The tale of a Changeling ambassador to the Crystal Empire and the unlikely origin of her species.
In the middle of the night, Princess Cadence and her husband are woken by the news that a Changeling drone has been captured. The creature is alone and unaggressive, showing no wish to attack or change shape. Its fate is decided without much difficulty--as an obvious reject of the Swarm and a threat to Cadence's people, it must be destroyed. But this is no ordinary drone. It can speak, and appears to be separate from the hive mind of the Swarm. It claims to have been sent as an ambassador--Chrysalis, queen of the Changelings, wants to forge an alliance with Cadence's kingdom. But why now? Why send this strangely intelligent drone? And how will Cadence's people react to learning that their rulers are harboring a Changeling?
WARNING: Contains an OC, much headcanon speculation, and possibly violence/gore further in.
(Image courtesy of the talented Hero, my good friend and artist.)
“Princess, there's a Changeling in the courtyard.”
The words, spoken low and solemn by the captain of the royal guard, were like a shot of adrenalin straight into Cadance's heart. Her blood seemed to have become carbonated as it thundered through her veins. Her eyes flew open and she rocketed out of bed, stumbling when her hooves hit the richly carpeted floor. She almost impaled the guard with her horn, and he wisely stepped back.
“Is it Chrysalis?” Cadance demanded, her wings standing straight out from her body. Every feather bristled with horror at the mention of the dreadful queen.
“No, Princess. Just a drone.”
“A...drone?” Behind her, Shining Armor was stirring, his horn igniting and casting blue light throughout their lavish chambers. Cadance glanced back at him, mirroring the wary expression on his face. A single drone was nowhere near as much trouble as its queen.
The problem was that the term “single drone” was an oxymoron.
“Search the grounds and sound the alarms,” Shining ordered, slipping out of bed and standing beside his wife. “There must be more.”
“It claims it came alone, Prince,” the guard replied.
Cadance blinked. “It...speaks?”
In her experience, drones did not speak. They were brainless extensions of Chrysalis, programmed to follow her every whim. The only Changelings with any free will at all were the hive guards, and the hunters...but she wasn't entirely sure that they could talk, either.
“Are you certain it's a drone?” she asked warily.
“The scholars have confirmed it,” the guard replied. “As you remember, we learned quite a bit about this species when—”
“I know, I know,” Cadance snapped, turning away so that her mane hid her face. She had no wish to talk about her wedding day, and the horrific events that had marred it.
Shining moved closer to her, pressing his flank against hers in comfort. She offered him a tired smile before turning her attention back to the guard. She couldn't actually recall the soldier's name right now, couldn't match a title to the steady brown eyes or the trim crimson horn. Some princess she was.
“Have your stallions subdued the Changeling?” Cadance asked.
“It didn't even try to fight, Princess.”
“Take me to it,” the alicorn said decisively.
“Cadance, are you sure you want to...” Shining asked quietly, trailing off. He was concerned for her. That was sweet, and normally it would be cause for her to wrap a wing around him and nestle into bed, lay her head against his shoulder and let him whisper into her mane...
But no. There was a threat to her people right now, and as their princess, she had to address it. So she ignored her husband and trotted after the guard. She caught sight of herself in a mirror on the way out into the corridor and grimaced. Mane tangled and awry, bags under her eyes, face pale under her coat. She hadn't thought to grab her crown, collar, or her shoes before she left, and she didn't want to seem vain by going back for them now. She would have to face her subjects barehoof.
“Cadance.” Shining again, right beside her. His brow was furrowed, something she'd tried to get him to stop doing because he'd have wrinkles before he knew it.
He was worried, she knew that. He didn't want her to have to face one of the creatures that still haunted her nightmares.
For some reason, that annoyed her.
“I'm fine, Shining,” Cadance muttered. He didn't reply.
The guard led them through the countless convoluted corridors that kept their private quarters...well, private. The whole time, the princess's mind was a storm of conflict.
Her crown was gone. Would anypony take that as a sign of weakness?
There was a speaking Changeling in the courtyard. Would it transform into somepony she couldn't bear to fight?
Shining Armor kept staring at her every thirty seconds. Didn't he believe that she was capable of looking after herself?
The palace was deserted at this hour of Luna's night, even with the unexpected and terrifying threat. Cadance was grateful for that.
“This is as far as I go, Princess.” The guard stopped abruptly, right in front of the great crystal doors that led outside. “I have to defend the palace, should the need arise.”
Shining lowered his head in deference. “Thank you, Claymore.”
So that was his name.
The doors swung open, under the control of a pair of stern-looking unicorn mares. Cadance stepped out, her prince beside her and trepidation rising in her throat. Pegasi hovered above, keeping watch over the whole situation, and unicorns stood on the wall surrounding the courtyard so that they could beam light down into it. A cluster of guards stood in the very center, surrounding something. Cadance swallowed hard.
The wings of the pegasi were extended and the horns of the unicorns were ignited, but despite how obviously on edge they were, they parted to allow their rulers a glimpse of what they were guarding.
Yes, it was a Changeling, exactly as she remembered. Cadance fought the urge to bury her face in Shining's mane. A drone. Just like the ones that attacked Canterlot—stunted gossamer wings, glassy blue bug eyes, frail, worm-eaten legs, a single curved horn. She tried to focus on the moss-like hair hanging around its face (braided in some parts—how...?) and not the huge fangs.
Shining Armor moved a little closer to her, so that she could lean on him without it being obvious. She was grateful.
Suddenly, the Changeling moved.
Cadance almost took flight screaming, but managed to bite her tongue at the last second. That didn't stop every other pony around her from reacting, though. Orders were shouted, horns glowed fiercely, and the two maids watching from a window on the third floor of the palace lost their nerve and ran. All because the monster had stood.
But before anypony could do anything, it had already fluidly dropped into another position. One foreleg bent, the other tucked beneath its body, head lowered and eyes closed. It took Cadance a moment to realize just what was going on.
The Changeling was bowing. To her.
Dead silence permeated the courtyard, broken only by the wingbeats of the pegasi and the princess's own hyperventilation. The beast took the opportunity to perform yet another shocking feat.
“Prince Shining Armor,” it said, “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Queen Chrysalis of the Changeling Swarm sends her warmest regards.”
A/N: No one in the fandom seems to be able to agree on the spelling of Princess Cadence(ance?)'s name, so I've gone with the correct spelling of the actual word 'cadence.' Correct me if I'm wrong according to the majority.
A few other things traditionally taken care of at the beginning of a story: No, this is not a grimdark, nor is it a shipping story, though there may be elements of both later on. I have no idea whatsoever just how long this story is going to be. I'm extremely grateful if you read this, but I have to ask...would you mind commenting and telling me what you think? This is the first MLP:FiM story I have ever posted online, and the first story period I have ever written in the third person.
And ah, yes, a Changeling OC and blatant inclusion of headcanon. Aren't I original?
All guards that had been present at its capture. The Changeling cycled through them in a mercurial pattern, hardly pausing between bursts of green fire. Mare and stallion, pegasus and unicorn. The physical differences didn't seem to phase it at all, though Shining Armor had noticed that it changed into mares nearly twice as often.
He had been watching the monster since it had been forced into a cage and taken straight to the dungeons, unphased by the ten unicorns and five pegasi standing guard over it. They had all told him, at one time or another in the course of the past few hours, that they could handle it, that the Changeling wasn't going anywhere, that he should go back to bed. But Shining had refused. Firstly, because he knew what these things were capable of, having watched them nearly destroy his little sister and her friends while standing helpless at Chrysalis's side. And secondly, because he had no wish to return to his and Cadance's quarters only to watch her pace anxiously and mutter.
"Prince." A pegasus mare wearing the crystal armor of the palace guard stepped forward, dipping her head in a slight bow. "The shifts will be changing soon. Perhaps you would like to take this opportunity to eat and freshen up?"
For the first time, Shining became aware of a gnawing pain in his belly. He smiled tiredly at the mare--whom he recognized as Katana Sheath--in gratitude. The Changeling transformed into her once again without so much as moving, and she grimaced.
"That sounds like a good idea," Shining agreed, politely ignoring the creature's current form as he struggled to his hooves. He was a strong stallion, but hours of crouching on the bitterly cold floors of the dungeon had done him no favors.
"And if I may be so bold, Prince..." Katana began, then hesitated. He suppressed a sigh. The first time that Cadance had brought him to her home, he had tried to make it perfectly clear that her guards should think of him as a friend. But whatever progress he had made in that direction had been destroyed by his ascension to royalty.
"Please, continue," he said.
Behind Katana, the other guards began to disperse, and fresh ponies trotted in to replace them. Shining turned and clopped slowly towards the stairs, signalling with a jerk of his head that the sunset-colored pegasus should walk with him.
"I believe that you should speak with your wife," Katana said. "My parents were both palace guards, so I have been in close proximity with the princess for as long as I can remember. This is the first time I've seen her so...distraught."
For Shining, it was the second. He remembered the honeymoon. It hadn't exactly been a traditional one--in fact, they didn't even begin to explore each other as lovers might until after returning home. He had spent most of his time holding Cadance close and trying to get her to realize that he was the real Shining Armor--or at least stop crying.
But she had been doing so much better, her nightmares down to once a week at the most. A wave of bitterness crashed through Shining, all of it directed at the Changeling he was leaving behind.
"I hate seeing her this way," he sighed.
"I know, Prince, but she needs you now more than ever," Katana pointed out. "Not to rush you, but Princess Cadance can't run a country while locked in her rooms."
He smirked at her. "You missed your calling--you should have been a royal adviser."
She grinned back. "Maybe, but advisers don't get to kick criminals in the head."
Shining had to laugh at that. Immediately, Katana's face went rigid again and she stared straight ahead, as if she suddenly remembered just who she was talking to. He suppressed another sigh. He missed his friends among Celestia's royal guards.
He nudged the door to the royal chambers open shortly after parting with Katana. The rapid click of hooves on the crystal floor greeted him, as well as pained whispering.
"...least it's not the queen. No, wait, a drone is just as bad. What should I--I know! I'll write Aunt Celestia. But...I can't worry her..."
"Cadance," Shining Armor said gently.
The princess spun around, and the next thing he knew, she had flung herself against him, sobbing into his mane as her forelegs shook around his neck. He rubbed the spot between her wings, something he knew she enjoyed, and waited patiently while she spoke.
"I'm supposed to be stronger than this!" Cadance cried. "I'm a princess, not some blank-flank little filly. One look at a Changeling shouldn't reduce me to--to--this!" She used one wing to gesture angrily at herself, then cried harder.
"It's only natural," Shining murmured. "It's only natural, after what one of them did to you..."
"Yes, she captured me, locked me up, and almost stole my life, and now she sends her warmest regards."
Cadance let go of him and sashayed around the room, shaking a strand of her mane over her eyes in a decent impression of Chrysalis. Shining sighed and guided her into a chair, brushing her mane out of her face with a quick nudge of his magic. His wife was pale and bedraggled-looking, with the curls of her mane in an advanced state of decay and her violet eyes underscored by heavy bags. He was reminded of how she had looked when she and Twilight had come charging into the throne room to prevent him from wedding a monster.
"This thing speaks," he soothed, "it thinks. Obviously, it isn't a part of the hive mind, so it probably got kicked out of the Swarm. Chrysalis has no connection to it anymore; it's defective. Nothing to fear."
She said nothing, so he took her hooves in his and rubbed small circles where velvety keratin met flesh.
"Listen," he said. "I'll send a message to the kitchens. We'll get something to eat, and then you can take a long, hot bath, and we'll sleep. We can talk about...what to do later."
"What to do?" Cadance murmured, looking up. "About that thing, you mean."
Shining hesitated. "Yes."
She pulled her hooves away from his and curled up on the cushion of the chair, making herself more comfortable. She spread one wing and examined the flight feathers.
"I suppose," she said, "that it would be best if we kept it alive, so that the unicorn scientists in Canterlot can experiment on it. Learn things from it."
"I guess," he agreed.
Cadance's head snapped up. "I want it executed. Tomorrow morning, as soon as Celestia's sun is up."
Shining blinked. "Darling, do you really think--"
"I can't sleep, knowing that one of them is so close." She slipped out of the chair and began to pace again. "Sending it away won't help. It knows what our guards look like, what I look like, what--" she fixed Shining with a frightened glare "--you look like."
"So do a lot of the other ones."
"It's not the same." She shook her head emphatically. "It--I don't know..."
Cadence sat and buried her face in her hooves. He walked forward and stroked her mane.
"This is really hard on you, huh?"
"I shouldn't be like this." Her voice was muffled. "Celestia and Luna never cry."
"Notice I didn't marry either of them." Shining kissed her forelock, then turned to go. "I'll have one of your hoofmaidens bring up breakfast, and I'll join you as soon as everything's taken care of."
Gently, he added, "I love you."
She sighed deeply and uncovered her face. "My dearest Shining Armor, I love you, too, more than you could ever know. But I wish that you hadn't left. So that I would know if you meant it as an endearment or just a way to...order."
He left then. He thought he might break something if he saw her in such pain for one more moment. The bug in the basement of the palace would pay dearly for hurting her like this, for unearthing all her old fears, unlocking her nightmares, making it so that she couldn't even feel affection for her husband without wondering if she was just feeding a monster wearing his coat.
Shining had planned to kill the Changeling right now instead of tomorrow. Order the ponies standing guard over it to leave and then do what had to be done to make Cadance feel safe again. More than anything, he had been trained to protect, instead of kill, but the distinction didn't matter at the moment. It was a Changeling. Not a pony.
But now, standing in the chilly dungeons with his guards clustered around him, Shining Armor found himself completely and utterly unable to go through with it.
Because in what appeared to be an incredibly disturbing act of self-defense, it had taken the form of his sister.
A/N: Thanks to Thorax for help with the format. As always, please comment, though I know the cliffhanger is awful. No need to point it out.
"Chrysalis," Cadance snarled, spreading her wings and lowering her horn. "You--you monster! How dare you?"
The queen of the Changelings examined the furious alicorn in front of her. Her narrowed eyes, the sneer on her mouth, the way she pawed at the ground, impatient to fight. It had taken weeks. Hard work, nonstop and grueling, that Chrysalis had watched with widening eyes and bared fangs. She had been sure that it would not happen. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? Here? In her hive? Never.
But she had arrived. And Chrysalis had to admit, she was kind of impressed.
"How dare I what?" she challenged in turn. She spread her ragged wings and rose to her frail-looking hooves in a mirror of Cadance, taking a step towards her.
The pony princess's eyes widened, and she took an involuntary step back.
"Well? How dare I what, sweet Princess?" Chrysalis pressed, grinning. She knew it exposed her fangs, small but wickedly sharp and rumored throughout Equestria to be precision instruments of torture.
"Y-you stole my life," Cadance stuttered, her wings snapping closed. She continued to shrink back, away from the terrifying queen.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Really? You're still upset about that? Come now, Cadance, it was ages ago, and it was only for a couple of days! You didn't even get so much as a cold from your time in those caves. Though," she added, brilliant green eyes narrowing, "at the moment, your voice sounds a bit...off. Are you perhaps under the weather?"
"I'm fine," Cadance squeaked. She was, at the moment, backed up against a stone pillar, her tail soaked by the condensation that gathered on it.
"Are you sure? You're not acting yourself." In one smooth motion that defied her gangly legs, Chrysalis darted forward and placed a hoof on the princess's head, forcing it downward so fast that her horn met with the stone floor at dangerous speeds.
It snapped in half, and Cadance shrieked in pain and horror.
"Oh, quit whining," Chrysalis snapped, stepping back and nudging the horn segment with a perforated hoof. In a burst of green fire, it transformed into the tip of a much smaller black horn. "That can't have hurt."
A similar fire roared up around the weeping Cadance, replacing her with a Changeling drone half her sized. It had bruise-colored eyes and oozing cracks radiating down from the missing tip of its horn, wounds that it immediately began to paw at.
Watching it whimper and try unsuccessfully to staunch the appendage's bleeding, Chrysalis hissed through her fangs.
"Drones separate from the collective," she muttered to herself. "Worst idea I ever had."
Of her drone, she demanded, "Four weeks of practice wasn't enough?"
It took its hooves away from its horn and cowered as she stalked closer. "I'm sorry, Queen Chrysalis, alicorns are difficult--"
"Not for me," the queen hissed. There was a quick flash of green fire, and then Princess Celestia loomed over the drone, with acid-green eyes and Changeling fangs. "Your egg was separated from the rest before it quickened, before the bond could be formed. So that you could think. Was all of that effort worthless, Gossamer?"
"I'm sorry, Queen," Gossamer cringed. The mindless drones that had been watching it perform as Cadance snarled from their places along the walls, their emotions tied into those of their ruler.
"Useless, useless, useless," chided Chrysalis as Celestia, punctuating each word by snapping near Gossamer's already-frayed ears. It flinched every time her jaws closed. "The voice was completely wrong. And the eyes--don't even get me started on the eyes..."
"I'm sorry." Gossamer's voice was little more than a whisper now. The hard bands of its belly rattled against the stone floor as it shook.
Chrysalis sighed in disgust and turned away, changing back into her true self. Not even that fool Shining Armor would buy Gossamer's version of Cadance. Let alone the ponies that had known her their whole lives, such as her hoofmaidens and her personal guards. Perhaps the Changeling queen had been a little bit out of character when she impersonated the princess, but only that brat Twilight had questioned it. Nopony else had. Why? Because her appearance had been spot-on.
"Get out of my sight, Gossamer," Chrysalis muttered. "Come back when you can do that pathetic princess impeccably."
"Yes, Queen, of course--"
Chrysalis left, the snapping of her desiccated hooves against the floor drowning out the rest of Gossamer's groveling. She despised the way that it (he, whatever--it had shown signs of being definitively male but she rarely cared about genders in her drones) bowed and scraped before her, and hated to think where it had gotten that. Gossamer was a near-constant reminder of just how hideous a mistake Chrysalis had made with the sentient drones experiment.
There had been five eggs initially. The first inklings of the infiltration of Canterlot had been stirring in the back of her mind when she moved them from the primary nurseries to her own caverns--the only place she could be absolutely sure that an errant drone wouldn't pass by and lock the fetuses into the collective. Perhaps she wanted a set of guards creative enough to morph into unprecedented ponies, perhaps she was just curious as to what would happen. It was all a bit fuzzy now. The only thing that she could truly be sure of was that she hadn't thought it through, because if she had, she would have realized that she didn't have the faintest idea of how to care for eggs.
Maybe that was why one had never hatched, one had produced a larva with stunted hind legs (it hadn't lasted long), and the three physically perfect hatchlings were even more irritating than Twilight Sparkle and her cutesy little friends.
(They even called her "Mama" for a few days, but Chrysalis had quickly put a stop to that.)
The whole thing had been a waste, anyway. They developed so much more slowly than ordinary drones. By the time Chrysalis had successfully inserted herself at Shining Armor's side, her intelligent drones were barely out of their cocoons, their wings trapped to their carapaces and their powers infantile. In other words: useless.
But she had kept them anyway. Taught all three to fly and morph while she recovered from being thrown miles from Canterlot, instead of planning her revenge. Named them instead of pitching rocks at the portrait of Cadance she had acquired for reference. Gossamer, Elytra, and Carapace, simply because it was a little more dignified than Black Eyes, Green Eyes, and Blue Eyes. She didn't like to use their titles. Before, "Chrysalis" had been the only name among the Changelings, and she the only bearer of it.
"All of that work--for nothing!" Chrysalis moaned now, hopping into her nest with Gossamer's poor imitation of Cadance on her mind. It was the middle of the day, according to her internal clock, but anything that involved the black-eyed drone always wore her out. Sometimes to the point that lapsed and talked to herself, an annoying habit that she had been trying to break since that embarrassing song in Canterlot (somepony could have walked in on her basically singing her confession to all of Equestria). "Years and years of effort, with nothing at all to show for it."
Chrysalis brightened, lifting her head. She had forgotten all about Carapace.
Her frustration dissipated. Ah, yes, the plan. Even with Carapace playing such a key role, there was no way it could fail. These ponies were so forgiving, so loving.
Unless, of course, it was fool enough to approach them with the truth.
Chrysalis shook her head, dispelling the twinge of fear that that idea brought. Yes, the blue-eyed drone was moronic, naive, and grossly arrogant, but not even it would be fool enough to approach Cadance and Shining Armor's walled city without some sort of disguise.
Right?
A/N: My, look at that, two uploads in one day! Please don't get used to it. On a daily basis, this pace would kill me.
Other things of note: Writing Chrysalis is extremely fun and I am very bad at thinking up title chapters. Also, this story received much more attention than I expected it to. I'm drunk on enthusiasm. Please, don't hesitate to point out the inevitable errors.
"Please don't hurt me," Carapace whispered, curling up on the floor of her cage and flicking her tail around herself. She wasn't used to having one this long.
The tall white unicorn stared at her with an emotion that she couldn't identify. She couldn't remember his name, even though she recognized him from the Queen's lessons. But that didn't matter. He was dangerous, but he was also prey, and he was reacting positively to her current form. She didn't need to know his name to take advantage of that.
"How," the unicorn asked, taking a step forward--and panicking the armored ponies around him, "do you know what she looks like?"
"What who looks like?" She scooted backwards, lowering her head and peering up through her bangs. Carapace could do this particular unicorn mare very well, but just to be safe, she had enhanced a few of the more childish features. Larger eyes and hooves, shorter legs and horn, so that she would be a cuter, more infantile version of the real thing. Nopony hurt larvae. Not even her kind.
An involuntary rush of tenderness came from the white unicorn, even as he stooped to glare at her. Carapace pounced on it, barely caring that it was tempered by disgust and fury. Love was love and there had been nothing but hate and fear since she arrived. It had begun to give her a stomachache.
"My--never mind. You know what? I don't care how you learned to change into Twilight." He looked away, and whatever knee-jerk affection response her appearance had triggered vanished. "I just want to know why you thought that doing it would somehow protect you."
"You're listening to me, aren't you?" Carapace stood, the organs that did the equivalent of a pony's heart for her body pulsing rapidly with the realization that she was confronting prey-turned-enemy. The enemy, the one that had so violently expelled her kin from the main hive of the ponies.
The white unicorn squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his ears. Carapace smiled openly and cocked an eyebrow, which she felt was a nice touch. It was things like that that made her the best shifter in the Swarm. Pony faces were much more expressive than those of her kind, and their owners took advantage of that. A fact that Gossamer and Elytra had never seemed to notice.
"That won't work," she said. "After all, you can still hear me, can't you?"
He made no move, though the armored ponies shifted uncomfortably. Maybe they were unnerved by the sight of a child in a cage.
"Now, please..." She lowered her head and scraped one hoof despondently along the floor of the cage (another nice touch--she congratulated herself). "It's so cold...I'm frightened. Couldn't you just take me up--"
The unicorn stallion's eyes snapped open, and he glared at Carapace with hate so strong that she felt it like a kick to the stomach. Nausea, dizzying enough to make her see spots, forced her to her knees, and she retched out of reflex, feeling her fangs return. Green fire crackled weakly around the edges of her body, exposing frail hooves and a ragged tail and torn ears.
The hate subsided. As some of her strength returned, she dragged herself to the other side of the cage. Panting, she allowed her disguise to dissolve, taking with it her status as a mare and her identity. She waited for another onslaught. It never came.
The unicorn examined her--it, now--for several moments. It wasn't sure what it saw in his eyes. Pity, perhaps, which it could have fed on, if it didn't feel like it had been bucked in the bands.
After an undefinable period of time, the unicorn turned away and said simply, "You aren't my sister."
With that, he left.
Carapace blinked after him. It hadn't been certain of the exact significance of the purple mare, but would it have guessed sister? Concubine, maybe, or some other kind of companion, but not sister. There wasn't any familial resemblance that it could see.
It lowered its head to rest on its pockmarked forehooves, sighing deeply. It hurt, deep in its guts, the parts that the iridescent gray bands protected. But the ever-present hunger was returning, considering that there was nothing but the apathy of a pegasus in the corner. And while that particular emotion wouldn't make it violently ill, it was pretty much indigestible.
Carapace tried to make a small ball of dust and hair roll across the floor of the cage by blowing on it. It was going to be a long day.
----O----
"Hey."
The voice was soft, but just loud enough to wake Carapace. Startled, its eyes flew open and its head jerked up. It wasn't frightened as much by the young stallion in front of it as it was by the fact that it had woken up.
Its kind only slept when wounded, hypothermic, or starving. Unconsciousness was a very bad sign.
"Hey," the stallion said again. Carapace irritably turned its attention to him, trying to forget about the possibility that it might be dying.
Barely out of colthood, the stallion had the large eyes and slender build of a very young pony. Carapace bared its fangs. His armor barely even fit him--what moron had stationed him here? It would be surprised if his flanks were even marked yet. It was just insulting, to be guarded by something little more than a larva.
Though he seemed to be the only one in the room doing his job. It must have been near the end of the shift; everypony else was just chatting quietly and leaning against the walls, eager to go home. Did they really consider their captive monster such a small threat? They would rather make small talk than observe one of their young try to talk to it?
"I know you can understand me," the little stallion said, tapping impatiently on one of the bars with a hoof. "You talked to the Princess that first night."
Carapace turned and glared at him, trying to arrange its near-expressionless face into something resembling annoyance. It would have spoken, but it had learned relatively fast that the voice it had hatched with made ponies nervous. And that kind of thing was like swallowing nails, for it.
Seeing that he had gotten the monster's attention, the stallion blinked. He was curious, maybe a little bit afraid, both emotions not quite strong enough to hurt Carapace's already-damaged innards. Well, beyond causing a mild stomachache, but that was nothing new.
"Can you do me?" the stallion finally asked. "I mean, like, can you turn into me?"
Hissss.
Being asked to perform by prey. 'Humiliation' didn't even begin to describe it. Carapace's brain was wired for little other than primal rage, and that was turned on full blast right now. Its lips withdrew completely, exposing all four inches of its scythe-like fangs in a vicious snarl.
"Is that a no?"
Carapace stood and backed away from the green eyes that suddenly filled its vision, hissing in revulsion at the stallion's nearness. Disappointment--it was like having a belly full of mud.
One of the other ponies had finally noticed what was going on. She stalked over and took the young stallion's ear in her teeth, dragging him away from the cage.
"Remind me, Tags," the mare began through gritted teeth, "just what the one condition of you coming down here was."
"Stay--ow--away from the--ouch!--Changeling."
"Ah, c'mon, Pike. The colt's fine," a winged pony called from his position near the doorway. "The thing's caged, after all. It couldn't hurt him."
"If I'm ever on the wrong side of the bars down here, remind me to specifically request that you aren't one of my guards, Silver," the mare replied. "I'd rather not have foals nosing around my cell."
The pegasus grinned. "Sympathy for a Changeling?"
"I'm equine. It's only natural." The mare cast a glance back over at the cage. Carapace tucked its hooves beneath its body and blinked. She was softhearted; it'd have to remember that, it it was ever in need of anything. This particular pony was a more plentiful food source than most.
"Very noble," the pegasus stallion observed. "Of course, I'd probably find it easier to feel sorry for it if it weren't so bucking ugly."
That prompted hearty laughter from the rest of the ponies. Carapace bristled.
A red-coated unicorn trotted into the room, putting an abrupt end to the light mood in the room. Carapace noted that he was taller than the others, and much...colder. It couldn't taste any emotion at all from him.
"Everypony, back into position," he barked. "The Princess is coming to talk to the Changeling."
A/N: ...well?
First chapter written through the perspective of a non-canon character. How was it...?
Was shifting gender pronouns based on what form the character was occupying too confusing? Should I go with a consistent pronoun? If so, what?
