Courtesans

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Chapter 1

Double Time was many people.

On Saturday she was a courtesan—an expensive whore in a venue that advertised changeling lovers. For two thousand bits, a pony could have the experience of meeting the mare or stallion of their dreams. They got an evening out, dancing, laughing, growing to know their partner, and realizing that somepony beautiful could care for them. They told her they loved her, and she made love to them. At the stroke of midnight, she vanished.

On Sunday she was a volunteer counselor, leading group therapy sessions for ponies who still suffered from trauma as a result of the Canterlot Invasion. She would transform into a member of Queen Chrysalis’s old swarm and hiss, allowing them to confront their fears in a safe environment. Sometimes ponies yelled at her and cried, and she gave them a hug.

On weekday mornings and evenings, she was a student at the Canterlot School of the Arts. Once she had attended in her true form, but since her run-in with the law, she’d assumed the alter-ego of a butch earth-pony painter named Smock Up. It was always a joy to develop a new character, and she’d grown Smock Up into a quiet mare with a sassy wit. She didn’t talk much, but when she did, she burned.

On weekday afternoons, Double Time was a mother of two.

Ponies would have disagreed. Ponies would have said that they weren’t her children, that she hadn’t adopted them, never mind that drones were sterile. But ponies couldn’t see what changelings could see. Double Time had first noticed the foals when they and their parents passed by her in the market. She’d seen many couples with kids that day and not given them a second thought.

But those couples loved their children.

Double Time followed them home, to a house that was clean and beautiful and dead inside, and she applied for a job as nanny. Every weekday from two to six, she came to pick up the children from school, clean them up, do their laundry, help with homework, and reassure them that somepony cared for them.

“Feather!” The mare’s name was Sapphire and the colt was Night Watch. They spilled out of school along with the other foals and rushed towards her. To them, she was a pegasus named Feather Dust.

“That’s me.” Sapphire was first to reach her, and so was the first to receive a hug. “Oof! You’re getting big. How was school?”

“Fine,” Sapphire dragged a hoof along the ground. She quickly added, “can we go to the park?”

“The park? But your brother didn’t even get his hug yet.” Double spread her forelegs, and Night Watch piled in. “There, isn’t that better?” She gave him a tight squeeze.

Then, she picked the teacher’s note right out of his saddlebags.

He didn’t notice until he pulled away and saw the paper in her teeth. With a cry of “Hey!” he leapt to snatch it back, his voice full of childhood indignance. But she was too quick, and lifted her head out of his reach.

“Ah ah,” she mouthed around the paper, gently pushing him back with a hoof. Sapphire and Night Watch each started shouting excuses, their voices mixing to form an incomprehensible noise. With a firm but gentle hoof, she poked each of them in the muzzle and shushed them.

Then she read the note.

“Well,” she said when she finished. “I suppose we can visit the park for an hour. Your parents won’t be home until five.”

She walked the two of them to one of Canterlot’s little parks. She gave Sapphire a ball and told her to go play with the other fillies, while she and Night Watch sat on a bench nearby. Night Watch didn’t want to talk, and so they sat quietly and watched Sapphire play. She was with another filly and they were playing make-believe. The other filly’s doll was Daring Do on a heroic adventure. Sapphire’s ball was the giant rolling boulder chasing Daring around the grass.

“Oh nooo!” Sapphire cried. “Daring got squished.” The other filly disagreed, insisting that Daring flew away right in the nick of time.

“I’m sorry,” Night Watch finally said.

“I know.” Double Time said. Night’s father would have gotten mad. Night’s mother would have said that she wasn’t mad, she was disappointed. “So why did you do it?”

“Vim was just being really…” Night Watch bit his lip. “Dumb! Always talking about how cool his parents are, and how his dad always takes them flying, and how since he’s a pegasus and his mom is a unicorn his dad sometimes takes him up to a cloud and they hide from chores. And I was like, we know! And he was all stop yelling. And I was like, I’m not yelling, you’re yelling!”

“Is that when you punched him and made him eat dirt?” Double Time’s tone wasn’t flat, but it was calm. She let herself show enough sympathy to acknowledge his frustration, but she didn’t rise to it.

Night Watch looked at the bench. He didn’t answer.

“Did bullying him make you feel better?” Double Time asked. When Night Watch still didn’t answer, she reached out with a hoof and forcefully lifted his head to her. “Night, please answer me.”

“No. No, it didn’t,” he snapped, reaching up with his own hooves to shove hers away. Then he glared off at the bushes. “I can’t do anything right and everything I do makes it worse and I’m a big stupid bully. Are you happy? Fine.”

“You aren’t stupid, Night. And you aren’t going to be a bully unless you want to be. And I don’t think you want to be, do you?” She leaned her head down to catch his eyes, and this time, he turned his head to her willingly. “Do you want to be a bully?”

“No.” He bit his lip. “I… just got really mad. Okay? He was being dumb and I don’t want to hear his stupid stories.”

“I know.” She reached out to to stroke his mane. “I know you don’t want to. But hurting other ponies doesn't make you feel less mad, does it?”

“No.” He hung his head.

“No, it doesn’t. And besides, if you want to go flying…” She waggled one of her wings, then tickled him with the tip of a feather.

Involuntary giggling seized him. “Stop it!” He swatted at the feather, but his eyes were not so downcast as they had been. “I’m not a pegasus. I’d fall.”

“Only if I put you on a cloud.” She wiggled her ears, and a playful little smile touched her face. “But I could put you on a roof. You and your sister both. We could fly up to the top of the Canterlot Belltower.”

“Really?” A smile touched his face. Then it vanished. Then it appeared again. “No way. Would you? No. Mom would freak out.”

“Your mother doesn’t have to know,” she said with a coy little smile. “It’ll be a treat. But treats are for colts who don’t get into fights. So I need you to be extra—”

With a loud snap, a swirling green disk appeared in the air beside them. Night Watch leapt backwards on pure instinct, the force of his little legs sending him scrambling a good three feet away. Across the park, ponies stared at the strange apparition. Double Time stayed put, and after a moment, the disk rotated to face her.

It was about two feet across, and when it solidified, a changeling’s face could be seen in its surface. “Drone CX-37889-A, Double Time,” the drone spoke. Its voice resonated as though out of a deep well. “Queen Amaryllis personally summons you to appear before her in the hive. You are ordered to return home at best possible speed and without delay. This supersedes all other directives.”

Double Time’s hoof snapped to her forehead. She saluted the image and delivered a crisp “I understand and will comply.”

The image in the swirling disk vanished. A moment later, the disk vanished as well. “Woah,” Night Watch said, slowly stepping up towards her. “That was really cool. What was that?”

“Oh.” She smiled. “Magic. Somepony had a message for me.”

“Because you’re a changeling?” He asked. When she frowned, he shot her a sour look. “I was right here and you just said I wasn’t dumb.”

“I did. Didn’t I?” She patted the bench for him to sit beside her again. “You’re not afraid?”

“No. Changelings are good now.” With a certain defiant pride, he added. “Princess Twilight shot laser beams at you and now you’re all rainbow colored and nice.”

Double Time giggled. “Something like that.” She stared at him for a moment, then at his sister. “But,” she said after the pause, “I used to be bad. Back when all changelings were bad. Do you know why?”

Night Watch bit his lip. “Because you had fangs and hissed at ponies?”

“Because my mother didn’t love me.” Double Time waited a moment for the words to settle in. She could see it on Night Watch’s face. “She was mean and stern and whipped my backside whenever I didn’t follow her rules. My father was never around. I felt worthless, and whenever ponies talked about how great things were, and how much their families loved them, I got mad.”

“Oh.” Night Watch looked at the bench. “Is that why you… you know.”

“Mmhmmm. I beat ponies up and made them eat dirt too. When I was doing it, I thought it would make me feel better. But it never helped, and I was angry and sad all the time. It wasn’t until…” A small smile touched her face. “Twilight’s student helped us that I was able to get better. That’s when I realized that I was worthy of love, and that other creatures were worthy of it too. And that’s why I’m here. Because you and your sister deserve to have a pony who loves you.”

Night Watch’s ears tucked back against his head, and he reached out with a leg to grab her. “Let’s go flying now,” he said. He spoke too quickly, and the words came out jumbled.

“Night…” She reached out to brush his hair out of his eyes. “You know your sister needs you, right? I’m going to have to go away for awhile, and I need you to look out for her.”

“No. No.” The little colt in front of her gripped her leg tighter. “You can’t go. You weren’t going anywhere. You said. You promised!”

“I know, but I have to.” She nodded her head gently. “My Queen is summoning me home, and the hive is a long way away in the north. I’ll be gone for a long time. Maybe forever.”

“What?” he shouted. “Because you hate us?”

“No no,” reached out a hoof to reassure him. “Night. I love you and your sister. You’re wonderful, and you’re going to grow up to be wonderful ponies one day.”

“If you really loved us, you’d stay.” He yanked his hoof away from her. “A pony who actually cared about us instead of just pretending wouldn’t run away because a giant bug told them too.”

Double Time tried to reassure him, but he yelled and wouldn’t listen. So she walked the two of them back home, and gave them each a goodbye hug, and left her resignation letter with the servants.

She flew away.

Once, the Northern Changeling Hive had been an imposing spire of black stone, surrounded on all sides by desolate fields of ice. Braziers of putrid green fire had burned at all hours to keep the building from freezing. The hive soldiers, or skalvadkt, were the most feared monsters in all the north. King Sombra kept a squad of skalvadkt mercenaries as his personal bodyguards, and legend said that any one of them was a match for a hundred ponies in battle.

Since the reformation of the hive, things had changed. The black stone was covered in colorful banners and paintings. The desolate fields were home to blossoming villages of ice-fishers and hunters. The braziers burned with a clean blue flame, and where they provided sufficient heat, flowers and vines sprung to life.

Some things hadn’t changed though.

Double Time kowtowed, lowering herself so far to the floor that the tip of her horn touched the ice-cold stone. She splayed out her forelimbs. She shut her eyes. These were the three requirements of the Position of Subservience. Once the position was complete, and she was suitably posed, she spoke.

“I swear absolute obedience to Queen Amaryllis.
“I will obey her commands.
“I will obey her laws.
“I will defend her hive.
“If I am ordered to die I will die.
“If I am ordered to kill I will kill.
“Without her, the hive is nothing.
“Without the hive, I am nothing.
“I am an extension of her will.”

Chuckling carried through the throne room and echoed off the stone. “All the old guards are like that,” Queen Amaryllis said. Somewhere nearby, a changeling grub chittered.

“You still make them say it every time?” Princess Cadence asked. Her distaste was obvious.

“I’m still their queen, aren’t I?” Queen Amaryllis replied, her tone playful. “You know. The crystal ponies might respect you more if you made them bow in your presence. It’s a tradition for a reason.”

“It makes me uncomfortable.” Cadence cleared her throat. “Could you get up, please?”

But Double Time had not been dismissed from the position, and so she did not speak or lift her head.

“Drone,” Queen Amaryllis commanded, “rise and answer my guest’s questions.”

Double Time rose to her hooves in one smooth motion, lifting her head and opening her eyes. In front of her, the queen of the Northern Changeling Hive rested on a throne of jagged metal spikes. Once it had matched her dark carapace quite well. In modern times, her rainbow-colored exterior and delicate faerie wings clashed rather noticeably. Next to her, Princess Cadence sat on a giant pile of pink pillows.

Cadence was holding a changeling grub in her forehooves. It had a distinctive blue streak down its back, and it gurgled as it tried to explore the pillows. Double Time noticed, but she had not been asked a question or instructed to speak, and so she still said nothing.

Silence hung between them until Cadence cleared her throat. “Uh… you there. You’re my sister-in-law’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Princess Cadence.” Double Time continued to stand at attention, her back straight and her head held high. “I was Light Step’s roommate for ten months, during which time we were quite close. While we have not spoken since last year, I continue to consider myself her friend.”

