Unraveling a Rainbow

Two days. Two days living with an insatiable hunger, that is if one could call its continued existence living. The bewildered black bug wandered down the mountain's side, battered and bruised from some catastrophe only vaguely remembered. It once was something, someling, somepony, or someone, but that one was obfuscated by a starving, unruly beast’s lost mind. It darted with fervent purpose towards the enemy’s stronghold of alabaster spires adorned in regal purple and gold. With each passing moment, it could feel its soul crying out for the most basics of needs as the creature made its way to the only place “she” could be satiated now.

The part that knew it was a “she,” among other things, was fading fast as the beast bore just enough sense to know its current plight. It was in enemy territory, injured, and, most damning of all, completely alone. It was not utterly doomed knowing its way down as it followed the babbling flow of water through the sparse mountain forest. The beast was guided by what little knowledge it still retained to dodge the patrols “she” had once known well as it continued towards the last hope they had. Brief flashes of memory still plagued it from the past few days. There was an explosion, panic, hurtling through the sky, and that sturdy tree branch impaling the hind leg, but all of that paled in comparison to the looming silence.

The absolute quiet gnawing at its lingering sanity aggravated and enraged the beast, a most beautiful melody of its family now lost to the nothingness around it. Before all of this madness, its purpose was always clear as it sang along when it knew how, a brilliant leash of a caring hand now just empty void in the back of its mind. The beast tried buzzing its familiar tune as it tried to recall those wondrous thoughts, but it only served to make the deafening quiet worse.

The voice of who “she” was slipping away with each passing moment, the maddened hunger knew only one thing: love was the only salvation now.

Maids and groundskeepers alike bustled about the courtyard, cleaning up the remaining food and decorations strewn about the nearly vacated venue. Rarity had hoped to keep the mess to a minimum, but Pinkie’s parties were less than tidy, usually involving the random party poppers and confetti bombs shot from her party cannon. Though Rarity remembered clearly banning the device from the soiree, it had made an untimely explosive appearance anyway. She sighed in exhaustion as she swished her wine glass around with her magic.

Reflecting on the aftermath, it had been a wonderful reception for the royal couple, despite the circumstances drawing the princesses’ attention away from the festivities. Every pony from the highborn socialites to the common mare had enjoyed the spectrum of activities available to them. Music, dancing, foolish party games, food, and fun were to be had in every corner of the courtyard. Rarity wondered why she and Pinkie didn’t collaborate more often. However, regardless of the event’s overwhelming success, Rarity had taken no pleasure in any of it.

Despite her best efforts in dressing the part, garnering heartfelt compliments and attention all night, she felt purple, like the fine grape juice she was bobbling back and forth. It was not a kind purple either, but rather a particularly putrid purple which tended to ruin things. It bore a dreadfully deep coloration with far more red than there should be, giving the hue a flaring temperament that ruined perfectly good ensembles. Yes, a single saturating blot from her could utterly destroy any fabric eternally, and she was it.

The usually outspoken fashionista had spent the entire party uncharacteristically biting back her tongue as she mingled with the mares and gentlecolts of high society, all of whom were bickering about the same thing, changelings. Changelings this, changelings that, complaints and concerns circling around the one issue she couldn’t talk about! Namely, it was because of the secret royal prisoner who had kidnapped one of her closest friends. If that wasn’t enough, according to her friends, another bug had crept its way into the confounding mix, a would-be assassin of the kidnapper. She wanted to join in the public damning of the new menace, but she knew all too well she could easily let a detail or two slip by that would hint towards the princesses’ prisoners. The whole situation was simply frustrating to no end, and her only comforter was a bottle of grape juice doing absolutely nothing for her.

“If only alcohol didn’t taste so foul…” she cursed exasperatedly to the drink which failed to drown her troubles. Letting her head down to the table's surface, she turned expectantly to the container, but the bottle offered no consolation either. She briefly mused scrounging for a salt lick, but those little cubes had a way of disgracing their abusers to an end they couldn’t live down.

Rarity watched as a groundskeeper whistled a cheery tune as he swept the last bit of streamer into his dustpan and sifted the contents into his trash before carrying on to the rest of the cleanup. Right, she was supposed to be helping, wasn’t she? She didn’t feel like it. In fact, she hadn’t felt like doing anything for the past few days. She’d barely managed to scrounge together a satisfactory dress for the wedding while coordinating the redecorating efforts in Twilight’s absence. She was tired and useless, another good word she hadn’t considered, useless.

When Rainbow Dash had gone missing, what did she do? Canter around the castle, succumb to fixing a rug, all the while a fake Dash had taken center stage. After that, she had daintily fled the moment the imposter had reared her hideous face instead of standing with her friends. While she retreated to false comfort of an herb-induced sleep, Fluttershy had been drained of her love or something, Applejack was forced into some hideous dreamless coma, and they all were no closer to finding their missing Rainbow Dash. If she had only been there to help, maybe she could have—no, it wasn’t healthy to linger on what-ifs. Besides, Pinkie Pie had proved to be of little help either to the changeling situation, and instead focused on cheering up the poor guards and ponies despite her own sadness… which, in hindsight, now appeared to be not only incredibly helpful, but self-sacrificial considering Pinkie’s internal strife.

Rarity downed a dauntless swing from the depths of her bottled friend, wishing something would hinder the onset of self-loathing.

“A bit for your thoughts, Rarity?” a familiar posh stallion offered as he pulled one of the remaining cushions to the table.

“Oh, Fancy Pants!" she nearly yelped while tearing the bottle away from her muzzle, hoping he hadn't noticed. "Surely you can come up with better line than that old cliché,” Rarity half-heartedly snipped back, trying to digress from her depression and embarrassment. A tiny ping of metal sounded as a gold bit bounced and rolled in front of Rarity’s muzzle before swiveling down into place.

“The offer still stands, milady.”

The alluring sirens of consolation and dandyism rang through her head. She admitted to not knowing Fancy Pants as well as her other friends, but having somepony to help take her mind off of things would be an absolute delight. However, there was the matter of changelings she knew he would love to talk about and she would love nothing more than to share. Either way, there was no hope for her stress relief.

“I must regretfully decline your generous offer. My private musings aren’t something to be purchased so readily,” she sighed as she refunded his bidding bit.

“Of course, Lady Rarity. I meant nothing by it. I had only hoped to offer better company than that bottle of Hollow Shades Select you’re keeping,” he added as he took a gander at the label. “I admit it is a particularly good brand of juice, but it decidedly lacks a way with words.”

