If one were gifted with the omniscient eyes of a goddess it would be readily apparent that Equestria was littered with ruins. Without the benefit of eyes that could strip back the layers of soil and sediment and push back the invasive greenery, however, even the most imposing edifice becomes indistinguishable from the untouched earth from which it once sprung, given an eon or two.
In places ancient civilizations overlapped each other having never known of their predecessors before succumbing to endless obscurity themselves. A place rife with such occurrences is the cradle of pony civilization itself, Dream Valley, and within half a days walking distance to the East it's erstwhile sister, Flutter Valley.
The whole topography spoke of erosion, drought and a tenuous hold on life for it's few denizens, but Flutter Valley, more than the rest of the surrounding environs was also bleak and desolate. Where the badlands of Dream Valley offered some promise for the obstinate and intractable, Flutter Valley was a waste so entire even it's name had been long forgotten save among the most assiduous historians. Stone monuments, unrecognizable from time's vicious weathering, strained despairingly towards the sky, their reach falling far short of that bitter grey veil.
Such a miasma did it exude that no living thing had graced it's plains for centuries, until an unlikely black, winged quadruped burst forth from a long disused series of burrows. It slowly and carefully made a survey of the forsaken valley and finding no fault with it chittered loudly towards the dusty burrow.
The ground boiled with glossy black bodies emerging from numerous subterranean runs, the valley floor collapsing into the widening fissures, soil streamed over the sleek dark bodies as they emerged. Their turquoise eyes shone in the unrelenting gloom.
Flutter Valley was alive once more.
High in the soaring spires that marked the capital of Equestria, Canterlot, two alicorns were engaged in the sort of argument that historically tended towards resentfulness and name calling. A third alicorn, the largest and decidedly most regal of the three, sat nearby pretending to enjoy a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. The dictates of experience told her to let this play itself out until the two combatants vindictiveness had subsided somewhat.
"If there is one thing I know..." Started the pink alicorn, anger flashing in her eyes before being interrupted by a snide remark by the deep blue one.
"Yes, if there is one thing you know I'd like to hear it because thus far you've done naught but spit bile and rehash machinations of vengeance that ill-befit the ruler of an empire, much less one who's meant to be some manner of embodiment of love itself." The darker alicorn stated wryly and gestured vaguely towards the horizon, "Cadence, regardless of what the changelings did to you and your husband this is not a meritorious path. Have you not found, both in their defeat and your battle against King Sombra, that love and harmony are invariably the answer, if only we can see how they might be applied?"
"Luna, correct me if I'm wrong but we, by which I mean primarily the crystal ponies and their heart shaped rock, KILLED Sombra." Cadence spat back.
"We don't actually know that for certain." Interjected the tea sipping non-combatant, "As ethereal as his form had become it's difficult to come to that conclusion with anything nearing certainty. He may yet rear his head."
"Forgive me, Celestia, but I was there. He wasn't just..." Cadence paused looking for the correct word, "...dissipated. He was destroyed. Bucking destroyed. There were chunks and the smell of death. Some pony found his horn and thought to bring it to me as a trophy. Can you even imagine that?"
"Wh...What did you do with that?" Luna asked, shocked. Such an artifact might prove to be dangerous but her true worry was the gruesome member's effect on Cadence's mental state.
"I buried it. Outside of town in a deep grave and marked it with a small crystal obelisk engraved with an effigy of the crystal heart." Cadence said.
"I am certain that's for the best and a very proper thing to have done." Luna said, thinking about all the magical relics and detritus stored away in the castle vault that would have been much safer committed back to the earth, and that was just their own confiscated collection. There were decidedly too many powerful magical artifacts floating around Equestria, unrestricted.
"I may be young, but I'm no fool." Cadence scoffed. She wasn't ready to let the argument drop despite Luna's now more congenial tact, "What I was getting at was that there is a level of threat at which certain otherwise unspeakable options should at least be considered."
"To be clear, you are implying that we should eliminate the changeling queen, or do you propose something more broad based? A genocide perhaps? We haven't had a proper one of those in some considerable period." Luna asked sardonically and let her flowing mane of stars lash abruptly across her face to disguise her improper smirk.
"Demagoguery is beneath you, Luna." The pink alicorn glowered. "Besides, at this point I don't care what you call it, those changelings are incorrigible, irredeemable and I don't see any way that we can coexist in this world, much less within a days flight of each other."
"Don't forget these are parasites, they cannot live without preying on our kin. They're an abomination who, but for a lucky fluke, would have taken Canterlot, cocooned us all and kept us like aphids in an ant dairy."
"I...I don't believe I understand that particular simile." Luna admitted.
"They would have sucked the entire kingdom dry, reduced us to husks and livestock, possibly they would have propagated our species as a slave race destined to live our entire lives in their pods just for them to leach emotions from." Cadence's eye's narrowed and her lip quivered, "These are not ponies we're talking about. They're filth and horrors that Discord himself wouldn't have dreamed up and now that they've made their presence known again and raised up a hive in that wretched valley it's only a matter of time before they spread. We should stamp them out like the bugs they are before they can entrench themselves more firmly."
"As I was saying before, if there's one thing I know it's changelings..."
Again Luna interrupted, "If there's one thing that I know, it's vengeance, and I assure you that it is invariably foalish and counterproductive. We must find another method. As we've no notion of the changeling's motives it may even be fruitful to make inroads towards diplomacy. We may find that they've simply acquired that arid valley for it's solitude in an attempt to avoid our further ire."
"We cannot, and I mean cannot, try to make peace with the changelings!" Cadence screamed, "I will raise an army of my own and march upon them unsanctioned if you withhold your own!"
"Oh, Cadence," Luna's voice wavered, "You can't mean that."
Cadence had reached a point of no return, where the bold declaration itching on the back of her tongue was all that stood between her and the irrevocable unknown. Despite her passions running high she wisely paused, and took a moment to simply breath deeply and consider that as passionate as she felt, perhaps her judgment was a bit clouded by her dealings with the changelings, as Luna implied.
