A Kindled Change

by Darkevony

Finale: Chapter 9: The Story, as it went.

It was dark, so very dark. I walked through the dim corridors of a cold, unforgiving cave. I was no longer conflicted over that darkness. It might have felt comforting before, but now it just seemed like an awful excuse I had used to hide from everything and everyone around me, including myself. Finally, I knew the full extent of what I was. I understood my responsibilities and my purpose for being there. And I was not about to hide from it all again.

The power I called forth from my heart drove the darkness away as the golden glow of my Fate surrounded me. The shadows could not so much as reach me anymore. It felt empowering. Like if I had overcome the shackles that had existed in my heart since the very start. It felt like I had defeated adversity itself, in every sense of the word.

I looked around me to see the walls that had remained in complete darkness for as long as I could remember, and I felt an indescribable melancholy. Were the walls always that shape? Was that really all there’d been inside the darkness? Had my cage truly always been that tiny? Even just being in the first room after having entered, with the outside world right behind me... it felt so small.

It felt like I had entered the mouth of a giant snake, and the little space before me was trying to crush me in its efforts to reduce me to its food, my magic seeping into its walls. At that moment, I remembered the promise that had been made between the Queen and the Sun’s ruler. I remembered the stories that had been read to me by Twilight. A chill ran down my spine when I thought back to the book she’d once read to me on the mythical creatures of Equestria. Of golems made from living stone and stories of snakes that had been large enough to threaten to swallow the world. She’d always ended those tales in that book by explaining it was just conjecture, over exaggerations from overly imaginative ponies. But like many things in life like I’d come to realize... perhaps there was truth to the stories we told.

I would not let myself get distracted by my own escaping imagination. I didn’t have the luxury to be unnerved by something that might have had no bearing on my purpose in being there. I kept walking towards the pull of the Queen’s Fate upon mine. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed since I’d left, it was the sense of dread I felt in my heart while I walked toward that voice. But that dread did not come from the same fears from before. I wasn’t scared of what could happen to me anymore. What I was afraid of... was failing in doing what I needed to do and hurting everyone else for it.

Two different Fates were guiding me down those cavernous, winding paths. The wind wafted through those halls, eventually fading altogether as I traversed deeper down the length of them. The further I walked, the more the outside world seemed to drift off into distant memory. Even the echoes of water dripping from the hanging stalactites faded into an uncomfortable, unnerving silence. All I could hear was the din of an empty cavern and the loud thumping of my restless heart.

Reaching the crystals from before, I could see their light had dimmed considerably, weakened into disrepair. They were now almost as pale tan as the cavern walls behind them, the transparency on their surface had lost all the emerald, green luster from my memories. Walking in front of all those crystals, I could no longer see those twisted reflections staring down at me, not even the single face that had filled me with such sadness from before. I remembered the thought I had earlier when I gazed up at the stars... how I’d come to realize that these crystals had been for my sake... that they might have been there to stave off the darkness for my sake, despite the fear I had grown for them. It hurt my heart to see them so dim, still struggling to keep alight. The cruel irony is that I had not been here until now to witness their light and purpose.

I had noticed it in the Queen’s Fate too, the two of us having been connected that entire time. Her magic was much weaker than it had ever been, and the effort of its pull was almost non-existent. I was a mix of emotions. I was afraid of having to fight her. I could already tell that my memories of the past would get in the way of my goal, with my concern for her growing with each step.

Her call was desperate and sad, like if asking to be saved. With each step, I felt a rising conflict in my soul grow. The Queen... she knew what I was there for, and it felt like she was begging me not to do it. Reality had never felt heavier. It was hard just to keep putting each foot before the other.

It took all that I had not break down when I walked into her throne room, not a soul but her within it. The fire in her soul had been the smallest I had ever seen from any living creature, teetering on the verge of becoming ashes... In my outpouring concern, I could not even see the monster inside of her as she turned to look at me from where her body lay on the floor before having reached her throne.

What had happened to her?

