Madame Butterfly

Trixie

Trixie barely even saw the alternate reality's Trixie – Alterixie – move. Rover certainly never had time to scream. She lunged, he stumbled back, her foreleg cracked his skull against the rock – and Alterixie drove her hoof through his face and laminated his brains across the stone.

The sound – Trixie would never forget the sound – a combination of cracking a walnut between your hooves and stepping on a forgotten, half-rotten apple. That sound, and the sound Alterixie made as she killed him: None whatsoever.

No expression on a face identical to Trixie's own as she murdered somepony.

Trixie's mouth opened around a warning as a digdog bounded off the makeshift pony-cart behind Alterixie. The trap clattered into a hundred ruined pieces, and Trixie realised – because she was too stunned, and too slow – that she'd never breathe her warning in time. Alterixie was going to die, and then she was going to die. Alterixie's violent stupidity had gotten them both killed – although wasn't there more than enough blame to go around, since she'd been the one going to Gemstowne, alone, and the horrible fate she now knew awaited her there...

Just before the digdog would've hit Alterixie's back, just before his claws would've dug down through flesh and shredded her spine, Alterixie's hindhooves flashed out. The digdog's armour and bones crunched together as they connected. He flew backwards, met the rocky walls. Bone snapped, the light went out of his eyes, and he rattled to the ground.

Nopony alive had a neck that bent that way.

The other digdog approached Trixie, snarling. She surrounded him with a firework display to amaze and astound, and succeeded in setting the remains of their cart alight. She turned to flee - and stumbled backwards over her own hooves.

The digdog loomed over her.

Distracted by the light show, it didn't see the electric-green whip of magic coming till the last second. With no time to duck or dodge, the digdog did the only thing he could – raised his armoured dig-arm into the blow, and took it.

The cord of energy hit like a lightning bolt, lashing around his arm like fishing line, denting his steel armour with the force of it. Where it caught his fur, it burned away in acrid smoke, and from his skin Trixie could smell the stench of roasting flesh.

Alterixie yanked her catch from his feet, snipped the incandescent line free of her horn, and let the digdog cook in his tinfoil wrapper.

Wait. Hadn't there been four Diamond Dogs?

Trixie looked around. A thin plume of dust, rapidly receding into the distance, marked Fido's flight. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was over.

Then Alterixie leapt forward, bounding from ground to outcropping and leaping back, lithe body describing the perfect arc. Trixie wouldn't have been able to make that jump – perhaps, in her own alternate world, Alterixie had more in common with Ponyville's vile orange earthpony Applejack, with her whip-tricks and athleticism and her hat.

Trixie imagined Alterixie examining her with sloe-eyes, from beneath the shadow of a cocked Stetson. “How you doin', Sugahcube,” Trixie breathed, distracted by her imagination, and blushed. Trixie knew Trixie was vulnerable to that. Travelling magic shows and rodeos went together like apples and pie – you made one out of the other. But beautiful travelling magicians and athletically handsome earthpony fillies went together like applejack and a long warm night in Trixie's caravan: Wonderfully, till the AJ went away, and left Trixie with headache and heartache under the blazing morning sun. Nopony ever stayed with Trixie for long, Trixie thought.

The thunder of Alterixie's hoofbeats echoed from the rocks as she galloped away, following Fido.

Leaving Trixie alone. With the bodies.

“Don't go,” Trixie whispered, falling to her haunches, “oh, please don't go.” She let out a great, sniffling sob, which drew the sickly-sweet caramel aroma of roasted Diamond Dog deep with her nostrils. If she'd had any lunch, she would've lost it, she thought as she dry heaved. Yet her mouth was wet. “Please come back,” she wailed, “Trixie's scared.” It echoed from the rockfaces, mocking her like the voices in her head. “Don't leave Trixie all alone,” she sniffed. “Again.”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Chrysalis

Blood ran rivulets down Chrysalis's foreleg, puddling in her hoofholes and beading from their sharp edges, forming droplets that stained the rusty ground below a more crimson shade of red.

It hadn't even been wasteful. These dogs were a scourge, pouring precious pony love into their mine in return for worthless gems, and in that coin their lives were bought and paid for. She'd just been the one to collect the bits. Not that she hadn't enjoyed it. It'd felt good to indulge her natural changeling instinct for the old ultraviolence.

