Luna exhaled a heavy sigh. From her balcony view, she saw her sister Celestia bringing the sun up from the darkness. Her shift was done. She looked at the vivid streaks of color that formed the morning's sunrise. Though she most definitely preferred sunsets, she knew there was something unique about the way that Celestia could paint the skyline so uniquely every morning. After all, Luna was never really a morning pony. On top of her drowsiness, she was quite preoccupied at the moment, intent on researching one specific subject: changelings.
She thought she had been rid of them for the last time, when she had supposedly sent the last of them away to be some other universe's problem. After betraying her sister, she felt somewhat obliged to help in any and every way she could, but in her efforts she only fumbled and made room for even more errors. She had sent those fillies to the human world, so she believed she had a responsibility to take care of them, as well as the man who had acted as their guardian.
So, she reread her almanacs, encyclopedias, and textbooks for the umpteenth time, hoping to get some kick, some eureka moment out of it all. It was the same material, the same facts, but still she persisted, hoping the solution might present itself on the papers before her. In frustration, she gushed magic from her horn, slamming each tome shut at once. From the nearby bed, she heard a chorus of three small yawns and cringed. Luna had been dreading this moment, but she believed she was prepared to explain what had happened as best as she could.
Or maybe... she wasn't.
She couldn't bear the thought of speaking to them now. No. Not here, not yet. What would they say to her? The closest thing they could get to a father was now a prisoner of the changelings, and whose fault was it? Hers. Luna had simply left him there, and she didn't want to know how the girls would respond to that.
As the Princess of the Night, she knew a thing or two about sleep; and what she knew, she applied at that moment with a spell. A layer of dust sprouted from nowhere, coating the ponies in a thin layer of dust that would keep them dreaming sweetly for as long as Luna needed them to. She felt terrible, but she couldn't bring herself to face them.
The spell she had used was a very fragile one, so she slowly made her way towards the door. Since she had worn down her books to their bindings, she would have to look elsewhere for research material. The only place Luna could think that the changelings might take their new prisoner was their hive, so she wanted to know as much as she could about what she was getting herself into before jumping headfirst into the belly of the beast. Her knowledge of changelings only extended to behavioral patterns, and she needed to learn about their habitats. And unfortunately for her, she knew exactly where to find this information: The Ponyville Library.
Twilight Sparkle's house.
Moments later, Luna's hood was wrapped tightly around her mane, keeping it from twirling about in the wind. She was flying low, trying to stay out of sight. Nobody was supposed to know she was back yet; she had sworn not to return until she had brought back the Cutie Mark Crusaders safely, but at the moment, those three were the least of her worries. Until she was done with the matter at hand, she thought it best to remain incognito.
As she flew towards Ponyville, she did her best to stay out of sight. Since it was now the middle of the afternoon, she was a little out of her element, but remained stealthy nonetheless. Sticking to the shadows, she found her way into the library, and out of sight of anyone who might question her being back in Equestria.
She immediately grabbed hold of every book her horn's aura could reach. She scanned titles aimlessly, hoping to find some hidden treasure trove of wisdom that would lead her to the answer to her problems. Things did not work out as smoothly as she had anticipated. Pages flew as she flitted through indexes, glossaries, and everything in between, hopelessly searching for that one magic keyword: changeling. She had to find the right book, before someone else could find her.
But her efforts were, as she had expected, in vain. At first Luna had high hopes for her investigation of the library, but as the stack of speed-read books grew higher and higher, her motivation slipped lower and lower. She was using up her final reserves of patience, and eventually, she reached her tipping point.
“CURSES!” Not thinking, she let loose her ear-splitting Equestrian voice, and in a frustrated surge of magical power, she sent the books rocketing all across the room. Her eyes blared with the blinding white light that accompanied freak occurrences of magic. The contents of the library rotated around her in a maelstrom of clattering leather-bound covers and tattered, flapping pages. Every annoyance and emotion she had felt in the past 24 hours was being exerted into the chaos surrounding her now, but all the chaos ended with the calling out of one small, drowsy dragon’s voice.
“Twilight?” Luna stopped the books in their unnatural orbits, and looked up the stairs to where Spike was rustling around under the covers of his little basket bed. She sighed. Another thorn in her side. This would be the second time today she would have to use a sleeping spell…
She shot a stream of the powdery magic Spike’s way. He emerged from the covers, tossing around. Apparently the spell didn't keep its victims from sleepwalking. Luna agitatedly hit with another blast, and another and another. It was almost as if the magic was bouncing right off his scales.
Luna gave it one more try, perhaps a little bit more forcefully than necessary. Spike, now stumbling in his slumber at the top of the stairs, was knocked off his feet. Luna felt very bad for him for when he woke up. He managed to hit his head multiple times as he rolled down the staircase, and came to rest at the bottom step. Luna walked over to him. She wasn't sure if it was the force of the spell or effectiveness that had caused it, but Spike was seemingly out cold. Luna made a note of apologizing to him once this was all over.
