking the light, shaping themselves into cruel mockeries of ponies she knew and loved.
“You never loved me!” Shrieked a facsimile of Princess Luna, as it lunged for her with teeth bared.
Celestia’s expression remained stoic even as she shattered the shadow creature back into nothingness.
“Ever the violent one, never taking diplomatic options. It’s such a shame you’re immortal.” A shadowy griffon king mocked as he paced about her.
Celestia dispelled the long-dead griffon king and turned to face the next apparition, desperately searching for a hint as to where Chrysalis was hiding in the impenetrable mass of shadows.
“Is this the daughter I raised? Letting xenophobia and injustice run wild within her country, while she sits upon a throne insulated from the ponies who need her?” This time, the image of an all too familiar alicorn scoffed.
“Is this the best you can do? To mock me with doubts I have long since conquered?”
And then out of the shadows, a unicorn popped up. Even in monochrome, it was clear she had cut her bangs with the aid of a ruler and had a colored streak in her hair. The phantom Twilight sparkle began to speak. It was a pitch-perfect imitation of Twilight’s voice, but Celestia imagined an accusatory tone to it.
“Dear Princess Celestia: Today I learned that it is hard to accept when somepony you like wants to hang out with-”
“No.”
Another Twilight popped up, and another, a veritable forest of Twilight clones staring at her with that self-deprecating expression she always used when trying to take responsibility for somepony else’s actions.
“Never judge a book by its cover. Someone may look unusual, or funny or scary-”
“Face me, you monster! Stop throwing words that are not your own and FACE ME!” Celestia shouted in her royal voice, but the Twilight Sparkles kept appearing, mocking her with her guilt and reminding her of her all-too-recent failure of Equestria, and of Twilight.
Why did she come second? Celestia thought to herself. After all she’s done, does she truly deserve to come after Equestria?
“But you should never be afraid to share your true feelings with a good friend.”
Celestia took to the air in an attempt to escape the phantoms, but their voices chased her higher and higher. They were no longer necessary, though; her conscience was pushing her now.
“ENOUGH.” Celestia’s royal Canterlot Voice boomed out, as she forced sun out from behind the blood moon. In that moment, it shined with all the brightness and warmth of bleached bones. The harshness of the light alone was enough to cause the shadows to smolder.
In a staggering burst of power that left every unicorn in the city disoriented, she dispelled all the shadows in the city with the full might of the sun, which flowed through her veins like wildfire. The spell, in a form of magically infused sunlight, passed through walls and buildings alike, burning the nightmares to tatters.
Celestia, breathing heavily now, having seriously depleted her magic and the magic of the sun itself, scanned the city. She could feel behind her the blood moon slowly inching its way to cover up the sun once more. She found nothing. The City was empty of both shadows and nightmares alike. It still came at a cost: the sun itself looked noticeably dimmer than it had before.
And then she caught, out of the corner of her eye, the wake of somepony breaking the sound barrier. Celestia’s wings screamed in agony as she attempted to force herself out of the way.
But Chrysalis was faster, and hit Celestia dead-on, riding her down into the cobbled city streets. Afterward, ponies swore they saw them land before they heard them scream past.
There was no crater. Celestia landed on the stairs leading up to Canterlot Castle, and the enchanted stone proved far stronger than the bones in her spine, which shattered with an ear-splitting CRACK that echoed across Canterlot.
The changeling queen, unharmed by the landing, kicked Celestia down the steps and into the street. Ponies could only stare in shock as they seemed to be the only things in the entire world.
Celestia groaned, unable to feel her back legs. She looked up as Chrysalis approached.
“Good. Look at me, I want to look into your eyes while I do this.” Her stump of a horn was exuding an unsightly shadow.
Chrysalis loosed her spell, and suddenly Celestia couldn’t feel her front legs either. Panicking, she looked down to find them already turning to stone, as she watched helpless. Looking back up at Chrysalis, she attempted to plead with her but the spell had already reached her mouth, and there she remained: Frozen on the ground, broken and pleading, a proud ruler shattered and set in stone.
The last thing that went through her mind was a singular lonely little thought:
Rarity was ill at ease. She knew what the situation was out there: horrible orifice-covered abominations had flown past the Canterlot windows many times, leaving trails of unknowable powders and gases. Their faces giggled with madness, obvious even when pasted across whatever horrible arrangement of body parts they had been given.
The only thing keeping her in Canterlot Castle was Celestia. Not any of Celestia’s orders, nor Celestia’s authority as ruler over the land and sun itself, but her almost pleading insistence that the Elements stay safe, in case Twilight swooped in and saved them with the Elements of Harmony.
Not that Celestia would say that outright. Rarity only knew that because she had to read and know ponies for a living, and stitch down the tastes of a customer who didn’t entirely know what they wanted. To Rarity, Celestia was giving off all the signs of somepony ready to fall apart at a hair trigger. Not every kind of trigger though, but some very specific triggers involving Twilight Sparkle. Ponies like that could work for weeks before anything showed through to those not looking for the right signs. Sure, some ponies would notice something would be wrong beforehand, but they couldn’t grasp the full gravity of the situation until it crumbled apart.
That’s why she cringed at every monstrosity that popped up. Every one of them represented a small chance that the entire situation could shatter Celestia and with the keystone of the guard broken it would merely be a matter of time before Canterlot collapsed along with her.
Then Celestia fell. Without its regent, the sun itself began growing so dim in the sky as to become just another moon, before the blood moon eclipsed it fully.
Everypony just stared, too shocked to move, to frightened to act.
Rarity recovered first, her mind racing a thousand miles per hour.
“All right, girls.” Nobody heard her. Rarity was half-convinced the words had caught in her throat. Gathering her courage, she spoke up again. “All right, girls. We need to run, and we need to find a place to hide, in that order.”
“But Celestia!” Rainbow Dash protested.
“Told us we need to get the Elements of Harmony together, and I don’t see Twilight anywhere around here. We have to retreat until we can find Twilight.”
“We have to do something! Y’all can’t tell me we should just run away?!” Applejack said.
“Darling. You saw how easily that thing took down Celestia. What could we do, besides possibly delaying it for mere seconds? Can you honestly tell me that even the five of us together stand a chance without Twilight?”
The other four ponies shook their heads.
“Good.” Rarity turned and led them out of their Canterlot Castle rooms and into the hallways of Canterlot Castle.
The hallways were empty. Empty of ponies, and eerily silent, as the hustle and bustle of servants, guards, cooks and politicians had ceased entirely. In the blood-red light of the moon the once bright hallways had taken on a more all encompassing creepy feel. Normal decorations that, in the light of Celestia’s sun, stood as reminders of a long and stable rule, turned sinister in the long shadows.
“Hey!” came a voice from the side, making everypony jump.
“What are you even still doing here? Celestia ordered everypony out half an hour ago.” It turned out to be Spike peeking his head out of one of the bedrooms.
"I assumed that you had already left.”
“Celestia kinda told us to wait in Twilight’s old room, in the hopes that she might come back there first.”
Everypony in the room, minus one oblivious dragon, clammed up at the mention of Celestia.
“Oh, she still hasn’t come back yet, has she? Well, I’m sure Celestia will have everything under control!” Spike spoke the last statement with confidence, arms crossed.
Rarity found herself in the spotlight, and for once, she desperately wanted to be anywhere else. Looking to the side, all of her friends had their heads hung low, leaving only her to break the news to Spike.
“Umm, Spike… I don’t know how to break this to you but... Celestia just lost.”
The phrase was like a punch to the gut to everybody in earshot. Everybody but Spike already knew, but it was still a major hit to their morale to hear it said aloud. It cemented in their heads something they had yet to fully acknowledge, much less accept.
“But... but... how?”
"Nightmare Moon returned. They fought, and Nightmare broke her back. I... I didn't see what happened next."
"But she's ...Celestia! She raises the sun every day! She can't lose to anypony!"
As much as it pained Rarity to say it, she forced the next words out.
“We have to leave the castle now, Spike, and hope she’ll be OK. Do you know any more... secret ways out?”
Spike didn’t seem to hear her.
“Spikey Wikey?”
“Yeah, one or two... follow me.” Spike trotted off, a noticeable sag in his step.
----------------
Luna buzzed her way through the air, her new/old wings at the same time both completely alien and familiar. She felt... odd. It wasn’t that there were two minds in her head, she knew what that was like from her experience as Nightmare Moon. It felt more like a constant feeling of deja vu, as memories she had forgotten but recognized flashed by, and they were triggered by the oddest things.
The strangest part, by far, was her ability to suddenly tell changelings apart from one another, something she was certain she could not do when she woke up this morning. Walking by a changeling, with a casual glance, things about their appearance would stand out, things she’d ever noticed before. More, she’d understand her relationship with them. Usually something like “Daughter, 8th generation” along with their name and one or two notable accomplishments within the hive.
As unimaginative as her new mental catalog was, it was organized, and that was something that Luna could appreciate, considering its breadth. However, after about the tenth changeling she identified, she began to notice a pattern emerging: nine tenths of the changelings she saw were female, and the ratio only got larger the more she saw.
Around the time it reached forty to one, and Luna couldn't for the life of her remember why, in spite of all the rest she knew at a reflex, she decided it was time to buzz alongside a changeling and ask them.
“Ummm.” Luna looked at the changeling in question, who was clearly trying not to explode into fan-girlish giggles from the mere presence of Luna. “Rajani is it?”
“Yes, Queen Mother!” Rajani was doing her best not to squee.
“I'm starting to remember... my children's...” Luna paused for a second, as deja vu washed over her, as saying such a thing was something she expected to say at one point but never regarding such a plurality. “My children's names, and such. I'm noticing an overwhelming majority of them are female.”
Rajani paused for a second, reflecting on how odd it was that the Queen Mother didn't remember something so basic.
“Is it not obvious?”
Luna shook her head.
“To be closer to you, of course! Other than the Queen, changelings don't actually have genders, but we adopt them to feel like we belong next to you.”
Knowledge of this, like so many other things, popped into Luna’s head and sat there, defying any and all memories that it hadn’t already been there in her head for centuries. Luna paused for a second, torn between feeling creeped out that a complete stranger just told her that, and proud that one of her children loved her so strongly.
The two opposing thoughts fought for control before motherly instincts won out, and she smiled before clarifying what she was asking for.
“I noticed one or two changelings that were male, and I was wondering why there were so few.”
“Ah... well, that's slightly more complicated...” Rajani waved her hoof around, as if searching for a word.
“You ponies have cutie marks, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Changelings don't get cutie marks. However, we do have something very similar.” Rajani disappeared in green flames, to be replaced by a stocky thestral with a cutie mark of a keg. “Around the age of ten, changelings will create their first disguise. That first disguise is the one that defines them the most. For me, it was the guard ‘Powder Keg,' who is prone to rage whenever her friends are hurt.”
Luna vaguely recalled the thestral guard being tried in court for something minor, but the memory was vague at best.
“It’s this first disguise, and their experiences therein, that can strongly change and define a changeling. So, if you find a male changeling, chances are something happened with their first disguise that defined them.”
Luna was about to ask another question, but then the sun went dim. Luna stared up at it, hardly noticing the increase in the wind rushing by her.
Not until no less than five changelings pulled her out of her fall did she escape from her dread- filled stupor.
“It looks like we're gonna have to make a change of plans.”
----------------
“EWWWW!” Shrieked Rarity, as she felt something not-entirely-liquid roll down her back.
One could be forgiven at that moment, without context, for saying she was overreacting, that in the same situation other “stronger” ponies wouldn't be letting out the same shrieks. However, mere seconds later you would be proven altogether wrong.
“SOMETHING IS ON MY BACK! SOMETHING IS ON MY BACK!” This time, shouted by a normally stoic Rainbow Dash.
“Please tell me you know a spell to get this out of my hat, Rares.”
Unfortunately for everypony involved, the Castle didn't have very many completely unknown secret exits. And this one was nowhere near unknown. It was simply unused. And not exactly unused: it was very much used, just not by ponies.
Canterlot Castle was old, among the oldest still-used buildings in Equestria, and it wasn't cost-efficient to retrofit every part of the building with modern plumbing, when there were systems already in place that could be adapted. As such, the castle still used Garderobes on one side of the building.
Suffice it to say that, due to a forward-thinking gong farmer hundreds of years ago who had pushed his weight around, the Mane 5 (plus Spike) were able to escape through the one exit of the castle that wasn't being watched.
It also meant they were up Shit Creek without a paddle, or even a raft, for that matter.
“Now be careful at the end up here, that's where it drops into the modern sewer system.” Spike said. “You'll have to jump.”
“Spike, are you sure this was the only way out of the castle?”
“Hey. Princess Celestia's underground garden was locked and magically reinforced, the secret door in the left hand side of the castle wall was dented shut by SOMEPONY.” Spike scowled at Applejack. “And the exit into the underground caverns underneath Canterlot was sealed up after the wedding by Celestia herself. So no, it wasn't the ONLY way out of the castle. ...But at the moment, it is.”
“Ah said I was sorry.” Applejack mumbled, as she tried to hide her face with her hat before stopping because of the smell. “How are you holding up, Pinkie? You've been awfully quiet for a while now.”
“Something bad is about to happen, I know it.” Pinkie said, her hair completely flat.
“You get one of those twitchy-twitch things?”
“None for the last hour, and that's what worries me. Not even the barest hint of a twitch.”
Eventually, the ponies made it out of Shit Creek and, thanks to a spell by Rarity, started looking much better. Their coats shined and shimmered like fashion models, but they still smelled exactly the same.
“Are ya sure you don't know a spell to get the smell out, Rarity?” Fluttershy asked.
“I know no less than 10 shampoos that would work, 13 different types of conditioner, and at least 30 separate scented soaps that could help here. However, I don't have any of those with me. So, unfortunately, no, I cannot help you.” She seemed to be holding up remarkably well considering the circumstances.
----------------
Rarity stopped again in another hiding place, as did the rest of the group, and groaned. The alley they were in was stereotypical of all alleys in Rarity’s experience: Poorly lit, dumpster, metal door painted an off color of green. The only thing that distinguished it from your standard mail order movie alleyway was the hastily abandoned shipping trailer, and the mound of boxes they were currently hiding behind. The city itself had been remarkably free of nightmares during their trip, she was certain of that at this point.
However it had an overwhelming abundance of... Slime monsters?
Rarity had a difficult time classifying them, because while they had the head of a changeling, various changeling limbs would occasionally float to the surface. Their bodies were made of horrible green and black slime, in which the two colors mixed as if somebody had melted down a changeling made of plastic.
And they refused to stay dead no matter what she did to them.
Stabbing, stomping, splattering, slicing, any number of spells and kung-fu moves, could only delay these new “corrupted changelings,” as Rarity had decided to call them. The only thing that could help was fire: concentrated, lasting fire. Rarity's repertoire of fire spells that fell into that category was slim. If you narrowed that down to “spells she could continuously cast and not experience fatigue,” well, it was down to only a tiny spark, good solely for lighting other things on fire.
“Ah'm tellin you, it was their freaky emotion magic! These look like changelings, so that's how they keep findin’ us.” Applejack said.
“And I'm telling you that it’s this Celestia-forsaken SMELL that they're tracking us by, and we need to wash it out as soon as possible!” Rainbow Dash insisted.
Rarity performed a breathing exercise as the farmer and weather manager butted heads, once again, over the same issue.
“As much as I would love to get this stench out of my lovely coat, staying in one place long enough to do so would only draw undue attention to us. Moreover, finding shower facilities for six somewhere secluded would be near impossible.” Rarity paused for a second to watch Applejack look slightly smug at Rainbow's expense. “And, if they're tracking us by our emotions, they will certainly notice you two hotheads. That will draw them to us anyway. Also, you're stressing out Fluttershy and Spike, and they don't need that right now.”
Rainbow and Applejack stared at Rarity, open mouthed. Spike and Fluttershy did not. Spike had gotten unnaturally quiet, especially quiet for being around Rarity, who had elected to let him ride on her back.
Fluttershy... well, Fluttershy had come within inches of being engulfed by one of those corrupted changelings, and was now a nervous wreck. She followed along with the rest of the group only on adrenaline and sheer terror.
“I don't know if we're gonna make it out of this one, girls...”
Rarity turned to find that she had completely forgotten about Pinkie. And then a tiny, awful, horrible part of her deep inside her mind wished she never remembered. Pinkie looked the worst out of them all. Her mane was completely straight and her head hung low. But that didn't get anywhere with describing how utterly defeated she looked, how completely un-Pinkie Pie she looked.
“I'm sorry, girls. I lied earlier about the twitches. I thought they would go away if I didn't say anything.”
Then, from the roof, a corrupted changeling crashed down on her.
She barely had enough time to surface her head and plead to her friends before she sank completely under the corrupted changeling's goo in a circle of green fire.
“Help me.” was the last thing they heard her say as the circle of green fire closed in around her head.
Applejack sprang into action, but it was too late. During the ponies’ moment of shock, more corrupted changelings appeared out of the alleyway they had come in through, blocking her from reaching the one that had gotten Pinkie, already slinking out of the alleyway as fast as it could.
“Light me up, Rares! I can't do this on my own!” Applejack said, swinging two unlit torches she pulled off her back.
Rarity barely had time to light the torches before Applejack began swinging them at the corrupted changelings, with fury Rarity almost found frightening.
However, the corrupted changelings were already beginning to fill in that side of the alley and creep up the walls around her.
“Applejack! We have to retreat, we can't take them all on!” Rarity said, pulling at Applejack's leg as the corrupted changelings crept up the wall out of Applejack's reach.
“Not until we get Pinkie back!” Applejack shouted back, stubbornly jerking her leg out of Rarity's worn-out magic grip.
Rarity turned to a still-stunned Rainbow Dash. “Help her!”
That seemed to snap Rainbow out of her stupor, and she jumped in to try and forcibly pull Applejack back, as the changelings above began to close up any route upward that Rainbow could take Applejack.
“Cmon, Applejack! We gotta go NOW!”
“Not until we get Pinkie back from these monsters!”
The changelings above them fell.
Rainbow made an admirable effort to pull Applejack out from under the tide of corrupted changelings. Even with the aid of her wings, they fell short, as the slime smothered Applejack in a blast of green flames and left Rainbow sticking out halfway clawing at the ground with her hooves. Athlete that she was, she could make no progress as the corrupted changelings closed around her, slowly enveloping her in green flames.
Rarity would never forget the final look that Rainbow Dash gave her.
“RUN!”
Rarity did.
With Spike on her back, and pulling Fluttershy along, she ran through the streets of Canterlot. Panicked and blind, not caring where she ended up as long as it was a long way from here.
Rarity shrieked as she felt a hoof full of holes pull her into an alley, but she was quickly silenced with another changeling hoof in her mouth.
“Quiet, or they'll hear you!” hissed a normal changeling in guard’s armor.
Twilight eased the dagger out of its sheath for the tenth time that minute and grimaced. It’s not that the dagger itself was badly made. For something made out of changeling spit and paper, it was sharp. She wouldn't trust it to parry an actual steel sword, but it was adept enough at stabbing.
What bothered her about it was that it was a hidden dagger sliding seamlessly into a slot on her changeling spit and parchment armor. They had actually spent a good amount of time on those slots for their armor, despite Twilight's protests.
And now she had a dagger on her person. It wasn't meant for survival in any way, so she couldn't make any excuse about having a “utility knife.” It was too well-hidden, and too small, to be used for any kind of intimidation tactic. This was a killing dagger, something to bring out when your enemy's back was turned to stab them with.
The fact that it glimmered, just like the armor, literally with her love, disturbed her even more.
“Twilight? Are you alright?” Naudia asked.
“I don't like this.” Twilight answered back instantly.
“Think of it like one of the O&O campaigns then. Would you go into a dangerous situation unprepared?” Naudia asked, not having to even be told what was on Twilight's mind at this point.
“No, I wouldn't, but it’s my friends we're talking about!”