“Then,” Cadence continued, “you are also the changeling who sucker-punched one of my guards?”

“I am.”

Cadence hesitated for a moment before she asked: “Why?”

“My motivations were selfish, and I acted upon them without the knowledge or consent of my rightful superiors,” she spoke crisply and formally. “I accept the criminality of my actions and beg that you do not allow them to reflect negatively upon the greater hive. I plead that you do not permit my flaws to mar my Queen’s radiant image.”

Queen Amaryllis laughed again. “No no. None of that,” she said before Cadence could reply. “Princess Cadence is my friend, drone. A true friend. These aren’t the old days. Please, answer her question honestly. Be candid.”

It took a few moments for Double Time to find the words. She shifted to look Cadence in the eye. “I sucker-punched him because he was trying to arrest me,” she said. “And because I didn’t want to go to jail.”

Cadence frowned. “You didn’t think hitting him would make things worse?”

“It would make things worse if they caught me,” Double agreed. Her beetle-like wings buzzed, and after a moment she added, “But they didn’t.”

“I see.” Cadence’s frown tightened. The grub in her hooves squirmed and vomited something milky onto the pillows. Two servants appeared at once to clean it up -- such things were normal for grubs. “I would…” She turned to face Queen Amaryllis. “Like to take her into custody, if I could.”

“Of course,” Queen Amaryllis leaned over on her throne so her head was closer to Cadence. “Is there anything else I could do? I’m so very sorry about the whole mess.”

“No. That’s fine.” As soon as she could, Cadence handed the grub off to one of the servants. “Thank you. I… appreciate it.”

“Of course.” Amaryllis smiled at Cadence, then sat up straight on her throne. Her eyes turned back to Double. “Drone, you are ordered to surrender yourself to Princess Cadence’s custody, and thereafter obey her commands. If she elects to punish you for the Equestrian laws you broke of your own volition, I forbid you to attempt escape.”

Silence hung over the throne room for a moment. “If I am ordered to die, I will die,” Double repeated.

“You know Equestria doesn’t have the death penalty, right?” Cadence asked. “The Crystal Empire doesn’t either.”

“I am aware,” Double said. “With your permission, Princess Cadence, I will await you at the hive’s main exit that you may conclude your business undisturbed by my presence.”

“Um…” Cadence bit her lip. “Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, fine.”

Double Time was many people. Some of them would have fled, or cursed, or spat in Cadence’s face when they passed. But at that particular moment in time, she was a hive soldier.

She clicked her rear heels together, saluted her queen, and left.

Chapter 2

Double Time arrived at Princess Cadence’s private train several hours before the princess herself. She inquired with the crystal guards as to which train car prisoners should stay in, but none of them were sure. They hadn’t expected any prisoners, and a brief argument ensued as to where she should be placed.

One officer wanted to keep her in the caboose, furthest from the princess. Another wanted to keep her in the guards’ car, where the most ponies would be watching her at all times. Double Time suggested that they chain her to the wall.

When Cadence finally arrived, she had a simple question: “What are you idiots doing?”

The senior officer in her personal guard, a pony named Flash Sentry, explained. First, they had placed Double Time in the guards’ car and chained her to the wall. But then somepony asked if she could get out of the chains by transforming into a creature with thinner ankles, and she said she could. So, Flash continued, they realized they needed restraints that bound her whole body instead of a specific part of her body.

“So you rolled her up in your bedsheets,” Cadence concluded. Double Time said nothing through the entire explanation. The guards had wrapped her up tightly in two dozen bedsheets like a cocoon, so only her eyes and the tip of her nose stuck out. “And what stops her from escaping through the hole you made for her head?”

“Ah. Well.” Flash cleared his throat. “We didn’t think of that until we were partway through and realized she’d need air. We were thinking of attaching a grate or a mesh of some kind to cover the face area, but we couldn’t figure out how to attach it to the sheets.”

“Right.” Cadence flexed her wings, drew in a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “Somepony get me a jar, please. A glass jar with a screw-on lid.”

One of the ponies further up the train used such a jar to store pens. He dumped them out, and a guard carried it back to Princess Cadence. Without a word, she took the jar and the guard’s utility knife, punched four air-holes in the lid, and then unscrewed the top.

“Get in the jar,” she ordered Double Time.

The smallest form Double Time could assume was about three inches long, making the jar a tight fit. Transforming into a snake helped her squirm in through the top, and then she turned into a tiny version of herself. She was like a figurine.

Cadence closed the lid, enchanted the jar to be unbreakable, and stalked out of the guard’s car, shoving Flash Sentry to the side as she passed. Marching through the train, she came to her personal car—a lavishly appointed bedroom on wheels, made for her and Shining Armor when they traveled. It had a king size bed, a broad oak desk, and a pile of pink pillows not unlike the one by Amaryllis’s throne. A brass cage full of coals kept it toasty even in the arctic chill.

Double Time’s jar went on the desk, in a nook meant for holding paper. For several minutes, Cadence tried to work, but her eyes wouldn’t focus on the paper in front of her. She often stopped to shut her eyes and rub her temples with her hooves.

When the train jerked into motion, she dropped her work entirely, letting pen and paper alike fall to the desk. “Forget it.” She laid a hoof flat on the desk, somewhat harder than necessary. “Forget it. I’ll deal with this later. I’ll deal with you... later.”

She took a half-step towards her bed, then she paused. Turning her head back, she eyed Double Time. From inside her glass jar, Double Time had an excellent view of the room, and of the bed.

She put Double Time’s jar in a desk drawer next to her pens. Then she went to sleep.

It was dark for a long time. Double wasn’t sure how long. Sometimes, they would pass through a tunnel, and the little sliver of light from the gap between the drawer and the desk would dim. Several times she tried to rock her jar back and forth, but it was stuck tight between the pens and a bottle of ink. The air was stale, and smelled of ink and wood shavings.

She didn’t notice when she fell asleep. One moment she was lying in the dark on the jar’s glass “floor,” and the next moment it was bright and she was rolling head over hoof. Slamming into a glass “wall” shocked her awake, and when her eyes cleared, she found she was back on the desk.

“Sorry,” Cadence said. To see more clearly, she leaned in close to the glass. Her head was bigger than Double Time’s entire body. “I tilted the jar when I pulled it out of the drawer. Are you okay?”

“Ah…” Double Time needed a moment to take possession of herself. “I could use some water.”

Half a thimble of water sufficed, poured through the air holes. It hit the bottom of the jar and formed droplets, and Double Time lapped at them like they were water troughs. “Thank you, your Highness,” she said.

“Sure.” Cadence sighed and sat back. “I’m going to ask you some questions now. Why did you assault a member of the Royal Guard?”

Double finished her water, then stood at attention. Her hooves were evenly spaced, her back was straight, and she lifted her head to the giant before her. “I already answered that. I didn’t want myself or Light to be arrested, and I believed I could beat him in a fight and escape.”

“If I let you go, will you break the law again?”

Double Time hesitated, and set her jaw. Then she said, “Probably. A lot of Equestria’s laws are stupid. And I like impersonating ponies.”

That made Cadence snort. “‘A lot of Equestria’s laws are stupid.’ Okay. Sure.” She shook her head. “Are you the one who got Light started on graffiti then?”

“No. It was her idea. But I encouraged her.” Double set her jaw. “I thought that helping an emotionally disturbed young mare heal herself was more important than petty laws about vandalism. When we went out into the city together for the first time, I realized it was the only time I’d ever seen Light smile. Or show any happiness at all.”

Cadence frowned and said nothing. After a pause, Double spoke to fill the void. “I would have stopped her if she’d tried to do anything significantly damaging. But she’s good. No, I shouldn’t say she’s good. She’s a genius. When she graffitis a building, the building gets nicer.”

“Mmph.” Cadence leaned down so her head was level with the desk. Double found herself looking into one enormous eye, slightly obscured by the thin fog Cadence’s breath produced on the glass. “Do you know why she hates her family so much?”

“She doesn’t hate her family. She hates herself. She’s constantly in pain and she doesn’t understand why, and it seems like everyone and everything makes it hurt more. You’re just a convenient target. You’re somepony she can yell at, because she can’t yell at the whole world.” Double let out a sharp breath. “Also, you blackmailed her. That didn’t help.”

“I told her to say sorry to her sister.”

A sneer appeared on Double’s face, and her professional, military tone dipped into something more aggressive. “Told, threatened, blackmailed, why get into the specifics? You expressed your wishes that she should say sorry to Twilight.”

“I didn’t know ‘Burner’ was Light,” Cadence raised her voice, and her tone hardened. “I went looking for a criminal who outed Twilight’s deepest secrets in public. Then I discover that criminal is her sister. What am I supposed to do? Arrest her? Make Twilight feel even worse? Walk away so she can keep doing it? I told her to say sorry. It was a reasonable solution.”

“I understand. Twilight is your friend, and Light made her cry, so you don’t like Light. But Light is my friend, and you made her cry.” Double let the moment hang. “So I don’t like you.”

“That’s not what I was saying. But fine. Fine.” Cadenced reached a hoof up to her temples. “Look, I don’t want to arrest you. I understand doing something you shouldn’t to protect a friend. And you’re right: no actual harm came of it, other than a little embarrassment. But when you visit Equestria or the Crystal Empire, you’re not an infiltrator anymore. You’re a guest. You can’t break the law just because you don’t feel like following it.”

Double said nothing. “Do you want to be punished?” Cadence asked. “To be the first changeling to be sentenced for an Equestrian crime?”

“If I am ordered to die I will die. But I was not ordered to apologize. Or to beg.”

“Okay, stop acting like you’ve been sentenced to death.” Cadence pulled back her head and spread her hooves. “Equestria is a peaceful, forgiving nation. You’re in danger of a fairly short sentence in a fairly nice jail. And you’re being dramatic. For the heavens' sake, you’re not going to be drawn and quartered.”

“But you could, if you wanted.”

Cadence squinted down at the jar. “I’m not going to do that,” she said, her tone incredulous.

“But you could, if you wanted,” Double repeated. “You could have me drawn and quartered. You could have me whipped. You could pick up this jar and smash me under your hoof right now. And if you did, I couldn’t try to escape.” She set her teeth. “So while Equestria may be a peaceful, forgiving nation, I was not ordered to submit myself to Equestria. I was ordered to submit myself to you. And I don’t know you.”

Cadence gave a faint roll of her eyes: “If I try to kill you, you can run away.”

“No, I can’t.”

The two of them shared a long stare through the glass. Cadence gave a small chuckle, but as she stared, the smile slowly faded from her expression. When it was entirely gone, she bit her lip. “And…” she spoke slowly, “what happens if you do try to escape?”

“I will have broken my oath to Queen Amaryllis.”

Cadence stared for a few long seconds. “And then?”

“That’s enough.”

“Mmmhmm.” Cadence looked into the corner for a moment as she composed her thoughts. “You love your queen so much you’d die because she casually ordered it over tea and cakes?”

“Queen Amaryllis has casually had ponies killed over tea and cakes.” Double tilted her head. “Should I be more afraid to die than I am to kill?”

“That was in the old days. Before your hive reformed.” Cadence hesitated. “Right?”

“It was.”

“So that’s…” She struggled for words. “Different. It’s different. You’ve been freed from your eternal hunger. You wouldn’t murder a pony just because Queen Amaryllis told you to.” Cadence’s eyes flicked over Double’s rainbow colored exterior, as though to remind herself it was there.

“It is true that changelings now possess the magic of friendship. But all ponies are born with that magic inside them. Are you all…” She searched for the word, wiggling a hoof in the air. “Good? Are you all good?”

“We’re…” Cadence started to answer, but then she turned away. “No. You know what? No. Forget it. I’m not engaging with this. This is ridiculous. You’re a criminal; you’re detained. That’s normal, and it’s the correct way things work.”

