The Golden Daughter

Smokejumper entered the cabin at the crack of dawn.

He gently eased open the wooden front door and peered through the narrow slit with one bright blue eye. The large mass of the female predator was lying on the bed. The regular intervals that the sheets rose and fell told him that she was still resting. He poked his head in further and nudged the door open a bit more with the handle of his axe. There was a loud creak as the door widened enough for him to fit his torso through.

Smokejumper paused and held the axe in his muzzle with wide eyes. He was halfway in the room and wasn’t at all prepared to defend himself if the wild monster tried to pounce on him. He held his breath and saw the sheets and linens begin to shuffle a bit, but they stopped moving and became still once more. The creature continued to gently breathe in slumber.

Smokejumper rolled his eyes and let out the breath he had been holding.

As he entered the room he noticed the wood-burning stove was burning low now and that the pot of stew that he would be finishing for breakfast was surely lukewarm at best. He tip-hoofed his way across the wooden boards of the one-room cabin, being careful to avoid each squeaky one as he did. He stopped in front of the stove and slowly eased the door open, lifting it from the iron hinges so they would not squeak. He moved to the side by the bed where the log pile was and began to inch a log off the top with a hoof. With delicate motions he wrapped a hoof around it and slid it into the open stove. He breathed awkwardly around the handle of the axe in his mouth as he concentrated on the dexterity needed to stand on his hind legs while holding the stove door open and moving a log.

A sharp pain like a bee sting struck Smokejumper on his rump. His muzzle opened wide and he squeaked in the most stallion-esque way possible. The axe fell from his jaws to clatter on the wooden floor between the logs and the stove.

Chrysalis giggled and held a hoof to her muzzle. “Oh, my. I didn’t know you were quite so vocal, Smokejumper.”

The pegasus whirled on the creature and bared his teeth defensively. “You stay right there, monster! I won’t be lettin’ my guard down around no vampony again!” He rose to his wings and began to hover just above the room on his hind legs. He held his forehooves up defensively and fluttered back and forth like a boxer.

Chrysalis tisked at the display of aggression and lit her horn. “Ah, ah, ah, we can’t have you getting all worked up so early in the morning. I have a busy day scheduled for us, after all.” With a flick of her glowing horn, Chrysalis brought the axe floating into the air and held it in front of Smokejumper.

The stallion paled at the sight and turned to quickly dash from his cabin.

Chrysalis grabbed the deep brown tail of the fleeing pegasus and yanked him back inside. Using the minimal amount of magical reserves she had collected from her assault the night before, she forced the stallion onto the bed and pinned him down.

Try as Smokejumper may, he was unable to break free from the larger and suddenly more powerful creature on him. “Do your worst vampony! I ain’t scared, and I ain’t goin’ down without a fight!” He flapped his wings defiantly and twisted against the pillow and sheets below him.

Chrysalis laughed as she held the stallion down on the soft mattress. “Oh, that’s a good one. I haven’t been called that in ages. But, since you’re being so candid with me, I think I will be candid with you.” Chrysalis leaned forward and brushed her cheek slowly against the stallion below her. Her forked tongue extended to lick up his neck and along the edge of his ear. She whispered, “I’m not a vampony.”

Smokejumper stiffened at the sensation in more ways than one. He silently cursed himself for his unfortunate response but pressed on. “You got fangs, and you want to bite my neck. Why else would you want to suck my blood? Vampony, that’s why!” He began to struggle once more, attempting to use his wings to roll himself side to side and come out from under the pinning hold.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and sniffed at the unwashed fur of the stallion below her. He was absolutely festering in restrained desire. “Oh, my little pony, you’re so very wrong. You’ll never guess so I’ll just tell you,” She leaned close to his ear and breathed directly into the furry flap as it twitched. “I’m a changeling. And there’s only one thing I suck.” She licked her fanged lips lewdly.

