Nopony Impersonates Celestia, Ever
I was finally out of my cell, by order of the Crown. And, I was finding myself somewhere infinitely worse.
The throne room, inexplicably required to take part in my own trial. Life was somehow both capricious and cruelly forgiving. A pony should have the right to have their fate decided by a higher power, I thought. Perhaps as a changeling, that was denied me.
Well. At least someone was on my side in this.
“Because none of you are taking this seriously! He is a changeling. By his own admission, he’s of dual loyalties. He hasn’t and as far as I can tell, isn’t going to disavow the changelings or even the Queen! He isn’t even sure he could if he wanted to!”
“Captain, that is hardly relevant. He was a changeling before we knew him, and will likely remain so.”
“And they assaulted us as a whole. Are there fringe groups? Any sort of schisms in their country?”
Celestia hesitated, venturing “...he assures us there are not” in a tone that did not exhibit much confidence.
“That is not quite correct. He has assured us there are no schisms within the Hive, true, but if he is in exile, also as he has claimed, then the schism is the Hive and everypony… er… everychangeling, perhaps? Everyling?” Luna looked about for guidance, but the rest of the court did not seem sure of the terminology either. “Regardless, every changeling that isn’t in his former Hive is essentially an exile, but are they like-minded to one another or is every one of them operating independently? If the former, we could establish dialogue with their representatives… but if the latter, any attempt to contact one might be isolating us from the others.”
Shining grimaced, staring down at the map before them of ‘war assets’. “Do we even want to do that?”
“Of course we do! The alternative is them continuing to eke out an existence on the fringes of Equestrian society! But it may be moot. Even should we recognize Idol as a representative, they did not choose him and he would refuse the position.”
The elder princess gave a sigh, but you didn’t need to be a changeling to taste fondness in it. “Probably. So we’ll order him to take it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? Luna, it’s a perfect solution,” came the baffled argument from the Sun Princess.
The moon princess was abashed, but firm. “I promised I would not allow him to be promoted against his will. It was a boon, and I intend to upkeep it.”
“Sister, you are being ridiculous.”
“Tis all ridiculous! Thou knowest for true that he is the same pony or not-pony he has always been. The only thing changed is that we know him for a not-pony. We believe his status as changeling should be ignored. For ten years it did not have relevance, and when it did, still his loyalty remained. Even allowing us to determine his fate is evidence of his faithfulness, and we yet remand him to a cell?!”
“And if the ponies of Canterlot became aware, it could be disastrous!”
“Then ‘twould be our duty to mitigate said disaster!”
“Luna, I’m putting my hoof down on this. You haven’t been back that long, and this is a matter of Equestrian Society. My vote, as such, holds more weight.”
“I think we need to clarify that,” Cadance finally broke in, taking a deep breath. “It’s accepted that you are taking matters of Equestrian day-to-day affairs under your wings. Luna is taking care of the more subtle matters in Equestria, and the mental health of our people. Shining has authority in military matters as Captain of the Royal Guard, and Queen Chrysalis made this a military matter by invading Canterlot. As such, he has a priority vote in that regard, which in this… weird tribunal system you’ve made, doubles his vote.”
“Not precisely helpful, niece. The two of us are firmly in disagreement with him.”
“But you’re also both wrong. Changelings that are not involved in the invasion fall completely under my purview, as both a matter of Love and diplomacy. Just as the bat ponies are deferred to Luna, this should be a matter of my dealing, as I’m the only one who seems to have anything they actually want.”
Luna snorted, but gave a firm nod even as Celestia seemed on the verge of disagreement. “I accept your logic, you should have more authority here. Wonderful, now instead of a three way argument, we drag it out in four.”
Princess Cadance did not look overly pleased with her increased status over the issue of changelings, but she had more to announce. “...I stand with my husband on this matter.”
The clear betrayal on Luna’s face implied her instant dismay. “Your husband who believes Idol should be kept under scrutiny?”
“I do. And… like him, I fear it won’t happen here. Idol is a dear friend, but his faith in himself is more shaken than mine… perhaps with good reason. He demands to be held accountable, and until one of us is willing to do so, we are at a stalemate. Shining may be angry,” she gestured at the still relatively freshly minted prince, “-but he’s right. We can’t just let him be, and leaving him in a cell until this all blows over is unacceptable. It’s gone on too long already. If we’re really worried, we can just ask Twilight and her friends to use the Elements of Harmony to-”
The twin reply was apparently not one she expected. “No!”
Luna was the first to elaborate. “Absolutely not! I shall not see him banished to the moon for a thousand years, or cast in stone.”
“The Elements seem to draw upon their wielder’s mindset in some fashion. I’m afraid Twilight could feel as betrayed as Shining, and a thousand years of banishment may only be possible for an immortal. I shudder to think what it would do for somepony who ages naturally.”
Cadance looked shocked. “You don’t think it would just… I don’t know, clean him out?”
“Tis not a diuretic, niece. And I do not know that his nature is that of Harmony. Much like Discord, the elements may determine the best solution to his problem is to remove him from the board. Perhaps until his conflicted loyalties will no longer trouble him.”
“Oh, so when his current Queen dies of old age?”
The moon princess snorted. “If she were to be so lucky. That is not a certainty, should we determine just where she hides her head. Regardless, I will not gamble either exile or imprisonment in stone on anyone’s whims, let alone a matched set of rocks whose judgements I cannot begin to predict.”
“What if they just made him a regular pony?” the pink princess challenged.
