//------------------------------// // chapter sixteen // Story: Changeling Heart and the New Moon // by ambion //------------------------------// Changeling Heart and the New Moon chapter sixteen The resounding slam of hooves on stone rattled the patrolling guards. Just as they steadied themselves at the surprise of seeing their princess, the aftershocks of Luna a moment startled them again. The two alicorns skipped and flitted along the parapets, flustered and giddy from their sudden burst of flight. Celestia nuzzled Luna and touched her wings with her own. Luna met the gestures much in kind. It was a moment out of time, a simple joy from before royalty, before changelings, before nightmares and chaos, before even a whisper of the Elements had ever made themselves known. Celestia stopped as they passed through an arch into their citadel and the intervening years crashed in upon them both like so many pieces of stained glass. “Luna...” she began, but the uncommon fluster had turned her usual surety to nervousness. For the dark alicorn, it was a rare and strangely endearing thing to see. It didn’t last. Before the last note of her false-start had even faded into silence Celestia began again, all trace of fallibility banished from herself. It was like a wall had been raised. “Luna. I am glad you are back. Before anything else, I want you to know that. I was worried.” So many times Luna had encountered it before. There were days she despaired that they were too different, too changed from the sisters they’d both been so long ago. She wondered if Celestia feared the same. Conflict flickered across the white alicorn’s features as if she assaulted her side of the divide, trying to reconcile Celestia the reigning princess with Celestia the big sister. She didn’t smile, but the tension eased from her wings and her eyes softened. Despite everything - or perhaps because of it - Luna smiled for her. She was tired of the worry and the strain. It all became so much simpler when she accepted that she just wanted to be close again, and the rest be damned. A nondescript unicorn of the guard broke in on her thoughts. “Princess,” he began, shifting slightly as he added a belated plural, “Some of the journalists are already at the gate and more are showing up by the minute. What do you want us to do?” “Leave them be for now.” Celestia stole a look to Luna. “They’ll be seen to in a moment. You may go.” “As you wish,” the guard said, bowing deeply to each alicorn before departing. “I’ll go to them, before their confusion becomes anything worse.” In a softer tone, one that, if not breaking the wall still managed to peek out over it, she added. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” A smile ghosted the white alicorn’s mouth. Luna said nothing and looked away, her eyes closed for a moment’s thought. ‘Yes’ she said, because Celestia always managed the duties of royalty when Luna came up short. Luna would retire to the privacy of her chambers to rest, glad to have Celestia step in and solve her problems better than she could have. In short time she managed to find a fair solution to the changeling crisis that Luna had made for them all, and all the while the dark alicorn retreated further from contact, even her sister’s, no longer needed, Luna trying to convince herself it had been, as always, the sensible thing to do, but always the feelings festered, the resentment that refused to be dispelled, and sooner or later it boiled over and the power took hold of her and she’d know the full despair that not even the legendary powers of the Elements could truly save her from the seething darkness of the nightmare... “No.” Her voice and body trembled as she buried her head in the warm shelter of her sister’s shoulder, enough so that she could feel her big sister stiffen with worry. “I started this. It should be me.” Soft feathers fell upon her. “Are you sure? They’d...they’ll be uncertain. Maybe I should...” Luna sorely wanted Celestia to go on convincing them both that she was right, but it had to stop. “I know. They’d rather see you. They always prefer to see you. Nopony trusts me like they trust you.” There was no upset in her voice, just honesty. “I can’t change that without trying to.” Luna gently pulled away and looked deep into the worried eyes of her sister. “I can’t keep being your shadow.” Far in the distance of those beautiful eyes, something flickered with pain and understanding. Luna instinctively began to take deep, steadying breaths as she readied herself to face the crowd a second time, all of them looking for answers that she didn’t have. She was not going to enjoy this. Whatever wall there’d been lay forgotten as Celestia grabbed up Luna in a very undignified, but much needed, hug. “I should...” Luna managed to wheeze as white legs wrapped around her the back of her neck. “They can wait a bit longer,” Celestia said, squeezing Luna to her even more tightly. Luna gave herself to the simple embrace. When she stopped struggling, it really was quite nice. The changelings had been put up in a hotel. It was a fairly wealthy one, situated in one of those districts where the common pony in the street very assuredly believed themselves to be anything but suffering existence as ‘the common pony.’ As far as they went, the hotel probably had a lot going for it - not that the changelings cared. With the eye of a self-declared expert Chrysalis took it in at a glance, from the big shining chandelier above the carpet-lined staircases to the centrepiece fountain of the lobby. Chrysalis decided it was decent enough. She could hardly care less for pony aesthetics, but she’d never pass up an opportunity to rail on them, especially if those ponies were acutely aware of it. Changelings were the only guests here now, if they could be called that. The royal guards had done something useful for once and barged in, cleared the startled occupants in the princess’ name, all but shoved the visiting enemies inside before taking up watching to see if they tried something. Chrysalis had the penthouse, which was nice because it had the only doors in the building where she didn’t have to stoop and sidle to slip through them. As with all the occupied rooms, two poker-faced guards stood, staring attentively at nothingness. The building catered for the exclusively well off, so there were too few rooms to accommodate all the changelings that had set out on this strange venture with their Queen. This would have been fine for the blinking, black-bodied little creatures, though even that wouldn’t be a concern. In the confusion of the night and the subsequent train ride the Queen of changelings had sent the word around and the majority had slipped away into anonymity. A changeling out of sight could get up to so much more that way, though they were to behave nicely, for now. The magical uniforms that the guards insisted on wearing made changeling endeavours laughably easy; not one had been caught, nor had the ponies even been made aware how many had eluded their watchful gaze. More than likely they suspected something, a great many things even, but such was inconsequential as a huff of smoke. All in all, Canterlot’s security was a joke. It’d been caught with its pants down, and when the matter involved the immense and intense Queen of changelings herself, the situation necessitated very large pants indeed. For now, their security had more holes than a changeling’s legs. “I hope everything is alright!” the manager squeaked. At the insistence of the armoured ponies she had the misfortune to show the Queen around her room. “What are you going to do if it isn’t?” Chrysalis demanded of the trembling mare. Her tightly-wound bun was rapidly losing ground to her even more tightly-wound nerves, and she peered frightfully out with wide eyes from wider rimmed glasses. The menace to Chrysalis’ voice was for fun, the biggest part of which was not letting the building staff know how little of it she meant. The Queen of changelings had a reputation to nurture, after all. The little unicorn was white, with a cutie mark of a cloud smiling. “We’ve never had this problem before,” she managed to squeak. “Are you saying that I am a problem?” Chrysalis grinned and let her shiny fangs do the talking. They said: Of course we are. Go on. Say it. Dare you. They could be terribly eloquent, as teeth went. They filled the unicorn’s gaze and made her pupils to pinpricks. “Nononono! I’m just...I’m just I’m just...” with a keening trill the sentence died and the pony fled, through the doors and past the guards. As for the two trim guards, they were proving themselves made of tougher stuff. Of course, talc was made of tougher stuff than half of these ponies, and she’d hardly started with them at all. There were a great many ways she could knock them senseless and run havoc, or just subjugate their little pony minds. Had they forgotten she could do that? Without a second thought, Chrysalis decided that she should. Tapering flames of translucent green crawled between their legs and up, under their chins. Even as each saw the magic grasping the other it was too late. One managed a strangled grunt before settling back into a lax stance, his eyes as heavy and unfocused as the other’s. Green light lurked in their irises. “That’s better. Don’t you agree?” “Do we?” they chorused with deathly - and deathly boring - monotone. “Yes, you do. Come here.” They promptly did. “Tell me, my little ponies, what the guards are doing?” “Guarding.” Ah, right. That’s why she rarely used this spell. She got unquestioning servitude, sure, but that was just another way of saying mindless servitude. Chrysalis sighed. The green light spilling from their eyes shimmered patiently. “Let’s try this again. What do you know of Luna?” “She’s big.” “Go on.” The Queen of changelings circled her prey, though a shark would have had more of a smile just then. “She’s dark.” "Does she look like a princess?” They made no response, the magically enthralled equivalent of ‘what?’ “Knowing as you do that she is a princess, does she fit your idea of what that should be?” “Yes.” Chrysalis lunged towards the nearest, her mouth an inch from his. “So why don’t you treat her like a princess?” He didn’t twitch in the slightest, or even look at her. “We do.” “No you don’t! No you don’t.” Chrysalis paused. Why did she care? What did it matter to her how cared for her little moon was? “Whatever, moving on. Where are most of the royal guards at?” “Castle.” “Why?” “Castle.” Chrysalis groaned. “Are there more of them there now, today, than usual, and if so, why?” “Answers.” She thought for a second. “Answers about what?” “Changelings.” Fair enough. “Answers about changelings for who?” “Everyone.” It might just have been her imagination, but there was a strained undertone there, as if the subjugated minds of these two were anxious to stress the point. “She’s really taken us all for a spin, hasn’t she?” Chrysalis muttered. “Don’t reply to that,” she hastily added. It was more or less what she’d expected; Canterlot was clueless. They’d hardly known Luna had even gone, then suddenly she returned, changelings in tow. There was a lot an ambitious Queen could make of the situation, but she didn’t know enough to make a committed move. Not yet. One of the guards blinked. Chrysalis offhandedly reinstated the spell. This one never lasted long, especially against anything with a stronger will. A thought struck her and she grinned. “Do I scare you?” “Yes.” “Does Luna scare you?” “Yes.” “Who scares you more?” If before unresponsiveness had meant one thing, now it said, somehow quite clearly: ‘we’d really rather not say.’ “Oh?” she said coyly. “And how else do you feel for her? She’s tall, and dark, and strange.” Placing her hoof to one’s chin, she gently shook his unresisting jaw around. “Of course, I’m taller, and darker, and stranger. What does that say, hmm?” Her tail whiplashed the air between the two and she laughed. They didn’t, and their silence gutted Chrysalis’ noise. “Go on, laugh. It’s alright. It’s funny.” “No, it is not,” they chorused back tonelessly. Growling, the Queen of changelings whirled away from them and strided to the windows. The big, wide windows. She flung them open with her magic, and indeed the curtains billowed exactly as she imagined they would. Some things just know how to do drama right. “Go back to guarding the door. Forget about coming in here. Forget about everything I said. Forget that I’m leaving now, and don’t notice when I get back. I’ll have been here the whole time. Got it?” “Yes.” As if both ponies were extensions of one simple machination, they turned on the spot and marched back to their places. “It was funny,” she muttered darkly, hesitating only as her wings unfurled and stretched, flapping a few warm up beats. Chrysalis, the Queen of changelings, looked at what she was doing, and smiled. “This is really becoming a thing, isn’t it?” On that note, she leapt and ascended quickly into the morning sky. What pegasi abounded had rushed on to the castle grounds, so Chrysalis had an easy time of gaining altitude without being seen. There didn’t seem to be that many of the winged ponies in Canterlot anyway outside of armour, an observation she made note of. Her’s was the flight of a moth, bobbing up and down on huge sweeping strokes of her wings, her body slung beneath the pair of them. She had no invisibility spell, nor anything of the mysterious sort Luna had called upon during their travel together, but the Queen was confident that she could evade detection. As an added measure all the same she set herself to the flame of her people. Where Chrysalis had rode the wind a blond, gray mare flitted uneasily. Changing down to such a small size always left her dazed for a moment - not a prospect the Queen enjoyed when high above the city. She focused solely on flying in the intervening seconds, letting her body adjust and her eyes refocus in their own time. Blinking them back together, she glided down to the edge of the crowd. There was no surprise for her that the crowd of journalists and onlookers had swelled and was in full swing. They weren’t yet shoving at the guards, but ambled in a sort of restless way. It wasn’t happening, yet, but it could certainly be improvised readily enough. What was surprising for the Queen - whom despite all historical evidence liked to think she didn’t get caught by such a thing - was that it was Luna, not vaunted Celestia, that stepped forth from the balcony to address the growing throng. They might have cheered for Celestia, or they might of clamoured for her words and leadership. The silence that fell in their stead was eerie. Ponies, even Luna, especially Luna, could have heard a pin drop, except they couldn’t, not with their hearts pounding in their ears. It was a deafening silence, enough so that it unsettled even Chrysalis. She watched, just another pony in the press, as Luna looked to her subjects, then to her place on the balcony. The silence broke, all at once. It was a ride in madness like Chrysalis had never seen in changelings. They might have been called the swarm, at times, but these ponies swarmed, to the last, clamouring over one another, flashing their magic boxes by the dozens. She was far enough back that the Queen, in form of gray and blonde, couldn’t hear anything clearly. Even so, she wondered how Luna managed to grasp any question from the roiling surge. When she started speaking and the other voices died down, Chrysalis realized she hadn’t, maybe couldn’t. Luna was just telling a story. Her story. Their story. She wasn’t very good at it. She stumbled over parts, and omitted the private and irrelevant. She said things, then struggled to explain what the reason behind them had been, because the truth was that she’d done a lot of things and only tried to figure out a reason after the fact. They listened all the more closely for her failings in the telling. So it was told to the crowd at large that, for reasons she didn’t go into, Luna had sought out the changelings. She’d been at the mercy of the Queen whom, for reasons neither quite comprehended, hadn’t been entirely unwelcoming. It ended