//------------------------------// // Truth and Consequences // Story: A Busman's Holiday // by Parchment_Scroll //------------------------------// A Busman's Holiday Truth and Consequences In which Deft Hoof makes a little filly cry... "Okay," I said to the others as Twilight hauled the changeling drones back into Lost Town. "That seems like that all wrapped up." "More or less," said Shining Armor. "I can't imagine the Lost Colts not needing to talk to someone about their ordeal, though." "Well, naturally," Twilight said. "They've been through a traumatic experience." "Good luck getting them to admit it," I said. "Hang on, I'm missing something important." "What's that, Defty?" I turned to Shining Armor. "Didn't you say there was a paddy--" The rest of the sentence went unsaid. In mid-stride, the world faded away to nothingness. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I found myself in a large, ornate chamber. It resembled the Canterlot throne room, except that the ivory pillars had been replaced with ebony, and where there would be images of Celestia's sun cutie mark, or of the Two Sisters, there were mother-of-pearl crescent moons. "What just happened? Where am I?" "Exactly where you were, Deft Hoof," my Princess replied from the darkness around me. "As Celestia's Captain of the Guard sent for a paddy wagon to pick up the changelings, I judged this a safe time to contact you." "Wait, so you just made me fall asleep?" The darkness ahead of me coalesced into the form of Princess Luna, who smiled down at me. "Well, I am the Princess of the Night and of Dreams, am I not?" "Okay," I said. "Was... there something you needed?" "I simply wished to confirm that the situation was stable before we arrived." "Oh, yes," I said. "You might need more than one paddy wagon, though. There's a pretty big group of changelings to pick-- wait, did you say 'we'?" ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "...think he's waking up." That sounded like Twilight Sparkle talking. "Merry?" "Hi, Meanie," I grumbled. "Why am I face down on the floor?" "You sort of just fell," Rainbow Dash chimed in. "I just fell?" "Yuppers! One minute you were all talking and happy and the next, BOOM! You fell right on your face!" "Great," I said. "I don't suppose anyone else saw me fall flat on my face?" I looked around. There around me were Twilight Sparkle, Meanie, A.J., Rainbow Dash, Shining Armor, and Freeze Pop, and none of them would meet my gaze. "Wonderful." "You okay, buddy?" I waved off Shiny's concerns. "Fine," I said. "Never better." "Adrenaline crash can be pretty sudden," Twilight said, having picked the most rational explanation for my observed behavior. "If you're sure you're all right...?" "I'm fine," I repeated. "There was something, though." "Something?" I nodded. "Something important." I shook my head, trying to clear up my muddy thought processes. "Argh, I swear, it's right on the tip of my tongue!" While I racked my brains, trying to remember whatever had slipped my mind, Lost Town erupted in sound and light. "Behold, Lost Colts! Thy Princess of the Night hath arrived!" "Oh, right," I said. "Princess Luna is on... was on her way here with the paddy wagons." "Silly," Meanie piped up, "she's right there!" I hadn't needed her to point Luna out to me, of course. Everyone in Lost Town was staring right at her. I shook off the remainder of my sleep-induced fuzziness and galloped up to her. "Ah, Deft Hoof. I see you were not exaggerating the need for more transport." She looked around. "Nevertheless, as changeling hives go, this is quite a small one." "Is it?" I shrugged. "I haven't had a lot of experience with them. Just the swarm that attacked during Shiny's wedding and this one. I guess the usual size is somewhere in between?" "Indeed." She stood forward. "Where is the queen of this hive?" I scanned the room. All of the changelings had been rounded up by Twilight's magic, and she'd conveniently separated them into two groups. The drones were larger than the regular changelings, with shorter horns. If the queen had any distinguishing characteristics, I certainly didn't see them. "Do you mean Chrysalis?" Shining Armor said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Nay, Shining Armor. Queen Chrysalis may be the acknowledged Queen of the Changelings, but each changeling hive within her kingdom has its own queen. They may be identified by their crest and their eyes." "Crest?" I shook my head, taking another look around the old textile mill. "Changeling queens," Twilight Sparkle explained, "have a small