The Changelings attempt to deal with their devastating loss at Canterlot.
Extinction. It’s a word I grew up around, but never fully understood. Mother always talked about it, but I never got it. After all, there were hundreds of us, almost a thousand. How could we go extinct? Mother always talked about the time before, when there were thousands of us. If I was good, she would tell me the story of the wicked ponies of Equestria, and how they drove us out here into the badlands. Back then, “extinction” was just a far-off word that Mother always harped over, almost as much as her “Grand Plan” to take over Canterlot and then “all of Equestria would fall before her.” Now Chrysalis is gone, her grand plan failed, and the last changeling hive is in shambles. And extinction isn’t just a word anymore.
Further chapters will be uploaded as they are edited. Naming and editor credit goes to [REDACTED] Name of the story is a reference to the song by the heavy "Who needs the sunshine."
*Edit: Got some fanart! which the artist has kindly allowed me to use as a cover image, thank you Stormwatch.
Yes I am deleting all comments, no I am not reading them, if you want to find out why check here If you need to contact me use fimfiction's private message system and I should get back to you within a day.
There used to be many of us, our hives infiltrating throughout pony culture, coexisting with them in secret. And then the hives were found, and they were purged like a tumor. We almost went extinct then, but one of us found a way to survive. Twelve centuries ago, we stopped being mere grazers. We became hunters, extracting forcefully what could not be gained through coexistence, abducting those who lived on the edges of the Badlands. We weathered centuries, unnoticed, forgotten.
But the harsh land that kept us safe was also slowly killing us. The Badlands held many dangers, eager to feed on our hunting parties. Slowly but surely, we were whittled down by this land. Civil war was much in evidence between the hives.
Until the tattered hives were united under one banner, the banner of Queen Chrysalis, a rallying call for the salvation of our entire race.
In one last desperate attack, Queen Chrysalis was going to take over Equestria.
She was my mother.
I am the changeling princess Naudia, and now with the apparent failure, and probable subsequent death, of my mother and most of the rest of the hive, it falls to me to bring my people back from the brink of extinction.
I have inherited the status of Queen, but I fear it may be too late for it to mean anything.
I estimate there are less than five hundred of us left.
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Princess Luna groaned, her head felt horrible, and she couldn’t feel her horn. Moving a hoof up to rub her aching temples, she felt something cold and metal against her skin.
Luna snapped her eyes open. Instead of her royal bedchamber, she was surrounded by crumbling stonework in a dungeon so bare, the only furniture was the rotting wooden bench she found herself sitting on.
She was in chains. There was a very heavy magic suppressor on her horn, so strong she couldn’t even feel a hint of magic from it anymore.
Hesitantly she reached up and touched the ringed device around her horn. It shocked her hoof with a blinding flash.
“I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” came a somewhat familiar voice from the opened door.
Luna looked up and-
“Chrysalis!”
There she was, standing in the doorway to Luna’s cell, flanked by two changelings, but something felt odd.
“What have you done to me?!” And to Luna’s absolute surprise, Chrysalis shrunk back at her voice.
Something was different about her. The haughty stance was gone, the piercing gaze was absent, even her voice was different. Softer. Less imperious. Her mane was a darker blue, nearing black.
And above all, she looked younger than Chrysalis.
“Who are you?” Luna narrowed her eyes at the changeling, who seemed to have collected herself again.
“Apologies, Your Highness,” said the changeling. “I am Prin- Queen Naudia, of the changelings.”
The changeling queen grimaced. “Or at least what’s left of them.”
Luna wasn’t too sure of anything with regards to changelings, but she estimated that Naudia couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
“So what do you want me for then?” Luna scoffed. “Some sort of last-ditch effort?”
“No.” The changeling queen shook her head. Now that Luna was looking closely, she saw that Naudia looked visibly shaken. “The attack on Canterlot was the last ditch effort. Suffice it to say that I have recently become the heiress apparent to our extinction.”
“You haven’t answered my question though: What did you abduct me for?”
Naudia didn’t answer, but instead approached Luna, horn glowing an unpleasant green.
Twilight Sparkle was sitting alone in the library, reading a book. This was so far from out of the ordinary that it is almost not worth mentioning. However, right now Twilight was trying something new. Twilight was reading a romance novel that Rarity had recommended to her.
It was dramatic, not well written and corny as all Tartarus. She was really only reading it because she was waiting for her copy of “Obscure Unicorns of the Early Reinaissance Period, Volume VII,” and nothing else in the library looked all that fun to read at the moment.
Not that there wasn't anything fun to read in the library. In an attempt to get more ponies in there Twilight had actually started to stock comic books and light novels. Unfortunately not knowing anything about advertizing she forgot to mention to ponies that they were there.
Twilight was precisely at the boring part where it looked like the mare was going to get together with the jerk despite all foreshadowing(and the actual cover of the book) when she heard a knock at the door. Curious as to who would be here at such a late hour, Twilight opened the door as slowly as she could, peeking through into the night.
Twilight was thrown across the room as the door was forced open by the sheer volume of the voice on the other side.
“GREETINGS TWILIGHT SPARKLE. MY SISTER TOLD ME TO COME SEE YOU.”
Picking herself up from a pile of books, Twilight rubbed her ears and tried to hear Luna talk in a voice more appropriate for a library. All Twilight could hear was a quiet and very distant apology.
The ringing sound in her ears persisted for over a minute during which Luna tried to get progressively louder and just a little bit frustrated trying to get through to Twilight. Finally they both just gave it up and decided to wait it out.
Luna took to waiting extremely well, if a bit awkwardly. She simply sat on a cushion across from Twilight and looked around the library with an air of mild awe, as if merely fascinated to have so many books in one place.
Once the ringing in her ears had finally gone down and Twilight could hear decently again she spoke up to Luna who was still looking at the collection of books.
“Impressed? I've managed to squeeze in 20% more novels with my new organizing technique.”
“Ah I presume your hearing has returned!” To which Twilight nodded. “Nay I was impressed because of the quantity of bound books you had, books used to be for the rich.”
“Really? Then what did ponies read back then?”
“Most didn't, those that did read scrolls, I've been told by my sister that typesetting machines have made such things vastly easier to get a hold of.”
Twilight giggled. Realizing how out of date Luna was, printing machines were well refined and well over four hundred years old. Feeling the tail end of the ringing go away she decided to bring things back to the point.
“OK Princess. Now, tell me: why did you wake up half the neighborhood to come see me in the middle of the night?”
“Apologies Twilight,” Luna said once more. “But recently I realized that I am a thousand years out of date on the goings-on of Equestria. I asked Celestia what I should do about this, and she immediately suggested going to you.”
To say Twilight was confused would have been an understatement. She was very confused, anxious, and irrationally worried, as if somebody had whispered “magic kindergarten” to her.
What if this was a test?What if it was a pop quiz?What if she got something wrong and Luna thought that the Yakyakistan-Gryphonic war was started by a dead rat! Her thoughts raced at a thousand miles an hour to more and more absurd situations until they tumbled out of her mouth.
“But, but why hasn’t Celestia told me about this sooner?”
“Well Twilight, since Spike is in Canterlot dealing with... dragon problems, I had to deliver the letter by hoof. OH! and speaking of which, I probably should have given this to you first.”
Luna handed over a letter stamped with the seal of Princess Celestia on it.
Twilight unrolled it and began to read.
To my Faithful Student Twilight Sparkle:
It has come to my attention that My sister has wanted to involve herself in modern equestrian politics for some time now. However, after spending a thousand years away, she is… disconnected with the ponies of Equestria.
So, after considering several various historians and teachers, I have decided that you are the best pony to bring Luna up to date with modern Equestria.
Twilight stopped reading right there. Below that was a list of things she was expected to bring Luna up to speed on, the list went down the scroll and up into the rolled up end. Just a glance showed that it was very, VERY comprehensive.
On an impulse, Twilight double checked the seal with a simple spell. The seal was completely authentic, all right. Unduplicatable sun-like glow intact.
Princess Celestia trusted her to bring Luna up to speed on the last 1000 years of Equestrian history….
For a moment Twilight thought back to when she had to teach Spike about Equestrian history. Only one thought made it through her head then:
this is going to take a long, LONG time.
Twilight realized that she had been ignoring Luna for some time now. The alicorn princess was sitting patiently still, idly flipping through one of the many history books in the library like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Umm, Princess, would you like some tea?” Twilight was nervous. She wasn’t prepared to teach 1000 years of history, not when it was this important. “I’m afraid this took me by surprise, and I’ll have to prepare for it properly.”
----------------
Things were going well from Naudia's perspective.
Twilight didn’t seem to suspect anything, even though she had thought to check the seal. There was no doubt about the authenticity of the letter. She had posed as Luna to ask Celestia for it herself before she had left Canterlot. With the real Luna already captured and heading out away from the city, of course.
The Sun Princess seemed a little suspicious, but was more than happy to assist her sister into modern Equestria. Naudia go the impression that Luna had been having difficulty with things such as this not just from Celestia but from the reactions of the servants in the castle: Celestia hid it better but they all looked like they had been asked one too many awkward questions.
Naudia had no trouble amusing herself while Twilight was preparing her curriculum, glancing through the history books proved quite amusing. Even if she had to hide her smirk she was nevertheless smirking internally at the ponies' own view of themselves.
Now they were done with the first section of the history lesson. They had gotten through the first hundred and fifty years or so after Luna left. Naudia had paid attention, and strongly suspected a pro-Equestrian bias so made an effort to memorize rather than take anything said to heart.
Despite all that she had managed to keep her misgivings on the inside. After all, it wasn’t as if this humble librarian was involved in thwarting the attack on Canterlot. She was just a convenient pony who practically oozed positive emotions anytime she was around books.
Canterlot though, that brought her back down to earth. She sat upon Twilight’s balcony staring off into the distance, at Canterlot in much the same way a hero would look at an evil emperor's lair.
Naudia’s mother had always talked about Canterlot, stories upon stories of the wickedness of the ponies that lived there, and above all, the wickedness of Celestia. She had met with Celestia briefly, disguised as Luna. It had taken all of her self-control and training not to sneer at the alabaster princess of the sun. Most of what kept her feelings on the inside was the thought that someday she could come back later and. And…
No, that would be falling into the same trap that Mother did.
That thought brought her mood down again. It wasn't like she had much time to mourn, the day after the invasion failed there had already been changelings begging to know what to do. It wasn't that it didn't hurt, it's just that it hurt more to see her brothers and sisters brought down by her. Now they were looking to her for leadership, lings she grew up with did their best to obey her every command.
So she buried those feelings as best she could as they limped on as best they could for her.
Naudia still found a way to be proud of herself though: she had managed to convince Celestia to take over the night while “Luna” was off learning how to connect to the ponies of Equestria again. Queen Naudia had managed to fool the ruler of Equestria, so how hard would some librarian be to fool?
----------------
Inside the library Twilight was forcing herself to calm down.
She had just received another letter directly from Princess Celestia. It was delivered discreetly with the word “Emergency” stamped on it. Even more worryingly it had a special enchantment so that it wouldn't finish it's delivery unless nopony else was around.
It was a warning about Princess Luna.
So soon after the attempted invasion of Canterlot, Equestria was just getting out of its state of wary chaos over the changelings, and now Celestia herself was worried that Luna had been replaced- unsure, but worried.
And Twilight had to discreetly find out if she was a changeling or not.
She was definitely going to need the rest of the girls’ help on this one.
"Girls." Twilight Sparkle said, trying to be heard over the racket made by her five friends gathered in Sugarcube Corner this early morning.
"GIRLS!" she shouted.
Now everypony in the room was staring directly at Twilight.
"As of right now, Celestia is not sure yet if Princess Luna has been replaced or not," Twilight glared at her friends, who moments ago had been arguing based on the assumption that Luna really was a changeling in disguise. "And it’s our job to figure out whether or not she has been replaced, IN ADDITION to helping teach her about modern Equestria."
"But Twilight," Applejack spoke up. "If she is a spy, we'll be teachin’ her how to infiltrate better!"
"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash butted in. "I don't see why we don't just burst in, tie her down, and have you cast your anti-changeling magic on her!."
"Well for one, Rainbow, that would be a breach of trust," Twilight scolded. "And if the princess is genuine, what then? Do we just tell her 'Oh, sorry, you were acting so out of character, wanting to redeem yourself, that we just had to check if you were actually a changeling?' "
Rainbow and Applejack looked noticeably taken aback at this.
"Besides," Twilight went on, "can you imagine the panic it would cause, just knowing that the changelings might be back in Equestria?"
If Rainbow and Applejack looked taken aback before, they looked noticeably regretful now. The changeling scare from the assault on Canterlot had taken three months to die down. Applejack herself had actually met the wrong end of that when she came into town exhausted from working on the farm.
Three months of suspecting neighbors, wild accusations and paranoia. It had only recently begun to die off with heavy pressure from the guard. None of them, not even Rainbow with all her brash talk, wanted to go back to that.
"Ok then Twi," Applejack said. "I know you called us up here with a plan, so what is it?"
"Well.. Pinkie Pie, I need you to..."
----------------
Twilight returned from Sugarcube Corner tired, her very early morning rendezvous with her friends did not meet up well with her late night studying with Luna. It was times like this when she wished she still drank coffee. But after more times than she could remember staying up too late and having a caffeine headache from forgetting to drink the stuff she broke herself of the habit.
Twilight didn't want to wake the princess up. After all, Luna looked so peaceful right now, as if nothing could disturb her rest. Twilight shook herself, realizing she had been standing for over a minute, groggily watching the Goddess of the Night sleep.
After another minute of polite requests and mumbled excuses, Twilight decided to just poke Princess Luna in the ribs.
Several confusing seconds ended with the Princess tripping over the sheets and landing face down on the floor. Twilight had to stifle a giggle as Luna tried to shake off the sheets tangled on her legs and maintain her usual dignified poise at the same time.
“I’m sorry, what did you want, Twilight?” Said Luna, rubbing her nose.
“Oh, well umm, Princess, I was wondering if you wanted to go out and meet some of the residents of Ponyville,” Twilight said.
“Yes, Twilight. I think that would be a great idea.” Luna said, brightening up immediately.
----------------
Twilight lay in bed, unable to sleep, trying to gather her thoughts as to where today had gone.
They had been to one of Pinkie's surprise “Welcome to Ponyville” parties and...
Luna had taken it altogether better than Twilight had expected.
Twilight was never one for parties, but since she'd moved to Ponyville she'd learned to enjoy them, after a fashion. Still, she had always felt out of her element in them. Like she didn't quite belong.
Somehow, though, with Luna there, Twilight felt like she had somehow caught the groove of the party in her wake. She couldn't remember the last time she’d had that much fun. Luna had even managed to pull a prank on Pinkie Pie. Well, it was more reversing a prank and Twilight wasn't entirely sure it was intentional. Rainbow Dash was definitely giving her points for that one either way.
Then they had lunch, and buckled down for studying Equestrian history. This part worried Twilight the most. Most of Twilight's friends in Ponyville didn't seem to have much time for books. Not that they didn't respect them- as the resident librarian of Ponyville, she made very sure that they respected books.
But Twilight always found that when she started talking about books in general she ran out of listeners long before she had run out of things to talk about. Twilight didn't hold it against them but nowadays, she had gotten to the point that she was in the habit of stopping herself discussing obscure Equestrian history with her friends before they completely lost interest... usually only seconds later.
Now Luna was here and she seemed just as happy as Twilight to plow through two hundred years of Equestrian history in one night. She had managed not only to keep up with Twilight on it, but in fact the two had some interesting discussions about the post-Griffonic-war era of Equestria.
Throughout this, though, Twilight was watching Luna for anything out of place. Unfortunately, she didn't know Luna all that well in the first place, like she did Cadance. Luna was acting slightly suspicious: there were fewer “thee’s” and “thou’s” in her speech, and beyond yesterday she hadn't used her royal Canterlot voice for anything. There were some inconsistencies with things she knew and didn't know how to use.
