“What the fuck is going on here?” Chrysalis exclaimed as soon as she closed the door to the lavish guest bedroom in Canterlot Castle. The entranced Shining Armor walked deeper into the room, glancing at every shadow and corner of the room. He must have been going through some shining knight fantasy in the illusion he was living in and she would have to dissuade him from trying to claim his just reward later, but that was not the most stressing thing on her mind just then.
Replacing Cadance during the train ride to the unicorn capital of the world was supposed to be the risky part of the plan, but strangely it had went far more smoothly than she could have dreamt. Guard rotations were timed in a way that she had a very clear window to teleport Cadance away and assume her form, but Chrysalis could not use that window of time on the account of Shining Armour complicating matters by sticking close to his fiancé. The original plan was to blitz the duo and their guards when the train entered the tunnel going through Canterlot mountain and depositing Cadance, along with her guards, into the crystal caverns running parallel to it. Her changelings planted as passengers on the surrounding carriages would take care of the guards, while she had to incapacitate Shining Armour and Cadance with only one other changeling to help her. The plan had hinged largely on her ability to overcome a true alicorn and an unicorn with a decade of military training, but surprisingly she never had to take that gamble.
“An upstart noble in the court? Corrupt general in the guard? Operative from a rival hive?” Chrysalis muttered out possibilities as she started to nervously pace around the room. She had not been able to infiltrate the Canterlot guard to a degree that would explain what had happened in the train and she’d been playing this game far too long to assume it to be a coincidence. She racked her brain for an explanation for another agonizing moment, before her roaming eyes fell on the similarly befuddled Shining Armour wandering back into the room. She felt like slapping herself from forgetting that she had the captain of the Canterlot guard under her spell and he would gladly divulge military secrets to her if she pressed the right buttons.
“Darling, could you tell me who was that pony that tore you away from me on the train?” Chrysalis sent out a pulse of her magic to strengthen the illusion Shining Armour was living in and put on her best face of a worried bride to be. She’d done this con a couple of times involving a few vastly different species, but she’d found the husbands found it hard to deny anything from a bridezilla in the making.
“A fellow commander in the guard.” Shining Armour answered after a pause, clearly keeping something to himself. Given the amount of mind-altering magic on the stallion, it meant that the need for secrecy had been drilled into him on several levels and all throughout his military career. Chrysalis felt a sliver of dread slip into her mind at the way Shining Armour called the pony a fellow commander, despite being the captain of the guard. Was there a branch of the guard she was unaware of working in Canterlot? She’d thought there were only the three branches of active service and then the desk clerks. What other branch of the guard could there be to…
“I didn’t know Canterlot had secret police! Why the fuck was your spymaster on the train with us?” She’d let her mask slip for a fraction of a second, so she didn’t hold back on her magic befuddling Shining Armour’s mind. She needed to know about this new variable before she painted herself in a corner, as most of the non-flying races said.
“He fears an attack on Canterlot. He asked if I could power a city-wide shield his branch would monitor. He will come back with the specific formulae later tonight.” Shining Armour collapsed on the floor and stared into nothingness as Chrysalis’ aggressive mind-altering magic knocked the sense out of him. Shining Armour hadn’t corrected her on her assumption of the pony being Canterlot’s spymaster and had confirmed her fears on said spymaster knowing about her coming attack.
Why was he on the train, if he feared an attack on the place it’s headed? Why not attack her changelings then and there? Chrysalis had ignored the strange pony and pounced on her opportunity to take out Cadance on her own. Surely there had been a changeling or two keeping an eye on the cloaked pony during the rest of the ride. She had to make contact with the collective and find out more about this mystery pony. Clearly nothing about the pony had alarmed her changelings enough to contact her, but that was what she would expect from the Canterlot spymaster, even she had been ready to dismiss the incident.
“Don’t go anywhere, honey. I have to put my face on.” Chrysalis cooed absentmindedly to Shining Armour. The stallion might have been living in a magically-induced trance, but if she were to break character too much it would cause the stallion to fight back against the illusion that much harder. She didn’t have the time to address those kinds of difficulties. She trotted into the bathroom of the room they shared and locked the door. The semblance of privacy the simple lock offered would have to suffice, as the spymaster could be planning on stopping her plan as she played the irate bribe.
