Chronicles of a Young Woman's Love Life

Chapters

Chapter 6: Who Is Changeling Queen Degurechaff?
Prologue
Chapter 1: Everfree
Chapter 2: Contact
Chapter 3: Massive Timeskip
Chapter 4: Wedding Bells
Chapter 5: Unconditional Surrender
Daring Do And The Changeling Queen: Chapter 7
Chapter 8: Grumpy Tanya
Chapter 9: Party Girl
Chapter 10: Traveling
Chapter 11: Bunneh Business
Chapter 12: Princess Cadenza
Chapter 13: Negotiations

Chapter 6: Who Is Changeling Queen Degurechaff?

I go over the transcribed letter in front of me again.

To Princess Mi Amore Cadenza

I am the new leader of the changelings: Queen Degurechaff. I have been living in Equestria for quite some time now. I am afraid I will have to temporarily rescind my application to serve as an Alicorn. I recently killed Queen Crysalis and adopted all of her descendants. I am currently in the process of educating them how to be something other than a band of ravenous marauders.

To that end I am offering you our formal surrender. I know my presence at the wedding probably muddied the waters, but you have my word I was only there for the ambient love. Weddings are wonderful events to witness. To this end I have enclosed 10% of all the love I have collected while residing in your country, along with a special gift I am sure any woman in your position would appreciate. I sadly cannot offer you any love tax from the children. They have been kept on a starving diet all their lives and I know better than to try and squeeze blood out of a stone.

Please give your response to the changeling delivering your gift. In the case of his wandering off I apologize and will make other arrangements. They are all surprisingly skittish for a people that aspired to conquer a nation.

I put it down and look to the other item on the table. No, not the severed head. We buried Chrysalis once we made sure she wasn't faking it. The bauble in question is a diamond with an impossible amount of love magic infused into it. And I do mean an impossible amount. Diamonds may be the best crystal for storing love magic, but by all reasonable metrics this one should have exploded, or more realistically for love, just stopped storing it after a certain point. Even looking at it makes my head hurt. Whatever enchanting method she used here is a minor cognitohazard.

"How did she do it?"

"How impressive is this Cadance?" I look over to Princess Luna. All three of us plus my husband are in a meeting regarding what to do about the new changeling queen.

"Very. If this energy were in any other form than love it would be enough to destroy the castle. At a rough estimate this is the amount of love a typical pony could output over the course of a hundred years. If she was telling the truth about her tribute, and feeding continuously she could have been in Equestria for almost our entire history."

"Troubling." Says Princess Celestia. "We never found out where the changelings came from. They just appeared one day and started ravaging cities. We couldn't use the elements of Harmony on them because we didn't know who they were. We didn't have anypony on our side that had your talent Shining Armor, and the day ended in tragedy. We were forced to abandon our then capitol and seal it away with the changelings still inside." My blood chills at the thought. An entire city gone to changelings, just like that. "It was fortunate Queen Chrysalis returned weaker, more foolhardy, and with a less numerous army. I know not what she was trying to accomplish with the marriage to Shining Armor, but it doubtlessly would have been bad for all of us."

The door slams open.

"I found it guys!" Yells out Twilight Sparkle. "It was in a drawer in the room Chrysalis was waiting for the ceremony to begin." She gives it over to Celestia. It takes a few minutes for her to skim. She's almost at the end before her frown disappears and she starts giggling in a thoroughly undignified manner.

"What's so funny sister?" She plants her face into the table and shoves it over to Luna

"Snrkt!!" As she holds back her laughter.

"What is it?" I ask.

"She thinks all Alicorns are just Changeling Queens in disguise. It's probably why she didn't think it would be an insult to offer up herself to impersonate an Alicorn." One of the royal guards just outside turns his head at that. Right before Twilight Sparkle shuts the door again.

"What? That's... Well I guess it's why she paid tribute in love, but why does she think I'm the strongest while you're right here Celestia?"

"Because she thinks we're changelings. We could just switch up our public personas when a new one was found. In fact she even mentions not wanting to participate in that, just wanting to be a finance minister of some kind. She probably thinks I switched to you because love is the source of all changeling power. Nopony but the strongest would be allowed that title."

"This would also mean you would need to be our ambassador." Pipes in Luna.

"What? No! No no no! She sent me a severed head in the mail thinking I would enjoy it. I refuse to be in the same room as that psychopath. Surely we have better options than me."

"Not really no." Luna shakes her head. "Many times when we were setting up Equestria's borders we needed to entreat with foreign nations. Many times we had to send either myself or my sister depending on who would be more respected at the negotiating table. This was often unpleasant for us, but it was the least we could do to keep our little ponies safe."

"It needs to be an Alicorn as well Cadance." Interjects Celestia. "That way she will believe she is speaking to a fellow changeling and feel safe enough to speak candidly."

"You want me to perpetuate this farce?!" Celestia raises her eyebrows at me.

"Would you rather she see you as a convenient unlimited food source?"

"Celestia I have concerns about this plan."

"Yes! Thank you Twilight. It's good to have somepony see sense here. Shining Armor tell them what a security nightmare this would be."

"I don't see a problem with it my love." I glare at him. He continues on. "Together we beat them at our lowest point as their prisoners. With us fresh and prepared, they won't stand a chance if they try anything."

"Won't they get angry when they find out we've been lying to them?" Asks Twilight.

"Lying to them?" Asks Celestia. "They've been living in Equestria for centuries. She surely knows the story of how me and Luna became Alicorns. She came up with this idiot conspiracy despite that, and I don't see the value of wasting my breath trying to convince her otherwise. Twilight!" She does a little salute. "I need you to pull the records for Master Artificer Subtle Polish, Archmage Small Biguns, and Archmage Shimmering Heart from the royal college."

"Why are you having her look up Shimmering Heart?" I ask.

"Because these are the identities she is citing as giving her the experience necessary for Alicornhood." Twilight gallops off to retrieve the documents.

"...Give that over here, I want to see this for myself." As I'm reading through it Luna speaks up.

"There is another danger that the severed head could represent. We could be looking at an ill-advised attempt to woo your heart."

I stare at her disbelievingly.

"It could be." She defends. "In the early days we had to deal with many similar attempts from various Griffon and Primate tribes. It wasn't until certain advances in communication magic came about that we were able to completely stop it."

This, of course, started an argument that lasted until Twilight got back. Me and Shining Armor desperately arguing against it while Celestia and Luna maddeningly mixed facts and anecdotal evidence up in response.

To sum up the information we got from Twilight, Small Biguns was a shape shifting specialist. Her cutie mark was just straight up changeling flame. Accomplishments include transforming into a dragon and writing a treatise on juvenile Dragon behavior. After that was Subtle Polish. An earth pony identity made to test city pony racism according to Degurechaff. Cutie mark of a knife. Attempted to certify as a combat specialist Archmage. From what we were able to tell she technically qualified on merit, but was denied anyways for unspecified reasons. This actually made Celestia visibly angry. Later went down the artificing series of classes and qualifications. Twilight actually found a couple enchanting techniques claimed by Degurechaff that later unicorns took credit for. Probably more that were buried if the diamond in front of us is anything to go by. Lastly was Shimmering Heart. This one I know the most about. Codified a few scores of love spells. Showed decent combat aptitude. Pushed for every school in Equestria to have a mandatory love magic primer. Celestia remembered a particular habit she had while tenured when she visited at the time. She professed to be looking for a wife and encouraged all the young mares to fire off her love beam spell at her to impress. When they inevitably didn't make the cut, she played matchmaker to minimize hurt feelings. Clever girl.

In the end I decided to put my big girl horseshoes on and agreed to meet with the new queen. Shining Armor is right. With him by my side I have nothing to fear from the changelings.

Time to practice my confidence in a mirror.

Changeling Beeswax.

I nervously look to the changeling in front of me. I didn't have much warning before she dragged me off to the side. Alleyway muggings like this never end well for ponies, to say nothing of changelings.

"Tell me about our new queen."

"Huh? You don't want my love?"

"Not today cutie." She winks.

"Oh. Hey what's your name?"

"Nunya."

"...Well then." She rolls her eyes.

"Infiltrator Nunya. Our queen. Talk. You were with her when she came to the hive. You have to know something."

"Well..."

Changeling Beeswax: Walking towards the hive with Queen Degurechaff.

"...I wasn't all that surprised when she shape shifted her head. You see most living things can survive a minute or two as a severed head. Most people just can't really do anything about it as their blood leaves their brain and their vision fades to black as the their brains die. I was more surprised she could fight through the fear to do anything."

"..."

"Oh sweet Harmony I got some of her in my hair. Eugh! Reminds me of the time I accidentally eviscerated an enemy mage above me. I was scrubbing the stench of his rotten guts out of my hair for a week."

Changeling Beeswax: Now

"...she's scary. Unbelievably so. But weirdly nice? I accidently gave her bad news to her first question and she didn't hit me or anything!"

"Hmm, that matches what we know. We have an operative that specializes in killing intent. She's personally killed more than twice the amount of people Chrysalis has, but without any fear of death. We all know what she plans for the hive, her truth spell speaks for itself. Is there anything at all that we should be aware of?" I think about it.

"She thinks all Alicorns are other Changeling Queens."

"...Is that it?"

"Well I haven't spent that much time around her. And everything I heard about her from other lings is just weird money talk."

"Then we'll just keep any information that conflicts with that away from her." I narrow my eyes at her.

"Is this wise?" My rebuttal draws a hiss out of her.

"Listen you little grunt, I heard what she wants for the hive just as well as everyling here. And I want that. I want it more than words can describe. There is nothing I wouldn't do to secure that future for us."

"But-"

"And you weren't the one responsible for preparing Chrysalis for infiltration. She was a nightmare, didn't listen to a Harmony damned thing we said when it came to what she was doing wrong. It wasted so much time. Time that would've been so much better spent anywhere else. I will not go through that again with this one do you hear!! Spread the word!"

Well okay then.

Author's Note

Chrysalis set a low bar.

Prologue

A famous song once said you never know what you got till it's gone. Fuck whoever sang it. Fuck them for being so right.

Every enemy we faced in the great war was defeated, with their mage forces all but destroyed by us. Every psychopath super soldier, and war mongering idiot laid low as the Empire successfully sued for peace. Not a single casualty in my unit.

Then the second great war happened. Incredible advances in anti-air and fighter technology ground my unit to half strength over the course of two years. Each death a crushing weight on my soul. When Visha died I finally lost it. Went on a roaring rampage of bloody revenge against the Albish. Somehow managed to make it to their war headquarters and killed almost everybody in there. The last person blew the whole building up, killing us both.

Of course being x, sanctimonious jackass that he is, showed up the last nanosecond to gloat over his victory and attempted to wring a genuine prayer from me. I didn't do it, of course. Out of spite if nothing else. Then he threw me down into oblivion after my death with that faux reluctance of his. Now here I am in the dark, sulking, and waiting for the nothingness of oblivion.

"Oh? What do we have here?"

As a

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of colors and other, stranger things assault my nonexistent senses.

What.

"Hmm, cast down from one of the 'higher' planes, are you? What is your story?"

Aren't I supposed to be discorporeating right now?

"Oh. Oh, do those fuddy duddy order gods still think they can destroy souls? What morons! Nobody and nothing can destroy souls. And they haven't been awake for several iterations of the universe now."

Oh goody, this shit again. Listen whatever or whoever you are, I can somehow hear those quotation marks, which means you can read minds and I can't. I have no desire to be punished for literal thought crimes again, so could you kindly fuck off? Thank you.

