I awoke, still before dawn, in a rather unusual way. That being, having my cot, bedding and all, flipped in a most aggressive manner.
“Arise, thou knave! I know not how, but only by your hoof can I fathom that mine sister hath dammed a child!”
Quite tangled in my sheets and still not entirely awake, all courtly eloquence failed me. “...What?”
“Mine sister has a filly that could be her spitting image cuddled with her in the throne room! We demand an explanation for what you have wrought!”
Extricating myself groggily, I could not help but grump. “Princess Luna, it is unreasonable for me to know all that goes on within this castle. I am, if I am not mistaken, still a prisoner. And it is hurtful to be accused of such machinations.” I tapped at both fin and horn, finding both less crooked than they currently felt, then rubbed my left foreleg before studiously avoiding any further attention to it.
“Fie upon it, thou art prisoner no longer. And…” the princess seemed to deflate, looking sheepish. “-and you are correct. Forgive me, friend Idol. Tis unfair to blame you for every disaster. But I am most vexed by this turn of events.”
I allowed myself the sigh of the long-suffering, then opened my cell door and began for the now-revealed passage that I was certain led to the throne room and was equally certain had been Princess Luna’s entrance to the dungeon. I had grown entirely too used to the cell being unlocked, but this was becoming absurd. Past that, in fact, for my attempts to maintain normalcy in Equestria were apparently a long lost cause. So be it, I supposed. If Luna was going to leave secret doors open, I was as free to use them as I was to see myself in and out of my own cell.
“...Where are you going?”
“To retrieve my daughter, apparently.” I did not turn at the highly affronted sound from behind me, though I did quicken my step. “I only said it was hurtful. Not that it was inaccurate.”
As it turned out, Luna was not the only pony to have discovered my wayward nymph, and we could hear it through the hidden passages as we approached the throne room.
“-no, Auntie, I must demand an explanation. You’re not good enough at keeping secrets for me to believe you’ve had a secret foal for… ten… a little largish, but still no cutie mark… twelvish years?”
Sheltering a nervous Cersus in one wing, Celestia was trying very hard not to radiate guilt and failing utterly. “Blueblood, I was not aware that I’d gotten into the habit of revealing all of my plans to you. And that door was supposed to remain locked-”
“If there is a locked door in this castle I have not surpassed at least in theory, it is by choice and respect. I know my duties and I have upheld them, but this goes far beyond the pale. If you had a child, I would have seen to their protection. That I wasn’t given the opportunity is an insult too grave to believe.”
“Perhaps I didn’t think you needed the extra work. And nopony made you ‘spymaster’, that’s a bit of nonsense you’ve taken upon yourself.”
The normally disdainful unicorn snorted. “Please. You’re almost as bad a liar as the Honesty farmer. Fine. You.” A hoof aimed at Cersus. “What’s your mother’s first name?”
“Um… P… Princess…?”
“It is just Celestia, impostor. I would have accepted ‘mother’ or some variation, but not confusion.”
“Oh stars above, it just gets worse…” Luna moaned, peering through one of a pair of holes hidden by a tapestry as she fiddled with the latch of the ‘secret’ door to the throne room. I was still impressed I hadn’t found this particular one during my entire career in the guard… and appalled that, once again, I was being shown what were, or certainly should have been, state secrets. I had to wonder who had shown Luna, but presumed it to have been Mothchaser or one of the other auditorily gifted members of the Night Guard.
I did not think her voice should carry, but the unicorn froze mid-rant, and then Blueblood scowled directly at our elevated vantage.
“If the rats in the walls would like to tell us how they really feel…?”
That was a bit too much for Princess Luna’s own sense of pride, and the door latch no longer mattered as she burst out, knocking the entire tapestry askew. “Thou darest-”
Blueblood swept into a full courtly bow. “Forgive me, Your Highness, I had not realized you were gauging the depth of your sister’s self-delusion from a safe distance.” And with a single sentence, he’d gained the ire of not one but two princesses in astoundingly rapid succession. He eyed my pony-self critically. “Or that you had pre-dawn walks with Corporal Hooves while not in disguise. Or the changeling that declares itself to be Idol Hooves, in any case.”