All of this though could easily be put down to Luna having some measure of adaptation to the modern world in the time she'd been back. It would be insulting to assume she learned nothing since her return.
Luna was, if anything, much more gregarious and outgoing than before. Which, while out of character, was not a sure sign like that general “evilness” Twilight had detected from the impostor Cadance. There was no trace, not even a hint of an unkind word, or flash of green fire in her eyes. Except when one of the foals tried something with a tack, even Twilight had to give her that one.
Maybe she had just opened up since Nightmare night.
Twilight rolled over in her bed and took out the letter Celestia had sent her, still unsure, and shivered. Today was the best day she had had in Ponyville for a long time. The thought that it might all be a lie made her feel more alone than she had felt in ages. Almost as if the changelings were right behind her plotting and prepared to pull all this out from under her.
Twilight found no comfort in the letter Celestia had sent her, it remained as it was a suspicion carefully worded to be neutral. Now, quite unable to sleep, she decided to join Luna, who was gazing up at the stars on the balcony.
----------------
Naudia sat on Twilight's balcony, unsure of herself. It was clear that she had managed her first day blending into Ponyville, with most of the residents remaining not even faintly suspicious of her. Twilight Sparkle was an exception. All of this brought her back to her life before all this, before Canterlot, before Mother...
Naudia was a sheltered princess, for reasons she had only begun to appreciate. She hadn't exactly lived in an ivory tower, more of a dirty towering hive out in the Badlands. OK, dirty wasn't the right word there. It was dusty, it was dry, and it was surrounded on all sides by wastes filled with magical anomalies and monsters, but it was home to her and nearly a thousand other changelings.
Still, they had to get food, so periodically they sent out patrols looking for ponies who had inadvertently wandered into the wastes. They would briefly imprison them, drain of them of their love, make them change their memories around a bit, and drop them off on the edge of the Badlands.
After finally meeting some ponies in person, she began to feel that this almost made them the bad guys...
Almost.
The Badlands was the place where the term "Scorched Earth" was invented, worn out and stigmatized. It was the place where the previous final battle between Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon took place. It was the place that Discord was imprisoned in stone.
Such great amounts of magic had been expended in the Badlands that it had seeped into the land itself. Abominations lived out there, magical in nature but very real in terrifying and dangerous ways. They lived off the spent magic, it had it's own unique ecosystem that had sprang up from its own twisted malevolence.
It was where the changelings were banished to 1200 years ago.
Naudia shivered slightly. The young inexperienced Queen of the changelings had never associated her people with the monsters in the wastes. Spending time among the ponies, however, had already brought some disturbing thoughts to the forefront of her mind.
Just then, Twilight came out onto the balcony to sit with her.
Naudia mentally shifted back into the Luna persona she had constructed from reading Luna's memories involving Twilight. That had been an unpleasant business, but there weren't enough healthy changelings that could blend in or go out looking for ponies in the Everfree. As the only healthy changeling with any ability to disguise herself, it fell to her to keep the hive from starvation.
"Well, yes, I was just a little worried. You seemed a bit melancholy, so I wanted to know what was bothering you." Twilight was not very good at lying, and Naudia would have known she was suspicious of her even if she couldn't feel it radiating off her.
"It’s the night, Twilight," Naudia said. "I've almost always been in charge of it, but I've never truly appreciated it before. I guess I've never gotten a chance to sit down and just take a look at the stars."
“Well that one over there, my dad pointed it out to me when I was a foal. That's Upsilon Andromedae, the first star ever recorded to have multiple planets orbiting it.”
“Really? How did they discover planets orbiting something so far away?”
“They call it the 'Wobble Method', they watch the star really REALLY closely with these huge crystalline telescopes and watch for what looks like the gravitational pull of a planet. I've heard they can watch for deviations as small as two yards.”
They sat and talked about the stars for a time until finally Twilight calmed down enough for sleep to almost take hold again. She excused herself to lie awake in her bed worrying, although Twilight didn’t say so in so many words. That was strange, though: Naudia found herself wanting to go inside and comfort her somehow.
There was a... feeling, there, something Naudia hadn't been trained against. In all her Tutelage she was taught to lead, to rule, to hate. And as her world fell around her, so did the comforting illusions of her youth.
Luna gradually awoke in strange circumstances. She still could not feel her horn’s magic, her head still hurt, but she was lying on something that was actually soft. It didn't even smell of rot or mildew either, it felt like some kind of silk. Luna opened her eyes to find she was not in a holding cell at all.
The first thing she noticed was the bedding, it was a green material that Luna couldn't place, but it felt smooth under her hooves. And another thing as she swept her hooves across the sheets she realized there were no longer any manacles on them.
Looking beyond her bed she saw the inside of a sparsely furnished bedroom, almost empty except for a four poster bed and some miscellaneous furnishings, none of which you would expect inside a holding cell. A bedside table had an antique oil lamp, a hoof-bound book sitting on top of it, and a worn wooden wardrobe sat off to the side, cracked and old. A bare grim vanity sulked in a corner.
This wasn’t her bedroom, but this wasn’t a holding cell either. Somebody had clearly spent too much time attempting to scrub the walls clean for it to be a cell.
It was then her eyes were drawn to the two Changelings by the door, armored, armed and at attention, but again not like a prison guard. This was a proper stand in a hallway thousand yard stare that she’d expect out of palace guards.
Luna got up and walked over to the guards who, to her surprise, tried to stand more at attention but made no other movement as she approached the door.
“Why am I here?” Luna asked, after several seconds of silence.
It took a moment for the changeling guards to respond possibly they were starting their brains back up after several hours of boredom.
“The Queen instructed that Your Highness should be kept comfortable while she was away, in case…” The guard paused, almost unable to consider what he was about to say. “In case she fails.”
“Yes, but why am I here?”
“Queen Naudia instructed us that we should treat you as we would treat her. Your Highness may not leave the castle, but we will serve you until the Queen returns.” The bug looked conflicted about this, Luna was tempted to order him to do something silly but desisted.
Luna considered her situation for a minute, but couldn’t quite grasp it. Yesterday, she’d been in a holding cell and had an unpleasant memory spell used on her. Now, she was supposedly being given whatever these bugs thought the star treatment was, minus the ability to use magic and actual freedom.
“We were told to give you a tour of the facilities,” the guard said, “to ‘help you understand the situation better.’ “
Seeing no other option, and still unable to grasp the current state of affairs Luna agreed under the assumption that this was most likely a dream so it didn't matter either way.
"I am Mattar," said the guard who had spoken to her before. "And this is Kiri. She does not speak much."
As Luna walked, she recognized where she was at and was reminded of the last time she visited these ruins, stepping out into the chamber that formerly housed the Elements of Harmony. She stopped short.
The walls were splattered with green goo. Even the ceiling was apparently patched up with it, but she had almost expected that much in a changeling camp. She couldn't say it gave off a pleasant atmosphere but, seeing something as alien as a ceiling patched up with changeling goop that seemed to drip its way down the walls had a novelty value to it.
What surprised her, though, were the room’s occupants. She had expected there to be changelings. Lots of changelings, buzzing around, doing… doing… changeling things. Come to think of it, Luna didn’t quite know what those things would be. Maybe skittering and hissing at each other like brutes. That would fit the image she had in her head of them.
Instead, what Luna found was more or less a changeling hospital. Changelings in varying states of injury were being tended to by other changelings, buzzing in between green gooey hammocks that were stacked row upon row, from the floor all the way to the ceiling.
“This,” Mattar spoke in an emotionless tone, “is what is left.”
"Left?" Luna asked. "Of the attack on Canterlot?"
"No," Mattar shook his head resignedly. "Of changelings anywhere."
Luna took a measure of the room again, there couldn't have been more than fifty able-bodied changelings in the whole hall.
As she mutely passed through the hall, she looked down at the changelings, slung in hammocks made of that green goop. Some were missing limbs, and all were patched up in more places than Luna felt comfortable with. And every one of them struggled to show some form of respect to Luna as she went past.
"Why are they doing that?" Luna asked.
"If, or until, our new queen returns, we have been instructed to treat you as we would her." Kiri spoke dispassionately. "We are to obey you without question.”
"Well." said Luna. "Then remove this magic dampener."
Mattar looked uneasy. "I'm afraid we aren't allowed to do that."
Luna was angry. No: she was furious. These creatures had attacked Canterlot, abducted her, invaded her mind and memories, and now they were holding her prisoner without access to her magic?
"Well, then: lie down." Luna said, anger clouding her face like a storm.
Mattar didn't argue, or even hesitate. Instead, he lethargically laid down on his side, head on the stone floor. He looked up at her, saddened, but unwilling to disobey a direct order… no matter the consequences.
And Luna realized what she had been about to do- what even this changeling guard had anticipated that she had been about to do. What she had very nearly done in this very hall once before. Luna stood, frozen in horror at her own actions, staring at the changeling and his utter acceptance of fate.
Luna could, even now, hear the laughter of Nightmare Moon ringing in her ears. Mocking all that she had achieved. Luna backed away from the prone changeling.
"No, no no no no no no no!" Luna babbled, as the walls started to close in and Nightmare Moon's laughter seemed to be right behind her.
And Luna blacked out.
----------------
“Why would you do something so stupid Mattar? You knew what she was about to do.” Kiri admonished Mattar the moment they had Luna back on a normal bed.
“If it keeps her from kicking another changeling while they're down...” Mattar looked back at the half improvised bedroom door as if they could hear him. “It's good that she didn't follow through, morale is already low enough without her making things worse.”
“Yes but that doesn't mean you should obey her EVERY command, I've known you too long, you're really not that stupid.”
“We must prepare as many backup plans as we are able. Besides I've heard these ponies called her 'Nightmare Moon' not too long ago. If there is a bleeding heart among them that might take pity on us that has any kind of power to help, its her.”
“So what? You want us to try and make it up to some mentally unstable madpony, you saw what she was doing before she blacked out.” Kiri sneered. “And 'take pity on us' that's your plan? Hoping some pony just 'takes pity on us?' That is not our way.”
“OUR WAY IS WHAT GOT US HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!” Mattar finally snapped. “Listen, I'm as stressed about this situation as you are, but unless we give Luna a chance to see us as anything but invaders we have no hope. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise us.”
----------------
Naudia popped her neck and stood up, feeling her joints protest after such a long time sitting down reading books with Twilight.
“I think it's time for a break Twilight. My mind is willing but if I don't get up and move around I'm going to regret it tomorrow.”
“But Luna it's only been-” Twilight craned her neck over to the clock. “SIX HOURS?”
“Really? It feels like a lot less than that.” Naudia's neck didn't want to bend round to look at the clock.
It's ok to let a little bit of honesty through. Naudia thought to herself, She hasn't noticed a slip up before I doubt she'll notice one now.
Today had been absolutely fantastic for Naudia, Twilight threw her emotions around like an open book to anybody willing to listen to her talk. That however, wasn't the secret. The secret was talking back to her. This had posed some challenges at first what with the “pro-equestrian bias.” On the other hoof Naudia found herself having to make up her own opinions about things as they moved farther and farther away from history that had any effect on changelings whatsoever.
That was the secret to truly unlocking what Twilight had to offer, juicy savory waves of enthusiasm rolled off Twilight during a good debate. Importantly though, an intelligent debate, just taking the opposite side didn’t work.
And it wasn't that Naudia enjoyed talking to the librarian, certainly not that all her schooling had finally found its match in somepony that appreciated it. Most definitely not, but there was only a certain extent that Naudia could lie to herself, and when it came to thinking about doling out all the emotions she'd stored up from Twilight. There was a temptation to keep some of them, not to eat, but as kind of a souvenir. Perhaps to put them in a jar and keep them on a shelf to look at.
That was wrong. Naudia thought to herself. That rogue thought alerted her mind, albeit briefly, to how counter she was running the way things should work.
“Well it's way past dinner, and Spike isn't here, so how about something quick like a daisy sandwich?” Twilight suggested.
One sandwich later Naudia found to her pleasant surprise that Twilight's enthusiasm for a daisy sandwich seeped into the food itself.
Even her enjoyment of a simple daisy sandwich is charming in its own way. Naudia thought.
Maybe…
Maybe once everything settled down and Naudia actually had a plan beyond a couple weeks, maybe she could settle down here. Somewhere close by so she could come visit Twilight on occasion.
Of course that would actually require her to come up with a plan beyond the immediate feeding of the changelings in her hive. Something Naudia lacked in any capacity whatsoever.
"Hellooo? Earth to Twilight?" said a bouncy voice.
Twilight mentally shook herself. The last five days had been trying, exhausting and well... fun. Books melted away even faster than they normally did, hours vanished in the blink of an eye, and study-time snacks evaporated out of the cupboards. It was perfect, the first real, solid study session Twilight got outside of the Royal Archives.
Problem was they ran out of snacks and without Spike there, they had to get them on their own. Secondarily Twilight needed to go visit her friends. Thirdly in her mechanical checklist mode Twilight needed to see where her friends were with plans to judge Luna. Unconsciously this had shifted down the checklist any time something new came up.
"I'm sorry what was that Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asked snapping herself back to reality.
"Well I haven't really gotten to see you in five days now, and every time I have, you always seem so distracted." Pinkie Pie looked thoughtful for a moment. "Like right now... OHMYGOSH, Twilight... have you met somebody?!"
Pinkie began hopping in an excited circle around Twilight, barely able to contain her excitement at the conclusion she just jumped to. Her mind already racing a mile a minute as she silently begged Twilight for an answer.
"Pinkie, I've pretty much been inside the library studying with Luna for five days, when would-"
Twilight was interrupted by a full body gasp from Pinkie.
"You mean you're in love with, with..."
"LUNA?!" Pinkie was so stunned that she actually seemed to perceptably calm down.
"Now, Pinkie, where did you get THAT idea?" Twilight asked, nonplussed.
"First!" Pinkie said, raising a hoof. "You come in here with that dreamy look on your face that you've had for more or less the last week. You haven’t even talked to me about books this week!”
“Have you been spying on me again? Didn't the Cakes confiscate your telescope after the-”
"Second," Pinkie said, interrupting her and raising another hoof, "You ordered the Sugarcube Corner pastries for two.'
“Yeah, because it's for two ponies, you don't buy a box each that's more expensive.”
"Third," said Pinkie, wobbling on one hoof, "I've only seen you outside Luna's presence twice now since she arrived in town."
"But-"
"Fourth," said Pinkie, waving a fourth hoof in Twilight’s face. "Whenever I see you and Luna together, I always have to check whether or not the Cutie Mark Crusaders have slipped you a love potion or not. Especially when you went to that Hay Burger with her."
"Pinkie… how did you..." said Twilight, before actually thinking seriously about what Pinkie had said.
Did she really look like that with the princess?
She effectively stopped, for a long moment.
Twilight broke out of her stunned reverie, to find herself being pony-handled onto a handcart.
"Uhh, Pinkie?"
"Oh good! You're back. I wasn't looking forward to explaining to Luna how I broke Twilight."
Pinkie haphazardly threw the handcart to the side, with a wince-inducing tinkly crash, and conjured up an embarrassingly decorated box of pastries that Twilight had last seen around Hearts and Hooves day(although not generally addressed to her.)
"There you go. Now scoot. After all, you don't want to keep Luna waiting."
“No seriously Pinkie, just because she's fun to be around doesn't mean we're in love, that wouldn't work out.”
Pinkie pulled Twilight close, looking side to side, and spoke in her most conspiratorial voice. Pinkie being Pinkie, it could easily be heard clearly in the rafters.
"I hope you haven't forgotten what you're here for, right? I mean history second, Luna’s safety comes first.”
----------------
Twilight was more than a little nervous, not only because she was carrying around a fairly suggestive heart shaped box which practically screamed "for my special some-pony," in bright pink letters. Upon reflection she had elected to leave the space with a name blank. Also she had to keep in mind what Pinkie had said about her and the Princess of the Night.
