Madame Butterfly

Madame Butterfly
a fanfiction of Equestria by
Jonshine
with respects to
Hasbro

“This day has been just perfect,
The kind of day I've dreamed of since I was small...
Everypony I'll soon control,
Every stallion mare and foal,
Who says a girl can't really have it all!!!”

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Queen Chrysalis of Equestria

Chrysalis felt a burst of magic from behind her, and the trickle that remained of Shining Armor's love for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza cut off like somepony had turned the stopcock.

“Whe, whuh, huh?” Shining Armor mumbled. “Is - is the wedding over?”

“It's all over!” Chrysalis blurted. How dare he! How dare he stop loving her!? Wasn't he utterly in her power and under her spell? Didn't he love her no matter how hideous she looked? No matter that loving her was killing him, bit by bit, day by day, ending in their eternal to-your-death-do-us part union today.

“Your spell,” the annoying little sister said, half order, half plea. “Perform your spell!”

“What good would that do?!” Chrysalis laughed. So what if Shining Armor hadn't wed her? He was nothing and she was everything. She was Queen of the Changelings, and she didn't need him. “My changlings already roam free,” she gloated.

“No!” Shining Armor cried. She was surprised he'd had the strength to speak, let alone to attempt the sorcery. That he'd failed had been a matter of course. “My power is useless now,” he moaned. “I don't have the strength to repel them.”

“My love will give you strength,” Cadance said, and embraced him.

Queen Chrysalis blinked. “What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment,” she said. Anypony could generate the power of love, of course, and in fact Equestria seemed to be unusually saturated with unusually genuine (if occasionally impure) love. But only changelings could manipulate, channel and convert it into magic: For their own use or anotherpony's, or simply to feed from – and wasn't feeding on pure love and magic more equine than pinning some poor creature under her hoof and tearing its flesh off with her fangs? Why, she and her swarm were progressive and forward-thinking changelings!

The Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and her groom – Chrysalis's groom – continued to make up with one another, and Chrysalis found her hooves carrying her to the window, to gaze out over her new domain. So what if she didn't want to watch Shining Armor making up with another pony on their wedding day? It only made it the tiniest bit imperfect. There were thousands of ponies out there who'd come to love, worship and adore her, as they had Celestia before her... or at least, they would if they knew what was good for them! Let 'Cadance' have what remained of Shining Armor's love, for as long as he lived, in the hovel they'd share in whatever loveless land far from Equestria she banished them to! She wouldn't even deign to look upon them.

So it was that the pulse of love-driven magic from behind took Chrysalis almost entirely by surprise. She just had time to turn, for her eyes to widen in astonishment and fear, before the wave blew her through the window.

Screaming.

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Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis, or possibly just Chrysalis the Changeling - for what was a Centurion without his hundred men, or a Queen without her hive – flew through the air, hoping she wasn't now Chrysalis the Last Changeling.

Her flight was unlike that of a bird, nor even a smooth and rounded cannonball, but rather an ungainly piece of statuary, a crumbling stone ode to a long-forgotten ruler. A statue thrown by some ancient siege trebuchet. One fired by descendants of those who had once worshipped, descendants who remembered little and cared less. Discarded and defeated, Chrysalis flew far, her light body the plaything of momentum and the breeze.

At this speed, her wings were less than useless. Instinct cried for her to spread them, but to do so would be to have the gossamer fabric shredded by the wind. She cursed the magic she had squandered – the power of Shining Armour's love for 'her' had lain even the sun-goddess Celestia low, and the merest fraction could have saved Chrysalis now – but none remained. It had required all of the little that had been left to survive when Shining Armor had turned upon her. She had but neglected him for a moment, foalishly disinterested in the empty vessel he'd become, forgetting it could be refilled... and how had Cadance achieved that, anyway? It should've been impossible for anypony.

Chrysalis knew she'd never learn the answer to that riddle, because she was going to die. The expanding shield spell had pushed her to great speed – and the complaint that she hadn't known it could do that would do nothing to lessen how hard the unforgiving ground would hit her.

