The Queen of Canterlotby GaPJaxieChaptersChapter 1Chapter 5Chapter 8Chapter 10Chapter 13Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 9Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 1Night Light and Twilight Velvet had a life plan, developed as they lay tangled in each other's embrace in Velvet’s college dorm room. First, they were going to screw like rabbits. Then they were going to finish their degrees. Then they were going to get married right out of college, and move into the old house Velvet’s family owned in Canterlot. Night Light was going to become a lampmaker, and Twilight Velvet was going to become an author. Then they were going to have two children named Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor and live happily ever after. They did screw like rabbits, much to the irritation of the students on the other side of Velvet’s thin dorm room walls. Methodically impatient, they planned their wedding for the day after graduation, and Velvet carried her husband over the threshold into their new home. He found employment enchanting magical lanterns that glowed without flame, and she got two short stories published in respectable periodicals. And in time, she became pregnant with twins -- a colt and a filly -- and all was well. Until, one night, Twilight Velvet complained of a dull pain in her stomach, which turned into a stabbing pain and cold sweat. Night Light rushed her to the hospital, where she was swarmed by so many doctors he could not see her. He could only hear her screaming and see the blood running down the operating table onto the floor. As the result of the heroic efforts of many doctors, Twilight Velvet survived, and after several weeks she left the hospital with her children. Twilight they moved into a crib in the master bedroom, and Shining they buried in the yard under the lemon tree. Their relationship was cold, for a time. They made excuses that they were dealing with a newborn, who often cried and needed attention. It was common, they said, for new parents to find less time for intimacy. Yet though they could not admit it, each understood the truth, that they could not look at the other without being reminded of what had happened, and what would never happen. Twilight Velvet touched the scar on her belly and cried, and Night Light rolled over in bed and looked away. “We should adopt.” They would later argue about which one of them said it first, but in time they appeared at an orphanage for children in need of loving parents. The civil war in the Changeling Nation had filled orphanages around the world with little black-shelled insects who would starve if they were not loved. The orphanage staff hugged and sang to them and cared for them as best they could, but the little things were obviously malnourished. The one they picked was non-verbal, a little changeling drone the size of a two-year old who couldn’t say a word. She hadn’t said a word, the staff explained, since her birth family was gunned down in front of her. She wore dog tags, listing her health information and providing her name: Chrysalis. Perhaps they picked her out of pity. Perhaps they picked her because to pick a pony orphan would have felt somehow negligent. Perhaps the thought of a creature that would die if it was not loved was simply too tragic to bear. It was an emotional decision, and neither Twilight Velvet nor Night Light would later recall exactly how they made it. They brought Chrysalis home, and set her up with her own bed across the hall. For days, Chrysalis didn’t speak. She obeyed every command given to her, was quiet and helpful and meek, and nuzzled against Velvet’s leg like a cat. But no matter what Velvet said, in Equestrian or out of her Vespid phrasebook, the little changeling would not say a word. Until the day Velvet showed Chrysalis Shining’s grave, and told her about their dead son, and that even though she never met him she missed him very much. That night, Twilight Velvet was awoken from her sleep to find her dead son staring at her. It was Shining Armor, just as she’d imagined -- a rambunctious little colt with a white coat and his father’s blue mane. He looked up at her as she’d always imagined her son would, eyes full of familial affection and a need for his mother. In the darkness, she froze. Dark thoughts flitted through her head, and many other ponies would have acted upon them, lashed out at the monster before her, who wore the skin of her dead child. “Chrysalis,” she said. “What are you doing?” She hadn’t expected an answer. “I’m Shining Armor,” he replied, in an impression of a young colt’s voice that was not particularly good, an uncanny valley hybridization of the voices of the other colts they had met in the orphanage. “I’m sorry. I can feel you loved him a lot.” “I did love him a lot,” Twilight Velvet said, voice thick. Tears welled in her eyes. “But you don’t have to pretend to be him. We’ll love you for who you are.” But the little colt in front of her put both hooves up on the edge of the bed and said. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be a good son.” And in a voice that was ever so faintly frightened. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Velvet said. “It’s okay. You can… come here. Come here.” She pulled him into bed, and hugged him until they both fell asleep. Chapter 5Cadence only said she was fine when she wasn’t. When she was happy, she would tell Shining about her day, about the ponies she’d met, about the things she’d done. Even if the day was dull, tedious, banal in its character, she would find something to praise. After a day and a night of astronomy lessons from Luna, in which the night princess was particularly herself, Cadence found it in her to praise Luna’s erudite diction and exquisite penmanship. “Oh, my day was fine,” meant the day wasn’t fine at all. And when that happened, Shining would kiss Cadence on both cheeks, and suggest they go somewhere remote and quiet. Perhaps a picnic, perhaps up on the aqueduct, perhaps simply to the downstairs couch if Shining’s parents weren’t home. And there he would brush her hair, and speak to her of sweet nothings, until she could untie the knot in her chest and speak of what it was. Sometimes, when she untied that knot, she cried. “Fuck Celestia!” she screamed, her hoof hitting the table. “Oh, my opinions make the government look bad? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to! You know what else makes the government look bad? Failure! So maybe I can agree to censor my speech, and she can agree to stop fucking up!” The previous day, Cadence had bought a homeless pony lunch, enrolled him in a program for drug recovery, and found a home to take him in until he got back on his hooves. And when a reporter saw her doing this, and asked to take some pictures, she had occasion to comment that, “The government really needs to do more to help ponies in this situation.” That had resulted in a newspaper article, which had resulted in a word of gentle advice from Celestia -- and when Cadence refused that advice, the advice became a rebuke. Of course, Cadence apologized, and she smiled while she was apologizing. And that was all. Nothing more had happened. Five minutes of stern conversation with Celestia over tea and cakes, before moving onto the affairs of court for the day. And Cadence buried her head in Shining’s shoulder, and wept. The first time this happened, when they were younger, he’d tried to help. But he wasn’t an alicorn or any member of the royal court. He could not shoulder such burdens. Then he’d tried saying generic boyfriend things, reassuring words, gentle nothings, but she’d found them useless and patronizing. He’d tried poetry once, but she was hardly in the mood. So he held her. He held her until her crying slowed, and only then did he say: “One day, we’ll make a life together, and we’ll live it the way we want. Not the way Celestia wants. And inside our house, you’ll always be Cadence and never Princess, and you can say whatever you like and fart whenever you want.” Two years ago, she’d told him a princess cannot be heard to fart in public. He never let it go -- allegedly because he was an immature teenage colt, but in fact because he knew it made her smile. And she did. She did smile. If she could smile for Celestia, she could smile for her boyfriend and his sweet, stupid jokes. And she told him: “I love you, Shining Armor.” He could taste it. Chapter 8Cadence’s telekinesis was tremendously strong. She could hit a window with a brick from two hundred paces away, and the projectile crashed through plate glass with such force that it impacted the opposite wall, tearing into the plaster and sending a thunderclap through the building. Her eyes went wide. Her hooves rushed to cover her face. She looked on what she’d done in a state of absolute shock, as though she couldn’t believe she’d done it. The drones had to hustle her away from the scene of the crime, as though her legs had suddenly lost their strength. Several of them transformed into items of clothing and rested upon her back and neck, hiding her otherwise distinctive appearance and profile. The drones did not run about Canterlot in their insectile forms. Nor did they commit their misdeeds in the shapes associated with their proper families. Each had a pony shape for this sort of thing, and Chrysalis’s was very much a changeling queen rendered in the shape of a unicorn -- gray coat, green hair and eyes, a cutie mark of emeralds and bugs, and a smile that showed faint fangs. It was this form that Cadence hung off, as she spoke in an unceasing, racing patter: “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did that. That was amazing. Oh, are we going to get caught? I can’t get caught. I can’t. The royal family would never live it down. Oh my gosh.” She showed up again two days later, and again the week after that, sometimes for adventure, sometimes to hang out. She smoked pot for the first time, and was deeply disappointed to discover that her alicorn physiology and earth pony magic fully negated any potential chemical toxins. Someling suggested getting her drunk, and Chrysalis and the entire court watched agape as Cadence lifted her muzzle to the sky and chugged an entire bottle of cheap knockoff whiskey, then asked if there was more. Chrysalis told her, she shouldn’t be blackout drunk in the presence of creatures she did not know. It was dangerous. And Cadence said: “But I know you.” Chrysalis walked Cadence back to the palace that night at two AM, making sure the palace guards took her and knew she was okay. The next day was Saturday, and Shining and Cadence had plans. She missed them, lying in bed with a hangover, and Shining knew she would miss them. But he showed up anyway, and waited a suitable time before traveling to the palace to inquire after her. And when she told the guards to send him up, and he saw her in a bed that smelled like sweat, cloth over her face, he asked her: “Are you alright? What happened?” And she said: “Food poisoning. I’ll be fine.” Chapter 10Changelings were insects. They did not have pair bonding instincts. Though they could love, and formed lifelong relationships, their language had no words for boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife. Romantic love was not a thing to be had with changelings, but with ponies, be it given freely or stolen. Cadence gave it freely. One night, on the way to tag the new concrete utility building next to the park, Chrysalis caught Cadence staring at her pony form -- eyeing up the mare with the grey coat and the green eyes. “See something you like, Princess?” she teased, voice coy, flush with intonations that implied she was ever so much more mature and experienced than Cadence would ever be. “Yeah,” Cadence said. “You.” Chrysalis had so many memories of kissing Cadence, that when Cadence put a leg around her she acted on instinct. She didn’t pull away, or interpose a hoof. She leaned her head forward, as once she had been commanded to do. And Cadence kissed her. The next morning, Cadence showed up at Twilight and Shining’s house, with a picnic blanket and a lunch and a day full of romantic activities planned. Which if it had been a Saturday and not a Thursday, would have been normal enough. “I’m a princess,” she said to Shining, in a voice that he couldn’t help but notice had a slight uncomfortable rigidity to it, a brittleness he could not recall before hearing. “I mean, I can excuse you from the academy if I want. For a day. Love is important.” The guilt on her face was plain enough that even ponies who had no connection to the previous nights events commented upon it. Twilight asked if Cadence had done something to be in “the dog house,” and Cadence said that little fillies who want to stay up late the next time they’re babysat need to mind their own business. Shining went with her, and she doted upon him, and said all the right things and reminded them both that she loved him. And Shining said, whatever it was it was fine. And he thought, it was fine. It wasn’t cheating. Even if Chrysalis had been another mare, all they’d done was make out a bit. Which, from a certain perspective, made it okay. They were on one of the grass hills overlooking Canterlot staring up at the sky when she asked him: “After you graduate, you want to get married?” Chapter 13The ringing didn’t stop. After Cadence stalked out of the alley, Chrysalis continued to sit there, blankly staring at the spot where Cadence had been. “Holy shit,” said one of the drones. “That was cold.” “What a bitch,” another of them agreed. “Changeling whore? Her Majesty isn’t the one cheating on her partner.” “My mom is her scribe,” said a third. “Tomorrow I’m going to have to go back to being the dumb little filly who idolizes the ‘princess of love’ and pretend I don’t know she’s a condescending asshole.” “Seemed pretty racist,” agreed a fourth. “Like we’d even want to go to her wedding,” said a fifth. And then one said, “We could body snatch her.” And later, none of them would recall exactly which one of them said it. They all looked at Chrysalis, at their queen. She stared back, blank faced, still. She waited for someone to tell the speaker to knock it off, or to laugh it off as a joke, or to rebuke them for proposing doing something genuinely dangerous. They weren’t really a hive. They weren’t even really punks. They were rich foals and lost souls, pretending to be something they weren’t, and that suggestion crossed over the line. Silence hung in the alley. “Like,” some drone said, “full on, grab her, stick her in a pod, replace her with a body double ‘body snatch’? Like invasion of the body snatchers body snatch?” “Yeah.” “I know my way around the palace,” said the one whose mother was a scribe. “And some ponies the guards will recognize as having access.” “Plus, with the wedding, everypony will be in places they wouldn’t normally be. Small differences in routine, little errors in disguises, things that wouldn’t normally pass -- they’ll brush them off.” “Does anyone actually know how to weave a cocoon? I just puke slime every time I try.” “Why didn’t you tell me? Yeah, I know how. I can teach you.” “I know how to do a sleeper hold on a guard.” And Chrysalis realized, they were all staring at her. No, said Shining’s voice in her head. This is insane and I’m deeply disappointed in all of you for even suggesting it. Go home, go back to your real homes and the families who love you, and never come back to this place. “Any objections?” Chrysalis asked, and she begged, she pleaded with her eyes, object. Some bug, please object. But they didn’t. None of them did. Wings buzzed in ascent. “Very well,” Chrysalis said, as in her head she wept. “Then tomorrow, we will