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Chapter One: Market Day3,244 words
Chapter Two: Haven's Secret3,586 words
Chapter Three: Celestial Regret3,738 words
Chapter Four: Changing Emotions3,177 words
Chapter Five: One of Many3,833 words
Chapter Six: Pinkie Party4,166 words
Chapter Seven: Spin the Bottle3,943 words
Chapter Eight: Troublesome Truths and Dastardly Dares4,966 words
Cancelled106 words

Chapter Three: Celestial Regret

Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did.

Chapter Three
Celestial Regret

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
-Buddha

Celestia

Princess Celestia sat on her throne, listening to her Captain of the Guard’s report with sadness. There had not been a confirmed murder in Equestria in centuries, and Shining Armor was here in her throne room reporting over a dozen from one perpetrator.

“-but the most interesting part about this is the pony gave himself up,” Shining Armor was saying. “Just... called in the nurse and reported his thirteen murders. What would cause a pony to do that?”

Celestia smiled sadly, “Guilt can do many things to my little ponies. It seems it was too much for this stallion.” She sighed, suddenly weary. “I trust that you can apprehend this pony?” she asked. When Shining Armor nodded, she continued, “Good. After he’s in custody, send me a message via Spike with any other information you might find.” She added almost as an afterthought, “Oh, and you’ll be staying in Ponyville for a week.”

He tried to reply, flustered, “I don’t need a vacation! I’m perfectly capable of handling something like this!”

Celestia would have none of it. “Shining Armor, you have served me for ten years, three as my Captain of the Guard, without taking a single vacation save for your honeymoon. This is not a request, this is not because of the subject matter, this is because you haven’t seen your sister in nearly six months, and she misses you. Take the vacation, that’s an order.”

Shining Armor smiled a small smile, “Alright, Princess. I’ll get a squad to the sky carriages.” At Celestia’s look, he added reluctantly, “And I’ll get my bags there too. I have the feeling that something horrible will happen while I’m gone, however.”

Celestia nodded with a happy smile, “Complaint noted, and summarily dismissed. Have a fun week.”

* * *

Shining Armor

“Alright men,” Shining Armor announced as his soldiers landed in Ponyville square. “This will be an easy arrest. The stallion we’re arresting in currently in the hospital. All we have to do is make sure he doesn’t get out without us.”

The ponies of Ponyville were confused. The Royal Guard was never called without one of the Princesses around, and even then they hadn’t come in force in nearly three hundred years!

“Shiny! What is going on?” Twilight yelled, running out of the crowd. “What is the Guard doing here?”

Shining Armor looked around at the crowd of ponies waiting for his response, and shook his head. “I’ll tell you later Twily, when there aren’t so many prying ears about.”

Unnoticed to the two of them, one cyan stallion was extracting himself from the crowd with as much stealth as he could muster.

“Does it involve the stallion Change and I brought in from the Everfree?” Twilight asked.

Shining Armor froze. His sister had been near that murderer? Suddenly one detail of her sentence stuck out to him. “Who’s Change?”

“He’s a stallion from out of town,” Twilight said looking at the crowd. “And he was just behind me.”

“Ponies can get lost in the crowd, Twily. He’s there somewhere. What do you mean you and Change brought him from the Everfree?”

“Well, Change showed up at my door last night asking for my help. He then led me into the Everfree, where the stallion was laying in a clearing, bleeding. We brought him to the hospital, and-”

Shining Armor interrupted, “Wait, how did Change know the stallion was there?”

Twilight shrugged, “I didn’t have the chance to ask.”

Shining Armor turned to his lieutenant, “Bright Aegis, you’re in charge until I get back. We have a possible conspirator.”

“Conspirator? Shiny!” Twilight complained.

“We can’t rule anypony involved out. This is big, Twily. I have to take every lead,” Shining Armor apologized. “What does Change look like?”

Twilight reluctantly told him, “He’s average sized, with a cyan coat, a white mane, and a horseshoe cutie mark.”

Shining Armor scanned the crowd for a pony matching Change’s description. Let’s see... pink, blue, green, cyan! Nope, that’s Lyra. Wasn’t she supposed to be a bridesmaid at my wedding? Focus, Shining Armor! You’re looking for Change. Yellow, pink, purple, cyan! There he is. Shining Armor was confused. Why is he trying to sneak away?

“Is that him?” he asked, pointing to the retreating Change.

Twilight was confused as well, “Yes, but why is he running?”

“I intend to find out.”

* * *

“STOP! I just want to talk!” Shining Armor yelled after the sprinting Change as they tore around a corner, nearly bowling over Bon Bon. The second Shining Armor had tried to talk to him, he had bolted. Shining Armor was convinced of his innocence before, but now he had his doubts.