“How would you know-!”
“Please, Auntie, my ponies report to you through me or in addendum to me. There’s not a word they’ve heard that I don’t.”
“She is only trying to defend my… daughter.” I confessed, hoping to prevent Blueblood from becoming a flaming puddle of his namesake as I tried, somewhat lamely, to fix the now mangled latch and secret door. Pointless; it would require mortar and better skill than mine with marble to return it to true secrecy. Annoyed, I walked down the wall and tugged the tapestry back into place with a pull of magic. Also pointless; now I was acutely aware of the thinly woven section of the fabric and it would bother me forever.
I had liked this tapestry.
The unicorn blinked a few times, then tilted his head. “...Well, that is unexpected. I had taken you for an incorrigible bachelor. So that-” he motioned to the tiny Fauxlestia still peeking out from under the larger’s wing. “-is actually a changeling foal?”
“...mma nymph.”
“Disgusting, how delightful,” groaned the irritated spymaster. “So you’re all aware of this nonsense, then? You’ve just been intentionally attempting to leave me out of it?”
Begrudgingly, Luna nodded, though her hackles remained up. “To some extent or another. We were only just informed of her paternity this very night.”
“Then the subterfuge was hardly necessary, was it?”
Nymph chose possibly the worst moment to offer clarification. “Um. He’s… not my dad. Changelings don’t have those.”
“Ah, wonderful, an entire species of bast…” He paused, eyeing her again, then moderated his language, which was likely beneficial to his future health. I hadn’t even initially realized I had tensed… nor that I now stood a full quarter inch lower in stature, having left very perceptible damage to the marble tile beneath me. I sought to moderate myself, and made a note to pay for the replacement. If I still had bits to my name. Further self-admonishment would have to wait. “-unfortunates.” He gave a faint snort, shook his head, and finally approached Celestia, who curled her wing more tightly around Cersus. And… then he spoke in a voice I’d never heard Equestria’s least-respected unicorn use. “...What are you doing here, little one? Times are dangerous enough already for your kind. You cannot know how much worse this could have gone.”
Feeling protective myself, I began to explain, “She came here to-”
“I did not ask you,” he snapped to me, and I confess the pure vehemence directed straight at me hit like an arrow, driving me back a step. I had known Blueblood was in charge of dealing with non-military problems, but I had never even considered that he might be formidable outside of his position. The tenderness returned instantly, and for the life of me, I could not truly bring myself to believe it was feigned. “Go on. Please, I need to understand what is going on, and those I love have not deigned to be honest with me.”
“I… I just wanted to help Idol not be here anymore. He’s… he’s supposed to keep me out of trouble. He can’t really do that if he’s… he’s in jail.”
“...and you’d be the little hero who somehow knew what the changelings were about and how to evade them long enough to snatch a bunch of foals and hide them away.”
“...not a hero,” she murmured, looking more embarrassed than pleased at the praise.
Blueblood only ‘hmm’ed at that, but he was looking at Cersus with a more approving countenance. “You could’ve adopted worse,” he admitted. “I did expect more of a firebrand. Or a fire starter.”
Now was Celestia’s turn to be sheepish. “I... actually haven’t. She is Idol’s daughter. She simply… needed some emotional support last night. And her attempt to free him involved my image.” Then she rolled her eyes. “And are you still on about Sunset?
Blueblood somehow allowed the conversation to be sidetracked both politely and scornfully. “You are entirely too lax about security breaches. You and Sunset Shimmer had a falling out and then she vanished. I feel that should be more concerning to everypony. Your personal hangups on the matter are hardly reason enough to avoid the discussion. Regardless, Celestia, are you sure you wish to take this particular risk? A foal under your wing so soon after such a disastrous wedding, particularly one that looks like a smaller version of yourself as a pegasus.”
“She was a unicorn last night.”
