*Ronin POV*
"Get your lazy flank out of that tree or else!" I yelled up at a snoozing Zexion who had taken refuge in a appleless tree in order to take a nap. Larxene flew up to me and saluted.
"Sire, permission to rudely awake my foolish colleague?" She asked me as I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
"Permission granted. Just get him down, we're almost finished and we need all hooves on deck." I said as I walked back to the barn with the last basket of my section in hand. Roxas and Axel had already finished their sections and were conversing with Big Mac about his family as I walked into the barn and placed the apples down next to the others.
"Well, lookie that! Ah knew we had nuthin tah worry about while Applejack is on that fancy trip of hers." I heard Granny Smith say as she walked up to stand next to me. I looked down at her and smiled.
"Yeah, we got just about all of them today." I said before frowning. "Even with the slacking off here and there."
Smith just laughed. "Sonny, how old are those young varmints?"
I thought about that for a second. "About four days old at the most." I said as I realized I might've been pushing them a bit too hard.
"Geussing by the look on yer face yer realizing you've done went overboard a tad, huh?" She said while I nodded. "Don't let it git to ya, sonny. My Applejack does the same thing." She pokes me in the stomach. "You jus' need tah find somepony that'll reel yerself in when you stray too far off the path."
I sighed and looked out towards the setting sun. "I geuss your right, Granny."
"You bet I am!" She said as she pulled out my blade from a hay bale. "Ah believe this belongs to ya, sonny."
My eyes went wide. "How'd you know that was there? I thought Mac hid it?" I said as Granny Smith waved me off.
"Aint nuthin that grandson of mine does that ah don't know about. Besides, ah could hear it." She said as I frowned.
"You could hear by sword?" I said, honestly not believing what she had said. She started walking past me but stopped and sighed before turning her head to me, a sad look in her eyes.
"Not the blade, sonny. The sins you carry with it." She said as she walked out of the barn, leaving me confused and a tad scared as I stared at the katana.
We need to talk, boy. I heard Melfesia state loudly in my mind.
Ok? what's up?
Not like this, sit down and relax. We need to speak in your mind. She says as I follow her instructions and close my eyes, feeling a wave of tiredness crash over me. As i opened my eyes, I found myself back in Eureka with Melfesia looking at me.
"Well, what did ya want to talk about?" I asked as she came over and sat in front of me.
"It is time you learned of the history of changeling kind and what brought about some of the events of this era." She said as I nodded for her to continue. She sighed and started her tale.
"It was centuries ago, well before tragedy of nightmare moon. A unicorn by the name of Woodwind had found a city of pure crystal. This unicorn, a stallion who studied the different types of magic, soon learned that the kingdom was ran on love. After conversing with the locals and even the current queen of the time, he found that there was a crystal heart that channeled this special magic through the city. After learning all he could about the heart, he came to the conclusion that if a pony could be charged with love, their magical output would be stronger than any other beings, even alicorns."
I interrupted her. "So this woodwind guy wished to become more powerful using the love of randpm ponies?" I asked her as she nodded.
"Indeed. However, he was about to tamper with a force he didn't understand, and face the consequences for it." She said as she continued her story.
"One night, while the town square was empty and nopony was around, the stallion walked up to the heart and attempted to drain its magical energy using a dark spell forgotten unto time. It is said that stallion plunged his horn into the crystal heart in an effort to drain the love from it. However, the heart retaliated, and overloaded his body. The overload caused his while body to alight with green flames from the inside out."
I blinked at the morbid detail. "Damn..."
Melfesia laughs shortly. "That would be an easy way to sum that up. But it gets worse for the stallion." She picked back up on the storytelling tone she had.
"The unicorn was found outside laying by the crystal heart, charred to a crisp and parts of his body had holed burned into it. The royal healers tried to heal the wounds, with no avail. They found that the body would stay black, and the holes in his body would remain. They did notice, however, that the unicorn had wings."
"Wait a sec. So he did manage to pull through with the experiment?" I said as Melfesia looked away, her voice slightly shaken.
"He gained the strength of an alicorn, but was shunned by all of creation in the process. After he awoke, the crystal empire banished him from the city while they attempted to fix their heart. The shunned being fled to the badlands, where he lived out the rest of his days in isolation from his pony brethren."
She turned back to me, a hint of sadness in her face. "That unicorn became the first changeling to exist. strong as an alicorn but forced to live off of the one thing he was fascinated most by: love." She said as I looked off into the caves darkness.
"Dang, that's messed up. But I'm guessing that sooner or later, he ended up having children and creating the species as a whole." I stated as she nodded.
"You'd be correct. Woodwind would later be called thanatos by ponies around him because of his murderous behavoir towards anypony who stepped into the badlands." I heard her sigh. "He would marry a pegasus and produce a daughter named Melfesia." She said as I turned to her in shock.
"Wait, what?! How old are you?" I said, receiving a glare from her.
"One does not ask a lady ow old they are. But if you must know, I was about two thousand three hundred years old when I died by...Celestial forces after dealing with that mage you killed before." She said as my eyebrows furrowed.
"You mean Dadiolus? how'd that happen?" I said as Melfesia suddenly blushed slightly.
"Well, for all my age and wisdom, I still craved what every queen craves: A child. So when I had learned of a male that had mastered the dark arts under the training of Luna, I snuck into the castle and discussed my options with him."