“Twilight.” Naudia said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “I'm doing this because I'm worried about you. They may be your friends… but they also put you in that cell.” Twilight flinched at that. “And I will do everything in my power to make sure you don't go back in there.”
Twilight sniffled a bit before she regained composure, and hugged Naudia who returned the hug warmly; as warmly as they could through armor.
“Thank you.”
Twilight stiffened up suddenly.
“Twilight?”
Naudia opened up her eyes and stiffened up as well, Actually that was an understatement: she went full battle skin and preemptively began charging her horn. Twilight barely noticed as she stared up directly into the sun, or at least what was left of it.
The sun was no longer lit.
The normally warm rays of Equestria's tiny sunlet died, leaving only a volcanic red imitation made of rock and stone in its place. Even that was beginning to fade and to grow dim in the sky.
Twilight could only stare open-mouthed in both terror and sadness as the diminished sun was once again eclipsed by the blood moon.
----------------
Celestia had one day explained how she raised the sun to Twilight. Apparently, it was a question nopony had ever asked, assuming that, like the tides, that was just the way things were. Or, more likely, Celestia was a figure too far removed from a normal pony for them to allow themselves to bother her with the question.
“You know, Twilight, you are the first pony to ask that since Starswirl the Bearded, although he was significantly more annoyed when he asked.” Celestia had the smile she wore when she was proud of her student.
“How much do you know about the poles?”
“Which ones? Magnetic or Magical?”
“Magical of course.”
“Not much. Nobody has bothered to study them since they are so constant, even more so than anything else. For a time they were thought of as proof that conservation of energy could be broken.”
“Good. It’s always nice to know you will always be thorough in your lessons. And the answer to your first question is that I draw my power from there and that is how I light the sun for all of Equestria.”
----------------
Celestia's connection with the sun was impossible.
It was the first impossible thing that Twilight had studied in her life. From a distance, she had determined that it didn't obey the normal laws of physics, and the only comparable thing she could find was Celestia's--and eventually Luna's--connection to the Moon.
Nothing else in Equestria was like that. No artifact, no spell, not even the fabled Elements of Harmony, once she got her hands on them, operated on the same level as Celestia and Luna's connection to their Celestial bodies. Even Pinkie Pie had some grounding in the logical universe that Twilight could vaguely pin down. But the Sun and Moon of Equestria operated on a different set of rules than even Discord did.
It was a massive font of energy, assumed to be infinite, that somehow Celestia and Luna could tap into to move the sun and moon. But it was strange: while they could call upon it to move the sun for the rest of time, anything else was rationed. Rationed was probably a bad word, as it was still well above what any normal unicorn, or even Cadance, could call upon alone, but it was still limited compared to the incalculable amount that rested at the poles.
The ONLY comforting thing about this situation was that the moon once again eclipsed the sun in short order, preventing her from staring at it any longer.
That was the only possible positive thing that she could possibly think of in this situation. The moon was wrong, the sun had literally gone out, and more than likely her friends were trying to hunt her down.
For the first time in a while now, Twilight didn't feel like she wanted to break down. For the first time in her life Twilight felt free. Plans swirled around inside her head of a world coexisting with changelings, without a sun, without...
Without a Celestia.
Because Celestia was the keystone of the sun, and something had disabled her in some way, cutting off the link to the poles that kept the sun on.
It was then that Twilight finally started paying attention to Naudia.
Who was on the ground bowing in the direction where the sun was eclipsed, muttering to herself.
“Uhh...” Twilight wasn't quite sure what to say.
“Quiet!” Naudia snapped, without so much as stopping whatever the heck she was doing.
Twilight watched, as Naudia seemed to be performing some sort of ritual on the ground, something that involved painting something that looked like almost like warpaint with mud. Twilight couldn't put her hoof on it, but she thought it looked vaguely familiar from somewhere.
“Naudia, what the hay are you doing?”
“I have to make the sun come back, Twilight.”
That triggered a memory in Twilight's head, a dusty memory, one that very few still living on Equestria could stay awake long enough to remember.
“Naudia. I think the Unicornian sun ritual fell out of practice well over a thousand years ago.”
Naudia stopped for a moment and turned her head to Twilight, mud still smeared on her face.
“Unicornian?”
“Yeah. That fell out of practice the second Celestia and Luna started taking care of the sun and moon.”
“I don't know where you got the idea that was from Unicorns, Twilight, my mother taught me that.” She paused for a second as something finally registered in her head. “Wait. Celestia actually controls the sun, as in, that’s not just ceremonial?”
“Yeah, she's controlled the sun for well over a thousand years now. Where did your mother pick it up? Nopony has used that for a long, LONG time.”
“She said she learned it from my grandfather.”
“But you said-”
“I know. But that's what Mom told me. I guess I just never thought to question it.”
“Back on to the main subject here, how could you not know that Celestia and Luna controlled the sun?”
“Well, you ponies always said she did, but I always assumed it was sort of a religious thing and she didn't actually control it.”
“Do all changelings believe that?”
Naudia looked caught off guard for a moment.
“Honestly, I don't know. Celestia doesn't generally come into our lives unless we're bad children who need to eat our hope. I never actually expected to meet her in person.”
“Hope? Seriously, your analogue for vegetables is hope?”
“Well, yeah, it’s not generally a very strong emotion, so its not all that tasty. It’s more of an... expectation, and not all that great to eat until you pay it off.”
Twilight wasn't sure what to say, she was still getting used to the idea that emotions could still be eaten at all.
“Anyway, we're getting off track now. We need to start planning what to do now that the sun has gone out.”
“Oh, yes, how do you plan on helping Celestia?”
“I think we should try and gather any of the changelings you can find, with any ponies who are amicable, and move underground.” Twilight said, doing her best to ignore what Naudia said.
“What?”
“I said we should try and find your hive so we can start over underground.”
“But Celestia-”
“Clearly isn't in charge anymore, so we need to get your people back so we can start over.”
“No, I mean, are we seriously not going to help her?”
Twilight sniffed and tried to look indifferent.
“She has made it abundantly clear what she thinks of me.”
Naudia opened and closed her jaw a couple times in shock. She could feel the invisible ties of the relationship between Celestia and Twilight and they had always been strong. Even before she had learned who the other end of the link was, she could feel the string both strong and taut. Naudia would have called it an anchor chain if it had any kind of physical component.
Now, it was frayed, and not only frayed: several other lines had snapped entirely, leaving Twilight flapping free. Looking at the confusing soup of emotions that swirled around Twilight, Naudia finally had a much better idea of her mental state than before.
"Twilight... I know you're hurting now."
Twilight was about to speak up when Naudia shushed her with a hoof.
"Let me speak for a moment. I know you're hurting and I'm certain I can empathize with you more than anypony else in Equestria. But what happened between you and your friends was a misunderstanding. It was taken too far, Twilight, don't get me wrong. It's not worth abandoning all of Equestria over, all right?"
"But they threw me in a cell! They never listened to a single word I said! How could we possibly clear up anything when they're acting like that?”
“We have to at least try.”
“I don't wanna go back in the cell, Naudia. If I go back there, they will put me in a cell again, I just know it.”
"What did I tell you earlier, Twilight?" Naudia pulled something out of her saddlebags. “I promise you now that I will do whatever is in my power to keep you free.”
The thing Naudia pulled out of her saddlebags looked like somebody had made a broken key out of kiln-hardened changeling goop. It rested on a necklace made out of simple twine.
"This has been enchanted with a spell that will open most standard locks in Equestria. Just touch it upon the keyhole and it will unlock it. I made it for myself, but I think you need it a great deal more than I do.”
“Thank you.” was all Twilight could think to say as she clutched at the key.
Naudia looked like she was about to get back on the ground and start the ritual again before she turned to Twilight and asked:
“I don't really have to do the ritual, right? That's what you were trying to get at, wasn't it?”
“Yes, the arrays are no longer in place to accept the prayer. One pony doing it alone wouldn't change anything, anyway.” Twilight snickered. “Also… you've still got mud on your face.”
Naudia scraped the mud off her face with magic.
“All right then, lets get moving.”
It was only several minutes later that Twilight thought to ask where they were going.
“To get my changelings back Twilight. That's the best idea I have for keeping you safe during whatever negotiations we’ll have to undergo.”
“But how are we going to find them?”
“That's simple! Once we get close enough to Canterlot, I'm gonna send out a query ping through the hivemind.”
“Could you send one out now? I kinda want to see what the magical signature looks like.”
“Well I can't send them out willy-nilly, they take a lot of love to send out!”
“Oh...” Twilight said in a sultry voice. “More than this?”
Naudia received a kiss on the cheek and subsequently more love than she would have had in a week back at the hive. It had a rather stunning effect on her, and she sat for a moment rubbing her face in shock.
“Sorry, Twilight, I'm not used to having more love than what's required to keep me going. It’s just never really been an option before so I keep thinking like I'm still in the badlands.”
“Oh, was that all right, then?” Twilight asked her confident facade failing in an instant.
“That was more than alright. That was fantastic! But you'll have to excuse me if I'm not used to dealing with all that at once.”
“Good.” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief.
“Now get whatever spells you need to study the ping ready, so I can do a lower-power control ping without any changelings in the radius.”
Several seconds later, Naudia looked confusedly in the direction of Whitetail Woods.
----------------
Cadance was, to put it mildly, having trust issues. She didn't trust changelings any farther than she could throw them. Considering how jumpy she was, it was a minor miracle that her ability to throw changelings had not been tested. Yet.
The changelings in the group, at least the ones that were distinctly more unfriendly to her than to Shining, seemed to be testing their limits around her. In particular, Mattar seemed to be taking no small amount of joy in sneaking up behind her.
It was somewhere around the fifth time when Cadance finally got over being shocked and started to get angry.
Mattar made a mistake on the sixth time, stepping on a dead leaf and accidentally giving Cadance forewarning.
At which he was picked up by his neck and slammed into a tree by Cadance's magic, her eyes glimmering with fury.
“All right.” Cadance said, attempting to calm herself down, and failing, in the presence of all these suddenly alert changelings. “What's the deal here?”
Mattar hissed at her.
“Umm, dear?” Shining put forth hesitantly glancing around the clearing as if to point out they were surrounded by changelings.
“You're not gonna stop me on this, Shining. These changelings have been targeting me specifically, and I'm going to find out why.”
The armored changeling stared at her like she'd grown a second head. As did every changeling under the camouflaging bubble that kept them out of sight from the outside world.
“You don't know?” Mattar said incredulously. “You really don't know?”
At this point Mattar had been let go of. He merely slumped down the tree, giving a hollow laugh.
“She says she doesn't know why we hate her.” Mattar seemed to be slightly drunk on despair, as he gestured at the changelings who could fit into the clearing and shouted. “Who here has lost a loved one to the princess of 'Love?'”
Those that had enough hooves to raise did so. Those that couldn't attempted to raise stumps.
“Are you kidding? I haven't killed any changelings.” Cadance felt a chill go up her spine at the sudden drop of temperature in the clearing.
Even Mattar seemed to sober up a bit at that.
“You... You absolute--” Mattar's voice was so much filled with rage that it was unclear if the next thing he said contained words or not.
Nevertheless it had it an effect on Cadance, who shied back from Mattar, who seemed to have snapped.
“Let me tell you a story, Cadance! A story about intolerance, disharmony, and hate.” Mattar's manic tone of voice was entirely unclear, whether it was sarcastic, or so angry he no longer cared who he was speaking to.
“In the beginning, there were three pony tribes, and they hated each other. They hated each other so much that their hatred could fuel dangerous magical apparitions from an unknown source.”
“And in the final moments before they were wiped out, they learned of the power of 'friendship.'” Mattar sarcastically threw up air quotes around the word. “They continued to preach this 'friendship' hypocritically for hundreds of years until one of the hives stepped forth, foolishly also believing in 'friendship.'”
“Sadly, changelings were only the second-largest species that ponies had driven out. And we escaped to the Badlands, where nopony would follow.” Mattar sent a glare at Cadance. “Unlike some of the others.”
“AND THEN!” Mattar roared, shaking with barely contained fury. “AND THEN! THEY BRING FORTH A PRINCESS OF LOVE!!”
“While we were starving, off in the Badlands, fighting against starvation, and extinction, you ponies, in your arrogance and opulence, trot out a pony filled with 'love,' inside their gilded city… where emotions are thrown about like so much trash.”
“That was the final straw for our previous queen, Chrysalis.” At the mention of her name, Mattar paused his tirade, bowed his head, and muttered 'may you rest in peace.' “And she united the remains of the hives to attack Canterlot.”
“And then you cast that damn shield spell.” Mattar finally broke down completely, and started crying.
Cadance tried to think of something to say to that. There didn't seem to be anything to say to the changeling, crying, slumped over on a tree, so she sat down next to him, unsure of what to do next.
Eventually the tears came to a stop.
“I had to bury my mother last month.” It was unclear if Mattar was speaking to Cadance or not. “We had hoped she had survived the blast, that is, until we found her horn.”
“Are you sure she isn't still out there?”
“It’s been months... we haven't even heard a peep out of her in the hivemind. No, Cadance, Chrysalis is dead. She either died in the blast or shortly afterwards...” Mattar stared off into the distance. “I hope it was in the blast, that would have been quicker at least.”
As if by chance, two things happened at the same time: A ray of blood-red light from the blood moon snaked its way through the heavy forest canopy to fall across Cadance, and Naudia's ping to the hivemind went out.
----------------
“And that's why Changelings need the holes.” Naudia explained to Twilight, as they made their way through Whitetail Woods.
“I never would have thought they used them to channel pony magic!”
Mattar seemed to fade out of the shadows and walked up to Naudia and saluted. Instantly and instinctively, Naudia snapped to attention.
“Mattar, report!”
“Only five casualties since previously stated, all due to pre-existing wounds. All remaining changelings escaped Canterlot, before whatever went down there happened.”
“And?” Naudia prompted.
“And... well, that's really all I can think of at the moment.” Mattar had started sweating.
“The details of your miraculous casualty-less escape?”
“Well...” Mattar tried to think of a way to skate around the issue. “We were just kinda… let go.”
“Would this have anything to do with the two pony presences I feel nearby?”
“Maybe.” Mattar was putting forth every indication that he didn't want to talk down this path, short of holding up a sign in protest.
“You can come out now!” Naudia shouted. “I know you're there!”
Cadance and Shining entered the clearing, looking slightly confused and uncomfortable. Not at all by Naudia's presence, but by the presence of changelings following them around, looking to them for comfort and, to a lesser extent, a quick snack.
The expression of shock on Naudia's face would have been worth photographing and applying text to, if she didn't immediately turn to Mattar and say:
“This is a joke, right?”
The clearing was silent. Mattar was doing his best to not project any kind of emotion at all. Cadance and Shining were inching away from the procession of changelings following behind them. Twilight for her part was racing her mind, trying to come up with the best way to smuggle an enchanted key into a prison cell.
And then Naudia noticed that line between Twilight and Cadance.
“Wait,” Naudia turned to Twilight. “You KNOW the Princess of Love!?”
Naudia sat stunned for a second, unable to process what she had just found out.
“You... know Cadance?” Naudia's mouth repeated, but her mind appeared to be elsewhere.
Unfortunately, Twilight hadn't picked up on that, because she was still measuring out Cadance from the far side of Naudia.
Cadance had tried to do the Sunshine dance with Twilight, hindered by the fact that she was sitting in a field of changelings, with a changeling queen in between them. Twilight only cringed and didn't reciprocate.
“Twily, what's wrong?” Shining asked.
“I'm sorry, Shining. I don't know who I can trust right now.” Twilight's eyes fell as she clutched at the enchanted key for dear life. “I don't know if I can trust you.”
Cadance and Shining resisted the urge to walk over and hug Twilight. Once again, Naudia was in the way, and neither of them could bring themselves to get any closer to the stunned changeling. So, they sat for a moment, staring, trying to think of what to do.
She looked different from Chrysalis.
A month of better feeding than she had had in her entire life was beginning to show. Her legs were still as thin and hole-filled as before, but they looked more filled out than Chrysalis's had, the holes having shown no signs of closing up. Her hair, while still maintaining the holes motif, looked much less like the rats’ nest that her mother sported. Her face, while remaining the same shape, had filled out a bit and you could no longer see the bones in her cheeks so clearly. Her barrel was where most of the changes seemed to be taking effect: her backplate emanated a faint glow and didn't look scuffed up. What appeared to be a brand new delicate insectoid wing had finished regrowing out of her back.
Overall, the changes were subtle, but Cadance now had an appreciation of the unhealthy state that Chrysalis had been in during the invasion.
Eventually, they tried to walk around the changeling queen, only for Twilight to move more and keep Naudia between herself and them. This process repeated several times.
“Twilight, we need to talk. Please stop acting like a child.”
“I will act like anything if it keeps me out of that cell for a second longer.”
Both Shining and Cadance cringed at that.
The changelings, meanwhile, were able to put two and two together, judging the situation by the ties between Naudia and Twilight. Either assuming Twilight was either a mind-controlled pony, or something else, they sprang into action. With their guards down, Shining and Cadance were restrained by changelings in short order. Mattar took it upon himself to get a death grip on Shining’s head.
“We know you were telling the truth about Naudia, Twilight!” Cadance shouted, before anything further could happen.
The clearing went silent for a long moment.
“You're lying about that. Celestia told you to say that to put me off my guard.”
“No, no, no!” Cadance said, trying to gesture despite the grip the changelings had on her legs. “Before you left I tested your connection to Naudia, and it was completely genuine. I was literally explaining that to Celestia when the alarm wards on the dungeon went off.”
“Well then what happened to the sun? What happened to Canterlot?”
“We don't know,” Shining said. “Celestia sent us to find you after the city was attacked by corporeal nightmares...”
“She thought that her presence would unnecessarily agitate you after everything that happened, and… things weren't going well in the city when we left.” Cadance was pleading at this point.
“I'm going to assume what happened to the sun is an indication of how things are going in Canterlot.” Twilight said darkly, her mind working ahead of her mouth.
Twilight's face looked conflicted, on the one hand she wanted to believe Cadance and her brother, but on the other, her new-found survival instinct was screaming at her, showing a perfect recollection of the cell wall that she knew better than anypony ever should.
“Let her go. I can understand why she doesn't quite trust us.” One of the changelings with a sense of dramatics moved Cadance's hoof over to Shining's shoulder to comfort him. Unfortunately it was her hind leg, and it had a bad angle, so it ended up awkwardly poking him in the shoulder.
Meanwhile Twilight was sitting and thinking, and would continue to do so for several minutes.
----------------
The wheels were spinning in Naudia's head. Her thoughts at the moment were almost completely broken, as a menagerie of “ponies aren't as bad as you thought they were” fought with the old ways her mother had taught her.
But one thought spoke out above the rest. One hunch overpowered the rest of the bunch and brought to bear something that neither side could argue with.
“I have the Princess of Love under my power.”
Naudia hadn't realized she said the last thing out loud until she saw the shocked expressions on the changelings around her. Naudia got up and walked over to the restrained couple.
“All right.” Naudia said, with a tone of finality. “I've been taught my entire life to hate you. Every one of my ancestors has been taught their entire lives that you are an affront to everything we stand for.”
Naudia seemed to loom dangerously in the dim red light.
“So I'm going to do something even my mother wouldn't have done.” Cadance could have sworn she saw a glint of green fire in her eyes. And the changelings holding her down shuffled their hooves nervously, the rest of the clearing merely looked on in silent anticipation.
“Release them.”
Once again every changeling in the entire clearing stopped; even Naudia did, to a certain extent.
“I'm sorry my queen, but could you repeat that?” One could be forgiven for thinking changelings had a true hivemind, as Mattar spoke for every changeling in the clearing.
“I ordered you to release them.” Still no changeling moved to obey her order.
“I appear to have developed a curious mental disorder where it sounds like you've been asking us to release the Princess of Love.”
This led to other changelings in the clearing saying things like:
“Could you do that cleany ear motion for me? I don't think I'm hearing quite right.”
“I haven't fallen into an alternate dimension have I? Just curious is the sky normally red like this?”