Smokejumper didn’t notice the gesture as he searched through his vast knowledge of strange and fictional creatures. He had never heard of a changeling before. He assumed by word association that they must change into something. But what that was he couldn’t fathom. “Well, then why do you keep kissin’ me and goin’ after my neck like in those bad vampony stories?” The stallion ceased struggling and looked to the changeling with a genuine look of curiosity. He was still breathing heavily as his rising chest let the adrenaline run its course. He realized that if she really wanted him dead, he would be. The axe that was now resting just out of his reach was enough evidence of that.

~~~

Chrysalis frowned at the stallion and considered the situation.

He was either exceptionally dim-witted, inexperienced, or trusting. With a brief amendment, she concluded that he was probably a mix of all three.

She was always admonished for playing with her food as a young changeling by her mother, but sometimes it was just too hard to resist. After she had developed the harvesting pod spell at Hollow Shades, she really had no reason to hunt and gather love like in the old days. Changelings could go on the offensive and take love forcefully. At least that was the plan in Canterlot, first the Capitol and then the Equestrian Nation.

And yet, here was a pony who didn’t know what she was, but saw exactly what she looked like, a monster. He saved her from the edge of death, gave her food and shelter, and even wanted to know more about her. All while she was in her hideous natural form. Chrysalis felt an odd airy sensation as she forcefully pinned the food source beneath her. It was... liberating to be feeding off of something that knew her true face.

“Changelings don’t eat the way ponies do.” She dropped the bombshell and waited to see what the result was.

Smokejumper only looked up at her with a curious expression. “So, you don’t eat ponies? Not even part of them?”

Chrysalis smirked briefly and gave an amused grin as she shook her head, no.

This information and conversation didn’t sit right with Smokejumper. “Then what do you eat? Aren’t you hungry?” He kept looking over at the axe resting against the stove as if considering his null chances of escape again.

Chrysalis finished scanning the face of the stallion below her for treachery and said, “Smokejumper is too long of a name. It’s two words put together. Shorten it.”

The stallion balked in confusion as his question was ignored and the serious face of the female changeling above him commanded him to provide a nickname. He hadn’t used a nickname since flight camp and back then he was always known as ‘Jumper’ because he had trouble getting off the ground.

“Uh, well, my friends just call me Smoke.” He cleared his throat and put on his best poker face, as he fabricated his simple lie. “Yep, that’s my nickname, Smoke.”

Chrysalis raised a single eyebrow. “Very well then, Jumper.”

Smokejumper opened his mouth to protest but it was met with another one. Chrysalis pressed her muzzle roughly into the stallion’s below her. She kissed him passionately, almost angrily as she enjoyed her long overdue breakfast. She broke away from the stallion and licked at her lips. Chrysalis could feel the slow trickle of love flowing from the stallion to her like a dam that was just waiting to burst.

Jumper looked up at her speechlessly as he began to blush hard and breathe deep.

Chrysalis smiled, “I am hungry, Jumper, I’m ravenous. So, now, I think I’ll show you how a changeling feeds.”

~~~

Jumper was delicious.

As much as Chrysalis was tempted to simply mind control him, throw him in a pod, and drain him dry, she knew that she was still too weak for the complex magic. The stallion knew where they were and with a bit more harvesting, Chrysalis knew she could have enough energy to begin the search for her swarm. If she survived the blast, it was possible that some of her drones did as well. She would be saved the work required to lay new drone eggs and build a hive with her own four hooves.

If any of them are still alive, she amended realistically.

But Chrysalis was distracted from the fate of her swarm as the sight before her stirred a strange feeling deep within. She could not recall any time in her long life that a pony had seen her in her true form and not been revolted. It was a strange experience to taste love straight from the source without having to maintain an illusion spell. It was refreshing, sweeter, more honest if the word could even be applied to sustenance.

The unfiltered love that Chrysalis felt as she kissed Smokejumper until he finally gave in and kissed her back pulled her under like a strong riptibe. She was so wrapped up in savoring the appetizer that she practically forgot to breathe. When she came up for air and looked down to the blushing stallion and felt him growing hard beneath her she felt...

Sated?

The thought didn’t feel right to her. Chrysalis immediately stood and rose to walk out of the cabin and brood.

Smokejumper was dumbstruck and laying on the bed partially covered by sheets and a pitched tent.

