Chapters It had been roughly forty years since the wedding of Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, when the Changeling Army attacked Canterlot. Though there were incidents big and small since then, many scholars in the employ of Princess Celestia would deeply ponder exactly why the invasion had occurred, considering how the changelings had not been in the public consciousness for so very long until then.
What they found was that changelings needed a leader. They generally liked to follow orders, and would likely go mad of boredom if they were left to their own devices for long enough. They were very susceptible indeed to leaders with great charisma – leaders such as the dreaded Queen Chrysalis.
Chrysalis was as ruthless in her methods and tactics as she was complicated, and this reflected onto her loyal captains. So when the changelings’ food supplies dwindled, she spun the plan to kidnap Love’s avatar, and marry Captain Armor in her place, then letting her people invade and suck everypony dry … and the captains blindly followed orders. Some of them would object, only to buckle under either Chrysalis’ charisma or their own hunger.
When the scholars told Princess Celestia of their findings, her advisors were quick to weave a plan of their own. Equestria was a country of love, friendship, harmony, and tolerance. If the changelings needed love to survive, surely Celestia’s little ponies had plenty to give, in theory…
Princess Celestia, naturally, found the plan appealing. She much preferred peaceful coexistence over all-out war.
The same evening that day, Celestia brought it up to her sister Luna.
“And that’s basically the plan. We’ll need your power over dreams to implement it though, and you get full reign in the execution,” the bigger sister finished.
“Very well, dear sister,” Luna slowly nodded in acceptance. “I will proceed with the first phase tonight.”
That night, when half the planet was asleep, Luna reached out to the Changeling Kingdom to find her marks. Using their dreams, she picked out six young females that showed courage and compassion. In their sleep, they wouldn’t be busy following orders, showing them for how they really were. One in particular seemed promising. In her dream, she led a fair squadron of changeling drones to infiltrate Manehattan. It was a textbook mission, half of the squadron replacing various ponies of little to no importance, and the other half being original characters that moved in. Of the replaced ponies, Luna noticed that they were kept in a deep stasis, tucked away in storage cocoons, and their significant others never caught on, living their happy lives with what they thought were their loved ones.
All in all, this one knew what she was doing.
The next night, Luna went directly to the same changeling’s dream, foregoing the other five. It was a simple dream this time, a memory of what Luna guessed was her first mission. She observed her target for a while, keeping herself hidden from the dreamer as she watched the false life play out. It gave Luna a bit more insight into this changeling, who seemed to genuinely care about things like completing a mission well, and properly treating her victims.
On the third night, the target dreamed of the Canterlot invasion forty years ago. Luna could tell from a notable lack of detail that this was a second-hoof memory, the dream being based entirely on what another changeling had told her. She didn’t want to go. Luna could practically hear her think “this goes against all we’ve learned,” but she didn’t speak. To do so would be treason, and the price for treason was a steep one indeed. This was a good thing to Luna, as the target clearly resented Queen Chrysalis – even more so when Shining Armor and Cadance violently expunged the lot. The last thing that went through the target’s mind before she blacked out on impact was something along the lines of “now do you see what happens?!”
“So that’s what happened to those adorable little fuzz balls,” Luna thought to herself as she left, cringing at the horrid display around her. “I should’ve guessed.”
By the fourth night, Luna was convinced that this was the changeling for the job. She visited her dreams again, finding the mare on a hill overlooking Manehattan. Luna guessed it served to remind her target of a successful mission after the Canterlot disaster. She approached from the side, to not startle the target too much.
“Beautiful view, is it not?”
The changeling slowly turned her head to face her visitor. “You… You’re the moon princess, aren’t you?”
Luna nodded. “I am. My name is Luna, and dreams fall within my domain.”
“Ah yes. The one who was Nightmare Moon once,” the changeling said in recognition as she cast a glance at the pale, blank moon that hung in the sky behind Luna. Luna cringed slightly at the mention. “Oh, excuse me your highness. I didn’t expect that to still be a… sore topic.”
“It’s okay. It’s been a good forty years since our return and I really should get over it,” Luna shrugged.
“Why are you here?” the changeling asked after a moment of contemplation.
“I thought it’d be… nice to have a friend who is not a pony,” Luna answered. It felt deceptive to her, but it wasn’t a lie as such. She had considered the plan given to her by Celestia and simply felt it could serve as a means to make interesting friends on the side.
