A Change of Pace

by Votederpycausemufins

Make her believe

“Nymph, let us go!” Cicada exclaimed as the new queen kept carrying her and Nettle.

“I am Queen Nymph! And for the same reason you were to be executed! If my sister wasn’t dead, you would just be sent north.”

At that point, Nettle spoke up. “So you’re saying a changeling would kill their own ruler?”

Nymph turned to look at him, her face filled with rage. “She’s a pony! Can’t you see that?! We’ve never changed into ponies because of what their kind has done to us! The only one on our side was killed by her own kind! Why do you think a changeling would willingly disguise themselves as a pony?”

Cicada looked at Nymph. Her sister’s side left side was facing her, and she was just close enough to the lower part of Nymph’s ribs that she might be able to escape the new queen’s magic. Cicada whipped her head to the right so her horn jabbed Nymph’s side. Her guess had been a bit off, and her horn seemed to have made her sister bleed a little, but the changeling dropped her prisoners as her magic flickered from the jab.
Nymph put a hoof to her side, looking at it surprise, and then moving her gaze to Cicada with the same expression.

“How did you…” She started to say, but shook her head and got up, her horn started to glow again, and summoned a small dagger.

Cicada’s eyes widened in panic. Her sister had learned how to summon magic weapons in the time she was gone. Or possibly before then and never used it. Either way, weapons like those were rumored to be able to kill even alicorns. Changelings were obviously not immortal, so it was easy for Nymph to kill her with it.

Nymph was about to lunge at Cicada when something fell on top of her. The real queen stepped back as her sister fell to the ground. A tired looking Lila flew down from the ceiling, and perched herself on Cicada. From on top of Nymph, Spike waved. “I thought you said changelings were good here?”

Cicada gave a sad nod. “They usually are, but I have no idea what happened to my sister.” She quickly lifted her head in shock. “Wait a second, I thought the other guards were going to lock you up. How the hay did you get out?”

Spike pointed to the navy blue phoenix. “Lila got me out, though she did have trouble keeping Sparkle in. She also carried me up into the air so we could stop your sister and would have let me go sooner, but held of as I wasn’t sure if I was high enough yet.”

Spike looked at Nymph, and asked if she was going to be okay. Cicada shrugged at the dragon, and picked her sister up to find a bed or something soft so she could lay down the changeling. Nettle helped by showing them where Nymph slept now and the five of them were soon in the royal bedroom.

At first, Cicada didn’t know where to put Nymph down because there were two beds, but Nettle explained the new queen took the slightly smaller one of the two. Cicada took her sister to the bed and tucked her in carefully.

“So, what happened while I was gone? I suspect now that we finally won the war that Locust proposed.”
Nettle shook his head. “No, he went missing right after Nymph was captured by Sparkle. When anyling asks about him, she goes awkwardly silent.”

Cicada still looking at Nymph asked. “Nymph got captured? What do you mean?”

“When you didn’t come back, she went to look for you. The empress captured her and she was gone for a few days. She got back out the day Empress Sparkle disappeared and was able to take down most of her forces.”

Spike looked at Nettle. “Woah, really? That’s impressive!”

Nettle shrugged. “Well, there were ponies who wondered about that happened to their ruler, though the majority were thinking of rebelling since the empress had been the reason that the war had been going on for so long. With her gone, storming the castle easy because of her being the main reason of previous failures.”

Finally, Cicada walked over to a window in the room. Both she and Lila, who was still perched on her back, looked out and gave a little smile. “Well, at least Nymph did one good thing while we were gone. It looks a bit nicer here.”

Spike looked over to them. “Really? Can I see?”

He ran to join them when Cicada waved him over. The window was high enough that he could barely see out and look at the city. Nettle walked over and helped lift the dragon up.

Spike looked out, eager to see the city, but his ears drooped down as he viewed it. the sky was how Cicada had explained it to him and his friends before. The sun and moon were on opposite sides of the horizon, leaving the sky a purple and slightly pink color. Many of the houses in the city looked old and unlived in, but he could see various changelings going in and out of them.

“Look at that,” Cicada said, pointing out the window. “They’ve been fixing the place up a bunch. It actually looks like the houses here aren’t condemned. Though, that just might be since I’m seeing it from the castle instead.”

Spike turned his head to look at Cicada. “You mean this is supposed to be better?!”

Nettle gave an equally confused look. “Why does he think this isn’t better?”

Cicada gave the changeling and explanation of the other Equestria and how they had never been in a war there, at least not recently. Nettle tried to argue saying it couldn’t be true, but Spike backed her up.