Twilight was reasonably certain at this point that Luna wasn't some changeling in disguise. She was more worried about what Pinkie said, and Pinkie being, well, Pinkie.
Did they really look like that together? Was there going to be talk, rumors, paparazzi? Twilight had read some of Rarity's “celebrity gossip” magazines she had sitting on the coffee table and made it a point to bring her own books when she came over after that.
The worrying thing was that Pinkie was saying it, and though she hadn’t mentioned any kind of twitches those had to be involved. Even with such unscientific study she couldn’t discount those twitches. Still it’s not like Twilight had gotten any confirmation from Pinkie, just some fairly reasoned points that Twilight couldn’t quite refute.
Sure, Luna was the only pony she had ever met who shared her love of learning, books and quiet evenings in the library...
wrapped up in blankets by the fireplace, reading a-
Twilight shook the italicized daydream out of her head, feeling faintly warm, and decided that she would have to tell Princess Luna the truth...
Eventually.
Maybe that daydream was too close to reality for her, too easy to slip into and forget. And there was that whole thing about Celestia asking her to spy on her too...
----------------
Naudia looked up from her book when she felt a familiar warm glow of emotion, heralding Twilight's return. Things had been going well over the past week for her; what with the party and, indeed, Twilight herself, and a few little jaunts out into Ponyville proper fed the hive had enough love to actually start storing it up. She had asked how long it would last, but they’d never actually stored up this much in quite a long time. Nobody knew how long it would last.
Twilight’s suspicions had just begun to die down. Appealing to the unicorn, for Naudia, would mean moving away from her Luna persona and opening up to Twilight, with her real self and love of knowledge. It wasn't hard, before she figured out that little trick she was forcing herself not to break character too much, now only a thin veneer of changeling magic separated her and Twilight.
So she wasn't exactly lying to Twilight. That was an important thought to her.
Naudia was interrupted in this train of thought by a nervous Twilight, holding out a box that could only have one meaning.
"Oh," Naudia said, blushing, "Uhh, Twilight, I didn't expect you to be so..."
She looked down at the brightly decorated box and there was no other word for it.
"Forward."
Twilight tried to put on her best smile but just came off looking more nervous than ever.
"WellyouseeiwenttopinkietopickupsomethingbecauseIwaswonderingifyouwantedtogosomewhereafterweweredoneatapplejack'sfarm." Twilight said all in one breath.
"I'm sorry, Twilight," Naudia said, "I didn't quite catch that."
Twilight took some deep breaths to calm herself down before continuing.
"Well, today, we were going down to Applejack's farm, and she said that she had some chore or another that she thought you could help her with," Twilight said, nervous.
"And then I know of a lake where we could go to for a swim." When Naudia looked like she was going to say something, Twilight blurted out, "But it’s not a date, OK?"
"All right, Twilight," Naudia said playfully. "I'll take your word on that."
----------------
"BUT APPLEJACK!" Twilight shouted.
"Now Twi, I appreciate how you must feel about this, but Ah think this is the best way to figure out if she's genuine or not." Applejack replied.
"Yes, but Applejack, if she is genuine... you just asked the goddess, who--need I remind you-- raises the moon every night. To muck out your cowshed," Twilight grimaced at her, "by hoof."
"Ah know that Twilight, but I'm not backin’ down on this," Applejack looked noticeably nervous even still. "Ah believe that the Princess would trust my judgment on this, and I hope that you do too. From what you told me that Changeling queen would balk from any kinda real work, she’d be hard pressed to keep up a facade past ten shovelfuls.”
----------------
"NNNGGGH!" Twilight said in an exasperated but nasal voice.
"Twilight you don't have to help me out with this if you don't want to." Luna said, sounding equally nose-plugged but no less disgusted.
Twilight said nothing, and continued to shovel in silence for a minute or two.
"Princess-" Twilight started.
"Call me Luna, Twilight, I think we know each other well enough for that."
"Ummm," Twilight said, noticeably blushing, "Luna, if I may ask, why didn't you object at all when Applejack told you to muck out her cowshed?"
"Well, you can recall why I'm here right?"
"Of course! You came here to catch up on the last 1000 years of history, customs, that sort of thing. Since you've been gone."
"Yes, but also to learn more about the population of Equestria as a whole, not simply the nobles who vie for favor in our ivory castle." Luna frowned at the thought. "In any case, this is a wonderful chance for me to see the world outside petty power politics and learn how I can help those who really need it."
Luna attacked a... pile vigorously, with her shovel, still apparently thinking about the nobles.
“It's not that they're all bad, up there in Canterlot I mean, some of the bad ones have been in the upper echelons so long they've forgotten or just never knew what it's like to struggle for tomorrow's meal. Staying with them I wouldn't learn anything about that either, and if that means cleaning excrement out of a cowshed instead of a castle, then so be it. It also helps that the cow excrement is a great deal less tiresome and boring.” Luna seemed to deflate a bit thinking about this.
“It’s not all black and white either, working with a kingdom you’re working with economics and since that effects pretty much everything it gets complicated.”
“How complicated?” Twilight assumed economics was simple, ponies wanted things so other ponies made them, she never really bothered to look into it.
“There are so many ripple effects it would make your head spin, and once you’ve got your head on straight and you’re actually tracked a ripple down it’s already ran into another one and you have to recalculate. Simple things can have strange impacts you never even expect. I’d rather be here than trying to work that kind of stuff out.”
Twilight thought about this for a moment until- DRAT. One of her nose plugs fell into the muck.
Moments later, Twilight ran out of the barn, looking at her front hoof in horror, shouting;
"Ew ew EW EW EWW EWWW!"
"Alright, sugarcube, what’s wrong THIS time?" Applejack said, for the umpteenth time by her recollection.
"My, my, my," Twilight said, gasping in huge breaths of uncontaminated air, "My nose plug fell into the... the...."
"All right then," Applejack said, rummaging for the box, "Here you go."
Twilight looked in abject horror at the box Applejack had in her hoof.
"What is it Twi? You look like you've just seen a snake." This drew frightened glances all round from Moorella and the rest of the cows. "Simmer down you, it’s just a figure of speech."
"The box..." Twilight said, her voice deadpan calm, "It’s... empty."
"Then, Twilight, either you're going to have to find one of the other three sets you dropped in there and clean them off, or," Applejack said, "You'll have to do without."
Twilight was completely silent for a long moment.
And several more, longer moments...
"So, you've invented a clothespin spell, just like that, Twilight?" Luna asked Twilight as she walked back into the cowshed, seven minutes later.
"Nes." Twilight said, sullenly grabbing her shovel.
----------------
"Okay, so, progress report, Applejack." Twilight said, as Luna was off hosing herself clean.
"Well, Twi, I've been watchin’ for those signs you told me about and..." Applejack looked uncomfortable for a moment.
"Are you sure you ain't a changeling, Twi?"
Twilight looked hurt at that.
"Listen. I've been lookin’ for all those things you told me about, you know, how you found out Cadance, and while Luna has been actin’ a bit outta sorts, not talkin’ all fancy like, and not usin’ that royal voice of hers." Applejack paused, looking thoughtful. "And I'm still pretty suspicious of her, but she's been the soul of courtesy the whole time she's been here. A lot of the signs you told me about though, well, frankly, I've been seein’ em from you."
Twilight looked exasperated for a second, before regaining her composure with a few deep breaths.
"Yes, Applejack, but you're not supposed to be watching me. You're supposed to be watching the Princess. And to be fair you did ask us to shovel out the cowshed.”
"Ah don't know Twilight, I'll have to think on it a bit, you know, digest it all. We'll have another meeting at Sugarcube Corner tonight." Applejack looked shifty for a second. "By the way, Twilight, Rainbow said that she saw you walkin’ down the street today with something that looked suspiciously like Hearts and Hooves Day chocolate."
Twilight blushed and stammered out a response.
"Err, that's what Pinkie Pie gave me when I asked her for pastries for two."
This clearly wasn't enough for Applejack, who looked at Twilight with an unamused expression. Twilight cracked like an egg in a record 5.3 seconds.
"Okay, me and Luna were gonna go swimming down by the lake today, because we haven't really gotten to do anything fun since she got here, not that studying isn't fun, especially when I'm doing it with her, but I thought that you know afterwards we could-" Twilight’s hasty monologue was stopped abruptly by Applejack's hoof.
"Ah thought I might give you a kindly warning, Twilight," Applejack said, with a glare over to the outdoor shower. "If'n Luna was a changeling in disguise, Ah think the first thing she would do is try to seduce you. After all you did reveal that last one, it would make too much sense to try and get in your good graces."
"How much farther is this lake, Twilight?" Naudia asked.
"Oh, not far now."
"Good, I don't want to encounter any Timberwolves in this forest." Naudia said, looking suspiciously around at the gnarled trunks of the Everfree.
Up some carved stone steps, they passed under a rock overhang to come into a scene that Naudia would start describing as "picturesque," as there were quite a lot of pictures like this inside the changeling hive, and move on from there.
Carved into the cliff-side was the most crystal clear lake she had ever seen. Out beyond the lake, framed by the mists of the waterfall, was a fantastic panorama of the western side of the Everfree, Ponyville, and towering in the distance, the ivory towers of Canterlot itself.
"Do you like it?" Twilight asked. "I discovered it when I was researching the castle of the royal pony sisters, and you're the first pony other than me to see it."
"It's..." Naudia was slightly at a loss for words, and for half a second wished she had a sketchpad handy. "Perfect."
----------------
"So, Twilight, I've been meaning to ask you," Luna asked, resting on a rock, facing towards Canterlot. "Your friends seem very suspicious of me for some reason. Do you know why?"
"Really?" Twilight said, through clenched teeth. This was a question she really hoped would never come up. "I hadn't noticed."
"OH, I almost forgot!" Twilight, eager to shift the subject as quickly as possible, brought out the box of pastries Pinkie had given her. "We still have these!"
Instantly, Twilight debated moving back to the all-too-touchy subject of spying on Luna, from the no-less-embarrassing prospect of sharing what is undoubtedly a box of Hearts and Hooves Day pastries with...
Luna...
On second thought, now that there wasn't anybody else around, that didn't sound like such a bad thing...
"Twilight?" Luna said, waving a hoof in front of the daydreaming unicorn's face.
"I'm sorry, wha?"
"I said that whoever designed this box clearly intended for the pastries to be shared."
Twilight looked down at the box. Although from the outside it clearly had two halves, this was actually an optical illusion, and every pastry was diplomatically placed half in one side half in the other.
"I believe they are placed as such to encourage some sort of amorous play between the couple."
"Oh..." Twilight said, and when realization finally dawned, "OH."
"Tell you what," Luna glanced appraisingly at the box, "I'll take this jelly-filled one and you can have the one with the nuts on it."
"No, no, no." Twilight said, definitively. "We split the jelly-filled one and you can have this glazed one, here..."
After much bartering, accompanied by some good-natured teasing, the box was emptied of its sugary contents. Then they discovered the false bottom, with another layer of Sugarcube Corner's finest, and, finally filled up with sweets, the two of them sat down facing the sunset over Canterlot Castle.
A heavy, peaceful silence reigned for long minutes. Not uncomfortable, not awkward, there was simply nothing that needed to be said, and no need to say it.
But even in this peaceful moment, Twilight could tell something was still bothering Luna.
"Luna?" Twilight said, as she edged closer to the Alicorn, "What’s wrong?"
Luna sighed and looked at Twilight, her star specked mane billowing of its own accord.
"Truly Twilight, before I came here, I was worried." Luna said, her face stoic and unreadable. "Ever since I have returned, I have been trying to fit into Equestria. I was rebuffed by the nobility. The common people live in terror of me for what I did. From Manehatten to Las Pegasus, all I found were disingenuous smiles on worried faces."
Luna paused for a moment to look at the sunset in the distance.
"Then I came here, to find your friends, and to find you."
Luna placed a wing over Twilight, who flinched at the unexpected contact.
"Truth be told, Twilight, this is the first place I've felt like I fitted in. A place where I could drop the royal facade and simply enjoy my time with somepony." Luna lingered on “somepony” for a second.
Twilight felt herself being drawn closer to Luna's side.
"With somepony…who would accept me for who I am."
Twilight sat silently for a moment, feeling the warmth lying next to Luna. She wanted to say something to her, something to comfort a fellow withdrawn pony having found friendship. She wanted to confess the feelings that had been growing in her chest ever since she sat down with another pony who enjoyed learning as much as she did.
Twilight wanted to say all this, but she couldn't find words to...
Gently, Twilight rested her head on Luna's shoulder, and they watched the sun set.
Twilight rushed through the streets of Ponyville in the dead of night. Well, not quite according to her completely accurate scheduling watch, but close enough for her.
Close enough for her to be LATE.
She arrived at Sugarcube Corner out of breath and barely able to knock out Pinkie Pie’s super secret "Secret Luna Watching Society’s Super Secret Knock."
Twilight moved to sit down on one of the chairs, but was intercepted by Pinkie Pie, who glared at her suspiciously, menacingly holding out a hoof.
"No, not, now, Pinkie," Twilight managed to gasp out.
"Awww Pinkie, just leave her alone, she's clearly too winded to do all the fancy acrobatics in your secret handshake anyways." Applejack took a brief census of the current occupants of Sugarcube Corner, which appeared to be missing one Rainbow Dash. "And does anypony know where Rainbow Dash is?"
All of them looked up when they heard the sound of somebody rappelling down a rope from the roof. Rainbow Dash, in full black spy gear, night-vision goggles and all, dropped down smugly right next to Applejack.
"Rainbow Dash, Chief Spy, reporting for duty," Rainbow said, raising a hoof in a crisp salute.
"And where in Tarnation did you get that outfit, Dash?"
"Pinks lent it to me ‘cause I'm the official spy here."
"All right, all right," Applejack cleared her throat, "Anyways, y’all have anything to report here?"
"Ooo! Ooo!" Pinkie shouted, raising a hoof into the air and bouncing back and forth on her hind legs.
"All right, whatcha got for us?"
"Well. today, I got a scratchy nose and a tickly belly."
"And that means?"
"That means somebody enjoyed some of my cooking!"
"Pinkie. Ah meant something relevant to this whole 'Luna might be a changeling' fiasco."
"Oh, well, why didn't you say so!"
"That’s the whole reason-"
"Because when I saw Luna at the party I threw for her, she was all waaay different! and totally enjoying the party! unlike on Nightmare Night, when she was all shouty and touchy, and kinda scary." Pinkie said, waving her hooves dismissively.
"But anyway I thought, hey, that was kinda weird, so I watched her during the party and she didn't seem like the Luna I met at Nightmare Night at all! She was so happy, and carefree, and she even beat me at competitive doubles tic-tac-toe TWICE."
Pinkie stopped to take a huge breath.
"So then I got another Twitchy Twitch today, that told me I should have a Sugarcube Special Hearts and Hooves Day box put together, even though it isn't until February, and then Twilight came in, and I was all like," Pinkie imitated her full body gasp from earlier, "and I realized that Twilight! was in love with somebody! and it didn't take me two guesses to find out it was Luna."
All at once everybody turned to look at Twilight, who became rather flustered at the attention.
"Well I don't-" Twilight said, but was cut off by Rainbow Dash.
"There's no use denying it, Twilight. I saw you down by the lake with her today."
"Bwaa, you were watching that?" Twilight was dumbstruck.
"Of course! I'm supposed to be following Luna around, after all, and since you two never seem to go anywhere without each other, that means I'm following you around too." Rainbow looked unusually proud of herself.
"And, I saw you two down there getting all lovey dovey. It was all I could do not to gag when she put her wing around you, Twilight."
Twilight was about to speak when Applejack cut in.
"Now, Twilight, this is exactly what I was talking about, and the way this evidence is stacking, I'm beginning to think that she isn't the real Princess."
