Mirage

by Trump-12

Discussion

Celestia sat on her throne, thoroughly bored. She had thought that after the changelings had invaded, she would have more work to do, but now that he was out from under the queen's influence, Shining Armor had quickly sorted out the problems that had been allowed to develop within the guard, and they had proven very effective at rooting out the remnants of Chryalis' army.

Repairs to the city itself were going smoothly, and the only problems there were a few nobles who had lied about what their homes had been like before the damage, so they could get a free upgrade.

There hadn't even been any friendship reports from Twilight and her friends to entertain her. Not that she herself could claim to be a good friend after completely brushing off Twilight's concerns about Cadence's behaviour.

As though on cue, a small puff of green smoke found its way in through the window, coalescing into a single scroll. If anypony asked later, Celestia did not squeal like a filly on her birthday and dive on top of it.

She quickly unrolled the scroll, wondering what antics her student had been involved in this time, but as she read it, her smile faded. This was no time for fun. She had possibly ordered the arrest of thousands of innocent beings.

She reached the bottom of the letter and smiled again. At least now she had something to do today.

---

Queen Imago looked down at the pathetically begging drone in her dungeon. She felt some pity for the poor guy, having been given a leader who was so completely unstable, and clearly having fallen on hard times, judging by the holes scarring his body.

She hated that it fell to her to decide his fate when he was plainly starving. He had just been looking for a little food, and had the bad luck to end up in her territory. And then had the doubly bad luck to try and feed on Trance of all beings. He was lucky to still be in one piece. Before he met Lyra, Trance would have annihilated him.

On top of her pity for the drone, her current hatred of Chrysalis also factored into it. How she would love to use this incident as an excuse to take her down. She may like her drones to be as pony-like as possible, but underneath it all, changelings were predators. The idea of standing over Chrysalis while she lay with the blood draining from her dying body was extremely appealing right now.

It was also a delicate situation with the ponies. Now that they were exposed, anything which could sour relations any more than they already were was a bad idea. Mindlessly killing Chrysalis would certainly do that. If Chrysalis was to die, it would have to be done in a way that ponies couldn't fault if they found out about it.

A flare of green light appeared next to her. She instantly recognised it as a spell similar to dragon flame, which she had taught her warriors to alert her to major threats.

As she read the short message, her cold, emotionless mask came up. If this wasn't handled correctly it could put her hive at war with the ponies. She couldn't send drones from collection duties or they could compromise their disguises, and the drones trained as warriors could be rather... indelicate.

She would have to go herself.

---

"I brought the sweets!" Pinkie called up to the tree house, somehow talking despite carrying several bags and boxes of sweets with her mouth.

No sooner had she said it, than a green aura surrounded the snacks and pulled them straight through the shield. "Awesome, thanks Pinkie."

Twilight's jaw dropped. She walked up to the shield and put a hoof to it. It was completely solid. "How did you do that? There was no hole in the shield or anything! That shouldn't be possible."

"Changeling magic is powered by the love we feed on. Why should it work the same as unicorn magic?"

"I... I guess you're right. But I still want to know how that works."

"Maybe I'll tell you if this all works out."

Further conversation was interrupted as the sound of a powerful spell charging was heard. A cage of golden light in the shape of a pony appeared just behind Twilight, before slowly filling itself in. A flash of white and the image became solid.

Celestia certainly knew how to look powerful while making an entrance.

"Princess?" Twilight gasped. "You didn't have to come down here yourself. What about your duties up in Canterlot?"

"Calm down, Twilight. If there were more important things to be doing, I assure you that I would be doing them. As it is, the country is mostly running itself at the moment, so I have some free time to deal with things like this."

"Oh."

"Also, who would you have me send? Your brother is still on his honeymoon, and I'm not sure the interim captain is well enough versed in the art of diplomacy. That leaves me or Luna, and Luna is still sulking over the fact that she slept through an entire invasion."

Twilight looked a little embarrassed at this point. It was obvious in hindsight that this was the only way it could have played out. "I'm sorry, I guess I hadn't thought it through."

