Servant of the Queen

“And here we are,” Ivory stopped outside her bedroom door. “I haven’t shown anyone who isn’t family in here before. Do try not to touch anything, won’t you? Some of it is rather pointy.”

Moonglade followed behind her aunt, watching as the Rainbooms examined a row of knives in a glass case by one side. According to her aunt, these had been her throwing knives when she had been an Assassin and Templar. Recent, but still handcrafted and kept in good condition.

Ivory opened the door to her room and the familiar smell of chemicals and wood chippings wafted out. Moonglade doubted that the Rainbooms could smell it, but they seemed to tense up just the same.

“Come in,” Ivory beckoned with a crafty smile. “Your destiny awaits.”

Moonglade giggled again at her aunt’s choice of words. She was clearly doing it on purpose now.

Nobody moved. Ivory Wings rolled her eyes.

“Look, I’m not going to kill you once you enter the room. If I wanted you dead, you would already be pushing up the daisies.”

“Can we just see what you want to show us already?” Twilight Sparkle shook off the statement.

“Come in and I’ll show you.” Ivory stepped aside and beckoned them through with a wave of a hand.

Ivory flicked on the lights and showed the Rainbooms to the framed tapestry on the wall that she had shown Moonglade the day before. The girls approached it, taking note of how intricately woven and detailed it was.

“I know this style,” Rarity spoke up. “It’s a traditional weave pattern from the middle ages that incorporates Northern knotwork into the fringes to increase durability!” The other girls looked at her strangely. “I had to study it for my tailoring class,” she explained.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” Ivory said. “After all, your ancestor was the one who invented it.”

Rarity blinked. “She… She did?” The fashionista squealed with delight. “My ancestor invented the Northern-Canterlotian hybrid style of tapestry weaving? I-I don’t know what to say.”

“How about askin’ if your source is credible?” Applejack lifted a hand.

“I’ve a good memory.” Ivory stretched both arms out. “Like I’ve said, I knew all your ancestors very well. They were friends.”

Ivory pointed at the tapestry with her finger. “You see? There we all are. Were. Plus a few extras, of course. I’m sure you can recognize Rainbow Dash’s ancestor, after all they share the same hair color. It didn’t pass down to her immediate children. It’s a rare gene, having all the colors of the rainbow in your hair.”

Rainbow Dash stared at the framed picture. “We could be twins…” she whispered. “This is insane.”

“And well done too, isn’t it?” Ivory clasped her hands together. “Jewel Pin really did a superb job putting this together. It’s as though I’m staring at a photograph. Ah, I miss those times. They were simpler.”

“I wish I had been there to see it too.” Moonglade kicked a foot against her other foot.

“But then you wouldn’t have met Home Run,” Fluttershy said to her.

Moonglade blushed. “Umm… yes, I suppose I wouldn’t ha-have…”

Moonglade still felt rather bad about hurting Home Run on Halloween night, but she didn’t have much time to think about that as Ivory pointed out another ancestor, this one looking like an older version of Fluttershy with a bandana tying back her wild hair and an eagle on her shoulder. She knew this one well, along with her legend.

“You can probably guess whose ancestor this is,” Ivory told the girls. “Posey was a fierce fighter and an even fiercer tracker. She was a great help in those pinches back then. Bloody good with a bow and arrow.”

“Posey?” Twilight asked. “As in Posey Hood, the famous outlaw? I thought she was just a myth.”

“Every myth has an inkling of truth.” Ivory ran a hand along her picture. “Her mother was one of Prance’s greatest bandits. Have you heard of her? Paradise, I believe her name was.”

“My ancestors were bandits and outlaws?” Fluttershy trembled slightly. “Oh my.”

“Well, they were granted a full pardon once they helped save the land,” Ivory explained. “After that, they were just very competent rangers and keepers of the forests.”

Ivory Wings continued through the rest of the Rainbooms’ ancestors. Twilight’s ancestor, Nightfall Gleam, was a marvelous inventor, creating most of the age’s weaponry and improvements to life. Applejack’s ancestor, Honeygold, had been an apple farmer, just like her. Pinkie Pie’s ancestor, Parisa Pie, had been a dancer for the royal court of Saddle Arabia, and Sunset’s pseudo-ancestor was, of course, Emerald Edge, the First Assassin.

Moonglade also knew that story well, a story of one’s journey from another world to find weapons to defeat a usurper back in her own world. She had been her aunt’s very best friend, probably ever. She had never seen her aunt speak so much praise for anyone, not even of her mother, though there was rarely anything good said about her.

She had enjoyed the story very much as a child, but it was a very long story and there were bits that skipped her mind even today. Chrysalis didn’t seem to know all the details, but those had been mostly filled in when Aunt Ivory had moved in. Whether they stayed in her mind or not, that was a different story.

