Why, yes! We DO eat our mates!
We apologize in advance for any horrible karaoke songs you may feel obligated to sing at the end of this story. Those responsible have been sacked.
"Article 36 Subsection 208 Paragraph 3: No Changeling may impersonate a living pony without that pony’s express permission."
Celestia cooed. "Your attention to detail is legendary, Twilight! I’m so very proud of you, bringing those darling little changelings into Equestria’s fold." She leaned in to nuzzle a suddenly-stiff Twilight and whispered, "Perhaps when all this is over, I could reward you more… privately?"
"PARAGRAPH 3, CHRYSALIS." Twilight ground her hooves into well-worn grooves on the creaking desk. "What part of that was unclear?"
"The part where you’re a sexually repressed workaholic?" Disappearing in a flash of sickly green fire, Celestia re-formed into something blacker and sleeker and muskier. "Seriously, Sparkle, you need to get out more. And by get out, I mean get in."
"In?"
"To bed. With someone. Anyone. Or several someones. Whatever you kinky ex-librarian types are into."
Twilight held a hoof to her aching temple and fluffed her increasingly ragged wings. "Maybe I could take a little personal time if I HAD SOME HELP rewriting centuries of laws and regulations and statues on impersonation, resettlement, citizenship…" She threw her hooves up and rolled her eyes and huffed, "and a hundred other things I apparently have to do myself because you’re too concerned with my sex life to help pen a treaty!"
"Priorities, Princess." There were at least a thousand teeth in Chrysalis’ grin. "Priorities."
"We’re up to our ears in paperwork, Chrysalis! Why," Twilight pleaded, "why does it matter to you whom I choose to date, or when, or how?"
"Because we’re stuck together, my little book horse." Chrysalis sat back and sighed. "You proved your case quite thoroughly - if my changelings are to become citizens of Equestria, they won’t be able to do so by force. And Tirek," she added, shuddering, "showed us that we can’t survive on our own. We need ponies for sustenance, and as much as it pains me to admit it, we need you for security as well."
Twilight nodded. "Well, once your nation’s full Equestrian citizenship is affirmed, you’ll have the complete protection of - "
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. "What, the Royal Guard? The Ponyville Part-Time Posse? No, Twilight, I meant you. You, specifically."
The alicorn tried to let a raised eyebrow speak for itself but eventually relented. "Me? What, do you intend to post me as a door guard?"
"Well, historically most of my mates came from the ranks of my elite guard, so if you’re offering…" Chrysalis caught a flying vase, set it down gently, and continued. "Integration, acceptance, citizenship for changelings - this was all your idea, Purple Smart. You convinced Sunbutt and Moonbutt to let us join all you delectable little pastel pastries, and the heavens alone know how, but you even got Lovebutt to acquiesce and give her blessing."
She sauntered over to the little pony and extended a diaphanous wing across her. "As much as it galls me to admit it, Sparkle, I owe you for that. If you’d let me, I’d reward you! How does this sound: Twilight Sparkle, Assistant Deputy Backup Concubine?" There was a puff of air under her wing, scented vaguely like Eau de Teleporting Miffed Alicorn. She sighed and slowly lowered her wing. "I do mean it, Twilight. I owe you. Which is why it so pains me to see you cooped up, stressed, and drowning in self-denial."
Twilight set her jaw for a moment, stifled a snarl, and deflated as she let out a long, draining breath. "Fine. I admit it. I’ve been so occupied with work lately, I might have let my social life slip. A little."
"A little?" came the responding snort. "Twilight, do you even know what day it is?"
"One that ends in Y?"
"And where are your friends?
"Well, Rainbow’s… flying? And Pinkie probably has a party or - or something, and Spike…" Twilight blushed and shrank and hung her head. "Okay, I admit it. I don’t know where they are."
"Your lizard was scooped up by his ‘friend’ the Dragon Lord a week ago. They’re off in the lava fields, pretending not to nuzzle. The rainbow one is nose-deep in her Wonderbolts trainer."
"In her training, you mean?"
"Not in the slightest. And Pinkie Pest is off inhaling a Cheese Sandwich. Speaking of which, I’m surprised she didn’t lecture you on your utter lack of humor before she left."
"What do you mean? I find lots of things funny! I read the first draft notes of Bisonoulli’s Theorem and I almost…" Twilight found herself shaking her head in time with Chrysalis’. "Okay, well, maybe it isn’t everyone’s cup of Advanced Tea Substitute," she said as she looked to her hooves and started to mumble, "but I liked it."