“I've never heard the voices actually try to imitate the Queen before. They're doing a lot better job than they usually do.”
“Great! I knew the entire universe would go wrong one of these days.”
And similar things to that effect passed their way outward from the clearing to the changelings present.
“Could I ask why you're asking us to let her go?” Mattar said.
“That goes for me too!” Shining piped up.
“I've come to the conclusion that things are so bad that helping ponies is inevitable.”
“So bad?” Mattar shouted monumentally, forgetting and letting go of Shining Armor's head. “How can things be so bad? We've ALL escaped Canterlot, we have three VERY important ponies from Equestria under our power and we can basically ransom them for literally anything we want at this point.”
“When's the last time you last looked up, Mattar?” Naudia asked.
“Around the time the sky turned red?” Mattar said, trying to determine where this was going.
“Did you see what happened when the sun moved out from behind the moon?”
“No, my Queen.”
“That was when the sun burnt out, Mattar.”
Silence, as Mattar looked like a scolded schoolchild.
“You see, Mattar,” Naudia sighed. “This is why I'm in politics and you're a guard.”
Everybody, and everypony, in the clearing were still entirely stopped and trying to process the monumental revelation.
“Don't get me wrong, Cadance. I still hate you and everything you stand for. But I'm willing to put up with a 'working relationship' for the sake of my girlfriend. And kinda secondarily, to save the world from turning into an icy wasteland.”
That got some of the changelings working again, one of whom helpfully asked: “OK, just for clarification here, do you mean 'girlfriend'?” The changeling said exaggeratedly, holding her hooves up and making air quotes. “Or do you actually mean, really, seriously… girlfriend?”
“The one without any air quotes.”
Mattar quickly convened with as many nearby changelings as possible.
Shining woke up from the revelation sooner than Cadance did, noticing that every changeling previously holding him down had inexplicably left to huddle together and talk.
“So uhh... What now?”
“Right now, we wait for them to digest the pile of revelations that's just been dumped on them.” Naudia suddenly gave him an intense gaze she'd inherited from her mother. “And you and I are going to have a talk about what’s going to happen now that we're working on the same side.”
Shining, not wanting to be outdone in glares, replied back with a quip of his own.
“Then it’s a trade then: I'll tell you what I know about Canterlot, and YOU tell me the intentions you have with my sister.”
----------------
With Naudia and Shining having moved off to talk to one another, Cadance decided to get a word or two in with Twilight.
Twilight shrugged away when Cadance put a hoof on her shoulder.
Cadance opted to wait patiently and give Twilight some space.
“So… Celestia sent you here?”
“That's what I said.”
“You have all of the changelings with you. The royal guards would notice if they all broke out. So what does this mean?” Twilight collected herself and turned to Naudia, refusing to look at Cadance. “Are they under duress? How did you get them to come with you?”
“We made a deal. They find you and Naudia, and they get amnesty.”
Twilight actually cocked her head and turned to look at Cadance at that.
“That couldn't have been easy for you. What changed your mind about them?”
Cadance breathed in deep before she answered. “I'd like to lie to you, Twilight. It would be so easy to say that your love for Naudia is so pure that it convinced me. That I believe everything is fine and I approve of your choice.
“But I don't. I know you aren't lying. But I can only look out there and see jailors. Jailors with sneering faces, that stole me away from my husband on what should have been the most joyous day of my life.” Her face was calm. The only thing that betrayed the foul mix of hatred and fear that swirled in her mind was the steadily deeper hole her hoof was working into the dirt.
“When I told Celestia that your love for Naudia was pure, I wasn't entirely thinking about the situation. I just had to get you out of that cell. I had to see you smile again.
“I'm not sure if I was thinking I could get used to the idea of little Twily loving a changeling, or if I just didn't care at all, but it’s clear to me that this is a problem for me now.”
“So despite what you say, you still don't believe me?”
“When I close my eyes, Twilight, I can see it. I can see the pureness of it. It is an untainted connection of those who have just fallen in love, gilded by adversity and strife. With my eyes closed, it feels like the link I'd imagine between those in a great and tragic love story.
“But with my eyes open, I just can't see it. All I can see is my little Twily falling into a trap, and being taken away by the same jailors that got me.”
Twilight opened her mouth, fishing for something intelligent to say, and failed.
“Well… maybe if you got to know them better!” Twilight perked up.
Cadance gave her a look, unperking Twilight faster than the words “pop quiz.”
“That's exactly the problem, Twilight. I'm pretty sure I know them well enough already.”
----------------
“What is Twilight's favorite movie?” Shining demanded instantly, grilling Naudia with hard questions.
Naudia's mouth flopped open like a fish. “I have no idea.”
“OK, then, what do you do for a living?”
“I'm the leader of the changeling swarm.”
An unpleasant truth brought up to his face made his face scrunch up in annoyance.
No: Cadance says their love is pure. I have to trust Twilight's judgment. Shining made a show of glaring at her before asking his next question.
“What is her favorite type of candy?”
Another blank.
The questions kept going, with Shining getting more and more desperate, until he finally reached “What is her favorite brand of toothpaste?”
“Barnyard Bargains Generic?” Naudia attempted to guess, so she miiight get one of the questions right.
“OK. This clearly isn't working out, so let’s try something else.” Shining threw his hooves up in frustration. “What was your first date with Twilight?”
Instantly Naudia perked up at a happy memory.
“OOH! Well you see we sat in her library and we studied pre-Gryphonic War Equestrian history! And Twilight and I had a half an hour debate on the ethics of-”
It is important to note that a great deal more was said at this point. So much that in an effort to save both your time and sanity I will cut out this very, very dry reading.
“-And when I woke up, I had ink all over my face!”
Shining sat there, staring, only his years of training as a soldier keeping him awake.
“OK, lemme get this absolutely clear. And I want you to answer in the most concise and clear way that you possibly can. With EXTRA emphasis on ‘concise’.” Shining said, looking slightly dazed. “You consider your first date with Twilight to be the time you sat down and debated 'A torrid account of Equestrian history' with her for an entire evening.”
“Yes!”
“You aren't part of some kind of changeling cloning program are you?”
Naudia merely cocked her head at this.
“What does cloning mean?”
“If I hear any more technical explanations in the next five minutes, from either me or you, I think I might go mad.” Shining replied back.
“I'll accept that.” Naudia said. “But it’s my turn to ask questions now. What happened to Canterlot?”
“It was overrun by nightmares.” Shining looked uncomfortable. “Actual physical nightmares.”
“So what was happening to Twilight wasn't an isolated case.”
“And what was happening to Twilight? Did you cause it?” Shining said on instinct, his 'psycho father-in-law' mode snapping on again like somebody flipped a switch.
“OK, first of all, get out of my face.” Shining backed up and looked a little shamefaced for getting all up in her face. “Second: no, as much as we can control dreams, actually manifesting them is beyond any changeling's power.”
“Then how else do you explain what happened to Twilight?” Shining demanded.
“I found the residue of a nightmare floating behind Twilight's head-”
“And how did you know what that even looked like?”
“Wasn't I supposed to be asking questions here? I thought this was supposed to be tit for tat, equals, not a police interrogation.” Naudia glared at Shining who, again, backed down. “ANYWAY: I found something floating behind Twilight's head that she couldn't feel. I touched it and received a vision.” Shining looked like he wanted to interrupt again but restrained himself. “After conferring with her, I reasoned it to be the nightmare she had last night, but in physical form.”
“So these nightmares are coming from ponies, and it sounds like they have a sort of intermediate state before they manifest.”
“Do you have any idea what’s manifesting them, then?” Naudia asked.
“I heard one of the other guards say that Celestia was talking about Nightmare Moon. That seems to be the most likely thing I can think of.” Shining replied.
It was at that point that Mattar finally came out of the huddle of changelings, stacked four high at this point, looking like he'd come to a conclusion.
“We have come to a conclusion.” Mattar declared. “We would like one of the unicorns to check if Naudia is a changeling.”
“Why would we want to do that? We already know that she's a changeling.” Shining pointed out.
“The only conclusion we can come to is that Naudia has been replaced by some other changeling. That's the only possible explanation.”
Shining looked from the changelings, then back to the changeling queen, who looked quite irate.
“Are you su-”
“Yes.” Shining was cut off by both the changelings and Naudia.
“Your vote of 'no confidence' has been noted, Mattar.” Naudia growled giving him that look with a hint of green fire in her eyes that queens were never taught, but learned on their own. “And I'll have you know that I already explained why I was releasing her.”
Mattar shuffled his hooves, having forgotten that amongst the other monumental revelations shot rapid fire into his brain. Suddenly being chosen as the speaker for the rest of the changelings didn't seem like the best idea. Accusing a changeling queen of being replaced did not win you any friends, and laying a false accusation put your fate in the hands of the accused.
It should be noted that changelings never developed forms of capital punishment, simply turning the accused out into the badlands alone was enough.
“Well if you're both in agreement on this, the spell is very simple to cast.” Shining looked Naudia in the eye. “Are you ready?”
Naudia gave one barely concealed glare at Mattar before nodding.
Shining's horn lit up. The spell was cast, cascading down Naudia's body.
No effect.
“Try it again. Maybe the spell didn't work quite right.” Mattar said, the rest of his face having frozen in abject terror.
Again the spell was cast and nothing happened. Immediately every changeling panicked at once.
“It wasn't the voices this time! Why couldn't it have been the voices!?”
“It was an omen, this is the end! THIS IS THE END!”
“BOO YOUR MAGIC SHOW SUCKS!”
And so on and so forth.
This chaos went on for a good fifteen seconds before suddenly, and out of nowhere, all the changelings immediately stopped what they were doing and clutched their hooves onto their heads at once. Shining, Cadance and Twilight all looked over to Naudia, who appeared to be concentrating very hard.
“LOOK AT YOU!” Naudia bellowed, her voice magically amplified into a full Royal Canterlot Voice. “Children, short sighted, all of you.” Naudia pointed at a random changeling in the crowd.
“YOU.” The changeling attempted to slide back into the crowd, but Naudia's horn lit up and she was pulled head first out of the crowd and directly in front of Naudia. “Tell me. What did I tell you was happening to the sun not five minutes ago?”
The changeling's voice could barely be heard.
“Having a little trouble remembering? Well I'll fill it in for you, and I'll say it nice and loud, so you won't forget it.” Naudia took a deep breath and her horn glowed brighter.
“THE SUN BURNT OUT.” Naudia said with such volume that the changeling in question was flipped over and fell into the crowd again.
“And what do I hear you complaining about during this time of crisis?”
The changelings murmured something that wasn't really quite intelligible, but Naudia didn't care. She was already onto the next part of her rant.
“Children’s stories, fairy tales. Are you so blind? So deaf? In a time of global crisis, when EVERYTHING is being threatened, and not just our lives, but our livelihoods, are at stake.” Naudia pointed an accusatory hoof at the crowd, who shrank away from it as if it was about to go off. “And yet you put that aside for mere stories, grudges against a pony you've never known.
“There may have been a time when the Princess of Love,” Naudia managed to keep most of the malice out of her voice, “was our enemy. When she represented all that we stand against. But now, she needs our help just as much as we need hers, to stand against a greater evil.
“There is an unknown power out there, festering, building itself up in the heart of Canterlot. Something so powerful that it can extinguish the sun and hold the moon within its grasp like it was a mere toy.” Naudia put on a grave expression and spoke in a normal voice that nevertheless carried to the farthest changeling. “Now, more than ever, we must lay down our grievances, lest we lay down our lives instead.
“The icy grip of despair has cast itself over Equestria. We shall descend upon Canterlot and free it from this shadow's grasp! Grateful, the ponies of Canterlot will love us in return! And from there we shall never know hunger again!!”
----------------
As Naudia stepped down from her metaphorical soapbox, and the changelings shuffled about decided who was still too injured to make the trip to Canterlot and who would stay with them, Cadance came up to Naudia.
“That was… touching?” she posited.
Naudia made a face like she just stepped in manure.
“We aren't friends, Cadance. You are the epitome of everything changelings have hated about ponies for the past 1200 years.”
“Then why did you make that speech then?”
“For her.” Naudia said, pointing at Twilight, before brushing off Cadance and walking off to join the aforementioned pony.
Twilight looked more awake, and her hair was certainly messier than the last time they'd talked. Halfway there, Naudia stopped. There, kneeling behind Twilight, completely unnoticed by anypony and everyling, was the thing that Naudia had made a deal with. Even Twilight didn't seem to notice it, as it leaned down next to her ear and spoke just loudly enough so that Naudia could hear.
Canterlot had changed. What used to be a gold-crowned beacon of stability and hope casting its rays across Equestria as surely as the sun itself now glowered down from its perch like a predatory vulture. Nightmarish structures had already been erected through some amalgamation between changeling emotion stone and physical nightmares. The structures themselves fed upon one another slowly causing the nightmares to ripple and grow like a vine, and the stone to glow brighter with the dull red light of hatred.
Twilight could swear she saw something oozing up and down the once majestic spires, but it was impossible to make out at this distance. Unfortunately she couldn't be entirely sure so she put it in the back of her mind to grow and itch at her.
The group, now much smaller but still easily measuring above a hundred changelings, was moving along inside the edge of White Tail Woods, trying to find a better approach on Canterlot, as opposed to the wide open plains that surrounded the mountain. There wasn't any reason for this specifically, but none of them felt comfortable walking out in the open right now.
Even the forest seemed to grow close around them. It was deathly quiet. It wasn't empty by any means, however. As the mismatched group walked along, a long trail of animals began to follow them. Anytime they stopped, everybody found at least two or three frightened animals trying to hide underneath them. In one incident, a bear attempted to hide below a particularly embarrassed changeling.
Dreading the possibility that morale could drop any lower, even as her mouth opened, Twilight let loose the question that had been on her mind.
“Naudia, is there any possibility that corrupted changelings are in Canterlot?”
“There shouldn't be.” Naudia said, squinting into the distance. “Nothing has ever been able to get them to work together, and trust me, not for lack of trying.”
“What are 'corrupted changelings'?” Shining asked.
Naudia turned to Shining and Cadance and began to explain. The changelings milling around them to feed on their ambient emotions moved away, as everything they were putting out soured with horror and disgust.
“You said 'but not for lack of trying' before. Does that mean changelings actually tried to… harness them?”
“Oh, plenty of times. While they would make horrible soldiers, they would make fantastic cannon fodder: They multiply like vermin and they feed on hatred and magic.” Naudia said in an unsettlingly casual voice. “I mean, it would basically be like having machines that ran on easy-to-harvest garbage, that you almost couldn't run out of. Any hive that could control them would control the Badlands very quickly.”
“Do you have any experience with them?”
“Oh, yes, all kinds: medical, historical, even tried a bit of harnessing them myself, for the good of changeling-kind, of course.” Naudia seemed to forget entirely about the broad aspects of the situation.
The last remaining changelings in the area attempted to scrunch away from Shining and Cadance. All minus Naudia, who was too full on love to even think about feeding at the moment, and too preoccupied with memories of science to care. Twilight, however, was not caught up in her scientifically-generated wake.
“How can you speak so callously about them?” Twilight asked.
“Partially because SCIENCE!” Naudia raised a hoof into the air triumphantly before being brought back down to the reality of the subject matter. “Partially, it's the hope that once we understand them, we can prevent it from happening to anybody else, and maybe one day, bring them back.
“I'm pretty sure they're still out there. The first corrupted changelings, that is.” Naudia gazed off into the middle distance wistfully.
Shining gave the most unconvincing fake cough.
“Shouldn't we be thinking about how we're going to get into Canterlot while it’s under enemy control?”
“Oh, that!” Mattar the not-literal baggage cart piped up, causing the baggage and rocks perched on his back to wobble. “That's easy, we just use the caverns under Canterlot! There are a whole mess of ‘em down there and we can just dig into people's cellars!”
“That's good, Mattar, but tell me: what don't baggage carts do?” Naudia asked sweetly.
Mattar, realizing he'd been caught in a trap, decided to shut up.
“Is that really necessary?” Twilight asked.
“Well, no. But, since it would take too long to go back to the Badlands and leave him to die there, this will have to suffice.”
“Yes, but that's even more harsh than this!”
“Twilight, perhaps you don't understand the depth of Mattar's accusation. This wasn't a simple 'impeach the queen' vote. Should I have been found wanting, I would have been systematically restrained, drained of love, and kept just on the edge of death, until I cracked and told them what hive this infiltration attempt stemmed from, and where the real Queen was.”
Everypony looked appalled; everyling still in earshot looked nervous.
“You ponies have almost a thousand years of relative peace under your belts. Even the Gryphonic Wars had rules. The Badlands have no rules. None could be enforced until very recently, when there literally wasn't anyling else to fight. Now let’s move, Canterlot isn't going to unconquer itself!”
Naudia's tone left a very noticeable gap, both emotionally and in just plain distance, between her and everybody else. Even the animals stopped trying to huddle underneath her.
----------------
As the forest thinned out, and Canterlot began to give up lurking and got down to seriously looming in the distance, Twilight found herself in the most awkward situation she could think of in recent memory. Behind her were Cadance and Shining, who, at least for the moment, looked like they didn't approve of Naudia in the slightest. Behind them, doing their best to not be noticed, were even more changelings who, as one, shrunk back whenever Naudia so much as glanced back at them. Even farther behind them, miles really, was the last hint anybody saw of animal activity.
And, in front of Twilight, marched Naudia alone. Twilight was torn. On the one hand, Naudia seemed very angry, but Twilight had a feeling in her gut that there was either another reason for it or she was acting.
On top of all that, she had something nagging at the back of her mind that she couldn't quite get a handle on. The best she could describe it, it felt… foreign to her, like it came from somewhere else.
For a time, they proceeded on in silence until they came upon an overgrown hill. Naudia stopped, and everybody left a generous space behind her.
“Here we are.” Naudia levitated aside some brush to reveal a dilapidated mineshaft that showed signs of changeling reinforcement.
“So this is how you got into the city?” Shining asked.
“One of the spots. Underneath Canterlot is filled with more holes than...”
“A changeling’s leg?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Naudia, in the same distracted air, turned and walked into the mineshaft. Once again, the entire rest of the procession, Twilight included, hung back a bit behind Naudia. They hesitated longer than they should have before entering the mineshaft.
Twilight was the first to enter behind her and didn't even look back to see if she was being followed. Catching up to Naudia, Twilight got a feel of the cave and found it unpleasant. Instead of the hard echoing of an empty cave she was accustomed to, she found it close and the floor unpleasantly soft to step on. The green fire of Naudia's magic gave the walls an infested look.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Twilight finally asked.
“Talk about what?” Naudia asked, still lost in her own thoughts.
“You have something on your mind. You've been acting odd ever since that speech you made to the changelings.”
“Well, I've got a number of things on my mind. Chief among them is a feeling of wrongness in my gut.” Naudia glanced at the hidden knife Twilight had and knew she couldn't voice the chief wrongness she felt.
Twilight, oblivious to this, motioned Naudia to go on.
“Back there, after the speech, I felt wrong. I felt wrong about hating Cadance this much.”
“Hating people isn't generally something that will make you feel good, at least not when you're doing it to their faces.”
“Well, yeah, but after, after... well, us, I thought it would be a lot easier to get over the prejudices that Mom taught me.”
“After us?”
Naudia took a deep breath before continuing.
“Before I met you, I considered ponies to be gross creatures, creatures whose only purpose was to consume and grow fat until they came into service feeding the hive.”
“That's horrible! How could you possibly think that!?” Twilight, who had unconsciously been walking closer to Naudia up until now, scooted back all the way, almost to the wall.
“That's what I was taught my entire life. Mother always told me to stay away from the wasteful ponies, and so did everybody else. Doing my tour across Equestria didn't help much either… The way ponies act around Luna only reinforced my opinion of them.” Naudia gave a wistful sigh. “Then I met you and your friends in Ponyville, and all that kinda fell apart.”
“And I'm certain that once you get to know Cadance better, you'll feel the same way about her!”
