“Your Majesty.”
Hardly, Monarch thought as she studied the changeling in front of her with her calm purple gaze. “Cercus. What brings you here today?”
The faded peach colored changeling kept her head down and said in her wheezy voice, “My… The changeling I took in. Imara. You know her… everyone does. Well… it seems to me that she has disappeared, and… I was wondering where she might have gone.”
Clearly, this changeling had not been around, though Monarch did not say that out loud. She never wanted to offend her subjects, so she said in her trademark firm, quiet voice, “I am afraid that she has decided to side with the ponies in this conflict that has plagued our hive - at least, that is what we can assume so far. She brought a pony into this very room, disguised as one of us, and left with it when it ran away.”
Cercus growled deep in her throat, which made her start hacking and coughing. “That little…” She broke off, another cough climbing up her throat. “I knew she was… outspoken, but I thought she had more sense than that.”
“I would think that all of us would have better sense than that,” Monarch said quietly to herself, thinking about the kingdom. “Cercus. Who are you loyal to?”
The changeling looked surprised. “Why… you, my queen.”
“If you had to choose,” Monarch pressed, “between me and someone else, who would you pick?”
“My queen is the only queen I shall ever follow,” Cercus said passionately, looking horrified. “Why? Are there… others who think differently?”
“It would appear so.” Monarch turned her face up to the clouded-over sky and closed her eyes. “I do not believe I am in charge here anymore. This whole crisis with the ponies and Equestria has given others opportunities that they may never have had - opportunities that I do not wish they had.”
“Does my queen wish that we did not have a problem with the ponies?” Cercus asked, then coughed.
Monarch sighed and opened her eyes, studying the dark sky above her. “I don’t know.”
“But they want to destroy us all!” Cercus reminded her. “They - why, they kidnapped Termite and are probably holding him hostage until they attack, demanding our surrender for his release! They must be stopped!”
“But I’ve just been thinking,” the exhausted changeling queen said in a tired voice, “that we don’t actually know that. All we have to go off of is assumtpins and someone else’s word about what’s going on - which completely contradicts another testimony that we have heard. Everything is so conflicting and confusing that I don’t know what’s really going on anymore…” She sighed and looked out over the kingdom. “But it seems that the kingdom has decided that for me.”
“Your Highness’ word is still the law,” Cercus supplied in a helpful, yet wheezy, tone.
In a quiet voice, the queen said, “How I wish it were so.” Monarch nodded to the changeling in front of her. “You are dismissed.” She stood up and walked out of the room via her own private chambers, while Cercus scrambled out of the throne room. Once she was alone, Monarch sighed and turned to the portrait of King Thorax, her father. The first ruler that the changelings had… at least as far as the history books said.
Monarch sat in front of the picture, her father’s kind face staring back at her, and pretended that he was still here, and she could talk to him, like she had done so many times in the first few years of her being the queen.
“I don’t know what to do,” she told the painting. “I’m losing control, I’m not sure what the truth is anymore, the kingdom is falling apart…”
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “But I wish you were here. You were so amazing in situations like this - you always knew just the right thing to do, and how to make changelings listen to you and obey. I wish I was more like you.”
An old refrain popped into her head: What Would Father Do? It was uncalled for, but it suddenly brought the queen a great deal of peace, because this refrain was how she had gotten through her first week without curling into a ball and crying from all the stress. Taking another deep breath, Monarch thought of how this had all started.
That strange changeling from out of town had come with a pony who was supposedly sympathetic towards the other creatures. Monarch had asked the pegasus to speak, and she told her of the chaos that plagued the pony tribes at that very moment, suggesting that she and the other changelings stay out of the matter until it was resolved. But she had also mentioned joining her and fighting against the ponies, securing a place in society and bringing the changeling hive back to its glory days. And Monarch had been tempted.
But now when she thought of the supposed chaos in Equestria at that moment… she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the ponies. If it was anything like what was happening at the hive, she hoped they might find strong leadership to lead them through this troubling time.
Then she thought of Imara, and the changeling she had brought with her - who turned out to be Sunny Starscout, a traitor of Equestria who supposedly wanted to use ponykind to gain power for herself. Monarch wasn’t sure if she believed that, either, though with her guards and citizens acting of their own accord, there was little she could do.
Now the disappearance of Termite, which she had to admit was a relief - he had been getting far too controlling of the changelings. But every changeling treated him as a martyr, a creature that needed to be avenged. His disappearance had only fanned the flames, and now Monarch saw a potential fight as inevitable - her subjects would never stand for a ceasefire. Plus there were all these other creatures out there that could pose a threat…
And then there was the hive itself. Back in her father’s day, Monarch remembered how cheerful the citizens of the hive had been, sharing love. But now that all seemed to be slipping away.
She needed a solution. She needed a miracle.
“Your Majesty!” There was a heavy knock on the door. “Your Majesty, come quick! It’s urgent!”