Spike was not down for the count just yet however; before he left his consciousness behind, he managed to roll over one more time, bumping his head on a small knot on one of the tree roots that the library resided inside of. But Luna saw something strange.
Did knots in trees usually move like that when you hit them?
She didn't have time to find the answer, as she heard a loud clang behind her coming from the center of the room. One of the many books strewn across the ground had fallen...down a trapdoor?!
Luna trotted over to the opening in the floor, and looked down into the abyss. A stony, moss-covered staircase led down into some sort of cellar, which seemed more like a cave system than your average Ponyville basement. What was down there? Did Twilight have a private chamber for practicing taboo magics? Was there a secret tunnel system in the sewers of Ponyville? Was there some sort of danger, waiting for her at the bottom? Luna gazed down into the tunnel-like aperture with a sense of foreboding; but she wasn't about to back away now. After all, this was a library. The only thing that could be down there was more books, right? Right?
And maybe, just maybe, the knowledge that would inspire a plan of action for rescuing that troublesome human, and finally resolving her problems with changelings.
And so, Luna had made up her mind.
She descended.
The chamber below the library was resonant with the sound of hooves on stone. Luna made her way through the halls of the underground chamber, surprised to see that torches still burned within the depths of the cellar. The passage seemed to be endless, but at least it was a straight shot to whatever the destination was. There were no branching points, just an infinite hallway with the occasional right or left turn. It made quite an affair out of getting to wherever it lead to, but the only direction Luna could go was forward; the trapdoor had slid back shut and locked in place when she entered, swallowing her up in the darkness. No amount of pushing or spell casting could open it back up, so she simply kept walking, anticipating what might lie around every corner.
Eventually, she found herself in a small room stretching slightly from left to right. The air hung thick with smoke from the torch sconces and the dust Luna had stirred up from its usual resting places. Luna surveyed the room. On the far left hand side, what looked like an alchemy table and writing desk were laid side by side, a huge cabinet resting in between the two. No doubt it housed all sorts of reagents and ingredients, as well as spare quills and ink. What remained of the enclosure was taken up by bookshelves, reaching up to the short ceiling. All sorts of titles caught Luna’s eyes. The Black Arts of Canterlot. Everfree’s Little Secrets. Dragon Taming and You. But only one really stood out to her.
The Equestrian’s Guide, Volume VI: The Good, the Bad, Everything in Between.
Luna flipped open to the first page.
“The perfect guide for adventures and escapades fraught with dangerous creatures. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and a handbook with all their weaknesses even closer!”
Luna scoffed. Handbook? It was anything but. As she heaved the tome off its shelf with a bout of magic and floated it on over to the desk on the other side of the room, she could practically feel her horn straining under its weight. As she slammed open the book, she found herself automatically flipping towards the table contents, which might give her an idea of where start. She was overly excited; she’d never seen any of the books in this little private library, and she knew there just had to be something she overlooked.
She also overlooked a few of the page numbers, starting at the D’s of the contents. Draconequus, Diamond Dog, Cockatrice, Chimera…
Changeling. Page 372. She turned there immediately. Specks of dust flew everywhere, glinting in the torchlight. Luna wondered how old this book must be. It must have been written while she had been banished to the moon, but quite a while before she returned to Equestria. These among many other thoughts scrambled in her mine as she flitted through the book, until she found the proper entry.
“The changeling in its natural form appears as an insect-pony hybrid like creature, with green and turquoise features such as fangs, glowing eyes, and gnarled horns which they use for magic. They are excellent shape shifters, and with practice, can take the form of nearly any other species. A colony of changelings is often led by a queen, whose main purpose is to guide them to a steady supply of nourishment: the emotion love. Her colony will serve her without question, and many will sacrifice themselves simply for the queen’s sake, as noted in the Changeling Attack on Canterlot.”“
Luna was taken aback. There was no possible way that this book could be so recent. She checked the date in the front: no, it was not possible. It had been written far before her return to Equestria, far before Princess Cadence and Shining Armor’s wedding. So how?
““This attack was the first instance of changeling hostility, and the first known contact with them in all of ponykind. The colony in question that attacked Canterlot is the only currently known colony in Equestria, led by their queen Chrysalis.”“
“Wait a moment. What?!” Luna couldn’t help but ask herself aloud.
“The attack was, of course, covered up by Princess Celestia, who defended Canterlot from the invasion. The attack was wiped clean from nearly all records, bar the one you are reading right now.”
Luna was shocked at first, but then she realized: that was such a typical Celestia move. She always was trying to keep the ponies happy and calm. Who knew how many times the changelings might have tried to sack Canterlot, and Celestia had simply erased the memories of the masses. Luna, in all honesty, was not surprised by her sister’s secret keeping. It was something she had used on the citizens just yesterday, to cover up her return. But those spells always fully how could anybody remember enough to write it all down here?
She continued on.
