//------------------------------//
// Khyten Lamellar, Reluctant Kingslayer 
// Story: Dramatis Personae of the Pony Wars 
// by Wings of Black Glass 
//------------------------------//

Khyten Lamellar is an older Changeling, one with a heavy heart.  Years of taking lives has left him weary, and now he mostly wants to live out his remaining years in peace.  To him, the weight of actions rests solely on those who take those actions, even if following orders from others.  He is polite, careful, and quiet, keeping his secrets to himself.  Although he makes close friends infrequently, he holds those he does befriend close to his heart.

“A single knife can do more harm than a thousand spears.  Pray for the soul holding it.”





Khyten Lamellar was long one of the best assassins in the Guild of Infiltration.  Years of successful missions brought security and safety to his people. Still, the deaths of so many at his hooves began to weigh on him, and he wondered if he was doing the right thing.  In an attempt to pay recompense for his actions, he adopted an orphaned Griffon hatchling, impossible to know if he was the child of one of his targets, and named him Shadowfeather.  Raising the child was difficult for a loyal assassin, especially when he had to leave for missions sometimes lasting weeks or months, but he tried to teach him what skills he knew and instilled a sense of honor and obligation into the boy.
Eventually, he decided he’d had enough of that old line of work and resigned from service for a more peaceful life with his adopted son.  The Quorum was upset with him, but he had served long and well, and they agreed he had earned his peace.  It was more than a decade before they came for him again.  Khyten could tell something had changed; the Quorum members had never seemed so nervous to him before.  They had a new mission for him, one so dangerous and vital they couldn’t risk it to any but their very best.
They asked Khyten to assassinate King Halo and Princess Midnight, rulers of the most powerful nations history had ever known.  When he pressed for an explanation as to why they would risk such an action, his only answer was that the Changelings’ survival depended on their deaths.  He knew the Changeling military was no match for either of the two nations, let alone both of them, and discovery would mean the Changeling guilds’ end.  At first, he denied them their request, but they told him there were other infiltrators already moving into position and could not be recalled.  The mission was already in operation, and even with some of the other best infiltrators on the task it might fail.
He had never seen the leaders of the Changelings afraid before; whatever caused the Quorum to come to him was an existential threat.  So he agreed to help, but it would be the last time.  To maintain the security of the Changeling guilds, he and the others would have to be cut loose entirely.  If he failed or was captured, they could claim he was a rogue agent.  Dis-commendation, and exile, would be his payment for his final mission.  To see it survive, he would have to leave his home forever.
Khyten couldn’t force that on Shadowfeather and left quietly one night without telling his son where he was going or why.  Shadowfeather was old enough to be a member of the guilds; he would survive and thrive on his own well enough.
He made his way through pony lands, joined with the other infiltrators already in place, and waited for the Conclave to begin.  While half the infiltrators disguised themselves as Lunamarian soldiers, the other half did the same as Sunbound Kingdom guards.  With the rest of his group distracting the Sunbound Kingdom forces, Khyten and a few others were able to slip into the King’s tent and struck down the monarch of the Sunbound Kingdom.
Seeing her King dead, the Alicorn Solarflare went wild with fury.  Khyten was barely able to escape into the woods as magical fire poured down on the assassins; he never knew if any of the others got away or survived.  His mission complete, he disappeared into the populace.  As the situation between the two nations got worse, he found he could not sleep well, his dreams disturbed by the thought that the coming conflict was his fault.  Trying to put his mind at ease, he knew he would have to help one side or the other.  This war was his fault, so it was his responsibility to see it through to the end.