Celestia sighed, knowing it was time for her to join this fray. Hearing her, the other alicorns knew her intentions and looked to her expectantly. She, for her part, reheated the tea in it's pot with solar magic, poured three fresh cups and sent two of them spinning atop their saucers towards her sister and niece who deftly caught them in their own magic fields.
They were obliged to sip from the steaming cups, impatiently waiting for Celestia to render a verdict. Despite the supposed diarchy, Celestia's opinion in this matter would be as good as law.
Celestia set her own cup aside, rose and trod the polished marble floor, meandering towards the bright lit balcony. She stepped through the ornate gilded arch and the sun streamed played across her gleaming white coat blindingly emphasizing the thought of divinity made flesh unaffectedly.
Gazing over the countryside, her back still turned to the duelists, she finally spoke.
"Cadence, I understand your anger and I admit you have every right to feel it, but we simply will not harm anypony unless we have absolutely no other choice. It's completely unlike you to follow such a dark path. It's most unsettling." Celestia admonished.
"The changelings are dangerous, I admit, but so far they've done nothing untoward, simply raised a hive in a cursed valley. Nopony nearby has been reported missing, there have been no incursions and few enough sightings besides. In all honesty that area is so sparsely populated that without that weather team getting sent off course that hive may have lain undetected for years."
"Mayhaps they have been and we have only just now become aware." Luna speculated.
"I think not, the hive was still in a crude state when it was first spotted. Chrysalis had yet to even erect the central spire so it must have been in it's infancy as I don't believe she's one to forgo such regal trappings." Celestia said, "I would think it a new colony but that I had her former one surveilled and it was found to be abandoned."
"Do you mean to tell me that you not only refuse to take military action but, if I'm hearing you correctly, don't intend to do anything at all?" Cadence demanded.
"No, much as I would like to simply wait and see there are some things bothering me that I believe are related." She finally tuned from surveying the countryside and stepped back into the shadow, "If nopony's gone missing recently and, so far as our intelligence tells us, they don't leave the valley, what are they feeding upon?
Luna's eyes went wide, "That valley! I remember now. Sister, do you think they found the sun stone?"
"It would be extraordinarily fitting if they have, I suppose." Celestia said, "If it is indeed the case then the Elements of Harmony are going to prove crucial."
Cadence thought of her sister in law, Twilight Sparkle, and the boundless power her friends possessed. Her eye twinkled just thinking of their Harmonic might and imagining a vast field of ossified changelings, Chrysalis' outraged statue at the fore, "The Elements?" She ruefully thought to herself, "Well that's even better than a military action."
The Elements of Harmony in the flesh were sent for without delay and the elements themselves removed from their vault and artistically arrayed across the blue velvet draped table beside Celestia's gilt throne. Celestia studied them thoughtfully in the nearly empty chamber. The great solar alicorn sighed, but the guards were disciplined to take no notice of melancholy exhalations. Essentially she was alone and troubled. Her sister had long since retired for the day and as much as she'd downplayed the peril she didn't know if her sister realized the true gravity of the situation. Cadence, for her part, was quite prepared to steamroll the valley by any means necessary and she sympathized with the feeling to some degree.
The changeling queen had imprisoned her, and had Twilight Sparkle not happened upon her she would have remained trapped within the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot and probably died. This was not where her deep, implacable hatred of the changelings had come from. Chrysalis had brainwashed her fiance, fed on him, used him and come so very close to killing him outright. For such a passionate creature as Cadence it was beyond unforgivable, it was a vendetta. Celestia knew she would put herself in a position to repay it as soon as it presented itself. Now that it had, Celestia debated stopping her, but knew in the end that she wouldn't.
Cadence was a young pony and by alicorn standards she was virtually newborn, short on experience and impervious to advice. Despite the Sun Goddess' misgivings the young Princess was going to have to learn this lesson on her own. She took comfort in the fact that her student would be there, a forgiving and level headed mare when serious peril reared it's head. (Surprisingly less so with the mundane and trivial trials one so often faces, but nopony's perfect.)
Again Celestia sighed, but from boredom this time, and when the door to the throne room was finally flung open it was as if she'd been anticipating it for quite a span. Because she had. You didn't make it eons without acquiring some presentiment regarding other ponies' actions, even when they themselves felt them to be spur of the moment and unpredictable.
"Cadence, what brings you here dear one?" She said while thinking that she was quite late. She'd canceled her afternoon appointments for this, after all.
Cadence bowed formally, establishing a cold distance between the two of them, "Princess, I want to go along with my husband to fight the changelings."
"I would prefer if you didn't." Celestia stated simply, "I think you'll find you're too close to this issue to see it objectively and there is a considerable likelihood that your presence will hinder the party, maybe even endanger everypony."
"What about Shining Armor?" Cadence demanded, "He's as close as me, closer even, to the 'issue' as you put it. But you're still sending him. I demand to be by his side when he faces those...things. He needs me there."
"If everything goes well his involvement will be minimal, but even should he come into close contact with Chrysalis herself I am confident he will acquit himself admirably. It is, after all, what he has been trained to do for so many years." Celestia replied, "Aside from that he is by far the most suited to defend against the changelings should things go badly."
"So you refuse to allow me to go with him?" Cadence shot back.
"No." Celestia grumbled, rubbed her temple with a forehoof and screwed up her face in concentration, "No, I won't stop you. Look, Cadence, I know you're going to go no matter what I say just as well as you do. I cannot condone it because your being there puts everyone in unnecessary danger. The risks are too great for me to give my blessing, surely you can see that?"
"Still, the fact remains that you will go and it breaks my heart to fight with you, to see you like this. Could we perhaps simply skip that portion, as I've no stomach for it?"
"So, I can go, then?" Cadence asked, somewhat shocked.
"If you must." Celestia said, "But you know how I feel about it and I wish you'd reconsider. I don't say these things lightly, you know."
"I know," Cadence relented, "But I feel this is something I have to do, my responsibility."
"I would debate that, but we simply haven't the time. Your effects have been stowed with the caravan and it's already moving out. You'll have to hurry if you mean to catch it before it leaves the city. Shining Armor and the Elements are there and have already been apprised of your addition to the team." Celestia said.
