A traitorous spy. An amoral archaeologist. A cloudheaded Wonderbolt. A secretary in way over her head. Leading them into the changeling hive is Princess Luna. There will be no going back. And none of them are prepared for what they'll find there.
A traitorous spy who can freeze time. An amoral archaeologist with a dangerous past. A cloudheaded Wonderbolt who wants to be a hero. A secretary in way over her head. Leading them all into the depths of the changeling hive is Princess Luna. Their mission: to capture Queen Chrysalis and bring her to justice. There will be no support, and no going back. And none of them are prepared for what they'll find.
The changelings have a past deeper and darker than anypony imagined. And so does Chrysalis.
Credit for the lovely cover art goes, of course, to 2315D.
This story takes place between the Changeling Invasion of Canterlot and the reappearance of the Crystal Empire. It takes basically no cues from the IDW comics. If you consider those canon, this should be considered AU. (Update: for obvious reasons, the canon has moved on from where it was when this story started, so the point is moot.)
Luna awoke with a start and breathed in hot, humid air. It was darker than the darkest night, a night without moon or stars. There was no surface beneath her, not the comfort of her Canterlot bed nor the gritty dust of the Moon.
She thrashed, her legs pushing against the moist membrane surrounding her. There was a brief sensation of motion, but it soon left. She pulled her limbs away, and the membrane clung to them. It was quiet, with only the sound of her labored breath in the darkness.
But now there was something beneath her, the sound of hoofsteps, and a voice. Her voice.
Nine days earlier
Luna had missed something. That much was clear. The noise of the party diminished to a dull roar as she walked away into the royal gardens.
“You wanted to speak with me?” Celestia asked, turning towards her.
Luna bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. I wish to speak to you about today’s events.”
Celestia smiled, but glanced upwards for a second. “You missed a lovely wedding.”
“And the craters in the streets?” Luna asked, meeting her gaze.
Celestia sighed. “I don’t want you to worry.”
I have earned some measure of concern, Luna thought. “Then please assure me that there is nothing to worry about.”
“There is not. There was an incursion into the city, and it was successfully repelled,” Celestia said, carefully assuming her practiced half-smile. It practically radiated benevolence and the feeling that everything was going to be alright.
Luna knew better. And Celestia should know better than to try the public face on me. “That is fortunate news.”
“It is,” Celestia said, smiling after a moment’s hesitation.
“How?”
Celestia blinked. “What do you mean?”
“How was the incursion repelled?”
Celestia rubbed her temple. “Luna, please... it was dealt with. Go enjoy yourself.”
Luna nodded deliberately. “Sister, may I make a suggestion?”
“Yes.”
“This would proceed much faster if you did not attempt to convince me that everything is alright. If you do not wish for me to worry, you should tell me what happened," Luna said, eyes locked on Celestia’s.
“Of course,” Celestia said immediately.
“In full.”
The public face disappeared, and Celestia suddenly looked very tired. “Canterlot was infiltrated by changelings.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“One of them impersonated Cadance and prevented Captain Armor from casting his protection spell effectively. At the wedding, she revealed herself and incapacitated me. Soon afterwards, the changelings broke through the protective field.”
“And the Elements of Harmony?” Luna asked. “Surely they...”
“The Element Bearers were captured, but—”
Luna's eyes widened. “Captured?”
“Yes,” Celestia said, “but fortunately, Cadence and Shining Armor were able to cast a variant on his shielding magic that expelled the changelings from the city.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
Celestia frowned. “Their love gave them the necessary power. The Elements of Harmony work on a similar principle, as—”
“Do not condescend to me, sister. The fate of this country hinged on what you and I know to be an entirely unlikely event! Celestia, I am right to have been worried if this occurred as you describe it! How was this allowed to happen?”
Celestia didn’t respond.
“Sister?”
“You’re right.”
“What?”
“You are right!” Celestia snapped. “Our defenses are inadequate, and I miscalculated badly. You are right to be worried.” She looked away from Luna’s gaze.
Luna remained quiet. She of all ponies had no right to rebuke Celestia. “I was out of line,” she finally said.
Celestia sighed. “You are well within your rights. And truth be told, I cannot help but think that you would have done better. You would never have allowed this sort of breach in our defenses.”
Unless I was the breach. “Yours has been a time of peace. You could not have expected this.”
"But you could have. Luna, I want you to deal with this."
“Sister...” Luna paused. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? “I am not sure that my approach—”
“I won’t allow this to happen to my people—”
“Our people,” Luna said quietly.
Celestia rubbed her temple, and nodded. “Our people,” she said. “I will not allow them to be endangered so again. Luna, there are ways of resolving this that I cannot use. You can."
Luna nodded. “I will need resources and personnel.”
“You will have them."
"Moonshine," Luna said.
The pale mare in front of her groaned and brushed blue hair away from her face. "Ma'am?"
"I need you to take diction."
"Mm." Moonshine glanced over towards the wall. "It's not even night yet. Why am I..." She blinked. "Princess Luna, what are you doing in my apartment?"
"I need you to take diction. I am writing letters."
Moonshine sighed and pushed off her sheets. "Yes ma'am. Are we going to the office?"
"I have an office?" Luna asked.
"It's the place where you played with the typewriter for half an hour trying to make a moon while I did paperwork," Moonshine said, feigning cheerfulness.
"Ah! That was most enjoyable!" Luna said. "But regrettably, an impossibility tonight."
"Alright. What's this about, ma'am?"
"Changelings," Luna replied.
Moonshine nodded. "Okay."
There was a knock from the door. "Come in!" Celestia said.
Celestia's well-appointed office wasn't untidy, per se. It was, on her very good authority, meticulously organized. That nopony had ever been able to determine exactly what that organization was didn't make it any less so, at least according to Celestia. The towers of papers, some dating back decades, the filing cabinets that groaned as their contents settled—it was all part of the system, and generations of hapless assistants had been warned in no uncertain terms that any attempts to interfere were forbidden.
Luna walked in past the stacks of disheveled bureaucracy, and took a seat.
"If you are busy..." Luna began.
"I'm always busy. But of course I can make an exception for you." Celestia smiled, and cleared the contents of her desk onto the floor.
Luna peered next to Celestia's desk. "I assume this is part of your... system?"
"An absolutely integral part. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"You recall that you asked me to resolve the changeling situation."
Celestia frowned. "Yes. How is that proceeding?"
"I am... unsure. I hoped I could discuss this with you."
"Of course."
"I intend to bring Chrysalis to justice," Luna said.
Celestia tapped the desk idly, staring at Luna. "Explain."
"I will take whatever force necessary into the Badlands, capture Chrysalis, and return her here to stand trial."
Celestia nodded. "I assume that when you say 'whatever force necessary,' you mean..."
"I intend to bring enough soldiers to subdue the changelings. If they are wise, they will give her up rather than face my resolve."
Celestia sighed. "You cannot be serious."
Luna stared. "I am very serious."
Celestia sighed. "Of course you are. Luna, I will not risk this scale of war. Leading a force into the Badlands would have consequence far past just us and the changelings. You cannot do this."
"What would you have me do?" Luna asked. "Allow this to go unpunished? Sit here and wait for another attack?"
She stamped her hoof. "That is not good enough. If we do not bring justice to her, our enemies will gain confidence, believing that Equestria has grown weak. They will be back again and again."
Luna leaned in towards Celestia. "The line must be drawn here."
"And you are the one to draw it?" Celestia asked.
"I hoped for your support in this, sister."
Celestia glanced towards the door. It was closed. She leaned in towards Luna. "Officially, I cannot give it. Officially, the Equestrian government will have no part in this. I can give you no orders, no Royal Guard. Unofficially..."
"Yes?" Luna breathed.
"It's possible that some fraction of the royal budget might be... misplaced."
Luna nodded.
"And should you request any specific individuals for your... excursion..."
"An alibi," Luna said.
"To my knowledge," Celestia said, maintaining—just—her usual poker face, "you and whatever personnel you deem fit will be on a diplomatic mission to Zebrica."
Luna nodded. "Then there are constraints on this mission."
"What mission?"
Luna blinked. "The diplomatic mission to Zebrica, of course."
"I tend to travel there with my secretary of state and his assistant, but you might elect a larger entourage. Perhaps four, plus the train's crew."
"I see," Luna said. "It is not much."
"I am sorry. But I cannot, and will not, commit this nation as a whole to this foolishness. As such, you should know this. If you are captured by the changelings, there will be no rescue. I will deny knowledge of your mission."
"Very well," Luna said, avoiding Celestia's gaze.
"Luna, listen to me! This is too dangerous."
Luna chuckled, but still didn't meet her eyes. "Do we now shy away from danger?"
"You don't understand, do you? These creatures—"
Luna stood up. "I am uniquely qualified to understand the nature of this threat! I know what it is to be your enemy, and I understand exactly what must be done."
"Luna," Celestia said quietly. The younger princess reluctantly looked to her. "These creatures subdued me. If you go into the hive, you could..." Celestia rubbed her muzzle. "I can't lose you again. Do you understand that, at least?" She blinked back tears.
"Oh," Luna said. She sighed. "Of course I do."
"Then please. Don't do this."
"I have to." This was not the loud voice of pride wounded, of a swollen ego poked too hard. It was not the voice of Nightmare Moon. It was the quiet voice of duty, and it sounded well from Luna.
"Sister..." Celestia started, and then hesitated. "Who would go with you? This is madness."
"If it is madness..." She breathed deeply, and paused for a moment. "Lunatics."
Moonshine means well, surely, Luna thought. Ever since her appointment as Luna’s personal assistant, she had served with efficiency, competence, and no small amount of loyalty to the Princess of the Night.
Luna did wish she wouldn’t look quite so frightened when she didn’t manage to do what Luna asked of her, but there were worse things by far.
“I did send inquiries to all of the ministries asking if they had any personnel who fit your request, but as far as I can tell, they haven’t been able to respond yet,” Moonshine said, flipping through her clipboard. “And I do mean all the ministries, just like you asked.”
“Did you use my words exactly?” Luna asked.
“Let me check...” Moonshine said, flipping back towards the front. “The letter to the Equestrian Revenue Service requests, and I quote, ‘a cohort of stalwart warriors well-versed in the arts of stealth and cunning’.” She returned the clipboard to her saddlebag. “They haven’t gotten back to me yet. Oh, but I did get a message from Princess Celestia. She wants you to have a, uh, protective detail.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, um, basically bodyguards. They’ll go where you do, for the most part, and keep an eye out for anypony who’d want to hurt you.” She paused briefly. The fact that Luna still looked dubious wasn’t helping. “Like the guards that escorted you to Ponyville.”
Luna nodded. “Very well. Did she state her wishes for the nature of my, ah, protective detail?”
Moonshine looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then started flipping through the clipboard again. “I don’t believe she said anything specific... She wrote that, um, ‘I have faith in your ability to discern talent and you have always...’ One second. The postscript reads—” Her pale face furrowed. “It reads, and I quote: ‘Lulu, please don’t be silly and declare that you need no mortals to guard your ageless body.’ Princess, am I handling your personal correspondence? I mean, it’s not a problem, but I didn’t think I was...”
Luna snatched the letter away from Moonshine’s grasp. Her eyes flickered briefly over it, and she made a token attempt to commit the contents to memory. Then, just as quickly, her magic flared over it, banishing it into the shadowlands, Possibly the moon. Luna was not picky at this particular juncture.
She turned back towards Moonshine and smiled just a bit too widely. “Shall we move onto other business, like bringing the leader of an unprecedented attack on this city to justice?”
Moonshine blinked. “Oh. Right. But, um, if you’ll let me consult the duplicate I had made of that letter, I think Princess Celestia recommended somepony for your detail. Do you mind if I read it first?”
Luna gestured impatiently.
“Okay, so... quote: ‘If you insist on doing it your way, please take Soarin, whose contact details I have included for your extraordinarily competent and thoughtful personal assistant’...”
Luna wasn’t quite going for “if looks could kill.” Not quite.
“Ahem. Anyways, quote, 'I have expressed my trust in Mr Soarin to at least be able to keep up with you should all else fail and you decide to do something rash'."
Luna put her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. "What could she possibly refer to?"
"I don't know, ma'am," Moonshine said.
Moonshine glanced at the clock and fidgeted. "I'm still not entirely sure what this is about."
"You will find out," Luna said, flipping through a folder.
There was a knock on the door. "Come inside!" Luna called.
Royal Guards filed in—two flanking a mare: dirty blue hair, with a horn poking through her disheveled bangs, tired eyes that didn't look up from the floor for more than a second. Her feet shuffled forward, loose chains clanking. She gave the room a blank stare.
"Leave us," Luna said. After a moment's hesitation, the guards saluted and left.
The mare's eyes locked on Luna, losing their glassiness. "You do not look very dangerous, Agent Colgate," Luna said.
Colgate shrugged. "It's just Minuette," she said. "And if I'd let you take the chains off, you could see how wrong you are. Trust me, I belong where I was."
Luna nodded. "Convince me," she said, and gestured towards Moonshine, who crouched down and unlocked the chains. Colgate kicked a hoof and nodded shallowly, then disappeared. Luna looked for the telltale distortion of invisibility magic, but saw nothing.
"Very impressive, Ms Colgate!" she said. There was no response. Moonshine's eyes widened.
"Princess?" Moonshine asked. "Are you absolutely sure letting her in here was a good idea? I mean, she was in custody..."
"Of her own volition," Luna said. "There is nothing to be feared." Admittedly, it was slightly worrisome with Colgate having disappeared for so long. Luna took an uneasy glance around the room. Nothing. She sighed, and turned back to Moonshine.
There was an insistent push on Luna's side, just behind the shoulder, inches from the heart. She recoiled, and turned to face her assailant. Colgate stood there, breathing hard. "Now do you get why I want the chains on?"
Luna smiled. "Yes, and I am also pleased to see that your file has not misled me. In case you did not hear me, I am quite impressed."
Colgate glared. "Impressed? Princess, I'm not impressive. I'm dangerous."
Luna met her gaze. "And I am verydangerous, Minuette Colgate. Your abilities are not in question here."
She shrugged. "If you read my file, you know what happened. I'm not dangerous just because I can do that stuff. You know why I'm dangerous."
"Remind me."
"She..." Colgate said it like a curse. "She was inside my head. She told me what to do, and I listened. They say I'm fine now. That it doesn't work at this distance. That she's gone." Colgate glanced at the ceiling. "Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact that I can still hear that voice, those voices. And I'm scared that if I listen too long..."
Luna walked back to her chair, and leaned back casually. "You believe yourself to be a traitor."
"I am one."
"One who turned her back on her country and all those whom she loves."
Colgate stamped her hoof. "Yes! I betrayed my country. I'm a traitor. Put the damn chains back on," she hissed.
Luna nodded, and leaned in towards Colgate. "I know something of that," she said. "Now, while you cannot be blamed for what you have done, knowing that has clearly not given you peace or restored your pride. I know what can."
"What?"
"You are a member of the Equestrian Secret Service, and—"
"I resigned," Colgate said.
"A former member, then, and a talented one. Your marks in preliminary testing were superb, and you were recommended for foreign operations at an unparalleled age."
Colgate nodded reluctantly. "It didn't take."
Luna waited for her to elaborate. She didn't.
"Even so, former agent Colgate of the Equestrian Secret Service, I offer you a proposition."
"Shoot," she murmured.
"Will you follow me now, and bring the one who made a traitor of you to justice? Would you follow me into the depths of the hive itself, with no survival outside of success, and no success save the satisfaction of knowing that you have done justice to yourself and to our enemy?" Luna asked, voice building to a crescendo. "Follow me in this," she whispered, "and there shall be redemption enough for the both of us."
Colgate smiled. "Sounds like it could be fun."
Luna glanced at Moonshine, who hesitated for a second. "Good enough for me, ma'am," she said.
"In that case, you shall come with me."
"Hold on," Colgate said. "I have one condition."
"Yes?"
"We're going to be capturing Chrysalis," Colgate said. It wasn't a question.
"Correct."
"If she starts to turn me again..." Colgate swallowed nervously. "I want you to kill me."
Moonshine gasped. "You can't ask the Princess to—"
Luna raised a hoof. "I understand, Colgate. Will you then make me a similar promise?"
Colgate thought that over. "It depends."
"Of course. If I should fall to the same sins that once made me a monster..." Luna gestured towards her chest.
"Cross my heart, hope to die," Colgate said.
"Then we have an agreement."
"We are here to recruit an archeologist?" Luna asked, looking at the modest house in front of her.
"You were the one who complained that no one seemed to know anything about changelings," Moonshine said. "I just managed to find him for you."
"Who is this archeologist, and why am I recruiting him for this mission?"
"He is one of the only..." Moonshine glanced at her clipboard. "Sorry, the only pony to have gone into the changeling hive and returned alive, at least in the last century. I assumed you'd want to at least talk to him."
"I see. You are most probably correct." Luna rapped the door. After a moment, there was the thunk of a lock unlocking, then another, and another. Finally, a suspicious face glared out at Luna—an earth pony, with a five o'clock shadow and thick eyebrows poised to arch mockingly.
"Can I help you?" he asked. The Equish was smooth, but tinged with some accent Luna couldn't identify. If he made much of a princess showing up at his front door, he didn't want to show it.
"Are you Doctor Caballeron?" Luna asked.
"I am."
"Then I certainly hope so. I have a proposition for you. Might we discuss it?"
He raised an eyebrow. "That depends entirely on the nature of the proposition at hoof."
"It involves changelings, and—"
The door slammed in Luna's face.
"A thousand years ago," she mused, "I could have had him dragged out by his hind legs, and nopony would think anything of it."
"Things have changed, ma'am," Moonshine said.
"Indeed they have."
"I imagine there could be a few inquiries into it these days."
"How disappointing, if I may say—wait... so I still can?" Luna asked.
