Luna,
I like to think I know what's happened, but I don't.
You weren't there last feria quinta, when we usually played. One day, the moon covered the sun for a while. Now there's a shape in the moon. The shape of a mare. News is spreading about your sister sending you to the moon. I don't want to believe it, but at the same time, I know its true.
I still want us to be besties, though. I told one of the servants at our castle that I had lost a friend. He told me to write letters, so I will write! I hope you'll come home soon, I don't want to be alone.
Your Bestest Friend,
Chrysalis
Luna,
When will you come home? I miss you...
My mommy told me that a demon possessed you, and you tried to make it so that the sun would never rise again. She told me that's why I could never trust ponies.
She was never best friends with a pony, so she wouldn't know.
What's it like on the moon? I can't imagine it's very fun. There isn't enough color. That's why I loved Equestria so much. It's always so much more pretty than the Badlands. But Since you left, I've found no reason to go back.
I won't bother you with these letters for a while. See you, I hope.
Your Bestest friend,
Chrysalis
To Luna,
It's hard to believe you've been gone a year now. Some days, it feels like I just saw you a few days ago. Other nights, it feels like it's been decades since I've seen your face. Heard your voice,
I turned nine not too long ago, though you might know that. Mom says I have to start my training as a princess. She says I'll learn magic, and how to lead, so that I'll be ready to be Queen when she steps down.
But I don't want to be Queen, I want to see my friends again.
The servants are knocking at the door, I must sign this letter and leave. Farewell, my friend.
~Chrysalis
To Luna,
My training is grueling work.
I don't have the "knack" for magic, as my instructor puts it. Despite that, she still hits me if she thinks I'm not trying hard enough. I am, though. You'd think my Mom wouldn't allow such a thing, but she says that's how she learned to do her magic when she was a filly.
I have seen some improvement, though. I've written this whole letter with a levitation spell.
You were so much better at magic than I was. I remember when you were thinking about the possibility of "earthly stars", and created Fireflies on accident! Fireflies seem to be everywhere now, but don't worry, everyone loves them. You really have made your own stars.
Maybe you were better because you weren't hit.
Your Friend,
Chrysalis
To Luna,
I accidentally transformed today. My first changeling morph!
In one of my magic instructor's lectures, she was talking about a monster called a tatzlewurm. With honesty, I had the thought of one of those things eating her. And I don't know how it happened, but suddenly, I found myself way up high. My instructor looked like she'd seen a ghost. I thought I was flying, but when I looked down, I found myself looking just like a tatzlewurm!
I admit, I was scared too. I didn't know how to transform back, but she saw my fear. She helped me turn back. It was probably the first time she was nice to me...
My story isn't special, though. A little interesting and funny perhaps, but there's probably hundreds of similar stories. I hear ponies can shift themselves, but they have to learn how. It comes naturally to changelings.
Bye,
Chrysalis
To Luna,
Last night, my instructor took me to a field instead of the classroom.
"No lessons today, M'lady", she told me. I was confused, than I noticed she had a basket . She wouldn't tell me what was within.
She told me her name today. Aphid. It wasn't a pretty name, I think I got lucky with my name. Ponies are lucky to have such amazing names. Still, I felt relieved a little to learn my instructor's.
We spent the day talking. I'd never seen Aphid smile or laugh or look remotely happy. It was nice. When the sun started going down, she admitted she had a filly like me a long time ago. Her first morph was a timber wolf, and she panicked when she couldn't change back.
Then Aphid got really sad, and she started crying. Apparently, the filly died in the ongoing famine here.
Before she left, she gave me a stuffed emela-ntouka. Said it was her foal's. Last night, I had the most fun I've had in a year. It made me miss our weekly playdates.
Today, Aphid was a lot less stiff and a lot nicer. She wants me to do well, I see that now. She's like the aunt I never had.
Maybe I shouldn't talk about this day... I know you never had anyone like that.
~Chrysalis
Dear Luna,
Ten years, I can't believe its been that long...
It's like the rest of the world has forgotten about us.
The famines have gotten worse, and we've received no outside help.
I see foals dying in the middle of the streets because they're too weak to move another step.
Pregnant mares take their own lives.
You would see our suffering. You would have persuaded Celestia, that horrid wretch, to save us.
I'm sorry for such words towards your kin.
But only a tyrant could allow us to suffer so, only a tyrant could lock us from the rest of the world and leave us to rot.
Tomorrow, I have decided I shall achieve an audience with Celestia. Make her see.
Signed,
Princess Chrysalis
Dear Luna,
When I met you, I gave thought that changelings were wrong about ponies, and vice-versa.
I was the one who was wrong.
I did not hide myself, I tried to be kind, to be charming, but I was an insect to be squashed in Equestria.