"Oh you are just a treat aren't you. I can see how an orderly deity would want to punish you." The

R̸̢̜̮͍̜̤̽̋̽̓̉̿̈͊̀͋̆̌͘͘͜ ̶̢̡̛̫̫͚̟̜͙̗̫̳̤̺̈̋͂̽̓͐̆̇̈̅̔̒̒͘͜͝͠I̷̻͍̟̭̖̞̝̫͚̘̅͆̈́̽͋́ͅ ̸̡̢̛̟̲̘̭̝̞̹͇͉̙̤̯͉̲̪̏̈́͒͒̎́̈̽̃̔̔̏̚͝͝Ơ̵͈͕̹̭̿̃̈̒̔̋̓̓̽̈́̔̔̀̈ ̵̡̡̦̮̘̜̟͍͚͚̼̫̞̪͖̼̀̃̇̃͘ͅT̷̙̮͙̜̅̇̈̆̃̇̂̚͝

recedes, directions make sense again, gravity reasserts itself, I'm in a small patch of blue flowers, there's a faint almost transparent eel thing that hurts to look at floating in front of me, and I'm now a quadruped. Quadruped?

"I can only stir so much Chaos when the forces of Harmony have me locked up right now. Tell me, what did you do to piss off one of those joy killers?" I right myself on shaky legs and look up to him.

"I presented a well reasoned argument based on personal experience and proven economic theory." I seem to be female again based on my voice. Bothersome. Taking myself in I seem to be a pony shaped and sized bug thing with wings. I have holes in my legs? What possible evolutionary purpose could that serve? I look back up the the shimmering eel shape.

"Oh my me, you're boring!!" The space he occupies twists and fractals, only to right itself with him no longer there.

You know, I think I like this one more than being x. Much more honest with me so far.

Author's Note

Hey guys, mirroring this here. Apparently it's the place for pony fiction. I can't promise to read or reply to every comment here, the comment format sets off my ADHD something fierce. Head on over to Sufficient Velocity for more consistent engagement from me

Chapter 1: Everfree

Looking around, it seems I'm in a heavily overgrown forest. Not the worst place to be, survival-wise. Food everywhere if you know where to look for it. Water too. The question of what I'm going to do about tool use with no hands was solved almost immediately. Apparently whatever the heck I am has tactile telekinesis. Useful.

On the subject of whatever the heck I am, it seems I'm still magical. Not the same type of magical, no, that would be far too easy. Instead it wants to wash over my entire body that is in a manner entirely unlike a shield. Vexing. It also gives me an extra sense of some sort. All of the animals around me, and the rare tree or two, gives off some sort of foreign sensation. And not all of it is foreign! Like some word half forgotten that you're trying to remember, some of these creatures are giving off infuriatingly familiar sensations, but I just can't place them! In my frustration I grab a particularly delicious looking squirrel (oh, the telekinesis is long range, good to know) to see if these wicked feeling teeth in my mouth are just for show or not, only for some sort of energy to leave the squirrel and flow into me, quenching a hunger that I didn't notice building up till now. Does this mean I'm some sort of energy vampire now? That would be very inconvenient for integrating into society. I let the squirrel go. I get the feeling I could continue to feed from him, but he's giving off an entirely unappetizing feeling right now, and I'd rather set up some sort of sustainable solution for my hunger if at all possible.

Next are the holes in my legs and wings. These are incredibly unsettling to me. They represent an unacceptable weakness in my exoskeleton, possibly cripples any of my natural ability to fly, and they're just gross to look at. In fact I'm feeling an incredible ache in my chest now that I'm concentrating on them so closely. Especially the biggest one in my right front hoof. I'm going to have to limit my physical exertion if they put this much strain on my circulatory system. In fact I'd rather not look at them at-

*PHOOMPH*

Oh.

I'm a shape shifter.

About a week of experimenting with my new abilities later, I've figured some things out. Chief among them is that my new sense is magical empathy. How inappropriate! I am a thinking being of logic! How dare that slippery bucker reincarnate me as a creature powered by emotion! It's all just so very queer. Still my favorite, would be omnipotent jackass, though. It is incredibly difficult to top gender dysmorphia as a cruel and unusual punishment. Nice of him to throw me a bone in the form of shape shifting, too. Second is that I'm an emotivore. I still haven't pinned down the emotion, or set of emotions that I find appetizing, but I have conclusively ruled out fear and anger. I'm confident I'll have that narrowed down even further given enough time. Third is that I learned how to pinpoint emotional signatures through my empathy. I have managed to simply avoid many dangers through the panic of everything else running away from it. I'll admit I got curious once. I looked to see what was causing all the commotion only to see a particularly proud chicken thing strutting through the forest. Thank goodness I waited a few seconds before approaching. A large cat was apparently stalking it and tried for an easy meal, only to get turned to stone right before my eyes. A reminder not to underestimate anything in this forest. Lastly I learned that flight as a bird is just as freeing, and almost as exhilarating as flight as an aerial mage. There are predators to dodge after all.

The world around me is stuffed to the bursting with magic. Anybody from either of my old worlds would call it fantastical. The weather is ever shifting, the colors are brighter, there are actual wild magic manifestations, and half the animals here wield magic in some capacity. Heck, half of the plant life does too! When I was flying over the forest I spotted a pack of giant tree wolves out hunting. Neat! In related news, I won't be squirreling myself away in any more trees I can feel emotions from. I've also seen the wildlife avoid those blue flowers I arrived in. To find out why I telekinetically threw a vole into the patch I arrived in. It turned into a guinea pig. It seemed quite distressed by this.

Attempts to reclaim my magical arsenal in this life have had mixed results. I've memorized every spell formula of my last life, but none of them seem to work quite right here. The only thing the analgesic formula did was to upgrade my empathetic range and sensitivity. A thoroughly strange experience. The protective spells felt like they wanted to work, but was missing something vital. The flight spell merely aided me in my aerial maneuverability. The mage blade spell failed entirely, but I feel I can cobble something together with my telekinesis. Reinforcement and reflex boosting worked almost perfectly. I have not had the opportunity to test the oxygenation or offensive spell formulas. The oxygenation for opportunity reasons, but the offensive for practical reasons. It would not do to attract the attention of any larger predators without the surety of being able to defend myself after all.

My next move is to find civilization. I know it exists. The weakened eel thing was quick to lament that the forces of Harmony were able to check him. If the forces of Harmony aren't a coalition of civilizations of some sort, I'll eat my non-existent hat.

Chapter 2: Contact

My search for civilization started with the cardinal directions. Assuming the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, I flew south first. Going past the forest in that direction finds me a desert. Buck that. Going north past the forest I find a vast, mostly open plain. Skirting the edge of that, I quickly find a quaint little town occupied by a mixture of sapient ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Half of them feel some level of appetizing somehow. Jackpot!

I'm in an owl form right now. Infiltrating town is mostly easy. I have to stay out of the flight lanes of the pegasi though. The town itself looks to be on the level of a medieval town, with the odd anachronistic piece of metalworking and utilitarian magic provided by the unicorns. The language is... Automatically being translated in my head. Closest to English in sentence structure and word composition. Is this automatic? Town wide? Kingdom wide? An interesting question for later. The town signage calls itself 'Ponyville.'

"Hey you!"

I'll admit the population is mostly ponies, but that seems a little on the nose, doesn't it?

"You perching on the sign!" I blink. I look around to find a mare with a shiny chestnut coat looking up to me. I make a questioning gesture.

"Yeah, you! You're not planning on making trouble, are you? Carnivores aren't usually welcome in pony towns." Does she expect me to answer? How would I even do that? I hoot over to her with the general intent of communicating that I'm looking for nesting grounds. It's even something close to the truth!

"Well I wouldn't expect much luck here. The bluejays already have all the best spots, and they're pretty territorial. And if you try making any moves on the farm animals you'll be chased out of town right quick." Well then.

"Hoot!" I'm leaving! As I fly off. That was very informative. First of all being that many animals are apparently sapient often enough that walking up and talking to them is a viable strategy. Wish I knew that before I started experimenting on forest animals with my magic. Unwilling sapient test subjects are never a good idea. For just so many many reasons. Managed a decent cutting edge with my telekinesis though.

The other thing I learned is that I'm kinda big for the locals in my base form. About 1.5 times. Easy enough to remedy. I can get as small as a dragonfly after all. I think I'll be infiltrating as a unicorn too. They're the only ones I saw with ranged telekinesis. Hate to give up flight, but I saw those guys pushing around the clouds in the sky. Not something I think I'll be able to replicate if I'm ever expected to participate in that activity. Everybody also has tattoos on their thighs. I'll need to know what's up with that. Thankfully most children don't seem to have any, so if I go in as one of them I can just not have one and skip the whole issue until I know what cultural significance it has. A foolproof plan!

For feeding though... I think I'll just try my hoof at infiltration for now. Learn the culture. I still haven't got the emotion I need to eat narrowed down, but even this has given me some information to work with. Community and cooperation. In hindsight it's kind of obvious, but most of the creatures I have been able to feed from are mammalian species with some sort of family or community concept. If I assume that higher thought was inherent to all the creatures I fed from, it is one or more of the emotions designed to keep society together. This is just an assumption though, and I'll need to figure out if I can feed discreetly too. It just will not do to get chased out of town for stealing people's souls or some such nonsense. My feeding has been very visible so far.

If all else fails I can just run away and try again a few villages over.

Amber Fields

I was repairing the fence next to the Everfree when I first saw her. Galloping at full speed, like the inmates of Tartarus were on her tail. Filly with a light chestnut coat, black mane, and blank cutie mark. When she cleared the treeline she turned around as if she expected to fight whatever was chasing her only to relax after a few seconds. Good thing too, I'm not cut out for fighting Everfree monsters. That's why we have the fence.

"Hello there, are you alright?" She tenses up like I just shocked her spine.

"Umm, y-y-yes?" With her eyes downcast, and mane covering her eyes. So cute!

"Well come on in! The Everfree isn't any place for young fillies like you. There are terrifying monsters in there!" She hesitantly trots into the farm property. I nudge her along towards the farmhouse. "So what brings you out here?"

"Got lost." I raise my eyebrows.

"Lost indeed. What were you doing when you got lost?"

"Looking for farm work." Now that's a lie, but I can overlook it. Let's pick apart her position.

"Really? Unicorns aren't much for labor jobs. You won't have the stamina for it, unlike us earth ponies. Where's your family? I'd like to get you back to them before they miss you." She sets a stubborn glint in her eyes.

"I can do it! I can be useful! Please don't kick me out." Oh. Oh I'm not sure I was supposed to hear that last part. Paints a disheartening picture about how life has been treating her recently. I nuzzle her snout.

"Don't worry honey, nobody is kicking you out. You can stay with us for now, but a young filly like you needs her family." She looks away.

"Good luck finding them." In a much harsher voice than I suspect she meant.

Life after that went by fairly normally. Not much happened to effect us with her inclusion except for a new face at the supper table, and an extra hand for chores. She struggled at first, but she was able to use her unicorn magic to compensate somewhat.

The search for her family was strangely unfruitful. Nopony reported a filly of her coloration missing within fifty leagues. Very strange. And cruel if some of what I've guessed is true about her. I can't confirm anything about it with her. She steadfastly refuses to talk about her home or family. I tried pressing the issue once only to receive the response that 'this is my home.' I nearly broke down out of happiness right there. Hugged her instead.

She was a bit of a late bloomer with her cutie mark. Showed up as a broken heart. When I saw it for the first time I wanted to bucking strangle somepony. She always said not to worry about it. I always ignored her. Once she was ready she married one of the baker's sons in town. Oh, they grow up so fast.

Tanya, two days after arriving on farm

I figured out I can, in fact, feed discreetly with just some muzzle nuzzling. Very good news.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm eating and how I can possibly get more of it.

Chapter 3: Massive Timeskip

Working on a farm was good for me. Quite a sight better than wading through the mud and blood of war at least. I did fall behind on work at times, but the frequent food I eat helps with that. Both physical and metaphysical. Physical food doesn't give me any problems. I was afraid it would with my apparent ability to subsist solely on emotion, but all I had to deal with were the usual biological processes.

