All You Need is Love

Chapters

1 - There's Nothing You Can Do That Can't be Done
2 - Nothing You Can Sing That Can't be Sung
4 - It's Easy
5 - All You Need in Love
6 - Love is All You Need
3 - Nothing You Can Say But You Can Learn How to Play the Game

1 - There's Nothing You Can Do That Can't be Done

Hitting the high note, Sapphire reared back on her hind legs and spread her front hooves just as the musicians behind her cut off. Not that she needed any instrument other than her own mezzo to fill the whole space.

Eyes closed, she let her voice fly, let it ring, let it soar from the front row to the mezzanine to the balconies and skyboxes along the walls of Canterlot Square Gardens—

And the audience loved it. They always loved it, always loved her, their emotions sweeter, thicker, and warmer than any crème brûlée. At a big show like this, she could practically feel it, a summer rain against her hide, and she soaked in it, reveled in the way it seeped into her.

Till something cold and dead and blank as a day-old fish smacked her behind the forehead, a spot of emptiness out in the vast arena that almost warbled her pitch, almost got her to flinch. Not that she did, of course: she'd played the rowdiest spots Equestria had to offer and had never lost her strut, had never allowed her nerves to show. With a toss of her mane, knowing the band was watching and would take the cue, she dropped to all fours, her hooves hitting the floorboards at the exact moment that the song's final chord blasted out into the hall.

Just the way they'd rehearsed it. A few seconds earlier than usual was all...

Half a heartbeat, and the place went crazy, whoops and whistles and stomps and clomps from the earth ponies, the unicorns all sparking their horns, the pegasi summoning little lightning clouds to flash and crackle in the space beneath the domed ceiling. Head bowed, Sapphire looked out through the black bars of her eyelashes, the flood of love almost overwhelming the dark little dryness, and heard a part of her shriek that she should run now and never look back.

But it was a tiny, tiny part. Snapping back up, she flashed the smile that had sold out every magazine to ever feature her on the cover and high-stepped toward the edge of the stage slowly enough and with enough sway to telegraph her movements for the lighting director. This part was gonna be ad lib, and, well, she wouldn't want the spotlight to go astray, now, would she?

"Thank you, Canterlot!" she called, and they roared back their approval—

Except for that glowering spot out there, the sucking puncture in the midst of all that adulation, a void she recognized no matter now much she really didn't want to.

Changelings. At least two of them watching her tonight. And, sure, her former hivemates had gone all 'sherbet moose' and friendly of late, but they still weren't real common here in the Ponylands. Worse, they weren't real likely to feel kindly disposed toward her, not if they'd found whatever records Her-Thankfully-Petrified Majesty might've kept.

All of it added up to her being pretty sure where in the audience they'd be sitting. To make completely sure, though—

"And let's make a little noise for our main gals, Celestia and Luna, huh?" She shaded her eyes with a hoof, the outpouring of love shifting in direction, tone, and flavor, and made a show of looking around. "Where you at, Sunbutt? Light it up if you still can! Or you too old and decrepit now that you're retiring?"

The sass got a laugh the way it had for two decades, but even better, it got her a beam of purest golden sunlight from off to the left of the Royal Box. Coming from the VIP Suite, then, the roomiest box in the venue, she knew, with space enough to hold a couple or three alicorns and a fair number of guests without cramping anypony.

Or in this case, anyling...

Though the carefully banked power she was feeling told her that these weren't just any changelings. No matter how enlightened the despot, they always smelled the same. And that meant no use running.

But a little sugar couldn't hurt. "There she is!" Sapphire waved toward the sunbeam's source like she was a filly, then put a serious look on her face. "But the fact of the matter is: I'm gonna miss you, Sunny. I mean, yeah, I know, I bust your chops a little here and there in a song or two..." She let that mischievous filly back out to play around her lips and got another burst of sweet emotion from the crowd. "But only 'cause I admire you, you hear me, girl? Admire and, yes, even love." Patting her own chest, she took a breath before adding, "Most of the time. And I know Luna hears me when I say that!"

She expected the explosion of whoops, but the building-shaking "Ha!" and the firework burst of dark-blue and silver from the VIP box was a lovely addition. Might be some sentiment there she could use once the concert was over.

Which it wasn't yet. Sapphire bared her teeth in an expression that ponies always took for a smile, an expression she'd learned years and years ago at the hooves of the Queen herself, and got back onto the script they'd rehearsed. "So how 'bout one more sweet serenade, huh, folks? One more tune to sing Celly off to the chateau we all paid for, one more song so she'll remember why she's retiring, and one friendly 'welcome to the rough-n-tumble' melody for the new Big Gal!" Sapphire pointed a hoof back and forth between her own eyes and the VIP box. "Watching you, Twiggy Spackles!"

She stomped and shouted it—"One! Two! Three! Four!"—and when the band swung perfectly into "Serves Her Right," it wasn't just the pegasi in the audience leaping out of their seats and punching the air in time with the rhythm.

No doubt about it: whatever happened tonight, Sapphire was going to see to it that her crew got a serious raise. Whether she'd be able to do it herself or would have to appeal to her captors, well, that was still an open question.

Bobbing with the beat, she launched into the first song she'd written, the song that had made her name in Canterlot's crowded club scene, the song that had gotten her denounced and praised in almost equal measure from one end of Equestria to the other, the song she'd been born to perform.

Or rather, that she'd been hatched to perform...

The end of the intro washed over her, and with head high and chest puffed, Sapphire shot out the verse:

"So yeah, you're giant,
And yeah, you're old,
But I'm no filly only doing what I'm told!

"I got no power,
I got no voice,
But when I bend a knee, it's 'cause I've made a choice!"

The musicians, the back-up singers, the dancers, the whole auditorium, it sounded like, chanted the title, then, each word on the beat with Sapphire delivering the lines between as fiercely as she ever had:

"Serves
Her
Right!"

"Don't go thinking I'm your pony puppet!"

"Serves
Her
Right!"

"If you got a game, it best you up it!"

"Serves
Her
Right!"

"There's a lesson here! You want to learn it?"

"Serves
Her
Right!"

"My respect's a coin: you got to earn it!"

The crowd howled with ferocious joy, but once again, no guards rushed the stage, no figures in black lurked in the wings, no mysterious power outages cut the sound or the lights.

Because ponies were weak, her mother the Queen had always said.

Of course, Mama now decorated the lawn out back of Canterlot Tower, didn't she?

And so, at a party celebrating Celestia stepping down from the throne, Sapphire Shores belted out the song that years and years ago had been meant to start that exact process, put her heart and soul into the performance even more than she always did.

Might be her final appearance, after all...

Author's Note

In the episode:

"For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils," we get the titles of two Sapphire Shores' songs, one of which I'm appropriating here. The story's cover image is the "all-seeing eye" headdress that Rarity designs in that episode as well, and I'll post the five-panel contest prompt that inspired the whole thing at the end of the last chapter, hopefully before the final deadline of March 22nd.

Mike

2 - Nothing You Can Sing That Can't be Sung

Not allowing her hoof to shake, Sapphire brushed on what she called her in-person face, the make-up smoother and subtler than the stuff she wore on stage. She was expecting a visitor, after all. Or two. Or maybe a whole battalion...

But when the tap-tap-tap came at her dressing room door, it was a lot more polite than she would've expected from officers bent on hauling her away. She'd already sent Gildy home for the night—no use getting her assistant caught up in whatever was about to happen—so she took a breath, rose from her place in front of the mirror, and pulled the door open.

