*BANG*
I look up from my paperwork to see a messenger pegasus careening into my office.
"My Princess! Fluttershy has arrived with a message. The medics are looking her over now."
"Good." As I set my pen down. "And the message?" He starts rummaging around in his bags before I just locate it and rip it out to start reading. A fair bit rude on my part, but this is extremely important and I'm impatient. It's all written with the love letter spell of course.
Dear Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.
Please for the love of Harmony take your element bearers back. I was not aware they were so important when they departed with my retinue, and I refuse to have a diplomatic incident start over something so avoidable. Fluttershy should have delivered this message, but Pinkie Pie refuses to leave my stallions alone. She's working off her frustrations at missing her bonus. I'll not get into that here though. The important thing is, while I am fully aware of the allures of passionate lovemaking, there still exists a time and a place for such things. In the middle of a foreign polity's camp while on the verge of sensitive negotiations are neither. I would ask you to retrieve her in whatever manner you see fit.
The second item I would like to bring to your attention is Fluttershy herself. She has been feeding my drones sporadically and all throughout her stay with us, and has refused any reward for such. This is grating to my sensibilities. Good work deserves a reward. I would request your help with picking out a tangible reward that she cannot refuse in good conscience.
Thirdly is the scheduling and venue of our negotiations...
And all the rest is the kind of mind numbing minutiae that Twilight Sparkle would have loved to go through if her temper and paranoia weren't still raw from the invasion. I must admit I would have been much worse about that myself if I didn't have my Shining Armor to center me. He can be annoying at times, but he always tells me the truth.
Though that doesn't excuse the nigh disastrous letter she sent to Princess Celestia. We almost had the royal guard mobilized to rescue Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy before Fluttershy herself delivered a letter to each of us Princesses through Spike. The one addressed to Celestia detailed the bribe Pinkie Pie got for helping smooth over relations. The one addressed to Luna revealed Fluttershy to be a Batpony. That was shocking, but I'll trust Luna's expertise and rhetoric on that matter. Equestria was founded on equality and acceptance between ponies after all! It also brought to light a fascinating philosophical debate on nature versus nurture. It gives me great hope for our negotiations!
My letter arguably had the most interesting information of all. Gossip on Degurechaff's love life! I can't wait to ask her all about it!
Enough of that though. I leave my chambers to go check up on Fluttershy. Looking in on the infirmary I see a few diagnostic spells being run on her, including one I designed myself just after the invasion. A way to tell if anybody is being mind controlled through love based magic. Given how long I was reading that letter, this can't have been the first time they cast it on her.
"Ahem. Everypony except for Fluttershy leave us." The nurses and doctors look at each other and obey. Fluttershy, as always, seems quite nervous.
"H-hello P-p-princess"
"Hello Fluttershy. It seems you have everypony worried about how you are."
"I kn-know how this looks, Princess, but this integration cannot fail." She takes out a flier from her saddlebag. "Read this and you'll understand." I raise my eyebrow, but take the flyer. Changelings And You. Reading through it... Oh. Oh, that is horrific!! And Chrysalis did what to those who wouldn't fall in line?! Sweet Celestia, this almost makes me happy she's dead! Love should never be misused like that! I'm feeling very conflicted right now.
"How much of this is accurate?"
"En-nough that I could tell every changeling in the camp desperately needed a hug." Hmm, troubling.
"Princess!" Shouts another messenger trotting up to me. "We have a problem with the changelings!" Oh boy.
"What's going on?"
"They're demanding that stands displaying certain news stories shut down for as long as the negotiations take place."
"That's totally unacc-" Wait a minute... "What kind of news stories?" He pulls out a newspaper, partially soaked from being on the ground probably.
Idiot Changeling Believes The Princesses Are Changelings!!
My eye twitches. "Send out the royal guard! We're going to get these stories off of the main boulevard."
"Princess?" He asks.
