Twilight proceeded to where the Changelings were making their temporary home. There was a big door leading to somewhere that she was, unfortunately, rather familiar with. In this case, the crystalline caverns within the Canterhorn mountain.

'And so it comes around again.' she thought. This was where she was trapped by Chrysalis the first time the Changelings were invading. Now they were trapped there instead. Irony, or poetic justice? Why not both?

As Twilight went through the dooorway, she felt a wave of energy wash over her. When she looked down, she saw that she was back in her PonWolf form. Yet she felt none of thje anger, the Rage that she did previously. "Huh? Why am I transformed again?" she queried aloud.

Her question was answered readily. "It is what makes you like us, My Queen. We are both able to change forms. Several of them." One of the Changelings stepped up. "If it please you, my name is Sclera. I used to be one of our... previous queen's secretaries/information holders. However, this invasion was basically a Go For Broke plan. Either we were to succeed, or we die either way. But that's there and not here. The point is that if you like i can be yours."

Twilight nodded once. "Very well. Please, call me Twilight. Give me the guided tour, will you? Oh! Befoe I do that..."

"My Queen?" Sclera queried.

Twilight instinctively kissed Sclera just below her horn. "You are now my Royal Secretary." In the back of her mind, Twilight heard a voice say, "Disciple: Scholar".

Sclera glowed slightly, closing her eyes. After but a moment it was over. When Sclera opened her eyes, her namesakes were violet instead of red.

"No more of this 'My Queen'" stuff, okay? Now, the tour."

Sclera was all too eager to do so. "Well, as you can see, we've applied some of our magic to the area. It allows us to take on whatever form we like without using much energy. You see, when we tie ourselves to a Queen, we usually tie ourselves to a location not too much later."

Twilight looked around. It was amazing what the Changelings had done with the place. Along the walls there was a lot of seemingly very thick walls. Which struck Twilight as unnecessary in the extreme. "Okay. Why are you doubling down on the walls? We're in the middle of a mountain!"

Sclere said, with a modicum of embarassment, "Instinct, I suppose. Since this is the center of the mountain, one of our first instincts was to reinforce it. Though, one nice thing, It will also allows you to adjust the ambience of the place, if you like."

Twilight looked up. All around her, things seemed to be tinted slightly into the red side of the spectrum. Which made some sense, because these Changelings were supposedly from the Ruby hive. while In Chrysalis' hive the ambience was more tending toward greenish, from what she had seen. She thought to herself, 'Well, time to make the first change to the status quo.'

She concentrated on shifting the place's atmosphere. Immediately, the plae shifted toward the more dark blues and ourples. Almost like it was night. What looked like an artifical moon even appeared overhead. "Oh, NOW we're talking. If i'm going to be in my night form here, might as well go all the way." Twilight said, with a smile.

Sclera was inclined to agree. "An excellent choice. An amazing force of will you have."

Twilight acknowledged this statement casually. "Of course. Usually, I'm a Unicorn. Having a strong will kind of comes with the territory."

At this second change, the rest of the remaining Changelings assembled. "Welcome to our home, Your Majesty." they said in unison.

Twilight nodded in acknowledgement. "Alright. While you're here, you will work to earn your keep, and I have a few ideas.. Firstly, I need ten of you to line up here."

Ten changelings lined up before her. "You all are going to be farmers. You will produce food that will benefit other Ponies, and thus will benefit you as well."

One Changeling hesitantly raised a hoof. "Yes, you there? Name and previous role first."

"My name is Antenna, My Queen. I used to be a builder; I aided in making the walls."

Twilight rolled her eyes. 'Change number two.' "Alright, like I told Sclera here, call me Twilight. I don't ken to titles much. That goes for all of you." she said, addressing the whole of them. "Make that an order."

Antenna continued. "How does that benefit us?"

Twilight noded. "I'm glad you asked. What you'll do is infuse it with Love."

There was light chatter among the Changelings.

Twilight next said, "I understand that you likely don't have much, but if you do that, then it will passively suffuse this place as the plants grow, basically creating a sort of positive feedback loop. In theory, anyway. This is an experiment."

Sclera said, "I'm... not sure that we have enough left to do that."

