Twenty-five years before the Royal Wedding, slums of Maredrid, Capital of the Principality of Istalloña, territory under the Alicorn Princesses’ protectorate, …

“Mommy?” a six year old girl gently called, poking her mother’s sleeping form. “Mommy!” she called with more strength, causing her mother to stir in her sleep.

“Urgh… What is it?” her mother asked, her voice muffled by the worn-out pillow on which she was sleeping on not long ago.

“I can’t sleep,” the little girl explained softly, leaning over her mother’s face as she turned around to look at the outline of her daughter thanks to the light of the moon.

“Did you count the stars, sweetie?” her mother asked in a tired voice, holding back a yawn.

“I stopped after one million,” the girl replied with a sigh.

“One million, huh?” Her mother cocked a sleepy, but disbelieving, eyebrow at her daughter. “You can count that far?”

“Yes!” the little girl assured with pride.

“What’s the number just before a million then?”

“Nine-thousand!” The young girl swelled out her chest as she claimed her answer.

“Huh-huh….” the mother replied with a mute laugh. “Are you sure, you don’t want to sleep?”

“Nuh-uh!”

“.....You want another story, don’t you?” the mother asked knowingly after her six-year old daughter shook her head. “... Sadly, it’s too dark to read you a…”

A vivid tongue of green fire surged out of the young girl’s finger before it reached the turned-off candle on the nightstand. The mother had to blink to get used to the sudden light, before said light could give her a good view of her daughter. The green glow of the flame only reinforced the color of the dark green locks of hair of the grinning six-year-old, as well as the one from her deep, emerald-colored eyes. The mother’s eyes then travelled down to see her daughter extending a worn-out book with a metallic, snowflake-shaped engraving on the front cover.

“...Just one story?” The girl nodded vigorously. “Then, you’ll go to bed?” The girl nodded again as the mother’s mouth stretched into a sleepy, but genuine smile. “All right, hop on!”

After a quick ‘Yay’, the young girl jumped in bed as her mother sat up against the wall, bringing herself closer in the green light of the candle. The six-year-old quickly crawled to sit on her mother’s lap, and leaned her back against her chest. The mother smiled warmly, the feeling of sleepiness now gone from her mind, and gave a gentle peck on the top of her daughter’s head before taking the book from her tiny hands.

“So… Same story as usual?” The mother asked with a knowing grin after glancing at the book cover.

“Yes!” the little girl nodded fervently. “It’s my favorite!”

“You’re sure you don’t want another?” the mother asked gently. “After all, you should know it by heart by now…”

“But it’s my favorite.” The little girl looked up to her mother, a cute, sad pout on her face. “And you read it so well!”

“.... Ahhhh. How can I say no to that?” the mother asked with a sigh, pointing at the quivering lower lip of her daughter. “Get comfortable, honey.” She opened the book, and brought the first page closer to the light. “...Hum-hum… The Sculptor King and the Flower-maid…. It all began at a noble wedding ceremony in the Gem of Equestria, the Crystal Empire….”

The young girl listened to the tale of a faraway king falling madly in love with a young peasant he had met at one of his cousin’s wedding, for which the young girl’s family had been commissioned for the floral arrangements, with great attention. Despite having been read the story time and time again, the six-year-old still listened as if it was the first time her mother would read it to her.

As the romance between a royal, and a commoner grew to the rhythm of the mother’s calm voice, and the Ooohs and Ahhhs from the daughter, said young girl became sleepier. The mother had nearly finished her tale before the daughter let out a long, and loud yawn.

“.... And so Gleaming Topaz, the young florist, married her king, and was called the Queen of Love across all of Equestria… The end.”

The mother gently closed the book as the six-year old rubbed her eyes with a long yawn. Chuckling softly, she put the book on the nightstand, picked up her now-sleepy child, and then went to the other bedroom of their humble abode. The young girl hugged her mother with all the strength a sleepy child could muster before she felt herself land delicately on her bed.

“Mommy… Do you think it could happen to me?” the young girl asked sleepily. “What happened to Gleaming Topaz… You think I could fall in love with a king and then become queen?”

