Princess Cadance: Changeling Hunter

Chapters

Introduction
Part 1: Foal Chapter 1: First Encounter
Chapter 2: Cocoon

Introduction

It was dark and pouring as the canopied carriage that carried me was bringing me to an unknown location where I was to meet a good friend of mine. The clopping of the stallion’s hooves pulling the vehicle on the muddy dirt path was entirely muted by the pouring of the rain. This made me feel very guilty, as I was inside the comfort and safety of the carriage I was being carried in while the stallions were soaking in the rain. I had no idea how far they could or would go without getting ill. Nopony should be out in this kind of weather.

Despite my feelings of pity and guilt, there was no stopping them. This pony said that my arrival was urgent and that I should do everything ponyly possible to make this meeting even if it meant lying or skipping previous engagements to get there.

It saddened me because I was going to attend a party of Pinkie Pie’s celebrating her, for lack of a better term, baby brother Pound Cake’s 5th “monthiversary,” that being five months since the colt’s birth. Pinkie Pie was really excited about the party and begged that I should come, but I was forced to lie to her by telling her that my bookshelves were in desperate need of organizing and that I could not be bothered in the slightest. She answered with her usual “okie dokie lokie” and let me be.

I’ve heard from Rainbow Dash what Pinkie Pie can be like when she feels abandoned by her friends, like what happened when she thought we were skipping out an after-birthday party for Pinkie’s pet alligator Gummy. The thought alone makes me cringe. However important my friends’ engagements are, they couldn’t hold a candle to the urgency written on the note that I had received late last night.

My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am the head librarian at the Ponyville Public Library in Ponyville, Equestria. I am also a personal protégé of Equestria’s ruler, Princess Celestia, who tasks me and my other friends, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity, with finding the virtues and magic of friendship. As well as being Princess Celestia’s students, my five friends and I are also the physical embodiments of the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful source of magic in all of Equestria. I represent the Element of Magic, the most elusive of the elements.

My friends and I have gone through many trials and hardships in our time together. While including minor things such as surviving a terrible Grand Galloping Gala and getting two of my friends together for a slumber party, we have saved Equestria three times from evil forces. Once when Nightmare Moon threatened our land with eternal darkness, once when Discord sought to instill eternal chaos, and most recently, when my brother, Shining Armor’s wedding was nearly destroyed by a power hungry creature named Queen Chrysalis, the leader of a race of beings known as changelings, who could maintain the form of any pony and feed off of the love that ponies give them while in the form of a loved one.

Queen Chrysalis took the form of my old foalsitter, now sister-in-law, Princess Cadance and planned to marry my brother and feed off of his undying love for the mare he thought he loved, which fueled Queen Chrysalis with so much power that she even defeated Princess Celestia in a magic duel. However, Cadance and Shining Armor used the magic of their love to cast the queen out of Equestria, ending her reign of terror.

I hadn’t seen hide or tail of Queen Chrysalis since then, but I still felt that the changelings were an ever present threat to Equestria. We had foiled their plans, and they would be out for revenge. Since then, however, things were quite peaceful.

It was about a week since the wedding and I assumed that Cadance and Shining Armor were out on their honeymoon. It was nighttime when I was tucking in my assistant, a baby dragon named Spike to bed. I was planning out a checklist of errands I had to do tomorrow, when I noticed that my dragon was convulsing on the ground. I tried asking him what the matter was, but upon seeing him burp a puff of green fire that turned into a letter, I was relieved at my assistance’s well being.

I thought it rather strange that Princess Celestia would send me a letter at this late into the night. The letter, however, was not written in Princess Celestia’s hornwriting. It was in a font that I was completely unfamiliar with. Not wanting to be rude, I read the letter. I found its contents rather disturbing.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

Your presence is highly requested late tomorrow evening. It is highly important that you tell nopony about this. If you have to lie and deceive your friends and cancel any other planned engagements to make this meeting, do so. A carriage will arrive at your house around 6 PM tomorrow. It is highly recommended that you get on that carriage. If you don’t, you will neither hear nor see of me ever again. I will say, however, that we are closer than you may think. Bring a quill and some paper and ink… a lot of it.

From,
C

P.S.: Before I forget, burn this letter after reading. This meeting mustnot be known.

C? What could that mean? And she’s closer than I think? Is she one of my friends? What could this be? My mind was swimming with questions all night; I could hardly sleep. What could this pony want from me that would require me being alone and not talking about his to anypony? If this pony was trying to worm the desire to see who he or she really was, it worked. Now I felt like it was my sworn duty to find out who my writer was. All I could do though from that point forward was wait.

The next afternoon, I packed my saddlebags in case the journey would be a long one. I waited for what felt like hours, even though it was merely a few minutes. However, the six o'clock bell chimed throughout Ponyville and as if on cue, a brown, wooden carriage came riding in with two muscular stallions pulling it. Not wanting to keep my writer waiting, I quickly hopped into the vehicle with my saddle bags in tow. We promptly began the trek to the unknown.

I wasn’t sure who would want to meet me alone like this, but I was a very skilled wielder of magic and would’ve been able to fight my way out of a jam if one were to arise. About an hour into the journey, it began to rain. Two hours after that is where we pick up where I left off.

