Madame Butterfly

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
Chapter 7

Chapter 2

The Great and Powerful Trixie

Too well, The Great and Powerful Trixie knew the bloodied and battered face gazing blindly up at her. It was one she'd seen every day of her life. She couldn't let the owner of that face die. The owner of that face was just too pretty for Trixie to let her die. So without a second thought she scrambled down into the dirty, dangerous mess the other pony's crash had left.

For the face was her own.

Of course, this situation wasn't entirely unknown to a pony as great and powerful as the Great and Powerful Trixie. There were myriad reasons other ponies would want to look like her, ranging from straightforward escapism from their plebeian lives, to a desire to impress her. Which could be fun, especially if the pony in question was pretty enough, and up for a good time – before the mask of perfection inevitably slipped and ruined Trixie's favourite fantasy.

Other ponies had darker reasons to imponysonate her, of course: Charlatans freeloading on The Great and Powerful Trixie's great and powerful reputation, no-talent noponies thieving the accolades that were Trixie's by right – not even Twilight Sparkle had sunk so low.

Such motivations made little sense in the middle of nowhere, though, since there was nopony here to impress but Trixie herself, and for a sincere and flatteringly accurate imitation such as this Trixie would've gleefully rewarded the other pony with her favours.

If the other Trixie weren't dying in ditch, of course.

But such an impressive, albeit destructive, entrance as to plunge from a clear blue sky- Trixie paused, glanced up: Yes, the sky was entirely free of airships, chariots drawn by careless pegasi, or even clouds. Such an impressive entrance as to plunge from a clear blue sky suggested this pony might be as great and powerful as Trixie herself – ergo propter hoc, she probably was Trixie herself. From the future, or perhaps from one of the many other worlds, as theorised in the book of Seligpony DeWitt's. She would've checked, but that book, if it'd even survived, was now in the hooves of Twilight Sparkle – and who knew what she might be doing to it!

Still, it would be best to check the obvious things first. Trixie – being Great and Powerful – was expert at all kinds of magic, but she knew her forte was the spells of illusion that'd amazed and delighted her when she was the smallest of foals. Those magics she'd learned at her mother's knee, or riding on her back, or being levitated along beside her, or dangling precociously from her horn.

Those were the spells it was her special talent to share with the (ungrateful, unworthy, frequently unwashed) masses. And because of those jealous unicorns who might try to disrupt her life's work, the Great and Powerful Trixie had become very great at some very powerful illusion-counterspells (and illusion-counter-counterspells, naturally, it being very important to keep one's horn ahead of even the most studious of troublemaking unicorns like Twilight Sparkle).

She cast such a spell now, and watched the wave of energy wash over the other Trixie.

Nothing happened: Astounding beauty and horrific injuries both remained.

Trixie whimpered. If some monster of the Outlands beat her to death, this was what she'd look like just before she died. Not that some jealous ponies couldn't have done this back in Equestria – that earthpony brute with the lasso, Twilight Sparkle's friend Applejack, had been looking at Trixie as if she'd wanted Trixie's corpse as manure for her pear trees. Bucking earthpony, unreliable, untrustworthy...

Trixie wrenched her mind back to the horrors of the present. She just didn't know what she could do for the other Trixie. Half her skin was blackened and ruined, her horn was broken and jagged. In places Trixie could see through the holes smashed clear through her hooves, and everywhere, everywhere, was the blood. More, mixed with foulness Trixie hadn't imagined lay within a pony, pumped out of the second Trixie with every beat of her dying heart.

The Great and Powerful Trixie cradled the Broken and Ruined Trixie in her forelegs, her hooves tenderly stroking the beautiful mane of this beautiful mare, who'd come so far to be with the one mare who could possibly be worthy of her love, only to lie dying in Trixie's arms.

“Shh,” Trixie whispered, “I'm here. It's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay,” she lied. For all her great power, there was nothing Trixie could do. She buried her face in the dying mare's bloodsoaked coat, and wept bitter tears.

Awhile later, the other Trixie stood up and embraced her.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Sinisteed

Sinisteed's head hurt, because he'd just beaten the City of Canterlot's shield down with it – such was the fate of a siegebrood changeling of the swarm. Not that it was his to question the Queen, but couldn't they just have dropped rocks on it or something?

There, he sensed from one of his clutchmates, thoseponies. He glanced down in time to see the purple one dig a hole in one of Canterlot's streets with a siegebrood changeling's head, and winced in sympathy.

Nevertheless, needs must, and so too the Queen's orders. Still, he was happy to hear his broodmates buzzing in to land behind him, as he dropped down in front of these 'Elements of Harmony'.

Then, all of a sudden, he wasn't. Love poured out of the six of them, a banquet freely laid before a starving changeling, a balm for his wounds, and all he had to do was morph into the Rainbow pony's form to receive it: From the yellow one, the pink one, the orange one, from the Rainbow pegasus herself (so cute when she was confused). The unicorns, both white and purple coated, loved the Rainbow the least, and he wondered if it was merely some snobbishness over her lack of a horn, immediately followed by the thought: I can changeling that.

Before he could transform into an Alicorn-interpretation of the Rainbow, he felt his broodmates – and some changelings not even that close, being merely swarmmates – match his transformation, and the love the Elements felt for him frayed into channels directed at a dozen different changelings.

So he took his anger at those no-talent-hack-copyponies and punched the Rainbow in the face with it. That snapped her out of her confusion, and then the fight started.

A clutch of changelings imponysonating the purple unicorn leapt past him. “They're changelings, remember,” they chorused in the Rainbow's face. What purpose did that serve, since the purple unicorn wasn't in love with herself, nor was the Rainbow in love with her? As far as he'd been able to sense, anyway...

Changelings morphed all around them, into form the Elements of Harmony – which could only end well.

“Don't let them distract you. We have to get to the Elements of Harmony. They're our only hope!” So commanded the purple unicorn. Thanks for outlining the plan, sweetheart, and thanks for identifying yourself as the leader – also known as the priority target.

Both changelings and trueponies charged.

There was dust and debris everywhere – the siegebrood was great at reducing things to dust – and somewhere inside the clouds of it were the six 'Elements of Harmony'', being chased by scores of changelings from dozens of clutches, all of whom were expertly imponysonating one or another of those selfsame Elements. The usual SNABU.

Three changelings in the form of the yellow pegasus approached the actual yellow pegasus with murder in their eyes... then shrugged and walked right past her as she hoofboxed the air! Idiots! That was the real one! Or at least, he'd thought it was...

She fled right into the face of four copies of the Rainbow, who clearly shared his belief as they prepared to do violence to the innocent yellow truepegasus – then one of them rose up on her hindhooves and revealed herself to be the real Rainbow by kicking the stuffing out of her three imponysonators.

He winced – one of them had been his clutchmate – and turned back to his own target of the moment, the orange earthpony. She was, uh, that one, he thought, picking her out of the melee and leaping. In the guise of the purple unicorn, he clouted her over the head, and as she collapsed he felt horn grate against his hoof, before she melted back into the form of a changeling.

Oops. Wrongpony.

Then a baker's dozen of the orange earthpony surrounded him. Double-oops. And they looked PO'd, clearly thinking him to be the true iteration of the purple unicorn. Situational badness upgraded to BUBAR.

He backed up... right into one of them, also retreating into the circle. Huh? And he felt strong with her love. Oh. Truepony. His transformation stripped in a blaze of green neon, he turned, snarled, and leapt on her.

“Okay, this is just getting weird.” You said it, sister, he thought, and in that moment felt truly connected to the truepony. Then fourteen other copies of her ponypiled on top of them, and he had cause to be glad of the nicely padded flanks beneath him.

Hard purple light blasted his fellow changelings off of them, and not a moment too soon. The purple unicorn dangled him over in front of her, and it was all too easy to imagine the crunch his exoskeleton would make – the last thing he'd ever hear – as her telekinesis crushed him like a bug. “Real me, real me!” He shouted, and hoped the purple unicorn wasn't as smart as she looked.

She studied him, and his (stolen) hat. Then, Queen be praised, she dropped him – onto his hooves, even!

His smile was almost sincere.

A changeling who's exquisite form in imponysonation he recognised as belonging to Mirror (who he secretly rather admired, and who had found his admiration rather tasty on more than one occasion) was morphing into each of the Elements in turn, to the apparent delight of the pink pony. Still, she couldn't be getting much benefit from it no matter how much the pink poofy-haired pony loved it – transformation was exhausting.

“Do me, do me,” the pink pony bounced, and Mirror complied – with an eye-roll typical of her. He couldn't see anything wrong with the result, but the pink pony was apparently a connoisseur. “Meh, I've seen better,” she said, seized the purple unicorn from beside him, and used her to blast Mirror with a pulse of magic.

Then she pumped the unicorn's tail up and down, releasing bolt after bolt of pink-purple lightning to strike down changeling after changeling.

How was that even possible? Clearly, it wasn't, and the pink pony was cheating.

Then the real version of the orange earthpony tapped him on the shoulder, clouted him over the head, and took back her Stetson. "Shouldn'ta taken mah hat, sugahcube," she said. "Ah like mah hat," and that was the end of Sinisteed's fight.

From the cool, restful flagstones he watched - reverted to changeling form - as the Elements of Harmony proceeded to demolish the remainder of his fellow changelings of the siegebrood, and galloped for the building the brood had been ordered to keep them out of.

Frankly, it would've been more in the style of the siegebrood to have secured the building by reducing it to a smoking pile of rubble. Let the Elements dig through that to find their jewellery, hah! Except the Queen had forbidden it, for some unfathomable Queenly reason.

The building, when they reached it, turned out to be full of strikebrood changelings.

After that, the Elements came quietly, though insufficiently early to spare his aching head.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

“I thought you were going to die – and you've only just gotten here, too,” the platinum-haired unicorn sniffed. Paused, as her eyes teared. “I hate you,” she sobbed.

Chrysalis was confused. She knew the other pony didn't hate her. In fact, she was very pleasantly whelmed by just how much the other pony didn't hate her. It seemed to her she'd never tasted anything as delicious as the other pony's love for her – although that could be because its nourishment had saved her from certain death. Of her confusion, she gave neither sign nor sound. The memory of being the demure Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was still fresh.

In Canterlot it was considered rude to talk with your mouth full.

“Trixie thought you were going to leave,” the unicorn said, her tears trickling down Chrysalis's coat, “just like everypony leaves if Trixie waits long enough. Trixie thought you were going to leave and never come back to Trixie, just like she did, even though she promised-” the unicorn sniffled, snorting back her tears. “Trixie is... sorry. You didn't leave. Trixie always knew Trixie was the onlypony Trixie could trust, and Trixie was right. The Great and Powerful Trixie is always right. I know I'm right that I can trust you, because you're Trixie, just like me,” Trixie - apparently, this unicorn was 'Trixie' - pulled back a little, and gazed lovingly into Chrysalis's eyes. “You're me, from the future, aren't you? The way you healed yourself... and time-travel! You're so powerful, future-Trixie. Do you have wings yet? Or are you already an Alicorn? Your healing... was that your immortality!?"

Intriguing. Chrysalis could see she – or rather, the pony her instincts were imitating – had a brilliant azure coat, her platinum mane tinged with the palest of winter sky blue... exactly like the weepy pony before her.

Under other circumstances she would've believed herself to be imponysonating a lost parent or sib of Trixie's, but in this case Trixie's love had the very specific flavour of umami she associated with love for oneself. A rare delicacy indeed for a changeling, since ponies became suspicious to see themselves outside of mirrors. Self-adoration was in any-case rare in Equestria, despite its pony inhabitants abundance of love for one another. Chrysalis had only twice tasted such a pure flavour of umami once in Canterlot, once from a particularly obnoxious royal stallion named Blueblood, and once from a very self-absorbed pony with some role or other in 'her' wedding to Shining Armor – was there something about the blue-coated ones? - and this Trixie was serving a veritable banquet straight to her.

Yum.

“I'm not your future self, Trixie,” said Chrysalis, “and I didn't save myself. It was your power which healed me.”

“It was!?” Trixie paused. “Ahem, I mean, of course it was. Think nothing of it. Such a thing is but a trifle for me, the Greatest and Most Powerful Trixie of EveryTrixie!”

“Um,” Trixie continued, cloak settling once more across her back as she lowered herself. “Were you driven from your dimension by an alliance of that nefarious mare Twilight Sparkle and her boastful, bullying hick-town Ponyville friends?” Chrysalis took Trixie's hoof, and let the mare pull her out of the dirt where Trixie's forehoof had (inadvertently) kicked her. “Because don't worry! Between your dimension-hopping spell and my great power, we can return to your dimension, and two Trixies will surely prevail where one alone...” Trixie trailed off, and Chrysalis thought the word she'd choked on had probably been failed. “Anyway... well. It might be better to collect my books first, though. Who knows what that madmare Twilight Sparkle might be doing to them in my absence? That debauched librarian could be lending them out to anypony...”

Unlike Shining Armor, The 'Great and Powerful' Trixie was apparently not the strong and silent type.

“Trixie?” Chrysalis prompted, waving her hoof before the other pony's eyes. They were slightly glazed, and her breathing had gone heavy and somewhat shallow. And Chrysalis was no longer the bright center of all her love and attention, which was quite unacceptable. “Trixie? Trixie!” She shouted, poking at the unicorn with her hoof.

“Bwuh?” Trixie said, and fell on her haunches, before her eyes focused on Chrysalis once more. The changeling revelled, briefly, in the slightly sticky taste of Trixie's love for her, as Trixie's eyes slid down her flank. “Do... do you think we should use your spell to find a third Trixie, first? So we've got somepony to, you know," she blushed, very clearly against her blue coat, "watch our flanks?”

Chrysalis wasn't sure it was flank-watching Trixie had in mind. Trixie was drawing little patterns in the dust with her forehoof. Apparently, her designs absolutely fascinated her, though her gaze kept flickering up and around Chrysalis.

This happened sometimes, Chrysalis reflected, usually at the moment when the mare she'd been imponysonating trotted in on her and their colt in medias res. The look in Trixie's eyes was the one those colts sometimes got, if she hadn't eaten enough of them yet.

She knew what it meant, of course. Oftentimes, if the colt made what lay behind that look explicit, their marefriends had tried to kill them rather than Chrysalis – giving her a chance to escape.

In principle she didn't have anything against such things, but there also wasn't much point in it for her: Half of two fed her no more than all of one. Besides, it was physically messy, and that kind of love was difficult to clean out from her porous hooves. Further, in this particular unique case, she had to put Trixie off the idea of using Chrysalis's dimension-hopping spell, because Chrysalis didn't have a dimension-hopping spell.

“I know what you're imagining,” Chrysalis said, picking up her forehooves and resting them across Trixie's shoulders. Their faces were quite close together, and Trixie was blushing up an inferno. The pony loved her very much. For her part, that was very welcome, because Chrysalis still hurt in a number of ways, and she was very, very hungry. “But I'm afraid I do not play well or share nicely with others.”

“Oh.” Trixie said. “No, nor does Trixie.” Paused. Her head tilted slightly, and it might've been an accident that the shift moved her muzzle forward slightly “I mean, this Trixie,” she corrected.

“My little pony,” Chrysalis said fiercely, and pressed her lips forward.

Trixie could feel Trixie's naked hunger for Trixie, and it felt good. It was the feeling Trixie got from giving every member of a howling crowd a splash of what she had, leaving everypony gasping for more. But Trixie didn't want to leave Trixie begging, Trixie was worthy of everything Trixie had.

Trixie poured herself body and soul into Chrysalis, who ate every drop.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Author's Note: The changeling 'Mirror' was named in the so-far excellent 'Smoke and Mirrors' by 'Tea Party Cannon'. I hope they won't mind my calling them a fellow-traveller on this particular path.

Chapter 3

Chrysalis

“W-wait...” The Great and Powerful Trixie stammered. “S-stop... there's a rock digging into my flank.” Her voice could barely be heard above a whisper. “Ohh, I don't feel so good,” she moaned.

Chrysalis stood up, the 'Great and Powerful' Trixie trembling between her hooves, and stepped back. She'd almost... she'd almost... it wouldn't have been the first time someone had loved her to (their) death. Sometimes that was necessary. Necessary, appropriate and kind of good fun, but out here in the wilderness there was nopony else. She had to ration her Trixie, because if she feasted now she'd starve before getting back to Equestria and whatever remained of her swarm.

Returning home was out of the question.

She extended a foreleg, and pulled a still-shaky Trixie back onto her hooves.

Or rather, returning home was exactly what she had to do, because Equestria and its adorable, adoring ponies were her home now.

Her new home. Being where the heart is, naturally.

So what if it was a bit more of a fixer-upper than she'd originally intended. It was still better than-

-but that was not even to be thought of. “Are you all right?” She asked, concern feigned to perfection.

“Ah, Trixie is feeling a little drained,” Trixie admitted, her face almost as pale as her mane.“Healing your injuries must've been – Trixie means, was – very powerful magic.” At this, Trixie attempted to rear to her full height, which only led to some staggering about. Chrysalis supported her with a bit of subtle telekinesis. “Not that Trixie isn't used to very powerful magic, but... thank you,” said Trixie, somewhat to the changeling's surprise. She had not thought the braggart unicorn would notice the sliver of magic. She would have to be more cautious in future. “Perhaps we should not have attempted...” Trixie trailed off, and a cocksure grin replaced her hesitant expression. “It was fun though.”

Of course it was 'fun', Chrysalis thought. You just lay there whilst I... but she could hardly complain. She'd drained the unicorn right off her hooves.

“I'm sorry I didn't...” Trixie said, her body curling around itself in a futile attempt to hide her radiant blushing.

“Next time,” Chrysalis dismissed it. “For which I shall arrange a bed.”

“Or at least a couch,” Trixie yawned, “or maybe just clear the rocks away,” she mumbled. Chrysalis trotted over, and nuzzled the sleepy pony. Trixie smiled as their lips met. “You taste of me,” she murmured. “Well, of course you do...” and her eyes slid closed into sleep.

Chrysalis licked her lips. Moisture was not to be wasted in the desert, for even a changeling could not live by love alone. Besides, this moisture had Trixie's love in it, and the adorable blue unicorn was delicious.