“Sadly, there aren’t Kings in Equestria anymore, honey,” The mother replied softly, pulling the cover over her child. “But, I’m sure that when you’re a grown up, you’ll be the most beautiful girl of all Equestria, and that all its Princes would want to marry you,” she beamed as she spotted a faint blush on her child’s cheeks. “You’d be a wonderful Princess, I’m sure!”

“I would like it better to be a queen, like Gleaming Topaz… The New Queen of Love. That’s what I want to be!” the child called with a pang of excitement before sleep caught up on her, and made her yawn loudly. “...Do you know if the flower lady at the market needs an assistant?”

“I’ll ask her when I see her,” the mother promised sincerely. “Now, it’s time to sleep,” she added, giving her daughter a soft kiss on the forehead.

“Goodnight, Mommy,” the little girl replied softly before snuggling her pillow and closing her eyes.

“Goodnight, my little Queen,” the mother whispered as she left the room, though she managed to catch her daughter smiling widely at the nickname.

Six years later, ...

Over the years, the young girl discovered that being a florist wasn’t really her thing. It wasn’t that she was terrible at it, but it wasn’t how she had imagined it to be. Her favorite tale kept on about how Gleaming Topaz was feeling so alive when she was working her floral compositions, unlike the little girl. Of course, serving a customer brought her a sense of self-satisfaction, but she had realized it would never be her true calling. The same couldn’t be told about what she did during her spare time.

Once she was done with helping the florist, she would set herself up in a unused spot of the market with all the rags, and worn-out clothes she had recovered, and sewn into costumes with her mother. It was the florist that had made her notice her talent for impersonations: she had caught her many times mocking the annoying customers by imitating them once they left the stall. While the florist didn’t approve of the practice, even if the customers concerned never saw any of it, she couldn’t deny the impersonations were spot on.

By now, all the vendors on the market knew of the girl, and would have a good laugh thanks to her at the end of the day. Every day, the young girl would perform for them just before they started putting away their goods, playing all the funny scenes she had seen the vendors do during her day at the flower stall. The tips she received from her shows, and from her job at the flower stall were quite enough to help her and her mother go by more easily than before.

Though, that was before her mother started to cough. It had started a year ago, and had only worsened instead of just going away on its own like her mother had said it would. It had gone from an occasional dry throat to a hourly, loose coughing fit accompanied with a very light, but constant fever. The local herbalist had a special brand of tea that helped her mother’s situation, but the girl knew that it wasn’t cheap. She also knew that her mother only bought very little quantities of that tea every month whereas she should drink some of it every day to actually get better, but their finances couldn’t afford it.

The constant fever, and repetitive coughing fits left the mother in a state where she couldn’t work as much as she used to, which only worsened the problem. The girl had tried to find another job, and to convince the flower lady to pay her a little more until her mother would get better. The florist had said that she couldn’t afford to increase her salary, and not many people outside the slums would give a job to a twelve-year-old from there anyway. As for the people inside the slums, it wasn’t that they wouldn’t hire her, they just couldn’t afford to do so.

For the past few weeks, her mother had been confined to bed, her fever skyrocketing, and causing the young girl to stay home to take care of her, only leaving to buy a little bit of food on the market. Their savings were almost gone by now, even when many of market people had given the young girl a generous price on her buyings because of her mother’s state.

Such was the case today: the baker had given her an extra loaf of bread, and the grocer had made a ‘two for the price of one’ deal for its vegetables. She had bowed in gratitude at them, promising to pay all their kindness back one day, before she ran back to her home with her arms full. Though, she encountered a rather peculiar sight when she passed the threshold of her and her mother’s home. Two men clad in the armor of the Maredrid’s Royal Guard were standing in her living room, both with their faces unreadable.

“W...What’s going on?” the twelve year old girl asked in a trembling voice. “Why are you here?!” she almost shouted when the two guards looked at each other in discomfort. “Where is my MOTHER?!”

“Cal-Calm do-own, Sweetie,” her mother’s coughing voice came from the other room.

She dropped the bags on the floor, and rushed past the two compassionate guards into her mother’s bedroom. In it, she found her mother where she had left her, in her bed, and with a man wearing a dark cloak, matching hat that hid the top of his head, and a doctor’s mask that covered the rest of his face. The girl ignored him, and went straight to her mother’s side.

