Shining Armor was walking through the stacks in the Canterlot royal library. The general wing. Rows upon rows of shelves of books seemed to go on without end.
“Twilight? Twilight, we're late, where are you?” Shining called out as he wandered the stacks of the canterlot royal library. He stopped calling out 'Twily' some time before.
“Hours past breakfast and my sister's nowhere to be found... gah, where is that filly?” he shook his head. “Twilight Sparkle! I know you're here!” he called, winding his way through the stacks.
The previous night had been uncomfortable, to say the least. Eating dinner at the same table with princess Celestia when you were on notice was horrible. Every time he'd opened his mouth, Celestia had looked at him with this expression that let him know that if he said anything she disagreed with... it didn't bear thinking about.
The whole atmosphere had been unbearable, and the fact that Twilight had declined to dine with them had apparently put the princess in a worse mood. His little sister could always defuse situations like that, particularly where Celestia was concerned.
“Twilight, we need to get going, we've got that stupid interview thing to do today!” he called out, not caring at all who heard him speaking like that right now. He was angry.
“Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! Where are you!?” he called out, turning a corner.
He froze.
Standing before him, his back turned, was the black, dully gleaming form of Maxillus, in the form he remembered him from the last time they met, only larger...
“What...?” Shining gasped, coming to an abrupt stop.
Maxillus turned his head to look back at Shining from one glassy blue eye... there was a dark red fluid streaking his face and muzzle... dripping from that wickedly sharp horn. A slow, wicked smile crept across the changeling stallion's features as he stepped to the side.
In front of where Maxillus had been standing, encased in a cocoon of dark green gel, was Twilight Sparkle, her eyes closed. Beside it, was Spike, the baby dragon, laying in a pool of dark red fluid, identical to what was dripping from the changeling's horn.
* * * *
Princess Cadence awoke minutes after her aunt raised the sun over the horizon. She blinked, raising her muzzy-maned head to look out the window at the sky, a thin layer of clouds covered part of the sky, catching the barely risen sun's light and casting the whole sky in a glorious orangey-gold color. She smiled, whoever on the weather committee had arranged that needed to be commended, it was beautiful.
Gently turning over, she looked down at her husband's sleeping face. She smiled at first, glad to find he was there this morning, but then frowned with concern. He looked almost worse now than when they'd went to bed the previous evening. He must've been awake all night, or at least had a very broken sleep. It'd been getting worse and worse since they'd gotten back from the honeymoon. After what had happened yesterday...
Cadence blinked, raising her head. “No, no, Celestia was right.” she thought. “Yesterday was... traumatic, but it's the start of something good. If everything goes well, Shining won't have to be so worried about changelings anymore, and he can relax... and then I'll get the Shining Armor I love back.” Cadence looked down at him again, smiling gently, before she quietly slipped out of bed and into four teal fuzzy slippers and a matching robe (it was turning to fall, so the mornings were kind of chill) and padded down stairs to the kitchen.
Cadence had been raised in Canterlot mostly by her aunt Celestia who -while she herself made full use of all her appointed servants- had decided to make her alicorn niece learn how to be both independent and dependable from a young age. Along with the foalsitting job Cadence had also learned how to cook, clean, and even do some basic needlework. Sometimes Cadence thought her cousin Blueblood could have used some of that kind of practical learning, it probably would have made him a bit more down to earth. Pity it had taken a violent invasion to make him wish to make himself more self sufficient, at the very least.
She quickly filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove, then went to the pantry. “Coffee pot, coffee filter, Shining's personal favorite blend...” she rattled off a mental list, pulling said objects out of a high cupboard with telekinesis, her bright sky blue magic aura surrounding each object as she placed them out on the counter, ready to start brewing a pot as soon as the water boiled.
Cadence then levitated over a cook book and flipped through the beginning, the pages on various breakfast dishes earmarked for easy reference. “Waffles... Prench toast... I think I'll just go with pancakes this morning.” she said, before turning to the refrigerator and levitating out the cold ingredients.
