Servant of the Queen

The girls from Canterlot High did not stay long after lunch. In fact, some of them seemed downright ready to bolt, with only the pink one staying at the table for the chocolate gateau that was served for dessert.

Not a mere second after Pinkie finished her gateau did the Rainbooms hurry from the table, piling out the door as quickly as they could.

Ivory Wings watched them drive away on the security cameras.

“Well, that was fruitless,” Ebony Wings said from behind her sister’s back. “A total waste of time.”

Ivory turned around slowly, her face a mask of scorn. “Why do you feel the need to poke your nose in everything I do?” She hissed.

“What did I do?” Ebony looked surprised at her sister’s accusation.

“What did you go and tell them all about Pierce Network for?” Ivory sighed. “Do you know how hard it is to get humans to trust us without telling them about our executions?”

“They were going to learn of it eventually,” Ebony said evenly. “And it’s better that they know there are consequences for tattling now than later.”

“I’ve told you before, I don’t kill children.”

“Your loss,” Ebony sniffed. “Regardless, I don’t think they’ll try anything foolish in the near future. After all, we know where they live.”

“You could word it in a way that doesn’t make you sound like a serial killer,” Ivory said reproachfully.

Ebony laughed. “In case you’ve forgotten, we are serial killers. You should know that better than anyone, my Reaper.”

Ivory Wings looked chagrined at this use of her title, but swallowed the needling and pressed onwards. “At least they seemed interested in what their ancestors were like. Maybe I can use that to lure them back in.”

“Why bother?” Ebony flicked her hand to the side, as if to shoo away a bug. “They’ll all be dead in about seventy years, even if we don’t do anything to them. You’re getting emotionally invested in something that won’t be around for very long. Not a good idea, Ivory.”

Moonglade timidly crept into the security office to see what the argument was about.

“Oh, hello, sweetie,” Ivory said, taking notice of her niece. “Did you enjoy lunch?”

“Yes,” Moonglade nodded. “Did everything go as you wanted, Aunt Ivory?” She asked hesitantly.

Moonglade was secretly hoping that if the Canterlot High girls became family friends, then maybe she could see Home Run again. Unfortunately, the rather peeved look on Ivory Wings’ face didn’t bode well for that hope.

“It was going fine until your mother decided to start telling them horror stories about killing Pierce Network.”

Ebony Wings was unrepentant. “I hardly call that a horror story. Remember that one man who we drowned in a vat of acid back in the seventeenth century? He just wouldn’t stop screaming. That’s much more horrifying than a nice, quiet poison induced heart attack.”

“You did what?” Moonglade blanched.

“That was a special case!” Ivory insisted.

“No, it wasn’t,” Ebony frowned. “We killed at least eleven other humans in the same way. Used their bones for making china and quill nibs. Nobody ever did find out that’s where all those peasants were vanishing off to.”

“Anyway,” Ivory said, sounding exasperated. “I’ll just have to work extra hard to get them back on my side. I’ll have them as my friends if it’s the last thing I do.”

Ebony Wings rolled her eyes and turned away. “Do what you want. Just remember that your first duty is to me, not some girls who you have delusions about being the same people as their ancestors. Got it?”

“Yes, your majesty…” Ivory grumbled.

Moonglade watched her mother leave the security room. She felt an outpouring of sympathy for her aunt. She knew how hard it was for a changeling to make proper friends, and she wanted Ivory Wings to be happy.

The younger princess approached her aunt slowly. “Are you okay, Aunt Ivory?”

Ivory Wings gave her niece a tired smile. “I’ll be fine, sweetie. But I’m definitely not going to invite those girls back here. Not when your mother is prowling about like she was today.”

“Oh,” Moonglade scuffed the tip of her shoe on the floor. “So you’ll be meeting them outside?”

“I hope so,” Ivory Wings took off her glasses and wiped their lenses with her shirt. “I don’t know if they’ll accept another invite from me after what they learned here today.”

“If you’re plain and honest about it-” Moonglade stopped herself as she remembered who she was talking to. “I don’t know, Aunt Ivory. Humans are hard to get.”

This made the elder princess smile. “Yes, they can be hard to get. But their lives are so fleeting compared to ours, so I want to at least be a spot of brightness in those who I want to be friends with. Something that they can look back on and say, ‘that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.’ You get me?”

Moonglade came forward and hugged her aunt, touched by the sincerity of her words.

“You’re a good person, Aunt Ivory.”

