> I Am Hikaru
>  by cutedash55
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One
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	Queen Chrysalis trotted down the dim halls of the stony castle, heading nowhere in particular. The castle was carved right out of a titan stone monolith in the middle of the badlands. Once, the castle was bustling with activity and had many beautiful things to see, but now it was empty and the halls were barren and melancholy. It was so quiet you could walk through the entirety of the castle and never be noticed, just as she was now.
She made it seem she was heading somewhere important, as she always did, for leaders must never show weakness, not even in times when the whole kingdom itself was weak. She learned this from her mother long ago, and she had walked with an air of purpose ever since. She stopped at a window that stretched up and up and stopped a few tail lengths short of the ceiling.
Her eyes scanned the barren wasteland that lay outside the kingdom. You couldn’t really call it a kingdom, though. There were no nobles and all of the changelings were peasants. Even she couldn’t call herself rich. There were very little luxuries and for her sake, the kingdom let her have them. After all, a queen wasn’t a queen without luxuries.
Soon, the sound of another pony’s hoofsteps filled the hall and broke the silence. They came to a stop near her, but she did not attempt to face the owner. Sounds of shuffling came and she finally turned to face the new pony. He was a scraggly thing and was only a little bigger than a young adult. Like every other changeling, he had no special features that made him stand out, other than the fact that he didn’t sport the customary crest the soldiers did.  He was in a deep bow, his muzzle inches away from touching the ground.
“My Queen,” he spoke in a low voice, “The Princess and her envoy have arrived. They are entering the kingdom as we speak.”
Chrysalis did not answer. She simply looked at him, awaiting more news.
“The scouts have also reported strange activity in the territory of the Stone-Claw clan. They suspect they are planning an attack. We are waiting for your direct orders.”
Silence. Then she spoke softly, “Prepare the soldiers for invasion and ready my weapons and armor. Alert the people to be ready for a possible evacuation. Do not utter one word of this to Hikaru or the Princess. We do not want her to get the wrong idea.”
“As my Queen wishes.”
He hastily left the silent corridor and disappeared through the wooden doors at the other end, letting them creak close behind him.
Chrysalis turned back toward the window, wondering why she said what she did. Even now the words echoed through her head: ‘Ready my weapons and armor.’ It had been so long since she had gone to war. The last time was over one thousand years ago, in a desperate attempt keep Discord from tainting her kingdom. She had succeeded, but she had not exited the crusade unharmed. Instinctively, she lifted her hoof to her neck and ran it down the jagged edges of the scar.
After she had learned that she was pregnant with her first child, she had vowed to never battle again until she had seen her child take the throne. And she had kept to that promise, until now.
“O Folia, forgive me for what I am about to do.” she thought. She felt something wet run down her cheek, but she didn’t bother trying to wipe it away. Even though they mustn’t show weakness, even a leader has to weep to herself sometime.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Twilight silently followed the changeling guards down a winding corridor, going over the spells Shining Armor taught her in case she ever needed to defend herself. You can never be too safe, he said. The guards told her nothing about the meeting, just that she should be ready for the treaty. When she was sure she knew them by heart, she occupied herself by scanning the corridors. She had always been curious about their culture but she had never voiced this thought to her friends. 
There was very little to see, however. The halls were barren and it was eerily silent, like the castle was in a deep slumber. There was no evidence to suggest that they celebrated holidays or honored war heroes. There wasn’t even a decorative piece of carpet.
This disturbed Twilight greatly. Out of all the books she had read about foreign cultures, she had not once heard of a culture that didn’t celebrate holidays. She pulled her wings tighter and hoped no one had noticed.
“Something wrong, Princess?”
Her mind was jerked out of her thoughts and she turned to face the owner of the voice. It belonged to that of a Lunar Guard. He looked like every other guard, with the exception that he was taller than most.
“It worries me that the changelings have no evidence of culture,” she spoke softly, hoping a changeling guard wouldn’t hear it and be insulted. “It’s almost like the entire kingdom is depressed. Like the Crystal Empire, but worse.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. After the beating Cadence and Shining Armor gave them, I’m surprised they even gathered up the courage to send you a letter!”