“Is… that not worse?” Celestia asked, looking between adopted niece and sibling-by-blood. “Idol is and has been a changeling all his life. The Elements may do just that, they may have the power, but… Idol, I would have your thoughts.”
I was almost surprised that my input was required by this august body, and it took me a moment to collect my thoughts on the matter and translate them from the horror at the idea to something appropriate for royal discussion. “...I… do not think I would want to be forcibly changed from what I am, your Highnesses.”
“Then the Elements remain off the table.” Celestia pronounced with a single sharp rap of hoof to table. “Besides, Cadance, the use of the Elements of Harmony is not a matter of our choosing, merely at our discretion to request. I’m not sure Twilight and her friends can use them on a whim, and the misuse is what I believe led to my loss of access to them in the first place.”
“Hardly misuse, sister. You did what needed to be done.”
“A failing on my part apparently doesn’t constitute an emergency on their own.”
Luna hesitated, and I could feel conflicted emotions towards her sister. The younger princess wanted badly to comfort the elder, to reassure, but… unfortunately, the issue of ‘me’ remained. “I am not convinced, but that is neither here nor there. I do not think that bringing Twilight Sparkle and her friends in is necessary or wise. In fact, I believe revealing potentially embarrassing state secrets to the Element of Honesty is quite possibly a disaster waiting to happen. Let alone what the Element of Loyalty would think.”
“The Elements have to be kept separate from politics in general as a rule,” Celestia agreed, dryly. “While I wish dearly that weren’t so, I think the only bearer with any actual acumen in the subject is Twilight, and… well. She isn’t quite there yet.”
“Your Highnesses,” I begged. “Could you all please stop discussing state secrets in front of me?”
Celestia peered owlishly at me for a moment, then gave the single most unprincesslike snort of annoyance I’d ever heard from her. “Maybe Shining is right, this is impossible. I’m so used to Idol being… present I can’t quite bring myself to guard my tongue.”
Luna only grumbled, setting head down on table to glare at the others, wings slightly puffed in a clear pout. “I will guard my tongue when tongues need be guarded.”
“Luna…”
“You’re missing the point, Your Highnesses. And we’re far afield of it. Whether or not Idol is a threat, we need some means of determining changelings in our midst. Thus far, dreams don’t work because apart from Idol, none of them dream.”
“There are more nightmares of ponies discovering their loved ones are replaced by changelings than one can easily parse in a single night. Let alone those who discover they are changelings and now have to convince their loved ones it’s truly them. One even dreams that they are a changeling and another pony has taken their place. That one is… particularly insidious. The point remains that I cannot determine who is and is not dreaming without dedicating focus. Tis difficult enough without at least a passing familiarity with the individual, and determining their physical location through dreams…” Luna shook her head. “I would be hard-pressed to do so regardless. One rarely controls their dreams and my duties are already ones that must be carefully regulated. This oversteps those boundaries, I fear. I confess I am relieved that my search has proven fruitless.”
Prince Shining was not well-pleased by Luna’s reluctance to aid in his attempts to secure Equestria, and I could hardly blame him. Near as I could glean, the wedding lead-up had been an unmitigated disaster, the Elements had been defeated, and the Queen had… nearly married him, which oddly remained the least surprising part of the entire enterprise. And I was drifting again in an attempt to block out business far above my station or lack thereof.
“-then we’re down to the only thing we can really do, which is to have him to identify changelings and where they’d be hiding.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I considered, but it was a valid question. “...I have made my oaths to protect my people. While you may not consider the changelings to be yours, I must consider them to be mine. It would not be a lawful order by my own perception, unless the changelings were made criminal. In which case I would also not be able to comply, as I would be remanded to a cell. While I can identify some of them, I do not think I should.”
Celestia sighed. “Some remnant of those prior Orders, then?”
“If so, it is one I remain in agreement with.”
“And you don’t see how that conflicts with your guard oaths?”
“I do, in fact. But I dearly hope it will not come up, though I fear it will. And if that day arrives, I shall have to trust another’s judgement over my own. I have sworn to trust Shining Armor above all others in this regard.”
Shining started, looking at me in an almost indignant bewilderment. “What? Why me?”
“I have not always had the utmost faith in your decisions, but you have always had good reason and they are for the greater good. So, I am sworn to obey you beyond merely guard oaths. It was…” I searched for an explanation, finding none save the obvious. “It was necessary. If I cannot trust my own mind, I will trust yours.”
Shining stared at me, and to my great confusion, he only grew more upset. “And if I refuse?”
“It does not matter if you refuse. I shall follow your lead unless I am ordered away.”
“It’s stupid, is what it is. What if I order you to break the law?”
“Captain, we’ve established he won’t-”
“I established I would not break the law under my oaths as a guard. This is… different. I needed something to anchor myself to, and Shining is a particularly solid rock. I must trust someone utterly. His suspicion is proof that I have chosen correctly.”
“Faust!” the unicorn in question spat. He lifted a hoof wearily, forestalling any further explanation. “...how did you all just let him do this…?”
Celestia pursed her lips. “I don’t really let Idol do anything. A great deal of him just… happens.”
“We have a prisoner of a hostile nation that is intentionally being as helpful as he can without risking… their… screwed up way of life. We need details to make sense of all this.”
Cadance perked up. “Shining, we don’t have to push Idol directly, and we have someone who may be able to interpret his… oddities to an Equestrian perspective.” Her horn flashed, and the seal on the door momentarily disengaged.
“This was agreed to be a closed council, Cadance-” Celestia began, wings flaring even as the doors opened.
