A Canterlot Farce

by River Road

A Canterlot Farce (Part 1)

“Good morning, Princess.”

Cadence turned around to give the palace maid a warm smile. The young unicorn mare before her was bowing deeply, something she still couldn’t get used to. “No need to be so formal, dear.” She chuckled. “Quite frankly, this close to the wedding I have other things on my mind…”

The mare nodded and looked up at her. “As you wish, Princess Cadenza.”

Cadence laughed. “Just call me Cadence, I won’t bite. Might I learn your name, too, while we’re doing introductions?”

The maid slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Cadence, but that is something I can’t tell you.” Her horn lit up with a light green aura.

“What do you mean? What are you… doing…?” The Princess tried to fight against the drowsiness for a moment, but quickly collapsed to the floor.

The other mare looked down at the sleeping alicorn for a moment and sighed. “This is it, then… The point of no return.” Her horn lit up once again and the Princess disappeared in a circle of green fire. “Stay safe, Princess. You’ll be needed soon enough.”

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Two pegasi were sitting in the light of a small lamp, surrounded by colorful crystals in one of the caves deep beneath Canterlot. Neither of them looked up from their cards as a flash of green lit the darkness near them for a second.

“It has started.”

“Mm-hm…”

“Think I’ll get to fight somepony?”

“Probably… It would be worrying if nopony put up a fight.”

The first pegasus set down his cards on the crystal between them and stood up, turning to the sleeping alicorn lying on the ground a few feet away. “I’ll get her to a more comfortable spot. She’s going to be here for a while.”

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~~~~~

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“I can’t wait to see Twily again. It’s been almost a year now since she went to Ponyville.” Shining Armor almost bounced up and down in excitement, glancing down through the window every few seconds to check if the train might be arriving a little earlier than expected – which, at this time of day, would be about three hours early.

Cadence let out a short giggle, watching her soon-to-be husband squirming like a little colt on his birthday. Some mares might have been irritated or offended by the fact that he almost seemed more excited about the prospect of seeing his sister again than he was about marrying into the royal family, and an alicorn princess no less. Cadence, however, wasn’t that kind of mare, and she knew what was so special about the young mare that was going to arrive later today; After all, the Princess had been the filly’s foalsitter for years.

“I am just as much looking forward to see her as you are.” She gently, but firmly put a hoof on his shoulder to calm him down a little. “I just hope that I’ll still be able to appreciate it when she’s here… Organizing the wedding is getting more and more stressful by the hour, so please don’t be mad if I seem a little irritated or out of it in the next two days. Speaking of stress, how is your shield holding up? I do hope you’re not overexerting yourself?” She carefully tapped his horn.

“It is starting to give me a little headache…” Shining noticed the concerned look on Cadence’s face and immediately continued, “But it’s really nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

Cadence sighed. “I’ll have to trust your judgment on that… But if it gets worse, don’t hold off on telling me and I’ll do my best to help you.”

“You worry too much about me. I’m the Captain of the Royal Guard, I can take care of myself. This whole threat against Canterlot is probably just some sort of joke, anyway.” Shining Armor paused and put a hoof to his chin thoughtfully. “Though now that you mention it… I do think keeping up that spell is giving me a bit of an appetite.”

“I’ve seen your appetite and that spell has nothing to do with it,” Cadence laughed. She stuck out her tongue at the stallion and waved for him to go. “Off with you, go get yourself something to eat. I’ll be having my hooves full without an oversized child sneaking around me all the time.”

The changeling mare disguised as Princess Cadence watched as Shining Armor happily dashed out of the room and closed the door behind him with her magic. Then she went back to the window and looked outside at the small town far off in the distance, barely visible behind the purple force field surrounding the city.

“Twilight Sparkle and her friends… Ponies from outside Canterlot, with a history of saving the world – they might be just what we need.”

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~~~~~

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“You’re marrying Cadence, you’re marrying Cadence~” The young purple unicorn bounced around her older brother in glee, coming to a stop just in front of the alicorn mare in question.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important?” The changeling-in-disguise gave the unicorn a skeptical look, raising an eyebrow. It took a good part of her training to keep up the charade, especially after overhearing most of the conversation. But she was a professional and she knew that this would be the most important job in her life.

“Cadence!” Twilight jumped up happily and then proceeded to chant what sounded like a nursery rhyme, complete with a set of motions.

“What are you doing?” Not-Cadence made the question sound slightly irritated, while at the same time she memorized the rhyme and the motions in case she needed it later.

“Cadence, it’s me, Twilight!” The unicorns face was still radiating happiness and hope towards her. It hurt the changeling to have to crush those feelings, but this was most likely the easiest way to advance their plan without problems. She walked right past Twilight, all but ignoring her and only giving an indifferent “Aha…” in response as she trotted up to Shining Armor.

