“Fluttershy, that's a really foolish question,” Twilight said irritably. “Of course it would matter. It would matter to me a great deal!”
Fluttershy blinked. “That was... awfully blunt,” she said finally. “You mean, if I told you I was a Changeling, right now...” she paused. “Our friendship would just mean nothing?”
The two of them were standing in the middle of the remains of the wedding reception, surrounded by empty tables, scattered napkins and paper plates. Despite the invasion, despite horrors that they had just been through, Cadence and Shining Armor had insisted on going through with the wedding celebration. For at least a few hours the ponies of Canterlot had forgotten the fear and peril they had just escaped and had let their spirits be lifted by the celebration.
Then again, on reflection, perhaps that had been why Cadence and Shining Armor had insisted. Wise and savvy on their part; they were going to make good rulers someday.
But the bride and groom were long gone, and the morning-after party hangover was on its way in a few short hours... along with ponies waking up to the grim realization that Equestria had a new, terrible enemy which it would have to face again, some dark day. Plans would be made, martial forces would be rallied and bolstered, defenses and strategies would be plotted out... and, wearisome as it was, some all-too-predictable forms of foolishness would make their perennial appearance.
Twilight scowled. She was NOT up to dealing with this now. She had just probably had the most stressed out couple of days of her life. She'd spotted a terrible danger to Equestria, tried to warn everypony, been brushed off by her best friends and even her own mentor, and then been forced to watch as her entire world had nearly been destroyed right in front of her. And she was YET to get anything resembling an apology from ANY of them. All that thrown in the middle of planning a Royal wedding, like the world's most nightmarish tossed salad.
And now her overly-sentimental friend was trying to guilt her for being angry at the species that did it all. It was pissing her off.
“Would it matter if I were a changeling?” indeed. “Well? Are you?”
Fluttershy said nothing. Oh great, THAT game as well...
This wasn't the first time she'd been confronted with such verbal sophistry. She'd been a student on a college campus, where such twittery seemed to flourish the most. Equestria was a fairly peaceful nation, but every now and then it would be faced by some clear and present danger to itself: some mad cult, or political conspiracy, or even networks of spies, saboteurs, mad bomb flinging anarchists.... and without fail there would be some half-wit self-appointed Defender of the Little Pony who would get up on a soapbox and blurt something along these lines and think it was a challenging ethical argument. “What if I were one of them? What if your loved ones were members? What would you do? Would you really cooperate with the Tyrant Princess(es) in oppressing our civil whatevers and wherefores, etc. ad nauseum?”
Or-- more fun and games--- there were those who, even as the guards were trying to track down the saboteurs/spies/anarchists/street vandals, would try to whip up sympathy for ponies who had just set fire to the local courthouse or blown up a bank. And when ponies demanded to know if they were part of the group, as they were deliberately hinting, they would pull THIS rhetorical nonsense--- refusing to answer one way or the other. As if that would keep ponies from drawing the obvious conclusion. Just reading about their shenanigans made Twilight want to thump them. It was contrived-situation doublethink; ponies trying to get you to chuck common sense out the window for the sake of some semantic rhetoric.
But now? From Fluttershy? This took the cake.
“Fluttershy," she said, dredging up the last of her patience, " we just got attacked by an army made up of a species we've never even heard of before. Creatures that can literally steal a pony's identity. They kidnapped me and my sister in law, brainwashed my brother, nearly killed Celestia, and hunted down ponies like wild animals while their queen sat there in the throne room cackling like a madmare. This isn't some vague hypothetical threat; it's a real and present danger. We kind of have a right to take measures to protect ourselves. Of COURSE it would matter if you said you were one of them. In what possible reality could it NOT matter?"
Fluttershy rallied. “But.. they were just following orders---”
“Exactly,” Twilight said. Her voice got chilly. “They were given orders, and they followed them. They made a choice. You don't get out of accountability just because someone told you to do something stupid and evil, Fluttershy. My brother once told me that all our soldiers are told that they have a duty to refuse to follow orders that they know are illegal, or immoral, or wrong, for just that reason. If a soldier follows an unlawful order, they're still accountable.
“And as far as I saw, those Changeling soldiers were perfectly happy chasing down terrified ponies through the city streets as ordered. So you'll have to pardon me if I don't feel too particularly sorry for them.”
“What if there are other Changelings out there? Ones who didn't follow Chrysalis...?”
“Well they'd better come out as soon as possible,” Twilight said dryly. “They didn't exactly make any friends by hiding when we were in danger from Chrysalis' army. The Princesses are going to be turning over every rock, digging for information on the changeling race, looking for more of them hiding among us... they'd be fools, and criminally negligent, not to do so, so any Changeling out there is probably going to be found anyway. Nopony's going to be too happy to have Changelings come out of hiding-- but they're going to be a lot less happy if we have to catch them. A lot of ponies are going to be examined and interrogated. Probably nearly everypony, eventually.”
