//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: The Last Changeling // by GaPJaxie //------------------------------// In the morning, Cheval asked Mirror Pond to teach her vespid. Then she asked Gallant to find her a history teacher—somepony qualified to catch her up on the last fifty-two years of world history. She asked Moth Orchid to bring her the changelings of Ponyville who were opposed to her becoming their queen, so that she could understand their concerns. And she asked After Image to explain what “television” was. The last question was the easiest to answer. While Gallant and the other house guests ate breakfast, Cheval sipped a glass of rosewater and watched Saturday morning cartoons. “Why do the robot unicorns always miss when they shoot at Captain Mustang?” she asked. “Because his name is in the title of the show,” Gallant explained. Some of her questions could not be answered by any creature who still lived, but those who had passed away had left written instructions. One of the scrolls left behind by Double and Light detailed the reproductive process of a changeling queen, giving instructions to both Cheval and those who would help care for her eggs. “Hello, every creature,” she said to a hall filled with three-hundred volunteers. So many times, she’d spoken in public, to crowds ranging from tens to tens-of-thousands. But the sight of three-hundred creatures who had offered to raise her children for her tightened her throat, and her words stuck there. Finally, she managed, “So, I finally learned exactly how this works this morning. Turns out I do get fat after all. So that’s a disappointment.” They laughed. When Twilight returned, they had tea together and went to inspect the children. There was practice walking on walls. A couple asked her to marry them, and it turned out that neither of them were changelings, just ponies from Ponyville who thought the idea was neat. She went for walks in the morning, and creatures waved. She even walked up the street and bought muffins from the bakery. Of course, she couldn’t eat them, and in fact did not know what to do with them once she had them, but that was not the point. No creature made a big deal about it. When Flurry abdicated the throne, citing her age and the need for a “gradual, peaceful transition of power,” it was barely news. Diamond Path had already been influential in government for years and every creature knew he was just like his mother. Changelings cursed Flurry’s name, and cursed Celestia for not doing anything to stop her, but everything was business-as-usual. Until suddenly it wasn’t. It was the middle of the afternoon. Cheval was sitting with her history instructor, learning about the downfall of communism. “So,” she was asking, “what is it with griffons and brightly colored track suits?” But before he could answer, she leapt to her hooves; wings spread, eyes wide, horn aglow, legs braced on the ground. Her natural magic—emerald green like all changelings—flared. A bubble shield appeared around her. “What?” her instructor asked. “What’s wrong?” For a moment, she didn’t know. The action had been purely instinctive. And though she stammered for only a few seconds, that was time enough. Three changelings burst into the room, two through the door, one crashing in through the window from the street. They rushed to her side, though once they arrived, they too were unclear on why. It was Cheval who said, “The hive is under attack.” The concept of the hive mind had always been vague to her. Double Time had struggled to explain it, using phrases like “the psychic connection between the clutches” or “the unconscious understanding shared by the hive.” In her youth, Cheval had rolled her eyes. But in Ponyville, it ceased to be vague. Quite the opposite; it was painfully specific. The hive mind was the thing that pressed in around her, that made her heart race, that flooded her body with nervous energy. It was the thing that screamed her home was in peril, and all the good in the world would soon perish at the hands of evil creatures. “Come with me,” she commanded. The drones around her obeyed. Ponyville swarmed. The pony residents, unable to hear the call, were left confused and frightened. To their eyes, their changeling friends had gone mad. Many ponies fled, rushing towards the safety of Twilight’s palace. But a few ponies stayed with their changeling friends, and ran towards the danger. Without a word, the swarm converged on the train station. Cheval broke into a gallop. A train was stopped there that bore the seal of the Crystal Empire. Its engine had been