Servant of the Queen

“Silver? Silver Rose!”

“Huh, huh? What?” Silver blinked and looked up. Mr Pivot had a hand lifted, looking at her from the front of the class.

“I called you six times. Are you paying attention?”

“Oh, sorry, Mr Pivot. I think I, umm… zoned out… for a second.”

That earned snickers from most of the class. Silver ducked her head lower and avoided eye contact.

“Right. Would you please answer, Silver…” her teacher continued. “What are three signs of psychosis in a human?”

“Uhm, hallucinations, delusions, and a depressed mood,” Silver recited from the book.

“Very good. Now please pay attention, yes?” Mr Pivot turned back to the powerpoint to continue his lesson.

Instead or perking up, Silver went back to her thoughts and sighed. Over the weekend, she had a fantastic date with Home Run. They had gone to see a baseball game at the Canterlot Stadium, followed by dinner at the diner where Pinkie Pie worked. Home Run had been so excited about the game that he was talking about it most of their time together. Just seeing him so happy had made Moonglade smile.

Pinkie had joined in from time to time, coming in to rapid fire questions at her, which Moonglade didn’t quite enjoy. She had just wanted time with Home Run and no one else.

Near the end of their date, Home Run had asked her if she wanted to go to the Eastern Fair with him. Of course, she had said yes, which now brought her to her current predicament.

Silver Rose had a duty to perform, giving out costumes on the day itself. But Moonglade had been invited to go with Home Run. Obviously, she couldn’t be in two places at once, so somehow, she had to remove Silver Rose from the equation; she would pick Home Run over costumes any day.

But what excuse was she going to give? And Canvas had also wanted to hang out together during the fair. She was going to have to disappoint her best friend.

Sickness seemed to be the best excuse, but that seemed a tad bit overused. She was going to have to do a little better than that.

She could see it now, walking arm in arm with Home Run in her black and green yukata. That made her wonder if she would have the chance to take things up a notch. Yukatas were just robes and if the belt were to slip or loosen, it could be quite the revealing outfit. She imagined teasing Home Run, but then stopped herself again. This was Moonglade’s thought. Not Silver Rose’s.

Pull it together, girl. Not now.

For now, she would have to bide her time and just make sure everything was set for the big event.

Canvas’ homeroom had made up amazing decorations for the fair. There were posters and even banners showcasing various things that represented Eastern culture, like castles, armor and weapons, and even Eastern cartoons. There was one castle that Silver really liked. It looked ominous, as though someone’s samurai grandfather was about to emerge from it and stab someone with a katana. At least, that was the impression she got when she saw it.

“Silver? Silver Rose!”

“Huh, what?” Silver looked around, her daydreaming disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“Pay attention!” her teacher yelled.

“S-Sorry…” Silver blushed and looked away as her classmates laughed.

With mostly everything on her part done with the Eastern Fair, Silver Rose found she could sit back and relax, all that was left being the Eastern cartoon costumes. Those took time and they required skills she didn’t have. Stitching.

She recalled asking her mother about stitching once, but the elder changeling had said it was the job for maids and butlers, not for royalty. So no, stitching wasn’t one of her skill sets, though her aunt was quite handy with that. After all, she was supposedly making that outfit for her for the blood moon night.

Silver smiled at the thought. The blood moon night was the night the sirens were to get their magic back. With that done, they should become less of a nuisance. Life would be so much easier without Adagio’s constant sex drive, Aria’s total nihilist attitude, and Sonata’s brainless comments.

Now all she had to do was survive till Halloween. Two more months seemed like a long time to wait, but she could be patient. As she had read once in a book, ‘until you stalk and overrun, you can’t devour anyone’.

Overall, things were going quite well. Sunny Flare had even stopped making advances on her, though she seemed a lot jumpier and slightly more distant now, although they were meant to be dating. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to Sunny. Oh wait, she remembered. The last they had spoken or even been together was at the cafe where Sunny had freaked out when she saw her fangs.

Silver hit herself for that. It was still a terrible blunder and she hoped she hadn’t given up her family’s identity because of it. It had been a terrible mistake and that seemed to have done something between her and the Shadowbolts.

Sunny wasn’t supposed to remember any of it, though. The drug was supposed to make sure of that. But yet, something had happened.

Silver ran her tongue over the edges of her teeth inside her mouth. She knew that the Shadowbolts already suspected her of witchery, and who knew what else they had on her and her family. What kind of punishment she would be in for from her mother if word did get out made Silver shudder.