Rarity surrendered that point as inanimate objects didn’t tend to be great conversationalists, unless a certain purple unicorn grows a bit overzealous with a come-to-life spell. Perishing the thoughts, Rarity clacked her forehooves together as she tried to find a proper way to direct the conversation. She wanted to confide in somepony and who better than the ever-understanding Fancy Pants, but even he would have his limits of secrecy when it came to what she was keeping under wraps.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about Fancy Pants, I’m just worn out from the recent events is all.”

“Ah yes, these are troubling times indeed for all of us, but might that be only a small portion of what is really wrong?” corrected Fancy as he took a wine glass for himself, filling his own despite probably having seen Rarity’s intimate delve into the juice. "Would it help ease your tension if I told you I already knew what was on your mind?”

Curiosity was instantly piqued on Rarity’s part. Suddenly taking a greater interest in the conversation, she sat back up, blowing some of her errant mane out of her way to listen intently.

“You are not the only one lamenting the loss of friends. You may think nopony noticed Rainbow Dash’s absence at the wedding, but with recent events being the way they are, ponies are paying very close attention to the headcount, so to speak.”

“Indeed, Fancy Pants, I haven’t seen mane or tail of Rainbow since that dreadful fight with the changelings. It has put me in such a sour mood.”

“Quite, quite. I too am missing a... a very near and dear companion of mine, but that is not the issue I wish to discuss with you,” he amended before taking a sip of the juice to catch his words. “I find it very interesting you say you haven’t seen Miss Dash since the wedding, as I can recall a certain guard detail claiming to have carried both you and Miss Dash to the infirmary two days ago. I thank the heavens and stars you were alright, however the two pegasi I spoke with said your friend wasn’t in the best of health to put it lightly. Could you shed any light upon the situation?”

“I see you have been apprised a bit more than I thought,” Rarity replied with tepid caution.  A unicorn as resourceful as Fancy Pants knowing a bit more than the common stallion did not come as much of a surprise to Rarity. However, his tone carried little concern for either herself or Dash. If Rarity didn’t know better, she would say she was speaking with a most polite inquisitor. “I did see Rainbow Dash in dire straits, hence the fainting spell I am not proud of, but what is truly bothering me is my inability to do anything for her.”

“I see. So that is why nopony has been given access to the emergency room for the past two days,” he pondered aloud. “Will she be alright?”

She paused trying to find the right words to say that were vague enough to carry some sort of truth with them. “With her condition as critical as it is, we’re not certain,” she commented to his thoughts. She decided to play the safe side and turn her drama up to a grandiloquent eleven. “Oh Fancy Pants, if only you had seen her in that frightful condition, you would understand my frustration,” she spouted accompanied with an appropriate near-faint and foreleg sweep to cover her eyes.

“Is it also why the princesses have been rather aloof as of late?" Fancy remarked thoughfully, dispelling any idea a drama queen act could misdirect his attention. "I understand Miss Dash is an important friend to you, Miss Sparkle, and the princesses for sure, but a mare in critical condition does not usually warrant such consistent royal attention,” Fancy Pants said matter-of-factly. “Indeed, Princess Celestia was at my father’s bedside the day he passed on, rest his soul, but I’d imagine death is a dreadfully close and constant companion to our immortal princesses. If they dwelled upon everypony knocking on death’s door for as long, I’m afraid their royal highnesses would never get anything done.”

There was a certain cold logic to his words. Ponies die every day across Equestria and the princesses barely have time to shed a tear for the ones they’ve grown to know and love. Spending a great deal of time on anypony, even one bearing an Element of Harmony, would not keep the princesses so engaged and secluded with an entire country to run. For having eternity at their hooves, the two sisters had precious little time to waste on personal matters.

“I cannot speak for Princess Luna with how little I know of her,” Fancy started, “but it is very unlike Princess Celestia to refuse anypony’s audience, especially in such troubling times where her sage direction would be most needed. It is hard for me to say this, but I cannot help myself but think there may be more to this mystery than concern for one mare’s well-being,” Fancy Pants added with an inquisitive gander towards Rarity. He swished around his juice methodically as if sifting through its contents to find an answer obscured by its purple hue.

Rarity felt little fondness for the course Fancy Pants was setting in their “delightful conversation”. To the casual observer, the kind and caring noble was consoling a good friend of his, but the level of suave probing he performed was nothing less than an investigative invasion of information which didn’t concern him. She saw possible paths their exchange could take in their verbal chess game, and they all ended with her saying too much. His experience in dealing with the upper crust of Canterlot, including Upper Crust herself, made him a formidable verbal opponent. Rarity found it difficult to gain any control over their banter and dodging the issue was only making things worse. To her continued aggravation, she simply couldn’t send him away as he had said nothing terribly wrong. Worse still, she wanted desperately to tell him everything about the changelings and that demon Chromina sleeping soundly in the ER, but that was simply out of the question. She bowed out, leaving her only one socially graceless option.

Rarity gathered herself, pressing herself away from the table and gathering her things. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m sorry, Fancy Pants. I wish I could discuss this with you further,” she apologized as it wasn’t a lie, “but the whole matter is simply something which I must sort out for myself,” which also wasn’t completely a lie.

“Why, of course, Lady Rarity. It was never my intention to upset you,” he said, helping Rarity to her hooves. “I would only mean to offer my assurances that you do not need to carry any burden alone. I am your friend too after all, am I not?”

His platitudes gripped Rarity by her neck, making her pause for a moment longer than she felt she should have.

“I have never had any cause to think otherwise, Fancy Pants,” Rarity replied sweetly and carefully, being the only time she had ever questioned the quality of their friendship.

“And I hope to never leave anything to that effect,” he affirmed with a noble bow. Rarity tried to trot away a little faster than she would normally from the scene, hoping to not see Fancy for a good while. It was not to be as she found Fancy Pants keeping pace with her. “However, I am afraid that I cannot wait for your feelings to be sorted out as it may be too late. I am terribly concerned for the princesses.”

“You’re worried about their royal highnesses? Surely such concern is unnecessary,” Rarity quipped back trying to play down any seriousness to the situation while trying to escape the rather forward Fancy Pants.

“Only because nopony aside from your friends and a hooffull of their closest ponies have had any word from them aside from Princess Celestia’s performance at the wedding. I attempted to stay behind to greet her, but was ‘escorted’ by Princess Luna’s personal guard to the reception.”

“P-perhaps they had other, more pressing matters to attend to after the wedding?”

“Which is my point exactly, Rarity!” Fancy punctuated his point with a powerful stamp of his right hoof, letting his monocle fall from his face and dangle from his suit’s collar. Rarity shrank away slightly from Fancy Pants, having never seen him so worked up. He was usually so composed regardless of the circumstance.