A slightly twitchy Proscenium Arch stood there. Not that she'd ever known him not to be slightly twitchy: apparently managing Canterlot Square Gardens didn't do a pony's state of mind any good. "Wonderful show as always, Sapphire!" he said, and an actual smile twitched across his snout. "The princesses must've thought so, too, since they—" His lips twitched downward. "They've sent three guards to escort you to the VIP box. Instead of sending Ms. Inkwell the way they normally do when they ask to say hello after a show..."

Her quick mental sniff got her no dead fish feelings, so they'd sent actual ponies to pick her up. Plus one for her, maybe?

Rolling her eyes and her shoulders, Sapphire kept her voice appropriate to the small size of the room and the audience. "Princesses rate high on the mystery chart, Archy." Part of her wondered if whatever she said next might go down as her last words, but like before, it wasn't a part she was willing to pay much attention to. Paranoia was one thing, the Queen used to say, but when it starts affecting your poise...

"I'll see you next show," she decided to say, and moving past Archy, she gave him a gentle shoulder bump.

Taking another step, though, she upped her swagger for the guards standing in full regalia at the end of the row of dressing room doors beside the 'Artists Only Beyond This Point' sign. "Fear not, my little ponies!" she announced even though the smallest of them, the pegasus mare, seemed about a hoofspan taller than her. "You may now fulfill your lives' ambition by escorting me into the presence of the august Sunbutt and Moonsides!"

They tried not to react, but even without tasting their emotions directly, Sapphire could read a room. And what she was getting from them was a lot of good nervous and no bad nervous. Seemed likely, then, that as far as they knew, they were here to collect the Pony of Pop, not to round up the last deep-cover infiltrator trained by Queen Chrysalis herself. Another plus, she let herself believe.

Might as well keep things friendly, then. "So!" She took one of the sweet-but-sexy stances she'd perfected over the course of countless magazine shoots. "Where d'you all want me?"

The earth pony and the pegasus were trying hard not to show their excitement, but Sapphire knew the hot-and-crunchy aroma of it. The unicorn, though, she could see that colt's horn vibrating. "Oh!" He shook himself like he was coming out of a dream. "Right! If you'll follow me, please, Ms. Shores?"

"Call me Sapphire," she more purred than said, and all three just about lost it, sparks, wing quivers, and knee shakes telling her the whole story. Sidling in among them, she started for the back hallway that led to the VIP Suite, her escorts trailing her like ducklings after their mama. "They allow you fine folks to see the show?" She gave a half-lidded look over her shoulder. "Or were you too busy being vigilant?"

"We could hear it," the earth pony said, his gray face getting redder and redder. "You sounded really great, Ms. Shores— I mean, uhh, Sapphire..."

"Better than great!" The pegasus seemed barely able to keep her hooves on the floor. "I've loved you since I was in grade school, but this is the first time I've ever seen you in concert!"

The unicorn was nodding so fast, Sapphire wondered how his horn stayed attached.

"Well, now!" And how could she not flutter her eyelashes? "Why don't you tell me all about it?"

Their gushing critiques took the rest of the trip. Any other time, Sapphire would've let herself sip discreetly of the love that went along with their commentary, but, well, sending fans like this to pick her up? She couldn't help but think that this was a calculated move on Celestia's part. Either Sapphire was supposed to take advantage of the free snack and therefore show herself to be the parasitic monster they all expected, or she was being given the opportunity not to indulge in order to look good in front of King Thorax.

Always came back to politics, didn't it? At least the energy she'd picked up during the show meant she wasn't too tempted here and now...

The employee stairway she'd picked led to a door just down the hall from the VIP Suite, but it wasn't till she stopped on the landing in front of the door that her guards seemed to realize where they were. "Oh! Uhh..." The unicorn—Moonglow, he'd said his name was somewhere along the way—half-stepped, half-stumbled past her, the pulse of his horn sending a cloud out to press the door's crashbar. "Lemme get that..."

So all looked well and proper when they entered the hallway, Sapphire making sure the guards surrounded her in case any compound eyes were watching. The guards out front of the VIP Suite registered to her senses as one hundred percent pony, and they opened the door to let her and her little phalanx inside.

Show time, then. "Party's started!" she called, modulating her voice to fill the remembered layout of the suite. "The guest of honor has arrived!"

Several squeals rose up, and Sapphire actually looked at the scene for the first time. Celestia and Luna on cushions in the middle of the room immediately drew her eye—find the power centers, the whispered voice of Her Stony-Even-Before-She-Became-Actual-Stone Majesty hissed scuttling through her mind, then undermine them and bleed them dry. Escape routes also suggested themselves: the massive windows overlooking the arena, that whole part of the room empty now that the show was over. Most of the crowd had moved to the buffet tables along the wall to Sapphire's right leaving her a straight shot if she needed to do any galloping and crashing.

The two smaller alicorns, the two who actually qualified as rulers nowadays, pulled her attention next. Twilight reclined beside her predecessors, and Cadance stood a bit off to the left with her husband and child.

More children had provided the squeals, she saw now, at least half of them and the adults in the room not ponies: a shiny-eyed young hippogriff with two larger and more sedately smiling examples beside her; a yak in braids shuffling her hooves and grinning in front of a couple whose size alone would've made this Suite the only choice to host this party; a trio of griffons, one just a colt, the second a female not much older, and the third a one-eyed relic who was chomping away on little cheese-covered crackers and trying hard to look bored. Trying just as hard were the two dragons, one of whom Sapphire recognized as the Dragon Lord herself.

And the changelings, of course. Three of them as well, all out in the open and done up in their fancy new carapaces: King Thorax, unmistakable with his giant orange antlers and carefully constrained power; a glowering and more darkly hued ling a step to Thorax's left, his narrow eyes and struck-match scent making Sapphire think of the enforcers who'd always surrounded Her Majesty back in the hive; and one barely pupated, her front hooves covering her mouth, a blush firing along her baby blue cheeks.

"Well, now!" Sapphire couldn't look away from the changeling nymph, memories of her pre-pony days surging through her with an intensity that almost made her gasp. Not that she did, of course: she was on stage. Waving a hoof, she included the whole room. "Princes and princesses of all kinds joining the party tonight!"

Wings popped from the little nymph's back, and she leaped forward, the love that poured from her completely alien and completely filling. "Oh, Ms. Shores! Your songs are just so...so...so—"

"Ocellus?" King Thorax's voice had a juvenile quality to it that set the Chrysalis in Sapphire's head to spitting words like weak and unworthy and dilettante. "What did we agree about conducting ourselves properly when we met Ms. Shores?"

Sapphire blew a breath through her lips, her whole body quivering at the onslaught of the unprecedented changeling love. "Like I've got anything to do with 'proper'!" Moving out from among her three guards, she had to step carefully, the ichor fiery and swirling inside her. But she had to have more of this, had to bathe in its warmth, had to open herself to its light. "How 'bout you tell your new pal Sapphire what your favorite song of hers is?"

"'Get Your Pony On!'" the nymph shouted. Landing on her hind hoofs, she burst into green flame, became a buck-toothed earth pony filly, and began gawkily dancing.

"Yes!" The yak began hopping, the room shaking just a bit, and warbled out the first lines in a gruff alto: "Stomp across the floor, get your pony on!"

The hippogriff sprang into the air and took the next lines in a bouncy soprano: "Swooping through the door, get your pony on!"

