Ponies stared at Cheval as she walked down the street. One could hardly blame them. Even those who didn’t know what a changeling looked like could see she was not a pony. She was a strange, monstrous thing, with a cap on her horn, a muzzle on her jaw, and an armed escort to prevent her from escaping.
One pony pulled out a camera and took a picture. When Cheval didn’t leap across the gap between them and disembowel him, others became emboldened. Lens bulbs flashed and shutters clicked as they made their way down the sidewalk.
“Hey!” shouted Twilight’s griffon friend. Sky Guard was his name. “Photographs with the princess are fifty bits.”
Collectively, crowd paused. One pony snapped a picture, and in a flash, Sky Guard was at his side. “Fifty bits,” he commanded, resting his talons on the pony’s shoulder, “or your camera.”
The pony pulled the film from his camera, and the pictures stopped. When Sky Guard returned to the group, Cheval offered him a chuckle. “So you’re the Element of Laughter?” She tilted her head. “It fits you.”
After a moment, she added a softer, “Thank you.”
The war museum was quite a large structure, taking up the entire city block on which it was built. Despite a long line and a staring crowd, Twilight held them up a full minute at the checkin counter asking about the suggested donation. A banner over her head proclaimed there was a special exhibition this month on “Patriotic Music of the Great War in the North.”
Twilight donated a bit for each of them. Ten paces from the front, she felt bad and ran back to add another ten. “Pay what you want,” she explained, was a tax on ponies with anxiety.
The first two floors of the museum were dramatic, Cheval supposed. They had flying machines that hung from the ceiling on cables, defused bombs, model submarines, and wax soldiers with full kit. She read about decisive battles in towns that she once visited to wave at crowds, and saw pictures of famous generals who she distantly recalled as staff officers.
But she didn’t learn much from it. She thought she understood “blitzkreig,” only to have Twilight explain that it didn’t actually involve lightning, or even any pegasai. It had something to do with armored vehicles, and the others’ explanations only confused her more.
When they reached the second floor, she learned more from an exhibit on yak soldiers. They were all dressed in black, their shoulder patches adorned with the symbol of Amaryllis’s Hive. Twilight’s stallion friend cracked a joke.
“How many yak does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” he asked. “Two! One to change the bulb, and one to willingly collaborate with the darkness.”
Then Twilight’s yak friend cried, and seeing her cry reminded Twilight of Yona, so then Twilight had to cry. One of her mare friends poked her stallion friend and called him a jerk, and they all had to go learn a friendship lesson about racism. Cheval had seen Twilight learn that lesson already, so she didn’t interrupt. She wandered off, along with the two crystal-pony guards escorting her, and while teenagers argued, she climbed the stairs to the third floor.
There was a tour group forming outside one of the exhibit halls. “CHANGELINGS,” the sign above the hall read, “THE PARASITE RACE.”
So Cheval stood in the back of the tour group. A few ponies noticed her, but Cheval’s handlers said it was fine.
“Okay!” The tour guide was a slight little mare, with a blue coat and a blonde made so voluminous it looked bigger than her head. She wasn’t quite out of puberty yet, an adult but only just, the blue museum shirt that was her uniform slightly ajar on her frame. Nopony doubted her energy—it made her voice crack. “Who’s ready to learn about… um.”
Cheval stood head and shoulders above the other ponies, and so it was hardly possible for the tour guide not to see her. As the guide trailed off, the rest of the tour group turned to stare as well. “Um. Hi.” The tour guide said. “Who are you?”
Cheval stood with her head high and her back straight as she’d been trained her youth, and she said: “I’m Her Royal Highness, the Princess Cheval, daughter by right of Princess Cadence and Prince Consort Shining Armor, daughter by blood of Queen Amaryllis and Prince Consort Shining Armor, peer to alicorns and fifth in line for the throne of Equestria.”
When she was certain the tour guide had understood her, she added: “Who are you?”
“Um…” The mare cleared her throat. “I’m Misty.”
“Please continue with the tour, Misty.”
Misty had to collect some permission forms from the ponies who had foals with them, since the content in the exhibit was at times mature and disturbing. It was awkward. Nopony said a word and she fumbled with the paper.
“Okay everypony,” she said at the end, clapping her hooves just in case anypony failed to notice the concentrated enthusiasm dripping from her every word. “Welcome to the changelings…” She paused a moment to glance at Cheval. “Welcome to the changelings tour. If you’ve ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or had nightmares that your spouse isn’t really your spouse, this is the truth behind the myth. You’re going to learn about the race that murdered, lied, and whored their way the top, and who nearly enslaved all of ponykind. We all know about Princess Flurry Heart’s legendary deeds, but now you get to see the monsters she was fighting.”
The tour group, collectively, looked back at Cheval. But Cheval said nothing, and after a few seconds, Misty let out an awkward cough. “Okay!” she said again. “I’m going to walk backwards. Walking and talking. Let’s go.”
She backed into the exhibit, and everypony followed.