“I like having wings more than a horn,” Cersus admitted, finally climbing out from under Celestia’s wing. “Can’t fly without wings. I don’t usually look like this. Usually I look like this-” And with that and a flash of green flame, Fauxlestia was replaced with Redshock… who was, again, not red. Cersus pulled a strand of her mane in front of her face with her hooves, glaring at it ferociously before peering at me. I sighed, shook my head, and made a gesture. She concentrated, and the yellow slowly faded to orange, then finally red, though not quite the color she typically had. At my nod, she released the wayward lock and presented to Blueblood, who did not seem in the least bit impressed.
“And neither of those things are the point. She’s going to be investigated, and this time ponies will have excellent reasons to be suspicious. Worse still, they’ll be right. You absolutely cannot take in an apprentice at this time without throwing the child to the wolves. Look at her, Auntie! She trusted me!”
The little nymph squared her shoulders, glaring up at him with all the defiance she could muster. “Cause Idol trusts you!””
“And I have never heard a more stunningly accurate denunciation of someone’s judgment. I would betray your father for the good of Equestria on a moment’s notice.”
“And I have never known a better reason to trust a pony,” I affirmed “Loyalty is one of your better traits, Blueblood.”
He sputtered with outrage, not entirely feigned, and I supposed I was not supposed to compliment him for his endeavors. Princess Celestia gave her own little sigh, getting to her hooves. “In any case, I suppose we will be needing your aid after all-”
“It’s already done. Rumors about Idol’s nature have already spread beyond the castle, of course you couldn’t completely keep a lid on such a thing. There have been harsh words amongst guard and non-guard alike, and possibly worse, even if I haven’t received reports of open fighting yet. That Idol is a changeling will, unfortunately, end up a worse-kept secret than Cadance’s relationship with Shining Armor. That is beyond my ability to control at this point, because you left me chasing brushfires. What I’ve done in lieu of that is… have my ponies seed the idea that his species is a recent development. That he has been… infected somehow with this. Likely through his various indiscretions. It’s shameful enough to not be suitable for polite company and titillating enough to overtake the idea of him having always been a changeling.”
“...I do not think I like that.”
“And I believe I’ve established that I do not care what you like,” Blueblood stormed, glaring. “...But I do apologize for the necessity. It’ll be more embarrassing and less disastrous in the long run than the alternative implications would be. As for the others involved, I can only assume the majority of your visitors to be changelings, which makes sense how hard they are to track down. I believe there to be some sort of Neighponese farmer from Dodge Junction who occasionally seems to steer a few in your direction, and a mare running an orphanage in Manehattan. Those ring any bells?”
“Even if you had not just told my charge that you were not to be trusted, I would be hesitant to affirm or deny any individuals I know of. Our arrangement was only to provide aid to other exiles like myself so they did not have to resort to more desperate attempts to feed. I intentionally avoided learning more about their… pony lives.” Whilst I presumed the former to be Heyyu, and I was glad he was still about, the latter perplexed me. I knew nothing of exiles and orphanages, and if anything, the two seemed incongruous.
Rubbing his chin with a hoof, the noblepony considered. “...We’ll have to look into it. We can’t exactly have changelings running amok.”
Celestia frowned. “Could you have one of your-” she grimaced, but forced the words out, “-smiling friends manage this in Idol’s absence, while he’s in the Crystal Empire for however long Shining Armor needs him?”
Blueblood’s left forehoof began tapping to a beat. “...Not a bad idea, if it can be arranged. I might be able to get some use out of them, at very least. And I can presume you’re going to take this little miscreant under your wing no matter what I say?”
“Well… I may have to.”
And now I was lost. “...For what reason, Your Highness?”
“Idol, I want you to consider how Shining Armor and Cadence are going to respond if you show up with your daughter in tow. Beyond that, I quite think you should make for formal permanent arrangements in the Crystal Empire before you suddenly move your family to the North…?”
…Oh. “...That… would indeed be wise, Your Highness.”
At Luna’s request, before I was otherwise distracted with the issues of housing, childcare, and ensuring my ‘parade of apparent floozies’ were fed, I was to see the aftermath of the Queen’s capture of both Cadance and Twilight Sparkle. I was quickly made aware as to just why there was so much chaos in the days following and why there was so much uncertainty surrounding the events.