One of the changeling guards’ ears twisted back to face her, but he didn’t do anything else. With this, Twilight and the guard’s conversation abruptly came to an end. They were silent for the rest of the journey to the throne room. They didn’t dare say anything else, lest the guards turn on them and start an attack they couldn’t stop.
After a few minutes in silence, they finally reached what Twilight assumed was a throne room. Like the other rooms in the castle, it wasn’t too impressive. It had tall windows that reached the ceiling, and throne at the back had nothing special, except for a single cushion that sat upon it. However, the pony awaiting her was not Chrysalis.
She was a pure white changeling, her coat a stark contrast with the grayness of the kingdom. Her mane and tail were like a waterfall of silver that flowed over her shoulders and haunches, respectively. However, her eyes were not those of a changeling’s. They were a pony’s eyes and they were imperial red. She had many similarities to Chrysalis, like the various holes in her body and the air of professionalism, but her beauty and size came from somepony else. She was the same size as Twilight as well. She wore no crown and did not sit on the throne, which added to the mystery around her.
The guards were quickly dismissed and the mysterious pony came within talking distance of Twilight. The changeling was the first to talk.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle, I presume?” Her voice was clear and gentle and it kind of reminded Twilight of Fluttershy.
“I thought I was meeting Queen Chrysalis.” Twilight started. “Where is she?”
“Well, she’s. . . Actually, I don’t know where my mother is or what she is doing. I was simply told that she was busy at the moment and that I needed to stand in for her. My name is Hikaru.”
Twilight was surprised by this. She did look like she could be related to Chrysalis, but that only brought up the question: who was the father? Twilight pushed this thought out of her mind and returned to reality.
“Shall we get started then?” asked Twilight.
“Right. Well, I’m sure you got some of the details from the letter, correct?”
Twilight shook her head.
“Here are the full details: We are asking for safe integration into your society in exchange for labor in any division Equestria needs help the most in.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to ask for anything big, like a few million dollars or a safe haven in Equestria? Normally the other nations would ask for more and offer less, not ask and offer an equal amount.”
“Well, given our current situation, we can’t offer too much; therefore we won’t ask for too much. Simple as that. We’re trying to work on improving our image, not deteriorate it more by demanding more than we give.”
“How do I know you won’t try the same thing at the wedding? I may have only been a princess for a little while, but I’m not dense. There’s lot of things happening around here that are very suspicious: you aren’t aware of whatever your mother is doing, the citizens are wary of something else other than ponies in the kingdom, and the soldiers seem to be preparing for something.”
“While I’m not sure of the reasons for these things, I can assure you that nothing of the sort will happen. As far as I know, we aren’t planning anything against Equestria or its allies. You have nothing to worry about.”
“How can I know if she’s telling the truth? All the things she’s saying and the strange behavior of the changelings are contradicting each other! If she’s telling the truth and I refuse to sign the treaty, I could be committing genocide! But if she’s lying and I do sign the treaty, Equestria could be doomed and it’d be all my fault! But still, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. The letter asked for one of the princesses and Princess Celestia sent me because she trusted my judgement. She told me that whatever I chose to do, she would trust my choice and wouldn’t judge me.”
All these things were running through Twilight’s mind, and after a few minutes she asked her, “How do I know if you’re telling the truth?”
“Look down there.” Twilight’s eyes followed her hoof out the window and they fell upon the kingdom.
“Anyone can tell that the kingdom is sad. Weak. Like I said earlier, we don’t have very much to offer, but we did once. I can barely remember it, but there used to be a jungle where the badlands are now. It gave us everything we needed. Everyone was happy and my mother worried about nothing except making sure that I would be a great queen when the time came. But the forest disappeared, and it took everything with it. And everyday became a battle for survival. I know you can’t give us what we had before, but I do know that you can give us something better. You may not have my mother’s promise, but you do have mine.” 
Twilight was silent for a few minutes and appeared to be deep in thought. Finally she said, “Okay, I’ll sign the treaty.”