"You knew?" Cadence asked incredulously.
"Yes. This is not my first rodeo, I assure you." Celestia smirked and gave a little wink as Cadence trotted towards the open balcony, preparing to leap into the open air beyond, "Stay safe."
"I will. Thank you." Cadance said as she spread her wings and soared away with only the barest backward glance.
A quiet rustling behind the throne drew Celestia's attention to the dark coated alicorn emerging from her hiding spot, "You've grown wise in my absence." She teased, "Such a tactic is far more certain to temper her hatred in a way that a blatant denial never could."
"Luna, I thought you were sleeping." The white alicorn said with annoyance.
"Oh, yes, sister, I was. Right behind the curtains there so I wouldn't miss out on the row with Cadence." Luna yawned, then said with a cheesy grin, "You wouldn't want me to miss out on all the entertainments the day has to offer, would you? I must admit, though it was handled deftly, there was a distinct lack of fireworks."
"So you knew, too?" Celestia asked.
"Certainly. Would you expect any less?" Luna shrugged, "Children are simply so predictable, after all. I do wish she had not chosen to go, though. She is ill equipped to do battle with a changeling swarm and her unique power may prove to be her undoing."
"I feel the same way, but some lessons can only be learned the hard way." Celestia marched back to her throne and seated herself, pulling out a game board from behind the throne she asked, "If you're done spying, maybe a quick game?"
"Nay, I never do seem to best you at chess. Checkers. Now that's a game for royalty and lacking all that trite symbolism besides." Luna smiled and produced a stack of red and black pieces.
Four elephantine war ponies were divided between the yokes of a pair of large, rustic wagons which were cowled in twin arches of filthy canvas. A further twenty ponies, all clad in intricate gleaming armor, followed in loose formation behind. Trailing them at some distance, glancing over his shoulder every other minute, was a white coated, blue maned stallion. Despite his current lack of armor and fretful disposition his bearing definitively pegged him as the one in charge, even as he scanned the Canterlotian skies for the dozenth time.
The caravan had long since passed the city's gate and started the meandering descent down the rocky cliff side trails towards the low rolling hills cut by their intended path, heading Southeast. Officially their destination was Dodge City, if anypony asked, but they intended to pass straight through there and deep into the badlands themselves. To maintain some modest level of secrecy they were taking the slower route, going on hoof as opposed to taking the train and the seven passengers of the rearward wagon were strongly encouraged to stay sequestered within it's confines lest they be seen. It was, perhaps, a bit overcautious given the measures they had already taken to avoid coming into contact with changeling spies, but the greater their chance of going undetected the better.
Their party was still short one member, but a flash of pink on the horizon appeared and steadily grew larger until it finally became a pink alicorn who swooped gracefully earthwards and was caught up in the embrace of the white stallion even as she landed.
"Cadence!" He shouted with joy, "What kept you? For a moment I was thinking of turning back for you."
"Shining Armor," She chided, but returned his embrace, "Really now I can look after myself and why would you hold up the whole group just to retrieve little old me, who, as I recall, nopony wanted to tag along anyhow?"
"Ah, so the Princesses agreed with me." Shining Armor said smugly.
"Yes, but one princess didn't agree, and here she is whether you like it or not." Cadence countered, "Besides, in the end they said it was okay."
"Now Cadence, you know I love having you around, it's just that we're trotting right into a changeling hive and I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you." Shining Armor said, "I would sleep sounder at night if I knew you were home, safe."
"If you think I'm going to let you hog all the action, mister, you are very much mistaken." She said and give him a quick peck.
"My wife, the action hero." He said and shook his head, "Hey, Twily's in that wagon up there with her friends, you should go say hello. I'm sure they're bored by now and I have to pretend to be doing my job properly instead of consorting with some pretty pink alicorn."
"Yes, that's highly improper." She said, kissed him lightly and giggled. She took briefly to the air, split the formation of armored troops and landed gracefully on the rear step of the moving wagon. Balancing on the narrow board of the rear step she settled her wings and poked her head between the curtains that closed off the interior.
"Boo!" She hollered playfully with only her muzzle penetrating into the interior. Her sister in law, the purple unicorn who represented the Element of magic recognized her immediately.
"Cadence!" She yelled happily as the rest of the alicorn slithered her way into the tightly enclosed space and made it that much tighter with her entrance. She hugged the purple unicorn in greeting as best she was able.
"Twilight, it's so good to see you and all your friends." Cadence smiled around the wagon and was greeted by the same save for one face. In the corner a yellow pegasus had genuinely been frightened by her entrance and had jumped up into the lap of a cyan coated, rainbow maned one and still sat there, shivering. Cadence's eyes widened in realization and guilt, "Oh, Fluttershy, I didn't mean to scare you, I'm so sorry."
"Oh, it's okay." Fluttershy replied quietly, "You just surprised me a bit, is all, but it's quite alright. I'm glad to see it's you. You can, um, put me down now Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and abruptly did just that, letting Fluttershy drop right on her plot with a tiny surprised, "Eeep!"
A pretty white unicorn with a carefully coiffed purple mane glared at Rainbow Dash, "Really Rainbow, must you be such a ruffian?"
"Oh, relax, no harm done. Sorry, Flutters." Rainbow said less than sincerely.
"Oh, it's um fine, don't worry Rarity, I shouldn't have jumped on her like that." Fluttershy whispered.
"Rainbow Dash, there ain't no cause for treating your friends so rough just 'cuz you're getting ants in yer pants." A blond maned orange coated earth pony drawled, "Why don't you read somethin', or play cards with Pinkie Pie before y'all have a fit?" Here she indicated a poofy maned pink pony, shuffling cards in a deft and dizzying manner, hoofing and reappearing cards with alacrity.
"No way, Apple Jack, Pinkie's a card shark." Rainbow said disgustedly, "I still owe her half my next paycheck from the last time we played. For somepony so dedicated to making her friends happy she sure seems willing to part them of their bits."
