Three ponies, one of crystal and two pegasi, wound their way slowly through the caverns underneath the Canterhorn. The darkness was almost palpable on their coats, but the lights of the Elements kept the worst of it at bay; around the neck of the crystal unicorn rested the Element of Magic, wrought in silver and amethyst and onyx. Around the neck of the midnight blue pegasus sat Loyalty and the unbound Element of Honesty, whose bearer had fallen to Discord. Around the neck of the white pegasus hung the Element of Kindness – and the broken, unbound Element of Laughter, whose traitorous bearer had become the very monster that had shattered its new bearer’s heart, and the tranquility of the world.
As they came to yet another junction in the tunnels, the white pegasus known formally as Celestia and as Sunny Skies to her friends, sighed, and touched the foreign Element. Discord had gone wrong, somehow – and now Chrysalis had fallen as well. Chrysalis still bore her own Element – Generosity – but both it and the corrupted unicorn herself were now hidden deep within the tunnel network, which had lain unmapped by the earth pony villagers on the mountain’s surface. “Too dangerous,” they had said. “Not worth the effort. Not enough crystals. Bad idea to go anywhere near.”
She stared at the three gaping maws of the new batch of tunnels and was forced to consider that perhaps the earth ponies had actually had a bit of sense. She’d been stupid – she was a pegasus! What the buck did she think she knew about rocks?
“I would suggest we take the tunnel on the left,” Sombra said from behind Sunny. “It looks most likely.”
“Thou didst say that for the last three junctions,” Starry – Luna, to the Apella in Pegasopolis – snorted.
“We’re not dead yet, are we?” Sombra asked with a smile. After a few moments, Starry too rolled her eyes and grinned.
“It’s likely all three of us will end up dead if you do not shut up,” Sunny hissed, shooting an angry look back at them. “If Chrysalis and her allies hear us before we are prepared to activate the Elements, what chance of success this plan has will vanish in an instant!”
“My apologies,” Sombra bowed his head slightly. “Though my suggestion still stands. The leftmost tunnel seems to angle downwards more steeply than the others.”
Sunny considered this; it did seem to be true. The left tunnel sloped almost imperceptibly more steeply than the others, and appeared shorter too – thanks to the exorbitant number crystals lining the cave walls (the earth ponies had been wrong on that count, at least), their lights bounced much further and revealed much more than they otherwise would. The end of the left tunnel was close, and dark – signifying a cavern, most likely, with room to maneuver in a fight and room to purge her natural claustrophobia if no parasites presented themselves.
“Left it is,” she decided, and trotted in that direction.
Halfway down the tunnel, Starry drew up alongside her, a nervous look on her face. She seemed to want to say something, but was holding back – and in the most obvious manner possible, the way she did only when she wanted Sunny to take the responsibility for saying it out of her hooves. It was a game between sisters, and Sunny knew she wasn’t always the one being targeted by such ploys.
“Yes, sister?” she prompted gently.
“Art…art thou certain Chryssy hath fallen?” she asked in a low voice. “She hath never struck me as one who would gather power to herself for selfish gain. While I accept the logic of the argument that she was seduced by promises of immortality or worship as a goddess, we – I¬ – have been thinking, perhaps, that…she may have learned something more than what we know of this species?”
Sunny frowned. “Sombra, get up here, please.”
The young Duke of the Onyx Cliffs appeared on Sunny’s left. “Yes, my friend?”
“Of what were you and Starry speaking earlier?” she asked irritably. “And recall, dear friend, how I told you not to say anything that might conflict Starry and cause her Element to falter?”
“Ah. Yes, I may have let my tongue slip…” he replied sheepishly. “Er…we were discussing how little is known of the Changelings as a species and a society. Starry brought up her own doubts as to Chrysalis’s defection.”
Sunny sighed. “Sister, I – “
“Thou wert attempting to keep me ignorant,” Starry accused. “Thou didst doubt my ability to use my Element on a friend.”
“It was not – “
“Element of Loyalty I may be, dear sister, but Element of Stupidity I am not,” she continued angrily. “Loyalty is not blind at all times. If Chrysalis hath truly fallen into darkness as Discord did, then I will not hesitate to aid thee – but I must know if she truly hath become evil.”
