DEC 29 Monday.

I rise from my bed with groggy thoughts. My mind is still occupied with last night. I start by making some tea and sitting down with a few of my notebooks.

Last night was a fucked mess of a situation to be in, and I still feel a little terrible that I might have killed that Changeling, I was just defending myself but that doesn't make me feel much better about it. I can't even go and check, I just have to sit and wonder without an answer. I sigh and down more tea. I guess I may never truly know.

I flip open the notebook for Changelings. I wrote down everything I could remember last night, but I did it in a rush so I'll need to sort and organize what I wrote down.

The Changeling I saw was around the size of a Pegasus. They looked like a Changeling, black chitin, I think their eyes were green but I didn't get a good look at them, holes throughout their body. I didn't have time to thoroughly examine them so I didn't learn much beyond their size and how they looked.

Moving onto the circumstances. When I ran into that Changeling in that dark alley why did they attack first? I didn't see the flash of green fire that happens when they transform, so unless they have a way to hide it, that Changeling was undisguised in the alley.

The likelihood of them getting out of that situation without me seeing them was almost nonexistent. I think once I saw them they only had two choices, kill me to keep their secret, or run. And I don't think whoever they report to would be very happy if they ran, hell that might even get them killed.

So they went with the only real option they had left, attacking me. I spared them both because I couldn't bring myself to kill them through inaction, and because I don't think they had much of a choice. From their point of view, they were put in an impossible situation, kill or be killed.

But what doesn't make sense, is why the hell would a Changeling be undisguised in the middle of a city? To rest maybe? I'm not sure how their magic transformations work but they count as illusions in some way, and illusions take a good amount of magic to hold, and their illusions are also solid, increasing the magic cost further.

Even if they've evolved to do this there would be a point where they would have to rest and recover their magic. But the alley was near the upper city markets and that area has more guards around. They could have been doing the same thing as me and were using the alley as an out-of-the-way resting spot.

But in that weather? Yes, it would be hard to find them but it would also be hard to see others approaching. I have some evidence that they can also sense emotions, so why didn't they sense mine in the alley? They obviously didn't know I was there. Can they turn that ability off? Does it take magic to use?

What can I learn from the way they acted? Thinking back on it, their attacks were just wild lunges without any real skill or combat style. Were they not trained to fight? Well, why would you train them in combat when their job is to only infiltrate to collect information and love?

And I remember those two Changelings in the forest talking about being overworked. If I needed to train Changelings to collect enough love to not starve I would be willing to sacrifice other things to get that faster. If they were only trained to be good at infiltrating and nothing else I could see it being a possibility.

So many ifs and buts with no real answers in sight. I just don't have enough information. So what do I do? What can I do? I sit there getting lost in my thoughts for a while.

I'm a single pony, and I'm up against. Beings capable of moving celestial bodies. Discord, who might just be the fucking embodiment of chaos. Warlords. Wars. Magic bullshit of truly epic proportions. And the end of the fucking world. I was outclassed from day one.

And in all of this, I've only three real advantages. The knowledge my past life has given me. And within that my knowledge of the future. And time to prepare for what's to come. And with the way things are going I might not have that second one for much longer. So what do I do?

After an hour sitting on my floor and thinking it over again and again, I find my answer.

I sigh as the realization sets in. I'm not ready. I'm not ready to fight this battle, I have neither the strength nor knowledge to do so. I'm still twelve for fucks sake. I need to grow stronger and keep doing what I've been doing, helping as much as I can while staying safe, but to do that I need to solve my main problem right now.

Changelings can still find me, and if I want to live long enough, to grow enough, to help enough, I can't die now. So I'll Keep my head down and hide until I am ready. But to hide I need two things, a way to tell when Changelings are nearby so I can leave. And a way to hide my emotions.

And luckily I've made some progress in the second. I found a rune of emotions, its context doesn't fit what I need the best, but I'm also out of time to find a better rune. I'm also not sure if what I'm making will even work, but like I said I'm out of time. I take my notebooks with me into my workroom.

I sit at a desk and begin. Including today, I have three days to finish this before I have to go back to work.

When I encountered them in the forest they didn't sense me until I had a strong emotional reaction. And I think that they are tuned to only look for strong reactions. If you're a Changeling and need to sort through a crowded street for the best source of love the easiest way is to look for the highest amount of love emotion.

