She Who Holds The Crown

Changelings have excellent perception, it's in their nature to be able to see through a ruse. Only the most adept and skilled of changelings can actually fool another one. The average drone can see an arrow whizzing through the air before it's even had time to hit its mark, or a bolt of lightning striking before it reaches the ground.

None of this stopped Chrysalis from being unable to prevent the arrow that struck his queen. Or the next three.

The throne room was in turmoil for only a moment, and then silence. Chrysalis panicked, rising up from his station behind the throne room's opened door and holding his spear with a shaky grip, searching for the assailants. His beloved queen had been struck, and it was his duty to defend her.

All of the senior guards were dead, the praetorians that were put in place to protect her. Chrysalis saw their bodies littered on the ground like bugs, and the grip around his spear only tightened. The night was silent—the windows unshattered, the queen's throne still active as she sat atop it, bleeding profusely.

"C-come out!" Chrysalis shouted, running to the centre of the room and brandishing his spear in a manner that rang of inexperience. His eyes were watering, his body tremulous, but he stood guard all the same. He would do anything to run then, to hide, to desert and forget his allegiance, but the love for his queen and country ran too strong in his mind, his blood. He couldn't leave her now. "I'm going to... I'm going to kill all of you!" He pushed down his forelegs before taking flight, a heavy spear linked in his forehooves.

In truth, he didn't know if he'd even be able to defeat more than a single enemy in physical combat. He was only one drone, a simple guard on door duty. The queen coughed behind him, her esophagus rupturing as she spat out a thin trail of blood. Chrysalis attempted to pay attention to the two open doors at the entrance to the throne room, but he was stricken by the sight of his queen in such a state. Queen Clavus had always appeared as impenetrable, immortal, almost godly...

Yet there she was, spitting up blood. Chrysalis could feel an ache in his wings, and it wasn't of exertion. He clutched the spear tighter before it could fall from his grip.

"Calm, my child," the queen spoke in a soft, soothing voice. Chrysalis still held the spear steady, as steady as he could, eyes shifting in each direction in an attempt to find the attackers who had so quickly fallen upon them. "They have accomplished what they meant to do. They are already gone."

She spoke with certainty, but how could she know for sure? Was it confidence, or... Chrysalis' eyes widened as he realised where Clavus had been struck. Right in the centre of her brilliant abdomen, and once again in the chest. Whatever words he might have had, they died in his throat, as there was little more room for life in that room.

It slowly began to dawn on Chrysalis that he'd reacted too late. Even remaining inert for a moment, gasping, not immediately springing from the ground and hunting down the attackers... he should have done more.

"Do you see now that there is no more fighting to be had?" the queen asked, her words sounding wisened beyond her years. She was a young, beautiful bastion of changeling civilisation, as timeless as art yet as revered as a God. Yet she bled. She bled and she wheezed, and her voice carried a rasp that told of her age, perhaps for the first time.

And it was Chrysalis that she spoke to. Plain, simple Chrysalis. The only other in the room that had been left alive, that had been unharmed. Had he simply not been noticed from his position behind the door, or had he been too insignificant to waste a bolt on? Chrysalis cast the thought from his mind, running to the door and screaming as loud as possible. "Healer! I need a healer here, now! The queen has been wounded!"

When the queen spoke again, her voice carried across the large room as if she was right next to Chrysalis. "I fear it is too late for that..." With a grim tone, she added: "More so, I fear there is no one in proximity that can hear you. I sense no life from the hive nearby."

Chrysalis wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't heard it from the queen herself. He finally dropped to the floor, fetlocks shaking and threatening to collapse in on themselves. "How... how could something like this have happened?" He wiped the gathering tears away, standing and walking to his queen with a dutiful gait. "No, it isn't too late. We can heal you. I... I don't know powerful magic, but I can try."

"The poison from this bolt has already set into my veins," Clavus said, tapping at her chest and wincing slightly. "There is nothing that can be done now." She wore a face not of fear, but of sympathy, and it both perplexed and moved Chrysalis at the same time. "I am sorry that you have to see me like this, my child."

Chrysalis had never spoken to the queen, not directly, but in her voice, her eyes, he felt a connection that quelled the fear in his chest, one that told him that despite the fact that all might feel as if it was lost, there was still some tiny scrap of hope, something that might curtail the rising hysteria. "Did you know that this would happen?"