Emphasis on old. She was newschool, she was the principle of the newschool. A changed changeling, (hopefully still) Queen of the reinvented swarm, exploring a whole new world full of loving little ponies.

But Fido was fleeing, and she was pursuing with intent to destroy. Even from here, she could taste his fear. Scrumptious and meaningless, she thought, coiling a fresh lash of magic about her horn. Under other circumstances, she might've been content to let Fido go, to leave him a slim hope of survival against the probability the desert would deal his death. If he hadn't fled back towards Gemstowne, she might've. Might've. But he had, so she closed the distance and let her lash fly.

It caught his leg below the knee, just as she'd intended, and yanked the Diamond Dog off his paws. He scrabbled at the dirt, frantic to escape. Her approach was leisurely, now, for while he might have hope she knew it was forlorn. There was no escape until she chose to release him, from the magic's grip or from his mortal bonds.

Loose magic, the length of lash gone slack by her approach, curled around her horn with her every hoofstep as she approached him, crackling like lightning and swishing like fine silk rope. When she was close enough for him to hear it, he rolled, paws up and neck extended, whining piteously.

Chrysalis felt none. Pity in this context was alien to her. Fido's posture was clearly gesture of submission, but for her it was a translation, a concept from a foreign language with no heartfelt meaning, if a changeling could even be said to have such a thing. When swarmlings fought Queens, they came in scores and died by the dozen, and if they won it was by burying the Queen beneath their own bodies. When Queens fought... slash, stab. Only one Queen in a hive.

She could taste the empty calories of Fido's fear. Even now, with it still wet on her lips she was unfulfilled. His heart beat rapid, each pulse a throb of his carotid artery, each one tempting her to rip his throat out and fill her belly with his flesh. That would sate her. She could terrify Fido till his heart burst, could hold an entire pony population in petrified thrall, and still starve to death herself. Such was the worthlessness of fear.

From far away, she remembered the taste of Trixie's love, now overlain with the sickly-sweet flavour of the little blue pony's fear. Not just the generalised fear of the desert, nor even of the Diamond Dogs, but of her. Of the monster Chrysalis had shown herself to be. She might as well have spared the imponysonation and shown Trixie her true, hideous form.

Yet Chrysalis could feel Trixie's misery was more for Chrysalis's abandonment than the monstrosity of her murderous deeds. Even now, it was the memory of loneliness, and the likelihood of it's return that horrified the little blue pony. Trixie would choose the company of a monster over solitude, Chrysalis realised. Maybe even a monster such as her. Though Trixie had correctly perceived the heartlessness beneath the form Chrysalis wore, Trixie needed Chrysalis just as much as Chrysalis needed her. And Trixie loved her.

Love... you could sip of love and be satisfied. The memory and hope of it drew Chrysalis from her bloodlust.

“That little blue pony's name is Trixie. The Great and Powerful Trixie. If you ever see her again, you should thank her,” Chrysalis told Fido as she stood over his trembling form, who'd really dug quite a respectable hole for himself. “She just saved your life.”

Fido whimpered and pawed the ground.

“Now tell me of Gemstowne, Fido,” she said, “so that you may continue to live it.”

He did.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Trixie

Trixie was alone again. There'd been Diamond Dogs, but they were dead now. Dead or fled, and Alterixie had pursued them. It'd all happened so fast.

She'd been asleep, being looked-after by the one pony she could trust to do that, the one pony she('d thought she) could trust to never abandon her (but she had), then the voices had woken her. She'd been frightened. Frightened for both of her. She'd tried to bluff and flatter and wheedle their way our of it, and it hadn't worked.

Then Alterixie had demonstrated that the only thing to be afraid of was her. Maybe she'd come back.

The head of this little pack of Diamond Dogs had been called Rover. His gem-studded collar bore the word, and she couldn't take her eyes off it. Above was his terrible jaw, and above that, where his eyes should've been, had been, was where Alterixie had pushed her hoof through his skull. Shards of bone protruded, between oozing bits of brain, liberally drizzled in blood.