And it wasn’t just punishment for her. If word did get out of the existence of changelings, there would be a lot of witnesses her mother would have to… remove. And she didn’t want anyone to be removed, even the Shadowbolts. While they were all being weird right now, they were still friends she had made.

Silver had been okay with doing Pierce in, because he had done something terrible to both her mother and her aunt, and she didn’t know him personally.

If she had to deal with the Shadowbolts herself, she didn’t know if she would be able to. Silver shuddered again and tried not to think about it.

“Cold, Silver?” Canvas asked her as she walked over from her locker, holding a stack of books in her arms. “You can borrow my coat if you like. Though you’ll be going home soon. I’m not sure if you need it.”

“Oh, no thanks, Canvas.” Silver smiled and shut her locker. “Like you said, I’ll be outside soon.”

“Yep. Doing anything today, Silver? Do you want to hang out? I’m free today.”

“Oh, sorry, Canvas.” Silver didn’t want to disappoint her friend, but she already had plans. “My aunt needed my help with something. I’ve to go home to help her.”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it, Silver.” Canvas wiggled her stack of books. “I still have Sketchy, so I’m not alone.”

“Right, umm, then I’ll see you, Canvas.” Silver waved and made her way out of school. Next weekend was Canvas’ exhibition and Silver was a little excited for that. Her friend needed the recognition she deserved and she was about to get it.

The young changeling’s aunt was already waiting at the front of the school for her and once she was past all the looking eyes, she relaxed and buckled herself in. “Hey, Aunt Ivory. How’s your day?”

Ivory started the engine and rolled away from CPA. “I’ve had a decent day, sweetie. Your mother’s out at one of her shoots today, so I’ve had the freedom to do whatever I want without her breathing down my neck. You ready for your fitting? I’ve gotten your base outfit together. For the blood moon night.”

“Oh, that was fast,” Silver said plainly. “What am I supposed to be doing on the night of the ritual, again?”

“You,” Ivory said as she ran a yellow light. “Are going to be guarding the path to the ritual site from any would-be meddlers. It’s highly possible that someone might come to try and stop us from succeeding on Halloween, so your task is to stop them from interrupting us.”

“How do you know it’ll work?” Silver asked curiously.

Ivory grimaced. “To be honest, I’m not a hundred percent that it will. But I’ve set the best odds we can have, as well as the assistance of two people who are well versed in magic. It’s all or nothing at this point.”

“I hope it works…” Silver wrung her hands together. “The sirens are really getting out of hand. “You know Adagio tried to rape me the other day?”

“She tried to what?” Ivory hissed, slamming on the brakes. A car behind them swerved to avoid them and crashed into a fire hydrant, sending up a plume of water. “Ah, piss.”

“What? What’s going on?” Silver asked, craning her neck to see.

Ivory put the car back into gear quickly. “Nothing. Let’s just go before anyone sees. Now explain yourself, young lady. What happened.”

“I-I didn’t do anything wr-wrong… I don’t think I did…” Silver looked at her feet. “Just wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. Adagio was uh… she was um, to-touching herself at the living room, an-and I happened to walk by…”

“You’re right. This is getting out of hand.” Ivory planted a hand on her forehead. “But do tell. What happened next?”

“Aunt Ivory!”

“What? It’s still juicy stuff, even if I don’t like it happening to you. Go on.”

“She just cornered me and st-started um, touching m-my, umm… chest. Area. She was saying, uhh, about… relieving her pl-pleasure on me...” Silver’s face was turning red by the second. “Well I mean, uh… I h-had a date with Ho-Home Run that day, so I umm… I managed to squeeze away from her, cause I had to g-go. Do you thi-think you can do something about that, Aunt Ivory? I don-don’t want to have to, uh, keep running away. In my own house...”

“I’ll have some words with her,” Ivory promised. “Now, back to your uniform. I’ve picked out the color as matte black. It should show off your changeling skin perfectly well. I’ve also included a sword-belt so that you can attach your weapon to it without too much trouble.”

“Umm, question, Aunt Ivory. Why would I need to show off my changeling skin? And I’m not going as someone else?”

“No, you’re not. Nobody has ever seen you without your disguises before, so therefore it is the perfect disguise. No one will be able to connect anything back to us. And, it’s always nice to look good, yes?”

“I suppose it does.” It was true. Silver did enjoy always looking as beautiful as she could, even if her mother didn’t think she was that pretty, it was still nice to be pretty enough for herself. “So is the outfit special? Does it allow me to like, do stuff?”