He only had doubts because, despite the fact he was running, every time he looked back, his eyes were filled with unadulterated fear. Something about seeing Shining Armor made him terrified. He hoped that Change made a wrong turn fairly soon, or somepony might get hurt.

Quickly, Shining Armor turned one last corner to see an entrance to the Everfree forest. Change quickly vanished into the brush.

“Damn it!” Shining Armor stomped his hoof in the dirt. “So close.”

* * *

Warden

Warden gave a sad little smile when a guard walked into his room, “I take it you’re here to take me to Canterlot?”

The guard didn’t return the smile, but Warden didn’t expect him to, “The second the hospital clears you for movement, you’ll be the first guest at the dungeons in nearly a century.”

“No less than I expected.”

The duo sat in silence until a third figure walked in. Shining Armor walked in with both a manilla folder and a look of frustration on his face, muttering something about a ‘stupid forest’. “Sorry I’m a little late, but I had to stop off at the mayor’s office to grab their ‘missing ponies’ file. The mayor is very talkative when nervous.”

The guard spoke up, “I take it he got away, sir?”

Warden’s ears perked up as Shining Armor replied, “Yeah, Bright Aegis. Ran straight into the Everfree. Poor guy was terrified of me.”

“Why would he run?” the newly dubbed Bright Aegis wondered.

“I’m not sure. Just like I’m not sure how he knew our ‘friend’ here was in the forest.”

“You’ll never catch him,” Warden grinned. “He’s gone and not coming back.”

A third guard chimed in from the doorway, “I wouldn’t be so sure. Captain, Bravo is requesting your presence. Change is in our custody.”

* * *

Change

Change felt his panic fall the farther into the Everfree he got. He recognised the purple armor of the Captain of the Guard. This was troubling news. There was one reason Change could think of for sending the Captain to Ponyville; they had been compromised.

As he drew nearer to Haven, Change recalled his conversation with Warden. His face hardened into a mask of anger as he walked in through the secret door. He steeled himself for a conversation he didn’t want to have. I guess you don’t always get what you want.

Boss was out by the fire and appeared to be roasting dinner. Change didn’t even look twice at the carcass on the spit, which was Boss’s first sign that something was wrong. His second sign was the look of anger, a look rarely seen on Change’s face. His third sign was the piece of paper that Change shoved at him.

I talked with Warden.

Boss smiled, “So he’s awake, is he?”

He was hurt dragging a body into a manticore den. One he had killed. One of thirteen.

Boss froze, “That’s... not good.” At Change’s glare, he continued, “There’s more you’re not telling me, Change. I need to know what’s wrong to fix it!”

What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that you ordered every single damn kill.

“What do you mean? I didn’t-”

Straight from the horse’s mouth, you ordered the death of thirteen ponies. Thirteen.

“Change, I’d never do that! I would never order Warden to murder!”

Then why did he tell me, in no uncertain terms, that he did it on ’Boss’s orders.’

“I told him to get rid of trespassers, yes, but I never wanted him to kill them! Scare them away, alright. Maybe if he had no other choice knock them out and move them, sure. But killing? Dangerous animals, sure. But thinking beings? I would never condone that!” Boss pleaded.

Change smiled, relieved. Boss wasn’t bad, it was just Warden. Just Warden. His world had not fallen completely apart. Suddenly he remembered.

Celestia sent the both the Guard and its Captain to Ponyville. He nearly caught me before I escaped. We’re compromised.

Boss’s eyes widened significantly. “HAVEN!” he yelled, “WE’VE BEEN COMPROMISED!” He turns back to Change, “You know what to do.”

Change nodded and went to getting ready to move.

If we move, you’ll never see her again, Change’s mind reminded him.

If we don’t move, we’ll die, he shot back.

You don’t know that for certain. I’d be willing to face the Guard for Twilight.

But are you willing to face her?

Yes.

Well I don’t care if you are or not, because I’m not.

Yes, you are. I am you. You are ready, you are more than ready. You’re just afraid.

* * *

This is the stupidest thing I have ever done, and I blame you.

Change was currently surrounded by Guards, awaiting the arrival of their Captain. He hadn’t taken three steps outside of the forest before he was discovered.

I am you, remember?

“Well, well, well,” Shining Armor walked up. “So you came back.”

Not surprisingly, Change said nothing.

“Why did you run?” Shining Armor asked.

Again, Change said nothing.

Let’s see how long this goes on for.

* * *

Twilight

“Shining Armor!” Twilight exclaimed, exasperated. “Would you stop yelling at that poor colt?”

Shining Armor growled, “I’ll stop yelling when he starts answering my questions.” Change stuck his tongue out at the older stallion in a juvenile display of defiance. Shining Armor glared at him. “He’s also been acting like a child the whole time!”

