Cadance giggled as she trotted faster, her mane trailing behind her.
"Try and keep up, Chryssie!" She called in a sweet, lilting tone.
"You can outrun me but I can outfly you!" The little black alicorn giggled, barrel-rolling past the filly princess at eye level. Cadance leapt up and tackled Chrysalis mid-air, and the two fillies went tumbling horn over tail through the grass, snorting and laughing. They came to a stop beneath an old oak tree, and they lay on their sides, facing each other, wings outstretched to gently brush the other's ribs.
"Someday, I'm going to rule the Crystal Empire," Cadance said with wonder, her amethyst eyes shining. Chrysalis smiled as she eyed the pink alicorn's crystal heart cutie mark with admiration.
"I'm so happy for you. I don't know what I'm in charge of. Celestia hasn't decided my destiny yet."
"When I become Princess," Cadance continued, closing her eyes and sighing, "I'm going to marry the handsomest Prince ever."
"You can't!" Chrysalis exclaimed. Cadance opened her eyes wide, lifting her head.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm going to marry you!" Chryssie's tone was full of distress.
Cadance giggled. "We can't get married, silly. We're both fillies! Besides," she sighed, "King Sombra hid the Crystal Heart. No one knows where it is. And I can't become Princess until it's found."
"I'll find it," Chrysalis said softly. Cadance looked over into her companion's emerald eyes and saw nothing but solemn promise and devotion. It gave her a chill, to note such a mature emotion in her young friend. "I'll find it and bring it back and then you can be Princess."
"Chryssie..." Cadance smiled. "If you bring me the Crystal Heart... you can have mine."
***
Her world shifted between moments of black nothingness and white hot pain. She was peripherally aware of fluid leaking from her body in several places, and a wing was most certainly mangled beyond repair. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. The ground beneath her was rough, and the sun above her was blistering. Despite all this, the Changeling Queen managed a weak, fanged smile.
For the first time in as long as she could remember... her mind was quiet. The hum and buzz of the swarm was gone. The endless stream of the hive's demands - hungry! hungry! hungry! - no longer pounded against her consciousness, drowning out every independent thought she tried to have.
"Free..." She rasped, her throat dry, lips cracked. A giggle bubbled in her chest. "I'm free!"
Deranged, hysterical laughter echoed in the lonely canyon where the unceremonious dismissal from Canterlot had landed her.
I'm free and now I'm going to die.
Canterlot was in chaos. The Royal Wedding was reduced to shambles. In a grotesque and morbid mockery of affection, she had destroyed the best friendship and greatest, if one-sided, love she had ever known. Truly, all she ever wanted was for her to be happy.
"If you bring me the Crystal Heart... you can have mine."
Oh Cadance... I'm so sorry...
Darkness claimed her before madness could.
***
It was an ill-devised plan, to hunt for the Crystal Heart in those unexplored mountains... even more so to seek shelter from the storm in that cave.
All her research pointed to this area of Equestria as one of Sombra's treasure caches, and she was so close... she could feel it. For years she had poured over dusty scrolls and ancient books, sneaking away from etiquette lessons and schoolings. While other fillies were discovering their talents and earning their marks, Chryssie was muzzle deep in the histories of the Crystal Kingdom and faded cartography catalogues. Confident she’d finally pinpointed the Heart's location, she had packed a satchel and stolen away from the palace in the dead of night.
Something hissed in the darkness. Cringing, she moved the torch with her magic to try and locate the source of the sound.
"Hello?" She called hesitantly. Only her echo replied. The torch threw intimidating shadows on the cave wall. One was deeper, darker than the rest... a tunnel?
The hiss came again.
"Hello?" She shouted this time, confident the noise was coming from the darkness. Her call was answered by a rapid scuttling sound that decreased in volume, as if the source were moving away. "Hey!" She trotted to the entrance of the tunnel, sending the torch hovering a few feet before her. She saw the tip of a tail slither away. The walls of the tunnel glistened. She stepped closer to inspect them.
The rock's surface was coated in a thick, greenish slime. Chrysalis wrinkled her muzzle in disgust. It had the faintest of odors - acidic, sharp. She dared not touch it. The hissing sound came again from further down the tunnel. Louder. Suddenly, she did not feel so safe.
Another hiss came, this time from behind her. She took a startled step further into the tunnel. The torch sputtered as her concentration wavered. Her mouth felt dry. The scuttling sound started, behind her, in front of her, and the hissing grew louder. Her heart pounded in her chest, and Chryssie panicked. The torch fell to the ground, extinguishing. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she galloped as fast as she could in the direction she was facing.
Down.
It was the wrong direction.
