Princess Cadance stood in a hall of Canterlot Castle where early morning sunlight fell in through tall, wide windows. She looked at her reflection in the glass of one of the windows and heard the quiet voices of a hundred thousand souls in the very back of her mind.
She was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. She silently rolled the name on her tongue, reveled in its regal flavor and fluid touch. Mi Amore. Mi Amore. Mi Amore Cadenza. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. The third alicorn. Princess of Love. Niece of Princess Celestia. Heir to the throne of the Crystal Empire. Beautiful. Seductive. Powerful.
And now the newest member of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s council. For the first time, she had been invited into one of the Sisters’ private council sessions.
Cadance allowed herself the smallest of smirks, and the hundred thousand souls in the back of her mind cheered and rejoiced in her victory and wisdom and guile.
“It is a beautiful day out,” a voice said behind her.
“Yes, it most certainly is,” Cadance said, and the smirk was gone, a genuine smile in its place. She looked past her reflection out at the shimmering city of Canterlot, just beginning to awaken with distant, muted sounds of the clattering carriage wheels and thumping hoofsteps of early risers. Most ponies were probably still in bed. Ponies could do that—lie in bed long after the sun had risen and know that they were safe. They would never have to learn to sleep lightly, to stay alert for the sounds of predator and prey even while asleep. They would never know how it felt to go weeks without a full night’s rest, because sleeping through the night meant either being caught off guard by prowling desert manticores or not having the time to collect food enough to feed every hungry mouth in the hive.
At least, Cadance mused, the ponies wouldn’t yet. But soon.
Celestia stepped up beside her, looking out at the city.
Cadance did not turn, but she tasted weariness and motherly affection roll off the alicorn like waves over sand, and the feelings passed through every mouth of the hundred thousand souls in the back of Cadance’s mind.
“I am sorry I took so long to invite you to the council chamber,” Celestia said. “I should have included you in the administration of our kingdom far sooner. I suppose I never noticed that you’d grown up. Even now, time still seems to always catch me off guard.” She turned to Cadance and smiled. “And you’ve become such a beautiful mare.”
“Thank you, auntie,” Cadance said, and bowed her head slightly.
“A good princess rules so that her ponies may be happy and safe,” Celestia said. “And I can think of few ponies who understand that better than you. You will be a good princess, I am sure. And an excellent wife, too. Congratulations on your engagement. I only just heard.”
“You are too kind,” Cadance said, and the whole of the thousand souls chortled and jeered at the sun princess whose wisdom was said to overflow like the water in brooks in springtime storms.
“Have you set a date for the wedding? We should begin planning right away.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cadance’s cheeks flushed. “This has all happened so fast.”
Celestia hummed and nodded. “I understand. Do not worry yourself. Enjoy this time. It will not last. But for now, I think we should be on our way. Luna is likely already waiting for us, and she does so enjoy chiding me for being tardy.”
Celestia began walking away, and Cadance followed her deeper into the castle.
________________________________________________
Celestia led Cadance through the labyrinthine halls of the castle to an inconspicuous door in a mostly empty wing of the castle.
“Here we are,” Celestia said, stepping up to the door.
“This is the council chamber?” Cadance asked, looking about. She had never even been in this wing of the castle. If she remembered correctly, it was used primarily for storage. Only the culinary staff frequented here, and then only to pick up supplies.
“There is no council chamber anymore,” Celestia said, tracing her hoof along the door’s surface in a precise pattern. Cadance watched closely out of the corner of her eye. “Not really, anyway. As you know, the formal council was dissolved centuries ago. Now it’s simply a meeting between Luna and I to discuss matters of state. We could just as easily do so in one of our own private chambers, but Luna insisted we meet somewhere more official.”
When Celestia finished tracing the pattern on the door, she knocked twice, and the door swung open.
Celestia raised a hoof towards the open doorway and nodded to Cadance. “After you.”
Cadance walked inside and tried to keep from laughing at what she saw.
In times past, times of war and famine and strife, the ponies’ council had been a tremendous gathering of leaders and nobility, and the chambers in which they had met were grand and opulent. But as time passed, and peace and sloth settled, the need for the council had diminished and eventually nearly vanished altogether.
