The young mare did her best to avoid attention as she sat outside the Fountain Café in Canterlot, watching ponies trot across the plaza and occasionally stop to chat with a friend. She was a light blue earth pony with a dark blue mane and an hourglass cutie mark. One of the default forms for training and designed to look unsuspicious and blend in with the crowd, even though an unsettling lot of ponies seemed to mistake her for a local dentist.
The mare closed her eyes and felt for the emotions of the surrounding ponies. Joy, friendship and love persisted and the few spikes of anger and irritation never lasted long. She sighed. This was truly the capitol of the pony empire, the center of wealth, love and tolerance.
…How wonderful would it be to live here.
She pulled out the bag of bits from her saddlebags and grimaced. Not even a week in Canterlot and she was almost broke. Finding work in this city was near impossible without any form of organization. Princess Celestia had done a lot for the city, but in this regard her efforts were sorely lacking. Why would ponies need something like that, anyway. The few unemployed ponies got more than enough money to live from the government until they could find a job again, and the shop and business owners always got by, even if they couldn’t find an extra pair of hooves to help out with large orders or unexpected work. Ponies didn’t know poverty, and as long as things worked out they didn’t care much if they could work better.
Of course that was no consolidation if the government didn’t know about your unemployed existence. Especially if you didn’t want them to know. Getting monetary help from some higher authority sounded great, but the mare knew that they would ask her questions she couldn’t answer. Besides, she didn’t come here to be unemployed. Finding work was half of the challenge.
…Finding work was hard if you didn’t even have a special talent. That was the other half of the challenge.
The mare glanced at her flank longingly. A special talent… The ponies in Canterlot had all the time in the world and every opportunity to find their special talent. She had however long she could get by with her bag of bits, before she had to trot home to avoid starvation.
Home. She could always go back. It was a challenge, after all, not a test. She could always try again next year.
But either way, it would be defeat.
The mare stood up from the table and left a few golden coins to pay for the lunch before putting her bit-bag away and saddling up her bags. They seemed even lighter now.
She sighed and picked a direction to go.
Try as she might, the young mare couldn’t look away from the wooden stage in front of her. Arriving in the outskirts of Canterlot she had noticed a group of ponies setting up a wooden construction in the middle of the street. After a few minutes of watching she had realized that they were building a stage. By the time they were done a sizeable group of ponies had gathered, with the mare sitting at the very front.
A unicorn had walked out from behind the curtain to announce the play to the crowd. It was a love story set in the time of the Lunar Rebellion. The unicorn had disappeared behind the curtain and a moment later the first few actors came out. The mare watched and listened through the first lines of the play. She had never watched a play before, and if it distracted her from her problems surely she could spare a few minutes.
Now, two hours later, she felt like she hadn’t so much as blinked. Completely captivated by the story and the actors time had just flown by for her. It was a tragedy about two pegasi who fell in love during the Lunar Rebellion. Alas, their clans stood on opposing sides of the rebellion and were at war, forcing the two ponies to meet in secret to confess their love. The play was coming to an end and the mare could feel her own emotions resonating from the crowd; Sadness, pity and sympathy were overwhelming as Duet Doo awoke from her fake death to find her beloved Roaming Kicker lying dead beside her, a part of his own wingblade in his chest.
The curtain closed and the crowd stomped their hooves furiously in applause. The curtain opened again and all the actors stood side by side on stage. The unicorn narrator announced each of their names, to which the respective pony stepped forward and bowed. To the surprise of the mare and other ponies in the crowd, many of the pegasi on stage dissolved as soon as they stepped forward, revealing another pony underneath. The explanation to that came when the last actor had stepped forward and three more unicorns joined the actors on stage, announced by the narrator as the group’s illusionists. Lastly, the narrator himself was announced by the main actor, which earned another round of hoofstomping.
The acting ensemble bowed one more time as a group before the narrator made a wide gesture towards a wooden box next to the stage, asking the audience for a few bits if they enjoyed the play. Many ponies passed the box to throw some golden coins inside, quickly covering the bottom. The mare was one of the first to ecstatically donate a hoofful of coins, barely thinking about it through the rush of emotions.
She was already a good way down the street when the dizziness in her mind finally died down. The play had been the most amazing thing she had ever seen, but she didn’t have much money left… Maybe she had been too hasty, throwing her bits away like that.
Well, she couldn’t change anything about it anymore. It might have been a bad decision, but she didn’t regret it for a moment. Those actors had earned those bits and she wouldn’t take them back. The mare sighed and trotted into a small alley to pull out her bit-bag and check how much money she had left.
A single bit fell out of the bag and into her hoof.
…No.
That couldn’t be. She knew that she had been low on funds, but had it really been that little? She peeked around the corner of the alley and stared back at the ponies who were already dismantling the wooden stage.
The last point on her journey. She would have to go home and face defeat. How could she ever accept her mother’s legacy, if she wasn’t even able to make it in the city for one week? Still staring at the actors’ ensemble down the streets, she just couldn’t bring herself to regret her actions. Acting sounded like a wonderful thing. Ponies would cheer for her because she pretended to be another pony. But even more intriguing to her were those illusionists. It was a simple spell, of course, but the way it had been used… Those unicorns could make anypony look like a completely different pony. To be able to do that and be met with applause like them…
The mare let out a groan and stumbled backwards into the alley. A fiery pain had suddenly flared up inside her chest. Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground. There was a brief flash of green magic and everything was silent.