I began to realize that the path I was taking would lead us straight to Canterlot. Instead of continuing down the path though, we turned right into the forest. I was unfamiliar around this forest, obviously having never been there. The foliage wasn’t as thick as the Everfree Forest, but it wasn’t as lovely as Whitetail Wood, and the rain only helped to make it look more ominous.

Upon a half hour more of riding, I was taken to a secluded cabin in the woods. The carriage stopped. The stallions told me that I had arrived. I grabbed my saddle bags and made a gallop for the cabin to keep as dry as possible. I opened the door with my magic and got inside. It was way too dark to see anything, so I used my horn’s magic to illuminate the area. Upon seeing who was in the room with me, I almost gave in to shock.

Standing at the far end of the room was my old foalsitter, Princess Cadance, and her husband/my brother, Shining Armor. After calling out their names, I ran over and gave them both hugs. I even tried doing our “Sunshine Sunshine Dance” from when she used to be my foalsitter. She looked at me here with a blank expression. I was confused as to why she would deny herself the dance we used to enjoy so much in our youth. She then talked to me.

“I know that you are happy to see me,” she said, “and I am happy to see you too, Twilight Sparkle, but understand that our gladness is for entirely different reasons.”

“What do you mean?” I ask her. “That reminds me. Why am I in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? Who sent me that let-”

I soon remembered the single letter that was signed upon the message.

Cadance.

“You… sent the letter?”

“I did, Twilight.”

“How… You were so… demanding.”

“Forgive my lack of compassion in that letter, my little pony. I consider you one of the only ponies left that I can trust.”

“What… what do you mean by that?”

A new Cadance was showing herself, and it frightened me to see how much different she was from the caring and kind pony I knew from my fillyhood.

“If you have lived a life such as mine, Twilight, then you will come to learn what I mean by these statements. If I told you that the loving and gentle pony that you saw in me years ago was nothing more than a façade, would you believe me?”

Why was she asking me these things? Who was she really? Was she a changeling? That’s when it hit me. She was another one of those creatures in disguise. I leapt right into action. I charged at her, but with a quick step in her hoof, she stepped aside and tripped me, bringing my face to the floor. I felt as my jaw painfully smacked into the wood. I was sure I didn’t break a tooth or my jaw entirely, but it still hurt very much.

I tried charging again, but I caught her sidestep and plowed into her stomach. I tried driving my horn into her but she held me back with her arms. She then lifted me up under my armpits and threw me into the wall. I felt my head hit the floor on my way back down. I felt the back of my head. There was a small trickle of blood on my hoof.

Cadance continued to approach me. I watched, horrified, as my brother stood by and did absolutely nothing.

“Shining Armor…” I wheezed through my pain. “Help… me…” No response.

I went to my last resort and forte: magic. I tried restraining her with a simple levitation spell. Instead of flailing around and hoping to break free, she instead used her own magic to begin choking me. My growing lack of oxygen began to weaken me as I eventually was forced to put Cadance down. She continued to choke me though as she approached me.

“Do you believe me now?” she demanded.

I nodded as vigorously as I could with as little air as I had left. I then saw the blue aura (her original aura unlike the green aura from when Queen Chrysalis acted as her doppelganger) on her horn stop glowing. I gasped for air, and was relieved as the oxygen entered my lungs and gave me new life. My head was throbbing from the fight.

Princess Cadance used another spell to heal my wound. I looked at her, confused.

“I knew what you were thinking,” stated Cadance. “You thought I was a changeling. And why wouldn’t you? I bring you out to a secluded cabin in the middle of the woods and I begin exhibiting strange behavior. It’s only natural for you to think that after coming into contact with a changeling as you have.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Twilight. “Why are you doing all this?” I was close to tears at this point. The Cadance that I knew was dead, and I didn’t know who the real one was. My brother finally stepped up to address me.

“I think the two of us need to take you to the basement.”

Shining Armor and Cadance led me down a long flight of stairs to the basement of the cabin. I was thinking about what could be so secretive as to be hidden this far underground. It wasn’t long before I got my answer. The room was too dark to see anything. Even with your hoof right in your face, you couldn’t see anything. All I could smell was clotted blood and rotting flesh. Princess Cadance provided a light with an illumination spell. What I saw made me wretch.

There were dozens of heads collected on the shelves that lined the walls. They weren’t the heads of ponies, dragons, or any other kind of creature. They were all the heads of changelings. I looked at their beady lifeless eyes, the fearful expressions on their faces right before they must have died. The base of the neck where a body once supported it was a clean cut, as if the head had been chopped off by an axe.

The trophies that lined the wall were bringing me close to vomiting. What was in the center of the room brought me over the edge. There was a glass case bringing me to the head of a much larger changeling. This changeling, however, was unmistakable. Her green catlike eyes, her kelpy blue-green hair, her fangs, her jagged horn, her crown. I was looking directly at the decapitated head of Queen Chrysalis herself.

I couldn’t hold it in. I emptied my stomach all over the dank, dirty floor, the smell of stomach acid, dissolved daffodils, and daisies mixing horridly with the smell of mold and death in this room. Cadance picked up the vomit with magic and placed it inside of a bucket. Shining Armor wiped my mouth with a towel and stroked my back for comfort.

“There there,” he cooed. “I was shocked myself when she showed me this room.”

“Showed you this room?” I yelled. “And you’re totally okay that she has the heads of dozens of dead changelings up on her wall like trophies?”

