Changeling Heart and the New Moon

Chapters

chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty one
chapter twenty two
chapter twenty three
chapter twenty four
chapter twenty five
chapter twenty six
chapter twenty seven
chapter twenty eight
chapter twenty nine
epilogue

chapter one

chapter one

The tree could very well be the largest in the world. Or rather, once it might have been. All that remained was an immense and broken trunk that clawed at the sky. Countless strangler vines had weaved across its wood centuries ago. The tree had died, but the vines had entombed the withered husk and held it like a grisly monument to a forlorn forest.

It was evening, in so much as it could be called that with a gray sky and thick mist that clung to the ground. It was dark and cold, but Luna was no stranger to these. She travelled between the choked trees with a ghostly grace, barely disturbing the heavy mist with her passing.

A raucous caw broke the silence and flew away in a burst of black feathers. Luna suppressed the worst of a shiver and pressed on, her gaze slipping askance at the trees and fog. The ragged fingers of the great tree were her beacon. Pulling her dew heavy cloak tighter about herself, the princess of the night pressed on.

Heavy vines faded in and out of view, and the mist stifled all sound. Not a single insect hummed or frog croaked. The mire watched Luna with held breath, strangled and choking in silence.

Though she could not see them, she knew eyes followed her movements. Luna mastered her fear once more; she would show none of it. She had gone too far to turn back now.

Luna was close. She had to crane her neck back to see the shattered peaks of the dead tree, just a silhouette through the haze of mist.

There was no suggestion of motion as the first changeling was revealed. It simply appeared before the alicorn and watched her with expressionless eyes. Luna stopped to regard the creature and, in the privacy of her heart, brace her courage.

It made no sign to attack. It made no move at all. The changeling stood still as a statue, barring her way. From the slight shifts of shadow and mist more changelings emerged where seconds before Luna might've sworn there could be none.

All were as silent as the first. No wing or leg twitched and were it not for the occasional ponderous blink, Luna could have believed they really were statues.

She took a steadying breath from air faintly sweet with the long decay of plants. These were what she had come for, the reason she had left Canterlot in the dead of night without warning or escort. Her departure must have seemed abrupt. She felt the familiar stings of regret and shame, but those would not stop her now.

Luna looked back to the towering tree before her. It had borne the steadily increasing constriction of a thousand vines over hundreds of years. Of course, it had eventually shattered from the strain. That had probably seemed abrupt too.

“I would see your Queen,” Luna said. Like silk, her voice was soft and strong.

She met the gaze of the nearest changeling, giving it the slightest nod. Whatever thoughts passed through its head, Luna saw no hint of them. It merely turned about and walked away. Under the blank scrutiny of the others, Luna followed. The others fell in around her.

Both trees and mist thinned out as they neared the home of the changelings. The ground opened at a gentle incline into several pits around the immense husk. More changelings lurked around the entrance and followed them as they descended.

The tunnels were large enough to comfortably fit Luna and her host. It was dark, but not so much that she couldn’t see with the aid of living threads hung from the ceiling, glowing a pale green. Luna's growing escort traversed the path of faint lights, first carved out by the tree's ancient roots.

The only constant was down. The lights hung in uneven clumps and the path meandered this way and that, going wherever the blind roots had pushed. More changelings appeared around every bend. Her guide took no note of them, but the numbers surrounding her had easily swelled past a hundred. The occasional flutter of one or another's wings broke the silence. Luna found herself welcoming the sound.

The tunnel gave way to a chamber as spacious as any in Canterlot. It had been dug out from the space of the original tap root into a central hall, if it could be called such a thing. The changelings had done little more than expand on what nature had started and the earthen walls still dripped with moisture. They stepped out onto a wide balcony made from a thick growth of fungus. Above Luna was the husk of the tree and further above were the jagged tops of the broken trunk. The light of the open sky was visible here, but further down the illumination was dominated by hundreds of the glowing threads hanging from every surface. From the other terraces, above and below, changelings stopped about their business to look at her. Those that had been flying about settled to watch her.

The buzz of her guide's wings brought Luna back to herself. She quickly took wing and followed the creature down and still further down into the sickly green glow to land on damp, cool soil. A pinprick of sky was all that could be seen from here. For a fleeting second it nearly looked like the moon on a cloudy night, but Luna couldn't afford to be distracted now.

The lowermost tier of the changelings' home was a modest space, opening up into several alcoves. From these came the strongest of the green light Luna had seen yet, but before she could look closer her breath was taken away.

All the determination she'd held to herself, all the preparation for this moment fell away as Queen Chrysalis stepped forth, her body shimmering with an oily slickness in the glow. Luna had told herself again and again she wouldn't be afraid, but to see the changeling towering over her and sneering proved otherwise. Luna bit back her fear.

The changeling Queen circled the night princess, whispering over the alicorn's shoulders.

“Well,” she said as she stepped well into Luna's personal space, “this is a surprise. Did you think you could come to gloat over your victory?” Chrysalis purred like a cat with a new toy.

Luna could already feel the changeling's touch pressing against her mind, gentle and sinister and looking for a way in.

“No,” she said. “I came here to speak.”

Something like a smile crept up the face of the Queen of changelings. At least, her teeth were bared.

“Talk? You want…” A flash of green fire ran across the changeling's form, consuming it. The image of Celestia stood in her place, whispering in Luna's ear. “…to talk, sister? Whatever about?”

Anger struck through Luna. Anger and dismay that Chrysalis would dare do such a thing, and that the disguise was flawless. Luna flinched away and felt another surge of presence against her mind.

“Chrysalis, enough. I came here in peace.”

“And you might leave in pieces,” the Celestia-thing replied with a disdainful snort.

Luna's hoof scraped at the ground instinctively. “Do not make idle threats on me,” she said gravely.

The mimic whirled about. No matter how exact the copy might be, the contorted grimace on her face gave the façade away clearly. The thing regained a serene composure and circled around the alicorn once more. “Oh? I think we both know which of us the stronger sister is, and I defeated Celestia. No tricks. No minions. Just power.”

“And how much of that power was stolen, Chrysalis? How much of it do you have left? I do not think you could defeat me now, or you would not be playing these games.”

The Queen of changelings emerged from the image of Celestia with another bout of green fire. She shrugged. “Maybe, but you can't really expect me to play fair if it comes to that.”

“I would get to you before they would get to me,” the moon princess growled.

Chrysalis yawned and walked away. She curled up on an expansive growth of spongy fungus and Luna was almost lulled in by the Queen's sudden laxity, except the pressure of the changeling's power on her mind hadn't relented.

Chrysalis sighed with boredom and idly prodded at the frills of her makeshift couch. “And you tell me not to make idle threats? As if you impress me in the slightest? If you think you can put me down, try it. Do or don't, the swarm will still take you. I win without having to raise a hoof. So go on, threaten me and call me the evil one, I don't care. I stay and feed my people. Where do you go when yours need you? The only thing you ever did for Equestria was usurp it.”

Luna's self worth fell apart in so many sparkling little pieces. Her mouth hung open, but no sound came out. Her whole body felt as if it were made of lead, she could barely stand for the weight of it.

“No… I…it was…”

Ah, there it is, the Queen thought as her power found a foothold in Luna's mind. The taste of Luna's love, twisted and confused was exquisite. Luna had centuries of refinement and doubt and hope and turmoil to flavour it. Had it been a drink for ponies, the rich would pay very large sums for very small glasses. It would be the talk and pride of connoisseurs.

“No!” Luna's wings flared. “Get out!” She threw up walls in her mind, but Chrysalis already had a beachhead. The Queen of changelings smiled from her restive perch, but she made no further move physically or magically. She wanted to savour this.

Besides, she was curious.

“So, foolish little princess. Tell me. Just why did you come here?”

Luna breathed heavily under the weight of the Queen of changeling's power. She braced her legs as if a very real weight threatened to crush down upon her. “I came… to ask… an exchange.”

“Oh. Celestia's little moon, are we? So much for being a co-ruler. No escort? No brash decree? If she sent you, I think she meant for you to fall. And hers seemed like such a direct, pure hearted love when I held her in my grasp. So much for that notion.”

Suddenly the heaviness was gone. Luna blinked with surprise, she felt herself once more. Almost herself. The seeds of Chrysalis' power still lurked at the fringes of her mind. She knew that if she acted against them it would only force the Queen to react.

“You can read our minds?” Luna asked with sudden morbid curiosity.

“No more than you can read the mind of an artist when you view their paintings. Most ponies are so simple and warm and alike. You I could build a gallery around. But tell me again, why are you here?”

“I love my sister-” Luna said defensively, then instantly wondered why she had.

“I can see that.” Again there was that expression, almost a smile, except that it never quite got past the Queen of changeling's teeth.

“…but I am here for myself. Tell me, Chrysalis, you speak of viewing paintings.” Luna's gaze fell to the floor. Her heart seethed with what she needed to say next. “Can you… change the painting?”

And then the Queen of changeling's smile did reach her wide eyes, even if they only looked like a wider type of tooth, brimmed with interest.

Chrysalis stood up and stepped closer, her eyes never wavering or blinking. “Go on,” she crooned.

“You feed on love. Can you take that love away?” Luna stared woodenly at the ground between her hooves, her voice barely a whisper.

“And the exchange you wanted?” The Queen's voice came from so close to her ear that Luna could feel the gentle breath of it. It was soft.

“I am not equal to my sister as a pony I… can admit that… but I am equal as far as the title of princess goes. I am half of Equestria's rule. You might find… diplomacy…” Luna's quavering voice died.

Chrysalis nuzzled the alicorn, and her touch was so gentle. Luna shivered.

“Don't touch me,” Luna said, but her voice lacked command. The alicorn's back bristled.

Chrysalis broke away and laughed aloud. The absurdity of such bounty practically begging to be taken was just too much. It echoed back and forth, twisting as much as the Queen's own body. Luna shrank away from the heart of the sound.

“But little moon,” she crooned as the echoes died, “we're going to have to be even more intimate than that if you truly want this.” The Queen of changeling's teeth managed their sharpest smile yet. “Little moon, you would have to open your heart to me, if I were to change it.”

There was nothing but the sound of the princess' breath as the seconds ticked by.

The dark alicorn stood upright and met the changeling's eye. Her voice spoke with the quiet assurance of a princess despite the heaviness of her breathing. “I would have certain... safeguards in place, before doing this.”

The Queen of changelings flicked her tongue over her teeth. “What would you have me promise?”

“Nothing. A promise from you is worthless.”

Chrysalis shrugged. “Well, yes, there's that of course. No pretending that isn't true, but still,” she said with a gleeful hiss, “ there’s not much else you have to work with besides my word down here.”

Luna found it within herself to grin, a tiny, sharp edged little grimace at the changeling looming over her. “But there is. I will have it on your pride. And your duty.”

This gave the Queen of changelings pause. “What?”

Luna let her head sag under the effort of keeping Chrysalis contained at the outermost of her mind. It was exhausting, yet she smiled. “It is true, I am completely in your power now. By my consent or the passing of minutes you will break through me. If I could outrun you, I am still in the deepest pit of your home and the swarm will take me. But disregard everything I have said and drain me dry like a juice box and you prove what every pony in Equestria already believes of you.”

“Oh? What is that?” The changeling sneered, but the doubt rang clear through her voice.

Luna took a deep breath as the strain bore down on her again. “That you are no queen. You are just the fattest leech on the heap. That you will scamper and crawl through the dirt for any and every morsel you can scavenge, no more deserving than a locust. That is your pride I will hold.”

The princess of the night fell to one knee as the strain on her mind intensified. “I'm not finished yet!” she shouted defiantly. “No matter how delectable you say I am, I am still but one pony! You cannot feed all the changelings from me alone! Would you abandon your people to your own feasting, locust? I will hold you to your duty... or they will.”

Luna collapsed to the ground panting heavily, but her words reverberated through the walls and echoed to the higher echelons. The darkness erupted with the angry calls and fluttering wings of untold numbers. How many hundreds had followed her down here?

Chrysalis made no move on the fallen princess. Her expression settled into the poker face of her subjects and she waited patiently. The last of the raucous din seemed a long time coming.

“You're playing a dangerous game with me, little moon.” The Queen's voice was carefully neutral.

Shorter and on the floor, Luna still managed a gaze that looked down on the changeling. “There are no games... in matters of the heart... there is only... love and loss.” Gritting her teeth, Luna forced herself up on trembling legs and turned a hard glare on the Queen of changelings. Her chest heaved with stolen breaths. “I am ready... to balance those... are you?”

chapter two

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter two

Arcs of green electricity roamed across the body of princess Luna, crackling and sputtering as they coalesced at Chrysalis’ horn and lit up the Queen of changelings’ face. The only part of her wide eyes to move were the reflections of eldritch light, and she did not take them from the fallen princess as she moved with feeble twitches in the dirt.

The air thrummed with energy, but Chrysalis barely noticed it, or the changelings that had crept closer to the spectacle. The core of her attention was on Luna. Or to be more specific, in Luna. The princess’s eyes were tightly shut as the arcs continued their seething dance across her body. More than once a band of energy writhed across her eyelids, and Chrysalis felt a grudging admiration for the alicorn’s determination; she was essentially making this process up as she went along yet Luna clung to consciousness.

It was commendable. And annoying. If Luna would just black out Chrysalis could have a much easier time of running rampant across her heart, sampling and touching everything. But no, Luna just had to hold on by the skin of her teeth. So long as she did, Luna guided the Queen of changelings’ efforts, presenting one exquisitely convoluted love, shielding another.

Chrysalis couldn’t be annoyed for long. She closed her focus around the shape of another of Luna’s heart aching loves. This one seethed like a storm cloud and the changeling readied herself to grasp it. No wonder the princess wanted to be free of it. Luna’s presence was little more than a flickering candlelight, but she paid as close attention as she could. The Queen could probably break through every wall Luna held in place now, but refrained from doing so.

“We can stop now if you want, little moon,” Chrysalis said through a grin. She wanted Luna to cave in on her own, to admit that involving the Queen of changelings in the princess crisis put Luna in way over her head with no easy way out.

Luna’s breath wheezed as more electric currents slithered along her body. “No. Keep going,” she whispered.

This pony was proving to be no end of interest. Chrysalis sunk her proverbial claws in and Luna gasped, wincing away from the shock.

This was the third such love to be exercised, but Luna looked just as surprised as she had the first time Chrysalis’ power had pinched off a piece of her heart and snipped it away.

Each came with distinct impressions. It was as frustrating and tantalizing as trying to decipher the brush strokes of a masterpiece by touch without sight, yet Chrysalis enjoyed herself immensely. This tempestuous love she pried away flared with tastes of anger, outrage and conflict. It amazed her that the love hadn’t been burned away by the deep seated spite bound to it, but there it was all the same, like a field of flowers atop a volcano.

The arcs of power began to tighten together. The jittering lights centred over Luna’s heart and sank into her body. A moment passed in quiet, and Luna managed a weak smile.

“That is the last,” she whispered, just as a flash of light came from within her and she coughed violently.

A jewel spilled from Luna’s lips and rolled away from her, but the princess had already fallen into the deep, dreamless sleep of the utterly exhausted.

Chrysalis drew the little thing close with magic, along with its two siblings. These were... unexpected byproducts, to say the least. Sure, Chrysalis had been improvising all along, but she hadn’t thought magic would be so literal about all this. You cut away a piece of ‘heart,’ and then the poor girl went and actually coughed up the damn thing. Apparently, what the queen had taken out had had to come out as well.

She regarded the sleeping alicorn before her. “Come to me,” she called softly into the dark.

Several changelings emerged, the foremost muttering a little squeak. “ ‘mm Queen?”

Well, she couldn’t just leave a princess lying on her floor like a lump. “Take her. Gently.”

The changelings looked to their little group’s accidental leader, who in turn glanced back over its shoulder. Clearly, Luna’s words still rang through all their heads. and there were a lot more changelings behind these few. “We feed?” it asked, and it was the first time Chrysalis had ever heard hesitation at the prospect of a rich feeding, especially in the present shortage.

“No-” her changelings looked relieved- “put her somewhere comfortable... Put her with our other ponies. A princess should be with her subjects, after all.”

The changelings blinked and nodded. Between them, their magic lifted the limp form of Luna from the ground and gently carted her towards one of the green-lit alcoves.

The three jewels shined, drawing Chrysalis’ eye once more. The first to appear had been almost entirely black, and the inky colour flowed endlessly as it tried to drown out the few spots of milky white that simply refused to perish. The ‘taste’ it wafted was a selfish, avaricious freedom.

The second to emerge suffused simple yearning. Chrysalis had tasted enough unrequited love in her time to recognize it instantly, a river of affection running endlessly downhill, never returning or resting. Luna’s though... her’s was as immense and directionless as the ocean. Its motions were as subtle as the tides, and yet Chrysalis suspected the sheer weight of it had crushed down upon her. For how long? What pony could elicit such love and be so callous, so ignorant of it?

No wonder the Queen of changelings had thought of water; this gem was the deep blue of frozen seas. Between the black and stormy gray, the stillness of it seemed especially sad.

Quiet minutes passed as she examined her strange prizes. She could feel the strength trickle into her, yet the usual power trip and thrill of it was offset by a thoughtfulness of the kind Chrysalis did not often experience. Suddenly everything had become interesting.

“Well,” Chrysalis began. She wanted to say something quippish and snappy, something to lighten her mood from this morose introspection. Luna was her enemy, after all. She shouldn’t be sympathetic. The Queen grumbled under her breath before her body erupted in a gout of green flame.

Chrysalis stood every inch as Luna, striking melodramatic poses. “Oh no, I’m Luna, the little moon princess! Big bad Chrysalis is going to eat me! Whatever shall I do with myself? I’m so emotionally cut up that I’m entirely incapable of effectively leading Equestria, Oh no!”

The jewels proved a very tough crowd. Had the Queen been on a stage, she’d not even have earned herself a sad rimshot. The Luna-thing held a hopeful pose, only prolonging the miserable existence of the the awkward moment. Another flash of green flame tore across Chrysalis’ body and the changeling stood, slightly sullen in her lonesome once more.

“Well,” she said again with a sigh. Her sense of humour probably suffered for living in a hole under a tree in a forest in the middle of nowhere. “What?” she said with angry embarrassment as two of her subjects hesitantly approached from the shadows.

“ ‘mm Queen? ‘nt to see this?” one burbled in its high pitched grumble.

“See what?” Chrysalis snapped, her changelings recoiled and twitched their wings nervously at her raised voice. She felt a little guilty. And surprised. Changelings were not known for being complex or sensitive creatures, but the alicorn’s arrival had unsettled them more than either royal could have expected.

“ ‘e princess.”

“She was put into a harvest pod, as I said?”

“ ‘s. ‘is what you should see.” It sounded worried, and a hint frantic.

“I will decide what I need to see.” The effect of the statement was lost on the two blank faces of the changelings. She stared at them. They stared back.

“ ‘u decided yet, Queen?” one asked tentatively.

Chrysalis shut her eyes and sighed. If Luna, little reclusive Luna had said something like that to her pony subjects, she’d have gotten some kind of fear and respect. Something proper for royalty, not this patient waiting, whatever it was. The princess was locked up and unconscious in a harvest pod and was still getting more fear and respect.

“Come on then. Show me what she’s up to.”

The jewels slowly orbited above Chrysalis’ head as she followed the little changelings. Once or twice she caught her subjects glancing up at them, but she was in no mood for sharing. They were certainly nourishing, but strange as well - like the food of a vastly different culture. She still couldn’t wrap her proverbial tongue around the flavours yet, and took it in slowly.

It wasn’t as if they could be used up. Love didn’t work that way, being an intangible state of being and all that. A changeling no more used up the love they fed on than a plant used up the sun by basking in it. Of course, plants were always shading one another and blocking that precious stream of sunlight. Just because it was limitless didn’t make it infinite. The same could be said of the changelings’ nature. It was the root of their present rationing and shortage. Trying to feed everyone was like trying to grow a crop by moonlight. Well it is, Chrysalis thought to herself.

It wasn’t far to the harvest pods. The eerie green light of the alcove spilled out her hooves with the reassurance that they weren’t starving yet.

The Queen of changelings rounded the corner. Quite the crowd had formed around the newest and largest pod - there were always a few coming to bask in the ambient love of ponies - and Chrysalis was about to speak when it hit her, and her face fell into the same stupefied amazement as were upon her subjects.

It was true that changelings couldn’t read minds, they could feel love and infer something from that. Chrysalis had been quite proud of her metaphor as someone who had only ever seen a painting in the halls of Canterlot, but gauging a mind by feeling the heart was like considering artwork... except that Luna was painting a picture extremely loudly.

The affection was a palpable wave coming off her. Had she been hungrier, Chrysalis might’ve given in entirely and basked her fill, but the jewels had filled her with enough odd tasting loves for now.

Frankly, the Queen was amazed her subjects hadn’t gone into a feeding frenzy, fighting one another for a place in the glow. But no, they sat nervously and quietly, too enticed to resist a taste but too fearful to gorge themselves. Chrysalis had never seen such respect for a pony out of them before, especially not one already bundled up in a pod.

There were other ponies around. Ill fated explorers. Wanderers. Runaways. All types, about a dozen, united in the silly grins showing through the translucent green flaps of the harvest pods. Of them all, the changelings only had eyes for Luna.

Luna floated in a pod so fresh it still glistened with moisture. Her mane and tail, which confused Chrysalis to no end and provoked a spark or two of envy, rippled softly against the containment. Her eyes were shut and her mouth drawn into a calm, warm smile.

Chrysalis had never been particularly troubled by that pesky itch known as morality, but even so the nature of the pods reassured an unspoken corner of her own crusty heart. Love was the food of changelings and so, in an entirely selfish manner, they gave their prisoners the most conducive environment possible for feeling it.

In short, the pods made one dream of everything they loved. It wasn’t a cruel existence. If anything, it was wonderful. What else in the world could dream of what it loved without end? Never waking. Never responsible. Never knowing.

And in the heart of it, Luna practically glowed. Usually it was all the same - family and friends, lovers, memories. Wherever love could be a changeling could feed, and they made no opinions or judgements of it. Oblivious to it all, Luna smiled dreamily.

More changelings came, each as quiet and humble as Chrysalis had ever seen them. For a moment she wondered if Luna might’ve have underestimated herself, that she couldn’t feed them all. Probably not... but it was an enticing thought. The Queen would have to organize a census sometime. ‘Hundreds, or maybe a thousand and some hundreds’ was not a very precise number to work with.

More changelings came. Chrysalis realized that entirely without her prompting or desire this had become some sort of civic event, or ritual of some kind. She watched, but made no move to direct or control it.

The Queen of changelings was surprised, not for the first time that evening. Times hadn’t been this bad since... well, ever. Expansion and invasion had grown hot on the brain like a fever and when they had tried it for themselves, the changelings had been knocked right back down a few pegs. Chrysalis had considered cockiness and selfishness rather normal and healthy behaviour, but now she couldn’t help but wonder.

Who needed values or culture when you had what you needed and could take what you wanted? Except now the changelings couldn’t do either. She was loathe to admit, but Luna had hit the bullseye calling out the Queen on her pride and duty. Leading in the good times was hardly leading at all. It was easy.

Some more nervous changelings filed into the alcove, carefully balancing bundles between the membranes of their wings as the crowd shuffled out of their way.

Swaddled young ones. Six, the Queen counted. They didn’t mewl or move much, they just rested in their wraps. It wasn’t the rest of a baby that had been well at play earlier and needed a happy sleep. No, it was the tiredness of a child that hadn’t had the energy to play at all.

These were put at the base of Luna’s pod, and the others gave them as much space as the pressing numbers allowed for. Her great height allowed Chrysalis to see from her place nearer the back, but she stood as just one more in the crowd. Whatever was happening, this was new to her.

It was new for the young ones too. They blinked their oversized eyes and stretched tiny limbs as if someone had called to them from a distance. They had the blank puzzlement of babies everywhere.

One of the caretakers stepped forward “Um,” the lithe little changeling nervously broke the silence, her voice softer and higher than usual, “this is Night Light.” She gestured to the nearest swaddled child, than hastily retreated into the crowd.

It wasn’t as if Chrysalis was the only changeling to have a name. They all did. It just wasn’t a convention that changelings applied much meaning to, and a changeling just picked up whatever name happened to come their way and stick. Somehow, there was no doubting that this one would stick like white on... well, on the moon.

Soon more carers were stepping forwards. Quick to join the newly named Night Light were Moon Beam, Harvest Moon, Tranquility, Starry Sky and Lunatic. Chrysalis was definitely noticing a pattern, but when the last nervous little carer glanced her way the Queen of changelings managed a reassuring nod.

Whatever magic had held the crowd dissolved. At about the same time, every changeling started wondering just what had been going on, and if they might not have something better to do, preferably where things weren’t so weird. Besides, there had been plenty going on already for one night. Chrysalis couldn’t agree more and waited impatiently as the groups broke off and drifted away. Everything about Luna was just getting curiouser and curiouser.

Soon enough the Queen stood alone with her hostage. Or guest. Or whatever - she wasn’t sure - while Luna floated on, blissful in one of those loves she had chosen to keep for herself.

“You named six of my subjects’ children just now. Do you know that?” Of course she didn’t, but somehow, her enemy was the one Chrysalis kept speaking her thoughts to. “You’re a source of food, wrapped up tight and sleeping, and everyone is tiptoeing around you. Why is that?” She prodded the squishy membrane of the pod with her hoof. “What makes you special, little moon?”

The pod rippled like jelly under her touch, and the emanations of love quieted. The princess had turned a drooping, happy eye on the Queen, but for all that Chrysalis found it too hard to match. She glanced away.

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Chrysalis laughed quietly to herself as she strode off to her own rest, the three jewels bobbing through the air behind her.

chapter three

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter three

Three days passed. The world spun on and if small but important parts of it grew frantic with worry, Luna neither knew nor cared.

The changelings’ strange hostage, if anything, had grown even more popular in the meantime. There were other harvest alcoves, but Luna’s, and everyone had taken to thinking of this one as being Luna’s, was the one visited most. More often than not by the Queen herself. Chrysalis continued to wonder at the sudden turn for culture in her subjects, hoping that it wasn’t as incumbent a nuisance as, say, mildew to get rid of should she need to.

But most of all she puzzled about love. Not her own, of course, for the Queen of changelings thought it very unwise to touch the stuff beyond a purely consummative matter. She fed tentatively from the jewels, but despite her constant probing of them they gave up no more secrets. It was like feeling over a wonky tooth with her tongue.

In a very definite way it was annoying and humbling. Chrysalis had always just assumed that being what she was, she naturally had a masterful grasp on the inner workings and nature of love, even if she had considered it foolish and insane in the extreme. Instead she was discovering she had about as much comprehension of it as a bee does for pollination.

The emanations from Luna’s pod made only a little more sense. They were, after all, those pieces of heart she’d kept for herself. The warmer, kinder, less twisted loves than those that presently swirled above the Queen of changelings head.

Chrysalis let the love spill through her once more. She felt no shame in rifling through what she could for she had, for once, been honest... For a given value of honesty. Luna had been told they would be intimate and whatever she had thought it would mean, this was a consequence. If only it wasn’t such a mystery.

A subtle shift in the sensation noted a change in Luna’s dream. It happened every few minutes and Chrysalis was getting very attached to being around her more and more to experience them all.

Ah, this one was easy. It tasted like... well, it felt like a bright fire would feel on a cold night outside, except a downpour of rain had nearly extinguished it and only now the retreated embers were starting to peek out again with little tongues of flame. It felt like a rift in healing.

It didn’t take a genius to figure this one out. That was well and good, because Chrysalis certainly wasn't a genius and this was the first and only love she was confident she understood. It had to be Luna’s bond to Celestia, this was certainly vivid enough, But even then it was full of a thousand little nuances, just out of comprehension.

Come to think of it, had she ever actually considered the ponies in the other harvest pods? Just thinking of it now their background emanations seemed more distinct from one another. All this sensory exercise might be sharpening her awareness. It was a strange prospect. It’d always just been another of Chrysalis’ assumptions, and she was getting the nagging suspicion she had a fairly long list of these, that because they’d all felt the same that they’d all been the same. She’d never considered the possibility that her senses were... unrefined.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked of the unresponsive princess. It was only a matter of time, be it days, weeks or months, until somepony showed up with a big stick and started asking angry questions. Obviously she’d snap the big stick in half, laugh at them and throw them in the nearest pod, but what then?

But what then? Chrysalis sighed. Before the fateful invasion, she would never had thought that far ahead. Pony in the harvest pod; end of problem. But what then? The problem with thinking, she was beginning to realize, was that it was habit forming. It tended to open up more things to question and worry and consider. Sheesh.

But what then? Some part of her insisted. Well, what would happen? More would show up, and more still until harvest pods wouldn’t be an option, and then where would they be?

Oh sure, banish one of your own for a thousand years and no one raises an eyebrow. But kidnap... or grant asylum to, she still couldn’t decide which, that same one and suddenly everybody is in a big uproar.

Or not. She would know soon enough. She was about to leave Luna’s alcove when the dream emanations shifted. Oh no. Not this one again.

Chrysalis couldn’t help it. Her expression fell into slackjawed bewilderment as she looked upon the blissful smile of Luna. It was the least complicated love yet, simple as the blunt edge of a hammer. Chrysalis certainly felt brained. The impressions made no sense. There was... no reservation in Luna to the expression of this affection, and that was understating it. There was the impression that the recipient felt and acted the same way. It felt childishly innocent, not at all the exquisite and twisted affairs every other of Luna’s loves proved to be. And... what was this?

In her time masquerading as princess Cadence Chrysalis had inevitably had to kiss that foolish captain once or twice. It was something expected of brides and grooms, and it was part of the act. She hadn’t liked the experience and gotten away with the tiniest possible pecks. Not because it was a lie, that didn’t bother her in the slightest, but because the gesture itself was weird.

Whatever Luna dreamed of now, it wasn’t kissing. It was close-your-eyes-or-get- tongue-in-them enthusiasm. Chrysalis didn’t think ponies did stuff like that, but the worst part was that she wasn’t at all sure. Her imagination ran wild in the gaps.

She cocked her head to one side and regarded Luna suspiciously.

She cocked her head the other way, peering at the alicorn.

She face hoofed. “You know what?” Chrysalis said to the sleeping princess. “You can keep that one. I don’t want to know. I don’t,” she insisted.

Luna floated on with a particularly silly smile, giving not one care.

The Queen of changelings whirled about and strode into the central chamber. Whatever it was she’d just witnessed, it made her want a drink. Being a changeling, her understanding of the word went only as far as ‘the mineral rich water that collects in the basins we carve out from the walls,’ but what she meant, even though she had no way to know that she meant it, was a line up of stiff drinks to knock back until it made sense, or failing that, she found it funny, fell from a barstool and stopped caring.

The water tasted, as it always did down here, like walnuts or almonds, with a hint of hyphae. It wasn’t likeable per se, but it was familiar and normal. Not at all like that crystal clear, tasteless stuff she’d been made to drink prior to the invasion.

Ah, the invasion. With water trickling down her chin and wings stretched, the Queen of changelings mused on it with grim nostalgia. No pony, not even Luna or high and mighty Celestia had suspected how much effort had lead up to that fateful day. Changelings were a race predisposed to covert action, not open aggression. In a fight the average changeling was capable, but unimaginative. It didn’t help in the slightest that more often than not they instinctively shifted into the forms of their enemies, then spent the time fighting one another. But they’d taken their time setting it all up. Everything had gone perfectly.

And then it had gone perfectly wrong. The Queen of changelings beat the air with her wings, which billowed like great translucent petals. She rose slowly at first, but as she ascended out of the gloom she gained speed.

Yes, everything had blown up in their faces. Literally; the city had exploded with powerful magic and repulsed the changelings, tossing them like so many ragdolls to the four winds. Ending her brief flight, the Queen of changelings settled on a open terrace of spongy growth which gave slightly under her weight. She called to the darkness.

It didn’t take long for the naturally wide eyes of her nearest subjects to find her. It was a major perk of being Queen, and of being several times their size. She felt, despite her reminiscing, enthusiastic.

Luna had brought with her so many things. Intrigue... mystery... a significant source of food among others. But another word came to mind, and this one slithered on its belly.

Opportunity.

The changelings she had called waited on an order. Not that she had a plan. No master stroke to bring down a kingdom or anything of the like, but it didn’t worry her. In all this mess, opportunity would present itself and she would give it a well deserved wringing when it did.

The fact that Equestria had, after the eminently successful expulsion of the changelings, failed entirely to follow up by rooting out her web of spies would be a good place to start.

It was as simple as asking the nearest changeling ‘what news of Equestria?’ The changelings had never needed cleverness or cunning where their natural talents came in with regards to stealth and trickery. Even the word ‘spy’ wasn’t quite right. They were just ordinary changelings that happened to spend quite a lot of time in Equestria and had insinuated themselves nicely into one niche or another. They didn’t report in so much as come home every once in a while to visit the family and tell them stories of what was new in the double life of their chosen feeding ground. There were even a few that choose to never come back at all.

But she couldn’t think of those now, not when she had this fledgling sense of purpose.

“Go find the most recently returned changelings from Equestria. Send them to me.”

There was no need to question where she’d be. Over the last three days Chrysalis had been spending more hours musing over Luna than at rest in her own chamber, and Luna was steadily winning out.

The ground didn’t kick up a plume of dust as Chrysalis landed with a flourish; it was too moist to be dusty. But it should have done for the style of the thing.

She strode into the alcove with a new energy. The changeling’s resident explorer pony, dreaming away behind Luna would have been put in mind of distant savannahs, prides, and running away very fast.

The jewels and the new course of action had done Chrysalis good. A definite step up from being morose and hungry, it wasn’t the maddened power trip Canterlot had given her. It was probably better. Flaunting her power and laughing maniacally had all been very satisfying, but while she’d been doing those she hadn’t exactly paid proper attention to certain important developments going on around her.

So she laughed quietly to herself and smiled through the stories of the changelings that came to her. She didn’t even get snappy with them when it became apparent that most, if not all, of their stories had no significance at all. One’s neighbours were moving to Fillydelphia because their in-law had come upon a house with extra rooms. A travelling fair had been held up a day by an accidental storm in some village or other.

So on and so on, little snippets of life with ponies that didn’t float in harvest pods fell upon the Queen of changelings’ ears. It was true. The changelings weren’t good at playing spies. They had the blending in down, but really dropped the ball in regards to meaningful reconnaissance. And yet, in all the trivialities one truth became apparent.

Luna’s disappearance hadn’t been made common knowledge yet.

Opportunity was in the air.

chapter four

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter four

Luna awoke to confusion and a headache that could have split stones. A million miles past the pain, bleary eyes peered open. They saw something. An imposing, glowing presence.

“...tia? ...you?” Luna’s raspy voice croaked. She barely recognized it as her own. As quickly as she could think of it, fresh water flowed upwards to her. It was heavenly, and she drank deeply to slake her thirst.

The water obstructed her nostrils and mouth. Luna twisted away but the water moved with her, swirling across her face.

She screamed a spout of bubbles, wasting what little breath she had held in her lungs. Her chest constricted in a vice while her wings flared madly. She lashed out blindly, whipping her head back and forth like a rabid dog, but still the liquid smothered her.

She managed to scream her last as the compulsion to breathe battered all other thought to dust. Princess Luna, ruler of the night and co-regent to the throne of the Equestria was on the verge of drowning. She closed her eyes and did the only thing she could.

Luna drew her last breath.

Then she drew another last breath. And another. The world and its pitiful sanity fell away as sweet Air flooded into her lungs through great heaving gasps. Somewhere far away the body of a blue alicorn collapsed to the floor, but that was nothing, there was only the Air.

“Thinking more clearly now, are we?”

The voice bore no register on Luna. Her ribs could shatter and her heart rupture in a shower of blood, but so long as Air filled her lungs she wouldn’t care.

Seconds passed like years. Amazingly, impossibly, Luna caught the ragged edge of her breath.

“What?!” she gasped through chokes of air.

“Don’t be mad. You weren’t going to die.”

Luna flung herself at the Queen of changelings’ with the senseless aggression usually only reserved for the far side of sanity. There was a crunch of something almost like bone and the point of Luna’s horn was lowered to Chrysalis’ neck.

“You tried to kill me!” She roared with a voice that shook clumps of dirt free from the ceiling and walls.

The changeling sneered. There was a flash of green light and Luna’s precious breath was knocked from her as she slammed bodily into the wall. The hard edge of a hoof pressed firmly into her throat.

“If I had tried to kill you, I would have. Now, little moon, are you going to calm down or must I do some things I’d really quite like to?”

If there were looks that could kill, Genocide would have blazed in Luna’s eyes.

“Well?” The hoof pressed harder upon her windpipe.

Luna glared, then looked away.

“That’s better,” Chrysalis said with satisfaction. “I think I deserve an apology for that. Turns out you needed a little shock to bring you around to your senses. Here I was, thinking that a big scary alicorn would be more resistant to the harvest pods, not less.”

“What did you do to me?” the princess growled as the Queen freed her.

“What did you expect me to do when you were sleeping and helpless before me? Realize that I’m the bad guy and change my ways? Discover I was madly in love with you and promise to be better if only you’d have me?” On this Chrysalis whirled away with a flourish, cackling without restraint or abandon. For all her posturing, the Queen of changelings limped.

“Get real, little moon. I’d like to keep pretending that I can blame most of your idiotic dribbling on the harvest pod, but you’re making it hard for me. You walked, alone, into my realm, pleading for my help in your personal little crisis.

“Let me make it clear to you now - as long as you are in my home you will smile if I command you to lick the scum I trod upon from my hooves. Do you not understand what it means to be at my mercy? You thought you could tie me down with your words? No. I play along with your game, and I will continue to play along for as long as it suits me and you will thank me for sparing you from worse than mere indignities.

“If you ever threaten me or any of my people again, I will make sure the last thing you ever comprehend is just how truly powerless you really are. Got that?”

Chrysalis smiled down upon her. To Luna’s horror, there was something... regal in the set of the Queen of changelings’ expression.

“This is the part,” Chrysalis said through her tightly drawn smile, “where you get up, go shower the muck off yourself and consider your position very carefully, waiting for me to call you back. That is something you will do promptly and without incident. Or, if you want to skip straight ahead to considering your position, I can knock a few of those pretty pearly teeth out and rattle your ribs a bit.” Chrysalis slumped and favoured the one leg. “I’ve had enough violence for now, but I’m sure I can come up with some more if you want to have that conversation. Do you want to test me on it?”

Luna clambered shakily to her hooves and said nothing.

“Good girl. Come out!” The Queen called to the shadowy corners. In the home of the changelings there was always an audience.

Several of the black creatures stepped to her summons. Some were prompt, others hesitated more so. Chrysalis eyed their number, then smiled as her eye fell upon a particularly nervous little changeling. The Queen smiled. The target gulped and returned the smile uncertainty, which Luna found strangely expressive considering the normally stony faced changelings.

“You again, little one? It was you that started that little fit of naming the children.” Chrysalis’ voice held neither praise nor condemnation. In it Luna could hear only a casually amused interest.

“My Queen Chrysalis,” the cracking little voice began from a head bowed low, “I am sorry.”

“Sorry? No. You have no need to be. We’ve all been a bit moonstruck lately.” The Queen gently brought the changeing’s gaze up with her hoof, and though this was a subterranean realm consigned to gloom, Chrysalis’ smile brightened the creature’s day more than the sun itself.

"You can do me a favour, though.”

“I want to serve you,” the changeling standing barely to the Queen’s knee said hopefully.

“Good, good. What is your name?”

“Surreal, my Queen,” she chirped. “My friends call me Surry.”

“Hmm? Your friends?” Names were vague enough between changelings. Nicknames were unheard of. Come to think of it... so were friends.

Luna saw that the little changeling’s gaze flickered over her briefly. “When I am, um, roaming.”

The Queen of changelings’ brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed with a shrug. “You will attend upon Luna. You are now responsible for her. Stay by her and see to it that she is fed and watered. Find her a shower, and some kind of bed. Show her around the place, if you like. Luna, are you fine with this?” she asked with mock sweetness.

The princess stifled a grumble under her breath. Chrysalis flashed her a sharp-toothed grin, and Luna clenched her own teeth tightly before she could snap something vulgar. She was the princess of the night! She deserved to be watched with maximum security! Not lead around like some harmless foal out for a day with their sitter! The Queen’s nonchalance infuriated Luna.

“I am a threat to you! I could crush this little warden!” she very nearly screamed, but the blossoming bruise in her side made her wince as she drew the breath to do so.

Luna realized that Chrysalis had turned to watch her very intently indeed.

If you ever threaten me or my people...

There was an illumination that came upon Luna in that moment, but there was no warmth in it, like dawn upon a frost-blasted tundra. She shivered as understanding battered her like an icy wind.

Luna had never felt further from the moon and sun in all her life. And oh, how the Queen of changelings smiled.

“Good. Now, little moon, make yourself at home.”

The ‘shower’ proved to be nothing of the sort Luna was used to, but she had bigger concerns than creature comforts. Water fell in spatters upon her as Luna grudgingly did exactly as she had been told: she very carefully considered her position. At least the shower cooled the bruise of her aching side. It was little more than a small space dug out from a fissure in the rock through which groundwater bubbled and fell, but it was a small comfort that Luna had been given; the music and touch of falling water tried to cleanse her body and mind.

Luna felt anything but soothed. How could she have been so stupid? So selfish? Equestria was all but at war with these creatures, and she had snuck away from her life and her throne to play completely into their power. She’d given into her angst and her ache, again, thinking nothing of others or how they might suffer.

The shower hid her tears well, but the splashing of water did little to hide her sobbing. She wanted to scream and shout. She forced herself not to, but even then the blinking eyes of her tiny warden popped around the corner were a torment.

“Mistress Lu-”

“Shut up! Leave me be!” The changeling, Surreal, winced as if struck and recoiled from sight. She wouldn’t go far, she would be lurking just around the corner. As the stinging tears flowed on, Luna smiled with the cruel irony of it.

For the one time she wanted to be alone, she could not.

“Luna?” a kindly voice asked. The princess whirled about with a snarl to scare her warden off again, except this wasn’t her. A pony peeked around the corner, her coat the pink of carnations. Magenta eyes looked to her with a nervous hopefulness.

How... Who...?

Luna’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. Changeling. Of course. “Is this some kind of cruel joke? Go on then. Laugh.”

Everything in Surreal’s expression spoke of hurt and surprise, from the slight quiver of moisture at the edge of the eyes to the way the mouth hung just slightly open.

“There is nothing to laugh at,” she said sadly. There was a little bout of green flame and the changeling stood as herself once more. “I thought you might prefer to see me... not as I am.”

“A changeling is a changeling, whatever you look like.”

“And we feel what we feel, whatever we look like.” The little creature met Luna’s glare with sadness and defiance, then broke away. “I’m sorry, mistress,” she murmured.

Luna said nothing and turned her back to the changeling. Alone once more she wondered why it was that Surreal had been the one to say sorry, yet it was Luna who felt she should apologize. She didn’t want to consider this now and let the soft trickle of falling water empty her head of thoughts, if only for a fleeting reprieve. Just until the tears washed away.

Soaked and sore, Luna left the ‘shower.’ She didn’t really feel any better and her situation was as untenable as ever, but she’d cooled her temper and calmed herself, for what it was worth.

She could have blasted the wetness from her coat, but she didn’t care to. Her mane hung heavy with moisture that rippled down her sides like a soft night tide. It was pure whimsy to let it remain so, but here beneath the dark earth she could almost pretend she was a filly again, playing in darkling storms.

Changelings lurked all around her. No... lurked wasn’t quite right. They stopped and watched her, but there was no hiding themselves from her sight. If anything, she should be hiding from theirs, but even in this mess there was no sense of antagonism, only the shine of their eyes.

In a way it was reassuring after the intensity Chrysalis had shown.

“Mistress?” a tiny voice murmured from behind her. Luna jumped, then shifted into a quick-paced, aggravated trot.

“What do you want?” she growled.

The little changeling recoiled, then quickly stepped up into a canter just to keep pace with the long legged princess as she struck out purposely into the winding tunnels.

“I just want to serve,” Surreal said, but something in the cracking of her voice bid Luna halt. She turned to the tiny changeling and learned something new.

They cried just like ponies did. Or at least Surreal had been crying, her eyes were puffy in a strange, changeling way. The sight of it stoked Luna’s regret and anger in equal measure, both emotions she was well familiar with.

“Well then, my little jailor, what is to become of me now?” the princess said snidely.

Surreal winced and blinked. Once again she needed to leap forwards just to keep pace. “The Queen has not called for you... where do you want to go?”

Luna groaned. She didn’t think she could take much more of this disrespect from Chrysalis, being treated like an insipid foal. But that was the point of it, wasn’t it? She carefully ignored the truth that she’d broken down in tears just minutes prior and wondered, for the first time since getting herself into this mess what her sister would do.

Luna muttered under her breath. If she was going to have to dance to Chrysalis’ step, she might as well learn something for it. The Queen had done something to her, after their... business, and it would not be wise to be in ignorance of what that had been. Her memories of it were blurry at best. She still felt unsettled to the depths of her being, as if Chrysalis had recklessly shaken the snow globe of Luna’s soul. Of course, she’d proffered it up to the changeling to do just that... It was harder to focus than she realized, and for a dizzying second Luna wondered if she actually could use magic on the water still dripping from her coat or not.

Being wet was foalish and senseless. Time for the water to go. With a flash of darkness and to Luna’s great relief, the magic worked much as it always had. If it was harder to cast than she remembered, she chalked it up to not quite being herself.

The princess shut her eyes tightly, trying hard to rally her focus while the changeling waited with antsy nervousness. “Take me to wherever it was I awoke. I want to know what was done with me last night, for I know it was no bed I slept in.”

Surreal said nothing, and stopped dead in her tracks. “Mistress Luna...” she began in a whisper. For the quietness of her voice, it snagged something of worry in the alicorn.

The little changeling cowered, fully expecting to be struck. “Mistress Luna... you were asleep for three days”

chapter five

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter five

Chrysalis, Queen of changelings, used her magic to brush away fallen soil. The last echoes and shock waves still reverberated around her chamber. Compared to the opulence of Equestria, the dugout was especially spartan. Other than the dirt and the bed of living fungus there were only the three jewels, and those danced a slow waltz, weaving between one another in the clutches of her magic.

“My Queen, you sent for me?” a small voice said softly from the doorway. Not that there was a door, as the changelings simply respected her privacy without issue. Regardless, or perhaps due to that, Surreal hesitated to step across the invisible threshold into the chamber.

“I did. Now tell me, how is Luna?” The Queen motioned the little changeling forwards, but did not rise.

“Mistress Luna is... um... adjusting.”

Chrysalis gave her subject a flat stare. “Adjusting.”

“Yes?” Surreal asserted with growing uncertainty.

“So she found out how long she’s been here,” Chrysalis said, shaking a little more soil from her mane. “Every changeling and half of Equestria probably heard that little outburst. I didn’t think a princess would use words like those.”

Surreal shuffled awkwardly on the spot. “She’s adjusting.”

“Is she treating you alright?” Chrysalis asked softly, but somewhere in the kind words was a hooked barb.

Surreal met the gaze of her Queen. “Yes.”

“Don’t lie,” Chrysalis chided. Surreal’s green changeling eyes shot wide with an expression running from aghast to ashamed, but Chrysalis only smiled down at her. “I already know Luna flung you off the nearest ledge when you told her the truth.”

Surreal drooped as if the stubbornness in her were a physical thing that had broken. “I’m so sorry, my Queen.”

“As you should be for presuming to lie to me. But enough of that. Are you alright?”

“Yes. I can fly well enough. I didn’t fall.”

“That’s good to hear. Now-” Chrysalis tried to stand as she spoke, but a sharp wince of pain cut across her speech.

“My Queen, you’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” she growled, but little Surreal was already going half frantic with worry and she skittered to the Queen of changelings’ side. The eggshell-like breaks running along Chrysalis’ hind leg made the little creature gasp with fright.

“Please, my Queen!” the changeling pleaded.

Chrysalis gazed into the wide trembling eyes of her strange little subject, chuckled, and let herself slump down again. “If it is so important to you... fine. Be done with it.”

“My Queen,” Surreal said reverently, “thank you.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Just do it already.” The little changeling nodded eagerly, and leaned closely over the damage. For a second Surreal shut her eyes tightly and shuddered, then hiccupped. A steady stream of viscous green fluid began to flow from her mouth. The stuff was thick enough to be stretched and shaped between her fangs, which otherwise would more accurately have been called spinnerets. With a dab of her tongue, the goopy bandage was pressed into the fissures where it congealed and darkened.

The Queen of changelings relaxed at the substance’s cool touch, while the mewling of the changeling at work were familiar sounds and made for a calming lullaby.

Chrysalis sighed contentedly, enjoying the treatment too much and too assured of herself to be embarrassed. “You would have made a much better bridesmaid than those idiot ponies,” she crooned.

“You fwatter me,” Surreal managed to say around the flow of fluid she worked into the cracks.

“Of course I do. Be quiet and take the compliment.”

“Yeth, your mazethty.” The way the little changeling could say it seriously made the Queen laugh.

“That’s enough,” she managed to say after the chuckles.

The changeling nodded eagerly and bit off the stream, then self-consciously coughed out the dregs of what she’d used. Chrysalis paid her no mind, instead opting to test her leg. She stood and it bore her weight without pain. Given a few days of ease, it’d be fine.

Glad to be back on her hooves, the Queen flared her wings and stretched out her leg. “Our little moon certainly doesn’t do things by half. Tell me about her.”

“My Queen? I’m not sure my opinion is worth-”

“Just tell me your thoughts of her,” said Chrysalis impatiently. “Your opinion is worth whatever I say it’s worth, and right now I am saying it is worth my time. Speak.”

Surreal’s head sunk low and she stared at the ground. “She scares me.”