“I'm still worried, Twilight. I'm still worried that on the inside, I haven't changed. That I've just made a special exception for you or something… Listen, can we move off this subject? I don't think I'm ready to talk about this yet.”
For several awkward seconds, Twilight tried to think of something else to talk about. Upon entering into the eternal conundrum that faces anybody when they are told to simply talk about something, Twilight blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.
“Do changelings have hearts?”
It was as if all at once, the unpleasant warmth of the cave was sucked out, and replaced with a cold frozen silence, during which Naudia attempted to restart her brain.
“Why do you ask that, Twilight?” Naudia, said through a smile made of clenched teeth.
Twilight searched her mind to for an answer, and failed to come up with one.
“I'm really not sure. I thought it was important somehow, I just don't remember why.”
“Well yes, despite being made up of mostly magic, changelings do, indeed, have hearts.” Naudia was certain she may have pulled a muscle from sheer stress alone. “Most of the magic takes physical form, so we need a physical heart to pump it around our bodies.”
“Ooooh, that's really interesting! Reminds me of a paper Starswirl wrote once about the crystalline properties of magic. Does that mean your blood is made of some form of crystal?”
“No, it’s a liquid, I've seen enough of it to know.” Naudia looked very uncomfortable. “Twilight, can we get the conversation topic off changelings? This is bringing back some particularly bad memories.”
“Oh, I'm sorry...” Twilight tried to think of something else. Fortunately there was a debate topic that neither of them had properly discussed. “How about the Onyx Disc then? I never got your thoughts properly on that, and I think it would be very interesting to get an outside perspective on it.”
“Outside perspective?”
“Pony scholars have been trying to puzzle it's purpose out since pre-history, but obviously, you’re a changeling. The Gryphons think it’s some sort of doom timer, but recently, with a newer relativistic physics model, we've determined that every stellar event on there already happened, and the disc marked down exactly when the light would get here.”
“Well, since changelings have never studied it directly, I can't say much about it. From what I've read of the 'events' described, I really don't know what to think. They clearly aren't supernova activity, they come from healthy stars, and they don't match up with any other kind of stellar phenomena or theory that I've read. Clearly, it’s meant to be some sort of message, perhaps it’s a warning or roadmap for the-”
Naudia got no farther, because she was blasted into a wall by a teal bolt of magic from deeper inside the cave.
Naudia awoke feeling rested, refreshed, and feeling an absolutely delicious flavor that was beginning to trickle out of the air. Gradually, though, the world began to seep in past the warm glow of love, and she began to become aware of lots of hooves touching her, and of voices speaking urgently.
Naudia opened her eyes with the weary slowness of somebody who has just eaten too much of a filling meal. She found a gaggle of concerned looking faces looking back at her. Vaguely Naudia began to list off their names in her head:
First was Mattar, looking in from the back, but the most recognizable for his rock-filled pack.
Second, there was Kiri, gripping her foreleg like she was afraid it was going to fall off--her secondary guard and a changeling she went to grade school with.
Then came Twilight, sitting behind her, cradling Naudia's head in her hooves. Naudia leaned back a little, feeling Twilight's hooves around her head, and sighed before snapping her head up abruptly.
“Who the hay are you?!” Naudia demanded of the changeling to her left, in a voice that masked confusion with anger.
As soon as Naudia said that, all eyes were on the unfamiliar changeling. Shining, Cadance and Twilight barely reacted at all, but the changelings all around her began to take up seriously threatening positions, scuttling up the walls and ceiling for a better shot. Horns started glowing.
The changeling in question had a different armor color, and was somebody Naudia didn't recognize from anywhere.
“Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down!” Strangely enough the changeling actually turned to Shining at this point. “You know me Shining, we went through training together.”
The changeling was replaced by teal flames and came out as a thestral guard.
“See, I'm Powder Keg!”
“Oh yeah?” Shining said, pushing closer through the almost solid wall of agitated changelings.
Finally he came face to face with 'Powder Keg' and stared her down. The two remained like that, unblinking, for a couple seconds.
“Yeah. I covered for you when you took time off to see your girlfriend.” Powder Keg leaned over Shining's shoulder to wave at Cadance. “I still haven't forgiven you for not telling me you were dating a Princess.”
“Yeah, but anybody could have found that out about me. I went through the official channels and everything.”
“Do you want to go through this in front of your wife, Shining?” There was a glint in her eye that was lost to all.
“Yeah. Because I'm 100% certain I didn't serve for years next to a Changeling.” The acid in his voice wore through the veneer of politeness.
“All right then, but don't say I didn't warn you.” Powder Keg smiled. “In the first week of training, you broke down crying in the middle of the hallway, longing for home. Nobody else was there. Your little sister calls you… what was it again? Oh, yeah, she calls you her 'BBBFF.' That got out to the rest of the barracks. And you put that stupid D20 in your helmet for good luck.”
Shining sat stock-still for a moment.
“I told you never to mention the D20 to anybody.”
----------------
It was several minutes later. Kiri had approached Shining about O&O, and the changeling Rajani had gone through every single test that Naudia's changelings could come up with. Including an ill-fated but chuckle-worthy one that required her to stand on her head.
And now, Twilight and Naudia were interviewing her, trying to get a picture as to what happened in Canterlot after they left.
“Before we get into that, what did you shoot me with? It was delicious.” Naudia asked.
“Pure love.”
Naudia's mouth flopped open like a fish.
“We've got corrupted changelings up top, I didn't exactly have a choice.” Rajani still looked sad that it had to be wasted. “Anyway, Twilight, you're not going to like this, but rumors are going around that Celestia was taken down.”
“Horseapples.”
“I wasn't there to see it, but it's true. Luna confirmed it afterwards. Nobody quite knows who took her down, though.”
“So Luna is free still?”
“The answer to that question is technically ‘yes,’ but I'm honestly not sure how well you're going to take things when you see her.” The changeling shuffled her feet nervously.
“Has she been disfigured or something?” Naudia asked.
Rajani opened and closed her mouth a time or two.
“That would be a matter of opinion, but, considering the current company, no...” Rajani looked between Naudia and Twilight. “Nope. Nope, definitely not. Maybe she's even been improved!”
“Ooookay...” Twilight and Naudia said in unison.
“The important thing is that I'm going to take you to see Luna--and it IS Luna. Her time is limited, however, so we CANNOT afford to go through this whole 'who are you' game. The barrier will not hold without her for long.”
“What barrier?”
“The one keeping the corrupted changelings out.” Rajani said. “By the way, Naudia, I'm going to have to ask that you keep you and yours from siphoning off the barrier. It’s hard enough to keep it up now; we can't have changelings treating it like a free buffet.”
----------------
Shining was attempting to disengage with the changelings, but found the task rather difficult. Every single one of them seemed have played O&O, and they were all rather desperate to know the changes that happened after revision 3.
“OK, how the heck do you ALL know about O&O? More importantly, how do you expect me to answer all these questions?”
“Oh, that's easy! Every changeling in the hive is required to play, as part of their primary education. Creating alternate and balanced personas is important after all.” Kiri said.
“Yeah, and yours were always C minus level Mary Sues. That's why you had to join the guard.”
“WHO SAID THAT!?” Kiri spun around like lightning towards the crowd of changelings.
Shining took the opportunity to slip away and try to find his sister. He found her and Naudia getting ready to head out again, and then Naudia rushed off to settle the dispute about O&O that just popped up. To say Shining was happy about this would be unprovable, as nobody was paying attention enough in the dim light of the cave to see his hair stop standing on end.
“Hey, LSBFF.”
Out of reflex, Twilight put one hoof on the key hanging around her neck.
“Hey, Shining.”
“Why so tense?”
“I… I don't feel safe being alone right now.” Twilight realized the words that just came out of her mouth, and spoke quickly. “I mean that, after that time in the cell, my gut tells me not to trust my friends.”
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. Celestia was planning a full scale invasion of the Badlands and she insisted that I was there to help plan.
"But now I AM here, and we know the truth, so I can start making up for it." Shining offered Twilight a hug and, after a pause where she looked like she was considering something, Twilight reciprocated.
During the extended hug Naudia got back from settling the changeling dispute. She did not interrupt the moment, merely stood to the side unobtrusively to let it pass.
"Hey, we're going to start moving out soon." Naudia looked at Twilight. "But I'll leave you two so you can make up with each other."
As they started moving again, Shining and Twilight walked side by side through the tunnels, chatting.
"So what do you see in her?"
"I thought you already asked her that during your overprotective brother talk."
"Well I know what she sees in you, definitely, but I want to hear what you see in her."
"She gave up everything for me.
"In the Badlands, before we returned to Equestria, she gave up everything so my friends wouldn't suspect me."
A teal glow became apparent at the end of the corridor, neither noticed.
"And we share a lot of the same interests. I mean, she'll actually listen to me when I start talking about books! I've never met anybody who could keep up with me on that."
Shining nodded, having received a lecture from Naudia earlier about precisely that.
"And... well she does have a very..." Twilight mumbled something inaudible.
"What? I didn't quite catch that."
"Well she has a..." Twilight almost dropped into mumbles again, before composing herself and saying out loud: "A very regal figure."
"Oooooh you mean she's got a nice-" Shining was cut off by Twilight's hoof.
"Keep it down! I don't want other ponies to know that I'm attracted to something as... shallow as that." Twilight looked around, desperately hoping Naudia hadn't heard.
Shining stared at her, dumbfounded.
"I'm not going to let you turn this into a friendship letter later, Twilight, so I'm going to straighten you out on this right here and now." Shining cleared his throat and attempted to clear his mind. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with being attracted to your special somepony's physical attributes, all right?"
"But-"
"No buts Twilight, I know where you got that impression, so I can point out exactly where it is wrong. It's when you form a relationship with somepony exclusively because of that, is when it’s wrong. I know you've heard the nobles and tabloids talk, but that's not how the real world works."
"But I'm attracted to her-"
"Don't kneejerk back at me, Twilight. Think about what I said for a second before you just blow it off."
It was then that they passed through the teal barrier and both completely forgot about what they were talking about, as they stumbled into a waking nightmare.
They had walked into an enormous cavern, not just large, or huge, but ENORMOUS and gigantic on a truly humbling level. But that only stopped them dead for a mere moment, before their minds dipped into overdrive and they instinctively fell into a battle stance.
There were pods, thousands of them. With ponies in all of them. And queues, hundreds of queues of ponies, waiting to be sealed into pods by changelings.
Every stalactite, every crack and crevice, every surface, floor to ceiling, and even spacing out sometimes onto the Cavern floor itself, was covered in such pods. At the center, there was a changeling queen, floating in meditation and drawing in huge flows of emotional energy.
Nopony, no changeling, had ever seen anything like it. Everypony turned to Rajani with seriously dirty looks on their faces. Everyling turned to her in awe. Everybody silently demanded an answer.
"It was the only way." Rajani replied.
Twilight, Shining, and most particularly Cadance, were now bearing down on Rajani angrily. Twilight even went so far as to pull her knife on Rajani.
"Explain. Now."
"Hey, hey HEY! No need to get violent, I can assure you there is a perfectly reasonable, heck, even a logical explanation for all this." Rajani was looking pleadingly at Twilight, who was holding her knife in a very un-Twilight-like, very authentic battle stance.
"Explain." Even Shining and Cadance had noticed, and were taken aback by Twilight's fury.
"OK, so we're fighting nightmares up top, actual physical nightmares manifest straight out of ponies dreams. It’s even bad enough to skeeve me out, and I've had to do some pretty serious patrols especially during that Discord incident.
"And whatever Nightmare has done up top has blocked Luna out, so everybody is still having nightmares. And the closer they are to Canterlot, the worse they get. On top of that, we've got corrupted changelings working with them as well."
Naudia glared at Rajani.
"That's impossible. Nothing and nobody has been able to get them to do anything."
"Tell that to the guards that were injured during the first attack. Nightmares swooping down, corrupted changelings seeping out of any crack and crevice they could get through. They were attacked from ways nobody is trained to be surrounded from. Nobody expects to have to be on guard from a drainpipe or a roof gutter."
"So the only solution we have right now is this: Ponies need to get into pods and feed the queen so she can maintain the barrier, and also so we can stop them from succumbing to even more nightmares and start feeding attacks at us from within."
"They would never willingly agree to that!"
"Most didn't, not until their first nightmare. Now we've even got changelings sleeping in pods too, the nightmare is that strong."
"So what does Princess Luna have to do with all this?" Naudia asked, being the first to recover.
"What? How can you just accept what they're telling us, Naudia?" Shining demanded.
"Because I can corroborate what they're telling me. I can trace where that love energy is going from here and it’s definitely not being stored up anywhere. Very nearly ALL of it is being used."
None of the ponies were convinced.
"I'll have to schedule you a meeting with her, if anything else she will be able to convince you."
----------------
Twilight once again moved in-between Naudia and another group of pony refugees. They were sitting on a hodgepodge of whatever they could manage to bring with them: folded-up curtains, blankets, a couch cushion here and there. It was hardly the worst refugee situation that had ever happened.
However Twilight noticed something, something very wrong, and very important. There was a distinct lack of food.
"Don't let them get to you, Naudia, this isn't your fault."
"I'm trying not to."
Naudia had been looking strained ever since they had moved into larger crowds of ponies. If it was because she was nervous, or simply from the emotions weighing down on her, Twilight wasn't sure.
When they did finally reach the cave that was transformed into an administrative department, Twilight found an oddly familiar sight.
It had been a long time since she had last had to get her ID done, and despite the room's off-the-wall furniture, this was an almost perfect recreation of the line she had faced there. Ponies in various states of uncomfortableness made a line that nearly lapped the entire room. Twilight couldn't see who was at the front of the line answering queries, but she did notice that the "desks" they were working at consisted entirely of a line of bookshelves laid on their sides.
They got into the back of the line, and unlike anywhere and everywhere else in the refugee camp, nopony gave Naudia a second glance. The atmosphere here felt off and wrong compared to everywhere else.
Twilight and Naudia actually stood in line in various states of confusion for almost a minute before Naudia woke up from her line-induced stupor and came to a realization.
"I'm a Queen."
Twilight looked at her quizzically.
"That means I'm darn well not going to wait in this line. Come on, Twilight, we're going up to the front to make a complaint."
As they cut through the line, which Twilight noticed was efficiently laid out to spiral through the room, ponies began to give them dirty looks. And for every dirty look, Naudia had a haughty, decisive, and even quite official-sounding retort. What also helped out immensely was their foreign-looking armor which had significantly more coverage than normal Changeling armor, and was designed very differently from most armors in Equestria.
Twilight actually made a mental note to jot down "Stand aside for the emissary of the Malum Desertum Protectorate." Possibly for use later.*
*It is important to note that "later" for Twilight meant "in some kind of library emergency," and the actual likelihood of that situation coming up in Ponyville was 0.
When they finally got to the front of the line, Naudia having used her last and particularly official sounding retort, which Twilight quickly translated out to "Official Grand Poobah of the Hayburger Supreme play area," they found the last pony they ever expected to see at the "desk."
"Rarity?"
Rarity flinched back from Twilight, holding up a book to block whatever magical attack she was sure was coming her way.
On the other side of the book, Twilight had unconsciously grabbed the key hanging around her neck, and was standing with Naudia in between her and Rarity.
Twilight tried to say something… and failed. Then Rarity did, with the same result. Each of them desperately trying to find words at this moment and failing. It was Naudia that had to break the silence.
“Why don't we go into the back and discuss this like proper mares?”
That woke Rarity up, possibly because the word “proper” was used, and possibly because she wasn't used to hearing a changeling queen's voice.
“Ah yes, that does sound like a good idea.” Rarity did not meet the changeling queen's eyes, though.
----------------
“So… Darling. There are a lot of things I want to say right now.” Rarity took a deep breath to center herself. “Things like 'you have to understand' and 'I assure you I had the best of intentions' but…
“All of that feels very hollow, like I'm trying to make an excuse for what happened. I wish I could go so far as to say 'I would have done things differently' but without knowing what I know now...” Rarity swallowed hard and took another moment to collect herself, and to her credit, nearly made it look like she was okay. “Without knowing what I know now, I can't say what happened between us would have gone any differently.”
Rarity half expected Twilight to glance at Naudia and confirm what she just said, but she didn't.
“Why do you say that?”
“There are times when you have to look at yourself, and the ponies you look up to,” Rarity glanced back at the waiting room. “And face some unpleasant facts. I mean they aren't all bad, not by a long shot, it's just the worse ones, I could see a reflection of myself in them and I didn't like it. I couldn't be honest to those ponies, I always felt the need to stick with them, look good around them.
“So I wanted to say, Twilight, that I'm sorry for not believing you.”
Twilight let all of that sink in, the words mulling around in her head, fighting against her previous trauma. Eventually she came to a conclusion and wrapped Rarity in a hug.
After the hug was over, which Naudia wasn't jealous of, at all, in the slightest, Twilight and Rarity got down to business.
“So where are the others?”
Naudia flinched back from the rapid shift in mood.
“Ahh, about that Twilight...”
As Twilight's mood dropped, and then dropped again farther, Naudia braved the cloud of emotions to walk over and comfort Twilight.
“If it’s any comfort, we've never had any reports of corrupted changelings killing anybody. I'm not going to say they'll be perfectly fine, but don't give up hope.”
“Really?”
“I know a lot of people say things they don't mean, or say a lie when the truth hurts too much, but I wouldn't do that to you, Twilight. If we win here, they will be alive, but they might be changed…”
“You don't mean...!”
“Not into changelings. I mean… emotionally. They'll have seen things, but they should recover.”
Twilight looked up into the strained face of Naudia, and it didn't inspire confidence in the slightest.
“Oh dearie me, I seem to have let the mood down a bit there. How about we get you to Spike so you can fast-track your way to an appointment with Luna?”
“Spike's OK?”
“Oh, yes. He's the one practically running this whole establishment here.”
Spike's workroom was large. It seemed like the kind of hell you'd go to if you didn't like paperwork. Every part of the room was filled with ponies writing official-looking paperwork and collaborating around various thesauri stationed around the room.
Twilight and Naudia could tell they were thesauri, because as soon as they got in there, they heard ponies arguing over which word would be better to use. However, they didn't have much time to reflect upon this, because seconds after they stepped into the room, a knee-high ball of scales and nerves shouted something incomprehensible and latched onto Twilight's leg.
The room stopped. Everybody was looking in their direction, frozen in place, then just like in the ill-fated and halfway-completed changeling play, they began working again, as one.
"Pardon me?" was the only thing that Naudia could think of to say.
But it was clear from one glance at Spike's teary eyed face that he was going to need more than a moment to compose himself.
It took several minutes for Spike to actually calm down. The worst part for Twilight was that Spike wasn't actually crying: everything that had happened in the last few days had finally washed over him and he was emitting a pitiful wheeze-wail, helplessly clinging to Twilight's chest.
When Spike finally did calm down enough to talk, he looked ragged. His scales were dirty, some of his spines were creased, and his hands were stained with ink.
“We've *hic* we've almost run out of food down here, Twilight. I don't know what to do about it.”
“That sounds…” Then something dawned on Twilight. “Wait a second. Why are you the one having to deal with this, anyways?”
“Nobody else wanted to take responsibility.”
Twilight glared out over the ponies, who all suspiciously looked like they had just gotten back to work to look busy.
“Naudia? Do you think you could look after Spike for a moment?” Twilight was so angry that she didn't even wait for an answer, and instead walked off to find some answers.
----------------
There was a minute where the only real sound was Spike blowing his nose, before he finally made eye contact with Naudia.
“So uhh… you and Twilight are together?”
Naudia looked away from Twilight and back at the dragon. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to be judging her at all.
“I don't think there has really been anything formal yet, we haven't even been on a date, but yes, we are together."
There wasn't really anything to say for a moment, so both of them looked over to see Twilight bawling out one of the ponies that was Spike's second in command.
"So, what’s it like being royalty?"
It took Naudia a second to realize that Spike was talking to her.