The tunnel terminated in a tremendous underground cavern, illuminated by an eerie yellowish light, and it was full of the source of the hissing and the scuttling. Thousands of formless black shapes oozed around her. The young alicorn screamed, rearing up on her hind legs and batting at them with her front hooves. The blows did not seem to affect them.
"Stop! Don't touch me!" she shrieked, so frightened her words came out in a whinny.
She felt something sticky on her haunches, and kicked with her back legs. Or tried to. They would not move. Terrified beyond all rational thought, she looked back, and saw the strange black creatures spitting the same green stuff from the walls onto her fur. It hardened as soon as it touched her.
"Oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods," Chryssie sobbed.
They were cocooning her.
***
Glass tinkled. Liquids bubbled. Acrid smells tickled her nostrils. Chrysalis cracked an eyelid, and shrieked at the feline face before her.
"Oh, you are awake! Wonderful!" The lion beamed. Or, at first glance, he was a lion. Upon further investigation as she opened both her eyes, blinking the gum and crust from them, she could not help but stare at his physical oddity - the front half of a lion, and the back of an eagle, standing on his hind legs, watching her with an eerie intensity. Snowy white fur and mane, eyes of warm gold, his feathers black as night, he looked for all the world as if somepony had turned off the lights halfway down his body. Clearly still in his early summer years, he was lithe of frame and wiry of muscle, wearing an ornately woven band of silver about each upper arm. "You're lucky I heard you laughing. You certainly wouldn't have survived, not with your injuries."
"You..." She began, brow furrowed, head slightly askance. He smiled again, tapping his chest.
"Me?" he laughed. "Ah, yes, this." He gestured back at his feathered tail. "My mother sneezed when my egg was laid. At least, that's what they say. Rare birth defect in the griffin community, I'm afraid." He reached forward with a paw. She flinched, and relaxed when she realized it only held a warm, moist towel. He applied it gently to the corners of her eyes. "No wings, you see. So... couldn't stay. I live here now." He waved a hand to indicate their surroundings.
The room was filed with beakers and test tubes, vials and flasks, books and papers and scribblings and calculations and bits of glass that made things larger than they looked. Chrysalis pulled herself to a more upright position on the pillows she was laying on and surveyed with a sweep of her eyes. Her side was heavily bandaged, but she was no longer bleeding.
"You... live here," she repeated after a long while.
The reverse griffin nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes. Quite happily."
"Where is... here?" She asked.
He set the towel down and moved to check one of her bandages. "Oh, far enough away from anywhere that I don't get bothered, but not too far to be an inconvenience," he replied matter-of-factly. Chrysalis made a noise through her nose. "You are healing well," he offered. "Your wing has made a full recovery. I did not think your body would repair the damage due to the level of degradation your micro-crystals were showing."
"My what now?" She blinked, raising and lowering a wing in question at his eager behest.
"Yes, yes, all better! Wonderful!" He clapped his paws excitedly. "Ah, your micro-crystals."
She stared at him blankly.
"Our bodies are made of... hmmmm. Imagine a crystal. But much tinier. So tiny you can't see it. Now imagine there's a crystal for each part of you. Bone. Fur. Skin. On you, it would be carapace, wing, et cetera. Do you follow?" He asked. She nodded slowly. "All these crystals work together in Harmony to make us."
"You said mine were-"
"Degraded," he interrupted solemnly, nodding. She found his tone unnerved her.
"And that's... bad."
"Yes. Well... yes and no. You healed quite well. Speaking of which, here." He reached back with a clawed hind foot and passed himself a bowl from a nearby table. "I took the liberty of examining your dentition while you recovered. Fascinating combination - canine incisors indicate a carnivore but the molars suggest a more herbivorous diet. I prepared a meal that I feel will best suit your nutritional requirements."
The Changeling Queen stared in bafflement at the bowl of greens and roasted meat.
"I, ah... I don't eat," she said. The lion eagle scoffed.
"Yes, your digestive system did show atrophy from nonuse." He gestured to a large, dark see-through paper hanging in the window that, to Chrysalis, looked like an inside out pony. "I highly suggest you ensure its functionality."
"I... I don't think I can," she stammered.
He set the bowl next to her on the floor and kneeled. "I know what you are," he said softly. Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. She bared her teeth, but he did not flinch. Instead, he set a warm, soft paw on her cheek. "I buried a fallen member of your swarm two days before I found you dying at the canyon's base. You are not theirs anymore. You do not serve their needs. Please..." He stood. "Eat."
She continued to glare balefully at him for a moment longer before dropping her head begrudgingly to the bowl and taking a small mouthful of meat and leaves. To her surprise, her stomach growled and her mouth watered.