The look of sadness, mixed with a bit of actual shock and disbelief, was still clearly visible on Twilight’s face as the changeling turned back around. The changeling knew that this look would haunt her dreams for a while, but it was a sacrifice that needed to be made… even if Shining Armor putting a foreleg around her shoulder only made the feelings of guilt worse. Still, the changeling’s face showed nothing of that inner turmoil, staying perfectly in her role.

“I’ve got to get back to my station,” Shining Armor spoke up, “but Cadence will be checking in with all of you to see how things are going. I think I speak for both of us when I say: We couldn’t be more excited to have you here. Right, dear?”

“Absolutely.” The changeling’s voice sounded sincere enough, but her eyes were full of malice as she smiled at Twilight.

“Well, let’s get to it.” Shining Armor turned around to walk back into the palace, with the changeling following right beside him and leaving Twilight Sparkle behind.

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~~~~~

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The changeling collapsed on the bed as soon as the doors to her chambers had closed. The preparations for the wedding might have been physically exhausting, but the toll it was taking on her emotions was a lot worse.

“I really hope this works out the way we planned… What we’re doing… what I’m doing is bad enough even if it is for a good cause.” She slowly rolled onto her back and stared up at the feeling, then closed her eyes with a sigh to enjoy the short moment of peace she had.

“Hello? Your Highness?”

The changeling’s ears perked up at the slightly squeaky voice and she quickly got back to her hooves. A very young pegasus colt peeked his head in from the balcony to look around the room. As soon as he spotted the pink alicorn he smiled and trotted into the room, over to her. He was carrying a small bag in his mouth and dropped it on the floor in front of her, smiling brightly.

“I thought that all this wedding preparing and organizing must be making you hungry, so I brought you something to eat. The pony down in the kitchens makes some amazing things from apples.”

“Aww, aren’t you cute…” The changeling started ruffling the young colt’s mane. Then, in one swift motion, she raised the hoof an inch and brought it back down to deliver a sharp whack over the head. “Nice try, but you’re not fooling me, cousin.”

“Owww! Why did you do that? I thought you were nice…” the colt whined, tears forming in his eyes as he looked up at the ‘Princess’. He kept this pose for a few seconds before his expression suddenly switched to mild annoyance. “Dangit, I just can’t get the jump on you, can I?”

The colt suddenly vanished in a burst of green fire, which quickly grew in size to reveal a young adult changeling; He looked much like a pony, except for the fact that he had black chitin where a normal pony would have fur, he had bug-like wings in addition to the black horn on his head and his mane was a light blue.

The pink alicorn facing him burst into fire just a second later, turning into a similar changeling, though some differences were apparent. This changeling had a different manestyle and eye color, for example, and it was visible that unlike her cousin she was a female specimen.

The two changelings looked at each other for a moment before both took a step forward to hug each other.

“How are you holding up, Crystal?” the male changeling asked, breaking away from the hug to look the other one in the eyes.

The changeling by the name of Crystal Love gave him a smile in return. “A lot better, now that you are here, cousin.”

“’Cousin’? We’re fighting a war here, so that’s ‘General Clean Cut’ to you!” Clean Cut said, taking a step back to perform an exaggerated salute.

“Well, in that case you’ll have to address me as ‘Queen Chrysalis’, don’t you?” Crystal Love shot back, laughing. However, her expression got serious again far too soon. “All of this still doesn't feel right…”

Clean Cut stepped forward again, putting a foreleg around the mare’s shoulder and giving her a stern look. “Don’t even start with that. This was your plan; it is not perfect, but everypony agreed that it was the best we could do if we want to change something. If we want to finally live, the changeling hive has to leave this country once and for all. Those were your words.”

Crystal sighed and gave him a small smile. “I know, and you’re right… I still feel horrible; I’ve been mean to ponies the whole day, I’ve thrown away perfectly good food. And you should’ve seen that one pegasus friend of Captain Armor’s sister: I couldn’t bring myself to even fake being mean at her, I barely managed to raise my voice at one of her birds. And it was singing horribly off-key.”

“I can’t help you much with your role, but I brought you something that might help with the food issue at least.” Clean Cut nudged the bag he had brought with a hoof, causing an apple fritter to spill out from it. Crystal’s eyes immediately lightened up.

“Are those from the buffet?! Oh, you can’t imagine how much this means to me!” She quickly picked up the first apple fritter and took a bite, savoring the taste. “Oh, those are divine. The stories about the Apple family really aren’t exaggerated.”

