Who Needs the Sunshine

by Atuhor Name

CH. 12 An Empty City

An Empty City

Twilight watched in awe as one of the enormous crab-like legs started a glacially slow step.

Was it a creature? Was it a machine?

Twilight had seen enough of the decor to guess where they were now, but could the changelings even build something that big? Even with the aid of magic, something so colossal denied belief.

Above all though, the city below looked frighteningly empty and unalive; not someplace unwelcoming, but someplace that had once been bustling but was now empty.

Minutes later, she tore her gaze away from the unmoving city, and realized she had been avoiding responsibility over the changeling queen.

Moving back into the library, and forcing herself not to stop and look through the books, she found the changeling who had been impersonating Luna, asleep on the floor exactly where she left her.

Twilight still wasn't sure what to do with the changeling now.

On the one hand, after that attack on Canterlot, she was technically an enemy of Equestria, and imprisoning and posing as Luna definitely made her a criminal.

But enemies of Equestria didn't go into a total nervous breakdown at the mere sight of Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight couldn't place this changeling in the category of "criminal." She looked, in a way, young and inexperienced.

Minutes passed without a decision being reached until...

Wait: she knows where Princess Luna is.Possibly, she is the only one who knows where Princess Luna is.

That settled it for Twilight: she would use this changeling to find out where Princess Luna was being held, and then she would make a decision about her fate.

Until then...

Twilight felt guilty just leaving her lying on the floor, in a puddle of her own tears.

A magical levitation spell later, and Twilight was carrying the queen on her back. She was surprised to find that instead of hard chitin grinding into her back, the changeling's skin was actually rather soft and not unlike that of a pony’s.

One complicated door opening, where Twilight briefly forgot she had a horn, later, and the changeling was lying comfortably on her side...

...In the only bed, Twilight realized.

Twilight briefly thought about trying to find another bed, but was too reluctant to leave the changeling unguarded, even if the city was as deserted as it looked like.

Grumbling she grabbed a pillow off the bed, along with the quilt at the foot of the bed. The quilt was made of a silky material that Twilight hadn't seen before. Twilight sat down on the stone floor and cracked open a book.

A couple minutes later Twilight gave up trying to read the book in the fading sunlight, and laid her head down on the pillow.

Several more minutes later, Twilight gave up on sleeping on the stone floor after losing the feeling in her legs, and begrudgingly climbed into the bed, back to back with the changeling. Who then rolled over and brought her into an unconscious hug.

Great, thought Twilight. Just great.

But a tiny part of her mind took comfort in that hug. Regardless of the hugger, right now she was far from home, and one of the pillars of her life--the immortal princesses of Equestria--had been kicked out from under her.

Ever since she the first time saw Celestia raise the sun during the summer sun celebration, the princess (and eventually her sister Luna) had been imprinted on her as being above the world. Immortals with power over the sun and moon themselves, they represented stability above all else. But now.. now, Twilight wasn't sure if it all wasn't a facade.

Twilight shivered, and the changeling unconsciously responded by hugging her closer... and that was all Twilight needed right now.

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Naudia woke up holding something warm and soft, and lying on a bed. As she opened her eyes, she found herself in her own room again, looking around at the familiar walls inlaid with empathy stone. It was all inert now, but she could remember whiling away the time before sleep looking for pictures in the twisting patterns of glowing crystal.

Eventually her survey of her old room took her from the mirror backed vanity her mother had given her when she was ten, to the intricate carved wooden jewelry box a changeling carpenter couldn't resist giving to the six year old princess. Memory after memory, until her gaze wound its way around, until she was looking at the lavender pony sleeping in her hooves.

She looked so serene there, so untroubled.

And unbidden once more, her mother's words came to her mind.

"They will use you, they will beat you, call you a parasite, and use your special powers for unspeakable things. This is the way it is, this is the way it will always be."

At the time, Naudia had been attending school with the other changelings her age. Due to the limited numbers of children, she and the rest of the elementary age foals were grouped into one class, but the other students had never had any lessons like those her mother gave her in private after school.

She was a princess, she was special, and, as such, she was expected to succeed her mother after they had taken over Equestria. And, as such, Naudia needed to be held to a higher standard.

Then, her mind went back to the crumpled up note Naudia had found before Twilight sent her off on that little errand, and everything fell apart.

It was a note written in Twilight's hoofwriting on an unassuming piece of paper, but it spoke deep volumes about the librarian's inner thoughts. Before everything fell apart, Twilight wanted nothing more than to spend time with her.

Well, with Luna, but Naudia had dropped most of the Luna disguise after the first day. Abandoning the archaic mode of speech was easy; not using the "Royal Canterlot Voice" was trivial. During Pinkie’s party, she discovered that Luna's personality wouldn't fit into that at all, so she dropped that as well. After all that, she was left with what more or less boiled down to the truth.

The truth was that she cared for Twilight.

That somehow empowered her. She was going against her heritage and all her mother ever taught her.

But she cared for Twilight.

And that was all that mattered right now.