Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

I own nothing. All characters, settings and other belong to their respective owners. This is purely a fan-work with no intent towards profit, slander or harm towards the characters, settings or other, or their respective owners. If the respective owners feel that this fan-work in any way, shape or form threatens or besmirches their property, please let me know so that it be can be removed asap.

Please support the show.

Chapter 73

The afternoon found the Bearers reunited, and Rarity found herself being delightfully smothered by her friends, even as the Thestrals who had so kindly flown her to the train station grumbled about a dog-pile of Mares on their charge not making carrying her any easier. The illusions that Twilight had crafted to disguise everypony, from the Bearers to the Royal and Night Guard, had been discarded once the purple Alicorn had conjured up an invisibility sphere big enough for them all to hide in, from which the party had had to pause the apology-fest for a few minutes as a mob of deranged and desperate-looking paparazzi came storming through the train-station, shouting for the Princesses to reveal themselves and knocking over trash-cans and flinging open toilet-stall doors in their furious search for a scandal, before fleeing for their lives when the station-master had come barrelling out of his office, fire-hose gripped firmly in his mouth and bloody murder written across his face at the flagrant descration of his domain.

Fluttershy, of course, had been an absolute balm to Rarity’s frayed nerves, a constant soothing presence of reassurance and absolution, but Applejack’s boisterous greeting and heartfelt apology had been both an unexpected and very welcome surprise, which had made her own apologies flow far more easier than the fashionista had feared she would be able to.

Pinkie, being Pinkie, had simply nodded, smiled and shoved a cupcake down Rarity’s throat, and then into the faces of the Thestrals for good measure. Rarity was happy enough to know that her friends had been as distraught over the blasted cake incident as she was to ignore the fact her makeup had been smudged by the forceful application of baked goods to her muzzle. A more in-depth apology-session would have to wait, however, until after their latest mission to Canterlot was over and done-with.

“So as far as we know, darlings, the Mother of Stones will be arriving in Canterlot by tomorrow morning?” Rarity tried to break up cycle of tears, apologies and hugs before her escorts were crushed, with limited success, as only Twilight took a step back out of the pile, wiping a tear out of her eye with a wing-tip before speaking.

“As far as Luna was able to get out of the Elements, the Mother of Stones is arriving tomorrow. If that’s in the morning, the mid-day or the evening, I don’t know, but considering that Honesty mentioned she was coming from Down Unda? To make it to Canterlot from the other side of the planet in under twelve hours, she’d have to be moving at least four times the speed of a Sonic Rainboom, continuously, to make it in time. That’s a full twelve hours at the very least to make it to Canterlot by 6am tomorrow, and she’s already been travelling for a few hours by now.”

“Not entirely sure I’m happy about being outpaced by a rock, but from the sounds of it, we’re talking a super-rock, right?” Rainbow grumbled, her sling-confined leg forcing the Pegasus to accept the aid of Moonbeam to carry her luggage to the train-station. A fact that Rarity had to admit she enjoyed for less than friendly reasons given how the two mares seemed to jump apart and glare at each other every time they bumped into each other under their loads.

“The Mother is not a rock … but she’s also stone. It’s … difficult to explain in equish, you don’t have the right words for it.” The ‘odd’ pony out of their enlarged group, an annoyingly beautiful and elegant-looking pegasus Mare that was, shockingly enough, the disguise that Kindness had donned for the trip, explain hesitantly. The fact ‘she’ looked like Fluttershy and Fleur De Lis had had a child together that had inherited and magnified all the desirable traits of both mothers also irked Rarity mightily, but at least Kindness seemed to have adopted Fluttershy’s trait of hiding behind her own mane, and crippling shyness to boot.