knocked from the tracks, and the passenger cars were covered in all manner of beasts. Dragons smashed the windows and set the interior of the cars alight. When the crystal ponies inside fled, they were carried off in the talons of rocs and griffons. One crystal pony soldier, sword clenched in his jaw, struggled to fend off a pack of wolves. One got him in the ankle, and then transformed into a diminutive, two-headed hydra. The hydra’s second jaw got his other rear leg. Then both heads pulled in different directions. The soldiers on the train fought valiantly, but they were impossibly outnumbered. One spun a halberd through the air like the blades of a fan, fending off a dozen manticores as though he were one of the great heroes of legend. But a unicorn—who might have been a changeling, or who might have been a pony—shot him in the leg with a magical blast. He fell. The manticores pounced on him together. Blood splattered the side of the train. Cheval’s eyes glowed, and with all her might she screamed, “Stop!” The violence did not stop in an instant. Hot blooded fury granted the most common of creatures uncommon strength and they resisted her command. But she dug in her hooves and spoke in a voice that tolerated no dissent, and gradually the sounds of fighting abated. The swarm backed away. Of the four-car train, little remained. One of the cars was on fire, a second overrun and stained by so much blood it was clear there were no survivors. The third and fourth still held a small garrison of crystal pony soldiers, surrounded on all sides by a furious horde a thousand times their number. “They’re hunters,” said one changeling. “They’re here to kill the princess,” said another. “Murderers!” screamed a third. In a flash, she became a unicorn whose horn blazed like fire. Then Cheval took the form of an alicorn. She was pink, with a thin build and a blue mane. Her tail was curled at the tips, and she wore a regalia of gold. It was a form that looked very much like Princess Cadence, save perhaps for her father’s hair. With a booming voice, she shouted over the mob: “Who is in command?” Time passed. The burning car crackled, and plumes of smoke rose into the air. Finally, from one of the intact cars, two more soldiers emerged. Behind them, walking with a limp, was Flurry Heart. Flurry tried to say something. But she no longer had the power of the Royal Canterlot Voice, and she could not be heard over the mob. “Holy shit, it’s her!” said one changeling. “Burn her alive,” said another. “Shove her under the ice!” screamed a third. The swarm advanced a step. Cheval felt the pressure of them all around her, and could no longer hold it back. Flurry was trying to shout, but she couldn’t make out a word. A leader, Cheval had been taught, never gives a command they know will not be obeyed. And so she spoke again, “You will capture Flurry Heart alive. Alive. A quick death is more than she deserves. I have questions for her and she will confess her crimes before she dies.” The swarm accepted that in a way they might not have accepted other commands. One changeling near Cheval asked, “What about the guards?” “Use your best judgement,” Cheval said. No other order would have been obeyed. It didn’t change what happened next. “What were you thinking?” Twilight arrived at a dead gallop, several minutes too late to save any of Flurry’s bodyguards. But she was able to save Flurry herself, levitating her out of the swarm’s reach. She teleported all three of them back to her palace. And so it was that Twilight, Cheval, and Flurry all came to be seated around the same table. And the question had to be asked. “I wanted to say I was sorry,” Flurry answered. “To… whomever was left. The last survivors of the old hive. Their children. To the creatures I actually wronged.” “Oh, you’re sorry are you?” Twilight snapped. “Well I’m sure they’ll be pleased as punch to hear that. Meanwhile, you got your loyal servants killed for nothing, and there’s an angry mob outside screaming for your blood.” “I didn’t… it wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” Flurry said. “I was going to surrender and—” “And they jumped to conclusions before you could.” Twilight’s tone turned caustic, and her hoof hit the table. “How tragic. Here you are, trying to do the noble thing, and these yokels see a train with your seal on it, and somehow come to the conclusion that the soldiers inside it are here to kill their families. I mean, what could have led them to think that?” “I made a mistake,” Flurry snapped, her voice thick. “A mistake is a well-intentioned error,” Twilight curled