crash a wedding.” Chapter 2Shining was the son they’d always dreamed of. Literally, perhaps, if the legend that changelings were mildly telepathic was true. He was polite and obedient, doted on his little sister, got straight A’s in school, and his first puppy crush was on a young Princess Cadence, who seemed to like him as well. He often spoke of dreams to join the royal guard, and he got his cutie mark -- a shield and three stars -- at the appropriate age for colts to get such things. “Are you… sure?” Velvet asked him. “That you want a cutecenera for this, I mean?” “Well, yeah,” Shining Armor said, staring up at Velvet with a blank expression -- like he had no idea what she was talking about. “Why wouldn’t I?” “We love you for who you are,” Velvet said, looking him in the eye. “You don’t have to pretend. You never had to pretend. You will always be my child.” Shining told her he loved her too and that everything was fine, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. He shied away from her gaze, and asked if he could have a cutecenera like the other colts. And if sometimes the family found traces of changeling slime in the bathtub, or shed carapace parts after days Shining was sick, they never acknowledged them. When Shining was fourteen and Twilight eight, the family went to see an adventure movie, The Isles of Glass. The primary antagonist was Wilted Flower, a changeling queen played by a unicorn in shellface who had a wicked plan to seduce the hero, poison his bride, and steal his kingdom. Though the movie was family friendly, the villainess certainly invoked the classical trope: the evil whore. Twilight loved the movie and pattered the whole way home about the action scenes and the technical inaccuracies in the on-screen spellcasting. As they turned the corner back onto the street, Velvet found an excuse to come to Shining’s side and whisper: “I’m sorry, we should have left early.” “Why?” Shining said. Then after a moment he added: “It’s fine. It’s a silly foals movie. Wilted Flower isn’t even a changeling name.” That night, after everypony else was in bed, Shining took the dog tags down from the peg where they hung beside his bed. Though the metal had somewhat corroded and the writing faint, the letters stamped into the tags were still legible: CHRYSALIS, DOB: 22-43-61, CASTE: R, CID: 433-212-434-112. He slipped them over his neck, and tip-hooved into the second floor bathroom that he and Twilight shared. He shut the door. He pulled the blinds on the windows. He stuffed towels under the door and in every other crack. And when he transformed from Shining Armor back into a changeling, not a hint of the characteristic green flash escaped the room. “Hello,” Chrysalis said, but she said it in Shining’s voice, because that was the only voice she knew how to make. “Hello,” she tried again, and the voice that resulted was certainly feminine, but it was the voice of a mare she knew from school, who she knew would not appreciate having her identity stolen. She knew that a changeling's natural voice sounded nothing like a pony’s natural voice. The words of vespid emerged not from their throats, but from the sides of their torsos, created by the drumming of tymbals and elytra rubbing against their shells. A changeling’s speech could be asymmetric, the left and right sides of their body producing distinct words, which had specific and subtle cultural connotations. Their poetry was reputed to be beautiful, their songs hauntingly alien and melodious. But Chrysalis didn’t speak a word of vespid. She assumed she must have been able to once, before she lost her birth family, but the memories were distant and clouded. She had a pony’s conception of what might sound hauntingly alien and melodious. A multi-tonal voice, made of numerous pony voices layered over each other. And under those layers, at the core of it all, a deep voice, feminine but mature. A reminder that ponies were ruled by princesses, but changelings were ruled by queens. As the final touch, she relaxed her dorsal vents just slightly, so the sound would be imperfect, the insectile scraping audible under it all. It was powerful, and if the voice of Chrysalis was not unlike the voice of Wilted Flower, if it too had notes of evil whore, then it could be nothing but parallel evolution. After all, the movie was made by ponies, and ponies too had a ponies conception of what was hauntingly alien. “Hello Canterlot,” Chrysalis said, and the words were so smooth, so rich in power and malice, that an observer could have described them as a purr. It was a voice that could with equal ease seduce a princess or threaten a hero with death. Hers was the sound of an engine rumbling, the distant growl of a predator that raises the hairs on the backs of ponies necks. It was too much. She turned back into Shining Armor, and then Shining Armor went to bed. Chapter 3Cadence kissed Shining. Changelings were insects. They did not have pair bonding instincts. Though they could love, and formed lifelong relationships, their language had no words for boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife. Romantic love was not a thing to be had with changelings, but with ponies, be it given freely or stolen. And perhaps in some instinctual, atavistic way, Shining conceptualized Canterlot as his hive. He loved Cadence, and he quite directly understood that she loved him, but it never occurred to him to kiss her. When they were both sixteen, and they had been dating for some time, she finally became impatient with him not picking up on her hints. She demanded, “Shining, look at me,” and when he did, “Now lean forward,” and he did. Then she kissed him. His eyes went wide, and sparks shot through his limbs. Colors exploded in his mind, a world of alien possibilities opened before him. It was as though he’d been blind his whole life, and only then, he saw. He saw what he could do with her love. He could change the world, banish the greatest of monsters, cast spells to cover or protect entire cities. He could be a tremendous force for good in the world, instead of a helpless observer of events. He could be Cadence’s protector, not merely a royal guard there to shoo crowds away, but a true guardian for an alicorn princess. And he thought, he could raise a family, and there were terrible, alien dreams. Dreams of a hive full of eggs, nymphs, drones buzzing back and forth, all sustained by the pink pony who sat beside him on a throne of chitin. But in those dreams, Shining wasn’t Shining, and they weren’t Cadence’s children to bear. The Cadence pulled back and asked: “Well?” And Shining kissed her back, with all the intensity of a drowning pony clinging to floating debris. They made out in the shadow of Canterlot Palace, until Cadence said they had to stop. A princess couldn’t be seen with smudged makeup and hickeys on her neck. “You’re perfect,” he told her and it was almost true. She didn’t know. Chapter 4The Queen of Canterlot and her changeling army loitered behind the abandoned grocery store. They called themselves a hive, but there was not one among them who had ever set hoof in such a place. None of them spoke vespid, and they all wore dog tags. A hive was to them not a reality, but an idea, the notion that they were something else, and every night they loitered behind the crumbling brickwork, they huffed aerosol, talked trash, and tried to figure out just what they were. So ignorant were they, and secretive in that ignorance, that they were not entirely certain if Chrysalis really was their queen, and if so, what had marked her as different from the rest of them. All they knew is that she was bigger, and only Chrysalis knew for certain that was not a shapeshifting trick. Several suspected her of putting on airs, but they never once questioned her. Perhaps, they thought, a queen was part of what she wanted to be. They admired her voice, and they envied her power, born of a true love most ponies would never know. Nothing would have come of it, if Cadence had been a better liar. If her public persona as a deeply loving and kind alicorn were a fiction for public conception. If she wasn’t so damn nice. If she didn’t spend her free time wandering around the city, looking for ponies in need. She gave advice to those in troubled relationships, gave money to ponies in financial distress, cared for children who needed a big sister figure, and housed ponies with nowhere to live. She found the changelings behind the old grocery store, two dozen drones and the queen in the middle. One was spraypainting the wall with his green-flame tag, one was spraypainting his shell. Chrysalis watched over them, as it is the role of the condescending and powerful changeling queen to watch over her idiot children. “Hey, everyling,” she said, offering a little wave. “You know, if you want a place to hang out and practice your street art, there’s a community center a few blocks away. They have a wall for spraypainting.” Chrysalis’s mouth began to move, her hoof begin to lift, to speak, to wave, Hey, Cadence! But then she remembered who she was, and at the last moment clamped her jaw shut. In a panic she was left to wonder, what did Cadence see? What had her fault given away? If only she’d seen Cadence coming from further away she might have fled, but the mare had been out of sight until she turned the corner, and there they were, face to face again. Surely, she’d noticed the awkward silence, the panicked delay. “Some of this is pretty good.” Cadence was admiring their wall. “Someling here is a talented artist.” Panic overcame itself. Chrysalis spoke: “It is traditional to bow your head when entering the court of a peer.” She shaped the rebuke like a master sculptor shapes stone, even as she screamed inside her own head. Her straight-backed pose, arch gaze, and that deep multi-tonal voice were an elegant work of form and contempt, and her hive responded in kind. Trash cans became objects de art for a changelings royal court, punks hive guards, the alley a great hall. The dumpster Chrysalis was sitting on became a throne, and the crumbling grocery store her castle. She imagined Shining’s voice in her head, shouting, demanding what are you doing as she extended a hoof for Cadence to make her obsequience -- perhaps to kiss it, perhaps merely to bow her head as requested. Cadence momentarily froze, unsure how to react. “Okay, I can take a joke,” she said, “but really—” “I can take a joke,” said a changeling, in a perfect mimicry of her voice. “I can take a joke,” said another, and in a green flash, they transformed into a distorted mirror of the pony in front of them. The drones had not the strength to take the form of an alicorn, but they rendered Cadence in every other species: earth pony Cadence, unicorn Cadence, pegasus Cadence, griffon Cadence, and one particularly pink dog, each playing back that recording. “I can take a joke.” “Okay,” Cadence lifted a hoof in moderation, like a holy figure forgiving the sins of the common folk. “I’ll leave you alone. I only want to make sure you’re okay.” And all Chrysalis had to say was nothing. “My dear princess,” she said, oozing down from her scrap metal throne to approach this intruder, until they were muzzle to muzzle, until Cadence could feel Chrysalis’s hot breath -- produced not by speaking, but for her benefit alone. “Are you laboring under the misapprehension that we have nowhere else to go? That we’re poor, unwanted, children of broken homes? Cast out into the street? Left to fend for ourselves.” The copies of Cadence turned back into changeling drones, and from there into changelings drones that had Cadence surrounded, the alley’s exit blocked. “It seems quite hypocritical if so,” Chrysalis went on. She took a moment to obviously admire Cadence’s jewelry, lips curling into the faintest sneer as her eyes danced over the gold. “After all, you have a palace to call your home, and you’re here.” “I’m always looking for ponies who need help,” Cadence said, years of public speaking practice keeping her voice level, though the faintest glance at the drones that had cut off her exit betrayed her. “Who need support, friends, a place to be.” “A changeling that is not loved, starves.” Chrysalis said the last word with relish, whispering it directly into Cadence’s ear, sending the princess stumbling back at the uninvited physical contact. “Every drone you see here has a loving family. Many are from good homes, the children of wizards, royal guards, merchants, scholars. The best and brightest of Canterlot.” “Okay,” Cadence said, taking another step back from Chrysalis, only to find her tail pressing against the drones who had blocked her exit. Her look behind her then was not subtle, but the obvious turn of a trapped mare. “Then why are you here?” Chrysalis cast a slow gaze over her court. Drones buzzed, they giggled, they whispered between themselves of Cadence and her fate. “Because we’re happy here, Princess.” “You wouldn’t be happier with a decent roof over your head,” Cadence suggested, trying to regain some control over the conversation, “and a place you can practice your art that doesn’t smell like pee?” And Chrysalis spoke. Chapter 6“You aren’t happy.” In the alleyway behind the old grocery store, where Chrysalis and Cadence came face to face for the first time, a sudden stillness broke the scene. On some unspoken cue, no drone moved, no drone spoke, they didn’t buzz or laugh. They accentuated their queen’s words with silence, that Cadence should have no shelter to hide behind. “Well, I appreciate your concern,” Cadence said, after a stiff silence. “But really—” “Tell me,” Chrysalis chuckled, and her smile showed her fangs. “Have you ever had the urge, the desire, to do something you know society wouldn’t approve of? I don’t mean petty disobedience. Something your elders really wouldn’t like.” “I don’t have a problem with graffiti,” Cadence attempted to steer the conversation back on topic, “if you want to tag buildings you—” “If you won’t answer, Princess, then I will answer for you,” Chrysalis’s voice downshifted, detached and dour, the tone of one observing upon a tragedy that it is too late to prevent. “The answer is yes, you have, but you’ve buried those impulses, somewhere so deep and dark you’ve been able to convince yourself they never existed. Your parents wanted a traditional marriage, so you’ve forgotten that your first crush was a mare and you pretend that the lingerie magazine you kept hidden under your mattress was a phase.” Chrysalis locked her slitted eyes upon Cadence, and by that gaze alone, pinned her to the spot: “You tell yourself that the path Celestia laid out for you is right and true, you tell yourself you’re happy, over and over again in your head so you won’t think about the fact that you’ve never known anything else. You tell yourself you never stare at Canterlot University, and wonder what it would be like to be a student, to be different. To study something other than politics and magic and royalty. You tell yourself you don’t get angry. That a princess is never sad.” And with a hiss, she finished: “And when Celestia told you alicorns can’t have children, you told her you never wanted any, because you couldn’t face the thought that this path laid out for you wasn’t what you wanted. You are unhappy, Princess. You are desperately, desperately unhappy, as we were unhappy in our fancy homes and with our adoring families. We come here because we can admit it, and you go on your little night walks because you can’t.” Cadence stood fixed to the spot for the eternity of the monologue, and as it went on, her body language grew stiff and her eyes wide. Fear showed there, as this creature before her rattled off details of her life, things it shouldn’t know. Things it couldn’t know, that she’d never told anyone, and those old legends that changelings could read thoughts bubbled up in her mind. “I’m feeling unsafe now,” she said. “And I’d like to leave.” Chrysalis gestured. The drones parted to let her go, and as Cadence stumbled out, Chrysalis called: “You can always come back if you change your mind.” The hive sat in silence until Cadence was out of sight, and it was only once they were sure she was gone that one of them said: “Wow, that was badass.” “Super badass,” another agreed. “Thanks,” said Chrysalis. “Sorry, I… kind of panicked there. I…” Her wings buzzed against her shell. “I’m going to go home.” “Yeah, actually,” one of the drones said, “she’s like, a princess? She could call the police. We should all go.” “Oh fuck, yeah,” another agreed. “Let’s get out of here.” They all turned back into prim and proper Canterlot children, and Shining went home. And when he returned home, he found Cadence already sitting outside his parent’s house. It was their night out, and Twilight was with Celestia, so the house was dark. The princess of love sat on the steps. “Cadence?” Shining called, picking up his pace to a trot. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she said. “I just need my special somepony to hold me for a while.” He told her he loved her, and they lay there on the couch together until Twilight and his parents got home. Chapter 7Cadence was particularly emotionally needy for the next several weeks, but she never told Shining why. Chrysalis and her changeling army avoided the abandoned grocery store for as much time, fearful of Cadence’s wrath. But eventually they returned, and these paths crossed again. “How old are you?” Cadence asked, and she still did not bow her head to Chrysalis. “You sound like you’re thirty. But I hope you’re not the kind of loser who hangs out with teenagers to feel cool.” The correct words bubbled into Chrysalis’s head -- spoken in Shining’s voice: I’m seventeen. Listen, I’m sorry about last time. Things got really out of hand. I don’t know what came over me. I never meant to be that cruel. Can we please forget that happened? But she never said one of them. Instead, she removed her dog tags and levitated them across the gap to Cadence. She examined the tags, the name, the date of birth, and in her head calculated Chrysalis’s true age. “You’re younger than me. Why does your voice sound like that?” “Because you like older mares.” Chrysalis said, and she was rewarded with a flinch. The drones around them giggled and buzzed, crawling over the alley walls to regard Cadence from all angles. “Can you read my mind?” she asked, eyes locked on Chrysalis’s, seeking some sign of deception. “How did you know what you knew last time?” “Oh, please,” Chrysalis rolled her eyes, accentuating the words with only the most theatrical derision. “You’re the princess of love. Was I supposed to believe that gay ponies are denied your blessing? That you would be aggressively straight? Of course you’re bisexual, Princess, but you’ve only ever appeared in public with stallions. I somehow managed to put it together. Or perhaps you think I read your mind because I deduced a pony about to turn eighteen might have thoughts relating to college -- oh! Or that I noticed no alicorn in the history of the nation has ever borne children.” “You knew things,” she snapped, tone accusatory. Again, she heard Shining speak: I understand. I knew things that were deeply private, and you’re probably feeling violated right now. But I promise, I don’t mean any harm. But no creature other than her could hear him. “And what, you’re going to accuse a changeling queen of having sources?” Chrysalis replied, tone laced with derision. “Princess, why are you here?” A long silence hung between them. The drones in time grew still, and the beating of their wings ceased. “I don’t know,” Cadence said. “You said you were all from nice, fancy homes, and you were all miserable there, right? Well. I’m from the fanciest house of them all. And it’s not great. I want to, I don’t know. See what there is to see.” A drone lifted a leg, waiting to be called upon like a student sitting in class: “A pony was a real horse’s ass to my dad today, so I was going to throw a brick through his window. Make her throw one.” The alley filled with buzzes and clicks of ascent, and all eyes turned to Cadence. She hesitated, looked at the ground, and scuffed a hoof against the cobbles. “I’m sorry. I can’t. If I got caught—” “Celestia would what?” Chrysalis snapped, her voice abruptly shifting to hot anger -- a cracking whip that sent Cadence back half a step. “Whip you? Behead you? Strap you to four horses and have you drawn and quartered? Set you on fire? Banish you to the moon? Send you to your room without supper? You are the Princess of Love. There isn’t a changeling in this alley who wouldn’t give their teeth for a single kiss from you, and I forbid you to be this disgustingly weak! Humble though it may be, this is my royal court, and when you are in my presence you will conduct yourself with dignity instead of cowering in fear!” Cadence was left frozen to the spot, wide eyed, shocked, ears and tail high -- a rich blush covering her cheeks. Chrysalis’s breath came in deep gasps, her slitted eyes fixed on the pony before her, her own passion having overtaken her. Her accent had slipped partway through her tirade, and it wasn’t until it was over she noticed. And she heard Shining say, What the hell was that? What are you doing? Then Cadence said: “Okay, I’m in. I’ll throw a brick.” “What?” “You heard me,” Cadence needed a moment to draw herself up, to straighten her shoulders. “Fine. I’m in. Let’s go throw a brick.” And Chrysalis could hardly back down. “Any objections?” Chrysalis asked, sweeping her gaze across her court. Wings buzzed in ascent. “Very well. Then tonight, we will break a window. Come along, Princess.” Chapter 9Cadence was happy. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like she was crushed under Celestia’s hoof. For years, Shining Armor had searched for the words to make her feel better, and at long last, Chrysalis had found them. It was all going so well, until the night at the park. Chapter 11“I can’t see you again,” Cadence said. “A princess should have better grammar,” Chrysalis replied, feigning inspecting her own hoof. “You shouldn't see me again.” “Fine, I shouldn't see you again.” “Then why are you here? This isn’t an appointment, Princess. You don’t have to call to cancel. If you don’t want to be here, don’t show up.” “I’m sorry, you’re a good creature and I love being around you, but I’m in a committed relationship. I can’t—” “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “I didn’t ask.” Shining and Cadence started planning their wedding. Of course, they did little of the actual planning. She was a princess, it would be a state affair -- held in the royal palace, with hundreds of guests in attendance. Shining asked Princess Celestia if they should reschedule, if the royal family required them to do something other than what they were doing, but the sun princess said no. It was a good story, the Princess of Love marrying her childhood sweetheart, on the day Shining graduated from the military academy and became a royal guard. Though he still lived under his parents roof, Shining began planning for the transition to adulthood, and in doing so shed the vestiges of childhood. He and Cadence would live together, instead of sneaking around to find privacy where the adults weren’t looking. They would have to manage her royal duties, his military career. To avoid corruption and nepotism, there were protocols for how to handle junior officers married to ponies of high station, and they themselves were a cartful and a half. “I think I should leave the palace,” Cadence said. “You’re leaving your parents house. Celestia isn’t my mother but… it’s time to stop living in her shadow. We should get our own place.” “You’re sure?” Shining asked. “That’s a big step.” “Shining,” Cadence said. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to have to share that life with anypony else. Not my parents, not Celestia, nopony.” That night, Cadence showed up to vent to Chrysalis about how Celestia was being “a complete bitch” about wedding planning, about how her mother was already asking about grandchildren, about how it wasn’t fair that earth ponies could drink when they were fourteen and nopony cared but as a princess she had to wait until she was past twenty. And when Chrysalis didn’t react, she said: “That was your signal to send a drone to get something from the liquor store. You’re really dense sometimes, you know that?” Having learned to pace herself, she only drank half the bottle, and told Chrysalis nothing was going to happen: “So get any ideas out of your head. We’re just friends.” Late that evening, when she grabbed Chrysalis and tried to kiss her, the changeling queen interposed a hoof. “If you do that, I think you’ll regret it.” Cadence would have not been so shocked if Chrysalis had slapped her. Her eyes went wide, her ears folded back, and her cheeks burned a brilliant red under her pink coat. “Oh, I’m sorry, what’s this? Are you condescending to me? The mare from a nice family who spends her evenings as Queen of the Trash is going to lecture me on what I’m going to regret? How I’m throwing a good life away?” “Princess-” “Cadence!” she screamed, voice ragged at the edges. “Call me Cadence! You know me! You think I haven’t figured out that you know me? With your prim and proper diction, always correcting my grammar, being ever so exacting and cold. Somebug’s had a high society education! So who are you!? Are you one of my servants? One of those catty bitches from cotillion? Are you Lyra?” And in her head, she said: I’m Shining Armor. But aloud, that was another story. “You said it yourself, I’m Queen of the Trash, and you’re my royal consort.” “Oh fuck you,” Cadence said. “I can barely stand you.” “You love me.” The words could not be taken back. Of course, Cadence was the only creature present who didn’t know, and when her eyes raced over the changeling drones all around her, she realized in an instant that she was the only one who didn’t know. That what she was just now realizing, that implication that made her heart race and left her in a cold sweat, every bug in her little gang had been able to smell for weeks. An outside observer would have assumed Chrysalis was in control of the situation. Certainly, her domineering manner and smug tone implied it. And perhaps she was. Right up until Cadence said: “Yes. Okay. I love you. And now I’m going to kiss you. And how about you let me decide what I will and won’t regret.” All Chrysalis had to say was no. She kissed Cadence back. Chapter 12Deep beneath Canterlot, in the crystal caverns where nopony would ever interrupt them, Chrysalis and Cadence made love. And that’s what it was. Making love. Even if Cadence was flush, even if she was drunk, even if she kept saying, “we can’t do this,” even as she followed along, she wasn’t simply horny. She loved Chrysalis. She wanted to show it. She wanted Chrysalis to taste it. They parted ways at 3 AM, and the next morning, Cadence showed up at Shining’s house with a blanket and a picnic basket and a day full of romantic activities planned, if one could ignore the bags under her eyes and the smile on her face had a stiff and desperate character. And when Shining opened the door, the correct words came into his head: Cadence, you cheated on me, and that’s not okay, but under the circumstances I’m not blameless. I’m extremely mad at you but we need to talk about what happened. But what he said was, “You only do this when something’s wrong. You want to tell me what it is?” His tone was cold, unsympathetic. A sharp pony might even have detected notes of suspicion. “I’m really stressed,” Cadence said, “with wedding planning, I thought we could get away for awhile. Relax. You know?” Her eyes went to the floor, and she fiddled with her hair. She was a terrible liar. “Cadence,” Shining repeated, his cold tone turning frigid, notes of suspicion becoming notes of anger. “You want to tell me what’s actually wrong?” “Nothing. Nothing.” She said, trying and failing to laugh. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. You know?” Their signal. Her distress call. The sign she needed her special somepony to hold her. “Well I’m busy today,” he answered, turning away from her. “Maybe later.” “He’s never been that cold to me before,” Cadence said, leaning against Chrysalis’s side. “I can’t help but think… he doesn’t know. He can’t know. But he might, like, know. We know each other really well. He might sense that I’m feeling guilty about something. Something about him.” “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “I’m not your therapist. I don’t care.” “I just need somepony to listen-” “Well I’m not a damn pony, am I!?” Chrysalis snapped. “I don’t care! Vent to your maidservant if you like. She listens.” “Oh, are you my maidservant? Is that you, Daisy?” The queen snarled, “No!” with such intensity her voice echoed off the crystal caverns, repeated over and over as it faded into the distance. “Shining,” Cadence asked. “Am I easy? You… seduced me, I guess. Am I an easy mare?” “Of course not,” Shining said, tone mechanical. It was what he was supposed to say. “Why would you think such a terrible thing?” “Princess,” Chrysalis replied, “I have never cared about a pony’s sex life before, and I’m not starting now.” “Right,” Cadence said. “But all I’m saying is, we aren’t married yet. So this isn’t cheating. Right?” “By what definition is this not cheating!?” “Shining,” Cadence asked, “do you love me?” And all he had to do was say no, the wedding would be off, and he would be free of this nightmare. But it wouldn’t have been true. It went on like that, until, finally, one night, Cadence stood behind the abandoned grocery store, looking at Chrysalis on her throne, surrounded by her court. “My wedding is tomorrow.” “So it is,” Chrysalis said, and her tone had an inquisitive hook, accentuated by the arch of a single eyebrow. “Were you going to extend me an invitation?” “I think you’re already going to be there,” Cadence said, spitting the words. Her ears were held tight against her skull, her tail tucked between her legs. “You’re one of the guests.” “Guest, servant, something like that,” Chrysalis waved the matter away. “What of it?” “Don’t come.” And if saying it made her eyes well with tears, if it tore at her voice and made her lower her head in shame, she still said it. Worse, she kept speaking. “You’re right,” she said, “my perfect little pony princess life makes me unhappy. But Shining Armor is a good stallion, who has always been there for me when I needed him. Even before we were a couple, I loved him as a friend, and I knew he loved me. And since we became romantic, he has never been anything but faithful. He keeps no secrets from me, he tells me everything, and when he holds me I feel safe even in my worst moments. Just being with him brings me joy, and peace. I love him, and he loves me, and you are the homewrecker trying to tear us apart!” Cadence blinked and hot tears ran down her face, splattering onto the alley’s rough ground. “I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through. And I’m grateful for… for you helping me enjoy this fantasy for a bit. But it’s a fantasy. I need the stallion who loves me, and who I’m going to be with forever. Not the changeling whore who throws bricks at buildings and huffs paint.” And then she said: “I have a life, Chrysalis, and you don’t fit in it.” For a time, Chrysalis waited for the right words to come, for something, anything