Moonshine shrugged. "You are a princess, and this could be loosely construed to be a matter of national importance."
The last two words troubled her for a moment, but Luna smiled. "Doctor Caballeron!" she called. "I can assure you that I am capable of having you hear my proposition regardless of your degree of interest."
There was a muffled curse from inside. The door opened again. Caballeron glared at Luna, then said, “Come inside.”
Luna followed him inside, walking through a poorly lit hallway lined with dusty artifacts. They came to what apparently passed for a sitting room, with a couple of old armchairs and a disused couch. "Take a seat!" he said. "Or, I suppose in your case, two." He watched Luna and Moonshine sit down, and walked to a bookshelf. Caballeron retrieved a beat-up book. "This was the only thing I brought back out of the hive—my journal."
His gaze locked on the princess, and he paced across the floor. "And what's piqued your interest in the bugs lately?"
"Doctor Caballeron," Luna said carefully, "I am here today because of the recent incursion into Canterlot. Knowledgeable as you are about changelings, I was hoping you would be able to assist me in returning the changeling known as Queen Chrysalis here for trial."
"Consultancy work?" Caballeron nodded. "I imagine I could put together a dossier on what to expect. We'll have to talk payment, of course, but that's entirely acceptable."
"I meant that you would assist me in person, Doctor," Luna said.
Caballeron stroked his face, and didn't respond for a few seconds. "You want me to return to the hive?"
"I do."
"There's not a chance of that happening. Not for any consultancy check in the world."
"And yet," Luna said, "you have gone there before. Why not again?"
"Because, princess—" He actually smirked. Luna suppressed the urge to do something unpleasant to him. "I nearly died. And I was lucky. Do you know what happened to my team?"
Luna shook her head. "Only that they did not return."
"They didn't. And you won't either, not if you assume that you know enough about the changelings already."
Luna sighed. "We would know much more with your assistance, and you would get much further with mine."
That same smirk. "You're going?"
"I am."
Caballeron considered that for a second. "What sort of resources are you looking at for this?"
Luna hesitated a moment, then said, "This mission will be under the auspices of the Equestrian Foreign Service." It was technically true, if spectacularly useless in practice. "You would make three members, with a former Secret Service operative and myself comprising the others. We expect to add a Wonderbolt to our number as well."
Caballeron nodded. "I'm sold. Fair enough, but I want the treasure."
Luna hesitated. "What is it that you want?"
"The hive treasure. It's referenced in the texts I read when I studied the history of the changelings. A subject which has never gained me tenure, nor convinced her to..." He paused for a moment. "I won't get into that. There's an object they mention repeatedly—this is from when changelings actually wrote, of course—described as having great value. The dialect is arcane, but I suspect it's an artifact of substantial worth."
Luna nodded. "I see. It could give you insight into the changelings, then? Is that why you want this treasure?"
"Close, but... no. I'm going to sell it, make a bundle, and retire from archeology in splendor. That's assuming you're serious."
"Oh," Luna said.
"If I go with you, I want more than a consultancy check and a royal headpat," Caballeron said. "I expect you to help me get my treasure."
"We will not satisfy your petty avarice and risk jeopardizing the mission."
"Then you'll satisfy the changelings, and my petty avarice is much less dangerous than a changeling out for love." Caballeron yawned, and put his journal back on the shelf. "Good day, Princess Luna."
"Very well," Luna said with some difficulty. "You will have your treasure."
"Splendid. So, let's start planning." Those eyebrows arched mockingly after all, although Luna didn't see the joke. "Your place or mine, Princess?"
Luna looked around the table. There was Colgate, looking bored and fiddling with a pen. Soarin was staring out the window, tracing shapes with his hoof. Caballeron was... looking at Moonshine? That couldn't be right.
"I would call this meeting to order, but let us not stand on formality overmuch," Luna said. Colgate snickered quietly, but stifled herself as Luna glared. "In any case, there are a few details of this mission that have not yet been made known to you. If these affect your willingness to participate, you may decline to. That does include you, Mr Soarin."
He nodded.
"First of all, this mission will have no official endorsement or support from the Equestrian government."
Nods all around, although Moonshine didn't seem happy about the prospect.
"Secondly, this mission will not be acknowledged by the Equestrian government." She paused for effect, but there was no reaction from anypony at the table.
"Thirdly, should this mission's failure result in our capture, the Equestrian government shall disavow all knowledge of our activities and decline to negotiate for our release." Colgate frowned at that. "Nor will there be any rescue operation undertaken in the event that we fail." She looked around the room.
Soarin raised a hoof. "What's failure?"
Luna suppressed a smirk. "While I applaud the sentiment, I want your decision informed by more than bravado. That being said, I do not anticipate any such failures if we all perform our roles effectively. Doctor Caballeron, you are of course our changeling expert, and will be responsible for guiding us within the hive itself."
Caballeron nodded.
"Ms Colgate, your stealth may be required in order to infiltrate the hive without any... mishaps. In addition..." Luna paused a moment. "I believe you may be able to see things none of us can."
Colgate raised an eyebrow. "Yes, ma'am."
"Mr Soarin, your role has not changed. You are to protect me and the other members of this party. Also, I suspect you will be preventing me from doing anything particularly foolish, per my sister's orders."
Soarin shrugged. "I'll do my job. Ma'am."
Luna nodded. "Are there any questions?"
Caballeron asked, "If we cannot rely on official support for this mission... from where are our supplies coming?"
"I will be financing this mission myself."
There were stares from around the table. Luna sighed. "Moonshine, what was that word you kept using when we discussed the state of my finances?"
"Oh, um, compound interest?"
Colgate was scribbling furiously on a scrap of paper. Her eyes widened. "That should... be enough."
Luna smiled. "Excellent. Yes, Doctor?"
Caballeron coughed theatrically. "Call me mercenary, but will the Equestrian government be sanctioning the sale of any artifacts one might acquire from our little adventure?"
"Yes, I imagine that certain regulations could be overlooked."
He chuckled. "Very good."
Luna raised a hoof in warning. "That does not mean it will be condoned."
Caballeron shrugged. "I can live with that."
Now Colgate spoke. "What are we doing with Chrysalis in the event that we're about to be captured with her?"
Luna stared at the ceiling in thought. "We will address that matter if, and when, we come to it. Any further concerns, Colgate?"
"Nothing comes to mind."
"Very well. In that case, we will move on to the general overview of our mission. Moonshine, if you would be kind enough to retrieve the relevant documents..."
Soarin was looking decidedly confused.
"Is there a problem, Mr Soarin?" Luna asked.
He shrugged and looked up in thought. "I dunno, it's just like... none of you get what an awesome adventure this is! You know?"
Nopony responded.
"Well, I think it's going to be fun," he said.
This wasn't Luna's first train. That hadn't been the best of times. She was led in by Celestia, a strong white wing supporting Luna's weakened body. There had been a subdued and cursory examination by a pair of solemn doctors, who murmured things like "it could be shock" and "the effect might be permanent..."
Celestia had stayed with them, talking quietly, while Luna followed a pale unicorn into a sealed carriage. There had been a comfortable looking bed. Luna opted for curling up in a corner and sobbing quietly. The unicorn had looked to the door behind her nervously, then set her clipboard down, walked to Luna, and offered a brief hug. Luna accepted mutely.
Celestia had been there a minute later, of course.
There was a knock on the door, and Luna, shaken from her memories, turned away from the landscape rushing by. "Yes?"
Moonshine came in with a wave of her clipboard. "Doctor Caballeron is going to talk about changelings in a minute. I thought you'd want to be there."
"You thought rightly."
"I usually do," Moonshine said matter-of-factly. They stepped out into the hall and turned towards the back of the train.
Luna chuckled. "I believe I will miss you, Moonshine."
"I'm sure we'll have time to catch up as you swagger back into Dodge Junction with Chrysalis in tow."
"A thousand enraged changelings in pursuit," Luna finished.
Moonshine shrugged. "I grew up in Dodge, sort of. I think we can take them."
"Naturally."
Moonshine opened the carriage door. It took a moment for Caballeron to look past her. "Ah. I see we're joined by our dear leader. Did you have a nice nap?" he asked.
"I was not sleeping," Luna snapped, "although it would hardly be surprising if I was."
Caballeron looked bored. "In any case," he said, "we should talk about changelings. Or, more accurately, you should listen while I talk about changelings. Ms Colgate, Mr Soarin, are you paying attention?"
"I am," Colgate said. "Soarin's coloring again."
"Am not!" Soarin retorted.
"Whatever. Go ahead, Doctor," Colgate said.
Caballeron began to pace around the carriage. "Most ponies are aware that psychic magic is possible, as with our own Princess Cadence. But she is by far the exception. It is a rare talent indeed. Psychic magic is not particularly well-suited to unicorns for various reasons, and pegasi and earth ponies don't have the feel for it. Changelings specialize in it."
Blank stares from around the room.
"The term 'shapeshifter' for changelings is misleading. That sort of physiological change is, of course, impossible in the period of time it takes for a changeling to assume a new appearance. I am an archaeologist, not a biologist or magical theoretician, so if you want to know exactly how they do it, ask somepony else. But it is a psychic effect that alters your perception of the changeling's appearance to fit that of the pony whose identity has been assumed. Don't be an idiot and think you can tell the difference through any subtle details. A changeling is physically indistinguishable from the host identity. Behavior is the only way to tell the difference."
Soarin raised a hoof cautiously. "What kind of stuff are you talking about?"
Caballeron rolled his eyes. "Attitude, speech patterns, actions, things like that.”
Soarin nodded.
"As such, I suggest you all become familiar with the mannerisms of the ponies on this train. The ability to spot the differences will be essential. Now, moving on, I'm going to be..."
There was the roar of rushing air. The train shuddered as another train rushed by on the adjacent track. Luna reckoned it was moving at roughly fifty miles per hour. The interior was a blur, but it was absolutely packed with ponies—a blur of blue and orange and pink.
It passed quickly, receding to a smudge behind them.
"What the hell was that?" Colgate asked.
Moonshine bit her lip. "It's Monday. The train from Dodge Junction doesn't leave until Friday... and it's never that full."
"This bears investigation," Luna said. "Moonshine, would you go to the locomotive and inquire after it?"
Moonshine murmured assent and left.
"Doctor, please continue," Luna said.
The door closed, and Caballeron looked away. "Oh, right. I was talking about psychic magic, yes?"
"Indeed."
"We'll discuss the details of how to deal with changelings, but for the moment, perhaps it's best that we focus on what makes a changeling tick." Caballeron looked around the room, wary of an objection. "The psychic magic's most obvious manifestation is the changeling's ability to assume the appearance of another creature, but that's not the only effect."
Colgate fidgeted.
"As Ms Colgate here can tell you, changelings are capable of projecting their consciousness onto another mind."
Luna glanced at Colgate, who didn't seem to have any reaction.
"Ms Colgate?"
Colgate nodded, but didn’t look up.
"You will virtually never see changelings on their own unless they're impersonating somepony else. This is why changelings will fight with a fanatical devotion to the hive, incidentally."
Luna frowned. "A constant magical field of that sort must require a great deal of energy to sustain."
Caballeron nodded. "Which is why changelings have to feed on love."
"Why is this, uh, shared consciousness thing so important anyways?" Soarin asked.
Caballeron hesitated for a moment. "That's a good question, and actually, one I do have a number of thoughts on..."
"Because it's not lonely," Colgate mumbled.
"Huh?" Soarin said.
"I can't really explain it. It's like..." She paused. "It's like a thousand voices in your head telling you that everything will be alright, that you're okay, that somepony's taking care of you."
Colgate looked briefly panicked. "Something like that," she said.
Caballeron stroked his face for a moment, then nodded. "Essentially, yes. Changelings don't require love for pure survival. It's in order to keep the magical link active."
Luna looked out the window for a few moments. "Surely the changelings cannot always have been like this," she said.
Caballeron grimaced. "That's a matter of some debate in my field. But for my money, I'd say you're right. Early changeling writings don't suggest anything like the blurring of identity or parasitism we see in changelings today."
The door opened. "The engineers have no idea what happened," Moonshine said. "Steam guesses that it's just the Friday train leaving early, but in general..." She shook her head.
"Duly noted," Luna said. "Moonshine, do sit down. Now, Doctor... what could have caused that sort of change?"
Caballeron shrugged. "The records are incomplete, fragmented. A lot of the later texts are, uh, apocalyptic visions. Very strange stuff, practically unreadable. But one word keeps turning up, over and over again.” He paused a moment, eyes flickering towards his journal. “Her."
“Her?” Luna asked. The end of days, brought about by an enigmatic ‘her’... Luna wrenched herself away from her thoughts. Caballeron was answering.
“Her or she,” Caballeron said. “In that particular changeling dialect, there isn't a distinction between the subject and object form of the feminine third-person pronoun...” The others stared. “But of course that is not what you were talking about.”
Luna shook her head.
“To respond...” Caballeron hesitated. “To respond to the other part of your question, the identity of the person referred to in those texts has not been clearly established. It’s not as if that is surprising, however. You can rarely expect specificity from things like this.”
“Things like this?” Colgate asked, then shook her head. “Never mind. We’re wasting our time on this. Princess?”
“I tend to agree,” Luna said. “Doctor, can you tell us anything about engaging in combat with the changelings, should that eventuality arise?”
Caballeron frowned. “Hope that it does not. The hive will act with utter ruthlessness if it perceives a significant threat. The vast majority of drones will not use any particularly sophisticated tactics, but numbers alone make any coherent response... intimidating.”
Luna nodded. “In the eventuality, however...”
“I would very thoroughly recommend against it.”
Colgate groaned. “Cut the crap, Caballeron. How the hell did you get out of there the first time around?”
Caballeron rubbed his face. “We had been in the hive for about a week at that point, preoccupied with our work. I had grown frustrated digging on the outskirts of the hive for shards of pottery. I tried to reason with them. ‘Archeology is not an exact science! We do not have to catalogue every last inch of detritus!’ Of course, they did not see it my way.” He shrugged, but resentment still glowed in his eyes. “They might have made it out alive if they had followed me. Perhaps.”
Colgate rolled her eyes. “Get to the point. Where’d everything go pear-shaped?”
“I had suspected the existence of changelings for some time. It was dismissed as cryptobiology, 'pseudoscientific nonsense'."
"There were stories about them back in Dodge..." Moonshine said. "I never really took them seriously."
"Stories, yes," Caballeron said. "And they were were suspiciously close to what we knew about changelings from previous evidence. But of course, without hard proof..." Caballeron sighed. "In any case, I was uninterested in wasting time in the outer tunnels. I went in, deeper and deeper into the mountain. As you can imagine, the humidity is stultifying that deep—the breath of a hundred thousand changelings packed into a space half the size of Canterlot."
Caballeron adjusted the bandanna around his neck and continued. "I had to ration the kerosene... they wouldn't give me any extra for what they said was 'utter lunacy'. So I had the flame burning low, hardly illuminating anything past my own face.
“You can hear them before you see them, the changelings. The rustle of wings against carapace, the clatter of chitin on the stone.” Caballeron glared around the room. “But as I have already said, the hive will not act until it perceives you as a threat. I presume they watched me all the way in, but nothing happened until I had reached the center of the hive.
“I am not often surprised, but that...” Caballeron hesitated for a second. “I do not use the term ‘hive’ lightly, you should know. What I stumbled upon could be called the nursery.” He swept his hoof deliberately in front of him. “Imagine, if you will, a massive pit, some hundreds of yards across, and full of changeling larvae, crying in their raspy voices, an acrid scent wafting up. I half expected them all to look up at me in unison, but...
“I thought I heard a shriek, and it seemed as if it were coming from inside my own head. Maybe. In any case, at that point I noticed, on the far end of the nursery, my colleagues..." Caballeron grimaced at the word. "They were dropped into the pit. There was motion all around them, the changelings swarming. I could hardly make out Maps and Artificer, but it was obvious that they would not survive.
“My theories about the nature of the changelings were still, at that point, in their infancy. But I was sure of one thing: the hive would not act irrationally against a threat—or, at least, not if I played my cards correctly. I slid into the pit and carefully picked up one of the smaller larvae and put it in my pack.”
Luna raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt.
“A hostage was... important, of course, but I knew that would not be sufficient to stave off an attack by the hive. I had to demonstrate that I was not worth the effort to take. So naturally, I retreated to a corner and scrounged around in my pack for the dynamite we had brought with us for clearing tunnels. But at that point, I...”
Caballeron froze, staring at the other ponies around the table as if he had never seen them before in his life. That lasted for a few seconds before he relaxed—barely. “I knew speaking of this would prove to be a mistake,” he snapped, glaring at the others, daring them to object.
Luna blinked. “I do not—Doctor Caballeron, how did you escape?”
“I don’t re—” Caballeron started. “I do not wish to discuss this further. I am a scholar, not a hack novelist. If you have questions about the changelings, I will take them.” For a few seconds, nopony said a thing.
“What is that?” Soarin cried. “You can’t get that far into the story and just stop!”
Caballeron sneered. “My apologies for ruining storytime for you, Mr Soarin.”
“You know what I meant,” Soarin said, teeth gritted. “Tell us what happened.”
Caballeron leaned in towards him. “No.”
Luna rose to her full height, head nearly hitting the ceiling of the car. “Caballeron.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed? Intimidated?” Caballeron demanded. “If you want me on this expedition—and you will need me—I suggest that you resign yourself to not prying into my past, no matter how tall you are.”
Luna stared at him. He met her gaze, albeit reluctantly. “The moment this becomes relevant to us, Doctor, is the moment when your privacy becomes utterly irrelevant to me, and I suggest that you resign yourself to the knowledge that moment will come.”
“Very well,” Caballeron spat out. “Now, if anyone would care to ask me any appropriate questions regarding the changelings?”
