Shining Armor and his company had made admirable progress in their search for living changelings, at least in terms of land coverage. In the rough space of two weeks, they had traveled as far as the Appleloosan orchard, and several of the pegasi accompanying their newlywed captain took it upon themselves to scout the area from above. With any luck, he hoped, they would be able to make some legitimate headway with their objective this time.
Shining paused by the start of the buffalo stampeding trail, recalling the events that led him here. A few short weeks ago, he had been greeted—or rather, verbally assaulted—by Queen Chrysalis, ruler of the nearly extinct changelings. She had declared her invasion of Canterlot to be a failed effort to feed her starving race, and in response to the alarming casualties created by his and Princess Cadance’s force field, she had returned to Equestria to plead for further aid, which Princess Celestia was ultimately happy to give. A large portion of the aid came in the form of Shining himself, who was tasked with scouring the land, both within and beyond the borders of the kingdom, for what few changelings may have survived the forceful expulsion.
The mission, however, also served as his punishment for the unintentional murder of thousands. He was forced to embark on his search the day after he’d returned from his honeymoon, and at this point in time, he’d spent more of the marriage separated from his beloved than he had at her side. While he had the communication spell given to him by his sister in Ponyville, and he’d been making good on his promise to contact Cadance at least once every day, it wasn’t the same as having her beside him. He sorely missed the closeness and intimacy, but this was his sentence, and he had no choice but to grin and bear it.
Speaking of Cadance, it was time to commune with her again. He stepped into one of the many lengthy shadows cast by the apple trees, trying to perform the spell from memory. He prayed he wasn’t too late to watch Canterlot’s sunset with her.
Several seconds of serious magical exertion later, he successfully conjured a spatial window overlooking a balcony in Canterlot Castle. At the very center of the portal, bathing in the radiance of the setting sun, was Cadance herself. She looked to the side, directly at Shining, and gasped in joyous surprise.
“Shining Armor!” Cadance greeted. “I’m so glad you managed to reach me! You almost didn’t make the sunset.”
“Sorry about that, Cadance,” Shining responded, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was helping the guys set up camp outside Appleloosa. We’ve been doing a lot of walking today.”
“Please don’t push yourself too far,” Cadance pleaded. “The last thing either of us needs is for you to get another one of your headaches because you’ve worked yourself to exhaustion.”
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” Shining assured her. “I haven’t used much magic since I left. Aside from calling you, I don’t think I’ve really used anything more complicated than levitation spells.”
“Can you blame me for worrying?” Cadance asked, placing a hoof on the portal’s surface. “I love you, Shining, and I miss you so much. I want you to come home soon, and more importantly, I want you to come home safe.”
Shining approached the portal and placed his own hoof beside hers. He felt the glasslike surface of his closed gateway to Canterlot, but not gleaming, golden shoe on his wife’s hoof. There wasn’t even any warmth where she made contact with the magical surface. Yet again, her touch eluded him, and he sighed heavily.
“I miss you too,” he stated. “There’s nothing I want more than to be with you right now. And I promise you, I’ll be home before you know it.”
“Before Hearth’s Warming,” Cadance demanded. “It’ll be our first as a married couple, and I refuse to spend it without you.”
Shining chuckled. “Hearth’s Warming is still a few months away. At the rate my men and I are going, we should be done by then. Even if we’re not, though, I’ll see if your aunt can make an exception for the holiday and bring me back. I’m positive she’ll do it if one of us asks.”
Cadance gave her husband a beaming smile, but before she could respond, Shining was alerted to a light thud behind him, followed by the rustling of a pair of wings. He turned to face the source of the noise, and a fully-uniformed pegasus stallion stood before him, saluting his superior officer.
“Anything to report, Commander?” Shining inquired.
“We’ve found a few still bodies, sir,” the commander responded. “I’d say about six or seven of them were visible from the treetops. I have the others checking for any signs of life, but for now, it just looks like another graveyard.”
Shining groaned and shook his head. From the sound of it, this search was just as unsuccessful as all the ones before it. He’d lost count of how many changeling corpses he’d seen since his departure, and he was reaching the point where even the most bizarre and grotesque impact-related injuries didn’t faze him. He began to doubt that Celestia was right about the possibility of survivors, even wondering if she’d lied outright about it. Maybe she was letting Chrysalis run on false hope and making him see the carnage he’d inadvertently created as punishment for creating it. He was certain she wouldn’t do such a thing, but two weeks of tiresome travel got a stallion to thinking...
Before he got the opportunity to convince himself of his darker assumptions, another pegasus stallion, a young rookie, flew towards him. He saluted in midair, nearly losing his balance as he tried landing while holding the salute.
“Captain Shining Armor,” the young pegasus reported. “I think you need to contact Princess Celestia. The one I just checked out... I think it’s alive.”
Silence befell the small group as Shining regarded the cadet in shock. After a moment, he turned to the portal, to his equally surprised wife.
“Cadance, I’m gonna have to call you back.”
“And you’re absolutely certain of this?” Princess Celestia asked as Shining Armor concluded his report.
“Heartbeat and everything,” Shining confirmed. “Poor guy’s hanging by a thread. We need to get him over there now.”
“Agreed. Now let me see the changeling,” Celestia ordered, and at her command, Shining stepped out of view. She expanded and opened the portal, setting hoof in the desert orchard to get a clear view of the creature where it still lay.
The changeling—a male, by all appearances—was in a pitiful state. He was lying in a pool of his own dried blood, most of the bones on the right side of his body shattered presumably on impact with the ground. As Celestia bent down to check his heartbeat, she heard his soft, labored breathing. It was a miracle the poor thing was still alive. At once, she nodded towards the portal, signaling for two ponies in medical garb to step through with a stretcher.
“I commend you and your troops for your excellent work today, Shining Armor,” Celestia announced. “I will relay news of this changeling’s recovery to his queen, and I will send more men out to cover more ground and speed up the search effort. If all the rest are as badly injured as this one, we have no time to waste.” With that, she turned to join the medics in their return to Canterlot.
“Wait, Princess,” Shining requested, forcing her to pause. “Before you go, there’s something I wanted to ask. It’s about Hearth’s Warming...”