"It was the Queen who came back," Trixie said.
Starlight inhaled, and for a moment forgot how to breathe.
Trixie smiled, “Yes. She's here in Littlehorn right now, in person. With not a drone sent in advance. It's her mission, and hers alone — but Trixie followed the Queen on her own. Trixie… — I care."
Starlight massaged her forehead with her hoof, glanced at the bat — she, draining the last orange through a pierced peel, walked on unsure hooves towards Starlight, swayed forward and did not fall head-first only because Starlight reflexively lifted her hoof towards her. The unicorn could not resist curiosity and looked into the bat's wide open yawning mouth, knowing full well that she would regret it; and she regretted it indeed.
Starlight shook her head and looked down at Trixie — the greatest master of stage illusions of Equestria and neighbouring countries, and that was a genuine title for a few years at least — made herself lower a bit in not exactly bowing fashion, clearly assuming that news would not be appreciated, and she herself would be likely called out on this.
These assumptions were exactly on point, and that was why Starlight chose, willingly, not to be angry.
Instead, she sat down on the floor, placed a quietly snoring bat to the side and slightly in front of herself, thus providing body warmth, and said in her most frank voice, "My wife, I have a few questions now."
To Starlight’s relief, her eye was not twitching yet.
Trixie nodded, “I… guess. But Chrissy said it was important! For all changelings, and for both of us too.”
“And you believed her?” Starlight asked incredulously. “She’s... unstable, to put it mildly, since she had been paroled. It could be a fantasy. It could be ravings. And more importantly, I do not remember a clause in the peace treaty that would allow her to visit Equestria’s major cities and magic nexuses outside of her enclave without admission and escort,” Starlight tilted her head, “Or rather, I remember exactly the opposite! What would you say, Trixie? This is about state security. Personally, I have another question: why didn’t you find a place for making love other than my own desk?! And why in Applejack’s image of all ponies, not Twilight’s one as last year, the year before last... and, I’ll be frank, always since you, so to speak, became friends?”
“How did you know?” Trixie asked in surprise. Somepony less experienced would take it at face value; Starlight knew better than that.
“The smell,” Starlight retorted, "I could have had a doubt hadn’t you said she is here."
Trixie was decent enough to blush a little, “Chrissy wanted to have a dig at you. To prank you — she doesn’t want vengeance anymore, but a prank or two is on the table! And she said that you will not be mad for too long, and she needs more power to scan the city,” she hesitated and looked at Starlight.
“Go on, please,” the dean asked quietly and weary, “Tomorrow I would need to explain myself to Princess Luna and Princess Twilight, and I want to know what is happening beforehoof. And I will be incredibly lucky if Princess Rainbow Dash, out of her laziness, skips this debriefing. You can't make anything worse than you already did. What I mean is that if there were no alarms triggered, then somepony has disabled Littlehorn's perimeter security. Somepony. Whose name starts with ‘Bea’ and ends with ‘Trix’,” Starlight snorted angrily, took several deep breaths in Twilight's manner to calm herself, and continued, “And you know how I hate secrets of all sorts, and Chrysalis, due to the treaty, is not in a position to weave intrigues.”
Trixie hugged her, taking a couple of steps away from the bat who was still sleeping, “Okay, don't be angry. Consider — Trixie shares family and state secrets now, for your sake, Glim-Glam! So, hear Trixie out, and please keep it a secret where Trixie could not resist your beautiful face: among Littlehorn's students there is a changeling from the other world — one who had been hatched in hiding from the Triangle of Moons. The Queen needs to meet them.”
Starlight blinked, “Are they even in their own form?” she asked, her hope fading but yet twinkling. Even in the motley crowd of creatures permanently living and temporarily studying in Littlehorn, a changeling from the night eternal, or, shorter, a slender by the name instantly given by those few ponies who actually saw them without disguise would have stood out about like a watermelon among oranges, or like Rainbow Dash with all her regalia of the Princess of Unity at the Apple family party. There was no way for Starlight to miss the slender.
"Of course not," Trixie shrugged, “The Queen emphasized this. As well as that she will need to track down the target, and this is one of the conditions for their meeting, set by the slender. If she can’t track them, she is not worthy to talk to.”