On the subject of feeding, apparently I got a reputation of being very affectionate with all my nuzzling. Something I can live with if it allows me to live with it. It also took me far too long to figure out it was love I was eating. Multiple years. Just put it down as two so I don't get laughed at too hard. Following that I had the bright idea to make my 'cutie mark' a heart. This was when I found out that I couldn't get any cutie marks in a heart shape to come out as anything but broken! What is this!? And then my guardian came in when I was finding this out, so then I was stuck with it for however long I kept using this identity! Nuts.

On the subject of cutie marks, it's believed that Harmony itself bestows them to you upon reaching adulthood. They are your special talent, what you are best at, and what you will be best at for the rest of your life. Usually forms around the start of puberty, when you start maturing as a person. Naturally I thought this was all a bit heavy handed until I observed the phenomenon a bit more. About half the time you can predict what the cutie mark is going to be about if you know the person beforehand. And even when you're wrong it's never a surprise. This leads me to believe it is merely a magical biological process. Somehow.

The culture here is theocratic with a mostly meritocratic governance. Initially I assumed the worst when I heard about our immortal Alicorn ruler that has complete dominion of the sun and moon. Except there is none of the graft, corruption, or authoritarianism I would expect from a theocratic regime. No fear about her anywhere I look either. I suppose if she was actually immortal she would have a vested interest in long term stability. The only negative I can think about her is she has throttled the industrial revolution very sharply. The official rationales I could find for this were environmentalist concerns. Eh, a wash I suppose. I've lived without computers since my second life onward, it won't kill me if I never have them again.

My first husband was agreeable enough. I explained that I didn't think it was physically possible for me to have kids, though for totally fake reasons. He was supportive of me regardless. Being a baker's wife was less strenuous than a farmer's kid. I was able to start stockpiling love in my metaphysical well for a rainy day, with a near constant source of affection from my husband and his family. All of his little nieces and nephews thoroughly adored me. All the extended family too, once they started having foals of their own.

This was the perfect retirement for me. Safe, fulfilling, filling... I was perfectly ready to shuffle off this mortal coil and go on to the next great adventure. Only... I, uh, I didn't? I didn't grow old at all when my husband did. I was able to fake it well enough, but people still noticed I was spry for my apparent age. Then he died and I decided to call it in for this identity. The fillies were all heartbroken of course, but the adults understood all too well.

I told them I wanted to spend my last years touring the world, seeing all the wonderful sights it no doubt has to offer. And I did! I toured all across the continents! The Untamed West was kinda boring, Griffonia was much more like a human culture with a bit of a brighter outlook on life, and Zeberica was wild and untamed. I even visited the Dragon lands. One of them caught me transforming and declared his intent to marry me then and there. Very old male. Seemed to recognize what I was, but still wanted me. Very baffling. I gave him the slip. I didn't want to promise him anything I was unwilling or unable to give.

When I returned to Equestria I realized something. I realized that the ponies here enjoy the greatest concentration of love per capita in the world! Or at least the parts of it I was able to visit. Every single household has at least one actively loving member at a time. (Households being quite big here.) Permeated the air even, as thin as it was. It was the perfect place to stay for a good long while. Or at least until I figure out what my life span is. This revelation was followed shortly by another. Celestia is another member of whatever the heck species I am! It all lines up! The longevity, the anatomy, the internal policy, the propaganda! It's all to shape the minds of three entire species in the world's largest contiguous empire into loving her. Genius!

Well let it not be said that I like rocking the boat. I'll coast under her notice for my entire time living here. Worked pretty well too. I spent most of my time married after crafting identities that nobody even thinks to check. An upside of no computers. Went through the royal college a few times. Never made it to the top though. Grumble grumble grumble. In total I have lived 327 years in Equestria since that eel thing dropped me here. Haven't seen him since. Another point in his favor.

My most recent paramour is a roguish lass by the name of J. K. Yearling. Female only relationships are nothing abnormal in this world, thank Harmony. Gender ratios are a bit skewed towards female here. I met her when I was trying to tame some tree wolves in the Everfree. Timberwolves they're called. My thinking was that they could be harvested for love while I live here for about a decade. Really get in touch with my wild side. I've also never had the occasion to own a dog before. I would've really liked to try it, even if it's not quite the same here.

My plan was completely and utterly derailed by her and some sort of ancient guardian creature rampaging through the forest in an effort to find a long lost magical artifact. What the actual heck. But I am nothing if not adaptable. I took her side and helped her thrash the moron. Not all that overtly mind you. I just helped her navigate the local forest and kept a couple goons busy while keeping myself on hoof if things went south.

After all that kerfuffle was done with she said she was probably going to sell all this as a story to fund her next expedition. I decided to go along with her after that. A financial and martial challenge. Good living, that. Yearling doesn't look half bad either.

Author's Note

I decided to go with such a large leap in time because it mostly doesn't matter. The only interesting things that happen, happen all at once during canon. Or so I'm led to believe. Plus it leaves room for Tanya Style Shenanigans TM in the meantime.

Chapter 4: Wedding Bells

My wife is a lovey dovey sap. Absolutely shameless. Nuzzles and cuddles me all the time. In public even! Whenever I try to confront her about it she just gets all aggressive about it. Chases me off from whatever we were doing back to the bedroom~ Thinks my grey streaked mane makes me look regal. What a catch I've snared.

Golden Tuft is a golden haired, blond maned unicorn with an abacus cutie mark. I thought it should've been a weapon of some sort or a heart. Found her trying to tame Timberwolves of all things in the Everfree. Then she took over my finances, and it all made sense.

She even supports my exploits as Daring Do. When I met her I was being chased down by several jungle cats summoned by my nemesis. She beat back almost all of them single handedly! A real spitfire! After seeing such a feat I couldn't be outdone. I helped with the remaining housecat and led her into helping reclaim the sapphire stone. When I was retelling the story in my book she insisted that she take a relative backseat in the story. In exchange she wanted to help with my finances and trained me in martial arts. I asked her once how she's so good at it. Said it was great exercise and that was when she started training me. I have regretted it ever since. My poor aching hooves. She's still worth it overall though.

She also likes attending weddings. Like the sap she is. Crashes them if she has to. Says she likes to feel all the love on display. Since I've gained a measure of renown I like to use my pull to get invited to as many as I can. In fact I've recently acquired a couple invitations to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's wedding! I can't wait to see Golden's face when I show her!

Tanya

I very vigorously and enthusiastically showed J. K. Yearling my appreciation for her yesterday. She got us The wedding invitations. I've been begging for them ever since I learned of the event. We're walking up the stairs of the castle right now.

"Oh, I'm just so excited! What do you think Princess Cadenza will be like?"

"Powerful." I don't even have to think about it.

"Powerful? Golden, I know she's an Alicorn, but she's a very young one."

"Doesn't matter. She's the Alicorn of Love. One of the most powerful spellcasting catalysts in existence. She is powerful." For one of my species to dare to lay claim to the source of all our power, she must be. Maybe even more powerful than Celestia. Compared to Luna? Not really sure.

Speaking of Luna, I wasn't really surprised at the second Alicorn's existence like some ponies were. Equestria has always referred to itself as a diarchy since its inception. If anything I thought it was strange it was operating as a monarchy with that title. But all this opens up the possibility that Celestia isn't averse to sharing power. I plan to submit my resume as an economist to the first Alicorn I'm able to gain audience with. After all, what's one more Princess at this point? They're just popping up out of the woodwork!

And if this doesn't pan out? Well, I can always go back to living in the forest for a few decades to wait out the heat. Maybe go marry that one dragon. They didn't find me before, they'll never find me after.

We're quite early for the ceremony. Gives me time to explore the castle. Also gives us time to get through those ridiculous security measures. Not that they mean much in the face of a shape shifter. Managed to beg off for time on the gardens to break line of sight, turned into a bird, go into the halls, then turned into a royal messenger pegasus. Thank Harmony I came prepared. I keep various changes of clothes and equipment in a personal subspace. Casting that spell with love magic can only store things made with love, but that's not really an issue for me.

I wasn't able to get close to Celestia or Luna. No birds fly even close to their tower. I was hoping to avoid answering directly to the head of state, but needs must. I approach Cadenza's quarters.

"Message from Princess Luna. I was told to stick around for a few seconds in case she wanted to send a reply" The guards look at each other.

"Where are her normal messengers?"

"Busy, I was available."

"And if the content is secret?" I sigh and fish out a pair of comically oversized earmuffs from my saddle bags. Obviously magical. They look to each other and open the door.

~I shall not partake in any caaaake!~

"A wise decision for your figure your majesty."

*Record Scratch*

Oh, that was a heart song. I always hate it when I ruin those. They require a measure of improvisation and loss of control I don't possess and am not willing to tolerate in myself.

"Who are you! I gave explicit instructions to not let anypony disturb me!"

"Message from Princess Luna." As I close the door. I also turn the earmuff's enchantment towards it in case this goes poorly.

"Just set it oonnn..." She trails off as I transform into my base shape.

It's been a while since I've taken this shape. The holes in my exoskeleton have healed up nicely over the centuries. My wings and horn are whole and straight, while the ones in my legs are pinpricks if they're there at all. All except the one in my front right hoof. Still makes my chest ache when I look at it too hard too.

"Apologies for the subterfuge your majesty," as I bow. "I am unsure of the protocol for these things, so I'm just here to drop off my resume. I'm hoping to serve as an Alicorn of finance of one kind of another." As I set it on the nearest table.

"...What."

"If that is all?"

"You aren't here to assassinate me?"

"What? Oh no no no no no no no! I would have to be an utter lunatic to attack anypony who would dare take on the mantle of love. Such brashness speaks to some sort of magical exploit that would give one of our kind unlimited power."

She raises her hoof as if to speak, then lowers it. She raises her hoof again and lowers it. Finally she decides on a course of action.

"How many more of us are there, do you think?"

"Oh, I have no idea. It could be just us four, or many hundreds more. Nopony will ever know if they're cautious enough." She gives me a thoughtful look.

"Leave. We will talk after the wedding." I bow and obey. She won't be talking to me right after the wedding though. I've left instructions in my resume on how to contact me a month from now. Skirting the edge on overly paranoid instructions where I plan to use a mind controlled bunny to carry a recording device to find out if I have the job or not. Too much? After meeting Equestria's sovereign I'd say it's not enough! She is incredibly severe! I half thought she was going to fight me then and there for some reason. Not one for sudden sudden surprises I guess.

The wedding was pleasant enough. Cadenza was feeling kind of cold to my empathy, but I suppose there are only so many times you can see your lovers age and die in front of you before you start getting jaded. We're almost to the kissing part! Gonna happen!

*Bang*

"Stop!" Oh Harmony what is this? Family drama? I can feel myself zoning out here. I come to these things for all the love in the air. A good bit less with Cadenza sucking up most of it, but it is her wedding. I come back to my senses as a massive concentration of love enters the room. Bigger than Cadenza's by an order of magnitude. And it's... a bedraggled Cadenza?

"That's because it's not your special day, it's mine!" I look to the one up at the altar. Did this crazy bitch actually do what it looks like she did?

"But how did you escape my bridesmaids!" I guess she did. Good Lord, the arrogance and stupidity of this Alicorn. And I revealed myself to her!

"Does that really matter? Ponies, she's a changeling." I look over to the one in the aisle. Is this crazy bitch doing what I think she's doing? "She takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them." Hey hey hey now, isn't that supposed to be a state secret or something? I don't understand it at all! Why is everypony so stupid! I hear shape shifting noises from the dais. She just admitted it? Holy dragon tits is she monologuing!!

No. Nuh-uh. Buck all of this. I grab my wife and drag her to the aisle.

"Honey?"