Chrysalis took a deep breath and reached out to the familiar feeling of the collective consciousness her hive shared with her. She had told every changeling outside Canterlot to stay quiet and minimize the chance of the unicorn mages realizing the real number of changelings poised to take their capital, but the few that had been on the train with her should be active and listening.
“Cloaked pony on the train, called Shining Armour away. What did you see?” Chrysalis knew that the unicorn mages had devised a way to spot changelings by this very mental link decades ago, but it was unlikely anypony was actively scanning for it nowadays. She could feel the changelings in Canterlot reach out back to her, piecing together every glimpse and detail they had of the pony Chrysalis was looking for. The flow of information would overwhelm a less experienced changeling, but taken the little her changelings had actually seen of the stallion she didn’t even drop her disguise as the images and sounds flowed through her.
“No... ding… as planned… -ments… invited… -ible siege. The shield will be mainly a warning system, but it will be taxing. Do you think you can pull it off?” The first pieces of dialogue were fragmented because none of her changelings had been close by, but the mention of a siege had caused one of her minions to perk their ears. The changeling in question must have thought the fact had not been important because they were going to slip in before the shield came up. Sometimes she really wondered if independent thought was worth it in an underling. Chrysalis had heard the rest of the conversation herself, so she breezed through the rest of it.
“I doubt the validity of your sources, but it doesn’t hurt to be paranoid.” A changeling positioned one car over as a lookout had seen the cloaked pony sit down and speak to the seat across from him. The changeling had not detected any magic that could broadcast the pony’s voice and he had moved his head like he was addressing somepony right in front of them. The changeling had also not detected any magic that could have concealed the person the pony had been talking to, so Chrysalis had to assume the pony she suspected in being the Canterlot spymaster was talking to things that weren’t there.
“The hell is with these butterflies?” The pony muttered the statement as if there was a crowd of butterflies plaquing the car he was in, but the changeling that heard the comment didn’t even see one fluttering about. The pony reached out one hoof and then held it in front of them as if there was something as fragile as a butterfly perched on it, before flicking it away carefully. The extended hoof was striped, so this supposed spymaster of Canterlot was also a zebra. Chrysalis sent a request for more information, but her changelings had not paid much attention to the zebra beyond that point, he’d gotten off the train the same time they had and disappeared into the crowd.
“Damn it, what does that mean?” Chrysalis struck her hoof on the ground in frustration at the perplexing information she had been presented with. Sensory hallucinations could very well be signs of mind-altering magic at work, or it could just mean the spymaster of Canterlot was someone with latent clairvoyant abilities. The clairvoyant abilities would make sense if the pony was affiliated with this supposed Canterlot secret police, but if there was another Queen in Canterlot trying to undermine her plan was just as likely given the evidence she’d been given. She had targeted the official captain of the guard, so it would make sense for a rival hive to target this supposed spymaster.
There was nothing more she could learn from the collective, so she cut the connection with a quick order to stay vigilant of enemy operatives. She turned over to the sink more out of the habit of keeping up the facade, than actual need to check her makeup or wash her hooves. She looked up locked eyes with her reflection, only having a fraction of a second to feel the mind-altering spell trigger at the sight of her reflection.
“Glad to meet you, Queen of the changelings.” She found herself in an unfamiliar room, sitting down on a chair designed for the strange bipedal body she was in. Her chitinous exoskeleton was exposed and the rest of the body was proportioned like a scrawny and tall minotaur with strange feet. The implanted memory didn’t allow for her to inspect her body to any further detail and the transfer through the collective had taken a toll on the details on the room she was in. She could see what she perceived as some kind of metal wire running through the objects in the projected room. She couldn’t hold on to the image of the things they were holding in place, so she had to assume she was trapped in an incomplete illusion.
“So, someone in Celestia’s court knew mind-altering magic. I didn’t account for that.” Her perceived form fidgeted in her seat, testing the boundaries of the illusion. She could move enough to make herself comfortable in the projected space, so it was either constructed to make contact, or the caster was not as proficient in the art as they thought.