“But that's awful!” Fluttershy protested. “Don't ponies have a right to remain silent?”
Twilight shook her head. “No. Not in this case,” she said. “Ponies forget: you have a right to remain silent so as to not incriminate yourself... but the Law still has the authority to demand you identify yourself. That would include your species. So they'd be perfectly within the law to do whatever it takes to determine if you were who-- and what-- you said you were.”
“But....”
“What?”
“But we don't know they're ALL like that! You can't judge a whole species by the behavior of-- of the first big group of them we find!” Fluttershy protested. "That's just wrong!"
Twilight stared at her in disbelief and exasperation. “Yes we can! We absolutely can! That's exactly how you DO it! Especially when that ONE GROUP is the ONLY one that has shown itself to us, before, during or after!
"The statistical survey is in, Fluttershy-- Thus far, 1000 out of 1000 changelings interviewed want to catch us, stuff us in cocoons and suck our faces off!” She grabbed a straw off a nearby drink table, stuck it in her mouth and lunged at Fluttershy, making trumpety sucking noises through the straw. “Sluuuuurrrrrrk!”
Fluttershy backed up in alarm, her eyes never leaving the straw. Twilight pursued her for a few steps, backing her pegasus friend up till her rump bumped into a table. She finally ran out of breath and spit the straw on the floor. She was chuffing like a train engine, and not just from trying to catch her wind.
“This isn't a game, Fluttershy, and it isn't an episode of 'the Pony's Court.' This is our nation being invaded by an enemy, and us having to defend ourselves. We're in a state of WAR, Fluttershy! The rules are a little bit different! The countryside is going to be searched; ponies are going to be interrogated; there will be checkpoints and Changeling magic detectors and curfews and more. So yes, a lot of ponies are going to have their hooves stepped on before this is all over.
“Honestly, Fluttershy. What good would it do if we get overrun by Changelings-- again-- because we were too nice and polite to inconvenience anypony, even when we're all in obvious danger?”
Fluttershy looked at her with heartbroken eyes. “So you would really.. turn me in? If I were...”
Twilight felt a little sympathy return. “Fluttershy, I'd HAVE to. Chrysalis and her army may have been banished, but they're not gone. They're still out there, and still a threat. We know NOTHING about them, about their species, about their culture, about their government, about why they attacked NOW instead of tomorrow or two years ago, or what changed so that they did... ” she threw her hooves in the air.
” if you WERE a Changeling, even one of these hypothetical 'other' Changelings NOT working with Chrysalis, and you still insisted you were our friend-- and let's just set aside all the questions of how would you prove you were the REAL Fluttershy and that she wasn't languishing away in a cocoon someplace--- It would be the safest thing for you.
“And frankly, yes, I'd be angry with you.” Twilight got her breathing under control. “that would mean that you had all this knowledge about the Changelings, and their species, and their blatantly evil leader, that we desperately needed... that we could have used to stop her... and you didn't tell us.”
....So yes, Fluttershy. It would matter if you turned out to be a Changeling. Because I'd say by refusing to tell us until it was too late-- well, that would have been a pretty horrible thing to do to us.” Twilight turned back to her discarded clipboard, leaving the pegasus gaping at her in shock. Twilight's magic trembled a bit. This was getting too real, too fast.
“Y...you'd think I was a horrible friend... just because I was a Changeling??” Fluttershy's voice was thick with tears.
Twilight's ears drooped. Nightmare Moon... Discord.... that dragon on the mountain... all the parties and lunches and just simple good times together.... she took a deep breath and let it out, feeling her heart ache. “No. But....It would mean... that a friend I cared about deeply had done a pretty horrible thing.
“It would mean nearly everything we thought we knew about you was wrong. It would mean that nothing would ever be the same again. It would mean we'd have to start all over again, just getting to know you, to understand you.
“And it would mean we would have to re-learn to trust each other all over again, right from scratch. It would take a long time to get over it, I'd think. So yes, it would matter. And it's cruel and hypocritical to demand that it NOT matter, as if nothing had changed.”
She sighed. “But... we're not monsters, Fluttershy. You said “but aren't you my friend?” Well, aren't you MY friend? Don't you know ME?
“You know what we've all been through together. You know how much we care for you. If you, or any other pony we knew, turned out to be one of these hypothetical 'other, peaceful Changelings,” we'd have to remember all that they'd been through with us, all the friendships and memories, and that in the end they DIDN'T side with Chrysalis. We're not stupid after all.”
She squared her shoulders. “If you were a Changeling, Fluttershy, I'd say now is the time to step forward and tell everyone the truth. I figure it probably runs against every gut feeling you have... but it's always better to confess a lie than to be caught out in one.”
"You know what I'd say to Changeling Fluttershy?" Her stomach trembled. She found herself having trouble continuing. “Fluttershy, If you're really our Fluttershy... I know you're scared, I'd be in your place too...heck, I'm scared myself anyway. A lot of feelings are going to be hurt. But the first part of friendship is TRUST. The sooner you let us all know the truth then the sooner we can all start forgiving each other. You've been my friend for so long--- and if you just give me your trust, then I'm not about to throw it away.”