Quietly, she surveyed the road, and the wreckage of Trixie's wagon. Then she set to work.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Sinisteed

My name is Sinisteed. I am immune. Besides the trueponies, I am the only survivor in Canterlot.

How the buck am I going to get my carapace out of this one?

He'd stayed in the throneroom, though Queen Chrysalis had sent the rest of his brood away. Strictly speaking, she'd ordered them to: 'Go! Feed!'

Since he'd already fed, he'd had the strength of will remaining to interpolate that to 'stay now and feed on the Elements later'. Not for nothing had he (mildly) misinterpreted his Queen's commands, but the Elements were a powerful source of love – especially if he wore the Rainbow's form, and that chance was worth some risk to pursue.

Besides... and it had been difficult even to think this, but besides... the Queen was keeping secrets. Which was a Queenly prerogative of course... but she was also acting weird. Which was perfectly normal – up to a point. Queens shouldn't get too weird. How weird was too weird was for other Queens to decide; however... however, in Equestria, there were no other Queens to decide. Even coming to Equestria was in and of itself weird...

Then the wave had come, and gone, and he'd been the only changeling to survive it. Not even Queen Chrysalis had survived it – or, if she had, she was now far from Canterlot. She'd been defeated, and that was very important.

“Guardponies!” Shining Armor shouted. “Princess Celestia's been-” he glanced up at the sticky cocoon dangling from the throneroom's ceiling, that contained Celestia. “Been gooped,” he finished, somewhat weakly. “Get her down from there!”

It was possible to construct an argument that the trueponies beloved Celestia was a Queen – with the key word in that sentence being 'beloved'. The adoration of an entire nation would clearly endow a changeling Queen (or an Alicorn pony, if that was even possible) with the vast powers Celestia was reputed to wield. Self-styling oneself 'Princess' – i.e. less-than-Queen – was weird, though, and although Queens were allowed to be weird he wasn't sure they were allowed to be humble.

It would be most simple if Celestia herself were a canny changeling Queen merely imponysonating an Alicorn pony. Sinisteed had seen no sign of this, however, and in any case if it were true then where was her swarm? Absence of swarm wasn't necessarily a strike against a Queen, but... well... It made one nervous if a Queen didn't look after her things when you were considering becoming one of her things.

Although, come to think of it, Celestia's royal guardponies were suspiciously identical...

It was all purely academic discourse anyway, since Celestia had clearly been bested by Queen Chrysalis, and trial-by-combat was the only means for one Queen to depose another. A quorum of Queens could do things differently, but, again, here in Equestria...

“You, Guardpony!” Shining Armor snapped. Then Cadance nuzzled the guard-captain, and he calmed.

Sinistreed looked down. His hooves were white, and – he fluffed them – he had pegasus wings. Apparently, he'd shifted himself into the form of one of Celestia's minions when Queen Chrysalis and her plans had gone west.

“Guardpony,” Shining said again. “Quit cowering behind me, and help the Princess!”

He had not been cowering! He'd been nibbling on the edges of Shining's and Cadance's love – and then the wave had happened.

“Yessir!” Sinisteed snapped, and sprung into the air. The issue of whose orders, precisely, he ought to be following had become rather confused, since now Queen Chrysalis had clearly been defeated. Defeated by the very ponies she'd been feeding from and imponysonating no less, which was rather humiliating for any changeling, let alone a Queen. Plus, even if she wasn't a changeling (Queen Chrysalis had been imponysonating her), Cadance had channelled the power of love to defeat Chrysalis. That raised fascinating questions about what the prerequisite qualifications for becoming Queen of the Swarm actually were. On the other hoof, Chrysalis was apparently still Queen, since Princess Mi Amore Cadenza hadn't claimed that title (self-styled Princess, must be a pony thing). Nor had she kept the swarm around to proclaim her dominion over it, Chrysalis, Celestia, and all of Equestria.

These questions were far from his academic musings about Celestia, since - unlike the rest of the swarm - he'd been immune to the wave. He alone hadn't been banished by Princess Cadanza. So if she were an acceptable aspirant Queen, then it'd been she that'd rejected the swarm (not the other way around, although the idea of a swarm rejecting a Queen was literally unthinkable)... which gave Sinisteed a problem. Because if she were an aspirant Queen, a 'Princess' (a useful word, implying the possibility of Queenship without outright stating it) in more than name, then... then... Cadance was his Queen now.

The logic was inescapable, which was troubling, since Sinisteed knew he'd survived the wave only by the chance of his immunity, and it was readily apparent either Changeling Queen Cadenza or Alicorn Princess Mi Amore could crush him like a bug.

“Perhaps if we bucked it,” one of the pegasus guardponies surrounding Celestia's cocoon suggested as Sinisteed buzzed up. He was careful to keep any sign of the troubling thoughts whirling inside his head from the dullwitted guardpegasi face he wore.

“Buck the Princess in the face?” Replied another guardspegasi. “Are you mad?”

It was clear they were all aflutter. Besides, since Celestia was dangling from her hindhooves, it'd be more like bucking her in the p-

“Maybe if we could get a unicorn up here, they could do some, I don't know-” said another.

“Cutting magic?” Said the first.

“Or you could summon the royal beautician and try hoof-varnish remover,” Sinisteed whispered. Acetone might work. In fact, there were lots of things that might work. Most of them would dissolve pony flesh. Whether this would result in a freed pony-princess-god, or a Celestia sized puddle of ick, he preferred not to speculate. Some of the more energetic possibilities would leave a smoking crater a mile wide where Canterlot once stood, and the mountain that shared the city's name scattered from here to Ponyville. Some ponies would call that overkill. Anychangeling of the siegebrood would say there's no such thing - only 'open fire' and 'time to reload'.

“It's royal jelly,” he said, much louder. Royal jelly was what you'd use to breed a Queen – or contain one. It absorbed love. Put love and a changeling grub into it, and you got a Queen. Imprison a beloved Queen into it, and the love pouring into her would stick in the gummy outer layers. It was delicious, and for the usurping Queen's taste-buds only. Such a shame Queen Chrysalis wasn't around to eat Celestia's jelly. “You have to eat it,” he said, and took a big bite.

“What in Nightmare's name are you doing!?” Shining Armor shouted, and Cadance dug her horn into his ribs.

“Not since Aunty Luna came back, remember?” She hissed. Most ponies couldn't have heard that, but a love-flushed changeling could, no problem. Besides, it was quiet at the moment. The pegasi guards feathered wingbeats were a lot quieter than a changeling's buzzing, and their mouths had been gummed together by jelly.

Sinisteed's fangs cut through it easily. “Eating the Princess out, Sir,” he called back.

Cadance nickered. A moment later, Shining Armor got it. “You mind that manure, mare!” He snapped. “Uh, stallion.”

“Oh, behave,” Cadance said, smiling at her fiancée. “Aunty Celly wouldn't mind a little innocent innuendo. Besides, it seems to be working.” She paused, looking up at the guardspegasi, most of them with their mouths stickily gummed together. “Although maybe I ought to go and help them.”

“Are you sure you want to be eating that stuff?” Shining Armor said, wrapping a forehoof around his fiancée. He paused. “Are you sure my guardpegasi should be eating that stuff?”

“In the service of their Princess,” she said, smirking back at him. “Besides, they do seem to be enjoying it.”

"Yes," Shining Armor said, looking up. "True. It's like sticky apple toffee, or something. Half of them are getting stuck into it and the other half have got their faces stuck in it. But I don't like the way the new kid's eating his way towards Princess Celestia's..." he blushed, "well, towards the royal posterior. It's a little, well..."

With a bark of laughter at her fiancée's discomfiture and a double wham of displaced air, Cadance leapt into the air, and flew up to circle her aunt.

Sinisteed felt Cadance's feathers brush his back, before she settled in opposite him and began to eat, her face distorted and coloured by the translucent jelly. She was certainly acting like a Queen. And she was munching her way through the royal jelly as fast and with as much enjoyment as he was. Even during Celestia's brief confinement, the love all her little ponies felt for her had greatly enriched the goopy stuff. On the other hoof, the fact that Celestia hadn't yet busted out suggested her godlike powers were merely channelling the love her subjects felt for her... exactly like a changeling Queen would've. Really, both these Alicorns were acting a bit like Queens - sometimes, anyway.

He still didn't know which, if either, of them was his new Queen. He did know if he revealed himself injudiciously (say, whilst somepony was watching) they wouldn't hesitate to crush him underhoof. Queen Chrysalis wouldn't have. Celestia or Cadance might make with the stepping and the scrunching anyway, simply because he was a changeling.

Yet, if he didn't still belong to maybe-Queen Chrysalis, he owed one of them his obedience.

It wasn't just the orange pony's beating that was the cause of his headache.

Something hard clacked against his fangs, and he realised his face was half inside the translucent royal jelly, fang-to-tooth with Princess Cadance. Huh? He was sure he hadn't eaten that far through Celestia's prison, and- sweet love nectar, her tongue was in his mouth!!!

Sliding down and down and down through his mouth (she had a surprisingly long tongue), she, who might possibly be his Queen, and who tasted just like royal jelly. Then the strand of royal jelly snapped, and Celestia's cocoon crashed to the throneroom floor.

He and Cadance leapt apart. Had it just been the jelly? Had it really been her-

“What're you unicorns waiting for!” Shining Armor shouted. “Get in there and get your Princess out of there.” He paused. “Um, darling?” He said, much more calmly. “Would you mind coming down here for a moment?”

“Aww,” Cadance replied, “miss me already, honey?” She asked, fluttering down to him and planting a sticky kiss on the tip of his horn that made the guard captain blush, before landing beside him.

“You too, soldier,” he said to Sinisteed. “Now!”

Sinisteed got down fast.

“Now-”

“Sinisteed. Sir!” Sinisteed braced and shouted, before his mind caught up with his body. It was because Shining Armor was standing next to Princess Cadance, looking just like a Captain of a changeling's Queensguard should look. “Uh, sorry sir,” he continued. “It's Steed, sir.” He thought fast: Sinister, well, no; Sinistrous, unlucky; Sinistral, he wasn't left-hoofed... “Sinical Steed.” He paused. “From the-”

“-latin, yes,” Shining Armor replied, “of or pertaining to a sinusoidal function.” He grinned. “Now don't go wobbly on me, soldier.” he said, and Cadance chuckled. “Interestingly, unrelated to 'cynical', meaning 'distrustful one who exploits the standards of others for their own gain,” Shining continued. “Now, Sinical, would you mind explaining to me just why your wavey tongue was doing it's oscillating in my fiancée’s mouth?”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Chrysalis trotted down the track, the ruined axle of her bodged trap squealing with every revolution. She'd salvaged it from Trixie's shattered caravan, the chassis of which appeared to be quite well constructed - the rear half of it had survived the crash. The superstructure, however, had apparently been designed by an infant, and been reduced to kindling by her impact. Still, that had been fortunate, because if she'd hit something sturdy, it might've been beyond even Trixie's narcissism to heal her. The ruggedness of construction was explained by the crudely mouth-and-chisel carved words on the piece of wood she was using as a draw-bar: 'Haycart Proudly Ponyfactured by Wheel Wright', it read.

With what little purple drapery had survived she'd lashed together some shade for Trixie, but there hadn't been enough for both of them, and Celestia's sun beat down relentlessly. It wasn't that she liked the blue unicorn or anything, simply that with Trixie's love she could endure Celestia's burning vengeance. Without it, she'd likely never make it to Gemstowne.

The one map that'd survived slightly showed Gemstowne only as a flyspeck, but it was so large-scale it showed Ponyville as a flyspeck. Along with the rest of Equestria, and only a tiny sliver of these Western Outlands. Everything worth having on that map should've been hers, which did not include this Godforsaken place. Not that she blamed Celestia for that. Chrysalis would've cheerfully made the same decision if she had all Equestria laid before her hooves. Anyway, Trixie would've surely had other more detailed maps, and would hopefully be able to remember something of them when she woke. Until then, Chrysalis followed the road. At least there were deep wheelruts and recent hoofprints, so Gemstowne – or sometown – actually did lie this way.

A nice pony town, filled with nice but lonely ponies, who were all missing the beloved ponies they'd left behind in Equestria. That was what she was hoping Gemstowne would be. Not that she expected to get it: 'Wherever storms are beaten back, wherever beasts are cowed, where sun and moon follow their track, where ponies live unbowed.'[1] That was the authoritative source on the boundaries of Equestria, drawn in the hopes and minds and happiness of ponies. Such a town would drag Equestria behind it, and with Equestria... Celestia.

Chrysalis knew she wasn't in any shape for round two. Yet gradually, Trixie's love was healing her, and then, well...

Do you love yourself as Shining loved m-

Chrysalis shook her head. The barren desert was getting to her. Still, the question remained: Did Trixie love herself as much as Shining Armor had loved Mi Amore Cadenza? Just how far did she need to fear Celestia? How far did she need to fear Shining Armor and Cadance?

I should've killed that mule when I had the chance, she thought. Both of them.

“Yesss. Gems. Gems!” A voice rasped, jolting Chrysalis out of her reverie.

“I don't think those are gems, Rover” another muttered, much more quietly. “I think it's just a sparkly cloak.”

“Yesss, Fido,” the first voice replied, and a distinctly more frustrated tone to its rasp. “A sparkly cloak encrusted with precious gems!” As far as Chrysalis had been able to tell, there were no gems on Trixie's cloak. “And I told you to call me 'boss'!”

“Ohhh... yes, Rover,” this 'Fido' replied.

The voice that apparently belonged to 'Rover' sighed. Fido clearly didn't understand the proper importance of titles, Queen Chrysalis of the Changeling Swarm thought.

“I-” Rover cut off. “I mean, we, should have it. Diamond Dogs are meant to have all the gems. And we shall also have the mares.”

Excellent. Lonely ponies – or something – desperate to shower a beautiful mare with their adoration. With these new sources of love, Trixie could be dispensed with. Meaning consumed as desired, and Chrysalis was still very hungry. Although she wasn't sensing any love from the owner of these voices yet... and anyway it might be a good idea to keep the blue pony and her narcissism around in case Celestia showed up...

“More workhorses,” Fido agreed.

“Yes... for pulling,” rasped Rover. “Let's get those... ponies.”

Wait, what?

Creatures erupted from the rocks. Creatures with thick, ape-like forearms and withered, almost vestigial, rear legs. Creatures with matted grey fur and beady yellow eyes. Creatures whose forms practically screamed their malevolence, not pretty quadrupeds like ponies, but vile beasts.

Not so vile as her and her changelings, of course, but still.

“Pony will come with us now,” the raspy one – 'Rover' – said. Of them all, it was his eyes that gleamed with a wicked, low cunning. It amused her that these 'beasts' used the same hierarchy as Celestia's beloved ponies. The leader had the most ornate trappings: A topaz dangled from this 'Rover's' aquamarine-studded collar, as Celestia had her torc and crown. Chrysalis had to credit the Alicorn with better taste than this dog. Her stylish purple diamonds and finely worked gold were legendary – as was her obscene wealth, naturally. “Pony will not make trouble.”

“Well, I can certainly see why you would want the attentions of a fabulous mare like me,” Chrysalis preened, “but are you sure you deserve them? Your fur is matted and,” she sniffed, “you smell like wet dog.”

“We are dogs,” Fido muttered helpfully. “Diamond Dogs.”

“Oh,” said Chrysalis. “Well, have you ever heard of bathing? Or soap?”

“Heard of soap, yes,” Rover rasped, “use soap, no. Special pony soap expensive, would have to sell gems. Diamond Dogs love gems...” He trailed off, drooling.

“Besides, ponies will smell no better after weeks in mine,” Fido muttered.

“Yes,” Rover agreed. “Ponies not in position to complain. So ponies will not complain.”

“But... our lovely coats will be ruined. Don't you want us to be lovely?” Chrysalis purred, batting her eyelashes at the doggies.

“Dogs don't care if ponies are lovely,” Rover growled. “Diamond Dogs not love ponies. Diamond Dogs love diamonds – and other gems!”

“So... you could never love me?” Chrysalis asked. “Even if I were a 'Diamond Dog'?”

“Pony cannot be dog,” Fido said.

If only you knew.

“Anyway: No,” said Rover, “and no. Diamond Dogs not love unless you're gemstone. Preferably diamond.”

This was followed by some sniggering, from him and his companions.

Chrysalis considered the matter. She'd never disguised herself as an inanimate thing before. Not that it was impossible, just that most ponies didn't love their things enough to sustain a changeling. Besides, replacing a thing meant being used as a thing. No moving, no eating, no drinking, no breathing – whilst you were being watched, that was. She had a feeling these Diamond Dogs wouldn't take their eyes off a pony-sized diamond for hours, perhaps days at a time.

No, she decided, she would not transform into a gem for these dogs. What if they decided to facet her?

So much for being adored by the poor lonely Diamond Dogs.

“The Great and Powerful Trixies will perform-” hack-cough, “-then the Trixies will be on their way to Gemstowne.” Trixie said, and staggered against Chrysalis. Chrysalis was surprised the little blue unicorn had even found the strength to stand.

“Unmolested,” Chrysalis added.

“Ohhh... there is also a hat,” said Fido.

“And it's brimming with gems... gems!” Rover crowed.

Trixie's eyes slid upwards. Chrysalis had to admit her hat was very fine, but it was no more than fabric and glitterstars - and she could see that Trixie knew it. She wondered if Trixie had drunk enough, or at all. There wasn't much water left.

“Ponies are very welcome in Gemstowne,” Rover said, his voice rasping. “Ponies can be put to work with rest of pony population – in Diamond Dog mine!” Rover paused, and Chrysalis didn't like the way his eyes roved Trixie's flanks - or her own. “Ponies work if ponies want to eat.” It looked like Trixie very much did. She was salivating at the mere mention of food.

"Trixie's been hungry for weeks," Trixie whispered. "Trixie can't remember when she last had a good meal. Trixie thinks it was Hoofington, but maybe not. Maybe Trixie just dreamed that. Trixie's memories are like dreams now, like hallucinations. Hallucinations from the life of another pony, a happy pony. That pony might've been Trixie, before Ponyville, but, maybe not... Trixie just cannot be sure anymore..."