"Stop touching me, my mane is fine," Cadance snapped.
Ruffles, her favorite hoofmaiden, drew back and bowed apologetically.
"I'm sorry, Princess," she muttered around the hairbrush handle in her mouth.
Cadance sighed deeply. Her annoyance faded into guilt. It was Ruffles's job to dote, to make her look her best--and yelling at her was reminiscent of something that...Chrysalis would do.
She shuddered.
"Forgive me," she murmured, standing up and lowering her head slightly. "I'm a bit on edge."
"I understand completely," Ruffles soothed. She placed the brush back on the vanity and patted Cadance on the shoulder. "You're just fine."
"Do you think it's a good idea? I mean, trying to talk to the Changeling?"
"We'll find out why it came here." The earth pony shrugged. "What the queen wants. It's probably best to know as much as we can about it before...I don't know, killing it or something."
The princess shifted her hooves guiltily, sinking back onto the pink cushion in front of the vanity. She watched as her hoofmaiden carefully polished her collar.
"So just getting rid of it would be the wrong decision?"
"It's completely up to you, Princess." Ruffles nestled Cadance's crown at the base of her horn, nudging it back into place when it listed to the side. "And I don't know much about Changelings. But as far as first steps go, it seems to me that you could do a lot worse than talking to it."
"You think so?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if it was a little confused," Ruffles continued. "I mean, it came to us in peace and we shoved it into a cage. Poor thing."
Cadance stiffened and barely managed to head off a verbal attack. Poor thing? She actually felt sorry for it? There was no way it was confused or frightened. It knew exactly what was going on.
"Ruffles," she asked slowly, "just how much do you know about Changelings?"
"They're a bit like bugs, right?" She shrugged again, helping Cadance slip on her shoes. "Like I said, I don't know much."
That was obvious. Cadance stood, saying, "I think you should come with me."
"Are you sure, Princess? Wouldn't Stiletto or Tae Kwon be better--a guard?"
"No," she said, smiling and hoping it didn't look too strained. They already know what we're up against.
Ruffles followed her out of her rooms, towards the dungeon. Cadance knew that she must be proud, having been asked to come with her mistress on such an important errand. For a hoofmaiden, the call of duty went far above and beyond the polite servitude of other palace employees. They were expected to befriend the royalty that they served, become a confidante and offer the sort of friendship that only another mare could. So far, Ruffles hadn't managed to achieve that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her; she was just the eleventh mare to be Cadance's 'favorite', and the novelty of that type of relationship was beginning to wear off.
Cadance was startled out of her thoughts by the approach of an armored stallion. He had been standing by the door to the dungeon, but came forward and bowed upon seeing her.
"Princess," he said, "go right down. Captain Claymore has prepared for your arrival."
"Hidden the weapons and covered the edges of the cell doors with rags, I expect?" she asked dryly. The stallion blinked.
"Uhm...pardon?"
"Never mind." Cadance smiled apologetically. "My hoofmaiden and I are grateful to the captain."
Ruffles tried not to beam at the recognition. The guard waved them through.
At the bottom of the stairs, where the temperature was noticeably lower than in the rest of the palace, they were greeted by two Captain Claymores. One stepped forward to acknowledge them while the other bowed deeply from the cage that he occupied.
"Welcome, Princess. Lady Ruffles," the former said cordially, inclining his head to each in turn.
"Indeed. Your sense of diplomacy is admirable, Princess."
There were a few moments of silence, in which everypony considered how best to approach the proverbial elephant in the room. Finally, Claymore cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed.
"The prisoner has taken my form," he said stiffly. "For some reason."
"Not for long."
Steeling herself, Cadance approached the cage. It's contained. It can't hurt me. Ruffles stayed very close, more aware of her purpose here than she had let on.
The Changeling-as-Claymore leaped back suddenly, crushing its body against the bars of the opposite side of the cage. On its face, the red pelt went decidedly green.
And yet somehow, awkwardly, it managed to bow again and gasp out, "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. I'm honored. I heard that you wanted to speak with me?"
"Change," she said harshly. "Back into your real form. I'd prefer to see the face of my enemy."
"With all due respect, Princess Cadenza," it replied, gritting its teeth, "my appearance seems to offend you."
She fought down a rising sense of anxiety. "I'll only speak with you if you change back."
The Changeling shrugged as best it could in its current position, offering a sickly grin. "All right then, Princess."
Green fire. Yes, she remembered that. For Chrysalis, the transformation was characterized by narrow bands of it, but drones were completely engulfed by acid-colored flames. Cadance waited, keeping her face neutral, until the fire had completely stripped away any chance that she would unconsciously speak to the captain of her guards instead of a monster.
The Changeling blinked pale blue eyes and adjusted its lips around its fangs, gagging for Celestia-knew-what reason. Focusing on Cadance (she thought--it was hard to tell with something that didn't have pupils), it wheezed, "Please, Princess, speak."
Its speech was awkward, because of the massive fangs as much as the volume. Cadance wondered briefly if Equestrian was its first language as she abruptly asked, "Why did you come here?"
"I was sent to be an ambassador to your enclave."
"What?!" Ruffles's outburst went unreprimanded, mainly because she had expressed the feelings of everypony else in the room.
Cadance's violet eyes narrowed. The Changeling squeaked in some sort of fabricated pain. "You're lying. Chrysalis attacked Canterlot barely nine months ago--somehow, I just can't believe that she'd be interested in diplomacy right now."
"The attack on Canterlot was an eye-opener for the Queen, if I'm using the right expression. Our old ways no longer work--our traditions are useless in this day and age. We have to change in order to survive."
She ignored the irony, figuring it was unintentional. Especially considering how fast the thing was speaking. "Assimilation doesn't work anymore? Have you forgotten how to ruin ponies' lives?"
It didn't take offense. Instead, it began to pace rapidly along the back wall of the cage, not speaking. Ruffles moved a little closer to her mistress.
"This wasn't my idea," the Changeling spat suddenly, squeezing its eyes shut in apparent agony. "I didn't want to come here, so don't blame me. Curb your hate. Please."
"I can't hate you?" Cadance's tone was sarcastic.
"Not this strongly. It...hurts."
She felt a sudden, vindictive glee at having caused the monster discomfort. Immediately, it sighed in relief and dropped into a crouch, glancing at her.
"My undying gratitude, Princess." Sarcasm to rival her own. Cute.
"It wasn't intentional."
"What does your--your queen want?" Ruffles suddenly asked. Her eyes had been fixed on the Changeling in fascinated horror ever since it had become itself again, but now she shrank away under Cadance's glare, muttering an apology for the second time that day.
"Assurance that the Swarm and its hive will not be harmed. Nation status." It picked at one of the holes in its right forehoof with a single fang. "And an alliance with your kingdom, Princess Cadenza. The Queen hopes to...mend walls, I think, and become very close to you. She believes that you'll be able to put the past behind you, since it was such a small thing that happened."
There was a moment of utter silence, the kind so complete that one's brain registers it as a noise. And then two things happened at roughly the same time. First, Cadance spun around so fast that her tail whipped against the bars of the cage, and stalked towards the stairs. And second, the Changeling collapsed, forehooves crossed over the bands of its belly and mouth wide open in an inequine keening.
Cadance struggled to contain her fury as she ascended. The fact that the screams of the monster had faded to moans had no effect on her, and neither did Ruffles's startled calls. Her thoughts were incoherent at the moment. She couldn't even form words. There were only feelings--hate potent enough to destroy the organs of an entire hive of Changelings, rage that made her flanks burn in blatant violation of her talent, and fear that would have paralyzed her if it weren't for the other two emotions.
You'll be able to put the past behind you.
It was such a small thing that happened.
The Queen hopes to become very close to you.
...
Merciful Celestia, does that mean that she'll come HERE?!
No. No, no, no. Cadance couldn't even think about that right now. Chrysalis in her palace--the possibility was enough to shut her down. Memories of pain and abject terror and heartbreak and imprisonment flooded her, making her knees weak. She leaned against a wall and closed her eyes.
Ruffles eventually found her. Celestia knew how.
"Princess?"
"I need to--talk to somepony. Somepony in particular," Cadance said haltingly. "Ruffles, please. Bring me parchment, and a quill, to write a letter. Address the envelope to the Ponyville Library, in Equestria."
A/N: Ruffles's name was originally Lays, but I changed it.
I kid, I kid. It didn't occur to me until I started editing that she shared her name with a brand of potato chips as well as an element of dress design. I thought about changing it to something else, but in the end, I decided it didn't matter.
On another note, don't expect updates every day. Except on weekends. I didn't have anything better to do tonight than type up my rough draft for this chapter, so I hope it pleases what few fans I have! Thank you so much for reading.
Shining Armor tugged on the boots, flexing the joints above his forehooves. To his surprise, they bent easily, his flexibility completely unhindered by the thick crystal plating. He'd be able to run in these.
"They fit, Prince?"
Perfect Match, the earth pony who ran the palace's armory, stepped forward to examine the way that Shining's armor hung on his frame. Every piece of it fit perfectly, of course--it hadn't taken long at all to outfit him. Match's talent was taking one look at a pony and knowing exactly what armor or weapon would fit them.
"Yes, perfectly," Shining responded, igniting his horn experimentally. The entirety of his armor lit up magenta, cleverly refracting the light. The crystal armor and weapons of the Amore guards--as they called themselves when they were out of earshot of their modest princess--never failed to impress him. "Thank you."
"Weren't nothin', sir." Match was from one of the outer precincts. His accent reminded Shining of that of one of Twilight's friends. Applejack, he thought her name was. "But might Ah ask--why'd ya want ta be fitted fer armor?"
"I'm joining the wall guard." He examined a display of swords on the wall. As a unicorn, he'd never seen the need to carry one, but maybe it was time he started.
"That's gonna go over well," Match observed dryly.
"A Changeling got in," Shining emphasized. "I have to protect my people."
"Yer wife don't see ya as any less of a stallion when yer not in armor," the earth pony replied in an understanding tone. "Ain't no need ta make the pegasi on the wall think yer spyin' on them."
Alright. That hurt, just a little.
"Is that really what everypony thinks is going on here?" Shining muttered, turning towards the door.
"Jest what Ah've heard, Prince." Match's voice took on an apologetic cast. "Didn't mean ta offend ya."
Shining left without another word. The armory master's accent was beginning to get on his nerves.
His boots clicked against the floor of the palace. The armor was heavier than what he was used to, and definitely covered more. The light coming through the soaring windows turned him into a walking prism, throwing pastel rainbows on the walls. He failed to notice.
So ponies thought he was doing this to impress Cadance. Was the whole country laughing at him, a prince playing soldier to get his wife's attention? Or did they think that, after the incident with the Changeling, he didn't trust the guards?
Shining trusted them. He just thought that they might be better off if he were among them.
Suddenly, a loud flapping of wings startled him out of his thoughts. He glanced up to see an iridescent blur swooping wildly above him.
"Hey, Fighting Chance! Just what do you think you're doing deserting your--oh. Oh, buck. I'm, uh, I'm so sorry, Prince."
A blue-gray pegasus flapped into a clumsy landing in front of Shining Armor. He hastily bowed, armor clunking against the floor, then straightened up. He looked terrified.
"I, uh, didn't recognize you, Your Majesty." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I thought you were somepony else."
Shining smiled widely, hoping to put the other stallion at ease. "Relax, it was just a mistake. Hey, you're Downpour, right? Flew right over a mule dignitary last year and made him spit out his false teeth?"
"That's me." Downpour spread his wings and puffed out his chest in pride, then remembered who he was talking to and hastily added, "Prince."
"Aren't you part of the wall guard?"
"Yeah. But the boss sent me down to the city to check the train that'll be coming in soon. I was supposed to get one of the unicorns so we'd have magic just in case somepony turned out to be a Changeling, but then I thought I saw my buddy Chance and...yeah. Sir."
"I can go with you." Shining turned around, and headed for one of the many doors that led out into the city.
"Uh, are you sure, Prince? I mean, don't you have, like, royal duties or something?"
He stopped and sighed, glancing back at Downpour. "Cadance and I discussed splitting up the duties of the country even before we were engaged. Now, she handles the political stuff, and I'm in charge of the military. Just like always."
Shining emphasized the last part. Nopony ever seemed to remember that he had been captain of the Solar Guards before marrying Cadance, not some Canterlot elitist.
"Guess it's okay, then." Downpour trotted over to the door and shoved it open, jumping into the air. He oped his wings and took off for the train station with absolutely no regard for the fact that his companion couldn't fly. Shining bit back a laugh. The soldier's mindset was the same everywhere, it seemed--pegasi assumed everypony had wings, unicorns figured everypony was telekinetic.
It was a long, hard gallop from the palace to the train station, since the former was pressed up against the city wall and the latter was near the main gate. But Shining Armor welcomed the exertion. Even with the heavy armor, he was able to keep up with Downpour fairly well.
Nopony seemed too interested when he passed. Either they didn't recognize the iridescent-and-blue blur as their prince or Amore guards thundering through the streets was a commonplace occurrence. Maybe both. Shining almost wished for widespread panic caused by his speed--back home, before he had been promoted to Captain, he and his friends used to scare the Canterlot elite half to death by running everywhere they went, like there was some horrible emergency that they needed to attend to.
"Air traffic's light today," Downpour noted, touching down on top of the sign that announced the train station. He glanced to the east, where a plume of smoke was visible through the translucent wall.
Shining nodded. They watched the train pull into the station.
Immediately, Downpour was in the air again, pounding on the only passenger car that appeared to be occupied.
"Amore guards!" he yelled. "C'mon, get out!"
"Is that really necessary?" Shining called. Downpour glanced back and wilted slightly.
"Well...I..."
The ponies filed off, most shooting dirty looks at the armored pegasus hovering above them. Shining recognized Landmark, a mapmaker who had been in the court several weeks ago offering to chart the lake to the north. And there was Twister, a pegasus who had broken his wing so badly that he had to come up here once a month for therapy. Behind him...
"Oh my goddesses."
Shining rushed over to the pony who had just stepped off of the train. She glanced at him, not really paying attention.
"Oh, do you want to check my bags?" She turned to undo the harness around her torso. "One second."
"Somehow, I don't think you're hiding a Changeling in there," he replied.
Twilight looked up, an incredulous smile breaking across her face. She threw her forelegs around him, armor and all.
"Shiny," she said warmly. "I haven't heard from you since the wedding!"
"I've been busy." He grinned as he pried his foal sister off.
"I can see that." Twilight raked her lavender eyes along his armor. "That looks a lot more dense than anything Equestrian smiths make; it must be heavy. Are you the captain of the guard here, too?"
"Claymore's the captain." Downpour touched down, having finished harassing the incoming ponies. "My boss, Frost Damage, answers to him because he's the head of everything. But he answers to Prince Shining Armor."
Twilight leaned in close to her brother, whispering, "'Prince'? They actually call you that?"
Shining made a shooing motion to Downpour, who grinned sheepishly and took off. He stepped off of the platform with his sister right behind him, blending in with the departing crowd as well as he could while wearing a full set of crystal plating.
"It's just an honorary title," he explained. "I'm not an alicorn, so I don't have any power beyond overseeing our militar, but I'm married to a princess. So technically, I'm a prince. At least, that's what Celestia told me."
"But they actually call you that?"
"Some slip up a lot," he admitted. "They're not used to having a male ruler."
They walked in silence for a few seconds, Twilight taking in the foreign beauty of what outsiders called the Crystal City. She turned her attention back to Shining, right as he was about to ask her why she had come.
"So is...this...recent?" she asked, waving a hoof to encompass his armor. When he nodded, her eyes grew worried. She leaned towards him conspiratorially and lowered her voice, "It's really that bad?"
His heart sank. She already knew about the Changeling? Then that was why she was here. It was unfortunate that the news had traveled into Equestria so fast, but probably unavoidable. He knew for a fact that at least a third of the guards that had helped to capture the thing had family under Celestia's rule. Of course they would have told them.
"I'm afraid so," he sighed. "We found one, and now most of the military leaders think that it might have just been a distraction. Frost Damage and Claymore especially. They've been sending their stallions out to observe."
"What? What happened? Tell me everything, Shining. Don't leave a thing out."
"You don't already know?" Shining came to a stop right next to a stall selling pastries. More out of shock than hunger, but the griffon vendor still took the opportunity to try and sell him something.
"All I know is that something horrible happened and you need my help," Twilight frowned. "At least, that's what Cadance said in her--"
She suddenly froze. Shining followed her startled gaze, expecting to see the Changeling queen herself. But, no; red dragon wings instead of gossamer, a strong scorpion tail instead of a limp teal one, and fangs much larger and more effective than Chrysalis's. A manticore, padding stealthily across the road.
"Twilight--"
"It's alright, Shining," she murmured, horn igniting magenta as she slowly approached the beast. "I can handle this."
A/N: This chapter was boring. I'm sorry.
The next chapter will probably also be boring. I'm sorry for that, too.
That was the one thing that Twilight was completely unable to figure out as she inched towards the manticore. The capitol city of Cadance's country was surrounded by a massive, seamless wall of crystal, and patrolled on top by pegasi trained in combat flight. She had read quite a bit about it, as well as studying it on her way in. There was no conceivable way it could have gotten in without somepony noticing.
But she could probably wait to work out how it had done it. Right now, it was much more important that she protect the innocent citizens milling around aimlessly, apparently oblivious to the monster.
Twilight prepared to charge, her horn buzzing with a stunning spell just waiting to be released.
"Twiley, wait." Shining Armor cantered past her. She rolled her eyes. Yes, she was his little sister, but that didn't mean he had to protect her. She had single-hoofedly rocked an Ursa Minor to sleep, for Celestia's sake.
But she could let him be the hero. If he needed her, she was ready.
But Shining ran right up to the manticore without igniting his horn. Twilight watched, dumbfounded, as he dipped his head slightly in...greeting?
"Good morning," he said.
The manticore sank into a bow with leonine grace.
"And to you, Prince," it growled.
Twilight struggled to close her mouth as it padded past her, on its way to the mobile donut shop they had just passed. Shining trotted back and slung a foreleg over her withers.
"Things are a little different here," he murmured.
"I'd say so," Twilight replied incredulously. Her eyes were still fixed on the manticore, who held up two claws to the griffon selling donuts. The vendor squawked in assent and shoved two pastries into a paper bag, handing it over for a pawful of bits.
"Come on, we'd better get you to the palace." Shining took his leg away and walked a few feet in the direction of the crystal behemoth in the distance. He stopped, to make sure she was following him, and Twilight finally forced her hooves to move.
"I didn't know they were sentient," she murmured.
"Most aren't. There are twenty-six in the entire city, and all of them were positively affected by magic as cubs. One teaches at the local academy, actually."
"Are there any other monsters I shouldn't attack?"
"A lot, actually. We have three adult dragons, and five teenagers, all hatched in the wild. There's a very high population of kirin--you know, like Princess Luna's guards--and a few reindeer hybrids. And I'm pretty sure there's a seapony in the Topaz fountain."
Twilight shook her head, amazed. "How--" Suddenly, something clicked behind her lavender eyes. "Cadance."
Shining grinned, apparently proud that she had figured it out so fast. "So you didn't read anything about the amazing calming effects of our Princess?"
"It wasn't mentioned in any of the twelve books I was able to find on the Crystal Empire."
"It's gotten a lot stronger ever since the wedding," he said after a quick chuckle, gently nudging her into motion with his magic. "But so far, it hasn't been affected by...well, Cadance has been pretty stressed lately. As you could probably tell from whatever letter she sent you."
His disapproval of the fact that she hadn't talked to him about it was obvious. Twilight changed the subject.
"So are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked, trotting beside him. It was hard to keep her eyes on her brother--everything was just so different from Equestria. Buildings that became steadily more opaque the further one went into them, something that looked like a Diamond Dog chatting comfortably with a unicorn, and--off in the distance, a dragon perched on top of an elegant emerald building. Drinking tea.
"Now's not really the place," Shining responded, glancing around at the diversity that he must have become accustomed to. "Nopony outside the palace knows, and I'd like to keep it that way."
Twilight nodded her understanding, even though she already had a pretty good idea of what the emergency was. She wasn't looking forward to being asked to deal with it. Celestia called her in to ask her opinion on advanced magical theory, Luna sent for her in order to find out how 'normal' ponies did certain things in this day and age. If Cadance was going to start summoning her just to ask how to deal with everypony she thought might be a Changeling, they were going to have a problem. Even as understandable as it might be.
But maybe it had nothing to do with Changelings. Maybe Twilight was wrong. After all, it wasn't like it was uncommon for her to be summoned by a princess. Celestia--and Luna, to a lesser extent--did it all the time. It was entirely possible that Cadance was just having a dispute with the griffon kingdom, with whom she shared a border, or something. And was just following in the hoofsteps of her aunts by asking their most trusted adviser for her opinion.
She liked that explanation a lot better.
Maybe while I'm here, she thought to herself, I can write a more accurate book about this city. I'm sure the ponies of Equestria would love to--
Twilight was startled out of her thoughts by somepony shrieking, "OMC, that's her!"
Three young mares and one stallion galloped over, effectively surrounding her with wide grins and eager eyes. Her ears instinctively drooped as she looked around. She had no idea what was going on.
"Um...can I help you?" she asked, nervously shuffling her hooves. A quick glance at Shining revealed that he was smiling. There would be no help from him.
"You're Twilight Sparkle, right?" asked one of the mares, a unicorn with her amber mane pulled back into a persontail.
"Yes, but how do you--"
"We're huge fans," interrupted one of the two pegasus mares.
"Can I have your autograph?" added the other, who had a blue coat to complement her friend's indigo one.
"Do you have a coltfriend?" interjected the stallion. The intensity of his cyan eyes promised that he would not be outdone by the mares.
"No!" Twilight backed up. To her dismay, the three madmares--and one madstallion--followed her. "How in the name of Celestia do you know who I am?"
They stared at her in disbelief.
"Are you kidding?" the unicorn asked.
"You don't know how famous you are?" the indigo pegasus asked.
"You're Twilight Sparkle," the blue one emphasized. "You defeated Nightmare Moon, and Discord, and you're friends with the Princesses! Everypony knows who you are."
She stared at them in complete and utter bewilderment. This never happened in Ponyville. Or Canterlot. But then again, most of the ponies there had known her at least by sight even before they had known she was an Element of Harmony. She wasn't as much as a novelty to them.
"Are you interested in having a coltfriend?" the blue-eyed stallion asked, oblivious to the fact that he had just derailed her train of thought.
"No." Twilight fished a pencil out of her saddlebag. When in Pegasopolis, do as the pegasi do. "What do you want me to sign?"
She started regretting her decision to play along when she saw how many random scraps of paper they shoved at her, but it was a little too late to back out now. Rapidly scribbling signature after signature, she glanced at Shining again. He shrugged.
Once all four ponies had been more or less appeased, Twilight Sparkle speed-trotted towards the palace, head lowered so that her bangs covered her eyes.
"I probably should have warned you that you're a bit of a celebrity here," Shining began as he fell into step beside her.
"Just take me to Cadance," Twilight muttered.
She really hoped it was the griffons. She wasn't in the mood to deal with Changelings.
A/N: So much headcanon.
Just for future reference, is it believable? Or did I overdo it?
Carapace's ears twitched as its eyelids clicked open. There was a bad taste in its mouth--agony and boredom. Not usually two flavors that went together.
But those two stale emotions were the only ones it tasted. Raising its head from where it had been resting on its forehooves (sleeping again--it was starting to expect death any day now), it glanced around the frigid stone room. Empty. There were no guards, except...
The red unicorn was crouched in front of Carapace's cage, studying it. Despite having taken his form without thinking yesterday, it bared the last inch of its fangs and snarled.
To its shock, the guard snarled back.
"It doesn't work on me, beast," he said grimly, climbing to his hooves. His brown eyes remained fixed on Carapace's blue ones.
Its tongue flicked out of its mouth to taste any emotion it might have missed. But there was none. The red stallion was as barren of feeling as one of its kind.
"What's wrong with you?" Carapace asked. It really didn't think it had anything to lose by asking. And this emotionless pony intrigued it like none of the others had.
"You're not exactly in a position to be asking that," he replied, raising an eyebrow.
"You don't feel."
"Neither do you."
"Ah, yes, but I don't belong to the most emotional race on the planet. And I think I might actually be more expressive than you, which doesn't bode well for your status as an equine."
"Are you suggesting I'm one of your kind?" There was a trace of humor in his voice, even though Carapace could tell he didn't feel any amusement. "I'm a soldier, creature. Not a monster."
Carapace lowered its head back onto its hooves. "Alright. I'll accept, for a moment, that I'm a monster. But which one of us is killing the other?"
The unicorn was silent for a few seconds, and Carapace figured (not without more than a hint of triumph) that it had one. But then the pony spoke.
"Neither the prince nor the princess have slept more than an hour since you came," he said. "They can't go on like this for much longer."
He suddenly glanced backwards, towards the stairs that led to the rest of the palace. Hoofsteps echoed down them, the sort that came from golden horseshoes. "Well, speak of the draconequus."
Carapace put a hoof to its bands, wincing as the organs they protected started to ache. Its guts had taken one hay of a beating over the last few days.
"Please, Princess Cadenza, stay where you are," it called. "Any closer and I might start vomiting blood."
"It speaks!?" somepony exclaimed. Something purple raced down the stairs, stopping in front of the cage as the red unicorn stepped aside and the pain in Carapace's belly was replaced with tepid warmth. This particular pony wasn't repulsed, or hateful--just curious.
And familiar. Carapace recognized the mare it had changed into to deal with the white unicorn--with smaller eyes and hooves, of course.
"Why don't you want Cadance down here?" the lavender unicorn asked, enunciating carefully and maintaining eye contact. Carapace's lip curled.
"I've spoken the language since before you were laid," it snapped. "Keep talking to me like I'm some sort of savage animal and I'll start acting like one."
Her eyes widened. She circled the cage, examining the occupant from every angle. Carapace watched her warily.
"Just like any other Changeling," she murmured. "But so obviously intelligent! And an actual mane and tail..."
"Twilight!" a mare called from above. Carapace grimaced at the sound of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's voice. "Will you be okay?"
"Mm-hm!" The unicorn had taken a pencil and a pad of paper out of one of the bags strapped to her sides and was frantically taking notes. Carapace felt the princess's hate fade, and sighed in relief.
"Equine mannerisms," the unicorn muttered. It glanced at her, then took her form, with minimal effort. For the first time, she was aware the thick glossiness of her new mane and tail, the faintest softness in her belly area, the weakness of her legs. All of that could be remedied by just going with a simple illusion rather than a full-on superficial morph, but Carapace was the best shifter in the Swarm. She didn't do that.
"I'm going to have to ask you what you're doing," she said.
The other mare frowned at the sound of her own voice, but didn't look up. Whatever nonchalant aura she was trying to project was ruined by the fact that Carapace suddenly tasted unease.
"Just trying to learn," she replied in an admirably calm voice. "If I ask you some questions, will you answer honestly?"
"Cooperate? Of course," Carapace replied. "After all, I came to make peace."
The slight sarcasm in her voice wasn't lost on her double, who glanced up and smirked.
"If you play nice, I'll let you out."
She was unable to keep her newly expressive features under control, much to the unicorn's amusement.
"You didn't expect to rot in there, did you? You're an ambassador. After discussing it, we decided to let you join the court."
Carapace gagged on a sudden wave of bitterness and apprehension. The smiles and light tone meant nothing--she wasn't trusted. Whatever the ponies' reason for freeing her, it wasn't diplomatic. She wished desperately for telepathy instead of empathy. At least then she would know what they had in store for her.