Double Time shrugged.

Cadence’s tone turned exasperated. “Double, I’m trying to let you go free, but I need you to say the right thing before I can. You get that?” She gestured at the jar. “If I let you go, what are you going to do? You’re under orders to be honest, right? Candid? If I release you, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?”

“I would go back to Canterlot. I’m a nanny there to two children named Night Watch and Sapphire. I was thinking of adopting them.”

“Okay. See?” Cadence softened her tone. “That’s not so bad. They’re orphans? Foster foals?”

“No,” Double said. “But their parents don’t love them. Normally, when parents and children are around, I can smell it. The air is thick with it. But with them, there’s nothing. And their father uses corporal punishment too much. Night gets caned for the slightest offense. You can see the welts under his tail.”

Cadence stared at the jar for a long time. She rubbed her jaw.

“How, ah…” She finally found the words. “You can’t adopt children who have parents.”

“I mean, you can.” Double’s sneer returned. “It’s just harder.”

That made Cadence laugh—a high, strained, helpless sound. “Right. I can see why you and Light are friends. I tell you that all I need to hear is ‘I won’t go commit any more crimes’ and you say if I let you go, you’re thinking of kidnapping two foals. Is that about right?”

“I didn’t say kidnapping. I could convince their parents to disown them.”

“Right.” Cadence sat back and flicked a hoof Double’s way. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with you. No idea. I could send you to jail, but I’m not sure that would even help. You’d steal love from the inmates.”

“I don’t steal love anymore.”

“Right. Of course not.” Cadence’s horn glowed, and she pulled a cord by the door. A servant appeared moments later. “Take this jar, please,” Cadence handed Double Time over. “Make sure the changeling inside gets enough air and water. I don’t want to deal with her right now. Just… bring her to the palace. I’ll deal with her later. Later. Okay? Don’t talk to me about it now.”

The servant nodded, picked up the jar, and took Double Time away.

Cadence had business to see too as soon as her train arrived in the Crystal Empire, and so Double Time arrived at the palace several hours before her. The servants inquired with the guards as to what they should do with the changing in a jar, but none of them were sure. An argument ensued.

One officer wanted to put her in the dungeon, because she was a prisoner and the dungeon was where prisoners went. Another insisted that she was already in a dungeon. Her jar was a portable dungeon, and putting a dungeon inside a dungeon was absurdity. Finally, a senior officer was called. He asked what Cadence had done with the jar on the train.

The servant told them she kept the jar on her desk. So they put Double Time on Cadence’s writing desk inside the palace.

Left alone, Double Time put her hooves up against the edge of the jar, and leaned forward to more effectively peer through the glass. The Royal Suite was the finest home she’d ever seen. Everything was beautiful and made from sparkling crystal. The view of the Empire was unparalleled. Cadence’s writing desk was in a separate office, so most of the rooms of the suite were blocked from her sight, but she could hear things.

A foal was cooing somewhere nearby.

“Cadence?” a stallion’s voice echoed up the hall and through the doorway. “You here?”

Nopony answered, and the sound of hoofsteps gradually became audible. A white stallion with a blue mane walked past the open office door without stopping, and moments later, the foal giggled. “Awww,” the stallion cooed. “Who's the cutest little filly?”

An angry electrical crackle shot through the air, and Double leapt back from the glass. But the stallion was laughing. “Nuh-uh. No lasers for foals. No lasers for Flurry Heart. Uh-huh. You pout all you want. You want your toy? You want your Whammy?”

The stallion played with the foal for a good twenty minutes more, and once she was asleep, re-entered the hall. He passed by the door going the other way, but the second time, he stopped partway and turned his head to stare at the jar.

“Um…” Double Time tapped the glass with a hoof. “Hello. Are you Shining Armor?”

“Yes,” Shining answered, stepping into the office and lowering his head to stare through the glass. “And who are you?”

“I’m uh... Double Time.” She lifted her hoof as she considered adding more. She finally settled on: “I’m a changeling.”

“I can see that.” Shining considered that information for a moment. “Why are you in a jar on my wife’s desk?”

“That’s a long story, but the short version is that I’m a friend of Light Step, and sometimes being that mare’s friend is very difficult.”

“Ah. Gotcha. Yeah, she can be like that.” He chuckled. “How’s she doing?”

“Better, since Thanksgiving.” She flicked her tail behind her, and buzzed her delicate insect wings. “She still does street art, but it’s less mean-spirited. She does chalk drawings uptown, and does little portraits of the fillies and colts. It’s nice.”

“Good.” He turned his head half away, indicating the door with his muzzle. “Should I tell Light you’re here? And in a jar?”

“It might be better if you didn’t.” Double Time paused a moment. Then she cleared her throat. “Um… I’m here waiting for Cadence. But if you’re… well. There’s something I should tell you. I was in the War in the North. On the other side. The changeling side, obviously. And um…”

She drew in a tight breath. “I’m sorry. For everything we did. And for everything I did personally. I’m sorry.”

Shining’s face was neutral—his expression flat. He licked his lips. “You said, ‘what you did personally.’ What did you do?”

“I was the baker,” she replied. “I made the sugar cookies.”

“Oh.” His eyes went to his hooves. “With the little red hearts on them.”

Double Time’s wings tucked in tight against her body, and her hooves scrunched together. “Yeah.”

A humorless chuckle escaped him. “You had a mean sense of humor.”

So soft Shining could barely hear her, Double Time repeated: “Yeah.”

They stood there in silence for several seconds, until Shining said: “Well, do you wish you’d done things differently? Are you sure you’ll never do anything like that again?”

“Yes, I—” Double lifted her head and put a hoof up on the glass. “Yes, of course. I mean, no. No, I’d never do anything—”

“Shhh.” Shining tapped the outside of her jar with a hoof. “Then I forgive you.”

Double Time scrunched up her muzzle. “You can’t just say that,” she snapped. When he failed to rise to the bait, she added: “Ponies died.”

“Changelings died. I wish I hadn’t done that either. If they’d survived the war, they’d be running around now, hugging random ponies and…” He gestured. “Forming drum circles. Whatever you do these days.”

He took in a breath. “So. I wasn’t just saying it.” He tapped the glass again. “Why does Cadence have you in a jar?”

Double Time let out a sharp snort. “I assaulted a member of the Royal Guard,” she said, adding an angry twist to her words. “And she didn’t have another prison that could hold me.”

“Mmmm. Then we better have somepony watch you.”

Without waiting for an answer, he unscrewed the lid of the jar. Then he carefully tilted it on its side so Double could get out.

Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped out of the mouth of the jar. With two hooves on the desk and two hooves on the glass, she looked up at the giant pony above her. “Um…” The anger was gone from her voice. “I don’t think Cadence wants me to leave.”

“You won’t go far.” With a nudge of his head, he indicated the next room. “I’m waiting here until she gets back anyway. Tell me about, uh…”

For a long time, they stared at each other.

“Tell me about the sugar cookies.”

Two hours later, they were sitting in the suite’s dining room together. Shining had Flurry Heart nestled in his hooves, wrapped in a forcefield so no sound would wake her. Double Time was sitting back in an excessively angular crystal chair. Every time she sat forward or back, it clicked and squeaked when her hard carapace bumped into it.

“Okay, okay,” she said, struggling to container her laughter, “right. So Light walks in, covered in mustard, and I don’t even have time to get a word in before she shouts,” Double mimicked Light’s voice, “‘I know it was you and it’s not funny!’” It was a perfect copy, complete with her voice cracking at the end.

Shining laughed. Double threw up a hoof. “Exactly!” she said. “What else was I supposed to do? I laughed. And that only makes her even more certain it was me.”

She sat back in the chair. It squeaked and clicked. “But now I want to know what the heck happened, and the more I ask, the more she thinks I’m making fun of her. So finally, she says if I ask her one more time, she’s gonna smack me. And I’m like, ‘you’d break your hoof if you tried.’ So she’s sitting there, looking at my carapace and looking at her hoof, clearly trying to figure out if smacking me will actually shatter it. And…”

Double Time trailed off as the sound of a door opening carried through the suite. Both her and Shining looked up towards the hallway entrance. The sound of a few short hoofsteps carried through the air. Then Cadence was there, looking at them.

“Hey, honey,” Shining said. “The servants put Double in a jar on your desk. If you really want to keep her restrained, we should put her in a force bubble. She could probably have gotten out of that jar if she really wanted.”

Cadence’s expression stayed flat. It flicked over Shining and Double. “She’s not in a force bubble now,” she noted.

“I… didn’t think she was going to run away.” Shining frowned and rose from the table, his eyes locked on his wife. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you sleep with this one too?”

Before either of them could answer, Cadence shook her head. “No, sorry. Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and said nothing. Then she walked away.

Chapter 3

Shining didn’t have to say a word. He glanced at Double, and she fled.

Like an insect on the walls, she scuttled out of the dining room, through the hallway, across the foyer, and up to the big oak door that was the suite’s primary entrance. She unlatched it, pulled it open a crack, and slipped into the hall.

The door shut behind her with a thump, leaving her in a crystal hallway that was beautiful and cold and empty.

There were no guards in sight, so she squeezed into a corner by the doorway to wait. Her wings buzzed every few seconds, as though she couldn’t quite clear a bit of dust from inside their casing.

Half an hour later, the door swung open and Cadence emerged. Double Time scrambled to her hooves, and had a fraction of a moment to catch her expression. Cadence’s eyes were bloodshot, and she’d scrubbed away her makeup.

“He loves you,” Double blurted out before Cadence could speak. She spoke so quickly her words ran over each other. “He truly loves you, and the only thing in the world he cares about more than you is your daughter. I can see it around him. And around you too. He’d never do anything to hurt you, and there’s no mare in the world who could steal him. If he did something wrong it’s because he didn’t have a choice. Please don’t blame him.”

Cadence considered that a moment. She worked her jaw and let out a breath. Then she stepped the rest of the way out into the hall, carefully shut the door behind her, and turned back to Double.

“Why would I blame him?” She asked, and when Double didn’t answer, she continued: “What did you think I was blaming him for?”

Double froze to the spot, her gaze locked on Cadence’s face. “I…” she finally managed. “Nevermind. I’m sorry. I thought I’d caused—”

“Oh, no. No.” Cadence’s voice, though quiet, developed a sharp edge. “There’s no neverminding your way out of this one. You decided to stick your nose into my marriage. So now you’re going to answer the question. Why would I blame Shining?”

“He…” Double cleared her throat. “He let me out of my jar.”

“He let you out of a prison that couldn’t hold you anyway, in favor of you being closely watched by the strongest warrior in the kingdom.” She smiled, and lines formed around her eyes. “Try again.”

“We were flirting.”

“Were you?” Cadence tilted her head. “Sounded to me like you telling old stories. And right now it sounds to me like you’re intentionally guessing wrong. So how’s this, changeling? Guess wrong one more time, and we can work out your punishment right here and now.”

Double’s eyes flicked over Cadence. She saw Cadence’s pose stiffen, and her wings part from her sides. “Because he slept with Queen Amaryllis.”

“There’s an honest answer.” Cadence laughed—a thin sound. “I could blame him for the fact that he’s having an affair with your queen. I could blame him for the fact that he got her pregnant, and now there’s little grubs crawling around with blue fuzz on their backs. But that would be petty. He didn’t have a choice. And I know he’d dump her in a second if I asked.”

She shook her head. “No. No. The thing I’m mad about isn’t that Shining gets up on Amaryllis’s back. It’s that he forgives her for it. It’s that no matter how many horrible things she does to us, he doesn’t have it in his heart to hate her. Just like no matter how many of his friends you murdered, all it takes is one ‘I’m sorry’ and you’re chatting like old war buddies. And I am mad about that. I am. But I don’t blame him.”

Still with a smile on her face, Cadence looked right into Double’s eyes. “I blame you.”

