"It's not treason!" Dropper shook his head. "I've known Shining since he was a colt. He was a good lad and grew into a great commander." The stallion looked around at the other lieutenants who had removed themselves from the pony-in-question's service. "He knows what the protocol is now, he came up with it. So either he is expecting us to contact Princess Celestia, or he is being mind controlled and wants us to contact her. Either way, it isn't treason."

There was a few mumbles, but none of the other officers could question the logic. Reaching inside his armor, Dropper pulled out the little stick of brittle metal. "One way or another, this needs to be checked out." He snapped the little rod, feeling the burst of power rush out from it. Around the other soldiers, more snapping sounds were heard.

The sharp pings of magic radiated outwards, winding along the paths of magic but curling back around to seek out one pony. Princess Celestia was relaxing in her garden, simply bathing in the warmth of her element, when the first snap of magic reached her. The devices gave her a sense of direction and distance, and as each one impacted with her senses her urgency grew. Rising to her hooves—looking to the north—she waited for one special one.

A full minute went by with no further snaps.

"Shining Armor, what has happened?" Celestia spread her wings and leaped into the air. This was no time for delicate flight magic to make her look majestic, to have so many warnings from her guard all at once meant something dire. Pouring on raw power, Celestia energized her horn and in less than a heartbeat she was a crackling blur of light, speeding toward the Crystal Empire.

Relaxing her magic when she was near where the alarm rods were triggered, Princess Celestia circled around to the east, making sure her wings were framed by the sun as she landed. A wave of guard officers launched forward, all talking at once. I remember now why I promoted that stallion. If nothing else, Shining Armor could herd the guard into a semblance of order. "Stop." The word was not softly spoken, but she made sure there was no real power behind it. "Who broke their rod first?"

"Your Highness." Dropper stepped forward from the gaggle of his contemporaries. "I did, and I encouraged them to do the same." He bowed to his Princess. "It's about the Captain, he-"

"He's under the changeling's control!"

"Chrysalis is disguised as Princess Cadance again!"

"He fired all the guard and replaced us with changelings!"

"Stop." If it wasn't for the first guard sounding so worried Celestia would have flown back home then and there. "Is any of this true? Lieutenant..." She spoke only to Lieutenant Dropper. If they start again I may have to use magic… not that I want to, this might be serious.

"Lieutenant Dropper, Your Highness." Dropper gave a curt nod. "He dismissed the guard, claiming that he was forming up his own, the Royal Crystal Guard. He made it known that he was accepting changelings," he tried not to spit the word out, but after the Royal Guard failed to stop the invasion of Canterlot he just couldn't stop feeling spite, "into his new guard. Then his newest recruit stepped forward, he declared her Captain and told her to drop her disguise."

"I see." Celestia's mouth pulled tight. "Thank you, all of you, for bringing this to my attention. I will get to the bottom of this. To me, Royal Guard!" The command was instantly obeyed, the lieutenants snapping into a tight formation behind her. This is going to look terrible if it is a big mistake. I would wear egg on my snout a thousand times over to keep my ponies safe.

Thanks to the Crystal Heart's energies the "frozen north" was not so frozen around the huge city. It wouldn't do to fly right in with her guards, so Celestia enjoyed the walk and thought of how to handle the possible situations that might have come up. Ponies bowed to her in the street, a slight air of nervousness following Celestia like a cloak, covering the city.

"She's here about the new law."

"… lings aren't that bad, that one up at the castle was quite polite."

"This isn't Equestria, what is she doing here?"

Celestia's ears itched at the snatches of conversations, she wished she could race off after each one and ask them what they meant. When her hooves hit the tiled plaza around the castle, the sense of tension grew sharp and tight as piano wire. Stepping up to one of the doors at the foot of the castle, the official door, Celestia lifted her own hoof and knocked.

It was like the whole city was silent, not a hint of movement or conversation. She was just about to lift her hoof and knock again when the doors opened, pushed wide in a combination of green and blue magic. Her first thought was that a changeling was opening the door with another pony, but it was two unicorns, wearing armor completely different from the Royal Guard standard issue. "I am here to see Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Shining Armor." Both ponies bowed and figuratively melted into the sides of the hall, letting Celestia advance upwards.

"Auntie!" Cadance was waiting on her throne, prepared to meet the "not a queen" ruler of Equestria. "I really wish you would announce yourself before visiting." Cadance was playing the delicate game, using familiar names, keeping things civil.