“Mommy, are you okay?” she asked with worry, before her mother nodded briefly. “Who is this man?”

“He..-He..”

“I’m a friend of your mother,” the man replied in polite tone, interrupting the mother’s difficult answer. “An old friend actually.”

“I’ve never seen you before!” the girl asked with suspicion. “You can’t be one of Mommy’s friends!”

“Sweetie… He’s one of my friends,” her mother replied softly. “I just haven’t seen him since you were born… Now, could you leave us alone? We have things to talk about in private.”

Her eyes still narrowed at the man with the mask, the little girl still nodded at her mother before leaving the room, and the two adults to their privacy. She went to her room, which was just next to her mother’s, and sat on her bed, close to the small hole in the corner of her room. The young girl had carved the hole with her magic when her mother’s sickness worsened so she could hear if her mother needed help during the night. She pulled away the plank that kept the hole closed, and immediately after, her mother and her guest’s voices faintly reached for her ears.

“... So, she doesn’t know?”

“N.... No, she doesn’t. I res...respected my promise…”

“Yet, you sent him a letter.”

“I know but, I’m dying.... I can’t leave her with nothing… That’s why I wrote that letter.”

“What do you expect us to do? It’s not like he can take her in, you should know that...”

“I’m not asking for something like that… I just want her to be okay after I’m gone… She doesn’t have to stay in Maredrid… I just want her to have a chance to grow up normally, without having to worry about maintaining a roof over her head… She’s just twelve… She doesn’t deserve to live on her own... “

“That’s it?... Just that?!”

“Just that… That’s all I could ever ask for my daughter.”

“....If it’s just that, then it could be arranged…. I’ll do my best to make sure she’s nothing to worry about!”

“Th..Thank you!”

And with that, the girl heard the man leaving her mother’s room. She didn’t bother to check if the two guards had gone back with him, she just sat on her bed for a while. Then she remembered she had the groceries to store, and the lunch to prepare. The twelve-year-old put everything but the vegetables for today’s soup; onion soup. She peeled three large onions before dicing them very slowly, while trying to convince herself that they were the cause of her tears, despite the fact they had started to roll out of her eyes as soon as her mother had whispered that she was dying.

A few weeks later,...

One day, her mother didn’t wake up for breakfast. The girl had tried to make her stir by all the means she could think off: pinching, slapping, yelling, slamming the door shut, and so on. But no matter what she tried, her mother never woke up. The piercing cries of pain that rang through the whole neighborhood were more than enough to let everyone know what happened.

It had taken a full day, and someone calling the Royal Guard to pry the young Titanian away from her late mother. As much as they tried to pull her away from the dead body, the girl held on tight. She even had shoved more than one neighbor away from her with her deep green magic. After the guards intervened to separate her from her mother, they had to take the girl to the post, declaring that they couldn’t leave the girl on her own that night.

It was at the slums’ Guard post that the cloaked man from before found the young girl. She had been crying, curled in a ball against the corner of an unused office while holding a small book with a snowflake engraved on the cover close to her heart. The commander of the Guard Post sighed with sadness at the sight of the heartbroken girl before he turned to the cloaked man to explain why she was there in the first place.

The man with the cloak, and the doctor’s mask nodded at the commander before approaching the girl. He kneeled gently next to her, and waited for her to look at him. He patiently remained there for about ten minutes before she spared him a glance.

“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked softly.

“Hum!” the girl let out with a nod, wiping her tears away. “Mommy told me...“

“That’s good,” he stated before standing back up. “Come with me. You don’t want to stay here, do you?”

The girl shrugged noncommittally, but still stood up, ready to follow him. He hesitated before extending his hand in her direction. A hand she took almost immediately in her right one, her left holding her book, and the small bag of her belongings. After a brief nod at the commander, the masked man, and the young girl exited the Guard Post.

“Where are you taking me?” the girl asked after a long silence, and an even longer walk through the slums. “To your house?” she asked in a whisper as she noticed they were getting out of the slums.

“No. We are going to the harbor,” her mother’s friend replied casually. “I have found a family that lives out of the town, and that could take you in for now. We’re going there by the canal. It would be quicker.”