Double needed a moment to find an answer. Her hooves were rooted to the spot, and she stood stiff like a statue. “I meant everything I said to him. About the war. I regret what I did.”

“Do you?” Cadence licked her lips and again gave a small shake of her head. “But you don’t regret it enough to leave Queen Amaryllis’s service. Not enough to undo what was done. You seem okay with the fact that she’s still camping on my land and screwing my husband. So would it be fair to say that you regret doing all those horrible things, but not quite enough that you regret winning?”

Double said nothing. Her face was a blank mask. So Cadence spoke instead.

“You’re such a good person, Double. Just like Queen Amaryllis is a good person. All you reformed changelings are so sweet and fuzzy. But it seems like your goodness only lasts up to the point you’d have to give up something real. After that, there are reasons. You say you love now, and maybe you do, but only because it gets you what you want. You are a whore. And your queen is a whore. And no matter how much Shining knows it’s just about the money, deep down, he wants to believe you have a heart of gold. But you don’t.”

Barely above a whisper, Cadence finished: “You don’t deserve his forgiveness.”

Double’s wings buzzed. She lowered her head.

Once again, a long silence hung between them. Double broke it. Her eyes stayed on the floor. “I can teach you a more cost-effective technique to restrain changeling prisoners. Force bubbles work well, but only very powerful casters can create them. There are easier ways. I can teach you, and I can teach your guards so this never needs to happen again.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t…” Double lifted her head slowly, as though it bore a great weight. “I don’t want to go to jail. And you’ve got my number—I’m not talking my way out of this one. So if you’re a little lenient, I’ll help you.”

“Heh.” Cadence shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Fine.”

That night, in her cell in the dungeon, Double Time made a noose out of the bedsheets. She strung it up from an iron bar on the ceiling, and stared at it for a time.

Then she took it down and went back to sleep. In the morning, there were half a dozen prison guards for her to train.

The techniques that Double taught were not complicated, but it was important they be executed precisely. She was their only changeling volunteer, so she trained every guard herself. They would take turns trying the special bindings that removed her power to shapeshift, and she would demonstrate her escape if they’d gotten it wrong.

After several full days of training, the first half-dozen guards could do it reliably. Shining Armor inspected their work, but Double Time didn’t speak to him while he was there. She was careful never to speak with him, except indirectly, and to never be alone with him.

The next week, she trained another half-dozen guards. The week after that, she had a class of eight. Then more. After each training session, she went back to her cell and sat alone.

In the second month of her captivity, she was summoned to the palace baths.

She’d never been on that particular level of the Crystal Palace before. One entire wing of the building was given over to an elaborate classical bathhouse, with dozens of pools of varying temperatures and cute little bath-ponies with exotic soaps. When Double arrived, she found two crystal ponies and two changeling guards watching the entrance.

They told her to wait in the corner until the princess wanted her. From the edge of the bathhouse, she could see Cadence, Shining, and Amaryllis all in a pool together. Amaryllis was talking with great energy, making elaborate and excited gestures as she spoke. The tiles and sounds of hissing steam distorted her voice, and Double couldn’t quite make out the words.

Her shell had turned white though, so the water must have been quite hot.

Eventually, they all got out of the bath. Amaryllis kissed Shining, then she kissed Cadence, then they all said a few more words and she left. Cadence and Shining whispered privately to each other for a few minutes after, and he left as well.

Then Cadence called her over. “Do you know how to take care of changeling grubs?”

“I’m not a nursery worker.” Double frowned. “I know the basics.”

“Amaryllis left some grubs behind, and it didn’t occur to her that she should leave a nanny with them. She assumed we’d have one. But I have no idea how to raise an insect.” Still soaking wet, Cadence gestured at a side room near the baths. “They’re in there.”

Investigating, Double found a small room that had been converted into a nursery. Flurry was there, along with a servant to care for her, and a half-dozen changeling grubs with blue stripes down their backs. Flurry was levitating her half-siblings through the air like a mobile, something the grubs found less delightful than she did.

It took Double a few minutes to coax Flurry down and take stock of the situation. When she had, she emerged back into the baths: “I’ll need your help.”

Cadence had a towel around her shoulders and was almost finished drying off. The look she shot Double could kill. “What’s the problem?”

“They’re hungry. They need somepony to care about them.”

She snorted. “I thought you shared love, these days.”

“We do. But I’m almost empty myself. I’ve been alone in that cell downstairs for a long time.” She let out a breath. “And you’re the Princess of Love, aren’t you? You cured King Thorax of his eternal hunger.”

“I cared about Thorax.”

Double buzzed her wings. “You don’t care if children starve to death?”

Cadence shut her eyes and rubbed her temples with a hoof. “Bring them over here.”

Cadence took a seat by the side of the water, and one by one, Double brought the grubs to her. She played with them, learned their names, and watched them try to scuttle around on their stub-legs to eat a trail of leaves. They vomited acid on toys, then got scared of the acid smell, and ran to hide behind Cadence’s legs.

Finally, after she’d played with them, Cadence’s horn would glow. The grub in front of her would radiate a soft pink, then get sleepy and curl up. Double took it away, and brought the next one.

When she brought the fourth grub, Double said, “I saw Amaryllis kiss you.”

“She’s just being polite,” Cadence explained, her tone stiff. “After all, I might be jealous that Shining gets to sleep around. So if I want, she’s happy to turn into a stallion and share the love.”

“She…” Double put the grub she was carrying down. It latched onto a toy and started to drool. “She doesn’t understand what’s wrong with that. She’s from a culture where she’s literally the only one with a sex drive. I understand pony culture because I spent a lot of time with you, but she didn’t. She doesn’t understand romance or jealousy or attachment.”

“I know. I know.” Cadence grasped the toy with her telekinesis, and the grub latched on all the tighter. “She asks questions like she’s a teenager who’s never had ‘the talk.’ Questions about love and sex and relationships and what stallions are supposed to look like down there. Apprantly she just learned the word ‘orgasm’ this month.”

“Yeah, vespid doesn’t have a word for it. ‘Setijd’ means ‘pleasure derived from sexual urges’ but that can mean anything from an orgy to feeling happy because you thought about a pretty stallion.”

Cadence shot Double a stiff smile. “I know,” she said again. Then she went back to playing with the grub.

When it was fed, Double took it away and brought another. Then she asked another question: “What were you talking about? Queen Amaryllis seemed excited.”

“Her experts—I’m sorry, the pony experts she kidnapped—told her that the average changeling worker drone is ignorant and illiterate. So she wants to build a university up in the hive, and hire all the best pony professors to teach there. And she asked for our help. Because we’re such good friends.”

Double watched in silence. Her own shell was starting to turn white in places from exposure to the steam. “She really does think you’re friends. She thinks Shining is something fun the two of you have in common. My hive is just as ignorant about pony society as Thorax’s hive. We’re just as new to friendship.”

“So Shining reminded me.” Cadence lifted her head to Double. “Does he feel anything for her?”

“Some…” Double picked her words carefully. “Mild affection.”

“She’s the mother of most of his children and he only feels mild affection?” She snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be good at lying.”

Cadence fed the grub in front of her. When Double brought the last grub, she didn’t say anything. And when that grub was done, she stayed by Cadence’s side. “I’m running pretty low too,” she reminded her.

“I don’t love you,” Cadence replied, but after a moment she added, “but a while ago, you mentioned two foals: Night something and Sapphire. Do they love you?”

“I uh… yes.” Double cleared her throat. “But they’re down in Canterlot.”

“You said their parents abused them. I asked somepony to look into it. Apparently you weren't lying about that, so they’re on a train from Equestria right now. I can fix what’s wrong with their parents, and they can be a happy family again.” Cadence licked her lips, and looked down at the last grub sleeping in front of her. “Can you wait another day or two?”

“Yeah,” Double said. “That would be fine.”

“Feather!” the little ones shouted, piling in on top of Double Time. She’d assumed the form of Feather Dust before they arrived, and she wrapped them up in a tight hug. “Mom and dad said you were coming back after all, and we got to ride on a train, and there are ponies outside made of diamonds and stuff, and there’s a princess right there!”

Cadence was right there. She gave the children a hug too.

What was supposed to be a thirty-minute visitation with the princess stretched into a whole day. Double Time got to take care of Night Watch and Sapphire, and even introduced them to Flurry and the changeling grubs. Cadence cleared her schedule so she could spend all the time she needed with their parents.

When she finally worked her magic, the parents cried. They hugged their children tighter than they ever had and told them they were sorry. Double Time watched that hug, and eyed the bond between them.

Then she told the children goodbye, and left.

Cadence found Double Time upstairs. The grubs weren’t allowed in the royal suite with Flurry, so they got their own nursery up the hall. Double stood guard outside it.

“They’re gone,” Cadence said. “I’ll check in with them in a few months to make sure everything is okay, but I’m not worried.”

“You turned them into totally different ponies.” Double looked away from Cadence, staring down the palace’s wide hallways. “I’ve never seen them care like that.”

“I didn’t.” Cadence smiled gently. “Everypony has the potential to love. They only needed a little encouragement.”

“Well, good. You did your pony princess thing, I got fed for a few more weeks. Everyone wins.”

Cadence’s smile faded. “I saw… that is, when you left, you didn’t seem particularly happy.”

“Do I often seem happy?”

“No, but I saw you with the little ones. And their parents told me about how long you pretended to be a nanny.” Cadence bit her lip. “I… might have misjudged—”

“You judged just fine,” Double snapped. “I am a whore. I am literally a whore. I paid for rent in Canterlot by getting ponies to fall in love with me for an evening, and that costs two thousand bits. And you’re right. I have killed a lot of ponies. And no, I don’t regret winning. Winning is the natural state of creatures who come into conflict with you, because you are weak, and your husband is incompetent.”

Cadence pulled her head back and grimaced. But she didn’t rise to the bait, and after a few moments of consideration, she gave a level nod. “I will expect you to continuing caring for the grubs as long as they’re here.”

“As you wish,” Double said. She still didn’t look at Cadence.

Double was in the grubs' nursery when the door handle turned behind her. By the time the latch clicked open, she was a crystal pony mare, dressed in a servant’s uniform.

“Hello?” Shining Armor called, pushing his way into the room. The grubs were on the floor, curled up in little pools of changeling resin or playing with half-melted toys.

“Ah! Your highness.” Double bowed in the traditional fashion. Her voice had a hint of an accent, suggesting she was around during Sombra’s reign.

Shining gave her a long stare, then said: “I know it’s you, Double.”

Somewhat sheepishly, Double stood up and reverted to her natural form. “Then, with respect, I shouldn’t be alone with you. Cadence wouldn’t like it.”

“I won’t be long. I only…” With an almost helpless shrug, he gestured at the grubs.

Double nodded, and her horn glowed as she levitated one of the grubs up to him. “Do you know their names?”

“Um. No.” He held the grub delicately, like the slightest jostle might hurt it. With half a laugh, he added, “I suppose I should know my own children’s names.”

“Changeling queens lay eggs in batches of ten thousand. Learning all of your children’s names may be impractical. But this one is named Cheval.” Double Time reached up to grasp Shining’s hooves, showing him the correct way to hold the grub. “It is a play on words. In vespid, it means ‘horse’ but it is phonetic with another word that refers to an archaic type of mirror.”

“Horse-mirror?” Shining smiled, and grub clung to his leg. Then it started to drool. “Oh, uh. Is its drool supposed to burn?”

“Yes. It’s acidic.” Double reached out to take the grub back, but Shining waved her away.

“Well, it doesn’t burn that bad.” He tickled the grub's back with a hoof, and it let out a high-pitched squeak. Finally he coaxed it into letting go of his leg, and with his telekinesis, he levitated it up in front of him. “What’s he like?”