“Bluntly speaking, the Mother of Stones is the mantle of Equis. She’s the very bedrock upon which we all walk, and provides the necessary buffer between us and the molten core of the world to avoid us all being flash-fried on the spot.” The Lunar Princess sighed and rubbed at her muzzle with a wing, where a nasty looking bruise was slowly fading under the effects of a healing spell. The Crusaders had been otherwise engaged with Luna had gone to tell them they were looking after Fluttershy’s cottage for a few days, and Luna’s shriek when encountering the Crusaders involved in the middle of a private moment had startled the girls, whose first instinct had been to flee the sound of a Royal Canterlot Voice-powered scream, and in the ensuing chaos of three entangled ponies all trying to scatter in different directions amidst a very cluttered kitchen table-surface, one of Spike’s beloved pans had somehow gone flying in the direction of the Lunar Princess and bonked her square on the muzzle. “It would be more apt to say the Mother is gathering her consciousness in a single place, and will then extrude an avatar to speak to us directly. And considering her consciousness is spread across the entire planet and is occupied with hundreds of small matters at all times, it will take considerable effort on her behalf to focus enough of herself in one place to be able to handle two rogue Elements of Harmony, who despite being cut-off from their Bearers are still brimming with the power of Harmony and could cause us trouble before our trial is over.”

“But Honesty said something about Down Unda? Why, if she’s spread across the world, would Down Unda be suffering earth quakes?” Twilight turned and gave Luna, then ‘Kindness’, then the mane-pin where Rarity had stashed laughter in a small, elegant platinum setting, before scowling. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s simple! The Uluru is a node where the Mother’s core reaches beyond the surface of the planet, and it’s one of the few places where we can get a signal to her directly, without having to send our messages through the Leylines, so that was where we sent our message, and that’s where she started to get angry first.” Laughter pipped up, and Rarity’s ears twitched, as did the rest of the gathered ponies except Kindess, continuing on in a rapid-fire manner of speaking that left no chance to interrupt. “It’s also one of the few places mortals can commune with her directly without the Mother needing to produce an Avatar, so the Down Undans consider it a sacred place and tend to keep outsiders away from the site unless there’s a great need or the Mother tells them otherwise. And since we want to fix this problem right now, we can’t really wait the two weeks it would take to fly you all by zeppelin to Down Unda, so the Mother of Stones is making a special trip to Canterlot, just for you!”

“…Wow. Is that what it’s like when I just start talking?” Pinkie said in a dazed voice as the party blinked and stared at the talking ornament in Rarity’s mane, several finding themselves with forelimbs raised up to stroke the ornament before awkwardly lowering the offending limbs.

“Kinda? Ah guess? Ah don’t wanna take yah home an’ pet the ever-lovin’ heck outta yah when you do that, however.” Applejack mumbled, her gaze flicking from Laughter to ‘Kindness’ and then to the ‘jewellery’ that Kindness was wearing, where Loyalty and Honesty both hung as pendants from a simple length of twisted silver wire. “An’ ain’t the other Elements comin’ out? Gotta few questions fer Honesty, an’ a long flight t’Canterlot would be a good place to ask ‘em.”

“Most of our power is being used to keep Magic and Generosity subdued. Generosity is relatively easy, given that It severed it’s connection to Rarity willingly to try and force a connection with Twilight, but Magic keeps trying to draw upon Twilight’s own connec …on Twilight, and we have to spend a lot of our attention on stopping that.” Kindness explained, hesitating and withdrawing behind her mane in an eerily similar fashion to Fluttershy’s normal mannerisms.

“If I might change the subject back to our trip … I want a flyer in each carriage with each Bearer. Rainbow Dash has a broken leg so she can’t be expected to catch anypony if something happens, and Fluttershy tends to freeze up at the height we’ll be achieving today.” Twilight coughed loudly and drew everypony’s attention back to her. “So, for today, we’ll be taking the train halfway to Canterlot, at which point the train will be stopping at an old maintenance depo, where Canterlot Command has dispatched six flying carriages. Once we arrive there, which should take about two hours by train, we’ll be dividing everypony up, and I will be casting several enchantments on the pegasi who will be pulling the chariots to enhance their speed so we can get to Canterlot on time.”

“Majesty, forgive us for speaking out of turn, but the Night Guard is perfectly capable of pulling the chariots.” One of the ‘spare’ Thestrals said, ignoring the glares that the earth-pony Royal Guards sent his way.