Clean Cut watched his cousin eat for a moment before he got back to his hooves and burst into flames again to transform into the pegasus colt from before. “I should go. Works will probably need my help with the last minute preparations. We’ve already set up the crystal at his office; you’ll just need to cast the spell when the time comes.”

“That’s good to hear…” Crystal stood up as well and turned back into the alicorn Princess as she walked over to the door of her chamber. “I still wanted to visit Shining Armor one more time this evening to make sure he’s okay… Keeping up the shield is starting to take a toll on his magic. I just hope he won’t be too weak by the time of the wedding.”

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“Twily! Your big brother’s looking pretty good, don’t ya think?” A short pause. “Huh… Everything okay?”

Crystal’s ears perked up over in the next room. She hadn’t expected to meet Twilight Sparkle again before tomorrow, and she didn’t really like the idea of having to be mean to Shining’s sister any more. Maybe forcing a fight with Shining Armor would help advance her plans without having to keep up the act the whole rest of the day.

“We need to talk,” Twilight said. Crystal followed her voice, walking through the doorway to see the two siblings standing together.

“I don’t think that–“ Twilight continued, but was interrupted by the sound of Crystal Love clearing her throat. The changeling-in-disguise walked down the stairs, giving the two an annoyed look.

“Oh, uhm, hi sweetie…” Shining greeted her. Twilight mumbled something as well, but the changeling chose to ignore that.

“Could I speak to you for a moment, dear?” Crystal didn’t even wait for an answer, just turning around and walking off for Shining Armor to follow. The stallion followed without hesitation.

Once they were inside the room, Crystal turned around to him. She didn’t want to waste any time with this. “Look, we need to talk.”

“I'm here to talk.” Shining put up his hooves in a calming gesture, but she wasn’t going to have any of that. She knew how to coax an argument, and she was going to get it.

“It's about your sister, okay?”

“I– look, look, she's okay–“

“Just... listen to me.”

“I'm listening, I'm listening.”

“And I thought I made it perfectly clear I didn’t want you to wear that.” Crystal pointed at the silver plate strapped to Shining's chest, adorned with a purple star.

“This was my favorite uncle’s!”

Crystal gave him an indifferent look. “And…?”

“And I think I should wear it.”

“Are you disagreeing with me?” She knew that she almost had him now. It wouldn’t be enough to call the wedding off, of course, but it would give her an excuse to retreat back to her chamber early and maybe even make Shining get a little suspicious.

“I guess I am!” Shining shouted with an defiant look, but flinched back as soon as he had finished the sentence. He held a hoof to his head for a moment, a pained look on his face.

“Oh dear… Are you getting another one of your headaches?” Crystal was torn between pity for him and light annoyance at the horrible timing of the headache. She couldn’t be mad at him when he was obviously in pain like this. She immediately focused her magic to cast a healing spell. The migraine seemed to be worse than any of the ones Shining had before, causing him to collapse on the floor in seconds. Crystal didn’t waste time for casting the spell, but it would only take effect slowly. Still, Shining got back to his hooves again, his eyes spinning from the sudden changes between pain and relief.

“Feeling better?” She just couldn’t keep up the mean act when the other pony was like that. Shining nodded weakly, still a little dizzy from the spell. Together they walked back out of the room just in time to see Shining’s sister gallop through the door out of the house.

“Twilight!” Shining shouted after her, but the mare was already gone.

“Let her go.” Crystal nuzzled his neck to calm him down. Honestly, she was rather glad that she wouldn’t have to deal with Twilight anymore today. She felt exhausted, and not just because of the spell she had cast or having to oversee the wedding preparations. If Twilight had seen the changeling heal her brother, she might accept her as the kind pony Princess Cadence was supposed to be. Crystal Love would have to find somepony else who would doubt her identity, but that was another problem, and it would have to wait until tomorrow.

She stayed with Shining for a few more minutes, but quickly excused herself to go back to the palace. The wedding was less than a day away, and she would need all her wits and power if the plan was to go smoothly.

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~~~~~

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The two large doors leading into the palace’s main hall glowed with blue and yellow magic, then swung open. Crystal Love took this as her cue to regally trot inside, towards the podium where Princess Celestia was waiting with the groom and the five bridesmares.

“I'll say a few words, and then we'll begin with the vows,” Celestia instructed. “Shining Armor, you'll get the ring from your best mare.”

Both Crystal Love and Shining Armor looked over to where a little dragon was sitting on the stairs, playing with the two figures from the wedding cake.

“Hey…” Shining Armor turned back to Cadence and the five bridesmares. “Has anypony seen Twilight?”

