My revelation was obviously cause for concern, and Princess Celestia understood the depth and breadth of such an admission; she was quick to assure me that she knew just the individual to take care of the matter. So swift was her assurance and so confident that I began to hope that even if my sins were unforgivable, I could be prevented, at least, from sinning against my own will.
Even when she introduced the individual, I endeavored to remain hopeful. Far be it for me to question her and her wisdom. Such a thing is ludicrous, in fact. One would never.
“DOES SOMEONE REQUIRE THE SERVICES OF THE GRRRRREAT MENTAAAAAASMO~!?”
...And yet.
Celestia was patient, and only slightly amused. “Cornflower, as I’ve said, your skills as a hypnotist are not needed. Nor as a showpony. As I’ve already mentioned.”
“Princess, please, the stage name! And are you sure? I solve a good few problems that way. Diets work wonders with a little hypnotic command against snacking~! ”
“I’m well aware. But I don’t need a better-than-good hypnotist or a fancy show.”
“...Princess, when I explained what I can do…” There was silence for a long moment. Mentasmo, or Cornflower, I supposed, finally looked up at her almost pitifully. “...Are there lives at stake?”
Regret wafted from Celestia. The charlatan had apparently taken her in at some point. Perhaps that was why Cadence had trusted him. “Maybe. At the very least one.”
“And has anything else been tried?” A more brief pause this time. “...Has everything else been tried?”
“My sister claims he has not dreamed until recently, but will not assist us in that regard. Her duties are sacrosanct and she’s being very taciturn about whatever he experiences in dreams. While I presume that means they are not damning, it does not inspire great confidence either.”
“Hmm.” Finally, the ‘good doctor’, of which neither word seemed exceptionally accurate, deigned to look at me more closely. “...Wait a minute, I know you.” He rubbed his chin, peering at me with those absurd spectacles, then clapped his forehooves together. “You’re the one I made moo like a cow!”
Princess Celestia made a strangled noise unlike anything I have ever heard from her, and I suddenly recalled the rubber chicken I had bought during my trip to Ponyville, if it had been held underwater and feeling quite sickly besides. She forestalled my concern by quickly raising a hoof and taking a moment to compose herself. “You… what?”
I did not scowl. Much. “That was not me, no, but I was present when it happened.”
“Are you sure? I could swear you ate my potted plant. My niece gave me that, I’ll have you know. I’m the best uncle.”
Amusement wafted from Celestia so strongly that I do not think it could have been more obvious had she been audibly chewing her cheek to refrain from laughing. I refused to acknowledge it. “You attempted to hypnotize me once before and failed utterly. Perhaps in your exhaustion, you misremembered,” I informed him, perhaps more frostily than it deserved. Celestia’s humor died almost instantly.
“You tried this before?”
“When Princess Cadance thought I was merely amnesiac,” I admitted, with some chagrin.
“Which you are, of course, you’ve got a block the size of a mountain in there. Wish I’d known at the time I was working on what was going to be the Idol Hooves. I’d have gotten a reference. Would you say the quality of service was ‘very good’ or ‘extremely good’, and don’t be modest?”
This time, no poker face or changeling temperament control could hide my grimace. “You accomplished nothing and wasted most of an afternoon doing it. I was there at the Princess’s behest and nothing more.”
“...I’ll put him down as ‘satisfied’. Princess Celestia, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him a stout drink and a hefty meal couldn’t fix. They say the armor adds a few stone, but he has the look of a fellow who’s been bedridden. Hardly my forte… unless you mean to say he ran afoul of those things that attacked the wedding. There’s been a rash of them. Ponies deciding this pony or that pony isn’t who they say they are, demanding they remember something this way or that and getting upset at each other. I’ve made a mint on mare and stallion alike that needs to recall some anniversary before their significant other makes them announce it as a test.”
“You’re rambling,” Celestia informed him, motioning him to calm. “I don’t need Idol to remember something. I need you to make sure he’s not being… controlled.”
“Ah, one of them got him, then? Or is this one of those ‘oh honey the changelings made me do it’ things? With all the skepticism and paranoia more than one affair has come to light. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not here to judge. Anypony says there isn’t something about uniforms is lying or wrong. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that-”
“It is not that,” I growled, eager to either be rid of the chatty hypnotist before he shamed Celestia worse by his accusations.