Chrysalis didn't know what this feeling she felt now was. She'd never felt it before.

“Pony already looks underfed,” Fido murmured, and Chrysalis felt a flash of concern in his tone.

Ah. That was it. Concern. She was worried about Trixie - because Trixie was her only source of food out here, obviously. Of course, there was always the Diamond Dogs... so why was she still worrying about the unicorn again?

“Otherwise, pony can be eaten,” Rover continued. “Blue pony not look well-fed, but probably still tasty. Dogs not find good meats in desert or canyons.”

Trixie blanched, and Chrysalis thought the little blue unicorn looked sick. Then Trixie vomited the little of the precious food she'd eaten all over both their hooves. “The Great and Powerful-” hack, cough, “-Trixie will delight and amaze you with her magics!” Trixie said. “Then the Trixies will be on their way.” She paused. “After you have given them their due: Food, water and directions to the nearest friendly pony town.”

“Equestria that way. Very large, cannot miss. Follow rising sun raised by pony-goddess Celestia.” Fido pointed, and paused. “Ponies not know this?”

Trixie, of course, did know this - or so Chrysalis assumed.

“Diamond Dogs neither delighted nor amazed with magic,” Rover said. “Unless you use it to hunt gems better than dogs... then we hunt you, and you hunt gems for us.”

“I- I can't do that...” Trixie whispered, then brightened. “So you don't have to hunt me. I mean, us. Do you?”

“Stupid blue pony! If you don't find gems for mine, you work in mine!” Rover replied. “If you don't work in mine, you are eaten!”

“Dig?” Whispered Trixie. “You want me – us – to dig? For our lives? For the rest of our lives?”

“Could ensure period is short,” Rover growled under his breath, and licked his muzzle, fangs gleaming.

“Or could pull wagon,” Fido offered, glaring sidelong at Rover. “If ponies not dig, ponies pull wagons. Precious pony pedis are preserved.”

Trixie's mind expertly repressed Rover's threat. “But- but- I... haven't had a hoofercure since Fillydelphia...” Trixie stammered instead, and trailed off, examining a forehoof in dejection.

“Then you can dig. Quietly, without whining. We do not want whining,” Fido said. He seemed to be trembling. So did the other dogs.

“Ponies who whine pull wagons,” Rover said. “Harnesses are custom fitted. Comfortable and do not chafe. Made of light materials. Cleaned regularly, will not stain pretty pony coat-”

“No causes for whining,” Fido broke in.

“Yes,” Rover agreed. “Also, pulling uses bit.” Rover said happily, having produced harness, bridle and bit from somewhere and approaching the two Trixies. “Bit prevents whining – until pony is broken by minework. Eventually pony stops trying to complain. Hope replaced by despair. Pony forgets how to love.”

“Forgets... how to love?” Chrysalis said. If Rover, Fido, and the dig-dogs had been a little smarter, they might've noticed the danger in her tone.

“Yes...” Rover said.

“Anypony?” Chrysalis asked.

“Anypony but gems,” Rover replied, “always love gems...”

Chrysalis nodded. She was going to kill them.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chapter Bibliography

[1] Prancypants, P., 2012, 'The Flight of the Alicorn', Chapter V. 'Last Supper' 2nd edition, fimfiction.net

Chapter 4

Trixie

Trixie barely even saw the alternate reality's Trixie – Alterixie – move. Rover certainly never had time to scream. She lunged, he stumbled back, her foreleg cracked his skull against the rock – and Alterixie drove her hoof through his face and laminated his brains across the stone.

The sound – Trixie would never forget the sound – a combination of cracking a walnut between your hooves and stepping on a forgotten, half-rotten apple. That sound, and the sound Alterixie made as she killed him: None whatsoever.

No expression on a face identical to Trixie's own as she murdered somepony.

Trixie's mouth opened around a warning as a digdog bounded off the makeshift pony-cart behind Alterixie. The trap clattered into a hundred ruined pieces, and Trixie realised – because she was too stunned, and too slow – that she'd never breathe her warning in time. Alterixie was going to die, and then she was going to die. Alterixie's violent stupidity had gotten them both killed – although wasn't there more than enough blame to go around, since she'd been the one going to Gemstowne, alone, and the horrible fate she now knew awaited her there...

Just before the digdog would've hit Alterixie's back, just before his claws would've dug down through flesh and shredded her spine, Alterixie's hindhooves flashed out. The digdog's armour and bones crunched together as they connected. He flew backwards, met the rocky walls. Bone snapped, the light went out of his eyes, and he rattled to the ground.

Nopony alive had a neck that bent that way.

The other digdog approached Trixie, snarling. She surrounded him with a firework display to amaze and astound, and succeeded in setting the remains of their cart alight. She turned to flee - and stumbled backwards over her own hooves.

The digdog loomed over her.

Distracted by the light show, it didn't see the electric-green whip of magic coming till the last second. With no time to duck or dodge, the digdog did the only thing he could – raised his armoured dig-arm into the blow, and took it.

The cord of energy hit like a lightning bolt, lashing around his arm like fishing line, denting his steel armour with the force of it. Where it caught his fur, it burned away in acrid smoke, and from his skin Trixie could smell the stench of roasting flesh.

Alterixie yanked her catch from his feet, snipped the incandescent line free of her horn, and let the digdog cook in his tinfoil wrapper.

Wait. Hadn't there been four Diamond Dogs?

Trixie looked around. A thin plume of dust, rapidly receding into the distance, marked Fido's flight. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was over.

Then Alterixie leapt forward, bounding from ground to outcropping and leaping back, lithe body describing the perfect arc. Trixie wouldn't have been able to make that jump – perhaps, in her own alternate world, Alterixie had more in common with Ponyville's vile orange earthpony Applejack, with her whip-tricks and athleticism and her hat.

Trixie imagined Alterixie examining her with sloe-eyes, from beneath the shadow of a cocked Stetson. “How you doin', Sugahcube,” Trixie breathed, distracted by her imagination, and blushed. Trixie knew Trixie was vulnerable to that. Travelling magic shows and rodeos went together like apples and pie – you made one out of the other. But beautiful travelling magicians and athletically handsome earthpony fillies went together like applejack and a long warm night in Trixie's caravan: Wonderfully, till the AJ went away, and left Trixie with headache and heartache under the blazing morning sun. Nopony ever stayed with Trixie for long, Trixie thought.

The thunder of Alterixie's hoofbeats echoed from the rocks as she galloped away, following Fido.

Leaving Trixie alone. With the bodies.

“Don't go,” Trixie whispered, falling to her haunches, “oh, please don't go.” She let out a great, sniffling sob, which drew the sickly-sweet caramel aroma of roasted Diamond Dog deep with her nostrils. If she'd had any lunch, she would've lost it, she thought as she dry heaved. Yet her mouth was wet. “Please come back,” she wailed, “Trixie's scared.” It echoed from the rockfaces, mocking her like the voices in her head. “Don't leave Trixie all alone,” she sniffed. “Again.”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Blood ran rivulets down Chrysalis's foreleg, puddling in her hoofholes and beading from their sharp edges, forming droplets that stained the rusty ground below a more crimson shade of red.

It hadn't even been wasteful. These dogs were a scourge, pouring precious pony love into their mine in return for worthless gems, and in that coin their lives were bought and paid for. She'd just been the one to collect the bits. Not that she hadn't enjoyed it. It'd felt good to indulge her natural changeling instinct for the old ultraviolence.

Emphasis on old. She was newschool, she was the principle of the newschool. A changed changeling, (hopefully still) Queen of the reinvented swarm, exploring a whole new world full of loving little ponies.

But Fido was fleeing, and she was pursuing with intent to destroy. Even from here, she could taste his fear. Scrumptious and meaningless, she thought, coiling a fresh lash of magic about her horn. Under other circumstances, she might've been content to let Fido go, to leave him a slim hope of survival against the probability the desert would deal his death. If he hadn't fled back towards Gemstowne, she might've. Might've. But he had, so she closed the distance and let her lash fly.

It caught his leg below the knee, just as she'd intended, and yanked the Diamond Dog off his paws. He scrabbled at the dirt, frantic to escape. Her approach was leisurely, now, for while he might have hope she knew it was forlorn. There was no escape until she chose to release him, from the magic's grip or from his mortal bonds.

Loose magic, the length of lash gone slack by her approach, curled around her horn with her every hoofstep as she approached him, crackling like lightning and swishing like fine silk rope. When she was close enough for him to hear it, he rolled, paws up and neck extended, whining piteously.

Chrysalis felt none. Pity in this context was alien to her. Fido's posture was clearly gesture of submission, but for her it was a translation, a concept from a foreign language with no heartfelt meaning, if a changeling could even be said to have such a thing. When swarmlings fought Queens, they came in scores and died by the dozen, and if they won it was by burying the Queen beneath their own bodies. When Queens fought... slash, stab. Only one Queen in a hive.

She could taste the empty calories of Fido's fear. Even now, with it still wet on her lips she was unfulfilled. His heart beat rapid, each pulse a throb of his carotid artery, each one tempting her to rip his throat out and fill her belly with his flesh. That would sate her. She could terrify Fido till his heart burst, could hold an entire pony population in petrified thrall, and still starve to death herself. Such was the worthlessness of fear.

From far away, she remembered the taste of Trixie's love, now overlain with the sickly-sweet flavour of the little blue pony's fear. Not just the generalised fear of the desert, nor even of the Diamond Dogs, but of her. Of the monster Chrysalis had shown herself to be. She might as well have spared the imponysonation and shown Trixie her true, hideous form.

Yet Chrysalis could feel Trixie's misery was more for Chrysalis's abandonment than the monstrosity of her murderous deeds. Even now, it was the memory of loneliness, and the likelihood of it's return that horrified the little blue pony. Trixie would choose the company of a monster over solitude, Chrysalis realised. Maybe even a monster such as her. Though Trixie had correctly perceived the heartlessness beneath the form Chrysalis wore, Trixie needed Chrysalis just as much as Chrysalis needed her. And Trixie loved her.

Love... you could sip of love and be satisfied. The memory and hope of it drew Chrysalis from her bloodlust.

“That little blue pony's name is Trixie. The Great and Powerful Trixie. If you ever see her again, you should thank her,” Chrysalis told Fido as she stood over his trembling form, who'd really dug quite a respectable hole for himself. “She just saved your life.”

Fido whimpered and pawed the ground.

“Now tell me of Gemstowne, Fido,” she said, “so that you may continue to live it.”

He did.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Trixie

Trixie was alone again. There'd been Diamond Dogs, but they were dead now. Dead or fled, and Alterixie had pursued them. It'd all happened so fast.

She'd been asleep, being looked-after by the one pony she could trust to do that, the one pony she('d thought she) could trust to never abandon her (but she had), then the voices had woken her. She'd been frightened. Frightened for both of her. She'd tried to bluff and flatter and wheedle their way our of it, and it hadn't worked.

Then Alterixie had demonstrated that the only thing to be afraid of was her. Maybe she'd come back.

The head of this little pack of Diamond Dogs had been called Rover. His gem-studded collar bore the word, and she couldn't take her eyes off it. Above was his terrible jaw, and above that, where his eyes should've been, had been, was where Alterixie had pushed her hoof through his skull. Shards of bone protruded, between oozing bits of brain, liberally drizzled in blood.

Rover had been standing when Alterixie killed him, and a smear of blood traced up the rockface from where his corpse lay. Trixie'd seen the Lascaux cave paintings once, in Prance. They'd been beautiful, for all that they depicted a more brutal time, artwork hoofpainted at least in part in somepony's blood. This... this was that brutality in that material, fresh-painted by Alterixie.

It was horrible.

Trixie had been going to Gemstowne. If not for Alterixie, she'd have run into Rover and his dogs and... and... something like this would've happened to her. Or worse.

She owed Alterixie her life, which she guessed made them even. Yet Alterixie terrified her. The Great and Powerful Trixie's spells delighted and entertained, and Trixie basked in the adoration of her audience. This alternate Great and Powerful Trixie... this Great and Powerful Alterixie... this other version of her... her spells slaughtered and maimed.

Alterixie had killed Rover, and maybe he'd deserved it. Judge, jury and executioner, yes; but murderer, no. She'd despatched the first digdog cleanly, with a single buck and clearly in self-defence. Any earthpony in her place might've done the same. Trixie thought the physicality of it vulgar for a unicorn, even as she knew she would not have had the strength – it was a feat worthy of Ponyville's earthpony rodeo brute Applejack.

But the last digdog... Alterixie had slain him defending her, which made her feel both worse and more conflicted. She was glad the dog was dead. Or rather, she was glad to be alive, which amounted to the same thing... if Alterixie hadn't wrapped his armour in magefire and left him to roast alive.

Had Alterixie had no choice, Trixie wondered? Had her attack been limited by the protection of his armour? Yet, she could at least have paused a moment to spare the digdog that death. Or... had Alterixie expected Trixie to give him that mercy on her behalf?

Trixie hadn't. Trixie couldn't.

She'd sat, eyes squeezed tight, wishing she could do the same to her ears and her nose, till the digdog's screaming had ceased. The worst part had been the smell. The slow cooking of the dog's flesh had the scent of onions in oil, the preparation of garlic before a butternut roast. Trixie hadn't eaten properly in days, hadn't had a good hot meal in weeks.

Her mouth had watered.

What kind of pony was the Alterixie, that she could expect Trixie to kill for her, even in mercy? Was she a normal and well-adjusted pony like Trixie, just from a more brutal world? Trixie could imagine worlds sent mad by Discord, or crushed beneath Nightmare Moon's iron hoof, or ruled by the shadowy cabal of Elements led by the nefarious Twilight Sparkle and enforced by the brutal Applejack. Worlds that might justify such as this on a daily basis. Worlds where a normal pony might kill at the drop of a hoof.

But... this other version of herself could be from a world still beneath Celestia's gentle wing. Was Alterixie a true psychopathpony, driven from a world as kind as Equestria? Had Alterixie gone quietly? Had the injuries Trixie had healed been inflicted by Celestia herself, as some alternate version of the godpony drove Alterixie from her world and into Trixie's?

As her student Twilight Sparkle had driven Trixie from Equestria in this world.

Hadn't that been a surprise. Princess Celestia's personal student. Nopony could've expected to find her in a podunk town like Ponyville.

That was the pony whom the Great and Powerful Trixie had made her enemy. A pony with the backing of a god.

Yet it was hard to see how it could've been different, even had she known. She hated Twilight Sparkle more now than when she'd been ignorant. Twilight had a mother and a father and a big brother and a draconic little brother – if Spike wasn't scandalously her son instead, for who knew what foul fertility magic the books in the restricted section of Canterlot Castle's library held?

Twilight had taken Princess Celestia, who always should've been Trixie's, for was Trixie not the Greatest and Most Powerful Pony in all Equestria?

Was there ever any doubt?

Trixie hadn't had Twilight's bounty of mentors and mothers. Had she had to take the books that'd been Trixie's only substitute, that'd practically raised Trixie? Had Twilight Sparkle the librarian had to take them, just to lend them away? And as for that Applejack...

Besides that viciousness of Twilight and her friends, did Alterixie's barbarity even matter? Did the source of it matter? Whether by the nature of herself or the nurture of the world that'd reared her, Alterixie was the monster she was, a monster that wore Trixie's face – and Trixie was alone in the wilderness with her.

Trixie had no hope of surviving the wilderness without her.

The digdog's corpse was crackling beneath his armour, as hot fat trapped beneath crispy-roasted skin exploded outwards in tiny bursts. It sounded like magrowaving popcorn. Trixie didn't want to think about it. Didn't even want to hear it. But ancient sense-association memories, long repressed by a much, much younger filly, expected her mother to bring her a bowl of popped corn, and to amaze her with an astounding show.

Memories from before her mother had gone away, and never returned to Trixie.

Alterixie came back.

She was carrying something in her mouth.

Something that dripped.

Trixie didn't really see it until Alterixie dropped Fido's severed leg, butchered off below the knee, on the desert ground before her. It'd been slow-roasted, by Alterixie's green magefire whip. Trixie only hoped it hadn't been attached to Fido while it'd cooked.

“You... you...” Trixie stammered. “Is he...?”

“Alive,” Alterixie replied, “and he cannot now warn Gemstowne.”

Questions and denials and screams bunched at Trixie's lips: “You can't leave him to die out here!”

“I believe he will survive to reach Gemstowne,” Alterixie said, “but not before we do. By then, his warning will be irrelevant. One way or the other.”

Trixie blanked.

“You can't seriously be suggesting we still go there!” Trixie screamed. “It'll be full of Diamond Dogs. There'll be no forgiveness for this!!” Her gaze flickered around the the devastation, wild-eyed. “They'll kill us both!!!”

“Little water remains,” Alterixie said, “and no food. The desert will be the death of us. First you, then me.”

Trixie paused and considered this while she hyperventilated. “You've killed us both,” she said, very quietly. “There's water in Gemstowne, there must be. We should've surrendered. Gone with them. Better a minepony than a deadpony.”

“We take the water from the Diamond Dogs,” Alterixie said, “at Gemstowne.”

“You're mad,” Trixie blanched. “You're a crazy Trixie. They'll be hundreds of them.” Trixie didn't want to think about whether that meant Alterixie really was insane; or if she knew she could handle four hundred as easily as four; or if she knew she couldn't and was counting on Trixie's help.

Trixie had never killed anypony. She'd never even hurt anypony on purpose. Not really. Not physically. Besides, underfed as she was she was in no condition to-

“You will need your strength,” Alterixie said, nudging roasted leg of Fido towards Trixie with her forehoof.

Trixie looked at her. “You can't expect me to eat that,” she said, and gulped. “Him.” She looked at Alterixie with pleading eyes. “I'm a herbivore.”

“Not an obligate one,” Alterixie replied. “Not a true ruminant. You have a single stomach. You can eat meat. It lacks nutrients you need, and you cannot digest it well, but there's fat and protein enough there to see you to Gemstowne, with strength enough left to fight.” Her tone brooked no argument, and in truth Trixie did not doubt her. Alterixie had no reason to lie and every reason to keep her alive. Even such a- a- a battlemage as Alterixie might need allies at Gemstowne – but would she still feel the same, if Trixie admitted she couldn't kill? Would Alterixie think she was the Weak and Worthless Trixie? Would Alterixie have any use for a Weak and Worthless Trixie?