"But Applejack, becoming a nicer pony isn't a sign of being a changeling. And I'm sure you all appreciate how little she's using the royal Canterlot voice. As well as how much she minded her manners at your party, Pinkie. And especially how polite she was to you, Applejack, after what you put her through."
Twilight stood up like she was addressing a crowd from a podium.
"As it stands, we don't have enough evidence either way. Hopefully, tomorrow, Rarity and her test can help us gain more insight into the situation."
"However speaking as the pony who has been around her the most, " Twilight said, casting a glance around at her friends, "At this point I would say that she is not a changeling in disguise."
"Ah hope you're right about this, Twi."
----------------
Naudia sat downstairs in the library, talking with one of the lunar guards.
In truth, it was a changeling from the hive, having recovered enough to disguise and get a status report from her.
"Things are going well here. By my estimates, we have enough food for two months now."
"We have lost fifteen changelings to injuries too severe to be treated, since you left." The disguised changeling looked noticeably worn, but for the first time in months, perhaps even years, there was a glint of hope in his eye. "Also the Prisoner-"
Naudia flinched at that.
"-Is doing... better, after her incident."
"You are treating her well, right?" Naudia said, nervous enough that it showed. "We will have to mend relations with the ponies, once we have enough love not to starve to death during the peace talks."
"As instructed, we are treating her as we would you."
"Alright then." Naudia breathed a sigh of relief. "Now go. Twilight should be returning soon."
----------------
Luna (the real Luna) was feeling out of place.
It wasn't that the changelings were unwelcoming. Quite the opposite: They went out of their way to help her out, in any way they could. It was all she could do to stop them queuing up to peel and feed her grapes. Seemingly not out of any sort of urge to get something out of it either. Every one of them really brightened up, just from the knowledge that they had helped her out.
But it wasn't all games of "Settlers of Coltan" and happy changelings. Luna had come dangerously close to a relapse into Nightmare Moon. She could still remember that snide face in the mirror after she had blacked out.
Still hear that mocking voice.
"I haven't tried to take over yet, dearie, because you're doing such a good job in my stead," Nightmare Moon laughed. "At this rate, I could probably just retire and let you take over for me."
Luna looked up into the vanity mirror at the dark alicorn.
"Nightmare, I have told you to be gone from this place. Foul aberration."
"Uh uh uhh, Luna, you know as well as I do… the closer you get to your breaking point, the closer I have to be to you." Nightmare snorted. "After all, I am not summoned and dismissed like a servant."
Nightmare stepped out of view of the mirror and Luna heard a hoofstep behind her, and a voice whisper into her ear.
"Are you sure, Twilight?" Naudia asked, looking at the carousel-themed building anxiously.
"Yes, I've told you before: If you want to get in touch with the working pony, you have to understand what they do all day." Twilight held up a wordily titled reference book. "That's what it says in the 'Conspicuously Titled Book for Getting Princesses In Touch With the Common People.'"
Naudia had some doubts about the authenticity of the book. Twilight wouldn't let her read it and the ink on the cover was suspiciously fresh when she picked it up.
"All right, I'll take your word for that."
Naudia pushed open the door, took one look inside the building, turned around, closed the door and looked directly at Twilight.
"I am not going to be a mannequin today, am I?" Naudia asked Twilight in no uncertain tones.
"Ummm...." Twilight looked even more nervous than when Naudia picked up the not at all fake book. "No, not at all, let me go inside and..."
"...tell her you're coming to work for her!" Twilight blurted out. "Don't want to shock her, she might faint."
----------------
"What was I thinking?" Rarity said, shocked, "That pattern looks absolutely tacky there, now I'll have to tear out those stitches. Awww." Rarity said, pouting as if the stitchwork would remove itself from words alone.
"Err. Rarity?" came a voice from behind her.
"Not now, dear, I'm working on a very important dress now." Rarity gestured at the mannequin which was larger than any other in the shop, dressed up in a flowy, almost gauzy, dress that seemed to sparkle and flow without any apparent wind.
"But Rarity we've got serious trouble. Code L!"
"I"m sorry, dear, what?"
"Uggggh. Don't you remember the codewords from last night?" Rarity gave Twilight an indignant look. "All right, Rarity. Luna just told me in no uncertain terms that she WASN'T going to be your dress mannequin today."
"But, Twilight! I may never get a chance to work on such a royal form ever again!" Rarity almost shouted.
"All I know is that she is NOT going to be your dressmaking form today. You're going to have to find something else to do with her."
"Well..." Rarity looked pensive for a moment. "I suppose..."
"Yes?" Twilight looked hopeful.
"I suppose I could use an assistant for today, but-"
"Good enough!" Twilight said, ponyhandling Rarity to the door, "Now go. I have to have a serious talk with Rainbow Dash."
"But Twilight-"
"I won't hear any of that, now GO."
"Twilight, this is my house, and we'll be working in here." Rarity said, unamused.
"Oh..." Twilight looked more than a little embarrassed. "Gotta-go-bye!" and Twilight was gone in a purple flash, leaving Luna still standing on Rarity's doorstep.
----------------
Twilight stomped through town, embarrassed, angry, and impatient. Every time she saw a cloud that could hide a certain rainbow-maned pegasus, she magically popped it with a speed that, were she a pegasus herself, would get her signed onto the weather team in a flash.
To her eternal frustration, the mare in question appeared right next to her sans spy gear.
"Sup, Twilight," Rainbow Dash said, in a voice that normally would have startled Twilight out of her horseshoes.
"Rainbow Dash." Twilight said, her voice cold, "I've been meaning to talk to you about something."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Rainbow said, waving a hoof, "I shouldn't have been spying on you yesterday without you knowing about it."
"And Twilight," Rainbow pawed the ground nervously, "I was thinking about what you said last night, and I had a talk with Applejack this morning and..."
Rainbow Dash shut her eyes, and blurted out the next sentence so fast Twilight almost didn't catch it.
"You were right we were being too hard on Luna."
Twilight almost looked smug at this.
"So I told Pinkie Pie that we should set up a 'sorry for spying on you party' for tonight, after you tell her that we've been spying on her."
"...You did what?" Twilight's face could have been cast and sold, for poker players the world over to try and imitate.
"Weelll, you see, since it was your idea to spy on her and all, we thought you should be the one to tell her." Rainbow Dash was looking shifty again, "And we all agree that, while she has changed, by our count she isn't a changeling."
Dash's voice accelerated under the indignant stare of Twilight.
"And we'd all like to apologize for how we've treated her, and we figured that the best way to do that would be to tell her what we've been up to first."
Rainbow Dash threw Twilight what she hoped was a winning smile, but really just betrayed her nervousness, as steam began to swirl its way out of Twilight's ears.
----------------
"Ah, good, darling. I was right on the mark, minus one or two minor details," Rarity said, rolling up her dressmaker’s tape.
Almost immediately there was what sounded like a fiery explosion in the street outside, accompanied by a blinding flash.
"What was that?" Luna asked, more than a little worried.
"Oh that was just Twilight reacting to some bad news, nothing to get excited about."
"NOW this," Rarity said, brandishing a bolt of gauzy sparkly cloth, “is something to get excited about!"
----------------
Dash peeked out from behind a soot-blackened market cart.
"Ok then, Twilight, sooo..." Dash visibly shrank under Twilight's glare. "See you at the party tonight then!"
And Rainbow Dash was flying back to her cloud house, leaving nothing behind but a puff of dust.
Twilight sulked back to her library, and sulkily sat down to sulk her way through a book.
How could her friends spring something like that on her NOW?
Finally, after getting nowhere with the book, she took a deep breath and actually thought about the whole situation.
Horn glowing, she brought out a scroll and started scribbling on it.
Question 1: Why were they spying on Luna in the first place? "Well," wrote Twilight, "To see if she's a changeling or not." Question 2: What have you determined since she's got here? "We have determined that she isn't a changeling." Question 3: Then why do you want to keep spying on her?
Twilight's quill stopped then and there. That was a hard one to answer.
But no, she told herself. That one was a hard one to admit to herself.
Eight and a half arduous minutes later, she had her answer written down on paper.
It had always calmed her down before, to have everything written down and laid out and planned to the best of her abilities. It was from there she could look at it from a distance and really see what needed to be done.
It stared her in the face now. The writing on the paper below was a tangled mass of half truths, guilt, and selfishness. All of them pointed accusingly to one conclusion.
She had been lying to Luna--and in admitting the truth, she might lose her.
Twilight paced back and forth in the library for the hundredth time. Possibly the thousandth.
Luna had been sent off for some minor task or another, and was to meet Twilight back at the Library, where Twilight would tell her the truth, whereupon all of Twilight's friends would jump out and throw a "Sorry for spying on you/You're not a changeling” party.
Twilight anxiously looked up at the clock again. She would be back in less than ten minutes, and with every one, this all seemed like less and less of a good idea.
----------------
Naudia could detect a subtle wrongness in the air. It was a feeling that had been growing ever since the explosion outside Rarity's boutique.
She couldn't put her hoof on what was wrong. The library wasn't dark as she approached. Ponies in the street regarded her in awe, as befit a Lunar Princess casually walking down the street.
Why, then, did it feel like a weight was hanging just above her head?
----------------
As Luna poked her head through the door, she didn't find a party ready to start, or a darkened room filled with waiting ponies.
All she found was Twilight Sparkle sitting in the middle of the library with a guilty, nervous expression on her face.
"Luna, I've got to come clean with you on something." Twilight said, every word filled to the brim with hesitation.
Twilight took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and barreled forward, consequences be damned.
"We've been spying on you."
"Oh, well I knew that."
"WHAT?"
"Well, its kinda obvious when a rainbow-maned pegasus is following you around in a conspicuous black outfit." Luna looked mildly affronted for a moment. "I'm not blind, Twilight."
"NOW," Luna cleared her throat. "I suppose you'll tell me why you were spying on me then?"
It took Twilight's mental gears several seconds to readjust.
"Well. Uhhh, err, it all started with this letter from the Princess, uhh Celestia that is," Twilight said, waving it in the air with her magic. "Pretty much, she thought you might have been replaced by a changeling, and we were supposed to watch you discreetly... Anyways since we've determined that you aren't a changeling, we've decided to throw you a little party to apologize."
Luna stood stock-still.
Twilight, mistaking Luna's shock for confusion, made a sudden realization.
"OOOOH, I forgot you weren't there when the changelings attacked! I suppose I should fill you in on that..." And Twilight went on to tell her story as to what happened when the changelings attacked, oblivious to the fact that Luna hadn't moved for several seconds.
----------------
Naudia stood stock-still, unable to believe the words that were coming out of the purple librarian's mouth. As the story progressed, things began to fall into place for her.
Twilight Sparkle, HER Twilight Sparkle, the mare she had opened her heart to by the lake, was the Element of Magic, on first-name terms with Princess Celestia. And Twilight Sparkle was the pony who had outed her mother and stopped the changeling invasion...
Twilight Sparkle had killed her mother.
"...And then Candance and Shining Armor pulled off their shield spell and flung all the changelings out of Canterlot!" Twilight ended her story with a triumphant pose.
But things were not going so well for Naudia, she looked at the mare in front of her in sheer terror, scrabbling her hooves to back away as the walls began to close in around her.
"No nonononononono," Naudia said, holding up a hoof in self defense from the lavender monster before her, eyes wide, voice inundated with sheer animal panic.
And then her disguise dropped.
----------------
"Applejack, you stepped on my hair," Rarity said, muffled in the confines of their cramped hiding spot.
"SHHHH" Rainbow Dash said, holding an ear to the door, waiting for their cue to leave the confines of their wardrobe.
Hearing something outside, it sounded like Twilight was done talking. Rainbow motioned to her friends that it was time.
All five of them burst out into the main floor of the library to find...
Princess Luna backing away from Twilight in terror?
"No nonononononono," Luna said holding a hoof up between her and Twilight.
And that was odd... her voice had changed.
The five mares edged forward hesitantly. They knew something was up.
Luna saw them and redoubled her efforts to back her way through the door and then...
And then there was a flash of green fire, and Luna was replaced by-
"Chrysalis!" somepony shouted.
"No! NO! NOO! Stay away from me, you MONSTERS!" the changeling queen screamed, scrabbling at the door, too terrified to even find the handle.
Twilight, looking shocked and hurt, reached out with her hoof to touch the changeling queen.
Naudia lay on the cold floor of her old hive, too tired from her teleportation spell to get up.
Home, she thought. But it didn’t feel like home anymore. The hive was silent, the Badlands were silent.
Naudia heard a noise off to the side. She had teleported Twilight out here with her, after her disguise failed, and she was too tired, too resigned to bring the spell back up.
Tilting her head, she saw Twilight was standing up, hatred in her eyes, glaring at her, fully recovered from her shock.
Naudia knew what was coming. Caught between two worlds and a vendetta 1200 years old, she had failed. She had failed her mother, she had failed her entire species.
She did not even have to look to know that, even now, Twilight’s front hooves were poised in the air above her, a look of bitter anger and betrayal on Twilight’s face.
The Last Changeling Queen merely looked ahead, resigned to her fate, trying to hold back her tears. She would not cry now; she could not cry now.
She closed her eyes, as the tears came anyway, and weakly tried to curl up. Through the tears and the pain, she spoke aloud the thought that had grown on her over the past weeks.
“I… love you Twilight.”
----------------
The changeling warden Mattar hung his head, as a cold emptiness overtook him.
He dragged his steps over to Luna's chamber, it was time to set her free. The warden walked slowly, passing by several other changelings along the way, slumped against walls or merely staring listlessly ahead of them in shock.
This only confirmed what he knew deep in his heart.
“Plop” went the magic dampener as it was gently removed from Luna's horn.
"Ahhh," said Luna, gently easing magic back through her horn. Truth be told, these changelings were pretty nice; she'd have to see if it was possible to hire them to replace her servants back at the castle.
It really seemed that every one of them was desperate to please her by any means necessary, to the point where she had to tell the injured ones to go back to bed before they hurt themselves any more than they already were.
They had just agreed to remove the magic dampener from her horn, and hadn't told her why yet. They all seemed... for lack of a stronger word, depressed.
She honestly wondered if they were disappointed that they no longer needed to help her so much, now that she had her magic back.
Ah well. She would have to-
OH NO
Luna looked up at the wall, where she could feel the fury of the sun even through stone.
Celestia was here.
----------------
There.
Celestia could see the green goop in the castle of the royal pony sisters.
They had abducted Twilight Sparkle and imprisoned her sister.
They didn't even try to hide themselves from her.
----------------
There was the thunderous sound of shattering rock. Celestia broke through the wall into the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, sun behind her head like a crown, as she glared in utter fury at the cowering wounded changelings within.
Celestia snarled and fired a bolt of pure sunfire at the changelings huddling as far away from her as possible.
Only to have it blocked. She snarled and turned her head to face-
Luna?
Luna had blocked her?
"Shame upon you, Celestia." Luna spoke. "Do you seek to dishonor us for all to see?"
"Wha-" Celestia was cut off.
"As prisoners of war, as well as being a critically endangered species, Celestia, these changelings clearly deserve your courtesy and respect." Luna said coldly, glaring daggers at her sister.
"And tell me, Celestia, were you not just ready to attack what amounted to a hospital full of changelings? All clearly too weak and terrified to fight back? Even after you saw what kind of state they were in?"
"Were you too blinded by fury to even notice those you were about to slaughter in the name of justice?"
"Should I call you SOLAR FLARE now?" Luna spat the name like a damning curse.
"But..." Celestia stopped for a moment, and started looking around for the first time.
Changelings shrank back from her gaze, fear in their eyes, and Celestia was reminded of a scene she had only watched from a distance...
Celestia's eyes went wide...
“But, I didn’t…” Celestia tried to appeal to the room in general.
Frightened eyes looked at her from all corners of the hall.