Chrysalis focused on the sound of her heartbeat the feeling of her lungs expanding, forcing her eyes open a moment later. She stumbled slightly as her body started into consciousness from dozing off while standing. A quick scan of the area suggested no time had passed during her trance. The mind-altering spell was sophisticated enough to mess with her sense of time, but the fact it elongated her time, rather than speeding it along, at least suggested that the caster was not interested in apprehending her. She’d already triggered the illusory space and she was genuinely interested in who this pony was, so she allowed the spell take her back its own reality.
“Are we satisfied now? I am only programmed for a specific number of situations, so I would appreciate if you stopped prodding me.” Chrysalis found herself back in the nondescript room, but now there was a pony there with her. He was a white stallion with an ash grey mane and his eyes held no colour, only a pinprick of black focused on her. She could not make out any describable features on the stallion and that bothered her greatly. The feeling only intensified when she saw that his cutie mark was only the number “97”.
“The form of a changeling might have been more comfortable for you, but that avatar was corrupted in the transfer into your noggin. I was not granted the capability to construct another or fix it, so I had to default to this form. I hope it will suffice for our conversation.” The pony smiled mechanically and sat down across from her projected form. “My creator entertained the idea of offering you tea or other refreshments, but I doubt you would accept anything offered to you by an hostile mind-altering spell.”
“First of all, what the hell are you? You are far too complex to come out of Celestia’a little school and you are obviously not trying to apprehend me. Were you made by a rival queen?” Chrysalis only intended to say the first sentence that came out of her mouth, but a subtle undercurrent in the illusory space she was in kicked in and lowered her inhibitions the moment she opened her mouth. Another testament to the impossible intricacy of the spell she was caught in.
“I believe you are under the assumption I am simply an intricate spell cast on you to give you a message. You would be right, but only if you were to broaden your definition of a spell greatly. I don’t know if changelings have anything like me in their bag of tricks, but the ponies sure don’t. My creator takes great pride in that fact and can’t wait to learn more about changeling magic.” The picture of the pony in front of her flashed a disturbingly genuine smile at her. She could not feel any outside influence working on the spell trapping her, but she could feel something watching her from the spell's blank eyes.
“Is that your purpose here, leech me for information and leave me for the guards to find? You are obviously not part of the guard if you go this far to do it covertly. Answer me!” Chrysalis jumped out of her seat and throttled the image of the pony in front of her. The impulse had been hers, but the action itself had been spurred on by the strange magic at work in the room. The facade of the non-descript unicorn melted instantly and sharp metallic wires dug into the arms of her imagined form.
“Now that we’ve made contact, this will be over shortly. My creator did send me here to answer some of your questions and to get information about changeling magic. I was prepared to probe you using key words and non-invasive mindreading, but your temperament suggested this method would work better for both of us. Now give me a specific question you would like answered.” The voice had no clear source and the sight of the metal wires making their way up her arms was distracting. Only one kind of magic could create something with the power and complexity of this thing digging into her mind; Soul Magick.
“Who is your creator? What do they want?” Chrysalis knew Luna had been the one to master soul magick a thousand years ago, but she couldn’t be the one going through all of these hoops to learn about a magic she knew and could easily imitate. The individual would have to be somehow affiliated with Luna to explain the level of mastery with soul magick, but how had they known about Chrysalis’ plans, if they were working that close with the royal diarch?
“Telling what he is or even his name would tell you nothing, as my creator is something new in this world. He finds you and your kind fascinating and doesn’t mind accommodating your siege on Canterlot. Go along with your plan and you will not find any more interference from him. Your goals happen to coincide with ours, so we don’t want anything from you.” A part of the floor next to the table unraveled into a mess of intersecting sharp wires, straining and writhing around a small mote of light at the centre. The light hovered next to her, the wires around it writhing and latching onto the walls and ceiling to keep it in place. Chrysalis felt a cold chill pass through her as the small light blinked in and out as the wires moved around it.
“What does your creator want in Canterlot? How did he know about the changeling hive-mind?” It was obvious that the spell construct was programmed to keep her in the dark about its creator, but seemed to have agency in the way it answered her. It had already let slip its caster’s gender, so she had to keep asking it questions to learn more. The magic scouring her mind was frighteningly efficient and she had no time to try and manipulate the construct.
