Epilogue
Naudia looked up at the doors to the mansion apprehensively. It seemed like years ago she had fought the sand spirits in the desert, and the illusion, now that she could see the real thing, the illusion was a very good replica. But it left out important details, the house was significantly more worn than she remembered, more... aged.
It didn't look like the posh, shiny abode that had been carefully maintained and passed down through the centuries that it had looked to be inside the illusion. Instead the house looked like it had been built to last, and had fallen into the hooves of ponies who thought that there were things more important than fancy houses.
They were using the mansion for a feast of sorts, with the princesses, because the palace itself was in a bit of a bad condition at the moment. Partially because of the occupation, partially because Naudia had burned foot-wide holes in it.
Naudia didn't bother knocking on the door. It was opened for her by a still apprehensive-looking Night Light. The wisps of changeling-induced nightmares were apparent under his eyes, and he carried his doubts like a silent aura about him.
Still, Night Light let her into the house without a word or an unkind glance. It was clear he was putting up with this as best he could. It would take him a while to reconcile what had happened; frankly, nopony was ready for that.
The first pony Naudia met was Fluttershy, and her shadow Diamond Tiara, who held onto Fluttershy’s tail as if she might vanish. Fluttershy held a pensive look on her face, as if she was thinking over something deeply.
“How are you holding up?” Naudia asked.
“All right… all this has given me a lot to think about.” Fluttershy didn’t meet Naudia’s gaze, but she didn’t flinch back from the changeling either. She had too much on her mind to think about changelings right now.
Naudia decided to leave Fluttershy to her thoughts after exchanging a few more pleasantries with her and Diamond. Of the ponies she’d met so far, Diamond was the least afraid of Naudia, quietly and politely responding. Naudia couldn’t be sure what was going on inside her head, if she was teetering on the verge of collapse, or if she genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with Naudia.
The next pony Naudia met was Rainbow Dash, hovering outside the dining room door like she had something to say to Naudia.
“Hey…” She didn’t quite know where to start with the Changeling Queen, and she floundered around for a bit, only half-starting words.
“I know a lot of stuff has happened that I haven’t fully accepted yet but…” She scraped her hoof across the floor nervously. “I need your help apologizing to Twilight.” Before Naudia could say anything she rushed on. “We’ve never really had a chance to talk or anything and we don’t really know one another, but I need to apologize to Twilight and I… I keep losing my nerve. I feel like there has been a wedge driven into our friendship, and I just can’t bridge that gulf myself. Every time I try, I just end up putting myself down ‘til I just give up.”
Naudia could tell, just from her emotions, that she was genuine so she thought for a moment. The answer, to her at least, was obvious.
“How about you start by giving her something in writing? If anybody could appreciate a written apology, I think it's Twilight.”
“I mean, I thought about that… but it just feels too impersonal, ya know, like I can’t say it to her face, I mean I can’t, but I’ve never been too good with words. And it just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“How about this: you can dictate it to me, and you can deliver the letter in person, and use it as a conversation starter.” Rainbow started to look a little panicky, but Naudia stepped in, “And when you deliver that letter, I’ll be there in the next room, every step of the way.”
Rainbow had a bit of a simple view on Changelings at this point: there were bad changelings and, now, there were good changelings. Fluttershy and Luna had vouched for the good changelings, so they were cool. Now she had to deal with more important things that she had been putting off.
The last pony she met before reaching the informal dinner was Applejack.
Applejack was a tough nut to crack. She was honest for one, valued honesty, and was the element of honesty. That put her and Naudia on tenuous terms at best right off the bat. She wasn’t even trying to be impolite. Applejack was, in fact, very polite. Being able to see emotions though, Naudia felt far more weight in these conversations than Applejack intended.
Naudia extricated herself the best she could. Changeling-pony negotiations were never on the table for the last thousand years, so diplomacy was not her strong suit. The changelings valued a strong leader who fed them... Chrysalis had shaped them in that direction for far too long. All she could do is hope she didn’t perform some pony faux pas and move into the dining room.
The dining room had a comically long table, but every seat was filled. Looking up along the table, Naudia noted down the faces she recognized.
Cadance and Shining stood out by tensing up as she entered the room, it didn’t show on their faces but Naudia could feel it, like a watch wound even tighter. They were sitting next to Luna, currently in her pony form, but they knew the truth. The truth was they weren’t nervous entirely because Luna was a changeling, they were nervous that the pony sitting right next to her, taking up the other half of the head of the table, didn’t.
Celestia sat next to Luna at the head of the table, and the only reason Naudia didn’t instantly notice her maelstrom of emotions is because she had been gradually entering the outer radius of it the second she entered the mansion. Powerful ponies held powerful emotions, and the might of the sun could disperse them so far you could mistake them for somepony else’s.
She could feel all kinds of things from Celestia, so many that it was hard to pin them all down. Regret, pain, sadness, but the strongest one, the first one that showed as soon as she stepped into the room, was a hastily stamped down anger. That actually caused a physical reaction from Celestia, and those nearby could hear the wheels in her wheelchair chariot squeak.
Her back had not recovered, and likely would not recover for some years yet. At the moment, Celestia’s belly rested on the cut-out rim of a single-pony guard chariot that was rounded off, and a piece of rubber pipe insulation wrapped around the rim, so that her front legs could still allow her to walk around at a fashion.
Finally, though, Naudia focused on the mare in the room who did have a positive reaction to her entering the room.
Naudia wasn’t sure if she should be happy or scared that Twilight Sparkle seemed to think that Naudia had heroically saved the day. That was the official story, and the only ponies who could dispute that were Twilight’s parents. They had agreed that it was better for Twilight to believe the official story until later, when things had calmed down. It was a blatant attempt to put things off, but it was not a subject that Naudia wanted to broach either.
Finally she was able to sit down next to Twilight who thankfully was between her and Celestia. As she was about to thank Twilight for pulling out the chair for her, she realized that Twilight was busy starting the long road to reconciling with Celestia.
Then she felt the wave of unbridled malice from behind her. It was that thing, the hateful extorting schemer who had visited her in her cell, that had seemingly stopped time and sucked all the color out of the world. She politely pushed her chair back in and reached out to place a tiny capsule on the table in front of her, conveniently sized to fit into one of the holes in her hoof.
Grimacing as she obeyed the unspoken instruction, she hid the capsule, and just like that the thing was gone, and color came back to the world. With that, she had to be a diplomat initiating the first contact with her parent species in over a thousand years.