It was just then that a blood curdling scream from the bedroom caused her to freeze, before, dropping everything she was holding with her magic, Cadence galloped up the stairs and burst into the bedroom. Shining was sitting upright, panting, eyes wide, darting around the room till they settled on her.
“Shining what's wrong!?”
Shining looked up at her, blinked, then suddenly leaped out of bed so fast he got tangled in the sheets and fell. Cadence charged over to help get him untangled, using hooves, mouth, and magic. The instant he was free though, Shining shouldered past her in a violent rush as he charged downstairs.
Cadence reared, spun around in a circle and overbalanced. She landed heavily on her rump before falling over on her back. “Ugh, ow... Shining? Shining!” she called after him.
She heard the telephone jangle and clatter, before the thing was dialed. The rotary whirring. Cadence picked herself back up and went down the stares as quickly as she could.
Shining was, indeed, at the phone. The business end levitated up next to his hear and mouth. “Hello? Is this... damn!” he snorted, slamming the thing back down onto the receiver, then picking it up and re-dialing.
“Shiny...?”
“Hello, Palace guard?” Shining said frantically as the pony at the other end of his call picked up. Then his ears pricked forward. “Thank Celestia! Who is this? Sergeant Barrel Roll? Good, I need a status report on the changeling and my sister... Twilight Sparkle.” He suddenly frowned. “This is Captain Shining Armor... Yes, seriously, I’m Captain Armor...”
“Shining...?” Cadence said, stepping closer and tentatively touching his shoulder with a forehoof.
Shining brushed her off with a hoof of his own. “Not now Cadence. Sergeant, my voice sounds different because I’m on the phone at my house... This is not a prank call!” He snorted. “Sergeant I swear if you don't get me a status report on Ambassador Maxillus and Twilight Sparkle immediately I will have you demoted to private so fast your head'll spin, now MOVE IT SOLDIER!”
Shining sat there glowering as he apparently waited for the report to come back. Cadence tentatively approached again.
“S-Shining?” she asked, extending a hoof.
“Not now Cadence!” Shining snapped at her. She recoiled as if struck.
Shining didn't even turn to look at her, almost straining to hear the faint sounds coming through the phone line. This went on for several minutes before his ears perked up again. “Report soldier!” he said. Cadence could faintly hear the sound of another pony's voice on the phone.
“You're sure?” Shining said. Then a moment later, visibly relaxed. “Thank you sergeant... No, that will be all. Return to your duties.” he said, then hung up the phone, and let out a relieved sigh.
“Shining, what was that all about?”
Shining armor shook his mane out. “Nothing you have to worry about Cadence... I need to get ready for work.” he said, then turned and plodded tiredly up the stairs.
Cadence whimpered as she watched him go... then looked back into the kitchen and the mess she still had to clean up.
She sighed. “I guess we won't be having breakfast together.”
* * * * *
“Morning big brother!” Twilight's shining, smiling face greeted him when he arrived at the Palace library later that morning.
An instant later she was enveloped in a near bone crunching bear hug.
“GRK! Big bro... I can't... breathe!” she wheezed.
Shining let her go and backed off. “Sorry Twiley, I'm just... I'm just glad to see you.”
“Yeah, I got that part.” Twilight rubbed at her ribcage with a hoof where he'd squeezed her. “Look, Shining, is there something wrong? One of your guards woke me up real early. He came barging into my room with no warning, scared me half to death!”
“It's nothing, sorry. Just... tighter security for the moment.” he said, trying to brush it off. “You uh... wanna get breakfast?”
“I ate already.” she said, then grinned. “Thanks to your stallion, I managed to be awake in time to join the princesses at breakfast. Celestia was pleasantly surprised. We spent more time talking than eating.”
“Ah...” Shining said, now regretting that he'd skipped breakfast.
“So! Shall we get to it? I really can't wait to sit down and start asking questions. I even made up a list in case things slowed down, see?” she levitated up a clipboard with a thick stack of papers on it.