“To my knowledge, Chrysalis has fallen, yes,” Sunny confirmed. “I simply didn’t want any potential flaws for her to exploit. You know her – she has a knack for words and a deviousness only Discord could match easily.”
They entered the cavern. The immense darkness seemed to swallow their light as they were dwarfed by the vast space. Their very footsteps echoed for what seemed like forever. For the first time, a potential flaw in her brilliant frontal-assault plan came to Sunny’s attention.
“Sombra,” she whispered, so as to prevent an echo. “How are we going to find our way out again?”
“I have been maintaining an old Minotaur spell for the duration of our trip – the Thread of Ariadne,” he assured her. “Once Chrysalis has been petrified, it will be simple enough to find our way back to the surface.”
“Thank you, Sombra,” she said, and let out a breath she’d unconsciously been holding. That should have been the first thing she’d thought about when plotting this mad scheme – was there anything else obvious she’d missed? Had she already doomed them to failure through some minor oversight?
Her wings itched suddenly. She suppressed the urge to just leap into the air and fly around in circles, instead settling for a sedate hover. Panic attacks were most easily countered by the simple rush of defying gravity, she’d found, and soon enough she was thinking clearly again – clearly enough to consider flaw number two.
“Do we know where she is?” Sombra asked, his question mirroring her thoughts perfectly. “Theoretically, she could just let us wander around in the dark until we starved or gave up.”
“Ah, but what manner of hostess would I be if I did that?”
The cavern suddenly lit up, the immense panes of crystal that were its walls suddenly coming alive with magical images of Chrysalis’s face. The sight horrified Sunny – before, Chrysalis had been a white unicorn mare with a green mane; not an exceptional beauty, but far from ugly. Now, it looked like she’d been caught in the middle of a horrific shaving accident. Most of what was visible was her face, but even that was bad enough. Her coat had become patchy and fallen out over the left side of her face, revealing black chitin; the eye on the same side had become solid and compound and glowed a bright blue. Her horn seemed to have elongated slightly and developed a strange kink in it. Worst of all, though, the entire right side of her face remained almost pristine – showing exactly what she’d lost already, and what she had yet to lose as her metamorphosis progressed.
Chrysalis grinned, revealing a pair of stubby wolf teeth. As near as Sunny could tell, it wasn’t a predatory or evilly saccharine sort of grin – the Element of Generosity seemed genuinely happy to see them, and that worried her.
“Has news traveled this fast already?” Chrysalis asked, pleased. “Incredible! Nobody down here thought ponies even cared about us, but it seems royal news can reach royal ears no matter the obstacles.”
“Art thou referring to any event in particular?” Starry asked, puzzled. Chrysalis’s grin shrank slightly.
“Oh…perhaps I was mistaken, then,” she allowed. “The coronation, of course! My new children were insistent on having one. You’re all invited, naturally – I’m afraid the reception won’t be much, since we don’t have much in the way of organic food down here, but the party will be amazing! Discord himself couldn’t throw a better one – especially now, being encased in stone and all.”
“What spell are you using to communicate with us?” Sombra asked curiously. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Of course, you wouldn’t treat a coronation as a big deal, O duke. I don’t mind – you are a friend, and I would prefer to keep those once I am Queen of the Swarm. Changelings aren’t the best conversationalists yet, so I’ll need somepony to talk to. Perhaps I’ll even be able to talk down to you, Sombra! After all – after tonight, I’ll be royalty, and on a much more equal social footing. Perhaps I won’t be able to find a suitable husband in you – I believe I missed that opportunity ages ago – “
Out of the corner of her eye, Sunny saw Starry blush. She gave her sister a questioning look, but Starry averted her eyes.
Chrysalis gave them a surprised look. “Starry…am I to take your reaction to mean Sunny remains unaware of your relationship with…” Starry nodded, still looking off into the darkness. Sunny glanced over at Sombra, and oddly enough he seemed to be just as embarrassed. “This is perhaps a poor time to ask, but is there a chance for a – “
“Just under a year’s time,” Starry admitted, and Sunny felt her eyes widen in shock.
“You…you are expecting a foal?” she asked, stunned. Starry nodded again. “And…you were with Sombra?”