Sunset Shimmer was quiet as she processed all this. “You’ve been alive for a very long time, haven’t you?” She said at last.

“Quite long, yes.” Ivory looked at her fingernails. “Been there, changed history. That kind of thing.”

“Yeah, we know.” Sunset took a step forward. “You’ve had your fair share of world-dominating plots.”

“But you know I haven’t always been hostile to you, Sunset. Right?” Ivory smirked. “I recall saving your life back last winter, when you were being hunted by Templars.”

“Wait, when-” It dawned on Sunset. Velvet’s words back in the music room. “Mirror Match. You.”

“Yes, now that the cat’s out of the bag, there’s no more denying it. Yes. I’ve been watching over you ever since the Templars set their sights on you.” Ivory inhaled deeply. “Your friend Velvet Breeze almost killed me back in Manehattan, but no hard feelings, eh? We were all a little touched in the head at that point. Velvet from using the sword piece and me being… me. At the time. I’m all better now, see. But like I said, I’m a friend to you, Sunset. I always have been.”

“Oh yeah? What about the poisoned lemonade?” Sunset folded her arms. “I don’t see that as being my friend.”

“Well you see, that wasn’t me. That was Mist Eerie,” Ivory explained patiently. “Two totally different people.”

“Mirror Match, Psithyra and Ivory Wings are all different people too.” Sunset challenged.

“That’s how personas work,” Ivory said. “Do any of you study acting? No? When you take on a persona or character, you become someone else. Now, some of those personas may have traces of the person underneath, but to us, it’s all different people. Besides, I don’t think I’ll be using the Mirror Match persona anymore. Too many loose ends there.”

“Mirror-” Sunset cut herself off angrily. “Twilight told us about what you did to the Assassins, to Frigid Night. I was with him, he thought you were dead!”

“Dear Friggy, he could never really let go of me.” Ivory placed a hand over her chest. “How is he? I lost track over all the excitement.”

“He’s dead.” Sunset said shortly. "Sombra killed him."

Ivory’s face twitched slightly. “Oh. That’s unfortunate. Mirror Match rather liked him.”

“You mean you liked him!” Sunset retorted furiously. She glared at Ivory Wings, fists clenched. “At least act like you care! He loved you!”

The older woman rubbed her jaw. “Truth be told, I think I did care about him a bit too much, more than I should’ve. But again, he was Mirror’s lover, and I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I was doing everything I shouldn’t have been doing.”

“You-!” Sunset’s face grew into a mask of desperation and disgust. “You really do feel nothing, don’t you?”

“Contrary to your belief, we feel a wide range of emotions.” Ivory looked at her niece. “Some of us just control it better than others.”

Moonglade’s blush reddened. She was certainly bad at controlling her emotions, probably even on the human standard.

“But I did care for him, you know. I tried to talk him into leaving the war,” Ivory continued. “He could’ve lived a long life away from all the constant fighting and sneaking, but he chose not to. That’s on him. I did what I could.”

Sunset ground her teeth in frustration. Something here was definitely the fault of the changeling hiding under Ivory Wings’ face, but she couldn’t formulate a compelling argument now.

“Anyway, there’s no point crying over spilled blood, as I like to say,” Ivory Wings continued smoothly. “What’s done is done and what’s dead is dead. Since we can’t time travel, we’d best just put it behind us.”

“So you really used to live up here in the middle ages?” Fluttershy asked Ivory. “What was it like?”

“It wasn’t that different from now, honestly. There’s a long-running family of laughing owls that is still around today. Of course my sister isn’t being carried around on a palanquin anymore. I think she misses that.”

“But mother’s never been to the East,” Moonglade pointed out, then smiled awkwardly.

“Well, not for extended amounts of time, anyway,” Ivory mused. “She has been there for filming purposes.”

“So y’all knew our ancestors,” Applejack steered the conversation back to familiar territory. “And now you wanna be friends with us?”

“Is this some kind of replacement goldfish plot?” Sunset asked shrewdly.

Rarity put her hand over Sunset’s mouth. “Being friends with the acclaimed Ebony Wings’ sister?” She gushed. “It would be a dream come true!”

“You’re just in this for the autographs, aren’t you?” Twilight said, looking at Rarity with an unimpressed expression on her face.

“What? Of course not!” Rarity objected. “I also want to learn more about my family tree. But now that you bring up autographs, I wouldn’t mind some of those either.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Ivory said with a sticky sort of smile on her face. She eyed the girls loftily, mentally comparing each one to their historical counterpart. The resemblance really was uncanny. “I can tell you all kinds of stories about life back in the middle ages,” Ivory continued. “Your ancestors were most prolific in that era. They weren’t just citizens of a bygone age of kings and queens. They were heroes far and wide.”