“My creator is the talkative one, so your strategy might work on him. I was only programmed to be cordial to you during this process.” Chrysalis felt the magic that had been creeping its way into her mind stop and start prodding memories pertaining to changeling magic to the surface. Chrysalis felt and heard a hum from the small light protected by the wires and was not surprised to see it ballooning out as her knowledge was copied into it.
“Why does he bother with trying to be cordial? Clearly he is proficient enough to simply erase my memory of this.” The construct did not answer her immediately, assumedly too preoccupied with digging around her mind for any piece of knowledge it might have missed. Chrysalis felt the cold steel of the wires grating against her nerves as they slid back out her projected body.
“Because I was tasked with giving you a message, also I think my creator just wanted to see how you would react.” The mass of wires started to pull and retract back into itself, folding and consuming the illusion of the barren room she was in piece by piece. The room lost its dimensions, the soft light illuminating them was extinguished and the chair and the ground itself were pulled from under her. The construct paused to rearrange the retracted wires into layers protecting the light at its core and into crude appendages, before lashing out at her projected form. She was pulled closer until she could feel the shifting wires brushing across her face and leaving stinging cuts wherever they touched.
“There is a thing in Canterlot that will kill you on sight. My master wishes to help you live past meeting those blue eyes.” The construct reared back and slammed into her mental projection, destroying the last piece of the illusion and then forcing the mental connection to her changelings open.
“Gah! Accursed little shit…” Chrysalis stumbled back, her mind jostled by the forced mental connection snapping shut behind the construct of energy. She could feel the cold steel of the intricate construct clinging to her mind and was not surprised by feeling one of her changelings disappearing a moment later. Whoever had sent that thing was prepared to abuse a power like Soul Magick simply gather information, so they understandably saw no value in the life of a single changeling. She didn’t like it, but she had no way to fight someone who could wield such a volatile power and withdrawing at the point she was at in her plan would put her changelings in just as much danger. The wedding had to go as planned for there to be any hope for her hive. She was being played and she couldn’t do anything about it if she wanted the rest of her changelings to live.
Chrysalis stepped out onto the guest room and trotted over to check on Shining Armour. She hoped that busying herself with making the stallion presentable again would hopefully distract her from any irrational thoughts of revenge. She’d always had the bad habit of taking things far too personally, even considering her nature as a being dependent on the feelings of others to survive.
She could feel the vice of the foreign magic on her mind loosen as she finished healing Shining Armour’s mind. The caster clearly had some use for the colt in mind, but trying to think of it brought the promise of pain back to the forefront of her mind. The magic left in her mind was ready to lash out and twist her into doing whatever the caster wanted. She knew the temperature and ventilation of the guest room was enchanted to be pleasant, but the air suddenly felt heavy and suffocating. She slammed open the balcony doors and lay her neck on the warm marble of the railing. She gulped in fresh air and let her mind trudge through the slog the aggressive mind-magic had left in its wake.
“Not true. It was the magical construct leaving your mind that kicked up that proverbial dust. It also lowered your defenses enough for me to have something to work with.” Chrysalis saw time freeze in place as a strange bipedal thing covered in dark clothes strolled into her view to lean on the railing. She saw the similarities in the build of her projected form in the hallucination and this new thing and assumed it to be the caster’s race. She’d been around for centuries and she could only think of it as another of Discord’s nonsensical forms. Something still gnawing at her mind told her how wrong she was and made her feel stupid for even thinking it. The bipedal thing turned on its heel and walked through the door leading back inside. Chrysalis could still feel the magic ensnaring her mind, so she followed the thing inside.
“Your mind is an impressive maze of lies stacked on half-truths upon the names of others. Suffice to say it’s a welcome change from these equine bags of goodwill and cheer.” The thing walked slowly around the room, leisurely pausing to examine paintings and furniture. Chrysalis could feel the thing in her mind coiling and twisting as the image of the room around her swam and blinked drunkenly.
“What are you doing to me?” The words fell out of her mouth like they were molten lead, searing her eyes and dulling her mind as her senses continued to mix and her mind was dissected by this sociopathic alien.