to pop into her head. But nothing did. She felt numb, detached from the world. The universe shrunk to Cadence and the ground beneath them, and a ringing grew in her ears. But she had to say something. “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “If you don’t want to be here, don’t come.” Cadence left. Chapter 14On the morning of her wedding, Cadence stood in the bridal suite above the grand hall in which the ceremony was to take place. The room was lavish: larger than most pony’s entire homes, appointed with the finest comforts, built from white stone and sided with gold. Grand windows dominated one wall, offering an unparalleled view of Canterlot and allowing the entry of both the morning sun and the fresh mountain breeze. And there in the middle of it all, bathed in sunlight, was the bride. She was the center of a hive of activity, swarmed with ponies: two ponies to fix her dress, two to fix her makeup, one to do her hair, one to do her hooves. There was a photographer, a choreographer to walk her through the steps of the dance, and a cryptographer with his enigma machine because Luna took perverse glee in sending the most mundane of messages through secure government channels. Her mother was there, and her father, and three bridesmaids, to cheer her up and cheer her on and fill every little empty spot in her thoughts with questions and chatter and blather and noise. And she liked it, because it meant she didn’t have to think about anything. She was too busy to think. She did not notice when the cryptographer was called away to the communications room, for this was normal, and he shortly returned with more of Luna’s messages to decode. It was, after all, about the process. Nor did she notice when the dress ponies came and went, or her bridesmaids, or even her parents. A wedding was barely two hours away, ponies were constantly coming and going -- running errands, running messages, visiting the little foals room. But at some point, she did notice that the quality of the chatter around her had begun to shift. The natural flow of conversation, though the words were not consciously perceived, had taken on a different quality. The cryptographer punched buttons on his encoding device, seemingly at random, but he never delivered any messages. The photographer wound the crank and snapped pictures, but at seemingly unflattering angles, and Cadence had enough knowledge of photography to notice she was not changing the exposure plates. The servants worked on her dress, but she saw one pull out a pin, return it to her pincushion, and then restore that same pin a moment later. And her mother had just told her, “I’m so happy for you, dear!” three times in a row, with exactly the same inflection each time. Like a recording. And so Cadence raised her voice and asked, in tones loud and commanding, “Is there anypony here who isn’t a changeling?” All conversation in the room stopped at once. Every pony turned to face her, with blank eyes and blank stares, living ponies reduced to puppets on strings. “Oh fuck off,” Cadence snapped. “I know all of you. I’ve seen you get entranced by bug zappers. You’re not scaring me with this body snatcher routine.” One by one, they all turned back into changeling drones, until only the photographer was left. And she? She turned into Chrysalis. “What are you doing here?” Cadence demanded, voice trembling with rage. “This is my wedding.” “Isn’t it obvious?” Chrysalis answered. “I’m kidnapping you.” Chapter 15Chrysalis had no idea what happened next. The petty spells and beguilements that sufficed to disable or lure away most ponies would not work on an alicorn. She could not subdue Cadence without a fight. In a bitter irony, the power she derived from Cadence’s love might actually enable her to win that fight, but it would still be a loud thing. A knock down, screaming brawl between two mares who could break stones with their bare hooves. And in any case, the point was moot. Not at her lowest, not on her worst day, could she imagine hitting Cadence. All Cadence had to do to not be kidnapped was to refuse to go. “You’re kidnapping me?” Cadence asked, incredulous. “Have you lost your little insect mind?” “Cadence, I love you.” The words lacked Chrysalis’s refined diction, her cultured and condescending intonations. She blurted them out, blunt and raw and hot, in an accent that was something that had grown up in Canterlot, instead of the mares from Isles of Glass. “I need you. You make me so happy, and I know I make you happy too. Please don’t do this just because everypony tells you you have to.” “I am not here because I have to be,” Cadence lowered her voice to a hiss. “I love Shining Armor. I love him.” “I know you love him,” Chrysalis said. “But you asked him to marry you because you were feeling guilty about cheating on him. You asked him to marry you for all the wrong reasons, and when you think about moving in with him it’s like there’s a stone in your stomach. You did something wrong, and now you don’t know how to fix it. But this isn’t it.” “Fu…” Cadence hissed, trailing off mid-word and looking to the floor. “No. No. Shining is my… you… fuck. I didn’t cheat on him, okay? It was complicated.” “Yeah, it was complicated,” Chrysalis let out a long, slow breath. “More complicated than you know. You’re not a bad pony. You’re not. But you absolutely cheated on your boyfriend, and marrying him is not going to magically undo that.” “I could scream and have the guards throw you out,” Cadence snapped, eyes narrowing. “I could punch you through a wall myself.” “Fine,” Chrysalis replied, not rising to the bait. “You don’t want me here? Look into my eyes and tell me this is healthy.” A sharp gesture at her face accentuated the phrase. “Swear to me that this whole wedding isn’t you running away from something, and I’ll leave.” “It doesn’t work like that,” Cadence turned away from Chrysalis, squeezing her eyes tight. “I can’t just… you don’t get it. I can’t just go and do things.” “You threw a brick once.” “Yeah?” Cadence snapped, still unable to meet Chrysalis’s gaze. “Well this is a pretty big brick.” Chrysalis reached out, and took Cadence’s hoof, and lifted it then to her chest and rested it there, over where a pony’s heart would be. She didn’t have the knack of faking a heartbeat, but the warmth in her skin was there, and the rise and fall of her breath. And when Cadence turned to look at her, Chrysalis stared into her eyes. “I know,” Chrysalis said. “I know, you can’t possibly walk away from this. You would be disappointing your groom, Princess Celestia, Luna, your parents, all of Equestria. You are the Princess of Love, you cannot bail on your own wedding. And I’m not asking you to. You’re not going to bail, you’re going to be kidnapped. And we’ll pop up somewhere and you’ll get to see what life is like when nopony knows you’re a princess, and you can just go do whatever you want.” Cadence said nothing, staring into Chrysalis’s eyes, and when she judged the time to be right, Chrysalis pulled Cadence forward into a hug, and Cadence hugged her back. “You’d give up your life in Canterlot? To what, go with me and be on the run?” “For you, Princess, I’d do anything. I adore you more than you’ll ever know.” “You’re so full of shit,” Cadence said, tears welling up in her eyes -- and for a time, she let Chrysalis hold her, saying nothing, drawing strength from that love. “And you’re right,” she eventually said, “You’re right. That’s what I want. I don’t want to be the Princess of Love, I don’t want to be this thing, I don’t want this life. I think about running away with you, and it’s beautiful.” But then, she pushed Chrysalis away. “But I am a princess,” she said, “whether I like it or not. And part of that is that I have to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t make me happy. And I’m sorry, Chrysalis. I am truly sorry. But running away with you is not the right thing.” And then she said, "And now, you need to leave.” Chapter 16Shining Armor returned to the groom’s suite. Soon, he knew, he would see Cadence. They would meet at the altar, vows would be read, and he would say, “I do.” And it was very important that he not cry at any point in the process, or that if he did, ponies mistook them for tears of joy, and believed him when he said he always cried at weddings. And so he steeled himself, straightened his spine, and prepared to be there for the pony he loved, even if sometimes she didn’t want him. He thought he could do it. He was rather good at playing pretend. An hour before the ceremony, Cadence knocked on the door to the groom’s suite, then let herself in without waiting for a reply. A half-dozen ponies greeted her, including Twilight, but she had eyes only for one. “I need to talk to my fiance,” she says, in tones of royal command. “Everypony other than Shining Armor, leave. Now.” Of course, it took a few minutes for everypony to shuffle out. Questions were asked, but Cadence provided no answers, and in fact said almost nothing. Shining stood there with a dumb expression on his face, vaguely confused, vaguely happy. It’s hard to play a character, when you’ve lost the thread of what they do and don’t know, and what they should and shouldn’t be feeling. “Hey,” he spoke in soft, reassuring tones, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” And she said, voice torn: “Shining, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I don’t think we can get married.” “What?” he tilted his head, the blank idiot mask growing progressively stiffer and more vapid. “That’s crazy, why would we not—” “I cheated on you.” She told him everything, and by the end of her story, she was sobbing incoherently -- clinging to him, begging his forgiveness. She said she was a bad pony, unworthy of being a princess, and unworthy of his love. Then he said, “Um. So, I also have something to confess.” Chapter 17Cadence’s scream shattered wine glasses, rattled windows, and echoed far off the Canterhorn. The wedding was canceled. Chapter 18Nopony is owed forgiveness. “So do I call you Shining or Chrysalis?” Cadence asked, months later. They sat in opposing chairs in Night Light and Twilight Velvet’s living room, surrounded by friends and family. It was the first time they’d been face to face since the wedding. “Can you call me whichever one is correct at the time?” asked the changeling who, at that moment, was a white-coated stallion with blue hair and a shield-mage’s cutie mark. “Like can I just be… Shining, now?” Cadence had no patience for this question, though she tried to conceal her irritation: “Can I just have one name for you, please?” Across the room, a little filly strode forward. It was Twilight, ready to offer an opinion, and in tones of great reverence she said: “Shininglys.” “I don’t know. That feels weird,” Shininglys said. But it was too late. The name had stuck. Cadence and Shininglys had each betrayed the other. “Hey, excuse me, hey,” Cadence waved until she got the attention of the reference librarian. Canterlot Palace had a small library for the use of politicians, bureaucrats, and the royal family. It mostly focused on matters of law, but theoretically could fetch texts on any subject. “Your Highness.” The librarian was an elderly mare, perhaps in her late 70s, half-moon glasses balanced on her muzzle. She bowed low to Cadence, and asked, “How may I be of service?” “I’m looking for the answer to a particular question and I’m struggling to find an applicable book,” Cadence leaned on the counter. “What is ‘gender fluid’ and what am I supposed to do if I think my ex-boyfriend might be that?” After a small pause, the old mare adjusted her glasses. And they had each been betrayed. In the form of a changeling queen, Shininglys lay back on the therapist’s couch. It was soft as a cloud, insofar as it was a cloud, enchanted so that creatures other than pegasus ponies could lay upon it. And the therapist said, “Tell me about your mother.” “The one who was executed in front of me by the rebel militia, or the one who loved me more when I pretended to be her dead first child?” The therapist considered that, then rapidly scribbled notes on his pad: “We might need more than an hour a week.” They didn’t have to pretend it was okay. “-enabling me to create the illusion of a dozen changelings,” Cadence said. “So actually, there was no break-in during the wedding. It was just me. I alone, with nopony else’s help, masterminded my own attempted kidnapping and these changeling drones, who I will affirm have excellent alibais, are completely innocent.” The drones sat in neat rows in front of Celestia, some of them in their insect forms, some in their pony forms. A few had parents nearby, looking upon them with anxious or disappointed gazes. And one said, “Yeah, that’s it.” Celestia lifted her hoof to rub her temples. “Cadence, you are a member of the royal family—” “But not a snitch.” They were both tired of pretending, anyway. “So,” Shininglys asked. They were in the form of the grey mare with green eyes, Chrysalis’s preferred pony form, though they’d kept Shining’s cutie mark. It was the mark they’d chosen for themselves, after they’d discovered their love of shield magic. “How was your day?” “It was fine,” Cadence said. “We talked about this.” “Oh, you want the long version?” Cadence snapped. “It was awful. This morning I thought, we should go on a picnic now that we’re talking again. But then I realized how many times you pretended to eat with me and then, I don’t know. Ran off into the bushes to puke? And it dredged up all those feelings again, that I fell in love with a serial liar. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It ruined my whole day.” “Oh,” Shininglys said, looking off into the corner. “I’m sorry.” Then they said, “But I did want the long version. I always want the long version.” And Cadence said: “Thanks.” And they both wanted to forgive. “I didn’t know how to tell you I wanted children,” Shininglys said. “Since… I don’t know. Since I was a stallion when I met you? Since it would require admitting I was a changeling? I don’t know how to say, hey, I’m sorry we can’t have a pony child, but how would you feel about your special somepony laying a clutch of eggs?” They were in the form of a stallion, with a white coat and a shield for a cutie mark. But their hair wasn’t blue. They’d left it changeling green, and the backs of their eyelids were adorned with green eyeshadow. It made them look a bit more like Chrysalis, and a bit less like the generic masculine Royal Guard recruit. “It would be weird,” Cadence admitted. “I don’t know how I’d feel about it. I guess I’d feel like less of a mare. Having foals I couldn’t carry myself. Who weren’t even biologically related to me.” Shininglys put a leg around her shoulders, and Cadence didn’t pull away. “But,” she said, “I don’t think I’d love them any less.” Chapter 19It was a beautiful day in Ponyville. Twilight and her five wonderful friends were having a picnic in the park, sipping tea, eating little pastry cakes, and watching the wind rustle the trees. Rarity had brought her finest hat, Applejack had brought a batch of fresh apples. All was serene, until Spike ran into the gathering, staggering and panting for breath. “I… I have…” He staggered. “Just gimme a sec. It…” And with a massive belch, he manifested a scroll, the thing materializing out of green fire. Twilight levitated the paper from the ground, unrolling it in front of her and reading aloud: “Dear Twilight, I am sure you are as excited as I am about the upcoming wedding in Canterlot. I will be presiding over the…” Twilight frowned. “What is Celestia talking about?” Her eyes skimmed down the page. “Oh, hey!” Twilight exclaimed, ears perking up. “They got back together!”