“My apologies, milady. I am afraid the time for pleasant exchanges is at an end as I must know...” Fancy Pants pressed with urgency. His gentle blue eyes had been replaced by a firm, regal glower demanding his curiosity be satiated. His apparent anger alone nearly loosed the words ‘changeling infiltrator’ from Rarity’s lips, but she caught a glimpse of the usually regal stallion's despair. Under his dandy exterior beat a heavy heart burdened with a dire concern. Fancy Pants had spoken of lessening burdens while he bore a mountain of stress all his own. Rarity wished to ask what was wrong, but seeing her growing alarm, he interrupted with the only question that mattered to him.

“Would you describe either of the princesses as…” he paused as he tried to find the words to use, “being terribly lovesick?”

Rarity mouthed voiceless words, utterly gob smacked by Fancy Pant’s out-of-left-field interest in the royal love lives of the princesses. Had she heard him correctly? The harrowing watershed moment of intense feelings simply dwelling upon knowing a matter of petty gossip?

“No? Perhaps lovestricken then?”

 “I-I beg your pardon,” finally relocating her words, Rarity strung together the first sentence to come to her mind. “You can’t seriously be asking me if the princess has some unrequited love…”

His glower remained unfaltering as his inquisitor stare awaited a solid answer from the fashionista.

“You’re serious,” she deadpanned with a hint of underlying disgust. “O-of all the... the lackadaisical nonsense to be worked up about!” she huffed loudly in disbelief.

“I assure you, Rarity, this is of the utmost importance.”

With an exasperated, shrilling "ugh" of petty dismay, Rarity flatly spat out the words he wanted to hear. “No. I don’t suppose either princess has been struck by the love bug as of late,” she reported with a lackluster eye roll. “Furthermore, I do not believe either of them would have the time to be caught up in such trifling matters at a time like this, nor how how their love lives should be any concern of yours!”

 “At least there is that,” Fancy Pants sighed as he recomposed his breath. His horn sparked to life as he raised his monocle back to his left eye with a quick polish of his hoofkerchief.

“You still haven’t told me why any of this matters, Fancy Pants.”

“My apologies, milady. I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in telling you. Perhaps it would make me feel better if somepony close to me knew,” Fancy Pants said, offering a hoof in escort. “Shall we go for a stroll?”

Anxiety wasn’t a normal state for Nightstride, but the past forty-eight hours had been a consistent blur of worry. Tensions were riding high with suspicions creeping up around every corner, but the troubled moori’s mind dwelled upon other things, mainly the well-being of the missing Duskstar. Despite the growing unrest between noble ponies about backstabbing and shape-shifting potentially plaguing the prancy pony politics, Nightstride focused solely on the same nagging fear clawing deeply at his senses. His concern had grown to anguish waiting to hear any word on her whereabouts. At this point, even knowing she had died would be easier than riding this unrelenting wave of uncertainty.

Though he was supposed to be an ever-vigilant guardian of the night, tonight he was barely getting through the motions. He swept above the crest of the lower western waterfall, checking the lower platforms of the castle’s underside for suspicious ponies congregating in Canterlot’s shadows. He gave a few haphazard glances around, looking more for his missing wingmare than anypony suspicious. His flyby survey of the west waterways complete, Nightstride took to the skies above the streams flowing through Canterlot, flying against the headwater's course to search Sundrop Lake’s shoreline.

Luna’s night seemed especially beautiful from the lake’s brilliant reflection. If not for the changeling scare, he probably would’ve flown by other ponies taking a moonlit stroll along the lakeside with their special someponies. If absence made the heart grow fonder, Nightstride swore it must be doubly painful for those with formerly unrealized feelings. Over the past two days, the subtle feeling had grown to an agonizing throbbing of restless emotion, an unrelenting pressure building in his heart that could erupt at any moment. He couldn’t claim to know Dusky well with her always-aloof nature, but regardless of how well or not he knew her, Nightstride genuinely cared for Dusky. No, that was too weak of a phrase. His thoughts would not be so utterly consumed if it was a matter of simple caring.

 After tossing it around his sleepless batty mind, he was head over hooves in love with Duskstar. Every second he didn’t know where she was made him feel worse as she had become a physical need almost, though rarely a word was spoken between the two of them.

‘But you don’t even know her!’ the rational side of his head chided to his lesser wits. He tried to recall her favorite fruit or perhaps a song she liked singing when she thought she was alone. What were her interests? Her hobbies? What did she do just for the fun of it? Nothing ever came to mind. Despite his lack of knowledge, he had been utterly smitten by her, blowing right past “slight infatuation” and going full tilt, barreling straight into “gladly taking a lightning bolt for her” territory.

He loved her. By Luna’s light how he loved Duskstar, to the point it hurt terribly.

His attention drawn to the rumbling downpour of Twintail Falls, he felt his mood crushing him like the powerful cascade of the waterfall, a merciless deluge of icy water flowing with bitterness and longing. If not for the night guard’s strict conditioning of both mind and body, he would have collapsed in a heap of weeping bat pony hours ago from his irrational crippling sadness. Only hanging onto his duty by a thread, he pressed forward hoping to hear some word, any word, on his wingmare’s whereabouts while patrolling.

As he approached the lake, a sudden onset of strange heaviness pulled at his withers. Unable to contend with the pressure, he sat down near the north shore on the upper crests of the waterfalls. Nightstride took a moment to take a drink some of the fresh flowing glacial waters draining down from the mountain’s snowy peak. The coolness on his tongue not enough, he submerged his head into the cold waters, his mane swishing about like a rag trying to shake off the cumbersome anxiety weighing down upon him. Try as he might, he couldn’t psyche himself out of his depression, and instead heaved a heavy sigh before sitting down by the cliff to catch his breath for a moment.

He let his soggy head fall to the ground, paying his navy blue mane no mind as it fell into a nearby smattering of mud. He gazed longingly at the gently waves kissing the little beach beneath him. His copper slit-eyes followed the shoreline towards the horizon as he scanned the sides for any sign of life. Just as his wandering eyes neared the south end, the shifting of bushes caught his sharpened nocturnal eyes.  He spied a surreptitious black pony carefully skulking its way towards the lake. As he watched the it draw nearer to the water’s edge, he noticed it was hobbling mostly on three legs, letting its hind leg limp along behind it. Suspicious pony or not, he was duty-called to aid any injured ponies. Not feeling it in him to take to the skies, he unfurled his wings and let himself glide down the shoreline towards the pony in need.

As he closed in upon the wounded pony, he felt his heartstrings vigorously tug at him, pulling him onward with a strange flutter in his chest. It was an apprehensive nervousness that grew stronger as he neared the pony on the shore. The weightiness wisped through his shoulders and plunged straight into his heart as he neared the silhouette. What was once a featureless blackness faded away as his vision grew hazy. With a soft glimmer in his eyes, he wondered how he couldn’t see it before. Her dark forest green mane, her pristine leathery wings, and her ashen coat like dust upon the moon. All he needed to lose himself in her brilliantly blue eyes again to finalize the impossible miracle he desperately desired.