Surprised, embarrassed, confused, these were words that would more closely describe what Chrysalis was feeling now. It was ineffable, none of it made sense. Love was meant to be taken, but here was a stallion who was practically giving it to her, and of his own free will too. And she had stopped.

Well, perhaps not ‘giving it to me’ as literally as I had originally wanted, Chrysalis thought as she looked across the early morning vista, holding a hoof to her cheek to gnaw on the inside in nervousness. Why had I stopped? I had him melting in my hooves and I pushed him away.

The mist hanging above the Haysead Swamps and the forests to the west were slowly dissipating in the sunlight from the east. The view would be considered gorgeous, breathtaking, sublime, or any other lexicon of poetic adjectives. But the changeling queen could only stare into the distance and look inward.

Chrysalis went over the foreplay she censured only moments before in reverse. She traced the origin of the discomforting sensation she felt back to its root. In her mind’s eye she was getting back into the bed, she was applying pressure to his body with her own. She closed her eyes. She felt his hooves wrap back around her withers and part her blue threadbare mane. Smokejumper was nervously reaching to feel the sensitive spot where her wings met her elytra, as only a pegasus would by instinct. She was leaning down and kissing him, hungrily but not roughly. He was kissing her back. Her forked tongue didn’t invade or ambush, it danced and played. Her head turned and her fangs opened wide as their kiss continued.

Chrysalis opened her eyes.

Smokejumper’s hooves slowly moved away from her withers and fell back to the bed. He became apprehensive once more. His eyes opened and a look of confusion replaced the calm and elated look before. Eventually, that all faded into fear and shock as Chrysalis was indelicately forcing her muzzle into his. Chrysalis raised her head and smirked down at the frightened stallion below her. She was preparing to harvest her breakfast. She was famished.

The memory paused.

Chrysalis knew what the turning point was. As she sat on the porch of the cabin and looked out across the wilderness of southern Equestria, Chrysalis realized she wasn’t hungry.

When she had closed her eyes, it was because Smokejumper had closed his. It had felt right that she do the same. He knew what she was, she was showing him what she did, and he decided to do what no other pony had ever done. He had trusted her, and she wasn’t lying to him. Chrysalis was showing her true skin, her true voice, her true thoughts, her true desire.