Rover had been standing when Alterixie killed him, and a smear of blood traced up the rockface from where his corpse lay. Trixie'd seen the Lascaux cave paintings once, in Prance. They'd been beautiful, for all that they depicted a more brutal time, artwork hoofpainted at least in part in somepony's blood. This... this was that brutality in that material, fresh-painted by Alterixie.

It was horrible.

Trixie had been going to Gemstowne. If not for Alterixie, she'd have run into Rover and his dogs and... and... something like this would've happened to her. Or worse.

She owed Alterixie her life, which she guessed made them even. Yet Alterixie terrified her. The Great and Powerful Trixie's spells delighted and entertained, and Trixie basked in the adoration of her audience. This alternate Great and Powerful Trixie... this Great and Powerful Alterixie... this other version of her... her spells slaughtered and maimed.

Alterixie had killed Rover, and maybe he'd deserved it. Judge, jury and executioner, yes; but murderer, no. She'd despatched the first digdog cleanly, with a single buck and clearly in self-defence. Any earthpony in her place might've done the same. Trixie thought the physicality of it vulgar for a unicorn, even as she knew she would not have had the strength – it was a feat worthy of Ponyville's earthpony rodeo brute Applejack.

But the last digdog... Alterixie had slain him defending her, which made her feel both worse and more conflicted. She was glad the dog was dead. Or rather, she was glad to be alive, which amounted to the same thing... if Alterixie hadn't wrapped his armour in magefire and left him to roast alive.

Had Alterixie had no choice, Trixie wondered? Had her attack been limited by the protection of his armour? Yet, she could at least have paused a moment to spare the digdog that death. Or... had Alterixie expected Trixie to give him that mercy on her behalf?

Trixie hadn't. Trixie couldn't.

She'd sat, eyes squeezed tight, wishing she could do the same to her ears and her nose, till the digdog's screaming had ceased. The worst part had been the smell. The slow cooking of the dog's flesh had the scent of onions in oil, the preparation of garlic before a butternut roast. Trixie hadn't eaten properly in days, hadn't had a good hot meal in weeks.

Her mouth had watered.

What kind of pony was the Alterixie, that she could expect Trixie to kill for her, even in mercy? Was she a normal and well-adjusted pony like Trixie, just from a more brutal world? Trixie could imagine worlds sent mad by Discord, or crushed beneath Nightmare Moon's iron hoof, or ruled by the shadowy cabal of Elements led by the nefarious Twilight Sparkle and enforced by the brutal Applejack. Worlds that might justify such as this on a daily basis. Worlds where a normal pony might kill at the drop of a hoof.

But... this other version of herself could be from a world still beneath Celestia's gentle wing. Was Alterixie a true psychopathpony, driven from a world as kind as Equestria? Had Alterixie gone quietly? Had the injuries Trixie had healed been inflicted by Celestia herself, as some alternate version of the godpony drove Alterixie from her world and into Trixie's?

As her student Twilight Sparkle had driven Trixie from Equestria in this world.

Hadn't that been a surprise. Princess Celestia's personal student. Nopony could've expected to find her in a podunk town like Ponyville.

That was the pony whom the Great and Powerful Trixie had made her enemy. A pony with the backing of a god.

Yet it was hard to see how it could've been different, even had she known. She hated Twilight Sparkle more now than when she'd been ignorant. Twilight had a mother and a father and a big brother and a draconic little brother – if Spike wasn't scandalously her son instead, for who knew what foul fertility magic the books in the restricted section of Canterlot Castle's library held?

Twilight had taken Princess Celestia, who always should've been Trixie's, for was Trixie not the Greatest and Most Powerful Pony in all Equestria?

Was there ever any doubt?

Trixie hadn't had Twilight's bounty of mentors and mothers. Had she had to take the books that'd been Trixie's only substitute, that'd practically raised Trixie? Had Twilight Sparkle the librarian had to take them, just to lend them away? And as for that Applejack...

Besides that viciousness of Twilight and her friends, did Alterixie's barbarity even matter? Did the source of it matter? Whether by the nature of herself or the nurture of the world that'd reared her, Alterixie was the monster she was, a monster that wore Trixie's face – and Trixie was alone in the wilderness with her.

Trixie had no hope of surviving the wilderness without her.