All at once, my troubled soul gave rise to the turmoil in my heart. In the silence, I remembered when I was up at the top of the tree when I’d felt my conscience split from my body. It hadn’t just been my tired body that’d made me fall... I had been connected to the Queen the entire time, and as she was defeated and lost her powers at the time of her invasion, our connection had been cut. She had always been looking out for me... until the point she could no longer.

How lonely must it have felt then, that even after she’d regained even a small amount of her magic back that I was not answering her calls? How sad must it have been to know that I was actively rejecting her? And only now that I was there to cast her down could she be able to see me again... My guilt was immeasurable, and the monster within her could sense it.

Like a predator on an ambush, the Mistress saw her chance. Changeling magic was emotionally driven after all, and I’d inadvertently delivered her meal on a silver platter. I was driven to my knees while she weakly stood up at first, her composure becoming gradually steadier with my magic being drained from me. I struggled for dear life just to keep myself from collapsing onto the floor entirely. With my legs giving out at that moment, I only had a single thought in my mind.

’Ah... I’ve... already lost.’

This monster... It preyed on negative emotions. It hunted the overwhelming sadness in my heart after I realized I had so quickly allowed it to defeat me. It feasted on my regrets at having not been able to do more for the Queen. And it only grew stronger as I began to fear for the safety of the ponies.

And then... the monster reached critical mass, far outgrowing its power from at any point I had ever seen it when I despaired at the thought of Twilight and her friends being met by the harm that I had created in my foolishness, my powerlessness, my cowardice... my pain.

The green of her magic had been replaced with eldritch shadowy tendrils of pure black in her power, and they consumed the remaining light of the room, with the only glow remaining in her eyes and the ever-dimming one of my own magic as she absorbed it.

(Illustration by LuckyEd on DeviantArt)

“Ah, my sweet, sweet little dear. How lovely you are. You’ve come back to help me despite everything. How proud you make me, even if you had some less-than-savory ideas in your head. It disgusted me, you know. To let that other side of me say and do as she pleased. Try all I might, I couldn’t break her. Always using her magic for stupid little things like trying to save you. But I’ve gotta admit... it worked in the end. That vulnerability allowed me to convince her to break your spell and pool our powers to gain freedom into the outside world. But in our folly, we were defeated by love of all things. I thought we were done for! But then you strolled right back in, at her call. To save us. And now I no longer have to suffer that fool. It’s all me. Funny how the puzzle falls into place.” Her face contorted into a twisted smile, and the reverberation in her voice was now completely gone. I could no longer hear the gentle tone from before... All that was left in it was the vitriol and cruelty of the monster within her, the Mistress...

“Mom...” I heard myself say quietly in tears, powerless to get off the ground. It hurt me to hear the monster talk about her that way.

“Now aren’t YOU funny. What a joke. You think she was your mother? You forget what you are, yeah? I’ve been inside of her head all this time. So I can personally tell you... the only way she saw you was as a convenient vessel. An amusing little toy.” The sadistic reveling in her voice made me grit my teeth in frustration. All the evidence pointed to the contrary, but I couldn’t help listening to the monster. What if it was right? I understood it was just trying to provoke more negative emotions from me to consume them, but it hurt so much to imagine that there was a possibility of its words being true. “What. a. catch. I thought I’d struck gold with that royal couple, but you’re something else. Don’t worry dear, I’ll be your mother if you despair for me like this.” She cooed with disgusting sarcasm.

“Twilight...” I mustered what little strength I could to reach out into the nothingness around me, imagining I was still lying down in that familiar bed and looking for her in my desperation. At this, it was like the monster had been slapped in the face, having recoiled with disgust. She clicked her tongue, her irritation and anger growing doubly so.