Ivory Wings returned the hug, but her niece smelled a faint undercurrent of regret.

“I wish that were true, sweetie.”

On Monday afternoon, Silver Rose left Crystal Prep and got into her aunt’s car like she always did. She had noticed that Sunny Flare and her friends were still watching her from a distance, but they always fled whenever she approached them to ask why. She had an inkling of the reason, but she decided not to do anything yet. After all, she had made enough mistakes for now.

Ivory Wings was sitting in the driver’s seat as usual, only there was a wide, flat envelope on the passenger seat.

“Hello, sweetie. How was school today?”

“It was okay, I guess…” Silver Rose still felt bad about hurting Home Run with the throwing knife, even if she had learned he wasn’t dead from the poison. She hadn’t been able to take her mind off it and even Canvas Splash had noticed that something was wrong.

“Anyway,” Ivory Wings began. “I’ve put together some more invites, but since the sirens don’t go to Canterlot High anymore, I’ll need some other way to get them to the girls.”

Silver Rose was confused. “Wait, why can’t you just give the invites to them personally?”

A look of disquiet crept onto Ivory’s face. “Because that seems so… simple. Basic. There’s no flair in it.”

“Are you sure you’re not addicted to making complex plans?” Silver asked shrewdly.

“No,” Silver’s aunt said defensively. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to repeatedly walk into enemy territory.” She started the car and began to head for home.

“I thought you wanted to think of them as friends?” Silver piped up.

"Well… yes," Ivory mumbled. "But your mother wouldn't approve of just going in all boldly. We're changelings. We're supposed to be sneaky and clever."

Silver Rose grew silent at that. She knew that as changelings, they were meant to use subterfuge and deception, but she was honestly fed up with it. She had to lie to everyone except her mother and her aunt, and something inside her protested at all this trickery. She pouted and rested her head on the window.

Ivory Wings drove on quietly, humming a semi-familiar tune to herself as she guided the car back home.

“Your mother’s going out to a party tonight,” Silver’s aunt told her. “Apparently it’s to celebrate the end of filming for one of her movies. There’s going to be a lot of drinking.”

“But mother can’t get drunk,” Silver frowned, remembering all the wine her mother had imbibed on previous occasions.

Ivory chuckled. “No, she can’t. I supposed she’ll come back and complain about the quality of the booze or something. But this means we have the house all to ourselves for the night. What do you think we should do?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about something. This whole… Shadowbolt thing has gone a little too far, don’t you think?” Silver shuffled her feet together nervously. “I’ve messed up a lot around them, and now they’re onto us. Not in the way we expect, but they’re onto us. Don’t you think we should handle this? Somehow…?”

Ivory Wings parked the car and looked into the rear view mirror.

"We should absolutely deal with it. There are numerous things we should take into account before making a move, though. How much do they know? Who might they have told, how much evidence they have. Stuff like that."

“I don’t know how much evidence they have,” Silver Rose frowned, unbuckling her seat belt. “I mean, it’s hard to tell without asking them, isn’t it?”

Silver Rose and Ivory Wings left the car and went inside their home. On her way to the second floor living room, Silver Rose heard the sounds of splashing water from the pool. It must have been the sirens again.

“Anyway,” Ivory Wings continued once they were seated on the couch. “We need to do something about the Shadowbolts. They’re sniffing around in places they shouldn’t be, and they do not have the benefit that the Canterlot High girls do of being distantly related to my old friends.”

Silver Rose nodded meekly.

“Fortunately for them, I do not kill children,” Ivory continued. “But I do think we need to have a talk with them. Preferably in a controlled environment where we hold all the cards. In this, I think we need to use your mother’s influence and power.”

“We do?” Silver squirmed at the thought of her mother getting more involved in her school life. But she couldn’t deny that her mother was very good at getting secrets out from other people. “Okay, but I don’t want the Shadowbolts to think I’m any weirder than I am already.”

“I can’t promise you that,” Ivory Wings said gloomily. “But hopefully your mother will be in a good mood once she gets back from her drinking party, so I’ll be able to persuade her to help us.”

The filming crew and actors had been celebrating hard into the night. Roll of the Ricks had just finished shooting, and it was all up to the editing and post-production team now. Meaning that the on-set actors and staff could take a long, well-deserved rest.

At the moment, the lead actors and actresses were gathered round a low table, engaging in a drinking contest.