In present times, the council consisted only of the two Sisters and their closest confidants. Membership came with no official titles or merits, and the full council rarely met. However, to be invited into the council meant to be invited into the confidence of the Princesses. That was reward enough.
Even then, Cadance had expected the official council chamber of the Royal Sisters to have a little more flair. What she found was a small, dark room that looked more like a kitchen pantry than the meeting room of the most powerful ponies in all of Equestria. The walls were rough, unadorned stone. Cobwebs and dust balls sat in the corners. The only light came from a single chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, and the only furniture to be found was a wooden table, its surface littered with scrolls.
More evidence of the deterioration of the ponies’ once grand kingdom, Cadance supposed. They had taken their safety and superiority for granted for many years. But they wouldn’t for many more.
Cadance could still sense power in the walls. Protective enchantments and magical traps designed by the Princesses themselves, no doubt. Even with its unimpressive appearance, the chamber was likely nigh impregnable, and she suspected that no pony would ever be able to break in.
Indeed, Cadance thought to herself, no pony could, and the hundred thousand voices chortled.
Luna stood towards the side of the room, looking down at the table. She glanced up at them as they entered. “You’re late,” she said.
Celestia winked at Cadance and stepped up to the table. “I was just speaking to Cadance about her engagement.”
“To the captain?”
“Yes,” Cadance said, taking her place beside Celestia. In Luna she tasted the deepest regret and the strongest resolve, and the hundred thousand souls drank deep of both. “To Shining Armor.”
“Congratulations,” Luna said with a terse smile. “And welcome to the council. Unfortunately, it is not as impressive as it once was. Perhaps you can help me convince my sister to restore it to its former glory.”
Celestia tsked. “The former council was loud and wasteful and slow and uselessly extravagant.”
“Extravagance has its own advantages,” Luna said. “But that is not on the day’s agenda. I would like to begin without further delays.”
“Of course,” Celestia said.
Cadance leaned closer to the table and looked down at the scrolls that cluttered its surface. She wondered how much secret and forbidden knowledge lay open to her on that table.
“You and I have already discussed this in detail,” Luna said, pushing aside some of the scrolls and pulling others towards herself, “but with Princess Cadance here, I thought it worth bringing up again. Fresh perspective is always welcome.”
“Yes?” Cadance asked, smiling and standing up straighter, prim and proper and perfect, as any pony princess should be.
“That is of course,” Luna said, looking straight at her, “the matter of what is to be done with the changelings that have been discovered lurking in Equestria.”
Cadance’s smile vanished. Her mouth went dry. Her head felt light. The whole of the hundred thousand voices shuddered and fell silent.
A trap? Could this all have been a ruse? Were these ponies cleverer than she had suspected? She glanced at Celestia, but Celestia’s expression appeared entirely neutral, and Cadance tasted behind it none of the hostility of an enemy or the amusement of a predator that had just trapped its prey.
Cadance swallowed and said, “Oh?”
Luna nodded. “I don’t suppose you know much about the equinids known as changelings?”
“The changelings,” Celestia said beside her, “are a race of metamorphs who live near the badlands and—”
“I am aware,” Cadance said curtly, much too curtly, and she silently reproached herself. She could not afford to make mistakes, now more than ever.
“A number of changelings have been found living amongst our population,” Luna said, her voice and expression and emotions neutral. “As I said before, my sister and I have already discussed this, but I would be curious to know your thoughts on how best to resolve the situation.”
Cadance looked from Luna to Celestia and back to Luna, and they looked silently back at her.
What did the princesses know? How many changelings had been discovered? Had they been captured? Interrogated? Executed? Could this be some kind of test? Perhaps the princesses suspected, but didn’t know for certain? Cadance might have slipped at some point, maybe more than once, enough to accidentally sow a seed of doubt. No impersonation was ever perfect. But if they knew for certain, they wouldn’t have brought her here. Or would they? The council chamber was impregnable, both from without and within. There would be no escape.
But if they knew for certain, they wouldn’t play this charade, not if they thought lives were at stake. Both Celestia and Luna watched her silently. If it was a test, Cadance would have to be swift and firm to allay all doubt.