“I would be lying if I told you I was sorry for the pain I am putting you through, but I can honestly say I am doing it to help you. Your body and mind are having a disconnection because I am forcing your soul to change its base properties to mirror the real Cadance.” Chrysalis felt her jaw slamming on the floor. She didn’t feel her legs giving out, but the shock of her brain jostling around inside her illusion registered as the taste of stale beer and grilled venison. She ate such a strangely complementary meal somewhere up in griffon country, but the exact time and place escaped her, for obvious reasons.
“I know you will remember my words, but I would also like to implore you to follow them. There will be a foreign object lodged into your brain when you wake, please do not tamper with it. The object is a piece of physical spellwork that will link you with Cadance’s actual body, so that you can perfectly imitate her physical and arcane appearance, while that magic of mine keeps you as yourself.” The disorientation and pain she was in obscured the world from her, but she could still feel her body being hoisted off the floor and onto another surface. There might have been a lapse of time where she lost consciousness, but the next thing she felt was the irritating hum of magic near her ear.
****** *** ****
Chrysalis labored to breathe as the latest barrage of regenerative magic stopped rebuilding and triggering her fried pain receptors. Earlier barrages had triggered other parts of her brain, sometimes giving her painfully brief glimpses of respite and sometimes perverting and erasing the memories she had. She let her head droop limply and didn’t even react when a cold metallic hand twisted her head upward and another appendage of the monster holding her captive forced her eyes open. She still spasmed and squirmed against her restraints as a blinding flash of light seared through her eyes and bore into her mind.
The pain of this procedure went beyond the physical pain she had been swimming in for hours upon continuous hours. The light had the immediate effect of forcing her to relive her latest torture, but it also drove her further into despair with the knowledge that even her mind was this thing’s plaything. A sense of violation beyond even the imagination of the most depraved rapist had been visited upon her every time that light hit the back of her eyes.
“Pain receptors, close.” A tinny voice stated as her head was released. Chrysalis blinked the afterimage out of her eyes and tiredly fixed her eyes beyond the sleek metallic figure looming over her and across the room to the other captive caught in the same hell she was in. The mare’s pink coat was matted and chafed raw where the restraints kept her in place. The mare’s mane was shaved off completely, showing the angry red and blue bruises the intracranial probes had left in her scalp as they had been repositioned and tweaked. Chrysalis felt sorry for the enviable airy multi colored mane that used to be coiffed to near perfection, just enough messiness to keep her approachable sneaking in either by design or as a side-effect of the kind mare’s playful nature. She’d been so jealous of that mane, but even in this nightmare it was the pretty pink pony princess that got off easy.
Another metallic figure tweaked the spike drilled into Cadance’s skull, before another appendage whirred to life and planted itself on the former princess of love’s temples, causing her body to spasm and the painful bruises on her scalp to recede slightly. Chrysalis tiredly noted a stream of drool dangling from the broken mare’s mouth as the metallic figure stepped back. She hadn’t been fond of the naive mare, but she didn’t deserve to share the horrors of this room with her. She was too tired to wonder if that sentiment had been implanted into her head or not, it didn’t matter either way.
“Don’t fret, Chryssi, your torment is nearly at an end.” Chrysalis weakly gritted her teeth in preparation as she heard the machine connected to the spikes in her head whir to life. To her great surprise she felt no pain, nor was she launched into a familiar memory or disturbed hallucination. She only felt her body grow heavier, slightly more sore and far more moist than her carapace should allow. She slowly opened her eyes and let out an involuntary gasp as she saw her own body hanging limply from its restraints across from her. She felt an unfamiliar terror fill her as she watched her own brain twitch and ooze green blood down her face as the spikes in her head sparked with the magical energy running through them.
There was click and suddenly Chrysalis saw Cadance’s body slump back down to dangle from her restraints. Her tormentor forced her head back up and focused the familiar unfeeling glass eye toward her. She squirmed and spasmed weakly as the scorching light ravaged her mind yet again, bringing the feelings of violation and weakness with it.
“There’s his answer. You can rest now.” The familiar tinny voice stated as the appendage grabbing her chin moved to the probe’s in her brain. She heard the strange digits clink against the metal as they took hold of the thin probe.