"Everypony who doesn't want to be caught in the crossfire follow me!" I yell out. As I drag my wife out of the vaulted chamber.

"Honey, what are you doing? This could give me so much to write about! History in the making!"

"Absolutely not honey. We're not bearing direct witness to any fight an Alicorn is participating in. Sounds like a good way to get crispified by a stray solar flare spell." Her eyes narrow and she digs in her hooves.

"Celestia would never."

"I'm not really worried about Celestia in this scenario." I look behind her to a stampeding herd of ponies. Looks like about a fourth of the guests made it out. "Besides, we have civilians to protect." That got through to her. Quick! Time to run and hide! I steer them towards a currently unused first floor room, informing every guard of what happened along the way. I trust them to do their jobs. When we get to a suitable hiding spot one of the nobles speaks up.

"Oh great, a storage room. What's next, stuffing ourselves in boxes?"

"Of course not!" I reply. "There are two powerful Alicorns in the room with the imposter. She won't last long, and the guard will come looking for us once they beat her. Everything is going to be fine." This, of course, is when the shield bubble comes down and a bunch of... juveniles of my species start coming down onto the city like a bunch of ODST's. The ponies looking out the window turn to look at me angrily.

"And even with all that out there, we're still safer sitting tight in here." Interjects Yearling. Oh Yearling~ I walk up to her and nuzzle her side. "Ahh, honey! Now is not the time!" As she radiates embarrassment and love. This seems to calm all the other ponies down. This attracts one of the juveniles to the window. I zap it with some encoded love before they can spook the herd in front of me. Basically says 'buck off, they're mine' directly to their brains. And it does so. Convenient!

This state of affairs goes on for about twenty minutes, with the occasional juvenile poking in and getting zapped. Not truly a tenable state of affairs due to the slowly rising fear in the room, but far more stable then it otherwise would have been with the chaos outside.

Then a love powered shockwave swept me off my hooves, forcibly transformed me to my base form, and threw me out the window.

The last I saw of J. T. Yearling was the look of shock and betrayal on her face.

Chapter 5: Unconditional Surrender

This shockwave has us going stupidly fast. So fast I'd say the only reason we aren't dead is because it's powered by love. Pathetic. I would turn around and devour it right now if I knew that wouldn't kill us all. Though certain lings dying off might not be all that bad for me. I look to the side with my windswept eyeballs. I never knew there were any other Changeling Queens. I destroyed the tree me and my original hive were birthed from. I suppose there could've been more before me, but then why didn't they destroy it? Pah! No matter. She's stuck herself in a cube shaped shield for the duration of our ridiculous flight.

Once we land I take in the casualties. Almost all of us landed unharmed. We're in the badlands to the south not too far from our hive. What fortune! Though I do need to take care of our guest. I walk up to the other Changeling Queen. She is incredibly angry right now. Not quite the fury I'm feeling. It's too ordered and calculating for that. Almost like a Dragon or Hydra in mindset. I should be fine. Both of those species are quite risk averse, comparatively. That she hasn't attacked me already is an excellent sign too. Us Changeling Queens aren't really known for our patience.

"It's good we weren't separated. Now we can plan our revenge together." She slowly turns her head towards me.

"Our revenge. Quite. Tell me whoever you are, what in the everloving fractal horse manure happened back there?"

"Oh that is quite embarrassing. I had captured the last of Celestia's champions. They freed Cadance, and she was able to power the shield spell that expelled us. Honestly, who knew that love could power spells like that?" She slowly blinks at me.

"So how did they escape their bonds?"

"Oh I didn't have them restrained. I wanted to gloat before I put them in the love collection pods." Her eye almost imperceptibly twitches. "So what say you? Do you want to work together to get revenge on Cadance?" She thinks for a couple seconds.

"I think I will get my revenge, yes." Her words resonate with truth and love somehow. Nice party trick. "I'll be hunting down the Alicorn responsible, and kill her personally. Whether hoof, telekinesis, transformed fang, or bombardment magic," bombardment magic? "One of us will kill the other." And she does a little pony salute over her heart. I smile evilly towards her. I won't even have to risk myself personally!

"Excell-" I'm interrupted by a sharp pain in my throat.

*Thud*

Wait what? Why can't I speak? Why can't I breathe!? Oh. Oh, that's my headless body over there. How did this happen! You can't fake any kind of truth magic, even I know that much...

She still thinks all Alicorns are Changeling Queens doesn't she. Horseapples.

Tanya

"Does anybody here have a problem with what I just did?" They're all scrambling and cowering away from me. I walk up to one trying to hide as a rock. Creative use of shape shifting.

"So am I going to have to worry about a bunch of shape shifting idiots coming to assassinate me, or something equally stupid?" He continues to cower. What even is my life? I'm talking to a rock. If I didn't see him transform I would think I'm going crazy here.

Then something bites me in my right hoof. Straight past my exoskeleton. It's a jungle viper. Not native to the desert. I look over to Chrysalis's corpse. Her head is missing. I pull her off and put my love to work healing myself and flushing out the venom.

"Hiss!!"

"Very impressive. You exactly matched the emotional signature of an affronted snake. Now die." I start feeding off her with the intent to drain her dry. I don't do this very often. Feels wrong. Like murder, but far more personal. She squirmed, writhed, and transformed in my telekinetic grasp, but her grasp of the basics are woefully inadequate. I actually feel kind of bad. Pretty sure she's a newborn judging by how many holes she has in her. Then developed some bad habits that made her condition worse. How do you even get holes in your hair? Doesn't stop her from being an existential threat to my well-being though, and it won't stop me from killing her for it.

I drop her lifeless de-transformed head to the ground. "So are you going to face me or am I going to have to get creative here?" He immediately transforms back and starts groveling.

"P-p-please don't eat me your majesty." Hmm, am I the Queen of a hive now? I always knew my species was insectoid. I'll have to implement another method of succession other than regicide if it turns out I'm immortal. I don't want that shoe on the other foot.

"I'm not going to eat you. What was your leader's plan for the governance of Equestria?"

"G-governance?"

"Yes. The plan for after you conquered it." His face brightens up.

"We were going to enslave all the ponies and harvest the love from them forever!" My eye and neck twitch in quick succession. Now he's groveling again. It's such a shame the only thing I've seen one of these guys express enthusiasm for is so mind bogglingly stupid.

A few more minutes has him leading me back to the hive. I'd say it's a coincidence we're so close, but I know better. Harmonic spell catalysts tend towards mercy and reconciliation in their long term effects. Or so many treatises and my own experiences have professed. A wave of fear sweeps through the hive as I enter it. Always a terrible sign. Let's see how easily the children fall in line.

"Gather up the hive. Is there a central audience chamber?" A few minutes later I'm seated on a throne with about four hundred changelings assembled before me. More than I hoped, less than I feared.

"Chrysalis is dead." A hush falls over the room. "She died for the crime of losing a war, and bucking up my retirement beyond any repair. Not only did she start her diplomatic relations with Equestria with an unprovoked war, she started them with a loss. This simultaneously shattered any possible amicable relations, showed them that we are weak enough to be beaten, and revealed my presence to the immortal Alicorns that rule Equestria." I look over the juveniles to make sure they understand the gravity of the situation.

"We will surrender immediately." Slight murmuring breaks out, then immediately hushes up.

"We will have friendly relations with the ponies." As I infuse my voice with the truth. "Once it becomes clear that the new leadership means them no harm we can openly visit. I forsee a future where all the races of the world will welcome us with open arms. We have unique skills to offer. I plan to have everypony at each other's throats competing for the honor of having a Changeling mediator, Changeling psychiatrist, or a Changeling matchmaker exercising our empathy to assist them. They will glut us of their own free will and thank us for the experience."

"Now I can sense doubts amongst you all. Who wouldn't? You were raised by an imbecile. Of course she would have poisoned your minds with her stupidity. So here is but a taste of the bounty you can expect when you utilize my methods." This next part is going to suck. I'm basically going to be throwing up in their 'mouths' with my love. I dredge up a tenth of my total reserves to divide equally between them all, using my magic to aim. They are surprisingly well behaved throughout it all. Once I'm done they're looking much better. Few less holes in every single one of them. Some are zonked out, some are actually smiling at the end of it. All of them are feeling a whole lot less on edge.

"Now to bribe Princess Mi Amore Cadenza."

Shining armor

I knock on the door.

"Yes love?" I feel myself smile. She always knows if it's me somehow. I open it.

"A changeling was at the castle gates this morning." She freezes in place.

"What happened? Who did it hurt?"

"Nopony. It brought us a wedding gift. Said it was from the new queen and then flew out of the city as a sparrow." As I levitate it in. It's a fairly large rectangular wooden box. "Our security and diviners were able to tell that it was crafted with love magic and was safe to open but not anything else. Interference from how densely the love permeates it. Couldn't open the thing either."

"New queen. Could it be the one that supposedly kept a number of nobles safe throughout the fighting?" An old argument by now. Cadance thinks she was just saving them for herself. I think otherwise.

"Maybe. I brought it here because you are the closest love magic expert, as well as the intended recipient."

"Hmm, give it over. This is... This is the love letter spell. They're... No that doesn't make any sense. They're surrendering! And giving me tribute. The new queen is under the impression I'm the true ruler of Equestria."

"Love letter spell?"

"Yes, it's part of a series of spells made by Archmage Shimmering Heart. Just about the only class I paid attention to. In fact with her accomplishments in the field it's a wonder she isn't the Alicorn of love right now. Her cutie mark was a broken heart though, so the requirements were probably different for her."

"But what does it do?"

"It enchants a letter in the language of love. Anybody can understand it, but you can't lie in it. I just don't understand how somepony could be so wrong about so many things so obvious!"

"Can you open it?"

"Easily. You just have to- SWEET BUCKING HARMONY!!" As my love fumbles the container in between us. A brightly glowing pink crystal lands between us.

Along with the severed head of Queen Chrysalis.

Still fresh.

Daring Do And The Changeling Queen: Chapter 7

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay guys, I've been focused on another non-pony story.

I also tried to write this from the perspective of a Daring Do publication, lemme know how I did

Daring Do And The Changeling Queen: Chapter 7

I find myself on a cliff edge overlooking the Changeling stronghold. I turn my head towards our desert guide. He's a very burly bison male.

"Is this the place?"

"Yes. Any of our young buffs that try to get close to this place for the last three years invariably disappear, never to be seen again. It has turned into a den of monsters." I put the binoculars up to my eyes. A spire of black chitin seems to have risen up from the canyon. I'll admit the architecture is unsettling, but I know enough to see that defensibility was put first in the design philosophy here.

"Return to the expedition. If I don't come back in two days lead them back to Equestrian lands."

"B-but Miss! You surely don't mean to go in there do you? Do I need to repeat the part where nobody ever returned?"

"I have to go in there Strong Horn. I have answers to find." I jump off the cliff to fly over. I can't afford to have anybody second guess me at this point. I've spent three long weeks on the road to figure out exactly which direction the Changelings were flung, and followed them.

I need to know what happened to my wife. Or if anything happened at all.

The inside of this spire is just as creepy and chitinous as the outside unfortunately. And when I went inside there were no guards on the ground floor. Strange. I find out why soon enough, though. I found a dead end. Using my excellent sense of direction I retraced my steps to try another path. Only I found that the path behind me was closing up with some sort of liquid! Looking around to see if I could bypass this somehow, I see that there isn't much of a ceiling for the ground floor. I didn't want to fly before now to avoid any attention, but circumstances have forced my hoof.

Once I fly up I take in the view. There's a central room I can see into past the rows of supporting struts that look far too much like teeth for my liking. I can see a makeshift fighting circle with some changelings gathered around, and two of them fighting. There are some steps leading up just past the ring, but I can't see what's up there from my viewpoint. Then a changeling pops up right in front of me

"What are you doing out here! Queen Degurechaff declared it was combat practice, not shape shifting practice today! Come on before she notices we're gone." I did what was only natural in such a situation.