And if the plan came to a successful end, there’d be a nice bonus in store.
“A friend...?”
“Not a fellow soldier, not a captain nor an underling, but just someone to confide in and hang out with,” Luna explained. “You’ll find that dreams are a great place for a pony princess and a rebellious changeling to… hang out in.”
“Very well, then. You may call me Thysania,” the changeling said as she held out the hoof on one of her hole-riddled front legs.
“Pleasant dreams to you, Thysania.”
For the next five years, Luna visited her new friend in her dreams once almost every week. Usually they just hung out, but sometimes Luna followed her sister’s plan and gently nudged Thysania into growing more rebellious and resentful towards her queen.
The pony princess and the rebel changeling lay on their backs, watching the night sky from the roof of the Changeling Kingdom’s castle, spectral echoes of the changelings Thysania knew best skittering about in the dreamscape below.
“Lulu?”
“Yes, Thyssy?”
“There was another incursion earlier this week, you know?”
“I am aware of that, yes. I understand it was a dismal failure?”
“’Dismal’ sounds about right. Somehow, even such a small target was capable of fighting off an entire squadron.”
Back when they began, Luna found it oddly uncomfortable to hear Thysania speak of her people’s attack on Luna’s little ponies. She sounded weary, almost detached. Luna got over it when she understood why the changelings kept attacking pony settlements like that. It was almost exactly as the scholars of Canterlot had theorized five years ago.
“I’m just glad it wasn’t my squadron,” the queen-to-be said. “I’ve been in low orbit far too often.”
“You know, Thyssy… there might be a way to stop all that…”
Over the next year, Thysania slowly sabotaged her queen’s plans from the inside. She couldn’t do much about the other squadrons – not yet, at least – but after taking command of her own, she waited for the next incursion to be ordered and found her drones sent to Ponyville.
About a third of the way there, she convinced her drones to take a break for the night in a nearby cave, claiming they would need their strength later on. It wasn’t a lie, technically, but they didn’t need their strength for the kind of aggressive tactics Queen Chrysalis had ordered them to use.
When all but a few drones were asleep, Thysania afforded herself the same luxury and dozed off. As expected, the moment she began dreaming she found Princess Luna sitting next to her.
“My friend, I see you are headed towards Ponyville,” the princess remarked. Thysania nodded slowly and took a moment to confirm that Luna wasn’t really there. Something about the cave wall behind her was off. In fact, Thysania and Luna were the only entities there that weren’t all blurry and indistinct. It was obviously a dream world’s imitation of the cave.
“We were sent for another incursion, my dear,” Thysania answered. “I hope to make my little changelings ignore their orders and, if we are to safely reach Ponyville, to do our things the way we used to.”
Luna giggled softly behind her hoof. “You sound more like a pony princess every year, friend,” she remarked.
“And why is that?”
“You said ‘my little changelings’. You already fit the role you’ll hopefully assume,” Luna explained. “But tell me, for the record, what is ‘the way you used to’?”
Thysania was silent for a short while as she considered how to best explain what she meant.
“Be stealthy.”
Luna nodded. “Yes?”
“Be efficient.”
“Of course,” the princess acknowledged.
“Have a plan to extract at least some love from anypony you meet.”
Luna blinked. “Any pony?”
“Any. Even you, my dear Luna. You’re not even really here in this cave with me, and yet I’ve been slowly feeding on our friendship every time we’ve met, for the last two and a half years. I thought it’d be prudent to practice the old way myself. You probably didn’t even notice I was doing so, and we’ve only met in our dreams.”
Luna giggled again, without the hoof, as she realized Thysania wasn’t joking. “I guess you won’t need any more practice than that.”
“More importantly, would you accept it if my squad and I acted this way in Ponyville?” the changeling captain asked. “You must understand, all this subterfuge will be for naught if we return to the hive empty-hooved.”
“Hmm… I suppose, if you can guarantee that no harm will come to the citizens of Ponyville, I could allow it,” Luna said in acceptance. “Of course, as their captain, I will hold you personally responsible if anypony gets hurt by the actions of the changelings under your command.”
“Of course you will. And as their captain, I accept that.”
Princess Luna turned away from her changeling friend.
“You realize, of course, that there are certain perks in store for you, should you succeed and take the throne from Chrysalis,” the moon princess said. Thysania perked her ears. “Have you noticed anything special about the queen?”