“-wouldn’t expect him to admit anything outside of torture regardless. Still… what makes you think he’s a threat? Couple of guards got bound up, one or two even needed smelling salts to snap out of whatever daze they were under. Not a one so far has had more than their pride bruised. Phobia or two. Few a little too interested in being not-completely-in-control again, but I keep my work life and home life separate, of course.”
“The Queen herself was involved in his... absence from the invasion.”
“...oh.” One of his kerchiefs came from a pocket somewhere on his vest, and he began dabbing at sweat I doubted was even present. “That would explain a lot, I suppose. I heard that the Captain took the worst of it, but I suppose she had to get a few others too.” His sky-blue features took on an ill cast. “This isn’t the start of some sort of scan of all your guard, is it? I don’t think I can. Even the best of ponies are going to have problems, and… and Faust help me, I don’t think I could! Princess, you have to understand-”
Celestia held up a hoof to interrupt him, then went on soothingly as he trailed off. “Just… him. Captain Armor is… unlikely to allow someone into his head again for some time. I may consider some sort of scanning in the future, if this is fruitful, but I’d rather not begin something so invasive amongst the guard without exercising every other available option. It’s his own opinion that the Queen has some measure of permanent control over him.”
The sky blue unicorn winced. “Oh, that would be bad. Geas, curse, or full on mind control?”
“A what?”
“Geas are a sort of set-and-forget type of mind control. Hypnosis works a little similarly, you set something in someone’s head that they don’t really know about. You know, things like ‘Don’t open the pantry after dark’, or ‘avoid looking at the dessert menu’. It’s not all ‘cluck like a chicken when you hear a bell ring’, those sorts of things eventually break down because why would you do that in the first place? But a geas is more… ‘You have to be here at noon to tell someone who the princess saw today’ and if you don’t, you become more… upset about it. They’re self-reinforcing and going against it becomes an uphill fight. You might go under a bridge, just casually chat with someone about all the weird ponies the princess met, or you might feel the need to make a full report to them, or you might go off on a rant about how terrible they are for presuming on the princesses time. You’ll make reasons to do it because you’re compelled to do it.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It does… but it’s really not. Unicorns of old used to self-impose them all the time. Properly done, magic reinforces and even sort of rewards you for doing them. Starswirl allegedly took on one against trimming his beard just to experiment, which is what led to him getting exceptionally bushy.”
Celestia pursed her lips, but begrudgingly nodded with a fond smile moments later. “He very well might have. It’s the sort of thing he’d have done. But what about an unwilling… gish?”
“Geas, your Highness. It would be a tiny bit of dark magic. The more out of character it is, the more it takes to establish, but typically harmless all the same. Like barnacles on a boat; they’re only a problem if there’s too many or they get too big.”
“That could actually be a problem. I know of at least several of those,” I admitted. “I may have broken a few already.”
I found him staring at me, utterly perplexed. Mentasmo rubbed at a cheek thoughtfully with the back of a hoof. “He... shouldn’t have been able to do that. Or to know that he had them. Your highness, maybe this is...psychosomatic? It usually takes an outside observer to determine this sort of-”
“Idol is a changeling and has been his entire life.”
It was as if Celestia had dumped ice water on me, to just announce it so suddenly. Meanwhile, the unicorn froze as if he’d been slapped. “...Oh.” He sucked at his teeth for a moment. “Well now. Really?”
“Yes. Now, can we move along? I’m already aware that you don’t like doing this, and that you’d really rather not, but it seems like you’ve already touched on his mind once before. This is a matter of national security. Will you help him?”
Mentasmo looked at her, then took the aggravating glasses off. “...I hate it when ponies just bypass all my insecurities. You’re right, obviously I can do a changeling, I’ve done it before. Just didn’t realize what I was looking at.” He turned, scowling at me. “Look me in the eyes, changeling. Let me see the monster in you.”