"Well, I get some special privileges, like I get access to all the O&O rulebooks before anyling else. Generally, if I ever wanted to improve myself in any way, my mother would pull strings to make it happen." Naudia put her hoof to chin in thought. "But I was also expected to be better than everyling else, and everybody else, for that matter. No excuses, no shortcuts, none of my teachers were allowed to give me an ounce of favoritism inside of schoolwork.
"’Course, that was just while I was in school. Now... now it’s stressful. I feel like I have to second guess myself a lot. Being in a relationship with Twilight, as great as it’s been, hasn't been easy for her family or mine." Naudia was thinking back to Cadance and Shining, conspicuously not thinking about talking to Twilight's parents.
"I heard you were Chrysalis's daughter. I imagine that must've been tough."
"Other than the drastically raised expectations, I thought it was great."
"'Thought'?" Spike latched onto that word rather quickly.
"Yeah, I never really knew at the time, but mother was prejudiced, heavily prejudiced, against ponies. I'm only beginning to realize it recently." Naudia glanced back at Spike and shot him a similar question. "How was it growing up with Twilight?"
"Structured."
"Is that it?"
"I don't think it would be fair to say that was it, but... but it was all very planned out, math homework at 4pm, Eqquish at 4:30, Dinner at 5. I actually learned to solve addition math problems before I learned how to read."
"Sounds tough."
"It's the kind of thing they always tell me that 'you’ll appreciate it when you’re older'." Spike said sourly.
Once again the conversation stopped entirely.
"You know, I think that armor really makes Twilight a lot more intimidating."
"Don't tell anybody, but we made it out of parchment."
Spike simply looked stupefied for a moment.
"Yes, of course. That would be the type of armor Twilight would wear."
----------------
Numbskulls probably don't even know how to fill out a standard issue reprimand form. Twilight fumed to herself, no wonder Spike had to step in, these idiots couldn't organize a silverware drawer.
Well, said another more analytical voice in her head, they probably could, but they'd be sure to mix up the big forks with the four-tined food-stabbers.
She came back to Naudia and Spike to find nothing she was expecting. Spike was still worse for wear, but looked to be holding up better. The atmosphere wasn't nearly as awkward as she was expecting. She walked over to them to ask Spike about something, but in all the excitement, it had completely slipped her mind why she was there.
"Why are we here again?"
"We need to schedule an appointment with Luna, remember." Naudia reminded her.
"Really, you aren't here to help with our food problem?"
"Food problem? All the changelings I've seen look perfectly fine to me."
"Pony food, Naudia."
Spike and Twilight both waited for Naudia's mind to tick over.
"Oh dear. I don't know how long it would take to grow enough fungus to feed this many ponies. An operation of this scale has never even been considered possible." Naudia looked distant. “Getting this many ponies in one place to feed off of…”
"Just one thing, do you guys even know about-" Spike gestured, as if they should have already known what he was talking about.
"Know about what?"
"Well... errr Luna. Do you already know about her?"
"Yes, of course we know about Luna, she's still free right?"
"Then you haven't heard--" Instantly Spike snapped into organizing again, snapping his fingers at a nearby pony. "Quills, who is first on the list to have a meeting with Luna next?"
"That would be, uhh, F. Pants, sir."
"Good, he'll be more understanding. Bump him up the list and put Naudia and Twilight in his slot."
"But the others won't be so-"
"Deal with it. We need to get moving now, and fast."
And so it went: a baby dragon waltzing through the cave-office, gruffly ordering around ponies three times his age, with all the speed and tact of an editor-in-chief at the busiest newspaper in the world. Twilight and Naudia got a good chuckle when one of the ponies had to bend down when walking beside him, just so he could see the paper they were trying to get approved.
Eventually Spike made his way all the way around the room and had collected a small stack of papers along the way.
"All right, here is your Luna Visitation Form, very important. Don't lose your LVF. Your "Temporary Supreme High Lance General" certificate, that should get you past any security checkpoints you find, and if anybody asks, that’s your government assigned job card as well. Ration stamp card. And finally, the legal agreements to go along with them."
"'Not including, but up to, death and dismemberment by corrupted changelings.'" Twilight read aloud.
"Twilight, you're not supposed to read them. They're a temporary thing to keep people calm and stop them doing stupid things."
"Where did you come up with all of this?" Naudia asked.
"Well, we had to come up with something to keep people calm. We couldn't just say nothing, after all, 'silence is the worst policy,' so to make sure ponies don't go doing something stupid just to FIND something to do, we started assigning them stuff to do beforehand."
"So, you did listen to Celestia when she was teaching me about politics, after all."
“I'm still not prepared for all this though, Twilight. We need your help. We need it bad.”
“Why? Everything looks like it's going as well as it could.”
“We're running out of food down here Twilight, and we're stuck. It's a stalemate.”
“How can we help?”
“I don't know, but Luna seemed to think you could, so go.” Spike squinted up at the pocket-watch hung on the wall as a makeshift clock. “You have fifteen minutes to make it to the center of the chamber and meet Luna. If you hurry now you should make it.”
As they were about to leave, Spike grabbed Twilight's hoof and looked up at her, tears threatening to escape again.
“If you do go up to the surface, Twilight… Mom and Dad are still up there, just…” Caught halfway between his responsibilities and his age, Spike didn't know how to proceed. “Just do what you can, all right?”
----------------
It turned out 15 minutes was cutting things close. Too close: they were Tardy.
In the past, Twilight had suggested to Celestia a government system based entirely around paperwork. when she was much, much younger, she actually thought that the various forms you would have to fill out on a day-to-day basis would be a good idea. Here, Twilight got a taste of what such a country would be like for a person in a rush so as not to be tardy.
It was living hell.
Granted, it kept people busy and calm in the short term, giving them PLENTY to do, with little time to think about such things as sneaking off into Canterlot.
But Twilight wanted to go back in time and slap herself for letting such an idea out into the universe.
Meanwhile, Naudia was experiencing for the first time how fast Twilight's composure could completely unravel. While it was pretty much on par with her any day there was a test, Naudia couldn't quite comprehend being so uptight about being tardy. After all, noling had complained about it back home if she had a good enough excuse.
She was, however, becoming more and more concerned that their path was taking them to the epicenter of the chamber, towards the changeling queen, and there was still no Luna in sight.
Surprisingly enough, Naudia didn't know what to think of seeing another hive's changeling queen. To the best of her knowledge, there hadn't been “another hive” anywhere in her lifetime. The best she could describe the sensation would be looking in on somebody you didn't know while they were sleeping. The gravity of there being another changeling queen was having difficulty sinking into the layers and years of being a nearly extinct species, all the stories she heard as a child muffling the impact.
And then they were there, and the sirens started.
Magical sirens started blaring from every corner of the cavern, as guards and changelings alike rushed to the edges of the chamber. The only remaining pony guards stood like statues around the changeling queen floating in the center of the cavern. All of them tensed up as the shield around the caverns retracted. It was a truly momentous event, and Twilight and Naudia couldn't help but stare as it met resistance passing over the teal hive's changelings in the cavern.
“Looks like they're getting ready for a fight... a big one.” Naudia commented.
While they were focused so much on the outside of the cavern, behind them the exhausted-looking changeling queen had finally reached the ground.
"Good morrow Twilight."
"Oh, hello Luna, I didn't see you..." Twilight turned to face the changeling queen, only to find a lack of Luna anywhere. Gradually her mind put two and two together, based on the changeling's regal stance and flowing star-like mane. "-there..."
"Ooook." Naudia edged into the conversation. "I'm going to need an explanation, and it better be one heck of a good one."
----------------
As Luna finished her explanation as best she remembered it, Twilight and Naudia seemed in a daze.
"So let me get this straight: in order to escape Nightmare Moon, you used the moon as a proxy to transfer your soul into a changeling queen several hundred years ago."
"That's about the shape of it."
"And how have I not heard before about this splinter group of changelings that moved back into Equestria?" Naudia asked.
"Maybe your mother assumed we died in our foolish venture, or were wiped out in the badlands, or we were cursed by Nightmare Moon, and were all destroyed."
"I'm going to need quite some time to process this."
"Sadly, that is time we cannot grant, as we need you for our plan."
"And what would that be, exactly?"
"We need you to create a distraction up in Canterlot."
Twilight opened her mouth and Naudia reached out a hoof to stop her.
"Why us?"
"Hold on a moment. We haven't even gotten to the whole 'are you really Princess Luna?' part of this whole discussion yet. It wouldn't be the first time Luna was impersonated by a changeling."
Luna made a pointed glare at Naudia.
It was then that sounds of fighting began to echo in the cavern, as changelings and guards began their scheduled half hour siege again.
"I would love to have the time to discuss this with you, Twilight, but the lives of guards, changeling and pony alike depend on me keeping this discussion short."
Twilight and Naudia had agreed to sleep outside the pods for entirely different reasons.
Twilight still wasn't convinced that it was really Luna, she seemed too at ease in the modern world, and much less like the fish out of water she had been before. It wasn't that Twilight didn't know the explanation for this, she just couldn't accept something like that so quickly. She didn't trust these other changelings enough to sleep in a pod.
Naudia was afraid; another relic of her “happy” upbringing. Her mother always told her that if she was captured by another changeling hive, they would seal her up in a cocoon and… after that, she didn't know. Chrysalis never told her. That didn’t keep Naudia from staying up at night imagining, though.
During these thoughts, Naudia accidentally bumped a pony, who, by the time Naudia acknowledged the minor collision, was already on the ground.
Looking down at the pony hiding behind her mass of pink hair, Naudia was struck, as always, by the feeling that there was something… off about Fluttershy. It was never something she could put her hoof on, though.
The feeling that they had almost nothing in common was mutual, though. The only animals Naudia ever dealt with were… dealt with. To be used, for the betterment of the hive. The concept of using precious medical supplies on an animal was alien to her. Not just from the perspective of scarcity of such items, but also, there wasn't an animal in the badlands that wouldn't eat changelings on sight if it thought it could get away with it.
“Ah, Fluttershy!” said Naudia, attempting to act as if they were the best of friends, in the hopes that it would help.
Fluttershy mumbled something barely audible.
Naudia sighed, and her shoulders drooped a bit.
“Well, I got Twilight back here in one piece. Maybe you two can make up while I go and figure out what's going to happen with my changelings.”
----------------
With Naudia out of the picture, Fluttershy looked more animated.
“Twilight! Twilight, I'm so sorry, when they were taking you away, I should have said something, I knew something was wrong, but I'm too shy!”
Twilight was going to speak, but before she could, Fluttershy gulped in a huge breath of air and barreled onward, lying on her belly and holding onto Twilight's hoof.
“Well, after I calmed myself down with breathing exercises, I had a moment to think, away from the others, and the whole situation just didn't add up at all.” Fluttershy explained. “I thought to myself 'How could Twilight navigate through such a foreign land like that by herself?' And then other parts of your story didn't add up, but they made a lot more sense when I assumed you and the changeling queen were working together.”
“But, when I actually tried to say something about it, I thought 'what if they think I'm working with the queen and throw me in with her?' and that lead to a lot of other what-ifs about prison, and dungeons, and having to answer to Celestia, and I just couldn't find the courage to speak, I'm so sorry Twilight.”
“It's alright Fluttershy, breathe, just breathe.”
“I wish this had never happened, all of this, I just want to help my friends, and care for animals...”
Fluttershy did not break down, though. She seemed to swallow her fear. Drawing from deep inside herself, Fluttershy's face showed an unaccustomed determination, almost alien for its rarity.
“I shouldn't have broken down like that, Twilight. It’s counterproductive to do that in front of patients.”
“Speaking of which, Fluttershy, why are you in charge around here anyway?”
“I'm the only one with training for Disaster Medicine, specifically Disaster Recovery and Physical Therapy.” It was strange to hear Fluttershy talk professionally about that.
“Where did you get training for that?”
“Oh… umm, I would rather not talk about that if it's alright with you. It’s something that tends to get me worked up.”
As Twilight was wondering what Fluttershy would look like ‘worked up,’ much less trying to figure out what could make her angry like that, they were interrupted by a pink filly with a bandage wrapped around her belly.
“Umm… Mo- Fluttershy, I finished the bandage.”
Fluttershy turned to the filly and put on a wide comforting smile, the kind you saved for somepony who had been through a lot.
“That's great dear, head back to the station and I'll be behind you shortly.”
“OK Fluttershy.”
Twilight stared at the filly's retreating back, stunned.
“That was Diamond Tiara.” She turned her shocked gaze back onto Fluttershy. “What is she doing here, and why is she so well behaved?”
Fluttershy motioned that they should move to a more secluded place before the spoke, which made Twilight more worried than DT's behavior. Finally reaching a place out of earshot for most ponies, Fluttershy spoke.
“They were on a business trip, Diamond had a nightmare about something… I think it was her mother. Filthy Rich tried to fight the nightmare, but as an Earth pony, he didn't stand a chance.”
“Oh.”
“I'm worried, Twilight, I talked to one or two of the guards down here, and they say that the monster they found in that hotel room was unusually strong. I'm not sure that once this is all over, she's going to have a place to go back to that's healthy for her.”
“She almost called you ‘mom’ back there.”
“She's vulnerable.” Fluttershy had a haunted look in her eyes. “To get away from the nightmare, she actually had to jump off the balcony outside her room. I think she cracked a few ribs, luckily there was no internal bleeding. It's only random chance that the ponies in the room below her managed to get her down here so quickly. And...”
Twilight motioned for her to go on, but Fluttershy needed time to compose herself again.
“The worst part is, the nightmares don't kill anybody they capture. As best we can tell, it’s only fighting back that makes them go berserk.”
As the shock faded, Twilight took up a determined expression. Walking over to Fluttershy, she put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder.
“Tomorrow, I'm going to end this.” Twilight felt a tingle of magic in her chest as she said that.
----------------
Twilight followed Fluttershy back to the main camp. The camp was not only for ponies unwilling to sleep in cocoons, it was also for injured ponies and their relatives.
Deciding Naudia could wait a bit til she’d mended fences more with Fluttershy, Twilight decided to hang around with her until Naudia got back. As she spent time with Fluttershy, though, she noticed something strange.
“They all call you 'Mother Fluttershy' or 'Mother Shy.' ”
“Oh… yes, yes they do.” For a moment Fluttershy's confident attitude crumbled, and her shyness shone through before being forced back down. “I'm very good at keeping ponies calm during times like this.”
Five minutes in, Diamond Tiara had sheepishly came back to them, and without a word between the two, remained as Fluttershy's shadow. Occasionally she would get a step closer and bite onto Fluttershy's tail, holding onto it and trailing behind her, like a nervous weanling to her mother.
She said nothing the entire time they were making the rounds, keeping her gaze either looking up at Fluttershy or solemnly at the ground. When Fluttershy was calming down a pony, Diamond Tiara was there, trying to be around Fluttershy, as if frightened at any moment Fluttershy would be ripped away from her.
The most awkward part of the rounds was seeing Fluttershy comforting a sobbing mare or stallion almost twice her age. Anywhere else, the image of Fluttershy gently stroking their mane would have come off as awkward, but here... here they were family. Most of the ponies that elected to sleep outside the cocoons were ponies that had had somebody taken away by corrupted changelings. Their losses brought them together.
Throughout all of this, Twilight was unsure of what to do. Normally, she would be asking Celestia what to do, but…
Lost, all she could do was act as a shoulder to cry on, while trying to push incomprehensible thoughts out of her head. It wasn't that she was unappreciated, but she was definitely less popular than “Mother” Fluttershy and her adorable little filly.
Throughout all this, though, something was eating at Twilight that started in the back of her mind and worked its way forward until it spilled out of her mouth.
“Why don't you like Naudia?” Twilight put out bluntly.
“Oh… umm. Well, she's scary-looking.”
“That can't be everything, Fluttershy. I've seen you face down a dragon before, you aren't acting the same.”
Fluttershy sat down. DT came and huddled up to her side.
“I don't know what to think of changelings, Twilight. I feel like I can empathize with them, but the things they've done… I need to know more, but I'm afraid to know more.”
“I'm sure they...” Twilight stopped.
She wasn't entirely sure they had a good reason for the things they had done. She didn't quite know why changelings didn't speak up to the queen. Maybe there were dissenters in Chrysalis' time… maybe there were dissenters. Come to think of it, Twilight didn't have the slightest clue as to why Changelings obeyed their queen, or almost anything about the structure of changeling government at all.
“OK, I don't know if I can justify anything they've done under Chrysalis' rule, but I am certain things will improve under Naudia's.”
“Why is that, Twilight?”
“Because I'm going to make sure that they do.”
“You're already beginning to sound like a married couple.” Fluttershy giggled.
“Tell you what, I'm curious as to some of this stuff too. Why don't we go find Naudia and ask her ourselves?”
Fluttershy looked uncomfortable for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
----------------
They found Naudia in a third camp that was being set up by her changelings to keep away from the other group of changelings, and particularly the other ponies, who were giving them slightly dangerous looks.
This camp was up a wall in an alcove, and already looked much more like a “changeling hive” than Twilight ever would have guessed from her previous experience with one. Everywhere she looked, there was changeling goop, changeling goop hammocks, changeling goop lumps acting as beds... one changeling in particular seemed to be trying to make what looked like a crude bathtub out of the stuff.
There were two changelings talking midway between an argument and a bartering session off to the side. One was from Naudia's hive, and the other was from… the other hive.
Twilight had never really noticed the difference between the two, but seeing them side by side it was plain as day. Naudia's changelings were thinner and generally shorter, and they were also bald.
The other changelings, well, Twilight would never describe a changeling as “plump,” not with the holes motif, but they definitely were more filled-out than Naudia's changelings. Their fangs were also a great deal less pronounced, going from Naudia's nearly saber-toothed changelings to barely sticking out of the changeling's mouth. They also had hair, but looking at a few, it all seemed to be cut to various standard lengths, even if they all tried to do something different with it.
The last thing was how they stood. Naudia's changelings looked on edge all the time, and antsy, and while some of them did try to defuse that at times, whatever part of them was deciding ‘fight or flight’ was always at hoof. The other changelings seemed a lot more professional, like soldiers or guards. Stress was clearly on their minds, but it was always taking a backseat to training.
Twilight saw Naudia among them, apparently trying to negotiate with one of the other changelings. Neither looked uncomfortable with the situation, but Twilight couldn't tell if that was because they secretly hated each other, or simply because they'd never seen a changeling from another hive before.
When Naudia did come over to talk to them, she seemed miffed.
"That's a feeling that's going to take some getting used to."
"What is?" Twilight asked.
"Talking to a changeling that's not part of my hive. I can't tell what he's feeling, and I have to keep reminding myself that he's not going to obey me just because I say so."
"Well, umm... Fluttershy and I were wondering, why do changelings obey the queen to the letter most of the time?"
Naudia's face tightened up at that.
“Well, that's a bit of an awkward subject...”
“Oh, well, if it’s taboo, I mean, we don't want to intrude.” Fluttershy said, attempting to back out of the conversation.
“No, no, it’s just weird to have to have the… how do you say it?” Naudia thought for a moment. “The ‘birds and the bees' talk? With somebody so old.”
“Oh. My.” Fluttershy's face immediately turned red.
“Maybe we shouldn't have this talk out in public like this.” Twilight interjected.
“Oh no, it’s fine, everyling needs to learn about it at some point.”
All of them had forgotten about Diamond Tiara, hiding behind Fluttershy in fear.
“When two changelings love each other very much,” Both Fluttershy and Twilight groaned at this point. “They go to the queen and ask permission to have a child, and if the queen thinks they've been good changelings, she'll make an egg for them!” Naudia demonstrated by swishing her horn around the same way she did back in the badlands.
“So that's it, then? Just reproduction?” Twilight asked.
“Well there is a good deal more about being queen, what with drones bringing me love, and me redistributing it to the hive. Settling disputes by being able to tell who is lying within the hive. Acknowledgment of marriages, trying to ensure a fair distribution of reading materials, and most importantly: I serve as a sort of buffer for the hive, able to suck negative emotions out of a drone and redistribute them to prevent… well, what’s happening up there. That's why the queen oftentimes reflects the hive and the hive often reflects the queen. They need me, and I need them, so we have to work together.”