"Creatures have been attempting to kill me for a very long time..." The queen smirked wickedly, beckoning Chrysalis closer with a slowly moving hoof. "It was only to be expected that one might eventually succeed... mourn the fallen around you, but do not mourn me only. Your loyalty must be to the hive, Chrysalis, always." Chrysalis stared at the queen, wide eyed, attempting to parse what very well might be her final words. "There is not much time, I am afraid..."

Chrysalis nodded frantically. "I can still find someone. I'll fly as fast as I can. A-a healer, a magician, anything! Please, Your Majesty, please let me try."

"You misunderstand me, child." The queen said with a voice that didn't scold, but gently directed, motherly and caring. "There is not much time for what must come next. The linking will begin soon, but it must happen before I am dead."

"Dead..." Chrysalis said the word slowly, as if he'd never heard it before. Truly, it was difficult attributing the concept to his queen. The idea of her dying was still so ridiculous in his mind that he was having trouble believing it. "What is the linking?"

"Ah, suppose the tales aren't spread as often now." The queen coughed, again motioning for Chrysalis to come forth. He did so hesitantly, placing his spear on his back. "Do you know how the hive has survived and prospered for as long as it has?"

"You," Chrysalis instantly responded. "You've been here to guide us for as long as any changeling remembers."

"But once, I was like you!" Clavus laughed, pointing directly at Chrysalis. "I was a drone like any other, and before me there was a queen, and before her, another... All wore the crown that sits upon my head."

"The crown..." Chrysalis didn't understand it. To think that there had been other queens wasn't ludicrous, but to imagine how long ago it must have been, how many ages might have passed since Clavus took the throne, how nations would have risen and fallen in the interim... One detail managed to stick in his head, bringing a question to his lips. "You weren't born this way?"

"I was born to serve the hive, as were you." Clavus answered, a smile about her. "Tell me, why did you not run when my praetorians fell? Each of them is ten times the warrior you are."

It wasn't offensive if it was true, and even if it was, Clavus made a good point. "I..."

"You valued the hive more than your own life. It is admirable, verily so. Not all changelings are so selfless, nor courageous."

Chrysalis shook his head. The conversation was so natural that the pant in his tone was beginning to vanish. It felt as if he was talking to another he had known his entire life, a mother he'd always had, not a ruler on her deathbed. "I'm not courageous. I was scared for my life when you were struck... I still am, even if you say they're gone. I'm scared that you will pass, I'm scared that I'll die soon after... I'm scared of a lot of things."

"And yet you stay with the fragile, dying queen." Clavus wore a smile that told Chrysalis that he had lost. "It is the fear that makes you courageous, and that is a quality I value above most others." For a moment, the queen was silent, and Chrysalis could only watch with awe as the crown on her head began to glow. The four green orbs on the end became bright and filled with colour, and a magical throb discharged and emanated across the queen's entire body. "Oh my, it has begun already. Chrysalis, my dear, my child... when I remove the crown, you must take it. You are to take my place, it is the only way."

Chrysalis could have swore he misheard. His heart rate doubled, his eyes bugged, and he looked at the queen as if she had gone mad. "M-me?! But I don't know the first thing about being a ruler! I... I can't be like you!"

"You will learn..." Clavus leaned forwards in her throne, placing a hoof on Chrysalis' wither, still warm with the breath of fleeting life. "I can see now, you will make an excellent ruler. The hive has always had a queen..."

"B-but there are others more experienced!" Chrysalis protested, waving his hooves around. "There are leaders and warriors that would bring our people to glory! Not me!"

"The crown has chosen you," the queen stated simply. Her sentences were becoming shorter, her breaths deeper. "Others there may be... but they are not here." A hollow breath, a cough. "You are the only one who can bear this burden. The crown must have a link..."

Chrysalis felt on the verge of hyperventilation. He felt a presence touch his withers, and he knew from Clavus' glow that it came from her horn. The magic calmed him, brought him to focus, and spent the last of the queen's energy.

She removed the crown, placing it in Chrysalis' hooves, who took it wordlessly, stunned from speech. Chrysalis stared down at the thing. It was simple, innocuous, only grand for what it symbolised, sitting at the head of the most important changeling in Equus. And now it stood freely, cold and metallic to the touch, like polished chitin.

"Use the crown... Save our people..." The voice was old and gravelly. Chrysalis looked up, and to his horror, he found the queen to be no longer young, no longer beautiful, but ancient and wasting. Her body looked as if it had seen a million moons, her voice was as rough as sandpaper, and she'd halved in size. The old changeling matriarch held out a hoof, and Chrysalis took it wordlessly. "Thank you for being here in the end, Chrysalis... I place my trust in you. I place the hive's trust in you."

