//------------------------------//
// CH. 08 Children of the Stars 
// Story: The Last Changeling Queen 
// by Atuhor Name 
//------------------------------//


Children of the Stars


        Luna awoke.
        As a captive to changelings.
        Again.
        She reached up to feel for a magic suppressor and-
        found nothing, just her horn unadorned. She did knock her crown off her head, though.
        Looking down to the bed onto which it fell, she found another surprise.  No mere rotting lump of wood jutting out of a wall here, this was a high-class bed, with higher-class sheets that looked like they had been plagiarized from the ones in her castle bedroom through some sort of telescope. The patterns were there, but they were rough, as if the maker had them described secondhoof and put through a work order through a third pair of hooves.
        The rest of the room was, quite frankly, appropriately furnished for a princess, or a queen. While none of her usual amenities were there, the room had an air of familiarity about it. Despite the walls inlaid with glowing teal swirls.
        She didn't feel all that horrible. The spell they must have used to knock her out was good--painless, and powerful, whatever it was. Luna hadn't had time to get a good look at it, but it had looked like a spellbox, the sort used a long time ago.
        She knew how spellboxes worked before she was banished. If they were crafted strong enough, you could keep a serious spell, even one cast by an alicorn, stable for practically forever. She still had one in her room at Canterlot. She stored enough power in it to raise and lower the moon in case she had to take a sick day. And that was why they were popular: Inscribe a strong sigil on a spellbox, and even a weak unicorn can cast powerful spells, provided enough time.
        Luna got up, hindered by the lack of chains, and almost tripped when she realized that, indeed, she wasn't bound in any way other than a light covering of bedsheets draped over her. Firing up her horn, she checked the room for any sort of magical reinforcement, or teleport wards, or anything of the sort, and... nothing again, just a few anti-scrying and stealth spells that she herself had on her own room to keep out paparazzi and the like. These were much stronger, however, than the ones on her own room.
        Then, Luna realized what had caused her to feel that air of familiarity. Looking over onto the dresser, she found a number of small amenities that, in recent months, had gone missing from her room. A hairbrush that still had her hairs in it, a hat that she thought had fallen behind a dresser some months ago, silverware she had assumed the servants brought back to the kitchens. Other such small things, placed in an almost reverential manner.
        Even the furniture in the room was arranged in such a way to resemble her own, and had obviously been made to look like her room in her castle with a not-so-subtle changeling touch.
        Feeling somewhat creeped out, Luna decided to finally check the door. It was unlocked. Opening it as silently as she could, she peered through the crack in the door.
        Through the pale green light, she could make out a single changeling guard outside the door wearing…
        No, it couldn’t be.
It was wearing the regalia of her commander of her Lunar guard.
        Furiously, she pulled it inside with telekinesis, jammed it against the wall, and aimed her horn at its throat, in one noisy and complicated second. To her surprise, it looked a little nervous and... happy?
        "Mother! You're awake!"

----------------

        "What do you mean, you can't find them?" Celestia asked the captain of the Day Guard, attempting to hide the fact that she was puffy-eyed and in no mood to rule at the moment.
        "We cannot find a single thestral anywhere in Canterlot. None of Luna's guard, none of the normal citizens. Nopony." He looked unfamiliar, as if the guard had drawn lots and plopped the loser into the captain's armor.
        "That can't be everything that's going on here. What about relatives? Families? Businesses?"
        "The only story we've been able to get is that they all packed up and left in a big hurry, they left a lot of stuff behind, and they wouldn't say why they were leaving."
        "Did you find out where they were going?" Celestia asked.
        "Unfortunately, no. We didn't exactly have a warrant. And we were more concentrated on finding where Luna went."
        "What?"

