The following day, the ponies of the city returned to their duties. The forces of darkness, apparently interested only in pain, had caused very little actual damage on their rush for those hiding in the castle.
Silver was awake, having been gently nudged along to Cadance's court, where Cadance and Shining Armor stood before about a dozen of the defenders, including Silver and Night. "You all worked very hard last night," said Cadance with a soft smile. "Some of you are barely citizens of the nation, being generously-lent guards from Equestria, or even civilians. We owe you much." She bowed forward towards the gathered ponies.
The guards seemed unsure how to react. Silver responded with a quick bow back, almost tipping over, though Meadow's lessons had paid off. Cadance looked to Silver, "Some of you have demonstrated unusual abilities. I would like you to stay behind." Her gaze turned back to the rest, "All of you, you are awarded with the Crystal Medal of Stalwartness, to commemorate your staunch stand against the forces of darkness."
Shining Armor stepped forward, horn glowing as he pulled out medals with a shielded heart and began to hang them on pony's chests. He placed them on armor where available, and on fur when not. Silver wondered how that worked, but it hung there on her bare pelt without issue or pinching. Shining Armor saluted the lot. "Dismissed, and you're all relieved of duty for the rest of the day. You've earned it."
The room emptied out, though Silver remained, and Night with her. It was down to Cadance, Shining, Silver, and Night. Cadance nodded at Silver, "We have a problem."
Silver perked an ear, "What problem is that? Are there more shadows?"
Cadance shook her head, "Simply put, your ability to weave magic spells is too potent an ability to leave free. Without even trying, you can upset the state of magic in dramatic ways by changing the way things are done too quickly." She extended a pink wing, "I have tried to shield you. Your heart is gentle and your intentions pure, but word of your actions are already spreading. Others will hear of it."
Night frowned, pawing at the ground. "Celestia and Luna?" she demanded.
Shining shook his head, "No, well, yes, of course, but more than them. Other nations will take interest, either to see if his talent extends to their own magic, or seeking to neutralize him and remove his benefit to us."
Night huffed softly, "She."
Cadance glanced at Shining before nodding, "She... The fact is unchanged. While you, alone, are not much a threat, you make any other unicorn around yourself more capable."
Silver started to shrink a little, but paused and regained her upright posture, "What do you suggest I do about it? You know I was acting in everyone's best interest."
Shining nodded quickly, "Of course, and we are very thankful..."
Cadance slipped in where he faltered, "But we are worried for you. We don't want you to be hurt."
Night extended a wing, wrapping Silver in a hug. "Alright, what do you suggest?" she repeated Silver's question with a cocked brow.
Cadance took a slow breath, "I want you to stay here, where you seem so safe and happy, but the Crystal Empire is no haven of security. You should return. I will not force you, either of you, but I do suggest it. Auntie Celestia and Luna can do much more to keep you safe from external threats."
Silver snorted softly, "So long as I roll over and present my belly to internal ones."
Cadance looked towards the ground a moment, then back up at Silver, "I will not force you, ever. You came to me in confidence, with a wounded heart. You have returned my kindness with bravery and loyalty. Our kingdom will always be open to you both. If you decide you wish to stay, we will do our best."
A soft knocking came from the closed doors of the court, then a messenger crystal pony poked his head in. He trotted up to Shining Armor, offering a floating letter. Shining accepted it with a nod and tore is open. His eyes scanned over it a moment before perking an ear, "You already have a guest."
Night blinked, adjusting her glasses, "It is incredibly unlikely somepony heard and responded that quickly."
Shining nodded in agreement, "It is an old friend of yours, Fast Change? She has arrived at the train station and is requested an audience."
Silver jerked back in surprise, though the wing around her made the movement muted, "What?! Really? Send her here!"
Night agreed quickly, "Of course!" She then paused, "Wait, is she a changeling?"
Shining and Cadance both looked alarmed. Cadance shook her head, "I should hope not!" She cringed a little, "I don't want to see those loathsome things again. Silver, you know a spell to detect changelings, please make sure."
Silver shook his head, "Even if she is a changeling, we would want to meet her. She is good-hearted."
Cadance clopped a hoof on the ground, "I will not tolerate a changeling!"
Shining stepped ahead of his wife, "You must understand... We were both very... affected, for lack of better word, by Chrysalis' actions."
Night shook her head, "Fast Change is working against Chrysalis, by providing harbor to so many changelings eager to get out from under her rule, and live productively."
Cadance raised a brow, then frowned, "Of course..."
Silver put the pieces together, speaking in hesitant tones, "Celestia never told you two, or likely anyone else."
Shining nodded stiffly, "We have little reason to doubt your words. Go and meet your friend."
Silver and Night departed, leaving the somewhat frazzled royal couple behind. As they trotted out of the castle, Night glanced at Silver, "Why do you think she came?"
