The Queen of Canterlot

by GaPJaxie

Chapter 18

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Nopony 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.”

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