Trixie had the sickening feeling she might know what Atlerixie would do to a weak pony who was worthless to her.

At least it answered the question of what kind of world Alterixie came from – a brutal, pony eat pony one. Or maybe the crime Alterixie had been banished from a gentle Equestria for was cannibalism... it was rumoured to be practised even in this world, by the tribes of Papae, New Whinny... as if the Princess would ever allow such a thing in Equestria.

“I can't,” Trixie said. “Cannibalism. I just... can't.”

Trixie realised that, whatever she'd thought, until this moment she'd been dragging Equestria behind her wherever she went. No wonder the wagon had seemed so heavy. But she knew that if she ate Fido's leg then that would no longer be true. She'd have left Equestria, and she could never go back.

Self-exiled. Auto-banished.

Equestria: 'Wherever beasts are cowed... where ponies live unbowed...' The rhyme didn't mention 'where ponies do not eat one another'. It was probably assumed, or something. Or maybe if she ate Fido's leg that would make Trixie an unbowed beast.

“It's Diamond Dog, not pony,” Alterixie said, “so strictly speaking it would not be cannibalism.”

“I'd never be able to go home,” Trixie wailed. “Equestria's for ponies, and ponies don't eat other ponies. Or Dogs. Or cats or bats or rabbits or anypony.” She sniffed. “I. Can't.”

“Ah, no,” replied Alterixie, smiling helpfully. “I believe you are confused. It's if you die here that you can't go back to Equestria.”

“If I eat that!” Trixie glanced down and shuddered. “Then I won't be home, not even if I stood in the Great Hall of Canterlot Castle itself!”

“I will go there with you,” Alterixie said, “and you will be in Equestria. Even if it is not the same.” She paused, until Trixie met her gaze. “My word upon it.”

“What am I, that I can be you?” Trixie whispered, very, very quietly.

“A pony went into the desert,” Alterixie replied, staring into the distance, though Trixie thought she'd spoke too quietly for her to hear, “and when she returned, she was not the same.” Alterixie shook her mane, and turned back to Trixie. “You knew the Outlands would change you, I think. Came here looking to be changed.”

“So I just... eat it,” Trixie said, almost mesmerised by the meat. It was drooling oil onto the rock beneath her hooves, and she was drooling onto it. “You know,” she continued, almost conversationally with just a hint of madness, “even though I've decided to do it – I want to survive, so badly – I just know I'm going to gag on it.”

“Think of it as Lipizzan Omlette, if that helps,” Alterixie continued more kindly. “Healthsome protein: Eggs and cheese. Just a bit tougher.” She paused. “You'll... have to chew.”

“C- could you... help me?” Trixie whispered. She couldn't look at either Alterixie or the roasted joint, now. “I know it's foalish, but when I was a foal mommy would help me with my vegetables. I didn't like them,” Trixie admitted. “I always wanted flowerpetals.”

Alterixie bent her head to the roast, put her forehoof on it, and ripped away a long strip of cooked flesh. She chewed, for a moment, then lifted her head to Trixie's, and wriggled Trixie's own perfectly-groomed eyebrows at her. “Mouth... to mouth?” Trixie blubbered as Alterixie drew closer. “Not with your horn?" Alterixie didn't answer. Of course Alterixie didn't answer. Her mouth was full.

"Uh, magic?” Trixie suggested weakly.

Alterixie's mouth pressed on hers. Pushed the food into hers. Already chewed, it was just like foalfood, gooey and nutritious and best if you did not think about where it'd come from.

It was triggering sense-memories of her mother, Trixie realised, but her mother had never fed her like this. At least, Trixie hoped she hadn't, because that would've been a lot ickier than kissing your alternate-dimensional doppleganger.

Except... except... although she'd kissed Alterixie before, and Alterixie had gone further than just kissing – a lot further – she hadn't, well it was insane, but she thought she tasted-

She tasted fangs in this kiss!!!

Alterixie has fangs?! Trixie thought, leaping out of the lip-lock, staring wild-eyed at her clonepony. Alterixie had fangs!!!

“You've got fangs!” Trixie accused.

“Normal in my world,” Alterixie replied, apparently unfazed, nudging the roast leg forward. “So this is all yours. I don't need cooked meat to feed,” she continued, gesturing to the corpses of Rover and the digdog – the one that wasn't burned to a carbonized crisp.

Trixie nodded slowly. Well, that answered that, at least. Evolved omnivorous, not some cannibalistic fetish-freak. But, she thought as she bent over her own meal, listening to the sounds of Alterixie's fangs ripping at Rover's flesh: I'm glad I don't have to watch her eat.

Food happened.

They prepared to leave. Rover's butchered body, sans head, was draped across Alterixie's back. It was still more than a day's trot to Gemstowne.

“What about that one?” Trixie asked, nodding to the un-crisped digdog. Not that she was sure she could carry it. Trixie would have to make the trip on her own hooves, now, and (maybe, but hopefully not) fight when she arrived. She still felt weak, and the little water they'd been able to salvage was heavy enough in her makeshift saddlebags.

“We must leave something for Fido,” Alterixie replied. “I gave my word.”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Author's note of thanks

This chapter owes a narrative debt to both The Immortal Game by AestheticB, and to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky, with regard to the fact that Cannibalism!!!! can be fun (it also has a MLP bit in it's Omake Files 3 chapter).

Chapter 5

Sinisteed

“-violation of your oath as a Guardspony, not to mention-”

But Shining Armor did go on to mention it, in copious and shouty detail with lots of extra, angry syllables. This, Sinisteed supposed, was a chewing out. Chewing-outs hadn't ever been a feature of the swarm's hierarchy. If the Queen thought you'd done well, she looked disdainfully at you and gave you another order. If you'd done badly she looked disdainfully at you, tilted her head in that way Queens had when they were considering something, and sent you away. If you'd really screwed up, after she was done considering she cracked you open and ate the gooey filling inside.

Chewing up, yes. Chewing out, not so much.

Queen Chrysalis, admittedly, was down on eating the swarm's changelings, and even went to far as to provide orders like: 'Go. Feed!' He'd learned a new phrase in Equestria: 'Positive Reinforcement' – and he liked it.

Things had been better in the swarm, under Queen Chrysalis. If, indeed, he was still under Queen Chrysalis and not Queen Cadenza or Queen Celestia.

“-furthermore completely inappropriate familiarity with a member of the Royal family-” Shining was continuing, until-

“Aww, Darling, inappropriate familiarity's the best kind,” Cadance said, nuzzling Shining. “In fact, I'm kinda in the mood for some intimate inappropriateness right now. I've been sealed beneath Canterlot for weeks, and I'm a little-” she nuzzled her way up Shining's cheek, and whispered something into his ear that turned his face as red as his jacket. He whinnied as she nipped his ear. “Now, please. If you don't mind, darling.” Delicately, Shining nuzzled his fiancée’s neck. “I thought you'd be more eager,” she said. “I mean, it's been weeks for you too.”

It was a good thing Shining was nuzzling his fiancée’s neck, and she was too distracted snuffling his flowing blue locks, because it meant Cadance couldn't see the deepening of his blush, nor the sudden shiftiness of his eyes.

Of course, Sinisteed saw them just fine.

Knowing what he knew as a changeling, it was pretty obvious why Shining was acting shifty, too: Queen Chrysalis had been in far too good a mood to be a mare who wasn't getting bucked on a regular basis. She was also a comparatively nice changeling, even though she was a Queen – who were usually evil, not to put too fine a point on it – and didn't seem to go in for making ponies fall hopelessly in unrequited love with her.

Rather, so long as she was well-fed and satisfied, it seemed likely Queen Chrysalis would've shared her favours with her lovesnack.

Not that any of this was anything but prurient speculation on Sinisteed's part, of course, and Queen Chrysalis would probably kill him if she knew. Similarly, Princess Cadance would probably kill him – followed by Shining – if he told. On the other hoof, if he didn't tell and she found out anyway (and he had no confidence in Shining Armor's ability to live the lie) and she found out he'd known, then he'd live only long enough for her to massacre Shining and move on to him.

Maybe she'd kill Shining slowly, and he'd have more time.

He rethought that. He wasn't at all sure he wanted more time to imagine Princess Cadance hunting him down in an torturous mood, having already gotten her torturing hoof (and horn) in.

Alternatively, if Shining wasn't the painfully honest paladin that he suspected the Guard-captain to be, then Shining might murder him to keep the secret.

It was a good job Princess Cadance was too distracted snuffling Shining's flowing blue locks to notice Sinisteed's distraction, and her attentions were doing a good job of diverting Shining, too.

“Mmm...” purred Cadance, until-

“Ah!” Blurted Shining. There was an impregnated pause. “Um, sweetheart? Don't you think we should continue this somewhere else? In private?”

“Send the guardponies away and we'll be in private,” Cadance murmured, so quietly Sinisteed thought he might've imagined it. Even to a changeling's jaded ear, that was a seductive tone.

“I can't,” Shining replied. “Somepony has to rescue Princess Celestia-”

“Auntie's an immortal sun-goddess,” Cadance said softly. “She'll keep.”

At this, there was a soft: 'Mmmph' of protest from the fallen cocoon. Given the volume, Sinisteed doubted anypony who wasn't a love-flushed changeling could've heard it.

“Maybe,” Shining said softly, burying his snout in his fiancée’s mane as she turned to look at the cocoon – because they were talking about it, probably. “But she'll still be here, and that means-”

“If Auntie Cellie isn't out, she can look, but not touch. Or interfere,” Cadance leered at him. “Kinky, if you're into that sort of thing.”

“Ah, um-” Shining replied. “Are you? I mean, I know there was always a chance we'd get seen by Twilie, but I didn't think you wanted that. I thought we didn't have anywhere else to go.”

“I live in a castle,” Cadance blinked. “Twilie actually catching us would've been a problem. The possibility of being caught, now that's a thrill. As for being watched,” she smirked, and shrugged. “Ask me again in a couple of decades. Age jades you. If I told you some of the things Auntie Cellie's into-”

“Mmmph!!!” Went the fallen cocoon, suggesting Princess Celestia was awake, irritated and impugned.

“Ah. Looks like Auntie's awake, so, better not,” Cadance said, looking at the cocoon and grinning. “We'd end up spending our honeymoon on the actual moon.”

“No you wouldn't,” Sinisteed made out Princess Celestia's objection through the cocoon's heavy muffling. It didn't look like anypony else did, though. “Don't tease the other ponies, you naughty little filly. You're not too big to take over my flank!”

Said the absolute god-pony ruler of all Equestria.

“Um, sweetheart?” Shining said, taking his fiancee gently in his hooves as Cadance blanched. “Are you alright? You're being a little, well...”

“I'm fine,” she snapped. Strange, Sinisteed thought. It didn't sound like she was.

It didn't look like Shining thought she was, either. Cadance sighed. “Shining, I love you,” she said, “but I've spent the last three weeks sealed in a damp, wet hole beneath Canterlot whilst mine turned into one for lack of you.” She drew a fast breath. “I know we said we'd break for a month so our wedding night could be special, but truth be told I wasn't doing too well after a week. Or didn't you notice I was avoiding you and your handsome, toned, virile stallion's body?!”

Her eyes were a little wild as she finished.

“Me too,” Shining barely had time to nod, before she'd snatched a fresh gasp and was off again.

“Anyway, there's no way I would've held up if I'd been up here with you” Cadance's ears twitched at the thought, “I probably owe the imponysonating witch one for that. But I was supposed to have been married to you for half an hour already, and I had certain expectations I'd expected you to satisfy!” At the last, desire got the better of self-control – she was clearly a mare in heat and on the edge – and her volume slid steadily from hissed whisper to full throated shout. “So I really really need to either slip away with you or for you to slip in and satisfy me right here!!”

Shining glanced back and forth between his emphatically not-blushing bride-to-be and his stunned and very much blushing guardponies, his mouth opening and closing like a caught fish. Then Cadance got a wicked look in her eye. The kind of look Sinisteed had often seen on her face – when Queen Chrysalis was wearing it.

“Sunshine sunshine,
Snake becomes awake,
Clop with your hooves,
And do the shake!!!”

Sinisteed could feel the heat in his own cheeks now, and it wasn't at all faked. This was too brazen even for a changeling Queen as much into the Power of Love as Chrysalis had been, and Princess Cadance had done it without a second thought. She's certainly wearing the right cutiemark, he thought, then realised he was staring at her wriggling flank as she shook her plot in her fiancée’s face.

“Okay!” Shining blurted as he leapt on her, knocking her to the ground and getting a faceful of feathers as her wings pomfed. “Just wait till we're out of here, alright. Into private.” Shining ducked beneath Cadance's wing and helped her back to her hooves. “Into privates sounds good to me, Captain Armor,” Sinisteed heard her snicker as her feathers caressed down Shining's neck, flank and onto Shining's stallionho-

-he didn't need to see that, frankly.

Guard-captain Shining Armor turned back as his fiancée’s wing pulled him away, sweeping a glare across his guardponies. “Nopony saw that-” he snapped – and stopped, staring at the door. “Uh, hey, Twilie,” he continued weakly. “Um, how long have you been standing there?”

Chapter 6

Sinisteed

“That's- that's- that's not how the sunshine song goes,” Twilight Sparkle said, sotto voce, magicking open her saddlebag and floating out a book. The pages of 'Fun Rhymes for Fillies and Foals' flickered as she flipped them. “See?” She said, proffering the book to Applejack, who happened to be closest to her. “See?” She continued, pressing the book onward to Rarity. “See?” She turned it towards Cadance and Shining, although there was no hope of them reading it at that distance.

Sinisteed's compound eyes easily made it out.

“Yes,” Twilight continued, flipping it back towards herself. “It's: Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake, clap your hooves and do a little shake!”

Indeed it was.

Through it all, her voice had been remarkably calm and even. On the next sentence, it rose from that quiet tone till it was a scream ripped from the heart of her childhood: “Not a great big shake your plot in my brother's face shake!” The childhood, Sinisteed surmised, she'd just seen a shining pillar of corrupted. “What kind of hussy Princess are you, anyway!?”

“Twilie-” Shining said, his tone stunned – although Sinisteed was starting to wonder if that was maybe normal for him?

“The kind using the un-Bowdlerised version on page one-oh-three of 'Mature Melodies and Salacious Strains for Mares and Stallions,'” Princess Cadance suggested, grinning, well, salaciously.

“Oh. I think I have that one,” Twilight muttered, “it was one of Trixie's.” This time, the book was lifted from Fluttershy's saddlebags, and her wings shifted uncomfortably as Twilight's magic removed it. Both books floated gently in a magenta glow. Sinisteed and the guards and watched, reduced to an audience, as the whipcrack sound of page-on-page action bespelled by an expert librarian echoed around the great hall. “One-oh-one, one-oh-two, ah, here it is,” Twilight Sparkle said, and read it. “Oh,” she said, and her expression... changed. “You're right.” she continued softly. “Trixie, you naughty, naughty thing. I had no idea you were that kind of mare,” she whispered, flipped another page, and her eyes widened.

“I suppose I should be glad you didn't use the original version on page hundred and four,” her eyes slid, drawn reluctantly, as if against her will, to the other side of the double-spread, “or the gypsy variant on oh-five,” she whispered, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. “Trixie, you filthy filly...”

“Is that the...” Shining said.

“One from back then? The one I finally got you with?” Cadance said, grinning. “Yes.”

“Eight years...” Shining whispered. “Has it really been that long? You'd think I'd have managed to make an honest mare of you by now.”

“Eight years ago,” Twilight said, “you were a trainee, Shining. I'd just been apprenticed to Princess Celestia... but I still needed a foalsitter... which was you, Cadance...” realization hit her. “You bucked my brother! You bucked my brother while you were my bucking foalsitter!!” Then realization took the backswing. “You didn't buck him whilst foalsitting me... did you?” She asked, knee-deep in denial - and the waters were rising fast.

“Sorry, Twilie,” Shining said, blushing.

Twilight's gaze flashed between them, and Sinisteed read the looks as shocked and betrayed. Most often, looks like that were directed at changelings recently-revealed as changelings.

“You're the worst foalsitter ever!” Twilight snarled, denial bursting its banks and flooding the land, flinging 'Fun Rhymes for Fillies and Foals' at Cadance and Shining, “and you're the worst Big-Brother-Best-Friend-Forever ever!” Twilight snapped, and followed it with 'Mature Melodies and Salacious Strains for Mares and Stallions'.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you about us back then,” Shining told his little sister. “You once told me you would've loved Cadance to be your big sister for real. I should've told you then. I knew you'd want to know.” At this, Twilight's eyes were welling with tears. “I just... it was a lot of pressure, you know? Cadance is an amazing mare, an actual Princess, and I was just sure I was going to screw it up somehow...”

“I do want to know.” Twilight blurted. “I mean, I did. I deserved to,” she sniffed. “But I'm happy for both of you – thanks, big brother - “ she said, as he floated 'Fun Rhymes' back over too her, and it was returned to her saddlebag. The pause gave her pause for thought, and she tilted her head. “Frankly I'm surprised you didn't screw it up, Shining, with a mare as amazing as Cadance.”

“He did.” Cadance broke in. “Often.” At this, Shining looked stricken. “But you screwed me back down, afterwards,” Cadance continued, nuzzling him affectionately, “so it's okay.”

“I didn't just hear that,” Twilight said, definitively. Applejack looked at her with an expression of concern. Sinisteed hadn't though the orange earthpony brute who'd bucked him in the head had it in her, frankly.

“Thanks anyway, Twilie. For everything.” Cadance said, tucking 'Salacious Strains' beneath her wing. “This brings back some memories. Up for a little re-enactment, Shining?” She asked.

Shining had to shift behind Cadance's wing to prevent flashing the room with just how up for that he was.

Sinisteed felt just a little jealous of the Queen and the Princess, in that moment. All that length of love...

“You can't have that!” Twilight shouted, gazing horrified at Cadance's ruffled feathers as if her gaze could spear straight through them. “That's the Ponyville library's!! You haven't signed it out!!! You haven't even got a card there!!!!”