"Silly!" Pinkie exclaimed, "Just think how happy you'll be when you win them all back!"
"But I won't win, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash protested.
"You'll never know if you don't try!" Pinkie giggled and with a flourish fanned out three aces, tapped them with a hoof and they became four, then once more and the ace of horseshoes joined the others to make five. Quickly the hand was folded back into the deck before it could receive closer scrutiny.
"How do you even do that?" Cadence asked, incredulous.
"Do you really want to know?" Pinkie leaned towards her conspiratorially. Cadence nodded. Pinky arched the deck in her hoof and until they shot out in a fluttering stream towards Cadence. When she flinched Pinkie instantly reached out and collected the deck in a perfect pile with her other hoof, just shy of Cadence's face.
"Practice!" She exclaimed with a smile and giggled as she continued to dance the cards about in unlikely ways.
"I wasn't sure the Princess would let you come." Twilight said as Cadence settled herself in the bed of the wagon.
"They didn't want to." She admitted. "In truth they were not in favor of my presence here. They were of the opinion that I was putting you and myself in unnecessary danger."
"They may be right, oh not that you'll be putting us in danger, no, no." Rarity said, "But this is a simple mission and I can't see that it's worth risking your safety for it. In all likelihood we won't even be facing the changelings directly."
"That's not what Stalwart and Lefty think." A small purple dragon said as he crawled through the front curtains, down from his former perch on the driver's seat.
Applejack sighed, "Alright, I'll bite. Just who're Stalwart and Lefty?"
"They're the stallions pulling the wagon. Great guys. They say we're going to exterminate the whole changeling hive once and for all." The purple dragon said with shaky enthusiasm.
"Spike, you can't believe soldiers when they tell you things like that." Twilight said.
"So they're lying?" Spike asked, disillusioned.
"It's not lying, exactly," Applejack said, "It's called scuttlebutt. It's a soldier's form of gossip but you'll mostly find it's a bunch of exaggeration and hooey."
"But everypony knows it's not true, so it doesn't count as a lie?" Spike conjectured.
"Precisely." Twilight said, proud he'd picked up the concept so quickly.
"So there's not a sunstone there that I get to eat?" Spike asked, disappointedly.
"There might be a sunstone, but I don't think you'd want to eat it even if you were allowed, and you're NOT allowed." Twilight said bluntly.
"I never get to have any fun." He whined.
"I can help with that!" Pinkie cried and started dealing cards, "Know how to play seven card stud, stud?"
"Huh?" Spike said.
"Pinkie, no." Twilight chastised.
"Pooh." Pinkie said dejectedly and squirreled the cards away in her mane.
"What is this sunstone? Is it similar to the Crystal Heart?" Rarity asked, intrigued by the potential for a new gemstone to covet.
"Sort of, I guess. The texts aren't especially clear on it's precise nature," Twilight flipped open a book to an illustration of a large, erratically cut gemstone sitting atop a crooked stone pillar which may have been a heavily stylized sundial, "It apparently gathered the sun's energy, focused it and released it primarily as warmth. From what I can tell, though, I believe it also exuded an elemental force of love, otherwise it's effects on the flora and fauna of the valley wouldn't have been so wholly salubrious."
Pinkie balked at Twilight's word choice, "It made the valley into greasy salad?"
"I think it's a kind of cheese." Offered Rainbow Dash, "So what did it do exactly, buffet aside?"
Twilight groaned, "This valley, it used to be called Flutter Valley before it fell into ruin, was notably the grandest paradise in the whole of Ponyland, as they used to call it. This was at a time when Ponyland itself was several million acres of unblemished paradise."
"It was said to be thickly carpeted year round in the beautiful flowers and verdant gardens. For centuries it stood isolated because there was only a narrow pass into it and it was otherwise surrounded by sheer mountains. If you didn't know to look for it you'd be unlikely to find it by accident."
"The inhabitants of the valley, animal and pony alike, could frolic carefree without a care in the world, guarded by their isolation and maintained by their sunstone. How it got there, and what exactly it was the books don't say. I have my guesses, but for now we'll skip it. It was a fact, however, that without the sunstone the valley would shrivel up and die, which in the end, is just what happened, I guess."
"The whole race who'd served as guardians to the valley and the sunstone went extinct when it was lost. It's said that the flutterponies just couldn't live without the valley."
"Flutterpony? Oh my. I think I'd like to be a flutterpony." Fluttershy said.
"What's a flutterpony?" Asked Spike, "Is it like a pegasus?"
"Apparently they were like pegasi, but with insect wings. Butterfly I think." Twilight said, flipping through a book she'd pulled from her saddlebag but failing to find an illustration.
"So, like Rarity when she went to the Best Young Fliers Competition?" Spike asked. Rarity hung her head bashfully at the memory.
"Probably." Twilight said, "They weren't as strong as pegasi, but they had this one amazing talent that kept them safe. They could come together in a group, beat there wings, and create a wind charged with the love energy from the sunstone that would dispel dark magic and repel malevolent creatures."
"What happened to the sunstone, did some old baddies steal it to make their own cheese salad?" Pinkie asked, bouncing in place with nervous energy.
"I think that may have happened, but they got it back." Twilight said, "In the end they sacrificed it to save the rest of Ponyland, though I'm not sure if they knew they couldn't survive without it. I don't know the story, exactly, but it's in one of my books, somewhere."
"I remember it," Cadence said happily, "I'm surprised you don't. I used to read it to you when you were just a little filly. I guess you were too young."
"It read like a fairytale so I don't know how seriously you can take it anyway, but the nut of it was; There were a trio of evil witches who wanted to take the valley for their own, but they had to corrupt it to suit their needs. They'd tried before, releasing a horrible amorphous monster that covered over Ponyland, and then conspiring with a swarm of bees to steal the sunstone away. The Flutter ponies were victorious both those times, so it was equal parts corruption and vengeance the witches were seeking."
"By means of mesmeric magic they enlisted the help of an elder dragon with the intention of running them off and stealing the sunstone themselves, both of which they did, but the ponies returned with help and using a magical artifact called the rainbow of light..."
