Falsehoods Frequently Fade
"Turns out, when a disguised changeling uses the spell they won't affect themselves in the process, we found out when Pinkie tried it out for herself," Twilight's image explained to Celestia, her voice magically transferring from Ponyville to Canterlot thanks to the couple of magically enchanted mirrors.
"That is indeed quite fascinating, actually," the white alicorn commented.
"Anyway, I have to go now, I'll make sure to send you a copy of the report once I've finished it." The mirror's surface wavered as the flow of magic was cut and the princess was greeted back by her own reflection.
A few hours later Celestia could be seen happily walking down a hallway in the castle, an old letter held to her side by her magic. She was heading towards one of the larger rooms in the palace, where she had once more requested the presence of the majority of the Royal Guard. As she neared the place, her eyes were caught by a strand of ethereal blue mane rounding a corner.
"Luna," she greeted her, "I see you've accepted my invitation."
The dark blue alicorn walked up to her side, smiling. "Hello, sister. Yes, I found myself up earlier than usual and decided to come and watch. Where is it taking place this time?"
"Same hall as usual, now that the renovations are finished."
The two walked together to the entrance of the hall, then stopped in front of the doors. A single, somewhat old-looking guard was waiting for them, his armour different from the usual one and identifying him as a higher ranking officer.
"Still adamant about this, I suppose," he stated more than asked, defeat in his tone.
Celestia smiled brightly and nodded. "Of course I am. As always."
"As always." He gave a long and low sigh. "May I remind you of the mayhem and chaos, and of the higher safety of doing this with one guard at a time, and all the other stuff I've repeated over the last thirty six weeks since this was institutionalised as a routinely executed weekly check?" he asked in an almost sad tone.
"Oh, no need for that today. I'm already excited about it, you won't have to bother with reminding me of all the possibilities." She gave another smile, then practically pranced past him as she headed towards the stairs, Luna following behind her.
Luck, the old and tired captain pondered as he watched her go, not a care in the world to her gait. It had to have been through sheer, dumb, unbelievably convenient luck. Either that, or she'd hit her head sometime before his promotion.
Celestia and Luna reached the top of the staircase, and walked onto the balcony running along the top of the tall room's perimeter. They looked down to the rectangular guard-filled space below, and the white alicorn gave a brief look to the letter she was holding. She then looked at her sister. "Would you like to be the one to do it this time?" she asked.
Luna pondered for a moment, her head tilting slightly. "I don't see why not," she answered after a moment. She grabbed the letter in her own magic and looked at it, then a bright flash of light radiated from her horn and filled the whole room before dissipating. She then looked attentively at the ponies down below, but as usual the spell had affected none of them, aside from the negligible looks of confusion from some of the newer guards.
"Oh. Looks like there's nothing interesting today either," said a voice from Luna's right.
The younger alicorn slowly craned her neck towards the source of the sound, and came face to face with Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen standing where Celestia had been just moments ago.
"Well, there's always next week," the bug-like creature said, this time in the voice of Luna's sister.
A flash of light later, they both were standing inside Luna's room.
"Explain," said the princess in a dry tone.
"What do you mean, sister?" Chrysalis asked back.
Luna simply looked at her, and the changeling stared back, seeming rather confused. Then, Luna levitated a tall mirror from a corner of the room and placed it in front of the other.
Chrysalis looked at her reflection, then lowered her eyes to see her chitin-covered body. "Oh."
The pair stared at each other silently for a couple of seconds.
Chrysalis looked back up and towards Luna, and took a single deep breath. "What," she simply stated in Celestia's voice.
"I... I believe I can explain, though it pains me to do so," Chrysalis's voice replied, coming from her own mouth.
Luna stared for a moment longer. "What indeed," she admitted.
Chrysalis turned back to the mirror, her eyes wide and confused, and looked once more over her own body. "...Chrysalis?" she tentatively asked, still in Celestia's voice, still seemingly acting like she was the Solar Alicorn. "...What... What is happening?" A note of fear mingled in her voice, born from lack of understanding.
"Hello, Celestia," she replied to herself in the Changeling Queen's voice, and much to her bewilderment Luna could observe a shift in her expression accompanying that in her voice. "I had hoped I would never have the need to entertain this discussion, but it seems fate has decided otherwise."
Another shift in the creature's expression, and Luna had to move her eyes from the mirror to the changeling's face to make sure it had truly happened and wasn't merely an illusion.
"I don't understand," Celestia's voice said, as Chrysalis's head shook slightly. "I'm... You're... W-We are..."
"The same pony," Chrysalis's voice replied to her, once more bewildering Luna with the way and speed at which her expression had mutated. "For the sake of making things more simple, I believe it's best for dear Luna over there if you change into yourself when speaking. If she doesn't have anything against it, of course."
Chrysalis's body flared in heatless green flames, and moments after it was looking just like Celestia's. "Sister?" she asked meekly, turning to Luna.
The blue alicorn swallowed, then simply nodded.
"Thank you." Celestia turned back to the mirror. "What is happening?"
Another shift in her body, and Luna forced herself to look at the mirror instead. It was almost possible to pretend it was a normal conversation that way. "It pains me greatly that things had to come to this. It truly does. But I wouldn't believe it fair to simply erase your memories and mine, and move along as if nothing had happened. You deserve to know, now that the truth has surfaced, and you deserve to decide for yourselves."