Colgate rolled her eyes. “I think the doctor here needs a break.”
Nopony disagreed.
The train rolled into Dodge Junction. The streets were empty, the setting sun casting long shadows across the dusty ground. Luna glanced at Moonshine. “Is this town usually so void of life?”
Moonshine didn’t look away from the window. “No. It’s not.”
Luna turned away and walked into the hallway of the railcar. Colgate was standing by the door, looking bored. Inevitably, Caballeron smirked. “Where’s Soarin?” Moonshine asked.
“Mr Soarin was kind enough to venture out into the town while the rest of us waited for you two,” Caballeron said.
“Why?” Moonshine asked.
Colgate groaned. “Something about ‘preliminary recon’. He sounded really excited about it, too.” She rolled her eyes.
“He may have the proper idea,” Luna said. “In any eventuality, we had best find him.”
There was no disagreement on that point, although Colgate and Caballeron seemed less than thrilled by the prospect. Luna nodded at the assent, and stepped out of the train, doors flying open with a theatrical flourish.
She regretted it almost immediately. The heat was stultifying, like an oven, and even the setting sun seemed to glare balefully down on Luna. Colgate’s eyes widened. “Ponies live here?” she asked.
Moonshine smiled. “Yep. It’s pretty nice in the winter, actually.”
“I refuse to believe that winter exists in this place,” Colgate said.
Moonshine shrugged. “I didn’t exactly make many snowponies as a kid.”
Colgate nodded.
Dodge was built around the railroad, unvarnished wooden buildings pressing around it as if they wanted to leave. Even though it was dusk, few lights were on—not even, Luna noted, in the sheriff's office. She walked towards it, followed by the others.
The door had been left ajar, and the wind had blown it against the outside of the building. It slapped against the rough wooden wall every so often as the wind picked up, sending swirls of dust through the empty streets. Luna stepped in, eyes adjusting to the dark in an instant. There was a file cabinet left open, and papers were strewn across the floor.
“What could have happened here?” Luna said to nopony in particular.
“Sheriff left,” came a voice from outside. The accent reminded Luna of Honesty, but there was a lilting cadence to it that didn’t quite fit. Luna turned around to see Soarin and an unfamiliar mare standing at the door of the office.
The cream-colored mare sported an elaborate crimson mane that might have at one point given Generosity a run for her money, but it clearly hadn’t been maintained for some time. She smiled warily at Luna and the others. “Why, hello there. This charming young colt—” Here she nodded towards Soarin. “Told me y’all might be here. It’s good to know somepony from Canterlot’s taken an interest in what’s been goin’ on here.”
“Your gratitude is noted,” Luna said. “Who are you?”
“She’s—” Soarin started.
“I can introduce myself, darlin’,” she said. “I’m Cherry Jubilee, boss of Cherry Hill Ranch. We make cherry... well, I can imagine that’s not important for the time being. Y’all want to come out where I can see you? Seems like I can’t be too careful these days.”
Luna nodded, and walked out onto the street, where she exchanged a business-like hoofshake with Cherry, who bowed slightly. “I expect you’re gonna want to hear about what’s been goin’ on here,” she said.
“Very much so, Ms Jubilee,” Luna said.
“So you saw the train, I hope?” Cherry asked.
“We did.”
Cherry exhaled. “That’s a relief.”
“What would have been the problem?” Luna asked.
Cherry stared at her for a moment, then looked down and chuckled softly. “You don’t have any clue what happened here, do ya?”
“What happened?” Moonshine asked, the words coming fast and high.
“Well, as it happens—” Cherry paused. “Moonshine, darlin’, is that you?”
“It’s me, Ms Jubilee,” Moonshine said. “Now, what happened?”
“Your folks are just fine, if that’s what you’re askin’. They left on the train yesterday.”
“And what prompted their departure?” Luna asked.
Cherry’s mouth opened in a small ‘oh’, and she blinked. “Y’all really don’t know what’s been happenin’, do ya?”
“I am afraid not,” Luna said.
“Well... I think you’re gonna have to see this for yourselves,” Cherry said. “Come on.”
They walked east along the railroad, in silence. Every few yards, Luna noticed a suitcase or trunk tossed onto the ground, more often than not split open, clothing and jewelry and bits spilling out onto the dusty ground. Before long they came to the bank—a marginally sturdier-looking building than the rest. “You still in there, Deposit?” Cherry called out into the darkened lobby.
“I’ll be damned if I leave,” came a voice—presumably Deposit’s—from inside. “Who is it?”
“It’s Cherry, ya galoot.”
“Prove it,” Deposit said flatly.
“Alright. I have had the exquisite misfortune of havin’ every single hoof stepped on while dancin’ with a certain ornery teller.”
Deposit groaned from somewhere inside the bank. “Okay, okay. Come on in.”
“One second. And would you turn the darn lights on?”
“If you insist,” Deposit grumbled. There was a brief clattering noise as, Luna assumed, he got up to hit the switch. The lights flickered on, and Deposit walked to meet the newcomers. He eyed them for a moment. “They’re all good?” he asked Cherry. He was a slight stallion, with spectacles perched on his muzzle.
“Just off the train from Canterlot,” she answered. “They should be fine.”
He didn’t respond for a few seconds. “Alright.” He extended a hoof to Luna. “Very pleased to meet you, your majesty. I’m Safe Deposit, interim manager of the First Bank of Dodge Junction. And...” He chuckled ruefully. “At this rate, probably the last bank of Dodge Junction.”
“Well met, Manager Deposit,” Luna said. “Now, Ms Jubilee, if you would be so kind as to elucidate our purpose for visiting this fine establishment?”
“Oh, of course,” Cherry said. “Dep, is he still here?”
“Hasn’t budged. I’ve been leaving food and water, but...” He shook his head. “He should be safe in there though.” Deposit walked up to the vault and smacked it affectionately. “Half a foot of steel and concrete. I’d like to see anything get through that.”
“What the hell has been going on here?” Colgate asked.
“One second, darlin’,” Cherry said. “You’re gonna want to see this. A lotta things will start to make some sense.”
Deposit spun the lock with a practiced motion, and the vault opened. “I’d appreciate it mightily if any of you cared to make a deposit,” he said. “There was a bit of a run. Cherry, would you mind getting the lights?”
A single incandescent flickered into life. Colgate wrinkled her nose. “How does it smell like this in a bank vault...”
There was a pony huddled in the back corner, eyes fixed, unblinking, onto the floor. “That explains the smell,” Caballeron noted.
Colgate shook her head, but didn’t disagree. “Can we take a look at him in the lobby?” she asked.
Deposit shrugged. “I don’t think he minds, and I certainly don’t.”
Colgate walked to the stallion and offered a hoof. He didn’t respond, not even to look up. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “We’re here to help.”
There was no response. The stallion barely breathed.
Colgate blinked. “Could you help me with this, Princess?”
Luna nodded, and her horn glowed. The stallion levitated into the air, limbs dragging limply behind him. Luna backed, carefully, into the bank’s lobby and put him back down.
Colgate retrieved a lighter from her pack and crouched down in front of the stallion. The flame flared. His pupils shrunk, but his eyes didn’t focus. She moved it in front of his face. No reaction. The lighter’s cap snapped shut, and she put it into her pack. “Catatonic,” Colgate said, standing up. “At least if I remember this right.”
Luna didn’t say anything, but just watched. Caballeron smiled faintly and nodded.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Doctor?” Colgate asked.
“I expected something like this,” Caballeron said, looking pleased with himself, a thin smile spreading across his face.
“Like what?”
The doctor gestured at the stallion. “No reaction to anything, correct?”
Colgate nodded.
“We might as well leave him outside. There’s nothing left,” Caballeron said, nudging the stallion.
Colgate rubbed her head. “Caballeron, are you saying—”
“This is what the changelings do,” he said. “Under less expedient circumstances, they’ll try to absorb love passively, but this...”
“He was fed on by changelings?” Colgate asked.
“Sucked dry,” Caballeron said. “Do whatever you want with him, but for all intents and purposes he is a corpse that happens to be breathing.”
Colgate took a deep breath. “I am familiar with how changelings... feed. But they were able to do that?”
Caballeron sighed theatrically. "What did you expect being drained of all your love would do?"
Moonshine spoke up, “Turn somepony into you.”
Caballeron chuckled, but his eyes were deadly serious. "As unpleasantly saccharine as it sounds, there's more than one kind of love, and this poor bastard has had every last drop sucked out."
Colgate frowned. "That doesn't explain the stupor."
"Doesn't it?" Caballeron asked. "What do you suppose drives your own desire for self-preservation, Agent Colgate?"
The catatonic stallion fell over with a fleshy thump. There was no cry of pain. His breathing accelerated almost imperceptibly. Caballeron looked at him distastefully and without much emotion, as if he were a fly stuck in a spider's web.
"Call it self-love if you wish, Ms Colgate, or ego, but whatever it is, he doesn't have it any more. Why would he do anything? He doesn't care. And neither should you."
Colgate looked at the stallion. "Is he still in there?"
Caballeron shrugged. "What do you mean by that? For my money, the answer is no. There's nothing for a self to attach to."
“We seem to have strayed from the practical impetus of this discussion,” Luna said.
Colgate and the archeologist blinked in unison. “That we have,” Caballeron said. “Mr Deposit—Ms Jubilee—what has been going on here?”
“It's complicated...” Cherry hesitated. “He’s the only one so far, if that’s what you’re askin’.”
“Well,” Deposit clarified, “the only one they’ve left here.”
“Enough,” Luna said, and six pairs of eyes turned towards her. “Mr Deposit, Ms Jubilee, you have prevaricated long enough. I demand a thorough explanation. Immediately.”
Deposit glanced at Cherry. She shook her head.
Colgate searched their faces, and breathed in deeply. Her horn glowed, and she was gone. Or at least to all appearances.
For Colgate, the scene froze. Despite the strain of channelling energy through her horn, she relaxed slightly and walked around. Soarin’s mouth was still opened in a strange half-smile as he whispered something to Moonshine, whose head was tilted a bit to the side, one eyebrow raised. Luna looked imperiously down on Deposit and Cherry, her gaze unblinking.
In fact, no one had blinked since Colgate’s horn had begun glowing, nor even noticed her walking around the lobby, looking around at everypony.
It was something of an exaggeration to say that Colgate could freeze time around her. All she did was extend a time dilation field around herself. It wasn’t a question of her stopping time, but speeding it up around herself.
The process wasn’t perfect, but it gave her... certain advantages. At a decent trot, she was basically invisible as long as she didn’t dally within anypony’s field of view for too long. After all, for every three minutes that passed for her, only a second passed for the rest of the world.
The fact that it gave Colgate one hell of a headache after a minute or two was a problem, but under the circumstances, she’d take it.
Cherry Jubilee and Safe Deposit were gone. In their place, there were two figures straight from Colgate’s nightmares. They weren’t as tall as Chrysalis, of course, and their eyes had none of that dangerous intensity. They looked almost like exhibits in a museum. But then she brought herself to look at Deposit's real face—long, predatory fangs, wet with saliva, jutting out of a mouth that didn't sit quite right on their faces, empty eyes staring out of a night-black face. She could even smell them—a sharp, burnt scent, with the scent of rottenness sticking up through it.
The ponies from Dodge had been replaced by changelings.
Colgate’s head was beginning to throb at the base of her horn. She’d have to move fast, before she lost focus. She patted down her pack, looking for anything useful.
Nothing. Damn.
Colgate looked around, taking in her surroundings with a practiced eye. The room was a standard bank lobby, if a bit spartan by the standards of a big city like Canterlot. Deposit’s desk was off to one side. There were staplers, pens, paperweights...
Paperweights.
She walked over to the desk, and picked up a paperweight in her mouth. It was a solid-looking piece of rounded glass, with “First Bank of Dodge Junction” etched into it. It’d do nicely. Colgate walked back to where the changelings stood, and hesitated for a second. Then, with a snap of her head, she threw the paperweight into the air. After it had flown up a few inches, it stopped, hovering in the air as if levitated.
Blood pounded at the base of Colgate’s horn, and she put a hoof to it for a moment. Then, she glared at the changelings and stood in front of them, making sure to look up at the rock. Her horn’s light faded, and the paperweight began to drop as Colgate’s moment, frozen in time, died. At first, it was a languid, almost graceful fall, as the time magic whispered its way into nothingness.
Colgate caught it deftly in a field of electric blue.
Deposit and Cherry were there again in front of her, eyes wide at the sight of the unicorn that had just materialized out of nowhere.
The paperweight hit Cherry first. Colgate then slammed it sideways into the side of the teller’s head.
They both dropped, cradling their heads with their hooves. Colgate stared at both of them, waiting for them to get up. They didn’t.
But at the same point, they were still ponies.
Colgate stared at them.
Moonshine stared at her.
“Um. What just happened?” Soarin asked.
Caballeron rubbed his chin. “It seems that Ms Colgate has elected to dispatch our hosts for some reason.”
“Oh,” Soarin said, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof, an uncomfortable frown on his face. “That’s weird.” He paused for a moment. “They’re not actually dead, right?”
“Of course not,” Caballeron snapped.
Colgate searched their faces for any hint of understanding. She didn’t find it. “But, I didn’t—they’re...” she sputtered, and breathed deeply for a couple of seconds. “They’re changelings. I swear. I went into fast time, and...”
Moonshine gasped. “How could you say that? I know these ponies! I would have noticed if they were acting strangely!”
“I know what I saw,” Colgate said through gritted teeth.
“Well, maybe what you saw wasn’t...” Moonshine said.
“Wasn’t what?”
"Wasn't what was... was really there," Moonshine said with a sigh.
“Are you saying I’m crazy?” Colgate demanded, glaring at Moonshine, daring her to say it.
"I'm saying that you might think you saw something that wasn't there?"
“So basically, yes,” Soarin said, which earned him a glare from both unicorns.
“I am not crazy,” Colgate said. “Caballeron, we’d never know, would we?”
Caballeron looked at the ponies lying on the ground. “We wouldn’t,” he said. “But since Ms Shine is familiar with those two, I am inclined to trust her.”
“Damn it, Caballeron, they’re—”
“Enough,” Luna said in a measured tone. “Caballeron, surely there are more conclusive ways to ascertain whether our hosts are who they say they are.”
"Probably, yes," Caballeron said. "Ms Shine, you're acquainted with these ponies?"
Moonshine dragged her gaze away from the injured ponies. "Sort of. I don't know Deposit very well, but Cherry’s a friend of the family.” She placed a distinct emphasis on the last few words, glaring at Colgate.
Caballeron nodded. “Ask her things she knows that a changeling would not.”
"Um. Okay."
Colgate stepped out of the way for Soarin, who helped Cherry to her feet.
"Are you okay, Ms Jubilee?" Moonshine asked.
"I'll be fine, honey."
"Oh, uh, okay. So I'm going to ask you some questions, if you don't mind."
Cherry sighed. "I do get it. Go ahead, darlin'."
"Okay... what's your full name?"
"Cherry Harvest Jubilee."
“That will not do,” Caballeron said. “Ask less obvious questions.”
Moonshine frowned. “How long have you known me, Ms Jubilee?”
“All your life,” she responded in her lilting accent.
“And my parents?”
Cherry hesitated, and glanced towards the door.. “I reckon since right around I got to Dodge.”
Moonshine nodded. “And my name is?”
“Moonshine. Darlin’, why are we doin’ this? You know you can trust me.”
The secretary didn’t respond to that. “Why was I named Moonshine?”
Cherry smiled. “Well, honey, you know just how much your mama loved to watch the night sky, and—”
Moonshine flinched as if she’d been slapped in the face. She stepped away, searching Cherry’s face, eyes wide. She mumbled something.
“What on earth was that about?” Cherry demanded, still eying the door.
“Whiskey,” Moonshine said quietly. ”My daddy liked his whiskey. You didn’t remember.”
A thin, triumphant smile spread across Colgate’s face.
“Truly?” Luna asked.
Moonshine grinned weakly. “I really wanted the job, thought it couldn’t hurt, and I knew you’d never ask.”
Soarin raised a hoof. “Shouldn’t we... you know?”
Cherry cried, “Now wait just a damn minute! Just ‘cause I got one question wrong doesn’t mean you can just... I don’t even know...”
“I suspect that it is reason to—” Caballeron started.
“Doctor, could you be quiet for a moment?” Moonshine asked. “Thank you. Now, Cherry, another question to make up for it. How do you feel about sorting cherries?”
“Sortin’ cherries?” Cherry repeated. “Why, it’s probably my favorite part of the job. It’s relaxin’ and I don’t have to deal with any of them trees.”
Moonshine frowned. “Nopony likes sortin’ cherries, and you love your trees. Well, the real Ms Jubilee does.”
Colgate rolled her eyes and sighed. “Great. I’m glad we... ascertained that there’s something going on here. Caballeron, how do we make sure?”
Caballeron stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. “I believe unconsciousness would do the trick.”
“So...” Moonshine said softly.
“Moonshine, you’ve done a lovely job so far,” Colgate said. “Allow the expert?”
“But Caballeron’s just standing there,” Moonshine said.
Colgate sighed. “I meant me.”
“Oh. Okay, Colgate. Do you think we could maybe do it without hurting her?”
“Drugs,” Caballeron said. “We may be able to drug her into unconsciousness and wake her up as needed.”
Moonshine bit her lip. “Do we know if they’d be safe for changelings?”
Caballeron shrugged. “It’s that or—”
Cherry glared at the two, and Colgate disappeared. She reappeared a second later, and jabbed Cherry’s temple with her hoof. If it weren’t for the speed, and the fact that Cherry dropped like a rock, the motion would have looked almost dainty.
Not that anypony would dare say that to Colgate’s face.
Cherry wasn’t responding, but there was no sudden transformation.
Moonshine said, “You hit her!”
“Does anypony else think we might’ve made a mistake?” Soarin asked. “I think we might have made a mistake.”
Caballeron rolled his eyes and waved Soarin off. “Persistence of vision, or something like that. Give it a moment.”
Luna blinked, and sure enough, Cherry was no longer there. Lying prone on the floor was a changeling, black chitin glittering against the cheap carpet.
Deposit bolted, legs pumping awkwardly as he made his haphazard, desperate way to the door.
Soarin had still been staring at the changeling on the floor, but he was a Wonderbolt, and his wings started moving before he had time to think. He hit Deposit hard, knocking the teller off his precarious balance. They both fell, and tumbled for a few feet.
Soarin raised a hoof, although he was on his back. “I got him!”
Luna suppressed a smile. They are far more capable than they appear. “Return the changeling to the vault!” she called. “We will uncover what happened here.”
Moonshine’s eyes strained to see the changeling in the dim vault. She might be up at late hours a lot—with Luna’s nocturnal schedule, it was just part of the job—but she didn’t have the princess’s night vision. Not even close.
“How many changelings remain in this town?” Luna demanded.
The thing that looked like Deposit snarled, his face contorting to expose invisible fangs. His eyes were filled with rage and fear, which churned behind the spectacles perched on his nose. If he were visible as a changeling, it might be frightening. From this slight, bookish stallion, it was pathetic.
It was still disturbing, though.
Luna turned away from it to address Moonshine. “We,” Luna said heavily, “have been thoroughly unsuccessful.”
Moonshine nodded, a frown on her face. “I have been feeling thoroughly useless. Although I’ve, um, been transcribing the changeling’s responses.” She raised her clipboard a bit.
Luna took it without comment, her eyes shifting laboriously over the text. “Moonshine, these are all ‘snarling’ or some trivial variation thereof...”
Moonshine looked up at her, eyes wide.
“But, ah... perhaps Doctor Caballeron might be able to make something of them,” Luna said. “Might you check?”
Moonshine smiled. “Absolutely!” She practically bounced out of the bank vault where ‘Deposit’ was being held, his legs tied to the real teller’s office chair.
Most of the expedition was still in the lobby. Colgate was looking warily out into the warm desert night, eyes searching for movement in the darkness. Soarin had headed back to the train with ‘Cherry’ and the catatonic stallion. Caballeron was sitting in a corner, writing in his journal, muttering occasionally in a language Moonshine couldn’t understand.
“Mr Caballeron?” she asked.
“Doctor,” Caballeron said past the quill in his mouth. He carefully took it out.. “I take it my assistance is needed?”
Moonshine closed her eyes in thought for a second. “I guess you could say so. Um. The princess suggested that you might be able to do something with this?” She levitated the clipboard towards Caballeron, who took hold of it, skimming through it. He tilted it back towards her.
“Translation is something of a skill of mine, Ms Shine, but I am no more able to make sense of this than... Soarin would." Caballeron smirked. "So you have still not gotten any answers?"
Moonshine sighed. "Not really."
Caballeron got up, placing his journal aside. “The princess is wasting her time. And subsequently, mine.”
“She’s trying.”
“She is failing.”
“Princess Luna knows what she’s doing!” Moonshine said, standing tall and glaring at Caballeron.
“No, she doesn’t,” Caballeron said, stepping towards Moonshine. He easily stood over her. “None of you have any idea what you have gotten involved in. Colgate!”
Colgate raised her head. “Caballeron. What’s up?”
Moonshine frowned. “Were you sleeping?”
“Why?”
“The changeling was... making noises...” Moonshine said. “Um. Loud ones.”
Colgate shrugged. “I spent eight months in White Peak Eyrie. You learn to get to sleep with all sorts of weird noises. Anyways. Caballeron, what’s going on?”
“We are still here,” Caballeron said.
Colgate nodded. “The point being...”
“It’s been well over an hour,” Caballeron said.
“Mmm. Okay.” Colgate yawned and settled onto the floor. “Let me know when we’re done here.” She glanced at Caballeron and Moonshine once more before shutting her eyes, and mumbled, “I need my sleep for spy stuff.”
Caballeron sighed. “I had hoped that you, at least, would remember this detail. The changeling mind is linked.”
“Linked,” Colgate repeated, the word slurred slightly. Her eyes snapped open. “They know where we are.”
"Yes," Caballeron said. "The changelings know where we are, which is why we must leave. Now."
"But Princess Luna is still interrogating the changeling," Moonshine said. "We can't just leave now."
Caballeron's eyes narrowed, and he began to stalk across the room, words coming from his mouth rapid-fire and precise. "The princess is apparently unaware that she is not just contending with one mind, one little ego to be intimidated into submission. She is dealing with a vast consciousness a millennium deep. We leave now."
Colgate tapped her hoof on the floor a few times, thinking. "We have a changeling on the train anyways. Moonshine, talk to the princess. Caballeron knows what he's talking about."
Moonshine hesitated. "Okay..." She turned towards the vault, but before she took another step, Caballeron spoke.
"Wait."
"What?" she said, an edge to her voice.
Caballeron said, "The changelings must not learn that we know that they are aware of our location."
Colgate sighed and pushed back her mane. "So I knock him out, too."
"It could feign unconsciousness."
"I can make pretty damn sure it's out, Doctor."
Caballeron wet his lips, tongue flickering out like a snake's. "We should kill it," he said. "It's the only way to be sure."
"No it's not!" Moonshine said, voice high. "We can just talk to the princess outside of the vault. This isn't your decision anyways, it's Princess Luna's. She's not going to just kill somepony because you say so."
Caballeron sneered. "I dearly hope that the princess does not share your peculiar brand of naivety."
"I am not naive!" Moonshine protested.
He ignored her. "The princess had best be prepared to have a good deal of ichor on her hooves by the time this is over, because—"
"Caballeron!" Colgate said sharply. "Lay off her. We still have better options. Let's get out of here."
"The princess—" Moonshine started.
"Will understand that we have to leave ASAP. Tell her we'll explain outside."
Caballeron nodded, his neck tense. Moonshine walked into the bank vault. "Princess? We need to talk outside, please."
Soarin had never really liked trains.
"These things are too small," he mumbled to nopony in particular. This was somewhat unfair. The cars had been designed specifically for Celestia, which gave Soarin an unusual amount of room to move about. But still. It didn't feel right. Especially not with the newest additions to the passenger list.
Both of them creeped Soarin out. The drained stallion was–well, Soarin couldn't really put his hoof on it. Colgate had confirmed that he wasn't a changeling, but if anything, that made it worse. Danger was something Soarin could deal with, or at least the kind that put him a twitch of the wing from breaking all the bones in his body. He didn't have to think about that too deeply. Just react.
How are you supposed to react to something that can do that? Soarin thought, peering in through the ajar door of the room the stallion was kept in. The drained stallion was just sitting there, dark blue fur seeming to soak up the moonlight coming in through the window. He hadn't moved, not an inch. And he had been in there for something like an hour.
Soarin shuddered, and it wasn't all theatrical.
If anything, the changeling was worse. Soarin had carried her into the train—and took a lot less care with her than he had with the stallion. She was in the storeroom, which locked from the outside. That was, of course, not very helpful against a teleporting unicorn, so the door had been fitted with a glass window, two inches thick and crisscrossed with wires to reinforce it. The idea was that it would, at the very least, be possible to spot any teleporting thief through the door.
Fair enough, but it meant that whoever was inside could also see out. And that was creepy.
Soarin had walked by after the changeling woke up, and there was Cherry Jubilee, standing right inside, large as life. "Soarin, darlin', what's goin' on? Why am I in here?"
Soarin hadn't had anything to say. "I'm scared, honey," she said, voice muffled by the door. "I swear I don't know anythin'. Let me out."
He had stared in. Cherry's eyes were watery, a tear already threatening to fall. "Please."
Soarin walked away. It wasn't right. It was scary. It was wrong.
But now he was back by the window. And strangely, Cherry wasn't immediately visible. He got closer and looked towards the sides of the room. Still no fake Cherry, but—was that Moonshine?
She noticed him looking through the window, and walked towards it slowly, her head not coming as high to the window as Cherry's had. "Soarin?" she asked.
"Yeah?" he responded without thinking.
"Can you let me out now?"
Soarin noted, in a half-hearted sort of way, that she was sort of adorable looking up at him like that. He shook his head. "You're not Moonshine," he said slowly. "I'm not letting you out."
The not-Moonshine stamped her hoofs. "I am too Moonshine!" she protested, voice higher than usual. "Please, Soarin, let me out. I'll be really thankful."
He hesitated, and walked away.
Colgate tapped a pencil on the table, over and over. Click, click, click. The conference car was well-lit, bright and warm, but the night outside seemed to weigh heavily in, pressing in on the windows.“We still don’t know what happened to everypony in Dodge. The changelings cut the telegraph lines.”
“There was a train full of ponies coming out,” Soarin said. “They probably got out before—”
“Before what? Soarin, it would make sense if the changelings took some of them back. They could be used as hostages, intel, or...”
“Consumed,” Caballeron said.
Colgate nodded. “Yeah.”
Moonshine walked into the car, closing the door gingerly behind her. “Hi,” she said. “Steam says he’s sorry that the train’s not going faster, but...” She took a deep breath. “They couldn’t refuel the train in Dodge Junction because they weren’t able to get to the depot in time so we have to go slower and Steam’s really sorry that we’re going slower than normal and will try to apologize before the changelings catch up to us and suck the life out of our bodies.”
Soarin blinked.
Luna asked, “Are you alright?”
Moonshine bit her lip. “I’m probably not. Where is everypony from Dodge? Ms Cherry, Mr Deposit—my parents?”
Luna nodded, and put a hoof on Moonshine’s shoulder. “They will be fine, I promise, as will you.”
Moonshine shrugged her hoof off. “Right.”
“I do mean it,” Luna said. “I do not make promises lightly.”
The secretary sighed. “I know you don’t.”
The cool night air brushed at Luna’s face as she stood at the back of the train, staring out into the desert. The Moon was high in the sky, casting a silver light across the empty expanse of dust and dirt and rock.
The door behind her opened. “Guess you couldn’t sleep either,” Moonshine said, gently closing the door.
Luna turned her head to look at her, the secretary’s eyes glimmering in the night’s light. “I am not accustomed to rest at these hours,” she said.
“I’ve been, um, working nights for two years now. It’s not easy for me either,” Moonshine said with a hesitant chuckle.
“Two years,” Luna said, looking out into the night once more.
“Six hundred forty one days,” Moonshine chirped. Luna stared. “It’s, um, probably weird that I count that,” Moonshine said, looking down as she kicked her hoof against the platform. “I, um, guess I like to be exact?”
“Perhaps,” Luna said. Two years, she thought. Why was the thought uncomfortable? In my exile, my fits of rage had lasted longer. My madness consumed a thousand years in the blink of an eye.
And yet, Luna had expected it to be different now that the Nightmare had passed, that somehow she would leave behind that otherworldly perspective. Surely it is different than the time of my exile, but I am still—
“Princess, are you alright?” Moonshine asked quietly.
Luna hesitated. “I am fine. It is just that I never thought I would become this... old.”
Moonshine pondered that for a moment. “And yet you don’t look a day over seven hundred.”
“Flatterer,” Luna said, and laughed. “I am sorry. I believe you wanted to speak with me.”
“Never mind. It was a dumb idea, anyways,” Moonshine said, and turned to the door. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“You have not bothered me. What was it you wished to speak of?” Luna asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Luna. Please.”
Luna?
Moonshine walked away into the varnished oak interior of the observation car. Luna called, “Wait!”
The secretary didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. Luna’s horn glowed bright as she listened to her hoofsteps. There was a flash of light and heat, the sharp scent of ozone in Luna’s nostrils. She appeared in front of Moonshine.
“I worry after you at times,” Luna said. “You were possessed of more calm confronted with a snarling changeling than you are now. What is it that troubles you?”
“Please, Princess, it’s nothing.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
Moonshine sighed. “Do you know what it’s like, that feeling when you lay in bed and can’t sleep, so your mind paces through the same thoughts over and over and over again, and it doesn’t even matter what they are, it just makes sense even though it doesn’t really?”
A shadow flickered across Luna’s face. “I have spent more than a few sleepless days in my own dark reveries. Yes, I know of what you speak.”
Moonshine nodded uncertainly. “I don’t want to leave you.” She sighed. “I mean, on this mission. I just feel like something’s going to happen and then I won’t be there to help you, and it’ll mean that...”
She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“Moonshine,” Luna said, “you have been invaluable to me in Canterlot, but under these circumstances...”
“Thank you for not saying it,” Moonshine murmured. “I would just get in your way. I know.”
Luna opened her mouth, but no words came.
She glanced out the window, sensitive eyes catching a flicker of motion in the darkness outside. Her wings opened instinctively, brushing both sides of the car. “Behind me,” she whispered.
Moonshine froze.
“Now!” Luna hissed, and Moonshine crept under her wings, her scared wide eyes looking up at Luna.
The lights flickered and died. There was a thump above them, and the clatter of chitin on steel.
Something nudged Soarin’s side. Insistently. He groaned, and turned his back to whatever had interrupted his very nice dream. It had involved pie and Spitfire.
"Changelings," Caballeron said from the doorway of the sleeping car, eyes glittering. With a grunt, he kicked something into the car.
Soarin stared. "What."
"Hold on a second," Colgate said, her horn lighting up. "Seriously, Caballeron?"
There was a changeling lying there on the floor, mouth hanging open, eyes blank and dead.
"You dragged that two cars just for the dramatic entrance?" Colgate asked.
Caballeron hesitated. "I... no, of course not. That would be absurd."
Colgate pushed back her mane. "Okay, whatever. The point is, Soarin, that there's changelings on the train. We think some of them are doing something in the locomotive.
"You think?" Soarin asked.
"We don't know what's going on. Caballeron heard screams. Now we can't get into the car."
Soarin nodded. "That sounds bad."
"It is."
Caballeron raised a hoof. "You need to fly to the locomotive and find out what they're doing."
Soarin nodded. "Sounds good."
"There is," Caballeron said, "something of a complication."
He gestured towards the window. Soarin looked out at the dusty desert landscape rushing fast, and said, "We must be going sixty, seventy miles an hour."
Colgate smirked. "Think you can keep up, flyboy?"
Soarin grinned, lifting his wings experimentally. "Oh yeah."
"Then get going, cloudhead."
The strange calm of combat came easily to Luna. Or at least that was how it felt, standing in the train car, wings stretched wide, power flowing smoothly through her body. The changeling’s hoofsteps still clattered on the roof of the train car, and the wind howled outside.
Moonshine was crouched in the corner behind Luna, her breathing fast and shallow. Luna placed a wing over her shoulders, and tried to smile. She couldn’t manage it. Luna’s blood rushed beneath her ears.
There was a thud on the observation platform at the end of the car. Jagged silhouettes flashed across the car’s walls. Luna watched the door opposite her.
Its knob turned, slowly. Luna’s horn began to glow, crackling with energy, and she lowered her head towards the door slightly, orienting her body towards the intruder.
The door opened slightly. Moonshine gasped and held her breath.
Soarin walked in, grinning nonchalantly. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
“The ceiling,” Luna responded. “Above that, I suspect, there is a changeling.”
“Did you see it?” Moonshine asked, in an oddly precise way. Luna glanced at her.
Soarin blinked. “A... changeling?” He shook his head. “I think you guys are getting spooked because of the night.”
“I... what?” Luna asked.
Moonshine put a hoof to her forehead. “Soarin, please tell me that you’re kidding right now.”
“Why would I be kidding?”
Moonshine kicked at the ground. “Two possible explanations. Either you’re—” She smiled softly. “—a complete idiot, or...”
Soarin’s grin faltered. Moonshine drew a little closer to Luna.
“Or you’re a changeling.”
His face was a mask, and there wasn’t even a flash of expression as he jumped off the floor. His wings were a blur, and he darted down the length of the train, straight towards Moonshine.
The room lit up in pure white light for the briefest fraction of a second, like a landscape illuminated by lighting. Something thumped onto the floor. There was a sharp, burnt scent in the air.
The body that had collapsed onto the floor of the darkened observation car was Soarin, to all appearances. Moonshine bit her lip. “That’s...”
“Remember Caballeron’s words,” Luna said. “It is an... afterimage, nothing more.”
“Yeah,” Moonshine said flatly.
“There will be more,” Luna said. “We must leave.”
“What about the others?” Moonshine said.
Luna silenced the voice in her head that told her to listen to Moonshine. “They will be fine, but we must leave now.”
Moonshine, wide-eyed, nodded. They walked together towards the door, Moonshine with quick, agitated steps to keep up with Luna’s long stride. She walked through the door, glancing back at the body on the floor.
They stood on the platform at the end of the car for a moment, watching the landscape for signs of motion.
Luna spoke. “Hold onto me,” she said, and pulled Moonshine towards her. With powerful, slow wingbeats, she made her way into the cool night sky, the train pulling away behind her.
Soarin felt good. This was his stock in trade, his passion.
He liked flying. He especially liked flying fast and close to the ground, where any errant current could mean a sixty-five mile an hour faceplant. That didn't happen, and he flew forwards along the length of the train, consuming the distance to the locomotive with powerful, controlled wingbeats.
The Compass Rose was a venerable old engine, although it was hard to tell from the pristine iron sides glistening in the cool moonlit night. There were no lights on in it, nothing at all except for the red glow of the furnace inside.
Soarin, with one final wingbeat, dropped lightly into the train.
Something slammed into him, hard, and the metal of the engine underhoof disappeared as it knocked him backwards. This wasn't a problem; he slowly opened his wings and traded speed for height before hitting the ground rushing beneath him. Soarin dropped back a couple of cars from the locomotive.
Given the circumstances, it was a fair bargain.