“Oh, you’ll see, little one.” Ivory smiled. “Just wait till we get to my workshop, yes?”

Now Silver had gotten excited as to what kind of suit her aunt had made her. The rest of the ride back, she couldn’t keep still, bobbing up and down in her seat and constantly looking out the window as the mansion got closer.

Once the car was parked, Ivory and Silver went into the house and made a beeline for the workshop. There was a heavy sewing machine on the table this time, as well as great sheets of black fabric. In the far corner was some kind of small black anvil and something Silver recognized from The Warlocker 3 as a blacksmith’s forge. There were coals and ashes in the forge, but they were cold and quiet.

“How’d you get that in here?”

“Oh, you know, I have my ways.”

And standing near the middle of the space, surrounded by sawdust, metal filings, and leather snippings, was a mannequin. It was covered in some kind of longcoat or a robe with a hood and long sleeves. There were gloves and pants and even a pair of boots, all in matte black. All in all, Silver thought it looked quite sleek, like an assassin’s or a spy’s clothes for blending in at night.

“This… this is for me?” Silver asked, reaching out to touch the mannequin.

“Obviously it’s not finished yet,” Ivory said, picking up a loose loop of metal that had fallen on the ground near her foot. “But the basic template is there. I just need to make sure it fits you perfectly, so that you can perform at your best on the big night. Come on, try it for size.”

Skillfully taking the clothes off the mannequin, Ivory slid the coat around Silver’s body. It fit her perfectly, and was comfortable as if she had been wearing it for years. However, something tipped Silver off that this wasn’t just an ordinary coat. It was abnormally heavy and the cloth was thick. There was a faint clinking from inside the coat as she turned around to examine herself.

“Chainmail, sweetie,” Ivory explained. “It’ll help should anyone decide to attack you with sword slashes, but not much on stabbing, so watch yourself.”

“Who’ll come after us with swords, Aunt Ivory? Are we expecting those Assassins you mentioned?”

“Oh, no. They’re gone, I’m sure.” Ivory tapped the sleeve of Silver’s suit. “The one I’m worried about is Sunset Shimmer. You’ve faced her in combat, have you not? She’s not to be underestimated.”

“But they have magic. What if they just use magic?”

“I’m working on that,” Ivory said, pointing upwards. “In the alchemy lab. I’m brewing something that should help should they try to bring magic to fight you. I don’t know that they will, but as the adage goes, always be prepared. Besides, we’ll have the blood moon on our side.”

“Are we sure it affects me too? I-I’m not like you and mother, after all.”

“It should. To an extent, should it not be its full effect. All magic is amplified. The blood moon night is a magical night. Witches used to use it to perform their rituals. If it comes to it, you could use those claws you learnt how to create.”

“Won’t that reveal we aren’t human, though?”

“It will be Halloween. Nobody looks human on Halloween,” Ivory said calmly. “And besides, people here are strangely accepting of unusual things, so long as they’re presented under unusual circumstances.”

Silver thought back to the Friendship Games and the magic that had been on display during that event. “I guess so, yeah. But… if they are… won’t we be able to reveal we’re changelings? Then we don’t need to hide anymore.”

Ivory shook her head. “That’s unacceptable. Your mother and I have gone over that possibility before, and not once has it ended well. People always want to either study us or put some kind of restriction on us. Eventually we had to kill everyone who knew and return back to hiding. It’s just better for everyone this way.”

“But no one’s trying to capture Sunset and her friends or anything.”

“Yet, sweetie. That’s the key word. Yet.”

“Oh.”

“So, do you like your outfit?” Ivory leaned against her workbench and folded her arms.

“It’s really nice, Aunt Ivory.” Silver spun around and hopped a bit to test the weight. “Fashionable and safe. You always outdo yourself. I can’t wait to finally get the sirens back to normal too. Do you really think they’ll go back to being uh, their normal selves?”

Ivory Wings sighed. “I really hope they do. As they are now, the Sirens are only emulating some of humanity’s worser traits. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.”

“It really is…” Silver covered her face.

“Well, not long now.” Ivory tapped her niece under the chin. “So look up, okay? We’ll be doing our best to get them back the way they were. And you’re going to be a big part of it.”

There was a buzzing sound from Ivory Wings’ pocket. She pulled out a phone, a pink one with a white cover that was different from the black one she normally used..

Ivory clicked ‘answer’ on it. “Hello, Sunset Shimmer,” she said in a quiet, but commanding voice. “What do you have for us?”