The digdog's corpse was crackling beneath his armour, as hot fat trapped beneath crispy-roasted skin exploded outwards in tiny bursts. It sounded like magrowaving popcorn. Trixie didn't want to think about it. Didn't even want to hear it. But ancient sense-association memories, long repressed by a much, much younger filly, expected her mother to bring her a bowl of popped corn, and to amaze her with an astounding show.

Memories from before her mother had gone away, and never returned to Trixie.

Alterixie came back.

She was carrying something in her mouth.

Something that dripped.

Trixie didn't really see it until Alterixie dropped Fido's severed leg, butchered off below the knee, on the desert ground before her. It'd been slow-roasted, by Alterixie's green magefire whip. Trixie only hoped it hadn't been attached to Fido while it'd cooked.

“You... you...” Trixie stammered. “Is he...?”

“Alive,” Alterixie replied, “and he cannot now warn Gemstowne.”

Questions and denials and screams bunched at Trixie's lips: “You can't leave him to die out here!”

“I believe he will survive to reach Gemstowne,” Alterixie said, “but not before we do. By then, his warning will be irrelevant. One way or the other.”

Trixie blanked.

“You can't seriously be suggesting we still go there!” Trixie screamed. “It'll be full of Diamond Dogs. There'll be no forgiveness for this!!” Her gaze flickered around the the devastation, wild-eyed. “They'll kill us both!!!”

“Little water remains,” Alterixie said, “and no food. The desert will be the death of us. First you, then me.”

Trixie paused and considered this while she hyperventilated. “You've killed us both,” she said, very quietly. “There's water in Gemstowne, there must be. We should've surrendered. Gone with them. Better a minepony than a deadpony.”

“We take the water from the Diamond Dogs,” Alterixie said, “at Gemstowne.”

“You're mad,” Trixie blanched. “You're a crazy Trixie. They'll be hundreds of them.” Trixie didn't want to think about whether that meant Alterixie really was insane; or if she knew she could handle four hundred as easily as four; or if she knew she couldn't and was counting on Trixie's help.

Trixie had never killed anypony. She'd never even hurt anypony on purpose. Not really. Not physically. Besides, underfed as she was she was in no condition to-

“You will need your strength,” Alterixie said, nudging roasted leg of Fido towards Trixie with her forehoof.

Trixie looked at her. “You can't expect me to eat that,” she said, and gulped. “Him.” She looked at Alterixie with pleading eyes. “I'm a herbivore.”

“Not an obligate one,” Alterixie replied. “Not a true ruminant. You have a single stomach. You can eat meat. It lacks nutrients you need, and you cannot digest it well, but there's fat and protein enough there to see you to Gemstowne, with strength enough left to fight.” Her tone brooked no argument, and in truth Trixie did not doubt her. Alterixie had no reason to lie and every reason to keep her alive. Even such a- a- a battlemage as Alterixie might need allies at Gemstowne – but would she still feel the same, if Trixie admitted she couldn't kill? Would Alterixie think she was the Weak and Worthless Trixie? Would Alterixie have any use for a Weak and Worthless Trixie?

Trixie had the sickening feeling she might know what Atlerixie would do to a weak pony who was worthless to her.

At least it answered the question of what kind of world Alterixie came from – a brutal, pony eat pony one. Or maybe the crime Alterixie had been banished from a gentle Equestria for was cannibalism... it was rumoured to be practised even in this world, by the tribes of Papae, New Whinny... as if the Princess would ever allow such a thing in Equestria.

“I can't,” Trixie said. “Cannibalism. I just... can't.”

Trixie realised that, whatever she'd thought, until this moment she'd been dragging Equestria behind her wherever she went. No wonder the wagon had seemed so heavy. But she knew that if she ate Fido's leg then that would no longer be true. She'd have left Equestria, and she could never go back.

Self-exiled. Auto-banished.

Equestria: 'Wherever beasts are cowed... where ponies live unbowed...' The rhyme didn't mention 'where ponies do not eat one another'. It was probably assumed, or something. Or maybe if she ate Fido's leg that would make Trixie an unbowed beast.

“It's Diamond Dog, not pony,” Alterixie said, “so strictly speaking it would not be cannibalism.”