"This is a diplomatic event. I will not have it ruined by having our guests insulted so blatantly!" He salutes and flies off. Phew. Good thing he accepted that so easily, I'm not sure how long I can keep a lid on the fact that I'm not a changeling to the Queen. I think I'll let Pinkie Pie work her stresses off though. I'm tempted to do the same myself with Shining, but I still have work to do.
*Trumpet Noises*
"Introducing Queen Degurechaff of the changeling hive." She walks into the entrance hall and bows to me and Shining.
"I greet the Princess of Love." Her escorts notably do not bow. They look very tense.
"Come. We will conduct negotiations in the garden." This was not a surprise of course. It has been three days since she arrived in Canterlot. Well, camped outside the gates as it were. We've exchanged many letters since then. First came the provisions for guards. She brought a small squad with her but at the actual negotiations table we will only have two each. We also delineated the scope of the negotiations. Reparations will be paid to me, but not at Queen Degurechaff's personal expense. The Changelings will also be giving up most of their autonomy to live under Equestrian law, but measures and laws will be put in place so that they don't starve. And we will be discussing the transition to Equestrian laws.
"So Queen Degurechaff, how was your journey here?" I ask, as soon as I sit down at the prepared table. We're in the Central gardens right next to the statue of Discord.
"Mixed. Two of the four villages we planned to stop at refused us. I look forward to your response to this flagrant defiance of your orders." I curse internally. I know what this looks like to a predatory species. We have a few of them as neighbors. She may or may not particularly care about the act itself, but she'll definitely view our response as how highly she's valued.
"I will have to confer with the other Princesses before a punishment is decided." I demure. No reason to co-opt Cellie's guard for this just yet. "Any questions before we begin?"
"Yes Princess. What is that right next to us." As she points to the draconic statue.
"Oh, that's Discord. Don't worry, he's perfectly contained. He's actually why we're in this garden today. Every act of order and treaty signed here strengthens his prison that much more." She slowly looks towards me.
"You mean he wasn't just a cover story? I thought the Princesses just got really drunk one day and ordered some chocolate rain from the Pegasi." I snicker at the thought as my guards shuffle and Degurechaff looks horrified at the spirit of chaos' statue.
"No, he's very real. Anyways, let's move on to the agenda you set out. I see here that you wanted to talk about reparations first?"
"Yes Princess. Seeing as we agreed that my personal assets were off limits, I find the hive to be incredibly poor and unsuitable for such things. Therefore I must look to other forms of payment. And it comes to my attention that you do not have a personalized guard yet. I am willing to part with one hundred drones to your personal control for this purpose." Oh. Oh wow. But as with all things political, I cannot take this at face value. I look at her sharply.
"What's the catch?"
"You will have to feed them, train them, and train out the bad habits that Chrysalis instilled in them. I also only had a few weeks to train them in any kind of combat."
"Combat training? Where would you have learned much about combat? I know we monitor our guard captains much more closely than most other ponies."
"I did not always live in Equestria Princess Cadenza. My time before here was significantly more violent." That feels like a big no duh moment right there. "Living here was an excellent retirement until the wedding." And I did not miss the way her guards twitched at that. Seems like somebody is still very angry about it. Good thing Shining is still here, or else I might be nervous. Hahahahaha.
"I accept your proposal for reparations." Teaching a hundred changelings about love is sure to be a treat. And possibly fun depending on how Shining Armor reacts to the situation. "Though I am interested in how I'm expected to feed them." Degurechaff rolls her eyes at that.
"You have the love of an entire nation gravitating towards you." I do? "Even if you've never used it for anything other than recharging, I believe you have the capacity to figure it out." Mare, I was just making a saucy joke!
"Ahem. Quite. Now the next thing on the list. Captives." Oh joy, this is going to be one of those days, isn't it? By the time we're done she's extracted several concessions out of me. Most of which are just general methodologies on how best to integrate the changelings. We're guaranteeing the right to voluntarily feed, and the right for ponies to give up their freedom to the changelings for limited amounts of time. The last bit will be regulated locally, and I understand she intends to negotiate for ponies already sentenced to jail.