Luna looked to Celestia. "I don't know what kind of farce you are trying to pull, but I will not fall for it. Tell me where my sister is, and maybe I will be more lenient with your punishment." Even as she said those words, though, she could feel they were empty. She looked into the other's eyes, and saw her sister, the one she'd learned to know and love. If this was really a trick, she'd already fallen for it.
Celestia noticed the hesitation in Luna's eyes, and turned back to the mirror. "Please, do explain what is happening."
"I want to make one thing clear," Chrysalis replied, once more appearing, "this body you're seeing is not your true form. The one you wear daily, the one ponies know you by, that is the real you. I am the product." She coughed. "Could you fetch me some water, dear? My throat is getting a bit dry," she said to Luna.
The alicorn levitated a glass of water from the nearby bathroom and passed it to the changeling, all without looking away from the mirror.
"Thank you, dear," Chrysalis politely replied after drinking it. "Now, I believe it is necessary for me to start at the beginning. I understand, especially given how I myself have just learned all of it, that this is a lot to take in, but please bear with me as I speak. So, first things first, you created the changelings."
After the changeling had spoken, and always keeping her eyes fixated on her image, Luna refilled the glass of water and brought it to her lips to sip on it, only to spray its contents on her sister. "What?"
Celestia, drenched in water and mildly surprised that the glass could hold enough water to drench her, looked at her sister, then at the mirror. "Wh-" She coughed. "Luna, dear, could you get me a glass of water? My throat's a bit dry."
Luna refilled the glass and passed it to Celestia.
The alicorn drank the water. "Thank you. Could you please get me another one?"
Luna refilled the glass once again and passed it to her sister for the third time that day.
"Thank you," Celestia replied. She brought the glass to her lips, took a large sip of water without swallowing, then sprayed the liquid onto the mirror. "What?"
Chrysalis brought a hoof up to the mirror to wipe away some of the water, and threw a glance at the glass, impressed by the amount of liquids it could apparently hold. "It's the truth. And..." She moved the glass away from her and onto a shelf. "Better if we don't lose more time by keeping that thing around. So. You created the changelings, and you created me as well. Though I never actually existed. I'm only a split personality you developed. You see, Celestia, you're actually far more powerful than what you believe, but your mind is unable to process and properly control all that energy, and I was created as a side effect of this, along with the changelings."
Luna chewed on the inside of her lip. "I thought you were supposed to be good at lying."
"I am good at lying," Chrysalis retorted, "and that should prove how this is the truth! Why would I come up with something so absurd if I was trying to deceive you?"
Luna stared at her. "That does make sense, but none of what you were saying does. Do I need to bring up the list of things that don't work with that concept or can you figure it out on your own?"
"Luna, please, be nice to her," Celestia said.
"I can do better than think of the list of questions you might have, I can answer them!" Chrysalis half-posed dramatically. "You are probably wondering about our encounters, are you? Well I tell you, those were not real bodies, but merely projections of pure arcane might condensed in solid form so that they could interact with the world, controlled by my own subconscious. Like these ones."
Luna suddenly felt two pairs of hooves touching her back, and turned to see a copy of Celestia and one of Chrysalis behind her. She gulped. "This is most unsettling, I must admit."
"This is giving me ideas," Celestia chirped in in an arguably inappropriate tone.
The two copies vanished into thin air.
"As for why it all happened, I am not exactly sure," Chrysalis continued. "Perhaps you needed an antagonist to limit yourself, or perhaps you wanted something to bring excitement in your life. Or maybe I was the product of your inner darkness, wishing to plunge the world into despair."
"But... Why now?" Luna asked, still partly sceptical.
"Yeah, why only now?" echoed Celestia.
Chrysalis sighed. "Upon seeing yourself in the form you had twisted your body into, your mind refused to remember, and the realisation enlightened me instead, since I am a construct and I exist to mentally protect you. You are capable of creating a new species through sheer magical effort after all, and you perhaps deemed yourself unable to control your full powers. This suppression of your nature might be what originated me in the first place, a shape-shifting creature that deceives others to feast on their misplaced love. Maybe I am the monster you see yourself as for pretending you wouldn't be able to simply wipe out all others on a whim, and maybe that's why you lose to me, to convince yourself of your own limitations. Because you are afraid of what you truly are."
Luna looked at the changeling, then at her sister.
Celestia looked at herself. Slowly, half of her face shifted to show Chrysalis's.
"What now?" the changeling asked.
"...I don't know," the white alicorn replied.
From a door on the side of the room the tired and yawning figure of Princess Luna walked in. "What was all that commotion, sist-" She stopped and stared at the others, another Luna on the opposite end of the room and a Celestia whose face was half-transformed into Chrysalis's.
They all stared at each other for a number of long, silent and awkward seconds.
"I... I think we should blame someone for this..." Celestia tried.
"I... Yeah..." the first Luna agreed.
Another long and awkward pause stretched between them.
Chrysalis gave a small cough. "So... I say we blame Twilight for this, shall we?"
"Yep."
"Sure."
"Sounds good to me."
Two heads and two halves nodded, and the four of them walked out of the room to go eat dinner together.
Somewhere on the outskirts of Canterlot, a guard felt the sudden impulse to go for a jog in the park.
