"Okay, before we are done…" Articulate paused for effect. "Go!" The moment he said the word, the whole class flashed with green fire. He grinned at the group, admiring the detail on all the "ponies."
Sunset narrowed her eyes at the blast of green fire, but smiled at the result. "You really are the best at teaching them shapechanging, Articulate." She noticed the shocked look on Articulate's face, and noticed how it turned into a cocky grin. "But don't push it." She gave him a playful shove in the shoulder.
Articulate's mood brightened further at the compliment from the least likely source. "Of course I am the best, I taught you, didn't I?" He flashed into a very stalliony pegasus and strutted from the room. "All yours, my beauty."
The more Sunset was reminded of things, the more she remembered. Articulate's dryness evaporating when it came to teaching shapechanging. "He really enjoys that…" She spoke the words softly, under her breath. Giving her head a shake to banish the memories, Sunset smiled. "Today you are going to learn about love magic. You all have it, and I regret to say the unicorns among you will have the hardest time learning this. Let's get started."
Shining didn't realize for several moments that he was still in disguise. Ruffling his wings, he realized it actually felt good to just be a pony. A glance at Scootaloo revealed a slightly smaller pegasus stallion—closer to being an old colt—showed him smiling and chatting with the pair of very haughty, elegant unicorn sisters: Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.
"I said..." Sunset charged her horn and threw a disruption blast into the middle of the room. "Let's get started!" The pop the blast created was underwhelming, but it had the effect of yanking the disguises off every one of the changeling nymphs in the room. "Ready?" Eager eyes, if a little shell-shocked, looked up at her. "Okay."
"Changeling love magic works a little like unicorn magic. We all have a horn for focusing our power, but unlike unicorns our power comes from a limited reserve deep inside." Sunset moved side-on, and used her magic to point to her midsection. "When we cast a spell, or just deliver a blast, we have to envision the spell in our horn and then push magic into it. A bit like how Articulate teaches shapechanging."
Turning around, Sunset levitated some chalk up to the board. "This will be your first, and similar to a unicorn's first spell, you get to learn to make a light." She built the simplest of magic diagrams: simply a star-like rune for "sun." Memories flooded back, and Sunset nearly staggered. A single pattern glowed brightly in her memory. It was a pair of half-suns twisting around each other, and spraying tendrils of bright light off. Hot tears rushed down her cheeks as memories of her own cutie mark came back, and what had been done to strip it.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
There wasn't pain inside, but I didn't feel right. The thing that they had put inside me seemed to distract my thoughts, always making me want to follow directions.
"Stand up." Chrysalis sneered at me. "I said—"
"I heard you." My legs were already unfolding under me, pushing my body up. "What do you want to do now, shove more of your parasites in me?" I wanted to get angry, really angry. I wanted to call down the sun's might and throw fire at every dark carapace. I couldn't even raise my emotions above "slightly annoyed."
"I want you to hear what my drone has to report." I wanted to spit in Chrysalis' face, I wanted to burn her to cinders. "I have never seen a pony get this angry this easily before, curious."
"Your Majesty!" My head snapped around to see… myself. I stared at the mare that wore a perfect copy of my fur-pattern, my mane, and my tail, but spoke in a raspy voice. "It went just as you asked. I told the princess that…" As the not-me spoke, their voice became more and more like mine, until they showed off their perfect tone. "… Your Highness, I… I can't stand this anymore! You keep me locked up in here, and I can't take it anymore!"
The bottom fell out of my world. The not-me sounded and looked more like me than I did now. I wanted to collapse and cry. I wanted to go to Princess Celestia and beg her to believe that it wasn't me. I wanted to be me.
"And how did Princess Prissy respond?" Chrysalis' voice sounded amused. "I bet she gave you such a disappointed look, like you had done something she thought you were above."
I couldn't even fold to the floor and collapse; the last command had been to stand up, and there was no way I could work around it. "Buck you." My voice was a whisper.
"You are correct, Your Majesty." My clone bowed deeply to Chrysalis. "And I ran away from her, ran as fast as I could for the forbidden room. I made sure the guards saw me sneak in—"
"And buck you too!" It was the closest to rage I was capable of. Being this apathetic was pathetic. "Buck…"
"I 'snuck' in, and left the backpack right by the portal mirror." My clone finished her little speech and bowed to Chrysalis. A sharp sting flared in my right flank, then again on the other side. I stared back at where my cutie mark had been. I glared at Chrysalis, her horn still flickering with green magic after denuding my very identity.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
Sunset lifted her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. A stallion stood above her. He was big and white, with a beautiful blue mane and tail. She inhaled his scent and knew this was Shining Armor disguising as himself.
"You're safe." Shining stood proud, making sure no changeling crowded around Sunset—none except for his fellow crusaders. "What happened?" His eyes swished to the nymphs in the room, judging their reliability in the situation. Only the Beet nymphs measured up to his standard.
"Safe as houses." Apple Bloom had remembered how comforting it was to be in a snuggle pile with other changelings, and had been the first to cuddle up to the collapsed Sunset.