"I keep a small coop of chickens and hutch of rabbits out back, along with my garden," he offered, watching her devour the meal. "I did have a cow at one point, but she proved too demanding of my time, and it detracted from my research. I sold her at town a few years ago."
Chrysalis looked down at the empty bowl.
"I haven't eaten since..."
"What is the last thing you remember?" He asked after her sentence trailed off sadly. "Before your mishap that led you here?" She lifted her eyes to his and was surprised again to find she had tears in them.
"The cave... and them cocooning me."
He quietly rested on the floor near her, bird legs folded beneath his feathers, paws resting in the manner of a house cat. "You were out for nearly a moon," he said softly. "I was not sure you would make it." He ruffled his tail feathers. "Will you tell me how you ended up at the bottom of my canyon?"
"I..." She began, looking away, and allowed her tears to fall. "My swarm was hungry. I sensed... an energy source in Canterlot. When it was happening, I wasn't... it was for the hive, my thoughts weren't-"
"Ssshhhhh," he soothed, reaching a paw out to rest on her foreleg. "I know."
"And I hurt a dear friend," the Changeling Queen whispered. "And nearly destroyed everything she loved."
"The swarm craves what their Queen most desires," he told her gently. She looked at him, surprised, tears sitting like jewels in her lashes. "No, you are not the first." He squeezed her leg gently. "No one knows where they came from. Changelings are perhaps older than Equestria itself. Your swarm had the basic form of a pony because of your alicorn body type."
"They were shadows in the cavern."
"Yes. Formless without a leader. Powerless to feed without a Queen." His paw was warm on the chiton of her leg. "When I mentioned your micro-crystals were degraded, it was because of your metamorphosis. Taking a being's basic form and rebuilding it is dangerous... and harms that form's ability to repair itself. As such... Changeling Queens are often an open position."
"Will I... will I die soon?" She asked, suddenly afraid. The kindly lion creature shook his head.
"No, I don't think so. Unless you pick another epic fight with a powerful foe." He smiled. "However... as long as your 'crown' remains, your swarm will try to find you." He lifted his paw to lightly tweak the circle of antennae-like growth that sprouted from her head. "I can remove it so you never feel them in your mind again."
Chrysalis felt a frisson run down her spine. The voice of the hive...
"But without me... they will need another Queen."
"Eventually. After regrouping. Yes." He rose on all fours. "The hour grows late, and I worry for your health still. Do try and get some rest? If you feel up to it, tomorrow you can help me with the rabbits."
Chrysalis felt herself smile.
"I... I think I'd like that."
***
She stayed with him, in his funny little tower, for another moon and a half, regaining her strength. They tended the chickens together, harvested the garden. He taught her the names of the stars, the bones in the body of a pony and the way to grill a rabbit.
He taught her how to laugh.
When the day came for her to depart, he presented her with a cloak, the hood lined with fur, and a satchel loaded with ink, quills, paper, and edibles.
"Are you sure you're ready?" he asked. She nodded, dipping her head so he could place the satchel around her neck. The wind blew softly, stirring her mane.
"Yes. I know what I have to do now." She looked at him with warmth she would not have been capable of in her prior life.
"And about the, ah..." He dangled a paw above his head.
She laughed, and shook her head, then sighed. Her expression grew solemn. "I was able to bring chaos to Canterlot from want of love," Chrysalis said. "Imagine the devastation someone who desired pain, suffering and death would bring." She planted her hooves solidly in the dirt. "I must hunt down my swarm."
"You know they themselves are not evil," he said gently. She nodded sadly.
"But the threat they present is too great. And I'm the only one who can find every last one of them." She stepped forward to embrace the lion tightly. "All this time, and you never told me your name." He chuckled.
"Nor me yours."
"I'm Chrysalis," she laughed.
He smiled sadly. "I do not have one. Mistakes are not granted monikers amongst my kind." Chrysalis felt her heart twinge.
"That... no. That's not right. You're kind and gentle and caring and-"
He held up a paw to stop her. "I live alone, in a tower, on the outskirts of civilization. I have my science and my garden and I am happy. I am. I do not need a name."
She opened her mouth to argue, but his words made sense. So she closed it.
"This is where we part ways, Chrysalis," he said softly. "Be careful."
"I can never thank you enough," she replied.
"Safe travels, my lady." He offered her a bow. She returned it, and started down the faintly defined path that lead away from the tower.
As she walked, he watched her go, and noticed one of the holes in her leg had begun to close.
He smiled.
Author's Note
I finally commissioned Chryssie's savior.
Art by Omny87