The transformed nymph's forehead sprouted, and she continued squeakily: "Power up your horn, proud of how you're born!"

And a fair number of the assembled guests—Celestia and Twilight and every member of the new ruling council as well, Sapphire couldn't help noticing—jumped in with the kids to complete the verse: "Dusk to early morn, get your pony on!" The singers all whooped, the rest blinking around as if they weren't quite sure what had happened.

Laughing, Sapphire reared back, kicked her forelegs, and drew the crowd's attention back to her. "You're all hired for my next tour!" She settled as gracefully as only she could back onto all fours and made a point of meeting every non-pony's gaze including the changeling's. "Looks like I oughtta be updating the lyrics a bit, seeing as how I got so many fans from beyond Equestria now."

"What?" The youngest of the griffons waved his talons, his head fronds spiking. "New lyrics? You can't! They're perfect!"

"Perfect?" The smaller of the two dragons raised an orange eyeridge. "You a fan, Gallus?"

"No!" The griffon slapped his claws over his mouth, spun with wide eyes to Sapphire, and blurted out, "I mean, yes! I mean—!" His face wrinkled into a scowl, and he swung it back to the dragon. "You're here, too, Smolder!"

Opportunity smacking her in the face, Sapphire curled her tongue to her upper teeth and shot out what she called her missile whistle, a sound guaranteed to jab the ears of even the most overactive drummer during rehearsal when she had to administer a correction. "Say," she said into the sudden silence, all eyes again on her, "how 'bout we write up a new song, kids, right here and right now! A song that'll bring all y'all into it and show us how to get our creature on!" With a nod, she trotted to a nearby table and turned an arched eyebrow at Twilight Sparkle. "'Cause I'm guessing somepony has a quill pen and some parchment we can borrow..."

The big smile on the snout of Equestria's current ruling monarch went a little sheepish, but the glow of her horn pulled a pen and a stack of pages from under her cushion. A little purple dragon Sapphire hadn't noticed before—Sparkle's assistant, she remembered now—rolled his eyes at her, took the items in his claws, and flapped over to the table with a tiny scowl.

"And a volunteer!" She tapped him on the nose. "Gonna need a scribe, right?"

His scowl vanished, and the next hour or so let Sapphire forget the solid ice of the two adult changelings behind her. 'Cause the love and the warmth and the laughter and the music and the creativity swirling from these eight or nine kids filled the air so completely, there wasn't room in her vicinity for anything else.

And yes, they didn't have anything near to a song when Celestia stood up from among the adults on the other side of the room and announced, "All good things must come to an end, children, but if we don't get downstairs to where the ice cream is waiting, it's likely to be nothing but colorful puddles."

Expressions of displeasure rose from her audience, but Sapphire knew how to handle that. Going into full strut, she circled the table, leaned over, and left a lipstick print on the page in front of each kid. "That's my blessing," she said. "You take these home, finish 'em up, sing 'em out loud, and don't ever let any creature tell you they're no good." She nodded to the adults. "And don't let me hear any bad reports 'bout you folks from my new collaborators here, y'understand?"

The kids, their papers clutched in claws or teeth or magic, ran to their parents, their voices tinged equally with excitement and sleepiness. At the urging of Prince Shining Armor and the guards, most of the crowd moved chattering and warbling out of the suite, and in less than a moment, Sapphire stood alone with four alicorns and two changelings, golden magic from somewhere closing the door with a soft but solid click.

A smaller audience again, but she doubted she'd ever need to give a better performance. Turning to Celestia, she pouted. "You want a private show, Sunny, all you have to do is ask."

Celestia's smile never looked anything but sweet and gentle, but emotionally, she was as blank as a chunk of shale. King Thorax had an equally blank look on his face, but the other one, the enforcer, his grin was spreading as sharp and nasty as if he still had fangs. "Agent Pheropsoph," he more growled than said. "We meet at last."

Author's Note

And yes, I know:

In terrestrial insects, species that pupate don't have nymphs, but these are fantasy alien bug ponies! They've got to have both!

Mike

4 - It's Easy

Sapphire gave four taps with her hoof against the office's industrial carpet—a nice medium tempo—and spoke the first lines of the five-act play she'd been rehearsing in her head for more than two decades:

"My mother blotted out the sky. She was vast and mighty and shook the very essence of time and space whenever she deigned to step into my line of sight. Of course, I was just a grub, so it might be that my impressions can't be trusted. But Chrysalis ruled as Queen of the Changelings for longer than you and I've been alive, Mr. Bunny, so I'd say that counts for something."

The white rabbit barely shifted on his cushion, but this was one performance Sapphire didn't need an audience for. Or rather, the audience she needed would never see it, would hopefully never be anything ever again but a slightly spiky pigeon roost across town...

She did however, she chided herself, need to focus. "One minute, all us little squirmers'd be tumbling over each other and laughing down in the nursery off the egg chamber, and the next, the sweet glowing green sky would vanish, and there'd be Mama looking down at me with her eyes half closed. And yes, she was technically mother to us all, but I was the one the attendants would hold up close to her, the one they'd carry along, trailing after her into the corridors, the one they'd leave in a chamber with her, the one she'd teach."

And Sapphire didn't even have to think about the shift anymore. Not that it was any sort of actual physical transformation: just holding her head higher, she knew, would be enough to have her speaking in Mother's voice. "Infiltration," she said, and that got this Angel Bunny to stir and stare at her with wide eyes.

Mother's throaty snicker followed. "You will be my masterpiece, little one, my precursor and my herald. You will plant seeds in the minds of those foul ponies, will make them see and hear what I want them to see and hear, will lead them to the point where they succumb to my blandishments and become a fruitful field ripe for us to harvest."

Her own voice seemed so much thinner, so much weaker when she switched back to it. "I'd've done anything for her, you know that? Would've stormed the gates of Canterlot on my stubby little legs if she'd said the word. But instead, I wrapped my attention around her, drank her in, and learned...well, not quite what she wanted me to learn."

For this part, she brought in the movements she'd envisioned. A quarter turn to the right, and she shrank against the floor, her face aimed upward at an angle and her eyes absolutely dancing. "The music, Your Majesty! That's what you're talking about, isn't it?"

Then a full turn to her left, her neck cocked back like a viper ready to strike the space where she'd been standing a moment before, ice in her manner and Mother's voice on her tongue: "What's this prattling, child?"

Back into the place where she was her younger self: "The music! I feel it every time you visit, hear it every time you talk! The way you make the air move so strong and perfect! If I could make music like you, I could do anything!"

Stepping around to take Mother's role again, she gave a nod as crisp and resolute as an iron gate clanging shut. "Indeed. Do as I tell you, and you will be unstoppable."

Another quarter turn brought her back to her first persona and her first position, looking Angel square in the face. He was sitting up quite attentively now, the showmare in her noted with just a touch of smugness. "I didn't know it at the time, but she had no idea what I was talking about. And it was right there, right then, before I'd pupated even, that she and I started parting ways.

"So I practiced what I thought she was preaching, and she kept preaching since what I was practicing gave her the results she wanted to see during our lessons." And as much as she tried to stop it, she couldn't keep her voice from hitching just a bit. "The pride in her eyes, fiery and green and feverish, as she towered there watching me spin my cocoon, it was everything I'd ever wanted out of my circumscribed little life, and I sealed myself into that waxy bundle vowing to make her look at me that way again and again and again for as long as we both might live."

With a breath, she bowed her head and said, "End of Act One."