Every piece of her chitin would be smashed, all her bones shattered, her wings would be torn and ruined because she would at least try to live before dying. Once it was over she'd lie broken on the baking desert of the Western Outlands, like a bug crushed carelessly underhoof. Her precious bodily fluids would leak from her corpse, trickling down the cracks in the drought-dried ground. That, till the Chuckwallas and the Leopard Lizards came out of their cracks, joined by the Owls and the Cottontails and the Kangaroo Rats from their burrows, to fight with the Coyote over whatever remained.

For her meat, they would love her to the last mouthful.

It was not a terribly comforting thought, made more galling because she could have lived. Had she been blasted towards Equestria, where she might be found by somepony, somepony who loved somepony she might replace, or leastwise briefly imponysonate... With the Power of Love her magic could've healed even the worst of injuries. But Shining Armor had put her out of his heart, and propelled her course for the Outlands, if he'd even gone so far as to think of her at all, and so she was going to die.

Then she sensed the pony.

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The Great and Powerful Trixie

The Great and Powerful Trixie was a very happy and entirely satisfied pony. She had the most beautiful new caravan, suiting her carefree and nomadic lifestyle – nowhere in Equestria was even close to being worthy of having her, the Great and Powerful Trixie, as an actual full-time resident. Even if such a magical place were to exist (Canterlot might come close, or even Manehattan), the awesome presence of the Great and Powerful Trixie would quickly reduce those ponies who lived there to shells of their former selves, their lives devoid of hope that they'd ever be half the unicorn she was.

It was for this reason – because when you were as great and powerful as the Great and Powerful Trixie, it behoved you to occasional benevolence – that she had temporarily left Equestria. All the other creatures of the world deserved to wonder and marvel at her, and perhaps even have the pleasure of providing her with some trinket or other.

That was why she'd come to the deserted desert outlands west of Equestria, far beyond even the frontier town of Appleloosa. The region's famed gemstone wealth had drawn her here, and Gemstowne was supposed to be the motherlode. That, and the fact it was on the far side of Canterlot from Ponyville and that insufferable pony Twilight Sparkle (and her pathetic pursuit of Trixie, presumably in the hope Trixie would spare her some magic in the hope it would make her a quarter the unicorn Trixie was – it was terrible thing, the ambition a very little talent could breed in some ponies).

In fact, it was about as far from Twilight Sparkle, Snips & Snails, Twilight Sparkle, the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle, all of Ponyville, and Twilight Sparkle as it was possible to be without falling off the edge of the world.

Best of all, there were no Ursas of any kind, and no Twilight Sparkle either.

Trixie didn't know whether to pity pegasi and earthponies more or less than unicorns. Of course, they were less developed than any unicorn could be (for what could be higher than magic), but they had their own special talents in menial things like pushing around clouds and growing crops. At least they were spared the indignity of having to compare themselves to a pony as Great and Powerful as Trixie, and so constantly find themselves wanting. Why, they could even provide her with gifts of things she might want or find useful – her new caravan, for example!

It'd been lovingly hoofmade by the most talented of earthpony coachbuilders, his plebeian designs modified to her personal specifications – the brilliance of which had clearly astounded the craftspony – in return for the merest trifles of her magic, performed for the delectation of his fellow villagefolk. They'd been feting Whathisname for that performance as she left their pathetic earthpony hovel of a town behind her.

Naturally, she'd chosen the plainest model, and had it decorated by the finest unicorn artist in all Equestria – herself. There were some things it just wouldn't do to leave to an earthpony.

The Great and Powerful Trixie looked up from the rare and delicious blue-mountain-sourced desert-spring-water-fed low-molecular-weight (food that went directly to your brain!) amino-acid-rich aphanizomenon flos-aquae she'd been eating, and cocked her head east.

What was that whistling noise?

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Chrysalis

The pony – Chrysalis could sense – was all alone in the desert, and they were very, very lonely. Yet they loved somepony with all their heart.

Hope surged. Chrysalis tried to angle herself towards this little pony, now – maybe, possibly, hopefully – her saviour. Her wings tore like tissuepaper the moment she extended them, and her screams were lost to the wind that'd ripped them. How could she have forgotten, she berated herself, when just a moment ago she'd been thinking how fragile they were – but there was no time for recriminations. Chrysalis had to use whatever was available to her, hooves and horn and twisting torso all.

