> The Game of Love
>  by Diamond Sparkle
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> Chapter One-The Changeling Takeover
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She is so gorgeous, the love of my life, and I've never yet told her, and now because of the Changeling takeover six years ago it might be too late ever to do so.

I was there at the Battle of Canterlot, and it was terrifying to see the armoured changelings smash the force field, and then fly down and take the town within a couple of hours. The Royal Guards did their best of course, but they were totally outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. Many of them were earth ponies like myself and were unable to fight off repeated attacks from the air.  Changeling chitin turned out to be as tough as plate armour and a spear could only pierce it at point blank range. Most of the changelings were unarmed, but fought with stinging beams of magical fire, hooves and fangs. And with their ability to change shape, they could impersonate Royal Guard officers, or pretend to be terrified pony civilians until they suddenly charged to the attack. They were mostly interested in taking prisoners, binding them with sticky web that they created from the holes in their legs, but they would kill ponies outright if they thought that they had to or if a pony fought for too long and refused to give up when things were clearly hopeless. The one thing they could not copy was the spear, so any Guard who threw his or otherwise lost his in combat was distrusted by his own side. The Wonderbolts did their best and took a lot of changelings down by breaking their wings, but there were too few of them to make a real difference.

Finally, a white flag was raised atop Canterlot Castle and it was all over. The handful of remaining guards and a few armed civilians who had joined in with kitchen implements surrendered and marched into captivity, watched closely by grinning changelings. That evening, at sunset, every pony who was capable of doing so was marched into the only place big enough in town to hold us all, the main city square directly in front of Canterlot Castle, which now flew the black standards of Hive Chrysalis.  Queen Chrysalis was here to address us all. She had a dark beauty, as tall as an alicorn with black fur as dark as Nightmare Moon, a long jagged horn, and bright green eyes. 

"I am Queen Chrysalis, up until now the Queen of Hive Chrysalis and now the ruler of Equestria and your monarch. Some things are going to change around here, but not as much as you might think. First, treason, and that includes bad mouthing my royal government, as well as murder, be it of changeling or pony, will be punished by death. Yes, the death penalty, which you ponies have not had  for centuries, will be introduced, and so will a new secret police, Domestic Intelligence. You won't know if that pony who talk to in a bar will in fact be a disguised changeling, so be very careful if you decide to talk politics. You lived under the royal dictatorship of the Royal Pony Sisters so adjusting to the royal dictatorship of a Changeling Queen will not be so hard. Second, over the next week or two you all have a lot of hard work to do cleaning up the damage of the battle and of course, holding funerals for your dead. You will be paid at normal rates for cleaning up the battle damage, you are not our slaves. Third once a year there will be a love tax on all couples, and every pony aged eighteen or above is to couple up within a year  if single or face the Love Games, about which I will explain more later. Fourth, I will get used to controlling the sun and moon within a few days. Lastly, bring out the Princesses and the Element Bearers."

Changelings dragged out Princess Celestia, Princess Cadence and the six Bearers of the Elements, all of them in thick transparent green cocoons. Only Princess Luna was missing.

"As you can see, your leading citizens and Royal Princesses are no longer able to offer resistance. If you don't want the same thing to happen to you or worse, behave yourself. Before you go you will all swear a loyalty oath to me personally. Repeat after me-I swear loyalty to Queen Chrysalis and to the Changeling Way."

We all swore the oath of course, willingly or otherwise, and were dismissed.

The changelings were gathering their own dead into two piles. I later learned from a changeling that before a battle that might turn deadly, every changeling was asked if they preferred to be buried or cremated after death and a small token, white for cremation, red for burial, was placed in one of their smaller leg holes. That evening eight changelings were placed on funeral pyres of fragrant pico-wood and the Queen herself used her magic to ignite their funeral pyres, whilst twenty changelings were placed in a single mass grave outside Canterlot. They were the only fatal casualties on the changeling side  in the battle. About twice as many ponies had been killed or had died by accident in the battle. The funeral pyre was the traditional way of death for a pegasus, whilst earth ponies and unicorns were buried. I was lucky, in that neither of my parents, Filthy Rich and Spoiled Rich, had been killed or injured in the battle, and my best friend Silver Spoon and her parents had also survived unharmed.

Things settled back to almost-normal. After a few ponies had been hanged for trash talking the changeling occupation, and a single pony was executed for murdering another pony, hangings became very rare indeed although a gallows was still there in front of Canterlot Castle that could hang up to five ponies at a time. By the age of seventeen I realized I had a deep crush on Silver Spoon, and I should have gone and told her then and there and avoided the Reaping. But I feared that she would not want me in that way and that it would destroy our friendship so I kept silent.

A year after the changeling takeover the first Love Games were held. Fifty single ponies were placed within a fifteen mile wide area of the Everfree Forest and then had to run to an area known as the Cornucopia where there was food, bottles of water, rope, firelighters, pillows, short knives and crossbows designed so that all three pony races could use them without trouble, the knives and crossbow bolts being tipped with a love potion in the right strength to prevent being a love poison. Five never came out again, being devoured by the creatures of the forest, forty-four came out as couples, some of them as homosexual couples, and one luckless pony was punished by hanging in front of Canterlot Castle for being unable to form a coupledom.

Every year a wooden board was set up in Ponyville with the names of unattached ponies and on the first of August all those ponies that were not in a coupledom were summoned by the Changelings to what was known as the Reaping and taken by train to Canterlot. With just a few hours left to go, I realized that I had to find Silver Spoon if that was not to be our fate, but she was not at the normal places I thought she would be. At last I saw her in the market, but before I could tell her a word about how I felt a cannon fired in the air, the signal for the Reaping. Now I was in danger of losing Silver Spoon for good, especially if somepony else had a crush on me or her. And all because I kept my big mouth shut about what I really felt about her until it was too late.