His heart grew impatient as he landed, every step feeling longer than the last. It started beating wildly as if excited by some foreign force. It was a terrific thumping his ears could hear, irregularly throbbing in his chest, overflowing with love and readying to explode at a moment’s notice. He wanted to joyously shout her name, but his throat choked, eyes watered, breath fled, and hooves locked as her name graced the tip of his tongue. What little balance he had wavered with his legs feeling like precarious pin needles boring into the soggy ground below, but his overwhelming desire to just see her face would not surrender.

“D-Dusky!”

The mare’s tufted ears perked up as she turned around, revealing those sapphire pools Nightstride wanted to see more than anything in the world. Meeting her wingmate’s wide grin, Duskstar flashed her fanged smile as she galloped as fast as she could towards him like a long-lost lover.

There were no words needed. Blinded by maddening desire, Nightstride found the strength to stretch his forelegs open with warm welcome as Duskstar lunged with carnal desire towards his loving embrace.

Rarity had nary a word to say to Fancy Pants as he finished his explanation of what the doctors had started calling "Dire Lovesickness." Hearing no further word from Fancy Pants as they continued down the eastern wall overlooking the lakeside, Rarity stopped to gaze at the gently flowing water, moving with slow purpose flowing from the falls to the tributary.

“How absolutely dreadful…” Rarity muttered as she tried to recompose herself. “How many did you say suffer from this?”

“Only three I know of, but who is to say at this point. As the days drag on, perhaps more ponies across Canterlot may begin suffering the same fate,” Fancy stated with a solemn finality in his words. “Two are close friends of mine and very influential ponies in their own right. All three bear the same illness in their hearts, like a consuming fire has burnt it to cinders, yet the ashes are ready to burst at a moment’s notice. Doctor Triage has yet to find a definitive answer, but a common thread binds them together: all three desperately desire the presence of a missing somepony to the point the mere mention of a name torments them. The good doctor tells me the symptoms are akin to substance withdrawal.”

“And you’re sure it’s the work of changelings?”

“If it was purposeful or not on their part has yet to be determined. Unfortunately, there are far too many coincidences falling into place for this to be mere happenstance in light of all that has happened.”

“I see…” she trailed as she let the information sink in. Changeling deception was a despicable thing, bringing ponies to their knees for what something as simple as love. What was the point of making another suffer so needlessly for something that can be given freely? Rarity couldn’t claim to know how Changelings worked, but for a race so obsessed with emotions, they proved to be bitterly cold. Was Fluttershy suffering the same way when Chromina sadistically devoured the love being poured into her?

 “You mentioned you only knew two of the ponies, who is the third?”

“Ah, yes. That last one is a touch more complicated,” Fancy said dryly, the courage and regal demeanor slipping away with each syllable. “You see, you’re speaking to him.”

“You?!” Rarity flabbergasted in reply. Her words paused breathless as her eyes scoured the dandy pony for ill signs. “But… but you seem so normal.”

“Of course Rarity, I pride myself on being a rather pragmatic pony when it comes down to matters of the heart,” he started while turning his eye to his three crown cutie mark. “I’ve always had a knack for keeping close networks of ponies which society deemed important while always a careful trot ahead of those I would befriend. Though I truly do enjoy the company of many a mare and gentlecolt, I am always careful to keep everypony at a leg’s length, knowing that a good number of them seek to use me for their own gain. That is until…” He trailed off, wondering if he should continue. Rarity waited, seeing a longing in his eyes for his heart to be heard. His lips trembled with uncertainty as if waiting for permission to tell his tale.

“Go on,” Rarity urged her friend.

“Fleur-Dis-Lee,” he uttered with a pained breath.“For being so connected, it is rare to meet someone who flew by completely under my radar. Even more curious was how well we hit it off in such a short amount of time. Before I knew it, she had stolen my heart like a bandit in the night, gaining more than my absolute trust mere months after meeting her."

Rarity had no words for what was presently occurring. Little by little, life seemed to fade away from the stallion. all the mirth in his voice was gone, his strength sapped from him as if he had been mortally wounded and left to die. Rarity had no words as she breathlessly held her mouth closed as she watched him slowly whittle himself down. He turned his gaze to the lake, not letting Rarity see his face.

“For a time, she was my whole world: an unmatched beauty like no other, gifted with a keen eye for even the smallest of details. The two of us let nopony pass us by at a party without knowing what made them tick. But more than that, we shared everything with each other. We had no secrets. Furthermore, she never once sought to better herself at my expense like many other before her had. The best thing was that at the end of the day, mingling with the movers and shakers of Equestria didn’t matter to her. All she asked in return was my love.”

Fancy Pant’s reminiscing continud with every word of praise for Fleur painted a bigger and better picture of this amazing mare Rarity had only met in passing. Rarity tried to remember anything close to the praise he was showering Fluer with when she had gotten to know Fancy Pants during her stay in Canterlot. Sure Fluer was gorgeous, as it was to be expected of a unicorn supermodel, however, when Rarity had approached the mare, the star was always listlessly staring off into space or commenting idly about something Fancy had said. To be honest, she had passed the mare off simply as high society eye candy.

More than that, she could see beads of sweat forming on his brow as he nearly became lost in his enamored recounts of Fluer’s greatness. “Umm… Fancy Pants?” she inquired as she tried to catch his gaze. “That’s quite enough, you’re starting to scare me with all this—SWEET CELESTIA!”

Rarity reeled back seeing the noble’s suddenly gaunt face. His pupils shrank to a thousand mile stare with a flare of enthrallment in his eyes with his own magic starting to turn against him with crackles and bursts from his horn. He wasn’t breathing anymore as it would interrupt the  constant stream of undying worship running from his mouth. She looked around for anything to snap him out of it before it worsened. Seeing the lake, she reached for the icy water with her magic.

“FANCY PANTS!” she screamed as she drowned the stammering stallion with a blast of icy water to his face. The sudden torrential surge of liquid forced into his muzzle knocked Fancy from the floor, carrying him several yards away from where he stood. The wave dissipated, the water flowing off the wall down onto the castle’s inner gardens below them, as well as an unlucky patrolling night guard caught by the sudden deluge. Hearing nothing about Fleur-Dis-Lee, Rarity charged to Fancy’s side to make sure the noblepony was okay.

“Thank you, my dear,” he hoarsely uttered between coughs as he pulled himself to his hooves. “It would seem that I lost myself there for a second. It was rather rude of me to speak so highly of a lady while in the company of another. I am terribly sorry.”