****** *** ****
Chrysalis jolted awake and immediately jumped out of the bed she’d been laid on. Her eyes frantically scanned the room, the pain and helplessness in the strange dream still fresh in her mind. She saw the castle guest room, just as lavish and inviting as it had been before the strange alien had knocked her out. Shining Armour stood in the doorway to the room with a strangely emotionless look in his eyes, but she didn’t see any menacing metallic figures looming over her, nor was the real Cadance in the same room with her.
“Not a dream, no way that was just a dream!” Chrysalis practically jumped over Shining Armour to get to the vanity mirror. At first glance her camouflage as Cadance was immaculate, but her changeling magic would revert to that image if she didn’t consciously change it. The damage she’d felt and seen in her vision or dream, or whatever it had been might still be hidden behind her magic. Layering an illusion on top of real wounds worked very much like bandages, the illusion would stem blood flow out of the wound as a side-effect of the magical illusion covering the skin universally, but it would do nothing to heal the wound further.
“Now, don’t panic, honey. Whatever you saw in your dream does not represent your reality.” Shining Armour tried to calm her by pressing his snout to her neck. Chrysalis leaned into the affectionate gesture and let out half of a sigh before her mind caught up with what was happening. The fact that Shining Armour knew anything about what she’d seen was strange, just as was her reaction to his touch. She snapped her eyes to Shining Armour and saw that cold bluntness so unlike the affectionate captain of the guard staring back at her. The panic the stallion’s gesture had helped push away crashed back into her mind and she jumped back from the stallion.
“Yes, Shining Armour is taking a backseat for the moment. I need to catch you up with a few things before I let you get back to your little act.” Those cold eyes followed her across the room while Shining Armour’s body stayed unnaturally still and rigid. “You will discover a foreign object inserted into your cranial cavity right above your right temple. It has been fashioned to look like a hair-ornament, but it is quite deep in there. This device connects you with the real Cadance, allowing your innate ability of camouflage to perfectly mimic the princess’ arcane signature, you could say you’re wearing her soul like a coat.”
“What… This doesn’t make any sense! Why are you doing this? What was that vision I saw?” Chrysalis exclaimed as she felt a foreign pang of worry as Shining’s static body continue to stare at her. These feelings must have been a side-effect of being connected to the real Cadance, assuming this thing was telling the truth.
“You don’t need to worry about that. The connector is going to have some side-effects you should be aware of. You can’t use changeling magic and you’re going to actually feel some of Cadance’s emotions and instincts while it’s in you, it should make your charade believable enough.” Shining’s lips curved upward mechanically and the faintest bit of mirth flashed in his eyes. “I’m done here. Have fun!”
As soon as whatever was inside Shining Armour said that, a guard she had not noticed walked into the room from the balcony. Chrysalis thought he saw some kind of shape pass through the air between the two stallions as they locked eyes, but her head ached when she tried to think about it. Shining Armour’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and the nameless guard must have raced out of the door as Chrysalis rushed over to him.
She was halfway done with healing the shock the entity’s departure had caused when she realized how emotional her reaction to rush over toward Shining had been. She should have rushed to stop the new host to whatever had been playing with her and her changelings ever since she came to Canterlot. This thing seemed far too prideful to leave taunting her after its victory to any arcane construct or spellbound guard. Shining would have been fine, especially after he’d shown himself capable of surviving the onslaught of mental magic she’d thrown at him.
“So, that thing can either leave its own body, or does not have one to begin with… It could be a spirit of some kind? Might even be Discord… Yes, Discord is definitely involved.” Chrysalis mumbled her theories to herself as she levitated Shining Armour to the bed. He would be fine after the mind-altering spells set in and nopony would none the wiser. She set the stallion down, covered him with the blanket and fluffed his pillow. She had the stray thought of finding a teddy bear to tuck in with him before her mind caught up with whatever maternal instinct of Cadance’s was driving her. She still stayed by the side of the bed, looking at the pained expression slowly melt away from Shining’s face. She had a feeling her mind would keep wandering toward the colt regardless, so staying by his side left her with a moment to think.