I did not need to see the golden pegasus behind the cart full of documentation to know it was her. I didn’t need to hear her grunt as the blasted cart wheel stuck as it always did to recognize her voice. I do admit, I would have given Cadance quite the glare… if the mare behind me didn’t send a wave of anger my way that nearly put me to the ground. Tentatively I looked to Topaz, who was standing in a similar booth to mine, with her jaw held very tight. I suddenly felt that I was a colt about to receive a scolding that might turn to a switching.
“P… Professor Showers.”
She gave me a cool nod, then a double-take, scattering her papers as she rushed over to me. “Oh Harmony!” She put a hoof to forehead, pushing my head around to look in my eyes and at my face. “How could you do this to him!? What the buck is wrong with you all?!”
“We- we haven’t done anything, what are you talking about- Professor Showers, please-”
“Oh my gosh, you’ve got scars, and you’ve lost all this weight- are you not feeding him!?”
A minute. A minute at most and my landmare had the Princess of the Sun flustered. “No! I mean, yes, we have, of course, he was… there was a small period where we didn’t know he had to eat- but-” She seemed to shrink as the upset pegasus stalked up to the dias.
“He looks a changeling scarecrow! What happened to his legs?! Did you drill new holes in him!?” And I watched in complete awe as Topaz browbeat three members of royalty she’d known most of her life and one newcomer whom she probably had not quite internalized the new status of.
“It is not like that, Topaz. I am… fine, mostly. Sort of.”
And like a good guard should, I deflected aggression from my charges and onto me, as Topaz spun towards me, having worked up quite the fury. “Oh, we’re talking now?! ‘We need to talk’, you say, and then you turn yourself in and get locked away Harmony knows where?! Not even a breath to me?! Trying to make amends?! For what?!”
“I was only in the dungeon…” I managed, completely unready for this conversation. “I… I must have done something to… to make you feel- and I was hoping the effect would wear off-”
Topaz stared at me from where she was standing before the council of royals, then stormed over, and I shied away from the torrent of emotions. “What the hay are you talking about?!”
“Idol was not… ah… fully in control of himself in the events leading up to the wedding.”
“...What?” The golden pegasus seemed unsure who she should be glaring at now, but she seemed like she might have enough for everyone.
“I… was under the influence of the Queen, whatever I did to you-”
“You’re blaming her for breaking my headboard?!”
“N-no, I don’t… I don’t recall… the details are-”
“...Are you telling me you don’t remember… what we did?”
“Not…not in full, just b-bits and pieces,” I admitted, unable to meet her eyes.
“...You don’t remember what you said…? It… it wasn’t you?” She sounded more than angry about this, she sounded distressed.
“I don’t… I don’t know but I think… I don’t think I would have intentionally said anything untrue, I just… did not recall that I was a changeling… I think?”
From the council, I heard Celestia murmuring. “I do not think I’ve ever heard Idol stammer before. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him at this much of a loss. Luna, why are you blushing?”
“...because we have just realized the first dream we saw was not actually a dream and perhaps they are due some privacy?”
Opting to ignore the Peanut Gallery of the Most High, I had to explain myself. “I… I had to get away, so you wouldn’t be under the control of… of whatever I did. I am deeply sorry-”
“...Idol, you stupid son of a bug, I wasn’t under any sort of mind control! I knew what I was doing!”
“Clearly.”
“Luna!”
Topaz, for her part, seemed to be winding down. “Mind control. Of course. Only way you’d ever… Idol, you are so…” She stopped, wet her lips, then looked to the ceiling as if asking for strength. “Idol, have you been hiding in the dungeon… because we knocked hooves and you think I didn’t have free will? Because I don’t actually love you?”
“Yes! That! That exactly!” I let out a sigh of relief. Finally, someone understood. “Thank you!”
She put a hoof over her face. “Okay, good, you’re just being dumb. I do love you, so you can go ahead and deal with that, because we jumped way past the silly awkward phase of whatever we’re doing about it.”
“...oh.” Because there was nothing else to say to that.
The silence was all-encompassing, and Celestia clearing her throat was a boon I neither deserved nor expected. “Perhaps… we should discuss this without him. Shining, perhaps you could return him to his cell?” She noted that Topaz seemed about to protest, and quickly, with great wisdom, forestalled it. “Just for the moment, and I’m not going to prevent you from seeing him anymore, as that seems to be a lost cause,” she assured, giving her not-at-all-penitent niece a reproving glare.
For my part, I was willingly led from the chambers by Prince Armor, and I was glad not to be the focus of so much ferocious intention, too many thoughts crashing through my head to think about any of them.
I was all too willing to pass the time after being returned to my cell in silence, but Shining seemed out of sorts in his own way. As he was my prince, and I was sworn to his service, it fell upon me to raise the question… but I was unsure where to begin when he finally took the initiative from me.
“So. Topaz, huh?”
“...Indeed.”
“...So all this time we thought the two of you were… no?”
“Not until the wedding, apparently.”
He looked disbelievingly at me, then gave a snort and a chuckle. “Damn. Here we thought the two of you were freaky, and you only actually got freaky right before we did.”
“It was never like that. It was… a misunderstanding. And then we couldn’t explain, it was too embarrassing, and too… well… useful.”
Shining gave me a look. “Starting to think you’re the only one misunderstanding anything.”
“Apparently I am. Was. Still am, perhaps?”
“...Faust, you’ve screwed this one up, bud-” he cut off the last word with a snap, then looked away, angry at the both of us. “...So how’d you fall in love with a pony?”