“That's not the birds and the bees. Dad- That wasn't the same talk I got.” Diamond Tiara blurted out.
“Changelings have different birds and bees than ponies do. It comes from us having been designed, rather than born, in the first place.” Naudia said before turning to Fluttershy. “And who might this be? Is she one of yours?”
“Nuh-uh, she's not my...” DT drew in a bit at that thought again.
“Why don't I introduce you to one of the nursemaids, I'm sure they'd love to meet a darling little filly like you.” Naudia shifted over without missing a beat.
Twilight was seriously impressed with how fast Naudia managed to defuse the situation with Diamond Tiara. She even had the little filly almost smiling and chatting with a changeling nursemaid, far quicker than she was expecting.
“That's the first time I've seen one of our nurses so happy in years.” Before Twilight could ask why, Naudia answered her. “They have a tough job, and normally they cool off raising the grubs, but we haven't had any new grubs in years now. So they've just been stuck tending the wounded.”
“I didn't expect you to be so good with kids.”
“Well as the queen you have to love them, in a way they're all my kids now.” Naudia was staring over at Diamond Tiara, who was giggling at the antics of one of the nursemaids. “So what’s the story with her? I couldn't read too much about her, other than she's really touchy about family.”
Twilight explained what she knew, and Fluttershy explained what she suspected, as succinctly as she could.
“We'll have to see about her ribs when we have time, and I get a bad feeling in my bones about that nightmare. I'm sure it'll be easy enough to handle but… I don't like seeing a filly being put into a state like that.”
Diamond Tiara suddenly ran over to them, holding a small ball of green slime, bouncing it along as she walked.
“Fluttershy! They made me this weird ball! It bounces better than anything you get in the shops, can I keep it?”
“Well, I don't know. You'd have to ask Naudia if you can.” Fluttershy and DT both looked at Naudia.
“If they gave it to you that's fine, you'll just have to come back every once in awhile to get it filled back up.”
“Thank you!” Diamond hastily remembered to say before running back to play with the nursemaids before.
“Umm… I think we got off a bit on the wrong hoof Naudia.” Fluttershy said. “I think I would like to get to know you better.” Fluttershy held out a hoof for Naudia to shake.
“Maybe once this is all over, you can teach me how to keep a pet?” Naudia said as she reciprocated the hoofshake.
Fluttershy collected Diamond Tiara a couple minutes later, mostly to get ready for bed. Night was a strange time in the caves, already it held the ominous threat of nightmares.
Twilight and Naudia finally settled on a changeling goop hammock, snuggled up against one another in the hopes that that would ward off the nightmares.
----------------
Naudia woke up to the sound of a whetstone being run across a knife. Turning her head slowly, so best to not wake up Twilight, Naudia saw that creature again.
Its smug face was curled into a punchable grin, and it was holding Twilight's hidden dagger, running a whetstone down the edge. Somewhere in its head the motion probably looked threatening, but it had a hard time overcoming the inherent and distracting punchability in it's face.
“You do know you're not supposed to use a whetstone on those, right?”
It failed to smoothly hide the fact that it didn't.
“This seems much less rehearsed than the last encounter we had.”
“Things have changed. Celestia was supposed to do better than she did. I didn't have time to come up with something as good as the chess metaphor.”
“I saw you, whispering into Twilight's ear. I heard you.”
Twilight shifted a bit in her sleep.
“You were meant to.”
“But she can't hear you, why bother?”
“She's met a believer, she's been infected. She'll be able to hear me soon.” Just for a moment, it dropped the shit-eating grin and adopted a more intense look.
“What do you want with us?”
“Stability. A stable platform to negotiate with. Those changelings upstairs? No good, would be better to just wipe things clean than to try and work with them. Things are different here, though, wiping things clean could cause problems.” Its gaze wandered about the room, unable to keep focused on Naudia for any length of time longer than an uncomfortable stare.
Twilight had begun to sweat. Naudia didn't notice.
“Oh, yeah? What could possibly cause problems for you?” Naudia asked sarcastically.
“Problems I'd have to explain. Problems I can't put down ‘til they're good and ready.” It turned back to her and gave another smile, and another stare. “You know, back when this all started, I was more confident in the outcomes. Now I'm not so sure. You changelings sure know how to mix things up. Makes things exciting. If I do end up having to wipe things, I'll have to see if I can keep you around.”
Naudia narrowed her eyes at the thing. “Who are you to talk so big?”
“Who am I? I am a god! Follower of the only faith… no, that's not the right word. Hope, maybe. A dream, perhaps. The kind that keeps you up in a flop sweat at night.”
Twilight was clearly having a nightmare now.
“And I will lead those cast aside, broken. Only the final reckoning will grant them peace.”
Twilight finally jolted awake at that.
Naudia didn't want to take her eyes off the thing while it was ranting, but she had to break eye contact to make sure Twilight was all right.
“Are you alright, dear?”
“I had a nightmare. I've never had a nightmare like that.”
Naudia noticed the thing had gone.
"Dead gods glaring down like stars. Endless black sands, shifting without wind on the footfalls of invisible feet. Then I saw them.” Twilight shuddered in revulsion. “I could see them, walking, forever, remnants without hope for a future.”
Naudia stroked Twilight's hair, holding her close. “It was just a dream Twilight.”
“But I couldn't help them. Nobody could help them, and so many tried. Couldn't even get rid of them, just had to leave them there, waiting for the end.” The haunted look in Twilight's eyes told Naudia she believed every word.
“The end of what?” Naudia asked, against her better judgment.
Neither of them got much sleep after that intrusion. Whatever Twilight had last night, it hadn't been a nightmare as it didn't leave a nightmare behind. The changeling that checked them out went so far as to ask if Twilight had even dreamed last night.
“And how would we trap it?” Naudia demanded. “You have better enchantments than the royal dungeon they locked me up in?”
“Maybe, I don’t know which wing they locked you up in.” Twilight shot back, “Besides they were relying more on your magic inhibitor to keep you locked up more than anything.”
“Ok so say we do get it trapped, then what?”
“Well what do you mean, we’ve got it trapped then.”
“What I mean is we have no idea what it is, how it works or anything, there are plenty of creatures in the badlands you can’t lock up with magic because they’ll just eat all the mana you pour into the wards faster than three changelings can pour it in.”
“I don’t get the impression that it would do that.” Twilight conceded. “It sounds like it would just be armed in some way. I dunno massively powerful scrolls or some kind of null magic bomb, something that would give it that cocky attitude.”
“I don’t even know how we would find such a creature in the first place, it just seems to come and go wherever it pleases.”
It wasn't a comforting thought but they eventually conceded that there was nothing they could do about a demonic entity nobody else could see, that could appear at will. All that could be done was to do their best to put it out of their minds and focus on the task ahead.
The task ahead being a distraction.
They had to meet up with Luna one more time before leaving, something about preparing them for the journey. As it turned out it wasn't so much a preparation for the journey so much as it was a slew of fail-safes in case they got caught.
Twilight had so many random recall, shielding, mind shielding, and ward breaking spells, wards, and tiny scrolls on her that she could feel her hair stand on end.
“And this one is a timed auto-activation in case you know you're going to be incapacitated somehow.” Luna said as she slipped the last scroll into a crack in Twilight's armor.
Naudia made no attempt to hide her amusement at Twilight's significantly fluffier magic charged coat. She had received a similar treatment already, but having no coat couldn't feel the effect like Twilight could.
“Don't think you're getting off so easily. You have to swallow this.” Luna held up a small orb of hardened changeling goop.
“You're not supposed to eat them like that.” Naudia wrinkled her nose at it. “I won’t get any of the love that way.”
“Yes I know, now swallow it.” Luna said and attempted to jam it into Naudia's mouth.
“Not until you tell me what its for.”
Luna sighed.
“It's a last fail-safe, something in case you become cocooned, you break it open and it should have enough love in there for you to escape. You are both equally important and it is crucial that you both come back. But if you absolutely must choose you must be the one to come back Naudia, you are in the most danger.”
“But I can't leave Twilight behind. I can't.” Naudia looked offended at even the thought.
“That's not fair Luna, you can't just ask one of us to leave the other behind.” Twilight said, she had a distasteful look on her face.
“We can figure out how to recover you Twilight, but nobody has ever found a solution for corrupted changelings other than a merciful death. And I didn't say to leave you behind, I said if all else fails you are in less danger than Naudia of not coming back.”
Luna started pacing agitatedly,
“Put yourself in my horseshoes for a moment. Having to tell somepony that the first pony to willingly give them food, the first pony to stand by them in adversity even when all her friends gave up, somepony she sacrificed the future of her entire race for. To tell anybody to leave that pony behind is a terrible thing to have to do, coming to a logical conclusion about it is no comfort to me. But I will always pick being cruel over having to put one of you down.”
Luna glared at Naudia as if daring her to even try to say no after that.
“All right I'll take it.” Naudia finally said.
----------------
Luna had filled Naudia up to the brim with love before they left and it showed. She wasn't Pinkie levels of hyper but you could see how jittery she was simply from the way her head shot around to look at small movements. Of course her mouth wasn't idle and that betrayed more of the nervousness she was actually feeling.
“Do you think birds ever get grossed out feeding their babies? Come to think of it will you get grossed out when you have to feed changeling babies? How do worms feed their babies? What do small snakes eat?”
And so on, training her thoughts through tangent after tangent barely taking a breath between sentences.
It was to the point where Twilight almost considered trying to magically plug her ears and wait for Naudia to run off her energy on her own. Until she actually thought about what energy she was going to be running off.
“Naudia calm down, you don't want to burn off all that energy before we have to fight corrupted changelings do you?”
That shut up Naudia so quickly Twilight almost felt like apologizing before she entirely knew what was wrong. Naudia got to apologizing first though.
“Sorry I was just excited, I've never had this much love to just throw around before.”
There wasn't really anywhere else for the conversation to go so silence sat like a wall between them punctured from the outside by regular rumblings of the stone caves around them. Whatever has happening in the city above, it was big.
“So what do you want to do when all this is over?”
“Alright, you ready? Cause this one is gonna sound dumb. I want to visit a museum.”
“I could have sworn you had something almost exactly like that back at the hive.”
“Well yeah but it's all changeling stuff, none of them have any interest in fossils or natural history or anything about other cultures beyond what is needed to blend in.” Naudia moved into a mocking tone of voice “ 'Why should we care about evolution, we were created not evolved.' And that's the end of that.”
“I've been meaning to ask you about that. When you say changelings are created, what do you mean?” Twilight had half a mind to try and write down the next thing Naudia said.
“That's an easy one. We don't mean we believe in some sort of higher power. Actually changelings were created by ponies pre-unification. I'll make sure to tell you the whole story sometime later but changelings had been intended to be used as replacements for soldiers for the earth ponies.”
“That's horrible!” Twilight spoke up.
“That's pre-unification Equestria for you, despite what your Hearth’s Warming Eve plays tell you it was not a pleasant place.” Naudia said matter of factly. “Course pretty much everybody who knew about us was killed when the earth-pony Fort Barding was sacked, anypony who still knew after that kept their mouths shut post-unification.”
“Hearing that you can almost understand why the windigos were so powerful.”
There was nothing much to say after that. The caves around them seemed closer after that story, the darkness a little more dark as if it could still be hiding windigo eyes. Twilight took some time to look around these caves and reflect on how things had changed for her in the last few months.
The cave's crystalline walls reminded her of another changeling queen's laughter. Of course they were fighting Nightmare Moon today, not Chrysalis.
Is it always going to be like this? Twilight thought. Barely beating out Nightmare Moon time and time again, only for her to return indomitable. She was however shook out of such gloomy thoughts by a cold wind and a dim red light ahead of her.
----------------
Canterlot was in a state of slow chaos.
The growth of nightmares and corrupted changelings was making itself apparent as it pushed itself up through the ground. Oftentimes the unpleasant looking spires seemed to have grown from underneath and overturned an entire house, earth pony reinforced foundation and all. They seemed to reach up towards the moon as if they were alive and periodically they would pulse and grow, gorged on negative emotions and nightmares.
That was not all that lurked in the city. In the streets patrolled corrupted changelings scanning for any life that could be subdued and sucked dry. In the air it was no better as nightmares roosted and swooped down from the spires oftentimes grabbing a struggling pony who had not made it underground.
They never dropped anypony, even if somehow it looked like a pony managed to slap themselves loose, an even larger nightmare would swoop down and make sure they continued along their journey uninterrupted. There weren't terribly many ponies captured like this but it was easy to see where they were going. All of them were making a beeline for the palace.
Twilight shuddered as she failed to imagine the unspeakable horrors inflicted upon those ponies. None of this was helped by the eclipsed blood red moon casting its unpleasant rays down from its fixed spot in the sky.
As they came up out of the hole they realized that it was actually made by an uprooted house and it brought them uncomfortably close to one of the living tendrils growing in the cities. The only blessing was that this one seemed to have cracked and broken and thus was abandoned. Another house had actually been crushed underneath the malformed lump that had broken off the end of the stalk.
Twilight turned as she heard Naudia give a hollow laugh beside her looking questioningly up at the changeling queen.
“You know what my dream was as a kid?” To which Twilight shook her head. “I always dreamed of organizing and taming the corrupted changelings. It was always so that normal changelings didn't have to fight anymore.”
Naudia's voice was hollow, her face twisted almost as if in pain from the irony. “Never thought it would look like this.”
Twilight came up and nuzzled at her one more time before they walked off into the city.
Twilight was amongst the most gifted unicorns ever to exist, possessing both intelligence and power. Her magic might have surpassed even that of Starswirl the Bearded, and approached the level of the alicorn sisters themselves. Her power to create a light spell was unmatched by any five unicorns in Canterlot.
Right now it was being tested to its limits. Surrounded on all sides by nightmares and corrupted changelings, the intensity of the light spells she was using not only left spots in her vision, but an audible crack of released magic. From every direction, unexpected or not, they were being attacked. They came out of sewer grates, drain pipes, broken windows, abandoned carts. It was as if the shadows themselves spawned corrupted changelings and nightmares in frightening and uncontrollable numbers.
On top of that, she could feel the weight of the red eclipse bearing down upon her, tinting the world against her. As if the sun itself cast an angry glare down upon Twilight for daring to exist.
There was plenty Twilight could do about this, of course. Her horn was glowing red with the sheer amount of magic pouring out of it. She was proud that not a single nightmare, no matter how fierce, required more than one spell to dispatch. Most of them were small, and evaporated in groups whenever her horn went off.
Naudia was doing fine as well. Not merely keeping the corrupted changelings back, but she was having a much easier time dispatching them here in Canterlot, fully powered up. She showed no traces of fatigue yet, and already over a hundred corrupted changelings had fallen to them, along with an uncounted number of nightmares.
What Twilight worried about more was the psychological effect this might have on Naudia. Sure, it was necessary, but these were her own people that had met a tragic fate and needed to be put down. They weren't originally monsters. It wasn’t so bad yet, though, they were just blobs that leapt out to attack them. It helped massively that they looked disgusting, barely resembling changelings at all.
Things were building up to an ominous weight upon their backs, however, as they fell into a disturbingly calm section, which didn’t bode well for either them or the looting team.
Twilight was interrupted, though, by a rebuttal from the nearly empty street.
"Over there!" Twilight pointed a hoof at a cart set on its side that was coming at them at remarkable speeds.
"I got it!" Naudia replied, but Twilight was already moving.
The cart shattered from two powerful destruction spells hitting it at once, the monsters hiding behind it already attempting to slink away.
"I think we’re starting to get the attention of whatever is behind this.” Naudia said. “They’re starting to act less like they did out in the desert.”
"Good." But there wasn't conviction in Twilight's voice.
This wasn't a battle they were supposed to 'win.' Victory here meant pushing themselves to the absolute limit of their abilities, far away from help and depending entirely upon their failsafes to bring them back. If they didn't do well enough here, then things might get worse down below, but every inch they pushed towards their limit was a risk.
There could be nothing worse than being captured by the enemy, in this case. Not for Twilight and especially not for Naudia.
The next attack was the most vicious yet and hammered home what had Naudia just said.
Twilight and Naudia turned a corner after almost two minutes of empty streets, to find only a single corrupted changeling sitting alone in the middle of the street.
“Have they given up?” Naudia asked.
It was watching them with whatever passed for eyes, as if it had something up its proverbial sleeve.
“I’ll put up a shield, in case it explodes or something. You take it out.” Twilight said, as moments later, a pink shield enveloped them.
Naudia charged her horn, prepared for the worst. She wasn’t prepared for what the corrupted changeling had to offer. As soon as the beam hit it, the corrupted changeling began to scream and thrash, flailing changeling limbs like there was an actual changeling, drowning inside of a corrupted changeling. Naudia was so shocked that she stopped firing at it entirely.
Twilight almost let her shield down; it was all she could do to fight against the shock to keep it up. Both of them stared at the corrupted changeling in abject horror, it stopped a moment after Naudia stopped channeling her beam.
There were no words between them, only a look between Naudia and Twilight that could not express their horror at what they just saw. Naudia couldn’t think of anything else she could do at that moment, so she hardened her resolve and finished the corrupted changeling off.
It screamed, and as it began to lose form, the corrupted changeling let out a little wheeze before it expired.
“What was that?” Twilight asked out loud.
----------------
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a heated battle was ongoing between the looters and the corrupted changelings. The ponies fighting alongside the changelings were feeling hopeful. They were winning, despite the odds, with the changeling support. The changelings, on the other hand, had their faces locked in grim concentration. They knew, regardless of how well they were doing now, that this was an endurance fight. The corrupted changelings could easily afford to simply wear them down. Time and losses were immaterial to them.
Mattar had forced himself to the front lines, along with a lot of Naudia's hive. They had the most combat experience out of anybody, and it showed. They didn't flinch, they didn't panic, no matter their profession. Naudia's hive had all fought against the corrupted changelings out in the badlands. They knew the price of failure.
Even with how well things were going, they only had so much to give, and something was clearly feeding both the corrupted changelings and the nightmares. There was only so many the enemy could cram into one place after all. That played to their advantage, as the spells against nightmares worked in an area, and every time a corrupted changeling fell it expended some of its trapped love into the area around it.
Mattar decided it was time to pull back and confer with the pony commanders.
When he got back there things were looking well, for the moment.
“I’ve told you, we can’t copy the royal wedding again, we have too many friendly changelings here.” Shining was exasperatedly telling another commander.
“Are you sure you can’t just make the barrier… go around them?” A high-ranked Earth pony asked.
Shining’s hoof met his face.
“That would mean opening thousands of tiny little holes in the shield with perfect timing, then shutting them again. Completely impossible. You’d need twenty unicorns in perfect sync, with reaction times that put them in the upper 1%.” Shining’s exasperation clearly wasn’t getting through enough. “Even if we grouped our changelings up, that doesn’t make things easier. Poking holes in the shield that big, or that early on, would make it useless. It wouldn’t work against the nightmares anyways, we already tried that.”
“We’ve got most of Canterlot and the guard here, Commander. How rare are we talking?”
“Even if we had all of Equestria, and had the time to vet them, we’d be lucky to find three.” That finally shut up the Earth pony.
“Having problems, Commander?” Mattar asked.
“You could say that.” Shining motioned for Mattar to move away so they could talk more privately. “Don’t mind him. He has no understanding of magic but he’s responsible for our, quite frankly, fantastic battle lines at the moment. Anyway, how are things going on the front?”
“With the level of organization we’ve got right now, and the enemy, we’re doing quite well. There are injuries but no casualties. The enemy just can’t get close enough.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here.”
“We can’t keep this up. I give us about fifteen minutes before we have to start heading back down, and that’s stretching it a bit.”
“Well, we came up out of that maze in the market district, so we’re ready to go down already. I’m going to start pulling ponies back down below.” Shining said. “Can you handle bringing the front lines down again? Remember to send up the flare!”