Silver shrugged, "I really don't know. I thought she'd be busy being queen."
Night suddenly yanked Silver back as Trixie landed where Silver was a moment ago. "The great and powerful Trixie has arrived to confess her love!" Trixie approached Silver, batting her eyelashes, "Trixie simply cannot deny your ultimate magnetism."
Silver glanced around in a fit, unsure what to do, say, or even think at that moment. Night reached forward with a wing, slapping Trixie upside the head, "Hello Fast."
Trixie became Fast quickly, "Aw. Hi!" She leaped up to hug them, her original ruddy red-furred self. Fast nipped at the stunned Silver's ears, "Miss me?"
Silver nodded as senses returned to her. "I did so much."
Fast suddenly punched Silver in the barrel with a hoof, sending her to the ground, "Too much! What's this I hear you threw yourself off a roof? I thought I was bound to a smart stallion, not a stupid... mare?"
Night's wings spread in alarm, "Hey!"
Fast held up a hoof at Night, "He deserves this!" She frowned down at Silver, "You selfish jerk! Why did you do that?"
Silver staggered up to her hooves, sore from Fast's sudden attack, "I felt so... lost, and hurt. You were such an important part of myself, I couldn't imagine living with that hole for a moment. I was stupid."
Fast shoved Silver right back over, "Who said I'd be gone forever?!"
Night shook her head, "Please explain. I thought it was forever too."
Fast snorted loudly, "The changelings have leaders under the queens. I got the drones all nice and settled, then passed the reigns on to that nice leader we met, Stand In."
Silver sat up on her haunches, "Why'd you break the marriage if you planned to rejoin us anyway?"
Fast huffed a soft sigh, "Because I didn't know better? I'm a unicorn, not a changeling. It's good to be back, by the way." She approached Silver, who winced in fear, but no strike came. Fast pressed lips to lips, kissing Silver until the tension fell away. Fast drew back with a sigh, "So... why are you a mare?"
Night approached and gave Fast a chaste kiss on the cheek, "You can blame Princess Celestia for that, and Princess Twilight Sparkle. They said he, at the time, was balanced towards female, so they made the outside and inside match his net, and now he is a she."
Fast flashed a grin, "Does this mean I can be the stallion?"
Silver looked decidedly uncertain, "Uh, well... I suppose if anypony was going to be the stallion of the herd besides me, I wouldn't mind you." She stood up and shook herself out, "So... are we married again?"
Night pointed a wing back at the castle, "We should make it official, but... I feel that should wait. We should simply be together and learn one another again. Vows can wait."
Fast nodded at Night, "Right you are, smart mare. I could always trust you to have your adorable head straight."
Silver heard a voice whispering from nowhere, ~She returns to steal Night Watch from you.~
Silver glanced around as she frowned, "Anyone else hear that?"
They shook their heads, then Fast pointed, "Looks like they're setting up for something big! What are they up to?"
Night turned to where the point was, "Ah, the Crystal Fair is in a week. You're just in time."
~Just in time to take what is left of your masculinity. She will rob you of your birthright, grinning madly all the while.~
"Tell me you heard that," grumped Silver. "This isn't song magic."
As if conjured by name, Silver felt the increasingly familiar blossoming of the melodious sorcery. She rose up on hind legs abruptly, putting a hoof to an ear, asking who was speaking to her in a soft musical tone. Night and Fast replied in equally enchanting voices that they heard nothing, then started to dance away. Silver cursed internally, trying to follow them, but things faded to black instead.
Great green eyes opened in the darkness with red irises. Shadow-tainted eyes, bleeding fell magic glared at Silver as a rough voice joined the song, promising to save Silver from her traitorous wives and offering powers beyond imagining. Silver found herself singing with doubt and uncertainty. Internally, she raged. She was certain she didn't want anything to do with shadow things, but her part in the music had her playing along, singing back and forth and seeming to be slowly capitulating to the siren song of the shadow.
Silver grasped for her humanity, digging deep inside and uttering a sudden, masculine, "Fuck you!" The song magic shattered, and she fell onto her belly on the spot. With the music magic broken, Night and Fast quickly returned.
"Are you OK?" asked Fast, offering a hoof up as Night peered around.
"That was the strangest thing," said Night. "It's like I forgot a few minutes. You were beside me, then you were gone."
Silver accepted Fast's help up, nodding her head quickly, "Song magic... I broke it. Shadow... something was trying to get me to follow it. I almost did!"
Fast frowned, "Almost did? You don't strike me as the shadowy type."
Silver bobbed her head, "I know, right? But I was doing it in the song, going along with what the shadow wanted. I broke out and the whole spell broke apart."
Night adjusted her glasses a quiet moment, "I have little choice but to assume, for the moment, your theory on song magic is correct. Your breaking of the spell disrupted the usual smooth transition and stopped us from explaining away our singing."