Hikaru summoned up the treaty and a quill and levitated it toward Twilight. She took them in her magic aura and lifted the quill to the paper. However, not all moments are meant to be peaceful forever.
BOOM!!
The two were thrown to the ground and the sound of shrieking changelings sounded outside. The doors to the throne room were thrown open and in rushed a scraggly changeling no bigger than a colt about to enter adulthood. He rushed to the princesses’ side and said in a frantic, shaky voice, “Your Highnesses, we must head to the evacuation tunnels immediately! The Stone-Claw clan is attacking the kingdom!”
Hikaru struggled to her hooves, and asked, “Where is Asher?”
“He’s with Terra. We must go quickly!’
The two gathered their energy and followed the changeling down the twisting corridors of the house. Eventually, they came to the opening of a wide tunnel that led into the ground. Twilight hesitated, but the changeling and Hikaru charged on. She followed them down into the tunnel and found herself struggling to walk through the throng of changelings that were rushing this way and that.
A sharp whistling sound sounded and Twilight began searching for the sound. She settled on a white holey hoof waving to her above the crowd, and she steadily made her way to it. She found Hikaru standing in an alcove with a female changeling guard and a young changeling colt.
“No more hesitating, Princess. When you are told to do something in the Changeling Kingdom, you either do it or you don’t do it.” interjected the guard. She signaled for them to leave but Hikaru was busy with something else.
“あなた,”she called to a nearby guard, “私の母はどこにありますか？!”
The guard seemed nervous when she asked him this foreign question, and when he didn’t answer, she fired off another series of alien words at him.
“教えてください！”
The guard still didn’t answer and before Hikaru had a chance to yell something else, her guard dragged her away from the nervous changeling and down a tunnel with another group of changelings. As they raced through the underground passage, there was a sudden rumbling in the ceiling, but the group of ponies disregarded it and charged on. 
Suddenly, the ceiling gave way and when they turned to head down another tunnel, it gave way too.
Hikaru stopped in her tracks and exclaimed, “Impossible! How can they know where the tunnels are?!”
“That doesn’t matter right now! We need to go!” said the guard. They raced down another series of tunnels that had not yet collapsed and burst into the outside world. The sight of the over world, however, was enough to make anypony have nightmares for weeks. The kingdom was being and turned into an inferno by a group of terrifying, stony colored dragons. Everywhere you looked there was chaos and flames and destruction.
The group had little time to linger and goggle at the carnage being wrought, for if they did would end up blackened and crispy. They followed behind the guard, weaving through the backstreets and trying to avoid going out onto the main streets as much as possible. The one time they did however sent Hikaru flying to the side of a building that was thankfully not burning.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and found that the entire had became hazy and sounded distant. She could see figures and tell they were ponies, but she couldn’t tell who there were or what they were yelling at her. Then all at once, her vision and hearing returned.
“Hikaru, get up!” The guard was practically screaming at her. Hikaru, quickly realizing her mistake, jumped to her hooves and resumed their dash to the exit. Soon, the gate came into view and an expression of relief spread across Twilight’s face.
FWOOM!!
The gate suddenly burst into flames and the newfound relief suddenly shattered like glass. Frantically, the guard began scanning the surrounding environment for something that would provide protection. She settled on a small hole in the ground that led to a burrow and quickly dived into it, the colt, Hikaru, and Twilight, speedily following suit.
Hikaru stood protectively in front of the colt, who quivered and cowered behind her, while the guard took an offensive stance and Twilight prepared a spell, ready to fire it at the first dragon that stuck its snout in the hole. The ceiling began to shake and bits of gravel and dust sprinkled on the group. Slowly, the shadow of a dragon appeared over the hole. Hikaru could hear her heart pounding in her ears now.
It swung its head back and forth, searching for the ponies. After a few moments, the dragon and its shadow left. Twilight let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“Meta, what are we gonna do?”
Hikaru looked down at the colt and after a few minutes, she said, “I don’t know.”
The group spent the rest of the day inside the hole, and after a few hours, they all fell into a fitful and dreamless sleep.