Twilight frowned slightly. She looked at her new subjects. Most of them seemed emaciated, like they were starving. 'Well, i suppose it's part of my responsibility to find food for them.' "Alright, show me to how much you have left."

Sclera did so. In the center of the place was a small crystal obelisk, about the size of a beach ball, on the large side. "We've been on emergency rations."

Twilight felt sorry for them. "Then let me see if i can help."

She approached the crystal. Putting a paw to the crystal, she thought of all that she loved. Princesses Celestia and Luna, )[Admiration], her friends and family. [Kinship] A nice chocolat muffin, spending time in the sunliight (or the moonlight, more recently), a good book. [Joy; Nostalgia]

As she thought of each, pouring her love into it, the crystal began to grow more dense. but she didn't stop. The simple joy of flight, or just releasing one's mana, her favourite dreams, the simple joy of a good workout, the... thrill of the hunt? Whatever. [Freedom] She poured every bit of Love (and some other emotions as well) she could muster. The Love that she was concentrating on was spreading through -and into- the area, all of the 47 changelings there paying rapt attention, drinking in what she let slip.

While the process was going on, the crystal began to turn to the violet colours. By the time she was done, it was easily six times the size that it was before. That might not seem like much for that many Changelings, but the energy was densely packed, so it would have been enough to feed twice this many Changelings for a fair while. Already she could feel the Love energy suffusing the area. This also had the effect of intensifying the colour change a bit "Now, drink up." she said to them. "Plenty for all."

The lot of them did so readily. She looked at the crystal that they now drank the energy from. Just one Pony, giving that much energy. It was stupid for Chrysalis to hunt down the WHOLE city. She now felt a little emotionally drained, both literally and metaphorically.

Sclera smiled widely. "Thank you, my q- uh, Twilight. This is more than most of us have eaten for weeks, if not longer."

Twilight wiped her brow. "Phew! You are very welcome. You'll still have to share, though. Now, on with the tour."

Sclera said, "Really, there isn't much ready, but i'll show you what we DO have."

Twilight asked, as a bit of a non-sequitur, "By the way, I noticed that a few of the others were furry, wolf-like, like me."

"We all hold you in high regard, Twiliught. Some of them decided to make that change to their default forms to more closely emulate your esteemed self."

Twilight smiled lightly at that. She felt kind of honoured herself.

She next led Twilight to the impromptu nursery. Therein were several little beds with eggs in them. "This is our hatchery, our nursery, you might say. Here we'll place our eggs."

Twilight noticed that the beds had pink and blue colours. "Why are they coloured differently?"

Sclera nodded. "Ah. Well, the pink ones hold males. And the blue, females.(1) When they hatch they start off as Grubs, usually. Then they become Nymphs some time later. This amount of Love that you've put in the area might kust be enough for them to be able to skip over the Grub step."

Thinking briefly, Twilight suddenly realized the implications. "Wait, if there are eggs this soon..."

Sclera nodded. "Like I said, this was a Go For Broke thing. The WHOLE hive was in on this. We were desperate. So even the Breeders were sent here."

Curiously, Twilight queried, "Are there different roles that each of you play?"

Sclera nodded a few times. "Oh, yes, yes! Several! Aside from the more... unique ones, like myself, we have Harvesters, Nurses, Infiltrators, Diggers and typically Soldiers."

Twilight said, "Well, shortly you'll have some different roles.." trotting back into the main room, Twilight said, "Okay. The ten of you who volunteered, come this way."

Readily, the ten appeared before her, lining up in succession. Twilight began to give each Kisses. "Disciple: Farmer" appeared in the back of her mind each time. She looked around the area. Then she selected one of the other zones. It seemed to be open, had lots of space in all three dimensions. "Zone this area for planting. When we're done here, I'll bring some seeds back."

As they got to work on that, Sclera led on to the next room. This one looked like it had some shelves along the walls. It was also pretty wide. The shelves were mostly empty, but surorisingly there were some books there..

Sclera indicated, "Our library. We Changelings do have a robust history, and some of us do enjoy a good read now and then."

Twilight asked, "Do you have ones on magic?"

Sclera indicated some of the shelves off to the side. These were the most sparse, but there were some on all three. "Arcane, Elemental or Theory Of?" She asked, smugly.