The snarling changeling holding onto Soarin with all its might was more of a problem, he decided. Soarin writhed in its grasp, trying to get away from it. It held tighter, legs around his torso squeezing hard. Soarin snapped his right wing down.
He started to spin and lose altitude. Neither of these was a good thing. But maybe...
Soarin leaned to one side, the changeling nearing the ground. It squirmed, bashing its head into Soarin’s torso, arms flailing. Soarin’s flight evened out, but he was still dropping.
The changeling hit the ground first.
There was a terrible crunching sound, and it screamed, letting go of Soarin.
Soarin's wing shot back out, and he breathed fast and hard, deep lungfuls of air. "Booyeah!" he yelled. "That's why you don't mess with a Wonder—"
Something else hit him squarely in the chest. Soarin's wings froze for a split-second, and dropped like an aerodynamic brick. His hooves just nicked the ground below before he spread his wings, the train rushing past him again.
He glanced around, catching a flicker of white teeth. The changeling roared towards him, its wings spread wide. Soarin punched it in the face, hearing something snap. It roared at him, exposing a bloody mouth that was missing a fang.
The changeling screeched and dove beneath Soarin, snapping at his legs. Something cut halfway down the length of Soarin's leg. He grimaced and gritted his teeth.
Soarin snapped his left wing in to his side, spinning around wildly. He tried to stabilize himself, and spotted a flash of black and white and sky blue. Soarin flailed out at it, his hoof making solid contact. The changeling screeched, and dropped to the ground with a fleshy thump.
“One... down...” Soarin panted, looking back at the changeling. Huh. There was a gash a few inches across, although he couldn’t guess how deep it was. Soarin flexed his leg. It hurt, but it seemed to work fine. Good enough. Although maybe that’s just the adrenaline talking...
He pumped his wings feverishly, making up the distance to the engine.
Soarin searched the air around for changelings. Three-D, three-D... Left, right, up, down. Think three-D. He couldn’t see any. He dropped onto the locomotive, still glancing around for changelings. “Hey guys!” Soarin called out. “Are you here?”
He stepped towards the red glow of the furnace. “Steam? Tracks? You guys okay?”
There was a groan from the engine room. Soarin looked in, checking for changelings. There weren’t any. Instead, Steam Power was up against the far wall, toppled over. His eyes were blank.
“Steam!” Soarin yelled.
The engineer raised a hoof weakly towards the complicated array of brass on the opposite wall, and then dropped it. His eyes closed.
“Steam? Steam? Oh... okay, Soarin. Keep it together. You can figure this out. Okay, this one says pressure... and it’s red... red is bad. This is bad.”
Soarin scratched his head, pacing agitatedly in front of the gauge. The needle made its way through the red zone on the gauge, down to the very bottom, and kept moving. “Huh. Okay, so now it’s back into the green... and moving again... and now back in the red...”
Soarin’s eyes widened, and he bolted down the length of the locomotive. He leaped off the train, his wings snapping out to catch the air, fully extended: the one thing you’re never supposed to do at high speeds.
The first thought to go through Soarin’s mind was “I hope Spitfire never finds out about this.”
The second was cut off by a sudden shock of pain behind his shoulders as the wind whipping past caught his wings and dragged him back.
A tremendous roar came from the engine, and a jet of steam and fire erupted from it. Soarin could feel the heat, singeing his back. A blast of pressure washed over him, and he was thrown backwards, tumbling in midair.
The engine slipped off the track, careening into the soft desert earth, a plume of dirt rising up around it. The rest of the train followed, the next car snapping its connections as it spun and rolled across the desert.
In Colgate’s line of work, loud noises were usually a bad sign.
Enormous metal roars fall within that category, and Colgate, pacing anxiously across the hall of the sleeper car, heard one. With the flicker of her horn, she shifted into fast-time.
Caballeron was caught in mid-flinch, his stubbled face screwed up as if he had smelled something unpleasant. Colgate considered snickering, but decided against it. She turned towards the front of the car, and trotted towards the engine.
She tried to recover her impressions of the blast. It had definitely come from the front of the train, but what caused it? It had been too loud and long for a gunshot. Perhaps a…
Colgate came to the junction between the engine and the car behind it, and paused for a second. The heavy iron door to the engine was hovering, almost motionless, in thin air several feet from its frame. It was deformed, with massive dents to it, as if somepony with an enormous hammer and an unhappy disposition had taken it out on the door.
Orange-white flames flickered out from behind the door into the rest of the car, but slowly, gracefully. Colgate grinned, and stuck her hoof out to touch one.
There was an infinitesimal moment of calm, and then the flame licked at Colgate’s hoof. She gasped—a sharp hiss of air into her mouth—and pulled her hoof away. Note to self, she thought. That doesn’t work. She trotted away quickly, her hoof screaming softly every time she put her weight on it.
All of the crew were in the engine cab, Colgate thought. Shit. There was no point going back for them now. And time was running out for her, anyways. The telltale ache of pushing the time-dilation too far was already lurking at the base of her horn. She looked up briefly. It had been perhaps—a minute and a half? A few seconds more, a few seconds less: in any case, it was a bad idea to press her luck.
She silenced her burnt hoof’s complaints, and galloped back to the car where Caballeron was. The archaeologist was in very nearly the same position Colgate had left him in.
“Okay…” Colgate said, her words lost in the dilation. “How the hell am I supposed to get Caballeron off, or—”
The others. Soarin had gone up to the engine to check it out. If he was smart—well, if he was careful, anyways—he would have seen the warning signs, gotten out before it was too late. And if not, there was no point going back for him anyways.
Luna and Moonshine were probably still somewhere in the back. But Colgate didn’t know, and—
A surge of pain struck at the base of her horn. There was no time to waste. Hopefully Luna and Moonshine would be alright. In the meantime, there was Caballeron.
Colgate was reasonably fit, but there was no way she was going to carry him properly out of the train. Perhaps dragging him?
But Caballeron was standing up straight, and alert, and not exactly in prime dragging condition. Colgate hit the wall halfheartedly. There was the other option. The terrible option.
Colgate trotted to the end of the train, pulling the door to the outside open. Her headache was getting worse now, like her head was being pounded on incessantly. She walked back, just as quickly, to Caballeron. “Swear to Celestia, Caballeron, you better not give me any shit after this,” she muttered as her horn doubled its glow.
The pounding on her head had intensified. She could almost hear it drumming behind her forehead. Caballeron lifted just an inch or two above the floor, and Colgate took a few cautious steps forward.
So far so—well, no, not good—that word wasn’t really applicable in situations like this—but... workable. She walked as quickly as possible towards the door, carrying the inert Caballeron the whole way. She was a dozen feet from the door when the pain throbbed and grew.
Whatever invisible demon was punishing Colgate for having the temerity to warp the space-time continuum—in fairness, Colgate thought vaguely, just time—had decided that pounding Colgate’s head was too subtle, and had apparently resorted to trying to pull Colgate’s horn straight out of her skull.
Colgate’s magical grip on Caballeron faltered, and he dropped for a moment, before…
I am not letting it happen again, Colgate thought. Not like White Peak Eyrie. She shouted silently at her legs to move her, and they did, haphazardly and inefficiently. Still, she was closer to the door, and—sweet sol in the sky this hurts—another shaky burst and she was at the edge of the train.
She couldn’t just drop Caballeron, as tempting as the prospect would usually be. The fall would be at sixty, seventy miles an hour. Colgate gritted her teeth as the pain battered at her brain. “Swear to,” Colgate muttered, without bothering to complete her thought, grabbing Caballeron with her front hooves and shoving off with her rear. They both launched out into the dark.
Colgate tried to extend her field around Caballeron—maybe she could keep him from hitting the ground at the train’s speed—and… with a climax of wrenching pain, as if her horn actually had been pulled out of her skull, managed it.
The drop still wasn’t fun. They hit the dry desert earth heavily, the exhausted ex-spy and the archeologist coming apart instantly and rolling for a moment on the dirt.
Colgate’s eyes were probably closed. Or she couldn’t see. Or there was nothing to see, on account of being dead. It was difficult to tell, although being dead probably didn't hurt like this. She tried to keep her breathing steady, and reached a hoof up to her forehead.
She mustered a small amount of joy that her horn was there and evidently untouched. Did you expect anything different? Think, Colgate.
Go away, Colgate thought, waving the thought away. But her leg barely rose off the dirt. The pain was lessened, but not to any degree that mattered to Colgate. She was aware, vaguely, that Caballeron was muttering incoherently in his native language, trying to get his bearings.
“Off train,” Colgate managed, and let herself drop into oblivion.
“Colgate,” Caballeron said. “Can you speak?”
Colgate’s eyes opened. “Yes,” she said softly, rubbing her head. “How long was I out?”
“Not long.” Caballeron said, his eyes flickering towards the wreck of the train. The fire crackling among the broken and bent pieces of the engine cast a baleful glow on the plain. But most of the archaeologist's face was still in shadow.
Colgate sighed in relief. Anything longer than a few minutes would have been ominous. “What happened to the train?” she asked weakly.
“It exploded,” Caballeron said. “And it appears to have derailed, at least in part.”
Colgate glared, or tried to. “I knew that it exploded.”
Caballeron didn’t respond.
“Did any of the others make it out?” Colgate asked.
“So far—” Caballeron started.
“Colgate’s awake?” Soarin’s voice came from somewhere to the spy’s side. She considered turning her head to look at him, but—no, she was okay right where she was. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Soarin asked.
“She has been conscious for ten seconds,” Caballeron said.
“Oh,” Soarin said. “Okay. Hi, Colgate!” Soarin said, his smiling face coming into her view.
“Hello, Soarin,” Colgate said curtly. “What about Luna? Moonshine?”
“We haven’t seen them yet,” Soarin said, his eyes wide.
Colgate nodded. “We should search the cars,” she said, glancing over towards the wreck. “Although, realistically...”
“Got it,” Soarin said. “Now?”
Caballeron said, “That would probably be best.”
“Gotcha,” Soarin said, flipping in midair towards the wreckage of the train. “Don’t get eaten by changelings or stuff like that, guys!” he called.
“You got it!” Colgate said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, Caballeron. It okay if I pass out now?”
A flutter of midnight blue wings, almost invisible in the night, and the heavy thump of alicorn hooves on the sandy earth. Luna lowered Moonshine gently onto the ground.
The assistant looked around. “Is everyone okay? What happened?”
Luna could have been on the Moon.
So much was the same. The insidious dust that got everywhere—the only thing that was missing was the acrid stench of moondust, like spent gunpowder—and there was the hot and unforgiving sun shining down on the landscape that never really changed, no matter how long she trudged through it—save in the most banal details of rock and dirt and dust.
She had been on the Moon for a thousand years, of course—a millennium of dark bloody madness. There was nothing that could compare to that, to a mind as black as the long night and as empty as the ancient craters.
Still, having to endure Doctor Caballeron was surely its closest rival.
“This is absurd,” he said. “We could have arrived in Appleloosa by now if we had headed in that direction.”
“If I am unmistaken,” Luna said, “there are no changelings in Appleloosa.”
Caballeron stopped in his tracks. “Princess. If you care to cast your mind back to, oh, perhaps six hours ago, you might recall that our train exploded. Five ponies are dead. We have no supplies capable of sustaining us a two-days journey to the hive, much less while we’re in it. It is over.”
Colgate and Soarin stopped, and stared at him. Moonshine glanced at Luna.
“The events of the last day,” Luna said deliberately, “have, if anything, increased my resolve.”
Caballeron chuckled without any humor. “You have no idea what you are getting us all into.”
“You haven’t told us everything,” Soarin said.
“I have told you everything of relevance,” Caballeron snapped. “This is a hopeless endeavor without additional supplies. It was foolhardy enough before the destruction of the train.”
“Doctor Caballeron!” Luna yelled. “You will silence yourself.”
Caballeron sneered. “I don’t think you will find—” And his eyes suddenly fixed behind her, towards the hills to the south. He blinked a few times, vision focusing. “It can’t—how could she...” He was silent.
Colgate waved a hoof in front of his face. “Hey. Earth to Caballeron. You okay there?”
Caballeron didn’t respond for a long moment. He looked around, glancing at the others. “Yes?” he asked.
“You kind of...” Soarin said, trailing off.
“I was merely thinking,” Caballeron snapped.
Luna felt a foolish tremor of fear.
The light from the campfire flickered over stained pages, yellowed with age. Caballeron carefully turned them, glancing over the scribbled notes and rushed sketches—lingering for a moment on one sketch, more carefully rendered than the rest—
Caballeron shut his journal, the binding creaking softly. “Ms Moonshine,” he said, looking behind himself.
She smiled. “Caught me. How are you doing?”
“I am fine,” he said shortly.
Moonshine hesitated. “I wanted to check up on you after the, you know, thing today—”
Caballeron stood up and spun around to face her, training a glare on her wide eyes. “I am fine,” he hissed, loudly enough for Moonshine to flinch. A frown flickered across his face. “I appreciate your concern,” he said evenly, “but it is unnecessary.”
“If you say so,” Moonshine said, picking up the archaeologist’s journal and flipping through it. “Who is she?” She held up the journal, opened to a sketch that spread across two pages—a pegasus mare with a cocky smile. “She looks just like—”
“She is nobody!” Caballeron snapped. “Please, leave me."
Moonshine looked hurt, a frown spreading beneath her wide eyes. "Okay. If you want to talk—"
"I will certainly avail myself of the opportunity," Caballeron said. "Good night, Ms Moonshine."
Moonshine looked at him for a moment, hesitating. "Good night, Caballeron."
He nodded once, slowly. “We reach the hive tomorrow. Rest yourself well.”
Moonshine usually liked sunsets. She would paint them as a filly—careful little brushstrokes, trying to capture it as faithfully as possible. The paintings weren’t very good—well, she didn’t think so, anyways. But she liked to paint anyways.
This one was different, though. It felt like the sun had slid almost all the way below the horizon while she wasn’t watching, with none of those slow, graceful gradations of color. The mountain in front of her was almost stained red with the light, a dim crimson that pulsed in and out of her sight.
Moonshine hurried a little, drawing closer to Luna’s side.
Soarin dropped down next to her. “Clear,” he reported. “At least as far as I can tell.”
“As far as you can tell?” The voice came from behind, a sharp snap. Moonshine could almost hear the sneer. Caballeron wouldn’t even bother to hide it.
“Yes,” Soarin said deliberately, “as far as I can tell.”
“Certainty would be appreciated, Mr Soarin,” Caballeron said.
“It’s not possible, Caballeron,” Colgate said. “Soarin knows what he’s doing. Mostly.”
Soarin beamed.
“You should be more thorough.” It was a low voice that Caballeron used, with just the slightest shade of menace to it. Moonshine couldn’t quite place it. Not quite.
But it sounded familiar.
“I was thorough,” Soarin said, raising his voice.
“Somehow I doubt—” Caballeron started.
“Gentlecolts!” Luna said sharply. “Cease your incessant...”
“Squabbling?” Moonshine suggested.
Luna scowled. “Yes. That. Doctor Caballeron, the entrance is on this mountain, correct?”
Caballeron scowled. “Yes,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Although it seems to me that puts me in a distinct minority.”
Moonshine could see Luna’s jaw set, but the princess didn’t rebuke him. “Very well. Lead on, Doctor.”
They continued up in near-silence, punctuated only by the padding of hooves on dirt and the occasional rattle of gravel sliding down the mountain. The ground felt warm to Moonshine, and oddly giving, soft—like the skin of some enormous animal.
Maybe that was why everypony seemed so quiet. Even Colgate flinched when Soarin said, “So...”
No one responded for a moment.
“Yes, Mr Soarin?” Luna said.
“The sun is setting,” Soarin said, pointing back towards the west. Moonshine stopped in her tracks for just a second, glancing at Luna. “Also, I think the moon’s going up.”
Don’t say anything don’t say anything don’t say anything.
Luna said, “Indeed.”
“Uh. I don’t think I saw you do anything.”
He doesn’t have to know that the princess still can't--
Luna hadn’t said anything. She stared at Soarin, her mouth almost opened. Luna glanced at her assistant—‘What do I do?’
—raise the moon.
“Princess Luna’s duties,” Moonshine said smoothly, “have been taken over by her sister for the duration of this mission.” And who knows how long after that.
Luna smiled just so slightly at her.
Soarin nodded. “Okay.”
But Moonshine caught a look on Caballeron’s face. Calculation, wariness.
He knows.
It lasted just a second though, flickering like a candle being blown out. “We are here,” he said.
“By definition,” Colgate intoned.
“You know perfectly well what I meant,” Caballeron snapped. “We are at the entrance.”
He pointed towards it—a rift in the rock large enough for perhaps six ponies to stand across. It was somehow darker than it should have been. What was it Moonshine’s father had said about the mine if your light went out? “Black like coal at midnight”?
A current of air blew through it, wet and warm and pungent, like breath.
Caballeron pulled a torch from his pack. “Colgate, light,” he mumbled. “If you’re not doing anything more important, naturally.”
Colgate nodded, her horn flaring. She held the lit torch up, staring into the tunnel. It didn’t seem to illuminate more than a few feet in front of her. The walls glimmered with firelight. Moonshine dragged a hoof absentmindedly across the stone. It was wet, and stuck ever-so-slightly to her fur. She grimaced and pulled her hoof away.
Soarin stepped inside, looking around, with a final reproachful glare towards the ceiling. “Spooky,” he said, glancing towards Colgate. “No offense, spook.”
Colgate smacked him. “None taken.”
Soarin rubbed the back of his head. “Ow.”
“You’re not hurt.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Us spooks know everything.”
Behind Moonshine, the sun sunk below the horizon. She shivered, despite the heat.