“I'm here!” Everypony turned around as the two doors opened again. Twilight Sparkle stomped into the hall. The unicorn looked angry, almost furious. “I'm not gonna stand next to her! And neither should you!”

Crystal Love refrained herself from smiling at the theatrical entrance. There was no way in Tartarus this pony still trusted her; now Twilight only had to convince her friends.

Shining Armor on the other hand looked clearly embarrassed about his sister’s behavior. “I'm sorry.” He turned to Crystal. “I... I don't know why she's acting like this.”

The changeling put on an indignant expression, not even turning around to Twilight. “Maybe we should just ignore her.”

“You have to listen to me!” Twilight yelled, shooting glares at Crystal.

Her friend, the shy yellow pegasus was immediately by her side. “Oh, goodness! Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“Ya sure about that?” the orange mare from the Apple family remarked, but Twilight simply pulled the mare’s stetson hat over her face to shut her up.

“I've got something to say!” Twilight announced, pointing an accusatory hoof at Crystal. “She's evil!”

Shining Armor protectively stepped in front of his bride without hesitation. Crystal took on an adequately shocked expression while the rest of the ponies began their concerned chattering among themselves.

“She's been horrible to my friends,” Twilight continued, teleporting right behind Crystal and crouching down in an aggressive pose.

“She's obviously done something to her bridesmaids…“ Twilight stepped closer to Crystal threateningly, forcing her to back against a wall. The changeling could just have revealed herself right then, of course, but that seemed neither like good timing, nor was she in a good position to rant about invasion and conquering.

“And if that wasn't enough, I saw her put a spell on my brother that made his eyes go all…” Twilight turned around to her friends, probably to give an impression of Shining Armor’s earlier migraine. Crystal didn’t have any time to get back on all four again, though, as the other mare turned right back to her, invading her private space and giving her a self-confident smirk.

The changeling-in-disguise pondered her options for a moment. She still didn’t think that this was a good opportunity to start phase three of the plan. She needed some sort of way to get out of this situation that fit Cadence’s role, but would still raise suspicion with the other ponies. It only took her two seconds to decide on a course of action. Like every good actress, she knew how to act badly just as much as she could act a role like she really was the pony.

She let out a few half-hearted sobs, the first tears showing in her eyes just a little too quickly. “Why are you doing this to me?!” She dashed past Twilight and towards the doors, crying loudly.

“Because you're evil!” Twilight yelled after her triumphantly. Crystal could hear the unicorn teleport after her as she ran out of the room, still crying. “Evil! And if I don't stop you, you're gonna ruin my brother's life!“

Crystal slowed down once she had turned the corner into an empty hallway. She didn’t stop crying just yet, partially in case somepony might follow her, but also because even fake tears had something healing and refreshing about them. Stopping halfway through a good crying just wasn’t good for the mind, just like it was with real tears.

It didn’t take her long to catch herself, and she stepped behind a column just in time to see Celestia, Shining Armor and Twilight’s friends walking out of the wedding hall down the hallway. They were talking about Twilight and it seemed like they were quite angry at her for crashing the test ceremony.

Crystal almost couldn’t believe her ears. Confound her talent for acting and those thickheaded ponies, it seemed like they were still convinced that she was just the usual slightly-stressed-out bride.

She marched back to the ceremony hall angrily. If they wouldn’t see subtle hints, she would try to be less subtle. She wasn’t completely sure how, but a good way to start might be venting her frustration on Twilight Sparkle; maybe the young mare would crash her brother’s real wedding as well and give her another opportunity to reveal herself.

“He was my big brother, best friend
Forever...
And now, we'll never do anything
Together...“

Crystal’s frustration was pushed to the back of her mind when she saw the young mare – almost just a vulnerable filly in this moment, lie on the steps to the altar. Silently, she stepped around her until she was in front of Twilight’s head, and gently stroked her mane to calm her down.

“I’m sorry!”

Two simple words, meant to make amends with a friend, but for Crystal Love it only brought back all the frustration she had felt towards the other ponies. Even Twilight Sparkle accepted that she was the real deal. She didn’t know any other ponies who might question her identity now.

Well, no other ponies except for one…

“You will be.” Crystal growled, almost snarling at Twilight as she lit her magic to start a spell. Green flames erupted out of the floor, creating a ring of fire around the confused unicorn. She gave Twilight one last look through the flames, an evil grin that no actual villain would ever master unless they spent several years in acting school. Then she turned around and walked away, leaving the other mare to helplessly sink through the floor.

It was a risk she was taking, but it was a controlled risk and she wouldn’t be so stupid to wait until the last second. She had made plans for this as well. They had planned for every possibility they could think of. There was always some risk left, but in the end their plan would succeed.

She would do everything in her power to make sure of that.