----------------

        "What did you just call me?" Luna growled, trying to hide her confusion with anger.
        "You're awake! Do you want me to get you something to eat?" the changeling in guard's armor asked her, almost as if unaware of the horn pressed up against its throat. Eventually it did look down at her horn, and swallowed. "Also, would you mind not touching me so much? It’s hard enough to maintain my position without more accusations of favoritism from Mother."
        Luna let go of the changeling out of confusion. This was not how you acted when a prisoner got loose, or how you imprisoned somepony.
        "What's your game here?"
        "Following your orders. Is there anything else you needed? Was the bed comfortable? Did anything go wrong with the spell?" The changeling was talking like an excited fan-servant.
Luna’s look of sheer bewilderment caused the changeling to finally get a grip on itself.
        "Sorry, I keep forgetting. I expect you need some explanations."
        "Yes, that would be appreciated." Luna was very off balance at this point, either this changeling was a VERY good actor, or it actually believed the words coming out of its mouth.
        "If you could permit me to just..." The changeling indicated that it wanted to cast a spell.
        Assuming the changeling couldn't cast a spell she couldn't block or at least recover from, and not exactly in her right mind at the moment, Luna nodded her consent.
        It cast a weak spell at her, and she was engulfed in green flames.

----------------

        Luna was missing, Twilight was on the run from Celestia, and every thestrel in Canterlot had disappeared with suspicious timing.
        Nothing was stolen, no wrongdoing could be attributed to anypony other than herself. If it wasn’t for the lunar guard vanishing without a trace, Celestia wouldn't have any idea where to start looking to unravel this mess.
        Closer inspection showed that all the guards gave the same reason for leaving: they were heading to their homeland. Unfortunately, Celestia had never found out where that was. They said they kept it hidden out of fear of xenophobic ponies. She was too busy being happy that ponies that enjoyed Luna's night had finally found her and kept her company, to even consider questioning their motives.
        Or, at least, Celestia assumed they kept her company. Luna was happier when they were around, but they didn't seem to talk to Celestia very much at all. Come to think of it, Celestia couldn't recall talking to a thestral in anything other than passing or strictly professional matters. They always came to night court with their petitions.
        So while Celestia knew what to do, she couldn't leave Canterlot, and with an understaffed guard she couldn't send anypony out looking. She didn’t even know where to look if she could.
        What Celestia really needed right now was to talk with or at least write a letter to Twilight, a long letter, possibly on waterproofed paper. Unfortunately, Spike had not gone with her, and was still in the castle.
        The door to her room opened and Cadance stepped in, hesitantly, as if fearing reprisal.
        "Celestia?" Cadance said.
        "Yes Cadance?" Celestia said, failing to put on a brave face.
        Cadance pushed the door open all the way and strode into the room as if she had just given herself a pep talk.
        "Celestia, while I understand you have your own ways of coping, we need to talk about this situation." Cadance smiled. "Also, while I know cake won't affect your figure, I think the chef stresses himself out when you... binge like this."
        "But I-" Celestia paused for a moment, and then shamefacedly wiped the icing off her cheek. "But I can't think of anypony to talk about this with right now."
        "You can talk to me about it."
        Celestia's mask only held out for mere seconds before cracking.
        "I just feel like I failed Twilight. I was trying to protect Twilight and Equestria from changelings, and I failed to protect her from myself." Celestia looked as if she had reached a new low. Even her normally animated hair was subdued and barely flowed at all. “I can't believe what I almost brought myself to do.”
        Cadance sat down next to Celestia and put a hoof on her shoulder.
        "While I can't condone what you did, I can accept that you had good intentions, and you were trying to put Equestria first. I would just appreciate it if you accepted that you could be wrong about things. Being wrong isn't a sign of weakness."
        "But she was in love with a changeling queen! You of all ponies should know how manipulative they are!"
        Cadance looked contemplative for a moment.
        "I recently talked to Shining about the police force in the Empire. They've had to re-educate them to solve crimes and, importantly, to do questioning."
        Celestia listened closely.
        "Even a thousand years ago law enforcement cliches existed. We found police starting to do questioning by watching for tells. You know, little twitches that might be signs of a guilty conscience. And they became so focused on that, they stopped trying to see if their actual story matched up or even made sense. I'm sure you know that being questioned by authority causes people to be nervous and make mistakes. They just translated that in their heads into an admission of guilt."
        "Yes… Twilight always panicked every time I visited Ponyville.” Celestia smiled, but only for the time it took her to put two and two together. “I... I should have taken that into account."
        "But the important thing here is to learn from your mistakes. You were too close to this whole business to be impartial. You should have let somepony else handle this."
        "But I... I didn't want Twilight to think I didn't care. She's too important to me to leave this to anypony else. I mean if she woke up from the changeling queen’s control… I..." Even to herself, her words sounded hollow.
        "As much as I hate to say it, but I don't think anypony else will: the more you distance yourself from changeling matters, Celestia, the better off Equestria will be."
        Celestia looked taken aback.
        “Nopony has said anything like that to me in... “ Celestia tried to remember the last time somepony had disagreed with her, and failed. “I don’t know how long.”
        All Celestia could remember was crowds of nobles agreeing with her, but as doubt crept into her mind, critical thinking began to criticize.
        Didn’t they react in a certain way? That little pause as they waited for somepony to go first. A hesitation to slip out of line with the all-powerful goddess of the sun.
        Celestia brought her hoof up to her mouth.
        “Oh, dear. I thought it was because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
        "Generally it was because you weren't. But ponies have gotten used to you not doing anything wrong, and they’ve started taking it for granted. I actually talked to your current captain of the guard, and I don't think even he would have had the guts to speak his mind to you." Cadance thought for a second. "Come to think of it, he barely had the guts to tell me."
        There was a long pause as crimson light flowed in through the window.
        "Isn't it time for you to lower the sun, Celestia?"
        Celestia's blood ran cold. The moon was rising into the sky blood red, giving off a dark glow of its own. The magic surrounding it felt entirely unfamiliar to her as it rose in the sky, seemingly of its own volition.
        Luna was not raising the moon.