Chapter 1Night Light and Twilight Velvet had a life plan, developed as they lay tangled in each other's embrace in Velvet’s college dorm room. First, they were going to screw like rabbits. Then they were going to finish their degrees. Then they were going to get married right out of college, and move into the old house Velvet’s family owned in Canterlot. Night Light was going to become a lampmaker, and Twilight Velvet was going to become an author. Then they were going to have two children named Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor and live happily ever after. They did screw like rabbits, much to the irritation of the students on the other side of Velvet’s thin dorm room walls. Methodically impatient, they planned their wedding for the day after graduation, and Velvet carried her husband over the threshold into their new home. He found employment enchanting magical lanterns that glowed without flame, and she got two short stories published in respectable periodicals. And in time, she became pregnant with twins -- a colt and a filly -- and all was well. Until, one night, Twilight Velvet complained of a dull pain in her stomach, which turned into a stabbing pain and cold sweat. Night Light rushed her to the hospital, where she was swarmed by so many doctors he could not see her. He could only hear her screaming and see the blood running down the operating table onto the floor. As the result of the heroic efforts of many doctors, Twilight Velvet survived, and after several weeks she left the hospital with her children. Twilight they moved into a crib in the master bedroom, and Shining they buried in the yard under the lemon tree. Their relationship was cold, for a time. They made excuses that they were dealing with a newborn, who often cried and needed attention. It was common, they said, for new parents to find less time for intimacy. Yet though they could not admit it, each understood the truth, that they could not look at the other without being reminded of what had happened, and what would never happen. Twilight Velvet touched the scar on her belly and cried, and Night Light rolled over in bed and looked away. “We should adopt.” They would later argue about which one of them said it first, but in time they appeared at an orphanage for children in need of loving parents. The civil war in the Changeling Nation had filled orphanages around the world with little black-shelled insects who would starve if they were not loved. The orphanage staff hugged and sang to them and cared for them as best they could, but the little things were obviously malnourished. The one they picked was non-verbal, a little changeling drone the size of a two-year old who couldn’t say a word. She hadn’t said a word, the staff explained, since her birth family was gunned down in front of her. She wore dog tags, listing her health information and providing her name: Chrysalis. Perhaps they picked her out of pity. Perhaps they picked her because to pick a pony orphan would have felt somehow negligent. Perhaps the thought of a creature that would die if it was not loved was simply too tragic to bear. It was an emotional decision, and neither Twilight Velvet nor Night Light would later recall exactly how they made it. They brought Chrysalis home, and set her up with her own bed across the hall. For days, Chrysalis didn’t speak. She obeyed every command given to her, was quiet and helpful and meek, and nuzzled against Velvet’s leg like a cat. But no matter what Velvet said, in Equestrian or out of her Vespid phrasebook, the little changeling would not say a word. Until the day Velvet showed Chrysalis Shining’s grave, and told her about their dead son, and that even though she never met him she missed him very much. That night, Twilight Velvet was awoken from her sleep to find her dead son staring at her. It was Shining Armor, just as she’d imagined -- a rambunctious little colt with a white coat and his father’s blue mane. He looked up at her as she’d always imagined her son would, eyes full of familial affection and a need for his mother. In the darkness, she froze. Dark thoughts flitted through her head, and many other ponies would have acted upon them, lashed out at the monster before her, who wore the skin of her dead child. “Chrysalis,” she said. “What are you doing?” She hadn’t expected an answer. “I’m Shining Armor,” he replied, in an impression of a young colt’s voice that was not particularly good, an uncanny valley hybridization of the voices of the other colts they had met in the orphanage. “I’m sorry. I can feel you loved him a lot.” “I did love him a lot,” Twilight Velvet said, voice thick. Tears welled in her eyes. “But you don’t have to pretend to be him. We’ll love you for who you are.” But the little colt in front of her put both hooves up on the edge of the bed and said. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be a good son.” And in a voice that was ever so faintly frightened. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Velvet said. “It’s okay. You can… come here. Come here.” She pulled him into bed, and hugged him until they both fell asleep.
Chapter 5Cadence only said she was fine when she wasn’t. When she was happy, she would tell Shining about her day, about the ponies she’d met, about the things she’d done. Even if the day was dull, tedious, banal in its character, she would find something to praise. After a day and a night of astronomy lessons from Luna, in which the night princess was particularly herself, Cadence found it in her to praise Luna’s erudite diction and exquisite penmanship. “Oh, my day was fine,” meant the day wasn’t fine at all. And when that happened, Shining would kiss Cadence on both cheeks, and suggest they go somewhere remote and quiet. Perhaps a picnic, perhaps up on the aqueduct, perhaps simply to the downstairs couch if Shining’s parents weren’t home. And there he would brush her hair, and speak to her of sweet nothings, until she could untie the knot in her chest and speak of what it was. Sometimes, when she untied that knot, she cried. “Fuck Celestia!” she screamed, her hoof hitting the table. “Oh, my opinions make the government look bad? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to! You know what else makes the government look bad? Failure! So maybe I can agree to censor my speech, and she can agree to stop fucking up!” The previous day, Cadence had bought a homeless pony lunch, enrolled him in a program for drug recovery, and found a home to take him in until he got back on his hooves. And when a reporter saw her doing this, and asked to take some pictures, she had occasion to comment that, “The government really needs to do more to help ponies in this situation.” That had resulted in a newspaper article, which had resulted in a word of gentle advice from Celestia -- and when Cadence refused that advice, the advice became a rebuke. Of course, Cadence apologized, and she smiled while she was apologizing. And that was all. Nothing more had happened. Five minutes of stern conversation with Celestia over tea and cakes, before moving onto the affairs of court for the day. And Cadence buried her head in Shining’s shoulder, and wept. The first time this happened, when they were younger, he’d tried to help. But he wasn’t an alicorn or any member of the royal court. He could not shoulder such burdens. Then he’d tried saying generic boyfriend things, reassuring words, gentle nothings, but she’d found them useless and patronizing. He’d tried poetry once, but she was hardly in the mood. So he held her. He held her until her crying slowed, and only then did he say: “One day, we’ll make a life together, and we’ll live it the way we want. Not the way Celestia wants. And inside our house, you’ll always be Cadence and never Princess, and you can say whatever you like and fart whenever you want.” Two years ago, she’d told him a princess cannot be heard to fart in public. He never let it go -- allegedly because he was an immature teenage colt, but in fact because he knew it made her smile. And she did. She did smile. If she could smile for Celestia, she could smile for her boyfriend and his sweet, stupid jokes. And she told him: “I love you, Shining Armor.” He could taste it.
Chapter 8Cadence’s telekinesis was tremendously strong. She could hit a window with a brick from two hundred paces away, and the projectile crashed through plate glass with such force that it impacted the opposite wall, tearing into the plaster and sending a thunderclap through the building. Her eyes went wide. Her hooves rushed to cover her face. She looked on what she’d done in a state of absolute shock, as though she couldn’t believe she’d done it. The drones had to hustle her away from the scene of the crime, as though her legs had suddenly lost their strength. Several of them transformed into items of clothing and rested upon her back and neck, hiding her otherwise distinctive appearance and profile. The drones did not run about Canterlot in their insectile forms. Nor did they commit their misdeeds in the shapes associated with their proper families. Each had a pony shape for this sort of thing, and Chrysalis’s was very much a changeling queen rendered in the shape of a unicorn -- gray coat, green hair and eyes, a cutie mark of emeralds and bugs, and a smile that showed faint fangs. It was this form that Cadence hung off, as she spoke in an unceasing, racing patter: “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did that. That was amazing. Oh, are we going to get caught? I can’t get caught. I can’t. The royal family would never live it down. Oh my gosh.” She showed up again two days later, and again the week after that, sometimes for adventure, sometimes to hang out. She smoked pot for the first time, and was deeply disappointed to discover that her alicorn physiology and earth pony magic fully negated any potential chemical toxins. Someling suggested getting her drunk, and Chrysalis and the entire court watched agape as Cadence lifted her muzzle to the sky and chugged an entire bottle of cheap knockoff whiskey, then asked if there was more. Chrysalis told her, she shouldn’t be blackout drunk in the presence of creatures she did not know. It was dangerous. And Cadence said: “But I know you.” Chrysalis walked Cadence back to the palace that night at two AM, making sure the palace guards took her and knew she was okay. The next day was Saturday, and Shining and Cadence had plans. She missed them, lying in bed with a hangover, and Shining knew she would miss them. But he showed up anyway, and waited a suitable time before traveling to the palace to inquire after her. And when she told the guards to send him up, and he saw her in a bed that smelled like sweat, cloth over her face, he asked her: “Are you alright? What happened?” And she said: “Food poisoning. I’ll be fine.”
Chapter 10Changelings were insects. They did not have pair bonding instincts. Though they could love, and formed lifelong relationships, their language had no words for boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife. Romantic love was not a thing to be had with changelings, but with ponies, be it given freely or stolen. Cadence gave it freely. One night, on the way to tag the new concrete utility building next to the park, Chrysalis caught Cadence staring at her pony form -- eyeing up the mare with the grey coat and the green eyes. “See something you like, Princess?” she teased, voice coy, flush with intonations that implied she was ever so much more mature and experienced than Cadence would ever be. “Yeah,” Cadence said. “You.” Chrysalis had so many memories of kissing Cadence, that when Cadence put a leg around her she acted on instinct. She didn’t pull away, or interpose a hoof. She leaned her head forward, as once she had been commanded to do. And Cadence kissed her. The next morning, Cadence showed up at Twilight and Shining’s house, with a picnic blanket and a lunch and a day full of romantic activities planned. Which if it had been a Saturday and not a Thursday, would have been normal enough. “I’m a princess,” she said to Shining, in a voice that he couldn’t help but notice had a slight uncomfortable rigidity to it, a brittleness he could not recall before hearing. “I mean, I can excuse you from the academy if I want. For a day. Love is important.” The guilt on her face was plain enough that even ponies who had no connection to the previous nights events commented upon it. Twilight asked if Cadence had done something to be in “the dog house,” and Cadence said that little fillies who want to stay up late the next time they’re babysat need to mind their own business. Shining went with her, and she doted upon him, and said all the right things and reminded them both that she loved him. And Shining said, whatever it was it was fine. And he thought, it was fine. It wasn’t cheating. Even if Chrysalis had been another mare, all they’d done was make out a bit. Which, from a certain perspective, made it okay. They were on one of the grass hills overlooking Canterlot staring up at the sky when she asked him: “After you graduate, you want to get married?”
Chapter 13The ringing didn’t stop. After Cadence stalked out of the alley, Chrysalis continued to sit there, blankly staring at the spot where Cadence had been. “Holy shit,” said one of the drones. “That was cold.” “What a bitch,” another of them agreed. “Changeling whore? Her Majesty isn’t the one cheating on her partner.” “My mom is her scribe,” said a third. “Tomorrow I’m going to have to go back to being the dumb little filly who idolizes the ‘princess of love’ and pretend I don’t know she’s a condescending asshole.” “Seemed pretty racist,” agreed a fourth. “Like we’d even want to go to her wedding,” said a fifth. And then one said, “We could body snatch her.” And later, none of them would recall exactly which one of them said it. They all looked at Chrysalis, at their queen. She stared back, blank faced, still. She waited for someone to tell the speaker to knock it off, or to laugh it off as a joke, or to rebuke them for proposing doing something genuinely dangerous. They weren’t really a hive. They weren’t even really punks. They were rich foals and lost souls, pretending to be something they weren’t, and that suggestion crossed over the line. Silence hung in the alley. “Like,” some drone said, “full on, grab her, stick her in a pod, replace her with a body double ‘body snatch’? Like invasion of the body snatchers body snatch?” “Yeah.” “I know my way around the palace,” said the one whose mother was a scribe. “And some ponies the guards will recognize as having access.” “Plus, with the wedding, everypony will be in places they wouldn’t normally be. Small differences in routine, little errors in disguises, things that wouldn’t normally pass -- they’ll brush them off.” “Does anyone actually know how to weave a cocoon? I just puke slime every time I try.” “Why didn’t you tell me? Yeah, I know how. I can teach you.” “I know how to do a sleeper hold on a guard.” And Chrysalis realized, they were all staring at her. No, said Shining’s voice in her head. This is insane and I’m deeply disappointed in all of you for even suggesting it. Go home, go back to your real homes and the families who love you, and never come back to this place. “Any objections?” Chrysalis asked, and she begged, she pleaded with her eyes, object. Some bug, please object. But they didn’t. None of them did. Wings buzzed in ascent. “Very well,” Chrysalis said, as in her head she wept. “Then tomorrow, we will crash a wedding.”