“On interlibrary loan?” Cadance suggested, fluffing her wing. Shining gasped, whinnied, then his jaw clamped closed. Sinisteed didn't even want to think about what he thought Cadance had just done. Her feathers might feel nice down there, and be resilient enough to touch there, but his own gossamer wings weren't intended for that, and-

“Don't do that!” Shouted Rainbow Dash. “Take care of your pinion-feathers, don't you know what'll happen if you get them sticky-”

Of course, Cadance's wings wouldn't be designed for that either. They were meant for flying. Although it looked like Shining was pretty high right now.

“Easy sugahcube,” Applejack mumbled, the Element of Loyalty's tail between her teeth as she dragged Rainbow back down by her tail.

Shining was blushing like he was auditioning to replace Celestia's sun. Subtly, Cadance continued fluttering her feathers back and forth, as the pair of them shuffled towards the door.

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whispered, her own wings ruffling. “I never even thought- that's so dirty- I could never- but, oh-”

Sinisteed thought the pale gold-and-rose pegasus was adorable. The pale pink wings and cyan bodies of her triple-butterfly cutiemark (any creature with a cocoon was fine with Sinisteed), the slim line of her flanks themselves, the way her rosehip hair curled charmingly about the nape of her neck, the the soft summer-sky blue of her eyes that just drew you into her gaze...

...her gaze, her blue-eyed gaze, a summer-sky of a gaze, pre-dawn glow framing a blooming meadow of buttercups in rose-pink glory. The sun rose, and here it didn't feel like Celestia's sun but hers, as warm and golden as her coat, gently shooing the night's mist away.

Beneath the gleaming aquamarine sky she stood, a cornucopia of treats surrounding her. Around the world lit by her love, birds chattered in the trees and small animals scampered and searched for food.

Any food but that which she offered. No adorable creature came to her adoring yellow hooves.

Sinisteed wanted to go to her, it was so sad. She loved them even as they neglected her. But he was a chitinous monster, and her love was a banquet that was not for him.

Morning, passed. The sun rested overhead.

Still the baby birds not come.

Still the sun blazed down.

How long had he stood here, in this meadow at midday? An hour? Two? More?

Flowers wilted. Grass dried into hay. The pale pegasus did not eat. Berries ripened and fell and rotted.

Still the adorable animals did not come.

A day? A month? A year?

Neither world nor seasons turned. Birds fled, abandoning their flightless offspring. Rivers pooled, grew brackish and dried, their beds cracking apart. Wounds in the world.

From his hooves, a spark. An accident. Probably.

Tinder-dry, the world burned. The cute creatures died screaming. Monstrosity such as his did not save him.

Pain, happened.

The pale pegasus lived. The pale pegasus was unharmed. Dying, Sinisteed dragged his ruined, changeling body towards her, the soul and center of this nightmare world.

She was whispering something, he realised: “You're going to love me,” she breathed, over and over, rocking gently back and forth.

“Help,” he croaked from his burnt throat, blowing blackened dust that'd once been part of him across her, marring her beauty.

At the last, she turned her head to him. Her eyes... were a Queen's eyes: “Love me,” she said simply.

Sinisteed knew he was incapable of love.

In the Great Hall of Canterlot Castle, Fluttershy blushed and glanced away from him. She was... lovely.

It bore thinking on.

“Get back here! You haven't signed for that book!” Twilight shouted as Cadance and Shining bolted for the door. “Big brother!” She yelled - to their tails.

She really was lovely...

One or two seconds might've passed since he'd met Fluttershy's stare.

...Fluttershy, that was.

“Really, Twilight, was it necessary to be so uncouth?” Rarity said. “I mean, it's perfectly natural for a colt and a young mare to, well, you know...”

Fluttershy had...

“Especially if they done gettin' hitched afterwards, Sugahcube,” Applejack broke in. “Ah mean, it's only natural, ain't it?”

He and Fluttershy had...

“I saw Big Mac,” Twilight said, as if from far away. Whoever 'Big Mac' was. “He was in your south barn, AJ. With Miss Cheerilee. Mounting her from behind and bucking her brains out like she was one of your appletrees. Mare's got a filthy mouth for a schoolteacher. Not sure I'd want my little sister getting her education from that tongue. Though it was certainly teaching Big Mac a thing or two.”

Fluttershy's eyes had...

“Wait, wha? You're talkin' about mah brothah?” Applejack said, accent thickening to the point of incomprehensibility.

Their gazes had...

“Oh, be nice, Applejack,” Rarity said. “I'm certain Cheerilee's perfectly professional in the classroom, and the mare deserves a good time. Sweetie Belle's a handful, and I'm sure Applebloom's no better, and I'm very sure she and Big Mac will treat each other well.”

Fluttershy's stare had...

“She was wearing a saddle,” Twilight continued, still hazy. “I've seen the design in your boutique, Rarity. Big Mac was squishing it.”

“No...” breathed Rarity.

…seen right through him...

“I guess they aren't serious enough to be thinking about foals,” Twilight continued, “because when Cheerilee finished – just before Big Mac – he pulled out, and when he finished it spattered all over-”

...and made him...

“-My beautiful design!” Rarity wailed. “How could they do that to my baby? Of all the things that could've happened, this is: The. Worst. Possible. Thing.” She enunciated, lifted her hoof to her brow, and collapsed backwards onto a chaise longue – that hadn't been there a moment ago... had it?

…love her.

Chapter 8

Sinisteed

Okay.

So, he was in love with Fluttershy... Fluttershy, even the sound of her name was lyrical, that beautiful, demure pegasus with such fascinatingly clear eyes, deep as the blue sea, and-

He felt it, it physically hurt, as the love ripped its way out of him.

When ponies said their hearts were bursting out of their chests with love, they hadn't been kidding.

Motherbucking ow.

It was also exceptionally bad news. No need to panic, he told himself. You've sucked up a lot of splashback from Cadance's and Shining's love-powered anti-changeling wave, and topped off on enriched royal jelly. That much love would've lasted him for months. Now he'd be lucky if it lasted days, and if he ran out of stolen love to give then Fluttershy, his beloved Fluttershy – ow – would suck the life right out of him. All that'd be left would be a shell, the empty husk of his carapace, and there'd be one less changeling in Equestria. Still, no need to panic. It was normal for a changeling to feed their Queen; however... however... Queens usually provided safe environments for their swarms to feed in. Canterlot, site of a recently-foiled changeling invasion, was as far from a safe environment as he could imagine. Plus... Fluttershy wasn't his Queen: Chrysalis or Celestia or Cadance was. It was wrong to feed a queen who wasn't your Queen. There wasn't a word for how wrong it was to feed somepony who wasn't a Queen. Fluttershy wasn't even a changeling – as far as he knew, anyway.

Immediately, he turned to study her. Looking at her wasn't a chore. She was so very beautiful, and he loved her so much-

Ow.

He didn't have that sense of a swarmmate being nearby, but that didn't mean she couldn't be a changeling.

Sinisteed put that possibility aside. It was a difficult assumption to operate with, and experience had told him it wasn't that likely anyway. He was usually right.

In any-case, it seemed he was now obligated to find somepony to feed on – in a city roused to the threat, where changelings had recently been exposed en-masse. Still, it might be all right.

After all, so long as Fluttershy didn't do anything too adorable, he wouldn't need to drain off all that much love.

“Oh come on!” An impatient voice said, in a tone convinced of its own awesome self-importance. “Taking too long! Stand back, everypony!”

Sinisteed's eyes slid regretfully from Fluttershy's beautiful face – ow – to where the Rainbow-maned pegasus was poised to leapt, pawing eagerly at the ground, her wings thrumming like a hummingbird's, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. “Stand way back,” she said.

“It'd really be better if you did,” Fluttershy whispered, so quietly nopony without a changeling's hearing could've heard it - certainly not from across the throneroom. She studied her hoof intently, scuffing it against the floor. “Um, if it's alright with you, that is.”

Of course it was alright with him. He wouldn't pass up any chance to be close to his – ow – beloved, suiting his actions to her words as he hurried to her side.

“Um, Sugahcube?” Applejack said.

“Busy!” Dash shot back, pressing against the ground as she stretched and cracked her wings.

As it happened, Sinisteed started a trend – and as her guardsponies backed, a worried look came to Celestia's eyes... until they came to rest on Dash, and widened in something that looked a lot like fear.

Twilight Sparkle saw it.

“Rainbow, wait!-”

Dash launched herself as if shot from the Pink pony's party-cannon - and how did that even work, anyway? He'd only narrowly avoided being on the receiving end of a spray of confetti during the battle of the plaza, and many of his broodmates had not been so lucky.

The rainboom hit halfway down the throneroom, and the shockwave slammed him – blessing of blessings – headfirst into Fluttershy, his body pinning her to the marble floor.

"Go Dashie!" Pinkie shrieked. "Woo!"

Hypervelocity Dashie hit Celestia's cocoon... and then there was light.

He protected his Fluttershy's beautiful, vulnerable body from the Rainbow's blast.

She blushed. “Sorry,” Fluttershy said, turning her head away. “I know it's not very nice inside my head. I don't know why everypony thinks I'm such a nice pony. I swear I've never done that to anypony before. Just to...” her rosy blush turned luminescent, “monsters,” she finished in a whisper. “Sorry."

She paused, looking straight at him.

"I didn't mean to stare you. It probably only worked because you're a changeling,” she said. “You don't have to love me. If you don't want to.”

Ow.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Endless desert had given way to terrain shot through with v-shaped valleys. Today, they'd reach Gemstowne. They'd forsaken the road, which any reasonable pony would expect to be patrolled, in favour of the rock strewn, scree-sided canyons. At least there was shade, for night had passed, giving way to dawn beneath the light of a sun untrammelled by the horn of any alicorn.

Yes, Chrysalis reflected, she and Trixie had been the only horny ponies beneath the stars last night.

“Did the earth move for you, too?” Trixie asked.

“It wasn't... bad,” Chrysalis admitted, her eyes half-lidded. “For a first attempt.” Trixie blushed crimson, very obvious against her blue coat, and rather attractive. Apparently, sex – good sex – was also good for relaxing ponies. Trixie had seemed rather wound after their training session, and that was no good thing on the eve of battle. “But, since you're asking if I felt the earth move-”

The earth moved.

“-Felt that,” Chrysalis said, beating her wings for support as the ground rocked beneath her.

“Woah! Equestriaquake!” Trixie said. “Uh, I mean, earthquake. Never felt one that strong before. Whether they dig or raid for gems, damn lizards are always causing trouble. You don't get drill-tailed dragons in Equestria – even the great wyrms are too afraid of the Princess. Princesses.” Trixie smiled wanly. “But you get tremors all the time in the borderlands. I've been feeling them since sunrise, but I didn't think... I can't get used to the sun here. It shouldn't change it's track like that. Say what you like about Celestia, she keeps the sun in line, and all her little ponies safe-”

The ground trembled, again. Pebbles bounced from the lip of the canyon, clattering to its bed.

"We'd better get out of here," Chrysalis said. "If there's a landslip-"

"-we'd be buried alive," Trixie said, and shivered.

Chrysalis could taste her fear. It was moments like this, Chrysalis reflected as they began to climb, when the ground was trembling and the fall steep and the hoofing uncertain, that imponysonating an Alicorn was really bucking useful. She had wings and magic, and as Cadance she'd been able to actually use both. Being Trixie really sucked. If only Trixie'd been in love with a nice mean Pegasus, instead of a self-obsessed narcissist-

Trixie slipped.

She shrieked, as she skidded rump-first across the surface of a boulder, and it became a scream of true terror as she tumbled head-over-hooves off its edge.

It wasn't a long way down to the floor of the canyon, maybe ten ponylengths, but in this barren wasteland a turned fetlock could be fatal, if Trixie didn't crack her damnfool head open on a rock or snap her horn clean off.

Chrysalis caught her in a web of magic.

On the other hoof, if she'd been imponysonating a pegasus, Trixie would be a smear right now.

She was surprised at how much that thought bothered her.

“Um, ahahah,” Trixie giggled, and Chrysalis didn't need her changeling's ear to know it might as well be screaming. “Trixie thanks you. If you could put Trixie down now, Trixie would appreciate it.” Her gaze slid across the rocky terrain that'd almost been the undignified end of her, eyes widening and pupils shrinking to pinpricks. She'd been imagining, Chrysalis knew, a glorious death in battle – and this little tumble had brought the grim reality back to her. “Up there,” Trixie gestured, “would be ideal.”

Delicately, Chrysalis floated Trixie to the promontory she'd indicated on the canyon's lip. The little blue unicorn was made of sterner stuff than she'd imagined.

“Thank you,” Trixie said, settling her cloak around her and floating her fallen hat back to its rightful place atop her head.

“If you wouldn't mind,” Chrysalis said, posing herself suitably for a telekinetic lift.

“Right,” Trixie said, gaze sliding back and forth across the other Trixie. “No problem,” she said, with little laugh. She probably wouldn't drop her alternate self... “You know, Trixie isn't sure she's quite up to it after her little spill,” she said, “so maybe it'd be better if you, you know-”

“Hoofed it?” Chrysalis said. With her wings, it'd be no problem. As it was... the scramble was clearly hazardous. She hadn't stayed Queen of the Swarm by taking unnecessary risks... but she hadn't become Queen of the Swarm by passing up opportunities just because they were dangerous, either.

“Fine,” she said, “but if you wouldn't mind not looking. I don't want you seeing me looking undignified.”

“Too late,” Trixie grinned, relief at survival blending smoothly into arousal and flirtation. “Trixie's already seen Trixie that way.”

“In the mirror,” Chrysalis teased back, then wondered why she'd bothered.

“That, too,” Trixie said, smiling. “Trixie meant au naturel, and beautiful.” Chrysalis felt the hit of affection feed her, all the way down to her hooves, and it felt good. “But alright. Trixie will turn her back, and go far enough away you won't get distracted staring at Trixie's plot and fall.” Trixie shuddered, and Chrysalis could taste the sour seasoning of fear on Trixie's love for her. “Just be careful,” Trixie said, as she turned and trotted away up the bluff.

For the first time in days, Chrysalis stretched her gossamer wings.

That felt good.

She fluttered them.

Oh, yes... just like that...

With the wingpower-assist and her changeling manoeuvrability, she was up the slope faster than even the most nimble-footed mountain goat.

Standing quite still, her azure coat blending into the azure desert sky, Trixie looked like she was meant to be part of it. She did indeed have a nice plot, framed pleasantly by her star-spangled flank-length cloak. Her platinum tail swished from flank to flank as Chrysalis approached, and the changeling queen ran her tongue over her fangs. Trixie had shrieked so sweetly when she'd scraped them across her-

Chrysalis crested the bluff.

“What do my eyes see,” she murmured.

It was vast. Vast like a forest, vast like a city, so vast she couldn't accept of it being one thing, but rather an agglomeration. It had to be something without purpose, something whose only purpose was to be itself, like Canterlot, which was made up of buildings and roads and ponies, who all had reason and motivation of their own, but Canterlot's only role was to be Canterlot.

“It's just a device,” Trixie said, her voice an awed whisper. “Just a machine.”

Yes. A machine, Chrysalis's thoughts cantered on. This thing had clearly been made, ponyfactured from pieces and put together with intent and purpose. She realised she was babbling, in her head, but she could no more stop it than halt the cogs or gears or bucket-wheel of the monstrosity that filled the sky before her.

“Like a train or a snowplough or a still or a wagon,” Trixie continued, still awed. Or terrified. Chrysalis wasn't sure. Her own fear was keeping her focus elsewhere. On the machine, not her companion. “Or a dragon. It must be a thousand hooves high.”

“And three times as long,” Chrysalis murmured, finally finding her voice. “Inconceivable!” Yet clearly it had been conceived, and designed, and drafted, and wrenched from the page into reality through the effort of hoof and claw... what had she thought she was doing, to challenge ponies if they could envisage this? What conceit had its designer had, and what skill to make their conceit real?

For the first time, Chrysalis felt humbled.

Fortunately, it passed quickly.

“Trixie,” Trixie said. “Trixie it's, it's... it's coming this way.”

Strictly speaking... the device... the machine... the mechanised monster... was turning towards them. It's 'feet', it's great interleaved wheels banded with vast metal links, were almost stationary, crawling barely faster than a pony could walk. Or so it seemed. The scale of the thing was daunting and disorientating. It was its torso that turned, and with it its great long latticework neck, and the giant jaw that ended it, a vast bucket toothed wheel, each one edged with wicked fangs filthy with earth. Each one suitable to eat a pony with one bite.

“Perhaps we should run?” Trixie suggested. Pointless. The thing was so large, it couldn't possibly be interested in them. Besides, its torso was so far away. No matter how long its neck, it couldn't possibly reach the bluff where they stood... couldn't possibly... reach... “Trixie...” Trixie said, backing away. “Run!”

The bucket-wheel slammed into the bluff, not a dozen yards from where they stood, and began to chew upon the earth. Chrysalis could see their teeth slashing out into the canyon behind them, as the bluff was wholly eaten away, no more than one mouthful for the great machine.

She and Trixie had to flee, but the ground danced beneath their hooves. Chrysalis spread her wings, felt them bite the air, giving her lift, giving her freedom, the freedom to flee, for them to flee, her and Trixie... who stumbled, and fell.

Trixie went tumbling down the slope towards the churning teeth of the fearsome machine.

She had to flee, had to fly, had to... had to... to...

She dove after Trixie.

Chapter 9

Sinisteed

For a moment, the world went technicolour, then Dash streaked out of the shockwave, trailing a rainbow from her flanks. Gummed within her cocoon, Celestia's eyes widened only slightly as she saw the hypervelocity pegasus bearing down on her. Then Rainbow Dash hit, and a second explosion of colour-stained royal jelly splattered everywhere, like a slower, stickier rainboom.

Princess and pegasus shot out of it, screaming as they hurtled across the floor.

“-Rainbow Dash!!!” Twilight shouted, grabbing for the Princess-assaulting pegasus - and her telekinetic grip slid from Dash’s Royal Jelly coated tail in a spray of sticky multihued droplets.