“You want to run that by me again? What did you say?” She walked up to my body and stomped her foreleg loudly next to my face, sending a shiver of fear down my spine. “There’s a few worthless ponies I’ve got at the very top of my list of creatures I’d really like to get my hooves on, and you’ve just named one of them.” I felt my whole body freeze. Was this true? Would she personally go to hurt Twilight? “I knew I saw something awful coming from your magic. Now I understand where you got those dumb little ideas in your head.” Her eyes lit up with sinister excitement. “Oh, but what fun is it going to be to see the lot of you suffer.”

My lungs hurt in taking in air harder and faster than I had ever done before in my panic. I struggled to get off the ground with every fiber of my being wanting to stop her. I couldn’t have foreseen this. The absolute worst possible outcome. Was it my fate for this to end this way? Why... why... why...?

She only laughed at my plight, feeding on more of my negativity. “Don’t worry about a thing... or you know what, maybe do worry about everything. After all, I’m gonna burn down that world you love so much.” She stooped her head towards me so that she could whisper into my ear. “Just... it’s not going to be for you.” A pit of anger exploded from my heart as she used the Queen’s old feelings against me. Even if her intentions had been twisted and corrupted prior to this... they had always been done with some love for me and her kin. Now, there was none of that in this monster.

Others would often say that when you ask for help in a desperate situation, and help arrives, you’d feel elated afterwards. It was only natural, right? To feel relief at the thought that you were not on your own when facing off against the odds. But I couldn’t feel that way. I couldn’t feel that there was any one pony that could fend off the monster before me. So when a familiar voice appeared behind me, I could do nothing but despair.

“You think we’re going to sit quietly and let that happen?” It was Twilight. It wasn’t hard to guess how she had found me. No doubt, she had probably been searching up and down for me, especially within the Everfree Forest since she was astute enough to know that’s where I’d run to. When I first unlocked my magic and it surged everywhere around me, I could’ve imagined that it looked like one massive beacon for the magically gifted. I should’ve been more careful in covering up my steps. Inadvertently, I had led Twilight to the snake’s den. I had done everything wrong, right from the start...

“What fun would there be in it for me if you did?” The Mistress responded with all the cruelty and confidence in the world. “I want to thank you all for saving me the trouble of going out to find you.” She addressed Twilight and... all of her friends. “Especially this wretched little thing here that has given me the opportunity to repay you in kind.” I tried to shake away the hoof she used to stroke my hair in that empty expression.

“What did you do...?” There was a growl of anger in Twilight’s voice.

“No no. It’s what SHE did for me. Now look at me. Can’t you tell? How sweet her sorrows are. How much she cares about you. Disgusting really. Sigh. But they are quite strong so I guess I can’t complain.”

“Get away from her you vile beast!” Rarity exclaimed, annoyed by her gestures.

“From WHO? My daughter? Why should I?” Despite her words earlier, now she was using that word to toy with them, making a show and a mockery of their concerns. It was infuriating to hear it come from her mouth.

“You’re not fit to be a mother!” Fluttershy’s voice boomed with uncharacteristic heft and indignation in her tone.

“Big words from a couple of ponies with no kids.” She laughed and she laughed, all while Twilight and her friends hesitated to fight her. They could sense it too... how powerful she’d become. “Well, if you really think so, you should try to stop me then.”

“You reckon we can’t?” Applejack’s usual confidence had been shaken.

“I know you can’t.”

Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash and gave her a small nod. It seemed they understood each other even without words, as Rainbow Dash zipped over to me to rescue me and laid me down behind them. The Mistress was not fazed by this at all, and she only smiled her usual sinister smile.

“It’s fine. It’s better if my little battery is away from the crossfire. I hope you realize that distance doesn’t matter on whether I can take from her power or not.”

Despite Twilight having illuminated the room with magic, the room was still covered in complete darkness. With one stomp of the Mistress’s foot, the pitch-black darkness all around us unweaved into a mass of tendrils, coiling around every pony’s legs, holding them in place. Rainbow Dash did her best to evade the creeping darkness, having not been caught immediately since she’d been floating in the air when it had happened, though with those tendrils on every wall and ceiling it was inevitable that one took hold of one of her wings and damaged it.

