A Queen's Perspective - Correspondence

by gerandakis

Inspired Mysteries

Dear Sunset,

the last two days in Ponyville have been eventful it seems, I've decided to stay here for a few weeks before returning to the hive.
Yesterday I've been told there was a bit of a problem with AJ and Applebloom. The Apples agreed that she was old and responsible enough to be at home alone for a few hours while the others were out on business. But AJ had second thoughts, she came rushing back home worrying about Applebloom. Of course there was no problem, but she freaked out anyway. In the end Applebloom got the other two crusaders to cover for her (it might have helped I gave Sweetie Belle a pendant that can mimic changeling disguise magic. It needs a unicorn's magic to work and it will only work for a few minutes at a time. It's still very much an early prototype, a proof of concept really.) and went out to do AJ's delivery for her.
Once she figured that out, AJ came running after AB, just in time to save her from a chimera. They ended up making the delivery together. They both learned a valuable lesson, If AB had listened to AJ she wouldn't have gotten in danger, but if a AJ hadn't gotten so neurotic about everything (Yes I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, I'm working on it!), AB wouldn't have had a reason to go against her to begin with.
And that's only what they learned, for a few days now Rarity was working on a collection of costumes for Sapphire Shores (do you have a version of her as well?) but she took the time to make costumes for a play Sweetie had written (she may not be the best playwright yet but she certainly has potential) but Sweetie got angry because she felt the costumes overshadowed everything else, so she tried to sabotage the costumes for Sapphire Shores.
She ended up changing her mind (not sure why but given she mentioned something about Princess Luna I assume dreams had something to do with it.) and the Crusaders ended up following Rarity to Manehattan and managed to fix everything before Rarity could show it to Sapphire Shores.

So, like I said, an eventful few days here, I'll be heading back to the hive next week and from what they said Rarity and Rainbow want to come along and visit.

Twilight

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Dear Twilight,

that's a lot of things happening in a short time, especially considering that for me that wouldn't even be four hours. I know Sapphire Shores is a popular musician over here as well. Things have been calm here, no signs that these events were somehow mirrored on this end, I hope you have fun showing Rarity around the hive, I'd really like to see it for myself actually, it sounds really impressive, maybe we can arrange something at some point, but preferably after the Games are over, the school is getting pretty heavily into the spirit of things.

Sunset

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Dear Sunset,

we're now on the train back south. But before we left two familiar faces showed up in Ponyville, the brothers Flim and Flam, I think AJ mentioned something happening with them and her bass, so I assume they exist on your side as well. In any case in Equestria these two are a pair of charlatans.
This time the two were trying to sell a 'medical tonic' (also known as mixed fruit juice) that supposedly could heal anything. Granny Smith got her hooves on some of it and suddenly she could swim again. (Of course she could swim all the time, she had only convinced herself that she couldn't) This lead to Applejack not actively speaking out against the brothers' trickery and of course they immediately capitalized on that.
At some point it got so far that Granny Smith was about to jump into a bucket of water from a ten meter tower. At that point AJ stepped in and exposed the brothers for their trickery.

We'll see what Rarity thinks of the hive,

Twilight

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Dear Twilight,

yes, they exist here as well, and they aren't any better, though sometimes I think it's not their fault alone. So many of their cons wouldn't work if people weren't so gullible. I can't really say that anything they did over here managed to escalate that far though.

Make sure Rarity and Rainbow stay safe in the jungle (I've heard the horror stories about that place),

Sunset

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Dear Sunset,

it turns out Rainbow has a very unique way of learning. Yesterday I had her learn for a test on combat maneuvers and military strategy for the Wonderbolts. It's necessary for her to get a promotion and lead small squads. We tried a bunch of different strategies but in the end we took a short flight across the hive and I realized that she remembered everything we flew over on the way. She catalogues and memorizes everything she sees while flying. From there, getting her to learn all she needed to know was only a matter of sending a few requests out over the hivemind and taking her for another flight across the hive. Rarity is busy at the hive (last I checked she was rushing across one of the larger Plazas and shouting 'Inspirratioon!' every few seconds) and Rainbow will be off to Cloudsdale soon to take the test. Meanwhile I'll be visiting Queen Kreesus' hive to have a look into her archives.
I don't think I've mentioned it to you before but I'm researching the history of our people. You see, the general accepted history states that the Ebony Castle (the place where the Summit of the Queens happens) was the first changeling hive. From what I found so far though, I think it was the first hive in the Jungle, but the Jungle isn't actually our ancestral home.