Rarity reached for him with her magic to help Fancy dry his clothes, now soaked with icy water. She offered a hoof to pull him to his feet, but instead of reaching out, he simply opted to remain grounded for a spell. His chest rose and fell gently as he recomposed himself, disappointment and self-loathing reflected in his weak eyes.

“Who knew that lovesickness could be so serious?” Fancy Pants struggled to nervously chuckle. “The worst part though is for all my cherished practicality, when presented with the very real threat that my Fleur… that Fleur-Dis-Lee—”

“Please, stop saying that name! Don’t speak it, don’t think it! Not after what just happened!” Rarity begged. Every utterance of her name when around Fancy seemed to spark another fire in his eyes as if she was controlling him without even being there.

“—could be a changeling...”

“T-that’s completely understandable,” Rarity assured him, trying to find a silver lining for the dour, sopping wet stallion to look towards to distract him. After a long pause, and coming up with anything better, she sighed as she leaned over to console the heartbroken gentlecolt with a helpful hoof. “Nothing is certain, after all. Perhaps the real one is waiting for you, her ever-loving Fancy Pants, to rescue her!”

“Thank you for your kind words, milady, but I do not wish to cling to a false hope,” he replied in a regaled quaver as he pulled himself up, his legs trembling all the while. It was as if the lake water had washed away all semblance of self-control as he now wore his once well-kept feelings on his sleeves, unable to stem the tide of emotions longing for their idol of affection. He shivered as he drew himself up from the ground, reaching for his monocle, now cracked like a spider’s web, on the verge of shattering into a thousand tiny shards. “Deep down, I feel it truly doesn’t matter to me if she is a changeling or not. If she were to suddenly appear before me as some… horrifying black demon of Tartarus bent on the destruction of all Equestria, I fear I would still do anything just to feel her embrace once more.”

He gently polished the useless eyepiece out of comforting habit before placing it in his coat pocket, ignoring the horrified flabbergasted slack-jaw disbelief of his present company. “I do not presume to think that either of our princesses would be susceptible to such a level of predatory deception, but the mere possibility it could be so frightens me terribly.”

Fancy coughed as he adjusted his soaked bow tie, striving to regain his composed sense of normalcy. To Rarity’s surprise, he once again bowed politely as he offered his hoof in escort to her. “Lady Rarity, it would appear I am due for a wardrobe change before checking into the castle's hospital. Would you mind treating this lonely stallion by gracing me with your company for a bit longer this evening?”

Refining her posture with dignity and happy to finally be of help, Rarity smiled warmly as she straightened to a proper lady’s posture proudly before giving a feminine curtsy in reply. “It would be my pleasure.”

How long? How long had it been since she could see clearly again? The explosion, the panicked hurtling through the sky, that tree… all of it was some painful blur. The last thing she remembered was slowly feeling herself slip away as she desperately used what little love she had remaining to seal her wounds. It had taken a great deal of magic and quick thinking to shield herself from the foliage. She counted herself lucky that her trajectory was angled up rather than shooting straight into the rock-face of a mountain which would’ve turned her into a little black and pink smear across its side.

The confused changeling had reawakened to find she was lapping up water from a lake like a dog. Seeing her own bat pony disguise staring back at her in the lake's reflection, she reached inside seeking answers from her hive. The music never began as she realized she was alone in her head. Remembering the blast’s sundering effects, she found herself on the verge of panicking as more and more of her current grim situation came flooding back to her.

Some foolish, overzealous changeling queen had attacked Canterlot! The entire race had been completely exposed in one fell swoop! What was she supposed to do now?!

‘Okay, calm down. There is protocol for hivemind seperation. Think carefully, who are you?’ she began running down an emergency introspective list for lost changelings. The lost changeling’s emergency disconnection training back at the hive had prepared her for such a situation, but it didn’t help dull the painful silence, especially if she had been wandering with little direction like a beast in the mountains for love.

‘You are Sarekii of Queen Keemah’s hive. Good,' she reminded herself with a mental pat on her back.'What is your purpose? Rogue Drone Reclamation. Good. What is your situation? Unknown, but signs of black out and presence of delirium are signs of complete love exhaustion, leading to total ego shutdown and personality collapse. Bad. You did manage locating a source of emotion to tap into, allowing complete resurfacing of self-awareness. Good.’

She took in her surroundings trying to establish where she had moved onto. There was no way to tell how long she had been out of her mind, but the least she could do is base her distance from her previous location to establish some semblance of where and when. Her heart sank upon seeing the beautiful spires of Canterlot on the other side of the shore. Still so deep in enemy territory and wandering the mountains starved.

“Bad, bad, bad, bad, very bad!” she stammered in a harsh buzz as she reeled back from the bright city, shining like a beacon in the night. She fell back on her back leg, now remembering the reason she had been drained of love in the first place, reconstructive surgery on her own hind leg, expending every last ounce of love she had. Seeing it on the mend, Sarekii was relieved that her efforts were not in vain as it was much better than the pulverized mess it was before.

A stirring and soft moan from a nearby bush spooked her from her shock. ‘Am I always this jumpy?’ she thought to herself as she approached with cautious hooves. Lying among the brambles was a shell of a familiar moori, utterly drained of his love. Seeing the color fading from his already dark grey coat, she was surprised he was still alive. She couldn’t quite recall the name of her meal, but his lunar armor was greatly unsettling to her as feeding so completely on a possible patrolling guard could easily break her cover. She looked once again at her moonlit reflection in the gentle waters of the lake, hoping the reflection would jar some memory in her. The form seemed only vaguely familiar. Who was this mare she was supposed to be? All these ponies looked the same!

She flashed through a few variations of outfits. She first tried a draping tunic akin to old vampony stories to see if she was supposed to be an actress, but reinforcing the negative monstrous stereotype of moori ponies probably was a social faux pas. She donned a maid’s outfit that she remembered. Her nametag from the Hay n’ Stay hotel read “Hearth Stone”, a name that rang more familiarity with an earth pony she had once posed as. Looking back at the guard, she tried on some pony armor options. Flashing between the different variations, she stopped at lunar guard and recalled the familiar reflection of blue eyes looking back at her through a helmet.

‘This looks right. Good. Now think carefully, who are you now?’ she again started her prepared lines of questions to her reflection. She took several moments of intense staring as she looked herself over, playing with her kelp colored mane and tail. She bit her lip, drawing blood accidentally after forgetting this form still had fangs. Every page kept coming up blank having lost all semblance of this pony’s identity during her mind’s absence. ‘Bad… very, very bad.’

