Slowly, a small, weak and scared changeling child stepped through the door, her eyes blindfolded and her horn cut clean off from her scalp. Definite blood stains remained, starting on her forehead, and sliding down her face, passed the eyes and onto her neck. She’d been bruised as well; all over her body, on her hooves and ribcage, puffy red blotches coated her ill treated body, but mostly around her cheeks and muzzle.

She was led in by one of the guards roughly holding her with his magic wrapping around the neck. He snarled, then released her by pushing the mare to the hard ground. Upon her hitting the floor, her mother shed a tear. It serenely slid down and dangled on her chin for a second, then landed on the terrain. Just when she thought there wasn’t any way to release anymore tears, this proved her wrong.

Chrysalis could do nothing but watch as her own child’s blinders were removed once she stood, and to the queen’s shock, she’d been missing her left eye. Chrysalis huffed briefly with her mouth opening and stared at her kin without any idea as to what she could say at this point.

It became suddenly silent in the dreary room. All that she and her kid heard was Commander Static trotting back and forth, inspecting the two changelings as they both gazed at each other. She came close behind the child and ordered the guard, “I have this now. You may leave us.”

He bowed, turned around and left without another word. As for Chrysalis, she felt compelled to approach her little wounded survivor and hug her tightly, maybe more than what would’ve been healthy for her, but she didn’t. Chrysalis remained staring in shock, unable to think very clearly.

The commander latched onto Queen Chrysalis’s young one, withdrew her dagger and brought it up to the changeling’s neck, poking it gently with the very tip. “I’ve had just about enough,” Static said coldly. “You know how long it’s been? A good few weeks since we found this one in the forest... Tell me, your majesty, can she talk?”

Chrysalis remained silent, determined not to speak a word.

“... Very well,” the commander said, her eyes closing slightly. “If you don’t talk, I’ll spill her blood before you.” This got the mother’s attention rather quickly. She looked into the eyes of her torturer, glanced down at the threatened filly and thought about it for a moment, not really able to piece the puzzle together. “Ugh,” Commander Static grunted. “Look, I don’t want to kill her, and you don’t want it to die, right? Are you even thinking about the high possibility that she could be the last of your kind?”

A brisk shiver ran through the mare’s spine, but still, she stayed quiet. It was true that time had passed by so much, her other three sons and daughters might’ve lost the battle my then, and that would mean this could be the very last of all her little ones. To know and understand the possibilities was becoming too great for her to handle.

The dagger seeped its summit into the filly’s coat allowing a line to slide down the sheath of the blade and drip on the floor. “Well?”

Chrysalis blinked, and silently whispered, “Her name is Coad... and she’s only four years old.”

Static kept the dagger where it was, looked down at the trembling filly and asked, “Can’t she speak? She makes verbal sounds during interrogation, but she doesn’t talk at all, or have you actually trained your children to resist our methods?”

Chrysalis shook her head. “It’s like you don’t know anything... She’s not a mute, she’s just too young to speak. She probably has no idea what’s going on.”

The dagger was removed and placed back in its holder. As for Commander Static, she couldn’t decide to believe this or not. “So we’ve been dealing with a literal infant, something that can’t even form a single word...”

Chrysalis looking into Coad’s single eye, gulped, and admitted, “Yes...”

“Well,” the mare said. “... When there’s nothing for it, you haven’t a choice but to turn towards the only possible resolvement. Tell me where the kids are, or this one dies.”

It’s tough, making a choice that only has one logical answer, and no alternative. If Chrysalis chose the three over the one, it’s still very likely the others had died by then, which meant if this one sitting before her died, she’d throw away everything she clenched to for hope. It was heartbreaking for her, to have no way out of deciding the fate of her loved ones like this, but just as Commander Static stated, there was nothing for it. “... They’re in a cave, just passed the pond where you found me...”

Static squinted her eyes and crept closer to Queen Chrysalis, looked into her teary eyes and threatened, “If you’re bluffing, and we find nothing, your child dies.”

With another nod of her head, Chrysalis lowered her sight to stare at the ground. As for Commander Static, she left the room with the child inside, and the queen crying, just as what was expected of her. As Coad slowly limped to her mother, Chrysalis wiped away some of her tears, held onto the only remaining bloodline child she’d seen in a very long time, and weeped along with the abused pony.

Meanwhile, Commander Static assembled her forces outside the front gate. Their target was simple, and each knew to kill the second they found what they were looking for. No mercy was to be shown. Nopony in the group cared if what they were doing was wrong. Nothing but eagerness for revenge could be sensed by them. No hope could be given to the children in the cave by their mother, either.

Eventually, the doctor would come to escort Chrysalis back to her cell, and to do the same with Coad. However, the very little time Queen Chrysalis got with her surviving kin was enough for her to find some sort of peace. To know at least one would live was enough to sate the worrying within her aching heart, if only for a brief time.

Author's Note

Coauthored with RainbowBob