"I've read about that!" Twilight interrupted excitedly, "It was an early manifestation of the elements of harmony, wasn't it?"
"Probably, yes." Cadence continued, "Anyway, they used the rainbow of light to free the dragon from the witches influence and he chased them back to their volcano and took over their castle."
"Now these were far more innocent and forgiving times, but even then there's only so much that can be forgiven and everypony agreed that it was high time that the witches were dealt with before they regained their keep and started terrorizing ponies all over again. So the Flutterponies took the sunstone into battle with them, used it to create a rainbow portal to another world, drove the witches through it and sealed it off forever."
"So they just pawned them off on another world to cause somepony else trouble? That's so not cool." Rainbow Dash said.
"The world that lay beyond the rainbow, though, didn't have any overt magic of it's own, so they would have been powerless there. I have often wondered what kind of world it was and whether it wasn't a death sentence to send them there without a means of support. Their attitudes would have been sufficient to stifle all offers of charity if the stories are true." Cadence said, "The flutterponies returned to their valley and reinstalled the sunstone, but it's power waned."
"Either it wasn't meant to be a weapon or the witches power had somehow corrupted it, but it ceased to radiate love and warmth from that day forward and soon grew dark entirely. As it did the flutterponies slowly faded away."
"Literally faded away?" Twilight asked.
"That's just how the story phrased it, I can't imagine that's what actually happened, but it's a very old story." Cadence said.
"Hmm," Rarity considered, "I could understand the changelings wanting it if it were true that it radiated love, but if the stone is truly dead I can't see it's significance to them."
"Um, maybe it's a coincidence?" Fluttershy offered, "What if they just wanted someplace out of the way where no one would bother them? I could understand that."
"Maybe, but you'd have to admit it would be a huge coincidence. No, whatever they're up to, it involves the sunstone, I'm certain. " Cadence finished.
The wagon rattled along in foreboding silence for a time. It's loose frame creaked like a ship's timbers as it bounced over washboard and ruts. Pinkie had her eye pressed up to a slit in the canvas, satisfied by the slow moving scenery it revealed. Fluttershy intently watched Rarity who had donned her reading glasses and was working an intricate pattern on a stretched piece of fabric in a frame. It was still at an early stage and unrecognizable. Cadence and Twilight had spread a small selection of books on the splintery wagon floor and were both shuffling listlessly through the yellowing pages, occasionally showing each other a passage or two as they came across them. Rainbow Dash and Applejack eventually took to gossiping quietly to pass the time, giggling over the Cutie Mark Crusader's latest fiasco which had ended with the three of them with coarsely buzz cut manes that would take months to grow back out properly. Rarity had not been pleased and glared at them across the wagon to emphasize that. Where Rainbow and Applejack thought it nothing but trivial gossip Rarity felt it cruel to laugh at the misfortunes of the fillies who would certainly be teased remorselessly until their manes grew back. She thought to rebuke them, but swallowed that harsh sentiment instead. After all she had to admit it was a bit funny.
The light beam from Pinkie's small portal to the outside shifted slowly with the sun, illuminating the dust specks in it's path and eventually dimming. Soon the wagon rattled to a stop and they disembarked in the dim dusky glow.
All around them nature had set out wonders of organic stone architecture. Eroded sandstone arches and slot canyons glowed a rusty red in the waning sunset. They set up a large tent half in a sheltered stone outcropping for the express purpose of keeping the elements reasonably out of sight. Guards were sent out, shifts and patrols established, all the sorts of thing military ponies did to feel useful. The four massive ponies who'd pulled the wagons tirelessly all day, when they finally got to rest, bedded down right beside their conveyances.
There was a collegial buzz of voices as the off duty squad made up a stew of vegetables and mushrooms and shared it around in their battered tin dishes.
The Elements were catered by Pinkie herself, who wouldn't have had it any other way. She produced a picnic basket the size of a casket loaded with sandwiches and baked goods. By the time they'd finished Luna's stars had come out and Shining Armor and Cadence came to join them for a moment and discuss the upcoming day. Things went bad right away.
"Captain Armor?" Rarity started sternly, "While I appreciate the gravity of the situation I'm uncertain that I will be able to maintain my composure with the minimal provisions I have been allowed. We will, I presume, be passing through Dodge City tomorrow, no? I should think I could bolster my supplies even from such a meager little backwater given a few hours."
"Um, Rarity?" Apple jack said, "You do realize we ain't goin' to such a hay of a lot of trouble to stay hidden for you to waltz into town just to pick up some frou frou knicknacks, right?"
"Well, of course darling." She said, producing a scarf and sunglasses, "I shall go incognito, obviously."
Shining Armor shook his head, "I'm sorry, but we aren't going to have enough time for sight seeing. We're going to start early and get through town as fast as possible. By tomorrow night we need to have installed ourselves in a hidden encampment that's being prepared for us over the mountain from the changeling's hive."
"Encampment?" Rarity asked, incensed, "As in camping? No no no, I despise and deplore camping. It really is out of the question."
The group sat in stunned silence, unsure whether to laugh or to yell, then the gentle yellow pagasus spoke up, "Are we...going to have to go over the mountain? Because I should tell you, I'm scared of heights."
Cadence and Shining Armor face hoofed and groaned.
"Actually we'll be going under the mountain. The whole area is riddled with tunnels and we've secured one concealed passage that will take us under the mountain and within half a mile of the hive." Shining Armor said.
"Oh, well, I...I'm scared of dark tunnels too. Light tunnels too, I'm not really good with the whole tunnel concept, really...if that's okay with you." Fluttershy stammered.
"Flutters, you're scared of your own shadow." Rainbow Dash scoffed, "It won't matter, though, just let me at that hive and I'll take on that whole swarm, then you can all just take your time cleaning up my mess."
"D...Do you really think you can, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked.
"No she cain't." Applejack stated before Rainbow Dash could reply. She settled her cowpony hat tightly to her head, preparing to dish out some honest truths, "We lost to those changelings on our own home turf and we ain't going to do no better just rushing in there half cocked and without a plan. There's just too many of 'em."