crest at the base of their horn that looks like a crown. Also, their eyes are green with slit pupils instead of multifaceted, and they are the only changelings who grow a mane and tail." "Um," a quiet voice said from off to one side. I looked around for the source of it, but my search was interrupted. "How do you know that?" Rainbow Dash asked suspiciously, edging away from her. While Rainbow Dash squared off to possibly face down a changeling queen, I heard that same "um" a second time. "Honestly, Rainbow Dash, did you think I wouldn't study up on them after what happened at my brother's wedding?" Rainbow at least had the decency to look chagrined. "Oh, right," she said. "Sorry, Twi." "No problem." "Could we maybe get back on topic?" Applejack put in before the apologies continued. "If'n Princess Luna's right, we've still got one changeling unaccounted for!" "Everypony?" I said, raising a hoof. "What's up, Orange Meringue?" Applejack said. "Y'all got an idea?" "No," I said, "but unless I miss my guess, I think Fluttershy does." Everypony turned to her expectantly. "I... I think I heard something just before Princess Luna got here," she said. "Coming from in there." She pointed at the office with her wing. * * * * * Shining Armor, Applejack, Twilight, Meanie and I stood by the office door, while Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Princess Luna, and Freeze Pop hovered overhead. "That sounds like..." said Shining Armor. "Can't be," I said. If there's one hard and fast rule when dealing with monsters, villains, and other Enemies of the State, it's that bad guys don't cry. "The poor dear," Fluttershy said. "It's a trick," I said. "It has to be." Shining Armor nudged me in the side. "So, open it up and let's find out." I pushed down on the handle with a hoof, but it didn't budge. "It's locked." I turned towards the others, who were, to a pony, giving me the flattest gaze imaginable. "And...?" Freeze Pop said, crossing her forehooves expectantly. Applejack smirked. "If'n yer sayin' ya can't open it..." I turned on her. "Who's saying that?! I never said I couldn't open it! It's just..." "What?" "Everypony's watching." Someone giggled. I glared at Shining Armor, but he gave me a very clear "It wasn't me" look. I looked around, but nopony else looked like they were amused, either. Frustrated, yes. Amused? Not so much. I glared at the door. "Oh," I said, "so that's how it's going to be, is it?" I brushed a hoof through my mane, then picked up the lockpicks I'd dislodged from it in doing so. "All right, then." (To be fair, I'm not one of those ponies who can talk clearly with something in my mouth, so what came out was more like "wull rot ven".) In moments, I had the door unlocked, and pushed it open. "Think it's okay to laugh at ponies, huh?" I burst into the room like an avenging angel. "Think it's okay to foalnap a bunch of colts under my protection?!" The rest of my speech trailed off into nothing. We'd found the queen of the hive, all right. She was no bigger than my little cousin Applebloom, and was cowering in a corner. "Orange Meringue Pie, you should be ashamed of yourself!" I whirled around in shock. I was half expecting to see my mother there, ready to go into full lecture mode. Instead, what I saw was completely unexpected. Quiet, unassuming Fluttershy was marching into the office after me, glaring at me. "Yelling at a poor, defenseless baby like that!" "Defenseless?!" I said. "She's a changeling! She's probably faking it anyway!" As soon as I said it, the changeling filly burst into tears again. Fluttershy ruffled her feathers at me and continued glaring. I looked around for a place to hide, but the office had been stripped of anything resembling furniture years ago. I was stuck there. I was stuck, and Fluttershy continued. "So she's a changeling," she said. "That doesn't mean she's not a little filly! And here you come, barging in here when she's scared and all alone and you start yelling at her!" "She was going to kidnap you!" "Just because she was wrong doesn't make you right." I stopped to think about that, and Fluttershy trotted over to the changeling. "It's all over now," she said soothingly. The changeling looked up at her, sniffling. "C-can I go?" "I am afraid not," Princess Luna said from the door. "Filly or not, you have much to answer for." The changeling nodded, hanging her head. "I guess so," she said. "What I don't understand," Twilight Sparkle put in, "was what the heck you were hoping to accomplish with all of this!" The changeling filly reared up, and Fluttershy