“I think so,” the captain pondered out loud as she thought of Chrysalis. With a little focus, a ghostly apparition appeared, looking just like the queen.
“She looks just like she did forty years ago,” Luna confirmed. The fake Chrysalis had some scratches on her body and a more tired and angry look in her eyes, but was otherwise virtually indistinguishable from the one who had invaded Canterlot.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Thysania said as she swatted the ghost in the face, causing the whole to dissolve into subconscious nothingness. She had to fly for reach, as Chrysalis was easily twice her own size and even towered above Luna. “Would those be the perks, my dear Luna? Long life, long legs?”
Luna nodded.
“I suppose such things would be nice, for a leader.”
“They are,” Luna nodded again. “I speak from personal experience.”
“Very well, then. Good night, my friend.”
Luna smiled and faded away. The next morning, Thysania woke up to find most of the taskforce already busy breaking up camp. Thysania pondered how to best break the change of plans to her changelings as she surveyed them working.
“My changelings, your attention please.”
One by one, groups of changelings stopped what they were doing and stood there, holding whatever they were carrying at the moment and waiting for their captain to speak.
“You are all familiar with our mission…”
The changelings nodded. Some of them audibly confirmed.
“Are you also familiar with how our people used to work?” Thysania asked, hoping for positive response. After a few tense moments, roughly half the taskforce indicated that they were. Their captain gave a small smile at the news.
“That’s very good. Those who know, pair up with a changeling who does not. While we continue on to our target, Ponyville, you will teach your partner of these old ways.”
One changeling in the front stuck a foreleg in the air. “Permission to speak freely, captain?”
“Granted, lieutenant. What is it?”
“Why should we know the old ways? They hardly seem relevant to an incursion.”
“Because, my dear lieutenant, this will not be an incursion. There’s been a change of plans. I intend to prove that the old ways are still a perfectly viable option. But they can only be if everyling keeps to the plan.”
There was an awful murmur among the changeling crowd. Their captain had basically told them all to betray their queen, just because the captain had something to prove. And to who , even? But then again, with all the failed incursions they’d been through – some of them ever since they first reached maturity and were drafted. Thysania cast her gaze across her changelings as they argued the new plan.
“So… stay out of sight and bask in the runoff?” the lieutenant asked, implying an overall acceptance of the plan. He was one of the changelings who claimed to know the old ways, but he wasn’t entirely certain anymore.
“Basically,” captain Thysania confirmed. “But since there’s so many of us, and we’ll arrive well before nightfall, we’ll instead all take pony form and pretend to be a group of travelers on our way through. And when I say pony form I mean somepony original.”
The lieutenant nodded in acceptance. Feeling a burst of inspiration take the place of his guilt at seriously considering betrayal, he changed into what he thought would be an adequately original pony.
“No lieutenant, an alicorn will not do,” Thysania sighed. “Especially not a red and black one. We’re supposed to not draw too much attention, after all. Now then, my changelings… transform and rise up! ”
The amount of green flashes in the room would’ve been large enough to see at the mouth of the cave.
An earth pony was keeping busy repairing one of the many thatched roofs in Ponyville. He turned to his pegasus partner, who helped him by bringing clumps of straw.
“You know, Skystrike, I don’t see why these ponies insist on these roofs. They’re so… damage prone.”
“I dunno, mate,” the pegasus disagreed. “I’m not sayin’ you’re wrong, but maybe you’re just looking at this from the wrong perspective?”
“And what sort of perspective would you suggest?” the other argued as he stuck some of the hay Skystrike had brought him into a hole.
“Well… let me think. I don’t want to be unintentionally insulting…”
“Strikey, you are regularly insulting to me.”
“Yeah but that’s intentional. Anyway, what if, because there’re so little towns with thatched roofs nowadays, you’re getting rusty at maintaining them. And therefore, when you repair a thatched roof you do a lousier job at it than before. And therefore the roof gets progressively worse and needs repairs more often?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” the earth pony admitted. He turned to his patchwork and considered if he really did so bad at it.
“Ah, Hay Stack?” Skystrike called out, pointing at a commotion in the distance. “Look at that. We’ve got visitors coming, and it’s a lot of ‘em! Migrants, you think?”