I snorted at the word 'discussed'. "Yeah, I'm sure plenty was said."
Melfesia rolled her eyes. "Imagine my suprise when I had learned that the male wasn't even a pony, but an alien from some far off planet. After sneaking into the castle, I found him and actually held conversation with him. The man was in a rage about something the sisters had done to a friend of his in the north, and was looking for a way to take revenge."
"A friend? I asked.
"Yes. A female version your kind." Melfesia said as I frowned. "Did the sisters not tell you about the third human?"
"Not at all." I growled, slightly mad this was kept from us. I wonder what else hasn't been said.
"Well, it turns out the sisters had banished the third human into the cold mountains of the north for treason. Although Dadiolus believed it was because Luna didn't want any competition with him." She said as I face palmed.
"So the lady gets banished because she liked Dadiolus or something, causing said guy to turn evil due to his close friend being banished. What did he do?" I asked.
"Dadiolus made an agreement with myself. He would ensure I would have a child with him, if I tell him the easist way to make a heart drift to darkness. It was an easy thing to do, so I agreed. After we...exchanged information, I left the castle and Dadiolus went on to enact his ultimate revenge: creating nightmare moon."
At this I scoffed. "Your telling me that mage guy not only gave you your child, but also caused this kingdoms princesses to fight just because of a friend being banished?"
Melfesia sighed. "It was obvious that he loved that human far more than he loved Luna...or myself. He used multiple manipuation tactics and paid several ponies to mouth off about Luna in order to darken her heart. The icing on the cake was that Celestia didn't even realize what was happening until it was too late. The damned mare always was slow on the pick up, and this time it would cost her dearly."
I spoke up. "Wait a second though...If he gave you your child, does that mean Chrysalis is his daughter?" I asked as she turned away.
"Indeed. I raised her for five years until Celestia finally found my hive. The princess, in a rage from banishing her sister, burned the hive and all of our people down to ash. Every child, every elderly, even I wasn't saved from her wrath. I would learn while fighting her that Dadiolus had said how he manaegd to turn Luna into Nightmare moon. So she had been hunting us ever since. The only reason my daughter survived was due to the fact she was playing in a forest nearby. By the time she came back...the hive was burned to the ground, and her entire bloodline were slain."
I looked away and sighed. "No wonder she hates Celestia. The princess killed you and all her siblings in the hive."
"Yes, but she did more than that to her. From then on, Chrysalis would go to hate Equines from the bottom of her blackened heart, making peace almost impossible to attain." She said.
I stood up and stretched. "That is absolutely horrible. But what does that have to do with me?" I asked her as she stood up and faced me.
"As future king of the changelings, it is your duty to preserve our kind by doing whatever is necessary. If that means keeping peace with ponies, then keep the peace. If that means war..."
"Then fight the war." i finished for her.
"Exactly." She said as she looked at my chest. "You know, if that injury is here in this realm, then it must be pretty bad in real life." She said, pointing to the cracked parts of my armour. "Your going to have to let the exoskeleton heal."
I sighed. "That means no armour until it heals, huh?" I said while Melfesia laughed.
"You could always go to that fashionetta in town." She said as I groaned.
"Ugh, If I must." I said as the area went dark.
I blinked and I was back in the barn. I thought about all that had been said to me.
Celestia hasn't been very forthcoming with details about her knowledge of the past. Then again, Melfesia could've made up some of that before. I groaned and walked towards town, noticing the four changelings I had working on the farm now sleeping under a tree together. I felt my chestplate disappear, leaving my upper body bare and slightly cold from the breeze.
I had better get some clothes and soon before night comes.
************
twenty minutes later
************
I walked up to the building to find the place closed.
Thats right, her and her friends are in the north right now saving that kingdom from Melfesia's story. I turned around and was faced with a rather unpleasent sight.
"Evening, Ronin." Celestia said as I frowned and rubbed my eyes. Was it evening already? My how time flies when you are learning about the Equestrian iceberg and how deep it goes.
"What do you need, your highness." I said, her flinching at the royal greeting.
"I wish to talk about what happened before. I do not wish to lose you to a misunderstanding." She said as I scoffed.
"What was there to misunderstand? You obviously haven't moved on from your ex from before." I said as Celestia looked to me with sad eyes.
"Then help me move on, Ronin." She said as she walked slowly up towards me with her hips swaying, our faces inches from each other as she stopped in front me. "Teach me to crave you, and you alone." She breathed as our lips met in a slow, passionate kiss. As the kiss grew stronger, she pushed me onto the ground, rolling us into the brush nearby as I found myself underneath her.
I broke from the kiss and looked up at the now smug princess. "So, we are doing this in public?" I said as she cast a spell around the bushes concealing us from the eyes of other ponies.
"Now no one shall hear us." She leaned in close, her magic taking her regalia off her. "I can feel your desire, Ronin. We both want...need each other." She said as I pulled her back into a strong kiss. I was not about to have her big mouth ruin the mood, no matter how good her words sounding coming out of it.
Hmm...I wonder what a herd with a princess, a queen, and a party pony would end up looking like? Although, as I laid there in her embrace, I swear I saw her appearance change slightly. Almost as if she looked more...sinister than before.