That being, that Twilight had apparently, in a bit of a snit, shattered enough of the crystals to either coarse powder or shards to render the terrain unpleasant and in some places dangerous. I could not decide if it was more or less impressive that she did so in an attempt to fight the Queen who she still apparently thought was Cadance.
I was beginning to wonder just how much of the entire mess the others had neglected to inform me of. I had been under the impression that Twilight had been quite fond of the pinker princess. But emotions always ran high at weddings, I supposed.
The long and the short of it was that somehow the Queen had managed to weaken Cadance to the point where she could not escape, and yet Twilight was capable of overpowering it. Luna was quite intent on learning how such a thing had occurred, presumably to stop it.
“-or I may use it to overthrow my sister. One should always prepare for the future.”
“Less than amusing, your highness.”
“Thou wert the one who suggested we were sour that the Queen got in a good hit.”
“Fair. I have been impertinent.“
“More than impertinent, you have been funny. You have always had just a bit of wicked humor to you, Idol, and whilst it may scandalize my sister, I seem to find both refreshing. Continue as you feel comfortable doing. Even though it may be fate that you not remain my personal guard, I would not give up our friendship so graciously. If fate seeks your friendship, may it spew forth its intentions personally.”
“...Your Highness, I fear you are trying to create a metaphor that is as grotesque as it is confused.”
“Fie upon it, then. Now, to the heart of the matter.” She began brushing away the rubble, first with hoof and then, oddly carefully, with magic in great broad sweeps. “It was only due to the explorations of the night guard after recovering Mothchaser that this was discovered…” A large rock was lifted, the area underneath examined critically, then the rock was flung almost haphazardly behind us. “Curses, we should have marked the location more thoroughly. One would think the former site of magical combat should be easily determined.”
“Caves are quite good at making even the most obvious of alterations look organic, Your Highness. Perhaps if I knew what we were looking for…?”
Struggling to push another large stone out of her path, the princess grunted, “Thou… shall know it… whence thou… sees it. HA!” And the large boulder rolled… and rolled, and rolled, broken free of its moorings to crash along down the tunnel. “...We have had enough of this foolishness. Brace yourself.”
“...Brace myself for what? To what? Your Highness-!” But it was was too late; Princess Luna’s horn had lit again, and one eye closed as if mid-flinch as she sent a small wave of unfocused magic into our surroundings. Typically, such an act was considered wasteful, even amongst the least caring of unicorns, but to my great surprise, I saw several markings glow briefly on walls, floor, and even the ceiling before fading out like afterimages from staring at too bright a light. “...Your Highness, what… exactly are those, to concern you so?”
Her relieved sigh did not inspire me to greater confidence. “We are not entirely sure. Near as we have been able to ken, these are just part of what your Queen had put here to aid in the invasion. Some aid in preventing external magical detection, though mostly by virtue of absorption. We assume if anypony had been looking for Cadance, they would have been unable to discover her location via magic. Sensible, I suppose, if you are trying to replace somepony. The ‘jig’ would be up as soon as one realized their target was somewhere below Canterlot, if they had the wit to recognize the oddity. Art thou familiar with runes?”
“I am aware of their existence at best, Your Highness. I believe they played a pivotal role in your creation of ‘moonshine’?”
“Indeed,” she admitted, pleased. “In truth, there are few better ways to ensure that magic acts in specific ways than runes, though I am distressed to learn that such knowledge is almost wholly unchanged since my day. If anything, ponies seem to have eagerly forgotten it, with my sister and myself to aid in raising sun and moon.”
“I… fear I do not see the correlation.”