Celestia fled, unable to escape the accusing glares long after she left sight of the broken castle.
Twilight stood up, slightly unbalanced by the sudden teleportation.
Then she saw the changeling there on the floor, the changeling that had impersonated Luna.
Anger gripped Twilight, then fury like she had never known, and before she knew it she was standing beside the changeling, front hooves raised.
And then Twilight took a look at the situation.
Calling the changeling queen below her “beaten” would be too kind a word. Twilight hadn't yet laid a hoof on her before she mumbled something about love, and seemed to have a complete mental breakdown. Wary of some kind of trick, Twilight stood back from the blubbering mare, waiting for her to drop the guise and lunge for her...
For a minute...
Then another couple minutes...
Twilight eventually began to pity the changeling, and hesitantly edged up to her and put a hoof on her back.
At which point the changeling lunged at her.
And threw her into a tight hug, crying "I've failed her." and that was all Twilight got out of her for several minutes of awkwardly patting the back of the larger changeling queen.
----------------
She had failed them.
She had failed them all.
Naudia felt a hoof touch her back. Without hesitation she lunged, bringing whoever it was into a tight hug. After a few seconds, she felt a hoof awkwardly patting her back, but she could feel the unease coming off whoever it was.
She could almost hear her mother's voice.
"Siding with the enemy, then, are we?" she would have said.
"I'm sure I raised you better than this."
"And now you're dumping your problems on somepony else. You can't do anything right."
Naudia's sobs returned twofold, until finally she was ushered into the merciful arms of sleep by a half familiar voice.
----------------
Twilight wasn't sure what to do.
After all, she was vaguely aware of how this sort of thing should go.
She and the rest of the girls would unmask or otherwise discover the villain and, through working together, they would overcome them and restore peace to Equestria. That was how it went with Nightmare Moon, the sleeping dragon, Discord, Sombra... Chrysalis.
Twilight knew this wasn't Chrysalis. Although this changeling strongly resembled Chrysalis, she was noticeably shorter, about Luna's height, and she had dark blue hair instead of green.
...And she had a complete mental breakdown when Twilight told her how she and her friends had defeated Chrysalis.
Were they related?
Did word get around that fast with changelings?
Twilight was entirely unsure if she could even consider this changeling a threat. Not after looking into its eyes after its disguise dropped.
She would never forget that look of pure animal fear.
Twilight was literally shaken out of her reverie when the floor shook.
Looking around her, she realized that she was no longer in the library, but was in...
Another library?
A much larger library, by the looks of it: floor to ceiling, the walls were plastered with books and more books. And in neat rows, wooden bookshelves chock full of still more.
Twilight was actually unsure if the library in Canterlot was this big.
Walking up to a random shelf, she perused the titles briefly...
That was odd: Twilight didn't recognize a single one. She was sure that she had read through most of the library at Canterlot.
Picking a book off the shelf at random, she flipped through it idly to find that, to her surprise, every page was hoof written.
Another floor shake startled her. She decided to try and find a window or something.
Trying the first door she found in the Library, she walked into a changeling bedroom.
What surprised her the most about the bedroom was that, other than the odd secondary material inlaid into the walls and dark hardwood furniture, it looked utterly normal. If it wasn't for the green material Twilight could have almost mistaken it for any other pony’s bedroom. Maybe Rarity's bedroom, because it was so fancy.
Noticing a circular window carved into the stone wall, she walked over and peered out of it to get a bearing on where they were now. She nearly fell over, partially from shock, and partially because the floor shook once more.
Outside was an expanse of rocky desert stretching off into the distance as far as the eye could see. But below Twilight was an entire city carved out of the same reddish stone.
Every house seemed different. Most were variations on the theme of "squat one story square house," but several were graceful spirals jutting upwards, seemingly placed at random. Below all this, though, was what really caught Twilight's heart in her mouth.
Just below the cliff edge, huge even at this distance, were four titanic stony legs seemingly sticking out of the mountain holding the entire city off the ground.
Twilight watched in awe as one of the enormous crab-like legs started a glacially slow step.
Was it a creature? Was it a machine?
Twilight had seen enough of the decor to guess where they were now, but could the changelings even build something that big? Even with the aid of magic, something so colossal denied belief.
Above all though, the city below looked frighteningly empty and unalive; not someplace unwelcoming, but someplace that had once been bustling but was now empty.
Minutes later, she tore her gaze away from the unmoving city, and realized she had been avoiding responsibility over the changeling queen.
Moving back into the library, and forcing herself not to stop and look through the books, she found the changeling who had been impersonating Luna, asleep on the floor exactly where she left her.
Twilight still wasn't sure what to do with the changeling now.
On the one hand, after that attack on Canterlot, she was technically an enemy of Equestria, and imprisoning and posing as Luna definitely made her a criminal.
But enemies of Equestria didn't go into a total nervous breakdown at the mere sight of Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight couldn't place this changeling in the category of "criminal." She looked, in a way, young and inexperienced.
Minutes passed without a decision being reached until...
Wait: she knows where Princess Luna is.Possibly, she is the only one who knows where Princess Luna is.
That settled it for Twilight: she would use this changeling to find out where Princess Luna was being held, and then she would make a decision about her fate.
Until then...
Twilight felt guilty just leaving her lying on the floor, in a puddle of her own tears.
A magical levitation spell later, and Twilight was carrying the queen on her back. She was surprised to find that instead of hard chitin grinding into her back, the changeling's skin was actually rather soft and not unlike that of a pony’s.
One complicated door opening, where Twilight briefly forgot she had a horn, later, and the changeling was lying comfortably on her side...
...In the only bed, Twilight realized.
Twilight briefly thought about trying to find another bed, but was too reluctant to leave the changeling unguarded, even if the city was as deserted as it looked like.
Grumbling she grabbed a pillow off the bed, along with the quilt at the foot of the bed. The quilt was made of a silky material that Twilight hadn't seen before. Twilight sat down on the stone floor and cracked open a book.
A couple minutes later Twilight gave up trying to read the book in the fading sunlight, and laid her head down on the pillow.
Several more minutes later, Twilight gave up on sleeping on the stone floor after losing the feeling in her legs, and begrudgingly climbed into the bed, back to back with the changeling. Who then rolled over and brought her into an unconscious hug.
Great, thought Twilight. Just great.
But a tiny part of her mind took comfort in that hug. Regardless of the hugger, right now she was far from home, and one of the pillars of her life--the immortal princesses of Equestria--had been kicked out from under her.
Ever since she the first time saw Celestia raise the sun during the summer sun celebration, the princess (and eventually her sister Luna) had been imprinted on her as being above the world. Immortals with power over the sun and moon themselves, they represented stability above all else. But now.. now, Twilight wasn't sure if it all wasn't a facade.
Twilight shivered, and the changeling unconsciously responded by hugging her closer... and that was all Twilight needed right now.
----------------
Naudia woke up holding something warm and soft, and lying on a bed. As she opened her eyes, she found herself in her own room again, looking around at the familiar walls inlaid with empathy stone. It was all inert now, but she could remember whiling away the time before sleep looking for pictures in the twisting patterns of glowing crystal.
Eventually her survey of her old room took her from the mirror backed vanity her mother had given her when she was ten, to the intricate carved wooden jewelry box a changeling carpenter couldn't resist giving to the six year old princess. Memory after memory, until her gaze wound its way around, until she was looking at the lavender pony sleeping in her hooves.
She looked so serene there, so untroubled.
And unbidden once more, her mother's words came to her mind.
"They will use you, they will beat you, call you a parasite, and use your special powers for unspeakable things. This is the way it is, this is the way it will always be."
At the time, Naudia had been attending school with the other changelings her age. Due to the limited numbers of children, she and the rest of the elementary age foals were grouped into one class, but the other students had never had any lessons like those her mother gave her in private after school.
She was a princess, she was special, and, as such, she was expected to succeed her mother after they had taken over Equestria. And, as such, Naudia needed to be held to a higher standard.
Then, her mind went back to the crumpled up note Naudia had found before Twilight sent her off on that little errand, and everything fell apart.
It was a note written in Twilight's hoofwriting on an unassuming piece of paper, but it spoke deep volumes about the librarian's inner thoughts. Before everything fell apart, Twilight wanted nothing more than to spend time with her.
Well, with Luna, but Naudia had dropped most of the Luna disguise after the first day. Abandoning the archaic mode of speech was easy; not using the "Royal Canterlot Voice" was trivial. During Pinkie’s party, she discovered that Luna's personality wouldn't fit into that at all, so she dropped that as well. After all that, she was left with what more or less boiled down to the truth.
The truth was that she cared for Twilight.
That somehow empowered her. She was going against her heritage and all her mother ever taught her.
Twilight was awake, and so was the Changeling Queen, and somehow in the cold light of dawn this didn't seem like it was such a good idea as it had seemed last night.
Several awkward seconds later, and both of them were getting out of opposite sides of the bed, red-faced and facing away from each other.
Nothing untoward had happened last night, but it was nevertheless an awkward situation to wake up to.
Twilight decided to take the initiative, and spoke up.
"I should be turning you in to Celestia right here and now." Twilight breathed a heavy sigh. "But I don't know where ‘here’ is, or who you are, and I'm pretty sure you are the only one who knows where the real Luna is."
The changeling digested this for a second or two, weighing her options.
"All right, Twilight. I'll tell you what: I can get you out of here and guide you through the Badlands. I will even tell you exactly where Princess Luna is."
"But in return, when the changelings answer for our crimes in front of Celestia..." The changeling queen took a deep breath. "Promise me you won't do something stupid on our behalf."
Twilight looked at her incredulously.
"Seriously? In return for the location of the Princess and escorting me out of here, all you want is for me not to make a fool out of myself at your trial?"
"No, Twilight. I'm asking you to not risk yourself on our behalf."
"We've been running too long now, Twilight. By my count, this was the third 'last attempt to save ourselves' and now, we are backed into a corner unable to run any farther. And I, Naudia, Last Queen of the Changelings, will at least face our end with some dignity."
"Your... end?" Twilight asked.
"By last count there were less than four hundred and fifty changelings."
"In your hive right?"
"No, Twilight. Less than four hundred and fifty changelings anywhere."
Twilight looked suspiciously thoughtful for a moment. There certainly seemed to be a lot of them in Canterlot.
"Most of them didn't land on something soft, Twilight." The changeling said as if reading her mind.
Twilight's eyes went wide with horror...
She'd never thought about it that way before, she had just been planning the 'real' wedding while... while...
"Most of the changelings you saw in Canterlot were what you would call starving.
"And Canterlot was what you would probably describe as an oasis, a banquet, held just out of their reach. I seem to recall that no less than thirty changelings died from starvation just after entering the city."
Twilight could remember being called in for an autopsy of a changeling, but didn't go because she was preparing for the second wedding.
"But couldn't you just eat some food?"
"No, I'm afraid not. It’s either emotions or nothing for changelings."
Twilight wondered how much of this was true or not, but she could see the look in the changeling's eyes. It was the same look she had yesterday, tempered and strengthened with the determination to see things through to the bitter end.
"Can you imagine, Twilight? Living your entire life, always hungry, only to find that there was a place where ponies threw out all their food, barely touched. The same ponies that drove you to nearly starve in the first place."
"Why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because somebody should remember. Because as a scholar you will make sure they remember the truth, and..." The fires in the changeling's eyes died down, as she looked down at the floor.
"Because I care about you, Twilight Sparkle, and I don't want to lie to you anymore."
"Where did that come from?" Twilight asked skeptically.
The changeling took a deep breath and met Twilight's gaze, only to go back to looking at the floor again because it didn't glare at her so harshly.
"What if I told you that I haven't lied to you once since the second day I was here? That over time I had dropped the Luna persona altogether because I felt guilty lying to you?"
"But you're a changeling. Lies are your nature." Twilight said.
"No, Twilight, lies are how we've survived. Emotions are our nature." The changeling walked over to her vanity and picked up a small carved box. "Do you see this box?"
"One day I received this as a gift from a changeling down in the city. At the time, I thought it looked strange." The changeling said, rubbing a hoof over the intricate designs delicately carved into its surface. "But over time I realized something about it: the carpenter had left a part of himself in it."
Running a hoof across a particular carving, each line paper-thin, the changeling went on.
"Here, he worked out his stress over day-to-day events." and the jagged lines glowed a faint red.
"Here, he woke up in the middle of the night and had to do some carving." Faint green glow.
"Here, he carved long and hard, in sorrow." Dark purple.
Twilight realized that the lit-up lines in the wood resembled the profile of a changeling, unrecognizable except for the glow.
"And do you know what he told me when he gave me this box?" The changeling stared down at it for a long moment.
"He told me 'You remind me so much of her.'"
"Who?"
"He never said."
"We aren't a machine of lies bent on world domination, Twilight. We are ponies, and somebody should try to see us as such."
"But I-" Twilight was cut off.
"But do you, Twilight? Do you see us as intelligent ponies, or do you just see a straw pony for your fears? A monster of lies to assuage your guilt?"
And with that, Naudia turned and walked into the Library, leaving Twilight to think.
Twilight felt lost. She was lost. Lost in an empty city built by changelings, atop something so large that Twilight could see for miles out the window. She could not see the edge of the Badlands.
But more importantly, Twilight had lost the thread on her moral compass. Naudia's words had shocked her, and they seemed so... real, so believable. And all Naudia wanted from Twilight was for her to not intervene on the changeling queen's behalf, because apparently she cared about Twilight.
As if Twilight would-
And then something Naudia said came to her mind, unbidden.
"What if I told you that I haven't lied to you once since the second day I was here?"
But what if she was lying about that?
NO. Circular logic would get her nowhere. She reflected on what she knew, assuming for the moment that Naudia wasn't lying.
Twilight thought back to the past week, Luna--no, Naudia--studying with her in the library. Discussing obscure history, with the same level of enthusiasm that she did. The changeling queen at Pinkie's party, bringing Twilight out of her shell enough to really enjoy it. The lake...
And then Twilight tried to insert the Luna she knew from Nightmare Night into those situations, and she just didn't fit. She could never imagine Luna falling into the swing of Pinkie's party so naturally. Twilight couldn't picture Luna nerding out over obscure Equestrian history.
Twilight couldn't see her sitting down by the lake...
"UGGGGH!" Twilight said aloud, frustrated and embarrassed at the same time.
Then, as if her mind was avoiding it until the last minute, she began to think about what her role in the Canterlot invasion had been. Things were not so black-and-white now. Presumably those changelings she fought weren't all trained soldiers invading another country...
If Naudia was to be believed, she had been up against ordinary changelings. They probably lived their lives exchanging hellos with their friends down the street. If the library was any indication, they wrote books, a lot of books.
"OK, Twilight, calm down," she told herself. "Got to get out of here first, then deal with this later."
If they were going to get out of this, she would at least have to make peace with Naudia.
Pushing the library door open, Twilight realized something.
If this was her room, Naudia practically lived in a library. The same as her.
Twilight would have to ask her about that later.
"Naudia?" Twilight called out, but no response came back.
Wandering through the vast library for a minute or two, she found Naudia sitting stock-still, eyes wide, staring into space.
She did not move for several seconds.
"We have to get moving. We have to leave for Canterlot as soon as possible."
"Why?"
"My changelings, Twilight," Naudia said, "I can't hear them."
Before Twilight knew it, she was being pushed down intricately carved hallways and through corridors she very much would have liked to explore in further detail. The changeling queen behind her, however, was frantic about getting moving.
"Wait, Naudia, where are we going?"
"Down to the holding cells. We need to get you food that will last until we can make it to civilization."
"But why?"
Naudia stopped pushing Twilight along and took a few deep breaths.
"Twilight, I've lost connection to the hive. Somehow teleporting us out here shorted it out. At this moment, all the changelings can assume is that I am dead, and that all hope of escaping extinction is lost."
"But surely changelings can.... uhh... errr..."