“The uncovered changelings should be executed for treason at once,” she said, her voice commanding and decisive, and the hundred thousand souls were silent. If those changelings had been so foolish as to allow themselves to be discovered, they were no longer of any value to the hive anyway.
Both Luna and Celestia’s eyes widened.
Celestia began, “We do not often—”
“If it is a matter of nerve,” Cadance said, and the hundred thousand souls knew it was necessary and still stayed silent, “I will carry out the executions myself.”
“It is no question of nerves,” Luna said, and Cadance tasted the barest hint of annoyance in her voice. “Even if we wished to execute them, we could not. The changelings are not in our custody.”
“You were unable to capture them?” Cadance asked.
“Unwilling,” Luna said. “Or perhaps more accurately, we saw no reason to.”
Cadance gaped at her. “Changelings are considered dangerous, deceitful, tricksters. Surely that is reason enough.”
Celestia cleared her throat. “It is true that in the past encounters between changelings and ponies often ended in violence. But we have had little contact with their kind in recent times, and it is not our way to condemn children for the crimes of their forebears. If the discovered changelings do not act aggressively, no violence will be perpetrated against them.”
Cadance wondered at how soft the ponies could be. Allowing the fires of past hatred to cool so quickly? Preposterous. No prissy, spoiled pony ever willingly lived side-by-side with a changeling, and none ever would. It must have been some sort of game. But what were the princesses getting at? Cadance needed to tease out what they knew and what they suspected. And she needed to get the situation back under her control.
“If there is any evidence of a greater plot against Equestria being devised by these changelings,” Cadance said, “they should be rounded up immediately, and I will carry out their questionings myself.”
Luna chuckled. “Your passion is admirable, but wasted. I would agree, if there was any evidence of such a plot. But there is not. Each of the changelings appears to be acting entirely of his or her own volition.”
“Changelings never work alone,” Cadance said, with a confidence that she realized only afterwards she shouldn’t have had.
“That is normally true,” Celestia said. “Changeling hives usually share a kind of voluntary collective conscious, which the hive’s queen uses to coordinate their actions at all times. But the discovered changelings do not appear to be connected to any larger consciousness. They very likely were once a part of a hive, but they are certainly alone now. The whereabouts of this possible hive are currently unknown, but we have begun a search. Until it is found, if it does exist, we are only dealing with individual changelings who don’t appear even to be aware of each other’s presence.”
“How can you be so sure?” Cadance asked.
“I have had extensive experience with changelings in the past, though it has admittedly been a long time,” Celestia said. “I observed these ones myself. I have seen changelings who were either cut off or chose to break away from a hive before, and these behave just as those others I have seen.”
That gave Cadance pause. No drone had ever been cut off from the hive. She would never allow it. The hive survived by staying together.
But choosing to break away from the hive? It was unheard of, unfathomable. It would have been incredible to forsake the warmth and comfort and safety of the hive to live under constant threat of discovery and death among the ponies. It was unthinkable, but if true…
“Then they are traitors,” Cadance realized, and that word echoed confusedly then furiously among all the hundred thousand souls and came shouting back past her lips, “Traitors! Filthy, ungrateful traitors!”
Celestia and Luna exchanged a look.
Cadance remembered where she was and who she was with and hastily added, “Traitors to Equestria!”
“How so?” Luna asked, looking confused.
“If they are willing to betray their own kind, just think what they might be willing to do ponies!”
“On the contrary,” Celestia said, “I’ve found that changelings are most dangerous in hives, and only then while under the influence of an aggressive queen, which most changeling queens aren’t. Being on their own, I don’t believe these particular changelings pose any threat to anyone.”
Cadance agreed with that much. On their own, those drones would be weak and helpless and stupid. But stupidity did not excuse treason. “What were you planning to do with them, then?”
“We planned to leave them be,” Celestia said.
“Allow changeling defectors to live freely amongst the citizens?” Cadance asked. “That is ridiculous and foolish.”
“As I said before,” Luna said, “we have seen no reason to arrest or expel them. They have fully integrated themselves into their respective communities.”
“And what does that mean?”
“They have homes,” Celestia said. “They have jobs. They have friends. Some of them even have families. They are living just as ponies do. They are happy, and they are harming no one.”