> Chapter Two
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	Steadily, tiny beams of sunlight moved across the floor of the hollow and landed on the eye of a particular silver maned changeling. Hikaru frowned in her sleep and lifted her hoof to swat it away, as if it were an annoying fly. When the theoretical fly would not go away she opened her eyes to glare at it. As soon as she opened her eyes, however, she quickly moved her holey hoof up to shield them. It did very little to help, though. She found that she was not in her bedroom, like she thought she was, but rather she was in a dirt hollow that had been dug into the ground for other purposes besides a temporary bunker.
She scanned the room and found Terra, her personal bodyguard, and Princess Twilight Sparkle sleeping across the room, their chitin and coat tainted with dirt, respectively. She felt a small figure next to her and looked down to examine it. She found Asher, otherwise known as Prince Eiji to the rest of the kingdom. Or whatever’s left of it. Gently, she levitated Asher over to Terra, taking care to lay him in a similar position and rose to her hooves. She quietly trudged over to the slope leading out the hole. Hikaru hesitated, afraid to see what was there, but decided that she had see what was left.
Slowly, she lifted herself out the hole and the sight of the over world made her heart sink. Out of the some five hundred thousand changelings and over one hundred thousand structures, there was nothing left but smoking heaps of rubble and ash. She collapsed to her haunches and put her head in her hooves. 
“There’s nothing left. . .” she softly sobbed.
A tiny gasp came from behind her. She didn’t pay any attention and continued mourning.
“It’s all gone. Everything. Including my mother.”
A pair of tiny hooves wrapped around her waist and she looked down. Asher was clinging to her with teary eyes and a quivering lip. She picked him up and sat him down on her knee. She hugged him back of course. Even a changeling has to show some love sometimes. 
Hikaru lifted her head and screamed a scream so loud, her cry echoed across the badlands.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Terra nervously looked back at Hikaru, still worried about her since her outburst this morning. Hikaru walked with her head head down and her mane covering her eyes, her ears flattened against her head. She stared at her hooves, softly trudging alongside Asher. He had gotten over the sadness faster than she did and had tried to cheer her up. He ended up unsuccessful and had taken to waking quietly beside her. The desolate feeling of the badlands added to the already sorrowful events of the day and overall, the resulting atmosphere was worse than it was in the kingdom.
After a few hours of this, Twilight decided to break the silence.
“Are we heading to Firefly Fields?”
Terra looked back at her and answered, “Yeah. That’s about at the edge of my mind, though. I don’t really know about anything else past that, except for part of Equestria.”
“It’s okay. I can take from there. My family and I vacationed there 10 years ago.“
“Must’ve been nice, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Another night in the badlands, and a few more hours of trekking resulted in them entering Firefly Fields. This change of scenery lightened up the mood but not significantly. They set up camp inside a circle of trees that stood in the middle of the vast plains. Hikaru was still quiet, but for a while she engaged in a simple conversation with Terra, but it was short-lived and Hikaru was silent for another two hours.
After these two hours had passed, Asher again attempted to lighten the mood.
“Meta, there’s a big house over there that no one lives in. Can I go explore it?”
Hikaru snapped out of her trance and took a moment to process what he said. Finally, she said, “Okay, but I’ll have to go with you.” 
She pulled herself to her hooves and followed behind Asher as he hummed a silly song he taught himself. They headed off in the direction Asher pointed in and a few minutes later, the big house he mentioned came into view. However, upon closer inspection, it was found that it was a mansion. Eventually, they reached the stony estate’s wrought iron gates, which bore a large ‘S’ over a shield. Hikaru activated her magic and nudged them open, the gates creaking loudly as they slowly swung open.
Hikaru felt a small buzzing in the back of her head as she did so, like she remembered the place. But she knew that had never been to Firefly Fields before now. She simply pushed it away and continued the mock exploration.
Ivy climbed up the decrepit walls of the mansion and the front yard was wild and unruly, the marble fountain in the front long dry. The windows of the mansion were shattered and had fallen out ages ago. The large wooden doors were rotting and you could tell that no one had lived here in a long time.
