Twilight discovers a hidden scroll, does she really want to know what's on it?
Twilight Sparkle is trouble by what a captured changeling said to her. Now during a quest to fid the truth, she finds a secret unlike anything Equestria has ever seen. Who knows about this ancient piece of parchment? Who all is involved, and more importantly, What she do with this new found information?
It was a dark night in Canterlot, most ponies were fast asleep. But Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia’s most faithful student, is wandering her way through the dark archive dungeons of the castle. She was looking for a record of something nopony would or could remember.
“It cant be possible!” Muttered Twilight to herself. Earlier in the week a changling had been found hiding in a nearby barn, stealing love from the family who lived there. When then mane six arrived and had him arrested, he said something to Twilight, something that disturbed her greatly
“She is the queen of us all” those words were brushed off before. But lately they had been echoing through the purple unicorns mind. She is the queen of us all. What could he have meant by that. At first, she figured it was just an angry rant from a changling who was to devoted to his queen. But something about the way he said it bother Twilight. It sounded as though he was talking about ponies and changelings. Perhaps it was a delusional lie, but there was something in his voice. Something that caused Twilight to be haunted by the changelings words.
After countless sleepless night, she finally decided to make a impromptu visit to the Canterlot archives. If the was any kind of truth to the changelings words, then it would most certainly be here. Row after row, Twilight went through each book looking for any kind of reference to both ponies and changelings. After hours of searching, she was about to give up. But then a book caught her eye.
It was an ancient dust covered scroll, tucked away in the top corner of a book shelf. The purple pony looked at it with confusion. “How did I not see that before? I must have gone through here hundreds of times before?” Twilight asked herself as brought the scroll down to her with her magic.
She analyzed it a few times before deciding to open it slowly and cautiously. Dust flew from the scroll and around the air, filling Twilights nose and making her sneeze. It took her eyes a few moment to focus on the ancient writing on the scroll before her. The very top of the scroll read “The royal secret”
“Royal secret?” She asked herself “I know everything about Equestria’s history. There are not any secrets… are there?” She began to read the text below the title and her eyes began to grow.
“This isn’t possible!” Gasped Twilight Sparkle as she read the words before her, “Does Celestia know about this?” She kept reading, more questions filling her head, yet at the same time, she was getting answers to old questions. It was a dark night in Canterlot, most ponies were fast asleep. But Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia’s most faithful student, is wandering her way through the dark archive dungeons of the castle. She was looking for a record of something nopony would or could remember.
“It cant be possible!” Muttered Twilight to herself. Earlier in the week a changling had been found hiding in a nearby barn, stealing love from the family who lived there. When then mane six arrived and had him arrested, he said something to Twilight, something that disturbed her greatly
“She is the queen of us all” those words were brushed off before. But lately they had been echoing through the purple unicorns mind. She is the queen of us all. What could he have meant by that. At first, she figured it was just an angry rant from a changling who was to devoted to his queen. But something about the way he said it bother Twilight. It sounded as though he was talking about ponies and changelings. Perhaps it was a delusional lie, but there was something in his voice. Something that caused Twilight to be haunted by the changelings words.
After countless sleepless night, she finally decided to make a impromptu visit to the Canterlot archives. If the was any kind of truth to the changelings words, then it would most certainly be here. Row after row, Twilight went through each book looking for any kind of reference to both ponies and changelings. After hours of searching, she was about to give up. But then a book caught her eye.
It was an ancient dust covered scroll, tucked away in the top corner of a book shelf. The purple pony looked at it with confusion. “How did I not see that before? I must have gone through here hundreds of times before?” Twilight asked herself as brought the scroll down to her with her magic.
She analyzed it a few times before deciding to open it slowly and cautiously. Dust flew from the scroll and around the air, filling Twilights nose and making her sneeze. It took her eyes a few moment to focus on the ancient writing on the scroll before her. The very top of the scroll read “The royal secret”
“Royal secret?” She asked herself “I know everything about Equestria’s history. There are not any secrets… are there?” She began to read the text below the title and her eyes began to grow.
“This isn’t possible!” Gasped Twilight Sparkle as she read the words before her, “Does Celestia know about this?” She kept reading, more questions filling her head, yet at the same time, she was getting answers to old questions.
My name is Orange Mist, and I am writing this because I feel that everypony should know the truth before I lose myself. Before nopony in all of Equestria remembers any of what happened here.
It began awhile ago, before the Princesses and the Prince had any sort of power, they were to young to remember the day that their father, King Empyrean was slain in the great Equine-Dragon War. When word reached Queen Terra that her husband was dead, she changed.