Chrysalis slid a little closer and sat down a wing-length away. "Twilight, I’ve been here a week, listening to you grumble about treaties and compacts and how to word the Theatre Exception to the Impersonation Rule. You haven’t laughed once. Perhaps that’s why everyone’s avoiding you and your castle and sadly, your bed as well?"
"Maybe if you’d done more than leer at me for the last week, we could’ve had this completed on time and I could ‘gallivant about’ or whatever it is I should be doing."
"I have a better idea, Bookbutt: let’s kill three or four Luvcats with one stone. I’m hungry, and I’m in the mood for love." From Twilight’s direction came a low and growing growl. "Reluctant affection will have to do, I suppose. And you need to get out of this castle. A roll in the hay, or two or three, wouldn’t hurt - unless you’re into that - but at the very least, you need some non-work-related companionship. And that requires you to smile, Princess."
Twilight stomped to her desk and sat down with a thump. "We don’t have time for this, Chrysalis."
"So we should skip straight to the honeymoon? No? As I was saying, I have a proposition for you. If I can get you laughing, you agree to take me out on a date."
Twilight blinked. "You’re out of your mind."
"Hardly. And I give you my word that afterwards, I’ll help you reorganize all your legal and political affairs."
Twilight blinked. Eventually. "You’re joking, right?"
"Not yet, Sparkle, but I will be!"
"You’re insane." She shuddered a little and shook her head. "And I must be too, if I’m even considering this. One date?"
"One’s all it will take."
"And no tickling? N-not that I’m ticklish," she stammered, pinkening a little.
"Won’t need to. Although, I will be filing that little tidbit away for later."
"Fine, Queen. You’re on. But we’re already too far behind, so I want payment up front. We start on the treaties now, and you can joke while we work."
Chrysalis cleared her throat and threw her head back, standing proud and tall. She opened her mouth then paused as the scritch of quill on parchment broke the silence of her spotlight. "Twilight?" she asked, huffing as she flicked an ear. "Twilight, my victory is close at hoof. Are you listening?"
"Mmm-hmm," came the response as Twilight’s quill trailed down columns of numbers.
Chrysalis grinned and licked her lips. "Excellent!" she cried, stiffening again on her hooves as she stood before Twilight’s desk, regal and imposing. She took a deep breath behind a fanged smile and said, "Three changelings walk into a bar. Nobody knew."
Twilight shifted two pages side by side and glanced between them, brow furrowed.
The changeling queen wrinkled her muzzle and nearly shouted, "I said, ‘Three changelings walk into a bar. Nobody knew!’" She waited a few long seconds, smile drooping rapidly. Rolling her eyes, she added, "Because they were changelings! Get it?" Twilight sat staring her papers in silence.
"You see, they were disguised, and… Did you hear me, Twilight Sparkle?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Then why aren’t you laughing?"
"I’m laughing on the inside," Twilight mumbled without looking up. "And no, that doesn’t count," she added. "Also, I think we’ll have to avoid resettlement in the Albaaany region. Their existing municipal infrastructure can’t support an influx of changeling residents."
Chrysalis shook her head and sighed. "I don’t understand," she mumbled. "That joke killed ‘em in Secattle." She let out a long breath and paused. "No, really, it did kill them. Well, only five of them, but still."
Chrysalis was rolling on the floor and cackling, eyes squeezed tight and tears flowing. "Hold on, hold on, there’s a punchline, I swear, I just…" She gasped for breath, clutching her sides as she choked out, "And he said… And…" She pounded the floor with a hoof, rasping laughs with every breath. "And he said…" She bit her lip and snorted, "That’s not my uncle, that’s my Aunt Tennae!"
She shivered all over, grin widening, and finally burst out in guffaws that echoed through the crystalline chamber. Minutes of spasmodic belly-laughing later she realized she was laughing alone, her guffaws dying into awkward lonely chortles. She pointed a hoof at her head and offered, "Because… um, antennae?"
Twilight shook her head slowly as she reached for a fresh ink bottle.
Chrysalis looked up and asked, "Need help popping your cork?" Twilight snarled and opened the inkwell with a flicker of magic. Chrysalis slumped to her side and pouted. "I guess that’s a ‘no’ on euphemisms, too?"
Chrysalis draped herself across the little alicorn, snaking wings and limbs around her. Her breath was cool as she whispered into a flicking purple ear, "Then the drone said to the Queen, ‘Is that your ovipositor, or are you just happy to see me?’"