Chrysalis raised the little changeling’s chin with a hoof. “Of course she does. She tossed you off a cliff. That’s worse than I’ve ever done to one of my subjects, and she will be hearing about that, mark my words.” The Queen of changelings’ smiled her sharp toothed grin.

“No, my Queen... that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“Being flung was a shock, but it’s not what she did that scares me. It’s who she is. Standing next to her is like standing under the night sky: the wind blows this way and that, I can’t see what it is that is so clear to feel. I don’t know what it means, or what it will bring.”

Black, gray, and blue: the jewels stilled from their silent dancing. Chrysalis gazed into them and when she spoke it was as if from a distance, as if she spoke to them and Surreal was merely eavesdropping. “Yes. She’s like that.”

The little warden shuffled nervously, but said nothing. Nor did she need to, for Chrysalis drifted out of her reverie with a soft chuckle. “Opportunity. Uncertainty. Change. That’s what she is. What she brings... Even what these jewels are, I suppose.”

“My Queen? Wh-why me?” Surreal squeaked nervously. When Chrysalis eyes turned to her, Surreal could keep no thoughts secret if she had wanted to, and it all came gushing out. “I mean, there’s bigger and stronger and braver than me. There are changelings that have spent more time with ponies. If she really tried to do something... I wouldn’t be able to stop her at all, and I know that I’d have to do the right thing and try anyway.”

“Shush, you,” the Queen said with softness and sternness in equal measure. Surreal gulped back her anxiety and struggled to master her emotions. She took a steadying moment to breath.

“I just don’t understand why you chose me, my Queen. I fear I don’t live up to what you want of me.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course! With my life!”

The Queen of changelings made a sweeping gesture and turned back to her bed. “Than trust me to take good care of it.”

Surreal lurched forwards boldy. “But what does that mean? What is my place in this?” Realizing her audacity, she squeaked and recoiled on the spot. “Forgive me.”

Chrysalis turned back with a lazy smirk. “For what? We both saw how well it went when I made the plans alone. My subjects have minds of their own, and I won’t neglect that fact anymore. I will make use of it, just as I intend to make use of you.”

Surreal stood agape. Her mouth moved, but no words came out. Ignoring her, Chrysalis nestled down into her bed once more.

“Don’t gawk like that. If it makes you feel better, I’ll give you this much. Everything you said I already knew. I chose you anyway. Trust me to know why, and do as I have commanded. So far, you’re doing just fine. Don’t let me down.”

Surreal flared her wings and trilled a jubilant cry. She was still confused to no end, but her Queen, the Queen, had complimented her, Surreal. She took a deep breath to shout her joy and thanks and-

“No,” Chrysalis hastily interjected. “Luna’s outburst was enough. It’s late. Go back to her, get some sleep. If you really want to thank me, do so with your service.”

“I will!” The changeling said with a cracking voice, and leapt to the chamber entrance.

The Queen smiled sleepily. “Now I just want some rest. I’m holding you accountable if Luna has another moment of...adjusting.”

“Yes, my Queen,” Surreal chirped excitedly. There was no real menace to the Queen’s half-hearted threat, and even if there had been, it could not dampen Surreal’s soaring spirits, and she skittered from the chamber with zeal and energy.

It was therefore quite the shame that two minutes later, Surreal was struggling to contain herself and watch over the tiny chamber granted to Luna. She tried, she truly did, to squeeze her thoughts into calm, stoic, watchful intent, but she kept bubbling up through it like a wellspring. She’d been chosen for a reason. She’d been complemented by her Queen. If only she could get her breathing steady and focus. She curled up and tried to pay attention to her charge. She wasn’t disinclined to sleeping on the open ground of a corridor... she was a changeling with a duty to uphold, but...

She shook the thought from her head and stared at the curtain that, at Luna’s adamant insistence, had been hung for privacy. It was the princess' traveling cloak, or had been, but three days in damp and uncaring storage had left it musty with mildew

On her side of the impromptu curtain, Luna lay awake. On a bed. A real bed, if small and somewhat moth ravaged. But a group of nameless changelings had silently carried it here for her, and at Luna’s insistence brought the tattered curtain as well. A part of her, a part she hotly denied having, wanted to be thankful for what little she’d been given. For the most part, she tolerated these mere indignities with seethingly poor grace.

Or would, but her heart wasn’t in it. Not really. Ever given to her passions Luna went through the motions of them, but that was only the surface. Her true thoughts lurked far below the thrashing storm waves, darkling and peaceful.

For all the reasons she had to be a raging, avenging fury, she couldn’t embrace them. It was a strange and unfamiliar calm, and even the small sounds of the elated, awkwardly placed warden shuffling about in vain were more a reassurance than annoyance.

Seconds passed to moments, which as is the way of the night turned onwards to minutes and minutes more, and still the small sounds of the restless and shifting changeling lightly played over the silence.

Luna sighed. As a gesture it worked perfectly well for both her amusement and vexation with the changeling’s antics. With a lazy flick of her horn a soft blue eminence lit up the curtain and gently dragged it to one side. Her warden blinked sleepily then belatedly startled with surprise, her changeling eyes sliding from fright to suspicion.

“Do changelings normally sleep upon the floor?”

Surreal quickly composed herself to a haughty air, a fair feat considering her situation. “I do whatever my Queen asks of me.”

“Then let me rephrase the question: are you content to sleep on the floor?”

The changeling blinked through the pause, her eyes almost glowing in the near total darkness “If I must.”

Luna couldn’t help but smile. “In other words, you do not want to.”

The changeling huffed and looked away. There was a stronger flash of Luna’s magic and the tatty cloak-curtain tore free of the wall. It floated out into the corridor and dropped unceremoniously over Surreal.

“It is not much, but it will keep you off the floor, at the very least.”

The little changeling fumbled her way free of the mouldering cloth and blinked with confusion. “But, mistress, your privacy-”

“Doesn’t help me in the slightest from hearing you fidget.” The princess’ eyes narrowed, somehow focusing the darkness between her and the changeling. “I have already been on display to all for three nights, one more without a door should be as nothing.”

With a scowl in the darkness, Surreal stopped moving. “You were treated with the dignity and respect you deserve.”

Luna bit off a harsh edge of laughter. “Clearly I have not earned much of either, than. Do I taste good? Do I make you salivate to be near me, or whatever it is changelings do?”

With a soft glow of changeling magic, the curtain pulled away from the little warden’s body and fastened itself back in place between them. Luna felt like a petty idiot.

“Surry!” she hissed imploringly, her voice tinged with regret and anger.

“Call me Surreal, mistress. Or ‘changeling’ if you prefer,” the gentle voice whispered back coldly. “Goodnight.”

chapter six

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter six

Dreams of omen. Dreams of mystery. Dreams of portent. Luna had none. In the groggy haze of waking from a deep and restful sleep she felt almost surprised by that, but mostly relieved. Her dreams were often unkind to her.

“Rise and shine, little moon,” Chrysalis said as she dominated what free space there was between the bed and door, chuckling at her little joke. “Did you sleep well?”

“Wonderfully,” Luna hissed from the bed, trying to banish all trace of the truth that she actually had. Luna turned the Queen a nasty stare, crediting her restfulness to whatever had been in those harvest pods. The dregs of that still probably swirled through her body.

Chrysalis stepped out from the little chamber, smiling to herself as she let the curtain fall back into place. Luna had no doubt that the Queen was playing at courtesy, granting her a precious few seconds of privacy to compose herself before stepping into whatever the changeling had set for her today.

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to jump to the Queen’s side quickly. Her thoughts turned back to the pods, and she took her sweet time doing nothing much at all on the bed. She’d been going to see the harvest pods yesterday and had overreacted when the news had been broken to her. Three days...Celestia would be frantic with worry by now, and a pang of guilt and shame lanced deep into Luna. Then those feelings struck of a tightly wound, deep seated knot of resentment.

Of course ‘tia would be in the right, because her little sister had left without rhyme or reason, not leaving so much as a note to say why. Of course she’d be angry and upset, but she’d blame herself, as if Luna weren’t truly responsible for her own actions. As if ‘tia were the only one who ever could make mistakes and carry the subsequent blame, and had somehow failed Luna, driving her to leave. Luna knew the cruel irony well that her big sister was the only one who never made mistakes. Celestia never let herself.

This wasn’t about Celestia. It never had been. Luna had needed to do this thing, by herself, for herself.

Her eyes went wide and her breathing quickened as the truth of that hit her. What had she done? In her despair she’d cut away those most reviled, most painful pieces of herself. Luna shivered and nearly retched with the realization of it. She chased away the despair before it took root in her again, thinking of other things.

Unbidden, but desperately needed, Luna’s thoughts turned to her closest friend. The unbridled and unrelenting love she showered Luna with, ever without judgement or worry, happy only to be together in the moment.

She managed to blink away her tears of longing. Luna curled up herself tightly, as if trying to fill a hole in her heart, smiling sadly all the while.

Chrysalis’ head poked through the curtain, expressing total confusion and the potential for disgust, if only she could figure out just what this was first.

Of course, Luna thought bitterly. Love.

Luna didn’t have it in her to manage a withering stare. For all her rest she felt spent. Empty and tired. She loosed a humourless laugh, and slowly unfurled to a more relaxed position.

“I miss Cruithne. That’s what you feel from me,” she said by simple way of explanation to the bewildered Queen. Luna smiled her sad smile once more, then looked to the floor. The Queen hadn’t changed from her expression.

“My dog,” Luna added. “She’s a germane shepherd. Over a year old now, but as much a playful puppy as ever.” It felt strange, to reveal a private piece of her life to the changeling like this, but it was just like Chrysalis had said it would be. Besides, she’d already shared worse things with the Queen.

“A dog,” the Queen said with the careful neutrality of one who hasn’t the slightest clue what they are talking about and is afraid the word might be dirty. She slipped back out for a moment. Luna could hear the hasty whispers between the Queen and her warden, then Chrysalis stepped back in.

“A pet. I see,” she said, and clearly didn’t, but seemed amused all the same.

Luna laughed with black humour. This was the enemy? Cruithne would probably jump as ecstatically to meet Chrysalis as any other. What did a dog care for a Queen? As that thought eased through her, Luna’s laughter lightened in tone, especially when she tried to imagine what the changelings’ reaction would be to a dog playing for attention. Luna longed to see her shepherd again. In the meantime she’d have to make do with her warden. She let thoughts of her dog play across her thoughts.

It was only as Luna came back to herself that she noticed how intently the Queen had been watching her. The edge of a satisfied grin glinted off her fangs. Luna stiffened.

Chrysalis made a show of running her tongue over her teeth and her grin widened. “I don’t know what I enjoy more,” she started amiably, “the way you bare your heart open to the world for us to bask in, or the affront you take at it when we do.”

Words failed Luna. Chrysalis flaunted something that was private...even intimate. The princess shook and huddled as if thrown, sopping wet, into a midnight gale. Luna was forced to recognize, again, that the Queen of changelings’ had warned her of this consequence fairly. Luna loathed that truth, but...hadn’t she just resented Celestia for not giving her that same freedom of consequence?

Chrysalis rolled her neck, content as a cat with herself. “Come out in your own time, little moon. There’s no rush, though I think it’d do you some good, rather than hiding away in here, in case you were considering that. Get someone to find you something to eat,” she added lazily.

To Luna’s embarrassment, her stomach choose that moment to rumble with impeccable timing. Even knowing the truth of the matter, she couldn’t help but feel that she’d only been in the cavern this one night and had eaten the day before. Rather, the case was that she hadn’t eaten for the better half of a week, and even presuming the harvest pod had done something to nourish her, it was nothing to her sudden and preeminent hunger.

Chrysalis fixed the princess with a grin. “Don’t mind me. I just ate.” On that she turned and left once more, doing nothing to restrain her chuckle that ran to shades of cackle.

Luna glowered, but was reminded how hard it is to be indignant when hungry. So she sighed instead, and quietly slipped to her hooves on the damp and hard-packed soil floor. She forced herself to take a very deep breath and tried to affect a stately air.

Then she considered herself and slumped. She’d never liked being so formal, but she’d always tried so hard to do it right. Her sister had always been able to manage it well, being both majestic and approachable. Luna closed her eyes and stole another steadying breath. She didn’t deny the longing to feel ‘tia’s wing drape over her and hear her soothing words.

But Celestia wasn’t here. Luna was. She’d be damned if she didn’t make her best of it. It was food for thought, and fitting to the phrase she needed the first before being able to attend the second. She shoved the tattered cloak-curtain open with an ungentle burst of magic and boldly stepped into the dark and empty corridor.

Empty, save for the skulking changeling.

“Surreal,” Luna said down to the little creature.

“Mistress Luna,” she replied coolly. The hard, challenging stare left no doubt in Luna that she was unforgiven. Fine, then. Be this way, Luna thought with equal coldness, while a little corner of her heart busily staunched the hurt feelings from being rejected by the changeling.

Rejected? Was she so desperate for companionship and approval that she’d seek it from a changeling?

Why not? the traitorous thought snuck in, but she could not answer it.

Minutes later as she ate by the pale lights at the bottom of the central chamber she still could not think of a satisfactory answer. At least she was well and truly not paying any attention to what it was she ate. One indistinguishable changeling or another had insisted it was edible for ponies, and beyond that Luna wanted to know nothing of the mucous-like sludge she ingested. The bowl and spoon she levitated were only acceptable because she refused to even think about what condition they might be in. She’d have preferred not knowing she ate the disturbingly alien slop at all, but the changelings that crowded around her seemed fascinated. A few stopped their activities and watched with wide, unblinking eyes from the terraces above, while others merely hovered on the wing.

Despite herself, Luna leaned to the warden at her side and whispered a question.

Surreal didn’t look at Luna, but spoke all the same. “Not everyone has seen a pony eat before,” she said tersely. “Even for us that have...it’s strange to get used to.”

“Do you eat nothing at all than? Nothing physical?”

“We drink water,” Surreal replied with a disdainful shrug, “and bits of plants, just for what the body needs to build itself. Nothing like the variety or bulk ponies chew through.”

It was strange to consider that these strange creatures considered her a strange creature in turn. Luna broke off that train of thought with a shake of her head before it went round and around, chasing its tail in her brain.

Her eye was drawn to the green eminence of the nearest harvest pod chamber. Done with her meal - one oddly satisfying if she didn’t think about the taste too much - she let the bowl and spoon drift to one side, where a changeling like any other obliged her and took them. She nodded and muttered a simple thanks for the courtesy, than stepped purposefully across the earthen floor and flecks of cave growth to the alcove.

The feeling of deja-vu rose up in Luna like a midnight mist. She hunted the feeling, trying to force a memory from it, knowing full well why it was there. And yet...it wasn’t a feeling of dread, of revisiting a night terror. Rather it was like chasing the tail of a dream. A wonderful dream. She deeply distrusted her own anticipation.

By the softly glowing lights Luna entered the alcove. Whatever thought she’d had, whatever reasons she’d had for visiting these were banished at the sight. Luna cursed herself a stupid foal as the collection of swollen, folded fronds stood before her about the floor.

Ponies. A pony in each. Her people were here, trapped and caught between being slaves and stockpiles in this dark, dank underworld. She’d been an insipid hostage while her subjects were imprisoned down here. Luna seethed, but with magic as strong as hers she could do so much more than that.

The light faded as if the blackness of a moonless night had been concentrated and funnelled down into her, and her breathing became deep and slow. Luna stood in the dark heart of growing shadows, while a chill wind swirled around her, whispering evil things.

Green flame banished much of the darkness so suddenly that Luna had to blink away the brightness. Blinded, she whirled about in startlement.

“No more of that,” Chrysalis said. She stood tall, dominating the the centre of the flickering green light that whipped with oiliness across the walls. She stood with regal pride, but not without a slight hunch to her neck and shoulders, while a predatory grin made a sharp sickle of her smile.

“We can still have this conversation, little moon,” the Queen added, almost hungry for the challenge. Before Luna could consider herself, Chrysalis relaxed ever so slightly from her stance and the fairy-light dimmed, but did not die.

The Queen made a tiny gesture. Luna wondered wildly what it meant, but realized it hadn’t been for her, though those eyes never left hers.

Surreal huddled under the big changeling, sheltered by her impressive form. Trembling as she stood, she hesitated to leave her majesty’s side, but at a stiffer gesture from the Queen she nodded gratefully and fled the chamber. Scared changelings peeked around the corners, but stayed well away.

“Well, Luna? I got my people out of this. What about you? Still want to go this way?”

Even as the shadows knit themselves back together and enshrouded the princess once more, Luna let them weaken. Chrysalis was the stronger creature, but even that paled as a reason next to the truth that she wouldn’t fight, not with helpless ponies so near.

She let the magic die. The weak ambience of the glowing growths of the underground reasserted themselves quietly.

Chrysalis sighed with unrepentant relief. “Good.” A heavy thud sounded just next to Luna and she jumped in startlement. It was just a rock. A big, heavy, very blunt rock. Luna gawked at it as the last wisps of green flame released it.

“You thought I’d have fought you? A battle like in stories, magic this and nobility that? I bet you already had something dramatic to scream at me.” The Queen laughed sharply and stepped closer with her casual gait. “Well too bad. This was never going to be the struggle you seem to crave. I was going to bludgeon you in the back of the head the instant I thought I had enough of an excuse to. Knock you out cold, maybe stomp your ribs as something for you to consider when you woke up. And trust me, I still want to. Do you know why?”

Luna suspected she did, and hated it.

“Because I’m not a nice person. I don’t fight, I win. By whatever works.” She leaned closer and whispered in Luna’s ear. “And because those ponies behind you are as important to me as they are to you, and you put them at risk. Not me. Think about that,” she said with venomous calm.

Horror and shame like she had never felt before struck like poison through the princess. Chrysalis was a self-admitted liar, but she could wield the truth like an implement of torture all the same. Luna stepped back.

“No. No, I wouldn’t.”

“You already did,” the Queen hissed.

Luna dropped to the floor and sat there.

Chrysalis loomed over her shoulder, and it was another splash in the sea of horror that by chance or design that the Queen stood in the same position that Celestia took when consoling Luna when she was troubled. “But it’s alright. I forgive you. I knew you might have a moment of...adjusting. If you can be calm now, I’d like to show you something. Surreal,” she called to the cave mouth, “come back now.” The changeling scurried back, trust for her Queen trumping fear of Luna. Chrysalis called some order or other to another changeling, but Luna had no heart to pay attention.

She stood with her head bowed low and wings drooping, her heart still storming with shock and disbelief that everything was true. To save her subjects she’d endangered them, and thought so little so as to have not considered it.

No...she hadn’t been trying to save her subjects. Not at all. She’d been trying to fight Chrysalis, trying to fight...anything. Seeing ponies in pods had merely been the source of the righteous indignation to do so. Appalled with herself and wanting to scream, Luna found herself voiceless instead. She didn’t want to hear her own voice right now.

Chrysalis lead her gently to one of the pods, indistinguishable from the others that bulged around them. Through the opaque fronds and the thick gel of the interior Luna could see its occupant, an elderly earth pony colt of pale colour. A serene smile was plastered across his face, doing much to ease the deep creases along his eyes that spoke of tension and pain.

“Do you know who this is?” The Queen asked.

Luna shook her head limply.

“I’d be surprised if you did. Before you came, he was our oddity.” Luna didn’t like the note of possession in the wording. “What was his name again?”

“Fallow..Fallow Field,” Surreal squeaked.

“Yes. That was it. Now, little moon, are you wondering why we, the monstrous changelings who steal everypony we can get, know this one’s name?”

Luna hadn’t. Try as she might, she couldn’t drag herself out of the mire of shame and pity.

“His love is deep. Profound, and tinged with sadness,” Chrysalis said with something almost like respect or reverence. “Much like you, little moon. And like you, he came seeking us.”

chapter seven

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter seven

The harvest pod before Luna seemed to flow without motion, while dim shafts of green light broke and scattered within it. Whatever her thoughts were for the pony slumbering within, the princess kept those feelings to herself, leaving her expression softer than either Chrysalis or the little steward Surreal had ever seen before. It wasn’t long before Luna spoke. The word was only a firmy spoken “no,” not resounding or shouted, but still it managed to draw a very clear line, one that smoldered like old embers in the gloom.

Chrysalis’ perpetually glinting eyes and teeth turned to the wayward princess. “No?” Luna met the gaze with her own, and a familiar resonance in both voices set the little changeling Surreal huddling closer against the imposing form of her Queen.

Whatever painfully long pause the little changeling had dreaded, it didn’t come. Luna merely stepped away. In that simple motion whatever ice had hung over them both seemed to break and clear the air, but likewise the ever present snarl that clung to the edge of the princess reaffirmed its place within her.

“No, I do not want to hear your story. His, maybe...but not yours. You use the truth like a worse kind of lie, until even the truth doubts itself. I, however, have no doubt that your telling of his story, true or false, would paint the colours with such convolution as to be an insult to Fallow Field, and to me, let alone your shame, if you even have any.”

If Luna’s words bit deep, she made no effort to follow up their on them, nor did Chrysalis seem all that stung. Rather, she smiled her familiar smile, all tooth and gleam. No matter how many times Surreal saw it, that look would leave her a little bit thrilled and a great deal frightened.

The Queen of changelings grinned and nodded, all the while gently but consistently urging the smaller changeling away from the shelter of her side. Knowing both regal persons fairly well for her part, Surreal took quite a lot of urging, standing on her own only when an unceremonious knee scooped her up bodily and dropped her to the soil. Surreal fumed, but as her Queen turned away from her the off-coloured fissures of Chrysalis’ healing injury prompted a silent, sincere apology. The damage was closing unevenly, and more slowly than it should have been. With disheartened certainty Surreal recognized the beginnings of a permanent scar.

“Well, little moon,” Chrysalis began, but where all expected a scathing retort to follow, there instead came nothing. Luna shot an unfriendly glower, one riddled with uncertainty, over her shoulder to the Queen, who for her part walked slowly to Luna.

“Yes,” she began again, looking to the ceiling...or maybe she looked past that, through the dark earth, ancient roots and shriveled trees to the sky far beyond. Her voice lacked the usual barb and twist she spoke with, seeming almost soft for it. “I was responsible for the feeding of my people. Now I’m responsible for their gnawing hunger.”

Surreal squeaked as if struck. “My Queen!” she cried defensively, pained to see Chrysalis say anything of the sort.

Chrysalis turned on the little changeling so suddenly, with such savagery that it seemed sure she would make such thoughts reality. “Know your place!” she snarled, but did no more to the trembling changeling. As fast as it had come upon her, the furious anger evaporated like so much mist.

“If I was a good person, little moon, I’d almost thank you. Even here, right this instant, you’re slowing down starvation.” Chrysalis looked upwards again, and bereft of words or anger Luna found herself thinking clearly. She stared unrepentantly at the Queen. No mere dirt is the focus of the wistfulness there. Among other things, she felt humbled. With all her ties to the night, Luna could sometimes forget how profound it could be to anybody...everybody else, even as she understood how truly profound it was. Often she stared into it, lost as one could only be with dreams and twinkling stars and the endless mystery.

And like the night, dark clouds drifted into the princess’ thoughts and the light of it dimmed. “I will still have my people freed.”

“I know you will try. But not today.” A note of almost pleading and threat flitted across the Queen’s speech.

Luna nodded. Once, and slowly at that, but all the same it seemed some pact was made, some understanding reached. Whatever lines might be drawn between them, whatever Queen and princess contested for, it’d not be done with raw power, at least not where the weak and helpless floated in dreams and the half-starved watched uncertainly, silent in the shadows. It happened so lightly, Luna almost missed the weight of the world settle on her shoulders: the weight of each soul fell softly as snow on her, by their hundreds and thousands.

Is this what it feels like to be Celestia? she wondered. She found her answer in the depth of the Queen’s eyes. No, this is what it feels like to be a ruler.

The reverie was broken by a changeling, one who skulked into the alcove, concealing none of his worry at intruding. A tattered journal floated in his pale magic, which he held up like a talisman or shield to hide behind. He was slightly larger than Surreal but just as thin, and halfway through wondering if this might be her brother, Luna’s thoughts stopped in their tracks.

He. She’d thought he, not it. She’d looked at these creatures all the same and so she’d seen them all the same, without really seeing at all. She’d imposed an idea and an image onto them, big enough and damning enough to be all but impossible to squirm out from under. Luna had already learned that changelings cried just like ponies did...but had she learned anything at all? What did that mean to her?

Before she could spiral further down, the changeling announced himself to his Queen with the cough which universally means ‘here I am, and I intend to be small and unobtrusive as possible, by your leave.’ He eagerly offered up the item.

The journal, and it was definitely a journal: dog-eared, dog-ended and quite likely dog chewed, even before coming into the dark earth, was taken by the green eminence of Chrysalis. Despite its decay, or perhaps because of it, she handled the item carefully.

With the slightest nod of approval she sent the newcomer scrambling away. “You were right, of course,” she spoke aloud. “I am an unrepentant, unforgiving, all-round bad person.” With each word, the faithful steward Surreal winced. “I am a liar, and would lie to you, as you know. And you were right, I do use the truth like a worse kind of lie. So here. Take your truth. I gave Fallow Field time to write before he stepped into his pod. Whatever he had to say, it is there. Read it when you will, take from it what you will.”

With that the Queen’s magic winked out and the old journal dropped. Luna gasped and rushed to catch it in a dark flash of her own. Only as she breathed a sigh of relief did she catch the appraising grin of the changeling, like a mare considering the wares of a jeweler for her beloved.

“So it is important to you after all. That’s good.” The Queen of changelings fluttered her papery wings in a brief flurry. As the sudden breeze of them ended Chrysalis stretched out her shoulders and neck like a mare that had been at the plough all day and expected to be at it for many days yet. The whole show she made of it caught the princess’ eye, reminding her of her own aches in the days she’d been here. As an afterthought, the Queen turned to Surreal.

“You can go aswell,” she said.

Surreal looked to Luna, than spun back to Chrysalis. “My-my Queen?”

“I said you can go. You don’t have to guard Luna anymore. You’re done, be happy.”

Her eyes wide, Surreal was anything but. “I don’t understand.”

Annoyance flashed across the Queen like a tongue of green flame. “Did I ever tell you to understand? No. I said ‘you can go.’ Do so.”

Everything in the little creature’s face told a tale of upset, but to look at her hooves was a different story altogether. They dug into the dirt. Luna watched with piqued interest and worry. “Have I failed you?” the changeling chirped.

Chrysalis sighed like an amused, tired parent and relaxed her poise. “No. You’ve done everything I wanted. Do you remember what I asked of you?”

Surreal sagged like any unhappy foal might, but hadn’t moved. “To trust you,” she mumbled, and her eyes still held the Queen’s own.

“Yes. So question my orders in your own head, not out where everyone can hear them, please,” Chrysalis chided gently.

As detached from the exchange as she had been, Luna felt physically jarred, even pulled in by the look Surreal threw her. Indeed it might have been thrown, as if the little changeling hoped Luna to pull her back to something safe and familiar, even as one of those emotions born of too many others rippled across the changeling’s eyes.

Luna could do and say nothing, and had no idea what either would be if she did. She didn’t miss the dark look that shadowed over the Queen’s brow as she watched the smaller changeling leave, nor did Chrysalis waver from it when she next spoke.

“Do you want to go home, little moon?”

Luna had to play the words again, and then a third time in her head as the full impact crashed through her. Home. Happiness. Celestia. Shame. The familiar old storm blew on the horizon, but was strangely muted. Luna kept silent.

“You didn’t expect me to keep you here forever. Or did you? I can’t exactly allow an army to come dig you out. I don’t think I need to tell you that a lot of ponies would find that a big, juicy excuse to come here right now, if they knew.”

Luna’s thoughts raced. Could ponies be so vindictive? Somewhere within the word no! rang out, but Luna felt a chill as she realized better.

They could, easily. Not because ponies were cruel or aggressive, but because they were afraid and ignorant. But then, a full scale surprise invasion of what had previously been believed to be merely mythological beings could do that. But then, her thoughts turned again, Chrysalis had brought this down on her own people. Equestria had done nothing wrong in defending itself. What the changelings got, they deserved for unwarranted aggression.

Luna shut her eyes tightly and welcomed the total darkness of sightlessness. Unwarranted aggression. Those were bureaucratic words, used by the less noble, the sort that considered the populace a sort of resource. Covering her closed eyes, Luna backtracked from the thought like a cart puller might back away from a mire in the road.

They got what they deserved. Starvation. They brought it on themselves. Starvation. She was helping them just by existing, and they appreciated her for it.

The princess took a breath that was nearly a gasp, the sound of which filled the darkness both within and without. There is such a thing as wanting a thing for so long that one dismisses the constant aching for it from the forefront of their thoughts. It could be called the pain felt only when numbness fades.

Except, in a very real way, it hadn’t faded at all. Luna remembered the deep-seated need for approval. Born, perhaps, from living in the shadow of Celestia, or more accurately being the shadow. She could remember the ache, the tears and struggles, but she couldn’t feel them. Even now, she felt only a hollow satisfaction, no more profound than seeing the dishes done, not that Luna did her own of course.

It just...wasn’t there. Luna’s breathing should have started coming harder for the sake of the thing, as if her lungs might fill the missing piece of her heart if enough air was pumped in. It felt like a betrayal that her heart kept its steady beat and her breath stayed easy.

“What did I do?” she heard a calm voice ask, realizing belatedly it was her own. Luna was so used to falling to bits that it was strange in the utmost to find that she wasn’t worried or stressed. How could she be? That pain and fear and angst were gone too. Gone with the love.

Chrysalis shrugged. “What you chose to, I guess.” She swung into what was still Luna’s personal space, though the pony didn’t feel half as much affront as she would have just days prior. “I’m going now, and so can you, if you want. Nobody will stop you. You can choose that...or you can stay. Celestia waited, what, a thousand years for you to return? It might be worthwhile to make her wait a few days more. This time, it would be your choice, not hers.”

Luna bristled with cold fury. “You’re a monster.”

Chrysalis yawned. “A tired monster. Goodnight, little moon. I’m almost convinced you do think sometimes, so take some time for that now.”

She left Luna standing there, alone but for a journal and a crop of ponies. The mare had enough to consider, as did herself. It was not far to her tiny chamber, but Chrysalis fell on her spongy bed with the total release of tension that only the exhausted can manage, instantly regretting the spasm of pain in her leg.

Not that she could sleep. With a tired flick of magic in the dark, her three jewels floated up to greet her. They bobbed as if bowing deeply for her and they wove like little dancers between one another, something not entirely of Chrysalis’ doing.

Opportunity. Uncertainty. Change. That’s what she’d called them, on a whim. Each greeted her with a little flourish as if she’d named them aloud.

“What are you?” she cooed to the polished little things. Well, she knew the barest truth of it; they were pieces of Luna. They had to be alive than, she reasoned. Maybe not alive like herself, but alive all the same. Like the glowing growths that lined the walls. Silent. Unthinking.

The Queen of changelings beckoned to the deep blue gem. So faint was her suggestion of magic she wondered if it had come closer of its own accord entirely. Its siblings waited patiently.

“Is it you I felt...Uncertainty?” She was not entirely certain herself. “Is it you that my little moon fumbled to feel and couldn’t, because here you are? What are you?”

Only Luna knew for certain, but Chrysalis hadn’t broached the subject yet. Did the alicorn know these existed, or had the trauma of their exorcism knocked the details of that memory loose?

The Queen cautiously opened herself to the ever-present glow of the gems, just enough to curb the edge of her hunger. She resisted temptation like she had never bothered to before, because for all their mystery and pretty little dances there was something she had no word for, something...unwholesome about feeding from these. She refused to risk herself to something she wasn’t sure she entirely controlled.

She was already watching Surreal suffer the early symptoms, and the other changelings would start seeing them soon enough, those that knew to look for them.The expressive little thing had been chosen for a reason, and she’d managed everything much faster and more profoundly than Chrysalis had thought possible.

The victory there had a sharp cost and a bitter taste. The task Surreal was proving so adept at was turning around to consume her. Few things prompted a changeling to sadness, but the prospect of a lost one did so in Chrysalis as much as any of her people. She rather liked the feisty little thing, but if the Queen was to save her...well, she did not envy Surreal the coming days, and for once in a blue moon it pained Chrysalis that she couldn’t be honest in this matter. It was one thing to deceive ponies, but entirely another to lie to her own people. Uncertainty seemed to shimmer in resonance with her thoughts.

It was a cruel twist that she had been honest to Luna about letting her go. She really could leave without challenge or chase. Chrysalis would let her go and leave her be, and all the while the Queen would have powerful little enigmas intrinsic to Luna’s heart.

That was the thing. There was a choice, but it couldn’t be divorced from the consequence. It annoyed the Queen the sheer extent of idiocy her little moon could manage in her ignorance of that. But she’d been spot on about truth; Chrysalis not only knew, but was proud of how she deftly wielded it like a polished, more finely sharpened lie.

And if a consequence of one flighty mare’s selfishness was to bring a vengeful army to her home, well, there’d have to be a reckoning. A reckoning that would change everything.

As she sunk into her organic bed and deeper still into thought, The Queen of changelings found herself at what thoughts always bring a mind to, sooner or later, again and again.

She found herself at a choice.

chapter eight

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter eight

Wind played along the membranes of Surreal’s wings, its whispers heralding the end of nighttime. The sun was yet to rise, but the sky had started glowing like molten glass ready to be crafted into the shape of a new day.

Surreal blinked against the ethereal night playing out the last refrain of its final act. The upper reaches of the ancient tree towered higher than any of the spires of Canterlot and presented a panoramic view that far surpassed anything that had been built with the confines of walls or ceiling. No branch obscured the sight; all limbs that might have done so had crumbled and fallen generations ago.

The heights of the monolithic dead tree were as battered and open to the elements as anything. Here and there were the scorches of old lightning strikes. Those few vines that clambered up so far existed in a constant state of struggle against the wind and rain, showing nothing but sickly little leaves for their great effort.

This dawn promised, in the sweet tones of a lover, to be gentle and kind. On a barren patch Luna sat in calm repose, still and tranquil amidst the battered, broken wood and skeletons of dead vines, facing the coming dawn.

Surreal had to wonder about Luna’s sleeping habits, or lack thereof. Since being released from the pod the princess had consistently been among the first awake and the last asleep. The changeling couldn’t decide if it was part of being an alicorn, or just part of being Luna.

Either way, her weariness was not reflected in the softness of her deeply coloured coat or the suppleness of her feathers, folded neatly against Luna’s sides. What the mare’s expression was, the changeling could not see.

Surreal felt as if she intruded upon something otherworldly, seeing Luna for the first time free of confine and gloom. Not many changelings came up here, beyond the view there was little else to do.

The former warden wasn’t an exception, and she questioned herself as to why she had come. Well, that wasn’t quite true, but she kept asking herself in the hope that if she did so enough times she’d get a different answer from the one she suspected.

She wasn’t trying to be stealthy, but opted to keep a respectful distance and quiet. Luna made no move to acknowledge the changeling, no move at all, but Surreal couldn’t help but feel that the alicorn knew she was there all the same.

So, why had she come up here? Luna certainly was an interesting figure, and in the short time Surreal had known her she’d only become more interesting.

Of course, interesting did not mean likeable. Luna was moody, hypocritical and openly antagonistic. She’d been downright abusive of Surreal, despite how she’d tried to be nice.

And now her Queen had dismissed her from the sudden and strange duty of being Luna’s warden. Surreal should be happy, she didn’t like being around Luna, yet here she was, and she waited.

If there had ever been thought that the majesty of dawn should be accompanied by an incredible score of music, it must be said that it in fact already was.

It was called silence, and as is said, it was golden. As was the dawn. The first tongues of liquid fire licked at the edge of the sky and the world glowed with hues of warm vermillion.

Luna breathed slow, deep breaths. It seemed almost as if her inhalations drew the blazing orb upwards. Each she held for a time, then let go with a low sigh, like a dream to be consigned back into the sinking darkness, to be forgotten by the light of day.

When the sun was halfway above the horizon Luna turned to face Surreal. Whatever magic there had been in the moment, magic beyond simple lights and motions, it faded. The princess once more looked more mare than mystical.

“Did you raise the sun?”

Luna smiled sadly. “No. It is not my place to do so.”

Quite to her surprise, Surreal stepped forwards. “Why are you still here?” she blurted out, loud enough to startle a ratty bundle of black feathers, which alighted upon a raucous caw that echoed into the distance.

Luna looked away, back into the glowing dawn. “I don’t know. Something compels me to remain.” The princess’ expression took up a hint of mischief, a welcome glimmer after the solemness. “What of you? Did Chrysalis not dismiss you from watching me? And I see no other changelings about.”

Surreal said nothing and averted her eyes. Luna didn’t press further.

“Very well,” the princess said tersely. After a moment’s thought, she continued. “Perhaps none of us knows why we are doing as we are. Maybe Chrysalis. Would you tell me of her and what she is planning, if I asked?”

Surreal weighed the easy answer against the honest one. Lying to a pony was one thing, easily dismissed, but Luna seemed much more than that somehow. She put it simply.

“No.”

“Than it is good I did not ask.”

Luna had no inclination to speak further. Surreal struggled vainly to find something, something that could break the silence, but it was so big and so encompassing that she stood there, dumbly waiting in it.

The buzz of wings broke the changeling from her awkward reverie, and even Luna turned to see what had come. Another changeling, burlier and deeper chested than Surreal. Where her body tended to faded black, the newcomer’s opted for glossy.

Luna presumed this to be a male, based both on her growing awareness of the subtly of changeling form and from the way he barged bluntly into their lack of conversation, trying to take charge of something he had no idea of.

She cut off any attempt to speak with a lazy cast of magic that enshrouded the changeling in a dark glow, gently lifting and swinging him around to meet Luna’s gaze.

He struggled indignantly. “Let me down.”

Luna innocently looked from the changeling to the open air below; she hadn’t been sitting far from the ledge.

“Poor choice of words,” she said, but only swung the levitated changeling back around to a spot of petrified wood near - but not too near - her side.

Whatever tirade of grievance the changeling had, he turned it on Surreal. “You should not be here,” he growled.

“I can go where I want,” she said simply.

The newcomer grinned with a hard edge. “It is the Queen’s own words.”

“What? No, no. She said I was no longer to tend to the princess, not that I couldn’t see her,” Surreal spat back, like an angry cat caught up a tree.

“She has now. Do you challenge her word?”

Surreal crumpled inwards. “No...no. Of course not.”

“Then go. Now.”

Surreal’s worried eyes flew back and forth between the two before settling on the alicorn, her wings fluttering with worry. She found none of the sympathy she wanted in Luna’s eyes, only bemusement.

Surreal hesitated, then hesitated further. The other changeling flicked his head in no uncertain terms of dismissal, and with a last spitting hiss she was gone.

Luna faced her company with something between good spirits and sarcasm. “A fine way to break in a morning. Mind telling me what this was about?”

The changeling huffed, shying away and baring its teeth like an animal. “None of your business.”

The alicorn stood with easy grace. “So you say. What now? You hardly came here to just to shoo off Surry.” The dead wood beneath her hooves was jagged and uneven, still cold and damp from the night passed. She strode across it as if it were no more challenging than a garden stroll, but for a different variety of plants and pathing. The tree had been hollowed and gutted; where the rest of the husk stood in defiance nothing of the same could be said for the heartwood. Either by nature or changeling intervention nothing remained of it. Even at such height as this the uppermost opening into the changelings’ home was wider than most full, healthy trees, let alone the struggling and sickly grey trunks that made up the forest far below. Luna could not help but wonder how much higher it must have spanned in life, how far such mighty limbs must have reached into the horizons.

Her newest escort thought only to flitter away in a flurry of translucent wings as she neared it.

Luna unfurled her soft wings and gently shook some feeling back into them. “I don’t bite.”

The changeling found this decidedly not funny, keeping his distance as if he genuinely doubted this and would make sure that, come to blows, he’d bite first.

The hostility called for a strangely obvious realization on Luna’s part. Apparently not all the changelings’ were as unanimous in their cautious acceptance of her as she’d thought, a point that in hindsight she should not have found surprising. More surprising still was her easy acquiescence of this fact, something Luna put down to the tranquility she felt from the dawn. It did her soul good, even so far away, in so many ways, to feel a semblance of connection to her sister.

The alicorn descended with lazy spirals into the perpetual night, like the inside of an immense coffin. The burly male kept to as much of a distance as he could, staying well above the darkling princess. Maybe the changelings had been unanimous before; they seemed so now, emulating his own reserve. Green eyes that almost glowed kept their distance. Where before they had shone with curiosity, now they seemed withdrawn, as if Luna had left a princess and returned a pariah.

Yes, she thought with sudden bitterness, that is about the sum of it. Again her feeling on the issue faded abruptly, like so much salt into the sea. No doubt Chrysalis had spun another machination for her to dance through. If the prospect lacked a certain appeal, at least Luna felt she was learning the steps and wasn’t quite on the precipice of having her head bitten off over something or other.

The deeper she went the less she could ignore the curious shift in her hosts’ behaviour, but she resolutely resolved to pay no mind to it. If they wanted to be strange, let them.

Luna’s eyes scanned through the darkness like few others could, but no sign of Surreal presented itself. Whether the princess glanced over her as another face in the crowd or the expressive little changeling simply weren’t present, she didn’t know. Intuition said something in it was relevant to these stony faces, and understanding it lurked just behind the shadows of her thoughts.

Yet another mystery to consider. As Luna lightly landed on an outcropping and followed a now familiar path of winding gloom she thought. Well, she’d thought she’d been going to see the Queen, but her wings and legs seemed of another mind and lead her to the impromptu little closet that was her room.

Someone could be sent to request her presence, and thinking this Luna laughed like crystals chiming in the heavy-aired silence. How often had she openly disdained the fastidious following of protocol and polite nothings in social circles, only now to retreat into them as a refuge in the face of a different culture?

Well, it was simpler than culture, it was pride. Battered and self-debased as Luna’s was, she still kept it around somewhere. Let the Queen send for her. In the meantime she wandered restlessly around the tiny space. A flick of magic she barely thought to cast called the journal of Fallow Field to her from where she’d left it on the corner of the bed.

Thoughts and questions spawned a tangle of more thoughts and questions, all running loose, and she hadn’t even opened read the thing yet. Like flinging oneself into a cold shower, it was a thing she danced around actually doing.

She didn’t start now. A black leg swept the tatty curtain aside, but went no further.

“Queen wants you.” Ah, yes. This one again. Setting the journal down with carefulness, she stepped out of her little room. For his part, the changeling grumbled and leapt away as if she were more revenant than reverent.

“What?” she said testily. “And here was I, thinking Surreal was bad.” Luna dropped her rump to the floor with a decisive lack of ceremony. “I’m not taking a step further until I get at least a name from you, if not an explanation.”

The changeling keened a low chittering whine, glancing over his shoulder for someone to come save him. None were apparent.

“Beetle,” he muttered, wincing as if some layer of protection had been stripped away.

“Well than, Beetle, you may take me to Chrysalis now.”

“You know the way,” he protested.

“Too bad. Escort me.” Luna noticed the way he really did pull away as if the very air she breathed were heavy with contagion. She felt somewhat affronted, but largely curious.

Chrysalis would have answers. Whether she’d divulge them or not was an entirely separate matter, but there was nothing else to do for it.

“Well? Lead on,” she said. Beetle looked decidedly frustrated and fearful, but Luna couldn’t quite deny the petty delight she was feeling for it.

Into the darkness he hesitantly lead, keeping as much a distance as he could.

Chrysalis had also had an early morning. There’d been a choice, and she’d made a choice, and between it and the thousand consequences to follow, all choices of their own of course, she’d possibly decided the fate of the world.

At least, that one important little bit of the world that belonged to changelings.

“You can’t do this,” Surreal said stiffly.

“I can’t do this?” Chrysalis tasted the words like flavourful venom. Surreal trembled, but held. The Queen of changelings found a sneaky admiration for that. Provided it didn’t go too far, having subjects stand up to her was a bit thrilling. Authority without challenge was unhealthy, or as Chrysalis thought of it, boring.

“Brave words. I want to see how deep you can dig yourself into this hole. Do continue.”

Surreal blinked. This wasn’t the fight she’d expected, but she could almost feel the jaws of some trap closing around her. Well, if she was going to rile the hornets’ nest, she might as well rouse the Queen herself for the effort. Changelings weren’t keen on fire, and words like glory and honour tended to be synonymous with foolishness, but her little heart felt a blaze of defiant glory all the same as she dove headlong into idiocy.

“No. You can’t. You know I’m the best caregiver for the young here, and I’m saying that with you and so many others gone it would stunt their growth, and there’s few enough children as it is this year.”

Were it not for the overtures of amusement, Chrysalis’ tone might have been eerily neutral. “You want me, no, are telling me to take small children with me through the forest and further on a journey? Did I mention the dangerous forest? The long journey?”

Surreal flickered her wings in annoyance, a gesture that set nearby changelings to whispering amongst themselves. “Being with you is as safe as anywhere, my Queen.”

“And Luna,” Chrysalis chuckled. “Or so I strongly suspect will be the case.”

Surreal faltered. The whispers thickened. “My...my Queen?”

“Oh come on, I’m sure you could have figured it out with a little thought. I am going to Equestria, with a certain select few, to play at the diplomacy game. I wonder if she’ll mind be a walking stockpile for us? Of course...how could my little moon say no to hungry children? That’s clever of you.” The Queen’s chuckle escalated into a laughter darker than the gloom. Surreal floundered, knowing not what, or even how to respond to that.

“Naturally you’ll want to come along as well.” After a pause slightly too long Chrysalis added, “For the children.” All eyes turned to the little changeling.

Surreal felt as if teeth swirled all around her, just out of sight, and every one of them her Queen’s. She felt afraid like she hadn’t ever before.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course! With my life!”

“Then trust me to take good care of it.”

The ghostly echoes moved through Surreal. It was an easy thing to say, it was always an easy thing to say, even with earnest conviction, but here...now...

She took a deep breath and tried to steady her racing heart and force order on her swirling thoughts. It came down to the question of trust. Did she?

“Yes," Surreal said severely. "I want to go with you. If you command me to stay. I’ll follow anyway. For them. And for me.”

There was silence, a deep, deep silence, the kind that doesn’t just have no sound, but actively snuffs it out where it may.

Chrysalis’ sneering grin faded, leaving a curious expression, almost innocent. Surreal didn’t know to be relieved or mortified, but after going so far past reason she couldn’t give two hoots for the latter.

The tension broke like so much mist. “Alright. You may come if you like. That was a strong thing to say, Surreal, and nobody challenges a Queen lightly. You are going to need that strength soon.” Chrysalis sounded sad, somehow. It stirred the embers of Surreal’s fears, but the Queen left it at that.

Queen and cohort were ready to travel in no more than two hours, and much of that was browbeating Luna into compliance. Though they lived in one place and had suited it to their needs, the changelings had never shucked off their somewhat nomadic natures. Those that were to go with the Queen could redefine ‘traveling light,’ for most carried nothing at all and seemed content at that. What had seemed to Luna an utter lack of regard for possessions, from another perspective, was a firm disinterest in the unnecessary. It didn’t make her feel much better about seeing her cloak made useless by damp and mildew after days in darkness.

The sun was still rising as Queen, princess and thirty or so changelings stepped, each and every one blinking like the newborns into the unseasonably bright and heated day. Something snagged in Luna’s thoughts.

“Will the rest be alright?” Her words sounded strange to her, but she could think of no other way to phrase them.

By the light of day Chrysalis looked no less impressive. Where the dark allowed the imagination to make her bigger and sharper, the mercilessly accurate details of sunlight proved that it wasn’t even necessary to bother. The big changeling really was the big changeling, and her fangs glistened with that certain gleam only found in things usually called ‘hypodermic.’

Chrysalis looking insulted didn’t help matters. “Hmm?”

Luna felt the awkward foal, but something in the way the sunshine warmed her insisted. She was not a hundred paces away from the familiar dark, but already it seemed a world away. “Without me here, I mean.”

“Concern, little moon? It’s almost touching. They will be. I’ll make sure of it.”

chapter nine

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter nine

Soon enough the gray clench of decay -psst- was left behind. The -fizzt- land steadily raised, and from it so too did conifer -fwiszzt- forest. The lowest branches were far above, but in such numbers that they made the tightly spaced trunks -tzzzZIP!- stand in perpetual twilight, despite the fine day. Dozens of hooves pressed the soft bed of pine needles as -fwwCRACKLE!- dark shapes wove through the trees, following no discernible trail in the silent -Fwuzzz- wilderness.

-Fizzt-

It was about to get -phwuuPOP!- much less silent, but also much more wild.

“I can take no more of this! Burn, you little wretches. All of you, Buuuurn!” Luna’s voice alone shook the trees, while the dark powers she called forth set the nearest with scorches and blistering oils. The maelstrom of wrath swallowed the princess whole and everything within reach, groping for more. All the little black bodies were blasted into oblivion, torn apart, limb and wing as they burned into a nothingness that left not even specks of ash.

The vortici of blackened magic died abruptly, a few swirling wisps persisting in their orbits of Luna a second or two more. As burned bark crackled and spat, pine needles drifted down to ground, all else returned to stillness. Luna’s heavy breathing was the only other sound.

Chrysalis watched from the top of nearby ledge, while green eyes peered from the woods like emerald fairy-lights. Her laughter rang out. “Mosquitoes bothering you?” She’d been keeping close enough, as had many of the changelings, to watch the light show of insects flying into Luna’s starry mane, subsequently exploding with a spitting snap of energy.

“They are relentless! Without end!” Already more buzzing pests closed ranks, and at these Luna levitated pine needles, enchanting them into slivers of darkness that tirelessly hounded the bobbing insects, running them through, wing, body, and big beady eyes alike, incinerating the evidence in a puff of acrid smoke. “Into a screaming abyss with you! Come at me and meet your dooms! You shan’t take me alive!” Luna’s howls stirred the wind and blew the forest floor at her hooves bare of detritus.