The clear urgency in his voice was enough to convince her - she leaped to her hooves and ran from the room, leaving the picture of her father - and her temporary peace - behind. In the throne room, three guards were standing in front of the throne, all bowing and the one in front, a dark blue with splashes of an even darker green, was the one that spoke to her.
“Your Highness, on our mission to the Equestrian capital, we encountered an… alarming situation,” the guard eventually decided.
Instantly, Monarch was on guard. “What kind of ‘alarming situation’?” she asked.
The three guards stepped aside, the first one saying, “We found him in the forest next to the city.”
At first, Monarch wasn’t quite sure what was so alarming about it - all three guards were pointing at a yellow and orange changeling whose bright colors reminded Monarch of Imara - that would be a good thing, right? Having brighter colors usually indicated that you were sharing love instead of keeping it all for themselves.
But then there was the way that he kept looking around like he had never seen this place before, kept shifting his hooves as if he was nervous to be there, and the fact that Monarch was sure she had never seen him before…
“You may leave,” she instructed the guards, an idea coming to her. “I wish to speak with him.”
“But-”
“Alone.” She fixed the guards with her sturdy gaze until they left, her shoulders sinking slightly as she relaxed once the last guard’s tail disappeared around the corner. She stood up and leveled her gaze with the creature in front of her.
“What’s your name?”
The changeling looked no less nervous now that the guards were out of sight - in fact, he looked even more nervous than before. But after a slightly uncomfortable silence, he said, “M-Midge, Your Highness.”
Monarch inclined her head in greeting. “And where are you from?” When he looked apprehensive, she assured him, “Don’t worry, I’m just trying to get a clear picture of the situation. I mean you no harm.”
Midge took a deep breath and said, “The Everfree Forest, Your Highness. It’s… it’s part of the forest outside of Zephyr Heights. Loads of creatures live there.”
“Hm.” A thought occurred to her - didn’t the strange changeling with the pony who was sympathetic to their cause say that she came from that exact same place? “Have you ever met a changeling named Morphosis?”
“Morphosis?” Midge tilted his head, confused. “No. I’m the only changeling there - and trust me, we’ve been through those woods a million times, and the only time we’ve encountered anyone else is when we found these three fillies who were running away so that they could stay friends…” He trailed off, as if the memory was painful.
The new information made Monarch’s mind reel. If the changeling was lying about who she was and where she was from… then why should she trust anything that anyone from their party said?
You shouldn’t, a voice in her head said. You’ve been fed lies and are being used for it.
But no one else would believe it. The kingdom is far too gone to be brought back to rational decision making at this point.
You’re on your own now. What will you do?
What Father would do. Fight back - fight for what was right. Even if no one backed her up on this - she wasn’t going to sit around here and watch her kingdom fall apart around her.
She was going to do what she should have done long ago.
“What do you know of the situation in Equestria?” she asked Midge, curious to hear from yet another source so she could determine what the truth was.
“A bit too much,” he admitted. “More than I would like to. But the world is in chaos - ponies have been convinced that the pony who brought them together and gave them magic wants to use them for her own gain, which she would never do, and from what I’ve heard, all the other creatures want to fight the ponies because they think that the ponies want to destroy them all, which makes the ponies want to defend themselves and fight back, and meanwhile, there are these three villains who put the whole thing in motion and are the only ones benefiting from this.” He took a deep breath and said, “It sounds a lot worse when you say it out loud.”
“And what of Sunny Starscout?” She knew of all the rumors and lies, though she had not quite guessed the complexity of them, and she wanted to know what Sunny Starscout’s role was in all of this.
Midge shrugged. “I know she hasn’t got anything to do with this. Word on the street is that her friends say that she had a spell cast on her that allowed Cozy Glow - that’s one of the three villains I told you about - anyway, the spell let Cozy Glow control her mind, and she manipulated Sunny into joining her and the other two villains, Chrysalis and Tirek, which meant that she had to be charged with treason, and then her friends went after her, meaning that they were traitors as well. But I know that she’s innocent - she would never do something like this.” He tilted his head at her. “Why don’t you know all of this?”
“Let’s just say that there’s a lot of misinformation going around,” Monarch said ruefully. But there was one more thing she had to check before taking his word seriously. “Did you ever meet this Sunny Starscout?”
“Once,” he said carefully, looking like he was carefully selecting his words in his head. “But I’ve known two of her friends for longer. I… I disguised myself as one of the royal guards in Zephyr Heights, and I have grown rather fond of them. But I promise, if I thought that they were up to no good, I would join forces against them without a second thought. But I don’t think that’s the case here.” He shifted his hooves and made a decision. “There’s… something you should know.”
“Could it possibly be worse than the fact that I’ve been tricked and manipulated, and now none of my subjects will listen when I try to tell them this?” Monarch said in a trying-to-be-humorous voice.
“I’m afraid so.” Midge lowered his head. “One of the Legion of Doom… Tirek… he can steal magic. I can’t change form anymore. He attacked the forest a few days ago and stole magic from every single creature there was.”
“Sweet Celestia,” Monarch whispered. “What kind of evil are we witnessing?”