Smokejumper woke to the weight of his love rising from their bed. “Mmrrnn, Chryssi, come back to bed.” He reached a hoof forward lamely and stroked at the warm impression that was left in the large mattress. The soft sounds of hoofsteps leading away from the bed were followed by the squeak of a door gently opening. Smokejumper shivered at the cold mountain air that rushed in to sap the heat from his exposed fur.

Chrysalis stood on the wooden porch of the cabin she shared with Smokejumper and looked out into the darkened forest below her.

It was the same view that had greeted her every night for the last two months.

She raised her horn high and a brief flicker of bright green magic started at the tip, washed across the base and silently radiated out from her into the ether beyond.

Just like every night for the last two months, no sound greeted her. She was alone.

My swarm is gone. I am a Queen without a hive.

Chrysalis felt a warm and comforting wing wrap around her back. She looked down to her side to see Smokejumper smiling up at her. “Jumper, why do you live out here alone?” She asked as the question bubbled to her consciousness and ceased to sink back down.

The pegasus sighed and looked into the distance. “Well, I s’pose I just wanted to get away from it all. Ponies always expect you to be something special whenever they see you. They think a cutie mark is equivalent to job trainin’ and they immediately pidgeon hole ya into your career before you even get a say in what you want to do with your life.” Smokejumper sighed as he enjoyed the feel of the cool black chitin of his lover on his fur.

A large and fully healed diaphanous wing extended to hold the stallion in return. “Is that why you write?” Chrysalis asked him.

Smokejumper thought hard for a few moments and looked out to the forest as he did every day. It wasn’t on fire today and it probably wouldn’t be on fire tomorrow. “Nah, that ain’t why. I don’t write to make money or make it my special talent. I don’t write for anyone but myself. My job may be looking for fires, my special talent may be fighting them, but my passion is lighting the fire in each and every one of us.” Smokejumper smiled at his description.

I should write that one down. He thought.

Chrysalis remained silent and looked out at the starry vista and the moon shining bright above to illuminate the treetops.

Smokejumper continued, “I think that everyone, pony or changeling, wants to tell a story. And sometimes, hearin’ the story of another is a great way to learn what kind of story you wanna tell. It changes what we value, what we fear, what we desire, heck it even changes who we are sometimes.” Smokejumper nudged Chrysalis playfully as her distant gaze grew sad.

Chrysalis looked down to her hooves, the holes in them were being filled in slowly, the strong doses of love she was receiving every day were performing miracles to her physical appearance. She didn’t feel like so much of a monster anymore.

“Why do you come out here every night, Chryssi? What are you lookin’ for? What story do you want to tell?”

Chrysalis sighed as she prepared to reveal another great secret she had been keeping from her stallion. “I’m looking for my children.”

Jumper let out a low, “Oooohh boy, now she tells me.” Which earned him a swift swat on the foreleg and a glare of disapproval from his love.

“That’s hardly what I meant. As the Queen I was the only one to give birth to the drones of my swarm and, simply put, I’m their mother and they are my children.” She frowned at the description and let the feeling of not seeing her children in two months really settle in. She knew that drones wouldn’t live more than three or so months anyway, and on their own it was impossible that they would survive for such a long time. All of that not taking into special consideration a thousand kilometer catapult through the air culminating with a body crushing landing in the Badlands.

Smokejumper asked her, “Remember that story you told me, about your sisters?”

Chrysalis winced.

Smokejumper pressed on, “I always wondered why you needed drones to begin with. I mean, if ya didn’t have ‘em then all the love you got would just be for yourselves right? You and your sisters?”

Chrysalis nodded, she had never thought what being a changeling would be like without drones, without her minions. Would she even be a Queen without them? Was she even a Queen now?

Smokejumper looked ahead and continued talking, thinking aloud, “It doesn’t make much sense to me. If every changeling could have been raised like you were, as a Golden Daughter, why weren’t they? Why make a whole type of changelings who were weak and dependent?”

Chrysalis knew that the difference was simple. All changelings were born in eggs, and nurtured with love. Those that were malnourished became drones, those that were nourished - lavishly - become Queens. There was no other class, it was simply the way things worked.

Chrysalis said, “Do you think I am a poor mother because I starve my children?”

Smokejumper nuzzled under her and said, “I don’t know what kind of mother you are Chrysalis, but to be truthful, I wouldn’t mind findin’ out.”

Chrysalis backed away from the stallion as the meaning to his words hit her with full force. “You can’t be serious, you do realize that would be biologically impossible.”