Irritable now at the blatant insult, I turned to match his gaze through the bars of my cell… and fell into pools of black, devoid of even the barest hint of reflected light. The presence was overwhelming, and suddenly, it was as if I was faced with the enormity of the Queen again-
“-and I don’t like doing that, Princess! I…” The noisy sound of a bucket being filled. “-Like a gut-full of rancid oil! Oh, Harmony. Oh, my head…”
“But is he well, Cornflower?”
“Well?! He’s a nightmare! The worst thing I’ve ever seen. If he weren’t standing there I’d suggest he has psychosis enough to be in a cell already. He’s held together with spit and candyfloss, and a bunch of things that shouldn’t be there in the first place. You were worried about a geas?! He has dozens. A great blasted big one that I could hear just droning around in there, and fresh!”
The hypnotist started wildly spinning a hoof in the air, a vague cloud of magic leaking from his horn, being almost pushed into reality by his physical motions. “Look, this is what most ponies have.” The cloud formed into a tangle of string, extra strands poking this way and that in a haphazard mess. “It’s not clean, it’s not all there, but when it comes right down to it, it’s all interconnected, all the way back to childhood. You make your own mess, you see? Everyone thinks a little differently. Some folks it’s like this-” The strings pulled taught in columns and rows, looking like interconnected and intermingled harps, strumming along to an unheard melody. “Or maybe like this-” The harps became something more like a mass of ropes and pulleys going in a multitude of directions, all working some task. “But the point is, it’s how you work. Sometimes, something goes badly wrong.” A knot formed in one of the strings of the pulleys, and it strained against it, unable to feed the line.
Celestia chewed on her lower lip, but nodded slowly. “I believe I understand what you’re suggesting, as a visual aid-” but the hypnotist was barely paying attention, engrossed in his own explanation.
“And you get older, and older-” Layers upon layers of pulleys and ropes began to form, overlapping. “-until you eventually get this.” The final product seemed nothing more than a ball of twine. It was… surprisingly competent work, for an illusion. “And it all comes down to that flaw down there. That’s what the job is all about. Getting the knots out and making a mind work without hurting itself. What he has…” The ball of twine changed, looking as if a great chunk had been torn out and haphazardly sewn over. “It’s like there was a knot somewhere in there, and some damn fool just reached in with a hook and tore the whole damn thing out, then just tied a few important bits back together so the whole mess wouldn’t collapse immediately. There’s so many knots and so many broken ends I can’t even tell you what’s what, and it looks like he tied pieces together himself to keep the whole thing going. I think he used one big geas to hold the whole mess together, and Faust help me, I think it’s working.”
“But what does that mean? Is she able to control him?”
“Tartarus if I know. Tartarus if she knows, I’d wager. You pull a string in there and you might find yourself hauled in, bound up and dragged into… whatever disaster he’s got going on in there. Snap a few lines too many and you’re trapped in someone else’s mind going dark and Harmony help me, I don’t know what would happen. It isn’t supposed to be like that. But he’s not dead or crazy so I suppose the best you can do is hope it heals up well enough. For me? It’s like walking into a horrible accident where you can’t even tell how many ponies were there in the first place. There’s a few patches sewn in that are about the right shape and size to make things work again, but they’re supposed to be deeper, and they aren’t, and there’s no way to put them exactly where they’re supposed to go.”
“I’m still not sure I understand. What did she take?”
“I can’t tell you that. Being… obedient? Protecting? Needing to protect? I’m not him, I only get the gist of what he thinks, it’s why mind control is so traumatic; you’re made to think like someone else’s mind. I can get what sticks and not much bloody else.” The pony gave a hiccup, then held a hoof to his mouth. “Oh Harmony... it nearly came up again- guilt and confusion and all kinds of trauma, what in Tartarus are you doing to your guards?” His eyes squeezed shut and he took on a sour expression, just breathing hard. “Nope. Done. Not doing anymore.”
“...She broke my oaths. The Queen, not the Princess. The Princess has done me no wrong,” I assured the apparently traumatized unicorn, who I was beginning to think was not, in fact, milking this for all it was worth. I latched onto some of his misery and drew it out of him; it was not as if I felt much like eating anyways, and he seemed to stabilize at least somewhat. It seemed fair, given that it was likely my own misery in the first place.