"Eh, we've got the elements with us this time, we'll be fine." Rainbow said.
"We do have them and the element of surprise to boot," Applejack admitted, "But we've used the elements twice against a couple of what you might call demigods. I don't think they're meant for or suited to down and dirty fighting a whole swarm of peons and it don't seem like a good time to settle that question either way. 'Sides, if'n we get that sunstone we're libel to avoid having to fight 'em at all. If you just crash your way in there we might use up the elements on small fries before we even get to surprise the big spud herself."
"Chrysalis is a potato?" Pinkie cocked her head, "I guess that explains the green eyes. Eyes? Get it? 'Cuz she's a potato?" She was rewarded with an annoyed silence, "Eh, they can't all be winners, I'll do better next time."
Cadence spoke up, "I'm not sure you girls need to fight at all. Shining, why couldn't you just cast your shield spell over the hive to expel them and we'll have all the time we need to search it for the stolen sunstone."
"It's precisely because they're in a hive that we can't do that." Shining Armor said, "If I cast that spell and they're trapped inside it's likely to crush them all against the wall of the hive. It would suffocate them at it's kindest and might just pulverize them."
"So?" Both Rainbow Dash and Cadence said simultaneously. Twilight glared at them both.
"Girls! I'm surprised at you two!" Twilight chastised, "They might be evil, ugly, horrible monsters, but you can't just murder them! That's just terrible."
"Yes, I'm sure they don't mean to be such rotten, duplicitous back stabbers." Fluttershy said, "They're probably really really good deep down inside."
Cadence blinked and whispered to Rarity, "Is that sarcasm? I can't really tell with her."
"Sorry, you're right, Fluttershy." Rainbow admitted, "I guess I didn't really think that one through."
"Actually, I don't see why we have to fight them at all." Pinkie said. Everypony groaned, waiting to hear the latest party related solution, but that's not where she went, "So what if they do have the sunstone? If it keeps them fed and out of our manes, why not let them keep it? It's just some silly rock and we don't need it for anything anyway and if we take it away aren't they just going to start kidnapping and replacing ponies like they used to?"
"Sorry to be all super serious, but good is subjective. An eagle eats a fish. Good for the eagle, bad for the fish, but without the fish the eagle would starve."
"I could feed the eagle some suet." Fluttershy volunteered.
"Yeah, that might be just what the sunstone is to the changelings, a big gemmy bit of suet that keeps them from wanting to eat poor fishy little us. Maybe we could even get to know them and be their friends. They'd be great at impressions." Pinkie finished by making a fish face and mimicking swimming movements with her hooves, "Glub." She said, fishily.
"Changelings are NOT our friends." Cadence said coldly.
"Not yet." Pinkie responded.
"I still say we hit 'em hard and fast." Rainbow said, pounding her hooves together in a crushing motion, "Take the sunstone and sort it all out afterward when we have the upper hoof."
"But what if Pinkie's right? I wouldn't want to hurt anypony." Fluttershy whispered guiltily.
"I reckon we need to scout out the situation before we go trying to start a war. Ain't no purpose in talkin' like a bigshot afore we even know just what's goin' on." Applejack angrily said to Rainbow Dash.
"All I know," Rarity said in a huff, "Is that if I have to sleep rough like this for two whole nights without some basic necessities my mane will be simply ruined, then how am I to face down a changeling swarm with any sort of confidence?"
Twilight just indicated the sleeping form of a baby dragon, "I'll have to write the Princess for more books before I can formulate a proper plan, but I can start a checklist right away."
"Less planning, more whamming!" Rainbow shouted, backed up by a stern nod from Cadence.
"That doesn't even rhyme right." Observed Pinkie, mockingly. Dash rolled her eyes.
"Now simmer down, sugarcube," Applejack said to Rainbow and Cadence, "Let's not tip the kettle before it boils. We're going to need to approach this delicately, those varmints are mighty tenacious and they out number us a hundred to one or better."
"What if they see our camp? The longer we wait the more exposed we are." Rainbow Dash countered.
"We can't go in until I know more about the sunstone, it might be dangerous!" Twilight interjected desperately.
"Between Shining Armor and myself we can decimate the hive and capture their queen once and for all. Unless something goes terribly wrong we shouldn't even need the elements." Cadence stated.
"Wow, you really don't like changelings, do you?" Pinkie asked rhetorically.
"After what they did to me and my husband..."
"We were there, we know." Rainbow turned on Cadence despite supporting her plan, "I don't want to be the one to tell you to get over it, but get over it."
"How dare you!" Cadence's voice raised towards borderline Royal Canterlot levels.
"Girls, stop, why are we fighting like this?" Fluttershy asked in a voice so low that nopony acknowledged it.
"I'm really quite serious about my mane." Rarity said, eyes blazing.
"Stop, we need to get some rest and sort this out in the morning!" Twilight said exasperated.
"Who put you in charge anyway?" Rainbow glared at Twilight.
"Y'all are acting nuttier than a squirrel on a fruitcake." Applejack shook her head.
"STOP!" Shining Armor bellowed, to great effect. The whole group froze in mid argument, "It will surprise you to know that this is an Equestrian military action which puts me squarely in charge." Here he glared around the tent intimidatingly, "Tomorrow we will get to the encampment and send a recon unit to assess the situation. Then and only then will we formulate a plan and in the end it will be MY plan. Am I making myself clear?"
The seven mares nodded dumbly.
"Cadence, go back to our tent, we need to talk about this." He said sternly and Cadence shamefacedly headed out. Once he judged her to be out of earshot his face softened and he addressed the six in a calmer tone.
"You may have figured this out, but Cadence is still traumatized by the changeling incident in Canterlot."
"Well, duh!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Yes, well, what you don't know is that this disharmony between you six is created, or at least exacerbated by her troubled mental state, and it gets worse the more worked up she gets. I don't believe you would ordinarily squabble quite so much, right?" Shining Armor asked.
"We do fight from time to time," Applejack admitted, "But it did seem kinda petty right towards the end, now that you mention it."