Smokejumper sighed. “Well, how do you do it? You told me yourself you don’t want to go out and make another hive again because it would mean harvesting love on your lonesome. So that means you can do it right? Like bees or something, right?”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes at the comparison to the tiny insects that harvested pollen. She hated admitting any similarity to the bumbling yellow creatures. “Yes, like bees. I have a store of genetic material inside me which I use for laying fertilized eggs.” She said with careful emphasis to avoid mentioning how she got the material. It was a rather embarrassing episode from her early grief ridden days as the Queen she didn’t want to recount. “So, yes, I could make more drones but they would not be ours.”

Smokejumper smiled at her and fiddled with his own forehooves. “Well, they wouldn’t necessarily have to be drones right?”

Chrysalis blinked in understanding, “You’re asking me to make a Golden Daughter?”

“Well, yes. I know you feel like you need to be a Queen and have an army of drones and go taking over Equestria, an’ all. But from what I’ve seen, you don’t. I think that what you need more than anything else, is to be a mother, a real mother.”

Chrysalis looked to the stallion with a blank look on her face. She failed to see how giving birth to thousand of sons and raising each of them to be strong from the sweat of her own brow to build an army that rivaled a nation was anything short of being a spectacular mother.

Smokejumper caught her look of plain disappointment. He knew it meant he said something simple, again.

“Chryssi, what I mean is that this whole time you told me about Aurelia and Nympha. It just sounded to me like you missed out on the best type of love there is.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and cast a skeptical look at her lover, “There is no other type of love: kinship, friendship, romance. Three types, no more, no less. I’ve searched my entire life for something more powerful and the closest I came was a powerful unicorn marrying a princess of love. And even that was most likely because they had been friends for years prior.” Chrysalis huffed and blew a strand of her long blue hair from her face.

“That’s just it!” Smokejumper said certainly, “They were on the cusp of turning their romantic love into the strongest type of love, self-sacrificing love. It’s the unconditional love that ties families together through the worst of times.”

Chrysalis leaned down and rested her head on the deep brown mane of the pegasus. “You’re adorable, Jumper, but I think you should leave the definitions of ‘love’ to the expert.” She pecked him on the cheek and began to nuzzle him.

“I bet if you were a mother, a real mother, you would know what I mean. I challenge you to have a daughter and raise her better than your mother raised you.”

Chrysalis felt like a sharp spike of ice had just entered her heart.

My mother. She thought.

Smokejumper felt his determination flagging as he watched Chrysalis begin to go rigid in one of her bouts of remembrance. It reminded him of the first time he kissed her back.

Chrysalis was lost in her thoughts once more as she considered the future. A Queen would have to be superseded eventually. No matter how grand the hive or how numerous the swarm, a Queen would always pass and the mantle would be taken up by another. A Golden Daughter always had to be born. Even in the event that a Queen perished in her harvesting, the drones knew enough to immediately begin saturating eggs with love to birth a new Golden Daughter.

So why didn’t Chrysalis want to be a mother? Was it really so important to have a large swarm or a grand hive?

She thought back to Nympha. She promised to be a better Queen than Aurelia and their mother. And all those two ever wanted was power: power through love, power through deception, power through betrayal. It was all a game to them, a self-serving challenge of conquest where all the pieces were pawns.

After meeting Smokejumper, Chrysalis realized that there was something special about winning a heart with honesty, trust, and affection. The genuine, unfiltered, and unrefined love that filled her to the point of overflowing daily was greater than any feeding ceremony in the grandest hive with the biggest swarm.

Chrysalis was loved, and she loved back.

Chrysalis didn’t want to be alone.

Turning to Smokejumper she said quietly, “She’ll need your love, I can’t raise her alone, literally.”