----------------

        The changeling was pressed back on the wall, this time in a position that could never possibly be construed as anything remotely positive, or favoritism of any kind.
        Several words had been bellowed in the last few rage-filled seconds such as "Change me back." and "What did you do to me?!" Including others which are considered… unprintable.
        The green flames of changeling magic faded to reveal perforated limbs, strangely enough her hair was the same, however most importantly they revealed a jagged black horn that was sturdy and sharp. And pressed up against the changeling guard's throat.
        The changeling guard in question sat stock-still, fear in its eyes. It hadn't said anything the whole time.
        "Well." Luna the changeling said, voice etched with fury.
        "I haven't done anything to you."
        "LIAR!" Luna screamed. "How do you explain THIS?!"
        "I... I..." The changeling's demeanor was faltering by the second. Any creature with a normal digestive system would be standing in a puddle of water at this point. "You asked me to," it pleaded.
        "I NEVER ASKED YOU TO." Luna slammed her hoof into the floor, taking out a sizable chunk of stone. and knocking her crown from her head. "TELL ME THE TRUTH!"
        The guard, unsupported by Luna, was now cowering on the floor. It didn't dare move. It looked up at her in terror, but was completely unwilling to even attempt to defend itself.
        Luna realized what position she was in, again, and stopped staring down at the changeling, her face unreadable.
        The silence dragged on for a second as Luna thought.
        "Could you say I was a good soldier before I go?" it squeaked.
        Luna found herself, again, standing over a changeling seconds from death at her hooves. A resigned changeling too terrified to even shield its head with its hooves. But there was no part of her mind that egged her on this time.
        Luna stopped. Something was missing, something that had stood at the back of her mind for the better part of a millennium, speaking to her, cackling and impressing dark compulsions on her. Luna didn't black out this time. Panicking, she tried feeling for the grasp of Nightmare Moon and found nothing...
        As one last desperate attempt, Luna looked into the mirror on the vanity, hoping, praying to see Nightmare's face grinning back at her.
        All Luna saw was a changeling with starry hair, and her cutie mark. Alone, standing over a crown and a cowering changeling.
        "Nightmare Moon has returned," the changeling said, interrupting her thoughts.
Suddenly, becoming a changeling was the least of Luna’s problems. The least of Equestria’s problems, and any existential quandaries would have to wait until she was sure the sun would rise tomorrow.
        "That's why we brought you here...Mother."
        "What do you know about Nightmare Moon?" Luna growled, her fury returning instantly.
        "Not much, but I think more could be explained if I showed you something." The changeling didn't get up, though. It didn't move anything but its mouth.
        Luna thought for a moment.
        This is the second time I've been captured by changelings, They've put me in one of the best rooms, have a small shrine of stolen objects of mine, and this one is calling me "Mother..." Luna considered the treatment she'd got from the last changelings she'd been imprisoned by and compared it to the changelings here.
        I'll never forgive myself if I at least don't make an attempt to find out what is going on here.
        "I don't see how things can get worse from here." Luna said, looking down at her perforated hooves. “Show me, then.”
        The changeling led her out into winding hallways of, presumably, its hive. They were tastelessly decorated in black, inlaid with glowing green crystals, and looked like some of the shots Luna had seen of the abandoned hive, except as if they had been decorated by somepony in their teens who thought studded black trenchcoats were cool.
        Luna frowned. That was basically her a thousand years ago. Of course, on the moon she'd...
        And the memories grew hazy there, as if Nightmare Moon had taken them with her. But she was sure she'd done... something...
        Shaking her head, Luna failed to run into anything during her daydream.