“Unacceptable!” Cadance cried, and could not and did not try to keep the fury from her voice. “It is unacceptable that you would allow these changeling traitors to live freely as ponies! I demand to be given the whereabouts of each and every discovered changeling so that I may observe them myself, and I then will decide what is to be done with them.”
“That can be arranged,” Luna said, her voice neutral. “As soon as this meeting is finished.”
“See that it is!”
“Cadance,” Celestia said quietly, unfurling a wing and touching Cadance’s side. “Is everything all right? Do you feel okay?”
Cadance realized how terribly close she had come to revealing herself, and calmed her thoughts and her breath. “Of course. I apologize, auntie.” Cadance looked to the floor. Ponies always looked to the floor when embarrassed. “That was inappropriate, and I promise it will not happen again.”
Celestia smiled. “Don’t apologize. I am surprised, is all. I have never seen you so upset before. Is something wrong? If you feel that we are not taking this threat seriously enough, you are free to say so and explain why.”
“It’s nothing,” Cadance said. “I have heard stories of changelings before, and I was only concerned for the welfare of the ponies they have hidden themselves amongst.”
Celestia’s wing fell away and her smile softened. “I assure you that if our ponies’ safety was being threatened, I would act. I can also assure you that it is not, and that these changelings are not dangerous. However, if you wish to observe them in order to put your mind at ease, I encourage you to do so.”
“Thank you, auntie,” Cadance said, and basked for a short moment in freely-given concern and affection.
“Perhaps we should move on to the next topic,” Celestia said, nodding to Luna.
Luna nodded back and shuffled some scrolls on the table. “Next we must discuss the matter of the most recent maritime boundary treaty with the gryphon tribes.”
“Another?” Celestia sighed. “How many times must they renegotiate the position of an imaginary line in the middle of an ocean no pony ever attempts to cross?”
“The new warchief of—
“Excuse me, auntie?” Cadance said.
“Yes?” Celestia asked.
Cadance frowned. “Did you say that the hidden changelings were happy?”
‘Yes,” Celestia said. “They appeared so. Why?”
“Nothing,” Cadance said, and her frown deepened. “Carry on.”
Luna resumed speaking, but Cadance had already ceased listening. Happy? That couldn’t possibly be true. They couldn’t be happy. Changelings found happiness in the hive, in being close to their brothers and sisters and to their mother. Celestia must have been mistaken. Changelings were master deceivers, of course. They could make themselves appear to be anything.
Those changelings that had cut themselves off from the hive couldn’t have been happy. They must have been miserable. Pathetic and pitiable. They were alone. No pony would ever show them the kind of affection they had in the hive. They had only their own thoughts and feelings, and no one else’s. Their minds and their hearts were silent. The pleasant buzz of the thoughts and feelings of all the hundred thousand souls would never again lull them to sleep at night or comfort them during hardship. They were alone, and they could not be happy. It was impossible, and Celestia was a fool.
But Celestia said they had families? That was absurd. Every changeling already had a family. The hive was a changeling’s family, and Cadance was their mother. In the hive, they had purpose and food and a place to rest. What could they get from a pony family that they couldn’t get in the hive? Why would they choose to live among ponies instead of their own kind?
Well, Cadance decided, she would just see for herself. And her beloved children would have much to answer for when she found them.
__________________________________________________
Cadance walked along one of Ponyville’s dirt roads, in the direction of the town market. But she wasn’t Cadance anymore. She was a pegasus mare with a yellow coat and a teal mane, and ponies called her Raindrops. As much as she adored the grace and regency of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, an alicorn walking about during a busy market day in a small town would have drawn too much attention. And the son she had come to visit knew her alicorn form and would have likely flown at first sight of it.
So Cadance was not Cadance. She was Raindrops.
Raindrops stepped carelessly and clumsily along the road and smiled at everypony she passed and gawked at the birds and the flowers and hummed a stupid, lackadaisical tune, because Raindrops, like every other pony, could afford to be clumsy and stupid. She could be clumsy and stupid because she had never felt the ever-present dry wind of the badlands, full of grit that pitted chitin and tore at wings, never watched the dark wall of a dust storm slowly swell and surge towards her home, never lost whole broods of children when once-plentiful wells went dry without reason.