There came the sound of a bell chiming.

"I do believe that's our cue for lunch," Ivory Wings announced. "Moonglade, be a dear and go fetch the sirens, won't you? Sometimes their singing drowns out the clock."

“Um, sure, Aunt Ivory.” Moonglade skipped off to find them.

Once Moonglade was gone, Ivory led the girls out of her room and towards the stairs.

"Lunch is served in the main dining hall," Ivory explained. "The table can seat up to thirty but we never get so many people. In fact, this might be the most guests we've ever had for a meal."

"Ooh! What are we having?" Pinkie asked cheerfully. “Cake? Is there cake? I love dessert!”

"I'm fairly certain we can arrange dessert," Ivory told Pinkie with a smile.

They arrived in the dining room, where there were about thirty seats at a long table, with a tall, throne-like chair at the end. This was occupied by Ebony Wings, who had changed into a long, glittering gown with reflective panels sewn around her abdomen. The actress was wearing a small black crown on her head as well.

“Welcome, welcome,” Ebony Wings purred as the group entered. “Please feel free to sit wherever you like. Lunch will be served shortly, once everyone is here.”

The girls looked more than a little uncertain, but Ivory Wings immediately walked to the chair that was closest to Ebony Wings’ right side and sat down in it. One by one, the Rainbooms also went to sit down, though with remarkably less enthusiasm.

A fine, toothsome smell wafted in from the next door over, and the mood relaxed somewhat, even though Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked quite thrilled to be where they currently were. The violet-haired fashionista kept glancing at Ebony Wings, then looking away when Ebony met her gaze.

Moonglade and the sirens soon came in too, with Adagio, Aria, and Sonata pausing for a moment at the sight of the Rainbooms seated at the table.

“It’s alright,” Ivory called over, seeing the sirens’ hesitation. “They’re not here to fight you.”

“If you say so…” Aria muttered before sitting down next to Twilight.

Sonata took her place next to Pinkie while Adagio sat at Ebony’s left side. Moonglade positioned herself beside Fluttershy, who seemed the least likely to say or do anything aggressive.

Ebony Wings looked around the table almost lazily, the points of her crown glittering. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had this many guests over to my house at once before,” the actress said. “How are you finding your visit so far?”

Sunset waved a hand. “I suppose the artifacts are interesting. But you’re changelings and this invite doesn’t exactly change what you’ve already done.”

“What I’ve done?” Ebony Wings smiled at Sunset with such conviction that she almost believed it was real. “You mean my taking of Applewood by storm, and all the other venues who recognize my talent? Why yes, I do think that hasn’t changed. Thank you.”

“Anyway, enough talk about changelings.” Ivory Wings clapped her hands. “It’s time for the food to come out.”

A small fleet of maids came out of the kitchen, carrying dishes that were piled with food. Moonglade recognized the familiar smell of crispy roast pork and seafood, the latter of which was a favorite of the sirens. The plates were laid out expertly by the maids, and Silver Platter came round to pour drinks.

“Thank you,” Ebony said as her butler poured out her glass of red wine. She took a long sniff of the drink before looking back up. “Not hungry?” She asked, seeing that none of her guests were eating.

“No, no, sister. This one’s my fault,” Ivory said to Ebony. “The food is perfectly safe. Look, the sirens are eating, aren’t they?”

Silence.

Then Pinkie Pie smiled. “Okay then! I’m really hungry anyway. Thanks for the food!” And she began to dig into her lunch with great enthusiasm. Seeing their friend eating had an impact on the other girls, who followed suit.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” commented Rainbow Dash as she took a few bites. “I don’t think I’ve ever had fish this nice before.”

"That's because it's fresh," Adagio said. "It's the next best thing to eating it wriggling, since these human bodies can't seem to digest uncooked fish."

“Or anything raw, for the matter.” Sonata giggled.

“I sometimes forget you aren’t actually humans,” Rainbow said as she swirled her fork around in the sauce on her plate.

“Yes, we do look the part, don’t we?” Ivory smiled sardonically.

Moonglade snorted softly into her drink.

Ebony Wings sipped her wine and allowed her eyes to rove around at her guests. “I assume you know by now that the sirens will no longer be attending school at Canterlot High?” She asked pleasantly.

"Wait, you're not?" Pinkie looked up. "Ooh, I have to throw you a goodbye party!"

"We're good, thanks," Aria mumbled. “I’d rather just leave quietly.”

“But I didn’t even get to throw Mr. Loregiver a goodbye party,” Pinkie whined. “So many people are coming and going and it’s hard to keep up.”