Twilight firmly planted her hoof onto her forehead, just below her horn. She groaned, “Shiny.”

She didn’t notice how Change started looking at Shining Armor quite intently after her use of a pet name.

“Listen, Twily, you’re my sister, and I love you, but you can’t just barge into an interrogation like this! There are laws and regulations we have to follow,” Shining Armor stated.

“Did it ever occur to you while you were dragging Change halfway across town to town hall that maybe he was not talking because he, I don’t know, can’t?” Twilight asked.

Shining Armor scoffed, “Twily, it is much more likely that he is pretending to not be able to talk than he actually can’t.”

Change chuckled silently behind Shining Armor, shaking his head. Twilight perked her ears toward him. “What’s so funny, Change? You’re being interrogated as an conspirator to-actually, what is he being accused of, Shiny?”

Shining Armor sighed, “I can’t tell you, you know that.”

Change tapped the table in front of him twice. Twilight and Shining Armor looked at him in confusion for a second. He tapped the table twice more, moving his hoof in a wiggly line from left to right. Twilight’s eyes brightened. “He wants a pen and paper.”

Shining Armor shook his head. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Twilight glared at him. “Get him the pen and paper, Shining Armor, or I’m telling Cadance that you are yelling at a mute colt for not talking and withholding something for him to communicate with.”

Shining Armor’s eyes widened as he quickly walked out of the room they were occupying inside town hall. Twilight turned back at Change and smiled. She could tell he did his best to smile back, but it looked so obviously fake that it ruined any effect it would have had.

Within a minute Shining Armor came back with pen and paper. He placed them in front of Change, and quickly took a step back. Change looked at him with some amusement in his eyes before scribbling on the paper quickly and passing it to Twilight. She barely got to look at it before Shining Armor snatched it up in his magic, but that was enough.

13 murders

Shining Armor growled at the mute stallion, “That is classified information.”

Change just rolled his eyes, writing something else before hoofing it to the Captain of the Guard.

I talk through Twilight, or not at all. Your choice.

Shining Armor just glared at him, he opened his mouth to say something, and Change hoofed him another note.

Not that it matters, anyway.

Shining Armor looked at Change sideways. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter anyway?”

I was fully expecting to be mind reamed the second I was in custody.

Shining Armor was taken aback. Mind reaming was an effective way of extracting information from a subject, but it was extremely illegal and only to be used in the most dire of circumstances. It is one of the most restricted spells ever created, therefore most Equestrians don’t even know it exists.

Is that not how this works?

Change had a look of genuine shock on his face at Shining Armor’s reaction. Neither of the stallions noticed when Twilight read the notes over Shining Armor’s shoulder. “Shiny, what’s a mind ream?”

Shining Armor quickly, and belatedly, flipped all the notes over so his sister couldn’t read them. “Extremely illegal, and even more classified. You have no idea what a mind ream is, and never heard the term before, understand, Twily?”

“How about you actually explain what it is?” Twilight shot at him.

He sighed, “Twilight, this is above your pay grade.”

“I’m an Element of Harmony, Shiny. I think I should know about something like this.” She shook her head.

Change slid a note between the two, smacking Shining Armor’s horn as he tried to snatch it up, fizzling his spell. Twilight picked it up and read it quickly, growing more horrified as she went on.

A mind ream is when a Guardsman, usually the Captian, forcibly enters the mind of another pony, roots around in your memories with a metaphorical stick, and rips out the information he’s looking for.

Shining Armor tacked on, “Usually it causes a lot of damage to the subject’s brain, sometimes it causes blindness, deafness, memory loss, complete loss of higher brain function-”

“Muteness,” Twilight breathed sadly, looking at Change. He nodded, face somber.

I got lucky.

“How is losing the ability to speak lucky?” Twilight demanded.

“He could be dead, or the next best thing,” Shining Armor reminded.

Some call it “brain dead.” Seems quite accurate, since your body lives on without you.

Shining Armor stared at Change for a minute. Twilight could swear she heard the grinding and scraping of gears as they turned inside her brother’s head. Eventually, he spoke up, “Twily, keep this guy busy. I have a report to make.”

Twilight looked at him in shock. “What about the ‘laws and regulations’ you were so adamant on earlier?”

Shining Armor leveled an annoyed glare at her. “This is one of those regulations. It is also a law. I’m pretty sure we can accept a breach of protocol for a matter of national security.”

“Matter of national security? What are you talking about, Shiny?” Twilight asked.

He sighed, pausing to collect his thoughts. “There has not been a confirmed use of a mind ream in longer than I’ve been alive, and I’m pretty sure I’m older than this colt here.”

Change shrugged, pushing another note to join in on the conversation.