        This was a great deal more complicated than it initially sounds, because as she was trying to remember her time on the moon, Luna had walked into a bustle of changeling activity. This had caused a not undue amount of chaos as changelings, who had heard her thunderous voice well through whatever stone this place was made of, scrambled to get out of her way. Luna's walk was unhindered, but she left a path of tripped changelings and fallen objects.
        Looking around now, she also seemed to be trailing a crowd of gazes, specifically gazes directed away from herself. Everywhere she looked, she saw changelings staring at everything other than her, with none of the telltale flinches of guilty eyes being moved from where they shouldn't be.
        Even the guard stared straight ahead, its posture so rigid Luna could have sworn it thought it was marching to its death. Not exactly the impression Luna wanted to get across past actions excluded.
        "All right." Luna said. "This has gone on long enough."
        Instantly the room around her froze. Nopony was looking at her, but all were flicking their eyes towards the nearest exit.
        "My name is Luna, or at least it was when I woke up this morning." That modern language tutor was getting a raise whenever she got back to Canterlot. "And I can see we got off on the wrong hoof here. But I would like an explanation as to what in Tartarus is going on here, Mr...?”
        Luna's words hung in the air for another annoyingly long moment before the changeling in guard's armor, well kept armor if Luna was any judge, turned to face her.
        “Actually its ‘Ms.’ and my name is Chandra. But you know me better as ‘Nightwhisperer’.”
        Nightwhisperer… Luna thought, the name sounds familiar.
“Wait, you’re saying you ARE my captain of the guard?” Luna said skeptically. “Prove it.”
“Uhhh, on my third day on the job I got a little overzealous with my guard work, and you caught me hassling the chef attempting to bring dinner into your study.”
Luna didn’t look quite convinced. Chandra noticed and shuffled her feet a bit.
“You ran into me coming back from the cafeteria through the servant’s hallways, while I was bragging about how good a guard I was.”
Luna looked more or less convinced at this point, and was about to say so, but Chandra barreled on as if she had something eating away at her mind for awhile now.
“So after that, I really made an effort to shape up as a guard, so I wouldn’t disappoint you again but…” Chandra was babbling now.
“But I was the one who stole that hairbrush from your room! It just got so lonely without you around, and you never talked to us anymore, well you did, but you didn’t recognize us anymore, and I just wanted something to remind me of you!” Chandra’s training as a guard had stopped her from physically breaking down into tears, but nevertheless, Luna still felt the urge to comfort the unraveled-looking changeling.
Luna did so by awkwardly patting her on the back, when a thought occurred to her.
“Wait. So, were you the one that sent that report of a changeling in Manehatten?”
Chandra shook her head. “No, that was Chrysalis hoping to only fight one alicorn at a time. I would have said something, but I couldn't think of any excuse to know anything about changelings.”
“Ok,” Luna was taking this exceptionally well. Actually, she was taking it rather badly, but over the years she had learned how to hide something so small as 'taking something badly' through experience dealing with actual minotaur war-leaders who, by tradition (a thousand years ago), would attack at the first sign of weakness in their opening parley. “Tell me this, then: How many of my guard are actually changelings?”
“All of them.”
“What? You can't be serious.”
“Every thestral in Canterlot is a changeling. You created the design for 'night ponies...' so we used it.”
Luna opened her mouth to speak. Or she would have, except she felt a twang of electricity run down her spine through her connection to the moon. It felt weird, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Celestia probably raised the moon for her. It did remind her that she should probably get things moving along.
“I... well I have to believe you for now. However, I think it’s time you took me to wherever I could get a proper explanation for all this.”
“That would be the Memory Room! Although you've previously instructed that no changeling be present when you perform the ceremony.”
“Oh... good.” Luna smiled the smile you give to your stalker as they've cornered you in a department store, and are telling you about all the things they thought you told them.