“We married nearly three months ago,” Sombra explained. “But perhaps now is not the best time to discuss this?”
Sunny shook her head, trying to clear the surprised fog that had settled over her mind. “Right, of course. We shall discuss this later.” She shot a look at Starry again. “We shall discuss this later, Starry. But for now, we have other matters to deal with.”
“Really? And what might those be?” Chrysalis inquired. “If you need somewhere to settle this issue quietly, I’m sure I could find a cave for you before the coronation, if that’s the problem. I find it difficult to think of what other matters there could be down here at the heart of the mountain…unless…”
Chrysalis’s eyes widened as another reason why the two most vocal ponies in support of a united Equestria and a Duke from the Crystal Empire might have brought the most powerful magical artifacts known to ponykind down to the largest population center of the species that parasitized them occurred to her.
“No! You will not harm our children!” she snapped. “Take the Elements and leave us!”
“Chrysalis – “
“Silence, Starry Skies!” she sneered. Her half-pony visage was made even worse by the look of hatred that had sprung to it. “How could you even consider betraying us like that? We may be parasites, but I am your friend, and I rule the Changelings now! We cannot control our biology – emotions are our food supply, and ponies our main source of them – but I would have thought the Bearer of Loyalty would take a bit more than politics to turn on a friend!”
“Chrysalis, listen to yourself!” Sunny shouted. “You speak as if you were one of them! You’re a pony, not a parasite, and our friend! Please, surrender and come back with us!”
“And that is where you are wrong, Sunny Skies,” Chrysalis smiled – a half-smile, with only the chitinous half of her face. “We are the Queen of the Changelings – and to be Queen, one must be a Changeling.”
“Sunny!” Sombra cried. He met her gaze and there was fear in his eyes. “She’s under the effect of a metamorphic spell!”
“Did you just now figure that out, brother-in-law?” she spat, mustering all of her exasperation. “I was under the impression you were supposed to be the wizard here, and therefore recognize such spells faster than mere pegasi!”
“Metamorphic spells are incredibly complex and difficult to cast!” he protested. “It was more reasonable to assume she was disguised by an illusion or temporary transmogrification, especially given what I know of her magical talent.”
“Fortunately, the skill of my children easily compensated for that,” Chrysalis interrupted smugly. “I will give all of you one last chance: leave now, or we will take the necessary measures to protect our Hive.”
“Sunny – “ Sombra started, but she spoke over him.
“We aren’t leaving without you, Chrysalis!” she declared. “Come peacefully and we can all walk out of these caves with our friendship intact.”
“You leave me no choice,” the Changeling Queen sighed. The crystal panes darkened as her image faded from them, and once more the only illumination in the cavern came from the Elements themselves.
“Well, that went well,” Sunny growled. “Now we’ll have to search for her ourselves, and figure out how to reverse a metamorphic spell.”
“We could have reasoned with her, you fool!” Sombra snapped. “She was nowhere near Discord’s level – “
“Odd, that you would suggest communication to solve our problems,” Sunny interrupted, her voice sugary sweet, “when you conspired with my sister to keep your marriage secret from me!”
“We intended to tell you – “
“When? After your foal was born?”
“Sister! Husband!” Starry hissed. “Still thy voices and listen.”
The urgency in Starry’s tone silenced them both for a few precious moments – and in the silence, Sunny heard the scratching of Changeling hooves on stone.
And it was coming from everywhere.
“Buck,” she swore.
“Perhaps we should – “ Sombra started.
And then a hundred furious Changelings leapt into the light with murder in their eyes.
* * *
Three hours later, Sunny was hopelessly lost.
She stumbled around another wax-lined corner – maybe even the same wax-lined corner she’d turned before – and could feel every scratch, bite mark, and bruise the initial attackers had inflicted on her. She’d lost track of Sombra and Starry somewhere back around the third wave of Changelings, and now the only lights shining in the darkness of the Changeling tunnels were the pink of Kindness and the blue of Laughter. Several times, it almost felt like Discord was there beside her again, ready with a friendly joke about the décor or the prolificness of Changelings.
Then, she’d remember their last meeting, and any trace of good humor she’d managed to salvage would be crushed beyond repair.