The entity in Shining had said something strange when dismissing her vision. She didn’t put misleading comments past whatever could play with a hive of changelings so casually, but the off-handed remark still stuck out to her.
“It doesn’t represent your reality.” Did that mean there were others it could have represented? Was that where this thing was from? It would definitely fit all the clues the thing itself and its creations had given her. Sure, there’d been rumors of alien creatures visiting Equestria and other highly magical locales, but she’d never given those stories any real thought. Seeing what this suspected alien had accomplished in what she assumed to be a relatively short time, she came upon a startling thought.
Could these visitors have been kept secret because they were evil?
Luna #87
Patience was not a resource she had in abundance, her creator should have been the first and best person to know that, but still he had tasked her with maintaining the process of constructing and enchanting the physical matrix to the project he’d been working on the last few days. He’d been very adamant about how he did not have the time or resources to start again and failure would mean that she would be dismantled and reconstructed into the spellwork to make up for lost time.
Any of these facts did not change the fact that Luna’s body both had to pee and eat something sweet. #87 had not been designed with the ability to discern the urgency of any need or compulsion her body experienced, so the programmed personality was perplexed which of these two needs was having such a detrimental effect on her ability to concentrate.
She knew there were pastries and all kinds of sweets in Luna’s room, but the task she’d been trusted with required all of her limited concentration. She didn’t have the brainpower to spare on a simple levitation spell to bring that cookie to her left closer. Calling a guard to help her would violate the command to keep her creator’s project secret and would bring undue attention to both her mental shortcomings and the state of her body. Using her wings would bring the sweet thing closer, but with the project occupying her hands and concentration she could not use telekinesis and bending down to pick it up with her mouth was a physical impossibility.
She had a simple solution for the need to expel urine, but she would have to reach a certain level of discomfort to execute “wet_yourself.exe” in her current situation.
“How goes it, 87?” The palace guard holding her creator greeted her as he sets down in the room. Luna twists her head to lock eyes with the guard and to let her creator back into a body that can hold his mind in its whole complexity. The feeling of Smuggler’s presence wrestling control away from her is something #87 had been programmed to view as pleasurable, so Luna’s body moaned as it happened. “Ah, no problems. Good work.”
“You, get back to work, now.” Smuggler compelled her to say to the stumbling guard. She could see the mind-altering spell her creator had left inside the guard activate as the stallion heard the command. He would not remember any of this and the new memory would be something he was not likely to share with anyone, or have any reason to suspect as false, it was a kind of creation she’d seen deployed more than once in her short life. #87 enjoyed having her creator there to make the hard decisions for her, only leaving the unconscious tasks of moving Luna’s body and keeping her mannerisms normal to the devoted arcane construct.
She enjoyed being Luna, she liked making the princess of the night kinder and friendlier than she knew her to be from the memories her creator had shared. The old Luna was boring and morose, even with her creator there trying to help lift her spirits. Everypony was so nice to her, even when she burst into their little songs unannounced, working some references of her creator’s old world into the words, as was one of her operating parameters. The old Luna had to be downright forced into singing or even appearing in public, but 87 loved meeting new people and had no qualms in being a little silly to brighten someone else’s day.
She hoped Princess Celestia wouldn’t kill her too soon after her creator set his plan in motion. #87 flexed Luna’s fingers, sensing Smuggler’s presence using Luna’s horn and other innate magic to grow his latest project, leaving #87 the use of Luna’s body. She carefully sat up from the floor, the heft of the project making the process laborious. She walked over to the plate of cookies on the coffee table at the centre of the room and snatched a cookie on her way to the bathroom. She threw the cookie in the air and tried to catch it in her mouth. She missed and hit her toe on the doorframe as she fumbled with the cookie.
“F...” The pain in her foot was akin to a fresh hell of thorns, but #87 had not been programmed with the vocal library to convey that feeling. “Finding Nemo, that hurts like Sith!”
#87 decided she deserved the whole plate of cookies, along with some ice-cream in the icebox, maybe with a side of mustard on zucchini. She rushed to see to her need to expel urine, as “wet_yourself.exe” was about to be applicable in the amount of discomfort she was in.
“It might have been an oversight to make you a klutz, no matter how endearing it might seem to a third party observer.