That seemed straightforward, at least. “How could I not? You’ve met Topaz.”
That got a laugh out of him. “She’s not my type. Not completely different, sure, but…” Another faint laugh, almost understanding. “...You ever told her that?”
“Of course not. Why insult her with something I cannot give her?”
“...Yeah. Yeah, you’re still a friggin’ idiot.” He rubbed at his face. In the council, I had not seen how utterly exhausted he was, and not just physically. “How the hay could I think you’re a spy and you still be this damn oblivious?”
“I could not tell that she loved me, it was forbidden! This… this is not allowed. Expressly. I cannot see if others are interested in me in… in that way.”
“Thank Faust for that,” he grumbled. “This is awkward enough. Does she still?”
“Unfortunately. I have to… I have to fix this, somehow.”
“...You’re going to fix a mare being in love with you. Well, good luck.”
“Sarcasm is unbecoming of a prince.”
“Have you met Blueblood? He’s basically the master of it.”
“Oh, Order, please do not start emulating him on the technicality of a name. No kingdom deserves that.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t base your life around the whims of a ruler you don’t actually like.”
“It is not the same. I… the Queen is very explicit that those of us who are exiles should not reproduce. I do not know how much effort it truly takes her, but all of us, we seem completely incapable of… of doing as I did. The purpose of such is procreation, and we… Order! I didn’t even think about that, Shining, you must pass a message, you must warn Topaz that-”
“Hang on. I am… I am not ready to have a conversation with Topaz about you two doing the horizontal mambo. I don’t think I ever want to. Pretty sure she’d have let you know if that was a concern already. I think Cady would have broken you out if she knew, and… she usually knows pretty much immediately. There was a period where ponies thought her congratulating them guaranteed they were about to conceive because she was so accurate, but it really just means there’s one on the way. Took her a while to crank that enthusiasm down. Some ponies want to learn the old fashioned way and be surprised.”
“Ponies are strange,” I accepted, gravely, but I was still filled with misgivings. “...May we talk of something else? Anything else?”
“What’s to talk about? The Crystal Empire is a mess. Sombra screwed them up so bad they’re still scared of their own shadows. He actually faked his own defeat once. Let them get excited and start celebrating, then threw the ones who stepped in to help lead into some dungeon or worse. They’re afraid to say their names, and absolutely nopony wrote anything down that might warrant a visit. They’re hoping we’re the real deal, but they’ve been burned before.”
“That is… nightmarish.”
“Not that we beat him in any way that looks like we knew what we were doing. He hit me with something, I couldn’t use more than a splash of magic, stupid crystals on my horn drained it all away.”
“...Like in the interrogation room was supposed to, I take it?”
Another explosive sigh. “Yeah. Almost exactly like it. Maybe it’s stronger in crystalline form, I don’t know. Or when they’re fresh?” He waved the thought away. “Doesn’t matter. He spread dark magic-sucking crystals and some kind of shadow magic like mold, everywhere he touched.”
I considered that. It seemed quite unfair, honestly. “Sounds like cheating hogwash. What was he after?”
“Ahhh, enslavement of the populace, general misery, you know the gist.”
“It sounds like one of your Ogres villains.”
“Ha! Yeah, it kinda was like that, if I were a level one newbie and he was a freaking lich. You should have heard him. ‘Crystalllllls, raaaaaugh’.”
“What a tool,” I sympathized.
Shining gave another small chuckle, this one more introspective. “...He kicked my flank, Idol. Took my magic like it was nothing. Not that it mattered, any shield I made fell apart, unless Cady was maintaining it. And… she’s never had to do it before.”
“It does take some getting used to. I could never make anything of the complexity you do.”
“It was bad… it was real bad. She was falling apart, I couldn’t do anything, we got Twilight to come in…” A hint of anger. Shining was not a fan of his younger sister being put in harm’s way, but he had mostly come to terms with it. “...And she ended up getting stuck in one of his traps. Spike had to bring us the heart, and he nearly fell right onto Sombra doing it. And I couldn’t do a thing. The safety of ponies we were entrusted to care for fell into the talons of a baby dragon. It’s bad enough when it’s Twilight, she’s got five friends and six magical artifacts backing her up, Spike just has us and we were already shut down!”
“Surely you did something, because everything turned out alright, as far as I have heard.”
“Yeah, I picked up Cady and threw her at the heart, she snagged it and Spike and managed to land and get the thing activated. I couldn’t believe it worked, it was such a dumb idea...”
“Any idea that works is not a du-” I blinked, parsing that once more in my mind. “You threw your wife at an enemy?!”
“Kkkkiiinda?”
I mimicked the motion I had seen in sportsball. “You cast… the Princess of Love… like she was a hoofball?” Words could not express my distress. If I were a pony, I think I might have turned gray at the very idea.
“Mmmmmore like a javelin…?”
“How is that any better?! Have I traded one mad ruler for another?!”
“Hey!”
“How could you even do that?!”
“I don’t know, adrenaline? Spike was falling to his death, Sombra was about to get the Crystal Heart! It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I didn’t have any other ones!” Shining snapped, slamming a hoof into the wall. “...I could have lost them, Idol. Could have lost Twilight, Spike… Cady. I don’t even want to think what Sombra would have done to them. He’s… he was a freaking monster. I don’t even know if you could call whatever he is a pony anymore. Not even really sure he’s dead at all!” He dragged his hooves over his face, then through his mane. “And you wanna know what ticks me off the most about all of it?”
“There’s more?”