Maybe. Not sure.

Shining Armor looked at him for a second before shaking his head. “Kid, I’m nearly thirty. There’s no way you’re older than me. Not with how you look, and frankly, how you act.” He turned to Twilight. “I’ll probably be back to collect him soon. It won’t take five minutes.”

* * *

“I think I see something,” Shining Armor said, squinting and pointing a hoof at a faint black dot in the general direction of Canterlot. “It’s probably her.”

He had indeed been back swiftly, as he said he would be, and pulled the two inside the room outside. He refused to say, however, why they were heading out there. The reason, however, became more and more apparent as the speck the Captain of the Guard had pointed out got larger and larger. It started to expand, like one of those “grow your own Princess Celestia” toys for foals after being put into water.

The growing mass turned out to be a royal carriage. Twilight saw the blood drain from Change’s face, turning his face as white as his hair. After a second of statuesque stillness, he started to bolt. He got three steps before Shining’s horn fired up, and didn’t get three more after that before he was coated with glowing rose chains. He struggled against the magical chains like a cornered animal, and Twilight could swear she heard the magical construct clink, even though hard mana made no noise. Exactly like a cornered animal, Twilight decided, noting the frantic, primal attempts at escape employed by Change while he was constantly looking over his shoulder at the approaching carriage. Something about the Princess was causing this stallion to want, no, need, to run.

The carriage touched down, causing Change’s attempts to escape to increase exponentially. Shining Armor’s brow started to sweat, and he grit his teeth. His horn flashed once, and the chains tightened on the frantic stallion.

The door to the carriage swung open and Princess Celestia hastily disembarked. “Shining Armor, you claimed there was-oh, my.” Her jaw dropped as she beheld the chained stallion laying on the ground, looking to all as if he was having a seizure. “Why are these chains so tight, Shining Armor?” the Princess snapped, suddenly seeming much different than her normal, calm, disposition.

“Uh, I-well you see Princess-” Shining Armor tried to come up with an excuse, but was interrupted.

“Loosen them at once!” the solar diarch commanded. “Honestly, Shining Armor, you are my Captain of the Guard. You’re better than this.” She turned her reprimanding gaze over the assembled Guardsmen and rhetorically asked, “And all of you, is there nothing else you could be doing?”

“Uh, well-” one brave Guard tried to answer.

“No, that was rhetorical. Look around you. You’re lucky that he’s not raising a ruckus or you would have triple the peering eyes. I expect professionalism from you all.

“And you,” She rounded at Change, who by that point was breathing heavily and had stopped struggling for the most part, now trying to back up as far as the chains would allow. The sudden attention from the Princess seemed to give him a new burst of energy. He glared at the alicorn and in what he thought would be his final act of defiance, and to the surprise of all around, spit directly into her face.

To the further amazement of all around, Celestia didn’t so much as react, save to flinch. After a second, she sighed, “I guess I deserved that, didn’t I?”

Shining Armor rocked back, voicing what was on everyone’s minds, “Wait, what?”

Princess Celestia, again astounding the assembled crowd, lowered her head and kneeled her forelegs on the ground in a bow.

None were more taken aback than Change. He resumed his slow walk backwards, finding himself suddenly stopped by the still-there mana chains binding him. Celestia didn’t even look up as she spoke, “I have wronged you, in a way that is unforgivable. Still, I must ask.” She drew in a shaky breath, and Twilight realized that Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, raiser of the sun, and immortal alicorn from an age lost, was nervous. “Is there any way you can forgive me?”

Change sat very still as the chains around him dissipated. He took no notice of the shattered and dissolving chunks of faintly glowing rose mana, focusing his full attention at the immortal lying prostrate before him. He looked at the Princess with confusion for a moment, before looking to Twilight.

Not even needing to be told, Twilight levitated over parchment, quill, and inkwell. Change scribbled a note, and Princess Celestia kept her pose, awaiting an answer. He tapped her softly, and only then did she dare raise her head. The assembled ponies cried out in horror as a cyan hoof flew into the solar diarch’s face. Her head snapped to the side, where it remained for a second before Celestia slowly brought her head back into position. Change handed her the parchment before walking off, none of the shocked ponies, not even the Guardsmen, tried to stop him.

Celestia looked up from the note with a sad smile on her face. “Thank you, Frequent Change.”

Twilight was the first to break the spell that Change’s blatant, even unpunished, assault of Celestia had cast over the assembly. She slowly walked up to the mare she had seen as a second mother for the last decade and a half of her life, and read the note Change had left her.

It’s a start. I want a place to stay in Ponyville and a public admission of what you did. Then, and only then, will I even consider you on the path to forgiveness.

What had Celestia done, to anger the childish stallion so?

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