She spoke no more after that. Her breaths grew shorter, and eventually, they ceased.

Chrysalis may have cried, but he did so softly. He may have screamed, but he clutched the queen's hoof all the while. He may have dropped the crown in his anguish, but it remained beside him throughout his mourning, as brief and as transient as it could be.

And when he touched the crown again, it glowed and resonated against his hoof.

The next couple of days were a blur for Chrysalis.

He'd gone for help as soon as he felt able, but he was listless, weak. By the time he'd found other changelings, they already realised that something was wrong. Despite them not knowing of the events that had transpired, some intrinsic connection that they'd had their whole lives, that they'd always taken for granted but never truly acknowledged, was gone.

Calamity gripped the hive as high council members bled every piece of information they could regarding the attack from Chrysalis, the only surviving witness. When the queen was discovered, it was assumed that the poison in the bolt had disfigured her body alongside killing her. None of them seemed aware of what had kept her young.

And Chrysalis knew. Yet for some reason that escaped him, he said nothing. The queen had entrusted him with the crown. She had told him that it was linked to him now, that he was the one that had to rule. Yet, in the throes of confusion and chaos, he could bring himself neither to divulge this fact and reveal that he had it in his possession, nor to put on the damned thing and attempt to rule, out of fear of being called a liar or told he was otherwise unfit.

He'd believe it. He still couldn't come to grips with the fact that he of any had been chosen, whether it was a necessity of circumstance or not.

An extremely inquisitive changeling grilled him above all others. She was Fascia, a renowned general that had been combating pony forces towards the northern side of changeling borders for over a year now. She was seen by many as a great hero.

"You saw no faces?" she asked once again, eyes firmly on Chrysalis, who squirmed in his seat, eyes long dried.

"I didn't see anything. One minute, everything was normal. The next, it was crazy. The queen had been hit, her guards were dead. I think I only survived on a fluke." Chrysalis had explained this multiple times already, but still Fascia had found multiple ways to rephrase the question, as if she was looking to trip him up.

"And the crown? How has it come to be missing if you saw no one?"

"It crumbled," Chrysalis lied. "When the queen died, it fell apart. No one took it, no one even came into the room." He'd stashed it in his room already, hidden it as best he could, and he could only hope that no one would come to check. Should they, he could only imagine the punishment he'd receive for lying in such a delicate situation, even if he believed himself to be doing the right thing.

"I see..." Fascia hung her head, showing the first sign of emotion since she'd sat down. She rubbed a hoof at her eyes, stalling her speech before looking at each of the other council members present. "The hive will soon realise that the queen is dead. I can already feel the upset in my body, I'm sure you all can too."

And she was right. Chrysalis could feel an emptiness gnawing at him, like hunger but more transparent, an absence of mind where there had once been sanity and fluid grace of thought. It felt as if it would eat him from the inside out, as if spiders crawled along his brain.

"What if one of our more skilled infiltrators were to take her place?" an old, gnarled changeling asked. "We could attribute the mental unease to some external element, a scapegoat, if only to mitigate the upset that is sure to ensue."

"You would have us lie to our people?" Fascia spat, reeling around to face him. "We do not deceive our own, that we reserve for the prey." She shook her head once. "Your plan, Pedicel, as rashly thought out as it is, would never work. The moment that a single changeling figured out what was wrong, even if it took months, they could alert the entire hive, and then who would they turn on? The false queen, and us, the changelings that put her there."

"If it was indeed a skilled infiltrator, it could take a very long time for another to realise," Pedicel responded plainly. "And if they did, we would discredit them, eliminate them if necessary. Whatever it takes to uphold the illusion, to prevent Celestia from marching her armies through our borders and kicking the castle's doors down."

"How twisted are you, old one, that you would even consider slandering and murdering our people for the sakes of upholding a shaky lie?!" Fascia advanced on him, and he instantly shrunk back. "We will do no such thing. If a solution does not arise in short order, then we will have to be honest with our people. As much of the truth as we can afford to give without inciting a full-blown panic. No matter what, the changelings will survive."

Chrysalis sat and listened as the two of them dueled with their words, and the entire time, it continued to remind him of just how dire the current situation was. While he was withholding information, these changelings, the hundreds of thousands of others in their kingdom? They were all being affected by what had transpired, all of them would be. The coming days would change the entire kingdom in ways that Chrysalis couldn't even fathom.

And while he sat, quiet and unassuming, he realised that he might be the centre of it all.