It was trial-and-error, more than anything, learning something from each mistake, each extension of a curved surface that tipped or tilted her the wrong direction, further from salvation and towards extermination, and too many mistakes would kill her for sure. She cursed now the lightness she'd so often thanked for her fleetness and agility. Perfection came by luck of limb and breeze, rather than any skill of her own.

Perfection and overperfection. With growing horror, Chrysalis's slit-eyes saw the gaily-painted wagon. Perhaps the filly who owned it was a schoolmare travelling between disparate desert communities – certainly, it appeared as if it'd been decorated by enthusiastic, albeit inexperienced, foals. Surely a mare drawn to that vocation would have love enough to spare for anypony misfortunate enough to plunge from the sky.

Then Chrysalis perceived that she would land not only near the wagon, but on it! It would be a fine irony if for the sake of merest inches she hit and killed the only pony in a hundred leagues who might've saved her - had they both lived.

Chrysalis flailed, and the wind howled through her hoofholes.

The ground rushed up to meet her, and the side of the wagon – decorated with a ridiculous foals-impression of a platinum-maned wizard, complete with bestarred cloak and pointed hat – hit her in the face.

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The Great and Powerful Trixie

The whistling grew louder. Quite distracting, really, and really, when it was getting to the point that a unicorn couldn't even eat her expensive health food in peace, then what was the point? Or at least, it would've been expensive if it'd been served in a high-class Manehattan restaurant, advertised as in-season fresh-foraged, and surely this was as freshly-foraged as could be, which should make it more valuable, not less.

As the whistle became a howl Trixie looked up from the rock she was licking her slimy meal from. "Poulain~" she called, before remembering she wasn't actually in that high-class Manehattan restaurant, and saw the black form hurtling towards her wagon.

The Great and Powerful Trixie flung herself flat in the dirt, forehooves clutched protectively over her hat.

Her bright and beautifully decorated caravan exploded into bright and wickedly sharp shards as the falling pony smashed through and reduced it to shrapnel. Splinters the size of Trixie's hoof zipped past her, buzzing horribly, as smaller ones tore evilly into her coat and down into her flesh, and somepony screamed.

After awhile, the noise went away, except for the screaming.

Trixie wished that pony would shut the buck up, whoever she was.

A little later, pausing to gasp for air, she realised it'd been her.

Panic passed. Trixie recognised that Trixie was injured, but not badly. The dry desert air would quickly cause her wounds to scab over. Already the rivulets of blood were drying on her coat. Yes, the wounds on her body would heal quickly. As for the injuries to her soul...

… her beautiful and beloved wagon had been reduced to wreckage, again; she was homeless, again; she was unemployed, again; she was alone in the desert without supplies, or shelter, and since the scraps of her map were now fluttering down around her she was lost, too. At least this time, the rare and precious tomes of magic and playbills of showponyship she'd inherited from her mother hadn't been destroyed, because as far as she knew none of them had survived Ponyville's Ursa. Or if they had they were probably in the hands of that madmare librarian Twilight Sparkle, who might be and probably was doing any and all manner of molestation to them in her comfortable treehouse. Also, she'd lost her mirror – again – which meant she'd have nopony to admire or talk to.

Reduced once again to the cloak on her back, hat on her head, and her own great and powerful powers, the Great and Powerful Trixie stood. It wasn't really all that bad. She was still great, and powerful, and with her hat and cloak and cutiemark anypony could see that she was. She'd be able to get those other things she'd lost back again. After all, she'd already done so once before.

So now she was going to go and see what manner of impudent creature would dare to assault the person of the Great and Powerful Trixie and break her stuff, and whether they had anything to make up for it with.

Maybe food that wasn't lichen licked from a rock.

The Great and Powerful Trixie wasn't at all worried. Any knocking together of her knees was purely due to the shocking experience she'd just been through and not at all to being afraid of who-or-whatever might've caused it.

Besides, she thought as she peered over the lip of the furrow the crash had ploughed, nopony could've survived that.

A moment later, she was leaping down into the trench, heedless of the sharp wreckage and the dirt and the unsure footing, towards the pony – a pony whose face she knew all too well – lying helpless and dying in the grave her crash had dug for her.