Raindrops stepped into the Ponyville market. It was midday, near the market’s busiest hour. Ponies buzzed and busied themselves all about the many stalls and chatted and haggled with the vendors. It tasted of false pleasantries and thinly guised annoyance. No one took any notice of her.
Raindrops casually rose into the air and looked about. Across the market, she saw a brown-gold earth pony stallion standing behind a small stall. He was smiling and gesturing to a young colt who stood in front of the stall.
According to the scroll Luna had given her, Raindrops’ son was now calling himself Dry Autumn. He lived in Ponyville and had taken a job running the carrot stall in the market, working for the Harvest family, whom he had apparently befriended. He had a marefriend named Wildwood Flower. They took frequent day trips together to the nearby Whitetail Woods. Little else of significance was known about him.
Dry Autumn was not his true name, but Raindrops had declared that his and the other traitors’ true names were never to be spoken again, and the whole of the hundred thousands souls had readily complied.
Raindrops remembered Dry Autumn. She remembered all of her children. He had hatched the largest larvae in a brood of twelve. It had been clear from the beginning that he was exceptional. He had been more voracious and cunning than all the rest of his siblings. Raindrops played hide and seek with him once when he was a larvae, and she had let him win. He was the first of his brood to build up a cocoon around himself. When he hatched and spread his silken, translucent, dewdrop-colored wings for the first time, the whole of the hundred thousand souls had felt Raindrops’ great pride in her son.
She and the hundred thousand souls lost themselves for a moment in dreamlike, half-forgotten memories of times past, and then all remembered at once what Dry Autumn had become and what he had done, and hot, constricting anger swept the memories aside. He had been living among the ponies under Raindrops’ orders, and had been doing well, but then abruptly disappeared. The hundred thousand souls assumed that he had been caught and terminated his own life, and all had mourned, including Raindrops.
But there he stood, right there on the other side of the market. He looked different, but he felt the same, and Raindrops’ legs shook with scarcely contained wrath.
Celestia had said a good princess ruled for the happiness and safety of her people. Well, that’s exactly what Raindrops was doing, what she had done for her entire life. She hadn’t chosen to infiltrate Equestria, just as she hadn’t chosen to let one brood starve so that Dry Autumn’s could live, and just as she hadn’t chosen to strangle her elder sister in the night to keep her from dooming the hive by revealing it to the ponies as a sign of ‘peace.’ Those choices had been made for her, and she had done it all for Dry Autumn and her other children. And now he had betrayed her.
What Celestia had said was true. Dry Autumn and the others had individually chosen to cut themselves off from the hive, from the hundred thousand souls, from her. He had forsaken all she had ever given him, all of her affection and pride and respect.
Several of the hundred thousand souls were there in the market, and Raindrops felt their bubbling hatred mix with her own. But they were loyal and well-trained, and continued milling about the market as good, normal little happy ponies would. She caught their eyes without looking at them, and they acknowledged her gaze with the smallest of nods.
Not now. Not yet. But soon. When they caught him alone, they would drag Dry Autumn into the nearby forest, and Raindrops would deliver unto him a traitor’s punishment.
From across the market, Raindrops narrowed her gaze at Dry Autumn. She was far away yet, but she could sense his feelings, if only slightly. What she felt confused her. She had expected to feel in him the dull, ever-present ache of loneliness and the pointed, nervous bite of fear. But all she felt in his heart was contentment, as simple and serene as cool water in a quiet pond.
It didn’t make any sense. He should have been afraid. He should have been terrified. He was weak and alone and surrounded by an enemy that hated him, that would tear out his eyes and his heart in an instant if he were discovered. And yet, he was content, content to live as a slave and a cretin and a lurker and a traitor among the ponies.
Raindrops began gliding slowly towards him to get a better feel for his emotions. There must have been something wrong. She wasn’t getting the whole picture. Dry Autumn had always been an expert at hiding his emotions. She needed to get closer.
She skimmed just over the heads of the ponies in the market, her attention trained on Dry Autumn. The closer she got to him, all she felt was more contentment. It was bizarre. It didn’t make sense, and she flew still closer to him to understand. What did he have to feel contented about? He was a traitor and an outcast, but he didn’t feel like a traitor and an outcast should. He felt like every other pony in that market. He tasted subtly happy and satisfied and stupid, and it made Raindrops sick. Well, at least he wouldn’t stay happy for much longer. She would see to that.