The air was thick with moisture, a heavy, palpable presence that seemed to press on Moonshine's chest. It was warm, wet, dark, with only the steady glow of the lantern somewhere behind her to light the walls of the chamber. And there was a faint smell in the damp air, a smell like leaves burning on a fall day.
Moonshine's breath clouded the stone in front of her, a perfectly flat night-black surface that reflected the torchlight like a mirror. But the writing carved into it seemed rushed, unsteady, like a foal's writing.
The monolith sat at the bottom of a chamber that rose upwards for what seemed like forever to Moonshine, although the flames of the torches only illuminated it fitfully past the first few dozen feet. It felt like being at the bottom of a very deep well.
"What says the stone, Doctor?" Luna asked. Moonshine glanced back at her.
Caballeron rubbed his face. "Ah. Well, as nearly as I can tell, we're rather close to the inhabited chambers."
Luna didn't respond for a moment. "Were we not close when we reached the last, ah..."
"Monument, ma'am," Moonshine supplied. "Um, sorry, monolith, I meant monolith."
"Monolith, then," Luna finished. "Does my memory err?"
"Quite possibly," Caballeron said, tracing out a ideogram on the rock. "The script here is obviously distinct from the previous monolith."
Luna raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
"Hey, doc?" That was Colgate, holding up something. "I found this on the side of the room."
Moonshine peered at it. "Is that one of Soarin's..."
"Energy bars?" Colgate said. "Yeah."
"It's a wrapper, actually," Soarin pointed out.
"Whatever," Colgate said. "I still can't believe how many energy bars you have stuffed in that flight suit."
"I think you mean aerodynamic," Soarin said. He grinned, but only for a second.
Colgate shrugged. "Anyways, Caballeron is putting me off my appetite. We were obviously here before."
Luna glanced upwards. Moonshine recognized the gesture—the princess was thinking.
"Caballeron," Luna said deliberately. "I would have you explain yourself."
"I have nothing to explain," Caballeron snapped. "We have not been here before. The wrapper must have been left by Mr Soarin just now—"
"I did not!" Soarin protested.
"Or perhaps it was planted here," Caballeron finished. A faint rattle came from the darkness above.
Moonshine looked up.
"Or perhaps you screwed up and took us in a circle," Colgate said.
"I know a good deal more about the layout of the hive than anyone else here," Caballeron snapped. "Would you like Soarin to take a turn leading us through? Or perhaps Ms Shine has a map on her clipboard?"
Moonshine's hoof went to her clipboard—or, rather, to where her clipboard should be. She had left it on the train. She felt—annoyed at how unreasonable it was—as if she should have it. But Caballeron was only making fun of her, anyways. So she kept her eyes up towards whatever was just beyond the reach of the torchlight and didn't say a word.
"At least they'd be honest about when they have no idea where we are!"
Caballeron was saying something angry, the words passing past Moonshine without even slowing down. "Um, guys?" she said.
Colgate was responding,"Caballeron, how the hell did you even... yes, Moonshine?"
Moonshine pointed upwards. "I thought I saw something, um, something moving up there."
Colgate glanced up. "Huh."
"What did you see?" Luna asked, eyes searching the darkness above.
"I don't know."
Colgate pursed her lips. "Well, given that Caballeron has..."
A gout of emerald light splashed across the spy's face. Colgate dropped without a word, without a sound, and Moonshine recoiled at the sharp stench of magic.
"They found us," she said, too quiet for anyone else to hear.
Luna was readying herself, hooves anchored into the ground, her horn crackling with energy. "Go, all of you," she said.
Another burst of light washed over Caballeron. He dropped to the ground to, with only a soft groan as his body thumped against the ground.
Luna's face hardened, and the magic sparking around her horn flared out and crystallized into a hundred lightning bolts that shot upwards into the dark upper reaches of the chamber. The light lingered for a moment, revealing a flurry of motion, a chaotic swirl of thousands of night-black limbs.
Moonshine gasped, and drew closer to Luna, who pushed her away.
"Princess...?"
"Soarin," Luna said, "take Moonshine and go."
"That's not my..."
"Circumstances have changed. I do order it, Mr Soarin."
Soarin didn't manage to close his mouth. "I mean... you can take them. You can raise the moon, right? This shouldn't..."
Moonshine tapped him on the shoulder. She shook her head. "You heard the princess. Let's go."
"But..." Soarin sighed, and adjusted his goggles. "Right."
They ran. But Moonshine glanced back at Luna. The princess was standing absolutely straight, her eyes fixed on the mass of changelings above, her face set, implacable.
If Moonshine didn't know better, she might have thought she wasn't scared. But she knew better.
“I discarded you,” the Nightmare says. Cruel ivory teeth jut out of her too-familiar face. “You were such a small thing compared to me! The night, even an eternal night, was the foolish obsession of a mind driven mad with petty jealousy. Pathetic.”
“You were destroyed...” Luna says, and the vacuum seems to sear at her lungs. The sun is so terribly bright behind her, and the sky so very black. Dust scratches at her hooves.
“Destroyed?” the Nightmare asks with a chill laugh. “I am without death.”
She strides to Luna, long black legs devouring the distance between them. “I will watch,” she says, leaning in, looming impossibly over Luna, “as you crawl into the shadowlands helpless. When the sun itself blackens and dies and all life has since been extinguished, I will be there.”
The soft moondust gives way under Luna’s feet, and she sinks into it. It stings in a way that Luna does not remember, and there is a burnt smell that seeps into her nostrils. The Nightmare stands above Luna now. “Perhaps I will keep you here with me,” it says, exposing a predatory grin, “to watch. We have been apart for far too long...”
The stars flicker out before Luna, like candles blown out one by one. The sun wheels over the sky, over and over, and grows into a monstrous red ball, as if it had gorged itself on the carcasses of the fallen stars. Luna can feel its searing heat on her skin.
There comes a flash of light, painfully bright, a ghostly roar, and then the sky is utterly dark and so very empty.
The Nightmare is next to Luna now, so close that she can feel the warmth of its body, its smell like a hunting beast—a dark, bloody smell, mixed with the gunpowder stench of the moondust. “You wanted this,” it says.
And Luna is not sure that it is wrong.
“For you are a part of me,” the Nightmare says, “and I of you.”
It leers, somewhere in the dark. “We are not so very different.” There is a sibilant buzz to this, and a flutter of insectile wings accompanies it. Then there is silence, and darkness, and Luna is alone, and—
And the blood spreading across the polished stone floor looks almost black in the moonlight. It stains the fur of the alicorn it seeps from, creeping onto her. A hundred bruises and cuts mar her ivory body. A faint puff of steam, breath condensing in the cool night air, emanates from her nostrils. Her eyes flutter open.
Luna is standing above her, a cold anger etched into her face, her jaw set. She kicks Celestia, savagely. The motion feels—dull to her, somehow muffled. She frowns. Celestia’s eyes have closed again, her body shuddering.
Stop this.
Luna kicks again, harder.
This isn’t real.
The voice does not sound like Celestia. Blood rushes through Luna’s ears. She kicks Celestia again. Something crunches inside the prone alicorn. The sun princess groans softly.
Luna, you would never do this.
But she is not Luna, not anymore, She is Nightmare Moon and her horn sparks and crackles with energy, and she stares at her sister, the one who stole what was rightfully hers, the one who—
The hall crumbles around her, proud columns tumbling, stone floor falling into nothingness, and the dying alicorn before her, and—
And Luna gasps, again and again. “Celestia!” she breathes. “Sister, I...”
She stands on a dark plain that disappears softly into blackness in all directions, the ground soft under hoof. A faint light, scarcely in the bounds of vision, seems to come from the air itself—or, at any rate, she cannot quite find the source of the plain’s illumination.
Luna looks down at her hooves. They are clean. Surely there should be blood.
The air is warm and wet around her, with a smell like a fall day. “Thank you for coming,” a raspy voice says behind her. “Not much choice, though.”
Luna spins, turning to face the speaker. A changeling stands there, regarding Luna with an uncanny calmness. Those empty blue eyes do not blink. The changeling’s fangs, protruding from its mouth, are wet. Luna feels something primal within her recoil at the sight. “Come no closer,” she says, quietly.
The changeling’s wings buzz momentarily, and then it is gone. “With respect, princess,” the voice says, right behind her now, “not much... you can do about it.”
Luna spins again, but the changeling is gone.
“In my mind,” the changeling says. “My dream, really. Safer here.”
There is an odd emphasis on “my”. Luna turns around, more slowly this time. The changeling smiles, the fangs and the dark pit of its mouth growing obscenely.
“My name is Case,” the changeling says. “And I want to help you. Please relax. Will make this easier.”
The dim expanse drops away, and—
And a changeling walks across the smooth ground, hooves pressing down, her gait unsteady. Once, she would have flown, and her wings twitch instinctively—but pointlessly. She strokes the amulet against her chest and takes in the nursery with one long glance. She towers above the other changelings, and they part before her. Her eyes fix on one larva after another, a practiced, cursory examination.
At last, she settles on one—a female, staring back at her. Her long legs consume the distance between them. The other larvae scurry before her. Her magic recedes from the far reaches of the hive, collecting her presence unto herself.
The changelings following her shudder.
She has eyes only for the larva in front of her. It stares at her, wary. She crouches down slowly, bringing her face nearly to its level, reaching forward with a hoof. It snaps at her, and she jerks back her hoof, panting at the effort. Her language is a sibilant buzz, pulsing from the back of the throat, but the words come clearly to Luna. “I like this one,” she says, to a dark silence. She laughs, a high, breathless laugh.
Her horn flares, and her face discolors at the effort. The larva gasps, its eyes still fixed on her. But the wariness is gone, the light already fading from its eyes. A final flash from her horn, and it thrashes weakly, falling onto the ground.
She walks to it, bending down to place a hoof to its neck. She nods slightly and gazes at it without passion, eyes taking in every inch of its body. “Yes,” she says in that same pulsing buzz. “Take it there at once, and...” She tries to stand up. All her limbs buckle.
The changelings around her rush forward, and she snarls at them. She rises again, jaw clenched tight, and this time she stays upright. She walks stiffly out of the nursery, following the larva being carried away. Its eyes are empty, unknowing. She watches it.
And smiles.
The nursery drains away, and—
And Luna is standing on the dim plain once more. Case is beside her now, and Luna starts at the sight of the changeling. She feels a throbbing pain behind her temples, but it feels distant, muffled.
“Headache will get worse when you wake up,” Case says, still looking out into the blank dimness.
“Then... I am sleeping,” Luna says. “Dreaming.”
“Yes.”
Luna tries to follow Case’s gaze for a few moments, but can make out nothing in the darkness. “What have you shown me? Who are you?”
“Showed you memories of her. Memories that weren’t meant for you. Will explain later.”
And the changeling is gone.
Luna awoke with a start and breathed in hot, humid air. It was darker than the darkest night, a night without moon or stars. There was no surface beneath her, not the comfort of her Canterlot bed, nor the gritty of the Moon.
She thrashed, her legs pushing against the moist membrane surrounding her. There was a brief sensation of motion, but it soon left. She pulled her limbs away, and the membrane clung to them. It was quiet, with only the sound of her labored breath in the darkness.
But now there was something beneath her—the sound of hoofsteps, and a voice.
It was her voice, yes. Luna was reminded of her encounter with a machine Celestia had showed her, an elaborate mess of wires and tubes that would repeat a few seconds of sound. She had showed it to Luna—it must have been during the first few months of cautious rapprochement, of tentative trivialities. The machine was engaging, at least for the hour—repeating a scrap of song, say, or some ill-aged scrap of rhyme.
Luna had never quite been able to recognize herself in the voice coming from the machine, but then, neither was the face in the mirror every evening someone she knew. But this, the voice coming from below her—it was hers, surely, more so than even the voice from the machine, more than that face in the mirror.
“Comfortable?” the voice said, the voice that echoed her thoughts.
Luna said nothing.
“It doesn’t matter, of course.”
Luna sighed. “Then my response will be of little worth,” Luna said. “Chrysalis, I presume?” She pressed her face into the membrane—the wet warmth of it on her mouth—trying to peer down into the dark below her.
Chrysalis cackled. “That was quicker than I expected.”
There was no point to responding.
“It’s funny, really. I had no intention of revisiting Equestria. I know when to cut my losses, after all. It’s too bad that you decided to try this little stunt.”
Luna gritted her teeth.
“And now I have an alicorn princess all to myself!” Chrysalis said, her voice rising. “It’s just like—what is it, Hearth’s Warning? Like that.”
“You will get nothing from me,” Luna hissed. “I would rather die.”
“Eventually,” Chrysalis said. “I won’t always have use of you, after all. Good night.”
A faint green flash sparked across Luna’s body, and she slept.
Moonshine’s hooves slipped a little on the stone beneath her, polished smooth by hundreds of thousands of changeling feet and damp with the moisture that hung in the air. She exhaled, a sharp quick sound, and her horn went out.
It was completely dark.
She stopped running, stood still, gasped for air, and then tensed, channelling energy through her horn: it flickered on—and then off. “Oh, shit."
Soarin dropped down next to her. “I didn’t know you swore. Problem?”
Moonshine looked in his direction. “I cuss—yes on both counts. Soarin, I really hope that’s you.” She paused for a second, and her horn lit fitfully, and stayed on. “Oh, good. Hello, Soarin. Mind proving it?”
Soarin grinned weakly. “I like crayons?”
“Good enough for me. Do you think we got far enough away?”
Soarin sighed. “Uh, probably? Three or four miles?”
“Make up an answer that I’ll like,” Moonshine said.
“Yes, we definitely got far enough away,” Soarin said, sounding like he had repeated the line at gunpoint.
“Oh sol, we’re doomed,” Moonshine said.
“Hey!” Soarin said. “We are not doomed. We could still get out of this.”
“Do you even know where we are, Soarin?”
“Uh. No. But we’ll figure it out. Do you have like a compass or something?”
“Let me just check my pockets... oh wait,” Moonshine said.
“No pockets?” Soarin said.
“No pockets.”
“I don’t know why I was surprised,” Soarin said dully.
“You’re dumb,” Moonshine said. “Joke. Do you still have those energy bars?”
“Of course. Want one?”
Moonshine shrugged. “Beggars. Choosers.”
“Right. So...” Soarin reached towards his flightsuit. “Um... Not there... or there... definitely not there...” Something metallic rattled on the stone floor of the tunnel. “Oh crap, Spitfire will kill me if I broke my barometer... no...”
Moonshine poked at the metal gauge. “This is a barometer?”
“Yeah, for shows. Air resistance changes a little bit from place to place, you know?”
Moonshine tapped her hoof on the ground. “Please tell me it’s working.”
“Seven fifty even. So we’re, what, a thousand feet down?” Soarin gasped. “Oh sol, we’re a thousand feet down.”
“No, Soarin, this is great!” Moonshine said.
“No. No no no. this is not great. We’re like a mile down. This is terrifying. I want to go home.”
“I meant the barometer. We can use it to get out of here.”
“Uh... oh. That’s actually really smart.”
Moonshine beamed.
“So what, we just check every five to see if the air pressure is getting lower?”
“That’s the idea,” Moonshine said.
“It’s a good idea.”
“Why, thank you.”
As Spitfire was always quick to remind Soarin, sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train.
Soarin, hating both tunnels and trains, tended to respond to this suggestion about as well as having been told that overly enthusiastic pegasi would be devoured by packs of roving clowns. The actual lesson hadn’t stuck, of course. But it did come to mind from time to time.
The air was drier here, a steady, dusty draft coming from somewhere in front of him. “Moonshine,” he whispered. “Kill the light for a second.”
“Are you sure?” Moonshine asked. “Also, why are you whispering?”
“Humor me.”
Moonshine sighed, and her horn flickered out. They stood still for a second as the darkness reclaimed the space around them.
Soarin’s eyes darted around.
Moonshine yelped. “What was that?”
“Me, sorry,” Soarin said.
“You should be,” she snapped.
“Apparently.”
“Okay, well, this was fun,” Moonshine said. “And lights in three, two—”
“Wait a second. Do you see that?” Soarin said, gesturing—pointlessly—forward.
“It’s dark, Soarin, I can’t—well, I’ll be.”
There was a faint glimmer up ahead of them, just barely visible.
“You’ll be what?” Soarin asked. “I have some suggestions.”
“Shush. Get out the barometer,” Moonshine said, her horn lighting up again.
Soarin fumbled around with it for a second, Moonshine’s light glittering off the brass exterior. “Six fifty two,” he reported.
Moonshine nodded.
“So pretty low chances that it’s actually a bunch of changelings luring us in to be de-lovified,” Soarin noted.
“Bad joke.”
“They’re the only kind I have.”
“I’ve noticed.”
They walked along for a couple minutes, in near silence. The tunnel floor pitched up into a steep slope, with stone as smooth as if it had been polished. Soarin’s hooves scrabbled for purchase, without much success. He groaned. “Figures.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get much better luck,” Moonshine said.
“You never know,” Soarin said.
Moonshine pulled a face. “I kind of do,” she said, shining her light over what looked suspiciously like a cliff face.
“You’re kidding.”
Moonshine grimaced. “You can fly, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then this shouldn’t be particularly complicated.”
“Hm.”
There was a scrape of something against stone in the darkness. “Not complicated now,” a voice said from behind them, sibilant, raspy. Moonshine spun around, her light faltering just a little as it revealed a changeling just a few yards away.
Soarin was in the air in a half-second, and on the changeling in another, colliding with a solid crunch. His leg rested comfortably on the changeling’s neck.
Well, comfortable for Soarin anyways, and very doubtfully so for the changeling. It gasped. “Stop.”
“Nope!” Soarin shouted. “Moonshine, zap him!”
Moonshine looked askance at Soarin. “Do what to him?”
“Zap him, with magic. Come on, he’s squirming a lot.”
“I can’t zap things!” Moonshine protested.
“What? Why not?”
“Friend!” the changeling shouted.