Celestia looked at me, still clearly unsure as to the severity of this claim, but Cornflower ‘Mentasmo’ Lulamoon apparently thought that was sufficient explanation. “If that’s something deep and personal... makes sense. If enough of his psyche was wrapped around those oaths, and she tore it out, all the things he did and was because of those oaths don’t mean anything anymore. Folks get hit by something like that start having problems because things don’t line up. The less important the connection, the easier it is to lose, but… imagine you woke up one day not knowing your sister existed. How much that would change who you were and became as a pony, because all the things that happened to you because of that… well, wouldn’t have.” He blinked a few times. “Wait… you mean your Guard oaths? Those aren’t really-” the unicorn broke down in spluttering. “He geased himself! He geased himself! With a promise to obey you! Your highness, you have to release him from that-”
“No!” At my outburst, both stared at me, Celestia merely startled but Cornflower completely aghast. “I…I believe I have been under… such a thing most of my life in Canterlot. I do not know that I can be… functional without it.”
“Oh buck me, he shouldn’t have done that.” If the dabbing kerchief was wiping any harder, I imagined it would start taking the color out of his fur. “Your highness, you have to understand, he’ll obey you barring nothing. Tell him to jump off a cliff-”
“That would not be a lawful order. Nor likely an order at all. I am sworn to obey lawful orders.” Honestly, the stallion was fretting over nothing. “Beyond that, there are many small cliffs and I possess wings.”
“Order him to reveal other changelings-”
“I am sworn to protect. The oaths do not explicitly spell out that I will only protect ponies, and there are laws about privacy.” I hesitated, but decided I owed her greater explanation. “I will obey all orders to the best of my ability and interpretation, but I cannot pretend I will always do exactly as you may wish.”
“What if she makes being a changeling illegal?”
I tilted my head at him through the bars. “Then I would likely be incarcerated and incapable of upholding such a law. If it were even a law that could be made without breaking other laws in Equestria.”
Princess Celestia cut off that line of questioning. “An interesting philosophical question, but I’m going to state that ‘not being a pony’ has never and will never be against the law in Equestria so long as I wear a crown. Even if we declare war, it does not make criminals of an entire nation.”
“So as you can see, it is fine. I have sworn the oaths and more besides.”
The great Mentasmo wailed. “More, he says! Like what?”
“I have sworn to obey Shining in all things, lawful or not. I do not know that my own judgement is trustworthy. The Queen targeted him once, and I owe him much; if I cannot obey him, it means I have been compromised and thus he will know instantly.”
This time it was not only the hypnotist that spluttered. “Corporal Hooves, that is utterly inappropriate-”
“He is a prince now,” I reminded her, unhelpfully.
“And he does not need a slave. I cannot believe how casually you just announced that. Thank Faust I sent them to the Crystal Empire. I don’t think he’s in nearly the right mindset to deal with this right now. A good quest will get him right as rain.”
“Sent them to the what?!” came the breathless squeak from the unicorn beside her. I perked up a bit myself. Shining had mentioned something about it being lost centuries ago... but that was a matter for heroes, of which Shining should be and I was assuredly not.
“Confidential information, don’t let that get around. One problem at a time. Can you make Idol not susceptible to any commands the Queen gives him?”
“I can’t really do that to anyone. Defenses are only as strong as the mind they’re built in. What’s there is there and done is done. I… I don’t think she can just walk up and tell him what to do. Tartarus, his mind might clamp on hers like a bear trap if she tried to tweak him with magic.” He gave a little shrug, using magic to wring out his soaked kerchief to my displeasure. “Like I said, might do as much damage to her as she did to him. It was terrifying enough to wander around in there without touching anything. Give him a few years to stabilize or go crazy and I can… I can take a second look. Maybe then it’ll be healthier?”
“Would you recommend I send him home to recover in peace?”
“Harmony, no! I wouldn’t let him out of this ce-” At Celestia’s grimace, he froze. “Oh, shoot, I was supposed to lie, wasn’t I?”
“I forget every time that you are intolerably honest after one of your sessions.” She took a deep breath. “Any other disasters in the making, Idol?”