----------------

        If the vanity in Luna's plagiarized changeling bedroom was a shrine to her, then the Memory Room was more of a cathedral. And indeed it was a cathedral.
        It was excessively large for an underground structure, and the domed ceiling gave off a further illusion of height due to a fantastically painted rendition of the night sky. It was rimmed by more of those odd glowing crystals Luna had seen throughout the rest of the hive, giving it the appearance of a geode. It was supported by spidery columns made of some type of dark woven metal.
        Standing across from the door and at either side of the rows of seats were three statues of Luna. They matched her colors, being dark blue with gemstones for eyes, and each one of them was robed and in some sort of... prophetic position, as if ready to bring word to the unclaimed masses.
        As Luna passed by one, she read the plaque below it. It read “Luna, Queen-Mother of the Night.”
        She was unsure whether or not to be creeped out by all this, or just unsettled. It wasn't uncommon to worship the Celestial sisters as gods. Technically, they were. But Luna had never seen anything taken to this degree before.
        Coming around the edge of the hall towards the center statue, Luna found four more spellboxes at its hooves. Each one of them was a work of art in and of itself. Luna leaned in past the railing to look at the perfect glyph-work on one when she felt a hoof on her shoulder.
        “Open that one at first. It-or more accurately, you-will explain everything.” Chandra said, pointing at the spellbox sitting up on an altar. It was made of metal and welded down. “It will tell you what the other boxes are for.”
        And with that Chandra left the room, and so did every other changeling in the hall, leaving the swirl patterned double doors to shut with a muffled thump.
        Several seconds passed in silence before Luna scanned the room for anything that might be watching, both with her eyes and her magic.
        Finding nothing, Luna immediately began opening a two-way scrying channel to Celestia but stopped short of actually allowing visual contact. On the plus side, it worked through her connection to Celestial bodies and was almost undetectable and impossible to trace within time-spans shorter than an hour. On the downside, she couldn't use it to figure out where Celestia was and vice versa.
        “Sister? Can you hear me?”
        There was a surprised noise, and a sound like a plastic tub being dropped, from the other end, before Luna heard anything coherent.
        “Luna! Luna is that you?” came Celestia's frantic voice. “Where are you?”
        “At the moment, I don't have the slightest idea... best I can tell you is an underground cathedral dedicated to me.”
        “What?”
        “I would like to explain, but I don't know everything. AND we have a much, MUCH larger problem on our hands here.”
        Luna took a deep breath.
        “I hope you made up with Twilight, because Nightmare Moon has returned, and she has possessed somepony other than me.”
        “So that wasn't you raising the moon earlier?” Celestia asked, dancing around an outright accusation of possession by Nightmare Moon.
        “I thought that was you!” Luna rubbed her face in frustration. “At least tell me you've figured out a way to make amends with Twilight.”
        There was a long and uncomfortable silence on the other end.
        “...I've proved her innocence but-” Celestia put forth hesitantly.
        “Something went wrong, didn't it.”
        “I didn't have a chance to tell her before she escaped, the changeling- er, Naudia, in tow.”
        “Semprini.” Luna cursed under her breath. “Do you at least have an idea where she went?”
        “The best we've managed to nail down is 'somewhere in the Everfree Forest.'”
        “And I'm certain you have guards combing the forest, loudly shouting apologies, as we speak, right?”
        Silence.
        “Right?”
        “I can't. When the blood moon rose, I needed all royal guard, and even some of the police force from Ponyville, to stop Canterlot from rioting. Especially with the Night Guard entirely missing.”
        “All of the Night Guard?”
        “Yes, all of them disappeared at the same time as you did. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?”
        “It’s related to the situation with Nightmare Moon. I don't know how much I can tell you right now.” Luna shuffled her hooves nervously. She didn't want to tell Celestia her changeling status yet. “However, I may be able to find out more about the situation, and I'll be able to update you on it once I'm done.”
        “Don't take too long. I don't know how much time we have to find Twilight, and...” Celestia said with a sniffle, “And apologize to her.”
        “Put on a brave face for me, Celly. We WILL make it through this, one way or another.”
        Luna shut off the scrying spell, turned to the box in front of her, and took a deep breath.