Even Chrysalis kept a minimum safe distance as Luna hacked, slashed, cursed, detonated, eviscerated and burned her way through the private war. The changelings hadn’t been following a trail, but they, or she, was certainly leaving one.

As amusing as it was to watch Luna’s torment, the princess was dragging the whole group to a halt. Grudgingly the Queen decided that, being such, it was up to her to put a stop to it before it went from amusing to hilarious. What a shame.

Green flames wrapped about the entirety of the night princess as she was lifted bodily into the air. Her realization that this kept the mosquitoes at bay occurred quickly enough, but Luna’s reaction of indignant protest was nigh instantaneous.

The Queen met the princess’ sour look with her sharp grin. As they left the gutted glade behind, with changelings regrouping from every quarter, the alicorn drifted to Chrysalis’ side.

“Why do they attack me alone?” Luna muttered. She didn’t like being carted along like an object, but if it kept the maddening bites off she wouldn’t protest. A ready swarm of antagonists crowded about the glowing princess, bouncing off the magic harmlessly. But they didn’t stop trying, and more gathered all the time.

The Queen of changelings shrugged. “Skin and blood, probably.” At Luna’s confused look she rolled her eyes. “You have those. We don’t. Mosquitoes can’t bite into us, so they don’t bother trying to. Oh wow, look at them all...”

Luna was blurred by the haze of hundreds, and the spell did nothing to block out the droning hum in all its mind melting monotony.

Chrysalis halted suddenly. “My little moon, I’m hardly going to carry you all the way to Canterlot.” The glint of evil mischief flashed across her eyes and fangs.

Luna went very still and very pale, though that might just have been her body trying to save as much blood as possible. “No. Don’t you dare.”

Chrysalis weighed her choices with delicious slowness, but part of her, a growing, thinking part of her made sure she did so carefully as well. A Queen just couldn’t catch a break now, could she?

With a regretful little sigh Luna was dropped to her hooves, but she stumbled and landed heavily on her rump into the soft forest floor, screaming bloody murder all the while. Again, it took a few seconds for her realization to catch up with her reactions, which invariably were loud.

The protective green flames still enshrouded her, though they were flames only in appearance. Nothing they touched burned, nor were they even warm. They were just there, just existing. Luna found herself suddenly curious as to the nature of the spell; it seemed intrinsic to the changelings, and like so much of them, she knew nothing of it.

She made to ask about them, but Chrysalis interjected as if the princess hadn’t spoke at all.

“That won’t last for long, my little moon. Much as I’d love to see you fighting, and losing, your little battle we’re going slow enough as is. For all your books and towers, I would’ve thought your ponies might actually have some sense in dealing with a land that isn’t so entirely under your control. Aren’t you lucky you’ve got me?” she said with sickly sweetness.

Luna glowered, but said nothing.

“Go find the children. Until their first moult they’re still soft enough to be bitten, so the ones that carry them cast a spell to keep parasites away. I’d cast it myself, but then you’d have to be near me for a long while, and I’d rather arrive with you alive and all limbs attached. Then I’d have to carry you. And maiming a princess isn’t a great way to start at ‘diplomacy,’ don’t you think?”

“I do,” Luna said with chill neutrality. Chrysalis really didn’t have much of a sense of humour, but what bothered the princess was that she could not tell how much of this was joke, however tasteless, and how much was warning.

The Queen flashed her another shining smirk. “You should hurry, that won’t last long.” For once, she spoke truth. Already little flecks of green flame peeled away from Luna’s coat and burnt out. Whether by her imagination or the tantalizing closness of their prey, the frenzy of the mosquitoes grew ever fiercer.

The Queen of changelings stopped grinning. After so many threats, jibes and taunts, Luna had thought she might welcome a moment of a calmer, more dispassionate Chrysalis. She was wrong, and had to yank herself away from those suddenly expressionless eyes. “Tell Surreal I want her.”

Chrysalis barely seemed to notice that she had progressed to telling one of the most powerful figures in the world to run a simple errand for her, or hardly cared if she did. Luna didn’t bother finding out which and was all too glad to leave her.

The...uh, foalsitters - Luna supposed they were like enough to that anyway - would be nearer the rearguard. She backtracked against the soft stream of black bodies and, like a stream, they carefully flowed around her. Respectful as ever, of course, in that informal changeling way, but tinged with fear now.

Those she looked at directly didn’t even avert their eyes from her, for they hadn’t been staring at her to begin with. From sneaky glances all she caught were their usually stony looks, though at one point Beetle passed by with a wide berth and sneered before hurrying on.

All in all, it was rather like Luna’s first Nightmare Night. What had she done to drive a wedge between her and, well, everybody else this time? Memory provided a list of suspects much too long, much too quickly. They probably did not even know of Nightmare Moon, but Luna realzied this with a perverse satisfaction that seemed to stem from nowhere she cared to consider.

At least now it was on her own merits, not the shadow of a monster from which she unwillingly cultivated their fear and distrust.

Luna tried not to think about this. The explosion of a particularly ravenous mosquito proved a welcome spur, and she moved on.

Chrysalis called a halt that evening, in that she decided to stop and let everyone else put two and two together. It was a rough spot of ground she chose, all rocks and ledges erupting from a hillside, facing into the wind. A few scraggly pines clung to crevices, but these more highlighted the barrenness than anything. It made for a fine view of the lands below and the stars above, at least. And there’d not be any buzzing pests out here, not counting her resident alicorn. Curled up on an exposed outcropping, Chrysalis rested.

Between dismissing Luna and Surreal’s arrival entirely too many minutes had passed, but the Queen made no mention of this to the little changeling. Chrysalis, in full affront to what could be expected of her personality and experience made excellent small talk, which was to say her mouth handled a select few words of prompting while her mind churned elsewhere.

Surreal was peaky and energetic in that jittery way that comes from sickness or stress, more than she had any right to be after a single day’s travel.

“Er, my Queen, where has Luna gone?” she asked hesitantly.

Chrysalis didn’t know and said as much, all the while giving her subject a disapproving look. Changelings felt no particular need to clump as tightly together as ponies seemed to need to, so despite their relatively few numbers they had spread out thinly.

No, she couldn’t see the dark alicorn. Something within told her she didn’t need to. Given every opportunity to leave, Luna wouldn’t. The princess wouldn’t even think of it as escape anymore.

She’d be around.

Chrysalis raised herself up. “My leg still hurts.” It was a lie, not simply in the merit of narrative but to Surreal as well, a big lie bold enough to stare her in the eye and wink. She knew it for what it was, and that she couldn’t challenge it anyway.

It was an old changeling superstition everyone knew and no-one believed that the one that had mended the first wound should be the one to continue tending to it.

“I think it will ache for the next few days,” the Queen said flatly.

Surreal stifled a twitch. “What about-”

“There are others. You stay with me.” If it was hypocritical in the utmost, well, she was the Queen. She felt rotten for it though, a rare feeling in Chrysalis. Surreal glanced wistfully at the surrounding hillside and, seeing naught but fellow changelings, she shivered, just a little.

Surreal dabbed a thin new layer of that peculiar changeling mucus over the off-coloured flesh. It was a superfluous gesture, they both knew.

Chrysalis grinned, but only because her face was well used to the expression. Inside she felt bad in both understandings of the word. And somewhere, inside, Chrysalis found a little node of guilt and use and duty and compassion, wrapped all together under the name ‘Surreal.’ The Queen felt tired, more so than she expected to be. Thinking and feeling and choosing did that though. She bedded back down on the flat rock, resting her eyes and letting the soft sounds of wind fill her mind. With a gesture she motioned Surreal to do much the same. The awkward little thing scuffed and fidgeted as she did so, close enough for Chrysalis to hear her breathe.

The changelings were not predisposed to judging their Queen, but tiny eyes that glinted like emeralds from the hill would have nodded ever so slightly with approval, were they inclined to do so.

Evening gave way to nightfall. The moon rose and shone. Soon after there was the soft scuffling sounds of hooves on stone, someone trying to be silent and doing poorly at it, but Chrysalis made no move. Once she was alone the Queen of changelings sighed, then curled up slightly tighter.

“Mistress Luna?” It was dark, even by changeling eyes. The moonlight didn’t banish the dark, instead polishing it like silverware, adding sharp edges and smooth surfaces. Surreal stumbled further up the hill, away from her kin. Feeling for the princess.

Then there she was, sitting in calm repose. Surreal suspected she could have passed within a pace of Luna and not seen her if she had not wished it to be. It was a feeling of being watched, but reversed - as if Luna had whispered ‘see me’ into Surreal, the changeling’s mind filling in for where her eyes failed. By night Luna decided who found her and who didn’t, none other.

“Have you read this, by any chance? It is intriguing, this account of Fallow Field.”

“Um. No. I haven’t.”

“I’m not surprised, but it is a shame just the same.”

Her horn lit up with pale white light and eyes that, for the briefest second seemed pools of blackest obsidian. Only now could Surreal see that Luna had been reading, and the paper rustled as Luna set the journal down. The magic condescend into a candlelight star that hovered between them.

She’d been reading by darkness. Seeing in blackness. Surreal hesitated.

“I thought you were not to see me?” Luna asked softly.

Surreal opened her mouth.

Surreal closed her mouth and looked away.

“There are plenty of things I must wonder about. Why would Chrysalis make such a demand of you? Why would you break it? You seemed so...loyal.” Luna spat the word as if the sour taste were a festered thorn plucked out. As quickly the moment passed and she regained her poise.

Papery wings fluttered in the night. “I love my Queen!”

“And I have loved a great many things. Love does not make a thing right or wrong.” Her voice brokered no argument. “Why did you come to me?” Somewhere in the imposing alicorn Surreal caught the edges of a confused and worried mare.

She wanted to answer, and answer honestly but...couldn’t. She had no answer. She said as much.

Luna gave her a stony look, but it seemed more disappointed than aggravated. “Is that so?”

“I should go,” Surreal whispered in a voice that hardly seemed her own.

“I won’t hold you,” Luna said sadly. With the passing of a long moment of hesitation Surreal finally skittered away and the tiny conjured star winked out as if it had never existed.

The changeling had not taken ten steps when she glanced over her shoulder. Darkness, total and absolute. It rushed in on a thunderclap of impassible silence. A shiver caressed Surreal with loving tenderness. The chill of it kept her company as she descended the hill, finally curling up near her Queen where she fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.

chapter ten

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter ten

Hills, stone and scrawny conifers gave way to rich loam and lowland woods as the days passed. Four in all. Through each Luna had became increasingly reclusive, almost despondently so. It had gone on to the point that Chrysalis caught only the occasional glimpse of the alicorn, always by the half-lights of morning or evening, and only ever at a distance. More and more so she took to being as a wraith, haunting the fringes of the changelings’ procession. If Luna ever slept, Chrysalis never saw.

What brought on this change in her, the Queen couldn’t say. With Luna there were a hundred likely reasons and as many unlikely ones. As always, Luna made for an intriguing puzzle. It was a change to be wary of though, first and foremost. Despite everything that could be called progress and understanding between them, the night princess had already proved herself more violent than her reigning sister, and less in command of her emotions. If Luna wanted to keep to herself, Chrysalis would not push her from that privacy unnecessarily.

The alicorn stayed just near enough, by choice or happy coincidence, for the band of changelings to feed from her. If the constant drain upon Luna’s heart contributed to her behaviour... well, there was nothing to be done about it. To the last, the changelings kept their tasting to a minimum, instinctively wary of the princess.

Except for one. After that first night Chrysalis had commanded Surreal to remain by her side, and by day she proved herself a fine example of duty. Indeed, the morning after that forbidden visit Surreal had faced the day with an alacrity unusual for any changeling, but through the course of the day this had sunk, then sunk further still into a melancholy equally unusual. The second night Surreal had done the same again, and the next day had proved a repeat of that pattern.

The third night Surreal had lain there, feigning sleep, not realizing her Queen did the same. Chrysalis snuck onto her a soft enchantment, and so Surreal’s sleep became genuine. Luna had no visitor that night. The coming morning had seen Surreal weak, temperamental and slightly feverish. When Chrysalis alluded to this her attendant played ignorant, or more worrying still genuinely didn’t notice the subtle bait of her Queen’s words. When Chrysalis called her out bluntly Surreal snapped at her with such brief, savage denial that it put pause to the big changeling’s thoughts.

Chrysalis could only wonder on it grimly. No other changeling would, for Surreal became as much a pariah as Luna, though for one it was self-imposed, for the other it went went unnoticed. For her part, the Queen felt too piteous for the increasingly wretched changeling to chastise her harshly for the outburst, but all the same the rest of that day was spent putting up with Surreal apologizing profusely, seeming always at the edge of openly weeping.

The next night to pass, Chrysalis again imposed a magical sleep on her unsuspecting little subject, than considered the tiny body in oblivious repose before her. Carefully, after much deliberation and with unblinking eyes she drew forth the jewels, those strange, enigmatic jewels wrought from Luna’s own heart.

Of course Chrysalis had brought them, she could trust their mysteries to no other, least of all Luna. All the same, her initial thrill and interest had steadily been shaded with suspicion. Were they alive or weren’t they?

In a way they were, but then again fire had a lot of things in common with life too. And didn’t ponies have an adage about playing with fire?

She brushed the thought aside. What Chrysalis did know for certain was that they were crafted from Luna’s being, and here she had a subject becoming increasingly attuned to the alicorn. Just as the princess was more powerful, more intense than any normal pony, so too did the effects on Surreal compound all the more profoundly, all the more quickly.

With barely a thought they spun a silent orbit above the sleeping changeling. With a little more effort Chrysalis interposed her magic between those of the jewels and that intrinsic to Surreal. Like breathing, feeding could be both passive and active; even in sleep a changeling could gently siphon off nearby founts of love.

Oblivious to it all, Surreal slept peacefully, but even under the delicate touch of magic her breathing might have been ever so slightly too shallow, too quick.

Chrysalis stared a long, sad moment at her little attendant. It seemed unfair that all the choices she could think of were bad ones. All the same, she choose.

“Maybe I’m not worth your trust after all,” she whispered to no one in particular. Then, carefully, she let the love of the blue gem spill past her defense. Like a newborn, Surreal instinctively opened herself to it, stretching and murmuring happily in her sleep as it poured into her. Of the three, the blue was the least forceful, and even then it would be much too potent for a single ordinary changeling to feed from unchecked, let alone for poor Surreal, hardly in control of herself.

And so, with an unflinching gaze, Chrysalis did it for her. When she felt Surreal had had enough, she tapered off the flow. The sleeping changeling mumbled and shifted, then fell back into peaceful sleep.

Maybe it was holding these powerful loves at bay against her own habits, or maybe it was just the culmination of all the things that had happened since Luna’s arrival. All the changes, all the thoughts, all the struggles. The alicorn certainly managed to twist everything around her into intrigue.

It rose up in Chrysalis, a dull anger. She was angry that her simple world had been toppled, she was angry that for the first time in her considerable life she’d had to drip-feed her unwitting subject poison. She was angry that she couldn’t even have plain old furious anger anymore, the sort with shouting and violence, because too much hinged on who she was and what she was, and that too enraged her. She’d learned to think, really think and it only gave her more things to think about.

No, Chrysalis couldn’t have the wild flames of impassioned wrath anymore. Instead anger settled and seethed in her like the calm coals beneath, nevertheless hotter than the open flame. In those coals, in all those reasons to be angry she intended to forge a new path for the changelings and carve a bloody chunk out of this world for their own.

If only she could resolve not to pummel Luna into the dirt next time she saw her, because too much of this rested on the elusive alicorn. And that too angered Chrysalis.

The milky white streaks of colour seethed across the black jewel, the darkness of it redoubling its endless, futile efforts of drowning out the white entirely, almost seeming to throb in tandem with her feelings. With an unrepentant flash of power the Queen of changelings banished the three jewels back into the depths of her magic.

Sleep was a long time coming.

Night swung back around to day, as it is prone to do. This one found that Beetle was not a happy changeling. This was accurate pretty much all the time, but more poignantly so since the expedition began. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, or more specifically and much to his misfortune, Chrysalis and Luna. Rocks seemed the better option by far.

Still, there was nothing for it. His Queen had arisen in a foul mood. Between this, the disgraced Surreal she kept practically leashed to her side and her own natural charm, Chrysalis’ temper was very short. She’d decided he was the changeling to go get Luna and bring her back into the fold for a friendly chat. Beetle had been happy enough to leave the pony to stay out of their way, except of course he wasn’t happy per se, just nominally satisfied that she was somewhat gone. Now he had to go get her, and he still chafed about how it’d gone the first time.

The terrain itself reflected how much closer they had come to pony occupied lands. The changelings followed the beginnings of a path through the woods, trodding blackening leaves underhoof. Lately Luna’s haunt had been the thicker trees off to either side of the way. Equestria boasted many terrible and wondrous monsters, least of all ponies, and there was already too many things that could unsettle the changelings, least of all a dangerous alicorn skulking in the shadows.

But that was his Queen’s skulking alicorn somewhere out there, and Beetle had to go in and get her. He felt the apprehension a knight might feel at the mouth of a dragon’s cave, only grittier. His natural armour shone for the part, but only as a black knight. His caustic cynicism could be considered his sword and shield.

Hoisting it high with grumbles and mutters, Beetle flew on buzzing wings between the trees. The sooner he found her, the sooner he could go back to staying well away from Luna.

The low thrumming of changeling wings rose and fell several times before she even considered letting them find her. Luna was not easily found when she did not want to be found. Even without the power and grace of an alicorn she would have been subtle in the utmost.

Once the sound came quite close, accompanied by the gruff barking calls of Beetle, though there was no question of whether or not he’d actually find her. It wasn’t quite an illusion, and it wasn’t quite a preternaturally deep shadow, but her spell drew elements from both. The heart spoke straight into the mind.

Everyone else’s, to be precise. It whispered don’t see me and, lo and behold, they wouldn’t. The midnight darkness Luna shrouded herself in was for her own comfort. After marking her page in the journal, she sighed and let the enchantments dissolve. In the sudden return of light eyes black as oil blinked, then reclaimed their natural colours.

A royal princess of Equestria, when not being elusive, was rather hard to miss, especially in vastly empty woodland. Beetle still took the better part of a minute to find her on his next pass.

“You! The Queen wants you.”

Luna snorted with regal disdain, but as always it came across with impossible elegance.

“What of it? Do you think I am a plaything at her beck and call?”

Beetle sneered. “Yes.”

If he’d aimed to upset her, Luna’s pointed smile gave him no such satisfaction, only a fair deal of dread. “Well then. Let us go see what she wants of us.” The night princess stood silently, but two strokes of her wings struck the air like genteel thunderclaps. Folding her feathers once more, she forced the changeling to lead at a sedate pace, back into the tumult of their misadventure.

Chrysalis loomed. It was in her nature to be a loomer. Beetle lead the princess to her and the Queen of changelings looked to her little moon. She spared her changeling a fleeting dismissal.

“You can go,” was all she said.

So he did, wordlessly.

A casual glance over his shoulder said much. They stood as duelists, a ways apart and facing one another with a wary calm. This lasted only a moment, as soon they were dragged into the ongoing motion of the changeling group. Walking abreast of one another, they spoke in low tones, but to the last the changelings gave them a wide berth.

Beetle pushed against the current of black bodies. More changelings silently drifted by, and what seemed all too quickly the numbers thinned out, a last few that kept eyes on the child bearers and the path behind.

Silently he added his eyes to theirs. Their destination grew ever nearer, but they wouldn’t find him wanting it. For a while more they walked. Clouds came and went by with stately slowness, and with them rain broke, stilled and broke again. It was not heavy rain, but alone each raindrop was and made music of their silence.

By magic he lifted one of the young from the back of another, settling the child between his wings. The relieved changeling nodded and blinked, then moved ahead in the procession.

Beetle flickered his wings, doing his best to make them both comfortable. The child kept some of the rain off him, and seemed fascinated into stillness by the raindrops as they went plink plink off of leaf, branch, wing and forehead alike.

To say silence reigned would be affront to the rain, the breeze and footfalls, the occasional flutter of changeling wings. All the same, a voice broke the tranquility.

"Carrying a child? You?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“No. It really hasn’t. Give her to me.”

Surreal’s magic tried to grasp the child, but Beetle shooed it away with his own. He turned to look to her and the wide, mystified eyes of the child followed his gaze.

“It’s a she?” he asked, with a distinct lack of care. Surreal rolled her eyes and flickered her wings with agitation. She opened her mouth to speak, looked to the uncomprehending curiosity of the young changeling, then sighed and started again.

“You’re holding her wrong. Her head should be behind your neck, Beetle.”

He shrugged, the gesture somewhat muted by precious cargo. “It doesn’t care.”

“I do,” Surreal grumbled. Few changelings lingered this far back. Now there were only three, and that count included the big-eyed, small-bodied child. All the changelings not around him reminded Beetle of Surreal’s place.

“I don’t either. Go away.”

Surreal went rigid and her eyes narrowed. When they eased open again, they seemed somehow glazed. “Nobody’s letting me carry them. It’s why I’m here at all. Isn’t it?” Surreal looked left, then right, peering into the trees and shadows. She shuddered and faltered in her step.

For a second she looked as if she might collect herself, but simply sat down instead. Beetle didn’t bother to look back. All the other changelings were well ahead of them now, past the nearest bends in the path.

Nobody would come back for her.

He took ten paces.

He took twenty more.

The tiny changeling child cooed, a sound not unlike a bubble popping. In the rain he hardly heard it at all.

Muttering darkly, Beetle turned around.

A bewildered pony of soft carnation colours struggled to focus on the approaching Beetle. He looked away in barely restrained disgust.

“Have you seen mistress Luna?” she asked piteously.

“No,” he said flatly. “Get up. Come on.” He turned about again, not waiting to see if she followed.

Surreal stepped and stumbled out from a gout greenish flame that consumed the pony. As she scurried to catch up, she grumbled with sudden ill humour.

“Carrying a child? You?”

Beetle said nothing.

“You’re holding her wrong.”

Wordlessly he levitated the cooing child to Surreal. As she shifted her wings to accommodate the tiny creature, much of the haze lifted from her eyes.

“Not much farther left to go now, is it?”

Beetle wouldn’t look at her. “No. Not much further.”

Surreal blinked. “That’s good. I’m sure she’s hungry.”

Beetle said nothing. Raindrops kept falling on his head.

chapter eleven

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter eleven

...weather’s out of sorts again. It’s them no good pegasi kids they take on these days. No mind for the job. No consideration for the decent folk trying to make a decent living. Can’t till the ground right in this drizzle. Haven’t seen one of ‘em...what must be two weeks now, so who’s doing anything about it?

Down Spout never would’ve let this happen in her day. Up Draft neither. Always came right out to the farthest little holdings, they did. Whipped the clouds right into line, they did. Not like that anymore!

Now it’s all about going here or there, always the towns. Down and Up had some respect in them, and earned it too. These damn kid foal-fliers, everyone of them is thinking that we’re beneath them just because they’re above us. It ain’t right.

May Flower’s cough is sounding better now. I’m sure it is. Keeping her to bed all the same. That kid should be back soon now with a doctor. Sent him off with the bits we managed to save up for a rainy day.

That was yesterday. Still is.

She’s taken quite the shine to that kid what comes around now and again. I don’t know what I think, but she smiles and that’s more than enough for me.

The scrawl had been slow and meticulous. The heavy handling of pencils had scored the pages with indentations. At some point the journal had been drenched; the pages had crinkled and the lead faded, but their original hard use saw to it that the thickly-formed words were still quite legible.

The spidery elegance of Luna’s writing would have died well and truly under similar treatment.

For a bookmark she had plucked one of her own feathers, and its pristine blue stood at odds with the dulled and cracking paper. It wasn’t a gesture she would have expected Fallow to appreciate. The one was dappled smooth as moonlight waters, the other rough and cantankerous, each with details that fought for attention.

She wasn’t very far into the journal, truth be told. It wasn’t something Luna felt could be read quickly, nor did she want to.

At first it had seemed simply the musings and complaints of a rather ignorant old pony. Protesting pages crackled and turned through his days, and she came to recognize his slow, careful navigation of words, his distinctly rural modicums of speech. With each passing page her initial opinions had been...well, enforced. Her first impressions were, in fact, quite accurately the case.

Whatever Chrysalis wanted her to see in these pages, Luna hadn’t seen it yet. There’d always been the slight possibility that the journal was a decoy, a prop filled up with some malicious magic, but what would be the point? The Queen had already had Luna where she wanted her.

Besides, Luna just knew there was no magic in the journal. Nothing magical would smell musty and sour. If there was any magic to it at all, it was the magic of making her want a breath of fresh air after five minutes of reading it when she was already outdoors.

And yet...and yet, she kept reading. A tidbit here, a snippet there. By minutes and days she read through his months and decades.

Most of them were filled with trivial trite. Trees, rocks and water mostly. To be knocked down, pulled up or just falling from the sky yet again. Seasons came and went like itches. Deep down beyond thought, she just knew there’d be meaning in all this, to the point that not finding some terrible and fascinating revelation at the end of it would be quite surprising. She just had to keep reading.

Somehow, the idea of skipping ahead never once occurred to her. It was probably for the best. With barely an effort the journal faded away into the pools of her magic and was forgotten for the time being.

The day was overcast. Rain threatened, but was yet to appear. Luna stood at the edge of the trees, as she had for some time. Before her lay ground unmistakably touched by the plough. It had been, once. Soil tended by the stubborn sweat of an earth pony had since fallen back to the wild elements. Impassable brambles clambered across the earth. Thorns and leaves hid it completely, as if holding this small plot of land against the day someone might return to work it once more.

The leaping snarls of the thick vines hid much, but not quite all, of the dilapidated house resting and rotting at the opposite corner of the field.

Changelings approached. The Queen herself stood a small ways back, snorted at some amusing thought and stretched. All others waited on her move.

“It’s a milestone of sorts,” Chrysalis said. “Fallow lived far away from other ponies. On the upside, he lived nearer us than any other. We use his home to mark the boundary.”

Luna said nothing, but there was no hostility to her silence.

Chrysalis sauntered up the the princess’ side. “I saw your maps, a bit, in Canterlot.” The gleam of the Queen’s grin was somehow audible. Even without looking, Luna knew it to be there. “Is Equestria the kingdom or princessdom or whatever you call it? Is it what you call the land or the continent or the whole world?”

Luna turned to answer, but Chrysalis only laughed and went on.

“It all seemed kind of pointless, to tell you the truth. But I did see enough to know where we are as ponies see it. You’re nearer home than you think. Isn’t it amazing how things fall through the cracks though? Poor, poor Fallow Field.” The Queen fixed Luna with eyes that lit up from within. “Poor, poor Luna.”

Luna’s gaze narrowed, but she’d grown more used to this sort of treatment from the Queen.

Chrysalis swung around in front of her. “Don’t worry, little moon. We’ll make sure you’re not alone when the first ponies find you. That would be terrible to explain, wouldn’t it?”

The Queen nodded to her cohort, and from them came a sound not unlike the deepest notes of a reedy instrument. A sound of magic. It grew, as did the flames.

Green they were, one and all, and blazed through the variously black bodies and left in the wake...colour. Vibrant colours. Not just one rainbow, but many, more colours than Luna had seen since departing Canterlot in the dead of night. It seemed so long ago.

There was her heart and her head. At the sight of the changelings, one filled with wonder, the other with dread. She wasn’t sure which went to which.

Luna stared into blinking eyes and luscious manes.

“No,” said a voice, and it was hers.

“No,” she said again, stronger.

Only Chrysalis remained as she had been, and her smile’s sharp edge dulled by degrees.

“No deceptions. No more lies.”

Chrysalis flared her wings. The nearest leaves were buffeted by the force of it. “You’d rather be seen leading an invasion? I’m sure they’d just love that. I promise we’ll behave,” she said with mock playfulness.

‘No’ was a good word. Luna knew where she stood with it. She called upon it again, louder. “This is a quest of peace. Let everyone see that. I won’t have it begun on a lie!”

The towering changeling filled Luna’s vision, but she refused to back down. Their horns were inches from grating edges, each with powers to call upon ready and waiting. “You think I want peace?”

“You need it, Chrysalis. Your people starve. Equestria outmatches and outnumbers you.”

The Queen huffed. She nodded reluctantly. “That’s true,” she said simply. Luna hoped that might be the end of it, but then Chrysalis raised her head and voice for all to hear.

“So what is it you want, little moon? Your people to stop fearing you?” She gestured dramatically to the gathered psuedo-ponies. She circled about Luna and lit up in flame. Celestia emerged from the fires of Chrysalis. Immaculate, perfect Celestia. “Your sister to respect you?” Another flash of fire made for a darker, smaller alicorn, who pressed her sneering lips a hair’s breadth from Luna’s. “To not cringe every time you see yourself?”

The princess reared back, her hooves slammed the earth. “Enough!” Eyes and horn, Luna glowed with a silvery light. It shot forth from her, bowling over the Queen and burning away her false visage.

Chrysalis roared and fumbled blindly to her hooves. Changelings tensed, unsure what to do. In their moment of hesitation Luna lashed out at them, her magic flinging those it struck far back into tree and underbrush, stripping away the colours from their black hides.

Too many still stood wearing the colours of her people, but not their expressions. All surprise was gone from them now and the air filled with the low hum of their threat, like wasps growling. They closed in around Luna all too quickly. To even attempt to keep them all in sight she backed away, until the edge of thorns licked at her legs and she could go no further.

The Queen looked to her scattered people, then whipped back to Luna. Chrysalis blinked through teary eyes and snarled. “Is this what you want?! It is, isn’t it? You will beg before I’m done!”

There was no lunge, no desperate struggle. One second there was Luna, blazing with power and mad defiance. Between that breath and the next...well, there was no next. The Queen’s flames blazed their green light and the earth beneath Luna’s hooves surged upwards and pounded her in the belly and the throat. She never saw it coming.

Wheezing, Luna collapsed like so many stones. Changelings pounced. Their numbers tried to subdue the struggling alicorn. In seconds only her head was free of them. Shouting threats and inane curses she whirled her horn about.

Chrysalis stalked back and forth. The moonlit eyes of Luna left Chrysalis moonstruck. With a careless flick of green flames a slab of soil peeled itself from the earth then fell back down atop those blazing eyes.

“Why? Why now? We could have reasoned this out like royalty!” Chrysalis hesitated as she heard her own words, then burst into venomous laughter.

It was cut short as abruptly as a dream - or a nightmare. Colorful changelings grunted as they kept the squirming alicorn down. “What now, little moon? What now-”

Screams cut across all speech like a lovingly honed knife. Every changeling turned to look. Those grappling with Luna loosened their grip.

The light beneath them went dark.

Then it went darker still. It seeped out through the changelings, an incorporeal haze of blue and black and tiny pinprick stars. In all of a second it whisked away into the thorns, through which it flowed like quicksilver.

Deep amidst the bramble, so deep they made a lattice work across the sky like the bars of a prison caught forever in night, Luna coalesced.

She steadied her breathing and thought of simple spells. Don’t see me she whispered into their minds.

At the edge of hearing, muffled and cut apart a hundred times over by the thorns, the frantic shout of a changeling. “Don’t hurt her!”

Changelings surrounded the overgrown ground, and others still watched it on the wing. Don’t see me.

Boo.

It was all Luna could do to not join her scream with Surreal’s, and even at that the thorns took a ready taste of the alicorn.

Come out, little moon.

The thoughts were not her own and spoke to her through glistening fangs, just behind her eyes.

You don’t remember much about that first night. I do. Let’s just say I have a way into you, all for myself. I haven’t had to do this once yet. All this time. You’ve forced me to act. I want you to think about that.

Luna curled up in a pool of blackest obsidian. Don’t. See. Me. Could Chyrsalis control her? Muddle her thoughts as she had with the Captain of the Guards and the hoofmaidens? The fear of it pulled Luna deeper into the darkness. Thorns caressed her sides and threatened to tangle her wings. Brambles moved and whispered to one another, as if to betray her hiding spot to the Queen and drag her, bloodied and screaming, to the changeling.

She didn’t want to fight. Or...she wished she didn’t want to fight. She might yet win if she did, but how many had she already hurt? To fight would kill off this vague, unplanned, impossible chance at peace entirely.

She felt more than saw the green flames that trail blazed blindly inwards from the overgrowth’s edge. Sooner or later they’d find her, and what then? It wasn’t as if they were real ponies, the darkness seemed to whisper into her.

And they weren’t. Not ponies at all. They were changelings. Real changelings. Real people. To think otherwise would be an evil unacceptable in the humble and small-minded Fallow Field, let alone a princess of Equestria.

“Tia, I’m sorry.”

It’s not her you should be apologizing too.

Luna’s emotions felt as twisted and painful as the bramble. It was as if they had snagged her heart and mind as much as her body, for she knew not what to do, nor what choices to make, or even what choices she had.

It was to everyone’s great surprise that the choices weren’t hers to make, nor Chrysalis’, nor any changelings’.

The deep voice of a male was raised high in passions, and higher still in elevation.

“My lady Luna is besieged! Have at you, vile foes! I shall not yield!”

The pegasus dove headlong into the fray as Luna knew he would, though she could not see. The absurdity of it put a silly smile to her face and pause to changeling thoughts.

Is he serious?...He’s serious. He’s actually serious.

And suddenly, Luna’s fear scurried away like so many mice. Chrysalis still spoke into her mind, but it was impossible to be afraid of a dumbstruck Queen.

“I suppose I shall have to tell him to be at ease before he hurts himself.” The darkness beneath Luna drained away until there was only the natural half-light of the brambles. Wings flared and legs tensed. Luna broke into the sky, and though the thorns took their toll in feathers, blood and skin they couldn’t quite take the smile from her face.

Below, a changeling’s magic dragged the earnest pegasus away from another he’d been wrestling to the ground, shouting all the while as if it were only a minor setback to his struggle. Risen like a dark harbinger, all eyes turned to Luna.

“That’s enough, all of you. Can we try this again?”

chapter twelve

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twelve

The pegasus had come come crashing out of the blue, though the sky was more gray, the way it was drained of colour. Likewise he was of a blue coat, running to gray. His mane and tail, both tightly trimmed we’re bristly and tended to a smoky purple. It’d be as easy to believe he were another pony covered in fine dust than naturally such muted colours, but he was.

Two changelings stood by his side, each keeping a hoof to him. Not really a hold, not at all, but a gentle reminder that it could become so easily if he made them. For their part, they didn’t look all that certain with themselves, stealing glances at the others, and their Queen.

He watched Luna with some bewilderment, meted out with tense readiness and willingness, as if the position he were in were quite the opposite of what it was. For his part the pegasus had eyes only for Luna, and it was when one saw those that it made up for his apparent lack of colour.

It was all in his eyes. They were silvery, prominently so. Not silver, no, but colours seemingly came and went with the slightest change of lighting. They were quite clearly the glimmer of corroded copper, then a cloud would shift across the face of the sun and they were obviously more like damp steel, and then the sun would breach through its bounds and they’d be so certainly the tint of iron fillings livening with rust.

The silvery backdrop was always there, but it was the only constant. The eyes didn’t change colour, it just seemed that no one elses’ could decide quite what to make of them.

Luna dwelt on them for a long moment. She’d seen them plenty of times before. Usually there was more of a smile to quicken them, quicker still when a sly edge visited them as well, as if sometimes he’d pondered something out that she hadn’t, and it amused him.

His feathers were crumpled and in sore need of preening. He’d been flying for some time, and either neglected chances to maintain himself or had found none. Her own supple blue feathers she knew fared no better. They were probably even worse for her mad ascent through greedy thorns, but still she rode the air with sweeping strokes of her wings, graceful as ever. The little shreds of skin cut from her stung painfully and itched even more so, worse still was that she could show none of the discomfort.

She had to have poise, here was her chance with everybody - even Chrysalis - just a little bit stunned and waiting on her to make the next move. Luna had a chance at having a commanding moment. A chance to set this mess right, even if it were only a single little messy piece of a much, much larger messy situation.

Command. Elegance. Foresight. Luna needed these now, and so tried very hard to emulate her sister.

“Wax,” Luna said to her pegasus, though the questions and emotions of her word were lost within the much louder, much more neutral word of a princess speaking to all.

The pegasus bowed his head, a gesture the changelings shuffled to accommodate. “My lady liege.” From the corner of her eye, Luna caught Chrysalis rolling hers. It stalled Luna’s momentum, but she rallied. The slow, swooshing strokes of her wings as she addressed the crowd below helped nicely.

“You may stand down.”

“As you wish.”

Luna descended slowly, both to be easy on her wings and for appearance. Chrysalis awaited, and those damnable teeth gleamed as much as ever. Luna braced herself for what must come next.

She’d not eaten much lately, and what she had tasted didn’t bear remembering. Worse still was the pride to be eaten now.

All she wanted to say was a muttered apology and be done with it, but Luna’s internal Celestia fretted and rewrote for her a fitting speech, one becoming of her station.

“Queen Chrysalis. I acted rashly, and have wronged you and your people. Do you accept my sincere apology?”

“No.”

Luna opened her mouth.

She closed her mouth.

Luna looked to her internal Celestia, who only shrugged and came up empty. Luna looked to Wax, who also shrugged. All around them blinking changelings watched. They were still an audience, truly, but one nonetheless spread out into good pouncing position, just in case.

“...no?” It was all she could say, and the royalty had fled from her voice.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way.

As she liked to do, Chrysalis entirely disregarded the myth of Luna’s personal space and strode up to her, neck to neck, mouth to ear.

“You attacked my people. You attacked me. What did you expect?”

It was a bad feeling to deal with Chrysalis at any time, but entirely worse for Luna to do so and know unwaveringly that she was the one in the wrong. Ponies were the good guys...even if Luna was acutely aware of how very much so she wasn’t exemplary as one. Even so, she tried, didn’t she? Chrysalis liked being bad.

It didn’t seem fair.

Luna crumpled, just a little. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, staring at the ground all the while.

“That’s better.”

What? Luna said nothing, being speechless, but that was her thought as she whirled about, only to see Chrysalis walking away, quite content with herself.

“Your need for drama keeps getting you in trouble, little moon. You should keep that in mind.”

Entirely at ease, the Queen of changelings sauntered up to the now-confused pegasus and his equally confused captors. The flash of green fire lit up her horn and Luna’s muscles tensed, a shout ready on her tongue.

Both ponies winced, but it was only a small thing, a silver necklace of sorts the Queen pulled away from Wax with a snick of snapping metal. How hadn’t she seen that on him before? Luna wondered, but it was cut short by curiosity.

Chrysalis held up the trinket. It was more like a collar than a necklace, to be fitted snugly to a pegasi’s neck so that it wouldn’t jingle, jangle or downright fall during flight. From the centre hung a single protrusion, like the small hand of a clock, ending in a tiny crescent moon, all black.

Well, hung was the wrong word. That implied it pointed at the ground. Rather, it pointed at Luna, swiveling about on its little hinge in open defiance of motion and gravity, never faltering in its fixation on the princess. Chrysalis moved it this way and that, just to test it.

It was, truth be told, a little embarrassing for Luna. She kept wanting to sidle away from the thing’s attention, knowing it’d be futile to try.

A faint, persistent yellow light sheathed the miniscule divining rod. It was tiny, negligible as illumination went, but still something of an enlightenment. Certainly, life had just gotten complicated. More complicated, anyway.

The Queen’s interest in the thing passed. The collar was given to the nearest changeling without a second thought as Chrysalis turned back upon Wax.

“And you are?”

The pegasus looked to Luna, who nodded dumbly. The changelings holding hooves to his side shuffled away. With the Queen’s attention upon him, being physically held was simple redundancy.

“Wax, of princess Luna’s guard.”

“And you’re out here, all alone?

Wax just ignored her, and stepped promptly towards his princess.

“Sorry, my fair lady. I thought I could find you sooner, but Equestria is big.”

Luna smirked. “What’d you two do, take a map and say ‘I’ll search this half, you take the other’?“

Wax cocked his head. “Pretty much the case, in fact. Wane would be here too, but the little collars only react when they are near enough you, so we took separate ways to expand our search.”

Luna’s hoof met Luna’s face, but between the two a smile crept out. “You didn’t ever think I didn’t want you to follow me?”

“We did, my lady Luna, except we needed to find you to find out if you didn’t want us to find you.” Wax winked, the silvery tint to his eyes overlayed with burnt gold. “You left no note or anything.”

Luna sighed, though it was an honest deep breath too. “You hardly follow my orders anyway.”

The pegasus made a face. Dozens of changeling faces, including the Queen’s, turned back to him from Luna, as if a small white ball rapidly bounced back and forth between the two.

"We always infer your orders, my lady. Those we follow very precisely.”

“I didn’t give you any orders.”

“...we predicted new ones.”

“And how did you do so this time?”

Wane and I, we came upon the window to your chambers - ”

“The curtains billowing out into the midnight wind?” Chrysalis interjected with a lopsided grin.

Wax didn’t lose a beat. “Exactly that, and we thought to ourselves, my brother and I, that the window was no way for a little late night sojourn, more of a big one really, and we also thought that somepony, if they were of a mind to make for such a dramatic exit wouldn’t fly off into the darkness and then circle around the castle and go in a different direction. So we had a good general idea of what direction to predict our orders in, if you will, my lady liege.”.

He looked about once when he rose from a bow and asked quite cheerfully, “Are we traitors now? It’s just that Cruithne was sulking, entirely miserable when we had to leave her at the castle. She misses you terribly.”

Chrysalis cut in, though she didn’t need to, Luna was a bit speechless. The Queen smiled like a barracuda in a beauty pageant. With a glint of cobalt blue, Wax stared those teeth in the eye.

“I wouldn’t have expected that kind of talk from a royal guard. Or for you to be so calm with the dreaded changelings all around you.”

“My fair lady Luna’s guard, not ‘royal guard.’ All two of us are autonomous. And I am loyal to Equestria and the thrones.”

“But you’d betray it so casually?”

“I’m just more loyal to Luna, is all.”

“Nobody is betraying anybody,” the princess said stiffly.

“That’s good, then,” he said. Wax’s voice took on a drunken quality. When he next blinked his eyes, they were slow to open. When they did, they had a polished marble hint veined through the silver.

They rolled back a bit, then he wobbled on his hooves. “By your leave, fairest midnight, I think I’m going to pass out now. Nighty night...”

He hit the ground with a soft, damp thud. The crowd of changelings blinked guiltily.

“You know,” Chrysalis said, “I’m actually having fun with all this.”

“...fun?” Luna parroted, for she could think of nothing else to say.

Every part of Beetle disliked every part of Luna. She was dangerous, and pompous. Unpredictable and wild, and strange. He trusted her as far as he could throw her, and the changeling knew he couldn’t even lift the alicorn to try that, though he would have liked to throw her indeed.

Of all the changelings, his negativity towards her was the most thorough, and most consistent. If there was no actual hatred there, well, there was no love lost either.

Perhaps it was the absolute monotone to his feeling that allowed the frowning male to lay the blame, in its entirety, on the princess. Certainly he was the only one of them all to willingly slow down and keep an eye on Surreal. He had a vague notion that the Queen had some idea for her. At least, he hoped she did.

He didn’t even like Surreal. She shared too many of the same faults as Luna and...he let the rest of his train of thought go careening off the tracks. Beetle grunted acknowledgment to whatever it was she’d said now. He had little patience with her chattiness; she was speaking as blisteringly often as once every ten minutes.

The wide-eyed, blinking and - most importantly - silent child made for the better half of his company. The little thing had been a half-decent umbrella as well, when it had been raining. It wasn’t now, but even if it had been he’d have left the thing nestled snugly in the wings of Surreal. He had to admit she was the better carer of the two, probably one of the better ones of them all.

Unlike Beetle she actually cared beyond a simple sense to keep the child fed and sheltered. Even the words they used underlined the difference in opinion.

Surreal kept calling it ‘her’ and ‘child.’

Beetle kept calling it...well, ‘it.’ A thing, more or less.

Besides, caring for it kept her focused. Kept her distracted, somewhat. So even if it had rained again he would’ve - probably - left Surreal with his impromptu umbrella still.

If only she wouldn’t talk so much. And so loudly, it seemed. It was getting on his nerves.

Which was why, when they caught up with the others at the overgrown field and Surreal screamed, Beetle lost his patience. He kept his rage carefully under pressure until the young changeling was safely in his magical grip and set aside under a low-hanging cedar bough before shoving Surreal over and dragging her back into the trees, his magic clamping shut her jaw.

She screamed, wild-eyed, into the muffling constraints of his grip. Her own magic lashed ineffectually against his, and her body churned a furrow in fallen leaves.

“Stop it,” he hissed, as much to her and her struggles as to the filmy glaze that had settled once more over her eyes.

The fervour that took her burnt through Surreal’s energy quickly, but there’d been little strength behind her flailing, even at the height of it. For good measure he left her panting on her side a minute longer.

“They’re fighting over there!”

“We’re over here,” he replied emotionlessly.

Surreal struggled to stand, but overbalanced and toppled the other way to make a fresh indent in the blanketed floor of the forest. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked as she glared.

Beetle said nothing. Surreal growled as she stood, then blinked and looked this way and that.

“Where is she?”

Beetle said nothing.

“Where’d you put her?” she asked, more frantically. The little female tried to shove him from her way, but the effort was futile. With only a slight shift to his stance Beetle stood firm, and Surreal slumped to her knees.

There he left her, glaring, and there she remained until he returned a short moment later, child in tow.

“You left her alone? Do you even care what happens to her? What’s wrong with you?” Surreal hissed.

Beetle said nothing. The child turned its big, heavy eyes to his own. He looked away.

A minute passed in painful silence. Surreal’s breathing steadied, for the most part.

“They’re not fighting anymore,” she said, her voice drained of emotion.

Beetle simply turned and walked on, and Surreal skulked after.

There stood the last trees, and there were his fellow changelings, and his Queen. There was Luna, and further on a pegasus, who collapsed as Beetle neared the others. He’d never seen that one before, but really didn’t care very much for whatever had happened. The Queen Chrysalis was still in control, beyond that it didn’t matter. Beetle had enough to deal with and no shortage of things to test his temper.

At the edge of the trees, all alone, Surreal hesitated. Grimacing, she scurried after them.

chapter thirteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter thirteen

Chrysalis felt better than she had for a while. It was easier to deal with Luna when the princess boiled over - it was just a matter of a good bludgeoning from some angle or other - than it was when the princess sulked. Besides, the Queen got to hit Luna when that happened, and that kind of thing almost always cheered her up. Even so, she hadn’t expected such an intense reaction from Luna. The changeling had thought that impersonating Celestia was the sharpest jab she could manage, and it was a pretty good jab, so she hadn’t known that mimicking Luna herself would be all the more explosive.

The mare had issues.

Chrysalis quite liked this. It made Luna malleable in ways Celestia never would be, among other things.

That’d been the plan with the invasion, at first. The white alicorn was the first among equals and all but revered by her ponies. Who better to secretly replace? Yet even then, prior to the harsh lesson of failure, Chrysalis had doubted her ability to manage it.

And so Cadence, the least of the princesses, became her target. Luna had been overlooked entirely. The dark alicorn was reclusive, awkward, and the changelings had found out next to nothing about her. Ponies were, at best, lukewarm in their feeling for her, a sharp contrast to their adoration of Celestia, and it was said Cadence brought out love wherever she went, like rains to a parched desert.

Or dessert, considering.

Either way, changelings weren’t up front aggressors, they never had been. Even so she had beaten the foremost princess in combat, if only just. The ambient love of ponies was simply that powerful. Of course, she’d caught that power coming and going...and at quite a wild speed too, with her changelings as they flew helplessly into the horizon. Had things gone differently, the Queen of changelings might have been Queen of the world by now.

It was a wistful thought, and Chrysalis sang a little tune to herself, fancying the supplication of all.

Wax was still unconscious. Chrysalis found no reason to blame her little changelings for taking a taste, even if all of them had done it more or less at the same time. She’d dabbled herself, and had to admit it was a tasty change into simplicity. They’d all been feeding off of Luna alone for so long now. Exquisite as she was, variety was nicer.

As it was, with a couple of subtle gestures and quiet words Chrysalis made it clear that they were to lay off and let him recover. She rather wanted to see him awake again.

Luna carried the fainted pegasi across her back, meek all the while. Oblivious to it all, Wax hung limp, his limbs swinging back and forth as they walked. As the minutes rolled on, what had been a disparate train of bodies closed together, with both Chrysalis and Luna at its black heart.

The broken paths of the wild forest was gone, as was the decayed home of Fallow Field. The trail they followed now had been carved by pony hooves, and the spaciousness of the land opened up before them. Broad, heavy leafed trees dominated now, but stood enough part to not restrict freedom of flight.

“This is Whitetail Wood,” Luna commented idly. As if the name meant something to Chrysalis, she agreed lazily.

Wax had been the first to find them, but as they wound ever nearer to the capitol he certainly wouldn’t be the last. The Queen wasn’t all that bothered by this, she’d deal with what appeared, if and when it did.

In the meantime Chrysalis found herself liking the pegasus. She could respect the quest to find his princess, and the foolishness of it made for something to be exploited. All this way, alone, to find his princess. Then rushing headlong into an impossible fight, and having no compunctions about switching sides. Where his princess would lead, he would follow. Much the same was the brand of loyalty that changelings followed. For a pony that had never dealt with changelings before, never felt the tapping of love, he’d held up surprisingly well under the strain.

A thought occurred to Chrysalis, and with a discreet flash of green flame that went unnoticed by Luna, she retrieved the little moon collar and tucked it away into the recesses of magic. That kind of thing could be useful to have. It certainly had been for the pegasus, after all.

It was then that Luna stopped, and Chrysalis thought the princess might challenge her for the little toy. Except the alicorn truly hadn’t noticed, and had something more immediate to concern her.