Chrysalis was incredibly tired by the time he returned to his room after questioning. The whole time, no one had even thought to accuse him of having done the deed himself. And why would they? They could see him for just what he was, a simple drone entrusted with mid-level tasks. A benefit to the hive, but no great warrior or trickster, no assassin. There was no way in hell that he would have been able to thwart the queen's guards, let alone her. Whoever had done this, they were incredibly skilled, that hadn't been a question from the beginning.

And there had been much debate over who might have been the killer.

Many suspected the pony princess, Celestia, but many still defended her. The changeling nation had had its conflicts with ponykind for many generations, but under the rules of Celestia and Clavus alike, ceasefires had been established over an extremely long period of time. Talks had begun, and for a fair amount of time, it had seemed as if peace might have been a possibility.

The problem was that not all ponies embraced peace. While many sided with their ruler, a faction to the north of Equestria formed with no trust for changelings as their common philosophy, patrolling Clavus' borders tightly and inciting occasional skirmishes. The changelings responded in kind, and for over two years now, a small war has been fought between these dissidents and the changelings of Clavus' empire.

Celestia claims to have no involvement in their actions, yet has done nothing to forcefully prevent their raids either. It's said by some that while she doesn't care for the attacks, that she doesn't wish to end Equestrian lives in order to save changelings. Others say she's convinced that the changelings on Chrysalis' side of the border attack just as often.

And so no changeling truly knows her stance. Does that make her capable of assassination, even indirectly? Potentially. Does it make the ponies that choose to attack freely far more capable? In Chrysalis' mind, certainly.

But that still made no sense to him. Clavus' throne was designed to detect and prevent pony magic, yet if the assailants had indeed been ponies, they'd clearly been unaffected. The notion of betrayal from within her own kingdom was a possibility, but wouldn't Clavus have had a suspicion?

Her words travelled back to Chrysalis hauntingly. When asked if she knew that this would happen, Clavus had answered so indirectly... Had she meant for this to happen? Did she simply know it was unavoidable, or was there something bigger in play?

Every time Chrysalis attempted to wrap his head around the situation, he became more stuck than before. He was tired, he was upset, his mind ached with the lack of his queen's presence... He needed to sleep, but it escaped him. For a day and a night he laid in his bed, drifting into stagnant dreams and waking to a world the same as before, save the shifting of the sun in the darkened sky. It didn't hit this part of the world like it did Equestria, which many said was Celestia's doing.

Changelings said a lot of things.

Conspiracies and worries began to bleed into reality for Chrysalis, and all the while, he was intimately aware of the crown under his bed. It glowed with an ethereal presence, one that he could feel even when he was sure he shouldn't have. It called to him, almost, and once he couldn't take the pressure of its whines any longer, he finally unwrapped the thing from its hiding place and held it in his hooves once more.

And again, it glowed. The orbs at the end of its tendril-like points shone bright green, a healing, radiant colour, and Chrysalis found it difficult to take his eyes away. He wondered if it would do the same for any other changeling, but he was sure he was the only one that could feel the crown. There were many that slept in rooms adjacent to him, after all, above, below, and to the sides. If he could feel it from fifty paces away, surely they could all as well, and someone would have come to look by now if that was the case.

But it wasn't. For whatever reason, it seemed that fate had been strange enough to land him with this burden, a royal crown that was inexplicably tied to him.

And he had no clue what he was meant to do with it.

"Use the crown, save our people." Chrysalis repeated the words as if they were meant to accomplish something, but besides its glow, the crown remained perfectly inert. Annoyingly so, even. Suppose the queen hadn't had time to explain its use, considering how close to death she was, but Chrysalis could only assume he was meant to take up her mantle, to be a ruler as she was.

But he didn't have her powers, her longevity, her knowledge or wisdom. She only said that he would learn, but how? Even the council seemed completely divided, and as if most of them had no clue how to deal with the queen's death, doubtful they could teach him. The rest of the hive was worse. There was unrest already, and many of Chrysalis' brothers and sisters seemed disturbed, almost ravenous. He feared what might happen if the issue wasn't quelled quickly.

And he knew he was meant to do something about it. He'd been entrusted with it by Clavus after all. He'd been told that he was the only one who could do it now. And the only clue he had was this crown, which he'd been studying in his hooves for minutes now.

He tried to cast a spell on it, to detect the magic that resided within. No luck. Not even a slight indication as to its power, its purpose. Was it just meant to serve as a glorified lamp for him? Was he meant to swing it at his attackers like some sort of misshapen club and dominate the rest of the hive in that manner?

Unfortunately, magical crowns didn't come with instruction manuals.