I'll let you know if I find out more,

Twilight

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Dear Twilight,

that's a really intriguing way to learn, too bad that the Rainbow Dash on this end almost certainly doesn't learn in this way.
So wait, no one remembers what actually happened when your kind first arrived in the jungles? Given that was only a few millennia ago ('only a few millennia', not a sentence you hear often) and seeing the life expectancy of the average changeling queen that's actually rather strange. Now this may just be old demon-me speaking, but that screams cover-up if you ask me.

Hoping you find out what actually happened,

Sunset

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Dear Sunset,

I know, right? Now I don't have much contact to the other queens but both mother and Queen Kreesus never seem too interested in our origins when I bring it up. They might know something but that really doesn't sound like them.
Anyway, today I got a letter from Princess Luna, she was watching over the Rainbow Falls Trade Exchange yesterday. Turns out Rainbow and Fluttershy nearly got into some trouble when trying to trade for a signed first edition of 'Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue'. Basically the trader wanted a certain animal, but wanted it trained, so Rainbow nearly traded Fluttershy of for the time it would take her to train the animal (mind you, it's Fluttershy so it would probably take her half an hour) and of course Fluttershy was too nice to tell Rainbow that that is all kinds of not okay. At all. In the end they managed to convince the trader to call of the trade so all is well.
What I found in Kreesus' archives matches what I've found elsewhere. Nothing specific just general talk of things like coming to the plateau (the place where the Ebony Castle is today).

I'll tell you as soon as I find out more,

Twilight

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Dear Twilight,

I've always found this trade exchange to be a rather silly affair, sure its tradition but that alone doesn't make a practice worth practicing. Trades like that one and others were the exact reason we introduced currency in the first place. But enough of me ranting about economics, this mystery is getting interesting.
Do you know if any of the other queens show interest in the matter of your past? If anything you'd probably find a hint about where the changelings come from in the Ebony Castle, have you looked there yet?

I'll let you know if I think of anything else,

Sunset

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Dear Sunset,

that does seem like the most reasonable course of action. There are a few problems though. Outside of summits the Ebony Castle is closed off to anyone but the Home Guard (the drones that maintain the Ebony Castle) and full queens who have their authorisation. I haven't secured the rights to my crown yet so I can't go there and mother has apparently done something to upset the previous captain of the Home Guard and they are holding a grudge and refusing her requests. As for the other queens, the only other one that cares about our past is Queen Polybia and she really only cares about the dogmatic scriptures her mother wrote about the first mother.
That aside, Spike visited today and brought along something for Rarity, a book he, apparently, found in the Castle of the Two Sisters.
The book contained a dark magic spell that basically started possessing Rarity. It was called 'Inspiration Manifestation' and it did exactly what it sounds like. She basically went on a fashion rampage throughout Stripped Gear until Spike remembered the last bit of the incantation "Only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free". He basically went up to her and told her that she was going way overboard and not actually improving anything. That finally broke the spell.
It took mother, myself and a dozen of the new magus strain I helped mother develop the entire day to clean up all the dark magic (since it was dark magic we couldn't just use void stones to nullify the lingering effects).
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a young dragon to chew out,

Twilight

Comments

[Dark Feather]

Pore Spike should have gone to Twilight first to have her chek the book out, but all that end well and all that...

[gerandakis]

9049488
Fair enough, though it could be reasoned that he might have been worried that one of Twilight's children might spoil the surprise, 'if the Queen knows, the hive knows' might seem like a reasonable statement to the uninformed.

[Dark Feather]

9049503
That is not nessesaraly true.
In the original seris it is shown that the Queen can uptain anything her drones knows, but she can hide things from them easely enough.

[gerandakis]

9049521
indeed, that is why I said the statement might seem reasonable to the uninformed. For the sake of keeping the original story intact, let's assume that Spike doesn't know better because he never bothered to ask.

[DavisSentoV5]

Just another crazy day in Twilight's life and Spike, you in trouble big time