A cultured voice cut in at this point. "Excuse me, Princess, but could we perhaps focus on getting my sister and her friends out of there?"

Celestia looked at Rarity, a slightly sheepish smile on her face. "You're right, Rarity." She turned towards the force field, noting the healthy looking changeling now standing right on the other side of it. "So, I am told that your name is Princess Mirage. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, that's me," the changeling princess replied.

"I am also told," she said slowly, "that you disagree with Chrysalis' methods, and were uninvolved in her invasion."

"Chrysalis was buzzing insane. Did Twilight also tell you about my comparison between Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon? We could just as easily base our opinions of ponies around her as you are with us and Chrysalis."

"That may be true," Celestia countered, "but Luna's dark side wasn't the first pony you had ever encountered. Chrysalis was the first changeling known to exist, and she claimed to be the queen of all of them. We had no reason to doubt her claim at the time. From our point of view, there was no reason to believe that any changelings would view us as anything other than food."

"And pony was once considered a griffon delicacy, but now look at them. None of them would dream of touching pony meat these days. Things change, and Chrysalis will die if she attacks again. She may be powerful when well fed, but she doesn't stand a chance against nineteen angry queens with similar power levels at their disposal." Mirage smirked. "Especially when her planning and deception skills are so obviously lacklustre."

Celestia frowned as something clicked. "You seem so much more mature than Scootaloo, but I still see some of the raw confidence and fearlessness I associate with her. Why the difference in apparent age?"

Mirage laughed at that. "Scootaloo is an eleven-year-old filly who has nothing more to worry about than finding her Cutie Mark. I am an eleven-year-old changeling princess, schooled from a young age to one day lead the hive. Of course I'm more mature than she is. I work hard to maintain that immaturity when I'm being Scootaloo, since my normal personality would seem strange, which is the last thing a changeling in disguise should be."

Celestia nodded. Mirage's explanation made sense, but there was something else she wanted to know. "I seem to remember that after just a month or so of being fed on, Shining Armor became rather unresponsive and lifeless. You claim to have been feeding on the Crusaders for six, and yet there doesn't seem to be any noticeable effect on them. Why?"

Mirage looked down sadly. "It has to do with our different methods. Chrysalis was trying to pretend to be somepony else, and using magic to cover up the fact that she was a poor actress. She was artificially forcing him to feel love for her, which was actually burning out his capacity to feel any emotion at all.

"With the Crusaders, I was just playing the part of a less mature version of my true self. There was no magic needed, and any slips could be passed off as me growing up. I didn't make them love me, so I didn't do any damage."

Celestia let out a relieved breath. If leaving this changeling alone was going to hurt any of her ponies, even as a side effect, she wouldn't have thought twice. Now that she knew that nopony would be hurt, many of her concerns were gone.

"If I was to let you go," she started slowly, "I would want to speak with your mother at the earliest convenience."

"I -"

"I can arrange that," came a second buzzing voice, deeper than Mirage's. Out of the forest stepped a powerful looking changeling queen.

Author's Note:

I don't plan to have griffons play much of a part in this story, but since I have now mentioned them, if they do play a part, I will be disregarding canon as described in Lost Treasure of Griffonstone. For the purposes of this story, if we see the griffon empire it will still be proud and powerful.

Comments

[wallaceb]

i am enjoying this very much. please update soon!

[Mauser1888]

Very nice. Looking forward to more.

[Starfreedom444]

This is quite good

[Pentarctagon]

Celestia sat on her throne, thoroughly bored.

to the rescue!

[Starcat5]

Author's Note:
I don't plan to have griffons play much of a part in this story, but since I have now mentioned them, if they do play a part, I will be disregarding canon as described in Lost Treasure of Griffonstone. For the purposes of this story, if we see the griffon empire it will still be proud and powerful.

I highly doubt Equestria is the only Pony nation on Equus. Why should the nearby failed City-State of Griffonstone be the only Gryphon nation?

[platogkrone]

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