Two beats of silence, then she looked back up at her audience. "Stewing in my cocoon, I marinated, hatched into the sweetest little nymph, and took my first—and last—pony shape." She struck her strongest, sexiest stage pose, the one that had set her early audiences to howling and had started two riots before she'd curtailed its use.

The rabbit's ears quivered. Sapphire hid her smile. She still had it...

"Mother had a family all picked out for me," she continued, "earth ponies whose roots stretched so deep into the bedrock of Canterlot's mountain, they still sniffed a bit at the nouveau riche unicorns who'd showed up with Princess Celestia after the Longest Night a thousand years ago. Diamond Head, third son of the Glitters family, and his wife Alizarin were expecting a blessed event, and instead, they got me." This time, she let her smile shine forth in all its splendor.

But only for an instant, her gut twisting and her voice dropping to a whisper. This part of her story still stabbed her whenever she thought about it. "Changelings disguised as hospital staff switched me for their actual newborn filly, and I...I never learned what happened to her. Chrysalis was a megalomaniacal monster, no doubt about that, but for all that I can't believe she would've just killed the child, the investigators I've hired over the years, they've accounted for every earth pony foal born that day in that building. And none of them tested out to be the daughter whose place I took.

"Of course, records get lost or stolen, shredded or burned, especially when infiltrators are concerned. So maybe she's out there, dropped off on some farmer's doorstep in the middle of the night and raised in the bosom of a loving family. I like to think so, at least. I very much like to think so.

"'Cause I most surely was." She stomped her hoof, raised her head, and pushed the thought of her semi-sister to the back of her brain the way she always had to. "Mums and Poppa absolutely flooded me with affection. Knowing my goal—and thinking I knew how I was supposed to achieve it—I showed off my singing prowess early, got the finest vocal coaches gold and precious gems could rent, and manufactured myself a cutie mark in a fairly dramatic fashion at the end of my first recital."

Angel's brow wrinkled, and with a squeak, he gestured toward her hindquarters, a wave of confusion rolling over Sapphire like nothing she'd ever felt before.

After his earlier display of broadcast emotion, though, she was a bit more prepared. Hardly missing a beat, she glanced back at her flank, blank and exposed from her skirt riding up when she'd crouched down to play her younger self. "Takes more concentration than you'd think, toying with elemental destiny and all. It's why I prefer outfits that got more coverage to 'em: the less magic I hafta use in my life, the better I like it."

Still, a wrinkle of her own brow set the process in motion, the star-crowned shell with the jewel at its base squirming into existence over her rump. "Not a sea shell, mind you. It's an acoustic shell like you'll find behind the stage at every theater where music gets performed. The jewel shows where I came from, and the stars show where I'm headed."

She batted her eyelashes at him. "That's what I told my folks and anypony who asked, anyway. And when I used my allowance to hire a band and started drawing crowds to clubs in downtown Canterlot with a presentation of current pop songs, I was on my way with step one of my plan, step one on the road to what I'd been born for. Or so I thought." She couldn't keep her mouth from tightening. "Till my mother the Queen slithered back into my life."

Bowing her head, she squeezed out between clenched teeth, "End of Act Two."

Those same clenched teeth featured prominently in the smile she gave Angel when she raised her head two beats later. "I hadn't seen her in sixteen years at that point: not a word, not a glimpse, not a quiver." She squared her shoulders, spread her forehooves, took a stance as solidly determined as any steel cable. "But I'd kept the faith! I was doing her will, knew I was fulfilling the role I was destined to play in bringing about her dominion over these weak and awful ponies!

"Of course..." She let her shoulders sag, let her spine lose its rigidity. "I'd gotten to know ponies in those sixteen years, Mums and Poppa and all the Glitters family and my band and my fans, and I...I was having a hard time reconciling what I'd learned from Her Majesty with the day-to-day reality I'd been experiencing..." With a shudder, she straightened herself back up. "Not that I doubted my true mother! Never! But—"

Again, she went partially slack. "Alizarin, my Mums, the pony who'd raised me from fillyhood, who'd taught me how to tie a ribbon in my mane, who'd supported me even when I'd started straying from her beloved art songs, she..." And here, she went completely slack, nearly drooping all the way to the floor. "She loved me. I knew that. I could feel it every minute of every hour of every day. While I'd never felt a thing from Queen Chrysalis. All the love I'd focused on her when I was a grub, I'd never gotten one single sliver of it back. Not one."

A sob wanted to bubble from her throat, but she clamped it down. "So when Mums stepped into my dressing room after my third night selling out Arjay's downtown and I felt all that nothing from her, I knew it wasn't Mums at all..."

Pushing herself back up, she slid a quarter step to the left, cocked her neck, and fixed as withering a look as she could on the carpet now ahead of her. "And what," she said in Mother's hissing voice, "exactly is the meaning of all this?"

She didn't have to reach very far to find the expression of joy and fear she needed to display after shifting into position to play her younger self. "Your Majesty! You...you saw the show?"

Back around to Mother and the lash of her cold fury: "I saw the creature into which I poured my knowledge and expertise writhing about on a stage while her supposed prey watched her with eyes hungry enough to devour her whole! Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now for abandoning your mind, your purpose, and your duty!"

Again, the shock she'd felt during that long-ago conversation came flooding back all too easily. "But...I'm following the plan! I'm becoming an icon, gaining a following! Soon, I can—!"

"Can what?" Over the years, Sapphire had practiced the leaping, spinning motion of interrupting herself while switching from one character to another as diligently as she practiced the dance moves for her show. "Can become the tastemaker I need to properly plant suspicions about Celestia and her reign? Can become the political force I need to pave the way for my taking over? Or can become a laughingstock, a jester, a spectacle!" The sneer Mother had given her then would never be far from Sapphire's thoughts. "An entertainer..."

Her stagger when she took her younger self's place wasn't planned, but it was exactly right. Too bad she was never gonna perform this particular piece again...

She rallied, though, the way she remembered, planted her hooves, and glared at the empty spot before her where the nightmares she still sometimes had placed Mother's glowering face. "An entertainer who they love and listen to! An entertainer who gets 'em before they've got their cutie marks and influences the way they're growing up! An entertainer who's gonna drop this little number on 'em next week!" And she launched into "Serves Her Right," that very first performance of it, she still thought, the best she'd ever done, fueled by the indignation that had filled her almost to bursting at her mother's words.

Even now with an audience of one in an office tucked up among the rafters of Canterlot Square Garden, she couldn't keep from snapping out the lyrics, from bearing down on the tune, from delivering the song as the smack in the face she'd always meant it to be. Of course, she had to do the repeated "serves her right" refrain herself since she didn't have her back-up singers, but, well, she was playing all the parts in the story of her life, wasn't she? She could manage a couple choruses.

And when she stomped in unison with the title one last time and ended the song, the clapping and whistling from the desk made her glance over, Angel Bunny hopping up and down and applauding on his cushion. The oddly sharp and spicy scent drifted up from him, and Sapphire's senses decided that he was feeling a sort of grudging respect.

Giving him a nodding bow, she stepped back into Mother's position, her face blank except for one arched eyebrow. "Acceptable," she said, then she shifted around to face her audience, dredged up her current self's voice, and continued. "Which was the most praise she'd ever given me, something that should've filled me with joy like a balloon fills with helium. But watching her pace over to the dressing room window, throw it open, transform into a raven, and fly out, I felt nothing. Not from her, not from myself, not from anywhere."