“Okay, okay,” the director, Film Reel, slurred. “How about, we all take a shot if we’ve ever… I dunno, had to shoot a scene more than ten times?”

“Not technically my fault, but I’ll drink to that,” Fast Bender said, downing a shot of tequila. Around him, numerous other people did the same.

“Of course, you’ve never had to do that, eh, Ebony?” Spark Burns, another actress, patted the acclaimed actress on the arm. “You’re one of the best in the business.”

Ebony was holding a glass of wine and took a sip from it. “You flatter me. I’ve just had the good fortune to work with a lot of amazing people in my career. Like all of you.”

There was an outpouring of cheers from everyone, and more drinks were poured and consumed.

Underneath Ebony Wings’ face, Chrysalis could smell the wild emotions of the people around her. Alcohol always had a way of loosening the inhibitions of humans. She didn’t really understand the appeal, but she appreciated the happy emotions that were being generated by the party. All she had to do was sit here and pretend to be tipsy and absorb it all.

To Chrysalis, drunken humans all tasted pretty much the same. They came in a few different varieties, but by and large they were predictable. It made acting like one of them rather easy, if a little degrading.

The drinking went on and on, with more than one of the crew passing out drunk on the floor. Most of them had spent the night on set during the filming at one point or another, so this wasn’t exactly unusual behaviour. Film Reel was snoring quietly in his chair, still holding a half-empty bottle of rum. Some others sloped off to splash water on their faces before getting a cab back to their homes.

Finally it was just Ebony Wings and Fast Bender left awake at the drinking table. There were empties strewn about and more than one split drink on the floor.

“Hmm,” Ebony Wings said as she looked around herself. “It seems the party was a success.”

“Looks like it,” Fast Bender agreed, taking another sip of his beer.

She inhaled and drew in what little remained of the happy emotions from the party, before looking over at Fast Bender. She had never gone drinking with him before, and she was somewhat startled to smell that he was still in full control of his feelings. They were not the emotions of a drunken human, but of a sober one.

Strange… Ebony thought to herself, downing the remaining wine in her glass, watching Fast Bender with beady eyes. Her intuition was telling her that there was something odd going on here, she just didn’t know exactly what just yet.

“So, Ebony, do you need a ride back home?” Fast Bender broke into Ebony’s ponderings. “I can drive you if you want.”

The handsome actor finished his beer and put the empty bottle down on the table. Fast Bender smiled at Ebony Wings, who returned the gesture, albeit with a little less enthusiasm.

“Drive?” Ebony repeated. “Haven’t you had quite a bit to drink?”

“Well, yeah,” Fast Bender shrugged. “But I can still walk in a straight line and everything. I’m not intoxicated.”

To demonstrate, the actor stood up and closed his eyes before walking in a perfect straight line, then spun around and picked up two empty bottles and juggled them for a few seconds before catching them all and putting them back down on the tabletop.

“See? Perfectly in control.”

But how can that be? Ebony Wings asked herself. She had seen Fast Bender drinking along with the rest of them, downing shots and beer like nobody’s business. There was no way any human could drink so much alcohol and still have such a firm grasp over their faculties.

Unless he wasn’t a human…

The possibility struck Ebony Wings like a brick. It was a ridiculous notion, but it was the only explanation that made sense and checked all the boxes.

Fast Bender continued to sit across from Ebony Wings, smiling at her with his charming face. There was only one way to be sure.

“Before we talk about leaving, why don’t we have one more drink, just the two of us?” Ebony suggested, taking a flask of vodka from the cooler. She turned her back to pour out two glasses, holding one glass up to her face. She swiftly extended her fangs and let fall a few drops of her venom into the drink. Then she turned back around and slid the cool glass over to Fast Bender.

“To our health,” Ebony held up her glass for a toast.

“To our health,” Fast Bender echoed cheerfully before downing the vodka in one gulp.

Ebony drank down her shot, feeling the chilled liquor settle in her stomach. It wouldn’t be long now, she thought. Changeling venom was extremely fast-acting.

Fast Bender stood up and windmilled his arms, stretching his limbs and brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. Ebony Wings was stunned. He wasn’t inconvenienced by her venom at all.

The idea seemed ludicrous, especially after all these years alone, but there was no other possible option. This was the only avenue that made sense. Immunity to toxins and alcohol, as well as supremely good acting talent.

In spite of herself, Ebony Wings felt a slow, cunning smile creep across her face as she eyed Fast Bender with a new appreciation.

She might have been given another chance at expanding her family after all.