*An impressive amount of cartoon violence later*

So judging from what I've seen so far, the changelings have horrendous security. Probably comes with having a mutable shape. You can always assume that somebody who looks like she doesn't belong does actually, when everybody is a shape shifter. Doesn't hurt that my wife had a thing or two to say about looking like you belong in any situation.

Er, anyways, I was able to sneak up right behind one of the support pillars in the main chamber without any more embarrassing incidents. It looks like a grand throne room that's been converted into about a dozen fighting circles. And in the center is the throne. On that throne is the changeling that was revealed when Cadenza's and Armor's spell drove them all off. Now that I have a chance to properly look at her I see that she doesn't look nearly as bad as Chrysalis did. She has the general Alicorn like shape without as much scarring and outright holes in her. Her horn is straight and unblemished, her wings and mane are healthy looking and sparkly, and her carapace is much less eaten through than that monster at the wedding. But still. I need to know what happened to my wife.

After the next round ended I jumped down into the central fighting circle. I make a few decent cracks in the floor with my impact. Three adventures later and these horseshoes are still proving their worth. Genius investment!

"Where is my Wife!!" I yell out to my stunned audience. Everybody but the queen is stunned. She has a most devious twinkle in her eye. Here's the moment of truth. What I've been biding my time for. At her most secure in the heart of her stronghold surrounded by all her loyal underlings. Will. She. Monologue.

"Well I have to say this is a most pleasant surprise." She says as green fire engulfs her, transforming into the shape and voice of my wife. "I am your wife." She says. It echoes across the chamber in a way that makes me absolutely certain of her truthfulness. I stare enraptured with hope as she gets up from her throne, walking down towards me. I shake the effect off. Queen Chrysalis used mind control on Shining Armor in the lead up to the wedding. I have to be sure this isn't a trick.

"Prove it!"

"Well we first met-"

"My queen, spare us this waste of time." Chimes in a male changeling near the front. All the other changelings start inching away from him as he gets a truly spectacular glare from my maybe wife. "Let's just put this intruder into a love pod and be done with it." There's a few seconds of silence as everybody takes in this male's temerity. I start to calculate my escape route should the situation turn against me. The hive building having a shifting layout complicates matters, but I have faith in my ability to navigate my way to an exit.

"I take it you're volunteering to take her in?" She asks. "She's already in the combat circle." I look over to her feeling slightly betrayed.

"And you said you were my wife."

"Oh you misunderstand me honey. He just tried to get you put into a jelly pod, asleep and harvested for your love for the rest of your days. I don't expect him to succeed here." She still has the maybe truth spell in her voice. Her expression turns from slightly carefree to downright angry while turning towards the aforementioned male. "I expect you to break his worthless bucking legs for the insult to my wife!" Holy rainbows, that was maybe just a little bit scary. Would my wife ever take this risk? Or react so violently in my defense? I suppose it would be a glowing endorsement of my abilities.

"Well? What are you waiting for?! Get in there!!" As she telekinetically grabs him and drops him in front of me. All the other changelings are simultaneously cowering away from me, and crowding around to get a better look in all three dimensions. I have to say this is the most unique reception I've ever had in any villainous lair I've been in.

For his part he tries edging away before looking back to the violent glare his queen is giving him. Then he immediately lunges for me in a probing attack. I redirect his entire frame into the floor in a judo throw, and then see what he tries next. Only nothing comes next. Only the very out of place clapping of a Changeling Queen.

"Oh, bravo! How efficient honey!"

"Was that it?" I ask as she trots up to my downed opponent.

"Oh yes, a good opening counter against any opponent. Unfortunately for him here, he didn't have any shapeshifted flesh to soften the blow at the time of impact. Exoskeleton cracking into the floor at speed is never particularly healthy for the exoskeleton." She reaches down to him with a glowing hoof. There's a sickening little reverse crackle as she pulls him up. "You! Put him somewhere out of the way to recover. He gets to do it the rest of the way by himself. Let this be a lesson everybody! This is why the invasion would've ultimately failed. Even a half trained mare-"

"Half trained!?" I squacked! She worked my flank off in those training sessions!

"Yes honey, half trained. As a self proclaimed adventure, you never put in as much effort into your training as I feel you should have. Ahem! As I was saying, even a half trained mare would have ruined any soldiers chasing after them! The military conquest of Equestria was always incredibly infeasible with our population disparity!" She turns back to me as the rest of the changelings mutter amongst themselves. She's still wearing my wife's face.

"You still haven't proved that you're my wife."

"Well as I was saying, when we first met, I was taming some Timberwolves in an attempt to live as a part of their pack for a decade or two. You know, to see what the wild life was like." And isn't that an assertion that needs unpacking. Live as a Timberwolf? I mean she is a shapeshifter. She could probably pull it off. But where would she get the love to live off of?

"But then you came along and swept me into your little adventure! Facing off against that guardian beast to make something of yourself. Recovering a lost artifact! And when none of that panned out, you pivoted seamlessly to selling the story of your success! The Moxie! The gumption. The pure unadulterated entrepreneurship. You were perfect! Are perfect." She says with a sensual purr and a nuzzle. Oh my Harmony, in front of all these changelings?!

"You'll recall I proposed less than a week after your excellent adaptation to your plans right? To have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and to love and to cherish?" She finishes the sentence with a kiss to my nose. "What say you and me help bring all these kids into Equestrian society? They've all had such an incredibly terrible role model up until recently. We can show them all what a real loving relationship should look like. We can build a better and brighter future for both of our societies. Working together in Harmony."

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?! We could have made this work before! We were already an interracial couple!" She frowns.

"Could we have?" My only response to that is an angry stomp and snort.

"I- Well I'm afraid I'll have to show you what I mean. I'm terrible at explaining these things clearly. I'm not a very good orator." What a load of manure.

"Whatever. Do it!"

"Are you sure? I'll be using the memory sharing spell. And these are very unpleasant memories." I look her dead in the eye.

"Do. It." She takes a deep breath and prepares a spell working in her front hooves.

"It all started in between my second and third identities in Equestria. I had just retired from my first Archmage title." First what now? It's at that point she puts her hooves to my head and I start experiencing a boundless childlike wonder. Golden Tuft's wonder. "I had just gotten done with sampling the endless loving bounty of Equestria in the city. I got to see Celestia's vision of interspecies cooperation coming together in a metropolitan melting pot. And things were only getting better as time went on." There was a brief sour note of disgust when the memory went past the church of the Celestial cult, but it was a minor thing.

Then the memory fast forwarded into the countryside, and her enthusiasm for life turned... brittle. "I had decided to try and test out the Harmonic ideal. In the countryside in case things went sour. I came into town as my natural self, holes and all." I saw a vague mishmash of colts and mares running away from her and nervous stall owners trying to refuse her service. Then some faceless guard unicorn tried apprehending her. He got annoyingly persistent about things too. She tried rushing through the memories, but I felt her emotions go all cold and calculating as she contemplated wiping out everypony who saw her in the village, before dismissing the idea as impossible. Only for that stupid unicorn guard to go beyond any reasonable interpretation of his duty, and cause a teleportation misfire that destroyed the entire village anyways. "It did not go as well as I hoped." She drops her hooves from my head.

"Not as well as you hoped?! That was an unmitigated disaster!! And don't think I didn't notice how cruel you've been! My wife- I don't know- My wife never acted like that!" She gives me a wistful smile.

"I do not ever enjoy being heartless Daring. It goes directly against my nature as an emotivore. It is to my great pleasure that I never had the occasion to think as such when I was living with you."

I groan in exasperation. Why couldn't she have just been a megalomaniac? Things would have been so much simpler then. "Why aren't there any pure cinnamon roll changelings out there?"

"That would be survivorship bias, honey."

"Whosa what now?"

"All the nice changelings either couldn't take it when the hunger got too much and started getting violent, or starved to death when nobody would love them."

"Now that's unbelievable. Nopony gets violent just because of a little hunger. Maybe a little cranky."

She widens her eyes and looks around the room. "Hey everybody, who here gets violent when they're hungry?"

"Me""aye""over here""this one" All in a thunderous cacophony of changeling voices all around us.

I narrow my eyes at her. "Prove it."

"Are you sure? It's probably an herbivore thing, having so many options to chow down on almost everywhere you go. True hunger can get kind of" She closes her eyes and breathes in dramatically. When she opens them her eyes are glowing changeling green. "Intense."

"Hit me." She starts up the same spell as before.

"If you insist." She puts her hooves to my head and instantly it's so much worse than I ever could have imagined. Its like some clawed beast is twisting up my insides, welling up the desperation inside me, driving me to seek out my next meal. Sweet Celestia this is horrible!

"This is the hunger that any purely physical being can feel. From the lowliest vole, to the mightiest dragon. And this" how did it just get worse!? It's like a hole in my heart just appeared, filling me with abject hopelessness, unfulfilled yearning, and lethargy. Almost without my input my body breaks contact with her, turns around, and bucks as hard as I possibly can. The whole hive turns deathly quiet at that. As I look around all the changelings are feeling a whole lot less friendly. And I'm feeling a whole lot less safe.

"That was what changeling hunger feels like." Continues Golden Tuft, rubbing her snout, but seemingly no worse for wear. "It is the utter certainty that nobody in this world loves you for who you are. That nobody has enough compassion or decency to throw you a scrap of bread as you starve in front of them. What too many changelings experienced under Chrysalis before I came along. Now what exactly would you do to never experience such a sensation again? Because I know that answer includes at least a very ornery buck to the face."

I stand there paralyzed for a moment as I ponder my answer. I lift my hoof up in preparation... Only to suddenly take flight. Uh uh, nope! Don't know where I'm going, only that it's away from this stupid scary hive. I hear the entire hive start to buzz in pursuit. Oh joy, this is going to be one of those getaways.

"Let her go!" Or at least it would have been if they weren't called off. I thank my lucky stars that the queen isn't interested in any kind of revenge. I make it half way to the expedition camp before I land.

"AAAUUUGGHH!!!" What have I done!! She's trying to integrate the Changelings! She wholeheartedly believes in Celestia's ideals! I ran away from her because of something I asked for! Because I was scared, just like those villagers. I used physical violence against her.

I'm a terrible wife.

Chapter 8: Grumpy Tanya

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 9: Party Girl

Author's Note

AN: I have no idea who P-Diddy is, that was a Ke$ha reference

Beta Note: Saucy Pinkie is best Pinkie.

Chapter 9: Party Girl

Wake up in the morning feelin' like P-Diddy. Who's P-Diddy? Who cares! I have joy to spread to the people! I toss off my covers and sproi-ing over to my calendar. Hmm, two birthdays today. But first! I bound over to the library to see Twilight.

*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*Muffled crashing noises*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*
*KNOCK*

The door opens and I manage to stop my hoof from smacking into Twilight's bedraggled face.

"What." She asks. Oh, I might have forgotten that she isn't a morning person. Oops... Hehe!

"I wanted to know if the changelings were in town yet?"

"Yes actually. They're setting up a stage just outside of town with a lot more of them on the way." I do a little jump for joy and wiggle my hooves midair. "Fluttershy was actually the one to tell me. Apparently they caused a huge disturbance in the Everfree yesterday. She saw the entire swarm passing by from under the canopy."

"Oh I knew they were coming today! I just knew it!!" She looks at me.

"Pinkie, you've been waking me at the Celestia forsaken hours of the morning for the past five days with the same question."

"...And?" She sighs loudly at me, turns around, and gestures for me to come in. You can't fool me Twilight! I saw that slight smirk on your face! Mission accomplished, nyahahahaha!

I dressage trot into the library to see a bedraggled looking Fluttershy here as well. Must have stayed the night, poor girl.