The Queen had always been known for being kind and gentle, always helping the King find more peaceful solutions to the kingdoms problems. But the day that her husband died, the Queen we all knew and loved died, and a darker, more sinister Queen was born. She made the dragons fear her and the kingdom, ending the war. She brought a new era to Equestria that made the land fall into the hand of an awaiting ancient being.
Its been said that Queen Terra actually had an alliance with the spirit of chaos, some even say that he acted like a father to the princesses. But the oldest of princesses saw the evil that had flooded her mothers heart, she saw the horrible conditions that her subjects were being forced to live in. Celestia forced her sister to see the truth and the pair decided that something had to be done.
They came into the Queens room while she slept and forced their mother to listen to them, they showed her what she had become. Queen Terra saw the shadow that lived inside her and became ashamed. She was going to leave, she should’ve just left right then and there, but she didn’t. She decided to allowed her children to help her find a way to remove the evil inside.
For day they tried everything, magic, potions, even medicine. But nothing ever worked. The family finally realized that what was in her was spreading, that they were losing their mother with each day. The Queen couldn’t bear to let her children watch her become a monster, so she decided to leave in the middle of the night.
But she wasn’t alone. For you see, the darkness inside the Queen had spread to many of her most loyal subjects, they to began to lose themselves. Began to turn into something they weren’t. So they Queen led everypony that was infected out of the kingdom and far way to a distant land. Leaveing Celestia and Luna the throne, but not before she could place a memory spell. It was one of the most painful thing for her to do, make her own children forget who she was.
With no homes, nopony to love we traveled as a herd, no, as a hive; Farther, and farther away from equestria. One by one, we all began to completely loose ourselves. The darkness inside us didn’t just stop at taking over our minds, but out bodies as well. We have all begun to transform into something horrible.
The Queen was the first to change, to forget everything. She turned from the ravishing beauty of an Alicorn into something inpony. She had become as black as the night with flowing green hair and insect-like wings. She grew fangs and holes began to develop everywhere. She told us that the holes were the pieces of ourselves that we gave up for a new glorious life.
She was right, we didn’t need anypony from back home. We soon began to embrace the shadows, forgetting everything one by one. Now I’m the last of us, I’m going to be turning soon. I can feel it coming at any moment. I wanted to write this before I forgot completely. I am Orange Mist, and this… The writing on the scroll in Twilights hands just cuts off there. What happened to Orange Mist, Twilight could only assume. But this letter, this memoir of a changeling, changes everything Twilight ever knew about Equestria, The Changelings, and Celestia.
Twilight sat there, staring at the note now lay on the ground before her. She didn’t know what to think. This note declared that the assumed dead Queen, Queen Terra was actually the leader of the changelings.
“This cant be true!” Muttered Twilight to herself, beginning to pace back and forth “Its not possible! Chrysalis cant be Celestia’s mother! I refuse to believe it!”
Her pacing began to pick up speed “but what if it is? That would mean the enemy of Canterlot is the rightful heir to the throne.” Twilight stopped and picked up the scroll and looked at it “I need to talk to somepony about this, but who?”
She began to go down a vitual checklist in her head. Celestia? No, who knows how she will react. Luna? Of coarse not, she might become nightmare Moon again. The Girls? Maybe, but they wouldn’t be able to help me prove this. Wait!
Suddenly a name came to Twilights mind, sompony who might just know the truth. Somepony who would listen and give the best advice, Zacora! Twilight grabbed the scroll and stuffed it away in her sack and quickly teleported herself to the outside of the zebra’s cottage.
As Twilight approached the door she could smell the spices and herbs drying in the window and the something being boiled inside. She knocked on the door and let herself in when a voice from within told her to come in. She pushed open the door and saw Apple Bloom at the large cauldron at the center of the room, stirring ingredients together.
“Hiya, Twi!” Exclaimed Apple Bloom in an excited voice
“Apple Bloom, hi! What are you doing here?” Twilight asked while looking around the room for her zebra friend.
“Oh, Scootaloo is chasing after Rainbow Dash again. Sweetie Belle is spending the day with Rarity, and Apple Jack and Big Mac are sleeping off a hard days work.” She said, stirring the mysterious glowing liquid in the cauldron in front of her “So I decided to visit Zacora to see if she needed any help. Turns out she did!”
“Well that’s very helpful of you, where is Zacora?” Twilight questioned looking into the cooking brew.
“Look behind, and there you’ll see. The very pony, you came to see.” A familiar rhyming voice chanted from behind twilight.
“Zacora! It’s nice to see you.” She turned to the Zebra who was emptying her saddle bag full of odd plants and flowers “Do you have time to talk privately?”