“Yeah,” came the almost unwilling admission, as he gave me an irritated look. “The whole time? I kept wishing I still had you around. You always get the job done, no matter how ridiculously it gets accomplished, or what you need to do.”
“And what would I do against a crystalline shadow pony capable of standing against alicorns?!”
“I don’t know, maybe you’d have eaten him! It worked on the timberwolf!”
“We only ate its heart, that was different.”
“Yeah, and would you have chucked Cady at him to save the kingdom?”
“Well… no, probably not, but…” I flicked out my wings, giving them a quick buzz. “...I can fly under my own power.”
“Tartarus. You could have. I was thinking of you like a unicorn, not…” He shook his head, glaring at me and then away. “...Why’d you have to be a changeling? Couldn’t we have just… kept doing what we were doing?”
“I dearly wish we could have,” I confessed. “I don’t know what I would have chosen had I not believed I needed to convince you of my own veracity. Foolishly, as it turns out.”
“No. No, you wouldn’t be Idol if you didn’t do stupid things in earnest that get you into trouble. And now you’re doing it again. Making me your moral compass. I don’t want it, damn it. I don’t want that level of authority over anyone. Nopony should ever have it.” A slow breath through his nostrils, as if making a choice that left a bitter taste in his mouth. “...And I bucking need it.”
“...sir?”
“You heard me, the Empire’s a mess. The ponies that used to be guards? Mindthralled by Sombra, most of them are even more traumatized than the rest of the population. I need someone who’s been there. Someone who has been screwed with and has some sort of idea how it is. Someone I can trust.”
“You still trust me?”
Shining looked at me, jaw clenching a few times before he finally answered with a sad shake of his head. “I can trust you as far as I can throw you. At the very least I can verify what you’re doing in the Empire. I just can’t do the work myself. If I even scowl in the presence of one they start groveling.”
That hurt, but Shining had the right to it. “I… see. Perhaps given your recent history, that saying expresses a little more faith than you intended?”
Shining tilted his head from side to side, but the gentle jibe did little for his mood. “Maybe. The point is, the Empire needs its own patrolling force. If we just import guards from Equestria, we’re going to just… overwhelm them. They’ll just be a vassal forever, not because of anything we intended, but because it’s so small and Equestria has its own culture that evolved in the thousand years since they vanished. They won’t… they won’t have an identity if we don’t help them stand on their own. Ruling, sure, because none of them will do it because if Sombra comes back from the dead or something, he’ll execute their leaders if they’re lucky. We have to do it this way. It’s the right way.”
I nodded, slowly. “That does make sense. But how am I to help in this?”
He gave me a flat look. “You’re gonna be my second in command.” At my look of abject horror, he barked a short laugh. “You were always gonna be. A good officer needs a good sergeant to keep the troops in line. I didn’t even bother coming up with a second choice, that’s how sure I was of it.”
I weakly tried to protest. “Princess Luna did promise I would receive no promotions-”
“Yeah, and this is a punishment. You want me to believe you’re going to follow my orders, then fine. I hereby order you to fix the Crystal Guard.”
I flinched, but I could almost feel the weight of it settling into my chitin, like a law etched into my very being. It was… almost liberating, in a strange way. A sense of purpose. A bit more like my old self. I straightened, feeling a hint of the old pride returning. “Then it shall be done.”
“Good. And just… be Idol. I don’t… I don’t want to see this again.” He motioned towards me. “It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I keep seeing her. Just… just let me pretend.”
“As you wish, sir,” and I resumed the unicorn form he was most familiar with, and he gave a small firm nod, a little of the sick look leaving his features.
“I’ll figure the rest of the details out. Get you transferred. Celestia’s gonna be ticked. Screw it. She wants this to blow over, it’ll blow over with you in the Crystal Empire. Call it an executive decision. And as soon as it’s done, I’m going to need you to start carrying out that order.”
“By your command.”
“Idol. Wake up.”
I blinked a few times. It was the depth of night, and very much Luna’s hours, which made the presence of the Solar Princess all the more confusing. “Your majesty…? What?”
“You are summoned to the throne room, and you are making me wait. To your hooves.”
“I… am?” I was in an unusual fog; for obvious reasons, my sleep had been less than restful.
The princess’s voice was surprisingly frosty. “Yes. Apparently. I see you’re back to holding pony form, good.”
“I have been ordered to maintain such by the Prince.”
“Of course you have, fantastic, that’s going to be very healthy, I’m sure.” Ah, yes. I had forgotten that the Princess could be… terse when her sleep was interrupted, though it was very unusual that anypony would dare.
“Ah… perhaps we could hold council here?”
“You were summoned to the throne, not your cell, or else I’d agree.”
“Could I ask for what purpose?”
“You could, but strangely, I’m not entirely certain myself! Isn’t that interesting?”
“But… Luna rarely uses the throne so late. She has other tasks to occupy her time…”
“Oh no, my sister didn’t summon you. I did.”
Well, that was ominous. And… confusing. And perhaps a host of other things. I did not like being the common element in a contagious bout of madness. We did not take the common route of back passages, but instead marched right through the main halls, where a pair of guards were studying the marble floor as if their gazes could polish it to a mirrored shine.
Celestia plastered on a smile that left me anything but relieved. “Am I still in residence?”
“Well-ye-you… she’s… I just didn’t-”
Celestia nodded as if that response had meant something. “Good enough!” With that, she threw the doors open. “Now announcing Idol Hooves, as you requested.”
