//------------------------------//
// Luna story arc ~ part 2 
// Story: Deep Cover Confusion 
// by Zerodius 
//------------------------------//

Luna stood, aware, on the balcony. Underneath, most of ponykind slept. She had finally grasped what had happened. It also shone on a light on why her memories had been so fuzzy.

Millenia ago, the changelings coveted the love of ponykind, their friendship. They had always survived by parasiting it but they wished to make it theirs. Of course, overcoming goddesses was not something even the strongest mortals could... unless they could usurp a power that was just as great if not greater than the divine. The magic of friendship, and in its true form, not merely as energy harvested from unwary ponies.

Mere infiltrators would have never allowed the changeling queens the power necessary to defeat her and the original Celestia. No... the changeling queens needed to tap into the true power of the magic of friendship, to convert it into something that the queens could use. The changelings that infiltrated Equestria so many generations ago, no one ever learnt of their existence because, simply put, they had become ponies. They had willingly assimilated themselves into pony society so that their queen could use the magic of friendship.

An extremely clever plan, one with reasons just as shallow and evil as any other usurper's but the methods had... interesting side-effects.

She finally understood why Discord's reign had happened and how it ended. She now understood why the god of chaos had tried to attack Twilight and her friends, aiming to spite her sister.

The changeling queens of old had aimed to replace Celestia and her, to gorge upon their power. But as they managed to destroy their original bodies, the queens had found themselves robbing the world of the ones who acted as the balance to Discord's power. Without her sister and herself, the spirit of disharmony was free to rampage freely and to rule as lone god of the world.

Faced with the horrors created by Discord's power, the changeling queens of old were forced to wield the power of the goddesses of the sun and moon, to truly grasp their power. But though they could tap into the magic of harmony through their infiltrators gathering it in a form they could use through generations of infiltration, it was still only a little fragment of the true power. To truly gain the power, they needed to become one with it, to immerge themselves into the magic of friendship.

It was why Celestia XXIII was her sister just as much as the alicorn had been. The alicorns are little more than the dominant aspects of their true selves, the windows through which they feel and interact with the world. Though the alicorns are their naturally grown selves, Celestia and Luna are ultimately concepts.

When Celestia I and Luna I took upon their names, it was not arrogance, it was symbolism. They thrown away their bloody past and legacy as changelings to embrace the magic of friendship. Instead of usurpers, they swore to become successors, heirs. They swore to not merely imitate the alicorns but to become them. Instead of using their abilities to steal the ponies' magic, they used their hive mind link to become their voice. To let the dreams and hopes of all ponies flow through them, and even expand it beyond.

Just as the alicorns before them, they became the avatars of harmony itself.

Luna closed her eyes, sitting down and taking on a strange pose, one she had learnt so long ago during her visits in lands owned by minotaurs. She meditated, plunging herself into her memories. As an eternal being, the memories she held were more than the meat of her brain could hold... very literally so, in fact. To not forget, she had to cast out part of her memories, to infuse them into the night, into the very harmony of all things. Her mortal shell would not remember but her night would... and in time, if she needs or wish, she could enter a state of trance, feel the night, and reconnect with those discarded memories.

She did. She let her consciousness wander and flow, the star-filled skies becoming her body, the constellations her eyes. The pony became an anchor, a connection to the world she loved. The memories of the celestial darkness were fuzzy, not all of them being born of a pony body anymore ; Luna knew that these memories came from the changeling queens who had accepted to become her. Their memories were hers, as hers were theirs. They were alien memories, the pony shell incapable of truly grasping them but they existed and the stories within helped bring clarity to her own mortal shell's thoughts.

The changelings of old are no more. Unlike Celestia, the sealing of the entity known as Nightmare Moon had created a hole in the flow of memories but her observations of the dreams of mortals had allowed her to piece together what had happened.

The cold embrace of the hive was blothed out by the warmth of friendship. Within the love of pony society, the changelings of old changed. Just as their queens embraced it, so did their drones. They discovered love, happiness, the dreams born of individuality. They learnt that sharing love was made stronger when every node in the great network of souls was alive with emotion and individual thought. Pony magic had flowed through the changelings and given them happiness and enlightement that they could have barely been capable of conceiving before as mere drones in a hive.

When Celestia V and Luna III called for all ponykind to unite their hopes and dreams to make them into the true incarnations of Celestia and Luna, it was not just the ponies that answered, it was the changelings too. There was no malice toward ponies, no alien feeling of exclusion. Only a desire for unity.

When Discord was banished, the changelings that had once invaded Equestria ceased to be. They cleansed themselves, became something new. And as time passed, they adapted. Pony magic and blood flowed through them and they grown from it. Pony and changeling bloodlines mixed, two species becoming one.

The ponies did not become extinct. They did not disappear. They live on, in blood and in magic, inside of new mortal shells. Her little ponies live in fear of discovery, in fear of being changelings. They are not. They are ponies and she love them, just as she loved them before they changed.

Ponykind changes, it always does. Just as the horses of old became ponies, ponykind had once again taken on a new form.

Luna's consciousness narrowed itself to her pony form... or should she think to herself, horse form. She pondered for a moment if Celestia XXIII was aware that the strangely tall nature of the alicorns and their oddly shaped appendages and heads was a result of their forms mirroring that of ponykind's first, more primitive incarnation. Probably not. It does not matter. Never really did.

The cloud of nightmares came to the souls of ponykind, as it did many nights. She had observed it, learnt from it. It was time for ponykind to sleep without fear, without guilt. Their goddess has learnt their secret and has accepted them for it.

Celestia is not ready. Ponykind is not ready. If she break the illusion right now, their fears may consume them. They are still so hesitant, not unlike the ponies of old. They struggle on their hooves, afraid of tainting a heritage they think themselves unworthy of. She will be patient and silent. She will give them the time they need. And the day they are ready, they will find her, ready to accept them and to love them as they are.

They are, after all, her little ponies, regardless of their shape.