The room was somber. Chrysalis was in the middle, the two shimmering hemispheres of magic over her. The former Queen of the Changelings was laying on her belly, her long legs tucked under her while she listed slightly to one side. She looked around the other inhabitants of the room.
"Chrysalis." Thorax looked at her former ruler. Her own body was bright, decorated with luminous colors that felt soothing and happy for her to look at—even if some ponies had told her they were a little garish. "I would call you mother, but you aren't. Sunset's parents were my parents, they taught both of us how to be good ponies."
"I just wanted what I thought was best for you." Chrysalis couldn't bring herself to meet Thorax's eyes. She had expected to see anger, hate, and worse in them; but all Thorax had done was look on her with sadness.
"You were under a spell." Shining Armor, without any disguise at all, was a foal sized changeling nymph. She sat between Cadance's forelegs with her back pressed against Cadance's barrel. "But the question I have, is what will you do now?"
"I don't know." Slumping down, Chrysalis put her chin on the floor. "I couldn't get out of here if I tried, and I don't even want to try. What I did was awful. I hurt so many ponies…" She closed her eyes, the pony she had been threatening to flay her with grief from the inside out.
"You hurt a lot, even killed some." Shining crawled out from Cadance's embrace, and lay down at the barrier nearest Chrysalis. She set her own snout down low, right at the barrier. "And you can't ever change that."
With each word from Shining, Chrysalis felt her pain deepen. She had been a princess, she had been the best of ponies, and now she was a monster. She closed her eyes and tucked her ears back tight.
"But you don't have to do those things anymore." Shining watched the changeling queen's ears flick forward. "You were being controlled. You were made into this by Sombra." She watched those huge eyes open up again and look right at her. "But you are a changeling, and what do changelings do?"
"But we are parasites, we are monsters that live—" Chrysalis cut off at the sound of the door opening. She turned her head and saw Shining's twin entering.
"Vinyl!" Cadance climbed to her hooves and pranced across the room to meet Vinyl. Leaning down, she kissed Vinyl's lips. "What is that?" She looked at a small case that was floating along beside Vinyl, levitated in green magic.
Lifting her hooves high, Vinyl walked over to Shining and stood before her sister. "I worked it out."
"Huh?" Shining sat up from her position on the floor. "What do you mean?" Vinyl thrust the little case toward Shining. "Vinyl, we were—"
"You said we needed some way to let everypony tell us apart. I came up with it." Pointing at the case, Vinyl nodded. "Go on, put them on."
Cadance booped both Shining and Vinyl on the nose. "I can tell you both apart." Both little faces turned to Cadance, and she giggled at the almost stern expressions on them.
Cracking the stern expression when Cadance giggled, Shining used her magic to open the little case. Looking inside, Shining saw a pair of big glasses inside. "Glasses? What will these do?"
"Put them on, silly." Vinyl watched Shining lift the large, wire-rimmed glasses up and put them on. "There, that will work perfectly."
"Wait a second." Shining pulled off the glasses and turned them over. Gazing back through the lenses, she stomped a little hoof in indignation. "These aren't lenses. The glass is just normal!"
Vinyl flashed with green fire, growing and filling out. When the flame spiraled away, she was standing in the semblance of the "real" Vinyl Scratch—complete with shades. "Well of course they are. You don't need glasses, Shining, but we need a way to be different. If one of us wears glasses all the time…"
"That would mean everypony knows who I am. Brilliant!" Shining lifted her hoof up, and got a clop against it from Vinyl's much bigger one. Slipping the glasses up and onto her nose, she blinked a few times. "Oh, wait."
Cadance watched Shining, with a swirl of green fire, become an exact clone of Vinyl. For the first time in her life she let out a high-pitched squeal of glee. "You look so cute!" She wrapped her forelegs around Shining and squeezed for all she was worth.
"She is, isn't she?" Vinyl's happy little giggle at seeing Shining being coddled by Cadance cut off; Chrysalis was standing as close to them, inside her prison, as she could. "What was I missing?"
Shining struggled, halfheartedly, in Cadance's grip. "I was about to invite Amore to join the Royal Guard." Shining's words seemed to silence the room. A quiet moment stretched awkwardly onward.
"What?" Chrysalis couldn't contain herself any longer. "What do you mean, 'Amore will join the Royal Guard'?" She narrowed her eyes at the pony. "I tried to ruin you. I have ruined y—"
"You haven't ruined me, Amore, and I don't think you have even ruined yourself. Sombra tried, and even he failed." Shining marched up to the barrier and brought one white hoof up, resting it against the green, inward facing force. "We can't let you out of here yet, Amore, but I can promise you I will make you return all the ill of Chrysalis as good, hard work."
Chrysalis stared at the hoof planted on the wall of her prison. "You can't be serious! I have eaten at Equestria for a thousand years!"
"How long do changelings live, Amore?" Shining kept her hoof in place. "How long can we make sure Equestria is safe, together?" She saw the shock in Chrysalis' eyes push away the confusion. "This,"—Shining gestured at the hemispheres with her free hoof—"is temporary. We will defeat Sombra; he can't stop ponies and changelings fighting together."
"Is she-" Chrysalis turned to Cadance, the mare she had imprisoned only days earlier. "Is she always like this?"
"It was why I caught you so quickly." Despite her dislike for Chrysalis, hearing the true story and seeing the broken mare gave Cadance enough perspective to see that Chrysalis was just another casualty of Sombra. "From the moment you walked into our rooms I knew you were an impostor."