There was a squeak in the room, and I looked past Princess Celestia… at… Princess Celestia, sitting regally on the throne. A very pink, very sheepish looking Princess Celestia. At roughly three-quarters scale. “Ohhhhh nnnnnnno.”
“You know, I understand that changelings are all about love. You know what I would love, right now? An explanation.”
I couldn’t comply. Simply could not. I could only sit and put my head in both hooves. “Ohhhh Nymph, what have you done…?”
The Pinklestia stammered a bit, before offering a lame “Maybe I’m the real one…?”
“You’re pink.”
“She’s pink!” The false one accused, pointing at the true Solar Princess.
“Not that pink! I just… I can’t…” I look at the Princess, whose emotions were beyond my deciphering. “I… I…there… there is an explanation. I just… don’t have it. Yet.”
“Really, now? You can’t explain why one of my guards woke me up in the dead of night to inform me that I had walked in, declared an emergency session, and demanded that Idol Hooves be released to my care?”
“You broke into the castle?!”
“I didn’t break in! They let me in! They even opened the doors for me!”
I spun to scowl at the door guards, unable to make words anymore.
“It’s late, man, it’s been a whole day, I mean, it looks like Celestia, just… she’s pink, and not huge! I thought for like, half a second, that it was some weird fusion thing of Celestia and Cadance and that was all the time I needed to open the door! After, yeah, it was really obvious!”
Celestia mouthed the word ‘huge’ with a sort of startled insult, but the other guard looked at him with resigned pity. “I told you those neighponese comics were rotting your brain.”
“You should have stopped me!”
“Oh sure, I’ve been trained on what to do if the Princess comes in looking like she got shrunk in the wash with a red sock!”
“Enough,” Celestia merely stood there, draping a foreleg over her eyes “...Why is it always you now?” It was less an accusation and clearly more of a plea.
“Your Highness, I had no-” I looked over at the false Celestia, still stuck to the throne. She was even smaller now. “...Your Highness, I take full responsibility for this. I must insist that the full brunt of the punishment fall upon myself.”
The throne-bound Faux-lestia jumped up. “What? No! You can’t do that, you didn’t know-”
“I beg of you, your Highness, she did not know what she was doing.”
“Who did not know what they were doing, Idol?”
“This is… this is the Nymph. Cersus! This is Cersus.”
Cersus winced, looking more chagrined by the moment. “You’re not supposed to tell them-”
“We are far beyond that now! I’ll take care of it,” I swore, lifting my hooves as if gesticulation would do anything to elaborate the complexity of this, but I just… couldn’t. I turned back to the rapidly deflating Pinklestia, whose papier-mâché wings were beginning to melt. I could have sworn they’d been perfect moments ago, but then, I had made her swear not to become an alicorn. I tried to come up with a series of questions, but rationale still eluded me. “Whyyyyy…?”
“I… I just… you weren’t coming home,” the foal-Celestia finally admitted, sounding lost. “You weren’t coming home, and I was scared. Everyone’s upset, and stuff started happening, and… and my friends… and…and-and…”
And then the nymph did something even more horrifying than imitating royalty.
She began to sob.
“E-everything’s so messed up, and Topaz was upset and she cried and I can’t see my friends and my lair collapsed and… and…”
I stared, shocked beyond comprehension. The nymph was not faking these emotions, they were pouring off of her with the force of a typhoon. She was dwindling before my very eyes-
“Idol! Comfort her!” The sun princess put a hoof to my back and shoved hard enough to send me sliding almost entirely to the throne.
Gingerly I reached for the nymph, not sure what to do, precisely. This was… this was not changeling, and the young ‘ling was in such vast danger, but… I had dealt with upset foals before, and delicately I pulled her off the throne and between my forelegs. “It’s alright, it’s alright…!”
“The others, they… they were after my friends, and I don’t know why they’d do that, and I got into a fight, and then something hit me and I was asleep and all kinds of bad stuff happened, and you got… you got not-you’d and I d-don’t understand any of it-”
“Shhh… Shhh, it’s going to be fine.” Shamefully, I realized that perhaps the nymph had not been quite so self-sufficient as I had thought. “...I am sorry.”
“Why didn’t you come get me…?”
“I… I did not think you needed me to. Of all the ‘lings and exiles I knew, you were the most capable. It did not even occur to me that you would not succeed in navigating these troubles. And from what I see, that faith was aptly placed.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“For this… maybe a little-” The tiny figure in my forelegs shivered “-but for the rest of it? Cersus!” I pushed her out to limb’s reach to look her in the eyes. “I have undeserved amounts of pride in you. From what it sounds like, you saved your friends, if not from harm then from trauma at the very least.”
“They’re still kind of upset,” she murmured, rubbing at her eyes, but the outpouring was mostly done. “I mean. They’re better off than a lot of ponies, but… really…?”
“You’ve done as well as any Guard could have done. Better than many managed, even myself. That is worthy of respect, not just pride.”
She snuggled back in. “...’m tired.”
“Then rest. I will… I will take care of this. I will see if I can get you something to help you recover.” I eased the nymph down, settling her in the throne where she curled up, head to tail. She looked… so very small. Was she always? I gave the pony-mane a gentle stroke, and in moments she’d dozed off, exhausted from what she’d done.
I turned back to the princess. “Forgive me, your highness, I must explain-”
“You have a filly, Idol.” Celestia was staring at Cersus, now her normal size, if still Celestia-shaped.
“Yes. Well. A nymph. It is not quite the same-”
“I don’t care if you call them grapefruit! Idol, you’re a father!” The last was a sharp whisper, quiet enough not to disturb the nymph but full of emotion.