The part of negotiations that took the longest was what will be done with all the captives the hive gathered under Queen Chrysalis. I all but demanded they be released immediately, but she managed to talk me down to a schedule of one per week so the changelings don't starve as they transition over to alternate love sources. I did not budge on revealing all infiltrators though. To Queen Degurechaff's knowledge there are seven left, and at her insistence they will be revealed under the influence of a calming spell. Fair enough. By the time we were done it was 6:30 and we were both very tired.
"That settles all the boring stuff." As I set aside the folder with my copy of the treaty outline. "I'll have the law ponies take that, and make sure it won't conflict with any past treaties, or laws, or any other fiddly bits."
"Very good, yes-"
"Now for the fun part." She freezes, wide eyed and open jawed at my declaration. "Gossip! Tell me about your love life Degurechaff! I just have to know about your wife." She continues to stare at me.
"...Can we not, and simply say we did?"
"I guess so, but why would you want that?"
"Because I am a private individual."
"We'll be that as it may, I don't see it lasting. You were trying to get a seat in Equestrian politics, right? I just can't imagine not talking about love with those closest to me. You especially. It's in our very nature you see." And that is all true, I swear. I also want to find some common ground between us. I've been having just the worst time getting a bead on her personality. She's severe and strict, yet exceedingly easy to work with on a personal level. Sent me a severed head, yet almost aggressively pursues peace, and about a hundred other little conflicting details I don't have the time to list.
She sighs in exasperation. "Would we be able to schedule something for tomorrow? I'm feeling just a bit wrung out today."
"Of course! How does afternoon tea time sound?"
"As long as coffee is available."
The next day was busy. Not overly so, as my normal duties were replaced with ensuring the surrender goes smoothly. And then Queen Degurechaff brought eighty changeling in around noon to be inducted into my guard. That caused a whole kerfuffle on its own, but was handled easily enough. I tested out feeding them all and it went very smoothly. Queen Degurechaff even noticed that I used one of her spells to do it, and I got to compliment her on her spellsmithing.
Once we were both able to relax in the gardens, (the ones without Discord) we were able to make amicable small talk. We danced around the issue of her love life for a while. It was clear she's uncomfortable talking about it. Many ponies are. Until finally I could stand it no longer.
"I can't keep doing this. Queen Degurechaff I have to tell you, I'm not a Changeling. That's not what an Alicorn is. I was a Pegasus before I accomplished the embodiment of my cutie mark and ascended. I'm sorry to say this now, but you would surely realize it eventually." She sips her coffee.
"Interesting. I also changed species when I became a Changeling." One of her bodyguards turns their head towards Degurechaff at that. "I don't believe you about not being a Changeling by the way." Oh come on!! "Equine species don't have biologically distinct Queen specimens. Insectoid species do." How am I even supposed to argue with that!? We obviously do! "You've probably just instinctually used your shape shifting all this time. I myself transformed when I fell into a patch of these things." She constructs an illusion of a droopy blue flower in front of us.
"What are those?"
"Poison Joke. A magically mischievous flower. They always transform you into some sort of joke."
"...How did a flower possess the power for such a potent transformation?" She may not be an Alicorn, but she's probably biologically immortal. Such things take a certain amount of magical oomph.
"I was previously a fairly powerful mage."
"Oh? So you were a Unicorn?"
"Primate." As she shakes her head. "But that is neither here nor there. The point is that taxonomic families are no barrier to such a species change." ...Am I a Changeling? I shake my head.
"So, blatantly changing the subject, why did you choose a broken heart as your Cutie Mark when you were acting as Shimmering Heart?"
"I didn't. Stupid things always come out as broken whenever I make them heart shaped. It's annoying."
"Very unfortunate. Did you want to talk about it?"
"But we just did?"
"..." I think I'm beginning to see what kind of joke those flowers were going for when they transformed her. Kind of mean of them actually.
"Did you want to talk about my love life now? I think I'm finally comfortable enough for that."
"Yes I would. Did you want to go first, or should I?"
AN: beta credit to Pandora