“Changelings, while not searching for food or serving their queen, can be found resting in what we might call a hive. They appear the same color as their inhabitants, a greenish-blue hue, but under the right conditions, they also retain other attributes of their masters: for example, they can shape shift to look identical to other structures. This spectacle is a feat only possible by the queen’s horn, with places she may have previously visited. This makes direct attacks on changeling hives very difficult, as the Queen could mold the hive into a maze of sorts.”
Luna cursed under her breath, making a note of that detail. Overtaking Chrysalis’ lair would be no easy feat.
”Changeling hives are extremely difficult to find for one reason: they do not reside in any specific planes of existence. The bulk of the hive dwells inside a rip in the fabric of space, and the only way in is to find one of the hive’s entrances. These openings are often found in dark, underground caverns, like abandoned mines and dungeons, but are not limited to these areas; if the Queen is powerful enough, she can create entrances across multiple universes, making inter-dimensional travel a breeze.”
This sure was news to Luna, but she didn’t have enough time to ponder her newfound discoveries. She could not pry herself from the book’s ancient pages.
“This was observed in the only known changeling hive, the one belonging to the colony of Queen Chrysalis. Many entrances were discovered throughout Equestria, most notably one suspected to be in the crystal mineshaft directly below Canterlot. However, rigorous search efforts proved to be in vain, and the entrance was never found.”
“I bet you’re wondering, Princess.”
Luna nearly jumped out of her skin, hearing a strangely formal yet familiarly squeaky voice emerge from behind her. She turned to face the owner.
Sweetie Belle stood before her. “I bet you’re wondering,” she said again, “How anybody could know about a changeling attack that was wiped from history.”
Luna was perplexed. The sleeping spell should have worked much longer on a little pony like Sweetie Belle. What in the world was she doing here? Where were Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?
“You needn’t worry about the other two foals,” Sweetie Belle said, practically reading her mind. She was sounding rather detached from her two best friends. “They’re still back at the palace, dozing away.”
Luna spoke up. “Sweetie Belle, I know you might be angry at me for leaving your father, but…”
Sweetie Belle laughed. “Hardly. You think I care about that fool?”
Luna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. These words weren’t Sweetie Belle’s. They had a sharpness to them that was not her own, and Luna stepped back a little in surprise with each development in their conversation.
“But excuse me. I digress.” Sweetie Belle waved her tail matter-of-factly, letting it shine an unworldly color in the darkness. “What of that book you just read? Find anything interesting? Anything, off the records?”
Luna could not quell her curiosity. “How did you know about this book Sweetie Belle? I have to assume my sister wiped the records clean of it. How did you know about this chamber, even?”
She ignored Luna’s questioning. “It’s quite detailed, isn’t it? Considering a pony has never made it out of a changeling hive alive.” Her eyes wandered across the room, then snapped back to Luna.
“Did you consider that maybe a changeling played a role in its creation?”
With these words, the whole room radiated with the same ghastly color that Luna knew all too well, as the imposter Sweetie Belle shifted into her true form. Luna watched as holes appeared in her legs, wings on her back, and her adorable little horn blackened to a shade she could scarce describe.
“You ought to ask me. After all, I helped to write it.”
Luna had no words. Her mouth simply hung agape.
The changeling laughed. “Don’t be so worrisome. I only assumed this form last night. Quite the scuffle getting out of that dusty old movie theatre, wasn’t it?”
Luna nodded. She had seen the man
“I suppose you’re still wondering what I have to do with that book?” The sound of the changeling’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Luna only replied with another curt nod of the head.
“I was one of Chrysalis’ top servants. And your sister saw an opportunity in that.” He mentioned Celestia with distaste. “She thought she saw ‘the good in me,’ so I went along with it as long as I could. Within that book, changeling was the only blank entry, and guess who helped to fill it up? I gave them information, and they foolishly mistook it for my trust. Never should have left me alone with that historian.”
He cracked a malicious grin.
“I grabbed the book and ran. Once I returned to the hive, I was rewarded generously. I gained the privilege of being the Queen’s own little secret agent. But I was away from the hive for a long time. I lived down in this little paradise for quite a while, trying to find a way back; and when I did, I had a library’s worth of knowledge about your world to share with my comrades.” He smiled in that same sickly way, and said playfully, “I probably know more about this place than you do. I don’t imagine a thousand years of exile on the moon would be very beneficial for sharpening trivia skills.”
“Oh really?” Luna asked, thoroughly aggravated. “Would you like to find out yourself?” she asked, her horn glowing threateningly. "Give me
“Want to get rid of you'It doesn’t matter at this point. You do realize what my job was, don’t you? I was assigned to stall you."
Luna stepped back. She had left the crusaders in her room, unguarded. The only person that knew they were there was Celestia.
“You're too late. We already have one of those little brats. And every minute you spend here is another we use breaking that tiny little human. His love for those ponies is practically tangible.” The changeling licked his lips shamelessly. "Mouth-watering.
"We’re going to milk him dry.”
***