“Again, Twilight,” spoke Cadance, “if you lived the life I had, you’d have no qualms with ending the lives of these creatures either. I’d say that you’d even enjoy it.”

“Shut up!” I screamed. “There’s nothing that could be so bad as to commit acts like this.” Cadance just sighed.

“This brings me to the real reason why I’ve called you here. When I was kidnapped by Queen Chrysalis, I began to realize my mortality; that what I’ve been doing nearly my entire life will eventually end it.”

“But I don’t know what you’ve been doing, Cadance. Please, just tell me.”

“Since I was a filly,” she finally admitted, “I have hunted down and slain over 400 changelings. This doesn’t even include the casualties from the spell that Shining Armor and I casted during our wedding.”

I was just shown a major hint in the basement, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe her. My foalsitter and childhood friend Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was one of the greatest killers in Equestrian history. Billy the Colt was infamous for 250 kills in his life as a ruthless outlaw and Son of Stallion had a notorious 370, but Cadance just admitted that she killed much more than that. I would have doubted her further, but the trophy collection was proof enough.

“Do you have the supplies I asked you to bring?” asked Cadance as we walked back to the main floor.

“Yes,” said Twilight. I got to my bag and pulled out a two large stacks of paper, a couple of quills, and 4 bottles of ink. “What are these for?”

“As you probably would have guessed, not many ponies know about my true identity. And like I said, the attempted ruining of my wedding made me realize fully the dangerousness of my what I have been doing all these years. If my next mission were to be my last, no one would ever know about it. But I feel like the truth should be passed on in one way or another. That is why I contacted you Twilight. You are not only the closest pony I have to family other than Shining Armor and the princesses, but I trust you above anypony to document and conceal the truth. I must ask you before we begin: are you ready?

“The tales which I am about to tell you trace back to my birth up until this very moment. They are not the old mares tales that your parents would tell you before bed. This is a story of horror, betrayal, loss, and blood. Much blood. Despite my precautions to you, my dear Twilight Sparkle, will you still take this task?”

I was seriously unsure. I was basically hearing a confession of one of Equestria’s greatest killers, but the fact that it was my own foalsitter made it too intriguing to resist. I wanted to know what made her like this. It was not only my duty as her transcriber, but it was my duty as a friend to find out.

“Princess Cadance, I accept.”

“Excellent. Let’s begin.”

Cadance walked over to the rug on the floor and sat down. With quill and paper in hoof, I was about to uncover the truth of the real Princess Cadance. Her official autobiography. Her true life was about to unfold before my ears.

“Alright,” I stated. “Let’s start at the very beginning.”

Part 1: Foal Chapter 1: First Encounter

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, which would later be shortened to Cadance, was born on the 6th day of the 8th month of 972 L.B. (L.B. = Luna’s Banishment) to parents Flower Blossom, a pegasus, and Glowing Sun, a unicorn prince and distant brother to Princess Celestia. The sky was sunny and cloudless, a good omen to the family. It was a particularly good omen that the child was not only blessed with her mother’s wings, but her father’s horn as well. She was a monumentally rare breed of pony known as an alicorn, a winged pegasus in laypony’s terms.

When the royal princess learned of her birth, she headed right away to the new parents to congratulate them on her niece being brought into the world. Princess Celestia herself was certain that this pony would go on to do great things. She didn’t know, however, what these “great” things would eventually amount to.

Glowing Sun was a brown pony with a black mane and a cutie mark of a spear. Flower Blossom was a creamy white with an ice blue mane and a cutie mark of a flower. Cadance’s father was the head of the Royal Guard while her mother cared for her at home which was in the countryside about a mile from Canterlot. Flower Blossom was very hesitant about sending her daughter to a school where she felt she wouldn’t receive the same treatment as everypony else, so she homeschooled her daughter. It was fortunate that Flower Blossom was one of the most intelligent ponies during her school years and had even considered being a teacher, but she fell madly in love with Glowing Sun and became a stay-at-home wife.

Cadance was an extremely bright filly growing up. She began speaking at the age of 1, when most ponies began speaking at the age of 2. By age 2, she began reading and writing. By the time she was 5 years of age, she already had the penmanship and vocabulary of a fully grown mare. Many people contributed this massive growth of knowledge to Flower Blossom’s peerless tutoring, but Princess Celestia herself was convinced there was just something special about her.

If there was one thing that Flower Blossom enjoyed most about tutoring her daughter, it was the flying lessons. Being a pegasus pony herself, she saw herself as the perfect teacher for her daughter. On Cadance’s 4th birthday, Flower Blossom took her daughter out for flying lessons. The first couple of days were quite troubling for Flower Blossom, as Cadance seemed more focused on watching her mother’s wings than she was with listening to her words of advice.

Cadance, however, knew exactly what she was doing. She watched with great intuition how her mother’s wings would move in wave-like patterns which made her fly in different directions and speeds. On the 4th day, Cadance tried replicating the movements herself with minimal success. She was barely a foot airborne, but she quickly lost herself and crashed into the ground. This is when Cadance began listening to her mother’s words and taking her advice on how to properly control herself.

The next day, Cadance took Flower Blossom’s words to heart and began to control her flying. Within a couple of hours, she was able to easily fly alongside her mom. In a few days time, she was just as skilled a flyer as her mom. Cadance claims that her mother was never prouder of her than on that day.