She waited, fangs poised by the tempting tender ear-tip, for the inevitable snickers and smiles and shivers. She thought she saw Twilight pause to draw a heart and a smiley-face in the borders of her spreadsheet, but when it turned out to be a pie chart, she sighed and snatched the quill with a flourish of emerald magic.
"Twilight Sparkle, this would have been much easier had your parents given you ‘the talk’ before today. You see," she said as she began sketching certain decidedly unofficial figures on the word-packed paper, "when a drone and a Queen love each other very much, the drone does a special dance." Wriggling her hindquarters uncomfortably close to Twilight’s own, she smirked and continued, "And soon after, she puts her ovipositor - I’ll show you that one later, my little Twiddle-Bug - into… OOOF!"
Chrysalis recoiled a bit, then with a scowl and another twinkle of her horn, removed a spreadsheet featuring anatomically-correct pie charts from her right nostril. "That’s not where the ovipositor goes, Sparky. Though I admit, I’m glad to see you have a kinky streak."
"So the Drosophila Melanogaster says, ‘Nectar? I hardly know her!’"
Twilight looked up to meet Chrysalis’ hopeful gaze and held it. The Queen’s earnest hopes kept pace until Twilight’s left eyebrow crept slowly upwards, inversely proportional to the growing droop of Chrysalis’ defeated frown.
"And here I thought Celestia bothered educating her students," Chrysalis sighed as she shook her head and clomped glumly to a bookshelf. Pausing a moment to select a rump-thick volume, she returned to the writing desk and pretzeled herself around scowling princess, dropping the book onto a sheaf of half-finished Immigration and Naturalization forms.
"A pun," she read aloud, tracing a passage with her hoof, "is a form of rhetorical device or word play based on the contrast between homophones and/or words with multiple meanings - such as juxtaposing ‘nectar’ with ‘necked her’ - intended to provoke a humorous response." Cheek to cheek with her prey, she added, "Also called…"
"Paronomasia." Twilight blew a seaweed-green lock of hair off her muzzle, wrinkling her nose a tad to avoid inhaling a pheromonal lungful. "That’s a dictionary, Chrysalis. Specifically, Ox Ford’s New Equestrian. I memorized it when I was five."
"Did you find your picture next to the entry for ‘humorless curmudgeon’?"
"No, but the Unabridged Edition had yours next to ‘pestiferous lecher’."
Chrysalis withdrew her muzzle from the navy mane she’d been alternately sniffing and nuzzling and grinned. "Why, Twilight! You flatterer!"
"Your soul is dead, then, Sparkle. That’s it, there’s no other explanation. Perhaps it was impaled on your shattered funny-bone."
Twilight lay down her quill and rubbed her temple with a hoof. "Chrysalis, I’m trying to organize the integration of a vanishing predatory species into a nation of ponies predisposed to mass panic and utter hysteria at the thought of anything more exciting than a bunny stampede. Can we please have just a few serious, productive moments here?"
"I’ve been trying to have a moment, Twilight. Several, in fact, but you’ve proven far too dour."
"Dedicated, you mean."
"Taciturn."
"Focused, which is what on-duty Princesses and Queens should be."
"Duty, you say? Well, that’s it, then. I understand my error now." Chrysalis threw herself to the floor, eyes wide and hooves clutching at her chest, "The hidden burdens of alicornhood have seeped into your soul. Love and humor are dead, your heart is black. Alas. Woe. Woe!"
"Fine," Twilight sighed. "You get one more shot, Drama Queen. Do… whatever it is you do, and when you fail - "
"I won’t."
" - then we buckle down to discuss resettlement options and modifications to Equestria’s laws regarding impersonation of recently-deceased ponies. Deal?"
Chrysalis leapt to her hooves. "Very well, then, Sparkle. You have forced my hoof! I’d hoped to avoid using my secret weapon - casualties are unavoidable when we reach such extremes, as you can imagine - but your continuing refusal to laugh has left me no choice." With a flourish of magic she donned a top-hat and produced a shiny cane and cleared her throat.
HELLO! MY TWILY
HELLO! MY PONY
MY HAIRY QUADRUPED
I’LL BE YOUR MIDNIGHT MANTIS
IF I CAN GET IN YOUR PANTS-ES!
C’MON BE MY PUPA
THAT’D BE SUPA DUPA
OH, MY VENOM’LL MAKE YOU MOAN
‘CAUSE I’M NOT JUST SOME DRONE
THEN YOUR RUMP CAN BE MY OWN!