Eyelids drooping closed, she couldn't get the words out in anything more than a whisper: "End of Act Three."

Author's Note

Sapphire's cutie mark:

Was never actually shown in the show. In fact, when she first appears in "Dog and Pony Show," we get a clear view of her backside showing no cutie mark whatsoever.

But then Hasbro came out with a toy of her five years later with a perfectly lovely cutie mark adorning her flanks.

So I went with that.

One more chapter to go!

Mike

5 - All You Need in Love

Two beats later, Sapphire raised her head and gave Angel her magazine-cover smile. "'Serves Her Right' blew up. I went from playing clubs to halls to arenas on the strength of the album that followed, full of digs at Sunbutt and her dusty, rusty rule. And I became the Pony of Pop pretty much overnight."

She let the smile go sideways. "All as part of what I thought was Queen Chrysalis's scheme: with me sowing doubts about Princess Celestia, she could reveal herself when ponies' questions started getting loud and pervasive and demonstrate how Equestria would prosper under the guidance of a real sovereign." A little more slippage, and her smile became a sneer. "Turned out, though, that once again, Her Divine Buggy Majesty and I weren't exactly on the same page."

The rabbit was sitting forward on his little cushion, the carrot he'd been crunching forgotten on the desk beside him. The showmare inside Sapphire wanted to strut a bit, but this next part didn't call for anything like that.

With a swallow, she just launched into it. "I'd met Princess Celestia by then, y'see, and the Big Lady, she..." Sapphire cocked her head. "Is there a word that combines 'impressed' and 'confused'?"

Slipping to the left, she straightened her neck and relaxed every muscle in her body, a requirement in trying to capture Celestia's essence. "Sapphire Shores," she said, and even though she knew she could never replicate the warmth she'd heard that night, she gazed down at the empty stretch of carpet before her with her mind filled with as much love and sunshine as she could imagine. "I've so looked forward to meeting you."

She jumped back into her first position facing her audience. "Can I add 'terrified' to my earlier 'impressed' and 'confused'? And remember, this was before Luna's return, so we're talking about the single most powerful being in the entire world calling me into the Royal Box at Canterlot Square Gardens after my first night selling this place out, the immortal alicorn I'd been smacking around lyrically for months at that point asking to see me."

In slow motion, she moved to her right. "And standing there in front of her..." She tilted her head up and up and up like her younger self had had to. "For the first time in my life, I knew what a true ruler looked like." The glance she shot at Angel Bunny was as quick and sharp as a pin puncturing a balloon. "Not that I was about to admit that to myself or to her. I was calm. I was cool. I was her worst nightmare and the nemesis she didn't even know she had."

Her eyes whipping back to the imaginary princess, she gave a smile that she'd practiced numerous times over the years: broad and bright, it also had to look as shaky as a wheel with half its spokes gone. "Well, of course you want to meet me!" she let fly the way she had at that meeting all those years ago, her voice creaking and cracking like a rusty gate. "I'm the Pony of Pop!"

Angel Bunny squeaked a laugh and pounded the desktop with a hind leg.

Sapphire felt her face heat up, and encouraging the blush, she slumped over to where she was looking at him again. "Shoulda called myself the Duchess of Dork. But Celestia?" She closed her eyes, let those memories play across her mind. "After everything I'd been singing about her, she was graciousness incarnate. And even more than that? She said—"

Shifting left, she opened her eyes, spread out that gentle smile. "I wish more of my subjects felt free enough to lampoon me this way. Or any of my subjects, for that matter."

Back to the center, raising a hoof, pointing to the spot she'd just been standing: "You hear that? You hear what she said less than ten minutes after first meeting me?" She stepped forward, fixed her gaze on Angel's blinking eyes. "'Any of my subjects,' she said. Which meant she knew I wasn't one. And what did she do with that knowledge? What did she do?"

The answer still made her shake her head, and she flopped back to sit on the rough carpet. "She let me walk outta that meeting, let me go on tour, let me write, record, and release more songs, let me perform at one of the concerts honoring Luna when she finally got over herself and started coming out in public again! While my actual sovereign? My mother and queen who I was supposed to be smoothing the way for so she could take over?"

Sapphire sprang upright and stomped her front hooves. "The first I hear that she's attacked Canterlot and gotten herself and the hive stomped down is when I read about it in the Trottingham Gazette the morning after the second night of my four-night stand at the Civic Center Arena!" She smacked herself in the chest. "I'm her girl, her ringer, her inside agent, and I don't even get a whisper before she unleashes some half-assed invasion!"

All these years later, it still made her gut boil. "'Cause I coulda told her it wouldn't work, that the love between Candybutt and her boy toy was something too weird to mess with! I coulda brought my expertise to bear after more than two decades observing ponies! Coulda done the job I thought she wanted me to do, the job I thought she'd created me to do!" She had to stomp again. "And the worst part? You wanna know the absolute worst part?"

She pivoted to the left and forced away every trace of heat, this next set of transitions the most difficult in the entire piece. Tightening her neck and her throat and her face, she said in her Chrysalis voice, "You had become untrustworthy."

Leaping back to center, she let the heat flood her again. "That's what she said! To me! Two weeks after her failure destroyed everything I'd been setting up for twenty years! In the center of the four-acre forest I'd had planted behind my country house outside Baltimare, the place I'd bought specifically so she and I could meet and more closely coordinate our efforts!"

Another slide left, and she embraced that horrible cold haughtiness: "Look at you! Look at this place! Open your eyes, Pheropsoph, and try to tell me you haven't become more pony than changeling!"

Her twist physically was a full one hundred and eighty degrees, but emotionally, it was so much more than that. She'd felt no anger at that point, after all, hadn't felt betrayed or dismayed. Summoning that moment to memory, all she could call it was absolute, bone-deep, soul-churning confusion. "My...my queen?"

Back into Chrysalis position and mode: "Your incompetence left me no choice! I had to take matters into my own hooves, had to move more precipitously than I would've liked in order to take advantage of the Royal Wedding, a situation about which any reliable infiltrator would've informed me months ago!"

She jumped back into place as her younger self just long enough to narrow her eyes on her expression of wide-mouthed incomprehension, then she stepped into the center to fix those eyes on her audience. "And right then, right there, in the woods outside the house I'd built with the money I'd made giving ponies a way to feel rebellious against their monarch without actually being rebellious against her, the first little stirrings of rebellion started bubbling up inside my carefully disguised carapace."

Taking a breath, she pointed to the empty spot on her left, the spot where she could practically see Chrysalis standing and haranguing her. "Because right then and right there, for the first time ever, I felt something from my mother, felt something from my queen, felt the tiniest vibration of emotion trickling out from between her accusations and her disputations and her loudly expressed frustrations."

Sapphire licked her lips. "I knew the taste. Every changeling did. It was the sour taste of failure, the dusty taste of a mission gone horribly wrong, the chalky taste that usually sprang up when we stumbled, revealed ourselves, and let the truth come out."

Angel Bunny was sitting even further forward on his cushion, and the showmare in Sapphire wanted to string the moment out, add another tricolon crescendo to the string of them she'd already employed. But no. This wasn't really a show, after all. So—

"Fear," she said as simply and quietly as she could. "My mama was afraid. And not just of the ponies finding her, not just of Princess Celestia sweeping her up in whatever magical net she might've deployed, not just of having to pay the price of her own overwhelming arrogance and lack of planning." Inwardly rolling her eyes—fine: one more tricolon crescendo—Sapphire tapped her chest again. "Me. My mama was afraid of me."