“What’s she like,” Double corrected. “And… playful. She can’t throw her toys yet, but she likes to headbutt them across the room and fetch them. Sometimes, when her playmates knock a toy away, she’ll bring it back to them. She gets upset when they don’t understand. She wants to play fetch.”

“I liked tossing a ball around when I was little,” Shining said. He hugged Cheval up against his chest, letting her little legs cling tight to his coat. “Will she be like me?”

“She’s got a fuzzy blue stripe down her back.” Double glanced at Shining’s mane. “That wasn’t a giveaway?”

“I know she inherits from me in the biological sense, but…” He let out a long breath. “Changelings aren’t ponies. Will she have my sense of right and wrong? Or… my talents? I couldn’t learn transformation magic to save my life.”

“I don’t know. My father was a unicorn wizard, and eggs in my clutch were much more likely than average to become spellcasters, so the inheritance isn’t entirely superficial. But I’m told my father was also an honorable, honest pony. So.” She shrugged.

Shining Armor chuckled, watching Cheval crawl up his coat and over his shoulder. “Not all changelings are liars.”

“No, some of us are stupid.”

“King Thorax is honest.”

“See previous statement.” Double laughed. “Just because he’s the savior of our species doesn’t mean he’s clever. I’ve heard him speak. He is sweet as an apple, and sharp as an apple too.”

“Yeah yeah. I’ve been thinking of having him over. Cadence likes him. But whenever he and Amaryllis are in the same room, things get tense.” Shining picked up Cheval, and she cooed softly in his telekinetic grip. “Territorial instinct or something.”

Double shook her head. “Would it be fair to say that what you’re really asking is, ‘am I this changeling’s father’?”

“I…” Shining bit his lip. “I suppose it is.”

“In vespid, the word for ‘parent’ literally means, ‘someone who loves the children in their care.’ Grubs that aren’t loved starve to death. Every changeling knows that. And we look at ponies, and we see parents who love their children. And we think that makes perfect sense. That’s what parents are. How could it be any other way?”

With a nod of her head, she indicated the grubs. “If you raise them as your daughters, and if you love them, and if they see, and smell, and taste your love, then you will be their father. And if you don’t, they’ll be one of ten thousand changeling drones who shares your bloodline but doesn’t think of you as family.”

“Nice speech.” Shining chuckled again, and carefully put Cheval down. “But I don’t think Cadence would like it very much if we adopted six grubs.”

“Probably not,” Double agreed. “How long are they going to be here?”

“I don’t know. Until Amaryllis comes back I suppose.”

Double frowned. “But just to double check, Amaryllis did say she was coming back to get these grubs at some point, right?”

Shining froze. Double’s eyes narrowed, and she raised her voice. “Are you completely sure that these were a loan and not a gift?”

"You can't..." Shining looked at the door. “You can't give children as a gift. Right?"

The next time Double saw Cadence, she was crying.

Chapter 4

The servants had shown Double into the royal suite. They said Cadence needed to talk to her about caring for the grubs. Shining had left the castle about an hour previously, and Double presumed that everything had been fine when he left. He wouldn’t have left his wife in distress.

And yet, when she arrived, she found Cadence curled up on her couch, sobbing into the pillows.

She didn’t realize Double was there. Tears streamed down her face. Her nose filled with snot. Neither Shining nor Flurry were home, and her wail echoed off the crystal walls and through the empty rooms.

Finally, Double cleared her throat. Cadence’s head shot up, and she whirled to face the intruder in her living room.

Her crying stopped instantly. She stared at Double with wide, bloodshot eyes. Her makeup ran in streaks down her face. Double stared back. Her own eyes were a uniform pale blue, lacking iris or pupil.

“A princess,” Double finally said, “should not be seen in this state. May I bring tissues and tell the servants to cancel your appointments this afternoon?”

Cadence nodded, and so Double brought her a stack of handkerchiefs from the linen closet, then told the servants up the hall that the princess was occupied for the next several hours. When she returned to the royal suite, Cadence had vanished, and the sound of running water carried from the bathroom.

When Cadence emerged, she was more coherent than she’d been. Blowing her nose and scrubbing off her makeup did wonders to restore her dignity, though the hot water and hard scrubbing left her mane and coat sticking up in awkward tufts.

“Thank you,” she said to Double, and though her voice was hoarse, she kept it free of emotion. She sounded dignified. “That was very kind. I’d like you to go now, please.”

“With your permission, Princess, I would like to stay to see if I can offer any useful advice,” Double Time kept her tone neutral and defferent, like a proper servant. “Assuming that it is Queen Amaryllis’s actions that have hurt you so much.”

Cadence sniffled. With a hoof, she brushed down a stray hair that her harsh scrubbing had disturbed. “Yes. Very well,” she said. She sat back down on her couch, and Double sat beside her.

After a long silence, Double asked: “What happened?”

“Amaryllis said the grubs…” Cadence trailed off, and needed a moment to find her words. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat, and lifted a tissue to blow her nose. “Are a gift to Shining and I. So we can raise some of his daughters personally. And so Flurry can have sisters. Changeling sisters are probably all she’ll ever have, since Shining and I have been going at it like newlyweds for years and only have one foal, so I probably can’t have more children. And she’s really looking forward to seeing Flurry and her siblings playing together the next time she visits.”

A smile split Cadence’s face, and the lines around her eyes reappeared. “Of course, I don’t want to raise six changelings. I don’t want to raise any changelings. And if they have to be in the palace, they’re not sharing a nursery with Flurry. They’re not. They can stay up the hall where they are now. And I said that, and Amaryllis asked, so politely, ‘Are you saying my bloodline isn’t legitimate?’ And I don’t know how much you know about the nobility. But in noble circles, that’s…”

Cadence punched one hoof into the other. “Those are fighting words. That’s how a noble screams, ‘oh, it’s on now.’ That if Amaryllis doesn’t see Flurry and her half-sisters playing blocks, there’ll be consequences.”

“Mmmph.” Double nodded. “Are you going to comply with her demands?”

“We weren’t.” Cadence shook her head. “Shining gave a big speech and everything. About how… about love and our marriage and ridiculous sentiments. About how this was my house and no creature could tell me how to raise my foal. And he held me and it felt like our wedding all over again. And he said that if we were going to war, the second round would be different. There would be time for Twilight and Celestia and Luna to come and help us. And Amaryllis is afraid of those three. Last time she caught us by surprise, but who wouldn’t be afraid of all four alicorns?”

“You could even get Thorax to help,” Double suggested.

“Thorax offered,” Cadence agreed. “He said he and his brother and all their volunteers would rush to our aid any time we asked. But he’s the only one.”

She stared down at the couch, her hooves wrapped up tight around her. “Luna and Celestia feel that… they can’t justify starting a war over a few children playing together. And Twilight wants to help, but doesn’t want to go against Celestia. And so I asked Shining, we can still win without them, right? We learned from the last war, and the army is better now.”

She pointed at her eyes with a hoof, and her voice cracked: “And he looked me right in the eyes and he lied to me.”

Cadence had to stop for a time, pulling another tissue from the box and blowing into it. “I never wanted to be a princess. I was a matchmaker. I flitted around and helped ponies fall in love and giggled in the bushes when they had their first kiss. Then suddenly, I had a horn and magic, and everypony is telling me how lucky I am. That I have all this power. So powerful I can’t even decide how to raise my only child.”

For a time, Double didn’t speak. The silence was broken by Cadence blowing her nose again. “We called the griffons for help too,” she mumbled. “They said we should surrender now and get it over with.”

“There’s an obvious solution,” Double finally said, speakingly firmly and clearly. “You could let the grubs share a nursery with Flurry, and then treat them badly. Shuffle them off into a closet. Tell them they’re not to speak except when spoken to. Comply with the letter of the demand, but make it clear it's your house, and your daughter is the only one who deserves love.”

Cadence’s face twisted into a frown, and her eyes narrowed as she stared at Double. Double interrupted whatever she was about to say: “But I don’t think you can do that.”

Double circled a hoof in the air to make it clear she wasn’t done speaking. “I mean, I honestly think you’re incapable of that. For all your flaws, I don’t think you could hate a child because of the actions of their mother. And that’s why this burns so bad. Because you know once you spend time with them, you’ll see six little creatures just trying to grow up and make you happy. And you’ll love them, and then you’ll be raising Amaryllis’s children as your own.”

Then Double said: “And, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Not being able to hate a child. It’s good that being an Equestrian princess still means something. Still means something good. You’re not the goddesses everypony thinks you are, but you’re still…”

She trailed off, turning to stare into the corner. Cadence looked at the other corner.

“Sometimes,” Double continued, “I wish I could hate like I used too. Then I could hate you. You took my children away. You took the two little foals I loved and cared for, and who I was going to give up everything for, and you gave them away to two ponies whose only claim to them was having a working reproductive system. You tore my heart out, and you think so little of me it didn’t even occur to you you were doing it.”

Double’s compound eyes could not water. Her wings buzzed instead, flicking back and forth inside their covers. “But it’s okay. Because they really will be happier being raised by two ponies. You know, creatures who actually know what their lives are like, or whose advice for dealing with schoolyard bullies doesn’t involve garotte wire. So even if you had thought of me, you wouldn’t have done anything differently. You shouldn’t have. So I can’t hate you. But I really want to.

“And that makes me feel helpless too.”

Cadence’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes darted back and forth over Double. “You’re making that up.”

“Yup. It’s a great act.” Double snorted. When Cadence continued to stare, Double pointed with a hoof. “But see? This is what I mean about you being special. You realize you screwed up and you instantly feel bad. Most ponies have these things called ‘grudges,’ or ‘pride.’ It takes them a while to admit they were wrong.”

“I have pride.”

“Not like other ponies have pride.” Double’s wings buzzed, and she folded back her ears. “And, another thing? I think if you were a stallion, and you slept with Queen Amaryllis, and she had your children? I think you’d fall in love with her. At least a little. I think you couldn’t stop yourself from seeing the good in her. But Shining isn’t like you, and I swear, all he feels for her is a mild affection.”

Cadence’s eyes traveled over Double again, then went down to the couch. In hesitant tones, she answered: “You make me sound like a lovestruck teenager.”

“I make you sound like somepony who physically embodies love and affection to the point they became another species.” Double pointed at Cadence’s hindquarters. “Have you ever slept with anypony other than Shining? Ever?”

“Heh.” Cadence looked at the couch. “You’ll ruin my reputation as the easiest mare in Equestria.” Fiddling with her hooves, she added: “I’m sorry I called you a whore.”

“I am a whore.”

“So? I’m a whore. Shining’s a whore. He and Amaryllis do it and the Princess of Love watches. It’s a great rate though. I get paid with a whole kingdom.”

“Actually, if whores get paid enough, they’re called courtesans. That’s the fancy term.”

A small smile appeared on Cadence’s face. It didn’t last long, but when it faded, she at least wasn’t frowning anymore. “Fine. I’m a courtesan. With a fancy dress and a fan and too much makeup.”

“Light tells me you like Shining that way.”

“Light is a nosey bitch who needs to mind her own business.”

Double laughed. “Yeah.” After a moment, she straightened up. “I’m sorry. I promised practical advice, but I’m not an officer or a politician. I have no idea what might make Amaryllis back down. All I can say is, please don’t feel ashamed that you’re a good pony. And, you’re not weak. And your husband isn’t incompetent. When I said that, I was angry.”

“I know. I know. It’s okay. I’m sorry I was so thoughtless.” Cadence sniffled but her voice was not so ragged as it had been. “I’ll figure out a way to get out of this. I’ll think of something.”

“Good. And don’t worry about the grubs. I’ll take perfect care of them until you and Shining decide what you’re going to do.” Double rose from where she sat. “You want me to tell the servants you’re okay again?”

“Wait.” Cadence reached out a hoof to rest it over Double’s. For a moment, they each looked down at that point of physical contact.

“You could stay,” she said.

