In the badlands, the young Cæsar was facing the marker, sitting a few steps away from the rocky cavity. She had her head down, a grimace of pain on her face, tears in the corner of her eyes.

Pepper arrived, quickly coming out of the bubble that protected the marker to come to the child's side. "What is going on, FaceHugger?" she asked, alert.

Aglowing reopened her eyes, and when she saw that Pepper was really there, as she had promised, she stopped concentrating on those sinister feelings, so much so that the orange mist disappeared entirely from the eyes of the white-coated mare. "I'm bored," she chirped, wiping tears from the back of her hoof.

Pepper was dumbfounded for a moment.

In contrast, Gamine understood the situation and had to put her hands over her mouth so she wouldn't start laughing out loud.

Pepper had the unpleasant feeling of being deceived and approached the child with a cold look in her eyes. "Did you deliberately have bad feelings just to get me to come back here because you are bored?"

Scared by Pepper's attitude, the child leaned back and looked away. "Maybe?"

Pepper watched the child for a moment with her stern glare. She lowered her head, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. "You are lucky you had no ill intent." She reopened the gate to the ruins of the sisters' castle. "Stay still," she commanded as she went to fetch Trixie, carrying her with a magic hand on the end of her left foreleg before dropping Trixie unceremoniously in front of Aglowing.

The young guardian worried about seeing a pony in the territory of the changelings. "Pepper-"

"Nothing bad will happen to Trixie," the monster cut in.

The landing shook Trixie to the point where she regained consciousness in a jolt. "What?" She straightened up, looking around her. "Where am I?" She asked drowsily. Pepper was there, and that reassured Trixie somehow, even though she didn't remember losing consciousness. And on the other side was this strange child. At first Trixie thought it was a bat pony because of those big eyes with cat-like pupils. But immediately afterwards she noticed the horn on her forehead, similar to hers, but with holes here and there. And what finally shook her sense of security was the insect wings on her back. "W-who are you?"

The child stood up before taking a step backwards to curtsy as Nightmare Moon had taught her. "I am Cæsar Aglowing Shell, daughter of Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings."

Trixie widened her eyes. Now she knew where she had seen monsters like her before. The love-eaters were no strangers to her, as she was performing in the streets of Canterlot on the day they tried to invade the capital. "C-C-Changeling," she stammered feverishly, before fleeing northwards, her mission completely forgotten, screaming at the top of her lungs the terror that fuelled her legs.

Pepper and Aglowing observed unfazed. The child did not understand what she had done wrong, even though she had made and repeated these gestures under the uncompromising gaze of her friend, who taught her the rudiments of the etiquette that would suit the one who presented herself as a Cæsar. She then turned to Pepper. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it was not you personally. But ponies like Trixie will always be naturally afraid of the predators we are." She thought about the situation for a while. "I am going to catch up with her and talk to her. Wait here, FaceHugger."

Trixie was galloping away breathlessly. Her eyes filled with a faint hope of reaching those mountains she was staring at over on the horizon.

When Pepper judged that there was enough distance to give Trixie a false sense of security, she used her magic to ensnare her hind legs before dragging Trixie to her hooves.

Without a glance back, terrified of coming face to face with a changeling, Trixie began to scream as her hooves searched for every last pebble to hold on to.

Pepper used her telekinesis in the form of a hand to close Trixie’s mouth before forcing her to look at her. “Cease screaming or I shall give you a true reason to," she whispered, her face so close to Trixie's that their horns crossed.

Trixie could only whimper in response.

Pepper released the mare. "I have seen monsters in the Everfree Forest. Next to them, changelings are not a great threat. At most, they are big insects in need of affection."

The adrenaline wore off and Trixie started shaking in spite of herself. "Trixie heard that they ponynap foals by night to devour their hearts."

"The Queen's daughter told me they do not kill, otherwise they would soon be left without a single prey to hunt. That same child you ran away from devoured my love. It was painful, but I did not die from it." Pepper looked around her as she thought. Remembering a particular fact, she turned to Trixie and began to rub her cheeks then her flanks on the illusionist's coat.

"What are you doing?" Trixie asked with a blush of embarrassment.

"I am putting my scent on you," Pepper replied after she had finished. "Changelings have a good sense of smell and if I mark you like this they shall hesitate before they try anything. In that time you give them a cuddle, and they will leave you alone."

"How could Trixie be affectionate? They're monsters!"

"I am a monster too, yet you do not seem to mind. Is it because of how I look? Maybe they became these love-eating monsters because they never had any friends, just like your Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon because no one appreciated the beauty of the night a thousand years ago."

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Trixie wanted to argue, but when presented with this, nothing came to mind.

"I am facing a dilemma: a child is bored, but I do not know what to do to entertain her. What is your special talent?"

Trixie dug through her bag of stage magic items. "Trixie's an illusionist." She pulled out a red silk scarf with her magic, then presented her right hoof, proving there was nothing in the sole of it before covering it with the scarf. The unicorn then pretended to concentrate, making some gesture with her left hoof over the scarf. Then, with a sharp jerk, she pulled the scarf from her right hoof, revealing a red apple. "This is prestidigitation. Trixie performed all over Equestria. Then the Great Wonder Trixie met ... " She sighed, her mood soured. "...Twilight Sparkle."

Pepper kept a close eye on Trixie, having faced so many magic traps in the past that she found it hard to believe that the purpose of the magic was to make a simple apple appear. But hearing Gamine's awe, she knew Aglowing would like it. "Ready to do a performance for the pleasure of a child?" she asked, turning her back to the sun.

