The Truth in Forgery

It was reaching dusk. Training finished after the sparring match, both to get enough time to fix up the field for the next group, as well as to get a sermon on the values of friendship and trust. Forgery knew their values, though. They were nourishing emotive states. They were also apparently a coping mechanism of the ponies, a way for them to work together without being empaths. Shining Armour called it "empath-y", and the changeling was inclined to agree; if you squinted hard enough it could look like it, but "empath-ish" might have been the better term. Apparently, with enough of it, the two mares would have been able to tell that neither of their sparing partners were who pretended to be, that "Forge Aerie" was walking like a soldier when he was a farmer, that "Shining Armour" was being unnecessarily heckling during the bout... Friendship could create rank cohesion, defeat avatars of anarchy, it must have been a truly amazing thing to the ponies. But nevertheless soon Forgery found himself ignoring the lesson's sermon-like tone and drifted into his own mind.

He had a passing thought that questioned the wisdom in revealing his magic to Shining Armour. It seemed to originate from the hive. 'So at least some supporters of me. Is this their spectacle now? Am I a show, to be made example of? Well, changelings are old pony tales, and thanks to the invasive efforts of the red one on the receiving end of a droning lecture, everypony will believe anything I explicate, even if it had more holes than the Queen herself.' No ling nor pony would fault him for relying on what, easily, was his best magic, and it kept him from worrying about being expected to know farming magics; after all, he wasted his time with learning these incredibly sophisticated transformations, why would he know any more than the basics elsewhere?

"...So be careful in future. Understood?" Sharp ears perked upon catching the edge of the lecture.

"Yes sir!" Came the unison saluted reply of the three members of the audience. A whiff and a look told Forgery more than the captain's gaze would in a week of staring. Nopony paid an iota of attention to the lesson, either learning it prior, or resolving not to learn it at all: Exactly what the captain believed, but had no way to prove or even know with certainty. There was a short silence and stillness as Shining examined each in turn, until Verity broke the standoff.

"Sparring is the last item in my day, and I promised I'd go for tea this afternoon, so if..." Her voice trailed as her commander leveled the most blank look at her possible, cutting her off with slow but unrelenting silence.

"I still don't know how you managed to pass basic training." He eventually commented, then gave a shake of his head. "Get cleaned up then. We all need to. Come on Forge, your day is still going; dinner's with Luna."

A brief hop into the pond later and Shining deemed himself and Forge to be "fresh enough" for this next, and final, task... Meeting with the dark Nightmare Moon. Well, first they did a bit more tour guiding and some simple standing guard, Forgery gathered the life of a soldier was, at its core, similar no matter where somepony goes. The castle's crowds had thinned out as school tour groups and court visitors dwindled over the course of the day, and as the sun began to consider descending upon the horizon, the only people still in the halls were servants and guards. And one changeling.

Shining Armor kept alert on the long walk to the opposite end of the castle that housed Princess Luna's private dining room. Eyes still shifting, he motioned along the wide open windows and vistas inherent in the building's design. He put on his indifferent tour guide voice. "Never has there been a castle as beautiful in architecture as this one. It is designed to allow easy access for pretty much anypony to just walk right in and do whatever they want. Though they're really rare, that includes thieves and whatnot trying to grab something shiny and bolting. It also includes hostile forces."

Forgery paid attention, if only because he knew that, thematically speaking, if he didn't then this would come back to bite him. 'Its Chekhoof's Bow, poetic justice one-oh-one.' Happy to have avoided a terrible future fate at the hands of an assassin, he continued to listen, after all, there wasn't much else to do on the walk but talk.

"Unlike zebras, griffons, donkeys, and all sorts of other species, we have an inherent and natural militia, in the unicorns. Even a common untrained unicorn like yourself can stop a minor attack. Some young fillies jump at the call a bit too eagerly and frequently, much to my constant stress." The emotion coming off of him was not stress at all, but love. Forgery bit his lip unconsciously, slowing his pace slightly and holding off against his base instincts to syphon it off. 'Think logically, impersonal.' This was clearly not truly a general case. There must be some history there. Shining, a step ahead to lead the way, noticed nothing and kept going on.

"Not that it wasn't necessary but it would be nice if she didn't worry her parents so much. For all we know she could get turned into stone in the Everfree and Anvil would need to leak it to me from Luna overhearing it from Celestia..." He stopped a moment, and turned, a bit redder. "Well, I guess I'm a bit off-topic. I'm used to walking alone, sorry about the venting there."

"No, no, no, I don't mean to intrude upon your ranting time." Forgery returned with a smile and a shrug. It was fascinating, after all. The stallion was one-track minded, even his emotive states were fairly streamlined and pure, so hearing a bit of chaotic truth told the changeling much more about his soon-to-be-captain than the entire day beforehand.

"Either way, this is the most dangerous time of day in the castle. Our natural buffer of petitioners show up before the sunrise, and the Night Guard oversee Luna's protection with dark efficiency, but only if they are awake. They're just waking now, and we're tired from a long day; some have already left, like Garnet."