“Yes, I’m well aware a Thestral has just as much wing-power as a Pegasus, but you are nocturnal by nature and I want you all on standby on the off-chance that the chariots’ levitation enchantments fail, or we hit turbulence and somepony gets thrown overboard.” Twilight turned and gave the thestral a small, apologetic smile, and Rarity lifted an eyebrow in surprise as the bat-like stallion fumbled and smiled goofily like a colt who had just been given a treat. A far cry from the stoic but reliable façade she had come to know in her short time with the Night Guard.

And the way the rest of the Guards, Night and Royal alike, turned positively murderous glares on the unlucky Thestral also made the wheels start turning in Rarity’s head.

“And, my loyal Guards, I want you rested and ready to grab a Bearer and bolt for the castle if Canterlot Command fails to accurately follow Twilight’s plan and we’re mobbed by the paparazzi.” Princess Luna added, thwapping the goofily-grinning guard with a wing, which seemingly switched his ‘Guard’ instincts back on and he assumed a parade-stance, blushing furiously. “Twilight will be able to gather us up into an invisibility sphere, and I can create some short-lived illusions to take our places in the chariots to make sure the camera-wielding leeches have something else to latch onto other than us. If it doesn’t completely get rid of them, at least it will halve the number of parasites getting between us and my sister.”

“Well, ah can’t say there’s much else to say. We catch the train, get off at our stop an’ then fly the rest o’ the way to Canterlot to bamboozle them damn nosy reporters. Seems simple enough.” Rarity sighed and shook her head as much as she could in her cast at Applejack’s words.

“Being a heavy consumer of their work, I can tell you it won’t be, Applejack. With the surrender of the Changeling Queen and Princess Celestia wearing armor around the castle now, I suspect we might have an easier time of getting into Canterlot … but an absolutely wretched time getting to Canterlot Castle.” The immobilized fashionista cautioned as the faint whine of a train’s warning whistle became audible. “I really hope your spells are better than ever, Twilight, because I wouldn’t put it past some of the magazines to have some positively exotic cameras working the skies around the castle on the off-chance they can get a scandalous shot of royalty.”

“After what happened with the Changelings, I made sure my invisibility sphere spell is top-notch. Unless Stump, Murdock or the Muckraker family have access to Princess Celestia’s private spell-library, not just the Canterlot Archives, then we should be fine. It’s a five-layered prismatic barrier with interwoven …”

Rarity simply smiled and put on her best ‘appreciative’ face as her eyes trailed over her friends. Applejack looked excited, subtly shifting from hoof to hoof even as she ignored Twilight’s monologue about her spell-craft, while Rainbow Dash seemed … hesitant, perhaps even fearful, her head hanging low and her broken leg held tightly to her barrel in a clear display of nerves. Fluttershy appeared to be more interested in a soft, whispered conversation with Luna, of all ponies, but Rarity caught a few whispers of ‘Crusaders’ ‘birth control’ and ‘animals’ as Twilight stopped to draw breath, and Pinkie … was colouring something. With a box of crayons that had appeared out of nowhere.

It is good to be back. We’re on the right path to heal this nasty scar on our friendship, at least, and everypony is willing to admit to their faults in it. The fashionista sighed and resigned herself to only a few more days of being carried around like a Princess by her Thestral bodyguards as the train rounded the last bend before Ponyville Station, a pillar of steam shrieking out the top of its smokestack.

If Rarity had been paying attention to the ponies around her other than her friends, she might have seen Kindness’s look of concern and nervousness as the ponified Element looked over the immobilized unicorn, before the elegant face withdrew behind it’s flowing mane once more as the Night and Royal Guards began the arduous task of loading up the train with the Bearers’ luggage before the paparazzi returned to investigate the train’s arrival for signs of their prey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Really, Princess, that was entirely unnecessary. I haven’t seen a pony this terrified of you since the time Lean Cuisine tried to convince you that dessert pastries are not part of a balanced diet.” Celestia sulked in her corner and refused to answer, horn-tip pressed tightly into the plaster molding that masked where the two walls came together, as Bedside Manner, Royal Physician, tended to the paralyzed form of Dappled Light, prodding the hapless Unicorn repeatedly in a variety of places to try and convince the tightly curled-up stallion to unfold, or at the very least stop making the barely-audible, high-pitched whine of distress that he’d been making for the past few hours.

