The Changeling Trials

by PastCat

Chapter I: From the Desk of Luna

After watching her sister lower the sun and raising and placing the stars in its place, Luna checked the docket for Night Court. She quickly made it through the few petitioners (most of them either wanted her to overturn some decision of Celestia’s or were from ponies who worked during the day. The former she loathed; the latter she enjoyed). Luna then settled down in her study, accompanied by her pet opossum, Tiberius, and her secretary, Eclipse.

Eclipse was unusual; she was from a subspecies of unicorn that was naturally nocturnal. Like Luna’s bat pony guards, ebon unicorns had been ostracized during Luna’s stint as Nightmare Moon, but had come back into royal regard with the lunar princess’s return. Eclipse was a green so dark it appeared black, with a horn that spiraled in the opposite direction of a daylight unicorn. Her aura was so pale as to be only visible at night, and her mane and tail were the same shade of blue as her turquoise ink pot cutie mark.

“What is all this?” Eclipse asked incredulously as Tiberius looked up from his lounging position on his mistress’s lap.

“My dear sister is allowing me to take on responsibility for these changeling requests.” Luna replied. Her brow furrowed a little. “But first we need a place to start.”

“You are quite right, princess,” Eclipse murmured, nodding as she levitated a scroll, ink bottle and quill to her desk, “Might I suggest that we begin with some rules to determine in what order you will deal with these and how?”

Luna mentally blessed one of her guards for bringing this very organized mare to her attention last year. She nodded in approval. “Let us begin with something simple. Petitioners must be able and willing to identify their changeling friend by name and appearance. Equestrian or Changeish name, either would do.” Eclipse wrote that down as Luna continued.

“Secondly, there must be more than one pony willing to vouch for the changeling’s character and verify his or her identity. Said pony must be willing to undergo a magic scan to ensure that he or she is a pony.” A very simple concept, but it was wise to cover all the bases here.

“Thirdly, the pony must show that the changeling has a way of feeding safely without causing harm to any other ponies or being at risk to themselves.” She paused to be certain Eclipse was still keeping up. She was.

“Finally, the changeling must have a place and form of their own and be able to contribute to their communities. It may not be safe for changelings to be out in their natural form these days, and it would be best if they did not use other ponies’ forms in public.” Eclipse finished and read the list back to the princess. Luna smiled and nodded again. “Very well. Time to start sorting. Let us begin with sorting by date of capture, since those will have been here the longest and will probably have the most dire hunger.”

Two magic auras lit up stacks of paper and three sets of eyes, two equine, and one not, began scanning petitions. Luna glanced at Eclipse and found the ebon unicorn looking back at her. “We need to know more about the care and feeding of changelings," the Night Princess added. "I shall ask one of my guards to speak to the detainees. Perhaps if one of them speaks Equestrian, we can make him of her an offer of amnesty in exchange for talking to us.”

Eclipse gave her boss a cockeyed grin. “Maybe we should offer Twilight a research opportunity.” Luna cringed. In pursuit of knowledge, the bearer of Magic could be, well, tactless, to put it mildly.

“I do not think that would be a good idea.” Luna said.

Eclipse flashed that grin again. “I know, Princess. But it was worth seeing your reaction. It would be worth a try to send somepony to talk to the changelings.”

Luna chuckled, recognizing the joke. “Very well. Let us return to our sorting. And Eclipse…”

“Yes?”

“When it is just us in here, please call me Luna.” The two mares exchanged smiles and returned to their work.

“Might I make another suggestion?” Eclipse inquired after an hour’s work.

Princess Luna nodded. “Please do, Eclipse. I am open to suggestions of any kind.”

“If there are any petitioners that are of a more, uh, sensitive nature, perhaps you should see them in private rather than at open night court. If we run into any changelings with, for example, pony lovers or spouses, they may not want to air that in public, especially given some of the… hmmm… less discrete nobles who attend court solely for their entertainment.” Eclipse paused, as if to collect her thoughts.

“Is there something else, my friend?” Asked Princess Luna, patiently eying her assistant.

“The only thing I was going to add is that maybe you should do some of these earliest ones in private. I think it would give you a better feel for the kinds of requests you will be getting and you will not need to worry about embarrassing either the changelings or their pony sponsors. It may make the whole situation easier to handle. I suspect there will be plenty of … ahhh… more public petitioners who will not wait to be summoned to a more private audience.”

