Path of a daughter

The beauty of the Canterlot castle’s throne room with its high ceiling, white pillars decorated with patterns of amethyst and gold, and stained glass windows depicting heroic deeds of the past matters none to the Nightmare changelings. For the first time since entering this world, all but four of them are hesitating, lowered in a fight or flight stance with eyes peeled and legs bent, and this time it feels to their armed escort that flight is the preferred action. Even the Queen’s breathing quickens slightly as she lays her eyes on the tall, white alicorn sitting on the throne. Gritting her teeth, however, she straightens up, looks at 2 and 3 by her sides while shadowed by 1 directly behind her, and sends a simple mental message:

“We killed her once. We’ve dealt with worse since.”

***

Blazing rays of sunlight so intense they scorch deep grooves into the ground evaporate the siege machinery standing within the range of lower Canterlot, Nightmare changelings, and all mortal soldiers alike. The ranks of Nightmare Moon’s army sieging Canterlot break, soldiers screaming and fleeing in panic as they boil inside their metal armors. For the first time since Nightmare Moon’s campaign started, the sun has risen, and the furious white demi-goddess with mane and tail burning like an orange conflagration is floating above the lower city, supported by ranks of unicorn wizards. Even with Nightmare Moon casting every protective spell at her disposal, conjuring shields of pure interstellar darkness, and the fledgling Queen as well as the ranks of Nightmare changelings using their inborn and yet untrained magic resistance to soften the blows of Celestia’s divine power, the attacking army is forced to retreat, suffering devastating losses. Assaulting Canterlot with an army of drafted civilians, brainwashed slaves, some loyalists, and a horde of Nightmare changelings, who barely saw a real fight aside from overwhelming a small city here and there with raw numbers, a mere year after Nightmare Moon’s rise proved a terrible plan.

However, even with her flesh scorched and chitinous carapace boiling off of her under one of the solar beams, the Queen survived and, over a decade filled with fighting real soldiers and magic users later, the Nightmares would get their rematch.

***

“I have received your message, Solid Steel,” says Celestia, still casually sitting on the throne while the Nightmares led by the Queen and Blazing approach and the soldiers spread around, “Doppelganger saviors and interdimensional visitors, oh my,” she smiles a careful but friendly smile aimed at the Queen, “I admit I would like to hear your side of things before I decide what to do with you.”

“Can we trust her?” whispers the Queen towards Blazing.

“Hurtful…” comments Celestia without her smile leaving her face.

“You can trust her to give you a chance to prove yourselves. I already saved Equestria, so it’s your turn to show who you really are. No pressure,” replies Blazing after a brief thought which the Queen deciphers as:

That’s not a ‘yes, you can trust her’. He leans towards yes but has his doubts. Does he have a bad experience with his version of Celestia too?

“I understand,” says the Queen out loud, “Your Highness, I could be here forever, summarizing the details of our twenty years of existence, but the short version is that we are weapons created by Nightmare Moon from our father’s essence-” she nods sideways to Blazing, “-after she trapped him during his dimensional jumping. We had no idea what we even were until we were sent to eradicate real changelings. From what I understand, we have incomplete shapeshifting abilities which specialize in combat enhancements and some resistance to magic,” the Queen undersells their shapeshifting and completely lies about the extent of her magic ’resistance’. After all, if this Celestia proves hostile, the Nightmares are going to need an ace up their sleeve, “We were enslaved by Nightmare Moon’s magic after each of us hatched and became a major part of her army. Over the course of two decades, we entirely wiped all life from this planet - fauna, flora, aerial, underground, all of it. When the planet became a dead rock, Nightmare Moon left us to die of starvation. With the last bit of help from a unicorn wizard whom Nightmare Moon betrayed, we managed to make a portal which would follow our father and landed here,” the Queen, again, heavily downplays the abilities of the Nightmare changelings.

“That’s quite the story,” Celestia remains calm, only raising an eyebrow, “but I would be a pretty hypocritical ruler if I didn’t give you the same chance to redeem yourself that I gave to my sister.”

“Oh, right,” Blazing scratches his head nervously, “Long story short, this world’s Luna was saved from becoming Nightmare Moon for good, so expect to see that familiar face around.”

“WHAT?!” the Queen growls.

“Calm yourself,” Celestia raises her voice slightly, narrowing her eyes at the Queen, “Were I not one to give her a chance, what makes you think I would give one to you? Luna is my sister and she has beaten the corruption, that’s all that needs to be said. If you want to be given a chance, you will have to give a chance in return. What do you say?”

The Queen takes a deep breath.

“All we know is war. When we weren’t on deployments, we usually slept but we will do our best to fit in. We want…” she pauses, “We want…” she looks at Blazing, “I don’t know what we want. I don’t know what is there to want. We always only got orders. All I know is that we want something else.”

To her surprise, Celestia finally stands up from the throne, walks over to the Queen, and offers her hoof, which the Queen hesitantly shakes.

“I know how scary it is to start a completely new life, but also how necessary it may be. It might surprise you, but you’d be far from the first ex-foe to build a better future here,” Celestia gives the Queen a courteous bow.

“You know,” a black-coated bat pony mare with red eyes and a mane of the same color whom the Queen has seen accompanying her father multiple times raises her hoof, “Running around calling yourselves Nightmare changelings can’t be great for PR if you need to eat love, unless you run into some really weird freaks,” she adds, wincing, “And since you’re not exactly changelings and Nightmare Moon has been dealt with in these parts, how about a rebrand? Oh, and Blazing?”

“Yes, Chokey?” Blazing looks at her while she shoots him a mischievous smirk.

“You told me the Queen here doesn’t have a name. Since the others go by numbers like changelings, how about you name her?”

***

“Guiding Light, the Queen of the dreamlings,” mutters Guiding to herself as she’s lying on her back inside a cell in the Canterlot castle dungeons.

The dreamlings were assured that locking them up was just a temporary measure until the powers that be figured out what exactly to do next, and the large, conjoined cells were the only place where the dreamlings could comfortably be together while still easy to keep an eye on.

7 shifts in his sleep. Like everyone else, when there’s nothing to do, he’s conserving energy and recovering. The problem is that he took going through the portal the hardest, and is losing energy much faster than the others.

Reeeally wish we had something like a doctor, but all we ever had to do to recover was feed and rest. Now, feeding could land us in serious trouble.

Guiding didn’t tell Celestia how dreamlings feed, so the ponies in general assume they eat love just like normal changelings. Blazing knows, of course, but he hasn’t told anypony.

She turns her head towards the cell’s bars. Two Royal Guards are in view, but she can sense the emotions of two more behind the wall. They’re all nervous, which is enough fear for the sleeping dreamlings to remain stable, but 7 won’t last. The problem is that casting a sleep spell and evoking nightmares in the guards will take time and if somepony else comes to check, the dreamlings will be in trouble.

The guards are bound to change shifts. I have to wait until night, and then even if they fall asleep it won’t implicate us.

In order to make sure 7’s situation doesn’t get worse, she rolls over to him, puts her horn to his forehead, and transfers most of her energy to him.

I can last until the shift changes, and there’s enough magic everywhere around I can drain to cast a sleep spell.

Guiding smirks.

That alarm spell they secretly put on this cell feels especially tasty.