Hesitantly, Double Time sat back down. “Okay,” she said. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been keeping you as a servant, haven’t I? Involuntarily. I suppose that makes you a slave.”

“Probably,” Double agreed. “I was hoping to ask for time served though. You know. At the end.”

“Sure. But I’m supposed to be… judging you, I suppose. And I don’t know anything about you. Other than that you wanted to adopt two foals in Canterlot, and that I messed that up.”

“I’m not complicated. I’m an art student, a veteran, and an expensive whore. Pick one.”

“Tell me…” Cadence bit her lip. “Tell me about the war?”

“Don’t want to talk about the war.” Double locked eyes with Cadence. “You want to talk about art?”

They talked for another hour. Cadence had three stiff drinks from a liquor cabinet.

“What is it with mares in this family and being uncomfortable with sex?” Double asked. He was a he, and for the moment, had eyes that could roll. He took the opportunity to roll them.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Cadence blushed. “You’re… hot. I like the way this body looks. You are objectively physically attractive.”

In truth, Double looked not entirely unlike Shining Armor, had he been born a mare. Bishonen was the term. He had a smaller, more feminine body, flowing green hair, and wide expressive eyes. He also wore entirely too much makeup, with his whole face painted white and black lines added around his eyes. He could pass for a mare in public, so long as nopony looked between his legs.

“‘Objectively physically attractive.’” The sarcasm was implicit.

“I’ve never slept with a pony I didn’t love before.” Cadence frowned. “Sex is supposed to be spontaneous. Something that happens because I see Shining and I feel that way about him. Making it happen is… different.”

“You could get started slow. Nibble on my ears.”

“You don’t actually like having your ears nibbled. Do you?”

“I’ve seen Shining’s ears. I know you like it.”

The blush on Cadence’s face deepend. Shining wore makeup to hide the marks, but he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. “That’s not the point. That’s sexy because he likes it. Hearing him moan or gasp or cry out is fun because I know he means it. If the other pony is faking it, what’s the point?”

After a moment, Cadence added: “But I guess you can’t really mean it. Except that one time with Shining.”

“Eh. It wasn’t that great. Psychic-gestalt secondhoof sex is highly overrated.” Double mulled the matter over for a moment, then stepped up to Cadence. “But, you feel some affection for me? I mean, I assume.”

“A little, I guess.” Cadence rubbed the back of her head. “It’s complicated.”

“Sure. But do you think you could work your magic?”

“Oh. You’re running low again. Right.” Cadence’s horn glowed a soft pink, and a thin trail of the same color connected her and Double. “How’s that?”

“Weak. Your feelings on me must be complicated.” Double grinned. But he stepped up to her, and put a hoof on her neck. She was so much taller than him, he barely came up past her shoulder. “Lean down?”

Slowly, hesitantly, Cadence leaned down. Double put his teeth around the tip of her horn. “Ready?”

Cadence mumbled in the affirmative. The flow of color and light between them, once a slow and lazy stream, quickened into a fast-moving brook. Double drank in Cadence’s energy, and she let out an involuntary moan. Spots appeared in her vision. She went weak at the knees, her tail lashing behind her. “Stop. Stop!” she finally cried out.

Double stopped, pulling his head away from her. Shivers traveled up and down Cadence’s body, like ripples echoing around a pond. Around another groan, she managed to speak: “That felt so much like being Queen Chrysalis's prisoner again.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

After a moment, Cadence licked her lips. “No. But go more slowly.”

Double kissed Cadence first. She kissed him back.

Then they did it like it was the old days all over again.

Chapter 5

Double and Cadence lay together in bed. Double was molded into Cadence’s back, with his legs wrapped around her barrel. She was so much larger than him, that with his head tucked into her shoulder, his hind legs didn’t even reach her hips.

But that didn’t matter. She liked being held that way, and her shoulder was warm. Her voluminous curled mane wrapped over Double like a blanket, and their colors mingled on the sheets.

They lay there for a long time, alternately sleeping and watching the afternoon sun work its way across the bedroom. Cadence didn’t feel like moving, in part because she was exhausted, and in part because her legs were still stuck together by changeling resin. Double didn’t feel like moving either. He’d enjoyed himself, and as was traditional during a feast, overate.

Eventually however, he noticed Cadence’s ears twitching, and inferred that she was awake and alert. He kissed the side of her neck and asked: “When is Shining going to be back?”

“This evening.” She let out a long breath. “I should start cleaning up soon.”

“He does know about this, right?”

“I have his permission if that’s what you mean. But that doesn’t mean I want him to find me with my legs tied together.” She let out a stiff grunt, rolling her shoulder. “Are the… marks on my flanks visible?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t look,” she chided.

“I know how hard I cropped you. They’re visible.” Double murmured, shutting his eyes and tucking his head back into her shoulder. “But, it doesn’t matter. Let them show. You should be honest with Shining. If you think that sort of thing is fun, maybe he’d indulge you.”

“I’m not worried about Shining. I have duties this evening.” She squirmed in place, but did not yet ask Double to remove her bindings. “I can’t hold court with my neck covered in hickies and my hindquarters covered in welts.”

“You’re royalty. Show up in court with whipped flanks, and everypony will decide it’s in fashion.” Double smirked. “You’ll have courtiers asking you to sign their riding crops.”

Cadence rolled her eyes. “Amazing how I never thought of that.”

“Mmm.” Double cracked an eye. “You want me to let you go?”

“Remove the resin, please, but don’t get up just yet. I want to talk.”

“About this?” Double’s horn glowed, and the resin binding Cadence’s legs together melted away into harmless goo.

“No.” Cadence grunted and stretched, taking a moment to think things over. “This was fun. I got to experiment, and I really needed to blow off some stress. And it feels good to know what I’m missing, so I don’t wonder. But I don’t think it’s something I want to do again. Sex really is better when it’s an expression of love.”

“Is it better because of the love, or because the pony you’re sleeping with is Shining Armor?” Double’s smirk returned. “Because I hear he’s pretty good.”

“Because of the love,” Cadence replied, her tone dry. After a moment she added, “Though he is something special.”

“Mmph.” Double shifted in place, wrapping his legs tighter around Cadence’s barrel. “What’d you want to talk about then?”

“The war.”

Double’s shifting motions abruptly stopped, his body freezing in place. “I don’t want to talk about the war, remember? But I’ll tell you all about art theory if you want. Fifth century painting is fascinating.”

“I remember that. But I also remember Amaryllis giving you a direct order that you had to obey my commands and answer my questions.” Silence hung in the air after Cadence spoke, so she nudged with a gentle, “Isn’t that right?”

A slight breath escaped Double, and his body remained stiff against hers. “Really? You’re still sticky and sore and you decide this is the optimal time for exerting authority?”

“That’s not—”

“I don’t want to talk about the war,” he forcefully spoke over her. “It’s over. You lost. You lost badly, in fact. Reliving the details of your humiliation won’t change what happens next.”

Cadence refused to rise to the bait, her own tone smooth and calm. “I know we lost,” she said, and she reached up with a hoof to brush his. “But I still don’t know why we lost. Every time I look at Shining, I see an intelligent, thoughtful, capable leader. But I’m not deaf to all the ponies whispering that he’s inept.”

“I wasn’t an officer, and I’ve never served under him,” Double’s tone turned snappish. “I’m not qualified to comment on his merits as a commander.”

“There are other reasons I need your perspective.” She stretched out a wing, and cracked her joints. “What does Amaryllis want from us, now that she doesn’t need love to survive? If I raise those six grubs as my own, will they be loyal to me as their mother and Flurry as their sister? Or will they be loyal to Amaryllis? Is ‘if I’m ordered to kill I will kill’ something you’re born into, or raised into? If Amaryllis orders her reformed changelings to sack the Crystal Empire, will they even obey?”

“You have advisors to tell you all that.”

“Our performance to date suggests my advisors don’t understand your hive very well.” Cadence let out a breath. “That’s why I’m asking you. I need to understand your people if I’m going to find a way out of this.”

“Talk to Thorax then. I can’t help you.” Double pulled his legs out from under Cadence, and scooted to his side of the bed. With a flash of green light, he ceased to be a he—reverting to her natural form. “But hey, I have some magic that’ll help you hide those crop marks. Comes up a lot in my day job, you know.”

Double had just risen from the bed when Cadence said: “Sometimes, Shining wakes up screaming.”

One step away from the bed, Double stopped moving. Cadence rolled over to face her. “In the middle of the night, I’ll hear him whimpering. When I wake up and look over, he’s shaking in his sleep. If I shake him awake, he’ll scream like I was hurting him, but I don’t want to leave him there.”

For a few moments, Double didn’t say anything. She didn’t look back at Cadence either, staring ahead at the door. “What does this have to do with me?”

“When I ask him what he was seeing, he says the same thing. He doesn’t want to talk about it. I think it hurts him to remember.”

“It should hurt him. I don’t want to talk about murdering his friends. He doesn’t want to talk about his friends being murdered.” Double spit out the words, her tone turning nakedly hostile. “They’re not the same thing.”

“What was it you said to me on the train? ‘Should I be more afraid to die than to kill?’ It stuck with me at the time, though I didn’t realize what it meant until now.” She propped herself up on her forelegs. “Not exactly the sentiment of a merciless soldier, is it?”

Before Double could answer, she reached out across the bed. “Double, I know it hurts but… you said you were sorry. That you regret what you did and you never wanted it to happen again. This is where you can stop history from repeating itself. Where you can help me avert a war. This is where you can prove that I was wrong about you and that you do deserve Shining’s forgiveness.

“Please. Help me make things right again.”

Double stood there in silence for a long time.

Then she sat down, and started to talk.

To understand the war, you need to understand the changelings that fought it. The way it happened won’t make any sense, otherwise.

To start with, we’re a hive species. That’s because, unlike bread, love can’t be stored for the winter. There’s no way to store it at all, except inside a changeling, and once it was inside us it spoiled quickly. No matter how well things went on any given day, the hive was always on the edge of starvation.

It got even more complicated when you consider that the amount of love a gatherer could steal from a given pony was not consistent. Sometimes, they found enough love in a single evening to feed hundreds of changelings. Sometimes they couldn’t even feed themselves for weeks on end.

You know how we solved this problem. All the gatherers brought their take back to the hive, and the queen redistributed it to ensure everyone got fed. You know that. But I don’t think you understand the implications of that solution.

Imagine, every day, you woke up so hungry that your stomach hurt. So hungry that you fantasized about chewing off your own leg. And every morning, you had to go to Celestia and beg for a loaf of bread.

Picture that. Picture Celestia deciding if she likes you. If she likes you, you get a loaf of bread. If she really likes you, you get two loaves, so the next morning you can have the absolutely decadent sensation of not waking up starving. If she doesn’t like you, you walk away with nothing.

In this scenario you’re picturing, I’m guessing you’re on your knees. You’re saying “please” a lot and crying. You’re telling Celestia she’s beautiful and reminding her of all you’ve done for her, and promising that you’ll do anything she wants if she just finds mercy in her heart.

It’s nothing like that. That’s what it looks like when a creature has to beg for a day. Just the one day.

The nymphs worship her. They’re stupid—the way all small children are stupid. They’re illiterate, ignorant, and frightened. When I was that age, a lot of us thought she was the source of love, some kind of font of power into the world. We’d make little carvings of her and practice bowing down to them. Whenever she addressed the hive, we’d talk about her speech for hours. If she used big words and we didn’t know what they meant, we’d make something up.

Once, she visited my training group, and looked at a nymph who had an uncommonly brightly colored shell. I don’t remember the nymph’s name. Amaryllis said, “This one is very red,” and moved on. We talked about it for hours, whispering to each other as we worked on our assignments. What did it mean? What did “very red” mean? What did she think about red?

Then someone asked, did it seem like we got less food today? Terror gripped all of us. Red was bad. We were bad. So after hours, we snuck out of our pods, and hid every red object in the instruction space.