She yelled out in pain and fell to the floor, the shadows quickly rooting her to the ground. “I’m okay, don’t worry. My wing is just a little busted up.” She said, responding to everyone’s concern. “Twilight, we have to do it again! We have to use them.”

Twilight looked to me at that moment, unsure if she should continue on with what Rainbow Dash was asking for. But seeing me struggle to get up and fight back likely told her all she needed to know then. “Y-yeah okay.” She magically produced six golden accessories.

Twilight’s magic burst forth into the room as everyone began to shine from an incredible power. Their light staved off the dark tendrils, shredding them and illuminating the cavern walls and floor. Within their magic, I could feel everyone’s emotions and desires, their hopes and dreams, and their very personalities. At that moment, I remembered when Twilight had read to me a story about six powerful artifacts that embodied particular characteristics, and how she mentioned they were only ever used in dire times to protect all of Equestria. I could not have imagined that she’d be the one to wield such powers...

But even with their power, it had not been enough. The Mistress remained after the blinding light from their magic died down. In their surprise, the Mistress gloated her victory over the elements, laughing maniacally at their resounding defeat. The tendrils lashed out from her again, and this time, everyone could feel that there was no escaping it anymore. Even while they struggled, they did so less and less in feeling that they were becoming more lethargic from their effects. The magic tendrils were draining away at them.

“We’ll... stop you... no matter what” Twilight said, struggling to stay awake.

“Your little stones couldn’t, so then what can you do?” She laughed in Twilight’s face with a hoof underneath her chin. She let her slip intentionally, Twilight grunting in pain, collapsing to the floor now truly defeated.

Was this truly the way of life? Were we to struggle everyday for the rest of our lives just to find even a hint of happiness? I couldn’t say what I was feeling at the time. A large veritable mix of things no doubt. Mostly negative, some positive. That’s the thing about thoughts and emotions right? You can’t really lie to yourself. You can’t help feel what you feel, or think what you think. You can try to change slowly, but the process is an eternal endeavor. Even if we somehow reach the point that we’ve changed considerably, we’ll always have stressful moments where we’ll revert and act irrationally.

Yet...

In that moment, I felt the most rational I had ever felt. As I had seen everyone fight for my sake... having felt all of their emotions and their concern for me... Witnessing their anger in the fire of their souls when I was mistreated...

Even now, I could see how selfish I was being. All my life... even when I tried to convince myself of the opposite... all my life I had been running away from it. From the cowardice, the pain. From my fears, from my hurts.

From me.

We are Changelings. We feed on emotions, become more powerful because of them. Our own, and those that others give to us.

From the very start, I hadn’t fought back in the way I should have. I hadn’t taken up the responsibility of my position as princess to my kin. I hadn’t harnessed my powers in the way the Mistress did...

It took seeing Twilight fall to understand all of that. My utmost selfish desire. The corner of my soul I’d denied myself. The feelings I had swallowed and spitted out. They were me, all of me. What I couldn’t help in feeling, what I couldn’t help in thinking.

And why it was that I myself hadn’t grown more powerful from my own emotions.

As I took it all in, I remembered the old Queen in the time of the tragedy of the Formless. I remembered the moment she stood up in front of the ruins of everyone’s home to speak to her people. How the defeaning silence of their grief shook her to her core. I remembered how she took in all their sadness, all their madness. Accepted it. Took responsibility for it. And how in her love for them and me, she bargained for the future in our name.

Now, it was time for me to do the same. Every awful emotion. Every ounce of sadness. Every laugh of joy. Every bit of love that I had ever felt...

“No more.” I heard myself shout, enveloped in a blinding golden hue. “Please. No more. Hurting.” My light tore away at the darkness around Twilight and her friends, still weak from the draining tendrils and being left behind as spectators.

“You insolent little bug, you dare?!” The Mistress recoiled, holding onto her throne with her forelegs and becoming shakier with each moment, the source of her power seemingly cutoff and being redirected.