Soarin lifted off it. “What?”
The changeling sucked in air, pulling itself off the tunnel floor. “Friend. Case sent.”
“What?”
“He’s a friend,” Moonshine explained. “Somepony named Case sent him.”
Changelings can’t smile, but there was something in the changeling’s face that suggested that it was beaming at Moonshine.
“Oh,” Soarin said. “Who’s Case?”
Moonshine shrugged.
“Hard to tell. Easier to show,” the changeling said, extending a forelimb to Soarin’s forehead.
Soarin slapped it away. “No! No showing.”
The changeling looked faintly aggrieved.
Moonshine raised a hoof. “Um, maybe you could try explaining it?”
The changeling bobbed its head. “Can try, can try, though Equish is not good.”
Soarin nodded, letting just a little tension drain away. “Good.”
“Bad. Can’t speak in Equish. Makes slow. Hurts neck.”
“Well, do it anyways,” Soarin said.
“Yes,” the changeling said. It pointed at itself. “Friend. Case is also friend to ponies. And enemy of queen.”
“Chrysalis?” Moonshine asked.
The changeling hissed, exposing its fangs. Moonshine jumped back, nearly slipping. “Yes,” it said.
Soarin grinned. “Nice.”
“Come,” the changeling said. “Take you to Case. Case will help.”
Soarin glanced at Moonshine. She shrugged. “Good enough for me, and maybe they’ll help us find Luna and the others?”
“Good enough for you,” Soarin said, “good enough for me.” He turned back to the changeling. “Take us to your leader.”
It feels like wrenching suddenly awake from a dream, scattered impressions blown aside in a moment of a sudden shudder to reality. Except, of course, that this is the dream. Dim light, wet heat—Luna is standing, once again, on Case’s plain. She closes her eyes, trying to hold onto the encounter with the changeling queen.
“Chrysalis,” Case says. “Woke you. Yes?”
Luna opens her eyes, nods. “Indeed.”
“Good.” The changeling looks up, eyes blank for a moment. “Much time lost. Much to do. You—”
Luna exhales sharply. “Case. When was I captured?”
The changeling nods. “Not long, not long. Not more than a day."
A day. It is a short enough time, but—“The others. Moonshine—Caballeron...”
“Much to do. Told you so.”
“Where are they?” Luna demands.
“Caballeron, hm, was captured with you. And the spy. Don’t know where others are. Yet. Queen doesn’t have them.”
Luna sighs. “Very well.”
“Yes.”
The changeling stands there, and Luna cannot quite pretend that she is at ease. There is something unnatural about it—the chest that doesn’t rise and fall with Case’s quiet breath, the unblinking blank blue eyes, the color of cloudless sky and just as empty—“Who are you?” Luna asks.
“Case.”
Luna stares up at the ceiling for a moment, takes in a breath, slowly lets it go. “So it seems. You are unlike the other changelings.”
Case tilts her head from side to side. “Yes. I am Case.”
Luna meets those unnatural eyes. What had Caballeron’s phrase been? Blurring of identity, yes. Except for Chrysalis, and this... “Are you a queen, then?” Luna says.
The changeling’s limbs straighten, stiffen. “There are no changeling queens,” Case says.
“So I have a question,” Soarin said, his voice echoing in the wide cavern. It was, by Soarin’s standards, a reasonably nice cavern—maybe as much as a hundred feet high, nice and empty, minimal air currents. Like an indoor arena, only dark and possibly filled with love-sucking murderbugs. Like the one in front of him. That’s racist, he thought vaguely.
“Shush,” Moonshine whispered.
“Sorry,” Soarin said, more quietly. “So, uh, Friend—can I call you Friend?” Soarin waved at the changeling. It looked at him, without saying anything, then bobbed its head.
“I am going to decide to take that as a yes, Friend. So here’s what I don’t get about the shape-shifting thing—you know?”
The changeling nodded.
“So Doctor Caballeron—”
“You don’t know him,” Moonshine interrupted.
“Right. So he says that you don’t actually change shape, you just make us think you look like the other pony. Right?”
“Yes.”
“So okay, what if you try to look like me, and then we both get on scales—you know, the things that you use to find out how much you weigh—”
“Know what scales are,” Friend said, looking deliberately away from Soarin.
“Oh. Okay. So if we both get on scales, and Moonshine knows how much I weigh, and she can’t see either of us, just the scales, can she tell the difference between us? Or do you... you know.”
“Have no idea,” Friend said. The changeling didn’t have any lips to purse, but somehow nearly managed it anyways.
“Oh,” Soarin said. “That’s disappointing.”
“Yes.”
Moonshine waved. “If I can distract you boys—um, boy and changeling, I guess—”
“Friend could be a boy,” Soarin objected.
“How would you know?” Moonshine asked.
“Could ask,” Friend said.
“Yeah, Moonshine. That’s rude.”
“Anyways,” Moonshine said heavily, “I was thinking that maybe I could get some answers about where we’re going. And where we are, for that matter.”
Friend nodded. “Empty, um, structure. Cave. Outside hive. Changelings don’t come here. Case is close. Um, light.”
“Me?” Moonshine asked.
Case nodded. Moonshine exhaled sharply, and her horn light up brighter, revealing more of the cavern.
“Well, that’s weird,” Soarin said.
There was a house, sitting in the middle of the cavern—a squat, midcentury thing, complete with badly applied paint and a mailbox stuck crookedly in front of it. A single candle flickered behind an empty window frame.
Moonshine took a second to respond. “Yep.”
The house didn’t seem any less out of place as they got closer to it. Friend hopped up to the porch—it was set a few feet above the stone floor of the cavern, without any stairs, and pawed at the door without any apparent success.
“You have to use the knob,” Moonshine said. “How do you get into our buildings? Impersonate somepony attractive and wait for somepony else to come along and do it for you?”
Friend turned around, stared at her. And was suddenly replaced by Soarin.
Moonshine chuckled quietly.
The not-Soarin flickered for a second, and suddenly Moonshine took its place.
Moonshine grinned. “That’s more like it!”
Friend stared at her. Moonshine glanced towards Soarin, who was now up at the door, trying to work the knob. “There we go,” he said, as the door swung open. “Welp, thanks for the ego boost, Friend.”
“Into the spooky house in the middle of the cave? Sure thing.”
Soarin stepped through, gingerly, the floor—unvarnished, rough wood—creaking loudly beneath his hooves. He made out a couple of empty rooms on either side, and a staircase leading up into the dark. Friend stood on it, eyes glinting as Moonshine walked through the door and peered around.
“Up,” Friend said curtly.
Right. Soarin followed behind the changeling, eyes straining in the darkness. He paused at the top of the stairs, glanced back. Moonshine was standing on the landing. Her face had screwed itself up into a grimace—teeth gritted, eyes pressed shut—and she leaned against the wall.
“Uh. You okay?”
Moonshine inhaled sharply, and stood up. “I’m fine. Headache.”
Soarin caught her gaze for a moment. “If you say so, I guess.”
Friend waved the two of them into another room, his forelimb sweeping back and forth like clockwork. A faint green glow illuminated the room, a dim outline around something on the floor—a changeling, with its limbs folded haphazardly beneath it. Its eyes were closed.
Friend hummed in a low-pitched, unmusical way for a few seconds. One of the other changeling’s eyes opened, slowly, and it responded—a higher, somewhat lilting thrumming noise. Another hum from Friend.
The other changeling started to unfold its legs and raise itself off the floor—it looked like a false start, though. The legs buckled at first, and the changeling staggered, falling back onto the floor. It made a rattling noise. “Um. Apologies,” it said, quietly, not looking up. “Might have guessed already. I am Case. Welcome. We have much to do.”
Golden evening sunlight streams in through the windows of the study, illuminating dust motes that dance in the musty air. Caballeron breathes in deeply, as if he could inhale the history that weighs down the tomes all around him.
It is all his.
He settles down to his well-appointed desk, taking a pen in mouth. The paper before him seems full of possibility, but—there comes a knock from the door.
“Come in!” Caballeron says easily.
The door opens, and it’s as if an angel has walked in. She seems almost the same color as the sunlight that pours in through the wide windows, a rich gold color. Her wings flutter a bit at the sight of Caballeron.
“Hard at work?” she asks, with a slight smile.
“As always, nothing I could not be easily persuaded to abandon for you,” Caballeron says, and means it.
“You’re a hopeless romantic,” she says, and she means it too. Caballeron’s eyes flicker to her flank, lingering for just a moment on the stylized compass. She strides to his desk, leans towards him, deep magenta eyes staring into his. Caballeron finds himself leaning towards her, and their lips meet.
It’s not long, but lasts—long enough to feel more than casual. She leans back, and smiles at him. She chuckles. “You should shave.”
He shrugs. “Probably, yes.”
“But it’s good to see you back.”
“It is good to be back,” he says, and smiles back, a real smile for once. The room blurs, faintly.
There was something faintly absurd about this, Moonshine decided. Case had taken a minute to limp over to an ancient armchair—with Friend’s help; it didn’t seem as if she could have managed it otherwise. The entire room was illuminated just by a single candle, which cast diffuse, unsteady shadows across it, across the dusty wood floor and the bare walls.
The changeling—Case—looked awfully small, crouched on the chair, legs tucked up neatly beneath her. “Moonshine and Soarin. Yes?” Case asked.
“That’s us,” Moonshine said. “Um. Pleased to meet you.”
Case looked up towards her. “Likewise. Perhaps we could get to, um, business.”
“Sure,” Soarin said. “Friend told us—“
“Friend?” Case asked.
Soarin gestured towards the other changeling.
“Good name.”
“I thought so,” Soarin said. “So, Friend told us you’re, uh, Chrysalis’s enemy. Is that right?”
Case bobbed her head from side to side. “More right than wrong. Long story. Maybe sit down.”
“I am ten years old,” Case said. “Was hatched to prepare for the, um, invasion. Chrysalis needed minds that were more... independent. For planning, analysis. I was the best. She gave me access to everything. Books, magazines, movies. Captives. Once, um, Friend was ready, he flew with me to Equestria. We, um, played tourist. You might have seen us.”
“Had some idea of Equestria before I was there. Seemed strange in the books. But nice when I visited. Much happiness. Much food. Two might be related.” Case pointed a shaky hoof at Soarin. “Have you ever ate, um, donuts?”
Soarin started. “Uh, what?”
“Donuts,” Case said, very seriously. “Um, pastries. With holes in them.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I never did. Until then.”
“Oh,” Soarin said. “That’s too bad. Hey, have you ever had pie? Because let me tell you—”
“Ahem,” Moonshine said. “Case, can we get to the point?”
Case stared balefully at her for a moment. “Yes. Chrysalis has stuck us in this—” A flurry of buzzes from Case’s throat.
“Wants to say ‘bad’,” Friend noted.
“Close enough,” Case said, bobbing her head. “This, um, bad hole in the ground for hundreds of years. Changelings have forgotten much. Nearly everything. Friend and I, hm, share goal with your Luna. Want to get rid of Chrysalis.”
Moonshine considered that for a moment, her eyes widening. “Wait, how do you know about Luna? Do you know where she is? Is she—”
“Alive, yes,” Case said. “Physically unharmed. Still a prisoner. Don’t know where she is.”
“How can you not know where she is?” Moonshine demanded, her voice shooting up a couple octaves. “Um, sorry.”
“Not wrong to ask. I found her in the hivemind. Chrysalis had been, hm, playing games with her. Nightmares. Same with the other two, I think. Haven’t found them yet. Luna is looking for them.” Case paused a second. “She has a talent, um, navigating the dreams. Strange in a pony.”
Moonshine smiled, briefly.
Soarin raised a hoof. “Okay, maybe this is a dumb question, but I’m just gonna go for it. You’re in contact with the, uh, hivemind or whatever, right?”
“Yes.”
“So don’t you need love to stay in touch with it? That’s how it works, right? How are you getting it?”
“How?” Case asked. She gestured towards Case. “Him.”
“So he...”
“I feed from, um, Friend,” Case said. “Careful. No harm done.”
“So does he get it from ponies and then, like, bring it back to you, or—”
“No,” Case said, louder, although nothing else about her voice sounded different. “In, umm, love with me. In a way. Nothing sexual. Couldn’t be. Another thing Chrysalis took from us. It’s because I, hm, broke him from Chrysalis. She wraps around the drone’s mind, intertwines with it, strangles it almost to nothing. Took me a year to do it for Friend, snap her off from him piece by piece without her noticing.”
“Huh,” Soarin said. "Well, that's good."
Case didn’t seem to have any reaction. “Luna, the spy, Caballeron. Can free them. Friend and I will help. But need you to promise something.”
Moonshine and Soarin glanced at each other. “I mean...” Soarin started.
“That’s really something that the princess should be deciding...” Moonshine said.
“Need you to promise that you ponies will, hm, take care of Chrysalis. Take her. Kill her if you can’t.”
“We’re not exactly qualified to decide whatever—”
“Know what her answer will be already,” Case said. “Will say yes. But you take care of Luna, yes? And Soarin protects her.”
“I guess so,” Moonshine said.
“I think I got fired,” Soarin said.
“Need you two to promise,” Case repeated. “Chrysalis will do the same thing to your people she did to mine. Could be ten years from now. Could be longer. Will try again. The hive is failing. She is desperate.”
“I don’t—”
“Promise.”
“I really don’t think that we can—” Soarin started.
Moonshine interrupted. “Fine. We’ll do it. Where’s Luna?
“Told you, I don’t know yet. Drones have been noticing something in the center of the hive. Might be Chrysalis and Luna. Will try to make sure.”
Colgate’s head is pounding hard, the way it always does after a long time-warp, as she steps back into the safehouse. Safehouse. She smirks humorlessly, pushes her mane back. The electric lights are still blazing away into the night, shining onto the cheap carpet, glittering off the thin spray of blood on the door.
Something besides the pain nags at the back of her mind, besides the talon scratches on the floor and the silence inside the house.
She pokes her head around the corner, scans the room. Nothing dangerous. Just the beat-up couch, the table that looks like it’s been through a war and a half, and the dead pony splayed out beneath it, his eyes staring blankly towards the door and towards Colgate.
Colgate retreats around the corner, lets out a long breath that comes out as a shudder. Shit. They got Inkie.
She walks back in, still looking around for any hint of motion. The kitchen’s been destroyed; the cabinets are smashed to shit, and the floor’s strewn with ceramic shards, probably the remains of those cut-rate plates they had. Silver’s slouched in a corner, eyes closed. He looks sort of peaceful, even despite the garish bruises half-visible underneath his fur. They must have thrown him around, not even bothered with using their talons. Colgate steps gingerly through the broken plates, around the half-dozen knives still on the floor. She puts a hoof to Silver’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. She sighs, makes her way back to the other room, peers around again, looking for griffons.
They’re not there. She had the feeling—dangerous, irrational, untrustworthy feeling—that they wouldn’t be. Unreasonable, but hard to shake. She pauses a moment, listens. It’s as quiet as it ever is, despite the noise of the city. Probably quieter than usual.
It feels familiar. It shouldn’t, she’s never even been in the field before coming to White Peak Eyrie, never seen anything like this.
But at any rate, the ground floor is clear.
So Colgate heads to the stairs, peers up, starts to climb. They don’t creak, of course. She’s too careful for that. The lights are off up here. No point turning them on; if there are still griffons, they’ll know she did it. Although, come to think of it, griffons have poor night vision. Surely they’d have turned on the lights, if they were still here.
So she heads, more quickly, into the next room. Ink’s room. It’s got a nice view of the city: big window, with moonlight shining through it. The room looks the same as usual, with papers strewn everywhere, a dozen books on everything from botany to ancient history left open on Ink’s desk.
Colgate walks to the desk, opens the drawer. It looks like it hasn’t been touched. Inkie usually keeps—kept?—the sensitive papers in here. She pulls them out, flips through them, raises an eyebrow. Nothing’s missing.
She’ll have to deal with the papers somehow, of course. She looks through them again, skimming, trying to commit as much of it as possible to memory. Reports, profiles. It takes a few minutes; not enough to properly go through the better part of a hundred pages. The papers are shaking too damn much, anyways.
But that’s just her, spooked to hell. Colgate pulls over a trashcan, fumbles for a lighter.
She turns around, slowly. “Shit. Con.”
Con Mane—her boss, nominally anyways—is standing at the door, looking even less debonair than usual, which, classy tux notwithstanding, is saying something. Con’s a mess at the best of times. Colgate backs towards the window, almost unconsciously. He's silent.
Now that she can get a better look at Con, Colgate might have to revise that impression downwards. He looks like hell. There are about a dozen different gashes, just that she can see. Sol, that’s a lot of blood.
“Uh. Are you okay?” she asks.
He shakes his head, a slow, deliberate motion. “You don’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
He’s silent.
Wait. I left White Peak Eyrie, after... “You’re dead,” Colgate says, backing away from him. “You died.”
“You let the team down, Minuette,” Con says, stalking forward, legs moving in an unnatural, fitful lurch. “Cutting losses and running. Just what I should have expected from you.”
“I couldn’t have—”
“You could have tried!” Con roars. “Not worth trusting. You never were.”
He’s closer now, and leans towards her, touching her, the iron stench of blood in the air, its sticky warm moisture dripping onto her chest. “Traitor.”
She can’t push him away—can’t, won’t—her arms don’t move even an inch, except to crouch—fall, really—to the floor and so she shuts her eyes, tight, tries to block it all out and it seems like an eternity as Con stares at her, lukewarm breath in her face, the scent of fresh death in her nostrils.
Time is flexible for Colgate. Not that she can make it go any faster than one second per second, or wanted to. Life is short enough.
But it always seemed like it would be a good idea to hold on to one moment, to latch onto it and never let it go, to stop it in its tracks completely.
She has been waiting on that moment. This is not it.