"No, Twilight. Only the queen can create eggs. Other changelings raise them, but only a queen can create them."
"So you uhh, create, eggs for the entire hive..."
"Not like that, Twilight."
Naudia's horn glowed as she swished it in a circle. The trail left in the air coalesced into a translucent green egg, which dropped to the floor with a slight ‘gloing’ noise.
"All right, is that clear? Now we have to go. NOW!"
"But the egg..."
"It is only a container for the love of a pony, Twilight, completely inert without the love of a pony. Nothing more."
And once again, Twilight found herself being pushed deeper into the empty changeling hive.
It looked nothing at all like she was expecting. It all resembled a rustic medieval castle carved out of a brownish stone, and everywhere it was inlaid with intricate designs made of that same green crystal she saw in Naudia's room.
But as they moved further down into the heart of the frankly enormous castle, things began to change for the bleak. Twilight hadn't seen a single engraving for two floors before they finally came out into a cavern filled with strange green stumps hanging from the ceiling, and rows and rows upon rows of a strange looking fungus growing on the dirt floor.
Naudia grabbed a nearby saddlebag off the wall and roughly plopped it down on Twilight's back.
"I want you to gather up as much of that fungus into this saddle bag as you can possibly fit. It’s the only thing you can eat in this entire desert so don't skimp on it."
The only thing to eat? Twilight thought, and hearing the rumbling in her stomach it couldn't hurt to try a piece, even thought it looked so...
Twilight's eyes went wide after she took one bite.
It tasted like strawberries! No, it tasted like SUPER strawberries… as if somepony had taken a barrel full of strawberries and distilled them down to their purest form
Twilight immediately began to stuff her face with as much of the delicious fungus as she possibly could.
Several minutes later Naudia came back with a full pack to find Twilight lying on her back with her stomach distended and groaning.
"OK it looks like I'm going to have to carry your food." Naudia said face to hoof.
"Why does it taste so good?" Twilight groaned.
"Because it’s easier if we don't have to force feed our captives." Naudia allowed a touch of pride in her voice. "Our drones are very skilled at magically modifying plants and the such."
"Anyway if you can’t be trusted with your food," Naudia said, “Then I need you to start reading through this book. OK?"
Naudia levitated a leather-bound tome over to Twilight.
"It’s a list of all the dangerous creatures out in the Badlands. That we know of."
Flipping through the pages Twilight noticed the book wasn't bound in the traditional sense, but was instead a three-ring binder with blank pages at the back, presumably to add in more entries.
The first page she stopped on showed a picture of a horrible snake-like dragon. Draco Adamas Flightless acid-breathing feral relatives of dragons. Known for their hard scaly hide which can be used to make particularly lightweight armor.Largest ever seen was 10M long. Thought to be an early ancestor of modern dragons.
Another page showed a gigantic spindly spider with a tiny body and one conical lump on top of its body. Sand Walkers Desert dwelling relatives of the daddy long legs. Scavenger that takes the place of a vulture. Can grow up to four meters tall, from spindly leg to relatively small body.Has very large, conical smell receptors on top of its body.
Pages and pages of likewise handwritten descriptions of increasingly bizarre monsters later, Twilight found one that caught her eye. The Emperor Dune Crab Often mistaken for rocky outcroppings in the sands, these land based hermit crabs grow huge shells of rock above them, to the point that some of the smaller and even some of the more reasonably sized mountains in the Badlands are actually dormant Dune Crabs.It is unknown how they feed or reproduce. Often, changeling nests are situated inside their titanic shells.
Twilight looked at the accompanying drawing skeptically.
It looked as if somepony had taken a crab and glued a tall spire like rock on top of it. Then Twilight remembered the huge stony legs she had seen out the window.
Twilight closed the book, glancing at the title. It read: The Dangerous Creatures of the Badlands
With the word ‘dangerous’ scribbled out.
Twilight didn't even need to speak when she brought the book over to Naudia.
"Yes, Twilight, the entire hive is situated on the back of a mountainous crab."
"But-"
"And the accompanying pamphlet 'the harmless creatures of the badlands' is right here."
Naudia handed Twilight a nearly blank notecard. It read:
Some of the sheep.
"Why are you so anxious right now?" Twilight asked, frustrated at not being able to get a word in edgewise.
Naudia took deep breaths for several seconds.
"Twilight, what would you do if today you found out Princess Celestia was dead, and tomorrow the sun would not rise?"
Twilight sat in shock for a moment, trying to even comprehend the thought that...
"I don't know..."
"Exactly. Right now, this is exactly the position that every remaining changeling is in. As of right now, for all they know, none of them will ever have children, and they are the LAST generation of changelings."
"Oh."
"Now put this pack on. We have to get off this crab and get moving."
Twilight peered over the edge down at the ground, faaar, faaaaaaar below. They were sitting at the edge of the city, and from up here, everything looked tiny.
"How are we going to get down?"
The changeling queen looked at Twilight incredulously and flipped her wings out.
"Oh." Twilight thought for a moment. "But that means you're going to have to carry me down!?"
Twilight looked at the insectoid wings skeptically. They looked flimsy and she didn't think the holes in them would help out much.
"It’s either that or stay up here."
Twilight looked back at the intricately carved city longingly.
"When we get to Canterlot, I'll teach you how to grow that fungus." Naudia said teasingly.
Almost as if from a teleportation spell, Twilight was right next to Naudia, ready to go.
"All right, let’s go!"
Twilight was mentally preparing herself for flight to the ground when she felt Luna hover over her, preparing to pick Twilight up with her legs.
Wait did she just think of Naudia as Luna?
Twilight tried to mentally shake that thought away, but that meant the incredible distance to the ground came to the forefront of her mind. So she closed her eyes and tried to shut out the distance below her, and think of something, ANYTHING else.
The only thing she was left with was the feeling of being tightly gripped by Naudia with her head pressed up against the changeling queen's chest. Once more, she wasn't sure if this was a worse thought or not. It did make her feel comfortable, safe even, to hear the heartbeat behind her.
Mentally shaking herself once more, she decided to go back to the first thought.
It was so easy to think of her as Luna. Every time she talked, it was in a different voice, but it sounded so familiar to Twilight. It was just so easy for Twilight to go back to thinking of Naudia as the bookish alicorn who had kept up with her studying for five days.
This needed talking about, preferably sometime when they were on the ground and-
And Naudia let go of Twilight, who fell...
About a foot to the ground. Not before she let out a short scream of terror.
Twilight glared up at Naudia, who seemed out of breath, but was still trying to find enough to laugh.
And as Twilight watched the changeling queen trying to catch her breath, a dark thought cast its shadow across her mind. Twilight was sure at this point that she and Naudia would at least be friends, possibly more. Maybe they already were more than friends. Twilight wasn't too good with relationships.
But this thought was so scary that it blotted out the sun, which was hard, because in a way it was the sun.
What would Celestia do when she found out? Twilight thought, looking up into the sky only to find the sun was blocked out by the enormous crab, and not in a “cloud in the distance” kind of way: almost half the horizon on one side of her was obscured by the mountainous crustacean.
It was several minutes before Twilight managed to tear her eyes away and get moving again.
----------------
Twilight and Naudia had been walking silently for a long time now. All this time, Twilight had been dancing around a question that had been eating away at her for miles.
Finally, Twilight just decided to be blunt about the whole situation.
"Why did you attack Canterlot?" Twilight blurted out.
"We were starving and nearly extinct and..." Naudia looked distant for a moment. "Seeing Canterlot hurt Mother."
"What?"
"Canterlot, and Equestria in general, has the highest concentration of love that we've ever seen."
"Do you see this desert Twilight?" Naudia said, glaring around at the rocky sands.
"This desert has been home to the changelings for almost 1200 years. We've barely even sent infiltrators into nearby towns for the last 700. And then we come out of this desert, to find that the ponies that drove us out into the desert, and almost to extinction, were more than flourishing. They were," Naudia searched for a word angrily for a moment.
"Lavishing in good fortunes." Naudia spat.
"And then Mother saw that princess."
"Celestia?"
"No. Cadence. Seeing her, the 'Princess of LOVE.'" Naudia hung the inverted commas in the air like a noose dripping venom. "Seeing her finally drove my mother mad."
Naudia, once the rage had passed, looked unaccustomedly sad.
Twilight didn't even think for a moment before she moved closer and their sides touched. They walked the desert, side by side, in silence, for a long time.
And the Badlands were silent, but it was a shared silence, one that words couldn't fill.
Twilight and Naudia had been walking for over an hour now, and every time Twilight looked back, even at this distance, the Emperor Dune Crab looked no less gigantic. Twilight honestly wondered if there was any distance where its scale wouldn't be eminent.
Even now, she could almost hear the titan's glacially slow footsteps.
Twilight ran into Naudia's outstretched hoof. She glanced over at the changeling queen. Naudia looked alert and worried, so Twilight immediately began to scan the horizon for danger.
Then the sand in front of them exploded upwards, revealing a dragon!
Wait-no, that wasn't a dragon, that was the thing Twilight saw in the book... she was trying to recall its name, when Naudia roughly shoved her out of the way.
"Wake up!" The changeling queen shouted at her. "WAKE UP AND FIGHT, TWILIGHT! IT'S HIM OR US NOW!"
The dragon, frustrated that its attack missed, growled and began to charge, its jaws dripping acid that sizzled as it hit the ground.
Twilight just barely managed to leap out of the way of the monster as its outstretched jaws sliced through the air. As the beast began scrabbling for purchase on the sand to turn around and get at her, Twilight shot a couple bolts of magic at it.
They had almost no effect.
Now even angrier, the beast gave up trying to bite her and tried its acid spit again. Twilight barely managed to teleport out of the way, with only minor droplets on her skin that burned like fire. The beast followed.
It was momentarily distracted searching the smoking pile of acid for a pony. Naudia briefly came up beside Twilight.
"Magic doesn't work on it!?" Twilight said, adrenaline rushing through her veins.
"Indeed, Twilight," Naudia looked thoughtful for only a moment, but long enough for the beast to turn around and see them. "All right. I'll distract it. You find a really big rock."
Naudia buzzed off into the air, leaving Twilight alone, as the monster began another rage fueled charge.
Twilight turned tail and ran as fast as she could, looking everywhere she could in the desert for a rock of any kind, with the beast picking up speed behind her in long easy strides.
There were no rocks out here, so far as Twilight could see. She could hear the dragon directly behind her, feel its breath on her back. Turning her head one last desperate time as she topped another sand dune, she found exactly what she was looking for. She made a sharp turn to face the rocky outcropping. Behind her, the beast was struck by a changeling. The beast toppled, and tumbled down the sand dune, taking Naudia with it.
----------------
Naudia was in dire straits. Even though she had her battle skin on, this was still a rough fall, and the dragon refused to stop trying to snap and bite at her as they rolled.
Separating at the bottom, the two collected themselves and began circling, both with a hefty respect for the other’s fighting skill.
Snarling, the dragon had enough of the changeling's stare and swiped at her with its serpentine tail. Naudia managed to dodge it, but was unable to dodge the claw that slammed into her, sending her flying head over hooves across the sands.
She barely had time to be on the defensive when another tail swipe whooshed past her head, missing her by inches.
Naudia snarled and blasted the lizard with magic, not to kill but to put him off balance, and then slammed into him, toppling the beast onto its back.
She began to go to work on its hide with her horn while it struggled to right itself. Six furious stabs later, she managed to slip it between two scales and twisted it around viciously, popping the scale off. The dragon screeched in fury.
Finally, the dragon threw her off and managed to flip itself over. Before it could manage to get its bearings again, Naudia was on its back, trying to work her horn in between the scales at the back of its neck.
The dragon furiously shook and twisted underneath her, trying to shake her off, but she held firm. Then she noticed a purple glow out of the corner of her eye.
"NOW, TWILIGHT!" Naudia shouted, leaping off the dragon, wings outspread.
And Twilight brought the boulder down on the dragon’s serpentine head.
----------------
Twilight felt cold. Actually, she was uncomfortably hot in the desert, but she felt cold inside. She had killed a dragon with a rock.
An unlistened-to part of her mind told her that it was a feral animal that had been trying to kill and eat her. It could not be heard over the raging torment of her conscience which beat at her with accusations.
Twilight was shaken out of her thoughts when a rock next to her moved.
Glancing over at the strangely conical-shaped thing as it twitched slightly in the sand, she wondered why or how it could be moving like that when it burst up out of the ground on enormous spindly legs.
Towering over Twilight stood something. The only part of her mind that was still working called it a “sand walker.” It stood there, turning as if testing the wind for something, then it sped off towards the fallen dragon in long easy steps.
Twilight, morbidly curious and clearly not thinking straight at the moment, topped the dune and looked down to where the dragon lay still.
Seconds later, she jumped back down the side of the dune she came from, doing her best not to retch. Several seconds of trying to not to settle her stomach later, she felt an oddly hard and chitinous hoof on her shoulder.
This was enough to get her into scholar mode and completely sidetrack any thought of large, insectoid scavengers. Looking over questioningly at Naudia, she reached out and explored the hole- filled hoof that was touching her shoulder.
Contrary to... previous experience, Naudia's skin was stiff, chitinous, and slightly rough to the touch.
"While I appreciate the contact, Twilight," Naudia said, looking over at the sand dune, "we need to leave before this feeding frenzy comes in full force."
Twilight immediately felt like being sick again, but managed to force it down until they could get moving, and get her thoughts off what she had just seen.
"So… what happened back there?"
"Well we fought a feral dragon, Draco Adamas. They were in that book I gave you."
"No, I mean your skin was all chitinous, like I was expecting it to be when I first saw you."
"Oh, that." Naudia waved a hoof dismissively. "That's just changeling 'battle skin,' I guess you could call it. It helps us not get hurt in fights."
"How do you do it?"
"Well, as I'm sure you know, Twilight, changelings aren't like normal ponies."
"I'm sorry, but I really don’t know. I hadn't even heard about you before you attacked Canterlot. Even then, any information I could find was vague at best."
Naudia sighed, resigning herself to delivering a detailed explanation.
"Alright, Twilight. You know what a magical construct, is right? Good. Changelings are particularly stable magical constructs, made out of the love--or other emotions--from ponies, or other such intelligent species."
"Our ability to change ourselves comes from the fact that we are magical constructs. We can modify our physical form in certain ways. Now, we can't turn our hooves into swords, or things like that, but we can mimic all four types of ponies, most griffons, smaller dragons and certain other sentient creatures. Diamond dogs, for one."
"As well, during battle, we can change our skin from its normal consistency to more what you would expect from seeing us. We don't keep this up at all times for obvious reasons. Besides, it’s uncomfortable."
Twilight appeared to be thinking hard for the moment.
"So... you're not real?"
"What?"
"Well, you just told me that you're actually a magical construct."
"Twilight, I'm surprised at you. As the Element of Magic, you of all ponies should understand it."
Twilight looked at her quizzically.
"I'm sure that through all the studies that Celestia has put you through, you now understand that friendship is magic. Literally. We changelings just have a deeper connection to magic than ponies do, and, as such, a deeper understanding of what it is.
"You had to be taught that friendship is magic, Twilight. Changelings understand that intrinsically."
"We also understand that love..." Naudia looked Twilight directly in the eyes.
A sandstorm raged in the Badlands. It was night, but you would never know it. The dead sand fell upon the desert, blown upon a constant dry wind.
Twilight and Naudia were camped out inside a cave, in one of the many rocky outcroppings in the Badlands. Naudia had allowed a small ration of the delicious fungus. Twilight wanted more, but there was a magical lock on the saddlebags.
They could not light a fire, as there was nothing to burn, but Naudia conjured a glowing ball of light that would suffice for illumination. It provided no heat, however, in the increasingly cold desert night.
Twilight had a headache and wanted to be alone with her thoughts after what had happened today, and they had very sensibly brought two blankets...