Chapter 2Shining was the son they’d always dreamed of. Literally, perhaps, if the legend that changelings were mildly telepathic was true. He was polite and obedient, doted on his little sister, got straight A’s in school, and his first puppy crush was on a young Princess Cadence, who seemed to like him as well. He often spoke of dreams to join the royal guard, and he got his cutie mark -- a shield and three stars -- at the appropriate age for colts to get such things. “Are you… sure?” Velvet asked him. “That you want a cutecenera for this, I mean?” “Well, yeah,” Shining Armor said, staring up at Velvet with a blank expression -- like he had no idea what she was talking about. “Why wouldn’t I?” “We love you for who you are,” Velvet said, looking him in the eye. “You don’t have to pretend. You never had to pretend. You will always be my child.” Shining told her he loved her too and that everything was fine, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. He shied away from her gaze, and asked if he could have a cutecenera like the other colts. And if sometimes the family found traces of changeling slime in the bathtub, or shed carapace parts after days Shining was sick, they never acknowledged them. When Shining was fourteen and Twilight eight, the family went to see an adventure movie, The Isles of Glass. The primary antagonist was Wilted Flower, a changeling queen played by a unicorn in shellface who had a wicked plan to seduce the hero, poison his bride, and steal his kingdom. Though the movie was family friendly, the villainess certainly invoked the classical trope: the evil whore. Twilight loved the movie and pattered the whole way home about the action scenes and the technical inaccuracies in the on-screen spellcasting. As they turned the corner back onto the street, Velvet found an excuse to come to Shining’s side and whisper: “I’m sorry, we should have left early.” “Why?” Shining said. Then after a moment he added: “It’s fine. It’s a silly foals movie. Wilted Flower isn’t even a changeling name.” That night, after everypony else was in bed, Shining took the dog tags down from the peg where they hung beside his bed. Though the metal had somewhat corroded and the writing faint, the letters stamped into the tags were still legible: CHRYSALIS, DOB: 22-43-61, CASTE: R, CID: 433-212-434-112. He slipped them over his neck, and tip-hooved into the second floor bathroom that he and Twilight shared. He shut the door. He pulled the blinds on the windows. He stuffed towels under the door and in every other crack. And when he transformed from Shining Armor back into a changeling, not a hint of the characteristic green flash escaped the room. “Hello,” Chrysalis said, but she said it in Shining’s voice, because that was the only voice she knew how to make. “Hello,” she tried again, and the voice that resulted was certainly feminine, but it was the voice of a mare she knew from school, who she knew would not appreciate having her identity stolen. She knew that a changeling's natural voice sounded nothing like a pony’s natural voice. The words of vespid emerged not from their throats, but from the sides of their torsos, created by the drumming of tymbals and elytra rubbing against their shells. A changeling’s speech could be asymmetric, the left and right sides of their body producing distinct words, which had specific and subtle cultural connotations. Their poetry was reputed to be beautiful, their songs hauntingly alien and melodious. But Chrysalis didn’t speak a word of vespid. She assumed she must have been able to once, before she lost her birth family, but the memories were distant and clouded. She had a pony’s conception of what might sound hauntingly alien and melodious. A multi-tonal voice, made of numerous pony voices layered over each other. And under those layers, at the core of it all, a deep voice, feminine but mature. A reminder that ponies were ruled by princesses, but changelings were ruled by queens. As the final touch, she relaxed her dorsal vents just slightly, so the sound would be imperfect, the insectile scraping audible under it all. It was powerful, and if the voice of Chrysalis was not unlike the voice of Wilted Flower, if it too had notes of evil whore, then it could be nothing but parallel evolution. After all, the movie was made by ponies, and ponies too had a ponies conception of what was hauntingly alien. “Hello Canterlot,” Chrysalis said, and the words were so smooth, so rich in power and malice, that an observer could have described them as a purr. It was a voice that could with equal ease seduce a princess or threaten a hero with death. Hers was the sound of an engine rumbling, the distant growl of a predator that raises the hairs on the backs of ponies necks. It was too much. She turned back into Shining Armor, and then Shining Armor went to bed.
Chapter 3Cadence kissed Shining. Changelings were insects. They did not have pair bonding instincts. Though they could love, and formed lifelong relationships, their language had no words for boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife. Romantic love was not a thing to be had with changelings, but with ponies, be it given freely or stolen. And perhaps in some instinctual, atavistic way, Shining conceptualized Canterlot as his hive. He loved Cadence, and he quite directly understood that she loved him, but it never occurred to him to kiss her. When they were both sixteen, and they had been dating for some time, she finally became impatient with him not picking up on her hints. She demanded, “Shining, look at me,” and when he did, “Now lean forward,” and he did. Then she kissed him. His eyes went wide, and sparks shot through his limbs. Colors exploded in his mind, a world of alien possibilities opened before him. It was as though he’d been blind his whole life, and only then, he saw. He saw what he could do with her love. He could change the world, banish the greatest of monsters, cast spells to cover or protect entire cities. He could be a tremendous force for good in the world, instead of a helpless observer of events. He could be Cadence’s protector, not merely a royal guard there to shoo crowds away, but a true guardian for an alicorn princess. And he thought, he could raise a family, and there were terrible, alien dreams. Dreams of a hive full of eggs, nymphs, drones buzzing back and forth, all sustained by the pink pony who sat beside him on a throne of chitin. But in those dreams, Shining wasn’t Shining, and they weren’t Cadence’s children to bear. The Cadence pulled back and asked: “Well?” And Shining kissed her back, with all the intensity of a drowning pony clinging to floating debris. They made out in the shadow of Canterlot Palace, until Cadence said they had to stop. A princess couldn’t be seen with smudged makeup and hickeys on her neck. “You’re perfect,” he told her and it was almost true. She didn’t know.
Chapter 4The Queen of Canterlot and her changeling army loitered behind the abandoned grocery store. They called themselves a hive, but there was not one among them who had ever set hoof in such a place. None of them spoke vespid, and they all wore dog tags. A hive was to them not a reality, but an idea, the notion that they were something else, and every night they loitered behind the crumbling brickwork, they huffed aerosol, talked trash, and tried to figure out just what they were. So ignorant were they, and secretive in that ignorance, that they were not entirely certain if Chrysalis really was their queen, and if so, what had marked her as different from the rest of them. All they knew is that she was bigger, and only Chrysalis knew for certain that was not a shapeshifting trick. Several suspected her of putting on airs, but they never once questioned her. Perhaps, they thought, a queen was part of what she wanted to be. They admired her voice, and they envied her power, born of a true love most ponies would never know. Nothing would have come of it, if Cadence had been a better liar. If her public persona as a deeply loving and kind alicorn were a fiction for public conception. If she wasn’t so damn nice. If she didn’t spend her free time wandering around the city, looking for ponies in need. She gave advice to those in troubled relationships, gave money to ponies in financial distress, cared for children who needed a big sister figure, and housed ponies with nowhere to live. She found the changelings behind the old grocery store, two dozen drones and the queen in the middle. One was spraypainting the wall with his green-flame tag, one was spraypainting his shell. Chrysalis watched over them, as it is the role of the condescending and powerful changeling queen to watch over her idiot children. “Hey, everyling,” she said, offering a little wave. “You know, if you want a place to hang out and practice your street art, there’s a community center a few blocks away. They have a wall for spraypainting.” Chrysalis’s mouth began to move, her hoof begin to lift, to speak, to wave, Hey, Cadence! But then she remembered who she was, and at the last moment clamped her jaw shut. In a panic she was left to wonder, what did Cadence see? What had her fault given away? If only she’d seen Cadence coming from further away she might have fled, but the mare had been out of sight until she turned the corner, and there they were, face to face again. Surely, she’d noticed the awkward silence, the panicked delay. “Some of this is pretty good.” Cadence was admiring their wall. “Someling here is a talented artist.” Panic overcame itself. Chrysalis spoke: “It is traditional to bow your head when entering the court of a peer.” She shaped the rebuke like a master sculptor shapes stone, even as she screamed inside her own head. Her straight-backed pose, arch gaze, and that deep multi-tonal voice were an elegant work of form and contempt, and her hive responded in kind. Trash cans became objects de art for a changelings royal court, punks hive guards, the alley a great hall. The dumpster Chrysalis was sitting on became a throne, and the crumbling grocery store her castle. She imagined Shining’s voice in her head, shouting, demanding what are you doing as she extended a hoof for Cadence to make her obsequience -- perhaps to kiss it, perhaps merely to bow her head as requested. Cadence momentarily froze, unsure how to react. “Okay, I can take a joke,” she said, “but really—” “I can take a joke,” said a changeling, in a perfect mimicry of her voice. “I can take a joke,” said another, and in a green flash, they transformed into a distorted mirror of the pony in front of them. The drones had not the strength to take the form of an alicorn, but they rendered Cadence in every other species: earth pony Cadence, unicorn Cadence, pegasus Cadence, griffon Cadence, and one particularly pink dog, each playing back that recording. “I can take a joke.” “Okay,” Cadence lifted a hoof in moderation, like a holy figure forgiving the sins of the common folk. “I’ll leave you alone. I only want to make sure you’re okay.” And all Chrysalis had to say was nothing. “My dear princess,” she said, oozing down from her scrap metal throne to approach this intruder, until they were muzzle to muzzle, until Cadence could feel Chrysalis’s hot breath -- produced not by speaking, but for her benefit alone. “Are you laboring under the misapprehension that we have nowhere else to go? That we’re poor, unwanted, children of broken homes? Cast out into the street? Left to fend for ourselves.” The copies of Cadence turned back into changeling drones, and from there into changelings drones that had Cadence surrounded, the alley’s exit blocked. “It seems quite hypocritical if so,” Chrysalis went on. She took a moment to obviously admire Cadence’s jewelry, lips curling into the faintest sneer as her eyes danced over the gold. “After all, you have a palace to call your home, and you’re here.” “I’m always looking for ponies who need help,” Cadence said, years of public speaking practice keeping her voice level, though the faintest glance at the drones that had cut off her exit betrayed her. “Who need support, friends, a place to be.” “A changeling that is not loved, starves.” Chrysalis said the last word with relish, whispering it directly into Cadence’s ear, sending the princess stumbling back at the uninvited physical contact. “Every drone you see here has a loving family. Many are from good homes, the children of wizards, royal guards, merchants, scholars. The best and brightest of Canterlot.” “Okay,” Cadence said, taking another step back from Chrysalis, only to find her tail pressing against the drones who had blocked her exit. Her look behind her then was not subtle, but the obvious turn of a trapped mare. “Then why are you here?” Chrysalis cast a slow gaze over her court. Drones buzzed, they giggled, they whispered between themselves of Cadence and her fate. “Because we’re happy here, Princess.” “You wouldn’t be happier with a decent roof over your head,” Cadence suggested, trying to regain some control over the conversation, “and a place you can practice your art that doesn’t smell like pee?” And Chrysalis spoke.
Chapter 6“You aren’t happy.” In the alleyway behind the old grocery store, where Chrysalis and Cadence came face to face for the first time, a sudden stillness broke the scene. On some unspoken cue, no drone moved, no drone spoke, they didn’t buzz or laugh. They accentuated their queen’s words with silence, that Cadence should have no shelter to hide behind. “Well, I appreciate your concern,” Cadence said, after a stiff silence. “But really—” “Tell me,” Chrysalis chuckled, and her smile showed her fangs. “Have you ever had the urge, the desire, to do something you know society wouldn’t approve of? I don’t mean petty disobedience. Something your elders really wouldn’t like.” “I don’t have a problem with graffiti,” Cadence attempted to steer the conversation back on topic, “if you want to tag buildings you—” “If you won’t answer, Princess, then I will answer for you,” Chrysalis’s voice downshifted, detached and dour, the tone of one observing upon a tragedy that it is too late to prevent. “The answer is yes, you have, but you’ve buried those impulses, somewhere so deep and dark you’ve been able to convince yourself they never existed. Your parents wanted a traditional marriage, so you’ve forgotten that your first crush was a mare and you pretend that the lingerie magazine you kept hidden under your mattress was a phase.” Chrysalis locked her slitted eyes upon Cadence, and by that gaze alone, pinned her to the spot: “You tell yourself that the path Celestia laid out for you is right and true, you tell yourself you’re happy, over and over again in your head so you won’t think about the fact that you’ve never known anything else. You tell yourself you never stare at Canterlot University, and wonder what it would be like to be a student, to be different. To study something other than politics and magic and royalty. You tell yourself you don’t get angry. That a princess is never sad.” And with a hiss, she finished: “And when Celestia told you alicorns can’t have children, you told her you never wanted any, because you couldn’t face the thought that this path laid out for you wasn’t what you wanted. You are unhappy, Princess. You are desperately, desperately unhappy, as we were unhappy in our fancy homes and with our adoring families. We come here because we can admit it, and you go on your little night walks because you can’t.” Cadence stood fixed to the spot for the eternity of the monologue, and as it went on, her body language grew stiff and her eyes wide. Fear showed there, as this creature before her rattled off details of her life, things it shouldn’t know. Things it couldn’t know, that she’d never told anyone, and those old legends that changelings could read thoughts bubbled up in her mind. “I’m feeling unsafe now,” she said. “And I’d like to leave.” Chrysalis gestured. The drones parted to let her go, and as Cadence stumbled out, Chrysalis called: “You can always come back if you change your mind.” The hive sat in silence until Cadence was out of sight, and it was only once they were sure she was gone that one of them said: “Wow, that was badass.” “Super badass,” another agreed. “Thanks,” said Chrysalis. “Sorry, I… kind of panicked there. I…” Her wings buzzed against her shell. “I’m going to go home.” “Yeah, actually,” one of the drones said, “she’s like, a princess? She could call the police. We should all go.” “Oh fuck, yeah,” another agreed. “Let’s get out of here.” They all turned back into prim and proper Canterlot children, and Shining went home. And when he returned home, he found Cadence already sitting outside his parent’s house. It was their night out, and Twilight was with Celestia, so the house was dark. The princess of love sat on the steps. “Cadence?” Shining called, picking up his pace to a trot. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she said. “I just need my special somepony to hold me for a while.” He told her he loved her, and they lay there on the couch together until Twilight and his parents got home.