Fast threw up a hoof, "That's a load and a half! I'm not going to be brainwashed in some kind of musical number, thanks." She threw that same hoof over Silver's withers, "Come on, let's get something to eat, then we have so much kissing to catch up on."
Sanity is overrated anyways. Besides it's possible to point out a single sane person in the world except for that one that the word is defined around.
Fuck yeah! Humanity!
5827586 It's because of my lack of patience and cocnentration that I need an end point. Unless I get a massive influx of comments, then I don't have any true interest in the story. That's why there's a few of my stories that I just stopped.
Those guards are "generously-lent."
Since she's speaking to the crowd at large, even if she is looking at Silver, this should be "unusual abilities."
Given that this is a specific medal, it should be called "the Crystal Medal of Stalwartness."
There are two spaces between "shook" and "her."
The "much" isn't needed here, and makes the sentence flow awkwardly.
Unless she's making a very clever pun, that should be "passed the reins."
That should be "red irises."
Those eyes are "shadow-tainted."
Hm? You haven't released two chapters during both previous days? Curiosity: Has your head started to feel like it's burning and you feel like it's collapsing on itself?
5830267 I went to a convention for three days. you guys got a chapter on the third day.
5830386 Oh. I thought you were starting to burn yourself out. I got worried.
5830402 Nah, I was busy selling Ponyfinder and meeting folks, both new and old.
5830426 Unfortunately, I cannot travel to the States for these conventions, let alone have the monetary capacity to do so.
5830216 All fixed, and recovering from con exhaustion, woo!
5830465 Quite a bit of intrigue and foreshadowing (literally, in one instance) going on here!
First is the much-welcomed return of Fast Change! Oh Fast, your beloveds missed you - don't ever leave them again. That said, I found her return to be much too lightly handled, both in terms of her explanation and of the emotional impact that it had on all parties involved (though not quite so badly, for that second one). Her return is not something to be tossed back into the mix and then moved on as just part of the new status quo - there's too much invested in her for this to have that little reaction.
For one thing, Night was right to express confusion over Fast apparently not having left forever. When Fast said "who said I'd be gone forever?!" I wanted to yell "you did, you idiot!" Seriously, she gave a tearful goodbye to Silver, explaining how she couldn't be his mare while also being a mother to the changelings, and that being their mother was what she was meant to do. It sounded final - even if Silver later realized that he could still be with her, it wasn't the same, if for no other reason than she'd drain him to death, something Stand In explained at length.
Likewise, her explanation of "I didn't know any better" isn't sufficient. She says "I'm a unicorn, not a changeling," but that's not what we were told before. She became a changeling queen in every regard, as shown by how she was able to drain the love from Silver. Also, what does it mean that she turned the reins of the changeling swarm over to Stand In? Isn't the changeling queen the only one that can make new changelings, via the breeders? Stand In explicitly isn't a queen, so doesn't this bring their birthrate to a screeching halt?
The only explanation I can come up with here is that Fast Change ultimately couldn't sustain her form as a changeling queen. Maybe it was because of her heart crystal, maybe it was because Silver and Night helped her find her self-respect with regards to her natural form (she never used it before, but she does quite a lot now, albeit with working legs), or maybe it was because she already had so much love in her heart that she couldn't become something that sustained itself on the love of others, but however it's sliced, it's pretty clear that Fast did become a changeling, but isn't now (something that Night rather stupidly blurted out in front of Cadance and Shining Armor...though I'm still not clear on why she bothered to ask at all). That's a reverse-metamorphosis that deserves to be expounded upon.
What deserves to be expounded upon even more though is how this should feel for Night and Silver, especially Silver. Fast's leaving him was enough to cause a suicide attempt, so it shouldn't be enough to say "I'm back. Let's make out," and have that be enough. This is a big freaking deal! Does Fast feel guilty that she very nearly caused Silver to kill herself? Does Silver or Night feel any sort of lingering hurt that she so easily left them and now is just as easily wandering back into their lives? Doesn't that impact their trust in her, and doesn't she realize that? Aren't they relieved to have her back, especially when they've lost Luna and are now about to be soft-pressured into returning to Equestria? This reunion should have the emotional impact, for all of them, of a comet striking the ground, not a tennis ball.
Cadance's announcement that Silver's ability makes her valuable, and that she's not certain that she can protect them in the Crystal Empire, felt believable. That's the sort of honest assessment that she'd make, and it was a very canny way to try and move the action back to Equestria - it felt all the more insightful for Silver's pointed note that in Equestria, they'd likely be safe from external threats so long as they accepted that there was no safety from the internal ones. My one point of note here is that none of them seem willing to consider that there are other countries that they might want to look into. These don't even have to be the countries of other races. Is it not worth thinking about what life would be like in Anugypt (remember the trip there?), Saddle Arabia, or Mare-itonia? With Silver's abilities, they could probably appeal to any government they want and be given a cushy, reasonably-secure setup in exchange for her spell-work. That'd run the risk of exploitation, but that seems like it's going to be true regardless, particularly since making spells is Silver's talent anyway.