“-Quick! Get me a mirror! What's in my hair!?” Rarity screamed as it splattered her. “I know there's something terrible in my hair!-”

“-Ahhh! Spicy~” Pinkie screamed. Her face was far beyond pink, almost all the way up to fire engine red. Then they needed one, as her lips parted and actual flames shot from between them. “And sticky! It's stuck to my tongue anbd nobw I canb't feebl mby tonbgue,” she said, her rainbow-gooped tongue sticking out, and was swiftly reduced to helpless gazing around as she scraped at her tongue with her equally sticky hooves. “Helbp,” she mumbled.

Sinisteed could barely see, Celestia brightening from brilliant to blinding white, her translucent mane of pastel colours solidifying into opaque technicolour iridescence, her cutiemark shining like... well, quite so. Like the sun.

Dash tried to pull from her incandescence – and failed. Pounded by Dash’s hypervelocity hooves, baked by the Princess of the sun, the Royal Jelly had set like glue. Dash had no more success at slowing, either. The speedster, it seemed, didn't know how to stop.

The stained-glass window at the end of the throne room depicted the Elements of Harmony defeating Discord. Panicking pegasus and overpropelled pony princess blew it into razor-sharp, multicolour shards, which shone with light as the pair shot through them. It was unbearably beautiful. Sinisteed didn't really think he'd seen the draconequus's image shift and try to dodge the shattering impact – a trick of the light pouring from the solar godpony and his own recent emotional trauma of falling in love. In either case, the draconequus didn't make it.

For a moment they hung, framed by the shattered wreck and slowly tumbling shards, then, in a mathematically precise curve, began to fall as Dash's wings folded protectively across her eyes.

“Sugahcube!” Applejack screamed, reared, and bounded across the throneroom towards the shattered window.

“Oh no,” Fluttershy whispered, and Sinisteed was unceremoniously flipped onto his back as she dashed from beneath him to join Applejack.

“Failsafe spell, fix-everything failsafe spell,” Twilight Sparkle muttered, book already flipped out, opened, reread and dropping to the ground as her horn really began to glow-

Sinisteed flipped to his hooves, and tore across the floor after his – ow – beloved.

Canterlot castle clung precariously to the flank of the Canterhorn. Below, Equestria spread out like a map, like a patchwork-quilt of well-tilled fields and crops suiting each Earthpony's special talent. Wind whistled through the broken window and whipped around their withers. Sinisteed stretched a hoof and steadied Fluttershy, who squeaked – ow – adorably. It was a very long way down.

Rainbow Dash and Celestia still fell, the princess blazing with light, Rainbow a barely visible dark spot against Celestia’s flank – a shadow on the sun, trailing a rainbow as her princess’s light shone through her.

Neither spread their wings.

Pegasi guards plunged past Sinisteed, in futile pursuit of their princess. They might arrive in time to pick up the pieces, but they'd never catch Celestia and Rainbow Dash.

The moment stretched like taffy, like freshly secreted Royal Jelly-
Twilight Sparkle’s failsafe spell raced out over him. It caught the slowly-tumbling stained-glass shards - which turned and whipped back towards the three ponies and one changeling standing in the window like a hail of brightly coloured razor-edged death... and snapped back into the perfect image the glassblower had intended, right in front of their noses. The draconequus wiped a clawed hand across its brow, winked at Sinisteed, and vanished.

Celestia finally spread her vast wings, appearing almost the size of a dove, and - despite the distance - Sinisteed could see their descent begin to slow.

“Too late,” Fluttershy whispered-

-the failsafe spell caught them - and nothing happened!

Celestia flipped a wing, twisted in the air - and slammed horn-first into the ground. The impact snapped her head back, sending her tumbling head over hooves, wings spread.

Sinisteed thought he saw Rainbow Dash bounce free, before the plume of dust the impact had raised obscured the pair from view.

“Sugahcube!” Applejack screamed, reared, and made to leap.

The pale glow of Rarity's telekinesis engulfed her. “No!” Rarity shouted. “We'll go the long way round,” she said as she turned. “Keeping our hooves safely on the ground, and, uh-” she broke from trot into canter, “-hurrying,” she finished in a quite unladylike fashion.

“Unh,” Applejack grunted in grudging agreement, before blazing past her in a full gallop.

“My failsafe spell... failed,” Twilight Sparkle moaned, slumping her rump onto the floor. “Again.”

“Fixed my mane though, darling,” Rarity called as she cantered past her. “More or less. Now do come on!”
“I'm sure they're fine!” Twilight called after them. “Rainbow Dash crashes all the time! She levelled your old barn. She's destroyed my library more times than I can count. Princess Celestia's thousands of years and immortal – a little tumble isn't going to bother her. Of course they're fine. It’s not like it was for real. Just a test,” she paused, as if hearing her own words for the first time. “A test that I failed” she wailed, talking to herself in an empty throneroom. “Wait up, girls!” She shouted. “I'm coming too! I have to arrange a resit with Princess Celestia!”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

It's just a machine, Chrysalis's brain screamed at the rest of her. Not a dragon's maw. Just a machine just a machine just a-

Steam gouted from the hinge of the dragon's jaw-

-from the bucket wheel's axle-

-obscuring the fluttering of Trixie's cloak as she fell.

Just pull up pull up pull up she's probably teleported away or hit the ground already you can't even see her there's a whole world that could be yours you won't even have to look her in the eye-

-eyes which were as wide and bright as the whole world. Wide with terror and bright with tears, even though Chrysalis couldn't see them-

-except in my mind's eye, Chrysalis thought. And if I do not catch her, I will always be here, looking into them.

She shot past the very maw of the beast, through the gouting steam, barely feeling its scalding heat against her gossamer wings. On the far side, Trixie was still falling, legs flailing – and Chrysalis's forehoof smacked against hers. Royal Jelly, the tiniest amount, less than a mouthful, less than would make a boiled sweet, smeared between the hard soles of their hooves. It smeared across the sole of Trixie's hoof, and sank stickily into the grooves of the tender frog within.

Chrysalis felt her heart spasm at the touch.

Just cardiovascular just systemic just biological nothing important-

Then she spread her wings and pulled against Trixie's weight with all her might.

Caught between Queenly muscle and unyielding air, steam-soaked gossamer folded like freshly-used tissuepaper.

They tumbled, ground, sky, Trixie, ground, dragonstooth – no, bucketwheel-

Something smashed into her flank, throwing her and Trixie together, and she felt something in her chest in spite of the vast blow being glancing. Her head spun-

-ground-sky-ground-sky-ground-sky-

-the ground bucked her in the back, and she felt her fractured thorax break as Trixie landed atop her, almost unhurt, cursed lucky unicorn-

-I hadn't meant to give my life for you, Chrysalis thought.

Something cracked against her skull, and she knew no more.

Trixie

Alterixie hit the coal-blackened ground, and her body cushioned the impact's blow for Trixie – who felt something snap beneath her.

Broken ribs, thought Trixie, as they skidded along the ground together. Let it just be the ribs, please let it just be-

Alterixie's head smacked against a rock. Her eyes slid closed, and a soft sigh went out of her. Pressed out of her by Trixie's weight. Blood trickled from her ear, red blood matting blue mane, turning it purple, the exact shade of... Twilight Sparkle's...

“Oh Celestia,” Trixie moaned as she scrambled off Alterixie. “I've killed her. Trixie always knew her careless clumsiness would be the death of her.”

Grinding and groaning drew her eyes up, and Trixie saw the steam vent before she heard its wail. The... mechanical monstrosity shivered and settled into stillness, dripping oil, its last breath quieting from wail to hiss as its life leaked away. Fluids and breath just as vital leaked from the other self crumpled at her hooves.

But she slew the beast for me, Trixie thought, as steam cooled and misted down around them.

“Dear Celestia, are you mares alright!?” Somepony called, and Trixie heard the canter of hooves on coal. “I- I've- opened the main steam valve- stopped the excavator... what on earth were you doing? Nopony should've even been out here. Did you know that?”

The stallion, Trixie saw as she looked up, had probably always been tall, but now he had a gaunt, underfed look that no Equestrian pony would've worn – save perhaps the cream of the Canterlot elite. Unusually for ponies, he wore clothes – a black bow tie, though from the condition of the grey and blue stripes on his shirt, it could've once been some other colour. Certainly, no strawboater had ever started life that shade of grey.

“Help...?” Trixie whispered. “I... I think she's dead. Save her. Please. Help her. I love her so much. I didn't know it till now, I thought it was just my narcissism, but it's her. I love her. I'd love her even if she were Twilight Sparkle.”

“My goodness,” the stallion said. “Are you alright? Did you perhaps hit your head?”

“I'm fine,” Trixie screamed, thrusting her hoof at the crumpled Alterixie “She's the one who-”

“She's fine,” the stallion said, trotting over to her, “but there's a ton of blood and I'm afraid it might be from you, since you seem to be confused.”

“-hit... her.... head?” Trixie said, softly. Then she threw the distracting impossibility aside and embraced Alterixie in her hooves. “I'm so glad you're okay!” For a moment, she cried into Alterixie's coat. “Um... why are your hooves all over my head?” Trixie asked.

“Checking for concussion,” the stallion replied. “Of which confusion can be a symptom,” he explained, his blush obvious against his pale yellow coat, even through the coal dust stains. “You're fine,” he said, backing away from the embracing pair.

“I'm fine,” Alterixie whispered, turning her head into Trixie's nuzzling.

“You're amazing,” Trixie replied – she knew what she'd seen, and how fast her twin must've healed herself, for her injury to have left no sign.

“You're twins,” the stallion blurted as the Trixies clambered to their hooves, and a range of terror-suppressed aches made their presence known to Trixie. “Filly twins,” he said shifting in that uncomfortable way that stallions had when trying to hide that something attractive made an embarrassment of them. Then he shrivelled. “You should not have come here,” he said, “why did you leave Equestria? Although,” he admitted, scuffing his hoof in the coaldust. “I'm glad you did.”

“Because you're fantasizing about mounting us?” Alterixie said, and it wasn't really a question. “Us, twins, together, and all yours,” she smiled, wickedly, temptingly. “It's not impossible, you know.”

“It's not that,” the stallion said. Trixie's eyes slid down. Between his leanness and the ragged state of his coat, he didn't have much to hide his lie. “I mean, it is that,” he blushed, “of course it's that, you're both very attractive mares – but I've found my one true love: An idea. A great conception. That's why I left Equestria. To know a mare's joy. To give birth to it. But I shouldn't have. Ponies don't appreciate it when your machine can do their special talent better than they. Every rockfarmer in Equestria rejected us – the Delvers and the Digs, the Scoops and Shovelers, the Pies and the Panners,” he laughed, hollowly. “Their reasons were wrong, but their conclusions” he sighed, “their conclusions were right. Equestria was right – my idea was a monster, and now there's no escaping it.”

“I know how that feels,” Trixie said. “One pony. That's all it took to drive me from Equestria: Twilight Sparkle, and her friends - including that Applejack. They rejected me, humiliated me, and everypony just went along with it!”

“Ponyville?” The stallion asked. “I - my brother and I - had our own experiences there. Mostly those Apples. Stubborn as mules, those ponies, all of them, and they honestly tricked us into a deal that wasn't quite what we thought we were agreeing to. Then they ran us out town on a rail, barely one hoofstep ahead of the lynch mob. Still, it would've been better not to have come here. We shouldn't have come here – and neither should you.”

“Buckin' Applejack,” Trixie snapped, “lying with everything but the sweet words from her mouth. I've travelled Equestria,” Trixie said. “Amazed and astounded in Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Hoofington, but there's no place you can trust 'em less than Ponyville, save Canterlot itself – them Apples' are the worst of all, and they've got the government in their saddlebags. Sparkle's the very personal student of Princess Celestia herself, if you can believe it. Little lilac hussy.”

“Celestia's... most ancient,” the stallion said. “Very old. Those here who forsook her protection regretted it deeply... and yet,” he continued, “for all their prayers she did not return to save them. You have this chance to save yourselves,” he said.

“But where are my manners?” He continued, bowing over a straw boater that might've once been blond and pristine, but was now frayed and black with coaldust. “Even here, there is no excuse for forgetting one's manners. Allow me to introduce myself,” he said:

“I'm Flam, of the World Famous Flim Flam Brothers. Travelling salesponies nonpareil,” his voice taking on the lyrical tone of singing, but – he did not break into song. What had happened to him, that his natural pony instincts were so suppressed?

Nevertheless, in the face of two fabulous fillies, he managed to beam. “Perhaps you've heard of us?” Flam said.

“Trixie is... not from around here,” Alterixie said. “Trixie travelled most of Equestria without Trixie.”

“Indeed,” said Trixie. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has travelled the length and breadth of Equestria, and beyond! She has proven herself to be the most amazing unicorn in or out of Celestia's domain,” Trixie said, her muzzle turning up a little from the - rather disgustingly dirty – Flam. “Trixie is well aware of the 'FlimFlam' Brothers, whose reputation does indeed pursue them. I wonder how fast you've had to canter out of towns to keep it from proceeding you?”

“I'm confused,” said Flam. “Are you Trixie, or is she? And my brother and I are not the only unicorns here with a reputation they'd rather outrun.”

“Actually - and prepare to be amazed,” Trixie said, smiling at her doppleganger, “we're both Trixie.”

“Ohh...” said Flam. “I see the scam. One of you ducks out over here, the other pops up over there, and, bam, unicorn teleportation! Two twins acting as one! I wish we'd thought of it,” he said, envy ringing in his voice.

As he spoke, Trixie's gaze darkened. Chrysalis could practically see the urge to do violence as it rose, the willingness to kill she'd tried to nurture in Trixie. Strangely – 'The Great and Powerful' Trixie was just a dupe and a tool and a meal, after all – she felt proud.

“Idiot!” Trixie shouted, and flipped Flam's hat from his head with focused burst of battlemagic that could've as easily removed the unicorn's head from his shoulders, and pasted a look of terror across his face. “Trixie and Trixie are not anything as mundane as twins, they are one and the same pony! Trixie has rent the very walls between worlds asunder with her great power! Smashed open the Outer Gates and stepped through where nopony before her dared to set hoof! Trixie has studied magic beneath the wing of Princess Celestia herself, has faced that tyrannical alicorn in mortal combat and lived to tell the tale, and you have insulted her!”

“As you can see,” Alterixie said, “you take your life in your hooves, Flim, brother of Flam. What have you done, that you value it so little?”

“You shouldn't have done that,” Flam said, “they will have felt it. Guard-dogs will be coming.”

“-What!?” Trixie exclaimed-

“We don't have much time,” Flam said. “You have neither food nor water.”

“We must go to Gemstowne,” Alterixie replied, and Flam nodded. Apparently, it was answer enough.

“Indeed,” Flam agreed. “But – hidden. In secret.” At a distance made uncertain by the drifting banks of steam, the clatter of claws on rock could be heard. “The coal-train lies that way,” Flam indicated. “Secrete yourselves aboard. It will take you where you need to go.

“What about the magic,” Alterixie said. “They'll search – they'll find us -”

“I'll tell them it was me,” Flam grinned, suddenly roguish and handsome through his coating of grime. “Go!”

For a moment, Trixie and Alterixie broke into a canter, till Trixie slowed, looked back. “What'll they do to you?” She asked.

“A beating, most likely,” Flam grinned. “I've been beaten before, and if worse...” his cocksure smile faltered and his gaze fell to his hooves, “then I survived before, at any cost. I find I dislike the price.” When his eyes rose to meet hers again, the tears they held refracted some inner fire. “What I did,” he said, “to deserve death – I betrayed my brother,” he gestured to the vast, monstrous machine that overhung them, “by building that.”

Alterixie's jaw fell, and she too faltered from her canter.

“The folly of the FlimFlam brothers,” Flam continued, breaking at last into song, but the words were tinged with sadness, “the Exceedingly Enormous Anthracite Excavating Eight Thousand~”

Nearby, a terrifying howl rose, cutting his voice like a knife, a howl that Trixie recognised all too easily, recalling a horror she remembered all too clearly, chilling her blood right down to the bone.

“Go!” Flam screamed, as the staccato clatter of claws drew unmistakably close. “Find my brother, and help him – help all the ponies – and so help yourselves!”

The Trixies went.

Chapter 10

Trixie

Coal dust, Trixie had discovered, itched. Both she and Alterixie looked like pitch-black coated blankflanks, like mini Nightmare Moons, except Nightmare Moon's mane had been star-spangled midnight perfection, not a dusty grey ruin, times two.

This was because they were buried upto their horns in coal, as they hid in the coal-truck from the searching guard-dogs. The howls were, in their way, terrifying, but they moved closer and further at random, and at no point seemed less than confused in the manner of their search.

They almost drowned out the feminine whinnying of a pony, as he was beaten.

The sound twisted Trixie’s heart.

Mercifully, the traction-engine's whistle screamed, and with a grinding of tempered steel on tortured earth, the coal-train juddered into motion. That in itself was impressive. The cart they hid in was as large as the largest farmwagons, their chassis larger even that of her own lost caravan. Farmwagons of the kind that were hewn from solid aged oak and required a fourstrong team of the heaviest shireponies to draw when laden with hay or a cargo of vegetables. But this wagon, though it was sided with wood, had underpinnings of iron, and its steel-spoked wheels were rimmed with metal bands wider than she was – they had to be, for the wagon groaned under the weight of a full loading of heavy coal.

Heavy, dirty coal that she was up to her horn in.

And this wagon was only one of four strung behind the traction-engine.

More impressive than the train was the strata. She could see the coal, buried beneath the escarpment, towering over the eastern skyline. Once, there might’ve been a slope here, but where coal had come up to the surface, the ponies had worked down to the limit of their ability to open new faces and dig new tunnels.

Then Flim’s machine had come along and ripped away the surface, directly exposing the coal, like a nail dug into the skin of the world. Then it’d crawled west, drawn inexorably by the attraction of a thinner overburden. More coal for less effort. And the result had been this. The eastern edge of the mine-quarry-workface towered higher than any cliff Trixie’d ever seen.

A tiny track switchbacked its way up its sheer face.

Surely, surely, this great heavy wagon train wasn’t going that way?