"Hello Fluttershy! Is the bunny here?"

"Angel is in the kitchen, yes." In her dignified manner.

"Goody!" Not eating here today then. "I'm going to go put together a welcome party for the Changelings then! Bye!!"

"Pinkie? Pinkie Pie wa-" Aaand I'm gone. Man, this is going to be great! These guys brought their own stage even! All I gotta do is get some ponies to open up some stalls in an orderly fashion that won't impede whatever they're doing here. Shouldn't be too hard. Won't even make it into the top twenty crazy things I've done to make sure a party goes off without a hitch!

Let's see... I need to get all three ponies in town who have a cotton candy machine, any businesses on Main Street who would be interested, call up a short notice farmer's market, go to the Mayor's office for a quick bribe to squash any concerns about any pesky noise ordinances-

"I can't believe they managed to get a Celestial Edict for that kind of business." I hear from one of the secretaries. Nevermind about the bribe then. Celestial Edicts are no joke. Trotting over to my next errand, I see a strange young pony passing out flyers on the street. He's a teenage stallion with white fur and a green flame cutie mark. Hmm. I go over and take a flyer.

Changelings And You

With a nice little picture of a silhouette of a black insectoid pony and a white unicorn nuzzling each other. Oh my, how risque. Reading through it, it details how the new queen wants her changelings to interact with ponies, with respect and such. That if you see a changeling you like the behavior of, to not hesitate to pursue any kind of personal relationship at all. Then it goes into detail about what changeling hunger is like, and the conditions they were living under, under Queen Chrysalis. Wow, that's actually kind of horrible... It's a good thing I'm already throwing them a party now then, isn't it?

Looking around I'm seeing a lot of these white ponies with that same cutie mark. Probably all changelings then. Looks like an even split between stallions and mares. Weird. Almost all of them are teenagers too. You know I think this needs some investigation. And Celestia did tell us to find out if they were up to anything when they came into town. Ninja pony time! One quick whirlwind change gets my equipment on, and I pick a couple likely targets. A super rare adult pair going into a side alley. I follow them from the rooftops.

"Change back. Now."

"Nunya, this is stupid. I am an adult changeling."

"Do it! This was an order from our queen herself! You were there!" He changes into a teenager and starts grumbling.

"I can absolutely pass as an adult. This is stupid." As he kicks the dirt. Oh my Harmony how petulant! He's adorable! "What's even the point of this?"

"I'll tell you, you smooth brained grub. It's because almost none of us drones are 'suitably socialized' to interact with the ponies. But any social missteps done by a teenager are more likely to be excused as growing pains of some sort." Ooh, that's actually kind of clever!

"Is that really necessary, though?"

"Necessary? It's everything!! We need to be accepted by the ponies for the Queen's peaceful integration to work. If you screw this up for us don't think it will end well for you. She may seem softer than Chrysalis, but Queen Degurechaff's heart runs five times colder than hers ever did." She shoos the now teen out of the alley. A couple seconds after that she looks vaguely up to my location.

"Hey there peeper~ Want some cuddles?" Meep! She spotted me! Abort! Abort!! Abort!!!

So I'm admiring my work with the impromptu festival when Twilight manages to catch up with me.

"Pinkie Pie! I was worried about you!"

"Whyever for silly? I was just organizing a party. Something I've done close to a thousand times by now."

"Pinkie Pie be serious! I remember the last time we faced off against these changelings. They kicked all our flanks at once."

"I'm not worried. Seems like the new queen really wants this diplomacy gesture to work. She has all the other changelings running scared and obedient."

"Running scared- You don't know the half of it Pinkie!! The rest of us caught one of the changelings cornering a mare and trying to feed off of her. She ran back to the stage here, only to have the queen come out and personally demand an explanation. Once we gave her one she just looked at the changeling and she was terrified! Smashed her face into the dirt, bowed and scraped, and begged for us to punish her! That's not normal!"

"Oh no! What happened to the changeling?"

"She's in jail now. Queen Degurechaff gave us a diamond enchanted to extract and hold love so nobody has to directly feed her. Quite the fascinating enchantment really."

"Hehehe! Twilight if you're feeling safe enough to start talking about book stuff, then I'm feeling safe enough to go try out that cuddle tent they set up over yonder. Wanna come with? These changelings have so many stallions available."

"No thanks, I'm not really interested in that sort of thing. Are you sure you wanna go in there?"

"Of course I am." As Twilight's face gets really strained. "I've seen a good few ponies go in, then come back out already. Worst that happens is they get jelly hooves, or look a little tired." She's looking scared, while looking straight at me now. Okay, I've seen enough action to see where this is going. I jump and spin around midair.

"Ha!!" I'm eye level with a solid black chitin chest. I look up to see the face of Queen Degurechaff looking down at me. I've seen her at a distance already visiting the stalls here and there. Apparently, she's the only changeling allowed out in her natural form.

"Hello, would you happen to be Pinkie Pie?" She doesn't look half bad, really. A couple holes here and there is all. Compared to Chrysalis she's drop dead gorgeous with her intact wings and straightened horn! None of that weird reverb in her voice either.

"Yepperoni!!"

"Good. I was speaking with some of the vendors out here. They said you were the reason they were out here to attract the other ponies."

"Of course! You're one of Princess Celestia's guests! I just had to throw you a welcome party!"

"How very thoughtful of you. I shudder to think how badly this could've gone without your help." I beam at her. "How would you like a job?"

"Working for you? I'm flattered, but I already have a job at the bakery."

"Not a permanent job, just organizing our reception until we get to Canterlot." I open my mouth to refuse again before she beats me to it. "I'm prepared to offer fifteen thousand bits a week for this." And all that can come out of my mouth after that is a high pitched

*Squeak*

She smirks down at my dumbfounded expression.

"Hold on!" Interjects Twilight. "That's super suspicious. Who spends that many bits just on parties?" She squints at Twilight.

"I recognize you from the wedding. You have been to Canterlot, haven't you?" Silence from Twilight. "You are right of course. I'm not spending this much on just parties. I'm spending that much on what looks like to be the perfect mare for the job." As she points to my flank. "I also have a dream. A dream where changelings everywhere are free to walk into any town like this in their natural forms and not get chased out simply for being different." Twilight looks uncomfortable at that. "The path to making that dream a reality starts with exposing as many changeling to ponies in as peaceable a manner as possible. This," gesturing to the intermingling going on around us. "Helps." Twilight looks grumpy. Silly Twilight!! Even if she has nefarious purposes, I totally believe her about wanting to be able to walk around unhindered.

"Can I think about it?" Twilight gapes at me.

"Sure. Just so you know I'm willing to count today as part of your first week. I'm expecting to be on the road for a couple weeks, but if we go into our third week I'll pay you for the entire week. It all depends on how many villages refuse our patronage." Hehehehe. Nopony would dare refuse a Celestial Edict!! Easy money~

"I think I'll have to sleep on it. Hey, if I accept do I get any discounts in the cuddle tent?" She looks to the side, a little embarrassed.

"Unfortunately not. All the changelings listed there haven't yet learned to take exactly as much love as they need to. Embarrassing really, it's like potty training for you ponies. Chrysalis should have taught them all as soon as they could walk on their own. Fortunately, it's a fairly intuitive skill. Only takes about two or three times to get right. And until they do they're all under heavy empathetic supervision from the older changelings. Did you still want to go try it out?"

"Sure!" Twilight tries to grab me, just to keep me safe probably, but I deftly dance out of her grasp. Mama knows what she wants. I wonder if I can request that stallion that Nunya was scolding?

The next day I wake up to inform Mr. and Mrs. Cake about my gig. They were super understanding about it all. And when I was just finished packing Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash knocked on my door. I invited them in.

"Hey, Pinkie Pie, we were wondering if you were planning on taking that job from the Changeling Queen."

"Y-y-yeah, it seems super d-dangerous." Agrees Fluttershy.

"And we can't kick their butts if we're all separated." From Rainbow.

"Yeah guys, I am. I don't think you realize what a life changing amount of money 45,000 or even 30,000 bits is! I could open up my own shop when I get back!"

"You think she has the money?" Asks Twilight.

"Uh, yeah? Didn't you say she's been in Equestria for like, hundreds of years? More than enough time to save up. Plus she talks like one of those stuffy noble unicorns from Canterlot. Total old money type right there."

"And you think she's going to pay up? I don't believe it." From Twilight again. "She said her whole motivation for all of this is to be able to walk around without fear, and that's just not enough for a species built on deception to go to all this trouble." Fluttershy's head snaps over to look at her.

"Yeah!" Exclaims Rainbow. "Monsters like that don't really get fear, unless they're the ones causing it." Fluttershy looks over to her now.

"HEY!!" And that's my cue. I duck into a Pinkie Hole while they're distracted. No clue what set Flutters off, but it made a good distraction. Now halfway across town, I set off for the stage.

Queen Degurechaff was kind of interesting. Real formal with me, but almost aggressive with her subjects. I don't think she likes them very much... I was given a tent to myself and informed I could either be responsible for packing and unpacking it, or request help. I told her I wouldn't be able to be quite as successful in the other villages as I was here without my community connections, so she started working on enticing some vendors to come with me on the trip. Then she presented us all to everypony to make sure we were treated right by the changelings. The plan is to spend the night here, and travel to the next village tomorrow.

Then Fluttershy barges into my tent with suitcase in hoof and bunny on head.

"Why are you two here?"

"Twilight was being paranoid and stupid." She mutters with a frowny face on.

Wow.

She must be really mad for some reason, huh?

Chapter 10: Traveling

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 11: Bunneh Business

"I still can't believe anybody would defy a Celestial Edict like that. This is the second time too!" I look over to the pink one from my cozy roost. Is she still going on about that? Power reaches only as far as you make it after all, and it sounds like this 'Celestia' doesn't make the rounds as often as she should. I warble as much into my friend's ear.

"Y-yes Angel, we all know you take an animalistic view to power, but you only need to look at the sun to be reminded of Celestia's." I make a raspberry noise. Yeah, no way anybody's that powerful! They both freeze up at that. Oh, I think I made my friend mad. I hop off her head and dash out of the tent before she can make her displeasure known. She may have a soft and fwuffy extewior, but I don't wanna hear her yell at me ever again. I'm gonna cause some mischief in the bad town while I wait for her to cool off.

First on my order of business is to season a pie I spotted cooling, with a few rabbit pellets. Really liven up these ponies palates! Then I wander around town a bit, eavesdropping for something new about the bug horse things. Not that I had to wait too long... These ponies just love to talk.

"I can't believe those monsters thought they could get away with faking a Celestial Edict!" Looks like an old gossipy mare and her son. "The nerve of them. Too bad they outnumber our guard or else we'd have whipped 'em real good!"

"Mee-ma, are you sure it was a forgery? It used real gold for the lettering and-"

"Pshaw, of course it was fake. No way the Princesses would let these monsters back in after what they did... What's that in your hoof son?"

"Just a pamphlet somepony was handing out..." The walking raisin snatches it from his hoof.

"Changelings And You? What rubbish! Where did you say this was being passed out, son?" I bounce out the window. I'm pretty sure I know where that song and dance is going, and I don't want to be there for it. Going through the town I kick over some potted plants for kicks and then... Go back to my friend? Ah, but I don't want to risk it! She could still be mad at me! I choose to wander around the camp a bit, weaving through all these bug horse things, when suddenly I catch one of their eyes. Oh boy, that doesn't feel good. I know what a predator's gaze feels like! Then she suddenly turns into a female bunny and cutely flutters her eyelashes at me...

You know what? I'm down for that.

My friend would only find me about an hour later, completely exhausted, and resting on top of a pillow.

A couple days later, I'm running around under the stands, as you do, when one of the couples being seated starts whispering in embarrassment.