“Surreal?” Luna asked cautiously. “You’re licking me.” Calm disbelief softened her voice.

Chrysalis grinned, but inwardly cringed. That little problem hadn’t gone away. Rather, it festered still.

The only acknowledgment Surreal got from the others was acute exclusion. That was to be expected, but one changeling all but made a point of walking near her still. Chrysalis made sure to consider that when she had the time. In the moment, she wanted to see how this played out. She could be frustrated later.

The little changeling stole glances at her Queen, but Chrysalis was the face of neutrality and disinterest. Surreal tried to speak, but her mouth had worked up a sort of tacky froth.

Luna looked to Surreal, then to her side; one of the thorn scrapes there had a generous coating of the stuff, then back to Surreal. The little changeling burbled something indiscernible through the gunk.

“I see...” Luna said and clearly didn’t.

If Chrysalis was going to be honest to herself, she didn’t have much of a clue as to how this would play out. Well, that was half-truth. She knew exactly how Surreal would act, because the little changeling didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Surreal wasn’t the first changeling to fall, though Chrysalis had never actually seen it happening before her eyes. She proudly knew herself to be callous, but watching this still stung her.

Apparently the moment went on with a shrug of acceptance on Luna’s part. The alicorn simply let the changeling continue her ministrations, best as she was able to with a pony sprawled across her back and the motion of the group pulling them forwards. It was a reaction entirely more surprising than outrage and drama would have been, all things considered. Chrysalis had to wonder if the alicorn didn’t live by some kind of daily quota for that kind of thing. Regardless, Luna looked fine. Embarrassed and unsure, but fine.

Huh. Well, far as she understood it, skin was more sensitive and more easily damaged than a changeling's body, and Chrysalis knew herself the soothing touch of the nameless stuff. How must it feel for Luna? More than the physical comfort, Chrysalis wondered if Luna craved the approval, the sentiment that went with that treatment. It was more than likely, Chrysalis knew. For a pony, Luna was famished for love as much as any changeling.

The pegasus’ head swung to the side. Surreal tried to carefully roll it back the other way to get at another cut, all the while jogging along to keep up with Luna’s easy stride. For her part, Luna tried even harder to show no notice of either the changeling at her side or pony on her back. Everytime the changeling managed, Luna’s next step would send the tongue-lolling lump back again to bump against Surreal’s own.

Chrysalis kept watch with a coy eye, smiling all the while. Sure, plenty of things were wrong and getting worse, but this was funny.

“Hey there,” Wax said in a slur. With each step forwards the day brightened and the sky cleared, but his colours stayed as muted as ever. Only Wax’s eyes lit up, this time the colour of strong cider. He tried to focus them on Surreal. Both blinked.

“You’re licking Luna.” Wax heaved his head the other way. “You know she’s licking you, right?”

Changelings didn’t have much money, because they didn’t have a use for it beyond what kept up appearances when they went roaming. All the same, Chrysalis would’ve paid good money to see what she saw now for free.

“...can I lick you too?” he said it with a slack, silly grin that lacked only for pointy changeling teeth.

Chrysalis would have stolen great money there and then to pay to see Luna’s expression. Shame that she’d have to put an end to this.

Wax chuckled, then slumped to the ground like a sack. Surreal skittered out of the way, and with a look from her Queen, knew that her ministrations were at an end. Politely as she could manage, the little changeling hiccuped and spat the strange dregs to the soil, then sank into the crowd. Or tried to. It parted around her, and not with respect.

Luna muttered something, and the pegasus shook himself sober as he stood.

“Right you are, my lady liege. Walking it is, I’m fine to walk, walking is good!” He laughed and flapped his wings a few times, a little embarrassed with himself. He looked around at the throng of dispassionate black bodies, then turned presumptuously upon Chrysalis herself. “What happened, might I ask?”

“Too many changelings, too little pony,” Chrysalis said simply. No need to go and give away details now, amusing as this pegasus was. “You held up pretty well, considering,” she added with a predatory smirk. She’d forgive her changelings this time, but from here on in there was the pecking order, and the Queen had an appetite to sait. This pegasus would do nicely for snacking purposes.

He was silent for a moment, furled his wings and turned once more to his princess. “You’ve been with them how long?

“You do not ask questions of me,” Luna said, though the familiar severity was gone from her voice. It was warm, and indeed there was a smile there, hidden in the darkness of her colours. “A week, perhaps less? I did not pay attention to the passing of nights, underground as I was.”

Chrysalis caught the pegasus glimpsing at her from the corner of his now coppery eye, as if she might lunge at any moment, teeth first. “How are you still standing?” he said in hushed tones. “You’re the only other pony, princess.”

It was cute, really. The way they had their little chat, their little pony discussion while completely surrounded by changelings, in earshot of the Queen herself. Chrysalis tried not to laugh aloud. She didn’t want to interrupt them.

“I...” she fell silent. Luna darkened with thought, an impression not entirely metaphorical when dealing with the alicorn. “I am not the only one,” she said finally. “There are others. Held in the den of the changelings. Asleep, in a way. It is...not cruel.”

Wax shuffled closer to the alicorn, though it was hard to tell which stood as guard and which as guarded. Wax had the posture and alertness, but Luna had the merit of actually being formidable. Minutes before he’d been slung across her back, and now this. The Queen would remember the image fondly.

The air hung heavy with questions Wax refused to ask. Chrysalis was sure Luna was grateful for it, though she would’ve liked to see more of their crisis unfold. There was no accusation, no judgement in the pegasus that the Queen could see. He was in a situation he didn’t understand, trusting to his ‘lady liege,’ simply steadfast in following her.

It really was commendable. Chrysalis called to the ponies and smiled. Luna glowered, Wax looked uncertain, but determined not to show it. Both reactions warmed her heart, and her teeth glistened.

Chrysalis was gaining a great deal of insight. Right up to the invasion Luna had been this great black patch of ignorance to the changelings. Even at the height of the conflict, Luna had been curiously absent from the scene. Mysteries fluttered about the alicorn like candle infatuated moths, and while Chrysalis didn’t like puzzles, she did like the control she held now.

She wondered how many little fissures of dissent ran through the princess, and how many of those pointed at Celestia. The sun princess had renown, adoration, command, and not least of all what amounted to a legion of royal guards.

For all that, what did her little moon have? One pegasus, and another searching for her still.

Well. That hardly seemed fair.

“Little moon, I have a gift for your guard. A spell.”

The princess glared with cold, incredulous eyes. Chrysalis didn’t blame the pony. Luna had good reason to doubt her intent.

“A spell that blocks out some of our feeding. I’m sure you don’t want to carry him again now. He’s more amusing awake, you know.”

“That sounds alright,” Wax said, but doubt riddled and wriggled through his words like worms in an apple.

“Of course it does,” the Queen of changelings hissed gently.

"Promise me this is not a trick, Chrysalis, and you may do this.”

“I could do it whether you wanted it or not, but I do like to keep you happy, my little moon.”

Luna scowled.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I promise-”

“On your duty to your people!”

“You remember that?”

Luna’s brow furrowed a moment, and she answered a little too late. “Yes. Clearly. Now swear it.”

Chrysalis grinned. As always, the expression was mostly teeth. “I promise, on my duty as Queen of changelings, that the magic I put on your guard will help you much more than it could help me.”

The dark alicorn mulled over the words. Chrysalis intentionally mistook her silence for approval.

“Good.” She cast her spell.

To Wax’s credit he didn’t scream aloud, though his eyes brimmed with fear - apparently a sort of sandy orange - as the green flames embraced him. He struggled, but he might as well have tried to struggle his way free of actual fire. It settled on his coat and wings, covering most of his body, then sank through him, into the pegasus, fading all the while.

Then the last flecks of green were gone, and the pony was scrutinizing himself closely.

“Chrysalis!” Luna shouted. The Queen shrugged dismissively.

“It’s done.”

“It’s alright...I think I’m alright,” he said, controlling his voice if not his trembling.

All the accusation and anger in Luna’s gaze was well founded, of course. If the princess would believe for a second that Chrysalis would ever actually act selflessly, than she deserved whatever she got for her foolishness.

Luna, surely, had to be gently prodding at the magic already, trying to see it for what it was. And there was a spell there, naturally, and that spell did exactly what the Queen had said. It would, to an extent, keep the guard at leg’s length from the drain of hungry changelings. Not entirely, of course, but at least slow down the draw on his heart enough to keep him being overwhelmed again.

Of course, magic didn’t have to be just one spell.

She hadn’t lied at all, but then, Luna had said before that Chrysalis used the truth as a worse kind of lie. The Queen liked the sound of that. She took it as a compliment.

Already Chrysalis hungrily anticipated the second spell coming to life. All in due time. She hoped she’d be there to see it in action though; and Luna did love those moments of exciting drama so.

She grinned at Wax and licked her gleaming teeth. Wax shivered, just a little. If only he knew, he’d have shivered more. Or, come to think of it, not at all.

A Queen needed her fun after all.

chapter fourteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter fourteen

What with one thing and another, three hours passed. As the sun descended the last red glow spilled over the changelings and lit up their bodies like smouldering coals. The rays caught their wings, setting strange flecks within the membranes to glimmering, while eyes shone like emeralds.

The light touched Luna as well, and though her colours refused to submit to sunlight there was still warmth for them in it, like a gentle reminder that the dark need not be cold and fearsome. More than once she glanced to the horizon with an understandable wistfulness, and not even Chrysalis felt it necessary to intrude on that.

More than anything it shone off the polished armour of the royal guards that descended upon the changeling band. They spiralled down from the darkening sky with double the menace and half the warning of a tornado on a sunny day.

Things got somewhat excitable for a moment.

Most of all, it got excitable for the pegasus commander of the eighteen gleaming suits of armour. There and then, on the spot, he was the pinnacle of the chain of command, but what with the worst case scenario being a rogue princess allied to the changeling threat... it was a laughably short chain. He felt out of his depth, so much so that he was where the fish wore lights on their heads and grinned evilly, mouths full of long, jagged teeth. But then again Chrysalis grinned like that and she was right there. Not to mention the little lights of the crown-shaped growth on her head either.

It has always been the prerogative of guards to be a suspicious, cautious bunch, which is a natural and sympathetic product of repeatedly outnumbering the enemy right before being handed their rumps. Training, diligence, and cooperation never seemed to stand a chance against a dramatic backstory and adventurous personality or sense of purpose. It was the kind of pony that swung from chandeliers and slid down the rails, never thinking of - and never seeming to need - a plan. Guards preferred to never ever encounter those, they made a mockery of hardworking professionals. Oversize one such pony, fill her with mysterious powers and enthrone her as a dark counterpart to your beloved ruler, and it was easy enough to understand their apprehension.

As for Chrysalis...don’t even go there.

So it was touch and go, and it’d only take a very small touch for things to go very bad. Luna was scrutinized as closely as any changeling, so while fault could be lain in a lot of directions, Luna suspected she bore the brunt of it. In theory the royal guards obeyed the sisters in equal turn, though only the very naive could pretend that to be the case. They obeyed Celestia because she commanded their devotion, admiration and respect. They obeyed Luna on orders from Celestia. She knew it, everypony in the castle knew it, and worse still, they denied it.

Her big sister had looked her straight in the eye and denied giving such an order. Certainly it wouldn’t have given as such either. The white alicorn would have made a quiet comment, or a wry observation, and always with Luna’s best interests at heart. Ironically enough, she really did want to share the throne with Luna, it was just that her subjects never seemed to let her.

Back then Luna had, after a moment’s heated discussion, dropped the matter and never picked it up again. Her ongoing surliness had cost her too many chances to win over the castle staff. They’d taken to seeing her as moody, temperamental and uncertain. Unfit to lead or inspire.

Well. They’d got the gist of it right.

As the guards stood firm, rigidly refusing to show an inch of their uncertainty the alicorn felt curiously dispassionate. Just a resignation to repeating the same, unwelcome awkwardness.

With the barest of nods, Luna acknowledged the formation of armoured pegasi, and their glaring leader. The changelings hadn’t done much since the abrupt arrival, but it was a very deliberate ‘not much,’ in the same ways it doesn’t take much at all for an innocent log to start drifting ever so slightly closer and open one menacing eye.

Including Chrysalis, Luna could name three changelings. She couldn’t name one of these guards, those supposedly sworn to her. It was not a happy thought.

“Wing commander, stand down.”

“Princess...” It was sort of a plea and sort of a growl. The deployment might’ve been able to subdue a princess, maybe even the Queen, but certainly not together.

The tension could’ve been cut with a knife. So Chrysalis did more or less that. Cut it she did, and bled it dry. The Queen of changelings did love the limelight so.

“Enchanting the armour so their colours match? I’d been wondering about that. Cute. Don’t worry feather-boys, we come in peace.”

There have been three toothy grins in recorded Equestrian history that have been considered the most insidious, the most nerve-wracking. Chrysalis’ left them all behind. Paintings’ eyes are known to follow the viewer around the room, but only the Queen’s teeth, glistening with sharpness, turned out the lights and cackled as they did so.

Luna, in a moment of caustic mood and with all other eyes on Chrysalis, used that exact moment to silently herald the night. Not even the Queen noticed the subtle shift to moonlight. Only Wax, who knew where to look and how to cope with Luna flicked a glance her way. He saw that the alicorn regarded the big changeling closely; the expressions of both were scary. Nor were fangs any better by moonlight.

The Queen took charge of the moment, though she might have let Luna handle it had the alicorn not shrugged away and withdrawn from it.

“I’m going to assume you guys were following him,” she said conversationally as she gestured to the odd pegasus out, as if being able to personally thrash all of them together wasn’t as blatantly apparent as her towering height.

“See, little moon, she does care!” the Queen of changelings shouted with caustic mirth. “And I don’t see any chains, so there’s even a chance they didn’t even mean to drag you home to her. Isn’t that nice?”

Changelings blinked, and though Luna didn’t rise to the bait, didn’t respond or look her way at all even Chrysalis backed off; the princess had a nasty habit of being unpredictable with her little moments. This was not the time for such a little moment.

In fact the only animation to Luna was her sudden, stiff confrontation with the wing commander.

“You may escort us on our way to Canterlot.”

“Princess Luna...”

“See to it!” she shouted, and her voice rang through the metals of their armour and bounced between the trees. The force of it cowed changeling and pony alike as the dark surged over her in one terrible moment.

Chrysalis stopped smiling as the dust settled. For a second there, she’d seemed... changed.

Pegasi flew to and from the envoy, as hasty to get away as they were to report home. By midnight Celestia would know everything, by morning Canterlot would be in uproar. One and all, the group moved secretly, like fugitives.

They neared the small town of Ponyville as they marched on through Whitetail Wood. Big events certainly gravitated towards that little place.

Not this time. Chrysalis had adamantly refused to enter the town at all, even secretly by the dead of night - an expression Luna had never been fond of - insisting instead that the train meet them some ways away, well beyond the lights and buildings.

So, the changelings knew about the Elements of Harmony and feared them appropriately. Luna well knew herself that those powers were not to be trifled with. But how did Chrysalis know of them? How many ponies in Equestria weren’t? Just what did Chrysalis know?

That peace was their best hope. Luna had to believe that, whatever else, the Queen of changelings was sincere in this, whatever else may be. She had to believe that, just once, her good intentions weren’t leading Luna into another huge, terrible mistake.

Such were her thoughts as the silent moonlight gave way to the groan and grumble that shook the earth. She felt a moment’s sympathy for the train driver - surely this must be one of the strangest and most frightful nights of his career. Even the blast of steam as the brakes ground it to a halt seemed somehow muted, somehow trying to further the secrecy of this venture. No doubt the royal guards would impress the importance of discretion on the hapless driver, after giving him all this trouble.

Yet there was none from the changelings. Or words, for that matter. They filed aboard without hesitation or interest. If they had ever seen a train before or not, Luna had no way of knowing. Some took seats, some wandered the coach cars, but not one gave trouble of any kind to the armoured guards that anxiously watched over them from the doorways. If they siphoned and sampled of the pegasi, none were the wiser for it.

Luna certainly wasn’t going to tell them anyway, not with how they watched her. She couldn’t blame them...but did anyway. She ignored the ponies, instead looking to the calm changelings.

As a person inclined to shadows herself, Luna had a certain appreciation for the way their black bodies seemed to draw the shade in and fold it over themselves like a blanket. Only one measly lantern hung from the centre of each train car, and those only highlighted the darkness. The shadows gently pivoted around their bodies as the train’s motion swung the light back and forth.

Luna skulked by, aiming to take the private car for a few hours reprieve. Luna felt more herself when those uniformed and uninformed pegasi weren’t watching her. The princess came upon the last car of the train, relieved to have her privacy, only to find that Chrysalis had got there first.

...sort of. The big changeling was halfway through the door anyway, and squirming intently. Equestrian trains did not well accommodate the Queen of changeling’s scale.

In the small space between two cars, Luna found herself with a private showing of comedy. Trying not to laugh loudly Luna magicked closed the door behind her, a small favour to the Queen.

Chrysalis muttered and wiggled, but the door refused to fit her through. The changeling’s tail swished and her wings fluttered, giving the ceiling an unexpected dusting.

The Queen went still as dust flew then sneezed as it settled atop her, violently enough to send her tumbling through the gap. She fell in a heap and Luna laughed.

Those long slender legs with their strange gaps disentangled from the mess and stretched out across the floor. Chrysalis huffed.

“This is not funny.”

Luna glowered. “Oh, of course not. It is just a mere indignity.”

Sprawled out as she was, the Queen’s eyes met the alicorn’s. Then she laughed too.

“That might be the first time anyone has ever laughed at me,” she managed through the chuckles. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly known for our humour.”

They kept on laughing, right up to the moment Luna’s hoof delicately pressed down onto Chrysalis’ throat. The princess knelt down next to the fallen Queen. Anyone else would’ve been angry or afraid. Luna certainly would have been, but not Chrysalis.

She smiled, and her eyes shone.

“There’s my little moon,” she croaked. She wheezed another laugh. Luna scowled.

The princess of the night let darkness beyond the natural suffuse through the train car. until even the sounds of the rails sounded muffled and distant.

“Chrysalis. Don’t betray me. Don’t you dare betray this...this idea. This chance.” a dark hoof twisted down into a darker throat.

After a second, Luna eased off the pressure and the Queen of changelings drew a rough breath. Grinning, she pushed her neck against the hoof, her eyes moving closer, closer, very close indeed. Luna was afraid to push harder, but equally afraid to move away.

“It sounded like there was a ‘please’ in there somewhere. A long, slow ‘please.’ How desperate are you?” Chrysalis managed with another choked croak and chuckle. “Get it through your head, this isn’t about you.” A flame of green crawled across the changeling’s form and battered back the darkness. Luna stared into her sneering reflection, and even as the darkness poured back in on them it seemed reluctant to touch the false Luna.

“The world doesn’t spin around your angst, alicorn. It’s not about me either. This is about ponies and changelings. If you think that I can be trusted, you’ll have no-one to blame but yourself. I’ll laugh at you and it’ll be a lot more worth it than stumbling through a tiny door.”

Luna held the Queen of changelings there a moment more. Alone with Chrysalis in a heart of magical darkness, her hoof veritably on the enemy’s neck...and she felt afraid, terrified even, as if all this was some big deception and she really didn’t control her life at all. Her false self smiled dangerously up at her.

Luna didn’t know what to think.

On the other hoof, Wax knew exactly what to think as he opened the door to the private car. Nopony said it had to be a correct assumption though, nor would any other pony on the train have dared intrude upon their princess without tactfully announcing themselves first. The only time a jaw will ever literally drop to a floor is when the wired bones of an anatomy skeleton come undone, but the pegasus certainly managed the spirit of the thing as he took in the sight before him, as if the two royals had done this sheerly for spite of shocking him senseless.

Surely it was the surprise that broke Luna’s darkness, and the way the shadows seemed to flee specifically from his reddening cheeks and flaring wings had nothing to do with it. Not at all.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” the princess growled as she stepped up, then back. A sound like deep instruments in deeper caves accentuated the flash of green that burned away the visage as Chrysalis stood as well. The Queen of changelings cackled. Not laughed. Cackled. Although somewhat quietly, more for herself than anyone else.

After a false start in which the pegasus helplessly looked between the two of them, he finally settled on the princess and regained a semblance of calm.

“My lady liege, I’ll come back later-”

“No, you won’t. Speak.” Eyes that could not be mistaken for anything other than a pinkish hue flickered to Chrysalis then back again. “Uh...”

The Queen of changelings cut across his hesitation with a serrated little chuckle. “Everyone wants their privacy, it seems. Go, then. Have your little talk. We can always continue where we left off later, little moon.”

Luna scowled. Wax tried to not be important. She lead and he followed, stopping only to look grin definatly at those shining teeth before scurrying on.

The ever present rumbling of the train and groans of the rails beneath made for conversations not easily overheard. The little lamp squeaking back and forth on its hinge added what it could to the din.

“Did she cast a spell on you too?”

“Wax.”

“Sorry. That was tasteless of me. So...did she?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “No.”

“And that there was-.”

“Not what it looked like.”

Wax shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no my lady liege, I don’t mean it like that.” Wax stared at the lamp’s jittery swinging for a second. “Well, a bit like that, I guess.” He shrugged, then met his mistress’ eye. “But what I really mean is that I’m yours. You know this. I do your bidding and all that. It helps you if you help me help you, you know? I don’t mind being kept in the dark if that’s what you decide, but it’d be nice if it were at least your dark I’m kept in. You do have the slightest tendency to shoot yourself in the hoof. Or, failing that, forcibly shove it in your mouth.”

Luna peered. Wax met it halfway with an open smile and eyes that could be no other colour but purple.

“Remind me where I got a guard like you.”

“C.A.D.S. finest, remember. Two for one deal, if you remember.”

“Probably trying to get rid of you both,” she deadpanned. A faint smile snuck up on her, one that softened her a lot. “And you came around why?”

“Er, yeah. The bad news...I lost the thingy.”

“The thingy,” she said tonelessly.

“The magic collar with the little moon pendant.” Few other ponies would have caught the tiny shift in Luna’s expression, but the brothers Wax and Wane hadn’t just made the princess their employer, they’d made her their way of life. The pegasus ran through what he’d just said twice before catching it; he’d inadvertently used that pet name the Queen used for her.

Nickname. Not pet name. Sheesh.

“I’m sure a changeling has it. I’d bet on it.”

“Then that means Chrysalis.” Magic popped and a battered journal appeared from thin air. With another it vanished. “She’ll have to keep it for now. There’s no way we could get it back.”

“All right then. And my fairest dark lady?”

Luna rolled her eyes, but Wax was looking for the smile which indeed widened a fraction.

“What now?”

“What about Wane? He’ll still be out there looking.”

“And you want to go bring him back.” There was no need to make a question of it. The two were closer as brothers than Luna and Celestia were as sisters. It was something both heartwarming and saddening to recognize.

“But I don’t want to leave you. The other ponies aren’t on your side.” Even with the constant rattle he whispered his words with care.

It was Luna’s turn to stare into the tiny flame of the lamp as it rocked. She drew a deep, slow breath. “No. They are not. But I am on their side. Go find him. Bring him back to Canterlot. This will turn out all right. Somehow.”

Wax rolled his shoulders and smirked, while his wings took a few warmup flaps. “Then I will fly at the speed of dark itself to come back to you.”

“How will you find him?”

"That’s easy. I’ll go the direction he did and pretend I haven’t found you yet.”

“It can’t possibly be that easy.”

“I guarantee it will be. Siblings work the same way, you know.”

“I really wouldn’t,” she muttered.

He didn’t hear, and a sudden chill gust carried the fat droplets of the night into the traincar, rapidly making it a raincar. The sound of the train exploded into a dull, rolling thunder.

“I’m starting to see what you find appealing in leaving via the window. The billowing curtains really make it feel more important than a simple door.”

“Go on already. You could use some cold rain.”

“As you wish!” Then he was gone in a flurry of dull feathers, flung past the pane of glass and lost to the night.

Almost. The faint cries of “See, you can change direction...” reached her on the echoing howls of the wind. Then he was gone, well and truly, but Luna’s smile lingered a great deal of time. Almost all the way to morning.

chapter fifteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter fifteen

...It ain’t much. It ain’t. But I made the box all by myself and I dug the hole all by myself, right out in the middle of the field, deep as can be.

She’s got our finest in there. I threw in that packet of seeds she kept wanting us to get ‘round to. Seemed better than to leave ‘em around forever. At least they’re in the ground this way. Every year, a packet of blackberry seeds, and every year they don’t take. I keep on tellin’ her they won’t, they never do, but every year she insists anyway. All them twisty thorns for a few sweet little berries ain’t much. I say ‘stick to your flowers, the eating plants is colt’s work.’ She just goes on and says ‘see how much you like the cabbages without my hoof then. Or the potatoes, ya big turnip.’ That made us laugh, that did.

I’ve got them all here, plenty of everything. Even turnips. And she was right, my May was. So right.

Without you, they don’t seem worth a damn.

I miss you so much.

A thud in the blackness called Luna back to herself. Chrysalis had refused to try the doors again, in doing so keeping the private car with its decent bed. What little space Luna had been able to make for her own, she had. So had passed the remainder of the night, sunk into her familiar lonesome.

Dawn wasn’t far off, and the alicorn had hoped to retreat into some quiet reading before the madness of the day started.

With catlike precision and silence, unblinking, she sent the journal away and scryed into the darkness with her black eyes.

Another thud, accompanied with a muttered curse. In an unusually high, soft voice.

“Surreal? What are you doing in my car?”

“I was sleeping.”

No. It wasn’t possible. Luna had been entirely sure of her privacy, it wasn’t as if a princess of night could accidentally get it wrong. Other ponies could miss her when she made them, but never the other way around. Had the strange, obsessing little changeling found some terrible magic to spy on her with? Had Chrysalis empowered Surreal with vile powers?

“Where?”

Surreal yawned with a little squeak, one that entirely broke the ominous feel of Luna’s imposed blackest abyss. It was a sound that had no right being half as adorable as it was.

“Overhead luggage compartment,” she said sleepily. “Dark. Confined. Was like home.”

So much for vile powers.

There was another little bump, softer than the last.

“Surreal.”

“Mm?”

“You think you could go away now?”

“Oh. Fine then.” Just as the silence was soothing its ruffled feathers, another, louder impact sent it squawking.

“Um. Mistress Luna?”

“Yes?”

“I can’t see in this.”

“Oh,” the princess said simply, but hesitated to lower her spell. Luna had the absolute blackness of the abyssal voids, but she wielded it like a much loved fluffy blue blanket. “I thought changelings could see in the dark?”

“We can. But this is ridiculous.”

Luna didn’t answer that. Another bump against the woodwork, the scuffle of hooves on the floor; a muted sigh. A tiny green illumination punctuated the emptiness. It wobbled and bobbed a bit before dancing a little jig that might have been a changeling trying to work a door handle.

“Mistress Luna?” The changeling paused, but the silence was impenetrable. “I hope everything works out for you.”

“...me too,” she whispered back. Then the light was gone, and darkness reigned undisputed once more.

At long last Luna set aside her magic, letting the first little nuances of light enrichen the shadows of her train car. She blinked the unnatural blackness from her eyes just as a quiet, firm knock and a quieter, firmer voice drew her attention to the door. For a moment she was satisfied; Wax had flown fast indeed and hastened back to her, it’d be good to face the day with her trusty hench-ponies.

As always, Luna’s realization came a critical few seconds later than her impressions. That wasn’t his voice. Besides, neither Wax nor Wane probably would have knocked at all anyway.

“Princess. Princess, are you there?”

“I am here.”

“Right. Good. We’ll be in Canterlot soon-”

“I know.”

“No pony knows what to do, what with you pulling this-

“I know.”

“It’s just that you’ve brought the hornets’ nest-”

“I know!”

Chyrsalis opened her eyes. It was too early for this nonsense, but as the defiant syllables rang through her ears - and probably everyone elses’ - she found herself smiling. In a week Luna had gone from a hapless pony floating in a pod to a vindictive princess trying to prove a point. She was still as hapless as ever, of course.

Canterlot itself was taking them in on the dark alicorn’s behalf. The pride of pony civilization, home to treasures beyond the physical, or even magical. If Chrysalis’ crowbar into that wondrous heart had a face and name and hopes and dreams, so be it. The Queen of changelings would still use her ruthlessly to serve the changelings.

Chrysalis frowned and turned over in the bed that clearly did not earn the status of 'Queen sized'.

No. Not ruthlessly. She’d use Luna sparingly. Discreetly. There was no point to being cruel about it. Pushing too hard would only break Luna’s patience for the Queen and unite ponies against her again. That was it. Chrysalis couldn’t direct or distort open, simple violence. Controversy, however...a changeling with a head on her shoulders could use that.

Chrysalis still frowned. Her little moon was more of a wedge anyway. She turned over again and tried to go back to sleep. There’d be more than enough excitement soon enough. Besides, today would be Luna’s big show of homecoming. If the Queen of changelings wanted any chance here she had to trust to her wayward companion to get them over the first hurdle, and that pony needed all the support she could get. Even if all it meant was to stay out of her way.

Luna gave a little shudder as the last of the momentum bled away from her and the train bawled out one final, baleful screech of steam. The curtains were drawn, but what tethers of light slipped through the gaps lit up the car more than enough to announce the encroachment of the day.

She blinked against brightness and peeked through it, forcing her watering eyes to take in the light and colours of the ponies crowding the platform. There were so many of them, stepping all over one another, their camera flashing like crazed fireflies all the while.

Eight pegasi were assigned from the contingent to cover her, a stoic bulwark of dull seriousness holding back a tide of crazed sensationalism. Once the door opened the storm would break, there’d be no going back.

There was never any going back, and with this thought Luna found a pocket of calm, her eye to the hurricane. It would swirl all around her. It would be immense, loud and frightening, but it wouldn’t touch her. It couldn’t. It was an eerie calm, that of dark, deep waters. It frightened her a little, but none of that showed as she pulled herself to her fullest height and flared her wings to their most majestic.

Whatever they thought of her, whatever they would come to think of her, she was their princess. No more, no less. She’d suffered enough to appease the ever changing whims of ponykind. She didn’t need their love. Not anymore. If she could transmute their fear to respect, that would be enough. After that it all just seemed...unimportant.

She took a deep breath, albeit one not needed. The dark alicorn of Equestria opened the door and stepped headlong into a frantic galaxy of lights.

A phalanx of crossed wings and polished armour encircled her instantly, but in the roar of the shoving ponies it seemed the tiniest grain of sanity in a roiling sea of upheaval. Despite everything the guard held their lines and the reporters at bay. In some ways literally, Luna stood above it all.

A hundred voices boiled over one another to harangue her or hang her, but if there was one thing Luna was undoubtedly the most experienced with it was hostile voices barging into her head.

Other armoured ponies were already bulldozing their way into the throng, forcibly restoring order to the train platform and the surrounding street. Dozens of civilian pegasi filled the air, and most of the windows of the nearby buildings had intent watchers behind them.

To each and all her guards grunted out the same blunt message. No statement. At the Castle. Later.

It was a kind of panicked lockdown, in the way enforcers of state are wont to do when heads of state seem to have lost theirs.

Questions erupted from them like sparks from an inferno, by midday the whole city would be ablaze with them.

The changelings, what few were left of them - for a great deal seemed to have up and disappeared in the confusion of the night - were to be all but smuggled to an undisclosed location. Not even Luna knew where, nor did she care. Just so long as Chrysalis behaved, just for a little longer, this madness might actually work.

Questions abounded. Bewilderment reigned, but Luna knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Shock gave way to misgivings, in turn these would step aside for hostility.

The cities of the modern era were fascinating, but tiring. Invasive as it was, the dark princess held no disdain for the crowd’s actions, shoving and shouting incessantly, blinding her with flashes and drowning her in noise. Upsetting as all these things were, she could understand. It didn’t mean she welcomed it in the slightest, but did mean that she wouldn’t actually send them fleeing in terror to restore her peace and quiet. Being thanked for such a thing afterwards was infinitesimally less likely than it had been in Ponyville, and that had been close enough as it was.

Such thoughts were not to be dwelt upon, for fear is ever the catalyst of hostility. Luna held none for her ponies, knowing that all the while that many of them would not hold the opposite true. Her own truth was that she had no fear to spare, she had a terrible foe to contest wills with regardless of their common interests, and a sister to face in lieu of all she’d done...

From the street behind the crowd came a flash like none other. It couldn’t be contained by the word, nothing could contain that pure luminescence. It was like standing inside a lightning strike.

A gasp heralded it, a gasp of hundreds of ponies shocked and awed simultaneously so that for a fleeting, beautiful moment there was light without sound, or even sight. The dazzling brilliance left no room for sight.

It withdrew, and as it went Luna thought she could imagine the sounds of soft chimes. It left her feeling good. At peace. Safe, as if she was being held.

As always her thoughts lagged behind her feelings, but for once it might have been better had they never bothered at all. Once she recognized the source of this, it poisoned the whole sensation with dread.

The fading light finally revealed Celestia. Resplendent as ever and shimmering like the snow of the highest mountain peaks, she shone with an ephemeral glow.

Somehow Luna stood, dumbstruck as everypony else, though her heart was so full of roiling emotion that it left her head no room for thought. Half a dozen steps from the white alicorn brought the sisters face to face.

“Welcome home, Luna,” she said in a voice for all to hear. If the tone had a name, it would be ‘benevolence.’

Celestia leaned closer, but Luna could only stare forwards, her mouth somewhat open, her eyes entirely so.

“Fly with me. Quickly, before everypony catches on.” the dark alicorn could hear the smile in those words, they sunk into her like much-needed rain on hardened ground. It recalled to her mind memories of Celestia’s gentle mischief, and laughter from long ago.

From there it was a short leap of thought to the Elements and how they’d entwined through both alicorn’s lives.

As the gust rolled over her Luna realized it was an even shorter leap into the open air, and Celestia was already two strokes ahead.

chapter sixteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter sixteen

The resounding slam of hooves on stone rattled the patrolling guards. Just as they steadied themselves at the surprise of seeing their princess, the aftershocks of Luna a moment startled them again. The two alicorns skipped and flitted along the parapets, flustered and giddy from their sudden burst of flight.

Celestia nuzzled Luna and touched her wings with her own. Luna met the gestures much in kind. It was a moment out of time, a simple joy from before royalty, before changelings, before nightmares and chaos, before even a whisper of the Elements had ever made themselves known.

Celestia stopped as they passed through an arch into their citadel and the intervening years crashed in upon them both like so many pieces of stained glass.

“Luna...” she began, but the uncommon fluster had turned her usual surety to nervousness. For the dark alicorn, it was a rare and strangely endearing thing to see.

It didn’t last. Before the last note of her false-start had even faded into silence Celestia began again, all trace of fallibility banished from herself. It was like a wall had been raised.

“Luna. I am glad you are back. Before anything else, I want you to know that. I was worried.”

So many times Luna had encountered it before. There were days she despaired that they were too different, too changed from the sisters they’d both been so long ago. She wondered if Celestia feared the same.

Conflict flickered across the white alicorn’s features as if she assaulted her side of the divide, trying to reconcile Celestia the reigning princess with Celestia the big sister. She didn’t smile, but the tension eased from her wings and her eyes softened.

Despite everything - or perhaps because of it - Luna smiled for her. She was tired of the worry and the strain. It all became so much simpler when she accepted that she just wanted to be close again, and the rest be damned.

A nondescript unicorn of the guard broke in on her thoughts. “Princess,” he began, shifting slightly as he added a belated plural, “Some of the journalists are already at the gate and more are showing up by the minute. What do you want us to do?”

“Leave them be for now.” Celestia stole a look to Luna. “They’ll be seen to in a moment. You may go.”

“As you wish,” the guard said, bowing deeply to each alicorn before departing.

“I’ll go to them, before their confusion becomes anything worse.” In a softer tone, one that, if not breaking the wall still managed to peek out over it, she added. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” A smile ghosted the white alicorn’s mouth.

Luna said nothing and looked away, her eyes closed for a moment’s thought.

‘Yes’ she said, because Celestia always managed the duties of royalty when Luna came up short. Luna would retire to the privacy of her chambers to rest, glad to have Celestia step in and solve her problems better than she could have. In short time she managed to find a fair solution to the changeling crisis that Luna had made for them all, and all the while the dark alicorn retreated further from contact, even her sister’s, no longer needed, Luna trying to convince herself it had been, as always, the sensible thing to do, but always the feelings festered, the resentment that refused to be dispelled, and sooner or later it boiled over and the power took hold of her and she’d know the full despair that not even the legendary powers of the Elements could truly save her from the seething darkness of the nightmare...

“No.” Her voice and body trembled as she buried her head in the warm shelter of her sister’s shoulder, enough so that she could feel her big sister stiffen with worry. “I started this. It should be me.”

Soft feathers fell upon her. “Are you sure? They’d...they’ll be uncertain. Maybe I should...” Luna sorely wanted Celestia to go on convincing them both that she was right, but it had to stop.

“I know. They’d rather see you. They always prefer to see you. Nopony trusts me like they trust you.” There was no upset in her voice, just honesty. “I can’t change that without trying to.” Luna gently pulled away and looked deep into the worried eyes of her sister. “I can’t keep being your shadow.”

Far in the distance of those beautiful eyes, something flickered with pain and understanding.

Luna instinctively began to take deep, steadying breaths as she readied herself to face the crowd a second time, all of them looking for answers that she didn’t have. She was not going to enjoy this.

Whatever wall there’d been lay forgotten as Celestia grabbed up Luna in a very undignified, but much needed, hug.

“I should...” Luna managed to wheeze as white legs wrapped around her the back of her neck.

“They can wait a bit longer,” Celestia said, squeezing Luna to her even more tightly.

Luna gave herself to the simple embrace. When she stopped struggling, it really was quite nice.

The changelings had been put up in a hotel. It was a fairly wealthy one, situated in one of those districts where the common pony in the street very assuredly believed themselves to be anything but suffering existence as ‘the common pony.’

As far as they went, the hotel probably had a lot going for it - not that the changelings cared. With the eye of a self-declared expert Chrysalis took it in at a glance, from the big shining chandelier above the carpet-lined staircases to the centrepiece fountain of the lobby. Chrysalis decided it was decent enough. She could hardly care less for pony aesthetics, but she’d never pass up an opportunity to rail on them, especially if those ponies were acutely aware of it.

Changelings were the only guests here now, if they could be called that. The royal guards had done something useful for once and barged in, cleared the startled occupants in the princess’ name, all but shoved the visiting enemies inside before taking up watching to see if they tried something.

Chrysalis had the penthouse, which was nice because it had the only doors in the building where she didn’t have to stoop and sidle to slip through them. As with all the occupied rooms, two poker-faced guards stood, staring attentively at nothingness.

The building catered for the exclusively well off, so there were too few rooms to accommodate all the changelings that had set out on this strange venture with their Queen. This would have been fine for the blinking, black-bodied little creatures, though even that wouldn’t be a concern. In the confusion of the night and the subsequent train ride the Queen of changelings had sent the word around and the majority had slipped away into anonymity. A changeling out of sight could get up to so much more that way, though they were to behave nicely, for now.

The magical uniforms that the guards insisted on wearing made changeling endeavours laughably easy; not one had been caught, nor had the ponies even been made aware how many had eluded their watchful gaze. More than likely they suspected something, a great many things even, but such was inconsequential as a huff of smoke.

All in all, Canterlot’s security was a joke. It’d been caught with its pants down, and when the matter involved the immense and intense Queen of changelings herself, the situation necessitated very large pants indeed. For now, their security had more holes than a changeling’s legs.

“I hope everything is alright!” the manager squeaked. At the insistence of the armoured ponies she had the misfortune to show the Queen around her room.

“What are you going to do if it isn’t?” Chrysalis demanded of the trembling mare. Her tightly-wound bun was rapidly losing ground to her even more tightly-wound nerves, and she peered frightfully out with wide eyes from wider rimmed glasses.

The menace to Chrysalis’ voice was for fun, the biggest part of which was not letting the building staff know how little of it she meant. The Queen of changelings had a reputation to nurture, after all.

The little unicorn was white, with a cutie mark of a cloud smiling. “We’ve never had this problem before,” she managed to squeak.

“Are you saying that I am a problem?” Chrysalis grinned and let her shiny fangs do the talking. They said: Of course we are. Go on. Say it. Dare you. They could be terribly eloquent, as teeth went.

They filled the unicorn’s gaze and made her pupils to pinpricks. “Nononono! I’m just...I’m just I’m just...” with a keening trill the sentence died and the pony fled, through the doors and past the guards.

As for the two trim guards, they were proving themselves made of tougher stuff. Of course, talc was made of tougher stuff than half of these ponies, and she’d hardly started with them at all. There were a great many ways she could knock them senseless and run havoc, or just subjugate their little pony minds. Had they forgotten she could do that?

Without a second thought, Chrysalis decided that she should. Tapering flames of translucent green crawled between their legs and up, under their chins. Even as each saw the magic grasping the other it was too late. One managed a strangled grunt before settling back into a lax stance, his eyes as heavy and unfocused as the other’s. Green light lurked in their irises.

“That’s better. Don’t you agree?”

“Do we?” they chorused with deathly - and deathly boring - monotone.

“Yes, you do. Come here.” They promptly did.

“Tell me, my little ponies, what the guards are doing?”

“Guarding.” Ah, right. That’s why she rarely used this spell. She got unquestioning servitude, sure, but that was just another way of saying mindless servitude. Chrysalis sighed. The green light spilling from their eyes shimmered patiently.

“Let’s try this again. What do you know of Luna?”

“She’s big.”

“Go on.” The Queen of changelings circled her prey, though a shark would have had more of a smile just then.

“She’s dark.”

"Does she look like a princess?”

They made no response, the magically enthralled equivalent of ‘what?’

“Knowing as you do that she is a princess, does she fit your idea of what that should be?”

“Yes.”

Chrysalis lunged towards the nearest, her mouth an inch from his. “So why don’t you treat her like a princess?” He didn’t twitch in the slightest, or even look at her.

“We do.”

“No you don’t! No you don’t.” Chrysalis paused. Why did she care? What did it matter to her how cared for her little moon was?

“Whatever, moving on. Where are most of the royal guards at?”

“Castle.”

“Why?”

“Castle.”

Chrysalis groaned. “Are there more of them there now, today, than usual, and if so, why?”

“Answers.”

She thought for a second. “Answers about what?”

“Changelings.” Fair enough.

“Answers about changelings for who?”

“Everyone.” It might just have been her imagination, but there was a strained undertone there, as if the subjugated minds of these two were anxious to stress the point.

“She’s really taken us all for a spin, hasn’t she?” Chrysalis muttered. “Don’t reply to that,” she hastily added.

It was more or less what she’d expected; Canterlot was clueless. They’d hardly known Luna had even gone, then suddenly she returned, changelings in tow. There was a lot an ambitious Queen could make of the situation, but she didn’t know enough to make a committed move. Not yet.

One of the guards blinked. Chrysalis offhandedly reinstated the spell. This one never lasted long, especially against anything with a stronger will. A thought struck her and she grinned.

“Do I scare you?”

“Yes.”

“Does Luna scare you?”

“Yes.”

“Who scares you more?”

If before unresponsiveness had meant one thing, now it said, somehow quite clearly: ‘we’d really rather not say.’

“Oh?” she said coyly. “And how else do you feel for her? She’s tall, and dark, and strange.” Placing her hoof to one’s chin, she gently shook his unresisting jaw around. “Of course, I’m taller, and darker, and stranger. What does that say, hmm?” Her tail whiplashed the air between the two and she laughed.

They didn’t, and their silence gutted Chrysalis’ noise.

“Go on, laugh. It’s alright. It’s funny.”

“No, it is not,” they chorused back tonelessly.

Growling, the Queen of changelings whirled away from them and strided to the windows. The big, wide windows. She flung them open with her magic, and indeed the curtains billowed exactly as she imagined they would. Some things just know how to do drama right.

“Go back to guarding the door. Forget about coming in here. Forget about everything I said. Forget that I’m leaving now, and don’t notice when I get back. I’ll have been here the whole time. Got it?”

“Yes.” As if both ponies were extensions of one simple machination, they turned on the spot and marched back to their places.

“It was funny,” she muttered darkly, hesitating only as her wings unfurled and stretched, flapping a few warm up beats.

Chrysalis, the Queen of changelings, looked at what she was doing, and smiled. “This is really becoming a thing, isn’t it?”

On that note, she leapt and ascended quickly into the morning sky.

What pegasi abounded had rushed on to the castle grounds, so Chrysalis had an easy time of gaining altitude without being seen. There didn’t seem to be that many of the winged ponies in Canterlot anyway outside of armour, an observation she made note of. Her’s was the flight of a moth, bobbing up and down on huge sweeping strokes of her wings, her body slung beneath the pair of them. She had no invisibility spell, nor anything of the mysterious sort Luna had called upon during their travel together, but the Queen was confident that she could evade detection.

As an added measure all the same she set herself to the flame of her people. Where Chrysalis had rode the wind a blond, gray mare flitted uneasily.

Changing down to such a small size always left her dazed for a moment - not a prospect the Queen enjoyed when high above the city. She focused solely on flying in the intervening seconds, letting her body adjust and her eyes refocus in their own time. Blinking them back together, she glided down to the edge of the crowd.

There was no surprise for her that the crowd of journalists and onlookers had swelled and was in full swing. They weren’t yet shoving at the guards, but ambled in a sort of restless way. It wasn’t happening, yet, but it could certainly be improvised readily enough.

What was surprising for the Queen - whom despite all historical evidence liked to think she didn’t get caught by such a thing - was that it was Luna, not vaunted Celestia, that stepped forth from the balcony to address the growing throng.

They might have cheered for Celestia, or they might of clamoured for her words and leadership. The silence that fell in their stead was eerie. Ponies, even Luna, especially Luna, could have heard a pin drop, except they couldn’t, not with their hearts pounding in their ears. It was a deafening silence, enough so that it unsettled even Chrysalis.

She watched, just another pony in the press, as Luna looked to her subjects, then to her place on the balcony.

The silence broke, all at once. It was a ride in madness like Chrysalis had never seen in changelings. They might have been called the swarm, at times, but these ponies swarmed, to the last, clamouring over one another, flashing their magic boxes by the dozens.

She was far enough back that the Queen, in form of gray and blonde, couldn’t hear anything clearly. Even so, she wondered how Luna managed to grasp any question from the roiling surge. When she started speaking and the other voices died down, Chrysalis realized she hadn’t, maybe couldn’t.

Luna was just telling a story. Her story. Their story.

She wasn’t very good at it. She stumbled over parts, and omitted the private and irrelevant. She said things, then struggled to explain what the reason behind them had been, because the truth was that she’d done a lot of things and only tried to figure out a reason after the fact. They listened all the more closely for her failings in the telling.

So it was told to the crowd at large that, for reasons she didn’t go into, Luna had sought out the changelings. She’d been at the mercy of the Queen whom, for reasons neither quite comprehended, hadn’t been entirely unwelcoming.

It ended with them here, in Canterlot, testing the waters of an idea that no one had seen before, one that had only presented itself after intrigue and cruelty and consideration. Communication with the changelings. Peace with the changelings.

Chrysalis eyed the ponies around her, inconspicuous in her observation. She never could get used to being of an equal size, in the immediate sense it meant she couldn’t see how many, if any, of her own had planted themselves into the gathering. A changeling could usually spot another, regardless of appearance, but circumstance made it a bit futile to try now. There were just too many ponies.

Silence retook its familiar throne as Luna’s words echoed through their thoughts. She hadn’t said anything actually hostile about the Queen, though it’d been apparent to Chrysalis how the princess had struggled to find something to say about her. Managing to put the Queen of changelings in a decent light while still being genuinely honest was quite the challenge. It was kind of cute, really, for her to have gone through the effort.

The ponies were silent. For a moment it all seemed that somehow, this would work out. Then they remembered, more or less at once, that they weren’t just ponies - they were journalists, reporters, and gossips to the last.

‘Uproar’ didn’t have enough up, or enough roar, to describe the moment. It hit Luna hardest of all, from the back Chrysalis could still easily see how the mare recoiled from the auditory assault. There were too many words to make sense of any. The tones, however, ran together in a swirl of anxiety and inquisition. Some - and these were fewest, but loudest - ran with unadulterated menace and fear.

Somepony flung a mouldering fruit at the princess. Where mobs get these from has never been adequately explained.

The rotten piece flew true, but rather than strike Luna it halted a breadth away from her and was reduced to ashes in a flash of blackness.

“Enough!” Luna shouted, her voice a tsunami that crashed over the clamour of a hundred other ripples. Their echoes died away, syllables that sounded suspiciously like a name all together longer than Luna’s, and filled with accusation.

“I am not Nightmare Moon,” she said with terrible calm. The dark princess hesitated for words that wouldn’t present themselves. “She is not me,” she managed. “There’s...she...she would never have tried to explain herself to you. I am not Nightmare Moon,” she reiterated more forcefully.

In the depths of Chrysalis’ magic, the power inherent in the jewels tickled at the edge of her awareness.

“Nor am I Celestia. You trust her and love her. As do I. She deserves these things more than you know. But I’m not her. I’m not asking for your trust, or your love. But if you are going to look at me and what I do, make up your mind for what you see of me and none other. My name is Luna, I am your princess, and I am nobody’s shadow.” The magic boxes flashed with renewed vigour, while the excised pieces of Luna squirmed incessantly, chafing at the Queen’s firm grasp over them. She couldn’t slacken that grip to air them, not here, not now, especially not in this form.

The crowd erupted once more. “What are you going to do about the changelings?” a strong voice cried out.

Luna spoke gravely. “I am going to talk to them. And listen, and give them a chance.”

Aww, little moon, that’s touching, Chrysalis thought, her snideness not entirely hiding the truth that the sentiment was real. Luna turned to withdraw, and as she did so too did Chrysalis, unsettled as she was by maintaining her deception whilst quashing the riled up powers she’d taken charge over. In short, she’d seen enough.