"Well now you know, so just try to keep it in mind and I'll try to reign her in where I can. It's one of the reasons Celestia didn't want her along on this trip, but even she couldn't see any way to stop her. I think once we settle this matter she'll finally be able to move on." Shining Armor said.
"Yes, well, I suppose I could just tuck my mane up under a hat..." Rarity said to everypony's amusement, "What? Surely you wouldn't have me look unruly?"
"No, never." Rainbow Dash said sarcastically.
"Get some rest, we start bright and early...actually before bright and early, tomorrow." Shining Armor said and left the tent to return to his own.
When he got there he found it empty. He looked to one of the sentinels who motioned to one of the wagons but for better or worse he decided to cut his losses for the night and turned in to sleep fitfully and alone.
Tensions improved, somewhat, the following day. Shining Armor had a long talk with Cadence who was quite susceptible to his charms and she remained mostly silent for the rest of the day, studying what new material Celestia had sent using Spike's dragonfire.
There were few new facts to be gleaned about the sunstone or the changelings. The fact she'd found interesting was about the flutterponies. Apparently they'd disappeared along with the abrupt desolation of the valley, rather than languishing away afterwards, though the precise circumstance was left unrecorded. Other than that the information was nothing but rehashes of facts she already knew.
Twilight had come upon a theoretical dissertation on the structure of the sunstone's crystal matrix and after studying it for an hour she had to admit that knowing what it was originally composed of was not remotely relevant to the matter at hoof and she talked with the girls about superficial matters up until they reached Dodge City.
They passed through the erstwhile frontier town in silence lest they be overheard and discovered though the murmuring and bustle of the town passing by cheered them considerably. Once through they resumed their various discussions and took turns peeking through the tear in the filthy canvas, watching the landscape become increasingly arid.
Their pace quickened as the sun lowered and long after that, deep into the night, they reached their destination. The two teams pulled their wagons into what appeared to be a shallow cave sunk into the granite of a mountain side. It was covered by sickly drapes of moss and vine, the bare mountain peaks towering skyward above them until it disappeared into the black haze of night. Looking out the other way was a vast expanse of scrub and stunted trees glowing bone white in the moonlight. From the map they knew that the landscape in that direction eventually ended in high, unseen plateaus.
The seven mares and one young dragon exited the dim confines of the wagon into that bright moonlight and were shepherded right back into the near pitch black of the cave's interior.
Some rough prepwork had indeed been done in the caves. For one, a dark cloth had been fitted across the mouth of the cave to keep any light emitted from inside from being detected by anypony patrolling outside at night. For another a line of supply crates had been stashed against the back wall, presumably full of provisions.
Upon closer inspection the cave itself was just the tip of an underground iceberg.
"Look! There's a light coming from that hole in the floor." Twilight said and found that there was also a ladder leading deeper into the cave. Rainbow Dash cautiously started to climb down.
"It's okay." Shining Armor said, "The advance team's down there now. Head on down." He gestured to his troops, "You ponies too."
The four ponies who'd drawn the wagons were made to remain topside, ostensibly on guard and quite satisfied with that post, though they were forbidden to speak for fear of a changeling patrol overhearing them.
Upon reaching the bottom of the hole they found a rough barracks set up in a large room and a more comfortable set of quarters farther along for the Elements, Cadence and Shining Armor. The soldiers set about settling their gear into the bunks and checking their weapons and armor.
The cave was brightly lit by modern lanterns hung from ancient, rusted lugs set into the walls. The pinkish stone glittered with moisture and fine crystals, veins of quartz cutting through at random wild angles.
Stalactites and stalagmites randomly decorated the cave, all rounded over as if touched and rubbed against by numerous travelers. Where the cave narrowed back down a pair of worn fluted columns stuck up incongruously from the floor. Two distinct voices drifted back between them.
"That should be the advance team. Stay here." Shining Armor said and went to retrieve them.
The ponies Shining Armor brought back were a couple of the roughest looking customers any of them had ever seen. Shockingly, to Twilight at least, one was a mare. Her rust colored mane matted into distinct plaits of mud and debris, her grey coat zigzagged with a muddy pattern of dark lines and blotches. The mare's intelligent blue eyes met Twilight's inquisitive look.
"It's camouflage." The mare clarified, "Breaks up a pony's profile so they're not so visible when they go spying on the buggies."
"Buggies?" Twilight asked.
"Changelings, ma'am." The mare restated, "We've been keeping an eye on them for the past couple days."
The stallion of the pair was a somewhat less filthy but heavily scarred dark brown with a shortly cropped black mane. His cutie mark was an orange oak leaf bent against an imaginary wind. On his left eye he wore a brown eyepatch. He held up his hoof to Twilight in greeting, "Breezy," He said simply and pointed to his partner, "Cheyenne." She saluted sloppily.
His introduction to Twilight complete he turned to Shining Armor, saluted crisply, and asked, "You want my report now, sir?"
"Yes, we need to get this operation under way before we draw attention to ourselves." Shining Armor said and motioned for the rest of the Elements and Cadence to join them.
"Funny thing about that, sir." Cheyenne said, "I believe you'd have to be pretty brazen to draw the attention of this particular group of changelings. They're barely patrolling and seem to be sticking to the hive itself."
"Are they still building it?" Cadence asked.
"Not so far as we can tell, ma'am." Breezy said, "The exterior's been static for the past two days and they aren't exhibiting the behaviors common to changelings when they're building, so we think the interior's finished as well."
"Can you confirm Chrysalis is there?" She followed up.
Breezy shook his head. "No ma'am, there's a changeling queen that entered the hive a day ago, and so far as we know she's still there, but I've never seen Chrysalis, so I couldn't say for sure it was her. Are there more changeling queens than her?"
"I don't know. There seems to be a lot we don't know about changelings." Cadence admitted, "Shouldn't you be keeping a rotating watch so we'd know if she was still there?"
"Ma'am, to be honest we had to set up all this and it's just the two of us," Cheyenne gestured to the hospitality of the cave, "Besides which the honeycomb of tunnels mean we'd only know when she came and went by the front door which is too inconclusive to be relevant."