----------------

        The box opened without any sound. No scratching rust, no creak of distressed metal, just another well-oiled and -maintained hinge, performing its purpose without complaint.
        Luna had cast any number of shields on herself before even going near the box, though: magical wards that would protect Luna--anything from the common cold to unquenchable fire.
        However, there were no surprises inside the box. The only thing that came out was an illusion of an empty room, which sat empty for several seconds before a changeling walked into the field of view and sat down on the rug in the center of the room. It was clearly a queen, and it looked like it had prepared a speech to somebody they didn't know.
        It spoke.
        “Hello, me, or… well... future me.” It coughed into its perforated hoof nervously. “If you're hearing this, then something has gone seriously wrong with Nightmare Moon, and before I start, I would like to ask Celestia to leave the room if she's here. This recording is for me, er, that is, Luna, and Luna alone. Anything said here is for her to disclose, if she wants to.”
        There was a pause as presumably it was waiting for a Celestia that wasn't there to leave the room. Luna took measure of the changeling queen in the image, while she waited. She did share some resemblance to the changeling Luna saw in the mirror less than half an hour ago--most notably her night sky hair. Leaning in closer, Luna could swear the queen had the same cutie mark as her own, but the angle was wrong for her to see it properly. This changeling almost looked like she was in her teenage years.
        But they're masters of transformation, the logical part of her mind told her. Changing shape is easy for them.
        “Now I'm going to verify that you're listening to Princess Luna, Goddess of the Moon, so Celestia better not be listening in right now.”
        “Three years after I started my tutelage under Starswirl the Bearded, I thought I knew him well enough and pulled a prank on him.” It turns out changelings’ faces can flush with embarrassment. “Just a simple whoopee cushion, nothing fancy, but we missed study time that night. The next day I forgot, and sat on it myself, but I never admitted to him that I put it there.”
Luna's look of shame mirrored that of the changeling in the image almost perfectly.
“Now I suppose you're wondering why you're a changeling, and possibly why you can't remember your time on the moon at all. This all begins with the nature of Nightmare Moon herself.”
The changeling's horn glowed and an image of Nightmare Moon came into existence in the air to her left.
“This is Nightmare Moon as you knew her, and possibly as you still know her, but this is not her... for lack of a better term, 'real' form. This form is merely a reflection of us, a darker side given form. Nightmare Moon has no real form to speak of. It will always take on some reflection of those it possesses.”
“Nightmare Moon, in her own way, is a reflection of the Elements of Harmony, but while harmony stands together, discord stands alone.”
“Indeed he did.” Luna mumbled under her breath.
The changeling Luna in the image continued on, ignorant of Luna's commentary.
“Doubtless you remember Discord. He was an embodiment of disharmony as well. Anyway, when Celestia banished us to the moon, we did not know the extent of Nightmare Moon's influence, nor the grip she had upon us.”
She looked shaken, and took an uncomfortably long time to collect herself before continuing.
“On the moon, I discovered that Nightmare Moon was slowly beginning to consume our soul to sustain herself. With a thousand years for her to work with, there wouldn't be any of us left to redeem. Of course, neither I nor Celestia knew this beforehand. And I am ashamed to admit that after too many years of calling out for help from the moon, I... I gave up.”
“Then I heard something I had not for decades: prayers. Somepony was praying to the night. I almost didn’t believe it at first, but those changelings that brought you here have ancient traditions of worshiping the night, and by extension us. They had been working for years to circumvent Celestia’s banishment and contact me.” The changeling Luna swallowed like she was about to say something difficult. “Also, depending on how long it is before you discover this, it is entirely likely that most, if not all, of them are our daughters. So I hope you didn't hurt any of them.”