Chrysalis slipped away, returning to her true form only as the windows loomed. The curtains billowed all the while, even though there didn’t seem to be enough wind for it. The guards on her door, now returned to themselves still conceded a brief walk around the hallways, that the Queen might check in to see her changelings were alright. Mostly what she had with her were the young - too much so to be of any use other than as showpieces - their carers, and a few extras in case they were needed, and to take turns at minding.

It was mostly an excuse to walk and wonder over what she’d seen. As room after room passed by, to the last her changelings were being treated fairly, if stiffly, another concern niggled at her thoughts. Though this one had nothing of spooky powers in it, it was no less unsettling.

Changelings were good at slipping away, there was no denying that. Surely, it was a point of pride with Chrysalis. Never before had she had to face the prospect of a changeling slipping away from other changelings. As she returned to her penthouse, the Queen was in a thoroughly bad and thoughtful mood.

Her attendant was not to have left with the others. She’d been specific with Surreal, and the defiant little changeling had gone and defied her. If it wasn't so unthinkable, she probably should have seen it coming.

The Queen of changelings lay back on her overly cushioned bed. With an easy flash of magic the strange byproducts of that terrible, fascinating first night surged into existence once more. She tried to ease into the too-soft blankets while watching the jewels dance their slow waltz above her.

“As if things weren’t interesting enough already,” she mused.

For their part, the bobbing and weaving colours of magic said nothing.

chapter seventeen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter seventeen

Luna entered her private chambers with the sort of shaky relief akin to when the big needle is finally pulled out after a blood donation. She’d managed the worst, certainly feeling drained for her efforts, and definitely looked paler than usual. It had been fortunate that the crowd had not shifted across that discreet line into a mob; none of them had become violent. Even more fortunate - because it had been all the more likely - neither had Luna lashed out.

Her chambers were spacious. Quiet and away from the busier quarters, she was thankful for the reprieve. Luna sometimes wondered if her sister had always intended these rooms for her, but had never had the nerve to ask. Like so many other things, such a topic rested in the uncomfortable range of matters that were too close and yet too far for both of them.

She opened the doors only to get a torpedo of black and brown fluff in the face.

The culprit of such savagery was Cruithne, who mauled the princess with eager cuddles and yips of excitement. Luna toppled right over backwards, skidding across the polished stonework of the floor into the opposite wall. Happy barks filled the halls.

It should not be possible for a creature that was soft, friendly, and stood barely at knee height against Luna to manage such a feat, but always has it been the prerogative of dogs everywhere to substitute enthusiasm and excitement for physical attributes like velocity and mass.

Compounded by a week of anxious waiting, the poor animal had been wound up to a level of anxious tension only usually found in clockwork siege engines. Another few days and the dog very well might have exploded from the strain. Twice.

Luna certainly felt as if she was suffering a doggy detonation anyway. She couldn’t see for the hairy face or hear for the keening yelps, whichever way she turned her head there was the tongue, eager to lavish her with the saliva of love.

She managed to shove Cruithne aside with a friendly push and stood, the dog barely touching the ground as she danced through Luna’s legs.

“Yes, yes. I’ve missed you too.” In her excitement Cruithne jumped up on the bed only to jump down again, only to go back up, mess up the leap and fall in a fluffy heap that wriggled to right itself.

It’d been a surprise to the resident ponies when the chocolate-eyed little puppy had first arrived, and set upon the castle with gleeful, innocent havoc. Yes, Celestia’s own companion was well known to be keen on mischief, but a phoenix was just that; a resplendent and noble creature for a resplendent and noble princess.

There was a look to the thing that the masses could really approve of. A sort of thematic style. They’d assumed that it would be right and natural for Luna to follow similar vein of thought.

She’d got a dog. Just a dog. Even if Cruithne could be very expressive with tufty eyebrows which, on close inspection, didn’t actually exist, that was hardly worth raising an eyebrow of one’s own over.

What kind of companion was that for a princess? That was what they would have said, not Luna. She’d never really gave a damn for anypony else’s opinion on the thing. They weren’t the ones getting the animal, and she wasn’t going in for the image. Beyond that, she shouldn’t have cared.

All the same, Celestia’s full-hearted approval had bolstered Luna’s flagging confidence and she’d kept to her stance on the matter.

The suggestion that she give Cruithne away in favour of a dark and mysterious bat, being ‘so much more fitting for one such as yourself’ had been put to her once. Only once. Retellings had blown the story of her reaction out of proportion, but suffice to say nopony would bring it up a second time.

All Luna wanted, she realized, right now, was a simple walk in the quieter corners of the garden. Of course, whichever corners Cruithne visited ceased to be such, but that only added to the appeal. The dog’s simple, unapologetic joy had a terminally infectious quality, and Luna smiled.

The gardens were a regular haunt of the well to do, but such ponies favoured the evening, and rarely then without making a big show and dance about organizing it into a soiree of some sort or other. For the moment, Luna was the only pony amidst the hedges and flower beds.

Magic made a leash redundant, but even at that she always let her pet roam as they walked. Cruithne only wandered away to get Luna to pay her attention - like a small astral body her orbit of the princess was erratic, but invariably centred around her all the same.

Cruithne bounded around a corner, barking furiously at something. She was a great fluffy coward, but was always compelled to put on the show of it; she sulked terribly when something ignored her display.

Putting a bit of bounce to her step, Luna followed after.

“It’s just a squir-” but it wasn’t. Not at all was it a squirrel, though the names were similar.

A pony the pink of carnations with soft, magenta eyes shied away from Cruithne, turning a hopeful, fearful eye to Luna.

“Hi. Is he going to hurt me?” she asked, nudging a gesture towards the germane shepherd.

“She. And no. Just pet her.” Surreal hesitated, glanced once more to the dark alicorn, then tentatively reached out a hoof. The tail wagged, saying: I am your friend forever now. Yes!

Once she thought about it, it wasn’t that surprising that changelings would be skulking around, keeping an eye on things for their Queen. The same couldn’t be said for Surreal so easily. She was...different. “What are you doing here?”

She hesitated like one genuinely trying to come up with reasons for their actions.

“Sneaking?”

“You’re not doing it very well,” Luna said a touch sharply.

The false-pony’s brow creased. “I’m, uh, spying on you. Yes. You. For my Queen.”

Luna didn’t know what to think. She’d already woken up with the changeling overhead, and that had been more than enough for one day. “Well then. You’re a bit forwards for a spy. The point is that I don’t know you are doing it. Go before I take you in.” She probably would have made the offer to any changeling, seeing as she hardly needed paranoia to run rife, but sympathy for the strange little changeling made it a certainty here.

“Wait. You can come find me. Where I stay.”

“Why would I do that?”

Surreal firmly pushed the dog’s affections away and strode closer. “Because...” again her brow furrowed, “because I can talk to you and to my Queen. You, I mean she, she could use a line of communication that Celestia won’t get her eyes and ears into.”

The apparent pony beamed with satisfaction. Luna had to admit it, it was a good reason. This was her endeavour after all.

Luna smiled. “Alright then. I shall consider it. I’m sure you’ll be glad to see me more, you seem quite attached to me.”

The princess’ attempt at banter had anything but the intended result. Surreal pulled away as if threatened and trembled. “Attached? No! Nobody’s attached. No! I...I...” A dull glaze crawled across the magenta eyes and the changeling stilled, unspeaking.

Cruithne whined and nudged at Surreal. After a moment, the changeling blinked, and seeing the dog, pulled away.

“Is...is he going to hurt me?”

The hotel was erupting with panic. Or at least, the manager of it was. She had quite enough panic to go around. Two guards had come to escort the Queen of changelings, but her penthouse was empty.

The quivering mare wailed an undulating note of woe. The nearest guard shooed her away with a grunt; all the while she moaned. “We’ll all be ravished in our sleep!” she cried.

If panic was contagious, the manager had the sort found in the pits of deep jungles. Nopony needed to say that Chrysalis needed to be found before it spread. Their swift, methodical actions belied nothing of their mounting worry, as it grew so too did the loud slams of each door on each hall.

“Spread the word. Nopony in, nopony out. Not ‘til she’s found,” one snarled as he passed another by the flight of stairs. This could be it, the moment when it all came apart. When diplomacy failed and the higher-ups stopped dithering, when the guards could take out their grudge, dust it off, polish it up and seriously prod buttock. They could feel it in the air - how they acted here could decide the coming battle.

It was all a bit anti-climactic when they actually found her. She was reclined on a big couch.

“What?” she asked testily. The other changelings lazing about the room stilled and blinked at the intruders reproachfully. Nobody likes a slammed door.

The guard who’d lead the charge found himself more and more alone by the second. In a way that didn’t actually involve motion, the ponies behind him seemed to sidle away. A fly in a web had more freedom than the guard did in Chrysalis’ gaze.

“Er...” he began. Guards don’t usually say much, but they’re normally a rather succinct breed. There’s really not many ways to mix up words when the entirety of them are ‘Stop, you!’

All the same, a few ready-made shouts had lined up, eager to make a name for themselves. Every guard in his crusty heart wants to the opportunity for a one-liner, if just once.

Yet on the heels of an impatient yet entirely reasonable ‘what?’ something like ‘time for a change!’ lacked a certain essential something.

All eyes were on the hapless guard, but his own had caught his comrade in the corner of his gaze, whom made a nigh imperceptible gesture, one that said: I know that feeling. So close. Next time.

It was even a pretty good one-liner, for something thought up between bounding strides and stairs taken three at a time. All that effort, wasted. He grunted.

“You’re not to leave your rooms,” he said.

“Oh? I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. Hate to cause you any trouble.” There was a certain kind of perverse honesty in the openness of her sickeningly sweetly spoken lies.

The guard huffed. “And you’re to go to the castle. The princess demands an audience.”

Chrysalis stood and stretched, grinning all the while as the impetulant guard eyeballed her. Some of her actions were for show, but the truth was that she had a lot of body to stand up and lot of it to stretch. She might’ve lived in a hole in the ground, but this silly pony building brought confined spaces to a whole new level.

She made up for it with the fun of keeping her supposed watchers on edge. If one of them went and did something irrevocably foolish, well, that was just another angle to exploit. Ponies held themselves in such a vaunted perspective.

“Settle down. I can take myself there, I know the way. If it spares your egos a bit, I’ll let you follow me and we’ll all just pretend you’re in charge. We’re good at pretend.” Chrysalis flashed her fangs at them.

In a voice no softer, yet more compassionate, she turned to her own. “Keep an eye out.” Chrysalis thought for a moment. “If it all gets a bit excitable: explosions, flashes, that kind of thing, come find me.”

Nopony laughed. No changeling blinked.

“Oh come on, that was funny,” she grumbled. All eyes, those with pupils and those without silently refuted her words. Chrysalis sighed. “Let’s just go then.”

They were at the far end of the hall when the door to the stairwell presented itself, and Chrysalis hesitated. A guard sniggered at her plight.

She didn’t see which one, but let it slide. Truth be told, she was amused with the sound. They had her alone now, away from her subjects, which in their little heads probably meant a good thing. What it actually meant was that the Queen of changelings had less collateral to worry about, and therefore fewer compunctions. She outnumbered them one to four.

With a healthy cackle she flung back her head and burst into flame. Magic and wind whooshed over her in emerald fire. A change didn’t have to be so dramatic, but the way her escorts startled made it so much more satisfying.

As before, the drastic change in size left Chrysalis momentarily dazed and her eyes out of mutual focus. She felt the hoof touching her before she saw it, but even that was too much.

A grim and grizzled guard glared. As she met his gaze her eyes slowly drifted back together into focus. All traces of humours withered and died. The ghosts of her fangs had settled in her eyes, and they stabbed at the guard ponies’ resolve. The other’s looked on in their uncertainty.

“Take your hoof off of me,” she said with an icy edge, made all the more eerie by the new voice accompanying her changed form. “Unless you want everybody in Canterlot to see how good you actually are at restraining me. How many ponies out there are just desperate to find out where you’ve hidden us?” Slowly, definitely, the hoof fell away from her newly gray flank. A nasty snort was as close to an admission of defeat as she was going to get. It was all Chrysalis needed.

They closed around her reduced body, yet keept their distance as if she hadn't changed at all. It would look strange to passersbys, but not half so much so as the Queen of changelings sauntering around the city streets. It was a good form for anonymity. Gray and blonde - colours more tempered than most ponies, yet not really muted. Chrysalis preferred wings to horn in disguise, if she had to choose at all. Mobility could be much more reliable than magic in so many ways. Besides, not many saw her magic, and what few did tended to not remember it.

Though she’d let these ones keep the memory. As they entered the empty gardens the gray pony whirled about without warning, incinerated in place in a whirlwind of flame. Chrysalis hoisted each of the ponies into the air in her magic, smiling as they struggled in futility against the tethers of translucent green fire.

She meant to shake them up a bit, that’d teach them for sniggering, but a hitherto unconsidered thought presented itself.

She drew the most frightened of the lot closer, and uttered two words the young guard would never forget. “Which princess?”

He gulped. “Luna.”

Chrysalis nodded to herself, and distracted from her moment released the guards.

Which princess, she thought, the words playing across her mind. That kind of thing was important. She could see it leading into some nasty miscommunications if she didn’t keep it in mind. And of course, the Queen of changelings wouldn’t want to foster misunderstandings.

The guards hadn’t left, though she’d half expected them to have. “Go...guard something. That’s what you do,” she said distractedly.

“You’ll get yours,” the older guard muttered as they took up positions at the edge of the greenery.

She smiled for him. “You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

chapter eighteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter eighteen

Chrysalis didn’t find Luna under ominous - or even auspicious - circumstances. The sun was creeping higher in the sky, and its warmth shone down upon the two dark beings. Birds sang in the trees, at least until the Queen of changelings startled them from their perches, sending all the coloured feathers squawking away. There were bushes and shrubs and all sorts of flowers. Even Chrysalis could recognize the humble buttercup. She trod it underhoof.

The Queen took it as a good sign that Luna hadn’t waited on the stroke of midnight of a stormy night this kind of clandestine meeting; things were moving much too quickly to wait on style. Drama be damned.

For once, the warmth and light seemed to have eased Luna from her usual, surly manner. It didn’t mean she was happy, but at least she wasn’t glowering at the world in general.

Chrysalis wandered over to the flowerbeds. She looked at the vivid colours as she waited, then waited more. Flowers, and these were probably nice ones, couldn’t keep her interest for long.

“Well? You asked for me. Do you have something to say, or did you just want to see me?”

Luna grimaced. “Strange you should say such a thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I had a talk with one of yours. Truth be told, she came to have a talk with me. I think you know who I mean.”

Chrysalis’s eyes narrowed. “Surreal,” the Queen growled. She knew it’d be her, of course it would be, but she had to be certain. She gently cupped a soft pink flower in her hoof and stared into it.

Luna nodded. “She had certain ideas, but seems a bit confused. She seems to think she can be a messenger between us.”

Chrysalis snorted with humour black as her hide. “No. She just wants a reason. She needs justification for her actions. Anything that’ll obscure the truth.” Power crackled through the Queen’s hoof. Petal by petal the flower disintegrated, and from there the tainted touch spread to stem and stalk, withering as it went.

A flash of Luna’s magic stymied the damage with a timely cut. Dying flowers fell, but the whole would survive, if tended. “What is the truth, Chrysalis? I can appreciate the irony that I must ask it of you.”

Only then did Chrysalis turn on the princess. “It has nothing to do with you.”

Luna’s jaw set a hard line. “I think your lost little changeling would say otherwise.”

“Do you have her? Do you know where she is?”

Voices were rising. “You're not answering my question.”

“Trust me, I noticed,” the Queen snapped back. She steadied herself, but it was the calm of banked anger. “Do you have her or not?”

What followed could have been called lot’s of dramatic things, but it was essentially a staring contest. Luna looked away first.

“No. I don’t. Nor do I know where she went. I do not think I would give her up to you were it otherwise.”

“Don’t play games with me Luna,” Chrysalis growled. “You don’t understand.”

The dark princess flared her wings. “I have never made a game of this, unlike you! And no, I do not understand. So tell me the truth! Have you forgotten where you are? I called for you, remember. Things have changed.”

Chrysalis reared back, barking out a humourless laugh. “And who would know better of change than a changeling?” Without warning she dropped back to her hooves, almost listless in her stance. “Fine. You want to know so badly? Surreal isn’t well. She’s sick.”

“She hardly seemed ill.”

Chrysalis lunged into Luna’s personal space, or lack of it. “And you would so obviously know about what it means to be a changeling! I’ll sit here and you can tell me how wrong I am, because surely you know more about it than I do! She’s sick, and whatever she might say, keeping her from me is the worst thing you could do for her. It is hurting her.” Luna winced. Chrysalis snarled.

“That’s right. Hurting her. If she wants you to find her, than she will make sure that you will. Have you considered that in all of this city you might be the only pony that might actually care what happens to her?” Chrysalis paused, only to relent and breath. She looked into the distance, past Luna, staring at nothing in particular. “It’s funny, really. So funny I could cry. Now. Was there anything else to this little get together, or can I leave your presence, oh gracious princess?” She turned to go, but even that simple motion reflected a certain, deep set exhaustion.

Luna had only silence. The intensity to Chrysalis’ emotion stunned her.

“No. No, there is not,” she managed at last. the Queen of changelings snorted and flicked her tail.

“Good. You know where you can reach me, and rest assured that if I want to get to you, I can, guards be damned. I’m sure dearest sister of yours is more than anxious try me as well. And you know what? I wouldn’t mind blasting her a second time. I just might.”

She took a few steps to leave, leaving Luna to mull over her words before stopping. “Nice speech, by the way. I especially liked what you did with that fruit.” The breeze blew up the ashes of the flowers, which swirled around them both, filling the air with the scents of sweetness and burning.

The Royal Canterlot Gardens were always bigger than ponies expected them to be. This was alright, because Chrysalis wasn’t a pony, and she was also much bigger than could be expected. She could fly, but meandering through the empty pathways gave her more time to bank her anger and think.

The gasp of a startled pony broke her from her reverie. A flick of her horn that was hardly worth the effort muted the voice and numbed the mind behind it, but rather than play a bit with her sudden toy, the Queen of changelings merely blinded the pony and her memory to the moment and passed by. Her heart just wasn’t in it.

Surreal, she groaned within the confines of her own head, spitting it across her thoughts like a curse. She tried to think, but her ideas circled one another with infuriating aimlessness. She needed to rest on it, and feed. A proper, healthy feeding, from proper, healthy ponies. She could stop leeching from the suspect jewels and their half demented alicorn entirely. Once she caught Surreal, she could beat the sense into her to do the same.

Thinking along such lines, Chrysalis walked headlong into the ambush. Her eyes narrowed, and she bore her fangs. She took a step back, glancing about through the corners of her eyes for a way out. There wasn’t any.

Several ponies stood arrayed before her, made one in their intent. The guards watched her with eyes hard and cold as their armour.

With a unicorn to each side, Shining Armour glared murder.

Chrysalis’ mouth twisted to a snarl. “Hello, lover.” She could feel magic at work, sustained by the unicorns. The Queen tried to change their minds, only to meet resolute resistance to her spell.

“We’ve had time to learn a thing or two, monster.”

“Are you still upset about that whole thing? It was nothing personal. You’re hardly that interesting.” She let loose a nasty little cackle.

“This madness ends here. Take her down.”

She met the first charging earth pony with a punch that sent him tumbling away, only to have a pegasus grasp at her throat. Another earth pony tackled her flank, knocking her legs from under her. Her windpipe burning for air, Chrysalis pummelled at the pegasus’ chest, her blows denting the solid metal, but for her fury it didn’t give way and the pegasus held on.

Her back leg shot out, tripping a unicorn and smashing into the shoulder of another. Their minds might have been protected, but what about their bodies? Green fire entrapped the staggered unicorn, whipping him around in a wide sweep that sent the other ponies sprawling before being driven into the pegasus at her neck. With a shout of surprise and a heavy impact he was swatted away. Chrysalis flung the wild eyed unicorn away, roaring with challenge as she regained her footing.

She barely had caught her next breath when the furious Shining Armour collided headlong into her, sending the huge changeling backwards head over hooves. They tumbled, and he came out on top. Magic burned her eyes as Chrysalis snarled.

Yelling and blind, the Queen threw a wild haymaker at the captain, but he caught her strike with his leg and drove the other into her face with a resounding crack. He reared back to slam both forelegs down together, only to miss as she dodged out of the way.

Following through on the motion, Chrysalis bashed at his face with hers, unbalancing Shining Armour enough to get her hooves up and under his chest. With a shove she managed to launch him away.

The captain landed neatly on his hooves while she tried to stand, but ponies grappled with her limbs and grasped at her head and throat. The Queen shrieked as she let loose a reckless surge of magic that knocked them from her, yet even as the green light filled her vision another flash of magic slammed into her.

“There’s a cell in Tartarus with your name on it!” Shining Armour shouted. Chrysalis spat defiance, and another surge crashed into her.

“Give up, parasite!” Blinded a second time, she swung at the nothingness before her eyes, hitting nothing.

A kick to the side of her head dazed Chrysalis. Shining armour pressed his hoof down hard into her temple, amping up the pressure until it felt as if her skull would crack and cave, and all the while her vision was blurry and filled with stars.

Of course, what were stars without the night?

What before had seemed like nothingness was blazing brilliance compared to what came next. A tide of tangible darkness that coursed through them, pony and changeling alike, carrying Shining Armour away from the Queen. Thick tendrils of writhing blackness chained him to the dirt, which he struggled against vainly. Chrysalis tried to stand only to find that the same power held her in its immutable grip, as it did every one of the guards, pinning them all.

“Enough of this! Stand down, Shining Armour.” The unicorn shouted something wordlessly venomous. The constricticons visibly tightened against him, and he gasped for breath.

“Calm yourself, captain, or I will do it for you. Stop fighting! Submit!” The voice brooked no argument, but even as the unicorn slackened his struggles his eyes went to pinpricks and his flesh paled.

Luna stalked through the stricken like the shadow of death. When she strode into Chrysalis’ line of sight, even the Queen stilled with fear.

Like a change spell gone horribly awry, the princess was aflame, burning with patches of midnight blue and black that ate away at her form. As Chrysalis watched, one eye was eaten away in the magic, slowly remade as the dark touch passed through it. Luna’s voice resonated with strange undertones, like two voices speaking as one.

“What is the meaning of this?” The Queen couldn’t meet the gaze of one hale eye, one tainted. "Shining, whose authority are you acting on? Has Celestia ordered this action?” Luna’s dark mane, usually calm and placid, frayed and melded together only to fray again.

“Speak, now!”

“No. Not hers. Mine.” the captain managed to say, mesmerized in fear. It was like watching a nightmare strive into being.

“You do not have that authority! The Queen of changelins is under my royal protection. Your attack on her is an attack on me. Or have you forgotten that there is more than precious Celestia above you now?"

Silence fell upon them.

“Go. Now. All of you, and you may yet have jobs to return to. Shining Armour, I will not be merciful again.” The bindings of blackness over the ponies broke and crumbled into nothingness. The ponies hastened upright to leave, content to leave Chrysalis to Luna’s mercy. All but Shining.

“Princess, with all due respect, look at yourself,” he pleaded. Luna raised one smouldering hoof to her eye - the one that wasn’t slitted - and went silent. Silence, unmoving, only breathing. As Luna shut her eyes the dark flames began to reverse their course across her body, undoing what had been done.

The princess shuddered and was herself once more. “I am...I am in control, captain. Now go. Do not press my patience again. Until such time as you are ordered to apprehend her, the changeling’s treachery is my problem.”

The unicorn nodded stiffly and made to leave. “This isn’t over.” Luna ignored the comment.

The princess towered over the Queen. “I may yet give that order, Chrysalis.” The grasping emptiness snapped, and Luna offered her hoof to the fallen Queen, who accepted it to stand. From the twinges in her flesh and cracks in her hide, she felt that she’d not only gotten the short of the stick, but had been vigorously beaten with it.

“What was that about?” she asked the Queen asked through a grimace.

Whether by intent or not, Luna misheard the question. “Of anypony, Shinging Armour has the most cause to bear a grudge against you.” Luna scowled. “Nor do I think his anger misplaced. Such is a consequence of your actions to deal with.

Chrysalis laughed, even though it ached to do so. “That’s rich coming from you, little moon.” The Queen worked the kinks from her neck. “You know, I could almost say I needed that bit of fun. It’s really whet my appetite.”

Luna said nothing, opting instead to flare her wings and lift off. “Tread carefully, Chrysalis. Shining was right; this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Tomorrow will bring more than enough trouble for us both. I suggest you consider your position carefully before we have this conversation again.”

On that note the princess beat her wide wings and left. After a moment, a disheveled gray pegasus flew out also.

chapter nineteen

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter nineteen

Luna understood that silence was more than the absence of sound. It had nuances entirely its own. It could be the inquisition that asked for everything mere words couldn’t, and the tranquility when nothing need be said at all. There were as many types of silence as there were rain, and Luna had reflected upon both in the long hours of the night.

Celestia ensured neither intruded on their dinner. Beyond the towering windows the sun glided softly unto the horizon, filling the dining hall with a golden glow. It was a daily ritual that Celestia had begun with earnest soon after her return from the nightmare, and what had been at first apprehensive for Luna had become routine. Now she found the feeling old and withered, not worth noting against the warmer appreciation she held in her chest.

The princess of day had been both gentle and adamant in making this time their own. Short of a crisis, the sisters were not to be disturbed for anything, nor did she allow unhappy matters to pollute the atmosphere between them. Servants only came as called, and at that were expedient to leave. The princesses were about as alone - and together - as they could be.

Luna followed her sister’s talk with half an ear. Like so many things upon her return from banishment, she had found Celestia’s fondness for small talk alarming, then with time it had become familiar, even reassuring. It kept her from withdrawing into the depths of her own concerns for a time.

They sat at opposite ends of a long table. It made up for its scarcity of ponies and dishes with a rich, flowing cloth and an abundance of decorative silverware. It was as much old habit as even older formality that kept Luna to this seat, indeed, there were evenings where she knew in her bones that both could be damned, that she and her sister could sit together like they weren’t princesses at all. Celestia always had a sly, teasing humour to her words, but the distance across the woodwork was vast, and stretched the sneaky jokes and innuendoes out of shape. Some things just had to be expressed with a nudge and wink, and nothing else would do.

Luna frowned as an internal struggle ran its course, and Celestia cut short on her latest little anecdote, probably worried she’d said something wrong. “...Luna. Luna?”

The dark princess broke free from her expression, settling into a small, silly little smile as she levitated her seat and the dishes of her meal to be set back up halfway down the table. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d usually do, and it felt like a victory. Luna could have pondered whether to see it as an uncommon break from her norm for being a victory, or a victory for being an uncommon from her norm, but gave no thought it on either account. Here she was, and there was Celestia, and suddenly she knew what she wanted and it was a simple matter to go and make it happen.

Part of Luna still pleaded of how unsure it was, but right now that part wasn’t holding the reins. Something had shaken loose in her, and it felt - dare she think it - good. She bit through a tomato with a prideful, vengeful chomp of satisfaction.

Celestia met Luna halfway, smiling in a bemused kind of way. She watched as another tomato met its grisly demise, only to have another red orb lifted for sacrifice. It was enough of a show to distract the white alicorn from her own meal.

Luna ate as if she hadn’t done so for a week. She thought that, yes, that was nearly the case, but she had never been very particular to food. One just had to look at the sisters to see the secret of which one smuggled extra desserts to her chambers.

She stopped to breathe only after her lettuce had been shredded and consumed. She huffed out a sigh, knocked back a glass of ice water, cubes and all, then tore into the alfalfa as if it had personally offended her.

“Luna, are you feeling well?” Celestia’s tone was still light and airy, even playful, but perched on a high ledge. It wouldn’t take too much to tip it over. Luna was determined not to. This wasn’t always the case, especially when her more mercurial moods took her, but starting now she felt determined to master herself.

And so, the dark alicorn princess of the night applied her impressive will, with utter seriousness, to relaxing and loosening up. Just the thought of being serious about that was enough to do the the trick, she couldn’t help but smile knowingly to herself. She felt very clever indeed.

“I am alright, so do not worry. A word of advice if you are to visit changelings: bring your own food.” Espying her sister biting into a dainty little cake, she wiggled in her seat and went on. “Especially you, I know how you love it so.”

The cake paused mid-flight as Celestia looked to her, than to it, then back to her. Luna teased it away with her magic, stealing it for herself. Celestia blinked helplessly, then a second time for good measure.

“Did you...did you just make a joke. About me?”

Luna hesitated, and it suddenly hit her that she was so close to her sister. For all the times they’d ever sat here together, this was the first time she could reach out and pinch from Celestia’s plate. She just had. The realization of it hit her, and hit her hard. This was her sister, princess Celestia. Her sister. Princess Celestia. Her sister. Princess Celestia.

Then Celestia beamed and hugged Luna like they’d just learned to fly, asphyxiating her in poofy whiteness. It ended as quickly, but the laughter of both echoed like fine music across the grand hall. Luna felt like she had when she’d ascended through the thorns, but all she could think was why have I not done this sooner?

Her sister loved humour, she’d always known this. Luna put up with it, sometimes poorly. Yet never in the ups and downs had she thought, like with this uselessly long table, to meet her halfway with it. It made her feel strangely selfish. After all, she had known how much it mattered to her sister to play in wit and mischief.

Laughter had been one of her elements. Luna shooed the thought away as if it were an annoying little bird. It could do nothing more to her than chirp, after all.

Celestia went on smiling. “I’m surprised, Luna. Of all the times for such a thing, especially about them...it’s not what I expected.” The white alicorn bit into a cake as if sad to see it go.

Luna might have said: Oh, and pray thee tell, what did you expect? She might have said: Well then, perhaps you do not know me as well as you would wish to. She might have said: I’m fine. Any and all of them were more than possible, they were likely and in accordance with Luna.

What she actually said - after the stolen cake was maimed - was this: “It’s alright. I think I would even like to speak of recent events, it would do us both good.” A white wing draped over Luna as Celestia leaned against her.

“Are you sure? I’m just happy to have you back safe and sound.” Luna could feel the feathery wing pulling her closer, and she let it.

“Yes, I am.” Celestia pulled her closer still, resting her chin atop Luna’s head in a way that forced her to fold up on herself, something not entirely unpleasant considering. For a second Luna just felt the breath of their bodies, waiting patiently for the inevitable question.

“Why, Luna? Why this, why them? Was it-”

It was mercy that bid Luna to cut off her sister. “No, it was nothing you did or didn’t do.” It was like she was warmth and Celestia melted atop it, the way the white alicorn’s sigh released tension Luna hadn’t even realized was there. She sagged another inch under her sister’s touchy embrace, like a glacier of pillows atop her. Luna pulled away, not because she wanted to, but because she needed to look her sister in the eye as she spoke.

“It is about what I have done, and what I have not. I realized that there was all too much of the latter, and not enough of the former. I failed to be there for our little ponies twice in their hours of need. I needed to do something. Anything, to earn my title and live up to this role.” All this had plagued her thoughts on and off for a long time, but Luna couldn’t help but know that the truth she spoke wasn’t necessarily the truth she felt inside. The little bird upon her thoughts chirped once more, this time with righteous indignation, and the dark mare had to look away from the face of open compassion. Always, Luna seemed to find consequences before rationalizations, even for herself.

Something in her said: ease up, this is not the time or place for that kind of thinking. It was a silence from the inside that hardly seemed her own, but it jarred Luna enough to dislodge her from the usual rut of her thoughts. This was still dinner, still their time. She was still Luna, as was Celestia. Things weren’t so bad, and those that were...they’d work out. Somehow.

Luna shrugged. “I know I did not think before I acted, but once I did it was too late to turn back. I needed to finish what I started. I still do.” At least this much echoed through her with truth, though Celestia’s smile had faded to a worried little frown. Then she was aware of it herself, and smiled once more; it would have fooled any other pony, but not Luna.

She met it with a smile of her own. “Take heart, sister. I feel the foal for what I have done, and what I have put you through, but I am returned now and have no intentions to leave again any time soon. And think, soon a feared and loathed creature will be welcomed throughout Equestria under the feathers of peace. Will that not be something?” The royal white chin nestled atop her head once more, and both alicorns smirked.

“Yes, Luna. That will be something.”

If only time were merciful and let them stay that way a while longer. But no, the seconds marched as diligently as ever to the far end of eternity, dragging the helpless moments along with them, even the good ones. Especially the good ones.

Dinner ended, and despite all the reasons for melancholy Luna felt well, hoping her sister left with much the same warmth to her chest and bounce to her step.

Wise or no, Luna had decided to hold court for a few hours of the night sometime after dusk. In the meantime, she could digest both food and thought, bathe her body and mind.

The sun was setting, and with it the halls and rooms that were hers, looking much like any other by day, began to truly show themselves as her domain within the castle. As per her own instruction, these places left to her privacy were dark. Curtains shut out all daylight so that the only illumination were candles. These glowed with pale moonlight rather than golden flame, making a path of lights that softened every edge and surface just as the full moon would upon breaking through the clouds of an overcast night. From what her twinned guardsponies had to say on the matter, the castle staff were divided on whether this arrangement made the wing sublime and ethereal, or just downright spooky. Enough seemed to tolerate it, even like it, to keep the chambers therein cleanly and provided for without complaint.

Certainly Wax and Wane didn’t mind, the way they were sprawled across her own royal bed. From the rug Cruithne lay curled, pleading with her eyes of the woe that her spot on the bed had been taken. It was well large enough to nearly fit ten pairs of ponies, let alone one, no matter how they stretched out and snagged the blankets, but it was foalishness to expect the dog to see it that way.

Those ponies that feared her and mistrusted her, Luna had to wonder what they imagined of her. The darkness and night nurtured parts of the imagination the day never even knew were there. Surely they thought plenty of things, but probably not two passed out pegasi, huffing in their sleep and beaming with wide, tired grins on her bed. Their last waking thought probably had been a sincere hope to see the look on her face right now, as she walked in on them.

Cruithne scampered to Luna, keening a low whine that said much to the effect of: that’s our bed, make them go away. I’m tired and it’s not fair.

As if in retort, one of them snorted and turned over in his sleep, tapping his identical brother in the head with a hind hoof. The motion revealed a cutie mark of the left-most sliver of the moon, the one feature that distinguished Wane from Wax, whose own mark was the right-most slivered crescent. From the bedside stand, the little black moon pendant Wane had worn glowed with a pale light, yearning towards Luna. As much as the first time she had seen one it was off putting, and she silently dropped it into the drawer before turning her eye back on the exhausted ponies.

“Off my bed.” There was, of course, no response, excepting a murmuring sigh of sleep. “Off my bed,” she said again, louder. Still nothing. Luna couldn’t help but feel giddy for their daring. “Off my bed!” she shouted, dragging them both from the clutches of warm blanket with her magic.

Both pegasi startled into wakefulness, legs and wings flailing in six different directions each as their heads struggled to put it all together.

“Oh! Uh, Luna! Found him, yes! Just rested our eyes for a second!” Wane whipped about until he too faced the princess, suspended helplessly in the dim glow of her power.

“That’s right! He’s so right! We totally were not sleeping in your bed-”

“-Your huge-”

“-soft-”

“-warm, fluffy bed!”

Wane blinked, his irises like blue cotton candy in the soft glow of lights. Just as Wax’s did, his eyes’ colour never seemed come to a decision as to what it actually was. “Perish the thought, my lady liege! We’d never dare do such a thing.”

Luna smiled. “Except if you were very tired?”

Wax’s eyes were more of a lavender, as he eagerly nodded with deep, tossing bobs of his head that shook his body. “Except if we were very tired.”

“Absolutely tired.”

“Dead tired.” Luna dropped them on the floor in a heap of flailing feathers. “Did we mention how tired we were?”

“Maybe,” she said softly. “Maybe once. Once or twice.” The brothers disentangled with shoves and grunts, then stood before her at eager attention. They yawned simultaneously, like two reflections of one pony. Their loyalty stoked the embers of her heart. “Go get some proper rest, in your own beds. I can manage a bit longer without you. You’ve both earned it.”

They nodded thankfully and made to leave, Cruithne wasted no time in reclaiming her spot at the foot of the bed. Their voices spoke “Thank you, our lady liege,” in perfect unison from the door, then faded into echoes and whispers of happy strife as they left.

“I earned it more.”

“Like hay you did, you just got lucky. Besides, we both know that she knows I’m the better looking one.”

“Yeah, sure, go on believing that you dolt...”

By the pale moonlight candles Luna shook her head, feeling silly with herself - in a good way. C.A.D.S finest, indeed. Once, on a whim, the dark princess had checked the royal guards rosters for the castle, just to see if any of those names had ever been associated with the same place from which she’d drawn her two and only two specific ponies. It hadn’t been surprising that none had.

She’d be the first to admit that they weren’t at all guard material. It was a trait - or lack of one - that had drawn her to them in the first place. The brothers had such titles for her; our lady liege this and our dark mistress that. It was a little embarrassing, always flushing her cheeks with a warmth to be lavished with such teasing, lighthearted sentiment. They probably kept a list somewhere, writing down potential titles and sounding them out first before loosing them on Luna’s ears. She wouldn’t put that kind of thing past them.

And yet for all of it, their own title was... what was it, actually? They were too outspoken to be guards and too...well, outspoken to be servants. A royal guard on Celestia’s bed would be scandal, absolute scandal, even in the most innocent of circumstances, but here it was just another day with Wax and Wane in her employ, and nopony would be any the wiser.

Being the night princess had some perks, after all.

Two chocolate eyes bore into Luna from the bed. She poked at Cruithne for a moment, nudging the tufts of fur this way and that, all the while big self-pity filled eyes suffered her torment. “You could have just shared with them, you know.” For her part, the pet looked like she could weep for such a slanderous statement. Luna cuddled her dog.

“Learn to share, you big softie.”

chapter twenty

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty

Chrysalis blasted away her disguise as she entered the hotel. She didn’t slow at all for the little ponies as she stormed through them, ignoring them entirely. There were more of them now, with a few unicorns shuffled into the mix as well, though she couldn’t care less. One of the gruff earth ponies - either braver or dumber than the rest - stood before her, barring her way.

“You weren’t to leave your escort - hey! I’m talking to you!”

The Queen didn’t even slow. She shoved her way past the impetuous pony, lifting him in her magic. She didn’t look back to snigger at the splashes as she dropped him into the fountain. Any other day she would have relished it, but as it was only Chrysalis’ brisk walk kept her from shivering, and it certainly wasn’t from cold.

“Your majesty, we won’t abide this behaviour,” growled another guard. Taking a deep breath, she stilled and turned, fighting to keep her muscles still. The armoured ponies shifted from their easy stances to a more ready group.

“Get over yourselves, little ponies, because I don’t have time for your self-importance. This turns into a fight and by the holes in my hooves I’ll make sure you know it. Say whatever you feel you need to say to your little commander, or your princess, or whatever, because I am here and the walls aren’t crumbling yet. Be happy with that. Now drag that sorry heap from the water and go back to doing whatever it was you were doing. Any questions? No? Good. Get to it.” They weren’t worth her focus, and Chrysalis turned away with a fight in her step that sounded the stairs - taken three at a time under her immense stride - with an angry, rhythmic stomp.

The wide doors of the next floor gave way to the stares of guards lining every door. Despite the added security, several doors were opened, and changelings moved about the rooms freely. The two races made oil and water seem on friendly terms, the way they avoided one another. The Queen slipped... wiggled, and twisted her way through the nearest door into one of the lesser rooms.

One changeling rested on the bed; another was reading a book. She called the first to see to her scrapes and magical singes. The changeling jumped to it without excitement or delay. Chrysalis shuddered with sensation as the familiar substance smeared across a scorch; Shining Armour had not spared her his wrath.

The scar on her leg had only just seemed to settle into an ashen black when she’d gone and got herself roughed up again. Chrysalis grimaced. Despite the consequences, it was good to see ponies with some fight in them.

Chrysalis finally began to relax. Her worries, her fears weren’t gone. Not at all, not after Luna had done...had been whatever that thing was. She had time to think though, time to react. Part of her heart urged the Queen on, to drag the monster alicorn out and have it out with her there and then, but the majority pleaded caution. There might be a time and there might be a place for that, but not here, not now.

“This whole thing is one big screw-up,” she said with black humour. She called softly to the changeling with the book, who set it aside, not bothering to mark his page at all.

“You. In an hour, find a way out, and get in touch with as many of the others as you can find. Tell them that I say to find out everything they can about our little moon.” Chrysalis shuddered as another scorch found a soothing touch at last. “Looks like I’ve trusted her too much. Should Luna even trust herself?” the Queen mused. She blinked back into the moment.

“Oh, and warn them that the ponies are starting to figure out their heads from their backsides. They’re starting to get their defenses in order. If the guards here aren’t entirely foals, they might even think try to put in a spell of some sort in here before long.” Not that they’d get much of anything from that. Changelings weren’t chatty creatures. Listening in would give the ponies a whole lot of nothing.

Chrysalis stared out the window, glancing down upon a little slice of Canterlot. The lights of windows were just beginning to shine brighter than the vestiges of day, like precursors of the stars yet to show themselves.

“They’re going to be a pain, when they’re all brought up to speed.” The Queen smiled. “Could be riots. Protests. Wouldn’t we just hate to stir that up with paranoia and conflict? I mean, our good guard ponies have enough work cut out for them dealing with us. How would they guard a city from its own ponies?” The male before her stared severely, waiting on his Queen with an angry silence.

“Which one were you again?”

“Beetle, my Queen,” he grumbled. She paused for thought.

“Are you now? You have the night to do my bidding. Be back before dawn.” For the first time since Chrysalis entered the room, something other than displeasure ruled the male’s face.

“What of...that lost one?” The room stilled, even the changeling attending upon the Queen’s hurts. Chrysalis’ gaze returned to the window, but her ambition had been set aside for something else.

“No. Her name is Surreal, I know you know it. She’s not lost. Not yet.” She sighed, and turned away once more. “Don’t waste your time looking for her. She doesn’t want to be found, at least not by us. You won’t find her, but I know where to look. I will find her.” The room fell silent once more, and the Queen glared as she nudged the little changeling that had been tending to her side.

“What are you waiting on? Get back to it.”

Luna was alone in thought when the anointed time came upon her. There was nothing, at least, nothing of this world to tell her that it was time, but the truth of it shone through her. In the darkness, Luna’s horn lit with a pale eminence. The light of the world drained away, revealing the stars. First a speckle, and then in all their shimmering thousands.

The moon smiled down upon her, happy to be adrift once more in its sea of sparkling lights. For a time Luna stayed as she was, and smiled.

Now was as good a time as any, and full of calm purpose, the night princess left her moonlit chambers for the more conventional lights of the throne room.

If any guard was surprised to see her, to the last they hid it well, as they did with all thought and emotion. Her throne, with the softness of velvet, was most welcoming.

“Let it be known that we are holding court, for as long as we see fit. Let any who would speak with us step forward.” Her voice resounded through the chamber, dancing around pillars and across the walls. The gentle echoes of it rolled back across the alicorn, and she reveled in her use of the royal pronoun. If there was ever a time for it in these days, this was it.

She wasn’t sure what to expect. Would they come in droves, worried and full of questions, or would there be few, afraid of her and her nocturn ways? Maybe none would come forward at all, and that too was okay. Like with Celestia and the dinner ritual, Luna was here, now, ready to meet their subjects halfway, doing her honest best. Whether they availed of her or not, that was entirely their choice.

The thing about the thrones were that they were essentially glorified seats. Sitting in them for any amount of time taught a mare patience as much as anything, so when the first five minutes passed in quiet, Luna took no particular slight from it. Again, they would come, or they would not.

Then, by ones and twos, cautious ponies trickled in. There wasn’t as much satisfaction in it as Luna might have expected, but she smiled and carried on.

She wondered how many of them were reporters of some form or another, always with an ear to the ground, scrambling out of house and home to pry for exclusive information. Luna, for her part, was curt and courteous with them, but short. Yes, talks were ongoing. No, she wouldn’t reveal the changelings’ location at this time.

This wasn’t an interview, nor did Luna descend into one. She shooed one pony along only to be faced by an almost identical set of questions, until they and the answers blurred together. Luna did not expect the morning papers to be kind to her, but again, didn’t particularly care for the masses’ opinion of her as much as she had.

Her thoughts took an entirely different turn when the next two ponies were ushered forwards. The first was a faded green earth pony who stumbled over herself and her words. The other, however, with a coat like carnations, stared to the princess with hungry, magenta eyes.

It was amazing, really, the way the nopony, not the guards, not the attendants or the welcomed public seemed to panic at Luna’s pounding heartbeat. Surely they must be hearing it, the way it beat against her chest, her ribs, her lungs.

Surreal. Here. A changeling. Here. In her court, and did no other pony know better? The creature stood, intense, still and staring. It was the green mare who spoke.

“Your...your majesty. My name is Brussel Sprout... I’m the matron at Sprout’s Orphanage, and umm, oh, this is Surreal, who works with us sometimes...”

Luna’s throat tightened. She should have the guards seize both ponies without delay, but for the life of her she didn’t want to betray the changeling’s trust, weird as it was. The princess hardly trusted her voice, dreading what it might let slip.

“Go on,” she managed to say.

“Well...there’s not a whole lot to it, if I can be straight with you. Er, highness.” Brussel Sprout drew a deep, whistling breath and stood straighter. “We want you to come visit us. The foals, I mean. The help and I were talking about it. It’d fill their little hearts with joy, something like that. They’ve been sidelined by life. They could use some special attention for once.”

She spoke in a silken voice. “A fine idea, of course. I will contact you as soon as I am able. It shall be a good thing for all.” Luna smiled, but it was one that never quite reached her eyes, locked on Surreal as they were. What they said, quite clearly, were this: I am going to catch you and put you in a cage and we are going to have a long discussion until somebody tells me what is going on with you changelings.

As quickly as that, the meeting ended, Brussel Sprout uttering her elation and thanks, while Surreal shuddered with relief and followed her out. Luna was left wondering what madness had to have seeped into that creature’s head to have walked - all but alone - into the heart of a stronghold filled with ponies all too eager to bind her - Luna among them, for different reasons.

Was she that desperate for the alicorn’s contact? Or - Luna thought grimly - did the changeling doubt that the princess would do a simple, good thing enough to practically scream out her clue. Here I am, come find me!

With a sickening certainty, Luna felt that had the pink pony-thing not presented itself, the princess would have brushed aside Sprout’s simple request with an even simpler refusal, more callous and unthinking than malicious, but to the same effect.

Selfish, selfish, selfish. The word tossed and turned through her, singing a litany of disapproval. So much for a fine, happy evening.

And then the doors slammed open with perfect dramatic timing, shocking the alicorn back into attentiveness.

“Captain Shining Armor? Explain yourself!” Indeed it was he, striding across the floor, flanked on either side by wary ponies, all bereft of armor. Not one of the guards on duty stepped up to challenge the display - if anything they stood up straighter, all the more proud of their position and duty. It was then that Luna truly realized which way their loyalties lay, and the truth of it stung her like a lance of frost. If they had to choose a side, it would not be hers. In her own court, she was alone.

“We’re here to petition you, as any of the thrones’ subjects can.”

“For what?”

“For you to submit yourself to a full thaumatalogical biopsy and peacefully remove yourself from the throne until it can be determined that you really are the princess Luna, and that if you are, the changelings haven’t worked some evil on you. I will not be made a fool of a second time.”

Luna stood and flared her wings. “You cannot possibly expect me to consent to such a thing! The very idea is absurd.” Only clenching his teeth together stopped the good captain from shouting in turn.

“No, your highness. What is absurd is that you can sit here and preside like a princess not half a day after shielding that beast from justice. You say this is about diplomacy? About peace? That is not what we saw in the gardens!” Luna trembled as she stood to her full height, her wings flared out to their utmost extent.

“You attacked unprovoked!”

“She is the Queen of changelings. The Queen. Of. Changelings. Anything less than caging her is an open invitation to let disaster walk free. Have you forgotten what that means, what that is? Or have you been coerced?” He let the question hang before her, like a noose.

“Get out of my sight!” The ponies cowed away at the force of her voice, all save Shining. The echoes roared, then slowed and crawled away to die in the corners. Only as the last shivered and ceased to be, warped into something well different from Luna’s own voice, did the captain turn to lead his coterie away.

“This isn’t over, princess. This will go to Celestia herself. One way or another, we will have truth and justice. Will you be ready when they come for you?”

On that ominous note he left, and the court descended into stormy silence. Luna closed her eyes, forcing herself to just breath. Breathing, that was key. When she felt she could speak without shattering windows, she did.

“Court is adjourned.” It was all she said as she turned and left to her chambers, taking refuge in her fury.

chapter twenty one

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty one

The first thing Luna thought of as strange was that she could not see. Nothing at all, which meant a great deal considering that even in the blackest night she could see quite clearly, so that while she often lived in the shadows, the absolute void she found herself in was still new to her.

She reached for her magic only to feel its curious absence, and a moment later she tried to flap wings that no longer seemed to exist. Perplexed, but not unduly worried, the princess raised her hoof to her eye, an exercise that proved entirely pointless as far as sight was concerned.

By sense of touch, however, the simple motion made her muscles sing a strange cacophony of ache and complaint, one so alien and captivating that she ignored the discomfort entirely to repeat it.

It was all so unfamiliar to Luna - still entirely bereft of sight - that she found the easiest option to believe was that she was not herself. Satisfied with the explanation that this was not her slender, gracious body and still caught up in the novelty of soreness, Luna pushed herself forwards.

It was slow going, if such a thing had any relevance in this endless dark. The limbs she found herself with had a shorter gait then her own, creaking and complaining for every step.

She felt as if she should know who and where she was, but the answers were as obscured as everything else. Answers would be made apparent...or they wouldn’t. In either case it was fine.