“Why twilight sparkle, for you of course. But Apple Bloom, must leave at once” Zacora said with a smile looking at the purple pony and then the tiny pony.
Apple Bloom hoped down from the large cauldron and slowly walked out the door “Aw, I never get to hear any of the interesting stuff”
“Wait outside, for a few” The zebra said, trying to cheer up Apple Bloom “then return, we I give the cue”
Apple Bloom walked out of the cottage and sat down on a log outside. Twilgiht walked over to Zacora’s table and sat her bags on top. She looked at Zacora who was preparing some tea for the two. “Welcome Twilight to my home, now tell Zacora what’s on your mind.”
Twilight Sparkle pulled out the scroll she found and placed it on the table in front of the zebra. “I found this in the royal archives, and I think that it is real.”
She then began to explain the scroll, and what she feared it meant. Zacora read the letter several times while listening to Twilight explain her logic and why she came to her for advise. The Zebra placed the scroll down and walked over to the window, with a far off expression remembering something in her past.
“Zacora? Are you alright? What do you think I should do?” Twilight asked walking up to her
“Ignore the scroll you must, tell nopony ever again.” Zacora whispered staring off into the distance
“Tell nopony? But how! This is important knowledge about Equestria’s past that can’t be ignored!” The pony said frustrated
Zacora walked away from the window and to the boiling cauldron, placing a large ladel and beginning to stir. “The words on the letter are as true as the sky. For I, yes I, saw it with my own eyes.”
Twilight was dumfounded, she knew Zacora was older then the average pony, bu was she really implying that she was as old if not older then the princesses? No! she thought, there must be something else going on here. “Zacora? What do you mean you saw it?”
Zacora turned from the pot and looked at Twilight “Many years ago, I knew a good pony. Sunny Stone was his name, and I called him a friend. But one day his heart broke and with it, his soul. And something much darker began to grow. Sunny morphed into something not him, his body, his soul, became as black as the night.”
It made sense in Twilight’s head, Zacora knew a pony who had become one of those things. She had been forced to witness the transformation of a pony into a monster. Worst of all, she had been forced to lose a friend to the darkness. She began to think about what is must be like to see friend change and began to cry, feeling sorry for what Zacora must have been through.
“Zacora…” sniffed Twilight “Im so sorry, I had no idea”
“thank you Twilight, but tell nopony of this you must. I told my friend Sunny, that I wouldn’t let it happen to anypony else”
Twilight walked over to Zacora and placed a hoof on her shoulder “I wont tell anypony, I promise.” She looked over at the scroll sitting on the table “Im going to return this to the archive. I’m going to hide it where nopony will ever find it.”
Zacora smiled in a agreement and Twilight gathered her stuff. She thanked the zebra for the tea and the chat and walked out, still having an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She was about to tell Apple Bloom that she could go in again, but found the little pony was gone.
“That’s odd” thought Twilight to herself “Oh well! She must have just gone back to Sweet Apple Acres. I better get going back to the archives”
With that the pony transported herself back into the dusty room she found the scroll. She took the wither parchment out and was walking over tot the shelf when she bumped into somepony, dropping the scroll at their hooves.
“Im sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was…” At that moment twilight looked up at the pony she had bumped into. The pony stood taller then her, with flowing blue mane that sparkled like stars. “going… Luna!” Twilight said with a gasp
The princes smiled at the purple pony infront of her “Twilight Sparkle! Its such a pleasure to see you again!!” Luna exclaimed, looking down at the scroll, “You seem to have dropped this.”
She picked up the paper and as she handed it to Twilight the scroll opened. It opened just enough for the princess to see the title. “The Royal Secret? What tis this scroll you carry with you, Twilight Sparkle?”
Luna opened the scroll even more and began to read its contents. The further she read the bigger her eyes got. Tears began to swell in her eyes as she got to the end of the paper. The princess collapsed onto the ground weeping silently
“Twilight… doeseth this paper speak the truth?” sniffed Luna
“Princess… I…” Twilight didn’t know what to say. Luna had read a paper that contradicted everything that she had known. It claimed that her mother wasn’t really dead, but was an enemy to all of Equestria.
Luna looked up at Twilight Sparkle with tear filled eyes “This paper speaks lies. This cannot be true…” sniffed the princess trying to regain her composure.
“Then why…” whispered Twilight softly “Are you crying so much, princess.”
“Because…” The Princess stood up slowly, clearing the tears from her eyes “Because… tis the truth…” Luna looked down in despair. “Mother made us forget… but… this scroll”
“It made you remember” Asked twilight as Luna looked up at her “didn’t it?”