A pane of crystal came into view in her dome of light, and Chrysalis’s face appeared on it like it had been waiting for her. “Left at the next junction if you want to find me!” she sang, and the face faded. It was almost certainly a trap, but at this point Sunny didn’t have a lot left to lose or to go on. She skidded around the corner, galloped to the next T in the tunnels, got her hoof stuck in a patch of new wax and tripped, and made a left.
The ceiling above her flickered with her former friend’s features. “Straight ahead for the next two junctions,” she commanded. Sunny obeyed, ignoring the tunnels that yawned open on her left and right for the next two clusters of entrances, and skidded to a halt inside a large chamber similar to the ones they’d encountered earlier when coming down to the Hive. The walls were coated in black wax and studded with small green sacs that glowed with an eerie light. She hesitated, trying to determine which tunnel to take.
Down the rightmost tunnel, Chrysalis’s face appeared on a shard of quartz. “This way!”
At the end of that tunnel, Sunny found herself in a large tetrahedral room that was lit by a large blob of whatever filled the green lights from earlier that resided in a pool in the middle of the floor. Each side of the room had an archway on it, with a lit crystal embedded above them. As she watched, the crystals above all but the one to her left went out. Cautiously, she crossed the large space, sticking close to the wall and noting the utter lack of Changelings, and tried to edge through the archway. To her surprise, it was obstructed by some kind of membrane.
Above her, the crystal reflected a sliver of Chrysalis’s pony eye. “Push through,” she ordered. With some trepidation, Sunny obeyed. The membrane felt cool and slick, and left her coat and feathers feeling damp when she passed through – a truly awful feeling, especially on her wings. She’d need to dive into a river or something to properly clean herself now, instead of merely preening.
The room she found herself in after the membrane was hemispherical, rising into a dome nearly thirty feet above and almost two hundred across. Warm yellow lights dangled from the ceiling, and the floor was divided into four sunken quarters by a walkway that remained flush with the door’s base. The sunken areas were further subdivided into dozens upon dozens of hexagonal cells.
And, at the center of the chamber, Sunny could see Chrysalis.
“Is this your throne room?” Sunny shouted.
The crystalline floor beneath her feet flared to life. “Shhhh,” Chrysalis whispered. “You’ll wake the nymphs. Come closer to me and then we can talk.”
“And why would I want to talk?” she asked. Chrysalis’s image smiled.
“Because Starry was right,” she answered. From the look on her face, Sunny could tell she enjoyed her subsequent look of surprise. “The whole mountain is my Hive, Sunny! I hear everything that occurs within. The only reason you made it to that cavern was because I thought you were simply a friend coming to celebrate my coronation.”
“You thought wrong,” she said. “And now I’m alone in a room with you.”
“Alone?” Chrysalis chuckled. “I have my guards waiting in the wings for you to make one hostile move. In truth, though, I don’t want it to come to that – I want to talk with you, not murder you.”
The pane dimmed. Realizing she had no other options, Sunny started down the walkway towards Chrysalis, keeping her head on a swivel to try to pinpoint Changeling hiding spots. She couldn’t find any, until she looked down. Hidden amongst the cells, she realized, in the deeply shadowed crevices between hexagons, were Changelings – dozens of them, at least, all revealed by their bright eyes, and all eyes were fixed on her. The cells themselves were either covered or empty, and all of them were made of the same wax that coated the tunnels outside.
As she approached Chrysalis, more details of her ongoing transformation became apparent. It had started on her left side, definitely; that was where the worst of the damage was, besides her horn and the pair of stubby, insectlike wings that were starting to grow out of her back. Her height remained unchanged, though, and when Sunny came close to her – close enough to see the obliteration of her cutie mark, the deep wells that had formed on her legs and would soon become holes straight through, the translucency her mane and tail had taken on – she actually had an advantage; the top of Chrysalis’s head, minus the horn, only came up to Sunny’s forehead.
Chrysalis smiled happily. “Hello, Sunny. Welcome to the Hive.”
“What is it you wanted to speak to me about?” Sunny asked tiredly. “What new knowledge about Changelings have you discovered, Queen Chrysalis?”
“You like my new title?”