The tips of her fangs had returned, an automatic protection instinct, and she retracted them. Forcing what she hoped was a grateful smile, Carapace looked her double in the eyes. There was no way her prey--who, as a whole, were turning out to be far more dangerous than she had been taught--could be allowed to know that their every feeling, no matter how insignificant, was being broadcast. That was something she intended to keep to herself.
"Okay, first question." After returning the smile, the pony looked down at her pad of paper. "What is your society like?"
Carapace forced back a sarcastic retort. Cooperate. "We are a collective. The Queen is at the head, and our minds are made up of her thoughts and needs. But the connection is one-way. Our Queen is independent."
"And you're part of this collective?" Her skepticism was obvious, even without Carapace's ability to sense her feelings.
"No."
"Are you the only one besides Chrys--er, the Queen?"
"No, there's...one other, who is separate." If the queen hadn't yet crushed Gossamer in a fit of irritation.
"Hmm." The unicorn scribbled on her little pad, feelings muted by thought. Carapace could have ripped it away from her with her magic, but the symbols on the paper would have meant next to nothing to her. "So you have no connection to Chrysalis whatsoever?"
"None," Carapace replied. And it only took you three days to figure it out. In the meantime, you almost killed me with your hate. Both figuratively and literally.
"Well..." Her double seemed unsure about just what to do next. "I think I'll ask the rest later. Here, stand back and--stop being me."
Carapace obliged, shedding the weak-legged form with relief it hoped wasn't too obvious. A magenta aura sprang up around the lock on its cage, and something clicked. The door swung open.
Cautiously, it stepped out under the watchful gazes of the two unicorns, one red and one purple. How odd, that all the other guards would be gone on the day they let it out of its cage. A more experienced member of its kind might have been suspicious. Then again, a more experienced member of its kind probably wouldn't have had the genius idea to approach the ponies in its true form, so Carapace could live with that.
It grinned at the mare who had freed it. She hesitantly smiled back, probably unnerved by its fangs.
But the prisoner had waltzed right out of its cage, flashed a ghastly smile at that Sparkle mare, and thrown its forelegs around her faster than either unicorn could blink. Currently, she was stiff as one of the crystal swords in the armory, face frozen into neutrality.
"Thank you," the Changeling whispered, its huge fangs dangerously close to Sparkle's (her first name was Twilight, wasn't it?) ears. "You have no idea how--"
"Uh-huh. Please get off of me," Twilight said, her voice unusually high.
It let go, smiling at her apologetically. Claymore barely managed to resist rolling his eyes. He had seen better acting at elementary school plays. No wonder it hadn't bothered to disguise itself--honesty was the only thing it had going for it. Didn't Chrysalis teach her operatives anything anymore?
"There are a few conditions for your freedom," Twilight said, flipping through her notebook to avoid making eye contact. "You'll have to take an equine form, so you don't panic anypony who doesn't know about you. You have to let Cadance place a tracking spell on you, and you have to answer my questions whenever I come to you."
"I accept your terms." No hesitation at all. Claymore raised an eyebrow.
There was a quick burst of green fire, and then a small, slender-legged mare stood in place of the Changeling. Claymore's eyebrow inched higher. Off-black coat, pale blue irises, a ragged teal mane and tail.
No. That wouldn't arouse any suspicions at all.
"Um..." Twilight eyed the Changeling's new form, apparently having the same misgivings.
"Yes?"
"The fact that you're an alicorn might cause some...speculation. Go with either pegasus or unicorn."
The pegasus wings vanished with a flicker of green flames, leaving only the unicorn horn on the Changeling mare's head. Claymore sighed deeply and stepped forward.
"Maybe logical thought is difficult for you, beast, but you still look exactly like a Changeling. Didn't the Queen teach you better?"
It--or maybe she, now--glared at him, but her coat flickered and became off-white. The mane and tail stayed, as well as her obviously blank flank.
Her saddlebags glowed magenta, and floated off of her back and onto the disguised Changeling. The smaller mare's flanks were hidden completely.
"Come on. Er, Captain?"
Claymore nodded, staying close to both mares. He could tell exactly how uneasy Twilight was. He understood, of course. The Changeling's new white coat wouldn't make her--it, whatever--any less unnerving to ponies who knew what she was.
Another five guards met them at the top of the stairs, dipping their heads to Twilight and Claymore as they seamlessly took up a position around the obvious threat. Claymore nodded back.
"I take it you've finished speaking to the prisoner, sir?" one asked. The "prisoner" in question glanced back at him.
"The conversation was uneventful," he replied, "but yes."
The journey from the dungeon to the throne room was more or less uneventful, despite the huge number of ponies, kirin, and other creatures who stopped to gawk. A strange-looking unicorn who warranted the protection of six guards--including the captain--and Twilight Sparkle of Equestria? Who in the name of Celestia was this mysterious mare? The princess of some exotic tribe? A hermetic magician with enough power to raze the city?
Claymore's ears flicked at every rumor that reached them, each more ridiculous than the last, but he didn't stop to correct anypony. Whatever explanation they eventually settled upon had to be less inflammatory than the truth.
----O----
All seventy-two Amore guards in the throne room snapped to attention when their captain entered. He examined their arrangement, along the carpeted ledges and pews that normally held nobles and diplomats, and mentally nodded in approval. Whoever had directed their positioning had known what he was doing.
Granted, he had probably had to toss out a lot of angry nobles to do it, and there would be retribution, but that wasn't Claymore's problem.
The princess was sitting ramrod-straight on her throne, wings slightly flared and head held high. The sapphire-encrusted seat next to her, meant for her prince, was empty.
All seven newcomers bowed deeply. The Changeling was the last to raise her head, and Cadance's gaze strayed to her.
"I'm not prepared to deal with you civilly today," she began.
"I wasn't expecting you to be, Princess Cadenza," the Changeling replied. Cadance barely managed to keep a grimace off her face.
"You'll be given a chamber in the guest wing," she said stiffly. "Two guards will escort you there."
Two stallions, one a pegasus and one a unicorn, stepped forward. The Changeling shrank away from them. Claymore shot them a look--a nonverbal order to tone down whatever distaste they might be feeling.
"I expect you to stay there. And if you don't, believe me, I'll know." The princess's horn suddenly shone with a blue aura, one that also surrounded the white mare in front of her. The Changeling looked down at her hooves as the glow faded, suspicious. "We'll discuss the terms of my alliance with your Swarm tomorrow."
Cadence said the last part with a neutral expression, but everypony around her reacted immediately. Half the guards began to mutter to one another, the other half stamped their hooves in agitation, Twilight cried, "Cadance!", and the Changeling allowed herself an incredulous smile. Claymore was the only one who managed to keep his emotions in check--perhaps because he had none to be expressed.
"Everypony, quiet!" the princess yelled, her voice cracking on the last syllable. It was the only outward sign of the stress she was under. "Garrote! Valiant! Take our...guest to her quarters. Everypony else can return to their posts, but Twilight, Captain, please remain with me."
The guards cleared out, most still muttering. Claymore had the feeling that more than one of them would be following Garrote and Valiant Heart on their mission.
Cadance sighed deeply once they were gone, slipping the golden shoes of off her forehooves and massaging her temples. Twilight's panicked eyes softened, and she ascended the stairs of the dais that the thrones were on. The princess hugged back when the unicorn put her forelegs around her, and the two mares simply held each other for several moments.
Claymore shifted his hooves awkwardly. He wasn't sure how to deal with the level of emotion in the room.
Finally, Cadance took a shaky breath and let go of Twilight, giving her a grateful smile. "Thank you. I needed that."
"Cadance, I know you said you had a plan when I arrived, but you can't seriously want to ally with the Changelings!" Twilight burst out. The princess's smile became reassuring.
"I don't, and I'm not going to."
"But you said--"
"Princess Cadance realizes that the Changeling may still be connected to Chrysalis," Claymore interjected. "Pretending to humor her 'ambassador' will help us to figure out her plan, so that we may act accordingly."
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Cadance agreed. "Twilight, there's no use wasting this opportunity. Try to learn as much as possible about the creature. Ask it questions, observe it. I'm sure that the scientists in Canterlot will appreciate your findings, and besides, it may slip up eventually and tell us why it's really here."
Twilight brightened at the assignment of a research project, but Claymore noted that the princess's tired eyes didn't escape her notice. She put a hoof on the other mare's shoulder.
"Are you really sure you want a Changeling loose in the palace?" she asked.
"No," Cadance confessed. "I--I know that I won't be able to focus on anything with it around, but Shining can help me, and the court...and besides, there's no other way to figure out what Chrysalis wants."
"There are other ways, Princess," Claymore corrected. "I'm sure you're familiar with the special talents of Cat o' Nine and Canary Song, and there are several retired members of the Night Guard living in the city who would be more than happy to--"
"Torture is not an option, Captain," she interrupted sharply. "There is a point where we become just as bad as they are."
"Are you sure, Princess? The wings are very sensitive, as the insides of the holes on the legs. A hot poker--"
"I said no." A pause. "How do you know?"
Claymore suppressed a sigh. "My hometown, as you know, is very large, Princess. So large that a strange pony inserting himself into the meaningful relationships of other ponies might not be noticed for some time--at least until he makes the mistake of revealing his fangs.
"I was barely more than a foal, but I was allowed to watch what they did to him."
There was a moment of silence in the near-empty throne room. Then Cadence nodded her sympathy.
"I don't think we'll need any of your knowledge on this particular subject, Captain. Just make sure that your stallions keep an eye on the Changeling--and don't tell them what we're planning, I wouldn't want it getting out..."
Claymore nodded in return and left. He wasn't sure whether he was disappointed or relieved that the princess had rejected his offer.
A/N: And thus a second active OC enters. I wrote this chapter through Claymore's perspective mostly so that Shining Armor wouldn't be the only male main character. The alternative was bringing in Spike, and I couldn't think of a graceful way to do that since it was pretty obvious that Twilight arrived alone.
What are your thoughts on the captain of the Amore guards? Please, by all means, comment.
"Your mane is beautiful. I've never seen that color before. Is it natural?"
Carapace resisted the urge to lick her lips. The flood of admiration coming from the mare who had been sent to "clean her up" (she took that as "make sure she didn't escape through a window") was pure and saccharine, the best meal she had had in days. Not as good as honest-to-Queen love, but pretty darn close.
"Oh," she said, realizing that she was probably expected to keep the conversation going, "yes. Yes, of course. I ha--was born with it."
"Such a lovely color." The mare, an earth pony with mud-colored locks, stepped forward to get a better look. "But, hmm, these braids--"
"Don't touch those!" Carapace snapped, swatting away a cream-colored hoof before it could touch one of the random microbraids in her otherwise-loose mane.
The mare drew back. Frantic, Carapace ran through a mental checklist. Had her coat darkened? Fangs reappeared? Eyes flashed back into opacity? No. Her form was under control. Which meant that this could be fixed.
"Sorry," she offered. The apologetic smile she then attempted must have worked, because the pony smiled back. "They're...a custom."
"Ooh, how interesting," the mare enthused. "Where are you from?"
"Er...a tribe in the mountains." Carapace followed her as she headed into another room. "The braids make me a--a wisemare."
Not technically a lie. After all, she was much more intelligent than the rest of her species, even if her braids didn't symbolize that.
The mare was exclaiming over her fake tribe's 'culture' now with genuine interest, but Carapace was busy examining this new room. It was the third and last in her suite--quarters that may be lacking by royal standards, but not to her. The first room was for receiving guests, filled with tapestries of the heroes of this country and crystal furniture, cleverly sculpted so that it caught what little light came from the narrow windows. The second was clearly intended for sleeping, judging by the thick rugs on the rosy floor and the canopied nest in the center. But this third chamber...she didn't know what to make of it.
The cloudy pink crystal here was polished to an unprecedented glossiness. There was a basin big enough to hold half the current Swarm set into the floor, and a much smaller one embedded into a bank of cabinets. There were no windows, but mirrors had been bolted to every wall. Not the kind that saw through magic, thankfully.
The mare (whose name Carapace had learned and then promptly forgotten) must have noticed her confusion, because she launched into a long-winded explanation of what every single fixture in the bathroom, as it was called, was used for. Carapace really couldn't have cared less about the toilet, seeing as a member of her species had no use for it, but the bathtub (the huge basin) intrigued her. Soaking in hot water sounded like a much better way to get clean than having Gossamber groom her. It always got nervous when it got to her wings.
"So why have you come to the Crystal City?" the mare asked, breaking into her thoughts as she turned a knob at the head of the tub. Steaming water poured out of the faucet with a thunderous roar. Carapace jumped, glowering when the pony laughed.
"My tribe wants to be recognized as a nation." She dipped a hoof in the water as it rose steadily. The heat sent a shiver of pleasure through her; it was such a contrast to the frigid dungeon. In fact, as steam collected on every surface and the air grew heavy with humidity, she was reminded of home.
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard," the mare said encouragingly, twisting the knob again to stop the water and trotting over. She started tugging at the padded leather straps that held the heavy bags to Carapace's sides. "After all, the princesses just recognized the seaponies as a separate race, and gave them half of the islands in the southern ocean. Princess Cadence is very generous."
Carapace held back a laugh, about to tell this pony that the princess wasn't all that generous when it came to her, but the bags thumped to the floor before she could speak. Her flanks were uncovered, and the other mare gasped.
Twisting her head around, Carapace mentally cursed herself. It had seemed like such a good idea to mock her captors by morphing into something that resembled her real form. She hadn't even thought to remedy things before who didn't know what she was saw her. And it was too late now--a blank flank on a grown mare was one thing, but a cutie mark hastily appearing as somepony watched? She knew enough about her prey to judge that that was more than a little unusual.
Besides, it wasn't as if she could think of one right now that wouldn't give her away.
"Um...well, you know...some ponies are just very, very...very late bloomers." The mare, whose cutie mark happened to be of some sort of delicate woven mat, had kicked the bags into the corner and was now pouring scented oils into the bath water. Trying to cover up the awkwardness.
She didn't suspect? The Old Queens must be pleased with her, for whatever reason. "No one in my hi--tribe has a cutie mark."
"Really?" Intrigue overtook the mare's embarrassment. "Why?"
"I have no idea." Carapace reached up and flicked one of her braids with a forehoof, scrambling for inspiration. "But we're going to try and use that to make a case that we're a different species."
"I have to admit, politics have never been my forte. But I hope you get what you want, Miss..." She trailed off expectantly. It took several moments for Carapace to realize that she was waiting for her to give her name.
Would her real name give anything away? Just like with the cutie mark, she couldn't think of any plausible pony names right now. So it would have to do.
"Carapace," she said. "I'm Carapace."
It felt strange, saying it out loud. She had never had to before. The Queen, Gossamer, and Elytra had always known her title, and there had been nopony else in the hive capable of asking what her name was.
The mare made a sympathetic noise. "That's a mouthful. Nothing like mine, of course--'Lace Doily', ugh." She rolled her eyes. "At least you can tell ponies to call you something cuter, like Carrie."
"Hm. Yes. Carrie." She was paying just enough attention to tell how stupid that sounded.
"Well, you can hop in the tub if you want. If you traveled all the way from the mountains, I'm sure you must be itching to get the dirt out of your coat." She flicked open one of the cabinets, reaching inside and pulling out a sponge. "Don't worry, I'll be gentle."
"You're going to groom me?" Carapace wrinkled her nose. Partially out of revulsion for the thought, and partially because this flexible new face was fun to play with.
"I guess you could put it that way." Lace picked up a bottle of soap, smiling brightly. "I'll just shampoo your mane and tail, scrub your back, trim your hooves--all the stuff that's difficult for a mare to do on her own. My job is just to make you more comfortable."
"Want to know how you could do that really well?" Carapace sank one foreleg into the water. Conversely, the heat made her shiver.
"How?"
"Leave."
Lace just nodded and trotted out. The basic affection coming from her soured somewhat, but Carapace didn't care. She had already eaten her fill.
Submerging herself entirely, she shuddered with pleasure. The thin layer of flesh covering her wings vanished, and they floated free, barely more substantial in the water than the iridescent streams of oil around her. Involuntarily, the holes of her hooves returned, just reinforcing her decision to kick Lace out. The sensitive areas inside flooded, and she closed her eyes. If Carapace ever went back to the hive, she--no, it, the disguise was totally gone now--was never letting Gossamer's fangs near it again. This was the way to groom.
A faint fluttering sound disrupted its peaceful thoughts. Carapace's stiff, ragged ears twitched in irritation, and it opened its eyes--the only part that still looked equine after the relaxing effects of the bath.
There was a butterfly perched on the tip of its horn, slowly opening and closing its wings. Carapace moved its head, trying to get a better look at the insect, and it took off. Narrow blue-and-green wings, with irregular holes along the edges...oh.
It wasn't a butterfly--it was a hive moth. Though not technically a Changeling, it was still under the influence of the Queen.
Carapace pulled itself onto the submerged bench that ran around the side of the bathtub, lifting a hoof out of the water for the moth to land on. They regarded each other as water drained out of the holes in the Changeling's hoof.
Then the moth's mouthparts twitched, and it spoke in the Queen's voice.
"You're still alive," it said. "My, my, Carapace, that's much better than I expected."
"I think I may be done here soon," Carapace replied, ignoring the jibe. "Princess Cadenza agreed to ally with us."
The moth laughed, so loudly that Carapace glanced at the door out of fear that somepony would hear.
"Princess Cadenza," it mimicked. "You sound like one of her subjects."
Carapace said nothing.
"And what is wrong with your eyes?"
"I forgot to--I forgot to change them back." It wasn't as if it was easy for it to notice. Just like organs, eyes didn't change physically with the morph.
The moth's wings twitched irritably. "Half the swarm is lying in a stupor so that I may concentrate enough to speak with you, and you can't even greet me with your real form?"
Carapace allowed the last of the illusion to dissipate. It had to work hard not to snarl viciously, as it would if a pony were yelling at it. Evidently, so much time away from the hive had crossed its instincts.
"Cadenza wants an alliance," it reminded the Queen, hoping to change the subject.
"I'm sure," the moth replied, flicking drops of oil off of its tiny feet. "If I remember correctly, Cadence hates our kind with a passion. Did you save her life or do something else to change her feelings towards us?"
"Then she is lying, and you are a fool and a prisoner." The moth tilted its head, making a show of staring at the windowless walls. "I'll come back when they have you on a longer leash."
Carapace dipped its head, keeping its hoof steady. It felt strange bowing to something so small.
"Pity Elytra's dead. It was always so much better at infiltration."
With that, the moth took flight, and then dove into the water, drowning itself.
A/N: This chapter almost didn't make the final cut, being mostly a fluff piece about Carapace. But I felt that the end was slightly more conducive to the storyline, and I had one of my rare "Eh, what the hell" moments, so I ended up posting it.
Please, comment, and tell me what you think. I really appreciate all the wonderful feedback so far.
Chrysalis stalked down the line, scrutinizing blue-eyed face after blue-eyed face. Their expressions told her absolutely nothing about the empty space she had just passed, but she wasn't expecting them to yield any information. Any more than she might have expected one of her own hooves to start talking.
It was simple routine to check like this after leaving so many to their own faculties for so long. She had done it hundreds of times over the course of her rule. But never had there been a gap in the line.
She sighed in frustration. It must have choked on its own saliva, or maybe collapsed in front of one of the miasma vents when she pulled her mind from its. The body would have to be found and taken care of, so that disease didn't spread through the hive. She'd have Gossamer look for it later.
With a single thought from their queen, the drones dispersed, heading back to their assigned tasks. Except for one. A single drone, eyes a shade darker than the norm and teal stubble on its skull, stepped forward.
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. "What?"
It turned and trotted off, towards the section of the hive where the Cocooned were kept. The Queen followed. It wasn't uncommon for one of her drones to seize upon a minor desire of hers and try to fulfill it. In this case, it was probably leading her to the corpse of the missing Changeling. This was the last thing Chrysalis wanted to do, but for some reason, she kept following the dark-eyed drone.
Transparent green cocoons hung from the ceiling the occupants shifting slightly as the two Changelings entered their cavern. Chrysalis examined the emaciated, dead-eyed ponies within with mild distaste. These were the Cocooned--captive ponies kept in a half-conscious state, pumped for positive emotions to support the hive. There were barely enough here to feed Chrysalis's minuscule army. Several were swiftly dying, and no new ones had been brought in in months. It was a problem that would eventually have to be addressed--but not today.
The dark-eyed drone led her to the back of the Cocooned cavern, which was nearly five-sixths empty. Gaze blank, it pawed at an iridescent door made from the same material as the cocoons. Chrysalis peered at the door in the dim light given off by the organic prisons behind her. Pushing it open, she was greeted by a shadowy, cavernous room piled high with junk.
Saddlebags, cameras, butterfly nets, armor from every faction of the royal guards. So this was where the hunters put the things they stripped from their victims. Chrysalis wrinkled her nose at the overwhelmingly stale scent of prey--what would one of her drones be doing here?
The dark-eyed Changeling trotted into the room, reaching a hoof behind one of the stony pillars and dragging something out of a crack in the base. It pawed at it, expression almost comically blank, and Chrysalis saw that it had found a book.
"Hmm." Normally, she wouldn't waste her time with something so trivial, but something about this whole event intrigued her. Her crooked horn pulsed green as she dragged the book, a thin tome bound in orange leather, away from the drone. Eyes narrowed, she flipped it open.
The queen of the Changelings mentally cursed. The equine language had changed since the last time she'd read one of their books.
This diary belongs to: Bumblesweet, the first page proclaimed.
Well. That was easy enough. Chrysalis turned the page.
Dear Diary,
Today I went into town to talk to Daisy and Roseluck about a partnership. Because I have bees and they have
flowers, right? Well, I met Pinkie Pie on the way in and...
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. She flipped to the next entry.
Dear Diary,
Today, Applejack's older brother, Big McIntosh, came by. But he was acting a little strange...
A Changeling hunter in the guise of a handsome stallion. Callable.
Dear Diary,
Big Mac is starting to scare me. Just recently, I saw him...
Chrysalis snapped the diary closed and glowered at the dark-eyed drone.
"A colossal waste of my time," she snapped. "Why would I be interested in this?"
The drone just reached out and clumsily tapped the cover of the book. Reluctantly, she opened it again. Flipping through Bumblesweet's entries just revealed an admirably detailed account of a hunter stalking its prey. Nothing that wasn't highly familiar to her.
Wait a minute. This entry looked to have been written by a different hoof.
Today was the day that the owner of this book outlived her usefulness. Please, forgive me, for I don't know the date. But the Queen plans an invasion of Canterlot today. Though there was not much left of Bumblesweet by the end, she wished to warn her people when I told her. I would honor that request if I weren't tied to the hive by need.
Perhaps somepony, somewhere, remembers her, and perhaps they will find this diary someday. Perhaps I am not Bumblesweet's only monument.
--Anomaly
Chrysalis bared her fangs. Was this some sort of joke? Had Elytra written this? It seemed like something it would do, and neither Carapace nor Gossamer had the mental capacity to think of this. But none of them had left her sight while she was planning the invasion...and Elytra had died soon after.
She turned to another entry.
I've come back to the diary, for some reason.
So many blank pages. Should I fill them?
My story is not an interesting one, considering that the only remotely exciting thing I've ever done is what I'm doing now. But I believe it is unique, because I am the only one of my kind (besides the Queen) to have been born with a mind. I can think outside of the collective. I am my own creature.
You wouldn't believe how terrible it is.
--Anomaly
Another sentient drone. Chrysalis raised her eyes from the diary, stunned. One that I didn't create.
How could this be? She rose to her hooves and paced. This Anomaly--such a fitting name--had existed right under her muzzle. Or did exist right under her muzzle.
The queen shook off the horror that that thought brought. No, that was impossible. Elytra was laughing at her from wherever their kind went when they died, because there was no way she wouldn't have noticed another sentient drone.
Chrysalis sat back down and opened the diary again. Maybe the joke would be revealed in a later entry. Not that she needed to put her mind at ease, but still, it'd do to see this thing through to the end.
I haven't written for weeks. The preparation for the attack on Canterlot--and our subsequent failure--has been harsh. Our manes and tails were cut in preparation for battle. Our fangs were sharpened. And, still, we lost. I'm not entirely sure what happened. Only that I fought six incredibly powerful mares and watched them massacre my brethren. I humored a request from a pink one and took her form.
We were literally thrown out of the city, and it killed and maimed almost all of us. We left the ones that couldn't walk or fly. As I write this, my bands are torn and so are my wings, and all four of my hooves are split, but I'm still mobile. Still useful. And still alive, healing myself as beast I can.
--Anomaly
A sudden image flashed into Chrysalis's mind. A Changeling drone crouched on the sands of the desert, wings little more than rags and forehooves pressed to its belly to keep its organs from spilling out. Its eyes had been nearly silver--that was the only reason she remembered it. Those strange eyes.
Anomaly....
Next entry.
There are others like me.
Besides the Queen, I mean.
I learned this today, and only because one has died. There were three originally, kept from the rest of the Swarm for some reason. But now I know that they exist. I must speak with the remaining two--maybe they know why were are the way that we are. But I'll have to be careful.
I don't think that the Queen would take kindly to learning that I have been keeping something as monumental as my intelligence from her.
--Anomaly
There was no way Anomaly had been able to talk to Carapace and Gossamer. Surely she would have noticed that, at least. Frantic to read about this sentient drone's failure, Chrysalis flipped to the next page. But it was blank.
Cursing, she rifled through the rest of the pages in the diary. Blank, blank, blank--didn't this Anomaly have any sort of work ethic whatsoever? Had it simply started this diary and then never finished? Or perhaps it had died before it could record the next entry....
That thought brought her far more pleasure than it should have.
Wait. There was one page, almost the last one, that had writing on it. It was more jagged and hurried than Anomaly's other entries, but it was still recognizable as its hoofwriting. Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and read.
I know now! I know what I am! What the others are, what we're meant to be--oh dear Queen, I never would have guessed this. It seems so impossible. If Chrysalis knew, she'd
No use talking about Chrysalis. Chrysalis doesn't matter (here the queen snarled), no, only we matter. Me. Gossamer. Carapace. And Elytra, he matters the most.
He is alive and I think he knows this terrible secret. Our purpose and our origin, and I think that's why he faked his death and ran from the Queen. I must find him and speak to him, and we'll plan our next move.
I will leave soon, very soon, within minutes. The Queen is speaking to Carapace, poor, absent Carapace, and she thinks the hive is brain-dead. I will leave.
My hoof is shaking. Unbelievable.
--Anomaly
He is alive. Chrysalis read that one passage over and over, and finally, grinned humorlessly.
Anomaly and Elytra were still her drones. She'd retrieve them, and then strip them of whatever part of their little insect brains allowed them to defy her. Even if it killed them.
A/N: I'm so sorry about the gap between the first ten chapters and this one! I've been terribly busy, please accept my apology.
Thank you so much for all the favorites, all the thumbs-up, all the feedback. As always, tell me what you think. Don't hesitate to comment, because it makes my day. It really does.
Shining Armor resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation. The three ponies in front of him--Captain Claymore, Frost Damage, head of the wall guard, and Endgame, head of the night shift--were staring at him with tentative hostility. They didn't want him here. They thought that he had no idea what he was doing. Didn't they remember that he had been trained as a soldier?
"It will make me feel better," he explained. It was true, even though he knew it sounded weak. Twilight and Cadance, the two most important ponies in his life, were in this city. He couldn't stand just going to sleep--he had to protect them.
"If you say so, lad--er, Prince," Frost Damage grunted, turning away. She was a grizzled, one-eyed pegasus mare, and Shining had the oddest feeling that, out of the three, she liked him the most. Which was still just shy of outright contempt, but still.
"We'll honor your request, Prince." Claymore stepped forward. "You'll be with me first."
Shining followed the captain down out of the observation tower, which had become the meeting place of the higher-ranking guards in light of the renewed Changeling threat. The other unicorn was completely silent, except for his hoofsteps, which were much louder than those of his prince.
Claymore didn't speak until they had reached the Hall of Equestria. "It isn't ordinary for us to go out ourselves, instead of just supervising the ponies under us."
"But you feel better patrolling," Shining finished. It was a feeling he was familiar with, and not just recently. He had gone on patrol himself for months after the whole Nightmare Moon thing.
"I suppose that's one way to put it," Claymore agreed.
Shining examined the Hall. The history Halls of the palace were more for show than actual use, so he didn't come here very often. It was wide enough for eight stallions in full armor to walk comfortably side-by-side. Unlike in Celestia's castle, there were no stained-glass windows--the walls were transparent enough here that windows were a redundancy. Instead, ornate tapestries hung every few feet.
Here was a young, pink-haired Celestia raising the sun. Here was a filly Luna flying among the stars. Here was the first defeat of Discord, the emergence and banishment of Nightmare Moon, the six mares that were the Elements of Harmony battling her in the ruins of the old castle. Shining smiled at the depiction of Twilight.
Claymore stopped suddenly. Shining almost bumped into him.
"Something's wrong," the captain said. He was looking out towards the city, dark beneath the cloud cover that hid the moon. Shining followed his gaze, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"What?"
"I don't know." Claymore started walking again, though he kept looking through the wall.
"Changelings?"
"No."
The way he said that sent a chill up Shining's spine. Everything that used to scare him as a colt came rushing back--windigoes, zombie ponies, Nightmare Moon--and he did his best to shove it away. To remain strong.
"How do you--"
Suddenly, a red flash came from between two distant buildings, followed by a shower of sparks in the same color.
"Endgame," Shining said, shocked more by how calm his voice was than the fact that the other stallion was in trouble. And then he took off.
They ran. Claymore was in the lead most of the time, horn ignited and boots impossibly loud against the floor. Numerous denizens of the palace flung their doors open as he passed, eyes tired and terrified at the same time.
An old, dignified unicorn in a frilly nightgown grabbed the end of Shining's tail with her magic. "Young stallion, what in the world is going on?"
"Everything's under control," he replied automatically. Which turned out to be the perfect thing to say if he had wanted to incite a panic.
Once outside and away from the impending stampede, Claymore glanced up to where a pegasus crouched on a ledge on either side of the door. The younger of the two was surveying the city with all the zeal of a rookie, and the older was fast asleep.
"Hawkeye! Cannonbolt!" Claymore yelled. The sleeping pegasus started awake, and almost fell off his ledge. "We have an enemy engagement in the market district. Wake up barracks eight and ten and report to the scene as soon as you can!"
"Yes, sir, Captain Claymore, sir!" the rookie yelled, saluting smartly. "You can count on us, sir, we..."
Her voice faded as they moved deeper into the almost-deserted city.
"Nice kid," Shining panted. Claymore didn't say anything.
Two very different sets of wingbeats echoed overhead, one feathered and one leathery. Shining glanced up to see Frost Damage swooping towards them, followed by a young kirin mare. The face of the former was thunderous.
"The griffon king decided to pay us a visit in the middle of the night without any warnin' whatserever," she spat in her thick island accent. "Booking fool is gettin' his plot kicked halfway to the moon right now, Endgame and his lads're tryin' to help."
"Did you see what attacked him?" Claymore asked.
"Oh, aye, Cap'n. It's nae like Celestia made me fer seein' in the daylight or anything. Nae even Pulse here can make it oot." She jerked her towards the kirin behind her. "Hope you like surprises, Cap."
Once again, Claymore was silent, which seemed to be his fallback reaction. Frost shifted her attention to Shining.
"Och, Prince, action on yer first night," she grinned, more savagely than kindly. "Lot of rookies'd kill fer that."
"Well, to be honest, Frost, I'd rather have been bored all night," he panted. His exhaustion worried him. Was he really that out of shape?
Shining lit up his horn when they reached the "market district", as Claymore had called it. He was practically dead on his hooves by then, cannons and flanks burning, but physical exhaustion rarely affected magic.
"Medic!" somepony roared from about ten feet away.
Claymore walked forward to examine whoever was wounded, an amber light glittering from the tip of his horn and lighting up his armor, while Shining stayed at the head of the narrow alley they were in to stand guard. It was amazing how easily he fell back into the old patterns. He remembered a very similar situation, years ago in Canterlot, when his unit had been after a highly dangerous unicorn maniac...
"Medic?" Frost repeated, touching down behind him. He shook himself out of his memories as she elbowed Pulse. "That's you, lass. Go on, then."
Pulse swallowed hard and trotted past Shining. He could see her cutie mark through her armor--a caduceus with a pair of serpent-like dragons twining around it.
"What did this?" he heard her murmur from the shadows.
"How the buck should I know?" the injured guard replied, voice thin with pain. "It was darker than Tartarus, I didn't get a good look at it."
"Damage! Prince!" Claymore called from further back in the alley. "Come take a look at this."
Armor and horn glowing magenta, Shining led the way into the darkness, towards the guttering amber silhouette that marked the position of the captain. The empty wooden stalls on either side of the alley unnerved him for some reason. Frost kicked an errant board into one, making it shake, and he almost jumped out of his armor.
Claymore and Endgame were standing over a prone griffon. Endgame had pulled his visor down, hiding his face.
Frost nudged the griffon, a regal-looking male, with one booted hoof. "Oot cold," she observed.
"Shouldn't we take him to the infirmary or something?" Shining asked.
"In due time, Prince, in due time," Endgame wheezed. It sounded like he had been kicked in the stomach. "But first--"
It was around that time that something horrible landed on top of Frost Damage.
"Bloody hay!" she shouted, rearing up and flapping her wings.
Shining shared the sentiment, but he didn't take the time to express it. He turned and kicked, hooves making contact with something solid but light. The thing flew off of Frost's back, smacking against the transparent wall of the alley.
He spun around, intending to charge the thing and immobilize it. But the impact hadn't stunned it at all--it skittered behind one of the stalls.
"Thanks, laddie," Frost said shakily. Shining was about to respond, but he noticed a dark trickle running down her breastplate.
"Frost, you're bleeding."
She pressed a wing awkwardly to the neck joint of her armor, where her helmet met her joined pauldrons. The pale feathers came away red.
She stared at the blood for a moment. "Booking thing bit me." Then she collapsed.
"Medic!" Claymore roared. The only response he got was for the thing behind the stall to scuttle out--and gallop full-tilt into the darkness beyond the double-circle of unicorn light. "Get it! Somepony, get it!"
Shining responded the second the creature reappeared. He bolted after it, leaping over Frost and the griffon. He fired a rapid bolt of magic that ricocheted off the walls after the target dodged. The strobing light was just enough for him to see it try to duck behind another stall.
"Oh, no you don't!" He grabbed its hindhooves with his magic, dragging it back out. Then he jumped, pinning it to the ground and counteracting its every effort to squirm away. "You--"
He faltered.
Oh my goddesses, it has the eyes of a pony.
The thing blinked up at him, horrifyingly equine. He frantically tried to shift it back into his perception of a monster, and failed.
This isn't a Changeling.
It was something new.
And for some reason, Shining Armor lifted his hooves and let it run off.
Hoofsteps echoed loudly behind him. Endgame and Claymore appeared.
"It got away," Shining said faintly.
"I'll put out an alert come morning," Claymore said grimly.
"I'll wake the princess," Endgame gasped, just as out of breath as before.
"No." Shining vehemently shook his head. "Let her sleep."
"Are you sure, Prince?"
"Yes."
Endgame flipped up his visor and nodded his assent. His eyes looked silver in the light of Claymore's horn.
A/N: As you may recall, I warned you about the possibility of gore.
And as you may be able to tell, I have no idea how to write a Scottish accent. And the internet isn't helping.
"Can anypony hear me?" Cadance cries, pounding her hooves against the crystal walls. Despite her alicorn strength, she can't make so much as a scratch. "Please! Somepony, help! Help me!"
There is no answer. She didn't expect there to be. She crumples at the base of the wall, sobbing, and buries her face in her forehooves. If only her talent were actually useful, like Twilight's, but the ability to magnify love won't help her here. She can't teleport. She can't blast her way out of this tiny cavern. She can't even defend herself against those...things...
"Help me," Cadance whispers. But nothing equine hears her.
"Oh, help me, help me," somepony mimics in an insulting falsetto. "Heeeelp! I'm an all-powerful alicorn and I can't even--"
"STOP!" Cadance yells, scrambling to her hooves. She can't keep herself from crying as her doppelgänger emerges from the shadows, eyes glowing green and muzzle arranged in a cruel smirk that she'd never wear.
"How are we doing?" the Cadance-thing mocks. "Missing your lovercolt?"
"You can't have him, Chrysalis," she shouts, charging her monstrous double with her horn lowered. But she meets only crystal, because the fake princess was just an illusion.
"And I suppose you're going to stop me, are you? Please, little princess, you're useless."
"N-no, I--I--" Cadance backs up, shaking her head. Suddenly, something cuts through her panic like a lightning bolt, and she looks up, where the voice of the evil queen seems to be coming from. "No! This isn't real! I beatyou! Shining beat you! We won!"
"Oh, yes, I'd completely forgotten about that," Chrysalis snickers. "But don't worry, dear Cadance, it will all be remedied soon..."
Hooves tap behind her, and she whirls just in time to see a slender unicorn mare emerge from the shadows. White coat, teal mane and tail...massive fangs and Changeling eyes...
Cadance shrieks and backs up against the wall, barely registering Chrysalis's cackle as the unicorn draws closer.
"Oh, hold still, Cadance, she's gentle. This won't hurt a bit..."
----O----
Cadance sat straight up with a tiny gasp, clutching the heavy pink silks of her bed close to her chest. Almost immediately, tears filled her eyes. They weren't the first of the night, judging by the stains on her pillows, and she tried to force them back.
It wasn't the worst nightmare she'd ever had. No, that title fell to the one where Shining or Aunt Celestia or Twilight emerged from one of those horrible cocoons with green eyes and holes in their legs. But it had been so realistic, so horrifying...
"Cadance?" somepony muttered sleepily. A magenta glow filled the room, coming from a nest of pillows and blankets in the massive crystal chair that Shining loved. Twilight Sparkle's head emerged, eyes puffy from too little sleep and mane molded into funny little spikes.
Relief washed through her. "Er...good morning, Twilight."
"Is it morning?" Twilight turned her light on the ornate clock in the opposite corner. "Oh. I guess it is. Barely."
"I'm sorry..."
"It's okay." Twilight stifled a yawn and offered her a tired smile. "Is this why you wanted me in here?"
"Yes." With a Changeling loose in the palace, Cadance could think of nopony she wanted near her more than Twilight. (Except maybe Shining, but one of the maids had told her he was off playing soldier.) She had told Ruffles this, and had her bring in bedding. Maybe the hoofmaiden had seemed a little disgruntled as she made Twilight's bed, but that could be dealt with later.
Twilight yawned again, not bothering to hide this one, and disentangled herself from the bedding. She hopped up on the bed next to Cadance, curling up in Shining's spot. It was almost comical to see her there, considering how much smaller than him she was.
"I'm right here, Cadance," she murmured with a reassuring smile. "You should try and go back to sleep."
Cadance smiled back, knowing she wouldn't be able to but appreciating Twilight's kindness nonetheless. She used her magic to pull the knitted throw at the foot of the bed--a wedding present--up over the smaller mare. Laying back down, she stared into the darkness and listened to Twilight's quiet breathing.
Aunt Celestia had once told her that it was possible for alicorns to have premonitions. She herself had had one regarding the first appearance of Nightmare Moon, before Cadance's birth.
Supposedly, they came in the form of very realistic dreams.
----O----
"Monster!"
For the second time that morning, Cadance sat bolt upright. She threw the heavy covers back with a combination of magic and brute force, burying Twilight. Ignoring the startled whinny behind her, she bolted through several useless rooms before finally reaching the door. She threw it open.
Several maids ran past screaming. "There's a monster in the guest wing!"
Cadance gritted her teeth even as Twilight appeared next to her with a small flash, a sheet tangled around her like a pink toga.
"What's going on?"
"That Changeling," Cadance spit, raking a brush through her mane with her magic. Quite a few strands of rose, gold, and lavender stayed in the bristles, and her curls had deflated overnight, but she didn't care.
Boots, collar, crown. She had already faced this thing naked once and she wasn't about to do it again.
"Do you want me to--" Twilight began.
"Yes," Cadance replied, thrusting a different brush at her and yanking off the sheet.
Once Twilight's mane and tail were semi-presentable (it only took about thirty seconds--one of the advantages of having such a simple cut), Cadance led the way through the halls of her palace. They passed countless hysterical maids and skeptical guards--news traveled very fast amongst her staff. Twilight tried to talk to some of them, which got her absolutely nowhere. Most babbled incoherently about some massive insectine dragon of something even stupider. Cadance didn't really pay attention.
The guest wing was completely deserted, except for the tiny suite at the very end. Cadance made a beeline for it, Twilight struggling to keep up with her shorter legs. The delicate-looking unicorn crouched in the doorway bowed at their approach.
"Princess Cadenza--"
"Enough," she said sharply, spreading her wings slightly and then bringing them back to her sides to create a harsh snapping noise. "I don't want to hear it. What happened?"
"Well, Princess, it's very difficult to maintain a form while sleeping--"
"Fascinating," Twilight said under her breath. Cadance ignored her.
"My staff works best when they're not having heart attacks," she said. "Keep your door locked."
"Of course, Princess."
"And stay in your room."
"I wasn't planning on leaving, Princess."
Cadance spun around, intent on going back to her chambers and scrubbing away this conversation (which, in her opinion, it was far too early for), but the Changeling had other ideas.
"Princess?"
"What?!" she hissed without turning.
"When do you want to discuss--"
"Later. I'll send for you." She stalked away. "I have more important things to deal with first."
Twilight kept pace as Cadance stomped back to her rooms. "Don't you think you may have been a little harsh?"
Cadance stopped. She and Twilight had both been raised in Canterlot, in Celestia's palace, but at very different times and in very different ways. Maybe Aunt Celestia had brought up her protege to put on a good face and approach everything politely, but Cadance's foalhood had been a little different. She had been taught to protect and nurture her people at every opportunity, meet every threat head-on. The Changeling was a threat, and she was going to treat it as such.
She just looked at the smaller mare and shook her head. She didn't feel like explaining all of that right now.
After sending Twilight off to get something to eat, Cadance called in Ruffles. An hour of letting her hoofmaiden pamper her couldn't hurt. And besides, some time alone with her might be a good way to make up for Twilight staying the night.
Halfway through washing her mane, however, a pegasus guard burst into the bathroom.
"Oh my goddesses!" Ruffles pulled her hooves out of the frothy mess that was currently the princess's mane. "What in the name of Celestia's--"
"Princess!" the guard blurted, ignoring the earth pony. "I--oh, uh..." He seemed to suddenly realize that he had just walked in on his ruler taking a bath. "Sorry. I'm really sorry, Princess. I'll, uh, I'll just come back later..."
"No, it's alright." Cadance folded her forelegs across her chest, which didn't actually cover anything important but seemed to make the guard infinitely more comfortable. "What is it?"
"Well," the pegasus said, straightening up and switching over into what must have been his "royal guard" voice, "we appear to be at war, Princess."
"I was attacked in your city!" the griffon king shrieked. "There will be retribution, mark my words, Cadenza! War! Do you hear me? I declare war on your pathetic enclave!"
Twilight shared a look with Cadance. They were in the palace's small, cozy infirmary, standing at the foot of the bed that held a hysterical royal. He had been brought in last night, and had proceeded to declare war on everything that moved once he woke up.
"Sir--" Twilight began.
"Do not 'sir' me, young ponyess!" the king squawked. "I am His Royal Majesty, Lord Galen Gideon Grayfeathers! And you shall address me as such!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well, Your Royal Majesty Lord Galen Gideon Grayfeathers, I--"
"'I'?!" Galen laughed hysterically. "Oh, you ponies are so self-centered! What about me? I was attacked!"
"Och, would ya just shoot up, ya great bampot!" yelled somepony in the next bed over, hidden from them by a curtain. "We've had naw rest from ya a' night! Yer nae the only one in here, ya ken!"
Galen puffed out his chest and narrowed his eyes, opening his beak to scream a response.
"What attacked you?" Cadance interjected quickly, before he could speak.
"Oh, one of your roguish guards, I'm sure," Galen sniffed, shooting a filthy look at whoever was on the other side of the curtain. "I, Lord Galen Gideon Grayfeathers, king of the griffons, do hereby declare war on Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and her brutish guards!"
"Celestia's booking barrel, I said shoot up! Naw one cares! Do us a' a favor an' git it through yer thick skull awready!"
That set off an increasingly-foul shouting match. Cadance sighed deeply. Twilight couldn't help but feel bad for her. The bags under her eyes spoke of how little sleep she had gotten last night, her wings twitched almost imperceptibly as a testament to how much stress she was under, and her hair, still wet from her morning bath, was done up in a towel. It seemed she no longer cared what effect her appearance had on those around her.
"Lord Grayfeathers," Twilight tried again, raising her voice to be heard over the insults, "are you really sure that you want to declare war?"
"It is the only response for something this horrible!" he exclaimed.
"But you're right in the middle of the country you're trying to declare war on. Couldn't we just take you hostage and use you against your troops?"
The king brooded silently for a long time, during which Cadance and Twilight exchanged another glance and the pony on the other side of the curtain muttered her thanks for the quiet under her breath. Finally, the feathered monarch spoke.
"For one of your kind, you're quite wise, young ponyess," he sniffed, folding his forelegs across his chest. "I shall wait to declare war until I return to my own country."
"Good choice." Twilight offered Galen an indulgent smile, then left with an exasperated Cadance in tow and the accented pony shouting, "Wait! Wait! Just hoo long is 'e gonna be in here with me?!"
Once in the hall, she turned to the princess and asked, "Is he--"
"Crazy? You have no idea," Cadance replied. "He doesn't even have any power. The griffons live in self-governed prides and do whatever they want, but His Royal Majesty Lord Galen Gideon Grayfeathers in there still thinks he's in charge. He's declared war on my country seven hundred and forty-two times since he 'came into power'--" she used her flight feathers to put air quotes around the statement "--and as far as he knows, he's won every single time."
"...wow." Twilight thought about dealing with somepony like that on as regular a basis as Cadance did. "Do you think he was really attacked?"
"He may be pompous, delusional, and desperate for attention, but Grayfeathers wouldn't knock himself out," she responded. "Besides, Commander Frost Damage--the mare in the bed next to his--was attacked by it, too."
"So what do you think it was?"
"What I'm more concerned about is why nopony told me that he had been brought in." Cadance stopped suddenly, a funny look on her face.
"Cadance?" Twilight cautiously put a hoof on her shoulder, but jumped back when the princess grimaced and hissed.
"Ugh, that Changeling! It just keeps pacing--"
She was confused for a moment, then remembered that Cadance had placed a tracking spell on the so-called ambassador.
"Should I go talk to it?" Twilight offered.
"No--" Cadance shook her head, then grimaced again. "Yes! Just get it out of that room, I--I can't take it anymore..."
Twilight hurried off. She bit her lip as she went, brow creased in worry. It was horrible to see Cadance, her best friend before she even knew what friendship was, this way. If yelling at the Changeling would help her, she'd definitely do it.
Besides, it still had her saddlebags.
Knock-knock-knock.
Twilight lowered her hoof and waited a moment. There were soft shuffling sounds on the other side of the door, like hoofsteps on carpet, but nopony answered. She sighed in deep exasperation and raised her hoof again, meaning to knock for what would either be the fifth or sixth time (she hadn't really been paying attention). But the door opened before she could.
"What do you want?"
Blue eyes, a ragged mane and tail with random braids mixed in. The only change from this morning seemed to be that the white coat had darkened a shade.
Arguably, the mare was cute by pony standards. Maybe even beautiful, in a strange, awkward sort of way. But Twilight felt nothing but revulsion.
"My saddlebags," she said, matching the clipped, hostile tone of the Changeling. "You still have them."
"They're in the bathroom." Apparently losing interest in the conversation, the Changeling mare turned and trotted off into her tiny suite. Twilight gave her--it--a wide berth, passing through the bedroom. She saw the the heavy silken covers of the canopied bed had been pulled into something resembling a fabric tornado. Charming.
And there were her saddlebags, right inside the bathroom door. She discretely rifled through them, just to make sure nothing was missing, then levitated them onto her back. Before she could turn around, somepony asked, "Is that all you came for?"
Twilight jumped about a foot in the air and stifled a small scream. She whirled around and came muzzle to muzzle with the Changeling. She couldn't stop herself from backing away.
"N-no, actually," she said. Celestia, this thing's face was completely unreadable. "The princess sent me to tell you to stop pacing."
It raised an eyebrow. The movement looked calculated to Twilight.
"What does she say I should do instead?" it asked.
"I don't know. Stay still." She pushed past the white mare and made a beeline for the door. With an agile movement, it leapt in front of her.
Twilight backed up again, feeling real fear for the first time.
"I'm at least as intelligent as you are," it said, taking one step forward for every one she took back. "As much as you may hate to admit it. That means that I must either entertain myself, or go insane. The princess forbade me from leaving my room and didn't provide me with any diversions. So, I pace."
"Maybe you could take a walk in the gardens." Twilight maneuvered past it. It didn't block her this time, but it still followed right behind her.
"Are you giving me permission to leave my room?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure." Suddenly, she realized what an unattended Changeling wandering around the grounds would do to Cadance's psyche and spun around. "But I'm coming with you."
"Be my guest." There was some sort of challenge in the Changeling's blue eyes. Without even thinking, Twilight rose to it and led the way out of the room.
"Is the queen the only Changeling with a name?"
"No."
"So do you all have names?"
"No."
"Who has a name?"
"I do. So does my sibling."
"What are your names?"
"Carapace and Gossamer."
Twilight scribbled notes in the small book floating in a magenta cloud in front of her. They had been out here, stumbling around in the gardens, for almost an hour, and she had managed to fill exactly a page and a half. Getting any information out of the Changeling--presumably known as Carapace-- was like getting shod. But she was learning more than anypony had ever learned about Changelings before. And that was enough to keep her at it.
"Are you done?" Carapace stopped and sniffed suspiciously as a bunch of crystalline red flowers. They were some of the few plants in the gardens, which were filled mostly with beds of rough crystal (like the pale green, grasslike stuff behind Twilight) and transparent statues.
"No, of course not. Are you a mare or a stallion in your real form?"
"It's not the same for us as it is for you," the Changeling replied. It sat down and poked at the red flowers. "I am a mare right now."
Twilight wrote that down.
"You said something about a sibling. Do you have families?"
"No," Carapace said. For some reason, it seemed to be completely enamored by the flowers.
"Then everypony is the child of the queen?"
"No."
Twilight sighed deeply and lowered her notebook. "Sooo..."
"These are very brightly colored," Carapace said, sniffing at the flowers again.
She brightened considerably. "So you can see colors?"
"I..." Suddenly, the Changeling's expression shifted from bored to confused. It pointed at something just out of Twilight's field of vision. "What in the name of the Queen is that?"
Her first thought was that it was actually trying the oldest trick in the book to distract her. But then a crunching noise came from behind, like something was wading through the beds of delicate crystal. She turned.
Monster. That was the first word that came to mind, despite the creature's equine shape. The legs were whole, and it was darker than a Changeling, and logic told her that she was looking at a...pony? Or at least something like it.
But there was something very wrong.
Twilight backed slowly away, and the thing followed her.
The scent and the feeling coming from the creature stalking the purple mare was familiar to Carapace. It didn't look like one of her kind, it didn't move like one of her kind. But everything in her was urging her to believe that it was.
Instinct told her to extend her fangs and move forward, help her kinscreature with its hunt. But, for some reason, she fought it.
The Queen had told her to hold these ponies' trust for as long as possible. They outnumbered her. So the wisest course of action would be...
Carapace gave into an entirely different instinct and leapt between the pony and the thing that might be one of her kind. She snarled viciously, dropping her fangs and letting her wings emerge with feathers. She lowered her head and spread them in an instinctual threat display, all but hiding the bewildered mare behind her. The message was clear--or it would have been if directed at a Changeling.
Mine!
Her opponent didn't react, making Carapace falter. She had fought before--with Elytra, Gossamer, random drones operating purely on base instinct--and this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Fights always followed a specific set of rules, and this creature wasn't playing by them.
"Is that a--" the purple mare behind her began.
"I have no idea!" Carapace snarled back. "Stay where you are!"
She studied the thing in front of her, not sure if the nausea she was feeling was coming from the purple mare's fear or simply her own primal rage. There was no emotion coming from it. Just like a Changeling, or the red-coated unicorn stallion.
It took one step forward, and Carapace dropped the softness of her disguise from her legs and swiped at it with a perforated hoof.
The blow connected with its muzzle, and it staggered. Carapace lowered her head and headbutted the creature in the chest, forcing it back and away from the pony behind her.
Head up, fangs out, aim for the neck, bite.
Her teeth met hard chitin. It had the exoskeleton of a Changeling.
Before she could ponder this, there were strong forelegs around her torso, flipping her and slamming her to the ground. Carapace yelped, more out of shock than fear, then snarled again. Her wings beat futilely against the crystal path of the gardens.
The purple mare was screaming something that she couldn't make out. She struggled vainly under the Change-thing (as she had dubbed it in her own mind), trying to get its hooves off of her chest. It was nearly twice her size, and at least three times as heavy. And it wasn't budging. Panting, she stared up into its inexplicably equine eyes with a misplaced sense of wonder.
You're not like me. You're not like them.
What are you?
Then, to her complete and utter shock, it bent its head, studying her as closely as she was it.
"You protected her," it murmured, voice unmistakably male. "Why did you protect her?"
Carapace raised her head, intending on gouging its eyes out with her fangs, but the purple mare yelled, "Head down! Head down!"
She let her neck go limp. Her skull cracked against the ground, a humming sound came from behind her, and a bolt of magenta energy struck the monster in the side. Its weight vanished from her chest. And then the mare was standing over her with a frenzied expression on her face, hauling her to her hooves.
"Change back," she said. "You have to disguise yourself again! Hurry!"
Carapace retracted her fangs, recloaked her legs. Her wings vanished. The purple unicorn shoved her--hard--and they ran.
She cast a glance back over her withers. The Change-thing had been thrown almost ten feet, carving a swath in the delicate crystal beds. But not it was climbing back onto its hooves.
"Can you teleport?" the mare gasped. She glanced at her and shook her head. "Guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way, then."
They ran, leaping over crystal beds and ducking behind statues, trying to lose their pursuer. The monster followed them, but not in the conventional way. It ran in a straight line. As if it knew exactly where they were going to end up. The purple unicorn launched bolts of magenta magic at it frequently, but it had figured out how to dodge.
"What in the name of Celestia is that thing?" she panted as they cut behind yet another statue and collapsed in unison, gasping for air. "I've never seen anything like it!"
"And you assume that I have?" Carapace growled, struggling to her hooves. Drones of her kind were endurant, but the fight and the subsequent running had taken a lot out of her. Not to mention that a lot of her more important muscles were currently equine--and thus, inferior. "It's not like me. I don't know what it is."
"I wonder..." the mare murmured, then her eyes widened almost comically and she scrambled back into a standing position. "Aah! Run, Carapace, here it comes!"
Carapace did as she was told, though she noticed that her companion was moving considerably slower now. Which wouldn't have been a problem, they could make up for the lost speed by not stopping for awhile. But then she took a bad step, sending a razor-sharp shard of crystal up into the pad of her hoof.
She cried out, hobbled a few steps before the pain forced her to stop. Blood was gushing from the wound, she wasn't moving--and the mutant predator was right behind her.
What Carapace did next she did without thinking. Spinning around as she dropped the disguise from her legs below the knees, she snarled viciously. All feeling fled from her hooves as black chitin replaced the meat, cartilage, and spare bone of a pony's feet. The knife-like shards of the display that the pony had unwittingly stumbled into made no impression on her.
The monster was crouching, muscles bunching in its haunches like it was a pad-footed predator instead of an equinoid. There was no time to yell out a warning. Carapace pounced before the other thing had a chance to, landing heavily on top of what she had begun to think of as her pony and forcing her to the ground.
"Hey--"
The monster sailed over their heads.
Carapace waited for its hooves to crunch on the shards behind them, but the sound never came. She allowed her blue shell to return and rolled off of the mare she had just saved, then scrambled to her hooves. She barely even thought about how weird she would look if somepony came around the corner right then--a Changeling from the throat latch down, save for the tail and belly.
The monster was nowhere to be seen. As if it had just vanished.
A sudden flood of shocked gratitude, satisfying and hardy, prompted her to turn around. The unicorn was getting to her hooves, keeping off the injured one. Thin pink shards were embedded superficially in her chest and stomach, but she didn't appear to notice.
"That's the second time you've protected me," she said. Evidently, it was just sinking in, but Carapace was content to bask. The positive emotion was a good way to recharge after the training ordeal. "I...I'm sorry, Carapace. I guess I was totally wrong about you."
She just stared as the pony hung her head. She hadn't saved her out of friendship or common equine decency or even reflex--it had been an instinct to preserve a viable food source and keep it within the possession of her hive (or, in this case, just her). She technically owned the pony in front of her, and her kind tended to hold on to what was theirs.
She didn't have to tell her that, though.
So she just nodded.
"I hope you can forgive me." The unicorn raised her head and met Carapace's gaze. "We were never even properly introduced, were we? My name is Twilight Sparkle. Personal protege of Princess Celestia of Equestria."
Carapace knew who Celestia was. She was unable to hide a grimace, but she still took the hoof that Twilight offered. Pony names weren't her forte; she'd have to work pretty hard to remember this one if she wanted to keep up the charade that they were friends. Or whatever.
"Carapace of the Changelings," she said. "Swarm ambassador to the Crystal Empire."
Twilight smiled. Carapace hadn't seen a pony smile up close yet--it was strange, no teeth showing at all.
"Hey, when you're done here, you can come to Canterlot--maybe even Ponyville," she suggested. "I'm sure that my friends would love to meet you--oh, and Princess Celestia too, of course."
"Oh. Yes," Carapace replied, keeping her face neutral.
"Lady Sparkle! Ambassador!" somepony bellowed. They looked up to see two pegasi swooping towards them, little more than black dots against the dazzling sky.
Rings of green fire ran down Carapace's legs and back, wrapping her lacquered shell in a velvety pelt. Maybe these guards already knew what she was, but she wasn't taking the chance.
The pegasi stallions fluttered down into a perfect landing in front of them, glancing around at the ruined garden before settling on the bloody shards of crystal in Twi-something's chest. When she made to step forward, one of them held up a wing. His feathers were spiky, almost like scales, and he had dragon eyes. One of his parents must have been a kirin.
"Please, Lady Sparkle, allow us," he said. Their thick boots protected them as they waded into the crystal, heaved Twi-something onto the half-breed's back, and carried her out to the path.
While they were preoccupied with that, Carapace dragged both forehooves and one hindhoof over the crystal. It hurt like hay and it would translate to oozing clefts in her real hooves later, but she did not want to arouse suspicion.
The guards rescued her with the same care that they had Twi-something. Once both mares were crouched, exhausted but safe, on the path, the pony pegasus spoke.
"We'll take you to the infirmary," he said. "But the princess will want to talk to you as soon as your wounds are dressed."
A/N: Why was this so difficult for me to type up? I have no idea. But this will be the last chapter for awhile, as I warned. Enjoy.
A nervous little voice had sprung up in the back of Chrysalis's head, and its constant whining had planted a dull pain right below her horn. She narrowed her eyes and placed a hole-filled hoof against her head.
Silence!
"Queen, are you--" Gossamer glanced in her direction.
"I'm fine," Chrysalis snapped.
"I only asked because--"
"Silence!"
Gossamer's mouth snapped shut and it cowered under her glare, which had been rumored to set plants and small insects on fire. The Queen marveled at the command's ability to work both in and outside her head, then turned her full attention to the drone, her upper lip curling at what she saw. Its mane and tail had been cut back, exposing its crests, and the horn that she had injured several days ago had been bound in cobwebs. Chrysalis had no idea who had done that. But she was immediately irritated by it.
"Can you retain love yet?" she asked, tapping its horn with intentional force. Gossamer yelped and cringed back.
"I think so, Queen."
"Good." She stalked out of the chamber where she normally received her sentient drones, into the caverns that she slept and ate in. Chrysalis didn't feed from the same stock of Cocooned that her drones did--she had her own private stash. Foals, young couples, old mates...those whose love was purest, hanging in surprisingly beautiful cocoons that the Queen had spun herself. Her kind had no concept of art, but if they did, Chrysalis's complex geometric patterns would have gotten her recognized.
Gossamer padded after her, eyes wide and head bowed. Only the Queen fed from this clutch. Elytra had been allowed to in its last days, in the hopes that a break from communal love would heal it, but that was the one exception.
"Queen," it said carefully, "what are we doing?"
"Feeding," Chrysalis replied abruptly, stopping in front of one Cocooned. Her horn glowed green and she laid it against the intricately-woven surface, and the stallion inside opened his eyes. Gossamer felt the gentle pulse of canned love and automatically opened itself to it.
"But..." It trailed off, unwilling to question the Queen, who had closed her eyes and leaned back on her haunches.
"But what, Gossamer?" Her voice was like ice.
"Why?"
"Because. We are leaving the hive on a long journey, and I have no idea when we will next be able to eat."
The fragmented pulse that passed for Gossamer's heartbeat sped up exponentially.
"W-what?" The Queen's eyes snapped open, a furious green, and the drone cowered.
"Carapace." Chrysalis forced the word out through gritted fangs. "We're going to retrieve it."
Buck diplomacy. Buck it--stealthy takeover had never been her way. Whatever half-plotted plan had sent one of her two remaining sentient drones to the Crystal City (she couldn't really remember now), it would just have to wait. Carapace was coming home, where its Queen could keep an eye on it. And if she and Gossamer just happened to stumble upon Anomaly or Elytra while out...well, so much the better.
"Queen, may I ask why?" Gossamer squeaked out timidly. Chrysalis glanced at it.
"No."
She closed her eyes again, reaching a hoof to the bands of her stomach and rubbing them. She felt full, her organs going to work on the emotional energy and converting it into nutrients. But she didn't sent the Cocooned stallion back to sleep just yet. Her kind could retain love in their horns, much like camels held water in their humps, just in case of a shortage. It was an alternative to fat storage, which Changelings were incapable of.
Of course, Chrysalis didn't know anything about that. She just knew that the horn thing was pretty useful.
Finally, her horn pulsed green, and the stallion's eyes closed again. The flow of emotion trickled off. The Queen of the Changelings rose to her hooves and nudged Gossamer, none too gently.
"Come on," she said. "Night should have fallen on the surface. Nothing will be watching us."
"We're leaving now?" The terror was obvious in Gossamer's voice. "B-but--the hive. The Swarm, I mean. Without you, they'll--"
"The Swarm will be fine," Chrysalis interrupted. "There will be chaos for a day or two. Three at the most. Some will be lost, of course, but that's nothing new. Instinct will eventually kick in, and they will hibernate."
She didn't wait for a response to her explanation, leading Gossamer out of her chambers and into a set of tunnels that were rarely used. Hunters and guards entered and exited the hive through a different route, and besides, there were barely any of them left anymore. Drones never came here, and these tunnels were largely below the Queen's attention. As a result, they were in poor shape.
The sound of dripping water echoed alongside Chrysalis and Gossamer's hoofsteps, and while she easily stepped over the stagnant pools that cropped up every few feet, the shorter-legged drone had to splash through them. It grimaced at the strands of algae that clung to its legs.
Glowing fungi sprouted on the damp walls, home to numerous blind, crawling things. The colonies started to diminish with the first hint of fresh air. When the two Changelings caught their first glimpse of the night sky through the mouth of the tunnel, the mushrooms were completely gone.
Gray sand had drifted in. Chrysalis walked gingerly over it, not wanting to get any in her hooves. Gossamer trotted beside her, looking around with wide black eyes.
"It's so...big," it whispered, crouching in the mouth of the tunnel and staring across the wasteland that was home to its kind.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes.
"Carapace took it in stride," she snapped, pushing past it. "You are a Changeling. A warrior of an ancient race. Get over it."
Shaking, Gossamer rose and galloped after her. It walked practically right underneath her until she kicked it.
It was a clear night. No wind blew, for which Chrysalis was grateful. Gossamer stayed close, examining all the openings in the sand--tunnels that led into other hives. Dead hives. Chrysalis had once ruled over hundreds of them, and they had all thrived, making up the Swarm. But one by one they starved, until only the one that she and her drone had just left remained. And even that one was dwindling. Without food, the Hive-mothers laid very few eggs, and even fewer of those lived to adulthood.
They were dying. She felt a hint of the desperation that had driven her to attack Canterlot, coming up with the hard details of the plan as she crouched in her caverns. Instinctual horror and a drive to protect her subjects had made her clever that night. No, they weren't her children, as the ponies believed. But they were hers to look after nonetheless.
She would not let them die.
Chrysalis shook those dark thoughts from her head with a snort. They weren't in trouble anymore--they had enough Cocooned to sustain them for months. The Hive-mothers were laying again. She didn't have very many drones now, but soon she'd have many. Maybe even by the time she returned with Carapace, leaving Elytra and Anomaly dead behind her. She could plan again--maybe take the Crystal City this time. Make Cadance and Shining Armor pay.
The Changeling Queen allowed herself a small smile.
Yes, everything was going to be fine.
No. Perfect.
A/N: My writing's pretty shaky in this chapter, and I'm not proud of it. But I had fun writing it. This signals the return to the 'updates every three or four days' schedule, for anyone who cares.
"Ye say she saved ye?" the old mare asked incredulously.
Twilight nodded vigorously, wincing as yet another sliver of crystal was pulled from her chest.
"Don't you see? We were totally wrong about them!" she exclaimed. "What if it was just the Queen the whole time and the individual Changelings are like, well...ponies?!"
"Dinnae aboot that," the mare replied warily, reaching up to rub at the bandage around her neck. "Gut bit by somethin' that looked an awful lot like one of them buggers."
"Well, maybe, but--"
Whoosh. A heavy curtain suddenly whisked along its rod, cutting Carapace off from Twilight and the one-eyed pegasus mare, who were chatting on the other side of the room, apparently oblivious to her. Ears twitching in mild irritation, she turned her attention to the nurse who had drawn the curtain.
"What in the name of Celestia were they talking about?" the golden-maned mare muttered, bustling away from the curtain and fetching a roll of bandages from a nearby cabinet.
"I have no idea," Carapace replied, laying one ear against the curtain. Nope, it was no use. The material was just too thick.
She was in the palace infirmary, an almost-comically tiny maze of beds, tables with padded tops, and white-coated healers. The hooves that she had cut were soaking in bowls of warm, soapy water, and she was both surprised and pleased to see that she was still bleeding red.
"Wasn't talking to you," the nurse said curtly, igniting her horn and whisking the bowls of warm water away. Carapace's lips curled back, exposing the very tips of tiny fangs--partly out of distaste at the wave of prickly irritation that suddenly hit her, and partly out of pain as the air hit her wounds.
She gritted her teeth and kept her temper. "i'll try to hold my tongue from now on."
The nurse sighed, patting her hooves dry with a disposable-looking piece of cloth. "I'm sorry, filly, it's not your fault. We just have a very...difficult patient in here right now."
"Hm. I see." Carapace really couldn't care less, but the nurse must have had a hard time differentiating between apathy and interest."
"They brought Lord Grayfeathers in last night," she sighed, plucking a tub of antiseptic cream out of the air from where it had been drifting in a pale aura. "The griffon king. He's asleep now, but he's the most obnoxious, stubborn--oh, dear, I think this one is going to need stitches."
The nurse frowned at one of the cuts on Carapace's right forehoof and turned to rummage through another cabinet.
"Griffon king?" She was only half paying attention, her mouth running on autopilot.
"Yes. Prince Shining Armor, Captain Claymore, Commander Endgame, and Commander Frost Damage--she's in here, too--found him in the market district. Knocked out cold. Apparently, he was bitten by a monster--"
Carapace snapped to attention. "A monster?"
"Yes, a monster. Lord Grayfeathers never saw it but Commander Damage got a glimpse of it. It attacked her, too."
"What did it look like?"
"I wasn't really paying attention when she told me." The nurse frowned, threading a curved needle with her magic. "Let's see...she said it had pony eyes? And that it looked almost like a Changeling, but not quite."
Carapace stared at her. Then she turned to the curtain that cut the room in half and yelled, "Twilight!"
"Carapace? What?"
"Who is--" Carapace glanced back at the nurse, at a loss.
"Frost Damage," she supplied helpfully.
"--Frost Damage?"
"Who wants tae knoo?" the one-eyed mare that Twilight had been talking to called suspiciously. "If that's the Changelin', I don't want tae talk to ye!"
"We were attacked by the same creature," Carapace yelled. "You say it bit you?"
"'S none of your business, Changelin'," Frost snapped. Then, lower, and presumably to Twilight: "Did'n see fit tae mention that, did ye?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Did the bite knock you out?" Carapace called, determined to get answers.
"Stop jerking your hoof around," the nurse muttered, trying to find a starting point for the needle.
"I said, 's none of your business! Yer kind got ears 'r' not?"
"I'm just trying to--"
"Book off, Changelin'. 'S probably one of your kin."
"You--ahh..." She gritted her teeth and hissed as the nurse started to stitch up her wound with quick, decisive movements.
"Me what?" Frost demanded.
"I'll talk to her, Carapace," Twilight called with a nearly-inaudible sigh.
"Talk? It's obvious that--"
Carapace was cut off by the door to the rest of the infirmary, which was on the opposite side of the curtain, swinging open. Something metallic tapped against the floor, then stopped. There was a momentary silence. Frost broke it with a muttered "Princess."
The hate hit Carapace seconds before a blue glow yanked the curtain open, and she jerked her injured hoof out of the nurse's magical grasp and threw it across her stomach. Behind her invisible bands, her organs clenched and heaved, trying to get rid of the poison. She whimpered involuntarily, raising her eyes to meet a furious purple gaze.
"C-Cadenza," Carapace gagged, squeezing her eyes shut and turning away. It was all she could manage.
"Come with me." The thread that the nurse had been using to close the gash on her hoof snapped, and something shoved her off of the table. She landed on her hooves and almost collapsed as sickening agony coursed up her legs, but remained silent. She wasn't going to give Cadenza the satisfaction of hearing her scream.
The pain ebbed after a moment, anyway. Apparently even the princess realized that she had gone too far.
"Cadance!" Twilight cried, oblivious to her efforts to remedy what she had done.
"I know what I'm doing, Twilight." The princess's metal shoes clicked harshly against the floor. Carapace felt something amorphous grab onto the back of her neck and pull her forward.
She left watery blue-green hoofprints behind her, and once the door had swung shut, the nurse gasped softly.
The princess led Carapace out of the infirmary, all the way to her personal chambers. She kept a magical grip on the back of her neck the entire time. Carapace kept her eyes and her mind on her hooves, trying to distract herself from the acidic nausea going to work on what passed for her stomach. She had stopped bleeding shortly after leaving the infirmary, but whatever half-plotted spell Cadenza had cast on her was wearing off. Every step resulted in ragged, bitter pain.
Once in her parlor, the princess let go of Carapace and dragged a low table into the center of the room, accompanied by a single cushion that she took. Carapace remained standing and said nothing.
"I shouldn't have dragged you out while you were being treated," Cadenza said abruptly. "That was wrong of me. I'm sorry,"
Her tone was harsh, but the feelings coming off of her were worse. Carapace felt like she had swallowed a bundle of iron needles, and now they were poking through the walls of her digestive tract, poisoning her bloodstream. The princess wasn't sorry at all.
"It's what I've come to expect from your kind," she said through gritted teeth.
The lavender eyes across from her hardened even further, if that were even possible at this point.
"Just stop it," she snapped. "How dare you act like you're so much better than me? Your species eats love, the purest, most powerful magic we know of--"
"And mosquitoes drink blood. And you eat grass. It's how we are, and we can't help it!" Carapace snarled back, refusing to look away. Maybe this spoiled alicorn hated her enough to literally poison her, but she could hate back. After all, she was a Changeling in the Crystal City--she knew that particular emotion better than anypony.
"Mosquitoes don't lie, they don't destroy the lives of the ponies they feed off of." Cadenza's eyes were bright with unconditional hate. "They don't intentionally try to hurt their prey, they don't lock ponies up in caves and put spells on their fiancees and try to kill--"
"I wasn't involved in any of that!" Carapace was dimly aware that she was yelling. "I couldn't even morph then, I was left in the hive! I had absolutely nothing to do with the invasion!"
"Maybe not, but your Queen--"
"I am not Chrysalis!"
Fwoosh.
Green fire surrounded Carapace and vanished, taking the sharp agony in its hooves and replacing it with a dull ache. Its chest heaved as it stared down Cadenza, who had suddenly started looking frightened, and its wings trembled with their mingled fury. It barely had time to register its shock at having said the Queen's naked name aloud before it found itself speaking again.
"We're separate, as the purple mare should have told you. We are two different creatures. She's my Queen, and I serve her, because she raised me and because I am a Changeling. But I'm not her. I'm not responsible for what she does, or what she did." Seeing the princess opening her mouth to speak, Carapace cut her off. "Don't judge me because of my ruler. You beat her, but your superior, Celestia, was defeated by her. Do you want me to assume that you're weak? Inferior to my Queen?"
Cadenza said nothing. Carapace tasted her shock--a metallic tang in its mouth.
"I'm not Chrysalis," it said, voice much quieter. "I am Carapace. I am an ambassador. I am my own Changeling, and I have done nothing wrong."
It fell silent. The princess stared at it like she had no idea what it had just said. To be completely honest, Carapace shared the sentiment.
Finally, she spoke. "Maybe you really didn't do anything during the attack on Canterlot. I really don't care, because I didn't want to talk about that. Something incredibly strange is going on in my city, and two ponies and one griffon have already been hurt by it. And one of those ponies is my friend." Her eyes never wavered while she was speaking. "All of this started happening remarkably soon after you arrived. The coincidence isn't lost on me."
Carapace stared at her. It took several moments for it to realize what Cadenza had said--what she was accusing it of.
It searched for any last trace of anger. Any remaining wish to defend itself, to make her understand that it was trustworthy (sort of). But it couldn't find any. It felt empty, drained, apathetic.
It felt like a Changeling.
"Well, princess, if that's what you believe, I honestly have nothing else to say," it replied.
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Then get out. Go back to your rooms." She turned away. "Don't even think about trying anything. I'm watching."
Carapace turned and left without another word. All it wanted to do was sleep.
A/N: How do you think I did on Cadance's flip-out scene? Was it overdone?
...no threat...just in case...understand, Captain?
Cadenza. Distant and quiet.
Of course, Princess.
The red-coated unicorn guard.
...
Nothing more.
Carapace lay curled into a ball in the center of a nest made of pillows and sheets, limbs tucked underneath its thorax, wings laid flat against its shell. It had been expecting to be hauled out of bed and beheaded for a couple of hours now, after its conversation with the princess. Not necessarily by her forces, either--if the Queen had heard what it said about her...about their relationship...
A shudder of instinct-born horror made the skin under its shell crawl.
But that hadn't happened. As far as Carapace knew, it was still alive. It hadn't allowed itself to relax, though. It felt perfectly safe in this dark room with the windows closed and the walls of its nest rising over it. But somehow, the basic mood of the palace had...changed.
Carapace sighed deeply and sat up, rubbing one hoof across its face. Catching sight of the deep cleft that still bled lightly every few minutes, it scowled, reaching for one of the piled sheets around it with stuttering green magic. A single snap of its jaws created a suitable bandage.
It wondered just what in the name of the Queen it was doing as it tied the ragged silk through the holes in its hooves to close the crack. Was it really worth it? It had failed, that much was clear. No matter what it said, the princess would not trust it. She would not listen to what the Queen had told it to say. Carapace might have had a bit more luck with her mate, who had the practical mind of a soldier, but it hadn't seen him since it had been caged.
Maybe Twilight would talk to them on its behalf. After all, it had fought for her. But it really doubted that Cadenza would listen--she was dead-set on the suspicion that it was working with the monster.
Carapace lay back down, not bothering to bind its other wounds. It saw only three possible outcomes to the situation that it was in now. Cadenza might have her army chase it out of the city, back to its homeland. It'd have to face the Queen's wrath, but right now, that sounded almost enjoyable. Familiar. Something that it knew how to deal with.
Or she might decide to execute it. With a spell or an axe or a noose. The prospect scared it, but only on an instinctual level. It'd be over fast, and besides; if the princess came to that decision, there wasn't a lot it could do about it.
The third outcome was the only one that actually frightened it. What if everypony just...forgot about it? What if they simply locked it in this room and left it to starve?
Carapace shut its eyes tightly, burying its muzzle between its forehooves. It didn't want to think about that. It didn't really want to think at all.
A slight shifting of the feather mattress underneath Carapace was what woke it. Its eyes snapped open, perfectly adjusted to the dark, and its ears twitched. Otherwise, it didn't move.
There was another minuscule movement, and it tensed. All its senses strained. Was there somepony else in the room? It felt nothing now, and it couldn't hear the loud, obvious breathing of a pony. And while its kind had a very limited sense of smell, their ability to taste others' emotions more than made up for it. It didn't taste anything right now. If anything, there was a strange lack of--
Carapace barely had time to freeze in horrified realization before one wall of its nest was demolished.
It sprang to its hooves, hissing and scrambling backwards as the massive figure of a red-coated Amore guard charged. One crystal-clad hoof rocketed towards it, and out of pure instinct, it leapt. The thin membranes of its wings were rapidly replaced with bones, muscle, and feathers, and it flapped once, managing to propel itself across the room. It landed heavily, sending shooting pains up its legs.
But no matter. It started changing the second its hooves touched the ground. Fangs retracted, false eyes were projected, the holes in its legs filled in, and a pink coat spread on top of its softening shell.
It--she, now--didn't have the time or the energy to change her height, but in a matter of seconds, she had managed to morph into a miniature replica of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.
"Please!" she cried in the princess's voice. "Don't--"
The guard wasn't fazed. A heavy combat spell flashed amber from his horn and clipped her on the jaw, sending her reeling. Cadenza's delicate features vanished as Carapace reverted to an easier, more familiar form--white coat, teal mane, blue eyes. She kept the wings.
She dropped her fangs, scuttling away from the stallion as he advanced steadily. She hissed, spread her wings, even though she knew that the threat display was useless. He was almost twice her size.
He charged again, horn lowered. She dodged. Her own horn glowed green, and one of the heavy sheets whipped off of the bed and settled on top of him. He tumbled to the floor, but an amber light ripped the sheet in half almost immediately. A blast of the same light slammed Carapace into the wall.
"Why?" she snarled, struggling to her hooves once air had returned to her lungs. One wing dangled awkwardly, and the sickening pain of a broken bone made her feel dizzy. "It'd be so much easier to execute me publicly. I wouldn't fight and the citizens would love it."
"I have to make it look like an accident," the guard replied flatly.
Carapace dropped the disguise from her wings as he approached. When the bone vanished, the broken wing became merely twisted. The pain wouldn't distract her now.
She darted in and leapt, correctly guessing that there was a gap between the crystal helmet and neck piece. Her fangs met flesh, and she tasted blood as the guard bellowed.
Pity her kind weren't venomous.
An amber glow descended over her head, and she was roughly jerked away, taking a large chunk of flesh with her. The guard flung her away, and she landed on her hooves, spitting. His blood had a strange taste.
He didn't even give her a moment to rest. A blow from one of his forehooves struck her on the chest, and she staggered, gasping. He turned and bucked, and Carapace felt something snap--but there was no immediate pain. The blow left her crumpled in a corner, eyes closed, but she raised her head at the sound of approaching footsteps. She tasted blood again. Her own this time.
The guard's booted hoof nudged her just below her neck, and she hissed with pain, jerking away.
"Broken collarbone, punctured gland," he muttered. "Not serious."
"I'm so glad," Carapace wheezed. Survival instinct demanded that she get to her hooves, bite and slash and try to stay alive. Intellect told her to stay down. It wasn't worth it.
An amber glow wreathed her head.
"If I twist, the bones of your neck will break--plates in your true form," the guard murmured. His voice sounded...gentler now. "It will stimulate a certain nerve bundle, and you will go into immediate and deep hibernation."
Carapace closed her eyes and laughed--now there was a sound she hadn't known she could make.
"What are you trying to do, save me?" she snapped. "Without blood, there's no way Cadenza will think I'm dead."
"No," he agreed. "But Chrysalis will. She'll know that you've stopped breathing and she'll let you go."
"Why would that--" Irritated, Carapace opened her eyes and looked up into the stallion's.
Just in time to see them flash from brown to brilliant green.
Her breath hitched, and her disguise melted away. Carapace trembled, spitting out a mouthful of blood in order to speak in a hoarse voice. The light around its head brightened and turned green.
"I have no idea. I haven't seen him since the night before last. I assumed that Captain Claymore would take care of him after I went off-duty."
Endgame blinked in the harsh morning light, obviously exhausted. Cadance could see his armor recently piled in the small, Spartan chamber behind him. Out of it, he was much thinner than she would have expected, a dark green unicorn stallion with a slender build and heavy bags under his eyes.
"Well, do you know where Claymore is?" she pressed.
"Again, Princess. I have no idea." Endgame sat down and rubbed the base of his horn, closing his eyes. "Forgive me. It was a long night. Thirty different ponies called in sightings of our mysterious creature and it turns out that the wall guard are a bunch of featherbrains without Commander Damage."
"You mean they're leaderless?" Cadance asked in disbelief. A new thrill of fear arced up to join the rest of her anxiety. If the pegasi on top of the wall weren't organized, the city was practically defenseless.
And she couldn't handle that. Not now.
"No, they elected a new one with Damage gone, and that's actually most of the problem." Endgame peered up at her. "Do you need anything else, Princess?" His tone made it very clear that if she did, somepony had better be dying.
"Can you help me find Shining? Or Claymore?" she asked, mentally stomping on the tiny worm of guilt that wriggled into her voice. "It's important."
"Prime Factor's taken over on negotiations with the wall guard. He knows more than I do, Princess, and you should really ask him." He closed the door.
Cadance sighed deeply, turning and walking slowly out of the wing of the palace that the guards lived in. She had barely slept at all last night. The problem of the Changeling hadn't let her relax--she just didn't know what to do anymore. Maybe it was telling the truth, but she didn't trust it. So she should get rid of it, but what if it was telling the truth?
She had felt so alone in her chamber, curled up in the middle of the bed. Shining had never come in, no matter how hard she wished for him to, and neither had Twilight. Cadance had thought about going to look from them (or maybe calling in Ruffles to keep her company), but something stopped her.
Finally, just needing something to do, she had tracked down the captain of the guard and posted him outside of Carapace's door. Just in case. Though he must have been incapable of noticing anything going on inside the room--at about midnight, the Changeling had started literally bouncing off the walls. And, of course, Cadance was aware of every move it made because of that stupid tracking spell.
She was exhausted, just like she had been ever since the monster had showed up. Her horn ached, and her eyes felt swollen in her skull. Her wings were limp against her back and her mane hung greasily. She wanted to be able to sleep. She wanted Shining to hold her. She wanted somepony to tell her what to do. But that wasn't going to happen. Besides, didn't she already know what to do?
Cadance's people were in danger, and she knew that. She also knew the cause of it.
It was an easy decision. But that tiny kernel of doubt in the back of her mind kept her from summoning a member of the small group of active Lunar guards within the city--who, traditionally, acted as executioners in all the pony nations. It shouldn't. Not with the safety of her subjects at stake...but it did.
She needed to talk to Twilight.
"Excuse me." Cadance waved down a passing chambermaid, an earth pony pushing a cart of sheets and towels. "Can you tell me where Twilight Sparkle slept last night?"
The maid stopped, and gave her a strange look. "Who?"
"Twilight Sparkle...a purple unicorn with a magic cutie mark."
"Oh, her. I think Pillow Talk took care of her, Princess. She's on laundry duty today if you want to ask what she did with her."
The maid gave her cart a hefty push to get it rolling again and disappeared into the maze of crystal hallways. Cadance sighed and turned in the direction of the staircase that would lead her into the basement of the castle. It was a steamy labyrinth of rough crystal, just above the dungeons. It was home to the kitchens, the laundry, and the workshops that the guards got their armor and weapons from.
She hated it.
With another sigh, she lowered her head and made for the stairs.
"Step down? Are you kidding me? I'm doing a great job!"
"Downpour, the citizens are complaining..."
"Why? We're keeping them safe, aren't we?"
"You ordered your stallions to dive-bomb the Sapphire Society."
"They're a terrorist organization."
"They're a book group!"
Standing next to an earth pony stallion named Prime Factor, who was doing most of the talking, Shining Armor resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He and the other stallion were on the roof of one of the libraries, the second-tallest building in the city, with seven other Amore guards. Three of which were disgruntled members of the wall guard--including Pulse, the kirin medic that he had met the night he fought the monster.
Frost Damage (better known as Commander Damage, leader of the wall guard) had been absent from her post for two nights and a day. That had apparently been enough time for the majority of her pegasi to forget the oaths they had taken, elect Downpour their new leader, and run--er, fly amok in the city. Negotiations with Downpour had begun at about midnight, and because Claymore had been nowhere to be found and Frost Damage was still in the infirmary, Endgame was elected ambassador.
When he had gone off-duty, the unicorns and earth ponies trying to reign in the rebel pegasi had pushed for Shining to take his place, but Factor (apparently some sort of minor tactical genius) had stepped up instead. To be honest, Shining was grateful. The Solar guards didn't have factions like this, and he had no experience with this sort of thing. And he hadn't slept more than five hours since Frost Damage was taken to the infirmary.
"It's obvious that you have no idea what you're doing," Factor called up. Downpour was crouched on top of the wide wall, peering down with his wings spread. "Just step down, and the officers can appoint a real temporary leader while Commander Damage is under observation in the infirmary."
"I'm a perfect temporary leader!" Downpour protested.
"Four hundred and seventy-two civilian complaints--"
"But nopony's actually hurt, right?"
"...no."
Downpour leaned pack and folded his wings, apparently satisfied. "I'll be back in an hour. I need some breakfast."
As he flapped away, the two earth ponies, four unicorns, and three pegasi on the library rooftop erupted into conversation.
"This is hopeless," Factor muttered, sitting down. He was a big, handsome stallion, with hooves, coat, mane and eyes in shades of coffee brown. "Seventy-five percent of the wall guard are terrorizing the populace, seven percent are AWOL, five percent are working with the ground factions, and thirteen percent--interestingly enough, the percentage closest to the palace--are still doing their job. Only thirteen percent."
He shucked the boots off his forehooves, took off his helmet, and massaged his temples. The other earth pony, a mare named Knife Trick, patted him sympathetically on the back.
"I still don't understand why we can't just hit them with a mass sleeping spell and get rid of the problem," Pulse said, flipping open her first-aid kit and shaking some headache pills into her hoof. She offered them to Factor.
"There are two reasons," he replied, accepting the pills and knocking them back dry. "The first is that even though they've disturbed the peace four hundred and seventy-two--"
There was angry shouting and laughter in the distance, and a pair of pegasi shot upwards, high-winging midair. The guards and Shining winced.
"--four hundred and seventy-three times, they haven't actually hurt anypony or damaged any property. Which, by the laws of the country, means that we as Amore guards and him--" a nod to Shining "--as a prince of the Crystal Empire can't use magic or force against them. It's a felony of the highest degree."
"What's the other reason?"
Shining took this one. "If three-quarters of the wall guard are asleep or incapacitated because of a spell, the city is practically defenseless. They're our first line of defense, our early warning system, our emergency messengers, and our air force. And we're especially vulnerable to attack right now. I assume you've all heard about the...uh...pest problem?"
The others nodded. Pulse, who was currently checking how Factor's eyes reacted to light from the horn of one of the unicorns, looked up.
"Doesn't Downpour have a friend? Fighting Chance. Maybe he would listen to him."
"Fighting Chance is on leave," the unicorn helping her replied. "He took his marefriend to Las Pegasus.
"Downpour seemed like a really good stallion when I met him a couple days ago," Shining said, slipping off his helmet. "I can't believe this."
"He's a delinquent, but nobody saw it coming," Factor agreed. "Nothing adds up to this, and there's nothing we can do about him. I just hope nothing plans on attacking us anytime soon."
A/N: Have some side story and foreshadowing!
In all seriousness, though, this is probably my favorite chapter to date. I needed a break from the Carapace POV.
Claymore glanced to the doorway of Carapace's bedroom, where a young stallion in little more than practice armor stood. His blue eyes were bugging out of his head at the sight before him. Granted, he had a right to be a little shocked--it wasn't exactly normal for the captain of the Amore guards to be on a bed amid piles of rumpled sheets, crouched over an apparently dead Changeling.
Actually, Claymore realized, adjusting his position slightly, it could look downright horrifying.
"The beast has gone dormant," he said abruptly. "I have no idea what it thinks it's going to accomplish, but I'm guarding it. Just in case."
"Do you...want me to get the princess?" the stallion ventured, backing up slowly.
"The situation is under control," Claymore replied. The stallion nodded, then trotted rapidly out of the apartment. He sighed, and moved so that he was sitting beside Carapace's prone form. It would probably be wise to expect a visit from a suspicious Cadance soon.
He bent his head so that his muzzle was right next to one of the other Changeling's stiff, ragged ears.
"The connection's broken," he murmured. "You are free. She knows, in the back of her mind, that you are dead. And that won't change when you wake up at midnight."
There were deep cracks in the natural armor on Carapace's neck, and he knew that the connections beneath would be temporarily severed. But even now, they were rapidly healing. Using up whatever energy she would have stored.
"I'd help you, if I could," he murmured, eyes flicking over the small, haphazard braids in her mane. "But as much as I wish I could feed you, I feel nothing useful for you."
Claymore paused, then laughed softly. "Or maybe I do. I've been a pony too long."
He knew that. He hadn't returned to his true form in months, and instinctual alarms were going off. He didn't think of himself as Elytra anymore--he barely even thought of himself as a Changeling. He felt something akin to loyalty when it came to the prince and princess. And Carapace...he considered a she. A sister. Despite the fact that that, in this form, she was definitely neither mare nor stallion.
"Maybe you wonder why I pretended to be dead--why I ran away," he said. "But I doubt it. Curiosity isn't very strong in us; there have never been any great Changeling researchers.
"Still.
"I found out what we are, Carapace!" he whispered, some of the old excitement coming back now that he had somepony to talk to. "I found out what we're for, and what Chrysalis did wrong. I found out what we're supposed to do."
He laughed again. "But I should probably wait until you're awake to tell you that."
There was no answer, of course. Claymore wondered if she was dreaming--something that the sentient drones were theoretically capable of. He didn't remember much from his own dormancy, but then again, he had willed himself into it over a period of weeks. Nopony had broken his neck for him.
"I wanted to say something to you," he sighed, glancing at Carapace again. Who knew, maybe she could hear him. "But the time was never right. I couldn't give myself away."
He didn't mention the immediate shock and revulsion that had come over him at seeing one of his own kind again after so long. He hadn't felt anything as strong as that before or since--but the reaction had definitely startled him. Almost enough to make him shed his equine form for a few hours and sleep as a Changeling...but not quite.
"We can talk about what to do when you wake up," he said. "Perhaps we should just stay here. You could become anypony you wanted in this city. But Gossamer..."
Claymore hesitated at the thought of their brother. With two of the three presumed dead, Chrysalis would be watching him closely. Or maybe she would just leave him alone--figure that it wasn't worth protecting the last and weakest of her sentient drones. But they couldn't count on that.
"Captain?" The princess's tired voice broke into his thoughts. He sat up straight, casting a guilty glance towards the less-comfortable aspects of his armor, which were piled in the corner.
Claymore swallowed hard as Cadance entered the room with the young guard from before and Twilight Sparkle. Irritation, suspicion, paranoia, indignation, nervousness, uneasiness. Not painful, but it was a mixture sour enough to make him nearly gag. Anymore, it was rare that he really noticed the flavor of the emotions around him; these feelings were very strong.
"What happened?!" Twilight cried, running forward. "How...oh, my Celestia..."
"Is it...dead?" Cadance asked, her eyes flying immediately to Carapace. There was relief in her voice, but Claymore tasted a tiny seed of regret, as well.
"Dormant, Princess," he replied, ignoring Twilight's shock. "It slipped into hibernation sometime during last night. I am watching it, in case it wakes up."
"Hibernation. Of course," Cadance said, her gaze still fixed on the Changeling. "When will it--"
"I have no idea, Princess," Claymore answered. "It may wake up tonight, or sleep for months. There is no way to tell."
"Maybe we should move it..." she began to suggest.
"Cadance, I think she's fine where she is," Twilight cut in. Claymore tasted something bitter emanating from her.
You've made an ally, he thought, discreetly glancing at Carapace and raising an eyebrow. How did you manage that?
Cadance barely batted an eye at Twilight's tone, stifling a massive yawn with her wing. "I appreciate what you're doing, Captain. Please, tell me if there's any change." She turned to go, then hesitated, glancing back over her withers. "Um...do you know where Shining Armor is, by any chance?" A wave of borderline-panic washed out from her.
He frowned. He knew that the prince had remained among the Amore guards after he left him, but he had been traded through so many divisions that nopony was really keeping track of him anymore. "I don't. My apologies."
The princess's emotions darkened, and she left without another word, taking the other guard with her. Twilight, however, stayed behind.
"You'll make sure nopony hurts her while she's asleep like this, right?" she asked, nodding to Carapace.
"An interest in the beast's welfare?" Claymore asked out of habit. Twilight scowled.
"She saved me. I just want to make sure that she'll be alright."
"She saved you?" he asked, an uncharacteristic note of curiosity working its way into his voice.
"From the creature," Twilight clarified. "The hybrid thing. It attacked us in the gardens, and Carapace protected me."
"Why?" He honestly wanted to know. This was odd--both his behavior and Carapace's.
"Well...I...guess because it was the right thing to do?" she offered. Claymore tasted confusion. It shut his weak feelings down.
"I assure you, Ms, Sparkle, no prisoner of the Crystal Empire will come to any harm under my care," he said stiffly. Her confusion soured into dull anger.
"Wonderful. Thank you, Captain." Twilight turned and trotted swiftly towards the door. He called out to her.
"You don't want to oversee my watch?" His tone was wry. Apparently, whatever was left of Elytra was taking the day off.
"No." She left the room, nudging the door halfway closed with a flick of her tail. "I have to deal with Cadance," she added under her breath.
Claymore folded his legs under his torso as soon as she was gone, the mattress sinking under his weight. Green flames flickered momentarily at the edges of his hooves and horn, then died as he decided that this wasn't the best place to revert to his true form. Somepony--a maid, a guard, a hopelessly lost noble--could walk right in at any given moment.
He shook his head in something like self-disgust and looked at Carapace again.
"I keep coming up with excuses," he murmured. "I haven't been Elytra the Changeling in months. I feel like...I have a duty...
"I did not kill the real Captain Claymore. When I came here, as a generic young stallion, the Amore guards were hiring. It was a good place to hide. But I didn't count on my superior becoming attached to me. The captain said that I reminded him of his son." He paused to laugh. "Yes, Claymore has a mate and offspring...I've been able to pass here, where he never got overly acquainted with anypony but me, but I'm dreading meeting them. Even though he wanted me to--back before I was imponyating him, I mean. He...I guess he felt sorry for me, Carapace. I tasted pity coming from him often enough. I had told him that I had no family, save for a brother and sister left behind in my home country. Which, thankfully, he never asked the name of.
"'I'm going home on leave soon.' He mentioned that one night in the barracks. 'You would like my wife's cooking.' I knew him well enough by then to deduce that it was an invitation. I accepted, because I couldn't afford for him to become my enemy.
"We were attacked on the journey, though. Golems. Apparently common monsters here. Claymore fought, and I..." He hesitated. "I was a pegasus. I flew away, and they killed him. Sometimes I think I regret that."
Carapace didn't move a muscle, which was to be expected.
"I hid his body and took his form. Absolutely nopony questioned me when I turned around and came back, and told them that the young pegasus--me--had been killed by golems and I didn't feel like going home. And they've barely noticed me since."
Claymore (or maybe Elytra) sighed and lowered his muzzle onto his hooves.
"I have heard the Lunar guards have come into a shortage of kirin lately, Carapace," he said in a low voice. "Nopony notices a lack of emotion when it comes to them. And you could definitely do the wings..."
He fell silent, and waited.
A/N: Enjoy the (non)feels.
I needed a minor fluff scene between the two Changelings, but I wasn't sure how to write both of them, and how that would even come about. Keeping one of them clinically dead through the whole thing solved the problem.
On another note. Your thoughts about Elytra's backstory (which I know could have been better)? And is Twilight's concern for Carapace indicative of a Mary-Sue OC?
Those are my only specific questions, but please, comment on anything else you see fit.
Twilight hadn't had a chance to talk to Cadance alone today, despite her best efforts. The princess had been constantly occupied since she'd had that maid lead her to Twilight's temporary room, interrupting her in the middle of writing a letter to Princess Celestia.
The griffon king, who had been deemed well enough to leave the infirmary by the nurses, had refused to surrender his bed until Cadance had agreed to have an audience with him. They had barely gotten in the door before a pegasus noble from one of the smaller northern cities cornered them and demanded to speak to his princess. Apparently, his people had fallen victim to a plague of parasprites. The cold weather had slowed them down, but not much, and he had been in the capitol for over a week looking for somepony to help him.
That had taken two and a half hours of negotiating with some of the stronger unicorns among the royal guards and a local ponka band, before the noble was assured of help. And then, of course, they had had to deal with Lord Grayfeathers. Twilight hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise once it had degenerated into a three-way shouting match--Frost Damage was more than willing to contribute from the next bed over. At least the griffon king had left the infirmary. After several hours of two mares screaming at him.
After that, the young guard had sought them out and informed them that something was wrong with the Changeling. Cadance had been reluctant to check it out, but Twilight had gently pressured her into it.
Now, they were finally alone, back in Cadance's chamber. Twilight watched as she slipped off her shoes and crawled up onto her bed. She smiled tiredly in her direction.
"Do you think I have five minutes before somepony else comes for me?" She sighed and closed her eyes.
Twilight swallowed the guilt that she felt. She didn't want to do this, but she knew she had to. She carefully approached the bed.
"Cadance?"
"Mm-hm?"
She sounded exhausted. Defeated. Twilight bit her lip but pressed ahead.
"I think...well, I know how you feel, but...I think you should give Carapace another chance."
Cadance's eyes flew open, and she sat up, looking at the smaller mare with uncertainty.
"What?"
"She came here as an ambassador." She nervously shuffled her hooves, glancing down. "This is a chance for peace, and honestly, I think you should take it."
Cadance was silent. Twilight continued.
"I mean, you seem very suspicious of her, but she hasn't really done anything bad. She even saved me." She looked around the room uneasily. "I know what happened to you, and you have a right to be afraid. But you shouldn't take it out on her--and you shouldn't throw away a chance to neutralize one of Equestria's enemies. An alliance would put almost everypony at ease."
"So you think I should put all my fears aside and just talk to the Changeling?" Cadance asked. Her voice was slightly shaky.
Twilight reached up and put a hoof on her withers. "I think it'd help."
She squeezed her eyes shut. "You heard the captain. It won't wake up for months."
"But she might wake up tonight, and you need to be prepared to talk to her."
"I don't know." Cadance shook her head slowly and turned away. "Twilight, you fought them during the Canterlot invasion, and you saw Chrysalis. But I don't think that you realize what the Changelings actually are, or what they're capable of."
"Then explain." Twilight climbed up beside her sister-in-law, and made steady eye contact with her. "Help me understand."
"The ones controlled by the queen are bad enough. I think they pick up on her thoughts and feelings, and they reflect them. They'd hiss at me, bite me, and change into ponies who were important to me while I was in the caves," Cadance said. With every word , she seemed to age another year. "But one that can think for itself--that...scares me. These things are totally heartless, Twilight. What we think of as right and wrong mean nothing to them. At least Chrysalis feels, but her drones don't have any emotions at all. Not even the sentient ones, I think. Nothing motivates them. Nothing matters. My magic doesn't work on them." She stared dully at nothing. "Listen to me--there is nothing equine about them. We're dealing with absolute monsters here."
Twilight blinked. "But Carapace sav--"
"And I don't know why. But if I had to guess, I wouldn't say it was out of the goodness of her heart." Cadance shook her head in disgust. "If Changelings even have hearts."
For just a second, Twilight briefly entertained the idea of a dissection, then chased it away with a shudder. No matter how interesting their organs may be, she couldn't cut into a Changeling. Not now.
Cadance closed her eyes again and lowered her head. "I think I'm going to try to take a nap."
"That sounds like a good idea." Twilight pulled the throw at the end of the bed up over the princess, then hopped down from the bed and trotted towards the door. "I'll be back in a little while."
"Where are you going?"
"Just for a walk."
"Be careful."
"Um, no thank you." Twilight waved off a green-eyed kirin mare who was hawking a bouquet of crystalline roses. "Not interested."
The mare, not fazed at all by the rejection, returned to her stall and started chatting with the next passerby. He looked like a perfectly ordinary earth pony stallion--except for his antlers.
Part reindeer? Twilight wondered, turning away and heading for a small, quaint-looking bookstore. She stopped respectfully as a unicorn with the legs of a wolf passed in front of her.
The Crystal City wasn't the best place to puzzle out a problem. Twilight had barely been out of the palace for ten minutes, and she was already almost overwhelmed by the scents, sounds, sensations, and sights. A dragon had asked her for the time of day, and she had seen a griffon playing a guitar for bits. She had mistaken a pair of miniature ponies with dragonfly wings for parasprites when they whizzed over her head, and barely avoided zapping them.
The melting-pot city, with its gloriously tangled culture, was just one distraction after another. To be honest, she didn't know where to look next.
The quiet shadow of the tiny bookstore was a welcome reprieve from the activity of the street outside. Twilight glanced at a few of the books, hoping for a more detailed history of the city or even the country, but the titles weren't in any language that she recognized.
"Oh--oh. You, uh, you came in." She turned around, to see an off-white stallion with a close-cropped green mane. He was standing in a doorway behind the counter, staring at her. "Can I--er, can I h-help you?"
"I'm just looking," she told him, turning her attention back to the books. "What language are these?"
Staying where he was, he pointed a hoof to a row of tomes with what looked like meaningless chickenscratch on the spines. "Griffon." The hoof moved to a large red book with vaguely numerical symbols on it. "The minotaur language." A slim volume with wavy, flowing golden script printed on the cover. "Seapony glyphs."
"You don't sell anything in Equestrian?"
He shuffled his hooves nervously. "No. Are you going to buy anything?"
"Um..."
"If you're leaving, can you deliver this?" A blue book with more glyphs on it landed on the counter. The stallion backed away slightly when Twilight stepped towards it. "Please? I d-don't like to go out."
"Um...sure." Warily, she levitated it off of the counter. "Where--"
"Topaz Fountain." He ducked back through the door. "Only one occupant. Thank you."
Shaking her head, Twilight trotted out of the ship. She vaguely remembered Shining saying something about the Topaz Fountain, but wasn't sure what it was.
She only had to ask for directions twice on her way there. Within half an hour, a beautifully sculpted fountain of transparent teal crystal greeted her. Something was swimming languorously in the depths, but she couldn't quite make it out. A big fish?"
Just as Twilight was about to hurry past the fountain in search of the cottage or shack that she was sure must be there, the head of a pony popped out of the water.
A teal unicorn mare, with bright golden eyes and a sea green-and-white mane plastered to her skull, hooked her forelegs over the crystal wall and grinned widely.
"Twilight!" she exclaimed. Twilight couldn't keep the confusion off of her face. The mare looked vaguely familiar, but...
"Do I know you?"
"You're kind of famous." She threw her legs up in an exaggerated shrug, bobbing up and down in the water. "Here, at least."
Before Twilight could even figure out that she hadn't answered her question, a damp teal hoof was aimed at the book she had balanced on her back. "Is that for me?"
"Looks like it." She walked over so the other unicorn could pick up the book. "So, you...live in the fountain?"
"Mm-hm." As she cracked open the book, Twilight happened to glance through the cloudy crystal. The teal mare's flanks tapered into an elegant, powerful-looking tail, tipped by two gauzy flukes. It swayed gently back and forth, keeping her balanced.
Oh. Right. That's what Shining had told her.
"It's about all the major races of Equestria and the surrounding countries," she was saying excitedly, flipping through the book. Twilight saw that the pages were made out of some sort of shiny, waterproof material. "Griffons, dragons, reindeer, kirin, land ponies, Changelings, seaponies--we've been around a lot longer than you, you know--"
"Wait," Twilight interrupted, something clicking for her. "Did you say Changelings?"
"Um, yeah." The seapony turned a few more pages. "There's not much about them in this one, though. Just a physical description."
Twilight put her forehooves on the wall of the fountain, eager. "Have seaponies written other books about Changelings?"
"If we have, the store that this book came from carries them." She tapped her book, then smirked. "Who knows, maybe he even has a book written by a Changeling herself--hey, where are you going?"
Twilight, galloping back to the bookstore, didn't hear the question.
That was the first thing it noticed. An aching, crackling agony in its neck, throbbing from the top of its shell to the back of its head. It was hot and dull, as nauseating as hate. It grimaced. Its fangs pressed into something thin and dry.
"Carapace."
Feeling was beginning to creep past its shoulders. It fel a gentle touch on its shell, and weakly twitched its wings.
"Breathe, Carapace."
It opened its mouth and inhaled. Its neck protested, but its chest expanded. Organs that had lain dormant for hours began to thrum and pulse again.
"Can you hear me? Stay still." The touch moved up its shell, then migrated to its chest and the bands of its belly. Probing, checking. Presumably making sure that everything was working right.
It moved its hindlegs and flicked its tail, then wiggled its forehooves. Everything felt so...weak. It felt, but it could barely move.
"It will take awhile. Just try to remember to breathe."
The voice was even and emotionless. It found it soothing.
Hours might have passed (or maybe just minutes) while Carapace focused on bringing itself back. It was awhile before it could open its eyes.
The world was blurry and unfocused, but its gaze immediately flicked to a fuzzy red something in the corner of its field of vision. The something reached down and pushed its mane out of its face.
"Elytra," Carapace croaked, raising its head with some difficulty. Fire arced in a spiderweb pattern across its neck.
"Your exoskeleton is cracked," Elytra replied, gently pushing its head back down. "It'll heal soon."
"You killed me." Carapace spread its wings experimentally.
"I induced hibernation."
"And that severed my link to the Queen?" It raised its head again and blinked rapidly, trying to clear its vision. "I didn't even know I had a link to her."
"It's superficial. She doesn't know either."
"Why was it so important to get rid of it?"
"So that you can live away from the hive. Free." With unusual gentleness, Elytra helped it prop itself up with its forelegs. They trembled, but held. "With no obligation to the Swarm."
Carapace said nothing. There were so many questions it wanted to ask. How elytra knew about their strange, subconscious bond with the Queen, why he had faked his death and left the hive, why he seemed to think that it should do the same.
But it didn't ask anything. "You can change back. There's nopony here but me."
Elytra gracefully stepped off of the bed and walked around the room, stretching the numerous superfluous muscles of his current form. "I'd rather not."
Instead of asking why, Carapace rose on shaky hindlegs so that it was standing on all four hooves. The position felt precarious, but it didn't go back to sitting.
"What time is it?"
"Around four in the morning. You woke at midnight." He waved a hoof in the direction of the drawn curtains, and the many blazing candles. "The rest of the palace will be up soon, and then you can feed."
Carapace hopped off of the bed and barely kept its legs from buckling. "Hopefully. Everypony ha--"
At that moment, a strong wave of excitement and anxiety hit it. The overpowering flavor was swiftly followed by the door bursting open. A harried-looking Twilight Something-or-other, with her mane completely out of order and a pile of books balanced on her back, galloped into the room.
"Carapace!" she exclaimed with a warm smile. "You're awake!"
Elytra moved a little closer. "I would have alerted you immediately if I had known that you would be so excited, Lady Sparkle."
"Thank you, Captain..." Twilight levitated a book off of her back, cracked it open, then tossed it on the ground in front of Carapace's forehooves. "Can you read this?"
It sat down. "No."
Twilight, unamused, raised an eyebrow. "You didn't even look at it."
She nudged the book a little closer. Carapace gave in and looked at it, wincing at the pain in its neck when it lowered its head. All it saw was row after row of spidery characters that meant nothing to it. Maybe there was some pattern or elegance to them--it couldn't tell. And, to be honest, it didn't care.
"I really can't read it." It looked at Twilight again. It briefly considered telling her that it couldn't even read basic Equestrian, but rejected the idea.
"You're sure?" She lifted the other books off of her back and sat down, scrutinizing Carapace.
"I am positive." It spun the book so that Twilight could try to decipher the weird text. "What is it?"
"A book written by your people," she replied, turning her attention to the pages in front of her.
Carapace was silent for a moment.
"That's impossible."
"That's what I thought at first, too," Twilight replied, her excitement swelling again. It was a bit strong for Carapace's taste. "I mean, from what you told me, you and Gossamer are the only ones intelligent enough to write a book--besides Chrysalis, of course, and this is far too old for any of you to have written it."
"Then it's fake," Elytra interjected suddenly.
"No, I performed a dating spell on it. It predates almost every written work of ponykind--thank Celestia that bookseller knows how to restore and take care of old books. And, in the first books, it was a custom to include a piece of yourself. A kind of signature. A feather for pegasi, a clipping from the mane or tail for unicorns and earth ponies, and for your kind..." She flipped to the back cover and showed them a small scrap of blue gossamer sewn into the binding. Carapace peered at it.
"It's from a Changeling," it admitted reluctantly.
"The writing looks like a much older, more complicated form of a language used in eastern Equestria, before the tribes united," Twilight said, leafing through it. "I can't make head nor tail of it, and nopony I've talked to can, either. Luckily, it isn't the only book I have."
She spread the others out. They all had weird squiggles on them.
"These were written by seaponies. They had a thriving civilization before we even left our primitive herds. They wrote about your people, Carapace." She opened on of the books and stared at the incomprehensible language. "A seapony is helping me translate these, but it's slow going. The form is very old, and she isn't familiar with it."
"What have you learned so far?" Elytra asked.
"That they wrote about Changeling customs. Their homeland. Their anatomy," Twilight told him, glancing up. Her eyes flicked to Carapace. "It doesn't match up with what you told me."
Automatically, it bared the roots of its fangs. "I told you the tru--"
"I believe you!" she said hurriedly. "But sometime, you changed. Your species did, I mean."
"We tend to do that," Carapace replied dryly.
"No, I mean--your true forms changed. And so did your society. You've never heard this before? There aren't any legends or anything?"
"Nopony to tell them," Carapace shrugged. "The Queen never told us much about our history--there wasn't much to tell."
"I wonder what happened." Twilight turned her attention back to the book. "How you became...like this."
She waved a hoof, encompassing the entirety of Carapace.
"The ability to shift," Elytra jumped in. "Did they have that when your books were written?"
"I never knew you were so interested in Changeling history, Captain," Twilight replied. "It hasn't been mentioned yet."
"Know thy enemy," Elytra returned, glancing at Carapace. It blinked.
"There's got to be something I'm missing," Twilight muttered. "Originally, I just wanted to get Cadance to treat you a little better, Carapace. I thought that it would help if she knew more about you. But now, I feel like I'm onto something more...important."
She leaned back on her hocks, folding her forelegs across her chest. She stared down at the book like she expected it to sit up and give her the answers that she wanted from it. Then she sighed, and reluctantly flipped it closed with a nudge of her magic.
"I never thought I'd say this," Twilight murmured, "but there's only so much so few books can tell me."
She rubbed her temples with her forehooves, looking troubled. "I wish there were more. But..." She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, looking determined. "I need to talk to Chrysalis."
"What?" Carapace and Elytra said in unison.
"Carapace, you can take me to your hive." She gathered her books and lifted them onto her back. "I'll need to repack my saddlebags."
"Are you sure that this is--" Elytra began, stepping forward.
"I'll be fine," Twilight said, exiting through the still-open door. "After all, Chrysalis sent an ambassador to Cadance. She'll be open to me holding an audience with her."
Carapace tasted her fear and uncertainty, and her resolve. She didn't want to go to Chrysalis; she was afraid. But she knew that she had to, so she would.
Elytra pushed the door closed with one hoof and let out a deep sigh.
"No, of course not," Elytra agreed. "It would ruin everything if you returned to the hive with Twilight. Chrysalis would destroy you and come after me."
"Even if she didn't, Cadenza would execute me as soon as Twilight brought me back," Carapace said grimly. "After a visit with Queen Chrysalis, they'll know that I'm not here to negotiate an alliance."
Elytra had been pacing--a very odd gesture for a Changeling--but now he stopped. "Why are you here?"
"I think I was meant to lower their defenses. They wouldn't fear us anymore, or be on the lookout for Changelings, so the Queen could attack whenever she wanted to."
"Will she try again with Gossamer?"
"I really doubt it."
"We need to discourage Twilight long enough for you to disappear into the city." Elytra looked thoughtful. "I suppose that I could kill her..."
"No! Are you crazy?" Carapace snapped. "They'll blame me!"
It thought that the other Changeling almost looked relieved by its quick rejection of the idea. But since it couldn't taste any emotions coming from him, it didn't say anything.
"Perhaps we should--" Elytra stopped suddenly, and looked at the door. "Did you hear a gasp?"
Carapace ignited its horn and yanked the door open with faltering green magic. There was a burst of magenta light, and then a pile of old books thudded to the floor. Loose pages went everywhere.
Green fire flashed behind it, and it glanced over its withers to see Elytra in its true form. Green eyes, a green shell, and a short, stiff mane a shade lighter than its own.
"Come on, let's go," Elytra said, pushing past it. "It's over."
"Cadance?"
Cadance rolled over and opened her eyes, seeing the last light of teleportation fade around a pony standing next to her bed.
"Twilight?" she asked sleepily, yawning. The tip of Twilight's horn glowed briefly, and a candle in an alcove on the other side of the room lit up. The crystal walls refracted the light, into an all-encompassing rosy glow.
"You were right," she said miserably. Her mane was mussed into disheveled spikes and there were bags under her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"I was right about what?" Cadance sat up.
"Changelings. Carapace. She--Claymore is a Changeling."
"What?!"
"I heard them talking." She closed her eyes briefly. "Carapace came to lull you into a false sense of security. Captain Claymore--or whatever his real name is--has been here much longer."
Cadance leaped out of bed, hurriedly slipping on her shoes, crown, and collar. "Where are they now?"
"They saw me. I think they went into the city."
"Alright." Determination--born out of rest and a new confidence in her decisions--rose in her. "Twilight, I saw you perform a spell during the invasion. It stripped the Changelings of their false forms. Can you do it again?"
"Of course!" She looked a little insulted.
"Then round up all of the magically strong unicorns in the royal guard and teach them how." Halfway out the door, Cadance hesitated, then turned around. She scrutinized Twilight for a moment before slowly saying, "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake--"
"Clap your hooves and do a little shake," she finished. "Cadance, it's me!"
"I know." She sat down and pulled the smaller mare into a brief hug. "But you can't be too careful. Gather the unicorns, and take them into the city when they've learned. We'll catch these Changelings."
"Our most common forms are unicorns, a mare and a stallion," Elytra murmured. "They'll be unconsciously looking for those. This is better."
"It's uncomfortable," Carapace hissed.
"I know, but it's necessary."
"Why is it uncomfortable?"
"You identify yourself as a mare. And I consider myself a stallion. This is uncomfortable for me, too." Elytra awkwardly rearranged her wings on her back. "I'll explain later."
"Why not now?"
She was silent, and Carapace could guess the reason well enough. The sun was beginning to rise in the east, flooding the city with light. Despite the early hour, the streets already held a crush of beings. It was much easier to move through them than it would be in a few hours, but still. There were far too many ears around.
"If anypony asks, your name is Fallow," Elytra said suddenly. "Mine is Thermal. We're tourists from Equestria, looking to maybe move here."
Carapace said nothing. Currently a stallion, he was in the form of a slender green earth pony. His cutie mark was a trio of vague-looking leaves--all he had been able to think of in the heat of the moment. Nothing about the disguise fit him. He had no idea why it bothered him so much; before coming to the Crystal City, he had been perfectly capable of being comfortable in any form. Mare or stallion, unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, or even alicorn. What had changed?
He glanced over at Elytra, unable to quell a sudden burst of jealousy. She looked so much calmer as a pale yellow pegasus mare. But then again, maybe she'd had more practice, being different ponies in dangerous situations.
"We'll stay in these forms for a week," she decided, "until things are a little safer. Then we can morph into something a little more...accommodating, and find somewhere to live."
"And then what?" Carapace pressed.
"We...live." Elytra looked surprised by the question. "We get a jobs, we make friends to feed off of, we act like ponies. For a few years. And then we'll need to find Twilight Sparkle again."
"What? What does she have to do with anything?" Carapace couldn't help feeling irritable. He knew that part of it was hunger, but he was too nervous to tap into the buffet of positive emotion around him.
"It's complicated. Later, I promise." Elytra stared straight ahead. "For now, try to relax. Looking jumpy won't help us."
"And so what does it do if the pony isn't a Changeling?" a stallion in the back of the room called.
"I don't know." Twilight motioned him to the front of the room with a hoof. "Let's find out."
It was two hours after the escape of the Changelings. Twilight and every unicorn soldier capable of performing her spell were gathered in one of the palace's rarely-used war rooms, doing their best to train a crack squad to find the fugitive monsters. It was going better than expected.
As the stallion nervously shuffled his hooves in front of her, Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated. This spell was different from any she'd ever performed before. It was rooted deeply, nearly automatic, and it felt...ancient. The only magic she could really compare it to was that which made up her Element.
The power built swiftly in her horn, and she released it without even thinking. A small yelp from the stallion made her open her eyes.
He staggered a little, eyes rolling in different directions, then shook it off and grinned.
"No worse than a blow to the head during training!" he proclaimed.
"Good thing you have a hard head, Convoy!" somepony yelled. The other soldiers laughed. Twilight rolled her eyes.
"Do it to me," she told Convoy, planting her hooves firmly on the opaque crystal floor.
He screwed up his face, his horn glowing blue for a moment, and Twilight felt something like a hoof wrapped in cloth striking her. Her vision skewed, and she blinked to clear it. She felt fine.
"Did I do it right?" he asked anxiously.
"You were great." She turned to the rest of her "class." "Does everypony else understand what to do?"
There was a chorus of "yes"s. She nodded, satisfied.
"Then let's go." Twilight turned and led the soldiers out of the room. "Remember! Nopony performs the spell without my--"
There was a sudden whoosh sound, and one of the stallions yelled. The others laughed as Twilight turned around to see him stumble our of line.
It occurred to her then that the city might be in trouble.
Chrysalis sat in the light of the rising sun, eyes half-closed and wings folded primly against her shell. She wasn't a fan of the cold. Frost glittered on her hooves, her horn, her mane--all the places that her lukewarm blood didn't reach often enough to warm. She could feel a sluggish pulse inside of her, her body trying desperately to speed up the functions that last night's freeze had slowed down.
She and gossamer had crossed the southern border of the Crystal Empire sometime before sunset. They had flown across a windswept plain as pegasi, and when the temperature began to drop, they holed up in this evergreen forest so that she could sleep and Gossamer could drop into shallow hibernation.
It was still "sleeping" behind her, under a thin shell of frost. Chrysalis resisted the urge to kick it awake. They had plenty of time.
She closed her eyes fully and sighed. Doubt had been eating away at her for two nights and a day now--for some reason, the certainty that Carapace was dead had lodged itself in her mind. She couldn't shake it. She knew it as innately as she had known that Elytra was dead...and that was why she hadn't turned around and gone home. It, Anomaly, and the possibility that she was wrong about Carapace.
Chrysalis wrestled with the vague sense of uneasiness she got whenever she thought of those three. There was something, fluttering in the back of her mind...but she didn't remember.
It probably didn't matter, anyway.
"Prince Shining!"
Wearily, Shining Armor pried his eyes open. It felt like he had just barely laid down, after a night of trying to chase down rogue pegasi.
"What's wrong?" he asked irritably, glancing up. Pulse, the kirin medic, was standing over him. Her helmet was gone, exposing a short, spiky purple mane.
Instead of answering, she stepped aside. Cadance came forward and bent her head towards him.
He scrambled to his hooves, pulling his wife into an embrace with one foreleg. If she was uncomfortable, being pressed against his diamond-hard armor, she didn't say so.
"Cadance," he said. His voice was muffled by her mane. "Is--is something wrong?"
"There are two Changelings loose in my city and my husband has been missing for the past few days," she replied, her voice unusually crisp. He pulled back and gave her a sheepish smile that quickly dissolved into a sigh.
"I'm sorry," Shining said. "I shouldn't have left you."
"You did what you thought was right." Cadance briefly touched her horn to his. "At least I found you."
"So what's the problem?" He stepped back, glancing around at the sleeping unicorns and earth ponies on either side of him. They were in the back room of a restaurant owned by a former member of the Amore guards.
"The Changeling 'ambassador' turned out to be a spy," she said bitterly. "And Captain Claymore is an agent of Chrysalis, too."
"What?" He stared at her. "You've got to be kidding."
"No. Twilight heard him and our Changeling discussing their plans, and now he's nowhere to be found."
"I--I thought I knew him..." Shining shook his head. Cadance put a hoof on his wither.
"Everypony did, but we can't focus on that right now," she said. "We need to find those Changelings. Twilight is leading a crack team of unicorns through the city, using her spell to try and expose them. Can you put together a team and--keep watch over her? Step in if they find anything."
"Of course," he nodded.
"I need to get word to Celestia." Cadance glanced over her withers. "I'll join you as soon as I can."
"We'll find them in no time," he said gently, kissing her quickly on the cheek. "Don't worry."
She offered him a quick smile, hurrying back out into the light of early morning. Immediately, Pulse was beside him.
"I have magic-infused pills," she said, nodding to where her kit was leaning against the wall. "It's not healthy, but it should be okay this one time. Everypony will be able to perform at their peak."
"Good idea," he nodded, moving towards the door that led into the restaurant. "Wake everypony else up--I'll see if I can get us some food."
The owner of the restaurant was more than happy to support their case. After a breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, and Pulse's medication (passed out reluctantly), everypony was bouncing on their hooves, more than ready to go. Even Shining felt rejuvenated.
"We're looking for a herd of armored unicorns led by a purple mare," he told his attentive soldiers. "We'll start near the palace and work out--they couldn't have gotten far."
Twilight nodded to the pale blue stallion, who nodded back and, screwing up his face, fired a quick spell at the nervous-looking mare in front of him. She blinked rapidly, but nothing else happened.
"Thank you for your time, ma'am. You can go." She watched her scuttle off, then glanced around her. All of her rapidly-trained stallions were working quickly and efficiently, testing ponies at an impressive rate and switching out so that everypony got a chance. Several had even managed to cast the spell wide enough to test several at once.
They hadn't told anypony anything, but the Amore guards were widely trusted in the Crystal City. Everypony they approached allowed them to perform the spell, though confusion was spreading quickly. There were lots of questions, of course. Both from the ponies they tested and the non-ponies they passed by. But Twilight felt that it was best not to answer; there was no reason to incite a panic.
She saw Convoy, the stallion that she had experimented on, approaching a pegasus mare and an earth pony stallion with a younger, nervous-looking guard in tow. His muzzle moved as he explained the spell, gesturing to the other guard. But instead of nodding and submitting, the two ponies shook their heads, backing away. It looked like they were complaining. Intrigued, Twilight headed over.
"...rare condition," the mare was saying as she approached. "I don't think it's a good idea."
"It's totally safe," Convoy assured her. "You'll be fine."
"Is something wrong?" Twilight asked, scrutinizing the mare and stallion in front of her. They looked nervous, but there was nothing really strange about them. No eyes suddenly flashing green, no gossamer wings popping out--nothing that screamed "Changeling!"
"Commander Twilight." Convoy saluted smartly, and so did his companion. Twilight raised an eyebrow. She didn't remember being promoted to the title of military commander. "She--" he jerked his head toward the pegasus mare "--says that she and her, uh..."
"Cousin," she offered.
"...have some sort of weird magical allergy." Convoy glanced at Twilight to gauge her reaction. She gave him a significant look, then turned her attention back to the ponies in front of her.
"I've read about cases, but it's much more common in unicorns," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "At any rate, the spell is very quick. It doesn't even touch you, so you should be okay."
"I don't--" the mare began, but Twilight waved a hoof, cutting her off.
"We're in a hurry," she explained, studying the mare closely. Still no signs that she was actually a Changeling. "If you do have a reaction, there's an infirmary at the palace--they'll be able to help you."
She still looked nervous, but Twilight just nodded to Convoy and the other guard (who immediately began to cast) and stared hard at the two ponies.
The stallion just blinked and shook his head as the spell passed over him. The mare, however, shrieked as golden boils--the exact same color as the guard's magic--erupted all over her. Her wings flapped, and both guards shrank back, stammering apologies.
"I--I'm so sorry!" Twilight reached out, but the stallion herded his cousin rapidly away from her.
"I think you've done enough," he said curtly, hurrying her away. Twilight stood stock-still, watching them go.
"I really thought that they were just making up excuses," she said in a small voice. Convoy let out an explosive sigh that sounded more like a laugh.
"That's okay, so did I, Commander," he said, patting her heavily on the withers. "Hey. What's Trebuchet doing?"
She followed his gaze to see a cream-colored stallion sneaking up behind, oddly enough, another pony couple consisting of a pegasus and an earth pony. They seemed to be having a heated conversation with an overzealous street vendor.
"I thought I told everypony to ask permission," she muttered, starting forward. A civilian lawsuit directed at the Amore guards was the last thing Cadance needed. But before she could reach him, Trebuchet released the spell.
The outlines of the two ponies rippled for a moment, before their disguises disintegrated. Twilight--and everypony else--stared in shock at the two exposed Changelings. One was immediately recognizable as Carapace, while the other was slightly larger, with green eyes and a close-cropped mane. That one was the first to recover. Shaking off the slight disorientation caused by the spell, it bared its fangs and snarled at Trebuchet. He stumbled back, unprepared, and the green Changeling whirled around to give Carapace a shove. They were both in in motion before Twilight could react.
"Stunning spells!" she shouted, turning to her unicorns and spurring them into action. "Go!"
There was a flash of gossamer out of the corner of her eye, and then something buzzed over her head. She dropped to her belly out of instinct, glancing up in time to see a desiccated hoof, gleaming in the sun, and to catch the tail end of a hissed conversation.
"--forms that the Queen showed us--"
"I remember."
Four hooves struck the ground behind Twilight as she scrambled to hers. She spun around, her mind going a mile a minute and her horn beginning to glow with an attack spell. It wasn't a Changeling. At least, not anymore. A soft yellow coat, a flowing pink mane and tail, teal eyes. Oh, no.
"Twilight?" Fluttershy whispered, her ears slowly lowering and her eyes widening as she met the gaze of the other mare. "Wh-what are you doing?"
It's not really her! Twilight screamed inside her own head, struggling to hold onto and complete the spell. But it was no use. They'd gotten the most vulnerable of her friends correct down to the last detail--the texture of her mane, the curve of her eyelashes, even the minuscule scar on her chest that she had gotten while sliding on her belly to save Philomena.
Celestia's crest and Luna's latch. How did they do that?
"Hit her!" Twilight yelled. She gave up and scrambled backwards. "The spell! Hit her with it!"
Convoy charged forward and aimed his horn at the cowering Fluttershy. His face tensed in an expression of extreme concentration, and--nothing happened.
He raised his head, blinking. "I can't do it!"
"What?!" Before she could turn and give him an incredulous look, she had been knocked onto her back and there was a pair of soft yellow hooves on her chest. She stared up into Fluttershy's eyes as they flickered into acidic green.
"We're not here to attack the Crystal Empire," the Changeling murmured in Fluttershy's voice. "We only want to be left alone. Please believe me."
"I've seen what happens when I trust one of you," Twilight growled, struggling physically as she tried to get a handle on her magic. In the background, she could hear the unicorn stallions trying and failing, one by one, to perform the spell. She wouldn't realize until much later that everypony that couldn't do it had already performed it once before.
Fluttershy sighed. "So you'll keep hunting us?"
"Obviou--"
"I'm sorry, but I have to protect my sister and myself." With a miniature burst of green fire, Fluttershy sprouted a unicorn horn. Flickering green magic wreathed it, and wrapped around Twilight's foreleg. "This will probably hurt."
"Twiley!" somepony bellowed just as she began to feel an uncomfortable pressure on her leg. Fluttershy-the-Changeling looked up, the green magic diminishing, just in time for nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of armored stallion to smash into her.
Twilight rolled over, igniting her horn and rising to her hooves. Shining Armor was standing on top of a writhing, green-eyed Changeling, glancing back over his withers at her.
"Are you alright?" he called.
"I'm fine." She glanced behind her to see a ragged but determined-looking regiment of earth ponies and unicorns. "Don't let it get away!"
Shining planted his hooves more firmly as Twilight hurried over, her horn glowing with a premade stunning smell. The Changeling jerked underneath him, snarling.
"There's another one, right?" he asked warily, watching her aim.
"Yes, but--"
There was a sudden chorus of shrieks and hisses as a pair of brawny earth ponies hauled a blue-eyed Changeling out of an alley. A unicorn mare shot a quick bolt of silvery magic towards it, and it fell silent, stunned.
"So, that's it. It's over, right?" a nearby stallion asked as Twilight released a similar spell onto the second Changeling. She glanced at him.
"I know!" Elytra shouted, slamming a hoof against the bars of the cage. One of the five guards assigned to them glanced back warily.
Carapace's wings twitched. For just a moment, it had tasted something coming off of the other Changeling. Anger. Thin, wispy, and fleeting, but still unmistakeable.
"What's wrong with you?" it asked, voice level.
The other Changeling was quiet for a long time, leaning against the bars. They were iron this time, instead of the opaque crystal of the last cage. Carapace half-wondered what it had originally been intended for. Iron was rare in the pony nations; it blocked unicorn magic, took away the pegasus ability to control the weather, and (if it was remembering correctly) it was one of the few known substances that could kill a full-grown alicorn. That was why all of their guards were earth ponies.
And, apparently, iron disrupted the powers of Changelings. All attempts to morph had yielded nothing.
Finally, Elytra spoke, in a hushed voice. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"You felt something. Just now." Carapace considered the flavor it had tasted several minutes ago. "We can't detect each other's emotions, usually. They're too shallow."
"I know." It wasn't looking at Carapace. "But...it's...it's normal."
"No, it isn't. I'm not like that."
"It's hard to explain, Carapace." Elytra tipped its head back and sighed deeply, a disconcertingly equine gesture. "I've been trying to figure out what to tell you for months, and I still don't know how to put it."
"I don't understand." Carapace closed its eyes. "Are you talking about why you wanted the Queen to think you were dead? Why you left the hive?"
"Yes, actually."
"What happened?" It kept its voice quiet. "What did you find out?"
Elytra took a deep breath. "You know the caverns of the Hive Mothers?"
Carapace nodded, thinking of the deep, steamy caves that housed the three surviving Mothers. They were ancient, alien creatures, and the sources of every precious egg of the swarm. Most Changelings, sentient or not, tended to avoid their quarters.
"There are tunnels beneath them."
"That's impossible. The chambers of the Mothers are at the very bottom of the--"
"I know. That's what I thought, too." It paused, then lowered its voice. "I don't think the Queen knows."
"Just...tell me how you got down there. And what you found." Despite itself, Carapace was curious. It wanted to know.
"I crawled through a miasma vent," Elytra replied.
Carapace snorted. "A death wish. Lovely, Elytra."
"No, I was just curious. I was bored and everypony was gone, attacking Canterlot. I had gotten tired of you and Gossamer. So I went exploring, in the places that I didn't usually go. In the caves where the Hive Mothers are, I saw a vent that wasn't releasing as much fog as they usually do.
"Looking back on it, it really was a stupid decision, but I'm glad that I went into it now. The fumes were terrible, as you would expect, but nothing that I couldn't handle. It wasn't more than a couple minutes before I reached the bottom of the shaft--and after I fell out of it, there were no more fumes. Almost like they were just meant to discourage anypony from entering the vents."
"So what did you find?" Carapace pressed, not bothering to keep the impatience out of its voice.
"There were...paintings, on the walls." Elytra made an odd little gesture with its hooves, evidently meant to illustrate the statement. "Very old, and probably done by ponies or something like them. There would be a gathering of tiny, simple paintings, that seemed to tell a story, and sometimes I could figure it out. And then there would be a much larger, much more detailed painting of just one event."
"Paintings?" Of what?"
"Of us. Of Changelings." Elytra's wings fluttered against its shell. "But we were different. And...it told...I learned...what we are, and what we're for."
Carapace learned forward, an uncharacteristic thrill of excitement working its way up through its thorax. "What?"
"We--" At a sudden chiming of crystal, Elytra's head whipped around. Their guards had all snapped to attention, parting to allow a purple unicorn and a massive stallion in opaque armor access to the cage.
Carapace's internal organs clenched painfully at the sight of Twilight. The anger and hate rolling off of her were second only to what Cadenza's had been when she made the journey down here. It closed its eyes and tried to brace itself.
"You can go," she said to the guards. "I want to talk to the Changelings alone."
"If you're certain, Lady Sparkle," one of them replied uneasily. Carapace opened its eyes in time to see his gaze flicker uncertainly to the armored stallion. His face was covered, his stance impassive. "Uh...if you don't mind me asking, who is that?"
"Prince Shining sent him to protect me," Twilight replied in a clipped tone. Without another word, the guards filed out of the room. Elytra pressed a forehoof to its mouth, probably stifling the urge to retch.
Carapace moved to the front of the cage, gently shouldering the other Changeling aside, even as Twilight approached. It held back a grimace and managed not to press a hoof to the bands of its stomach, even as the pain and nausea rose.
"What do you want?" it asked calmly.
Twilight stared at it for a long time. Her emotions flowed and ebbed, as if she were confused about what she should be feeling. The stallion in the dark armor stood immobile behind her.
"I trusted you," she began quietly.
"That was your mistake, not mine," Carapace replied immediately. Her eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, I realize that now." Her tone was bitter. "I can't believe that I actually fell for you whole act. I started to believe that, maybe, you weren't a monster like we believed. That maybe there was something equine inside you. That maybe...you were my friend."
She fell silent, and just stared again. Then she slowly shook her head.
"I guess I was wrong." Twilight turned and began to walk slowly towards the stairs. "You are a heartless monster, and I'm a fool."
Carapace felt a twinge deep inside that had nothing to do with indigestion.
She stopped, squared her withers, and said, without turning around, "Your execution is scheduled for tomorrow morning at dawn. Celestia and Luna will be there, just in case. Whatever Chrysalis had planned...it's ruined now."
"But--" Elytra began, stepping forward. Carapace glanced at it and shook its head.
"She won't believe us," it murmured. "It doesn't matter."
Twilight's ears flicked, and she half-turned, one hoof on the bottom step. "What--"
It was then that a hoof clad in dark crystal seemingly flicked out of nowhere, aiming for her head. She didn't have time to react. It clipped her temple and apparently knocked her out instantly. Twilight crumpled, and an involuntary snarl ripped its way out of Carapace.
Business-like, the dark-armored stallion dragged the unconscious mare into an alcove probably meant for storage. She wouldn't be noticed for quite some time in the shadows there.
Elytra's wings buzzed, lifting it a couple inches off the floor of the cage. Its mouth dropped open to display all four inches of its fangs. Carapace took the opposite approach, crouching down with its haunches against the bars in order to make itself a smaller target.
The stallion approached them, his hoofsteps heavy on the stone floor of the dungeon. Carapace hissed, but he took no notice. As they watched, he stopped just inches from the front of the cage, reached up with one forehoof, and removed his helmet.
Changeling fangs and pony eyes. With a burst of shock, Carapace recognized the hybrid monster that she had defended Twilight from in the garden.
He bent his head forward, and an aura of green magic, a shade darker and a little more solid than Carapace's own, sprang up around the lock.
"My name is Anomaly," he murmured. "I'm here to help you."
Twilight woke up slowly, a throbbing pain settling deep under her horn.
She groaned a little under her breath. Moving one hoof up to her head in tiny increments, she probed gently, searching for the source of the sickening ache. The sensitive edge, still bound in gauze from where she had sliced it open in the gardens, slipped under the heavy silk of her forelock, and grazed--
She bit back a yelp and gritted her teeth against a nausea-inducing wave of pain. Oh dear Celestia. Yep, that was it.
Dropping her forehoof from the swollen goose egg on her head, Twilight took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she attempted to haul herself to her hooves. She gasped, joints buckling, and barely managed to keep from collapsing again. By moving in tiny increments, careful not to do anything that might jostle her head, she was able to settle her haunches on the stone floor and hunch her withers into a sitting position.
Her memory was fragmented, distorted. She remembered returning to the palace after the Changelings were captured...she remembered heading towards the dungeons, though she wasn't sure why...she remembered being approached by a stallion in dark armor, being told that her brother had sent him to keep an eye on her. And then...nothing.
Moving carefully, Twilight glanced at the cage behind her. It was empty, the door standing open. The broken lock fizzed with residual magic. She swore under her breath.
Maybe she didn't remember how she had been knocked unconscious, but she could definitely guess. Cadance and Shining had to be told immediately. The Changelings had escaped again, and there was somepony helping them who had access to the armory. Possibly another Changeling or a product of the same hypnotism spell that she had seen Chrysalis use on her brother.