But time does stand still, or something near to it, with Con still looming over her, his presence visceral, unbearable, and her thoughts slowly crawling inside her head.
Not worth trusting.
Her eyes are closed. There's nothing worth seeing. Con is bleeding onto her, the lukewarm blood from that surreal hole in his chest—surely talons alone couldn't do that—dripping past her fur down to the skin.
Never were.
She can't tell if he's breathing or not. She is, too fast and too shallow. Not by much, not enough that Con would notice—no, that's not true, he would, he had an eye for that sort of thing—but the dead Con, it doesn't, it doesn't respond at all.
Dread like a poison, like a disease, settling into her gut, filling her mind with nothing but itself, churning on its own.
A fat drop of blood lands on her lips, cool, tasting of iron and salt. She spits, and scuttles across the room, eyes now wide open—and at the door, there stands a changeling. Smaller than Chrysalis, of course it’s smaller than Chrysalis, and lacking that malice in its eyes. But still dangerous, certainly. It has to be.
“Here,” the changeling says, stepping further into the room, taking in the scene: the dead pony, blood still draining from his body, the spy half-standing, half-cowering in the next corner, the moonlight streaming in from the window.
Another pony walks in—tall, impossibly tall, with a navy coat just a shade above black, her expression intent. “Luna,” Colgate murmurs. Where does she recognize the name from?
“Agent Colgate,” the alicorn—yes, there are wings pinned against her—says. “You have my most heartfelt apologies. You should have never waited so long.”
The changeling turns towards her, and says something. Luna nods. For a single instant, the room shines like the inside of the sun—and then it is dark again, with only the moonlight gently pouring itself in. Con is gone. No, that mockery of Con is gone, with only a wisp of smoke in its place.
Colgate stares at it, and then at the two newcomers. “Who are you?”
The alicorn—Luna—glances at the changeling. “She remembers,” it says. “Or will. Still, remind her.”
Luna steps towards Colgate, and leans to bring her face in level with hers. “I am Princess Luna. This is my... my friend Case. This may be difficult for you to believe, Colgate, but you are in a dream.”
“A dream,” Colgate says.
“Will remember more when you wake up,” the changeling says. “Ready?”
“Wait,” Colgate says. “If I’m dreaming... where am I?”
“Captured by changelings.”
Her, Colgate thinks. “Huh. So... none of this is real?” Her voice cracks a little. She hates it.
Neither of the others respond.
“Colgate,” Luna says. “When you wake, do not be afraid. The others will come to rescue you.”
Colgate tries to smile. “The others. Right. Okay, wake me up.”
The changeling walks to her, places a hoof on her head, closes its eyes for a moment—
And Colgate is gone.
Case turns to Luna. “Chrysalis was watching this, I think. Find Caballeron soon. I need to go. Remember—”
And Case, too, is gone, and Luna is left in the moon-stained room as it fades into unreality.
“So,” Soarin said, “anyone know some good knock-knock jokes?”
Case was still folded up on that ancient armchair, inert, eyes closed, the faint glow of magic around her head like a halo. Moonshine wondered idly where they had got the chair from. Friend stood next to the chair. The posture was faintly off—something different about how the hind legs were jointed, perhaps—but he looked wary, dutiful, empty blue eyes surveying the room’s dusty floorboards, peering out the window into the void of the cave outside.
Soarin was pacing across the room, wings twitching at his side.
“Good knock-knock jokes don’t exist,” Moonshine said, glancing up at Soarin from her place on the floor.
Soarin turned towards her. “I don’t think you know that for sure. You probably haven’t even heard the one with the orange.”
He was talking just a bit too fast, Moonshine decided. His grin wavered. “Everypony has heard the one with the orange,” she said.
“Still gets me everytime,” Soarin noted, and kicked at the floor.
Moonshine nodded. “I do believe that. Friend?”
The changeling turned its head, a smooth, mechanical motion.
“How soon will she be done?” Moonshine asked.
“Soon.”
“You said that three hours ago,” Soarin said.
“Soon then, too,” Friend said. “Patience is a virtue.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Friend took a second to respond, then exposed his fangs. “Funny.”
It took a moment for Soarin to put his face back in order. “We have got to talk about your smile one of these days.”
“I think it’s cute,” Moonshine said, looking at Soarin with serious, wide eyes.
“Cute like puppies or cute like boy bands?” Soarin asked.
“Puppies,” Moonshine said, with an air of finality.
“Uh, okay then. Friend, can we at least get an estimate?”
The room suddenly darkened, the shadows drawing closer, growing sharper. Case uncurled herself, the aura around her gone, and she gasped over and over again, a steady noise, like a machine. Her gaze shot around the room, eyes a bit wider than they had been before. “Need to leave. Now.”
Soarin hated running. It’s not that he was bad at it, even. He could run a pretty respectable sprint or two during practices—occasional forays onto the ground during Wonderbolts shows had to be fast, of course—and tried not to complain about it after Spitfire had told him to stop being a little filly.
But it just felt so, well... it felt grounded, obviously: pounding the floor, one hoof after another, the impact reverberating through his bones.
Soarin was in a tunnel, again, but this one was a bit different. The other tunnels were... smooth, polished. This one looked like it had been carved by an angry drunk using nothing but a rock. Worse, the drunk hadn’t been a fan of high ceilings; Soarin had to duck half the time. “Stop.”
That was Case’s voice, most likely. It was hard to tell.
Moonshine’s hooves—easy to recognize—clicked across the stone floor, slowed to a halt. “Okay,” she said, words coming quick and indistinct, “please tell me we can stop running for a while because I have had enough of it, and I swear to sol in the sky I will scream if I don’t get to take a breather.”
“Said stop,” Case pointed out.
“Oh. Thank you, Case.”
“Yes.”
Moonshine closed her eyes, pursed her lips, breathed in and out. “Where are we, anyway?”
“A tunnel,” Friend said.
“Thanks,” Moonshine said.
“Not part of the Hive,” Case said, “not exactly. Don’t know where it comes from. Friend found it. Have ideas.”
Case’s body shone dimly, and she traced the side of the tunnel with a hoof. “Look here,” she said.
Soarin trotted over, peered at the uneven rock. It looked like it had been scraped away by something, a shallow depression bookended by two deeper grooves. One of them ended abruptly, the other continuing onwards for another foot or so.
He ran his hoof over it, then turned back around towards Case. “This was carved by teeth, wasn’t it? Changeling teeth.”
Case looked back at him, her face blank, fangs protruding from an alien mouth. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Friend thinks it was the drones.”
“Why would Chrysalis want them to dig this tunnel with their teeth? It doesn’t make sense.”
“She had the tools destroyed,” Case said. “Long time ago. Too dangerous to her, the, um, pickaxes and hammers and chisels. We don’t think she wanted drones to do this.”
“Escape,” Friend intoned.
“Yes. Memories of outside, stuck deep in the hivemind,” Case said. “Most drones can’t understand them, don’t know how to get outside. But they remember the sun, the sky. The, um, workers made this tunnel, we think. Must have took generations, in secret, in the dark, without Chrysalis finding out.”
“And they never even got out?” Moonshine asked.
“No. Didn’t know which way to go. Just went forward, deeper into the mountain.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Yes.”
Nopony—nobody, Soarin thought—spoke for a good minute, just breathed in the dark.
“Are we good for now?” he asked. “I mean, I assume we were about to get busted by the changelings back there.”
Friend seemed to consider that for a moment. “Yes.”
“That’s what happened?” Moonshine asked.
Case tilted her head from side to side. “Maybe.”
“You don’t know?” Moonshine asked.
“Don’t like taking chances,” Case said. “Something noticed me in the hivemind. Chrysalis, maybe. Maybe one of the others like me. Could have, hm, figured out where we were using memories, impressions. Not many houses around here. Wouldn’t be difficult.”
“So where are we now?”
“Nearly at hive. Ready?”
Colgate woke up. It wasn’t sudden. It was more like the feeling one gets when one slowly realizes that she’s awake, promptly followed by the hazy impression that her alarm clock is going to start ringing in two minutes.
Colgate, of course, replaced that with the less familiar recollection that she was in some sort of changeling jail, and that any awareness on the part of her guards that she was actually awake could be a problem. So she stayed where she was, eyes closed, trying to keep her breathing shallow and regular.
No point giving away the fact that she was already awake. But where was she? It was just as humid and warm as the rest of the cave, and probably hotter. The acrid, ripe scent of changelings was stronger here, though, along with something else she couldn’t quite place.
She was on some sort of—was this a fabric? It didn’t seem to be any sort of cloth: the texture was too smooth, too elastic. Maybe like a sheet of rubber?—but no, rubber didn’t smell like this, didn’t have the faint glossiness to it, wasn’t ever-so-slightly wet to the touch. Not rubber, then. Some sort of weird changeling… stuff.
It seemed like the—well, whatever it was—was all around her, on every side. She pushed into it with one of her front hooves, gently, only moving forward maybe a half inch. It gave readily enough, and when she pulled back, it followed just as quickly. Huh.
So she was in some sort of changeling bag. She pushed a leg down just a little—and the fabric, the membrane, whatever it was, didn’t offer much resistance. Nothing beneath her, then.
She opened her eyes. Dark. Not a surprise. Quiet, too. She froze for a second, listening for any sign of life. Nothing.
So I’m in some sort of changeling bag, being hung from the ceiling, Colgate thought. She did a quick inventory of the items in her possession, which wasn’t terribly difficult. It included (1) herself, and (2)... They better not have taken it, they better not have taken it... a virtually unnoticeable sky blue horseshoe on her rear left hoof, which was there after all. She grimaced and pulled it closer to her face.
The Secret Service was never any good with whiz-bang gadgets, but Colgate had demanded, and gotten, her very own secret compartment with about three-quarters of a cubic inch worth of storage. She grinned despite herself, reaching towards it with her magic and slowly prying open the horseshoe. She didn’t have much in there. No papers, although she could get a note in there if she rolled it up or folded it. No suicide pills, for obvious reasons. Not really the Secret Service’s style, or hers. Silly idea, anyways. But there was a tiny little knife in there, which could prove useful for more cheery purposes. She pulled it out.
Huh. It might be big enough to cut through the bag. It was definitely sharp enough.
Worth a shot, probably. She paused for a moment. Did the changelings know she could time-warp? Probably not; she’d only done it with those two changelings back in Dodge, and she was sure she’d knocked them out before they knew what was happening.
Maybe I can ask one when I get out, she thought, and smirked.
Colgate began to cut a line across the bag. It was quick work, and she pulled the knife across the surface at a steady, smooth rate. She stopped for a second. Wait. How high am I, exactly?
But the rest of the bag was tearing anyways, and the section under Colgate started to tilt pretty steeply. “No, no, no no no,” she murmured. “Just a...” Her hooves scrabbled at the membrane, trying to get some traction, but it was just too smooth, and she fell.
Colgate dropped, the sudden sensation of free fall causing her to flail for a moment before her horn sparked, shifting into fast-time. Or, at least, that was the plan. Colgate had another second to realize that the air rushing past her didn’t slow at all before her hind leg collided with the floor, sending a shock of pain up through her body.
The rest of her body made contact a moment later, knocking the breath out of her. She laid there for a second. The stone beneath her was smooth, and slick with water. Her leg hurt, a deep throbbing pain. Probably broken. Maybe not badly—she had fallen only ten, fifteen feet, but it was still worrisome.
She lit up her horn—faintly, no matter how Colgate strained, not enough to illuminate past a few feet in any direction. No point staying here, Colgate thought, and started to push herself up, with a sharp hiss of air inwards. Yep. Broken.
Well, limping was still an option. She picked a direction at random and started—now that she was on the ground, patience was decidedly not a virtue.
She probably wasn’t fast enough, though. Oh well, she thought, and gritted her teeth, stumbling forward a little faster. She reached a wall, curving up smoothly from the floor. Colgate sighed, but it was progress of a sort—can’t find doors without walls, after all. On the other hoof, she thought, walls don’t necessarily have doors. She could be on the bottom of some sort of pit, after all, in which case she would be well and truly screwed.
At least it wasn’t the nursery Caballeron had talked about. There didn’t seem to be any evidence of changelings here at all, actually. She walked around for a bit. The wall seemed to curve inwards slightly, although if the room was a circle it must be enormous, at least a few hundred feet across.
There was a slight current of air coming from—well, Colgate couldn’t place it exactly, but it seemed promising. Doors and drafts usually went together. She continued onwards around the perimeter of the room.
It was still dim; her horn hadn’t brightened at all. They did something to me, Colgate thought, as she continued to limp around the room; a grim, dogged march. It might pass; as far as Colgate knew, even traumatic injury—amputation, even—wasn’t usually enough to permanently disable one’s magic, although the details could be unpleasant. And there was no apparent physical damage. Maybe there was something in the bag, the cocoon, a chemical or—no, it was pointless to dwell on this, Colgate decided. Priorities.
A faint click, somewhere in the darkness. Colgate debated whether to kill the light or not. It was making her easier to find, certainly. But she needed it more than a changeling probably did, and—her horn flickered and died, like a light bulb burning out. “Shit,” she said quietly, the whisper barely reaching her own ears.
With as much power as she was pumping into her horn, she should have been putting out more light than a small star—well, not really, but still—anyways, it stayed stubbornly dark. Bad. Bad bad bad. Colgate stopped walking, stopped straining for light. She shifted her weight from one hoof to the next. Maybe there was some balance that would be more tolerable for her more abused limbs.Well, whatever. She inhaled deeply, like a diver preparing to jump into the water. Other than that, though, it was nearly silent.
She took one last breath, then pushed as much energy through her horn as she could. It felt awkward, slower than she would have liked, like trying to suddenly swing a sledgehammer. Her horn crackled with light, and plenty of it. It wasn’t clean—there was a sudden electric stench, and her face felt really tingly—but it’d do.
She turned around slowly, taking care not to put too much weight on her broken leg. Another draft of air, from somewhere above her now. She looked up. Nothing...
A thump next to her, loud, unsubtle. She twirled, or tried to, anyways, her broken leg finally buckling, sending her onto the floor. A face lowered itself towards her, eyes wide, its mouth opening, and she struck it without thinking, sending it reeling back.
“Ow!”
Colgate blinked. “Shit. Cloudhead?”
“Sorry,” Soarin said, carefully. “Um, not exactly.”
“In that case,” Colgate said slowly, enunciating each word very clearly as she lifted herself off the floor, “it seems to me like you’d better start getting real specific right about—” She flung herself at the changeling, which stepped to the side, leaving Colgate to fall onto the floor. “Ow.”
“Maybe we should talk.”
Colgate groaned. “That might be good.”
Green light rippled across Soarin’s body, revealing a glossy black hide. “Have met.”
Colgate frowned. “Case. From my dream.”
“Yes.” The changeling stared at her. “You are injured.”
Colgate sucked in air, and stood up. “I’ll live.”
The changeling didn’t respond.
“I mean, not indefinitely, obviously.”
The changeling seemed to consider that for a moment. “Okay.”
Colgate grinned, although just for a second. “Alright. Lead on.”
It’s like trying to remember a dream after awakening, to seize on the stray fragments of unreality and hold them and piece them back together. An impression, here and there: shafts of hot golden sun, cracked stone beneath her, a complex green smell in the air.
Caballeron is standing on a dais, peering at an idol placed above it—a figure of some creature with long limbs, its mouth stretched into a grin: gold, or gilded, with jewels inset where its eyes would be. There is a pegasus next to him—a mare, rather like Loyalty, glancing occasionally at Caballeron, her gaze lingering for a bit longer than it needed to. The two of them talked quietly, indistinct from where Luna stands.
She walks towards them, hooves loud on the stone beneath her. The sun is bright—too bright for her eyes, really, but she is glad of it after the unending darkness of the Hive, even if it is not truly her sister’s sun.
They don’t seem to notice Luna, even as she begins up the stairs to the dias. The mare leans in towards Caballeron, her lips meeting his, and after a moment of surprise, his eyes close.
Luna continues towards them, and calls out to Caballeron.
There is no sign that the stallion even hears her.
“Doctor Caballeron!”
One eye opens, and glares at Luna for a second before shutting tighter than before. She is on the sun-warmed dias now, and strides towards the two. “Doctor Caballeron, I have need of you. Attend to me or I will—”
There was a giggle from behind her. “It’s hopeless, you know.” That voice...
Luna cannot help herself. She turns around. That bright skin. Those warm eyes. “Sister, what are you—” she starts, and then her eyes narrow. “Chrysalis. Cease this mockery at once.”
Chrysalis pouts. It looks like Celestia, heartachingly so: her bearing, the tilt of her head, a hundred other unnoticeable—unforgettable—details all perfect. If Luna were to approach, surely she would even smell the same. “I was hoping to spend some more time with the good doctor before being... interrupted.”
“I know he can hear me,” Luna says.
“For now,” Chrysalis says, and the rush of wind across the trees and the cries of the birds in the jungle cease. The lovers pause in their embrace. “Do you recognize this place, princess?”
“No.”
The changeling gazes out into the jungle. “A shame. I don’t either. I suppose we are both exiles, in a sense. Strange to this world.”
Luna says nothing.
“This is what he wants at the very center of himself. What he thinks he deserves. This. Her. Whoever she is, whatever this is. Of course he can hear you, princess. But he’s trying his very hardest not to. What can you offer him to compare to this?”
“Doctor Caballeron!” Luna calls. Her voice carries in the silence.
The disguise drains off Chrysalis, and she is left as she is, ebony hide gleaming in the sun, cruel eyes narrowed from the light. “He is lost to you.”
The cacophony of the jungle swells back. Caballeron starts to life, and pulls the mare in closer.
There is a whisper in Luna’s ear—her sister’s voice again. “I know about the traitor.”
Luna turns, but Chrysalis is gone, and the dream is slipping away from her already.