with them here, in Canterlot, testing the waters of an idea that no one had seen before, one that had only presented itself after intrigue and cruelty and consideration. Communication with the changelings. Peace with the changelings. Chrysalis eyed the ponies around her, inconspicuous in her observation. She never could get used to being of an equal size, in the immediate sense it meant she couldn’t see how many, if any, of her own had planted themselves into the gathering. A changeling could usually spot another, regardless of appearance, but circumstance made it a bit futile to try now. There were just too many ponies. Silence retook its familiar throne as Luna’s words echoed through their thoughts. She hadn’t said anything actually hostile about the Queen, though it’d been apparent to Chrysalis how the princess had struggled to find something to say about her. Managing to put the Queen of changelings in a decent light while still being genuinely honest was quite the challenge. It was kind of cute, really, for her to have gone through the effort. The ponies were silent. For a moment it all seemed that somehow, this would work out. Then they remembered, more or less at once, that they weren’t just ponies - they were journalists, reporters, and gossips to the last. ‘Uproar’ didn’t have enough up, or enough roar, to describe the moment. It hit Luna hardest of all, from the back Chrysalis could still easily see how the mare recoiled from the auditory assault. There were too many words to make sense of any. The tones, however, ran together in a swirl of anxiety and inquisition. Some - and these were fewest, but loudest - ran with unadulterated menace and fear. Somepony flung a mouldering fruit at the princess. Where mobs get these from has never been adequately explained. The rotten piece flew true, but rather than strike Luna it halted a breadth away from her and was reduced to ashes in a flash of blackness. “Enough!” Luna shouted, her voice a tsunami that crashed over the clamour of a hundred other ripples. Their echoes died away, syllables that sounded suspiciously like a name all together longer than Luna’s, and filled with accusation. “I am not Nightmare Moon,” she said with terrible calm. The dark princess hesitated for words that wouldn’t present themselves. “She is not me,” she managed. “There’s...she...she would never have tried to explain herself to you. I am not Nightmare Moon,” she reiterated more forcefully. In the depths of Chrysalis’ magic, the power inherent in the jewels tickled at the edge of her awareness. “Nor am I Celestia. You trust her and love her. As do I. She deserves these things more than you know. But I’m not her. I’m not asking for your trust, or your love. But if you are going to look at me and what I do, make up your mind for what you see of me and none other. My name is Luna, I am your princess, and I am nobody’s shadow.” The magic boxes flashed with renewed vigour, while the excised pieces of Luna squirmed incessantly, chafing at the Queen’s firm grasp over them. She couldn’t slacken that grip to air them, not here, not now, especially not in this form. The crowd erupted once more. “What are you going to do about the changelings?” a strong voice cried out. Luna spoke gravely. “I am going to talk to them. And listen, and give them a chance.” Aww, little moon, that’s touching, Chrysalis thought, her snideness not entirely hiding the truth that the sentiment was real. Luna turned to withdraw, and as she did so too did Chrysalis, unsettled as she was by maintaining her deception whilst quashing the riled up powers she’d taken charge over. In short, she’d seen enough. Chrysalis slipped away, returning to her true form only as the windows loomed. The curtains billowed all the while, even though there didn’t seem to be enough wind for it. The guards on her door, now returned to themselves still conceded a brief walk around the hallways, that the Queen might check in to see her changelings were alright. Mostly what she had with her were the young - too much so to be of any use other than as showpieces - their carers, and a few extras in case they were needed, and to take turns at minding. It was mostly an excuse to walk and wonder over what she’d seen. As room after room passed by, to the last her changelings were being treated fairly, if stiffly, another concern niggled at her thoughts. Though this one had nothing of spooky powers in it, it was no less unsettling. Changelings were good at slipping away, there was no denying that. Surely, it was a point of pride with Chrysalis. Never before had she had to face the prospect of a changeling slipping away from other changelings. As she returned to her penthouse, the Queen was in a thoroughly bad and thoughtful mood. Her attendant was not to have left with the others. She’d been specific with Surreal, and the defiant little changeling had gone and defied her. If it wasn't so unthinkable, she probably should have seen it coming. The Queen of changelings lay back on her overly cushioned bed. With an easy flash of magic the strange byproducts of that terrible, fascinating first night surged into existence once more. She tried to ease into the too-soft blankets while watching the jewels dance their slow waltz above her. “As if things weren’t interesting enough already,” she mused. For their part, the bobbing and weaving colours of magic said nothing.