Twilight forced herself onto all fours, giving herself a tiny shake to try and banish the dizziness. Every step towards the stairs felt like she was winning a miniature battle, and each one took about as much energy out of her. She was barely able to make it to the bottom step before her strength gave out and she collapsed with a cry of pain. Panting, she stared up the multiple flights of stairs, to the pinpoint of light from the crystal palace above. Her heart sank even as her head throbbed.
It was going to be a long day.
"Hey. Uh..."
Downpour dropped the telescope from his eye, adjusting his grip on it so that it didn't go plummeting to the iridescent cobblestones far below. He glanced at the pegasus soldier who had approached him.
"Yeah?"
The other stallion pointed a primary feather at a pair of winged dots in the distance. "What should we do about those?"
Downpour squinted, then raised the telescope. A pair of plain-looking gray pegasi were headed towards the city. They had no saddlebags and carried no luggage between their hooves. They didn't seem like much of a threat.
"Nothing," he shrugged, turning around to focus his telescope back on the inhabitants of the Crystal City. "No orders. Let 'em in."
The other pegasus shuffled his hooves, obviously uncomfortable. "If Commander Damage were here--"
"She's not." Downpour tracked a kirin mare in a lacy saddle for a few moments before losing interest.
"But--"
"Listen." He held up a hoof, never taking his eye away from the telescope. "Don't sweat it, okay? It's no big deal."
"If you say so." He still sounded uncomfortable.
"Tell the others," he said, waving a hoof. "Nothing to worry about."
The stallion turned to walk away, but Downpour stood up straight and glanced at him. "Wait."
"What?"
"Try and find out if any of them know what went down in the Garnet Plaza this morning." He returned his attention to the city. "Somepony told me it was Changelings, but that can't be true."
"Your aunts are coming soon, right?" Shining asked, walking beside Cadance. She nodded.
"Sail volunteered her services," she said quietly, speaking of one of the younger dragons in the city. "The spell to connect her flame to Aunt Celestia's magical field was temporary, but she actually suggested that we should put a permanent spell on her and several other dragons. In case we need to get word to Equestria fast."
"Like now?" Shining asked. Cadance nodded. "It might be a good idea...but now isn't the time. Follow me."
It was rare for somepony important enough to warrant a carriage ride from the train station to visit the palace, and as such, they didn't have an official place for Celestia and Luna to land. They'd be receiving them in a part of the gardens that Twilight and the Changeling hadn't destroyed.
Shining's mane and tail were brushed, which had probably been a good idea after several days spent in full armor. He was wearing a military dress coat, the same one that he had worn to his wedding. Cadance had on her collar, crown, and shoes, as well as cleverly-applied makeup to mask the fading bags under her eyes.
Pulse's pep pills were beginning to wear off, and the frantic action of the past few days was beginning to catch up with him. He could only imagine how Cadance must be feeling.
As soon as they stepped outside, surrounded by a set of fresh unicorn guards the sounds of wingbeats reached him. He looked up to see a spectacular gold-and-silver carriage, almost glowing in the light of the late-afternoon sun and pulled by a mixed team of white pegasi and kirin. They wheeled above, getting rid of some of their velocity, and Shining caught a glimpse of Celestia's multicolored mane. Then they touched down with only the faintest clink of metal.
"Mi Amore Cadenza!" Luna's voice, loud and joyful, rang out immediately. "It has been far too long!"
The lunar alicorn, slightly taller and stockier than Cadance, leaped out of the carriage and hurried over. While her guards were still trying to extricate themselves from the harnesses. She dipped her head slightly to Shining, who bowed back. Even though he was married to one of them, he would never be equal to the princesses.
"I wanted to apologize to you," Luna said. "For missing thy--er, your wedding."
Cadance blinked. "Oh. Uh. It's fine."
"No, no, I must make it up to you sometime," Luna replied, irritably waving a hoof. "But that will have to wait. I believe we have more important things to discuss, do we not?"
"Indeed we do," came a gentle, lyrical voice. Shining shifted his attention from Luna to Celestia, Regent of the Sun, and began to sink into a bow. A soft magical nudge stopped him. "Really, there's no need for that."
"Sorry, Princess," he replied. She offered him a brief smile before turning to Cadance.
"I'm sorry it took such dire circumstances to warrant a visit from us," she said.
"I wouldn't have called you, put I'm afraid Chrysalis may attack the Crystal City," Cadance answered. A hard note entered her voice. "After all, we're executing two of her drones tomorrow as soon as you raise the sun."
"About that," Celestia began carefully.
"Yes?"
The white alicorn bent her head, so that she and her niece were both enveloped in her flowing mane. Shining had to strain to hear what she said next.
"Are you certain about your decision?" she murmured.
A pause.
"What do you mean?" Cadance asked, sounding defensive and confused.
But before Celestia could answer, Luna cried, "Twilight Sparkle!" in a shocked voice.
All heads turned to the direction she was looking in. Twilight was standing in the shade of a pearly gray growth of crystal, her hooves spread wide to support her and her head bowed. One side of her face was swollen, culminating in an ugly bruised lump peeking out from underneath her forelock. Her pupils were dilated, and she looked as if she were going to pass out at any second.
Shining was the first to reach her, placing a hoof on her withers and guiding her gently into a sitting position. She didn't protest.
"Twilight," he murmured, "what happened?"
"They're gone," she replied dully. Behind him, Cadance sucked in a breath.
"Do you mean the Changelings?"
"They're gone," Twilight confirmed. She grimaced in obvious, pain, and her horn lit up, very slowly. The magic wavered and Shining considered telling her to turn it off, to take it easy. "But I think I know how to find them..."
"I was like you," Anomaly explained, not turning around to see if they were managing to keep up. "I could think for myself, but Chrysalis didn't know about me. It was...unfulfilling. Until--"
"You found the caverns underneath the hive mothers, didn't you?" Elytra interrupted. He was in the form of a pale grey unicorn stallion with a blue mane and a dragonfly cutie mark. The Queen only knew what that was supposed to mean.
"Yes. I did." Anomaly led them swiftly down yet another corridor. "I thought you were dead, but once I saw the hoofprints in the dust, I could guess what had actually happened. I came after you."
Carapace glanced at Elytra. She was disguised as a unicorn mare, beige, with a straight black mane and a cutie mark made up of several stars drawn together in a constellation. "You left hoofprints down there? Where the Queen could have seen them?"
"It was a difficult time for me," he said stiffly. "I wasn't thinking. I didn't cover my tracks."
"And I'm glad you didn't," Anomaly interjected. "I never would have found you otherwise."
Several maids stopped in their tracks and gave the trio a curious glance. Maybe a stallion in opaque crystal armor followed by a pair of nervous unicorns was a strange sight even in the Crystal City.
"I thought you were the one-eyed pegasus mare, at first," he continued. "But I knew that she wasn't a Changeling when the bite had such a profound affect on her."
"You're venomous," Elytra agreed. "We're not--" he waved a hoof, encompassing both himself and Carapace "--so why are you?"
"It's a long story," Anomaly replied. He glanced at Carapace, the first time he had looked back since they left the dungeon. "You settled as a female. Do you realize what that means?"
"Yes," Elytra answered.
"No," Carapace replied.
"You didn't tell her?" He turned to the other stallion.
"We've been a little busy," he said dryly.
"Understandable, but--"
"Where are you leading us?" he interrupted in a low voice. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a bit conspicuous, and--"
"Neither of us has been able to feed for about twenty-four hours, and the iron didn't help," Carapace supplied.
Anomaly said nothing, just kept up his breakneck pace. She turned her attention to Elytra.
"Now is as good a time as any to explain everything," she murmured. "What did you find in those caverns? Why is Twilight important?" Thinking of the last time she had seen the purple unicorn, Carapace had to wrestle down a vague tremor of what might have been worry. "Why is it significant that I feel more comfortable as a mare than as a stallion?"
He case an uncomfortable glance around. "I would rather tell you in private."
"No, I want to know now," she demanded in a tone of voice much more petulant than she would have normally used with another Changeling. "I'm--I'm so sick of this not knowing where I stand or even what I am. Everypony around me hates or fears me, and it hurts. You know that. I came here under orders from my Queen believing you were dead and that I was a Changeling, incapable of having feelings toward prey." She shot Elytra a glare, and her pony eyes flickered, her disguise having trouble holding up under a sudden flood of an alien emotion. "But apparently you're alive. I've turned my back on the Queen and I don't even know why it made me so angry when Cadenza compared me to her. There are so many things you're not telling me. And...and..."
She paused for breath, glancing at Anomaly. But he didn't appear to have heard her.
"And what?" Elytra asked, his voice unexpectedly gentle.
"I'm changing," she muttered under her breath. "I have to sleep, all the time, like a pony. I have...opinions. I think about things I never did before. And there's something--"
She thumped a hoof to her chest, as if she would be able feel the stunted emotions stirring there. But all she felt was the familiar thrumming of her hearts.
"I know," Elytra murmured. "Believe me, I know."
"You don't," Carapace growled, dropping her hoof. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the thin layer of magic covering them disappear completely. "I hate it."
He was silent for a long time, as they just tried to keep up with Anomaly on whatever convoluted path he was following. But then he spoke.
"What about Twilight?"
Carapace snapped back, her tone caustic. "What about Twilight?"
"She told me that you'd saved her life."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Food source," she mumbled. "She was mine. I was feeding off of her and I didn't want to lose it."
"That's it?"
She chose not to answer, but wished she had a pair of fangs to bare. Everything inside her was mixed up and broken, healing into something she didn't recognize. It was too complicated to sort out right now. She wanted to sleep.
But that wasn't going to happen. Carapace was jerked out of her thoughts suddenly by somepony crying, "There they are!" She spun around to see Twilight, battered and hard-eyed, with Cadenza, Luna, Celestia, and a mixed regiment of royal guards behind her. They were all coming straight for them at a gallop.
If Carapace had believed in a deity, she probably would have assumed that it hated her.
As it was, she turned around and bolted, not checking to see if Elytra or Anomaly was beside her. All that mattered was getting away and staying free. Her cannons began to burn with the constant shock of running, but she didn't stop.
Corridors, closets, massive dining rooms, chambers of tapestries and carvings. The palace was a million times bigger than she had ever expected, and there were two million places she wasn't familiar with. Every single one of them was teeming with Amore guards. Being lost was the least of her problems.
Carapace managed to avoid them for maybe half an hour, running and dodging and unconsciously shedding her pony disguise one piece at a time. But when she scrambled into a small, out-of-the-way room to avoid a flock of pegasi, she heard a slight noise of surprise behind her.
She froze, her hooves slipping off of the doorknob, and slowly turned around. A brown unicorn stood between a simple cot with a crystal chest at its foot and the wall, his armor thrown on haphazardly and his blue eyes bleary with sleep. His helmet hovered in a cloud of cyan magic. He blinked at her.
She reacted before he did, dropping her chest to the ground and launching herself at his legs. There must have been more force behind the blow than she realized, because he collapsed on top of her, in a tangle of legs, horns, and armor. Carapace automatically hissed at the contact.
The Amore guard disentangled himself from her and scrambled away, staring at her fangs. She bared them, glad to have them back, and snarled. The sound was cut short when a band of gleaming unicorn magic wrapped around her throat.
Her hooves flew up, and she scrabbled at it, gagging. The chitin, scraped rough from running, met nothing but the tough plates of her throat. There was no force pushing out--only in. She fell to the ground, keening silently in frustration and pain. Her vision was beginning to throb green around the edges when she forced herself back onto all fours and leaped at the stallion for the second time.
A wall of magic pushed her back. The pressure on her throat eased for a moment, but just a moment. It was back in full force soon. Carapace began to panic, jerking on the floor, kicking out blindly with her hindlegs and trying desperately to undo the binding with her forehooves. Terror and excitement, not her own, bubbled in her stomach, and she felt a little bitter knowing that that would be her last meal.
The door flew open, and she flinched involuntarily. She tasted fury and concern. Pale and a little off, but... unmistakable.
One moment, he was in the doorway, and the next, he was standing directly in front of the Amore guard. Carapace's vision was beginning to fade. Elytra may have been smaller than the guard, but he was also much stronger. The back of the pony's skull smacked against the wall with terrifying force as Carapace's hindhooves drummed out a frantic, staccato rhythm on the floor.
And then she was breathing, actual air going in and out of her lungs, and Elytra was hauling her to her hooves. Only his eyes, mane, and belly were still equine.
"Outside. Go," he said, shoving her. "If we can get into the gardens, have access to the sky, we'll be fine."
"Anomaly--"
"Waiting for us. Stop coughing and go, Carapace."
It took only a few moments to run to a door that led outside. Elytra shoved it open, then nudged her out, into the spectacular effect created by the light of the dying sun refracting through the crystals.
She dropped to her haunches and pressed a hoof to her throat, feeling there the plates had been cracked and chafed. Elytra sat next to her, catching his breath, and Anomaly approaching them from behind a large crystal.
But all three froze when a reverberating, insectine voice rang out.
"There you are," the Queen said. "I was beginning to think I'd never find you."
Carapace leaped to her hooves and whirled around. Acid-green eyes blazing, and small fangs bared in a smile, the Changeling Queen was perched on a low retaining wall several yards away. Gossamer crouched beside her, nervous and bug-eyed. There was a wad of dirty cobwebs on its horn.
Elytra spread his wings in a threat display, moving a little closer to Carapace. He flattened his ears against his head and hissed. "Leave, Queen. There's nothing for you here."
"Oh, I beg to differ." Chrysalis stepped off of the wall and moved languorously towards them. Carapace snarled involuntarily, her own wings rising. She didn't understand the fear and anger that the Queen of the Changelings evoked in her, and she couldn't stop herself from acting on them. "In fact, I see three rebel drones, just waiting to be reclaimed by their Queen."
Anomaly noticeably stiffened in his armor, and Chrysalis flashed him a poisonous smile. "Yes, that's right, I found your little diary. Cute, but stupid."
Carapace had to agree with her there. She had never felt the need to write down any potentially treasonous revelations. But then again, she hadn't had any until she'd left the hive.
"Come quietly," the Queen ordered. "We can discuss what to do with you as soon as we're out of enemy territory."
"You have no power over us," Elytra said in a low voice. "I won't tell you again--leave."
"Or what?" She laughed. "You'll attack me? Princess Cadance will swoop in to fight me? You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe that you're under the protection of the Crystal Court."
Before he could answer, she turned to Carapace, eyes narrowing.
"And you," she murmured, striding towards her. Carapace growled. "I talked to you not three days ago. What happened?"
She clamped her jaws together and shot a glance at Elytra and Anomaly. One's expression was unreadable, and the other's was covered with armor.
Chrysalis took a step towards her, and she scooted back involuntarily, turning her gaze on Gossamer. Its wings trembled, and a thin red tongue darted out to lick its lips. Other than that, though, it didn't move.
"What was it you said? That I have no power over you?" Chrysalis's voice grew dangerously soft as she turned her attention to Anomaly. "Well, Elytra and Carapace weren't there in Canterlot, but you remember the spell that I used on Shining Armor...don't you, Anomaly?"
He ripped off his helmet and growled at her even as her crooked horn began to glow. "Chrysalis--"
A sudden clatter of hooves made Carapace glance back over her withers. Twilight Sparkle rounded the corner of the palace guards and alicorns appearing behind her. Her face was twisted into a determined snarl, but as soon as she saw the Queen, Carapace tasted the way that her resolve melted. Like steel-flavored ice cream.
She stopped, eyes wide. Her gaze landed on Chrysalis, flicked to Carapace and then returned.
"You have got to be kidding me," she said in a shaky voice.
Cadenza stepped out behind her. Upon seeing Chrysalis, her eyes widened, her horn lit up in preparation, and a strangled gasp worked its way out of her. Her emotional reaction brought Carapace to her knees. It was like a sledgehammer, composed of vindictive fury and unstable terror and hate strong enough to rip the inner lining off of the digestive organs of any Changeling. Elytra grunted as his legs buckled, but Anomaly only swayed.
The Queen shot the princess a beatific grin, her eyes narrowing. "Mi Amore Cadenza. What a lovely surprise."
She continued speaking, but Carapace didn't hear her. She was crouched on the ground, quivering next to Elytra and trying desperately to fight back against the hate that surrounded her on all sides. It wasn't just Cadenza--the guards that had arrived hot on her fetlocks saw her, saw them, as monsters, as threats to their city. They hated them for that with a passion. The black emotion was twisting inside her like a poison, stripping away her knowledge of where she was, her ability to think coherently, the last vestiges of her disguise. Some parts of it, though, remained.
She opened her eyes briefly, and saw a white coat that seemed to blaze and a blue one that nearly devoured all the light around it. The sky goddesses. Celestia and Luna. Well, then, they really were doomed.
Twilight was whispering. Carapace strained her ears to pick it up.
"...risk them entering the city," she was saying. Her voice was shaky, almost distraught. "We have to..."
Her voice faded. Carapace tried to get to her hooves, and failed. But several words, in a voice that could only be Celestia's reached her.
"I suppose we must."
She exhaled. Whatever meager defenses she had managed to put up against the hate dropped. Her wings lay still against her shell, and she gave up.
"Wait."
Anomaly had said it, in a tone of voice louder and more commanding than she would have believed him capable of. Slowly, the hate and the crushing agony that came with it started to ebb. Carapace opened her eyes and raised her head, seeing Elytra climb onto trembling hooves beside her and Anomaly standing armor-less a few yards away. He was looking around, making sure he had everypony's attention.
A few moments passed. Nopony said a word.
"Don't kill us," he began quietly. "We aren't what you think. We are not with her--" he waved a hoof at Chrysalis "--and we mean you no harm."
There were a few murmurs of uncertainty among the crowd, but he ignored them.
"You can't kill us--" he continued.
"Why the buck not?" somepony yelled, to widespread agreement. Anomaly's silver pony eyes flashed.
"Because we are like her," he said, pointing a wing at Cadenza, who blanched in shock. "We're like them." He waved the same wing at Celestia and Luna. "We're alicorns. Or, at least, we will be."
The garden exploded with noise and activity. Guards hurling insults at Anomaly, Cadenza talking rapidly with Twilight, Chrysalis shrieking in disbelief. Carapace felt the hate coming back, and she cringed, lowering her head.
But, suddenly, Celestia spoke.
"Quiet, all of you," she said, her voice loud and firm. "Let him speak."
The Queen snarled in defiance, but everypony else fell silent. The sun goddess inclined her head slightly to Anomaly. "Please. Explain."
"There are tunnels in my hive with ancient paintings on the walls," he started again. "That's where I learned about it. All alicorns start off life as something very similar to what these two are now." He nodded to Carapace and Elytra. "It allows them to travel the world, to learn without race or ability restricting them. They're fluid at first, but they settle, eventually. Into a gender, first, then a personality, and so on. Only those who settle as female have the potential to become...like you are, Princess Celestia." Even though Anomaly was speaking to the princess, he was looking at Carapace. She realized vaguely that she was hyperventillating.
"We feed on love so that we are literally forced to be nice to others. We have to form strong bonds and keep them in order to survive. This is how alicorns learn to be good and just rulers, how they learn the importance of friendship. Even after they've settled completely, the significance still persists for them."
"Wouldn't I remember this?" Celestia asked. From the looks on the faces of Luna and Cadenza, they agreed with the question.
Anomaly hesitated. "Only a little. In dreams, maybe. I believe that the specific memories fade, because there's no reason for them, but the lessons learned don't."
"Then what changed?" That was Twilight. "Why haven't there been any new alicorns since Cadance?"
"There was one," he replied, his voice subdued. "The paintings told her story. How something went wrong, as she was making the transition, leaving her with a warped body and stunted powers. How she determined that if she couldn't reach her destiny, nopony should be able to. How she enslaved our entire race and bent our will to hers."
He turned to look at Chrysalis.
She snarled with sudden, vicious fury, her eyes burning with hate. "Lies. I ascended the Changeling throne after my mother died, and I killed six of my siblings to do it. You made this all up to try and save your own chitin."
"But it fits," Twilight murmured. "The book...everything the seapony told me." She spun around and looked at the assembled legions, raising her voice. "He's telling the truth!"
"He can't be," Cadance whispered.
"He is." The smaller mare placed a hoof on her wither.
"That doesn't change the fact that these three are mine," the Queen hissed, settling her caustic gaze on Carapace, Elytra, and Anomaly. "Let me take them, and I'll leave in peace."
Carapace growled, even as Elytra bared his fangs next to her. But somepony else spoke up before they could.
"No."
Hooves struck the crystal of the garden path. A purple blur raced up on Carapace's other side, and Twilight stood in front of her with her horn pulsing magenta. Chrysalis's face broke out in an incredulous grin.
"Oh, that is adorable," she cooed. "You think that they're your friends, do you? You're a food source. They'll rip your throat out as soon as you stop loving them."
Twilight just squared her withers.
"Believe me, I know my Changelings," the Queen continued. "That one..." She pointed to Anomaly. "...hurt, hm, I believe it was five ponies during our attack on Canterlot. It might have killed some of them. I don't remember."
Twilight's ear twitched.
"Let's see..." Chrysalis tapped her chin, pretending to think, before pointing to Elytra. "It brutally murdered the royal guard that took it under his figurative wing and then took his place."
"That's a lie!" Elytra spat with sudden vehemence.
"Prove me wrong," Chrysalis replied. He snarled at her. "As for the blue-eyed one, we used to have these training exercises. I'd order several Changelings into the forms of Cadance, Shining Armor, you and your friends. You get the idea. Then I'd pit my chosen against them." She smiled. "Carapace once punched a hole through the chest of a Changeling wearing your form."
Carapace lowered her ears and growled deep in her throat. But she couldn't deny it. She had been younger then, she hadn't known Twilight, the Changeling in question had healed...but it had happened.
Twilight glanced back at her, and she knew that her face would be unreadable.
The purple unicorn faced Chrysalis, meeting her eyes. The guttering magic around her horn brightened.
"They may be monsters," she said through gritted teeth, "but I'm not. You'll have to go through me to get to them."
The Queen of the Changelings blinked down at her, seemingly surprised. Then she shrugged.
"If you insist," she said.
"Twilight--" Carapace took a step forward, but before she could do anything, Chrysalis's horn flashed green. Twilight screamed, green fire erupting in a halo around her head. It dissipated, and she crumpled, the scream trailing off. The Queen lowered her head to the unconscious unicorn with speed only a Changeling could match, her horn beginning to throb with green light again.
Click.
Chrysalis blinked at the sound of chitin on chitin, and raised her head. Carapace, standing over the fallen Twilight, snarled as soon as her eyes came into view. Cadance and several guards were shouting. She didn't care.
A look of annoyance crossed Chrysalis's face. "Oh, what now?"
"I challenge you," Carapace growled, "for your position as Queen of the Changelings."
Chrysalis's eyes widened. There were procedures for this sort of thing, technically. But there was no precedence. Nopony had ever challenged her for her title before, as Carapace knew.
Nopony had ever been able to.
She felt her Queen's gaze raking down her body, taking stock. Of the braids in her mane and tail. Of the clefts in her hooves. Of the scratches on her shell and the exhaustion evident in her spindly frame and the inexperienced way she was arching her neck so that her small crest showed through her mane. Chrysalis laughed. Just once.
"I'm going to crush you like the insignificant bug that you are," she whispered to Carapace.
"No," said a voice as powerful as Celestia's, but in a completely different way. "You won't."
Carapace looked up. Elytra and Anomaly stood beside her, ready to fight, but so did...Princess Luna. Her wings stood out from her body and her eyes almost glowed.
"I know what it's like to be believed to be a monster," she said softly. "I will not allow you to harm these Changelings--and especially not Twilight Sparkle."
"Neither will I." Celestia suddenly appeared on her other side. "I don't know if what you told me was true," she said to Anomaly. "But one of your number is willing to fight for the life of my student. It appears that there's more to you than I realized."
Carapace heard quiet hoofsteps, and tensed up when they stopped directly behind her. She nearly jumped out of her shell when Cadenza spoke.
"I guess she's right." The words were bitter, but for once, she didn't taste any hate rolling off of the princess.
Chrysalis just stared in shock.
"You've lost, Chrysalis." Celestia's voice was soft, but hard as iron. "Step down, and leave."
The Queen's jaw worked. There was more hate in her eyes than Carapace had thought anypony capable of feeling, but she was a little too preoccupied to wonder why she wasn't vomiting blood as a direct result.
"I--I relinquish my place as Queen of the Changelings," Chrysalis finally spit.
"Go," Celestia ordered.
Chrysalis's eyes latched onto Carapace.
"You," she hissed. "You traitorous, soft-shelled worm. This isn't over."
"Now," Celestia snapped, spreading her wings.
The former Queen turned abruptly and stiffly walked back to where Gossamer waited. With a shimmer of green flame, she changed into a pegasus, and glared, waiting for it to do the same.
It shot a glance at Carapace and Elytra. But it still changed, and followed Chrysalis up and over the wall.
Carapace stood stock-still in the brilliant light of the setting sun, surrounded on all sides by her brothers and the alicorns who had come to her aid. Underneath her, Twilight stirred. She looked down.
A pair of violet eyes focused on her. "You saved me."
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza sat on one of the many balconies of the palace, a heavy blanket settled on her withers and a steaming cup of tea sitting between her forehooves. A light snow fell around her, too feathery to stick but still solid enough to put a slight chill in the air.
A team made up of official gardeners and volunteers worked and talked in low voices below her. They were repairing the delicate beds of crystal that Anomaly, Carapace, and Twilight had charged through. There were thick boots on their hooves to protect them from the razor-sharp shards, but they didn't seem bothered by the cold. Ponies of the Crystal Empire were generally used to the harsh northern winters of their country.
Her ears pricked at the sound of cautious hoofsteps behind her. She half-turned to see a slender, off-white mare hesitating in the doorway. A flicker of some unpleasant emotion rose in her, but she did her best to quell it.
"Come on." Cadance faced forward again. "I want to hear what you have to say."
The mare hesitantly came up beside her, and sat. There were several small braids in her teal mane and tail, and her eyes were a pale blue. She had no cutie mark, and there was a scroll in her mouth. She gently set it down before meeting Cadance's violet gaze our of the corner of her eye.
"Did Twilight get our letter?" she asked quietly.
"Yes. She wouldn't tell me what was in it, only that you asked her to come to your hive. She went back to Equestria to discuss it with Celestia."
"Anomaly helped me write it," Carapace muttered. "He knows more about it than I do."
Cadance remained silent, and she continued.
"He says that Twilight is one of the last of her kind. An ancient race. We were bound to them in the old days, because they were different from normal ponies. Their magic, their emotions, and the bonds that they formed were stronger. They were companions to us as we traveled and learned, and they had the ability to strip us of our disguises if we got out of hoof. Normal ponies can only do that once."
"So you want her to help you."
"It wasn't my idea." Annoyance flickered across her face. "It wasn't my idea to leave the Changeling throne empty, either, but here we are."
Cadance didn't smile. "How long do you plan on staying in the city?"
"I'm going home as soon as I finish this." Carapace nudged the scroll in front of her, and followed it. She opened it and looked up, her expression blank.
"Mi Amore Cadenza," she began. "Princess of the Crystal Empire. Ruler of Ice, Guardian of Crystal, Regent of Love. I come to you as Carapace of the Changeling Nation, ambassador to your country, and ask that you ally with my people. Against the threat of those ponies who wish us harm, against the threat of the Qu--Chrysalis, and against the threat of any new enemies who may arise."
Cadance looked down at the scroll. There was a place for her to sign her name. A quill, already loaded with ink, had been rolled up in the parchment. A cloud of pale blue magic surrounded it and lifted it into the air.
"I accept," she replied, signing the document with a flourish.