“Be that as it may, doctor, any chance of removing this infernal collar?” Dawn Ray grunted, struggling with the brace around his neck and the bandages around his horn before a look from the Royal Physician convinced the old war-horse to stop fiddling with them. “I’m hardly going to inspire the troops when I look like a dog that’s just been neutered with this infernal cone of shame on me!”

“No. You strained your neck because you rushed your flight-spell and forgot to compensate for inertia, and since unicorn magic focuses around the horn, your horn, skull and neck took the brunt of the whiplash when the spell took effect and tried to drag you into the air via your horn.” The meek-natured doctor turned and gave Dawn Ray a sour look as the warhorse fussed with his brace again. “You’re very lucky you didn’t do yourself any damage worse than a few strained muscles and ripping all of the velvet off your horn, especially at your age. Poor Dappled here, however, is going to need therapy after … whatever it was that our Princess did to him wears off.”

Princess Celestia turned her head around, gouging a long scar in the plaster with her horn, snorted at the assembled stallions, and then turned her focus back to the oh-so-interesting blank white plastered corner, leaving a second, equally-deep gouge in the wall.

“…What exactly caused all of this?” The Royal Physician asked softly, leaning in close to Dawn Ray.

“We were discussing, IN PRIVATE …” Dawn Ray snapped loudly at Princess Celestia, who snorted again into her corner and lashed her tail in response but nothing else. “… ahem, in private, any potential contraband young Dappled Light might possess, and the poor stallion couldn’t bring himself to talk about it in the presence of his Princess. So after she left the room, I managed to get him talking and …”

The aging warhorse shot a pitying look to the whimpering stallion in a fetal position that still lay on Bedside Manner’s operating table.

“… and he mentioned he might have possessed banned reading material of a salacious nature involving actresses portraying both of the Princesses in acts of lewd nature. At which point Celestia came back into the room, having been listening in with a pair of enchanted crystals, and proceeded to, well, whatever it was she did to Dappled Light. I …” Dawn Ray reached up with a hoof and tapped his bandaged horn gingerly. “ … I chose discretion as the greater part of valor and ended up in this situation.”

The skinny Royal Physician turned and gave a scathing look towards the young Stallion, his lips curling into a contemptuous sneer for several moments before Bedside Manner apparently regained control over his emotions.

“Well, I can understand the Princess’s motives a lot better now. I would suggest that our young … patient … have some time to himself to meditate on his sins, but I do hope you’ll cure him of any such designs on the Princesses.”

“I hardly think the lad’s in any condition to chase after a mare of any type or pedigree, given the way the poor bastard’s empathic ability works, but the training course I have in mind will either turn him into upstanding Royal Guard or kill him outright.” Dawn Ray said after eying the Royal Physician with some concern. Bedside Manner had a reputation for being entirely passive in everything, and his reaction to Dappled Light had been anything but. “He’s young, foolish and feels like he has been betrayed by everypony around him because of the way his empathic abilities work. Having the Princess come storming back into the room with murder written across her face after we interrogated him and dragged his career over hot coals was probably the final straw for his nerves.”

“I am not that scary.” A faint, grumpy voice complained from the far corner of the room.

“Princess, with all due respect, you’re three times his size, plus you’re his Goddess, his Princess and his Supreme Overlord, in that order. Yes, you are that scary, but normally you come across as so kind and maternal that most ponies don’t really remember the other three things. Which, if I might add, is also the primary reason we have so many problems with the old bloodlines of Unicornia being such massive pains in our collective flanks.” The acting Royal Guard Captain pointed out, and was rewarded with a baleful look before the Princess turned her face back into the corner, gouging another two lines into the plaster covering the walls in the process.

“Hmm, yes, well, the only thing this stallion needs is some peace and quiet and some respect for his betters. I expect you’ll dealing with the latter, but for now, leaving this young fool in a quiet place for a while will do him more good than harm.”