Before Mattar could reply there was a commotion on the front lines.
He rushed over to find that very bad things were happening.
The corrupted changelings were organizing themselves.
----------------
Another corrupted changeling melted away to Naudia’s beam. Twilight had given up counting them, because counting them kept her thinking about them more. Twilight could tell that Naudia was hardening to their cries, but she was unsure if this was an act or the buildup to a breakdown of some kind.
"They're getting smarter." Naudia stated grimly. "Never would have imagined saying that about corrupted changelings, ever."
"I never thought I would have to fight Nightmare Moon again, either." Twilight dropped another sunlight explosion into a group of nightmares, who seemed much less eager to attack them now. "Any ideas as to why any of this is happening?"
"Maybe one of the changelings got latched onto by Nightmare Moon. Maybe it's something different, like somebody discovering the notes as to how changelings were created in the first place."
"Do you think it could be your mother?" Twilight asked.
Naudia didn't look at all cheerful about the prospect.
"She died. I'm almost positive of it." Naudia sighed. "Even if she didn't, she was at ground zero. She wouldn't have lived very long after that, nobody could."
Twilight could tell Naudia was pushing away disturbing thoughts, and decided not to push it.
She didn’t have much time to think about it as another nightmare attacked. This time the nightmares tried carrying part of a roof. It was only luck that they managed to spot them in time to break it apart. They moved in perfect sync with one another, lashing out with their magic almost as one. Once they were done, the streets seemed very empty.
"We should move on. I think we've depleted this area's supply of nightmares and changelings." Twilight said.
"Before we move on, do you think you could top me up, Twilight?" Naudia asked hopefully.
"Of course, umm… honey?"
"Hee hee." Naudia giggled, trying to make the best of the moment.
"What is it?"
"It's just that everything has gone so fast that it's been one thing after the other. Parts of, well, our relationship, are still taking me by surprise."
Twilight bumped up beside Naudia. "We'll have all the time in the world once all this is over to work it all out."
Twilight gave Naudia a peck on the cheek, and they stood in the warm glow of each other's love. Just for a moment, forgetting about the current situation.
However, the air around them began to change, taking on an altogether more hostile air.
Looking around, they spotted the source: looking directly at them was a corrupted changeling, and it definitely was looking at them, its eyes an unflinching slit-eyed gaze.It was quite clearly shaking with anger, and its eye was clearly not its own.
----------------
Mattar was hard pressed to bring the retreating formation back. Retreating was a problem because, for the moment at least, they had expended so much magic down from their streets that most of the tiny holes that corrupted changelings and nightmares could slither out of had melted shut. However, this level of fury couldn’t be kept up forever. Eventually, one by one, even with other changelings feeding them in more love, they would all fall over and have to be carried back down to the cavern.
Moving away from where they were not only meant exposing a new flank to attack from, but many more flanks where nightmares could attack from fresh places.
Mattar decided it was time to actually join the battle. He’d been waiting now just in case his queen needed an assist getting out. Too late for that now.
“You, and you.” Mattar said pointing at the two changelings who had been doing best during this battle. “Your job is now to come and collect me once I’ve broken their lines. This is NOT going to be a heroic sacrifice, and it’s your job to make sure it isn’t.”
The changelings looked frightened, it wasn’t often one of the queen’s guard actually went into combat.
Mattar gave the last orders to his second in command, and in very short order the space between him and the front lines was open.
Mattar cracked his neck once, and began to run.
It wasn’t a fast run, he didn’t bowl the changelings over with the sheer speed of his wake. It wasn’t even all that fast, however, what started as a barely audible gallop gradually increased in volume until it sounded like something very large was slamming its way down the street.
Mattar didn’t grow any bigger, but pavement stones cracked and his horn glowed with exertion. Teeth clenched, eyes straight ahead, Mattar drew within himself and went full berserker.
A wave of corrupted changelings and nightmares was already barreling down the path at him, snarling and yowling like the beasts they were. Mattar despised them. Pulling deep within himself, he cast the spell restricted to the queen’s guard. He aimed his horn at one side of the horde and the horn glowed even brighter, the glow extending out continuously.
Then he swiped it to the side and the entire wave fell dead.
There was another wave behind that one. They too fell dead.
The singed smell of burnt changeling and nightmare permeated the air as burning corpses piled up. There was no blood as all the wounds were burned shut. Mattar did not stop.
They started sending in fliers. Mattar burned them out of the air with a precision that no normal berserker ever could.
Now there was a pile of burning corrupted changelings and nightmares so massive that Mattar couldn’t see through the flames and smoke anymore, but he could still feel them out there. Now would have been a perfect time to retreat, but Mattar’s berserker state wouldn’t allow that. Queen’s guard weren’t supposed to retreat. That’s what other changelings did.
As if in answer, a huge nightmare swatted its way through the fires with a lamppost, swinging it with ease. The nightmare was at least twelve feet tall and very powerful, possibly from draining other nightmares. Mattar could see its red eyes glowing underneath the thick fur, and the glistening teeth as clear as day through its cloud of protective darkness.
Mattar screamed at it, stomping his hooves and cracking the pavement below. It responded with a deep bellow of its own and charged.
The nightmare swung the lamppost unnaturally fast, but it only caught cobblestones. Mattar was faster, and shoulder checked into the monster’s leg. With a sickening crunch, it buckled in an unusual direction, bringing the monster’s face down to Mattar’s level.
Mattar cast his queen’s guard spell again bringing the beam down on the monster and its cloud of darkness. It didn’t work; the monster blocked the spell and held it there, snarling with effort.
Mattar did not stop, though, and the monster’s shield of shadows began to creep its way up its body as it was burned away, leaving the beast unprotected from the roaring flames around it. This only hastened its death, until the shield broke and the nightmare rapidly caught fire, burning as bright as fresh kindling.
Silence.
Mattar looked down the street, but it was empty. No nightmares, no corrupted changelings, just fire and death. He couldn’t even feel them hiding out in nooks and crannies waiting for an ambush. That did very little to address his growing feeling of dread.
A shadow passed over Mattar, barely visible in the red light of the eclipse, but Mattar’s senses were heightened to the extreme. Looking up, he traced the shadow and stopped, and slowly slumped to the ground, exhausted and defeated all at once.
That was the cost of the queen’s guard’s gift: extreme power for a short time and then you get to take a nice long sleep. Most queen’s guard slept that way forever, easy pickings, but the queen got away.
Two changelings hastily came out of hiding to pull the limp Mattar back underground. Before he fell completely unconscious, staring at the sight before him, he muttered:
“I’m sorry, my Queen.”
He stared at the massive gathering of nightmares circling around, and the structure growing into the sky, made out of living corrupted changelings.
Naudia was astonished by the number of corrupted changelings and nightmares brought to bear against them. She didn’t have much time to be astonished, of course; there were just too many of them, and her concentration had to be split between the monsters around her and trying to protect Twilight.
Twilight’s horn was shining like a beacon to ward off the horrible abominations that came at them from all directions, but the drain on her was increasing. The strain on her magic was mostly caused by the other ancillary spells she was having to use to keep her horn from literally catching fire, as flashlight spells weren’t designed to work on this kind of level or duration.
Still, they were holding them back. Nightmares and changelings both were falling in large numbers, dwarfed only by the astonishing number of those that remained. Their only salvation was that there was only so much room to attack Naudia and Twilight from.
Above them and all around them, circling them as if they were inside a cave made of flesh, was a horde of abominations. Nightmares, cloaked in shadows with shapes Naudia didn’t want to think about, corrupted changelings as an amorphous goo that stacked to form a dome, blotting out the red moon and the dead sun. These, however, were just the ones keeping them where they were at. Periodically, something huge would burst through and attack Naudia and Twilight, be it a truly vile nightmare or an unthinkable creature made up of multiple corrupted changelings.
They were getting more and more frequent by the second.
“I can’t keep this up forever, Naudia!” Twilight shouted above the din. Naudia could only just hear her over the sounds of an angry army all around them.
“You should be activating that failsafe right about now!” Naudia shouted back.
“It’s charging up, should be done in less than a minute.” At that moment, Twilight was eternally grateful that it charged up automatically, or else they would not have had enough time to activate it in the first place. Even with her level of magic, they would not have the time against this army.
However, stressful as it was, they were confident they could hold out for plenty of time, possibly even minutes after the device was ready.
“I hope the rest of them can see this and know to get back underground.” Naudia commented as a giant pony-looking corrupted changeling burned away before her.
“We have to depend on them to do their part and adapt, same as they have to trust us to use the failsafe.” Twilight shouted back. “If one of them comes bursting in here, that’s how we’ll know things are going wrong.”
Then, a horrible monster fell down from the roof above, cracking the pavement with its hugeness. Even the walls of corrupted changelings cringed back. It resembled some horrible cross between a tarantula, a house centipede, and some sort of grub. Hundreds of long hairy legs stuck out of either side of its bulbous, almost gelatinous, body. It had two dead black eyes and mandibles large enough to bite a pony in half, and just below them it had two angry-looking spikes that dripped something noxious, on the end of two stubby legs.
Twilight and Naudia could do nothing but stare at this new horror, this nameless aberration that stood head and shoulders above all others. It didn’t even roar, or chitter, or anything before it charged at them.
Twilight’s light spell didn’t do anything to it other than burn it, and with all those layers of grub fat that wasn’t going to do much. This monster was clearly to the point where it would have survived contact with direct sunlight. It was a self-sustaining nightmare.
Twilight was bowled over and kicked simultaneously in the head and the barrel by a rock hard chitinous leg. She was sent flying to the side, dazed. Fortunately, her changeling paper armor prevented too much damage. Naudia had a better time, buzzing her wings away from the monster, but that only drew its attention like a cat, and she had to fly even farther away leading the monster around like a snake.
“Naudia, get to me! The failsafe is ready!” Twilight shouted, having recovered a bit.
However, there was the aberration in-between them.
Twilight managed to get its attention by using a very concentrated blast of light to break one of its legs and it turned to face her, mandibles chittering in anger. Naudia was only just able to snatch Twilight out of the way before it barreled through and smashed into the wall of corrupted changelings; distending the wall, but not breaking through.
As soon as Twilight was snatched up by Naudia, she activated the failsafe: the teleport spell charging up to a bright crescendo before…
nothing.
“What?” Twilight was too shocked for words.
“Twilight, Look!”
All around them, the wall of corrupted changelings was covered in glowing lines of power that shone bright, but were already fading.
“A teleport trap! I’ve never heard of a temporary one executed on this kind of scale before. But that does give me an idea!” Twilight, despite the situation, was awed by this feat of magic.
“We’ve still got to get out of here, and also deal with that thing.”
“I’ve got an idea. If we can hurt it enough we can set it on fire! That should solve at least some of our problems.”
The aberration was looking at them with unfriendly eyes, its pea brain working hard to figure out what to do next against its flying target. Then it bent its titanic body upwards and lifted its front half far into the air. A quick glance from Naudia was enough to tell her that there wasn’t anywhere in this cage that it couldn’t reach.
“Perfect! We need to start breaking its back legs. I need you to start casting light spells at them. aim for the joints of the ones holding it up in front!” Twilight said, breaking free from Naudia’s grip and landing on the ground with a gallop.
“TWILIGHT!” Naudia shouted as one of the monster’s enormous legs bore down on her.
But Twilight was no longer there.
Frantically Naudia scanned for what she hoped wasn’t a flattened purple unicorn. This also seemed to mystify the aberration just as much.
Naudia found Twilight on the other side of the monster, charging up a spell and aiming at the frontmost leg still on the ground. There was a flash and it broke, sending the aberration to the ground again, Naudia noticed that even neighboring legs were weakened by that flash, and took her chance while the monster was screeching in pain.
With terrible momentum, Naudia activated her chitin and slammed into one of the legs that, weakened by Twilight’s magic, also broke, with a disgusting crunchy SNAP.
The beast screeched again, this time in anger, and turned to face them, still plenty able to move with its multitude of spare hairy spider legs, even with three of them flaccid and broken.
Back in the air again, Twilight and Naudia re-evaluated their plan, with the breathing room they had with the aberration less able to stand up.
“I need you to throw me at it.” Twilight said.
“What?! No way.”
“I need to cast that same spell inside of it, you need to time it so that it goes off inside and I have enough time to cast a teleport spell out of there.” Twilight stated.
“Twilight, that’s insane!”
“We aren’t getting anywhere just breaking its legs, it’s got too many of them. We need to attack it where it’s vulnerable. It’s either that or inside its mouth somehow, and that is NOT an option.”
Reluctantly Naudia agreed. So on the next pass over the monster, Twilight started charging up her horn and Naudia made a dive at it. Twilight kept her eyes closed the entire time, trusting Naudia to do her part. Just as the shine of Twilight’s horn reached its peak, Naudia let go and Twilight flew like a missile straight into the side of the aberration, vanishing completely inside.
Seconds passed and nothing happened.
Then the monster screeched in pain, as the hole Twilight left stabbing into it erupted in a great gout of flame. Naudia could only stare, dumbstruck in horror from the ground, as the monster began to catch fire in many different places at once. Writhing and screeching, the monster actually rolled onto its back to try and put out the fires; however, that wasn’t enough. It did not take long for the legs to fold up to its belly and lay still.
“Come on! We need to roll it against the wall of corrupted changelings and break out that way!” said a freshly teleported Twilight beside her.
Naudia almost hugged her, but she was covered in soot and… unspeakable bug fluids. And she SMELLED. Despite her apparent calm demeanor, Naudia could feel Twilight’s emotions. Suffice it to say that Twilight on the outside was calm and collected, but the Twilight on the inside was a mess of pinprick eyes, unruly hair and grating teeth.
Reluctantly, Naudia charged her magic up to push the burning bug. Even from this distance, it didn’t smell right. It was burning quite fast now, and the smoke was starting to gather high up in the “cage.” Naudia noted that the corrupted changelings didn’t like it any more than the nightmares did.
“When we get through, just start running. We can’t let them cage us in like this. I’ll have the failsafe spell charging again, and we just need to hold out until then.” Twilight instructed.
With that, the horrible monster began to roll, pushed along by their magic, gaining speed and momentum. With an earth-shaking CRASH, the flaming aberration crashed into the corrupted changelings that made up the wall, and that was enough to break through.
Naudia, wings tired and love reserves running lower than she liked, grabbed Twilight and burst through the flames and out into the city. Even though her skin crawled touching Twilight, she held on with all her might.
Only to be blasted out of the sky moments after bursting out into the city.
On the ground, disoriented and confused, part of her paper armor scraped off by the impact, she made out a figure that buzzed down on insectile wings and landed before her.
“Daughter dearest, that wasn’t very nice.”
Naudia tried to focus on the figure in front of her, the instigator of this entire conflict and the leader of all the corrupted changelings. She didn’t need to, she knew who it was, but she had to confirm, to see for herself.
“You’ve put our invasion plan back by a least a week. It’s not easy to put together something like that, you know.”
“Chrysalis.” There standing before her, broken horn, patches of black fur showing through, and with a crescent moon cutie mark, was Nightmare Chrysalis. “How could you turn your back on us?”
“Oooh, I should be asking the same of you, Naudia.”
Spike anxiously chewed on a claw, Twilight was supposed to be back an hour ago.
Rarity was there as well, she had been so stressed out that she was told to go off and calm down. Unfortunately Rarity dealt with stress by working, and sitting letting the minutes screech by was doing nothing for her.
Of the three of them, outwardly at least, Fluttershy was doing the best. Sitting with Diamond Tiara in front of her, gently stroking her hair had enough of a muting effect on her stress for Fluttershy to at least appear collected.
Then there were changelings, changelings everywhere. They would all turn, as one to look at the teleportation spot anytime one of them heard a sound. Every one of them had something to do, nervous dice rolled, knitting even without a clear goal, and changeling goop balls ricocheted off walls alongside other pastimes you can fashion when you can make things out of spit.
Spike decided to try and break the ice and try to talk to one of the changelings who was knitting with crude goop and drinking straw knitting needles. Spike searched for any point of common ground he could think of.
“So how do you know the queen?”
The air around them turned a bit cold.
“Which one?” The changeling asked guardedly.
“Naudia?” Spike said uncertainly. “Who else?”
That seemed to defuse the tension a bit.
“You could have been talking about ‘Luna’ or,” And their faces darkened. “You could have been talking about Chrysalis.”
“You don’t like Chrysalis?” Spike asked confused. “Weren’t you loyal to her at one point?”
“Loyalty and love are different things. Ask my husband about our daughter.” She was angry, but Spike didn’t quite know at who. “Her plan seemed good, but recent months of plenty have shown that she was wrong. Unable to see past whatever grudge she held against ponies justified or not. She would have ground us to extinction before accepting even a handout from ponies.”
“Chrysalis WAS the only option, a barren people can’t very well go and split off from the one who can give us kids.” The changeling scrunched up it’s nose at Spike’s expression. The changeling waved their horn in an egg shaped circle in the air as if to demonstrate making an egg with magic. “Not like that, with magic.”
“But why can’t you have kids yourself? Did Chrysalis do something to you?”
“No pony-dragon we were designed that way from the start. That’s why we don’t like ponies very much.”
----------------
The next few minutes were the strangest Twilight had ever experienced from a personal standpoint. Obviously she had been through Discord and all the madness that had brought, but this was different. They had been captured by corrupted changelings, supposedly mindless monsters, AND Nightmare Moon, well Nightmare Chrysalis, at the same time and nothing was going the way she was expecting.
That they were prisoners, and even Twilight’s presence were tertiary at least for right now, the real trouble was being on the sidelines of the most hellish family reunion Twilight could imagine.
“So.” Chrysalis said. “The little failure has returned.”
Twilight knew Naudia could hold it together in tough situations, that had basically been all that they were doing for a while now. But Naudia had no response to her mother’s scorn except to lower her head and soldier on in chains.
“Do you know why Naudia doesn’t have a horn ring on right now?” Nightmare Chrysalis said, and Twilight looked around to see who she was talking to. “Twilight, I feel you haven’t been privy to this information.”
Naudia shrunk away, she knew what was coming. Twilight could only guess as to how regular an occurrence this could be in the presence of her mother.
“She doesn’t need it because she’s betrayed you, or because she’s obedient to me.” Chrysalis continued, “She doesn’t need it because she has been and always will be a failure at magic.”
“But...” And Twilight tried to think of a time Naudia had used magic around her. “the skin hardening spell.”
“Children can do that, all changelings can.”
“But Luna... how did she get Luna down so well?”
“She’s okay enough at stun spells, probably still caused a nasty headache, but it sounds like you still have Mattar around to do your spellwork for you.” Chrysalis turned again to Naudia viciously turning the conversation back around to pressure on her. “That reminds me when we can corrupt a queen’s guard, we’ll be in a much better position than we are now, glad you brought him along.”
This conversation wasn’t going how Twilight thought it should. This isn’t how a family worked, and that grated at her core. To her Chrysalis was always… always… there, misunderstood, a pony-er changeling that needed a kind hoof offered out to her. Or at least that was Twilight hoped she would be.
But here, next to her, she had found a monster whose ties to sympathy and empathy had not only been cut, but cauterized off long ago. Judging by Naudia there wasn’t a time before this in living memory.
“Don’t worry about it though Naudia, by delivering yourself into my hooves I can create a new breed of changelings.” Chrysalis smiled at Naudia in a not at all friendly way. “All the obedience of a corrupted changeling, but all the ferocity of a queen’s guard.
“Take Naudia down to the dungeons, maybe I’ll let her stay there until I raise a queen fit enough to rule.”
With that Naudia was dragged away from Twilight who was lead off with Chrysalis and at least twice as many corrupted changelings as as were needed for Naudia. Far more than would be needed for Twilight, Naudia realized it was just another dig at her.
----------------
Naudia reflected on the situation, she was drained, chained up and without a horn ring. However there wasn’t much she could do with that, her prison would be warded against common changeling magic and wouldn’t have a lock to be picked.
Worst of all her mother’s personality seemed to have barely changed.