Luna had never feared the dark. For her to do so would be as odd as her subjects fearing the light of day that they relished and loved so much. Luna halted, and if anything the aches only grew angrier with her for breaking their rickety rhythm.

It wasn’t true. She did fear the dark. Sometimes. Things within it that, as if cued in by her thoughts, filled the empty void with menace.

The princess spurred her protesting body to a walk, but for all the effort it did nothing. If she even moved at all, the feeling of being surrounded bore down on her as much as ever, matching her step for step.

With a knowing that did not need senses, she knew that something closed in around her. Her eyes darting left and right despite the futility of it. Her breathing quickened and Luna gasped with the realization of how cold it was, not to her mind, but to this feeble body.

Closer, closer, and gaining ravenous speed. No escape. Her heart pounded-

And then it did something altogether more. With a single beat so hard it made Luna choke and fall to her knees, pale light flashed from her chest. Darkness became light, but there was nothing in it to be illuminated. Still choking and needing to breath, she just managed to catch sight of the last of the black, wormy tendrils as they snaked away from the light. She could feel their frustration. They had been so close only to be thwarted.

The light was already fading as she caught the ragged edge of her breath and stood. She could barely walk for how her chest felt, twisted and broken, but she had no choice. With a few steps more her sanctuary of pale luminescence was gone, and the grasping darkness closed in once more.

Again her heart surged, and Luna screamed in pain as she collapsed. Again the threads of living darkness scattered, though she hardly noticed them for the twisted, pounding pain crashing through her ribcage. Each beat of her heart hurt her, and she could do nothing but curl in on herself and plead silently with it to slow, to rest and spare her the hurt.

As the things closed in once more Luna felt dread. Not of the darkness, but of the light. Choking and crying, she wished the tendrils haste. If they could just get to her, they could spare her that hurt, spare her a heart bent on shattering itself.

Luna almost smiled as she felt them surge over her, dozens, then hundreds. As one, they reared up like so many scorpion stings, and though she could see nothing of it, it was a comfort to shut her eyes.

They opened all the wider as her chest scrunched up in agony. No, please, no! she begged of it, but her heart wouldn’t heed her. Finding some last reserve of strength, the broken, quivering heart poured its last into a final, agonizing surge of beautiful moonlight that tore them all apart.

“Luna? Luna, is something the matter?” Celestia asked.

“No. Nothing,” Luna said, shaking her head as she pulled away from her reverie and, by extension, her sister’s welcoming touch. The night princess had walked without warning or hesitation into her sister’s chambers with first light. In turn, Celestia had dropped everything for her. Her big sister’s total lack of hesitation gave her heart some much needed warmth. She did not normally come to Celestia in the mornings, and it was plain to see that the white alicorn was both pleased and worried by Luna’s odd behaviour.

There was Celestia’s concern, plain on her face, and here was Luna, repaying love with secrets and lies.

“I was just thinking about the Elements,” Luna said. While it wasn’t true, such thoughts had lurked at the back of her mind for some time. “Much has changed since the days we were forced to bear them. Our world. Ourselves. Yet they are as much the same as ever. They have never really stopped steering our lives.”

Celestia sighed and her wings hung limp beside her. Then, quite against Luna’s expectations, her big sister smiled a sad, little smile. “More than a thousand years removed from Honesty and you are still a bad liar. I can see enough to know it’s troubling you. Speak to me, please,” she implored.

Luna rested her head on Celestia’s shoulder. “How far must I fall to go beyond the scope of even your kindness?” she asked. She had not meant her words to be so grim, but all the same they tasted something of ash on her lips, and both alicorns frowned. “I did not mean...”

“I know. It’s alright. Let’s not dwell on it.” Luna met her sister’s eyes and nodded.

“The present coterie is strong. Not what I would have expected...” At this, Celestia laughed, like the chiming of soft bells.

“Nor did they expect a princess quite like you,” she said, laying a wing over Luna’s shoulder.

“I get carried away.” Luna playfully batted Celestia’s wing away with her own, and she too laughed.

It was a good moment that, like all before, passed all too soon. It was not fair, to break the ice only to see it refreeze before her eyes. Again, the air between Luna and Celestia felt cold, and terse.

Luna glared at the floor. “I do not want this to end with them.”

“What do you mean?” Celestia moved closer, until Luna could feel the warmth of her body, though it did little to thaw the chill in Luna’s own.

“The Elements. I do not want to see the first step of initiative I’ve taken since a town’s public holiday ending in those lights.” Did Luna hate the Elements of Harmony? Certainly not the bearers, no, and she valued the virtues each embodied as much as anypony, but still it was there inside her. All that power beholden to nothing beyond itself. There was no fairness to it. Even when she had stood for them, the consequences had not been kind.

Celestia pulled her into an embrace, one Luna did not resist. “I still wish it had been me,” the white alicorn began, “that leapt into...his vengeance. Not you.”

Luna didn’t move, only closing her eyes, listening to her sister breathe. “You can say his name. Discord. It is alright, sister. His power over me faded. A long time ago.” Luna dared to hope her sister would not catch this lie, feeling terrible inside every second it hung in the air. “We played the parts we were made to back then. It was never your fault.”

For a time, Celestia’s breathing was deep and even, but strained. Forced to be presentable, Luna felt. “Celestia. It is all right. Truly, it is.” Luna’s words did not ease her sister as she had hoped they would.

“I couldn’t save you from Discord-”

“Celestia...”

“I couldn’t save you from Nightmare Moon...”

“Celestia!” Luna called. Not loudly, but her voice was stern. The dark princess broke away from her sister, only so that she could turn back to stare Celestia in the eye. “I do not see Nightmare Moon here now. Let it be. One foalish, distraught alicorn is enough.”

Celestia grimaced, a rare expression to cross - and, in doing so, blight - her beautiful features. “And yet we have three. Shining Armor came to speak to me last night. He had some distressing things to say.” Luna’s heart went to racing in her chest, a most distressing feeling.

As much as she wanted to shout out the right words, any words, Luna said nothing. Though her heart pounded, outwardly she felt as if she cooled and darkened.

“The good captain acted far out of line.”

“He feels differently.”

Luna huffed indignantly. “You cannot possibly take his side.”

“I didn’t say I had,” Celestia said as she furled her wings. “I’m not trying to take anypony’s side. I don’t want any ponies to be on different sides.”

“It was an illusion,” Luna grumbled. “I needed to intimidate them quickly. It was just an illusion of Nightmare. Nothing more.” She stared, unblinking, daring Celestia to challenge her words, feeling wretched every moment of it.

Celestia broke away and sighed. If she suspected something, the white alicorn did not act on it here.

“Cadance supported his suggestion.”

“To humiliate myself before our subjects with a pointless magical insight?” Luna practically hissed. Is this really me?

Celestia put a hoof to Luna’s shoulder. “Luna. I don’t agree with his methods, or his unchecked anger, but the idea has merit. It would put our subjects at ease, to see you as I do, and not suspect some influence upon you.”

Luna turned away and made to leave, so that Celestia would not see the tears that threatened. “Maybe ‘our subjects’ should learn to trust me. Maybe ‘our subjects’ should learn to look at me and just see me. Or am I always to be the ghost of a fallen martyr, living in the shadow of monsters?”

“Luna!” her sister pleaded, but she slammed the doors in Celestia’s face as she fled.

Secrets and lies. I’m nothing but secrets and lies, Luna thought, and the tears broke past her resolve.

Luna stormed into her chambers, startling the twinned pegasi as they had a late breakfast. Her magic drew open the bedside stand hard enough to tear the hinges and she dropped the broken drawer on the floor.

Wax was thumping on his chest, choking on the meal while Wane - who had hardly touched his - called out in alarm. “Princess!” he shouted, while Luna grasped the magical collar pendant in her grasp. With a surge of darkness, it disappeared into the depths of her magic.

“If you have any love for me at all, do not follow me. I need to be alone.” Luna drew breath, and as she sighed it brought her some little piece of composure. “I will be back,” she said, her voice softened.

She opened the window - the curtains billowing - and leapt into flight.

A half-dozen changelings stood around their Queen, each and every one of them wide-eyed with disbelief. Chrysalis cocked her head left just as they did, as if she were merely the largest facet of the little group. As one, they turned their heads to the right. After a few more seconds, they came back to the upright position.

“I don’t get it,” the Queen said.

The nearest unfortunate changeling coughed politely. “Well, m’ Queen, see ‘ow it says ‘Consort with Changelings’ at t’ top?”

“Yes?”

“Well...t’ ponies behind ‘is are... are...” The little creature couldn’t bring itself to say it. It wasn’t a concern, as Chrysalis was mercilessly happy to carry on.

“Implying outright lies and ridiculousness about our little moon and I?” she said flatly.

“...yes...”

Chrysalis beamed evilly. Changelings sighed with relief. “I’d never have thought that they’d spread our lies and confusion for us.” She let loose with a healthy cackle. “I love it! And if you get past the fact that we’re both female and different species, apparently Luna and I make hideously beautiful babies.” The Queen’s grin bore her terrifying teeth to their widest. “Luna’s face when she sees this will be just too good. Are there any more of these ‘newspaper’ things?”

“Yes, m’ Queen.”

“Best thing I’ve heard all morning. Bring them all up, I want to see what they say about me.” The changeling in question nodded quickly and stepped out. Chrysalis started another moment at the fantastical monstrosity covering the tabloid.

“You know, from a certain angle, it’s sort of cute.”

A changeling near the back snorted with quiet disgust, but he said nothing further. Chrysalis, for her part, continued with her vicious laughter.

Chrysalis was rather pleased with herself, and her changelings. Once she realized which papers were conjecture and lies and which more tentatively clung to the truth, it wasn’t too hard at all to fill in the gaps of their information on Luna. With the new and negative attention on the mysterious princess, every last paper had been more than obliged to run a hasty rehashing of her history, beginning with her banishment and moving into events more recent.

The way these ponies inadvertently just kept giving the Queen what she wanted - it was just too good. While it lasted, Chrysalis loosed another cackle, one all the happier for the way they had yet to show any clear information on the changelings.

The guards’ policy of secrecy and isolation was proving quite the double-edged blade. Chrysalis smiled, though she refused to let herself get too comfortable. The day of the invasion had looked just perfect too, before quite literally blowing up in her face. Still, there was no denying that a Queen should enjoy her work - and Nightmare Moon was turning out to be quite the interesting little piece of history.

“Eternal night? Sounds fun.” Of course, for every mention of the black alicorn, there was mention of the ponies’ fabled Elements of Harmony. And that Discord creature. That was worth looking into, but her heart warned her caution with that one. “I hope none of you were getting bored in here, it’s looking like our work is cut out for us this time around.”

A tingle at the edge of her awareness brought pause to the Queen. Calling on her magic, she conjured up the little pendant with the black crescent moon. It glowed with yellow light, pointing a small ways above the horizontal in roughly the direction of the castle. With a few seconds, she could just barely tell that it was turning to one side.

It was a tiny motion, but it spoke volumes.

“Keep up the good little changeling act, I’m going to step out for some air. It’s about time I tried out their new defenses anyway.” Changelings scurried to do her bidding.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry, little moon?” Chrysalis licked her fangs and smiled.

chapter twenty two

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty two

Wax and Wane were in a bit of a tizzy. In fact, they were in a lot of a tizzy. They paced back and forth...or forth and back, depending which brother one looked to. It was a strange demonstration of their synchroneity, almost comically so, though they felt nothing of humour.

“What was that about? It can’t be good,” Wax said.

“She just flipped out and left. What was that about?”

“I just asked that!”

“Well, it bears repeating!”

“Right, right,” they said as one, and in unison each held a hoof up to his brow. Their antsy pacing ceased with a single thud of two rumps forcibly hitting the floor.

“Luna’s stressed out and flown off,” Wax said, his face scrunching up.

“And she’s told us not to follow her,” Wane said, his face equally scrunched in thought.

“Very, very specifically told us not to follow her...” The brothers looked to each other, each speaking simultaneously.

“We have to go after her.” They nodded and stood, then Wax prodded Wane.

“Get your thingy.”

Wane shoved back. “Didn’t you see? She took mine. Where’s yours?” Eyes that were presently a dusty fuschia rolled.

“Umm...” Wax took a step back. Wane took the same step, only forwards.

“Well?” Wane’s own eyes, passing through a gentle rosy pink still managed a withering glare.

“She took it.”

“Luna?”

“No. Chrysalis.” It wasn’t easy, especially with the sunlight streaming in the still-open window, curtains billowing, but the dull coloured Wane still managed to pale.

“You let Chrysalis get the thingy that was personally enchanted by Celestia as a favour for us to find our fairest dark mistress first?”

“I didn’t let her! She took it. I was drained out, her and the rest of them all itched for a taste.” Wax scowled, but his voice trailed off. “You alright?”

“Hmm? Oh...yeah.” Wane seemed to sink into the floor as he spoke, until his hooves were folded up under him and his head was down. Wax patted his shoulder.

“Look, don’t worry. It’s nothing we've not-” A hoof pressed firmly to Wax’s lips shushed him. Wane glanced towards the door with an exaggerated motion, then to the still open window. Wax followed the motion with his eyes, then they widened as he followed the meaning too.

“The castle’s awfully shiny lately, isn’t it?” Wax said, stressing the word. Wane nodded stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking...”

“It’s alright. It’s easy to forget. Maybe even more so for me...” Wane blinked, then blinked a second time. “We’ll have to talk about this later. We’ve still got our lady liege out there.” Wane shivered, not just from dread but from honest cold as well. Whereas his brother, like pegasi usually did, had a good tolerance for it, Wane felt chill in every breeze.

Wax threw the windows closed and pulled the curtains shut, and the room changed into pallid moonlight despite the hour. He threw a scarf - one of their mistresses’ own - at his brother, who thankfully wrapped it around his neck. “Right. How are we going to find her?”

“I have no idea.” Wane sighed, laying his chin down on the floor. After a mournful moment in moonlight, Cruithne came into the room and nestled down next to him in silence.

Beetle never would have considered himself a violent changeling, if he ever bothered to ponder upon such things. It couldn’t be denied that looking to his history, he didn’t have any apparent inclination to cruelty of any kind, though he nurtured a healthy detached apathy that nicely balanced against his constant petty annoyance with most everything in existence.

As it was, the shiny black changeling stood guard at the edge of the magical barrier. The changelings were not happy about this newest feature of their time amidst the ponies, especially Beetle, but his Queen had impressed upon them all to keep being passive. Against every natural inclination, by her will, passive they would remain.

The shield itself was much the same as they had all seen before. The only real difference was that it surrounded just the one building, rather than the entire city. Beetle touched his hoof to the shimmering light and indeed, he could remember another having been broken under the force of changelings. It wasn’t hard to imagine this going the same way, and on a rare note of the whimsy tapped his hoof against it harder. Not that they were allowed to try, and faithful to his orders, Beetle withdraw his hoof.

He stood as he had, every inch the same, if ever so slightly angrier. He didn’t sit, or even lean against the very nondescript crate next to him, the one he certainly wasn’t paying any attention to. Every once in awhile a pair of guards ponies doing their rounds came by and glowered at him. This was fine by Beetle, for he glowered back twice as hard with half the effort. Other than such pleasantries, nobody did anything. He was just one changeling doing nothing, and that was just a box.

That was, of course, the point. His Queen had taken one good look at the new shield - keeping them in and ponies out - and laughed. The shield was weak, and not just because, as she put it ‘darling Shiny isn’t happy playing defence anymore.’ It wasn’t just weak by circumstance, but by design.

“They want us to break it,” she’d explained, all the while baring the lovely daggers that were her fangs. “Which is exactly why we’re not going to.” Beetle nor any other had said anything, though they’d already muddled the listening spells the guards had cast over their rooms. It was just that when the Queen felt like explaining something, they didn’t need to ask.

“We break it, everypony will feel justified with their response, and there is a response. They’re not just waiting on it, they're hoping for it. But as long as we play nice, there’ll be enough secret doubts, enough ponies wondering if we really have changed to stay their hooves and see. Thinking, hoping that Luna really is onto something with us.”

Is she? He’d wanted to ask, but a proper changeling didn’t do that sort of thing. He followed his Queen, wherever she lead. Things had made sense before the damn alicorn...

He’d already spent a night skulking through half deserted streets and muttering retreats to get in touch with the changelings on the outside; all that risk and work for what had been given to them on printed paper. In a rare instance of breaking from her command, the changeling had fished for any information he could on the vagrant Surreal. There’d been nothing. If he were a pony, he might have spat and grunted in frustration, but he was not. Beetle was a changeling, so he did not.

The purposely weakened shield had been clever, or so his Queen had said. If there was anything Beetle was glad for, it was that she was more clever. It was meant to be broken, crumbling like the great shield over Canterlot had done under the siege.

Maybe only Chrysalis was insidious enough to think of an incision instead. Something small, unseen, a cut made through the weakened spell, held open by another. A hole, obscured by the crate they’d shoved in front of it..

In a discreet flash of green embers, Chrysalis had shrunk down into a rather ditzy looking gray pegasus. Only the severity of her illusionary eyes revealed the force of spirit behind them.

“The ponies really should just get over their scruples and play the tyrants. It would go much better for them if they did.” She’d cackled, a sound terrible and wrong from the little gray body before slipping through the breach and flittering off into the sky.

So Beetle stood, watched and scowling, waiting on his Queen’s return. The patrol came around and around again, until a half or whole hour passed Beetle by. He gave half an ear to the voices around the corner of the building, but when he realized one of them to be the scratchy tones of a changeling he blinked and listened closer.

Two guards - they were always in pairs, lest changelings bewitch them in secret - had held up a changeling at the door, debating between themselves whether or not to let her out. The gist of it, as much as Beetle caught from this distance, was that the bigwigs had decided on the spell shield, but no order had come through to restrain or even limit the changelings within it. They were already outnumbered and confined within a barrier, why keep them to the rooms?

It seemed to Beetle that his Queen was quite right in her assessment after all; they were purposely being given enough privacy and wriggle room to...wriggle, just so the ponies could clamp down on them afterwards. Still, the ponies guarding them were all better actors than changelings, or the shield’s insidious intent hadn’t been made apparent to them. They seemed, by and large, like ponies that were on edge and would rather nothing riotous or rowdy happen at all.

The two holding up the changeling shrugged and let her by, and she and the guards shared a carefully blank expression as the dulled flashes and muffled calls of the reporters that pestered the other edge of the shield. Beetle, who actively favoured silence and calm caught himself just in time before almost thanking the guards for sparing them from that onslaught.

The changeling caught his eye and rounded the corner, only for Beetle to realize that she was not one changeling, but two. A pair of familiar, shiny foaling eyes blinked up at him from the carrier’s back.

“Strange times,” the female said. She took Beetle’s lack of response as an invitation to continue. She rolled her shoulders as if with an itch, shoving the child with her wings this way and that to have it sit more comfortably. For its part, the foaling seemed content to stare with blank amazement at Beetle, who met its gaze.

“Strange times,” she said again, apparently liking the sound of her voice. “I mean...all this. What is it?” She looked about surreptitiously and leaned in closer. “What is Chrysalis thinking? And going on about the lost one...and everything with the alicorn...you’d almost think it was our Queen who’d fallen and not-”

Beetle huffed. It wasn’t a loud warning, in the same way that a bit of steam from a mountaintop isn’t much warning either.

The female skittered in place, glanced away then back to Beetle. “Well? What do you think?” she asked nervously.

In the pit of his soul he might have agreed, but to go about flaunting such opinions and doubts like...like a pony, it was disgusting. For all the strangeness she’d lead them into, Chrysalis was as much his Queen as she’d ever been. What he thought was that of the two females, the little foaling watching him was the better, more interesting changeling of the two.

“You’re holding her wrong,” he said with heavy hoofed disapproval in his voice, not waiting a moment before lifting the bundle in his magic and setting the foaling down upon his own back.

Sufficed to say, the other changeling skulked away and was forgotten as quickly. Beetle’s thoughts turned to the foaling and her kin - six in all - caught up in this strange venture. Canterlot was as heavily inundated with love as ever, shield or no, but even Beetle could not help but wonder what kind of influence such would have on the young ones’ development.

He got so far as considering the sheer, overwhelming presence of guards ponies and what the consequences might be for the foalings growth before shutting his eyes and scowling. Such was the kind of thing Surreal - weak, little Surreal - could make sense of, not Beetle. If only to himself, he admitted that he missed her and in the secretest, privatest corner of his changeling heart hoped Chrysalis was right.

He didn’t want these changes; he didn’t want to stop living the way they’d always lived, but if Chrysalis could bring a fallen changeling back...he could welcome that much change, at least.

So he stood and waited much as before, except that a tiny, holey hoof rose up with ponderous slowness and touched his wing.

In the space of fifteen minutes, the dog went from being Wax and Wane’s greatest idea to their biggest disappointment. Three of these minutes were the initial realization that Cruithne was a fluffy, loving dog. Surely the clever canine would be able to track down their mistress and, when Luna’s inevitable anger turned on the pegasi for going against her instructions: the twins could blame it all on the dog.

It was foolproof, which was another way of saying that the other twelve minutes were spent chasing the dog and apologizing to the denizens of the gardens. The twin pegasi shoved Cruithne back inside, both muttering.

The one corner of the gardens they’d not inadvertently searched was also the most forlorn, the most empty. Flowers and leaves of all shapes and colours gave way to rigid, trimmed labyrinthine hedges, and the fauna stayed well away from the solemn stone that stood eternal watch.

One statue towered above all others, and as the day turned gray with a temperamental overcast sky, the wind shushed the twins of their agitated banter.

Wane shivered and pulled the borrowed scarf tighter about himself. “She’s not here,” he said, his gaze flitting over the hard edges of the various statues, all but the greatest.

“I’m almost glad for that.” He too shivered, though not from chill. Wane flapped his wings, as if to beat the cool air away, all the while trying to retreat into the scarf. He paused, and smiled.

“I just thought of something weird.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We can talk more freely around big old Leftovers’ statue there than in our lady liege’s own chambers.” Wax blinked.

“That’s...actually really sad. I think I’m starting to see why it all gets to her the way it does.” The brothers leaned against each other, sighing with the wind. Discord had as much to say as any other stone. A few drops threatened, but decided raining wasn’t worth the bother.

The need to search on called to them, but something stayed their hooves and wings a while longer. Time itself seemed to halt and stand a while with them in silent witness. Then the moment broke, and Wane heaved a sigh and his head hung low.

“I’m tired,” Wane said, his heavy voice hinting that it was not a thing to be cured with a simple good night’s rest.

“It’s been a busy few days. Luna’s got everbody worked up. Herself most of all.” Wax patted his brother tenderly, but Wane shook his head.

“It feels like more than that. I don’t know...it’s...I feel drained.” Wax grinned and punched his melancholy brother’s shoulder.

“Enough of that, there’s enough of it to deal with coming from our lady mistress. I’m always here for you, and love you much as ever. Got that?” It proved quite the infectious grin, as soon Wane had most every symptom. Wind and silence came back once more, but seemed to keep a respectful distance this time

“We should get back in the air. We take our time and she might just come back with a herd of windigoes.” Wane gave Wax a look, who in turn shrugged mischievously. “Tell you what. Our lady liege does that, and I’ll spend every last bit of mine to get you the thickest, warmest coat I can find.”

Wane paused, considering the offer with mock severity. Wax had to stifle his laughter.

“I’ll help you make an igloo as well,” he managed to say through the giggles.

“Deal.” The brothers were just about to fly off when their wings were firmly shut with magic, gentle but insistent in defying their wills. Overhead the rain broke free of its tumultuous gray constraints, falling in fat, cold droplets.

Falling on everything but the good captain, kept dry from the downpour by a translucent lense of magic. Wings still bound, Shining Armor walked closer, the spatters of rain on the ground parting before him and closing in his wake.

“We need to have a talk.”

chapter twenty three

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty three

The rain fell and though Shining Armor shield kept him dry, he still looked as damp as anything; a pony with much to do and too little rest to endure it with. His face was set with a stony expression of determination. The pegasus Wax, on the other feather stepped forwards instantly, standing tall and flaring his wings so that he caught more rain than any, all the while seeming to burn with a latent energy.

“Oh? Then...lets talk! Dreary weather, isn't it?” Wax snarled, and the twist to his smile put Wane on edge. Tired and frustrated as he also was, particularly with the self righteous unicorn, it unsettled him to see his brother snap in such a manner. The good captain scowled and stood his ground, but as his expression softened. The rain continued to fall in a curtain of spatters from the umbrella of magic; Wane already shuddered with the chill as it was, let alone what Wax was pointlessly putting himself through to make some kind of point.

“I’m not trying to pick any fights,” Shining said, and with his words the umbrella spell extended over the brothers.

“This will be about our lady mistress, of course?” Wane stepped forwards to his brother, but a wing blocked his path and shushed him.

Shining sighed. “Of course it’s about princess Luna.” Wax snorted and forced himself to stand taller still, his wings flared to their utmost. For all the effort Shining Armor was the larger pony, but more than that Wane feared his brother’s sudden shift in mood. He had never seen him so wrathful, and anger all but crackled unseen through every stiff pinion. “I see you’re not with her, for instance.”

Wax’s heavy breathing was unsettling. Wane interposed himself between the two, leaning against his brother’s chest in as much a gesture of assurance as of restraint.

“Captain, please,” Wane said tersely, “if you have something to ask, be done with it. You know where we stand on the matter, and nobody stands to gain from provocation.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of rain on the stone; rivulets running through petrified claws.

“Fine, then. Is Luna part of some changeling plot? What poison has found it’s way into her?”

“Luna is nothing less than whole and pure! We love as she deserves, and all should.” The spell above them fizzled into nothing, falling upon them all with equal vigour. Shiny widened his stance, and Wane pressed tighter against his brother, and still Wax trembled.

“Don’t,” he whispered to his brother, “please. It wouldn’t help her. Or us.” Wane had never seen him like this, or felt fear like this in all his years as Wax’s brother. “Please...”

Wax’s eyes were the pale green of budding leaves when he broke his gaze from the good captain. His breathing shattered into shallow, erratic little breaths, and his trembling had become like that of a fever, ravaging its course through him. With each breath though, Wax steadied. Wane sheltered him as he could under a wing, letting himself feel hope.

“Or is it you, then,” Shining began again, his voice solemn and resolute as the armor he wore, “that has something to hide?”

“Damn you!” Wax roared at the unicorn, shoving Wane behind him. The sting of cold grit was nothing next to the pain of surprise, and Wane raised his head only to see that Wax stood over him, but his eyes...they were two boiling emeralds, centre pieces to a face that twitched convulsively as it pulled itself into the rictus of a sneer.

Shining Armor whinnied, stepped back and conjured a quick defense about himself, unsure of his next move. “Wane?” the pegasus cried piteously, his voice hollow and unnatural. For a second Wax’s eyes were his own and every muscle of his face warred with its neighbours to remain himself. “Wane!” he wailed, the painful echoes of it cut short when the pegasus’ face contorted once more and all semblance of Wax was lost in those magic touched eyes.

Wane could not stay, nor could he leave. In the hesitation it became too late to choose either; strong magic bound his hooves.

“Nobody’s leaving!” Shining shouted. “Come peacefully, or I will force you!” His glance shifted between the pegasi, caught between identical faces full of terror for quite opposite reasons.

Wax sprung forwards from standstill, his wings driving him headlong into Shining’s defence. The shimmering spell buckled but did not break. His horn flaring with renewed effort, Shining fell to one knee but did not yield.

“I. Feel. So. Much. Love!” The pegasus screamed, each word coming from a place beyond thought or memory, the manic delight in each twisted by disease or madness into something monstrous.

Wax spoke truth: for Wane the love was a palpable surge rolling off his brother, rising up like something noxious from a wound. Wane could feel it wheedling into him, poisonous to every part of him, and in that realization his choice was made; he could not stay. Not if there was love - real love - in him for Wax, not if there was hope at all.

Wane could only watch as his brother hit and tore at the shield, biting at it, bashing at it with his face. On every breath Wax snarled proclamations of love profound as any poetry had ever dared attempt. Even as his voice cracked and his breath shattered into a desperate wheeze for oxygen he railed on, adulations in all things love.

Blood welled up from cuts in his cheek, and there was love. The shield was dispelled, Wax fell through it and was met with a surge of magic that drove hard into his chest. Wax was driven into the dirt with a horrendous smack of flesh, and that too was love, writhing like a beast.

It bled through to Wane, whispering madness into the edges of his thoughts and lending him what felt like boundless strength. For all his terror Wane's face smiled of its own accord, a wide, happy grin, a mirrored shadow of Wax’s. Shining Armor's binding was less than perfect; Wane wriggled and tore his back legs free of the shimmering mesh. Full of panic and haste he took wing, his forelegs still bound, thinking only to set things right. He slammed broadside into the unicorn, bowling them both over.

Wane tumbled and bounced until his back crashed into the legs of Discord and the breath was knocked from him. Pain muted the toxic thoughts and he remembered that he must leave, he must.

The good captain's armor had spared him much of the damage. He proved himself quickest in shaking off the daze. Before Wane could collect his thoughts Shining advanced, but not on him. His horn charged with searingly bright magic as he pinned the wildly smiling Wax beneath him.

Just one terrible draught of air filled the pegasus' lungs. From some vestige of himself he cried out. "Wane! Get out of here!"

There was no hesitation, no denying such desperation. Wane spread his wings and took to the air, shaken and uneasy in his ascent.

"No!" Shining shouted, but in turning to face Wane, Wax found the chance to break free of the pin, and a hoof rose up in desperate vengeance, slamming the unicorn’s jaw with the force to jar his head aside.

The last Wane saw of them, a white hoof came down atop his brother's skull with a trembling crack, then a blinding flash of magic consumed them both. When he looked back a second later, blinking the searing light from his eyes, there was nothing.

Only rain, and a statue of Discord: his expression unreadable.

It did not look to remain dry much longer, Luna noted as she descended at long last back to ground. As if the clouds themselves had drawn of the upset and anger from her thoughts they had become gray and uneasy, but in turn the dark princess felt more herself.

Canterlot sprawled out beneath her, Luna spiraled down, gazing over the city's loneliness. The capitol boasted few pegasi, even by the standards of a grounded city, and with so few willing to step outside in less than perfect, sunny weather, it could be as if the whole world were empty.

As always the castle and its grounds dominated the vista, even seen from above, and yet not even it could shake loose the melancholy she saw, as if it pervaded the very air she breathed and flew upon.

She sighed and tilted her wings into a steeper descent, turning away from the castle as she did so. Calmer, yes, but she was not free of her disquiet. The embers of her anger were still there, sputtering and drowned for a time under her solemn thoughts. Luna did feel quite yet ready to face herself, or Celestia for the latest outburst.

As much intending to find answers as escape her own thoughts, Luna angled herself towards the unassuming orphanage, tucked away in a corner of the city, well away from the more envied and opulent quarters.

Seeing nopony and being seen by none in turn, Luna descended beneath the rooftops. Sprout's Orphanage was looked to be nothing more than a large house. Indeed, it may once have been just that, but a sign of raised wooden letters over the door declared its present purpose.

Luna hesitated on the doorstep. What business did a princess of Equestria have here? Thinking on it a moment, she asked herself instead what business a princess of Equestria didn't have there. Nevermind that a changeling lurked within, it was downright shameful that it had taken, at a changeling's insistence no less, a request for such a visit to occur at all. What other ponies were as vulnerable as these? Who else would be there for them, if not her?

Deciding that a princess did not need to knock, she parted the doors and stepped in. A little yellow filly looked up at her, screamed and fled. Luna was not all that upset, considering.

"That hasn't changed," she muttered under her breath. In no time at all a familiar pink pony rushed down the stairs, followed by the sounds of a somewhat more safe and sensible pace set by the matron. The filly hugged closely to the green mare, babbling about a scary 'unicorn-esus.'

Surreal went from motion to stillness with no particular deceleration, just staring intently as if Luna might vanish forevermore should she look away. The princess, however, paid more mind to Brussel Sprouts, as she reprimanded the filly gently.

"You know this one, Goldy Locks. Alicorn. Not 'unicorn-esus.' The word is alicorn...alicorn!" and on that note the easy trot echoes became those of a frantic mare indeed. "Princess!" the mare shouted as she stumbled over the last few steps.

Luna nodded slightly to the startled matron, forgiving her the outburst.

"This is...sudden!" the mare cried in shrill tones, struggling to keep her calm and failing notably. "Not that we mind sudden!" A foal poked his face around the stairs, as did another filly.

Something in the foals quizzical looks made Luna smile. "Be easy, Brussel Sprouts. Calm yourself."

“I...I...”

Luna drew an edged breath through her teeth. Quieter, not louder: that she must remember.

“Forgive us our abruptness,” she managed to say softly, gracing her stammering subject with a slight bow. “I have acted without consideration, it is right of you to be caught out.” Luna made herself everything she could of softness and smiled for the foals. “Hello, children.”

A few whispered cautious hellos back, among them Surreal’s own was tense, yet not out of place amidst the awed little voices.

The green mare sighed; something on the breath carried the tension from body and mind.

“Well,” she began, sighing again - perhaps one, no matter how nice, would cut it - “come in then. Surry, would you bring everyone some drinks please?”

“Mhmm” the changeling mumbled, hesitant to leave, jerking her body away when she did.

The matron lead on to a room that could only be called a living; certainly many hours of innocent little lives had passed in the otherwise spartan room. Playthings were scattered about, and colours of all sorts made for a refuge from the atmosphere outside. The princess of the kingdom took seat upon a couch possibly more ancient than she, and infinitely more experienced from the looks of it. The softness of the slightly smelling cushions swallowed her up.

“Your, uh, highness...I don’t know how to be formal. And everything’s a bit-”

“Do not be worried.”

Brussel sprouts bowed: quick and deep. Her hooves skittered in place, her eyes flicked to and from the alicorn. “I’ll just...call down the other foals then?” Some already, more offput by their matron’s hesitation than any seeming doubts of their own about Luna.

“That would be prudent.”

“Alright then. Thank you,” she muttered hastily as she took her leave.

There were foals, and there was Luna, possibly more lost than they. A blue one and a red one stepped up, but it was the yellow filly between them who spoke.

“Are you princess Celestia?”

Ah, it was to be like that then. “No. I am Luna.” No sudden outbursts, no loud noises. She could do this.

“That’s her sister,” the little blue colt said with complete disregard for her regal presence. It was rather strange, all in all. “I learned it in school.”

“I like your mane,” the red filly chimed in, then hid away behind herself. Possibly blushing, but it was impossible to tell.

A thoughtless compliment, but one that struck Luna from out of the blue. Well, out of the red in this instance, but the point remained.

The alicorn of the night felt she walked on the eggshells of butterflies, yet somehow despite herself dared hope she managed alright.

“They said you were bad a long time ago.” There was something about the colt...in twenty years time Luna could imagine that flat, neutral gaze would be trained down his muzzle through the lenses of reading glasses. ‘Aloof’ was the word that came to her mind, followed by the thought that she would be there to see if such imagining held true, if she so wished. Twenty years further too. So on and so on, all the days of his life. A red hoof prodding Luna’s star woven tail brought her back to herself.

“Yes, I was.” She didn’t speak down to them, and her voice became its more usual self, if sombre for what memories were brought to it.

“And Celestia sent you to the moon.”

“I got sent to timeout once. It was terrible.” The yellow filly gave a look of such unadulterated sympathy that Luna could not help but smile.

“Why?” the red asked, tracing the flowing ripples of magical starlight with an intrusive, inquisitive gaze.

“Because she wouldn’t lower the moon,” said the colt before Luna could speak.

“Why?”

“Because she wanted to make it nighttime forever.”

“Why?”

“Because...I don’t know. Why?” If there was a foal sized table and chair, his hooves would of been steepled under his chin. They just would have been.

Luna breathed and stared at the crackled paint of the ceiling, tracing the little black lines as they jittered this way and that. Had she ever told this story before? She couldn’t recall. In its fullness? Never. She could tell them nearly anything, and they would believe it. She could jade young minds forever against her sister.

But she wouldn’t. The memory, or perhaps the ghost of Honesty within her showed another path. A silvery filly took silent seat next to Luna, and others still reverently filled the room.

Something in the unbiased innocence called to her. Let them by my judges, she thought, and there was a peace of mind that came with it. The nightmare was the most quiet it had been in weeks. Subdued or placated, she couldn’t tell, nor particularly cared just then.

Surreal slunk her way into the room, a platter of cups and a pitcher of juice on her back. Luna’s magic made short work of serving them. The simple display delighted the foals, and with only a few spills more and more were crowding around Luna.

The princess eyed the changeling. Several fillies and colts cosied and cuddled the pink mare and she patted at them affectionately, her eyes forgetting Luna for brief, precious moments.

“You know,” Luna began, “I have never told anypony this before. You’ll be the first... maybe the last.”

“That’s not fair!” the yellow filly squeaked. “Nopony ever gets punished without both sides of the story being heard.”

“That’s the rules,” the blue colt said, nodding. “Matron Sprouts says so.”

“She has a good heart,” Surreal murmured. Luna turned to the changeling, false eyes shining magenta and nodded.

As if on cue, the green mare strode into the room, smiling a little smile. “What’s this now? A story?” Again, Luna only nodded. She did not quite trust to words.

With a tug on her wing, the alicorn paused. She’d kept them furled tight to her sides, as was fitting for indoors, but what did foals know or care of etiquette? Luna opened her dark wings, except now they were improvised blankets. After a moment’s conflicted feeling, she let one feathery brush settle over Surreal and the foals curled up to her.

She didn’t sugar coat it, or omit the necessary details. There was only young, wide eyes and truth, feeling like warm storm rains that washed her clean. There was no intrusion on her but one, and that was the red filly again, saying she liked Luna’s voice.

“The Elements of Harmony never intended to be used by just two ponies, even such as we. There was nothing else we could do though, and we had to act.”

“What did you do?”

“Celestia and I, we did what we had to. We...bent the Elements: three to each of us. She and I were so close then...we hoped that would be enough, but we had no choice regardless. Discord was everywhere: in all things. She took up Laughter, Kindness and Generosity, and I took up the mantles of Loyalty, Honesty and Magic.”

Luna paused a moment, heavy with memory. Not to think. Just to feel.

“You had Magic? Does that mean you're more powerful than Celestia?” This sparked something of a debate; Brussel Sprouts quirked an eyebrow but did nothing else. Of their own accord the foals settled, united in the desire to hear more. Luna’s wings were rapidly becoming the prizes of squirming and sneaky shoving.

Magic. The most elusive Element, and the most powerful. It was a tired old secret, one she not often recalled, one that came to her only in her darker contemplations.. “Yes,” she said after some thought. “Yes, I have more power than Celestia. And together, she and I had enough to defeat Discord.

“But we were not unscathed in victory. The draconequus saw the strain of our control over the elements...our weakness.”

Luna would not forget that struggle. Ever. The spirit’s smugness as his last, spiteful ploy struck, the impossible swiftness of hoof, wing and heart as Luna dove between her sister and the spell...how everything had twisted within her.

The night princess had not thought with such clarity on Discord since, well...that false love wasn’t there anymore, was it now? She could spare the foals that much anyway. They didn’t need to know of such things just yet.

Brussel Sprouts shifted on her spot, away and back from the foals.

“So it was all Discord’s fault then!” shouted the red filly, who had since won herself a substantial portion of the downy feathers, draping Luna’s wing over herself.

“No.” Blaming him was easy. Had always been easy. It didn’t make it right. “He only...” she struggled for words, “only helped set in motion what was already there. A pony must always take responsibility for her actions.” From her moment of dark reflection, Luna recalled her audience and smiled. “Learn that earlier in life than I did; you will be wise mares and stallions indeed.”

It struck the right chord, for the foals beamed with pride to be so highly appraised. If only the story could end on such a note.

“Nightmare Moon came later. Later enough that we had time to undo Discord’s reign, and it was good. And yet...” Again, foals did not need the full extent of recollection here, “Nightmare Moon still came.

The world was simpler then, and I was so alone. At first I thought they were my thoughts...and they were.” Luna took a deep breath, shut her eyes and released it. Maybe the opening of old wounds would let them finally bleed cleanly... “She is me. Discord gave her potential, but it was only I that could fulfil it. And I did, eventually.”

Luna did not realize she had been terrified the foals might shun her and frighten away until she saw that they would not. Indeed, one was hugging her left foreleg with a soft vicegrip of warmth. The green mare watched on with cold interest.

“I was more powerful, but as Nightmare Moon grew within me she filled my heart. The more of it she filled, the more of my magic was hers. I still cannot...” Luna trailed off.

How did she say it? How could she? That the Mare in the Moon had been so sure...so confident. So understanding, and Luna had been so alone, so uncertain. How did she tell the world she had given herself willingly to it?

“Nightmare Moon is insane,” Luna said, more to affirm what she needed to hear than anything the foals might. “Even when she returned from banishment she thought she could make the world better. She’s always believed...well, the new bearers of the Elements defeated her, and here I am.”

It didn’t feel complete, but the princess of the night lost the heart to brave any more. She drank of her cup - orange juice, it was - and drowned her voice in it, if only for a moment.

It didn’t drown the whispers at the edge of her mind, but she could manage those. As she always had.

Nobody spoke for a time. Then, of all ponies: the matron. “That was certainly...engaging, Luna.”

“Where are the snacks?” a foal asked of her.

“The...oh. Right. Surreal, would you come help me with that? Surry?”

The changeling was slow to rouse herself from Luna, but followed after the pony in due course.

“She never forgets the snacks...” muttered the blue colt. Alarm bells rang through Luna, ones she did not know but felt, felt intuitively. She extricated herself from the fillies and colts and hastily conjured baubles of starlight not dissimilar from her mane and tail for them. They moved and rippled with touch, quickly capturing the children's’ collective attention

“I will help as well,” Luna said quietly, removing herself from the room as discreetly as an alicorn could hope to in such circumstances. The hall lead on to the kitchen; a homely, functional affair for feeding hungry mouths. A door lead further on to a back alley.

It was ajar. A cool, wet breeze spilled through the warmth. Trusting to her feeling and fearing it was right, Luna hastened outside.

Surreal wouldn’t leave her willingly. As Luna understood it, the changeling couldn’t, and though conflicted thoughts pervaded every aspect of that, the alicorn had time for none of them.

The Queen of changelings was not expecting pursuit so soon, and the unconscious body held aloft on magic - still in the guise of a pony - did no favours to her mobility. Luna caught them up. Filmy wings fluttered once, and once again as if the Queen considered running, but rather she turned and faced the alicorn.

First things first. “What did you do with the mare?” It was a dead end alley. Chalk drawings and scattered toys were scattered about behind the changeling, but short of flying or getting past Luna there was no easy way out; she did not think the Queen could outrun her in the air.

“You care? How sweet,” Chrysalis hissed. “They’ll find her peacefully asleep on the bathroom floor. She’ll wake up confused, but fine. Does that set your fears to rest, little moon?” The big changeling stepped back, her gaze flicked quickly behind her and back again. “Surprised? I’m not the monster here, Luna.

“I think I heard enough.” Chrysalis bared her teeth, not in her usual grin, but as a creature cornered. “You’re slipping, aren’t you?”

“Chrysalis...”

“I don’t care! I’m taking Surreal back.” The Queen grinned wickedly.

“Would she want to go? You don’t get to just take what you want.”

“Oh really? And that’s not what you do at all? You won’t stop me here, little moon. I promise you that.”

Luna shifted her stance, bracing herself for anything. “I can’t let you just take her.”

“What part of your existence hurting her don’t you understand?” Luna lunged to grasp Surreal, but emerald fire swept the spell aside. The slumbering form of the little changeling drifted behind her Queen, oblivious to the struggle. “Just let me go,” she hissed, almost pleading.

How could the creature even think such a thing? She was Luna, alicorn of the nightmare! The dark pony closed the distance with slow, intentful strides.

“You’re forcing me to do this,” The Queen spat. Her magic flared - but not at Luna. Green fire spouted from her horn, then imploded on itself. With a pop and a surge of darkness, what had been nothing became a small, shimmering jewel of icy ocean blues. It glowed with a steady pulsing of light, even as it dropped to the ground before Chrysalis. She put a twisted hoof atop it.

“That’s it?” Luna could laugh. She took another step.

Chrysalis leaned her weight forwards, onto the gem. Luna gasped as if the blackened hoof were embedded in her ribcage, stumbling on the spot.

“Does it hurt, much? I didn’t lie, you know: when all this started. I really had no idea what I was doing, or what would happen. Remember, Luna. Little moon. You came to me. You begged me for this.”

Luna choked, her eyes threatening to blurr out entirely as the crushing weight filled her chest. Chrysalis raised her hoof and struck down with it. Luna screamed, fell, and could see only the endless expanse of angered gray clouds above.

“It’s a little bit funny, Luna, and a little bit sad. I pity you, really.” The changeling’s hoof twisted this way and that, grinding atop the jewel as if it were Luna’s own bones. “You did so much, tried so much to get rid of these bits of yourself. And even after all that, they still hurt you.

I’m not a sadist.” Chrysalis gave a vicious twist of her hoof. “Not much of a sadist, anyway. And you know what? I’ll be honest: you scare me.”

Heaving and panting, Luna tried to crawl to her hooves, given a moment’s reprieve from the torment. A voice suddenly sounded in her ear, so close she could feel the Queen of changelings’ breath, whispering darkly.

“But, Luna, you don’t scare me half as much as the other half. Nightmare Moon, is it?”

The alicorn shouted through her ragged breath; a sound without words, only anger and sorrow.

Chrysalis grinned wildly, rearing back, her wings churning air. “Good night, little moon. Sleep tight; don’t let the bad bugs bite!” And on that she struck down.

Luna winked out like a light, her last echoing thought the recollection of a dream.

Above them all the first drips of rain began to fall, pattering chill waters across the fallen alicorn.

chapter twenty four

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty four

Shining Armor collapsed onto the cool marble of the castle’s atrium. Spears were lowered on him instantly, then pulled away nearly as quickly. In the daze following such a costly teleport he could feel pride for his guards, somewhere amidst the dizziness.

The pegasus Wax was in all together worse a state. His savagery had startled the good captain, even frightened him, but Wax’s recklessness had spent itself on the magic and metal of the unicorn. A guard assisted Shining to his hooves, and a discrete spell to check for changeling illusions did not escape the captain’s notice. If anything, Shining was all the more proud of his guard; not even he would be above their vigilance.

“Get a doctor,” he croaked, his jaw aching wildly.

Wax twitched and writhed in place, oblivious to the spear tips still trained on him. His eyes were rolling freely, fixing on nothing; seeing nothing. He mumbled incoherently under his breath with spittle, blood, and tears oozing from his head. Shining wished to know what changeling secrets the hurt pegasus might be babbling loose, but that would come later.

“Get a doctor!” he roared, and this time his command was heeded. The mangled pegasus proved a shock and distraction to the guards - too many were looking to their captain with wide, questioning eyes. “Send for princess Cadence, and for Celestia.”

Shining forced himself upright and firm, banishing all semblance of a limp from his slow stride as he turned and marched away, under the great awnings and murals of the chamber. He would have but a moment to rest his spirit before matters erupted entirely.

“Something is rotten in the heart of Canterlot,” he muttered to nopony.

They found a doctor already within the castle, and the mare proved swifter than either princess in her arrival. Saddle bags bounced against her brown flanks as she ran. She was a feisty, slightly built earth pony, spitting damnations and cursing every guard that hindered her path.

“You stupid idiots!” she shouted when the atrium opened to her. Not two minutes had passed since the teleport, but there was plenty that could be done for a bleeding and broken pony in two minutes, and the guards had done nothing at all. “Stupid, stupid idiots!”

Anger leant her strength as she bullied her way past the guards, completely shoving away at the spears they held. The mare wiggled free of her bag, letting it fall with to the floor beside her.

“What did you -” she began in hateful accusation, but as her rushed hooves lifted Wax’s head from the floor she stilled and quieted, until only his raspy, shallow breathing filled the grand chamber. These weren’t the wounds she expected to see.

“What have you done to yourself?” she whispered, though in the emptiness it was as a roar. She traced a gentle hoof along the suppurations across Wax’s cheek.

She spoke with perfect calm. “Get those spears away from me and my patient or I will make sure it will take a better doctor than me to get you walking straight again.” The spears dipped and were removed. She shined a small light in Wax’s eyes, or meant to, but when she delicately peeled the eyelids back, Wax’s scleras were green as emeralds. She hesitated a breath, then shone the light. His eyes almost focused, they wanted to, but couldn’t quite and started to drift off again.

“Wane?” The pegasus moaned, his movements gaining some tiny measure of strength. “Wane?”

“I’m a doctor, I’m here to help you.” She needed to clean his welts, but Wax’s frantic struggles grew and grew, until the slight mare could not hope to restrain his thrashing.

“Hold him down!” she ordered and they did. Every field doctor carried tranquilizer, but in all her experience never for this.

Kicking and screeching, Wax struggled on. A third and fourth guard, then a fifth added their strength to restrain him, and only barely at that.

The glistening metal of the needle found its mark and bore deep. The mare pushed down on the plunger steady as she could until every pale drop had bled away into the pegasus. His eyes flared once, his limbs stiffened, then Wax fell, body and mind into peace.

There was a heavy, sedated edge to his breath as the drug took him, but anything was better than the gasping, choking little breaths of his mania.

“Wane...” he murmured once, and was gone.

After a moment’s contemplation a presence drew the mare’s eye from her patient.

“It seems some things need to be explained,” Celestia said. She did not raise her voice; one that rose the sun and ruled the day did not often need to.

“There is-” Shining began, but Celestia bid him to silence. He stepped aside, only for his wife to give him a look of understanding disappointment from the white alicorn’s side.