Which would have been helpful if they were sleeping bags, as the sandy ground was easy to lie on but rough on their fur. So once again they had to share, which Twilight didn't mind much at all at this point... save for the thought of-
NO. She cut that thought off right there. She didn't want to think about, she couldn't think about-
Princess Celestia. All right, all right, Twilight, calm down, just calm down, it's not like you're in a relationship with the daughter of the changeling queen, who defeated the princess in open combat...
OK it wasn't just “like” that, it was exactly that.
But Naudia was a nice changeling, one of the nicest she'd ever known. OK, the only changeling she'd ever known, but still, that had to count for something, right?
Twilight could see it now: walking into the throne room side by side with Naudia, she would try and explain to Celestia the situation. Celestia would assume she was under the control of the changeling queen, and wouldn't listen, and then she would blast Naudia with a bolt of sunfire-
"NO!" Twilight shouted aloud.
----------------
Naudia had been detecting some strange emotions from Twilight these past few minutes.
At first there was less confusion, more caring and even the slightest hint of love, then the emotions spiraled down into nervousness, fear, and most worryingly of all, outright terror.
Naudia put her hoof on Twilight's back to try and comfort her, but she was too engrossed in her own emotions to notice. Twilight, now in full nervous breakdown mode, was shaking and staring ahead at her own thoughts. In outright fear, she screamed out.
"NO!"
Naudia managed to calm Twilight down enough to get some coherent words out of her, several minutes of nervous spurts of unattached phrases later.
"Now, Twilight, what’s got you so worked up?"
Twilight took one look at her and had to take several deep breaths to calm down again. She looked worried, very, very worried.
"Princess Celestia."
"Oh." Naudia felt a little colder at the thought.
"I'm just so worried that when we return she won't even give you a chance, and will just automatically assume that I'm under your control or something, and then when she finds out I'm NOT she'll stop being my friend, and banish me to the moon, along with the course materials for..."
Twilight was once again visibly shaking. "MAGIC KINDERGARTEN!"
"Let’s concentrate on getting out of this desert before we start worrying about Celestia, OK, Twilight?"
Naudia put a hoof over Twilight's still-shaking shoulders.
"There are worse than feral dragons out there. You'll need to rest up for tomorrow."
Twilight did eventually manage to get to sleep. Naudia managed to hide her feelings at that moment, but she was thinking along the same lines as Twilight was.
Throughout all this, though, Naudia felt unmasked and strange talking to a pony who hasn't lynched her simply because of her appearance. The emotions she felt from Twilight were strange as well, even though Twilight hadn't fully accepted her yet. The feelings that radiated off her felt strongly of uncertainty and nervousness, but underneath that was a steady stream of hope, affection, and the beginnings of love.
When she was quite sure Twilight was asleep, she got up and walked over to her pack, the one that carried all the food for Twilight, and, as such, had to be magically locked and sealed. The seal was dispelled with a faint green light, and she carefully lifted the food out of the pack, peering in at the very bottom.
There were a set of old and very utilitarian hoof-cuffs, enchanted, and a magic dampener, of a similar caliber to the one used on Luna.
Naudia had been thinking ahead too, and it saddened her... but this was the only way.
Twilight tried to roll over, grumbling, but found her legs tangled up in something. Trying her best, she just couldn't seem to get it off her legs. It was really stuck on there, whatever it was.
Finally she opened her eyes and found that...
She had knotted the blanket around her legs in her sleep.
It was the work of a moment to unwrap herself. Now, legs finally free, she turned her head to the mouth of the cave to figure out what was making that digging sound. She found that the entire mouth of the cave was filled in with sand, the shield spell they used to keep the cave clear having collapsed sometime during the night.
Sticking out of the mound was the back of a changeling queen, digging sand by hoof. Twilight was about to go and see if she could help her out when her stomach grumbled at her. Twilight knew she couldn't actually open the saddlebag that held all her food, which annoyed her, but she knew very well the reasons for it.
"Umm. Naudia?" Twilight said, coming up beside her.
Naudia looked too preoccupied to hear Twilight, so she decided to playfully poke Naudia in the ribs to get her attention.
Naudia shrieked, bumped her head on the ceiling of the cave, and nearly started rolling down the massive pile of sand that was blocking the cave entrance.
Naudia picked herself up rubbing her head. "Oh..." Naudia looked nervous at seeing Twilight for just a second, then visibly tried to perk up. "Good morning Twilight!"
"Good morning! Umm, do you think I could have breakfast? I have an idea of how I could help you out with this sand."
A minute later, Twilight was sitting down to savor another meal of that truly amazing strawberry fungus. She noticed acutely that Naudia wasn't eating. Come to think of it, Twilight hadn't seen her eat ANYTHING since her disguise dropped.
"So, I haven't seen you eat anything for days now, aren't you hungry?"
"Didn't I already tell you?"
Twilight shook her head.
"I could have sworn that I did. Changelings eat emotions."
Twilight looked rather shifty at that.
"Well, yes, we can do it forcefully--as you no doubt suspect--or by impersonating somebody. Both methods have downsides."
"The forceful method will cause fatigue and headaches on the target. It’s unpleasant and easy to notice. It doesn't have any lasting effects. Impersonation used to be considered ideal, but you need to be able to impersonate somepony well enough not to be found out, and there are still some symptoms in the target, if you stick around them long enough."
"The last method, the one we avoid, is simply by trying to earn those emotions... as ourselves. It has no side effects, if successful, as love freely given can be freely taken. But it’s the most dangerous."
"Why is it the most dangerous? It doesn't sound nearly as dangerous as impersonating somepony."
"Twilight, what is the first thing you felt after you saw my mother's true form?"
"Well, I was shocked, of course."
"And after that?"
"It’s all a little hazy. Things moved so fast. But definitely anger."
"Any hate?"
"What?" Twilight was annoyed at being led on through this conversation.
"Hatred, Twilight. Hatred is the emotion we avoid feeding on at all costs, even unto starvation. Other negative emotions are avoided as well, but hatred..." Naudia shivered. "Hatred, once consumed, breeds hatred inside a changeling, until it begins to cannibalize its own emotions, feeding upon itself until finally..."
"Death?" Twilight asked, horror etching her words.
"Worse, Twilight. They become corrupt changelings: amorphous masses of hatred that live to destroy."
This all took a moment to sink in for Twilight.
"So changelings can't feel hatred?"
"No, we can't feed on hatred, or the emotions of other changelings."
"That still doesn't explain why you haven't eaten anything, though."
"Is that really so hard to work out, Twilight?" Naudia placed a hoof over her shoulder. "It turns out that a certain purple unicorn might have feelings for me."
Twilight was quiet for a moment.
"Did I say something wrong?" A hint of worry crept into Naudia's voice.
"No." Twilight shook her head, "It's nothing. Now, let’s deal with this sand, all right?"
----------------
The Badlands, a seemingly endless rocky desert wasteland. It looked old and dead. From a geological standpoint, however, it was very young, and bristling with unique wildlife that fed off the vast reserves of expelled magic that, over time, had seeped into the desert like salt in the sea. Ancient magic, that was first released when the gods that fought in the Badlands were defeated, twisted and transformed the bodies of what survived there.
Small, spiky creatures that resembled a cross between fish bones and kites floated around one rocky outcropping in particular, which was radiating a much higher-than-normal background magic.
A sandy dune at the base of the outcropping exploded outwards in a hail of sand to reveal a cave cut into the rock itself, and a lavender unicorn stepped out.
"See? Much easier than digging, Naudia!"
The unicorn was followed by an agitated changeling queen attempting to walk and clutch her ears at the same time.
"You could have warned me first, Twilight."
"WHAT?" shouted Twilight.
"I said, you didn't conjure me any earplugs, Twilight."
"Why would you want ear bugs in the first place?"
Naudia sighed, and walked over to pop the faintly glowing earplugs out of Twilight’s ears so they could converse without shouting..
In the shadows of the rock, something oozed deeper into a crevice, so as not to be seen, before slithering off into the desert.
----------------
As the miles passed under Twilight's hooves, she began to feel like she was getting the hang of this whole "adventuring across the desert" thing. Sure, the librarian wasn't in the best shape she could have been, but Twilight had found a rhythm that made the rolling dunes pass by almost unnoticed.
What she couldn't get around was her boredom. The rock-strewn desert was nothing much to look at, even at the best of times, and down in the valley between two sand dunes there was even less to see.
The only thing to look at was the skeletal, fish-like creatures circling high above. As Naudia told her, these “Mana vultures” fed on the energies left over after a spell was cast, as any spell left a sort of negative mana imprint equal to the mana used by the spell. These vultures cleaned that up, somehow, and used this negative mana to feed themselves. Apparently, there was enough spent mana out here for them to survive on that, although Naudia did say that the orbit of the sun and moon also left a similar imprint.
Twilight was so wrapped up in this that she almost didn't notice something go CRUNCH underneath her hoof. She looked down to find something poking out of the sand.
Naudia came back to find Twilight frozen in horror, staring at a bleached white skull poking out of the sands: A changeling skull.
There was a long moment of silence.
"Come on, Twilight. We need to get moving."
"But..." Twilight hadn't broken eye contact with the skull for several seconds.
"There is nothing we can do for him now, Twilight. We need to get moving." Naudia said again, patiently.
It took a while, but Naudia finally managed to get Twilight walking again. She still looked horrified.
"I don't know how he died." Naudia said abruptly.
"What?" Twilight said, caught off gaurd.
"There are too many things that could have happened to a changeling out here in the Badlands. Monsters, sandstorms... a war."
Twilight looked shocked. Equestria hadn't been in a war in what non-immortals would call “living memory.”
"The history of the Badlands is not a happy topic. Most of it was driven by desperation, but oftentimes, it was greed, or even petty-minded stubbornness."
Twilight still looked upset.
"Try not to dwell on the history of the Badlands too much. It is a cold and unpleasant place to be."
And they walked onwards. Twilight had lost her happy rhythm, and they trudged among the dead sands, that swept over the dunes and into the circle of sand around the fragile horned skull.
Twilight dragged her hooves. They had been walking all day, after they’d found the changeling skull. She wasn't hot, she wasn't hungry, or even thirsty, as they could draw water up from the water table with magic (Spell #42, one she had never thought would come in handy). But Twilight wasn't accustomed to walking long distances, and she was still shaken from the expression on Naudia's face when they found the changeling skull.
The good news for her was that the sun was setting, and they would shortly be stopping to sleep. The bad news was that there didn't appear to be any rocky outcroppings to set up camp in anywhere.
They had thought to bring a tent, without any instructions as to how to set it up. Ten minutes after they figured out that they were using that particular part of the tent upside down, they finally managed to get it in working order.
Twilight looked like she could use a pick-me-up of some kind, to distract her from today’s events, and after only a few seconds Naudia thought she had the perfect thing.
"Twilight, I think we need to do some studying." Naudia said, pulling a book out of her saddlebags.
The effect on Twilight was almost instantaneous. Any trace on her face of exhaustion or of today's events was replaced by the librarian’s perky enthusiasm for knowledge. She even clapped her hooves together in that way Naudia found simply adorable.
"Oooh, oh, oh, what is it?" Twilight said, sitting down next to Naudia in the reading position they used back at the library, only this time their sides touched as they read the same book.
"It's 'The Mana Debt Cycle.' It’s a little dry, but it's how most of the ecosystem works in the Badlands."
Twilight's eyes were as wide as saucers. This was something she had been dying to ask about for days now. Naudia smiled to see the librarian truly happy for the first time in days.
"Now, the Mana Cycle starts when a spell is used, any spell, even the rising and setting of the sun and moon..."
Twilight and Naudia read long into the night, discussing the various unusual creatures that had popped up in the Badlands, circling around its very unique ecology. Finally, even bookish enthusiasm couldn't keep them up any longer, and they fell asleep, happy in each other's hooves despite all the desert could throw at them.
Until, during the night, Twilight awoke to find a strange light flowing into the tent from outside.
Naudia also awoke, later in the night, with a cold spot next to her and a faint light filtering in through the sides of the tent.
Instantly alert, she cursed. They had drawn the attention of Sand Spirits.
----------------
Frantically, Naudia ran through the nighttime desert looking left and right for hints of a certain pony, but she knew where Twilight would be. As she passed by floating lighted candles, one after another, she saw a faint blue glow on the horizon up ahead and a vortex of glowing blue candles spiraled up into the night.
Naudia cursed herself for not seeing this coming. Twilight was an immensely powerful unicorn, drawing the nastier arcanovorous creatures was inevitable.
As she approached the center of the ring of candles, she began to see their ghostly faces faintly outlined in the light of the sheer amount of magic being expelled. They glared down at the changeling queen as she passed. She was neither a source of mana, nor of any interest to them: to them, a changeling was simply an obstruction.
Finally, Naudia came upon the edge of the veritable cyclone of sand spirits. Here, she hesitated.
She could see Twilight in the center of it all, in her own little world, horn aglow with a violent intensity as she levitated pony-shaped amalgamations of rocks and talked to them as if nothing was wrong.
The sand spirits fed off of "mana debt," but instead of waiting for it to happen, they would hypnotize a pony into incurring it for them--often to the point of exhaustion. Oftentimes, with unicorns, the spirits would force them to create their own illusory world that held something they desired most. It was a very personal experience and if the stories from the patrols were to be believed not something to be intruded upon lightly.
It may have been an illusion, but the mana spirits made sure the pony levitated enough rocks into place, that it was all too real.
Naudia took a deep breath, and took a step through the veil and into an illusion world conjured from Twilight's deepest desires.
----------------
Instantly, Naudia found herself in Canterlot.
Looking behind her, she could no longer see the Badlands. Instead, the mountain city of Canterlot stretched off into the distance in a very complete way, except it looked empty somehow: not abandoned, but without life.
In front of her stood what could only be described as a mansion. Ornate detailing and high windows framed a door that could have been fit for a palace. It looked old, a handed down house. A house that came with a family name.
Naudia didn't bother knocking on the door, as she knew she would be turned away. For the moment though, the sand spirits wouldn't do anything to her unless she directly tried to interfere with their feeding. They couldn't do anything to her directly, but she didn't relish the thought that they would force Twilight to fight her.
Brushing a strand of turquoise hair out of her eyes, Naudia made her way around the outside of the house, stopping to look through all the windows and hopefully locate Twilight. The illusion itself was a very extensive and thorough job, she had to admit. Most of the time the best the victim could manage was one room, sans windows. But here, every room was richly decorated and detailed, obviously from memory, but the detail, and certainly the scale of the illusion was a testament to Twilight's magical prowess.
The only difference she could see was that the illusion looked too small for normal ponies. After searching through window after window of empty and slightly-too-small furniture, she came upon what could only be described as a dining hall, because it was too big for a dining room.
Inside there were two long tables, each big enough to seat twelve ponies apiece. Only the one closest to the window was in use at the moment. On the table was a feast: fruit, pies, cakes, and other foods, with names too high-class to even be pronounced without dropping into a fancier accent, littered the table. And seated around the table was... was...
Her and Twilight. Naudia saw herself sitting, undisguised, talking amiably to Celestia. Twilight's friends, and two ponies Naudia could tell were Twilight’s parents, sat at the table with them as well.
Stunned, Naudia sat peering through the window. For how long she sat, she didn't know, but she watched, occasionally brushing a sea-green lock of hair out of her eyes.
It was... hard for her, to stand outside, watching that table. Everypony there was equal, and nobody looked down on anybody there. There were no unkind words or thoughts there, just Twilight and her friends, accepting her for who she was.
It makes it so much harder to do what I need to do, Naudia thought with a faint sniffle.
Unfortunately for her, one of the diners inside finally noticed her and shouted.
"CHRYSALIS!"
Naudia automatically flinched at hearing her mothers name spoken aloud, and frantically looked around until she met the gaze of her reflection in the glass.
Staring back at her was the predatory gaze of her mother, framed by her sea-green hair.