Maintaining the armor, she cantered back over to the out-of-sorts batty stallion. She waited for an answer with what to do with him, but the right move never came. ‘So… so unsure of myself, why am I so unsure of myself?! I don’t remember being this flaky and scatterbrained!’ Sarekii chastised herself, bopping her temples with her hooves as she looked over his form. She couldn’t figure out what would be the best course of action that would raise the least amount of suspicion. She could easily kill off the stupid bat and assume his identity until she figured things out, but having no knowledge of the pony would make it nigh impossible to pull off convincingly. Donning a new identity would also be the obvious easy way to lie low, but crafting a personality alone from scratch would take time she didn’t have. There were a hundred other things she could do, but none of them seemed right. Suddenly, it dawned on her. There was no mental backboard to bounce her ideas off of. No network of infiltrators to collaborate with. She knew she was alone, but the reality hadn’t sunk it just yet.

There was a distinct lack of souls in her heart, a gaping maw of silence devouring all of her thoughts like a bottomless void. Where her hive’s beautiful song had kept her on the right path throughout her life, helping her with every decision she made with clear and precise purpose, there was just her now, alone with her own thoughts. The silence was accompanied by a strange ringing in her ear; a phantom sound echoing with a single tone she hadn’t realized was there before. She tried to ignore it, covering her ears with her hooves a tone amplified from a ring to a shrill screech in her ears. The harder she pressed her ears to drown it out, the louder it became. Not just panic, but absolute terror settled in as even the quiet ambiance of the still night had become an excruciating blare. She bit into a nearby log with her fangs and shoved her head into the water to release a muffled, agonizing scream.

Gasping for air, she kicked the log loose from her mouth. She didn’t feel whole. She wasn’t her usual self, lacking the purpose from her hive. It was maddening, almost the point where she didn’t hear the sound of a crossbow bolt being locked into place. With an ear twitch, she veered around meeting the gaze of another guard, this one was an earth pony daytime royal guard, a rare sight with the recruiting office’s fondness of unicorns and pegasi. She reactively assumed a defensive stance, hoping she could pacify him before going in for a quick kill.

“I see y’all’ve taken a likin’ to a bat coltfriends,” the guard deeply drawled out with an Appaloosan twang, blantly disregarding the guise of perfect uniformity within the royal guard. As she looked into his magically recolored eyes, she saw the look of unruly determination peering back at her. If not for his white coat and royal blue mane color, she wouldn’t guess he was a guard at all the way he carried himself. He drew closer, three hooves trudging the ground carefully with his right hoof pointed with a forearm strapped crossbow aimed at Sarekii, his eyes fixed on his target with lethal precision.

“We prefer moori, earth pony,” she corrected him with forced spite. “And I was about to take my friend with me to the infirmary. Now if you’d help me get him there, I would—”

“Normally I’dda found that right neighborly of you,” he interrupted with his country-cooked gruff. “That is, if ya weren’t gonna do the same to me the moment I dropped my bolt. I can’t say I’ve come across too many of your kind, but I do know it’d be foolhardy of me to believe ya that easy.”

“How dare you! The sun and moon work together, land-walker! What are our coats of arms for if you would speak such words to me? Such outright racism towards a moori will not be tolerated, especially among the ranks of the royal guard!”

“Oh, so you know about that, do ya? Well, color me impressed. Lemme clarify your confusion ‘cause ya got three things wrong ‘bout me. One, I’m no guard, least not anymore. Two, I wasn’t callin’ the moori nothin’. Can’t rightly take offense on their part when it wasn’t meant for them because, three, you ain’t one of ‘em, sister… or brother. Can’t rightly tell when you’re disguised like that.”

The guard must’ve seen her when she was trying to establish her identity. Kicking herself for making such a novice mistake, Sarekii began weighing her options in her head. She wanted to leap right for his jugular vein for a quick evisceration, but seeing how he already called her move, she would have to prepare for a longer confrontation. She waited for him to make a move to gather a bit more information in how to proceed.

“Listen, I’m more than happy to have a good ol’ standoff at high moon, but the fella next to ya is kinda on an expiration timer, and I’m pretty sure you’re the cause of it,” he eyed the disguised changeling with aloof ire. He circled around sizing up his target as Sarekii followed suit, both of them waiting for the other to act. “C’mon then girly. You got wings n’ magic against lil ol’ me with a crossbow. Let’s see what you can do with ‘em.”

Without a second thought, Sarekii pounced towards the royal guard. Knowing a crossbow was ready to fire, she dove for the ground beneath him while dropping her disguise, causing a flare of bright neon pink magic to burst brightly around her. With the guard blinded, she swept a rear hoof under him as she passed on his side, letting her leg kick as she knocked the unsuspecting guard to the ground. With the same motion, Sarekii in her true form buzzed her gossamer wings to life, rolling into a u-turn as she darted towards the fading embers of her fiery assault. Her powerful jowls opened for her killing blow, until she noticed her lunge was being met with a fired bolt aimed directly at her head.

For a split second, she saw him, lying belly down on the ground with his crossbow forearm pointed directly at her with a bolt already too close to miss its mark. Sarekii could do nothing as she barreled face-first towards the lethal shot. Accepting her fate, she readied for death. However, instead of everything going dark, his bolt simply nicked the top of her horn, knocking the changeling off balance and causing her to tumble to the ground with a forceful crash.

Her horn throbbed with pain having felt the blunt force of a weaker crossbow shot to her head. How it didn’t impale it or cleanly sheer it off was beyond her, but at this point, Sarekii wished it had. Barely able to focus from the pain, a steady hoof rolled across her barrel to flip her onto her back. Her attention was immediately grabbed with her eye’s crisscrossing to focus upon a sharp pointy end of another bolt near her muzzle. She glared up at the wielder, noticing a singing mar across his face and helmet, except for his eyes. The shape of the burn told her the stallion had pulled his helmet down to avoid the brightly burning flames. He had seen right through her misdirection. Had this Canterlot pony fought her kind before?

“Using the low light to your advantage. Gotta give credit where credit is due, I reckon. Now, are you gonna come along quietly or am I gonna have to—”

She felt a sudden jerk as a grey flash rammed the guard off of her. Sarekii rolled over as she noticed the nearly dead moori had barely managed to crash himself into the royal guard. How he was able to pull himself back to his hooves in the first place was beyond her. She could’ve sworn he was about to die.

“Get away from my Dusky!” the moori cried, his eyes burning pink with rage. His wavering stance told a different story as the bat pony was running purely on adrenaline and what little emotion he had left.

“Aw horseapples,” the earth pony guard sputtered, the wind clearly knocked from him as he scrambled back to his hooves. With the moori barely shambling menacingly towards his target, the royal guard readied another bolt, bouncing targets between the moori and his master. “You enthralled him? Yeesh, and I thought the nobles were worried over nothin’. You’re full of surprises.”

