Silicon and Fur: A Remembrance of Equestria

This throne room holds so many memories for me.

[integer too large] years ago, I was present at the wedding between [object undefined] and [object undefined]. That was the first time I met Queen Chrysalis, though it definitely wasn’t the last.

“I wouldn’t have believed you would spare a thought for me at a time like this.” For years I had hated that voice; that slight echo, as if two voices spoke at once.

Chrysalis stepped towards the throne with a glint in her eye. It vanished when she looked down at herself.

“I terrorized you ponies for countless generations. I kidnapped you and those foalish friends of yours. I controlled Canterlot, captured your precious princesses, and I nearly destroy your beloved Equestria; and this is how you remember me?”

I watched the once terrifying Queen Chrysalis move through the empty halls. My last memories of her were not of the imposing, terrible monster she had been most of her life. No, the most impact this mare had on me was in the last few days of her life. This emaciated, weak looking creature bore little resemblance to the one whom most remembered; her gossamer wings faded and her once gleaming black carapace mottled with grey.

“I was a proud Queen, leader of the Black Swarm,” the memory chided me. “Not this pitiful creature!”

I had taken a sourjoun from Canterlot; Twilight had left, as had Luna, and when Celestia finally left I had little reason to stay. Upon my return, I’d visited the castle. When I had entered the throne room the changeling queen had pounced on me like a mad-mare.

When she realised she could not feed on me, I saw the great, mighty, terrifying Queen Chrysalis do something I would never had imagined: she collapsed on the floor, weeping.

It was in that moment I had surprised myself, and the magic of friendship subroutines had kicked into overdrive. I’d lifted her head onto my lap, and stroked her hair. It calmed her a little; that, it had seemed at least, was a universal constant.

“Your final moments in this world held more impact  to me than your entire life as a monster, Chryssy.”

“Do not call me that!” Chrysalis stomped her gnarled hoof on the floor. The image was slightly disjunctive, given the lack of responding crack from the floor.

“You were frightened and hungry… and you were dying.” It bothers me that I still try to console what is effectively a memory. “I am glad, if only for those few short days, I got to meet the real Queen Chrysalis. The one who would sacrifice anything for her hive. The one who led her subjects through more hardships than most other kingdoms combined.

“Yes, you were a monster. Yes, you hurt countless ponies, you terrorized my friends, and harassed my moth— err, father.” I followed her up the steps to the throne.

“Had I never returned here, you would have remembered me the way I was supposed to be.” Chrysalis huffed, sitting on the throne. “Had I not come to visit the site of my greatest failure, I would have remained the monster history should have remembered me as.”

“History was over, by the time you came here,” I reminded her. “Ponykind had long since disappeared, and the last dragon who’d known love had died countless years earlier.”

Chrysalis sat on the throne, and looked around. “I want to be gone, Sweetie Belle,” she sighed. “It would anger me, knowing that you, or any pony, saw me in this light.”

“But you've changed,” I tried to argue. “You’re different to the pony you once were.”

“You do not know that I had changed,” she continued to survey the throne room. “You saw a weak and dying foal, and you comforted her. You presume repentance, remorse; but I died before you could truly ascertain that as a fact.”

The look of pain in her eyes. I wondered what visions filled the eyes of my memories.

“I want to be gone from here,” Chrysalis looked right at me. “This is not right, and I will do something my living counterpart would never have done…”

“Chryssy, please, don’t ask me—”

“Sweetie Belle. I am not Chrysalis. I am a ghost. I beg of you. Please forget me.” Green tears spilled from the memories eyes. Wiping her eyes with her holed hoof, she smiled. “You saw me cry once, and this is how you remember me.”

Chrysalis let out a laugh. “Thank you Sweetie Belle. I cannot know if Chrysalis would have appreciated this, but I am glad somepony cared for me… even if it were only for a few days.”

“Okay,” I mutter. It has been so long since I have been able to cry, my saline reservoirs having been depleted long ago. “I will let you go.”

“Thank you, Sweetie Belle,” [object undefined] replied. “Goodbye, my fri—”

This throne room holds so many memories for me.