The Last Changeling Queen

by Atuhor Name

CH. 01 Stained Glass

Stained Glass

Twilight was once again in the changeling hive, and this time she was with a group of guards, archeologists and the pony equivalent of anthropologists. In the past week, Twilight had been given an honorary Equestrian medal of honor for taking down a major threat to the safety of Equestria. And then she was shipped here.

The medal had been presented to her by Princess Celestia herself, to a massive gathering in Canterlot, which took place after a more private tear filled reunion with the Princess.

And how the medal burned at her chest when she put it on, like an icy spike driven into her heart. She knew that somewhere, Naudia was in the Castle dungeons, her fate uncertain.

Of course, Celestia had a reason for doing most everything, and the reason for this was so that Twilight could lead an expedition into the changeling hive, in order to find out where the rest of the changeling hives were. She couldn’t know what Twilight knew: that there were no other hives, or even changelings, outside of Canterlot. It ate Twilight up inside, not being able to tell Celestia.

"Uhhh, Ma'am?" came a gruff voice from the side, shaking her out of her reverie. "There is something the head anthropologist thought you would want to see."

Twilight followed the guard through the ornate hallways, upwards, until she reached a wide set of double doors that had green gems inlaid onto them that still glowed faintly green.

She pushed the door open with her magic and gasped. Inside was a throne room that was beyond immaculate, every part of it was perfect. Ornate copper chandeliers hung from the ceiling, each one made from a unique design of changelings in various poses. Columns that held up the roof were elevated from mere structural supports to works of art. Every part of the room directed the eyes upwards, towards the arched ceiling.

Twilight knew that every piece of changeling craftsmanship had a story behind it. Most of them were hidden or lost, but the painting on the ceiling had a very clear meaning.

The ceiling was painted in a fresco of changelings and ponies, presumably the entire history of changelings and ponies. Not an inch of the ceiling was wasted: every painting merged into the next, so that the eyes flowed down the hallway, seeming to be following a story as they were drawn inevitably towards the unfinished end of the hall.

It was horrible.

Crammed into every corner of this fresco was every imaginative thing ponies had done when they caught a changeling. Every injustice conceivable was laid out there. The whole thing turned Twilight's stomach, and the medal she had been awarded weighed on her chest like an anvil.

Trying to look anywhere besides that horrible painting, Twilight's eyes were drawn to the windows. Every one of them was just as monstrous as the fresco above.

Here changelings fought Draco Adamas, battered changelings held the line in gruesome detail. There they fought off sand walkers, bearing down upon wounded changelings huddling together in the sand. And it all just kept going, on and on, every part of the room revealing new horrors for Twilight.

She bolted out of the throne room, tears flowing freely.

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Stakeout was an uncomplicated guard, well suited to his namesake and probably exactly where he should be in the Equestrian guard. His superiors had never considered him for promotion, but that had never bothered him. After all, he had never been ordered to earn a promotion.

He also had a very clear measure of what made a leader, having spent years taking orders from them. And by his measure, Twilight Sparkle didn't have it in her to make a military leader. She just didn't carry herself right, and there was no military composure in her expression.

As to why she was assigned to be his superior, he had no idea. In fact, he was ordered to have no idea: that was heavily classified information. That didn't stop the rumor mill from running around the camp.

He had heard all kinds of rumors about Twilight Sparkle in the last few days. She had converted Nightmare Moon with her gaze, some said. Or that she had burned a hydra to death with pure anger. Out of all of them, the most absurd (and most common) rumor was that she had beaten the changeling queen one on one, and dragged her all the way out of the Badlands on her own, coming out herself with all limbs attached.

Stakeout assumed the bookish librarian had some sort of berserker rage state, so while he may not have trusted her as a leader, he respected her as a ticking time bomb. So, with great trepidation, he attempted to knock on her tent door.

"I want to go home." Twilight said through the canvas tent.

"Uhh," Stakeout said, "I'm not the one who decides that, Ma’am."

"Well then," An angry Twilight said, poking her head out of her tent, "Who is?"

Stakeout flinched back, mentally going over the list of his superiors, which took a second or two, throughout which Twilight glared at him patience growing visibly thin.

"So far as I can make out Ma'am, that would be you..." Stakeout looked around nervously. "Or, perhaps, Princess Celestia."

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Normally, Twilight would just send a letter to the Princess. It was cheap and she felt it was kind of... traditional. But this was military work, and she had access to cutting edge magical communication technology, and that got her a magic mirror. Well, an ordinary mirror with two unicorns channeling magic into it. So instead of showing Twilight in the mirror, there was a faint image of Celestia.

Looking at Celestia, Twilight shuffled her hooves. Unnecessary as she knew this expedition was, she couldn't vocalize those thoughts to Celestia. At the moment, she felt trapped, and guilty. And piled on top of that, was a feeling of failure.

"I can’t take being being inside the changeling hive right now, I... I would like to go home." she said.

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Twilight walked back to her tent even more distraught than before. Celestia had seemed... off. When Twilight had asked to go home, the first thing Celestia asked for was a report of the findings so far. She was not used to the Princess being so callous and ignorant of another's feelings. Indeed, as her student, she found that Celestia often knew Twilight's feelings before she did herself.

Further into the conversation something far more troubling was revealed, something so deeply wrong Twilight couldn't even fully grasp the concept herself.

Celestia was afraid.

Even now, Twilight wanted to believe that it was a trick of the light, her imagination, anything other than what she had seen. But she knew it was there in Celestia's eyes, that one lapse in composure. That had been the most terrifying thing Twilight had ever witnessed.