Diamond Path had been a quiet, nervous colt—the sort of pony who preferred reading to partying and who didn’t like to speak until he knew what to say. But when he’d turned sixteen, her mother had asked him if he wanted to be the crown prince.
“You don’t have to say yes,” she’d said. “You're a fine young stallion, and your father and I will love you just the same no matter what. But if you want to be the heir to the Crystal Empire, you need to act like it.”
He did want to be his mother’s heir. And so he took elocution lessons, learned the finer points of social grace, and joined the army. At thirty, he was no longer a young colt, and when he walked into a room he walked like he owned it.
“Prince Diamond Path,” announced one of the guards at the door to the war room, and the general staff shot to their hooves. Crystal ponies in uniforms, ponies with medals, ponies who had won battles and watched their friends die stood at attention. They waited for him to dismiss them as he walked to the head to the table.
But he did not dismiss them. He let them stand there, stiff as boards, while he slowly examined the room. “Admiral Sapphire,” he said, “where is my mother?”
“Princess Flurry Heart was tired after the events of the day,” the Admiral began. “She was unavailable to—”
“Has she delegated the power to resolve this crisis, to myself or anypony else in this room?” His voice was like a whip, and nopony dared answer. “Then this meeting is not appropriate. She is your sovereign. You will sit and you will wait for her to arrive.”
He clapped a hoof on the table for attention, then pointed at a four-star general, chosen at random. “You! Fetch my mother, now. Everypony else, sit.”
They sat. They waited in silence for nearly a quarter-hour, as Diamond Patch watched them. With his eyes, he dared them to speak. Then Flurry Heart arrived, and everypony had to stand again.
“Diamond,” Flurry said. They exchanged a short hug, and a chair was produced for her. When she sat, one could imagine her bones rattling in her joints. A grey hair fell from her head. “What’s this about?”
“We’re discussing Cheval’s escape,” he said. “The government must declare an official position.”
“No. No.” Flurry waved a hoof. “It’s… it’s a trivial matter. She’s one mare. And Equestria already has changelings. No comment. That’s our… that’s our position.”
Silence hung over the room. Diamond didn’t dare to frown. But several of the general staff lacked his self control. One officer said, “Your Highness, Cheval was seen by many ponies in the city. Word of her escape is spreading. The secret police do not have the rumors under control. We must do something.”
“A rumor that Cheval escaped is hardly going to upset the apple cart, is it?” Flurry asked. “The people will never accept a changeling as their ruler. Her claim to the throne is a joke. And we kept her under control for… well. We can contain any threat she poses.”
“Respectfully, your highness,” said an old pegasus, her uniform decorated with flyer’s medals, “the general population does not see it that way. The changeling is an insidious and highly adaptable foe, and despite her being bound from horn to hoof, she escaped custody in less than a week. The threat to the Empire is real, and if we don’t do something, ponies will begin to panic.”
“She’s a teenager. Not a threat,” Flurry said. “She only escaped because Twilight helped her. It…” She waved the matter off. “You’re making a grand affair out of nothing. Say that Twilight took her. Nothing is wrong.”
“We should have her killed at once,” said a young general, with only one star, and no medals to speak of. “We have agents in Ponyville. We could activate them at any time.”
“Absolutely not!” Flurry snapped. “She…”
But Flurry struggled for words. Diamond Path lept in to fill the gap: “She is under Celestia’s protection. The actions you propose amount to a declaration of war—something the Empire is not prepared to support at this time.”
“Yes,” Flurry said. “Yes.”
“General Auger,” Diamond addressed the pony wearing dark sunglasses, who sat near the back. “Your department will draft statements for release to the general population. They must contain the following core points. First, Cheval only escaped due to Twilight’s help. Second, while we could have prevented her escape at any time, we held back out of a desire not to harm Princess Twilight. Third, Equestria’s actions in this regard are deplorable, and they hurt their own population by reintroducing this inferior breed. Bring out the pictures of the whorehouses again.”
Auger nodded, and one of his aides took detailed notes. The other officers lifted their heads. “Fourth,” Diamond said, “there have been changelings in Equestria for decades. They fear the Empire’s might, and have not dared set hoof in our borders. That fact has not changed. The power of the armed forces will protect the people, as it has since the great war.”
Once he was sure he was understood, Diamond went on: “General Zircon, I understand that several yak assisted Cheval’s escape as well. I want them found and publicly executed. Admiral Ferrous, produce a list of sanctions we can impose on Equestria to punish them for this violation of our sovereignty…”
And so it went. The ponies in uniforms nodded and took notes. And then Diamond turned to his mother. “With your permission.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“Good. You’re all dismissed.”