"Cadance," Celestia took her cue from the other princess, "I came with some haste, apparently you dismissed my guard and they-"

"They activated their alarms. They summoned you because they couldn't see past their own ignorance." Shining was more than a little surprised to find himself talking, baiting, Celestia. "I asked only that ponies who couldn't welcome other ponies leave. They could have stayed."

Celestia could feel the tension grow in the guard behind her, she ruffled her wings a little to get their attention off raising their voices out of turn. "Shining Armor, there is truth in those words, but I still worry for you. At the wedding you-"

"My husband is not being controlled by any outside influences." Cadance saw that being interrupted was leaving Celestia a little off-balance. Good, we need that. "You are of course welcome to stay, we will have rooms made up. Careful?"

The tension in the room rose a few more notches as a changeling marched out of an alcove, a book hovering in their green magic. "Yes, Princess Cadance?" Careful felt eyes boring into his spine, they defied any hope his chitin might have of deflecting them.

"Please have the suite for visiting royalty prepared at once." Cadance purred the words, her eyes dancing. Raising her voice, she looked over to Celestia. "Will your guard need rooms too?"

"Your Highness…" Careful knew what his Queen planned, knew that this part at least was a setup. "You had me put Twilight Sparkle in the Royal Suite."

"Oh drat, well, we could use the other big suite… oh, Rarity is in there." Cadance saw her "auntie" put off balance for the first time in quite a while. "But honestly, we can surely find you a room, this castle is huge."

"I don't think that will be needed, however I am going to need to cast a spell on you, both of you." Celestia saw two pairs of eyes narrow at her statement, neither Shining nor Cadance looked like they would put up with this. To her shock, Shining Armor smiled first.

"Of course you can, we have nothing to hide. What are you casting on us?" Shining's blood was practically freezing, he knew that if Princess Celestia was going to use some kind of changeling detector spell he would likely flash up on it. He leaned over and pecked Cadance on the cheek with a quick kiss.

"A spell I have worked on since the last… incident." Celestia focused her magic and materialized a scroll. "It detects when a pony is under the influence of changeling magic." She floated the spell scroll over.

"This is quite useful." Cadance brightened at the scroll and at Celestia. Scanning the page quickly, she tried in desperation to find just how it detected such, but the thing was just too complicated for her to figure out. Twilight, though, would make it through this in minutes. "Very well, cast it." Cadance knew she couldn't appear to be challenging the casting of the spell at all, particularly not if it does show something when cast.

"You understand, I would prefer something that detects changelings, but apparently there is only one way to do that." Celestia raised an eyebrow at Cadance and Shining before working power in her horn. "This will show where the source of any control lies, and its intensity." With a good-amount of push Celestia finished casting the spell. She directed it forwards, toward the throne.

The first to be hit by the magic was Careful, the changeling flaring with brightness as two lines reached out to point at both Shining and Cadance. Another softer glow, almost invisible, surrounded Shining Armor and pointed off far to the south.

"Ah ha!" Dropper dashed forward. "Clearly they are both changelings! Look at how much they affect that one!" He gestured to Careful. "Like when the Bug Queen ordered them around! Arrest them!"

"Darling." Cadance spread her wings out, catching Shining Armor with one and pulling Careful in on her other side with the other.

Shining didn't waste a second, he started to put up his shield and froze. "No, this is stupid. We aren't changelings, we aren't being affected by them." He pointed a hoof at Dropper. "If you come anywhere near my wife, don't think I won't break that spear off and put it somewhere you will never find."

Celestia blinked at the unfolding events. "Lieutenant Dropper, fall back into line." When the stallion hesitated, Celestia made sure to give a nod to Shining. "Now!" The Royal Canterlot Voice was not commonly heard from Princess Celestia, it rated at least twice as loud as when Luna used it. "This only shows that Shining Armor had minor mind control used on him by a changeling recently, or that such was used and is faded from time. The latter, of course, is known to be true."

Shining kept his smile from showing teeth. "Thank you, Princess Celestia. I can explain the effect on Careful." He waited for a slight nod of Celestia's head. "It is quite simple, you saw how we subdued the changeling in Canterlot?" Another nod. "It binds them to us, it breaks their ties to Chrysalis' hive and leaves them beholden to us." He gestured to Cadance. "It is… unfortunate, that they need to be bound in any way, but apparently that is how changelings work."