Then we took the nymph with the bright shell and beat her to death.

I would have been… six, then. Or seven, maybe. I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.

As we got older and more curious, we learned things about Amaryllis. Things that got whispered from pod to pod. Wonderful things that seemed so fantastic we thought they couldn’t possibly be real.

Did you know she’s immortal? I heard that all of us come from tiny eggs she grows inside herself. A worker told me that she can do magic no other changeling can. Do you think it’s true she fought the sun?

Eventually, the nymphs realized… we, realized, that we weren’t being stupid children. That all those things were true. That she was more than us. She brought us into this world, she gave us life, and when the time came that we were old and useless and a burden on the others, she would reclaim the last of our energy.

She was the beginning and the end and the center of our world. She was the hive. And without her we were nothing. Without her we’d just be insects waiting to die.

Later, we were sorted into roles based on our teachers’ assessments of our talents. The idiots become laborers. I was considered gifted, and so was to be trained for field work. That means one of the three castes that works with ponies: gatherers, scouts, and infiltrators.

We learned equish, first to speak, then to read and write. It was the first time I ever heard of the concept of letters, since vespid has no written form. The hive’s best transfigurists taught us the art of shapeshifting. And we learned about pony culture, from books and prisoners.

One of my classmates in field work training was named Shade. We sat next to each other, worked on all the joint projects together. Changelings didn’t have friends in those days, but she was someone I trusted to watch my back. We knew each other for years.

One day, Shade said, “In the books, it says that regular ponies can become alicorns with enough magic, right? Do you think that Amaryllis is a regular changeling who collected enough love? That any of us could be like her?”

I was furious. Not only was talk like that a crime, failing to report it was also a crime. I knew that if any other changeling had overheard us, and I failed to turn her in, I’d share her fate. I slapped her and called her an idiot, but she insisted that it was fine. We were alone.

We weren’t alone. Three other changelings overheard us. But, I was the first one to turn her in. So I didn’t get in any trouble. I got a little gold band painted on my shell, and Shade...

Shade got all four of her legs broken, her horn notched, and then we pushed her into an oubliette with starving wolves inside. I pushed her.

Which you knew. Of course you knew. I’m not a very good storyteller. It’s predictable. If I name a character, and it’s not me or Amaryllis, spoiler, they don’t live to the end.

I graduated, top of the class. I told you earlier there were three castes that deal with ponies. Gatherers are… were, the most common, and stole love. Scouts acquire information. Infiltrators though, are a purely military caste. We’re assassins, saboteurs, or anything else we need to be. All the field castes can use their shapeshifting powers to blend in, but infiltrators go further. We train specifically to attack targets that are alert to the fact that there might be shapeshifters around. To counter the techniques meant to counter us. That will matter, later in the story.

I swore the oath for the first time. If I am ordered to kill I will kill, if I am ordered to die I will die, all that. I believed every word. I was nothing without her. We were all nothing without her.

Shade didn’t understand that. Which is why she was dead, the dumb bitch.

I’d like to skip my early career if that’s okay. It wasn’t particularly notable. It mostly involved griffons anyway. That was frustrating. Train for years to mimic ponies, specifically ponies, and my first assignment is to go to Griffonstone and strangle some chick.

The thing that matters is, this is when you kicked Chrysalis out of Canterlot. That got our attention. The order was not to antagonize you. We canceled a few missions in Equestria, and made sure the others stayed out of your way. We didn’t know how you beat her, and we didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the same trick.

It was the same when you reclaimed the Crystal Empire. Our scouts saw you vaporize King Sombra. One of them was too close and got vaporized herself. Tangling with you seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

Until you reformed Thorax’s hive.

I’m not sure I can really explain the sense of revulsion I felt, the first time I saw a reformed changeling. Imagine a town of ponies all mutated into eight-tentacled beasts that survived by vomiting into each other's mouths, and they said that if you share the food, there’s enough for everyone.

The first reformed changeling I ever met was named Dopple. Broke her neck.

That was what I was supposed to do. The order was that “reform” was a plague ponykind created to destroy us. An infection that jumps from changeling to changeling. All such ideas were to be censored without exception, and any changeling spreading them would be subject to summary execution.

It didn’t work. Thorax’s agents were in the hive. We could kill the reformers whenever we caught them, but there were always more. They talked about how they were never hungry, and how there was always enough for everyone.

We… the infiltrators, the soldiers, the skalvadkt, we knew better. These new ideas were nonsense. Or we thought they were. Looking back, there were a lot of reasons. Part of it was that we were exceptionally loyal. Part of it was that we were a higher priority for rationing than the laborers, and so we didn’t feel the sting of hunger quite so acutely.

But the laborers were open to persuasion. When you’re actually starving, eating vomit can sound better than eating nothing. Rumors spread and we couldn’t put them down.

I was frightened. But then Amaryllis said she had a plan. And when I heard it, I felt better. And we were all reassured. She always knew what was best.

You, we’d realized, really were a font of love into the world. And the Crystal Heart was an artifact capable of storing love without letting it spoil. If we possesed you, Shining, and the Heart, there really would be enough for everyone. The hive would never go hungry again.

The laborers would all have enough. We’d be strong and prosperous like we’d never been before. And we’d have done it without twisting ourselves into a perversion. We’d still be changelings.

But, Amaryllis explained, such a feat could not be accomplished with naked force. That was Chrysalis’s mistake, and her arrogance and incompetence were what brought this plague into existence in the first place. Kidnapping you or conquering your kingdom would bring us into conflict with four alicorns and Equestria’s many allies. We could never hope to win such a battle.

Thus, you must be persuaded into giving up your powers and most precious artifact willingly. You and Shining would be cowed by a show of force, and when it appeared that you were entirely at our mercy, we would generously offer to leave you and your subjects in peace in return for your cooperation.

We determined that an assault on the Crystal Empire itself was unwise. Firstly, because it would risk the complete destruction of the army by means of the Crystal Heart. But second, because the scouts estimated that a successful or nearly successful assault on the Empire would be an intolerable threat to Equestria, and result in a prolonged war.

Thus, to achieve victory, we had to accomplish three objectives. First, your army had to be lured far beyond the perimeter of the Crystal Empire proper. Second, having been baited, your army had to be dealt a defeat so devastating it brought you to the negotiating table. Third, the war had to end quickly—before Celestia and the other alicorns could intervene.

You see what I meant earlier, when I said you needed to understand us to understand the war.

It makes no sense otherwise.

You are already aware of how we accomplished the first part of the plan. Attacking outlying villages, burning ponies alive, nailing them to the sides of their fishing boats, feeding them to their own sled dogs. Things that aren’t a military threat to Equestria, but that would get your and Shining’s blood hot. We also created other problems for Celestia, Luna, and Twilight. We kept them busy.

I wasn’t involved with that. The atrocities or the distractions. By then, I was already deployed in the Crystal Empire proper.

I met a baker named Sucrose. She made delicious cookies. So I murdered her and took her bakery. She did not die quickly. I needed to know how to run her shop, and I didn’t have time to get to know her properly or arrange some lessons on baking. So I stuck her in a pod, and drained the love and knowledge out of her until she was a lifeless, mindless shell.

Most changelings can’t do that, but I’m a wizard. I know a little dark magic. I still remember what all her sisters look like and what house they lived in growing up. It had a big rock out front they all liked to climb on.

You remember earlier, I said that infiltrators are specifically trained to counter techniques that counter shapeshifters. Shining was concerned that we would sabotage the army’s supplies, and he even thought about the danger we’d poison the rations. So he had spellcasters stationed at every commissariat, checking for shapeshifters. He also had the supplies sealed in crates before transport, to make it harder for anypony to casually tamper with them.

It’s a classic defense. It would have stopped a gatherer. Gatherers are kind of stupid. It would have stopped most scouts.

Infiltrators though, are trained to recruit traitors. Traitors are invaluable. Everypony always looks for the telltale signs of transformation magic. They become hyperfocused on the threat of shapeshifting, and forget more mundane dangers. They think that because somepony is actually who they seem to be, they’re automatically good.

I recruited the pony who sealed the crates. I told him that I ran a nice bakery, and I wanted to advertise to the soldiers. So every morning, I was going to give him fifty boxes of sugar cookies, with little red hearts and the name of my bakery written on them in icing. It was a gift for the troops, to keep their spirits up. All he had to do was put a few of them in with every ration.

Adding anything to the rations that hadn’t been inspected first was against the rules, but I said I’d give him a hundred bits a day if he found a way to work it out. He worked it out.

The sugar hid the taste of iodized manticore venom. I wanted something slow. If a pony ate a cookie and got sick, they’d throw the rest away. It had to take at least two or three days for the victims to start dropping dead. I also only poisoned one in three cookies at random. To make it harder to diagnose.

The pony who sealed the crates was named Quartz Hammer.

I never fought in the actual war itself. The battles. So, this next part is secondhoof. It’s what I was told by my officers, so consider it the changeling perspective.

When Shining set out to save the village ponies of the North from changeling raiders, he had a hundred and forty thousand ponies with him. Our entire army was less than a third that size. I’d have felt confidant in his place too. He fought a half-dozen minor battles as he pushed towards our hive, all victories.

But I’m not the only infiltrator. Six days after his army left the Crystal Empire, the feather flu broke out among his pegasus scouts. Then the crystal ponies started to develop gemcutter’s disorder. Soldiers would be fine one hour, and vomiting blood the next.

We gave him two more little victories. Just to string him along. On the tenth day his hundred and forty thousand were less than a hundred thousand effective. Twenty thousand so sick they couldn’t walk, and another twenty to carry the wounded.

Before you judge him too harshly, remember that up to this point, he’d only fought scattered raiders. He’d been sabotaged, yes. Sabotaged quite heavily. But everything he’d seen was consistent with a small, weak force, hoping to drive away a larger one with harassing tactics.

On the eleventh day, he woke up to find he had less than eighty-thousand soldiers who could stand. His communications with the Crystal Empire and Equestria had been cut off. No new supplies had arrived to replace the tainted ones. And our sappers had destroyed the bridges and roads behind him.

That was when he realized how much danger he was in. The retreat started that afternoon.

The order was, Shining’s army was to come under some significant form of attack every twenty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, without interruption. If they ever showed signs of making camp or ceasing to flee, the wounded wagons or other vulnerable units were to be attacked in force immediately.

That may seem strange, but circumstances made it possible. I don’t know who did it, but spreading the feather flu among the pegasus contingent was a masterstroke. Brilliantly executed. With nearly all of Shining’s air support in the wounded wagons, and most of his unicorns watching out for shapeshifters or tending the sick, we could conduct air raids with impunity.

And we did. When there were easy targets, we struck in small forces, or at night. When there weren't, we bombed them from high altitudes.

His shield spell protected the army from the worst of it, but that required him to stay awake, and it didn’t protect them from the need to march. His soldiers didn’t sleep for four days. The ones who weren’t sick would pass out mid-step, and lie in the snow. He wasn’t willing to leave them to die, so even more wagons and resources became occupied carrying them.

Finally, less than a day from the Crystal Empire, Shining realized he had to stop. He’d covered an incredible distance in a short time, driving his army harder than anypony thought they could be driven. Over destroyed bridges and wrecked roads, the army had covered an eleven-day trip in barely four. But the infantry had been on a forced march for eighty hours. They weren’t passing out in the snow; they were dropping dead.

So he made camp. And we attacked, when nearly everypony was asleep. That’s the actual battle most ponies think of, when they think of the War in the North. The one that everypony saw, when ponies fled back to the Empire and dropped their weapons as they ran.

Two days later, I heard that Shining would be going to negotiate surrender terms. That was my cue to abandon my disguise and rejoin the army. I was feeling smug. Flush with victory, you’d say.