The inside fared no better. The furniture in the foyer was worn and faded and the once extravagant shining stairs were cracked and and had lost their luster. Once again, that buzzing feeling arrived in Hikaru’s mind, this time more persistent. She felt like she had been here the place a long time ago, but she when she searched her mind, she found nothing about this place. So she pushed it to the back of her head once more.
They wandered through the ancient manor a little longer, and came upon a dining room. There was a long, wooden table that sat in the middle of the room and had enough seats for twelve. Across the table, there sat a magnificent fireplace that sat under a number of plaques, awards and trophies. The things that stood out the most, however, where the three pictures that stood atop the fireplace.
The first two pictures were worn and faded, the subject of the photos indistinguishable. The last photo was still quite clear.
Without thinking, her magic floated the third photo off the fireplace and over to her. The subject of this photo was a pure white stallion, with a short silvery mane. But most importantly, he had the exact same eyes as Hikaru. The buzzing returned again, and Hikaru felt like she knew this stallion for some reason.
For the rest of the mock exploration, the buzzing feeling never left Hikaru as she followed Asher through the mansion. He asked many questions about the things that sat around the large estate. She, of course, tried to answer as best as she could. When she couldn’t, she asked him what he thought it was and Asher made up a silly explanation as to why the things were what they were.
By the time they had finished the exploration, Celestia’s sun had already begun to set and the moon was steadily beginning to rise over the plains. Hikaru left happier than she came, but she also left with more questions than she started with.
“Why did that place seem so familiar? I’ve never been outside the badlands except for now. But for some reason I felt like knew the place. And the stallion in the picture looked familiar, too. I’m probably just getting a sense of déjà vu because that place reminded me of the castle before the forest disappeared.” she thought. She pushed the thought out of her mind again and decided to focus on getting back to camp before it had gotten too dark.
As soon as they stepped in the camp, they were immediately greeted by Terra.
“There you guys are! I was beginning to think that you had gotten lost or something.” she said.
Hikaru answered, ”Or something.”
“You’re just in time, too,” added Twilight. “You’re about to learn why it’s called Firefly Fields.”
As Luna added the last few stars to the beautiful masterpiece that was the night sky, one by one, tiny lights popped up in the tall grass. Soon the air was filled with fireflies, and it was soon realized why this place was called Firefly Fields. It seemed as if half the stars the Princess of the Night had placed in the sky had refused to stay put, and had come down to Equus to dance over the fields. 
Asher watched all this with a look of pure wonder and amazement. Of course, Asher had never seen things like this, for he had never been outside the kingdom before now. That was all he had ever known. But now, he got the feeling that this wasn’t the only amazing he would be seeing. If things like this existed outside the kingdom, then what else was out there?
After this revelation, Asher decided to take action. He charged through the fields and made more lightning bugs fly into the air. He began to murmur a little song about fireflies just for the fun of it. Asher felt like he do this for hours and never get bored of it. Hikaru simply sat on her haunches and watched him do all this with a small look of wonder herself. She had never seen fireflies before now, only now.
“So, have you ever been outside the badlands before?” 
Hikaru turned and saw that Twilight had decided to sit beside her.
She answered, ”Well, no. In fact, I’ve never even been to the edge of the badlands before. The farthest I’ve been is to the scouts’ tower and a little beyond that.”
“So that’s why I never seen you before! I have to admit that I never even knew Chrysalis had a daughter before now, or a son for that matter.”
Hikaru didn’t answer and seemed far off when Twilight tried to get her attention. The buzzing feeling had returned and she got the feeling that she once been doing the same thing.
“Hikaru?”
She snapped out of her sense of nostalgia.
“You seemed distant for a second there.”
“I don’t know why but I keep getting the feeling that I’ve been here before.”
“You probably keep getting that feeling because it’s reminding you of the kingdom before the jungle disappeared. You did say there was a jungle there, right?”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago. Over fifty years, to be exact. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this.”
“If you think that’s something, wait until you see the Crystal Empire!”