Starlight petted the sleeping bat to distract herself, and muttered under her breath, “Well, I could sweep the city with a decloaking spell array—”
“Don't! It's a dirty trick, it will disrupt the whole meeting and Chrissy will be offended!” Trixie almost screamed, hugging Starlight tighter and making a pleading look.
“I mean, you're asking me to become a partner in crime,” Starlight stated without a question. “And we're going to do it because Chrysalis said that 'It is important for changelings,' right? And you can't even check if this is true or not. Okay. And Chrysalis is... a little out of her mind. By the way, who took control of the enclave as a temporary queen? Thorax?” She attempted an awkward joke.
Trixie giggled in response — they both knew that Chrysalis and Thorax had been writing additions and appendices to the peace treaty for several months, and only working on it allowed them to share mushroom tea in a relative calm without turning to the ritual threats.
“No, and you won’t believe who did,” Trixie winked, “Ocellus.”
“Ah! Well, yes, she asked me for a vacation the day before yesterday. But if you’d ask me... I wouldn't even think about her. She isn’t fit to be the queen at all. But since you say, I believe—”
Starlight’s horn subtly ached, as if it was leaned against a thin wall behind which there was a lively argument. Starlight rubbed it at the base, glanced at Trixie, who winced at the same time, and, without looking back, pulled the kettle and cups out of the closet. She put the kettle on the stand to warm up, and said, “Hi, Si. Summoned by the scream? I thought you would appear either earlier or not at all.”
An obsidian black thestral in a beige hooded blazer unhooked from the chandelier and flipped in midair, gliding towards the teapot. Subtle aroma of coffee and strawberries trailed behind him. Silent's head was turned toward the unicorns and the batpony.
Taller than both unicorns, he was slim and thin and thought words like a shy teenager, without much confidence, as if asking permission to be, “Noisy one.” Starlight heard his voice in her thoughts almost like an actual sound.
Starlight nodded, “Even Trix was hurt by it.”
Trixie retorted with a startled laugh, “Attentive and Caring Trixie has heard screams ten times louder and invasive in the changeling nymphs’ hatching cells, and survived unscathed!”
Both of them thought they heard Silent's quiet laugh, which was not there, and both short silvery horns on the sides of his head gleamed with grayish darkness.
Starlight asked, "By the way, isn't she your breed? I understand that this is impossible, but you never know.”
“I'm not sure,” Silent replied curtly, but curiosity flickered in the background of his mind.
“And yet l... I promised that I would not give her up to anypony, but maybe you have some advice or ideas?” Starlight asked.
“Can I examine her? Do you know where she is from?” Now Silent’s curiosity has become brighter.
“Only at a distance. She is very afraid of thestrals. And here are the letters on the closet’s shelf,” Starlight pointed at it with her hoof, “The mail came from Baltimare, but that doesn't mean anything, as we have a portal there. Maybe some of the locals.”
“Can I have a look at them? Will not read them. Will check paper and envelopes.”
Starlight nodded; the thestral shifted to the closet and began to study the letters. As time went on, Starlight poured cups of tea for all four present ponies and pushed the bat gently; she raised her head in an instant, jolted awake, looked around and froze with her brown eyes wide open and staring at Silent. The tea with the mango slices in her cup, however, was waning slowly. Trixie was mostly successful in distracting her with small magic tricks, but the bat's gaze still returned to the thestral.
Finally he turned around and asked her, politely including unicorns into his mind’s voice too, “Sister, were you trained for the purpose, or had your way been different? I can guess the sources of such mutations, and what to do to achieve this state, but there are options.”
The bat sobbed and replied through shedding tears, “No, my teacher has nothing to do with it! I was fooled! The Mark! P-please just remove the Mark and everything will be fine!
Trixie asked, "Does the doctor see anything interesting? Any suggestions? For Trixie, it’s just a bat, but Trixie is not a specialist in bats. But she scared Starlight!”
Starlight furiously blushed and waved her hoof, but she didn't argue: after all, it was true.
The thestral bowed his head. His lips, sewn with silver thread, weren’t moving, “It is important what the path was. Birth or transformation. I'm not an expert on Marks, but I can't figure out what exactly you don't like in it. A decent option.”
The batpony snuggled up to Trixie and sobbed, “Not a birth. In the summer I was a unicorn. And then in a quarrel they dared me to exchange…”