“You,” Celestia said, calling on the doctor, “what’s his condition?” The princess of the sun looked down on the stricken pegasus. The sunshine of her magic illuminated his chest, a pillar of pale light connecting her to Wax. She moved it this way and that, over and across his chest, closing her eyes to listen. The mare realized her princess was applying magic much as she herself would apply a stethoscope, and to the same effect.

The doctor nodded, recovered herself and spoke. “The damage seems entirely external.”

“Yes, his lungs are clear,” said Celestia, her eyes still closed. Listening. The pillar moved again; Celestia frowned. “His heartbeat is off. Heavy. Strained.”

Celestia slipped her hoof from its golden shoe, putting her bare touch, soft as snow upon Wax’s chest.

“Princess, please,” a guard began. “it’s not safe to-”

“I’m quite aware that, thank you.” Celestia opened her eyes, her magic became a delicate breeze that opened Wax’s wings and lay them out behind him. “Doctor,” she added as if an afternote she wished to politely recall, “thank you for your haste. You may go now. I will see to this myself.”

“By your leave, then.” It was but a moment for the mare to fetch her bag, giving as many nasty looks to the armored stallions as she could on her way out. She felt no small measure of guilt for leaving a patient, but he was in the good care of the princess herself now.

Besides, the tension in the air could have been cut with knives.

Wax tried to think, but he couldn’t. He tried to remember, remember anything, but he couldn’t. He tried to exist, and found he could just about manage that.

He was floating, he felt, but could not put thought to it.

Wane, I... He tried, but trailed into nothingness. Wane, you... Each thought was massive, a mountain to move, a continent to raise, but with each tiny motion his momentum grew.

Wane. He was floating. Well and truly. Wax could feel the suspension, somewhere. Everywhere.

He tried to remember, and found that he could.

“Wane,” he murmured, barely hearing his own voice. His brother had gotten away. He could almost remember that, he had to believe that. Something beyond the burning, he could almost remember Wane getting away. His brother... but then, that was the secret.

“Where is Wane?”

“Safe,” Wax whispered. He couldn’t see. Or maybe he could, and the world was soft glowing light, all yellow and pinks. They felt so warm, so welcoming. The burning wasn’t here right now, it was somewhere else. Held back. Maybe sleeping. Wax wanted to sleep, but something buoyed him up.

“Wane,” he murmured again. Wistful. Happy. Sad. Content. “Secret’s safe.”

”What’s the secret?” Anger, purpose. Why did his thoughts turn to Shining Armor?

A sharp note, a sudden sting, it was these things and none, jarring Wax. He tried to move and found he could, but only slowly, as if in water.

He had to keep the secret safe. Had to keep his brother safe. Nobody else would, especially now. They wouldn’t understand. He loved Wane too much to do any less, any different.

The burning woke up.

“No,” Wax said, weeping like a small foal, unable to contain himself at all. He tried to move, but he was so heavy, so slow and so tired. But the burning didn’t let him be heavy, or slow, or tired. It gave so much, but took even more.

A voice called spoke, one of strength and sweetness. “Cadence, what are we looking at?” Was that...was that Celestia?

“He’s waking up,” said the lesser alicorn, worry heavy in her voice.

“Keep going. We need to know. What is this, Cadence?”

It was...him. Wax knew it before he knew how he knew it. He floated by magic, but what he floated inside was an image imposed upon the air. A thousand little stars, bright and faint and shimmering; the constellation of his heart and soul.

Something was wrong. Very wrong, and the realization filled Wax with panic, which in turn spurred on the burning. As the burning moved through him, more lights winked out; veins of ghostly green spilling poison across the stars.

“I don’t...who would...” Cadence could barely speak for shock and disbelief.

“There isn’t time, Cadence. Please, focus.” Even Celestia’s impeccable tones were strained.

“Pieces of him are missing!” The pink alicorn cried, her spell shuddering before she reinforced it. “Blocked off...buried.” Cadence began to cry, but her eyes did not waver from their duty. “It’s like the feathers are torn from his wings, he tries to keep flying but he can’t.”

The phantasmal image continued to twist and darken, with Wax helpless at it’s heart. His mind was very small now, very small and afraid. The burning was very large, and somewhere it was screaming and writhing with his limbs against the magical restraints. He could not comprehend, there was no room left for it, not enough to even think or remember.

Then there was daylight, bright and certain, then nothingness.

Celestia lay the sleeping body of Wax down, hoping his mind knew a similar peace.

“It’s changeling magic,” Cadence said. She sat for sorrow and exhaustion; her husband wiped the tears from her eyes and held her. There was no joy in him for being proven right: his fears had been well founded in truth, but he could not tolerate the suffering of his one true love because of it. Shining drew a deep breath, held it as he held Cadence, and it was a terrible struggle to let either go.

But a captain had his duty.

“Wax is a steward to princess Luna,” he said gravely, “and she is missing.”

There was silence, heavy and cold. Then the ruler of Equestria spoke.

“Cadence. Thank you. I know this was not easy for you. What is happening to Wax? Can you undo this?”

Cadence stood, free of Shining, and met Celestia’s eye. “I can’t. The magic is too tightly bound into his being. There’s not enough of him to fill the gaps. He’s falling apart. A broken heart that stays broken.”

“I understand. Cadence, go with him. Do what you can.” The lesser princess nodded, took the prone pegasus in her magic and left.

“Shining Armor. I had hoped...” Celestia sighed, then regained herself. “Alert the guard. Raise a shield and take the changelings. All of them.

“Shining Armor,” she began again, halting the unicorn in his tracks. “There are things that you must understand. Because you have an exceptional sister, I think it will be very easy for you to do so.

“If Twilight Sparkle were in peril, would you throw away your duty to save her, if that was what it took? If her power was consuming her? If you had already had to...” Celestia turned and did not look back.

“I do not need you to agree with my decisions, captain. Luna has always needed space, and I gave it to her despite myself. It was on her request that your own sister, my favoured student, indeed all the Element bearers have not come to Canterlot. Again, this was against my own misgivings. “

Celestia wheeled about; white hot flames licked out the edges of her eyes, her breath was a furnace heat that spilled over the good captain. “But I stand by my path, and would walk it again. I have had Equestria over a thousand years and of them all I have had my own sister for barely two. A millennia to weigh my failings. And now I must make war on what Luna wanted. I must instigate open conflict, and I am clinging to hope for my sister. And I am forced to do this, for you, and all Equestria.”

Sunlight grew to fill the chamber. Not the illumination of dawn or the warmth of summer, but the implacable, relentless purity that scorched deserts and desiccated worlds.

“The next time you subvert my will, Shining, I want you to understand what it truly means to be dutiful, so that the next time you feel my actions or inactions have threatened Equestria, you will have the barest glimmering of how I feel.” Celestia huffed a breath of flames that licked at Shining’s chin.

The fiery light grew; grew until it was hardly bearable before fading away to nothing and only the heat remained, cooling with tortured slowness.

“Now go. There are travesties to be answered for.”

Quite entirely alone, Celestia cried.

chapter twenty five

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty five

For a long while Chrysalis just stood, unable to fully register everything that had happened. Surreal was slung across her back, but the weight of the changeling was slight, barely noticeable against the Queen’s impressive strength and size.

The rain fell hard on them, and though it was colder than she realized she did not shiver or seek shelter from it. The Queen’s thoughts turned to the little changeling. Chrysalis looked at Surreal, then back, and to her indescribable surprise Luna was still there, broken and beaten on the open ground. The rain poured on them all with equal apathy, and slowly but surely the colourful chalk drawings of the orphanage foals melted away.

There was no crack, not even a scuff to mar the surface of the jewel, despite the Queen’s assault on it. Chrysalis raised it in her magic, slow and cautious in her motion. The piece of Luna’s heart was quiet for the time being, much like the alicorn herself. Even so, there was a latent force the changeling could feel in it. Not for the first time Chrysalis was made to wonder if her senses for such things as love and magic were sharpening somehow or, ultimately more likely, the Queen of changelings had deluded herself and grossly overestimated her understanding and awareness for years, and only now was coming into these realizations.

She caught the edge of a sensation; a trickle of love being drawn out from the jewel. The shifting of Surreal’s weight and a murmur of awakening told Chrysalis as much what was happening; the changeling had found a chink through which to feed. Chrysalis bore down with her magic until the flames that held the gem were howling and nearly black, forcing the tentative connection between it and Surreal apart. The jewel disappeared back under Chrysalis’ power with a soundless pop.

Chrysalis could not fly with the changeling sprawled over her wings, nor could she disguise them. Surreal struggled with feeble effort as Chrysalis brought her around and, taking wing, held her tightly in her hooves. The Queen would have to trust to the storm to conceal them, hoping nopony would notice a black speck in the gray swirl. The water sleeting off of Chrysalis made flying more of an effort than carrying Surreal, so small and light was the changeling and so big and strong was Chrysalis. That they were in every way one and the same creature was nothing less than astounding.

“Luna,” the little voice sighed sweetly, slurring the sounds sleepily. Chrysalis scoffed bitterly.

“No.”

“No?” The squirming in Chrysalis hooves grew more insistent, but was still as nothing to Chrysalis’ strong grip.

“Guess again.” So, enough love had slipped through to rouse the changeling. Even in defeat Luna still complicated everything. Surreal’s eyes were hazy and uncertain as she looked up, sheltered as she was from the rain in the lee of Chrysalis form.

“...Queen?” the changeling hazarded. “What are...what’s going on?”

“You’re coming back. Then we’re all going home.” Chrysalis was mindful of her grip. Though she doubted the addled changeling could fly at all, let alone through weather this bad, she could all too easily crush the changeling in her grasp.

The familiar haze of the shielding ward brought some colour back to the world. Chrysalis angled her descent best she could, circling around to the quieter areas before dropping quickly out of open sight into the back alley bordering the barrier.

“I don’t want to go back,” the changeling cried all too loudly. Chrysalis let her free; Surreal stumbled to her hooves, looking this way and that, presumably for some means back to the alicorn.

“You don’t have to make that choice.”

“But...Luna!”

“The self consumed, self-pitying, unstable screw up of an alicorn? No. You’ve had far too much of that. She’s just a source of food,” the Queen of changelings growled. She wondered why she argued this at all with one of her subjects, and chafed at how much it aggravated her to even do so.

“She’s more than that!”

Chrysalis swept her leg before her and Surreal toppled like so many playing cards. “Not to us!” Appalled with herself, the Queen could only watch herself as her hoof pinned the changeling to the puddles. It took all too much force of will for Chrysalis to usurp herself from the anger, the frustration and fear. Stifling her shudders, she withdraw the contact. “Coming to Canterlot was a mistake. Bringing you was a mistake.

“Look at it all!” she hissed to the crying little changeling, gesturing with grandiose motions around them. “I did this! All of it! I...” Chrysalis trailed off into silence, as if some grievous break in herself had frozen over with ice. When she next spoke, the Queen of changelings was rigid in voice and poise, even brittle.

“I’m taking us home, Surry. All of us.” Blessedly, the little changeling said nothing, opting only to whimper.

Chrysalis closed her eyes and drew a few deep breaths, trying to feel nothing but the rain. She was furious; she’d nearly taken it out on one of her own, and one of the most vulnerable at that. Fear tongued its way further through the crevices of Chrysalis’ doubt than it ever had before. She was strong and she was powerful, but they were not. Her changelings. Her changelings. And she’d been...what? Playing with Luna at some stupid game?

The Queen of changelings drew Surreal close to her, keeping her close until both of them had calmed some small measure. Cursing herself in the rain, Chrysalis channeled a small draught of love from the jewels through herself and into Surreal, placating the changeling. She felt she should say something, an apology perhaps, but nothing would come. Leading the way, Chrysalis brought them through the water sleeting down the broken barrier.

If there was any advantage at all to the cage of magic, it was that the spell kept the rain out as thoroughly as it kept the changelings in. Almost as thoroughly, anyway.

Great torrents of water curtained down the sides, making the world beyond their hotel prison a blurry spectacle of blue and gray. Beetle watched for the colours that occasionally merged from it, ponies coming and going.

Despite himself, the foaling he still carried made for fine company, doing and saying nothing beyond the occasional wriggle or yawn. Chrysalis had commanded he wait, so wait Beetle did. There was a peacefulness to it all, a timelessness flowing quite literally all around him as the minutes had trickled by. The changeling could almost forget everything and think himself at home - his real home - away from this whole mess. It was the same rain that fell here as there, wasn’t it?

Some part of Chrysalis’ plan seemed to be bearing fruit. With the changelings so passive and peaceful, the guards were taking longer patrols, lingering around the back rooms for whatever quick bits of snacks or chatter they could find from their own kind, for their wards were forthcoming with neither. If anything it was quite the opposite, and the guards well aware they were something of a delicatessen room service going about on regular rounds. As such, the changelings found themselves with a surprising degree of privacy

Even so, what did they stand to gain from it? The changeling quashed the doubt within himself. Even if he did not see his Queen’s plan, did not understand it, he had to believe there was a...

Beetle huffed, blinked, and shuffled his legs and wings some small manner. It was the most action he’d taken in the last hour. His little companion made a sound like ‘coo’ and squirmed in her own little ways to get comfortable again. Then, in more or less perfect unison, they both blinked when they saw what was new.

Chrysalis tended to have that effect, especially as the damaged section of the shield rippled and twisted as she strode through it.

Beetle’s eyes went wider still for what followed. Surreal’s eyes drifted up to his own and she managed a faint smile.

“You’re finally holding foalings right, I see.” Beetle was stuck for words and too surprised to smile. The child made a sound like ‘coo’, but his Queen left no time for anything more.

Chrysalis lead on, slamming back the doors of their hotel prison, not even slowing. Armoured ponies all about the place jumped in startlement, looking to each other in bewilderment. The Queen of changelings blew past them all. She had maybe a minute before some pony, brave or stupid, stood up from the groups, asking questions and giving orders.

It was a certain advantage for the changelings that, for them, it was all a bit simpler than that. Chrysalis crested the stairs, roaring out for her changelings to gather. They poured into the hall, blinking and chittering.

“We are leaving!” she called, not caring her voice reached far past her audience and down to the enemy. She eyed her band; nobody was missing, but with the foalings in tow there was no eagerness for conflict, only wariness. The Queen of changelings could curse herself later for ever thinking that bringing them along was a good idea or more specifically, for ever being the sort of mind that could find a way to use her people’s children as a ploy.

Despite herself, Chrysalis pounded with excitement. She dredged up a reserve of love from one of the jewels in her possession - the stormy gray - lacing it with a command as she poured it into and stupefying the susceptible Surreal.

“Stay with us. Follow Beetle,” she whispered to the mesmerized changeling, before turning to the male in question. “You watch her. You get her out of Canterlot, understood?”

He nodded.

“Say it,” Chrysalis demanded.

“I’ll watch her. I’ll get her home.”

The Queen of changelings turned to the stairs, slamming her hooves into the woodwork so hard that the beams beneath her cracked and splintered.

“We are not attacking!” She bellowed for everyone’s benefit, pony and changeling before addressing the scrambling defence below them. “We are leaving. Try us at your own peril, because I am not in a patient or understanding mood!” She cackled, exhilarated with circumstance. “If anything, I am feeling very vicious and vindictive, so actually: please do give me an excuse,” The Queen of changelings said, grinning pure evil.

It had to be said that a cackling dark Queen atop an opulent staircase, heading a small legion of scary black monsters... it all made for something rather imposing. Even so, the guards, earth ponies and unicorns, kept to the haggard line they’d made between the changelings and the door.

“This is...sudden,” a pony more wry than most called back up from his cover behind the fountain piece.

“You have no idea.”

“It’d look something awful up top if I just let you waltz out.”

Chrysalis scoffed, enjoying herself greatly. “I could always rough you all up a bit. Or a lot.”

There might have been different ways to look at the strange, sudden standoff: finicky things like numbers and placement, but really it all boiled down to a single overwhelming truth. One side had Chrysalis, the other did nott. Everyone knew it. A few very tense seconds passed, before the screaming hysterics of the hotel proprietor drew all eyes to a side door.

A wheezing, panting changeling stumbled halfway through whilst changing, in the same manner a pony might trip if too hastily undressing themselves. Breathing heavily, she slowly took in the situation, all eyes on her.

“Let me through, I’m a doctor?” she asked between puffs for air. She shook out a leg that was still caught in the illusion of a slightly built mare, but the bag of assorted medical supplies on her back seemed genuine. She managed a bleak little chuckle. “I’m not interrupting something, am I? It’s just that something very, very bad is happening and I need to speak with my Queen.”

The voice of the pony piped up from farther on, spurred on by sheer weight of disbelief. “What, you mean worse than a full on changeling breakout?”

The pseudo - or possibly genuine - doctor that happened to also be a changeling thought for a moment. “Yes?”

Other ponies looked nervously between the black, chitinous bodies and the lax, thoughtful sergeant.

This is getting ridiculous. Chrysalis could not have stopped herself smiling maniacally had she wanted to; like a boulder set to the tumult of an avalanche she was both a force of - and subject - greater circumstance. All the twisted emotions knotting her belly were still there, but for the moment they were taking a backseat to sheer enjoyment, she’d been playing at subtle moves too long. “So, the easy way, or the fun way?” she crooned.

The leading pony poked his head a little further from cover, rolling his shoulders. “It’s very kind of you to offer, ma’am. Guards, what’s our answer?”

There came some hushed, confused mumblings as several ponies cautiously voiced the opinions that discretion might indeed be the better part of valour. The leader groaned and facehooved.

“Guards? When we get debriefed, we are all going to lie and say that every last one of you all screamed ‘No Surrender!’ or something valiant like that, and that’s an order. Now fire!” the pony bellowed, leaping forwards and blasting at Chrysalis.

She caught the assault head on, burning the spell to nothing with raw force before it ever reached her. A few sporadic bursts of magic flared upwards to the changelings, met in kind by the green, fizzing pock shots from around corners and behind banisters. The Queen of changelings’ gnarled horn flared, lighting the whole of the fountain piece in an eerie light. The waters seethed and spilled over the basin’s sides, turning to black tar that sucked and snared the hooves of the ponies as it spewed across the floor. Ponies tugged and stumbled as they tried to get away, those further out grappled with the changelings that leapt buzzing into the fray.

The ponies were quickly dispatched, either mesmerized in enthralling ensorcellment or bound in the copious and generously used secretions of the changelings. To the guards’ credit, once they’d been rallied they did not skimp on the exchange of bruises and spell stings; plenty of changelings would remember this brief havoc poignantly in the morning, even if the skirmish had been one sided and pre-determined.

“Better luck next time boys,” Chrysalis laughed.

They poured outside, a black swash in her wake. The shield of their confinement still stood, and suddenly the Queen of changelings had an outlet for her frustrations. Bracing her legs, the writhing flames of magic sheathed her horn in an eldritch light. Power surged through her until the eminence was a lance taller than she was, staining everything in sight with its light. The whine of the spell filled changeling ears with its shrill keening, spitting and crackling with molten sparks that sizzled as they fell.

“Stand back-” the Queen of changelings roared, but as she readied her shield-breaking spell she watched with bewilderment as, too far along to simply dissipate so much magic, there was no longer a shield for her to break. The dome of lights dissolved of its own accord, winking out from existence, and with its departure the rain fell free. Before the first drops even reached Chrysalis she whipped her horn upwards hard as she could, the physical manifestation of the emerald flames resisting the motion.

The beam of light was blinding, but that was nothing to the sound. It came down changeling horns as if they were tuning forks and up through their hooves, thrumming in a wail of tortured air.

The intrusive rain crept back in, and as Chrysalis blinked her senses clear she looked dumbly out at the open scenery. For the first time that day, she was thankful for the downpour - the long line of rooftop fires would be quenched quickly...as would anything in the attics under them.

Admittedly, she did feel better for the outburst. The screams of startled and scared ponies started up in the distance. Chrysalis tried not to think about only barely just having managed to redirect the powerful spell.

The changeling proclaiming herself a doctor bulled through the ranks to her side. “My Queen?”

“You had something to say?” Neither changeling was looking at the other; both just stared at the distant flames as they sputtered and died. The shrieks were more persistent.

“Something is very wrong. At the castle. They called me in to see a pegasus-”

Chrysalis did not like where this was going. “Darker coloured? Marked with the moon on his flank?”

“Mhmm.” The changeling turned to her Queen and the steady calm of her voice broke. “He was all mashed up, really bad. He attacked the captain of the guard, wild. Mad.” As the last of the struggling embers were put under, Chrysalis felt her own short lived relief dying. The changeling’s voice did not quaver, but turned gritty and stark. “Celestia and Cadence themselves came in to see him. I hid and watched while they did magic. Forgive me, my Queen...I’ve never seen anything like it...” her voice trailed off and died in the pitter-patter of rain.

Chrysalis found herself pulled from a moment’s reflection by Surreal leaning on her, the changeling’s weight a slight nothing against the Queen’s leg. The little changeling seemed oblivious to the silent looks she was garnering for herself; wearied and slumped as she was. Beetle was there also, and with a slight swaying of her hips, the Queen of changelings tipped Surreal so that she leaned on him instead. This got Chrysalis a look of surprise, defiance and apology from the male, but what mattered was that he did not shy away from it.

“Luna,” the addled changeling mumbled reverently, then shuddered. Chrysalis thought’s were brought back to the dark alicorn. Was Luna - or what frayed soul wore her face - still unconscious? Had the surge woke her, or it, up?

Not for the first time, Chrysalis had to admit, if only silently to herself this time, that she’d been as ignorant as anyone as to the long term ramifications of the spell worked on Luna. So it had seemed only sensible at the time to reproduce the spell in a lesser form, and this she’d done on the pegasus Wax.

An experiment, of sorts. One that had since beaten himself half to death with pure, reckless abandon. It was no exercise of the imagination to work out the implications regarding Luna.

“We’re leaving Canterlot, now.” Every changeling in the city would have felt her magic behind that blast. What had been meant as an unnecessarily strong breakout spell inadvertently would serve as a ludicrously overpowered beacon. She would get every last one of them out of this accursed place yet, and they would leave the alicorn monster far behind. Let the ponies deal with it.

Just then, the hazy, sparkling colours of magic crept up the horizon and locked out the sky, entrapping everybody and everything within the city.

chapter twenty six

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty six

There is perhaps a part of the soul that, unburdened with the distractions of conscious thought and memory lurks in the quiet. It ponders the greater things and, on great occasion, sends up the revelations of these musings, typically to the wide eyed, life changing astonishment of the overall person.

Chrysalis was not listening to such. The changelings packing in tighter behind her, their backs to the shimmering wall of lights and a regiment of armoured guards ponies bearing down before them, The Queen of changelings listened avidly to another part of the soul, the one that delights in things exploding and howling at the moon. Vicious, wilful defiance.

She rolled and cracked her shoulders. She felt good, almost manically - or maniacally - so. Her poorly laid, but well meant plans unravelled around her. Maybe it had been despair at first, and the Queen had taken the chance to escape the melancholy of her home on this mad errand with Luna. Maybe it had been whimsy, or even hope that the alicorn could shock them all, ponies and changelings, suddenly and boldly enough to force something - anything - to happen. To change.

For all of it though, with her aspirations going up in flames it left only the clear and simple options. No more back and forth, now there was only forwards. No more posturing, no more little games.

Chrysalis did not try to deceive herself; in her dreams she had been - and still wanted to be - the conqueror, not the peacemaker. In the honesty of her own heart what she truly wanted was to control Equestria and instill the changelings supreme, not foster relations just to secure their own little corner of the world.

None of that really mattered now anyway. Playing nice had chafed at her in ways that only in passing she could fully realize; in the depths of her being it had felt to be, more than aggravation, actual vulnerability.

They were pretty damn vulnerable, at that. The legion at the far end of the street rushed onwards, the falls of their hooves rising like thunder in the air.

Shining Armour was not among them. If he was not leading the charge, he was not in it at all. His slighted pride and want for retribution would not see him anywhere else. Chrysalis felt the tremors. He could only be at the castle then, sustaining the shield of Canterlot’s imprisonment..

He must itch to be out here, she mused, and the thought made her smile. Chrysalis could sympathise, well and truly, with the good captain’s crisis. In her time masquerading to him, prior to the invasion, the Queen of changelings had gleaned more into Shining’s nature than he realized. She saw they were more alike than he would ever accept, much to her ongoing delight. Neither could back out from a good fight, and part of Chrysalis was shamelessly thrilled that it had come to this.

Her changelings were strong. More than ever before she placed that trust in them. Not the foalish, arrogant conviction of their superiority with which she’d lead the disastrous invasion. No, she had watched over them through their gnawing hunger, humbled and ashamed at her inability to make things right. She had seen the real extent of their strength, and their weakness, and through it all she had seen, and been bewildered by, their ongoing commitment to her. Their trust, their faith, their belief in her.

The irony did not elude her; as she had grown in realizing their strengths, likewise she had become more protective, more caring for her people.

She took a last look at Surreal, while she still had the time. The little female frowned at the world, unaware of her Queen’s attention and struggling to comprehend the situation, only somewhat aware that things were happening and that these were not good. Beetle placed his hoof on her shoulder, and catching her gaze after a long second she seemed a little steadier than before, if only just.

She feared for that changeling more than any other. It was one thing to take away their food and leave them hungry, or to throw them in a cage and take their freedom, but to burn out their identity, to take away the heart of who they were, drown it in a torrent... a hungry changeling she could feed, a caged one she could free - but one made hollow, filled only with the excess of another being? What Then?

A thought too long in coming surfaced within Chrysalis, or perhaps it was a memory. She had not deserved her role as Queen, she had never earned what had by default been her’s. There were too many bad decisions and too few good ones she could recall. Perhaps she’d never earn her right to rule the changelings, but she had seen that there was more to her people than she ever had before and, for them, she would try.

They were trapped, their backs to the impassable barrier and penned in by buildings. They were trapped, but they were not yet conquered. Chrysalis’ people brimmed with the ambient forces of love prevalent to the city.

The Queen of changelings was not one for speeches, but with an army driving down upon them, perhaps it was a fitting time to improvise a little something. Some part of her recognized the absurdity of it, that on the moment’s eve of battle she was deliberating on pompous words. That kind of drama was Luna’s thing anyway, not hers.

“Oh buck it,” she said. “Stay together and hold them off. I’ll knock down the shield. Soon as it goes, and it will fall, everyone leaves, fast as you can. I’ll follow, so nobody waits for me.”

She almost feared someling would question her on the plan of action. None did - as ever the changelings were holden to their Queen, and Chrysalis had never felt more Queenly in all her life, as if the world spiralled around her.

Chrysalis took a deep breath as the thrill welled up in her. Let’s be the big bad hero, she thought. It was just her and a whole lot of ponies out to get them between her and the castle, and she had the excuse to be - no, her people were counting on her to be violent.

She was getting the sneaking suspicion that this day was going to be just perfect.

The Queen of changelings pawed at the ground and charged. Before her second step fell she could see the division already, and by the third it was clear in their faces. Of course, most every one of the onrushing guards looked more determined than anything, perhaps amused at her choice of action. Maybe they thought she’d jump and fly away, or that she was a complete fool, taking on so many alone.

Her hooves adding their thunder to the greater storm of sound, Chrysalis conjured a swirling vortex of black and green before her, writhing in the air like a desert mirage. Accelerating all the while the Queen of changelings tore through it, and where the twisting magic touched her form it clung like shreds of greasy, acrid smoke. Bolts of magic cast her way were caught in it like arrows in water, skewed from their path before passing the Queen by.

Chrysalis felt she’d never run so fast in her life. She could see the whites of their eyes, the beads of nervous sweat running down the front runners faces; if she grinned any wider she could swallow the first pony whole. Her gnarled horn surged again, the patchwork scraps of spell armour exploded into emerald flame, whipped by the wind of her speed into a wild blaze.

The guards line had bent inwards, a concave to surround her once they’d realized it was her and her alone they faced. More spells were fired at Chrysalis, too closely cast to be deflected entirely they tore chunks from her armour. Chrysalis did not slow; she kept onwards. Those few ponies directly ahead of her balked, tried to turn from their course yet could not, trapped to their place by those beside and behind them.

It was in that moment of fear, that moment of derision in the front line, the one she needed for this to work at all that Chrysalis ploughed into them, a flaming spectre of war, exhilarated in the extent of her own power.

Towering over the guards, the Queen of changelings’ hooves reaved their formation, battering flesh and metal aside. Hapless guards were knocked down before her, tripping up those that followed so that all things near Chrysalis were in utter calamity, for the moment the guards hindered one another more than helped, their battle cries becoming frantic, confused and panicked.

Chrysalis could no longer see the ground beneath her hooves, only guards in various states of disarray, scrambling and tripping. Embedded deep in their number like a ragged thorn and with no direction to go, she spread her wings and beat the air. She rose, her wings churning the air. Her hooves were above their heads in a second, and in the next her horn lit up in its eminence. The green glow shone its poisonous light from the the buildings, the armour, even the eyes of pony and changeling alike as the Queen’s magical call was answered.

A pillar of roaring emerald fire rose up from beneath her, spilling over the Queen’s body until it was only a silhouette of darkness within the flame, then lost entirely. Ponies scattered, but as the last suggestion of Chrysalis’ form was lost in the inferno an opalescent blast of light struck to the black heart of the towering conflagration. A quick succession of unicorn bolts followed the initiative and blasted into it.

They struck true and the tower snarled back like a thing alive, unbalanced and knocked over by the assault. It collapsed and as it struck the ground the spell forming it shattered. The changeling fire spilled over a score of guards. They batted helplessly at the flames, but in an instant every last trace of the green embers winked out of its own accord.

One delirious moment came and went, pony eyes blinked away the afterimage of light, and pony lungs drew breath and pony hooves struggled to stand once more.

“Where is she?” one called.

“I don’t see her!” another shouted, and in an instant their bewildered calls overturned the shouts of struggle.

One gray guard lunged forward, using the momentum of his stride to drive his hoof into the face of another. “Here!” he shouted, his voice deep and gruff. “She changed! This one’s the monster!” The one struck gaped in complete shock, but before being able to do anything at all the gray bulled him over, leading with his shoulder in a forceful charge.

“No! It’s not me! It’s...where’d he...it go?!” Of one mind, the dozens of guards whipped about, looking this way and that, instantly suspicious of their fellows. Panic driven imaginations made the worst of the innocent collisions of the closely packed ponies. Unable to trust their own, any semblance of order amongst the guard broke down, and for all their training and armour they descended into a brawling mob like any other, a few more level-headed ponies’ determined attempts to rally reason drowned out in the havoc.

Chrysalis, in the guise of a gray pegasus, peered down from the rooftop. The bolts had struck her along her midriff, knocking the wind from her. It hurt more than she cared to admit, and even now she was having difficulty drawing a full breath. Quickly as she’d sown dissent she’d removed herself from the chaos below.

Her gaze turned further afield; a certain stubborn blotch of blackness at the foot of the wall of lights. Her people were holding their own, using their magic to tear up the paving slabs, the branches from trees, even the doors from buildings to barricade themselves into some semblance of cover. For all her grandeur and flaunted power, Chrysalis had only effectively unstabilized a third of the guards. Amusing as their panic-stricken attacks on one another were, without her continued attentions they’d get their act together quickly, too quickly.

The Queen of changelings drew breath until the familiar pinch of her injury came back, then drew past that. Changeling instincts told her no, told her to flee, to be discreet and forgotten. Such impulses were a whisper against the greater roar of Chrysalis own heart and mind. Her familiar, predatory grin smattered itself back across her faux-pony lips. She still had to get to the castle and storm the keep, after all.

Casting aside her illusion and doubts, the Queen of changelings leapt to the air once more. Even as the ponies below spotted her she blasted a spell over them, a wild array of crackling sparks that danced maniacally in the air as they fell. Wherever they touched ponyflesh the sparks burst into a sudden torrent of waxy, viscous material that came to life, reaching out to other splotches, the patches binding together until all of it was connected in net that sat heavy atop the trapped guards. Yet for all of it, for every guard stricken three more pulled free of it or had been missed entirely, and those captured would not be so for long.

Chrysalis blasted two lines of magic, criss crossing them one after the other as if to mark the guards beneath her with a great and terrible X.

“Come on then, if you think you can take me!” the Queen shouted, almost to the point of wheezing for the force behind her words. As if in answer, a bolt of shimmering magic struck her clean in the face. Screeching, struggling and losing her battle to keep airborne, she crashed to stone roadway, it gouging her more deeply than she gouged it.

Through the sting in her eyes Chrysalis spotted the unicorn responsible and returned his favour in kind, with interest. She stood, snarled out her challenge once more and broke away, dozens of guards still hot on her hooves as she lead them away.

chapter twenty seven

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty seven

The changelings’ outbreak, the raising of the shield of Canterlot: these things had yet to occur when Luna awoke. Consciousness bulled its way through her on a tide of sensation, blurring out all thought. She could feel the grit beneath her and the sting of scrapes. She could feel the downpour falling atop her; the way the rain seemed to drip through her coat, her skin, right down into her royal bones. She could feel the ache of something deeper altogether.

Luna opened her eyes only to have them pelted by the rain. Blurred, seeing nothing and making sense of even less she shut them again.

“My lady liege?” A voice, calling to her. She felt she should know it, but for all the sensation - the prickle of thousands of raindrops not least of all - thought was so much slower in coming, so much more confused than the hectic, meaningless dance of the raindrops.

She tried to put a name to the voice and, failing that, tried to figure out where she was.

“Princess. Princess, please answer me.” The touch of a soft, yet insistent hoof at her shoulder added itself to the list of sensation to make sense of.

She had been...somewhere. A house, of sorts. Homely, but dignified and warm. No, a castle, left to the ravages of time. The two images clashed behind her eyes.

There had been...foals. Yes, that much was certain. They’d usurped her in the moment of victory, using a magic that...no, she’d been visiting them, baring her story.

It’d been night. The everlasting night. No, it’d been day like any other. Again, the contradiction within her own memory made only for more confusion.

“Luna? Come on, Luna” The pushing became firmer, rocking her back and forth a tiny measure.

That was her, right. Of course it was. The colt’s concern was finally met with a groan and Luna, diarch of Equestria, hazarded her eyes a second time. Blinking the rain from them she could make out a wing, not hers, but sheltering her face from the weather. A dusty, darker colour and further on a cutie mark, a crescent of the moon.

“Wane?” she managed through a bout of coughing. “Wane, what is happening?” Luna hefted herself upright, all sorts of parts of her complaining about the exposure and mistreatment. Her faithful, if trembling, steward looked away then back again as if stalked by something unseen.

It was a feeling she could relate with. The dark castle, the conflict, she pushed the images aside far as they would go. “Where is Chrysalis?”

Wane shivered uncontrollably, looking this way and that with every short breath, sometimes even more so than that. “Chrysalis?” he managed to stammer out through his trembling jaw. “No, no...I haven’t...it was just you. I had to find you.”

It was some personal nightmare that peeled his eyes so wide, fear that kept him attentive. She’d never seen him like this, and all the while Luna did her best to ignore the absurd notion echoing through her mind that she’d never seen him before in her life. Or had even seen this city, for that matter.

“Luna, please...” his words trailed off, eyes wide, pupil and all. He looked off to the distance. “Do you feel-”

The back surge of magic hit Luna just as the roar on the wind did, not a howl of anything living but the air itself, shaking like thunder. Both sensations came through so strongly that the source could as easily have been the next street over as the far side of the city, there was no way to tell. Luna doubted finding that out necessary anyway: the outburst had come from the direction of the where the changelings were being kept, and there were no prizes for guessing who was behind that forceful display.

She didn’t even think, the alicorn merely turned to face it like some animal challenged for its territory. Wane put himself before her.

“No, please my dark lady, Wax is...we need you!”

Luna ignored him. Black wings flared, and the water was banished from them in an explosion of droplets.

“Chrysalis has overstepped herself by far,” she growled through gritted teeth. Pain and dizziness flashed through the alicorn, here and gone in an instant. “No light but my moon, my stars! No Queen but-” another flash tore through Luna, whipping the snow globe of her mind into a blizzard of disparate little pieces, colliding and rebounding.

She arched her wings over herself protectively, sheltering her eyes with her hoof until the worst of it passed.

What has happened to Wax? She clung to the thought greedily, a lifeline in the storm of confusion tearing through her. She struggled to keep the world straight and still in her eyes, while every shadow was slick as oil, twisting up into the air and dancing - or writhing - towards her. Wax. Wax. Wax. Even more so than concern for his wellbeing Luna held the thought as a focus. A still point when everything else was changing, caught in flux.

“What has happened,” she managed to ask, her voice strained, tiny and hidden behind hoof and wing. She lowered them after a steadying breath, following Wane’s awe stricken gaze to the crackling, sputtering gouts of magic that crawled backwards across her feathers and flesh, undoing the transformation that had surfaced. She could still feel it though. Still there, under her skin. Still squirming to twist her entirely.

“Ignore that. Just...focus.”

“Luna,” he began, hesitant. Afraid. “Are you-”

“Alright? No. But I can handle it.” Luna sighed, then gave a sad attempt at a chuckle. “Somepony else will have to nanny our not so little changeling. I do always seem to miss the most interesting times. I am certain the good captain and dearest sister of mine will have stern words for me in any case, provided there’s something of me...well. Let’s not dwell on that matter.” Luna held her head again, as if the rather dreary light of the stormy evening were burning and blinding to her, much more used to the darkness. She didn’t have the strength to deal with the Queen. At least, not the strength to control the rampancy of her power.

Indeed, mere seconds ago her eyes, hidden from the world, had gone to pinpricks. Or rather to slits, like twinned slivers of darkness. From certain angles they still looked to be that way, but Wane spoke nothing of this.

“Tell me everything,” she commanded, leading away from the calamity surely riled up by the changelings.

Her servant, held prisoner within the castle. Subject to something unnatural. Something monstrous. In her hazy thoughts, Luna had to remind herself that her sister wasn’t to blame. Her sister, so faultless, so immaculate. Pristine, perfect Celestia. The familiar wave of vertigo pounded through Luna. She growled and grit her teeth so that she would not cry out her frustrations. She hardly noticed the shield spell rising over the city, not that it would have mattered to her anyway.

When her head was her own once more, she could see, no, more than that she could feel the crackling, jittering darkness welling up through her skin, filling out like ulcers that crept eagerly across her form. The further they spread, the greater the alicorn’s sense of self became.

Even so, Luna’s memories battered at her. Flashes faster than she could count, images, thoughts and feelings. “They named a festival for me? How quaint.”

Not like this. Not again. Before the dark mare even knew what was happening, her horn flared with the pale light of the moon. The luminescence turned back over her, stinging and scalding incessantly. The darkness fled.

Luna picked herself up from the ground, something she felt she’d had to do more than enough of lately. She didn’t recall falling, but then again, it hadn’t been her she’d knocked down, had it? At least the rain had stopped, some small corner of thought spat out sarcastically.

She opened her wings to the air, hoping herself steady enough to fly. Luna gave a few experimental flaps. It looked surprisingly promising.

“Come on,” she said. Wane took heart from her confidence. She could not fly far, nor high or fast either, not frayed as she was, but Luna did not worry herself with these things. She thought only that she did not have far to go, and that she could manage high enough and fast enough to do it. “You trust me, Wane?”

“Of course,” he said, running and leaping into flight alongside her. “Always. Even if you become-”

“Nightmare Moon.” Something within her, dark and coiled, cocked a pointy ear at the name. “You can say it. And it will not come to that. I will save your brother, I will end this crisis with Chrysalis, and I will undo the damage to myself.”

Luna winced with another of the sudden waves of dizziness, forcing herself to keep one eye squinting forwards as she flew onwards through the twisting confusion. It passed and she carried on, steadying herself on her wings.

“Just not in that order.” Luna grimaced, clamping her teeth together before speaking again. “I know what I have to do. We go to the castle gardens.”

In the tranquility of the gardens it was almost hard to imagine that things were in such turmoil. The throbbing in Luna’s head, the omnipresent barrier encapsulating the city and the occasional echoes of magic wafting up from its lower districts helped with that.

Luna landed, settled to a walk, then a standstill. Before her stood a statue very much unlike any other. Wane was a pony haunted, but not by the spirit of chaos bound in stone.

“Right here. This is where we were. Looking for you. Shining came and Wax...Wax changed. Something happened to him. I just know. I can feel it.” He sat, staring off at nothing in particular. Luna had little for him in the way of consolation. “Shining Armour took him away, then I came and found you.”

As if she hadn’t wanted to give the good captain a right good kicking already.

Luna stood before Discord, steadying her breathing, finding what calm she could in her ravaged mind. His petrified form brought up a surge of emotion within her, not least of all fear and vitriol. Even so, she knew it would have to get worse still before it got better. At least in the shadow of the draconequus the nightmare quieted within her.

“Are you going to free him?” Wane asked, almost numbly, disbelieving the notion. For good reason as well.

Luna closed her eyes and did not open them. “No.” Her lips pulled up at the edges in a flicker of a smile. “Today of all days, I do not think we need any more chaos in our lives. Perhaps he even set the seeds for all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was long ago, and far away. It does not matter.” Another surge of spinning, flashing dizziness tore through her, yet Luna barely faltered this time and only a slight shudder and quickening to her breath gave it away at all.

“What matters is how I feel. How I felt,” she amended with a whisper, holding a hoof to her heart. “And how I must feel again.” Louder, not to declare it to Wane but to the world, she spoke again. “I have been running from this for so long. Too long.”

Luna slammed her hoof into the hard packed ground, flaring her wings wide.

“Discord!” she bellowed in the royal voice of old. “I don’t have to accept what you did to me. I don’t have to forgive you.” She paused. She did not cry - not physically, but somewhere inside she felt those things all the same. “I don’t have to forgive you,” she repeated softly. “But I choose to. At long last, I choose to.”

It started as a chill breeze, growing, wailing louder and louder until it was a gale of magic, with Luna at its eye. Her own eyes blazed with light, and the darkness of the nightmare that plagued her crackled in excitement all along her form, whipped into a frenzy by the magical wind.

She held her hoof out, for a moment it seemed that might be all that would happen, but with a moment’s passing something came of nothing there, just outside her grasp. Like a star gone black it looked, flickering with a hollow light at its edges. It widened, stretched and spinning fast, too fast to comprehend, a dizzying portal with Luna in the heart of the maelstrom. Her mane and tail were shredded and recomposed endlessly in the roaring sound, but she seemed hardly to notice.

The erratic, electric black energy seething along her hoof strained further forwards, into the whirling abyss, grasping at the air as tendrils and talons. Luna would take back what had always been hers and, on that note of determination, plunged the rest of her forelimb into the portal.

Somewhere between rage and delight, Chrysalis was having a pretty interesting time of it. The Queen of changelings was keeping on the move, staying one step - more often a wing, really - ahead of the guards that hunted her. In the distance she saw yet another flash of changeling magic and knew her people were holding their own. Pride and concern both fought for prevalence within her, but the Queen gave way to neither, instead keeping her attention to the issues she could still do something about.

The guards were mostly behind her now as she bore ever nearer to the castle. Welts and still-smoking chitin singes ranging across her chest and flanks attested that be it as it may, she’d still have to fight her way in, with an alicorn and an unfortunately competent captain to deal with when she got there.

With a moment to breathe Chrysalis ducked into an alley and changed. If only the guards did not wear armour, she might have made for a more perfect illusion of one. She didn’t even notice what she became. The appearance of earth pony, unicorn or pegasus, she didn’t bother to take note of which. Even the basic colours of her illusion failed to register with her. Time she might have wasted doing so she instead used to press further on.

She slammed into the ground with a yelp of surprise and bewilderment. It was as if a hammer, one made of coldest ice had slammed down on her lungs, her spine, her legs. The fragile illusion shattered under the magical impact, striking beyond the physical.

Then it turned to claws, digging through her, scrounging about under Chrysalis’ own magic, drawn like a predator to the scent of blood. Before there was time to think or to act, the invasive magic snatched at one of the jewels she carried with her. She had only time to recognize it as the stormy gray before the presence twisted in on itself and withdrew, leaving the stunned Queen of changelings gaping for breath and shivering, like the sudden assault had torn her very fangs from her.

For what seemed to happen far too often, Chrysalis heaved herself up from the dirt. Seeing no alternative, and not really caring for one, she reluctantly opened herself to the remaining two jewels, letting new power flow into her. She didn’t have much further to go now. The castle, and all that were within, awaited.

chapter twenty eight

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty eight

For all the menace of the magical gale fixed on Luna and her dread portal, both broke and dissipated rather peacefully. The swirling energies quieted to nothing worse than an evening’s breeze. The portal diminished like shadows before a candle and was no more.

The twisted, warped claws extending from Luna were the only aberration to remain of her display. Wane saw them for what they were, without obstruction. They began to recede without trace into Luna, but Wane already knew the memory of them was going to be with him for a long time.

There was no natural way of describing the misshapen forms, for there was nothing of nature about them. They were like the legs of misbegotten spiders and disjointed bones, tarlike and bilious under a skin of something thick, stretched and glistening. They dissolved back into Luna’s form until there was only her and the jewel held in hoof. He wondered how Luna must have felt.

There came a long moment where nopony said anything, nor moved. It felt like courage just to blink. Under the darkening sky, Luna let out a deep breath, finally noticing the prickle of sweat on her brow and the edge of heaviness to her breathing.

She stared at the stormy gray jewel, recalling the pegasus as an afterthought.

The blood had drained from Wane’s face, giving his already pale coat a ghostly semblance, a look that Luna had to admit rather suited the circumstances. His eyes, the very same as his brother’s, played at the same unfixed suggestions of various tints and hues. The fear in them, however, was a constant.

“What?” he managed to say, like a gulp in reverse. What is that jewel? What are you doing? What were those things? What are you? What is all this about? She wondered which question he was asking, if any. Probably all of them to think of it, but then, hadn’t she been doing the very same, and for a great deal longer?

Luna wasn’t upset about it. She might have been, if he’d backed away as he said it, if his fear had outweighed his trust. But it didn’t, and Luna was very grateful in the privacy of her heart for that. She looked back to her jewel, or perhaps more aptly, not just a thing that was hers, but was her. Part of her. She touched it, just to feel it was really there.

It was both a strange new thing to her and something so exceedingly familiar that the concept of it being apart from her at all was unnerving. Luna understood better than most ponies that magic was by its very nature dramatic - the same way the random formation of snowflakes somehow always made stunningly beautiful geometries, regardless how the individual flakes fell. The stormy gray jewel roiled on, like an actual cloud that had been scrunched down much too tight and was straining at the seams. It was as apt a form as any Luna could think of for the surging, conflicted emotions it represented.

Tampering with a pony’s true selves was one of Discord’s oldest, and nastiest, tricks. In Luna’s case particularly so, and it had been all the more cruel for the simplicity of it. All these long years it had lingered with her.

The united sisters vanquished him long ago. To spite them, Discord made her love him. Simple as that. Worse still, in the same way someone defends a bloody thorn from anything that might risk the pain of pulling it out, Discord hadn’t even meant the the spell for her. It had been meant for Celestia.

Luna sighed and forced her thoughts back to the present. She’d been hoping that just being willing to take back a piece of herself would be enough for it to actually happen. This was not the case, and the jewel stubbornly refused to fall back into her the same way the darkness had. She had a suspicion of what she had to do make it work, not liking it at all.

She let it fall to the ground without ceremony. The nightmare just under her consciousness cocked the proverbial eyebrow. The jewel bounced once, then rolled to a stop.

There was the slightest suggestion of an unnatural shadow in the twilight as Luna raised her hoof above the little sphere.

Chrysalis had accused her, more than once, of being unnecessarily dramatic. But magic did, after all, tend for a bit of flair in its own right. Luna clamped her jaw tight as she could, in the hope she could stifle the coming scream. The jewel filled her gaze.

Some primeval capacity within the monster for understanding saw what she was doing - through her own eyes, no less - and set the nightmare railing against her. The strongest surge of dizziness and pain yet welled up within her, but Luna’s focus didn’t sway, even as everything else did.

There might have been the tragically beautiful sound of the jewel shattering, but if there was, it was lost to Luna’s unseemly yelp. Wane rushed to her aid.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she insisted. She looked down, but there was nothing left of it, not even fragments. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting splinters. Only a lingering glow of moonlight remained to suggest anything at all had been.

Her chest knotted and tensed as if her heart was physically moving to reaccommodate a lost piece of it. It hurt. A lot. She looked up and gasped.

Luna stared at the petrified draconequus for a moment, letting her thoughts and feelings fall into place like so many snowflakes, turning disparity to a pristine, peaceful blanket. Her eyes traced over his body, and yes, there was yearning and loss, loathing and love, but these things did not torment her so severely as they once had. The feeling of resolution settled on her, even if she wasn’t sure who or what had been resolved.

She realized the pegasus was staring the same open, shameless stare of awe that the foals had had for her. To Luna’s great surprise, her cheeks went a touch warmer.

“What?” she asked.

“There was this look about you. Like everything really will be alright, even after all this.”

Luna thought about that. She could feel the nightmare within her: confused and threatened. She’d undone a piece of the damage already, patched a hole into that darkness. She could beat this, she realized. There’d always been a chance, she knew in a cold, empty way, for some kind of success. But now there was real hope within her.

It was wonderful, and terrifying.

Luna hadn’t realized just how draining her magical efforts had been until she turned to leave the solemn gardens.

Wane fell in beside her, unspoken questions buzzing around him. She knew where she had to go. Chrysalis was right about that much - Luna did harbour a dramatic soul, and some things just had to be done right. With that in mind, she set off to the city’s heart. Something about castles just drew interesting times to them like magnets.

The ruins in the Everfree stood as testament to - not one, but two - colossal defeats. That had been Nightmare Moon’s doing, of course, and Luna found herself smiling at the thought.

It’d be night soon, and this time it was her turn.

Chrysalis was not a happy changeling. On her way through Canterlot she’d been kicked, punched, shot, tangled up - she sniffed the air, then quickly batted at the smoldering mess of her mane - and had caught fire at some point.