One of the other things Cadance liked to do with her mother was a little song that they did together, accompanied by a dance:

Sunshine, sunshine,
Ladybugs awake.
Clap your hooves,
And do a little shake.

This little moment of each day was enough to bring Cadance out of even the deepest of average childhood throes: falling down when she messed up in her flying lessons, missing her dad who was almost always away with the Royal Guard, feeling lonely without many friends. Despite her protectiveness for her daughter, Flower Blossom loved her as any mother would.

One day, Glowing Sun came home for a small relieve of his duty. Cadance was ecstatic to see her dad whenever he came home, however rarely he did. Flower Blossom did not share the same sentiments. Being as long gone as he was, she always felt pent up with emotions brought about by his prolonged absences. This sometimes caused fighting between the two lovers. Cadance remembers crying every time one of her parents would raise her voice at the other.

Despite the occasional arguments, they still were good around each other and their daughter. In fact, Glowing Sun used the time he had with his daughter to his full potential, using that time to teach her magic. With Cadance’s intuition and intelligence, she was able to pick magic up to the level of a middle-school mare by the time her father had to return to duty.

After discovering the use of her magic, Cadance asked her mother if she could go to the library and find more books about magic. Flower Blossom, despite being quite apprehensive about bringing her alicorn daughter into public, felt that it was time for her to be accepted into society. To Flower Blossom’s relief, Cadance was not only accepted, but she was highly respected inside the city of Canterlot. The librarian of the Canterlot Royal Library even allowed Cadance to check magic books out that weren’t available to the public.

Despite the respect that Cadance received in her time at Canterlot, this was exactly the reason that Flower Blossom kept Cadance from the public. Since Canterlot was the capital of Equestria and was easily its most luxurious city, the populace consisted mainly of snobs and stuffy upper-class socialites who haven’t learned of the value of true labor like Glowing Sun and Flower Blossom had. Cadance’s mother wanted her daughter to grow up to learn such values, along with self-respect and eventual dependency on herself.

With many of the spells that Cadance learned from the books she checked out at the library, she was able to fell trees for lumber and firewood, she learned how to control fire to assist mother with cooking, and she also used her magic to help with their own little garden which they used for sustenance. It was clear that Flower Blossom was teaching her daughter right.

Glowing Sun came home again one day when Cadance was 6. This led to another argument between him and Flower Blossom. Cadance couldn’t take it anymore. She hated seeing her parents arguing. She came downstairs and casted a new spell that she had learned in her books. A red heart split in half down the middle flew towards the arguing ponies. The heart joined as one between them, causing a spray of smaller hearts to emit from the larger one onto Glowing Sun and Flower Blossom.

The two ponies stopped arguing and began talking calmly to each other. They then began to reason that they shouldn’t fight like this in front of their daughter. After they promised not to have another argument like that again, Cadance ran down the stairs and hugged her parents. It was this act of love and kindness that allowed Cadance’s cutie mark, a blue heart with gold lace to finally appear. It was one of the happiest days of Cadance’s life. Soon later, her happy days would be coming to an abrupt halt.

Since the day she got her cutie mark, Glowing Sun began spending more time at home, honing Cadance’s magic. One day, Flower Blossom came back home from the market. However, she seemed “off” to Cadance. She didn’t greet her in the same way that she normally would. In fact, she gave Cadance nothing more than a rough pat on the head with her hoof. She seemed more interested in Glowing Sun.

In fact, she greeted him with a passionate kiss, something unseen by Cadance from her mother before. His father was also surprised by this kiss, but kept it going. Cadance was unsure of what was happening with her mother to make her act this strangely. The disturbing of Cadance went further, as every night, she would hear passionate moans coming from her parent’s bedroom below her. The difference scared her and her terror almost brought the filly to tears.

Beginning almost immediately with the “change,” Glowing Sun spent more and more time at home, all to the point where he stopped becoming the head of the Royal Guard altogether. “Flower Blossom” also began sending her to public school, which Cadance went on to remember as some of the most horrible experiences of her childhood. Being as bright of a student as she was, she found the classes very easy for her, which many of the students, including the upper class, found very irksome. The colts and fillies taunted and teased the young Cadance relentlessly. Cadance would come home in tears every day, but her “mother” paid no mind to her, and her father seemed to be getting more and more distant from her daughter every day.

Despite recommendations from her teachers that she should move to a grade more suitable for her, “Flower Blossom” insisted that her “daughter stopped whining and just deal with it.” Cadance was soon convinced that this mare that had come into her life was not her mother. She needed answers.

Cadance went to the police after school one day to ask them to go on a search party to find her real mother. Despite saying that Flower Blossom was obviously around, she told the police about her radically different behavior and her sudden attention towards her dad. The police told her that what she might be dealing with was with a creature called a changeling. She left, but not before the police would promise to investigate further.

Cadance spent the next 2 hours at the Royal Library researching changelings. She found only one book that provided any answers, and its contents were shoddy at best. The only serviceable information about the creatures was that they fed off of the love of ponies in the forms of the pony that they love, and that distinguishing a changeling from the actual pony could only be done by another pony that was close to them. She left the library disappointed.

Upon returning home, she was greeted by her “mother.” Cadance could remember the conversation fully.