There were wax statues of changelings, posed mid-hiss. Collections of weapons. Samples of resin and model eggs. An exhibit entitled, “WHOREHOUSES: A CHANGELING’S HUNTING GROUNDS” discussed what perversions a shapeshifter could use to pry open the heart of an unvirtuous pony.
There was a statue depicting Flurry Heart and Queen Amaryllis locked in single combat, moments before Flurry plunged her glaive into Amaryllis’s heart. It was across the way from a diagram explaining changeling social structure.
“What made changelings unique among monsters,” Misty explained, “was their ability to use the magic of friendship and the power of love. All other races who touch the powers of Harmony this way are intrinsically good, with ponykind being the most notable example. But changelings had the ability to feel friendship, to feel love, to feel kindness, without letting it influence their inner desires. This was called, ‘becoming the mask,’ the process by which a changeling temporarily felt love or affection for the target.”
“Is that how they fooled Equestria?” a little colt asked. He must have been eight.
“Yes! Very good.” Misty beamed. “Are you learning about the magic of friendship in school right now?”
The colt nodded, and Misty went on: “Well you’re exactly correct. The princesses of Equestria were used to their powers of love and friendship telling them how every creature really felt. They couldn’t understand that they were being tricked! Even Princess Twilight was once famously conned by a changeling named Thorax, who used his power over the magic of friendship to convince her he really was her friend. That’s why Equestria got deceived again and again, and might even have been conquered if things went on.”
With a practiced smile, Misty turned to the group: “Only Princess Flurry Heart had the wisdom to see what was really going on. Today we take our safety for granted, but if you take the time to study history, you’ll really start to appreciate how her decisive action saved all of ponykind.”
“Why do you use the past tense?” Cheval asked.
Silence fell over the group. Everypony turned back to stare at her. The color drained out of Misty’s face.
“Um…” she stammered. “They’re… extinct. Changelings are extinct. Other than you, I suppose.”
“How?” Cheval asked. “How did that happen?”
“They were… um. You’re… changelings.” She stammered. “Eusocial. Were a eusocial species. The queen is the only one who can lay eggs. When Princess Flurry Heart heroically slew Amaryllis during the final assault on the hive, the changeling race was doomed.”
“What about Thorax?”
“Oh, um… the southern changeling hive was destroyed earlier in the war. That one is actually less important to—”
“What about the drones?” Cheval pushed, raising her voice so as to be clearly heard. “The ones outside the hive.”
“Changeling spies were—”
“I am not talking about spies!” The words emerged as a hiss from between her pointed teeth, and a number of ponies lept back from her. “A changeling drone lives seventy years. Amaryllis laid at least one batch of eggs a year. There should be hundreds of thousands of drones who are just past middle age.”
“Well, without their queen, many of them killed themselves.” Misty said, drawing herself up and finding a bit of her spine. “The rest left. The North wasn’t a good hunting ground anymore, so they left in search of easier prey. Some went to Griffonia. Others to Equestria. Only spies and saboteurs stayed behind.”
“The Northern Changeling Hive coinhabited the North with the Crystal Empire for nearly twenty years. Changelings made friends with crystal ponies, found work, built houses. Some of them married crystal ponies or adopted foals. They wouldn’t just leave.”
“I’m sorry, I understand this is a museum and you’re a historical artifact, so we can make some exceptions to the rules.” Misty glared down the length of her muzzle. “But in this day and age, the thing you’re mostly known for is poisoning your own family and trying to murder our princess, Ms. Fifth-in-Line-For-The-Equestrian-Throne. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t trust your appraisal of the virtue of the changeling race.”
With an apologetic glance, she turned to the rest of the group: “And in any case, the facts are the facts. The Crystal Empire proper was formally declared changeling free in 29 AR, and the greater North was declared as such in 37 AR. Survivors lasted longer in weaker nations, but Equestria’s last infestation died off about six years ago.”
Misty took a step back, resuming her habit of walking backwards while talking to the group. “Now, if you continue this way, we have a collection of authentic shed carapaces.”
Twilight and her friends found Cheval sitting on the steps outside the entrance to the Changeling exhibit.
“Oh my gosh.” Twilight was breathless. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe I got distracted. I can’t believe it. That was such a teenager moment I am so—”
“It’s fine.” Cheval shrugged. Her eyes were downcast, and her voice quiet. “It’s fine.”
Twilight looked to her, then to the exhibit. Her friends shuffled uncomfortably. “Did you go in there?”
“They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“No! No. Not… not all of them. We still have two left in Ponyville.” Twilight bit her lip. “And there’s rumors there might be a previously unknown hive in the Amber Isles. Nopony’s ever seen it, but if they’re hiding then—”
“Please don’t try to make me feel better. You’re being a good aunt, I know.”
Twilight and her friends looked at each other. Sky Guard reached out and put a talon on Cheval’s shoulder. Twilight pressed into her side. “I… I know you probably can’t forgive Flurry. I don’t know if you should forgive her. Ever. Some things are… but you’re here. Now. And you need to have hope. Things can—”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Twilight.” Cheval drew in a breath. “She’s right. We’re all monsters. The world is better off without us.”
Nopony knew what to say to that.
“I’d like to go home now,” Cheval said. “I’m tired.”