“I worked with them for several years, filling the hours between my contact with them by gathering my strength and preparing for drastic measures. In that time, we constructed and grew the body of a changeling queen without a resident soul, discovering a great deal about the nature of changelings in the process. We developed it past adolescence, then by connecting my new body to the natural ley lines of the moon, we developed this glyph.” Luna, in the image, gestured to another image that projected itself out of the box: a complicated, inverted summoning circle, surrounded by scribbles and calculations that Twilight Sparkle would have happily attempted to decipher.
And, hopefully, fail to decipher. Luna thought darkly. These are far more dangerous than dark magic, this is soul magic… not something that should be trifled with, much less experimented with. 
“And through that summoning glyph, separated my soul from that of Nightmare Moon. I dared not ask them to go to Celestia with any of this, because I knew it would destroy her if she knew what almost happened.”
And it still might. I will have to be VERY careful how I broach the subject to her. If I do at all.
“It took three days to cast the spell, and while I was saved from oblivion, you can see that we are changelings through and through now. The current plan is that I will spend the next eight hundred years in hiding, split off from the rest of the changelings, who went south. We have headed north and are hiding in the Crystal Mountains.”
“Now, we are already planning the final stages, in order to keep any of this from reaching Celestia's ears, and we’ve created this spellbox here to explain the contingency plan, and reasons for the current situation, in case something goes wrong with Nightmare Moon.” Now the changeling-Luna in the image took on a business-like tone. “In order for your replacement of Nightmare Moon the moment she is destroyed to be complete, I will be locking away my memories of being on the moon and being a changeling.”
“If you are listening to this, then you need to make a decision as to how much you want to know. You’ll see that in front of you are three spell boxes of ascending power and complexity. The smallest will unlock what you learned about Nightmare Moon during your banishment, nothing else.”
Luna glanced down at a fairly basic spellbox that was finely crafted and ornate, but her practiced eye recognized that only very few of the glyphs inscribed on it were not ornamental in nature.
“The middle one will do the same as the first and additionally unlock what you need to know to be a changeling queen.”
The second box was only marginally larger than the first but an overwhelming majority of its glyphs were part of a web of spells so complex that Luna could swear she caught a glimpse of the ley lines the box created.
“And the last one will unlock everything, after opening it you will remember everything, including your time on the moon.”
Luna automatically began to reach for the largest and most ornate spellbox, which glowed faintly in its own miniature magical ecosystem.
She almost opened it up before the image spoke again.
“Remember, I locked these memories away to protect Celestia. Take only what you think she is ready for. I have no doubt she will be able to see through any mask you try to put up, with too much firsthand knowledge of the situation.”
Then the image winked out, leaving Luna alone. She paused before reaching for a spellbox again.
Can I trust them?
Luna looked up at the lovingly carved statue of herself. It gazed down at her with a gentle smile and open hooves. The detailing was far beyond what could be done in a hurry, and any spells she tried showed it to be completely magically inert, save for a self powering spell for preservation.
And then Chandra's words came back to her from less than half an hour before.
"Could you say I was a good soldier before I go?"
Luna brought todays events into context with what she knew about the pilgrim thestrals that visited her night court. They all acted the same way, some of them coming to ask Luna to bless this child, or even in small groups, simply to awkwardly meet the Princess of the Night. Every one of them had this strange air about them.
Feeling adventurous Luna made a snap decision and reached for a spellbox.