"Uh, sorry to speak up." Careful lowered his head and executed a deep bow to Celestia. "We need a queen, it is… it is part of what we are. If my choice is Queen Angry-butt, or Shining Armor and Princess Cadance… the choice isn't a hard one." He smiled wide, the two prominent fangs were still on display of course, but it was clear where his loyalties ran.

The oddly descriptive title awarded to Chrysalis couldn't help but make Celestia smile a little and calm down even more. "And the reason for a change in your guard was simply to include a new species of pony?"

"No, not by far." Shining stood up and stretched. "Earth ponies are sadly underrepresented in the guard, as well as mares. That is being fixed. My offer to all the guards was simply to accept a wider diversity of ponies in the guard, or leave."

"That seems reasonable. While I don't think Canterlot or Equestria is quite ready to have changelings out and about—the wedding events left a bit of a mark on everypony—but trust me, I will be watching events quite closely. I have often wondered why my Royal Guard were gender-specific as well…" She looked back at the lieutenants and watched more than one squirm.

Yeah, more marks than you might think on some. Shining beamed. "The wedding was a little rough, next time, let's not invite any armies?"

"Next time?" Cadance drew her wing back from her husband. "Tell me—in detail—about this 'Next time.' " She grinned at him, showing how much she was joking. "Is the inquisition over?" it was a jab, but she directed her gaze at the guards rather than Celestia.

Dropper tried to hide his fury behind a mask, but he was nowhere near as good at it as his Princess. He dropped his head to hide his expression further.

"I believe this is settled. Shining Armor, you still have your alarm rod?" It was Celestia's turn to wait for Shining to nod. "Please keep it, as an apology from Equestria to the Crystal Empire over this matter." She got a slight nod from Cadance and Shining this time.

Celestia bowed to the throne of the Crystal Empire and herded the guard officers from the throne room.

"Your Highness!" Dropper had to try one more time. "There is something really odd going on here, I just-"

"Lieutenant Dropper, you have a good nose for this. There is something going on, but those two are definitely at the center. It is their empire, however." Celestia began trotting for the train station. "Have no fear that I will be keeping an eye on them."

Author's Notes:

"Are you all ready?" Cadance looked around to the pile of ponies all snuggled around the open fire. Looking up at the camera the alicorn nodded. "Right then, let's begin. I think Rarity, you have the honor of going first."

The introduction, by a princess no less, had Rarity practically shining with delight. "Now, where was that... oh, here it is. Do I plan to make Shining a new dress for her... oh darling, Shining is a stallion, and a handsome one at that. I wouldn't dream of making a dress for him unless it was what he really wanted."

"Ahem." Shining cleared his throat. "The good Sergeant is no longer with us, he left for Canterlot."

"A shame," Careful grinned, "he was clever, caught me out quickly. A good soldier."

"Good soldiering is not the only thing we want in our guards. There are virtues beyond that, or so our queens have taught me." Gilt was sitting beside Twilight, the two poring over the spell-scroll Celestia had given Cadance that day. "Oh, I have the next one I think." She took out a card and inspected it. "Changeling punishment?" she laughed as she said it, "I trained in the Royal Guard three times, going from recruit to non-commissioned officer each time. I know how to punish a recruit for misbehaving. The same methods work on ponies and changelings, trust me."

"Come on you old nag." Shining held out a hole-filled leg to Dropper. "Why the buck would I hold loyalty and protectiveness against you?"

"Because I am pig-headed?" Dropper shoved his old commander aside. "And yeah, you will see more of me. Got a little caught up in all this, it was weird at the time, though." He shrugged and picked out the next card. "What happened to me? Damn buggers—excuse me, changelings—slipped up my unit at the wedding, damn near had us all gooed up and stuck before we could even get our weapons."

"Gilt, you're next." Shining poked the military commander to get her attention away from studying the spell. "They want to know how you are going to handle sneaky stuff."

"Sneaky stuff? Bah, that is all Careful's job. I put guardsponies where they need to be, it is up to him to tell me if they need to be somewhere else." Gilt passed the poke on to Careful. "Last one is for you, Queen Shining. They want to know if you think any more guards will leave when they see... all of you."

Shining's shoulders fell a little. "If this world were perfect, if rainbows always won the day, and friendship solved every problem... okay, bad choice of words. I can only assume that when I show everypony what I am becoming, they will all freak out. Cadance tells me they are a little more accepting than that, but I don't know for sure... we will see together, I guess."

~~~~~+++++~~~~~

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I They will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

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