There was a flash, like a flare from a candle. Twilight turned around, and held her breath as the house of cards that had been their lives came tumbling down.
It had almost seemed inevitable from the start of the conversation. The more Twilight's fickle mind had entertained the possibility, the more obvious it had seemed. Fluttershy's shyness. The way she surrounded herself constantly with loving pets. Her Stare. Dozens of other little things, seen in a different light... but even 99% sure, that final one percent-- seeing it for herself-- was shattering.
Fluttershy's form was changed surprisingly little. She wasn't like Chrysalis' changelings; she was.... soft. Covered with a thin layer of caterpillar fluff. She was still a soft pale yellow, and her mane and tail were still rose pink. Her eyes were solid baby blue-- till the nictating membranes slid back, revealing cat-pupiled eyes as deep a blue as she'd ever had.
She wasn't as emaciated as Chrysalis' minions had been either, retaining her soft form, albeit with thin rose plates down her back and ribs. She had fangs-- tiny, almost cute ones that peeked over her lip. There were fewer holes in her legs as well, and her holey wings were larger, dusty pink and yellow, like a moth's. She had a ruff of soft fluff around her shoulders and neck, and two long feathery pink feelers extended from her forehead, on either side of her short, thorn-like horn. Her legs were trembling with the strain of standing there, not fleeing.
Twilight's mouth was dry. “It's... not what I was expecting,” she managed to say.
“I... my kind.. we take more after the moths and butterflies,” Fluttershy said. Her voice had that odd resonance that Chrysalis' voice had, and quavered in a wobbling tremolo. “There are many different kinds of us. Chrysalis'... um, breed... um, they take after bluebottle flies.”
“Um, ick?” Twilight said weakly.
“...Sorry.”
“...How long?”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Since always, Twilight. I was left as a hatchling on a doorstep. It's what Changelings do. From the moment I imprinted on my new parents I've had this disguise. I've always been... me.”
She bit her lip. Time to ask: “Did you know...?”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No. The first I heard even the rumors of the invasion was when you did. And I couldn't tell Cadence was really Chrysalis. Even a Changeling can't tell a Changeling is in disguise, if they're being careful. And Chrysalis was being very very careful.”
Twilight nodded. If there were more than one kind... and more than one hive, or nation, or family, or whatever... then it would make sense that they'd be able to hide even from other Changelings.
“We hide, Twilight,” Fluttershy blurted out. “That's what we do. We're not fast or strong... you saw how weak we are..”
“We did... pummel quite a few of them, didn't we,” Twilight said, recalling the battle to reach the Elements. The six of them were no warriors, and yet they'd tossed dozens of Changeling 'warriors' around like they were made of paper mache'. Dash was going to be disappointed to learn that it really had been as easy as it seemed. 'Sexy horseshoeless goddess of war,' indeed. Twilight snorted to herself in amusement.
“So hiding... pretending to be other ponies... is our only defense.” Fluttershy took a shuddering breath. “You don't know...you don't know how hard it is for a Changeling to come out of hiding to a normal pony,” she said, her voice trembling and wobbling. “Right now it's like everything inside of me is screaming to run and hide and change into somepony else, to never ever let you see me like this ever again, and it's worse because I know in my head that you--” tears started welling from the alien blue eyes. “That in spite of everything you said that you hate me and never want to see me again--”
Her words were stopped by a hug and a nuzzle. She caught her breath in a gasp. “It'll be okay,” Twilight crooned, pulling her fragile friend into a hug. “Did you think I was lying about what I said?”
“You... meant it?” Fluttershy's Changeling voice was a violin tremolo.
Twilight leaned her head back to look her in the eye and gave her a rueful grin. It had been there; the flash of fear that this... creature... had replaced their Fluttershy, was a mockery of their friend-- but one look had banished it. Even stripped of her disguise, everything about her, every little mannerism, said this was her. And then there was the Element of Kindness, still twinkling around Changeling-shy's neck... “All of it,” she said. “The bad... and the good.” She heaved a sigh. “It's going to be a lot of 'trust, but verify,' from here on out. You do know that?”
Fluttershy nodded and sniffed. “I understand,” she said meekly.
Twilight went over the rapidly growing list of things that would have to be done now. Celestia and Luna would have to be told; poor Fluttershy would have to spend a LOT of time under the scrutiny of ponies asking questions and demanding explanations--- and probably poking and prodding in uncomfortable places; they would have to devise some means to contact the other peaceful Changelings, persuade them to come out of hiding-- the ponies of Equestria would have to be convinced that Fluttershy and her... her kind... were not a threat. That was going to be a hard battle, all by itself. Nothing was going to be the same, ever again.
“One step at a time, okay?” Twilight said aloud. “One step at a time...”