Most others are probably ignored in favor of those strong bursts of emotion. So if I have this shield to block those strong spikes of emotion and keep the rest at a low level I'd probably not draw much attention. I wouldn't be a good food source and I wouldn't stand out for having no emotions at all.

Then again this is all with the assumption that this will even work. I drag my mind out of my thoughts and start working on the spell. I start with the shield spell I've used in the past. First I remove the rune for shield, I can make this spell work without it and that will cut down on the magic cost some.

Finding the right math equations to form a shield will take a while but once I have that I can add the rune for emotions and more math to have it conform to my body. If I can get this working as well as I hope I can then it should be able to work with a piece of jewelry.

It'll definitely need to be an expensive piece of jewelry but I could care less about money right now. I prepare for the sleepless nights and days inside I have ahead of me by drowning my stomach in more tea and settling it at my desk.

DEC 29 Monday POV shift Celestia

Yet another of my guards walks over and places a report on my desk. It's been a hectic two days to be sure, and things have gone far from planned.

I move another report over and read it, another failure. This all started a while back when a few guards and other ponies started noticing some odd things. A few ponies here and there going missing, or a pony acting out of the ordinary. How I wish it stayed that small.

At first nopony knew what to make of this, but over time patterns started to emerge. Someone was taking my ponies, I was not happy, to say the least. But we could never catch any of them in the act, and it's gotten worse recently. We don't know the exact number yet, but over three dozen ponies have gone missing in the last two years.

Luckily not long ago I got my hooves on the enchantment Shade gave me. I had a few ponies trying to develop something similar but that was still a year or two away from being ready.

The enchantment only tells you if somepony with an illusion is nearby but that was enough to start tracking them more consistently, and hopefully find them. I've had several ponies making the devices in secret to be used by the guards and a few agents, and they were supposed to start using them yesterday.

That did not go well, I'm not sure how but whoever is behind this found out. The few suspects we had under watch disappeared two days ago, along with several of Canterlot's guards, I don't know where the leak happened but it did. The new devices were given to several experienced guards and agents as quickly as possible and sent out looking, but they've found nothing so far.

I read through the report and stopped at a certain point. Last night we had a rogue snowstorm that is also being investigated, while it was happening one of the suspects under watch was ordered to be brought in. They were able to track them down, but there was a fight and the suspect ran.

They were followed to an alley that connected two streets, but shortly after that, they got away in the snowstorm. I read a note at the bottom of the report.

Suspect presumed to have used the alley to change their disguise and left through the other entrance before guards could secure it.

I sigh and drink more tea to fight off my fatigue. Another dead end, as I go through report after report I find nothing but close misses and cold trails. We haven't captured any suspects yet and it's looking increasingly likely we won't, whoever's behind this had a plan to leave fast if needed.

I don't know who's behind this but when I find them. I stopped that thought trying to not let my anger get the best of me. I take a breath and calm myself. I sort through a few more reports before taking a break. This has been a disaster, and the worst part is still unknown.

They had somepony high enough in either the guard or any of the other ponies involved in this plan. I've done my best to keep it quiet but they still found out, and if I want to try this again I'll need to plug that leak.

I would have just given that enchantment to every guard in Equestria. But it takes too much magic. I've had a few ponies start enchanting larger, lower-quality gems, to have them be sent to other cities and towns. But even doing that on a large scale is difficult to do without notice.

I could ask Shade to help? I shake my head. No, he may be accomplished but he's still just a colt and I refuse to drag him into danger. My mind wanders to the colt as I read through more reports. I had to postpone our meetings for a while in preparation for this.

My meetings with Shade have been a nice distraction from my duties. He, like most, was formal with me when we first met and continued to be so until we talked in his home. I'm still a little surprised he was so calm about it, and that he blatantly told me he had things he may never tell me.

My curiosity about that is still strong, but it's clear he doesn't want to talk about it so I'll wait, I can be very patient when need be. After we started meeting he became much less formal with me, and it's not often I have a pony do that.

Many do become more comfortable around me after some time, but few actually relax enough to joke around with me and have a little fun. I smile as I sign off on another report with my quill. It will be nice to talk again when this situation is more stable.

I nearly groan as another guard places several more reports on my desk. I drink another cup of tea and settle in, it's going to be a long day.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :}