Queen Chrysalis awoke in the forest, hungry and cold, just as she’d been for weeks. The smells of justly blooming flowers and the sounds of calm, though prosperous, birds chirping entered her ear, and brought the mare to lift her dizzy head. The children; her children, nearly each and every one of them had withered away and passed on to the next life. She and a few other barely lucky survivors were all that was left of the once full and populous changeling race.

Thanks to food depravity along with the burden of heavy sorrows, her very voice had broken, and she’d become unable to speak, not that there were any words that could properly explain her utter despair and grief. With every tiny movement came a crackled grunt from her dry lips, telling Chrysalis her time was all too close.

This is what happens when the beings known as changelings become so famished the way she and her kin did. It’d come to the point that her stomach could no longer growl. She couldn’t even hear it beg for food anymore. Her vision blurred with every watery blink, and she’d been running. For the longest time, the queen of the changelings and her remaining children had been running away from pursuers who wished to capture her and deliver the mare right to Princess Celestia herself. Chrysalis understood the alicorn of the sun wished nothing more than to dispose of her once and for all.

She never meant for things to turn out like this, to be despised and loathed by all. She could try all she wanted, plead her heart out for any type of forgiveness and attempt to explain that her doings were for nothing but the pointless hopes of keeping her loved ones safe and alive. However, to her, it would do no such good.

Queen Chrysalis was convinced she’d have no chance at redemption, no matter how hard she’d try, and is that such a crime? To hope for a mere chance at gaining friendship after trying to ensure protection of her children? The changelings were merely acting out as nature made them. True, to a degree, their actions were unjust, even criminal. Though when love is their only food supply, and without it, death would be the only outcome, they had little choice but to make a desperate attempt despite that becoming their ultimate downfall. Who could love something like a changeling freely, without fear, and without it needing to morph its body to steal the energy away? Very few.

If Chrysalis had the strength, she would’ve cried over her already fallen children that’d recently passed away, but there would never be enough tears for each of their deaths. So many had already been lost to fate’s cruel grip. Instead, she had no other option but to reflected upon her own looming day, a small comfort contained within that dark and fast approaching day being that hopefully, she’d be reunited with her dearly departed children.

They didn’t deserve to die like that, not to her, to slowly starve to death as their hunken corpses fell to the rough dirt one by one, right before her very eyes? She hadn’t a way to avoid witnessing such tragedies. All she could do was watch as nearly every one of them fell, all the while unable to do a thing about it. To her, there would never be a torture as horrible as that.

Her limbs felt like pure dead weight, too heavy to move as they held her firmly to the ground. She felt far too damaged to move, but she and her children needed a place to stay, somewhere safe to hide from the approaching storm. Thunder could be heard far off in the distance, but without a doubt in the queen’s head, it would reach them in no time at all. Her eyesight grew fuzzier, each blink weaker as her eyes threatened to remain closed, maybe even forever. Coughing with little strength left and still unable to form a simple word, she glanced around and sighed deeply at the three remaining changeling children that slept with skinny frames and shivering holed hooves. They had finally become scrawny enough that one could see their very rib cages quite clearly.

Sniffling and shaking her head, she painfully lifted her weakened body and just barely found the will to chant for them to get up as well. Each groaned in agony with every small step trotted, until finally, they all heard the sky roar as if in an uncontrollable rage. Chrysalis hurried her kin along side the bushes, feeling drops of liquid drip onto her mane and sensitive wings. She looked around hastily and quickened her pace along with the others. Soon, a moment of relief was gifted to her and the young ones she cared so much for.

They’d found shelter in a damp and foul smelling cave, almost too cramped for all four of them to fit in. She allowed her young ones to rest once more and observed them begin to form teary eyes. She gasped at the loud thunder outside and held her ringing ears thanks to the repeated thumps created by the downpour hitting the cave roof up above. Finding the ability to speak, she pleaded them, “Stay here, and I’ll be back with food... Perhaps I’ll find it from some forest animal, maybe... Either way, I won’t allow you, none of you to die... Not another.”

Their only feeble response was weak moans and desperate pleas for food and assistance. They had needs that she feared could not, nor would ever be satisfied again. Outside, gusts of powerful winds made from the dangerous storm blew her mane wildly and caused Chrysalis to sway in a crooked pattern. Her grunts of weakness became thoroughly muffled by the loud cracks of lightning and harsh slaps of water that intensely blocked her line of vision. She took one step at a time, blindly leading herself further into the fog of the Everfree Forest and without warning, Queen Chrysalis banged her head clear on a rock, not even noticing it was right in her path.

She immediately collapsed to the ground with all of her damp surroundings furiously spinning. Just before losing complete consciousness, a thought loomed through her mind. The image of her children, cold and alone, dying and whining for her help flashed before her pained eyes while she laid on the gravel, unable to lift her body, nor do anything to stop the world around her from whirling in ridiculous circles.

Author's Note

Coauthored with RainbowBob