Sarekii crawled to her hooves, her smirk grinning from ear to ear realizing it was now two against one, ever so slightly tipping the odds in her favor. However, they both were injured, the moori barely standing and her with a massive headache quickly descending into a migraine among the already throbbing silence in her head. However, no guard worth their rank would raise a real hoof against one of their own. More likely than not, his intention would be to save this lunar guard. With him in such a weak state, there was little he would be able to do without killing him. She could use compassion against him to make her escape!

“Go, my love. Kill him. Kill him for me!” Sarekii chortled with delight as she frilled her neck fin.

Wordlessly heeding the command, the moori lunged with all of his might towards the guard with blind fury. Seeing her moment to flee come, she turned to away from the battle, making a break for the trees.

“Sorry pal, you’re gonna have to forgive me later.”

She looked over her shoulder as she ran to see the earth pony swiftly unfasten the straps of his armor. With a fluid motion, the guard flipped to his back while pulling his rear legs close to him as he tumbled backwards. The motion rolled him out of his armor as the hypnotized moori barely missed his target, darting harmlessly above him. With a powerful buck, the guard kicked his rear legs into the passing moori, throwing his killing trajectory completely off as he floundered skyward and towards the lake’s center before arcing down to the water with a splash.

Sarekii turned her attention back to see her miscalculation play out as she saw the white of the guard’s white coat wash away to a dusty orange. His cutie mark of a boot sitting next to a pair of binoculars came into view as he rolled back up to his hooves. Pulling another bolt out as he rolled over his discarded armor, he aimed and fired in the same motion towards Sarekii. She leapt for the safe obfuscation of nearby bushes to make her getaway. That was until a searing pain shot up her bad leg in mid air. She screamed and flailed to the ground as her neurons fired in agony with a chitin shattering bolt wedging itself into her now reopened wound.

The guard reached into a saddlebag attached to his armor and retrieved a silver vial from the pouch. He tossed it to the ground, unleashing a bright, ear rattling explosion of sparkles resonating with obnoxiously loud magic climbing higher into the sky, easily catching the attention of any other ponies in Canterlot. Completely exposed, Sarekii tried to scramble to her hooves, but the piercing bolt embedded in what was left of her bad leg’s joints refused to let her budge. The throbbing migraine that had settled ensured she wasn’t going to try flying or using her magic anytime soon. Sarekii was completely immobilized.

With a chilling finality, the gruff stallion retrieved one last vile instrument he had stored in his pouch and trotted over to the helpless changeling. It was a strange, flexible jelly orb filled with a dark amber colored liquid. He held it over with serious judgment over her like an executioner waiting to drop a guillotine.

“Do you know what this is, missy?” he asked, holding over the bitterly enraged changeling. Though she wore a scowl, her shivering told a different story. She shook her head in disagreement not knowing the substance. The guard sighed as he swished the loose jelly ball around, looking up and down the changeling noticing her bright coloration. “Use your imagination. Try picturin’ if it was pink.”

All the bravado fell from her visage as she painted the goo pink in her mind. The first thought was it was a bluff, but how could he lie without knowing what it was? There was no way this earth pony stallion could’ve gotten hold of Suppression Spittle. Equestria wasn’t aware of the changeling race until a couple of days ago. How could he have gotten his hooves on such a dangerous changeling substance?

“This here is a gift from the lil’ misses that I’d rather not have to use,” the guard said with a disturbing amount of sincerity. “Now, you listen to ol’ Scruffy good now. Us Bootlys can be quite the forgivin’ sorts, but if you try to get away while I go moori fishin’, I’m afraid this bit of unholy jelly might not give us the opportunity to make amends.”

Scruffy turned Sarekii’s head to the right, laying it flat on the ground while shooting a bolt directly through one of the holes in her horn. He then carefully placed the spittle bomb over Sarekii’s head, ensuring that if she tried to move, her horn’s edge would catch the edge of the gooey bubble, popping it to release its lobotomizing liquid all over her head and horn. She wasn’t sure if her captor knew just how much mortal danger he had placed her in or not. Cutting off her supply of love right now would be a death sentence, being unable to heal her own injuries.

“Glad we understand each other. Now you rest a spell while I go save your coltfriend.”

Beaten, humiliated, and afraid, Sarekii, a proud pink elite warrior of the Keemah Concordant, hoofpicked by Queen Keemah herself for infiltrating one of the most dangerous cities in the world, whimpered in the face of dying alone.

The bustling of nurses, doctors, and patients resounded throughout the halls of the castle’s medical wing. The post-invasion treatments had tapered off in number since invasion day, but it was still a never-ending barrage of sounds and voices bouncing around the pristine, sterile walls filling the entire area with a constant stream of noise. Doctors talked to patients about treatments, machines beeped and whirred as they recorded findings, and families chatted in both hope and fear regarding their injured, sick, or missing love ones.

However, for all the business filling the air with an orchestra of modern medicine, one quiet, protected corner of the medical wing remained ominously silent: the emergency room. Nurses and royal guards took turns keep an eye on the halls leading towards the ER by both princesses’ orders. Nopony was to go in or out without special permission, but at the same time, nopony could know the area was off limits. It was a quandary of curiosity, only stemmed by a sense of loyal duty to their rulers that they remained surreptitiously vigilant.

Of course, the obvious exception to this rule was the princess herself. With a dignified, yet hasty canter, Celestia made her way into the medical wing, seeking the familiar double doors of the emergency room. She smiled in relief having finally found her way through the maze of the royal castle. She had taken far too much time having lost her sense of direction several times on her journey, but time wasn't exactly of the essence with her current timetable. Pushing through to the sets of doors leading into the room, she braced herself for a conversation she was not looking forward to in the least.

Inside was just as she expected to find it. Chromina was still sleeping, suspended in the green makeshift regen-i-gel just as it should be. She couldn’t help but notice how grossly out of place the gooey, crystalline spittle structure was amid the other pony medical equipment. Jury rigged somewhat sloppily with just enough spontaneous work-arounds to keep it functioning, it was an ugly blemish on what would usually be a beautifully white room. She checked the room to ensure nopony was watching, however, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something, or rather somepony, who was not supposed to be there.

Lying on a cot pulled closely to the side of the changeling medipod was a forlorn Fluttershy. She said nothing or did anything as the princess approached her quietly. She either hadn’t noticed the room’s addition of a royal princess or she didn’t care. All she did was stare at the sleeping beast in her cage, her eyes puffy and red with unease and uncertainty scrawled into her face with every dried tear streak marring her beautiful coat.

“Fluttershy…” Celestia finally uttered as she neared the pegasus.

Fluttershy popped her head up hearing the princess’s voice. The meek pegasus looked over Celestia’s tired features with her royal magenta eyes having lost their depth developed over ages and ages of life and her glorified mane hanging listless to her side. Not bothering to address Celestia, Fluttershy sank back down to her sullied, depressed state.