She moved the hoof from her chest to her forehead. "And standing there, watching and listening to her blame me for everything she'd done wrong, I started singing. 'Cause it was the only damn thing I could do." A slip to the right brought her into the place of her younger self, her face hard and hurt, her throat tight with the tears she'd refused to shed. "There's a lesson here! You want to learn it?"

A flip this time, vaulting across the carpet to stare open-mouthed at the spot where she'd just been standing. "What?" she shouted in her Chrysalis voice. "Whelp! You dare—?"

The second flip landed her in a crouch, her lips pulled back from her teeth. "My respect's a coin! You got to earn it!"

The third flip was the hardest of all, requiring her to sail from the bunched-up crouch into a tall, lock-kneed, three-hoofed stance, her right front hoof coming up to touch her neck as she drew her head back: she couldn't even count the number of times she'd flopped herself over sideways trying to get this move down.

But practice as always paid off, and she was able to add the shock she felt on making it successfully to the shock and outrage of Chrysalis's expression. "Ignorance! Impudence! Vile, ungrateful—!"

The fourth and final flip, then, came off like a dream, Sapphire becoming herself, channeling her own rage and grief and deep, elemental sense of shame at falling for so long for this duplicity into three words, each jabbed with her hoof directly into the spot where her memory forever placed Queen Chrysalis: "Serves You Right!"

The showmare in her wished for a ton and a half of reverb to bolster the moment, but Sapphire rather liked the way the subsequent silence nearly crashed into place. Eyes closed, she let herself flow back into the center spot as languidly as smoke drifting from a snuffed candle. "My mother burst," she said, trying to slide her words in under the silence rather than push it out of the way, "shriveled into a black and green butterfly as big as a buckball, and flapped away into the trees."

Not trying to stop the shaking that quivered her legs and spine and neck, she bowed her head. "End of Act Four."

She waited the two beats before looking up. Angel had his paws clasped to his chest, his eyes more than a little wavery. But she kept her expression as blank as she could manage. All it'd take, she figured, was one little crack, and her whole facade would collapse, knocking her to the floor and leaving her a weeping, mewling mess. This was the newest part of the program, too, the part she hadn't had as many years to rehearse.

Still, the show must go on, right? Or whatever this whole thing was...

"Life was good," she said, her voice as blank as the rest of her. "My next two albums went double platinum. My next two tours sold out every venue. My face appeared every place a face could be expected to appear." She struck three quick poses—happy Sapphire, pouty Sapphire, sassy Sapphire—then went still and blank again. "I hired the Element of Generosity herself to design the costumes for both tours, something that made the former changeling infiltrator in me strut around like, well, like me, I guess..."

The drooping where she stood wasn't planned, but it worked so well, she went with it. Taking a breath, then, she straightened. "But I did see my mother alive one last time, though it wasn't before she actually took over the governments of both Equestria and the Crystal Empire." She cocked her hip and let her mouth go thin. "I'd become untrustworthy, remember? So once again, no advance warning for me."

Lowering her hindquarters to the carpet, she sat, looked past the rabbit, and unfocused her eyes. "I've tried to imagine what her plan for me might've been. I mean, she'd replaced the prince and princess up north, both princesses here, and all the Elements of Harmony, so she could've done anything she wanted." She touched her chin. "Would she have had one of her newer infiltrators cocoon me up and take my place? Maybe she would've stopped by my Baltimare house and given me a chance to crawl over, lick her hooves, and beg that she take me back."

With a puff of breath, she shook her head. "Knowing her, though, she would've marched into one of my concerts all done up as Princess Celestia, accused me of being a changeling, and had me hauled away in chains to be a distraction while she consolidated her position. But instead?" She shrugged. "As always, she got sloppy, didn't think things through, and ended up losing not only the power she'd stolen but also the power she'd been born to. With hardly a word, Thorax transformed the hive, showed 'em how love's as easy to give as to get, and took over as king."

A sassy little smile seemed right, so she let one out, touched a hoof to her chin. "I coulda told 'em that ten years ago, of course, but I don't think I'd enjoy being queen. The outfits aren't nearly fabulous enough." She shimmied to let the office's meager light sparkle across her vest and was rewarded with another squeaky peal of bunny laughter.

"But yeah, I did see her again," she said then, going completely still. "Afterwards. After the news had reported the happenings at the hive, after King Thorax had issued his call for all infiltrators still in Equestria to come home and embrace the new way, after I'd put out another album and done another tour, I drew up outside my place in Baltimare, and I could smell her, could scent something rotten-sweet and wormy in the air."

The shiver that shook her came straight from her memories. "I told the carriage ponies to leave my luggage in the front hall, sent my assistant home with instructions to sleep for a week 'cause that's what I intended to do, waited till I was sure they were all gone, then put on my best frilly hat, skirt, and vest and strolled out into my own private woods.

"Should I have called the guard? Absolutely I should've." Sapphire waved a hoof to her left, to the spot where she'd been standing during this whole monologue whenever she'd taken Chrysalis's part. "This was a hostile foreign power who'd just come within inches of taking over the country! This was an alien force powerful enough to deceive and defeat all five of the world's alicorns and their most important associates! This was a monster who'd shown time and time again that she had no compunction against using the most brutal tactics available to achieve her goals!"

Stopping, she swallowed. "This was also my mother."

Slowly, she puffed up her chest and raised her head. "So I stepped out into those shadowy woods in the gladdest of my glad rags and with no idea how any of this was likely to shake out." Ears spread, she lowered her voice. "I could feel her watching me, though, could hear a rustling in the trees, and I made my way toward the center, the circle of stones I'd had placed there when I'd still thought she and I..."

A sigh, and she closed her eyes. "Not a single bird chirped as I reached the stones, but a darker piece of shadow squeezed out from a spot across the way." She opened her eyes. "And she was standing right there."

Not an image Sapphire would ever forget. Even if she wanted to... "I'd like to say that she looked smaller, more decrepit, somehow humbler." She shook her head. "But she was the same prideful, wrathful, envious creature who'd first looked down her nose at me and my hatchmates all those years ago."

Again, she tapped her chest. "I was the one who'd changed. Stronger, steadier, more accomplished in things worth accomplishing, I looked at her looking at me this time, and...and that was it. That was the end."

She held the pose and let the silence spread out from her like a fog.

It didn't take more than a few seconds, though, for Angel to be leaping up from his cushion, his jaw working and his arms waving.

"The end," Sapphire said again, pointing a soft smile at the rabbit. "She turned around, spread her wings, changed into a dark blue pegasus, and flew away without looking back. I watched till I was sure she was gone, blotted out by the sky, then I headed for the house."

Sitting, she spread her front hooves. "She had nothing to say to me, and I had nothing to say to her. Everything I had, everything I'd learned, everything that had made me into me, the love that I felt from my fans and the love that I gave 'em in return, she couldn't understand it, wouldn't understand it. And everything she had, everything that drove her, everything that had made her into her, the love she could never feel but could only take, I couldn't understand it, wouldn't understand it. So we were done."

Her shoulders shifted with an almost audible click. "And that," she said, bowing her head, "is the end."

Author's Note

Did I say:

One more chapter? How 'bout one more and a bit of an epilogue instead? Yes, that sounds right...

Mike

6 - Love is All You Need

Two beats, three beats, four beats: Sapphire kept her head bowed, not at all sure what was supposed to happen now that she'd emptied herself so completely and thoroughly.