Smokejumper laughed and nuzzled his love.

~~~

Chrysalis was lying in bed. The freshly laid egg was sitting in a natural cell she had made for it. A changeling version of a ‘crib’ is how she had explained it to Smokejumper.

The stallion was looking at his adopted daughter in her black egg.

“So, uh, yeah, you were right. I definitely didn’t want to see that.”

Chrysalis swatted the pegasus and frowned. “I wouldn’t have let you leave anyway, it was simply a test to see if you were stallion enough to watch your love give birth. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as the last three thousand or so times.” She smirked devilishly and enjoyed the look of discomfort on his face.

“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to give enough love for both of you now, huh?” he asked.

Chrysalis nodded thoughtfully and said, “You already give more than enough for a hive.” She leaned forward and kissed the stallion passionately and soaked up the love that he sent her freely. When she broke away she lowered her horn to the egg and gently touched the tip to the soft black shell. The bright green glow of her magic traveled the length of the her horn and encapsulated the newborn egg, charging it with the first of many bursts of love energy that would nurture it into a strong, healthy, and fully grown royal changeling.

After the larval stage, the pupa would secrete a fluid to protect it. The cell it was placed in as an egg and fed in as a larva would be capped by the naturally golden substance forming a golden cocoon. This was where the Golden Daughters got their namesake. The reflective and regal sight of the golden shimmer in any hive was enough to draw attention to the importance of it. Every drone that could donate a bit of their daily harvest of love to the developing royal changeling would. It wasn’t long until the developed changeling emerged, and from then it was a few short days before their imago, when the wings developed completely.

Smokejumper coughed politely as Chrysalis was lost in thought tending to her egg in its special crib. “So, uh, how long until I have something I can hug?”

Chrysalis laughed and gently passed the egg to Smokejumper. “She can absorb your love I think, if you want to give her some.”

He thought about how much he wanted Chrysalis to be happy. And he thought about how much the thing he was holding made him happy. He imagined the amount of work it would take to build a new bedroom addition to the cabin. He fantasized over the happy times he could have teaching her to fly. Teaching her to read and write would be one of his greatest joys. And seeing her grow into the strong and confident changeling that her mother was only brought a smile to his face.

“It’s working.” Chrysalis said with awe. Another type of love, she thought.

Smokejumper smiled. “You know, usually the parents of a pony name their foal after it’s born. It’s a bit of a superstition that the name of the pony sets their destiny for the rest of their lives.”

Chrysalis sighed and stroked the egg with her hoof as they slid closer together in the bed with their child between them. “I don’t want to force anything on her. I have no expectations, only the hope that she’ll be happier than me, and be a better Queen than me.”

Smokejumper was silent for a moment before saying, “Nympha.”

Chrysalis looked to him with wide eyes as she seemed startled.

“That sounds like something she would say. I think you’re going to make her happy.” Smokejumper relaxed and leaned into his pillow and relaxed. “Well, I guess I have a lot of additions to make to the cabin over the next few months.”

Chrysalis snickered and held a hoof to her muzzle. “Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that part.”

Smokejumper looked past the egg at Chrysalis, confused. “What part?”

Chrysalis leaned over the crib with the egg, making sure it remained steady on the mattress. She laid herself across Smokejumper as he rested on his back. She leaned to nuzzle him and said, “She’s going to hatch in a week, and be flying in three.”

Smokejumper felt his heart leap in his chest. Adrenaline was flooding his system. It was a short time to accept becoming a father. “Sweet Celestia! I’ve gotta get ready! I need to get more timber and build a wa—” He was interrupted in his favorite way. Chrysalis pressed her muzzle against his and kissed him passionately.

Chrysalis savored the flavor of love that flowed to her like a stream in spring. It was as delicious as always. It was genuine, pure, and honest. She had never felt more content and carefree.

“Relax, Jumper, there will be plenty of time for that later. For now, I think it’s time for some ‘lunch’.”

Chrysalis beamed and leaned down to enjoy her love.

Author's Note

Submitted to EQD on 7/31/13 for Flash Fiction Event #5 - Love Me, Love My Hive

Wow, so this one really was a huge challenge for me. I didn't know how to make Chrysalis happy and not have her take over part of Equestria or win at the invasion. And at the same time I didn't want to make her a complete villain, which she is so canonically. So naturally I fell into my bad habit of taking a character, mixing them up with an OC and having them reconnect with a family. I hate to say that this is becoming a rather dry formula for me but in so many ways it really is the best way to explore a character's back story. Because everyone came from somewhere right? I hope the next flash fic event is a little bit shorter in duration because the long ones tempt me to world-build too much. I spent an unhealthy amount of time learning about bees and butterflies in doing some prep work for this story and it probably shows in the obvious and awkward paragraphs of exposition describing things like 'elytra', 'cocoons', and 'pupa'.

This story was full of a lot of firsts for me. I have never tried writing anything close to the amount of flirtation and saucy actions included above. This is also one of the first serious fight scenes I have ever written.

Some things I want to say. I really am not happy with how I wrote Smokejumper, I just didn't have the time to make this guy seem like anything more than a bumbling idiot who just happens to be nice. I'm going to polish up some dialogue with him and Chryssi later, but for now I knew I just had to cut a lot of scenes that distracted from the most important story which was why Chrysalis became a villain in the first place, and then turn those emotions and drives into something that fuels a positive goal (being a great mother) rather than a negative goal (being a queen who wants to conquer Equestria).

I know a lot of the story feels rushed, because it's written on a week long time limit. But hopefully if you have taken the time to read it you will let me know what you think in the comments below. I am by no means a professional writer or even an experienced one and every ounce of constructive criticism helps.

I read every comment.