Naudia glared at her reflection in the glass. So, that was their game: make her look like her mother, so Twilight would attack her. She felt like an idiot for falling for such a simple ruse, but had to admit it was effective. Right now she would half consider attacking her mother herself, after what she had put the changeling hive and Twilight through.
Something crashed through the window and hit her in the face, knocking her head over hooves and leaving a bloody mark on her face.
Instantly, Naudia was back on her feet, battle skin on, trying to dodge side to side. She hoped that, despite being too dazed to make out anything coming her way, she would get lucky and it would miss.
It did not.
Something else slammed into her side with a force that would normally only bruise her battle skin and knock her off balance. Unfortunately, however, it hit one of her wings, which she had out to keep her balance. It snapped in half and fell to the ground.
Naudia screeched in pain and staggered to the side.
Naudia forced the pain back and got a handle on her situation, focusing her eyes to find that Twilight and her friends were bearing down upon her. Illusory they might be, but they were still made of rocks, which is something much tougher than changeling battle skin.
She needed to end this now.
Not hesitating for a moment, Naudia leapt over Applejack, spring-boarding off her illusory head to barely miss a dive by Rainbow Dash, landing right in front of Twilight. Before Naudia had even hit the ground, she already had a hoof flying in a punch to knock Twilight unconscious.
If she could knock out Twilight, this illusion would vanish, and she could drive off the sand spirits with little effort.
Twilight didn't even flinch as she saw Naudia's hoof making a collision course with her face, and Naudia realized she had made a mistake. Unable to stop her momentum, her punch plowed on until-
*CRACK*
The sound of chitin meeting stone echoed around the courtyard. Pain shot through her hoof.
The illusory Twilight fell to the ground, becoming once again a pile of rocks, before the rocks blended seamlessly into the ground as the illusion re-established itself.
Naudia, now on three good hooves and one wing, realized she might be in some trouble.
----------------
Naudia rushed through the mansion, passing through room after richly decorated room in a sort of three legged hobble, with one wing flapping madly to compensate for her injured leg, her hoof at least fractured if not broken.
Ducking into another room to catch her breath, she decided to try something. The lights in the room went out, then there was a glow that shone out under the door frame. Naudia just had to hope her enemy didn’t think too much about it. Naudia hid behind a china cabinet, figuring her enemy would expect her to either fight or flee.
And sure enough, not ten seconds later an illusory Pinkie Pie came into the room with a very un-Pinkie-like expression on her face.
Naudia crept out from her hiding spot, making no noise until she unintentionally put too much pressure on her bad foot, causing an involuntary squeak of pain. Fortunately, Naudia was quick on her other hooves and dodged a faceful of pink hoof.
As she jumped back to avoid one blow, Pinkie followed through with another, catching Naudia’s chest and knocking her against the wall. The fake Pinkie tried to get at her dazed opponent, but found her hind legs glued to the floor by a sticky green substance. Naudia’s trick had worked, for the moment.
Naudia struggled to catch her breath. For an illusion made of rocks, that earth pony could really pack a punch. It continued to growl and swipe at her with that same completely un-Pinkie-like expression on its face.
Once she got back on her hooves, Naudia tried casting a simple dispelling magic on Pinkie. The illusion faded away, revealing a roughly pony-shaped pile of rocks that fell into the changeling adhesive with a splat.
Well that will at least be a lot easier on my hooves, Naudia thought.
Naudia looked down at the de-magicked rocks that used to be the illusory Pinkie Pie, and came to a realization.
Moments later she cast the same anti-magic spell on herself, to see her hair turn back to its normal color and her reflection return to normal… before it snapped back. A vase sitting above the china cabinet she was examining her reflection in tipped over and fell on her head.
Angrily, she looked up at the ceiling, where she knew they were watching and playing with her even now. But this had another meaning.
If they were willing to let me take down the illusory Pinkie Pie, then clearly there are rules in play here to keep Twilight from waking up. Or at least to prolong my torment here. Naudia thought, looking at the pile of rocks on the floor, which had been turned into a suspicious amount of broken pottery by yet another illusion spell.
But could she find which one was the real Twilight? She would have real trouble fighting two at once in this state. She needed to think about this logically.
Who would Twilight be in this fantasy world if not herself? Celestia? No. Whoever Twilight is, she doesn’t have any notions of a high station in life. Her parents? Naudia shook her head. As if. This is Twilight’s dream. I doubt she’d want to watch it from a distance.
And then Naudia saw the answer was staring her in the face. Of course it would be as simple as that.
Seconds later, she was sneaking her way through one of the many hallways, keeping an ear out for approaching hoofsteps.
----------------
Rooms and rooms passed by Naudia, every one of them was empty. Well, empty of ponies; every one of them was filled with intricately detailed objects which, no doubt, held some sort of sentimental value to Twilight. Or perhaps, they were simply filled in while Naudia was looking at them. The only thing she knew is that there were a LOT of rooms in this house, and she didn't feel like she was getting any closer to finding Twilight.
Finally Naudia decided to try and make her way back to the dining hall where she had found her illusory friends in the first place.
Five wrong turns and a dead-end hallway later, she found herself outside a room with the sounds of ponies behind it.
Bracing herself Naudia opened the door a crack and peered through, to find her illusory self talking with four of Twilight's friends in the wreckage of the dinner table.
All right. Naudia told herself. They are facing away from me. if I go in fast, I should be able to dispel the illusion around Twilight and knock her out before the others can react.
Seconds later, Naudia burst through the door, already firing off a spell in the direction she thought Twilight was in. it missed and hit Rarity, who collapsed into a pile of rocks. Her second spell flew true, but was intercepted by Rainbow Dash, who also disintegrated.
As Naudia raced past, Applejack grabbed her tail with her teeth and received a swift buck from Naudia's back hooves. Naudia fired the dispelling magic directly at her illusory self and there was no one in the way to intercept it this time.
Before Naudia, in place of her Illusory self, stood...
Another pile of rocks.
Naudia could already hear hoofsteps quietly approaching the door she had come in from, and turned, to find Fluttershy edging toward the open door with a nervous expression on her face.
She dodged the first anti-magic bolt, but was nailed to the door frame by a glob of green changeling goo.
Naudia limped over to the struggling mare, very unhappy for the moment. Naudia was tired, battered, and more than likely, seriously injured in several places. And there was a chance this would hurt more than anything else she'd done here.
Naudia cast the dispell one more time, looked into Twilight's glazed over eyes for a moment, and then brought her horn to touch Twilight and shorted out Twilight's magic.
Twilight awoke to see a blur of red and black. When the melange of colors in front of her focused, she was greeted with a particularly unpleasant sight.
Twilight looked up directly into Naudia's bruised and battered face. A stream of dried blood was caked onto the right side of her face, and one of her fangs was missing. And when Twilight really got looking at Naudia, she noticed one of Naudia’s wings was broken off.
"UuuuaAH!" Twilight said, wrestling with her vocal cords.
"Are you alright, Twilight?" Naudia asked, her face a mask of concern, underneath the bruises.
"Am I all right? Who cares about me? Are YOU all right?"
"What?"
"Your face, your fang, your wing!" Twilight sputtered.
"Oh, these?" Naudia gestured to her numerous injuries offhandedly. "Assuming I maintain the diet I'm on right now, they'll heal and grow back in a week. For the moment though I’m more concerned about you. That was a nasty mana short I had to put you through."
"Now that you mention it," Twilight said, rubbing her horn, "My horn is pretty sore. Hasn't felt like this since I was doing levitation drills during school. They kept us at that for hours." Twilight frowned at the memory.
"No exhaustion? Injuries? Can you tell if you're bleeding from somewhere? This is important, because we can't go around the desert leaving a trail of pony blood. Sand walkers can smell it miles off."
After checking herself over and not even finding so much as a papercut, Twilight finally regained the presence of mind to ask what had happened last night.
"Well, you're a very powerful unicorn, and things out here feed off of magic. Some are very much more insistent than others."
"I remember having dinner with you and Celestia and... and then Chrysalis attacked us. But it was all hazy, like I wasn't really a part of things."
"That's the effect of the sand spirits. They forced you to create an illusory version of your strongest desire, so you'd expend magic and not struggle too much to break free..."
There was an awkward silence for a long moment until Naudia spoke up.
"I do finally have some good news though," Naudia said, rubbing her horn, which had grown itchy for some reason. "We're about a day’s walk from Dodge Junction right now! And... well, there's something I need to ask you to do."
Naudia frowned, half from the itchy horn, and half from what she was about to ask Twilight to do.
"Twilight, I need you to..." Naudia stopped mid-scratch on her horn, visibly frightened. "They're here. I can feel them."
"Who?" Twilight said, trying to catch Naudia's attention. "Who's here?"
"Twilight, I'm going to ask you a question. It is not rhetorical or hypothetical in any way. I need a straight answer, right now." Naudia was suddenly intense and agitated in an unsettling way.
"Ummm, OK?" said a now worried Twilight.
"Twilight, do you love me?"
"What?"
"Time is short, Twilight! This is very important, I need an answer right now! Do you love me?"
Twilight froze for a moment, uncertain, then a memory came back to her: a quiet time by the lake. A shared moment, a perfect moment.
"Yes. Yes I do."
"All right then. Twilight, do you trust me?"
"Yes."
"OK. We are about to be attacked by corrupted changelings. I believe I can fight them off. If I survive fighting them off, you're going to need to nurse me back to health, so I'm giving you access to the food bags. You're going to have to trust me, Twilight. I don't have time now, but you have to let me explain what you find in there."
"If you survive?" Twilight looked like somebody had pulled the floor out from under her.
"Whatever you do, Twilight, do not bring me into Dodge Junction until I've recovered, even if it looks like I won't. This is very important."
"But-"
"No time now, Twilight. I must go. Remember," Naudia kissed Twilight on the cheek. "I love you."
And Naudia turned away, walking out of the cave, horn already glowing green with a light that grew in intensity with every moment.
Twilight surreptitiously followed her out to the edge of the cave, hiding behind a rock to watch. Peering over to the desert beyond, she was stunned to see a gigantic amorphous mass coating the ground around the cave and forming a ring mere feet away from Naudia and the cave entrance.
The black goo constantly shifted as if it was alive, revealing changeling limbs and heads surfacing before merging back into the mass below unpleasantly. It looked, for lack of a better word, angry. Even Twilight could feel the waves of hatred washing off of it like a storm.
Naudia's horn reached a blinding crescendo of light as she began to rise into the air, the corrupted changelings visibly shrinking away from the light. And then suddenly, the pent-up love exploded outwards in a nova that briefly outshone the sun.
And then there was silence.
----------------
Twilight awoke sometime later. She really didn't know how long it had been, but the sun was much lower in the sky. She stood up groggily for the second time that day, trying to get her bearings. Half in a daze, she collected Naudia from a ring of black soot, and stopped mid-heft.
Naudia had barely any weight to her at all, certainly dangerously less than she had when Twilight picked her up back in the city. She had a very weak pulse, and seemed to have become perceptibly thinner.
Twilight just stared blankly down at the changeling queen for a very long moment.
A minute or so later, Twilight gently brought Naudia back into the cave, unsure of how to medicate a changeling, or even if you could medicate a changeling. Twilight curled up to Naudia's noticeably cold body and tried to sleep. All she could do now was hope.
Twilight felt numb. The past few days’ events had finally gotten to her. She wanted to cry but tears wouldn't come. She wanted to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She wanted out of this desert...
A loud grumble reminded her that there was something she could do right now, so Twilight reached over to Naudia's saddlebags. When Twilight grabbed the unlocked food bag, there was a clunk of metal from inside. Carefully, she lifted the food out and peered into the bottom of the bag.
Naudia felt pain. She felt pain when she opened her eyes and light pierced them. Pain shot up her leg, as she lifted it up to block out the light, her atrophied muscles protesting movement. In fact, the only part of her that didn't hurt was her stomach, which was pleasantly full.
She was alive; something she wasn't expecting.
Moving her aching head up, she was immediately knocked back down by a wave of anger. Steadying herself this time, her eyes darted over to the sound of clinking metal and met Twilight's. Slowly, painfully, Naudia brought her gaze down to the object in Twilight's hooves. There sat a pair of utilitarian hoof-cuffs, enchanted so as not to break, and worn through many years of use.
Twilight knew.
----------------
Twilight was furious. She felt hurt. The pony she trusted with her heart had torn it out. Twilight had thought Naudia had been hiding something, but her heart told her not to believe her mind. “It’s just prejudice,” it told her. “Naudia would never throw this away.”
"I don't know why I'm asking you this," Twilight said, staring directly into Naudia's eyes. "You'll probably just tell me a lie anyway. But can you explain for what purpose you had these, and a very powerful magic suppressor, hidden in your saddlebags?"
After it looked like no answer was forthcoming, Twilight opened her mouth to lash out at Naudia, but was interrupted when Naudia blurted out:
"Those were intended for me!"
"Explain." Twilight said, nonplussed.
Naudia took a deep breath to steady herself.
"Remember when I said that I was going to answer for my people’s crimes in front of Celestia? That was the truth, but not the whole truth... Celestia is scared of changelings, almost to the point of paranoia."
Twilight looked at Naudia even more suspiciously than before.
"I spoke to her in Canterlot under Luna's guise, and even then I could feel suspicion and fear from her. I spent some time there trying to collect love off of nobles before then as well. There were daily checks for changelings."
"Then, one guard whose wife had gone missing after the attack was brought to a closed court on suspicion of harboring a changeling... he made it out of there, but I could feel Celestia's disappointment when he did." Naudia looked up into Twilight's eyes with a pleading expression. "This has to end, Twilight. We've been running from our problems for over a thousand years, and it’s hurting ponies now. So now I face a choice: step forth and answer for our crimes, alone, or starve my days away, alone, in the Badlands."
"But why the chains?" Twilight asked, “Why the…” Twilight looked at the terrible little ring that went over a horn.
"That is so when you bring me in, Twilight, that neither Celestia nor your friends will suspect you’ve helped me. You've already lost your friends once to a changeling. I will not let you lose them again."
"That’s why you made me promise not to do something stupid in your defense?"
"Yes."
"But... but do you have any idea what Celestia will do to you?"
"I have to do this Twilight. Somepony has to take responsibility. Equestria can't live in fear of shadows." Naudia looked down. “Especially shadows that have already passed.”
----------------
It had been a quiet two days while Naudia recovered. Little was said in the hidden camp they made a couple miles outside Dodge Junction. They were making their final preparations to leave, and Naudia held her head high, her conviction unwavering, the magic suppressor already clamped onto her horn.
Twilight hesitated, with the hoof-cuffs floating in midair.
"Are you sure about this, Naudia?" Twilight's eyes told Naudia that she honestly hoped the answer would be no.
"Yes, Twilight, you're almost out of food. We can't wait any longer." Naudia glanced over at the speck that was Dodge City in the distance.
"Are you sure you can't try the diplomatic option? I'm sure Celestia would be-"
"This is the only way to put you above suspicion Twilight. I couldn't bear the thought that you could lose your friends twice over a changeling."
Twilight began putting the hoofcuffs on Naudia, hesitating at every step until the last shaky click. Twilight stood up and tried to steady herself for what was to come.
"I'm not sure when I'm going to see you again after this, but being with you has been the most fun I've had since I first came to Ponyville. And... and..."
Twilight wrapped Naudia in a hug, holding her close, as if she was afraid the changeling queen would float away.
"I love you."
"I know, Twilight."
After several minutes and a few sniffles from a noticeably downcast Twilight, they got moving again. Dodge Junction was already in sight, and an uncertain future awaited Naudia. Maybe the ponies there would throw stones, or maybe they would lock her in a dungeon and she would never see the sun again.
But when she looked at the unicorn walking in front of her she knew this was a sacrifice she had to make.
"Who needs the sunshine when you're here?" Naudia whispered into the wind looking longingly at the lavender unicorn who was so close, and yet farther than ever from her.