I ignored her and talked directly to the one inside. “It's, okay. I’m, fine. I’ll be, fine.” I smiled at her direction, tears streaming from my eyes.

The Queen slumped to the floor again struggling to keep upright before succumbing, the madness fading from her eyes. With no strength left in her, she could only stare defeatedly at me. I brought my forehead to hers and I whispered multiple times...

“It’s, okay. I’m, okay. We are, okay.”

And finally, she closed her eyes to fall into a deep sleep.

“Pumpkin?” I could hear Applejack ask from behind me.

It had occurred to me that I had never given them my name. Well, I hadn’t known my name until very recently so that checked out. They looked at me with confusion all over their face when I began to giggle at this prospect.

“Chrys. My name. Chrys.” I gestured to myself. I walked before all of them and bowed my head as far as I could towards the ground. “Thank, you. Everything. For me. I’m... sorry.” I said with water in my eyes, trying to look strong by holding my tears in.

With my head still to the ground, I felt a great big warmth all around me. The group of friends had all thrown themselves into a hug for me. Looking up, I could see Twilight’s neck in front of me, and her friends to my sides.

“Not... mad? No... hate?” The doubt in my voice was unmistakable, shaking from being near to tears.

“No, never. Never ever.” Twilight said, in the most childish way she could think to reassure me. I sniffed back my tears while I hugged her back.

“Don’t think anyone one of us could ever hate you after all of this, sugarcube.” Applejack followed suit.

They had some pretty bright smiles as they pulled away to see Twilight still hugging me with her eyes closed. She backed off quickly in her embarrassment, which made her double back thinking she’d hurt me with that gesture. I couldn’t help but smile in this moment of levity and warmth I’d finally been afforded.

“Of all things, being the Princess of the changelings... I don’t know if I could’ve foreseen that.” Rainbow Dash mused to herself.

“Well obviously, don’t act so surprised, Dashie. Could this pretty little face have been anything less than special?” Rarity said while she put a hoof gently to my cheek, which flustered me to some extent.

Pinkie Pie walked up to me sheepishly, which was unlike her usual self. “Do we still get to be friends? We only just got to know each other...” She asked sadly, touching upon a question that they were all waiting to ask, now focusing on me.

“Mm,” I nodded and hugged the excitable Pink one until she tossed me into the air in her happiness.

“I’m so glad everything turned out okay.” Fluttershy beamed.

“Between you and Twilight in your worry, I thought you guys would tear down the whole forest just to find her.” Rainbow Dash jabbed making the two flustered.

“Says you, I don’t think I’d ever seen you fly through those trees faster than you did then.” Twilight retorted.

“Hey!”

The jubilant conversation lasted for a while as every pony felt the relief that came after that harrowing experience. It wasn’t until Twilight finally asked a very important question that the mood changed.

“So, what happens now Chrys?” She’d said, worriedly. I hadn’t thought this far ahead, having basked in my joy of having all my loved ones in the same room after they’d come to my aid. My heart was practically overrunning with my love and appreciation for them, and I had not spared much of an effort to think of the future... Of my moral obligation.

Perhaps fate really did exist to some capacity, as in that moment, a tremor began to shake the world around us. You could hear some of the tunnels collapsing outside. Immediately everyone had begun to panic.

“What’s happening, Twilight!?” Rainbow Dash yelled between the sounds of crumbling earth.

“I don’t know! My best guess is all that magic has destabilized the underground structure of the cave! At any rate, we need to get out of here!” Twilight looked over at me in concerned panic when I walked over to the Queen to sling her over my back. I’d secured her long legs with my magic while the rest of the girls hurried me out of the room. We all ran together as fast as we could through those corridors and I could feel their panic rising by the second.

The walls themselves were shifting and changing again, and none of the halls were like how they were before, just like the time when I had first been cast out. Fate’s doing? Who knows, but it made it that much harder to locate the exit. Finally, we reached the first cave that went out into a clearing and everyone exited to the outside world successfully.

Everyone save for me.