“It would have been better had you achieved your rank without forcing a species of parasites to serve you,” she replied. “What you have done is an inexcusable betrayal of your Element and your duty – a selfish power grab! Have you even thought about what a united Changeling race would mean for the Three Tribes? The Empire?”
“I have – it is an impact that I will be intimately involved with from now on,” Chrysalis answered. “And of my ‘power grab’? ‘Betraying my Element’? You only reveal your ignorance, Sunny – I did not force a single Changeling to obey me. They swore themselves to me willingly after I helped an injured harvester escape a lynch mob – an act of generosity and kindness that got me cast out from Unicornia for my trouble! I have not betrayed the Element of Generosity; instead, I have embraced it. I will give up my life to ensure these creatures have a future on Equis, and surrender my respect and status as an Element to ensure that my children will have food. Heavens know your precious Tribes wouldn’t want that.”
“They are parasites of emotion, Chrysalis, or did you forget that?” Sunny retorted. “Wherever they go, they leaved husks, ponies drained of personality and feeling and vibrancy. They ruin relationships just to get a meal for a day. They terrify the Tribes, the Empire – “
“And you?” Chrysalis interrupted. Sunny was silent for a moment, and that was all the confirmation Chrysalis needed. She sank back onto her haunches and stared across the rows of cells.
“What do you see in these monsters, Chryssy?” she wondered aloud. “They are hideous, they are cruel, and they are selfish. They are treacherous, faithless, and joyless. What would make you abandon your friends for them?”
“Wrong on all counts,” she snorted. “So ignorant, and yet presuming to judge an entire species for the necessary acts of a few.”
“Is it necessary to leave broken families strewn across Equestria and litter the slums with half-breeds – “
“Yes,” Chrysalis snapped. “Yes, it is, Sunny! Just as it is necessary for ponies to leave hoofprints hammered into apple trees and to reap fields of wheat. Emotions are our food – and those were the old ways of collecting them. There are other, less carnal ways of harvesting emotions, and those are the methods we will use. In the past, their feeding was…less than pleasant. From this point on, we will strive to do no permanent damage – to blend in, and take only what is necessary. It is necessary for our survival.”
Sunny shook her head sadly. “What can you see?” she repeated. Silence descended.
She heard a faint scratching sound from the cells she was watching. Curious, she hopped into the air and hovered over to where she’d heard the sound. Chrysalis, whose wings were useless for now, had to hop lightly from cell to cell until she had reached the sealed hexagon where the sound originated. As Sunny watched, fascinated, a tiny black hoof punched through the waxy coating. She dropped down to the cell beneath her as the newly hatched Changeling’s teeth punctured the seal as well, allowing her to rip off a small section of wax and spit it out. It took a few minutes, but finally the nymph managed to free herself and haul herself out to stand on what remained of the cap. She was tiny, and her legs were full of holes, and she had chitin and fly wings and no hair of any sort, but she still somehow managed to be adorable.
Chrysalis caught the look in Sunny’s eye and smiled. “This, Sunny, is what I see in them,” she said. “I see the future.”
Sunny sat on the cell and nodded. She could understand how this could be worthy of life, but what of when it matured? What families would be torn apart by its hunger?
The nymph glanced towards Chrysalis before buzzing its tiny wings and hopping over to Sunny’s cell. She looked straight up at Sunny’s face, her own face revealing a mixture of curiosity and innocence.
It’s adorable, Sunny thought. But it would be best for the Tribes if I just killed it.
The spines on the nymph’s head extended like a fin. Chrysalis’s eyes widened as she saw the nymph rear up, lean back, and swing herself forward. Sunny felt the sudden sting of the spines piercing her skin, a sensation like an electric shock –
And suddenly, for the barest of instants, she was the nymph, staring up in awe and fear at the huge white Other that had invaded the nest while the Queen watched, and deciding she liked the White Thing more than her. The vision and feelings passed as quickly as they had come, but the tiny thread of emotion the contact had left didn’t fade, even as the nymph curled up against her foreleg and fell asleep, secure in the knowledge that the White Thing wouldn’t hurt her.
To her surprise, Sunny realized she didn’t care as much about the Tribes anymore. They could all go hang, as far as she was concerned, if they ever tried to take this nymph away from her.