“We were all young once, Bedside.”

“Youth and lust are no excuse for such … uncouth behaviour. Especially towards a Princess.”

“Oh, so you’re the only stallion in history who never played polish the polearm when you were Dappled’s age?”

“Masturbation is a perfectly normal thing. To do so imagining one’s Goddess, however, speaks to me of a diseased mind clutching for …”

“Gentleponies … have this conversation elsewhere.” Princess Celestia grated in a voice that could have caused boulders to turn to gravel on command, turning her head and gouging yet another line into the plaster, this one with heat-blackened edges, and fixed a twitching eye on the three stallions. “The last thing I need, ontop of all that has happened and what will be happening tomorrow when my former pupil and the most powerful Elemental on Equuis descend on me in a frenzy, is to be reminded that some of my own little ponies get their jollies imagining me muzzle deep in my own sister.”

Sharing a look that only males who have spent long periods of time around the females of their species can achieve, the two conscious and mobile stallions swallowed their arguments, and their pride, gathered up the fear-paralyzed Dappled Light between them, and scuttled from the room with as much grace and dignity as a pair of field-mice fleeing from an exceptionally angry dragon.

“Uh … did she just kick us out of your office, Beside?” Dawn Ray whispered as the two mis-matched stallions levitated the hapless Dappled Light away from his immenient doom.

“My office in her castle, Dawn Ray.” The Royal Physician shot back, giving the paralyzed young Stallion a dire look before sighing and shaking his head in dismay.

“Hmph. Point taken.” The Acting Captain grumbled, then shot a look at the immobilized Stallion in the combined telekinetic grip of himself and Bedside Manner. “That said, I really should return this poor bastard to his captor.”

“You think it wise to return an Empath to the clutches of the Changelings, especially one with such a rare and disturbingly potent gift? The Magi still haven’t fully understood how the Changelings’ magic works, and the bug-ponies are a very powerful telepathic species …” Bedside Manner pointed out, releasing his telekinetic grip on Dappled, which made Dawn Ray grunt as the full weight of the young stallion rested upon his strained horn. “I have concerns that if Dappled’s gift intersects with the Changelings’ hive-mind, we could be facing a real disaster. Imagine how deadly the Changelings could become if we literally did not care that they were invading, courtesy of this young fool’s ability? They could enslave every pony in Equestria and nobody would be able to stop them!”

“The Changeling Queen has been subjected to a variety of spells that force her to tell the truth, and you’ve seen her medical records. A stray kitten fart could kill Chrysalis right now, and her Hive would fall prey to dementia and then die shortly afterwards, plus she decided to bind her Hive to non-aggression through a spell invoking a blood pact, so even if Chrysalis did try something of the sort, there’s very little actual mischief the Changelings as a whole could get up to.”

Straining as he levitated Dappled Light onto his back, Dawn Ray gave the Royal Physician a wan look, noting how the normally-placcid doctor’s features seemed to strain with anger and frustration.

“Doctor, you know that the Princess always preaches about redemption over revenge. Here and now we have the first real, and maybe only, chance to make peace with the Changeling race and integrate them into Equestria. We can end any further risks or wars with the Changelings by bringing them under our protection as friends, rather than risk having them skulking around in the background and causing all manner of trouble.”

“I am well aware of our Princess’s teachings, Captain, and I do not need a refresher course on them. I simply believe it unwise to leave an empath that lacks the proper respect for our Princess in the tender care of beings who have attempted to usurp her throne no less than three times already.”

“Perhaps … but I also don’t think it wise to have the little Changeling, who was making the most adorable sad puppy-dog eyes at me when I came to take Dappled Light away for his interrogation, wandering through the castle looking for him if and when Princess Cadence and Shining Armor return from their, ahem, unscheduled trip to Ponyville.”

“Terrific. He’ll probably make the Changeling assume Princess Celestia’s form, and the media’s vultures will probably get wind of it. Not only will we be dealing with Ponies erroneously assuming our Princess has carnal relations with any random Stallion, but it will probably makes Ponies think Changelings can serve as a suitable vessel for their deviant fantasies and the entire species will be condemned to being propositioned by every lonely sex-pest in the country.”