“That’s a teacher?” Ebony Wings asked with a smile. “My, you are going through a lot of teachers at Canterlot High, aren’t you?” Her grin grew somewhat darker as she tilted her head forward. “But that’s just how it is in showbiz as well.”

Sunset stopped eating and narrowed her eyes at Ebony Wings. She placed her fork down and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that in the movie and entertainment industry, people come and go all the time,” Ebony replied. “Of course, it depends on what’s popular at the time. Much like your school, if I may say so.” She leaned back in her chair and the corner of her mouth lifted. “For example, attempted regicide is most unpopular.”

“Attempted regicide?” Sunset repeated. “I don’t understand.”

“Regicide is when someone kills a monarch or ruler,” Twilight translated for Sunset.

Ebony Wings rested her hands on the table. “Correct. It’s a very serious crime.”

“Yeah, okay, but what’s that got to do with CHS?” Sunset nodded her thanks to Twilight.

“Just that your staff in future should avoid committing that crime in the future. Good help is hard enough to find without needing to replace them.”

“In the future?” Sunset repeated, feeling a pit growing in her stomach. “You mean someone’s done it before.”

Ebony Wings shrugged and smiled her red carpet smile at Sunset, only now it seemed just a little more sinister than before.

A sudden look of realization fell onto Sunset’s face, as if she had just been doused in ice water. “Mr. Pierce.”

“Oh, was that his name?” Ebony Wings asked playfully. “Very well, then. Mr. Pierce was found guilty of attempted regicide and paid the price for his crime. Among other things. My sister tells me he’s done a lot more than try to kill a queen.”

“Mr. Pierce…” Sunset’s mouth worked to form words, but she was too horrified to do it. “You killed him. It was you.”

“Well, not me, per se,” Ebony said with a self satisfied air. “It was a team effort. All three of us.”

“Sister…” Ivory warned.

“What?” Ebony asked pointedly. “Since we’re in the business of giving away information, why not tell them? They won’t make the same mistake then.” She turned back to her guests. “Mr. Pierce tried to kill me and my sister, and by definition attempted double murder on royalty. Any court worth its salt would have sentenced him to death.”

Sunset and her friends looked aghast. Adagio watched them with mild amusement, while Aria seemed to sense the tension in the air and sat still. Sonata appeared oblivious to the atmosphere and kept eating. Moonglade glanced at her aunt, who rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“So all this time, it was you…” Sunset said, breathing heavily. “How… you…” She seemed to be at a loss for words.

“Well, like I said, team effort. My sister provided information about the target’s habits and mannerisms, I cooked up the toxin, and my lovely daughter was the one to administer the dose. I’m quite proud of her for that.”

“You murdered Mr. Pierce!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“He was going to expose our secrets on the Internet,” Ivory Wings said calmly. “It had to be done, even if we completely disregard all his previous crimes. I don’t think anyone will miss him.”

“I certainly won’t,” Ebony Wings said and took another sip of her wine. “He actually tried to kill us. The nerve of him.”

There was a heavy silence that was only broken by Sonata chomping her food. The Rainbooms looked various degrees of aghast, while Ebony Wings sat there with an insufferably pleased expression on her face.

“And what makes you think we won’t post any of this online or tell anyone?” Twilight asked coldly. “Are you going to kill us too?”

“Oh, please,” Ebony Wings waved her hand. “I don’t think any of you are that stupid. At least, I hope not. You don’t have any evidence, and it’s my word against yours. And trust me, I’ve learned in the acting industry, being famous adds a lot of weight to your words. Who are the public going to believe, the word of a bunch of children or the word of an academy acclaimed celebrity actress?”

Twilight fell silent.

“That’s what I thought,” Ebony finished smugly.

The actress went back to eating her food, while Ivory sighed and gave the Rainbooms an apologetic shrug.

“To be fair, he really did have it coming. Now, my sister’s attempts to sabotage our relationship aside-”

“Hey, it’s the truth,” Ebony interjected.

Ivory Wings rolled her eyes, as if this was something that happened on a regular basis. It probably was.

“As I was saying, little hiccups aside, I hope we can be friends. I don’t have very many and I would like to have a few more, at least for this age.”

Ivory smiled winningly at the Rainbooms, the resemblance to her sister’s red carpet smiles uncanny.

The Canterlot High students didn’t seem to know what to say, many of them still looking shocked or disgusted at the revelation behind Mr. Pierce’s demise. Moonglade could smell the trepidation in the air, and tried to be as small as possible.

Ebony Wings finished her food and spared a glance at her younger sister, who glanced back, her eyes full of meaning. The actress sighed and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

“Would it help if I gave you all autographs?”