Worse and more infuriating than the contentment in Dry Autumn was the absence of all other emotions. No matter how close she came, Raindrops could not feel the smallest hint of guilt in him, not even the teensiest bit of sadness over being away from his family, not an ounce of shame for forsaking all the ones who had ever cared for and about him. Most infuriating of all, he did not think or feel anything about her, about Raindrops, about his mother.
He didn’t care, she realized. He didn’t care about her or the hundred thousand souls or the hive. He didn’t care about the changelings that had raised him and cared for him. He didn’t care about anything but himself.
She flew towards him and watched him smile and chatter away with some other hobgoblin pony, and his ingratitude made Raindrops sick. If he didn’t feel any fear now, Raindrops decided she would make him feel fear, even if it meant risking her disguise. Dry Autumn was a filthy, disgusting bug, and she would squash him.
Raindrops came down hard on the ground and quickly trotted the rest of the way towards Dry Autumn’s stall.
He turned to her and smiled. “Hello,” he said.
She nearly vomited, but smiled back.
“Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly.
Raindrops opened her mouth to tell him to tear that stupid smile from his face, but just then she felt something. It was a big something, and it was nearby. It was a feeling that slammed into and past Raindrops and then rushed through and flooded the whole market. It burned as hot as the flames of a burning brush pile reaching high up into black, smoke-choked air. It shined as bright and terrible as Celestia’s noonday sun.
The feeling, she realized, was the joy of seeing one’s beloved, and it tasted so deliciously sweet on Raindrops tongue that she nearly fell over drunk just from swaying in its waves.
A young mare trotted beside and past Raindrops, and the mare shone like a beacon, and Raindrops knew that, incredibly, all of these feelings were rushing off of just that one mare.
The mare trotted up to the stall and then around it and said, “Hey, Dry!”
Raindrops eyes widened. All of the mare’s unfathomable, boundless love was directed only and solely and purposefully at Dry Autumn. At her son. At the traitor. At the changeling.
Dry Autumn leaned towards the mare and gave her a small nuzzle, and finally Raindrops felt something in him other than contentment, but it was something much worse and more confusing and impossible.
Love, identical to the mare’s both in substance and intensity appeared in his heart and surged from within him to without, and Raindrops nearly drowned in the swiftly flowing torrent.
Dry Autumn and the mare began to talk, but Raindrops could not hear anything they said. She could not see anymore either. She could only feel and taste. Her senses had been wholly inundated. She could barely think. It was impossible. It was all so impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Dry Autumn and the mare were in love. It was impossible but it was true. Reciprocating between them she felt the pure, tangy happiness of young, embarrassed first love, and none of it was artificial or faked. They loved each other, but it was impossible. A pony and a changeling? The traitor? The freak? How? How could it have happened? Changelings weren’t supposed to be able to feel this kind of love. Raindrops had never personally been able to make herself feel this level of affection for anything, not even for her own children. But Dry Autumn felt it for a pony? Why? How? How was it possible? How was it possible that he had found such happiness and love outside of the hive? How could he be happy? How could he be better off without her? How could he be happy without her? Raindrops had cared for him as she did all her children and given him what happiness she could, but he had found so much more without her...
She realized suddenly that Dry Autumn was looking at her. The mare, still leaning lightly against his shoulder, was looking at her, too. They stared at her. Raindrops focused back on him and the market and heard him say, “Ma’am? Are you all right?”
Raindrops shook her head and choked on the love rushing between them and turned away. She heard him say something else to her, but she didn’t listen. She spread her wings and threw herself into the air. She just managed to give a flustered, panicked signal to the other changelings in the market to scatter and flee before she herself sped over the haggling, chattering ponies and vendors and over the thatched roofs and over the hills and the trees and away, away, away, asking herself why? why? why?
__________________________________________________
Princess Cadance stood in a quiet, empty hall of Canterlot Castle at night, and in tall window examined her moonlit reflection. Then she looked at the city past her reflection and its neat and tidy roads and golden and silver domes and quietly slumbering ponies, and felt the perpetual drizzle of contentment and satisfaction and hope in the hearts of the ponies that fell over all the city, and it was alien to her, and it had never been hers or her children’s.