The only thing he hadn't tried yet was the most obvious, but by process of elimination, it was beginning to seem as if it was what he'd have to do. He was reluctant to put the crown on. The thought of it alone seemed to besmirch the queen's memory, to even think that he was worthy of placing it upon his head. It would also confirm to him that he was considering going down this path, a leap he didn't yet feel ready to take.

Yet nothing else would work, it seemed, and time was short. Chrysalis took the crown in hoof, ignoring the glow, and slowly began to place it upon his head. He felt silly doing so, as if he was playing at being a ruler in some kind of personal fantasy, but as he finally let go, the crown resting firmly atop him, he realised once again that everything that was occurring was completely and utterly real.

The transformation was swift and fucking terrifying.

Chrysalis only realised that anything had changed when he saw how far he now stood from the floor. At least twice as far, his legs were much longer. In fact, his... everything was larger. Stumbling over to a mirror, adjusting to the slender legs, which felt almost eerily natural to him almost instantly, he took in his appearance with a shock that parted his lips and refused to let them shut.

He looked like Queen Clavus. The youth, the flowing mane, the height, and the... female attributes. Holy... he was female. He was a goddess damned female. A really beautiful one, reminiscent of the queen, with the same height and stature, the regal poise, the subtle curves...

It freaked Chrysalis out immensely. He—no, she took a step back in shock, spreading her wings, and only then did she realise that they too had grown in size to a magnificent span. She checked her door in a haste, being sure that it was firmly closed, then went back to marvelling at herself in the mirror.

To think that the crown had the capability to transform a changeling in such a way... this must have been why Clavus looked so different when she died! That was... harrowing, to say the least, but fascinating all the same!

The longer she admired her reflection, intrigue mixing with fear, the more she began to notice that something else was beginning to occur... a dormant part of her mind was waking up. It was filled with questions, but posed answers. It held knowledge and intuition that she'd never dreamt of. It separated her from the hive, put her a step above them.

Chrysalis felt... individual. No, more than that, she felt as if she was brushing against the apex of her mind, something she'd never even realised was there until she managed to dip a hoof into the water, and now she only felt encouraged to drink. But there was more there. Her thoughts drifted as she attempted to become at least basically acquainted with the particulars of her own mind, and in her search, she found something that terrified and amazed her more than anything had before.

She could feel them. All of them. Every single changeling in the hive held a presence in her mind, yet she could barely tap into it, she didn't know how. She felt as if they completed her, as if a small part of her shared in their struggles, their triumphs. She felt love for them...

But she also felt their pain, and the further she dived, the more she attempted to parse the individual thoughts of each changeling, the more they swirled and spiraled out of control, becoming hotter and more powerful with each passing moment until her head began to sear from the contact.

She attempted to withdraw from them, but she didn't know how. Panting, desperate, she closed her eyes, firing up her horn and flinging the crown from her head, causing it to land on the bed behind her. The voices stopped, finally.

And Chrysalis was a normal, male drone again. He stared at the crown in utter disbelief. To think that this had been what Clavus had meant when she said to use the crown, that it held such transformative properties...

Would she too be able to tap into its power? Is that what Clavus had done? She only wished she could ask more questions, but she knew it to be an impossibility. All that Chrysalis understood was that he had somehow awakened a part of him that was more than just him, yet the moment he took the crown off, it ceased to be.

When he wore it, something inside of him made him feel as if he was a ruler, a queen. Not an experienced queen, and definitely not one that understood the intricacies of the crown they wore, nor the world they were faced with, but a queen nonetheless.

The hive needed a queen. Chrysalis had been told this. He'd seen his people, he believed it.

But the pounding of his heart told him that he wasn't ready to be that queen, not yet. If he failed, if he made a mistake, he could only make things worse for the entire hive, and any trust that had been placed in him would be for nothing.

But by that same notion, could he sit idly by either? If he was faced between the options of doing nothing and hoping that things would improve without him or attempting to rise to the task only to potentially make things worse, which was the most selfish option? Was it only his fear that was preventing him from taking the plunge?

And if he was to wear the crown, what would he do? He knew nothing of how to rule... would the crown, would that part of his female, queenly mind help him? Would it show him how to rule, and who to trust? Would it teach him the rights and wrongs of the world, or lead him down a dark path?

Chrysalis only had an inkling of the world's state of affairs. He'd lived in a bubble for so long that the thought of waking up now was alarming, scary. If he was to rule, he'd have to arm himself with both a knowledge and understanding of the world around him. Only then could he truly lead his people.

That, and he'd have to get used to having a vagina. That was going to be weird.