“Tis perhaps ‘causation’. When unicorns lacked excess strength, control, or even precision to perform a task which had to be repeated exactly, over and over, runes were typically the means used. Whilst you could not trust a young foal to walk about lighting torches, ‘twas simple to have them touch horn to a set of runes to emit light. The issue is that said runes do very specific things, and rarely had much in the way of error correction. ‘Light’ is not much different from ‘fire’ which is not terribly different from ‘heat’, which means that if you want light and heat but not fire you need both of the alternative runes. Or one can use fire and a reversal rune to strip the ‘heat’ from it, but that provides heatless flame, not a simple light. Regardless, between Discord’s corruption of most unicorn spellcasting and the need for the nobility to raise sun and moon, unicorn magic was in short supply; runes were widespread even during the years before our banishment for various highly specific tasks. Still used, but many ponies simply use spells and rarely do they decry the effort, though a few are still in common use. Some are even capable of fueling themselves off of ambient magic by simply being around ponies using it.”
I marveled at that for a moment, then felt myself left down. “...That would be how magic-powered ovens work, then? Merely converting leftover magic into heat?”
“Tis a clever trick, though you will find few professional bakers with one that charges itself thus. For somepony who use the oven but twice or thrice a day, ambient charging and controlled discharge allows for a very stable experience, but one that is in constant use will render those charging it more lethargic than if it had simply been manually recharged. There are ingenious designs to allow for a combination of ambiance and charged runes, but I have not yet thoroughly investigated the lore.”
“...For one stating that the knowledge is being forgotten, you seem to have mentioned several advancements.”
“Too few, in a thousand years. The art has stagnated, there is no impetus for innovation save laziness. I was fascinated in my day, and sought to expand my knowledge with all the discovered wonders, only to find that most could be explained in the index of the vast tome I was expecting. It is simply too easy to memorize a spell instead of working out a complex series of runes and engraving them with trial and error, and thus interest wanes.”
“Ah, I see…”
Luna continued cleaning off the now-revealed runes she was intent upon showing me, and I did likewise to another I had noted on the floor. I noted with some trepidation that this one seemed more complex than the ones on the ceiling, and I found myself going to the opposite side of it, though the change in observation did little to allow me to discern the meaning. There were more, very similar if not entirely identical to the first, to both left and right, and I found myself cleaning the entire line. The etchings were not terribly intricate, but the stroke was simple, bold, and uniform. More typeface than hoofwriting; I quite liked the effect. It had a certain… professionalism to it, I supposed. “In truth, the Crystal Empire was far more interested in the topic before Sombra took over, and with both the most learned individuals and their various works lost upon his defeat, perhaps there was simply no interest in resuming a lesser line of study?”
I cleaned a particular crevice out, annoyed that it wasn’t part of the rune but in fact some of the damage done by Twilight. A quick glob of resin and some of the wayward dust filled that in nicely. “...You are a rune nerd,” I observed, applying a term I was familiar with in application to Shining Armor himself.
Luna sputtered, flushing, then turned her flank on me. “Cad. I shall not take such abuse from a hobbyist crocker.”
With all the dignity of the highly offended, I sniffed, “Madame, how dare you? We prefer to call ourselves ceramicists.”
“You most certainly do not!”
“You are correct, I feel foolish for even saying it,” I confessed easily. I tapped my horn to the section of clean runes, and they began glowing faintly, the magic spreading to the linked ones to either side.
The princess grinned cheekily, not really looking at me, then motioned me towards several of the freshly uncovered runes she had been focused on, some few yards away. “These are what drew my attention. I had hoped you would have some insight.”
“I can barely see them from here, Your Highness.”
She tossed her head slightly, obviously rolling her eyes. “Then come over here?”
“I… how would I do that?”
“Idol, simply walk-” She then turned to look fully at me, surrounded by several yards of semi-circle of freshly cleaned runes, the uncovered ones now glowing a changeling green..
I looked around, more than a little uncomfortable and growing more worried by the moment. “I… believe I am stuck.”
I was not stuck, but I was a fool.
Runes need to be active to work. While that does not mean, necessarily, that they will be glowing, it does mean they need magic. Of which, the vast majority of these were thoroughly drained, and several breaks between runes prevented their sections from being charged or activated entirely.