I waved a hoof dismissively. “No, no. She is not mine. I merely watch over her and try desperately to keep her out of trouble. This is… this is a very complex situation.”
“No, it’s really not. You’re her father, and she’s been worried about you.”
“Again, no, that is not the case. I have never-”
“Do I look like I give a whit about blood? Does she?!”
“It does not matter.”
“How can you even say that?”
“I… I cannot be that. The nymph…” I took a deep breath. “...The nymph is not in exile.”
“And why does that matter?!”
“Because one day she will go home, Your Highness! One day, Cersus will go back where she belongs. She’ll be part of the hive, as we are supposed to be. She will not be… broken, like we are.”
“What if she doesn’t want to go back, Idol?”
“I… what? That’s just… that isn’t how it works…!”
“Does that sound like a filly who wants to go back to the hive of some Queen who just tried to foalnap or eat most of her friends?” She began making her way slowly to the nymph, who was more ‘passed out’ than asleep. “...I don’t think anything is going the way it should anymore, Idol.” She seemed to marvel at the tiny false version of herself. “Why is she pink?”
I sighed. “Colorblind. The nymph cannot distinguish reds and greens and many shades are similar. I can only guess she tried to base her color off of one of those paintings of you.”
“They always do go a few shades too dark, but this…?” She reached out, stroking the troubled nymph’s mane much as I had. A little more strain seemed to leave the little changeling. “...You have a daughter, Idol. How could you not tell us…?”
I looked down at her, trying to determine how I felt about this revelation. “...Somehow, I did not know.”
“...I always wanted one,” the sun princess confided. “Couldn’t, of course. Too much. Too much to do, too much to court, too much risk.” A shuddering breath. “And yet they keep finding their way to me, for teaching, for help, for… whatever. But they’re never mine. I can’t claim them, I can’t… be that for them. They wouldn’t even want me to.”
“I… I had no idea, your Highness.”
”...She couldn’t have known, could she?”
“It is not likely, Your Highness.”
“And yet… and yet she’s almost exactly… what I could envision…”
“...She needs a little time to recover, Princess. Perhaps… perhaps you could stay here, with her?”
“That’s probably not healthy, is it?”
“No. Probably not. But…” I shrugged. “I think she might need it as much as you do. That outpouring, it could have… it could have killed her. We cannot do that, as a rule.”
“...One night then. And in the morning, I’ll send her home. With my dreams of a filly that never was.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
And with that, I returned to my cell, to await my eventual fate. I left behind one wounded by my own incompetence, and another by her own circumstances, hoping they could, in some small way, heal each other.
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Ooh, I love me some emotional goings on! A fantastic chapter as per usual, the character stuff here between the major players is absolutely grand!
...Wooo, that was a thrilling rollercoaster of emotions. And I lack the words to properly describe it. Well, they finally have discovered ALL of Idol, be interesting to see how the rest of the cast responds to these developments.
Also, very enjoyable, and thanks for being so entertaining.
Man the feels
, this was a great chapter you did a good job
Yeah, that was a rollercoaster alright. Sad for Idol, sad for Luna, sad for Cersus, sad for everyone.
awwww. a tiny pink Celestia foal. imma die of cuteness overload.
Wow. I didn't actually realize you could write Drama this well, honestly. I like it. Good work
Shining's going to take a while to come to terms with all this. I like them as friends, at least it looks like he's willing to try.
Feeliiiiings!!!!
Thank you for a wonderful chapter with Cersus.
I have tears in my eyes. We love funny idol a lot, bu this is still the best chapter you have written so far!
It was quite a wait, but oh so worth it. Thank you for writing.
Excuse me I need a little time to recover from the sugar high that is that nymph.
Mini pinklestia
Need to request a warning placed on this story. That was too funny. And I'm pretty sure I'm having a heart attack.
Always a wonderful story, and there is never enough of it! It is good that the ponies in charge are getting a grip on Idol as a person compared to the only-ponies-all-the-time that often takes place in government service. In Equestria's long history, one would think other beings would who are not ponies would also serve so this should not be such an alien idea. At the same time, the trauma caused by the invasion is both very real and very fresh so Idol is being battered by the shockwaves that still echo like being trapped inside a ringing bell. Let alone the royal mess that is his heart and his own understanding of his heart. I look forward to more.
That's a bit sad for celestia. A bit of a bombshell to drop on shining armour though
Ahh! A new chapter! Yay!
If Topaz is upset now, just wait until she finds out that Idol is leaving her behind to move to the Crystal Empire...
She might actually kill him!
Well that was a fun rollercoaster of emotions. And Celestia finally learn of Idol and Topaz's adopted child.
Dont make me cry in the back of an Uber ride, please.
This is the whole story in two lines…
😄
Man, sad times all round, Most of Ido's friendships kinda got wrecked by no fault of his own..but you get why. I assume the whole crystal empire thing flows into that other story that is around there or is it in the plans for the future chapters? i have seen it floating around but it was a different author.
11201919
Ahhahahaaha!
11201950
Do you really think there is any chance she won't immediately pack up with nymph and follow along?
Damn this story is hitting hard, remember when this was comedy?
Either way, i really love all of this and cant wait to see what happens next
Poor Celestia
Great chapter!
that was amazing...
Always looking forward to that dry wit of Idle. Was just as confused as your characters when Celestia dropped by for a late night visit.
im kinda interested to know how much pinklestia could get away with before ponies actually realize she not celestia on a diet
I mean...to be fair...she's not wrong. Three-fourths of this story has pretty much been nothing but ridiculous things happening in ridiculous ways, occasionally to ridiculous creatures, so...might as well continue the trend.