“None that I believe are a concern of yours, your Highness.”
Celestia quirked an eye at me. “I believe that you believe that. But I don’t think I do.”
“I shall endeavor to fail to live up to that expectation.”
I awoke to the faint sound of scraping and the muffled sounds of earthwork, followed by a few indistinct thuds, and finally all-encompassing silence. I had almost decided to resume sleep when the sound of moving soil and stone continued, and this time, the thuds were more distinct knocks on the stone floor of my cell.
Very distinct, and familiar. With annoyance, I returned the appropriate series of knocks in response.
I was in no way surprised to recognize the voice. “...Idol…?”
“You... are in very much trouble, young Nymph.”
Relief and delight emanated from beneath me. “You’re okay! And you can’t ground me, you’re in trouble too! Hang on, I’ll get you out-” The sound of her hooves frantically scraping at the undersides of the blocks of the dungeon floor.
“Cease at once! Cersus!” I looked around furiously, unable to believe the young changeling had the audacity to stage such a criminal endeavor. “You cannot break into the dungeon! That is highly illegal. Return home this instant!”
“What’s he saying?” I froze, not recognizing this new voice, with a squeak to it like an unoiled hinge. What in Harmony’s name…?
“Did he say to stop?”
“Shh! They’ll hear us!”
Two more voices that might have been from the same pony by how little they differed. This was what a conniption felt like, I was sure. “...Cersus. How many ponies are down there with you?”
“...Um… None..?” She gave up on her fruitless attempts to dig through the enchanted stone and seemed to be moving along underneath the cell, as if looking for a weak spot.
She was about to find one if she didn’t slow, and likely to regret it. “Cersus.”
She did not slow. Some lessons must be learned personally. “We’re not breaking you out anyways! We’re getting you what you need to get out on your own! Here, there’s already a hole- ewww! I’m just going to stick it up through, take it-”
“Wait, that’s not-” Another voice? Was this a group of friends or a small army?
“This was your plan!? That’s not the right kind!”
“I said shh!”
I stared at the blank yellowish paper poking up through the hole in my cell that was intentionally one-way, turning my head as I tried fruitlessly to comprehend what my charge had brought me. “...I do not even know what this is supposed to be.”
“Filing paper! So you can get out. Everyone always files something to get out of dungeons in stories!”
Eyes closed, I took a calming breath. “I believe… that they use a file. As in, the metal tool.”
“...that… that makes a lot more sense. Wait, who carries a file with them? Oh! Is that why it gets baked into cakes?”
“Go home, all of you. Fill in this hole, or I will inform your parents at my next opportunity.” I was not entirely sure I did not plan to do it regardless.
“But what do I tell To-”
“Tell her-!” My words froze, heart in my throat. “...Tell her I am sorry. I am trying to make amends.”
“...you’re sewing in there?”
“Amends, not mending- I said go!”
The scrambling that erupted from beneath me assured me that at least part of that order was being followed. A jailbreak. I was… oddly touched, but why the little changeling had gone through so much trouble for me, and how she’d managed to enlist her friends in this caper… The nymph was going to be the death of me.
And worse still, I was again reminded of Topaz. And memories too tantalizing to touch.
Distracted as I was by my own struggles to block out shamefully pleasant memories, I almost didn’t hear the sound of someone traipsing down the stairs to the dungeon in the hours just before dawn.
I sighed, wondering if the Princess would give me solitary confinement upon request. I wanted to be alone with my despair until I could be sure not to spread it. “If you are not sent by the princess, please leave. I have been cause of enough trouble for one day. Perhaps several.”
There was a rustle and a lamp lit, illuminating another face I recognized, a broad fanged smile and… a set of wings that made to frame a strikingly attractive figure. Wonderful. I could now recognize Mothchaser’s attraction and apparently share it to some degree. This cell was less helpful to my deviancy than I had been hoping. Not true, there’s no bathtub present. The thought was not fleeting enough by half, and I swore to drive it from my mind with a scourge, even if I was not sure how to flagellate memory or imagination.
“Oh, I am already in trouble. If I’m getting my wings clipped, I might as well make it for something worth getting clipped over. Your guard’s on patrol, we’ve got like twenty minutes. They’re shipping me home anyways, and your landlady asked me to look for you. Either you’re late on rent or that is one lonely mare. Can’t blame her, she’s got good taste.”
“What?! But… that is a terrible waste of your potential. The Guard will be lesser for it!” I tried to ignore the comment about Topaz. Hopefully she would come to her senses in time, but Order preserve, could it not happen soon? I feared if she did not break, I would.
“Yeah, turns out getting captured by the enemy during an invasion is maybe grounds to get called on the carpet back home.” She gave me a sickly smile that showed much fang and shockingly little dimple. I was shocked by how much I appreciated the honest attempt to commiserate without offering her own misery. “How much more trouble can I get into by getting you out if I’m probably going to be stuck in Shady Oaks the rest of my life anyways? Least I’m doing something right before I go.” Those deft wings began rummaging through her saddlebags for something.
Shocked even as I was by my own sudden confusing interest, I struggled to convince her not to follow my wayward charge’s example. “Mothchaser, I am a changeling!”
She looked at me, mouth slightly agape. After a long moment, she closed her eyes. “Noooo, say it ain’t so.” She threw her hooves up. “Of course you are, that’s why I’m helping you get out, you pit-chewing dolt! Here, I have the keys to the cells, we’ll-” She reached for the cell door with a wing, then frowned, swinging it open slightly, then giving it a wiggle on its hinges in disbelief. “...Idol, this door isn’t locked.”
“The Princess was having a rough day and I believe she may have forgotten. You… knew?”
“You can just leave,” she sputtered, golden eyes full of righteous indignation, “-and you’re still here?!”
“If I were allowed to leave, I would, but I have not been and thus will not. Again, you knew?”
“Of course I know now! I mean, I figured it out when I started trailing the scent down into the mines, and colts did I weird them out. I thought you were setting up some weird second bachelor thing for Shining Armor. When I found a half dozen smellalikes stuffing ponies into glowing sacks- ”
“They were likely cocoons.”
“Whatever! Imagine you’re trying to rescue someone from monsters and every time you hiss your stomach growls! I broke three or four cocoons but then… well, turns out it’s really hard to count how many of you there are by scent when most of you smell like varying flavors of delicious. I almost bit one. Actually, pretty sure I did.” I did not think she noticed that her tongue flicked out of her mouth. “...New Moon was right, I think.”
I desperately did not want to consider that further, I viciously stomped on a strange part of me that did. “That is terrifying, thank you.”
“Look, Idol, you’ve always been more or less straight with me, I knew you weren’t a pony, and I know you well enough to know you didn’t have anything to do with this invasion thing. It’s much easier to get everything figured out if we just let ponies know you’re a changeling, but you’re a good one. I mean, I understand, I’m-”
“That… is an exceptionally dangerous attitude for one in your position, Mothchaser.” A pale figure seemed to detach from the ceiling and landed without so much as a sound. “And your actions border treasonous…” I blinked a few times; I could have sworn we had been utterly alone, and Mockingbird’s wife had been the last pony I ever expected to enter my dungeon. I peered at the dark ceiling again, but Mothchaser’s lantern provided so little light that it was little more than shadow.
Mothchaser froze, a look of fear darting across her face, then took a stance that looked as if she expected to defend herself. “Lady Nerium, I-”
The rosy eyes fell upon her and there was none of the familiar warmth. “You will be silent.”
Mothchaser’s jaw clamped with a ‘clack’ so audible I feared she might need to see a dental hygienist. It would not do for her to share her brother’s smile, and if she chipped a fang- I was suddenly certain she would in fact be adorable. I gave my head a firm shake to drive that strange thought away. It might be true… but hardly relevant.
The other batpony flowed up to the bars, and I nearly shrank away. Something was… amiss. “I did not expect to see you here, as you were not to be told about Idol’s… nature. Or incarceration, for that matter. I had hoped you would be long gone to Shady Oaks before you found out about this business, just to avoid any rash actions like these.” She glared, and Mothchaser actually shrank from the slightly smaller mare. “...But nothing else has gone as I expected, so I should not be terribly surprised that even that plan has gone awry.”