The officers left. Diamond rested a hoof on his mother’s shoulder, to show that she wasn’t going anywhere. When the two of them were alone, he shut the door to the war room. Then he asked, “What the hell was that?”
“I’m tired, Diamond.” She lifted a hoof to her face. “I’m an old mare. I have bad days.”
“We all have bad days. It’s why we plan in advance, so when the survival of the Empire is at stake we won’t have to wing it.” He pulled out a chair and turned it around, sitting so he could face her head on. “Did you have a plan?”
Flurry Heart said nothing. Her wings tightened against her sides, and she turned her head to the floor.
“Oh,” Diamond said. He sat back, looked at the ceiling. “Fuck,” he said. Then he snarled. “Fuck!” His hoof knocked a glass from the table, and it shattered on the floor. Water splattered everywhere.
“I didn’t know Twilight would help her.”
“You didn’t…” Diamond was left breathless, and a strange sort of smile touched his face. “I trusted you. We all trusted you. You’re a political mastermind. You always have a plan. Me, them, the whole general staff, the whole Empire, we all trusted that you knew what you were doing. That if you unfroze the last changeling queen, there was some kind of plan behind it.”
“The plan was that I didn’t want you to kill her to secure your rule.”
He laughed, staring off into the corner of the room. “Why not?”
“Because she’s my sister.”
“Oh, is she? My dear auntie Cheval?” Diamond turned back to glare at her. “No, mother, she’s not your sister. She’s a monster. She is a shapeshifting parasite that exists to manipulate ponies so she can use them as food and slave labor. Remember that? Do you remember that?”
“You believe that because it’s what I told you when you were little,” Flurry let out a snort, her expression momentarily sharpening. “And what if I was wrong?”
“Then you’ll be remembered as history’s greatest monster. The pony who rounded up millions of innocents and shoved the corpses under the ice lakes, because the ground was too hard to dig mass graves.”
Flurry’s breath caught in her throat. She turned away, looking into the corner of the room.
“What?” Diamond snorted. “Did you think sparing Cheval’s life was going to change anything? That you’d somehow be remembered for your last act of mercy, instead of for the millions of acts of brutality that came before it?”
“What was I supposed to do?” She turned back to him. Her voice was tight, and she started to choke up. “Smash her to bits? Pretend I’d never thought to question myself? What we did was wrong, Diamond. It was so wrong.”
“She poisoned grandma and grandpa,” Diamond said. “You told me about that. She smiled at your father, and told him she loved him, gave him a hug, and used it to slip drugs into his coffee. She’d have enslaved us all if you gave her the chance.”
“I know.” Flurry started to tear up. “And I know she’s… that in some ways, she’s a monster. But in other ways, she’s one of us. And your grandmother was right to take her in. I forgave her, Diamond. I forgave her for betraying us.”
“And you think that changes a thing?” he shook his head. “You know that when a cargo train gets up to full speed, it can take it ten miles to stop? Ten miles, from when the driver slams on the brakes to when the train stops moving.”
“I don’t—”
“The Empire can’t stop on a bit either. You told millions of ponies that changelings are degenerate scum, who will impersonate their spouses and abuse their children. That any extreme measures were justified in the face of such a threat. And they believed you. They killed for you. And now that you say something different, do you think they’re just going to stop?”
“We’re ponies. We’re a kind breed. They’ll come around.”
Then, Diamond said, “The general staff thinks you’ve gone senile and wants you overthrown.”
Silence hung in the air. Flurry wrapped her wings around herself. “They’ve told you?”
“They’ve started inviting me to planning meetings without you. And the 101st has been removed from the city in favor of the 132nd. They’re loyal to General Auger personally, and he reassured me that if I had need of capable air troops, they wouldn’t make the sort of mistakes that allowed Cheval to escape.”
Flurry said nothing, so Diamond went on. “Am I wrong?”
“No. That’s an invitation to a coup.”
“So, do you want to be overthrown?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But tell me something, Diamond. What if I was wrong? I’m not asking about politics. I’m not asking about the Empire, or about the people, or about saving face. I’m asking you as a person. Did I really raise a son who is comfortable with mass murder? Does it really not…”
She frowned at him, furrowing her brow. “Does it not bother you?”
“Mother…” Diamond sighed. “I don’t think you were wrong. But I also don’t think children inherit the sins of their parents. If you really did kill millions of innocent creatures, it happened before I was born. And it happened while Cheval was in stasis. If you want to make things right with those who were wronged, you can’t do it by talking to me, and you can’t do it by talking to her.”
He let the silence hang between them. Flurry teared up, and stared at the floor.
When it was clear she had nothing to say, Diamond spoke one last time. “You’re going to abdicate the throne now. I’ll draft your public address.”