“There is no way that Sparkle could be good. She’s pure evil!” Nettle shouted. “She was raised by Celestia, who might have been more evil than her if not as evil. She enslaved us all, even some of the ponies wanted to rebel. And then here you are saying she’s good somewhere?!”

“Nettle! It’s completely different there. Besides, She and I were almost friends here. I wish I knew what changed her, but I don’t.”
At that point, Spike spoke up again. “So what exactly is she like? I haven’t gotten to see her that much. Well, other than her mainly pretending not to.”

One of Cicada’s eyes gave a small twitch, much like if she winced. “She… Well, back when we were younger, we were friends. After Celestia stopped coming to visit my mom, I never got to see her. The next time we ever met was… well…” She sighed. “Selena had taken me to meet with her sister, for one last chance at letting our societies merge. Her sister lashed out and the two battled each other. When Selena fell and gave her magic to me with her last breath, in the corner of my eye I saw Celestia collapse too.”

At that point, Cicada gave a small choking sound. “I looked up to see Twilight behind her, Her horn smoking as well as this weird purple smoke dissipating from around her eyes. She used dark magic to defeat Celestia, and took the alicorn’s magic as well. The Twilight I had known wasn’t there anymore. In place of the friendly unicorn I had met was a murderous alicorn, with an unstoppable thirst for power.”

Spike had covered his mouth in shock at the story, but Nettle looked even more shocked. Cicada had once said she didn’t want to talk of the subject of how Selena had died, and here she was, explaining what had happened and even saying that the evil empress Sparkle had once been her friend.

“Why finally tell that story now?” Nettle asked. “What makes him special?”

Cicada’s cheeks puffed up. “I was stuck for over a week in an entirely different Equestria, and he and Lila were the only beings there I felt I could always trust as I’ve not seen them as evil here.”

“And why didn’t you go find any changelings there instead.”

“Because they’re evil there!” Cicada yelled at the top of her lungs. “I was scared and alone. He was the first one I felt I could try to trust and especially after it seemed everyone else betrayed me. Now even my sister seems to have turned on me, though she does have the excuse of me being a pony right now.”

Spike wrung his hands. “Um… Should we maybe talk about something el-”

Before Spike could finish, Cicada suddenly burst out crying, catching everyone off guard. She cried out about how she wished something big would work out for once. Lila and Spike tried to calm her down. Nettle would have too, but near them, Nymph was starting to stir.

He tried to stop her from waking up enough for her to be able to fully react to Cicada being there. As she tried to get up, the changeling mumbled Cicada’s name. Nymph shook her head slightly, trying to clear her vision. It was still blurry as she looked at Cicada. The color of the mane and tail reminded her of her sister, but the body color seemed more like a pony. It also seemed like Lila might be there, willingly next to the pony.
Nymph shook her head again and saw the pony she had wanted executed, but escaped with Nettle. The traitor was trying to hold her down as well but the queen easily pushed him away into the wall.

Nymph fluttered out of bed and landed next to Cicada, pushing away Spike and carefully moving Lila away. “You stupid pony! Why even come in here?” She waited for some kind of answer, but all she got was sobbing. “Come on! Say Something!”

Nymph picked Cicada up in her magic and slapped her multiple times. “You cry almost as much as my sister does when she finally takes a moment to. And she at least has reason to unlike all of you pony scum!”

When Cicada still didn’t say anything, Nymph threw her across the room. Without giving her time to recover, the queen started to come towards her with a murderous look in her eyes. Cicada coughed a few times, with blood spattering out. She tried to say something, sounding almost like a song.

“To the... indoo-” She tried to say in between coughs and crying.

Nymph faltered at the tune. It was familiar. She had made it up herself when she was little. That second she stopped allowed Nettle to grab the queen and keep her from advancing any further.

“Nymph, that’s Cicada! Leave her alone.” He shouted at her.

Nymph stared at her sister in horror at what she had almost done. She teared up thinking about it, but kept from crying. She didn't want to believe it, but the truth was staring at her in the face.

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FRJJU FGSLBRUO

Author's Note:

Merry Christmas (well, let's just say happy holidays) to all of you readers. i hope you enjoy this chapter of the story. after next chapter comes out, i hope to do Saturday streams again. another note, here's a word from my new editor:

Hello everypony and everyling!
Crimson Twilight here. I just want to mention that I had quite the time editing this chapter, should thou have any questions to me, feel free to ask. I also want to wish thou all a merry Christmas! Bye!

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