Luna nodded again at her assistant’s idea; that was one of her favorite aspects of her secretary and friend. Eclipse had that odd combination of a solid core of common sense and an exterior idealism that bordered on whimsy. “I know what else you are thinking of, Eclipse.” Luna said, with a slight chiding note to her voice. “You are also trying to spare my feelings as much as possible.”

Eclipse’s face turned a slightly darker shade of green that Luna pretended not to notice. The princess of the night continued her thoughts: “While I appreciate the sentiment, there is no need to be so protective. Yes, it will be necessary to protect all parties involved here, but I still want some of this at least to be very public indeed. We need to show ponies that we are doing something to solve the present changeling threat as well as that we want to be able to prevent something like Chrysalis’s attempted invasion in the future. With that in mind, I hope we can find not only changelings that bear no hive affiliation, but also an alliance with a less hostile hive or two in order to gain us insight as to how a queen controls her underlings. My hope is that by granting resident changelings some semblance of citizenship, we open up diplomatic channels for hives as well.”

There was silence as Eclipse thought over the moon princess’s proposal. “That would be unprecedented, Luna,” the ebon unicorn commented a few minutes later, “but it would be very useful if you were able to manage it.”

The alicorn nodded. “Tis a noble goal to be certain, but one, I believe, that would be worth aiming for.” The pair returned to their amiable silence and sorting of petitions.

Author's Note:

Ok, a little headcannon here: Eclipse and the ebon unicorns are basically night unicorns and equivalent to the bat-ponies. They're no less or more powerful than daylight unicorns, but they are much less common.

(I imagine that Sombra was an ebon unicorn and that his corruption and subsequent betrayal helped drive Luna into the nightmare.)

Comments

[Alex Warlorn]

What about the changelings who only trusted their true identity to ONE pony, who loved them dearly?

[Danger Noodle]

5368500 Sounds like they're fucked, unless a later chapter addresses this issue.

[Apocryphal Frost]

"-there must be more than one pony willing to vouch for the changeling’s character-"

And Luna has already majorly fucked up. This rule is extremely discriminatory against the antisocial ones, or the ones who genuinely have only one friend after their identity was revealed.

That's not even getting into the ones who aren't friends with any ponies, but deserve the same treatment as those who are. Or those who are genuinely nice people but are hated by all of their friends now.

[Shpoople96]

5368500
5368634
5369909
All my thoughts, exactly.

[Lamplighter]

Head-Cannon Ho!

[nioniosbbbb]

Changelings are not a hive they are a Kingdom. Get it through your head people. Jeez.

[Lost_Marbles]

In need of some editing.

And this:

Equestrian or Changeish name

I really feel it should be spelt "Changish" or "Change-ish". More than that, I think "Changling" would be a better word to use.

And why does she have a pet opossum? That's just too weird for me.

I really hope things pick up in the next chapter, if it is more TALKING ABOUT WHAT TO DO instead of THINGS BEING DONE, this may turn out to be a boring fic. Of course, this first chapter is establishing the characters' goals and plans, something important to the story.

I've given my criticisms but I hope this doesn't deter you in continuing your writing.

[IXOHOXI]

5377816

Tiberius is from the comics.

[Philo Hippos]

I like this concept of ebon unicorn

[TheGreatEater]

The princess of the night continued her thoughts:

Princess of the Night
______________

I'll just leave this here rather than pointing out every instance of it. But titles like, Princess of (insert thing here), Elements of Harmony, Element of (insert element) get capitalized, the same as you would with names.
_____________

There are actual Nocturnal Unicorns in myth. Although they have the draconic ability to breathe fire, and there are quite a few black unicorns in the show as well that are normal citizens. But still Nocturnal Unicorn equivs might be interesting. Although, what sets them apart? Bat Ponies have leather wings and draconic eyes, as well as more omnivoriously inclinced teeth.

[Starcat5]

5421586
...and now, the comics have made it canon.

[Razzy]

Yeah, the rule about requiring many vouchers is bad. What if they like to be alone?

Cya
Raziel-chan

[ChakatRedstripe]

I usually go for alot more in-depth stories, but was suggested that I read this one. I'm definitely interested, and for your first fic I'm impressed.

[Bahamuttone]

to overturn some decision of Celestia’s

some of Celestia's decisions

lounging position on his mistress’s lap.

As this is not an Anthro fic it is quite difficult for a pony to have a lap.