Then I saw a reformed changeling in an otherwise normal infantry unit. And six more, in a support unit. A group of workers carrying supplies that had more reformers than normal changelings.

There was one in my queen’s entourage. I told myself that it was fine. She had everything under control. Once you surrendered, our power would be limitless. Then we’d kill all the deviants and traitors and live in plenty.

I don’t know what Shining said to her. To change her mind. To get her into bed. To connect with her. I don’t know what happened.

I guess you do.

Later, she called me into her throne room. By name. I didn’t think she knew my name before that, but I got the impression it wasn’t personal. A lot of changelings were being called in, one at a time. She had a list. I’d changed, by that point, and she commended me on my loyalty. On my flexibility. I served her in the old world, and I’d serve her in the new.

“Have you been embodying our new values?” she asked me. “Are you displaying friendship and forgiveness?”

I told her that I was. That just the last day, another changeling had stepped on my hoof, and I’d said, “my bad” instead of screaming “watch where you’re going, moron.”

She said that was good. That this was a difficult time for us all, but that the skalvadkt had always been there to provide an example for the rest of the hive to follow. That other changelings would need my help, in the months and years to come. To understand this new world and these strange new feelings.

Even she was having to make some adjustments.

Then she checked her list and said, and this is a quote: “I’m sorry I made you feed your best friend to starving wolves.”

The story lapsed into silence. Double laughed.

Cadence was staring at her with wide eyes. Finally, she worked up the nerve to ask: “Then what happened?”

“Then I moved to Canterlot to study art and the school stuck me with this self-absorbed bitch for a roommate.” Double shot Cadence an irritated glare. “What the hell did you think happened?”

“No, I mean, what did you say to Amaryllis?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Double’s voice rose to a shout. “Drones don’t speak in Amaryllis’s presence unless asked a question, and ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t a question. I bowed my head to the floor, and then I left.”

Chapter 6

When the story was over, Cadence told Double she could leave.

Double went back to her duties. She tended the grubs. She instructed guards in how to restrain changeling prisoners. At night, she slept alone in her dungeon cell. The jailor didn’t bother locking the door anymore, but she declined his offer of a bed.

If there were any repercussions of her dalliance with Princess Cadence, she didn’t see them. Nopony treated her any differently, and when she passed Shining Armor in the hall several days later, he acknowledged her politely but didn’t stop to talk.

Three weeks passed this way.

Then, one morning, as Double walked toward the grubs' nursery, she saw that the castle was being prepared for guests. Crystal ponies were cleaning the windows, polishing the halls, and putting fresh candles the sconces. And when she arrived at the nursery up the hall, the grubs weren’t there.

A servant directed her to the royal suite.

There, Double found Cadence playing with the grubs—with the help of a few servants. “Is their drool supposed to burn?” she was asking, just as Double walked in.

“Yes. It’s acidic,” Double said. “I know it doesn’t burn that bad, but don’t ignore it or the hairs on your leg will fall off like Shining’s did.”

“Good to know.” Cadence handed the grub she was playing with off to one of the crystal ponies, and then took a cloth to wipe the drool off her leg. “I’ve made my decision about what to do with them. I thought you’d want to know. I’ll be keeping them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” Cadence lifted a hoof. “No, actually, don’t be. Shining and I had a few long talks, and I think this is a good thing.”

She needed a moment to find her words, mulling them over as she wiped away the last of the drool. “We’ll be keeping one with us—Cheval. Shining and I do want Flurry to grow up with siblings if she can. It’ll be good for her to have a sister. The other five will be adopted by crystal pony families of note.”

“That’s… different. From how you felt before.” Double’s wings buzzed, and she tilted her head to one side. “What made you change your mind?”

“Shining, and I and the general staff were having a long talk about the war. About the facts, and your story. And we were trying to decide what we learned—what’s the lesson, so that this never happens again.”

Finishing with the rag, Cadence lifted her head to Double. “One officer said, the lesson is the importance of air support. Once the changelings had control over the sky, we were finished. Another officer said, the lesson is the importance of counter-intelligence. The infiltrator caste ran rings around us. If we’d been able to prevent your sabotage, we would have won.”

With a hoof, she gestured back at the bedroom. “Shining said that the lesson was that we needed closer integration with Equestria. More unicorns, more pegasi, that our forces are too crystal-pony heavy. It makes them susceptible to spells or powers that crystal ponies can’t counteract.”

Double’s eyes narrowed. “This sounds like a discussion you would have had some time ago.”

“We did. We had it after the war. But I am their princess, so I decided we were going to have it again. Because I didn’t like any of those answers. I came up with a different one.” She pointed at Double with a hoof. “I said, the lesson is that you understood us, and we didn’t understand you. You knew our weaknesses, and we didn’t know yours.”

“The weaknesses of changelings in combat have already been extensively documented.” Double’s ears folded back, and her tone turned wary. “Shapeshifting consumes enough magical energy that we’re susceptible to exhaustion. We can’t wear armor easily. Things like that.”

“Your weakness has nothing to do with combat. Ours didn’t either. Our weakness was overconfidence. We believed we could defeat you without assistance, and let ourselves be lured into a trap.” Cadence let out a long breath. “Your weakness is that Queen Amaryllis doesn’t understand that you’re people.”

Double didn’t say anything, and so Cadence went on. “You’re slavishly loyal. Nearly always, she can trust you to obey her every whim. But in any situation where you have your own desires, your own needs, she trips over her own hooves. She couldn’t stop her hive from reforming under her. She didn’t know why saying ‘sorry’ like she did would hurt. And she didn’t understand why we’d react badly to children being given as gifts.”

Double snorted. “If you’re planning to foment a rebellion, I don’t see that going well for you.”

“I’m not. I’m planning to accede to her demands, to adopt little Cheval as my daughter, and to keep the other five around the palace.” Cadence picked Cheval up off the floor with her magic. The grub chittered as Cadence stroked its back. “Because I think Amaryllis believes that this little grub will grow up to be her unquestioning servant. That she’s a sleeper agent, and in twenty years she’ll give the hive an indirect claim to the throne.”

“It’s a good plan.” Double shrugged.

“No,” Cadence said softly. “It isn’t. Because Cheval is going to grow up with parents who love her, in a home where she doesn’t have to fight to survive, where she can learn and explore the world and think for herself.”

Placing the grub on the floor, Cadence nudged her towards a collection of blocks. “I even changed my mind about her university plan. I said I’d help her. I’ll give her all the support she wants. So every changeling can read and write and understand the broader world. A world where Amaryllis isn’t the beginning and the end and the center.”

“If you think that will break up the hive, you’re a fool,” Double snapped. “The idea that education defeats tyranny is the fantasy of cowards. She will always be their queen.”

“I know she will.” Cadence smiled gently. “But they won’t be like you. They won’t know or remember the life you had. You’ll be the last generation of your kind. The last infiltrators.”

Double stood in silence for several long seconds. She stared at Cadence unblinking.

“Good,” she said.

“And I have some things for you.” Cadence gestured, and a servant brought her a box. Opening it revealed three scrolls. Cadence levitated out the first one, and placed it at Double’s hooves. “This is a blanket pardon, for any acts you committed prior to your reformation. I know it hurts to talk, but I want you to be able to talk with others about what happened. Ponies or your own kind.”

“It’s a piece of paper,” Double muttered.

“Mmmhmm.” Cadence produced the second scroll, and laid it next to the first. “This is a pardon specifically for the acts you committed while assisting Light’s vandalism, including assault. I’m not giving you another one of these. Assault another guard and you’re going to jail.”

“Generous.”

Cadence removed the third and final scroll from the box, and placed it with the others. “This is part of a number of letters I exchanged with Amaryllis. In it, she agrees to do me a favor in return for our ongoing cooperation.”

“Is this the letter where you asked her to summon me?”

“No.” Cadence pursed her lips. “This is the letter where I ask her to release you from your oath of loyalty. She agrees she will, the next time she visits. Of course, she doesn’t have to. If you don’t want that.”

Double stared down at the third scroll. She let out a bark that was almost a laugh, and her wings buzzed violently against her sides. “Is this a joke?” she demanded. “I’m an infiltrator. I’ll always be an infiltrator. I can’t be released from that oath.”

“Mmmm.” Cadence brushed back her mane. “After you left the hive, you could have gone anywhere in the world. Why go to art school, of all places?”

Double sneered. “Art students are easy.”

Cadence ignored the barb. “I asked Light about your work. She said you heavily favored landscapes. Specifically, she said you have a... serene style. Beautiful fields, quiet towns, gentle forests. She said it was a joy to watch you paint, and that your work felt like a place a pony could fall asleep. Like a dream.”

Double said nothing.

“The reason Amaryllis’s offer is in writing is so you can claim it later. It doesn’t expire. If you’re not ready now, keep it, and come back to me if you feel differently.” Cadence passed the empty box over to Double, giving her something to carry the scrolls inside. “I’m not kicking you out of the palace. You can stay here as long as you want. I am kicking you out of your cell. You’d make a gifted servant or courtier, but I won’t have you as a prisoner.”

“This is a mistake,” Double said, her voice tight. “You’re being too generous. We’ve had a handful of conversations, and you’re overlooking dozens of murders.”

“I’m not overlooking anything.” Cadence shook her head. “But since this whole affair started, it seemed like every time I showed mercy, I came to regret it. I felt like I was trapped. Helpless. And the reason I was helpless was I didn’t have the strength to be merciless. I thought that being a good pony made me weak.”

A new smile appeared on her face as she said, “And that was foolish. Goodness is what makes Equestria strong. It’s what made me an alicorn. I’ve made many, many mistakes as a ruler, but showing kindness wasn’t one of them.”

“And what about…” She stared at the floor. “You and Shining?”

“What about us? Our marriage was never in danger. We were both extremely stressed, and jealous, and angry. But I know he loves me and I know I love him.” She chuckled. “He’ll be standing down as the head of our armed forces. To focus full time on his role as a diplomat. It was his idea.”

“Who’s replacing him?”

“A crystal pony named Harmony Shield. But Pharynx will be advising us heavily.” She shrugged. “I talked to Thorax, and I think the changelings might be better at war than us.”

“And…” Double raised her head. “That’s it? There’s nothing… else?”

“There’s always something else. But for now at least, it really is that simple.” Cadence’s smile brightened. “Would you stay? At least for a while. I need to learn how to care for Cheval myself, if you won’t be around.”

“I’ll…” Double needed a few seconds to find her thoughts. Then, she nodded. “I’ll stay for a little while, at least. But I think I want to go back to Canterlot. If I can. I don’t like the Crystal Empire. Too many places that I know bodies are buried.”

“Okay.” Cadence nodded slowly. “Will you be okay in Canterlot? Do you have somewhere to go?”

Double knocked three times on Light’s door. When it swung open, Double stood reared on her hind legs, forelegs spread wide for a hug. “Hey, roomie.”

“What the…” Light pulled back, momentarily staggered. A kaleidoscope of emotions rushed across her face in quick succession: shock, happiness, uncertainty and anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, I can smell that you’re over me. No more lingering unhealthy attachment. So, you know,” she poked Light with a hoof, “I thought I’d come back and hang around.”

“You can’t just,” Light’s face twisted up into a mask of outrage. “You can’t just leave me crying in the street and then waltz back into my life like nothing happened.” Her voice rose to a shout. “And what are you doing in your natural form? I thought there was a warrant for your arrest.”

“Oh, yeah.” Double gestured back at her saddlebags. “I got that taken care of. Cadence gave me a full royal pardon.”

Light’s jaw moved without sound. For a few moments, she was so angry she actually struggled to form words. Incredulous, she finally asked: “How’d you manage that?”

“Well…” Double thought it over, tapping her chin in a theatrical fashion. “It’s a long story, but the short version is: I slept with her.”

Light’s scream of outrage echoed far through the halls of the dorm, and she slammed the door in Double’s face.