Chapter 7Cadence was particularly emotionally needy for the next several weeks, but she never told Shining why. Chrysalis and her changeling army avoided the abandoned grocery store for as much time, fearful of Cadence’s wrath. But eventually they returned, and these paths crossed again. “How old are you?” Cadence asked, and she still did not bow her head to Chrysalis. “You sound like you’re thirty. But I hope you’re not the kind of loser who hangs out with teenagers to feel cool.” The correct words bubbled into Chrysalis’s head -- spoken in Shining’s voice: I’m seventeen. Listen, I’m sorry about last time. Things got really out of hand. I don’t know what came over me. I never meant to be that cruel. Can we please forget that happened? But she never said one of them. Instead, she removed her dog tags and levitated them across the gap to Cadence. She examined the tags, the name, the date of birth, and in her head calculated Chrysalis’s true age. “You’re younger than me. Why does your voice sound like that?” “Because you like older mares.” Chrysalis said, and she was rewarded with a flinch. The drones around them giggled and buzzed, crawling over the alley walls to regard Cadence from all angles. “Can you read my mind?” she asked, eyes locked on Chrysalis’s, seeking some sign of deception. “How did you know what you knew last time?” “Oh, please,” Chrysalis rolled her eyes, accentuating the words with only the most theatrical derision. “You’re the princess of love. Was I supposed to believe that gay ponies are denied your blessing? That you would be aggressively straight? Of course you’re bisexual, Princess, but you’ve only ever appeared in public with stallions. I somehow managed to put it together. Or perhaps you think I read your mind because I deduced a pony about to turn eighteen might have thoughts relating to college -- oh! Or that I noticed no alicorn in the history of the nation has ever borne children.” “You knew things,” she snapped, tone accusatory. Again, she heard Shining speak: I understand. I knew things that were deeply private, and you’re probably feeling violated right now. But I promise, I don’t mean any harm. But no creature other than her could hear him. “And what, you’re going to accuse a changeling queen of having sources?” Chrysalis replied, tone laced with derision. “Princess, why are you here?” A long silence hung between them. The drones in time grew still, and the beating of their wings ceased. “I don’t know,” Cadence said. “You said you were all from nice, fancy homes, and you were all miserable there, right? Well. I’m from the fanciest house of them all. And it’s not great. I want to, I don’t know. See what there is to see.” A drone lifted a leg, waiting to be called upon like a student sitting in class: “A pony was a real horse’s ass to my dad today, so I was going to throw a brick through his window. Make her throw one.” The alley filled with buzzes and clicks of ascent, and all eyes turned to Cadence. She hesitated, looked at the ground, and scuffed a hoof against the cobbles. “I’m sorry. I can’t. If I got caught—” “Celestia would what?” Chrysalis snapped, her voice abruptly shifting to hot anger -- a cracking whip that sent Cadence back half a step. “Whip you? Behead you? Strap you to four horses and have you drawn and quartered? Set you on fire? Banish you to the moon? Send you to your room without supper? You are the Princess of Love. There isn’t a changeling in this alley who wouldn’t give their teeth for a single kiss from you, and I forbid you to be this disgustingly weak! Humble though it may be, this is my royal court, and when you are in my presence you will conduct yourself with dignity instead of cowering in fear!” Cadence was left frozen to the spot, wide eyed, shocked, ears and tail high -- a rich blush covering her cheeks. Chrysalis’s breath came in deep gasps, her slitted eyes fixed on the pony before her, her own passion having overtaken her. Her accent had slipped partway through her tirade, and it wasn’t until it was over she noticed. And she heard Shining say, What the hell was that? What are you doing? Then Cadence said: “Okay, I’m in. I’ll throw a brick.” “What?” “You heard me,” Cadence needed a moment to draw herself up, to straighten her shoulders. “Fine. I’m in. Let’s go throw a brick.” And Chrysalis could hardly back down. “Any objections?” Chrysalis asked, sweeping her gaze across her court. Wings buzzed in ascent. “Very well. Then tonight, we will break a window. Come along, Princess.”
Chapter 9Cadence was happy. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like she was crushed under Celestia’s hoof. For years, Shining Armor had searched for the words to make her feel better, and at long last, Chrysalis had found them. It was all going so well, until the night at the park.
Chapter 11“I can’t see you again,” Cadence said. “A princess should have better grammar,” Chrysalis replied, feigning inspecting her own hoof. “You shouldn't see me again.” “Fine, I shouldn't see you again.” “Then why are you here? This isn’t an appointment, Princess. You don’t have to call to cancel. If you don’t want to be here, don’t show up.” “I’m sorry, you’re a good creature and I love being around you, but I’m in a committed relationship. I can’t—” “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “I didn’t ask.” Shining and Cadence started planning their wedding. Of course, they did little of the actual planning. She was a princess, it would be a state affair -- held in the royal palace, with hundreds of guests in attendance. Shining asked Princess Celestia if they should reschedule, if the royal family required them to do something other than what they were doing, but the sun princess said no. It was a good story, the Princess of Love marrying her childhood sweetheart, on the day Shining graduated from the military academy and became a royal guard. Though he still lived under his parents roof, Shining began planning for the transition to adulthood, and in doing so shed the vestiges of childhood. He and Cadence would live together, instead of sneaking around to find privacy where the adults weren’t looking. They would have to manage her royal duties, his military career. To avoid corruption and nepotism, there were protocols for how to handle junior officers married to ponies of high station, and they themselves were a cartful and a half. “I think I should leave the palace,” Cadence said. “You’re leaving your parents house. Celestia isn’t my mother but… it’s time to stop living in her shadow. We should get our own place.” “You’re sure?” Shining asked. “That’s a big step.” “Shining,” Cadence said. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to have to share that life with anypony else. Not my parents, not Celestia, nopony.” That night, Cadence showed up to vent to Chrysalis about how Celestia was being “a complete bitch” about wedding planning, about how her mother was already asking about grandchildren, about how it wasn’t fair that earth ponies could drink when they were fourteen and nopony cared but as a princess she had to wait until she was past twenty. And when Chrysalis didn’t react, she said: “That was your signal to send a drone to get something from the liquor store. You’re really dense sometimes, you know that?” Having learned to pace herself, she only drank half the bottle, and told Chrysalis nothing was going to happen: “So get any ideas out of your head. We’re just friends.” Late that evening, when she grabbed Chrysalis and tried to kiss her, the changeling queen interposed a hoof. “If you do that, I think you’ll regret it.” Cadence would have not been so shocked if Chrysalis had slapped her. Her eyes went wide, her ears folded back, and her cheeks burned a brilliant red under her pink coat. “Oh, I’m sorry, what’s this? Are you condescending to me? The mare from a nice family who spends her evenings as Queen of the Trash is going to lecture me on what I’m going to regret? How I’m throwing a good life away?” “Princess-” “Cadence!” she screamed, voice ragged at the edges. “Call me Cadence! You know me! You think I haven’t figured out that you know me? With your prim and proper diction, always correcting my grammar, being ever so exacting and cold. Somebug’s had a high society education! So who are you!? Are you one of my servants? One of those catty bitches from cotillion? Are you Lyra?” And in her head, she said: I’m Shining Armor. But aloud, that was another story. “You said it yourself, I’m Queen of the Trash, and you’re my royal consort.” “Oh fuck you,” Cadence said. “I can barely stand you.” “You love me.” The words could not be taken back. Of course, Cadence was the only creature present who didn’t know, and when her eyes raced over the changeling drones all around her, she realized in an instant that she was the only one who didn’t know. That what she was just now realizing, that implication that made her heart race and left her in a cold sweat, every bug in her little gang had been able to smell for weeks. An outside observer would have assumed Chrysalis was in control of the situation. Certainly, her domineering manner and smug tone implied it. And perhaps she was. Right up until Cadence said: “Yes. Okay. I love you. And now I’m going to kiss you. And how about you let me decide what I will and won’t regret.” All Chrysalis had to say was no. She kissed Cadence back.
Chapter 12Deep beneath Canterlot, in the crystal caverns where nopony would ever interrupt them, Chrysalis and Cadence made love. And that’s what it was. Making love. Even if Cadence was flush, even if she was drunk, even if she kept saying, “we can’t do this,” even as she followed along, she wasn’t simply horny. She loved Chrysalis. She wanted to show it. She wanted Chrysalis to taste it. They parted ways at 3 AM, and the next morning, Cadence showed up at Shining’s house with a blanket and a picnic basket and a day full of romantic activities planned, if one could ignore the bags under her eyes and the smile on her face had a stiff and desperate character. And when Shining opened the door, the correct words came into his head: Cadence, you cheated on me, and that’s not okay, but under the circumstances I’m not blameless. I’m extremely mad at you but we need to talk about what happened. But what he said was, “You only do this when something’s wrong. You want to tell me what it is?” His tone was cold, unsympathetic. A sharp pony might even have detected notes of suspicion. “I’m really stressed,” Cadence said, “with wedding planning, I thought we could get away for awhile. Relax. You know?” Her eyes went to the floor, and she fiddled with her hair. She was a terrible liar. “Cadence,” Shining repeated, his cold tone turning frigid, notes of suspicion becoming notes of anger. “You want to tell me what’s actually wrong?” “Nothing. Nothing.” She said, trying and failing to laugh. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. You know?” Their signal. Her distress call. The sign she needed her special somepony to hold her. “Well I’m busy today,” he answered, turning away from her. “Maybe later.” “He’s never been that cold to me before,” Cadence said, leaning against Chrysalis’s side. “I can’t help but think… he doesn’t know. He can’t know. But he might, like, know. We know each other really well. He might sense that I’m feeling guilty about something. Something about him.” “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “I’m not your therapist. I don’t care.” “I just need somepony to listen-” “Well I’m not a damn pony, am I!?” Chrysalis snapped. “I don’t care! Vent to your maidservant if you like. She listens.” “Oh, are you my maidservant? Is that you, Daisy?” The queen snarled, “No!” with such intensity her voice echoed off the crystal caverns, repeated over and over as it faded into the distance. “Shining,” Cadence asked. “Am I easy? You… seduced me, I guess. Am I an easy mare?” “Of course not,” Shining said, tone mechanical. It was what he was supposed to say. “Why would you think such a terrible thing?” “Princess,” Chrysalis replied, “I have never cared about a pony’s sex life before, and I’m not starting now.” “Right,” Cadence said. “But all I’m saying is, we aren’t married yet. So this isn’t cheating. Right?” “By what definition is this not cheating!?” “Shining,” Cadence asked, “do you love me?” And all he had to do was say no, the wedding would be off, and he would be free of this nightmare. But it wouldn’t have been true. It went on like that, until, finally, one night, Cadence stood behind the abandoned grocery store, looking at Chrysalis on her throne, surrounded by her court. “My wedding is tomorrow.” “So it is,” Chrysalis said, and her tone had an inquisitive hook, accentuated by the arch of a single eyebrow. “Were you going to extend me an invitation?” “I think you’re already going to be there,” Cadence said, spitting the words. Her ears were held tight against her skull, her tail tucked between her legs. “You’re one of the guests.” “Guest, servant, something like that,” Chrysalis waved the matter away. “What of it?” “Don’t come.” And if saying it made her eyes well with tears, if it tore at her voice and made her lower her head in shame, she still said it. Worse, she kept speaking. “You’re right,” she said, “my perfect little pony princess life makes me unhappy. But Shining Armor is a good stallion, who has always been there for me when I needed him. Even before we were a couple, I loved him as a friend, and I knew he loved me. And since we became romantic, he has never been anything but faithful. He keeps no secrets from me, he tells me everything, and when he holds me I feel safe even in my worst moments. Just being with him brings me joy, and peace. I love him, and he loves me, and you are the homewrecker trying to tear us apart!” Cadence blinked and hot tears ran down her face, splattering onto the alley’s rough ground. “I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through. And I’m grateful for… for you helping me enjoy this fantasy for a bit. But it’s a fantasy. I need the stallion who loves me, and who I’m going to be with forever. Not the changeling whore who throws bricks at buildings and huffs paint.” And then she said: “I have a life, Chrysalis, and you don’t fit in it.” For a time, Chrysalis waited for the right words to come, for something, anything to pop into her head. But nothing did. She felt numb, detached from the world. The universe shrunk to Cadence and the ground beneath them, and a ringing grew in her ears. But she had to say something. “Princess,” Chrysalis said. “If you don’t want to be here, don’t come.” Cadence left.