Celestia was only disgusted by my presence, I was allowed to speak, but she heeded not one of my words.
My proof? This letter... I'm writing it in Canterlot's dungeon.
The guards are terrible, they try to claim their privilege with me, and I have to transform myself so they do not succeed.
I am only fed when the thought comes to them, which isn't often.
I'm helpless, all I can do is pray that I'll be let free soon.
That I can be free from the monsters around me.
You are the only different one, Luna.
Signed,
Princess Chrysalis
Dear Princess Luna,
For the past 50 years, the common houses have suffered under the famine. Now, even the royal house goes unfed many nights. It's been so long since I've experienced a full stomach.
It gets worse, Wingblight is spreading through the Badlands. There is no mortality rate, anyone who contracts it will die.
I'm scared, Luna.
Dear Princess Luna,
The disease is finally beginning to subside, but at a terrible cost.
My mother has caught it.
Our Queen.
She says that I am ready, that I can do this,
That I could become Queen and rule after she is gone.
I said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't want to be Queen.
Luna, I'm begging you, come home.
Help me
Chrysalis
Dear Princess Luna,
Today was my coronation.
There was a celebration, a lot of parades and other fun things.
There are smiles and happiness.
These are not the changelings that suffered a famine.
You watch them laughing, but see the scars on their wrists.
Starved children run through the streets, half-dead.
Everyone congratulates me, is happy for me, welcomes me into my mother's shoes.
No one tries to acknowledge the fact that my mother is dead. No one shows sadness at the fact that she died slowly, in pain. It's like...it's like she never existed.
She was only 700, my mother. So young, should we not be sorrowful? Should we not be regretful that we are entrusting the welfare of our kingdom to a Queen who is only sixty?
I may not get to write many letters anymore, I will be very busy in the coming years...
Signed,
Queen Chrysalis
Dear Princess Luna,
A century, my country is in turmoil.
I have nightmares every night...
That's why I need to know,
You couldn't have been there last night,
Could you?
I recall that you could enter the minds of others while they slept. Control their dreams.
My nightmares, there was a monster.
I was a foal again, and I couldn't conjure up a spell to save myself.
Then you appeared,
You killed it.
And disappeared again.
You turned to me though, you were crying.
It couldn't have been you, you were older, my age.
Impossible, isn't it?
Or, have you finally returned.
Signed,
Queen Chrysalis
Dear Princess Luna,
My kingdom has fallen into a state of turmoil, and its getting too deep to save.
It's hard finding enough sustenance to ease my lightest hunger pangs.
We are a dying breed.
It has been 500 years, Luna, when will you come back?
From,
Queen Chrysalis.
I've heard the rumors, but they can't possibly be true.
Yet, the familiar sense of happiness can be felt anywhere.
You're home!
Its been so long, I've all but lost hope of seeing you again.
But you, you can save us all, we can be friends again. Perhaps not in the sense of the friendship we had as foals, but something similar to such.
It has been long since anyone in my kingdom has remembered what it's like to feel full. To walk without the risk of collapsing under there own weight.
We can finally be saved.
Luna,
Why have you not replied to my letters? Why have you not sent any help?
Why have you not even tried seeing me?
It has been a thousand years since we were real friends, since I've truly seen you.
Please, come see me.
Chrysalis
Luna,
An inability to help us because of Celestia's wretched influence.
That I could understand. That, I could forgive.
But its like you have all but forgotten my existence.
If I could just see you again, I could die a happy mare.
Please.
Chrysalis
Luna,
Why have you not come?
Chrysalis
To whom it may concern,
Up until I was eight, all I knew was fear and hatred.
Then I met you.
The princess of a land we were supposed to hate.
Yet, you were the sweetest creature I had ever known.
I thought you wanted to help, thought you saw our plight.
When you disappeared, I thought you'd come back without question.
As the years went by, I became more hopeless, devastated.
And then I accepted it.
When I had that dream, I took it as a sign you hadn't forgotten.
Now, I know better.
You're a pony, and ponies are beasts.
Things are just different when you're a foal.
When you came back, I thought you'd help us, my dedication to you was admirable, if misplaced.
I believed in you,
You monster.
~Chrysalis.
Queen Chrysalis stared at a half-dozen scattered letters, each one crumpled and torn.
What more could she say?
It was pointless anyway, the letter would not reach her before they would.
Chrysalis trotted over to the balcony, where her civilians obediently awaited her command.
She laughed and bolted into the air, watching as her thin wings thicken and become feathery. Her horn straightened, and flesh filled the holes in her hooves. Her coat became fuzzy, and turned a bright pink.
She was the princess of another land. No longer would her subjects know an empty stomach.