took a step back hesitantly. "I didn't really have a plan, okay?!" The changeling began pacing back and forth. "I was all alone in a big city, and Short Shanks took me in, so I thought maybe things would be okay. But then all these other changelings showed up, and they needed a home, too, and I couldn't tell everypony I was a changeling, and they were all looking to me to be a queen and the ponies were expecting me to be their friend and I didn't know what to do!" She started crying again. "All I knew was that a whole bunch of changelings in Canterlot was gonna be a problem, especially if you guys got involved," she jabbed a holey hoof at Twilight Sparkle at that, and continued, "so I sent some of them off to Ponyville to see if they could keep you from finding out about us, and then even more changelings started showing up, and they were all looking to me to do what Chrysalis couldn't, and one thing led to another, and now you're all mad at me and Short Shanks'll never want to see me again and--" "Wait, hold up," I said. "What was that about Shorty?" "More importantly, why did you want the Elements of Harmony?" said Twilight Sparkle. The changeling shook her head. "I didn't want the Elements," she said. "I just wanted to keep you guys from messing everything up any more than it already was!" "What was that about Shorty?" "But I guess things were already way messed up before I sent those changelings to Ponyville anyway." I darted in and seized the changeling by the shoulders. "What was that about Shorty?!" I demanded. Behind me, Fluttershy scolded me again, but I'd gotten through this time. "I said he'll never want to see me again," she said forlornly. "Why does that matter?" "Orange Meringue, there's no need to be mean," Fluttershy said. "I'm not being mean!" I snapped. I took a breath to calm down, then took a step back from the changeling. "I'm not trying to be mean," I said again, more calmly. "This is important. Why does it matter what Shorty thinks of you?" "Because," she said. "Changelings need love to live. I had that. I had better than that. Short Shanks was..." Twilight nodded. "He was a friend, wasn't he?" The changeling nodded in return. "Yeah," she said. "It felt good having a friend," I said. "Didn't it?" She smiled wistfully. "Yeah," she said again. "Deft Hoof," said Luna warningly, "what are you thinking?" "I'm thinking it would be cruel to imprison this changeling with the others," I said. "They clearly put too many demands on such a young... bug... pony... thing." "Indeed," said Luna. "I shall have to verify the young changeling's story, but..." "It sounded unrehearsed," I said, "but I concede the point. If she's telling the truth--" "I am!" the changeling said with all the indignation of youth. "If she is telling the truth," I repeated, "we still can't let her roam around unsupervised." Behind me, Shining Armor made a sound somewhere between a groan of resignation and a happy sort of "um". "He's right," he said. "Princess Luna, it would be in the best interests of all concerned if someone with authority were to step in and take the young lady in hoof." "Exactly," I said. "Are you suggesting," Princess Luna said, "that after all this, we give this changeling exactly what she wants?" "Um," I said. "More or less?" She snorted. "You," she said, "are a complete pushover when it comes to foals." "Guilty as charged, Your Highness," I said, sweeping a low bow. "I'm afraid I cannot allow it," Luna said. "As responsible as he is, Short Shanks cannot be expected to keep an eye on a rogue changeling, nor would I expect it of him so soon after his ordeal." I nodded. "You have a fair point," I said. She smiled. "Well," she said, "I am older than you by a few orders of magnitude. These things come with experience." "Okay," I said, "so what do you think we should do?" "She will have to be put under guard," Luna said. "Understood, Your Highness," Shining Armor said, snapping off a salute. "I'll make the assignment personally." "No, Shining Armor," Luna said. "Thank you. But I believe this is a situation that could best be handled by one of my own honor guard." "Batponies," I explained. "We know, Orange Meringue," Twilight said. "So... is that it, then?" I looked around. "Everything resolved more-or-less to everyone's satisfaction?" Meanie popped up in front of me from... I looked around. There was still no cover in the room, so I have no idea where she popped up from. "No way!" she said. "There's still one thing left!" I'll give you three guesses what the "one thing" was, and the first two don't count.