Twilight smiled at that.

Rainbow Dash finished her descent toward Canterlot. She got to take a while off while the other 'Bolts recovered from what had happened. So, she decided to catch up with her friends. When she got to Fluttershy's cottage, she found that its typical ooccupant wasn't there. So, she did the next best thing and went to the Pony that she was the most Loyal to: Twilight. And Princess Celestia, as a second. Fortunately, they were in the same city.

She alighted relatively near the castle that occupied the highest part of the city, heading for the throne room, where the solar Princess ought to be at this time.

As shhe went along, she thought to herself, 'Ah,Canterlot. This place is touted as the home of the high society types. Really, I've never been too keen on that kind of stuff. That's more Rarity's speed. All of the gossip, the snobbishness, the implied cloak and dagger -non-lethal as it typically is-, the political double-speak... it just seems like more trouble than it's worth, to me.'

That's not to say that there weren't decent Ponies there; she knew that well. For example, Twilight's family, Minuette, Lyra Heartstrings, Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis, just to name a few.

Anyway, as she came to the throne room, she noticed that there was, as was typical, a small line-up to see/petition Princess Celestia was indeed in attendancxe for. Surprisingly, Princesses Luna and Cadence were also there. Luna was occasionally sipping from a mug -presumably filled with coffee- which she floated in her magic.. Rainbow Dash supposed that that made sense; Luna typically did work nights, after all. For her to be here at this time... something must have happened.

She patiently -as patiently as she ever gets- took a seat, trying her best to do an impression of a statue, to... mild success. Aside from the occasional blink, she was as still as stone. Evntually, Princess Celestia called for a recess, coming over to the cyan faux-statuette.

"Wow. How lifelike they can make these nowadays is just amazing." she snarked. "You can cut that out, my little Pony."

Rainbow (2) relaxed her posture. She snarked back, "Why, however did you know it was me?" After a bbeat, they both laughed heartily.

"It's good to see you Rainbow Dash. But your presence would have been nice, about... four days ago.

The chromatic Pegasus tilted her head slightly in confusion. "Huh? Why?"

"Well..."

Celestia (with the occasional assistance of the other two Alicorns) explained what had happened just a few nights ago. The attack by the Changelings (she had to use her magic to halt Rainbow from living up to her name when she mentioned where Twilight currently was), what had happened to Twilight, the reason for their attack, how they'd accepted Twilight as their new ruler.

When the tale was told, Rainbow was more relaxed. After that, she told her side of the story. (Sureptitiously, Luna received a few coins from Cadence.)

"I really should see Twilight, though. May I...?" Rainbow Dash said, asking for permission (and directions) before speeding away.

She soon reached the door that she was looking for. When she touched it, a violet rune on the door glowed briefly. After a second or a scanning spell was cast. Somehow she knew that she should stay still. After a moment, a word appeared over the rune. "Entry Granted".

As she stepped through, she shivered for a moment as she felt magic wash over her. When she looked down, she found that she'd reassumed her more lupine form. "Huh? Why am i all wolfy again?"

Suddenly a familiar voice rang out. "That's pretty much what i asked."

Rainbow looked up, seeing the similarly wolf-like countenance of Twilight. "It's good to see you again." Twilight said, giving her friend a heartfelt hug.

Behind them, the crystal in the center of the room grew an imperceptible amount.

Greeting concluded, Twilight turned to some of the Changelings behind her. "All of you, this is one of my best friends; Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty."

Rainbow stood a little straighter, with some amount of pride.

Twilight continued, jokingly, "But not humility."

The cyan mare's ears lowered in mock offense/hurt.

"Well, anyway, Sclera here was giving me the "grand tour", as it were. We just finished up with the library. It's surprising how much information they have."

Turning and addressing Sclera, Rainbow Dash said, "I do need to brush up on my magical studies. Do you have any of those?"

Both Twilight and Sclera chuckled. "Arcane, Elemental, or Theory Of?"

Rainbow grined at that. "All of the above; especially Elemental."

Author's Note

1: Fun Fact: some time ago, pink was considered a manly colour.
2: I am not going to call her by her full name all the time.