Chapter 14On the morning of her wedding, Cadence stood in the bridal suite above the grand hall in which the ceremony was to take place. The room was lavish: larger than most pony’s entire homes, appointed with the finest comforts, built from white stone and sided with gold. Grand windows dominated one wall, offering an unparalleled view of Canterlot and allowing the entry of both the morning sun and the fresh mountain breeze. And there in the middle of it all, bathed in sunlight, was the bride. She was the center of a hive of activity, swarmed with ponies: two ponies to fix her dress, two to fix her makeup, one to do her hair, one to do her hooves. There was a photographer, a choreographer to walk her through the steps of the dance, and a cryptographer with his enigma machine because Luna took perverse glee in sending the most mundane of messages through secure government channels. Her mother was there, and her father, and three bridesmaids, to cheer her up and cheer her on and fill every little empty spot in her thoughts with questions and chatter and blather and noise. And she liked it, because it meant she didn’t have to think about anything. She was too busy to think. She did not notice when the cryptographer was called away to the communications room, for this was normal, and he shortly returned with more of Luna’s messages to decode. It was, after all, about the process. Nor did she notice when the dress ponies came and went, or her bridesmaids, or even her parents. A wedding was barely two hours away, ponies were constantly coming and going -- running errands, running messages, visiting the little foals room. But at some point, she did notice that the quality of the chatter around her had begun to shift. The natural flow of conversation, though the words were not consciously perceived, had taken on a different quality. The cryptographer punched buttons on his encoding device, seemingly at random, but he never delivered any messages. The photographer wound the crank and snapped pictures, but at seemingly unflattering angles, and Cadence had enough knowledge of photography to notice she was not changing the exposure plates. The servants worked on her dress, but she saw one pull out a pin, return it to her pincushion, and then restore that same pin a moment later. And her mother had just told her, “I’m so happy for you, dear!” three times in a row, with exactly the same inflection each time. Like a recording. And so Cadence raised her voice and asked, in tones loud and commanding, “Is there anypony here who isn’t a changeling?” All conversation in the room stopped at once. Every pony turned to face her, with blank eyes and blank stares, living ponies reduced to puppets on strings. “Oh fuck off,” Cadence snapped. “I know all of you. I’ve seen you get entranced by bug zappers. You’re not scaring me with this body snatcher routine.” One by one, they all turned back into changeling drones, until only the photographer was left. And she? She turned into Chrysalis. “What are you doing here?” Cadence demanded, voice trembling with rage. “This is my wedding.” “Isn’t it obvious?” Chrysalis answered. “I’m kidnapping you.”
Chapter 15Chrysalis had no idea what happened next. The petty spells and beguilements that sufficed to disable or lure away most ponies would not work on an alicorn. She could not subdue Cadence without a fight. In a bitter irony, the power she derived from Cadence’s love might actually enable her to win that fight, but it would still be a loud thing. A knock down, screaming brawl between two mares who could break stones with their bare hooves. And in any case, the point was moot. Not at her lowest, not on her worst day, could she imagine hitting Cadence. All Cadence had to do to not be kidnapped was to refuse to go. “You’re kidnapping me?” Cadence asked, incredulous. “Have you lost your little insect mind?” “Cadence, I love you.” The words lacked Chrysalis’s refined diction, her cultured and condescending intonations. She blurted them out, blunt and raw and hot, in an accent that was something that had grown up in Canterlot, instead of the mares from Isles of Glass. “I need you. You make me so happy, and I know I make you happy too. Please don’t do this just because everypony tells you you have to.” “I am not here because I have to be,” Cadence lowered her voice to a hiss. “I love Shining Armor. I love him.” “I know you love him,” Chrysalis said. “But you asked him to marry you because you were feeling guilty about cheating on him. You asked him to marry you for all the wrong reasons, and when you think about moving in with him it’s like there’s a stone in your stomach. You did something wrong, and now you don’t know how to fix it. But this isn’t it.” “Fu…” Cadence hissed, trailing off mid-word and looking to the floor. “No. No. Shining is my… you… fuck. I didn’t cheat on him, okay? It was complicated.” “Yeah, it was complicated,” Chrysalis let out a long, slow breath. “More complicated than you know. You’re not a bad pony. You’re not. But you absolutely cheated on your boyfriend, and marrying him is not going to magically undo that.” “I could scream and have the guards throw you out,” Cadence snapped, eyes narrowing. “I could punch you through a wall myself.” “Fine,” Chrysalis replied, not rising to the bait. “You don’t want me here? Look into my eyes and tell me this is healthy.” A sharp gesture at her face accentuated the phrase. “Swear to me that this whole wedding isn’t you running away from something, and I’ll leave.” “It doesn’t work like that,” Cadence turned away from Chrysalis, squeezing her eyes tight. “I can’t just… you don’t get it. I can’t just go and do things.” “You threw a brick once.” “Yeah?” Cadence snapped, still unable to meet Chrysalis’s gaze. “Well this is a pretty big brick.” Chrysalis reached out, and took Cadence’s hoof, and lifted it then to her chest and rested it there, over where a pony’s heart would be. She didn’t have the knack of faking a heartbeat, but the warmth in her skin was there, and the rise and fall of her breath. And when Cadence turned to look at her, Chrysalis stared into her eyes. “I know,” Chrysalis said. “I know, you can’t possibly walk away from this. You would be disappointing your groom, Princess Celestia, Luna, your parents, all of Equestria. You are the Princess of Love, you cannot bail on your own wedding. And I’m not asking you to. You’re not going to bail, you’re going to be kidnapped. And we’ll pop up somewhere and you’ll get to see what life is like when nopony knows you’re a princess, and you can just go do whatever you want.” Cadence said nothing, staring into Chrysalis’s eyes, and when she judged the time to be right, Chrysalis pulled Cadence forward into a hug, and Cadence hugged her back. “You’d give up your life in Canterlot? To what, go with me and be on the run?” “For you, Princess, I’d do anything. I adore you more than you’ll ever know.” “You’re so full of shit,” Cadence said, tears welling up in her eyes -- and for a time, she let Chrysalis hold her, saying nothing, drawing strength from that love. “And you’re right,” she eventually said, “You’re right. That’s what I want. I don’t want to be the Princess of Love, I don’t want to be this thing, I don’t want this life. I think about running away with you, and it’s beautiful.” But then, she pushed Chrysalis away. “But I am a princess,” she said, “whether I like it or not. And part of that is that I have to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t make me happy. And I’m sorry, Chrysalis. I am truly sorry. But running away with you is not the right thing.” And then she said, "And now, you need to leave.”
Chapter 16Shining Armor returned to the groom’s suite. Soon, he knew, he would see Cadence. They would meet at the altar, vows would be read, and he would say, “I do.” And it was very important that he not cry at any point in the process, or that if he did, ponies mistook them for tears of joy, and believed him when he said he always cried at weddings. And so he steeled himself, straightened his spine, and prepared to be there for the pony he loved, even if sometimes she didn’t want him. He thought he could do it. He was rather good at playing pretend. An hour before the ceremony, Cadence knocked on the door to the groom’s suite, then let herself in without waiting for a reply. A half-dozen ponies greeted her, including Twilight, but she had eyes only for one. “I need to talk to my fiance,” she says, in tones of royal command. “Everypony other than Shining Armor, leave. Now.” Of course, it took a few minutes for everypony to shuffle out. Questions were asked, but Cadence provided no answers, and in fact said almost nothing. Shining stood there with a dumb expression on his face, vaguely confused, vaguely happy. It’s hard to play a character, when you’ve lost the thread of what they do and don’t know, and what they should and shouldn’t be feeling. “Hey,” he spoke in soft, reassuring tones, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” And she said, voice torn: “Shining, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I don’t think we can get married.” “What?” he tilted his head, the blank idiot mask growing progressively stiffer and more vapid. “That’s crazy, why would we not—” “I cheated on you.” She told him everything, and by the end of her story, she was sobbing incoherently -- clinging to him, begging his forgiveness. She said she was a bad pony, unworthy of being a princess, and unworthy of his love. Then he said, “Um. So, I also have something to confess.”
Chapter 17Cadence’s scream shattered wine glasses, rattled windows, and echoed far off the Canterhorn. The wedding was canceled.
Chapter 18Nopony is owed forgiveness. “So do I call you Shining or Chrysalis?” Cadence asked, months later. They sat in opposing chairs in Night Light and Twilight Velvet’s living room, surrounded by friends and family. It was the first time they’d been face to face since the wedding. “Can you call me whichever one is correct at the time?” asked the changeling who, at that moment, was a white-coated stallion with blue hair and a shield-mage’s cutie mark. “Like can I just be… Shining, now?” Cadence had no patience for this question, though she tried to conceal her irritation: “Can I just have one name for you, please?” Across the room, a little filly strode forward. It was Twilight, ready to offer an opinion, and in tones of great reverence she said: “Shininglys.” “I don’t know. That feels weird,” Shininglys said. But it was too late. The name had stuck. Cadence and Shininglys had each betrayed the other. “Hey, excuse me, hey,” Cadence waved until she got the attention of the reference librarian. Canterlot Palace had a small library for the use of politicians, bureaucrats, and the royal family. It mostly focused on matters of law, but theoretically could fetch texts on any subject. “Your Highness.” The librarian was an elderly mare, perhaps in her late 70s, half-moon glasses balanced on her muzzle. She bowed low to Cadence, and asked, “How may I be of service?” “I’m looking for the answer to a particular question and I’m struggling to find an applicable book,” Cadence leaned on the counter. “What is ‘gender fluid’ and what am I supposed to do if I think my ex-boyfriend might be that?” After a small pause, the old mare adjusted her glasses. And they had each been betrayed. In the form of a changeling queen, Shininglys lay back on the therapist’s couch. It was soft as a cloud, insofar as it was a cloud, enchanted so that creatures other than pegasus ponies could lay upon it. And the therapist said, “Tell me about your mother.” “The one who was executed in front of me by the rebel militia, or the one who loved me more when I pretended to be her dead first child?” The therapist considered that, then rapidly scribbled notes on his pad: “We might need more than an hour a week.” They didn’t have to pretend it was okay. “-enabling me to create the illusion of a dozen changelings,” Cadence said. “So actually, there was no break-in during the wedding. It was just me. I alone, with nopony else’s help, masterminded my own attempted kidnapping and these changeling drones, who I will affirm have excellent alibais, are completely innocent.” The drones sat in neat rows in front of Celestia, some of them in their insect forms, some in their pony forms. A few had parents nearby, looking upon them with anxious or disappointed gazes. And one said, “Yeah, that’s it.” Celestia lifted her hoof to rub her temples. “Cadence, you are a member of the royal family—” “But not a snitch.” They were both tired of pretending, anyway. “So,” Shininglys asked. They were in the form of the grey mare with green eyes, Chrysalis’s preferred pony form, though they’d kept Shining’s cutie mark. It was the mark they’d chosen for themselves, after they’d discovered their love of shield magic. “How was your day?” “It was fine,” Cadence said. “We talked about this.” “Oh, you want the long version?” Cadence snapped. “It was awful. This morning I thought, we should go on a picnic now that we’re talking again. But then I realized how many times you pretended to eat with me and then, I don’t know. Ran off into the bushes to puke? And it dredged up all those feelings again, that I fell in love with a serial liar. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It ruined my whole day.” “Oh,” Shininglys said, looking off into the corner. “I’m sorry.” Then they said, “But I did want the long version. I always want the long version.” And Cadence said: “Thanks.” And they both wanted to forgive. “I didn’t know how to tell you I wanted children,” Shininglys said. “Since… I don’t know. Since I was a stallion when I met you? Since it would require admitting I was a changeling? I don’t know how to say, hey, I’m sorry we can’t have a pony child, but how would you feel about your special somepony laying a clutch of eggs?” They were in the form of a stallion, with a white coat and a shield for a cutie mark. But their hair wasn’t blue. They’d left it changeling green, and the backs of their eyelids were adorned with green eyeshadow. It made them look a bit more like Chrysalis, and a bit less like the generic masculine Royal Guard recruit. “It would be weird,” Cadence admitted. “I don’t know how I’d feel about it. I guess I’d feel like less of a mare. Having foals I couldn’t carry myself. Who weren’t even biologically related to me.” Shininglys put a leg around her shoulders, and Cadence didn’t pull away. “But,” she said, “I don’t think I’d love them any less.”
Chapter 19It was a beautiful day in Ponyville. Twilight and her five wonderful friends were having a picnic in the park, sipping tea, eating little pastry cakes, and watching the wind rustle the trees. Rarity had brought her finest hat, Applejack had brought a batch of fresh apples. All was serene, until Spike ran into the gathering, staggering and panting for breath. “I… I have…” He staggered. “Just gimme a sec. It…” And with a massive belch, he manifested a scroll, the thing materializing out of green fire. Twilight levitated the paper from the ground, unrolling it in front of her and reading aloud: “Dear Twilight, I am sure you are as excited as I am about the upcoming wedding in Canterlot. I will be presiding over the…” Twilight frowned. “What is Celestia talking about?” Her eyes skimmed down the page. “Oh, hey!” Twilight exclaimed, ears perking up. “They got back together!”