Twilight looked at me with horror in her expression since she could easily read my mind by this point.

But as the mouth of the cave closed, I only looked back at her with the widest smile I could muster, tears streaming down my eyes while I said the final of my farewells.

“Thank you, for, everything.”

~~~

“And that’s the story, as it went.” A weathered old Mrs. Cheerilee said, closing the cover of a rather old book. Her class of small ponies and a few changelings groaned in their displeasure.

“No way that’s the end! What about the happy ending?” Yelled out one of them.

“What? Not every story is going to have a happy ending you know. You kids better start learning this now before life comes at you fast.” She exhaled.

“Okay, but what about her eyes, what was up with them?” Asked another.

“Why are there still changelings on the outside, if they were supposed to be sealed in?” Asked a studious looking changeling.

“My dad said he saw the changeling princess once! He said he saw her at the castle in Canterlot next to Princess Twilight!” The class got rowdy at this revelation, and they began to jeer at the story.

“Alright settle down, I’ll tell you what happened afterward.” Mrs. Cheerilee sighed. “Well, it turned out that the cave the changelings had been sealed in was actually a really big legendary golem snake!” The kids oohed and aahed at this. “Twilight never forgot her old friend. She got to studying about the incident that had happened to the changeling kingdom so long ago. Her tireless efforts eventually lead her to her mentor at the time, Princess Celestia, and they discussed the fate of the Formless. It so happened that this snake had always slumbered throughout its life, and it had only awoken to the powerful magics of the rulers of yesteryear to keep a promise with them to hide away the madness that consumed the changelings. Only with incredibly powerful magic could the beast be woken from its slumber.”

“Oooohh, so that’s why the walls inside changed! Was it the Princess’ magic that made the snake wake up and what caused the ground to shake at the end?”

“Bingo, right you are.” She cleared her throat. “Well, in any case, Twilight saw to it to wake the snake again in order to release the changeling princess after she’d obtained more magic when she herself became the Princess of Friendship. But woe is her, for her friend did not want to be saved from her cage even after she had been freed. Her ultimate goal was to tend to the old Queen and the rest of the changelings she ruled over. It would take many, many years before her work concluded and she would eventually drive away those nasty feelings that plagued them. Still, Twilight visited her many times after that, and sometimes here and there she got to enjoy the outside world with her. The two became much closer after that. As close as any family can get.”

“So is she still in the cave?”

“No, not anymore. The changelings who lived through that time, now being freed from their madness made their lives under the rule of Princess Twilight and so the changeling princess was finally free to cast away her royal status. Though, as you kids can probably tell, she rarely makes an appearance.”

“What about her eyes?!” Chimed in the now exasperated student who first asked that question.

“Oh, that? Apparently, the old Queen had said something about her eyes being a gift. A replacement for the ones she’d lost in the incident from the past. Eyes made of the purest magic said to be able to see even the souls in living things.”

Finally satisfied, the kids left the classroom when the bell rang to signify the end of the school day. After class, while Mrs. Cheerilee packed her belongings to leave herself, another pony entered her classroom.

A second Mrs. Cheerilee. One feeling relieved and rested, smiling contentedly.

“With these old bones, I can’t tell you how much I needed that rest, thank you for the help, Chrys.” The second one said while walking in.

“No problem ma’am. I had fun too. The kids are a blast.” The first Mrs. Cheerilee said as her body quickly transformed into the image of a matured, pretty changeling with distinct amber eyes. “Though, if I can ask you for anything for next time... Can you please not make me read that story to the kids again? It’s mighty embarrassing.”

“What? You wrote it.” She laughed. “Alright, I get it. It was unavoidable this time since it was part of the curriculum that we hadn’t done. Consider this payback for sleeping in my class so often all those years ago.”

Chrys sighed and admitted defeat. “Well, I gotta run. I need to go get my mom ready for the Royal Gala tonight. She still gets antsy being around so many ponies.”

“Gonna spend some time with the Princess?”

“You know it.” She said as she smiled from ear to ear.