“Errr … speaking of which, you mentioned there’s a lot of similarities between Changelings and Ponies. Do you think it’s possible for the two species to interbreed? Because I got the distinct impression it’s the Changeling pursuing the Pony in this situation, and given the odd nature of Queen Chrysalis’s offspring …”

“You fear they might be Shining Armor’s illegitimate bastards? That is my concern as well, for several reasons, but the Princess refuses to allow me to draw blood to test that theory.” Bedside Manner stopped walking, and it took Dawn Ray a second to stop the forward momentum of the levitated Dappled Light so he wouldn’t get whacked in the sore neck by the floating, paralyzed stallion. “Any spells to determine the parentage of the offspring I might cast would be worthless without a blood sample, since such magic is designed to work on purely equine species … and the Changelings are just a little too far removed from us for the spell to give a result that would be legally acceptable without a blood sample to help identify the father’s identity. For all we know, she’s just forcing her offspring to have Equine features to throw us off our game, since our current level of detection spells only function when a Changeling changes shape. Or they could belong to anypony she’s seduced between the Canterlot Invasion and her last encounter with Princess Twilight.”

“Yes, well, I’m more concerned about what Princess Cadence would do if she hears her mortal enemy has had children with her beloved husband before she has. If Princess Celestia keeps upholding the protection of the Changelings under her roof and Princess Cadence gets angry enough to cut off contact … well, history has shown that when the leader of the Crystal Empire goes off the deep end, things end poorly for the rest of Equuis.”

Bedside manner shot Dawn Ray a startled look before speaking. “And somehow showing her another Changeling in a relationship with a Pony will aid with that?”

“Well, from what I’ve been able to gather, this idiot of a Stallion is well meaning but somewhat stunted, emotionally speaking, given his empathic talent causes the beings around him to ignore his existence. The Changeling, on the other hoof, seems to be fixated on him romantically.” Dawn Ray explained as the two Stallions made their way to the ‘red rooms’, where the Changelings were being housed, the acting Captain nodding to the stoic-faced Royal Guards who saluted at their presence and advanced. “Pardon me, Bedside. I am acting Captain of the Royal Guard, Dawn Ray, authorisation code eleven-twelve-alpha-mayflower.”

“Very good sir, but we’ll need confirmation …” One of the Guards said firmly, holding his spear in the crook of one foreleg while his companion glared down at Beside Manner, while the Royal Physician stared back unblinking.

“Of course. Wiffle-piffle poly-piffle, my dearest puppy has the sniffles.” Dawn Ray said in a sing-song voice, turning a fully circle as he recited the ditsy little rhyme.

Bedside Manner’s jaw nearly hit the ground as the two Royal Guards saluted and returned to their positions, guarding the entrance to the chambers where the Changelings were ensconced.

“Oh don’t give me that look! Besides, with little we know about how Changeling magic works outside of shape-changing and how our, ahem, guests can mimic a target almost perfectly with just a casual glance, we decided that that a second layer of authentication was required for anypony with the authority to order the Guards away from their posts was required. Besides, what infiltrator would expect a Royal Captain to say something silly like that, just to enter the wing where we’re stashing the Changelings?”

“And we are going to give an Empath back to the Hive, to a female Changeling who has possible romantic intentions towards him, and whose Queen might just have produced half-blood spawn. And you see nothing dangerous with this?”

“I see plenty of danger, doctor. But I also see hope, and a chance for something better than constant mistrust and doubt between our species. Hope that Dappled Light can be more than just an embittered loner, hope that the Changelings can successfully integrate into our society without causing harm or chaos.” Dawn Ray gave the Royal Physician a small, sad smile as they entered the Red Rooms, and a small, familiar Changeling came scuttling out of a room, a look of nervous concern plastered clearly across her features as she caught sight of the paralyzed Stallion caught in Dawn Ray’s telekinetic grip. “Hope, Bedside, is what keeps us going even in the darkest of times. Without it, what do we have left to fight for?”