Chrysalis panted, her jazz-hooves shaking and her fangy too-wide grin plastered on. Twilight sat frozen, quill suspended mid-air. The changeling squinted and cocked her head a little, leaning in, and saw it: Twilight wasn’t frozen, she was trembling. She tossed aside the cane and took a tentative step closer.
"Midnight mantis?" murmured Chrysalis, eyebrow raised, and Twilight bit her lip.
Another step closer. "Hairy quadruped?" she breathed, daring a tiny smile, and Twilight’s eyes began to water.
Chrysalis’ smile spread and she took a final step closer, letting her top-hat roll away. "Supa dupa pupa?" she whispered, and time froze. She stood hoping and Twilight sat shivering, silence tense and heavy and waiting.
Snerk, said Twilight’s traitorous left nostril.
"You snerked!" said Chrysalis, beaming, and leaned across the desk.
Twilight swallowed and spluttered, "No, I… Phlegm. It was phlegm, I’ve had a cold, you see, I - "
"Snerk, little alicorn. You laughed, and I win."
"A snerk isn’t a laugh, Chrysalis. It’s a derisive snort."
"Really?" Chrysalis was close enough for her breath to tickle. "What would mister Ox Ford say?"
Twilight’s nose twitched behind a growing blush. "He’d… Well, Ox Ford is a hack! He tries to impose his definitions of…"
They were muzzle to muzzle now. "Shall I help you out, my adorable little prey? ‘Snerk: A portmanteau of snort and smirk, indicating mild amusement.’ " She inhaled Twilight’s tiny wide-eyed gasp and added, "I’ve memorized a dictionary or two in my time, too. So do I win?"
Heart thumping and wings fanning, Twilight stammered, "I… Ah… I suppose I could be persuaded to let it count. So… Yes."
Instantly there was an explosion of black and green and treaties and hooves and ink and shattered desk-parts. Twilight blinked and she was on her back, parchment confetti and quill-feathers falling around her like bureaucratic snow. Chrysalis lay across her barrel, nose to nose and humming contentedly, while a long and wet, teasingly forked and disturbingly dexterous tongue gently licked Twilight’s muzzle.
Twilight closed her eyes and sighed under the silky-smooth blackness blanketing her. "I’m completely screwed, aren’t I?"
Chrysalis paused her nose-licking. "That depends," she purred. "Do you put out on the first date?"
fin.
Author's Note
This is the first piece I’ve ever released in which not a single line came from a writing prompt. Inspired in part by Andy Price and Katie Cook’s Chrysalis from the IDW comics, plus NotARealPonydotcom’s To Love Being Loved (to which in my mind this story is a very unofficial and highly unauthorized sequel), as well as Crystal Moose's utterly hilarious This Date Is Going to be Perfect and its sequels, from which I stole the phrase "hairy quadruped". Luvcats are a nod to the IDW comics as well.
Sunbutt, Moonbutt, Lovebutt, and Bookbutt are shout-outs to CDRW’s lovely blog-post poem "Sunbutt, Moonbutt, Lovebutt, Smartass".
Advanced Tea Substitute, Bisonoulli’s Theorem? Never heard of ‘em.
My username is from the obscure sci-fi show LEXX. The Lexx’s captain was one Stanley Tweedle, who only wished he was an Assistant Deputy Backup Concubine.
Chrysalis’ ragtime song-and-dance is sung to the tune of tinpan alley classic Hello! Ma Baby, as performed by Michigan J. Frog.
The ‘Supa Dupa Pupa’ line is paraphrased from a Wonder Pets Song.
Drosophila melanogaster is the common fruit fly.
The whole "Alas. Woe. Woe!" quote is adapted from one of Sigrun’s lines in Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening. She was one of my favorite DA characters, and oh how I wish she’d been a romance option!
Antennae, ovipositor, etc: here, have a guide to insect anatomy.
Albaaany. Because it was settled by sheep.
There will not be an NSFW sequel entitled Bug Me 2: Bugger Me. At least, not by me. Although, Crystal Moose did write one that might count…
Finally, "Aunt Tennae" is a horrible pun in memory of my late Great Aunt Tinney, whom I never met, but who various relatives ensure me was likely not a Tartarus-spawned bug demon. Maybe. She could have been a saint, I have no idea, I’ve just been searching for years for a place to use the joke "Aunt Tinney".
The author of the story hired to continue the author’s notes after the other people had been sacked, wishes it to be known that they have just been sacked. The author’s notes have been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.