I was being honest and he loved me.

~~~

Chrysalis looked to the stallion as he glistened in the midday sun. His coat was practically damp with perspiration and the high altitude drafts pushed his sweaty mane, just so. His muscles were engorged with blood from the hard work he had been performing and the cords of thick muscle along his neck rolled across each other with each swing of the axe he held in his mouth. He dragged his hooves across the dirt below him and pulled himself into a powerful and balanced stance. Every muscle in his body, from hock to jowl, tensed in a perfect series of synchronized movements as the iron wedge was swung over his head and down onto the chopping block.

With a resounding crack the cord of timber was evenly split in half.

Chrysalis shivered in delight.

Smokejumper lifted another thick log onto the large stump and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead that threatened to fall into his eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah! Bad, Jumper, do not use your fore leg, use your wings. You are a pegasus, after all.”

Smokejumper frowned and spit the axe from his mouth. He turned to look at the source of the admonishment.

“I ain’t some kind of dog for you to order around, you know!” Smokejumper was panting from exertion. He had been chopping wood for the better part of an hour now. He had made a stack along the side of the cabin to last him clear through the next month, easily.

Chrysalis looked at the stallion from her comfortable spot on the picnic blanket in the shade. She was languidly splayed out on the checkered pattern and carrying a slight blush on her face as she watched the stallion work. With an annoyed sigh she removed the straw from her mouth and levitated the glass of ice cold lemonade impatiently.

“If you’re tired of chopping wood, there’s always more lemons to squeeze. And we’re running out of ice if you want to fly to the peak and get some more snow. So what’s it going to be?” She grinned lasciviously as the stallion groaned at the alternative suggestions.

With a deliberately slow and exaggerated motion, Smokejumper extended a wing and carefully brought his longest primary feather across his brow to wipe at the sweat. The large and dark grey feather gathered up each little bead of moisture and tickled his muzzle as it passed by. He had his eyes held half-closed and relaxed as he looked to Chrysalis for approval.

She was watching him expectantly.

Smokejumper suppressed another outward display of impatience and instead played his part. With a slow sigh he extended his wing back and wiped the wet primary against his flank to pull the moisture off. Rubbing the delicate feather back and forth across his hips more thoroughly than would ever be required.

Chrysalis drained her lemonade as she enjoyed the show. Oh, yes, mama likes.

Smokejumper frowned as he watched the transfixed Chrysalis make loud slurping noises with her straw as she tried to drink the last drops of lemonade from her glass. “Is it lunchtime yet?” He asked with a bit of a whine.

Chrysalis was snapped back to her senses and took note of the position of the sun in the sky. She looked to her empty drink and regretted once more that the sweet concoction could only tease her palate. Not that she wanted for sustenance. With a brief nod to the stallion she smiled and indicated a very undeniable, yes.

‘Lunchtime’, as Smokejumper had so casually referred to it, was when Chrysalis fed for the second time each day. She always woke Jumper up with ‘breakfast’, then ogled him as he performed his chores before they shared ‘lunch’. ‘Dinner’ always came when the sun had fallen and Smokejumper tired of writing, his other hobby besides his duty of watching for fires. And when the mood called for it, Chrysalis would serve ‘dessert’, which so far had been nightly. But even a queen can be peckish at times, and Chrysalis liked to refer to these surprise pangs of hunger as ‘snacks’.

Chrysalis was known to be quite the eater.

Smokejumper could only wonder where all the nourishment was going, because it certainly was not her hips.

As the stallion made his way over the checkered blanket and looked down to Chrysalis he smirked. Chrysalis sighed as the stallion forced her to make the first move. She raised her long black neck and brought her lips to his. She felt the floodgates open and the romantic love filled her faster than anything she had ever felt before.

Smokejumper wondered how so much could have changed in only two days.

~~~

As Jumper tucked himself in next to Chrysalis he rolled to face her. Chrysalis smiled mirthfully at the little pony as he rolled and fidgeted to lie face to face with her, folding his legs in tight. They quickly discovered that the small bed in the cabin was most comfortable with her as the big spoon.

Jumper couldn’t believe it had only been a week since Chrysalis had literally crashed into his life.

“Chrysalis, you’d tell me if you ever wanted to leave, right?” he asked nervously.

Chrysalis broke composure for a moment and looked away from his honest blue eyes. She still didn’t know what was different about the stallion. All she knew was that he was special. He was like some bizarre cosmic coincidence. A pony caring enough to save a dying monster, curious enough to to understand them, and compassionate enough to love them.

She hadn’t felt hungry in days. She hadn’t changed her form in as much time. She was so saturated with love that even her wings and mane were looking healthier.

“Jumper,” she said, the pet name no longer a source of friction for them, “I think it’s time I told you about me, and about my crown.”

Jumper looked up to the four-pronged ornament on Chrysalis’ head. “Is that what that is? I always figured it was a weird growth. I wasn’t gonna say anythin’.”

Chrysalis nipped him playfully on the ear and nuzzled him as he blushed and laughed at her retaliatory gesture. ‘Dessert’ had already come and gone but a little ‘midnight snack’ was never out of the question.

“Just because it’s a part of me, doesn’t mean it was always there. It means I am The Queen of a changeling hive.” She said with careful pacing, ensuring that the final words made it to their intended destination intact.

Jumper frowned and blinked away a bit of confusion, “So, I guess that means you gotta return to your king at some point, huh?” He shrank into himself a bit and looked to his hooves as he began to tap them together in trepidation.

Chrysalis laughed and pulled the downcast stallion closer to her chest. The green bands around her abdomen rubbed up against his barrel and her diaphanous wings extended down to embrace is feathery wings. “Silly pony, there is no king, or prince. The swarm is made up of many male drones, and one female Queen to rule them. You can’t have one without the other.”

Jumper held Chrysalis close and looked deep into her eyes, “Then where are your drones?”