Trixie didn't answer, her gaze wandering from Pepper to the south, slowly eating the apple in an attempt to buy time. Despite the words of the one she was ordered to follow, and even though she was hoping that the smell of her would be enough to deter the changelings, the mare was reluctant to retrace her footsteps.

Trixie's hesitancy was clearly obvious to Pepper. She could have forced Trixie, but it was more judicious to incite her to do it on her own. And this mare obviously had an ego that was easy to exploit. It was easy for Pepper to figure out how to handle her. "Do you know who Twilight's friend Fluttershy is? Fluttershy is a shy mare who is afraid of her own shadow. I am sure she can be convinced to hug a changeling. And yet the Great and Powerful Trixie could not do the same?" she asked with a mischievous smile.

Pepper's bait was too obvious to bite; instead, Trixie decided to bite her apple to buy some time. Since the magic duel with Twilight, she started to think twice about the situations she was involved in. She was hired to follow the unicorn, and was promised total protection during this journey, but she would have refused the offer if she knew she would have to approach the Changelings. In the end, these three days were really comparable to the moonshot manticore mouth dive she had always dreamed of performing. She had to light the fuse of the cannon and trust Pepper. She got up and walked towards the hive. "With you as her assistant, the Great and Powerful Trixie will give a performance the Changelings won't forget anytime soon."

Pepper was surprised. Surprised that her attempt to manipulate Trixie's ego had worked so easily. Surprised to see such courage now animating this mare who a few minutes before was running away like a coward in the face of non-existent danger. She shrugged it off, setting off again towards the hive.

A dozen steps further on, the magician could not contain her disbelief about what she had just been told any longer. "Trixie can't believe that these monsters will settle for a hug as a meal," she confessed after turning her eyes to Pepper.

The regicide looked back out of the corner of her left eye. "If you keep thinking of them as the monsters they are, they are bound to act like monsters and syphon your heart out."

Gamine, having been silent for a while, shivered as the memory of this scene made her feel again the sensation of those predators devouring her love.

"I admit that they do have an aggressive attitude and that they hiss at the slightest opportunity. But that is just to intimidate. They will never hurt you; they can not afford to, as your life is far too precious for their own survival,” continued Pepper. "When you know that Twilight is using her friendship to wipe out all of Equestria's problems, it would not surprise me if a friendship could fill a void where all the love in this kingdom has failed miserably for years."

The mare remained incredulous at what she had just heard. "Even if she did, the Great and Powerful Trixie will have a hard time offering her friendship to an army of changelings."

"Good thing that will not be necessary, following the genocide for which I am indirectly responsible. I have not seen more than five of them in total," she said coldly.

Trixie remained frozen in the moment, wary. "What’s genocide?"

Gamine frowned. "Bat ponies know the term but not ponies?"

Pepper stopped walking. She barely turned her face towards Trixie, her attention fixed on where they were going. "An act of mass murder, the victims being of the same race or living in the same kingdom. In this case, incomplete because there are still survivors," she whispered bluntly before resuming her walk.

Trixie was frozen in horror, her face decaying as her mind pondered the horrible meaning of the word. What had started out as a simple escort mission became a winding walk through a much darker part of Equestria than she was accustomed to. As she caught up with Pepper, a question arose as to how far the walk would go over the three days.

When the two unicorns arrived near the rock where Pepper placed the marker, Chrysalis and Chitin were now there, conversing with the little Cæsar. The queen's eyes lit up at the sight of Trixie. "Just in time for the end of brunch," Chrysalis said, licking her lips in advance at the thought of the meal as she walked towards the duo.

Trixie was terrified, her shaking limbs refusing to budge.

Pepper took a step to the left, cutting across Chrysalis’s path. She lowered her head in challenge, ready to strike if the Queen got too close. She didn't utter a single word, content to stare at the queen with her icy glare.

Neither moved, unwilling to show weakness to the other and refusing to back down first; like statues, they watched each other, emitting an oppressive tension of which Trixie was the main victim, being the prize of this staring contest.

Aglowing Shell butted in, running between the two predators. "If you don't stop now, I'll... I'll..." She trailed off, her lack of ideas draining her otherwise unfailing confidence.

Chrysalis was the first to react to this ultimatum, turning her eyes to her daughter. "If not, you'll hit one of us with the other ?" she asked, amused.

Pepper was not to be outdone, seeing that the atmosphere was taking on the tone of one of those days at Ponyville. "Otherwise you'll give us Fluttershy’s stare?" she said in the same tone.

Looking at them one after the other, the child did not expect this turnaround, convinced that both sides would stand their ground. She regained a certain amount of self-confidence to finish her threat. "Exactly! If you don't stop immediately, I'll hit one of you with the other while giving both of you Fluttershy’s stare!"

"All right, all right, I will stop. Here, Chrysalis, you can eat her, I do not want any trouble with a Cæsar," Pepper said, using her magic to push Trixie in front of her.

Trixie stood there with her eyes wide open, clinging to the slim hope that Pepper would protect her at the last moment.

"Too late, brunch time is over, and since she carries your scent, I assume that you have eaten her soul as well. I've never tested it, but I’d imagine that a body without a soul wouldn't contain much love."

Trixie was shocked by these words, and it didn't take her long to put the pieces together. She turned to Pepper. "You had eaten Princess Celestia's soul... ah." She collapsed again, her mind not able to handle the shock of learning the real truth under those conditions.

"Oh? She didn't actually know?" Chrysalis asked, grinning.