"Well how was I supposed to know that's not what they meant by love soaked?"

"Relax honey, they didn't seem to mind. They even said it was a good conductor for love magic. They probably just overcharged you a bit." I sniff the air. Smells like estrus. Stupid ponies being weird about sex then, again. I'm not even sure why, even. Not like this hasn't happened about twenty times already since the tour began! I pop my head up to deliver a loud squeak just under their hooves and run away. Ahahahahaha!! Stupid ponies.

My random walking, not really, Of under the bleachers soon found a pair of horse bug things to eavesdrop on next.

"I cannot believe this play harvesting strategy is actually working. It's ridiculous!"

"Well, what did you expect dude? Our new queen had to have fed herself somehow before ruling the hive."

"Well yeah, but she didn't do it as herself, did she? And I don't think asking nicely like this has ever worked for us before."

"...Did Chrysalis even let us try that?" Bored now! Moving on.

Going to mess with the Queen now~! She's mostly been a good sport about things. Doesn't get angry as long as I don't break things, and is a pretty deft paw with her telekinesis. I find her in a room behind the stage.

"You've all come very far in the time we've had to practice the plays I've set out for us." Looks like she's talking to one of the shyer bug horse things. "We're not going to be making professional grade performances by the time we reach the capital, but we will be at least passable by then." I catapult myself off of a tall rack or something straight into her face. She dodges it deftly.

"Oh, it's you again." As the other bug horse thing scampers off I bounce off the wall to buffet her flank, only to be foiled by another dodge. Oh, the way she moves is so unnatural! Her first dodge put her on the path for my poofy self to bounce off of her, but she just switched her momentum around like a particularly unconvincing illusion. What a challenge! We continue like that for a couple minutes before she just catches me with her magic. Awww...

"No pouting, you. I have a play to supervise, still. You're lucky you've never done this when Nunya was in the room with me. She takes physical threats to me very seriously." A few minutes later we're back to my friend's tent.

"Fluttershy, your bunny attacked me again. Please keep a better eye on him. If he disrupts any of the plays I'm putting him in a box until we reach Canterlot."

"Y-yes Q-q-queen Degurechaff. I'm t-terribly sorry ab-bout Angel, he's usually such a g-good b-boy!" She stammers. Oh, she really does care about me. I wave and squeak at her.

"If you say so. Where did Pinkie Pie go?"

"She's sp-pending t-time with another stallion again." My friend stammers out for entirely different reasons, her face turning red.

"Hmm, well, as long as she doesn't exhaust herself. Speaking of, are you entirely sure you don't want to avail yourself of any of those services? You're already feeding several of my drones with your donations."

"I'm s-sure." The Queen stares at her for a few seconds. She starts wilting under the Queen's heavy gaze.

"Well, suit yourself." As she sets me down and leaves. I cheerfully squeak at my friend.

"Oh no you don't mister." As she grabs me. "You're staying right here with me until the plays are done." Then, she snuggles us up into her warm bed. Ah~, life is good!

Author's Note

Beta credit: Pandora

Chapter 12: Princess Cadenza

*BANG*

I look up from my paperwork to see a messenger pegasus careening into my office.

"My Princess! Fluttershy has arrived with a message. The medics are looking her over now."

"Good." As I set my pen down. "And the message?" He starts rummaging around in his bags before I just locate it and rip it out to start reading. A fair bit rude on my part, but this is extremely important and I'm impatient. It's all written with the love letter spell of course.

Dear Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

Please for the love of Harmony take your element bearers back. I was not aware they were so important when they departed with my retinue, and I refuse to have a diplomatic incident start over something so avoidable. Fluttershy should have delivered this message, but Pinkie Pie refuses to leave my stallions alone. She's working off her frustrations at missing her bonus. I'll not get into that here though. The important thing is, while I am fully aware of the allures of passionate lovemaking, there still exists a time and a place for such things. In the middle of a foreign polity's camp while on the verge of sensitive negotiations are neither. I would ask you to retrieve her in whatever manner you see fit.

The second item I would like to bring to your attention is Fluttershy herself. She has been feeding my drones sporadically and all throughout her stay with us, and has refused any reward for such. This is grating to my sensibilities. Good work deserves a reward. I would request your help with picking out a tangible reward that she cannot refuse in good conscience.

Thirdly is the scheduling and venue of our negotiations...

And all the rest is the kind of mind numbing minutiae that Twilight Sparkle would have loved to go through if her temper and paranoia weren't still raw from the invasion. I must admit I would have been much worse about that myself if I didn't have my Shining Armor to center me. He can be annoying at times, but he always tells me the truth.

Though that doesn't excuse the nigh disastrous letter she sent to Princess Celestia. We almost had the royal guard mobilized to rescue Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy before Fluttershy herself delivered a letter to each of us Princesses through Spike. The one addressed to Celestia detailed the bribe Pinkie Pie got for helping smooth over relations. The one addressed to Luna revealed Fluttershy to be a Batpony. That was shocking, but I'll trust Luna's expertise and rhetoric on that matter. Equestria was founded on equality and acceptance between ponies after all! It also brought to light a fascinating philosophical debate on nature versus nurture. It gives me great hope for our negotiations!

My letter arguably had the most interesting information of all. Gossip on Degurechaff's love life! I can't wait to ask her all about it!

Enough of that though. I leave my chambers to go check up on Fluttershy. Looking in on the infirmary I see a few diagnostic spells being run on her, including one I designed myself just after the invasion. A way to tell if anybody is being mind controlled through love based magic. Given how long I was reading that letter, this can't have been the first time they cast it on her.

"Ahem. Everypony except for Fluttershy leave us." The nurses and doctors look at each other and obey. Fluttershy, as always, seems quite nervous.

"H-hello P-p-princess"

"Hello Fluttershy. It seems you have everypony worried about how you are."

"I kn-know how this looks, Princess, but this integration cannot fail." She takes out a flier from her saddlebag. "Read this and you'll understand." I raise my eyebrow, but take the flyer. Changelings And You. Reading through it... Oh. Oh, that is horrific!! And Chrysalis did what to those who wouldn't fall in line?! Sweet Celestia, this almost makes me happy she's dead! Love should never be misused like that! I'm feeling very conflicted right now.

"How much of this is accurate?"

"En-nough that I could tell every changeling in the camp desperately needed a hug." Hmm, troubling.

"Princess!" Shouts another messenger trotting up to me. "We have a problem with the changelings!" Oh boy.

"What's going on?"

"They're demanding that stands displaying certain news stories shut down for as long as the negotiations take place."

"That's totally unacc-" Wait a minute... "What kind of news stories?" He pulls out a newspaper, partially soaked from being on the ground probably.

Idiot Changeling Believes The Princesses Are Changelings!!

My eye twitches. "Send out the royal guard! We're going to get these stories off of the main boulevard."

"Princess?" He asks.

"This is a diplomatic event. I will not have it ruined by having our guests insulted so blatantly!" He salutes and flies off. Phew. Good thing he accepted that so easily, I'm not sure how long I can keep a lid on the fact that I'm not a changeling to the Queen. I think I'll let Pinkie Pie work her stresses off though. I'm tempted to do the same myself with Shining, but I still have work to do.

*Trumpet Noises*

"Introducing Queen Degurechaff of the changeling hive." She walks into the entrance hall and bows to me and Shining.

"I greet the Princess of Love." Her escorts notably do not bow. They look very tense.

"Come. We will conduct negotiations in the garden." This was not a surprise of course. It has been three days since she arrived in Canterlot. Well, camped outside the gates as it were. We've exchanged many letters since then. First came the provisions for guards. She brought a small squad with her but at the actual negotiations table we will only have two each. We also delineated the scope of the negotiations. Reparations will be paid to me, but not at Queen Degurechaff's personal expense. The Changelings will also be giving up most of their autonomy to live under Equestrian law, but measures and laws will be put in place so that they don't starve. And we will be discussing the transition to Equestrian laws.

"So Queen Degurechaff, how was your journey here?" I ask, as soon as I sit down at the prepared table. We're in the Central gardens right next to the statue of Discord.

"Mixed. Two of the four villages we planned to stop at refused us. I look forward to your response to this flagrant defiance of your orders." I curse internally. I know what this looks like to a predatory species. We have a few of them as neighbors. She may or may not particularly care about the act itself, but she’ll definitely view our response as how highly she’s valued.

"I will have to confer with the other Princesses before a punishment is decided." I demure. No reason to co-opt Cellie's guard for this just yet. "Any questions before we begin?"

"Yes Princess. What is that right next to us." As she points to the draconic statue.

"Oh, that's Discord. Don't worry, he's perfectly contained. He's actually why we're in this garden today. Every act of order and treaty signed here strengthens his prison that much more." She slowly looks towards me.

"You mean he wasn't just a cover story? I thought the Princesses just got really drunk one day and ordered some chocolate rain from the Pegasi." I snicker at the thought as my guards shuffle and Degurechaff looks horrified at the spirit of chaos’ statue.

"No, he's very real. Anyways, let's move on to the agenda you set out. I see here that you wanted to talk about reparations first?"

"Yes Princess. Seeing as we agreed that my personal assets were off limits, I find the hive to be incredibly poor and unsuitable for such things. Therefore I must look to other forms of payment. And it comes to my attention that you do not have a personalized guard yet. I am willing to part with one hundred drones to your personal control for this purpose." Oh. Oh wow. But as with all things political, I cannot take this at face value. I look at her sharply.

"What's the catch?"

"You will have to feed them, train them, and train out the bad habits that Chrysalis instilled in them. I also only had a few weeks to train them in any kind of combat."

"Combat training? Where would you have learned much about combat? I know we monitor our guard captains much more closely than most other ponies."

"I did not always live in Equestria Princess Cadenza. My time before here was significantly more violent." That feels like a big no duh moment right there. "Living here was an excellent retirement until the wedding." And I did not miss the way her guards twitched at that. Seems like somebody is still very angry about it. Good thing Shining is still here, or else I might be nervous. Hahahahaha.

"I accept your proposal for reparations." Teaching a hundred changelings about love is sure to be a treat. And possibly fun depending on how Shining Armor reacts to the situation. "Though I am interested in how I'm expected to feed them." Degurechaff rolls her eyes at that.

"You have the love of an entire nation gravitating towards you." I do? "Even if you've never used it for anything other than recharging, I believe you have the capacity to figure it out." Mare, I was just making a saucy joke!

"Ahem. Quite. Now the next thing on the list. Captives." Oh joy, this is going to be one of those days, isn't it? By the time we're done she's extracted several concessions out of me. Most of which are just general methodologies on how best to integrate the changelings. We're guaranteeing the right to voluntarily feed, and the right for ponies to give up their freedom to the changelings for limited amounts of time. The last bit will be regulated locally, and I understand she intends to negotiate for ponies already sentenced to jail.

The part of negotiations that took the longest was what will be done with all the captives the hive gathered under Queen Chrysalis. I all but demanded they be released immediately, but she managed to talk me down to a schedule of one per week so the changelings don't starve as they transition over to alternate love sources. I did not budge on revealing all infiltrators though. To Queen Degurechaff's knowledge there are seven left, and at her insistence they will be revealed under the influence of a calming spell. Fair enough. By the time we were done it was 6:30 and we were both very tired.

"That settles all the boring stuff." As I set aside the folder with my copy of the treaty outline. "I'll have the law ponies take that, and make sure it won't conflict with any past treaties, or laws, or any other fiddly bits."

"Very good, yes-"

"Now for the fun part." She freezes, wide eyed and open jawed at my declaration. "Gossip! Tell me about your love life Degurechaff! I just have to know about your wife." She continues to stare at me.

"...Can we not, and simply say we did?"

"I guess so, but why would you want that?"

"Because I am a private individual."