“So Cadance,” she said in a domineering way, “where were you today?”

“I was… at the library.”

“Really? Did you have fun? I certainly don’t remember giving you permission to go to the library, but I guess since you had fun, that’s all that matters. Wanna know how my day went? A couple of policemen came to my house and asked me some interesting questions.”

“Like what?”

“Oh nothing. Just that I was accused of being a CHANGELING!”

She took a cup from the cupboard and threw it at Cadance’s head on the last word. Cadance tried running to her room, but “Flower Blossom” was too quick for her. She grabbed Cadance and pinned her to the bed. She struck her hard with her hoof and quelled the subsequent crying with her other hoof.

“You may have uncovered my disguise,” she said, “but you can’t just disappear now. If you leave the picture, I will have signed my own arrest warrant. But unless you really want to disappear, just like your mother did, you will be a good little girl, you got that?” Cadance was too terrified to do anything. “YOU GOT THAT?” Cadance nodded as hard as she could. “Good. From now on, this door remains open. You lost your privacy privileges.” “Flower Blossom” left the poor Cadance to weep into her pillow. She knew that something had to be done for her nightmare to be over.

One day, “Flower Blossom” went to the market for groceries, allowing Cadance to check on her father. What she saw shocked her to the core. Her father looked strange. He sat in the corner of his bedroom, swooning as if he was about to collapse from exhaustion. His normally blue eyes where replaced by a lime green. His eyes also looked tired and bloodshot. Cadance tried calling out to her dad to snap him out of it. The only response he could muster were the words “honey” and “Blossom.”

It was clear that she had wormed her way into his mind. Cadance tried more and more to reach out to him, but all her efforts were in vain. She tried one last thing. She tried casting the love spell on him like she did with him and her real mother. Upon casting the spell, she waited for a response. To Cadance’s horror, his eyes were still the same lime green and he said the same two words.

“Honey? Blossom?”

Cadance knew that she would never get her father back. She couldn’t afford to see her father in this state, so she led him to the bed and let him lay down. She then grabbed her mother’s pillow and held it over his head.

“I love you, daddy,” she sobbed before pressing the pillow over Glowing Sun’s muzzle. As the stallion struggled for air, Cadance tearfully held her father down further with her magic as she smothered him. At long last, her father stopped moving.

Glowing Sun died on the 9th day of the 3rd month, 979 L.B.

“Flower Blossom” came home later that night. Upon placing her saddlebags on the table she made her way for the bedroom. She was horrified to see her lover’s dead body on the bed. She tried to resuscitate him, until Cadance came into the room. She had cloth wrapped around her hooves to prevent her noises from betraying her.

“Hello, ‘mother’,” she greeted.

Using the same spell that she used for felling trees for lumber and firewood, she cut off one of “Flower Blossom’s” wings, resulting in a splatter of green blood. As “Flower Blossom” writhed and screamed in pain, Cadance saw the amputated wing turn feathery to insect-like as it flailed upon the ground. “Flower Blossom” also changed shape.

She turned into a very skinny black equine figure with long legs with holes that were visible in the bottom parts of the calf to her hoof. Her other wing turned insect-like as well. The mane and tail that were once icy blue were now long and resembled seaweed, being a royal blue instead. Her eyes were large and green, and her mouth was nothing but a row of fangs. Cadance then noticed that she had a jagged horn on top of her head, which she deduced was for magic.

Cadance used a stronger version of her chopping spell, which cut the changeling’s horn like a carrot, minus the sickening crunch as the bone cracked away from her body. The stump where her horn was began spurting more green blood, mixed with chips of bone that still hung from the horn. The changeling screamed louder than before as it flailed in pain.

Cadance used its moment of weakness by tearing off bits of cloth from the sheets and gagged the changeling with them, using another strip of sheets to close her mouth. Lastly, she took some rope from her father’s closet and tied a noose around the changeling’s neck before tying her to the bed with the other end of the rope.

Cadance could hear the changeling’s muffled cries from the cloth, so Cadance took a lantern that she found and hurled it at her enemy. The glass shattered, with shards cutting the creature’s skin, and the oil from the lantern seeping into her wounds.

“Goodbye 'mother',” Cadance whispered.

She casted a spark spell at the changeling, who flailed wildly knowing what was about to happen. The spark touched the oil, setting the changeling and the room ablaze. Cadance watched with a smile as the changeling’s flesh began to bubble, peel, burn, and wither to ash as it screamed into the night in blistering, agonizing pain. Cadance was forced to leave the house when the fire began to engulf the room.

Cadance threw her cloth shoes into the fire from the shattered window of her parent’s room. She then ran full gallop to Canterlot to report the “accident” that occurred.

By the time the police arrived, the house was well beyond saving, and they saw it fit to let it burn until there was nothing left.

Cadance smiled at the thought of the shriveled ashen corpse of the changeling inside the house. The satisfaction that arose from this act was one she would always remember. She knew that that wasn’t the only changeling to exist in this world. She knew that others existed, and as long as they lived to steal the love of others at the misery of the victim’s loved ones, she would never be fully happy. Cadance made a promise to herself on that very night: that she would go on to rid Equestria of all changelings as long as she lived.

Chapter 2: Cocoon

After Cadance’s parents’ “accidental” deaths, Cadance was sent to live in Canterlot with Princess Celestia. Cadance recalled the move as pleasant, as she had many more luxuries than her parents could afford for her and she had much more room indoors for activities. Despite her mother Flower Blossom’s apprehensions about letting her daughter live such a life of leisure, Celestia made sure she kept plenty busy around the palace, including helping the maids set up tablecloths and silverware for the princess’ royal supper and frequent banquets that they would hold.

Cadance enjoyed every second of it. Not only was she doing things to keep her plenty busy, but her jobs weren’t anything like what she was used to doing at home. This did, however, present both good and bad attributes. Some of the jobs that required very strenuous work, such as when Cadance felled trees for lumber, were left to the stallions.

There was another plus side to these jobs. Cadance’s hardworking and pleasant attitude came in handy when forming camaraderie with the various staff in the royal palace. One of the exceptional maids that Cadance remembered was Creamy Bisque, a zebra maid working in the palace to support her large family who lived in the Everfree Forest.

Through the friendship she received with Creamy Bisque, Cadance was taught various recipes of the Canterlot (and even Zebra) cuisine. Cadance found enjoyment in the way Creamy Bisque rhymed whenever she spoke, and likewise, Creamy Bisque loved that she was highly respectful to her when many of the other ponies weren’t. Zebras were not a trusted race because of the rumors that spread claiming that they did black magic.

One day, a simple framing to warrant Creamy Bisque’s firing would be the catalyst in a major part of Cadance’s hunting profession. A pony had carved a pentagram on the tile floor of Creamy Bisque’s living quarters and threw the burned carcass of a chicken while she was out at work. A particular socialite claimed to have walked into the room and “found” the symbol and chicken and reported it to the princess. With the tensions high and evidence against Creamy Bisque’s favor, Princess Celestia’s hooves were tied, and she had to fire her.

Cadance pleaded for further investigation to prove her innocence, but the socialite claimed “that the zebra was poisoning her mind with her evil ways.” In a fit of blind rage, Cadance used a powerful physical spell that knocked the socialite into the wall. Fearing that this act would only solidify the argument for Creamy Bisque’s affluence over her, she fled from Canterlot and into the southern forests.

She spent the next two days hiding from the guards that were sent out looking for her, where she returned to her feelings of depression and misery. Cadance was certain that Canterlot was not a life for her. Having grown up in a modest family with modest values, she couldn’t stand to live in a place where a pony was cast aside or even accused of such a heinous crime as witchcraft just because of the color of their coat. Cadance was now on her own.

If it wasn’t for the some of the resourcefulness lessons that Creamy Bisque taught her, Cadance would not have been able to find and distinguish the wild berries that grew along the foliage that would have kept her alive long enough to be able to live through what happened next.

Upon traveling further through the forest, Cadance happened to come across a stream, being some of the freshest water she found since leaving Canterlot. Before, she would drink filty puddles left from storms that would periodically come. She hoped to find another town along the river where she could rest or, if possible, even live.

The forest ended and came along a floodplain. Cadance tried to save some time by walking straight and not follow every meandering in the stream. That was when she came across the couple.

There was an earth stallion pony and a unicorn mare pony frolicking in the field together. Cadance observed how in love the two of them must have been. She then remembered her own parents who loved each other like they did. This caused more painful memories to return to Cadance.

They were put on hold when Cadance saw the two ponies lying down together. Cadance snuck quietly and tried to remain silent as she watched the two ponies cuddling. She then saw something that would make her future hunting days much easier. She watched as the unicorn mare emitted a green glowing energy from her horn. She watched as a pinkish aura was flowing off the stallion’s body and was drawn and absorbed into her horn.

Cadance watched in horror as the stallion’s once brown eyes were reduced to the lifeless green eyes that her father shared before she killed him. The mare’s green eyes shared the evil green that the changeling who stole her mother from her had. There was no mistaking it; this was the act of a changeling taking love from a victim.

If she had been older, she would have been able to strike and kill the changeling right then and there without harming the stallion in the process. However, being a filly, she wasn’t skilled enough to make such an aim and accurately hit her target. She instead called out the changeling to separate it from its victim, leaving a much more open shot.

The changeling shot up at being betrayed like that. Once the stallion saw what his lover really was by the greenness of its eyes, he broke away running. The changeling was obviously not happy. Upon looking at Cadance, her mood changed from that of anger to pleasant malice.

“You’ll pay for destroying our queen,” she growled.

Still in her unicorn’s form, she charged at the young Cadance. Cadance tried using the chopping spell this time around, but it was when she casted it that she realized her error. When she attacked the changeling that took her mother, she had caught it by surprise. Having been alerted this time around, this changeling was prepared. Casting a protection spell from her green-lit horn, she deflected the attack with ease. Cadance began to realize that she couldn’t win this fight, so she tried to run.

Cadance was dismayed to find that the changeling pinned her tail down with her left front hoof, preventing escape. The changeling used her right front hoof to whack Cadance in the chest, easily breaking the young foal’s ribs in an agonizing crack. Cadance thought about using the chopping spell when the changeling thought she had achieved victory in pinning her, but her fear restricted her; held her back. The breaking of her ribs only solidified her fate, for now she was too weak to focus on anything but the pain in her ribs.

The changeling picked up the injured Cadance with her magic and threw her into the river. Cadance did not know how to swim, and even if she did, her recently broken bones would cause to much pain for the movement needed to stay afloat. Cadance simply sunk to the bottom of the riverbed, she watched from the water as a black creature flew overhead. It was the changeling’s true form, but she couldn’t make it out from the bottom of the river. It was watching over her to make sure that she didn’t try and resurface for air.

Cadance was just about to accept her fate when she saw a green beam shoot through the changelings head, decapitating it. The body and the head splashed into the water, the green blood pouring from its fatal wound pouring into the river. Cadance still couldn’t see the creature properly due to her milky vision inside the water, but she could see that the head of the creature that rolled by her was different than the one who took her mother.

This creature had a much shorter and less jagged horn, had no mane, its eyes were large blue beads, and its fangs were significantly longer than the other one. Before she could contemplate any further, a white alicorn jumped into the river and pulled Cadance out before she could drown. Cadance was overcome with pain and shock of her near death and fainted in the arms of the alicorn.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cadance awoke eventually, but she realized that she was stuck. She began to see that her vision was green all around her. As she tried moving, she felt that the substance holding her in was gelatinous and squishy. Before she could fight anymore, she started falling from the bottom. She emerged from the green gel to find herself in a sparsely lit cave. She looked behind her at her old prison, revealing it to be a cocoon of some sort. That’s when Cadance remembered the battle and her broken bones. She immediately thought she was going to get a painful sensation in her chest, but she was surprised to find that her body felt fine.

“What is this?” she asked herself. As if answering the question as it had been presented to her, a familiar white alicorn appeared from deep within the cavern.

“That was a healing pod, Cadance. We changelings use them to heal any injuries that we might obtain during rougher extractions.”

“Princess Celestia?” wondered Cadance.

That’s when the alicorn showed her true form, morphing into a familiar black creature. She was a changeling just like the creature that was killed, but she shared more of a resemblance to the one who took her mother from her. The only difference was that she looked like a younger version of that, as if she was in her 20’s. Her mane was also an amethyst purple and had a bobbed hairstyle. Her horn was also less jagged then her mother’s imposter but not as smooth as the one that almost killed her.

Cadance was in the presence of another changeling. She immediately used her newfound strength to charge at the creature standing before her. Before she could strike her target, Cadance felt a tug at her ankles that kept her from getting any further. She noticed a fleshy green rope holding her from where the pod she was in was.

“Let me go, you monster!” screamed Cadance.

“And what makes me a monster?” questioned the changeling. “Is it my wings? My fangs? My eyes? Is that what makes me a monster?”

“Shut your mouth. You’re a changeling. That already makes you a monster.”

“Judge us not equally, Cadance.”

“What? How do you know my name?”

“You gained a lot of notoriety in the changeling community for killing our queen.” Cadance was filled with horror and anxiety.

“You mean… the changeling I killed… was-”

“Our queen, Queen Embryo. She was also my mother.” Cadance was certain she would now receive a slow and horrible death.

“If you want to kill me, just do it,” sobbed Cadance.

“What makes you think I want to kill you?”

“But, you’re a-”

“Like I said, ‘Judge us not equally, Cadance.’”

“But, why?”

“If you truly want to know why I won’t kill you, it’s because you’re… interesting.”

“Interesting? Interesting how?”

“You are a princess of Canterlot. It’s proven in your alicorn blood. For a princess, especially one as young as you, to kill our queen like that is highly commendable.”

“That still doesn’t answer why you just won’t kill me. Don’t you want to avenge your mother just as I have avenged mine?”

“My mother doesn’t deserve an avenger. She and the rest of her followers deserve the fiery pits of Tartarus for what they’ve done.”

“What they’ve done?”

“You know that changelings feed off of love to survive right?”

“Yes.”

“Why must we resort to stealing love from someone else? What if we want a love like we hear of in the storybooks that parents tell their foals?”

“What love?”

“If you want to know why I despise my race, it all comes down to love. I was born as Cocoon, princess of the changelings along with my sister, Chrysalis. We were taught the ways of the changelings by our queen and mother, Queen Embryo. We were taught how to extract love from a pony and how to feed our subjects. I thought it was the only life suitable for me. It wasn’t until I was becoming a mare and had to prove that I was worthy of the throne.

“I was sent to a town called Ponyville to extract from my first victim, a young earth stallion who had fallen for a dainty looking pegasus mare whom I was supposed to become. It was then that I saw the face of a pegasus stallion walking by my target.

“It was then that I felt something arise in me that I thought was never possible. I felt what had to be true love. Love that couldn’t be faked like my mother had taught me and extracted for the sole purpose of sustenance.

“He was beautiful: cream colored coat, wavy blonde hair, a strong pair of wings, and a cutie mark of a lightning bolt on his flank. Abandoning my loyalty to the changelings, I transformed into a pegasus, light brown, with black ponytailed hair and a cutie mark of a cocoon. After bumping into him, despite and awkward first conversation given not being taught how to properly talk to a stallion by my mother, we hit it off immediately.

“I tasted a love from him that was sweeter than the richest honey. Untainted, pure, without deceit or lies. It was wonderful. Despite my love to him, I had to return to the caverns where the changelings lived. Chrysalis did well in her endeavors, but when I tried showing the love that I had from this pegasus, I was punished severely.