"Liar." Chrysalis had been caught embarrassingly quickly by Cadance, but she didn't think it had been as quick as the princess implied.
"A little, but you never once acted with the valor or integrity of Shiny. It was how I recognized Vinyl, she has it too." Tilting her eyes and an ear to the side, Cadance saw Vinyl's expression change to surprise. "But if you are asking if Shining Armor means every word she says? Yes. She wouldn't lie like this."
Chrysalis fumbled around for an excuse. "But… mares can't be Royal Guard!"
"I think that is an old rule that bears changing." Shining raised her eyebrow with no apology for the dry humor. "You failed the Crystal Empire,"—the look of pain on Chrysalis' face hurt Shining, but Chrysalis needed to hear it—"you failed to stop Sombra back then. Swear yourself to the Royal Guard and I will make sure you can't and won't fail again."
Lifting a shaking hoof, Chrysalis' eyes locked onto Shining's. "I don't want to fail again." The words fell from her lips with the same tone of a filly who was deathly afraid of something.
As Chrysalis' hoof touched the inside of the double barrier, Shining snapped his own up and off the shield. "Cadet, I promise that you will never fail this badly again." She snapped her hoof into a salute.
A natural at mimicry, Chrysalis lifted her hoof up too and saluted back. The aching pain in her heart wasn't any lighter, but it no longer seemed impossible to carry. "Sir."
Meanwhile, in another part of the palace, two mares were sitting opposite each other for the first time in quite a while. Sunset looked at Celestia. Princess Celestia looked radiant. The sun was streaming in through the glass ceiling of the room, and everything seemed brighter because of it. Celestia was wearing her full regalia, shining and gold.
Sunset Shimmer stood opposite Princess Celestia. She wasn't the pony Celestia had remembered, and certainly wasn't the one who had run away. Bright green coloring around Sunset's face trailed down to a bright blue on her back and forelegs, while a softer green claimed the rest of her body. Celestia watched the sunlight play over the bright colors, and slowly she began to remove her trappings of office. Shoes, peytral, and even her crown was sat to one side. "Sunset—"
Hearing her name on Celestia's lips, Sunset rushed forward and wrapped her forelegs around the princess' neck. She wanted to apologize, beg forgiveness, and tell her how much she had missed her, but the words clogged up in Sunset's throat. Tears poured from her eyes, her nose started running, and all that came from her throat were great, gasping sobs.
Celestia pulled Sunset closer, and sat down so she could keep her former student held close. "Sunset, I…" Trailing off, Celestia couldn't think of words to say. Closing her eyes, she felt moisture gather at the corners of her eyes. She managed to last nearly ten seconds, hugging the bawling Sunset, before she too started to cry in earnest. "I said so many bad things."
"I didn't hear them." Sunset managed to choke the words out. "Apply…" She inhaled deeply, her nasal passage making the most terrible snorfing sound. "Applied Calculus for Spells." She was jerked back out of the hug, Celestia staring at her through tear-stained eyes.
"All the way back then?" Princess Celestia could remember every last thing she had taught Sunset in the final year of her stay. "So after that it was—"
"It was Chrysalis." Sunset tilted her head forward, trying to hide her soaked eyes. "She teased me every day. She waited until she had…"
"She said some very bad things to me." Celestia shunted the memory from her student to the changeling queen. "But you are back."
Sunset could have sworn the sun itself shone brighter. She looked up at Princess Celestia and nodded. "B-B-Back and-and reporting for class!" She reached a colorful leg up and wiped one eye, then the other, to a passable dryness. "Sorry I was absent, Princess."
"So many days tardy." Celestia couldn't believe how it felt to be reunited with her former student. She gave a sigh. "You are a little old to be my student again, Sunset." The moment she spoke, green fire engulfed Sunset's changeling form, replacing it with a young mare. The pony had a rich, amber coat, two-tone red and yellow mane, and piercing cyan eyes. On her flank was a twisting sun cutie mark. Fresh tears came, and Celestia didn't hold back.
Pulled back into a hug, Sunset didn't fight the emotions that roared around inside her, and she hugged Celestia back. "It took a while, but I made it home."
Celestia held onto Sunset and let her tears flow. Sunset's fur felt so perfect to Celestia, and her mane was soft and just as she remembered it too. "This isn't you now, though." She hated saying the words, but she had to. This wasn't Sunset Shimmer anymore. "Be yourself. Be who you are."
Clamping her teeth down, Sunset called her fire to return her form. She felt herself relax into her native changeling shape, and was on the verge of hating the bright and colorful new patterns as much as she had the black carapace.
"There you are. Now Sunset, I am willing to take you on and finish your schooling." Celestia watched as Sunset's eyes went as wide as can be. "But I also think I have a lot to learn from you. I have a vast new species joining Equestria, and I need to know all about them."
"Yes, Princess!" Sunset's tears kept flowing, but now it was joy that leaked them.
"I think it has been too long since we enjoyed a cup of tea together. Let's both take some time to enjoy the afternoon, the tea, and each other's company." Celestia used her magic to pour tea, and prepared two cups in the exact manner as she had so many times all those years ago.
"And the cake. I don't think you would forget the cake, Princess Celestia." Sunset's smile was a mirror of her true feelings. She was home and happy, and at last she had told her teacher what had happened. "I really missed cake."