"We'll be that as it may, I don't see it lasting. You were trying to get a seat in Equestrian politics, right? I just can't imagine not talking about love with those closest to me. You especially. It's in our very nature you see." And that is all true, I swear. I also want to find some common ground between us. I've been having just the worst time getting a bead on her personality. She's severe and strict, yet exceedingly easy to work with on a personal level. Sent me a severed head, yet almost aggressively pursues peace, and about a hundred other little conflicting details I don't have the time to list.

She sighs in exasperation. "Would we be able to schedule something for tomorrow? I'm feeling just a bit wrung out today."

"Of course! How does afternoon tea time sound?"

"As long as coffee is available."

The next day was busy. Not overly so, as my normal duties were replaced with ensuring the surrender goes smoothly. And then Queen Degurechaff brought eighty changeling in around noon to be inducted into my guard. That caused a whole kerfuffle on its own, but was handled easily enough. I tested out feeding them all and it went very smoothly. Queen Degurechaff even noticed that I used one of her spells to do it, and I got to compliment her on her spellsmithing.

Once we were both able to relax in the gardens, (the ones without Discord) we were able to make amicable small talk. We danced around the issue of her love life for a while. It was clear she's uncomfortable talking about it. Many ponies are. Until finally I could stand it no longer.

"I can't keep doing this. Queen Degurechaff I have to tell you, I'm not a Changeling. That's not what an Alicorn is. I was a Pegasus before I accomplished the embodiment of my cutie mark and ascended. I'm sorry to say this now, but you would surely realize it eventually." She sips her coffee.

"Interesting. I also changed species when I became a Changeling." One of her bodyguards turns their head towards Degurechaff at that. "I don't believe you about not being a Changeling by the way." Oh come on!! "Equine species don't have biologically distinct Queen specimens. Insectoid species do." How am I even supposed to argue with that!? We obviously do! "You've probably just instinctually used your shape shifting all this time. I myself transformed when I fell into a patch of these things." She constructs an illusion of a droopy blue flower in front of us.

"What are those?"

"Poison Joke. A magically mischievous flower. They always transform you into some sort of joke."

"...How did a flower possess the power for such a potent transformation?" She may not be an Alicorn, but she’s probably biologically immortal. Such things take a certain amount of magical oomph.

"I was previously a fairly powerful mage."

"Oh? So you were a Unicorn?"

"Primate." As she shakes her head. "But that is neither here nor there. The point is that taxonomic families are no barrier to such a species change." ...Am I a Changeling? I shake my head.

"So, blatantly changing the subject, why did you choose a broken heart as your Cutie Mark when you were acting as Shimmering Heart?"

"I didn't. Stupid things always come out as broken whenever I make them heart shaped. It's annoying."

"Very unfortunate. Did you want to talk about it?"

"But we just did?"

"..." I think I'm beginning to see what kind of joke those flowers were going for when they transformed her. Kind of mean of them actually.

"Did you want to talk about my love life now? I think I'm finally comfortable enough for that."

"Yes I would. Did you want to go first, or should I?”

Author's Note

Beta credit to Pandora

Chapter 13: Negotiations

I have arrived at Canterlot. Again. Not much has changed since I was flung out into the badlands, but the oppressive security measures not being here is nice. A day of correspondence was enough to set the itinerary for the negotiations. I arranged it so that the most contentious of the issues come up first. That way any stumbling blocks that come up during the big items can be worked around when we're discussing the smaller items. All the other fiddly bits we don't have time for can be figured out afterwards. Preferably with somebody who is not the absolute monarch of Equestria. That is just way too much pressure for an everyday occurrence.

And then she blew all my expectations away by accepting my first reparations proposal in the first two minutes. I was honestly expecting to spend multiple days on this one issue alone. That was a pleasant surprise. Gave me hope for this whole endeavor, even if I was a little put out by all my backup plans going to waste.

Discord, on the other hand, was a decidedly unpleasant surprise. He was conscious too. Kind of horrifying if you think about it. I shudder to imagine how insane this method of containment has driven him. His emotional signature reminds me of a particularly hyperactive child being forced to stand in a corner. His emotional signature on hearing my coverup theory was split between absolutely gleeful and decidedly miffed. Hopefully I'll never have to meet the mad bastard as anything more than a statue.

Unsettling magical phenomena aside, the next roadblock I set for myself turned out to be an actual issue. Though I do believe the root cause revealed itself to be an ethical issue when she said

"And I refuse to let my little ponies spend another day in captivity. No matter how well they're being treated."

"Oh, I think I figured out the problem. I'm not arguing for keeping the ponies out of any kind of love for the techniques involved. They are, in fact, extremely wasteful and inefficient. You can get twenty times the love from one happy marriage over any kind of forcible extraction. We just need them as a transitional love source to avoid starvation while the little ones learn how relationships work. After all, it simply will not do to have them go mad with hunger, and attack the populace. That would just ruin all the work I've put in here."

"You think that could actually happen?!" Good, I have her on the back hoof.

"I think it already did. Chrysalis kept them hungry and vicious after all." I can feel that she's close to giving in somehow. "Tell you what, how about we schedule something. Say, releasing one pony a week?" Surprise blooms in her, then she starts rustling through the papers in front of her. I brace myself for her counteroffer. I'm prepared to go all the way up to three ponies a week.

"If I'm going to accept this then I need all of the remaining infiltrators in Equestria revealed immediately." I squint my eyes at her. That was one of the later little detail items.

"Princess, that runs into the exact same issues as before. Those infiltrators supply about a third of the hive's love supply. Most of them are married! And not via the hackjob that Chrysalis tried on you and Shining. Most of these found a lonely pony to honestly woo and made it stick."

"Not honestly enough. Reveal them." I look over to the Princess' disguised form, and then over to her husband. Yeah, uh-huh, pull the other one. She is being strangely stubborn about this though.

"Princess, I'm not saying we're going to continue courting that way, but we can leave these couples be while also being better in the future. The loss of trust alone would be devastating, but the rising changeling paranoia in the general populace would be where the real damage this action would do. This could set the reconciliation back so much." I can tell I got to her a little bit, but then she digs in her metaphorical hooves.

"Public opinion on changelings is the lowest it will ever be. Right now is the perfect time to do this. Like ripping off a band-aid, or getting out of a toxic relationship. The public needs a show of goodwill." Oh, I see.

"If it will set your mind at ease, fine, but with a few conditions. First being that this isn't publicized. Cross species relationships are not newsworthy. If you need a public victory milk the royal guard angle for all it's worth. Second is that the reveal happens under the influence of a calming spell. I want to give these relationships a fighting chance in the face of all the inevitable hurt feelings." She nods at my conditions

"Acceptable. Now, the next item." And on it went. And to my absolute shock the bulk of the negotiations only lasted a day. Citizenship for all my new subordinates was my biggest victory here. Negotiated after all the fiddly bits that codified acceptable changeling feeding habits of course. And then the rest she delegated to the local leaders. It was like I wasn't even dealing with a politician, but somebody who was legitimately working towards the best outcome for everyone. Weird.

Once we were all done with the negotiations she damn near gave me a heart attack.

"Now for the fun part." What?! Oh I swear to Harmony, if this is some sort of sex thing- "Gossip! Tell me about your love life Degurechaff! I just have to know about your wife." Oh. Well then.

I managed to beg off that conversation for an entire day. And then I tried to buck it all together by bringing in my tithe of troops to serve as a distraction. Eighty out of a hundred just so I can dump some of my home guard on her. But then I got bogged down in details, and then I was scheduling shifts with Princess Cadenza's husband, and then the Princess herself fed all of the present changelings sans myself with one of my spells, and then I was sitting in one of the more relaxing gardens with her, sipping coffee.

How do these things even happen to me!? It's been hundreds of years since I've been caught off guard like this! I had a real hot streak going! I'd blame being x, but he doesn't even know I still exist. Ahh, I'll just have to suck it up I guess. I make some small talk until I'm feeling comfortable. Stupid gardeners, how dare they make this place so relaxing. I did learn that Cadenza apparently thinks she's not a changeling. Makes me think she's actually as young as everypony says she is if she hasn't used her shape shifting yet. If so, she's done a remarkable job with the negotiations so far. The other two Princesses might be angry with her for not getting as much out of me as they would have, but that's not my problem.

And finally. "Did you want to talk about my love life now? I think I'm finally comfortable enough for that."

"Yes I would. Did you want to go first, or should I?"

"You."

"Very well. I met my Shining Armor when he was just an up and coming squad leader in the guard. He always, ah, noticed me whenever I walked into the room." Oh goody, she's horny. She proceeds to regale me with a tale of seduction targeted at a pony that sounds like the stereotypical gym bro crossed with a frat boy from my first life. No accounting for taste I suppose, but he looks professional enough standing next to her. Feels like he has a will of steel in him too, despite what Chrysalis did to him. He's a little bit embarrassed at the story too.

"How did you keep your relationship from becoming predatory? As a Princess you have a great deal of power over him, and in my experience that can twist a relationship into a flaming pile of hurt feelings and coercion more often than not." The experience of a late 20th century man really, but that's not a relevant detail here. She is offended at my words.

"I've been the Alicorn of love since I was twelve. I have the ability to notice when a relationship is turning toxic, and break it off before then. What about you, how did you meet your wife? And there's no need to go into as much lurid detail as I did. I just like to brag." I noticed that, yes. My bodyguards shift nervously beside me.

"I met my most recent wife when I was trying to tame some Timberwolves." I start my tale. She listens with rapt attention. I get to the part where we got into the temple before she interrupts.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Isn't this just the plot of a Daring Doo book with yourself along for the ride?"

"Oh, you noticed? I don't know why she decided to publish it as fiction. I get that she has a couple enemies among the nobility, but they saw through the ruse almost immediately." She sits back mystified for a couple seconds.

"So you... Would have been the bumbling assistant character? Why did she cast you as the comedy relief?"

"That was my idea. I don't like being in the spotlight for too long. Makes my wings itch. She also deserved to be the star of her own expedition. She funded it herself you know, and it wouldn't have been fair to her for me to upstage her in the book as well as real life. It also added a layer of obfuscation for her flimsy secret identity. Nobody who ever met me in person could ever describe me as bumbling."

"...Huh." She suddenly starts looking around in a fit of paranoia. "I'm not about to star in another one of her books, am I?"

"Unlikely." My eye and wing twitches. She looks at me in curiosity.

"That was unusually to the point of you. You were really vocal about her up until now. Is there a story here?"

"...I was separated from her during your wedding when I was thrown into the badlands." Her jaw slacks open.

"Queen Degurechaff, we can find her and-"

"Touch a hair on her mane and I will level this castle." A wave of fear reaches me from Cadenza's side of the table. And then my brain catches up with what my mouth just said.

"I was going to say get you back together! Why would you assume I wanted to hurt her?"

"Apologies, my paranoia and bad memories got the better of me." When did I start using the truth spell? "Usually when things are too good to be true they are, and this has all been a fantastic experience." I shoot some encoded love to my bodyguards telling them to take a measured withdrawal.

"Again, I apologize for thinking unkindly of you, but I must ask. What would you do for love if you thought yours was being threatened?" I get up and start backing away from her. Shining Armor has interposed himself in-between us and speaks up.

"Before you go I gotta ask. Why did you think we would enjoy getting Chrysalis' head in the mail?" They didn't like it? Not even a little bit?

"While your enjoyment of my gift would have been nice, that was strictly a secondary concern. Without irrefutable proof of her demise the question of whether or not this was all an elaborate setup would never have left your minds. Good day Princess. Shining Armor." And I scooch myself out of the gardens. What follows has to be the tensest ten minutes I've experienced in the last century. The royal guard escorting us out from a respectful distance, and me praying my idiot charges don't blow up all my efforts at peacemaking.

I really would like to succeed here.

Author's Note

Beta credit goes to Pandora