“I was first forced to show the form to which I presented myself to him in or face execution. Once they were done with me, I was thrown into a dungeon with nothing but a magic mirror which shared Chrysalis’ vision. At first I didn’t know what the point of this was, but that was until I saw her look into a mirror. She smiled cruelly at herself in the form that I took for him, almost as if she was taunting me. I was forced to watch as Chrysalis took the love from the stallion that I loved. Every single drop until there was nothing left but an empty shell.

Embryo let me back out to let me think about what I had done, for falling in love was a terrible mistake a changeling could make, lest she starve her subjects. It was the last time I ever saw my mother or Chrysalis.

“That night, I ran from the caves never to be seen again. In order to stay alive and sustain myself, I found no choice but to steal the love from the vicious and spiteful in various towns across Equestria, as I couldn’t bring myself to take true love from the ones who truly deserved. Their love was bitter and tasted awful, but I did what I had to survive. I swore that I would never forgive those creatures for what they did to me.”

Cadance was moved by her story. Not one word she said was fabricated, strained, or untrue. Cadance felt sorry for what she, just moments ago, just considered her enemy. She then noticed her stomach as it growled.

“You’re hungry I assume,” commented Cocoon. Cadance nodded.

“Can I trust you to remove your bondages?” Cadance nodded. The changeling’s horn glowed, causing the chain to shrivel away. Cadance didn’t even think to attack Cocoon. She merely walked alongside her through the caverns into a larger room.

Despite the location, the room was decorated lavishly. There was a table in the center with fresh fruits, cakes, and other pastries.

“Look at all this food!” exclaimed Cadance in childlike wonder. “I didn’t know changelings ate this food.”

“Only during the most trying of times,” said Cocoon.

“May I?” asked Cadance, lips moistening.

“Of course,” Cocoon smiled. Cadance, having been deprived from such food since she fled Canterlot made no hesitation of eating as much as she could.

After she had her fill, Cadance ran to the changeling and hugged her tightly with many “thank yous.” Cocoon claimed to not have taken any love from her, as it would have compromised Cadance’s trust in her.

Cadance and Cocoon talked about the changelings they’ve killed and were surprised to find that they’ve each only killed one: Cadance with Embryo and Cocoon with the one that almost drowned Cadance. Cocoon explained that it was the only changeling that came by the cave where they both were and when she saw that Cadance, her mother’s killer, was the one who was being attacked, she felt as if she had no choice by to save her out of gratitude.

Cadance enjoyed Cocoon’s company in this time period. Given the circumstances, she might have even considered calling her a friend.

Throughout the next few weeks, Cocoon helped tutor Cadance in the art of changeling hunting. Some days were focused on strengthening Cadance’s chopping spell. On the first day, she was able to leave a 4 inch score in a tree. On the 4th, she cleared a whole tree in one spell. By the end of the week, Cadance was able to completely shatter the defenses of one of Cocoon’s protection spells.

Some days were tests of agility, where Cadance would try and evade Cocoon for as much as possible. Knowing that Cadance was much younger than her, she told Cadance that a good evasion time would be anything over a minute. Cadance was weaker in this field, but she eventually got to the point where she could successfully evade Cocoon in a minute easily.

Cadance enjoyed the hoof-to-hoof combat training sessions, mainly because she picked up on it much more quickly than the agility exercises. With her intuition, she was able to pin Cocoon down within 30 seconds after a fight.

Lastly, there was the facts that Cocoon gave about changelings, such as being able to spot them in disguise, such as their eyes becoming a different color when they were about to change emotions, green horn auras (unless the unicorn was known to have a naturally green aura), their naturally musty scent, and, which was probably the easiest one for Cadance, a complete change in personality.

After a month or two of training, Cadance was unofficially graduated as a changeling hunter.

“How can I contact you?” asked Cadance.

“You won’t,” said Cocoon. “I’ll write to you. I will send you the names of changelings when they appear in Equestria in disguise. If you want an excuse to leave home, I will say that you came to me, a Ms. Apricot Cobbler, who kept you in when you were lost. I will say that Ms. Cobbler has relatives all over Equestria that would love a helping hand from time to time and that it would be her deepest wishes for Cadance to attend to a request of her help.”

“That reminds me,” said Cadance, “can’t I live with you?”

“I’m sorry, but I am on the run from my kind as well. Letting you stay would only put you in further jeopardy.”

“Well then I guess this is goodbye, Cocoon.”

The two made a friendly embrace. Cocoon gave Cadance a saddlebag of pastries for the trek home, and with “thank yous” from Cadance, she left for Canterlot.
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It took Cadance all day to return to Canterlot on the 4th day of the 4th month of the year 981 L.B. where she was greeted back at the palace with open arms.

“I’m so glad that you returned,” claimed Celestia.

“I’m glad to be back.”

“What’s in your saddlebag?”

Celestia opened the bag to find a note within the pastries with a picture of a pegasus mare with a light brown coat and a black mane in a ponytail pinned to the note, which looked almost exactly as what Cocoon told Cadance. Celestia, knowing Cadance’s love of knowledge and hard-working attitude, agreed to let Cadance take part in these tasks when they were to arise.

Cadance smiled. Not only was she a much more prepared hunter now, but she in essence got her hunting activities sanctioned by Princess Celestia herself. Things couldn’t have worked better for her.