“I… I should be asking why you are here, Nerium. If Mockingbird is to question me, that would be his prerogative, but you are not an active member of the Guard.” I hesitated. “...Mothchaser’s actions may not be her own, I am-”
“That is little matter. Even if she were not here to free you, I am.”
It was a night for jailbreaks. I wondered if anypony stayed incarcerated these days, or if I was simply radiating dereliction of duty. “You do not have that authority, Lady Nerium. I do not know that even Mocker does, but you are not he.”
“Do I not…?” Red eyes glittered. “Yours saved mine. Whatever else you are, you’ve done something well. Both Mockingbird and I are willing to accept punishment of the crown to return you to her, and shame besides. It will please her Royal Highness Luna to see you free, whether she will admit it or not, and that is almost reason enough alone.”
Mothchaser couldn’t stay silent, even though she looked like she’d rather eat rotten fruit. “...His who did what?”
“I was not aware I had given you leave to speak again! You are not a hunter of shadows yet, Thestral. I overlook your misconception of the situation but you have risked more this night than you realize.” Nerium’s gaze softened. “But I suppose that very secrecy has led you to panic. Be at ease. You are not to be punished, but celebrated for your part in the invasion. As near as anyone can tell, you forced the Queen to rush her plans and are thus instrumental in Equestria’s victory. Had there been more hale changelings within the walls, the elements of Harmony would have likely been among the first replaced, and the invasion could have gone even more poorly for us.”
I looked from one batpony to the other, feeling forgotten and slightly annoyed. “Am I to understand any of this?”
“Understand that you are being released. Mothchaser’s business is Shady Oaks business and none of yours.”
“His cell’s already open. He won’t come out.”
“I- what? What do you mean he won’t come out?” Nerium’s voice cracked slightly, and she sounded far less imperious. I shook my head, feeling some cobwebs shake free. Nerium? The mare who cut her daughter’s sandwiches into bat shapes? Frightening? Absurd. Surely Mothchaser had just been upset and shamed at being caught, and I was caught up in her shock. Or maybe it was just shock that she was not wearing her customary glasses, and I disliked things that were unusual. Surely only that.
“He says he’s not allowed.”
“...Stallions. Be joking.”
Mothchaser had taken a more proper stance for a guardsmare. “No, Lady Nerium. Says he isn’t allowed, or he would.”
“...Mocker is never going to let me live this down. You know he won’t go. Balderdash! You have a filly to take care of, get out there and keep her out of trouble before she tumbles the castle down around us!”
“He has a what?!” Mothchaser looked as if somepony had told her, with great conviction, that fireflies routinely committed arson.
I cleared my throat. “I do not… exactly.”
Nerium simply rolled her eyes, grumbling almost petulantly “He assuredly does. And that is going to be something I discuss with him in detail in the future.”
“She mostly takes care of herself,” I argued, feeling very… buggish under Mothchaser’s stare. Yes, my earlier assessment of the nymph was right. She was going to be the death of me.
“You said you couldn’t do that!”
“I could not, and… did not! I… I… think I can now, and you are very distracting, but-”
“...Y’can? What, like… now now, or like just in general now-” There was a great deal of very inappropriate intrigue, and I feared whatever I had done to Topaz might have also been done to Mothchaser in some way, because her interest was suddenly plain to me, and I could only goggle at her, dumbfounded.
Nerium’s voice was a hiss as she flared her wings. “Is this really the time?” She turned her glare on me. “Bah, there’s no more time to be had. You stallions really are the most stubborn creatures in the whole world. We will speak on this later. Mothchaser, if you are discovered it will jeopardize more than just your chance at a higher calling. He clearly has no intent to leave, and you are on the next train to Shady Oaks if I have to ship you in luggage!”
“W-wait, but… but!” The darker thestral allowed the smaller and more typically bookish mare to bully her out of the room while making grabbing motions towards me, and I had to wonder just what in Tartarus was going on with the world. It was as if everything had gone mad at once when the Queen showed up. Or maybe I was driving them mad. I did seem to be the common element.
I settled down, hoping Princess Luna would grace me with my Guard dream again. Life was… entirely too complicated, as of late.