Even then the guards outside would be corrupted changelings, and in her drained state they were practically invincible. However Naudia had some tricks up her sleeve even for that, especially since she likely wouldn’t be fighting so many corrupted changelings as she did out in the desert, at least not at once.
There was only one shot at this too, this was a love reserve, not a steady flow like she’d been getting from Twilight. Even then, if she failed, did Chrysalis know what kind of leverage having Twilight gave her? That only doubled the necessity of this mission.
The corrupted changelings were light on security, mostly because it was practically impossible to sneak in one pony or changeling with the power to destroy a significant number of corrupted changelings on their own, even if they never planned to get out. That's where they were wrong, Twilight was already here, somewhere, and Naudia and her together could cause massive amounts of damage.
Naudia finished coughing up the glowing green ball and savagely bit into it, doing so she realized something. This cell was warded against changeling magic, it depended on her not actually having that much enhanced strength because she was so drained. Naudia licked some green slime off her muzzle.
That’s where she was ahead of the game.
The lock on the prison cell snapped like a twig and the door burst out to splatter one of the corrupted guarding Naudia’s cell. That wouldn’t be nearly enough to kill it but it gave Naudia enough time to do what she needed to.
She began to drain the hatred out of the other corrupted changeling, viciously, hatefully, in a way that her mother would have thoroughly approved of.
As the corrupted changeling in front of her collapsed she whispered to the air.
“I’m counting on you Twilight.”
What the other corrupted changeling encountered resembled a changeling in only vague terms, as most changelings didn’t emit jets of orange fire from every gap in their carapace. Naudia screamed and charged the corrupted changeling streams of flame trailed from her mouth and a fire in her eyes.
----------------
Twilight was pushed into Celestia’s throne room to find a horrifying sight before her. Celestia still in stone at the foot of the throne, even in stone the pain in her eyes carried over. She was positioned as if she was petitioning the throne, though awkwardly due to where she was frozen.
Behind the throne in cocoons were her missing friends. Pinkie Pie struggled inside her cocoon hair limp and asleep, her eyes were clenched tight as her teeth. Applejack floated limply inside her’s defeated and bruised. Rainbow Dash was no better but she seemed to be still trying to fight even inside the dream.
Below them still awake, beaten, tired, dirty, and barely awake were Twilight’s parents stuck to the floor with changeling goop. Wearily they looked up as Nightmare Chrysalis walked into the room with a full set of guards.
“Twilight!” Her mother shouted.
“How did you even find them!?” Twilight demanded of Chrysalis.
Chrysalis merely smirked at her, relishing in the moment like a fine wine, then turned and pointed a hoof at Twilight.
“Through their connection to you Twilight.” Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed, “And I’ve kept them here ever since the invasion just for this moment!”
“However things right now couldn’t have gone in a more unexpected and better way than they did for me.” Chrysalis leaned towards Twilight, her broken horn nearly touching Twilight’s own. “Naudia gave me the best homecoming present I could have asked for, and I’m going to use it to destroy you and her in one masterstroke.”
“You’re not going to get away with this!” Twilight said, confident that Shining and Cadance could find a way to help them out even here.
“I don’t need to, even now Naudia is working her way up here burning through love at an astonishing rate after she broke out of her prison cell.” Chrysalis was enjoying this too much. “But before she gets here I think there is something you need to tell your parents.”
“What?” Twilight asked, not sure how this could be turned against her.
“Well, go on then. It’s rather rude to not tell your parents these sorts of things.”
“Uhh, well Mom, Dad,” Twilight said awkwardly, “umm… I’m going out with Chrysalis’ daughter.”
It was clear this was a bit too much for them to process right now.
“Well I guess we can talk about that later dear?” Twilight Velvet said. “But how is this relevant Chrysalis? What can you possibly do with that?”
“I’ll show you, better yet I’ll prove to you.” Chrysalis smirked in an insufferable manner.
She began casting a spell and Twilight flinched back.
“No need to be afraid Twilight, it’s just a simple scanning spell.”
Sure enough in front of Twilight facing her as if a mirror had been placed in front of her was her entire body outlined by the magic tracing itself down her nervous system. Squinting she tested it by leaning in closer to it, the spell her leaned in closer as well and it was accurate down to the tiny details. This was indeed a perfectly accurate version of her, right down to all the ward and mind shield spells that were still active.
“Good, you know how to check a scanning spell like this.” Chrysalis purred. “Are you ready Twilight? Allow me to show you how you’ve already lost.”
Chrysalis pointed at the bottom of Twilight’s brain on the model with her hoof, at the temporal lobe.
Unfortunately this was much harder for Twilight to see as moving closer moved her head inside the model. Then it helpfully rotated up so Twilight was staring at the bottom of her head…
There it was, in a green magic, a spell Twilight could recognize anywhere, something that Celestia had drilled into her after the changeling attack. A spell that may have just proved Celestia correct.
"...Look at him there, do walk closer and see what you have done,
How the blood from his wounds flows so easily in your mind when you, yes, you
Drive that evil spirit through his side..."
[Vinesauce] Vinny
“Well, my little purple minx, I suppose it’s time to undo that compulsion on you and turn you against my daughter before the end.” Chrysalis purred.
“Naudia wouldn’t do that!” Twilight shouted.
“Wouldn’t she? I taught her every dirty trick she knows, I know every one of her subordinates.” Chrysalis retorted. “You can’t doubt the compulsion is there, your wards are all still up so this had to come from before they were put up in the first place.”
“Everything fits together a bit too well...” Twilight murmured to herself.
“Yes, the color, the motive, the-”
Chrysalis was cut off as the doors to the throne room started glowing red hot and emitting a screech of heated expanding metal with nowhere to go. Then the door burst off it’s hinges and a burning nightmare kicked the metal doors to the side.
Twilight recognized Naudia at once even with jets of flame streaming out of her carapace and the strange flowing streams of fire that seemed to hang in the air trailing her mouth.
“Twilight!” Naudia shouted in relief, letting a puff of slow moving flame escape her mouth. Her voice was different though, rough, scratchy, as if her lungs were protesting against this treatment.
The corrupted changelings that were guarding Twilight reacted instantly and rushed toward Naudia as one. As one they hissed and parts of their gelatinous bodies drizzled out of their mouths onto the ground. They had no ranged attack and neither did they have any fear. Truthfully they barely had thoughts of their own, they only bore the faces of fallen changelings.
Naudia without hesitation or mercy burnt them all to a crisp.
Those strange slow flames seemed to destroy corrupted changelings quite effectively. They floated forward burning, charring anything they touched, a fragile seeming bubble of flame slowly moving unimpeded through it’s surroundings.
Before long Chrysalis was the only corrupted changeling left in the room.
“More are on their way you know.” Chrysalis said.
“Yes, but I am here now! This is where I will end this.” With that Nuadia inhaled attempting to tap into Twilight’s love.
“Can you feel it Naudia? Nothing.”
Naudia reached for Twilight’s love desperately but found nothing.
“The connection has been severed. I win.” Chrysalis said, not even bothering to look back at Twilight.
“I… I can still do this!” Naudia stumbled over her words. “Twilight I know what you might be feeling right now it wasn’t me, I didn’t put that spell on you!”
Still nothing.
“I can still beat you Nightmare, even like this!” Naudia shouted at Chrysalis.
“There is no Nightmare. I have overpowered her. Only I am left.” Chrysalis shot back.
Naudia realizing she had to pool her resources pulled in the bubbles of flame to her to shield herself. They did not burn like normal fire or go out like normal fire.
Almost before she could the first attack from Chrysalis came. A ray of nightmares given form glowing with hatred tore at the flames with claws and bone. Naudia could not even bear to look at the beam for more than a second, but she had no such luxury as Chrysalis charged through her barrier horn first.
In terms of sheer physical prowess Naudia was an exemplar, able to fight the dragons in the desert singlehandedly. Even still it took everything she had to dodge the feint from her mother and it had dispelled some of her flames in the process.
“Only a matter of time now. Once your shields are gone what would you try then?” Chrysalis taunted with another burst of nightmares.
Naudia backed up against the now closed throne room doors revealed her strategy. As her mother charged again another bubble of consuming flame burnt a hole through the door and seared it’s mark along Chrysalis’ barrel. However she was made of tougher stuff than her subjects and that was all it could do.
Even now all the bubbles of flame were making their way through the castle slowly and each one burned it’s way through the door one after another steadily.
Naudia shaky though she was couldn’t resist a taunt of her own.
“I’ve got more fight left in me than you’d expect Chrysalis.”
With that steady flow of fire she managed to push Chrysalis away from the door and down the throne room. Her confidence swelled, and then she realized her mistake.
Away from the door her flames were too predictable, too slow, she was on the defensive again. Naudia paid for that with a nasty scrape down one leg that dripped with changeling blood.
Then they were rolling, grappling with one another snarling and biting. Nothing was held back, no method too brutal no attack was beneath them. That was how you survived in the badlands.
Twilight’s parents could not take their eyes off of the scene in front of them even when a particularly nasty blow from Chrysalis’ sharpened stump of a horn screeched across Naudia’s steel hard changeling hide.
Then unbeknownst to Chrysalis a little section of floor started to bulge out and glow behind her as one of the slow moving bubbles of flame finally began to work it’s way up through the stone floor.
However Naudia was so focused on the back attack on Chrysalis that she was pinned down by Chrysalis and took a nasty wound to her chestplate denting it inward and putting nasty cracks all through the hardened skin.
Naudia curled up on the ground, her lungs burning as she struggled to draw breath and Chrysalis started to get up off the helpless changeling queen.
Then Naudia made her last gambit, using her last ounces of strength she kicked with all four hooves knocking Chrysalis directly into the flames behind her.
Naudia collapsed, unable to so much as open her eyes and see what happened to her mother, she could only hear the flames crackling. She felt so tired.
Then Chrysalis began to laugh and it sent a chill down Naudia’s spine.
“You didn’t,” Chrysalis paused to wheeze a bit. “think that you were the only one with reinforcements did you?”
Naudia forced her eyes to open to see that Chrysalis was unaffected by the flame, and the remains of a sacrificial corrupted changeling that shielded her burning away behind her.
“Now I know what you’re thinking Naudia, that I wouldn’t kill my only daughter, that I need you… no horn means no eggs after all.” Naudia heard the sound of a corrupted changeling coming up from behind her. “But the truth is you already gave me what I needed.”
A box came into view, the type of which Naudia recognized. After all she saw them all the time back at the hive.
“How?” She managed to croak out. “Your horn...”
“You gave it to me, I found this abandoned back at the hive, so I don’t need you anymore and I can erase your failure and raise a daughter fit to rule!”
But Naudia couldn’t focus on that, she was too focused on something behind Chrysalis.
----------------
Twilight heard a voice a voice that shut down her mind. Suddenly Chrysalis’s voice was nothing more than a distant whisper, overwhelmed, drowned out.
It sounded like somebody had taken another's words chopped them up and then sewn them back together. It wasn't like any sort of audio editing, no Twilight could tell the difference, nor was it like any synthetic voice she'd heard. The closest thing Twilight could think of would be a machines voice through a piece of meat, but even that failed to convey the overbearing wrongness.
“Twist the knife, aim for the heart.”
Twilight came up behind Chrysalis like a ghost, her expression frighteningly neutral, her hidden dagger held in her hoof with an expert’s grace. Her stance would have brought tears to any weapons-master in the nation but her expression was dead.
Chrysalis didn’t even have time to shout out as Twilight sliced the blade across her throat. Before Chrysalis could even turn to face Twilight Naudia experienced the most coldly terrifying act of brutality she would ever witness.
Using the momentum from the slice Twilight reversed her grip and slammed the blade back into Chrysalis’ barrel, once, twice and a third time. Naudia would remember Twilight’s expression in her nightmares for the rest of her life as the blade twisted around in the wound.
As Chrysalis finally had time to right herself and face Twilight gurgling as changeling blood entered her throat. Twilight left her with a parting gift, using her magic to assist she slammed the blade into Chrysalis’ back halfway to the hilt.
But Chrysalis was already moving away from her and the knife still stuck in her back she jumped back like a puppet on a Nightmare’s strings.
Twilight’s horn was still glowing, and throughout it all she showed no emotion, looking at Chrysalis with an empty expression like she was just picking weeds.
Chrysalis was about to try and say something to Twilight as Naudia finally figured out why Twilight’s horn was still glowing. A lump of stonework flew past her head gripped in a purple aura, directly at Chrysalis’ back.
*SNAP*
A direct hit on the dagger and the stone rolled away alongside the hilt of the dagger.
Nobody moved.
Only after Chrysalis fell to the floor did the surreal nightmare of the last few seconds pass.
Twilight landed seconds later out cold.
For a few moments the only sound was Naudia’s ragged breathing.
Then Nightmare itself woke up from Chrysalis's corpse as a starry mist and began to float up into the air. At first that seemed to be all there was to it then Naudia felt a sensation that she had only felt once before when she was inside of a magical vortex.
She could only watch as nightmare after nightmare streamed past her. She could have swore she even spotted a few corrupted changelings caught in the maelstrom at first. Then there were more, as if Nightmare was pulling herself back together and taking the corrupted changelings along with her.
It went on for seemingly an eternity for Naudia as the Nightmare grew more and more to fill up the great hall.
When it did stop she could feel the Nightmare look down upon all of them and it was almost like she could read it’s mind, feel what it felt.
It struck Chrysalis’s body with black lightning and then turned to her. Naudia could feel it’s nonexistent eyes on her too long for her liking, then to her utter surprise she felt her wounds closing up, her breathing eased as her dented in chestplate fused back together painfully and dented outward again.
Then as if to say “I’ll be back” Nightmare gave her a kick in the stomach before vanishing into a portal to… somewhere.
Naudia looked up at the doors to the mansion apprehensively. It seemed like years ago she had fought the sand spirits in the desert, and the illusion, now that she could see the real thing, the illusion was a very good replica. But it left out important details, the house was significantly more worn than she remembered, more... aged.
It didn't look like the posh, shiny abode that had been carefully maintained and passed down through the centuries that it had looked to be inside the illusion. Instead the house looked like it had been built to last, and had fallen into the hooves of ponies who thought that there were things more important than fancy houses.
They were using the mansion for a feast of sorts, with the princesses, because the palace itself was in a bit of a bad condition at the moment. Partially because of the occupation, partially because Naudia had burned foot-wide holes in it.
Naudia didn't bother knocking on the door. It was opened for her by a still apprehensive-looking Night Light. The wisps of changeling-induced nightmares were apparent under his eyes, and he carried his doubts like a silent aura about him.
Still, Night Light let her into the house without a word or an unkind glance. It was clear he was putting up with this as best he could. It would take him a while to reconcile what had happened; frankly, nopony was ready for that.
The first pony Naudia met was Fluttershy, and her shadow Diamond Tiara, who held onto Fluttershy’s tail as if she might vanish. Fluttershy held a pensive look on her face, as if she was thinking over something deeply.
“How are you holding up?” Naudia asked.
“All right… all this has given me a lot to think about.” Fluttershy didn’t meet Naudia’s gaze, but she didn’t flinch back from the changeling either. She had too much on her mind to think about changelings right now.
Naudia decided to leave Fluttershy to her thoughts after exchanging a few more pleasantries with her and Diamond. Of the ponies she’d met so far, Diamond was the least afraid of Naudia, quietly and politely responding. Naudia couldn’t be sure what was going on inside her head, if she was teetering on the verge of collapse, or if she genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with Naudia.
The next pony Naudia met was Rainbow Dash, hovering outside the dining room door like she had something to say to Naudia.
“Hey…” She didn’t quite know where to start with the Changeling Queen, and she floundered around for a bit, only half-starting words.
“I know a lot of stuff has happened that I haven’t fully accepted yet but…” She scraped her hoof across the floor nervously. “I need your help apologizing to Twilight.” Before Naudia could say anything she rushed on. “We’ve never really had a chance to talk or anything and we don’t really know one another, but I need to apologize to Twilight and I… I keep losing my nerve. I feel like there has been a wedge driven into our friendship, and I just can’t bridge that gulf myself. Every time I try, I just end up putting myself down ‘til I just give up.”
Naudia could tell, just from her emotions, that she was genuine so she thought for a moment. The answer, to her at least, was obvious.
“How about you start by giving her something in writing? If anybody could appreciate a written apology, I think it's Twilight.”
“I mean, I thought about that… but it just feels too impersonal, ya know, like I can’t say it to her face, I mean I can’t, but I’ve never been too good with words. And it just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“How about this: you can dictate it to me, and you can deliver the letter in person, and use it as a conversation starter.” Rainbow started to look a little panicky, but Naudia stepped in, “And when you deliver that letter, I’ll be there in the next room, every step of the way.”
Rainbow had a bit of a simple view on Changelings at this point: there were bad changelings and, now, there were good changelings. Fluttershy and Luna had vouched for the good changelings, so they were cool. Now she had to deal with more important things that she had been putting off.
The last pony she met before reaching the informal dinner was Applejack.
Applejack was a tough nut to crack. She was honest for one, valued honesty, and was the element of honesty. That put her and Naudia on tenuous terms at best right off the bat. She wasn’t even trying to be impolite. Applejack was, in fact, very polite. Being able to see emotions though, Naudia felt far more weight in these conversations than Applejack intended.
Naudia extricated herself the best she could. Changeling-pony negotiations were never on the table for the last thousand years, so diplomacy was not her strong suit. The changelings valued a strong leader who fed them... Chrysalis had shaped them in that direction for far too long. All she could do is hope she didn’t perform some pony faux pas and move into the dining room.
The dining room had a comically long table, but every seat was filled. Looking up along the table, Naudia noted down the faces she recognized.
Cadance and Shining stood out by tensing up as she entered the room, it didn’t show on their faces but Naudia could feel it, like a watch wound even tighter. They were sitting next to Luna, currently in her pony form, but they knew the truth. The truth was they weren’t nervous entirely because Luna was a changeling, they were nervous that the pony sitting right next to her, taking up the other half of the head of the table, didn’t.
Celestia sat next to Luna at the head of the table, and the only reason Naudia didn’t instantly notice her maelstrom of emotions is because she had been gradually entering the outer radius of it the second she entered the mansion. Powerful ponies held powerful emotions, and the might of the sun could disperse them so far you could mistake them for somepony else’s.
She could feel all kinds of things from Celestia, so many that it was hard to pin them all down. Regret, pain, sadness, but the strongest one, the first one that showed as soon as she stepped into the room, was a hastily stamped down anger. That actually caused a physical reaction from Celestia, and those nearby could hear the wheels in her wheelchair chariot squeak.
Her back had not recovered, and likely would not recover for some years yet. At the moment, Celestia’s belly rested on the cut-out rim of a single-pony guard chariot that was rounded off, and a piece of rubber pipe insulation wrapped around the rim, so that her front legs could still allow her to walk around at a fashion.
Finally, though, Naudia focused on the mare in the room who did have a positive reaction to her entering the room.
Naudia wasn’t sure if she should be happy or scared that Twilight Sparkle seemed to think that Naudia had heroically saved the day. That was the official story, and the only ponies who could dispute that were Twilight’s parents. They had agreed that it was better for Twilight to believe the official story until later, when things had calmed down. It was a blatant attempt to put things off, but it was not a subject that Naudia wanted to broach either.
Finally she was able to sit down next to Twilight who thankfully was between her and Celestia. As she was about to thank Twilight for pulling out the chair for her, she realized that Twilight was busy starting the long road to reconciling with Celestia.
Then she felt the wave of unbridled malice from behind her. It was that thing, the hateful extorting schemer who had visited her in her cell, that had seemingly stopped time and sucked all the color out of the world. She politely pushed her chair back in and reached out to place a tiny capsule on the table in front of her, conveniently sized to fit into one of the holes in her hoof.
Grimacing as she obeyed the unspoken instruction, she hid the capsule, and just like that the thing was gone, and color came back to the world. With that, she had to be a diplomat initiating the first contact with her parent species in over a thousand years.