Neither was she happy about having to rely on the remaining two jewels for her strength. Not only could they seemingly be torn away at any time, she’d already seen just how heady, even poisonous they could be to a lesser changeling.

She was exhausted, stomping her way onwards on sheer prideful, stubborn inertia. On the upside, the ponies that had pursued her were equally exhausted and had been driven off, having been kicked, punched, shot, tangled up...

Chrysalis was quite alone when she came down the last street. The smoking, smoldering, scorched, snarling Queen that stormed up to the castle doors could give even the unformed nightmare a run for its bits. Two nervous recruits were all that barred the way, holding crossed spears.

They were about to get a lot more nervous.

Chrysalis glared. One youth squeaked something at her that might have been a shout to stop. She didn’t. At ten steps away the ponies trembled so much that their spears clattered against one another. One of the guards dropped his and bolted. The other turned to follow, but made the mistake of looking Chrysalis in the eye. His legs failed him and he collapsed, hiding his face in his hooves and whimpering.

The Queen of changelings passed him by feeling a little better about herself, though she was still very worn. She trudged her way through the ornate gates, trying to think of something clever to say. Nothing was forthcoming. Snorting her disdain, Chrysalis carried on in silence.

The castle was made to show off, and in her time prior to the invasion the Queen of changelings had memorized the basic layout. It wasn’t hard, with big, polished and shiny mementos everywhere. Her black hooves trod the familiar marble but for all the grandeur it was hollow. Empty, and waiting with baited breath on her next move.

Chrysalis’ thoughts wandered, much like how the pale colours of the stained glass windows slipped along her slender, dark form. And there was Shining Armour, fixed fast with concentration and sweating, completely vulnerable. He hadn’t noticed her presence.

Chrysalis was more worried for her changelings than delighted at her sudden prospects with finding good captain. It was a realization that did not come as some great insight, merely one that made her somewhat sulky, like a foal might be, that she didn’t have time to stay around and torment him so.

Without a word she strode up to the entranced unicorn, striking him a blow to the jaw so hard he spun around as he toppled and skidded across the floor. Her hoof actually hurt from the force of it, but that only made her bare her fangs in a smile.

She pinned him and waited the better part of a moment for his head to clear. “Hello, lover.” The unicorn’s eyes fumbled and rolled as they struggled to fix on the towering changeling over him. Shining growled something, but winced as he tried to say it.

Chrysalis kneeled until her lips were at his ear. “Hurts, doesn’t it? I’m sure I owe you a few more than that though.” She stood back up, making no issue of using his body as a prop for her weight. “The shield,” she commanded, “drop it.” She was very tired, and not in the spirits for their usual fun.

She wondered if her people were holding out. If they’d panicked and scattered, if that very instant they were being dragged to the ground, kicking and screaming and afraid.

She wondered if she could have lead more guards away, could have disrupted their ranks more than she had.

She wondered if Surreal was holding herself together, and the male, Beetle, still kept her safe.

Then she wondered why the damn captain wasn’t doing as she said. Chrysalis kicked him in the ribs as reward for his insolence, grunting out her frustration as she did so. He coughed spittle onto the nice shiny floor.

“Just lower it, Shining. It’ll go easier for you if you do.” He glared and choked out another viscous few drops. The glow of magic to his horn was persistent; it was getting at Chrysalis’ frayed and already naturally short temper.

If he would just break the spell she could be done here. Finished with everything; the whole mess with Luna, all of it. She wouldn’t have to keep beating him to force him. His resistance was making her angry, and she had barely the energy to deal with it.

The pink hoof didn’t have the same strength that Chrysalis could manage, but it slapped her with such vicious emotion that it struck right down past physical pain and left the Queen of changelings bewildered and dumbfounded. She turned to look in disbelief at an angry little Cadence, then raised her holey hoof to her cheek. It had been like being suddenly savaged by a downy pillow. She exchanged a stupefied look with Shining Armor, who was equally dazed.

She looked back to Cadence.

“How dare you?” The little mare - at least, in comparison to the changeling - shouted in her shrill octave. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you even care?” The princess’ face was not one used to anger and the emotion contorted it in strange, even funny ways. Cadence stormed forwards and, to Chrysalis’ infinite duress, found her hooves baulking away of their own initiative. At the edge of thought, Chrysalis caught the whiff of love oozing deep and rich through the alicorn.

She drew in as much of it as she could, quickly as she could, readying herself to give the riled princess a burning blast of changeling counter-argument when something small, dark and screaming latched itself to Chryaslis’ face.

It was a pony in that it had four legs, wings, and a cutie mark, somewhere under the battering limbs. To Chrysalis’ changeling senses, it was an abomination. She pushed it away, as fast and hard as her magic allowed. With a sad, wet smack Wax the pegasus crashed into the wall and fell to the floor.

He didn’t get up. His chest heaved, and his eyes flared wildly every which way. Cadence flipped from fury to concern in an instant and rushed to his side, bathing him in a gentle light. Chrysalis could see it clearly; trying to close gaping wounds with stickers. Wounds she’d inflicted. Guilt plunged its stinger into the Queen of changelings; she was nauseated with the poison of it.

The shadows settled like a thick frost; indeed, the light retreated away from the open spaces and a sudden chill rode the air, snuffing out the little sounds. The colour drained away from the walls, leaving a midnight blue, while the figures of the bright windows took on strange and abstract forms in the dying light.

Night began in earnest, at precisely its anointed time.

A dark shape flitted across the hall, heading straight for Cadence and Wax. Chrysalis stepped back, trying to keep everypony ahead of her.

“Wax!” Wane called, squirming his way past the unresisting alicorn to hold his brother. Wax fixed on him, his trembling stilled, then clutched Wane as if the pegasus were the last anchor in the world and to let go would drag Wax away.

Cadence and Shining glared at the changeling, their focused, cold and controlled fury mirrored in one another’s eyes. The unicorn pulled himself painfully to his hooves. Chrysalis ignited her horn with what reserves she’d managed to build up. She bared her fangs, but her eyes betrayed her fear when they flicked to the grandiose entrance. She’d never been of the calculating sort, but even she was starting to realize that driving onwards through half an army to the heart of pony civilization, alone, was something of a reckless overextension.

“You know that I’ve always loved you very much, but it is time that you die. Time that I killed you.” The magically bolstered voice of Luna, surging through the castle, blasted through manes and curtains alike. It sounded sad more than anything. Sad and resolved.

“No!” Celestia cried from somewhere above. The sharp notes of fear had no chance to escape before an explosion of dark magic pulsed down through the ceiling and walls, knocking the senses from everyone. For the second time in as many hours, Chrysalis felt the vile, unnatural claws of power rooting through her magic. In all of a heartbeat they seized on the black jewel which flared once with the pained, last shriek of a bird caught in a falcon’s grip, then was gone.

Chrysalis fell to her knees, feeling curiously detached and unconcerned. Everything seemed to slow down as she watched the last of her strength bleed away; a few emerald embers that spilled into the air like oil before being consumed by the ravenous dark.

chapter twenty nine

Changeling Heart and the New Moon

chapter twenty nine

Chrysalis was not one to ever consider mortality, least of all her own. Fallen to the ground and with eyes too heavy to move, or even shut, she thought on it now. Broken, drained and detached, she decided death wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but it wasn’t so bad. As deaths went, she had to admit that it didn’t line up with her expectations at all. Not that she’d ever actually expected to die. It was one thing to know it would happen in the unspecified future, and quite another have that future suddenly, violently arrive. Nobody wanted a present like that. Even as her energies drained slowly from her, shredded in Luna’s grasping power, part of the Queen raged and thrashed against fate.

It grew more desperate, but also more distant, and the rest of Chrysalis felt an unusual calm. Her unblinking, unmoving eyes watched placidly from the floor at the lives still striving in front of her.

It was all so very lively, what with Cadence, the broken pony and his doppelganger all struggling with and against one another. Shining was fumbling with his hooves, dribbling blood and saliva from a jaw he couldn’t quite shut. Chrysalis felt the strangest urge to shush and chide them all, but that too passed her by, and faded away into the distance.

She’d pushed herself too hard. She’d carried herself too far on strength that had never been hers to claim, loves she’d let come far too close to her heart. Luna had reclaimed two of the gems from that deep, vulnerable place, tearing them free through Chrysalis’ very being, and now that the Queen lay on the smooth marble of the castle she found herself asking: What had it all been for? Petty vengeance? To prove something? None of that mattered as much now. Chrysalis felt cold, as if she were under the open sky. Colder than that, she realized, like the very stones beneath her were ice from the far underground. It wasn’t uncomfortable; she could get used to this. It was making her sleepy.

Cadence and the ponies weren’t moving as much now, the Queen realized. The two that weren’t ravening had been shouting, back and forth, but the words had been too much and too quick, and they had escaped the Queen’s notice. The one brother held the other tightly, as if to let go was to lose him forever. That was very likely the case. The light of the princess Cadence shone down on the pair, the brightest yet Chrysalis had seen the mare capable of. Despite the sudden illumination, the Queen’s eyelids slid slowly down over a vision that steadily blurred. She could have sworn that, at the very end, Wane’s skin burned away in little papery flakes. Flakes that burnt green, and left a satisfying glossy blackness behind.

So, he was a changeling all along. She couldn’t see very much now, just paleness and blackness pulled together in a tight embrace, but it was nice. She’d never heard of any of her changelings seeing one of what they called the lost ones; those changelings that fell headlong into love and lost themselves in it, never to return to their true home. It was nice to see one who had made something real and lasting out of it. Chrysalis couldn’t feel much, and even the weakest of chuckles was quite beyond her, but she could appreciate the notion. It must have been their secret for years. Right under all their noses. Mine too.

Chrysalis’ thoughts drifted apart and lost focus, but saw all the further for it. And what she found out there would have made her weep had her body the strength left to cry, for what she saw saddened her more than anything had ever done before.

For all their striving, for all the warmth of this one moment, Wax would still die. Wane, a changeling irreparably attuned to his sole brother, would soon follow in grief or starvation. With her end so too would all changelings wither and die, regardless of whether they escaped Canterlot today or not. All their hopes, all her aspirations, all of it. They would diminish, there would be no day in the sun for the changeling race.

All her struggles for naught. Suddenly the cold felt so very cold indeed, and stretched away into eternity before her. Cold, empty and waiting, Chrysalis waited for the end.

Shining Armor despaired. Every second he wasn’t rushing to Celestia’s aid weighed on him heavily. His jaw ached terribly and flashed with hot pain whenever he tried to move it. Each hurried step jarred it painfully. He tried to think, tried to plan, but what could a plan do for him now? His princess could be dying as he dawdled. In his zeal and vindictiveness against Chrysalis he’d sent all the guards he could command, sent them all to capture the changelings. Who could have expected the damnable Queen to try to break through such an assault, let alone succeed?

It was all falling apart around him, mounting up in a great desecrated heap of failures. All his plans, his warnings and aspirations, all for naught. Celestia could be dying, the nightmare reborn in Luna, and he know with sickening certainty he had neither strength nor hope to fight it.

The cascade of Cadence’s light faded, and Shining looked upon the brothers, clutching onto one another as the entire world tried to tear them apart, and was succeeding with utter cruelty. For what felt a very long time, but could only have been a very few seconds, Shining Armour watched.

Stilled of thoughts, the guards’ oath drifted upwards in his mind. Not the actual one, which was steeped in tradition; long, archaic and dull, but the real one, the one he’d inscribed in his heart. The spirit of what he fought for.

To protect. Plain and simple. To protect as many as he could, for as long as he could. Even one such as she and all she had wrought did not deserve to die like this. Not today.

Everything moved slowly as it coursed through him. For this one moment of clarity the pain hardly registered. He looked on the brothers, half crazed and clinging to hope and each other, for what else was there for them to hold onto? His wife, tears spilling freely from her eyes even as she determinedly staved off the inevitable just a little longer, each tear a crystal terrible and precious to behold, glinting in the twilight. Chrysalis, who had no light left at all, slumped and still on the marble. And who could know what horrors yet transpired above?

Shining Armour was not one for cursing. He wiped bloody spittle from the side of his chin, and grumbled something, almost like words, but made unintelligible by his broken jaw. It sounded like a threat. Shining carried himself to Chrysalis, groaning as he pushed over the lax changeling to her side. Her head was stretched out before her, as if she waited eagerly for judgement. He hesitated.

In nightmares yet to come for the good captain he stood here, recalling this very instant with unerring clarity and chose, instead of hope, the axe.

But that was not to be and, in this life, he lowered his horn to her throat and set to work.

It was only a tingle in the empty darkness, but it grew. It crawled, dragging itself across the vastness to Chrysalis. It became an itch, an ache, a scald, all these things and none of them. It became sorrow and anger. Joy and belligerence. Mostly it became pain. It reached into the void on a lance of light and life and love, filling the emptiness with being. It crashed into the Queen, spilling over her and into her, filling her with richness and sustenance.

Chrysalis’ eyes snapped open, her pupils like twin pin-pricks on rarest gemstones. A ragged gasp tore through her throat, and her heart beat as if it intended to pulverize her innards to mush. She awakened so suddenly, came back so violently from that distant place that she nearly impaled herself on the paired horns of Cadence and Shining when her body shuddered, just to know it was alive.

Now this love was one she’d never expected to taste again, one like sweetest vanilla. The little princess and the good captain, offered up willingly for her at that. With the invasion that seemed so long ago, she had chosen these two for good reason, yet even with all thatbetween them, here and now they pulled her back from the brink. It was bewildering, and maddening to try to comprehend their reasons. Mostly though, it was intoxicating.

Chrysalis clawed at the floor, feeble, but gaining strength. The wellspring of her energies was still damaged, still bleeding out. It was cracked open like parched ground, but now the rains had come and with it, the power to bind those intangible wounds and, if nothing but time could truly heal, she could at least stop the bleeding and fill herself on the succour for now.

One black hoof slammed down and remembered just how strong it really was. Slowly, and with great effort, Chrysalis pulled herself upright, past the height of the ponies and the alicorns, further up, a menacing black monolith of a Queen on the rise once more. The brothers watched in stunned awe. Chrysalis opened her mouth to speak, but she collapsed, the hall ringing out as chitin cracked off stone. Groaning, she forced herself up once more. Sitting, she breathed a few throaty breaths, peering the royal couple from their eye level.

“Why?” Chrysalis asked. Of all ponies, none had more reason to revile her than these two.

Defiance and hostility was mirrored in each others’ faces. Shining tried to speak, winced slightly, and looked to his wife. She understood.

The Queen had never seen such a look on the face of the princess Cadence, and that was counting the times she’d worn it herself. It was just so piercing, and so cold like disappointment. “It was the right thing to do,” she said simply, daring the Queen to look away. Chrysalis found she wanted to; she was too exhausted both physically and emotionally to contest with wills like those, but something compelled her to hold that glare and match it anyway.

Cadence strode forwards; Chrysalis couldn’t hold the stare any longer. “What is happening with Luna?” The little princess asked. The eyes were still intense, but with concern, not challenge. “You must know something. She went to you. She brought you back. Started all this.” Sorrow crept into her voice. The Queen recognized it. She’d felt it herself, in that dark place on the edge of life.

She could feel the last gem within the folds of her power. She prodded it gingerly with her magic, working it gently this way and that, as if it were a festering arrowhead that must be removed. She eased it back into the material world, conjured in a puff of emerald flame. To be rid of it felt like a cleansing, and she sighed a deep, liberating breath.

Chrysalis looked up. She could feel the emanations of power from above. Something big, something terrible was happening up there. “Luna tried to escape her past, but that only opened the way for it to find her again.”

Chrysalis stared into the blue gem. Another choice, another choice, always another choice to be made. Grating her fangs, Chrysalis chose, and reached out to Luna, like she had done when the alicorn had hid in the thorns.

Chrysalis hated doing it, not for morality, but because she was always afraid to do so. Changelings were creatures of the heart, not of the mind. The prospects of what she might find there, or worse, what might find her were terrifying. But the thing about choices was once you knew right, wrong and the difference between them, there was no choice. It was a time for change. For everything.

She reached out, using the last jewel as a bridge between them. Something reached back.

The Queen of changelings screamed, her wings flaring and legs thrashing. She flung the jewel as a tiny fireball away from her, stepping back a few wild paces.

“That’s what’s been inside her all along? Inside Luna?” she asked breathlessly. To think that she’d let that thing into her home made the changeling Queen shiver and shake.

“Nightmare Moon,” Shining Armour whispered.

The blackened brother blinked his green eyes. He seemed unsettled about seeing himself for what he really was, but snapped out of it quickly. “We have to try to save her,” Wane said quietly, staring at Chrysalis, perhaps seeing an unavoidable piece of himself reflected there. “We won’t abandon her, whatever she is.”

Wax whimpered, burying his head under his brother’s chin. “I’d rather she be Luna,” he whimpered with exhausted resignation. “She’s a good pony.”

Shining turned away to one of the huge windows. His horn flared once, then he conjured a quick duo of red lights that bled through the glass and flew off into the sky. Biting down hard on one side of his lip he spoke in a groan from the other half of his jaw.

“The shield’s down. We won’t follow,” he said, growling and croaking the words. He wiped a fresh trickle of bloody saliva from his jaw, then gestured with a shrug to the strange brothers.

“We’re not leaving,” said Wane. “There was nowhere else for us to go. Canterlot...Luna, it’s our life.”

“Come back with us,” Chrysalis said, something not even she expected.

Wane’s gaze fell to the floor. Even as a changeling, his eyes retained the edge of that shining, multi-coloured hue distinct to the pair, and she had to wonder just how it had come about. Wax looked to him, and to Chrysalis, fear plain across his brow.

“No,” said Wane. “I might be the same as you, but that doesn't make me anything like you. I never lied to Luna about my loyalties. The changeling that came here isn’t who I am now.”

Chrysalis was stung. There was something of Surreal reminiscent in that honest defiance. Chrysalis made a choice and, walking to the brothers Wax and Wane, braced herself for delicate magic. She’d seen something dark and terrible at the edge -- it made her want to save her people all the more, even the lost ones. Especially the lost ones.

A trickle of emerald embers fell from her horn and onto Wax. His chest rose and fell with anxiety. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice rapidly going shrill. Chrysalis felt acutely aware of the royal couple, watching her, deciding.

“Fixing what shouldn’t have been done in the first place.” She was still very tired, and words were taxing what little patience she had. The lights crackled like little sparks, dancing and sinking into the pegasus’ coat. Each burning fleck carried her awareness further into the pony. She could feel him squirming against her, but his efforts were little more than a nuisance to be pushed aside.

It was easier than she expected it to be. Unsettling too, just how easily a little magic had become a great deal of suffering.

Wax blinked, enraptured by the fuzzy, crackling static dancing back and forth across his skin. “It’s...it’s warm!” It didn’t matter much to Chrysalis one way or another. Her only focus was the task before her; it was good that she, in thoughtless whimsy, had not taken any part of him away like she had done for Luna. Everything that made the pegasus was still there, it was just that some parts were...blocked off. Obscured. Out of place. The magical sense didn’t translate well into physicality. Regardless, she worked, aware but for once unmindful of the others watching her.

Then, with the fading of the lights, it was done. The effect was almost instant; tension melted from Wax’s taut muscles, the wild glint to his eye settled, he breathed deep enough to fill himself with air and sighed it away. He blinked and blinked again, slumped into his brother’s holey hooves and cried, weeping and laughter all mixed up in a torrent of release and relief.

Wane’s big changeling eyes found tears just the same as Wax’s, letting them roll down his cheeks get lost in the matted, messy coat of his brother.

“What did you do?” Cadence asked softly, reverently, as Chrysalis walked away soundlessly. “I tried everything I knew...” The Queen didn’t answer.

“Chrysalis?” Cadence called again, stepping hesitantly to her side, Shining Armour quickly following. Before they’d been enemies and, through all of this...they still were. But she knew in her heart now the truth she needed: she was no leech, she was no base parasite. She was a Queen, one yet again faced with a weighty choice. Chrysalis, Queen of the changelings drew a sharp breath that whistled along her fangs and she made her choice.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said softly, the sounds almost lost in the whoosh of air as she flared her wings, and her horn lit up with sudden fire.

“Chrysalis, what are you—” Alarm turned to slurs as Cadence, Shining and the brothers all succumed to the sleeping spell. The princess collapsed with a dull thump, with the good captain quick to follow. Wax and Wane, already embracing as they’d been, merely slumped.

Ponies and changelings, working and striving together. It made for a strange memory, but not an unwelcome one. Nor would it be one Chrysalis soon forgot.

She turned away from the sleeping forms, the warring, twisting energies from above still calling to her. The last jewel was a tiny speck of darkness on the pale marble and as she neared it. Chrysalis lifted it in her magic. The green flames that grasped it intensified to nearly black as Chrysalis siphoned what strength she could. Bracing herself, both in hoof and mind, the Queen leapt into the air and, with a snickering little feeling of satisfaction, smashed her way into the open night through the stained glass window depicting the happy couple’s triumph over her.

A Queen had to find her pleasure in the little things after all, even on the very verge of making history.

Shards bounced and fell harmlessly from Chrysalis’ wings and hide, and with their fall so too did the light of the castle die away to gloom. The stars, the moon, these things were not to be seen for the morass of clouds had grown only thicker and heavier with the descent of the sun. The lights of Canterlot, bright and vivid as they were, huddled to one another and to the ground, serving to highlight the vastness of the night more than issue any real challenge upon it.

High up on a lonely battlement one light railed against the endless expanse. Chrysalis angled herself towards it, beat the air with her wings and rose. The air was heavy with ice, the bitterness of it gnawing at the Queen’s every inch. She wrapped herself in sprawling tongues of emerald fire for light and heat, but for all that she was still cold, and it was still dark. The wind wailed all around her, pulling the tatters of green flame this way and that, back and forth over her body.

So too did the wind tear at Celestia, for it was she who stood as a beacon against the night. She glowed with a luminescence that stood at odds with the night, strange as a shadow’s opposite, looking more to be an image cast upon this darkling world than a thing unto itself. She cast from her horn a gossamer trail of lights that, for all her effort, petered out to nothing a scant dozen paces ahead of her, swallowed up by the ravening dark.

She stood vivid, tiny and alone, unmoving, focusing her all on maintaining the spell. The old exhilaration welled up within Chrysalis and, dipping her wings to glide, let gravity speed her on her way there.

What would she do to the alicorn, mangle her, burn her? Could Celestia even be burned? Even as Chrysalis thought these things she knew better. A Queen just couldn’t keep doing that sort of thing, not in these times.

A cry of rage and anguish cut across the night. They weren’t alone. Not as such. Shifting and ephemeral, clawing at the surface of its own existence, something tried to take form in a swirling miasma. It pulled itself together like living oil and tried to stand, roaring at Celestia. The alicorn did not falter nor look away, but there was little more she could do than that. From somewhere deep within that morass came a light, pale but unvanquished, rising like reflections of moonlight on still water.

Silvery shimmers flew across the beast and up along what was becoming its neck. The silver light flashed within it like a saber and the form collapsed, gurgling and shifting, pouring itself to smother the light within. More of Celestia’s flickering trail of lights was tugged into the abyss, making the princess of sunlight cry out as she struggled to maintain it.

Could an eldritch nightmare burn? The Queen of changelings was willing to find out. Chrysalis landed at a gallop and readied as much magic as she dared. Sickly light spilled to the edges of the battlement, the air itself singed with the scent of charred tin.

“No, Chrysalis, stop!” Celestia cried out in a breathless gasp.

Chrysalis whipped about, her still readied spell now trained on the alicorn. “Why should I? Look at it!”

“Look at them! Luna’s in there!” More pools of inky black welled up and pulled together, but again thin crescents of light flitted across the nightmare. Where they flew inside of it, it was cut down once more, torn apart in silvery fangs. “She said it was the only way, that it had to end.” Tears streamed freely down that face, one normally so perfect and graceful, but in those eyes there was steel as well, steel and hardness and certainty. “I can’t lose her again.”

The darkness grew and grew. The pale moonlight would rise up and surge across it, only to be snuffed out again. Chrysalis tried to think, she needed to think, but there was so much, all of it clamouring for her thoughts, for her decisions. It all surged through her mind.

The face of Celestia, resolved even in her despair. Luna, facing her past to whatever end. Shining, standing over the Queen’s prone body, passing judgement. Ponies. Changelings. War. Peace. A slap from Cadence. An unlikely newcomer in the heart of her domain, foolish and impulsive.

Chrysalis, hissing and screaming her frustrations, fired her spell straight into the delicate string of lights. Emerald flecks and crackling jade lightning spilled through it, mingling with Celestia’s magic, adding the Queen’s strength to her spell.

It poured new sensation into Chrysalis like icy water. The spell of little lights was a tether, the way home for Luna. The only way home because Luna, ever impulsive, ever passionate had flung herself headlong into the abyss not to flee her monsters, but to fight them. To execute them once and for all.

It was like a weight bearing down on her shoulders. Gritting her teeth, Chrysalis pushed more of her energies into the spell so that the electric arcs grew wider and more fervent, weaving themselves all the more thoroughly through the tether. Knocking out Cadence and Shining was looking like a bad move in hindsight; she’d have spit if her jaws weren’t clamped shut with exertion. She began to pull, the resistance causing her body to swing around so that she stood side to side with Celestia.

They pulled, but for naught. The seething dark held every claimed inch more firmly than an anchor, and as each pulse of Luna’s winnowing light came weaker within it, so too did the nightmare grow. Chrysalis and Celestia -- they pulled with their magic, then pulled harder still just to hold their ground. White and black, their hooves dug into the stone of the battlement.

Luna was fading. It was wrong, not least of all because Chrysalis had yet to beat down the recalcitrant princess to her liking, but it was happening. Another thin flash of moonlight from within decapitated the monster, only for the thick lump to snag on tendrils and ill conceived, ill fitting tendons of utter, glistening blackness that pulled the lump haphazardly back into place. A half formed jaw, now upside down, twisted through the seething mass until it was upright once more.

Insurmountable friction pulled them in slowly. Fighting alongside Celestia of all beings, only to fall. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Chrysalis had had enough despair today. She found a much more familiar, much more useful emotion instead.

“Damnit, Luna!” she roared, whipping her horn this way and that, flaring her wings, kicking her legs at the stone. Everything and anything she could to come through this. “This is all your fault! You did this, you did all of this!” She scorched the nightmare with a touch of flame, hoping Luna felt it as much as the monster did. She turned again, striking Celestia with the thin arcs of green electricity with which she had set so much in motion. The alicorn looked to her with fear and bewilderment, Chrysalis met her eyes for a fraction of a second only. What Celestia saw in there maybe not even Chrysalis herself fully knew. But what the Queen knew just then was how readily the alicorn let the magic dance across her. Celestia closed her streaming eyes, committing her every ounce of strength to holding on.

“Luna you arrogant, ignorant, self-pitying screw-up!” Chrysalis bellowed. The nightmare bellowed back. “Can you hear me, little moon? Can you see, little moon? Look what you’ve done! Look at what you’re doing now!” In the periphery of her mind, Chrysalis dared a glance at the last jewel, the last missing piece of Luna. There’d only be one chance. Once chance for them all.

Chrysalis knees threatened to buckle. The still-tender scar tissue, inflicted by Luna no less, had torn open. Her wings strained and her horn burned, whining and thrumming, casting off heavy sparks that scorched where they fell. The static crawling across Celestia surrounded her entirely and, on a moment of perfect stillness, sunk into her like a thousand scorpion stings, her eyes flaring wide in startlement. It hurt to keep going, but Chrysalis was running her power on sheer momentum. If she stopped she’d never manage this again, never have this chance.

“Fight, damn you! Because for all that, you’re worth fighting for! I don’t have to be a changeling to see how much they love you, Luna! They all love you, so don’t you dare let them down! Not this time! You’re better than this!”

The nightmare boiled from within, bloating like a corpse. The last tiny slivers of silvery moonlight were razor sharp crescents, and blinding in their last stand of Luna’s defiance. They tore across the nightmare, shredding, tearing, doing untold damage to the abomination for one hideous instant.

Now. It wasn’t just a thought, it was the entire universe for Chrysalis, boiled and distilled, refined and purified into a single instant of crystalline action. She pushed what dregs of magic she could into the tether, warping it, changing it. It became not just a tether, but a channel as well, a connection. In the same instant the Queen of changelings battered her way into Celestia’s heart and threw open the floodgates. She had tasted this love before, but this time it was not for her.

No, it was for one who right now needed love even more than a changeling. Chrysalis cast the essence of the jewel into the current, along with every trace scrap of power she had hoarded to herself. Of Wax and Wane. Surreal. Cadence, Even Shining Armor. The tether burned brightly, a light strong enough to drive back the unnatural darkness surrounding the nightmare. The stream of light tore through the air and slammed headlong into nightmare reborn.

The concussion threw them back, alicorn and changeling, and they fell heavily upon the battlements. Then, as the dazzling stars faded Chrysalis saw the last silvery thread of light wink out, subsumed at last in the black.

The nightmare howled; a thing that had tried to create its throat from darkness and its voice from madness. It managed a step towards them. With little else to do and still dazed, Chrysalis hissed angrily. That seemed to do the trick and, quite to Chrysalis’ surprise; the nightmare blew apart, the slabs of its false-flesh burning away into sour smoke. Smoldering hunks fell away and from within came the light, the pale moonlight thought lost.

Luna stepped from the smoking ruin, glowing much as her sister had and walked, a silent wraith, past the Queen of changelings. Celestia, battered and rumpled, could only watch in stillness as the soft light reached out a downy wing, brushing one feathery tip along Celestia’s jaw.

“Luna...” she said reverently. The smaller sister only nodded, then slumped against Celestia’s side as the silvery light released her. Then it was just them, two sisters battered and bruised, dragged to the edge and beyond.

Chrysalis stayed out of their precious moment of silence. Not unselfishly though, for she huddled metaphysically as near to their affection as she dared, basking in the radiance, chasing off the chill of night with their warmth. She stood up warily, trying not to draw attention to herself for the moment.

“Chrysalis,” said the elder, her voice measured and flat as if they hadn’t all just escaped immediate mortal peril. Largely due to her efforts, the Queen wanted to say, but exhaustion cloyed her thoughts and motions. She listened. Celestia fixed her with a stare. The steel hadn’t gone from those eyes, but at least the softness was coming back, albeit slowly. “I hold you partly responsible for it all, Chrysalis. Havoc and violence in my city. Intrigue, conflict and strife. And this,” she said gravely, gesturing the last smoldering ashes as they crumbled into nothingness. Chrysalis, quite affronted with this whole thing, wanted to bite and fight, yell and shout. Luna cut them both off.

“But she also did this,” Luna said, stepping back and opening her wings for display. For a second she stared at her own feathers, seeing in them something unbelievable. Tears glistened in her eyes, then she broke down entirely. Her legs fell out from under her and she sat. Torrential sobs and blubbering sniffles, there was no decorum or restraint, or deceit, in it at all. “I’m free...I’m really free...It’s finally over.”

There was sorrow, yes, but also elation. Terror and hope. Disbelief. Acceptance. It all came pouring out, over which Celestia draped her wings, white blankets over the shoulders of Luna’s crisis.

Chrysalis felt conflicted too. There was anger; always a healthy dose of anger, but more and more it had been the tempered, measured, useful kind. Then there was pity, even sympathy and empathy for Luna. And newfound respect, most surprising of all. First and foremost among them however, was tiredness. Chrysalis was tired and homesick, and weary of this conflict.

But she had to know, one last thing. “What does this make us? Where does it go from here?” she asked. She needed to know, needed it with the depth of her being.

Celestia hesitated, and in her pause only Luna’s weeping broke the stillness of night. “I don’t know. The guards will be here soon. You should go while you still have the chance. I’m sorry.”

Chrysalis nodded in slow agreement. She stretched out her wings once more, then went quietly into the night, uncertain and pensive. By the time the cloud cover broke and moonlight gently spilled upon the city she was long gone from Canterlot.

epilogue

It could very well have been the largest tree in the world. Or once it might have been, but storms, blights and greatest yet time itself had ravaged its every inch. Bark to heartwood, roots to canopy. Branches that had made the earth tremble with their falling had rotted back into the soil generations ago, leaving the trunk to be a lone monolith, a spear plunged into the heart of this oozing land.

It was the destination of the brothers Wax and Wane. Four months ago their fairest dark mistress, the alicorn princess Luna had come here, home of the changelings, vanishing from Canterlot in the peace and stillness of night. Events had been set in motion that none could have foreseen, not Celestia, not Chrysalis, not even Luna herself knew fully what she did or where it would lead.

High above the gray, spongy trees they flew in silence. Wane, a lost changeling through and through, felt no small discomfort at coming back. That was the life he had been born into; small fangs and black chitin, but that was not who he was. Not anymore. Wax, brother of his heart flew alongside him, saying nothing, understanding everything. Black speckles rose up from the distance, tree and forest alike, rising like flecks of ash. The soft droning of papery wings brushed against the silence. The changelings, silent, watchful, rose and surrounded them by twos and threes, but made no move to impede the brothers. If anything, they guided them down, down into the damp and the dark. They had their task and, somewhere ahead, the Queen waited.

Hooves touched off marble. Escorted by two guards, the small gray pegasus nevertheless strode ahead of the armoured ponies. She turned to admire the stained glass windows, one in particular which Chrysalis had smashed to her unending satisfaction. The repair was perhaps flawless, but Chrysalis could imagine that somepony had botched the job ever so slightly, putting an uncomfortable looking kink in Shining Armor’s neck. She smirked and looked at it no more.

Doors that swung with perfect balance opened before her. The guards did not follow. They closed the doors, and Chrysalis was alone, save one other.

“I didn’t keep you waiting long, did I?” she asked coyly.

Celestia, seated at an ornate table, was the idyllic image of patience and peace. “Not at all, Chrysalis.”

The gray pegasus stretched out in egotistical relaxation, catlike, as she let the illusion dispel. Green embers wafted across the room, winking out just short of Celestia. “What a shame,” said Chrysalis, Queen of the changelings. The curtains were drawn, the door locked. If there was magic at work here, Chrysalis could not detect it. “And how’s the good captain doing?”

“Better. He needed a minor operation for his jaw.” Celestia sipped at a steaming cup. “But you would know all about that.”

The Queen remembered that fondly. She moved about, looking at this and that as if she were a prospective real estate buyer. Chrysalis shrugged dismissively. Messing with Shining was pleasure, not business, and the Queen wanted to know what the alicorn had asked her here for. Since the night of...whatever that night had been, the Queen had been plagued by a unshakeable sense of incompletion. There was yet to be, if not a resolution, than a direction. Something, anything between herself and these alicorn sisters.

No guards though, no one to watch for what might happen here... An interesting choice on Celestia’s part. Chrysalis towered over the seated alicorn, but there was no intimidation to be seen in the princess. If anything, she looked just a little bored, tolerating the Queen’s presence and little ploys with near flawless form and social graces. “What happens if I just walk out of here?” asked Chrysalis.

“The guards subdue you and drag you off to the dungeon. They’re not particularly happy with your behaviour the last time you visited. The few that know are sworn to absolute secrecy about it.”

Chrysalis was having fun, despite herself. “And if just you are seen walking out of here?” She lowered her head, her horn nearly touching Celestia's: crossed swords.

The alicorn sighed, the patient, if presently tired teacher that she was. “In that case, they’ll subdue me and drag me off to the dungeon.”

Chrysalis pouted and stepped back, her shoulders relaxing. So much for that plan. Then she smiled, her fangs creeping down her lips. “So we leave together, or fight pointlessly. It’s almost like you’re trying to tell me something,” she said with venomous sweetness.

Celestia nodded to the chair opposite her. “Will you sit, Chrysalis?”

She didn’t, not right away. Glancing suspiciously at the white alicorn, the Queen shuffled into the seat. Made for the alicorns, it was the first time such a thing had felt roughly the right size for her. It was a strange feeling, one she quite liked

“Chrysalis,” said Celestia, when the novelty of the chair had worn off. Her eyes were focused, piercing. They took Chrysalis back to that night, those very same eyes. Then they softened by degrees. “Chrysalis...

“Every time I see Luna smile, every time she laughs...I’m a little closer to being ready to forgive you.”

“How is she?” The usual snark was gone. Somewhere along the way, Chrysalis had started caring. Not liking, no, the darker alicorn was too frustrating for that. But she could care. “Is she here?”

Celestia shook her head. “She decided it was a fine time to surprise a group of orphan foals with a visit.” Her wings loosened from their usual collected poise. “Luna thought that might mean something to you. She’s taking them to a favourite haunt of hers, though she intends to see you later as well. Before that however, there’s something I’d also like to show you.”

Celestia lit up with magic. Chrysalis stifled a small gasp, hoping the princess hadn’t noticed. She was more on edge than she had realized. Thrice now she’d come to Canterlot, and never had it ended as she’d expected it to. With only herself, Beetle and Surreal lurking outside, more companions than protectors at that, she had abandoned all pretense of open confrontation as an option. A board drifted over to the table, followed by a comet’s tail of intricately carved pieces. They settled in exact places, two rows to a side, the smaller ones in front. “Do you know this game, Chrysalis?”

She didn’t. Changelings didn’t have such things, not usually.

“Indulge me with a game. I’ll teach you as we play.” Seeing no reason to say no, Chrysalis let Celestia have her way of it. The Queen had sat on the clandestine invitation for two weeks, fidgeting and thinking in her familiar gloom. Eventually curiosity and her own need for resolution had won out, , and she had come.

Celestia moved her horn through the air as if conducting the single purest note of an aria. Lights trailed behind the motion, falling upon the board and illuminating the pieces. “It’s a game of thought and planning. We take turns.” Celestia took the first move, sliding one of her little marble pieces forwards one space. Chrysalis, not knowing what else to do, did the same with its ebony counterpart.

“This piece is the pegasus,” said Celestia, lifting a different piece, the one second from the back edge. “They are fleet and agile, twisting and turning through the air with dizzying speed. So nimble are they that they can fly through other pieces to where they wish to go, like so.”

Again, Chrysalis mirrored the action. A few turns passed, with more of the smallest pieces marching headlong against each other.

“Now this, this is the earth pony. Sturdy. Reliable and strong. They charge ahead, rushing to discovery and defence in equal measure.” So too did Celestia’s charge along the board, and she claimed a black pawn for her own.

Again Celestia motioned with her horn; the fey light settled upon a slender, tapering piece. “The unicorn, however, lacks that strength. With magic though, they can achieve equally great feats, albeit with magic they approach the challenge from a different angle than that of their sisters.” The unicorn slid along the diagonal, knocking another black pawn from the board. Chrysalis was chafing, yes, but more so she was thinking; something all but habit now. She’d bide her time.

“And the two largest pieces?” the changeling asked, suspecting she already knew.

“Sun and moon, respectively.” The sun piece was naturally larger, she noticed. Somepony, somewhere, was laughing under their breath. “The game ends when the sun is captured.”

Chrysalis snorted her disdain. “But not the moon?”

Celestia glowered. “The sun piece is essential, yes, but it is...limited. It does not to get to move so freely as the others. It must be meticulous, and make its choices carefully, or risk everything. It can move just one space in a turn.”

Breaking from her mimicry, Chrysalis pushed her Sun a step forwards. It was undeniably satisfying to her, knowing what it represented.

Celestia’s moon piece slid along, knocking another black pawn from the game. Marble pieces seemed to surge across the board, and she had nothing to show for it. Chrysalis chewed her lip, albeit gently lest her fangs tear through it.

“The moon moves more freely than the sun. It can freely do what the sun cannot, thought out or not, good or ill.”

Chrysalis rolled her own under her hoof, around and around on the spot. “So, this little moon here is the strongest piece in the game.”

“Yes,” Celestia said, almost grudgingly. A pegasus knocked another ebony pawn from the board.

Turns passed. Celestia, whether from cruelty or compassion, slowed her assault. Chrysalis even knocked a few white pawns from the board, but lost an earth pony and a unicorn in turn. Nevertheless, she smiled, even in such dire straits.

Celestia looked her in the eye. “Do you understand how this works, Chrysalis?”

The Queen of changelings held a captured white pawn to her eyes, her inspection crawling over every inch of its worth. In the green magic, it looked like a harvest pod in miniature. She set the pawn down gently with its kin. “Yes. I think I do. And it’s my turn, I believe.”

“It is.”

The emerald flames grabbed not a black piece, but a white one. One of Celestia’s pegasi pieces, each sitting next to the other. Taking it, she moved it and knocked down a marble unicorn piece. Celestia’s eyebrow went up, but she said nothing, staring with silent consideration.

“That one’s a changeling, you see.” the Queen explained happily. The white moon piece surged through, taking the supposed changeling piece for itself. Chrysalis grinned. “Yes, it did go something like that, didn’t it?”

She parked her own little moon next to Celestia’s, placing the princess in check; they could each lose their strongest piece, or settle things more diplomatically. Celestia stared at the board, weighing her options.

Chrysalis leaned across the table. “I’m learning this game, princess, and I’m sure you understand that I don’t mean the one on these squares. And I’m playing it, because these mean something,” she said, lifting the fallen pawns of both colours to float in front of her. “But we changelings are here now, and the rules are changing,” she said, relishing each syllable of it. “We are not going away.”

Celestia looked to the Queen’s eyes, then to the board. She tipped over her own sun piece, but smiled as she did so. She’d lost the game by doing that, hadn’t she? Chrysalis was baffled; she felt like she’d just been played, despite the victory. “Then it’s a pleasure playing with you, Chrysalis. I look forward to more of it. Shall we leave?”

It was just gone nightfall when Chrysalis, disguised as a very dapper unicorn, came across Luna. It was in the gardens, but not the secluded, meandering paths that the changeling had come to recognize. Rather this was the more open area, a meticulously primped and pressed spread of grass tastefully tended between the castle and garden proper. Decorative little fairy lights were situated here and there from tree branches and lanterns alike, as if the choicest of colourful little stars had been brought down to the world for their private enjoyment.

She was not alone. Two ponies followed behind and to the side of her. One mare was the pink of carnations with a bouncy lush mane. The earth pony was near huddled against her companion, a stoney looking pegasus stallion, all black and with a face that was quite possibly unknown to smiles. One black wing was draped over pink shoulders.

They were of a height, but Beetle seemed to stand taller, more alert and less trusting, whilst the mare was caught between equal measures anticipation and worry.

“I can go back if you want, my Queen,” she said in a hushed manner.

Since their prior visit to Canterlot, Chrysalis had dedicated no small amount of time and effort to bringing Surreal back into the fold. The implications of a lost changeling being brought were invigorating, but much of it had been Chrysalis’ own personal vexation at seeing one of the few expressive changelings willing to challenge her word slip into something sullen and morose.

There was no doubting her expressiveness, which pleased Chrysalis. Her confidence, on the other hoof...The faux-unicorn sighed with patient amusement and halted abruptly. She turned to Surreal and, because the Queen of changelings enjoyed it immensely, she let her fangs slip through the disguise. She never had liked being parted from them for very long, and ran her tongue over each in turn. Her eyes glinted a hue natural to nopony living. “Of course you could. Except I don’t want that. You’re ready to face her again, I’ve already told you this, Surreal. Every few minutes, in fact.”

“If you insist—” Surreal said, still hoping for a way to slip out.

“I do,” said Chrysalis, and that was that. A slight stroke along Surreal’s back from the black feathers of Beetle warranted a cautious, hopeful little glance from her to him, and she started on again.

Luna was similarly accompanied, for there was the alicorn, her two followers, and none other.

“Which one’s the changeling?” Surreal whispered, her brow furrowing as she glanced between the brothers. “I can’t tell.”

Beetle gave a snort. It was a very expressive snort, saying it didn’t matter which one was which, for he was disinclined to like either very much, changeling or not.

He was very much a non-verbal communicator.

Wispy clouds drifted in a sea of starlight. The alicorn’s wings were open and she stood easy; the breeze played across her feathers like the strings of an instrument just out of hearing. Luna was holding in the crook of her leg, of all things a mallet. It stood quite at odds with everything else, though on further observation the brothers Wax and Wane each had one as well, and held them in similar manners.

Chrysalis stepped closer. “Is your sister always like that?” she asked, a not wholly unexpected smile finding itself on her lips.

Luna nodded with playful sympathy. “Quite often, yes. She absolutely must take the most complicated and subtle way to do something possible. She likes to prove how clever she is, you see.”

“She taught me chess,” Chrysalis said.

The alicorn’s wings flared slightly, but only from mirth and disbelief. “She didn’t!”

Aware of a certain pair of pink eyes peeping out from behind her, Chrysalis stepped promptly to the side, leaving poor Surreal to stand on her own hooves. “With the board and the pieces? She really did.”

Luna shifted the mallet to her other hoof, then gestured the brothers. They nodded, and started setting up little arches of bent wire that sunk easily into the soft grass. “Did Celestia make it overbearing with metaphors about life? She loves doing that.”

Chrysalis opened her mouth to speak but, realizing in hindsight she’d been equally guilty if not more so of that selfsame crime, merely shrugged instead. She remembered Celestia’s smug, unexpected satisfaction at the turn of events. “I won,” Chrysalis said simply.

Luna gave her an inquisitive look. A small table set under the shelter of a tree bore refreshments. Magic lifted a tiny glass of something sparkling to the alicorn, which she drained in a single draught. “Well and truly? I will have to hear what transpired. She’s much better than me at it. Always trying to get me to play, too.”

“Excuse me,” one of the twins mumbled, gently insisting Surreal move aside. She did so with a start. Beetle was slower to move, and he held the pegasus’ eye for a moment before stepping aside, towards Surreal. Where they had stood a little wire hoop had been set into the ground. “Thank you,” Wane said and moved on.

“Help yourself to a mallet, Chrysalis. You too,” she said, facing each changeling in turn.

Next to the bench was a rack, from which the Queen of changelings levitated over one such mallet. Coloured balls and more wickets were stacked neatly in its framework. “And this is what now?”

Even using magic, Luna still put her shoulder into the motion of a few practice swings, ones that skimmed along the grass but never quite touched soil. “This is my game. I can’t believe Celestia let croquet die out in the time I was gone! I’ve been pushing for two years to revive it, with some success,” she said, clear satisfaction in her voice.

Still disguised as a unicorn, the green fire of the Queen’s magic nonetheless added its eerie light to the peace of the garden. Chrysalis gave the mallet a few perfunctory swings, mostly miming Luna’s own motion, bar the unnecessary swing of her shoulders.

“Is this going to be another thinly veiled thing about life—” Chrysalis made a sort of gesture with her hooves— “and all that?”

Luna stamped her hooves as if preparing for a light run. “Absolutely not. There’s none of that—” Luna made an equally confused gesture with her hooves, as if trying to do a cat’s cradle and failing in quite spectacular fashion— “sort of thing in this. That has always been part of why I love it so. It is the simplest thing in the world.”

The rules were explained in delightfully few sentences. They set play in motion, Chrysalis and Luna, ponies and changelings. Surreal was proving herself on good form, and even Beetle was coaxed into participating, if for his companion’s sake more than his Queen’s.

It was nice. It was fun. It was, by and large, the most bewildering thing Chrysalis had ever experienced.

Balls passed through wickets or near enough, and the game slowed. A beaten old journal was passed over to Chrysalis.

Luna had tucked her wings down. They folded up surprisingly neatly on her slim body, and Chrysalis caught herself appraising the differences more than noting the sudden object before her. Seen from the height of a normal pony, she looked so very different, yet so very much the same. “Remember this?” Luna asked, giving the red booklet a soft shake. “I finally finished it.”

Chrysalis took it gently. The flames crawled tenderly over it, turning to the first page. “Fallow Field’s journal. I’d almost forgotten this.”

Luna looked askance. “Once or twice I did.” The alicorn took aim and swung. With the pock! sound the ball went rolling, narrowly sidestepping Chrysalis’ own to pass through the little gate.

The others were in various states of rest. Largely they’d kept to themselves, but the easy atmosphere, the peace of night and the steady flow of time was warming each side to the other. The black pegasus Beetle, looking very much eponymous, still and watching while Surreal made passing attempts at conversation. Both rulers eyed the scene in quiet thought.

“It was him: that colt Fallow mentions. The one that helped them around their home, and the one that lead Fallow to you after his wife died. That was Beetle.”

Chrysalis eyed her approach carefully. She gave the mallet a steady swing. Her ball tumbled and bumped its way along the grass, rolled neatly through the wicket and had energy left over to tap against Luna’s. “Doesn’t look the type, does he? We’re more than parasites, you know,” but she said it in a different manner, because yes, Luna did know.

It’d been none other whom had first made that accusation. Again, Chrysalis caught herself eyeing the dark alicorn. A lot had happened since then. Most of it still didn’t make sense. They watched in silence as the others took their turns. There was no rush.

“Fallow chose to go inside. That’s the last entry. He even thanks you...sort of. Yet that doesn’t mean anything for the others.”

Choices. Sometimes it seemed that’s all there was. Chrysalis sighed.

Luna craned her neck back, her wings hung lax beside her. She stared wistfully into the stars, seeing out there perhaps what none other could. “There’s still a lot to resolve,” she said, her eyes not wavering from the eternal lights far beyond their world. Then she blinked and her eyes, almost glowing in the darkness, fixed upon Chrysalis. “With you, as well.”

Chrysalis turned to focus on her next shot, feeling Luna’s eyes upon her back. It’d be tricky, but it was doable. “Yes,” she said flatly. “But maybe there’s been enough of that tonight, little moon. Let’s just play.”

Author's Note

So...this is it. I've procrastinated in every possible way for this past year and longer, and downright dragged my heels it seems at some parts. And yet here we are, the end. Well and truly. For a chronic non-completer-of-things such as myself, the feelings here are many and mixed. I certainly hope you've enjoyed the ride through this story.

There is a blog dedicated to any and all questions pertaining to CHatNM HERE: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/169939/chatnm-qaor-ama-or-whatever-the-things-are-called