“Well, you're certainly prepared, I see.” Shining said, raising an eyebrow. The questions he glanced at on the sheet ranged from questions on music and culture to biology.
He snorted. “Well, I suppose there’s no putting it off any longer. Let's get to it.” he said, turning and leading the way towards the north tower.
* * * *
“So where's Spike?” Shining asked as they ascended the stairs to the tower chambers. The long walk with his sister had served to spark his appetite, now evidenced by the occasional twinge of hunger, which was unfortunate, seeing as lunch was some few hours away.
“Still sleeping.” Twilight said. “We were up really late last night, and being interrupted by that random security check didn't help.”
“Hey, I said I was sorry.” Shining said as they approached the secured zone and the gold armored day guards.
“Sir! Good morning, Captain Armor sir!” one of the pegasus guards at the door said, both of them snapping a salute with their wings.
Shining returned the salute. “Anything to report?”
“Sir no sir!” the pegasus at the left of the door barked his report.
“The subject is still present in his chambers sir!” the one at the right elaborated.
“Where else would he be?” Twilight asked, glancing from the soldiers to her brother, who cleared his throat behind a raised hoof.
“We're entering.” he said simply. The pegasi nodded and opened the doors for them.
Shining put a hoof infront of twilight, who snorted at him in annoyance, but stood by as he stepped first into the chamber. His eyes darted around warily. Maxillus wasn't present in the main chamber.
“Ambassador?” Twilight called out. Not sensing any response, they progressed in to the inner room.
“Ambassador Maxillus?” Twilight called out again.
The door to the bedchamber opened and Maxillus, in his true form, stepped out. It was the first time Shining had gotten a proper look at the changeling since hearing about his unmasking.
A long tattered orange mane cascaded off his head and neck in a wave, and his long tail dragged it's ragged tip on the ground behind him as he walked. His horn had gone from a simple knife blade to something he'd seen gryphons carry around to help with cleaning hunting kills in the wilderness. And his eyes... which were currently rather tired looking, gazed back at him not with the glassy blue he'd seen the previous night, but with a deep orange iris surrounding slitted, catlike pupils.
“Captain?” Maxillus asked, blinking owlishly, glancing from him to the purple mare beside him.
“Ambassador Maxillus!” Twilight said brightly, trotting past Shining before he could reach out and stop her. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’m here to talk to you about your species today!”
“Twilight... Sparkle?” he asked.
“That's me! Element bearer of Magic, Personal student to princess Celestia!” Twilight beamed.
“And my little sister.” Shining Armor chimed in.
Maxillus's eyes widened in surprise, darting between the two of them.
“Right.” Twilight said, frowning at her brother before she grabbed a table and a trio of chairs from elsewhere in the room and set them down in the middle of the chamber. “Take a seat please.” she said in a pleasant tone.
Maxillus, somewhat stunned, walked over to the table, and took the single seat that had been placed at the side closest to him. Twilight trotted over and almost bounced into her seat, placing her clipboard, quill, ink pot and a little notebook down in front of her.
“So, shall we begin?”
* * * * *
Shining Armor's stomach was twinging with hunger pangs. It had been for the last half hour as Twilight worked her way through a list of basic questions which were, in fact, so dull he started to tune them out. He knew Celestia wanted him to learn about the changeling so he could get over this 'fear of the unknown' or however she put it, but by Tartarus, his sister was turning this into the most boring-
Urrrrrrrrriiik!
Shining blinked and sat upright. Somepony's stomach had just growled, loudly. “Oh, I...” he glanced at his sister...
She was staring with a raised eye ridge, but not at him.
Shining followed her gaze to Maxillus, who was currently blushing so fiercely it came through his black muzzle carapace.
“Ambassador... are you ok?” Twilight asked. Shining blinked.
“Ah... sorry, it's just... the last thing I had to eat was a little over a day and a half ago...” Maxillus admitted.
“Oh! I'm sorry...” Twilight said.
Shining Armor stood so fast the chair he'd been sitting on skitterd backwards then fell over. “Where is she?!” he demanded.