A group of twenty ponies, mostly earth with a few unicorns, made their way to the outskirts of Ponyville. Most of them had subdued, earthy tones, and those that didn’t had pretty average colors nonetheless. The only pony that really stood out was the unicorn leading them. She was slightly taller than the others, with an off-white coat, a rusty, short mane, and a shepherd’s crook for a cutie mark.
Shortly after the group crossed into Ponyville, Hay Stack and Skystrike met them in the street.
“Good afternoon, travelers,” the earth pony called out in greeting. “Welcome to Ponyville. You lot travelers?”
“We are indeed, sir,” the unicorn leader confirmed. “My name is Shepard, and my ponies could use a place to stay for the night. It’s been a long walk since our last stop.”
“Well ma’am, I’ll be happy to let you know that we’ve got plenty spare beds and the hospitality to go with ‘em,” Hay Stack said near-gloating. He quickly turned to Skystrike and whispered to him, “Go find Miss Pie, tell her the new ponies are just passing through.”
“Excellent. Also, where can I find the mayor, or whoever else is in charge here?”
“It depends. Mayor’s office is over there in town hall,” Hay Stack indicated, “and Princess Twilight’s castle is… well, hard to miss.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Later that day, in the park, Shepard sat and ate with her followers. She’d sent one to the local bakery, and he was telling the others about the owner. “I swear, you could hardly tell she’d changed much at all in all these years. I wonder if it’s a Harmony thing?”
“Don’t ponder it too much, Grit,” Shepard dismissed as she finished her bagel. “Pinkie Pie has always been a force to be reckoned with.”
“Have you met her?”
“I’ve had the good fortune. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must execute the next phase of our little plan. Enjoy the baked goods – if I fail this might be the last time you get the chance.”
“Don’t be too negative, Captain,” another traveler admonished as she followed Shepard to wherever she intended to go for this “next phase”.
Shepard and the traveler who followed her stood before the impressive crystal castle of Princess Twilight and her friends. Anxiety clear on her face, Shepard firmly knocked on the door, finding it opened by a familiar young dragon.
“Oh hey, you’re the leader of those travelers, aren’t you? Do you need anything?” Spike asked.
“I’d like to speak to Princess Sparkle. It’s rather a sensitive issue that absolutely needs to be addressed,” Shepard spoke in a clear tone. “In private, if possible.”
“Hmm. Okay. I’ll be right back!”
Spike closed the door and left Shepard waiting for all of twenty seconds before he opened it again. “Okay, Twilight’ll see you. If you’ll follow me, please?”
“Miss Shepard,” Twilight greeted as the unicorn entered the private little side room she’d been waiting in. “What’s the issue you wanted to talk about?”
“In a word: changelings,” Shepard blurted out. Her follower flinched in surprise.
“Oh no! What is it? Another incursion?” Twilight asked, panic already building.
“That was the original idea, yes. But we’ve decided early on in the journey here that we’d try a different, friendlier approach.”
“What” was all Twilight could say. Did Shepard really just admit to her face that she and her followers were the changeling incursion force?
“Tell me, Princess… do you like history?”
“…yes?”
“And you strike me as a particularly logical mare, if I may.”
“Thank you?”
Shepard started pacing around the small room, circling the wisteria alicorn sitting at the desk in the center. “Changelings have been around for hundreds of years, if not a thousand or more. Incursions as you know them are a modern thing.”
Every few laps around the room, with Twilight’s back to her, “Shepard” changed a little bit. It was a very gradual process indeed. “What does your logic tell you, Princess?”
“It tells me that… that the changelings used to feed in a different way. There are almost no reports of incursions or forced feeding from before the last fifty or so years, but missing ponies appear almost all throughout the records,” Twilight started, quickly lapsing into egghead mode.
“Do you think those missing ponies were kidnapped? Or perhaps it’s possible that they were never ponies to begin with, but changelings who got found out or something?”
“I suppose it depends on what that earlier, different way was. If the changelings of that age kidnapped and replaced ponies… wait. Weren’t you white?” Twilight asked in surprise.
“Took you long enough to notice, Princess,” the changeling captain smirked. Two bright flashes of green fire later, she and her underling had revealed their true forms. Before Twilight could even think to scream, Thysania levitated a scroll from her drone’s saddlebags. The scroll bore a particularly distinctive seal and ribbon that immediately shut Twilight up, for it was clearly from Princess Luna.