Nevertheless, I had been thoroughly shamed by my absolute certainty that I physically could not cross the entire ring of runes, and had only managed to convince myself it was acceptable by allowing Luna to back me out of the as yet not fully cleaned ring. I cannot say I have ever been so embarrassed in my entire life.
“I did not mean to laugh.”
“It is not that.”
“It was just very absurd, you understand.”
“Your humor is not the reason for my distress.”
“It’s at least part of the reason, Idol.”
“My panic was unseemly.”
“I would not have assumed you to have claustrophobia.”
“And I do not.”
“Well… I don’t know what else to call it when you start getting upset because you find yourself potentially trapped in a circle of inactive runes…”
“Not even a full circle,” I moaned miserably into my hooves. Luna skipped curiously over the exposed section of the ring, from each direction. It had taken less than a full minute for the magic to drain, but I had been completely incapable of bringing myself to cross it, regardless of her cajoling. “I was not even fully trapped.”
“I don’t even know why you thought yourself trapped to begin with. Perhaps they do something different when a changeling activates them?” Luna had, of course, tried to charge the runes herself, only to have them drain in mere seconds, far too soon to perform any real testing. “I have never heard of the ilk, but I know there to be different levels of magic involved depending on the purpose of the runes…”
I did not want to discuss runes. I wanted to wallow in self-recrimination, but such were not the actions of a friend. “...In what way?”
“Well, anything with light or fire runes… anything energy-related, really, save lightning, are easiest to empower when charged by a unicorn. Runes that affect the air or purify it in some way tend to work best when charged by a pegasus, and those that promote growth or health tend to work best powered by earth ponies. Others seem universal, to some degree. Runes that are closer to one’s special talent are known to be far easier to charge, sometimes regardless of tribe. Allegedly.”
Well. That was fascinating, personal trepidations aside. “And what about alicorns? Or thestrals?”
Luna blinked, “Well, alicorns are of all three tribes; it does make the research much easier. I am as well-suited to charging a rune as any pony might be, save perhaps one with a related cutie mark. I… do not know that thestrals have runic studies. Certainly no history of them. Perhaps I shall enlist some of the night guard in further research. How did you get these to stay powered? They barely light at all.”
“I simply did. Is that not how it is done?”
“Of course not. To truly energize a rune, one must order one’s mind, attain true focus, and very carefully feed the energy in. It can be a taxing effort to filter one's magic into a rune. Show me what you did.”
Hesitantly, I walked over to the dun runes, cautiously tapped my horn to it and let magic flow… and found myself trapped again. Part-trapped, I reminded myself, trying to restrain the immediate feeling of isolation. I gave the princess a weak smile, feeling vastly uncomfortable at the odd sensation, and then worse still at her scowl. “...Perhaps runes are naturally well-suited to Order instead of Harmony?”
“That… is horribly unfair, though it does make sense. Scoot back.”
I did, allowing her access to the runes. To my vast consternation and relief, Princess Luna once again skipped to and fro over the runes, though slower than the last time.
“Tis some sort of directional spell, true, though not a barrier. It does not feel pleasant to move through, but I cannot say it is harmful either. A focus of some sort, perhaps? I dare not guess what precisely it targets. Odd that it affects you so. A circle to prevent changelings from crossing seems less than useful for a queen of changelings to create. Activate another, if you please.”
I understood almost none of that, but I was familiar with a scholar in the depth of her work. “Must I?”
“There are more further within the circle. If we are to determine the purpose of the whole, then having somepony who can charge the parts individually with such ease makes study far less onerous. And my sister will doubtless send rescue for us if we are missing more than a few days. Given that young Twilight and Cadance were none the worse for wear, I doubt any of them to be of fatal intent.”
“Wondrously reassuring, Your Highness. The Princess of Love and the most powerful unicorn of an age were not burned alive, thus of course we shall be safe.”
“Sound reasoning, friend Idol.”
“Heavily laden with sarcasm, Your Highness. But as you wish,” I sought out the smallest circle I could find, decided it looked trustworthy enough around a still smaller ring of damaged crystal, took a deep breath, and finally touched horn to it.
And everything was wonderful.