“Fluttershy, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Fluttershy played with her hooves, twiddling them slightly being obviously uncomfortable trying to find the right words to say. She nibbled on her lower lip as her eyes darted back and forth between her clacking hooves as if she was consulting them for their guidance. After a lingering silence between the two ponies, Fluttershy finally spoke up.

“Do…” she started before biting back her words. She tried again, mustering up the courage to talk about something she should never look into. “Do you think I’m being selfish?”

Celestia hadn’t been expecting that reply, but she hoped it was just a slip of the tongue. “Fluttershy, come with me. You shouldn’t be out of bed. You’re still emotionally compromised.”

Princess Celestia neared the downtrodden pony, laying a gentle wing across her back. Fluttershy didn’t reciprocate by leaning into the motherly fold, instead opting to look up to the princess waiting for the answer to her previous question.

“Come now, why would I think you, of all ponies, would be selfish?” Celestia laughed, trying to dodge the question as the two looked upon the suspended silver changeling.

“Because I want all of my friends back. I don’t want to say goodbye to any one of them ever again.”

Any sweeter, and Fluttershy’s sentiments would be enough to give the princess a cavity. Celestia felt the little trembles of the pony in her embrace. She could feel it in her voice. Fluttershy was scared, incredibly so as one shivers while watching a loved one slip away into death’s final embrace. It was a mental state that the princess had become very familiar with in her line of work.

“Oh Fluttershy,” Celestia softly spoke, trying to impart the warming love she was known for. “It’s not selfish to want everything to turn out alright. I too wish for everypony to come back safe and sound.”

“Every… pony…” Fluttershy loosely murmured as her gaze focused on her own convexed reflection staring back at her from the side of the medipod. “And what about Chromi? What’s going to happen to her when Rainbow Dash comes back?”

Celestia’s heart sank upon hearing those words. She knew Fluttershy was oddly attached to Chromina, the kind pegasus even had a cute nickname for her. To what extent, thought, wasn’t deemed important enough to have been shared in the link.

“W-why are you so concerned with her well-being? She kidnapped Rainbow Dash and has done who knows what with…” Celestia trailed as Fluttershy gazed up at the princess, her eyes telling her she wasn't going to fall for the misdirection.

“The princess said all life is sacred," Fluttershy offered.

“Yes, my dear Fluttershy, you are most certainly right. I did say that,” Celestia agreed with a sweet smile to the pegasus before turning an angry eye to the bottled changeling. “However, this one would see an end to so many lives. I cannot abide that possibility.”

“Oh…” Fluttershy somehow shrank further down into the cot as she tried to find more words to say as another pause lingered in the room. “Is… is that what she told you?”

“No. She didn’t tell me anything of the sort. But I do know what something like her is capable of,” Celestia sneered as her hot glower fell upon Chromina.

“I see. So she lied to you too, Miss Nurse,” Fluttershy sighed with sorrowful disappointment, catching Celestia completely off guard. She had chalked up the seemingly lack of royal respect to Fluttershy and her friends being special friends of the two sisters.

Heartthrob knew her disguise was lacking since not her former queen could pull off the ethereal mane, but she hadn't expected somepony to see through it so easily after all she went through to get here. Everypony had assumed she was just tired, why did Fluttershy see through her so easily? She could feel the fleeting shambles of her mask finally slipping off as the pegasus looked upon her in dismay. Maintaining her borrowed royal form, she straightened up, releasing Fluttershy from her wing’s embrace as she approached the tube and laying a hoof upon the side of the spittle glass. Words seemed to escape the her as she tried to figure out a good retort to test the waters of their exchange.

“And how can you be so certain she lied to me and not you?” Heartthrob offered, slipping into her normal buzzing voice.

“Because I know Chromi would never hurt anyone.”

That was not the right answer for anything in the room to hear. The changeling's brow furrowed at those words, ‘Chromina would never hurt anyone,’ as if Fluttershy had any right to say those words with such confidence! The fake Celestia looked back for the slightest hint of deception or enthrallment, but those bitter-tasting words rang clearly with no hesitation from such a kind, naïve pony.

“And how would you know that?” the disguised nurse spat back, recalling the thoughts Chromina had foisted upon her. “How could you? You were barely beyond a little filly when she met you. You can’t simply defend someling you barely know! She’s not some defenseless creature to be pitied, Fluttershy. She’s a monster!”

“But she’s not a monster! If you know about that, then you should know her better than anyone here!” Fluttershy pleaded, her eyes searching for tears to shed knowing their last hope was slipping away. She stumbled from the cot, approaching the shape-shifter with purposeful strides. “Don’t you see? Chromi is only acting like one because she’s scared! She’s so awfully scared of everypony and herself that she won’t let anypony close, not even me!”

  Heartthrob backed away from Fluttershy as the usually meek pegasus reached out begging for help, not from an immortal leader, but the changeling poorly dressed as her. “Miss Nurse, I’m sorry that I didn’t catch your name earlier, and I don’t know what Chromi did to make you hate her so much, but you’re the only one who can put a stop to this. Whatever she is having you do isn’t going to help anypony. We need to help her tell everypony the truth! Don't let her do this!”

Heartthrob searched her memories. So many blanks in Chromina’s tale littered her mind that it was hard to pick the truths from the lies. The added partial perspective conflicted with so many of her engrained, bitter thoughts that had built up for over a decade. However, when viewed from a distance, the holes formed a distinct pattern in the shape of a little pink-maned, cream-coated filly that held such a cherished place in that monster’s heart. In the end, all of this was for her, and it was a gift that now fully-grown pegasus no longer wanted.

“Please…  Princess Celestia gave Princess Luna a second chance. Can’t you give Chromina one?”

The changeling closed her eyes as she recalled the pity. That regret the monster couldn't hide from her. However, further below was the missing memory in the changeling's own life. It was the one trump card that kept her consistently in line with Chromina’s goals. Such sickly foresight had gone into this plan as the detestable shape-shifter had prepared for the possibility of Fluttershy trying to stop what she didn’t understand. Things were so much bigger than her now, and every moment wasted was another which could become a death sentence for everyone: pony, changeling, and otherwise.

“You’re right, you are being selfish,” she quavered darkly in Celestia's voice to Fluttershy as her horn began glowing with a sickly amber spell. “You need Rainbow Dash, I need Heartthrob. Now I have to hold up my end of the bargain.”

Before Fluttershy could react, an amber aura descended upon the hapless pegasus. She struggled to break free, but with every passing second, her eyes grew heavier under the oppressive power of the sedation spell. She reached a hoof out to Celestia’s imposter as Heartthrob dropped her disguise. Fluttershy mouthed one final plea before drifting away into silent slumber.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I’m so, so sorry.”