Forgery smiled, wondering if the captain would be so open about the best way to invade the castle if he knew that a creature from their darker tales walked beside him instead of a country bumpkin. Casual chat of the expectations of the guards continued for the majority of the trip, until they opened the sculpted and silver-inlaid ebon-wood door leading to the sitting room of Luna's castle wing.

The door opened with nary the slightest creak, the heavy weight of the wood nigh-ignored by the force of magic pushing it. Expecting another long and terrible trek through poison-test Tartarus, he was surprised to see Luna in the immediately adjoining greatroom, already sipping from a large ceramic mug. The entire room looked modeled much like her ranking insignia; the changeling had to take a moment to add up even the costs of the dyes before following Shining's lead and stepping inside.

"Thou art here to safeguard Our repast this evening, Captain?" Her voice was deep for a mare, smooth, some might even call it musical. But it held a tone of aloof distrust to it, and a tone of tiredness, as if the question meant something else entirely. Curious, Forgery opened all his senses wide.

Bad idea. 'Successful execution, though.' Forgery was dazed from the waves of heavy, heavy loneliness coming from the Princess of the Night. Or, who he assumed was her for a lack of other blue-black alicorns in the land. It was not a nice emotion.

Now, some changeling philosophers, that is, consorts with far too much spare time on their hooves, debated over which was the worst emotion in life. It always ended with three parties, saying apathy, absolution, or loneliness. Apathy was a void. It was scary, putting a creature very much used to knowledge and control outside of it by the sheer lack of caring it exuded. In hindsight, it was probably very much what Celestia was feeling, though his mind was not the most stable in the nerve-wreck that was lunch. Absolution was odd, in that most "positive" emotions were quite pleasant, so it was a terrible oddity that it made most changelings physically ill, but was luckily an emotion usually directed at the self and not others, and its close neighbor forgiveness was just fine.

Forgery sent a set of feelings through his link to the hivemind, to answer the question with proper firsthoof experience. Loneliness was the worst. Perhaps it was the scale of it all, if he remembered the myth he spent the day recounting, she had had 1000 years to build up her current wreck of a mental state. But loneliness was the opposite of love. It stole it away. At least loathing was a strong link and relationship-building emotion; affection can be born of rivalry, respect of hate. But as Luna's gaze passed ever-briefly across Forgery's eyes on her way to the captain, the wave of her feelings pulled out every bit of love he had left in him, draining his energy just by being near. But at the same time, potential arose. 'Being in the debt of a princess is nothing to scoff at. This must pain her as much as it does me, so if I were to solve the issue--'

"Yes Princess, we are your chaperones today. A newbie too, Forge Aerie, he may be joining us in the longer term, very enthusiastic." Outside the spinning wheels of internal soliloquy, time marched on.

"It is always good to see the equity within our royal guard, there has been a lack of stallion recruits of late. Thy efforts are more suited to the walls and administration of orders than of breaking my day's fast." The small talk continued, Luna placidly drinking whilst using her magic to pull a bench for her guests.

"I know you've been good lately, but your sister..."

"We are familiar with Our sister's concerns and what is wont to have happened. Fear thee not, We shan't risk your livelihood." Luna looked at the guard captain, but only managed to hold the gaze for a moment in the impromptu staring contest before turning towards the wide array of comestibles plated before her, all untouched. With a lagging and shaky telepathic bond, she dragged a thin slice of apple and took a small nibble, constantly returning her gaze to the while-coated stallion, as if to ask 'Is it fine now? How about now?'.

Forgery resisted letting his mental states show on his face. She was clearly hungry, he did not even need his sixth sense in order to intuit that. Her actions, though, were slow and languishingly methodological, and if they were not there to oversee poison testing once more then she was just taking time to keep them with her in her room for as long as possible.

'That's it...' Be it through stroke of luck or inevitability, Luna's eyes met his just as they widened in realization. 'She's feeding off us.' Luna looked back down at her apple, taking a second slice of it and lowering her head to hide her own expression. He schooled his own emotions to ensure Shining did not notice anything amiss. Well, amiss beyond the doubling of the eating pace of his charge. He stood at her side, ignoring his seat, and as she consumed some of his happiness and self-assurance, his worry for her created in the process spawned more confidence in his necessary presence, allowing her to more thoroughly digest her true meal whilst letting the spread before her grow stale.

The only issue being, of course, that ponies do not ingest emotions. Not even ones as powerful as Luna. Yet glancing at the mare, who was now keeping her eyes on the offering of food before her, Forgery could not help but feel the urge to project more upon her, that she needed to feel more, to cast her current miserable mire of a mental mess from the room. He gathered up the feelings of goodwill, of awe, of appreciation he got from playing at being a guard all day, and before fully realizing it, sent along the feeling of being a workaday guard pony directly to her; a habit ingrained in all drones when their queen needed it, as she did right now.

Upon further consideration, such was not the best course of action.

Author's Notes:
I hated using the very specific "castle wing", but if I just said "wing" people may get confused. Royal winged species are a pain. Also, hopefully updates will be quicker now that my schedules are in proper order.