“I'd never be able to go home,” Trixie wailed. “Equestria's for ponies, and ponies don't eat other ponies. Or Dogs. Or cats or bats or rabbits or anypony.” She sniffed. “I. Can't.”

“Ah, no,” replied Alterixie, smiling helpfully. “I believe you are confused. It's if you die here that you can't go back to Equestria.”

“If I eat that!” Trixie glanced down and shuddered. “Then I won't be home, not even if I stood in the Great Hall of Canterlot Castle itself!”

“I will go there with you,” Alterixie said, “and you will be in Equestria. Even if it is not the same.” She paused, until Trixie met her gaze. “My word upon it.”

“What am I, that I can be you?” Trixie whispered, very, very quietly.

“A pony went into the desert,” Alterixie replied, staring into the distance, though Trixie thought she'd spoke too quietly for her to hear, “and when she returned, she was not the same.” Alterixie shook her mane, and turned back to Trixie. “You knew the Outlands would change you, I think. Came here looking to be changed.”

“So I just... eat it,” Trixie said, almost mesmerised by the meat. It was drooling oil onto the rock beneath her hooves, and she was drooling onto it. “You know,” she continued, almost conversationally with just a hint of madness, “even though I've decided to do it – I want to survive, so badly – I just know I'm going to gag on it.”

“Think of it as Lipizzan Omlette, if that helps,” Alterixie continued more kindly. “Healthsome protein: Eggs and cheese. Just a bit tougher.” She paused. “You'll... have to chew.”

“C- could you... help me?” Trixie whispered. She couldn't look at either Alterixie or the roasted joint, now. “I know it's foalish, but when I was a foal mommy would help me with my vegetables. I didn't like them,” Trixie admitted. “I always wanted flowerpetals.”

Alterixie bent her head to the roast, put her forehoof on it, and ripped away a long strip of cooked flesh. She chewed, for a moment, then lifted her head to Trixie's, and wriggled Trixie's own perfectly-groomed eyebrows at her. “Mouth... to mouth?” Trixie blubbered as Alterixie drew closer. “Not with your horn?" Alterixie didn't answer. Of course Alterixie didn't answer. Her mouth was full.

"Uh, magic?” Trixie suggested weakly.

Alterixie's mouth pressed on hers. Pushed the food into hers. Already chewed, it was just like foalfood, gooey and nutritious and best if you did not think about where it'd come from.

It was triggering sense-memories of her mother, Trixie realised, but her mother had never fed her like this. At least, Trixie hoped she hadn't, because that would've been a lot ickier than kissing your alternate-dimensional doppleganger.

Except... except... although she'd kissed Alterixie before, and Alterixie had gone further than just kissing – a lot further – she hadn't, well it was insane, but she thought she tasted-

She tasted fangs in this kiss!!!

Alterixie has fangs?! Trixie thought, leaping out of the lip-lock, staring wild-eyed at her clonepony. Alterixie had fangs!!!

“You've got fangs!” Trixie accused.

“Normal in my world,” Alterixie replied, apparently unfazed, nudging the roast leg forward. “So this is all yours. I don't need cooked meat to feed,” she continued, gesturing to the corpses of Rover and the digdog – the one that wasn't burned to a carbonized crisp.

Trixie nodded slowly. Well, that answered that, at least. Evolved omnivorous, not some cannibalistic fetish-freak. But, she thought as she bent over her own meal, listening to the sounds of Alterixie's fangs ripping at Rover's flesh: I'm glad I don't have to watch her eat.

Food happened.

They prepared to leave. Rover's butchered body, sans head, was draped across Alterixie's back. It was still more than a day's trot to Gemstowne.

“What about that one?” Trixie asked, nodding to the un-crisped digdog. Not that she was sure she could carry it. Trixie would have to make the trip on her own hooves, now, and (maybe, but hopefully not) fight when she arrived. She still felt weak, and the little water they'd been able to salvage was heavy enough in her makeshift saddlebags.

“We must leave something for Fido,” Alterixie replied. “I gave my word.”

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Author's note of thanks

This chapter owes a narrative debt to both The Immortal Game by AestheticB, and to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky, with regard to the fact that Cannibalism!!!! can be fun (it also has a MLP bit in it's Omake Files 3 chapter).