All the more reason why Luna's point on his state of being a changeling should be ignored, because it was ignored for ten years without problem or consequence because it simply just never came up, so, really, why break the status quo now? If it's not broke, don't fix it.
That is a fair point. It doesn't matter whether or not Idol is an actual security threat or not--the fact he still thinks himself to be makes him one because he has no faith or confidence in being able to stop himself from becoming one should such circumstances ever arise.
Honestly, the best solution is probably giving him a leave of absence (likely under observation as a precaution) so to give him the time to figure that all out for himself and just what, exactly, his role in life should or needs to be now given recent events.
But it's Idol. He despises taking time off, so I imagine he'd refuse to accept that proposal just as much as being named a representative of the changelings on a whole. Hopefully some other solution that'll work just as well can be done instead.
Aw, but I wanted to hear Rainbow's thoughts on the matter, if just for the lols!
Besides, she's not exactly known for being eloquent, so maybe she'd see something you all aren't.
There really aren't many other ways to sum it up, honestly. I don't think even Chrysalis could explain it better, seeing she was even baffled by Idol to a degree herself.
What, no one seriously told her that? Good gosh, I was hoping she'd already had the chance to mentally brace herself for that, not...get thrown right into piranha filled river and told to swim!
Because you have this whole canon anti-changeling troupe that needs to be upheld at least a little, Shining, so even if it doesn't make sense, it's still gotta get acknowledged.
Besides, given circumstances, it's a concern worth addressing anyway, even if it is ultimately an unfounded one.
You know, until this chapter, I hadn't really stopped to think about how Shining's anti-changeling viewpoints and how that'd naturally apply to Idol? I was honestly thinking it just wouldn't come up once past the initial shock of Idol's reveal, but now I'm kicking myself, because obviously it would be--it's completely in line with Shining's character.
And the Crystal Empire will forever love him for it, so it all worked out in the end, and that's what's more important here.
Heck, I'm not sure, and I'm about seven seasons ahead of you.
Question of the hour, right there, and one the answer to which will determine the course of action moving forward for...pretty much everything, honestly.
That said, the feels all throughout this chapter are all of the good sort. The sort of feels where you feel like that, yeah, it's hard to get through, but...something good is still coming out of it, even if you're not yet sure just what that good is exactly. They're the best sort of feels, the sort of feels one longs for when they go looking for them, the sort of feels people praise so highly when they encounter them.
So no need to apologize for those feels, because those feels were precisely right.
Really Shining, a Seargent?
Gunnery Master Seargent Major Williams does laugh.
Once again I'm reminded why i love Idol, he thinks so differently then everyone else but he genuinely want to help others.
Oh my god, that nearly killed me!
11201968
The other story is an author approved what-if story about if Idol was guarding Luna during the Wedding and then Luna finding out that Idol is a Changling and dealing with the situation after.
It took me way too long to realize that the reason they were sent out of the room was for mare talk
…Mr. Letrotski? Is that you?
this reminds me of an old story, "Hard Reset".
near the end, Twilight and her friends zap Chrysalis with the elements...
this made all the changelings that were in disguise at that moment become normal ponies, but killed all the others,
Hah, pinklestia makes an appearance! This is a neat take on Shining's own thoughts on the events of the Crystal Empire - particularly the 100-Meter Wife Toss.
11202002
I always figured that the Royal Guard would eventually create their own version of the Senior Enlisted Advisor position for Idol.
Holy shnikes, those feels at the end!
I'm pretty Sure Sunset Shimmer would call Bullshit in a heartbeat if she heard that statement.
99% sure her hang-up with Celestia is that Sunset wanted to be Her Daughter more than anything.
Which led her to want to become an alicorn more than anything.
I wish to point out once again that the Crystal EMPIRE is the size of a modest city. And it never had an Emperor. Sombra even called himself 'King'.
The Crystal Kingdom sounds better anyway, and makes more sense all around.
I heard this in the voice of the Cylon Lucifer from the original "Battlestar Galactica".
I love and hate how emotionally invested in these characters I am. This started off as a fun comedy and now has turned into I one of the best written serials in recent memory, including general fiction! I'm eagerly awaiting more!
11202048
That's one hell of a nightmare scenario for everyone involved. Mass murder, involuntary species-change on a large scale AND total species genocide, all in one allegedly 'harmonious' package.
Literally started re-reading the full story like three days ago!!! Could not have been better timing!!! I was even thinking, “Hmmm I wonder when the next one will come out….”
I love you!!!!❤️💕😘
We don't deserve cersus
11202051
11202002
I think Vdrake may be slightly harkening back in time with the ranks. For a long time Sergeant was basically the only NCO type rank that existed, occasionally you'd have a Sergeant Major directly above that if you were particularly ahead of the times, and they were far more important at the time because there were simply fewer existing ranks than we have today.
Time in service had a lot more importance regardless of actual rank, acknowledgment of that service and experience is why there are so many NCO ranks nowadays to sort out differing levels of seniority.
You made Cersus cry.
You monster.
I was not ready for this level of feels.
Anybody else besides me kinda wanna see Cercus call Celestia Aunty Celly?
11202068
I agree 100%.
Took a bit to get here but my god did you deliver.
If she's not careful, Momlestia might spoil her so much she'll never consider going back to the Hive, despite Idol saying otherwise.
Idol and Shinning