Until now, and she did not understand it.
But that didn’t matter, she decided, and she scowled at peaceful dreams of her little ponies. It did not matter. Nothing had changed. Her children still did not have that security, because Dry Autumn and the others were not her children any longer. And there was still only one way to get it for those hundred thousand souls who were still loyal to her, still reliant on her, still cared about her.
Nothing had changed, and nothing ever would, unless Cadance made it so herself.
A good princess ruled for the safety and happiness of her people. Dry Autumn had found safety and happiness, but Cadance’s other children hadn’t. They could either continue with her plan, or return to the badlands, where no one could truly live, but only die either very slowly or very quickly.
The world of grass and trees and sunshine belonged to the ponies, for they had taken it for themselves in times long past. Dry Autumn and the others could turn themselves into simpering, weak ponies to live off the ponies’ scraps, but that was not Cadance’s way. She would build a future for herself and all the hundred thousand souls, even if she had to tear the ponies’ and Dry Autumn’s future down.
But, she thought, and looked at her reflection again. Dry Autumn was happy. Happier than he had ever been with her. Was it right of Cadance to take away his happiness for the sake of the others? That’s what the ponies had done, taken the plains and the forests and banished the changelings to the badlands. It’s what Cadance had done all her life.
But...
“It is a beautiful night,” Celestia said, stepping up beside her.
“It always is in Equestria,” Cadance said.
“You sound displeased.”
“I only wonder,” Cadance said. “In order for us ponies to sleep beneath clear, calm night skies, who must toil under storms and rains in our stead?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
Cadance kept silent. But of course Celestia wouldn’t understand. She and her kind had lived among sunshine and peace for so long, sunshine and peace that had seduced a mere handful of Cadance’s children away from her. Because those traitors either did not understand or did not care that Cadance worked for them all, and for them all to have this, they needed to stay together and follow her plan. There was no other way.
“Did you observe the changelings?” Celestia asked.
“Yes,” Cadance said, still looking out the window at the city skyline.
“And?”
“You were right.” Cadance sighed, because those children had stolen security for themselves and only for themselves. And yet... “They are happy.”
“Again,” Celestia said, “you sound displeased. Were you hoping to find something else?”
Cadance looked out at the city and felt the hundred thousand souls sleeping dutifully among the ponies, and felt that they were not happy and did not feel safe, not as the traitors did. It was not fair.
No, it was not fair. A childish sentiment. Cadance had long ago learned that the world could not be understood in terms of fair and not-fair. But it was true. The ponies had everything, and she and her children had nothing. Could the only true safety and happiness a changeling ever feel come from pretending to be a pony?
It was pathetic. Pitiful. If all Cadance and her hive ever amounted to were insignificant, unnoticed parasites, they might as well return to the badlands and allow themselves to perish and be forgotten.
No, they would make a world for themselves. Cadance would make a world for herself, and she would do it here. To be happy and safe, of course, as Celestia had said a good princess would. And who would know more about being a good princess than Princess Celestia?
She turned to Celestia. Celestia, as always, looked soft and pleasant and powerful. Cadance began, “You said before that a good princess rules so that her ponies may be happy and safe. Do you really believe that? It seems rather naive.”
“There is nothing naive about working for the benefit of others,” Celestia said, looking down at her, as Celestia and all the rest of ponykind forever would.
“At the expense of whom?” Cadance asked.
“At no one’s expense.”
Cadance let out a shallow laugh. “And you claim not to be naive?”
“What do you believe a princess should rule for?” Celestia asked.
“You are right, of course, dear auntie,” Cadance said and faked a yawn. “But I really am rather tired. I believe I will go to bed now.” She turned away and began to walk past Celestia and into the hall. “The changelings living among our ponies are happy. As a good princess, I believe they should be left alone. After all, they’ll meet the same fate as everypony else in the end.”
“And what fate would that be?” Celestia called after her.
Cadance glanced back and smiled as she walked deeper into the shadows of the castle. “Harmony, of course. Whatever else could I mean?”