“....What about mommy’s …..funeral?” she asked in a quiet whisper, her whole body shaking at that word.

“What about them?”

“When are they going to take place?”

“Soon enough, don’t worry! I’ll take care of everything,” the man stated before they kept walking in silence until they reached the docks.

“Why are you wearing a mask?” the young girl asked with curiosity as the walked along a few embarcation.

“I have a large burn around my mouth… An experiment with magic that got wrong,” he explained matter-of-factly. “It’s to not make people uncomfortable when they’re forced to look at it,” he added, pointing at the mask.

“Ah… Sorry.”

“It’s natural to be curious,” he stated with a shrug,and then pointed at a nearby boat. “There’s our ride.”

The young girl looked at the boat he was pointing. It was completely different from the other boats in the docks. Sure, it was a caravelle, like most of the ships docked in this section of the harbor, but it looked so dirty and worn out compared to the boats around it. She was more than puzzled by it, and turned to her mother’s friend to ask him about that choice of a ride, but she got interrupted when one of the men on deck spotted them. The tall, tattooed man called for them, waving them to come aboard.

“I don’t like this boat,” the girl whispered to the masked man, holding his hand tighter as the men of the crew looked at her with surprise. “They smell like the tavern next to the market, and rotten fishes…” she explained, her nose wrinkling in discomfort.

“That they do,” the man agreed, whispering back “Though, I’d suggest to not tell them that, and start to get used to it. It’s quite the long journey to Camelu…”

“...Wha...You said that we were just going out of town,” the girl asked in confusion.

“Yes, well about that… I lied!” he stated, letting go of her hand before snapping his fingers.

A large, dirty hand was immediately pressed on the twelve-year-old’s mouth before a matching other hand, and the arm attached to it, prevented her from moving her arms. She tried to scream, and kick herself free, but the grip was too strong. The man carrying her brought her quickly below deck before anyone on the busy docks could notice a thing, leaving the man with the mask with his captain. The masked man leaned down to pick up the book she had with her.

“Oh… A first edition copy.” he stated calmly, inspecting the tale book. “How odd for her to have something so valuable, don’t you think?” he asked the ship captain with curiosity.

“I don’t really know, since I hardly read anything except docking manifests, sir,” the captain replied with a shrug.

"It's a shame really," The masked man commented as he leafed through the child's book. "You're missing on a lot of stuff..." he added before pausing at the red mark of a nail-polish accident on the back of the book. "Tsss...Children are always so messy," he whispered, clicking his tongue in a disapproving tone.

“Any specific instructions regarding our shipment?” the captain asked softly, his gaze scanning the port for any potential witness. -They were none!-

“She’s a Titanian, so I hope you have lead shackles below deck,” the masked man explained casually as he put the book in one of his cloak’s pockets. “As for the rest, the Sultan of Nadira would probably appreciate if the newest addition to his harem would remain pure for him.”

“Understood, sir!” the captain nodded slowly.

“Though, he’d probably appreciate not having to tame her or to teach her everything a woman in a harem should be able to do... so your crew can work on that with her if they feel up to it,” the masked man added matter-of-factly, earning a shocked stare from the captain of the worn-out ship.

“Huh...I...guess,” the captain said slowly as the masked man shook his hand.

“Nice doing business with you, good sir.” The masked man stated casually, before making his way off the ship “Oh! I trust you to bring me back my share of the Sultan’s payment.”

Months later, the worn-out caravel came back with the payment for the masked man. But, as soon as they reached Maredrid’s port, the Royal Guard arrested all the crew and their captain for trafficking in human beings. They were put on a brief trial, and all sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in the worst prison of Istalloña. They had claimed the existence of the masked man, but he was never found. It was like he had never existed in the first place, much like the twelve-year-old girl that used to make the slums market-stall-keepers laugh with her little bits of acting.

Author's Notes:

And there you go,
The story of the Changeling Queen is finally unveiled :p

Thanks to my proofreaders for checking it out.
Batmane of Equestria, Xhoral1865, PinkieLunaShy, and Deamonbunny Thank you ^^

Anyway, don't hesitate to comment on the story ;) (sorry to all those who expected something else from me ^^)