“I was almost too young to remember, but I remember how kind mother was. I remember how happy father made her.” A small smile formed on the princesses face as she recalled the happier days of her childhood, the smile quickly faded “But that all changed when Mother learned of Fathers death. She became cold, quiet, and rash. The warm open hearted mother that I knew died with father. That’s when the retched queen arose, taking mothers place and dared to ask her to call her mother!”
Luna’s body began to tense, her horn glowing slightly with rage. “She scared all the dragons out of our land, drove the ponies to poverty, and welcomed that monster into our home!” She turned to Twilight “You know Discord had the gall to ask us to call him Pa-pa?! We tried to help our mother, but…” She paused, wiping tears out of her eyes “but nothing worked, eventually we were able to scared her out of the castle. We proved to her that we could defeat anyone in our land by encasing Discord into a stone tomb!”
The Princess slammed a hoof down, her whole form standing defiantly. An angry smile spread upon her face. She was in a pose that would inspire hope into anypony who saw it. Twilight Sparkle felt reassured by the princesses’ strong new attitude. But it went as suddenly as it came, the princess suddenly looked confused and her poster relaxed. She looked around the room a few times before noticing Twilight Sparkle in front of her.
“Twilight Sparkle!! It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance again!” Luna exclaimed wrapping Twilight in a warm hug “What are you doing down here! It’s a wonderful day out!”
“Princess, are you ok?” The pony asked the Alicorn before her
“Why of course I am? Why wouldn’t I be?” Luna asked confused as she let Twilight out of her hold
“You don’t remember anything that had just happened?” Twilight asked, trying to understand what was happening
“Why I had just watched my sister raise the sun and I decided to take a stroll around the castle before I went to bed. Now if you don’t mind, I am rather tired, I wish to sleep now. Good bye, Twilight Sparkle!” And the Princess walked past Twilight and out the nearby door ascending to the main levels.
Twilight Sparkle stood there for a few minutes trying to understand what had just happened. She looked at the letter and reflected on what the princess had said. Her statement made sense, even if they were different in some ways, but they still ringed with truth.
What had made her more confused was the way the princess seemed to have forgotten the whole conversation. Did Luna’s alter ego force her to forget the painful memories to protect her? No that makes no sense, they destroyed Nightmare Moon awhile ago. Perhaps Discord did… no, he still is imprisoned in stone. Celestia must have something to do with this, but that would mean she knew and would recognize her own misshapen mother. Then something hit here, the princesses couldn’t rmeber because of a spell. Discord couldn’t say, because he was frozen. But what about Chrysalis, could she possible…
“No!” exclaimed Twilight shaking the thought from her head “That doesn’t make sense. If she knows then why hasn’t she..”
At that moment, a voice from behind her finished her sentence. “Taken back the throne I deserve?” The eerily familiar raspy voice chuckled. Twilight Sparkle slowly turned towards the voice hoping her ear had played a trick on her. Her hopes were crush when she saw the fanged smile of the changeling queen before her.
Queen Chrysalis stood there, chuckling to herself. She was clearly amused by catching Twilight Sparkle off her guard. She walked further into the room, observing all the old scrolls around her, pushing a few back into their places with one of her hole ridden hooves.
“Surprised to see me, Twilight?” The Queen asked with a hint of sarcasm.
Twilight stood where she was, taking on a battle stance ready to attack “You could say that! How did you get in here?”
Chrysalis gave out a joy filled laugh “Have you honestly forgotten Twilight? I’m changeling, remember? You would be surprised how many times I have come here without anypony noticing.” The Queen walked up to the purple unicorn “besides isn’t a Queen allowed to visit her own home once in a while?”
“You’re no the Queen and you know it!” declared Twilight
“Oh but that is where you wrong my dear, Twilight” The changeling queen walked away from Twilight, looking out the window “For you see, many years ago, your Queen and me became one. We now share our personalities, ourstrengths, our…” She paused slightly, while she looked lost in the distance, “memories. And it kills us to not be welcome in our own castle. It nearly crushed her heart when she had to fight her own daughter and defeated her!”
Twilight relaxed herself slightly, noticing the truth in the queens words. She could see that there was more in here then just a hated filled changeling, there was the heart of a pony deep inside. “but why have you come here? Why now?”
Grinning, the queen explained, “I noticed that the orange pony you know as Apple Jack was taking a nap. So I decided to attempt to gain more information about my enemies and take her form. Then a little annoying earth pony walked up to me and started to explain how you were talking to Zacora about a mysterious scroll she had found.”