“Hmm. . . An empire made out of crystal. Sounds interesting.”
With this conversation, Hikaru felt a large weight lifted off her chest. And for the first time in two days, she smiled.
> Chapter Three
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Time to get up, sleepyhead!”
Hikaru yawned and stretched, asking, ”Morning already?”
“Yup! Come on! If we want to get to the nearby village in seven hours, we can’t get lazy!” Twilight was strangely giddy today. To her friends this was normal because they would know that she had never led a group of ponies across the wilderness before, but to the group of changelings who had never even left the badlands before now, her behavior was completely alien.
Hikaru groaned inwardly before hoisting herself to her hooves and trudging over to the nearby river and beginning her morning routine. She dived headfirst into the water, moving silently and gracefully in the water. She surfaced a few moments later with her mane matted to her neck. She trotted up the banks of the river, the water streaming off her and used a drying spell, quickly returning to her former state.
Twilight was happily scrubbing her coat with a makeshift soap and got a little curious about a changeling’s physiology. It seemed that a changeling might be hindered by the holes in their legs when swimming, but Hikaru proved that theory wrong when she dived into the water a few minutes ago. It seemed that a changeling’s chitin was naturally made for water and the holes didn’t hurt their swimming style one bit.
Then she noticed that even though Asher was supposed to be part of the royal changeling family, he looked like a regular changeling nymph. Twilight decided to ask Hikaru about how a changeling could swim so well and the two ended up talking about this the entire way to the village. Twilight expressed surprise when Hikaru told her that despite the fact that changelings are insectoid, they are naturally made for water.
Some of them could even glide across the water like dragonflies! Then they got to how a changeling flew. Hikaru told her how a changeling is not that fast in the air. The holes in their legs actually slow them down instead of helping them. It was very rare to find a changeling that could fly fast.
Before they knew it, the village Twilight had talked about came into view and their conversation about changeling physiology came to a stop.
“We better stay here,” Hikaru said stopping a few hundred tail lengths away from the community. “I don’t think a village full of ponies would react too well if three changelings came into town.” Asher and Terra nodded in agreement. Even Asher was aware of the danger of going into the community.
Twilight was a little reluctant when she was told this, but she decided that Hikaru was right and went into town by herself.
Like she expected them to, the townspeople rejoiced at her arrival and was met with a surprise she didn’t expect. Two blurs, one pink with darker pink hair and one cyan blue with rainbow-colored hair tackled her the moment she set hoof in the town.
“Twilight!”
The mentioned pony struggled to get her bearings after this event and when she did, she asked, ”Girls! What are you all doing here?”
Rarity was the first to answer.
“We were staring to get worried when you didn’t come home after a few days, so we decided to take a trip to the town nearest the badlands.”
“What happened to you? Did they take you hostage?” pressed Rainbow Dash.
Twilight pulled herself to her legs and said, “I’m perfectly fine. They didn’t take me hostage or anything. In fact, the changelings weren’t the problem!”
All five mares replied to this with a confused ‘huh?’ and asked more questions about the subject.
“When we were discussing the treaty, a clan of dragons that also happened to hate the changelings decided to ‘drop in.’”
With this, Twilight dove into an epic tale about survival with danger abound and it had the girls hanging on to the edge of their seats. They asked questions like, ‘What did you after the dragons attacked?’ and ‘You really slept in a hole to escape dragons?’ When she finished the tale, the other mares were all standing around her in uncertainty.
“What’s wrong? You don’t believe me?”
Applejack stepped up and said, “We aren’t so sure what yer sayin’ is yer words.”
“What?!”
`	“I’m just sayin’ that we can’t be too sure. How do we know ya haven’t been hypnotized, like Shining Armor was at the weddin’?”
“What I’m telling you is completely true! I saw all of this happen with my own eyes!”
They still looked at her with uncertainty.
“If you don’t believe me, then I can prove it!”
Twilight projected her memories onto a screen using a spell she invented herself. This proved that word for word Twilight was really telling the truth. Only Twilight and the Princesses would be able to use a spell as accurately as she could. 