It was.

“I see it,” Alterixie whispered, as the train climbed the switchbacks, “but I do not believe it.” Trixie quite agreed with her: It was only from above, looking down, that the devastation wrought by Flim's monstrous machine could truly be understood. A swathe of land had been denuded, stripped of what little vegetation this desert landscape had held, then the very sand itself removed and dumped aside, to reveal the pure strata of coal below. The machine's long neck gave reach to its all-consuming jaw, and despite the almost imperceptible motion of its body, the vast array of hillocks of displaced earth and sand showed the extent of its working. They stretched out for what must've been miles, regular as a checkerboard... and yet, the mine itself stretched further still.

The mind, Trixie realised, was tricked by the scale of the machine and its droppings, for what seemed to be a sameness beyond was in actuality a patchwork of minebuildings, access tracks and small minefaces, such that might be worked by a few ponies with hoof or mouthtools or magics, or groups of ten or so with horse-drawn equipment.

Even from this distance, she could see that they sat dilapidated, deserted for some time. And why should they not, she wondered – Flim's machine could do all their work ten times over, with one pony's labours alone. Well, no, she considered. Flim had surely had a team of ponies to support him, but the thrust of her point was indisputable.

The wagon-train lurched to the left, towards the gaping depth of the mine and away from the cut of the cliff-face. From her position – she couldn't help but think of it as entombed in the wagonload of coal – Trixie couldn't see the packed-earth roadway. She only knew its edge had to be growing closer to the wheels of the wagon in which she was trapped. How much would a bunch of pony-eating gem-greedy Diamond Dogs care about industrial accidents, like, say, a wagon-train load of coal sliding off the road and bouncing its way into crumpled wreckage at the base of the mine?

Not much, she suspected, and no more if they knew that wreckage contained the pounded, tangled bodies of a pair of Trixies.

Of course, the diamond dog driver and firepony of the traction-engine had a great deal invested in not tumbling over the cliff, and – presumably - they knew their jobs. Were experienced at their jobs.

But everypony has bad days, her mind supplied treacherously, and everypony has to have a first day. Besides, the traction-engine's hoofplate had been open-sided. They could probably just step off to the safety of the roadway in the instant before disaster.

Unlike she and Alterixie.

Still the cliff-face drew further, and the edge – presumably – drew closer.

Maybe the roadway widens here, she thought, increasingly panicked. Maybe we're almost at the top and drawing out to turn in – but she could easily look up, and see that they weren't nearly at the top, barely three-quarters of the way up; or ahead, and see that even if the road widened here it narrowed before the next switchback, which was just right there, and it was rapidly approaching.

Why? She wondered. Why why why are they doing this to me! What've I done to deserve-

The oncoming wagon-train swung wide round the corner ahead, huffing and puffing as it held its own string of wagons back, and curled round to nuzzle up against the cliff-face so the two trains could pass.

You've got to be kidding me thought Trixie.

It was all too easy to imagine tightly-packed – but not tightly enough packed – earth crumbling under the weight of all this coal. The traction-engines wouldn't even have to collide to get her killed, Trixie realised – and why's our heavily-laden train taking the outside route she screamed silently.

Seeing the tightly-packed barrels loaded onto the descending wagons as they passed gave her the answer. Of course Flim's steam-driven mining-engine would have a prodigious thirst. Where did all that water come from in the middle of the bucking desert? The question distracted her for the few thunderous, perilous seconds it took the road-trains to pass, and she forgot to be afraid.

The climb to the lip of the cliff-face was almost anti-climatic, after that – till they crested the peak.

Whether by design, by the decades-long tread of ponies' horseshoes, or the years of serrated-grip traction-engine wheels, the road ran through a gully deep enough to swallow even the great driving wheels. Along its lip, where the upward-tilted angle of her view left her no choice but to look at them – not that she could tear her eyes away – were the bodies of the ponies. But not alone, she realised. There was the corpse of a diamond dog, 'pilferer' tattooed across his desiccated flesh, mummified by the hot desert air; and there that of a griffon, a sign reading 'pirates, ye be warned', dangling from it's beak; and there the body of some black, chitinous creature she did not even recognise, widely travelled though she was. “Attendant of the Exile,” Alterixie whispered. “Somepony will pay for this.” The line of bodies drew Trixie's eyes onward, down the length of the road till they blurred into the distance.

Ahead, she could make out the low-slung-shapes and more distant black dots of traction-engines and wagons: The coal-trains preceding theirs, and, oncoming, fresh wagon-trains laden with water and other mining supplies. Beyond them lay Gemstowne, its buildings sprayed across the ground like a foal's scattered building blocks. Thousands of them. Above them rose vast structures buttressed by beams, supported by entangling spiderwebs of gossamer steel strands - but for her to see them at all, those cables must be thicker than the barrel of a pony’s chest. Hidden fires, steam-driving who-knew-what, heating iron till it flowed like water, sparked like magic, dancing to the tune ponies called... the diffuse glow of those fires lit the horizon like the instant of sunrise.

“One hundred-thousand dogs and ponies,” Alterixie breathed. “I'm going to flay Fido's skin off and feed it to him.”

“A-buh, a-buh, eheheheheh-heh,” Trixie giggled, snuggling down into her warm, safe blanket of coat so she didn't have to look at it. “We're so, so bucked,” she said. Thought about it. “Do we risk the desert?”

“Certain death,” Alterixie replied. “Plan's the same. Cut the head off the snake, the body dies. It's just a little harder now,” she continued. “Risk commensurate with the reward, though.” She paused. “You thought it was a good idea to come here?” Pause. “What were you thinking?”

“'That it's a town full of lonely, rich, unsophisticated mineponies,” Trixie answered. “Not that Trixie's that kind of pony, you understand,” she blurted, and coloured. “I was right though. Except there's an order of magnitude – several orders of magnitude – more of them than Trixie'd expected. Plus some of them are vicious, slaving, miserly Diamond Dogs. It certainly is... big,” she gulped, casting her eyes over the long, low roofs of Gemstowne's buildings and their surrounding slumtown, broken by the blocky metal-framed towers that she presumed to be clancastles – why were they surmounted by those huge, spoked wheels, anyway, and-“what the hell is that!?” She blurted, her head bursting out in a spray of coal.

Alterixie joined her, as the shadow swept over and past them. “It's just an airship,” she explained, “Griffin-made, from the looks of it.” Indeed, Trixie saw as she looked up, the vessel had something of the great raptors about it, the balloon stylised into a sharp-beaked prow, spreading aft through a bulging midsection to a spray of tailfeather control-vanes aft. A pair of golden talons struck down, grasping a cats-cradle of rope and cabling that stretched up to the balloon both fore and aft, small platforms and unidentifiable machinery suspended in it like flies in a spider's web.

There was neither gondola nor cabin nor hull, as familiarity with pony-manufactured airships had led her to expect. “It's nothing to worry about anyway,” Alterixie continued, and Trixie had to agree with that assessment. “That, on the other hoof-”

Trixie turned, looking right into the eyes of a very surprised traction-engine driver, a diamond dog who'd thought he'd been pulling a load no more dangerous than coal. “Who in the deeps are you?” He said.

“-is a dragon,” Alterixie finished.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Sinisteed

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, “but I already failed to fix everything using the fix-everything-fail-safe spell during the Discord incident. I don’t get to have a retest,” she said, beginning to trot in circles, “this was my retest.” She paused, staring right into Sinisteed’s face, her hooves clutching at his shoulders. “Do you think Princess Celestia will let me take a re-retest?” She asked. The last time Sinisteed had seen that expression of naked hope had been during a proposition of marriage, from a bedraggled stallion to a supermodel mare - who he’d been imponysonating, but the stallion hadn’t known that.

“Of course not!” Twilight continued, breaking away from him and into a pointless, circling canter.

“Dude,” a voice breathed, right in his ear, and Sinisteed nearly jumped out of his skin. Only an effort of will maintained the illusion of the generic guardspony he was imponysonating. “Remember what PrinCelly said about this, yeah?” The stallion continued, bumping his hip. Sinisteed didn’t need to look in his eyes to see Royal Jelly had wasted him. “On three? One-”

-Sinisteed realised what he was expected to do-

“-two-”

“Whoever heard of a re-retest? The whole idea’s ridiculous.” Twilight’s chattering continued. “Celestia doesn’t set re-retests, she sends her students back to-”

“-three-” they shouted together, and a combined featherweight of guardspegasi and changeling tackled Twilight Sparkle to the marble floor, who squished nicely beneath him.

“Let me go!” Sparkle screamed, a howl torn from the deep terror of the soul, and the last time Sinisteed had heard it, he’d ripped the pony’s throat out a heartbeat later. “I’ll be tardy!!!”

Energy glittered from Twilight’s horn, and Sinisteed’s life flashed before his eyes. She wouldn’t slay her own mentor’s loyal guardsponies, he reassured himself. Surely!?

Then it engulfed her, and with a whipcord crack and a flash of pink-purple light, she vanished-

-and reappeared half a dozen hoofsteps away.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy murmured, resting her forehooves on the destraught unicorn’s shoulders, “It’s okay, okay?” She said. “You didn’t fail a test. There was no test. So feel better.”

Just then, Sinisteed would not have traded places with Sparkle, not for all the world, not even to have his beloved’s forehooves - ow - around him. Sparkle didn’t even seem to realise she’d been made to feel better. And with nopony to tell her, his Fluttershy didn’t even know what she’d done. Was doing. She hadn’t known when she’d done it to him, to make him love her. Or so she’d claimed when he’d told her, and he couldn’t disbelieve his - ow - beloved. “Just... be calm,” Fluttershy continued. “Um, if that’s alright with you, that is.”

Naturally, Twilight Sparkle subsided instantly.

“We do need to go and make sure Rainbow Dash and Princess Celestia are all right though,” Fluttershy continued. “That was a very nasty fall. And everypony’s left me behind,” she said. “Again.”

Sinisteed wilted like chopped, forgotten flowers left out of life-giving water - ow.

“Oh,” Twilight said, “yes,” her horn already beginning to glow once more. “Of course they’re all right, but, no problem,” she continued, turning to look out the window as the the glow engulfed her and his Fluttershy both, “teleportation’s a breeze. They’re fine, though. I’m sure of it.”

It occurred to Sinisteed that a pony only said that if they weren’t really sure of it.

Fluttershy and Twilight were gone before the whipcrack of their passing reached his ears.

Half a second later, the recently-repaired window shattered for the second time in as many minutes, and, protected by the sickly green mageglow of his own siegebrood powers, he shot through the lethal rain of shards, following his beloved - ow - by the direct route.

Chapter 1

Madame Butterfly
a fanfiction of Equestria by
Jonshine
with respects to
Hasbro

“This day has been just perfect,
The kind of day I've dreamed of since I was small...
Everypony I'll soon control,
Every stallion mare and foal,
Who says a girl can't really have it all!!!”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Queen Chrysalis of Equestria

Chrysalis felt a burst of magic from behind her, and the trickle that remained of Shining Armor's love for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza cut off like somepony had turned the stopcock.

“Whe, whuh, huh?” Shining Armor mumbled. “Is - is the wedding over?”

“It's all over!” Chrysalis blurted. How dare he! How dare he stop loving her!? Wasn't he utterly in her power and under her spell? Didn't he love her no matter how hideous she looked? No matter that loving her was killing him, bit by bit, day by day, ending in their eternal to-your-death-do-us part union today.

“Your spell,” the annoying little sister said, half order, half plea. “Perform your spell!”

“What good would that do?!” Chrysalis laughed. So what if Shining Armor hadn't wed her? He was nothing and she was everything. She was Queen of the Changelings, and she didn't need him. “My changlings already roam free,” she gloated.

“No!” Shining Armor cried. She was surprised he'd had the strength to speak, let alone to attempt the sorcery. That he'd failed had been a matter of course. “My power is useless now,” he moaned. “I don't have the strength to repel them.”

“My love will give you strength,” Cadance said, and embraced him.

Queen Chrysalis blinked. “What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment,” she said. Anypony could generate the power of love, of course, and in fact Equestria seemed to be unusually saturated with unusually genuine (if occasionally impure) love. But only changelings could manipulate, channel and convert it into magic: For their own use or anotherpony's, or simply to feed from – and wasn't feeding on pure love and magic more equine than pinning some poor creature under her hoof and tearing its flesh off with her fangs? Why, she and her swarm were progressive and forward-thinking changelings!

The Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and her groom – Chrysalis's groom – continued to make up with one another, and Chrysalis found her hooves carrying her to the window, to gaze out over her new domain. So what if she didn't want to watch Shining Armor making up with another pony on their wedding day? It only made it the tiniest bit imperfect. There were thousands of ponies out there who'd come to love, worship and adore her, as they had Celestia before her... or at least, they would if they knew what was good for them! Let 'Cadance' have what remained of Shining Armor's love, for as long as he lived, in the hovel they'd share in whatever loveless land far from Equestria she banished them to! She wouldn't even deign to look upon them.

So it was that the pulse of love-driven magic from behind took Chrysalis almost entirely by surprise. She just had time to turn, for her eyes to widen in astonishment and fear, before the wave blew her through the window.

Screaming.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis, or possibly just Chrysalis the Changeling - for what was a Centurion without his hundred men, or a Queen without her hive – flew through the air, hoping she wasn't now Chrysalis the Last Changeling.

Her flight was unlike that of a bird, nor even a smooth and rounded cannonball, but rather an ungainly piece of statuary, a crumbling stone ode to a long-forgotten ruler. A statue thrown by some ancient siege trebuchet. One fired by descendants of those who had once worshipped, descendants who remembered little and cared less. Discarded and defeated, Chrysalis flew far, her light body the plaything of momentum and the breeze.

At this speed, her wings were less than useless. Instinct cried for her to spread them, but to do so would be to have the gossamer fabric shredded by the wind. She cursed the magic she had squandered – the power of Shining Armour's love for 'her' had lain even the sun-goddess Celestia low, and the merest fraction could have saved Chrysalis now – but none remained. It had required all of the little that had been left to survive when Shining Armor had turned upon her. She had but neglected him for a moment, foalishly disinterested in the empty vessel he'd become, forgetting it could be refilled... and how had Cadance achieved that, anyway? It should've been impossible for anypony.

Chrysalis knew she'd never learn the answer to that riddle, because she was going to die. The expanding shield spell had pushed her to great speed – and the complaint that she hadn't known it could do that would do nothing to lessen how hard the unforgiving ground would hit her.

Every piece of her chitin would be smashed, all her bones shattered, her wings would be torn and ruined because she would at least try to live before dying. Once it was over she'd lie broken on the baking desert of the Western Outlands, like a bug crushed carelessly underhoof. Her precious bodily fluids would leak from her corpse, trickling down the cracks in the drought-dried ground. That, till the Chuckwallas and the Leopard Lizards came out of their cracks, joined by the Owls and the Cottontails and the Kangaroo Rats from their burrows, to fight with the Coyote over whatever remained.

For her meat, they would love her to the last mouthful.

It was not a terribly comforting thought, made more galling because she could have lived. Had she been blasted towards Equestria, where she might be found by somepony, somepony who loved somepony she might replace, or leastwise briefly imponysonate... With the Power of Love her magic could've healed even the worst of injuries. But Shining Armor had put her out of his heart, and propelled her course for the Outlands, if he'd even gone so far as to think of her at all, and so she was going to die.

Then she sensed the pony.

CHANGELINGCHANGLEINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

The Great and Powerful Trixie

The Great and Powerful Trixie was a very happy and entirely satisfied pony. She had the most beautiful new caravan, suiting her carefree and nomadic lifestyle – nowhere in Equestria was even close to being worthy of having her, the Great and Powerful Trixie, as an actual full-time resident. Even if such a magical place were to exist (Canterlot might come close, or even Manehattan), the awesome presence of the Great and Powerful Trixie would quickly reduce those ponies who lived there to shells of their former selves, their lives devoid of hope that they'd ever be half the unicorn she was.

It was for this reason – because when you were as great and powerful as the Great and Powerful Trixie, it behoved you to occasional benevolence – that she had temporarily left Equestria. All the other creatures of the world deserved to wonder and marvel at her, and perhaps even have the pleasure of providing her with some trinket or other.

That was why she'd come to the deserted desert outlands west of Equestria, far beyond even the frontier town of Appleloosa. The region's famed gemstone wealth had drawn her here, and Gemstowne was supposed to be the motherlode. That, and the fact it was on the far side of Canterlot from Ponyville and that insufferable pony Twilight Sparkle (and her pathetic pursuit of Trixie, presumably in the hope Trixie would spare her some magic in the hope it would make her a quarter the unicorn Trixie was – it was terrible thing, the ambition a very little talent could breed in some ponies).

In fact, it was about as far from Twilight Sparkle, Snips & Snails, Twilight Sparkle, the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle, all of Ponyville, and Twilight Sparkle as it was possible to be without falling off the edge of the world.

Best of all, there were no Ursas of any kind, and no Twilight Sparkle either.

Trixie didn't know whether to pity pegasi and earthponies more or less than unicorns. Of course, they were less developed than any unicorn could be (for what could be higher than magic), but they had their own special talents in menial things like pushing around clouds and growing crops. At least they were spared the indignity of having to compare themselves to a pony as Great and Powerful as Trixie, and so constantly find themselves wanting. Why, they could even provide her with gifts of things she might want or find useful – her new caravan, for example!

It'd been lovingly hoofmade by the most talented of earthpony coachbuilders, his plebeian designs modified to her personal specifications – the brilliance of which had clearly astounded the craftspony – in return for the merest trifles of her magic, performed for the delectation of his fellow villagefolk. They'd been feting Whathisname for that performance as she left their pathetic earthpony hovel of a town behind her.

Naturally, she'd chosen the plainest model, and had it decorated by the finest unicorn artist in all Equestria – herself. There were some things it just wouldn't do to leave to an earthpony.

The Great and Powerful Trixie looked up from the rare and delicious blue-mountain-sourced desert-spring-water-fed low-molecular-weight (food that went directly to your brain!) amino-acid-rich aphanizomenon flos-aquae she'd been eating, and cocked her head east.

What was that whistling noise?

CHANGELINGCHANGLEINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

The pony – Chrysalis could sense – was all alone in the desert, and they were very, very lonely. Yet they loved somepony with all their heart.

Hope surged. Chrysalis tried to angle herself towards this little pony, now – maybe, possibly, hopefully – her saviour. Her wings tore like tissuepaper the moment she extended them, and her screams were lost to the wind that'd ripped them. How could she have forgotten, she berated herself, when just a moment ago she'd been thinking how fragile they were – but there was no time for recriminations. Chrysalis had to use whatever was available to her, hooves and horn and twisting torso all.

It was trial-and-error, more than anything, learning something from each mistake, each extension of a curved surface that tipped or tilted her the wrong direction, further from salvation and towards extermination, and too many mistakes would kill her for sure. She cursed now the lightness she'd so often thanked for her fleetness and agility. Perfection came by luck of limb and breeze, rather than any skill of her own.

Perfection and overperfection. With growing horror, Chrysalis's slit-eyes saw the gaily-painted wagon. Perhaps the filly who owned it was a schoolmare travelling between disparate desert communities – certainly, it appeared as if it'd been decorated by enthusiastic, albeit inexperienced, foals. Surely a mare drawn to that vocation would have love enough to spare for anypony misfortunate enough to plunge from the sky.

Then Chrysalis perceived that she would land not only near the wagon, but on it! It would be a fine irony if for the sake of merest inches she hit and killed the only pony in a hundred leagues who might've saved her - had they both lived.

Chrysalis flailed, and the wind howled through her hoofholes.

The ground rushed up to meet her, and the side of the wagon – decorated with a ridiculous foals-impression of a platinum-maned wizard, complete with bestarred cloak and pointed hat – hit her in the face.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

The Great and Powerful Trixie

The whistling grew louder. Quite distracting, really, and really, when it was getting to the point that a unicorn couldn't even eat her expensive health food in peace, then what was the point? Or at least, it would've been expensive if it'd been served in a high-class Manehattan restaurant, advertised as in-season fresh-foraged, and surely this was as freshly-foraged as could be, which should make it more valuable, not less.

As the whistle became a howl Trixie looked up from the rock she was licking her slimy meal from. "Poulain~" she called, before remembering she wasn't actually in that high-class Manehattan restaurant, and saw the black form hurtling towards her wagon.

The Great and Powerful Trixie flung herself flat in the dirt, forehooves clutched protectively over her hat.

Her bright and beautifully decorated caravan exploded into bright and wickedly sharp shards as the falling pony smashed through and reduced it to shrapnel. Splinters the size of Trixie's hoof zipped past her, buzzing horribly, as smaller ones tore evilly into her coat and down into her flesh, and somepony screamed.

After awhile, the noise went away, except for the screaming.

Trixie wished that pony would shut the buck up, whoever she was.

A little later, pausing to gasp for air, she realised it'd been her.

Panic passed. Trixie recognised that Trixie was injured, but not badly. The dry desert air would quickly cause her wounds to scab over. Already the rivulets of blood were drying on her coat. Yes, the wounds on her body would heal quickly. As for the injuries to her soul...

… her beautiful and beloved wagon had been reduced to wreckage, again; she was homeless, again; she was unemployed, again; she was alone in the desert without supplies, or shelter, and since the scraps of her map were now fluttering down around her she was lost, too. At least this time, the rare and precious tomes of magic and playbills of showponyship she'd inherited from her mother hadn't been destroyed, because as far as she knew none of them had survived Ponyville's Ursa. Or if they had they were probably in the hands of that madmare librarian Twilight Sparkle, who might be and probably was doing any and all manner of molestation to them in her comfortable treehouse. Also, she'd lost her mirror – again – which meant she'd have nopony to admire or talk to.

Reduced once again to the cloak on her back, hat on her head, and her own great and powerful powers, the Great and Powerful Trixie stood. It wasn't really all that bad. She was still great, and powerful, and with her hat and cloak and cutiemark anypony could see that she was. She'd be able to get those other things she'd lost back again. After all, she'd already done so once before.

So now she was going to go and see what manner of impudent creature would dare to assault the person of the Great and Powerful Trixie and break her stuff, and whether they had anything to make up for it with.

Maybe food that wasn't lichen licked from a rock.

The Great and Powerful Trixie wasn't at all worried. Any knocking together of her knees was purely due to the shocking experience she'd just been through and not at all to being afraid of who-or-whatever might've caused it.

Besides, she thought as she peered over the lip of the furrow the crash had ploughed, nopony could've survived that.

A moment later, she was leaping down into the trench, heedless of the sharp wreckage and the dirt and the unsure footing, towards the pony – a pony whose face she knew all too well – lying helpless and dying in the grave her crash had dug for her.

Chapter 7

Trixie

“Your most important piece of equipment, is your shield,” Alterixie shouted. “If you must make a choice between a spell and a shield, choose the shield!”

“Right!” Trixie replied. The sky-blue globe of her shield gleamed beautifully under the – ugh – twilight. Two rocks, wrapped in flaming green, tore down and impacted on it. One exploded in a dazzling flash, the other ricocheted off in a spray of turquoise sparks.

“Good!” Alterixie shouted, “but remember, the attack can also come from behind!” A shard of rock – the one that'd ricocheted – slammed into Trixie's shield from behind.

Gotta keep it up, Trixie thought, pumping raw power into the shieldspell – and the unbalanced surge of magic across the globe's surface drove her to her knees.

“Or below!” Alterixie yelled. This time, rock slammed into the ground just beyond Trixie's shield.

Huh?

She missed, thought Trixie – as a cloud of dust, kicked from the ground inside the shield by the impact beyond it flew into her face. Grit stung into her eyes, and instinct coiled her magic to clear then. It took, at most, half a second, and when she blinked her eyes clear-

-a flaming green splinter of rock floated before her nose, rotating gently about it's sharp axis. Strange, Trixie thought as her eyes crossed trying to focus on it, that I can't feel the heat. Most magefire's hot – but Alterixie's isn't.

“Congratulations,” Alterixie said. “You're dead.”

“Buck,” Trixie murmured. It was the fourth time Alterixie had 'killed' her today. That her shield had held until the other pony got sneaky wasn't much consolation. Diamond Dogs were probably good at sneaky.

Tomorrow they'd reach Gemstowne, where she was likely going to die.

“I'm going to die,” she said, and sniffed, tears welling in her eyes. “The Dogs are going to rip me to shreds and eat me. I don't wanna get eaten.”

“You're doing fine,” Alterixie comforted. “Your defences are already much stronger. But somepony like me is always going to find a way through eventually. You need to knock your opponent off their hooves before that happens. Now, I'm going to handle most of the offensive stuff, but it wouldn't hurt to teach you a few moves.”

“The firewhip?” Trixie asked. That, she'd like to learn. It'd been seriously cool, which meant she could use it in her shows. Let's see how that one-rope-trick earthpony Applejack liked it when Trixie turned up wielding that, hah!

Or, more realistically, if she was going to die in battle she could at least look awesome while doing it.

“No.” Alterixie said. “Unfortunately not. It's a mageforged weapon, tricky to cast and far trickier to wield.”

“Oh,” Trixie said. She'd been looking forward to-

“You're becoming quite proficient with the shield spell," Alterixie said. "Why don't I show you some of it's offensive applications?”

It hadn't gone badly, Trixie thought awhile later. Of course, there was still the little question of whether she could bring herself to kill anypony. In all Equestria, Twilight Sparkle was the pony she hated most. It was easy to imagine herself, standing proud with her head held high, whilst Sparkle prostrated herself and begged for forgiveness, pleaded that she be allowed to study at the hooves of such a Great and Powerful pony as Trixie, but... the vision ended with her magnanimous self, agreeing to teach Sparkle the few trifles of magic Trixie though Twilight could handle...

She couldn't imagine mounting Twilight's head on a pike, for example.

She couldn't even imagine magiduelling the other unicorn to death.

“What're we expecting, at Gemstowne?” She asked, and took a big bite of roasted rump of Rover to distract herself.

“'Some hundreds, thousands of ponies and Diamond Dogs. Different packs,” Alterixie said. “A strange system. No Queen,” she paused. “No, ah, Princess. Each pack has Alpha, Beta and Gamma dogs. Many digdogs. Many pony-slaves. The pack-of-packs rules Gemstowne, with a loose paw. No feared iron-shod hoof, no adored coruscating mane. Most packs just... do what they want,” Alterixie shook her head, and Trixie read it as disbelief.

“Packs have their own guards, own hunters,” Alterixie continued, “dogs, and ponies who think like dogs. Various mutts and strays, beyond the law of the packs. Like Rover's little band, paid a pittance in aquamarines to patrol the desert. We were a payday, for them, for conversion into gems.” Alterixie said, motioning to the collar she'd taken from Rover, which was studded with the pale-blue stones.

“Most ponies and digdogs work in the diamond mine,” Alterixie shrugged, “the dogs must have their diamonds. Some ponies mine coal or graphite, for burning or trade – to the griffons or to Equestria's black market. If you're a lucky pony, you have some skill to make or fix things, and you don't end up in the mines. You can even be a freepony – as valued as a mutt like Fido,” Alterixie said with a bark of laughter.

“We could die.” Trixie said. She hadn't heard much past 'thousands' - and if only one them were to live, it was not likely to be her. I might have to kill a pony, she thought. “This could be our last night in Equestria,” she thought about this. “Or out of it, as the case may be.”

“Yes,” Alterixie shrugged, “just like any other night.”

“In your life,” Trixie said. “Not mine.”

“My life is yours, or could've been," Alterixie said, rolling to face her. "What are you thinking of, other Trixie?”

“Things left behind, or undone. Old wounds, scabbed over but still raw. Debts uncollected or unpaid,” Trixie answered, a little wistful.

“Sparkle?” Alterixie asked.

“Something is owed, there,” Trixie agreed. “But, no. Trixie could let it go. Trixie can be the bigger pony. It's her own debts Trixie is considering, now. Like the one Trixie owes to you.”

“Trixie saved Trixie after Trixie's crash, then Trixie saved Trixie when Trixie was threatened by Diamond Dogs,” Alterixie said. “Our lives have been in each others hands, kept and returned safe. No blood-debt lies between us.”

“That is not what Trixie meant,” Trixie said, gently pressing Alterixie over onto her back. “Speaking of ponies left undone.”

“Oh.” Alterixie said, blushing. “Yes. Well. That.” She grinned, wickedly. “You should service your debt, then,” she said, shifting her hindquarters apart as Trixie's hooves and tongue slid down her body.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Sex. Sex – Chrysalis thought as she lay back and tried to relax – had lots of upsides. It was very important between ponies, for starters. Sexual intercourse, between a mare and a stallion, usually produced just one or two foals. So ponies had to have a lot of sex, and they needed to actually raise their offspring, in order to propagate their species. Maintaining very close bonds – near permanent pairings – with their mates was a part of that, and regular and frequent intercourse was a part of that.

It was very useful for a changeling that ponies provided such a convenient method to feed upon themselves, one that both nourished a changeling thoroughly, and dulled her victim's wits to their danger.

As she'd done with Trixie after her crash, sexing a pony could provide a quick hit of love, whether or not there was any real connection between the two of you. Chrysalis's brow furrowed. Between the pony you were feeding on and the pony you were imponysonating, was what she should've thought

“Everything is okay, isn't it?” Trixie asked, nuzzling between Chrysalis's hindquarters.

On the downside, Chrysalis didn't really enjoy sex very much.

“I mean, this is okay?” Trixie asked. “Right?”

Shining Armor had been a true gentlecolt, conforming entirely to his lady's desires. Unfortunately for her, this meant he'd been bent to fit Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's rather twisted appetites. She'd been lucky to learn, early on, they'd promised to 'take a little break till the wedding'. After that, she'd stuck to mouth and magic, pleasuring and feeding on him.

She'd had to be careful of her fangs, and when he'd suggested she use her – delicate, gossamer – wings, she'd had her first true moment of body-horror in years. Nature had intended a certain number of holes, and they were quite sufficient.

Still, his love had been lavish with it's delicious and nutritious gifts.

Similarly with Trixie, it was better to give pleasure than it was to receive it – so long as one received ample servings of loving gratitude in return.

“Everything's fine,” Chrysalis murmured, “just fine.”

“Just fine?” Trixie replied. Her face was glistening.

“Well, yeah,” Chrysalis said. “You don't really owe me one. It doesn't work like that, you know?”

Maybe she could flip the little blue unicorn over, and pleasure Trixie into serving up a feast of love for her – as much as she dared take, for the simple truth was that using Trixie's strength to make love, feeding on it, and fighting Diamond Dogs with it, was the best way to utilise the resource that was Trixie. Love was efficient. Besides - Chrysalis was simply a far superior warrior.

“No.” Trixie snapped. “Trixie doesn't know. In fact, in Trixie's experience, it does work just exactly like that!"

Trixie drew a deep, hacking breath.

"Ponies buck Trixie, to their apparent satisfaction, and everything seems fine and they say everything's 'just fine'," Trixie screamed, "then no matter how Trixie tries to please them they don't stay satisfied and they aren't happy and then they leave and leave Trixie all alone! Alone and lonely and unhappy, because Trixie's a stupid, useless pony who's going to die in the desert or at the hooves of the diamond dogs when you leave Trixie all alone!” Trixie snarled. “So go ahead, buck Trixie. Trixie knows she's unloved, but go ahead and buck her anyway!”

Chrysalis, of course, did not love Trixie.

But it was important that Trixie continue to believe she did.

“No,” Chrysalis said. “I... this Trixie... would like you... the other Trixie... to, to,” she let her voice waver, “to pleasure me.” Chrysalis stood, hooves raising little puffs of dust from beside Trixie. Slowly, quite deliberately, she turned away from Trixie, flanks swaying, swishing her dock across the unicorn's face. She heard Trixie draw a deep breath, probably involuntarily and surely rich in her scent. “Even though this Trixie does not think she deserves it,” Chrysalis said, twitching her hips slightly.

Pure provocation.

“You do deserve it!” Trixie snapped, rising to her own hooves. “You're brilliant and beautiful-” Trixie paused. “Obviously,” she said, and Chrysalis was glad to hear confidence, self-confidence by proxy, in the unicorn's voice. She knew just what Trixie was seeing: Chrysalis's imponysonation of Trixie's own plot, half-hidden by Trixie's platinum tail. “But you're also dark and dangerous and mysterious. Princess Celestia would've chosen you to be her student in a heartbeat,” Trixie continued, scuffing her hoof back and forth in the dust. “She only chose Twilight in this reality because Twilight's edgy. Already halfway to being night. Halfway to being Nightmare Moon.”

Chrysalis didn't really care about Trixie's shame, or her excuses, either.

“I was Celestia's student,” Chrysalis lied, looking back over her flanks to see Trixie's mouth fall open. “My Celestia's... not a nice pony,” Chrysalis made up out of the whole cloth. The logic was simple: she needed Trixie's love to best Celestia, so she had to shatter Trixie's faith in Celestia – to break Trixie of her unconditional, worshipful love for Celestia. Chrysalis let a troubled look slide across her face. “Make me forget about it, please,” she begged. “Make me forget her. Make me happy.”

Gently, Chrysalis felt Trixie's lips press against her, just south of her most private place.

Or what Trixie considered her most private place to be, anyway. Chrysalis could take or leave it. Still... gentle was a change. Gentle was... nice.

“I'm so sorry,” Trixie whispered, pulling back aways. “To be betrayed... like that... by that godpony... I can't even imagine.”

If you live to see me reveal myself, Chrysalis thought, you will not have to.

“Do me,” Chrysalis whispered. “Love me. Make love to me.”

Trixie planted a kiss on one of her haunches, and began to nibble along her rump. Chrysalis gave one, deliberate twitch of muscle to reward and encourage her. No pony could've premeditated that twitch.

For a changeling, it was spawnsplay.

Trixie's tongue, wet and soft and perfectly rough, explored the smooth inner curve of Chrysalis's thighs.

“You're perfect,” Trixie whispered, “you're just too perfect.”

“Yes,” Chrysalis murmured, and let the disguise fall.

The Trixie of Trixie's dreams, voluptuous and strong, capable and self-confident, the pony Chrysalis had been imponysonating, melted away. In her place stood a mirror of Trixie as she really was: A haggard nopony, gaunt across the hips, her face aged by the desert wind, and her mane ravaged by the heat.

“Supple flesh spell,” Chrysalis said softly. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have wasted the energy, but... I wanted to be the pony you wanted me to be.”

“Teach me that,” Trixie murmured, eyes wide.

“Why?” Chrysalis asked. “So you can hide? So you can lie and pretend everything's okay?” She paused. “It was the first spell Celestia ever taught me. Everything she did for me... it was to make me the pony she wanted me to be. It's no good for a pony, Trixie. I love you just as you are. Do- do you still love me?”

“Of course I still love you,” Trixie wailed, enfolding Chrysalis in her hooves. “How could you think I wouldn't love you? You're me. The only pony who understands me. Who could ever love me back." She drew a breath, and her eyes gleamed bright with tears stilled by adoration. “Please let me please you. I want to. For me.”

It was insane, the amount of love she was getting from Trixie right now. As much as Shining Armor had ever given her. More.

“Okay,” Chrysalis murmured.

Time passed through the bare desert, and under the wheeling stars two naked, entwined ponies stole a tithe of it for themselves, and were happy.

“Tell me about Celestia,” Trixie asked, after.

“She was a murderous tyrant,” Chrysalis invented. “Still is, I suppose. I worshipped her my whole life, and then I tried to kill her.” In retrospect, that might not have been... quite the best way to present her lie to Trixie. The little blue unicorn had been good, in a way Chrysalis thought ponies might normally think of lovers. She'd never had a lover before. It was a little distracting. “To bring her to justice, rather,” Chrysalis continued.

Yes, that was better.

It'd be convenient, to have Trixie's willing cooperation when next facing Celestia, Cadance and that treacher Shining Armor. Chrysalis didn't think Trixie would need encouragement to help destroy Twilight Sparkle and the other Elements of Harmony – not that they'd been particularly troublesome the first time around.

“But I take it your Celestia isn't like that?" Chrysalis said.