Rustling pricked her ears, and she blinked to see Angel scamper up, throw his arms around her right front fetlock, and squeeze it. Then he was hopping past her; she twisted her neck to follow his progress away from her and toward the door.

He reached it quickly—it was a very small office—spun, braced his forelegs, and pounded a rapid tattoo over the door's bottom rail with his rear paws.

Almost immediately, the door pulled open, and Pharynx was rushing through. "What?" he shouted, his head moving too quickly, Sapphire was sure, to actually focus on anything. "Is she okay?"

Angel leaped high enough to smack him in the chest, then landed with a glare.

Pharynx snapped a look down at him, then transformed with a green flash into a large black rabbit.

The two proceeded to wave their paws at each other, at Sapphire, and all around the general area while making such cute squeaking noises, Sapphire couldn't help grinning. After everything she'd just gone through, watching a couple bunnies cavorting seemed to fill a little part of her emptiness just the way she needed it to be filled. Especially with all the positive emotions swirling out from the pair of them...

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately now that she thought about it—the confab broke up pretty quickly, Pharynx slapping Angel on the shoulder. Angel turned, gave Sapphire a wink, and hopped away out of sight down the hall.

A swirl of green, and Pharynx stood grinning at her. "I'd started thinking that rabbit wasn't physically able to say anything good about anypony other than that pegasus he lives with."

Sapphire couldn't help taking a bit of a pose. "Not just anypony over here."

He winced. "Sorry: anyling, I mean, of course."

"No." It came out harsher than she'd meant it to: she had to take a breath to get her mane to stop bristling. "I'm not a pony, not a changeling, not anything simple or straightforward like that."

That got him blinking. "What are you, then?"

She gave him the slow smile with the half-closed eyes. "Maybe you'd be interested in finding out?"

His wings quivered, but they didn't go shooting out the way she'd hoped. "Well, now," he said, his grin widening, "officially, all I'm supposed to do is invite you to take your true shape and return with Thorax and me to the hive for a repatriation ceremony before you decide what you're going to do with the rest of your life."

"My true shape?" She put just the right amount of sway into her step as she moved toward the doorway. "You're looking at it, Buggy Boy." Squeezing past him, she made sure her tail stroked that broad, deep chest of his a little. "Of course, I'll be happy to add the hive to my tour schedule, but I s'pose that'd be a matter to take up directly with His Majesty." Out in the hall, she looked back over her shoulder. "Or maybe with His Majesty's security chief?"

The way Pharynx's gaze was moving up, down, over, and around her, Sapphire almost expected to feel it like the tines of a currycomb. "Well, now," he said again, turning and stretching his neck before sniffing the air. "I'm no expert, but I'd say that's a kind of love I'm sensing here..."

With a laugh, she started a medium strut back toward the VIP Suite. "First things first. I mean, you said we've gotta check in with your brother, right?"

"Why?" A buzz of wings, and he dropped into step with her, Sapphire sensing all kinds of very interesting things wafting around in the space between them. "I love my brother, sure, but really, Ms. Shores! To suggest a threesome this early in our relationship?" He looked away and sniffed, an absolutely phony primness taking over his face . "I don't know what sort of fellow you think I am, but—"

"Uh-huh." She let herself shift just enough to brush his flank with her own. "I can take a few guesses about what sort of fellow you are if you'd like. I'm especially thinking of the term 'hard ass' that I believe I heard earlier."

When he looked over this time, his sincerity was a crisp and literal scent. "If that's what you want and need right now," he said, his voice gentler than she'd yet heard from him, "then I'm happy to help."

Sapphire had to swallow and look away, her insides still battered and raw after finally squeezing everything out. "Cute, flirty, and fun," she murmured. "That's all. But—" She shook herself, slipped into her regular self as easily as she would into a comfortable robe, and winked at him. "You keep doing as well as you're doing, I might just show you a few of my favorite spots later."

Some of his grin coming back, he nodded. "Because I imagine you'd know all the best places in Canterlot."

"That, too." Another bit of a brush against his side. "The spots I'm thinking of, though, tend to follow me around rather closely..."

He blinked, then everything about him perked up. "Well, now!" The glow of his magic shot down the hall to pull open the VIP Suite's door, and he hurried ahead. "Let's get this evening started, then!"

Watching him go, Sapphire basked in a warmth she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. Yeah, she was gonna like these new changelings, she found herself thinking. She was going to like them a lot.

Author's Note

And in the end:

No, wait. We're dealing with a different Beatles' song entirely here!

Still, here's the prompt image I received:

Once again, the outline for the story pretty much popped into my head as soon as I saw the image. All I needed to do was put it into words and paragraphs and all that sorta stuff. It was a lotta fun, and thanks again to Shrink Laureate for organizing the whole thing.

Mike

3 - Nothing You Can Say But You Can Learn How to Play the Game

That old hissing click of a name—Pheropsoph—curdled her gut. "It's Sapphire Shores," she said through her teeth. "Maybe you didn't check the giant glowing letters on the marquee outside?"

The enforcer's ears twitched up beside his horns, nothing but glee in his scent. "Then you deny that you're the aforementioned agent of the deposed changeling queen?"

"Deny?" Sapphire stomped one front hoof and swept the other from side to side across her new audience. "I'll ask the noble kings and princesses here gathered: have I denied anything? Haven't I been polite and cooperative and naturally charming this entire evening? Haven't I behaved myself when we all know what I could've been doing to those guards and those kids and all the other folks y'all set out as bait for me if I was anything like the monster this jacked-up, wannabe shell stomper thinks I am?" She ended with her hoof pointing at the enforcer.

His ears were flat now, his grin a snarl. He even took half a step toward her before King Thorax set a hoof on his shoulder and said, "Pharynx."

Sapphire didn't see how one little word in that mild little voice stopped the enforcer, but it did. Maybe this king deserved a second look after all.

"I'll apologize, Ms. Shores," King Thorax said then, and his sheer and utter sincerity moved that second look idea straight to the top of Sapphire's list. "My brother's eagerness to keep the hive safe sometimes clouds his judgment."

The enforcer—Pharynx—pouted in a way that Sapphire would've called cute under any other circumstances and sat back with his forelegs folded across his chest. "I've got a job to do," he said with a sniff, "and I do it."

His Majesty patted Pharynx on the shoulder, then turned those big, liquid eyes on Sapphire. "So please let me be blunt, Ms. Shores. Were you once the changeling infiltrator known as Pheropsoph?"

To sass or not to sass wasn't really the question. The question was how much sass to employ... "I hope you'll understand," she said, polishing a hoof against the blue-and-white layered waistcoat she'd chosen for this encounter, "why I had to change the name. I mean, Pheropsoph?" She stuck her tongue out. "Chrysalis lacked the least crumb of music in her. It's why we never really got along."

The already quiet room went even quieter, and Sapphire gave Celestia a sideways look. "Pretty sure a certain princess knew all about this already, though."

Celestia's shrug barely jostled the shadows pooling under the pastel cascade of her mane. "I had suspicions. I chose not to act upon them." Her smile, though, made those shadows glow. "My love of music, I suppose."

"Your mistake," Pharynx growled again—Sapphire was starting to wonder if he could say anything that wasn't a growl. "But one of the rights granted to the New Changeling Hive in the treaty of—"

"Pharynx." King Thorax put more throat into the name this time, and Sapphire felt her own ears tuck into her mane. Yet another reason she didn't care for royalty: the pheromones they puffed around. She really needed to make some songs about this guy before he got any deeper under her skin.

