"Good morning, Captain!"
The Captain of the Guard nodded towards the overladen porter who'd greeted him without breaking stride. Patrol duty was, technically, beneath him, but the good mares and colts of the guard- his guard- walked at least one patrol a month, no matter their rank. He'd started the tradition and he hadn't had to order a single pony under his command to carry it on. They'd all volunteered.
"Hi there, Captain!"
The young voice greeted him as he turned onto the main street, striding towards the market, and he acknowledged it with another nod and a wink. He could hear coltish hoofbeats behind him in a stacatto attempt to copy his steady march, and smiled to himself. It wasn't so long ago he'd been that colt, following the guard as they walked their patrol. The hoofbeats trailed off as he reached the Crystal Market, a throng of ponies crowded together as they bought and borrowed and studiously avoided even the appearance of theft, at least until the Captain of the Guard was out of earshot. Many merchants and shoppers greeted him with nods and waves, and a few spoke to him directly.
"Hey there, boss! Strawberries today?"
"Howdy, mister guard captain!"
"Hello, my sweetness."
His young wife's voice was a thing of beauty, delicate and musical. It brought half a smile to his lips until he remembered that the bearer of the voice, the beautiful and composed Princess Cadance, was half a world away in Canterlot.
She'd never use that greeting. He'd made her promise.
Captain Shining Armor froze.
"Oh, do I have your attention now?"
Again, his wife's voice lilted over the crowd. He couldn't see who was speaking; not that it would do him any good even if he had a full description. That voice meant it could only be one pony. One thing, he corrected himself.
"Chrysalis."
"That's not what you used to call me. You used to call me all sorts of things, but you never called me by that name."
Shining's pinpoint pupils darted across the crowd, desperate to identify the speaker, even for a fraction of a second. She couldn't be here. She couldn't be! His sister had found Chrysalis, imprisoned her far beyond Equestria's borders. This was likely some sleeper cell of simple changelings, some agent provocateur left to disrupt the Crystal Empire.
Shining Armor took a deep breath and with a grunt of effort projected a shield around the entire market. Satisfied that it was stable, his horn shone again, amplifying his voice over the worried hubbub.
"Citizens! Please remain calm- you are absolutely safe. The guard are performing an unscheduled changeling security drill. The area of the market has been temporarily sealed- shortly; two exits will be established at the North and South edges of the plaza, where you will be free to leave after a simple changeling detection spell has been cast on you. I apologise personally for the inconvenience, but drills like this are the only way we can ensure good practice in the case of any real danger. The Crystal Empire thanks you for your patience."
The raised voices of the ponies surrounding him dropped into a generalised grumbling. Shining Armour closed his eyes.
"Well that's going to put my customers into just the right sort of-" at his 12 o'clock, ten yards away.
"-don't cry, sweetie, it's just the guard keeping you nice and safe-" 4 o'clock, three yards-
"-I'd wanted this sort of intrusion in my day I'd have stayed in Canterlot-" -7 o'clock, six yards-
"-oh, my sweetness, you don't think this is going to help, do you?"
Her voice was impossible to find. He couldn't tell from which direction she was speaking, how far away; and there was no telling what she looked like. Captain Shining Armor did not think of himself as a foolish pony. He knew the smart thing to do, the clever thing, was to leave, to run the checkpoints, to tighten the net and catch her. He breathed in, and very carefully did not raze the market and all the ponies within it to the bucking ground. He breathed out.
Shining turned and left to the north, to create the portals he needed in the shield and liase with his guard. He tried to ignore the delicate giggle that followed him all the way there, but couldn't quite shake it off.
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"Damnation," he muttered under his breath.
It had taken five hours of staffing the checkpoints, running countless changeling detection spells, before the area he'd sealed off this morning had emptied. They hadn't had a single positive result. No pony in that shield had been identified as a changeling. Not that that necessarily meant anything; the spell could have been outdated, or inefficient at identifying a queen, or subject to some arcane counter-ritual he didn't know. The only plus side was that he could at least tell his officers that the 'drill' had been a complete success.