Shining Armor finally spoke up and asked, "If that's the case, how can you know for sure the changeling drones are still in the hive?"
"Sir, we can say conclusively that there's a considerable number of drones." Breezy said.
"When you get close to the hive you can lay your head against the rock and hear them chittering, sir." Cheyenne shuddered, "It's disconcerting, to say the least."
"Do you know how many of them bugs there are?" Applejack asked.
"Not for certain, ma'am, but judging by an abandoned hive that's been studied we estimate about five thousand drones above ground. This is a bigger hive than has been seen elsewhere, not that there's ever been that many hives to be found and studied, but counting the ones underground we think it may be nearly every changeling there is." Breezy said.
"So you think there's more below ground?" Shining Armor asked.
"We know there are." Breezy admitted, "We counted another thousand in the underground chamber."
"So you've been there?" Cadence asked, shocked.
"Ma'am, we have." Cheyenne shuddered in recalling it, "It's a big domed chamber that the hive is sitting on with one relatively spindly column right in the center holding the chamber's roof up. We were planning on rigging it with explosives to bring the hive down on itself."
"Really?" Cadence asked incredulously, "That sounds perfect, how hard would it be to set the charges?"
"Dead easy, ma'am." Breezy said, fiddling with his eyepatch and resettling it, "It's pretty dark in there and there's a ridged fin formation that leads right to the base of the column. The changelings are cocooned all across the ceiling and only a few of them are active at any given time. I expect we could have it rigged with pretty negligible risk."
"Why haven't you, then?" Cadence narrowed her eyes.
Breezy exhaled slowly, "Ma'am, several reasons, actually. The simplest one is that we're here as a recon team and it exceeds our orders to go setting charges."
"The other thing, ma'am," Cheyenne continued for him, "Is that we can't see that it'd do just what we want it to. Granted the cavern's deep enough for most of the hive to fall into, and the descent would shatter the structure sure enough, but those changeling exoskeletons are pretty durable, so maybe we'd squish half of the bugs. Then what? Even with that level of chaos to distract them we can't take on several thousand changelings. They'd just rebuild the hive and they'd know we were gunning for them."
"More than that," Shining Armor said sternly, "This is not a mission of vengeance, now is it? We talked about this, Cadence, we're to avoid casualties if at all possible and that includes changeling casualties."
"You're right, I was getting carried away again, I'm sorry." She said. All the while thinking of the one thin spire of rock that held the changeling hive aloft.
"I don't know," Rainbow Dash said from the rear of the group, "It's not like those drones are the same as ponies. They seem pretty stupid."
"Ma'am, stupid is fairly subjective." Cheyenne said, "If life in a hive was all you knew then everything you know now would be useless. To them you'd be some kind of sub-moron. They each unquestionably have a unique personality, you can tell just by watching them, and even though they work together with amazing coordination there's no evidence they share a single hive mind, as has been suggested in some books."
"I've yet to see them replace a pony and emulate them to steal their loved one's affections, but that has to qualify them for some level of intelligence, even if it's borrowed somehow."
"With due respect, ma'am," Breezy addressed Rainbow Dash, "I agree with Cheyenne that they're fully sentient creatures, I'm still not above squashing the lot of them. They're parasites after all, and no amount of love and harmony's going to make it so that us and them can live side by side peaceably." Here he turned and addressed Cadence, "But then I'm a soldier. I've fought alongside griffons and taken down a dragon warlord with my own two hooves, I made it out of the desert after forty days eating nothing but rattlesnake meat and scorpions. My problem solving skills generally revolve around killing, that's what I get paid for. I'm not saying it's right, some nights I swear I can hear Tartarus howling for me and me alone, but I don't regret it."
"I take it all on myself so that all the pretty pink princesses can live in a world of love and harmony and not have to worry about such savage things. That's my role and I wouldn't foist it on any other poor schmuck if I could."
"W...We thank you for that." Cadence said falteringly but sincerely, then fell to considering the implications. Celestia's small army was said to be defensive in nature, how often had she utilized her soldiers to solve problems in such permanent ways? Wasn't a single occurrence enough to brand her a hypocrite? Lacking the time to devote to these thoughts and pursue them to their bitterest ends, she filed them away for later.
Fluttershy had shrunk back from the two military ponies, but now felt that her voice needed to be heard, albeit somewhat quieter than was optimal for it's purpose, "Um, excuse me...I, um, don't think that's the right way to deal with those you disagree with. There's always some good in the heart of the scariest adversary, nopony really tries to be evil, afterall. Sometimes they just make some bad choices and it makes it hard to go back, but there's always a peaceful way out of every situation if you look hard enough for it and...um, you can't just kill anypony who disagrees with you because in the end none of us agree about everything and then there wouldn't be anypony left. Or, um, at least that's what I think."
"Hah hah!" Breezy bellowed loud enough to shake the cave and in two long strides had parted and traversed the knot of friends to arrive face to face with the shuddering pegasus. Before any of her friends could intercede on her behalf the scarred veteran enveloped her in an aggressive bear hug and laughed heartily. He addressed himself to the others, "I like her, she's a spirited one, and clearly right besides. Sadly I'm not as clever in finding non-violent solutions as I might be."
He then released her and she cowered slightly, hiding her frightened eyes behind a curtain of pink mane. He turned to face the rest of the group more fully. "This sunstone you're looking for, I believe I've seen it, though the color's not what it should be the shape's a dead match to what's in the drawing."
"Where?" Cadence and Shining Armor both demanded.
"At the pinnacle of the hive's spire ma'am, er...sir. It's heavily guarded but with a bit of confusion sown elsewhere it could be retrieved, I think." Breezy said, "I'm sure it's the right stone, only it's not amber like we were told, it's black as obsidian and something's strange about it. Bad juju, like. It hurts to even look at it and from the moment I first saw it I couldn't think of nothing but destroying it and if that's what it comes to I can live with it."
"Let's hope, though, that you lot are clever enough to find another way around it, that proverbial peaceful way, before the changelings get it to do whatever it is they mean for it to do."