her lip. “You haven’t had good intentions since you started puberty.” “Twilight,” Cheval said, “I’d like some time with my sister now.” “Oh, no,” Twilight shook her head, her words coming fast and sharp. “I don’t care how much you love her. If you think she’s walking out of this just because of family ties you—” “Twilight, my sister is going to die soon, and if you don’t give me some time alone with her I’m going to be the second creature in my family to kick you through a solid wall.” Twilight’s jaw opened without a sound. A few moments later, it snapped shut. “You’re… emotional,” she said. “And that’s… fair. I mean. That’s fair. I’ll be… I’ll be out in the hall if you need me.” She shut the door behind her. “These aren’t your victims,” Cheval said. “Your victims are dead. It’s too late to say sorry.” “They’re the closest thing,” Flurry sniffed. “The closest that’s left.” “It won’t make a bit of difference.” “I know.” Flurry turned her head down to the table. “But what else is there to do? I don’t have long left. And this is… this is all that’s left. I’m going to say sorry. And then the mob outside can kill me.” Cheval considered that. Then she said, “No.” Flurry lifted her head, and Cheval went on: “If you’re torn apart by an angry mob, all anypony will remember is how you died. They’ll say, at the end of your life, you had a change of heart. You repented for your actions, and died to wash yourself of your sins.” “Well, that…” Flurry paused. “That was the idea.” “Yeah. No.” Cheval gave a small shake of her head. “Wanting to preserve your legacy and being sorry aren’t the same thing. And if you’re actually sorry, if you actually want to make things right, there is something you can do.” “What is it?” Flurry asked. “You can stand trial for your crimes. You can confess to everything, publicly, in detail. You can implicate the ponies still in power in the Crystal Empire who helped you. You can implicate the ponies in Equestria who didn’t stop you.” “I’m…” a frown touched her face. “I’m not the ruler of the Crystal Empire anymore. I was deposed. I assumed you figured that out. I have no power to make anypony stand trial for—” “You have the power to shame the Crystal Empire in front of the rest of the world. You have the power to make the crystal ponies who are still loyal to you personally question what they did. You have the power to shame Celestia.” “Shame her into what?” Flurry asked. “Deposing my son? Plunging the Empire into another war?” “If you care about keeping your son on the throne more than you care about making things right, you really haven’t learned anything, and you’re not repentant in the least. You’re just a coward who’s afraid of death, and what people will say about her after she’s gone.” Flurry looked away, but Cheval did too, each staring into a corner of the room. “I should hate you,” Cheval said. “You did things to them. Things so horrible I can’t even picture them. But I can’t picture them. What I did to two griffons, that I can see and feel. There was blood and tears and the smell of burnt feathers. But the things you did are only numbers. I can’t picture a million bodies.” She drew in a breath. “So I don’t hate you. I look at you, and I see my wonderful sister, and I can’t believe you got so old. You were beautiful once.” “Heh,” Flurry squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re immortal. You’ll see other ponies get old.” “Don’t change the subject,” Cheval warned. “I can’t hate you for the numbers. But I can hate you for being a coward. You’re better than that. You always were. And if you’re weak now, it’s because you’ve chosen to be weak. It’s because you don’t actually care.” “I care.” “Prove it. Doing the right thing doesn’t mean doing whatever will make ponies sad that you’re gone. It means doing whatever will help heal the world. Even if it guarantees you’re remembered as a monster.” Cheval’s voice hardened, and she made a sudden turn for the door. “I’m getting Twilight.” “Wait,” Flurry lifted a hoof. “In the Crystal Empire, you said I still loved you. Is that true?” “Yeah,” Cheval said. “But I loved mom and dad. It didn’t stop me from betraying them.” “What are you…” Flurry gestured. “About mom?” “Well, I was going to start by confessing everything to her. And then…” Cheval shrugged. “And then I don’t know. We’ll see if she wants to forgive me. And she may not. Victims don’t owe their abusers an ‘it’s all okay.’ If it hurts, sometimes it’s because you deserve it.” “I want to be buried next to dad,” she said. For a long time, Cheval was silent. “Okay,” she said. Then she left to get Twilight.