"Bright Spark?" He called over one of his lieutenants, a young, gangling crystal unicorn. Bright Spark trotted up eagerly and removed his helmet.
"Sir? I believe we've cleared the entire area, but I've got a squad in the shield now doing a sweep for anypony hiding from us. I'll let you know as soon as it's done." Bright Spark grinned. Shining was pleased- the unicorn wasn't a traditional pick for promotion, being both younger and substantially less physically intimidating than most ponies his rank, but his eye for procedural detail was impeccable. Most ponies wouldn't have thought to instigate a final sweep before calling the job done.
"Good work, Bright. Everypony did well today; this was a big win for us."
Bright beamed at him. Shining did his best to smile back.
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The voice started again that evening.
Shining entered his quarters, took off his armour, smiled at the picture of his wife, blinked the fatigue out of his eyes, opened the bathroom-
The bathroom was locked from the inside.
"Hello, sweetness." This time the voice was deeper, more resonant. Chrysalis' true voice.
"No," Shining whispered, charging his horn.
"Wait!" Chrysalis shouted. "You don't have to fight me. I'm not here to fight."
"I know exactly what you're here for."
Shining fired the blast he'd been holding, obliterating the door and the bulk of the bathroom beyond. He charged his horn again and stepped into the wreckage of the room, but there was no sign of the changeling queen. No escape route she could have taken. She was just gone, as though she was never there.
The palace guard had mobilised as soon as they'd heard the blast, and while they'd accepted his story of fatigue and poorly controlled magical backlash from lowering the shield as an explanation, he could tell it didn't sit quite right with all of them. In future, Shining thought to himself, I need to hold off on the big guns. I need to make sure.
After everypony had left, he poured himself a glass of bourbon, holding it firmly with his telekinesis, and stepped back into the ruined bathroom. Threaded through the debris were the shards of a mirror; a thousand broken Shinings looked back at him with tired eyes. Shining chuckled to himself.
"At ease, boys." He left the bathroom, poured the bourbon away, and tried to get to sleep. This was just fatigue, he told himself. Just like the last time. Cadance will be home soon, and you can talk it through with her then. It makes sense to have these little- these episodes, is what she'd called them. Nothing special; just something to watch out for.
Shining drifted into an unsettled sleep.
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"It isn't the same with anyone else." The whisper was right in Shining's ear, and at first he ignored it.
"I know it's like that for you too. We were good together. I made you very happy. And you were very... sweet."
Shining turned his head to see Chrysalis towering over him, standing above him on the bed. He tried to shout, to wake someone, to call the guard, but his voice came out as a desperate squeak.
"Who were you going to wake?" Chrysalis moved off the bed, letting Shining sit up- his wife was asleep next to him, his sister and her friends snoozing on the floor, Celestia and Luna both dozing on the sofa, tangled up in each other's wings.
"It's just you and me, sugar heart. It's only ever just you and me. I don't think we could wake them if we tried." Chrysalis burned with green fire until she was Cadance, smirking and predatory.
"Do you want to try, sweetness? You know it's the very best cure for a headache. And you always liked me in this dress." Shining tried to scream no, to shout no, but he still couldn't speak.
"I'm going to take that as a yes." The thing that looked like Cadance opened her mouth wide, too wide, and inside was Chrysalis again; she reached forward, and bit his horn so hard it splintered and he gasped
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"Gah! Aaaah! Sun and bucking stars!" Shining jolted awake, cursing and grabbing his horn in his forehooves. It was still intact, still fine. The phantom pain from his dream echoed through it. Shining gritted his teeth, rolled out of bed and tried to take a deep breath. It took a long time before he produced anything other than a ragged gasp.
As he dressed for breakfast, he spotted a note on his wife's dressing table- he must have missed it before. He smiled to himself. Cadance.
No-one's ever loved me quite like you, it read. I bet I miss you! Cadance
It was her hornwriting. He was sure it was her hornwriting and it was just the sort of thing she'd say. She left him little notes like this all the time. He had, he told himself, no reason to distrust it.
He folded it back up, very carefully, and put it back on the dresser, and went for breakfast as though everything was absolutely fine.