Of course, the return of some sort of shadow-force is ominous, but I wonder how much it can accomplish. Preying on someone's doubts and fears only works when they're in a position of doubt to begin with. Silver's cognitive dissonance between how she acted during her musical number and how she actually felt threw that into stark relief - she doesn't seem to have any particular distrust of Fast (though ironically, she should, but for different reasons - she's not there to steal Night, but it is reasonable to worry if she'll be there from now on, when she so easily left them before). Likewise, going over to the dark side has to be about more than just not trusting your current arrangement; there needs to be a credible offer about why the other side is a better alternative. The thing about a deal with the devil is that the offer should look like a really, really good offer when it's made - it should seem like it really does solve all of your problems, with no loopholes or strings attached. It's only after it's too late that you realize that it was the worst decision you could have made, for reasons that you couldn't figure out at the time.
Overall, there was some great material here, but it could stand to be fleshed out in terms of how the characters are dealing with it all.
is it me or is this story really starting to get dark. so many things (pony's voices beings ) going on in Silver's head.
this is really starting to get deep.
maybe I am putting to much thought in to the story as I love a good mystery.
exultant job David Silver.
Harts Fire
5830565 The World of Insanity likes this. I think they're starting to take interest in Silver. UNACCEPTABLE!
Typos have declared war on the author David silver. That is why they are in all the chapters. Spying for the typo army.
boom figured out your problem
5934062 Everything was calm before the typo nation attacked.
Yay for the return of Fast!
6253496 We all missed Fast.
Silver was awake, having been gently nudged along to the Cadance's court, where Cadance and Shining Armor stood before about a dozen of the defenders, including Silver and Night.
Correction: Silver was awake, having been gently nudged along to Cadance's court, where Cadance and Shining Armor stood before about a dozen of the defenders, including Silver and Night.
2.)Silver heard a voice whispering from nowhere, ~She returns to steal Night Watch from you.~
Silver glanced around as she frowned, "Anyone else hear that?"
They shook their heads, then Fast pointed, "Looks like they're setting up for something big! What are they up to?"
Night turned to where the point was, "Ah, the Crystal Fair is in a week. You're just in time."
~Just in time to take what is left of your masculinity. She will rob you of your birthright, grinning madly all the while.~
"Tell me your heard that," grumped Silver. "This isn't song magic."
As if conjured by name, Silver felt the increasingly familiar blossoming of the melodious sorcery. She rose up on hind legs abruptly, putting a hoof to an ear, asking who was speaking to her in a soft musical tone. Night and Fast replied in equally enchanting voices that they heard nothing, then started to dance away. Silver cursed internally, trying to follow them, but things faded to black instead.
pre05.deviantart.net/52bd/th/pre/f/2012/088/3/3/the_sound_of_drums_by_hainswind-d4uc6pp.jpg
Great green eyes opened in the darkness with red irises'. Shadow-tainted eyes, bleeding fell magic glared at Silver as a rough voice joined the song, promising to save Silver from her traitorous wives and offering powers beyond imagining. Silver found herself singing with doubt and uncertainty. Internally, she raged. She was certain she didn't want anything to do with shadow things, but her part in the music had her playing along, singing back and forth and seeming to be slowly capitulating to the siren song of the shadow.
4.bp.blogspot.com/-VCeWhogOb4U/UmZ47PlbrpI/AAAAAAAAgyo/gII0qHpSxEg/s1600/Doctor-who-Master.jpg
Fast threw up a hoof, "That's a load and a half! I'm not going to be brainwashed in some kind of musical number, thanks." She threw that same hoof over Silver's withers, "Come on, let's get something to eat, then we have so much kissing to catch up on."
That Line made me smile.
6502534 Fixed!
Does silver become male again.. Its just really weird here. Not bad but..weird
6774364 Do you really want me to answer that?
you heard that
irises
6821469 Fixed.
Methinks you mean "nudged along to Cadance's court"
I feel bad as my only followup comments as i read are likely to be corrections, But great story! (i think this makes the third time i have said it)
6888814 Fixed, glad you like it! No harm giving corrections.
...I am imagining this as an Equestrian rendition of Franz Schubert's Erlkönig. Probably a good thing he broke out of it.
7119577 Equestrian song music is no joke!
7119650 I don't know if I can finish reading this story. It just seems to far fetched now. So what I am going to do is read the main story. Sorry.....
7278303 Then wake up and return to Putting on a Silver Robe and Wizard Hat.