The aged unicorn stallion stood aside as the last few planks of the stage were loaded onto the cart. It had been the last day of the group in Canterlot and they would be travelling the surrounding towns for a few weeks before they would return.
“Excuse me?”
He turned around to see a young unicorn mare cowering before him. She had a pink coat and a smooth black mane with a green hint. The cutie mark on her flank showed a heart-shaped, red crystal that seemed to emit a dark green glow from its center. Her green eyes seemed to be glowing, too, even as she cowered there and tried to avoid his gaze.
He bent down a bit to look the mare in the eyes. She looked weak, almost starved, and he couldn’t imagine what might have happened to her. “Can I help you?”
The mare took a deep breath and spoke hesitantly, “A-Are you with those ponies?” She pointed at the group of actors who were standing around the cart, chatting and waiting.
He laughed and gave her a warm smile. “Indeed I am. I’d even go so far to tell you that I’m one of the founding members of our little ensemble. My name is Folk Play. Been acting in plays for over three decades. May I ask your name, too, Miss?”
The mare flinched and took a step back, looking around frantically. “Me? I’m… I mean, I…” She stopped suddenly and shook her head wildly, as if trying to shake off her fear. “My name is… Crystal Love.” She straightened her posture and looked him straight in the eyes, her own eyes suddenly burning with determination. “I would like to join your group to learn how to act.”
The Canterlot Academy, not to be confused with Princess Celestia’s Academy for Gifted Unicorns. The unicorn stared up at the building, its archways and towers. This was where her journey had led her. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
After a few minutes of orienting herself and getting some directions she found herself in front of one of the many office doors in this part of the building. The name on the door told her that this was exactly what she had been looking for.
She knocked on the door and waited for response from the other side before entering.
The old unicorn stallion behind the desk had light grey fur and a white mane. Despite his apparent age his expression was still as energetic as those of his students. He reminded the mare a lot of her mentor. She trotted up to the desk and shook the hoof he offered her. “Mister Role Play?”
“Indeed. What can I do for you? I assume you’re here to apply for the next semester.” He shuffled through a few of the documents on his desk, pulling out a list with names and times.
“Yes. I have a reference from Mister Folk Play. He told me to show it to you…” She pulled an envelope from her saddlebags with her magic and floated it over to the professor.
“A reference from my brother? Hah! I never thought I would see the day when someone of his group would actually enroll here.” He opened the envelope and read through the letter. “Hmm-hm. Quite interesting… Very well. You’re taking your entrance exam in two days at 10:30 AM.” He scribbled a note and gave it to her. “Don’t be late and I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. I hope I’ll see you in my class, Miss Crystal Love.”
A lightning strike illuminated the forest for the fraction of a second, leaving only rolling thunder and the memory of light and shadows between the trees. Rain fell as a curtain onto the trees and formed small streams of water that made their way through the leaves towards the muddy ground. The storm clouds blocked the light of the moon and stars completely and turned the late evening darker than any night.
A young mare stumbled out of the forest. Sticks were stuck in her mane and patches of mud covered her from head to hoof. She was dragging her saddlebags through the mud, not even able to lift them off the ground. Her tired eyes scanned the darkness before her, unable to see anything. Another lightning strike reflected off the mountainside, just long enough that the mare could make out a cave to her left. She hurried inside and just dropped down to the ground once she was away from the rain, not even bothering to take off her saddlebags.
“You are not welcome here!”
The mare slowly raised her head to stare deeper into the cave with glassy eyes. A pair of green orbs glowed in the darkness, staring back at her angrily. She stayed like that for a few seconds, then she let her head fall back to the ground, closing her eyes.
“Leave! This cave belongs to us. Leave, if you want to survive!”
The mare didn’t move, except for her chest that was slowly rising and sinking with her breath.
“Hey! Hello! Oh damn…” Hoofsteps began to come closer and a young pegasus trotted up to the mare. He stopped right in front of her and lowered his head to inspect her. “What am I supposed to do now? Nopony ever tells you about something like this.” he muttered.
A hoof suddenly pushed down on his neck with force, preventing any hasty moves from him. The sleeping mare became transparent and disappeared, only to reappear to his right, one hoof on his neck. “Got you.”
The pegasus looked at the pink unicorn mare who practically had him at her mercy. He noticed her glowing green eyes and the black mane, but couldn’t find any way out. “Who are you? What do you want?” he snarled.
“You should really do something about those anger issues.” The mare said in a mocking voice, taking her hoof of him and stepping away from him. The pegasus spread his wings in an offensive pose, but paused when green fire suddenly burst up around the mare. A mare with a black chitin body, a light blue mane and bug-like wings appeared in the unicorn’s place. “Is that any way to greet your cousin?” she asked.
“Chrissy!” The pegasus’ eyes widened and he leapt forward to hug the changeling. Green flames encased him mid-leap and another, slightly smaller changeling shot out of the fire, clinging to the mare’s neck. “You’re back!”
The mare smiled and ruffled her cousin’s mane. “Yes, I’m back,” she said. “It’s good to be home.”
Author's Note
Part of my personal story about the selfless actions of Crystal Love, a.k.a. "Queen Chrysalis". If you like this story, you might want to read this chapter from one of my other stories for more insight in my personal headcanon regarding "A Canterlot Wedding" (you can skip the first few paragraphs if you want)