She moved around the room as she spoke, watching Twilights reactions, observing more and more of the dusty little room she was in. “We realized that you had found the very memoir that one of my changelings wrote before be transformed into the glorious creature he is now, the very memoir that I had taken from his hooves and hidden in the archives. You were asking questions that were not meant to be asked. So we figured you would decide to return the scroll, but we didn’t expect our daughter to stumble upon the memoir. It reversed the memory spell making, making her remember everything.”
Queen Chrysalis stopped in front of the door Luna had walked through minutes ago. He body language told Twilight that she was remember the same things the princess had been forced to remember. She reached for the door handle with her hoof, wanting to open the door and see her daughter again. The Queen stopped herself and turned back to Twilight Sparkle who was now sitting on the floor taking in all the information.
“We were forced to do what we did all those years ago…” there was a pause, and Twilight could have sworn she saw a tear or two arise in the Queens eyes. “We wiped our daughters memory, forcing her to forget us all over again. DO you know how painful it is for a mother to make her children forget everything about her? To force them to forget all the happy cheerful memories that they had, To make them believe that their mother was dead?”
She turned away from the unicorn and wiped a few tears from her eyes, “But we did what we had to, it is better to make them forget then to live with the pain.”
“So are you going to make me forget everything as well? Are you going to destroy the only thing left that remembers you?” Asked Twilight, started to get defiant again
“No” the queen sighed “I’m not, instead I’m going to let you leave. As long as you swear to never tell anypony. This is something that I never want my daughters to remember. I don’t want them to remember the pain I have caused them. But we still believe in the importance of keeping our history written. I shall leave it up to you to hide it somewhere Celestia or Luna will ever see.”
The queen’s words shocked her. Was the queen of the changelings actually going to just let her go? No, the queen of the ponies was letting her go. She could see that in the changeling’s eyes. Behind the large, green, inpony eyes, there was a kind, gentle pony Queen trying to control her body but filled with despair for what she had become.
“This was all a bad idea, we should have never of come here. We are remembering thigs that we should never remember!” whispered the queen as she turned and began to head towards the exit. She stopped and looked back at Twilight, “Please make sure that my children never know about this?”
“I will, you highness” Said Twilight with a little bow
“You are far to kind to me, Twilight” With that the Queen transformed into a royal guard and started for the door. At that moment, the door she was heading for opened and the graceful form aof Princess Celestia walked in. The disguised changeling gave the proper greeting to the princess and rushed past her. The princess alicorn looked over at the dumbfounded Twilight sitting in the middle of the room.
“Twilight!” the Princess said happily “What are you doing in here? It’s a wonderful day out?” She noticed the scroll sitting on the table and headed toward it “What are you reading, dear pupil?”
The purple unicorn raced over, trying to stop Celestia from picking it up, but it was too late. The Princess had already picked it up with he magic, and began to read the title.
“ah…” sighed the princess mournfully “You found discovered the greatest secret we have.”
“Princess, please! I can explain, just don’t read the paper!” begged Twilight. She didn’t want to see the very pony she looked up to become a crying mess.
“What is there to explain, you found the scroll that explains out of my biggest secrets.” Twilight was confused by how matter of fact-ly the princess was talking
“I… I don’t understand!” said Twilight with a confused look
“I discover this scroll years ago Twilight. I horrified me and I didn’t want to believe it, but I eventually came to terms with it.” Celestia walk over to a nearby shelf and placed the scroll gently amongst the rest “I remember everything that happened; My Mothers happy smile, my Fathers boastful speeches at the dinner table. I vividly remember the day we got word that Father had been killed, I recall how mother reacted, how she changed.”
Celestia walked over and sat beside Twilight. “I saw how she changed from leader of the ponies to enemy of the ponies. Yet I could see the internal struggle she was having against Chrysalis. I saw how Chrysalis welcomed Discord into our home.” The Princess looked at twilight with honest eyes, “ but it was in those dark days that my sister and me became the united leaders we are today. Even though it pains me to say this, we owe a lot to chrysalis. She brought in a new era to Equestria, even if it did cost my parents.”
The princess stood up and looked at Twilight who was also rising to her feet. “You must know, Twilight, that none of this is to be repeated to anypony else, right?”
“Yes, of course you highness” said Twilight with a nervous smile “You can count on me!”
Celestia smiled “Good, now run along Twilight. Im sure your probably needed back in Ponyville” A letter suddenly burst from flames near Celestias head “And it seems Spike is already trying to find you.”
“Yes of course.” smiled Twilight as she ran out the door, leaving the princess alone in the archives. When she was gone the Princess walked back over to the shelf with the scroll. She stared at it, think about the past that is talked about. The light coming from the door behind her shone on the shelf in front of her, until a familiar form blocked the light.
Celestia looked up, and gave a half smile “Hello mother, how have you been?”
