The kind of date of which I've dreamed since I was small!
“If you want to see your precious princess,” the Changeling Queen cackled over the glowing green communication orb, “then you will come alone, Sparkle. And don’t be late!”
Chrysalis’ horn ceased its sickly glow, and the image of the young alicorn princess disappeared. One of Chrysalis’ drones gently lifted the crystal ball and placed it back upon its obsidian pedestal.
“My Queen, do you require anything else before you retire?” the servile drone asked.
“No, drone. Your Queen requires no more of you.” Chrysalis turned back to her captive. “Leave me be with our guest.”
“What ever you have planned, Chrysalis,” the regal white alicorn protested as she tried to free herself, “Twilight Sparkle will stop you.”
She was hung upside down; a sickly green ichor, having hardened against her hooves, suspended Celestia from the ceiling. The same material covered her long horn, suppressing her magic, and her wings were bound tight against her body. She was the very definition of a damsel in distress: a mare with no means to defend herself or escape.
The changeling queen grasped Celestia’s muzzle. “Oh, Celestia, it should be obvious by now,” she cackled. “I… have… won!” Chrysalis punctuated each word with a light tap on the impotent alicorn’s nose.
Chrysalis turned her back on the glaring solar Princess. “She might have stopped me from taking her country.”
Chrysalis’ gossamer wings fluttered, lifting her into the air. “She might have stopped me from taking her power.”
“But nothing…” Chrysalis cackled maniacally as she alighted her bed. “No, nothing will stop me from taking her heart!”
“What?”
“She will be mine, all mine!” Chrysalis burst into maniacal laughter.
Celestia hung, dumbstruck, as the changeling queen levitated the communication crystal towards her chest, giggling. Touched once again by the changeling queen’s magic, Twilight Sparkle re-appeared in the small crystal.
“But she said alone,” Twilight argued. “And she has Princess Celestia!”
Chrysalis scowled as she heard the murmuring of Twilight’s meddling friends. Why wouldn’t they just take the hint and buck off?
“No!” Twilight argued with the orange one, Applesnack, if Chrysalis recalled correctly. “I can not risk Princess Celestia’s safety. Luna will take care of the country whilst I am gone, but I promise you: I will bring the Princess back, safe and sound.”
Chrysalis swooned, listening to the commanding voice of Princess Twilight Sparkle. So sexy… so sure of herself!
“Oh, I do hope she gets here soon!” Chrysalis levitated the crystal ball back to its podium, replacing it with a small hand mirror. “What should I wear? Do you think the crown is too much?
“I should take her to that little place on Aculeate Lane… Drone four-thousand-two-hundred-and-twenty-one says they serve the most delicious daffodils in a love bisque. Maybe if everything goes well, we’ll come back to the palace and… oh wait— does the bisque have garlic in it?”
Her thoughts finally returning to her, Celestia took stock of the giggling, heavily-blushing insectoid on its bed, running a small hoof-brush through its hole-ridden mane.
I’ve been caught by an idiot!
“You’re kidding me, right?” Celestia groaned. “You’ve got to be bucking kidding me!”
“You can’t stop us from loving one another!” Chrysalis shouted back at the alicorn. “We were meant to be!”
“And just what makes you think that?” Celestia asked, completely deadpan— a feat made all the more amazing by the fact she looked somewhat absurd suspended from the ceiling of the Changeling Queen’s bedroom.
“Well, she is smart, and determined. She’s also very pretty, if you are into hairy quadrupeds— which I guess I am…” Chrysalis beamed as she listed off Twilight’s qualities to Celestia. “And then there is that whole ‘not going to die on me in fifty years or so’ thing, too. I’ll tell you what, that is a big turn on!
“A-and she’s powerful.” Chrysalis shuddered, her blush furiously intensifying. “So very powerful! Last time she blasted me…” Chrysalis trailed off, fidgeting with her holed hooves. “I wanted her to stay with me, and she was even going to, but she ended up choosing her stupid friends.
“But this time, it is fool-proof; she’s coming alone! Her friends won’t mare-block me this time!”
“So you’re saying…” Celestia snarled as light flared from her horn. “That all of this…” She waved a free hoof around the room, startling Chrysalis. “That I gave up a full day’s work in hopes I could teach Twilight something about being a princess…”
As Celestia radiated with power and heat, Chrysalis scampered away from the impossibly-free alicorn in fear.
“That I allowed you to capture me,” Celestia boomed in the Royal Canterlot Voice. “All so you could get laid?
“What is wrong with you‽”
“H-how? I beat you…” Chrysalis tried to convince… probably herself.
“Oh come on, Chrysalis. Think!” Celestia scoffed. “I raise the sun every day. If I wanted to, I could have called down a solar flare on your entire kingdom and come out singing.”
Celestia sighed. “I had to leave my work to Luna today. Luna! Do you know how many problems she created last time I left her in charge? Our guests were waiting for her to return to a chess match for three days!” She looked down at the sobbing Changeling Queen and sighed.
“I am too old for this shi—”
Ж
“Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike!” Twilight panicked. “What am I supposed to bring on a clandestine mission to extract a princess from enemy territory?” The alicorn levitated Pinkie’s night-vision goggles and a shovel. “These were all I could find. I'm thinking: goggles, yes; shovels, I don't know how or why I'd use them.”
The little dragon stopped to think. “Maybe Rarity could make you a turtleneck; Pinkie says you can’t go on a spy mission without a turt—”
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation.
“Spike!” Twilight moaned. “I thought you put the ‘Closed for National Emergency’ sign up. Why is somepony knocking at our door?”
The dragon grumbled as he waddled down the stairs, muttering curses under his breath as he walked.
“Ummm, Twilight?” the little dragon called out. “I think you need to come downstairs.”
Twilight stomped out of the room, then stumbled down the stairs, landing in a tangle of ropes, pulleys and night-vision goggles.
“Princess‽” Twilight screeched as she stumbled to her hooves. “How? What? When?”
“Twilight, I have somepony here that would like to say something to you.” Before the smaller alicorn could say another word, Celestia stepped to the side, revealing the last pony Twilight ever expected to see in her library.
“Ummm, I just wanted to say I am sorry for stealing your princess,” Chrysalis mumbled.
“Aaaand?” Celestia prodded.
“And I’m sorry for kidnapping your friends’ sisters. Oh, and your sister-in-law. And your brother…”
“Ummm.” Twilight looked to her mentor, who nodded. “Apology accepted?”
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Celestia asked. The changeling shook her head. “Now, there was one more thing you wanted to ask, wasn’t there?”
Twilight watched in confusion as the Changeling Queen mumbled and fidgeted with her hooves. She looked imploringly to her mentor for an explanation, but none came.
“I was… ummm… that is, Celestia explained to me…” Chrysalis stumbled over her words. It was now or never, so she blurted out: “I REALLY LIKE YOU WOULD YOU GO OUT WITH ME?”