“Okay, so you are telling the truth. But how do we know this isn’t some kind of set up?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Are you kidding me?! What kind of pony orders a clan of dragons to attack her own home and burn it to the ground?!”
“Touche. Well, where are they, anyway?”
“They’re just outside of town. You need to be careful, though. One of them is only a colt.“
Twilight signaled for them to follow her and soon, after a few minutes, a little clearing off the edge of the town appeared. Hikaru and Terra were engaged in a conversation and Asher was busy playing with Hikaru’s tail. When the group of strange ponies appeared, however, Asher almost immediately jumped behind Hikaru and the mentioned pony and Terra stopped their conversation.
While Hikaru and the girls introduced themselves, Asher nervously began peering around Hikaru’s legs. A monarch butterfly soon landed on his nose and it tickled it. He quietly sneezed and began to pursue the butterfly. He chased it around the clearing before stopping behind a rock. Slowly, his large blue eyes peered over the rock. He narrowed them in determination, bunching up his muscles to prepare for the winning pounce.
Suddenly and quickly, Asher lunged over the rock and triumphantly planted his hooves over the butterfly. When he lifted his hooves, the butterfly had seemingly vanished into thin air. Disappointed, his ears lowered to the side of his head. Soon, he felt something land on the tiny hump that was his horn. He lifted his eyes and found it to be the butterfly that he was pursuing. With renewed confidence, Asher resumed the game of cat and mouse with the orange insect.
Meanwhile, the girls’ conversation had turned gone from introductions to the hierarchy of the Changeling Kingdom.
“I’m confused as to why the changelings have queens and kings when their culture is based upon Japonese culture. Didn’t they have emperors and empresses?” said Rarity.
“Well, yes, but the Early Kingdom had to have some differences with the Japonese. We didn’t want to completely copy them.”
“What happens to changeling queens when they stop being queens, anyway? Do you get rid of them or something?” asked Rainbow Dash with a tone of nonchalance. Twilight frowned at her and began to scold her for such a rude remark, but Hikaru stopped her and responded with, “It’s alright. When a queen or a king retires, they become part of the Council of Elders until they die.”
Twilight, interested, sat down and began to take notes in her head. 
“The Council of Elders is a group of the oldest and wisest changelings in the kingdom. They usually serve as advisors to the King or Queen, and in times of dire situations, they can even override a King or Queen’s commands. Akuma, was going to be an Elder in two years.”
“Who is this ‘Akuma?’ I’ve heard you mention him before.” asked Twilight with curiosity.
“He’s my uncle. But I don’t really know him. Every time I tried to talk to him, he was always bitter and cold when he talked, so I decided that it would be better if I just kept my distance. I think it had something to do with the fact that my mother was chosen for ruler instead of him.”
“Do you think he was the one that bribed the dragons to attack the kingdom?”
“Akuma would never stoop to something that low! He may have been angry at my mother, but Akuma was the best general the kingdom had and was extremely devoted to it.”
Rarity turned and looked at the sun’s position in the sky while Hikaru and the rest of the Mane Six tried figure out who would betray the empire.
“It’s almost sundown! We’d better hurry to the station before the sun starts to set.”
The other mares agreed, but when they turned to leave, they noticed that the changelings didn’t move to go with them.
“You’re not coming?”asked Twilight.
“I don’t think three changelings would be welcome in a town so close to Canterlot. Besides, if Asher was there, I don’t think he could handle all the taunting from the colts and fillies living there. He’s so used to getting respect from those around him.”
The girls looked at each other and Twilight said, “Nobody said you have to be a changeling to go to Ponyville.”
Taken aback, Hikaru responded with, “Are you suggesting that we use shape shifting? What if someone finds out?”
“No one will find out if you only revert to true form in private. You’ll just have to be careful about who sees you.”
Hikaru ran all the pros and cons through before deciding that she would give it a try. And so she took the form of a more equine-like version of herself. Terra and Asher followed suit and after a few minutes, they set off through town to the station, completely unaware of the canine like figures that watched silently in the background.