A Thousand Year War

The guards shoved me into the hall, slamming the doors behind me. I grunted in pain, and was met with guards yelling at me to move.

My wing twitched again, and I forced it to shut. The war had been bad on me. My body was in shambles, falling apart. My wing wasn't even the worst of it. The old thing brought me through so much, helped me fly to my subjects and helped me comfort her.

Oh, what had the war not taken from me? It had taken my home, my people, my body. And my daughter. Oh, poor Monarch. She had died in battle along with most of the changelings, the others which were enslaved.

I held her as she was dying, comforting her.

"I love you," were her last words to me.

The worst part: I had no time to grieve. My subjects called me to battle, as I was needed. I only had enough time to hand her body to Crunch, a drone who loved my daughter. Who could blame him? She would have been the best queen there was.

I stumbled a bit, only to be caught by the guards, forcing me up. My leg was badly damaged. I'm not even sure I'll be able to walk the same ever again.

Half falling, and half lifting myself up, I made it to the end of the hall, where there were yet another set of doors. The guards opened this one, and I could feel all eyes on me.

If I could feed on hate, I would have binged.

Hundreds of democrats and politicians of the Equestrian empire lined the walls, sitting at the desks lifted high above the ground. And in the middle, the tyrants themselves.

I dragged my limping leg straight to the middle. There would be no mercy here. No, mercy was not in the pony soul. Especially these.

What had even caused the war? For one thousand years we fought. And for what? It all started on that famed day, known across history as The One That Started It All.

~~~~~~

I walked up to Celestia, who was firmly trapped in my cocoon. My plan had worked; tricking everypony to think that I was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the pink alicorn who was famed for bringing love to Equestria.

"Well, well, well. Look who's trapped now," I taunted her, waving the gold crown in front of her green tinted eyes.

"What I did to you all those years ago was because I needed to protect my people!" The muffled voice called from the inside.

I laughed, my voice vibrating along the walls. "Sure. What did you need protection from? Was I really that big of a threat? All I wanted was peace. Peace for my people, the changelings. I wanted us to coexist, live happily together. Did our friendship really mean nothing?"

Celestia growled. "Peace. For sure. What you did was an act of defiance!"

"Defiance? All I did was let the ponies choose for themselves. I let them enjoy life! All I gave them was emotion!"

"They had emotion! Then, your greedy self, you had to make them...you had to make them..."

"Love?" I finished.

"They were fine before. They were happy with the mates I assigned them. Then, discovering the one emotion they didn't have, and didn't need, you gave them choice and almost ruined my empire!"

"I gave them the choice to feel. To feel love for one another, to love somepony and marry somepony they loved. Did they really need to have assigned mates? Could you not have given them choices?"

"I wanted it to be orderly! If a unicorn fell in love with a pegasus, and they were married and had foals, there was a chance that the result could be alicorn! I don't need another Luna fiasco!"

"So you kept them pacified. And all because you didn't want another Luna? You're wrong. I didn't give them all love. I accidentally missed you. You are evil, Celestia. Not even kind towards your own sister."

"No," Celestia answered me, her anger growing. "Not just Luna. Cadence, too. She was the result of a unicorn-pegasus breeding. And now, I have an unneeded princess. All just waiting to take my throne!"

I stepped away from her, scoffing. "So you sabotaged your own sister, banished her to the moon for a thousand years, and now you're bagging it all on Cadence?"

"Yes."

"And all because you wanted power?"

"Yes."

"You monster."

"Coming from you? Not much of an insult."

~~~~~~

Poor Luna. At the official start of the war, she found out about Celestia's indifference towards her, and how she had made her turn into Night Mare Moon. In the end, she defied Celestia and stood at my side. I could see her in the center, tied up in the chains she was kept in, mane disheveled.

She was enslaved along with my subjects.

Now she looked at me with pleading eyes, and for a second, I could see the same defiance that had been there almost a thousand years ago. She was my head commander of the army, my right-hand pony. Her mane was cut in another act of defiance, a choppy pixie cut, cut by her own hooves.

I could see the sadness in her eyes, too. She had lost her comrades, who had also turned against Celestia, almost nine hundred years ago, and it showed.

I could tell she still missed Spike, Trixie, and Big Mac.

Twilight Sparkle sat next to her, dressed in full combat gear. Her eye patch bent a bit, showing her scowl. The jagged scar ran from the eye patch to the corner of her lip, put there by Crunch before he was murdered.

And there, the little naive, unimportant princess. Cadence, acting like nothing had happened, still putting on that little "I'm just an innocent little pony" charade. This was completely untrue. I had witnessed her brutality first-hand, as I saw her kill Spike. Her evil is never ending.

And yet, there she was, smiling and waving to the crowd, hiding the grotesque scar on her neck with a thick necklace.

The guards shifted, and threw me onto a cold, cast-iron seat in front of the four princesses.

"You do know why you're here," Celestia told me, no emotion in her eyes or tone.

"Yes."

"Then you know we reject your surrender, however, we are here to bargain with you."

"Yes."

"What is your bargain?" Twilight asked me, her spiky mane sticking up behind her choppy ear.

"I will turn myself in, if you release all of your prisoners. Including her," I pointed to Luna.

Celestia leaned back in her throne. She looked at me with evil eyes, despising me.

"I need to speak with the prisoner alone," she told the guards, and they hoisted me up again, pushing me into a different room.

Celestia sat, pouring herself a cup of tea from the pot on the table.

"We used to be friends, you and I," I told her. "Now look at us."

She chuckled, but not a warm chuckle, more of a hateful, sarcastic chuckle. "Sure, until you betrayed my trust."

"No, until you turned me into a monster, making me the first changeling. Until you killed your father, stealing the throne. Until you turned against your poor little sister, Luna, turning her into an evil mastermind because you were afraid of competition. You are pure evil. And you are a coward."

"Oh, soon, you will be a coward as well. You will beg for your life, and your begging will be looked upon with hatred, as well as hope. You will be the beacon for the New Equestrian Empire, proving we can trump all evils."

I scoffed. "I will never beg. I will never show you this kind of satisfaction."

She smiled. "As you wish."

Celestia waved to the guards, who dragged me away into the other room again. This time, my limp leg slid onto the middle of the room, democrats and politicians staring down on me. Luna's eyes were full of tears as she watched me, giving me a faint smile.

I smiled back.

Celestia stepped next to me, looking to the crowd. "Now, everypony. It is a time of great rejoicing for our kind. This marks the new era for Equestria: the New Equestrian Empire."

The crowds cheered.

"Let this be a reminder to anything that wants to mess with us: we always get our way. Even after one thousand years of pointless bloodshed, we always prevail. And now, for your viewing pleasure, the execution of Queen Chrysalis of the changelings!''

The crowds cheered again, whistling in anticipation of my death.

Celestia turned to me, watching me again with hateful eyes. In her hooves was an axe, gleaming in the light.

I wasn't afraid of it.

"Any last words, Chrysalis?"

I thought about it, then turned towards Luna. "Be brave," I told her. She nodded, smiling sadly at me.

Celestia cackled as she swung.

And that was the last thing I heard.