"Ms. Shores," he said then, and Sapphire stopped herself from issuing her automatic 'call me Sapphire' reply. At least all the nasty compulsion was gone from his voice, so she reluctantly awarded him another style point. "I know I don't need to tell you about the difficulties of being a changeling in Pony society especially after the most recent and hopefully final attempt by Her Deposed Majesty to impose her will upon Equestria."

This guy was way too soothing and way too easy on the eyes: Sapphire had to force herself to snort. "Y'know, I think I liked it better when Shell Stomper here was yelling at me." She jutted her chin at Pharynx. "Maybe you could arrest me and take me off to some nice cell somewhere before your Boss Bug gets me passing out?"

King Thorax's head drew back, his eyes wide.

Pharynx gave an actual laugh. "He is a little on the hypnotic side, isn't he?"

Sapphire shook her head with a low whistle. "Take him down three octaves, and he'd clean up on the R & B circuit."

That got a flurry of blinks from His Majesty and another laugh from Pharynx. "Well, we don't have a cell for you," the enforcer said, and something warm quivered there, the same sort of sweet, fragrant, pleasant and unnatural emotion Sapphire had first sensed from little Ocellus. "But we have set up a special Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Everything about him became serious. "If you'd like to keep operating on Equestrian soil, you need to convince the commissioner that you're no longer a danger to our Pony allies." His smile returned with its edge showing again. "And if you think I'm a hard ass..."

Half closing her eyes, Sapphire made a show of stretching her neck to check out his posterior. "Might be I'll need to do a little hooves-on research on that last point."

The two changelings blushed mightily, and with their fancy coloring, Sapphire found herself determined to cause this effect as often as she could manage it. Behind her, Luna whooped and Celestia chuckled, and when Sapphire glanced back to see how the rest of her audience was responding, she wasn't surprised to see Princess Cadance covering her smile with a hoof while Princess Twilight looked about as confused as King Thorax had earlier.

Yeah, Sapphire was gonna enjoy making music for those two ruling wallflowers...

Which meant she had to stay in Equestria, which meant she had to bamboozle some commissioner or other. But, well, she'd been a bamboozler the instant she cracked her eggshell, hadn't she?

She gave herself a shake, took a stance that showed off the long, lean lines of her physique to their best advantage, and made her voice just about husky enough to haul a sled. "So who's this commissioner I need to convince?"

Pharynx's grin when he turned to King Thorax had a whole different sort of edge to it than before. "I'll just escort her over there, then." He pointed that grin at Sapphire. "We've got him all set up right down the hall."

Blinking, she had to drop the stance: she couldn't hold it for too long without falling over sideways anyway. "Down the hall? You mean...here? In the arena?"

"Oh, yeah." Pharynx started for the suite door. "We didn't want to keep you waiting."

Something prickled in her middle, and it took her a heartbeat to realize it was stage fright.

Just then, though, Celestia's voice flowed warm and gentle over her ears. "All will be well, Sapphire. Merely tell the truth as you experienced it."

And because she couldn't let some princess get the last word... "Truth, huh?" Cocking her fetlocks into about half a strut, she followed Pharynx through the door. "Hope this commissioner doesn't mind a little song and dance, then. 'Cause there's nothing I know truer than that."

She stepped out into the hallway, and the place was so dark and quiet, she had to look twice in both directions before she could find Pharynx heading off to her left. "Song and dance?" he was saying. "He'd probably be okay with that, actually." His eyes glowed slightly when he looked back at her. "As long as you mean a literal song and dance. 'Cause you try to lie to him or bluff him or spin things to make yourself look good, he'll just plain shave you bald."

It took a little effort to keep her hoofsteps firm as she caught up with him. "I'm gonna guess that's the voice of experience?"

He shook his head. "Not personal. But I've seen deep-cover operatives on the floor weeping, and this guy just sitting there with his eyes half closed." Pharynx shivered, a sour emotional note plucking Sapphire's ear. "I don't wanna know how he does it, but he's damn good."

Every sassy comment seemed to dry right up inside her, and then he was stopping before an office near the end of the hall, the door labeled Lighting Manager. Green magic wavered between his horns, reached out to touch the knob, and he turned another of his completely serious faces toward her. "All you hafta remember, Hot Stuff, are the words 'truth' and 'reconciliation.'" The door clicked, and he pushed it open. "You give us the first, and we give you the second."

Her every instinct yelled at her to bolt for the fire escape. But, well, she'd been ignoring her instincts for longer probably than this Pharynx had been alive. Squaring her shoulders, then, she walked through the door: no strut, no slide, no jive. Just walked inside—

And saw a little white rabbit lounging on a cushion on top of the desk against the wall maybe three paces away, the office small and cramped with bookshelves.

She blinked at the rabbit. It didn't blink back, its attention—and teeth—wholly engaged in a carrot about as long as the rabbit was tall that lay on the cushion beside it.

Glancing behind her at the grinning Pharynx, she said, "Either you've got a way different sense of humor than I thought, or I'm missing something."

"Angel Bunny?" Pharynx said, still grinning in the doorway. "This is Agent Pheropsoph, the one we were telling you about."

The hair along Sapphire's neck rose like a thunderstorm was rolling in, and when she turned to the desk, the rabbit was looking at her, disdain billowing from him like some toxic fog: again, it took a fair amount of effort for her not to step away.

Not a regular rabbit, looked like...

Pharynx's voice reached her through her confusion. "Ocellus, the nymph you met earlier, first got to know Angel here when she was volunteering at Fluttershy's animal sanctuary. Turned out that, when she changed into a rabbit, she could communicate with him. And he loves to communicate. I think you can sense how strongly he projects his emotions?"

Sapphire managed to nod, still trying to catch her breath. The rabbit—Angel, Pharynx had called him, a name as unsuited to this monstrosity as Sapphire's original name had been to her—Angel had reined in the poisonous cloud he'd been emitting just a bit, but his active ill feelings toward her still came out strongly enough to make her stomach roll.

"So we made a deal," Pharynx was going on behind her. "Some of us bunny it up with him a few times a week, and he lends us his services whenever situations like you come up."

Her stomach twisted at a sudden thought. "I ain't changing into any rabbit," she more choked than said. "Not for you, not for him, not for anypony!"

"Good."

She snapped her head around to see if he was mocking her, but Pharynx was just nodding. "All we want you to do is tell your truth: what you did, how and why you did it, who you did it to, all like that. You talk, he'll listen. You play it absolutely straight with him, he'll play it absolutely straight with you." He fixed her with his pretty, pretty lavender eyes. "That clear?"

Not trusting her voice, she gave him a nod of her own.

His lips curled into a smile that she found herself really wanting to taste: she'd been avoiding changelings since the Big Shift, but now—

First things first, of course. "You wait outside," she told him, focusing on those eyes and those lips. "I may need a little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after this."

Even his smirk was unfairly cute, then he was stepping out into the hallway and closing the door.

Silence filled the little office, and Sapphire breathed it in. "All right, Mr. Bunny," she said, slowly turning back to face him. "I was built to remember, and I got the whole thing right up here." She brushed the tip of a hoof against her forehead. "Parts of it I don't like very much, though, so you get yourself ready." Gritting her teeth, she lowered her head so she was looking at him through her eyebrows. "'Cause I'm only gonna do this once."