“W-what?”Maxillus stammered, eyes going wide and pupils going narrow as papercuts.
“Don't play stupid with me! The Mare you 'fed' on before you came to Canterlot, where is she?”
Maxillu regained his composure. “I didn't foalnap any mares, captain Armor. There's no pony stuck in a cucoon, and I didn't displace any stallions either.”
“Don't insult my intelligence, Maxillus, I know how you changelings 'Feed' on us!” Shining retorted.
“SHINING!” Twilight snapped at her brother so sharply both males jerked their gazes back to her. She was glaring at her brother so fiercely that the warrior stallion actually hesitated long enough for her to speak again. “Ambassador Maxillus, could you please tell me, for the record, what you last fed on?”
“Physically, or for energy?” Maxillus asked.
Both ponies in the room blinked. “Physically?” Shining asked, confused.
Maxillus apparently took it as an answer to his question though, and said “Well, lunch the day before last was a blueberry muffin.”
Shining blinked. “A muffin?”
“Yes, a muffin.” Maxillus responded.
“With... actual blueberries?” Shining continued, but Twilight interrupted him when she pressed her hoof to her forehead and groaned.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid! I was right there when she did it and even I got stuck thinking the same thing!” she moaned.
“What?” Shining said, looking at her.
“She didn't seem to enjoy it, but Crysalis did eat solid food, right in front of me. Took one of Applejack's apple tarts, put it in her mouth, bit down, chewed, and swallowed.” she picked up her questionnaire clipboard, flipped down several pages, and X-ed out an entire question that read: how do you convert love energy into caloric intake?
“Wait, if you guys eat real food, what in Tartarus do you do with the love?” Shining asked.
Maxillus tilted his head. “We convert it into mana. I thought that was obvious.”
Twilight pounced on this like a hunting panther. “Really? Please explain.” she said, bringing up a blank parchment and her quill and inkpot.
Maxillus took a deep breath. “We're not as fortunate as you unicorns. Yes, we're all gifted with wings for flying and a horn to use magic with... but unlike you, we don't simply regenerate our magical reserves through rest periods. Our magic has to be fueled by an outside source. Whatever gods there are saw fit to curse us by having to acquire our mana by first absorbing projected, strong positive emotions... in a specific area of the emotional spectrum. Once we have absorbed it, our bodies then convert that energy into useable magic power.”
Twilight was scribbling rapidly in shorthand. “So without absorbing love energy...”
“We can't use magic, no.” Maxillus clarified.
“But you don't need love energy to survive?” she asked.
“Can you live without your magic, Twilight Sparkle?” Maxillus asked.
Twilight paused. “Uh... wow, what a question... I guess I could. I mean, I’ve got lots of earth pony friends, and they don't have magic spells to help them.”
Maxillus shook his head. “It's fairly common knowledge, miss Sparkle that they can't cast spells, but they have it. Their powers are tied to the earth, their strength and the growing of plants. Yours you focus into discharges called spells. Even pegasi use magic to manipulate clouds.” He sighed. “Weather control, manipulation of reality, and vastly enhanced crop yeilds. Take away all of that, everything becomes dependent on your natural strength and physical ability, un-augmented by anything. So tell me, Twilight Sparkle, could you.... no, could Equestria as a whole survive without magic?”
Shining's eyes darted back and forth between Maxillus and Twilight. The changeling's eyes were set in a serious, piercing stare, and Twilight was looking a little harried as she looked down at the table, her eyes darting this way and that as she thought very, very hard.
“Uhm... non-earth pony crop yields are typically 47% smaller than earth pony farms of equal size... wild weather damage in the zebra nation calculates into roughly three and a half million bits per year...” she trailed off, murmuring to herself.
Shining turned to glare at Maxillus, who caught the look, blinked, then looked sheepish.
“Apologies, Miss Sparkle, I didn't mean to-” he paused as Twilight held up a hoof, using her quill to scribble feverishly some kind of... Shining took a closer look, some kind of complicated series of equations.