Sweetie was opposite Apple Bloom. She wasn't as big as Sunset, but she was doing her best at cuddling close and reassuring her. "Are you feeling better?"
Sunset's attention passed over each of the nymphs of Thorax's pledge. Scootaloo was the last, and even she was snuggled in against her. She realized why they were so calming. "Thorax's scent is all over you…" She smiled.
"Yup." Scootaloo buzzed her little wings to stir up more of that scent. "Are you feeling okay now?"
Sunset did in a way. "I'm not alone." She looked to the three nymphs cuddled against her, then up to Shining Armor. "Your 'Cady' is a very lucky mare." She blushed the moment she said it. "Sorry…"
"No, it's okay." Shining reached a hoof down to Sunset. "Please, if you are feeling up to it… I really need to learn this." He smiled, and saw the brightest smile returned. Once she was lifted to her hooves, Shining dropped his disguise and trotted back to her desk.
Giving each of the other Crusaders' crests a ruffle, Sunset walked back to the desk at the front of the class. "Sorry, my pail, but as you can see your future life may sometimes come back to haunt you." Taking a deep breath, Sunset continued with her lesson.
By the time Sunset had finished her lessons, not only was Shining Armor's head buzzing with the new knowledge she had learned, but she was also hungry! She raised her hoof and waited patiently for Sunset to point at her. "I am… I am really hungry…" There was a certain amount of embarrassment in having to "tell an adult" when she was hungry, and it rankled a little.
"Well of course, you all are. You have spent most of the day working magic. Your pledge leaders will take you all to the caves for an extra meal. Don't hold back with your feeding, you are still young as far as changelings go, you need every drop you can get." Sunset Shimmer felt a little better settled, but one thing she couldn't deny; she really hated Queen Chrysalis.
"I'm sorry for all the times we picked on your magic." Apple Bloom looked to Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo nodded. "Yeah, this stuff is really hard." The three fillies hugged tightly together, and with a quick burst of magic from all three pulled Shining into the hug.
It felt really good to belong, to fit in with a group. Shining knew she had a bond with the three former fillies that would never break. "You girls are the best." She squeezed them with her forelegs. "But we need to find some other nymphs to bring back with us tonight."
"Of course!" Sweetie Belle felt shocked, and showed it. "How could I have forgotten that?" As she lowered her head, warmth seemed to wrap around her like a cozy blanket. It wasn't heat, it wasn't even touch, she just felt safe.
"Here you are. I have arranged for an old friend to spend the night in our cave, and he is bringing his pledge along too." Thorax gasped as the four nymphs of her pail rushed to her and hugged her tightly. "How was your first day learning magic?" She rubbed crests and ears until she got a loud chirp from each of them.
"Yup, and we're starvin'!" Apple Bloom giggled as Thorax booped her. "She needs it the most." She pointed at Shining. "We all couldn't keep up with the crazier spells, but Shining was working on them right up 'till the end."
"Sweetie Belle was no slouch either." Shining found herself pressing her snout in against Thorax's chitin, inhaling the pheromones she knew the bigger changeling was putting out. Each breath cleared her thoughts a little more, and made the future seem a little brighter.
"I was just trying to keep up…" Sweetie tried to hide her head behind Thorax's foreleg.
"I am very proud of all of you." Thorax rubber her wings together until she coaxed out a chirp of her own. "But now let's get you something to eat before Shining or Sweetie start rattling!"
When Thorax got her pledge down to the under-hive, she found it busy with others getting their groups fed. "Articulate!" She spotted her target and wove over to him with her charges in tow. She focused on the other changeling's face as she neared. "Still up for helping my pledge with their night terrors?" She gave an apologetic look to her own nymphs.
"Help my star pupils?" Articulate grinned at the four crusaders. Unsure why he was in such good spirits, he put it down to the warm welcome from Sunset earlier in the day. "You'll see, I have the most comfortable chitin to sleep against. Isn't that right?" He turned to his own group of nymphs, only to see them rushing towards Thorax.
Warmth spread through Thorax at all the nymphs gathered around her. Closing her eyes a moment, she promised herself that she would get them all out. She felt a tugging at one leg, and turned to see Sweetie Belle there.
"Um… I thought Mr. Articulate was a…" Sweetie blushed hotly. "I thought he was—" A large hoof pressed to the nymph's snout, forestalling any need for further words.
"All changelings are female, Sweetie Belle." Thorax brushed Sweetie's crest back gently. "But some need to remember themselves as they were. For them there might not be anything left of the pony except that."
Sweetie tried to take in the information, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Uh, okay. But why is Vin… Shining… saying she is a… filly-nymph?"
"Shining was a very special pony, and now she is an amazing changeling." Thorax watched the nymph in question as Shining chatted with the new arrivals. "Quite amazing…" She smiled a little more and turned back to Articulate. "Shall we head back to my cave? We normally get nice and snug before sleeping."
Trotting along behind Thorax and Articulate, Shining watched how their shapeshifting teacher reacted to the new queen. She watched the way Articulate even started to defer to Thorax. The slightest pang of terror gripped Shining, at the raw magnetism that being a queen apparently brought with it. "I hope we are making the right choice…"