“You stole one of my hatchlings,” Chrysalis murmured. Sunny curled up protectively around the nymph almost without thinking – and it was the almost part that scared her. She had thought about what to do, and had rejected immediately the idea to hoof the nymph over.
“She chose me,” she responded defensively. “I think that makes her mine.”
Buck it, she thought. If Starry gets a foal, if Chrysalis gets a Hive, then I think I can keep one little nymph.
Besides – it was so pleasantly, chaotically unexpected, she knew Discord would have approved as well.
Chrysalis chuckled. “Attached already?”
“Yes,” she admitted, but then became suspicious. “You didn’t plan this, did you, Chryssy?”
“Listen to you; you found a nice nymph to raise and suddenly you’re all Kindness again,” she chuckled once more. “But no, I didn’t plan it – I couldn’t have planned it, or known how you would react, or known when the nymph was going to hatch…far too many variables. When I manipulate, I manipulate based on certainties.”
Sunny nodded, satisfied. She could feel the nymph curled around her foreleg; she hoped the cell beneath her didn’t hatch soon. She’d have to move then, and probably wake the nymph. Chrysalis cleared her throat.
“Even if I did not plan it, I would have to be a foal not to capitalize on it,” she grinned apologetically. “Would you be so kind as to call off Starry and Sombra? I can lead you straight to them and back to the surface, and all of us will come out of this situation smelling like roses.”
“Will I have to leave the nymph here?” she asked. Sadly, Chrysalis nodded. With a dejected sigh, she extricated herself gently from the nymph’s grasp. I’ll come back for you, she thought – and, to her shock, she felt the nymph respond; it was a weak, almost imperceptible response, and entirely emotional in nature. It came down the thread that had been left after their initial contact and ended inside Sunny’s own mind. It was love.
Reluctantly, she yielded the nymph to her friend, and realized that the question she’d often asked herself since Discord’s betrayal had just been answered; she knew what it took to make Kindness fall.
Chrysalis did as she promised, guiding Sunny back to Starry and Sombra in record time. The couple had been cornered in a garbage pit, surrounded by Changelings and remaining unharmed only through Sombra’s magecraft. The Changelings parted before her as she galloped up, perhaps at the command of the Queen, perhaps because they sensed the same familiarity in her that they did in Chrysalis. She explained what had happened in the hatchery, omitting the part about her own nymph, and told them – to their great relief – that Chrysalis hadn’t really fallen, after all.
* * *
They were led back up through the caverns for as long as there was a flat area of crystal for Chrysalis to reflect from. The sunlight was blinding after almost a day in the underground, and Sunny basked in its rays, knowing this would probably be the last chance she would have to enjoy the inspiration of her cutie mark for a long while. They took shelter in the village of Canterlot to rest and recuperate, and Starry and Sombra told her about their wedding.
When night fell and they had retired to their room for the night, Sunny slipped quietly out of her own room and took flight, easily slipping past the guards on the village palisade in the darkness of the new moon and returning to the mouth of the cave in half the time it had taken to get to Canterlot from it. To her surprise, she found Chrysalis waiting there already, flanked by a pair of Changelings wearing purple mantles. On the Queen’s back, she saw her nymph.
“She slipped away from me and dropped out of sight soon after you left, Sunny,” Chrysalis reported, smiling slightly. “We found her at the entrance to the Hive, sitting patiently and staring up the tunnel to the surface.”
Sunny circled around once overhead before swooping down and snatching her nymph off Chrysalis’s back, earning her an excited giggle from the young Changeling. Once the nymph had a secure grip on her wings, Sunny glided down to the ground and faced Chrysalis. She’d made her decision already, but somehow felt reluctant to say it out loud. It must have been obvious – Chrysalis picked up on it immediately.
“Would you like to come back to the Hive?” she asked.
Hesitantly, dozens of doubts and second-guesses springing up all of a sudden, Sunny nodded. She hesitated again as she prepared to take a step into the cave after Chrysalis – the most final plunge she could take – as her doubts threatened to send her flying back to the village, but it only took a single look at her nymph – her daughter – to clear them all away.
Author's Note
A one-shot after much time with neither update nor hiatus notice on my other story. Naturally my imagination produced many new ideas as soon as I updated the status on Rising Night. So...here's the one I've completed!