A minute later, Twilight stopped with a pronounced ending slash of the quill tip. She then proceeded to stare at the paper for half a minute, before she visibly shuddered, then pointedly pushed the paper to the side. “Yes, well... It would definitely be a very different life for ponies here in Equestria without magic, Ambassador. But... I suppose that means you don't need magic to survive... biologically?” she continued.
“No. The Love energy is used to replenish our magic reserve. We need to eat real food just like any other creatures.”
Twilight nodded, jotting that down on her main clipboard. “Interesting, what kind of foods do you like to eat?”
Maxillus blushed, and skuffed his pockmarked hindhoof on the carpet under the table. “Well... I've eaten both pony dishes, and Gryphon cooking in my times out of the hive.
“You eat MEAT!?” Shining snapped.
“Sometimes...?” Maxillus said, flinching away from the unicorn stallion.
“Wow, so those fangs aren't just for combat then?”
“Uh, yes, they're-” he started, when suddenly the changeling's stomach issued another angry growl of hunger. Maxillus's eyes darted to his midsection, then back up at them with another embarrassed smile.
“Wait... you've been here for a whole day, why hasn't anypony fed you?” Twilight asked.
Maxillus blinked. “I... I thought this was punishment for scaring princess Cadence...”
Twilight's eyes went wide, then she groaned and facehoofed. “Ambassador, we don't punish for silly little things like that. You should've asked.” she sighed, then turned to her brother. “Shining, would you mind asking one of the guards to have some early lunch sent up for the ambassador?”
Shining snorted, then stood up and walked out of the room, across the foyer of the guest suite, and to the door leading out to the tower stairway.
“Captain!” the guards on duty snapped their wings up into another salute.
“At ease boys. I need one of you guys to run down to the palace kitchens and get somepony to send up a early lunch platter.”
“Sir?” the one to his left said, confused.
“It seems our ambassador hasn't eaten in several days.” shining explained.
“I thought they ate love.” the one on his right commented.
“That too, apparently.” Shining shook his head. “Just get them to bring a big platter of something... oh, and a Lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwich.”
“Must be one hungry changeling.” the one on the right commented.
“Actually, the sandwich is for me.” Shining said, then looking at their expressions, shook his head. “I missed breakfast, now hop to it soldier!” he said, pointing at the one on the right.
“Sir yes sir!” the pegasus snapped another salute, then took off and glided down to the wing of the castle where the dining hall and the main kitchen were.
Shining closed the door behind him and returned to where Twilight and Maxillus were.
He ground to a halt and stared in shock at what he saw upon returning.
“Fascinating dental structure. These fangs are coming right out of the same spots where a pony's upper canines would be, and all the other dental features seem a perfect mirror of pony anatomy, though the wolf teeth are a bit more pronounced... heh, you'd probably have a hard time handling a bridle.” Twilight said as she peered into Maxillus's wide open mouth... as the changeling laid back on a dentist's chair that had somehow appeared in the room in the time of Shining's absence.
“What... the...” Shining said haltingly.
Maxillus's eyes darted over to him, and Twilight raised her head from where she'd been poking at the ambassador's mouth with a miniature mirror and a tooth probe. “Oh, hey Shining!”
“Twiley, w-what are you doing?”
“Cataloging the differences between pony and changeling dental structure. It's clearly indicative of a more meat based natural diet, but definitely still an omnivore. On a side note, you keep your teeth very well tended Ambassador, I'm impressed. Not a single sign of tartar or decay I could see.”
“Ah, thank you...” Maxillus said, getting up off the chair and hopping to the floor all fours again. As soon as he was off it, the dentist's chair snapped back to the shape of a dining table chair with a flash of magenta light, typical of Twilight's spell casting.
“If you'll excuse me though, I need to wash up.” Twilight said, pulling rubber hoof covers off her forehooves, then proceeding into the suite's bathroom.
Left alone for a moment together, Maxillus turned to Shining and asked; “Is she always like that?”
Shining shook his head. “You have no idea...”